*After the End*

*‘An action that is morally wrong can never be politically right.’*

Edmund Burke

~~#~~

Rear-Admiral Cameron had returned to Kingston barely a week after the conclusion of the Renown affair. That was how Pellew preferred to think of it, when thinking could not be avoided. The Renown affair. Safe and neutral. The matter was ended and there were new concerns to occupy his attention. So Pellew told himself, but Cameron was swift to disillusion him.

“The first thing is this business of the Renown.”

“The culprits have been dealt with, sir.” Whatever the cost had been, neither Cameron nor the Admiralty could accuse him of having shirked the duties that the station admiral’s absence had left upon his shoulders. Matters had been concluded swiftly and efficiently.

“But a legacy remains.” Cameron was a very junior admiral, not so many years senior to Pellew, but he had no intention of letting the gap between their current ranks be overlooked. “I had a visit earlier to day from a lieutenant by the name of Hallard.”

“Hallard? Do I know him, sir?”

“Perhaps not,” Cameron said, “He is one of Captain Hammond’s officers from the Calypso. However that is unimportant. What is to the point is that he reported considerable disaffection among the men of the Renown, which may be spreading to other ships.”

“This lieutenant reports disaffection aboard Renown although he is not one of her officers, sir?”

“Commodore, Renown’s only remaining commissioned officer is still on sick leave. There are at present temporary officers from other ships aboard her, but they are not familiar with ship or men. As you should be well aware.” That last was designed to cut; of course Pellew was aware, he had made the appointments himself.

“Has the lieutenant anything further to report, sir?” he asked evenly.

“He states that there has been much disquiet over the manner in which the court-martial was conducted. Irregularities are being pointed to. The fact that the defendants were not permitted to cross-examine or make statements in their own defence has been criticised as illegal, it would seem.”

“Contrary to normal practice, I accept, sir. But necessary under the circumstances. Our aim was the protection of Captain Sawyer’s reputation, we could not permit that to be attacked.”

“And do you really think a court-martial was the best method of protection? No, don’t answer that, Commodore, it makes no difference now. There are other matters also, the holding of the trial on land, and with only three captains present.”

“It had to be handled swiftly, sir, and there was no suitable ship available for a court at sea.” Pellew said, a little blankly. The decision to by-pass those aspects of normal procedure had been made with very little discussion. This was not England. Rules had to be treated loosely out here at the edge of British rule.

“I don’t care why you did it, Commodore, the thing is done. We have to deal with the consequences, which at present include a restive crew and spreading trouble. Whatever your reasons, you gave them grounds speaking against their superiors. What matters now is that we don’t get another Nore mutiny on our hands.”

“That is precisely why my fellow captains agreed that examples must be made, sir. Our current First Lord would say the same.”

“Ah, yes. Lord St Vincent is a man of strong opinions.” The Scots accent that coloured Cameron’s voice was briefly stronger than normal. Pellew cursed his own forgetfulness. One of St Vincent’s quirks was a deep, irrational hatred of the Scots. Cameron would not be worried about keeping on St Vincent’s right side, for him there could be no right side. “I have said I am not concerned with your reasons.

“Commodore, I am still fully engaged in attempting to keep the peace with our former colonies. I do not have time to deal with this.” He stood up, a big, ruddy man who looked younger than his years. “I leave the matter in your hands. That will be all.”

In other words: ‘You caused this, you sort it out.’ A more comprehensive washing of hands Pellew had never witnessed.

~~#~~

Lt Hallard was a dark, narrow-faced man in his early thirties. He was also a very efficient stonewaller.

“I merely retailed to Admiral Cameron that I had heard some wild talk, sir. I considered that to be in the best interests of the service.”

“But you will not tell me who these men were,” Pellew grated.

“I am not acquainted with the crew of the Renown, sir, I could not give you names.”

Could not, or would not. But he could not pin the man down on that issue. “You do not need to know names to identify men, Lieutenant.”

“I regret that I have a very poor memory for the faces of men, sir. It has been a handicap to me, often.”

“Very, well, very well.” Pellew knew a dead end when he encountered one, although the lieutenant’s manner was grating on his nerves. “And what do you think, Lieutenant?” he barked, attempting to catch the man out.

“I, sir?”

“Yes, you must have some opinion on the matter.”

“I think,” Hallard said coolly, “enough men have died.”

Pellew dismissed the man peremptorily, calling Peters, his most junior lieutenant, to escort him from the room. As he did so he remembered why he had been avoiding Peters these last days. Peters had come from the Indefatigable as a midshipman, and his eyes had been red lately. The realisation increased his bad temper.

What a business. What a foul, stinking, bloody business.

~~#~~

Matthews wanted to be drunk. He wanted to be blind, stinking, dead-to-everything drunk. This had been his first real chance since the trial concluded, his first evening ashore, although he had been imbibing rum pretty heavily aboard the ship.

But he could not get completely drunk because of Styles. Because it was taking all his energies to keep Styles from doing something really stupid, and if he got truly drunk the man would probably go and do it and a lot of good *that* would be.

The dead were dead. You couldn’t bring them back.

“Come on mate,” he said firmly, hauling hard on the larger man’s arm. “You need some air.” What Styles really needed was to shut up, before his big mouth saw him hanging at a rope’s end. Styles cursed, but came.

“You think t’same,” he muttered rebelliously, as Matthews pulled him along an alley. Matthews didn’t care what Styles thought as long as he didn’t say it where naval ears could hear. Protecting Styles appeared to be all the world had left. “You know it was a rotten business, bad right through. Shouldn’t ‘ave ‘appened.”

“But it did,” Matthews spat back, more to himself than his mate.

“Aye, because those bastards made it ‘appen. They didn’t care, didn’t mean nothing to them what that madman did!”

“’E’s dead now,” Matthews muttered, Sawyer was dead and as well for him no doubt.

“Aye, ‘E’s dead, an’ they’re dead and the bastards that did this are still alive. All the bastards, smug and pleased. That ain’t right! You can’t tell me that’s right!”

“An’ you can’t tell me there’s anything the likes of us can do!” Matthews cried back. “They’re dead, Styles! You can’t ‘elp ‘em!”

Styles gave him the glare of a trapped animal and stopped, burying his head and arms against the wall. Matthews heard sobbing, and put a hand on Styles back before he realised the sobs came from behind. From a man huddled, rocking back and forth. A man he knew.

“What in Christ’s name are you doin’ ‘ere?” he spat, before remembering that perhaps he should not draw Styles’s attention to this man.

“I didn’t mean this,” the man moaned. “I never meant this!”

Styles turned. “You!” he snarled. “What have you got to make a meal about? You got what you wanted, didn’t yer?”

“I didn’t want it!” Gunner Hobbs raised a filthy face. “I wanted justice for the Captain, that was all! I didn’t think…. I didn’t want them dead….”

“Yer a filthy liar.” But there was no energy to Styles’s voice. He learned against the wall, bent almost double, with his head in his hands.

“You remember at the cliff….” Hobbs was almost keening, “The captain would have loved that once…. I just wanted what was right for him, s’all. I couldn’t say…. I just wanted what was right. I couldn’t say it.”

A chill crept through Matthews “You couldn’t say what?” he rasped in a harsh voice that was not like his own at all.

“What Wellard told me.” Hobbs began to rock again. “He said it was him, at the last. He said he pushed the captain.”

“He said –?” Matthews hands were on Hobbs’s collar, he shook him like a dog. “He said that and you kept quiet! You let Mr Kennedy –!” Disgusted with both of them he threw the man from him roughly.

“But it wasn’t true!” Hobbs cried desperately. “I knew it wasn’t true! The captain told me. He said it wasn’t Wellard pushed him. He told me, he told me….”

“Him!” Styles spat. “He was so mad he didn’t know up from down! He wouldn’t know if it was the Angel bloody Gabriel who shoved him! He didn’t know nothing, and you –!” He lunged for Hobbs hauling him up, slamming him against the wall. Matthews made no move to stop him, but suddenly all the fight seemed to go from Styles and he let Hobbs drop again. “Oh, what’s the use,” he muttered, “what’s the bloody use?” Stumbling as he walked he moved slowly away down the alley.

Matthews caught up with him round the next corner. Styles was sitting, his head tipped back, staring up at the sky. “It wouldn’t have made no difference,” he said tiredly.

“No,” Matthews agreed. “They didn’t care about the captain.”

“Bastards.” But Styles spoke without strength. “I don’t know as I can stand thinking of it,” he said. “Not that. Not them.”

Matthews had no comfort for him.

~~#~~

It had come to Pellew, with reluctance, that there was one man he needed to speak to if he was to get a grip on this matter of Renown’s men. The officers temporarily assigned had not proved very helpful, all agreed that there was a dark mood amongst the men, but one that was practically impossible to pin down. One had said he thought there were ugly divisions on board and the spirit between the men was bad, but none of them seemed prepared to speak out to an officer. It was a heavy heart that he set out to speak to the one commissioned man who had some knowledge of the crew of HMS Renown.

Lt Bush had been discharged from hospital, but forbidden by the doctors to return to his duties as yet. Pellew found him in an inn of moderate class. Bush must, he thought, have a fair sum in prize money to look forward to, the claims of the other lieutenants being void.

Pellew had not seen Lt Bush before. The man who opened the door to his room, clad only in shirt, breeches and shoes, looked to be pretty much what he had expected: a solid and competent officer, not brilliant but thoroughly reliable. A man who must have been utterly befogged by events aboard Renown.

Bush looked shocked to see a commodore in his room, but controlled the expression quickly, assuming the kind of wooden look all officers quickly grew used to seeing in their juniors. Pellew’s guts contracted briefly, remembering he had never seen that look on Hornblower’s face. Yet there was no profit in dwelling on that.

“Lt Bush,” he said brusquely, “I have come to you on a matter of which you may already have heard rumours.”

“Sir?” The proper response of an obedient officer. Perhaps this would not be so difficult.

“It has been reported to me that there is disaffection amongst the crew of the Renown.” Pellew paused to see if Bush would answer, when the man did not he was forced to go on. “Have you heard anything of this?”

“No, sir,” Bush replied. “My injuries have prevented me from having any contact with the men, sir.”

A perfectly reasonable answer, and yet Pellew felt that he was once again being blocked.

“Would you have anticipated such trouble?” he ventured.

“I thought the court-martial was designed to prevent it. Sir.” This time Pellew was sure. God in Heaven, was everyone against him these days?

“I have been told,” he grated, “that not all men are satisfied with the outcome of the court-martial.”

“I know nothing of that. Sir.”

“So you know nothing!” Anger burst from Pellew then. “You know nothing, and Lt Hallard knows nothing and the officers aboard Renown know nothing, and yet all are certain that there is something to know, and meanwhile the poison festers and who knows when it will erupt beneath us!”

“What do you intend, sir? Mass executions?” This time the bitterness was undisguised. Another one. Even in death Horatio Hornblower cast a spell and Pellew cursed.

“No, Lieutenant,” he ground out. “Executions are what I wish to avoid. That is the reason why this disaffection must be nipped in the bud. I want it stopped before things get that far.”

He saw the arrested look in Bush’s face. After some time the lieutenant said slowly, “I may not be the right man to assist you in this matter.”

“If you are referring to the matter of the reprimand,” Pellew paused, then said a little lamely, “Many a man has such a mark on his record.”

“I was not referring to that, sir. I was merely doubting whether I possess either the insight or the influence to succeed.” There was an undercurrent of some kind in his voice. Insight and influence…. Pellew stopped a shudder.

“Do as much as you can. Lieutenant. We must all use what means we have, for the good of the service.”

“A fine principle,” Bush said with a dourness that contradicted the words. “Sir.”

Pellew ignored the tone. “You will do it, Lieutenant?” he wished his voice sounded less like a plea.

“I will do what I can, sir. I want no more deaths.” Echoes of Hallard. Pellew turned to leave.

“Sir,” the shift in Bush’s voice took him aback. He suddenly sounded urgent and not stolid at all. “Can you tell me, sir, what was done with the… the remains.”

Pellew turned back, unsure whether to respect or resent Bush for having asked the question.

“There was a burial,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “For both. There can be no marker, of course, no monument. But there was a service.”

He had spoken that service himself, after the business was finished, standing with a cloak concealing his uniform despite the heat. He had been alone, the men employed to dig the rough grave dismissed. He had felt that he should give that much.

Bush seemed to debate his answer. At length he said. “That’s all I wanted to know. Sir.”

~~#~~

After the commodore had gone Bush tramped to the window and stood staring out at the unlovely street below without seeing anything at all.

So there was a grave. He would never know where it stood, of course. That much had been clear from Pellew’s tone. The Navy would risk no pilgrimages. Still, Bush thought, perhaps he would not have chosen to go in any case. The memories that he had did not belong with some patch of scrubby waste ground. There were better ways of remembering than by standing beside some patch of earth.

* “It’s only water, you won’t break anything.”*

*“Easier than eating turnips.”*

Had he ever felt such life? Would he feel it again? He didn’t think so. There had been something amazing in the air when those two worked together. Separately they were fine young men, together … they made the world golden, Bush thought, and was surprised at himself for it was not at all the sort of reflection he was used to having.

But then he was not the same William Bush who had boarded the Renown. The change might not be observable from outside, but Bush knew that it was there and was not entirely pleased, for it made him uncomfortable. Life had always been so certain to him, not always easy but certain. A man did his duty, he obeyed orders, he accepted the risks that he must face, and luck and skill decided how he would fare. But now he had no certainties and the thought of duty was sour in his belly. He could wish himself the old William Bush again, and yet, and yet….

The world had been so bright for that short time, so living. Would he ever be free of the hankering? It reminded him of an old childhood tale of a man who had visited the land of the fairies and was never happy in the workaday world afterwards.

Yes, that was it. The world he had visited had not been that of everyday, and so it had not endured, could not endure. The true world had destroyed it, brutally, and at this time he felt he would never forgive that.

Fancy. Ridiculous fancy, unworthy of a plain man like himself. Two young men that was all, one unusually gifted, one usually bold in thought and speech, and joined by one of those close friendships service life threw up from time to time. Two young men and a badly run ship and a tribunal… but he cut the thought off there. For thinking too long of the tribunal was not something Lt Bush could afford to do. Lt Bush had sisters to support and no future outside the Navy and so Lt Bush must not dwell on what had happened, must do his duty as he always had and respect his superiors as he always had, and hope never to set foot on another Renown.

….They had dragged him over that edge, so shining, so certain.… Utterly sure of themselves and each other. It was the trust that stuck in his mind most of all. If either had faltered they would all have been dashed against the cliff on the way down. But no hesitation, complete confidence in one another and in that moment he had been so proud they felt some confidence in him….

Ah, the flame had burned too bright! They had flown so high, those two, they had to fall. Once a fellow officer had told him some tale of a man who made wings from wax and flew too near the sun so that they melted and he fell into the sea and drowned. A silly tale he had thought it, but he felt he understood the story now. Had they known they flew too high, and chosen still to soar? He would never know.

And though he had shared that flight for a little he must forget now. For they were gone, and he was just plain William Bush who had sisters to support. It was over, and must be forgotten.

~~#~~

Pellew sharpened his pen yet again. It was, in fact, perfectly in order, but it was a means of putting off what must be done. Over the years he had written so many of these letters, reporting deaths to next of kin, but never ones like this. The letters ought to have been composed days earlier, at this rate the news would reach England long before.

It could have been worse. At least neither young man had had a wife. Hornblower’s next of kin had been an aunt, Kennedy’s family had other sons at least. Yet still he delayed, and Pellew was a man who prided himself on not postponing unpleasant tasks.

*You have a duty to the men, Mr Hornblower….*

Fine words, and in the end what did they mean?

Hornblower had barely seemed to see him, that last time. Had looked at him as though he no longer mattered at all. Concern for his men, for his colleague, Bush, even for his dead friend’s corpse, but for his former commanding officer just that oddly remote look. Not bitterness or accusation even. Just distance, as though Pellew was hardly even there.

Damn Kennedy! Without his intervention Hornblower might have fought for his life. Pellew closed his eyes abruptly, shocked at the visceral thought. Kennedy had only been trying to help. Trying to save, and at heavy cost. But why, why, had Hornblower had to care so much? What was there in Kennedy to matter so greatly to such a brilliant young man? What in hell had that perfectly ordinary young man done to make Horatio Hornblower care so bloody much?

His head dropped forward, remembering the courtroom, and the young face sheened with sweat and drawn with anguish. That was what Hornblower had seen, of course. The capability for that. And Pellew had not seen. But in the end it was Kennedy who had forced his suffering body to the courtroom to surrender everything, whilst Edward Pellew….

*I will not hang out of hand a man as dear to me as one of my very own….*

A lie. An absolute lie. For in cold truth Horatio’s blood was on his head. Not his alone, it was true, but he had done nothing when he could have acted, he had let things be when he should have strained every nerve to stop them. He had known the scapegoat hunt to be unjust, convictions undeserved, and yet he had let it happen. He had made an effort at the last, but far too late.

He tried to summon the old justifications. My duty…. The good of the service…. The words curdled.

*I judge a man on what I see him do*…. Then how should he judge himself?

The pen dropped from his grasp unheeded. His head slipped down into his hand, and all conscious thought crumbled.

~~#~~

Clive took another drought of liquor, unheeding of the manner in which some of it slopped from the glass and trickled down his sleeve. All that mattered was that it freed him from having to think. From remembering his captain and how he had ended. From remembering the man he had been and the man he was now. And remembering the lengths he had gone to to deny all that.

The glass was drained, he ordered another and swallowed half of it in one. That was better. Justice had been served. He had wanted justice for the captain, punishment of the young dogs who had brought him down, and he had got it. Things were as well as they could be. But James Sawyer was still dead and he had no idea what to do next.

It was many years since a meeting with the newly made Commander Sawyer had infused a young surgeon with a love of the sea. He had never served with another captain and he did not wish to. All that was left was to go back to England and attempt to eek out a living ashore. The prospect was as cold and dreary as a winter’s day, and no matter how much he drank he kept on seeing Sawyer raving in his cabin.

With the self-absorption of the habitual drinker Clive had paid very little attention to anyone else in the room, but now a slurred voice caught his attention, a man demanding to be served another in tones whose loudness suggested he was near losing control. Buckland, he realised, without enthusiasm.

Buckland had reached the stage of making a spectacle of himself, one that Clive, with his much greater familiarity with drunkenness, seldom declined into now.

“The Navy.” Buckland was announcing. “S’pps’d be a fine life. I’ll tell you wh’t i’ is, s’a disgrace. They take you’ t’ke years of your l’fe, an’ then, they throw it aw’y, these fine cap’ains, so fine an’ fancy. Throw you away. All of them. They do’n care. Wh’t do they care? Jus’ throw you aw’y…”

Moved by some strange form of old loyalty to the service Clive crossed to the man. “Be quiet,” he said. “You are being a fool.”

Eyes regarded him with bleariness shifting to anger? “Wha’do you care?” Buckland demanded, the slurring of his voice somewhat lessened. “You’re al’ight. Still the same. Doctor. Fine doctor you were when we needed you. Couldn’t cure him, could you?”

“Be quiet!” Clive rasped.

“Why shoul’ I? Nothing left. Nothing a’ all.” That was quite likely true, Clive supposed. Buckland would have whatever he had saved and nothing else. Little prospect of any employment even if he had the will left to look for it. Already shabbiness was setting in, his civilian clothes were worn and hung upon him loosely. But Clive had no pity for Buckland.

“All them,” Buckland was keening. “If they hadn’t in’erfer’d. Might be al’ight still.” Clive supposed him to be talking about the tribunal, but the next words made it plain that he was wrong. “Young, insolen’… if it wasn’t for them.”

“They’re dead,” Clive said harshly. It was an assertion, not a rebuke.

“They’re dead al’ight,” Buckland agreed. “An’ you know what? You know what?” He leaned forward, savagely, “They’re the lucky ones!”

“You’re drunk.” Clive said briefly.

“You’re one t’talk,” Buckland muttered, his brief moment of rage gone.

Clive swung his back on the man and made his way unsteadily to the door.

~~#~~

Bush had thought that here was one man he could rely upon at least, but Matthews was proving him wrong. The boatswain was hard-faced, sullen as a man apprehended in the act of desertion, stubbornly treating Bush as an outsider. No, as an enemy.

“Matthews,” he said desperately, “I am applying to you as a man possessed of both sense and the kind of knowledge which I do not have. I am asking you as a warrant officer of his Majesty to tell me what you know.”

“Sir.”

“I’m waiting, Matthews.”

“Can’t say more’n I ‘ave, sir.”

Bush suppressed an urge to run his fingers through his hair. “Matthews. I am not a Frog or a Spaniard. I’m not even a bloody post-captain sitting in judgement!”

The last words widened Matthews’s eyes with shock. Abruptly he blurted, “They sent you though, didn’t they?”

It had to be honesty Bush thought. “Yes. But I’m not here to help them. And I’m not here to help my own career or curry favour in their eyes. I just want to try and stop this damned mess before it gets any worse!”

“We didn’t start this mess. Sir.” The sullen look was back on Matthews’s face.

“But you can’t put it right,” Bush said. “I can’t put it right. God in heaven, if I could….” He stopped abruptly, having let out more than had been his intention. “Matthews, I just don’t want any more good men dead. And any trouble started now will end at the yard-arm. You know that!” His voice had risen sharply, with an effort he dropped it again. “I don’t mean to bring trouble on anyone, Matthews, I swear, but I must know.”

The man’s eyes darted downwards. Finally he muttered, “There’s a right load of bad feeling, sir. Some of the men are still all for Captain Sawyer, sir, and reckon the court-martial was right enough. And some, well some don’t think that way at all and don’t like what ‘appened. Those sides are near ready to do murder on each other, I reckon, sir. And some want to be for both sides, if you follow me, and reckon it was the ‘igh-ups at fault, that they could have stopped things if they’d tried. And some are just plain wretched, sir, an’ just want out. But if there’s any one thing bein’ thought more’n anything it’s that the ‘igh-ups are at blame, an’ there’s a lot of anger.”

Bush closed his eyes briefly. “Is it spreading to other ships?”

“I don’t know ‘bout that. I mean there’s been a bit of talk, but it’s all about things that ‘appened on Renown, doesn’t really mean a lot to most others, unless they’ve known someone. You see, sir? But I wouldn’t like to be this ship’s next captain, an’ if bad trouble starts here it could trigger a whole lot of things that are nothing to do with it really.”

“Yes,” Bush said, “Yes, I see.” He thought he did. “Thank you, Matthews.”

~~#~~

A man was waiting for him back at his inn room. Bush was not pleased, his wounds were aching badly and he wanted to try and put the whole ugly mess out of his mind for a while, although exactly how he was going to do that remained out of reach. A lieutenant, and one he did not know personally, those were the only features which registered.

“Lt Bush?” the man asked, with a sharpness that seemed almost belligerence. “My name is Hallard.”

“Who sent you?” Bush asked warily.

“Nobody sent me,” Hallard snapped. “I came myself.”

“So what do you want?” Bush snapped back. If this man was simply after lurid gossip then he could take himself off again and fast.

“I just want to know.” Suddenly Hallard’s air of belligerence crumbled. “I knew them, you see.”

“Oh.” Deflated, Bush could think of no immediate answer to make. Under the circumstances ‘them’ could have only one meaning. “How?” he asked after a pause.

“Long ago. It was on a ship you probably haven’t heard of. Justinian.”

“No,” Bush said, intrigued, “I don’t think I’ve encountered Justinian.”

“She’s at the bottom of the sea now, and the best place for her. I was transferred to Arethusa, Hammond’s old command. They went to Indefatigable. I envied them at the time.” He paused, face brooding. “I didn’t know either of them well, you understand. It wasn’t good to know people well on Justinian. But, in a way, I feel I owe them.”

Bush fumbled with the information he’d been given, trying to make sense of it. Feeling, as he so often had over the past months, that his sense and experience were somehow no longer enough. “What kind of ship was Justinian?” he asked at last.

“Bad beyond belief,” Hallard replied at once. “Old Keene wasn’t fit for command any longer. He should have been removed. I don’t mean he was brutal, you understand. But the way things were… he didn’t know or didn’t care. Well, most of us are dead now.”

Bush digested this information, which suddenly seemed to make sense of quite a lot. He knew he would think more of it later. For now he said, “What is it you want from me?”

“What do you think happened to Sawyer? And don’t just trot out the court-martial. There aren’t many from your ship who take that at face value.”

The practical part of William Bush told him he should end this talk, but the practical part of him had been fatally weakened by events long since.

“I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t there.”

“You were on the ship,” Hallard insisted, “You must have some ideas.”

Bush had spent a good deal of effort attempting not to have ideas. Now, though, it had ceased to matter very much and he cast his mind over those days carefully.

“Hornblower acted like a man with something to hide,” he said slowly. “And yet, I don’t know… I would have expected him to find another way. A legal way, or at least a safer one.” At the very least to choose a time and place where too many questions might not lead to ropes round all their necks. “It seems too foolish for him somehow. So perhaps he was just afraid of what our seniors would think.”

“Not what I would have expected from him either,” Hallard said, “Not out and out assault. Still, people change.”

“He was too nervous,” Bush mused. “He wasn’t a weak-nerved man. If he weighed the risks and made a choice, he’d surely have been cooler.” So what had it been then? Fear for Kennedy? Or more likely the boy, Wellard, of whom they had both been so strangely protective. Kennedy had had himself well in hand, but the boy had been a bundle of fright. Had Hornblower been afraid Wellard had done it and would crack?

“Kennedy…” he said aloud. “He wasn’t nervous at all, or else he hid it well.” There had been a time when he’d felt Kennedy must be too stupid to understand fear, but he’d finally discarded that one. The man had either had a nerve of iron or was a very good actor and he’d never know which. “He’d have been capable, I think. But again, I’d have expected him to choose a better time. Too much of a risk doing it with the boy there, surely, even for him. He wasn’t a stupid man. And he didn’t say to me he’d done it. Only to the people who mattered legally. Maybe I’m flattering myself, but I think he would have been honest with me, at the last.”

That left Wellard didn’t it? And he could picture the boy doing it in a drug-hazed moment of impulse. To be sure those two would protect him to the hilt. But equally he could picture Sawyer tumbling down the hold by himself, too crazed to see where he stepped. “Maybe he did just fall,” he told Hallard wearily, “that’s what they always said. Oh, what’s the use of talking? We’ll never know. All the people who could have told are dead.”

“That’s it, isn’t it?” said Hallard. “They’re dead. And we are not.”

It should have sounded meaningless, but did not. There was a meaning, although Bush was damned if he knew what it was. “They were brave men,” he said, voicing the safe epitaph his mind had contrived – for however much he had changed Bush had not let go of all self-preservation.

“They always were,” said Hallard. “Too brave. Or that’s what I’ve told myself in the past. It never helped me sleep at night.”

Bush shook his head, although not in denial. “Well, it’s over now.”

“Is it?” said Hallard.

~~#~~

Pellew delivered his report to Cameron in severely wooden tones. The crew of Renown was to be broken up, the men distributed amongst other ships, including some due to sail for England soon. He himself would take responsibility for organising the whole business, there would be no further burdens on the admiral.

“You think it will be enough?” Cameron asked.

“I have every reason to believe, sir, that the rot has not spread very far as yet. If the centre of infection is removed then the whole matter is likely to dissipate harmlessly.”

“Well, that is sound sense at least,” Cameron acknowledged. “Although I am glad there is no prospect of an enemy action at present. With any luck peace will lead to the bulk of these men being paid off before too long in any event.”

Peace. Pellew swallowed, finding the word bitter in his throat. The long negotiated peace would be here soon, and what would the sacrifices and suffering of the last months mean then?

“I believe this business of the Renown should give no further trouble, sir,” he said.

Cameron tipped his head back. “If you believe that, Commodore, then you are more naïve than I take you for. This business, as you term it, is likely to linger on for years. However the immediate avoidance of trouble in this fleet is as far as my responsibility reaches. The rest is your affair.”

~~#~~

Pellew looked at the two men standing before him. Sterling examples of the lower deck, he thought. The big man, Styles, was the kind that could easily be trouble, but not if handled by the right officer. He was back to that again. This time, however, he did not shy away from the thought.

“As you men may know already,” he said “Renown’s crew is to be broken up amongst other ships. I undertook some little time ago to give special consideration to the two of you,” whether they guessed who had asked him to do so or not was something he preferred to leave open, “I can arrange new postings for you, or, given the special circumstances, I am prepared to give both of you a written discharge.”

A few weeks ago the idea of using his authority to discharge two able-bodied seamen would have been unthinkable, a profound misuse of his position. Something had shifted, and Pellew himself was not yet prepared to fully contemplate what or why. He only knew these men should have an out.

“You’re offerin’ to let us go?” It was the big man, Styles who spoke first. “Then I’ll take the offer. Sir.”

“Wait,” the older man protested. “Don’t be so quick. What else are either of us goin’ to do? What else do we ‘ave now?”

“I’ll find that out later. Way things are,” he cast a wary look towards Pellew and said, “I’ll take the discharge and be out.”

“Very well,” Pellew said, “And you, Matthews?”

The older man looked unhappy. “I’ve bin at sea all me life, sir. It’s all I know. I don’t want to leave.”

“I happen to know the Diamond has recently lost her boatswain,” Pellew told him. “Captain Torrance would be glad to get a good man, I believe.”

Matthews still did not look happy, but he said, “Thank’ee, sir,” in a low voice. Pellew cleared his throat, finding the whole interview increasingly uncomfortable.

“If either of you should change your minds within the next couple of days, then I can make other arrangements.” He had done his best.

~~#~~

As the two of them walked away Styles said abruptly “What do you think ‘appened? Sawyer, I mean?”

“I don’t know.” Matthews shook his head. “There’s no knowin’ really.”

“Would ‘ave been a good riddance if you ask me,” Styles muttered. Matthews looked nervously around but there was no-one in ear-shot.

“Only it wasn’t, was it?” he muttered in return.

“Worth a try.”

“It ain’t that side,” Matthews shook his head. “It’s the boy. “I can’t see either of ‘em involving the boy. Can you? Can’t really think either would ‘ave mixed the other’un up in a thing like that. Risking your own neck, that’s one thing, risking someone else, like that, does that seem like them to you?”

“Mebbe not.” Styles’s shoulders slumped forward, he looked defeated.

“What will you do?” Matthews asked after they had walked some way in silence.

“I dunno. Try an’ get somewhere where I won’t ever be pressed again.” Styles still looked wretched. “Come with me, Matty?”

Matthews shook his head, no less miserable. “I can’t, mate. I’m too old. I can’t start over.”

“So you’ll go on working for them?”

Matthews stopped dead, head down. “I ain’t got nowhere else to go.”

~~#~~

Bush stood before the commodore, expression wooden. He should have been awed, or nervous at least, yet he was not. He found he did not care in the least what the commodore thought, and that alarmed him, for sense told him this was a thought he could not afford to have.

“Mr Bush.” Oddly the commodore seemed reluctant to meet his gaze. “I am aware that this recent business may have affected you adversely. Affected your career prospects, I mean.”

“Sir.” It seemed safest to keep the response neutral.

“I believe your injuries are almost healed, Mr Bush. I can offer you a choice of postings. You may return to the Renown. Alternatively the ships taken from the Spanish are to be refitted and lieutenants will be needed aboard them. Any man appointed to command would find it useful to have an experienced man, such as yourself, as his lieutenant.”

Bush did not hesitate. “I’ll take a new posting, sir.” To go back to Renown was the last thing he desired. The thought briefly floated through his mind that under other circumstances he might have hoped to be given one of the new commands himself. He dismissed it immediately, the hope would probably have been forlorn in any case.

Pellew nodded briefly. Mr Bush, if you should, at any future time, find yourself without employment, then do not hesitate to contact me. I will do what I can.”

“Sir,” said Bush, inwardly resolving he would never take up such an offer. A few months ago the offer of patronage from one of the Navy’s rising men would have been seized upon eagerly. But William Bush had changed.

Perhaps something of this seeped through, for suddenly Pellew said. “I did not like the business, Mr Bush. I never liked it from the start!” His tone was strange, almost pleading, as though he was looking for form of absolution. Absolution Bush neither could nor wished to grant.

“Sir,” he said woodenly. He could have sworn the commodore flinched.

Outside Bush paused, breathing in the clean air. He hoped the new posting would take him away from Kingston quickly. Once gone he could begin putting this last months where they must stay. Firmly in the past.

He must forget, no matter how much of worth the memories held. He must forget, because he had sisters to support and no means of doing so except the Navy. He could not afford to remember, could not afford to go down the road where remembering might lead him. He must remain the dedicated and obedient officer that he had been all his life.

He had his life and he had a posting and he was fortunate to have emerged from Renown with those two things. Yet he could find no comfort in contemplating the future. Bush was not a man to find active joy in his career, but he had always enjoyed a quiet satisfaction in what he did. No longer. To remain with the service that had perpetrated this atrocity, and he did not shrink from naming it so in the privacy of his mind, to stay and to serve those that had rewarded courage and dedication with death, seemed more of a sentence than an escape.

He had no choice.

~~#~~

Pellew had finally finished the letters. There should have been relief in that, but there was none.

How could he go on, and live with this? How could he? Yet what else could he do? There must be some way, he thought grimly, some way to make amends to his own conscience.

What way he did not know for certain yet. But the thought was forming in his mind that for the rest of his career any act towards his juniors and men, any decision concerned with the welfare of those in his power, whatever he did he must consult the opinion of Lt Hornblower first. He must remember the young man who had staked and lost all for the good of his men, and he must act in his name, for his own sanity’s sake.

Yet that was for the future. For now he must find some outlet, some escape for the anguish that battered at him.

He drew a fresh sheet of paper towards him and dipped his quill in ink. He would write it out, write it all down, record the truth so that some day men might know it. Some day… for even as he made the choice his mind was shaping reasons not to publish the truth just yet. Nothing could bring back the dead and if he wrecked his own career now then nothing good would come of his enlightenment. He must make his payment by protecting others.

But first, he would write the truth. He would keep back nothing to his or the Navy’s disadvantage. He would write the whole repellent business, that men might know it plain. Someday .

Afterword

From the introduction to A Naval Tragedy, by Edward Pellew. First published 1868 as An Account of the Renown Trial in Kingston 1802. Reprinted 1924. New edition with added introduction and endnotes 1991.

The fates of other actors in the Renown affair varied according to status and fortune. James Matthews remained with the Navy and died at sea whilst serving as boatswain aboard HMS Bellerophon in 1807. John Styles was discharged upon the warranty of Edward Pellew two weeks after the Renown trial concluded and thereafter disappears from the written record. Thomas Hobbs was killed in action aboard HMS Caesar in 1809.

Dr Clive resigned from the Navy on his return to England and set up private practice in Manchester, where he lived until his death in 1817. A Charles Buckland received a pauper’s burial in Kingston in 1806, but I have not been able to establish whether this was the former first officer of the Renown.

HMS Renown was renamed HMS Westminster. Her subsequent career was unremarkable, and she was broken up in 1818.

William Bush recovered from his injuries and went back to sea. He remained a lieutenant for the rest of his career but, except for a brief period during the Peace of Amiens, was never unemployed and seems to have done well from prize money. He left the Navy in 1816 and purchased an inn. He married the following year, had three children and died in 1835. His own account of the Renown affair, probably written after his retirement, remained with his family for many years and was privately printed under the title The Renown ‘Mutiny’ in 1985.

Edward Pellew returned from Jamaica to a storm of controversy. Someone (Bush suspected a lieutenant named Hallard) had told the truth about the state of affairs on Renown to Lt Kennedy’s family. Although impoverished, they remained well connected amongst the Scots aristocracy, and some of the connections were not without influence. What began as a campaign to clear the young officer’s name was quickly taken up for political reasons, both by the reactionaries opposed to St. Vincent’s program of reform and radicals anxious to denounce what they considered tyranny within the Navy.

St. Vincent could have protected himself from the consequences of a trial which had, after all, been carried out quite without his knowledge, by denouncing the proceedings and blaming the Tribunal. However he was not that kind of man. Instead he staunchly defended the proceedings as having been carried out in the interests of naval discipline. When Pellew’s promotion fell due St. Vincent gave him, not a rear-admiral’s command (of lessened value at that time, since peace had been declared a few months earlier), but a commission to investigate corruption in the naval dockyards; a subject close to St. Vincent’s own heart. Pellew, like all intelligent serving officers, undoubtedly knew that corruption existed, but he seems to have been appalled by the sheer scale of what he found. When, on the renewal of war, he was transferred to an active command, he continued his investigations at every opportunity, even after St Vincent, who for all his standing and determination was no match for the entrenched interests at the Admiralty, had been driven from office in 1804.

St Vincent was replaced by Lord Melville, a career politician whose power was rooted in the influence he held amongst the great Scottish families. Melville’s time at the Admiralty was brief, for some of the commissions set up by St. Vincent had survived his dismissal and the report of one of these implicated Melville too severely for even so slippery an operator to hang on to office. His downfall was the only immediate result of St. Vincent’s painstaking investigations. Yet, in an ironic twist, it fell to this corrupt and unscrupulous man to provide the nearest approach to justice that the Renown affair was ever given. It was Melville who, to appease the Scots aristocrats, overturned the verdicts of Kingston on the grounds that the trial had been improperly conducted, and Melville who insisted that the names of Lieutenants Hornblower and Kennedy should be posthumously re-entered on the Navy’s books.

What Edward Pellew thought of this restoration no source reveals. For some time his own career was again in jeopardy and there was something of an outcry against him in the press. Once again it was St Vincent, now Commander-in-Chief of the Channel Fleet, who saw to his protection, although the fact that he was distinguishing himself in his new command no doubt helped him to hang on. He remained on active service until 1814, but he also continued his investigations, and denunciations, of the corruption that he had found. Naturally this made him very unpopular with certain elements, and he suffered many disagreeable attacks, some of them of great unscrupulousness. After hauling down his flag he redoubled his efforts, but the struggle took its toll on his health and he suffered a stroke in 1824. Although he was recovered enough to continue his campaigns he was never fully well again, and a second stroke claimed his life in 1829. He died just too early to see the reforms for which he had fought for so long finally begin to be instituted.

Did Pellew’s long campaign accomplish anything? There were no concrete achievements in his lifetime. The reforms of the 1830’s would no doubt have been made in any case. However he was instrumental in bringing the abuses to public attention, and for that he deserves credit. The younger generation of reformers had at least some idea where to begin, and although Pellew was not solely responsible for that his contribution was important. He helped to blaze a trail. It is possible to suggest that he may also have been laying ghosts.

~finis~

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