Polish, and noise, thought Powerscourt as he presented his credentials at the desk. Army boots, Navy boots, maybe even the odd civilian boot like his own, echoed across the marble floor and up the great ornate staircase to the rooms above. The noise was deafening. He had to shout.
‘Lord George Scott. I believe he is expecting me.’
A uniformed porter, boots so polished that you could see reflections of the club’s ceilings as he walked, led Powerscourt to a small room at the back of the library.
Lord Scott was a tall slim seafarer with a clipped beard and a neat clipped moustache. He had a clipped way of speaking too. Maybe it was all those naval signals he had to send, telegraphic messages despatched from distant parts.
‘How d’ye do. How d’ye do. Please sit down. Ordered coffee. Lots of it. We won’t be disturbed.’
Powerscourt presented his credentials, another of his letters from Lord Salisbury. I may have to go and get some more of these soon, if they keep going at this rate, he said to himself.
‘Met this Salisbury fellow, have you?’
‘Only once,’ Powerscourt replied.
‘Don’t know much about him. Good man, do you think?’
‘My friend Lord Rosebery thinks very highly of him. But he says Salisbury’s as devious as they come.’
‘Have to be. Have to be. In that position, I mean.’ Lord George Scott poured two cups of coffee and decanted three spoonfuls of sugar into his own. ‘Need sugar. Don’t know why. Bloody doctors told me. Now then. The Bacchante. You’re here to talk to me about all that. Been combing my memory. Looked up a few records. Checked the odd time and place. Why don’t I run that lot up the yardarm first and then you ask questions.’
Powerscourt said that that sounded an excellent plan.
‘Damn strange business, whole thing. 1879, that’s when it started. Met the Prince of Wales a few times by then. Shooting party in Yorkshire, one or two rubbers of whist. Always had to lose to the Prince of Wales at whist. Don’t suppose you knew that.
‘Had no intention of ever taking two bloody Princes on some bloody jaunt round the world. Not given any choice. Hauled up before those First Sea Lords and given no option. Old fools said it would be good for my career.
‘Normal thing, Powerscourt, when you run a ship, you get to choose your officers. Not this time. Not the men either. Officers picked by one lot of admirals. Crew picked by another lot of admirals. Officers all old, rather decrepit. No dashing young flames there. Crew old, ugly, past their peak. Think they must have emptied one or two workhouses to provide me with that lot.’ Lord George Scott shook his head sadly at the memory of his decrepit crew.
‘Whole lot of nonsense before leaving about whether boat would sink or not. Had to take the old hulk out into North Atlantic and into the middle of a big storm. See if she would survive or not. Nobody seemed to have thought of what happened if she did sink. End of Bacchante, end of Captain Scott, end of crew. Naval disaster. British can’t sail any more. British ships can’t float any more. Bloody papers making mincemeat of Royal Navy.’
Powerscourt could see that whatever his reservations about the First Lords of the Admiralty, Lord Scott’s loyalty to the Navy was as strong as ever.
‘Great row about accommodation. Somebody somewhere obsessed with it. That other boat they thought of using, Newcastle, had sort of sealed compartments, isolated accommodation. That was the appeal of it. Keep one lot of people away from the other.
‘Where should Prince Eddy sleep? Where indeed. Many a time I would have pushed him overboard myself. Had to put him in my cabin. Build a sort of extra bit of space. Not allowed to mingle with rest of crew at all, only with his brother and the officers. Very strict instructions on that from my Lords of the Admiralty. Sealed packets, all that kind of stuff.’
Lord Scott poured himself another cup of coffee, a further three spoonfuls of sugar disappearing inside.
‘Where was I? Accommodation. Prince Eddy spent most of his time in my cabin. Two whole bloody years of it. All kinds of lies put about. Prince learning naval trade, ropes, navigation, gunnery. All complete rubbish. Some kind of parson person with them. Name of Dalton. Sanctimonious old bore, like most bloody parsons. More like a guard for his precious Eddy. Never let him out of his sight.
‘When you’ve grasped all that, you’ve got the main points. Didn’t matter where we went really. Could have sailed round and round the Isle of Wight for two years. Wouldn’t have made any bloody difference. Always had feeling that object of the exercise was to keep Eddy as far away from England as possible.
‘One other thing. Nearly forgot.’ Lord Scott took another mouthful of his sickly brew. ‘Didn’t just have a bloody parson person on board. Doctor person as well. Not naval. Ordinary bloody doctor. Seasick all the time. Had to be dosed round the world with his own medicine. He spent a lot of time with Prince Eddy. Special patient. Special examinations now and then. Everybody else had to leave the cabin. Don’t care for doctors. Don’t care for parsons. Didn’t care much for my Lords of the Admiralty after all that either.
‘That’s it. Your turn now.’
He paused. Powerscourt didn’t know where to begin.
‘An admirable narrative, Lord Scott. I am much obliged to you. If I could just bowl you a couple of questions, I would be even more grateful.’
‘Fire ahead. Fire ahead.’ Scott had the air of one who would not be frightened by any broadside, however weighty and numerous the cannon balls.
‘Those sealed orders you mentioned, the ones from the Admiralty. Did they make any mention of illicit sexual relations?’
‘Good God, Powerscourt! How d’you know that? Mindreader, are you?’ He looked up at Powerscourt with fresh respect and poured out yet more coffee. The great clattering of boots on marble had died down now, silence ruling over library and entrance hall. ‘Pages of sealed orders about that. Pages of it. Crew to be lectured on evils of illicit sexual relations at regular intervals. Me, parson, doctor, all reading riot act. Ferocious floggings for transgressors. Waste of time. Crew could have hardly managed licit sexual relations, whatever they are. Dried-out collection, no juice in their limbs. Know what I mean? Never seen anything like it in all my years afloat.’
‘Did you have any idea when you set out how long the voyage was going to be? Or did it get extended as it went on?’
‘Never worked that out at all. Never clear.’ Scott had abandoned the coffee and moved into the attack on the Army and Navy Club biscuits. Crumbs were spoiling the symmetry of his beard. ‘Thought we could have come home after six months myself. God knew why we were sailing round the world in the first place. More orders kept coming. Keep sailing. Like some ancient curse. Never get home. Endless voyage. Voyage that never stops. Voyage to the back of beyond. And back again. Ancient mariners.’
‘One last question, if I may. You said earlier that you suspected that the real purpose was to keep Prince Eddy out of England. What made you say that?’
‘Thought that for years. Never told anybody. Not until now. Not until you. Before the voyage, terrible business on board Britannia. All hushed up. Officers cashiered, crew dispersed, ship’s cat itself sworn to silence. Scandal of some sort. Dreadful scandal. Never knew what it was. Nobody did. Dangerous to ask questions. But if Prince Eddy was involved, maybe a need to get him out of the way. Families send naughty younger sons to the colonies. Keep them out of sight, out of harm’s way. Same thing here. Eddy sent to the colonies. Literally. I bloody well took him there.’
Another of William Leith’s trains was taking Powerscourt out of London to another appointment with James Robinson, The Limes, Church Road, Dorchester on Thames, father of one of five boys involved with Prince Eddy on the Britannia. Glimpses of the Thames through the windows offered the promise of a more peaceful world. Two schoolboys at the end of his compartment in black jackets, white shirts and black ties were complaining about Caesar and Cicero.