Chapter 1: A Letter from the Dead (November 1854)

Captain Sir Charles Tolliver, 3rd Baronet Stepley, R.N., was sitting at the desk in his study. Two letters were lying on it. One was from the Army, informing him in brief words that Major Adam Tolliver of the 17th Lancers had died of the wounds sustained in the Battle of Balaclava. There was the usual blather one could expect of ministry officials, assuring him that the late Major Tolliver had died a heroic death.

Charles Tolliver cast the letter aside with a violent move. What did it matter? His only son, in fact his only child, his last link to his dead wife, had perished in a foolhardy action, ordered by glory-seeking old men and bungled on just about every level of command. What good did it do to the families of all the young men who had perished?

Over at Woodbridge Manor, Lord Lambert had to console his daughter over the death of her husband, Major Pryce, who had fallen in the same senseless attack. The memorial service had been just a week ago, and Sir Charles had attended, at that time still ignorant of his son’s fate. Now there would be another memorial service, and the same people would come and would now offer their condolences to him.

The other letter was written in a strange hand. A nurse at the Scutari infirmary had written it at the behest of Adam. It was a beautiful female handwriting, but it was signed in Adam’s own, weak hand.

Captain Tolliver finished re-reading the letter for the fifth time. Adam was no more, and the letter in his hands was all that was left of what had once been a happy family. Twenty years ago, the death of his wife Eileen just three days after giving premature birth to a tiny girl had devastated him. The girl outlived her mother by only a day, barely living long enough to be christened after her mother, and from that time on, father and son had only had each other.

Charles Tolliver had been born in 1811, in the late stages of the terrible wars that had raged through Europe, to Rear Admiral Sir George Tolliver and his wife Melissa. Sir George was over fifty when his one and only son was born, and he had been suffering from badly healed wounds ever since the Battle of Copenhagen where he had distinguished himself. What Charles Tolliver remembered of his father was a crouched figure limping along the hallways with a perpetual grimace of pain etched into his features. The invalid admiral was unfit for sea commands, but he held on to the command of the receiving ships in Portsmouth until 1820 when his devastated body ceased to work, leaving behind his 9 year-old son and his wife Melissa, then only 29 years of age.

Looking back, Charles remembered his mother as a meek woman. It had been a cruel fate for her to be married to the elderly, crippled admiral, but she never let on that she missed out on her youth. She then duly waited out the mourning year before she accepted the proposal of Captain Trent Mornington. They were married three months later, and it was 10-year-old Charles who had to give away his mother to a cold and heartless stepfather.

Sir George had been no mere knight, but a baronet of the realm, and the title was hereditary in the male line. Thus, Charles became Sir Charles upon his father’s death, and as such he was sent to Eton. It was from this time onward that his over three decades of loneliness began, interrupted only by the four years of wedded bliss. His new stepfather was a harsh disciplinarian who held no love for the firstborn of his wife. Thus, Charles was rarely ever allowed to visit home, and if he did, he was mostly subjected to strict discipline and reading assignments. His meek mother was completely cowed by her new husband and could offer no solace or support to her only son.

Captain Mornington was hell-bent on having children from his wife. She had no reprieve from his efforts, not after the first miscarriage, nor after the second. The third miscarriage when Charles was thirteen years old finally gave her peace, for it was accompanied by a great bleeding. The midwife was barely able to staunch the blood flow, but Melissa Mornington never recovered fully, and she died during the following winter from a cold.

This left young Charles Tolliver under the wardship of his hated stepfather. Had it not been for his own father’s stalwart solicitor, Captain Mornington would have spent all his stepson’s birthright, for it turned out that there was no conscience in the man. As it was, the solicitor, Mr. Pommeroy, kept Admiral Tolliver’s fortune under tight control, doling out only such monies as were needed for young Charles’s schooling and sustenance.

Charles stayed at school all the time now, and when he turned fourteen, he joined the Royal Navy. This, at least, happened with the blessing of his stepfather who probably hoped that the orphan would perish in the dangerous service. He even arranged for Charles to join his own cousin’s ship as a midshipman, but a friendly fate intercepted when a frigate readied in Portsmouth harbour. Her captain, Mr. Joyce Saltingham, needed immediate replacement for a young midshipman who had proven himself unworthy of being an officer, and the port admiral ordered young Charles Tolliver on board the Thetis.

From that day onward, Charles’s luck turned. The Thetis frigate was a crack ship, manned with volunteers and under a very able captain. Add to that that Captain Saltingham had once sailed under Charles’s father, and the young boy found himself under his captain’s fatherly care. He had to do his duty; in fact, he was expected to perform better than his fellow midshipmen. However, whenever he failed, he received encouragement along with the rebuke.

Most of the first four years of service were spent in the Far East, and the frigate saw vastly more action than could be expected in the peacetime Navy. Sailing patrols out of Bombay, Thetis often encountered pirates and smugglers, and the encounters often ended in fighting. As it happened, two of her lieutenants and one senior midshipman perished in those skirmishes and could only be replaced with young officer candidates from Bombay’s merchant families. Thus, at barely seventeen years, Charles Tolliver was appointed acting lieutenant in the Thetis. When a squadron returning from Calcutta visited, there were even enough captains in presence to assemble an examination board, and young Charles received a lieutenant’s commission that was dated January 1829.

Suddenly, Bombay’s society found him interesting. He was not yet eighteen, but mature beyond his years, and a baronet of England. He received invitations to accompany Captain Saltingham to dinners, and during one such function he met Eileen Fitzsimmons, the daughter of Colonel Fitzsimmons. She was a lovely girl, barely seventeen herself, and her parents saw a unique chance for their daughter to land the young baronet before the mothers of other eligible girls set their snares.

For young Charles and for Eileen it was honest love at first sight. They read the same authors, they liked the same dances, and they could lose themselves looking into each other’s eyes.

A day after his eighteenth birthday, in the Church of St. Francis, Lieutenant Sir Charles Tolliver, Bart., took Miss Eileen Fitzsimmons for his wife. The young couple spent a week together before Thetis had to sail on her next patrol, and when the frigate made port again nine weeks later, Sir Charles knew that he was going to be a father.

Adam Tolliver was born in Bombay on Christmas 1829, a healthy boy and the pride of his parents and grandparents. The Fitzsimmons were more than happy with their son-in-law, and more importantly, they held enough “interest” with the Whig Party to further young Charles Tolliver’s career. When Thetis was ordered home a year later — Eileen travelled in a convoy under the frigate’s protection — Charles spent only three months ashore before he was appointed to the command of a sloop.

Charles used the shore time to reopen his father’s Berkshire house and to assume responsibility for his father’s estate. Whilst he went to sea in the Racehorse sloop, Eileen settled in Berkshire. There were a number of Navy families in the neighbourhood, and she was quickly accepted and included in the social circles.

HM sloop Racehorse, 18 guns, was ordered into the Mediterranean. In the aftermath of the Battle of Navarino, British and French men-of-war patrolled the Greek coastlines to protect the war-ravaged country against the inroads of corsairs. The small sloop of war was busy enough for the next months, but it was a pleasant duty with frequent stays in the ancient harbours. The Turks and their corsair allies were licking their wounds after the sound drubbing they had received, and Racehorse encountered only one enemy vessel.

It was ironic that their sole encounter was with a former British sixth-rate. Atropos, 22, had been with the Mediterranean Fleet in 1806 when she was badly damaged fighting a large Spanish frigate. After her repairs in the harbour of Palermo, the ship was given to the King of Naples as the nucleus for a Sicilian navy. In 1825, she was sold to an Athens merchant who fitted her out for a Greek navy he wanted to create. Ill-equipped and with a crew of fishermen, the Turks had no difficulties capturing her and she was sold to a slaver consortium in Alexandria.

Racehorse was smaller, had fewer guns, and a smaller crew. Yet, when the former Atropos tried to raid the island of Mykonos, the British sloop had been alerted to the plan by Turkish renegades and was already lying in ambush. Cutting off the retreat of the slaver, Racehorse and her disciplined crew out-manoeuvred and out-gunned their adversary in the narrow coastal waters. In the course of forty minutes, the hapless slaver was overwhelmed.

The old ship had only scrap value, but the captured crew of slavers and the freed slaves found in her holds made for a hero’s welcome for Racehorse and her master when they sailed for Piraeus.

It was sheer luck that the British commander in chief was visiting Athens at the same time and that two of his captains felt the need to settle a personal quarrel once they were on shore. Captain Jamison of HMS Owen Glendower (36) lost his eyesight when the duelling pistol exploded into his face. He was replaced by acting Captain Sir Charles Tolliver, the hero of the hour.

He stayed in command for more than a year, enough to see his name posted in the London Gazette. A post-captain at the age of twenty-two, he seemed destined for greatness, but it was a time of peace, and a freshly minted captain — even one with interest in Parliament — could not hope to hold on to the command of a frigate for long. Early 1833 saw him back in Berkshire and on half-pay.