by Tim Chant
He looked down at Tommy. He knew he should send him packing back to his mother, with a hefty clout over the ear if it was required. If the job had been as innocent as he’d portrayed it, he would have no qualms about bringing the boy. He could not very well now say that the work was too dangerous.
His headache was coming back with a vengeance. In truth, he thought, there was no danger. It was unlikely they’d even see this Russian ship, even if it existed, and even if they did he certainly had no intention of standing in too close to it. And if he could keep Mrs Dunbar happy it would mean more guineas left out of his pay.
“Very well. I see your Ma has already put you into a warm coat, and you have your duffel bag.”
“An’ a piece, to keep me going.”
“Well, if you have a piece already, I can find no fault in your preparations. Come along.”
Doyle, the boat acquired by Mr Arbuthnott, was moored not far from the mouth of Granton harbour, where she wouldn’t get smashed into matchwood by the first run of the ferry to Burntisland as she nosed her way out into the Forth, smoke belching from her stack.
“Looks like he acquired it from the breakers,” Baxter muttered sourly as he eyed the vessel. A single-masted 25-footer, she might have been a real beauty once, not unlike some of the drabs who frequented the dockside pubs. Those days were long past, though. An attempt had been made to restore at least a veneer of her former style, but the fresh coat of paint had been slapped on over the old peeling colours and the whole effect was one of a shambles pretending to be genteel. He grinned. Much like himself.
“I think she’s braw!” Tommy exclaimed, darting forward only to be restrained by the big, meaty hand of a foredeck gorilla who came up the side more swiftly, and with more grace, then a man his size had any right to.
“You’d be the skip, then?” The hand was shoved out and Baxter didn’t hesitate in shaking it, which seemed to surprise the brute. “Billings. Mate.”
And formerly of His Majesty’s Navy. Baxter didn’t need to see the tattoo on the man’s forearm to know that. “Baxter. Are we ready for sea?”
“Near enough. Didn’t realise we’re taking on supercargo, sir.”
The honorific was perfunctory, almost grudging. “Mr Dunbar is coming to sea, to see if the life suits him. A promise to his mother, you understand.”
“Can’t say as I do, sir,” Billings grumbled. “But…” He met Baxter’s warning stare and slight shake of the head. “Never mind, sir. Welcome aboard, Mr Dunbar.”
There was something about the man that put Baxter into an ill temper. He had to admit, it didn’t take much to do that these days, but the false cheeriness with which Billings greeted the lad raised his hackles. His next utterance hardly helped.
“There’s a fresh suit in the deck cabin, sir, seeing as you have a part to play.” This said with a slightly dismissive glance at the clothes Mrs Dunbar had spent some time patching for him. “Same as us.”
“Very well, Mr Billings. You may take her out while I change. Tommy — Mr Dunbar that is — keep out from under foot and watch the crew like a hawk. You’ll never meet finer seamen than those who have been in the Navy.”
Billings just snorted at that. Baxter turned away from the small cabin’s hatch, catching the mate’s eye. He wanted nothing more than to give his head a rest, but his years of training kicked in and told him that he had to get a grip on this crew immediately.
He straightened up, standing a bit closer to Billings than the other man was really comfortable with, and waited until the petty officer dropped his gaze. “On second thoughts, I think I shall take her out myself. Standby to cast off bow lines, Mr Billings.”
Dawn the following morning found Baxter wedged against the old teak wheel, feeling the life of the yacht through every vibration and jerk of wood polished smooth by many hands before his. She was a decent enough sea boat, something he’d be able to get a lot out of if he’d made more time to study her trim and sail plan. He patted the wheel, silently apologising for his comments earlier.
Tommy Dunbar emerged from the cabin, his face wan. He’d lost the piece from his ma, over the side during the dogwatch, and now huddled in his duffel coat against the cold wind. He was still doing better than Baxter had, the first time his father had taken him to sea. Boat and protégé, then, were causes for some degree of satisfaction. He wished he could say the same for the sailors Arbuthnott had engaged. Picked men, indeed. Billings was up in the bows with a pair of glasses keeping a watchful eye for the Russian ship that should be passing through their area soon enough. The other two were tending to the trim of the sails at his occasional direction, but otherwise huddled in the lee of the railing as the wind rose. He noticed the dark glances they threw his way on occasion.
The whole enterprise seemed more and more odd to him. One civilian ship captained by a disgraced officer in a borrowed suit, looking for a single ship that probably wasn’t worth finding. He was reaching the conclusion that Arbuthnott was both hopelessly optimistic and incompetent.
He grinned suddenly, as the deck heaved, Doyle cutting through the crest of a particularly large wave. The rest of it didn’t matter — he had a deck under his feet, at least for a few days, and a decent packet of crisp five pound notes for his time. “Good God, I’ve missed being afloat.”
That caused one of the sailors to smirk in a fashion he really didn’t like. He wondered, briefly, if they knew of his somewhat chequered history, or whether there was in fact something more going on.
“Weren’t you a sailor on a steamship, Mr Baxter?”
“Indeed I was, young Master Dunbar, but in the RN every officer must learn how to handle a ship under sail.” He patted the wheel as it bucked in his hands again. “It’s the only way to learn the sea.”
“How come you ain’t in the Navy no more?” came the innocent question, the piping voice crushing his mood.
Before Baxter could respond, even if it was to tell the boy to mind his own business, Billings’ shout from the bows drew his attention: “Smoke off the port bow!”
“Bradshaw, take the wheel!” Baxter swarmed forward, feet confident on the rolling deck, and took the glasses that Billings proffered.
“Two points off the port bow, sir.”
Baxter swept the magnified view across the horizon, a slow scan that would take in the indicated direction. He almost overshot, unused as he was to this type of duty, but picked up a twin column of black smoke staining the sky. The ship it belonged to was already reaching up over the horizon and he fiddled with the focus to get a better look. She was still tiny and indistinct despite the glasses, but Baxter could still make out the fact that she had an auxiliary sailing rig.
“Definitely an old’un,” he said, having held her in his view for a while. “Slab-sided bucket and a secondary sailing rig.”
“No sign of the rest of the fleet, sir?”
Baxter closed his eyes briefly, visualising the last time he’d seen a Royal Navy squadron under full steam. “None. Half the sky would be black with coal smoke, and if Arbuthnott is right they’re already south of us.”
He was already working out time over distance, wind speed and the mood of the sea. Assumed speed of the Russian ship — for so she was, he was certain. A warship, he had no doubt, and the RN didn’t have many hybrid steam and sail vessels still afloat. “We’ll work up ahead of her and then have a proper look on the way back towards Blighty. Shouldn’t surprise me if the wind veers anyway, but even if it doesn’t this old girl will tack well.”
“Very good, sir. I assume we’ll give her a wide berth?”
Baxter thought of Arbuthnott’s warning of how jumpy the Russian crews could be. “I doubt they’ll see a pleasure yacht as a threat,” he said with a grin. “But we’ll give them the sea space that courtesy requires.”
The wind hadn’t veered as he’d hoped and they’d had to tack back along the way through increasingly heavy seas, Doyle running gamely up one side of a wave before pausing breathlessly and
sliding down the reverse; only to begin the process all over again. Tommy seemed to have been infected by Baxter’s own enthusiasm and was even allowed to haul on lines — never by himself of course. The three experienced seamen got on with the work without complaint but without much enthusiasm either.
Despite that, they were running down across the Russian’s bows rather than crossing her stern as he’d previously intended. A smidge closer than he’d intended, as well. “Either I’m getting rusty, or she’s a lot slower than I anticipated.”
He was up in the bows again so he could get a proper look, Billings on the wheel and his two mates standing by the lines. “Definitely Russian!” Baxter called out over the sound of the rising wind in the rigging. Tommy was poised over the notebook with a grease pencil, taking notes. “Definitely last century, not one of the new cruisers.”
“I were hopin’ for a battleship, sir!” Tommy said, his voice disappointed.
“She can’t be the Monomakh — they left all those old rust buckets behind.” She was tall for a warship, high sides that would invite a hell of a pounding, with barbettes at the corners of a central armoured citadel, mounting her main battery. “Four main guns — eight, nine inch maybe. Broadside of a half dozen lighter guns.” He lowered the glasses, wiped spray from his face. “Don’t be too disappointed, lad. You won’t see many of her like again — she’s one of the old guard, the transition from sail to steam. Battleships are two-a-penny in comparison. I do believe she is the Monomakh — make a note of that, Mr Dunbar!”
A signal light was flashing from one wing of the ship’s open bridge. Baxter patted his pockets — he could guess what the Russians were suggesting, but was in the mood to make trouble. “Tommy, run back to the cabin and fetch me the signal book,” he ordered as he waved cheerfully to the Russian and then shrugged apologetically, exaggerating the movement in case they were watching him through glasses.
Billings arrived next to him. “Smith has the wheel, sir,” the burly sailor said. He was standing just very slightly behind Baxter’s left shoulder and seemed to be shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot.
“Something you wanted, Mr Billings?”
Billings remained hovering just in the corner of Baxter’s eye. “You don’t remember me, do you, Mr Baxter?”
Baxter twisted round, squinting at the man; irritated at this interruption. “Did we serve together?”
“On the old Inflexible when you was a middy, sir. ’Eard about what happened to you on Naiad. Me and the buffer was mates.”
Baxter turned to face him properly, noticing the way the man’s feet and shoulders were set; the way he had his hands behind his back. “Did you indeed?” he said, trying to keep his voice level. Trying to work out what was going on. Something had changed on the Doyle’s deck. Smith wasn’t at the wheel, for one, which was lashed to hold her present course.
And Bradshaw had the little towed dinghy up at the quarterdeck rail, ready to board.
“Always thought you were hard done by, sir, so did old Harry, Naiad’s buffer.” Billings looked deeply uncomfortable, even embarrassed. “So I wanted you to know, sir, that this is nothing pers—”
Baxter hit Billings, hard, in the guts. It was like punching a side of beef, but he had the satisfaction of knocking the sailor down. He stepped forward to follow up, but Bradshaw’s shout brought him up. “You just stay where you are, Mr Baxter, or the boy gets it!”
Where Billings was a solidly-built jack tar, Bradshaw was a weasel of a man well matched to the little pistol he pressed to Tommy’s temple. Baxter had no illusions that he wouldn’t pull the trigger.
Billings pulled himself up, wheezing for breath. “Like I said,” he gasped. “Nothing personal. Despite that. Now you just stay there, sir, like a good gentleman, and we’ll make sure Tommy gets back to Edinburgh and to his ma. He looks like the sort of lad who knows how to keep his mouth shut.”
Baxter could barely hear Billings over the pounding of blood in his ears. He stood rooted to the spot, not out of fear but indecision; follow Billings’ insolent demands or make a play for the gun, risking Tommy getting a bullet in the skull? He glanced over his shoulder and realised the mutineers had set a collision course for the Russian cruiser, rather than heading to run across her bows with a quarter mile to spare as he’d intended.
The tableau held for a moment, Tommy pale and sweating, looking miserable; Billings and Baxter locking eyes, testing their wills and resolve.
None of them noticed the deck gun being laid on them.
“Tommy, you just stay there,” Baxter called out. He knew he was about to order the boy to take a risk, but less of a risk than he would face if he stayed aboard. “Go with these men, and keep your mouth shut when you get ashore.” He looked back at Billings, who at least had the good grace not to gloat. “You might want to think carefully about what you’re doing, Mr Billings. I’m not sure, but they may still hang people for piracy. They certainly do for murder.” Baxter sounded calmer than he felt and knew the effect his level tone would be having on Billings.
“I wouldn’t worry about that…”
The crash of a shell exploding in the water off their port beam drowned out whatever Billings was saying. The noise was stunning, the detonation close enough to send a plume of frigid water over the deck.
Baxter took a moment to recover his senses — a tiny calm corner of his mind was pleased he hadn’t panicked, despite this being the first time he’d been under heavy fire. Billings, no doubt more experienced, recovered a second faster. Bradshaw, however, lost his grip on the boy in a blind panic. Tommy dashed forward, showing remarkable spirit for a boy his age, and threw himself onto Billings’ back, wrapping his arms around the brutish sailor’s neck just as Baxter hit him again.
The Russian ship was firing continuously now, whether attempting to hit them or warn them off, Baxter didn’t care. All he could see was Billings’ ugly, broken-nosed face and all he knew was the desire to smash it in. He went forward again, hands up to protect his face as he’d been taught, driving short hard jabs into the mutinous sailor. He switched from midriff to head and back again, not giving Billings pause, ignoring the pain in his knuckles. Blocked a returning round house with his left forearm and delivered a punishing counterstrike with his right fist, smashing it into Billings’ mangled ear.
The man howled with pain and staggered clear, blood streaming from his face and ear, Tommy jumping off him at the last second. Baxter was prevented from following up as the yacht jerked in the water, a very near miss indeed that caused him to duck for cover and gave Billings enough time to scramble back to the stern, obviously deciding beating Baxter wasn’t worth further risk. His mates were shouting to him from the wave-tossed dinghy, their voices increasingly panicked.
Baxter ignored him — his roused blood told him to follow up the attack, but the rational part of his mind told him that there was no point trying to catch the trio of mutineers now. Tommy was pressed against the side of the yacht, flinching and whimpering every time a shell hit the water nearby, dousing them with spray.
“You should have stayed with them, lad!” Baxter yelled over the explosions. His own death here didn’t matter much to him, but he couldn’t rightly leave the boy to his own devices. Particularly in the off chance that his father was right and there would be judgement after death. He raised his head over the gunwale and waved frantically at the Russian ship, which had paused in its furious if hopelessly inaccurate bombardment. “We surrender!” he bellowed across the intervening water, watching blue-jacketed figures dashing about on deck. He realised they were reloading and trying to correct their aim as the cruiser thundered forward, still on a collision course with the miraculously undamaged yacht.
“English vessel!” a voice yelled from the cruiser’s foredeck, the English remarkably unaccented. “Change course or we will destroy you!”
“Not with that shooting you won’t,” Baxter muttered. Tommy was pale, shaking, but his expression was resolute. “We surrende
r! I have a boy aboard, for Christ’s sake!”
“Adjust your course or you will be destroyed!”
Swearing under his breath, Baxter scrambled back along the pitching deck. The dinghy with the three mutineers aboard was already standing well away, scudding over the iron-grey waves with its single sail bellied out. The wind was shifting to drive the bastards back towards Britain, but he still didn’t envy them the run in that toy boat. The change in direction was also driving the Doyle faster towards the slabby sides of the Russian warship — he couldn’t even begin to imagine what Billings had thought to achieve.
“Hang on, Tommy!” Baxter shouted as, with increasingly numbed hands, he struggled to unlash the wheel so he could change their heading. Billings had done a thorough job of it, though, lines wound through the spokes and then belayed on the once-bright brass railings on either side of the narrow hull. Baxter reached for his clasp knife then remembered he’d left it in the cabin when he’d changed. He sprinted forward, almost losing his footing despite the sea boots he wore, and let go the sails, just letting them flap in the wind. It would take the way off them, anyway.
“This is your last warning!” The Russian cruiser was terrifyingly close now, looming over them. Even they couldn’t miss at this range, though at least they wouldn’t be able to depress the big guns to obliterate the fragile wooden hull. The deck guns, 9-pounders and Hotchkiss gatlings, were being depressed to bear and Baxter could even make out files of men with rifles lining the railing.
“I’m trying!” he bellowed back, then dived into the cabin, cracking his head on the low combing and casting around desperately for his trusty knife. He’d just snatched it up when the Russians’ patience expired.