The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  THE SEA OFFICER BENTLEY THRILLERS

  Jan Needle

  Copyright © Jan Needle 2019

  Jan Needle has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2019 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  A FINE BOY FOR KILLING

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Author’s Note

  One

  At about the time that Thomas Fox was pulling on his old dark coat and wondering if the morning mist would clear before he reached the marshiest parts of his road, William Bentley was taking his second glass of green tea with his uncle on board the frigate Welfare. They were only about eight miles apart – eight miles of land and water – and they were destined to meet later that day. Thomas, who was fifteen and the son of a small farmer, was excited. He was to take twelve sheep to the market at Portsmouth, on his own; a full day’s work. William, who was fourteen, was not excited; he was business-like, a little worried, faced with a difficult and responsible task.

  ‘You will find the cutter adequate,’ his uncle told him, sipping his glass of tea. ‘She can be manned by a small crew, but there is room enough on board of her if you manage anything. But William. Remember this much. You are not entitled to do this work. It is, let us say, not strictly within the bounds of legality. Let the men go unarmed. Dolby and Evans may carry pistols, but let them be out of sight.’

  William Bentley smiled at his uncle. He felt very grateful, although nervous. He hoped he could bring the trick off.

  ‘I’ll do my best, uncle,’ he replied. ‘How many men do we need in all?’

  Daniel Swift returned the smile grimly.

  ‘Officially, my boy, we are within ten men of our full complement. Officially. But what have we got? Riffraff, gutter scrapings. I tell you, William, if we do not find some seamen soon we will come to grief. We have far to go.’

  William would have liked to have known how far, but he could not ask. Far it must certainly be, however, for the provisions and spare gear taken on board the Welfare in the last few days had been prodigious. In his long life at sea he had seen nothing to match it.

  He smiled once more, to himself this time. He had been at sea, in fact, merely eleven months. But he had been on the Navy’s books since he was seven years old. His sea-time was excellent.

  Uncle Daniel tinkled his fingernails against the glass. ‘Think you can do it, my boy?’ he asked. ‘Are you aware just how delicate a situation you find yourself in?’

  ‘Sir,’ said William. ‘Individual pressing is against the law. A captain who resorted to the personal press gang in these days would be villainous indeed. I would not dream of such a step were I a commanding officer, nor would I expect any in His Majesty’s Navy to ask it of his officers or young gentlemen.’

  As he spoke, he stared through the square glass windows in the stem. The ship was swinging as the west-going tide along the Solent set in. Portsmouth, shrouded in mist, appeared to bob slowly into sight. Rising above the white carpet was the brownish shape of Portsdown Hill. It had been a warm, dry summer.

  ‘But let me take a good boat’s crew, uncle,’ he went on, ‘and who knows… It looks like a good day again. The pleasant weather, my sweet tongue, the thought of the bounty, of prize-money… We are not the press, however. I shall not forget it.’

  He finished his tea as word was brought that the cutter was ready. His uncle waved him out with a muttered ‘Good luck’ – then called him back.

  ‘Mr Bentley,’ he said. ‘Good men we want, but bad will do. The people in this ship are villains and the sons of whores. But we can shape ’em. And William,’ he added.

  ‘Livestock too, my boy. We need more. We have far to go. You have the money?’

  William nodded and went on deck. He sniffed the air. A keen westerly, with the bite of approaching winter in it. A soldier’s wind; to Portsmouth and back to St Helen’s Roads with never a tack. He ordered the boat lowered.

  Thomas Fox whistled tunefully as he wandered through the mist towards Portsmouth. He was cold and the sheep were a nuisance, but he was happy. Soon the mist would clear completely, which would be a help. Two or three times he’d stepped off the track into the salty marsh, and his right foot was wet. The sheep behaved even more stupidly than usual in the mist, too. He’d led one by a string at first, hoping the others would follow. But now he walked behind them, swishing a stick, and occasionally barking savagely to great effect.

  The eastern side of the island, where Thomas lived with his parents and two sisters, was not good land, tending to dampness and desertion. As he walked along the track to more civilised parts, listening to the moaning of the sheep and the mysterious gurglings of the marshland, he dreamed idly of what he would rather do. Portsmouth was the good place to be. It was noisy, and dirty, and full of wild sailormen and their even wilder women. Even Kingston, he thought, as his track joined a bigger path that eventually became the main road through Kingston and on to Portsmouth, even Kingston would be better than the marshy hamlet in the east. It had an air of liveliness, of bustle.

  As the mist drifted away, the old bent spire of the Kingston church rose into view over the fields, and Thomas concentrated on keeping the sheep in a bunch on the wider road. The sun burst through, the mist rolled back like a carpet. Beyond the church the fortifications were becoming visible.

  From the seaward, William Bentley stared just as hard at the city that seemed to bound towards the cutter. To the east of it the land lay like a board, still sullenly holding a thin layer of white. But Portsmouth had a different whiteness, the whiteness of the stone defences. Between the Square Tower and the Round Tower, outside the actual entrance to the harbour, was the entrance to the city that the man at the tiller was heading for. The Sallyport.

  It was good sailing, but William felt a little guilty about enjoying it so much. He was a midshipman, not a pleasure-seeker. He had in his direct command two other mids – one of them at least thirty years his senior – and fourteen seamen. Possibly the only fourteen real seamen on the Welfare, he thought ruefully. He was off on a mission that could not be easy, would probably break the law in several places, and may well be totally unsuccessful.

  Watching the short green seas that leapt almost broadside on to the cutter, and huddling deeper into his boat-cloak against the constant spray, William considered the problem of the people. They were indeed a vile and ruffian lot, pressed scrapings from the bottom of the barrel, two-legged creatures of such awful lowness that they might just as well have been the animals that his uncle called them. He looked at the quiet figures ranged along the windward side of the cutter. Sturdy, steady fellows in neat clothes and pigtails. Good men, good seamen, all. Then he looked at Dolby, the grey-haired mid. Two pistols were outlined beneath his boat-cloak. With
out the threat of those, perhaps even these men would run.

  Some captains, William knew, found no hardship getting up a complement. A few posters, perhaps a handbill, a little music and the beating of drums. A ship could be filled in days. Prime seamen would plead to join, would be turned away. Not his uncle. Captain Daniel Swift, veteran of several brilliant frigate actions, courageous to the last drop of his or any seaman’s blood, had a reputation; but not the kind that filled a ship with volunteers.

  The cutter, swooping over the short green seas like a bird, approached the steep-to shingle beach and the black pier a trifle fast. William cleared his mind of sober thoughts and put it to the job in hand.

  ‘Luff her if you please, Dolby,’ he said crisply. ‘We’ll get the canvas off her and drop in under oars, stem first. We’ve dry work to do ashore, and dry we’ll be to start it.’

  As the boat headed into the wind and sea, and the big seamen moved with uncanny agility to stifle the flapping sails, he forgot his uncle’s evil reputation. In five minutes they would be in Portsmouth. It was his job to complete the ship’s complement. A job that was still unfinished after nearly four months.

  *

  Just before he entered the first scattering of houses on the edge of the city, Thomas Fox stopped for a spell. The sheep, stupid as they were, were good at stopping and nibbling. He climbed onto a hummock, pulled a long stem of dry grass, and sucked happily.

  It was well into the forenoon now, and the roads to Portsmouth were fairly busy. There were big ox-wagons, lighter carts, and innumerable foot-passengers, some coming, some going. Most of the traffic was for the hamlets on the island, but some of the vehicles made purposefully northwards, towards Portsbridge, the causeway, and the lonely turnpike that hauled steeply over Portsdown and on towards London. The sun was shining, and the crowds were noisy and generally good-humoured. Thomas was hailed several times, and lifted his bonnet in greeting, not because he knew the hailers, but because he was hailed.

  In fact he had little interest in the roads or the edge of the town.

  He was still far enough to the eastward to see the ocean (as he thought it) stretching from beyond the great common over to the Isle of Wight. On its white-capped surface lay the ships that were Britain’s defence. Mostly yellow, they were, and almost unbelievably big and noble. The humble merchant craft that threaded among them, lying to the steady breeze, seemed dingy and contemptible by comparison.

  Thomas sometimes thought he would like to go to sea, and in fact his family had connections with it. His cousin Silas, whom Thomas vaguely remembered as a tall, thin, fair man twice his age, was a marine. Probably in one of those ships he could see at anchor, if the truth were known. He hadn’t been seen by the family for a long age; there was a war on. It was, after all, he thought, perhaps not the life for him. They barely scratched a living as it was, even with his strong arms to help. And when did seamen ever get their pay? According to his aunt, no money had come to them on Silas’s account in memory; and he was a marine.

  He pulled his eyes away from the sea and spat out the straw. The wind chilled him through his old, threadbare coat. He watched a thin dog creeping on its belly towards one of his flock. Waited until it was near, then lifted a flint and hurled it. It hit the dog’s bared teeth with a bang. The dog screeched in pain and limped hurriedly away. Thomas took up his whistling again. Now. Let’s get to market.

  Although the city sprawled rottenly well outside its walls, he followed the road that led through one of the great turreted gates. Now he was in the main stream of traffic the job got rapidly harder. He tied the lead sheep with string, and hobbled a couple of the others. But it took all his skill, plus a lot of cursing, barking and shouting, to keep them half together. He wielded the stick ferociously, as well as his bare feet and the pocketful of stones he’d collected. But progress was slow. Every time a wagon passed, the sheep went blind with panic. Every time they spotted a patch of green they stopped and ate. As often as possible he took to the fields, but as he penetrated farther into the busy town the fields got fewer and the job harder.

  *

  The progress made by Bentley and his crew was even slower. Not that driving fourteen seamen was harder than driving twelve sheep, it was rather that he was looking for something but was not sure what. As they wandered off Broad Street into the squalid teeming alleys of Spice Island, the people melted away as if by magic. All the men seemed to vanish as the sailors turned the corners, while dirty-faced women, spitting streams of filth past their hands, watched them with open hostility. William felt furious, with these people and with himself. He muttered to Dolby: ‘My God, what scum these people are. What filth. To think we need such gutter rats to man the nation’s ships!’

  But Dolby looked away, and said nothing. Dolby was of these people. Evans, the other midshipman, who was nearer William in age and station, seemed embarrassed. His shrill voice filled the gap.

  ‘I agree, Mr Bentley. What scum indeed! Things are at a pretty pass.’

  And the fourteen seamen stumped stolidly on in silence.

  It came to William after some time that, press gang or no, that is what they were being taken for. He had quartered Spice Island several times and drawn a total blank. Of seamen there were none, or even merely able-bodied men, or youths, or cripples. He was beginning to feel foolish – and knew his Uncle Daniel wanted much of him. Halting the shore party, he gestured Evans to one side.

  ‘Listen, Jack,’ he said, ‘we’ve been rumbled in this place. I’m going to shed Dolby and the men and go recruiting on my own account.’

  Evans looked aghast. ‘But our orders?’

  ‘Orders you need not worry about,’ William replied. ‘I will take all responsibility. I have a free hand with Captain Swift on this expedition.’

  He did not have to spell it out. Evans knew well enough what it was like to be a favourite nephew.

  ‘I’m with you then, Will,’ he said. ‘Have you a plan?’ William grinned.

  ‘Less than half a plan. We’ll head for the Cambridge and have a bite and some gin. First’ – he did not drop his voice – ‘let’s get rid of that old fool Dolby.’

  Twenty minutes later, while Dolby and the boat’s crew waited cold and disconsolate on the windy side of Sallyport, Bentley and Jack Evans drank gin and ate hot mutton pies at the Cambridge. They talked gaily enough of the problems to be met with in dealing with the lower orders, but William was feeling less than gay. A coolish, even cold, sensation was growing in the pit of his stomach. He’d found no one or nothing so far. It had been a fool’s errand, a wild-goose chase. Could he face his Uncle Daniel Swift if he returned bare-handed? No. Could he think of an alternative? So far, certainly not. He half listened in irritation as Evans told some interminable tale of hanging a poacher he and his brothers had caught setting traps, and stared out of the upstairs window across High Street. The city was all a-bustle. The shipyards, the crowded mean houses, the clattering traffic moving towards the sea. And the market.

  Down towards the market, Thomas Fox drove his ragged band of twelve sheep. But at the entrance to the coach yard of the Cambridge he halted. The sheep halted too.

  They began to nibble the thin grass beside the gateposts. Thomas patted his pouch. It contained bread and a few pence. Bread and beer. He lifted his stick and beat the sheep into the yard. William Bentley finished his glass of gin.

  His laugh interrupted Evans.

  ‘Well well,’ he said. ‘Lambs to the slaughter.’

  Two

  ‘How much is that then?’ Thomas asked the pot-boy.

  ‘Nothing. Your friends inside’ve given.’

  Thomas lifted his mouth from the pot, and ale trickled down his chin. He looked at the grimy-faced little boy, who was grinning like a monkey.

  ‘What you laughing for then, boy?’ he said. ‘And what you talking about?’

  ‘Fine friends for a country lad to ’ave, I must say though,’ said the pot-boy. Before Thomas could reply, he bobbed back
into the taproom.

  Thomas took another pull at the pot and worried for a moment. He took a deeper pull. If the ale was going to mysteriously vanish, or something of that nature, he planned to get a good fill first. He looked uneasily round the yard. The sheep were standing in a corner, quiet. After a few seconds he gave up worrying. He reached into his deep pouch for the hunk of bread his sister had given him. When he looked up again there were two young Navy officers in front of him. He jumped.

  ‘Good ale, young fellow?’ one of them said.

  Thomas stood up clumsily and pulled the brim of his bonnet. His bread fell to the ground. He felt his face getting hot. He looked downwards.

  ‘Never mind the bread,’ the officer said. ‘Have you a fancy for a hot mutton pie?’

  ‘They’re very good. Highly recommend ’em,’ the other chipped in. His voice was high, almost squeaky. Thomas flushed redder. He looked after his sheep, but they were in their corner, unmoving. He mumbled something, not even he could hear what.

  ‘Hey! Boy! Pot-boy!’

  The smiling imp appeared, and bobbed like a bird in the doorway.

  ‘Your honour?’

  ‘A hot mutton pie for my friend here. And another jug of your best. And two gins.’

  ‘Aye aye sir, your honour!’ The boy went in giggling. ‘Sit down, sir,’ the first officer said. ‘Sit down and drink. We won’t bite you, won’t Jack and me. We’re here in friendship. We need your help.’

  Thomas could not sit down in such a pair of presences. He gripped his pot tightly. His mouth was dry. He raised it shyly to his chin, very slowly, almost as if he thought they would not notice him drinking if he moved gently enough. He slowly, slowly tipped the big black mug until his face was covered. He stared dimly at the two officers from under his eye-lids.

  He saw two young men in blue. The one who had spoken first was small, and golden-haired, smiling an easy, amused smile. He was smooth, in control. Thomas Fox was afraid of him, although he did not know why. The officer – only a boy, younger, almost certainly, than he – had an air of command, and something else. He seemed happy, exultant. He had bought Thomas beer for a reason. Thomas was afraid.