The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  A glance had passed between them, though, a glance of some significance. He had lost their interest and attention even before swallowing his last and dangerous words. The slight man touched the big one’s arm, but he was already quivering with laughter. It came out as a grunt and snort, and he ended it by taking in a bolt of snuff. Through the noise, the thin man’s voice cut nasally. He did not sound amused.

  “So, Mr Felton is it?” he said. Yorke felt the bottom of his stomach drop away at his mistake. “To you his name was Saunders, I believe.”

  “I…” He stopped. The big man trumpeted into his handkerchief.

  “Aye,” he said. “Aye, aye, aye indeed! His name is Saunders, and yours is Yorke. And his is Warren, and your proposition is a load of yeasty shit, sir! You are spies, you are Customs House, you have heard of our new ventures over here and you wish to put your oar in, isn’t that the truth?!”

  “Tssssssh!” went the other man, quietly but sharp. “Pah!” returned his pock-marked friend, but stopped. He stared at Yorke and panted, dabbing at his nose. They know our names, thought Yorke. It had surprised him for a moment, but it depressed his spirits more.

  “You need not die tonight, you know,” the thin man said, suddenly. His voice was low, but very clear despite the nasal timbre. “We want some information, that is all. Who set you on to us? It is not a lot to tell to save you, is it?”

  But dull rage burned in Yorke. He was leaning against the table, hardly capable of standing upright. Warren, on the floor, was breathing badly, stertorous but uneven. While this swine offered him a bargain.

  “Us?” he said. “And who are ‘us?’ Why should I tell you?”

  The words came badly through his cut and broken mouth, and the forming of the words sent agony shooting through his cheekbone. Nausea rose hard inside him, causing him to sway. The fat man waved a hand towards a chair.

  “Sit down,” he said. “Fall down, for aught we care. You will suffer long if you do not stop shrewing with us. We mean to know.”

  He did not sit, but waited for the nausea to pass. With it passed the rage, leaving him able to weigh up. He wondered if they would be allowed to live, whatever information they could offer these two men, but he did not think so. They had done enough now, probably, to hang, and they must know he would identify them the minute he was free. In any case, he had no information. He and Warren had been set on at Customs House, told what it was thought was happening, ordered to become a part of it and find the main men out if possible, to join them and win their trust until they could be destroyed. The intelligence that had started it would have been bought, for certainty. But from whom — most naturally — no inkling had been given him or Warren. His interlocutors must know this, too; it was the game.

  “I could give a list of names,” he said, “but what of that? How would you know I did not lie?”

  The fat man smiled.

  “Give us the list and we will see,” he said. “At least we will spare you until we have checked on them. Now there is an offer you should not slight.”

  “And if you find I lied, you kill me, naturally.”

  “Well, naturally.”

  “So to be sane I should tell the truth, and then you’d kill me because you would not have to check. My friend needs a physician, he is sorely hurt. If you have him tended, I will tell.”

  Fingers into fob, then snuffbox, then the nostrils, left and right. This time the fat man coughed, behind his handkerchief. The thin man drew out a watch and studied it.

  “I should say your friend was nearly gone,” he said. “It is late for you, as well, we have more revellers due here any minute. There is a surgeon in the house, though, if a little full of brandy. Now — what other men are out in your capacity? You should not be alone in this venture, I suppose? Who are the other officers, are they too masquerading as men of business like yourselves, where are they staying? Tell me that, and your friend will see the surgeon. He may yet be saved.”

  After several seconds, the fat man stood and walked around the table. He was rather deft of foot despite his bulk, and brushed snuff powder off his breast daintily as he moved along. He stopped in front of Warren, and extended one foot, in a neat, fine-leather shoe, until the point was very near his face. Yorke straightened his back, raised a hand; but weakly lurched. The big man smiled then, and withdrew the polished shoe. He turned back towards his companion.

  “We waste our time, George. I knew we should. Leave them to the dogs, they’ve served their purpose. Who else dares follow in their footsteps after this, of their persuasion or of ours? They’ve done the job.”

  “Have mercy at least on him,” said Charles Yorke. His voice was almost breaking. “He is a good, an honest, man.”

  There was a pause. The thin man looked at him with great seriousness upon his face.

  “As are not we all?” he asked. “Our trade and our desire, young man, is to bring no harm to anyone. Do not you understand that? There is still time to save your life, and even his perhaps. A man in your position could be worth his weight to us. In gold, you take my meaning? You are not dead. You will have time to think about it, will you not? I wish you luck.”

  Yorke had on a stubborn, bitter face but ten seconds later, before he had a chance to open mouth, the men were gone, and upon the instant three bully-boys came in to drag Warren to his feet, and both of them into the crowded yard. They were thrown on to a horse, their feet were triced underneath as usual, the whippings and the beatings instantly began. By the time they reached the next inn, to be dumped inside the brewhouse, he was almost sure Charles Warren’s life had fled.

  “Mr Warren?” he said. “Charles?”

  There was no reply, no sound of breathing, not the slightest fluttering of movement.

  “You are dead,” Yorke said. “They have killed you, Charlie, and they’ll soon kill me. Oh Charles, we live in wicked times.”

  Somehow that gave him comfort, to use a phrase his uncle and protector used. He thought of Sir Arthur and his great, beloved house. He had spoken of this mission to him, they had discussed its many dangers, which had now come true. He felt Charles Warren’s face, and it struck cold on his fingers. He leaned across and touched his cheek to it.

  “God be with you, friend,” he said. “I swear that you will be revenged.”

  SIX

  They left their horses at the Bear’s Paw, and they made their way to the stairs at Tooly Street on foot. It was not far short of midnight by this time, and Bentley was astonished by the level of activity around the bridge and river bank. He did not remark it, though: Holt took it with indifference, so he must do the same. Ditto at the inn, which lay just off the road Sam called The Borough a bare furlong from the bridge. William had imagined knocking up the people, or tethering their mounts to sort themselves out. But there were coaches, carts, foot passengers of every degree, touts for the water transport, and a throng of ordinary folk, behaving as if it were broad daylight. Sam had used a tout — told him their destination and agreed a price — and the man had shouldered Bentley’s bag and set off six paces in advance. Thank God; for Will, on his two legs once more, could hardly bear himself, to tell the truth.

  There was no more talk of Dr Marigold’s because both men were tired, but on the river, legs stretched, backs straight along each side of the sternsheets, they recovered the desire to communicate and to enjoy. Despite himself, William had excitement bubbling inside at the prospect of seeing his new ship, an excitement oddly mixed with dread. He had not wanted her, Sam’s reports of her were terrible, the Impress Service was the last thing in the world he would have chosen. But she was a ship, and he was joining her, he had been broken willy-nilly from his decision to watch his life glide by. No, not decision; he had not decided anything, just let it glide. The smell of the river, the dense foresting of masts along the north shore, dense clusters on the south, the constant traffic on the waters, of wherries, ferries, barges, keels and deep-sea traders slipping down, brought an unexpected gladness t
o his heart that he, too, was soon to be at sea. He had not, truly, known that he could miss it, or want to be in ships, at any rate. His own small boat was his love, his life in many ways, his talisman of sanity, but he had not known he hankered still for size. The tide was ebbing, and the two strong oarsmen shot them downriver at a cracking rate, and he was full of happiness and fear.

  “Jesu, Will,” said Samuel. “Isn’t she beautiful, this river? And what a bastard smell! Look! Over there. It’s a dead sheep, isn’t it? Or mayhap a shepherd!”

  More probably a dog, although now the moon was down the blackness was extreme. To William it was just a shape, blown and revolting, accompanied by a blast of corruption that made him gag, covering his mouth. Samuel did likewise, for fear of ague or some like infection from the foul air, although the boatmen rowed on heartily enough. Indeed the general smell was hardly less disgusting, and the surface of the ebbtide water was a litter of vile objects, dimly discerned. All around him on the banks were solid clustered buildings, outlined by lights, and on tiers and piers and buoys were ships, some discharging cargo despite the hour, all discharging their general filth to mix with the effluvia of the great city.

  Beautiful, he thought? But so it was, astonishingly so. It had a brooding aspect, the black water snaking, bubbling along with enormous muscularity between the crowding, crouching town and the dark hulls below the massed spars and upperworks, even the most silent of them somehow full of purpose and intent. Sometimes, also, the dully filthy smell was cut by gentle breezes, aromatic zephyrs like veins of purity sent, he imagined, from fields and woods and water not far beyond the teeming southern riverside. He fell to imagining the lower reaches, beyond where they were heading this night. Once below the giant city — near half a million of souls, so it was said — there would be wide open empty spaces to the estuary, then the sea. He could hardly wait.

  Near Deptford things were blacker, on the river and the shore, with areas of total darkness, flat shores bereft of human habitation or moored ships. As they raced down upon the area of the dockyard sparks of light appeared once more, and the loom of ships could be sensed and seen. There were fires in some places, and the smell of burning wood and melted pitch.

  “Sam? It is the middle of the night. Are men working here?”

  Holt laughed.

  “Some say they never work at Deptford,” he replied. “The shipwrights have their own disease, called ‘Wake me later.’ It will be fires set off in the day, most likely. Their business arms will be engaged in lifting pots if anything.”

  “What ship?” one of the boatmen grunted. It was the larboard man, a not unjovial type of forty years or so; who had not raised a smile, however, at Sam’s pleasantry about the dock workers.

  “Again?” said Sam, who had misheard.

  “What ship? This is Deptford, in one minute. If we overshoot we must row back agin the tide, and that should cost you. What vessel are you seeking?”

  “The Biter. She is a — ”

  “I know the Biter. Jack Gunning’s ship. So — you are the Press.”

  Both men rested on their oars, despite no spoken signal. Bentley saw clear dislike in their expressions.

  “Aye,” said Sam Holt, clearly. “We are the Press and you are watermen. I paid you fares, not the King’s bounty. No doubt you have protections, but we do not want to see’em, ferrymen are not for us. She’s over there, I see her. Beyond that pink.”

  Perhaps they had not been threatening, merely pausing to get their bearings on their target. Whatever, both fell to pulling straight away, to crab across the current. Bentley, vaguely relieved, studied the tiers ahead. Out of the darkness emerged a darkened ship, not long but bulky, with high bulwarks and high stern. No lights were apparent, but at her gangway two boats were moored, bumping gently against the high black side in the tideway. Still wordless, the boatmen spun their craft to head the flow, which pushed her sideways till they ranged beneath a boom rigged outboard from the gangway, with pennants hanging down.

  “The watchman does his job, I see,” Holt muttered. “She’s like a grave, if not so welcoming.”

  The boat bumped gently, as the bow man seized a pennant to steady her. Moving forward, Sam grasped the boom and jerked himself up to sit on it, ignoring the ladder down the Biter’s side. Now the ferryman did smile.

  “There we be, masters,” he said. “Go you up, sir, and I will pass your dunnage.”

  William, despite his tiredness and bruises, could still play the seaman, so he hoped, so swung himself up after Samuel, who by now was balanced upright on the boom and striding for the deck. Through the gangway in the bulwark, Sam turned to watch, then put his arms out to catch the soft bag as it flew. That dropped, he reached into a pocket and flipped a coin. Dark night, moving water; it was snapped out from the air like magic even as the boat crabbed sideways and astern.

  “Goodnight to thee as well,” said Sam ironically, as the silent men pulled off. They went for Deptford steps, he noted, in hope to get another fare, or maybe wait in a tavern till the hardest of the ebb eased off. William, beside him, felt live timber beneath his shoes, felt greater excitement, strange mixed sensations rise within him, his eyes only for inboard, the wherry and the river quite forgotten. The deck moved beneath him, and it was his deck. His eyes sought everything, as he became accustomed to the local dark. This was the Biter this was his. What sort of ship would she turn out to be? And what sort of man her commander, so unloved?

  That night, as Samuel had predicted, he was not to know. Sam shouldered his companion’s bag, and picked his way with care across the Biter’s waist. It was cluttered, filthy, strewn with half-cut wood, uncoiled rope, and spars. A topsail yard, it looked like, lying stripped of furniture, supported by the bulwark and by trestles, while from above loose cordage hung down in festoons, silent only by virtue of there was no wind to swing it. Bentley glanced aloft, and against the starlight saw confusion, yards akimbo, some sails but loosely stowed on them.

  “Are we called to sail tomorrow, Sam? Surely not, it would be impossible.”

  “Hey!” Sam shouted, not loud but gruff and threatening. “You there! Are you the watchkeeper?”

  There was a noise ahead of them, not unlike a pig at trough. A jumble of deck gear transformed before Will’s eyes into a sailor — nay, a shoreman, doubtless from the yard, a lanky, rheumy wretch well in his dotage, or possibly in drink. As he unrolled himself into an upright shape, a sweet unpleasant smell of body greeted nostrils. The man’s eyes were ringed in pink, gleaming in a sallow, whiskered face. Good Christ, thought William, let’s hope he’s from the yard. I have seen too many sailormen like him.

  “Do you know me?” barked Holt. “I am first officer here. You are asleep and drunk on duty. I will have you flogged.”

  If the threat had weight in it, the watchman failed to shrink with fear. He cleared his throat, and spat on to the deck — an act that William found shocking. The gob of phlegm gleamed, uncomfortably near his shoe, ignored by its projector and by Samuel, as if it had no weight at all, not even as a gesture. Sam made a movement of impatience, solely at wasted time.

  “Is the captain not on board?” he asked. “We are expected. Have the yard then done so little? It is extraordinary.”

  “Captain’s in his crib,” said the watchman. “Not yourn, though, master. Won’t be pleased to see’ee, neither.”

  “We’ll see,” Holt said, briskly. “Now get you to your post, you sot. I shall speak about this conduct to the yardmaster. Come, Will. Careful as you go.”

  As they moved aft, the watchman hardly stirred; till finally he merged into the dark from whence he’d come, seated beside a stack of lumber for a bottle or a sleep. Discipline, thought William, is unusual on this ship. Or then, mayhap the discipline he knew was the oddfish; he must wait and see.

  “Insolent old toad,” said Samuel, easily. “The power of command, eh William? With Kaye on shore I am in charge here, don’t you see? Which is why, doubtless, he trembled at my every
word.”

  “But he said the captain’s in his cabin.”

  “He said not ’ourn,’ he said the master. Gunning. In Deptford, as in anywhere I guess, who pays the piper calls the tune. The master’s in the captain’s cabin, where he should not be. At the very least I must check what’s afoot, Lieutenant Kaye is very stiff about his cabin, you will learn these little protocols. Catch hold your bag, I must not seem like a chapman, must I? Better still, let’s leave it on the deck. John Watchman there will keep it safe from footpads!”

  The Biter; although small, was not flush-decked, and they stood now at the poop-break, by a door. From around it light was leaking — that boded not well for the cabin in a seaway — and to his surprise William heard the piping of a flute, played lively but with several slurs, as if the man behind it had taken a glass or two too much. Before Holt raised his fist to knock, the tune was ended, and they heard applause, not many hands, and female laughter.

  “Here goes,” said Samuel, and he knocked. Looking rueful, he added: “That old sot was likely right, I guess. They won’t be pleased.”

  Behind the door was silence for a moment, then a strong, loud voice roared, “Who is that knocking?” Then, “Come you in!” The two men stood there, though, a thought too long. There were loud steps, the catch-ring rattled, and the timber door jerked open. “Ah!” said the voice. “’Tis you!”

  Sam was tall, but the denizen of the cabin was a greater bulk. He was dressed in seaboots, wide trousers and an open shirt, and his stomach had a dew of sweat on it. As he moved backwards, the light revealed his face as fringed in curls, as if a wig had never graced his head. His mouth was red, lips full, teeth shining in among the wetness. In one hand was a metal tavern-cup, the other one was empty. Not the fluter then, William inconsequentially thought.