by Jan Needle
“Hell, Sam,” he said, “it is a gang of pirates. Tell me again how we’re within the law.”
He said it as a joke, and Sam responded with a laugh, but grimly.
“The King needs sailors, but the dogs won’t come,” he said. “Merchants want protection, but they won’t give up their sailors; indeed, they pay them more than we do and they let them go on shore when they’re not sailing. The law is this, Will: certain people we must leave alone, like children, watermen, sailors outward bound, apprentices, bona fide men of business, clerics, all persons with a pass that says they’re clear. Those we take, we pay; we offer bounty before we force them, and on board we give them money in advance, or a ticket for it, anyway. Look at it in this fashion — the Navy needs the men, and if we don’t do it someone else will, harder. Alternative: we starve.”
The men were gathered round them now, and some were getting restive. There were eight of them, led by the boatswain Taylor, the small, squat man of Irish face who seemed to merge rather than lead, which may have been bare wisdom in the case of one or two. One — named John Behar, Will was to learn — was tall and bony, his loose limbs all point and knuckle, his face a picture of affronted cunning. Tom Tilley was yet larger, of enormous bulk and heavy tread, with deep-set, unpleasant eyes and a twisted mouth. Indeed, on close inspection, they were all formidable, all held their cudgels with anticipating love, and all were mixing for a violent fray.
“We’re ready, sir,” said Taylor, as if summing up a mood. “We’re fit to crack some heads for King and country!”
Taylor’s bold statement was maybe meant to mock them, and as he issued it, he and his cohorts moved forward as a body, crowding them towards the entry port. William was aware of the issued pistol heavy at his waist, and he saw Sam’s knuckles tighten on his club. But they were pushed backwards — not touched, but moved as if by a human tide — and emerged almost willy-nilly through the port on to the pontoon alongside which the cutter lay.
Outside the air was clean and warm, although a certain nip of autumn touched the skin, and the smell off the river was ten times sweeter than the reek inside the hulk. She lay above them like a sheer black cliff, not a light along her length save at the quarter windows, behind which Lieutenant Coppiner presumably sat and nursed his hate and grievances. And waited, thought William, like a spider in the centre of his web for flies, or sailors, or innocents abroad, to be thrust into the sticky, massy darkness where he could feed on them.
“Sir?” The boatswain glanced at him, a sideways look. He was already at the tiller, and two men were holding the pontoon, waiting to let slip. William lightly stepped on to the gunwale, then joined his fellow officer in the well. The cutter — without an order — was freed, sliding sideways and outwards from the receiving hulk until all the oars were shipped and clear and the men began to pull towards the shore. Silhouetted against a starry sky she was enormous, high from the water because empty of all heaviness, and sporting only one stump of mast, abaft of midships. The rising moon threw a white glare as it slipped from behind a cloud, but she still had no reflected beauty. She had been a ship, and lovely as ships are. Now she was a floating, rotten dungeon.
“Are there men on board?” asked William. “Surely not just Coppiner?”
“That ent a man,” said Jem Taylor, unexpectedly. “That be a black spirit, run away from hell.”
“He’s a bastard, sir. I beg your pardon.”
There was laughter from the boat’s crew at this — William had no idea who had spoken the latter sentences — and no sense at all the apology was meant. Sam Holt was smiling, too.
“Just Coppiner, and a crew of four or five or so. His imps, perhaps, if Jem is right about their master! They’re wrecks, or mad, or drunkards anyway, there’s no gainsaying that, they act as jailers, to his command. Us and the other tenders provide for him, and bring the muscle when it’s needed. Tonight, say. We’ll go out and fetch them in, and Jem here and the lads will chain them in the pens while you and me go aft with Coppiner to his office and sort out cash and papers. We’ll sign them over, he’ll sign them in, we’ll go out for more.”
“Ho ho,” came from the middle of the boat, quiet but distinct.
“Depending on the time and circumstance,” said Samuel, unperturbed. “There’s none on there tonight, if that’s what you mean, though. I guess our being here means there’s a flurry on. What did he say she’s called? The Claris, was it? I don’t know the ship.”
A voice from forward: “Forty gun; Captain Anderson. She lost a hundred in the Straits. The smallpox.”
Further aft: “Then sixty more from scurvy, coming home. She lies at Sheerness.”
“Well, we can’t ship ’em down there,” said Samuel, cheerfully. “That’s one bright aspect, if we find some rogues. On short-haul trips like this,” he explained to Bentley, “pressed men can be a deal of trouble. Drunk, furious, with friends and wives and sweethearts ready to row out and take them off of us. But Biter’s stuck down in Deptford, so we take ’em back to Coppiner and away like buggery. He has some soldiers, of course, as well as his imps, eight or ten or so, in case of boarding parties in a rage. But we’ll sleep like quiet babies in our beds.”
It was black once more, the moon behind a bigger cloud. They were slipping past moored merchant ships, and ahead of them were wharves, and yards, and docks. Huddled houses right down to the bank, and wherry traffic, watermen’s boats, activity. Bentley did not know the river, but this was seaman-land, and with a vengeance. Dark though the night was, the sense of life and fervour was enormous, growing greater as they approached the public stage. One end was set aside for mooring boats, and Taylor nosed the cutter in amongst them as the bow man made ready to put a rope ashore. There were two or three shoremen on watch, but none offered to take a line. A Navy cutter with armed men aboard most likely meant the Press. William saw one of the watchers, younger than the rest, merge with the dark and vanish out of sight, and as they climbed the stair into the dock-street proper he noted that — although the place was swarming — men in sailor’s garb were few, and kept their distance.
Holt stopped when they reached the level, with the men all gathered round him. About them moved foot passengers of every degree — except that they all were pretty low, thought William. Costers, tradesmen, servant-types, beggar-boys and merchants’ runners. Carts also, drawn by oxen, and mules packed with goods. He studied them,
wondering how they were to choose potential targets, but Holt and the gang ignored them. They had other fish to fry.
“Now lads,” said Holt, “the Old Top Drum’s the nearest, so we’ll go there first. There’s a way in down that little jigger behind the skin-man’s shop as I remember. Am I right?”
“Plain to see where’ee do drink, then,” came a mutter from the back. Holt dutifully joined in the chuckle.
“We’ll split up into three till we get close,” he continued. “That way the spies won’t maybe spot us for the Press. We’ll have to go in front and back when we’ve joined up, so we’ll use the pie shop as a rendezvous, it’s half a furlong from the alehouse. We’ll meet there in ten minutes, divide in two — and pincher them.”
“Lawks, I ’ave forgot my fobwatch!” said another voice, and the laughter was renewed.
“Do it by your thirst,” said Holt. “Ten minutes is a long time till a drink. If we strike lode I’ll stand you one.”
Will went with him and Peter Tennison, a thin man who looked more like their servant than a man-catcher (he stank of liquor, also, from his night spent in the scuppers), and they kept their weapons obscured from the public gaze. Sam said the level of activity in these streets was not unusual, despite the lateness of the hour, but that the men they wanted would, by now, be well ensconced. The “spies” he’d mentioned were usually small boys, who watched for Press patrols by local custom, and ran from pub to pub to tip men off. Hence, he added, if they did badly at their first stop, their chances of success would be diminished, at least for hours.
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“Dead drunkenness is our best ally, Will; that and surprise. Lucky for us that Jack likes to sup on liquor.”
The gathering outside the pie shop was well done. Will saw it up ahead — still open, in the London way — with not a Navy man in sight. As he and Sam and Tennison arrived, so did Jem Taylor, from an alley-way, then from across the road came John Behar and Tilley, on their own. Jem Taylor whistled, and his crew showed themselves, ready and keen. Sam took the two big men, with Tennison and Silas Ayling, and put Taylor’s team in Will’s command. It took three seconds, but “Quick!” he said. “Mr Bentley and Jem Taylor through the back, us through the front. Now — look alive!”
Plucked by the arm into the jigger, William found himself pursuing Taylor and three others through liquid muck and garbage, the “leader” damn near failing to keep up. He was well shod, they were ill, but the loathsome nature of the track worried them not at all, nor fear apparently of jagged stones or cutting things. Within two hundred yards they found a wall, and within the wall a wicket. There was no ceremony of seeking a response. Billy Mann, Josh Baines, Alf Wilmott combined their weight and threw it at the door, which clattered open — probably unbolted. In the darkness of the yard a blacker shape dashed for the wall, ascended it like a topman, and was gone. First loss.
“Draw your pistol, sir!” urged someone, hoarsely. “Shoot’m if they tries fer’t run!”
This was mad advice, and Bentley knew it. He drew his club out though, and forged — again a follower — through the cluttered yard. There was a dog, within an outhouse, barking ferociously, crashing against the inside wooden wall, a huge and heavy dog. But they were past, and Jem Taylor booted in the back door to the scullery, and they were in. Here was dark, also, and Will heard screams and bellowing, and glimpsed one fat old woman, and a girl or so. He smelled sweat, sharp and excited, come off one of the men, sudden and distinctive, and Baines, a small man, rather ratty, was wild-eyed, almost yapping, like a spaniel at a rabbit’s throat.
To William, though, it quickly seemed a useless way to take men unawares. Like other alehouses he knew — more so than most, indeed — it was a warren, of doors and passageways and nooks. The men were wild and quick, but their quarry, in the main, was quicker. As they bundled down one long passage, side doors sprang open, heads popping out like actors in a play. Bodies ditto, to scamper off away if they had need to. While others, men and maids, moved out into the thoroughfare and wedged in solidly, stoic in the face of threats and cutlasses.
In the biggest parlour they found Samuel and his crew, and the makings of a general brawl. Here were prime seamen, no doubt of that, and many of them almost incapable. There were others though, whose faces were alive with joy at the roughhouse in store. At the moment William put his face into the room a bottle missed it by an inch or less, smashing on the doorpost to spray him with a spirit and some shards of glass. Baines, behind him, ducked underneath his arm and shot across the room like a dervish to pay the thrower back. Blood was pouring from a gash beneath his eye.
“Cease this brawling!” shouted Holt, his voice sadly unrewarding. “We are here in the Kings name! I offer bounty for all able-bodied men, and three months’ wages in advance!”
Wrong time, wrong place, wrong men, it would appear. The room was full of sailors, and they were full of drink and cash and (judging by the doxies at their sides) explosive lust. However attractive wages and bounty might sound to destitutes, these men were here to spend. William, to his surprise, found himself propelled into the middle of the room, firm hands had pushed him from the ruck, and he was face-to-face with roaring homeward-bounders.
For an instant he was seized by fear, and for the same bare second the parlour, in his brain at least, went deadly silent. In face of him, burly as a bear, shoulders forward in a fighting crouch, there stood a man about to spring, to tear him into pieces. The lurch inside himself was sickening; the red-eved, raw glare, the drunken jubilation on the savage face took him back to other places, other violent men. Neither Samuel — who might have tried — nor the Impress crew — who might not? — had time to move before the figure, as swift as it was massive, came at him with hands outstretched like claws. William saw both the bare feet come off the ground, the man was flying. And the noise came back, an enormous roar burst on his eardrums.
William was calm as ice now, and each move he made outstripped his conscious brain. As the face came towards him, level with his own, his arm with weighted club swung back and sideways in an arc behind his right leg, then flashed across his own face to strike the sailor’s with a crashing blow. Then, neat as a dancer, the small blond man stepped back and sideways as the flying ape flew on, to scatter the press-gang and crump into the wall. Another roar arose, half of it cheers, and his men barged past him into the centre, their own clubs jubilantly raised.
The man was breathing blood from nose and mouth, but was conscious. His eyes caught William’s, and he smiled. But surely not, thought Will; but surely not? A young woman came at him then, more claws, more hatred, but John Behar’s hand, a bone and sinew nightmare, caught her by the neck of her gown, which tore across to reveal a full and handsome bosom that, by dexterously turning her, Behar managed to catch in one hand, then in both. Another wench — happily, thought William — then bit his leg.
The fight was general, and impossible. Everyone, save William and Holt perhaps, enjoyed it immensely, although some of the women screamed, as if for form’s sake. Will could not tell at all if they were going to “gain the day,1’ or how they’d know, or tell. Then the third man not enjoying it, the man who owned the furniture and glass, put an end to it (though not immediate) by dousing all the candles and the other glims. There was a fire, for the friendly fug it made presumably, but it glowed dim. After some minutes men rolling on the floor were the only combatants, and that died off rapidly. Very soon the parlour seemed less crowded, as it was in all reality: there was little that could stop those bent on going, for nobody could identify his nearest fellow, certainly. When the landlord brought in fresh lights, there were the press-gang and five other men, three on the floor, one seated at a broken table, one standing. Five men whose ages added, at a guess, to damn near three hundred years, and one of them with only half a starboard arm.
“What is the bounty, sir?” asked one of them, and the boats crew screamed with mirth.
“Five pound to age of forty,” Holt improvised. “After that, a whore s dug or a groat in hand; it is yours to choose. Landlord — a jug of ale here, and some cannikins. What drink you, Mr Bentley, wine or brandy?”
Josh Baines the rat, and Tilley of the twisted mouth and giant hams, were facing Will, close in.
“You got yon bastard with your bully stick a lovely clout,” said Tom Tilley, in a sort of rough admiring way, if grudging. “You didn’t look the man to smash his teeth, begging your pardon. Sir.”
“You should have got him on the ground though,” added Baines. “You could’ve cleaned the lot out easy, swung from above. Toothless men don’t bite, they say.”
Despite himself, Will could not control his face. His feelings were disgusted, and the men could plainly see it. Baines merely sneered and turned away, but Tilley’s expression, already ambiguous, grew visibly more dark and dangerous. The deep eyes glowed, with bitter antagonism. William, whose disgust was with himself much more than them, yet clearly saw the dangers. He had known too many men like this.
“You step above yourself, the pair of you,” he said. His voice, though light, rang with authority. “If scum have teeth want smashing — any scum — stand back. Baines! You, sir! Turn and face me!”
Baines did, and all Navy eyes were on the two of them. Will stared at him, until he dropped his eyes; in truth, no major battle.
“Aye, sir?”
“Keep your mouth shut with me until your opinion is solicited. Or you might taste my lead-lined stick some time. And you too, mister. You shall not presume.”
Afterwards, after the Old Top Drum, they tried the o
ther taverns Coppiner had named, then three more possibles. They took the five old sailors they had caught — a hot Press was a hot Press, and the King’s ships had to sail, whatever — although one of them slipped his bonds while they assayed their business at the Nag. They got three more, one young and prime and half-dead drunk, who said he had a passport although he could not find it, but did next morning sober; so good a one that even Coppiner made haste to let him go, they later heard. Three more from seven alehouses, all of which had mysteriously emptied as they chanced along, and in terms of proper men, in Bentley’s book a wasted night, completely, utterly.
But he did not converse with Holt about it until much afterwards, until they had rowed downstream at last to where Biter lay silent on the Deptford tiers. In the boat — its crew half drunk and rowdy, but still with ears — he kept his mouth shut, except on lighter matters than the Press. Samuel was quite euphoric, and had suggested, despite the lateness of the hour, that they should give the men their liberty, and go themselves to Dr Marigold’s. He jested, though, for Kaye had ordered them straight back, and Swift had been a brooding threat hung over them. Both Samuel and Will had figured earlier that the sudden onset of conscientious duty Kaye displayed in sending out a gang had something to do with Swift’s presence on the Biter. Even in the people’s eyes he had glittered like a diamond, although he’d stood completely at his ease upon the quarterdeck then disappeared below.
The ship was dark, the ship was guarded by the sleeping yard night-watchman only, on their return. John Behar woke him cruelly with a kick, then the men tumbled to their hammacoes, waking their fellows who had stayed on board and yarning for a while. Sam and William listened outside the cabin, although no officers’ boats were at the boom. Lieutenant Kaye and Captain Swift were at the fleshpots maybe, perhaps even at the Rondy, at any rate not here. Sam went in boldly, for a bottle, and jumped nearly from his skin at a sudden scuttling from behind a curtain, like an enormous rat. It was Black Bob, naked in the half-built giant’s bed, starkly visible in the white light of the dropping moon.