The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  It was not a race, precisely, but they pulled like hell, with Will thrilling at each surge of power as the men dug in their blades. He took the tiller, to Eaton’s surprise, and ducked and wove her round the bigger breaking crests with great dexterity. For reasons he did not care to question both Behar and Tom Tilley had elected for his crew, but although they struck him as both dangerous and intractable, they were also the biggest of the Biter’s company, Tilley by some considerable margin. He took the stroke oar, and although he dug his blade in far too deep, his mighty strength compensated for the added difficulty, and indeed he had the ash shaft bending like a hazel switch. His deep-set, piggy eyes gazed piercingly into the distance over Wills head, and the breath rasped through his wet and twisted lips. Although they could have got there first, Will had them ease as they came inside the lee, which earned him a look of naked contempt from out the little eyes. Sam slacked off also, though, so Kaye’s could be the first to touch. The Katharine’s men, knowing they were fairly beaten, had put ladders overside, and warps to catch. Or maybe left them there, from the accommodation of the free trade lugger. Half Kayes men swarmed on board, then turned to ease his passage up if needed, then — with him on deck — Sam Holt, Jem Taylor, Eaton and Will Bentley scurried up, in a scrummage with their men. Josh Baines, an idle rat, was told off to watch the painters and stop the boats from coming up too hard against each other or the ship.

  Beaten they were, and beaten they appeared, in truth. The decks were worn and dirty, the canvas overhead bleached and sere, and patched in many places. The hold was open, and the well deck strewn with cases the smugglers had not had time to barter for and load, but there seemed hardly crew enough to handle it. There was a man on the quarterdeck who might be the captain, a younger officer abaft of him, a sailor at the helm, and half a dozen others forward, watching warily from the raised fo’c’s’le deck. The other thing that struck as odd was that the officers had pistols in their belts, while three seamen carried clubs. The Biter men, some with short cudgels at the belt, some with a cutlass doled out the day before, looked about them eagerly, waiting for a fight. To Will, the chances were invisible.

  Even Kaye was nonplussed by the sparseness of the reception. He moved aft slowly, glancing at the clutter from the holds. When he faced the captain he took up his normal stance, of well-fed arrogance. From a pocket inside his tunic he pulled out his warrant.

  “I have a paper here, sir,” he said pompously, “that explains my rights and duties. I am Lieutenant Richard Kaye, commanding HM tender Biter. You are required to present your people to me for the purpose I may select them for the service of the King. Any man with valid passport or protection is, of course, exempt, and I can promise you there will be no irregularity in my choice. Now sir, who are you, sir? Master, captain, owner? I would appreciate the courtesy of a name.” The captain of the Katharine was an old and tired-looking man. He was tall and thin with stooped shoulders, and his facial skin was pale and papery. He looked ill, as if he had been long afflicted, and his eyes were full of exhaustion, or pain. He did not extend a hand.

  “I am the captain. Captain James McEwan. There is nothing for you, sir. In twelve weeks at sea we have lost thirty, from the scurvy.” It was strange upon the deck, thought William. The Katharine, hove to, had settled in the troughs and taken up a rhythmic roll, while falling down to leeward slow but constantly. Each time her weather side rose high the wind cut off, then as it dropped, the chill blast resumed, sometimes with a spattering of spray. It was two rolls before Kaye continued his questioning.

  “So how many seamen do you claim are left, sir? Why do you carry arms? You are not so ill, I notice, that you cannot trade your owner’s hard-won goods. Or was that black lugger the undertaker’s men?”

  Some of the nearer Biters laughed, but their hearts were not in it. They wanted action and it seemed they would not get it, and they were impatient also, because they did not believe.

  James McEwan raised a hand as if to remonstrate, but then he dropped it to his side.

  “The lugger,” he said. His voice was indistinct. He tried to gather strength, to speak more clearly. “That’s why we carry weapons. For fear they — ”

  Then another voice cut in, and it was drenched in fury. Everyone was startled, not least Kaye, who jerked his large head back to find its source. It was the younger officer, two yards behind the captain, his face now flushed with anger, his left hand gripped among the mizzen shrouds.

  “For fear that they were murderers,” was what he said. His eyes were fixed on Kaye’s and he was almost panting. “We have lost our men, we are helpless. How did we know they only wanted contraband? How did we know they were not on for piracy, their ship looked like a pirate, they looked like blackguards, to a man. What should we do? Give up?”

  The old man made a gesture meant to calm. The officer’s lips were a grim line, breath hissing through his nostrils. Kaye was languid.

  “Pirates? Off the Essex coast, this day and age? Pah.” He turned to Holt and Bentley. “We do not believe them,” he said, almost grandly. “Take your men and do a search. The hold, the fo’c’s’le, don’t overlook the lazaret. Sankey, round up those men up forward. If any claim exemption, bring them to me with papers. No papers, no escape.”

  “They are all I have!” Captain McEwan’s voice was high and harsh, then cracked. He began to cough. Bentley and Holt, matching the reaction of their men, ignored it, on the run. Sam took the stern accommodation, Will the main hatchway, while the boatswain led a party forward to where the Katharine’s men would have their quarters. As Will went below, he saw that Kaye had drawn a pistol from his pocket, short but of a heavy bore. He also saw the younger officer move forward, and for a moment held himself from dropping down the ladder to the hold.

  “You should not do this!” he was shouting. “How can you pick on us when there is the enemy to fight! It is those blackguards in their lugger you should catch and take! We have been away a year or more! We have been decimated! Men! Do not let them touch you! Fight them off or you will go to sea again, but in the bloody Navy! Think of your women and your children, men!”

  William, transfixed, felt strong fingers grip his ankle. Tom Tilley’s mean eyes met his as he glanced down, the twisted lips expressing, maybe, humour.

  “Dost need a hand, sir?” It was bitter humour, that suggested he needed help on steep ladders like a landman or, implied, like Richard Kaye. Will brushed the hand off pettishly, and clattered down until he reached the deck. Outside the spill of light from the half-lifted cargo hatches ahead of him, his men, like shadows, moved off to disappear.

  There was shouting down below as well as up on deck, and he hurried forward fast but carefully for fear of losing touch and getting lost. The Biter men were greatly expert at his game, and frisked about like rats where he could only blunder in the dark. On one great beam he found a dim horn lamp, lashed hard for fear of fire, and cut it free with his pocket knife. This gave him some security from falling ten or twenty feet among the massed cargo that he had to walk across, but threw a glow ahead that scarcely helped at all. There were smells he did not recognise, except the smell of filthy bilges overall, and rustlings and groans among the close-packed bales and cases.

  Then, close, came shouts and screams, and the noise of beatings with fist and stick. A high yell, from a young voice, then a voice he recognised as John Behar’s, mouthing imprecations, corrupt and hard. Will, discouragingly, had a sudden memory of another man, an officer called Matthews who had died on Welfare after illegal impressment by his uncle, Daniel Swift. He remembered Jesse Broad, and Thomas Fox. Of a sudden, the dark oppressed him horribly, he had to catch his breath. Of a sudden, he needed air, and light, an end to beastliness and screaming. As he picked hurriedly towards the hatch again, two Biter men, Tom Hugg and Silas Ayling, emerged from between some cargo stacks, their faces beaming, while behind them came three bloodied seamen and behind them in their turn Tennison and Mann, who had a pistol, cocked and dangerou
s in such a space.

  “All sick, eh sir!” said Ayling. “They nowt but lying buggers, be they then!”

  By the time they reached the ladders they had eight lurkers rounded up, and up on the deck there were already seven more possibles. Two of them had been on the foredeck when the Biter boys had come on board, and to tell the truth they looked pretty sick, while the other four rounded up by Sankey had been let go again, two white-faced and yonderly, one aged sixty if a day, the last one with one arm and a twisted leg. They stood to one side, out of it, as the boatswain, Jem Taylor, demanded to know which of his five from their fo’c’s’le hidey-holes claimed to have passports, and if so could he see them. Sam Holt had not yet reappeared, but down below, Will had heard shouting from the dark aft section, possibly the lazaret.

  The captain of the Katharine was leaning on the binnacle, as if only the power of his mind was keeping him upright, and his mate and Richard Kaye could not be seen. There was a skylight, though, set in the quarterdeck abaft the mizzenmast, and suddenly an enormous row issued from its open wings. One voice, thick with fury, was the young officer’s, who was repeating his arguments of earlier with tremendous force. William heard the words “and you are in their pockets, that is why!” quite clearly, so loud it was practically screamed. He also heard “fight the French,” and “cowardice to take men off a ship like ours.” Then Kaye’s voice, which was as loud but without a cutting note, and choked with rage. Then there was a crash, another roar, and then, amazingly — a report.

  On deck, all human noise ceased instantly. Men had been listening, but others shouting, and one pale young sailor had been in noisy tears. They stopped, staring at each other, then round about. Then the captain, James McEwan, let out a ghastly croak.

  William, after a split instant, went for the aft accommodation ladder at a pelting run. As he dropped down towards the cabin he saw that Sam was halfway through the door, but had stopped himself from plunging through by catching at the jamb. Will hurtled into him, and both of them half fell in. They saw the young merchant officer stretched out on the deck back by the transom settle, with Kaye bent over him. One of the young man’s legs was shaking violently, but as they stood, it stopped.

  “Sir!” said Sam. “Sir! What?”

  “He shot at me,” said Kaye. He had turned towards them, but did not appear to see. His eyes were milky in his big, bland face, his lips in a kind of puzzled frown. “He shot at me. I think I’ve killed him.”

  As he moved back, the young sea officer was revealed, flat out and gazing upwards to the deckhead. His eyes were open but unseeing, and his chest was an enormous mass of blood from the heavy ball that Kaye had fired into him. Kaye had his pistol in his hand still, but in his left one. In his right was the long, old-fashioned weapon that both Sam and Will had seen earlier at the dead man’s waist. Kaye had his hands together, his left, hampered by his gun, covering the action of the other. There had only been one shot.

  “But sir,” said Holt. “We only heard one shot.”

  Kaye’s eyes cleared slowly, then he looked down at the pistols in his hands.

  “Aye,” he said. “He was primed for shooting, but I got there first. Look. Look, his gun is cocked.”

  He pulled his hands apart, one pistol in each of them. He held the dead man’s in his right, forward of the action, showing the cocked hammer and uncovered priming pan.

  “Poor man,” he said. “He called it on himself, but we must pity him. He was in such a choler, then he aimed to murder me. His pistol’s cocked, d’you see?”

  Holt first, then Bentley, moved slowly into the cabin. Outside, through the large stern windows, Will caught sight of the North Sea, grey and rolling, with white crests. Numbly, he studied it for a moment, then Kaye’s face, full of odd anxiety, then the poor dead man, lying there. His face was drained of blood, quite white, his mouth was open, he was very young, not twenty-two or -three. He was my countryman, thought Will. He was not the enemy, we were not fighting him. Oh, this is horrible.

  With a shock, he noticed men at the cabin door, Jem Taylor, Wilmott, Behar and Tilley to the fore. Only Tilley wore a grin, showing broken teeth as if it were a festive or a jolly sight. Not being officers, they did not come in.

  Then, with a sigh, Lieutenant Kaye turned from his officers, to his men, and dropped the unfired pistol on to the stomach of the bloody corpse.

  “Well come on, boys,” he said. “Enough of this. What is the tally, Taylor? There is still much to be done.”

  Then, before they left, he bent and picked the pistol up, and carefully uncocked it, and blew out the pan. Then he thrust it somewhere inside his thick blue coat.

  SIXTEEN

  There were seventeen prime seamen to put in chains when they got back to Biter, because not a single one of the Katharine’s sailors would volunteer, despite that their refusal cost them cash. “Prime seamen” was a cruel jest used by the Biter people, for most of them were anything but prime. They had suffered much illness in the East, and even those who had not died were weakened and demoralised, wanting more than anything in the world to get ashore, and home to those they loved or who would look after them. Geoff Raper gave them fresh food and good bread, and not just because he was a kindly sort. It had been found on many an occasion that homeward-bound men could be induced to volunteer if the food was good and plentiful. For the moment, the Katharines showed no sign of falling for this dodge.

  The leaving of the merchant ship had been as unpleasant as the time on board of her. Kaye had spoken to the captain when they had emerged on to the quarterdeck, even expressing a type of peremptory regret. James McEwan had been more stunned than anything, looking horribly to Will Bentley as if he might die himself, so grey and vague did he become. But when Kaye had suggested that he might perform a simple burial there and then, with aid from the Biter men, the old captain had refused with vehemence approaching rage, and screamed at Kaye to go, and take his “villains, worse than pirates, villains!” with him. Moments later he had changed again, and almost pleaded with the Navy man not to take all the seamen he had rounded up.

  “We are not enough,” he cried. “Sir, I beg of you, we are not enough to get this ship to port! I must have men to hand the sails, to anchor!”

  All told, he had fifteen — unless more able hands were hidden below, which was eminently likely. Certainly Lieutenant Kaye thought so. He glanced round the crew — the aged, the infirm, the crestfallen, the hangdog — and let out a well-bred snort.

  “But you have enough to undertake your own burying,” he said. “Sir, my patience is worn out with you. You can square your yards with this fine lot, you can drop your anchor in the offing, you can signal for the pilot that you must engage. Hold! I will be generous with you. Mr Bentley, a commission! Keep Tilley there and, ah, Behar is it? Two fine strong lads, and — oh, have Mr Eaton, too. There you are, sir! One officer, one warrant, and two of my strongest men. Now are you satisfied? You will not come to grief like that, will you?”

  William saw through the ruse, even if the merchantman did not. If he kept all the Katharines on deck and got her under way, who knew what might not creep out of the woodwork, thinking the coast was clear? He wondered at the illegality of undermanning a ship so drastically, but then Kaye’s attitude to law was wondrous in any way. A picture of the young man’s corpse came to his mind, and he thought he heard Kaye say again, “He aimed to murder me.” Oh how I wish, thought Bentley, that I had asked him, “Why?”

  It took ten minutes to reorganise the boats’ crews, and another fifteen to get the pressed men all on board. Tilley and Behar were pleased at first to see their shipmates go, then furious that Bentley had guessed their plan to go below and search out liquor, and got Eaton to scotch it. Between them they must have been three times his weight, but Eaton had a firearm, while they had only cudgels. Not only that, but the stocky, wild-haired man had gained his warrant, it appeared, as much through his way with men as through sea ability. He faced them at the after scuttle and
there ensued a silent battle that Will guessed the content of, but did not know. Then Eaton told them off to man the braces as the Katharine’s men were shaping up to do.

  Bentley joined the captain at the con and watched with little passion as the yards were hauled round to fill and take her off the wind and sailing. A cable’s length to leeward Biter rode, still hove to, with the first boat already back and hooking on. By the time the Katharine, slow and unwieldy, was under way, Gunning had got his ship paying off, increasing sail, and the small boats strung out astern of her for the tow. Will imagined Richard Kaye climbing up the tender’s steep, dark side, and hoped, absurdly, that he had fallen down and drowned. His mind wrestled with the problem of the man below, lying abandoned in a pool of blood, and wondered what could, should, would happen to Lieutenant Kaye for it. Nothing; the word kept ringing in his head, a knell. Nothing, and why not? Kaye had killed someone, and said it was in self-defence, and left him with a complex knot inside his skull. I do not believe you, Richard Kaye, he told himself. I do not believe you. But in this life, in this Navy life in England, who will find you out?

  The wind was strong, but not so strong, and Biter soon creamed away from them under a full press. The Katharine still had much canvas stifled, and her captain was determined he should not shake it out to push her up to speed. He consulted Bentley, as if he were the commander and Katharine his prize, but Bentley replied frostily that such matters were naught to do with him; he was there to render aid if necessary, as were his “men in lieu.” Over half an hour the sails were snugged, and the tired ship lumped along towards the north Kent coast, with Biter dwindling into the ruck of boats and ships converging on the estuary. It was Will’s assumption that Kaye would ply the Impress trade with any hopeful-looking vessel, then come back to pick them up when McEwan had dropped hook and signalled for a pilot.