The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  “I lost my eye to Frenchmen in a fair battle.” His voice remained low, but it was firm. “A little privateer, sailed very well, shot very well. The rest of me was spoiled by the Spaniards, on land, in prison. I am not so keen on them.”

  “Ah,” said Sam.

  A small cry came from beneath them, escaping through a port, or cabin skylight. A small, low cry, full of unhappiness and pain.

  “Less inclined to drunkenness than us, though,” went on Kershaw, his voice only slightly changed. “More amenable to being told to keep the peace.” He paused. “Some men are very bestial, you know. They are very much like beasts.”

  “Well,” said Sam, “I suppose we’ll meet ’em someday, me and Will. In the meantime, we are off to fight the English, there’s a thought. I wonder what Slack Dickie would do if threatened with a hardnose merchant broadside. What think you, William?”

  William was silent and it had been noticed. His thoughts were with the black child down below, the sad child and the fleshy man who owned him. He knew in theory what might be going on, but could not understand it. His experience was small, and Lieutenant Kaye was keen on whores, or any woman.

  “Beg pardon? I am miles away.”

  “Hah!” said Sam, but nothing more.

  “They go well armed, some Indiamen,” said Kershaw, keeping up the conversation. “Better than a tender anyhow. Better than that Katharine we stopped.” They were all uncomfortable about the noises from the cabin. When something splashed to windward, a jumping fish or porpoise maybe, they sauntered over there, the captain’s holy spot, when he was not busy down below. “There was a case some years ago with one, pitched battle with the Press and one or two men killed. The judge took sides against the Navy, I believe, but nobody was hanged.”

  They stayed conversing for the best part of the night, usually a pair on deck and one below to snatch a sleep, and for Will and Sam the time passed most pleasantly. Sam raised the business of him tutoring them in navigation at one stage, with the implication he was there to spy on them put up so clearly that Kershaw, an honest man it seemed, could not pretend he’d missed it. His crippled features altered to amused acknowledgement, but he did not make some startling admission.

  “I think you’ll find that Daniel Swift has another man in mind than you,” he answered. “He implied to me, or so I read it, that in Mr Bentley he reposed his trust. I assumed that you, sir, might be engaged to spy on me!”

  “No!” said Will. “But… I don’t know, the other man is Kaye, is that correct? I don’t think it’s a secret to say he thought Kaye needed smartening? But…”

  “But Christ!” said Sam. “No man could call him wrong on that score, could they? So Mr Kershaw, did Captain Swift put no charge on you at all, concerning us? I can scarce believe that!”

  Unfortunately though, the talk of Swift, the tone of rising banter, was affecting the nervous man adversely. His face was clouded, and his stoop was more pronounced, as if he was withdrawing from the conversation, while standing still. They saw him so infrequently that they’d almost forgotten their first impression, that he was as timid as a ghost. It was clear he wished he had not spoke so freely.

  In the east the dawn was rising rapidly, and Gunning, against all expectation, chose this moment to burst back into life, and take the Biter with him. Lurched might have been a better word, for he came into their vision from out the forward scuttle like an unfolding knife, shouting loud orders back across his shoulder. He had a bottle in his hand, and the object of his wrath was Jem Taylor, the stolid boatswain, who was not a jot put out. Taylor, if drunk, did not show any signs, and before too long had passed there was a man to helm, hands were tailing halliards and braces, and Geoff Raper’s galley stovepipe was belching smoke. Straight up, to be sure, for the windlessness continued, but not a man jack expected that to last for long. Kershaw, without another word, had disappeared below, leaving Will and Sam to watch the strange activity almost disconsolate, so divorced it seemed to be from them. But as the light grew so did a breeze, and out of the fading darkness ships appeared, first few and close, then farther off and many, mainly fishermen or trading barges, but with taller masts, white sails, dotted here and there. Soon Kent was visible, three leagues or so, and the Biter was leaning to a good north-easterly and throwing foam. After an hour, even the captain deigned to come on deck.

  They plugged south all that day, moving across to check out larger vessels beating up, enjoying the wind advantage that made their task so easy, and by mid-afternoon were pretty sure they’d found one of their reported fleet. She was a good-sized merchanter, laden deep, with fronds of greenery they could spot through glasses from considerable distance. Weatherbeaten too, with the sails bleached by weeks or months of southern sun. From the ports they counted she had at least eight guns, and as Biter bore down close on her, they could see that knots of men had gathered round the pieces, almost as if they meant to clear away for action.

  Will and Sam, leeside of the quarterdeck, watched Kaye watching her from his windward point, wiping his brow occasionally. His face was pale and blotchy from the night’s debauching, and he was in the mood for trouble and unpleasantness. No shared breakfast today; he’d nodded curtly in acknowledgement of their polite good mornings and then ignored them. One thing about him, Sam said laconically — he did not need advisers to help him make his bad decisions, he was his own fool in entirety.

  “Do you think they’d go so far as firing?” Will asked. “It must be bluff?”

  “They have a good excuse,” said Sam. “They’re clearing just in case we turn out to be a private Frenchman. Our colours count for naught in these waters, everyone flies false on principle. Did you not hear about the French frigate, oh not so long ago? Engaged a Netherlander off the South Foreland, brought down her mizzenmast, lost her fore and half her bowsprit, went in hand-to-hand and called it off when the first lieutenants met in the chains and knew each other, went to school together, Canterbury I think. They were both English, like their ships. Big to-do!”

  Will laughed, unsure if it were true or not. But he could see the trader’s point. The Biter was not armed much more than adequate, and might sheer off if shook at with a heavy stick enough. Kaye, to give him benefit for some sense, had made no move to order his guns readied. But there was still time in plenty. Despite the good wind Biter was slow, and the East Indies man was moving upwind slower yet.

  “Mark you,” Sam added, “you’d have to be a bloody pessimist indeed to think this sad old tub was really a French privateer. Built for lugging coal and the hold rigged out to make good sailors think they’ve gone to hell in handcuffs. Slack Dickie’s glancing at us, hoping to catch us shirking off our duty. Time to break the swords and pistols out, I think.”

  The action, when it came, was more a mess than glorious. In the last half-hour, as the two ships closed, the Biter signalled her intentions exceeding clearly, and the Noble Goring, as the trader was bizarrely named, ignored them with plodding insouciance. Kaye’s guns were manned, although not shotted, but his colour rose as the gap grew smaller and the trader’s captain, quite visible at the con, made not a move to bring her to, or ease a sheet, or deviate in any way at all from either his course or his intention. Kaye’s colour rose, but John Gunning, at the Biter’s con, almost on the helmsman’s back indeed, showed signs of gibbering.

  “Give her a shot!” he shouted, when his breaking point was reached. He turned to Kaye, his face congested, both hands clenched beside his cheekbones. “If he goes past, how will we claw back up to him again!”

  Kaye turned large eyes on him as calmly as you please, expression supercilious. He was intent on asserting his command, that had become quite plain. He was as near as damn it sneering.

  “You will cut across her bow and give the fool a fright,” he said icily. “Then round up handsomely and lay her alongside. I suppose I can trust you to do that, Mr Gunning?”

  “Well,” said Sam, for Will’s ears only, “you’re a wizard in a boat.
Could you do it?”

  Will’s stomach was knotted with excitement. The ships were careering down like two mad bulls. Two madmen in command, no one was giving way. He drew his breath in sharply.

  “Aye, with a handy ship and handy crew,” he said. “Not drunk, though; never in the world while drunk. Christ, Sam, he don’t believe we’ll do it! Look at him!”

  The captain of the Noble Goring, as if waking from a peaceful sleep and finding it a nightmare, was rushing towards his helmsman to tear the wheel out of his hands. He was shouting things they could not hear, and men were scurrying to sheets and braces. Instead of hauling hard up, as the race demanded and the Biter men expected, he spun the wheel to put her head to windward while his crew — good, fast men despite their worn appearances — braced main and foreyards round at such a speed they went aback instantly, with a battery of explosive cracks. Tacks were not raised, so presumably the old man — and close-to he was old, maybe sixty — had decided belatedly to stop dead in his tracks, not go about on to the other tack, in case the Navy mad dogs sent vessels, men, and all his precious cargo to the bottom.

  “Fuck,” said Sam. “And one gun shot across his bow would have done it like a dilly. Now watch out, Mr Gunning! Avoid him if you can.”

  That was the only option, sensibly — to jig past if possible, and slip away downwind and then regroup. The Noble Goring lay in an amazing carpet of green weed that waved out from all sides as she stood ashake, the seamen attempting to brace yards round to heave her to before she smashed her gear. But Gunning, so drunk smoke from his ears and nostrils would not have been surprising, still thought that he could fling his ship about, turn on a half a guinea, douse sails and lie along her side as neat as in a dockyard.

  “Hard down!” he bellowed, pushing the man aside and spinning spokes himself. “Brace all to weather! Raise tacks and sheets! Prepare to grapple him!”

  Far too late, his people far too fuddled to respond in time, not possible to begin with, maybe. The Biter slid past the Noble Goring’s bowsprit almost close enough for it to catch her weather shrouds, then she rounded up more like a floating hayrick than the swagger yacht Jack Gunning seemed to think he had control of. By the time they’d reached the waist they were not pointing bow to bow as he’d intended, but lay at right angles, with Biter moving in, not fast but with implacability. Men frantically tried bracing yards aback to stop her, but the wind was wrong, her set was wrong, and Noble Goring, inevitably, began to fall off from her upwind position, sideways into the Biter’s bow. Bentley caught sight of Kaye, mouth wider than his eyes, his hand gripping the weather rail which now was at the lee, not capable of moving.

  Had it not been at the waist they hit, the bowsprit sliding almost neatly in between the fore and mainmasts, their damage must have been much worse. As it was, the substantial sides and bulwark of the eastern trader absorbed their stemhead thrust with little more than a grinding judder, moving slowly as the Biter was by now. The sound of crunching, splitting timber and tearing sail went on interminably, accompanied by screams and shouting like a riot at a country fair. Then, in a sudden quiet, just as the Biter stopped her forward movement and began to disengage herself and slide astern, the fore topsail yard, bumped and pulled and jostled in its parrels, broke at the truss. The starboard arm came slicing down like nemesis, and smashed Eaton’s ginger head into a bloody pulp between his shoulders, then covered him with canvas in an instant shroud.

  Gunning responded to his great humiliation by lashing out at everyone and everything, while Kaye, of sterner stuff, came steaming across the deck at Sam and William near foaming at the mouth with rage.

  “Get men on board, on board!” he shouted. “Draw cutlasses, they will attack for certain! By God, I’ll string them up, not offer them the bounty, the bloody fools! Away now, do your duty! I want men!” Already some of Biter’s people had spilled from off the foredeck on to the Goring, with the bony form of Behar in the van. Jem Taylor was not far after him, with a wooden club, and the bulk of Tilley swept other men along to join the boarders. There were drunken shouts and howling, but the Noble Goring’s people, sober and fleet of foot, were disappearing like chaff before a wind. The captain, grey-haired and angry, was on his quarterdeck, staring down into the Biter s waist, and he did indeed have a pistol in his hand, although he made no sign that he would ever use it. The midshipmen, when they reached a point where they could jump, saw great confusion, and a growing gap. Biter, her sails untended, was easing back from off the bigger ship, with only the bowsprit ropes and furniture to keep her. The jib-boom was broke and hanging down, and that had snagged the bulwarks of the “prize,” but it would not hold them on for long.

  “Ayling!” shouted Samuel, over his shoulder. “Hey, Tennison, Hugg! Come over quick, we need you! Get some more!”

  But Tennison was cradling Shockhead Eaton, and the instruction was ignored. There were four or five friends of the boatswain’s mate to hand, with others — sobered by the awful shock — standing about and watching. Above, the canvas thrashed like thunder, yards swung about, blocks swooped like deadly vultures looking for another skull to smash. This was work for Gunning and his hirelings, but that society was worse collapsed than Kaye’s. Until Will strode aft to take it, there was not even a sailor at the wheel.

  “She’s falling off, sir!” he shouted to Kaye. “Where is Mr Gunning? If we’re not careful we will leave our men on board!”

  Kaye went storming off up forward, where the Navy company were now almost all gathered round Eaton, but he gave them a wide berth. Will saw him talk to Samuel, then found Kershaw at his hand. Kershaw, with anxious face but shoulders back and braced, indicated that he would take the wheel, and Will set off like a dervish to force some men to work. Even Gunning’s lot, who were not paid to take his orders, jumped to his harsh commands, and the men round Eaton, when yards began to swing intentionally, went to their positions to give a hand. Sails were backed and filled, canvas was quieted, the ships began to move apart and disentangle. Kaye gesticulated furiously on the prow, and shortly men began to climb off of the windward ship to get on board their own. They brought seven of the Noble Goring’s men with them, some bloody in the face and mouth. Throughout the whole manoeuvre, John Gunning never reappeared.

  It was not the end exactly, but they were almost there. The Biter; fallen off, could only go downwind in her condition, but home was to the north, against the breeze. First thing was to get the canvas off, as she did not possess the necessary sails to heave her to. But as they busied themselves at that, Kaye made it plain to Will and Samuel he wanted more seamen from the Noble Goring, and he would have them. Boats’ crews was his word, to cross the growing gap and press at pistol point. The Indiaman, apparently undamaged, was already under way, hauling her wind for London River, but she was slow and weedy while their boats were fast. His juniors thought him crazy, but they did not argue. Neither did the people, when he bellowed his intentions — but continued their allotted tasks with great stolidity, taking care to keep their faces turned away. Some were engaged in carrying Eaton’s body down below. Like the others, they did not argue, but did not respond. Lieutenant Kaye stood in a rage, forsaken.

  The light was falling, but the wind stayed sharp and strong. At his first tour of assessment, Will figured they would keep the bowsprit, if not the outer clutter, but had better bring both the topgallant and the topmast down because they could not stay them safely. The topsail yard and sail, in falling, had destroyed the forecourse and maybe sprung the yard, which would be some hours’ work to check and rectify, if it were possible. Abaft of that the main topgallant mast had got a wrench, and the main topsail was badly ripped. All headsails and their stays were down or ruined. The carpenter was good, Sam told him, so was Watkins, sailmaker, except he was in love.

  “But that does not stop a man from working does it, friend?” he added, with affection. “Of course it don’t! We’ll have her under way again tomorrow.”

  The Noble Goring, being the closes
t ship, was the last to fade into the encroaching night. She did not go well, or fast, but everyone who watched her knew she’d beat them into London however good the makeshift rig they managed in the day or days ahead. It was five nights later, in fact, that Will and Sam saw the ship again, after Biter had limped to the Nore and then been towed by dockyard pullboats up to Deptford. She was lying at a quay near Pickleherring Stairs as a wherry shot them past up to the bridge, yards canted, holds open, in the hands of wharfingers. Unlike the Biter; way down the river, she looked very peaceful lying there.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  They buried Shockhead Eaton’s body within sight of his home coast, with little ceremony but enough emotion. Lieutenant Kaye conducted, having decided as was his right not to transport the man’s remains to land, there being little point. As far as anybody knew he had no people waiting on him, he’d never talked of home or family. Sam and William remembered the maid he’d stayed to be with, but knew neither name nor place by which to trace her. Or indeed, if she were wed to someone else, which would make a welcome for the sorry corpse a shade unlikely. They did not even bother to heave the Biter to, just handed spokes to bring her to the shake, so cranky was she under bodged-up headsails, a jury staysail instead of forecourse, and her brig-sail. Shockhead was popular but men died, that was the general attitude: he should have kept his eyes aloft, and not sailed with such a drunken crew. By the time they buried him the spree was long past, and the company were very far from liveliness.

  In Surrey that same day they buried Charles Yorke at Sir Arthur Fisher’s house. This too was done with deep emotion but no great pomp, except that all the women of the household were swathed in black, and Sir Peter Maybold, the Surveyor General, was invited to represent the Customs House. He did arrive by splendid coach, but respected his friend’s request for simple dignity, although his periwig, chosen by his wife Laetitia, was rather full and lustrous, and a touch archaic. Laetitia, who enjoyed a funeral for the dressing up, had been persuaded to stay in town and make some other amusement for herself. She had pouted, thought for three seconds, and announced that she had hit on “just the thing.” Maybold, sombre eyes across the rolling green of Fisher’s land, had looked the very picture of well-bred misery. It was no act.