The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  The decision to retrieve the body from the Devil’s Punchbowl had been forced on Sir A by the fact that, heavy with the knowledge brought by the two midshipmen, he could no longer bear to wait to see the right thing done. It had become apparent within a day that they were not coming back as planned, which was confirmed by a letter the day after that from Bobby Beaumont at the Admiralty. Kaye had slipped his moorings without a by-your-leave, it said, and “for all his papa is a bloody duke, I’ll roast the bugger’s buttocks.” That same morning Tony and some trusted men had set off with a light closed cart, and muskets, cutlasses, and picks and shovels. They had found the marked trees, then the cairn and body, and had met no opposition. The undertaker had begged Sir Arthur not to view the corpse before he’d coffined it, but Sir Arthur had insisted.

  Kaye’s buttocks were not roasted when the Biter was lodged finally alongside a quay at Deptford, but there was a reception for him that all on board found immensely shocking. The last minutes were a monument to chaos in any case, as Gunning’s men, within a sniff of shore, behaved as private seamen always did — and ran. As the dockyard pull-men manoeuvred her the last few complex yards, unmanageable in a falling tide, they dropped all vestiges of obedience, ignored orders from Gunning or the Navy officers, and perched themselves on the bulwarks and in the chains to get first jump for shore. Before the Biter’s side was six feet from the staging the first men had launched themselves above the swirling water, and when they hit the ground they scampered off like rabbits. Gunning did not even watch them as they went. Within two minutes of the mooring lines being secured, he had also gone.

  But on the shore, watching this performance, was a post captain with severe eyes like an owl’s staring out from underneath his wig, a pair of Navy Office clerks, and an old, thin man who Sam said could only be a lawyer, for any odds. In moments he was proved right, as the party came on board and spoke to Lieutenant Kaye, the thin old chap wagging a furled parchment like a judge’s gavel. As Kaye heard them out his mien changed from its normal bored superiority, his insouciance seemed lost. As he led them aft to the cabin’s privacy, Sam swore Slack Dickie’s eyes had flashed alarm. He guessed the Noble Goring’s captain had lodged complaints, and had the pull with someone to back them up. When Black Bob was ejected, to stand disconsolate and watch the Deptford shore, they asked him what was up below, but he would not reply, and ran off forward where he disappeared.

  The truth, when they came to it, was stranger yet. They busied themselves for half an hour with their people and the Deptford men in snugging the Biter for her dockyard work, until one of the clerks sought them out and bade them aft. When they pointed to unfinished work he told them it was orders, not of Lieutenant Kaye, but Captain Oxforde from the Admiralty. There were no more answers to their questions, but soon they stood in front of this august man, who was at a table flanked by the other clerk and the aged legal type. Kaye sat to one side, his self-satisfaction overlaid by a glower, and stared intensely at them in a way William took as threatening.

  The post captain had a voice to match his looks, and he outlined what he was there for with crystalline acidity. The owner of a ship called Katharine, on information from her master James McEwan, had raised a yeoman posse that had come to London from the depths of Hertfordshire to effect an arrest on the person of their own commanding officer, Lieutenant Richard Herbert Kaye, for the alleged murder of one Peter Morris, Katharine’s first mate, by discharge of a pistol. Their lordships, he added, viewed the allegations with the utmost seriousness, reflecting as they did on the honour and integrity of the service. Naturally, Lieutenant Kaye was scandalised by the accusation, which he denied in its entirety. However —

  “However,” interrupted Kaye. “As you fellows damn well know — ”

  “Lieutenant Kaye,” said Oxforde. “You stand across me, sir.”

  “But — ”

  “You interrupt me. I will not put up with it. You deny this charge, that is understood. The posse is disarmed and waiting. They have a warrant, signed by a magistrate, but we have lawyers also. I am here to give them ammunition. You do not help by blustering.”

  The lawyer cleared his throat.

  “The Impress is not a favourite service with the layman,” he said. His voice was soft but clear. “Before I can have that warrant set aside I must have facts that will make even a country justice see there is no case. That, gentlemen, is what I hope from you.”

  “Within the truth, of course,” said Captain Oxforde. “That is understood, I hope.”

  William could see it with an awful clarity. He could see the Katharine’s great cabin, he could smell the burning powder, remember what that young man looked like, chest torn open in a bloody hole. He could see Kaye with the first mate’s pistol, pawing at its action. His stomach sank inside him in disgust.

  “I heard a row, sir,” he started. “We heard — ”

  “You were not asked to speak.” Oxforde’s voice was cutting. His finger moved up from the table, to point at Sam. “You. Tell me what you saw.”

  Sam wet his mouth.

  “As Mr Bentley says, sir, we heard a — ”

  The captain’s hand slammed down, a loud, sharp bang. Sam stopped. “It is an easy language,” said Captain Oxforde, almost pleasantly. “Speak it with me. I said tell me what you saw. The incident was in the cabin, was it not? So we are in the cabin, aren’t we? You, sir, and Lieutenant Kaye, and your friend Mr Bentley. And the… ah… Lieutenant Kaye’s attacker. What did you see?”

  There was a pause. Will saw it still, but the clarity was of a different kind. Sam wet his lips more noisily. Will smelled sweat.

  “But sir,” said Sam. Hopeless, and he knew it. Oxforde quelled him with a look. “The officer was on the deck,” he said. “His leg was twitching, he had been shot. Lieutenant Kaye was standing over him, with his pistol. He had fired it.”

  Lieutenant Kaye’s mouth moved as though he was going to open it, but he changed his mind.

  “Whose pistol? Who had fired it?”

  “Lieutenant Kaye had them both,” said Sam. “He had fired one, his own, short barrel and a heavy calibre, a Leyden Callender I think. He had the other pistol also. Big, horse pistol type of animal. It had not been fired.”

  By the crashing on the decks, the sound of tramping feet, the shore gang were unrigging her. Inside the cabin a long silence fell.

  “You are an expert then, I see.” Oxforde’s voice was pleasant. “Who says it was not fired? You were not there to see if the man was on the deck already, were you?”

  “Lieutenant Kaye said it had not been, sir. He said he had shot his gun. He said the man was primed and cocked, but…”

  “But what? Do you say he’s lying?”

  This was so direct that Bentley’s stomach clenched. Kaye had had the action covered when Sam and he had gone into the cabin. He could have cocked it himself, then showed it cocked before he spoke of it. “See, it is cocked,” he’d said.

  “Well?” asked Captain Oxforde. “Was it primed and cocked, midshipman? You have eyes, did you not see it? Was it primed and cocked? You are the expert, you know guns. The truth, sir; now!”

  The smug look in Kaye’s eyes was back, Will saw that in a glance. The tilted nose spoke of confidence restored. Sam was being challenged to say the unsayable, and damn himself to hell. He could not do it.

  “Aye, sir,” he said. “It was cocked. I later saw Lieutenant Kaye blow the pan out.”

  “So it was primed?”

  The slightest hesitation.

  “It was primed, sir.”

  “With your permission, sir?” said Kaye. “Thank you. Now Holt, now Bentley; did I not say this? That the villain drew a sight on me, and made to fire? That I lifted my gun first — as Holt says, sir, small, fast and powerful, a masterpiece of Mr Callender’s — and shot him down? Is that not correct in every detail? Would he not have killed me, had I not? Mr Bentley? You have not deigned to speak, I see.”

  The captain raised a hand, as if
amused. But he made no rebuke to Kaye, just smiled at Bentley.

  “Well, sir? Have you aught to add? Or do you agree with Mr Holt in every detail? You both seem circumspect, somehow, I might say, overawed. We are not so grand as all that, we old fighting men!”

  To Will, the heartiness rang false as hell. The smell of sweat from Sam was powerfully bitter, and his own cheeks and teeth were clenched. He was surer than he’d ever been that Kaye had cocked the pistol to prove a threat that in life had not existed — but he did not know. He did not know, and he could not voice suspicions. To call a man a liar was an awful thing, and to do so without hope of any proof was at the very least stupidity. Fact was, he did not know. Kaye, to him, was a charlatan, whom he would not trust for anything. But did he really think he was a murderer in cold blood?

  “Sir,” he said. “When I saw the action, it was…” All eyes bored into him. He had seen the action covered first, and he did not trust Kaye. It came to him with bright clarity that he should not say this, as he could not add to it. He gestured feebly. “It was cocked. Later, like Mr Holt, I saw him blow the pan. Lieutenant Kaye told us he’d been threatened.”

  He caught the eyes of the post captain for a moment, and thought he saw a flash of understanding there. But probably it was illusion. Oxforde then nodded, satisfied.

  “Good,” he said. “Well, Mr Kaye, ’tis as you said in every detail. You went into the cabin, you were attacked, and shot the man in self-defence. Mr Palmer? Have you any questions more?”

  The lawyer, scratching underneath his wig, paused to shake his head in negative. The clerks made play with horns and pen, Slack Dickie beamed in satisfaction. Sam Holt and Bentley looked for a sign, of dismissal or invitation to the higher company, but — ignored — soon cleared their throats significantly, then slid away. An hour afterwards, as the only officers or gentlemen left save Kershaw, and the ship a swarm of dockyard men who judging by the flares and preparations were due to work all night, they packed small bags and hailed a waterman. Even the slack-tide stench of the foul Thames struck William, poetically, as sweeter than the air had been in Biter’s cabin.

  *

  It was the lateness of the hour Sam gave as his excuse for seeking Dr Marigold’s rather than getting hacks for Langham Lodge, but William needed neither excuse nor much persuading. He knew that by the time they had reached London the yeomen from Hertfordshire would have got their weapons back and been sent home, and that the Navy’s ranks were closed for ever against any suggestion the first mate’s death had been improper. He and Sam. between them, had had the only chance of setting up a doubt, and both of them had felt they could not do it. They sat in the sternsheets of the wherry, silent for the most part, and both felt guilt and hopelessness. No one, because of them, would be able to point a finger at Richard Kaye on this incident, ever again.

  “We would not get to Langham Lodge till the early hours,” said Sam, at one point. “We’ve been away for a week and more, so half a day won’t make no difference. Quite honestly, Will, I ain’t sure I could face…”

  He did not finish, but Will was there with him. Events were like a grindstone, crushing them, wearing them down. Will looked across the dark roofs and buildings pressing to the river and longed, strangely, for the open sea. He recalled that when he’d started, as a boy, the Navy life had been such a fresh and open one, with him and his fellow officers dedicated to a fine and noble calling, to Englishness, Englishmen and England, the jewel of all the world. Now he felt dirtier than the Thames itself.

  They paid the rivermen and walked up towards the Fleet and Dr Marigold’s, but even alone they did not talk much of what they’d seen and how it fell to them. Sam made it clear as soon as he crossed the threshold that he had Annette in mind as his best drug, but Will, left alone with Mrs Margery, could not be tempted by her tales of bright new maids, nor yet of “coddling” by those of more experience. She had judged his mood exactly though, because he was deep in need of comfort divorced completely from the world of men. They did not mention Deb by name, but she talked of girls who did not whore, but came to live at Marigold’s out of necessity to find a place, maybe of refuge, maybe just to string their lives together, to earn enough in services unspecified to see them through a time of hardship that they could someday end. Young men like Sam, she said, wanted one thing only from a maid — and none the worse for that — but “we can succour too, both maids and bloods. Look at yourself. I have work to do, always there’s work, but I have time to talk to you, and here I am. No charge, free, gratis, and I’m glad of it.”

  Will almost told her about Deb’s disaster, but feared it would upset them both, for nothing. He almost told her about the Katharine’s first mate, asked “if you saw a young man killed, and knew that it was wrong, then what?” But as the words formed in his mind he knew it was impossible, so stopped. When more men came for custom Will backed off into shadow, then she led him to a bedroom and left him, with a glass of port. He stripped completely, splashing himself with water from a jug, then lay in the bed and blew the candle out, hoping for sleep. It did not quickly come, and he thought afterwards he’d stared upwards to the ceiling until dawn or so. But it was Sam who woke him, a Sam refreshed and in a better spirit, who forced him to a very early breakfast and then to the yard, where he had horses saddled up and waiting. Not long after first light, they were gone.

  *

  Chester Wimbarton, as he had promised, “looked Deb over” next time he came to her, and many times thereafter and very frequently, as he was as wiry and insatiable as an upland tup. The first few times he brought his knife, but soon he left it far away from them, and then he dared to face her unprotected. He always wore a long white shirt, he always stood between her thighs while she was pressed back on the bed, and apart from muttered greetings and farewells, he hardly spoke. On the second time he said she should be naked, and when she moved too slow he hit her. After that, when he entered the room, Deb pulled her shift off to be ready, and only put it on when he had gone.

  She talked to Sue and Joan, and sometimes Dorothy, and counted them as her only friends. Her greatest fear was falling pregnant — although all three of the household women recommended it as a hope, for poor Milady had failed in that department and had cried about it to them in the depths of her despair — but they brought her vinegar in plenty, and more soap than most poor maids saw in a lifetime to undo the damage in the bud if possible, and hang expense. When his wife was still alive, she figured, he might have found a little baby welcome, but a bastard fathered on a locked-up slut would strike the neighbours very different, especially for a justice of the peace. Deb no longer knew what she expected of the future, or wanted even. But to be thrown back on a most uncaring world great with child, or snuffed out quietly as an embarrassment, was not on her agenda. She had her body, which seemed to drive him mad with lust, and it was meat and drink to her, if not contentment.

  Contentment, in a way, would have been a walk outside. This came on Deborah as a realisation slowly, and it amused her when she thought how much her world had been reduced. At first she’d craved for freedom, mainly from the sight or sound or thought of Wimbarton and his stabbing thing, then she’d craved for company or friends, or maids who — unlike Wimbarton’s — were not moved (as they were at first) by envy or suspicion. She’d craved for Dr Marigold’s, its comforts and its jollity, she’d craved good food and drink, variety. She’d sometimes, weepily, craved her shining prince, neat William, although she knew that was a fairy tale, nothing more. In the end, it boiled down to four drab walls and one high, obscure window, and the smell, the sound, the memory of a world outside. She tried to talk to the master, to make him think she liked him so that someday she could hint she’d appreciate a stroll, but the master, whatever he thought of her, did not like her “prattling” (as he once called her twelve words, she counted them up after the rebuke). She did get out once, the first Sunday, when she was allowed to go to church, discreetly hobbled underneath one of Sue’s skir
ts so that she could not run far before Jeremiah or Fiske could skip after her to knock her down. She saw Milady’s grave, and very nearly wept.

  It was a drab life, but she guessed she’d stand it, as being better than no life at all. She wondered if she would or could escape, and how, but all in all it was beyond imagination. She very rarely fantasised, these days, about Wimbarton falling for her for her looks and making her the new Milady, nor did she want it, under any circumstance. But she remembered, ruefully, she’d had the fantasy common to her trade, that some rich, handsome, noble man would lose his heart and soul to her, and make her great in happiness. Not Wimbarton now, though. No, not anyone.

  *

  They talked of cases as they rode along for Langham Lodge, and they got near expressing the thing that nagged at both of them, the odd notion that the times were out of joint somehow. Slack Dickie Kaye and his venality were ill enough, but the urbane post captain had shaken them more deeply. He’d brought a lawyer and two clerks all the way to Deptford not to hunt and find the truth (and shame the devil, even if his father was a “bloody duke!”), but to make certain that it would not get out. What the truth was did not come into it, he’d made that all too plain; what mattered was the Navy’s reputation, and that anyone’s indiscretion, however violent, should not mar it.

  “My father was a lawyer, and he said the country was gone wrong,” said Sam. “He said there was a cancer had got in, a creeping corruption in our public life. But by God, Will, the Navy is an honourable service. We fight these evils, not go in for ’em.”

  “In Navy terms, though,” Will started. But he broke it off. His Navy terms were blighted by his past. He’d seen too many means justified by uncertain ends. “No,” he said. “Kaye is not general, Sam, he’s not of normal quality for a Navy officer. I guess they just worked out that one man dead was more than enough, and where’s the point in breaking Dickie down? The Press itself is hated and reviled by many, but are we to blame ourselves for being part of it? Without the Press we should not have men to work our ships. It has been proved.”