The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  “There’s lights!” said Will. “What o’clock is it? What’s going on?”

  The watermen glanced across their shoulders, indifferent. They were working; why should there not be lights? But Holt felt inside his pocket for his dirk.

  “Know not,” he said. “It’s too late for — What’s that? What are those cries?”

  The boatmen, interested, rested their oars, till Bentley barked at them.

  “Swing round! Put us head to head! Don’t lie to the boom until we’ve — ”

  “Ahoy! Boat there! Is that you, Mr Bentley, sir?”

  “Jem Taylor,” Sam hissed. “Well it’s not a mutiny, thank fortune! But where is Kaye? Hey, Jem!” he yelled. “Boatswain, ahoy!”

  “’Long there,” Bentley told the boatmen, feeling for some coin. He stood and gripped the pendant off the boom, as Sam, much taller, swung his body up. “There, catch, I haven’t got all night!”

  The money fell, the rowers scrambled, and Will and Sam balanced along the boom in a frantic hurry. At the gangway they met Taylor, with blood all down one cheek, and Savary, who was almost squeaking with excitement and had his sword in hand. By the forward hatch stood two of his soldiers, their muskets in a guard position. By them lay two men.

  “Good God!” said Bentley. “Taylor, what is this? Where is the captain? Who are those bodies? Have you been attacked?”

  “The captain’s gone!” said Savary, his voice extremely high and light. “This afternoon. He had to go to London, urgent. He said he would be back betimes, but so far he isn’t. I thought your boat — ”

  “Jem!” Holt cut in rudely. There was a sudden racket from up forward, and below. “Is she in command or are there factions? Christ, I do not have a gun! Who has the roundhouse?”

  “Secure,” said the boatswain. He wiped blood away so that he could grin unhindered. “Groat’s in there, locked. Midshipman Shilling, sir, I beg your pardon.”

  “What mean you, locked?” demanded Will. “Is he a prisoner?”

  The young marine lieutenant was wild to have his say. He stayed Jem Taylor with an upraised hand.

  “One of my men is with him!” he blurted. “They were forced to make a stand! My man fired, but the devils still came on. ’Twas done to save the armaments!”

  “And is there fighting still?” demanded Sam. “What is that noise from forward, Jem? Where are your mates?”

  The noise became more violent, roars and crashes, maybe blows. But no shots, no sounds of steel. And Taylor was still grinning.

  “It’s mainly drink,” he said. “As usual, sir. We’ve got them all in irons, we’ve broke a head or two, but no real trouble now. We got the Scotchmen all locked up, who was the start and end of it.”

  Bentley and Sam exchanged a look. The Scots. Inevitable. But how, or why, had Richard Kaye thought that he could go ashore?

  “The Scotchmen,” Will said. “So drink’s their demon, is it? Who killed those men? The Scotchmen, I suppose?”

  One of the corpses, in fact, at this point started moving. Even along the deck-length they could see that it was Josh Baines; ship’s rat as he was known without affection. He hauled his torso upright, then collapsed. The soldiers looked aft enquiringly, to see if their lieutenant had an order for them.

  “They’re not dead, neither of them,” said Taylor. “Alf Wilmott’s worst. He picked a fight with the smallest Scotch, and — ” He stopped, and the amused look faded rapidly. “There is one dead, sir,” he said, stiffly. “I forgot. Well, maybe dead. Black Bob, sir. The little neger boy.”

  “But we don’t know that,” Savary said quickly. His light voice was a little sick. “Sirs,” he went on, looking at their faces, “no one saw him going overboard, no one heard a scream or splash. My feeling is, my hope is that… well, I hope he’s hid himself. He’s very small and black.”

  That came out almost funny in its way, but no one was amused. Will remembered the cry of pain or anguish he’d heard from Bob last time he’d seen him with the Lamont brothers, and his concern grew.

  “Was that the Scotch?” he said. “By God, they’re going to end up hanged! But why was he not on shore with Captain Kaye? And who is in command, if he is gone to London? The midshipman? They’re going to end up hanged, they must do!”

  “The midshipman was given the command,” said Savary. He was embarrassed, as if he thought he should have been, perhaps — an even more absurd appointment in the lieutenants’ contemplation. “And also…”

  He tailed off. Taylor spoke, after an interval for politeness.

  “The Scotch were mentioned, too,” he said. There was an odd note in his voice. “He told me I could trust them. Use them as warrant men. But it was them got liquor to the people, certain of it. By the time we were aware, it was too late. Explosion, sir.”

  “Good God alive,” said Holt. “He wants to warrant them. Good God alive.”

  “How did it end, then?” Bentley said. “This explosion. Not by the Lamonts’s hands, surely?”

  Taylor did not laugh, although he sensed the irony. He mopped blood, calm and frank. “The soldiery,” he said. “Mr Savary and his men. They held the boom and saved the boats. I must say they were sterling, sir. That I must.”

  The officer of marines — who blushed too readily, that was for sure — blushed once more. “Captain Kaye had made it crystal — ” he started, and Taylor interrupted.

  “They held their corner and when the madmen went to breach the roundhouse, one of them jumped in with Midshipman Shilling like a shot,” he said. “And he’d already been cut in the face severely by a broken bottle. The surgeon got in, too, the dear knows why. He had his drug-chest in his arms. They barred the door.”

  “The dear indeed,” said Sam. “And was he drunk?”

  Savary said excitedly: “It was Robert Simms. The oldest of my men. He only loosed one shot off and it damn near split the leader’s skull. The neatest groove you ever saw upon a head. The man was howling.”

  “Not killed, though?” asked Bentley.

  “Not killed indeed! It was a splendid shot! I think the captain now may see us with new confidence as his protection force. You asked us how it ended, sir. I dare to say that Simms’s shot was the single key. I dare to think that with some confidence.”

  Holt raised his eyebrows quizzically. “And your opinion, Taylor? Is that assessment right? And if it’s ended, what of Black Bob, then?”

  “It fell to pieces, I will say that,” said Taylor. “A bit of blood’s a goodly soberer. Sam Megson went to tears; it all came flooding on the very instant. You know Megson, sir? A corkhead, daft like all the breed. He was squalling like a newborn babe. We went in among them with spikes and clubs, and it was pretty easy, when all’s said. A soldier held a gun on them while we went below to sort the worst ones out. And then the Scotch and poor Black Bob. We got some lamps and tracked him to the forepeak, sir. They’d been making play with him.”

  Bentley and Holt were silent for a while. The racket from below was dying down.

  Taylor continued, “They’d catch him, and they’d use him, then they’d let him go again. It was a game of chase. When we got there he’d wormed into a space they could not enter; not for the first time neither, I don’t guess. They were darting with their arms and bits of batten, they did not see us coming, they were… well, sirs, how to hide it? One of them had his britches round his feet. I could have drove my handspike up his hairy arse.”

  Savary, pride gone, looked sick as any dog at this. Sam tutted.

  “Damn good job you di’nt, Jem,” he said. “Might have lost a handspike otherwise.” He laughed, without much pleasure, though. “What then? You rushed them, did you?”

  The boatswain nodded. “Candy off a maid,” he said. “Tom Tilley took the biggest ’un, Hugg seized the bugger with his britches down, I and two other lads grabbed Wee Dod. Wee! He damn near broke Dusty Miller’s hand off. And they yelled blue murder into the bargain. They were bloody banshees. Even when we’d got the shackles o
n they were yelling for the Pope.”

  “The Pope?” said Bentley. “Why the Pope?”

  Taylor gave him a look.

  “Expression, sir,” he said. “Don’t mean a thing. Angus was yelling for the captain at one point, and I do mean that, though. He said the captain would see us flogged. He might still be at it, if you want to go and listen. Mind Dod, though. He can spit eleven fathom.”

  The scene along the deck by now was quiet. The two injured sailors were sitting silently; the marines still held their guns, although uneasy at the pointlessness involved. Light still flowed upwards from the hatchway forward, but the noise was hidden by a gentle breeze that played among the rigging and top hamper. Across the river, flare and furnace blazed, but intermittently. It was an almost peaceful scene.

  “So what of Bob?” asked Sam. “Is he dead, or what? You did not leave him jammed up in his hole, for sure.”

  “You thought he had gone overside, maybe,” said Bentley. “You thought he might be drowned.”

  “Aye,” said Taylor. “Well so he might indeed, sir. We could not get him out, no how, and when we’d finished with the mad Lamonts we could not see him, neither. Hugg thought he’d seen him rushing out from under, but if he did he must have gone right into the darkly parts where some stragglers from the riot were assembled. We heard a whoop or two, some screeches, but as this officer here — beg pardon, sir, Loot’nt Savary — as he’ve said, no one heard a splash nor anything. He may’ve… well, I don’t know.”

  “He may’ve hid?” asked Bentley.

  The boatswain nodded an affirmative. “He may’ve, sir. But we looked and searched a bit, and we found nothing. We flushed a few more drunken buggers out for locking up, but no Black Bob. I’m sorry, sir, but I wouldn’t be surprised…”

  They stood there for a moment, thinking. Then Holt let out breath.

  “Right,” he said. “Jem, check the fighting’s over. Tell Tom and Tommy not to kill no more, we’re short of seamen anyway. Me and Lieutenant Bentley will dig out Midshipman Rex and Sawbones and marine, while you, sir, should check out your two men and tell ’em to stand easy. Rat Baines and Wilmott won’t offer no more grief, and when we’ve all drew breath we’ll go and beard the Scotchmen in their den. With luck, we’ll need to shoot the buggers. I’ll get some pistols from the roundhouse, just in case.”

  Rex Shilling, when they had persuaded him to open up the bolts, was still white around the gills. He had not wasted time, though, for the armoured house had been arrayed with loaded muskets and hand-pieces, with a brace of dirks and cutlasses for each man. The small space stank of sweat and farts however (the lieutenants guessed the soldier, naturally) and Mr Grundy, wall-eyed drunk, was worse than useless, his open surgeon-chest containing many bottles which were clearly potent. And this, thought Will, is the man who won’t take wine. Perhaps the eructations were not so military, after all, in origin.

  Shilling, though pale, was haughty. No word of pleasure at his, and the ship’s, delivery passed his lips, no word of thanks or even greeting. He said stiffly that the men had risen, in a state of drunkenness, but that by strategy and daring he had retained command. Will found this almost breathtaking, and Sam had a coughing fit. Later, he opined to his friend that Shilling would rise fast and far, far, far. He’d be an admiral, Sam wagered, by age seventeen! The midshipman also demanded that he be let to confront the Lamont brothers in their shackles, and to teach them a lesson with a rattan cane. When this was vetoed, he took it with a sulky muttering and a sour folding of his meagre mouth.

  The Scotsmen, when they went to see them — without Shilling, who was told off to muster all the people not in chains and mark some discipline upon them — were neither worse nor better in their attitude and temper. They, too, were haughty, achieving this despite bruised eyes and smears of blood; they, too, were smouldering in their level gaze. Both Sam and Will asked questions, firstly civil then more and more impatient, but elicited not a single word. The brothers, not very large, not very strong, not brutish about the body in any way, gave off an aura of suppressed violence that was almost palpable. But they sat easy in their chains and shackles.

  “Well,” said Samuel in disgust, at last. “We’ll see how well your silence serves you when the captain has returned. I warn you, Scotchmen, there will be flogging done for this. And you will get it first and hardest.”

  They neither smiled nor sneered. The grey eyes continued calmly burning. It was weird, unsettling. Holt and Bentley, not at all at ease, got up without a mutual signal and went back to the cabin. Inside the sanctum there was a light on still, and they went to check for theft or damage. Will heard a noise, a scuffle and a moan, maybe, and they began a search. Under the captain’s massive bed, naked and abused, they found Black Bob. He was bleeding from the body, and from mouth, and ears, and anus. Like the Scots, he could not be made to speak.

  Later, after they had settled him on a pallet in the drunken surgeon’s bay next to Jack Ashdown, they talked it through exhaustively, reaching no conclusions, then Bentley went to sleep and Sam took watch. Richard Kaye’s first action, when he returned next morning, was to free the Scots from their captivity.

  SIXTEEN

  Sir Peter Maybold, though fat and quite unhappy, was a kindly man. When Sir Arthur Fisher’s steward had approached with hints of Deb and her availability, he had blushed bright scarlet and denied any interest beyond the fatherly. Sir A had told him, he told Tony, that she was a runaway, whose life ahead seemed blighted by her circumstance. Tony, with his usual wisdom, had played on this, seeding ideas about a sponsorship, protection, the role of quiet benefactor. The Customs man — quite desperate, in fact, for kindness from a female — had let his needs and longings do the rest. By the time he had her in his carriage, looking frightened and alone, he felt himself a Titan and a friend.

  Fear, in fact, was an emotion Deb did not feel. She arranged herself beside him in the carriage, where he patted the cushions with his hand, and tried hard indeed not to drown in mournfulness. Tony’s farewell had wrenched her in its kindness, and the sight of Langham Lodge’s gatehouse, unlighted but secure, gave her the sense that another chapter of her life was done, a chapter fairly safe and comfortable. Will Bentley would come back one day soon, she guessed, but would most likely not be told that she had been and gone. She was leaving for his sake, they would say; she accepted he was not for her nor ever could be. The trouble was, though in her head she quite believed it, her heart did not, at all. To them a noble sacrifice. To her, a twisting knife.

  “My dear,” said Peter Maybold. “I welcome you into my purlieu. I wish to tell you, from the earliest, that you have naught to fear from me. For the present, you need not even speak or smile unless you wish to. But if you do, then more than welcome!”

  Ah Christ, thought Deb, I do this for your sake, Will Bentley. I sleep with this lard giant for your sake, and will you thank me for it, or forgive? Ah Will, I wish I’d never met you, friend.

  “Where will you, sir?” she said, faltering. “Where do you take me, please? I am not feared, but…”

  He harrumphed. The coach rocked on its springs in sympathy. Or, more probably, thought Deb, they’d hit a rut.

  “Ah,” he said. “A forward-thinking maid, I see. Master Steward said you had a brain between your ears. Well, my dear, I take you to a village that I know. Heard you of Chiswick, ever? On the London River, out of London a good way?” He stopped, discomfited. “Hhm. Well, not there; I do not take you there.”

  She glanced at him, but made no comment. Chiswick then, she supposed, but she was not meant to know it. But who would I tell, she thought? And why…?

  “It is no moment that I know the name, sir,” she said, quietly. “I meant, to a house, a stable, whatsoever? You are not married, I suppose?”

  “No, no!” said Maybold. “No, indeed I — yes, I am.” There was a pause. He stared at his knees, then turned to her and caught her eyes. “Maid,” he said, “I have a wife, she is… she is very fai
r and young. I fear… I fear she does not understand me fully.”

  Deb had heard of this from whores at Dr Marigold’s. Wimbarton, though, had never talked to her when she’d been his, and did not give a fig if he was understood or not. Fair and young, she pondered. She could see the woman’s point. What was to understand? she wondered.

  “I do not have a great experience, sir,” she said. “Of men. But I am willing to talk, and listen. I can listen very well if so required of me. Will I have a proper room?”

  He nodded. He was a little easier, she could tell. She would have a room, he said, in a small house on an estate owned by a friend of his. There would be another woman there, an older one. She was a housekeeper.

  “I will visit,” he said, wistfully. “When I can. It should be…” He became yet more wistful. “It should be not infrequent. If you wish it so.”

  They hit another patch of rocky road, and while the swaying banged them promiscuously together, it enabled both to hide in silence. Deb felt sorry for this fat old man and wondered what that meant. She sneaked sly glances at him, sideways, to see if she found him hideous. He was and was not, all at once: a pleasant smell, clean clothes, not smeared with food like some of his age, his wig not perched on sideways but snug, smart, unridiculous. His breath smelled sweet from lozenges (but that could change), and he had not tried to press upon her, in any wise or guise. Could it be bearable, she thought? Better than death, in any case.

  The trip was several hours, and she dozed (by pretending to, at first), and so did he. She woke one time to find him snoring, noting the long glaucous dribble from his slack mouth onto his neck with fresh despair. By the time they came off of the road and up a side track from a chip-stone drive, she was tense, and nervy, and dying to relieve herself. She thought that if she had to sleep with him this night, then she might rather die. He awoke, and did not recognise her, and was overcome with panic. Deb patted him, and genuinely smiled.