by Jan Needle
“Well well!” he said. “Well met indeed, young William. And Mr Holt, how excellent! What think you to my new ship, then? A prize indeed, eh? I stole her off the French, between the three of us, and the French have paid for her, an’ all! More of that later, though! Mum’s the word, you understand! She’s called the Pourquoi Pas, and why not, eh?! Why not, indeed! The people call her Porky Pie, low bastards that they are, and why not for that as well? Everybody’s happy though, that I can promise you. And pourquoi pas?”
A rap came at the cabin door and Lieutenant Anderson reported that they were lying to the anchor, and should he order harbour stow? Captain Swift assented with an impatient wave, then, as an afterthought, told Anderson to “give a go of rum all round when everything is shipshape.” His smile grew dazzling.
“You see, boys? Captain Dan now runs a happy ship! Oh yes indeed!”
The windows were all open and the fresh sea smells blew gently in, but Will’s sense of discomfort would be hard to dispel, however much he worked at remembering his relative’s strange ways. He had come across in haste to tell of an awful bloodbath, and Swift was locked in his own universe.
And then, without a step change, he was back. His eyes narrowed, his sharp nose raised up, he looked into Bentley’s face and said, “What massacre? What terrible disaster? Come on, boy; spit it out.”
With almost visible relief, the two lieutenants began to spell it out. They used broad brushstrokes – the death of Sir Nathaniel, the reprisals, the awful aftermath – and Swift locked on it like a terrier.
“How many dead?” he demanded. “What – the females quite defenceless? By God, the Afric savages! We must go and cut them all to Hell! But where is Captain Kaye in all of this? He has gone down west already, has he? I do not see the Biter here.”
They looked at each other. He did not know. Last time he’d heard of them, or from them, he’d been in England still, probably in the Thames. Will’s heart was sinking. There was Captain Kaye, and Marianne Siddleham, now dead, there was the Spanish treasure, the Biter wrecked, the mutineers, the Scots, and there was Deb. He swallowed. He hardly had the heart for it. He gestured with his glass, and noticed it was empty. Swift noticed also, and lifted the decanter. Will, clearly at some kind of loss, stood up and took it from him. He filled their glasses, remaining standing, then he shrugged.
“You see, sir, it is complicated. Captain Kaye is to westward, but… but he’s not seeking the renegades, he is…”
“He is checking on a Spanish ship that sunk, sir,” Holt said crisply. “A task we undertook for Captain Shearing. So although he’s entered into association with the Siddlehams, he does not know of the dreadful murders, yet. He does not know that… that his fiancée… that the young woman that he understands is… Well, she is dead, sir. She is slaughtered. With her mother, Lady Siddleham, and her sisters. It is… rather horrible I fear, sir. It is bestial.”
Captain Swift’s eyes were levelled on them both, his gaze was penetrating. He raised his glass to lips and tossed his head back, to sink it in one swallow.
“Christ,” he said. “What, Dickie is betrothed? We had better go onshore then, hadn’t we?”
*
The hopes and expectations of the island men, when Swift moved among them, rose higher, and faster, than they had dreamed possible. He stood among the ruins of the Siddlehams’ lives and happiness, he contemplated the tragic bodies of the ones that they had loved, and he swore that they would be avenged, and quickly. The brothers, brought back helter-skelter from their fruitless ramblings, observed their ravaged flesh and blood with stony faces, then moved to the Navy offices until their home should be remade tenable, to plan the next moves against the “forces of the dark.”
They told Swift who the villains were – a murderer called Marlowe and the English whore – and said that it would need a major expedition to dislodge and punish them. At the mention of the whore Swift expressed shocked amazement, more so when some details were filled in that the two lieutenants had not “been bothered to vouchsafe me.” And more so still when Lieutenant Bentley, white about the face, insisted that the maiden had not been proved in any way to be a culprit, nor was she known for certain to have ever met this so-called renegade.
“Indeed,” he said, “our information is that she sent warnings that this outrage would take place, conveyed by a woman called Bridie Connor who you can interview. I declare, sir, that the culprits were not even Leeward men, but government Maroons.”
“A woman!?” shouted Ephraim Dodds, through purple lips. “This Connor is no woman, she is another strumpet, sir, she is an Irish Papist! How do you know these harlots?” he shot at William. “There is whoredom in this, and now we mark it! Is the other one your friend’s, indeed? I’ve hit the spot with that one, have I not!?”
William was enraged.
“Had she not warned us, sir, then –”
Then what? Sam winced. The warning had been too late, in any way. He tried to help his friend.
“She warned us and she said specifically,” he interposed, “that the maiden was not with the renegade. She is with another woman only, and they are fleeing –”
“Enough,” roared Swift. His eyes were venomous. He raised his head up with a fearsome jerk.
“Mr Bentley, Mr Holt, you both forget yourselves! We have no interest in such sordidities.”
He stopped, his nostrils flaring. For a moment there was silence in the room. Then he let a breath out sharply, down his nose.
“Suffice to say,” he added, “that Marlowe is our man, suffice to say these crimes are of the blackest dye. My lords and gentlemen, we must first regroup, we must gather up our forces and make immediate foray. How many men are ranked against us? How well armed? How far away is Marlowe’s stronghold, how long to get there? Must we go by land or sea, do we have exact location and if not do we have the spies? Captain Shearing, sir, you are the grand commander here. Do you have Navy forces? Ships? Armaments? How much time is needed before we can go forth?”
The crowded Navy Office room was buzzing with energy and excitement. Jeremy Siddleham, intensely flushed, intensely moved, strode across the room and grasped Swift’s hand and pumped it frantically.
“Thank God you’re here, sir!” he said, brokenly. “Thank God at last we have a man of action in our midst!”
Other men joined in the congratulations, including grouchy Dodds and his morose companion Peter Hodge. Lieutenant Jackson had a sneer upon his face, but he directed it at Will and Holt when it was noticed, while Captain Shearing, as calm as always, rested on his special chair-arm and smiled sardonically at no one in particular. Swift cleared from out the ruck as soon as maybe, with a fine display of embarrassed modesty.
“An inner group,” he said. “Gentlemen, please, control yourselves. We need an inner circle of the most senior, and those with certain knowledges. Captain Shearing, forgive me, sir, if I seem to blunder in upon your purlieus, I bow to you in everything in this matter. And Mr – Mather is it, do forgive me? – yes, Mr Mather; I promise you that this shall be a joint venture, in every way. You command the land forces, I assume? Let us, to begin with, sirs, remove to a private office and put our strengths and stratagems upon the table. I beg of you, gentlemen – we must clear the decks!”
There was little grumbling at this, and Will was impressed by his uncle’s new-found authority. Where once he would have blustered he now had the tactics all in focus, and gave off an aura of genuine command. Lieutenant Jackson indicated an inner room, and made it clear who should or should not go inside. It was Captain Swift, however, who stopped Sam and Bentley. He had another need from them.
“Where is Kaye?” he asked, when he was sure they were not overheard. “Down west where, exactly? I require that you get to him and get him back, instanter. I cannot have him swanning off alone, he is an arrant booby but who bears the weight still of his father’s hopes – and mine. I am disappointed in the pair of you that you have let him from your sight. I instructed you
to be his brains.”
This was so extraordinary that they almost goggled, but Swift’s odd eyes appeared to signify some sort of joke. Suddenly, and even less expectedly, he shot out a hand and clasped Bentley by the wrist. His other hand he put on Sam Holt’s shoulder.
“Believe me, my boys,” he said, “I’m very glad to see you. I have a ship, I have some men, and now it looks I’ll have hot work to blow the tedium away.” He twinkled. “And when we’ve saved the bacon of these island toadies, my God, they’ll break their necks to make rich men of us, we’ll have them eating from our very hands.”
A shout of laughter.
“Even if,” he added, “Slack Dickie’s plan has gone awry. To marry a rich heiress – now that would have been a masterstroke indeed, and now she’s dead! Poor old Dickie. However does he do it, eh?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The task set Will and Sam, it seemed to them, was simple. Within half an hour of their interview with Swift they were inspecting the small gig that Jackson had set aside for them, and ordering provisions for their hop along the coast. They had considered taking Manning and Rosser, two of the malaria men who were nearly fit again, but the boat was not too handy and would get along much better without extra weight, they thought. The mast and sail brought from the store were barely adequate, and she would be under-canvassed even for the pair of them. The boat was not ideal, and filthy, and was inclined to leakiness: just what Jackson would have wished for them, they guessed.
It took the best part of a day to get all ready, and the general chaos on the shore was hardly over when they were set to go, so there was little ceremony in their parting. Swift had merely nodded them off when they had fetched up at the Offices, and urged them to sail like demons and to “drag Kaye back with them by the scruff” if need be. Had they not noticed Bridie on the waterfront, they would have set sail totally unheeded. She was lurking in the shadows of a warehouse, as near as maybe to invisible, and they were already setting out when at last she waved.
“Good God,” said Holt, who caught the signal. “Bridie, is that you? What do you here, Mistress? Will, grab that post! Shit. There. Ah, that’s got her.”
Bridie Connor was nervous in extreme. She glanced about as if expecting to be arrested, or attacked. The young men were largely unaware how heavily suspicion was laid upon her still.
“Now, now!” said William, rather fatuously. “No need for this, is there? What is it, Bridie?” He stopped, heart leaping with a sudden hope. “You have not any news, have you?”
She had, but it was not good. She had been contacted in the night, she said, by one of the messengers used by Mildred in the past, and it appeared that the two women had been attacked, and maybe taken. Little clear was known, as neither of them had been seen by the messenger, but the situation was grim. Perhaps Marlowe would rescue them, she said, when she saw Will’s face, or perhaps he had already – it was possible. She had hoped that they might have convinced “the new Captain” that Deb was not a traitor. She did not need to study long to understand it was a forlorn hope. But she had thought she had to tell them what she’d heard. God forgive her it was so sadly garbled.
Though cast down, both thanked her with sincerity, and both pressed money on her. Not for her trouble, but because they knew that she might need it urgently, and soon. Bridie, face strained, tried to smile that thought away, and failed. Indeed, she admitted, she was unsure now where she could safely stay, if anywhere.
Their feelings of foreboding were not helped when they cleared the outer entrances to the harbour and realised that they were in for heavy weather. The sun still shone, the sky was still pale azure, but there was something in the nature of the seaway that alerted them to coming change. The seas were long but getting shorter, and with increasing frequency the gig’s easy, rolling motion as she fled along was altered by a sudden stagger. Although they did not know the Carib patterns well yet, they guessed that there was wind beyond their visible horizon.
They needed thirty miles of southing to clear Portland and go west, and they hoped that they might do it in eight hours. But as the day wore on the wind began to freshen, and to head them more nearly from the south. The gig was sea-kindly enough and little water came across the bows, but as she began to work, more started to seep in through her seams. One garboard strake was badly split, and water seemed to grow up from the keelson. Her lack of canvas now became a matter of relief, and by afternoon they had indeed to shorten down. An hour later they were struggling, and the darkening sky had taken on an ochre hue. They took turns on the tiller, and instead of rest the “off-duty man” did duty with a bailing-tin.
There were isles and islets in the Portland Bight, and before the sun dropped them into pitchy darkness, they chose one they thought might give them some protection with its lee. The seas were steep and breaking by this time, which either indicated shallow water – they had no chart – or maybe rocks or reefs. For their sins they had not checked their anchor cable carefully, having trusted Jackson’s claim that all was shipshape, and when they went to prepare it were horrified by its condition. Clearly stored wet, it opened to reveal soft fibres in the lay, and one point of downright rot. No time for a long splice, no trust in a short, they doubled up a length and hoped the residue would give them scope enough. They had to anchor or stay under sail and ride it out in darkness: the shores that they could reach were much too dangerous for approaching, and the gig was not the vessel to heave safely to.
It was a long, hard night. The wind rose steadily until they could keep canvas up no more, and even in the island lee they were hard pressed not to let the boat fill up. The anchor rope was short, they snubbed and jerked till kingdom come, and neither snatched more than an hour’s sleep all night. At daybreak the tropic beauty of the island had drained away to something much more near their lives’ experience – grey, troubled skies over dark troubled waters, with trees and creepers beating and battering in the violent winds – and the sea beyond the Bight was uninviting. To Will, however, a lifelong small-boat man, it looked possible; in fact, compared with lying to this untrustworthy hook, bursting with advantages.
“Shit, Lieutenant,” Sam said. “Remind me never to sail under your command for pleasure. Talking of which – pray keep her still while I squeeze out a piss!”
They beat out round the point in great discomfort, but once clear of it upped helm, eased sheets, and let her fly. As the sun rose higher the cloud began to melt, and Will began to feel he would not freeze to death in fact. Sam got some sleep, his clothes steaming gently across the lee gunwale, then awoke, bailed out, and let his friend bed down. It was far from easy sailing – both reefs down she was still mighty hard pressed – and as the hours passed they suffered thirst pangs, sore skin from salt and constant movement, and burns around their screwed-up eyes. When the wind began to head them in the afternoon they confessed that they were damn near sick of it, but knew that they must knuckle down, as having no alternative.
“A sailor at sea,” said Sam, drearily. “Sometimes I think we’re mad, Will. Quite bloody mad.”
They took a long board into the open sea when night fell, to obviate any possibility that they would get too close to land, and hoped the wind would not freshen to a fuller gale when they were far offshore. It did not. Will was woken from a slumber by the deeply uncomfortable motion of a vessel in a seaway that has lost her forward thrust. His eyes met Sam’s, who was holding the tiller as if it were a rancid sausage.
“Gone,” said Sam. “It fell off like a stone, Will. Look. Not a bleeding zephyr.”
The sky was black and starry, no single cloud in view. The sea was lumps and backwashes, all direction torn away from it. The gig’s sails hung down from spars like dun brown shrouds, the mainyard ground and clattered at the throat.
“If I’d had dinner,” Sam added, bitterly, “I’d have brought it up by now. Good God, this bloody Caribbean. How I hate it.”
By the time the sun was fully up they had been at the oars
a good three hours, and their arms and arses were “crying out for mercy.” They took their northern heading from the rising orb once the stars had gone, and by midday (or thereabouts) felt they might die of heatstroke or exhaustion. For a blessed hour or two they lay on the bottomboards, shaded by the mainsail they had dropped (largely to stop it chafing to destruction) and told themselves that when they got to shore they would give up the sea and take positions more befitting gentlemen. They laughed, through cracking lips, that they might indeed be delirious, although they were, in fact, quite confident that the land they had just discerned was really there, and not some wild delusion.
When the breeze blew up towards night – offshore, inevitably – they hoisted sail, stripped off their clothes and hung overboard (for safety not together; they were not so light-headed), and took a long board to the westward, where they were certain they could see their landmark mountain peak. In full darkness, warm and beautiful, they steered by the stars, bailed a little, and took long turns to doze. At daybreak they could see the coast five miles away, knew almost precisely where they were, and prayed for good landfall and no nasty, nasty shocks. When they entered “Biter Bay” they recognised the Jacqueline at anchor peacefully, saw smoke from cooking fires, and let out a feeble cheer. Two boats were launched to meet them, full of armed men, and led by Bosun Taylor and Tommy Hugg. When they were recognised, the boats’ crews raised a yell of welcome. By the time they got on shore, to meet the captain who was waiting grandly at his new table in the centre of the stockade, their ears were stuffed with treasure and success. Slack Dickie’s mighty smile, as they approached him, was the final touch. Bentley was sick with anticipation.
Captain Kaye was not a man of subtleties. Before him he saw two ragged, salt-stained officers, with unshaven faces, burnt skin, and sauny eyes. If he saw that they bore heavy news he did not absorb it, it did not impinge on his consciousness. Their decrepitude, if anything, increased his own delight.