In Northern Seas

by Philip K Allan

  As so often when he felt in need of comfort, his eyes travelled to the portrait of his wife, which hung on the bulkhead opposite his desk. Lydia gazed down at him, her eyes full of sympathy.

  ‘What am I to make of such a beastly act, my dear?’ he asked. ‘It utterly revolts me, and yet that damned Vansittart seems to have been proven right.’ He fluttered the ambassador’s letter as evidence, as if the painted face could really see. ‘With a single act, all is made satisfactory, while if Paul had lived we might well have had the Russians as implacable foes for years to come.’ He rose to his feet and started to pace the cabin, leaving the heated brick and coffee to cool.

  ‘But is it truly war, as that bloody man says?’ he demanded. ‘As valid as the fighting I am engaged in, or is it little better than the violence of the mob brought to serve the state? In which case, how are we any different from the French, with their Terror, and their summary executions?’

  He spun around and started to walk back towards the painting. From this angle the face seemed different, the eyes held a hint of concern, together with urgency.

  ‘You are right, my dear,’ he sighed. ‘Perhaps I should leave such speculation to our philosophers, for we must depart presently. Word of the tsar’s death may well prevent a needless war. But there is another duty I must perform first.’ He raised his voice sufficient to reach Harte in the coach next door.

  ‘Pass the word for Mr Hockley, if you please, Harte. Ask him if he would care to join me.’

  The merchant captain was shown in, and Clay came across to greet him.

  ‘Good day to you, Mr Hockley. Do please take a seat. Would you care for some refreshment? The coffee is excellent.’

  ‘No, thank you, sir,’ said the merchant captain. ‘I believe you wished to see me?’

  ‘Indeed, I wanted to inform you of some excellent tidings,’ said Clay. ‘Our ambassador in St Petersburg tells me that Russian ports have now been reopened to our commerce, which means that you and Miss Hockley will be able to find passage home presently. The Griffin will be leaving soon. We need to rejoin the fleet with word of the change in regime here.’

  ‘Murdered, was he not, sir?’ said Hockley, his face grim. ‘The sin of Cain, meted out by his son, or so the rumours say.’

  ‘Tsar Paul was found dead in his bed, after a banquet at which he had shown considerable agitation,’ said Clay. ‘That is what is being reported.’

  ‘You and Mr Vansittart were present at the palace that night, were you not?’

  ‘At the banquet, yes,’ said Clay. ‘But we were seated a long way from the tsar. I saw little of note.’ Hockley stared at him for a while, and then shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘“All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword”, as scripture teaches us, captain,’ he concluded, leaving Clay unsure if he was still referring to the tsar.

  ‘A risk that must apply equally to all military men,’ he said. ‘But you astonish me, Mr Hockley. You seem quite unmoved at the prospect of leaving my ship at last. I thought that you desired it above all things?’ His guest sighed before he replied.

  ‘Oh, I welcome the opportunity to leave the Griffin, right enough,’ he said. ‘All has gone ill, since I set foot upon her. But I fear that I may be quitting your frigate alone.’

  ‘Alone?’ queried Clay. ‘Why so?’

  ‘You know there can be no secrets onboard a ship, Captain,’ he said. ‘I daresay you will have heard of my estrangement from my daughter.’

  ‘I had not, in truth,’ said Clay. ‘I have perhaps been too involved with matters ashore, but your spirits do seem very low. What, pray, has occasioned your breach?’

  ‘The folly of an old man, and the native stubbornness of a North Country lass,’ explained Hockley. He twisted his hands together as he sat. ‘It is as I feared; she has given her heart to your Mr Preston, and so is lost to me now.’

  ‘I see,’ said Clay, ‘although I do not fully understand the nature of the problem. Why does her attachment to Mr Preston also mean she most forego your society?’

  ‘Because the relationship is objectionable.’

  ‘Does she have an understanding with another gentleman?’

  ‘No, she does not,’ said Hockley, rising from his chair and striding about the cabin, following the path that Clay had moments earlier. ‘It is I that object to Mr Preston.’

  ‘Hmm, well naval officers are not to everyone’s taste, I grant you,’ said Clay. ‘I myself had some difficulties obtaining the hand of Mrs Clay. I do not want to be guilty of impertinence, but might I offer an opinion?’

  ‘If you wish,’ said Hockley, staring out of the cabin windows into the rain.

  ‘I have served with Mr Preston since he was a young midshipman,’ said his captain. ‘I can assure you that he is from a good family, I am certain he is un-engaged and I know him to have great merits as an officer. He is in possession of a formidable character—the manner in which he has returned to duty after his injury is testament to that. To my mind, he makes a perfectly eligible match.’

  ‘I know all this!’ exclaimed Hockley, resuming his pacing. ‘I just wanted something more for Sarah! She is my only child. And now I have said things in a passion that have driven her to him, and away from me.’

  ‘Come and sit down, sir, and let me give you council, as one father to another,’ said Clay. ‘Do you mark that painting of my wife?’

  ‘Aye, she must be a handsome lady. Your second lieutenant was the artist, was he not?’

  ‘Just so,’ said Clay. ‘When I am troubled, or far from home and missing my wife, as I am now, I look upon her image and I find it soothes me. You see I am devoted to her above all things.’

  ‘You are very fortunate, sir,’ said Hockley, pulling out a handkerchief and dabbing at his eyes. ‘I lost the support of my own wife many years ago.’

  ‘I have never found the heart to be a vessel that holds a set amount,’ continued Clay. ‘I could not love her more than I do, and yet I find, to my surprise, I that I can also find much the same affection for another, now that I am blessed with a son.’

  ‘That is very touching, sir, perhaps surprisingly so in a naval captain, but how does that relate to my daughter?’

  ‘Because you speak only of choices in this matter,’ said Clay. ‘You think that if Miss Hockley admires Mr Preston, she must also be lost to you? But why can she not have affection enough for you both?’

  ‘I have handled matters very ill,’ said Hockley, his head bowed. Clay regarded the distraught father for a moment, then felt the familiar stirring of an idea.

  ‘Mr Hockley, will you indulge me a little further,’ he said. ‘I need to go on deck presently, to attend to our preparations to depart. While I am gone, please make free to use the privacy that my cabin affords.’

  ‘You hope for a reconciliation between me and my daughter?’ said Hockley. ‘I despair of achieving that.’

  ‘No, I want you to oblige me by conversing with Mr Preston,’ he said. ‘Not as an aggrieved father, but in a civilised fashion. I fancy your opinion of that young man will change, once you are better acquainted with him. You may yet find it a route to not only regain the affection of your daughter, but perhaps also acquire that of a son.’

  He watched Hockley as he wrestled with the idea, and then detected the briefest of nods.

  ‘Harte there!’ called Clay. ‘Kindly bring me my oilskins, a fresh pot of coffee, and pass the word for Mr Preston.’

  ******

  After several hours of labouring in the pouring rain to prepare the ship for sea, the crew of the Griffin were all thoroughly drenched. They flowed down the ladder ways and into the grateful warmth and comparative dryness of the lower deck, hungry and ready for their breakfast. As luck would have it, the first tubs of hot burgoo were being delivered to the mess tables from the galley. It was a noisy and boisterous lower deck that gathered around each mess table, the steam from the food mingling with that from the men’s sopping garments.

  �
��Your man Ryan Conway’s a strange fecker, even for a Lobster,’ remarked O’Malley to his fellow mess mates, once the edge had come off his hunger.

  ‘That be Lobsters for you all over,’ said Trevan, through his last mouthful of burgoo. ‘They be neither fish nor fowl. If it was soldiering they was after, what’s wrong with the army? Better vittles and no chance of drowning, I says. Ain’t that right, Josh?’

  ‘Not sure as there’s much bleeding difference in the fare,’ said Rankin, allowing the grey slop in his spoon to splatter back into his bowl. ‘But the army can still be proper hazardous. Back in Madras it were sickness as did for nine men from ten.’

  ‘Them ain’t odds as I fancy,’ said Evans. He took a pull from his cup and made a face. ‘Bleeding hell, this small beer’s getting sour! I reckon that brew’ll poison nine from ten presently. We’ll be moving on to Adam’s Ale soon, lads.’

  ‘What made you mention Conway, Sean?’ asked Sedgwick.

  ‘Me and O’Brian was sharing a pipe, hard by the galley last night, jawing about home and stuff, when your man comes off duty, like,’ said O’Malley. ‘So he sits down with us, and says as how he’s just spent a watch guarding that fecking cut-purse Ludlow, down in the hold.’ Rankin looked up from his bowl, and put down his spoon.

  ‘“Holy Mary, but I need a fecking breather,” says Conway,’ continued O’Malley. ‘“If I’ve told that arse Ludlow to shut up once, I’ve told the fecker a dozen times. I had to tap him with my musket before he piped down.”’

  ‘What was the bleeder saying?’ asked Rankin.

  ‘Usual stuff you’d expect,’ said O’Malley. ‘That he’s as innocent as half the saints in fecking paradise, and how some bastard’s stitched him up.’

  ‘That don’t signify any,’ remarked Trevan. ‘I ain’t heard tell of a lifter yet as didn’t swear it weren’t him as done it. He were caught red-handed, with the goods in his dunnage.’

  ‘There could still be some truth in what he says, Adam,’ said Sedgwick. ‘I’ve felt in my bones that something ain’t right with this whole thing.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Rankin.

  ‘Takes a bold cutpurse to try his hand at thieving on a ship as crowded as this,’ commented Sedgwick. ‘I wouldn’t have marked Ludlow down as having the bottom for it.’

  ‘Maybe he saw that Earnshaw ticker and couldn’t stop his bleeding self,’ said the valet.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said the coxswain. ‘That clock’s worth a king’s ransom ashore, or so I heard Pipe saying, but how would a bloke like Ludlow have come to figure that out?’

  ‘According to Conway, he only took it ‘cause some arse had the fecking squeeze on him,’ reported the Irishman.

  ‘They squeal all manner of nonsense, once they got the leg irons on and can feel the noose a coming,’ said Evans. ‘I bleeding hate a cutpurse.’

  ‘This bloke what dropped him in it,’ said Rankin. ‘Did he name the bleeder?’ O’Malley turned to look at the valet.

  ‘Aye, Joshua Rankin, a name were mentioned,’ he said. ‘That was why Conway came to find me. See, just before he fecking belted him, he could have sworn Ludlow said something about Big Sam here.’

  ‘Me!’ exclaimed Evans. ‘What’s the little bleeder fingering me for? I ain’t had nothing to do with any of this shit!’

  ‘Ah, well, Conway’s strong as they come, so Ludlow weren’t really able to say much more after he tapped him, like,’ said the Irishman.

  ‘Something ain’t right, lads,’ repeated Sedgwick. ‘Why’s he bringing Sam’s name up? I reckon we should have a little chat with Ludlow. See what he has to say when he ain’t being cuffed around by a Lobster. When’s your mate Conway due to be guarding him again, Sean?’

  ‘How the feck am I meant to know that?’ protested O’Malley. ‘Am I after being Corporal Edwards now?’

  ‘Steady Sean, only asking,’ said Sedgwick. ‘I‘ll find out myself.’

  ‘Make way there!’ ordered a marine private, as he came marching along the lower deck, carrying a tray set with a single bowl and mug.

  ‘Speak of the fecking devil,’ said O’Malley, pointing after the soldier. ‘There goes the Lobster as is collecting Ludlow’s vittles from the galley.’

  ‘Aye, I dare say he is,’ said Rankin, deep in thought. Then he looked up. ‘His vittles...’

  ‘You all right, Josh?’ asked Trevan. ‘You look as if you just sighted a spectre.’

  ‘What? No, it were just Sean rattling on about the galley,’ he said, rising from the mess table. ‘Put me in mind of something I ain’t done yet. His Nibs can have a proper temper on if I don’t fetch his coffee. I better scarper, lads.’

  ‘But you ain’t finished your scoff...’ protested Evans towards the fleeing back. ‘Ah well. Pass over his bowl, Adam.’

  Sedgwick drummed his fingers against the side of his bowl as he watched the valet go, his mind deep in thought. He was turning over the conversation they had just had in his mind. There was something out of place in what had been said, like a wrongly played note in a familiar tune, but the more he searched for it, the further it slipped away from him.

  ‘You all right there, Able?’ asked Trevan. ‘Now it be you as has gone proper thoughtful, like.’

  ‘He’s had his fecking head turned, I reckon, what with all his rattling around in palaces of late, hob-knobbing with Dukes an’ the like,’ observed O’Malley.

  ‘I were just thinking on Ludlow and this clock,’ said Sedgwick. ‘Not that the palace weren’t a proper eye-opener, even from below stairs.’

  ‘So did you see how their king got done over?’ asked Evans. ‘Throttled, weren’t he?’

  ‘I weren’t there when it happened,’ said Sedgwick. ‘Rankin and Pipe were, although Rankin won’t say nothing about it.’

  ‘Rankin was fecking there!’ exclaimed O’Malley. ‘Your man as nearly strangled the Dane? It was never him, was it?’

  Sedgwick shook his head. ‘I don’t doubt he could have, but remember Pipe was there too. I can’t believe he would have stood back and let such a thing happen.’

  ******

  While the sailors were talking, Rankin had already climbed up the main ladder way, taking the steps two at a time, and then rushed out onto the main deck. He hunched deeper into his coat, his hands buried in his pockets against the pelting rain, as he crossed a section of open deck to duck under the forecastle. Ahead of him was the glowing warmth of the immense black iron range that dominated the galley. He arrived just as the marine was setting down his tray on the counter.

  ‘Breakfast for the prisoner, if you please, Mr Walker,’ said the soldier, his scarlet back towards the valet.

  ‘Sorry, mate, but can I have a pot of bleeding water first,’ said Rankin, arriving next to him. ‘Only Vansittart’ll skin me if I don’t get him his brew sharpish.’

  ‘Bit of a bastard is he, the Hollander?’ asked the marine.

  ‘Ain’t every Grunter?’ said the valet. The soldier smiled at this.

  ‘Aye, that’s the truth,’ he said. ‘Fix him first, Mr Walker. Ludlow can wait.’

  ‘My thanks,’ said Rankin. He turned to slap the soldier on the back, and the trailing cuff of his coat caught the wooden bowl on the tray and sent it clattering to the deck. ‘Oh, sorry there, mate!’ he exclaimed, and stooped down to pick it up. He went to put it back on the tray, and then paused. ‘Did you say Ludlow?’

  ‘Aye, that’s his dish,’ confirmed the marine. Rankin bent over the bowl and spat noisily into it. Then he set it back on the tray. ‘Give the filthy little cutpurse that from me.’ The marine stared in surprise, and then laughed.

  ‘I guess he deserves that,’ he said. He glanced down at the bowl. ‘Bleeding hell, did all that spittle come out of you kisser?’ The cook came over to join them at the counter.

  ‘Water for the wardroom,’ he said, banging down a steaming can, ‘and vittles for the prisoner.’ With his other hand he slopped a ladle full of burgoo into the bowl. ‘Help yourself to small b
eer from the firkin over there, Private.’

  ‘God bless you, Mr Walker,’ said Rankin, picking up the water. ‘You’ve proper saved my life.’

  ******

  Later that day the Griffin was underway once more, standing out from the narrow end of the Gulf of Finland, with St Petersburg astern and open grey water ahead. The lashing rain closed in around the frigate as she battled along, making her crew on watch crouch under the gangways and angle their tarpaulin hats into the wind. The dark, forested shores had vanished on either side, as had the last of the floating ice as she sped along with the wind on her beam, driving westwards.

  After four hours on watch beside the wheel, Lieutenant Preston was soaked, in spite of the sea boots and oilskins that he wore. He was cold, hungry, and the stump of his arm ached, yet in spite of this he felt content. In his mind he ran through the events of this morning — the summons to come to the captain’s day cabin, followed by Clay’s departure that had left him in Hockley’s company. The strange, stilted conversation they had had, awkward and heavy with leaden pauses, then the dawning realisation that Sarah’s father was trying to be pleasant to him. After that had come his encounter with Sarah, close and warm, the taste of her lips against his, the feel of her cascading hair through his fingers. Full of sadness, and yet also promise. Laughter and tears in equal measure.