Hoare and the Portsmouth Atrocities cbh-1

by Wilder Perkins

"I don't know that I care for the way you describe my Marines, sir," Captain Jinks retorted. "In any case, we bring a warrant for the arrest of one Edouard Moreau, alias Edward Morrow, on charges of treason, et cetera, et cetera. Stand aside, please."

  "Show your warrant, sir," Sir Thomas said. His bandy, froggy legs barely reached below his mount's barrel. Captain Jinks turned to Hoare, as did Sir Thomas, who looked at Hoare with extreme distaste.

  "You again, fellow," he said, his voice oozing contempt. "I told you I'd have you horsewhipped if I laid eyes on you again on my manor."

  "I think not, sir," Hoare whispered. "Here is the warrant. I think you will find it quite in order." He held the document up.

  "Well, fellow? Give it to me," Sir Thomas ordered.

  "I think not, sir," Hoare repeated. "You may advance as far as you must in order to read it."

  "Never mind," Sir Thomas said. "I did not sign it, and I am the law of this land. You can go to hell, and take your fornicatin' document with you."

  "The warrant is signed and sealed by the Marquess of Blandford, sir, as you can plainly see. As I need not tell you, he is Lord Lieutenant of this county." Hoare hoped that Sir Thomas would stop arguing and decide either to resist this troop of mounted Marines or to obey his Lord Lieutenant. He felt himself running out of whisper.

  Sir Thomas muttered a few words to his fellow horseman, who spurred his animal at a furious, foolhardy pace down the hill toward the town. With no good will, he gestured to his other followers to clear the road. He himself sat his horse, fuming, while the red-coated troop filed past him like a martial hunt passing in review before their Master of Fox Hounds. At the tail of the last trooper, Hoare doffed his hat and bowed silently in his saddle to the baronet. He was crotch-weary and glad to be ending his eighty-mile journey. It had rained all the way.

  Moreau was not at the offices of his quarry. At the door of the house at the top of the zigzag road that led down to the town, Moreau's manservant shook his head.

  "You'll not find the master here," he said. " 'E's gorn."

  "We'll see about that," Captain Jinks replied grimly. "Sergeant MacNab!"

  "Sah?"

  "Take four men. Station one at each door of the house. Search the house for our man. You'll remember the description given you last night by Mr. Hoare."

  "Sah!"

  One of the troopers failed to suppress a guffaw. Sergeant MacNab turned on him.

  "Silence, man! Twa days o' muckin' oot the stables forrr ye!"

  The rest of the troop jogged carefully on down the turnpike, behind Hoare and their captain. They spurned the outraged tollbooth keeper and proceeded into town.

  Waving frantically, the maid Agnes stood at Mrs. Graves's front door as the troop clattered up.

  "She's gone to keep an eye on Mr. Morrow on the shore!" Agnes cried. " 'You'll find him at Portland Bill,' she says I was to tell you, 'where you and I drove off his men together'!"

  Once off the smooth blocks of the street and down on the shingle, Jinks set the troop to a canter-but not for long, as first one horse and then another went lame, victims of the treacherous cobbles.

  "It ain't the 'untin' that 'urts the 'orse; it's the 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer on the 'ard 'ighway," Captain Jinks reminded Hoare out of the side of his mouth.

  When they rounded a small point of the cliff, the troop's leaders could see Moreau, alone, heaving a shallop toward the surf. It might well have been the very shallop that had sheltered Eleanor Graves from her assailants that first afternoon. The wind was easterly and gusty, the clouds heavier than they had been on that first occasion. Perhaps a quarter-mile offshore, Marie Claire lay hove to, her foresail backed, tossing in the first line of breakers. Hoare handed the warrant to Captain Jinks. Let him do the shouting.

  Jinks deployed his men. A sudden rain squall hid Marie Claire, then swept across the waves toward them.

  "Edouard Moreau, alias Edward Morrow," Jinks cried, "I have here a warrant for your arrest on charges of treason! Advance and surrender!" He gestured to his men to spread out along the stony beach and take aim.

  "I'll be damned if I do!" Moreau shouted.

  "Surrender, or we fire!"

  Moreau continued to shove at the skiff. The curtain of rain squall struck. Marie Claire vanished behind it. It drove down on the waiting troop, bent on soaking the carbines' priming powder.

  "Fire!" Captain Jinks cried.

  Two carbines went off. Three misfired with faint, wet sounds. Hoare dismounted and began to plod wearily toward Moreau along the shingle, turning an ankle at every third step.

  "You'll never make it through the surf, you fool," he whispered to the metis, knowing well that his words would be lost within inches of his mouth.

  Moreau did not even turn. He had the shallop afloat at last. He heaved it into the sea until the first surf foamed around his knees, drew himself aboard it, and set the oars in their tholepins. Looking over his shoulder every few strokes to see that he was on course for Marie Claire, he began to pull for her. The Canadian handled his oars as well as any Coastguardsman.

  In the offing, Hoare saw a pair of men clamber over the schooner's side into a small boat and cast off, towing a light line behind them. They were still beyond the breakers.

  Hoare reached into one deep pocket for his first pistol. He hoped it was dry. Using his left arm as a rest, he took careful aim at the oarsman and fired. Hoare could not see where his ball went. He found his second pistol, took and held a breath, and squeezed the trigger. The weapon sputtered, hung fire, and destroyed a wave top. Taking another stroke, Moreau grinned mirthlessly at him over his oars.

  There came a whicker overhead, and a sling-stone clipped a wave top beyond Moreau's shoulder. Turning, Hoare saw Eleanor Graves on the low cliff above him, astride a Downs pony. She was bareback, her thighs exposed to the rain, her hair mingled with the beast's shaggy mane. She had loaded another stone into her sling.

  The second stone took off one of the shallop's starboard thole pins. Moreau caught a crab with his starboard oar. The shallop swerved and broached to, just in time to catch a breaking sea broadside. The sea poured aboard it over the gunwales. She swamped and lurched heavily to leeward.

  Moreau went overboard into the boil. He was out of his depth, for his head disappeared. When he came to the surface again, his clutch missed the shallop's gunwale by no more than a finger. A crosscurrent caught the boat and began to edge it away, leaving Moreau to struggle after it, losing a tantalizing inch or two with every stroke.

  In his mind's eye Hoare could see the burnt and mangled men of Vantage, with those of Scipio and the other vessels Moreau and his minions had destroyed. The man had put paid to upward of a thousand loyal English sailors. Hoare would be damned if he would let him drown peaceably. He kicked off his shoes and waded into the surf until he was waist deep. He looped his belt knife's lanyard over his wrist and dove forward into the surf, his hat carrying away somewhere into the windy darkness. He let the knife drag behind him so that he could put the full force of both arms into his stroke.

  As Moreau struggled seaward toward his schooner, he had turned his back to Hoare, whose sudden grip on his coat took him unaware. Hoare climbed up the other's sunken back and forced his head into the water.

  Moreau twisted in Hoare's arms, gripped both ears, and pulled his head forward. His teeth gnashed at Hoare's nose, clenched into it hard. Hoare let him gnash. He let go of the metis with both hands and pulled the sheath-knife into reach by its lanyard. He jabbed it forward and felt it sink into some soft part of Moreau's midsection.

  Moreau's mouth opened in a gasp, releasing Hoare's nose and sucking in water. Hoare shook his head and twisted the knife in Moreau's body, withdrew it, stabbed again at random. Moreau rolled over. His eyes opened wide, staring into Hoare's. The metis gave a choked cry and grimaced, spewing bloody water through his teeth into Hoare's face. Hoare let go of the knife, pulled his enemy's head underwater by his coarse, clubbed black hair, and bore down on top of him.
Moreau sank under him, bubbled, and died-whether by drowning or from his knife wounds Hoare never knew and never cared.

  Hoare could see the shallop rocking, logy and tantalizing, still just out of reach as if it were alive and viciously teasing. He took a firmer grip of Moreau's hair, rolled over on his back, and began to tow him ashore through the surf.

  Beyond the breakers, the hands left in Marie Claire hauled their shipmates back aboard. Before Hoare had struggled ashore with his captive's body, the schooner was under way under reefed fore and mainsails, making seaward toward France.

  Eleanor Graves clambered off her pony and down the cliff-side path, to look down at Hoare as he gasped above his victim, bleeding from his torn nose.

  "Well done," she said. "I would happily have crippled him and delivered him to the Navy's mercy, but I would not have wished another man's death on my conscience. The one- Dugas, the leader of my attackers-was enough."

  "You didn't kill Dugas," Hoare whispered. "Someone smothered him to death."

  Her eyes lit up. "Then I could have killed Morrow after all," she said. "He came to my house in the rain after you and your man Stone left in the chaise. He stunned poor Tom with a club, forced himself into my presence, and threatened to kill both Agnes and Tom if I did not hand over Simon's papers. So I did.

  "He leafed through them, but found nothing. Could he have supposed I would have given him them all without a fight? It did not come to that, for one of his men stormed in to warn him of your coming and he fled without harming any of us further. I followed him on Rosie here.

  "Take him away now, with my compliments to the Navy."

  She turned away, climbed slowly back up the cliff path to her waiting pony Rosie, while Hoare, with the help of one of the Horse Marines, loaded the body onto a spare mount.

  Chapter XV

  Hoare found the journey back from Weymouth with the Horse Marines almost insupportable. He was weary, weary to the bone-from his struggle to save Jaggery, from the forced march to arrest Moreau, from his hard swim and the death in the surf at Portsmouth Bill, from the necessity of traveling nearly a hundred miles in company with Sir Thomas Frobisher. It was quite enough.

  For no sooner had Sir Thomas got wind of Moreau's death than he marched his miscellaneous men up to the Moreau quarry offices and obtained the surrender of the twelve leaderless Canadians who had not escaped to France on Marie Claire. With this victory to boast of, he elbowed Captain Jinks aside by claiming that, the Frenchmen also having been taken on Frobisher land, they were his prisoners. The journey to Portsmouth became a Frobisher parade, led by Frobishers men, with the Horse Marines bringing up the rear-and Bartholomew Hoare nowhere.

  Delancey, the flag lieutenant, cut Hoare out from the troop and brought him, travel-worn and dusty, to his master.

  Sir George ordered Hoare to summarize his transaction in Weymouth, chided him for having greatly exceeded his authority in abstracting Captain Jinks and his men, and-only when Hoare's whisper broke down completely-mercifully released him with instructions to prepare a written report and deliver it to him within twenty-four hours.

  In the Admiral's anteroom, Hoare found Sir Thomas Frobisher, triumphant, purple, and goggling. The baronet glared and brushed past him on his way in to demand of Sir George the peerage he deserved for frustrating the Frogs' latest knavish tricks.

  Before leaving for the Swallowed Anchor, Hoare stopped to extort supplies from Mr. Patterson: ample paper, fresh-cut quills, and enough of Patterson's finest India ink to carry him through this latest Herculean task. Patterson needed Hoare's threats, pleading, and finally the promise of a bottle of the precious Madeira to release it all. He also persuaded Patterson to promise that when Hoare had finished he would have one of his clerks make a fair copy for Sir George's eyes.

  Sounds of disputation began to come through the door to Sir George's sanctum. By the time Hoare left the anteroom, laden with his loot, they had risen to acrimonious shouts.

  As he came out the door to the street, the voices of the two enraged knights rose to a roar, culminating with a thunderous croak from Sir Thomas: "Damn the Royal Navy, and damn you, too!"

  Upon this, Hoare fled for home, bath, bird, and bottle.

  The following morning, Hoare felt quite refreshed in body, but not in spirit. He did not look forward to putting his actions down on paper. The act had a sense of finality about it. Nonetheless, now finding all was in readiness, he was ready to begin.

  First, however, he must move his parlor table to a particularly well lit part of the room. He doffed his uniform coat and hung it carefully on the back of the chair. He turned back his right sleeve.

  Now, feeling perfectly comfortable, he was ready to begin. First, however, he needed to make sure his poor throat would not run dry in midvoyage. He slipped downstairs and had the pink girl Susan prepare a pitcher of her mild, soothing, lemon-flavored tisane. He chatted idly with little Jenny Jaggery as he waited for Susan to finish, sighed, and took the pitcher back upstairs. He placed the pitcher where it would be handy but not in the way of any sudden flourish of inspiration.

  Now fully prepared, Hoare was ready to begin. He selected a pen, dipped it in Patterson's ink, and wrote down the necessary prelude.

  Portsmouth, 19 August 1805

  Admiral Sir George Hardcastle, KB, Commanding at Portsmouth

  Sir:

  So far, so good. He paused in meditation, reread what he had written, then began to set down his next words. His stupid pen had dried out, and he must dip it again in Patterson's precious ink before he could continue.

  You have had the kindness to instruct me to prepare a report which you propose to forward to Their Lordships of the Admiralty. This report, you have directed, should include such of those events surrounding the recent sequestration of infernal machines on HM ships as cannot be substantiated and would therefore be of no value in court. In other words, I am to narrate what I believe to have happened, as well as what is known to have happened.

  Hoare was properly under way now, all sails drawing. He went on to set forth the details of the case. He told of Morrow's French-Canadian origin, his hatred of the English, and his recruitment as an agent of Bonaparte.

  He described Morrow's approach to Dr. Graves, the latter's manufacture of clockwork for him in the belief that he was doing so for their use in His Majesty's ships-as, of course, they were, — and the doctor's growing suspicion of Morrow's motives.

  He informed the Admiral of how Morrow had sent two of his men-one Dugas and another-to abduct Mrs. Graves and hold her as surety against her husband's obedience.

  He reported how Morrow, with Jaggery's assistance, had inserted the mechanisms into powder-packed ankers and used others such as the treasonous Kingsley to sequester them in vessels of the Navy. How Kingsley had had in his possession no less than three of the still-undeciphered messages from the person Jaggery had known only as "Himself." That person, he suggested, was the same one spoken of by Morrow's man Fortier as lui, the two terms being equivalent.

  After a ten-minute period, which he took to stretch and pace about his parlor, Hoare now enumerated for his Admiral the individual deaths which must be laid at Moreau's door- those of Kingsley and Dr. Graves, and perhaps that of Jaggery as well-although another must have smothered Moreau's man Dugas. He pointed out that several matters must be of grave concern to the Navy. The one of most immediate urgency, he wrote, was the elimination of any armed ankers that remain unexploded.

  The second major concern, however, as Hoare advised, was the unmasking of "Himself," the anonymous figure who directed Morrow, Kingsley, and Jaggery and may well have an unknown number of other agents at his command. In Hoare's opinion he was probably 'Jehu,' the author of the captured texts. "As long as a man of such caliber is at liberty, His Majesty's Navy remains imperilled."

  Except for the proper closing courtesies, this concluded Hoare's report to Admiral Hardcastle. Thereupon, he rested.

  The next morning, Hoare bore his blotted
masterpiece to Admiralty House, where he cajoled the Admiral's rabbit into making a fair copy. This done, he signed it, sealed it, and ordered the rabbit to place it before their common master with all possible speed. Then he returned to the Swallowed Anchor to await the consequences. He whiled away the time by returning Inconceivable to a full state of readiness, having taken the liberty of keeping Bold and Stone at hand for a day or two beyond what was proper.

  "Go find something to do somewhere else, Delancey, "Admiral Hardcastle said from behind his mountain of papers. "And close the door after you.

  "Take a pew, Mr. Hoare. A glass of Madeira with you, sir. Pour me a glass, if you'd be so kind, and take one yourself. I'd like your opinion of it. I think you will find it a superior product. Your good health, sir, and a prosperous future to you," he went on, raising his glass. "And the thanks of the Admiralty for having put a stop to that Frenchman's capers."

  Hoare could have been tasting a wine from his own stock. At the second sip, his suspicions hardened. "Excuse me, Sir George, for asking," he said, "but… where did you procure this nectar?"

  "From Greenleaf, at the Bunch of Grapes," the Admiral replied. He sounded a trifle smug. "I'll warrant you've never stooped to a place like that. I was past there just yesterday. Hasn't even settled properly yet."

  And that bastard Greenleaf swore he sold me the last of his stock, Hoare snarled to himself. I'll have his guts for garters.

  "Now, about the man Moreau's nationality," the Admiral continued, sailing on, all unconscious of Hoare's outrage. "He was a Canadian, even if of French extraction, and therefore a British subject. He would have been hanged for treason."

  "Yes, sir," Hoare said. "But he would have come to the same end in any case, would he not? Hanged for treason, or hanged for a spy?"

  "Obviously, sir. Nonetheless, this puts a different complexion on things. We can't have the nation looking over its shoulders for traitors in our midst, coming from lower Canada, or the Channel Islands, for that matter.