Dead Man's Island

by David McDine

  ‘Then you’re a bigger fool than I took you for. Why the hell not? What have you got in your veins, blood or sea water?’

  ‘I fear I would not make your daughter happy for long, nor she me. And I have no intention of giving up the sea, no matter how impoverished.’

  ‘Look, I’ve got the figures written down here by my legal fellow – the farms, lump sum, annual allowance and whatnot.’ Brax brandished a paper. ‘Take this and think about it. Discuss it with your parents. They think it’s a handsome offer. You’ll get none better.’

  Anson was even more discomfited to hear that Brax had been discussing what he regarded as private matters with his mother and father and declined the proffered paper. ‘There is no point in me looking at any figures, sir. Your daughter and I have had a falling out from which there is no return – certainly not on my side.’

  Brax laughed. ‘Just a lovers’ tiff! I’m sure it was nothing that a kiss, a cuddle and a handsome dowry won’t put right. So let’s shake on it, eh?’

  Now even more determined, Anson shook his head sadly. ‘The truth is, sir, that Charlotte and I are not suited and I deeply regret allowing myself to become involved with her in the first place.’

  The squire’s already florid features turned an even deeper red and he snapped: ‘Is that your final word?’

  ‘It is, sir.’

  Brax snorted. ‘So be it! Your father and especially your mother will find it hard to forgive you for passing up a union with my family. You’re a damned fool and I’ll waste no more time on you. My next stop will be the Chitterling place – young Dickie will be cock-a-hoop. He knows a fine bargain when he sees one!’

  And with that the squire threw back the remains of his drink, rose and stomped out without a backward glance.

  26

  Armstrong at the Admiralty

  Commander Amos Armstrong strode across the Admiralty courtyard for the umpteenth time, feeling far less confident than the assurance his smart appearance indicated.

  Thanks to Dragoon Dillon back at Fairlight Signal Station, his boots were polished to a high degree and his best uniform showed only minor signs of weathering – and that caused by foul weather on Sussex cliff-tops rather than at sea where he had spent minimal time of late.

  His hair had been recently cut by a Pall Mall barber who had also given him his closest shave since his last brush with the French, and his wind-reddened face – also due to seemingly permanent prevailing westerlies – positively glowed.

  He mounted the steps, entered the hallowed hub of the Royal Navy and was directed to the infamous waiting room by one of the intimidating porters whose chief mission in life appeared to be making visiting officers aware of their lowly status and keeping them away from the hierarchy.

  The porter, who had a repetitive sniff, teased him: ‘Back agin, sir? Still arter a ship, are we? Best join all the others then, heh, heh …’

  Before Armstrong could think of a suitable riposte he had been herded into the familiar limbo inhabited in the main by half-pay officers enduring the ignominy of half-life on the beach and seeking the holy grail of what false memory told them would be real life at sea.

  He had sat among them a number of times before, waiting to see the appointers who he hoped would swap his present boring but arduous posting at his south coast signal station for a sea-going slot – any sea-going slot.

  But this visit was different. This time he had not come on spec, cap in hand, to plead his case. Today, for once, he was answering a summons from Captain Wallis, who had sent him away with a flea in his ear last time.

  While unemployed officer-watching in the waiting room, he recalled the time when he had sat there alongside Lieutenant Anson, who had since become his particular friend.

  They had enjoyed a night on the town together and his brother officer had later secured him an invitation to a Brax Hall ball where he had met Anson’s delightful sisters, or rather Elizabeth and the rather less delightful Anne.

  But above all he had Anson to thank for breaking the boredom of signal station life by involving him in the ingenious plan to capture the Normandy privateer that had been plaguing the south coast, snapping up merchantmen as prizes.

  Armstrong’s reverie was interrupted by the sniffing porter who poked his head round the door and beckoned him.

  The other waiting room occupants looked daggers at one of their number being taken, to their minds, out of turn. But Armstrong was delighted. Surely the fact that he had been summoned rather than calling on the off-chance meant that the appointers were going to offer him a better posting. And being hauled out of the dreaded waiting room in front of many who appeared to have taken root there must indicate something.

  Captain Alfred Wallis, a short man with balding pate and sharp features, smiled as Armstrong entered his large office a few doors away from the waiting room. This, Armstrong thought, really was promising. He was not used to being greeted with smiles at the Admiralty.

  ‘Ah, Armstrong, we meet again!’ And, handing him a letter, the captain told him: ‘Take a pew and read this while I sign a few documents, there’s a good fellow.’

  Puzzled, Armstrong sat, smoothed out the letter and read:

  “To my Lord Commissioners,

  To inform your Lordships of the successful taking of a French privateer off the port of Seagate by gunboats of the Special Sea Fencible Detachment under my command …”

  He did a double-take and looked up in surprise, but Wallis was engrossed in his paperwork. So this was why he had been summoned.

  This was a report on the taking of Égalité by Anson and his jolly jack tars, but this was not his friend’s style. Anson would never mention himself in the first sentence.

  Armstrong read on, astonished at the tone of it – the references to its planning, the exaggerated casualties, the dismissive mentions of the role performed by Anson and Lieutenant Coney, of the Folkestone Impress Service, and the blatant lobbying for prize money. Needless to say, there was no mention whatsoever of Armstrong’s own part in planning the privateer’s capture.

  He was therefore not one whit surprised to see the signature, that of Arthur Veryan St Cleer Hoare, Captain, Royal Navy.

  Seething, he snorted, dragging Captain Wallis’s attention back from his paperwork.

  ‘You appear somewhat taken aback, Armstrong?’

  ‘That I am, sir, totally amazed. Dumbstruck!’

  ‘Quite a despatch isn’t it? Some might say the stuff of legends!’

  Despairingly, Armstrong put his hand to his forehead. ‘Legends? Hah! I have to tell you, sir, that this despatch is more than a legend – it’s a travesty, a complete travesty!’

  Wallis did not appear surprised. ‘Very well, kindly enlighten me.’

  Armstrong took a deep breath. ‘To the best of my belief this is not what occurred, or at least, not how it happened. It was Lieutenant Anson who conceived the plan to entrap the privateer and he was almost entirely responsible for the success of the operation. Not Captain et cetera et cetera Hoare!’

  Wallis was clearly amused at the insertion of et ceteras in the place of Hoare’s formidable middle names that claimed a dubious connection to West Country aristocrats. ‘So you do not place too much credence in his report?’

  ‘I do not, sir. Lieutenant Anson would be able to state the facts far better than I – as would Lieutenant Coney. I was merely involved in the planning, but they were there.’

  Wallis smiled. ‘I have this very morning interviewed Lieutenant Coney about his involvement in the taking of Égalité.’

  ‘And, sir?’

  ‘So now I merely require you to tell me what you know of the planning of the operation.’

  Over the next hour Armstrong recounted how, after receiving a letter asking for any intelligence concerning a French privateer with a newly patched sail he had reported sightings enabling him to predict its likely reappearances. This in turn had enabled Anson to form a plan to use a merchant vessel as bait and lure the privat
eer into a trap so that the Frenchman could be boarded and taken by the Sea Fencibles.

  Captain Hoare had not been involved in the planning or execution of the operation and, he understood, had arrived on board Égalité only when all was over bar the shouting.

  Nevertheless, Hoare had been infuriated that Anson had returned the French officer’s sword as a gesture of appreciation for calling upon his crew to surrender, therefore avoiding further bloodshed. And so Hoare had demanded it be handed to him and later encouraged the impression that it had been surrendered to him in battle.

  Armstrong could not help himself ending with: ‘It was a dishonourable act by Hoare yet now the man has the gall to claim the glory – and prize money. It’s disgraceful!’

  Wallis had listened attentively throughout without offering his own opinion, but now he asked: ‘Have you kept the letter you received asking for intelligence of the privateer?’

  ‘Why yes, sir, of course.’

  ‘Can you recall whose signature it bears?’

  Armstrong thought for a moment and his face fell at the recollection. ‘Well, it was clearly written by Lieutenant Anson, but …’

  ‘But signed by the divisional captain?’

  Screwing up his eyes and grimacing, Armstrong was forced to admit that it was.

  ‘So it could be argued that Captain Hoare was involved in setting up this operation, could it not?’

  Grudgingly, Armstrong conceded: ‘I suppose it could be interpreted that way, sir, but—’

  ‘But me no buts, Armstrong. I require only facts from you, not opinions. And, by the by, should prize money be awarded for this capture the divisional captain would be entitled to a goodly share of it, whether he was there or not.’

  Armstrong nodded, though it pained him to do so. It was reckoned by some that a system under which senior officers far removed from the blood and guts of actions at sea were entitled to a far greater share than most who were there was patently unfair. But that was the rule.

  A clerk entered and whispered something to Captain Wallis, who announced: ‘I am summoned by their lordships on another matter. Is there anything else you wish to mention to me?’

  ‘Well, sir, having had a sniff of action, albeit from the cliff tops, I should like to repeat my request for a sea posting.’

  ‘Ah, your habitual request for a posting. I daresay I would have suffered from withdrawal symptoms had you not mentioned that. I cannot imagine why you fret so to leave your nice comfortable berth at Fairlight, but I will give it some thought and see what can be done for you.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. I should be much obliged.’

  As he left the captain’s office Wallis called after him: ‘You are to discuss the subject of our meeting with no-one. No-one, is that clearly understood?’

  Armstrong left the Admiralty with his tail between his legs once again. After all his expectations there was to be no sea appointment, and, worse, it seemed that Captain Arthur et cetera et cetera Hoare would get away with his outrageous claim to be the only true begetter of the Égalité capture.

  *

  Anson was going over the future fencible training programme with Fagg at the Seagate detachment building when a dragoon messenger arrived from Dover.

  It was what he had long been expecting: the go-ahead from Colonel Redfearn for his Boulogne mission with Hurel.

  Fagg knew better than to ask outright and carried on making a list of new men for musket training, but Anson could not contain his excitement and burst out: ‘This is it! All the beans are in a row at last and the Frenchman and I are required to cross the channel.’

  The bosun pretended ignorance. ‘To France?’

  ‘Where else? We have a mission to perform connected to Nelson’s forthcoming action aimed at frustrating the French invasion plans.’

  Fagg wheedled: ‘I thought it would be somefink like that. I can come wiv yer, can’t I, sir?’

  ‘In a word, no! I need you to stay here and crack on with training. Our boys could well be needed soon – one way or another.’ Anson knew that if Nelson attempted some boat action against the French Channel ports, Sea Fencibles would almost certainly be required to take part. And if the enemy invaded across the short sea route the fencibles would be in the thick of it anyway.

  ‘So ’ow are yer goin’ across?’

  ‘That’s where you come in, bosun. I want you to help arrange a passage. But of course it must be discreet. This mission must not become the talk of the town because if it does we know that news of it will be across the other side in a flash – and the French could well be waiting to meet us as we go ashore.’

  ‘Understood, sir. The best way, I reckon, was ’ow we came out of France.’

  ‘Courtesy of smugglers?’

  ‘Exackly, sir.’

  ‘I had been thinking along the same lines. But do you mean the same boat – the Ginny May was it not?’

  ‘Well, yes, we could try that smuggler cove, but ’e ain’t bin seen around for a while. They reckon ’e’s a Thanet man. Anyways, pretty well any smuggler would do. And of course, we’ve got a good few of ’em in the Seagate fencibles.’

  Anson pretended astonishment. ‘Good grief! Are you sure? I would never have believed that!’ In reality he well knew some of his own men found a lucrative sideline in the free trading business, but turned a Nelsonian blind eye to it.

  ‘They uses luggers like that one we come across in – smuggler-luggers they call ’em. Then there’s the galleys like what they row across. With some good men at the oars they can cross in just five or six ’ours.’

  ‘And not having to rely on finding the right wind?’

  ‘That’s right. They can go if there’s ockered winds so long as it ain’t too rough, or no wind at all. And they can dodge Revenue cutters and navy ships, no bother.’

  ‘And the French, too, I would hope!’ Anson could see that sort of manoeuvrability would be of great help to the smuggling fraternity.

  The ability to outwit sailing vessels and swing into position to get off a carronade shot was one of his own detachment gunboats’ greatest attributes – proven in the battle with the Normandy privateer. But the smugglers’ row galleys would be faster and their comings and goings were tolerated, indeed welcomed, by the French.

  ‘So how can we contact these smugglers?’

  ‘Ah, that’s the thing. I don’t think you’d better be there, sir. It’s the uniform y’see. If them lads see you comin’ they might run a mile, thinking you wus from the Revenue or even worse, the press gang …’

  ‘So can you contact them?’

  ‘Not personal, like, on account of not being from round ’ere. Not one that they’d trust, like. But I could get Sampson Marsh, or one of the others what’s well connected local-like, to put a word out. Long as there weren’t no danger of them being accused of smugglin’, o’ course.’

  ‘Perish the thought! I think I can give them that assurance.’ Anson felt sure he could ask for backing from Colonel Redfearn on this if it became necessary.

  ‘They’d need payin’ o’ course and they’d want a darn sight more’n a King’s shillin’ apiece. It’d be a couple of guineas each, at least.’

  ‘Very well, let’s make it so. Kindly contact Sampson Marsh immediately and get him to have a word with his, er, contacts.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir!’

  ‘And while you’re about it send young Tom Marsh off to fetch Sergeant Hoover and the Frenchman back from Fairlight. We’ll need to be ready to cross to France in a couple of days.’

  27

  A Family at War

  Young Jemmy Beer raised his cap. ‘Arternoon, Master Oliver. I’m to tell you your father wants to see you in the dinin’ room soon as you get back.’

  ‘Well, here I am, so if you’ll kindly take Ebony off my hands I’ll pop in there right away.’

  To his surprise Anson found his parents and brother Augustine waiting for him. There were coffee cups on the table and they appeared to have been in c
onference for some time.

  ‘Mother, father, Gussie, I gather you wish to see me?’

  His elder brother bridled at the use of the childish version of his name that Oliver had used to annoy him since boyhood – and that riled him even more now that he was a minor canon at the cathedral.

  ‘Kindly come in and shut the door behind you. What we have to discuss is not for the servants’ ears.’

  Puzzled, Anson raised his eyebrows. His father had not sounded this stern since he had hidden toads in his siblings’ beds as an eleven-year-old.

  He closed the door as requested, took a seat on the opposite side of the table to the other three and asked cheerily. ‘What’s happened? Has someone died?’

  Clearly not amused, his mother took the lead. ‘Your father and I – and Augustine – wish to speak to you about this nonsense over Charlotte Brax.’

  So that was it. They were going to try to persuade him to change his mind and marry Charlotte because it would tie the Ansons to the wealthiest family in the district. It would have been what was known in the mating game as a brilliant match. And, to his mother, marrying off her offspring well was no game: it was a serious business.

  But his brief affair with Charlotte was not something he wished to discuss with anyone, and certainly not with his parents. The fact that his detested brother was there sticking his oar in where it was not wanted was a further provocation.

  Anson sighed. ‘Look, this is, or rather was, a private matter. There was a brief dalliance between Charlotte and me, but we had a falling out and it’s all over.’

  Gussie snorted. ‘A dalliance, hah!’

  ‘Yes, that’s all it was. I gather she has decided to marry that oafish nincompoop Chitterling. They suit one another and I wish them joy of it.’

  ‘But Sir Oswald came to see you. To make you an offer …’ his mother protested.

  ‘He made it sound like a transaction in a cattle market. If and when I marry it will be through choice, not because the price is right.’