Dead Man's Island

by David McDine

  ‘But an alliance with the Brax family would be of immense value to us – immense.’

  ‘That’s simply not going to happen. I have told you, Charlotte and I have had words and there is no longer anything between us. It should not have begun in the first place and now it’s over, done, and I do not wish to discuss it further.’

  His mother looked daggers and for a moment was uncharacteristically lost for words.

  The rector, who had sat through the earlier exchanges with the same pained expression on his face that he wore when his piles were troubling him, joined the fray. ‘My dear boy, arranged marriages among great families are perfectly normal, and in due time most couples invariably find that they rub along very comfortably together.’

  Anson had to stop himself from smiling. It was Charlotte rubbing against him that had caused the problem in the first place. And to describe either family as great was something of an overstatement. The Brax family’s wealth was inherited from a long line of bully-boy rural landlords while the Ansons’ only claim to fame was a very distant connection, many times removed, to the circumnavigator and reformer of the navy whose surname they were privileged to share.

  His father did not notice Anson’s amused half smile. ‘Yes, yes, the Brax girl is clearly greatly enamoured with you and she has her attractions.’

  ‘Father, I have made my position clear and there is really nothing more to be said. I am afraid I will not stay to listen to any more of this and will go back to my detachment as soon as I have packed my things.’

  Augustine Anson had been coiling himself like a striking cobra and now blundered into the debate, hissing: ‘As usual, it’s all about you, isn’t it? Like the randy sailor you have obviously become, you’ve had your way with this girl and are now running away from your responsibilities – running off back to sea!’

  ‘Hardly back to sea, Gussie, although I wish it could be.’

  ‘Don’t dare to call me by that ridiculous name!’

  Anson deliberately goaded him. ‘Sorry, Gussie, I forgot. Now, if you’ll excuse me, this conversation is over.’

  ‘You poisonous brat! Don’t you realise how upsetting this is for our mother and father? You have the opportunity to make a marriage with one of the most eligible heiresses for miles around – and a member of the Brax family at that. God help us if word of this gets to the Archdeacon! Have you forgotten that Sir Oswald holds the advowson for this parish, making your own father dependent on his patronage and goodwill?’

  So that was what was really behind all this.

  He got up to go but his father pleaded: ‘Will you not reconsider, Oliver, for all our sakes?’

  Anson shook his head. ‘No. I am sorry that this matter has come between us, particularly between you and me, father, but I will not sell myself to the Brax family and I will not marry someone I do not truly love. It would be unfair to us both.’

  His mother and Augustine exchanged looks. She nodded to him and, it seemed by prior agreement they had decided what action to take if they did not get their way.

  Augustine spat venomously: ‘If you will not do this one thing for us, the family, then it is our parents’ wish that the generous allowance you have been receiving since you joined the navy is stopped forthwith and you are to get out of this house and never come back!’

  Anson shrugged. ‘So be it. Then there is nothing more to be said. I will leave immediately.’

  At the door he turned briefly to see his mother and brother eyeing him with near hatred and his father with elbows on the table and chin resting on his clenched hands – a despairing, forlorn look on his face.

  *

  He went straight to his room, packed the few spare items of uniform he had kept there and put the rest of his belongings in his sea chest. It had his name painted in white on the lid and had been returned to the rectory by HMS Phryne after he was wounded and captured during the abortive cutting-out expedition in Normandy.

  Seeking out George Beer, he explained that he was leaving forthwith and would send someone to collect his trunk.

  ‘I know, Master Oliver, the word’s already got round and I’m very sorry. All of us are. That Gussie, well … I can’t find the words. Well, not polite ones, like.’

  Anson had to smile. He knew that, like wooden walls, rectories have ears – and no doubt the butler Beer had been listening at the door.

  He patted the old family retainer on the shoulder. ‘You’ll look after my father?’ It was both question and plea, and Beer understood precisely what was behind it. The rector was a good man but no match for his waspish wife and their eldest son Gussie, who was thoroughly detested by all the servants.

  Beer tapped his index finger to his nose indicating that he would indeed watch the rector’s back.

  Ten minutes later Anson had mounted Ebony, slung the uniform bag across in front of the saddle and crunched off down the shingle driveway.

  He did not look back, but had a feeling that he was being observed – as indeed he was.

  The rector was standing alone at his study window, despondently watching his favourite son riding out of his life, perhaps forever.

  28

  A Lesson in Economics

  As he rode away, Anson thought back over the confrontation with his parents and brother. He regretted the breach with his father and asked himself if he could have handled things differently, but decided not.

  He had surrendered to lust when Charlotte Brax threw herself at him, but he did not love her. The physical attraction had been intense, but after it had waned, as it most surely would, what then? There was no meeting of minds, nor friendly affection – merely lust.

  Her appetites were such that he believed she would have looked elsewhere whenever duty called him away. He shuddered at the recollection of the hint she had given during their last bruising encounter that she had already given herself to the awful Chitterling – and who else?

  No, he was far better off without her and after what had occurred there was no way he could have brought himself to agree to the marriage of convenience that the squire, his own parents and brother had tried to foist on him.

  But now he had cast himself adrift from his family and there was no going back on that either.

  This would be no great hardship to someone like him who had left to join the navy on the eve of his thirteenth birthday. True, he would miss the convenient and comfortable refuge of his room at the rectory. And he would feel the loss of the regular allowance his father made him, but then he had long felt uncomfortable about that. But he would not greatly miss his family. Having been away from home so much he felt he hardly knew them anyway.

  Heading towards Seagate, he thought over the practicalities of his break with his family. No doubt Gussie would make sure the allowance was curtailed immediately. In fact, Anson told himself, he would do his utmost to pay back every penny of it that he had received over the years.

  His room at the Rose would suffice as his sole base, but it did not come cheap.

  Prize money from HMS Phryne’s successful foray in the Mediterranean had dwindled to next to nothing. No wonder, he had shelled out a good deal of it during the escape from France, sprinkling gold coins around as if they were coppers.

  The Admiralty expected its sea officers to make things happen, but – as Captain Hoare had reminded him – getting back money from the hammock-counters that one had spent on behalf of the service was harder than getting blood out of stones.

  Since being appointed to command the Seagate detachment more of his money had gone on bribing dockyard men to cough up the guns and equipment they were due, paying for uniforms for his fencibles to wear at the Royal review at the instigation of Hoare, and suchlike. He doubted that he would ever get any of it back.

  Not least, he had had to fork out more money for new uniforms for himself, and, of course, on buying Ebony.

  His naval pay would barely cover his living costs and stabling.

  On the credit side was the promise o
f more prize money for his part in the capture of the Normandy privateer, but that was still pie in the sky at present and might never materialise.

  Pondering how to cut down his outgoings, he came to a sudden conclusion.

  He had ridden a pony as a child but had rarely been on horseback since joining the navy and had long decided he would never make a horseman – simply hadn’t got enough of a backside for it.

  If he sold Ebony he would recoup at least enough to tide himself over and be able to send some of the allowance money back to his father.

  So he took a diversion through the lanes and sought out Willie Horn who had sold him the horse.

  Anson got down from Ebony with his backside tingling uncomfortably as usual after a ride of any distance.

  Horn was leaning, clay pipe in hand, over his five-bar gate in exactly the same pose that Anson had encountered him before.

  ‘Good day, Mister Horn.’

  Horn sucked at his pipe, blew out a stream of smoke and asked suspiciously: ‘I ’ope you ’aven’t brought that there horse back to complain. Don’t blame me if it don’t suit. They says “buyer beware” and that there gelding was in fine fettle when it left ’ere.’

  ‘No, no. I’m not here to complain about the horse as such. A noble creature, sound of wind and limb, like you said when you sold him to me.’

  ‘That’s right – exackly what I said when I let you ’ave him. Reluctant to let him go, I was, on account of him being a what-d’you-call noble creature. Sixteen hands of sweet-tempered beast is that, bought off a widder lady on account of her husband dying and having no further use for him.’

  ‘Well, to get to the point, Mister Horn, sea officers are not what you might call natural riders and I’ve decided to give it up because it tortures my nether regions every time I get up on one.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I’ve come to offer you the opportunity to buy this horse back. A noble creature, I think you agreed?’

  ‘You want to sell him back to me?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it. I think when you sold him to me you hinted that you had plenty of other takers.’

  ‘Ah well, depends what you’re expecting for him. Looking at him I’d say he’s gorn downhill since you’ve had him – looks a bit scrawny in the withers to me. Now I give him a close look, he’s more of a nag. Are you sure he’s been looked arter proper? Looks a bit neglected to me – run-down, like.’

  Anson protested: ‘But I haven’t done much mileage on him. The grooms at the coaching inn in town and at my father’s rectory have taken care of him, and they’ve told me he’s in very good nick.’

  Horn ran his hand down the gelding’s flanks. ‘Hmm, I’m not so sure about that. Some of them grooms wouldn’t know a donkey from a racehoss. Anyway, he’s nothing like at what you call his peak like he was when I let you ’ave him.’

  ‘So you aren’t interested in buying him back?’

  ‘Did I say that? No, I’d be prepared to take him off your hands at the right price.’

  ‘You can have him for the price I paid you minus, say, six months’ hire. It would be as if I’d hired him from you for that long and now he’s coming back good as new.’

  Horn laughed hollowly. ‘You’re what they calls a hoptomist. He ain’t worth anyfink like that, now.’

  ‘But you said he was a valuable horse, worth a lot of money.’

  ‘Ah, that was then. This is now. I’d say that now, to me, he’s not worth half what you paid. He’s aged since then. Anyways, I’ll be generous and offer you half, take it or leave it.’

  Not being skilled in horse-dealing, Anson realised he might have been naive to bank on getting back more or less the full price that he had paid.

  Nevertheless, he was annoyed to think that Willie Horn was about to dun him.

  ‘Well?’ the wily old man asked, puffing away on his pipe with the smug expression of someone about to make a highly favourable deal.

  But Ebony chose this moment to whicker and rub his head against Anson’s shoulder as if impatient to be gone.

  That did it. In an instant Anson’s mind was made up. There was no way he was going to sell his horse back to this old reprobate – certainly not for half what it was worth, no matter how poor the state off his finances.

  He swung himself back into the saddle and to the old man’s astonishment announced: ‘Sore behind or not, I’ve decided I’ve grown too fond of this poor old nag to sell him back to you Mister Horn, so I’ll bid you good day.’

  And with that he turned Ebony and rode off, leaving Horn, his bluff called, leaning on the gate biting on his pipe so crossly that he snapped the stem.

  29

  Sparking Up the Fencibles

  Anson was back at the detachment headquarters with Fagg, getting an update on the approach that had been made to smugglers who it was hoped would take him across to France, when an unwelcome visitor arrived.

  It was the divisional captain, flush-faced and garrulous from another lengthy lunch with the mayor and his cronies.

  Trying not to allow himself to show his intense dislike of the man, and determined not to let him in on the upcoming mission, Anson greeted him as politely as he was able.

  ‘Still fostering good relations with the local bigwigs, sir?’

  ‘Yes, yes, but this is much more important!’ Hoare was clearly enthused. ‘Nelson himself has written to me asking me to spark up the Sea Fencibles!’

  ‘Written to you personally, or to all the divisional captains?’ Anson asked innocently.

  But Hoare failed to notice the sarcasm. ‘Yes, Nelson himself! He tells me that of the 2,600 who’ve enrolled in the Sea Fencibles on the invasion coast under his command, less than 300 have agreed to service at sea, even in coastal waters. Disgraceful!’

  Anson had assumed the dead-pan expression he had become accustomed to using during Hoare’s rants.

  ‘Nelson assures me that they, and I quote: “shall not be sent off the Coast of the Kingdom, shall be kept as near their own homes as the nature of the service will admit and the moment the alarm of the threatened invasion is over, that every man shall be returned to their own homes”’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, and he adds: “I flatter myself that at a moment when all the volunteer corps in the Kingdom are come forward to defend our land, the seamen of Great Britain will not be slow to defend their own proper element and maintain as pure as our glorious ancestors have transmitted it to us, our undoubted right to the Sovereignty of the Narrow Seas, on which no Frenchman has yet dared to sail with impunity.”’

  ‘How typical of the great man to share such sentiments with you, sir.’

  ‘Yes, yes! Quite so, Anson, quite so. I feel privileged indeed to be taken into his confidence in such a way …’

  ‘No doubt all the other divisional captains must feel the same, sir.’

  But, again, Hoare failed to detect his subordinate’s sarcasm. Instead, he was struck by a worrying thought. ‘Good lord! It’s just occurred to me. How many men in my division have volunteered for sea service? How many in your detachment, Anson?’

  ‘I daresay most will if asked …’

  ‘Then ask away, for God’s sake! Even you must see that this is the shark nearest the raft! How could I ever front up to Nelson if my own men haven’t volunteered en masse?’

  ‘How indeed, sir!’

  ‘I must get on to my other detachment commanders forthwith!’

  ‘I am sure that they and their men will be all ears, sir.’

  Hoare snorted: ‘Ears be damned – I need hands in the air, volunteering!’

  *

  Anson made his way to Sampson Marsh’s fishmonger’s shop and was ushered into the back room by the proprietor, who doubled up as the fencibles’ petty officer responsible for gunnery.

  ‘You have news for me, Mister Marsh?’

  ‘I have that, sir. Sam Fagg asked me to look into arranging a passage for you and another gent over Boulogne way.’
<
br />   ‘That’s right. It’s a hush-hush business and we can’t afford any wagging tongues.’

  ‘Just as well, sir, on account of the blokes who’ve agreed to take you across don’t want no careless talk neither.’

  ‘Smugglers?’

  Marsh tapped his nose. ‘Let’s say, free traders.’

  ‘How soon can they take me?’

  ‘Tomorrow night. You and your oppo need to be at the Jolly Sailor at Capel around eight. You’ll be contacted while you’re there and taken down the Warren to a galley that’ll be waiting for you.’

  ‘Do I pay the crew?’

  ‘No. These boys are going across on a regular run. Anyway, they know about you and that it must be some mission for old England. I’ll sort out any payment due once you’re safely back.’

  ‘Good man!’

  ‘Oh, and you’ll need fisherman-type clothes. I’ll get some to Sam Fagg – and a couple of pistols and a suitable weapon for Sergeant Hoover. It wouldn’t do for you to be carrying any navy stuff, if you catch my meaning.’

  *

  Next day Hoover and Hurel disembarked from Tom Marsh’s pony and trap stretching their aching limbs.

  It had been a bumpy ride from Fairlight and there was barely room for them both and their kit in the small, chariot-style trap.

  Fagg was waiting for them in the bar of the Rose and ushered them straight upstairs to Anson’s room.

  ‘Ah, Hurel, Hoover, welcome, welcome! I trust you had a stimulating stay at Fairlight and a good journey back?’

  Hurel responded with his usual Gallic shrug. ‘Your friend Commander Armstrong was a good ’ost, mon ami, but very strict about making me stay indoors when anyone came near the signals ’ut.’

  ‘Quite right, too! Tell me, sergeant, did Monsieur Hurel behave himself? He was not compromised in any way?’

  ‘He has not been compromised, sir. No-one other than the signals boys and dragoons knew he was there and he behaved very well, but I reckon I now know his life story from the moment he left the womb.’