by Dudley Pope
There was just enough room for him to squeeze on to the seat next to Jackson, with Rossi and Stafford facing him and Ramage to his right, as though at the head of the table. Dyson sat for a minute or two alone with his thoughts while the other four men wriggled themselves into comfortable positions.
Two years - it wasn't a long time, really, but a lot had happened in Dyson's life. Two years ago he had existed only as an entry in the Muster Book of His Majesty's brig Triton. All that the Navy wanted to know about him had been written in one cryptic line under several headings: Albert Dyson; born Lydd, Kent; age on entry 28; rating, cook's mate; pressed; served in the brig fourteen months before being discharged to the Rover.
Various other reports and returns now gathering dust on the shelves of the Admiralty and the various boards which administered to the Navy's needs recorded the rest of the brief and mundane history of Albert Dyson's efforts towards defeating France. The slop book recorded the clothes and other items issued to him when he first joined a ship ('1 shirt, 1 frock, 1 trowsers, 1 shoes, 1 bed, 3lb tobacco,' and the prices he was charged - 15s 8d for the clothing, 10s for the bed, which was of course a hammock and blanket, and 4s 9d for tobacco). He appeared once in the Triton's log and in her Captain's journal: in the 'Remarks' column, next to the time, distance sailed, speed and wind direction, was noted the fact that Albert Dyson had been given two dozen lashes for drunkenness. But Albert Dyson's name appeared most frequently in the Surgeon's daily journal, not because he was ever really sick but because he was imaginative enough to invent aches and pains which at first had led the surgeon to allow him a day in his hammock from time to time. This had continued until Ramage's predecessor as captain of the Triton became exasperated and suggested to the surgeon that a few tots of castor oil might well bring about a miraculous and permanent cure of all the cook's mate's varied ailments. The Surgeon's journal eventually recorded - if only by the subsequent absence of Dyson's name - the captain's diagnostic skill.
As he sat in the Marie's cuddy, Dyson for once found himself tense but not nervous. Normally the two went together because tension was caused by the fact he was usually engaged in some illegal act, and the nervousness came naturally since he knew the penalty. Experience had taught all the Dyson family that only quick wits, a smooth tongue and very careful planning could keep their bodies clear of gibbets and outside prison walls.
Albert Dyson had been eleven years old when the uncle after whom he was named was marched off to Maidstone Assizes, charged with sheep-stealing, and finally hanged. Albert's father had discovered that his brother was caught only because he had been almost blind drunk as he hurried a dozen stolen ewes over a narrow bridge across one of the Marsh dykes - indeed, it seemed more likely he followed rather than guided them. A pony and trap rattling towards him from the other direction had scattered the startled sheep, and an enraged Uncle Albert had whacked the pony across the rump as it passed and hurled a shower of abuse at the farmer driving it before realizing that the man was the rightful owner of the sheep and a magistrate driving to Romney to sit at the brewster sessions.
All that could have been put down to bad luck, but the Dysons had never been able to live down what followed: the farmer had eventually managed to quieten the horse after a mile's wild gallop, turned the trap on the narrow Marsh lane, and went back to the bridge to find Uncle Albert sitting on its low wall tippling from a bottle of contraband brandy and by then oblivious of what had just happened. The wrathful farmer was met with a splendidly vacant grin and an invitation to share the brandy, to which he had responded by shoving Uncle Albert over the wall and into the dyke and nearly drowning him.
Thus Uncle Albert had brought shame to the Dysons. His brother was so angry and disillusioned at having named his eldest son after such a man (and virtually apprenticed the boy to him) that young Albert was then unofficially apprenticed to a highwayman who worked the road from Ashford to Folkestone. Albert, who acted as lookout, had been present but managed to escape, when his wrong identification led to the highwayman holding up a carriage containing five Army officers instead of the carriage transporting the Bishop of Dover. Expecting to find a cringing prelate with proffered purse, the highwayman was cut down by a fusillade of pistol shots, the Bishop's carriage arriving in time for him to mutter a perfunctory prayer as the highwayman departed this life and young Albert, watching horrified from behind the hedge down the road, departed hurriedly for home.
By now young Albert was twelve, and he spent the next few years picking pockets, starting off by sampling the visitors to Ashford market on Tuesdays, Canterbury market on Wednesdays and Maidstone on Fridays. That produced next to nothing, since the farmers and their wives were not given to carrying much money, so he started working the fairs, where the visitors were more bent on pleasure than business, but the travelling and the need to watch the calendar proved too much. After all these years he could remember the dates.
The year began with Maidstone on the 13th January and Faversham on the 25th, then came a long wait for Great Chart on the 25th March and Biddenden on 1st April (better than Deal and Lamberhurst, which fell on the same day). Another long wait for Charing on 1st May (with the choice of Wittersham and Wingham the same day), Hamstreet or Winchelsea on the 14th, Benenden the next day, Ashford two days after that, and then nothing until Cranbrook on the 30th. And so it went on throughout the year. The life was feast or famine: either so many fairs on the same day or so close he could not visit them all even by riding half the night, or weeks with nothing except weekly markets which yielded very little,
But, Dyson recalled without bitterness, it was growing up that had done him in as a 'dip.' He had been small and skinny for his age and no one noticed him at work in a crowd, and he was agile enough to dip his hand into a pocket or pouch without much risk. A night ride from one fair to another, or sleeping under a hayrick or in a barn, did not matter until he was old enough to shave. Then, and he was the first to admit it, a couple of days' growth of beard on his face made him look just what he was, and if he was also a bit red eyed from drinking and wenching and lack of sleep - well, the sight of him made wise men keep their hands on their guineas and mothers call their children and clutch their purses . . .
His last year had been a disaster when his father worked out the tally. It was the year the damned spavined horse broke a fetlock and had to be shot, miles away from anywhere so he could not even sell the flesh and had to walk eleven miles with the saddle over his shoulders, and he had 'lifted' under twenty guineas from seventeen fixed fairs. Then Dad, who had long since given up trying to keep a calendar on the moveable fairs, swearing one needed to be a parson to do it properly, got in with Mr Simpson up at Studfall, and young Albert had become a fisherman. Not a fisherman who caught fish, but a fisherman who went out in a boat with nets and lines and hooks and bait, in case a Revenue cutter became nosey, and who came back long after dark . . . Bottle fishing, some folk called it, even though the haul was in casks.
For a few years the Dyson family flourished, thanks to Albert. Everyone was proud of Young Albert — until one rainy night he and five others in the boat stepped ashore at Camber to land some casks and the pile of rocks at the back of th beach turned out to be Customs men crouching down, waiting for them. Five years in gaol, the judge had said, or they could walk out of court, with a Navy press gang waiting in the road.
After a month in a receiving ship, a hulk at Sheerness, and six months in a ship of the line, Albert had decided that the galley was the safest and warmest place in any ship, and got himself rated cook's mate. Everyone sneered at the job, which meant keeping the galley fire stoked or clear of ashes, and cleaning and polishing the big copper kettles, but there was money in it. When the great chunks of salt pork or salt beef were boiled in the kettles, gobs of fat (known as slush) floated to the surface, and the cook's mate skimmed it off and put it to one side. Later he sold it illicitly to the seamen, who spread it on the biscuit which passed for bread. The slush not only softened
it, if it had grown hard, or bound it together if it had begun to crumble, and suffocated the weevils, but it gave Slushy Dyson his nickname and put money in his pocket.
Slushy Dyson knew better than most men that all good things come to an end, whether because of the drunken carelessness of an Uncle Albert, the thoughtless dating of fixed fairs, the sprouting of the whiskers of adolescence or the mischance of the ship of the line in which he was serving being paid off, resulting in the transfer of Albert Dyson, cook's mate, to the Triton brig where he had less than sixty customers for his slush, instead of five hundred or so. It hit a man cruel hard, that sort of luck; indeed there were times when Slushy almost gave up hope. In the end he had realized that this run of bad luck, extending over several years, was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Just before Mr Ramage came on board to take command and sail for the West Indies, the whole of the Fleet at Portsmouth had mutinied. Albert Dyson had been caught organizing a mutiny on board the first night out of Portsmouth. The three seamen now sitting round the table had captured him but he had got away with a couple of dozen lashes, been transferred to an inward bound ship, and had later been able to desert.
Three years at sea in the King's ships had taught him a lot. When he had called on Mr Simpson at Studfall and told him the tale, he had been welcomed back into the Trade. Within a couple of months a clerk at the Navy Office had passed the word to Mr Simpson that the Two-monthly Book from Dyson's last ship - which was a copy of the Muster Books - had been received, and one letter against the name of Albert Dyson had been carefully erased and two others written in. The changes were simple: originally the letter 'R', for 'Run', the Navy's word for deserting, and the date, had been written in the appropriate column. The clerk had carefully changed 'R' to 'D.D.', which was the only legal way of leaving the King's service apart from being so badly wounded or permanently sick as to be no use on board a ship. The record therefore showed that Albert Dyson, cook's mate, had died on the date shown, and been 'Discharged Dead.'
Dyson knew that there were too many other reports and logs coming in from the ship during the next few months for that single change in the Two-monthly Book to make him vanish altogether as far as the Navy was concerned. However, the clerk was sure that the general inefficiency in the Navy Board, which had to deal with a Navy which now comprised more than 100,000 men, meant that he was safe enough; clerks tended to deal with discrepancies or contradictions by ignoring them, particularly if there was no widow asking awkward questions. And then, as an insurance, Mr Simpson had obtained a Protection for him: a regular Protection made out in his own name and describing him as a regular waterman. With that Albert Dyson could not be taken up by a naval press gang: watermen, along with masters, mates and apprentices in merchant ships, and a few others, were admitted by the Admiralty to be better left alone rather than swept into the Navy.
Dyson reached under the seat and pulled out a box, extracting a bottle carefully wrapped in a piece of cloth, and several tin mugs so dented from use they looked like carelessly hammered pewter.
'Best brandy,' he said, pushing a mug across to Ramage. 'How about you, sir: a "welcome on board" tot?'
Ramage had an inflexible rule that he never drank at sea in his own ship; but the little Marie was far from being his ship, and before they sailed he was anxious to find out a great deal more from Dyson than he knew already. Refusing a drink might upset the fellow, who had all the touchy pride of a real rogue.
'A small one, then; just enough for a toast.'
Dyson poured a little into five mugs and passed them round. 'Won't do to get drunk; we'll need our wits about us a'fore the night's over.'
Jackson felt the pressure of Ramage's knee and immediately took the hint, asking: 'How so, Slushy?'
Dyson lifted his mug: 'Here's to a successful cruise.' When the other four had echoed his toast he put his mug down with an exaggerated gesture, as if to lend weight to what he was about to say. 'We have a lot of dodgin' to do, an' we're due to meet another smack . . . let's 'ope it ain't too rough.’
Jackson knew Mr Ramage must have his reasons for wanting him to question Dyson. 'Aye, dodging the Frogs is going to be difficult. . .'
‘The Frogs?' Dyson exclaimed, obviously startled and with more than a hint of outraged indignation in his voice. 'T'ain't the Frogs we got to worry about; it's our own bleedin' Revenue cutters first, then 'is Britannic Majesty's frigates once we get near the French coast.'
'Why?' Jackson asked innocently. 'What harm will they do us?'
'Come orf it,' Dyson growled. 'Just give a sniff. Go on, sniff 'ard.'
Jackson sniffed and shrugged his shoulders. 'Can't smell anything odd. Tarred marline - Stockholm tar, from the nets I suppose. Bit musty —some rot around in the planking or the frames .. .'
'Nothin' else?'
'No-o,' Jackson said cautiously. 'Whiff of fish, perhaps.'
'Just a whiff, eh?'
When Jackson nodded, Dyson said contemptuously, 'You wouldn't make much of a Customs searcher, Jacko! Just a whiff o' fish in the cuddy of a smack - why it should stink o' fish!'
Stafford gave a tentative sniff. 'S'fact. What 'appened, Slushy - all the fish swum away, or you gettin' lazy?'
Dyson looked round the group suspiciously, as though suspecting they were teasing. Then, deciding they were not, he leaned forward and said mysteriously. 'It's a special sort o' fishing.'
'Ah, bottle fishin',' Stafford said scornfully. 'You're a bleedin' smuggler, Slushy! I couldn't see you 'auling in 'alibut, I must say.'
Dyson's face fell and he drank from his mug to hide his disappointment at not being able to reveal his secret with a flourish.
Jackson had been waiting patiently. 'You said we have to meet another smack tonight, Slushy, and you hoped the sea wasn't rough . ..'
Instead of answering the American, Dyson turned to face Ramage. 'They left it up to me how much I tell you, sir. They're worried about when you get back: you - well, they -'
'They're frightened I'll inform the Revenue men, eh? Tell me, Dyson, if you get us over to France and back again, do you think I'd be so ungrateful that I'd give you away? Be honest, man; this is your ship and you're free to say what you think.'
Although the anguished look on Dyson's face told him all he needed to know, Ramage waited. The man sipped from his tin mug - whatever else he might be, he was not a heavy drinker - and, suddenly setting the mug down, he said simply; 'I owe you my life, sir: any other capting would 'ave brought me to trial and made sure I 'anged. I don't forget that in a hurry; in fac', I'll remember it to me dyin' day. No, the trouble is the uvvers, sir; they don't know you and they 'ave to take my word for it -' he broke off embarrassed.
'Don't they trust you, Slushy?' Jackson asked.
'Well, yus and no. They do as far as bottle fishin' goes - I've proved meself long ago. It's just they're a bit suspicious 'bout what went on while I was - well, was in the King's service.'
'Why the distinction?' Ramage asked.
'It's like this, sir. When I heard what the password wasgoin' to be and guessed it was you, I got so excited I told 'em all about - well, the Triton brig business. Instead of that 'elping, it made 'em suspicious, on account of them thinking it gave you a sort o' twist on my arm: you'd know I was a deserter, an' you could threaten to hand me over to the authorities if I didn't tell you everything you wanted to know about 'ow contraband is landed on the Marsh - all that sort o' thing.'
'But nevertheless you managed to persuade them?' Ramage asked quietly.
Dyson looked uncomfortable. 'I made a bargain. I can use the Marie, but I had to put up a sort o' guarantee. It's all arranged, sir; there's nothin' to worry about.'
'What was the guarantee?' Ramage said.
'Just some money as security for the Marie, and my young brother - he usually sails with me as mate. I had to leave him behind.' Dyson saw Ramage's raised eyebrows and added uncomfortably. 'Better security than money, my brother, an' they know it.'
Was the bro
ther literally a hostage? Ramage was not sure and phrased his next question carefully: 'What does the money and your brother's life guarantee, exactly?'
The seaman shrugged his shoulders. 'Hard to say, come to think of it. Our good behaviour, I s'pose. That you don’t interfere with the contraband trade and don't hand me over to the authorities; and - well, that I get you there and back and don't take risks with the smacks.'
So the smugglers were quite ruthless: Dyson's brother would get his throat cut if Slushy put a foot wrong. Ramage also pondered over 'smacks.' Was another one due to sail with the Marie, or was Dyson referring to the one they were supposed to meet? He decided to wait and see: at the moment Dyson seemed angry with his smuggler friends and genuinely anxious to repay what he regarded as a debt to Ramage himself. Yet Ramage was curious at the way Dyson had been treated - it contradicted Simpson's airy and open-handed behaviour of a few hours ago.
'Tell me, do you have much to do with - well, no names, but he lives near Studfall?'
"The gentleman you went to first,' Dyson nodded. 'No one sees 'im. Like the Navy, it is. If he's the Commander-in-Chief - and I ain't sayin' he is,' Dyson added hurriedly, 'then the like o' wot I deal wiv is bosuns, and me a bosun's mate.'
'A big organization,' Ramage commented. 'But when I talked with the man at Studfall, he promised me everything I asked.'
'I'm sure he did, sir and meant it too. The trouble starts among the men under him. It's money, Mr Ramage; contraband round the Kent coast brings in a great deal of money, and where there's that kind of money men get greedy and suspicious o' each other. Money never bought loyalty, sir. The gentleman at Studfall won't have any idea about the guarantees I 'ad to give; fact is, I dare say 'e'd get very angry. But 'e'll never know; not from me, anyway: more than my life'd be worth, to make any complaint. An' I ain't complaining, reelly; you was askin' me. Fact is, no man's yer friend as far as bottle fishermen are concerned.'