Larcum Mudge (Alexander Clay Series Book 8)

by Philip K Allan

  ‘Away for months, be it?’ enthused the labourer. ‘Thar sounds grand! I could proper use getting clear of these parts.’

  ‘What you been an’ done, lad?’ asked Trevan.

  ‘I ain’t in no trouble with the law,’ said the youngster. ‘It just be Grace in the dairy. She be getting proper heavy now, an’ says as how she’s after telling her Pa it was me what done it. He ain’t the sort you want to cross, so I reckon I’ll chance it. Where be this Macpherson bloke?’

  ‘Is this wench’s Pa to be dreaded above a Frog broadside?’ queried Evans. The new recruit nodded. ‘Bleeding hell, he must be a brute. Welcome on board.’

  Sedgwick took the young man inside the Queen’s Head, while the other sailors settled back in their chairs to discuss the new shipmate.

  ‘Where would the fecking navy be without fools to recruit,’ chuckled O’Malley. ‘Your man works on a farm, for the love of God! You’d think he’d know how fornication works.’

  ‘Oh aye, listen to Parson O’Malley, will you,’ commented Evans. ‘I didn’t see you showing much bleeding restraint last bawdy house we was in.’

  ‘If you ask me, I reckon he should be standing by this lass,’ said Trevan, shaking his head. ‘How would my Molly have fared, if I’d left her to the parish in such a fashion?’

  ‘I see the navy be still fond of hoodwinking ploughboys with tales of glory,’ said a voice. They turned to see a tall, spare man regarding them. He had been lolling unnoticed against the tavern wall, listening to their talk. He was dressed as a sailor who had prospered. A moleskin waistcoat lay behind his short jacket, his pigtail was secured by a velvet ribbon, and a hoop of gold glistened in one ear.

  ‘We be happy to take experienced hands, an’ all,’ said Trevan. ‘Although how the press ain’t swept you up afore now be a proper marvel.’

  ‘I prefers to volunteer and chose where I’ll serve,’ replied the man. He looked at the poster for a moment, and then shrugged his shoulders. ‘Sorry lads, but I ain’t got me letters. What ship be you from?’

  ‘The Griffin, thirty-eight gun frigate,’ said O’Malley. ‘She be less than a year old, nice an’ dry in a blow. Captain Alexander Clay has her at present.’

  ‘Is he blessed with good fortune in the matter of prize money?’ asked the man.

  ‘Lucky bugger, for sure,’ confirmed Evans. ‘A proper deep one in battle, an’ all. Ain’t we followed him these last six years? This be the fourth ship we served with him.’

  ‘So he ain’t one of them tartars?’ asked the man. ‘Flogging on a whim, and the like?’

  ‘Very fair is Pipe, for a fecking Englishman,’ said O’Malley. ‘Last commission there can’t have been above a half dozen floggings, an’ all was merited.’

  ‘Where you been serving, like?’ asked Trevan. ‘You done alright from the look of you, what with your plush weskit an’ all.’

  ‘I been away on a Yankee whaler these past few years,’ said the man. ‘I done alright for myself, but that be a tough calling. Years away, fighting to subdue beasts, an’ then rendering them down for their oil.’

  ‘That be the truth,’ said the Cornishman. ‘I were two year on the old Emilia during the peace. So you going to trade battling fish for milling with Frogs? They be paying a bounty for them as volunteer.’

  ‘Aye, that I do,’ said the sailor. ‘I reckon I shall try the navy, for a change.’ He held out a hand calloused by years at sea. ‘As we’re to be shipmates now, the name is Mudge. Larcum Mudge.’

  ‘Larcum Mudge?’ queried Evans. ‘What bleeding manner of name is that?’

  ‘A right good one, I think you’ll find, mate.’

  Chapter 2 Prize

  Clay stretched out his long legs inside the phaeton and wondered how long the journey would last. Through the window the lush green of Devon slowly rattled past, as it had done for the last two hours or more. They were clattering along a raised section of turnpike, cut into the hillside above the bank of a river. Willow trees hunched over the water and further back, on a rise in the ground, a small village was clustered around the stone spire of its church. Between river and village was a spread of water meadows, speckled with wild flowers and dotted with grazing brown and white cattle. Clay pondered the animals, and his mind turned towards casks of salt beef. I wonder if the victualling yard have replaced the last batch yet, he thought. Faulkner, his purser, had done well to realise they were being palmed off with meat that had been a good two years in the barrel. Space would need to be found for their replacements. Somewhere abaft the main mast would be best, if the trim of the ship was not to be sadly compromised.

  ‘Alexander, I do not believe you have attended to what I have been saying this last quarter hour or more,’ chided his wife, from the seat beside him.

  ‘Your pardon Lydia, my dear,’ he said, with a start. ‘In truth, my thoughts had drifted a little, towards the matter of my ship’s provisions.’ He pointed at the cattle by way of justification. ‘But I yet had an ear for you, my darling. Were you not telling me that you have placed a bundle of my sister’s letters in the smaller chest, to deliver to her husband when I see him in Antigua? Goodness, but it will be good to see John again!’ He favoured her with his most winning smile, but her blue eyes were hard as flint.

  ‘No, I had completed my remarks on that matter shortly after we left Tiverton,’ she said, folding her arms. Clay looked away in the hope of inspiration. On the driving seat in front of him was the broad back of his coxswain, handling the carriage’s two horses with the accomplished ease with which he did most things. My son is going to miss Sedgwick, he thought. The sailor had returned from helping Lieutenant Macpherson a week ago and had proved an instant hit with the toddler. There had been tears from the boy when they had left Lower Staverton that morning, and Clay suspected they were not all on account of his parents’ departure.

  ‘You were speaking of Master Francis, were you not, my dear,’ he guessed. ‘And that lovely toy boat that Sedgwick carved for him.’

  ‘I was not,’ said Lydia. The corners of her generous mouth twitched a little as she tried to remain stern, a hard task when her son was under discussion.

  ‘Then you must have been talking of his sister,’ said Clay, cupping a hand over her belly, which was just starting to swell with the new life inside her.

  ‘Alex!’ said Lydia, scandalised at such talk, although she did nothing to remove his hand. He slipped his other arm around behind her and drew her to him.

  ‘I beg your pardon, my dear,’ he said. ‘You have exposed me as the truant that I am, but you have my full attention now.’ He kissed her on the mouth, and after a moment of resistance she melted against him.

  ‘Oh Alex, I will so miss you,’ she murmured, and he crushed her against him. After a few more miles she pushed him gently away. ‘You must let me reorder my bonnet, before we reach the next post-house.’ She looked at her reflection in the window, and prodded some of the streams of dark, glossy hair that had escaped back into place, while continuing to talk. ‘What I was actually saying was that I have had a letter from my aunt.’

  ‘Have you indeed,’ said Clay. ‘And how is Lady Ashton finding Bath?’

  ‘Very agreeable, I thank you,’ said Lydia. ‘She is enjoying the society there, and reports that all the talk in the Assembly Rooms and salons is of peace with France. Isn’t it wonderful? At last Betsey and I will have you and John back for more than a few weeks here and there.’

  ‘That will be marvellous,’ said Clay, patting her hand. ‘Earl St Vincent did say as much when I saw him. But it is by no means certain yet, and even if it comes, I do wonder how long it will last. Boney doesn’t strike me as the sort who will be content with his current size in hats.’

  ‘But what I fail to comprehend is that if peace is to be declared so soon, why are you being dispatched to the Caribbean?’ asked Lydia. ‘Surely you will have to come home again as soon as you have arrived?’

  ‘Well, as for that, a negotiated peace may well take
a deal longer to arrange than you suppose,’ said Clay. ‘Consider how extended the conflict has been. We shall have to return some of the places we have captured, they will need to withdraw from others they hold. In the meantime, we must continue to press our enemy hard. The more we can achieve in the last few months of war, the stronger will be the government’s negotiating hand.’

  ‘I dare say that is true, but please don’t go risking your neck in a war that has run its course, Alex,’ said Lydia, her eyes welling up. ‘You have responsibilities to those who await your return.’

  ‘I have been given one more task to perform, and then, God willing, I shall return to you all,’ he promised, taking her in his arms once more. They kissed again, with long, lingering passion as the miles rolled by.

  It was only the sound of Sedgwick clearing his throat that brought them back into the present. ‘I had thought to change these here cobs at the King’s Head, sir,’ he said, over his shoulder. ‘But they be running so well they’ve served us right through to Plymouth.’

  ‘Thank you, Sedgwick,’ said Clay, noticing for the first time that the trees and fields were increasingly masked by houses. ‘I fear your bonnet has become sadly disordered once more, my dear, but we have a little time for you to regain your composure.’

  ‘Shall I go directly to the inn, sir?’ asked Sedgwick. ‘Or do you want the Hard, so as to get out to the Griffin?’

  Lydia looked at him, her eyes bright, but her face calm. ‘Go directly to your ship, Alex,’ she said. ‘It was good of you to delay leaving home as long as you did. There will be much for you to attend to, if you are to make your tide tomorrow. Sedgwick can see me to the Dolphin.’

  ‘Are you certain?’ he asked. ‘I am sure Mr Taylor will have all the preparations in hand.’

  ‘Duty before pleasure, isn’t that how you would have it?’ she replied with a smile. ‘When you can, come to me. I shall be waiting.’

  *****

  His Majesty’s frigate Griffin left her moorings the following afternoon, just as the tide began to flood out into the Channel. She slipped down Plymouth Sound and out into the sunlit sea. It was a warm day, with the promise of a fine evening to follow. Only a few idlers joined the families of those on board to note her departure. Magnificent as the Griffin looked, so many ships had left the port over the last decade of war that one more made little stir. Lydia watched from the upper parlour of the Dolphin. She had wanted to go out onto the Hoe to see the frigate leave, but the landlady of the inn had been horrified at the thought. ‘In your condition, madam!’ she had exclaimed, her mobcap trembling with indignation. ‘Why, it would be perilous for you up there.’

  ‘I suppose I could take your ostler with me, if you’re concerned,’ said Lydia. ‘He seems a solid lad, and he has a cudgel.’

  ‘Lord, it ain’t footpads as worry me, madam, but the air! Think of your child, exposed to all manner of chills and noxious miasmas! The view from your private parlour be every bit as good, and with a nice fire of sea coal, you’ll be safe as can be.’

  Lydia had thought of sharing with her that she still rode side-saddle most mornings, with little apparent ill effect, but decided it was best not to prompt a fresh torrent of protest. She felt empty of fight, as she faced yet another departure of her husband to the vagaries of war. She thought of their wedding - had it really been four years ago? Yet they had only spent a fraction of that time together. Long months alone, with barely any word from him. Now she was alone again, standing in the bay window of the parlour, gripping the curtain tight in one hand.

  ‘Let him come home unharmed, and let this be the final furlong,’ she whispered to herself in quiet prayer, as the frigate rounded Rame Head and vanished from her sight.

  *****

  A few weeks later, George Taylor, the Griffin’s grey-haired first lieutenant stood beside her wheel, balancing easily to the rise and fall of the deck beneath his feet. He looked around him, and was content with what he saw. The sky overhead was largely cloudless, the sun was warm and the broad ocean stretched out in a carpet of deep blue in every direction. The frigate had sailed sufficiently southward to have picked up the north-east trade winds, and was travelling westwards towards the Caribbean, her pyramids of white canvas spread wide to catch the keen air. She drove hard into each roller, her rebuilt bow butting the sea aside in wings of white foam.

  ‘She makes good progress, does she not, sir,’ said Edward Preston, the Griffin’s third lieutenant, who was officer of the watch. He was a handsome young man, with dark hair and eyes and a friendly looking face. With his right hand he gripped the top of the binnacle against the heel of the deck. His left sleeve was flat and empty, and was pinned across the front of his coat.

  ‘She does,’ agreed Taylor. ‘We have a ship we can be proud of, Mr Preston.’

  ‘Indeed so, sir. I wonder if I shall ever command such a frigate?’

  ‘Would you like to, Edward?’

  ‘Oh, above all things, sir,’ enthused the younger man. ‘Did you not ever wish for such a position?’

  ‘I daresay I did, when I was a keen young officer of your age,’ he said. ‘I captained Whitby colliers, of course, during the peace after the American War. But now it is a little late for me, which is probably for the best.’

  ‘Really, sir?’ queried Preston. ‘But you regulate the affairs of the ship so well.’

  ‘That is kind of you to say. In truth, managing a large frigate like the Griffin, with two hundred and fifty souls on board, doesn’t trouble me. Oak and iron, rope and sail, pitch and tar; all of these I understand well. It is the rest that would have me awake at nights.’

  ‘What else is there, sir?’

  ‘Have you not marked those slim packages of orders that arrived on board just before we depart?’ said Taylor. ‘The burdens they bring are legion. No, I am content to leave them to the captain, and concern myself with seeing that we are ready for whatever lies away yonder.’ He gazed towards the silver horizon ahead, then over the side. ‘How fast do you suppose we are proceeding?’ he asked.

  ‘We were doing eight knots by the last heave of the log, but I fancy we may be a touch more swift now, sir,’ he reported, looking aloft at the ship’s commissioning pennant as it streamed out from the masthead. ‘If it should blow much stronger, we may need to reef the topgallants.’

  ‘Perhaps so,’ said Taylor. ‘And what do you make of our new hands?’

  ‘Better, ever since the clodhoppers Mr Blake recruited have stopped puking over the rail, sir,’ grinned Preston. ‘The endless sail drill we have put them through is starting to answer, and I live in hope a few may one day make sailors.’

  ‘They are not all bumpkins, mind,’ said the older man. He indicated where a tall, spare man stood among the afterguard, chatting with Evans. ‘What do you make of that fellow?’

  ‘Mudge?’ said Preston, following his gaze. ‘I would say he is a most valuable recruit, sir. I thought that we should rate him able, and trial him as a top man. Mr Hutchinson agrees. He holds his long splicing to be almost a match for his own.’

  ‘High praise indeed from the boatswain,’ said Taylor. ‘I will make the suggestion to the captain.’

  Both men turned from their appraisal of the new recruit as a lean young man with thinning sandy hair came up the companionway ladder and crossed the deck to join them. Clamped beneath his arm was a leather folder.

  ‘Were your ears aflame, John?’ asked Preston, with a smile for his fellow lieutenant. ‘We were just discussing if any of the peasants you rounded up for us will ever bring a little credit on the ship.’

  ‘Volunteers was what I was commissioned to scour Devonshire for, and volunteers was what I procured,’ he protested. ‘No one said that they should be sailors.’

  ‘Are you planning on doing some sketching, Mr Blake?’ asked Taylor, pointing at the leather folder. ‘You may find it a little breezy up on the quarterdeck.’

  ‘Not on this occasion, sir,’ replied Blake. ‘Although I do plan
to do some painting this commission. The light in the Caribbean is so agreeable. No, I have the latest watch bill here. I was hoping to exercise some of the newer hands on the great guns this morning, if you gentlemen are done with driving them up and down the masts every other watch?’

  ‘Sail drill is very important, Mr Blake,’ said the first lieutenant. ‘If we should meet dirty weather with half the crew unsure of their duties, their knowing how to handle the great guns will not aid us any.’

  ‘With respect, nor will being able to strike our topmasts in a blow serve us any in a fight, sir,’ said Blake.

  ‘I might have known your precious guns would be behind your visit, John,’ commented Preston. ‘I sometime wonder if you prize them as you do wine or even women.’

  ‘Wine and women!’ scoffed Blake. ‘Gunnery is far more important than either!’

  ‘You have me convinced,’ laughed Taylor, returning the watch list. ‘You may exercise them until eight bells, but go steady until they all understand their parts, I pray. I don’t want Mr Corbett complaining to me that you have filled his sick berth with crushed feet and hands.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Blake, touching his hat. He drew a list of names from the folder and handed it across to the midshipman of the watch. ‘Mr Russell, kindly take this list to the boatswain, with my compliments, and ask him to have all those named join me down on the main deck.’

  A little while later the sound of Blake’s voice, full of enthusiasm, came drifting up from beneath their feet, as he and his assistants started on the process of turning a collection of ploughboys, shepherds and labourers into Royal Navy gunners.

  ‘And what of you, Mr Preston?’ asked Taylor. ‘I have yet to ask you about your trip home?’

  ‘Yorkshire in the springtime is always pleasant, sir,’ the officer replied.

  ‘I dare say it is,’ said the older man. ‘But pray do not make sport of me. Did you not find time to enjoy the society of Miss Hockley at all?’