Fletcher's Fortune

by John Drake

  So Pendennis and the Luceys talked and talked. Each party produced documents for the other to inspect, and Pendennis’s eyes came out on stalks at the sight of Sir Henry Coignwood’s Will of 1775, lodged for safe-keeping these eighteen years in the Luceys’ office. Works of reference were consulted from the Luceys’ bookshelves and candles were lit as the light faded. Finally, when agreement had been reached regarding action, a bottle of port was brought in to seal the matter.

  “Gentlemen,” said Richard Lucey, “I propose the health of Mr Jacob Fletcher!”

  “Aye, sir!” said Pendennis. “And may not a second be wasted in our bringing him to his fortune!” They drained their glasses and passed the bottle round.

  “Mr Pendennis,” said Edward Lucey, “might I ask how much of these matters you were aware of before we wrote to you?” Pendennis frowned and considered his reply carefully.

  “More than I thought, sir,” he said, “for what I knew had a greater meaning than I believed. Mr Fletcher was apprenticed to me by the Reverend Dr Woods, a local clergyman now deceased, who was my friend for twenty years. I always thought him to be Fletcher’s benefactor, but now I learn he was paid by Fletcher’s father to raise up the child!” Pendennis shook his head and stared into the fire.

  “Dr Woods many times hinted that Fletcher was more than he seemed,” he said, “and I always thought him to mean that the boy was the illegitimate offspring of some noble house.”

  “Not so far wrong, sir,” said Edward Lucey.

  “But what of the stepmother and half-brothers?” said Pendennis. “Lady Sarah and her sons?”

  “Degenerates, sir!” said Richard Lucey. “Such things go on at Coignwood Hall that I may not name. For decency’s sake I shall say no more.”

  “Oh?” said Pendennis, expectantly, for in his experience any man who said that, would soon do precisely the opposite. Sure enough, after a brief pause, the words burst from Lucey’s lips.

  “The woman is a witch,” he said. “Our grandfathers would have burned her. She has the face of an angel and the soul of a viper. I tell you, sir, it shall be my life’s work to place the Coignwood fortune out of her grasp!” He fortified himself with another glass of port and continued. “I’d give the money to the devil himself to keep it from her! She leads a secret life of perverse desires that none could imagine and few would believe.”

  “Indeed?” said Pendennis, his interest whetted more keenly still. He wondered how to ask for a more precise description of these desires, without appearing to have perverse interests himself. But Edward Lucey changed the subject before Pendennis could find the words.

  “It was Victor and Alexander who broke open Sir Henry’s desk at Coignwood Hall,” he said. “They removed most of its contents before we got there and it was only by luck that we found a letter they’d missed. And that gave us your name, Mr Pendennis, and that of Dr Woods, for we never knew of either of you. We knew that Jacob Fletcher existed, but nothing else.”

  “Gentlemen,” said Pendennis, “this is a deep business. Sir Henry was apparently most secretive where Fletcher was concerned, and took care that no one person had the whole story. We can only guess at his reasons, but in whatever case, we three must bring the young man to his inheritance as Sir Henry wished!” He looked at Mr Edward Lucey, “So, sir!” he said, “tomorrow you and I leave for London, to fight the Admiralty face to face, to liberate Fletcher from their clutches!”

  “While I shall remain here,” said Mr Richard Lucey, “to prove the Will as quickly as possible, and to guard against any moves that the woman and her sons may make.”

  With a bottle of port comfortably inside them, and the warm firelight on their faces, the three friends smiled and shook hands. They were civilised men, men of substance, men used to working the Law to their advantage. They were entirely confident of success.

  Unfortunately, and in reality, they did not know what game it was that they were starting to play, nor how very deadly was that game, nor how utterly they were outclassed by the opposition.

  14

  Once back with the convoy, we found ourselves the heroes of the hour. We’d sunk a French warship, after all, even if it had been a little one, and our officers had a grand time with boats hoisted out so they could visit their friends aboard other ships and relive every detail of our brief engagement over their claret. And Sammy Bone’s fame spread throughout the Fleet.

  So the Fleet rolled steadily south and west; we passed beyond range of cruisers from the French Atlantic ports, the weather grew warm and the merchantmen learned to keep station. Thus the Admiral grew easier in his mind and no longer sent us racing hither and thither with streams of signals. This gave Captain Bollington all the more time for gun-drill and for a new set of drills designed to practise us in the use of small-arms.

  I always enjoyed pistol-drill, as it involved the great fun of letting fly with a sixteen-bore Sea-Service pistol. Incidentally, a lot of nonsense is talked these days about how the old firelock pistol was hopelessly clumsy compared with a modern revolver and not one tenth as accurate. For the benefit of armchair experts I would point out that the usual range for pistol work in a naval boarding action was an arm’s length. So what a Sea-Service pistol could, or could not, do in the way of accurate shooting, didn’t matter. But what did matter was its proven ability to drop a man dead in his tracks with one shot before he could split your skull with a cutlass.

  By some aberration of command, my first experience of pistol-drill took place under Mr Midshipman Wilkins: thirteen years old, five feet tall on his tip-toes and weighing in at six and a half stone. This officer did not have quite the same control over the men that some of his elders did.

  I was sent forward with some others, including Johnny Basford, and found Mr Wilkins standing with his hands behind him in charge of an open box of pistols and trying to look as if he was privy to weighty matters of command that we knew not of.

  “Take a weapon each, you men, and look lively!” says he and there came an eager scramble of hands into the box. Immediately we did what every fool does who gets his hands on a pistol for the first time.

  “Bang!” says I, levelling at Johnny Basford and pulling the trigger.

  “Bang-bang-bang!” says Johnny, jamming his pistol into my ribs and laughing merrily.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” screams the Mid. “Don’t you never, never, NEVER do that again, none of you! How d’you know they wasn’t loaded, eh?” He was so angry that we all felt ashamed and he had our complete attention for a while, and he issued us each with a flint and showed us how to screw it into the jaws of the hammer with a bit of leather to seat it nicely home. But it didn’t last long. I saw one mighty-handed dolt, who’d not the least understanding of what he was doing, hauling on the hammer with teeth clenched and sweat starting on his brow, till metal parted with a brittle snap.

  “’ere!” says he stupidly. “It come orf! Must be a bad ’un ... ” Mr Wilkins rushed forward and snatched it off him.

  “Gimme that, you dunghead!” says he. “I’m responsible for these to Mr Williams. You be silent or I’ll pass on your name to him!” The tar shuffled about, mumbling that it weren’t fair and why couldn’t he have another one, as the lesson continued. Mr Wilkins held up a greased-paper cylinder the size of a man’s little finger.

  “Now ... how do we load with cartridge?” says he. A rhetorical question he should never have asked. We’d all seen the marines do that and half a dozen voices replied at once. “Silence!” says he, and picked on Johnny Basford who was shouting louder than most.

  “You there! If you’re so clever, show us how it’s done.”

  “Aye aye, sir!” says Johnny. “First you bites his head off, and then you primes him ... ” He tore open the cartridge with his teeth, in the approved manner, keeping the bullet in his mouth. “Mumble, mumble, mumble,” says he, pouring powder neatly into the open lock-pan. He snapped it shut, up-ended the barrel and poured in the rest of the powder. An admiring silence fell o
ver the class. Perhaps there was more to our Johnny than we had thought.

  Then we all staggered as the ship took an unusually large wave. I blundered into Johnny and he fell over. I helped him up and thumped him on the back in encouragement.

  “Go on, Johnny!” says I.

  “Now then,” says Mr Wilkins, “get on with it: the ball! The ball! Spit it down the barrel!” Johnny stood moon faced and miserable, not moving. “What’s the matter?” says the Mid.

  “Please sir,” says Johnny, “I can’t ... I swallowed the bugger.” The subsequent laughter brought Lieutenant Williams to see what was going on. That ended the fun and there was no more pistol-drill under Midshipman Wilkins.

  Lieutenant Williams was a crack shot with his own pair of duellers, which had rifled barrels and were built for accurate shooting. He used to amuse the men by blowing holes through ship’s biscuits held up by volunteers, at the length of the quarterdeck. He never missed and he never had any shortage of eager, grinning volunteers.

  But his real love was the sword, and he always had charge of cutlass-drill. Aboard Phiandra this was known as “cudgelling” since we practised with wooden staves about three feet long and an inch and a half thick. They had basket-work guards to protect the hand and were similar in size and weight to a Naval cutlass with the advantage that should you hit your opponent you didn’t kill him.

  I never liked cudgelling. It was entirely antipathetic to my inclinations, and the fact that I proved to be good at it makes not the slightest difference.

  Mr Williams would demonstrate the various strokes and we would copy him, stamping up and down the deck, cutting into empty air. So far, so good. I had no objection to this. But then he would match us in pairs, to fight in a square chalked on the deck. The bouts were fiercely fought and only ended with a dropped cudgel, or a man driven out of the square, or a broken head — and that meant actual blood visible on the scalp. We were supposed to disdain mere bruises, God help us. Consequently, only those who were good at cudgelling had any liking for it. None the less, as with every other damn thing aboard ship, we had to pitch in with a will, like it or not, since Lieutenant Williams thought cudgelling was just the thing to bring out the aggressive instincts of the crew. And so it jolly well is, me buckos, for the common crew. It’s mother’s milk to them, but I beg to differ where I’m concerned. Getting clouted over the skull with an oaken staff ain’t my idea of fun.

  Williams himself was a brilliant swordsman: fast, agile and clever and, without doubt, the best in the ship. He was in his very element at cudgelling; coat thrown off and sleeves rolled up, he would be in among us, slapping men on the shoulder, laughing and cheering with us and always praising the courage of the losers so they shouldn’t feel bad. He was a natural born leader and men would give their utmost for him just for the enjoyment of pleasing him. It even worked on me a bit, just as long as he was actually there urging me on.

  For unfortunately he picked on me at once. Being so big, it is hardly surprising that I was noticed, but he paid special attention to me and even developed in me a certain skill at the thing. I was so strong that any blow I struck came down with great force and I’m fairly quick for my size. I’m no swordsman and wouldn’t claim to be, but I suppose, in a heavy sort of fashion, I make a dangerous opponent.

  So, you will ask, if I was so good, then why didn’t I like cudgelling? The answer was a thug by the name of Billy Mason. He and his messmates were a prize collection of horse-thieves and pickpockets who were only in the Navy because some Judge or other had offered them the choice of that or the hangman. All ships have their bad eggs, and all of Phiandra’s were to be found in Billy Mason’s mess.

  And Billy was the acknowledged “cock of the ship”, which is to say we knew he could knock down any other man of us that he chose. So we treated him with careful respect. Also, after Lieutenant Williams, Mason was the best at cudgelling too, and when I showed promise and began to knock heads, the Lieutenant insisted that I should be matched mainly against Mason.

  “To the line now, Fletcher!” he would say with a beaming smile. “And our champion ... ” Billy Mason was an ugly beast with a battered face and short grizzled hair. He was muscle from head to toe and had the total confidence of a professional fighter. He was about forty, with a lifetime of victories behind him and was the sort who would batter any man that stood in his way, old or young, fit or cripple, without thought of mercy. According to Sammy, he’d been an instructor at Mendoza’s Academy in London, teaching boxing and cudgelling until he damaged too many of the clients. [Fletcher’s memory must be at fault here. Mason could never have been employed at Mendoza’s Academy since this was not opened until 1795, the year that Mendoza lost the boxing championship of England, to “Gentleman” Jackson. Possibly Mason worked at Brougham’s Academy in the Haymarket, which ran from 1747-89. S.P.]

  But Williams thought the world of him for his skill. Mason’s style was very much the same as the Lieutenant’s, with economy of movement and everything depending on the suppleness of the wrist. I got the measure of him the first time I was stood up against him.

  “Come on, sonny!” says he in his nasal, Londoner’s accent. And he beckoned with his free hand and dangled his cudgel to give the impression of being open to a blow.

  “Go on, Fletcher!” says Lieutenant Williams, heartily. “No room for shirkers on this ship!”

  “Go on, Fletcher!” yelled my mates, and there was a roar from all the others. They didn’t like Mason, not one little bit, and they were itching to see him beaten. It quite put heart into me, all those men cheering me on. So I advanced, as I’d been taught, and took a swipe at him. It would have stunned a gorilla had it landed, but Mason leered at me and side-stepped. Then, whizz-clunk! And he rapped the side of my head.

  “Come on, boy!” says he, and struck with the precision of a cobra: wrist, elbow, knee, always choosing bone, where it hurt like the devil, and never wasting force. That way it went on ever so much longer. He could have beaten me in seconds if he’d wanted, just by laying on hard. But he didn’t, because he enjoyed the game too much. So his mates cheered and the rest groaned and I was made a fool of. I couldn’t land a blow on him, he was just too good for me. And he could hit me wherever and whenever he chose. Finally, he deliberately struck just at the precise spot in the joint of my elbow, to paralyse the limb down to the very tips of the fingers. It was agonising and my cudgel clattered useless to the deck.

  “Well done, Mason! Well done, Fletcher!” cries Mr Williams. “And now shake hands like the good fellows you are ... give ’em both a cheer, you others!”

  I had to face Mason regularly after that. Williams obviously thought it was fairer for me to take on Mason than to fight men who I could easily beat. And it gave Mason some exercise since I did at least put up more resistance than anyone else. Anyone except Lieutenant Williams that is. On rare occasions he would step into the chalk square himself and demonstrate that even our Billy had a master.

  But even then he never exerted himself to the full. He would fence just long enough to test his own skill and then end the bout with some joke that set everyone laughing, even Mason.

  It was bad enough for me to face Mason twice weekly at cudgelling but for some reason the swine really took against me and I found myself up against him in deadly earnest with every chance of being permanently crippled in the encounter. I only wish I could have avoided it but I was in up to the neck before I knew it. The game started with a fight in the galley at supper time. Fights in the galley were common aboard ship, for as well as the food that the ship’s cook had worked his wicked will upon, we were allowed to prepare dishes of our own.

  And this meant dozens of us packed into a narrow, sweltering space, with tempers getting short. Each mess had its own pot for this purpose and for a small consideration to His Highness the Cook, we could put them on his stove to brew up something to our own taste. All the pots came from the Purser’s stores and looked alike, so taking another mess’s pot by mi
stake was one more source of quarrels. As I’d grown so big, the job of collecting our pot was usually left to me. I could wade through the crowd more easily and was now adept at elbowing my shipmates in the ear to clear my path. About two weeks after we first started cudgelling, I was in the galley to collect our pot and an India curry stew that we had made. I shoved happily through the press, cursing the cook like all the rest and reached for our pot when a hand darted forward and seized our pot.

  “What’s this?” says I in a bold voice, for I could see who it was: a long skinny person by the name of Barker, with a peculiar eye that twitched so you never knew which way he was looking.

  He was taller than me but less than half my weight and heartily despised by most of the crew since he had the reputation of passing on tales to the Bosun.

  He’d been turned out of three or four messes for this till he found company that could put up with him. I sneered but he stared back, bold as brass, and had the cheek to argue with me.

  “It’s our pot!” says he, sharply.

  “Shove off!” says I and pulled his hand away. I would have left it at that but he grabbed my wrist and struggled with me. He had no strength in his hand but he annoyed me with his persistence.

  “Bloody bastard!” says he. “Thief!” And there came a silence as men moved back. Cursing was nothing on the lower deck, but to call a man a thief was a deadly insult. A wave of anger swept over me, and without thinking I clouted him backhand and sent him spinning. There was no weight in him at all and he staggered back till he tripped and sat down with a crash on the deck. Everyone laughed, I felt no end of a clever fellow and Barker got up.

  “Laugh while you can, boy,” says Barker, “I’m gonna tell Billy what you done.”

  “Billy be damned!” says I, and a loud cheer echoed round the galley. All the tars thumped me on the back and my head swelled up something amazing.