by David McDine
2
Revenge
As he bent over his rum, the stranger stole a glance at the two officers chatting and sipping their wine. He didn’t know the captain, but the young lieutenant’s face, although considerably more scarred than when he last saw him, was imprinted on his memory.
Nor would he ever forget his name: Anson, the officer he blamed for his downfall.
Sipping his drink to avoid the possibility of being recognised by the landlord if he called for another, the stranger waited until at last the fishermen at the bar downed the dregs of their drinks and went off noisily to get their supper.
Heart thumping, he now had only to wait a few more minutes to make sure they were well clear of the pub, and then he would make as if to leave himself, cudgelling the sandy-haired captain as he passed and stabbing Anson through the heart.
Then, one by one, he would deal with the rest of his betrayers and revenge would be all the sweeter for the length of time he had brooded on it while at sea.
Job done, he would melt away once more — and his future plans did not include a return to naval slavery.
*
Over in the Sea Fencible building, Tom Hoover had managed to divert the conversation from his marriage prospects to the arrival of the new divisional captain.
‘Yeah, that Captain Armstrong’s a real gent,’ Fagg commented. ‘Thank Gawd they got rid of that bastard Hoare. The Silly Islands is about the right place for ’im — about as far away as ye can get.’
Hoover shook his head. ‘It’s the Isles of Scilly, Sam — not the Silly Islands.’
‘Daft name t’call ’em whichever way you says it, but them islands sounds ideal for the likes of ’im.’
‘Anyway, it’s good to see Lieutenant Anson back.’
‘Got to agree wiv yer there, Tom. But ’e ain’t properly fit yet, is ’e? Phin Shrubb’d take one look at ’im and order ’im back to bed, orficer or no orficer. Anyways, let’s get over to the Mermaid. It ain’t every day the likes of us gets to ’obnob with orficers.’
Hoover may have had an American loyalist upbringing, but he subscribed to the new order created by the Declaration of Independence that ‘all men are equal’ and snorted. ‘You Brits do too much forelock-touching for my liking and neither of our officers worry themselves about that kind of thing. They’re not jumped up like that idiot Hoare.’
‘Orlright, lobster, ye’ve made yer point. Let’s get on over to the pub and if we’re all equal like what you say then we’ll let ’em buy us a drink!’
*
Satisfied that the fishermen were by now well clear of the pub, the stranger downed the remains of his rum and rose slowly to his feet and made his way slowly towards the door.
The two officers were so wrapped up in conversation that they paid him no attention. But their convivial chatter froze as Armstrong was whacked his across the back of the head and crashed to the floor.
The landlord had his back turned to the bar, handing empty tankards to young Kitty in the back room, but the noise of the officer’s wineglass smashing on the flagstones made him spin round shouting: ‘What the hell!’
Anson, equally shocked, started to his feet, but the snarling attacker had already pulled a knife from his belt and slashed at him, forcing him back.
It was then that the penny dropped.
‘Good grief, MacIntyre!’
The man grinned evilly, as if pleased that he’d been recognised, and hissed viciously: ‘That’s right, ye fuckin’ southern worm. Thought ye’d seen the last o’ me, didn’t ye? But Billy MacIntyre’s come back to haunt yous!’
It had been two years since Anson had caught the former boatswain of Seagate Sea Fencibles fiddling the detachment’s books and blackmailing men by threatening betrayal to the press gangs and condemning them to naval servitude unless they paid for the protection.
But some of his victims had entrapped him and dumped him miles away in Rye where, following a tip-off, the local press gang had found him, still confused from the blow he had taken, and carted him off to a receiving ship.
He had been unable to protest because doing so could have marked him as a deserter. And the navy’s punishment for anyone caught after ‘running’ was having their back flayed with a cat-o’-nine-tails.
No, he had sense enough to bite the bullet, give a false name — William Black —to the impress men, allow himself to be sent off to serve in a ship of the line and hope to escape the navy’s embrace when the chance arose, as it just had when they put in at Chatham.
Now there were scores to settle. And Anson, the officer who rumbled his lucrative scams, was first on the list.
Anson realised his only chance was to keep his assailant talking to win time for Armstrong to recover his wits or the landlord to come to the rescue with his smuggler’s bat — the long-handled club he was known to keep behind the bar to deal with troublesome drunks.
‘What d’you want, MacIntyre? Money?’
The Scotsman grinned evilly. ‘Ye’ll need yer money for your funeral, ye bastard!’
‘So what do you want?’
‘I wanna see the colour of yer blood and yer innards spewing out on the deck for what yous did t’me.’
Still playing for time, Anson protested as calmly as he could. ‘I merely got rid of you because of the scams you were running. I could’ve had you court martialled and flogged for striking an officer — me! I’m not responsible for what happened to you after that.’
MacIntyre snarled. ‘Mebbe not, but it started with yous — and ye fixed with yer arse-lickers to get rid o’ me.’
The bar was frozen like a tableau. Anson dared not lose eye contact with his attacker; Armstrong was still on the floor, dazed and winded, and the publican was rooted behind the bar, trying to reach for his bat without attracting attention.
No-one noticed that young Kitty had slipped out of the back door, bumped into Fagg and Hoover as they made their way to the pub and breathlessly warned them what was happening.
The Scotsman, grinning in anticipation of a kill, growled. ‘Anyways, that’s enough of the talkin’. I wanted yous t’know it wus Billy MacIntyre who did for ye. Best say yer prayers!’
Club in his left hand and knife in his right he took a step forward and Anson seized the moment to lunge at him.
Taken off balance, MacIntyre managed to strike him a glancing blow to the side of his head with the club and slash at his neck with the knife.
As he fell, Anson raised his right arm to protect himself and cried out as the cold steel penetrated his jacket and seared his forearm.
Half stunned, he looked up to see his assailant standing over him, triumphant, but the door was flung open and Hoover burst in, closely followed by the limping Fagg.
Enraged, MacIntyre reckoned he could finish the officer off before tackling the newcomers and pinned Anson to the floor with his booted foot to prevent his victim squirming away.
Knife pointing down in his fist, he raised it to deliver the fatal blow. But he had miscalculated. Instantly taking the situation in, Hoover grabbed the bat from the landlord, flung it at the attacker’s head and charged after it.
The club struck MacIntyre’s shoulder, a hard-enough blow to make him drop his knife and stagger back, freeing Anson to roll away.
Hoover rushed forward, but MacIntyre had the presence of mind to push a chair in his path, partially tripping him, and made for the door. He still had his cudgel and although Fagg tried to bar his way he was brushed aside by the burly Scotsman who fled out into the night.
The marine extricated himself from the broken chair and overturned barrel table, but by the time he reached the door MacIntyre had disappeared and there was precious little chance of finding him in the dark in the maze of Seagate’s back alleys.
3
‘Needlework’
‘Sam! Mister Anson’s wounded and so’s the captain. You’d best go find Phineas. He’ll still be at Ned Clay’s place, seeing to his leg.’
The bosu
n, who had been caught totally by surprise during the mayhem, was anxious to make up for lost time.
‘Right y’are, Tom!’ He set off for the local blacksmith’s house where the apothecary had gone to check on Clay and others wounded on the Boulogne raid.
Hoover and the landlord helped Captain Armstrong to his feet and sat him in a chair where he sat gingerly feeling the egg-sized lump on his forehead.
‘Good job you’ve got a tough skull, sir,’ the publican offered. ‘A blow like that could have put many a man out cold.’
Armstrong grinned ruefully. ‘Thank you for the compliment, if that’s what it was. Many a senior officer has told me I’m thick in the head. But leave me and see to Mister Anson.’
The landlord produced a towel and Hoover knelt, pulled back the injured man’s sleeve, and bound the cloth round it to stem the flow of blood.
‘How bad is it?’ Armstrong asked.
‘He’s got a deep six-inch cut to his arm and he’s bleeding a bit from the side of his head where that ruffian coshed him, but he’ll live. Landlord, can you fetch some water?’
Armstrong added: ‘And a glass of spirits?’
At a nod from the publican the serving girl poured a large tot and returned with a bowl of water.
To her surprise, it was the captain who grabbed the glass and emptied it with one gulp, muttering, ‘I needed that!’
Hoover dipped the bloodied towel in the bowl and washed the worst of the blood from Anson’s hair.
Still feeling the lump on his own head, Armstrong asked: ‘Who was that fellow? Clearly not some casual robber.’
Hoover shook his head. ‘No, sir, it was MacIntyre. Black Mac they call him.’
‘Ah, yes. He was the Seagate detachment’s bosun, was he not?’
‘That’s right, but when Mister Anson took over, he got rid of him for blackmailing the boys. But he got his comeuppance when some of them clobbered him, took him down to Rye and shopped him to the press gang.’
‘Poetic justice, eh?’
Hoover looked up from tending Anson’s wound. ‘Yeah, last we heard he was in a man-of-war. Reckon he must have deserted and come back here to get revenge.’
Shrubb came hurrying in with his daughter and Fagg, taking a quick look at the lump on Armstrong’s head, announced that he would live and turned his attention to Anson, who had been helped to a chair.
Blood had soaked the makeshift bandage, and the apothecary told him: ‘I want you to raise your arm to shoulder level, to stop the blood running out of you.’
He turned to his daughter. ‘Sarah, Mister Anson has been badly cut by a blade. Look, a classic defence wound. Once again, he’s in dire need of your needlework skills, but I’ll need to put a tourniquet higher up his arm before you can get to work.’
She nodded. It had not been long since she had stitched the accidentally self-inflicted sword cut to his cheek, acquired when Anson leapt aboard a French vessel during the Boulogne raid. That neat piece of ‘needlework’ as her father called it, had been carried out on the shingle beach at Deal. At least this time they were under cover.
From his bag, Shrubb took a leather strap and tightened it round Anson’s upper arm. He loosened the blood-soaked towel carefully to confirm that the tourniquet was doing its work and cleaned the wound.
The landlord, still shaken by the attack, watched the proceedings, muttering, ‘Bloody cheek of the man, attacking me customers in me own pub! And the bastard didn’t pay for his drink neither! Typical bleedin’ Scotchman!’
Shrubb raised a hand. ‘Pass me the bottle of shepherd’s purse from my bag, Sarah.’
She handed it to him and the apothecary explained to his patient, ‘This is a tea made from a plant. We use it to clean wounds and stop bleeding. Poultices of common plantain or silverweed would do just as well, but neither is to hand.’
Dabbing the wound with his concoction, Shrubb announced, ‘It’s clean. Now Sarah, if you’d kindly get to work.’
Hoover supported Anson’s arm to keep it steady while Sarah worked her needle and she blushed when she looked up for a second to see the marine’s eyes focused on her rather than the officer’s wound.
While his daughter plied her needle, Shrubb took the opportunity to lecture his patient, a privilege that in the service was strictly reserved for an officer’s seniors — and men of medicine.
‘What are we to do with you, Mister Anson? Always into scrapes and getting your skin punctured!’ He clucked: ‘And now this, on top of your Boulogne wounds from which I respectfully suggest you have not fully recovered.’
Wincing from the stitching, Anson protested weakly. ‘Hardly my fault this time, Phineas—’
‘And now, despite Sergeant Hoover’s quick work in stemming the blood, you have again lost a good deal of it.’
‘An armful at least,’ Fagg offered, unhelpfully.
Armstrong had recovered sufficiently himself to get Kitty to fetch a bottle and held a glass out to Anson. ‘Here, mon vieux. Take a drop more wine. It’ll take your mind off the stitching, eh?’
As a Baptist preacher, Shrubb foreswore alcohol except for the small beer that, being boiled, killed off most of the miniscule creatures that swam in the drinking water, and was therefore not only permissible but highly recommended if you wanted to avoid myriad diseases.
He observed: ‘I fear that wine, however red, will not replace the blood your friend has lost, Captain Armstrong. Allow me to advise you that in the first place, Mister Anson has returned to duty far sooner than he should have after his Boulogne wounds, and now that he has been injured again and lost so much blood, he should be sent off immediately to recuperate.’
Sarah had finished her work and together she and her father bandaged Anson’s arm, both ignoring his insistence that he was still fit for duty.
Armstrong cut his protests short. ‘Just listen for once, mon vieux. I am your divisional captain and, having taken expert medical advice—’
‘Thank you,’ Shrubb interjected.
‘Having taken expert medical advice, I rule that you are not physically fit for duty and will therefore be sent on leave for—’
The apothecary offered: ‘One month might do it, although ideally he should have six weeks and he needs plenty of rest and good food.’
‘Very well, six weeks.’
Anson protested. ‘But what about MacIntyre? He must be found and dealt with before he carries out his threats to attack other members of the detachment. He’s mad enough to try, despite failing this time. Do we know who’s most vulnerable?’
The bosun touched his nose. ‘Me an’ ’oover know, but best you don’t know, sirs.’
There was no way he was going to going to name those who had a hand in MacIntyre’s removal from Seagate. And he added, enigmatically, ‘Them as don’t know can’t tell, not that you’d tell even if ye did know, which ye don’t and won’t.’
Armstrong, clearly becoming slightly exasperated, held up his hands to silence Fagg and told Anson: ‘Leave this MacIntyre fellow to us. I’ll call on Lieutenant Coney of the impress service first thing in the morning and tell him to make a thorough search of Seagate, Hythe and Folkestone. The wretched deserter will no doubt be holed up somewhere local.’
‘But what about warning the others?’
‘Sergeant Hoover will do that, will you not?’
‘I’ll go around and warn those I reckon most at risk right now, sir.’
‘Good man! Now, mon vieux, we must look to where you can go to convalesce. We’ll get you back to your room at the Rose tonight and I’ll stay there myself to make sure that maniac doesn’t make another attempt. In the morning we’ll send you off somewhere safer. You’d be well looked after at home, I’m sure, but I suppose...?’
‘You suppose right. There’s no way I would go there after the break with my family. No, if I must go anywhere, I’ll go to Ludden. I know Josiah Parkin would be pleased to take me in again.’
‘And his delightful niece?’
Anson chose not to respond, but admitted to himself that that the prospect of seeing Cassandra again so soon almost made the night’s drama worthwhile.
*
Billy MacIntyre stayed hidden behind a pile of nets in an open-fronted fisherman’s hut down by the harbour, in case the fracas in the pub sparked an immediate hue and cry.
He squatted, still clutching his cudgel, hunched against the back wall of the shed where he would be able to deal with anyone who came searching.
Mulling over his failure to kill Anson, he consoled himself that there would be other opportunities to finish the job — and punish the others who had brought about his downfall.
For now, his biggest regret was that he had lost his knife in the struggle.
After an hour or so he had heard no sound of a pursuit or search of the hotchpotch of fisherman’s shacks and turned his mind to what to do next.
‘Best make yerself scarce, Billy boy,’ he muttered to himself, ‘else when it gets light the fishermen’ll come after their gear.’
He pushed himself to his feet, cudgel in hand, and crept to the front of the hut. Still no sign of anyone searching, so he slipped away, crunching along the pebbled beach heading towards Dungeness and the wild expanse of low-lying sheep pastures and dykes of Romney Marsh.
4
Sick Leave
Next morning, young Tom Marsh turned up at the Rose with his pony and trap and Armstrong helped Anson, his arm heavily bandaged, aboard.
Seeing him off, Armstrong warned amiably: ‘If I see you again before six weeks are out, I shall have you court-martialled, mon vieux, friend or no friend!’
Anson tried to touch his hat in ironic salute but winced with the pain and instead mouthed, a mite sarcastically, ‘Aye, aye, sir.’
‘Fear not,’ Armstrong assured him, ‘if that MacIntyre creature is still hanging around we will catch him. Coney and his men are already on the case. But until he is caught kindly avoid strange men with Scottish accents and stay out of public houses!’