Marty thanked him, propped the bag by his chair, took out his knife, and slit open the packet.
“My God, do you carry that around with you everywhere?” Rowley exclaimed.
Marty treated the question as rhetorical and opened the letter he extracted from the wrapping. A glance showed it was from Hood and he quickly read the important parts, then folded it back into the wrapper. He sipped his Madera in thought.
Rowley was watching him and asked,
“Orders?”
Marty started out of his reverie,
“Oh sorry, yes. I am being recalled to Gibraltar. My services have been requested by Lieutenant General Wellesley.”
“The chap that was governor in India?”
“The very same. We became acquainted when I was here last time.”
Rowley, a politically aware landowner in his own right, realized that the young man in front of him had some politically powerful allies and decided that it wouldn’t hurt to cultivate him a little.
“Would you join me for dinner before you leave?” he asked. “Seven thirty this evening?”
“I would be honoured,” Marty answered, knowing exactly what was going in.
Dinner was a formal affair; Rowley invited all the captains in his squadron. Marty was the third most senior Post Captain present, so he was sat two seats below the Commodore. Opposite him was Corbett of the Nereide, and closest to the Admiral; Lewis of the Argon and Standish of the Leopard. Below them were two captains who hadn’t made flag yet; Stimpson and Yale.
Marty took an instant dislike to Corbett. The man was brash and talked of his men as if they were just objects. To Marty, he came across as insecure and spent most of his time trying to make Marty aware of his superiority. That was until Stimpson asked with a sly glance at Corbett,
“Sir Martin, how is your wife, the good Lady Candor? My family lands border yours in Cheshire you know.”
Corbett, who hadn’t a clue who Marty really was, sat with a stunned look on his face when Marty answered,
“Very well, thank you. She is back in England now but whether she is in our Cheshire, Dorset, or London homes, I have no idea.”
Rowley, who also didn’t like Corbett because of his attitude and lack of social grace, chipped in when he saw his discomfort,
“I heard that the Prince Regent deigned to be godfather to your youngest; must be a great honour.”
“Indeed, it was. And he takes his duties to the twins seriously, contrary to his reputation.” Marty smiled proudly.
“Did you know Nelson,” Yale asked.
“I met him a couple of times and had the honour of being of service to him on occasion,” Marty answered modestly. “He was a great man and it was with great regret that I missed his funeral.”
“Did his zeal really shine through like the stories would have us believe?” Yale followed up.
“It did, indeed. The man was a fount of energy and had absolute belief in everything he did. He had the rare ability to inspire those around him and I valued his respect above all else.”
The conversation then became a series of tales of personal encounters with the great man which Corbett found himself only on the periphery of and in an attempt to win back some ground, he interjected,
“Of course, Admiral Smith was a better frigate captain.”
“Well now,” Marty said, looking the man in the eye, “Nelson would be the first to admit that there were many that exceeded him in the collection of prize money, Thomas Cochrane, Sidney Smith,”
“And yourself,” the slightly drunk Lewis added.
“I have been lucky,” Marty replied.
“Pha! You just added another frigate to your tally. I expect you have made more than either of those two.”
“Do you know either of them?” Yale asked.
Marty just smiled and started telling the story of the blockade of Lisbon, leaving out the several cartloads of treasure he picked up.
By the end of the evening, he made friends with his brother captains with the exception of Corbett, who became moodier as the others told stories of their exploits.
Marty didn’t miss the glare he got as he bid a fond farewell to Rowley and smiled his wolf smile as he said goodbye to Corbett.
The next morning at dawn saw Marty and his two frigates heading around the Southern tip of the island, making their way to Cape Town, and a rendezvous with the Belle.
Marty wanted both ships to be able to fight and, as he habitually had enough crew to fight both sides, he decided to divide the crew between the two ships. That left them both undermanned as they only had so many sail handlers, but with two broadsides available he thought it was justified.
He discussed this with Rowley, and he offered his Sixth lieutenant and a midshipman to help with the shortage of officers Marty had. Marty thanked him, and Lieutenant David Clark and Midshipman Augustus Mayhew joined his ranks. They both wanted to return home, Clark because his father died and Mayhew because he wanted to leave the Navy and join his father’s company. Marty got the impression that Rowley was glad to be rid of him.
“Maybe we can pick up a few more crew when we get to Cape Town,” Wolfgang suggested before he left to take command of the Fore.
Marty rearranged his crew with Trenchard as first, Midshipman Longstaff made acting Lieutenant and was second with Mayhew his temporary third.
Midshipman Williams went over to the Fore as acting second lieutenant under Clark, who was Wolfgang’s first. To cover the divisions, the Shadows were divided between the two ships and became temporary officers.
This worked well with both Marty and Wolfgang running their crews through drills to bed them in and soon both ships were operating acceptably.
They were passing the southern tip of Madagascar when they spotted a strange sail. Knowing that a bit of a chase would do more to pull the crew together than any amount of drills Marty signalled the pursuit.
The two frigates looked magnificent as they sped along under almost full sail, bearing down on the hapless merchantman. It was a Dutchman, and at that time, there wasn’t a treaty between Britain and the Kingdom of Holland as Marty knew only too well, so it was fair game.
The captain knew he didn’t stand a chance and hove to well before the two frigates caught up with him.
“Van der Poll,” he introduced himself.
He was transporting ivory and timber from Mozambique and not wanting to have to dilute his crews anymore. Marty ordered the ivory and exotic woods transferred to his ships, pressed all the lascars in his crew, and sent him on his way. A disgruntled Van der Pol turned around and went back to Mozambique as Marty had been deliberately lax in searching his ship and not found the bullion chest he had hidden under a deck plank in his cabin. He would get another cargo and some more lascars there.
Marty was happy. The crews worked well together and were pleased with the loot they had acquired.
At Cape Town, they rendezvoused with the Bonne Marie and the East Indiamen. Re-provisioned and re-watered, Marty signed on a dozen new hands who were loitering around the docks looking for a berth and ‘borrowed’ a few from the East Indiamen. Before they knew it, their convoy was heading back out into the Atlantic following the trades to the coast of Brazil.
They had no problem with the doldrums this time because a storm caught them just North of the equator and blew them all the way up to Trinidad. It was September and the middle of the Hurricane season.
Wolfgang and Marty discussed what to do as the merchant captains were reluctant to risk travelling until the season was over.
“If we travel up past the Dutch Antilles, we will be well out of the Hurricane belt,” Wolfgang argued.
“I agree but can we persuade the other captains? They are all undermanned, like we are, even if we pick up a few extra men here,” Marty added and sighed, “I think we can only talk to them and see if they will go with it.”
He called an all captains meeting in a tavern in Port of Spain.
“Gentleme
n, we need to come to an agreement on how to proceed. So far, we have been escorting you as a convoy and if that is to continue, we may have to all compromise a little.” He paused and assessed the room. At least they were listening.
“I am under orders to get my ships back to Gibraltar to support General Wellesley in his mission to purge the peninsula of the French, and as such, must make all haste.” He looked around the room and saw that some were looking alarmed at the thought of losing their escort, the Caribbean was still not the safest of places.
“I would normally head from here straight up to Jamaica and then up to the Carolinas and home.” There were murmurs, and he nodded to the senior captain to speak.
“You might get away with that with those greyhounds you sail and your big crews, but we could never do it,” McTravers of the Indian Queen told him.
Marty nodded in understanding then offered his compromise,
“The hurricane belt goes up through to the Eastern side of the windward islands, correct?” he paused and waited for them all to agree. “I propose we go West and take the longer route past the Dutch Antilles to the coast of Colombia where we swing North to Jamaica. Then if the conditions are right head up to the Carolinas and pick up the trades, we head East and home.”
“I’ve never sailed those waters, so I can’t comment,” McTravers stated, looking stubborn.
“I have,” Captain Freeman of the North Star chipped in. “The Caribbean current runs along that stretch of coast and will push us along nicely. The problem comes if the Dutch are feeling belligerent.”
“Oh, we don’t need to worry about them, I have what you might call a special relationship with the Antilles Island governments,” Marty smiled at them.
“You have your own private treaty with them I suppose,” McTravers commented sarcastically.
“Well yes, I suppose I do,” Marty grinned back at him.
The discussion went on for a couple of bottles of wine and ended up with the captains voting two to one to go with Marty’s plan, McTravers being the dissenter. Marty had a chat with the port admiral and managed to get a few more hands from the local gaol. Muscle was all he needed, and thieves and murderers would fit right in.
They set sail, circling the island to the south and continuing around it anticlockwise to enter the Caribbean to its North, picking up the current and the North-easterly trade wind. They steered a scant point North of West to follow the Venezuelan coast to pass Bonaire on its leeward side, then Curacao on its windward side, followed by Aruba.
They saw a few sails, but no one wanted to take on three warships, even if they were escorting three fat merchantmen. As they came up on Barranquilla, Marty altered course to the North-Northeast towards Jamaica and Kingston, and they noticed the sea was getting up. It was strange, the waves were getting bigger and coming in from the Northeast, but the wind hadn’t increased.
“Mr. Grey, what do you think of this sea?” Marty asked the Master.
“There is probably a hurricane over to the Northeast of us if these waves are anything to go by. What we are feeling is like the ripples on a pond when you throw a stone in. The waves are moving out from where the storm is,” Arnold Grey replied.
“The storm’s somewhere over Puerto Rico? That’s six hundred odd miles away!” Marty gasped and wondered at the power of something that could send twenty-foot-high waves that far.
It was making for a really uncomfortable ride as the waves were coming in on their beam and were growing bigger by the minute. They had no choice but to change course to take them on the stern and ride them out, which pushed them towards the coast of Costa Rica. They would now have to swing around the North end of Cuba following the gulf stream current and pick up the Westerly trade wind and have no chance to re-water or provision at Jamaica. They would have to try the Bahamas.
The weather got worse, and the Merchant captains dug in their heels by doggedly running head of it forcing Marty to follow. There was no way they were taking their ships across the hurricane belt given the present conditions until the middle of November at the earliest. The Bahamas had been regularly savaged by hurricanes in the past years and September was the height of the season.
Marty considered stopping at George Town in the Caymans but the risk of getting hit there was too great. So, they slid into the Gulf of Honduras and headed to Tela, which was under British protection, where they could re-provision and water. The town was rough and offered little in the way of entertainment but at the least the men could go ashore and stretch their legs.
Shelby, however, was in his element and soon disappeared into the town to study the local people and their diseases. He would pop up unexpectedly and deposit bags of herbs, all carefully labelled, in his quarters, deal with any sick then disappear for another few days.
The Formidiable still had a large amount of the citronella oil they had utilized the last time they were in the Caribbean. Marty made sure that all the ships were burning it while they were in port in the belief that it drove away the bad vapours. The merchant captains were sceptical, but Shelby persuaded them to try it, the mosquitos were thick in the wet season and the oil kept them away too.
There was one incident of note. The first mate of the North Star went missing, and his captain asked Marty to help find him. Marty detailed the Shadows with the task as he figured they could do with the exercise. It took them two days to track him down to a hut in a forest clearing about a mile outside of town. He was with a young native girl of around seventeen years old, and they were making house together.
“He is totally besotted with her,” Antton told him when they got back, “and her with him. A real pair of star struck lovers. He doesn’t want to go back to his ship, says he’s had enough of being at sea and wants to stay here and have a family.”
“Have you told his captain yet?” Marty asked.
“No, we thought we would leave him lost. He is happy where he is.”
“You old romantic,” Marty teased him. “Alright, I will tell him we can’t find him.”
October passed tediously with innumerable dinners with the passengers of the merchantmen. Marty found himself pursued by the widow of an Army colonel who succumbed to the fever in Calcutta. Mrs. Hall, a woman of early middle years, was relentless in her efforts to ensnare him in a dalliance. Marty took to travelling with Sam at his side if there was a chance that she would be around. The Shadows thought this was great entertainment.
In the end, the problem sorted itself out when the dear lady was out with some of her fellow travellers exploring some ruins on the edge of the rain forest. She was, apparently, an amateur herpetologist and was convinced she had found a new species of tree frog. It was bright blue with red eyes and she picked it up without checking with their native guide. She became sick and died in agony a day later.
Marty discovered that that particular frog was well known to the natives as they used the mucus excreted from its skin to coat the darts they fired from their blowguns.
“We need to get some of those darts and a few blowguns,” he told his men. “It killed her in a day when she just got it on her hands and ate a sandwich. If it’s on the end of a dart, it apparently kills in seconds.”
November arrived with crystal clear skies and soaring temperatures. Marty decided it was time to move on. He pulled his trump cards out and slapped them on the table.
“Well, I am sorry if you object gentlemen,” he said as the captains refused yet again, “but as a shareholder of the company and the owner of the cargo on two of your ships, I think I am going to insist. Not only that a delegation from your passengers has also approached me, urging we get underway. The loss of Mrs. Hall has upset many of them.”
The Captains put their heads together and had a whispered conversation. Troy, who had been laying on his bed, sat up and cocked his head from one side to the other as he listened.
“Captain Stockley,” McTravers started, but Marty interrupted,
“You can address me as Sir Martin or
Baron Candor for the purposes of this discussion.”
All three looked even more surprised and another whispered exchange took place.
“Sir Martin,” McTravers corrected, “We will comply with your ‘request’ but want our objections duly noted. We can be ready to sail in three days’ time.”
“You will be ready tomorrow. You are all fully provisioned and watered, and we will sail on the tide,” Marty insisted, fully out of patience.
He held up his hand as McTravers opened his mouth to complain again.
“You can take it up with the commissioners once we are back in England. I take full responsibility.” The meeting was over.
They sailed in the morning.
They looped around the North of Cuba, bypassed the Bahamas, and followed the American coast until they picked up the Westerly trades. From there, it was a tedious three week crossing to the Canary Islands and another week to get them of the straits of Heracles where the Formidiable and Fore left them to go to Gibraltar leaving the Bonne Marie to escort them to India dock in London.
Marty sent a sealed letter to the commissioners of the Honourable Company making it clear that even though he owned part of the cargo, he expected to get a full salvage payment from Lloyds. He didn’t want to see his men done out of their just reward because of him.
Chapter 20: Viscount Wellington
They put the Fore in to be purchased by the Navy and would have to wait for the prize court to condemn her. Marty estimated she was worth in the region of one-hundred and seventy thousand pounds. The amount of salvage on the three East Indiamen was unknown, but Fletcher would bring that news with him when he returned. The Bonne Marie would be sold off privately along with the Ivory and timber they had in their holds.
“All in all, a quite profitable little jaunt.” He wrote at the end of his long sea letter, which he sent on the Marie to Caroline. He had also written to Hood, telling him they were back and enclosing his report. He had fulfilled his mission. Now, he was looking forward to renewing his acquaintance with Arthur.
The Trojan Horse Page 21