After a long pause, James finally conceded Harry’s point. ‘There are things we may not know about, some form of rivalry. But it does increasingly look to be the work of the French.’
‘I would guess that had we not happened along last night, Broadbridge and perhaps one or two of his hands would have been found at daybreak, hanging from a gibbet in the same manner as Howlett.’
‘I doubt my brain can contain this, Harry. I yearn for some sleep. Perhaps things will be clearer in daylight.’
James moved slightly, and his gasp of pain was clearly audible.
‘I’ll take first watch, Captain,’ said Pender.
Harry didn’t sleep, mulling over in his mind what he knew, and what he suspected. More importantly, what to do about it. If he could prove a connection, Tilly would be obliged to hoist anchor and leave at the very least. Yet he was at a loss to know whom to approach in order to make something happen. Doria, he felt instinctively, would be useless, since he patently cared only for his pocket. The power structures hereabout were so fragmented as to baffle an outsider. Perhaps he could get Bartholomew to act. Whoever lured him and his compatriots here, and granted them permission to sail, might strongly favour the British cause, instead of doing it for the profits that the privateers brought. Thinking about Doria, and his pocket, and profits, made him wander off at a tangent.
How did Bartholomew avoid excise duty? He conjured up a memory of his own captures. That gave him pause. He could see a pile of cargo in his mind’s eye, with cordage and sails, and all manner of items from barrels of turpentine to boxes of nails. But what of the vessel itself? If you took prizes, you captured ships. You could unload a cargo at any convenient bay, and with such a mountainous coastline there was no shortage of places hereabouts. And moving goods on mules in these parts excited no comment, since it was the customary form of transport. But you could not dispose of the ships themselves so easily, and they represented a major share, sometimes the best part, of the profits to be derived from privateering. Bartholomew must be disposing of his cargoes, vessels and all, somewhere else entirely, and only using Genoa as a place to victual.
And the lack of proper crews? He distinctly remembered Hood saying that they went in for long voyages. The longer the voyage, the more men you needed. Every ship you took had to have a strong enough party aboard to both sail the prize and cow the prisoners. With the size of crew Bartholomew and his acolytes took to sea, any reasonable success would leave them without sufficient crew to man their own ships. And sailing in convoy? He would hate to do that, for it implied some sort of commodore. Someone would have to coordinate the actions of the various ships in the fleet, otherwise they’d be forever fouling one another’s hawse.
And there was bound to be no end of arguments. It stood to reason that men who held command in such circumstances would not take lightly to having their actions either directed or questioned. And when it came to sharing out the booty, there would be endless disputes about who did the most to effect the capture in the first place. At that moment Harry knew that he could never sail with Bartholomew and his band.
Harry was off again on another tangent. They must drop off their ships and goods at another port, re-embarking their crews, then sail back to Genoa to spend the money. That meant that the place Bartholomew unloaded was not secure. He shook his head violently, forcing his mind back to the more immediate problem, searching for a solution.
With the clarity that often comes from thinking laterally, his mind cleared away the inessentials, leaving the core of the problem exposed. Nothing he could do, in the form of laying accusations, would shift that French sloop. It had to be the actions, or the disapproval, of someone much more powerful. Also, he doubted, without positive proof, impossible to refute, that even the eminent Admiral Hood could achieve as much. The chances of laying a hand on the actual person responsible posed insurmountable difficulties. Having exposed the nub of the problem, it seemed to require little mental effort to expose the solution. He recalled the conversation with Hood, and the suggestion that he should just blow it out of the water.
Harry stopped frowning and smiled, half wondering if this was what Hood had been hinting all along. The British navy couldn’t go near the French ship. Up until a few hours ago neither could he, for he lacked the means. But not now. Even if he declined the half-offered chance to join the syndicate, perhaps he could convince Bartholomew that Broadbridge’s death was a warning to him and all his fellow captains. In that case it might be possible to persuade him to take some action, in conjunction with Harry, to remove the threat altogether.
Harry felt the blood begin to race through his veins as the outline of his proposed action took shape. He started guiltily. Was this his real reason for suggesting that James have his wound attended to aboard the Swiftsure? That his brother would then be away from him, and unable to question or interfere with his plans.
It was the old thrill, when an idea presented itself and the whole thing seemed to fall into place in a matter of seconds. It was all there now in his mind’s eye. A blatant attack, guns blazing, was out of the question. Hood couldn’t do it, and neither could he. But what was to stop him, with or without the aid of Bartholomew, from adopting the same tactics as the French, and indulging in a little activity at night? Harry had been given plenty of time to examine the sloop. She had no boarding nets rigged, so given enough people he could make her capture painless, and above all, quiet. It couldn’t be done with a British ship in the harbour. But Swiftsure was due to sail tomorrow. There would be a gap of at least two days between her rejoining the fleet and another British warship coming in to revictual.
Given luck they could take her, cut her cable, and sail her out of the harbour, for all the world as though she’d set out on her own. A stage-managed capture, away from the sight of land, by a ship of the Royal Navy would be easy to arrange. Harry’s smile increased in size, as he contemplated Hood’s response as Harry Ludlow, having not only turfed the French out of Genoa, turned up off Toulon with their ship as a prize.
He took over the watch from Pender earlier than necessary, and had his servant let him out of the cabin again, ordering him to get some sleep. If he was going to go through with his plans he needed to know if the Principessa was a good ship to buy. As the sun rose over the mountains he set about checking the rest of the ship, half his mind on what he was examining, and the other half gnawing away at his scheme, looking for flaws.
To some it would seem ghoulish, to be looking over the Principessa now, given the recent deaths. It was even more ghoulish to contemplate the possible quality of Broadbridge’s men. Sutton and his mates were now without a captain, and there should be enough real sailors aboard to make a start at forming an efficient crew. If they were of the right stripe he’d have no need to involve Bartholomew. And if he could accomplish his goal with what was to be his own crew, it would augur well for the future. A successful action, right at the beginning, would do wonders for their morale. It sounded as though they’d been on short commons under Broadbridge, both in the article of food and the opportunity for a bit of profit.
They’d had to watch the crews of the other ships flinging money about and behaving as though Genoa was Fiddler’s Green, which must have been galling. A capture, and a payment to go with it, would be all he needed to have their undying loyalty. He was standing on what seemed a dry and weatherly ship. Given a willing crew, all the rest he could manage. The more he thought on it, the better it looked. All Harry needed to square the circle was his exemptions from Hood, and as far as the Mediterranean was concerned he was sitting pretty.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE BINNACLE locker might be empty but in most other respects she was well found. The raked masts, with extra stays, seemed somehow to fit the whole shape of the vessel now he was aboard. The yards needed to hoist the sails onto these masts, all new timber, were stored amidships, raised on the booms that would normally have held the ship’s boats. The sail locker was well ventilated an
d full of good-quality canvas. In her compact holds beneath the lower deck she had all the cables and cordage aboard that he would need to rig her. The magazine, not surprisingly, held no powder. But the shot lockers in the hold were full. Extra ballast, in the form of shingle, had been loaded to compensate for the lack of consumables such as water and food. He looked over the side, checking the state of the paintwork, and over the stern, noticing that the gudgeons holding the rudder were well greased.
The brass fittings gleamed and the decks were clean. There was a reassuring freshness about the ship, if you excluded the cabin and the tiny wardroom. He stood on the quarterdeck, by the wheel, looking forward, and tried to image the Principessa in motion. The feeling that he had was impossible to explain. She just looked right, and it was easy, in his mind’s eye, to imagine her heeled over with a fine spread of canvas aloft.
There was only one flaw. To Harry, with his naval background, the guns were a disappointment. The Principessa carried twelve four-pounders as her main armament, with popguns as stern and bow chasers. Accurate enough, and sufficient to scare a merchantman, they would be barely adequate in a proper fight with a determined enemy, and useless against a warship unless you had them by the score. Harry knew that if you stayed at sea long enough, taking prizes close to enemy harbours, one day you’d bite off something bigger than you could chew. A pair of long nines, of a decent calibre amidships on each side, and another two pairs set as bow and stern chasers, well handled, could make all the difference.
He took a telescope from the rack and made his way up to the cap. Harry quickly surveyed the approaches, now, at sunrise, full of ships making their way into the anchorage. He swung round to look at the crowded harbour. Some of those who had tied up the night before were being warped into the quayside to unload their cargo. Those two unfortunates in the wardroom would have been over the side without the presence of those merchant ships, and all they would have found, had they come out today, was a ghost ship with the single corpse in the cabin.
Harry swung the glass round to take in the entrance to Ma Thomas’s tavern, but there was little activity there at this hour. He swept on, past Broadbridge’s ship, the Dido, which at this distance didn’t look impressive, to view the ships of Bartholomew’s little squadron. Two barques, a pair of two-masted sloops, and a polacre. The decks were deserted. At this hour, on any ship of his, the hands would be up and at it, in true naval fashion, holystoning the decks and keeping everything shipshape. Back on deck, he gently woke his brother. He must get James over to the Swiftsure for Williams, the surgeon, to have a proper look at his arm. He brutally suppressed his feelings of guilt. Even with his vivid imagination he had trouble envisaging his brother stealing aboard an enemy ship, face blacked and dagger in his teeth, intent on knifing people in the dark.
He roused them out of the cabin with loud and unwelcome knocking, bidding his servant to tidy up the place and leave the door unlocked while he sought some transport. It took some time to hail a boat, Harry yelling furiously, and cursing frequently. James’s face was drawn. Harry knew that he must still be in considerable pain, but he was at a loss to know what to do about it. He also knew that if he said nothing James would question him about his plans so, in between hails, he set out deliberately to mislead him for his brother’s own good.
‘I must check what we have only so far surmised. I must talk with Crosby, for one, and see if anyone caught sight of the men who took Broadbridge out to the ship. Anyway even if I discover nothing, I must see Count Toraglia, then lay the matter before someone in authority.’
‘Admiral Doria?’
‘Yes, though I’d prefer it to be someone else, this is his domain. Not that I think he’ll do anything. Of course, it is quite possible that Count di Toraglia will take the whole problem out of my hands, though I cannot say I relish burdening his pretty wife with such a matter. But it’s his ship at the moment, so really he is responsible. Perhaps a word with Guistiani …’
Harry was so busy articulating his thoughts that he failed to notice the increasing gloom on his brother’s face. ‘What you said last night, Harry, about the French wishing to use Broadbridge as a warning—’
‘Yes?’
‘Does it not occur to you that having foiled that plan they will hatch another?’
Harry, who had been concentrating on these other matters, was surprised. ‘I don’t follow you.’
‘Then you should, Harry. If we were involved by sheer chance before, that can hardly be true now, for we have scuppered their plans. As a warning, you, Pender, and I will do just as well as our late friend. I think we should all get out of Genoa as soon as possible. Let’s lay our conclusions before Admiral Hood and let him sort this out.’
‘I would not want to be seen to be running away.’
‘I’m not suggesting that you make a habit of it, Harry.’
Harry didn’t respond to that at all. James gave him a thin smile, and spoke with deliberate irony. ‘It is so gratifying to see that my words are having the intended effect.’
Harry disliked the idea of deliberately lying to James. Avoiding questions and not informing was one thing, but barefaced falsehoods quite another. Yet he could see no alternative, for to do otherwise would enmesh him in the very net he was so pleased to have escaped, quite apart from the fact that James would insist on staying with him, increasing the risk to both of them.
‘I see all this as easing the task at hand, James. Not complicating it. My best hope was always the English privateers. They will have no love for the navy, so the death of Captain Howlett was hardly likely to move them. But Broadbridge was one of their number, and he’s now dead. If I can convince them that they too are in danger, and that by aiding us they protect themselves, then we can bring matters to a speedy conclusion, while at the same time removing the threat to our persons.’
‘Harry, you are still over-simplifying the whole thing.’
Harry nearly relented, for his discomfort was acute. But to outline his plans to James would not improve his standing in his brother’s eyes. He would see it as being rash, whereas Harry saw it as making perfect sense. And given that James knew his intentions, nothing would get him out of Genoa, which would double the risk to James, and increase Harry’s workload tenfold in having to look after him. He searched his mind in vain for a happy phrase, knowing he had to say something. When he did speak, he knew the words he used fell lamentably short of what was required.
‘I don’t really expect you to understand.’
‘Then I thank God for it, for it passes all comprehension.’
Harry opened his mouth to speak, to try again, but James refused to give way, and there was a note of exasperation in his voice that was quite new.
‘There are things we never speak of, brother, areas of our lives that we respect as private. But for once I feel I must breach that privacy. Hood practically told you that you could have your commission back. Yet you declined. Why? Because you would have to beg for it?’
Harry, who had been gracing his brother with a slightly patronising smile, immediately frowned. ‘I think that our respect for each other’s personal lives is best maintained.’
‘I cannot contain my curiosity. What is it you want Harry? We lost a ship, and you damn near lost your life and mine, because of this sort of behaviour. You could have walked away from Captain Clere in Gibraltar without loss of honour. The man was drunk. And before you say that he was representative of the other officers, remember that I’m aware of how little you care for their professional disapproval.’
James rubbed his forehead with his fingertips, part exasperation, part pain. ‘I can appreciate your reasons for avoiding a return to England, since I’m reluctant to do so myself. But there comes a point when the game isn’t worth the candle. And now you are proposing to go nosing around in this place, talking to this person and that. To prove what, I pray? Something as plain as day; that a large part of the local oligarchy incline towards France. The very best you can do is
identify them, and that will achieve nothing. The very worst is to get a knife in your ribs. Can it be worth it? Is it that you so love a fight that you put aside all common sense?’
Harry Ludlow was not the kind of man to be talked to like that. But he fought hard to keep the anger out of voice. ‘Your arm must be paining you badly.’
James softened his voice, almost pleading. ‘I realise what I’m saying isn’t welcome, Harry. Perhaps this arm is making me speak with less delicacy than usual, but I would dearly love an answer.’
Harry looked him right in the eye, his voice now gentle too. ‘I can think of no answer that would satisfy you, brother.’
James gave him a half-smile. ‘I didn’t have in mind an answer that would satisfy me. I was rather thinking that you might find one to satisfy yourself.’
Pender, who had taken over yelling from Harry, finally secured a boat. As it came alongside, he looked suspiciously at the boatmen, easing the pistols which now resided in his belt so that they would know not to trifle with him. They returned his curiosity in good measure, for there was no doubting that their three passengers had been in a scrape. Harry’s blue coat was stained with blood, and his face bore several bruises. Getting James down into the boat, with only one usable hand and no rope to hold him, took an age.
The Swiftsure was making ready for sea as they approached, though the hands seemed sluggish as they went about their duties, and the frigate was still surrounded by any number of craft, plying their wares through the open gunports. A marine guard at the entry port, musket raised, looked down suspiciously as they came alongside. But he must have recognised Harry. He quickly lowered the musket, and called for the officer of the watch. Harry was halfway up the ladder before the midshipman’s head appeared, and he ignored the look of anger as he came aboard without invitation.
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