A Ship for The King

by Richard Woodman

  The two men, Captain Gideon Strange and Captain Henry Mainwaring, were less eager to retire and spent the evening dining on mutton and some rotgut Portuguese wine that their landlord had the effrontery to attempt to pass off as claret. Both men declared they had drunk better but had matters more pressing, conducting their conversation in Strange’s private lodging rooms, where Mainwaring was his guest. Both were part-owners of the Swallow, the ship in which Kit Faulkner had found temporary refuge and which had but lately arrived from the Mediterranean. Although not the sole owners, the two partners held the largest number of shares in the vessel, between them commanding forty-eight sixty-fourths, with Mainwaring holding a moiety more than Strange. The latter, however, was the master and the two regarded each other as equals in their business. Having pored over the accounts to their mutual satisfaction, filled themselves with the landlord’s mutton and filthy wine, Mainwaring called for pipes and tobacco before turning the conversation to other matters. When both had wreathed their heads in an aromatic blue haze, he ventured his news.

  ‘Gideon, I have news for you that will upset the tranquillity of our arrangements, I fear.’

  ‘Oh? Pray, what is amiss? Is it that wretched boy?’ Strange waved his hand to dissipate the cloud of smoke in order to see his companion better. Mainwaring removed his own pipe and stared into the distance. He was a handsome man, clean-shaven and in his early thirties. He had a strong face, a straight nose and a well-formed mouth. A hint of coming fat hung on his cheeks but he was not ill-made, with a strong, lean body that spoke of physical power, even when seated after a hearty meal. Not for the first time Gideon Strange thought it was his friend who should have borne his own surname, for there was something indefinable about Mainwaring: the man was an enigma. In truth, Strange knew that the suspicion arose from his ambivalent past, and the reflection was given added weight by the consideration that had Mainwaring not had a chequered career he, Gideon Strange, would not be sitting in lodgings in the city of Bristol, comfortable in the knowledge that he had just completed a prosperous voyage to Smyrna. Indeed, he was only too conscious – and the thought made him cold with sweaty apprehension – he would still be toiling under the hot sun of Barbary, a slave to the Moors. Thank God, however, Providence delivered him through the timely agency of one Captain Henry Mainwaring.

  As if sensing Strange’s reflections, Mainwaring turned to his friend and smiled, an open, charming smile that could turn a woman’s head and never failed to elicit a similar response from Strange himself. ‘No, Gideon, not the boy, though I shall come to him later. No, what I have to impart to you concerns you directly since I am summoned to London and will, perforce, hand over my part in the management of the Swallow to your goodself, assuming, of course, that you are willing to undertake it.’ Here Mainwaring held up his hand to prevent Strange from interjecting. ‘I would not impose on our friendship and would yield eight sixty-fourths in the Swallow to make you both master and majority shareholder if you agree.’

  ‘That is a most generous offer . . .’

  ‘And take Mr Rat as apprentice – not with the object of making of him cheap labour, but advancing him quickly in seamanship and navigation . . .’

  Strange frowned. ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘Gideon, the country has need of competent seamen, men to command, not simply to hand, reef and steer. A youth who knows nothing else, who is bred to the sea, and one, moreover, who thinks that all his ambition lies thither, is the perfect clay with which to mould so necessary an object. Take him and make him . . . that is all I ask.’

  Strange shrugged. ‘Very well. I shall if you wish it, but think you he has the mind for it?’

  ‘By my reckoning the lad is sharp and shrewd and I may well have need of him. To such natural talents he has nothing to add beyond a hunger and with it, I suspect, a hunger for knowledge would surely follow his appetite for apple cores.’

  Strange rubbed his chin in contemplation. If he was less eager to espouse Mr Rat’s cause, he was even less eager to challenge Mainwaring’s judgement. His partner was not infallible by any means, but he was not often wrong in judging men. Had he been prone to such a fault he would not have so transformed himself. ‘So,’ he said, ‘may I ask why you intend to relinquish your business here and go to London?’

  ‘I have been granted audience of the King,’ Mainwaring said casually, blowing a cloud of smoke into the thick air and staring at it as it roiled upwards towards the low, stained and dingy ceiling.

  ‘By heaven, you have not!’

  ‘Indeed, Gideon, I have.’ Mainwaring turned and looked at his friend. ‘You are surprised?’

  Strange shrugged. ‘Were it any other shipmaster in Bristol, I should be astounded, but you – no, I am not surprised, though I am continually amazed. However, think you that our gracious King might not have a motive in so commanding you?’

  ‘Undoubtedly His Majesty has a motive . . .’

  ‘I mean one more devious than mere curiosity at setting his royal eyes upon a lately pardoned pirate.’

  Mainwaring laughed. ‘Lately pardoned? Come, come, Gideon, you are unjust, I have been pardoned two years. Besides, what mean you by devious? They say His Majesty is a mighty devious shrewd prince, which surely is a necessary quality for one whose business is with ambassadors, bishops, courtiers—’

  ‘And catamites,’ Strange interrupted.

  ‘Catamites? Mean you to impute some unnaturalness to Jacobus Rex, Gideon? Have a care or you will end your days in two pieces upon Tower Hill – if you are lucky.’

  ‘Come Hal, ’tis well known that the King has his favourites. This boy George Villiers, lately made Marquess of Buckingham, is said to be pretty and with a delicacy about his features better fitting a lady than aught else.’

  ‘I suppose it is said so in every tavern from here to Wapping, and it may well be true, but what has this to do with me?’

  ‘Why, that the King, our master, may have many favourites and you have already attracted his attention thanks to your pardon. How you managed it is a mystery to me, but I would warn you that there must be a price to pay.’

  ‘Come, Gideon, I was granted that on account of taking a Moorish ship in the Thames, besides other captures of the King’s enemies, one of which yielded you your freedom.’

  ‘True, and for that I am grateful, and it is in gratitude that I warn you to be careful when you attend the King.’

  ‘You are in serious vein,’ Mainwaring said staring hard at Strange and smiling at the concerned expression of his face.

  ‘Well then, why else would His Majesty trouble himself further on your account?’

  ‘Because, my dear Gideon, I have written a work upon the suppression of piracy and His Majesty has graciously consented to accept a copy from my hand. His Majesty, being himself an author, has a great love of books. On that account I am to wait upon His Majesty.’

  ‘His Majesty would do better to commission some vessels of his own to cruise upon the coast as a guard to frighten and deter these villainous Moors from our shores . . .’

  ‘Ah! You have the rudiments of a verse there, Gideon, damned if you haven’t . . .’

  ‘Hal, ’tis a serious matter. These descents upon our people and the carrying of them off into slavery in Barbary are now a matter of regular occurrence. Why, whole parishes have been abducted!’

  ‘I know very well what has been happening and do not need to be told, though I comprehend your bitterness . . .’

  ‘I lost five years of my life to them . . .’

  ‘And I risked all by placing my existence on account, Gideon . . .’

  ‘But I was forced into slavery, Hal. You chose to go on account, as you put it, and I have never understood why. Were you not in a fair way to becoming a man of parts without so desperate a measure?’

  Strange paused, sensing he had been importunate, trespassing on Mainwaring’s feelings, though the conundrum had long fascinated him. Mainwaring he knew to have been of good family and, a
t the age of thirteen, or thereabouts, attended Brasenose College before being admitted to the Inner Temple. Some years later, conceiving himself a military rather than a legal man, he had been granted the Captaincy of St Andrew’s Castle in Hampshire. Mainwaring had bought an armed ship, the Resistance, from the King’s own master shipwright, Phineas Pett. He had also solicited and then been granted a commission from the Lord Admiral to cruise against pirates. Here was the great irony: having been entrusted with this task by the Lord Admiral, the Earl of Nottingham, Mainwaring had gone to sea and, in company with another ship, the Nightingale, had turned his coat. Instead of attacking pirates, of which there were numerous groups – both native-born and Moorish – off the coasts, many of which used remote bays in Ireland for their recruitment, Mainwaring had revived the sentiments of El Draco, Sir Francis Drake. Declaring his hatred of the Spanish and of Popery he thereby suborned his entire crew, announcing he intended to attack Spanish trade for the purpose of enrichment. Thus turning pirate himself he embarked on an indiscriminate and private war of which dark tales were told of his consorting with the King of Morocco and selling into slavery those of his captives who would not join him. It was in one such foray that he had discovered Strange, chained to the oar of a Moorish galley, and, trading Catholics for Protestants, obtained his release. In three years Mainwaring had acquired a squadron of five armed ships with which, in 1615, he appeared among the cod-fishing fleets on the Grand Bank of Newfoundland. His name had been linked with that of Peter Easton, the self-declared Admiral of a loose confederation of seamen, who, dispossessed of their living by King James’s indifference to his Navy Royal, had found themselves driven to this extremity.

  Easton had subsequently made himself useful to the Duke of Savoy; had been ennobled and, taking a wealthy Catholic lady to his wife, retired a Savoyard Marquess, luxuriating in wealth and status. After Easton’s departure Henry Mainwaring succeeded him as the pirates’ ‘admiral’.

  By this time, however, other forces were stirring. Exasperated by English weakness at sea and King James’s reluctance to clear his own waters of the plague, the Dutch, whose trade had suffered from the captures of Easton and his cronies, took matters into their own hands. In 1614, a powerful Dutch squadron had descended upon Crookhaven, one piratical lair in the south-west extremity of Ireland. It was clear that matters were coming to a head and Mainwaring considered his future, a fact well known to Strange who had, by this time, become one of Mainwaring’s lieutenants.

  Mainwaring’s skills in negotiating the release of Protestant slaves from the Moroccan Sultan conveyed an odour of morality to his conduct and allowed him to seek a reconciliation with the English King. James’s conciliating policies towards the European powers had earned him no friends at home and he was in need of men of action beholden to him. Gone were the glorious days of Elizabeth; the country had sunk into despondency, her navy rotting, her trade stagnant, except for some wildly gambled enterprises to the East Indies, the outcome of which remained uncertain. James’s unpopularity was made manifest when, calling a Parliament to raise funds, his efforts were rebuffed and the so-called ‘Addled Parliament’ was dissolved for failing to finance him. Amid this stalemate came news of a victory at sea; one Henry Mainwaring had taken five Spanish ships and he was even now cruising off Ireland with two vessels, seeking an accommodation and pardon from King James. James was mooting a change of policy and released Sir Walter Raleigh from the Tower on the supposition that the old adventurer could capitalize on a treasure-seeking voyage to El Dorado. Raleigh had failed and lost his head, but Mainwaring, hearing of the King’s intention of pardoning him, sailed up-Channel and captured a Moorish pirate in the estuary of the Thames itself. He could hardly have accomplished a more appropriate feat: it cleared his name and legitimized his pardon. He became a gentleman and thereafter he acquired shares in several ships, to which he acted as ship’s husband, entering a legitimate trade with the West Indies and the Mediterranean, which he knew well.

  This much Strange knew, but while Strange took the Swallow to Smyrna, Mainwaring had been composing his Discourse of Pirates and the Suppression Thereof, admission of which had caused Strange his importunate curiosity.

  Mainwaring’s silence was on the verge of becoming awkward when he removed the pipe from his mouth, blew smoke and turned to his friend. ‘My dear Gideon, you and I have made money from our partnership. You came from a mercantile background and while I rescued you from slavery, you came back to your family’s shareholdings in the Swallow, the Lark and the Bristol Rover. It does not suit me to languish here in this city. I have a mind for more and have friends at court, as you know through my connections with old Walsingham’s family. But their stars are in the wane, as is Nottingham’s, and I look to new. Buckingham may be pretty as a girl, and the King may nurse an unseemly passion for his prettiness, but Buckingham has a need for competent sea-officers, for the King’s policies will draw our enemies upon us and I have the stomach for a fight—’

  ‘You seek a commission!’ Strange almost shouted as he divined Mainwaring’s intentions, but his friend merely raised an eyebrow in mock astonishment.

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘You shall be an admiral again, only this time your flag will be atop the mainmast of a King’s ship, by God. Harry, I drink to your success.’ Strange raised his glass and swallowed its contents with a wince. ‘God’s truth, but that is vile wine!’

  Mainwaring made a self-deprecatory gesture, allowing Strange to add, ‘And you intend to make Mr Rat one of your lieutenants after I have trained him.’

  Mainwaring lowered an empty glass to the table and regarded Strange through the haze of blue tobacco smoke. ‘You have divined my mind, Gideon, and tomorrow we shall see what young Mr Rat makes of my proposal . . . at least the first part of it. We have no need to reveal it all until we see whether he possesses the qualities I believe he does. Now,’ he went on purposefully, ‘I want to consider some other worthy seafaring men of our acquaintance . . .’

  ‘God, you would strip my ships of the most able, damn you, Harry. You are already thinking like a naval officer!’

  ‘Why not, Gideon. ’Tis not so very different from being a pirate.’

  Kit Faulkner woke to the new day uncertain of his surroundings. The cat had gone, though the warmth of its companionship lingered. Inured to sleeping on a hard surface in any odd corner, it was the slight movement of the Swallow that reminded him of the previous day’s events and his quickening heartbeat woke him fully. All previous attempts to board ships in the dock had run the risk of a thrashing from the elderly ship-keepers who tended them, and while a nimble chap could usually elude the grunting and rheumaticky pursuit of these guardians, they had their nasty accomplices, like the boy Kit had witnessed stealing hosepipe from his benefactors. As if the thought conjured a spectre, the galley door was flung open and a figure stood silhouetted against the grey autumnal daylight. A shadow fell across the stirring Kit as he drew up his legs and scrambled to his feet.

  ‘You little bastard,’ the ship-keeper’s son said. ‘The old boy took it into his head that I had lifted some pipe and I have you to thank for the lie . . .’

  ‘’Twas not a lie, and you know it.’ Kit was standing now and backed himself against the bulkhead. His right hand was behind him, fumbling briefly until it closed round a handle hanging from a hook.

  ‘It was a filthy lie,’ the other said, advancing into the galley as Kit, his heart thundering in his chest, carefully twisted his hand and freed the implement from its hook. Just as the youth lunged for him he brought his hand round and caught his attacker a sharp blow across his outstretched wrist. Fortunately it was a sharpening steel that Kit had alighted on, and not a knife; nevertheless, the youth squealed and withdrew his hand. Although he made a move as though to renew his assault he thought better of it. A moment later he had hopped backwards, slammed the door and shot the bolt. Kit could hear him running off and settled to wait, scouring the galley for food. C
uriously there was nothing beyond a small bag of oats from which he broke his fast. He was vaguely aware of raised voices somewhere in the vessel.

  An hour later he heard footsteps approach. He took up the steel again, but the door opened to reveal the old ship-keeper. ‘Come with me,’ he grumbled, making no mention of the encounter between the two youngsters. Kit followed as Jones led him ashore, muttering testily, by which means he indicated to his charge that he thoroughly disapproved of his present task. It took some time for Jones to execute his master’s commission, for it required a series of commercial transactions for which the old man was unfitted. During the course of these Kit realized this and he was able to cajole a number of decent garments out of the vendors, calling upon the skills that his vagrant life had equipped him with. Thus he emerged from the pawnbrokers’ shops and the cobblers, in and out of which Jones led him, with two sets of under-drawers, three pairs of stockings, two pairs of breeches, three blouses and a rough coat of the kind that sailors wore. He also argued for a decent pair of shoes that were too big for him and a hat that was likewise oversized but marked him for a fledgling dandy. Jones, who grumbled incessantly at the diminishing stock of coin he held, nevertheless managed to accomplish his task with the minimum of outlay, as Mrs Jones had insisted: all-in-all, it would get this infested boy out of his hair and his own son off the hook of his own stupidity.

  It was not far short of noon when Jones and his charge, weighed down by his bundle, hung about with his shoes and sporting a stubby clay-pipe that the cobbler had thrown in for good measure, reached Captain Strange’s lodgings. If Kit thought, by acquisition of the pipe, that he had been elevated to the estate of manhood, he was swiftly disabused for Captain Mainwaring, barely looking up from some papers he was studying with Captain Strange, dismissed Jones and summoned a chambermaid.