A Ship for The King

Home > Other > A Ship for The King > Page 24
A Ship for The King Page 24

by Richard Woodman


  Faulkner shook his head clear of sleep and sent for a glass of beer with which to swill his mouth and set himself to rights.

  ‘The wind is freshening,’ he said, coming to his wits.

  ‘Aye, and it has backed again. My guess is that we are in for another blow. We are not yet far from the equinox. One day is rarely the same as its predecessor at this season . . .’

  ‘Stay,’ Faulkner interrupted, holding out his hand in the dark. ‘Is that rain, I feel, or only spray . . .’

  ‘It’s unlikely to be spray on this course . . . No, by God, you are right. It is rain!’

  Faulkner was fully awake now. ‘Very well, let us haul her up on the starboard tack. We have an hour or two, and perhaps we may lose him. Call the watch! Stand to my lads! Fore and main braces there!’ He waited until the men were at their stations. He could, perhaps should, have called all hands, but the men had laboured hard yesterday and there were just sufficient in the watch to handle the matter if he took a hand himself.

  ‘What’s about?’ He saw the Prince loom up on deck and seized the moment.

  ‘Carpe Diem, Your Highness. Be so good as to lend a hand here!’ Faulkner led the way forward along the starboard side and, throwing a coil of rope off a belaying pin, unceremoniously grabbed the Prince’s right hand and placed it on the pin. ‘Sir, can you cast this off when I give the word? Do it smartly and stand clear of that coil.’ He turned to a seaman who arrived to tend the sheet and tack. ‘Watch your sheet runs clear and keep an eye upon His Highness’s brace, d’you understand me?’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ said the seaman, his face cracking in a grin.

  Faulkner raised his voice as he ran forward to the starboard forebrace. ‘When you are ready, Sir Henry!’

  Mainwaring gave the helm orders and shouted, ‘Let go and haul all!’

  The men posted along the starboard rail let run the lee braces and sheets, allowing the majority on the larboard side to heave the yards round as the Phoenix came round on to the starboard tack. She heeled to the wind and her bow rose and then fell with a thump, sending a cascade of water up into the air from where the wind whipped it across the deck with a soft hiss. Faulkner leapt forward to help haul the fore-tack down to the bumpkin, before coming after to where Prince Charles and the seaman had been joined by others to haul the main-tack to the chess-tree.

  Even in the darkness Faulkner could see the gleam of the Prince’s wet doublet, and then the rain squall was upon them in earnest, cold and searching as it found its way under their clothes, setting them a-shivering and the ship bucking as the wind rose still further.

  ‘Shorten sail!’ Mainwaring roared. ‘Clew up to’gallants!’

  Faulkner resumed his station alongside Mainwaring. ‘Damn it, she is over-pressed,’ Mainwaring said. ‘We must ease her or carry something away!’

  ‘Aye, after the topgallants, we’ll take in the mainsail.’ Faulkner raised his voice again. ‘Highness! Come here, sir!’

  At the Prince’s approach Faulkner grabbed the helm and indicated the Prince should do the same. ‘Be off with you and lay aloft,’ he shouted in the ears of the relieved helmsmen. ‘Now, sir,’ he said to the Prince, ‘we are on the wind, you will find it best to steer by the wind and therefore watch the windward luff of the main topsail. Keep it just a-shiver – that’s the wind just passing along its after surface. If you have it full, you are wasting effort and pressing the ship over. The sails must work now, harder than before. We require forward motion, not a heeling list. The trick is to get a flat belly across the bunts . . . See, you can feel her responding . . .’

  ‘I see . . . This is a heavy job.’

  ‘Aye, we’re full-and-bye, and carrying a little lee helm, preventing the ship from paying off . . . Once the men get the mainsail off her she’ll stand her canvas easier and likely make more speed too. And with the topgallants off she might be the less easily espied,’ he added hopefully.

  Beside him the Prince digested this intelligence. Taking the occasional glance at his fellow helmsman, Faulkner thought that His Highness was indeed enjoying himself despite the cold and the wet. ‘The men will be earning their breakfasts,’ he said, at which the Prince nodded assent.

  ‘And so are we, Captain Faulkner, and so are we, by God!’

  They spotted the enemy ship only once more, a mere nick on the lightening horizon to the eastwards, actually in the act of cracking on sail having lost sight of their quarry ahead. It appeared that none aboard looked astern at where the sky was still dark, but the pale shapes of the Phoenix’s straining topsails might have been seen as she dodged out of one rain squall and into the next.

  Three days later they lay at anchor off the island of St Mary’s, the small settlement of Hugh-town under their lee and in company with five other small ships and vessels which had been gathered in the King’s name. The small squadron, now all under Mainwaring’s flag, lay anchored comfortably enough, for to the westward, out towards the Atlantic Ocean from whence came the strong westerly winds, lay a litter of rocks, islands, reefs and bird-inhabited skerries that were, so men said, all that remained of the flooded land of Avalon. Only when the Phoenix had brought up to her anchor did the ladies emerge, and only then did Faulkner catch his first glimpse of Katherine Villiers. She came on deck with Lady Fanshawe in bright sunshine and the promise of a smooth landing on the island, and she was followed by a black maid whose hand held that of a toddling child, a boy by the plainness of his dress. He was introduced by the Prince to Sir Richard and Lady Fanshawe, and then to Lady Katherine Villiers. She wore a plain travelling dress, as damp-stained as Lady Fanshawe’s after the privations of their adventures and the passage in the Phoenix. Having apologized for the primitive and crowded nature of their quarters to the Fanshawes, he repeated himself to her, looking into a face that – he realized with a shock – was still stunningly beautiful, at least to his eyes. She was pale, drawn and tired, but the dark shadows under her eyes seemed to act like the kohl the nautch-girls of the Indian coast were said to enhance their looks with, emphasizing depth and mystery.

  ‘It was less comfortable than the Prince Royal, Captain Faulkner,’ she said.

  ‘It was all a long time ago,’ he replied, but was afforded no further opportunity for conversation, for Lady Fanshawe interrupted to hasten her into the waiting boat. He followed them to the side where the men had canvas chairs ready to lower them into the boats, and for a brief moment they stood side by side.

  ‘I hope you will have a moment to walk with me, Captain.’

  ‘Tomorrow, ma’am. I shall walk ashore tomorrow, in the afternoon . . .’ And then she was whisked aloft and lowered over the side.

  The Prince of Wales and his entourage were destined to spend several miserable weeks in the Isles of Scilly, short of food and money, a burden on the islanders. For Faulkner, who was to spend a similarly depressing period at anchor offshore, nursing his ship through a series of gales, the walk with Katherine Villiers the following afternoon was to be a moment of pure delight.

  She met him at the landing, having observed his boat put off from the ship from her lodgings. He walked up through the sand to where she stood, slim and elegant, despite her travel-wearied attire, a hat tip-tilted over her left ear and tethered by a ribbon as blue as that of the Garter.

  ‘My Lady.’ He bent over her gloved hand, his heart thumping like that of a youth.

  ‘Captain Faulkner.’ They stood for a moment, staring at each other, then she said, ‘It is good to see a friendly face. They have been rare things of late.’ There was an edge to her voice and he offered his arm. She took it and they began walking along the beach away from Hugh-town and over the low hill that rose to the north. ‘I suspect nothing happens on this island without all knowing of it,’ she said, referring to this very public demonstration of acquaintance.

  ‘Nor will we be unobserved from the Phoenix,’ he said drily, as they walked on in silence. After a few moments that dragged into an awkwardness that neither wanted, y
et neither could break, he said, ‘I have long wanted a moment like this and now it has come, I do not know what to say.’

  ‘It is sometimes best to say what is uppermost in your mind,’ she offered. ‘I am wearied with palace intrigue, politics, self-perjury, deceit, insincerity, flattery, cajolery . . . God knows there is enough of it!’ She broke off, stopping and forcing him to confront her. ‘You are married, are you not? And have children . . . From what I know of you, you had no reason to join the King.’

  ‘No. That is all true. Nor do I know really why I am here. I did not come to seek you, though I long dreamed of you, but I knew when I saw you at Court that, well, after the stupid hopes I had nurtured from the time of the voyage to Spain, I was a fool.’

  ‘No, I was the fool.’ She paused. ‘It is true that I had no intention of encouraging you at Court; it was simply inappropriate and I was a giddy girl, but I had not intended to hurt you, and hurt you I think I did.’

  He shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Is that the truth? Perhaps?’

  ‘I was mortified, but more by my own boorishness than your repudiation.’

  ‘My dear Captain, you have no idea the boorishness I encountered at Court! But I did hurt you, and when I saw you no more I thought that you had forgotten me.’

  They began walking again. ‘I did my best. You are not an easy woman to forget . . .’

  ‘But you married.’

  ‘Yes, a man must, at some time or another, or else take a whore and I was not inclined to do that.’

  ‘Not even an orange-seller?’ she joshed.

  ‘No. Never. Perhaps I would have done better to have done so and then I should not have left a wake of wreckage behind me.’

  ‘Is that what you have done?’

  ‘Materially, no, but emotionally, yes. My wife deserved better of me, as did my children, who are innocent.’

  ‘Do you have sons, or daughters, or both?’

  ‘I have two sons and a daughter.’

  ‘How lovely,’ she said. ‘And your wife?’

  ‘A lady of Puritan inclinations and headstrong views which I much admired . . . I still do, but . . .’

  ‘But? Love passes, is that it?’

  ‘I had hoped not. To say I had not forgotten you is not quite true. You ceased to trouble me. I heard nothing of you and assumed you had risen far above me in life, as was your birthright, and when I thought of you it was with that sadness that one recalls something long gone, beyond my practical grasp.’

  ‘A sadness, like a dead friend?’

  ‘Quite so; and the dead youth that I once was.’ They walked on in silence and then he asked, ‘Tell me, out of curiosity, what did you truly think of Lieutenant Christopher Faulkner of the Prince Royal?’

  ‘I thought him kind, and handsome, and interested in me, a young and almost friendless chit of a girl who was not the person he thought her to be. Rutland scared me and though I recall I put a brave face upon it, I was sorely castigated for my insolence.’

  ‘Insolence?’

  ‘That is what I was told I had been. Why did you think that I failed to speak to you for the remainder of the passage?’ He remained silent, recalling those distant days. ‘You thought me haughty, did you? Did you?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, and I felt humiliated.’

  ‘Humiliated, why? You were a polished gentleman, a sea-officer of reputation, handsome in your crimson sash . . . Why, Captain Faulkner,’ she said with a trace of her old beguiling ways, ‘I was enraptured, enamoured of you and flattered myself – before that fat oaf Rutland interfered – that you felt likewise about me.’

  He gave a bitter laugh. ‘If you knew . . . if you only knew . . .’

  ‘Knew what? You were not married then, what was there to know? You were a King’s lieutenant, for me that was a grand prospect. Whatever Cousin George aspired to, poor Katherine would have settled for a King’s lieutenant if only to find bed and board.’

  He stared at her puzzled. ‘But the Duke, had he no plans for you?’

  ‘Do you think I would have wanted to have been married off to some poxed goat that Cousin George wanted to favour. So, what was there to know about you, Christopher Faulkner?’

  ‘I prefer Kit; my friends call me Kit . . .’

  ‘Don’t prevaricate, Kit. What is there that you are concealing from me?’

  They had walked almost a mile from the town, and though some men were working in a field and they could see three fishing boats working among the rocks below, they were alone. He stopped and lowered his head. ‘Katherine,’ he said intimately and without thinking, ‘Sir Henry Mainwaring, whom you recall as commanding the Prince Royal and who is presently with us . . .’ He took a deep breath before ploughing on. ‘Sir Henry found me a starving boy begging on the waterfront at Bristol, without mother or father, quite alone in the world. I am nothing. I have no land beyond a house in London . . .’

  ‘You have ships,’ she broke in almost angrily, ‘you have men to command, you now carry the future King of England, if God grant success to his arms!’

  ‘I come from nothing . . .’

  ‘But we are alike . . .’

  ‘How so? How so? You are a Villiers, your cousin was the most powerful man in England who influenced two Kings – not always well, I’ll allow, but you cannot say for that, you are nothing. You were high-born, you inherited all that implies. Blood begot you and blood binds you, blood secures you land, a marriage . . .’ He stopped, aware that he was breaking down, angry and stupid. He had never expressed such sentiments before, never given way to such self-pity or found himself so helplessly self-loathing. He pulled himself together. ‘I am so sorry . . . please forgive me, if you can.’

  She smiled at him. ‘There is nothing to forgive unless it be to chide you for sounding rather like a Parliament man. You are right in part, but not entirely so; my branch of the family was poor, George’s less-so, though less well-to-do than you imagine. He rose . . . well God knows how he rose. The stories about him are not pleasant and you have likely heard them. If you had not known of them before, I am sure you have heard of them since. Indeed, I thought perhaps they contributed to your repudiation of me, though heaven knows others are not so easily put off.’

  ‘You have been married? Your child a father?’

  ‘Oh yes, Kit, married, widowed by the plague, married again and then thrown over. Widowed a second time thanks to the King’s folly at Edgehill, then when with child, a kept woman and, after none acknowledged my child, I became, through the charity of others, a companion.’ She spat the word derisively. ‘Why, Captain Faulkner, were we to stand on the scales of approbation before any tribunal from here to Heaven you would outweigh me by your weight in gold!’

  They stared at one another, then slowly began to laugh. ‘There!’ she said. ‘Now you have an answer to your lack of proper manners and had better kiss me if you have a taste for such rotten meat.’

  They stood stock still. The path had sunk a little and the low, wind-bitten hedgerow barely concealed them, but the sky overhead was full of the song of an ascending lark. He took her by the shoulders and gently bent to her mouth.

  It was sunset before they had wandered back to the landing place. ‘I do not like the look of that sky, Katherine. I think it may not be possible to see you tomorrow but you must know that, if you are willing and do not find the notion distasteful, until matters are settled in the country I am willing to take you under my protection.’

  She put a finger on his lips, but he shook her off. ‘I am quite prepared to speak to Lady Fanshawe . . .’

  ‘I am sure you are, but leave matters to me, at least for the time being. You are to come to Jersey with us, are you not?’

  ‘If that is what His Highness commands.’

  ‘That is what His Highness is advised to do,’ she replied. ‘Sir Richard is his mentor. Anyway, we shall have time to talk further even if the weather turns against us tomorrow.’

  ‘Let me see you to your lodg
ing.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, your boat is coming in. They have been likely watching us from the deck with their telescopes.’

  ‘Yes, they have. I shall dream of you tonight.’

  ‘You are too old to play Romeo,’ she said, laughing. ‘But you have made me very happy, happier than I have been for a long, long time.’ She turned and left him staring after her until he heard the crunch of the boat’s stem on the sand. The oarsmen’s silence as they pulled him back to the Phoenix was eloquent of interest and, as he reached the rail, he turned and tossed a florin back into the boat.

  ‘If you get the opportunity, you may drink the health of the lady.’ He was rewarded by complicit grins.

  ‘Aye aye, Cap’n,’ one of them responded.

  Shortly after Faulkner had returned to the Phoenix another boat came off to the ship with an anxious Mainwaring. In the cabin he told Faulkner that earlier that afternoon seven ships had been seen approaching the islands, beating up from the eastwards, and that by the time he had decided to return on board, leaving the Prince and his people in the town or accommodated at Star Castle on the island’s highest point, there were eleven in sight.

  ‘It has to be Batten, Kit, with reinforcements. I fear more will be sent yet and that he will try and trap us here, and may well attempt an assault on us, here in the road.’

  ‘If he leaves it until morning, he may prove to be too late,’ Faulkner said. ‘There’ll be a full gale by the morning, unless I am very much mistaken.’

  Mainwaring nodded. ‘I am of the same opinion.’

  And so it proved; the wind rose steadily during the night and by dawn the anchorage was streaked with white water and a low, troublesome swell was rolling into the anchorage, to which the ships curtsied in response, tugging at their cables and creating deep anxiety to those responsible. St Mary’s Road is not renowned for its good holding ground and the added thrust of the gale created a strong possibility of dragging, so Faulkner ordered one of the guns slung over the bow and under the cable, sending it down on a messenger to back up the anchor. To further reduce the Phoenix’s windage, he had the topgallant yards and masts lowered, and dropped the lower yards a-portlast so that they lay across the ship’s rail.

 

‹ Prev