Over dinner in the cabin Lane and Torrin expressed their surprise along with their congratulations. “Can’t understand it, sir,” said Lane. “The Sandown gang had all night to find that lot, and there it was in the morning!”
“Perhaps they looked in the wrong place,” said Delancey innocently, intent on his meal.
“But the place must have been arranged beforehand. They fix it by bearings taken in daylight and then place lanterns on shore at night which give a cross-bearing on the very spot. It is merely a question of cruising around until the lights are in line, two and two. A child could do it and these are men who have done little else for years.”
“How very disappointing for them,” said Delancey. “The pea-soup is excellent.”
“But we saw the lanterns, sir!” protested Torrin. “They even had red lights to avoid confusion with lamps or candles in the cottage windows.”
“It would change the situation, of course,” said Delancey thoughtfully, “if someone had shifted the lights.” “But who could have done that?”
“Well, you never know. The idea might have occurred to my friend, Mr Edgell.”
“The riding officer? But how would he have known where to place them?”
“Let’s suppose that he had taken his dog out one afternoon and was on the hillside behind Shanklin. From there to his surprise he would see the Rose in Sandown Bay. When she fired three guns—almost for all the world as if it had been a signal—he could (with the help of a friend) knock in four white pegs which would be visible in the dark.”
“God almighty!” said Torrin, “and all he and his friends had to do last night was to shift the lanterns from where they were to where he had driven in his pegs!”
“He could have done that,” admitted Delancey, “supposing that he was out for a walk after dark. He goes out sometimes, I am told, when unable to sleep. It must be very annoying for his wife.”
There can be no doubt that Delancey enjoyed this little scene, which clinched his reputation in the revenue service. But he despised himself afterwards for playing to the gallery. How easy it was to win the hero worship of these simple men! He had merely played the few cards he had in his hand and they thought him a magician. It would not be so easy another time. He reminded himself savagely that his proper career was in the navy and that his real opponents were the French. He had antagonists there of a very different calibre, as ruthless as they were cunning. His war with the smugglers was a mere game, a mental exercise. In fighting the French, by contrast, he would be fighting for his life. The whole atmosphere of war was changing. There had been a time when there was a sense of chivalry. He could remember talking with officers during the last war—or, rather, listening to them—who thought of the French as worthy opponents, as gentlemen who happened to be on the other side. Old Lord Howe must have been chivalrous towards the enemy in those days and Lord Rodney perhaps still more so. Even Sir Edward Pellow was inclined that way, it was said, but there were younger men now who thought differently. Theirs was becoming a war to the death. One could not reason with revolutionaries. One could not plan to be friends with them when war was over. They were men who had to be killed. These smugglers were almost innocent by comparison, offenders merely against the law. More than that, they were probably patriots in the last resort. A man like Sam Carter would never be an actual traitor. There would be small satisfaction in having him thrown into jail. He would some day be wanted, rather in the navy, where he would be promoted master’s mate on joining and given a commission, perhaps, within a year. Sam was a man to have on one’s own side.
Pacing the cutter’s deck, with few paces to go in either direction, Delancey took himself to task for his complacency. How easy it was to become over-confident after even the smallest success! He was already in a chastened mood when he went ashore at Cowes and almost diffident when he made his report on Friday to the collector.
“You have done well,” said Mr Payne finally. “I think you are to be highly commended for your activity and enterprise. What do you plan to do next?”
“I had thought, sir, of paying a visit to Poole.”
“I see. . . . Perhaps I should tell you, in that case, that there was recently an incident which has given me cause for concern. A smuggler arrested here last month had on him (I cannot think why) a letter addressed by one Mr James Weston to Mr John Early. Early’s name is known to all but there is no Mr Weston in this vicinity. On the other hand, the handwriting of the letter is a little like that of Mr Elisha Withers, the comptroller at Poole. The letter contained detailed information about the military forces stationed in Dorset for the suppression of illicit trade. It may be that there is some explanation of this. Mr Withers might be able to explain how he came to write such an imprudent letter—if indeed he did so. In the meantime, be on your guard. Even the Custom House at Poole may not be on your side. The collector there, Mr Edward Rogers, is a friend of mine but too old, I fear, for the work. I suspect that he must leave things to others.”
“Thank you, sir, for the warning. If the smugglers have their spies and informers, even within the revenue service, it is unfortunate that we seem to have no agents working within the smugglers’ organization. One spy well placed, a man of great ability, would be worth fifty tidewaiters and riding officers. Given a secret service we might yet have Mr Early facing his trial at the Assizes.”
“We have informers, sometimes. They come to us after there has been a quarrel among the smugglers themselves. There is jealousy over the leadership, perhaps, or over a woman. But these informers are the least intelligent of the gang and their lives are apt to be brief. For setting up a proper intelligence system we lack the money. The smugglers are engaged in a business which is highly lucrative, so much so that the loss to the revenue has been computed as amounting to no less than two hundred thousand pounds a year. Out of that sum a mere one per centum would give them enough to corrupt men highly placed. The rewards we can offer are trifling by comparison. We shall not bring John Early to justice and if we did, his place would be taken by someone else. No, Mr Delancey, the man I should like to expose is the traitor to our own service; the man, whoever he is, who is working against us at Poole.”
Delancey came away from this interview with the idea in his mind that smugglers and revenue officers must come to resemble each other in the process of conflict. If the moonrakers murdered anyone it would be one of their own number, the traitor to the gang. And the revenue men were as cool about the business, angry only at the thought of betrayal by a brother officer of the service. Mr Payne had been only mildly interested in Delancey’s success. His first sign of emotion was over the thought of a possible treachery. Was his concern, even then, over another official gaining, by devious means, a higher income than his own? Delancey put that thought from him but decided to abandon any plan that would be too ambitious. To bring all local smuggling to a standstill was out of the question and apparently undesirable; the revenue officers had their livings to earn. To make an example of John Early—the spider at the centre of the Dorset web—was similarly out of the question. There was no money to pay that sort of informer.
The Rose was in need of some minor repairs, enough to keep her in port for two days. So Delancey resolved to revisit the Rose and Crown but this time in uniform. All talk died away as he entered the tap-room but the silence was broken by Sam Carter who greeted him in the friendliest fashion.
“Welcome aboard, Captain! I hoped to see you here while we were both in port. I hear that the Rose needs a new topsail yard and a new port lid for the starboard bow-chaser. Allow me to stand you the toddy you failed to finish when last we met—nay, sir, I insist! George—one of my usual for the captain here, and pour it while we watch. No short measure for the revenue service!”
The pot-man obeyed orders and Delancey could see that nothing was added. He thanked Sam and proposed a toast to the king. “God bless him!” said Carter, raising his glass without reluctance. “I should like you to meet some friend
s of mine—Mr Henry Stevens, Mr Will Grubb and—come over here, Dan—Mr Daniel Palmer.” Dan emerged unsteadily from a corner of the room and said he was proud to make the captain’s acquaintance. He looked puzzled, however, and said finally, “Haven’t we met before?” “Very likely,” said Delancey. “Were you ever a preventive man?” This question produced a roar of laughter. No one else recognised Delancey and the party was resumed, with a certain restraint.
“You hurt my feelings, Captain,” said Sam, “when you wouldn’t touch the toddy I offered you.”
“I didn’t know you then, Captain.”
“I’ll lay you didn’t. We are up to all sorts of tricks in this game but I wouldn’t play that one.”
“Why not?”
“Why, because I have to meet you again. Here we are at Cowes. Next week it may be St Peter Port or Lyme Regis. How would it be if I couldn’t look you in the eye?”
“So we play fair?”
“Why shouldn’t we? We know the rules and there need be no hard feelings—not even when someone shifts a few lanterns.”
“Fair it shall be; and it’s for me to call the next round. George! Same again. But there’s a question I’d like to ask. You drank the king’s health just now. Would you have drunk the health of Robespierre? I mean, while he was alive?”
“Robespierre? No, not I. My trade depends upon the French, mind you—that can’t be gainsaid. There’s no fetching brandy from anywhere else but France. So I know the French coast from here to the Spanish border and have friends in every port—all in the way of business, mind you. But it’s our fleet I’m backing against theirs. I want to see the
Frenchies beat! What’s more, I’ve fought against them and would do so again.”
“Were you ever in the navy, then?”
“Not me! But I’ll tell you a story—one these other men have never heard. I once came upon a revenue cutter in action with two French privateers. Off Jersey it was, back in ‘82. Well, the cutter was in bad shape and would soon have had to strike her colours. Seeing that, I sailed in with the old Falcon—that was the craft I commanded then— and beat off the Frenchies. They sailed back to St Malo with their tails between their legs and glad I was to see them go. Well, that was long ago, before the revolution—but I’d do the same today. I don’t like to see our enemies getting the best of it.”
The evening went well after that and Carter eventually proposed that they should go on to the Pig and Whistle. Delancey drew the line at this but walked with Sam in that direction. The rest of the gang stayed where they were for the time being and Delancey, having said goodnight, doubled back to the Rose and Crown. The place was noisier now and some old man-of-war’s man was singing a song of which Delancey could distinguish the words:
Smiling grog is the sailor’s sheet anchor,
His compass, his cable, his log.
Though dangers around him
Unite to confound him
He braves them and tips off his grog.
Tis grog, only grog is his rudder,
His compass, his cable, his log.
The sailor’s sheet anchor is grog.
There was loud laughter following this (perhaps the singer had fallen off the table) but the last verse was sung by everybody.
What though his girl who often swore
To know no other charms
He finds when he returns ashore
Clasp’d in a rival’s arms?
What’s to be done? He vents a curse
And seeks a kinder she,
Dances, gets groggy, clears his purse
And goes again to sea.
Delancey entered the tap-room unnoticed and stood near the door. The singer, as he had guessed, was a man-of-war’s man; not a prime seaman, he guessed, but a character in his own right who could hold the attention of the room. All eyes were fixed on the singer and Delancey was able to observe without being seen. Harry and Will and Dan were in a group round a table with two others known to Delancey by sight, but they had been joined by one more—yes, by Mike Williams of the Rose! There was no mistaking the man and no question that he was a friend of the others. He was sitting next to Dan and resumed conversation with him as soon as the song ended and the applause died away. There was undoubtedly something furtive about his manner. There was no reason, of course, why he should not be there. He had leave to go ashore, like the rest of his watch, and there was no law to forbid his frequenting that particular ale-house. There was no reason why he should not talk to Dan—after all, they were related. But there was something odd about the meeting for all that and “furtive” was the only word to describe it. Delancey went out again, closing the door quietly, and was sure that no one had even looked in his direction. He walked back to the quayside, hailed the Rose where she lay at anchor and was rowed out to her. All was in good order aboard and there was a man on duty as anchor watch. Delancey went below where he found Torrin reading a news-sheet.
“There’s been rough weather down at Plymouth, sir. The Falcon revenue cutter was all but wrecked on the west mud but Fraser got her off and she’s now in dock.”
“Is that all the day’s news?”
“There’s little else.”
“Tell me then, did Mr Ryder issue any positive order to the crew about avoiding the Rose and Crown?”
“No, sir. He let it be known that it was a place to avoid and they all took the hint. They mostly go to the Worsley Arms where the landlord is an old preventive man.”
“Very right too. Has the new topsail yard arrived?”
“It’s on the deck, sir. We’ll sway it up in the morning.”
“I’ll turn in then. Goodnight.”
The Rose had her full complement next day but some men of the starboard watch were something the worse for wear, Williams especially so. Delancey spoke to him sharply and asked where he had been the night before.
“At the Worsley Arms, sir.”
“Nowhere else?”
“Oh no, sir, I was with my mates.”
“Try to keep sober next time.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Delancey was now virtually certain that Williams was in the smugglers’ pay, but what information had he to give them?
He knew nothing of importance, so what had he to sell? Delancey realised that he now had the chance to give the local gang (and through them, Sam Carter) such false information as might suit his own plan. What was his plan to be?
Delancey had one more day to spend in Cowes and he used the afternoon to renew his acquaintance with Isaac Hartley. He called at Isaac’s shop, where business was still far from brisk, and explained that he had been guilty of an innocent deception. He was the temporary commander of the Rose and had needed information about the local gang of moonrakers. The result had been a minor success, the Dove losing a cargo, of which part had been found and confiscated.
“I heard about that,” said Isaac, “and I wondered who had given the revenue men the tip. So you were the thief-taker, as you might say, and you made me the informer! Do you understand the danger that now hangs over me? The gang will think that I have gone back on my word and informed against them! I was merely showing Christian kindness to a starving fellow creature, as I thought, and a man who had seen the light. If my Hannah is a widow before the week ends it will be your doing, Mr Delancey—and God forgive you!”
“I must confess, Mr Hartley, that I am not, in your sense, one of the redeemed. I am merely an officer who tries to do his duty; and one of my duties is to protect anyone who has been of service to the Crown—knowingly or even otherwise.”
“But this you can’t do!” cried Isaac in great agitation. “You can’t station a riding officer before my door! Do what you will the gang will murder me!”
“These petty criminals are not as ready as that to risk the gallows. I can assure Sam Carter that you have strictly kept your word. He will believe what I tell him and you will be safe.”
“But is Sam a friend of yours? How can that be?”
“And you will?”
“Yes, I’ll speak to Sam but I want you to help me first. There are two things I want to know—”
“Look, Mr Delancey, I have given my word. I’ll not betray anyone. I’ll name nobody. God knows I’m in danger enough as it is. Don’t ask more of me!”
“I shan’t ask you for a name. What I shall ask you concerns Poole, moreover, not the Isle of Wight. What I want to know, first, is this: have the Dorset smugglers a friend in the Poole Custom House— one of the officers under Mr Rogers? I don’t ask his name. All I want to know is whether they have a man there who may help them on occasion.”
“You will ask nothing more of me after this?”
“I shall ask only two questions, of which this is the first. I promise to ask nothing more.”
“I have your word, remember. Well, then the answer is ‘yes’—or at least I think so. I would not say that I know it as a fact but I have been told that there is such a man and have reason to believe that there is.”
“Thank you, Mr Hartley. My other question is this: how often do the Poole smugglers make a run?”
“How should I know? It depends on the weather and the whereabouts of the preventive men. I daresay there are six or eight cargoes a month, most of them into Studland Bay, a favourite place when the tide serves. They prefer a spring tide and a moonless night and some of them won’t work on Sundays.”
Devil to Pay Page 11