Jem (and Sam)

by Ferdinand Mount

  Where are they all? Where’s Pett? Where’s Mennes? I’ll have them all shot. Where’s the enemy, hey – you? Bring those frigates in a line, do you hear, between the two block-houses and run chains between them, now while the tide permits, and I must have ammunition. Where’s Pepys?

  Sent for, sir.

  He should be here already.

  They are gone down from the Hope towards the Medway. Will you go to Chatham?

  No, he said, I’ll rest. Jem, fetch me the guard’s bed. I brought out the filthy old pallet (the straw was almost black) and put it in the lee of the bulwark as he directed that he might see downriver, and he lay down on it in front of us under the stars and closed his eyes.

  We stood a little around him as though we were standing watch over a corpse – though his breath was stertorous – and then dispersed to find corners to lie in. But we had no sleep, for within the hour, a furious cannonade began over towards Sheerness, and Monck rose up as quickly as he had done before and took horse over the hill for Chatham, with the moon lighting his way and the stars as bright as daisies, the General cursing his officers.

  Where’s Pepys?

  He came, sir, to Gravesend while you were asleep but he went away, to attend to the business, sir. He didn’t think it right to bring the frigates in a line, he said.

  Did he not so? Perhaps he would care to sail ’em himself. When I need advice from Admiral Pepys, I shall ask for it.

  Yes, sir.

  And I laughed in the darkness, for the General’s words were midnight music to my ears.

  The sun was coming up as we rode over the cliff and looked down upon the Medway. We could see our great ships lying idle upon the tideway and downriver shimmering between the islands were the Dutch.

  By God, they’re near, said the General.

  We clattered down into the battery which was an old castle, much decayed, called Upnor. Again, there was not a gun mounted and only one filthy old fellow to guard the place rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and feeding his chickens in the courtyard.

  Where’s Pett?

  Pett, sir?

  Pett the Commissioner that has charge of the defence here.

  Oh that gentleman, sir, a fine gentleman indeed. He’s gone down to take his baggage to safety and he must use the fireships for there are no others, and the Dutch are coming, you know.

  Is that so? – the General seemed marvellous mild – and could you tell me, Captain, what preparations that fine gentleman has made against the coming of the Dutch?

  Oh I’m no captain, sir, but a common soldier, an ordinary sort of soldier though I had the honour to serve Your Grace in Scotland, you may recall at Dalkeith –

  The defences, Captain.

  Well, sir, there’s the chain – and it’s an excellent chain, as thick as your arm, sir, no ship could break it . . .

  I take it there are no guns to defend it, no boats?

  Oh bless you, sir, that chain don’t need no guns, it’s as thick as –

  Spragge, send to Gravesend for the artillery. We must have batteries on the flanks, one here below the castle and another across the river, there. Where are the stores, Captain? We need tools for the platform and carriages to take the guns down.

  The stores, sir, are in the store-house, which is in the outer court, but you cannot open the door.

  Cannot?

  Cannot, sir, without a requisition.

  I am ordering you to break open those stores.

  I can’t do it, sir. I must have the requisition. Besides, my wife has the key and she is across the river.

  Break open the door, Jem. And I took a great log that I doubt not the old fellow meant to use for firewood and broke open the doors of the store-house although they were already half broken down.

  When we had the tools, we slithered down the cliff through the mud and brambles till we found a flat place where we might set the battery. Then the General told me to go on down to the river, for he had spied a guardship coming up on the tide and I was to tell the captain to come up to hear his orders.

  My heart pounded to be in the thick of things, the General’s man, the last line of defence of old England, whilst Mr Pepys was slinking back to London, having left us fighting men with no shot or powder. That should add fuel to the flames of our bonfire when the fighting was done and the recriminations began again.

  My mind was whirling through such happy thoughts when, all of a sudden, my foot caught – at first I thought it was on a tree stump, but as I fell down the hill, I knew it was a rabbit-hole, for the foot stayed upright as though encased in a long boot and my body tumbled down. I heard the crack, it seemed as loud as the crack of lightning splitting a tree, and I knew my leg was broken.

  Never was there such agony, I was sprawled down the hill, my head hanging below my legs, my face in the brambles, unable to move.

  Help me, help me, I cried, but at that moment the Dutch guns began to boom and my cries were drowned out.

  Then I think I must have fainted away from the pain, for the next thing I recall is that feckless gallant, Mr Holles, gazing down upon me with a look of terror upon his silly long face and a red plume falling across one eye and saying in a batsqueak: He’s dead, sir, I swear it, he’s dead.

  Not my Jem, we’ll not rid ourselves of him so easily, he needs a surgeon, fetch Mr Pierce from Gravesend.

  And the General patted my head as though I were his favourite horse. My Jem – I had not thought of him being so fond of me, for he was never one to open his heart. And I wept from the pain and from the compliment.

  The gallants made a rough litter from some hazel branches they had cut from the hill and carried me back up to the castle, where I lay in the old man’s cottage which smelled of chicken’s shit, and his hens ran in and out and over my broken leg.

  Thus I lay all that day and the next night, being the first casualty of the Battle of the Medway. I could hear the boom of the guns below me, for the Dutch came up on the tide and the General was in HMS Monmouth that was the only one of our ships proper ready to defend the chain. He had sunk five ships to block the channel but there was a way through, though the Dutch could not find it on the first run. And outside my window I heard the clatter of soldiery and the rumble of the guns on the cobbles. Mr Pierce came and gave me a draught and he set my leg as best he could though he feared I would always limp.

  Thus I slept, but in my dreams I still heard the clash of arms and the noise of the great guns and the cries of dying men, and saw the flood-tide of the Medway dyed bright red (but I heard Will Symons declare once that no man dreamed in hues).

  What day is it? I asked the old chicken-keeper.

  Wednesday morning, my lord, and the Dutch are coming up again with the tide. They would have come through yesterday but it took them so long to clear the river that the tide had turned.

  And today?

  Every man in Rochester has taken his treasure out to the country. You can’t move on the roads, for it’ll be a second conquest and we must all learn to say mynheer.

  But I was too weak to take fright and I was soon asleep again, while the guns fired from the castle tops and down on the river the Dutch came through and seized the Royal Charles that had been the Naseby, the ship that had brought the King in, and took her away to Amsterdam where she remains to this day to England’s lasting shame.

  Indeed, this was the most shameful day in our history and I am thankful that I was not awake to see it, but they say the General wept salt tears to see our flag humbled as he stood on the shore with eight great ships gone and the flagship a Dutch prize.

  But the pain from my leg filled all my thoughts as I was taken back in the General’s carriage to London. On the way, we met a flock of merchants and their ladies in their carriages returning to their homes with stout chests hidden under the seat and all professing nonchalance as though they had but been taking the air on the high road and not flying for their lives. For the Dutch had gone, it not being their purpose to make an invasion a
s we had thought but only to destroy our fleet that we might no longer injure their carrying trade.

  Thus, by a strange mischance, the hour of the General’s greatest shame was soon accounted his hour of triumph. For the common people thought he had saved them from invasion and there was a ballad sung to him on every street corner and Mr Dryden wrote a poem in his honour and Mr Marvell another, though that was mostly done to speed Pett on his way to the Tower whither he was presently taken for his negligence. But Pett was let go, when in former days he would have been hanged, for these were kinder times and men that had felt the axe against their own necks were loth to see others lose their heads.

  So Monck’s reputation was preserved by disaster, and mine too.

  Jem, Jem, oh you are pale. Nan took my hand with great empressement, which was the most she could do, for the grooms were carrying me to my bed.

  Leave us, she said, I shall nurse him, for he has served the General valiantly – though at that moment she knew not the inglorious particulars of my injury. When we were alone in my little chamber, she covered my face with kisses and my old love came back and I looked upon her pert lips and bright eyes as though she were thirty and I were nineteen again. If she was plumper and her cheeks redder than they had been then, her affection for me made up for all and was like a magnetic force of attraction so that even half-asleep I knew when she was in the room, though she was silent.

  Towards one o’clock in the morning she came in and lay down beside me.

  May I touch you?

  You may.

  Ah I’m glad you’re not broken there.

  If I was, Mr Pierce could mend it.

  You think so?

  He’s learned in such matters.

  He is a saucy fellow.

  Am I not saucy too?

  No, Jeremiah, you are a proper man.

  Perhaps some sobersides will reproach me for setting down such fooleries which are best kept secret. Yet I would show only that a duchess may have a warm heart and that a poor wretch who has nothing else to commend him but his person may inspire love that will outlast age and infirmity.

  The General was not safe yet, Pett was in the Tower but he could not be the sole scapegoat for so great a disaster, being but a little man. Why had the great ships been laid up, why had Upnor Castle not been provisioned, why were there no batteries on either river (the Thames or the Medway)? Why had the sailors not been paid, so that half the Dutch crews were English tars that had deserted for pay and jeered at the General on the shore saying ‘Now we fight for dollars’ and calling to their old comrades asking how Tom did and the like, which was a sorry sight?

  Parliament was not to be appeased by the coming of the peace. There was to be a Committee of Miscarriages to look into the late disasters and a Committee of Accounts to discover where the money had gone and what had been paid out in bribes and presents so that the seamen were left penurious.

  Great news – Will put his moonface round the door of my chamber where I was lying to let my leg heal. I’m appointed Clerk to the Committee, we’re to sit in Brooke House and I’m to have an under-clerk and the power to call witnesses. It will be like old times.

  Well, I said, affecting a certain taedium vitae, I care not for these posthumous inquests, the ships are sunk, the men are drowned.

  No, Jem, but think of Pepys. He is left at the prow of the Navy Board. He is the one that must answer all the charges. This time we shall have him.

  I have heard that tale before.

  Ah but you have not seen my witnesses. Haul yourself down to the Leg tomorrow and I’ll show you a thing.

  I confess he had caught me and I hobbled to the Leg the next morning with a keen expectancy. Will was sitting in the corner with two villainous fellows who were strangers to me.

  Gentlemen, this is Mr Mount, my lord General’s lieutenant. He is but lately recovered of his wound that he got at the Medway. Jem, this is Mr Carcase, Mr James Carcase, a friend of Lord Brouncker and was formerly at the Ticket Office until he fell out with Pepys but was lately reinstated. He will testify that Pepys and his friends paid off a privateer which was theirs with money that was due to the King’s tars, is that not so, Mr Carcase?

  As true as I’m sitting here, sir. I was so affronted by the news that I wished to bring the matter to the notice of Sir William Coventry or some other person in the Office, but they were all in league so that the only honourable course was to depart until my actions should be justified before the Council – as they have been.

  Indeed it was, your action did you credit, I said, but looking into his yellow eyes, like an old cat’s, I was certain that he had not told one quarter the truth and that he had been dismissed for some crime or another and had got his place back by influence.

  And here is Captain Tatnell that served in Cromwell’s time.

  The other fellow was a veritable old sea-dog with fine moustachios and a high colour that betrayed that he was no enemy to the glass.

  Your servant, sir, Valentine Tatnell late of the Adventure. I tell you, sir, the Navy is not what it was in O.C.’s time. We knew our trade then, sir. There was trust and there was fellowship. One might send a man a barrel of oysters by way of fellowship – I sent that fellow Pepys a barrel once and precious little he did for me – but there was no corruption in it. A man of talent had a fair run, but now there are no commands to be had for one that won’t bend the knee. So you see me, sir, reduced to service with the press, for if the seamen are not paid the true rate, they must be pressed.

  You’ve not been to sea of late then, Captain?

  Not since the Adventure, sir. There was an incident thereafter – but we won’t speak of it.

  Pray do, I’m a glutton for sea stories.

  Not a story of the sea, a story of villainous landsmen, a story of calumny and false witness. I shan’t speak of it, it is too painful.

  Captain, don’t spare our feelings. Injustice must cry to Heaven.

  You’re right, sir. It is an injustice and I shall air it. There was a widow of a brother officer, a dear lady, whom I attempted to aid in her distress. If fortune had smiled, our friendship might have ripened into some nearer relation, but she had evil counsel. Poison was poured into her ear.

  Poison?

  They told her I’d embezzled her late husband’s pay, stolen it. A foul lie, sir, I had merely lent it out upon interest, that it might return to her fourfold just as the Bible tells us.

  But then you had. only to return her the money, had you not.

  The captain looked at me with displeasure.

  That was not possible, sir. The rogue had fled with my money when he heard the Dutch were coming. I was destitute, sir, and they imprisoned me, threw me into the Clink without listening to my story. They’re a nest of vipers, sir, a nest of vipers, I could tell you a dozen tales – and I shall tell them a tale (here he nodded towards Westminster Palace) – that would make your eyes start out of your head. Thank you, sir, another glass of the canary would be most commodious.

  Nothing you may say about S. Pepys, esquire would surprise me.

  You’re right, sir, there are no lengths to which that fellow would not go to line his pockets. I have seen him take two pound in five for a common seaman’s ticket. The privateer that he and his fellows have bought is provisioned like the King’s barge. If the Navy’s ships had been commissioned so, the Dutch would never have dared pass the Nore, I’ll warrant you that, you never saw such a ship. This canary is a first-rater, sir, a first-rater.

  And he sunk his great pimpled nose deep into the glass as though to cool it, which let in Mr Carcase again.

  These are unpleasant matters, sir, I wish my duty lay in other paths, I’m a gentleman, sir, an alumnus of Westminster School where I think I may say my Latin verses are remembered yet. The poverty of my family, poor, sir, yet of some antiquity, compelled me to seek employment in the Navy Office. I wish that I had never set foot in that –

  – nest of vipers – Captain Tatnell brought up
his nose that it might breathe a little before diving again.

  – abode of abomination. They’re all corrupt, sir, every manjack of them. At first I preferred to avert my eyes and bury myself in my studio, for I am elected Fellow of the Royal Society. Indeed in my mistaken kindness I assisted Mr Pepys to follow me into that society of cognoscenti, which he has no right to, for he had no more notion of chemistry or astronomy than a pig.

  I am something of a chemist myself, I said. I conduct experiments in the Duke of Bucks’s old laboratory in Essex.

  Ah then we are both men of science. It is a cruel fate that brings us into association with men like Pepys. How hard it is to touch pitch and not be defiled.

  He sighed and looked into his empty glass. I perceived that he was as much of a tosspot as the other, though he was a skinny fellow. His coat was torn at the hem and his shirt was dirty. His yellow eyes flickered round as though he was looking out for spies.

  Let us drink to chemistry, he said, and damnation to S. Pepys.

  Perhaps we should make our prayers in silence, Will said, for we are in Westminster and the walls have ears here.

  You are right, sir, we must be discreet, let us but mouth the words, as monks do when they read the office.

  So we mouthed the words: To chemistry and damnation to Pepys, so that Paulina who was filling our glasses said, once I thought you were all mad, now I know so.

  I have maintained the practice of versification, Carcase continued, I believe it helps me to cleave to my sanity. I write satires, in the Horatian mode. I have written a satire upon Mr Pepys.

  We must have it now, Will cried.

  It is a little rough yet, it wants polish.

  Now, instanter.

  Well, if you must, and he rose unsteady to his feet and declaimed in his reedy sour voice, but very quiet so that none but us should hear:

  It Helen was that launched a thousand ships

  But who sunk a hundred? That was Pepys.

  He stole the seamen’s pay to line his nest

  Denied them powder so they failed the test.