Hoare and the Portsmouth Atrocities

by Wilder Perkins

  “Then you are prepared to state—under oath, remember, Mr. McHale—that, at anchor on a calm night, on deck, at your proper post within feet of the cabin skylight, you heard nothing through it? Not even any raised voices?”

  “Under penalty of perjury, Mr. McHale?” interjected the junior member of the court, a commander, from his place at the left end of the table.

  Vantage’s master gulped.

  “In the face of what Lynch said he heard, and he well forward of you, leaning against the quarterdeck rail?”

  Mr. McHale paused for a thoughtful moment. “Gentlemen, I retract my earlier evidence. Mr. Gladden is a weak man, gentlemen, but an honest one.”

  From his seat behind the prisoner Hoare saw Arthur Gladden’s ears redden.

  McHale continued, “He wouldn’t hurt a flea, let alone his captain. Why, he hasn’t the gumption of a rabbit. His division of men was already well on the way to becoming a very mob because he couldn’t bring himself to control them. I pity him. He doesn’t belong in the Navy. I do not wish him to lose his life by my doing, on my evidence. But I have my own wife and children to consider.”

  “Confine yourself to the facts, Mr. McHale,” warned Captain Wright. “What, then, did you overhear?”

  “I heard Captain Hay order Mr. Gladden to put his division through an exercise on the morrow.”

  “What sort of exercise?”

  “Fire drill, sir,” said McHale, “followed by a simulated battle against a French frigate on either side. Then, if I knew the captain, he’d declare our mainmast shot away at the crosstrees or the like, kill off all the senior officers, and leave Mr. Gladden to get himself out of it. A hard trainer, sir, was Captain Hay, but a good one.

  “I then heard Mr. Gladden cry out at length against Captain Hay. He accused the captain of prejudice against him … of being ‘unfair,’ as he put it. In the middle of Mr. Gladden’s outburst, I heard a roar of rage, and a grunt. Then I heard the cabin door close behind Mr. Gladden—”

  “How did you know it was Mr. Gladden?” asked Hoare.

  Mr. McHale looked surprised. “Why, sir, Mr. Gladden and the captain were the only men in the cabin. And it certainly wasn’t the captain that ran out the cabin door.”

  “And if you believed Mr. Arthur Gladden and his captain to have come to blows, why did you not raise the alarm?”

  “I could not be sure of that, sir, not from where I was standing. Besides, there was the Marine guard at the cabin door.”

  “So you, an experienced sea officer, left it to an unknown Marine private to decide whether or not to raise the alarm. Eh? This will do your career little good, Mr. McHale. That will be all, sir.”

  Called and sworn, Mr. Watt repeated in essence the story he had told Hoare a few days ago. When the little man arrived at his captain’s dying words, the junior member of the court spoke up again. He had been the only one besides Captain Wright to take an active part in the proceedings. Bernard Weatherby was his name, master and commander in Crocus, 20; a man of promise and one to remember, Hoare told himself.

  “Frankly, gentlemen, I’m at a loss,” Captain Weatherby said. “No one has suggested for a minute Captain Hay was poisoned by one of the lobsters he had been consuming, and Mr. Bennett tells us the captain’s steward swears the creatures were alive when he dropped them into the pot of hock. We have no reason to doubt the man’s word. Why did the captain talk of ‘lobsters’ as he was dying, then?”

  “‘A babbled of green tomalley,’” someone muttered in the back of the cabin. Someone else tittered.

  “Belay that nonsense.” Captain Wright’s quiet, flat voice brought silence. “Another episode of that kind, and I’ll have the perpetrator publicly gagged, even if he’s a post captain.”

  Silence fell.

  Mr. Prickett slipped into the cabin and whispered a few words into Hoare’s ear. Nodding his thanks, Hoare leaned forward and relayed the whisper to Peter Gladden.

  “Having received the court’s prior permission, gentlemen,” said the latter, “Mr. Hoare asked Sergeant Miller of Defiant’s Marine detachment to take as many of his men as required and board Vantage, where he was to replace Vantage’s entire Marine detachment for as long as might be required. I also gave Miller certain instructions.

  “Sergeant Doyle of Vantage has now mustered his detachment in the waist below the break of Defiant’s quarterdeck. Mr. President, may I ask you to adjourn this court to the quarterdeck?”

  Captain Wright caught Bennett’s eye and nodded. Arthur Gladden, guarded by his two Marines, left the cabin first, to be followed by his brother, Hoare, Bennett, and the members of the court. Next, His Royal Highness clambered up the companionway to gleam in the summer sun. Behind them all limped Lieutenant Wallace in a pair of loose pantaloons. The lieutenant would see himself damned if he would witness any man of his being grilled by some whispering upstart of a duelist without his officer present to protect him in case of need.

  Sergeant Doyle had drawn up Vantage’s forty-seven Marines in the waist of Defiant, in two facing ranks. Upon catching sight of his officer among the gathering on the quarterdeck above him, the sergeant called his redcoats to attention, and they presented arms with a familiar clank. Wallace hitched himself painfully down the larboard companionway into the waist, and took position between the two ranks. From there he looked up at Captain Wright and raised his hat in salute.

  “What d’ye want to do now, sir?” Wright rasped at Peter Gladden. “You may as well know these fancy departures from proper procedure do your client no good at all in the eyes of this court.”

  Mr. Gladden bowed. “By your leave, sir, I would like him to accompany me down the ranks of these Marines. I want him to identify the man who stood on guard outside Captain Hay’s door when he reported to the captain on the evening of the murder.”

  “Very good, Mr. Gladden. You may accompany your bro—the accused into the waist.”

  The procession made its way down the starboard gangway—first a Marine guard, then the prisoner, then the second Marine, and finally the prisoner’s friend and brother. Arthur Gladden walked slowly and gravely along the first rank of lobsters, stopping now and then to peer into a face. He came to the end of the first rank, turned, and walked the length of the facing rank, until he had examined every Marine in Vantage’s detachment. Concluding with Sergeant Doyle himself, Arthur looked up at the officers of the court-martial as they stood at the quarterdeck rail.

  “He’s not here,” said Arthur Gladden.

  “What d’ye mean ‘he’s not here’?” Captain Wright barked.

  “The man I saw is not one of this detachment, sir. As I think of it now, the man on guard had a most unusual face. The skin had a peculiar coarse, florid quality; his eyes were larger than normal. And his mouth … Well, sir, his mouth looked almost painted. Like a mask. I can see no Marine here with those features. I am sorry, sir.”

  “I have an explanation for that, sir,” said Peter Gladden. He spoke on his own, without Hoare’s prompting. “However, I must ask that what follows be heard in … in…” He turned to Hoare for the proper term.

  “Yes. In camera.”

  “If you expect this court to subject itself to still more harlequinades, Mr. Gladden,” said Captain Wright, “you will have to convince a very skeptical group of officers, I assure you. Draw nigh, sir—yes, Mr. Hoare, you, too—and explain yourselves.”

  Thereupon the officers of the court-martial put their heads together to hear the whispered explanation Hoare and Gladden had prepared for them. Considerable head-shaking and protest followed, especially from the fire-breathing Commander Weatherby. At last Captain Wright rapped sharply on the quarterdeck rail.

  “Mr. Hoare, Mr. Gladden,” he said with some asperity, “I would be happy to let these proceedings run as long as necessary to arrive at a true bill. By doing so, as you pointed out just now, this board would conform with the letter of Admiralty regulations. However, I, like you, am an officer of the Royal Navy. My first dut
y, like yours, is to marshal all our naval forces as swiftly as may be to the defense of the realm which we serve.

  “If, in order that this ship and the five others commanded by the captains on this court may sail with all possible speed to reinforce Lord Nelson, I must hang Mr. Arthur Gladden out of hand tomorrow. I shall do so, sir, be he innocent or guilty. He will become a casualty, a single casualty out of all too many. But if he dies to let these ships go free, he may save England.

  “So this court grants your request to continue these proceedings in camera for the remainder of the day, reconvening here tomorrow at eight bells of the forenoon watch. However, at noon tomorrow, if needs must and even if I hang for it myself, I will direct this court to declare Mr. Arthur Gladden guilty, adjourn this court-martial, and see him hanged.

  “Not a minute later than noon tomorrow, therefore, this vessel and those commanded by my fellow captains on this court will have their anchors up and down in preparation for departure. Do you understand, gentlemen?”

  The other captains, Arthur Gladden, and his two friends nodded solemnly.

  “Very well. The board will now reconvene below. I ask all unofficial persons to withdraw. Your Royal Highness, will you go or stay?”

  “I’ll stay, sir,” said the duke. “My presence might even save your necks, what what?”

  When the observers had left Defiant and the board had returned to his cabin, Captain Wright turned to Peter Gladden. “Proceed, sir,” he said.

  “When I went ashore from Vantage after questioning some of the witnesses,” said Gladden, “Mr. Hoare asked me to make a request on his behalf of a certain beachcombing party of his acquaintance. In turn, that person made the request known to his own people. The result was this.” He reached into the portmanteau beside him and withdrew the vile-smelling Royal Marine uniform coat. Its scarlet dye had bled slightly onto its blue facings.

  “This coat was fished out of Portsmouth Harbor on Tuesday night last and brought to me and Mr. Hoare. I know every officer in this cabin will recognize it. Upon examining it, Mr. Hoare found certain substances on its collar and cuffs. I would like to ask him to tell the court about what he discovered.”

  “What I wiped from the collar and cuffs,” whispered Hoare, “was paint, gentlemen, removable paint. I could even smell it over the tidewater smell. Removable paint, or maquillage, as the Frogs have it, has a distinctive odor, you know.” Hoare paused to fill his chest for his next sentence.

  “The man who had worn that coat was wearing maquillage. And I doubt that any member of the ship’s Marine contingent would own any of the stuff, let alone know how to use it. No, the man we are looking for has to be an actor—an amateur Thespian, if you will. Now who could that be, I wondered, and why?”

  Hoare interrupted himself again, as if preparing for battle.

  “It is in the interest of obtaining the answers to those questions that I asked you, Mr. President, to adjourn the court until the time you set for it to reconvene—tomorrow, at eight bells of the morning watch.

  “Finally, I suggest that you will find this evening’s performance of Mr. Sheridan’s The School for Scandal both interesting and instructive.”

  * * *

  THOUGH THE ATTENDANTS had long since lowered the houselights and lit the footlights, the curtain of Portsmouth’s sole theater had yet to rise. The audience, officers and their ladies for the most part but including a sprinkling of townsmen as well, had begun a discontented murmur. Overriding the subdued babble came Prince William’s masthead growl from the royal box.

  A dainty person in black slipped out from between the curtains. “In this evening’s performance, the part of ‘Charles Surface’ will be played by Mr. Thomas Billings,” he announced. “The part of ‘Maria’ will be played by Miss Oates.” He slipped back out of sight.

  There was a collective sigh of feminine disappointment, for “Charles,” the romantic lead, was to have been played by Lieutenant Peregrine Kingsley, second in Vantage. As a new widow, Mrs. Hay, of course, could not now tread the boards in the role of “Maria.”

  Hoare snapped his fingers. With a nod to his companions to follow him, he eased himself from his place in the back of the theater and left by the main door. He returned by the stage door, where he sought out the person in black. Tonight’s impresario, Mr. DeCourcey, looked as if he should be wringing his hands.

  “Where’s Kingsley?” Hoare asked.

  DeCourcey rolled his eyes and shrugged as eloquently as Mr. Morrow of Weymouth. “Who knows?” he said. “Here the man was, as good a juvenile as you could ask for in Drury Lane itself, superb in the part, and he has gone missing.”

  “He’s bit!” whispered Hoare with a wicked grin. He clapped the distracted DeCourcey on the shoulder so hard as to dislodge the quizzing glass from his left eye. Hoare put his head out the stage door and blew on his silver boatswain’s call.

  There was a tumult and a shouting in the evening streets of Portsmouth. Some men mounted to take up their mission; others climbed into waiting chaises; still others—these mostly the hard men of the press gang—began their search through the late dusk of June for the missing Kingsley.

  Hoare withdrew to his post of command in the Navy Tavern, just off the Hard, to await the outcome. To him, among others, came Mr. Peter Gladden and Mr. Francis Bennett and most of the members of the court-martial, including Captains Wright and Weatherby. Mr. Prickett was already in place, his mouth smeared with somebody’s jam.

  “Well, Mr. Hoare!” Weatherby cried. “Your trap seems to have been well designed. My congratulations!”

  “Premature, Captain, but I thank you nonetheless,” whispered Hoare, with more than a trifle of envy. He knew very well indeed that, since he would never make post, the only way he could hoist his swab—his epaulette—and earn the courtesy title of “Captain” was to be made commander.

  “How did you do it, sir?” Wright asked.

  “I’m afraid it was mostly guesswork, sir,” Hoare replied modestly. “Guesswork and speculation.”

  He and the rest of the company rose at the unannounced entry of H.R.H. Duke of Clarence.

  “Be seated, gentlemen, please,” said Prince William. “D’ye know, if I were ever to succeed to the Throne, I do believe I’d do away with all this risin’ for royalty. I’ve seen too many promisin’ naval officers brain ’emselves on the overhead when risin’ to give the Loyal Toast.”

  “Hear him; hear him!” one of the juniors was heard to say.

  “Go on with your tale, Mr. Hoare, eh?” Royalty said.

  “It was clear from the start, sir, that Mr. Arthur Gladden is no man to kill his fellowman. Captain Hay’s killer had to be someone else. The captain’s servant? Mr. Watt, his clerk? What motive could they have had? Only the Marine guard could have told us, and he was mysteriously missing.

  “That was when I reasoned that the Marine himself was the most likely culprit. He had the means—his bayonet—and the opportunity. He could enter the captain’s cabin at any time on the pretext of announcing a visitor or bringing a message. Sergeant Doyle admits he was as yet unacquainted with his men.”

  Hoare paused to take a long draft of a mild lemonade.

  “Yes? Yes?” A small, lean man with a weary face leaned forward impatiently, and Hoare continued.

  “This would have made it easy for a Marine, or another man posing as a Marine, to insinuate himself into the post of guardian at the sacred portal. No one would really see him as he stood at his post. As poor Arthur Gladden said to me, ‘I don’t think anyone can tell one Lobster from another—except perhaps another Lobster. They’re all statues in red coats and heavy boots.’

  “The only thing missing now was motive. Why would a Marine, a stranger to his captain like all the rest of the ship’s company, want to kill the man?

  “Then Watt mentioned a missing file. He appears to be a meticulous man and braver than he credits himself for being, and I could not see him as being mistaken in a matter of his profession. Someone
had taken the file, then. Why not the captain’s murderer? The Marine—or, rather, the pretended Marine?”

  He took another draft of lemonade.

  “It was then that I launched a search for a Marine uniform coat. I reasoned the murderer would throw it overboard—weighted, perhaps, though I prayed not—rather than hiding it somewhere in the bilges of the ship. Sooner or later some prying member of the crew would find it.

  “Now I had a stroke of luck. As I was musing about the killer’s description—if not a Marine himself, he had to be able to impersonate one convincingly, and he had, of course, to be a naval man—I happened to see the playbill posted outside my lodgings. And there I saw the name of Vantage’s second, Peregrine Kingsley, in the part of ‘Charles Surface,’ the dashing young blade. There was my man, I was certain.”

  Hoare’s voice now gave out entirely. He fell back upon breathing his words into Mr. Prickett’s ear so the midshipman could relay them to the audience, a clear, proud treble stentor.

  “This might have explained Mr. Watt’s missing file as well. Conceivably, Kingsley could have got wind that someone had sent his captain something so incriminating that he felt he had to filch it, even killing Captain Hay if need be, while doing so.

  “He easily abstracted from the Marine detachment the coat which was later found in the harbor. Before donning it, he disguised his face with maquillage, leaving unavoidable traces of the stuff on the coat as he did so, and slipped into ranks when Sergeant Doyle mounted the guard. Again, it was easy for him to include himself.

  “If I was right, the altercation between Arthur Gladden and his captain gave Kingsley his chance to create a red herring in the form of the hapless young officer. After Arthur fled, Kingsley entered the cabin on some pretext and bayoneted the captain. He switched his bayonet and the one the captain had in his possession, dropped the bloody uniform coat over the side, and disappeared into the anonymity of nighttime aboard a newly manned vessel.”

  “But all this is speculation, Mr. Hoare,” Captain Wright said.

  “Precisely so, sir. That is why I had to lay a trap for Kingsley by means of a piece of theater of our own. We continued the court-martial, but in camera so that Kingsley was excluded. Thus it appeared to him to be the court’s secret that it was now in search of a naval person with acting experience.