Hoare and the missing Mids (captain bartholomew hoare)

by Wilder Perkins

  He wiped off the glass Hoare had been using, filled it brim full with a dreadful gin, and waddled back in to the dank darkness of his den. Before Hoare had summoned the courage to take more than another ceremonial sip of the biting stuff, York returned, breathing heavily and bearing an object wrapped in a reeking piece of filthy cloth.

  " 'Ere ye be, yer worship," he said. He unwrapped the thing and let it drop on the rough deal table between them.

  "Wot d'ye fink of that, now?" he wheezed proudly.

  Hoare recognized it instantly. Encased in stinking mud it might be, but it was unmistakably a midshipman's dirk.

  "A brush, if you should happen to have one by," he whispered.

  Brush in hand, Hoare began to scrub, scratch, and wrench until at last the dirk came free of its scabbard. The engraving on the blade was sharp as the knife itself, and clear: "To G.L.P.T.H. FROM FATHER. BEAR IT HONORABLY." The knobbed hilt bore an escutcheon: three broken hearts (Hoare could not bring to mind the correct heraldic term; something "courant, argent, erminy," perhaps) and the motto

  "SUCH IS MY LOVE."

  "Where did your little friend find this, Mr. York?"

  Jom York said not a word but stuck out a black-nailed paw. Hoare was accustomed to this; he crossed the palm with silver as if York were a gypsy fortuneteller. The silver disappeared into one of York's dingy pockets.

  "Not in Portsmouth 'arbor, yer honor," York said.

  "Where, then?"

  Out came the palm again and would not withdraw until it held five pieces of silver.

  "The 'Amble," yer honor," York said. The Hamble, Hoare knew, was an estuary leading into Southampton Water, some miles to the west of Portsmouth. He had already explored it in Devastation, found it unremarkable except for mud, some hungry-looking fishing smacks, and the derelict hulk of a long-outdated fifty-gun battleship, and left it alone thereafter.

  "I hadn't realized your reach extended that far, Mr. York," Hoare whispered.

  "It's a broad reach I'm on, yer worship," the other chuckled. "Mi-key Pollock, 'e's the one as found it. Mikey's a fisherman's orphing and went into the trade on 'is own, like. Now I coulden 'ave that, could I now, so I takes 'im under me wing, like. Promisin' tyke, Mikey is. 'E'll go far, if 'e lives long enough."

  The life of a mudlark, Hoare had been told, was nasty, brutish, and short.

  "And where in the Hamble did young Mikey find the item?"

  Out came the black hand. Into it went the coins-clink, clink, clink.

  "H.M.S. Devastation, yer honor, that's where."

  "What! You're gammoning me, York. You know perfectly well that's what I'm calling my own little yacht these days. You've got your thirty pieces of silver; now be on the square with me."

  "I am bein' on the square wif ye, yer honor," York said with an aggrieved look. "Never been nuffin' else wif ye. Devastation I said, and be 'er, a-layin' derelict 'alfway up the 'Amble. She lays 'igh an' dry of a spring tide, she do, an' Mikey, 'e said 'e found that there shiv under 'er counter t'other night."

  "I'll be damned to breakfast," Hoare breathed. "Get me this Mikey. Now."

  What with Hoare's gentle grilling, a whole sovereign, and the promise of more to follow, Mikey the mudlark furnished far more information than he had given even Jom York. Had the latter Known All, in fact, he would have demanded at least double his thirty pieces of silver.

  Mikey Pollock's accent was even heavier than Jom York's; Hoare was hard put to it to understand him. And he would tell his story in his own way.

  Well, sir, Mikey admitted, he had not actually found the dirk in the mud; he had been wading painfully around the old Devastation hulk looking for castaway treasures. He had noticed signs of life aboard her lately, and three or four times, usually at night, a shore boat had delivered people or picked them up. So, for an alert mudlark like Mikey, the ooze surrounding Devastation might be an untapped lode.

  He was scraping away with his rake when a "psst!" above him made him jump. Someone was watching him from the hulk. "They wuz a nole cut into 'er side, w'ere no 'ole orta be," Mikey said. "And they wuz a nead stickin' outa that theer 'ole.

  "'Boy,' sez that theer 'ead. "Would ye liketa make yeself rich?"

  "O'course I do, master, right? So I sez aye right off. So 'e tells me as 'ow 'e an' some shipmates bin caught up, like, an' 'e wants me to tell 'is capting.

  "Wull, ain't no way a lad like me 'ull get to see no capting, so I ups an' tells the 'ead to gimme sumpin' to show I ain't hon. An' 'e t'rows down that shiv you showed me. An' Jom York took it off me, an' 'e sold it to you, and w'ere be Mikey Pollock but left out inna col' oncet agin." Mikey sniffled and wiped his nose with a filthy, ragged sleeve.

  A plan took instant shape in Hoare's mind.

  "Can you draw me a picture of where the hole is, Mikey?" he asked.

  "Aye."

  "Here, then." Hoare handed him a piece of paper-the back of one of his printed message slips, actually — and a pencil.

  "Won't." Mikey's lower lip stuck out stubbornly.

  "I'll go wit' yez, though."

  More quickly than he'd believed possible, due to the mudlark's handiness, Hoare had his own Devastation under way, back to Hebe. Once aboard the frigate again, he explained his plan to her captain. like most frigate captains, Davison was always ready for a good venture; the prospect of getting his mids back aboard and the wrathful dignitaries out of the admiral's hair made him all the happier to help.

  "My armorer has some smoke bombs," he offered. "You're welcome to 'em. Now as to your boarders…"

  "I must remind you, sir, that Serene has little space aboard, so…"

  "Serene?" Captain Davison sounded puzzled, so Hoare hastened to explain.

  "There can hardly be two Devastations in this action, sir, especially not on opposing sides. So I took advantage of the short trip to switch my Devastation's trail boards. She's now Serene, if you have no objection."

  "None at all, sir," Davison said. "How convenient. An even more legitimate ruse de guerre, I suppose, than flying a neutral nation's colors until your enemy is under your guns. And we all do that."

  When word spread of Hoare's plan, he was besieged by three times more volunteers than Serene could carry.

  Mr. Steptoe, the sole remaining mid, vowed that unless he were taken along he would swim in chase until he drowned, so he had to come. Besides, he was small and lithe. Hoare felt he would need those qualities before the night was over.

  Millar the coxswain felt a degree of guilt for letting the mids go adrift, so he too had a claim.

  Finally, Hoare picked Galloway the marine and two of his toughest men. Lobsters might be stupid, but hard fighting was their business.

  With Hoare himself and the mudlark Mikey, they were seven- enough, with their personal weapons, to make Hoare anxious. Carrying a weight like that, Serene would roll her cockpit under in any kind of sea at all, and that would be the end of her.

  A list, however, would be all to the good, and a general logy quality, so that in the dark she would appear to be abandoned.

  To catch the flood tide in the mouth of the Hamble, they must move smartly. Hoare let his men waste no time in farewells but loaded them aboard and bundled all but himself and Millar below, where he packed them in, head to tail, like sardines. He made sure that the yacht's two sweeps were ready to ship and assigned Millar and the less lubberly marine to man them in case of need. Hoare must make the mouth of the Hamble while the tide was still flooding so his expedition could drift casually up to the hulk.

  Almost as far as the entrance to Southampton Water the beam wind favored them. Then they had to resort to the sweeps. Hoare used the time to detail his plan with the help of the mudlark-who, after all, was the only member of the party with any real local knowledge.

  The tide, bless it, was still on the flood when they struck the Hamble's mouth. There was no moon, so Serene, her sails furled except for a handkerchief of trysail to give her steerage way and her bare mast barely visible even to
her crew, slipped invisibly up the estuary.

  "There she be," Mikey whispered at last. Sure enough, the hulk loomed in the murk, not a cable off. There were lights in her cabin. As they drew closer, a loud conversation carried across the water. A meeting of the Committee, perhaps.

  Now they were under the hulk's tumble-home, and now just under her high-pitched quarterdeck. The cabin lights were bright, the conversation louder. Yes, it was surely an Irish meeting. There was an Irish pennant handy, too, a line dangling sloppily from the hulk's deck; Millar caught it and let it slip through his great paws until Serene brought to alongside the hulk's weed-covered rudder, under its cabin windows and adjoining a ship's boat lying astern.

  The two boys tiptoed up from below. Each took in hand a grapnel attached to a sufficient length of land line knotted at intervals for easy climbing, even by lobsters.

  Swinging the grapnels to make ready, they eyed Hoare, waiting for his signal.

  Galloway and his marines appeared, each with his bayoneted musket slung across his back and carrying a lit smoke bomb that sputtered softly in the blackness.

  Millar poised a sweep. Every man wore a black kerchief across his face.

  To begin the ball, Hoare gave his heart-stopping whistle; the party swung into action like a single man. Within the same seconds, Millar shattered the hulk's stern windows; the boys hurled their grapnels; the lobsters threw their bombs and swarmed up the land lines, roaring, followed by Hoare himself and Millar, cutlasses in their teeth like a pirate crew.

  In the smoke-filled cabin of the Devastation hulk, chaos reigned. "Fire!" someone shouted. The three lobsters ran amok through the choking smoke, jab-jab-jabbing with bayonets and sword at any figure without a black kerchief. Hoare and Millar wrestled their way through the ruck, bringing up at the cabin door, where they took their stand in the wreaths of reek, ready to repel any fugitive.

  Right on time two small figures appeared, edged weapons drawn.

  "Leave the killing to us, lads," Hoare grated as loudly as he could. "Go find your mates, Steptoe; show him the way, Mikey."

  Despite the battle roar, the boys must have understood him, for they disappeared through the cabin door at a dead run.

  From outside the shattered cabin window came a splash; one of the marines groped through the fog, leaned across the broken sash, leveled his musket, and fired. He'd never in the world hit his target, Hoare told himself, but it would be enough to keep other Committee members from trying to follow suit out the window.

  As the smoke of battle finally cleared away, the boy boarders returned, exultant, followed by the three missing mids. Hoare counted five prisoners.

  "How many Irish were aboard here?" Hoare asked the oldest of the mids.

  "Seven, I think, sir."

  There came a view-halloo from the other two ex-captive mids, who grabbed another man just as he was slipping out the cabin door and dragged him bodily across the deck. A scrawny man in a black suit, he glared at his captors in utter contempt. This would be the author of the real ransom note, Hoare concluded-"Brian Boru." Well, they'd see what his real name was soon enough, before he hanged.

  Brian Boru made six prisoners. With the man who had dived away, that made seven. A clean sweep-down fore and aft, Hoare said to himself.

  "Come along, men," he whispered. "Back to the yacht with you. Bring our prisoners. Let's be off on the ebb." He hoped the escapee had not managed to make away with that other boat; he could use it as a prison ship and tow it back to Portsmouth.

  "Oh, and Mr. Harcourt!" he whispered as loudly as he could.

  "Sir?" said one of the missing mids, a mischievous-looking, slender boy with lank blond hair.

  "You're out of uniform, sir," Hoare said.

  "Sir?"

  Silently Hoare handed him the tell-tale dirk.

  The celebration in Hebe's wardroom that night was understandably uproarious. Hoare had dropped the freed captives and the six Irishmen off in Portsmouth, but the boys, having met their relatives and reassured them that they were unharmed, had chosen to rejoin their ship for the occasion. Instead of dining alone in his cabin, Captain Davison too had accepted the wardroom's invitation to the impromptu banquet.

  All the naval participants were present except Millar and the two anonymous lobsters, whom Mr. Edwardes had made sure were being properly feasted by their mates up forrard. The boy Mikey had flatly refused to enlist as a ship's boy.

  "I be fisherman born, I be," he had said, "an' I'll be fisherman all me days, please yer honor."

  Hoare had had no trouble taking up a collection adequate to buy a friendless mudlark an apprenticeship aboard the best-run fishing smack between Plymouth and Dover, and Mikey Pollock was away. He bore with him young Harcourt's dirk.

  "He deserves it if anyone does," the mid had explained. "The pater will replace it instanter."

  So the subject of the hardships of a fisherman's life had naturally come up during the meal.

  "Your speaking of 'hardships,' Mr. Edwardes," Hoare whispered, "reminds me of something I saw happen back in '90 when I was second in Staghound. We were making a passage from Plymouth to Jamaica and had aboard a maiden lady, a relative of the admiral on that station-an auntie, or something of the sort."

  He paused for breath, and for effect. After waiting until he felt satisfied with his companions' urging to proceed, he did so.

  "She'd never been to sea before, but she was a game'un, and she was never sick a single day. In fact she was on deck taking the air when the wind began to pipe up of a sudden as we all know it can in those waters."

  There were nods of agreement all around while Hoare drew breath once again. "Well," he went on, "the officer of the watch called the watch on deck to take in royals and to'-gallants, and up they went. Now, we had a main-topman, Grobble was his name-Abel Grobble. A good seaman he was, handy aloft and tough enough to chew treenails for breakfast.

  "Something must have come over him, taken with a bad herring for breakfast or something, for he lost his footing and down he came, sixty feet if it was an inch, and landed on Staghound's deck, like this-"

  Bam! went Hoare's fist on the table. Every officer jumped, and their glasses with them. Hoare took breath.

  "— right at the old lady's feet. Up he jumps, and he's about to swarm back up the ratlines when she stops him. "'Wait, young man!' she says. 'Aren't you hurt?'

  "'Who, me, ma'am?' says Grobble. 'No, ma'am. I'm a sailor, ma'am; us sailors be used to hard ships!'"

  There was a pause. Then Mr. Edwardes burst into laughter.

  "I twig, Hoare! 'Hard ships,' by Jove… hardships! Har har har!"

  The laughter grew and spread. Galloway saw fit to slap Hoare on the back; then, when his victim's face went white, realized what he had done and apologized in haste.

  "Carried away, you know. "Hardships,' indeed!"

  The cheers died down at last, to be succeeded by Mr. Satterly's wellworn tale about two boatswain's mates in the old Savage. Under cover of Satterly's drone, Hoare leaned across the table to where the missing mids sat in a row, looking as innocent as the famous three monkeys.

  They had gloried in telling the story of their incarceration and were generous in telling of their rescue but singularly reticent about their abduction in the first place. Hoare suspected they had been served gin laced with knock-out drops and, in a reversal of the usual process of impressment while drugged, hauled off while unconscious to the Devastation hulk. It would not be a tale that reflected well on any of them.

  "D'ye know," Hoare whispered to them, "a most unsettling notion passed through my head during my investigation. It occurred to me that you young gentlemen might have contrived the whole thing, just to extract some more time at liberty at the expense of your anxious families." Hoare gave a false laugh; that laugh had been described by an unnerved young lady as "the least breath of scandal."

  The laugh did not unnerve the midshipmen, however, not for long. They looked at one another, first in dismay and then in genu
ine amusement. Harcourt's bark of laughter was both genuine and hearty, and was followed by his companions'. These three young men, Hoare observed, were not easily upset.

  "The idea passed through our own heads, sir, as a matter of fact," Harcourt said.

  Behind his hang-dog look and inside his narrow, beak-nosed head, as any perceptive former boy could have seen, lay considerable, genuine pride.

  "We werena aboot to hauld our Ancients up for more than a hundrred golden boys, though, sir," said Buchanan. His breaking voice still held a heavy trace of the Highlands that had given him birth.

  "But we decided the game wasn't worth the candle, sir," he added.

  "Why not?" Hoare's curiosity was innocent now, but genuine nonetheless.

  "It would have made too good a stray to keep to ourselves, sir," Dacres said. "I'm the only one of us from a naval family, and I know.

  Sooner or later one of us would have peached. And that would've meant our careers."

  "Not to speak of three very, very sore bottoms," Hoare whispered.

  "That, too, of course, sir," Harcourt declared. "But after all, we mids are used to hard-ships of that kind, you know."

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