Villiers was there that evening to observe James Ludlow arrive back in Portsmouth, coming in through the narrows as the last of the light began to fade in the west. But his presence at the actual time of landing was more fortuitous, given that half his attention was centred on the possible arrival of a messenger at the Fountain. Trying to look innocent, he listened as James exchanged a few words with Illingworth, now completely drunk, before the steward lowered his master and his sea-chest into Harry’s boat. The cutter headed back out past the Round Tower, Illingworth singing at the top of his voice.
James Ludlow stood for a moment toying with the oilskin pouch in his hand, looking first this way and that before moving off, which forced Villiers into the shadows. Once James had passed him he followed, far enough behind to remain unseen. Confident that the Ludlows were in some way connected to the mutiny, following the younger brother made good sense, but he also needed to keep an eye out for that special message from London, which might contain papers of authorization, as well as news from Chatham.
Sure of his quarry’s destination as he walked towards the Sally Port, Villiers slipped back to the Fountain to check whether anything had arrived. This took longer than normal, the town being full of sailors, men normally trapped on their ships. Every tavern was full to bursting, with singing, drunken tars spilling on to the roadway; this being the very thing he had come to Portsmouth to suppress it annoyed him greatly. ‘Which I could have done,’ he hissed, talking to himself, ‘if only those navy boneheads had assisted me.’
Disappointed in the article of his messenger he retraced his steps, catching immediate sight of his quarry. Ludlow had been dawdling, seemingly interested in the crowds overflowing on to the roadway. Suddenly, as he passed the last of the taverns, he stepped out, heading into the gathering gloom towards Mill Quay and Portsmouth Point. The government agent began to catch him up, then abruptly slowed. This sudden increase in pace revealed another man following James Ludlow. Thickset, wearing a round hat, he was in no hurry, content to maintain his distance. Villiers felt his pulse begin to race. In his imagination he saw himself coming upon both those ahead of him, in secret conclave, discussing ways to bring down the government and install a Jacobin terror, a conspiracy that he would contain and squash through brilliant timing and doglike tenacity.
The rewards would be enormous. The King would want to have him to a levee at Windsor, perhaps just to ask him how he’d been so clever, or to confer an honour commensurate with the service he’d rendered the nation. Admirals, instead of ignoring him, would defer, and listen patiently while he explained to them what they must look out for in the way of seditious behaviour.
It was galling therefore when the second man, once James turned into Broad Street, peeled off down a narrow lane and disappeared, leaving the government agent with the dilemma of which one to follow. The streets became busier again, even fuller of rollicking tars than the inns around the dockyard. Seeing James pass through the crowd outside the bawdy house and enter the door without turning round, he set off after the second man, and after a fruitless twenty minutes spent searching various byways came to the conclusion that he had lost him.
‘Damn,’ he said to himself angrily, before the embarrassment caused by swearing made him feel contrite. Then an image floated into his mind. His blood raced, and he punched his palm. ‘The oilskin pouch!’
How easy it was. James Ludlow didn’t actually have to meet anyone. All he had to do was drop the information he was carrying at an agreed spot on the route. The man following could then pick it up.
Harry had lanterns all over the ship, so that his crew could continue reeving the replacement rigging well after the sun had gone down. The breeze, the same wind that would have wafted the Channel Fleet to Brest, was still blowing. But it could turn any time and gust strong enough to bottle him up in the Beaulieu. Thanks to Adams and the expert shipwright’s eye he possessed, the stepping of the mast had gone like clockwork, and since the upper sections were already cut, planed, and chamfered, and the cheeks trimmed, fitting had proceeded rapidly. With the foremast cap fitted he’d seen a chance that he could get away at first light, and despite Balthazar Adams’s complaints that Harry’s men would get in the way of his they’d been set to work.
‘Pender, take a boat and drop down to Gull Island. Find our guard boat and take them to the north channel of the estuary. If the cutter returns from Portsmouth keep Captain Illingworth with you. We’ll pick you all up on the way out.’
One watch was still toiling throughout the ship as they cast off, the topmen aloft thumping at the stiff canvas of the new sails, the seamen on deck hauling hard to sheet them home; waisters sweeping away the last shavings that littered the deck while Willerby the cook and Tom Biggins, his assistant and part-time manger man, struggled to get the last of the pigs and chickens down below. It looked like bedlam but Harry could see the beginnings of order, and knew that by the time they made the estuary and had Lepe on their larboard quarter, they’d be a ship again.
Pender, and a very irate Illingworth, were waiting for them at the mouth of the river. But Harry had no time for the merchant captain’s temper, or what seemed like a serious hangover. Nor did he wish to intervene in what appeared to be instant animosity between Pender and the steward which broke out as soon as the man, Derouac, began to lord it in Harry’s cabin, insisting that he knew how to treat quality better than a creature who should, judging by his manners, be before the mast.
Cautious to the last, he declined to sail back along the north and east of the Isle of Wight through the still mutinous fleet. Instead he put up his helm to head south-west, his yards braced round to take the north-westerly wind on his weather quarter, heading for the open sea beyond the coastal forts at Hurst and Norton. Noon saw them off the Needles, stark white megaliths battered by creamy spume. It also saw Bucephalas shipshape and, even if she was still trailing Caribbean weed on her hull, near as dangerous a predator as she’d ever been.
By that time Pender had been on the quarterdeck a dozen times. He wasn’t the type to whine, but Illingworth’s steward had driven him very close. ‘If you don’t get that ugly interferin’ bastard out of my road, Capt’n, he might go out into the water through the pantry scuttle.’
Derouac not only had an unfortunate manner, he was really ill-served by nature in the physical line: small, with an imperious look in a face that was yellowing and cratered, with two little black eyes in the middle. Pender had nicknamed him ‘Frog-spawn,’ and Harry had to admit it suited the Guernseyman well.
‘The lads are missing Mr James, your honour,’ Pender added, once he’d calmed down a bit. ‘There’s not one of them that has the faintest notion of where we’re heading, and no means of finding out that will satisfy. The ship don’t feel right, what with him not aboard.’
Harry felt a pang of sadness himself, since James had become as much a fixture of his deck these last years as the ship’s bell. He also knew what Pender was implying, that James would have sorted out the cabin, to his servant’s satisfaction, in no time. But he declined to be drawn, responding only to the first part of what Pender had said.
‘Then you must act in my brother’s place, Pender. Tell them we’re headed for Normandy. And by the way, you may also pass on to them that I miss him too.’
James had been let in by the maid and informed that her mistress had taken to her bedroom, in the way of communication that indicated that the lady was not alone, which was confirmed by the faint noises coming through the thick panels of the connecting door. Contemplating the notion of going downstairs to Mary Blackett’s parlour, he was bewildered when he heard the knock on the landing door. He was even more surprised to open it and find the snotty-nosed fellow who’d called on Harry that morning.
‘I come on official business,’ said Villiers, nasally, adding a loud sniff that failed in its primary duty.
James gave him a wry smile. ‘What a worker bee you are, sir. Toiling from dawn till dusk, indeed. Is there so much
sedition about?’
Villiers threw his shoulders back, the dark eyes flashing as he growled at his quarry. ‘Perhaps that would be a question you should answer, sir.’
‘Me?’
‘Who else?’
James threw up his hands in mock despair. ‘I am undone, I see it now.’
Villiers, lacking a sense of humour, or any hint of irony, was about to take these words at face value when he saw the twinkle in James’s eyes.
‘I will not be trifled with, Ludlow.’
‘Mr Ludlow to you, sir,’ James replied firmly.
‘I followed you from the landing steps on the Hard.’
‘You did what?’
‘A neat way to pass intelligence.’
‘There’s no risk of your doing that, Villiers.’
Tall as he was, that barb went right over his head. ‘I demand to know what that oilskin pouch contained, plus the identity of the man you left it for.’
James laughed. ‘What man?’
‘The fellow who followed you, of course,’ Villiers replied, impatiently. ‘I didn’t see him at first, but he was there all right, dogging your footsteps, waiting for you to pass him the information. Surely you don’t deny it?’
‘I do,’ James replied, ‘and I’m prepared to prove it. Not, I hasten to add, because you demand it. But you are so stupid, Mr Villiers, that I fancy you will spend all night on this landing, and be knocking on my door again at dawn if I do not.’
James spun on his heel, slipped through the door, and returned in a matter of seconds, the heavy oilskin pouch in his hand.
‘The contents …’
‘Are private,’ James growled. ‘Now be so good as to go away and leave me in peace.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IN THESE waters, with the prevailing westerly holding steady, Harry had little to fear from French capital ships. Locked up well to the south in Brest, they needed the wind to swing into the east, one that would blow the patrolling British frigates out to sea so that they could escape their Breton harbour. The English Channel was well named: the power of Britannia ruled supreme. That no enemy force should threaten such a vital strait was a staple of British tactical policy which had been adhered to with near religious zeal since the defeat of the Spanish Armada.
Not that the sea was empty. This stretch of water was one of the busiest in the world, the artery by which Britain, whose whole power and influence was based on maritime trade, fed the nation’s mercantile interests. That in turn provided the profits that allowed her to subsidize the Continental powers, and their armies, to fight the French on land. It was also the avenue by which neutral vessels, from the Hanseatic ports, Scandinavia, and Russia, could make their home ports, the presence of the British navy protecting them from French corsairs.
Many ships, including British vessels, sheered away from the course he was sailing. From their crosstrees they would see he was armed and dangerous. The flag he flew might identify him as a friend, but that was no guarantee that close to he wouldn’t haul down his colours, and replace them with the bloody Tricolour. He too had his lookouts on edge, keen to avoid any British warships, anxious to spare himself the indignity of being hauled aboard some armed cutter by a newly promoted lieutenant, obliged to explain himself like some recalcitrant schoolboy to an officer determined to show that the navy was superior in every way to any freebooter. And there was always the faint chance that a French frigate might have slipped out of Brest on a raiding mission.
He was steering for the Îles de St. Aubin, a pair of rocky outcrops that sat slightly to the west of the Baie du Grand Vey. The great arc of the Carentan peninsula, swinging north, afforded some protection to these waters from anything but the very worst Atlantic storms; though with variable strong currents, which altered completely throughout every tide, the coastline, especially the long beaches to the west of the Roches de Grandcamp, had their fair share of wrecks. If Illingworth was right, they expected to find the Lothian anchored in the Baie du Grand Vey, in seven-fathom water.
Tressoir wouldn’t get too close to the actual estuary of the two rivers, tidal up to a point some eight miles inland. Les Roches de Grandcamp formed the western edge of that estuary, a wild rugged shore of half-submerged rocks that could be fatal if the wind blew strong enough to drag a ship from its mooring.
The most potent factor in all their calculations was the prodigious rise and fall of the tide levels and the subsequent effect on the river. Low, they barely provided room under the keel for a decked longboat. According to the tables Illingworth had borrowed from the navy, only flood level, or very near it, would allow something as big as an East Indiaman to be warped upriver. And given the distance, and the limited time that it would stay at peak, such a ship required a following wind if it was not to find itself stranded halfway, tipped on to its side at such an angle that the next incoming current would submerge the lower decks.
‘That, I believe, is the real reason he wishes to trade with us,’ said Illingworth. ‘He has either to ship my cargo up to Isigny in boats or risk the whole venture, and his profits, on a fluke of wind.’
Harry, who had the St. Aubin Islands square in his telescope, nodded absent-mindedly. Two high bluffs, at this distance they were like a pair of ships with all sails set. His guest had advanced this same opinion a dozen times; it was one he didn’t entirely share, but good manners demanded a response. And Illingworth had been obliging since coming aboard, showing a proper sense this time of the hierarchy that being on Bucephalas imposed. Harry Ludlow was the captain, so on their way to their destination all decisions lay with him. This being the case, Harry replied in an amiable way.
‘It’s a curious place to base yourself for privateering. I can’t see much point in seeking prizes if you can only get them to a safe berth at best twice a month. And who in a place like this is he going to sell the hulls to? He’d be better operating out of the mouth of the Loire. That gives him an easy place to sell his goods and there’s dozens of merchants in the port of Nantes who’d buy the vessel.’
‘I dare say that the Jacobins levy a duty on private captures, hull and cargo. Perhaps Tressoir wishes to avoid that charge.’
‘He’d still be better off than selling it back to Lloyd’s. My knowledge of what’s going on in France is limited, Illingworth, but I can’t believe luxuries are cheaper there than they are in Britain. And given their losses in ships, I should think deep-sea bottoms are at a premium.’
‘Do you suspect a trap?’
Illingworth hadn’t advanced that notion before, though it had occurred to Harry. Worse, the merchant captain had a loud carrying voice, which he did nothing to temper, even though several of the crew were close by. Harry noticed their heads jerk up in alarm at such a notion.
‘No. Not unless your friend Tressoir knew about the fleet mutiny.’
‘He is not, Captain Ludlow, my friend,’ Illingworth replied, with a rare note of asperity.
Harry had noticed in the last three days’ sailing that the merchant captain, either by nature or inclination, tried very hard to be liked. It was somehow pleasing to have him react for once like a normal human being, instead of for ever playing the diplomat. Such behaviour made the man hard to pin down though, so speculation remained about how to proceed when they met Tressoir. Strictly speaking, any notion of taking the Lothian back by force should be Illingworth’s province, but every time they discussed it, he was at pains to assure Harry that he would abide by whatever he thought best.
Harry smiled as he replied, to take the sting out of his unwelcome allusion. ‘Given that Sir William Parker boasted of his connections, in issuing an invitation to trade Tressoir’s virtually asking for a warship of some kind to reconnoitre his base. Common sense would tell him that before negotiating any British admiral worth his salt would examine the possibility of rescuing the captives by force.’
‘Not to mention the value of my ship!’
That turned Harry’s smile into a full grin. Admiral Parke
r would crave prize money as well as the next man. It was a fair reflection of the state the country had been reduced to by the mutiny that he’d been forced to offer such an opportunity to a privateer rather than send one of his own client officers to snap it up, which went some way to compensating for the way it had been foisted on him.
‘I can see something poking up from the top of the rocks, your honour,’ the lookout called down, ‘though the gulls are making it hard to pick out. Could be a flagstaff, or maybe it’s a ship’s maintopgallant.’
Harry ran for the shrouds, the ropes that exerted lateral control on the masts and provided the avenue by which the men who set and trimmed the sails made their way to their stations. Getting aloft quickly was a matter of great pride to the topmen, commonly held to be the cream of the crew. Their captain, not one to be outdone, was determined to show that he could still beat any sailor aboard to the crosstrees, 120 feet above the deck. He shot up to the top, a wide platform that provided in turn a secure leverage on the topmast shrouds. There was a lubbers’ hole for the less nimble, but Harry ignored it, throwing himself on to the futtock shrouds, attached to the outer rim of the top, continuing his climb leaning backwards at 45 degrees. Above the top the rigging was narrower and steeper, and Illingworth, who hadn’t been aloft himself for years, found himself forced to admire the brisk way Harry made it to the top, where his lookout had been placed.
‘You’ll pick it up on the rise, your honour,’ said the sailor, pointing towards the islands as the bows dipped, carrying the two men so far forward on the swell that they looked down not to a planked deck, but to the grey-green water running along the side of the ship. ‘To the seaward side of the peak.’
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