With All Despatch

by Alexander Kent

  “So there were no arrests at Whitstable, sir?”

  Bolitho half-expected Hoblyn to show concern or discomfort. If he felt either he concealed it well.

  Only two smugglers had been caught on the shore by a patrol of dragoons who had been forewarned by Hoblyn about the expected run. In the skirmish both had been killed.

  “No, more’s the pity. But you took the Four Brothers, and that will make these felons think before they try again.” He half-smiled. “I’m afraid you’ll not get many recruits from the prisoners, though.”

  Bolitho stared across the water at the anchored cutter. He had never seen such a change in any vessel. The whole company seemed shocked and unable to believe what had happened. The fight had left five of their people dead and three more who were unlikely to recover from their wounds. In their small, tight company the losses had left a gap which new hands would be hard put to fill. Of the dead, the helmsman named Quin had been one of the most popular aboard. Ironically he had originally come from Newcastle, the Four Brothers’ home port.

  “Had we been able to take her by boarding, sir, then . . .”

  Hoblyn made as if to touch his arm but withdrew it to his side. Another constant reminder.

  He replied harshly, “It was not to be. They fired on a King’s ship. There’s not a judge in the land who would let them escape the scaffold, and rightly so!” He seemed to overcome the passion in his tone and added, “Be patient, Bolitho, you will have your men.” He waved his stick towards the shore. “They’re there, somewhere. ”

  Bolitho turned away as Allday returned to his thoughts. It was not the first time he had acted alone. But now it was different. This enemy flew no flag. It could be anyone.

  He watched as Hoblyn limped to another hatch where some men were preparing tackles for hoisting smaller items of cargo on deck. His mind kept returning to the boy Matthew Corker’s discovery. The berlin concealed in Hoblyn’s stables. Where did it come from? Hoblyn had arrived at the dockyard in an expensive carriage of his own, so had proved once again, if proof was needed, that he was a rich man. There could be no connection between Hoblyn and the schooner. It was far too risky. Any one of her hands might have turned King’s evidence to save his neck, and damn anyone who was left secure.

  Hoblyn remarked, “I suggest you do your utmost to get Snapdragon out of Chatham. I think you’re going to need her. After your escapade with this schooner Their Lordships will likely feel more inclined to offload some of these patrols from the revenue cutters to your shoulders.” He turned so that the sunlight glittered in his eyes. “Who knows? I may discover more intelligence for you to act upon.” He shaded his eyes with his disfigured hand and watched as his carriage moved slowly along the waterfront.

  Bolitho followed his gaze and saw what he imagined was the white wig of Hoblyn’s servant inside the carriage.

  A lieutenant of the guard called to the boat alongside as Hoblyn limped carefully to the entry port.

  Then he paused and glanced once more along the scarred decks.

  “Speak to Paice’s people, Bolitho. It would come better from you.” He gave him a searching stare. “Your man was unhurt, I trust? I know how you value his services.”

  So casually said. Or was it?

  Bolitho replied, “He is on an errand for me, sir.”

  He felt something like sick relief as Hoblyn lowered himself into the boat.

  I wish to God I knew where he was.

  The marine lieutenant watched him impassively and said, “We shall have a guardboat pulling around us until all the cargo is unloaded, sir.”

  Bolitho looked at him. A young, untried face. He remembered Paice’s words. A man of war. Am I really like that?

  “Good. Keep your men away from the spirits too.” He saw the sudden indignation in his expression. “Even marines have been known to drink, you know.” He saw Telemachus’s boat hooking on to the chains. “I shall leave it to you, Lieutenant.”

  On the short pull to the anchored cutter he noticed the way that the oarsmen watched him when they thought he was not looking. What was it now, he wondered? Respect, fear, or to learn what they were expected to become?

  Paice greeted him at the cutter’s side and touched his hat.

  “All the wounded have been removed, sir. I fear that another of them died just before they left.” He shifted unhappily. “His name was Whichelo, but then you’d not know him, sir.”

  Bolitho looked at the tall lieutenant and said, “ Know him? Yes, of course. The one who was standing in full view by his gun. I am sorry the lesson had to be learned in death.” He walked towards the companionway. “May I have the aid of your clerk, or is he the purser today?” He stepped down and almost expected to see Allday on the deck below, watching and waiting. “I have some despatches to be copied.” He turned on the companion ladder, his face warm in the sunlight. “After that, prepare for sea, Mr Paice.”

  Paice stared after him, his mind still grappling with Bolitho’s cool acceptance of what had happened. Such a short while in their midst and yet he had even recalled the man who had just died.

  Paice clenched his big hands. Bolitho had somehow managed to use that information like part of a lesson as well as a warning. Perhaps what he had seen and done since he had first gone to sea as a twelve-year-old midshipman had honed all the pity and compassion from him.

  Paice thrust through the throng of seamen who were working on repairs to seek out Godsalve the clerk, so he did not see the man who had just left him in turmoil.

  Bolitho knelt in the small cabin, the uncompleted model ship grasped in both hands like a talisman.

  A man of war?

  Allday groped his way around the small timbered outhouse feeling for anything he might use as a weapon.

  All afternoon the party of six prisoners with an armed escort of seamen had marched along the road towards Sheerness. When dusk came, the midshipman named Fenwick who commanded the group ordered a halt at a small inn where he was received with familiarity, although not with warmth. The other five prisoners were locked in an outbuilding with their legs in irons as an extra precaution. Allday, apparently because of his superior status as a sailmaker, was kept apart.

  Allday returned to a crate where he had been sitting. The stage was set, he thought vaguely. He had heard the midshipman explaining just a bit too loudly to the seamen in the press gang why he was separating them in this fashion.

  Once, the man who had first approached Allday came to the outhouse with some water and a hunk of bread.

  “Is this all?” Allday had smelled the rum on the man’s breath. It was what he needed more than anything.

  The man had grinned at his anger. “The others ain’t gettin’ nuthin’!”

  Allday had tried to question him about the proposed escape. How would the midshipman explain it to his superior?

  The man had held up his lantern to study him more closely. “Leave it to us. Yer talks too much. Just remember wot I told yer!”

  If only he could lay hands on a dirk or a cutlass. Maybe they had already seen through his feeble disguise? Someone might even have recognised him, and they were holding him apart so that he could be silenced for good when night came.

  At sea Allday could tell the time almost by the pitch of a hull, and on land, when he had spent a short while guarding sheep in Cornwall, he had grown used to reading the stars and the moon’s position for the same purpose.

  But scaled up in this dark hut he had no way of telling and it made him more uneasy.

  He wondered what Bolitho was doing. It worried him to think of him managing on his own. But something had to be done. He tensed as he thought he heard a slight sound through the door.

  Now the truth. He could feel his heart pounding, and tried to control his breathing.

  If it is to be murder —he would take one with him somehow.

  Lanternlight made a golden slit up one side of the door, and a moment later a bolt was drawn. Then the seaman peered in at him.

&n
bsp; Allday saw the midshipman’s white collar-patches glowing beyond the lantern, and sensed the sudden tension. Even the seaman seemed ill at ease.

  “Ready?”

  Allday left the hut and almost fell as the lantern was shuttered into darkness.

  The midshipman hissed, “Stay together!” He peered at Allday. “One foul move and by God I’ll run you through!”

  Allday followed the midshipman, his eyes on his white stockings. It was not the first time he had made this trip, he thought grimly. Rough ground, with scrub and bushes, the smell of cows from a nearby field. Then over a flint wall and towards a dark copse which loomed against the early stars like something solid. Allday’s ears told him that nobody else from the press gang was coming with them. He heard the seaman behind him stagger, and tensed, expecting the sudden agonising thrust of steel in his back. But the man uttered a whispered oath and they continued on through the darkness. The trees appeared to move out and surround them like silent giants, and Allday knew from the midshipman’s uneven breathing that he was probably doubly afraid because of his own guilt.

  “This is far enough!” Midshipman Fenwick raised an arm. “Here it is!”

  Allday saw him stopping to peer at a large, half-burned tree trunk. The meeting point. How many others had come here to sell themselves, he wondered?

  The seaman spat on the ground and Allday saw the glint of a pistol in his belt, a cutlass bared and held in his fist; no doubt he was ready to use both.

  Allday pricked up his ears. The creak of harness, perhaps, but if so the horses must have muffled hooves. Where was it? He strained his eyes into the darkness, so that when the voice spoke out he was surprised at its nearness.

  “Well, well, Mr Fenwick, another of your adventures.”

  Allday listened. The speaker had a smooth, what he would call an educated voice. No accent which he could recognise, and Allday had heard most of them on all the messdecks he had known.

  Fenwick stammered, “I sent a message.”

  “You did indeed. A sailmaker, you say?”

  “That is so.” Fenwick was replying like a frightened schoolboy to his tutor.

  “It had better be, eh?”

  “There is just one thing.” Fenwick could barely form his words for trembling.

  The voice snapped, “More money, is it? You are a fool to gamble. It will be your undoing!”

  Fenwick said nothing, as if he was unable to find the courage.

  Allday watched the shadows. So it was gambling. The midshipman was probably being threatened because of debts. Allday stiffened and felt the hair rise on his neck. He had heard a footfall somewhere to his left, a shoe kicking against loose stones. He could still see nothing, and yet he sensed that there were figures all around them, unseen among the trees.

  Fenwick must have felt it too. He suddenly blurted out, “I need help! It’s this man—”

  Allday crouched, ready to spring, and then realised that Fenwick was pointing at his armed seaman.

  “What about him?” The voice was sharper now.

  “He—he’s been interfering, doing things without coming to me. I remembered what you said, how it was planned—” The words were pouring out in an uncontrollable torrent.

  The voice snapped, “Put down your weapons, both of you! ” When neither of them moved, Allday heard the metallic clicks of pieces being pulled to full cock. Then two shadows emerged from the opposite side, each armed with what appeared to be a hanger or, perhaps, a cutlass.

  The seaman dropped his own blade and then tossed his pistol to the ground.

  He rasped, “It’s a bloody lie! The young gentleman ’s gutless! You can’t take ’is word fer nuthin’!”

  Allday waited. There was defiance in the man’s tone, anxiety too.

  The voice asked, “And Spencer, if that is your name, why are you here?”

  “I’ll repay my escape by working, sir.”

  “Mr Fenwick, how have you left matters at the inn?”

  Fenwick seemed completely stunned by the change of manner. The unseen questioner was smooth, even jocular again.

  “I—I thought we could claim Spencer had escaped—”

  The seaman sneered, “See? Wot did I tell yer?”

  “I have a better idea.” There was a creak, as if the man was leaning out of a window of his carriage. “To have this sailmaker make good his escape, we need a victim, eh? A poor dead sailor-man murdered as he tried to prevent it!”

  The two shadows bounded forward and Allday heard the seaman gasp in pain as he was beaten to his knees.

  “Here!” Allday felt the cold metal of a cutlass grip pushed into his fingers.

  The voice said calmly, “Prove your loyalty to the Brotherhood —Spencer. That will bind both you and our gallant midshipman closer than ever to our affairs.”

  Allday stared at the kneeling figure while the others stood clear. The cutlass felt like lead, and his mouth was as dry as a kiln.

  The voice persisted, “Kill him!”

  Allday stepped forward but at that moment the seaman threw himself on one side, scrambling for the pistol which he had dropped.

  The explosion and the flash which lit up the motionless figures by the burned tree was like a nightmare. It all happened in seconds and Allday gritted his teeth as he saw the pistol fall once more, still gripped by the sailor’s hand, which had been severed at the wrist by one blow from a cutlass. Even as the man rolled over and gave one last shrill scream the same attacker raised his blade and drove it down with such force Allday heard the point grate into the ground through the man’s body.

  The sudden silence was broken only by the sudden muffled stamp of nervous horses, the far-off barking of a farm dog, then the sound of wheels on some kind of cart-track.

  The figure by the corpse bent down and picked up the fallen cutlass, but left the pistol still gripped by its severed hand.

  He stared at Allday, his expression invisible. “Your turn’ll come.” To Fenwick he added, “Here, take this purse for your gaming table.” There was utter contempt in his voice. “You can raise the alarm in an hour, though, God knows, some picket might have heard the fool shoot!”

  Fenwick was vomiting against a tree, and the man said softly, “I’d finish him too, but—” He did not go on. Instead he watched as Fenwick picked up his weapons and the small bag of coins before adding, “We had best be moving.” He could have been grinning.

  “You can keep the cutlass. You’ll need it.”

  Allday looked back at the untidy corpse and wondered if Fenwick would be the next victim.

  He followed the other man through the trees, the shadowy figures of his companions already on the move.

  Allday had had cause to kill several men in his life. In anger, and in the fury of battle, sometimes in the defence of others. So why was this any different? Would he have killed the seaman to give his story more value, if the other man had not struck first?

  Allday did not know, and decided it was better to keep it that way until the danger was past.

  How quickly fate could move. Soon the midshipman would raise the alarm, and later they would find the corpse. A common seaman who had been murdered by an escaping prisoner named Spencer.

  Allday thought of the unseen man in the carriage. If he could only manage to learn his name—he shook himself like a dog. One thing at a time. At present he was still alive, but the knowledge he had gained so far was enough to change that just as quickly.

  7. IN GOOD COMPANY

  LIEUTENANT Charles Queely clattered down Wakeful’s companion ladder and after a small hesitation thrust open the cabin door. Bolitho was sitting at the table, chin in hand while he finished reading the log.

  He glanced up. “Good morning, Mr Queely.”

  Queely contained his surprise. He had expected to find Bolitho asleep, not still going through his records and examining the chart.

  He said, “I—I beg your pardon, sir. I was about to inform you that dawn is almost upon us.” He glance
d quickly around the cabin as if expecting to see something different.

  Bolitho stretched. “I would relish some coffee if you could provide it.” He knew what Queely was thinking, and found himself wondering why he did not feel tired. He had allowed himself no rest, and when Telemachus had sighted the other cutter he had arranged to be pulled across to Queely’s command without delay or explanation.

  Queely was usually well able to conceal his innermost feelings, and, despite his youth, had already slipped easily into a commander’s role. But Bolitho’s arrival, and the sight of Telemachus hove-to, displaying her powderstains, and areas of pale new timber where her carpenter and his crew had begun their repairs, had taken him all aback.

  Queely had asked, “Will they return to the yard, sir?”

  “I think not. I have told Lieutenant Paice that working together at sea to complete their overhaul, even though they are short-handed because of those killed and wounded, will do far more good. It will draw them into a team again, keep them too busy to grieve or to fall into bad ways.”

  Queely had been shocked to see the damage and had said immediately, “I knew nothing about it, sir. I carried out my patrol as you ordered, and after losing signalling contact with you I decided to remain on station.”

  That had been yesterday. Now, after a full night’s sailing, they had continued to the south-east in spite of tacking again and again into the wind.

  It was possible that Queely had been totally ignorant of the fierce close-action with the Four Brothers. With his studious features, hooked nose and deepset eyes he seemed to be a man who was well able to make up his own mind and act upon it. I decided to remain on station. What Bolitho might have said under the same circumstances.

  As Queely pushed through the door to send for some coffee Bolitho looked around the cabin once more. Telemachus and this vessel had been built in the same yard with just a couple of years between them. How could they be so different? Even the cabin gave an air of intentional disorder, or temporary occupancy. As if Queely used it just for the purpose Wakeful was designed for, not as something to be coddled. Uniforms swayed from various hooks, while sidearms and swords were all bundled together in a half-open chest. Only Queely’s sextant lay in pride of place, carefully wedged in a corner of his cot where it would be safe even in the wildest weather.