by David McDine
‘Yes sir, but may I ask how do you suppose these untrained, er, fencibles, will be able to frustrate the French?’
Home Popham banged his fist on the desk. ‘By getting in among their invasion barges and sinking them off the coast! The only Frenchies I want to see coming ashore are floating bodies!’
Anson smiled wanly. It was clearly not wise for a junior officer to argue the toss with this man.
Home Popham softened. ‘The whole point is that I need officers like you to train them. These detachments comprise mainly south coast boatmen and fishermen, no doubt including many a smuggler, because I’ve little doubt most south coast boatmen and fishermen are smugglers.’
‘And you believe that given training they could successfully counter an invasion, sir?’
‘Correct. They are being trained in the use of guns and pikes, and the idea is to use small gunboats and batteries ashore to oppose and frustrate any attempts by the French to land on our coast.’
Home Popham read the scepticism on the lieutenant’s face and added sharply: ‘Recruiting, training and commanding them is a most proper and worthwhile task, young man. I can assure you the threat of invasion may have diminished somewhat since Nelson whipped the French in Aboukir Bay, but it is still very real.’
‘So Captain Wallis was telling me, sir.’
‘Quite so, and as the lieutenant at Seagate you’ll be covering the stretch of coast from the west of Folkestone to the edge of Romney Marsh – as likely a landing area as you’ll find.’
‘Leaving aside Deal and Pevensey?’
‘Where the Romans and Normans landed?’ Home Popham arched his eyebrows. ‘I like a man who knows his history. Yes, but this General Bonaparte has read his history too. If I were him I would opt for the beaches between Seagate and Dungeness on the marsh. Let’s not forget that the Armada planned to land troops there. And, if the French try something similar, the officer based there will be in the thick of it.’
Anson still had his doubts about a motley crew of Kentish fishermen and smugglers fending off the hammers of the Austrians, Prussians, Spaniards and Italians. But he was beginning to accept that life with the Sea Fencibles could be a worthwhile challenge. ‘What craft do we have, sir?’
‘At the moment we’ve a hotchpotch of commandeered boats – whatever we can beg, steal or rent. But we have plans for something much, much better. And this, Anson, is where you figure – in a special role.’ The commodore rose, walked to the window, and turned to face him. ‘At this stage this is for your ears only, d’you follow?’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘I am having built here at Dover a new type of row-galley to carry a gun for use by my fencibles. Now, if I can demonstrate the suitability of such a craft in the anti-invasion role, I believe the Admiralty will give orders for many more of the same to be built. Indeed they have already applied to the Treasury at my request to order three smuggling vessels, lately taken by the Custom House cutters, to be delivered over to me for the purpose of being fitted as galleys.’
Anson was surprised. ‘Smuggling vessels?’
‘Certainly smuggling vessels! You are a man of Kent, are you not? So you must appreciate more than most that your average smuggler is a wily fellow who knows exactly what craft are suitable for his trade. And it follows that on this coast what’s suitable for him is bound to be suitable for us. When I get these vessels under my orders I think I shall be able to prevent the French row-boats – and larger privateers – from coming near this coast, either to reconnoitre or annoy our trade.’
‘And you want me—?’
‘As far as the world and his wife are concerned, your role is no more or less than to lead the detachment that will trial two of these new craft and train up crews to fight them. This means precision handling, rowing to manoeuvre them into position to attack enemy landing craft when they are most vulnerable as they come inshore. It means speedy and accurate gunnery – not easy, I daresay, when bobbing around in not much more than a Portsmouth bumboat with Frogs popping their muskets at you. If the French escape the blockade and get past our screen of ships we have to kill them off as they near the beaches. They must not be allowed to come ashore.’
‘But the French have crossed wide rivers to win many battles—’
‘Yes, and if they get a foothold ashore it will be a devil of a job getting rid of them. They must be destroyed before they set foot on English soil. We must make the waves run red with French blood!’
He stabbed the air with his index finger. ‘But there is more – the special role I have in mind for you.’
Home Popham paused for effect and added: ‘The French have many ears in our Channel ports, especially among the smuggling fraternity. Security will be a problem and some misleading ruses and false trails will be necessary.’
Anson listened intently as the commodore added, conspiratorially: ‘Not only do I want you to frustrate the French sniffing around this part of the coast, but in due course I want you to obtain intelligence from them – and when necessary to do some sniffing of your own on their side of the water. You are well fitted for tip-toeing round France following your recent escape, are you not?’
This thrilled Anson beyond measure. ‘I believe I am, sir.’ He could hardly have dreamed up a better scenario for himself: a virtually independent command, trialling new craft, engaging the enemy – albeit in penny packets – and gathering vital information about French invasion intentions.
Short of being made post and given command of a frigate or better, this was about as good as it could get.
Home Popham continued: ‘There will be times when we positively want the French to receive certain information and you may be called upon to, let’s say, assist in getting it to them. We also have a number of French royalists helping us, and there will be times when we need to insert one or two of them back into France – or fetch them back when their missions are accomplished.’
Anson remembered his own escape from France courtesy of smugglers. ‘That should not present a problem, sir.’
‘Your stretch of the coast is, of course, of special interest to us. You will be, after all, only some 25 miles from France. I will expect you to furnish me with such intelligence as comes your way. As we know, many of these Kentish Sea Fencibles have smuggling as a sideline – and many are boatmen and fishermen who dabble in what they like to call ‘free trading’. With you commanding them, you are in every way perfectly placed for this role, just as Colonel Redfearn told me—’
‘Colonel Redfearn?’ Anson gave a start at the mention of that name. So even at the rectory dinner party he was being sounded out.
Home Popham smiled at his new protégé’s realisation that he had been assessed so carefully, but added: ‘Make no mistake, these clandestine tasks must remain totally confidential between you and I. It is of crucial importance that none of your men, not even the divisional captain himself, must know that you are other than a bog-standard Sea Fencible officer training a bunch of base rats in handling the new gunboats and sitting on his backside awaiting the invasion. Is that fully understood?’
‘It is indeed, sir.’
‘Good, then you will hear from me from time to time, but meanwhile I want you to crack on at sorting out the Seagate detachment.’
Home Popham sent for the gunboat plans and they pored over them, discussing capabilities and tactics. The more Anson heard, the keener he became. And, by the time he left the commodore’s office, his senior was clearly convinced that this eager young officer was exactly the right man for the job.
22
While enduring yet another carrier ride back to Hardres Minnis, Anson made up his mind to buy a horse and it was the carter himself, Hezikiah Dale, who suggested he should approach a smallholder called Horn.
‘Old Willie Horn knows his ’orses and does a bit of dealing on the side. I hear tell he’s just come across a big gelding he’s bought from a lady what’s just been widdered down on the marsh, Isle of Oxney way, that mi
ght suit you.’
‘The widow?’
Hezikiah cackled. ‘You want 16 hands or more and she’s only got the two! Willie Horn’s a cantankerous blighter and like as not he’ll give you a load of lip afore you get around to looking at the ’orse. But there’s few round here as knows their ’orseflesh as good as him. You’ll pay top whack but he won’t cheat you with a wrong-un.’
The advice was spot on. Next day, Anson found the smallholder leaning over a five-bar gate beside his cottage, puffing at a clay pipe and watching the world go by.
‘Good afternoon. Mr Horn?’
Horn looked him up and down, almost insolently.
‘You’ll be parson’s son? I heard you’d be along sometime.’
Anson nodded. The Kentish equivalent of jungle drums had clearly been at work and the uniform was a give-away. ‘I hear you’ve a horse for sale?’
Horn sucked his pipe. ‘Mebbe.’
‘I’m looking for one of 16 hands or more – and not some flighty creature. I’m a sailor, not a cavalryman.’
‘I just might have one o’ 16 hands, but it’ll cost mind.’ He waved his pipe at a large black horse grazing in the meadow alongside his Kent peg-tiled house. ‘It’ll cost ’cos this ’ere ’oss ain’t no nag. It’s quality.’
‘Good, that’s what I’m looking for.’
‘An’ I s’pose money ain’t no object to the likes of you.’
Anson smiled at the barb, taking it as part of Horn’s bargaining style. ‘I’m not rich. Just a navy man temporarily marooned ashore and on the look-out for a reliable mount.’
Horn sneered. ‘That there smart uniform, buy that out of yer sailor’s wages, did yer? Or was it paid for private-like, out of the money yer parson daddy gives yer? ’Cos if it were, then that’s come from the tithe money forced out of us poor farmers by the blood-suckin’ church!’
Anson knew ‘minnisers’, as the local commoners called themselves, had a reputation for their strong independent streak and plain speaking, but was nevertheless taken aback at the man’s vehemence.
Before he could frame any sort of answer, Horn wagged his pipe and growled: ‘That comes from the sweat of our brows and keeps poor men’s children ’ungry while the likes of yer father lives like a lord, just for preachin’ one sermon a week, and that more’n likely copied out o’ some book.’
There was truth in that, Anson reflected. His father did indeed appear to copy his weekly diatribes against non-conformism out of a sermon book, and jolly boring they were, too. But Horn’s tirade against tithes was something else. It was not an issue Anson had ever thought about before and he felt distinctly uncomfortable. Suddenly, the hundred a year he got from his father seemed somehow tainted. He ventured: ‘I’m sure it cannot be quite that simple, Mr Horn.’
‘Can be and is that simple,’ the small-holder countered. ‘Fact is, the parson gets ten per cent of all we sweat to grow, beasts, crops, hay even. A tenth of everything! That’s the tithe, and parsons like to tell us it’s what the good book calls rendering unto God the things what’s God’s. But your daddy ain’t God. You’d best remind him the Bible also says it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man like him to enter the kingdom of God. So you tell ’im to put that in his pipe and smoke it!’
Anson held up his hands in protest. ‘Look, I’m not my father and I know nothing of tithes and church politics. I’ve just come about your horse.’
But Horn was not finished. ‘And where does that tenth of all our labour end up? I’ll tell yer – in that blurry great barn next the church. Tithe barn? They should call it the tyrant’s barn, ’cos that’s what it is. There’s folk round here that’s lucky to have enough food to put on the table. An’ I’ll tell yer, a tenth of not a lot when you’re a poor smallholder is a lot. I wouldn’t mind so much if it was goin’ to fight the war.’
Anson was not sure what to say. He offered: ‘But the clergy will pay the new income tax to help pay for the war, so some of your tithe money will help us to fight the French.’
Horn was not to be fobbed off and was accustomed to getting the last word down at the alehouse. ‘P’raps we’d be better orf with them revoluntioners over ’ere, anyways. I bet the blurry Frogs don’t pay tithes!’
Anson was beginning to get irritated and it showed. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I came to buy a horse, not to hear a lecture—’
‘Fair enough, but I tell ye, ’tis a poor thing to see a man like yon parson father of yourn in what to the likes of us is a palace, eatin’ rich food, drinkin’ the best wine and such, wearin’ fancy clothes – an’ all paid for by us. And using his parson’s pulpit to pull the wool over the eyes of his iggorant fellow creatures with Bible words they don’t unnerstand. That ain’t Christian – not in my book it ain’t.’
His point well and truly made, there was business to be done. Anson examined the horse carefully, looking for obvious faults, but found none. Horn insisted it was ‘honest, genuine – a gennelman.’ And, when led into a lean-to beside the barn to be tacked up, it certainly seemed placid and easy to handle, as might be expected of a gelding of maybe seven or eight years.
Quizzed about its provenance, Horn was evasive. It was a good horse that had come from a good home where there was no longer a need for it, and it had come at a high but fair price, he said. Others were interested and it would sell within the week.
Anson scrambled untidily aboard, uncomfortable as ever when exchanging a rolling deck for a lurching horse, and first walked, then trotted the gelding round the meadow. Nothing nasty happened, and as he swung down from the saddle he noted Horn’s knowing look – the look of a dealer who knows he is about to shake on a successful deal.
Was it Anson’s slight feeling of discomfort over the tithe tirade that made him agree the asking price for horse and tack without argument? Whatever, the seller was satisfied, and he had a horse. He smiled knowingly when Horn told him its name – Ebony. There was a place of that name on the Isle of Oxney, so it had come from the widow there as Hezekiah had said.
As he rode slowly back to the rectory, Anson reflected on Willie Horn’s tirade. It did seem unfair that poor men, little more than subsistence farmers, should be forced to give a tenth of what they earned to the church.
What did the church give them in return? And why should men like his father – and his self-seeking brother – grow rich and fat at the expense of men who slaved on the land in all weathers to feed their families? Were churchmen little better than parasites, cuckoos in the nests of the poor? It was a debate he must take up with his father, or Gussie, who it would irritate beyond measure – but not today.
23
The thought of staying at the rectory, with his ears under daily assault from his match-making mother and his father’s church politics at every meal, filled Anson with horror. It was not difficult to convince them that, now fully recovered, he needed to be at the centre of his new command and he determined to find suitable lodgings at a Folkestone inn.
Although he had learned to ride as a small boy, long absences at sea were not conducive to familiarity with the saddle. It took Anson some time to re-master the rising trot, so that when he disembarked in Folkestone not only did his thighs ache but there was a soreness in his nether regions that forced him to mince somewhat to avoid further chafing.
Fagg was there to meet him and, ever the eagle-eyed topman, he observed: ‘Sore arse, sir?’
Anson grimaced. ‘You could put it like that. First days afloat and your sea legs have deserted you, and first days ashore and your horse has turned into an instrument of torture.’
‘Nuffink that a drop of lard won’t cure overnight, sir,’ Fagg advised. ‘But ’scuse me if I don’t volunteer to rub it in for you. Mebbe one of the rectory maids’ll do that, eh?’
Shared experience of their escape had made Anson tolerant of cheeky bandinage from Fagg that, afloat, would most definitely not be permitted coming from lower to quarterdeck.
‘Your con
cern is commendable, but if I need advice on medical matters I will turn to a medical man, not an uppity retired topman.’
It was not a serious rebuke, and, not a tiny bit chastened, Fagg could not resist adding: ‘Cor, I wouldn’t mind some woman, like that one what looked arter you in France fer instance, rubbing lard on my arse...’ But Anson’s darted frown told him he had overstepped the mark.
‘Sorry, sir,’ he added quickly, ‘me tongue ran orf wiv me on account of being what they calls deprived, like. Mind you, now we’re ’ere, I’ll soon put that right …’
But his voice tailed off to silence under Anson’s withering stare.
*
Anson booked himself into the Rose Inn, in Rendezvous Street. It was that or the nearby King’s Arms – both coaching inns and a cut above all the others, but the Rose reputedly had better rooms and stabling. And it was well-known as a venue for mayoral dinners, so the food was likely to be good.
Before showing him the rooms, the landlord enquired diplomatically: ‘You indicated a longish stay, sir. Might I enquire ’ow long you envisages?’
‘So long as the bed is comfortable, the food good and the stabling’s up to scratch, I think you might say it will be for the duration, Mr Griggs.’
The landlord, wisely wary of that well-known sub-species – potential Channel port moonlight flitters – was clearly delighted at the prospect of hosting a long-stay naval officer, and gave Anson the choice of the inn’s five guest bedrooms.
Anson favoured a good room with two windows, furthest away from the Free School next door, but two travelling trunks and some clothing on hooks indicated it was already taken.
‘I’d like this one when it’s free. Meanwhile I’m happy to camp out in any one of the other rooms.’
Without hesitation, Griggs countered: ‘Say no more, sir. It shall be yours this very day,’ mouthing under his breath, ‘as soon as I’ve shifted this other lot.’
Having settled his accommodation, Anson partook of the inn’s ordinary, a wholesome beef dinner that augured well for his messing requirements, and set off to report to the divisional captain and find out about his new command.