A Sea of Troubles

by David Donachie

  ‘I’m not sure I can assist, Denby.’ That made his brother-in-law stiffen. ‘Ask me for the whereabouts of a sailor and that I can do by a simple enquiry to the Admiralty, where we maintain strong contacts.’

  ‘I must find him,’ Carruthers snapped, his face closing up enough to tell the man at the desk just how much hatred was in the sentiment. Obviously Carruthers knew it too, realised he was being obvious in his loathing and perhaps even in his intentions, so he sat back and modulated his tone. ‘To stop him visiting mischief on another as he visited them on me, of course.’

  ‘Quite, quite, but would not a thief-taker be a better prospect?’ Seeing interest Druce went on. ‘You say your man is a thief—’

  ‘And a satyr, for all his tender years and innocent looks.’

  That was a barked interruption, from a man Edward Druce had always thought too strong in his passions, the kind of thing that led him to marry such an unsuitable bride. And Druce had a duty, which was to deflect his interest in Gherson and even to send him on a wild goose chase if necessary. Serving on a ship, the man was relatively safe, rarely ashore, in London only on the odd occasion, and if things went as normal HMS Semele would be at sea for most of the time; a warship at anchor was not a proper use of assets even for an indolent commander addicted to taking the waters of Bath such as Black Dick Howe.

  ‘Let us stick to larceny, Denby. If you are looking for a fellow who steals money, then that is a job for a man who takes up criminals and, I might add, I know of no one who searches up and down the land for infidelity, it is more a local interest. I do have knowledge of a fellow who might take the work, for the Bow Street Runners and their successes have made his occupation less profitable than it used to be. One of his gifts is that he is well connected and seems able to use a network of people to search far and wide. He would, of course, require funds to proceed and a payment for success.’

  ‘I am not bereft of the means to fund that.’

  ‘No,’ Druce replied with some feeling: well heeled and successful as he was, he could not hold a candle to Denby Carruthers. ‘So would you like to know where to find him?’

  ‘You find him Edward, will you?’

  ‘Me?’

  Carruthers stood up. ‘Yes, I am going away for a few days, perhaps a week. Get hold of your fellow … what’s his name?’

  ‘Hodgeson.’

  ‘Retain him, Edward, and I will see him on my return.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘People keep asking me that, as if it is any of their business.’

  The manner of that rejoinder, so cold and dismissive to what was a very simple question, eased the conscience of Edward Druce; he did not like lying to his brother-in-law even if he felt it necessary. But he was not to be treated like some busybody. Lord, he might even tell Gherson that Denby was seeking him out! There was, however, no desire to let his feelings be known or have a proper falling out, certainly not with a powerful city alderman and a brother to a wife who esteemed him highly, so the response was polite.

  ‘Well I hope it is successful, Denby.’

  ‘Sir Phillip, I believe Lord Howe was humbugged. We chased that frigate when we should have gone in search of those American merchantmen.’

  ‘You may well be right, Captain Barclay, but I do not see how I can bring to the Board such a supposition. And if I did I doubt they would act upon it.’

  ‘What I am saying, sir, is that the despatch which Sir Roger Curtis wrote at Lord Howe’s behest does not detail all the facts, and there are men suffering from finding their contribution to victory ignored.’

  ‘The King was cock-a-hoop when he heard the news,’ Sir Phillip Stephens said, rather wistfully. ‘Felt vindicated, for you know Lord Howe only got the Channel through his insistence. Lord Hood was livid.’

  Damn them both, Barclay thought, pulling out a letter written by Gherson.

  ‘Nevertheless, I wish to lay before the Board of Admiralty that all was not as stated and that if accolades are to be given, they should be given equally to all the captains engaged.’

  ‘Very well, Captain, I will see it is as you wish.’

  Bustling out of the building, his stick rapping a tattoo on the flagstones, Ralph Barclay supposed Sir Phillip to be right. But he had achieved his aim, had laid his evidence in what was now the public domain. Time to get on with the defamation of Sir Roger Curtis, for he was easier to attack than Howe; any assault on him might be seen as a criticism of the monarchy. He made his way to Covent Garden and a coffee house where he had arranged to meet with Gherson. His clerk had been given the task of finding out what newspaper people might take a payment to promote their case as well as an artist to begin drawing Curtis in an unflattering light. It would have been nice to engage Gillray, but he was too steep in price.

  Sitting down beside Gherson, Barclay could not help his nose twitching. ‘God, man, you smell of the whore you have been with!’

  ‘She was not a clean creature, that is true,’ Gherson replied, unabashed, ‘but she was cheap.’ He then handed over a list of names, with the various coffee houses at which each could be contacted, and it was a long one; it seemed those who wrote for Grub Street were keen to accept payment and truth was not a fixation. ‘I doubt you will have trouble, sir, in defaming Sir Roger, and I have it on good authority Lord Howe as well, if you so desire.’

  ‘Not a good move for a man’s career, I think, given the King esteems him. We will talk of these tonight, now we must go and find out how well I am doing.’

  It was but a short walk to the Strand and the offices of Ommanney & Druce.

  It was a good hour later when Edward Druce was convinced he was having what the French called déjà vu, and something more than that after his corpulent partner, Ommanney, having gone through the present investments and potential future ones of their client while supping fine Burgundy wine, had left him alone with Ralph Barclay and Cornelius Gherson. During that hour, Barclay could not but recall a previous visit to these offices when, with a ship after five barren years, a new wife and orders to get to sea, he had sought an advance on prospective prize money from the two partners. The level of condescension they had shown then matched their fawning on him now, and to make him feel better still, he could look at the great portrait of the most famous victory of his much loved Admiral George Rodney which he watched unfold from a distance; there it was, at torn sails, bursting cannon and an angry smoke-filled sky, the Battle of the Saintes.

  ‘An investigator, Captain Barclay?’

  ‘Yes, to find my wife.’ Seeing the look in Druce’s eye, he felt constrained to explain, his voice slightly overwrought. ‘My wife Emily is much younger than I and has had her head turned.’

  Was that what could be said about Catherine Carruthers, Druce was thinking, that her head was turned, which made him glance at the culprit, who was watching his employer with a very slight smirk on his face. So was this another young and pretty woman who had fallen for his charms, for he was a handsome devil, with his soft skin and near white hair? What was it about the tender sex that they could not see in such corn-blue eyes as Gherson possessed that the only thing for which he had true affection was himself?

  ‘For reasons I have yet to completely establish she has decided to desert the marital home and take up residence elsewhere. I must add that she has done that entirely on her own – there is no other party involved.’

  ‘And if you find her?’

  ‘I will, of course, seek to persuade her of the error of her ways, and beg that she comes back to be the dutiful wife I married and have deep affection for.’

  Gherson’s reaction then, the widening smirk seen out of the corner of his eye, convinced Druce that Barclay was not telling the truth, not that such a fact was any of his concern. But there was advantage in this; he could recommend Hodgeson for both tasks that had been brought to his attention this day and hope that he only succeeded in one of them. Damn me, he thought, I should charge the fellow commission.
r />   ‘I do know of someone who might be able to help.’

  ‘And how do I find him?’

  ‘Let me do that for you. I take it you are, as usual, staying at Brown’s?’

  ‘I am, so send him to me there.’

  ‘Actually, Captain Barclay, I think it would be best if you met in my office, with me present to introduce him and to offer, should you be at sea, to monitor his activities, a duty I am happy to undertake with no charge upon your tariff.’

  ‘That is kind of you, sir.’

  ‘I take it Mr Gherson will be coming by for a more thorough examination of your portfolio?’

  ‘Tomorrow, if that suits, Mr Druce,’ Gherson replied.

  ‘Fine, I look forward to it, but I would suggest you meet Hodgeson on your own, it is after all a personal matter.’

  ‘I agree,’ Barclay said, throwing a glare at Gherson.

  And, Druce was thinking, I have the whole of tonight to think how to play this game.

  To be at sea was blissful; the weather was warm, the sea, albeit with a strong Atlantic swell, presented no threat and, once past the Lizard and heading due south the ship was eating up the miles with a potent westerly on its beam. With yards trimmed near fore and aft the bowsprit was the main driver and the deck was canted like a shallow roof, which made movement interesting and meant no food would stay still on any table. The crew seemed not to have changed in any way, they treated him as they always had, with respect and what looked like regard, so it took time for John Pearce to realise that the crew of HMS Larcher had resentments when it came to Charlie and Rufus.

  New men in a settled crew always had a hard time bedding in. In what could be years of sailing together few mysteries remain as to how a man would think, never mind speak or act. A scratched nose was a signal some fellow wanted a pipe of tobacco, moods and tempers were related to the state of the moon, the crew had a vernacular of their own, based on common navy slang but subtly altered by their shared experience and the common jests that became like old friends; his Pelicans had none of that.

  They had accepted Michael because he had acted as a servant; no more, he was content to be part of the lower deck and treat Pearce as what he was, the man in command, which did not allow for too much familiarity. The fact that the other two had dined with the captain and his lady as soon as they had come aboard was seen as suspicious: were they set to spy? They could not help themselves for being a bit familiar and that was before Pearce himself dented his reputation by chastising one of the crew merely for telling a vulgar tale in the hearing of Emily.

  It was a problem having a woman on board in a ship with no proper heads to speak of, saving a slops bucket tossed over and washed, and it stood to reason a lady wanted to be clean, so it was rig a sail every couple of days, fill up a butt of water and let her do her necessaries to the back of that and no hands allowed aloft, though there was no way to avoid the surreptitious looks for the hope of spotting a flash of bare flesh, even an ankle. Most of the crew were under twenty-five years of age, many of them younger, and they were as red-blooded as any of their years. But unused to company of that nature, one hand forgot that he was stitching eyelets in a sail hard by where Emily was doing her ablutions and he was not quiet in his tale-telling.

  ‘That Black Cath, mate,’ he crowed, ‘I ain’t never seen the like. There’s me so full of ale I was erect and as hard as that Indian teak, an’ I reckoned I could piss a mile an’ sets a challenge for a contest. Up jumps Black Cath, eyes flashin’ like Lucifer’s cat, and says a shilling piece that I can out piss you any time. A woman, says I, never in life!’

  Other crew members, picking up that there was yarn-telling afoot, had slowed their own work to listen, which encouraged the teller to raise his voice.

  ‘We go into the alley and I hauls out old Harry, an’ by Christ did I give it length, twenty feet for certain. Well Cath has just downed a pint of mead in one, which could be counted as comin’ it high in the cheating line, but gent I am, I let it pass. Over she bends, back to the target, hoicks up her shift and let’s fly.’

  ‘She a one, Black Cath,’ came the shout from one of the younger crew, a noise that brought Pearce from his logs to see what was going on.

  ‘Well,’ says the sail stitcher, ‘I don’t know what she’s got in them private regions of hers but I hope I don’t get caught in there for I’ll be a gelding if I am. She out pissed me by more yards than I care to count, a stream as straight as an arrow and still kicking up a foot of dust when it landed. Stronger in them parts than our barky’s fire engine, I reckon.’

  Pearce looked hard at the culprit and then at the screen. Emily was behind there and must have heard every word.

  ‘Bosun, take that man’s name, and I want him before me within the hour.’

  ‘Aye, aye, Captain,’ Birdy responded, without much enthusiasm. He was looking at the screen and so was everyone else, that was until Emily pulled it back and, head down, made for the cabin. Suddenly they were all busy.

  ‘I apologise for that, my dear.’

  ‘Why?’ she whispered as she slid by, ‘I have no right to be here, the men have.’

  The collective behaviour of his fellow humans had ever been a mystery to John Pearce; he had seen people praise and cheer every word his father uttered in a stump speech, only to throw clods of turf at him seconds after he had finished. Mobs were fickle things, but so was collective opinion and it was very obvious to a man sensitive to such things to notice that the atmosphere had changed and seemingly in a blink: the crew were discomfited and Emily thought she was the cause. He knew better, knew that his Pelicans and their relationship to him lay at the root of the problem.

  ‘It is my fault, John, and the fellow forgot I was there.’

  ‘No it is not and he should have remembered. Tilley’s damned lucky I am no lover of a flogging or he would have had half a dozen.’

  ‘Will you stop cursing!’

  ‘No, I will not!’

  ‘You should not have stopped his grog.’

  ‘You know nothing about discipline. A captain must act to curtail poor behaviour or who knows where it will lead?’

  ‘It will lead to you being as bad as my husband.’

  ‘That is unfair.’

  ‘I wish to apologise to the crew.’

  ‘And I forbid you to even think of such a thing.’

  If you could not have a quiet conversation on a ship, you certainly could not hide a full-blown row and with decent movement all of the crew might have heard a portion that pieced together would constitute a whole if they had not been prevented from doing so.

  ‘Sure, boyos, you’ll be coming away from the after part of the barky.’ That stopped a few in their tracks and the wiser heads were already moving to get below, for if Michael was the jolly Irish giant normally, he had a face like thunder now. ‘Seems to me that a man and his woman ought to be able to dispute in peace.’

  ‘Not a soul is like to interfere.’

  The ham-like fists came up, not all the way but enough. ‘Happen if I stop up a few ears no one will know what is afoot.’

  ‘Anyone not employed,’ Dorling called, ‘down below now.’

  Odd that the voices in the cabin became muted, as though they realised even through the bulkhead that it was not proper to so loudly argue. But it was not silent and it was obvious the matter was not settled, until Pearce came on deck and ordered all hands to be assembled.

  ‘I have several things to say to you, first about the men I fetched ashore in Portsmouth.’ That had heads turning to partake of collective agreement. ‘I sense you feel they are too familiar to my person, or is it the commission I hold? Many of you must have wondered at the connection and I assume they have not told you of it, so I shall.’

  And he did, from the Pelican Tavern to their volunteering to save his skin, finishing with this. ‘I owe these men a debt of gratitude I cannot pay, for they have stuck by me as I hope I have stuck by them. Now you know this coat I wear is a fluke, f
or if matters had gone another way I would still be a hand, probably a poor one too, unable to tie a decent knot. They see me as one of them not a blue coat who will flog at a whim, a threat, I must tell you, they have faced more than I.’

  He paused and slowly looked over the crew, seeking eye contact. ‘When I say I owe them, I owe you too, for the way you have served me since I came aboard, for which I am profoundly grateful. Having a lady aboard imposes certain restrictions which I would ask you to observe, but I cannot oblige you to do so, which has been pointed out to me by the person sharing my cabin. She wanted to apologise to you for any inconvenience, when in truth it is my request for forgiveness to make. I ask of that now, and, Tilley, your grog is herewith reinstated, but I tell you, keep your voice low if you wish to keep it.’

  ‘Three times three lads, for Mr Pearce.’

  That accolade he took before diving into his cabin, glaring at Emily and snarling, ‘Now I feel less a fool and ten times more a fraud.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Hodgeson was a bear of man, not tall but with heavy shoulders and arms that even covered one knew to be strong. He was also quiet, a listener rather than a talker, a fellow of few but acute enquiries, an observer, not the man to take centre stage, and he was doing that now to Ralph Barclay, who was having some difficulty in holding back what he wanted to keep to himself, namely that his separation was due to matters not for discussion and that even someone he engaged had no right to dig too deep.

  ‘Am I to understand, Captain, that your wife, should I find her, will not willingly return to you?’

  ‘She may require that some truths be explained, for instance that she will be denied bed and board if she refuses, but I do not see it coming to that.’

  ‘But you feel sure you are able to persuade her?’

  ‘I am, just as soon as I can get her alone.’