Fletcher's Glorious 1st of June

by John Drake

  Victor opened the blind of the lantern fully to examine the room they’d entered. It was a kitchen and the embers of the fire glowed faintly in the grate behind the night guard.

  “Where’s the cellar?” whispered Walton, and Victor pointed to the door leading from the kitchen to he knew not where. Walton led the way but as he reached for the door handle, Victor called softly.

  “Psst!” said he. “Arthur! Look!”

  “Uh?” said Walton and saw Victor examining something. He was kneeling, with the lantern beside him, fumbling at one of the stone flags that formed the floor.

  “I was wrong!” whispered Victor. “It’s here!” Walton joined him, and for the first time began to believe what Victor had told him about the gold in Taylor’s cellar. Walton knelt beside Victor and peered at the floor.

  “Get that one up!” said Victor, pointing. “We need a lever — I’ll get the poker.” He stood up and fetched the poker from the fire. It was three feet long, thick in the shaft and with a heavy, unworn bulge at the business end. Walton was still peering at the floor when Victor swung the ponderous iron rod with all his might. This was an improvisation. Victor had a razor-sharp knife in his pocket, but he thought that the poker would be better.

  THUMP! Regrettably, the blow did not quite land true. The light was bad and Victor over-excited. Instead of the skull-smashing stroke he’d intended, the weapon fell partly across Walton’s shoulder.

  But Walton slumped over, taking the lantern with him and plunging the room into black dark. Victor stood shaking with an exalted delight. His fingers were in his mouth and his breathing short and shallow. He blinked in the darkness and took out a large Spanish clasp-knife, which his trembling fingers opened with an oily snick. He took the knife in his right hand and, blind in the intense darkness, flapped his left hand about on the floor, searching for Arthur’s body. At first he couldn’t find it, but then all was well and his hand was sliding up Arthur’s arm, to the shoulder, to the coat collar, to the shirt, and then fumbling into the soft, warm throat with its pulsing veins.

  Victor’s teeth chattered with fascination and he brought the blade to the tips of his fingers to cut the life from Walton. The edge would shave hairs from the back of Victor’s hand; he’d sharpened it with extreme care. He pressed to make sure of the pulse and sliced with his knife. But he wasn’t quite master of himself and took the tip off his own middle finger, right through the nail.

  “Ahhh!” he gasped, and in his pain and anger struck at the unseen body again and again, with the point of his knife. Then he sat back on his haunches panting and sweating. Blood flowed steadily from his finger but he was in an uncanny state of mind and hardly noticed it. Striking down Walton had been a pleasure, but that was as nothing compared to what came next.

  Somewhere upstairs asleep, unknowing and at his mercy were the Taylors and their child, and a couple of housemaids. Victor understood that Mr and Mrs Taylor must die, for his mother had explained the need.

  The Taylors had seen Victor emerge from 39 Market Street on the night in July when he’d murdered Mr Andrew Potter (Solicitor’s Clerk), Mr Richard Lucey (Solicitor) and half blinded his son Edward before starting the biggest fire in Lon-borough’s history. Thus rational need condemned the Taylors. But much, much more than that was the enjoyment of the act itself.

  Victor found his way to the door, opened it and was pleased to find that moonlight, entering from the fanlight over the front door, lit the hallway outside. A thin light, but far better than the stygian gloom of the kitchen. Knife in hand, Victor glided forward and passed up the stairs in search of the family.

  On the first floor, three doors opened from the landing. Soft as a vampire, Victor opened the first door and looked inside. The room was unoccupied. A table, some chairs and boxes of books were all its furniture. But the next door gave on to what he was looking for and he entered the bedroom like the foul smell of some unclean thing. He ran his eyes over his victims and experienced all the sensations of sexual arousal as his deepest fantasies were made flesh. He stared and stared and stared and imagined the thing done one way after another.

  Man and wife slept peacefully in the big bed while the child occupied a cradle to one side. Taylor’s head was thrown back and he was snoring, with his neck ready for one swift stroke of Victor’s knife. The man would be first, Victor thought as the greatest threat should he wake. The wife had on a night-cap and was curled forward with her head half under the bedclothes and half buried in the frilled collar of her nightdress. She would need to be helped free of this impedimenta. The child was invisible under its mound of wrappings, and playthings were scattered on the tiny bed. But no matter. Victor could winkle it out and take pleasure in the deed at leisure, once the parents were despatched.

  “So,” he thought, “Mr Taylor …”

  But in that instant of supreme delight, even as Victor drew back his hand for the first cut, a noise faintly behind him caught his ear and Victor screamed aloud with fright.

  Blood-smeared and horrible, lips curled in bestial hatred, Arthur Walton stood swaying in the doorway. With his left hand he clutched the doorpost in a desperate grip to keep himself upright. Blood glistened in a growing pool at his feet, and ran a trail all the way back to the kitchen. But he held a pistol in his right hand.

  “Bastard!” said he and the pistol flashed and roared.

  And the room burst into life. The Taylor family awoke as one. The baby screamed instantly, Mrs Taylor screamed a heart-beat later. Mr Taylor roared in terror and grabbed his spectacles from the bedside table before even thinking of the second important object that he kept beside him at night.

  Meanwhile, Walton’s pistol-ball, aimed with a shaking hand, sped across the room, missed Victor by a yard, punched a neat hole in the floral wallpaper and buried itself in the lath-and-plaster work of the wall. Victor’s very hair stood on end at the shock and dismay of the moment, but the poisonous, spiteful core of his being took hold and he leapt at Walton with his knife raised. Had Walton been fit, such an assault would have been suicide for Victor, but Victor’s knife had punctured lungs and opened veins and a desperate struggle took place at the foot of the Taylors’ bed, even as those unfortunate people struggled to understand what was happening.

  But since last July, and the dreadful fire, Mr Taylor had taken certain precautions. Since that fell night when a good neighbour had been murdered and Mr Taylor had seen the murderer come away from his aweful crime, Mr Taylor had reasoned that what had happened across the street could happen here in his own house. Consequently, Mr Taylor had purcaased a large, four-bore, brass-barrelled blunderbuss by Waters & Co. of Birmingham, which instrument was kept primed and loaded at his bedside every night.

  The word “blunderbuss” falls quaint upon the ear, and the stumpy, bell-mouthed barrel looks odd beside a musket or a rifle. But the weapon is exceedingly formidable. Mr Taylor’s was a full inch wide inside the barrel. It was charged with three drachms of powder and a nice round dozen of pistol balls, every one of which measured half an inch in diameter and was perfectly capable of killing a man all by itself.

  This, then, was the firearm which Mr Taylor levelled and discharged at the two intruders who obligingly presented themselves as perfect targets for his aim.

  Boom! The bellow of the short-barrelled weapon awoke the street. The muzzle-flash turned night into day and singed the bedclothes. Glowing scraps of wadding smouldered all around and rolling smoke filled the room, while the recoil left a deep and livid bruise on Mr Taylor’s shoulder.

  But the consequences down-range were immeasurably more severe. Mr Arthur Walton received the bulk of the charge and expired on the spot with his upper torso torn to ragged flesh. In addition one ball had broken the great blood vessels of his neck and a couple more, travelling in company, had gone in through one of Mr Walton’s pretty blue eyes and out through the back of his head, taking with them large quantities of vital tissue.

  For his part, Mr Victor Coignwood was hit thre
e times. One ball removed the middle finger of his right hand, and a second sped glancingly across his chest, ploughing a blood-filled furrow. Both these missiles continued on their way to their terminus inside Mr Walton. But the third ball took refuge in the meat of Victor’s right forearm, having passed between the bones without incident. And so, Victor hopped from one foot to another blaspheming in the most foul manner and howling in pain and in fright.

  From this agonising condition, Victor was soon delivered. For Mr Taylor arose from his bed in the terrible anger that consumes any man who fights in the immediate defence of the immeasurably precious lives of his lady and his infant son. Swinging the empty firearm by its butt, Mr Taylor smashed Victor senseless with one enormous blow of its smoking barrel.

  12

  TO THE READER — A WARNING.

  The grossly improper substance of certain parts of this chapter are such that even the meretricious subordination properly due from an employee to his employer must take second place to the moral duty of one who aspires to Christian standards. The transcriber therefore warns that this chapter should not be attempted except by gentlemen of mature discernment and that ladies should omit it altogether. The transcriber further protests that only the most terrifying threats from the author compelled him to set it down at all. S.P.

  *

  Uncle Ezekiah took his own good time in getting round to his offer. First he told me all about the iniquitous state of European politics and pitched into the Frogs something powerful. He even had papers to prove it.

  “Here is the official French Gazette, sir, fresh arrived in Boston: the Moniteur of 4th February.” He shoved it at me and jabbed with his finger. “See here, sir, the National Convention of the French Republic has passed a law proclaiming that all French naval captains who surrender their ships, shall suffer death by the guillotine!”

  “Shocking!” says I, staring at the page of heathen Froggy gibberish as if I could read it. It could have been a recipe for octopus-bollock pie for all I knew (and probably was, knowing the French).

  “Indeed, sir!” says he. “Contrary to all the civilised usages of war. And what’s more …”

  He hammered his point till I was bored silly. I hated the Frogs before he started, as you well know, so he could have saved his breath. Then he went on to say that because of all this then, as he put it, “The long-term interests of the United States are pitched contrariwise against the French. D’ye see that, Mr Fletcher?”

  “Oh yes!” says I, all serious and solemn. They could pitch themselves against the Slave Coast Mandinkas for all I cared. “Good!” says he. “Now let’s turn to the matter of trade.”

  “Ah-ha!” thinks I, and sat up straight.

  “Cotton, sugar and tobacco,” says he, “are nine parts in ten of my trade, by value. Did you realise, Mr Fletcher, the importance of London and Bristol as markets in those commodities?”

  I didn’t. Not for Yankees, anyway, but he obviously thought so, so I nodded.

  “The long and short of it is, Mr Fletcher,” says he, leaning close and dropping his voice, “this war between us and the British … it can’t last, believe me …”

  “Oh?” says I. “What about the French fleet you’re filling with wheat down in Virginia? Wouldn’t you Yankees like to sell more next year?”

  “Bah!” said he. “Next year the French might bring in a good harvest and then where’d we be? No, sir! The grain sale is an opportunity of the moment and not to be compared with the links forged by trading in materials your country cannot produce for itself: cotton, sugar and tobacco!”

  “Mr Cooper,” says I, “I’m interested in what you say, but where is this leading?”

  “Mr Fletcher,” says he, “where this is leading, is to my nephew’s ship, Declaration of Independence that will sail, very soon now, from Edmund Hart’s yard. She will be the first man-o’-war to hoist our country’s flag since the Revolution. But she’s an expedient, sir! A foreign ship made over to our service while all Boston waits for the confirmation that a real American ship, Constitution, shall be built here in Boston — built, sir! From the keel up!” He looked at me with the dollars shining in his eyes, and continued, “Now, some of us Bostonians have been trying to persuade our government to purchase Hart’s yard and adopt it as an official yard of the United States Navy.”

  He licked his lips. “If they did that, sir, then enormous sums of money would flow into this city … And Hart and his backers would prosper greatly.”

  “I see,” says I. Obviously one of Hart’s backers was sitting right in front of me and just itching to get his hands into the U.S. Treasury’s moneybags.

  “But all this hinges on the success of Declaration’s first cruise,” says he. “Should she be lost, then our Congress might lose heart and balk at the huge expense of building new ships of war.”

  He looked at me again much agitated, and clearly exerting all his powers to try to convince me of something. He seemed nervous too, which was surprising.

  “Mr Fletcher … Jacob,” says he, “you’re a man of business, are you not? I’m not wrong, am I?”

  “You are not wrong, sir,” says I, keeping my voice flat, for I felt that soon we would come to the bargaining.

  “Jacob,” says he, “what would you say if I were to offer you full recompense for your losses in the capture of Bednal Green?”

  “Oh joy! Oh happy day!” thinks I, and I struggled not to show my feelings as if fighting to rein in a maddened horse. But my reaction was instinctive.

  “I’d say that’s not near good enough!” says I. “Where’s my compensation for my pain and injuries?”

  Ezekiah actually seemed relieved at this answer. Even pleased with it, and he leaned back in his chair and grinned at me.

  “Jacob, you’re the man I thought you were!” says he. “Would five hundred silver dollars ease your pain?” It was too easy. The alarm bells rang in my head. But I played on.

  “One thousand,” says I. “Not a penny less.”

  “One thousand,” says he, nodding. “One thousand plus full recompense for your losses … provided we reach full agreement.”

  “Have a care!” thinks I. “Here it comes …”

  “Meaning what, sir?” says I.

  “Jacob,” says he, “my nephew’s ship is fully equipped. She has a fine complement of navigating officers and a volunteer crew of hand-picked New Englanders. But she lacks one thing.” He looked at me hard, again. “Can you guess what that thing is, Jacob?”

  I shook my head. I was so busy being a man of business that everything else was swept from my mind.

  “She lacks an officer with real battle experience. A seasoned naval officer who knows guns and gunnery …”

  “What?” says I, leaping from my chair. “Not in a thousand years!” The disappointment was bitter. All the time I thought he’d been impressed with my business skill, he’d just wanted me ‘cos he thought I was a bloody Lieutenant in the bloody Royal Navy!

  It was a hurt to my pride more than anything else.

  “Good day to you, sir,” says I, and turned to leave.

  But Uncle Ezekiah was out of his chair like a shot, and round the desk and grabbing my arm and pulling me back. He’d read the signs all wrong and thought I’d taken his offer as an insult to my honour as a British sea officer. So he blathered on about honour and country and how the war couldn’t last and how it would all be love and kisses between King George and President Washington in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. You see, he thought he’d made a hash of things and, as folk will on such occasions, he was so anxious to make things right that his tongue ran away with him.

  I learned that he and his nephew really believed that I was some sort of gunnery wizard (they’d not only fooled Boston, they’d fooled themselves!). Well, I’d never denied it, had I? And young Cooper had seen me dismount his bow-chaser with a single shot. More surprising still was the fact that young Cooper stood in great respect of my opinions in all matters of ships and the se
a. That was why he’d dragged me round the shipyard and all over his precious ship — the little swab even had a notebook where he wrote down my comments (God help him). And he wanted me beside him on his quarterdeck when Declaration sailed, as some sort of guide and mentor.

  The final revelation, and one that brought a blush to my cheeks for the hard opinions I’d had of young Cooper, was the fact that his conscience was pricking him over taking my ship from me. It was he who’d had the idea of recompensing me for my losses.

  When I learned that, it sunk through my thick skull that Uncle Ezekiah’s offer did in fact contain everything that I wanted. It was just wrapped up a bit fancy. What it amounted to was this: the Cooper family would get me American citizenship papers, and I would serve aboard Declaration as Fourth Lieutenant with special responsibility for gunnery.

  So all I had to do was agree to this, survive a few months at sea, and I could come back to Boston and pick up the cash — and my life. I raised my hand to interrupt the unabated flow of Ezekiah’s eloquence.

  “If I were to say yes, Mr Cooper,” says I, and his eyes lit up, “it’d be for just one cruise, I take it?”

  “Yes! Yes!” says he. “It’s only the first cruise that matters. Once the ship’s proved herself, all will be well.”

  And so we shook hands on the matter and we fell to the practicalities. We agreed on a single payment of $5,000, which sum I insisted on receiving in advance. Ezekiah agreed but transferred the cash by a draft payable in three months’ time.

  “By then, Jacob,” says he, laughing, “you’ll be sunk or victorious and the matter will be settled.” He might have been laughing, but he meant what he said. He was giving me no chance to run off with his money. But I didn’t trust him either and I took his draft into a couple of the banks in Exchange Street, and got them to look it over. The way they grovelled at the sight of Ezekiah’s signature was very reassuring.

  So off I went, dreaming of the days to come. And I left General Doorman happy, for I’d tapped Ezekiah for twenty dollars, ready cash, and so the worthy minion got his piece of silver, after all.