Fletcher's Glorious 1st of June

by John Drake

  But now, Sir Patrick came into his own. To the intense disappointment of the public gallery, he succeeded one way or another of disqualifying or discrediting every witness that the prosecution advanced for this purpose. In this he was aided by Lord Lairing’s scrupulous refusal to admit any evidence that did not bear directly on the charges the accused had to answer.

  And so, the second day of the trial came to a close. All present went away buzzing with satisfaction and the newspapers again ran special editions for the benefit of the waiting multitudes that had failed to get into a court designed for a few hundred souls. None the less, on the third day, with the prospect of Lady Sarah herself being brought forward, the multitudes redoubled their efforts to get in. Fortunately, this had been anticipated and the 10th Hussars were out again, plus a battalion of foot-guards with bayonets fixed, to see fair play in the seething queues.

  Once again Lady Sarah stunned her audience with a fresh and wonderful ensemble of clothes, and it was noted that as she took her place, the jury involuntarily rose to their feet in respect and were sharply told to sit down again by the indignant senior usher with his long staff of office.

  With his Lordship mounted on the bench, and formalities concluded, Sir Anthony stood up and spoke brilliantly to conclude his case, and made some of the finest bricks without straw that the Old Bailey had ever known. Despite two days of interception or destruction of much of the Crown’s evidence, and despite constant interruptions from Lord Lairing, he returned to his theme of a weak son dominated by a depraved mother and did his agile uttermost to insinuate the slurs against the accused, that his uncalled witnesses of yesterday would have proven. Eventually, he saw the jury nodding in response to his words: a most excellent sign.

  After nearly two hours of nonstop oration, he sat down to murmurs of applause from all sides. He’d done very well and he knew it. Sir Patrick caught his eye and gave a tiny bow to acknowledge him. He could afford to be gracious because he was about to call Lady Sarah to give evidence.

  The silence of the tomb fell upon the court as the slim, beautiful figure made her elegant way down from the dock and went forward to stand before the bench. The very rustle of her gown, her soft footfalls, could be heard.

  The architect who designed the court room had intended to give advantage to the Judge and the Law’s mighty power in placing his Lordship up above the place where witnesses stood.

  Also, the imposing robes of a Judge and his minions were meant to add to his terrible dignity, and imbue lesser mortals with a proper respect for the proceedings.

  But these factors, so effective when the accused was a man, rebounded catastrophically when she was a lovely woman on trial for her life. The great bloated, red-caped Judge glowering down upon her; the surrounding lawyers in their sinister, swirling black; the mere fact that a lady of such imperial elegance was forced to stand while all around her “gentlemen” sat at their ease — all these things combined to give Lady Sarah the most enormous advantage in the eyes of the jury.

  Especially it did when she exploited it so well. She was playing Kate Booth to the life. The brave little chin tilted up in pride, the straight back, the slight trembling of the limbs as if in barely mastered fear.

  Her situation and bearing touched chords in the hearts of men that are deep and sonorous. There was not one man in that jury box that wouldn’t have given his shop (stock, fittings, goodwill and all) to the nearest beggar if he could have ridden forward on a white horse to sweep the lady off her feet and thunder away into the setting sun. And that was before she’d even spoken.

  Sir Patrick led her through her piece, prompting with minimal questions and carefully relegating himself to the supporting role. In five minutes she had annihilated Sir Anthony’s account of her domination of her son Victor. In ten minutes the jurymen were ashamed they’d ever entertained it. And so it went on to the climax.

  “Ma’am,” said Sir Patrick, “the court has heard of the complete responsibility of your son Victor for all the crimes of which you are accused. I must ask you now why for so long you tolerated his presence in your house? Why did you not turn him out? Why did you not make known his crimes?”

  “Because he held me in fear,” she said. “He many times said that he would kill me if ever I betrayed him.” She paused, lowered her head and a tear was seen to glisten on her cheek. “He was my son, my own child, but even from boyhood he was so strange ...” For the first time she faltered. With great tenderness Sir Patrick drew out the sorry tale of Victor’s life (much of it true). His sadistic cruelty to animals. His perverted habits, etc., etc. The court was agog with fascination. Here were some of the treats they’d been denied yesterday.

  Having blacked Victor beyond redemption, and explained Lady Sarah’s behaviour beyond question, Sir Anthony concluded with a stroke of genius.

  “You are a widow, are you not, ma’am?” said he.

  “I am, sir.”

  “And your elder son is dead, slain in his country’s service?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And your younger son, Victor, the perpetrator of all these crimes, is confined in the madhouse?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you parents still alive?”

  “Alas no, sir.”

  “Then whom have you left?”

  “No one, sir.”

  “No one, ma’am? Is there no relative to give you comfort?” Sir Patrick paused, glanced towards the jury, whose faces were working with emotion, judged his moment and added, “Is there no man to protect you?”

  “No,” she said, “I am quite … alone.” She sobbed softly and a massed groan rose from the court. Lord Lairing ordered proceedings to be suspended and a chair instantly found for the lady. His own fat-lidded eyes were red, and he who’d donned the black cap times beyond number was snivelling into his handkerchief.

  Later, when Sir Anthony made his attempt to cross-examine, he saw such ferocious, unforgiving, hatred crackling in the eyes of the jury that he knew he was lost and gave it up as a bad job.

  Lord Lairing’s summing-up drove more nails into the coffin where the Prosecution’s case already lay in state. When commanded to consider their verdict, the jury simply looked to their foreman and nodded firmly at him. He nodded back and rose for his moment of glory.

  “We shall not need to retire, my Lord,” said he. “We find the defendant not guilty, a true and a cruelly ill-used lady!”

  Cheers, wild demonstrations and confusion followed. Lairing cleared the court. All departed. The news sped through London like a stampede of wild horses. Lady Sarah’s carriage was pulled through the streets to Dulwich Square, by the twelve jurymen, with the 10th Hussars in close attendance like a sovereign’s escort. The mob lit bonfires and screamed in delight. The fashionable world sent their cards in congratulation and Lady Sarah rejoined their ranks not just in triumph, but in glory.

  But one man was left isolated from the celebration. Sam Slym had watched the trial and marvelled at his lady’s talents. He was pleased to see her free and satisfied with what she’d done so far to keep her promise to make a gentleman of him. In the false dawn of the months before the trial, he’d already enjoyed a way of life in Dulwich Square beyond his dreams.

  He’d enjoyed her too. The trouble was, so had others. He was sure of it, and he was madly jealous. He was sure that now she had all that she wanted, with the lawyers promising to elbow Fletcher aside from the Coignwood money, and in any case now that they could dangle Fletcher from a rope, so soon as they found him, now that she had all that — what did she need him for?

  In fact there was plenty of work yet for Sam Slym in Lady Sarah’s plans, and the next task was presented to him a couple of weeks later, on 5th June 1794, when a Special Gazette gave news of the arrival in Portsmouth of Audacious, 74.

  29

  On 13th June 1794 I saw the Channel Fleet anchored at Spit-head like Grenadiers on parade. The long lines of great ships swung to their cables in unison, and the dozens of
masts and hundreds of spars, now bare of canvas, gave the impression of a strange, rigid forest in which everything grew at right angles. A forest braced and stayed by thousands of straight black rigging lines, crossing, joining and converging in an uncountable profusion of sharp geometric patterns.

  Howe’s prizes were on display with British colours over French, anchored together for the world to see: as fine a collection of the shipbuilder’s craft as any man could wish to see. Some of them were brand new ships incorporating the latest ideas in French shipbuilding. Our own dockyard people were already swarming over them, taking careful note of the beauty, and efficacy of French design while criticising it with an unquenchable spite because they hadn’t thought of it first.

  The fleet anchorage in the Solent is a mile or two south of Portsmouth itself, and on that day the whole shoreline from eastward of Southsea Castle to westward of the Haslar Hospital was lined with people. We could see them and hear them. Music, cheering and all the celebration of Howe’s great victory over Villaret de Joyeuse. And of course, the town turned out in its boats to see the fleet. Every craft from wherries full of fresh bread, fruit and brandy, to tarts in smart-painted launches, to the Mayor and Corporation in a barge pulled by boatmen in craft-guild regalia.

  Lord Howe took this in his stride. He’d been a sailor for more than half a century and had learned not to whine at disaster nor let success go to his head. In any case, he already enjoyed every advantage of wealth and rank that his country could give, so what was left to him, other than satisfaction of a job well done?

  And then, late in the afternoon of the 13th, a boat bumped alongside Queen Charlotte with half-a-dozen passengers aboard who’d not come out to see the fleet, nor Lord Howe, at all. They’d come out for the particular purpose of meeting me: Mr Jacob Fletcher of Polmouth in Devon, entered into His Majesty’s Navy by the Impress Service on 10th February 1793, subsequently rated Boatswain in H.M. Frigate Phiandra, 32, and honourably discharged from that ship, while lying at Portsmouth, by Captain Sir Harry Bollington on 19th July 1793.

  You see? They had all my service down to a paragraph. Somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to put all that together and they’d done it so there was no chance of their ending up with the wrong man.

  I was down below when they came aboard, so I didn’t see them until I was summoned before Black Dick by a midshipman. The lad was polite, and touched his hat to me just as if I were an officer. So I suspected no ill, and followed him past the Marine sentries, and into Howe’s day cabin which was full of Clerks, Tradesmen, Mayors, Lieutenants and even Captains, all waiting their turn to pass into the inner sanctum of the Great Cabin, and the Admiral’s presence.

  The Mid whispered to another pair of sentries at the Admiral’s door and stood back as the door was opened for me. I went in and found Howe standing with his back to the stern windows, Sir Roger Curtis, his Fleet Captain, was on one side of him and his Chief Clerk was on the other. There was a pronounced atmosphere of hostility in the room and Howe and his two chief confidants were glaring across the cabin at three men and a woman who’d just come aboard the ship.

  One of the men was a big, middle-aged Sea-Service Lieutenant named Lloyd. He was grey, and muscular, running to fat but with hard eyes. He wore a cutlass on his hip and gripped it as if he was expecting imminent action. Standing with Lloyd, as if a companion, was an elderly gentleman who had lawyer written all over him, from his wig to his buckled shoes. This was a Mr Smithers, an Officer of the High Court of Admiralty. The third man was an odd creature. Probably the smartest and most immaculately turned-out man I’ve ever met in my life. His boots shone, his linen was dazzling and his coat fitted like a skin. He must have spent hours getting himself up like that.

  In a man, such attention to appearances usually means he’s in the fops’ regiment of the bum brigade, but this gentleman was about as far from that as ever could be. He caught my eye as I entered the cabin and stared straight at me with a total confidence and a damn-you-to-hell expression that would have got him my fist in his face had we two been alone. Believe me, children, there weren’t many men in 1794 who felt safe to look at your Uncle Jacob like that. This beauty was one Samuel Slime, a celebrated thief-taker.

  Now, I’ve run through the list of them and told you who they were. But I don’t want to give you the impression I gave any of these three much more than a quick glance, because something else had caught my entire attention. And that was the lady standing with Mr Slime.

  She was an absolute stunner. Not young but a gorgeous, lovely woman. About five-and-half feet tall with long, heavy black hair and a sensual voluptuous look about her. By George, she really was something out of the ordinary! Like her pal Slime, she was dressed up to the eyeballs and in addition her manner proclaimed wealth and position.

  The thought sprang to my mind that she seemed familiar and even as I was wrestling with this idea, I knew who she was! It hit me like a physical blow! This was Lady Sarah Coignwood, wife of my natural father, Sir Henry Coignwood. This was the woman who’d set her son Alexander to press-gang me into the Navy and try to kill me. It was the likeness to him, the vicious bastard, that had puzzled me. Well, I’d shoved a cutlass blade through his chest last July and thought that was the end of my troubles. But it wasn’t ‘cos here was the force that drove Alexander to his work.

  So I stared at her and she at me. I could see that she was as fascinated as I, and startled too. She raised a hand to her mouth and gasped. She clutched at Slime’s sleeve and backed away to place him between her and me. In fact, she wasn’t just startled, she was afraid. Slime placed a hand on hers protectively, and glared at me with renewed venom.

  Suddenly I began to feel very uneasy. Sarah Coignwood could only be my enemy, and a deadly enemy at that. She and her party had come seeking me and they couldn’t mean me any good. But she’d come openly, so this must be some attack that was within the law: making use of the law, if Mr Lawyer Smi-thers was anything to go by. It couldn’t be a simple matter of getting me out of the Coignwood will, for they’d not need to come aboard Queen Charlotte for that. I wondered what they could want, but the wondering was a lie to myself. I knew what was coming, and it drained the courage out of my boots.

  “Mr Fletcher,” said Lord Howe, after he’d made the introductions, “here’s Mr Smithers on behalf of the High Court of Admiralty, with papers duly made out and in all respects correct.” He glanced at his Clerk who had a sheaf of papers in his hand, and the Clerk nodded. “Papers obliging me to give you up in charge of Lieutenant Lloyd and his men, to be taken away, awaiting your trial on a charge of mutiny and murder.” I felt sick and my legs went weak. Howe continued, “Mr Fletcher, I have told these gentlemen what you have done for your country in enabling me to bring my fleet into action with that of the French. I have furthermore told them that in the action, you yourself fought like a lion and even now are incompletely recovered from wounds inflicted upon you by the enemy.”

  In other words Black Dick was on my side and was seeking any just cause or reason that would support his throwing Mr Smithers and Lieutenant Lloyd into the Solent.

  “Mr Fletcher,” said Howe with his great black brows knit together, “I have a question for you. A question which shall resolve this matter, at least to my satisfaction. I charge you to answer truly upon your honour as an Englishman and a gentleman!”

  “Aye-aye, my Lord,” says I.

  “Mr Fletcher,” says he, solemnly, “did you murder Bosun Dixon of His Majesty’s Brig Bullfrog?”

  There it was. My worst fear made real. Shortly after I was pressed aboard the tender Bullfrog in February last year, I’d bludgeoned Dixon and thrown him over the side because he was a mindless moron who’d flogged me nearly out of my mind. Dixon was all the better for a drowning, and the Navy was better without a swab like Dixon. But the Navy would never agree with that, and the fear of retribution had been on me ever since.

  And the fear was all the greater since I’d learned from my messmate, No
rris Polperro, that he’d seen me kill Dixon, and so had two others. Norris had persuaded them to keep quiet, but for how long?

  “Mr Fletcher,” says Howe, frowning deeper, “I await your answer, sir!”

  I didn’t know what to say, and so said nothing. There was a long and unpleasant silence, broken at last by Lady Sarah. Even in that moment I noticed how beautiful was her voice.

  “He is condemned, my Lord,” says she. “His manner proclaims his guilt!”

  Which, unfortunately, was the opinion of all those present. Smithers spoke up and gave a lot of legal detail. Lloyd contributed that he would prefer for practical reasons not to take me off for a couple of days and he’d be grateful if I might be held aboard ship until then. Howe agreed, but there was some bickering over the precise circumstances under which I was to be secured, until Black Dick settled this with an outburst of temper.

  “Lieutenant Lloyd,” says he, “I’ll not be lectured by one such as yourself! The prisoner shall be clapped in irons and he shall await your pleasure in this ship tomorrow morning. Is that good enough, sir? Or will you question my ability to keep my word?”

  Lloyd blanched at this and backed off from giving further offence to so great a man. Shortly after that, they all trouped out and I was left alone with Howe, Sir Roger Curtis and Howe’s Clerk.

  “Well, sir,” says Black Dick, “you disappoint me and that’s a fact. What do you mean by standing there like a stuffed dummy, saying neither yes nor no?”

  Once again I didn’t know what to say.

  “Good God, man,” says Howe, “did you kill the fellow or didn’t you?” But I was in a daze. It was just like my early days in the service when I was in daily fear of being hung for Dixon’s murder.