A Busy Season (The Duty and Destiny Series, Book 8)

by Andrew Wareham

  “Two months, Sir Frederick! Try not to take more than that, though it may not be possible. Do not interfere with legitimate traders, unpleasant though they are. You may be seen to record the identities of ships, masters and other officers, in the hope that the Trade will become unlawful within a few years. Water to full today, if possible, and sail as soon as may be, sir.”

  Frederick acknowledged the order, took the written instructions prepared for him.

  “Before you go, Sir Frederick, the rest of the news from London. Your Mr Gentry has been given the eighteen gun sloop you sent home – he has, it would seem, strong influence in the background; the Parkers, I believe. Mr Dench, unsurprisingly, kept his command as well. Both are to return to the Rock as soon as their refits are completed, which is useful.”

  “And the frigate, sir?”

  “She will be given twenty-four pound long guns and probably four carronades and will be attached to the Mediterranean Fleet; such is the plan, though I suspect they will discover her to be needed in the Baltic first. There is a deal of unpleasantness building in the north, or so I am informed.”

  “Too damned cold for me, sir. I much prefer tropical waters.”

  “Who does not, Sir Frederick?”

  Blenkinsop was acting First; provided the dates on the commissions permitted then Frederick would be happy for him to hold the post – as a side benefit it might turn his mind into less carnal paths.

  The new lieutenant was waiting his convenience as he arrived on board, still dressed in his reporting uniform. He had already compared dates with Blenkinsop and Doolan.

  “Wales, sir. Third Lieutenant.”

  Poor fellow! He would have been nicknamed ‘Minnow’ for the whole of his career, unless he had been ‘Sprat’.

  He had the accent of a gentleman, yet was at least thirty years of age and had had a commission as lieutenant for less than a year; he was newer than Doolan. That called his seamanship into doubt; alternatively his personal discipline had been unusually poor, for he had been as much as ten years a master’s mate after completing his six years in the midshipman’s berth.

  “What is your history, Mr Wales? I was not told your last ship, sir.”

  “I was last at sea in ’97, sir. I had just passed my board, sir, when the Mutiny occurred. I was ordered off my ship, Persephone, 32, by the Reds, sir. I was employed afterwards in the Dockyard at Chatham and then in a semaphore tower, sir. I was made for spotting a Dunkirk privateer taking a merchantman and passing the word quickly enough for a sloop to reach the scene. That was three months ago, sir, and I am sent to Euripides as a reward.”

  More than seven years ashore, and probably a poor, harsh disciplinarian to boot. The Mutineers had generally behaved well to the junior officers, or so Frederick had heard.

  “We keep a good order on board Euripides, you will find, Mr Wales. We do it without excess use of the cat. Starting of the men is forbidden and casual abuse is much discouraged. No ropes’ ends on Euripides, sir!”

  Wales seemed about to comment, subsided with a strangled agreement.

  “Mr Blenkinsop will discuss your mast with you, Mr Wales. We have a two month excursion along the African Coast which will give you the opportunity to pick up your duties, remove any rust, as it were. I am sure you will fit into our ways and enjoy a very successful commission, sir.”

  The threat in the last sentence was sufficiently unsubtle, Frederick felt; it might well sink home. The probability was that Wales had spent the years since the Mutiny in fuelling his anger; a solitary hut in a semaphore station, his only company a pair of necessarily literate signalmen who would have kept to themselves, preserving the distance between his warrant and their lowly status, must have led to unhealthy isolation and contemplation of his destroyed career. The sight of seamen reading books and newspapers and bettering themselves while he sank deeper into obscurity must probably have increased his bitterness, unless, just possibly, he had followed their example. The semaphore huts, each containing a lieutenant or master’s mate in command, were renowned as strange places harbouring some very peculiar people. It was rare for a lieutenant to emerge from the semaphores, and most who did were quite rapidly chased back again. Wales might be an asset to the ship, blossoming after his years in the wilderness, but the odds were that he would be a bloody nuisance.

  Not to worry! The problem of Wales – if there was such – could be dealt with as and when it arose. What of this midshipman? Known to the family, it seemed.

  “Bosomtwi! This new youngster, what is he?”

  “He belongs to the missis’ family, sir. A cousin, or some such – not like our sort back home, sir, but a son of a mother’s father’s brother’s son. Close family, sir!”

  “A second cousin to Lady Harris? That is a close relation, Bosomtwi?”

  “Back home, sir, he would have lived inside the same village, sir. He would have eaten with me every day, like to a brother. Younger brother, but family, sir. Cousins would be much more far away in the clan. You got different families in England, sir.”

  “So we have. It is a pity, in some ways. Do you miss your home and your clan, Bosomtwi?”

  “They ain’t no clan no more, sir. When Daddy got chopped and I got sold, most of the men, the older ones, got killed as well. The young ones and the boys got sold, like me, but they didn’t run, so they most like in the Brazils, sir. As for the women and the girls – well, you know what’s goin’ to happen to they, sir! I made a new home, sir. Different, but it a damn’ sight better than a slave hut, isn’t it, sir!”

  “So it is. You have done well to make a life for yourself, Bosomtwi!”

  “Lucky, sir. I shall bring in the boy, sir?”

  “Please.”

  “Midshipman Kearton, sir. Ah… reporting for duty, sir?”

  “Yes, those are the correct words. Well done! You must be from one of the families near Leeds, I think.”

  “Yes, sir. My father spoke to Lady Partington, who was his sister, sir. My lord and lady came north on a visit, sir, two years ago, and he told her, my father that is, that I wished to go to sea, rather than work with the family’s coal mines, sir.”

  Frederick remembered that the Keartons had been yeomen farmers who had opened coal seams discovered on their fields. They had been of increasing prosperity, he recalled. The boy had evidently been given some degree of education; he spoke in a King's English accent, not the barbarous dialect of the far North.

  “I was sent to school, sir, to learn mathematics and navigation, and a little of seamanship from Norrie, the Headmaster being a naval man who prepares boys for the sea, sir. In Kingston-Upon-Hull, sir. As well, sir, he teaches one the way to speak in the Royal Navy, sir.”

  Frederick was vaguely aware of the existence of such schools; they were of new invention, and hence to be treated with suspicion, but they might be of some use if this bright youngster was a fair representative of them.

  “I see. Lord Partington then addressed Lady Harris, I presume, and she made the arrangements for you to join. No doubt a letter will catch up with me one day, telling me all about you. For the while, Mr Kearton, you are welcome. Mind your book and obey your superiors and you will do well on Euripides, sir. Do remember that seniority is based on the date of your warrant, not on your age, sir – so you are sixth in the gunroom.”

  At a guess Kearton was a well-grown twelve year old, was possibly older than both of the Cripps boys, but he must accept his place.

  “Remember as well, Mr Kearton, that you will not be seen as privileged in any way for being a member of my family.”

  In fact he would be looked after a little more than the other boys – it was inevitable that the men would tread cautiously around him, and he would be given advice and assistance that they might not bother to offer the other mids. With luck, it would not spoil him.

  “A course for the Slave Coast, Mr Calver, one that would be favoured by Spaniards out of Cadiz or French having the run the blockade out of the Bordeaux stre
am. Preferably, to keep clear of the coast of the Moroccan Empire, so that it does not appear that we might be seeking out Barbary pirates who might be found there.”

  “South-west, sir, almost to the Island, to Madeira, sir; then it will be to make our tacks to the south and east, our exact course to depend upon the nature of the winds at this time of year, sir, and they can never be wholly predicted. Are we to seek out slave traders, sir?”

  “Should we come across a Frenchman or a Spaniard, then we will do our possible to take them, in the normal way of things. Americans, Portuguese and British we are to ignore; the Danes will be a problem, of course, because one never knows exactly where Denmark stands in terms of neutrality.”

  “From the little I know of them, sir, the Danes have only the one ship running to their colonies, and she does not necessarily trade every year. They may safely be ignored, sir.”

  “Excellent – I hate damned neutrals – bankruptcy stares one in the face every time one stops a neutral!”

  A captain who prized a neutral, normally because he believed she was running contraband into a French or Spanish port, took a massive financial risk. If he was under the orders of an admiral then the captain would receive two eighths of the prize-money; if, eventually, the Admiralty Court found in favour of the owners of the neutral, then the captain was responsible for the whole of the damages. A captain could pocket two thousands in one year and, allowing for the dilatory nature of the courts, find himself cast in damages to the tune of eight thousands five or more years later, plus legal costs and consequential losses which might double the sum. In theory, according to the lawyers, the captain might then sue the possessors of the other six eighths for the return of their shares, but that was effectively impossible. A single small neutral might in reality destroy a captain’s prosperity.

  Many captains made a habit of ignoring any and all ships that might conceivably be neutral; some, through greed or an advanced notion of duty, took the risk of stopping them.

  “Any ship that shows a Danish flag is to be treated with an extremity of care, Mr Calver. I shall give Mr Blenkinsop similar instructions.”

  “Mr Blenkinsop, we have an opportunity in our present voyage. We shall be at least three weeks on passage – which will be perhaps our longest uninterrupted cruise yet. That will give the chance for sail drill, for training up our young men, for improving our gunnery. The midshipmen particularly are green, sir, too many of them very new in their uniforms – let them be shown their duty.”

  “It should not be too difficult, sir. With the exception of Mr Masson, and we all know of his problems, they are showing quite well, not merely willing but able too. Mr Watson will make a good officer, that is already certain, and Mr Cowen will very likely come good. The master tells me both Cripps boys are mathematically bright beyond the normal – they are, he tells me, ‘devouring their logarithms’.”

  It was a diet new to Frederick, but he would not argue that it was undesirable.

  It was a paradoxically restful voyage for Frederick. The ship was busy about him, a series of exercises occupying every daylight hour as the men worked together to become faster and more skilful in their duty and as the newcomers fell into their places. Morning and evening they drilled on the guns, the later exercises going on into the twilight hours and finally into black night, each main deck gun sparsely lit by a single lantern, the upper deck relying on moon and stars and memory. The sick berth filled with minor injuries, fingers and toes especially, nipped and crushed in the darkness, but they were lucky in avoiding the worst possibilities; not one leg lost.

  Frederick gave the orders, decreed what the activity of the hour must be, but himself stood back and watched. He had reliable officers, even Mr Wales trying his out of practice best, and did not himself step in to supersede them. There were captains who would lead by an example of effort, pulling and straining at the guns with the men, but he was not of that sort and he was not convinced that it was the proper way of doing things. They would see him when the powder was smoking, in the front and making a great show of himself, but he could not believe that he must try and be better than the men in all that they did. A few could do that and be respected, but he suspected that he might be laughed at if he tried.

  Twenty days south of Gibraltar and he called Blenkinsop and Calver to the cabin, bade them be seated, ordered a pot of coffee to make clear that he was consulting with his two most valued senior men.

  “Our orders, gentlemen, are to ascertain the nature of the Spanish and French presence on the Slave Coast. What Their Lordships actually mean by this is in no way clear to me. We are instructed to make no landings but to hold offshore and observe. Such being the case it would help if we knew what we were looking for.”

  “I have never sailed these waters, sir.” Blenkinsop shrugged, he did not know what to suggest.

  “No more have I, sir," Calver said, "but, if I might make so bold, sir, then we have those aboard who has.”

  “Who? Oh… Now I think of it, our new men who came aboard at Gib. Mr Watson; Barber and Fitzpatrick; Ryder of the mizzenmast. We had suspicions of their previous activities, did we not?”

  “More like a damned certainty, sir!”

  “Then let us beg their assistance, gentlemen. Is it better to bring them in here or to talk to them less formally, do you think?”

  “Bring them in, sir. They are senior men and must be shown trust.”

  “Well said, Mr Blenkinsop. We must work together.”

  The four appeared and stood uncomfortably, nervous of why they had been brought before the captain. Brief explanation allayed their fears.

  “You have knowledge, gentlemen, that I do not. How you came across that knowledge is your affair; your past is none of my business. What can you tell me of the current state of the Slave Coast? Are the French and Spanish present in any great number? If so, where may they be found?”

  Watson shook his head – his ship had not recently ventured south to the actual Coast, had been working more along the Moroccan shores, he said.

  The other three had all been along the Coast in the previous year, though they did not make the admission in so many words, merely let the source of their knowledge be implied.

  “Spanish, sir,” Barber said. “They are few and far between on the Coast these days. They are much more to be found further south, towards the lands of the Congo, it being a quicker run from there to South America and their colonies. But they are less in the Trade than the Portuguese, far much so.”

  Fitzpatrick and Ryder agreed that to be so, the Spanish were far less active than they had been. Why they did not know, not for certain. The word in the Trade was that the Spanish were short of ships and money these days – they just did not have the merchant venturers to run the business.

  “And the French?”

  “They don’t need so many of slaves as they used to, sir, being short of colonies in the Sugar Islands. They got three forts that I know of, and maybe a dozen ships running, but they are mostly serving the Americans, sir. I reckon I’ve seen more of Americans than of actual Frogs in their places, sir.”

  There was agreement that the Americans were far more active than either Spanish or French, though less so than the Portuguese.

  “The Goosers, sir, are running into the Brazils, and I should reckon more than they ever have in past days, sir. Not just off the Slave Coast, but way down south as well, out of the Congo and Angola too.”

  “The Portuguese are our allies, of course – we have no interest in their activities.”

  Bosomtwi, busy in the back of the cabin, snorted; he had no love for the slavers he had escaped from.

  “So… We have a problem inasmuch that even if we discovered a ship setting sail from a French fort it would like as not be a Yankee, a neutral with a busy and noisy embassy in London.”

  “Beg pardon, sir, but even if she was a Frog she would have an American standing by the wheel and showing his papers to the boarding officer.”

&
nbsp; “An important point, Ryder. They cannot be touched. Are there ever French ships of war down upon the Coast?”

  The four agreed that there might be on occasion, but not often. They had heard of ships on passage to the Mauritius in the Indian Ocean calling on the Coast, but rarely.

  “Thing is, sir, was they to stop over in a French fort then they might take the fever aboard and that would be no good thing making the passage of the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. Yellow Jack killing half of the men aboard and leaving most of the rest so weak and buggered that they could not work the ship would not be to the wish of most captains, sir. The word I had was that if they ever had orders to call on the Coast they would find adverse winds and sudden storms that drove them past, forced them away from the shores.”

  “I might well do the same, Barber. I will say that we shall not be leaving our calling cards at any of the factories along the Coast. I saw the typhoid recently enough that I have no desire to bring it aboard Euripides. The most we shall do is to stop any ships we see on the Coast and at least look at their papers.”

  That particular plan was impossible of execution they found. The slavers on the Coast were all speedy ships designed to make the Middle Passage in the quickest possible time. Euripides was fast for a two-decker but the runners were fleeter still and had no wish to hold converse with her. They saw the topsails of a dozen probable slavers, and watched those sails disappear over the horizon, the distance between them never showing the least sign of lessening.

  “They are faster than us in anything except a full gale, sir. Was we anxious enough to be catching them then a heavy two-decker could carry more sail than they might wish to risk in very strong winds.”

  Calver did not seem to relish the prospect of hunting slavers in a hurricane; Frederick could hardly blame him.

  “No, not my idea of how to spend a mid-summer day, Mr Calver. The problem is, of course, what we would do when we caught up with the slaver – we could not launch a boat to board her in the seas whipped up by such a storm. We could stand by, half a cable off and wait for the waves to abate – and then she would vanish in the night. A waste of time, sir.”