Winds of Change & Eye of the Storm

by Lee Rowan

  The next hour or so passed pleasantly enough, and the two lieutenants were able to excuse themselves gracefully when a pair of senior officers, old friends of the Captain, appeared in the common room. The newcomers cheerfully accepted an invitation to take their places around the table so Will and David could rest up for an early start the next day.

  The more private game that continued in their small room at the Anchor went on until well after midnight, but it did not prevent Lieutenants Marshall and Archer from going aboard HMS Valiant at 7:00 a.m. the following morning, shaved, laundered, neat in every way, and prepared to do their duty. They reported to the outgoing First Lieutenant, Mr. Gillette, who informed them that Captain Venner was in a bad way and could not receive them.

  As they passed the door to the Captain’s quarters, the ship’s surgeon stepped out, and Gillette introduced him as Dr. Curran. “Captain Smith will be here soon?” the doctor asked.

  “The Captain told us he would arrive at eight bells, sir,” Will said.

  “I hope he is prompt,” said the doctor. A medium-sized man with a round, serious face, he glanced back at the door and said, “I betray no medical confidence when I tell you gentlemen that Captain Venner must go ashore as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, sir, we understand he is quite ill,” Davy said. “But I have never known Captain Smith to be behind-time. It’s far more likely we’ll see him a few minutes early.”

  “I hope he is. This ship’s had more than her share of ill luck, and we’re all looking for a change with Sir Paul at the helm.”

  That was encouraging, at least. Will and Davy begged the doctor’s leave to go and make certain their belongings had been brought aboard. They’d timed their own early arrival so as to have a chance to inspect their new quarters, which proved less roomy than their accommodations aboard Calypso, despite the fact that Valiant was a much larger ship. They’d known what to expect, of course—the arrangements were very much the same in any line-of-battle ship, where the internal structure was continually taken down and reconstructed to clear the decks for the gun crews.

  The Calypso’s internal arrangement had provided them with walls—thin ones, to be sure, but actual wooden partitions with functional doors. Here, the officers’ quarters were made of heavy canvas, stretched like stalls around the outer margin of the officers’ wardroom, and the doors were little more than curtains with ties to hold them shut. Of course, His Majesty did not expect that his officers would have any desire or need for privacy, and what they lost in sleeping quarters, they gained in communal living space. Not only did the wardroom have a table and chairs sufficient to accommodate the four lieutenants, warrant officers, and even a couple of guests, but there was a pleasant amount of space to move around the room, and diffuse daylight filtering through the fabric of the cabin walls.

  Davy lifted the flap to his cabin and smiled wryly. “The luxury of a seventy-four! Trim, elegant, well-lighted—when the gunport’s open—and my very own thirty-two-pounder beneath my bed. What more could anyone ask?” He ducked inside and the door fell shut behind him. “Looks as though they’ve brought our dunnage aboard. Is your chest there as well?”

  Will looked into his own cabin, a four-by-six cubicle identical to David’s. He had a bit more room, as his partition was between David’s cannon, its shadow silhouetted against the wall, and the next cannon that had a space to itself at the far end of the wardroom. His cot hung just the other side of the wall from Davy’s. Officers of the Valiant might have slightly more elegant accommodations, but as far as Will was concerned, the cot was only a wooden box, even if it was considered a step up from the hammock he’d had in Calypso. The thing looked uncomfortable; no doubt he would become accustomed to it, but if not he could always buy a new hammock from the purser and go back to the old cocoon. His sea chest was tucked neatly under his cot, a convenient step up.

  “Yes, it is. Whoever we’ve been assigned as officers’ servant is on his toes.”

  “As we must be,” Davy said, his voice perfectly clear through the canvas.

  Glancing at the wall between their compartments, Will saw that Davy had placed his hand flat against the fabric. Will matched it with his own. The warmth of that touch was reassuring. The wall of duty was up between them once more, like this literal obstruction—but they were still together.

  “Of course.”

  “Beginning at once. I expect the Captain will be arriving any moment, so we’d best get above.”

  The rest of the day went by in a whirl of new information, new impressions, new faces. It began with Captain Smith’s arrival and Captain Venner’s departure—the poor old gentleman was suffering from malarial chills and had to be lifted out in a bosun’s chair. Smith’s reading-in was followed by a mustering of divisions in which Will and David got their first organized look at the six hundred and fifty souls who would be their shipmates for the foreseeable future.

  Finding one traitor in this seafaring haystack was going to be a challenge. Besides Simon West, the Ship’s Master transferring with them from Calypso, the officers and warrant officers were Dr. Ian Curran, whom they’d met briefly; Thomas Dowling, the purser; and James Adams, the Captain of Marines. There was a gaggle of midshipmen in addition to the three Captain Smith had brought along—thirteen of the little devils, ranging in age from ten to eighteen years. Will had a general impression that the older lads seemed sensible enough, but getting acquainted with that lot was a task to be put aside for the moment.

  The other two lieutenants who rounded out the Valiant’s complement, Humberstone and Carter, were not quite what Will had expected. Nigel Humberstone was older than the former Calypso’s, in his thirties at least, but his date of commission put him at the lowest rank of Fourth Lieutenant, with Will and David as First and Second, respectively. Their new Third, Ezekiel Carter, was about the same age and jokingly explained that away by saying he’d had the bad fortune to take his first two examinations under captains who asked all the wrong questions. That sort of thing did happen, but Will had to wonder whether these unlucky officers had been assigned deliberately, to give him and Davy a clear chain of command directly to Captain Smith. If so, he was grateful. Playing spy on their own ship would be complicated enough without having to explain to a senior officer just what they were up to.

  THE VALIANT lost no time in reaching the end of the British Isles, where the merchant ships from Plymouth met up with her out near Lizard Point. They also picked up Commander Edwards and his neat little eighteen-gun sloop-of-war, the Terrier, giving Sir Paul an outlier with the speed and maneuverability impossible in a line-of-battle ship.

  After meeting with Edwards and the civilian captains, Sir Paul went up into the mizzen fighting top with Lieutenant Humberstone. After a short time, Humberstone came clambering down the ratlines alone, red in the face and puffing.

  “Mr. Marshall,” he called breathlessly, “Captain’s compliments, and he would like you and Mr. Archer to join him above to observe the disposition of the merchant fleet.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Will looked at Davy, who shrugged and followed him up.

  “I suppose his last commanding officer kept his feet firmly on the quarterdeck,” Davy suggested wryly. “It certainly appears that Mr. Humberstone did.”

  “He’s in for a change, then.” There were plenty of captains who did leave the acrobatics behind them when they reached post status, and others who had simply grown old in the service and could not safely ascend the heights. But for many seamen—Will included—the excitement of going aloft was one of the great joys of naval life. It was a different world up here—a dangerous one, in bad weather, but on a fine, slightly overcast day like today, the world lay before you on a glittering blue blanket. Captain Smith was another of those daredevils; like Pellew and Aubrey, he went up even in the worst weather. With such an example, none of his men ever hesitated to follow.

  Will and Davy swung up into the fighting top where Smith stood surveying the dozen or so ships trailing
out to leeward.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” the Captain said. “You see our convoy?” When they acknowledged the sight, he continued. “Good. Now, the reason I invited you to converse up here was for the sake of privacy. You need to be aware of a new factor in our investigation.” He glared out at the inoffensive merchant ships and lowered his voice even more. “We have an intelligence officer aboard, gentlemen. Sent to assist us in our investigations. I will relay any information you give me to him and convey any directions.” He did not look at all pleased.

  “Can you tell us who this agent is, Captain?” David asked.

  “He prefers to remain incognito,” Smith said darkly. He did not need to explain that he was extremely displeased about an interloper being allowed to give him “directions” about how to conduct his investigation on his ship.

  Will wondered what fool in the intelligence service had neglected to inform the Captain about this beforehand. Or maybe the omission had been deliberate. A captain had the right to decline an assignment, and while that could end an officer’s career, Will knew his own captain well enough that he thought Smith might take that risk if he thought he’d be subordinate to someone beneath his own rank, especially on his own command.

  Will aimed for the Captain’s own level of indirect language. “Sir, if you would, please suggest to this officer that if he would reveal himself to us, we could eliminate at least one individual from suspicion.”

  “I shall do that, Mr. Marshall. In the meantime, have either of you observed anything that might be of use?”

  David nodded. “It might be nothing, sir, or it might be most pertinent to what Mr. Marshall just said. Our intelligence gentleman may be interested to know that our new shipmate, Mr. Humberstone, has given us cause for concern. He seems to spend a great deal of time encouraging gossip among the warrant officers, and we have been wondering about his discretion. Unless, of course….” His face was all innocence, apart from one raised eyebrow.

  The Captain chuckled. “Gentlemen, please be aware that at his own insistence, I have not named this invisible agent. However, I can tell you that of all the men aboard, Mr. Humberstone is one that you least need concern yourselves with.”

  David tapped his nose significantly. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  “Anything else, gentlemen?”

  Will shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir, but nothing more at this time. We have instituted the inspections you ordered, and so far our saboteur—if he is still on this ship—has done nothing we’ve discovered.”

  “It would be a shame if one of the former officers were responsible,” Smith said. “But I would be perfectly happy to complete this cruise without incident. And I was also given information—a rumor, nothing more, no doubt the fruit of ungentlemanly gossip—that one of the officers who was transferred had formed an improper attachment to a fellow shipmate, a situation that might put him in a position to be blackmailed. Whether or not he did the dirty work himself, many of the incidents of sabotage took place in areas for which that officer was responsible.”

  “So a complete change of command would leave the saboteur at a greater risk of exposure if he made any attempt on his own,” David said.

  “Yes. And Mr.—our agent—has taken it upon himself to suggest that I instruct the pair of you to behave in a similarly inappropriate manner.”

  Will blinked. One could not say to one’s highly esteemed commanding officer, “Are you out of your bloody mind?” Since that expression was denied him, he could only stand there agape.

  David’s quicker wit rallied first. “Captain, do you know whether this gentleman is aware of what transpired during our—our adventure last summer?”

  “I have no idea,” Smith said shortly. “All I know is that I do not expect the gentleman to remain on my ship once we have reached the West Indies.”

  “That’s—” Will was still nearly speechless. “Captain, that is an—an impossible order! Expecting us to behave in a way that risks disgrace and death is beyond the call of duty, particularly after what Mr. Archer had to deal with.” He glanced at Davy, hoping he’d not hurt him with the allusion, but David actually looked amused. “What if we did prance about like a pair of mollies and draw out the saboteur? If we had already compromised our own reputations, what weight would our accusations carry? Indeed, he might even turn on us and bring charges of his own!”

  “To do that would be an effective distraction,” David said. “And the saboteur is no fool, to have escaped detection for so long.”

  “I concur,” Smith said. “I told our clever gent I would not order my officers to do any such thing. However, if his surmise is correct, he might also be correct about the chance of your being contacted with a view to blackmail, and since you have nothing to fear by exposure, you could confront and identify him. For the good of the Service, we must identify and arrest this man.”

  “Yes, sir,” they said in unison.

  “I admit the strategy might work, sir,” Will said. “Nonetheless—God forbid, but what if you and Mr.—Mister Clever Gent were to be incapacitated or even killed? This is a far different thing from risking death in battle. If this crew will gossip about one set of officers, they will gossip about another, and I am most reluctant to risk my reputation, and Mr. Archer’s, on nothing more than a stranger’s wild surmise.” Was it his guilty conscience making him protest too much? Perhaps. But this ill-conceived charade cut too close to the bone, and the risk was very real.

  “I agree with everything you say, Mr. Marshall. But I also agree that our agent’s idea is valid. Therefore, if you are willing to alter your behavior slightly, only enough so that an evil mind might draw its own conclusions, I will give you written orders above my own signature, confirming that you were instructed to behave in a manner which suggests you might be violating Article 29, as well as the reason the order was given.”

  The Captain scowled at a mass of clouds that had appeared on the horizon, and Will became aware that the wind’s force had grown stronger, and colder, too. “What exactly do you wish us to do, sir?”

  “I certainly do not expect either of you to do anything blatant, anything that could possibly be taken amiss if you did it on the quarterdeck in broad daylight. If you were to lose the respect of the crew, that damage would be as serious as anything the mole might do. You are known to be particular friends, so our old Calypsos will see nothing uncommon in your friendship, and they should have an influence with the foremast hands. Be subtle. Find excuses to spend time alone together, invent errands to the carpenter’s walk, what have you….” He shrugged uncomfortably. “I trust you realize I find this entire notion highly offensive, and I will not order you to do it.”

  “Thank you, sir,” David said. “Since this is not an order, I am willing to volunteer. Mr. Marshall?”

  Reluctantly, Will nodded. “I see no good coming of it, but I have no better suggestions.”

  “As an added insurance,” David said, “we might ask that these orders be given us in writing, above the signature of the Naval Intelligence agent, since he is the source of the notion.”

  Captain Smith laughed. “Even better. I’ll get that order for you, gentlemen, or I’ll put an end to the idea.”

  “And I wonder, sir—what of the officer who was transferred? Is it possible that his hypothetical paramour is still on board? If so, that other man would still be vulnerable to blackmail, would he not?”

  Smith frowned. “At this point, there is only the vaguest rumor that this might have been the case at all. However, considering the number of incidents that occurred with no indication of their source, I had wondered whether there might not be more than one enemy agent aboard. In a crew of more than six hundred, a confederate would be essential to the saboteur remaining undetected.”

  “There is one other thing, sir,” Will said. “If our agent objects to signing the order himself on the grounds it will reveal his identity….”

  The Captain smiled—the sort of smile he wore whe
n he had the weather-gauge on a Frenchman. “You need not worry on that account, gentlemen. I shall tell the officer that he had already aroused your suspicion by his inquisitive behavior, and that his refusal to inform you of his identity is more likely to harm than help our investigations. I’ll see you on deck.”

  He stood and caught hold of the ratlines. “We’ll see how the crew works in a storm. That squall will be on us in half an hour.” He disappeared down the shrouds, and Will could hear him shouting out orders to the topmen.

  THEY HAD to wait for another day to begin their subterfuge. The storm that had hurried Captain Smith down to the deck blew in quickly, but the Valiant’s topmen were quicker still. By the time the wind was seeking rain-sodden sails to tear, the mains were reefed, with just enough canvas spread to keep the ship moving forward and provide control. All hands were summoned and everyone got soaked, but there was no damage to the ship and nothing but minor injuries among the crew. A couple of the merchant ships in their convoy were not so fortunate, and the Valiant wound up sending both surgeon and carpenter to the other vessels.

  Will was relieved to see that whatever else might be going on aboard this ship, her crew worked well together in a blow. They had given a creditable performance in the dumb-show firing practice, too. It only remained to see how things went when the Captain tried a run of live guns, which he was bound to do before much longer. Sir Paul Andrew Smith had a longstanding principle that he never took a ship into battle if he had not tested the crew with live ammunition—which was one of the reasons he had been so successful. He always knew what to expect from the ship he sailed on, its weapons, and the men he commanded.

  This trouble-ship, with her unknown enemy lurking amongst the crew, would be more than a problem for the Captain to solve. Will knew that Captain Smith would take it personally, and he would not rest until he found that traitor.