Hanging Matter

by David Donachie

  “Of course not,” said Bertles, with a sudden smile.

  James was on his feet in a flash, though bent double to avoid the low overhead beams. “I am in no way the sailor that my brother is, Captain. But if I promise to stay out of harm’s way, I too would welcome the air.”

  The pause was too long by a second, as if Bertles was seeking another motive for the request. But he nodded eventually, bowing slightly as he replied, “By all means.”

  Mr Wentworth looked at the soldier, as if hoping he too would go on deck. But Franks was not about to leave a young bachelor alone with his wife, even if the sweat was visibly running down his face. He wanted to keep an eye on this overly solicitous young fellow. The look the major gave Wentworth, and what it portended, was so obvious as to kill all other conversation. In the awkward silence that followed, Bertles’s request that they list their names was forgotten.

  The chill air made Harry shiver as he came on deck. It was a clear night, with the moon near full in a sky ablaze of stars. Torches flared across the whole anchorage as boats plied to and fro carrying the last of the wounded. Blazing buildings were dotted around the town, with an obvious arc of fire inland where the colonel was destroying houses to provide a clear field of fire. What would the locals say, having sacrificed their homes, when they saw the troops marching for the jetty, and the safety of their transports?

  The wind was still in the east, slightly north, faint but steady. The hands had been called and were already bringing the Planet over her bower. As they plucked it from the mud, the bows started to swing on the ebb tide, slowly coming round till they pointed towards the open sea. The bower was catted, the dripping cable stowed. Then they bent the stern anchor to the capstan and the ship was pulled back till that was free. Men ran to set the sails at Bertles’s command, rushing up the shrouds and along the ratlines to let loose the reefed topsails.

  James was watching his brother during these manoeuvres. It was easy to observe the pleasure it gave him to be back at sea. His head was back, his nostrils seeming to twitch at every odour.

  “They seem an efficient crew, brother,” he said.

  “They are. Bertles would be wise to take care, lest the navy press the lot of them.”

  Bertles conned the ship out of the bay himself, neatly avoiding the bloated traffic. The swell increased as they left the shelter of the land, and with the sea running south there was little leeway to impede their progress. They stood, both quiet, each alone with his own thoughts, as more sails were set. The Planet heeled slightly and her bows now dipped steadily into the black water of the North Sea.

  James yawned throughout the entire manoeuvre. “Sea air, Harry. I’d forgotten how it brings on sleep.”

  “True,” said his brother, but whatever it was bringing on for Harry Ludlow, sleep was the least of it.

  Harry was awake long before the Planet dropped anchor. The movement of feet on the deck throughout the night had filtered into his consciousness, though not enough to bring him fully round. But the ship’s changing course, with the consequent alteration in the motion, went deeper, and he opened an eye. He knew instinctively that either the wind had shifted or they’d come round on a quite different heading. By the time the hands slipped the stern anchor over the side, he was wide awake and somewhat curious.

  He lay in the darkness, noting the creaking of the capstan and the sound of ropes running through blocks as a ship’s boat was hauled up and over the side. Bertles had said, quite firmly, they were making straight for the Downs, with his course set to bring them into the Gull Stream, north of the Goodwin Sands off Ramsgate. Not with all the wind in the world could they have made a landfall already, unless it was on the coast they’d just left.

  Harry couldn’t contain his curiosity. James snored gently on the other side of the tiny cabin, and it was with some difficulty that he raised himself and shrugged on his greatcoat without waking him. The wardroom stove was open, giving out enough light from the coals to see his way out on to the main-deck. He stood in the waist, looking up at the star-filled sky, listening to the sounds of whispered conversations.

  He knew instinctively that whatever Bertles and his crew were up to, it wasn’t legal: sailors went about their duties as the task dictated, and if that disturbed their passengers’ slumber, so be it. Which left him wondering whether his curiosity was wise. Whatever they were doing was none of his business. He’d wondered already, when he’d first seen the Planet riding high at anchor, at the apparent lack of a cargo. He’d surmised that Bertles was content, on a return journey to England, with his quota of fare-paying passengers. Bertles’s reluctance to accept soldiers was nothing to remark on. A captain so employed could wait years for his bill to be paid. Then he realised that he’d not enquired as to what the Planet carried on the outer voyage, nor looked at the manifest when he’d added his name and occupation. And there was none of the air of a recently unloaded ship about her when they’d come aboard.

  He smiled to himself, thinking that Bertles was no fool. It was most likely to be smuggling, since Deal was the most porous place in the whole of the south of England, with a shingle beach ten miles long for the smuggler to land his cargo. Preventative officers were few and far between; getting unlicensed goods ashore was a business with relatively little risk. The mere act of carrying passengers gave a reason for Bertles to be at sea, just as the tariff they paid gave him an income. The excise might be thin on the ground, but they’d soon smoke an owner with money to spend, who maintained and sailed a merchant ship which bore no cargo. He turned below, more amused than angry, when the first shot rang out.

  CHAPTER THREE

  HARRY WAS ON DECK in a flash, registering the fusillade that followed the first shot. All attempts at silence on deck had been abandoned as men shouted in alarm. The ship’s lantern had been extinguished. Bertles, a mere silhouette, was standing on the poop, calling out orders to cut the cable and make sail, as well as shouting at something over the stern. Harry saw the axes flash and the line on the stern anchor cut. He leant over the side, peering towards the barely visible shore. He could just see the outline of the topmasts of at least three more vessels and noted that they also went without a light before his attention was drawn to the flashing oars of two ship’s boats, racing across the water towards the Planet.

  “Captain Bertles!” he shouted. “What’s amiss?”

  He couldn’t see the man’s face as he spun round, but the voice left him in no doubt of the master’s anger. “How dare you, sir. Get off my deck this instant.”

  Harry ignored him as he made his way aft, and Bertles had turned away from him to yell encouragement to his boat crews. Everyone on board was preoccupied, too busy to impede his progress. He climbed the ladder to the poop before Bertles, turning back, realised that the passenger had not obeyed his injunction. The pistol was out of his belt and aimed at his passenger’s head before he could open his mouth to speak.

  “Damn you, sir!” cried Bertles. “Do I have to down you with a ball to be obeyed?”

  “I demand to know what’s going on!”

  The gun waved menacingly, but Bertles had turned to look over the stern. “I have no time for your demands, sir.” His shout rent the air: “Move your arses, you lazy buggers!”

  He turned and pushed past Harry, leaning on the taffrail to shout at the men on deck. “Get a line ready to lash on to the boats.” There would be no time to get either aboard, so Bertles would need to tow them.

  “Captain Bertles—” demanded Harry.

  He ducked as the pistol swung at his head, feeling it whistle by his ear. His reaction was a reflex and his fist came up with his body catching Bertles in the stomach. The captain fell forward, the gun dropping from his hand. Set at half-cock, it discharged itself with a loud bang, the ball thudding into the rail. Bertles was bent over, gasping for breath. Harry hauled him upright, waiting while he sucked enough air into his winded lungs to talk.

  “Now, Captain, explain.”

  “We
are in mortal danger, sir,” panted Bertles. “I must get my ship under way.”

  Harry shook him roughly. “I demand an explanation.”

  “In time, Mr Ludlow. But for Heaven’s sake let me get to sea.”

  Harry let him go. Bertles immediately shot down the ladder to the quarterdeck, taking the wheel himself, and, despite Harry’s punch, shouting out a string of orders to set all sail. The Planet was already moving, for the forecourse and main staysail were down, with hands hauling on the inner and outer jibs like demons. Still afire with curiosity, he turned to look at the ship’s boats, now close enough to take a line from the Planet, as Bertles called for topsails.

  The other ships were still distant silhouettes, but the one nearest was setting her sails as quickly as the Planet. He strained to make out her shape, to see what manner of vessel she was, but the lack of light defeated him. It was only as she swung round, with her anchors inboard, that he realised she was a square-rigger, with three masts. Difficult to be sure, but some kind of trading barque? He turned and looked up at the Planet’s top hamper. A merchant snow, broad of beam and poorly rigged, she’d need something special to outrun any three-masted ship, and nothing he could see aloft gave him any confidence that she would do so.

  Three crewmen bundled on to the poop. One took an end on the line they carried and lashed it to a cleat, while another jumped up and balanced precariously on the rail. He swung the line round his head and then cast it out. Harry saw the flash of phosphorescence as it hit the water between the leading boat and the ship, heard the cry that told all of them that the throw had been accurate. The jolly-boat, behind the cutter, had lashed itself to the larger boat’s stern.

  The rope creaked as the cutter took the tow. One of the sailors released the line on the cleat as the other took the strain. Using the cleat as a stop, they hauled on the line to bring the two boats closer to the ship. Feeling useless, Harry took an end of the line and heaved along with the hands.

  Both boats had been hauled alongside, with the oarsmen jumping nimbly aboard, despite the fact that the Planet was now making some three knots. He’d been joined on the poop by James and Major Franks. Pender arrived last, well wrapped up against the cold, and bearing the brothers’ greatcoats.

  “Smuggling, I think,” he said, when James first asked him what was happening. “Bertles put the ship about once we were asleep. I imagine that he touched on the coast of France.”

  “Then who was shooting at us?” asked Franks, with a fine grasp of the essentials.

  Harry lifted a hand slightly to indicate Bertles, still busy trimming his sails. “I shall ask the captain as soon as he has a moment. There were other ships anchored off the coast.”

  “Do we need weapons, your honour?” asked Pender.

  Harry looked at the pistol that still lay at his feet. “We might, Pender. Bertles has already tried to crown me once.”

  He looked over his shoulder at the black sea, shot across with glinting shafts of moonlight. There was nothing visible, but he didn’t doubt for a second that the other ship had been setting sail for a pursuit. “Apart from the risk from Bertles, I’d be very surprised if we are not being chased.”

  His servant was gone before he finished the sentence. But what he said alarmed Franks. “Is my wife in any danger, sir?”

  “That I cannot say, Major. But I think wisdom dictates that she be up and dressed.”

  Franks went down the ladder as Pender returned to the deck. His hands were empty. “The captain has posted a couple of guards to mind our dunnage. I can’t get near it.”

  “Damn the man,” snapped James, making ready to go and investigate.

  Harry grabbed his arm to restrain him. “These men were armed, I take it?” Pender nodded. “I thought they must be,” said Harry, with a smile.

  Pender smiled too, his teeth white in the moonlight. “If they hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have come back empty-handed.”

  “Captain Bertles,” shouted Harry. “You are taking unwarranted liberties in keeping us from our possessions. I think you most certainly owe us an apology and some degree of enlightenment.”

  Bertles kept his hands on the wheel, but he turned to reply. “You’d best mind your tongue, sir, for you’ve laid hands on me this night. That is not something Tobias Bertles is likely to let pass.”

  “Who is chasing us?” asked Harry.

  “There ain’t no one chasing us, Mr Ludlow. Those that had a mind to do so were too slow off the mark.”

  Harry turned and walked aft to the taffrail, peering out into the darkness. The light of the moon flickering off something fixed his attention. He stared hard and the faint, dark outline of a ship under sail formed before his eyes. He didn’t just turn to tell Bertles. He had a voice that could carry to the tops in a full gale.

  “I hate to disappoint you, sir, but if you care to look astern you will observe that someone has been more nimble than you supposed.”

  The Planet jibbed slightly as Bertles let go of the wheel. Harry heard him curse as he told another to take the con. He kept his eyes fixed on the other ship as Bertles thudded up the ladder behind him. The man was breathing heavily as he joined Harry and the others at the rail.

  “Where away?”

  Harry raised his hand slowly, pointing to a spot two points to larboard off the stern. “He’s a better sailer than we are, Captain. And faster. If he holds his course he’ll take your wind when he catches us.”

  Bertles swore under his breath and Harry thought he heard something remarkably like a whimper.

  “Now, sir. I really think an explanation is necessary.”

  Bertles ignored him. His head was back, searching the clear sky.

  “One cloud,” he said to himself. “Oh, Lord, just one decent cloud.”

  “Will you answer my brother, sir. It’s intolerable to be so used.”

  Bertles turned and gave James a cold look. “Get below, all of you.”

  “Not until you answer,” said James.

  Even in the moonlight you could tell that he was angry. All his earlier bonhomie had quite gone. “You can do so willing, or you can do so with a pike up your arse. But go below you will!”

  By stretching a point, Harry led them into the small cabin instead of going below decks. Major Franks had raised his wife and she was fully dressed, wearing the same cream dress which had so flattered her youthful figure at dinner.

  “Who’s chasing us, Harry, a revenue cutter?” asked James.

  His brother was already at the sternlights, moving the damask curtains aside a fraction to peer through the thick glass. James soon joined him and Harry spoke quietly, not wishing to alarm the others.

  “I don’t know much more than you, James, but it’s neither a cutter nor a revenue man. That is unless he’s French.”

  “French!” said James out loud. Mrs Franks put her hand to her mouth in alarm. The major moved to comfort her, and also to admonish her, for she seemed set to speak. “Not one word, my dear, is that clear?” She nodded meekly.

  The door to the cabin flew open and young Mr Wentworth, his eyes still full of sleep, was pushed in to join them. The door was slammed shut again.

  “What the devil is going on?” said Wentworth.

  “You were asleep?” asked Harry, shaking his head in wonder that anyone could have slept through such a commotion, forgetting how Bertles had plied them with drink.

  Wentworth, somewhat bleary-eyed and pasty, looked as though he’d taken extra advantage of Bertles’s generosity. He was watching Pender, as he searched the cabin for weapons. “I was until I was dragged from my cot. The sailor said we were in some danger!”

  “Did he say who from?” asked James.

  “No, sir, he did not. I shall ask Captain Bertles.”

  “I don’t think that will be possible. He has confined us all here in the most direct way. And I believe if you open that door you will find an armed man outside.”

  “Armed man! What are you talking about, Mr Ludlow?”
He spun and pulled at the door. As it flew open the barrel of a musket poked through. The grim face of the man holding it left the young man in no doubt of his intentions.

  “Back inside,” snapped the sailor with the gun, before he reached out with his free hand and slammed the door shut again.

  “Any luck, Pender?” asked Harry.

  “Nothing,” replied his servant. “He must keep his armoury someplace else.”

  “I should think his entire range of weapons is in the hands of his men.”

  “I’ve got my knife, your honour, but that’s all.”

  “Will someone explain to me what is happening!” cried Wentworth, petulantly.

  “I too am confused, Mr Ludlow,” said Franks.

  Harry nodded, but he did not explain right away. “Pender, the light.” As soon as the cabin was in darkness, he pulled back the curtains, explaining what had happened as he did so, all the time struggling with the catches to try and open a window. But this was a North Sea vessel. If the windows were opened it was a rare event, for the catches were rusty and stiff.

  “They are involved in smuggling, Major Franks. There seemed to be a squadron of ships anchored in the same bay and I believe it was they who fired on us. Why, I don’t know. And you are as aware as anyone of Captain Bertles’s failure to answer my enquiries.”

  “Why lock us in here?” said James angrily. “Does he think we care if he’s smuggling?”

  “The kindest interpretation is that he expects a fight and he wishes to protect us.”

  “I don’t believe that and neither do you.”

  “Pender, can you get this damned window open.”

  Major Franks coughed slightly, forcing Harry to apologise for his language. Pender went to the window, pulling a knife from his boot. He ignored the catches and stuck his knife into the side with the hinge.

  “Take hold of the frame, Captain Ludlow, otherwise Mr Bertles’s window is going to end up in the drink.”