The Pursuit

by Peter Smalley

  Dr Stroud led the way from his office to a separate wing, and up the stone stair to the quarantine quarters. Over his shoulder:

  ‘Very likely he is no longer a risk to others, but we must ever be vigilant in fever cases. I will prefer that you refrain from proximate conversation, and ask that you talk across an intervening space. You apprehend me?’

  ‘Yes, Doctor, I understand you.’

  Dr Stroud opened the door at the end of a long passage, and James saw a wide, whitewashed room, empty except for a narrow bed by the open window. Dr Stroud called across the room:

  ‘Thomas . . . I have brought an old friend to see you.’

  The covers of the bed moved, and a tiny figure was revealed, the head on the bolster turning toward the door. The figure was so obviously frail, and the effort of turning so severe, that even that small movement seemed to exhaust him. The face was sallow, the eyes and cheeks sunken, the teeth and jaw showing through the taut skin.

  ‘Who is it . . . ?’ The familiar voice, with its familiar precise enunciation, was today so weak it was little above a washing whisper.

  James instinctively began to move toward his friend, but Dr Stroud seized his arm and restrained him. Pointed to a red chalk mark on the floor halfway to the bed, and:

  ‘That is the demarcation line. Please not to go beyond it.’ Sotto voce.

  ‘Very good, Doctor.’ Also very quietly. ‘May I talk to him?’

  Dr Stroud nodded his approval, and James moved to the red mark. ‘Thomas, can you hear me, old fellow? I am here.’ The smell came to him now, at first faint, and then sharper and stronger – the stale ammonia reek of urine combined with foul breath to produce a wafting miasma that seemed to hang above and about and just beyond the bed. James suppressed an impulse to retch, swallowed and made himself determined.

  ‘Thomas? It is James.’

  The sunken eyes focused on James, and slowly recognition came there. A croak of breath, and another little heave of the covers.

  ‘By God . . . hhh . . . it is really you . . . James Hayter . . .’

  ‘Ay, Thomas. I have come to revive you, you know, and get you up on your legs. You have lain abed too long. I have a job of work for you – if you want it.’ As soon as he had said the words he was ashamed of himself for his attempt at jocularity. Mock heartiness and banter would not do here. The response surprised him.

  ‘Then do not hang back. Come close by me, and tell me all about it.’ And the sick man raised a thin arm and beckoned. When James hesitated, glancing over his shoulder toward Dr Stroud, Thomas Wing slapped feebly at the covers, and:

  ‘Damnation . . . hhh . . . I am not a contagion on mankind . . . In spite of what my colleague Dr Stroud may have told you . . . the fever has died off, and I will soon be hale . . . Come by my bed and cheer me up, now, will you, James? Tell me what work you have for me.’

  James did not glance again at Dr Stroud, but heard him sigh his assent, and moved beyond the red line to the side of the bed. The smell there was very penetrating, and he had to breath through his mouth to avoid the gagging reflex. When the sick man held out his hand James felt obliged to take it, and grip it gently, for fear of crushing the bones. To his surprise the hand was not feverish hot, nor even warm. It was, on this mild early evening, porcelain-cold.

  ‘I have bought a ship, Thomas, and I would like you – when you are quite well, in course – to act as surgeon in her. That is, if you have a mind to.’

  ‘D’y’mean . . . that it is aprivate ship?A merchant vessel?’

  ‘Ay, that is what I mean, exact.’

  ‘You have resigned from the navy?’

  ‘It is a long story. I will tell it to you another day.’

  ‘Oh, but I should . . . hhh . . . to hear it now . . .’ A rattling breath.

  James heard Dr Stroud clear his throat from near the door, and he smiled at the diminutive figure in the bed, that was like an ancient child in its cot, and shook his head.

  ‘Nay, Thomas. When you are well again – when you are strong.’ He patted the cold hand in what he hoped was a kindly gesture, a touch of brotherly love, and continued:

  ‘You will in all likelihood wish to join Captain Rennie in Expedient again. I know that he has got a new commission in her. But if by a happy chance you found yourself free of naval duty – happy for me – then I would like it very much if you would come to me in Firefly.’

  ‘Firefly. Yes, a pretty name. Well, Captain Rennie has not asked for me, and I am ready to go to sea with you, certainly, James. Only tell me when, and I shall come.’

  Dr Stroud cleared his throat behind James, and said:

  ‘You remember, Lieutenant, that we must meet that other gentleman at six o’clock. It is nearly that now.’

  This was Dr Stroud’s signal that his patient had had enough excitement for one evening, and must now be allowed to rest. James made his farewells at the bedside, and rejoined the physician at the door. As Dr Stroud began walking away down the long passage, James turned a last time to wave to his friend, and was dismayed to see tears in Thomas’s eyes, that spilled down his cheeks as he lay back mute against the bolster and stared up at the white featureless ceiling.

  ‘Christ’s blood, he is dying – and knows it, poor wretch.’ Not aloud.

  He followed Dr Stroud. At the foot of the stone stair he caught him up.

  ‘It cheered him to see you, Mr Hayter.’

  ‘I think he will not recover his health.’ Not a question, very subdued.

  ‘We must never despair of him. We must never give up hope.’ Sharply.

  ‘Nay, nay, you are right, sir.’ Looking at him. ‘We must always wish him well.’

  ‘I have known Thomas since he was a boy. He came to work in the hospital as a porter, and because of his very small stature I thought he hadn’t the strength for such arduous labour. I was proved wrong entire. He was strong as an ox, with a mind as keen and sharp as a scalpel. I trained him from the beginning, you know, I taught him everything, and am now proud to call him “colleague”. While I have breath I will never abandon his care.’

  ‘And in course I should feel the same, in your shoes, Doctor. He is my greatly valued friend, also, and I—’

  ‘I will save his life, you may depend on it.’ A vigorous nod.

  Dr Stroud came with James to the gate, a hand on his shoulder. ‘Come again as soon as you are able, will you? Tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes, tomorrow.’

  ‘It lifts him so to see old friends, even if they cannot stay overlong. Well, you saw that, hey? You saw how he responded.’

  ‘Good evening, Doctor.’ They shook hands again.

  ‘Goodnight.’

  James came away to the wharf, deep in his thoughts, and sad, found a boatman free, and had himself rowed across to Portsmouth Hard.

  As he stepped from the boat there was another boat just coming ashore, a naval launch, the seaman in the bow jumping into the shallows. James saw the officer in his thwartwise hat and boat cloak, moving forward from the stern sheets to step ashore, and was about to turn away and walk up the shallow slope, then paused. And turned back. At the same moment the officer in his boat cloak looked over at James, and together:

  ‘Good God, James!’

  ‘Is that you, sir! Good heaven!’

  In ten minutes they were sitting in the small parlour at the Marine Hotel, Rennie drinking tea and James drinking coffee.

  ‘I must chide you, James.’ Not severely. ‘Y’never replied to my letters, dear fellow. I had hoped we might serve together again. You knew I had got a new commission in Expedient, I expect?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I did know. Congratulations, by the by. And I am very sorry that I did not take time to reply to your letters. I have had . . . there have been certain difficulties of late.’

  ‘D’y’mean with Their Lordships? Then you must allow me to intervene in your behalf, and—’

  ‘No, sir, it ain’t the Admiralty. Nothing to do with Whitehall.’

  ‘What
, then? Perhaps I may be able to help you. If I can I certainly will.’

  ‘That is kind in you, sir, very kind – but I fear that these are matters of a personal nature.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I must resolve these things by myself. They are troubles all of my own making, d’y’see?’

  ‘Well well, I am very sorry to hear it, James.’ Rennie was anxious to know more, but at the same time he did not wish to pry. He sucked down a mouthful of black tea, and was silent a moment, then:

  ‘Catherine is now quite well? She has recovered her health, and her spirits?’

  ‘Yes, yes, she is fully recovered, thankee.’ He said it in such an emphatic way that Rennie was at once alerted to the difficulty James had spoken of.

  ‘And is she with you at Portsmouth?’

  ‘Nay. Nay. Catherine is at Shaftesbury, just at present.’ Looking down into his cup.

  ‘Ah. Hm.’ Another swallow of hot tea, and Rennie changed the subject. ‘What brings you to Portsmouth, James? I see you ain’t in uniform, but then you was never inclined to wear even an undress coat if you was not absolutely obliged to.’

  ‘I have bought a brig.’

  ‘Eh?’ Rennie stared at him.

  ‘Yes, I have bought her off Mr Blewitt, at Bucklers Hard. She is called Firefly.’

  ‘You have bought a brig!’

  ‘I have, sir. I intend to become a merchant master.’

  ‘Merchant master . . . ?’

  ‘You stare at me as if I was the worst kind of villain, sir. It is a perfectly respectable thing, ain’t it, for a sea officer to go into the merchant service when the navy has no further use for him?’

  ‘No further use for you? I cannot believe that! I refuse to believe it! We was both assured that we would be favoured, after the sufferings we endured our last commission, and I—’

  ‘You forget that I held no commission in Expedient during our last venture, sir. I was employed by the Secret Service Fund.’

  ‘Yes, that damnable bugger Mappin!’

  ‘Oh, I don’t blame Mappin for anything. I accepted his offer readily enough, after all, and his money. And is he a bugger? D’y’know that for a fact? He may be many things, but I doubt that he is a sodomite.’

  ‘He is worse, the fellow. He thrives upon deceit and trickery and sharp practice, with the slippery cunning of the viper, and the honeyed words of the pimp.’

  ‘All in the nation’s interest, I expect he would say.’ With a shrug.

  ‘I am in no doubt that he would. It don’t make him an honourable fellow, all the same. I cannot bear him, the preening wretch, skulking about.’

  ‘Skulking about? D’y’mean – he is here, in Portsmouth?’

  ‘I do. He had the effrontery to come uninvited to my room in this very hotel, and to attempt to bribe me.’

  ‘When? And why? What did he say?’

  ‘Never mind him, he don’t matter. I sent him away right quick.’

  ‘Ah. So you do not know, then, why he tried to bribe you?’

  ‘Nay, I don’t, and don’t want to, neither.’

  ‘Was it a large sum?’

  ‘What?’ Frowning.

  ‘That he offered you, sir.’

  ‘I am surprised y’would ask me that, James. The fellow is a wretch and a scoundrel, as we both know to our cost. Was it one guinea, nor an 100,000, my answer would be the same.’

  ‘Hm. By the by, I had just come from the Haslar when we met. I had been to see Thomas there.’

  ‘Thomas Wing? So he is at the Haslar, is he, assisting Dr Stroud, as of old? I wrote to him about the new commission, but he never replied. You are both very poor correspondents, James, you and the doctor, and I ought—’

  ‘No. No.’ James, shaking his head. ‘He does not assist Dr Stroud, sir.’

  ‘Then . . . ?’ Noting James’s subdued tone, and peering at him closely. ‘You do not mean, I hope, that Thomas is a patient?’

  ‘Yes, he is very ill in the quarantine quarters. Dr Stroud has every hope that he will recover – but I fear it may be touch and go.’

  ‘That is sad news indeed.’ Putting down his teacup. ‘Y’said quarantine. That means fever, I expect.’

  ‘Yes, fever. Dr Stroud permitted me to go into the quarters to see Thomas. His appearance was very shocking to me. He is skin and bone, and no colour in his cheeks. When I touched his hand there was no hint of fever present. It was deathly cold. And his voice – in usual, you remember, so strong and clear – was so weak I had to bend down to the pillow to hear him.’

  Rennie was silent a moment, looking away down the room, then: ‘I must go there myself, James. I should have gone there long since, had I known of this.’

  ‘I am going there again tomorrow, myself. We could go together. I am sure it will lift Thomas up to see two old friends and shipmates.’

  ‘Let us go together in my launch. It comes for me at the Hard well before the noon gun each day. We will make a detour to see Thomas at Gosport, and then I should like you to come with me to Expedient and join me in the great cabin for dinner, James.’

  ‘Thank you, sir, you are kind. I should like that very much.’

  ‘Where d’y’sleep tonight?’

  ‘Oh, well, I had not arranged anything as yet. I came to Bucklers Hard only this afternoon, and from there by wherry to Gosport, and across to the Hard.’

  ‘Leave everything to me, will you? I shall take a room for you here, and ye’ll join Sylvia and me for supper. She came from Norfolk to join me t’other day, thank God.’

  ‘You are very good, sir, but I had thought to go to the White Hart, where—’

  ‘Damnation to the White Hart. It is miles away, out on the turnpike. Ye’ll stay in Portsmouth tonight as my guest.’ Holding up a hand, brooking no further protest. ‘My guest, James – we have much to talk over between us, hey? And Sylvia will be very glad to see you, in the bargain.’

  At supper James endeavoured to be cheerful, and to keep up with the conversation, but in truth his heart was not in it, and neither was his mind. His thoughts and emotions were far away from the private dining room at the Marine Hotel, and the excellent things Rennie had provided. He ate and drank little, and more than once, when Rennie asked him a question, he looked blankly at his friend and was obliged to say:

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir. I did not hear what you said to me.’

  ‘Will you tell me, Mr Hayter,’ asked Sylvia Rennie, at one of these embarrassing moments, ‘why my husband calls you “James”, but you never call him anything but “sir”? Should not you call him “William”, when you are such old friends?’

  James looked at the handsome woman who had made Rennie so happy, and felt himself a fool. He did not know how to answer her. Rennie himself spoke up, and denied that there was anything odd about it.

  ‘My darling, in course we are friends, but first and always we are sea officers. It is an entirely traditional circumstance, like the Prime Minister and his close colleagues.’

  ‘Surely they are not sea officers, William?’ Her face straight.

  ‘Mr Pitt and his Cabinet? Good God, no. But it is very like the navy, all the same. They would not call him “William”, I think, but “Prime Minister”, or “sir”. It is a mark of their respect for his rank, an acknowledgement of it, d’y’see? In the same way . . . He broke off when he saw that his wife was smiling at him, then:

  ‘Yes, hm, you was teasing me, my dear.’

  ‘Only a little, William, only a very little.’

  ‘Was I being pompous, my love?’

  ‘I would not say pompous.’

  ‘Something worse, hey?’ A chuckle, and he glanced at James. But James had again departed the supper in his head, and was now absent elsewhere. Rennie cleared his throat and refilled Sylvia’s glass, then his own.

  ‘James? More wine, dear fellow?’ Holding the bottle.

  ‘What? Oh, no thank you, sir. I must have a clear head tomorrow.’

  ‘Come, one more glass wil
l not fuddle you.’ He refilled James’s glass. ‘I will like to hear about your new ship, now. Will you tell me all about her?’

  ‘Yes, my brig.’ A brief smile. ‘Well, she is called Firefly. She is quite elderly, but Mr Blewitt is refitting her, and she will serve very well.’

  ‘Ah. Very good. What are her dimensions?’ Taking a pull of wine.

  ‘She is seventy-four foot overall, sixty foot in the keel, twenty-one in the beam, and nine foot in the hold. She is 148 ton by builder’s measure. By all measure she should be a sturdy sea boat, and right handy. She is mine for 900 pound, a very fair price, I reckon.’

  ‘Very fair, by the sound of it.’

  ‘I hope to engage in the coastal trade.’

  ‘Home waters, hey? What will you carry?’

  ‘Whatever I may be asked to carry, I expect. Timber, tallow, even coals.’

  ‘Will she make a collier, d’y’think? Ain’t that dirty work?’

  ‘It may be dirty. In least it is honest.’

  ‘I did not mean it as a rebuke, James.’ Mildly, then:

  ‘And . . . will you sail her yourself?’

  ‘Indeed, yes. As I told you earlier today, sir, I mean to be her working master.’

  ‘So y’did, James, so y’did.’ Another pull of wine, and he set down his glass. ‘Hm. Hm. But will that answer, d’y’think?’

  ‘Answer, sir?’ Looking at him.

  ‘Will that suit you, a sea officer, RN? Slogging up and down the east coast, from Newcastle to London, with dirty sails and dirty decks, your person forever grimed head to foot, staring grim into filthy weather, for a few pound of money here and there, and never a hope of anything better? Is that the life for you, James, I wonder?’

  ‘Everything you say does sound like a rebuke.’

  ‘Well well, it ain’t meant to be. But I cannot stand idle on the side while my friend makes his life into a misery.’

  ‘Misery? Misery? Christ’s blood, what was our last little venture together! Death and suffering all around us, harsh and brutal treatment, imprisonment in a filthy, rat-infested dungeon! Was that delightful pleasure, exact!’ Catching sight of Sylvia Rennie’s shocked face he broke off, and after a moment: ‘Please forgive me, Mrs Rennie. I did not mean to – to shout so, and upset you.’ Rising and dropping his napkin on his chair. ‘I have outstayed my welcome. I must go.’