Hoare and the headless Captains cbh-2

by Wilder Perkins

  Clay had recovered his self-control. "Tacks and sheets; cast for the starboard tack."

  The topsails, still flapping, were brought under control. Royal Duke jibbed like a filly, straining to go westerly but still restrained by her mooring.

  "Ready there, forrard?"

  "Aye!" came from the forepeak.

  "Cast off, then!"

  As the slip rope came aboard, Royal Duke gathered stern way momentarily, but when Clay called for tacks and sheets to be trimmed, the topsails gave a soft, brief thunder, took on their graceful sheer, and thrust the brig forward. Now the hands set topsails, fore-staysail, and spanker. For the first time in her career, Royal Duke was under sail in the charge of her own crew, proud and eager.

  "Brace up forward. Make a course for Yarmouth, Mr. Clay," Hoare ordered.

  Hoare realized that he had hardly breathed during the entire simple maneuver. Royal Duke had run athwart no one's hawse; nothing had carried away; no one had gone overboard. Though woefully slow by Navy standards, her crew had unmoored as well as the average merchantman could, and a good deal more tidily.

  "No jeers from our neighbors this morning, Mr. Clay," Hoare said.

  "No, sir."

  Royal Duke steadied on her course. Under easy sail, she threw only a small bow wave against the blue waters of the Solent. Now she heeled a strake or two. Her tender, Hoare's Alecto, chuckled along in her wake like a filly foal behind her dam.

  A light leftover sea from ahead threw a sprinkle of foam over her bows; she gave a minute heave. In response, one or two smothered groans of distress arose forrard.

  "To leeward, damn you, to leeward!" Clay bawled.

  Stone picked up one sufferer bodily and heaved him to the larboard rail just in time to spew over the side. Other hands set to without orders to pretty up all lines once again-the one skill the Royal Dukes had learned during those endless months when their ship had lain in the Thames estuary, in danger of grounding on her own beef bones.

  "Now, then, steady as he goes, Taylor," said Lovable Bold, the borrowed bosun, as he turned the helm over to the cryptographer. "Time you earned yer rating."

  Seeing that Taylor's lips were clenched in her teeth, Bold waited within reach until she had begun to learn the brig's ways before starting forward.

  "How does she steer?" Hoare asked.

  "She gripes a bit, sir," Taylor said.

  "Better than a lee helm."

  "Aye. Especially with this crew," Clay inteqected. "But if we want to make her easier, all we need do is move a handful of pigeon feed forrard."

  Hoare suppressed a snort of laughter. That had been the first witty remark he had heard his Lieutenant make. Perhaps getting under way at last was putting him at his ease; certainly it was unknotting Hoare.

  The two now hastily put together a schedule of training that would break in the Royal Dukes between Spithead and their arrival off Weymouth.

  "Perhaps, sir, we shall even be able to fire the great guns. It would surely encourage the crew were we to do so. The noise, you know." Mr. Clay sounded eager. Since there was no longer any point in Hoare's keeping his plans from the other officer, he revealed them. Clay was visibly jubilant.

  "Let us complete the day by saluting the sunset, then," Hoare concluded. "But first, let us put her through her paces."

  So, once they had cleared the Needles and were out of sight of the nearly empty anchorage, Clay set all hands to lowering Royal Duke's topmasts and topgallants and sweating them up again, stretching out onto her yards and back again, over and over, until their palms bled and they could barely stagger. Even then, they needed no urging. At the last, Clay even had them set the brig's stun-sails and her kerchiefs of royals. Under these, the little yacht swept seaward until Hoare recollected his orders and made his Lieutenant take in the little scraps so they could beat back into protected waters. All this while, Alecto towed obediently behind.

  Finally, Hoare permitted Clay to drop off a beflagged cask. After working her up to windward, he shortened sail and put Royal Duke in position to sweep down again upon the cask, gliding westward a cable's length north of the target.

  "Proceed, Mr. Clay," Hoare said.

  "Silence, fore and aft."

  The command was not necessary, for Royal Duke was only whispering across the water. Silence was already complete, expectant. Up flew the four larboard gun ports.

  "Cast loose your guns," Clay ordered. "Out tompions."

  At each side-tackle, a man heaved, to roll the four-pounders inboard so the tompions could be removed from their muzzles. Long since, Mr. Clay had had the charges drawn and replaced. There had been a rat's nest in one of the guns, though how the rat had gotten inside the gun in the first place passed Hoare's imagination.

  "Run out your guns." Out trundled her gleaming miniature broadside.

  "Level your guns."

  "Prime." Each Captain broke the fresh cartridge at the bottom of his gun's bore, using the priming iron hung from a lanyard around his neck. The Captain of Number Two gun, however, fumbled at his throat and looked at his Lieutenant in agony.

  Stone reached out with a spare. "Ere, Gridley. But yer grog's stopped tonight."

  After using Stone's iron, Gridley returned it.

  "Now get on with it, man. Catch up with the others; they're a-waitin'."

  "You may fire when ready, Gridley," Clay said.

  Hastily, Gridley poured a handful of powder into his gun's vent and stood to attention.

  "Point your guns." The four Captains leaned over to peer along their guns' barrels and heaved on the pry-bars they used to train their pieces. Royal Duke rolled a trifle.

  "Fire as you bear."

  The sharp little hiss of the burning fine powder in the first gun to bear was the only one of its kind not drowned by the subsequent bursts. As Clay had said they would, the gun crews broke into spontaneous cheers at the noise, the orange-red bursts of fire, and exhilarating backdraft of pungent powder smoke.

  Three little waterspouts rose, all well distant from the target keg. More cheers. Number Two gun, last to bear and to fire, now had all hands' attention. The cask flew apart in a shower of staves.

  "I'll be go to hell," said Stone. Then, under Clay's shout of, "Stop your vents!" he added, "You've just earned yer grog back, Gridley."

  "Sponge your guns!" Clay called.

  Then, "Load with cartridge."

  The four powder boys-none under twenty, actually, and one a woman-ran up with the grub-shaped charges, handed them firmly to the spongers. One sponger fumbled his catch, dropped his rammer, and tripped over it.

  "Pick up the cartridge, Williams," Stone quietly told the powder boy. Then, seeing that the sponger had recovered his rammer, Stone said, "Now. Hand the cartridge to Miller. There. Carry on."

  When he saw that all four cartridges had been loaded, Clay gave his next command. "Shot your guns."

  Now the cycle was complete; all four larboard guns were ready to fire again.

  "What time do you make it, Mr. Clay?" Hoare asked. He could not believe his own findings.

  "Four and a half minutes, sir," Clay answered.

  "Appalling," Hoare said.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Tack ship, Mr. Clay," Hoare whispered. "Larboard guns, cease fire; prepare for action starboard."

  The four crews must now leave the weapons they had just fired and switch sides. This time, no cartridges were dropped, and Stone could stand fast to watch the crews do their utmost to prepare the starboard battery while Mr. Clay gave the commands that brought the brig about. To Hoare's relief, she did not hang in stays but went about like a lamb-though slowly, slowly. Another keg was dropped.

  This keg survived, though the fall of shot threw spray on all sides of it. Royal Duke eased away and left it behind in the gathering twilight. The starboard broadside had achieved even worse time. At least, though, Hoare mused, he had let the brig fulfill Clay's desire to exercise the great guns in reality.

  Royal Duke's gun ports once
closed and her guns bowsed solid against them, the watch below could rest from its labors. Hoare's own labors, however, had just begun. During the morning, while the yacht was still short of the Needles, he had summoned Sergeant Leese to choose his landing party.

  Hoare knew perfectly well that Leese knew far more than he himself ever would about the Dustmen's individual fighting and sneaking talents, so he had told the lantern-jawed Sergeant what he wanted and left the landing party's selection up to him. Bold and Stone had pressed themselves upon Hoare and Leese but were firmly rejected.

  "You're needed aboard Royal Duke," Hoare told them.

  "But I'm black, sir!" Bold said. "Black, and sneaky, too."

  "No, Bold. You and Stone remain aboard. You're both too important to the ship's handling."

  Leese's own five surviving Lobsters had threatened mutiny unless he gave them all the chance to avenge their beheaded messmate. To them he had added Butcher, master-at-arms and gymnast; the apelike Iggleden; Blackman, carpenter's mate and all-in wrestler; Jellyboy, black Indian strangler; and Mary Green, cook. Green had enlisted from among the "brutes" of Portsmouth. With forearms the size of many men's thighs and a projecting jaw under cropped hair, the very look of her gave Hoare a grue. As if she were not daunting enough in her own person, she carried her favorite cleaver.

  Now, Hoare gathered the entire landing party around his lamp-lit cabin table for a briefing.

  "We're going ashore tomorrow night," he told them. "Let me tell you why. You already know about how someone who doesn't like the Navy chopped off two Captains' heads-"

  "An' cut poor Baker's froat, tu," came a voice. From the accent, it was Blackman, the wrestler. There was a general growl of agreement with Blackman's implication.

  "Probably," Hoare said. He should have remembered that; it was only natural that the Royal Dukes would care more about their murdered shipmate than about the decapitation of two Post Captains whom they had never seen. It would go hard with any foe who got within these people's reach.

  "Our objective," Hoare went on, "is to capture the leader or leaders of the band. I want to question him. If we cannot capture him, he must be killed. The leader may be in some kind of fancy dress. He could be either…"

  Hoare described Spurrier and Sir Thomas Frobisher as best he could. He could not be certain that either would actually be the leader, but most signs pointed to it. He could not bring himself to point the finger at royalty as well, although he feared a second encounter with Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, more than he could say.

  "He, or they, will probably speak like gentry and-I imagine-will do most of the talking, or preaching."

  " 'Spect so, sir. The gentry ginerally do," said a voice from the group. Soft laughter followed. Even if he had wanted to, Hoare could not have helped joining in.

  "Take the leader at all costs, and then as many of the others as you can, but don't chase any who get away," he continued.

  " 'Ow many of 'em do yer expect us to be takin' on, sir?" Green growled.

  "There's no telling, Green. Probably between five and fifteen. Some of them will be women," he added on a hunch.

  Leese at his side, Hoare now showed them by map the terrain between their landing spot and Langton Herring and thence to Winterbourne Abbas.

  "Any questions so far?"

  "Where are we to lay up, sir?" Green asked.

  "I'm coming to that," Hoare said, and told them the arrangement he had made with Mr. Dunaway for their accommodation.

  "There's a chance there'll be others ahead of us in the barn," he said, "on business of their own. If so, you are to treat them as neutrals-neither friend nor enemy. Before any of us gets close, I'll signal to alert them. That'll show we're on their side."

  " 'Appen they'll 'ave an anker of brandy fer us, then," Blackman said.

  "If they do, we'll have to wait to broach it till our job is finished," Hoare said. "Now, listen carefully: " I shall repeat this tomorrow evening, before we go ashore and again before we shove off from the barn… By then, though, I'll expect each and every one of you to be able to tell it to the rest of us. In fact, I may have one of you do just that, so be prepared.

  "All of you save Leese and myself will shift to landsmen's clothing before going ashore… Blackman and Green, for example, can easily pass for tinkers, Iggleden and Butcher for itinerant acrobats."

  "That's wot I was, sir," Butcher declared.

  "All the better," Hoare said. "Gather around, now.

  "Here's a sketch map of the place where the enemy will be meeting. I got it from a man who's familiar with it in the line of business…

  "… Get the map firmly in mind and take bearings. Do that now, for you won't have the map by you on the day. Leese will pass out compasses. Any of you who can't read a compass?"

  Silence.

  "Sergeant learned us t'other day, sir," Ledyard explained.

  "Very good," Hoare whispered. "Now, at the barn, we shall divide into groups of two. Each pair… stays together, at all costs. We shall have the day to filter up to the Nine Stones Circle, each pair going its own way. Do not seem to be in haste, for you do not want to attract attention…

  "… Besides, we have all day in which to make the Circle. In fact, any of you who are within sight and hearing of the Stones in daylight must heave to until dusk, keeping watch. In case the venture goes awry or you lose your way, Royal Duke should be lying off Weymouth by then. If she isn't, the rendezvous will be the cutter Walpole."

  "If any of ye do go adrift, I'll 'ave yer guts fer garters," Leese interrupted as Hoare drew breath.

  "After it's nearly dark, Sergeant Leese will signal you to take your places in the Circle. Leese, can you make some sort of country noise?" Hoare asked.

  "Mm-ooooo-ooo-uh," Leese said lowly.

  "Now, Leese will show you on the map where you are to place yourselves. Imagine it is dark, remember; and remember the map!"

  Leese pointed out to each pair a spot in the Circle where it would be out of the other groups' way yet would have clear lines of sight to the place where he and Hoare would establish themselves. The Sergeant went over these posts with his people, with and without the map, until he could turn to the waiting Hoare and declare himself satisfied.

  "When I judge that it's time to move on the enemy," Hoare now said, "I'll sound my whistle. Not before! On your life!"

  With those words, not thinking of the likely consequences, Hoare demonstrated his whistle. A mounting thunder of footsteps ensued, from all parts of Royal Duke. First to burst through the door of Hoare's cabin was Mr. Clay, but the little Lieutenant was crowded out of the doorway and all but trampled underfoot by the press of his shipmates as they rallied to their Captain's summons. This ended the rehearsal.

  "We shall have to cool that hot blood of yours, Mr. Clay," Hoare said, "before you shove off for Broadmead."

  Chapter XIV

  By only two bells of the forenoon watch, Royal Duke lay hove to a mile off Abbotsbury, midway down the long strand of Chesil Beach. After dark, she would close the shore and drop off the landing party. Having done so, she would double back and retrace her course to Weymouth, there to await their return-"with your shields or on them," as little Lorimer, the clerk-coxswain, put it. Like an astonishing number of his shipmates, he was classically inclined.

  The weather was gray, overcast, with a steady westerly breeze and a light chop over the long Atlantic rollers that marched ashore.

  "Ye'll be well washed down, lads, before you come aboard this barky again," Stone said. His voice oozed envy. He and another seasoned seaman would cox the two longboats in, for Hoare and Clay agreed that part-time tars like Lorimer would never get the boats ashore without their broaching to in the surf, light though it was likely to be.

  Meanwhile, the two officers decided, after putting their heads together, that they would use the time to continue their exercises of yesterday-first aloft, then at the guns. Throughout most of the day, then, the Royal Dukes' vital paperwork was securely sto
wed while the clerical tars, stiff from yesterday's drills, turned to again.

  By the time the gray day drew closed with spits of cold rain, Hoare found himself less despondent about Royal Duke's performance than he had been the previous afternoon. Sail handling had been adequate, though their performance when tacking ship had been enough to make any real seaman weep. However, the crew of the second pair of guns had bettered four minutes not once, but twice, and were cock-a-hoop over it.

  After all, Hoare thought, the Royal Dukes were picked men, and women, picked for intelligence and initiative. They were catching on far faster than your average plowman or bankrupt tailor.

  As a final fillip, Hoare had informed his people, he and one of the crew would embark in Alecto and the two lilliputian men-o'-war would stage a mock duel. He selected Taylor to accompany him, for he wanted to see whether a woman could make any kind of ship handler. He cautioned himself to make sure they were never below in Alecto at the same time. It would never do for the scuttlebutt to run that their captain was having at one of his crew.

  Ever since rescuing it from the ballast of an ancient condemned fifty-gun ship of the line, Hoare had been eager to fire Alecto's own great gun, a solitary one-pounder swivel. It had been an antique when he found it then. It might once have graced the maintop of a Tripolitanian pirate. Or it might have fought at the Hague over a century ago before being dismissed from the service and left to rust as kentledge in new construction. It was better off with Hoare, as he and the port's master parker had agreed. The only change he had made to it was to affix a reliable flintlock firing mechanism over the simple touchhole that had satisfied the long-gone original gunner.

  While still under tow, then, he and Taylor rousted the awkward piece out of Alecto's forward bilges, where it had rested ever since being brought aboard. When they had set it in its larboard socket, Hoare tested and greased the crude slide that took up its pitiful recoil. The two then hoisted Alecto's two tall, graceful, simple sails, and they were ready for battle. Hoare signaled Royal Duke to cast them off.