‘Of course, Brazier,’ Braddock huffed. ‘Circumstances call for a bit of charity. But I’ll have to list you as supernumerary to the muster.’
His visitor knew what that meant. ‘I will meet the bill sir, of course, just as I do so for the stabling.’
‘Pity about Quebec House and pity the owner. She has not only to rebuild it, but to compensate her neighbours, I hear, for damage to their property. Miss Riorden, or is it Mrs? No one is quite sure. Fine lookin’ woman, be a surprise if no one had bedded her.’
‘I’m sure you mean got her to the altar, sir.’
‘Obviously,’ came a blustering response; he hadn’t meant that at all.
Brazier declined to say that the cost of rebuilding, as well as any other bills, he had promised to meet. This was another connection to the Old Playhouse, and to Saoirse as well, which must be kept from public knowledge.
‘We have a guest suite here in Admiralty House, Brazier, which you may use.’ The ruddy round face looked gloomy. ‘Not likely anyone will come down from the board to want to use it.’
‘Obviously, sir, if they do …’
‘Backwater, Brazier,’ was stated with more animation, ‘without there’s a war with France. I’ve said it before and, by damn, I will say it again. You’ll dine with me tonight, of course?’
‘You’re too kind, sir.’
Braddock took that, not as the platitude it was, but, by his expression, as the unvarnished truth.
There was a great deal that needed to be purchased; not even Brazier’s sextant had survived the inferno in a fit state to be used. Also gone were some irreplaceable personal possessions, like his mother’s locket, which had within miniatures of her and his father. Luckily there were portraits, stored back in Hampshire, which he had hoped would have ended up in a home shared with Betsey.
A new sextant could wait ’til he had a ship, but he required new uniforms, one second-hand and showing it, as a working kit, another ordered brand new to replace the much-singed coat and breeches he was wearing. Added to that was a buff coat of the kind favoured by merchant captains and a tricorne hat to go with it. There were stockings, smalls, shirts and even hair queues to buy as well as all things needed for personal care for both himself and his own crewmen. The hardest to find was spare shoes.
He took one detour, his back and his purchases fully covered, to the graveyard behind St George’s Church, looking for a plaque in the enclosing brick wall dedicated to Stephen Langridge, Betsey’s late husband. There was slight guilt in that he had not bothered before, as he reprised her description of him, which he could not but admit was the polar opposite of his own.
Fair-haired and gentle Brazier was not, and nor was he her cherished childhood sweetheart. Langridge had succumbed to the endemic fevers of the Sugar Islands, he had not. Was it possible she could love two so very different men? This had him reflecting there was no certainty in such an emotion, only the hope that it was the case.
‘What’s that he’s lookin’ at?’ asked Cocky.
Dutchy, in receipt of the question, just shrugged. ‘No idea.’
‘Have you a notion of what’s goin’ to happen now?’
‘Why don’t you ask him yourself, Peddler?’
‘You are in better than Cocky and me. I doubt even Joe here gets to know as much about what’s on the Turk’s mind as you.’
Joe Lascelles produced one of those white-teeth smiles that lit up his dark-skinned face and nodded. ‘Don’t tell me much.’
‘Spare a penny, guv’nor.’
The youngster had emerged from behind a gravestone to beg, the first thing obvious that he had been crying at some time. There were clean streaks on his otherwise filthy face and a trace of blood, which had crusted the bottom of his nose. A second dwarf edged out from the headstone to be visible, he showing a mass of bruises on his face.
‘Who has been troubling you, lad?’ asked Dutchy, who, with nippers of his own, was of a more charitable bent than the others. Also, with that warm and rolling West Country accent, he did not sound threatening.
‘Nobody,’ was the automatic reply from the first one, but his battered mate was less reticent. ‘Fell afoul of John Hawker, we did.’
‘That sod again,’ Peddler swore as streaky-face berated his mate to ‘Shut your gob’.
‘Sling yer hook,’ Cocky snapped. ‘The pair o’ ye. Ah’m no payin’ fer your gin. Gawd, ye stink of it.’
‘Promise not to dog you, if you’ll go to a sixpence.’
Dutchy put a hand on Cocky’s chest to stop him swearing at them. ‘What’d you mean by that, lad?’
‘Don’t tell him,’ spat streaky-face.
‘Hawker paid us to watch where you was goin’ an’ we did.’
‘And you told him.’
‘Promised a flask we were, an’ he was as good as his word, ’ceptin’ Danny, who was to look out for you last night. Fell asleep an’ he came lookin’ for him this mornin’. Couldn’t catch him, though, but he nabbed us asleep. Hawker don’t know that bout Danny, mind, so don’t you go letting on.’
‘Capt’n,’ Dutchy called, ‘best you come over here.’
The thought obviously did not go down well with these two urchins and they looked to sidle off. Dutchy grabbed them both by their rags, telling Joe to catch hold too. Brazier sauntered over, to cast a jaundiced eye at these two brats, as Dutchy said, ‘Now tell him what you just told me. And I will reckon it to be worth a shilling.’
All five were back at the Navy Yard long before dinner, no more needing to be said than that which had made up their conversation on the way from the graveyard. It was agreed they had been lucky, for there was no doubt if they’d been in the house it would have led to serious injuries and possibly a lot worse. Any residual doubt about who had set the mob on them, and there wasn’t much, disappeared.
Now, with a quartet sat on some bollards, looking out at HMS Bellerophon and the people working on her deck and rigging, it was no great stretch to conclude Tulkington and Hawker were unlikely to let matters rest. The next question to arise was obvious: what to do about the ongoing threat?
Brazier had stayed standing; familiarity with these men was fine in private, but here where they could be seen, a post captain did not sit jawing with common seamen. Now he began to pace about.
‘I’m not minded to run away.’
‘Never thought you would be.’
Peddler said it; all by their expressions established they agreed.
‘This is a private quarrel, lads. To do with my own hopes, not yours.’
‘Was,’ Dutchy growled. ‘Not much like to forgive some bugger who would see me dead, Capt’n.’
Brazier had no need to explain, but he did so anyway. The whole thing had arisen because of his pursuit of Betsey and, if they had been recruited to join him for protection, he had not known the true extent of what they would face.
‘So it’s my fight, not yours.’
‘Is that no the same as private quarrel?’ Cocky looked to the others for agreement, quickly forthcoming, to then turn back to Brazier with a querying expression. ‘No like you tae repeat yerself, sir.’
‘So we agree: the chances of their having failed means them trying again.’
‘Certain,’ Joe Lascelles said. ‘An’ if it were me I’d be looking to kill now, not maim.’ That came with a throat-slitting hand gesture. ‘Safer that way.’
‘So it’s run or fight, but I can’t ask you to take part if it’s the latter. My only aim is to get my lady out of Cottington Court. That done, I have nothing else to seek and not revenge.’
‘Where you go, your honour, we go. Right lads?’
‘Spot on, Dutchy,’ said Peddler Palmer.
‘Nae bother,’ came from Cocky. Joe just smiled.
‘So what now?’ Dutchy asked.
‘Eat, then I think I’ve got to try and find that Daisy Trotter.’
Cocky put a hand to his hip to make a teapot arm. ‘Ye ken where to look.’
‘I’ll settle for leaving a message. The other thing is where to get hold of some muskets. It can’t be in Deal, if we’re being watched.’
‘Looks like we’re in for a serious fight.’
‘Maybe you’re right, Dutchy, and it’s one I can’t lose, though I’m hoping a threat will suffice. Now, let’s go to dinner.’
For him, that was in the main dining room of Admiralty House, where he would mingle with the officers based in Deal and be queried about his past exploits. Dutchy, Cocky, Joe and Peddler messed in a hall at the kind of tables they were accustomed to, and were soon swapping tales with men who, like them, had been at sea for years, a few now too old for that kind of service.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The obvious place to buy weapons was Dover; every port in the land had a gun shop, but those that harboured a lot of merchant vessels, who required them for protection from piracy, would be the busiest. The notion of borrowing them from the Navy Yard had been mooted but dismissed; there was no way of knowing what was going to happen. The knowledge that Brazier and his men had such weapons, rarely used on land, by anyone other than the military, would be like a pointed finger at them being the culprits.
Even purchasing in Dover required time to get there and a degree of subterfuge, added to a cock and bull story about a ship on the way down from London, first tested in a chandler’s emporium buying rope and grappling irons. This invented ship would be picking them up for a scientific expedition to the South Seas, ‘they’ being Brazier and Dutchy, though false names were used.
Gun oil was purchased too and material for swabbing the weapons, bought in at the next stop and with the same tale. Not that it seemed the gun shop owner was that bothered; a dry stick of a fellow with a face that reminded Brazier of a day-old cadaver, he was more interested in getting a good price.
He would tell his friends that evening about the two boobies he’d had in his works, who had paid way over the odds for weapons, four fifty-six-inch Brown Bess muskets, which he had bought from the local Fencibles.
‘Barrels so worn they’re as big as a cow’s arse. Doubt the balls they purchased also will come close to a fit. A lot to steer clear of, I say. Good powder they got, mind, Faversham’s best.’
The four men who would use them had fired muskets before, but not of that length. The sea service version, much shorter to avoid snagging the rigging in a fight, was also easier to load, the ram being shorter. But it was not a favoured weapon whatever its size. A musket handed out before a battle was never likely to have anything approaching accuracy over fifty yards, and sometimes a lot less than that.
The marines had the most effective weapons, for they cast their own lead balls to fit a barrel they would keep for years, replacing the stock if that got worn. Thus, their balls came out of the muzzle straight, which gave them some hope of hitting a target. An ill-fitting ball, being loose, would not only lack velocity, it could go anywhere.
They had to be sneaked in and out of the Navy Yard the next day, wrapped in canvas to conceal them from prying eyes, then taken to the woods near the village of Ringwould where, in the trees, the sounds of shots could be people hunting rabbits. Then it was load, ram, prime and fire several times until his quartet could be sure of letting fly with them as a group, if not being sure to hit anything. He would be wanting them to frighten anyway, not maim.
It was an accident that, in cleaning the barrels, first with water and then with gun oil, necessary after the day’s practice, they were caught doing so by the Yard’s master-at-arms. He was on his rounds as the man responsible for ensuring the tallow wads, which would be needed at night, were fit to last. He came into the barracks in which they’d been accommodated, empty during the day as the personnel who used it went about their tasks. Quite rightly, he asked what they were about.
‘Captain’s keen on hunting rabbits.’
That sounded as feeble to Dutchy as it did to the man on the receiving end, judging by the look he produced. But these four were not on the muster, so he was obliged to accept what they said, though he did mention it to the officer of the watch, not that he seemed overly concerned. Tempted to tell the master-at-arms there might be things he would not want to hear about Captain Edward Brazier, he decided to keep his peace. It would never do to denigrate a fellow officer with one of petty rank.
Brazier had ridden out to Cottington, though going nowhere near the front gate. He had no need to be told where was north and that was the one he wished to examine. He took his rented mare, Bonnie, past the stud paddocks, having trouble keeping her head in the direction he wanted as she sought to show off to the other horses. It was tail out like a stiff pennant and her stepping high and boastful. Curiosity brought those inside the fences to look, smell and whinny.
Upton had told him the gate was kept locked unless in use, when it was opened on the inside and locked with the same padlock and chain on the outside. In his buff-coloured coat and his hat pulled low, he rode along the high brick wall, thinking how helpful it would have been to see over. But he had been inside Cottington before and so he had some idea of what they would face, mostly woodland.
Grappling irons would be used to get over and undo the padlock, the gate left open for a quick exit, with Joe Lascelles the man to close and lock it once the others and their mounts came through. He being no man for a horse, and damn near impossible to see at night in dark clothing, he would make his way back to Deal on foot. His orders were to go to the Three Kings, where a room would be booked for Betsey, not that her name would be used.
There had to be more than one key to that padlock, and means − a ladder perhaps − to get from inside to out. But the period to fetch it and get the gate open again must be measured in a good part of an hour, plenty of time for the main party to get well away. All that was needed was a mount for Betsey, and that came from Vincent Flaherty, a pony she had hired before and was fond of.
‘Now, why would you be wantin’ Canasta?’
‘Am I required to say?’
‘I suppose not, Edward, as long as you pay.’
‘I’ll be stabling him at the Navy Yard for a few days.’
‘Right. When Saoirse asks where he is, I’ll say you’ve got him.’ Seeing the look of enquiry, he added, ‘Did you not know, since you’ve taken Bonnie, it’s her favourite?’
‘No.’
A recollection came then of his first days in Deal, when he had rented Bonnie from Flaherty. He had met him later in the Lower Valley Road and Vincent, a friendly sort with an easy manner, had taken him to the Old Playhouse for the first time. That led to an introduction to Saoirse, while Brazier had been able to observe how enamoured of her Vincent was. He was a man clever enough to do addition.
‘Vincent, I would not want my having this pony broadcast.’
‘Lips sealed, Edward,’ was not wholly convincing, but that could just be his way of ever being jocose.
Back at the Navy Yard, he told his lads. ‘All we need now is a night with a bit of moon.’
‘Not full, Capt’n.’
‘No, a half or less will do.’
Too much was like daylight, none at all and it would be too dark to see anything. And there was one more string he might be able to add to his bow, but that had yet to materialise.
‘Why have we brought that wretch back, Henry? I am doing my very best to get Elisabeth to accept her situation, and you throw this in her face. All my efforts will be undone when she finds out.’
‘I have my reasons, Aunt Sarah, and I do not see the need to explain them to you.’ Seeing her puff up to respond, he raised his voice. ‘And, I will add, you have tested my patience quite enough these last few days and I will not have it so again. I would remind you that you depend on my charity. Don’t give me grounds to withdraw it.’
Sarah Lovell exited with as much dignity as she could muster, her back so stiff it was designed to send a message to her nephew she was unbowed. It was not replicated in her face, which registered her lately found position
of advantage was no more; she was back to being merely useful.
Henry was left working out how to play the game he had decided upon, namely that he would use Spafford to threaten Elisabeth. Misbehave and he would allow the scrub to ravish her, as was his conjugal right. She might fight, but she was a woman and, if Spafford was a weakling, he was also proven randy.
Kept here and denied his daily diet of whores, to then be offered a delicious flower like his sister, whom even Henry acknowledged as physically beautiful, and the man would be like a slavering wolf. Fight she might, but succumb she would in an imagined scenario that occasioned him some quite pleasant discomfort.
He was tempted to encourage it anyway, just for the pleasure to be had from her distress, a payback for years of ridicule. But that was to sacrifice an advantage, which would be foolish. But she must be told what she risked and he must be primed. On the night, should it come about, a drop of brandy and an offer of her body would surely do the trick.
With Hawker back he would go and see him on the morrow, to remind him of who deferred to whom. Elisabeth could keep her door locked for one more day and she would, for their aunt was bound to tell her who was a few doors away.
Daisy Trotter was not one to enter Deal on a regular basis, but when he did, Basil’s Molly-house was his port of call, a place where he knew everybody and, given they were like souls, was never thought different for his tastes. He always hoped for a few ships fresh in, and some of the younger crew members having a run ashore, looking for the right company, willing to part with a bit of coin for congress. When he was passed the message that a certain naval captain, no name given, though everyone knew it, wanted him to call at the Navy Yard, he was a bit more than thrown.
‘Lucky you, Daisy,’ squealed Basil the Bulgar, truly born in Dover, with a loose-waved wrist that did nothing to enhance his fat-lipped, round and rouged old face. ‘If you can bed that one, you’ll be in paradise.’
A Lawless Place Page 28