The steward, who had appeared abruptly, was a lean, tallish man of thirty, with a deferential stoop and thick dark hair. He nodded in polite compliance.
‘Aye-aye, sir. Erm, were you wanting the rum plain, sir, or ?’
‘Unwatered rum.’ A nod.
‘Grog, aye-aye, sir.’
‘Nay, nay.’ A sigh. ‘Grog is watered rum, Bassett. Un-watered is plain.’
‘I beg your pardon, sir.’ Retiring.
‘Now then, James. You had examined the tafferel, and--’
‘Exact, exact.’ Over him. ‘The hoy was heading east as she passed us, and at the moment the shot was fired, she was directly astern of our tafferel. Yes?’
‘Yes.’ Equably.
‘In fact the ball could not have come from astern of Foxhound.’
‘No?’
‘No.’ Moving to the table and tapping the end, near to the edge. ‘This is the tafferel.’ Pointing away from the table. ‘That is the hoy. But there can be no doubt the ball struck from this angle.’ Stepping down the table and pointing back. ‘From the other direction, entire.’
‘Yes, I agree with you.’
‘Eh?’
‘I agree with you, James. The shot came from somewhere other than the hoy. We know this for two reasons. The first is that powder hoys never carry guns of any kind it is forbidden, for fear of mishap, and explosion. The second reason is just as you have outlined.’ Touching his cheek. ‘I had already begun to suspect that it was not a splinter grazed my cheek, but the ball itself.’
The steward brought their refreshment, and withdrew. Rennie swallowed his rum in one draught, and put down his glass.
‘A third fact we must consider. Given the shot was not fired from the hoy, but from the opposite direction, then it must have been’--
‘Yes, I had already reached the same conclusion.’ James, over him. ‘It must have been fired from somewhere aboard Foxhound.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
‘Immediately I had understood this I searched the ship, and asked every man aboard the same question, including her standing officers. Had they seen the shot fired?’ James drank off his wine.
Rennie gave a sharp little huffing laugh. ‘And in course, had any of them done so, and said nothing until then, they would not tell you then. Hey?’
‘I felt obliged to ask, all the same.’
‘And the result? Nay, let me answer for you. You found nothing untoward in the ship. And no person aboard had seen the shot fired. I am correct?’
‘You are correct.’ A conceding grimace.
‘But not in all particulars, perhaps.’
‘Eh?’ Frowning, putting down his glass on the table.
‘The shot may not have come from Foxhound, but from some other craft nearby.’
‘A ship? Other then Expedient the nearest ship to our mooring number is a post ship three or four cable distant, to the north. The shot could not have come from her. No musket shot could be accurate at that range.’
‘I did not mean another ship. I said another craft. A boat, as an instance. A ferry,
or a harbour boat.’
‘There were no boats near.’
‘D’y’know that for a fact, James? Or are you guessing?’
‘The only boats near were the ferry that brought me to Foxhound, that I had instructed to wait, and your boat, William. There were no others.’
‘For myself, I confess I did not notice. I was so entirely certain the shot had come from the hoy from Westlake that I kept my eyes upon her alone. I could not and do not know whether there was another boat near, or no.’
‘Well, I am certain. A sea officer is always alert to these things. I would have seen another boat, was it there. It was not.’
‘Very well, James, very well I have no wish to dispute with you.’ Ignoring the implied rebuke. ‘Our difficulty remains, however .’
‘I fear that it does.’
‘Wait, though ’ Rennie held up a finger, and moved to the stern gallery windows. After a moment he turned back to the table. ‘The ferry was not there when I came to you in my gig.’
‘It must have been there I had instructed the--’
‘I tell you, it was not there, James. Nor was it there when we went into my gig to chase the hoy.’
James frowned, then nodded. ‘In course you are right, William. I had quite forgot. It was not.’ He rubbed his chin, and: ‘You think the ferryman fired on us .?’
Rennie sniffed, and shook his head. ‘It don’t seem probable, I will admit ’ A sigh.
‘No, I do not think so. Even if he had stood up in the boat and fired, he would not have been at a height sufficient to strike the tafferel at the angle you describe.’
‘In little, the shot was likely fired on my ship.’ James, an irritated shrug. ‘In which event.. .’ He broke off.
‘How many men was aboard her when you came to commission her today ?’ Rennie, looking at him closely.
‘Her standing officers, certainly. And a few men appointed by the dockyard. About a dozen in all. Her people were paid off when her captain died, and another ship was sent to the West Indies in her place.’
‘The standing officers may probably be above suspicion but not certainly. D’y’know the names of the other men?’
‘Nay, I don’t.’
‘We must see the Clerk of the Cheque at the dockyard, and discover the names of each one of them. Will you stay to supper, James?’
‘You are kind, but I must go ashore. My mother is coming from Melton, and Catherine has engaged a suite of rooms for her. She is expecting me.’
‘And I have sent for Sylvia,’ Rennie announced.
‘Sent for her, William ?’
‘Nay, well, perhaps that ain’t what I meant, exact. I have not sent for her, in truth. I have wrote to her to come. I feel her absence sorely.’
‘Forgive my impertinence, I did not mean to rebuke you.’
‘You did, though and quite right, too.’ A little grimace. ‘A gentleman don’t send
for his wife. Nay, certainly not. He asks her, very deferential and polite, if she will like to attend on him.’
James said goodnight, and laughed all the way down into his boat. He sobered as he was rowed back to the Hard, and reflected in the gathering darkness that both
he and Rennie were fortunate to be alive tonight further, that the mystery of their assailants had both quickened and deepened.
Seated in the stern sheets, his collar turned up against the evening chill, he felt deep inside his coat and closed his hand round the reassuring butt of his pocket pistol.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Because another ship, with her own complement of officers and men, had been sent in Foxhound’s place to Jamaica, James was able to fill Foxhound’s books with greater ease than he had anticipated. Her people had been officially dispersed after Commander Bryant’s untimely death, and Foxhound herself de-commissioned and made ready to be put in Ordinary. However, because of the circum-stances of HMS Ventura’s extended repair, and the exigent need for a ship to accompany HMS Expedient, the ship-sloop had been chosen whilst her people were either still at Portsmouth, or within easy recall. Nearly to a man they were taken back into her. James was able to rely on his first lieutenant from Ventura, Lieutenant Hallett who had followed him into Foxhound to seek a second lieutenant and four midshipmen. Lieutenant Hallett had also recommended a sailing master, Mr. Bone, who was duly appointed. Thus Foxhound’s full complement of one hundred and twenty-one souls was rapidly assembled.
In addition to these urgent duties Captain Hayter was obliged to receive his mother, for whom a suite of rooms had been engaged at the Marine Hotel.
The dowager Lady Hayter, a handsome elderly woman, wished to enjoy herself at Portsmouth, in spite of the relatively recent loss of her husband and two of her sons. She had mourned them mourned them still but had now cast aside her widow’s veil. Her life at Melton in Dorset was neither particularly irksome to her, nor taxing, but i
t was often dull. Lately she had begun again to accept invitations to dine among her local acquaintance, at the half dozen houses within easy reach of her carriage. She entertained in her turn. She tended her garden. Occasionally she ventured farther afield than Shaftesbury or Blandford, for a day or two, to Bath. She never went to London. From that city there came regular parcels of books, but books could not altogether fill the spaces in her heart and imagination that required even now, in later life the added stimulus of new surroundings, and new faces.
‘Catherine and I shall visit the confectioners. There is an acceptable confectioners at Portsmouth .?’
‘In the High, mother,’ James, nodding and smiling, and anxious to be away to the Hard.
‘ where we shall drink chocolate. And we shall go to the play.’
‘I fear that you will not find a theatre at Portsmouth, mother.’
‘No theatre? In a bustling, prosperous place such as Portsmouth? I do not believe it. If there is a theatre at Bath and I know that there is, because I been to the play there then there is undoubtedly a theatre here at Portsmouth.’
‘Well, there is a kind of playhouse, you know. But it ain’t for you and Cathy.’
‘Not for us? What can you mean?’
‘Well it is a very poor, rudimentary kind of performance.’
‘A play?’
‘Not exact, no. It is well, look here, there is no polite definition. It is the coarsest and most vulgar of entertainments, base, ribald, grossly indelicate.’
‘It sounds altogether exciting. We must obtain tickets at once or better still, a box.’ Lady Hayter enjoyed teasing her son, as she had once teased her husband.
‘Very well, madam, just as you wish.’ Refusing to take the bait. ‘I must away to my ship.’
‘So soon, when I have seen so little of you?’
‘Madam, I am a serving sea officer, called to his duty, and already weeks behind in it.’
‘Then Catherine and I shall entertain ourselves without your help. We are quite capable, in all distinctions.’
‘I am in no doubt.’ Taking up his hat, he kissed his mother on the cheek. ‘I shall return this evening.’ At the door he turned briefly. ‘Why do you not call on your friend Mrs. Fenway, that lives nearby?’
‘Gwendolyn Fenway has been dead these three years.’ A sad little smile, her manner entirely altered.
‘I am very sorry, I never knew she had she died.’
‘I have lost a great many of my friends ’
‘I am very sorry.’ And not knowing what else to say he left her suite, and the hotel. Mrs. Fenway had been very kind to him years ago, when he had been severely injured in a sea action, and taken first to the Haslar Hospital. She had taken him from there into her house, and nurtured him, and as he thought of that interlude now, of that gentle lady’s kindness and concern, he too was filled with tender grief.
‘Captain Hayter, sir!’
A figure, waving at him from far down on the Hard. James peered at the figure,
and strode down there.
It was his new coxswain from Foxhound, Gabriel Wiggen. The ship’s gig lay
waiting for her captain at the water’s edge, with four oarsmen standing round it, just as James had instructed the night before.
‘Yes, coxswain, I know I am late.’
‘Oh, no, sir, no ’ Distressed. ‘Lieutenant Hallett oh, Christ .’
‘Lieutenant Hallett what?’ Staring at him.
‘He has been killed, laying asleep.’
‘Killed .?’
‘Aye, sir ’ His voice catching. ‘Evidently he slept in your cabin, sir, as you was ashore and when the gunroom steward could not find him in his own cabin this morning, he ventured into the great cabin .and found him.’
‘In my cabin, you say ?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good God.’ James dragged his eyes from the coxswain’s stricken face, and stared
down the harbour, then: ‘How was he killed?’
‘He were stabbed, sir. He were all bloody, laying there and staring up .Oh, Christ, I hope never to see such a thing again ’
‘When was he found? How long since?’
‘Above an hour ago. I come ashore at once, to find you.’
James looked at Wiggen again, at his shocked and distressed face, and naval instinct took over. Briskly:
‘Very well, coxswain. You will wait here, while I inform the Port Admiral, and ask him to inform the colonel of Marines. Then you will return with me to Foxhound.
Have you spoke to anyone else of this?’
‘We have spoke only among ourselves, sir, in the gig. I were just about to come and fetch you at the hotel.’
‘Very good. Speak to no other person. I will come back directly.’
‘Aye-aye, sir.’
James thrust his hand into his coat, and closed his hand on the butt of his pistol. Then he felt in his other pocket, and found his flask. He gave it to his coxswain.
‘A swallow of rum will do you good. And let the others in the boat share it.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Taking the flask.
‘Speak to no one.’
And James turned and strode away toward the Port Admiral’s office.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Shortly after the musket shot had been fired at him on Foxhound, Rennie had asked at the Clerk of the Cheque’s office at the dockyard for the names of those men appointed to crew Foxhound at her mooring. And was informed very brusquely by the assistant clerk that that information could only be given out to the new commanding officer of the ship in question. Given that Rennie was not that officer, the information could not therefore be so vouchsafed.
Rennie grew vexed, attempted to browbeat the assistant clerk, and was stiffly rebuffed; attempted instead to be avuncular and friendly, and was stiffly re-buffed and came away fuming.
‘Damned idle quill-drivers ’
He would probably have pursued the matter, but other matters had intervened the inevitable administrative detritus that cluttered a ship captain’s desk and then he had learned of the calamity aboard Foxhound, and the far darker and more immediate question became: who had killed Lieutenant Hallett?
Before this question could be answered, or indeed properly addressed, letters came to both Captains Rennie and Hayter, instructing them to weigh and make sail. Rennie was to sail first, and immediately, James the day after.
Both Foxhound and Expedient were now fully stored and manned. No further delay would be sanctioned.
This was distressing to both men. To James, because of the shocking business of his first lieutenant’s death, and his failure to discover either the murderer, or his motive except that Lieutenant Hallett had probably been killed in mistake for himself. Also because he was now short one officer, with no time to replace him. And also because he must leave Catherine at a time when they were closer than they had been since the death of their son. And distressing to Rennie, because he would now be at sea before his beloved Sylvia who had been delayed at Norwich could arrive at Portsmouth, and he would not see her again for many months.
Although both captains were indeed much cast down by these circumstances, both of them knew there was nothing to be done. Privately both had begun to question everything about this commission, to doubt the motives behind it, and their own wisdom in agreeing to accept even James. Of course it would not have been easy for either of them to refuse without destroying their careers, but it might just about have been managed earlier. Now, it was too late. They must weigh, bring their ships to the wind, and proceed as ordered.
Rennie was due to weigh at the turn of the morning tide. As night fell he ventured ashore in his gig taking with him James’s sword, that he had kept
since London and had forgotten to return until now and had a final late supper with James in the small parlour at the Marine Hotel. James’s mother had gone to her bed early with a headache, and Catherine had gone up with her. In spite of the absence of their wives, Rennie end
eavoured to be cheerful:
‘It is damned foolishness, in course, James, that we are still not supposed to communicate official until we make the rendezvous. I could not weigh without returning your sword to you, and drinking a farewell glass.’
‘I am glad ye came.’ Gloomily, taking the sword. ‘And you are quite right. After all that has happened, the whole damned thing is foolish, it seems to me. Yet more of the Fund’s arcane damned obfuscation sealed papers not to be opened until we are far at sea, and so forth that we have had far too much of in previous cruises. But they have surpassed themselves in this present commission. It must rate as their masterpiece of absurd comical invention. Nay, Sheridan himself could not have wrote it better, I think.’ Unsheathing the sword, and peering at the bared blade with a frown. ‘ I am Captain Utterpuzzle, and you I think are Captain Lostalot, hey? We find ourselves in a pretty fix, sir, what what? ‘
‘Hhh-hhh-hhh, Lostalot .’ Lifting his glass. ‘That’ll never do where we are going.’
‘In course, it is also a tragedy.’ James, putting the sword aside with a flourish and refilling his glass. ‘A glorious naval-tragical-comical amusement, for the delight of the Secret Service Fund, at our expense.’
‘To the Fund!’ Rennie, again raising his glass.
‘Aye, to the Fund.’ James raised his glass in turn. ‘God damn them.’
‘And all their works!’
‘And all their works.’
They drank.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
In the past Rennie had kept a cat aboard, that he had named Dulcimer. Dulcie, as she was known, was a fond little creature and Rennie had taken great comfort in her presence in his cabin. At length, at the end of the commission, he had taken her home with him to Norfolk, and there she had died.
Now as he thought of her he missed her. He missed Sylvia much more, but separation from his spouse was ever the sea officer’s lot, and each man learned to cope in his own way. Some wrote frequent letters, and kept them in a bundle until they could be delivered. Others wrote a private journal. Others again conducted imaginary conversations with their beloved as they lay alone in their hanging cots. Captain Rennie had tried all three methods, and found that none of them answered. For him Dulcie had been a solace, and a companion, in a way that no artificial comfort could be. Her gentle presence and quirks of character had endeared her to him deeply. She did not always offer her affection, and could be haughty and indifferent as the whim took her, but never for long. Always when his mood was low and he was most sorely in need of comfort his cat seemed to sense it, and would come to him, jump up into his lap, and lie there purring her pleasure.
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