The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  The purser was so anxious to get it out that the words tumbled forth in a spray of dribble. He was beside himself.

  ‘Dead sir! Aye sir! Dead sir! Three or four of them! By God sir! It is true! The villains!’

  Swift said coldly: ‘Pray control yourself.’ But the strange light flickered in his own eye, quite plainly.

  ‘Beg pardon, sir,’ said Butterbum. He gulped, two or three times, got his breath. ‘They tried to prevent me, sir. That smuggler lout, what’s his name, Broad? And then the blind man, putting the damned evil eye on, I swear it. But I got in for an instant, sir, and it was enough. Dead sheep, dead sheep! They manhandled me, sir! It is a hanging matter!’

  William jumped as his uncle stood up. The captain strode to a curtained-off compartment, and returned a few seconds later with a wooden box and a great blue cloak. He struggled impatiently into the cloak, opened the box, and took out one of the long pistols that lay there. Not a word was spoken as he checked and primed it. He thrust it into a deep narrow pocket in the cloak, flashing William a preoccupied smile. The purser was standing gasping, a fish out of water, his pasty face pastier yet.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Purser,’ said Swift. ‘Now sir, get to your cubbyhole and shut your mouth. If a word of this leaks, you will be flogged. Understand?’

  He ushered the fat man out past the marine sentry, who saluted as the captain hurried by. Butterbum disappeared, and William strode along beside his uncle, his heart leaping with excitement. He could hardly believe this was happening, it was unprecedented, amazing. That the captain should go about his own business like this, that no one on the ship should know he was abroad and with what purpose. They sped along the alleyway like lightning. Hagan, meeting them, gave them a startled look then stepped back as the owner swept by. Seconds later they were picking their way forward in the gloom.

  Along the length of the deck, the captain’s passing caused a groundswell of astonishment and unease. The men were at their dinner, wolfing the food from their platters ravenously. But all sounds ceased when any given mess recognised him. Ahead and behind him was a babble, but as he passed each point a silence fell. It was unprecedented.

  Long before he reached the animal pens, Broad knew he was coming. The wave of shocked excitement gathered speed and raced forward mess by mess. When the captain arrived, short and magnificent with his great strong face above the massive cloak, Grandfather Fulman’s mess was ranged before the pens in a ragged line. It was an odd formation, vaguely reminiscent of the last tattered remnants of an army defending a fort. There was something defiant in it, something pathetically defiant.

  Behind Swift and his nephew, all men had abandoned food and drink. William, glancing over his shoulder, made out a hundred faces, pressing ever closer. In the excitement of the moment he felt no fear, although if ever there was a time ripe for mutiny this was surely it. But the captain was truly awe-inspiring now; truly, he inspired awe.

  Even Thomas felt it. As the owner stood before the ragged line the boy, so near collapse before, took a small step forward. He raised his dark eyes to the pale ones that glared at him, and spoke.

  ‘I am sorry, sir,’ he said. ‘Your beasts are dead.’

  Silence fell, spreading outwards from the group of men. The creaking of the Welfare’s timbers, the sad howling of the wind, the fainter crashing of the sea; at last these were the only sounds.

  When Swift spoke, his voice had the effect of a saw. It was unmusical, harsh, vibrating slightly as if it were being forced out under pressure from great depths.

  ‘Who are your fellows, Thomas Fox? Who are your fellows in this hellish business?’

  The silence got deeper. Thomas stood swaying slightly.

  His face was blank. He did not speak.

  Swift repeated: ‘Who? Tell me, damn you, or it will be the worse for you. Who?’

  The boy’s pale, worn face looked weary. He moved his head from side to side, slowly, as if trying to understand. He was lost, uncomprehending. And still said nothing.

  Before the captain spoke again, there was a commotion from aft.

  The close-pressed men were jostled, and broke apart. Mr Allgood, a lantern in his hand, pushed forward at the head of a gaggle of mates and corporals. He stopped when he saw the strange group by the beast pens. Captain Swift half turned. He regarded him.

  ‘Ah, Mr Allgood. Just the man. In the matter of some sheep, Mr Allgood. In the matter of some dead sheep.’

  The monstrous bulk of the boatswain, crouched from the shoulders under the low deckhead, gave a sort of shrug.

  ‘Aye, sir?’ he said. His tone was neutral.

  ‘In the matter of some dead sheep I say, sir. This young man here. This…Thomas Fox. I want him punished.’

  Still the deadly silence from the ship’s people. Again a sort of shrug.

  ‘Aye, sir?’

  The captain’s voice became more penetrating. It rose. The muscles in his cheeks worked, as if the pressure were becoming intolerable.

  ‘Aye sir! Aye sir! Aye sir!’

  William Bentley saw the shepherd boy give a long shudder. His own mouth was dry. There was fear in the air, it was almost visible.

  Swift was breathing fast, the air hissing through his bony nostrils. It was an irregular, disturbing sound. It was some time before he spoke.

  When he did, it was in a brisk, business-like way, as if he had suddenly relaxed. But the words were in direct contrast. Any tendency in the people to relax with him was swamped. He turned abruptly to the boy again.

  ‘Fox, get you to the main topmast yard if you please. And stay there. Mr Allgood will have you conducted.’

  There were two sounds then. A low, strangled noise from the throat of Padraig Doyle, like a choke, and a harsh note from the throat of Allgood. A grunt; a fierce, angry sound. The captain turned his cold eyes on him.

  ‘You have a comment, sir?’

  The stooped giant’s eyes glittered. Bentley saw his big red lips part momentarily. Then shut. Then:

  ‘No sir.’

  The amazing, dazzling smile. But Swift’s voice was broken ice.

  ‘Good, then. Fox shall go to that yard, and stay there.’ He passed a quick glance among the company within his sight. ‘Until I decide upon the form his punishment shall take.’

  He turned on his heel with a swirl of heavy cloak and strode aft, scarcely giving men time to bundle out of his way. William had almost to run to keep up.

  When they reached the cabin, the captain called for wine and two glasses. When they were alone he raised a brimming glass and proposed a toast.

  ‘To mutiny!’ he said. ‘Much good may it do them, eh?’

  William had to drink. But his thoughts were outside, in the cold, howling night. He watched his uncle’s handsome, smiling face, but his thoughts were jumbled. In his mind’s eye, the yard where the boy must be. My God, the cold!

  And was the punishment still to come! The wine went down the wrong way and set him coughing. His uncle laughed.

  ‘Come boy, put your mind to it!’ he cried. ‘It is you who should be proposing a toast, William, for it is a fine thing to see an enemy destroyed.’ He clapped a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. ‘Come, I will be magnanimous,’ he added. ‘Credit give where credit is deserved. It is you who have brought the shepherd down, my boy, with a little outside aid. You found him out, and brought him down. Well done!’

  *

  For Thomas Fox, the journey to the yard was slow and dreadful. It was, in fact, the first time he had ever been aloft, tender of beasts and landman as he was. He was as hampered by the clothing he wore as by his clumsiness; for under the eye of Allgood, strangely tolerant for a boatswain under orders to punish, his messmates had dressed him in every stitch that they could gather. He had found it hard to bend his knees and elbows during the long struggle up the ratlines from the deck. Many times he had paused to recover his strength, closing his eyes and sobbing for breath. The swaying, slippery, alien rigging was a puzzle to him, and the manifol
d noises – sighing, sawing, thrumming, moaning – only served to frighten him more. His progress was abysmally slow, with sweat blinding him and making his grip dangerously haphazard.

  He had known when to stop only at a shout from below; and there he sat, astride some heavy ropes near the mast, desperately clutching others. The yard was far wider than he had expected, but it did not make a solid platform, moving constantly and groaning too, loudly and all the time, like a beast in pain. For a long while after reaching it, Fox groaned also; the noises merging in his mind like a symphony of misery.

  When the first terror died away, however, an odd, unlooked-for feeling came to him. The sky was like a mighty void, and he seemed to be its centre, rushing through it in a cage of wood and rope work. The sensation of movement was quite marvellous, as the wind tore at him from across the weather bow and from round and under sails and mast. The white water flung outwards far below him reminded him of breathing, flashing and glittering in the roaring darkness. Horse-rider, horse-rider, he kept thinking, just the words, over and over again. Horse-rider, horse-rider. The blast of air in his nostrils was clean, intensely clean. It burst into his lungs, a strange, mesmeric action. Empty and fill, empty and fill, clean and cold, clean and cold.

  Whenever he tried to make sense of what had happened, whenever he tried to put a reason to his presence on the yard, his mind would slide away. Something to do with sheep, he knew, and that poor midshipman Bentley. He had killed some sheep, that was it, and this was his punishment. Or was it? Was there something else to come? Then off would go his mind once more, to think, perhaps, of Padraig Doyle; and his frozen lips would try to form a smile.

  Padraig Doyle, at about this time, was weeping in the arms of Jesse Broad. He had put a brave face on it as he had hugged his friend farewell, but when the boy had gone onto the deck, he had retired to the pens to weep. There, later, Broad had sought him out – as much to get some comfort, he supposed, as to try and give it. For he was filled with a great sense of despair, and loss. He had almost burst with horror and rage as the shepherd boy had been led up the ladder; a helpless feeling that he guessed was in many hearts. The people, after the confrontation with the captain, had not drifted back to their dinners. The hubbub had never reasserted itself. There had been a numbness, a revulsion.

  The huge bulk of Allgood had been part of it. Impassive yet involved, he had watched over the dressing up of Fox, like a dumb animal watching some act of dreadful violence to its young; like some chained beast, unable to move or to express itself. How ambiguous was his position, Jesse thought; a man so violently hated by so many of the men. A cruel, vicious instrument of work and discipline. Who yet had some unknown streak in him, who yet seemed somehow linked with Thomas Fox. And who still had had to oversee this awful act of sadism by the captain; who had had to see the pale-faced boy safely into the resting place that would probably be his last alive.

  After the act, the men had been subdued. But there had been this feeling, too, this brooding air of impending doom. Broad hugged the birdlike, crippled body of the blind man, crooned to it as he had heard young Thomas do. He had a vision of despair and violence.

  *

  On deck, at midnight, Bentley came on watch and stared into the gloom above until he made out the hunched black shape at the yard. It was blowing fierce now, with the Welfare constantly being drenched by icy spray. Huddled deep in his thick wool coat, his hands thrust into big patch pockets, he nevertheless shivered from time to time. He had eaten well that night, and drunk of wine, but when he had been on deck only an hour, the warmth was gone. He huddled ever deeper into the high-collared coat, burrowing into the warmth with his mind as well as his body. He was trying, oh so very hard, to keep away from that cold black shape aloft. But mind and eyes and heart returned and returned. The dim shape, immobile as a part of the topmast furniture, throbbed in his head. Occasionally a sort of horror overwhelmed him, a kind of fear. What had he—? But he would take his hands from his pockets, bang his sides vigorously, jig up and down. At one moment he tried to engage the master, on deck to smell the weather as so often when it bade fair to be dirty, in some silly conversation. But the thin, ugly Mr Robinson gave him such a withering look, that William felt quite hollow with loneliness. Then the master checked the binnacle, and went below.

  If there had been, if there was, a plot (it flashed into his mind at one point) then why had Uncle Daniel done nothing to anyone except the boy? A moment of panic— it was just a mad act, a piece of vicious… William found himself biting his lower lip, clenching his fists in his pockets. His breathing was jerky. He brought it to control, thought rationally.

  No, Uncle Daniel knew his men, knew them totally. Uncle Daniel was right. No need for extra precautions, if he said not. The sending of the boy to the yard was enough. It would stop them in their tracks, petrify them. Good God, the lad would never— He was biting his lips again, uttering, to his astonishment, a thin, small cry. He looked around in horror, in case someone may have heard. But no, no one near. He felt a sob begin, deep inside him, and his horror grew. What was happening, what was happening? He cursed the wine he had drunk, viciously, under his breath, cursed and swore and ranted. The boy too: Ah damn him, damn him, why had he brought this on himself?

  Just before the watch was changed, Allgood sought, and gained, permission to check the boy’s condition, and have him lashed to the spar if need be. William could not bear to hear the report. He went below and buried himself in blankets. While the watch was changing over, Broad and Matthews exchanged a few quick words, during which fear, anger and regret were expressed; also a garbled tale of Fox’s cousin, who might or might not be a marine. Then the men were separated. But not a boatswain’s mate who used his rattan that night. There was a brooding in the air.

  Thomas did not really know it, when he was securely lashed to the yard. He was dimly aware that something was going on, but that was all. He was warm again now, after a long period of mortal agony. During that whole time he had known the strange sensation of feeling sensation die.

  It did not die fast, all at once, it died slowly, and could always be localised. Extremities first, his nose, and lips and eyebrow-flesh. Then he had felt his fingers go; numb to begin with, then racked with wrenching agony, then numb at last once more. His feet had taken longer, and cost more pain. His jawbones hurt the most of all, as if someone were squeezing them in a vice. Gradually the warmth was sucked and drained out of him, until he could actually chart the creeping advance of the cold, closer and closer to the centre of the ball that was his thickly covered, clenched body.

  Now he was warm again.

  Now he was warm, and his thoughts drifted sunnily over his father’s farm. He wandered along the pebbled shores of Portsea Island, watching the green and shining sea as it crashed merrily onto the beach. He played with his sisters endlessly, he filled his gut with cakes and ale. He got great prices at the market for his flocks, and watched with pleasure the happy antics of the sailors on Spice Island, enjoying their liberty. He stared at the men-of-war, lordly and majestic as they swung round their cables in Spithead, against the dark luxurious green of the Isle of Wight. Something tried to encroach upon his mind from time to time, but it faded always after a few seconds’ thought. Sometimes he opened his eyes and it was dark, which was surprising. But most of the time, the sun shone. How lovely was the sea, how merry were its waves. And how he envied those who had the chance to sail upon it.

  Twenty-Six

  It was shortly before the grey daylight broke that Captain Swift had the word sent for Thomas Fox to be brought down. By accident or design, Mr Allgood told off Jesse Broad as one of the men to go aloft – for there was no response of any kind to hails to Thomas from below. Broad shot up the rigging like a monkey, and reached the boy seconds before the other seaman did. His heart sank at what he saw, his eyes momentarily closed. His friend was surely dead.

  But he was not. As Broad leaned close he saw a steamy wisp of breath from the bone-w
hite nose. He gasped, and whispered ‘Thomas’. No response.

  It took the two of them several minutes to free the rigid body of the boy. Despite the fat cocoon of clothing, he had seized up almost solid. They had, after unlashing him, to move his limbs like those of a wooden doll. The trunk, clenched and doubled, they could not move; Thomas had to be taken down closed like a knife. His face was a frightening sight, glaring white with dull red and blue patches, hair, eyebrows and lips rimed with ice.

  At deck level, many gentle hands reached out to take the boy, but Jesse would let him go to no one. The boatswain stood nearby, his face sombre. When Broad said he was alive, a disbelieving smile lit his face. It did not stay for long.

  ‘Get him to the surgeon, quick.’

  Mr Adamson was waiting, inevitably with his brandy bottle at the ready. He had hot stones, too, and dried blankets that had been roasted before the galley fire. He worked quickly, nimbly, his usually jolly face grim. He slapped away with warm rags, got some of the outer clothing off, tried to force spirit between the rigidly clenched lips. As long as Jesse could afford to stay, he hung there on the outskirts, not daring to ask the question he wanted to ask. He felt helpless, foolish. The surgeon, dipping like a bird, worked furiously.

  After ten minutes from his duty, Broad knew he could stay no longer. He stood on one foot, then the other. He coughed.

  Adamson looked up, gave him a brief, humourless smile.

  ‘Hello, Mr Smuggler,’ he said. ‘What do you want?’

  He did not wait for a reply, knowing full well. The frozen face under his hands remained rigid. The eyes had not so much as flickered.

  ‘I’m sorry, friend,’ he went on. ‘I do not know. He is not dead, that is one thing. And it is a start, eh?’

  ‘Oh, to hell with you!’ he cried irritably. ‘I’m a surgeon, not a wizard. If heat and brandy can pull him round, he’ll pull round. If not, he’s dead. Now go!’

  Later on, Jesse and the others of the crew who wanted to know, who gravitated to the nearest points they could reach to the sickbay, heard the screams begin. They were terrible, heart-rending. Little Peter, still sick and weak, was in despair at the pain his friend was suffering. But Grandfather Fulman smiled full and gratefully.