The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  Holt threw a glance at him.

  “Well, that’s not likely, anyway,” he said. “My times for talking to Sir A…” He stopped, and wiped rainwater from his eyes and face. “Nay, private things, sir. Men like you have no need of benefactors, I suppose, and men like me are insufficient grateful. Nay, wrong again, I do him wrong again.” This last was almost muttered, but he flashed a bold smile, adding loudly: “He has a sense of humour, does Sir A, but perhaps to call him whoremaster would be a shot too far. There is much he disapproves of in my life, I’m sad to say. No matter, then.” So they would not go to the great house for their comfort, nor to a gay house neither, that was settled. Will dropped his horse behind as the road became a narrow, sodden bottleneck, and tried to fathom out. Earlier his strange companion had talked too much on shallow subjects, then he’d uttered cryptically on deep, while now he did not talk at all. Under it there was embarrassment of a sort, thought Bentley, there must be. He decided the offhand manner was not perhaps innate vulgarity, but more like a social cover. Holt was above him in the Navy pecking order, but not in any other, clearly. He had prattled earlier of his lawyer father, who had gone to Virginia but had died “before he made his fortune,” and said it with a laugh, engagingly. But the fact that he had gone, and his son had stayed at home, argued that the unmade fortune must have been a sad necessity. What’s more, Holt had got his naval education at “Christ’s Mathematical, where all the jolly paupers go!” — and made another jest of that. Momentarily, Will felt a blush begin to rise. When Holt had breakfasted at his father’s house, much at his apparent ease, Will had remarked the stains and grass stalks on his clothes, and Samuel, drinking tea, had chuckled that he’d slept in a hedge the night. Could it be he had not spoke in fun?

  “Sir,” he said. “Mr Holt.”

  “Or Samuel. Sam for short.”

  “Yes. Samuel. Look, you must call me Will, and do forgive me if you think I’m a grumps, but it is hard for me, you know. This is my first ship for a damn long time, and my last one was the Welfare; you have heard of her no doubt, and of my uncle who commanded her. As you’ve been frank with me I’ll tell you frankly that I go to sea, between us two, out of necessity. I have an older brother lives in Wiltshire who will inherit what I call my home. I have no other means of income, but I can do mathematics, and don’t get mortal sick in ships. The Biter is a tender for the Press. She is… it is not what…”

  Holt made a harsh noise in his throat. Amusement.

  “Not what you were bred to, William. No, I do well believe it! I have heard of Daniel Swift — who has not? — and know that he’s your uncle, and the Biter’s not his kind of ship, I’ll warrant you. She is a collier, out of Sunderland I think, cut down because she’s of a certain age. She’s old and dirty and a little cranky, and she’s on the Impress, which is a pain to other men than you and me. Nay, I am being far too open maybe, so are you, but to hell with it, we’re shipmates and we’ll stand or fall together, so keep it up, say I. We are due on Biter by tonight on pain of God knows what, but when we get there Lieutenant Kaye won’t be on board, he’ll be off whoring — lord, there’s frankness for you! So if you’ll risk it, friend, we’ll go for the young maids’ bodies also, and the meat and drink — even the feather beds if that’s your preference! What say you?”

  As he had spoken there had been a squall of wind, warm but unexpected, to batter fresh, heavy raindrops in their faces. First one and then the other turned the horses’ rumps into the gust, huddling in their sopping cloaks. The beating rain made answer useless for the moment.

  William, at last, said: “Samuel. It is not that I am being nice, but… Truly, I have never even thought…”

  In the dying gust, they both heard noises. Odd sounds, like a bellow and a scream. The horses heard it, lifting their heads into the falling drops, one flicking up its ears. The wind died, and the sounds died with it. The two young men glanced at each other, both quizzical. Then Holt pulled his horse round to face the northern road.

  “Ah, whatever,” he said, with a note as if regretting the frankness of his speaking. “She is a Press tender, men will hate us for the things we do, but we have to do our duty anyway, we must earn our meat and drink. The Biter is a fine ship, let us say, and I am proud to serve in her. So let us go and greet our lord and master.”

  The breeze blew, and a scream came, faint but clear. It was high and pure, a young scream, probably a girl’s. Then a bellow, male and powerful, then a second screaming voice, that broke into a sob. The breeze died and they both dug heels in horses’ sides. Outlined against the sky there was a dense black copse ahead. It was not far away, perhaps a quarter-mile or so, and the horses, as if sensing purpose in the movement, surged and snorted. The weak light through the breaking cloud held up, and when they reached the woodland they could see an entry through the undergrowth. As they slowed to go into the trees William caught a fire’s glow a hundred yards inside, and a horse snickered when it caught their own mounts’ scents.

  The shouting and the screams were to the purpose now, bold and definite. One woman’s voice was bawling loud abuse, the other howling. Among the deeper shouts they heard blows being struck. It was a mortal struggle.

  “God, Will,” said Holt. “Is it a tinker camp? Let’s not stick our nose in anything of that.”

  They reined their horses to a halt while they considered. Had it been footpads or men of the highway, they would have gone in headlong, but a family quarrel, however violent, was a different thing. In the glow from the fire both could see the outline of a cart, a covered living van. Bentley touched the hanger at his side. There might be many of them; it was his only arm.

  “Do you have a gun? They — ”

  There came an awful scream, pain-filled and wrenched. The other voice screeched, “Murderer! Murderer! Help, he’s killing us!,” and both men spurred, all doubts forgotten. The horses, more circumspect, responded to the goad, but cautiously, feeling the ground before they put their weight on it. They came into the clearing not on a gallop but sedately.

  The scene before their eyes was wild, however. In the darkness it was a question of shapes and shadows, but there was a man, a vigorous terrier of a man, in a black cloak, scuttling between two girls or women, pulling at them, flailing with an arm that held a cudgel. For a moment the three fought and struggled, moving round in circles between van and fire, the movement punctuated by grunts, by silence, and by screams.

  “Hold!” shouted Samuel. And William added, “Enough! Enough, sir! Stop!”

  The shock was startling. Immediately the three figures sprang apart and all noise ceased. Only for an instant, then the man roared incoherently, while one of the maidens let out a wail, lower than her cries of earlier, full of pain and misery. Then the man, as if with great intent, rushed at their horses, arm and club raised as if to strike, eyes glaring furiously. Will’s horse, of its own volition, stepped back a foot or two, before he could control it.

  “Go before I kill you!” roared the man. “Private business, private! Get off from here!”

  In Samuel’s hand there was a heavy Navy cutlass, the blade already hacked significantly. William struggled to get his sword out, but the horse was not for fighting, it was a master of retreat. The man ran up to Samuel’s horse, then had to stop. The prattler did not move. The Navy blade reached forward past his horse’s ears, pointing at the waiting throat. The throat was knotted angrily, the muscles worked.

  “You go,” invited Samuel, almost as if to a friend. “I do not like to see men threaten women. You go, sir. Go now.”

  But the women were the ones to run. One darted to the other, whose face was covered with her hands, and clapped an arm around her and tried to drag her off. As they moved, the cloaked man moved to stop them, and Samuel leapt neatly from his saddle and sent the blade over his head in a whooshing arc. At the edge of the clearing one girl fell, giving out a cry of misery, and the other stopped to help her.

  Bentley was down now, sword out, trying to
restrain his horse with a rein. The other horse was standing quietly, watching the old nag tethered to the cart. For a moment, there was just the sound of water dripping through the leaves. William noticed that no new rain was falling. It had stopped.

  The cloaked man faced Samuel, but the wildness in his eyes was almost gone. He raised a hand, a sort of friendly gesture, or submissive, if half-hearted. Holt stepped forward, all aggression, the cutlass raised and ready.

  “Drop it,” he said.

  “These women,” the man began. “These two whores — ”

  Samuel stepped once more, lowering the blade, its position very deadly.

  “Drop it!”

  With an imprecation that was lost in passion, the man threw the club — not down but straight at Samuel’s head — and turned towards the women. With a burst of movement he scuttled across the clearing and levelled a great clout to the head of the stooped one, who fell across her friend in a jumble. Then he was gone, through the undergrowth into the trees. William Bentley and Samuel Holt stared at one another.

  Slowly, the two young women rose to their feet. One, enveloped in a sodden cloak with hood, appeared to look at them. Her companion, however, did not. Her face remained covered. From beneath her hands came sobs and sounds of pain. William, the rein still in his hand, took two or three steps towards them, but imperceptibly they edged back towards the clearing’s edge. He stopped.

  “We are not here to hurt you,” he said. “We thought you might need help.”

  “Are you a surgeon?”

  The maid’s voice was odd, or struck him so. He hardly understood what she had said. There was a note like scorn.

  “You’re from the north,” said Samuel Holt. “Who needs a surgeon?”

  “He’s had her teeth,” the girl said. She glanced at her companion, and both men moved forward, gently. William, with a jolt, saw blood underneath the hands, blood moving on the chin, on to the neck and breast. “She’s been bleeding hours.”

  “Her teeth?” said William.

  “There’s a village,” Holt said. “I’ll help her up on to my horse. Mr Bentley will take you.”

  The girl turned her head to William, and the cloak hood fell aside. Another jolt struck him as he looked close into her eyes. She was young, and lustrous, and distracted. But her eyes, though troubled, locked on his, and held them. They were brown, and deep, and speaking, beneath thick eyebrows in an oval face, and he felt somehow robbed of sense, as if a charge of heat had gone between them.

  “He has gone there,” was what the maiden said. “To the village, there’s an alehouse, he’ll get men. We ran away. They’ll kill us.”

  Then the other maid collapsed. As she fell into a heap in the mud her hands dropped and her face was uncovered. It was white and bloodless, with violent bruises and torn, broken lips, barely parted. But as she lay her mouth fell open wider, and it was filled with blood, that dribbled down her cheek. Her gums were empty, blood rising in the ragged sockets where her teeth had been. Just three left at the back on one side, on the other four.

  “I know a place,” said Samuel, quietly.

  THREE

  In Hampshire, now, Charles Warren and Charles Yorke were near the end. Of their road and suffering, Yorke hoped, but he feared another end might be in store. They had come miles, and every yard a torture and a beating. His face was whipped to pieces, one eye blind, his cheekbone numb the last hour or more. He had been in and out of consciousness himself, but his older friend behind had borne the brunt of blows and taunts and whipping, and of startings with the points of many swords. At one stage Warren had slipped sideways with a sudden, weighty rush that Yorke had been incapable of preventing, and it had caused great whoops and yells of jubilation.

  The horse, bone-weary after many miles across soft muddy fields and dense leafy pathways leading to the west, had mercifully stopped. Yorke had twisted round as best he could, to see Charles Warren s legs arched round the belly, his feet above the back, lashed with thin, biting line. Underneath, he could make out the trunk and head of Warren, with his lashed wrists dangling down towards his chin. Had he been in his senses he must have screamed, the pain would have been unbearable. But he made no sound.

  The men did, the smugglers, free traders, savages. They yelled and yipped, kicking their horses round about the tired one, lashing and poking at the body hung below. Almost absently, one or another of them would take a slash at Yorkes own face, but he felt little pain — except for his companion, which was a different thing. As the horse was lashed into a stumbling forward pace, the back hooves struck poor Warren’s head, first one and then the other, rocking it back and forward, side to side, at every kick. Until he, Yorke, began to roar and shout and rock so hard the horse put down its head in fear and refused to go another step. Much as the drunkards raged and beat him, Charles Yorke would not desist, until at last some of them dismounted, and pushed Warren back upright on the horse’s back and held him there until he showed some life. The rain had stopped, but they dashed water in his face from a puddle in the grass and smacked and fanned him with their hands. Like Yorke, Warren was bareheaded, neither wig nor hat remaining. They caught each other’s eyes, but did not speak.

  How long did it go on? Neither of them knew. Yorke judged it must be nearly midnight when they stopped, but that was a notion, only. They were on a wide heath, still windless, with a waning moon above them as the grey bulked cloud dwindled. The horsemen, less noisy, not so boisterous, moved off some distance, which gave them hope, but neither of them spoke, still. Both had fought before, with desperate and determined men, but nothing they had ever known had been like this mad vindictiveness.

  What now? Bottles were passed — they heard the clinkings — but the scene had lost the aspect of a gin-house or a sailors’ drinking den. Was this the place they were to meet the men behind the rumpus, the secret powers that they’d hoped to gull? Both men knew beyond a doubt that they had lost that gambit, whatever lay behind the failure. Betrayal was the likeliest, betrayal or some first-class spying work. From loss of blood, ill-usage, hunger, Charles Yorke felt coldness creeping into his bones. Behind him his companion, rock-hardness melting into mere humanity, began to shiver violently.

  Still no sign of movement from the huddled wildmen. Still no sign or sound of anyone’s approach. Yorke mused on his good uncle, up in Surrey, and wondered if he would ever see him or his home again. And he brooded on betrayal.

  *

  “I have heard of it, admitted,” said Sir Arthur Fisher, moving forward from the blazing logs. “Heard of it, but never thought it might be true. Truly, my friends, we live in foul times.”

  Samuel Holt and William, still damp although their outer layers of protection had gone to be force-dried, nodded as if sagely, clutching mulled pots of metheglin. Men had brought the maids down from the horses, women had carried them inside for care. Sir Arthur — Sir A, as he insisted — had called for more fire, dry blankets, drinks and food. There had been wood smouldering already in the hearth, but it was soon blazed up, while servants bustled round with great solicitude.

  William, after introductions, had been treated with most easy courtesy, while Holt explained the situation to the baronet briefly, dwelling rather on the problem of the mountebank than the injured girl. William, who on the journey from the copse had elicited almost nothing save the maidens’ names and their deep fear of being sought out and attacked anew, questioned if there might be some way indeed their place of refuge could be fathomed by the man. Sir A deemed it most unlikely, as they had not been followed, but called in his steward Tony, a quiet, watchful, stiff-built sort, and told him to maintain a guard and have the gatehouse discreetly manned. The maidens’ names were Deb and Cecily.

  It struck Bentley, watching Sir A and Samuel talk together, that there was a strangeness between them that was on Samuel’s side more prominent. Their host was a tall man of considerable age, quite elegant, but remarkably warm and intimate. He had greeted Samuel as a confidant, but
Samuel had stayed stiff, with circumspection even in his smiles. But then, thought William, Sam Holt’s an odd fish; I’ve already come to that conclusion, haven’t I?

  The housekeeper, a fat and homely creature he’d looked upon indulgently when she’d come in all a-bustle and officious, soon proved herself formidable indeed. She had not only cleaned Cecily and eased her pain, dosing her with tinctures and the normal remedies, but she had spoken long and hard with Deborah, extracting information. She gave an account of all of it without a trace of censure or surprise, even on the most appalling details of the operation, and spoke most vehemently of Deb’s fears for the near future: in short, her strong conviction that the mountebank would hunt them down.

  “Oh nonsense, Mrs Houghton,” cried Sir A. “How could he find them? Far more likely that he will take his chance to flee. These young gentlemen confronted him, did they not? He’s unlikely to imagine they will abandon the poor creatures to their fate.”

  “She says there are associates in the vicinity, sir. Ruffians with whom he’s dealt before. Why should I mince words? It was a close call if they should be sold to them for playthings, or ‘pay their debts’ by the selling of their teeth. I think the maidens chose, and he accepted because the fee was greater. Better to lose their ivory than be tossed to that crew, was their opinion. Now she says the crew will come for them and take them willy-nilly. Her ‘just desserts,’ she named it, on account she was the second string if Cecily’s teeth proved useless or broke up, but she tried to run and hence the beatings in the woods. I think she has a bitter turn of jest.”

  Sir A stood thoughtful, and sucked his lower lip. William, worried, could none the less picture Deb’s face. Surely, he thought, the condition of the girls was horrible. Sam Holt sipped metheglin.

  “There is another thing,” said Mrs Houghton. “I said you’d have the law of him if he should even dare to do the slightest little thing. She laughed. She said, sir, that the man who bought the teeth is a magistrate himself. And asked me how the law would ever help them.” Sir A had stiffened slightly, contemplating his housekeeper gravely and in silence. He pushed his fingers up his temples, beneath his wig.