The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  “Mr Gunning,” said Holt, half formally. “I am reporting back as ordered by Lieutenant Kaye. I expected to find him here; in his cabin.” If offence was intended or implied it washed right over Gunning. He had stepped back farther, and flung wide his empty hand. On a long settle at the transom, softened by many cushions, sat a young woman with a recorder, her features flushed. Her hair was disarranged, her handkerchief displaced, with fine full bosoms thus amply exposed. Beside her sat a young man with a black glass bottle, held by the neck, dressed something like a clerk or secretary, also red of face. By the cabin’s outer wall, the topside of the Biter’s stern, sat another young woman, dressed gaudily and rouged. There was rouge on Gunning’s face as well; his mouth was smeared with it.

  “My friends,” said Gunning, “let me make the introductions. This fair young man is first lieutenant here, or would be if their lordships so ordained. First officer, then, although a midshipman, right hand of Captain Kaye, I’ve told you of. This young man is — ” He shook his head, as if astonished, but it was only masquerade. “Good God, sir, do I know you? No, I don’t!”

  The women enjoyed the show immensely, as did the clerky-fellow. They laughed uproariously as Gunning made a bow. William was flustered by it, but Samuel took it all in part.

  “Step forward, William,” he said, courteously. “Mr Gunning — and honoured guests — may I present you Mr Bentley, our new second officer? But Mr Gunning, you must forgive us, please. We have travelled very far today and we are weary. We rouse early in the morning — which is today — and we must rest. Ladies. Sir. Your humble servants.” But it was not to be. Gunning, not drunk-aggressive but with clear intent, took up a bottle and advanced towards them.

  “Nay, sirs, but I insist. We know your names, you must know ours. Sal — get the gentlemen a glass apiece. Gentlemen — Miss Sally Marlor, a spinster of this parish. Her father is churchwarden at St Mark’s.” More gales of laughter, and the rouged young woman tripped forward with two glasses. When she had given one to William, and before Gunning had filled it, she reached for his cheek and pinched it, not ungently.

  “Ooh Jack,” she said, to Gunning. “This one is a peach. Can we have him in our bed tonight?”

  “Hush Sal! It is a respectable young fellow, a virgin surely! Whatever next!”

  This from the flushed maid on the settle. But she stood also, and came up to Will and Sam. She poked Sam’s belly with the recorder.

  “I am a married woman, sir,” she said. “Pray don’t look at me with them hot eyes.”

  “Mistress Ellen Cash,” said Gunning. “She is with Master Edward Campbell there — although he is not the husband she’s cuckolding. Master Campbell is a Navy clerk, sirs. Play fair with him and you might one day get a berth upon a rater, who knows!”

  Taking his cue from Holt, William retained a smile, but only just. A pleasantry, a jest, an insult — what mattered was that Sam did not care to retaliate, whatever. Will could see that Gunning, drunk, could exercise his power cruelly, but of Campbell he was not so sure. However, if the man did work at the Office… well, perhaps he should be borne in silence, likewise.

  “Good wine,” said Samuel, tasting it. “Now, Mr Gunning, tell me please, where is Lieutenant Kaye? Has there been a change of orders, or is the plan to sail today? Where are the people, ditto?”

  Gunning was not that drunk. He looked at Sam quite coolly, as if deciding whether he should mock or hold a conversation. Then he gestured round the cabin.

  “Does this strike you as a state of readiness?” he asked. “Did you not observe the deck? The shipwrights and the carpenters have made non-progress the world’s new wonder of the day. This dockyard is disgraceful.”

  Campbell interjected: “I am here to put some vim in ’em. Sent by the Secretary himself. Tomorrow there will be such ructions, you’d not believe it!”

  For all his inexperience, Will decided he did not, already. He took in the state of the captain’s cabin for the first time, properly. It was a mass of uncompleted work. Such work, though, as he had never seen before. The alcove which contained the cot appeared to have the makings of a double bed, damn near four-poster size, its bare, unfinished wood festooned in blankets and soft coverings. Maybe they planned an orgy in reality. He did not intend to be the rouged maid’s peach!

  “Where are the people?” repeated Holt. “Is work afoot in town? Lieutenant Kaye is at the rendezvous, perhaps?”

  Gunning laughed shortly.

  “Perhaps. I doubt it though, don’t you? The men have liberty, some will end up at the Lamb no doubt, too drunk or idle to get their arse downriver. I am in charge meanwhile, I am looking after everything.” Infinitesimal pause; a glint of humour, directed slyly at Will Bentley’s face. “I am looking to what is my own, amn’t I? To keep it safe.”

  Sal Marlor was on her feet again, intent on plying Will with more wine, which was red and heavy. Despite of himself he had drained the first glass, tired and thirsty as he was, and had felt it rising headily from his empty stomach. She, however, was quite blatant in her movements, which Gunning did not care about at all. William covered his glass rather feebly, then with more firmness when she persisted. Sam backed him up.

  “No more, mistress, nay, no more! Mr Gunning, we must bid you all goodnight. Ladies. Mr Campbell. Till some other time.”

  Sal’s disappointment did not last her long, for as the door closed behind them she was chattering and laughing with the rest. The air outside struck damp and fresh in contrast, but very welcome. Will was ready for a bed, although his head was full of questions, to be sure. They stood and looked across the river, sprinkled with starlight now the cloud was almost broken. The smell up here was mainly fair, clean water and wet fields.

  “Well,” he said. “What sort of ship is this you’ve brought me to? I’ll say this: she is not like anyone I’ve knew before.”

  Holt opened his mouth for an answer, but a mighty yawn broke through. It was some moments before he conquered it.

  “I said we should have gone to Dr Marigold’s. Though had you laid your hand down right I think you would have shared the captain’s bed with Mistress Redlips. Do you imagine Gunning had a pile of us in mind? Six in a bed, and devil take the hindmost! By God though, he is daring. Our Richard loves his cabin, and his bed, which the carpenters are building to his instructions as you saw. Gunning is an insolent, a dog, a bloody interloper!”

  “But the ship is his,” said William, with a certain ambiguity. “He likes to make that clear, I think.”

  Holt ignored it as a comment, and merely grinned. “The strange thing is,” he said, “that he’s a quiet dog when he’s not in drink, lives sweet and frugal in his little hutch and lets friend Kaye get on with it. He is a hard man, do not mistake me, he takes the contumely of his chosen trade quite easy, despite men hate him with a bitter hatred, aye, and women too when lovers, husbands, sons are pressed. He’s not above vindictiveness when times demand or chance arises, either, so they say. Running a tender does allow a man to settle scores. Some of his own crew on here have found themselves sold to His Majesty, at unexpected moments!”

  “It is not safe to cross him then?”

  From the far shore, borne on a breeze, they heard dogs barking, perhaps a half a dozen. Then it faded. Silence but for creaks of rope and timber, gently flowing tide. There was a mudbank smell emerging. William loved the smell of harbour mud.

  “Not safe, not unsafe,” said Sam. “He is naught to do with us at all. Let Kaye fall out with him if he will, but I will not.” He studied William closely, in the dark. “She is not a tight ship, is that what you mean? She is not the normal run of Navy ship, not one that your famous Uncle Swift would recognise as such.”

  “Good God,” said Will. “Uncle Daniel! Well, good God, I can’t imagine what he would have made of that bazaar in there! The cabin alone, and that enormous bed! Those painted doxies!”

  “But you’re a peach!” Sam crowed. “A peach dunked in red wine. No, from what I’ve
heard of Uncle Dan, he would not have smiled like you did. It is the style see, Will, the style of vessel and the way she is commanded. Where you have been, men probably showed respect, and fear, and deference: here they don’t. You expected Gunning, I suppose, to call us sir, and scrape, and so on, but we ain’t that sort of vessel, friend, the Biter is a very different ship. Even the Navy men are… well, you shall see. I tell you though, if we are free tomorrow night thanks to the Deptford yard — I’ll show you dames will make Sal Marlor look as pale and drab as whey. What say you?”

  “Bed,” said Will. His mind and heart and body all said bed. Sam took him by the arm and guided him across the cluttered deck towards a scuttle. Will could hardly lift his bag from the filthy planks.

  “We’ll need a glim,” said Holt. “I’ll go before and make one. Just stand there.”

  Five minutes more and Will was hard asleep, in a cot behind a screen, with Samuel on the deck, ever the gentleman. Tomorrow they would fair it up, he’d said. Tomorrow, had thought William, as he’d dropped down the sheer wall to infinity. God, tomorrow I will see this awful ship in daylight; no, today. His last thought was of Deb, but she meant nothing any more. A memory.

  *

  Comfort was a memory to Deb. Comfort and ease and her old belief in a bright and lively future. She stood with Cecily, up to her knees in water underneath a bridge, straining to hear something above the gurgling of the water, wondering if the ass would be found, wishing she had set it free, not tethered it. Beside her Cecily was trembling, with cold and fear and tiredness and pain, almost at the end of everything. They had been in the water, Deb estimated, for one half of an hour, maybe more. Beyond the stream bed, still, might be the men.

  They were not the gang roused out by Dennett, of that she was fairly certain. In the first two hours after their escape they had made good progress on the way to London, unpursued. Every now and then, Deb had led into a covert and sat Cec down on a log or stone, and pushed herself through the thickest to observe the road and listen. Her ears were good, conditions excellent, still hardly any wind. After quite a short time she was sure Dennett, for whatever reason, was not in pursuit, which satisfied her mightily. After all, why should he be? More likely he’d have gone to Sir Arthur’s house if he was serious, and tried his luck with Tony and his boys and hounds.

  Escape. That was a strange word, she thought, as the water-chill numbed her slowly higher and higher up her legs. Their outer clothes had still been sopping when they’d recovered them at the house, but the warm night had eased their situation. Not now, though. Now she was like ice, and miserable. Only her determination kept her from despair, her adamantine stubbornness. She was determined for herself, determined for her violated friend. One man had cost Cecily her teeth, her beauty, possibly her future. She would die before these other men made free with them, whatever was their sport.

  This lot had found them when Deb had been returning from her lookout the last time. As she had approached from one direction she had heard the ass bray, which had startled her but been no cause for much concern. Till — when it stopped — she had heard men’s voices, and a note of curiosity. She could not hear the words, but the intent was clear as crystal: there is an ass in this covert. Why? Let’s go and find things out. Deborah had run pell-mell to gasp her news, and seized the ass’s rope, and Cecily, and made them both scoot, as quietly as was possible. The men had heard, but the wood was thick, and luck for once was with them, so it seemed. They had spotted no one, nor been spotted, but had found the river and the bridge, all overgrown. They would stay here, where they were, a good while yet, she thought.

  That was not to be. Cecily, without a sigh, dropped into the water, first to her knees, then pitching on her face, full-length. Almost at the same moment the ass snickered, then began to bray, harsh, jerkily, perhaps startled by the splash and Debs muffled cry. She heard voices on the instant, a view halloo, but had time for nothing but to try and rescue Cecily, to drag her face clear of the water, her body upwards on the bank. At first she could not even make her room enough to breathe plain air, she dragged her hair and collar in a frantic effort to make her safe. Then boots appeared before her, and strong hands and arms lifted Cec clear into the air, water cascading from her dress and legs.

  They were villainous, there was no question of it. Bluff men, in dark, loose clothes, with neckcloths, and hair in pigtails. Not like her two young lovely gentlemen of the day before, but sailors for a certainty, rough, sea-going men. They carried clubs or cudgels, and curved, heavy swords. Pirates, she thought, although she did not know seamen. She heard one gasp, as he upturned Cecily’s poor face.

  Deborah was shivering. Unlike Cecily, who had none, she had teeth to chatter, and they did. She was grey with fear and cold, she was shivering with terror. These men would use them, they would kill them. Oh Christ, what hopes they’d had, what hopes!

  “God’s mercy on us,” said one of the men. His voice was thickened by emotion, but Deb did not hear that. “See what they’ve done here. Jim, give me your cloak. I’ve got a blanket at my saddle. Where are the beasts? God’s bones, her face is quite destroyed.”

  “Do not hurt us, sir,” said Deb. “Please do not hurt her more.”

  In tears and soaked and freezing, she was not beautiful at all, just a sobbing little girl. The smuggler, big and strong, put an arm about her shoulder.

  “Do not fear, maid, do not fear. But tell me, child. Her teeth. What happened to her teeth?”

  But Deb could only sob.

  SEVEN

  In the morning there were sailors, when William rolled out, and they fitted Sam Holt’s strictures on their condition and their type quite horribly. In the scuppers there were four, one smeared in blood and one in vomit, all as near death as he ever hoped to see live men. At the boom was moored a six-oar gig, that they’d “come home” in. He wondered how far they’d rowed, and who had done it.

  It was a lovely morning, a crisp, clear late summer morning, and the view across the fields and river enchanted him. From clumps of white mist sheep and cows appeared, at the bankside opposite he could make out domestic girls at washing, and from scattered houses streams of smoke rose vertical from chimneys — another windless day in store, this time without a cloud in view. It was quite late — gone eight o’clock — and the surface of the river was a mass of vessels, from rowing boats and barges going down, to sea-going ships drifting or using sweeps to get advantage of the tail-end of the flood.

  In the dockyard also there was activity. All over the yard fires were being lighted, and swarms of men were moving round the two ships in construction, their high bare sides not yet faired and capped, but displaying timbers like rows of yellow teeth. Just off the shore were men-of-war in tiers, most with everything struck except their lower masts. On two, men were already working on the deck, while at another a flat barge full of yardhands was roping alongside a low pontoon.

  Samuel, then, was by his side. His face was gleaming with drops of water, his short hair damp.

  “What say you to a trip ashore? There is a coffee shop behind the yard, if you’ll believe me. Damn little chance of anything to eat on here.”

  I could say much, thought Bentley. I could say, “But where’s the captain? What about the dockyard crew? Is there not work to do?” The thought of coffee was a tempter, though. He could use a privy, too. He did not imagine there were private heads on here, not heads you’d want to use in sight of shore and all the traffic.

  “Shall we take a boat?” he asked. “Or hail a wherry?” But before he’d said the word, a piercing whistle had come from Holt, and a boatman had altered course for them. Before he arrived, Samuel moved easily to the forward scuttle and dropped down it out of sight. A minute later he returned, grim humour on his lips.

  “Drunk, every mother’s son,” he said. “Taylor will rouse them out, though, he is a good man, Taylor. Hey, Jem! We’ll be one hour, not a second more. First man out, get him to light a fire for some breakfast, then rig t
he pump. Hose down the drunkest, then hose down the deck. Lieutenant Kaye will be here soon, and the shipwrights.” Quietly, to Will, he added: “Pigs might dance a hornpipe. Jem Taylor is the boatswain. You can trust him.”

  Before Will had time to take him in, however, the cabin door was opened and a strange sight was revealed. John Gunning was seen first, and he was like a meaty marionette, or perhaps some cadaver, fleshed and animated. His eyes were bloodshot, his skin was pale — except for smears of rouge — and there was an air of pain about his features. He walked as if his feet were not his own, as if he thought before essaying every step. While behind him, bold as brass, brighteyed and lively, stepped Sal Marlor, hair awry, face licked completely clean of redness (save a natural tinge around the nostrils), her gaudy clothes as brazen as a bell. Behind her came Mistress Ellen, a picture from a tragedy with eyes down on her sallow cheeks, and Edward Campbell drew up the rear, looking neither here nor there, unscathed by liquor, undefiant.

  “Your face,” hissed Samuel. “Will, mend your face! You have not seen a ghost, ’tis Gunning. I told you we were better off in our own cots!”

  The shore party — for so they guessed it was — came up to them at the gangway, and Samuel made a tiny bow to the young ladies.

  “Sir,” he said to Gunning. “Here is a wherry I have bespoke. Pray take it and Mr Bentley and myself will call another.” He winked slyly at his friend: their need is greater, don’t deny it!

  Gunning did not speak, nor did the women. Campbell acknowledged the kindness, as he handed them down to the boatman, Gunning being apparently beyond giving a hand. Unexpectedly, as the boat pulled away, the pale-cheeked Sal (pale with freckles, Will had noted absent-mindedly) made him a little wave. Which he ignored.

  “Now,” said Sam, amusedly. “Another boat, before we are too late. Oh God, here come the hordes.”