The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  Geoff, the hopping cook, served them tea late in the afternoon, with a batch of cakes spread liberally round the company, and some left over for the dockyard men. Samuel and Will, by now, had rinsed the dirt off, and were smartened up and formal, within their lights. The tide was full, almost on the turn, and the weather had stayed beautiful. The Thames was a mass of vessels, of every shape and size, with the first big traders coming slowly down to be shot out to the Nore and then the Downs when the tide should start to run its fastest. The two young men were leaning on the rail looking at the southern shore where young girls were herding cows.

  “What do you think of them?” asked Samuel. “I mean our stalwarts, not the maids. You played a good hand, mucking in like that.”

  “It was for pleasure, not to make my mark,” said William. “Indeed, they seem a handy bunch. Whatever else they are not lax! Jem Taylor handles them right well.”

  “He does. As boatswains go, he is a treasure. Lieutenant Kaye thinks him too familiar, and says he ought to drive them more. Consequently…”

  “Consequently?” asked Will, after a time. He followed Holt’s gaze. Ahead of them, two cable’s-lengths, came a small skiff, lean and fast, with four men at the oars, another in the bow and two in the stern-sheets, barely visible. “Oh. Is that…?”

  “Our Richard Kaye. It is. Consequently, we must shut up. Consequently, in answer to your first, the boatswain will become… Well, you shall see. Jem!” he shouted, standing upright. “Mr Taylor! Lieutenant Kaye’s approaching. Clear away that tea, for God’s sake. Look alive.”

  There was, at present, no chance of real formality. The Biter was on the dockyard tiers, swarming with yardmen, with attendant noise and mess. Some of them were singing, a raucous row that increased perceptibly as the boat bore down upon them — an indicator that the men of Deptford were not Navy servants, had no fear of blue-coated martinets, took their discipline (if they even knew the concept, let alone the word) from no sailing officer, especially not an Impress man, and sang and skylarked exactly as they pleased. Kaye’s own men, ranged up on either side of the gangway, took their cue directly from these freer spirits, their reluctant surliness quite surprising William. While Jem Taylor, before his eyes, became a different man; slack-shouldered, dull-visaged, somehow unjointed. As the skiff rounded up smartly underneath the boom, the bow man slung the painter across the rail with unerring aim — and Taylor dropped it.

  “Jem, Jem,” Sam admonished, below his breath but loud enough for William. And added: “Consequently, will become a shambling imbecile.”

  William, for all that Sam had said of him, realised he had no idea at all what kind of man he might expect in Kaye — except a rich one. Certainly, from above, he had not the air of violence and unpleasantness that he knew so well from many other officers he’d met. He stood up in the well and wreathed his face in smiles as he glanced up at them. He was a handsome man, bulky but with narrow shoulders, with a roundish face, slightly lop-sided, and an air of boyishness. William guessed his age at twenty-three or -four, but the skin was smooth, unlined by ravages of weather or of care. He skipped quite lightly across the thwarts to reach the ladder, quite lightly but almost clumsy with it, and scooted up the Biter’s side in quick order. There he stood, resplendent in blue coat and white-powdered wig, with eyes for them alone, ignoring the common sailors ranged up to honour him with a blank completeness, as if they were not there.

  “So! You are Bentley, then! Your Uncle Daniel has said much of you, and I am pleased at last to engage the flesh! Your servant, sir!”

  William Bentley, in that evening sun, felt the warmth drain from himself, to be replaced by a hollow certainty he found sickening. So Daniel Swift, whose offers and whose overtures he had so strongly fought, his savage Uncle Daniel, whose very forgiveness had filled him with a creeping dread, knew Richard Kaye and so had got this ship for him, behind his back. Not merit, not service, not even shortages of officers in time of war; but interest had put him here. In the Biter, in the Impress, and with a man Sam Holt most roundly hated. Why? He put his hand out because he had to, but his heart was crushed. His face, he guessed, must look a pretty picture.

  If Richard Kaye noticed, though, he showed it not a whit. His round eyes, brown like hazel nuts and slightly protuberant, shone with enthusiasm as he pumped Will’s unresisting hand. He was laughing.

  “I know your weaknesses!” he said, aloud for all the world to hear. “Your uncle has done me the signal honour of recommending you to me, with all your background, the good sides and the bad! Between us, sir, I confide we shall go far!”

  William’s bow and smile were models of control. Good Christ, he thought, imagine that I called Sam vulgar. This man, from speech and bearing, comes from a family that’s impeccable, and he is rich. Corrupt, and rich, and as Sam says, a stupid, useless man. So why has Daniel Swift put me to him?

  Lieutenant Kaye, his captain, still had hold of his hand. The skiff still hung in the water, at the boom, her boat’s crew looking round indifferent. Samuel harrumphed significantly.

  “Sir,” he said. “We have done our best, but the ship is not yet in a state of readiness to go downriver, as you may see. The dockyard men are far from finished. While Mr Gunning — ”

  “Yes, yes,” Kaye interrupted, carelessly. “No matter for that, Holt, we are going nowhere this evening. Look, man, get these idle dogs whipped up to shape, can’t you? Bob! Get up here this instant, you idle rogue! Sankey; start him, can’t you?”

  Dropping Will’s hand, Lieutenant Kaye moved to the gangway and peered over. From the sternsheets of the skiff, with sudden speed, a small black shape, black boy, appeared, and scampered for the ladder, which he quickly climbed. He was dressed in black velveteen, with a black cap on his head, and went shoeless. In front of them, he stood with downcast eyes. Although he smiled, his smile seemed empty, a mask of lonely misery.

  “Mr Bentley,” declared Kaye, pompously. “Meet my little man, my servant. Black Bob, make a bow, sir!”

  Black Bob did, but never raised his eyes. He was eight years or so, maybe seven, small and beautiful, but very, very sad. Kaye reached out and took his hand.

  “Black Bob,” he said. “We go now to the cabin, where I need my head rubbed with those aromatic oils. Sankey!” (another yell) “Get that boat tied and tidied, then I’ll need another suit of clothes!” He turned his face to William — ignoring Holt — and gave out his soft, lop-sided smile. “In my cabin, in thirty minutes, sir, we shall take tea. I have another surprise in store. It will delight you.”

  *

  Sankey, Holt explained, was the commander’s coxswain, but treated like a servant or a slave. He was no good seaman, having come with Richard Kaye into the service from the great estates in Hertfordshire, his man from early years. For Kaye was of a landed family, and yes, exceeding rich, despite he was third son and might be thought to have joined the Navy from necessity, therefore. In fact, Sam held, he had joined because he “had had naught else to do,” and was a great embarrassment to his father, a duke or something other mighty, because he’d failed to rise. Although it was a secret, it was believed that he was twenty-eight, and had passed for lieutenant — God knew how, skulduggery was suspected — some several years before. He had not made post, and never could or would in Sam’s opinion, because he was “so hopeless; a playboy, lazy, and a fool.” At the end of all which, Holt gave a sudden grin.

  “Mark you,” he guffawed, “I am not speaking as an enthusiast! His breeding, on the other hand, is excellent. You may go together like a horse and cart!”

  It was the black boy, though, that had shaken Bentley most. He had heard of this quaint fashion, much indulged in by rich men in the city and some of their wives and mistresses, but he had never seen one in the flesh. Black men at sea he’d heard of, men of Africa and the Colonies who had kept or won their freedom through some special merit, but this was a child, a sad-eyed little toy. When questioned, Samuel was dismissive.

  “I guess he
bought him from a trader,” he said. “Black Bob’s been with him since before I knew the man, although ’tis said he used to have a parrot. He keeps him in a box beside his bed, or sometimes in it, for all I care. On ship he is a waste of space and vittles, but then so is Kaye in most men’s eyes. Black Bob is harmless, though. He speaks no English that I’ve ever heard. He’ll fetch and carry, though, if Kaye is not around, so I guess he understands an order, don’t he?”

  The dockyard men were ranging to the gangway. Two had gone down into their cutter to bail her out, and there was bantering and insults being swapped with Biter’s crew. The chaos on the decks was of a different order from the night before, but still pretty comprehensive. But the damaged yard was finished, ready to be rigged and furnished, and its sail bent on. Aloft the hempen cordage had been gathered in, the standing gear all shipshape, most of the running hardened home to pinrails or belays. Will could see that with a good crew and some hours, the vessel might be almost fit to sail.

  “Tomorrow?” he asked Samuel. “Do you imagine that is the surprise?”

  “That would be one indeed,” Holt replied. “You do not know this dockyard. I should say another two days, then there is water, food, shot and powder. Most like, if we are lucky, we will get liberty tonight. I have told you, Kaye loves the London life, and relishes high society. Hence, we may enjoy the same, although I doubt so high. Unless…” He paused, his expression strange. “Will, if he invited you, would you care to go with him? That, indeed, might be the excitement. For certain, he was not including me.”

  William expressed it with a look, and Samuel laughed. Truth was, though, that care to or not, he’d have to go if asked, there was no choice. O desolate possibility…

  “Then there is Gunning,” Sam continued. “He did not ask his whereabouts, which means he does not need a sailing master, does he? Except he finds a shift or garter in his bed from Sal or Ellen, by God, then he’ll roar! What’s this of Daniel Swift, though? Is he behind your place on here? A strange honour for a favoured nephew, isn’t it? A bloody ship like this!”

  It was exceedingly direct, but then, it seemed, Sam’s method was to do with frankness. William was aware he’d put himself at his mercy with the confidences of earlier, and could not find it in himself to play the icy tightlips in reply.

  “Ah, Sam,” he said. “’Tis hard to talk of, harder to nail down. I own he must be, most like, my… benefactor, should I say? But…”

  “But such a ship,” said Sam. “Such a ship and people, such a captain, such a job. Does he hate you, when you see him — do you see him, even? Tell me, Will. I do not understand.”

  Will did not either. He saw Swift infrequently, not least because he was a serving officer, and it was plainly known within the family that he would not accept him as a source of help, he saw him as a tainted source. There had been many bitter altercations over it.

  “Fact is,” he said, “he lectured me till he was blue in the face that I should go to sea again, and called me a viper in the family bosom that I so long refused. My family, contrary to some opinion you have formed, is strapped as bad as you are where younger sons come into it. But if he is behind my calling to this ship it is a kind of… well, where is the money in the Impress Service, where are the prizes, the advancement?” Will stopped. “In any case,” he said, “it can’t be he, we’ve heard naught of him for months, he sails in distant waters. If he was near enough to pull those strings we must have known of it; he has a house at Fareham, not so far from us.”

  “But Kaye spoke of him — ”

  Kaye spoke of him again. As the two midshipmen watched the yardmen paddle their leaky craft away, Black Bob turned up like a silent wraith, and led them to the cabin. Half an hour after that word was brought of a pinnace hailing them, and Coxswain Sankey shot away to muster a receiving party. Lieutenant Kaye, resplendent in silk and blue, the mids in blue and dingy linen, stood stiffly at the gangway while the smart boat, with a smarter crew, laid close enough alongside for the smartest man on board of her to skip briskly up the Biter’s ladder. Captain Daniel Swift, short, and hard, and arrogant, raised his face and fixed them with strange eyes, grey and brilliant. His nostrils flared.

  It was the first time Bentley had seen him on a ship since men he loved had hanged, and guilt and shame had almost drowned him. Warm day, blue sky, the sound of moving water. The truth had been revealed.

  NINE

  That night, some men got liberty on the Biter; as predicted. Lieutenant Kaye went seeking high society, accompanied by Captain Daniel Swift. But Samuel Holt, and William, and all but two of her active Navy men, went to the receiving hulk upriver, where they were issued with two-foot clubs, a brace of pistols for the officers, and handcuffs. They got a talk-to, also, from a lieutenant as hard and old as seasoned timber from the mother of all men-of-war, a man called Coppiner.

  “Mr Holt,” he greeted Samuel, when they walked through her entry port from the pontoon landing. “This is an unexpected pleasure, unlooked for. Next you’ll tell me Mr Kaye himself has graced us with his presence.”

  It sounded like a pleasantry, but William had been warned beforehand. Samuel’s face was held expressionless, his body stiff. Around him members of the Biter’s crew became deaf men, flowing silent into the hole cut in the hulk’s old timber. Samuel, indeed, did not reply.

  “More like he’s at the Lamb, however,” continued Coppiner. “He’d rather press a harlot’s belly than a topmast man, who can deny that, eh? Well, I give them joy of him. And who is this?”

  The eyes, on William’s, were dull yet burning. He had the expression of a man consumed with anger, ignited long ago deep down inside, unquenched by years of dousing and control. His face was cragged with years and bitterness, lined and dark, with bushy white hair — unwigged — and bushy eyebrows.

  “If you please, sir,” responded William, “Midshipman William Bentley, newly joined with the Biter. Lieutenant Kaye sends his humble compliments.”

  This was true, and he had been aware receiving the instruction that it was some sort of jest, or at least a coded form of slight, or insult. However, he delivered it directly, with a steady gaze, and the old man — sixty, if a day — made no comment. He held Bentley’s eyes with great steadiness himself; and did not smile.

  “Well to hell with him, say I,” was his reply. “And you may tell him that yourself, young man. Now” — to Samuel — “you are well sent tonight, sans doute by accident of that painted popinjay. We need forty men by Tuesday for the Claris, and we are told the Bell, the Cheshire Cheese, the Waggoner and the Old Top Drum are all alive with likely men. Young fellow” — to William — “if you like cracking heads, tonight’s your night. One word — there are two ships in from the East, and the service tried to milk them off of the Ness. There was bloodshed, one man crippled, revenge is in the air. I only tell you this, you will observe, to make you keener. For every man you take without a passport, there will be ten men with to try and take him back off you once more. I wish you luck.”

  He turned abruptly, stamping off along the dim-lit alleyway to “do his papers.” Within five seconds he had disappeared, the flickering horn lanterns making a hole to swallow him completely, and leaving Will and Samuel quite alone in the ’tween decks. Through the entry port there came a little light, from the sky, but without the glims, the inside of the hulk promised pitchy blackness. For a moment, both stood silent.

  “Christ,” said Will, at last. “The stink. What is it, Sam?”

  The question was rhetorical, in one sense. The smell was sewage, mixed with river mud, mixed with permeating dankness as if the old ship’s timbers had been steeped in damp for tens and tens of years. But she was a ship still, just, so how could it be borne, how had it grown so all-enveloping? Sam relaxed.

  “Like the Fleet Ditch after a storm in summer, eh? It’s shit, old lad, deep-laid and festering in the bilge. It amuses Coppiner sometimes to unshackle the young hopefuls and give’em exercise on the chain-pumps, which make
s it ten times worse. They stir it up, and spread it across the deck to the drain ports, and it runs down like treacle into Old Father Thames. What did you make of Coppiner? He’s sixty-two, they say, and still lieutenant. The hatred in that man would swamp a battleship.”

  “Where is he now? Gone to get drunk?”

  Sam laughed.

  “How well you know the service! But no, that is another string to the old man’s bitter bow. He is a drunkard who can no longer drink. The story is — and it may be just that, but I think not — the story is he cannot even wet his lips with liquor, be it never so dilute, without he vomits it out of every pore and every orifice. He was taken once — another story — by a crew of young men he was releasing to a frigate, and they forced some brandy down his throat, they held him down and filled him through a copper tundish, like a Strasbourg goose. He shit like a firework — they tore his trowsers off — and vomited from nose and mouth, and bled through his ears and round his eyeballs. The story is not true, though. He would have killed them after. Which is, I promise, not a joke. Avoid him, Will. He is wholly hazardous.”

  There was a noise not far from them, and voices William could recognise. The seamen, who had flitted off without an order, began to reappear. Before, they were a cutter’s crew — a good one, to his surprise, despite the fact no one issued orders, and Sam played passenger, not command — now they were a band of desperadoes, armed to the teeth. It occurred to him, that apart from the blue he and Samuel wore, these could be a gang of men from any ship, intent on mayhem. If other men avoided them, as sure as hell they would, who could blame them for that, or gainsay them if they gave fear as their excuse?