The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  could feel them through the earth. The smugglers who weren’t in agony were almost smiling.

  “We’d better take pot luck,” he said.

  SEVENTEEN

  Unlike young Cecily, whose mouth healed rapidly, Mistress Wimbarton suffered a putrefaction that — starting slowly — seemed set to reach a gallop. Throughout the time her features, unlike Cecily’s, were full and uncollapsed, but the very fullness became a horror to her as soft tissue swelled and brightened to a smarting glossy red. By the sixth day after her operation, when she called her husband in, she was in constant pain (beyond the agony of mind), and stank of dying flesh. When he had gone, to set the hunters on for Marcus Dennett, she called for water and a bowl from Dorothy, and spat out seven teeth, all pretence forgotten.

  “Oh God, I hope they find him soon,” she said. “If the other doxy’s teeth aren’t pushed in quick, I’ll end up with gums as hard as yours are, Dot. Oh pshaa, bring me some brandy to wash this taste away.”

  By the arrangement, Marcus Dennett was due to be back at the house that night or next morning to collect his second thirty pounds. Despite the condition of Milady was the darkest household secret, no one expected him to come, because household secrets had a way of getting out. In theory Dennett would bring back the other young maid if the first teeth had not taken, but village men who knew him knew he had lost the black-haired beauty (to their disappointment, as they all had hoped to buy some time on top of her), while his attempts at seducing a slow-wit milking girl two miles away to provide a substitute had been rebuffed by her three brothers, who (anyone could have told him if he’d asked) used her themselves.

  Quite usually for a man who had failed to make a fortune many times, though, Dennett was an optimist, and rather stupider than he should have been. With Deb gone he should have known his chances of replacement teeth were drastically curtailed, while his lack of experience as a tooth-replacer should have made him at least more wary of expecting simple success. Within four days his drinking friends started the rumours of something going wrong, and Dennett disregarded them as based on jealousy. On the fifth night it was reported by a thatcher who was seducing Sue, Milady’s dressing maid, that “the mistress had a gobsmell like a charnel house,” but he would not concede a worry. In two days’ time, he said, he would prove them wrong, and pick up his money into the bargain. He did not say how much, in case they robbed him in the woods. But everybody roughly knew, from Dot, and Sue and Joan.

  One thing Dennett did not lack was courage, for he was a fiery, peppy little man. But he awoke before dawn on the sixth morning, lying on his pallet in his wagon in the woods, in something of a cold sweat. The rain was lashing at the canvas, and his straw and clothes were wet, and he sorely felt the lack of a young woman at his side, both as a comfort and to earn. He still had cash in plenty from the first half of the teeth transaction, but if the gossip over Mistress Wimbarton was right, what would the likely outcome be? Deborah was gone, the dimwit milker had almost cost him a broken head or worse, and rumour had him marked down as a failure, not a rake. If he cut off this very morning it would cost him thirty pounds, but he could go to pastures new, where he would find more girls to seduce, or prostitute, or spirit to the Colonies; or even sell their teeth. Too late for corpse-breath Wimbarton, but that was her bad chance — the cash would still accrue. Ah — he would not lose all the thirty either, for he owed more than four from cards and dice, which if he cut he need not ever pay. Some of the local men were hard with it, but they would not follow far, they would not waste their time. The most he owed to any one was thirteen shillings.

  No sooner thought than done, for Dennett knew he was at a disadvantage in the running stakes. The wagon was the main problem, for it was slow and obvious. Even if he took the posters off it, even the canvas cover, people would see him for a traveller, a seller, quack, musician or a mountebank, but if he left it and just took the nag, he gave up his home, his bed, and all his trade trickery. More, when he captured a new young woman or two, even a young lad (some customers were not fussy), he would have got shut of his rolling whorehouse. He cooked up some water for his coffee, kicked out the fire, ate some bread, but did not tarry long over his thinking. It was early, he knew the back roads well (that was a special skill he always exercised), and in twenty-four hours or thirty-six, when the magistrate began to wonder at his absence, he would be far away. He had a mind for heading west, Aldershot, Basingstoke, Andover maybe. He ran not from fear, but from intelligence. He liked that in himself. He much approved.

  Unknown to him, seven hours later, Mr Chester Wimbarton unleashed his human dogs. At first it was only Jeremiah who was sent to make reconnaissance by horseback, but he returned within the hour to set up a company. Jeremiah was entitled steward on the estate, a name that fitted ill with his history and mien. His master, as a magistrate, had tried him once and might have hanged him if he had wished so. But he recognised in the lean and craggy highway robber — alleged! — the sort of fellow he could buy protection from, and loyalty as well quite possibly. Instead of hanging him he had struck a quiet deal beneath the court, and the man had walked free from there and, discreetly three weeks later, into service. He ran a gang of ruffians of his own choice as stablemen and household guards, whose reputation alone ensured the Wimbarton estate was not plagued, as some were locally, by livestock theft and burglary.

  Dennett, to give him his due, had chosen empty roads, avoided settlements however small, and travelled fast. The Portsmouth-London road was busy, so it was established quickly that he had not been seen thereon, unless he had abandoned his cart, which Jeremiah deemed unlikely, knowing as he did the breed that travelled as naturally as they breathed. He then sent scouts down every likely by-road, and himself made a wide circle with the quack’s last-known camp its centre, crossing all the roads and tracks, checking passengers, and shepherd boys, and houses, huts or hovels on every one. His best assistant, Fiske, who was a fast and skilful rider, was the co-ordinator, bringing him the latest informations at predetermined rendezvous. The master had offered threats for failure, which Jeremiah had curled his lip at. Success meant gold, and both he and Wimbarton expected him to gain it.

  In his wagon, next morning, Dennett was awoken by the nervous stamping of his horse. The trees were hissing in the wind, and rain spattered unevenly on the cover, but it was the horse’s unaccustomed movement that disturbed him. For a moment he was content to listen, then remembered the situation he was in. After his experience with the two young men who’d stolen Deb and Cecily he had dug out his heavy pistol with a bell-shaped end for scattering loose shot, and he dragged it from underneath a tarry cloth in case. He tried to open the end of his cover with one hand, then put the gun down to jerk the sides apart. As he emerged, head bent inside to see his pistol, two strong hands gripped each of his upper arms, jerking him bodily out of the wagon and landing him upright between the shafts on the soggy ground. He had no boots on, although fully dressed, and the mud forced up between his toes unpleasantly. Beyond the two who had dragged him out there was a tall man on a horse, a man he’d seen at Wimbarton’s before. Dennett sighed.

  “I was on my way to your master’s house this very day,” he said. “He owes me thirty pound. ’Tis good of you to come to guide me, Jeremiah. How fares it with Milady?”

  “Hah!” said Jeremiah. He almost smiled. “Very well, except she has no teeth. Aye, very well!”

  You’re capable of killing me, thought Dennett. Quite capable. Ah well.

  *

  At first, when the horsemen had arrived, Will Bentley had had a rush of wild relief. There were eight of them, and they had the look of a militia or a local watch. Best of all, the man who led them was attired as a gentleman, with the authoritative air of a justice or a wealthy landowner. The two midshipmen had moved to just outside the open door, which Will covered with their only pistol to forestall a rush attack. The gentleman was not armed, but his outriders had swords and pistols. William lowered his gun ostentatio
usly.

  “Well met!” said Holt, as they reined in. “We are the Impress Service, sir, our tender’s lying off. We have caught a crew of villains here.”

  The men inside the hut were surging forward, and Bentley eyed them nervously. When they were close enough to threaten, he raised his pistol.

  “You, sir!” snapped the leading rider. “Put up that arm immediately! How dare you threaten those poor men! Is it you caused them these injuries?”

  The light inside was feeble and outside rather worse, but the blood and broken arm were clear enough. The smugglers were very close to Will and pressing harder, with smiles upon the nearest faces.

  “But sir! They are smugglers! We caught them at it!”

  There was a baying of denial from the men in front of him. One, large, black-haired with a deep cut on his cheek, reached out for the barrel of his gun. He had to shoot, or raise it clear. He could not shoot.

  Beside him, with a lightning movement, Sam swished his cutlass point across and upwards, as if to prod the big man’s neck.

  “Call them off,” he shouted. “If they press us we must kill them, we are officers of the King. Call them off, as they are clearly yours!”

  “How dare you! I am here to see the law upheld! These men are injured, have you attacked them? You slander them with talk of smuggling, where is your evidence? You say you are the Impress, where are your warrants? If you have warrants, which local justice backed them? Not I, for certain! Anybody?”

  There was a tendency to jeering in the smuggling gang, but well suppressed. Samuel, if not Bentley, knew quite clearly what had happened to them and his main aim was to get out of it unscathed. The militiamen had got down off their horses, and several pieces were levelled at point blank.

  “Our warrant is with our captain,” he said quietly. “I grant that in the heat of things…”

  A louder jeer. The big man reached again for Bentley’s pistol, so he thrust it fiercely into his belt.

  “’Tis not uncocked,” the man said, in a delighted voice. “But you soon will be, won’t you, sir! Unbollocked, also!”

  “Make it safe,” the justice said, peremptorily. “Then give it to Saunders there. You, sir” — to Samuel — “that man will take your cutlass. You must come to the village, where we have a secure room for such as you. It looks that charges will be laid.”

  “Aye, attempted murder!” came one voice from out of the hut. “Look at Peter’s arm! John’s face is broken in!”

  Sam raised his cutlass furiously, but not in threat. Immediately gun muzzles were thrust at him.

  “We are Navy officers!” he shouted. “These men are thieves!”

  Will yelled: “They have a lugger in the creek, full of contraband. All you have to do, sir — ”

  “Disarm them,” the magistrate curtly ordered. “Young man, be careful that your pistol does not go off. Saunders, take it out. Aye, so. Now you, sir, your cutlass if you please. Where are the others of your gang? What ship are you? I suggest you call them out if they’re in hiding or it will be the worse for them.”

  Will, feeling naked and confused, looked to Holt for guidance, but he was deep in rage. A smuggler and two militiamen made as if to jostle or strike at them, but Sam launched himself, unarmed, towards them, baring his teeth as if he might bite chunks. The men dropped back, and the magistrate gestured them away.

  “No beatings, boys,” he said. “The law will deal with these two in due time. Is anybody killed? Have they done murder? Where is your boat? What is your tender called?”

  Neither Sam nor Will replied, nor would they answer any more questions of any sort. In a few minutes their wrists were bound, and each was led off by a horseman with a saddle line at a none too gentle pace, the justice staying behind, they guessed, to confer with the free trade men. The walk was not above a mile, and when they reached a dark, empty building on a marshy edge, lamps were lit and they were bundled in short order down cellar stairs into a small cramped room. It was damp and silent with a small, dirty window half below ground level, but their jailers did, at least, untie their wrists and leave them with a stump of candle when they locked them in; about two hours’ worth. They listened in silence to the footsteps on the stair, then across bare wooden boards above them.

  “Well,” said Sam at last. “Here’s a tale to tell the parish priest! I’d not have come ashore with you an’ I’d known you were a criminal! Do you have a way to get us out?”

  There was amusement in it almost, but Will could not respond. He was crushed by the weight of it, he was astonished more than anything. They had caught smugglers red-handed, been shot at, might have died. And they were locked up in a dungeon, with a magistrate claiming they had transgressed the law.

  “Oh come on, Will,” said Sam, seeing his face. “It could be worse, you know.”

  “But how? Good God, Sam, I… well, speak up, then: but how?” Sam walked to the window, which was stoutly built and would not open however hard he shook. Presumably it had outside bars as well, although it was too dirty to be seen through.

  “Oh I forgot,” he said. “You like the free trade gentlemen, don’t you? And they did not kill us it is true, and they did not toss us headfirst in the mud or beat us senseless, so mayhap you’re right, they’re gentlefolk. That is one way we got off scot-free, my friend — we are still breathing. If we’d been Customs we might not have done so well. Or not been protected by that magistrate.”

  Will turned this over in his mind. Without the justice, he could not deny, things could have gone much harder for them. But here they were, imprisoned, and who knew what next day might bring?

  “They won’t be hanging us and that’s another thing,” said Sam, as if he’d read the thought. “Lucky that mad bastard Tilley did not have time to kill the one whose face he smashed. I tell you, if they find him, no justice on a horse will keep him from hanging from a tree, but all we’ve done is overstep the mark. It could be weeks in prison though, less Kaye should buy us out. Months.”

  “But did we break the law? The warrant thing — ”

  “We did not have ‘the warrant thing,’” Holt interrupted. “That’s against the letter of the law, and it means everything if the courts down here should say so, which they will. Then the backing of the warrant, which we also did not have: another big transgression if they should care to deem it so. Then protections. We did not ask to see them of the free trade men, and free trade men have protections of the best in my experience. If ours did not last night they will tomorrow, you may depend on it — our magistrate will draw them up, let’s say. Of course we’re lucky, Will. They won’t be hanging us.”

  There were no chairs or benches in the room, but there were steps up to the door. Sam sat first, and Bentley got beside him. They were silent, but the only sound outside was of a wind, moaning across the marshland wastes.

  “Why do you say I like the smugglers?” he said finally. “That is mad. I dislike all who break the law. Did I hang back tonight, in your opinion? Surely not?”

  Sam did not reply. Will tried to remember if he had ever expressed sympathy with smugglers, but could not recall he had. His difficulty was, that in certain areas, and certain men he’d known…

  “There was a man who saved my life,” he said. “It sounds a stupid thing but…” He paused. Perhaps he should not be so open with Sam Holt. “He called it a necessary trade,” he went on. “He said it was condoned. And then they hanged him.”

  Sam kept his silence, while Will remembered Jesse Broad. Another thought dropped in, a much more recent one.

  “You said you’d hang them all. You said you hate them. Remember, as we came downriver? But Richard Kaye tended to my opinion, did he not?”

  This elicited a brief laugh, as Will had hoped it might.

  “You’ve made my case,” Sam said. “If Kaye agrees with you, you must be wrong. Maybe it is a question of who you know and where you come from. Your man sounds fine, and so God keep his soul. To me it is a vile trade, and where I
lived and grew, so it was applied. They work as families in my part, except such families could only live in hell. I’ve seen two hundred men run stuff ashore, nay three hundred with the batmen and musketeers, and I’ve seen them murder, burn and beat. My father, who believed the good in man, refused to stand for some of them in court after a bloody incident on the Adur, and it ruined him in many ways. They did not offer violence in his case, the backers were a very subtle crew. All other lawyers in the area, all judges, magistrates, even clerks, refused to deal with him, they cut him and ignored him, froze him out.”

  “Judges?” said William. “But surely…”

  He stopped. There was a silence. Sam scratched the stubble on his chin, quite noisily. He had a fierce black whisker growth, and it was many hours since they had shaved.

  “A necessary trade,” he said, musingly. “Aye, there’s truth in that if not merit, I suppose. Yes judges, Will, and merchants, bishops, Navy officers. Kaye gives smugglers the clearest of clear berths, and it’s not just because he likes to drink cheap tea, I fear. This eastern part’s too close, too near the Lowlands and the enemy, the trade is ruthless, dangerous, it’s protected by the great. If that is not the case in Hampshire, then God preserve it so!”

  Will did not know, that was the truth of it. In the part of Hampshire where he lived smugglers had been hanged, but the tales of violence chapmen told, or balladeers, tended to come from farther east. He could recall one Customs rider murdered in a churchyard by the sea, but that was a song from long ago, when he was a child. Broad had not been a violent man, far from it, but surely, if he’d been set upon by officers on land he would have fought, and killed to get away.

  “He had a wife and baby child,” he said. It was sudden, he had not intended it. Sam cocked his head, no expression on his face, and waited. The opportunity was made for Will to stop. Will sighed.

  “I went there once. After Broad was hanged, long afterwards. That was his name,” he said. “I went to the place he came from, he and his friend Hardman, who also died. It is a little place, a hamlet at the head of Langstone Haven, I sail the waters in my yawl. I beached there once to mend my rigging.”