The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  A sudden heat had come on him, on the last words he had seemed to choke with it; but Céline stayed deadly calm.

  “Not with the enemy,” she said. “Kaye is an English patriot, full blood. He fell on Leopold’s boat because of that, because we are French, we are the enemy. It was legitimate.”

  “And that is sophistry! If you are right he does business with the enemy, he is a backer of the trade! What is the difference?”

  A creaming crest rose sharp beside their hull and Céline headed it, then delicately tweaked the stern to weather. It lifted her and the aft end both, then dropped them in a foaming gush as the wave roared under them.

  “What is the enemy?” she replied, with the tiniest of smiles. “This year France, next year Spain or Holland. Perhaps the enemy is the government, in every land? Certainly the enemy is those venturers who take a different stance, or play by different rules, or fight for their own territory like our Hampshire friends. Of course Blaise Leopold was not the enemy in one sense of the word, he brought home English prisoners of war for you, but being French we could be named as such for Richard Kaye’s convenience. Of course France is the enemy, but trade is trade and must be carried on despite the mad rules of our rulers, so we are not the enemy, likewise for Richard Kaye’s convenience. Did not your ‘good King Charles’ have a cousin who was King of France? Did he not borrow gold from him to use to fight a war against him with his certain knowledge? That’s what our history says. Convenience, at bottom it is all convenience. Even killing, when necessary, is a convenience, is it not? As it is for governments, so it is for us.”

  “So Richard Kaye is one of the men behind the villainy that led to Yorke and Warren being killed? As a convenience…”

  More crests arose to windward, were handled, ridden, used. The boat and woman were in perfect tune. After each manoeuvre, sweet and delicate, she gave a little smile.

  “I must be honest with you,” she said at last. “The Hampshire people do not know. The names they were suspicious of, we were suspicious of, were kept from you, were not mooted to you, because Mary in particular feared your hurt. Remember, Jesse was her husband. You are held in very high… regard.”

  His voice betrayed his bitterness, his confusion. “Convenience, also — or is that sophistry? Had I known, I maybe would not have joined the hunt, how could I have? We were looking for the murderers, Sam and I. We were not expecting to be used. Naive. Naive.”

  Cold spray hit his face but he held it there and did not look away. Céline eased her sheet. The yawl was staggering to a stronger gust.

  “We did not know for certain, but we had to know. No one could come up with a better way. And there are other men you know of. A doctor of your area. The Petersfield Recorder, we think, but have no evidence direct. Men, even, of your family. Will, we do not know, we may be wrong. Sam Holt and you were setting on for it, but Kaye sank all our hopes. You may call this convenience if you so desire, you are cynical: if we can rescue Sam he may know more, he may have certainties to tell us.”

  “Men even of my family.” Bentley’s voice was bleak, he was clearly wrestling for understanding. “Daniel Swift is Kaye’s protagonist, but you did not state his implication, you do not answer me. But Kershaw was Swift’s man and he sank Kaye’s hopes in a way, and told you it was because Sam Holt was abandoned and betrayed. If Kershaw was Swift’s, how can you say that Swift is of the shadows? Oh Jesus Christ, there is that schooner building on the Thames!”

  This to himself, as the memory hit him. Swift’s own ship, on the stocks, his own fast private ship. And what was she for? Taking herring? No. Céline, hunched in her boat cloak, raised no question of his silent perplexity.

  At last she said: “We all must rise, Will, that is the bottom of it. This war won’t last for ever, maybe, and no man can finance a good run off his own back, can he? This landing on the beach tonight might involve four hundred men or more, and money to finance such ventures is not lightly raised. I don’t know why Kershaw wrecked our boat, or even if he did, on purpose, but if he was Swift’s man he knew you and Samuel as well, and maybe changed his loyalty, is that impossible? And maybe Swift is loyal to the King, and Navy, but knows he has to live, and thrive, and rise, whoever is the so-called enemy or even — horrors — if there is no one to fight at all, and he is on the beach! Men are ambitious, Will, although you do not seem to be. Maybe Kaye skewered your hopes to stop you learning things you would have found too indigestible. Back to convenience, although that’s too warped to contemplate!” She laughed, briefly. “No, you’ve come against reality, brother. It is a bloody business, this life we’re leading. All of us.”

  Did his father have a share in the building schooner? Had not Swift said that?

  “But you do not know?” he asked forlornly. “You think there is involvement, but you do not know for sure?”

  “We do not know,” Céline agreed. “For certain.”

  *

  Sam Holt had been betrayed, but the violence of the weather, his good hideout, and Bentley and Céline conspired to get him off the beach alive, if only just. Ten hours after that the question was an open one. When they sailed into calmer waters he was on the bottomboards, face white and tinged with blue, hair caked in blood, unmoving. As they ran the forefoot on to mud, Céline gave way to tears.

  They had reached the Adur beach in full dark, with the moonlight patches less frequent than the night before. From a mile away Céline had discovered two luggers of the trade, both French, one of which she thought she recognised. They were anchored well off, with small boats going in, but the landing was extremely difficult because of the rising storm. When they approached the beach themselves the prospect was daunting for a yawl of light construction. The free trade men were using heavy beach-boats, and had dozens of hands to hold and haul them. If they put the yawl within the breakers, she would likely smash to pieces.

  There was the sighting problem, too, for the gang had lookers-out on shore and ship, and would hardly tolerate intrusion. While a single small boat could pose no threat it would not be welcome, although they were handier than the heavy landing vessels and could get away if chased. Dark-sailed and unexpected, they hoped, simply, not to be seen. Indeed they were not, for some while, but ranged up and down the beach in indecision. They were here, the landing was on as they’d expected — what could they do? They were unarmed, one woman and a man, and Sam, alive or dead, was — where? If they put the boat ashore she would stay there, of that they had no doubt. She would go to pieces in the surf, and in any way, they could not get her off and out again; they were too few. For fifteen minutes they hardly spoke; they backed and filled, and went about, and ranged. They were both beset by growing hopelessness.

  It was being sighted that was the salvation they were praying for. As they swooped in close, in agony as to what to do for best, a shaft of moon broke through, a cry went up, and a volley of shots went off in quick succession. At the same instant, a lone figure broke from his cover behind the men firing at the yawl, who had, in fact, been beating through the undergrowth in search of him. He hared off down the beach towards the eastward — the yawl was sailing west — and Céline, as if she had not seen, put her about, ran off the beach against the rolling waves, then sliced along it to reach the point that the running man was heading for. The limping man, in fact, for Sam had received one ball already, in the leg, when flushed out of his hideaway and into thicker cover.

  By the time they’d reached the point of no return, where the waves were breaking and they could not go, Sam had reached the edge and was plunging out to meet them. The batmen and the musketmen had seen him also, and were racing down upon him like a dervish horde. Some had discharged their pieces, others were in the line of fire, but it was too much to hope he would get away unscathed. Before he was waist-deep he took a ball below the shoulder, and as he swam close enough for Will to seize his coat to drag him across the gunwale, another hit him in the neck. Sam, whose mouth was open for a greeting, snapped it shut
, went blank about the eyes, and folded into the bottom like a boneless heap. He was bleeding. Céline bore off, then gybed her round without a hand from Will, and ran offshore like an arrow into the seething blackness. There could be no pursuit.

  It was forty miles or so to Langstone, but both knew that there was no alternative to going on. As they made their offing Will lay with Samuel in the bottom and tried to save his life. For some minutes he was not certain there was life to save, but he rubbed the pallid face with brandy, substituted his drier, warmer coat and cloak for the soaking shoreman’s togs, and dribbled some spirit between the icy lips. At one point Samuel coughed, then gagged, then came to life and smiled the faintest smile. “Ho, Will,” he said, “fine life upon the sea, what?” then slipped off again. But his face got warmer, and from time to time he moved. Later, Will took the helm and Céline lay beside Sam, and wrapped both in her boat cloak, and rubbed his cheeks and hands. From time to time she moved, to lift her head and smile towards frozen Will, hunched beside the tiller, one hand upon the sheet as he fought to keep the yawl afloat in the violence. From time to time she got up on her knees to bail.

  They could not go ashore, if for no other reason, because of the level of the seas. The wind was hard offshore still, which gave them some sort of lee, but the Sussex shingle beaches had breaking surf never less than a cable’s length in depth. Even if they had found a landing — and Will had little idea of where they were within a mile or five — the chances were they would have ended in a lonely, isolated spot, and found not even a shepherd’s hut to shelter in. Also there were offshore shoals, there had to be, it was in nature, which if they found would mean their ending. By morning light, he hoped, they would see Selsey, which he could recognise, and after that he knew the waters intimately, and they would fetch. Had it not been for his intense cold, Will would have dreamed of landfall in Langstone Haven which — he realised it then, and not before — he loved. The very strangeness of this thought brought him to his senses, for he was drifting off, cold or no cold. The yawl was falling off, a gust caught her with the sheet not free to run, and she lurched and took a swipe of green sea inboard as the lee side dipped. Will thrust the tiller down, let fly, and woke Céline with his frantic shout. The water washed Sam’s face while she plied the bucket.

  Worst was off of Selsey, where the tide was running hard against them, contrary with the wind, which was bitter now, and stronger, from the north-east. The tidal rip was terrible, the wind fought it relentlessly, and Céline was letting fly, and sheeting in, and letting fly almost without cease. The halliard was led underneath a thwart and made up in a jam so that she could release it with a jerk and lose the sail if need be, but by the grace of God — as she said it — that necessity was spared them.

  And then, with the sun burning down the Channel after them, and round the Bill, and the sea miraculously sane again, if still exceeding wild, Will saw the South Downs leading him along the coast, and the point where they appeared to drop away to nothing, which was where, when coming from the east, he knew he’d find his landfall at the Lang-stone entrance.

  “Céline,” he said. “It’s there. Follow the line of hills. Perhaps two hours. I think the tide’s turning west, it’s easier. We’ll come to Mary’s at high water. How’s Sam?”

  He was lying flat on his back on the bottomboards, swathed in black, nothing of him visible to Will. She sat beside him like an eastern doll, one small area of pale skin peeping from her hood. A small hand emerged from out her cloak and gently touched his face.

  “He’s not so cold. I hope this sun can chase the clouds away. I hope that he can live.”

  “What shall we do?” said Will. “When we come to Langstone?”

  The question was meaningless, but both knew what he meant by it. She was a spy, a smuggler, an escaper, a Frenchwoman. He and Sam were deserters maybe, mutineers or heroes, God knew what. They’d set out to uncover murderers and they had been sucked into a swamp. All three of them could hang, in probability. In truth, he realised with a sudden swoop, he was a murderer himself, of that there was no doubt. And probably, he thought, I’ve killed Deb, too.

  “It is too hard,” she said. “Too compliqué. I’m tired, I want to sleep and cry, and say hallo to Mary and the children. I think that things will go on as before. That is what I think we have to do.”

  Go on as before, but everything he’d learned about and found. About Swift, and his society, and even — she had said — other members of his family, whom he would have to ask after; not now. And his position in the world, an officer of the King, a gentleman. Fighting to uphold the right. And honour.

  “You can’t change anything,” said Céline. “You do know that, don’t you, Will? You will change nothing, so you will have to change. You understand that, don’t you? Will? Will?”

  Great crimes had been committed, that much he knew. By all of them possibly, certainly by him. And by them, the others, known and secret, oh yes, by them most definitely. The water danced before him, green and whitecapped, leading him to Langstone entrance and the way to home. He was tired, bowed down with great exhaustion in the gleaming chill. Great crimes had been committed, that much he knew. Céline declared with confidence that nothing could be done.

  Oh God, he thought, if Deb is dead and Sam should die. Oh God. “Understand?” he said. “I am not sure that I do.”

  And when at last they ran the forefoot on to mud, Céline gave way to tears.

  THE SPITHEAD NYMPH

  Table of Contents

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  ONE

  Lieutenant Peter Coppiner was not a bitter man. At sixty-some years old and still lieutenant, why should he be, indeed? Not that his age was known to anyone save him, least of all the clerks at Admiralty, however hard they’d probed and searched the records. Indeed, Lieutenant Coppiner did not know himself exactly, now that his old mother had been dead eleven years. It was expunged, wiped clean, forgotten, totally denied. All he knew was that he was lieutenant still, and would take that signal lack of honour to his grave. He was not a bitter man: he was filled with active rage, and hatred.

  The stench on board the hulk this night was something worse than usual. The weather in the Thames had been exceeding hot and still for days, and his last big intake, from off a spice ship inward from the East, had been running with the stomach fluxes and a spot of scurvy for good luck. Most of them had left his tender care by now — many, indeed, had died in sight and sound of loved ones and their hearths — leaving naught but paperwork and little chance of bounty for the taking of them. Paperwork and the ridding of the corpses, and the vomit, shit, and smells. Lieutenant Coppiner was not a bitter man. He was murderous.

  Outside his cabin, once called “great” when the hulk had been a man-of-war, he could hear men approaching. There was a sentry of marines to guard his door, a most necessary item in his hated trade, and the lieutenant had an understanding with this soldier. If the caller was known, and his business had been stated well beforehand, he would be made to wait. If he was further known, to be a man particularly hated by Lieutenant Coppiner, the delay would be prolonged acutely. As the voices sounded, first mild, polite, then with a rising note of exasperation, a smile homed in upon the deep-lined face. Coppiner ran long fingers through his patch-white hair. This was one to relish.

  In the passage, in the re
eking gloom, the scene took on an air of studied farce. The Navy officer, whose name was Richard Kaye, was a young, stoutish, florid man, whose colour rose from red to brick as he stoked his fury up. He was flanked by two silent, stolid seamen, one of whom, Tom Tilley, was a giant. He was stooped uncomfortably, even in the high ’tween-decks of the former 90-gunner, and he looked as if his ham-hands itched to break the soldier’s neck. The other, boatswain Jem Taylor, small and tough and Irish-looking (although he had an England accent) was indifferent. His eyes dwelt on the unmoving face of a little black boy in a velvet suit, attached to the officer’s belt by a whited lanyard looped round his neck. The black boy’s suit was also black, as were his large, soft eyes. As black as jet — and suffering.

  “Well, you can tell Lieutenant Coppiner,” roared the officer, “that I am here on business that cannot be delayed! My intentions were communicated two days ago, and the process is severe. I have the ship, I have the stores, I have instructions from the highest in the Board! Rouse him out, damn you! That is an order! I shall not be delayed!”

  At his enormous table, groaning under piles of paperwork, Coppiner allowed his smile to reassemble as a sneer. You jumped-up popinjay, he thought. Has promotion rendered you more pompous yet? But no, not possible, you were ever a poltroon. You may fool their lordships, any man of interest can do that, but you surely can’t fool me. I am lieutenant still, and you are Post, I hear. Well then — you shall wait!

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” said the marine soldier. “I have my orders, sir, and I cannot take them different from another man, I beg your honour’s pardon. Lieutenant Coppiner cannot be disturbed. He is desperate busy, sir.”