The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  Baines surprised him. He shook his head in vigorous denial.

  “No sir, Mr Bentley, sir,” he said. “It ain’t just there’s a war on and we knows our duty, but the Press is tedious, ain’t it, always breaking heads and drinking in the London houses, and catching nasties off the London whores. In the Carib they say the sun do shine like silver all year round, and the local brew is rum and there’s barrels of it in the street. They make so much of it, it’s free to white men, who are masters, and the black girls give you everything because they’re slaves. Hugg’s been there, sir, and so has Si Ayling, even one-leg cookie, Geoff. It’s all true, sir; it’s a kind of paradise. We don’t want to skip ship, sir, far from it. We want to go.”

  Inwardly Will was laughing, but his expression did not change. One section of the crew, then, would be happy for a while; they needed it. Rat Baines’s head went from shake to nodding.

  “The one to watch on running will be the captain’s boy,” he said. “You know, Black Bob, the little neger. For over there, sir, they’re blacker than in Africa. The whole place bursts with them. Black Bob looks out the window, what does he see? His people, beckoning to him at long last. Oh yes, sir, Mr Kaye will need infernal vigilance, won’t he? The moment we drops hook — Bob’s gone.”

  Not so long, in fact. Black Bob was gone and lost not many days beyond this conversation. Not run though — he was hunted.

  THREE

  It was not until very late that night that Lieutenant Bentley (Acting) met his captain. Before then he had set himself to rights, made contact with the Biter’s people who remembered him, and seen Gunning’s sulkers and the four from Coppiner. He had also reviewed another motley bunch of men impressed earlier, which Baines had not even bothered mentioning, and introduced himself to a mild-faced young lieutenant of marines, who had returned just after midnight with but three soldiers, the fourth having been knifed badly in a drunken brawl ashore. Then William had stood on the afterdeck alone, at the far end from the dockyard watchman still deemed as necessary by the Navy Office until the Biter should be made officially Captain Kaye’s command.

  Sweet is the air this night, thought Bentley, trying to call a line of verse from out of memory, but with very small success. The river, on a gentle flood, smelled fresh and warm, and full of aromatic mud reminders, one of his favourite smells. On the ebb, and with a different wind to sweep it down from London, the effect could be much different, he well knew. The stench of smoke and furnaces, molten iron and acidic gas, the city’s sewage and the acrid reek of industry and bloated dead. London is big and violent, he thought, and I’m a country man. But what, God help me, will the West Indies bring?

  Until a week before, Bentley’s life had been constrained by four damp walls, and thoughts of moving air, either sweet or vile, had been the stuff of weary memory. He had been in jail, first on a Portsmouth hulk, then in Petersfield, then somewhere south of London, and he had almost given up hopes of getting out, at least for some long years. Had he not had certain interest, had there not been a flow of letters, lawyers, representations, bribes perhaps — well, God knew what the outcome might have been. In all the months, he had been interrogated by officers of many ranks, men in lawyers’ garb, and others who were clearly spies. The most heartening thing had been a letter from his Uncle Daniel Swift, who was out in the Straits “carving my way as ever,” as he put it. This letter, which had been opened by the Office and resealed, had exhorted him to take heart, for all would certainly be well. Will could not find his Uncle Swift a comfort normally; more, he was a kind of black beast to him, as the French might say. But this time, he was comforted. Stay in jail he might; but if Swift was in the picture, something would be happening. What it was, he could not guess. But he would not be forgotten.

  That, as he stared across the black and sliding water of the Thames, he remembered as the worst part of incarceration — the feeling he had slipped off of the edge. True he had come ashore in Langstone Haven as a sort of fugitive, but he had expected rationality, and a hearing. He had landed in an open boat, half dead with cold and tiredness, his friend Sam Holt three-quarters gone from gunshot wounds beside him, and a French girl, called Sally or Céline. Three days later, in a tiny cottage in Langstone village, still uncertain as to what they ought to do, they had been taken by dragoons. Will had seen Sam once in all the time since then, weak and shrunken from his injuries, bronchitic in a Forton jail, and Céline not at all. From no one, neither visitor nor inmate, nor from any correspondent despite his strongest pleas, had he got a word or even hint about her fate. She was French. She was a smuggler or a spy, or even both. She smuggled men, from England into France and vice versa, and she had helped to save his life, and that of Sam. He feared that, in the English way, she had been hanged.

  Then, eight days ago, the amazing thing had happened. He had been sitting at his table in his cell, with his mind a dozing blank. It was a state he had been practising for many months, and which he could achieve sometimes with good success, sometimes less so. As he was a Navy officer of some sort his cell was hardly comfortless, and his mother sent good food and wine for consolation of his soul. In front of him he had a pack of playing cards — almost certainly smuggled, he had noted with some gloomy satisfaction — that he shuffled restlessly from time to time, but most of his energy went in keeping his mind clear. Clear of Deborah, clear of Céline, his family, Sam, his enemies. Most painfully and frequently, Deborah refused to go — Deborah whom he loved and he had killed, he feared. But other thoughts pressed in. How had he come into this pass, how to escape, what, in the name of God and Satan, would the future bring, and when? On this occasion he had achieved his sleepy blankness, to be brought back to a present consciousness by the rattle of his jailer’s keys.

  Bentley had looked up, bored and helpless, at the rough-planked door. There were no lawyers due, no family. Who could it be? There was an enormous weight on him, a weight of dull similitude. His eyelids drooped. A break in the routine, and tiredness was his sole reaction. Oh Christ, he thought, I’ll die if I don’t get out soon; I’ll die. Then the door swung open and his eyes jerked wide on Richard Kaye. Will, on his feet instantly, was almost stammering.

  “Sir? Great heavens, I… Sir, this is a… this is an honour.”

  In Bentley’s sight, it was a Richard Kaye transformed. He was in a coat of shrieking newness, a Navy blue of most expensive cut and style, and his trousers were fresh sprung from under the flat-iron. Still tall and stout, he seemed wider, more expanded, with his face alive with confidence. More; with friendship, which was the big surprise. They had parted on the verge of enmity and suspicion. What, Will wondered, could have wrought the change?

  “Indeed an honour, and a pleasure too, I hope,” boomed Kaye. “You have heard of my good fortune, I have not a doubt. But did you guess you were to have a part of it?”

  Bentley’s face made his lack of knowledge clear. To Kaye, though, who thought only of himself, that was incomprehensible. Bentley, he imagined, would have spent his waking hours contemplating Richard Kaye’s success.

  “I am made captain as you know,” he said. “Post captain, with both rank and vessel now confirmed. The Biter’s still in my command, but she is no longer with the Impress, and she has been much improved. Masts taller, poop deck raised, extra guns, extra room for men. Good sakes, Mr Bentley, we might even ship a chaplain to bring the word among the nigger Carib slaves!”

  The young midshipman stood there, in his drab and dingy shore-side clothes. He had known that Kaye had risen in their lordships’s eyes after the action that had broken him and Sam, but he had not realised how far. The Biter, standing off the Goodwin Sands, had saved about sixty souls, in fact, and Slack Dickie’s courage had been exemplary. His courage, and John Gunning’s seamanship, had projected him from a booby — albeit a rich one and an aristocrat — into a man their lordships could finally accept as a proper naval officer: his life’s ambition.

  “The Carib, sir?” said Bentley. “A chaplai
n?”

  Kaye’s eyes, like polished hazelnuts, shone pale with pleasure. He liked to see sharp Mr Bentley dull and ox-like.

  “Aye, the Carib, sir! We are off to the West Indies betimes to do some proper work, not chasing round to dredge up dogs to later mutiny. I am post captain, and I need a good and gallant crew. And officers. You, sir, will be my first!”

  The effect was giddying. He was a prisoner, awaiting trial! Moreover, Kaye was not a friend; he never had been. Surely he was not a friend?

  “But I am… I was… but a midshipman, Mr Kaye,” he said. “How can I be your officer? And I am in jail.”

  “Pah! Not for too much longer, that I promise you. The orders are coming down from the Office post haste, and I was given leave to tell you first. I need officers because there is a war on, Bentley, and I need a certain sort because we’re sailing to a wild and foreign part. I have a mission, sir — two missions, although the second part, well, never mind that now — and I need a certain type. Not to mince it, I need men who would be pirates, if they could. You fill that bill!”

  The door was still half open from Kaye’s entry, but he moved across to swing it closed. The jailer, apparently, had left them to it, clearly told there was no question of escape, but Kaye had grown conspiratorial. Will, however, was still agape.

  “A pirate, sir? What can you mean?”

  Laughing, Kaye swung his body round to perch a buttock on the flimsy table. It squeaked and shifted, and papers slid onto the floor, which both ignored.

  “Oh, butter would not melt!” he said. “But you will not deny, I hope, that as a loyal midshipman you have proved something of a failure? Bentley, a pirate is a man who will take on a beach full of armed smugglers damn near single-handed contra orders, and run a cockleshell through hurricanes for no reason than insubordination. Deny it how you might, you are more a pirate than a King’s officer, and I will have you as my first. You will be Lieutenant Bentley. We will rise.”

  Inside Will there were churnings he could not understand. He was giddy with sensation. To be saved from jail by this man, whose machinations had put him there to start with. To be beholden morally to a man whose morals did not to all intents exist, who was probably a murderer. And all because he’d fought him tooth and nail. It was absurd. Not possible.

  “I cannot be,” he said, simply. “I’m not lieutenant, I’m a mid. I have taken no examination, nor could I pass one. I cannot even navigate.”

  Kaye’s full lips curled. His disdain was almost palpable.

  “Pah, navigation. Boys’ tricks. We will have a sailing man, a master, to do all that. You can fight, can’t you? That’s what they’re looking for. Your testing for lieutenant is coming soon in any way, a week, ten days or so; I have took the liberty. You are expected at the Office on… oh, what day was it? I have it writ down, no fear. You will not miss.”

  The giddiness increased. Had he tried to speak, he would have stuttered. But Kaye did not notice. He was indifferent.

  “I am a hero now,” he said, casually. “Their lordships had no idea at all of how to handle you, and I put in my oar.” He patted a pocket in his smart new coat. “There was a word from Swift, an’ all. Your Uncle Dan. He told ’em he’d got wind out in the Straits, even, of your exploit, and demanded you be reassigned to him next time he reached to home. He is a pirate ditto, ain’t he? He’s ta’en three galleys off Algerie is the story, he’s left the Squadron and gone private, and there is much hint of gold. I thought to nab you first, to keep you from him! Maybe you will turn out to be another Daniel Swift! That would be a feather for me, would it not?”

  “But I cannot be an officer!” said Bentley, passionately. “Whatever you might think, Mr Kaye! My knowledge is so rusty; I have not mugged up all the theory, even half of it! I will be a laughing stock! A dunderheaded fool!”

  “You will pass with flying colours,” said Kaye, all happy smiles. “I will put a wager on it. I’ll wager fifty guineas.” He stopped, looked round the tiny room, which was cluttered with books. “In any way, you’ve got a week, ain’t you, and you’ve surely got the library. If you’ve been shirking, make shift to catching up immediate, but I don’t believe it anyhow. I know you, Will Bentley; you ain’t been reading the New Testament! You’ve got ten days or so. So get to it!”

  It fell to Will that he should just refuse, point-blank, just cut through the moral knot and free himself. To what end, though? For what? To be a martyr and to watch his family suffer? To continue as an endless money-sink? A further thought slipped in. To be beholden to a rogue like Kaye was one thing, but what if he could use the chance to save another man? He did not choose to think too hard or long, but stepped straight onward.

  “And what of Sam?” he said. It came out cool, as if he’d not just thought of it, as if it held the forefront of his mind. “Sam Holt, my friend and fellow. He is the better sailor and the better man, if you seek a first lieutenant. Sam Holt can even navigate. He would pass his tests with colours flying.”

  Kaye regarded him silently for several seconds, a strange expression on his face. It was quizzical. A kind of smile.

  “Sam Holt,” he said. “Aye, Sam Holt. Well then, what is he to you?”

  “To me, at present, he is nothing,” Bentley replied. As he spoke the loss became a void. For all he knew, Sam might be dead, he’d been so hurt, so badly cared for, when last he’d seen him in a cell. He steeled himself, put some defiance in his voice and stance. “But in a fight he is a giant and a tiger, and if it’s pirates that you want… Sam is an honest man, his honesty is dazzling… but he is…”

  Kaye laughed. Surprisingly, he understood.

  “Piratical,” he said. “Aye, William, I concur most heartily with that. Piratical — and hungry, I’ll be bound. Who pays his living now, eh, now the Navy don’t? But where is he? Is he a cripple, or active still? And surely, if you’re accused of derelicting duty, his situation with their lordships must be ten times worse!”

  He was mocking, and Will was flushed with sudden anger.

  “If Sam comes so do I,” he said. “The case is simple. If he does not, sir, then I don’t either. We have… Sam Holt and me have…”

  Kaye was nodding, and was smiling still. Will had expected anger at the least, but amusement seemed the order of the day. Post Captain Kaye was less prickly than mere Lieutenant Kaye had been, maybe.

  “Well,” he said. “I half guessed this might be your reaction, Mr Bentley, and that’s one up to me. Holt is arrogant, with the arrogance of the truly low. But his bravery ain’t in question, is it, and with you to keep him under hand, that’s good enough for my book. If we can find him, and the matter can be swung, I’ll rope him in. Does that meet cases, or have you other orders I must comply with, sir?”

  The smile was broader, and Bentley found that he was joining in. Good God, in half an hour he’d come from incarceree to active officer again. A sort of miracle.

  “Sir,” he said, with genuine humility, “I thank you from my heart, and for Sam too. Will you find him, sir? The Office must surely know. And will… can you… have you the…?”

  “I have the punch at present to do damn nearly anything,” said Kaye. “Interest piled on interest piled on punch. Holt himself ain’t short of power neither, of a certain sort. There’s his uncle, or protector, ain’t there, what you will? Sir Arthur, ain’t it? Arthur Fisher — one of the old brigade. He can pull some strings, I’ll warrant.”

  “And can you get Sam in for testing, sir?” asked Bentley, boldly. “Put his name down for their lords’ examination? If you think I can pass it, he must swim through.”

  “It’s not impossible,” said Kaye. “Aye, aye, I guess I can. Good God, who is conductor of this conversation, thee or me? I’ll leave you to your books and your inducement. You cannot let yourself be beat now, can you? Sam Holt is low and you are not, sir. Think of the shame if he gets passed lieutenant and you don’t!”

  Post Captain Kaye had departed then, leaving Bentley with his amazeme
nt and his thoughts. For the next few days he had heard nothing more, but had attacked his books and charts with obsessive vigour. It did occur to him that this might be some cruel jest or hoax, but only a time or two. It was so extraordinary, in the end, that he could only believe it and rejoice. Then, one day, the order came and he was released, collected by a Navy Office clerk and taken in a carriage with his sea bag up to Seething Lane. Papers to sign, five guineas in advance given by another clerk (and added, so they said, to the sum already owing to the Navy on his account), no explanations or instructions that were any use. No time to see his parents, scarce time to bespeak some Navy garb to be altered and delivered quick by boat (another charge, on trust of a deposit, that he would have to find and pay), scarce time to write his mother that a chest be packed and sent. It was the Navy way: he was pushed around and made to sort it out himself. Will was invigorated.

  However late he went to sleep at nights, though, however hard he flogged his brain by day, hope for the future was always overlaid. He saw the face of Deborah, in pain and terror, her eyes beseeching him.

  FOUR

  By the time his captain came on board at last that night, Bentley felt fully a King’s officer once more. Despite he’d roved the decks for only a few brief hours, he had a new grip on the ship and people, and a hope that this time things would be quite different, more like the Navy he’d grown up in, not so desperate slack. Kaye, also, once his boat’s crew and Coxswain Sankey were dismissed, expressed a quiet satisfaction about the sleeping brig, the air of clean efficiency and control. He did not care, it seemed, that more than half the hands were still in irons lest they ran or (in the Scotsmen’s case) indulged in mayhem, murder, or far worse. Time enough for that when the Biter; under full command at last, became a ship in readiness.

  The little black boy, whom he had not seen for many months, touched Bentley’s spirits with cold fingers, though. Bob had not responded when he’d greeted him, had not even raised his eyes, and was tethered by a lanyard of fancywork looped round his neck and the captain’s belt. Will hated this, that Kaye still kept him as a pet, and it made his hopes for new maturity seem hollow. Kaye had other childish tricks as well, it soon transpired.