The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  He paused, flushed at his own eloquence, blind to the uninterest and stolidity staring up at him. He did not smell the sharp sweat either, produced in Sam Holt’s oxters at the amazing arrogance, bordering on blasphemy. The Biter, by the grace of God and Dick, thought Sam. Ye gods and pickled turbots! And he wondered at the guarantee. Who’d told him she was sound: her owner? So why, then, was John Gunning staying home?

  Kaye chuntered on for five more minutes, exhorting, trying jokes, giving threats and promises. He said he’d seen the division of the people into rates, and he approved. He said he’d considered the warranting of the boatswain and his stalwart mates, and he approved. He introduced his two lieutenants with a nod, and warned the sailors that officer Savary was a demon of marines, and his soldiers were… well, soldiers. There was another one to come, to make it four (in case they couldn’t count, presumably), and there was to be a surgeon, a midshipman, and a sailmaker called Smith. This, he explained “for the new people come on board of us,” was to replace the old one, Tennison, who had been a clever man with the twine and needle, but a fool for love. He’d settled down and married, swallowing the killick, and “was probably regretting it e’en now.” The laugh from the old Biter men was modified by the fact he’d got the name wrong. Peter Tennison had never been in love, except with liquor, and had drunk himself to death quite recently.

  Even Kaye could tell the men were getting restive, and even Kaye knew the best and only remedy on shipboard was hard work. Over the next few days, he said, he and his officers had much to do to make the voyage go off with a swing, and he would need to see the Admiralty, the armourers, the vittlers, and God alone knew who else. But if he was away at all on duty, and however long it took for his return, ship’s work would continue, morning, noon, and night. The boatswain and his mates were vicious, Lieutenant Savary would not hesitate to use the tars for musket practice, and his officers were denizens of another, crueller world. Lieutenant Bentley, he said, was the nephew of Captain Daniel Swift, of the death ship Welfare; need he say more? And Lieutenant Holt had taken on three hundred men and more on Shoreham beach in single combat, and yet stood there before them. He beamed at these two demons, and the common people held their thoughts.

  Shortly, the muster was at an end. Orders were passed to Taylor and his mates, calls were made, and the shipboard bustle set about in earnest. Sweeps were extracted from their stowage, shipped through the ports, and readied for the pull out to the buoy. Boat crews were told off to their tugs, mooring lines were singled up, and all made ready. The air was still, the sun warm, the tide slack. Biter, smarter and more shipshape than she had ever been, slipped from the tiers and slid across the Thames to pick up the buoy. If anybody looked at the dwindling, friendly shore with deep despair, they dared not show it, and the dockyarders watched their departure with impassivity. Within an hour, the brig lay to her newfound isolation as calm and neat as a resting swan. The hands were called to dinner.

  In the great cabin Deborah was mentioned once more, in passing. Kaye said that he had to go ashore, but they could not, because he had to dig out Jack Gunning, who was to do a little trip with them to help shake down the new gear and explain the old. He laughed at Sam’s idea that Gunning might be murdered by his former people, whom he had betrayed, but said in any case that “London Jack” would risk it for the money, would risk anything at all. Kaye also had to go and see his father, though not this night, at the family seat in Hertfordshire, he said.

  “In fact,” he added, “I thought — ” then stopped. They regarded him. “Well,” he went on, “to see one’s people is important.”

  “’Tis true,” said Sam. “Sir Arthur Fisher, I am sure, would not be pleased if I were to sail for Jamaica without acknowledgment and a fond farewell. And the young lady…”

  Kaye laughed.

  “Ah, the blessed strumpet! My my, your assiduity knows no bounds, does it? You think she might be there, so…”

  “So William should come with me,” Sam said. “If it were to be possible, sir…”

  “Well it won’t,” said Kaye. “The idea is nonsensical. And I don’t expect to find you running off, as you have both done in the not too distant past. This time there ain’t no good excuse, like catching smugglers, so sirs — to work. This is a different ship, as you have recognised. I charge that you should keep her so. So shift!”

  That night Kaye did go ashore, and the weather being milder, Sam and Bentley loitered on the quarterdeck until the early hours, with wine and conversation.

  “I wonder if she is at Langham Lodge,” Will said wistfully, before they went to turn in. “Poor Deborah.”

  “Aye, the blessed strumpet,” said Sam, with palpable affection. “Aye, Will. I wonder if she is.”

  SIX

  Deb Tomelty, the blessed strumpet, was not at Sir A’s house in the Surrey countryside, but she had been in or near it twice in recent months. The first time she was escaping from a Customs officer, as Annette had half remembered, and the second she was saved by one, who wanted her to be his mistress. Both fat, both just as keen to taste of her delights, but two completely different gentlemen.

  The first encounter, at Portsmouth Point, was the culmination of a long and fearful journey down from London, via the River Adur mouth at Shoreham, where Deb had had some wild hope of meeting William, last seen being dragged off by his own boat’s crew at Dr Marigold’s. When she’d arrived at Shoreham she had found no one, not him nor yet Sam Holt, her second forlorn hope, but just an empty, storm-swept beach. In her desolation, Deb had approached some fishermen, with the knife that Marge Putnam had given her hidden in her pocket, and because she was a maid, they’d helped her. Because she had bruised face, torn skin, and lumps of hair torn out, their women helped her also. For a day or two, at least, Deb Tomelty was safe.

  It could not last, no doubt of that. She was put up in a store-shed behind a cottage near the beach, and was listened to with sympathy. Deb, who had no guile or knowledge of the local livelihood (beyond the fishery) was open in her desire to know if a young Navy officer had been seen thereabouts in recent days, and if so, where was he now? The men humoured her at first, then questioned her in case she was a spy, which they rapidly concluded she was not. Then her questions about smugglers and her naïveté about the trade began to charm them, as did her natural beauty, which soon came shining through the bruises and abuse. As the men got fresher, the women turned to animosity, and her safety slipped into another question. Deb was not a fool; she knew she had to go. Her problem now was — where?

  It was a little girl called Meg who pointed her to Portsmouth. She came to the shed one evening, after Deb had heard a row inside the house, which she guessed was about herself. The girl was childishly direct. There had been a battle on the beach the week before, she said, and she’d heard that a stranger had been rescued by a boat. Word was he was a Navy man, or perhaps was Portsmouth Customs, and in any way the boat most probably had gone down there. The Portsmouth Customs, she vouchsafed proudly, lived in a little creek by Point called Shitty Corner, which was typical of the Hampshire people, who were very low. And then, with clear green eyes full on Deb, she’d added, “Why don’t you go there, Miss? You are not welcome here, I promise you.”

  At two that night a drunk man tried to barge into the store-shed, and at four Deb slipped away. She still had a small amount of Mrs Putnam’s money, and it was raining hard, but she chose to walk or beg for rides. Her progress, along the coast from east to west, was adequately fast, but dangerous and unpleasant.

  Along the downland road, she caught glimpses of the southern country scenery that reminded her of the northern country she had left so hopefully with Cecily. The hills, though low, were pleasant, not too dissimilar from the Pennines dropping down to Stockport where the mountain waters met to form the Mersey. The rain was quite familiar also, although she was surprised to see the sea, grey and forbidding, when the cloud banks parted to extend her view. The Isle of Wight, sighted in a clear spell of
strong sunshine, backed by a sky of blue, startled her with its beauty. Then it disappeared, as a sharp rain swept across the scrubland horizontal to smack into her face.

  Deb crossed the sea at Portsbridge without a horse or cart to ride on, and stumbled through the Lines at Hilsea with a myriad of other grumbling foot passengers fed up with the military building and the wartime clutter. The island of Portsea itself she found depressing, all flat and waterlogged in the misty rain, with a scattering of houses here and there, and yet more forts and white stone ramparts up ahead of her. It took a half an hour to be admitted through the Landport gate despite the fact that it was open and the guards uncaring, while her pleas to be let through the dockyard walls were met with stares. When she asked where the Navy ships were, and how one got to them, they laughed at her.

  “On yer back,” said one man. “But you’ll need to wash it first. And your face and shanks.”

  They mocked her for her accent, too, and the way she asked directions. The only name she knew was Shitty Corner, and she said it in a way they found exceptional. Unlike little Meg in Sussex, though, they did not find it low to use so blunt a name, and pointed her toward St Thomas’s, whose tower she could see in the rainy distance. Once there, they told her, she should keep inside the walls until she reached St James’s Gate, then follow Broad Street down.

  “If you fall into the water,” said the first man, “you’ll know you’ve gone too far. If not, you’ll see the Star and Garter on your right, which has its arse resting on the beach of Shitty Corner, and hence the name. Folk stay in the Starry and eat and drink and shit, and everything ends up in the harbour, don’t it? It’s a hostelry for whores an’ all; the maidens there are Spithead Nymphs, damn nearly every one. Is that your interest, maid? Are you seeking a position?”

  “I’m seeking Customs officers,” Deb said coldly, “not the Star and Garter. Know you where they are stationed, an’ you please?”

  “Star and Garter, like I said. They got a shed and jetty on the water’s edge, next the Still and West, but they drinks in the Star itself to annoy the Navy men. What business do you have with them, though? Ragged little tart.”

  Deb, who had had a bellyful of angry men in her time, dodged and shifted in the moving throng and lost this one easily. She hurried on down Broad Street through the city gate in increasing rain, until she saw the rising frontage of the Star and Garter, redbrick and tall-built near the very end of land. Beyond it the mud road turned back left upon itself, showing her the expanse of Portsmouth harbour, stretching green and choppy right up towards the hill that formed a northern barrier. With the wind coming sharply off the water, the whole place smelled fresh and clean.

  It was not, though. Despite her care, Deb stood near ankle-deep in mud, and the houses, dives, and grog shops in her sight were in every part depressing. The road was thronged with dogs and carts and asses, and as she watched, a pair of oxen hitched on to a dray excreted noisily as if to a united signal. The smell of fresh dung acted as a trigger, for when it had faded a reek of rotten, older excrement had overlaid her senses. Scales fell from her eyes, and she saw filth and ugliness.

  The place was thronged and bustling, but no one had time for her. She realised that they were outside the city wall, that Point was a low-lying snout of mud and shingle, presumably where any law in Portsmouth Town had no dominion. To the right, beyond the Star, she could see a muddy creek, with a smaller creeklet running up behind it. The tide was low, and there were banks of green and slimy mud, the bones of long-dead boats, piles of rotting filth and matter — and her, she thought, who hoped to find Sam Holt, or even Will, or Customs men at least, maybe the Royal Navy. There were ships up harbour, what she took for fighting ships, black and yellow, with guns visible at holes cut in the sides of some. Deb was almost overwhelmed with loneliness. Boldness, and a little money in her purse, thank God and Mrs Margery. They were her only hope.

  Inside the building things took some long while to get a little better. She slipped in through the front door in trepidation, but need not have feared. There was a long low lobby with doors off of it, some closed, some open, and the normal sounds of tavern life; laughs, shouting, wenches’ shrieks. After some minutes a pot-boy passed her, with a tray of tankards and a jug. He glanced, sensed somehow she was at a loss, and cut his freckled face into a smile.

  “Maid?”

  “Aye,” said Deb. “Ah. Couldst tha maybe tell me — ?”

  “By! A bloody foreign lass! Art thou French?”

  “French! Nay, lad, I come from — ”

  “Don’t tell me! Don’t tell! You come from — let me guess! You come from… Germany? Holland? Spain? You come from Africa! Why ain’t you black?”

  Deb Tomelty, completely thrown backwards on herself, just gaped. And the pot-boy, who could have been but twelve or less, curled up with laughing at her. She realised that he was making fun. Somehow or other that relieved her.

  “Christ,” she said. “If you think I’ve got a medlar in my mouth, you should’ve heard me when I first come down from Cheshire. This is lady-talk to me!”

  His name was Malcie, and they were quickly friends. He showed her to an alcove, took away his pots and jug, then returned.

  “I’ve got two minutes ’fore they call for me,” he said. “If you have come to get a slavey job, you’re too good on the eye. If you have come for whoring, speak to Timothy; don’t speak to no one else, for Timothy bends the other way, if you get my meaning, and will not hurt or rob you, well, not a lot. If a man with one eye tries to capture you, tell him that you’re waiting for your admiral, then hide in the yard till I finds you. What are you here for, anyway? It must be whoring, surely? Must you really have to be a Spithead Nymph?”

  This time he was in earnest. She shook her head, though, feeling cold. She explained that she was on the search for someone, an injured Navy officer, maybe a Customs man. She was desperate cold, and wet and tired, and had come exceeding far. But she had money, she was not a whore, and she needed… looking after. Now, when Malcie laughed there was no humour in it.

  “You don’t ask a lot from life then, do you, maid?” he said. Deb blinked; she did not understand. So Malcie sighed.

  “Look Deb. This is Point, see, also called Spice Island. The Navy men come here for one thing only, or maybe two or three. Drink is the cheapest, and the best, and men and officers do it together here. It’s not the only thing they do together, neither; they do things they could get hanged for on their ships, d’you see? Some also like it for the females though, who are the dirtiest, cheapest, vilest whores of Portsmouth and Portsea, inside or out of walls. The Customs men come in because it’s close to their station, because the Navy officers hate them, and because they can shift contraband with the local Free Trade men. In short, maid — it is not the place for thee.”

  It came upon her, clear and suddenly, that there were lower places on God’s earth than Dr Marigold’s. It came on further that she was quite alone, and possibly in deadly danger. Her one protector was a little boy.

  “I’ve got some coin,” she said, then felt afraid it was the last thing to confess. “I need to find a Navy man called Sam, called Samuel Holt. I think he’s been aiding of the Revenue. There may be another one, although I think not, another officer called Bentley, Will. He has yellow hair, and is small and — ” She nearly blurted beautiful, and she nearly burst into tears. Christ, she thought, I wish I was at home with Ma, in Stockport. Oh Christ, she thought, I’m lost. Malcie was staring at her, and his face was full of pity.

  “When it’s dark,” he said, “the Customs men come in for dinner. Not all of them are on the make, my lover. Some of them are honest, and they use this place to seek what’s going on between the Navy and the Free Trade men; there is a lot of bad stuff passed from hand to hand. Go you to my quarter. I will guide you there, and you may have a rest and wash yourself. Then, when it’s dark, we’ll bring you down and see if Sunfield’s here, or the other good ones, Teape and Higginson. Pot luck,
maybe, but it’s all we have. Oh, hide, oh, hide! Duck down behind there!”

  He pushed her to a corner and behind a drape as they heard someone approaching to a purpose. Heavy breath, and a shout of “Malcie! Villain! Where are you, little bastard, where?” Deb heard the door wrench open, a grunt, and then a blow.

  “Too long away, you bastard! Are you mad? Get back into the lower pot-room. Men are clamouring! What do you here?”

  A low reply, another blow, an exhortation to “get back and quick about it,” and the door crashed on its jamb once more. Malcie, tears in eyes and red mark across his face, pulled back the curtain and Deb came out.

  “That was Geraldo. I have spoke too long. Quick, follow. But if you’ve any sense, maid, go out now. Find somewhere else to ask your questions.” He led across a low, damp room, and clattered up a staircase, then another, then a third, into the roof. “In any way,” he panted, at a thin pine door, split and sere, hanging from a single hinge, “in any way, I think you waste your time. This is not the place, Deb. This is a place, truly, only for luckless little whores.”

  He pushed the door and it dropped inwards, crazily. There was a pallet, a pisspot, and a window with no glass. Also a wash bowl and a large, full jug.

  “They keep us clean, though, lover-maid. That way we takes more money, don’t we?” He laughed. “Well, off of them as likes their Spitties clean, anyhow. It takes all sorts, don’t it? And be silent, girl, till I return!”

  *

  That night, roughly washed, roughly tidied, with her kempt hair pulled across to hide the scars and patches, Deb Tomelty went into the dark and noisy parts of the Star and Garter, with Malcie as her covert guide, and tried her luck in finding out the whereabouts of civil men. He had warned her that he could not stick close, and warned her which of the workplace crew she should steer clear of like the plague. Most of all, he told her to avoid the doxies, whether whore or matron. Without a reason for her being there, he said, she would be thought an interloper. He feared, from her expression, she had not understood.