The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  “Ha, family!” he said. “It is not all bad, I suppose. Swift is your kinsman, Bentley, and but for him, I doubt this would have happened. He is a stout man, sir. He aims to rise, and he has all the tools. He has a new ship building, I believe? Did you know that?”

  Will blinked. His Uncle Daniel’s fingers lodged in many pies. He guessed this was a test.

  “I did, sir,” he replied, carefully. “She is down the Thames still, I presume. I’ve visited. She won’t be fitted yet, though, surely? I believe the work was halted when he went away.”

  “She is not complete. Any case, she is too small; Dan Swift thinks he under-ordered. But if he returns in time, he may yet come over to see you, even so.”

  “What, quit the service?” Holt was sitting upright, apparently amazed. “But there’s a war on. How could he do that?”

  The duke was shaking his head, amused.

  “Nay, nay, not quit. He could sell the new boat, could he not? Lease her to the Navy, even, like Gunning used to do the Biter.” He nodded judiciously to Will and Sam. “My idea that was, by the by — their lordships buying Biter, with Gunning kept on as her sailing master; it seemed a good neat way. Now Dickie has a post, and Gunning is beholden to him. He controls the ship, as in the past, and anything that goes wrong with her, he puts it right, don’t he? Or drowns!”

  There was a silence. The logs cracked and sparkled, the flames chased shadows in the flue. They did not need to check Slack Dickie’s face to know to keep his secret, though. Masters who never went to sea didn’t drown, did they? And Gunning…

  The duke harrumphed.

  “In any way,” he said, “your uncle is easing from the squadron at the Straits, Lieutenant Bentley, and going private once again. It is his preferred way. He sets out in his letters, and their lordships are agreeable so long he comes up trumps. He’s took another galley off of Tangier, recently, a bloody fight, quite brutal. Hold hard, I have it hereabouts somewhere. A minute, friends, I beg of you, a minute.”

  He hauled himself upright and went across the room to a bureau in the corner, where he started bustling through papers. The three young officers looked at each other, loath to talk. William was wondering, with discomfort, how well, and why, his uncle knew this nobleman: indeed, appeared to be in constant contact. Kaye, equally uncomfortably, was wondering how he could persuade Jack Gunning to fulfil the obligation he was certain he had made to serve on Biter as her sailing master, warranted. Sam, strangely, thought of a large nose, aquiline, and the body of a cat, buried and imagined ’neath a full-skirt gown.

  The duke returned with not one letter but a bundle in his meaty hand. He dropped into his leather chair and leafed through them, discarding the rejected ones onto a little table at his side. He then pulled out a pair of spectacles from his fob and perched them on his nose. He turned the lamp beside him on the table up to full.

  “Here,” he said. “I suppose you did not know, young Bentley, that your Uncle Swift keeps up a lively conversation with me on suchlike affairs? Nay, I’ll wager you did not.”

  I could have guessed it, thought Will, masking the inner bleakness with a smile. I should have guessed it. How else should I be so tangled with Slack Dickie Kaye?

  “No, sir, indeed,” he said, politely. “My Uncle Daniel rarely writes to me, I must say.”

  “He may not write to you, but you will permit me to reveal that you are mentioned very frequent,” Kaye’s father told him heartily. “Swift has a portrait for the future, for the benefit of all, and you have a most important part to play in it.”

  For the benefit of all, thought Bentley. Good God, that I most sincerely doubt! And even Richard Kaye, though wary of a new humiliation, managed a laugh.

  “Lord sakes,” he said, “we are Navy men remember, Pater. Swift’s plan of benefit is for us alone, me and your good self as one family, himself and Will another.” He smirked, suddenly recovered, and a little smug. “He heard about my action on the Goodwins,” he told them. ‘“A seaman-act of greatest skill and daring,’ I think he quoted to their lordships, was it, father? And suggested that because of it, I was the man to do their Indies job. I and my cohorts,” he added. “He’d heard that you comported well, like proper fighting men, if perhaps unorthodox, and thinks the three of us exactly what is needed. Not so, sir?”

  The duke flipped pages, amiably.

  “He calls the planters babies, who need ships like dummy-teats,” he said. “But babies who have cash, and ergo, have got pull. Hold, let me pick him up again. Ah yes, here ’tis: ‘Last and worstly for these nambies, their slaves are now revolting. A positive explosion of escapes and rapes and robbery and looting.’ Which means, according to his men in London, Swift further writes, ‘an explosion of these cowards coming back to England. The streets by the Exchange all jammed with planters and their whining wives, all bleating tales of how they have been driven from the island by atrocity, and had to leave their houses and plantations to hired factors, dishonest to a man. Frankly, my lord’ — that’s Swift to me again — ‘frankly, my lord, having seen but lately the bestialities that the Africs revel in, the planters do quite right to fear the safety of all Christians and to run. But for ourselves, I smell much money to be made. A small and gallant ship to take on the worst revolters and make our lambs feel wanted and protected — and the chance of pickings, surely.’ He finishes, ‘At the very least, sir; could not your gallant son acquire an estate? Abandoned, bankrupt, I am told the range is endless. I am also told that, truly run, the returns on capital can be enormous.’”

  The duke smiled at them, across his spectacles.

  “In that, Captain Swift only tells the half of it,” he said. “I have done my own work and the figures are astonishing. Twelve per cent per annum, fifteen, eighteen possibly. There are fortunes to be won, estates just waiting to be snapped up and rescued from defunctitude. To cap it all, he hopes to pull some strings to come and join the squadron in the Carib, or better still make it another private voyage if he can. There! Is not that fine?”

  The oafish smile on Dickie’s face grew broader, and he nodded like a German children’s toy. Will, though, felt his blood run cold. They were naval officers, but the idea was a spree, a jaunt, to set Slack Dickie and his father up in owning a plantation. Great heavens, it would not be bearable!

  “Bravo!” said the beaming son, though, his eyes alight with opportunism. “Pater, that is fine indeed! Between the three of us, between the four — great heavens, we will make a fortune!”

  “He mentions Gunning, incidentally,” the duke said then, a name that wiped the smile off Dickie’s face. “I told of him in detail as the Biter deal progressed, and Captain Swift was mightily impressed. A man of business, who never worked, and Biter paid the rent for him until he sold her to the Office, lock and stock and all! What a man, Swift thinks, to set up in a bankrupt cane estate, and watch the gold pour in. Prior to which, to boot, he’ll get you to the Indies safe and sound. To our venture, my friends, he’s worth his weight in gold.”

  Sam laughed. He said, with one sardonic eye on Kaye, “I’ll drink to that, sir. It’s a safe wager Gunning would as well, eh, Dick, were he but here? To Gunning! Good old London Jack!”

  The old man nodded, with enthusiasm.

  “Aye. ’Tis pity, indeed, he could not join us, though Dickie says that he is rough, as diamonds go. He is on board, ain’t he, ‘working her up’ if that is what you sailors call it. One good man to do the work while we disport ourselves. Most excellent.”

  Slack Dickie Kaye joined in, but Will could see he had a heavy, nervous heart. Good reason, too. They drank some more that night, but not too late because the duke was fighting with his gout as usual, and over breakfast the talk was all of social things, and property and horses, and feelers from milady duchess and her younger daughter about where their land was, and who their neighbours were, and if they liked formal balls. The father glowered, the son chafed, Bentley considered self-destruction, and Sam Holt stuffed his face with s
ausages and kidney, and seemed to hold a raucous dialogue with Lady Felicity, conducted with the eyes. Raucous, and strangely vulgar because they both were laughing, although in virtual silence, save a muffled snort or two. As they made farewells, standing formally beside the coach, Felicity dropped a curtsy, then laughed out loud. Her mother’s face was like a field of ice.

  On the journey, though, Will did wheedle a thing or two from Kaye, while Lieutenant Holt lay in a twitching doze. He used his own status as a second son to introduce the subject, and Kaye responded with admirable self-pity, ranging across the advantages that both his brothers had, the complete lack of benefit his sisters vouchsafed upon the household, his father’s failure to appreciate or acknowledge or accept the uniqueness of his contribution to the common good.

  Money and his father’s cruel insistences rankled most of all, Will learned. Dick (claimed Dick) had been the prime negotiant over the Biter, wielding his skill and expertise to win their lordships to his point of view. He had saved the Office hundreds, he had found the men to do the job at prices almost impossibly favourable, he had bespoke vital improvements that the Navy had then reneged upon the payments for. He knew a Navy clerk, he said, whose name he could not divulge, who had aided him beyond all price and expectation. And then his father had refused to pay the sum he’d pledged, “on some trumped-up story, which left me owing Cam — ”

  He almost gave the name away, then swallowed it, and Will, indifferent, said politely: “It is a dreadful tale, sir, but… well, was it a large sum?”

  It was, quite manifestly, although Slack Dickie would say no more. But he ventured, ruefully, that both he and Bentley, by virtue of their birth in the wrong place upon the ladder, lived always just one step from ruin and the debtors’ prison. And it was sore, he said, infernal sore.

  “My Pater hates me,” he said. “He looks on me like turds, or dross. But I shall show him. By God, I’ll spend his money for him wisely in the Indies, if I can, but what I really mean to do is get my own. I have the ship, I have the men, I have you two for my officers. Both pirates, and one a second son! By Christ, Will Bentley, I have hopes of prizes, very high! My Pater shall be made to learn. My Pater shall be made to see my worth!”

  Cruelly, perhaps, but he could not seem to stop himself, Bentley mentioned London Jack.

  “Gunning,” he said. “He seems determined that he will not come. Can you persuade him, do you think? To stay on board with us?”

  A hunted look. Slack Dickie sighed.

  “I think I can,” he said. “I hope I can. ’Fore God, though, I could wish he had not got so much from their lordships for the Biter. He is rolling in it, William. He cannot be bribed.”

  “Ah well,” said Bentley. He felt for this big man, suddenly, this big, soft man. “Ah well. I expect that he will come. I’m sure that it will be all right, ain’t you?”

  But when they pulled smartly back to the Biter later that afternoon, the man who had command of her was a whey-faced youth of fourteen summers: Rex Shilling, nicknamed Groat. John Gunning, former owner, former master, seaman and navigator consummate, had gone. Poor Richard Kaye was truly in the lurch.

  NINE

  Deb’s flight from Portsmouth up the London Road, to find protection at Sir A’s and perhaps some news of William, had ended in disaster far beyond what she had later admitted to her friend at Dr Marigold’s. Thin Annette had described her to Sam as “starving and in terror,” and capable of little except tears. All true — and it had taken long for Deb to build her resolve of steel back up again.

  Things had started excellently, after her night near Hilsea Lines, with a lift from outside the George Inn given by a fat and cosy waggoner who was old enough to be her father, and a lot more pleasant. They had jogged along quite comfortable, with a little friendly chat and the sharing of a bit of cheese and good small ale. Well beyond Hindhead he had pulled into a drover’s yard and set her up with his cousin Abraham, who was due to head much further north next morning. She was given food, a place to wash in, a place to sleep. And slept there unmolested.

  Abraham, like his cousin Ben, was the epitome of waggoning. He knew everywhere and everyone along his chosen way, and had little interest in the world beyond. Ten minutes after he had whipped his team up to a gentle plod, in fact, and before the sun had truly risen in the sky, he appeared to go to sleep again, which made no difference at all to the oxen. He woke from time to time, smiled at Deborah (if she was herself not dozing), waved his whip at fellow carters (whom he seemed to know, each one), and nodded off once more. Deborah, warmed by the sun, watching the bright green southern countryside, enjoyed herself immeasurably. As they got nearer Langham Lodge, it seemed more likely by the minute that Will Bentley would be there, and all would turn out wonderfully.

  The idyll ended very shortly after she had been dropped off. She would not name Sir A’s house as her destination, and she foolishly told Abraham she was expected at a local inn. He therefore stopped his team outside the coaching gate, and looked askance when she declined to have a glass with him to say farewell. He made no more of it, however, and as he turned the first bend in the road he twisted on his seat and waved his whip at her, which made her feel appallingly alone. Then a maiden she half-recognised came from the servant entrance and looked at her, and looked again, and squeaked out, “Deb!”

  It fell to her quite simply to deny it, and she knew plainly that it would not work. She could not place the girl, but knew she knew her, and was terribly afraid. Quite rightly so, as it turned out. Even had the maid reported her presence in all innocence, there were too many people who knew of her and her disappearance for Deb to reach Sir Arthur’s without a challenge of some kind. They exchanged a lying word or two, then Deb, with palpitating heart, walked casually away until obscured from the public house.

  Then she struck out across some fields and scrub that she had got to know while she was Marcus Dennett’s chattel. She was a mile or less from Langham Lodge, but the estate was gated and high-walled, and men on horses would reach the entrance long before she could, if set on at the inn to search for her. Within minutes she heard horses’ hooves, which to her frightened ears sounded most purposeful, then later shouts and whooping. Shaking beneath a bitter thorn bush, licking blood from a deep scratch on her face, Deb prayed, if somewhat incoherently, that she would not hear dogs.

  In a copse that night, spying on the armed men now clearly hunting her, Deb evaded them with cold determination by using a band of tinker men, or maybe deserters from the current wars, as an unwitting shield. They had a filthy, sleazy, tented camp, and were cooking stolen conies in a pot. There were no women there to smell her out, nor children she could see, so it was easy to blend herself unspotted into the darkest edges, while the searchers crashed about not far beyond. The tinker men did square up from time to time, with furious words and shouting on both sides, but there were neither blows nor shots. Next night though, Deborah knew, a man called Jeremiah, the vilest man in all God’s world, would head the hunters with his vile companion Fiske, and dogs. This pair, employed by Wimbarton, would not give up so easy.

  Deb hid there through the day, untroubled by the drunken woodmen. Then as the dusk was coming down, she headed for Sir Arthur’s land. She knew before she reached the boundary that she would never get across it, even if she could find a vulnerable place. She saw Fiske on horseback, men with dogs, men with muskets, and was certain they would kill her rather than let her get to safety. Wimbarton had laid good money out not long ago, thought he owned her, and must be afraid she’d tell things to the law to cause him untold harm. Deb had no illusion: if he should catch her, she might live, and never see the light outside his world again. Otherwise, he’d want her dead and buried in the deepest hole. Her body was her only pledge for bargaining, but his steward, Jeremiah, if he won it, would cut her tongue or head off for his pleasure and give the remaining silence to his lord.

  Deb pondered hard, but not for very long. She knew she could not get away. There wa
s no way of clearing from the area; she would be sought and caught. She knew she needed men to hide or fight for her, but men she could outwit and get away from when their use was run. She needed men to save her from the hands of Jeremiah. At whatever cost.

  *

  They did save Deb that night, the wild men, and for several days thereafter. Jeremiah and Fiske attempted sorties, but tinker men pay little heed to outside interference, and the brutal tactics of Wimbarton’s bully boys impressed them not at all. If Deb was there she was invisible and would remain so, Jeremiah knew, while the woodmen were armed and dangerous, and prepared for bloodshed if need be. When threats and bribes and vigilance had failed, he withdrew his men to merely guard Sir Arthur’s boundary.

  The cost for Deborah, as Annette later saw, had been immortal high. The men gave her protection, in their fashion, and she did repay them, in her way. Then she had to fight, and scheme, to get clear of the encampment and the residue of Jeremiah’s search. She reached Marigold’s in the end despite her grievous usages, and despite her fear that she might end up on the rope for her part in the death of Marcus Dennett. Marge Putnam was horrified to see her, but more because the “poor maid looked near-dead,” she said, than because of her own fears of harbouring a criminal. She smiled, and welcomed, and sneaked her in and swore the other whores to secrecy.

  Annette was the maid who knew her best, and she was most pragmatic. She did not probe at Deb too hard because life had taught her long ago that she would learn most by accepting. She comforted her friend, and washed her hair and face and body, and her feet, and dropped a tear on her at so much evidence of abuse. Deborah loved her for it; they knew that they were sisters in distress. Annette could guess a story and be welcome to it. Deb knew the truth, and it was not a truth to share.

  The worst thing, was that she knew that she would have to try again, and she still had no idea what she would find, and what would happen to her, if she should get into the Surrey house. She was certain that Sir Arthur was a friend, and would give her refuge if she could make it to him, wherever Will might be. She was certain, but she did not know. That was the awful thing, the worst.