The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  As the gig pulled sharply from the side ten minutes later, Midshipman Shilling and Jem Taylor, who had been most briefly briefed, along with Savary, about the new world order, caught each other’s eyes. The look held for several seconds; then both looked away.

  TWELVE

  The mood of Lieutenants Bentley and Holt was fragile as they urged their tired hacks along the last few hundred yards of curving driveway up to Langham Lodge. They had ridden very hard to get there at a reasonable time (for uninvited guests), and both had mixed feelings, anticipation churned with fear, as they reined down for a more sedate final approach. Bentley, who had hardly spoken for an hour, had been hollowed out as they got further down the Surrey Road, his mouth like parchment, his stomach filled with flitting butterflies. For months he’d crushed all thoughts of her, all hopes. For months he’d more than half assumed she might be dead. But Deborah was living. And she might be here.

  It had been the year before when he had made the journey last, and the memories it stirred this time were mainly tragic. He and Sam had tried, and failed, to find and rescue the baronet’s adopted son, Charles Yorke, and in the process uncovered shameful secrets that touched both friends and families. Will’s certitude of what was right and patriotic, even normal in the way of commerce during war, had suffered blows he was not certain he’d recovered from, and the fact that he had grown closer to his father because of it, instead of simply cutting off all ties, still gave him sleepless times. His father had visited him in prison, and been (as Will imagined) completely frank about his part in all that wicked trade, and yet had made Will see that it was due not to villainy, or evil, but was an hundred times more twisted up in complex life than that. He had an image yet of Mr Bentley — soon to win or buy a parliamentary place — saying to him, on his seventh visit: “How else do you want it, William, how else? Your father starving, your mother on the beg, your little sisters on the gutter-edge at Point, selling the only thing young women have to sell by birthright? Good God, young man, grow wise! There are but two ways to get through this life for people such as us: we rise, or fall. If rising is our plan, we have to use what weapons we can find.”

  Suddenly, in front of them, there was commotion. Around the house, although the doors stayed shut, a pair of people, then a knot, came hurrying: a farrier, a groom, and girls, and striding through the middle, Sir Arthur Fisher’s steward, Tony. The frankness of his face, alive with pleasure at the sight of them, was the restorer that they needed. The maidens who knew them, also, and the men, were full of greetings as they gathered round.

  “Tony!” said Sam, one hand raised in salutation. “Well met, friend Tony, well met indeed! How goes the battle?”

  “Mr Sam! Oh, well indeed, sir! And Mr William an’ all! Well met, sir, and well come! Jack, Timothy! Take the masters’ ’orses there. Maids! Go fetch some ale, or stir the kettle up. Mr Bentley, at least, do love a goodly brew o’ tea! Mr Will, sir? Is that the truth or ain’t it?”

  “It is indeed, Tony. Well remembered. Good God, I’d swallow a cup whole; and put a mass of sugar in it, do! Here, take this nag, Tim. You might have to carry me, and all!”

  The muscle-stretching over, though, and the servants’ smiles, they walked with Tony to a side kitchen door to freshen while Sir Arthur was informed. Despite his jollity, Will had a deeper hollow in his pit. Tony had not mentioned her, nor had the maidens who had been her friends. He felt it was his role to keep it buttoned in. He could play the love-calf, but to what effect? If people knew he’d held a candle for her, if they remembered, they would surely think it over long ago. Perhaps, indeed, it was.

  Mrs Houghton, fat and bluff and motherly, treated them like long lost boys. She admonished Sam for his absence, and chid him for the sparseness of his letters, but clearly understood as well as he did the reasons for his reticence. Sir A, she said, having moved heaven and earth to save him from official anger after his leaving of the Biter in the lurch, thought it most natural that he’d shown the normal ingratitude of a wayward son — and had forgiven him. She warned them though, that he was older than he had been, and they might not think he was ageing very well. The last two years, she said with meaning, had took a dreadful toll.

  Sir A, however, when they went into his room, tried his hardest to belie her gloomy forecast. The room, as ever, was aglow with light from the giant windows giving to the lawn and from the quite enormous fire blazing in the grate. He stood, he walked, embraced them, slapped their backs, and seemed less stiff than they did from their ride. He was thinner than Will remembered, certainly, and his hair was whiter and less thick. But he did not have the air of someone waiting for the grave.

  “Will,” he said, “how good it is to see you. You have suffered much and I have suffered for you, in a minor, selfish way. And now I hear the both of you have took up with the Biter once again, and that oaf Kaye. Ah, young men! I don’t recall that I was ever mad as that!”

  “You are well informed as ever, sir,” said Sam. “Mrs Houghton told me off for not writing you enough, but I see you are up with us as always. Way ahead, perhaps? Maybe you can tell us when we sail!”

  “I know not when,” Sir Arthur laughed, “but I do know where. The West Indies, the sugar islands, among the naked coal-black maidens. To fight the French? Or to protect the pockets of the fat commercial men? They are a very fractious crew, the sugar growers, I have had dealings with some of them over years. Cutthroats for money, and bleaters when they feel a breath of war or competition.”

  Sam smiled.

  “I guess they feel out on a limb, sir, be not too short on charity. Stuck out on a little piece of land in the middle of a foreign sea, with every bugger and his dog after a piece of ’em. Hollanders in one direction, Swedes in another, Don Spaniard north, south, and west, and Frenchmen everywhere.”

  “Aye,” Sir Arthur said. “And the slaves who’d chop ’em up and eat ’em for a ha’penny. Well, it serves them right. They’re jealous because the Frenchmen do it better, and their blacks are freemen mainly, so don’t spend their waking hours planning pillage, rape, and bloody mayhem. I wish them joy of it. I have no sympathy.”

  “They do it better, sir?” said Will, brought up by what he thought he’d heard. “Frenchmen do? How’s that?”

  The old man looked at him for some long moments. Then he went back to the fire and sat down. He looked a little tired, all at once.

  “I had forgot how young you are,” he said. “Just because we English think we rule the roost it don’t mean that we do, on all occasions. It is possible, you know, that other nations get it right, or righter, some of the times. The French islands have better yields, less native trouble, more returns on capital. Why do you think we fight these people? It is a constant struggle, Will, for wealth and power, and supremacy.”

  “And the slaves?” asked Will. “Do you tell me, sir, the French do not use slaves? But how can they work plantations, then? The need for labour is enormous. They need thousands, millions.”

  “And the Frenchmen do use slaves, uncle,” Sam put in. “I have seen French slave ships. Indeed, I’ve smelt them from downwind.”

  Sir A poured himself a small glass of something sweet. He took a sip and made a face.

  “Aye, most unsavoury, I’m sure,” he said. “They do use slaves and slavers, certainly, and they deal them, also, there is much money to be made in that. But their own slaves serve a term and then are free. Likewise the Spaniards’. The best tobacco from the Spanish islands, this lovely snuff we’re getting now, it is all produced by free men on free land. And we English have to smuggle it, as always, because we have not the wit to see the other ways. You all know the trouble that smuggling can cause, my boys. Even within the closest families.”

  The three of them fell silent for a while and had their thoughts. It was not a subject they wished to air aloud, though. The time for that was past.

  Will said, “How can it be, though, sir, that we need cost-free labour and they do not? The planters must know wha
t can be afforded, surely? If we cannot afford to pay them, how can the French?”

  “Who says we do not pay them, though? We pay them food, we pay them shelter, we pay them men and medicine to keep them on their feet and working. French workers also eat. No doubt they also live in shelters of some kind, they also suffer the illnesses of too much work. But pay them wages, and they buy all these needs themselves from their own pockets. The planters’ outlay may not be dissimilar, but there is this difference to men. Slaves are not freemen, and freemen are not slaves. Give a man his food and call him captive, and he will hate you for it. Sell a man his food from out his pay — and he will not.”

  He took another sip, then waved a finger.

  “Slaves do not come free, from God or charity likewise,” he said. “Before our planters pay to keep them alive and working, they must pay shippers and merchants for bringing them from Africa. The Frenchmen do that, too, but charge the slaves for their freedom when it comes at last, thus clawing back the wages they have paid out. So, given careful management, their freemen cost them less than any slave. Plus, freemen work much harder, and live much longer, do they not? A Jamaica slave, a British slave to say, lives only seven years or so, as I understand it, or can only work that long at least, but still must be fed and watered, I suppose, in his dotage. It is the logic of the madhouse, not the counting house. The planters are the slaves; to lunacy! Samuel, be useful. Put on more logs; my poor old bones are sore.”

  While Sam fettled the fire, Will struggled with a question. Knowing, as he did now, some of Sir Arthur’s business, and where his wealth came from, he found it difficult to frame. Some men thought slavery disgusting, he knew, from a moral point — a question he had never really pondered. But Sir Arthur’s business in the East, his use of native labour, was that not…? Will sighed. Perhaps he’d better not to ask.

  “Talking of lunatics and lunacy,” said Sam, his work with fire tongs and poker almost done, “that leads us straight to Dickie Kaye. He took us out to meet his father, Duke Whatseecalled. Big lovely house, sir, but not as fine as yours. He wants to get himself some blackmen and a sugar crop, bought and paid for by his son. What say you to that, for lunacy?”

  Sir Arthur stared at him.

  “What, as a side bet to fighting off the French?” he asked. “I wonder what the Admiralty lords would make of that idea? But the duke is not a fool, even if his son should be. He’ll surely not give him a bag of gold to carry over there? It will be a fishing trip, won’t it, what the French would call reconnaissance. Perhaps he wants to give the lad a good divertissement.”

  “Aye, may be,” said Sam. “Although there is some talk of Daniel Swift, as well. He corresponds with Dickie’s Pa. There is some talk, somehow, of him going to the Carib also.”

  The baronet stared at the fire. It was blazing well again.

  “Well,” he said. “That paints it differently, I guess. It’s true that black and white is not so clear in all of this, in any way. We’re talking use of money, capital; and any venture, at the nicest time, can pay off handsomely, pay quite enormous dividends. Alternatively, if you cross the danger line, it’s poverty and ruin, or, at the least, gigantic loss. Your uncle is a firebrand, young Will. But is he a man of capital and commerce. There’s the rub.”

  “He’s good at slave driving,” said Sam, with a bark of laughter. “Ain’t he, Will?” He paused. “It’s not a trade that I should like to be in, though. I think it is a foul, filthy thing.”

  Sir Arthur sighed.

  “I know it not, the whole Atlantic trade,” he said. “Men rail at slavery, though not many it is true, and men rail at the way we make our monies in the East, merchants like me. But what, when all is said and done, is the alternative? There is none. It only becomes unbearable when the terrible injustices and blows of rock-hard fortune fall on ourselves, or those we love. My three sons were lost, remember, and my dear wife. Not because they or I was evil, but because things happen thus. Had I not made my wealth in the far Indies, they would have died of a far more common disease, perhaps, called penury. Life has talons, boys, and bloody claws, and men are forced to do things that good upright souls regret, and wish there was no need for. That is it.”

  Will cleared his throat.

  “But… but slaves, Sir A? You do not deal in slaves, or use them, I believe? But if you had to — ”

  The old man’s eyes stopped him. Will coughed.

  “I do not deal in slaves, it’s true,” he said. “I do not use them in the East directly, in any way at all. But I do ship cotton cloth from India, the bulk of which is sold to merchants in Bristol, London, Liverpool who mix it with some English stuff and ship it on to Africa. It is a favourite there, a staple, and the Africans pay for it with other Africans, called slaves, to go out to the Carib, and the Main. So without my cotton cloth from India, the trade would be much curtailed, or crippled, would it not? Despise it if you like, good lad, but understand it, do. For us and people like us, it is simply life. People like us, Will. There are irons to be struck.”

  The light was fading from the sky outside. Long shadows grew across the close-scythed grass. Will Bentley felt a shade misunderstood.

  “I do not despise it, sir,” he said. “I do not have a very strong opinion, to be frank. But whatever Uncle Daniel Swift might think, I do not see myself as a plantation owner. God forbid.”

  “Not even if it turns out the only way?” said Sam, half-serious. “It is the times, Will, and the times are out of joint. The world is in a helter-skelter now, things change so quick you have to dance a jig to just stand still. Look at England, back to my grandfather’s time, not even any longer. Kings with their heads off, no stake complete without a burning Catholic, a Dutchman taking charge. New colonies, the fortunes of the West and East brought home, and all the wars with all the other raveners — French, Spanish, Dutch, or any combination of them all! What is your plan? To stay at home in Hampshire with your sheep?”

  Sir A was nodding.

  “What breed of sheep, though, that’s a question, too,” he said. “You know how farming’s changed and changing, Will. Then there is manufacturing, and foul, filthy air, people pouring into towns and cities like wild animals, London the open cesspit of the world, the River Thames a sewer. Good God, they say men cut your throat up there to get a poke of sugar or a taste of tea. And what of coffee? My, not so long ago we used to sing ‘How shall I name thee, Shameful Bean?’ You will not credit that, I’ll wager!”

  They looked at him, perplexed.

  “But why?” asked Sam. “What was wrong with coffee, for dear’s sake?”

  “The devil’s brew,” said Sir A. “It made whores of women and revolutionists of men. Unlike good old English ale, that merely made them drunk and stupid, and the women fart, I guess!” He sighed. “Fact is though, Will, that money is the force that drives the times. If you have no money in Jamaica, you are just a slave. With money, you can make a fortune using slaves. Spend your money on a ship, and fortune comes from selling them. So what is right, exactly? What is wrong?”

  “That makes the money that they pay us worth double, Will,” laughed Sam. “We don’t have to think or worry on such questions; we’re paid to fight, is all. This week the French are brutes, last week the Spaniards. Although come to think, if I’m allowed a preference, the Dons are ten times worse. Too much spicy sausage, and they conquered half the world!”

  “They stole Jamaica from the Carib Indians,” said Sir A. “That’s as I understand the history. And we stole it from them, on the barest pretext, not so very long ago. And now we’re friends against the French, except the Spanish treat our ships like pirates and seize and pillage them and burn the bottoms out, as we’ll do theirs again, you have my pledge for that. So tell me what the moral is, I beg of you.”

  A silence fell, but not uncomfortable. Outside the birds had ceased their noises as the dark came gently seeping down. Our life is all coercion, thought Will Bentley, mine and Sam’s. We have no cash or stati
on, and unless we rise and then take prizes, that can scarcely change. Prizes with Dickie, though — some chance of that! However, they were lieutenants because of him, and their rising could begin. Morality, it seemed, did not come into it. Perhaps the best way out was marriage, after all. Perhaps Slack Dickie could find him a rich match!

  The thought stabbed him cruelly, and he heard his voice say, as a simple shock, the name he thought he had completely in command.

  “Deborah, Sir A,” he uttered. “You have not told me; I have not asked. I must though, sir. Deborah Tomelty. Where is she, do you know, sir, please? I had hoped… indeed, I’d almost prayed she would be here.”

  No going back on that, at least: his boats were burnt. The old man glanced into the fire, then looked at him steadily, then dropped his eyes away. Will’s stomach dropped also. He could not guess what he was going to hear, but his stomach dropped and clenched. He felt desolated.

  “We thought she came here, sir,” said Sam. “We know that she left London. We know she was in pretty desperate straits. We hoped that she had made it to your house, and… sanctuary.”

  Sir Arthur Fisher raised his eyes to Sam’s then, but did not hold them long. He let a breath out slowly, and it was heavy with regret.

  “She was here, Will,” he said. “She did come here. She stayed a little while, then went away. I gave her money, although she said she had some of her own, and… and she went away. She… I think she hoped to find you.”

  “To find me? Where?”

  “When was this, sir?” Sam asked. “Was it long ago? Will was in prison. Where would she go? Why?”

  Sir A’s features had taken on a greyish tinge. He was suddenly exhausted. Will had a strong impression he was going to lie, or had been lying.

  “She spoke of Stockport, so I think,” he said. “That northern town she ran away from. Her life had been quite harsh since your disaster on the Shoreham beach. I think she might have had to… keep bad company.”