The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  Seth, in paroxysms of hate and rage, flew from man to man, igniting corners. The Siddlehams, which Deb found sickening, gave whoops and discharged their fowl-pieces into the air. Their men picked brands out of the growing fires and fettled up the parts that failed to flame so well. While Fido and his fellow slaves, faces impassive, cut alternately at the roasting men, and at the women if they did not bring wood enough to keep the torture burning bright. Over all, the chanting boomed from God alone knew how many throats and was drowned out by the rasping, hacking screaming of the men who had transgressed. The men, and drummer boy.

  Of a sudden, overcome, Deb found that she was screaming, running at Seth Sutton with her hands outstretched in claws, as if to tear his eyes out. Seth, at that moment, was driving in a forked stick below Bonzo’s knee, to hold the limb down now the ankle bone had burnt through and escaped the red-hot chain. Startled, he jerked upright and the two prongs tore free from out the earth and struck Deb’s forehead. She fell, shouting, onto Bonzo, whose screaming mouth blew full into her face. Her hair caught light, flaring across her eyes, and her hand plunged into the fire around his wrist, which she felt, a slimy, melting stick that seemed to crack and splinter as her weight came on to it. Then Jeremy Siddleham dragged her off the fires by her hair, and kicked her from the blazing, stinking bodies into the front ranks of the audience. She was burning as they grabbed at her, her clothes on fire, hair crackling as it flamed and singed. And as she dropped, Deb saw Moira rush into the yard, rush frantic at the roasting prisoners, into the reeking smoke.

  *

  The death of Abel Phillips, which had caused some little stir on board of Biter, made fewer waves on shore next morning, although it did lead to some comment and to general conversation on crime and punishment with the leading planters. As the man had died so close to land, Captain Kaye had been constrained from the quick and easy way of burial overside, not least because he feared how Jamaica gentlefolk would take it if presented with a rotting man wrapped up in canvas bobbing off the Palisadoes when he rose up from the depths in a day or three. So their first task, he told his officers as they were rowed ashore new-shaved and in their smartest fig, would be to arrange a burial in the Navy cemetery, if Kingston ran to such a thing. There was a party waiting for them at the jetty, two Navy men and two civilians, and after handshakes and greetings had been exchanged, they were escorted to an out-department of government where the Admiralty was also housed. The Navy men were a captain on the sick and hurt (he had one arm and half a leg) called Shearing, and an old lieutenant, Jackson, who clearly suffered from the principal naval disease, got from a bottle or a bung. Two arrant failures, Will guessed immediately, left behind to keep the portwork ticking while the Squadron lived at sea out in the offing.

  The Assembly men hardly inspired more confidence at first glance, though one of them, Mr Andrew Mather, turned out sharp and honest, in his way. He was only the assistant acting governor, he said; and laughed outright as Kaye’s face fell. But he explained the governor was back in England at the present time, a device by which the richer gentlemen kept their hold on sanity (and their wives), and the deputy was ill of a recurring ague. He enquired gravely how long they’d been in Caribbean waters, and wondered if that dread disease had seized them or their company as yet? No? Then I’m afraid you have that pleasure still to come, he said. Bad air. Bad air brought in, as some men said, by the filthy negro slaves from out of Africa.

  The Assembly offices were well appointed, and by the time they were ensconced with cups of local coffee, the ice was broken. Several planters had come in for introductions, and it was explained that all the men of wealth and business took part in governing the island, raised necessary militias and so on, and sat as magistrates. Some of the planters were anxious to know what Biter was to do for them, how soon she could go out and show herself to warn off French warships (or “pirates,” as they preferred to call them), and “fire a cannon or two into the Maroons to show them that their easy life was over.” One planter, Ephraim Dodds, was particularly insistent, and it took Mr Mather a little time to damp him down.

  “Ephraim,” he smiled, at last. “We know you have good points to make, and useful ideas how the Navy men can best be used, but do not roll too far and fast, I beg you. Captain Kaye and his officers have been at sea for very many weeks. They have things they want to do, their own concerns and problems to resolve. There are letters for them from the Squadron, I have no doubt, perhaps even from the Admiralty in London. Captain Shearing? I trust that I don’t speak out of turn?”

  Shearing nodded equably, though Captain Kaye was steaming, Will could tell, by the idea he and his vessel existed “to be used” by wretched landsmen.

  “There are matters to be pursued with urgency indeed,” said Shearing. “Of course, Captain Kaye, there are instructions for your work outside main Squadron duties, but on a lighter note we have mail from England. Lieutenant Jackson there has brought a parcel in. Some of it is rather ancient — it seems the Office sent it, with the usual clerking madness, before you even left the Thames — but there is quite a tidy little bundle, even some few scribblings for the people, though God knows who will read it to them, eh? There’s an enormous stack for one young gentleman, what was the name again, Lieutenant? Farthing, is it? Guinea? Shilling? Midshipman. I do not see him here, I think? Unless he’s come up from gunroom to wardroom very fast!”

  This gave Holt and Bentley quite a lurch, for both of them had lost Rex Shilling from their minds. So young, so troublesome, so easily forgot. It was quite chilling, that he had got letters in profusion. They had forgot Rex Shilling; but he was loved by someone, still.

  “Oh, Groat,” said Kaye. “Nay, he’s not gone to the wardroom, sir. He’s dead, poor lad, lost overboard. Must I take all his letters? Or can you send ’em back? That would save me time and trouble, would it not? There are some for me, I trust?” He stopped, aware a silence had come down. “Oh,” he added. “It’s sad about poor Rex; indeed, he was my nephew, that’s the worst of it. His mother is my second cousin. But these things happen, do they not? We had a man who died just yesterday, and we must bury him. In fact, I need to find a place in a cemetery round here, one with Navy bodies in for preference. Is there someone that can help?”

  To ease Kaye’s discomfiture, some of the company rallied round him. Lieutenant Jackson asked how the man had met his end, and Kaye, with his usual tact and diplomacy, said baldly that “the villain had been flogged and could not take it.” This caused a stir of interest, and the tale came out in dribs, a shade embellished to underplay Phillips’s state of illness, and overplay his supposed transgressions. Mr Ephraim Dodds, who did not seem to like the Navy much, snorted at the punishment, which he thought too kindly and perfunctory, but a man called Peter Hodge pointed out its “satisfactory end.” Simple flogging, he said portentously, was all well and good within its limits — that is, if it worked. But on the island, he agreed with Ephraim, “there is a need for harsher acts.”

  Considering how Phillips had bled to death like a leaky bladder, Holt observed sardonically that “death is quite harsh enough for shipboard men, I think, sir. Why is it not for your men here?”

  “Our men here?” said Dodds, unpleasantly. “We do not talk of our men, sir; we talk of savages. The reason we need harsher acts is because we deal with harsher types of being. To call them men is blasphemy; they bear the mark of Cain, the stain of sin, the shadow of that ancient savage act. We roast them, sir. We roasted some last night. At least, the last ones died today, not till the early hours. It is extraordinary how long these monkeys cling to life.”

  Holt’s sardonic smile had frozen on his lips. His scarred face, still pale despite days in the Caribbean, was white around the mouth.

  “You roasted them?” he said. His voice was faint. “Good God, sir, as we came to land we smelled… we heard… good God, sir, and you call them savage? What; roasted men to death?”

  Dodds was furious.

  “Not men, si
r, no! You do not listen to me! These were monkeys, slaves, savages from Africa! Good God, sir, you are from England, and it is all too manifest! Know nothing, interfere with all! It is England’s way and motto, and it is why we left you, sir, and there you have the truth!”

  Captain Shearing coughed uncomfortably into his handkerchief. He appealed to the less fiery island men:

  “But it was well-deserved, as I believe,” he said. “I had heard these… ah… slaves had murdered somebody. Most brutishly. I heard… a vat of boiling cane juice, was it not?”

  Peter Hodge nodded vigorously.

  “One of Alfred Sutton’s boys,” he said. “The one called Little Ammon. Man was a simpleton, but that makes it no better in a white man’s book. These savages crept up behind and tossed him in, no rhyme nor reason, not a provocation of the smallest kind. You should have heard his screams, sir,” he added, straight at Sam. “If it’s soft for howling that you are. That would have wrung the heartstrings of an iron man. They burned a dozen of them, and they should have burned the lot. You do not understand, is all.”

  From a corner of the room a quiet man now spoke. He had been listening to everything but making no comment. His dress was rich, he was pale-haired and well-made. His voice was low, but listened to intently.

  “Six men,” he said. “Five men and a boy, in fact, that they caught drumming up a tree. One man as a murderer, and the others just in case the rest should get ideas. My sons were there.”

  He nodded politely to Kaye and his lieutenants, but did not stand to bow.

  “I am Sutton’s next door neighbour, for my sins,” he said. “Siddleham. Sir Nathaniel. My sons went along to see the fun, and help out if the blacks went out of hand, or mad.”

  “They did, a bag of gold on it,” said Ephraim, acidly. “Your sons are handy shots, Sir Nat. Did they get to bag a few?”

  Siddleham shook his head.

  “The madness, mostly, was from the womenfolk,” he said. “A couple threw themselves upon the pyres, so to speak, most strangely that new white maid Sutton’s got. She ran out screaming and hurled herself on the murderer, the man the house called Bonzo, I believe. Odd she should have took a shine to a nigger quite so quick, and odd he should have murdered Ammon Sutton on her behalf, but that’s the way of it. She is a Portsmouth whore, they told my lads, what seamen call a Spithead Nymph. Truth to tell, my boys were hoping for a crack at her; she was a juicy, lovely piece. All right for the slavemen still, I guess. They like ’em broiled.”

  “A Spithead whore,” said Hodge, pompously. “And poor Alf Sutton paid good gold for her. You cannot get the servants these days. The maids of quality are all gone to glory.”

  Sam and Bentley, muscles rigid as moulded bronze, stared at each other among the crowd of men. It was not impossible, both knew, and both were racked with a conviction it was so. Will heard his own voice, as if from a great hollow place, a long, long way away.

  “Is she all right?” he said. “I beg your pardon, Sir…Nathaniel. And do you… do your sons have a name for her? I…”

  The distinguished man looked hard at him, still seated. He eyed him, up and down.

  “I do not have a name for you, sir, yet,” he said coldly. “No matter, though, her name is Deb, or so my sons would have it. And what are you called, pray?”

  “Bentley,” Will murmured. He could scarcely speak. “Lieutenant Bentley, by your leave, sir. I…”

  Slack Dickie gave a hoot of sheer delight.

  “Well glory be!” he bellowed. “Excuse me, sir, but this is capital! Young Will here had a whore called Deb in London! I am Captain Kaye, sir, I do beg your pardon that I am so bold, but if this is his Deb, she is a lovely piece indeed, a thing of spunk and fire! Ho, Will! How capital! Out here but one day, and you’ll get a piece of quim, no waiting!”

  Most of the planting men found it amusing — especially Will Bentley’s obvious perturbation — but Ephraim Dodds remained unmollified.

  “That is the measure of the Royal Navy, then,” he said, distinct and bitterly. “We have Frenchmen would destroy and pillage us, we have black Maroons in colonies prepared to come down screaming off the hills and murder us, we have slaves who spread disease and idleness like a filthy plague. And all our proud protectors crave is swiving.”

  “And all their masters crave is dunning us for higher tax,” said Peter Hodge. “You have no time for fornication, sirs. You have not earned it. Captain Shearing: I trust to hear you disabuse them, sir!”

  There was a harumph of general agreement round the room, and Shearing, leaning easily against a pillar on his one good leg, was expansively relaxed.

  “I am sure that that is understood, gentlemen. These are sailors’ dreams and stories, by which we pass away the boredom of the deep. I have business to talk of with the captain here, and his gallant officers, as soon as this get-to-meet-you session’s done. As you know, the Spanish sent a schooner in, a day or so ago, with reports there is a pirate on the loose and requests that we should have the Navy keep an eye. Perhaps, Captain Kaye, we could head up the agenda with that item?”

  The planters, reminded of the Spanish visitor, became newly animated, and there were mutterings of “spies” and “perfidy.” But Mather calmed them down, while Shearing and Lieutenant Jackson gathered in the Navy officers and guided them into a corridor. Not many yards away lay the Royal Navy suite, which was empty, wide, and spacious, with open windows that let in sweet breeze and sun. A black man in livery was set to bring in drinks, while Captain Shearing took his favourite seat, equipped with rail and grabbing knobs, and waved them to sit down.

  When they were settled, with long draughts of juice that all found soothing — save for Lieutenant Jackson, apparently, who went out twitching after two mouthfuls and did not return — Captain Shearing allowed his smile to fade, replacing it with a definite solemnity. There was a bundle of letters on his desk, some sea-stained, but it was not to these that he referred at present.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “I mentioned a Spaniard and an act of piracy just now. The schooner was a Guarda-Costa message boat, fast and light and urgent, and the captain told me that a heavy ship of theirs, a galleon called the Santa something or the other, had been set upon in an act of seaborne theft that reminded the authorities of the so-called bad old days. The pirate ship, as he described her, the attacker or marauder, was a brig. And built on British lines.”

  He left it there, and let it hang in the sweet air. Will saw Kaye swallow, and tried yet harder to tear his own thoughts away from Deb. He knew Kaye felt quite easy on the Spanish galleon because the ship was sunk, and so could tell no tales against him, but his sense of loss was raw as new-cut flesh. Had Deb been injured, badly burned? What meant the man by saying “broiled?” But he’d said “whore,” also, and “Spithead Nymph,” and said that she was with a slave, the mistress of a neger desperado. But surely he had heard it all wrong, anyway? Deb was… she had loved him, and he her. Deb was… he would have to go to her, this day.

  As he dragged his mind back, he heard Kaye talking. His voice was confident, but with a note of query in it. He was asking how the Spanish knew the brig was British. And how, indeed, they knew of the attack.

  Shearing remained relaxed and pleasant.

  “They do not know that she was British, Captain,” he responded. “Just built on British lines. In England, men think the Spanish are not seamen, but I promise you they’re sadly wrong. If they say British-built, then British-built she was, for a King’s ransom. Which, incidentally, is what I guess the Spaniards have lost, though they’ll deny it to the very last.”

  There was a long pause. Will noticed not much birdsong, but a low, insistent, tropic buzz from through the windows. Kaye was swallowing again. He was not so much at ease, perhaps.

  “They know the Santa was beset because they found survivors off of her,” Shearing continued in a while. “They’d escaped and ran ahead of a little storm in a cutter, and barely managed keeping her afloat. The story was th
at Santa had been damaged in the earlier bad weather, and was limping back towards Hispaniola when she was attacked. Although she was a lowly freight ship, merely, two Guarda-Costa ships had been escorting her. They’d found her by luck, apparently, and fallen in with her until a new squall split them up.”

  He stopped. Significantly.

  “Captain Kaye,” he said, “that is where I find the story… thin. I do not believe it. Two escorts for a freighter? And finding her a cripple, finding her by accident?” He stopped again. “How think you, Captain? I must say, I get the whiff of… plate.”

  Kaye was staring through the window, where palm fronds gently blew. Perhaps, thought Will, his mind had drifted off. Perhaps he’d not been listening enough. For a man in such a fix, he looked untroubled past belief. But then he slowly smiled.

  “She was a treasure ship,” he said, “as you have rightly guessed it, sir. Ditto, the brig was me, but we approached to aid her, nothing else. She was short a mast or so, but when we closed I assessed she could get to port without our help, so we therefore were not for touching her. We’d not have dreamt of it.” The smile broadened. “And then — they opened up on us. Yes, Captain, they fired first, I promise you; the aggression was not ours. Indeed, they fired twice, on two occasions, before we loaded a ball. Ain’t that right, Lieutenant Bentley? Mr Holt?”

  They nodded, and Shearing took it in. He assessed the two young men for honesty, a good, cool time. He sipped his long drink, thoughtfully.

  “But that is strange,” he said. “We are not at war with Spain, are we? They are our allies, so to speak. And when they fired on you, Captain, you fought back? You did not hesitate?”

  “As was my duty,” Kaye responded stiffly, “which is very plain. If any man shoots at a King’s ship, we must retaliate. Is there another rule? They opened up on us; we gave back shot for shot. We won the day.”

  Captain Shearing sighed.