The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  And then the ship began to go, and Taylor took a sounding with the lead, and only hit the bottom when he’d reached almost sixteen fathoms — one hundred feet. A hundred feet of water so clear it looked as if a child could touch the bottom with a finger. As he sang out, the boats were launched from off the deck, and gouts of water burst up from the hatches.

  Slack Dickie, standing on the poop, looked like a man whose heart had given out. Four hundred yards or less, and underneath his feet riches beyond most men’s belief. The chance to rise, to stand alone, to show the world, and men, and father what he was made of, what he could make of life. Sixteen fathoms. More than ninety feet. He could not believe it. It was beyond his grasp. Sam swore afterwards that he had heard a strangled sob. But maybe it was Gunning, stifling a laugh.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  In the next minutes, a strange silence fell. Boatloads of men, dozens of heads bobbing in the clear, lovely, friendly water. When the main truck disappeared below the surface, chests, planks, baulks, and lumber came bursting up, and then subsided. Sam thought of his captain, who had climbed into a boat like a whipped dog, but who had oddly taken care to bring Black Bob out of the cabin to sit beside him in the sternsheets. He thought of his captain, and wondered why he felt so sorry for him.

  Sorrow for themselves felt more appropriate for some of the seamen. Land was but a gentle pull away, and even those whose fate it was to be dragged in the water on long lines, or cling to the gunwales if they could not float at all, did not find the sea a problem when they realised there were no sharks or likelihood of water-ghoulies lurking in the depths. The beach looked friendly, but beyond the beach was… what? A sailor at sea is a giant. A sailor in port is a terror and a threat. But here were rolling sands, strange trees and undergrowth, and — doubtless — serpents and spiders and savages and beasts with bloody fangs. Port Royal, they had heard of that, they had seen it, damn nearly got their claws in it, and in its drink and women. But where was it now? How long a march, on bare feet made for decks, not loam and sand and rocks and spiky undergrowth? Would there be retribution for the things they’d done? There would be no reward, for certain, as they had no gold to give the King and Admiralty. Would they be blamed for losing it?

  Sam also wondered, idly, as they slid across the glossy swells towards the shimmering sand, if any blame could be attached to them, but it did not strike as likely, when all was said. They had gone on their illegal expedition with the Navy’s blessing, Captain One-leg Shearing had sent them open-eyed, and his first requirement — that the Santa should be certainly destroyed before the Guarda-Costa found her, or any other evidence — had surely been fulfilled. Could they be disgraced? Court-martialled? Lose their commissions, even? He could not see what for. They had set out from England to aid the Squadron, but their bottom had dropped out. Who was responsible? Slack Dickie, in reality — there was little doubt of that — but his tracks were truly covered and his hands were clean. The Admiralty had decided on the purchase, and no doubt chosen or agreed to the men who had done the checks and surveys. Gunning had hinted that Kaye had had dealings with some murky Navy Office clerk, that money had changed hands, and Kaye was still deep in the fellow’s debt. Well, God help him then, and curse him for a greedy fool, to boot. He doubted, though, if Dickie were so slack that he would not have cleared himself of blame or any taint or route to it.

  Dick Kaye, sweating in the sternsheets, the black boy by his side, felt sorrier than anyone, but only for himself. In his eyes it was an overwhelming tragedy. He had lost nothing, as a fact, but as he saw it he had lost everything. Ruin. Debts. Failure. That was what he’d ended up with; those were the jewels he had plucked from out the flames. He had looked to end up in the clear, a rich man and a triumph in his own right. He caught Gunning’s sardonic face, and Gunning winked at him. He said something, which Slack Dickie, luckily for his wrung-out soul, could not hear.

  Jack Gunning had said this: “I wonder where your Scotchmen are, Capting. Be funny, wouldn’t it, if they hove up on shore with all their ill-got gains? That would be a cause for jest, now wouldn’t it?” Jack Ashdown, squatting down beside him on the bottom planks, did hear, and allowed himself a private little smile. He had left these shores with those three awful men, and he would bet his life that they’d got back as well as he; they were indestructible. He had already sworn, inside his head and soul, that he’d survive this “homecoming” and would strive like very heaven to see that they should not.

  Will, in another boat, thought of the silver momentarily, regretting that his friend Sam could not be rich, and his own family eased of cash constraint. He knew no man would ever see the treasure again, though, and moreover, did not care. He thought of Deb, and felt his heart rejoice. He knew where she was, at least not many miles away, on a plantation near Port Royal. He would find her out, and see her very soon. He thought of her, with a small, secret, sentimental smile, as his Spithead Nymph. He had lost her, and he had found her, still alive.

  But Deborah Tomelty, though still alive indeed, was a Spithead Nymph no more, nor ever would be. She was seated in a clearing, by a freezing rill that splashed down from the mountains, her ears full of water music and the shrieks of vivid birds. Her feet were bleeding, her clothes were torn, and her heart — like Will Bentley’s — was full of hope. There were eleven of them, fugitives from Alf Sutton’s, including Mabel and her little son, and all of them were hungry and afraid. They had tried to tell her what they faced, but Deb would not allow herself to fully understand it.

  She was a fugitive; she knew that. She was an outcast from the white society on the island, and she would probably be hunted. Some blacks, some runaways, some Maroons, would help her and her fellows, and some would track them down to kill or capture them.

  Mabel smiled at her, and offered her a piece of fruit Deb did not recognise. She tasted: it was good. Deb smiled.

  She would never, ever, be a Spithead Nymph.

  UNDERTAKER’S WIND

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  In memory of my dear friend

  Carole Docherty, of Glasgow and Toronto

  Chapter One

  The light was mild when they came across the body. The light was mild, the breeze was non-existent, the smell off the unseen shore was sweet. Sensations came to Lieutenant Bentley slowly, as he was shaken into consciousness. He made out a large face, bland and smiling, then the dark blue of the sky, with daylight spreading through it like pale fire. He sighed, but inwardly. He had had a dream of Deborah.

  “There’s a boat,” said Jack Gunning. “It’s got a dead’un on the bottom boards. A dead old black’un.”

  “God,” said Will. He rubbed his eyes. “Where’s it come from? How far are we off of land?”

&nbs
p; “No distance. We’ll see it when the light comes. He’s had a sail up, but the mast has snapped, by look of it. It is the dandy skiff.”

  Bentley was full awake now. He jerked himself upright and seized the gunwale of the jolly-boat. Jack Ashdown, balanced in the bow, read his mind.

  “Aye, sir,” he said. “The one the Scotchmen stole off of the Santa. Here she is again, not much the worse, all things considered.”

  “Good God!” said Will. “The treasure?”

  Both Gunning and Jack Ashdown laughed.

  “No treasure. Just a stinking corpse.”

  Bentley scrambled to his feet. His mouth was dry and foul, but it was his duty to command. He saw the body lying there, and had a pang of pity. It was old, and skeletal, the gums exposed with not a single tooth. The black face was fringed with curly hair and whiskers of a startling white.

  “Good God,” he said again. “What did he die of? Have they butchered him?”

  All three expected that. The Scots, the wild Lamont brothers, had proved themselves as bestial. But the old black corpse, as far as they could see across six feet of Carib water, was unmarked, unmutilated.

  And then it moved. It jerked and wriggled, opened its eyes, and stiffly, with a lot of effort, sat up and looked at them.

  “Would you be England men?” it said. “Do you have a bit of bread or drink? I’m mortal hungry.”

  Will wondered, when they had got the castaway on board and shared a little of the tiny stock they’d rescued off the Biter, what was the protocol in such a circumstance as this. Slack Dickie Kaye, for certainty, would have assumed he was a spy, but neither Bentley nor his two companions were made of such stuff. His eyes, though pale and washed, shone very frank, and as the food went down he looked extremely comfortable. He stretched his long, thin shanks out across the bottom of the jollyboat, and tutted at the water slopping there.

  “Not very shipshape, mates,” he said. “Ain’t there no stickler amongst the three of you? Give me a bailer and I’ll have her dry in half a minute.”

  Big Jack Gunning smiled.

  “There’s a breeze springing up,” he said. “When she’s heeling over she’ll dip out easier. Why ain’t you on the shore, though? Man could starve out here.”

  “Can’t get back in there, can I? I drifted off but can’t set sail, the bastards broke the mast, d’you see? And smashed the oars and rudder. It’s a tantaliser. A mile from home and Death creeps up on you. I’d have swum it, ’cept I can’t. Too old to learn now, ain’t I?”

  Gunning laughed.

  “Ain’t you a seaman, then? Why put off from shore if you know you can’t get back? Or are you so old you clean forgot?”

  A light, sweet puff put new ripples on the water. The slack sail of the jollyboat half filled, then flopped once more.

  “Scotchmen on the sand, blackmen in the trees. I borry them boat, I steal or die. No sail or mast or oar, but good strong wind. I steal.”

  His face cracked in a grin. Hard, bright gums. His pale eyes twinkled.

  “Born Virginny,” he said. “My ma a slave. I run long time ago, become a sailor man. I sail with everyone. I run away from everyone. Last time I run away from French.”

  The breeze was blowing steadier. Ashdown secured the skiff astern of them on a painter, and hardened in the mainsheet of the jollyboat. Wavelets began to lap against her planks.

  “You run away from Frenchmen,” Ashdown said. “And Scotchmen and some savages. Well, sir. What you want that I should do with you? Twenty minutes in this breeze will see us on that shore again. Is that what you desire?”

  “We’ve got no weapons, Mr Bentley,” put in London Jack. “We’ve got three cutlasses and a brace of pistols, and the powder’s damp, for certainty. If the Lamonts are there and armed God help us, let alone our friend here’s wild black savages. Hey, Mr Worm,” he added. “Can you fight?”

  Mr Worm – long and skinny; it seemed a proper name – did not reply. But Will was puzzling.

  “Why Frenchmen, though?” he said. “What Frenchmen; where? On shore with the Scotchmen and Maroons? Is this a story?”

  It is like a maze, he thought, and getting more so. They had left Slack Dickie Kaye camped with his crewmen near where the Biter had gone down, and were sailing down the coast in the hope to meet the Navy, or get to Kingston harbour to bring help. At least one Spanish ship was hunting for them, and the three Scots brothers seemed like to be quite close. They were convicted killers, escaped in the dandy skiff with half of Santa’s treasure stuffed on board. Murderers unhung.

  “Not story,” said the Worm. “I run off of a French ship after the storm, I show a place I know, she lost a mast. They run her on a little beach so they can set new mast up, but they can’t climb off the shore because the cliffs too steep. I can, though, I know the way. And when I run, I walk, I find the little skiff along the shore a way, all broke and finished like you see. Good boat though, eh? Give me an oar to make a new mast, and a board to make a paddle, and I’m off again. I can live on the shore, not hard, I know this bit of coast years on an’ off. The Frenchmen they might starve, they don’t know no better, but I can eat. Only them black man give me fear.”

  The sun was rising fast, the temperature was set to soar. The sky was cloudless, the land green, close and luscious. Their duty was to race around the coast, piloted by Ashdown, and tell Captain Shearing at the Navy Office in Port Royal that their brig had come to grief and he would have to mount a rescue. But Ashdown, unbidden, now set a course towards the shore. The skiff, a docile pony on a lead, was jogging on astern of them, her bow-wave growing. It was left to Gunning to put the common thought to word.

  “A French ship,” he said musingly. “Two masts at least, as Mr Worm says one of them is gone. Which means food and drink and guns and ammunition. But most of all a ship. Now that would be a pretty prize, indeed. These men?” he asked of Worm. “These Frenchmen? Are they King’s men or of the common herd? Does this ship have guns and soldiers?”

  “She can’t be Navy,’ said Will. “Captain Shearing would have warned us when we went out to find the Santa if there’d been cruisers. He said the waters swarmed with Spanish, not with French.”

  “Aye,” said Gunning. “But what would he know? One arm, one leg, one idle shoreside berth. And why’s the Squadron standing off? Isn’t that to watch for Johnny Crapaud in case he comes invading? This could be a scout, a spy maybe. Sent in advance. Come on. Worm – how many guns? Is she a trade ship or a rover?”

  “No piracy,” the black man answered, smiling. “Not Navy neither, I don’t think. But she got guns, ’bout eight or somesuch, I dunno. Captain wear a hat. In Carolina, where they pick me up, they did trade with cotton men. And they sold two slaves as well, I think. Some nutmeg maybe. Them smugglers.”

  “What, Afric slaves?” asked Bentley. “Did you not speak to them?”

  Old eyes regarded him. They were gleaming with amusement.

  “Speak with Africans? I told you, sir – I am an English man. Not Lunnontown, maybe – but Carolina born and bred, and loyal subject of our King.”

  Ashdown, at the tiller, laughed. Unusually, he let his Irish accent show.

  “Born in Carolina, is it, by Jasus? Or Virginny, like you said just now? You’re lying like an Englishman, God help us.”

  “Steer a course,” said Bentley, snappily. “I am seeking useful information here.”

  “Aye aye,” said Ashdown, equably. “Talking of which, sir, beg your pardon, which part of that faceless shore do you want to set upon? For myself, I can see nowhere to put foot to land at all, except for mountain goats. And they can swim and climb, sir – which I indeed cannot.”

  The three white men fell silent, contemplating. They were setting in towards the island certainly, but the line of whiteness had emerged in daylight not as sandy beach but as sheer cliffs. Their tops were fringed with shining green, which made Will lick his lips. Lush green meant water, which they had little of. The lack was growing stronger by the hour.<
br />
  “Where is this French ship?” he asked, decisively. “Mr Worm, how long ago were you blown off of the island? Can you get back to where she is? If she is pulled up in a cove I guess we could have missed it in the dark.”

  “And would have done, daylight or no,” said Worm. He gazed into the sky, assessing. “Spread sail, sirs, for I think we have breezes for another hour only. Then it’s hot and flop and sizzle in the sun. How much water left to sup?”

  No point in arguing, so they took him at his word. Ashdown kept the tiller, Will tended canvas, and London Jack helped Worm bail out the bilges to get the best of speed. They contemplated abandoning their tow, but decided they might need her if they found the hidden Frenchman and they had to fight and run.

  After two hours, they were confident the black man was more blowhard than a weather prophet, and London Jack, indeed, had opened up his mouth to say so. Good luck he did not, though, for the wind died at the very instant, without even so much as a warning puff or fluke. One second they were heeling merrily, creaming through a short steep onshore sea, then the sail dropped like a maiden’s nightgown, the boat lurched upright – and they wallowed. The lightweight skiff astern slipped through the sea to butt them on the transom.

  “Bastard!” said Gunning, coarsely. “It’s like it’s never bloody blown!”

  With wind and forward motion zero, the heat hit them like an exhalation from a baker’s oven. The shore sat and shimmered a mile away, the sky above the tree-line shook and wavered like a belly dancer’s skin. Sweat broke out on all their faces except, Will noticed, their ancient black companion’s. Who glanced from one to other to see if he must take the blame. Reassured, he murmured: “It sometimes come back in the afternoon. But then, it might be blowing out to sea.”