The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  “Well well, you fellows! What a sorry state you’re in! I tell you what! I shall blow you to new coats and linen the moment we get back! Ask me how? My boys – we shall be rich!”

  Will was comforted, in some way, by a sense of dislocation, disbelief almost, in this man’s odd connection with normal human feelings. He sat resplendent on a salvaged cabin chair that Mr Carpenter must have spent some hours buffing up for him, and even his clothes were smart and clean and elegant. His feet were shod in polished black, even the sand fearing to stick to them too messily it appeared, although his chair and table were placed squarely in the silver, drifting piles. Around him in more solid piles were ranged canvas-covered bundles, sea stained chests and cases, barricoes and boxes. If even half of it were treasure, Kaye’s excitement was explained. It was Will’s sad task to bring him back to earth.

  His own sense of connection with this man’s plight, and his own reality, slid into his guts like steel, slow-moving. He was here to tell Kaye that his love, Marianne Siddleham, was dead, which was cruelly true. But his own love might be also dead, or had been captured, and God alone knew by whom, or what the end might be. What comfort might he bring for Kaye, if there was none for him? How could he believe Kaye’s love might be the same as his in any way, masked by the fatuous smiling of this bland, round, happy face? How could he believe his own love valid, for a maiden that, in truth, he barely knew. He was abruptly aware of Sam at his side, and Sam put out his hand, and gently touched his arm.

  “Sir,” he said to Kaye. “The treasure notwithstanding, I fear Lieutenant Bentley must impart some news. From Kingston. From the Acting Governor.”

  A look of something close to horror flitted over Kaye’s face, his eyes snapped wider open as if he had been pricked.

  “What news?” The look faded as fast as it had come. “Ah God,” he said. “Surely not bad news of Miss Tomelty?”

  Bentley flinched, and Kaye’s eyes flooded with relief.

  “No, sir,” Will said. “No, sir. It is something…”

  Kaye was like a man clutching after straws.

  “Has Captain Swift come?” he said. “Has there been a…” He stopped, and licked his lips. “God damn you, Bentley! What’s going on?”

  “Captain Swift has come,” said Holt, to end the silence. “He sent us, sir. He says you must return.”

  “I can’t!” Kaye snapped. “The treasure! What mean you, sir, ‘return’?”

  No answer to that, thought Bentley, bleakly. The words were plain enough. His body seemed to give an inner sigh. He was exhausted.

  “Forgive me, sir,” he said. “There has been a raid. Slaves, Maroons, rebels –”

  “Savages,” said Kaye almost inaudibly. His face had drained bone-white. “Tell me the end. How many killed? They left them unprotected. How many have been killed?”

  Will noticed, with superb irrelevance, that the warrant men and sailors who had been close to them had faded away like ghosts. The space inside the stockade walls now held the three of them alone, and treasure piled up high. Kaye was no longer disconnected. Kaye was like a cadaver, his strange hazel eyes the sole thing left about him with a semblance of life. Will shared his pain and horror; it bled into his soul.

  “Nine,” he said. “Forgive me, Captain. Seven at the Siddleham plantation, two of the Sutton slaves. And… I…”

  He had no way to finish. Had not known, in fact, what he’d set out to say.

  Kaye said blankly, “But not just slaves, of course. Lady Siddleham and the girls as well. Oh Christ, Lieutenant Bentley. Say that I am wrong.”

  Will did not speak. His eyes had filled with tears, which came splashing down his salt-caked cheeks, carving furrows.

  Kaye said: “Marianne was a tiger. She told me so herself. Her brother said a lion. A lioness. And we left them unprotected. We are all mad.”

  Jack Gunning came in sight then, through the main opening in the stockade wall, and whooped. He whooped and staggered, then nearly went full-length.

  “Hey, bollocks boys!” he shouted. “Drunk again is London Jack, the bastard! Hey, Willie! Hello, Sam! Come to claim your share, eh boys? Plenty more where this came from, if you can hold your breath ten minutes!”

  He had a bottle in his hand, squat and black, and stretched it out to them, not noticing yet that Bentley was in tears and Kaye was poleaxed.

  “And good to see you too, John!” he said sarcastically. “Don’t mention it! Long time away and – Will? What ails you, lad? Good God, my sonner, surely that’s not –”

  Captain Kaye walked stiffly up to Gunning as if for one moment he might strike out at him. Instead he took the bottle by its neck and pulled it from him, and pushed it into his own wide open mouth, and swallowed, coughed, and swallowed more. Perhaps a quarter of a bottle of brandy burned down his throat. Then he pushed the bottle back at Gunning and stood there, panting. Gunning whooped.

  “I knew you’d see the light one day!” he said. “Bad news, is it? Well Pusser Black’ll sort you out, Dick. Will – take a try yourself. We can’t have King’s officers weeping like new-pregnant maidens. Is it the Spithead Nymph? Have you had news?”

  The tableau in the blazing sun was quite absurd, and Holt felt it very keenly. The representatives of the civilised world, on a beach in an inferno, in tears, or drunk, or speechless, with their lesser mortals, no doubt, gazing on from vantage points of secrecy, and wondering…God knows what, thought Sam. God only knows.

  “Sir,” he said, to Captain Kaye. “We are required back as soon as maybe, as soon as ever possible to move. There will be reprisals, naturally. Captain Swift has taken charge and wants to move immediately he can. We were detained, sir. The weather has delayed us. We have brought a cranky gig from the Port Royal dockyard.”

  Will had pulled himself together, clumsily mopping his face on sleeve and kerchief. London Jack, perhaps more tactfully then he could explain, took himself off towards the gateway almost briskly, shooing men from out the shadows of the walls. But Kaye still stood like an ox at slaughter, as if trying to take in what Holt had said.

  Will added: “There will be a major expedition, sir, by land and sea. Mr Mather will raise a militia force, and Captain Swift has a new vessel, the Pourquoi Pas. Quite small and lightly armed, but with a handy force of men. He needs your knowledge and your skill, sir, he needs to play out a strategy, but also he needs more men. The target is a force of Leeward Maroons, and the problem is their strength is not exactly known, nor are their whereabouts. They are led, apparently, by a man called Marlowe. He is infamous.”

  He ached to say that the island men were wrong, that Swift was being led into the wrong fight in the wrong direction, but he knew that he must keep his counsel. If the expedition failed, that was not his lookout. He was in a position now where orders had been issued, and he had to obey, go with the drift, however false the trail should prove. But in any case, Kaye would want to go back, that was inevitable. Marianne and her family had been killed there, when he was away. It was impossible that he would not return, immediately. And go out on a bloody hunt to seek and kill more innocents. Small wonder that the black men hated white.

  “I cannot go back,” said Kaye. His voice was shocking, his words more so. He was still white, and his eyes were dazed with hurt. As Bentley looked at them, they drifted out of focus, as if he could perceive beyond Will’s eyes. Will came close to tears again, which he found difficult to understand, or bear. He had not believed, he realised, that Kaye had been in love. No, not that exactly… he had failed to believe entirely. Failed to believe it could be as real as love had been to him. Somehow, this shamed him, dreadfully.

  “But Captain Kaye,” he said. He faltered. “Captain Swift and Mr Mather…”

  “You two must go,” said Kaye, decisively. “You must go back before me and tell them I need time. Good God, man, is that so terrible? We are raising treasure here! We are getting stuff from out the depths that no one ever had a right to see no more! There are black men lurking in
the tree-line, there are runaways up in the hills! Are we to sail off and leave it for them, all piled and boxed here on the beach? Are you suggesting that?”

  “I am suggesting nothing, sir. But Captain Swift… his orders were…”

  “And is he my commanding officer? Does Mather govern me, as well as this shit-hole island? Even if we get it back they will take it if we’re not careful, won’t they, the Assembly or the Navy Royal? Is that what you’re craving, Bentley? I must lose everything? I take it you told your precious uncle? I take it he knows all about the sunken gold?”

  Dick Kaye was standing tall, and shaking. His face was wild, his expression distracted. Both Will and Sam stood close by him, and neither tried to answer for some time. Then William made the slightest gesture, with his head.

  “No,” he said. “We have said nothing. The treasure is your business, Captain Kaye.”

  At last their captain shrugged. He coughed. He cleared his throat. He looked into Bentley’s eyes, but his gaze was quailing.

  “You of all people,” he said. His voice was lowering, almost inaudible. It was as though he had not understood the words. “You of all people, Will, to try to drive me thus. I asked you to look after her. I begged you to protect my… to be help and aid to… my poor Miss Siddleham.”

  He took a deep breath then, and pulled his shoulders back.

  “You go,” he said, more firmly. “Those are my orders, Holt and Bentley. You go back and tell them what you will, and I’ll transfer this treasure to the Jacqueline and follow on as soon as I secure it.” He laughed. “It’ll get out anyway, won’t it? Perhaps I should bury it, like the pirates used to do! But how to keep men quiet, eh? No wonder pirates got betrayed! Still, we’ll get a share this way at least, won’t we, though we haven’t brought much up yet, in all truth. But the less we brag about the quantity, the more might come to us, I guess. I do thank you, gentlemen, however. For your discretion. I do.”

  “Sir,” said Bentley, “we need another man.”

  This was unexpected, especially to Sam, who glanced askance at him. But Kaye just blinked, quite at a loss.

  “What? An extra man? Well, if you like.”

  “I want the Worm,” said Will. “The old black sailor that we call the Worm.”

  “Don’t know him.”

  “He is our only black man,” Holt said, dryly. “About two hundred years old. Apart from that he don’t stand out at all.”

  Slack Dickie did not see the joke.

  “Take him,” he said. “Take anyone. Just cut along, eh? Swift lives by keenness. Lay it on thick why I must be delayed. He lives by money, too. You ease the ways with him and I will follow on. Yes, that is best. Go now. Go quickly.”

  Had it not been so typical, it might have struck as laughable. A four-day fight against the vilest weather, thirsty, hungry, sore, to bring strict orders, and less than an hour later they were to set off again, to do Dick’s dirty work for him. They stumped off to see Geoff Raper and have the Worm dug out for them, between amusement and outrage, tempered by their new perception of Kaye’s loss and pain.

  While the gig was readied and provisioned, while Worm collected up his meagre stuff, they filled up on Raper’s food, and washed in glorious fresh water, and stretched their limbs.

  “Why did you weep?” said Sam, out of the blue.

  “Because I did not know,” said Will. “A matter of… He loved her, Sam.”

  “I know,” said Sam. “No need to carry on. And why the black man? With this breeze and this weather, we’ll be in Port Royal in two days or so.”

  “We’re going west,” said Will. “We ain’t going to Port Royal.”

  He glanced at Sam to gauge reaction. It was directly contrary to their orders. It was mutiny.

  “Very good,” said Sam, after a moment. “Will you tell me why?”

  “I’ll tell you why,” said Will. “Because I’m sick of it. I find Dickie’s love is real and mine perhaps is not. Deb has been captured, killed maybe, or maybe saved or saveable, and I am a few short leagues away and I do not even know. Now I must find out.”

  “Where will we look? We don’t know where to look. That is Swift’s problem, and the plantation men’s. They say she is with Marlowe, and Marlowe’s hard to find. If they could find him, they would have killed him long ago. Will Worm find him? Is that your notion? Why should Worm find him?”

  “They will find us. We are not an army. We will not hide from them, they will be curious.”

  “Good,” said Sam. “So they find us and they kill us, or they don’t find us and we get hanged in Port Royal when we get back there. Excellent.”

  William took a draught of wine. The Jacqueline still had fine wine on board, which One-leg Raper doubtless stole from Purser Black to please his favourites.

  “If we find out where Marlowe is and he is a villain, we’ll have done precisely what Swift most needs from anyone. We will guide the expedition to its prey. If he is not – and Bridie says that he will be Deb’s saviour – well, if he is not, we keep our mouths shut.”

  “Mouths shut, throats cut… ah well, all one to me.” Sam was laughing, but he did so, clearly, from some sort of strange perverse delight. He waved a hand to Raper.

  “Hey! Geoff! Another bottle over here!” To Will he added (or to nobody): “If I’m going to my death I might as well go arseholes under.”

  Will said earnestly, “If we do find him, we’ll have Deb as our protection. And the Worm.”

  “And the Worm, eh? The Roman slave turned gladiator! Will, you are the very acme of military philosophy! But at least he’s black and seems to like us. He can be our advocate, I guess.” He laughed once more. “More like we’ll meet those bloody Scotchmen and they’ll butcher us all three! He stole their boat, remember? The Lamonts don’t take kindly to that sort of thing! Come on, drink up. We’ll forget that other bottle. There’s work that must be done.”

  “You do not have to come,” said Will. “Sam, I am perhaps a little crazy, but I’ve got to go. Please forget it.”

  “And you’ll steal the gig off me, will you? Knock my head in and feed me to the sharks? Is that what Worm’s for, to be your hired black assassin!? Get away with you, you fool. Let’s go and say goodbye to Dickie. Will, I can hardly wait. If you’re to marry the maiden that I love, I might at very leastways claim a kiss off yours, when we have rescued her!”

  Ten minutes later they were creaming off down southward from the beach. They did not turn west until they were far offshore. The Worm was at the tiller, and he had received news of their plan with equanimity. He knew the country well, he said. He might catch and kill a little goat for them.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The way that Deb was taken was extremely brutal, and terrified her completely. She was jerked and torn through the thick undergrowth by a number of black savages that she could not even count in the confusion, with Mildred screaming just behind her. Deb would have fought had she been able, but she could not even kick and scratch. It was as if her arms were being torn from their sockets, her legs knocked and dragged from under her. She smelled sharp sweat, hot breath and heavy swampy odours, and she thought it was a part of dying. Then it stopped. She stood there shaking, with her eyes closed, and jumped to hear a voice she recognised.

  It was Mildred. She too was panting, but when Deb’s eyes snapped open, wore an almost sunny smile.

  “See, girl,” she said. “I done tell you, no? I done say he find us, and he did.”

  They were in a clearing, and all around them there were black men. Savages, Deb had thought when in extremis, but now they looked just like other island men. Except that they were armed, and some one or two had hair much longer than the normal run of slaves. They were not slaves. They were better dressed, in britches and pale shirts, and they were staring with unservile eyes. They looked like the Sutton men who had rebelled, without the residue of fear – in despite the fact that an attack on them was imminent. As Deb took the vision in, they raised muskets t
o their shoulders and took aim into the woods they had just come from, from within which came scramblings and cries. Pursuit.

  One man said: “Hold.” The other men held fire. They stood there in a half a circle, like a band of hunters in a formation. They stared down their barrels and breathed easily, despite the running they had done. Deb’s breath caught in her throat, and Mildred reached out to her. She pointed.

  “It is Marlowe,” she said. “I told you he would come. We all right now, Debbeerah.”

  As she spoke, men came from the bushes opposite, and they were also armed. Deb flinched, waiting for the shots. There was not a distance between the bands to make avoidance possible; they could only cut each other down. The breath she was holding on to came out in a long, low sigh. Her lungs and ribs were shaking.

  Some of the pursuing band were white, as she had known, but she realised now that it was they only who held muskets, while their blacks had swords and cane-knives. The fat man was in the van, and she could see the sweat sliding down his face even as he wiped it with his pistol-hand. On either side, half hidden still, were two tall, thin men, pale-faced, with meagre beards, and she knew somehow that these were the “Scotchmen” the small black boy had said would kill her. Then more whites emerged, and one of them was also bearded, blond and lanky as a lath. He went and stood beside the fat man, and he raised his right hand, palm outwards, towards Marlowe, as if in a salute.

  “Saury tae mither ye,” he said. “We’ve ay come tae get the English hoorie, nae yin else. Sen’ her ower here, will ye? And then we’ll hie oorselfs awa’. We dinna wish tae cause ye any bother.”

  To Deb’s ears the accent was amazing, but the polite address, the courtly expressions of regret, were even more so. These were the Scots, though, there was no doubt of that. She wondered why they should wish to damage her. On this form, they hardly seemed like killers.

  The black commander was as calm as the Scot had been. He left it for an aching length of time before replying. The while, his musket men held to their targets, as steadily as rocks.