The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers
Page 135
With the servant gone, Kaye had worked it out.
“Ah,” he said. “Our venture. We gentlemen of property.” He felt the brandy sliding down his throat, spreading inside his stomach, and he felt no less bleak at all. “Well, yes, sir, I have had my feelers out. But you understand… events, sir. Events. I must confess I… well, sir… tragedies indeed.”
“Pah, tragedies,” said Swift. “Aye, sir, there have been tragedies. That is why God put us here on earth, we are His warriors, our function now to slaughter people, get revenge. I know you have a personal interest in this one, and I’m sorry for it, naturally, but I sense a golden opportunity for us, very close to home. I have already penned an outline to your father back in Hertfordshire. I have requested that he readies credit to transfer. Do you tell me you have not thought of this yourself?”
Kaye was blinking at the speed of it. He had not seen this man for an age, he had gone through hell and high water since they had spoken business last, and Swift was at it as though it were the only topic to be thought about. He had hardly greeted him, indeed; had scarce acknowledged that there’d been a separation.
“An outline, sir?” he said. “What opportunity?”
“The Siddlehams,” said Swift, lifting his nose and staring down it as Kaye swallowed more brandy. “I thought you knew them well? I thought that you were… intimate? Well, do you know they’re on the verge of selling up?” He narrowed his eyes, assessing the effect: and found it disappointing, possibly. “Hmph. You do not understand the implications, is all that I can think. They are on the verge of selling up one of Jamaica’s finest plantations, sir. At a knockdown price. They are prepared, in all effect, to give the place away. To the right man, sir, the right man only. Hmph! And that right man, sir, is going to be me!”
Kaye needed more brandy. The fact he was not surprised confused him, worried him. He had put out feelers, as he had said to Swift, in fact he had had a similar conviction. But it was related to his own unique connection with the Siddlehams, his own bond of trust and intimacy. Good God, he thought, I was going to be wed to Marianne! I was going to be one of them! How has Swift done this?
“Sir,” he said. “I had some inkling of it, as a general possibility. Jeremy and myself, and Jonathan. Well, it was only something in the air.”
“Haha!” said Swift. “You see, my boy! Strike while the iron’s hot. I came, I saw, and I damn well intend to conquer. I have brought money with me – some cash, some credit notes, and I have made it clear to them that I – we – are interested, and will pay in all due haste. Your father will back me, no doubt of that, and the brothers have stressed the need for expedition. Many people offer things, they say, and many things get mired in the bog. London is such a damn long way away, and transferring wealth is never easy. And there’s a war on, never forget. Our speed is paramount. Without it, the deal may not be struck.”
Kaye poured brandy into his crystal. He swirled it, looked at it, as if assessing a particular variety, interest only, no great desire to taste. But he forced himself, and nodded, mild appreciation. Swift was indifferent to this charade. There was one subject, only, in his mind.
“But we cannot move too fast, sir,” said Kaye. “Even if my father is able to make up the price at speed. I do not know the Jamaican system, but there will be legal things, for certainty. There is no society in this wide world, however backward, that does not have lawyers battened on to it.”
This earned a laugh, but it was a scornful one.
“Bah, lawyers. The Siddlehams are gentleman, like us. Good heavens, Dick, their father was Sir Nathaniel. If he was a baronet, as I assume, then Jeremy becomes Sir Jem, instanter. We are not in association with London sharks. Trust is not dead, is it, among our quality of man? The only thing I would not trust them for is to hang on for us if someone makes a bigger, quicker offer before we’ve shook on it.”
“But surely, sir, the figures? The yearly profits? God forbid; the losses? I mean, they said that times were bad. Surely we need to see percentages? The books?”
“Oh yes, yes, yes, naturally it will all be signed and sealed and such. I told you, I have spoke to them of it; we went in in some detail, they were unutterable frank. I know the business backwards – and we must buy. Look, Captain Kaye – Richard – we will be related in the not too distant future, when my kinsman Bentley weds your Felicity. We are family, man! Do you think I would rush into anything that is not cast-iron clenched and copper-bottomed? As soon as any hint gets out, it will be bees around the honeypot, that is our problem. We must secure it. We must.”
The spirits were climbing to Slack Dickie’s head. This man was like a wire spring, he was overwhelming. And he must be right, indeed he must, for the Siddlehams were gentleman, and very fine, and Marianne had been a part of their deliberations over land and money, she had said that many times. It was just… Dick snatched another mouthful from his glass. He had a sudden insight: he imagined his father’s rage if it went wrong, if money was spent out on a goose chase. Worse, he imagined his father’s contempt. For him. He had said once, to his face, that his only trust in him was to do things wrong. Dick stared at Swift with a sudden, strange intensity. Swift’s face was bold, and proud, and aquiline, without a shadow of self-doubt. Swift was completely confident in his own excellence, and in his plan. So should Slack Dickie be.
He said, rather faintly: “We must sign nothing, though. Not until we’ve… not until there ain’t no shadow of a doubt, sir. Do you… is that agreed?”
Swift laughed heartily.
“Oh indeed, indeed!” he cried. “Nothing on paper till the Lord High Chancellor’s had a sniff himself, if you should deem it necessary! But expedition is our watchword, my boy, we must push it very hard. Which word – expedition – leads me rather neatish to a different subject altogether, that is however, closely bound; nay, inextricably. We have to go, sir, into the mountains, into the west, to slaughter this damn renegade. And while we do it for the common good, we turn it to our favour also, as long-headed men will do. For if we undertake this expedition with expedition – expeditiously! – it plays well with the Siddlehams as a firm concomitant. It makes them even more beholden to us, do you see? It gives them more incumbency to view us with deep favour. Do take my meaning, lad? Do you see that which I’m driving at?”
All Kaye could see was that Captain Swift had worked himself into some minor frenzy of self-admiration by his way with words, which Dick, already rather drunk, could hardly follow, truth to tell. He merely blinked, and waited for enlightenment. Swift viewed him with some irritation.
“Pah,” he said. “No poesie in the soul. Look, Captain Kaye, we need to move into the hinterland, and we need to move there soon. If we pull it off, we pull the land sale off inevitably, at the greatest advantage to ourselves. And how much better if we return with his head upon a stick, this bloody Marlowe. He has killed their Mama and their girls, he has destroyed their heart for staying here, Jeremy has told me so in terms. If only we knew where the bastard could be found! You’ve been down-coast, you’ve been far down the west. Was there nothing that you found that could give us the advantage?”
Kaye blinked once more. There was something forming in the liquor haze.
“Will Bentley has been farther. Your nephew and Sam Holt. In fact – good God, sir, they have spoke to Marlowe! And the whore!” His face clouded. “Aye, but they both say they’re innocent,” he added. “They say it was not them.”
“To hell with that!” Swift snapped. “They’ve spoke to them?! For Christ’s sake, man, why did you not tell me this? Where? Can they take me to them? Good God, sir, this is what we need! Where are they, Holt and Bentley? We must see them! Now!”
Something else came through the fog. Kaye’s grip tightened on his glass. He winced.
“Ah, sir,” he said. “They cannot take you to him, I recall it now. They met offshore, he came out in a skiff. They parleyed, then they went ashore.”
“They? Bentley and Holt?”
Swift’s eyes were bright with anger.
“Shit,” he muttered. “Incompetents and fools. Oh shit and degradation.” He cried out with sudden passion, “We need spies! Why do we have no spies? White men that shag the nigger gals are best, according to young Siddleham, but they tend to string them up. He mentioned Scotchmen too, some murderers from Aberdeen, but they got chased away. They ship these people off and leave no one to help us, just because they rob and kill! It’s rank insanity!”
Kaye knit his brow in puzzlement.
“Hold hard, sir. Did you say Aberdeen? What, Siddleham said – He did not give them names, by any chance? If their name should be Lamont, sir…” For a moment he seemed overcome. “I had them, sir, I had them off the Press, that villain Coppiner. But I do not have them now, they are deserters, runaways. And they are traitors, sir, disloyal to the King or anyone. They have stolen… they have kidnapped one of our… my…”
He tailed off, not knowing how to finish. But Swift, his spirits raised then dashed, was now cast down.
“Runaways,” he murmured. “In this damn God-hole all useful men are runaways. Ah well, Kaye, they sounded like the men for me, they sounded like perfection on a monument. Deserters, traitors, killers, kidnappers, and you don’t know where the bastards are. Ah well. I am not paid to mope. We’ll set off blind in any case. A pity, though. They sound like men of steel.”
Slack Dickie’s brain went from dim to bright in half an instant. He raised his glass slowly to his lips this time, and allowed himself a smile. Men of steel, invincible. But with Swift in the question, and money for the bribes…
“But, sir,” he said. “I do not have them, but I do know where they are. I know where they are, and they know where the black man is as well. And the black man’s whore. For money they will sell him to us. For money they will sell anything; or any one.”
He was thinking of Black Bob. He was thinking of Black Bob, and bribery or force. He heard a voice, as through a mist.
“Where?” Swift repeated. His tone grew sharper. “Where, man? Captain Kaye!”
Kaye smiled.
“We have to go by sea,” he said. “They have a fort, but not impregnable. Two days, sir, or three. We will not even have to storm them. No, sir – merely bribery. They will do anything for gold, the Lamont brothers. Anything.”
Chapter Thirty-One
The planning and the preparation was the job of less than three days. When Captain Swift had finished picking Kaye’s brains, he moved with the speed that made him such a formidable commander. He called Captain Shearing into the room, excluded Jackson, and sent messengers to speak to Andrew Mather, the Siddlehams, Alf Sutton, and some other leading planters. His exegesis was stark: they could find the renegade commander, and they could attack and slaughter him. All they needed was ships, and arms, and men. They had all three.
Will and Sam, when they received their briefing in the cabin of the Pourquois Pas, were struck with horror. The Lamonts were the key, Swift told them, and it was due to Richard Kaye they could be found. Both lieutenants almost lost themselves in agitation. These men were criminals, they pointed out, who had – and then they caught Kaye’s frantic gesture behind Swift’s back, and had to pull their punches, to cover up his own specific crimes. The Scots were evil men, they feebly argued, and dangerous, not to be trusted. To use them might unleash all kinds of savage and unpleasant acts. What was more, Will added, there was little evidence at all of Marlowe’s guilt.
Swift’s contempt was corruscating. They were behaving he said, worse than Jamaica’s namby-pamby men, who at least eschewed such idleness as to say the nigger Marlowe was not a savage murderer, fit only to be strung up and destroyed. The Scots, he said – he liked the phrase indeed – were men of steel. He needed them to do a certain job, as no one else could, that was manifest. And what of evil, anyway – so long as it was evil genius! He needed men of steel, and the Lamonts were the nearest he could hope to come to it. They would contact them now; instanter!
“What, sir, us, sir?” said William, feeling like some sort of foolish schoolboy; and Swift skewered him with those famous eyes.
“No, sir! Us, sir! All of us! We will set sail almost immediate, we will take both our ships, while the island men, led by Mr Mather as their Colonel, will mobilise militia, backed up by their trusty blackhound slaves, and strike out through the roads and woodlands. When we reach the bay where Captain Kaye knows the Scotchmen are, we will contact and employ them. They will direct us to the renegades, we will engage with Colonel Mather’s army, and our vengeance will be wrought.”
The wind blew gently through the cabin windows, bearing island and harbour sounds that were redolent of peace. Sam said pointedly: “And will you pay them, sir? As criminals unhung?”
“Lieutenant Holt, you border on the insolent,” said Swift. “We are here to do our duty, and it ill behoves you to reveal such attitudes. Thanks to Captain Kaye we have a way to come up with our quarry, and I’ll thank you not to be so nice. The Scotch men will be pleased to do their duty, I confide. And if they will not, I will have them hanged. There!”
Despite themselves, the lieutenants joined in laughter, although Swift quite clearly did not think he’d made a joke. But Sam persisted with his questioning, because, he argued, he could not see why the Lamonts should help, or even be there when they reached the bay. Kaye said that he had seen them moving to the stockade, which surely must be a fine prize for a marauding band to have, why should they leave it? A fortress built for them, defensible, good quarters, water not far off. Bentley exchanged a speaking glance with Holt: no mention of the treasure then, which was the Scotsmen’s actual draw. Whichever way though, they accepted Kaye was right.
Will said, “I’ll wager we will have to pay them, though, for all that. We know them, Uncle. They are not like normal men.”
Kaye added lightly, “Aye, Captain. Cash on delivery, however. We’ll pay up when we get Marlowe on a plate. Worth a groat or two, when all is said and done. The boys are right, though. These Scotch are wily coves, more twists than a serpent’s coil. Pay nothing till they’ve done the job, then watch out they do not cut your purse and all!”
Swift’s smile was supercilious. He treated them like rather silly boys.
“Ah me,” he said. “I see you do not know my method, after all. Never mind. These men will serve me well, believe me, and they will serve my purpose, and they’ll do it happily.” His nose rose like a blade. “And then I’ll hang them, naturally. All three.”
This time he did laugh, but the others were less inclined to. He took that badly, growing somewhat angry and impatient.
“God save me, you are blowing hot and cold!” he snapped. “Look, this is the cutting off of cancer, do not you see? We will sail and march on Marlowe and attack him from all sides. It is a reprisal, against men who will not bow to law, who will not even sign treaties like honest Maroons! You say he is not guilty, I say ‘Pah’ and ‘No matter anyway – is he not black? Is he not some sort of runaway?’ You say the Scotch are also criminals, but so what for that, as well? They can help us do the job, and if it does not work, so what again? What is lost? Something of value or some merely worthless lives? A renegade, a whore, some sons of Caledonia. And between these cabin walls, my friends, we earn a useful gratitude on this island, that will stand us in good stead. Now go about your business, and prepare. I go ashore to settle final details. It is time that we were under way.”
Among the other things he did on shore, they found out later, was to go and see the Siddlehams, on the estate he looked on as already his. As promised, Swift did not sign anything, in spite the fact that Jeremy and Jonathan had had preliminaries drawn up already by their lawyers.
When they seeme
d cast down, though, the captain seized them by the hand, one after the other, and shook firmly and fervently. They were Englishmen, all three, what need of signatures? The deal was done.
*
The sail from Kingston to the Biter bay was not fast, through lack of useful wind, but when the Jacqueline, now fully-manned right down to Grundy and the surviving sick-berth men, pulled round the final headland, there was no sign of human goings-on. There was a fire burning, though, and that was deliberate. The Scots, once their lookouts had reported two ships in the offing, had brought their raft and other craft ashore, lifted them by force of muscle, and hidden them behind the stockade in the underbrush. It had been a fixed rule that any treasure brought up was taken inland every day and secreted, so there was nothing else incriminating to be happened on. That the fortress had been taken over was not worth hiding, because the fortress – without its secret source of wealth – was merely a base and not worth fighting for, in this lonely, useless bay. Let the Navy see they had it by all means: but let them not imagine the sunken gold could be the draw.
The Jacqueline dropped anchor first, by previous arrangement, and the Pourquoi Pas remained some way away, to be unthreatening. As soon as they were fast, Slack Dickie Kaye got in a boat manned lightly by an unarmed crew (although there were muskets and pistols beneath a loose-draped sail on the bottomboards) and had her pulled into hailing distance. Then he stood up and bellowed.
“Ahoy there! You Lamonts! If you’re in there, show yourselves! We mean no harm! We can offer you a pardon! There is a matter you can aid us in!”
It was a strange speech, and it echoed back from the trees, perhaps the stockade walls. The air was motionless, and very hot, with hardly any surf to disturb the quasi-silence. Bentley, sitting with the yokelines in his hand, heard echoed words come gently back at intervals. “No harm… pardon… aid…”