‘Is this it, blackamoor?’ said Rankin. ‘All you got on me was how fast I scarpered to the bleeding galley, and how Sam here reckons I shopped Ludlow?’
‘We saw you throttle that poor fecking Dane in Copenhagen,’ added O’Malley.
‘So are you saying you ain’t never seen this big ticker what Ludlow lifted?’ asked Sedgwick.
‘Never.’
‘Then how did you know it were an Earnshaw?’ continued the coxswain. ‘You said it right here, not three days ago. It sounded odd at the time.’
‘W... what’s that you’re saying?’ stuttered Rankin, fear knotting in his stomach. He began to turn on his stool.
‘Belay that,’ growled Hibbert in his ear. ‘I’ll stick you long before you can get clear.’
‘You named it as an Earnshaw,’ continued Sedgwick. ‘And you was right, it is. I got the Yank to show me it. Thomas Earnshaw of London, it says, writ across the face. Only you have to open the box it comes in to see any of that, an’ you just said you never set eyes on it.’
‘Must of heard it mentioned then,’ said Rankin. ‘Any road, you still ain’t said how me running for coffee can kill a man.’
By way of answer Sedgwick held up a little polished brass bottle, the surface richly engraved. The light from the lantern overhead sparkled off the metal. Rankin stopped the involuntary movement of his hand towards his coat pocket, but all had seen it. There was a further growl from Hibbert.
‘Where did you...’ began Rankin.
‘It ain’t just Londoners as can lift stuff,’ said Sedgwick. ‘Every slave needs to thieve, to survive on the plantations. When you ran after that Lobster, like your arse was ablaze, you had no time to fetch nothing. I figured that whatever you put in Ludlow’s scoff had to be on you that morning. A quick root in your pockets, and I found this.’ The coxswain pulled out the stopper and sniffed cautiously. ‘Smells rank,’ he declared. ‘What is it then? Some manner of poison?’
‘It’s just balm,’ said Rankin, ‘from out east, for my joints.’ Sedgwick shrugged and handed the bottle back to him.
‘Let’s hope that’s true.’ The valet shook the bottle beside his ear
‘What’s going on?’ he demanded. ‘It’s bleeding empty!’ Sedgwick rose to his feet, along with the others and Rankin felt the prick of Hibbert’s knife removed.
‘Glad you enjoyed your burgoo, Josh,’ said Evans, leaning close.
******
Nicholas Vansittart walked with care, avoiding the low beams overhead as he followed Corbett towards the canvas screen.
‘I am most concerned about your servant, sir,’ the surgeon was saying. ‘He presented to me with much the same symptoms as that Ludlow fellow. Blood in his stools and vomit, a growing lethargy of pulse, and yet little sign of any real fever. I must confess to being most uncertain as to the cause.’
‘Do you believe he will die?’ asked the diplomat, coming to a halt.
‘Very like that he will, I fear, sir,’ said the doctor. ‘Of course nothing is certain, but Ludlow succumbed within a matter of hours.’
‘Rankin dead,’ murmured Vansittart.
‘He may yet surprise us,’ said Corbett. ‘His constitution is stronger than that of Ludlow, who was a rather inferior specimen. In any event, he is most insistent on speaking with you.’
The surgeon unfastened a flap and held it to one side. Vansittart ducked through the canvas screen and into the sick bay of the Griffin. An oil lamp swung to and fro just beside his head, sending yellow light and deep shadow running across the tiny space and the two patients it contained. The occupant of one hammock lay quiet, while in the other a sailor was having the dressing on his heavily bandaged foot unwound by the surgeon’s assistant.
‘I were just telling Tom here as how I can’t be losing my foot, Mr Corbett, sir,’ said the seaman, his face beaded with sweat. ‘They’ll throw me on the parish, and what will my Kate and the nipper do then?’
‘Then you should have attended to where your foot was placed during yesterday’s practice with the great guns, Morgan,’ said Corbett, peering at his patient over the top of his silver-rimmed glasses.
‘That larboard carriage wheel ain’t never rolled true,’ muttered the sailor, as the dressing fell open to reveal a blackened mass, encrusted with dried blood. The surgeon bent over the soiled bandages that his assistant held out and sniffed at them.
‘Hmm,’ he muttered, before advancing like a bloodhound across to the crushed foot. Some more sniffing and he stood back upright. ‘There is no putrefaction. I dare say if that remains the case we may yet save the limb. But at the first hint of corruption, I shall be reaching for my saw. We do not wish Mistress Kate to be obliged to dress in widow’s weeds, eh?’
‘Fair enough, sir,’ said Morgan, easing himself back in the hammock. ‘Truss it up, and make all fast, if you please, Tom,’ he said, to the sickbay attendant.
‘Now then, Mr Vansittart, let us see if your man is still conscious,’ said Corbett, moving across to the second patient. ‘You will need to lean close, for the power of his voice is quite spent. Do you have a cloth to mask your nose and mouth? I do not think there is contagion, but while I am so uncertain about what ails him we had best take care. It would be a sad pass if we were to lose you as well.’
‘Quite so,’ said Vansittart, producing a large emerald green handkerchief from his pocket. The scent of cologne filled the tiny space as he scrunched it into a wad and held it over his lower face and then took Corbett’s place beside the hammock.
The valet had been transformed in appearance since he had seen him earlier that day. The tanned face was grey and drawn, the lips blue and flecked with a dry white scum, and the hand that gripped the top edge of the blanket trembled uncontrollably. He had expected Rankin to be asleep, but found two fierce eyes staring back at him.
‘How do you fare now, Rankin?’ he asked, bending his ear close to pick up the answer.
‘Shit... ’ came the reply, just above a whisper. ‘Done... for...’
‘I am very sorry to hear that, Rankin. I truly am.’
‘Owe... me...’ stuttered the valet. ‘Murder... tsar...’ Vansittart glanced over his shoulder. The assistant was busy dressing Morgan’s foot, while Corbett had moved away and was looking through his dispensary chest.
‘Steady, Rankin,’ he murmured. ‘Let us not speak of such things, until you are mended.’ The valet reached out with a trembling hand, and drew him closer by his lapel.
‘Dying... poison...’ he gasped. ‘Bastards... burgoo...’
‘You make no sense, Rankin,’ said Vansittart. ‘What poison? Who did this?’
‘Sedgwick!’ he whispered, with a final effort. ‘Kill... him... tsar...’
‘Very well,’ said the diplomat. ‘I believe I follow you. You think that the captain’s coxswain is responsible for what has happened to you, and you wish to be avenged? Is that it?’
The huge effort made by the dying Rankin had washed past now, leaving him exhausted. His eyes closed and his chest heaved a little. A droplet of bright red rolled out from one nostril. Then his head faintly nodded, and was still. The diplomat pried open the hand that clutched his coat, and let it fall back onto the blanket.
‘Did he have anything of import to recount, sir?’ asked the surgeon, coming to his side and feeling for the patient’s wrist. With his other hand he pulled out his watch and flipped open the cover.
‘What?’ queried Vansittart, still deep in thought. ‘Oh, nothing of note. A sweetheart to whom he wishes to be remembered, and a message for his mother, that is all. Tell me, did you find a small metal bottle on his person?’
‘With an oriental pattern, sir?’ asked Corbett. ‘I believe it is in the coat hanging there, together with a curious length of cord.’
‘I had best look after those,’ said the diplomat. ‘How is he?’
‘Ebbing fast, I fear,’ said the surgeon, peeling back an eyelid.
‘Good, good,’ muttered Vansittart, his hands alr
eady deep in the pockets of his valet’s jacket.
‘I beg your pardon?’ queried Corbett. ‘What is it that you find to be good?’
‘Eh, I meant that it is for the best that the poor man’s ordeal is almost at an end. Would you excuse me now, Doctor?’
******
The frigate made good progress after her encounter with the Liberté, rushing ever southward and westward, with a northerly wind driving her on. The days ticked by, each spent crossing a Baltic empty of ice, and slowly beginning to fill with shipping once more. But all the sails they encountered fled before them, unsure whether the warship was friend or foe, till one afternoon she finally rounded Maklappen Point at the extreme southwest tip of Sweden and entered the approaches to Copenhagen. From the masthead, the green spires and trailing chimney smoke of the Danish capital was in sight, together with the distant masts of a large fleet that lay in the Sound. Almost within touching distance, if only the wind would change direction. The sun had some spring warmth in it, but was steadily dropping towards the horizon.
‘Can we not make more progress, Clay?’ asked Vansittart, gesturing towards the north.
‘Not at present, sir,’ reported the captain. ‘This wind is dead foul, and unless it should shift we can only advance by beating into it, as we are doing. Mr Armstrong believes those clouds there may indicate change.’ He reached out to touch the rail with his hand as he said this, and the diplomat noticed the gesture.
‘You don’t seem very assured,’ he observed.
‘I have been a mariner for too many years to predict what the weather will do with any confidence,’ said Clay. ‘But I too am anxious to get up with the fleet. They are just off Copenhagen now, and if I know Lord Nelson he will not long delay getting to grips with the enemy.’
‘Quite so,’ said Vansittart. ‘Can’t you send one of those deuced signals you naval coves are always rattling on about? With flags and the like?’
‘None that can be seen at dusk, from fifteen miles away, sir,’ observed the captain.
‘How vexing,’ said the diplomat.
‘I have yet to say how sorry I was at the death of your valet,’ said Clay, after a pause. ‘Mr Corbett is quite bemused as to what killed him and Ludlow. He did fear it might be some sickness, but the rest of the crew seem unaffected.’
‘Ah, yes, most unfortunate,’ said Vansittart. ‘Thank you for your concern, but pray, have no anxiety on my part. Mr Taylor was good enough to furnish me with one of your volunteers, who makes a decidedly superior servant.’ Vansittart was about to say something more when Clay held up a hand, and looked towards the commissioning pennant at the masthead.
‘Do you feel that, Mr Taylor?’ he called.
‘Aye, sir,’ replied the first lieutenant. ‘Now blowing north-northeast, perhaps?’
‘Maybe even further round, sir,’ suggested Armstrong. ‘Northeast by north, I should say. Change, just as I predicted!’
The diplomat looked from one naval officer to the next. ‘I confess to not having the pleasure of understanding you gentlemen at all, with your this-this by that, but I am sure you know your business,’ he sniffed. ‘Does all this mean we may yet reach our destination?’
‘The wind is shifting, sir,’ said Clay. ‘Should it continue to do so, we may come up with the fleet by nightfall.’
The wind did indeed continue to swing around until it settled in the east, with the promise that it might back further. Now the Griffin made much better progress, although Clay’s prediction was a little off. It was after dark when they came sliding across the calm waters of the Sound once more, towards the mass of anchored warships, their bulky hulls and web of masts backlit by the glow of Copenhagen, spread along the shore.
‘What is the current night recognition signal, Mr Preston?’ asked Clay of the officer of the watch beside him.
‘A red bengal and a blue light, displayed together from the foretop, sir,’ replied the lieutenant.
‘Have it made now, if you please.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Preston. Soon crimson and blue shone out from high up in the rigging, while Todd, the teenage signal midshipman, watched the flagship through a night glass.
‘Flagship has made the correct response, sir,’ reported the youngster. ‘Oh, and now they’re signalling!’ There was a pause while a pattern of coloured lamps formed in the rigging of the lead ship.
‘It's for us, sir. Captain to repair onboard.’
‘Thank you, Mr Todd,’ said Clay. ‘Acknowledge, if you please.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ came the reply.
‘Mr Preston, kindly have my barge called away, and pass the word for Mr Vansittart,’ ordered Clay.
‘Aye aye, sir,’ said the lieutenant.
Soon Vansittart was making his uncertain way down the frigate’s side, breathing heavily in the dark. He was being hurried along by the barge crew, all anxious not to tarnish their ship’s reputation by keeping the admiral waiting.
‘Yes, yes, I am descending as quickly as I am able, unless you desire me drowned?’ he said testily. Clay went after him, clutching his package of reports with everything that had occurred since the Griffin had left Great Yarmouth, seemingly an age ago. It had come as something of a surprise, when leafing through the log book earlier, to find that the frigate had been at sea for a bare few months. He settled himself in the stern sheets next to his coxswain.
‘Give way, if you please,’ he ordered. ‘Far side of the flagship, Sedgwick. It is too late for ceremony.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ said his coxswain. ‘Push off in the bow, there! Give way larboards!’ The boat turned in a tight circle towards the line of warships and quickly crossed the few hundred yards of sea between the side of the frigate and the two-decked ship of the line.
‘Boat ahoy,’ came a hail from ahead.
‘Griffin!’ replied Sedgwick, followed by an urgent hiss towards the boat crew. ‘Pull handsomely in the bow there!’
The big hull towered above them like a cliff. Sedgwick rounded her stern and rowed into the pool of light that came from the double line of windows above them. Water sloshed and sucked against the big seventy-four’s enormous rudder as they passed beneath the counter, and Clay glanced up to read the ship’s name in the light.
‘Elephant,’ he mused. ‘Surely that is Captain Foley’s ship?’
‘I daresay it is,’ said Vansittart from out of the gloom. ‘What of it?’
‘I served with him in the Mediterranean a few years back,’ said Clay. ‘But my surprise is to find that his is a flagship. It was nothing of the sort when we left.’
‘Easy there!’ ordered the coxswain. ‘In oars! Clap on in the bow!’ The boat swept neatly up to the thin steps built into the warship’s bulging side.
‘Have a care on these, sir,’ said Clay, looking at the diplomat. ‘The lower ones will be slick and treacherous, and the side of a seventy-four is higher than you imagine.’
‘Me and the lads will see him aboard, sir,’ said Sedgwick, as Clay made his way to the side of the boat, grabbed hold of the hand rope, and climbed up to the entry port.
‘Boyo! Now I know things are serious!’ said the well-remembered voice, and Clay found his hand engulfed by the big Welshman’s paw.
‘Good to see you again, sir,’ he smiled. ‘My, but it’s been a while.’ There was a frantic scrabbling sound from behind, and his companion arrived, with a hand on his hat and his coat awry, having been boosted up the side with some force from below. ‘May I name the Honourable Nicholas Vansittart? This is Captain Thomas Foley, who commanded the Goliath at the Battle of the Nile.’
‘In truth, I just followed Clay ‘ere,’ replied the Welshman, giving his fellow captain a playful punch on the arm. ‘Welcome aboard, Mr Vansittart.’
‘Delighted, I am sure,’ replied the diplomat, straightening his clothes before holding out his hand.
‘Right, follow astern,’ said Foley. ‘Let’s get a glass of something with his lordship.’
The gr
eat cabin of the Elephant was full of light and activity. Several midshipmen sat in a line along the dining table, like pupils at a school desk, copying out orders. Others stood beside them, waiting to take them away. At another table a group of officers were gathered around a sailing master, who was explaining something on a chart. In the corner, a tiny man lay on a cot, dictating fresh orders to a clerk sat beside the bed. Hanging on a peg near him was a heavily decorated coat. He looked over when Foley came in, then jumped up from the bed to patter over in his stockinged feet. The empty sleeve of his shirt reminded Clay of Preston, but there any similarity ended as he took in the familiar figure. The long brown hair was threaded with a little silver above the temples now, but the prominent nose and generous mouth were much as he remembered. Once again, he went through the uncertainty as to which eye he should focus on. He ignored the right, blank as a shark’s, and looked instead at the one that sparkled with pleasure.
‘Captain Clay, my dear sir!’ exclaimed Nelson, his accent thick Norfolk. ‘I felt sure that you would somehow contrive to be present for our battle! Did I not say as much, Captain Foley? There is no man in the service with a better nose for the scent of gun smoke.’
‘I am truly delighted to see you again, my lord,’ said Clay. ‘If only so I can thank you properly for the invaluable letter you wrote for my court martial.’
‘It was nothing,’ said Nelson. ‘Why such a drama was being made of a fighting captain losing his command is beyond me. If I had been censured every time I ran a ship into danger, I should have long ago been out of the service and never in the House of Peers! But I am uncommonly pleased that you are here. Now I shall have a good few of my Band of Nile Brothers with me. You and Foley of course, Tom Hardy too, Freemantle in the Ganges and Thompson in the Bellona. God help the poor Danes when we come at them, what?’
‘I believe you know Mr Vansittart,’ said Clay, bringing the diplomat into the conversation.
‘Welcome, sir,’ said the admiral. ‘We received your dispatch from Copenhagen after the Danes refusal to comply with your demands. It was most welcome for getting the fleet away from Great Yarmouth at long last. Without it, I daresay Sir Hyde would still be hosting balls for his new wife! But now there is a battle to be won, he at least has had the good sense to leave the fighting to me.’
In Northern Seas Page 23
