Vendetta: The Dorset Boy - Book 6

by Christopher C Tubbs

  Oh Christ! he thought as the symbolism hit him. Anne had been beheaded for treason by Henry VIII and had spent her last hours in these rooms. The Prince Regent wouldn’t have her tried for treason, would he?

  He entered and was struck by the austerity of the rooms with the bare stone walls and wooden floors, heavy oak furniture and dim, dirty windows. His guide led him through to another room which was furnished with some more contemporary furniture and there he found Marie and the Prince sat opposite each other in lounge chairs.

  She was dressed in a plain dress with her unbound hair falling over her shoulders. She looked the twin of Linette like that and he had to remind himself who she was and what she had tried to do. The look she gave him spoke of both defiance and fear.

  He bowed to the Prince and said,

  “Your Highness, I have returned to report on my mission.”

  “Oh, come and sit-down Martin, no need for all that stuffiness here,” replied the Prince and gestured for him to take a seat in a chair to his right.

  Marty sat and a servant came in and handed him a glass of port.

  “I must say you have lived up to your weputation and have done an admiwable job!” the Prince chirped happily.

  “It went well, your Highness, but there is one thing that has eluded me,” Marty confessed. The Prince raised an eyebrow in question and nodded for him to continue. “We found the plans in the Minister’s baggage and I personally burnt them.”

  “Oh, well done!” cried the Prince with relief.

  “But,” Marty continued, “there was one missing.” He looked at Marie. “Your insurance?”

  She gave him a dirty look and huffed as she turned away.

  “You didn’t have it on you when we took you from the embassy in Madrid, Linette would have found it. Did you hide it in your rooms there?”

  Marie spun around eye’s blazing, “yes, and you will never find it. Only I know where it is, and it will stay there until some Spaniard discovers it or I remove it myself after I have been given a guarantee I will not be put on trial

  The Prince’s eyes went wide, then dangerously narrow, and was about to say something when Marty held up his hand. “Please do not worry, Your Highness. That segment of the plans has been destroyed.”

  “But you said you hadn’t found it!” he exclaimed in exasperation.

  “We didn’t,” Marty replied. “But we did burn down the embassy and everything in it.”

  Marie looked shocked. The Prince looked amazed, then burst out laughing.

  “My God! You don’t do things by half do you,” he chuckled. “Now, my girl we can start our little discussion over again!”

  “Your Highness, may I make a suggestion?” Marty asked.

  Prince George looked at him shrewdly and nodded.

  “We have managed to prevent any harm from being done but some punishment must be meted out. However, both the court and government would be extremely sensitive to the scandal that a trial would generate. Not to mention the public reaction. May I suggest that Marie be presented with a stipend and passage to St Lucia? She can live there in exile until it is safe for her to return to France. We can monitor her whereabouts and behavior through the garrison on the island.”

  Marie looked at him in horror.

  “The alternative is that you disappear the other way, no trial, no chance of appeal, no future. Just an unmarked grave.”

  “Louise would never allow you to . . .” she gasped.

  “She would never know,” Marty lied, hoping that his bluff wouldn’t be called.

  The Prince looked at him in shock, Marie in horror. Marty just sat back and exposed the handle of one of his stilettoes by pulling back his sleeve an inch.

  “I don’t have a choice, then,” Marie concluded bitterly.

  “Not really,” Marty replied, pulling his sleeve back down.

  Martin accompanied Prince George back to St James’ Palace where he sent a message to Linette telling of her sister’s fate and asking her to pack her wardrobe and necessities for the voyage. He added that she would have enough funds to live comfortably there until the situation in France enabled both of them to return to their homeland safely.

  The Prince took Marty to his private apartments and invited him to stay for supper as he wanted a full report, which he got, Navy-style.

  “I must say it all sounds dashed exciting,” he exclaimed as Marty concluded. “That team of yours sounds like a dastardly bunch of scoundwels.”

  “I am sure they would be flattered by such a description,” Marty replied with a hint of a smile.

  “I suppose I should weward you,” Prince George said with a sly look.

  Marty sighed inwardly; this could get awkward if he wasn’t careful.

  “Not at all your Highness,” he replied after a sip of wine.

  “Please call me George when we are alone,” insisted the Prince.

  “As far as I and my men were concerned it was a mission in defense of our country and our duty to carry it out to the best of our ability.”

  “Nevertheless, you have done me a great sewvice and I will take a pewsonal intewest in your progwess from now on,” George continued.

  “I am flattered, uh, George,” he said to the beaming Prince, while thinking that was the last thing he needed.

  “I heard from Hood that you were off to Gibraltar to sow havoc with the Spanish.”

  Did you now, Marty thought.

  “That is the plan, but we need to get our ships refitted and a replacement for the Tempest first,” he said.

  “And how long will it take for the refit?” George asked.

  “They tell us it will be our turn once the Agamemnon is repaired. She took a fair amount of damage at Trafalgar,” Marty told him. “Once they start, each ship will take six weeks to two months, but they tell me they will have two drydocks available by then so we shouldn’t have to wait more than three to four months for all three. Once we have the first two, we can move most of the team down to Gibraltar and the other can follow later.”

  “And you still don’t know whether you will get a weplacement for the, what was it, Tempest?”

  “No, unfortunately not,” Marty admitted.

  The rest of the evening went well. The food was excellent, as one would expect, and the company was charming. No more was said about Marie or Marty’s upcoming mission.

  Two weeks later, Alouette and Hornfleur entered drydock to begin their refit and the bribes started to flow. New extra thick copper, rigging, replacement masts, where they were damaged, soft planks in the hull replaced and new stronger knees fitted so they could fit bigger guns.

  Then Marty received a package from the Admiralty by courier.

  “By the Commissioners for executing the Office of the Lord High Admiral of Great Britain &c and of all His Majesty's Plantations.

  To Captain Martin Alfred Stockley hereby appointed Captain of His Majesty's Ship Formidiable.

  By virtue of the Power and Authority to us given We do hereby constitute and appoint you Captain of His Majesties Ship Formidiable willing and requiring you forthwith to go on board and take upon you the Charge and Command of Captain in her accordingly. Strictly Charging and Commanding all the Officers and Company belonging to the said ship subordinate to you to behave themselves jointly and severally in their respective Employments with all the Respect and Obedience unto you their said Captain; And you likewise to observe and execute as well the General printed Instructions as what Orders and Directions you shall from time to time receive from your superior Officers for His Majesty's service. Hereof nor you nor any of you may fail as you will answer the contrary at your peril. And for so doing this shall be your Warrant. Given under our hands and the Seal of the Office Admiralty this 20th day of March in the one thousandth eight hundredth and sixth Year of His Majesty's Reign.

  By Command of their Lordships

  It was accompanied by a second letter telling him that the ship was in Portsmouth Harbour with half a crew and that
he was to make up the other half himself. He was to make sail in accordance with his standing orders from Admiral Hood.

  “Well, bugger me!” he exclaimed as he finished reading both the letters.

  “Good news darling?” Caroline asked from across the table where they were eating breakfast.

  “They’ve given me the Formidiable!” he told her with a grin. “They must have brought her back to England for repair.”

  “She was fairly well bashed around when we finished with her,” Caroline commented as she picked up young James who had crawled under the table and was about to try and take Blaez’s bone from him. The children’s nurse was visiting her brother while they were in London and Caroline had decided to look after the children herself.

  “Oh, that was all mainly superficial,” Marty said thoughtfully. “It was mainly her transom and port side that took most of it.”

  “And the mast?” Caroline asked.

  “They probably just fitted whatever they had at Port Royal and patched up the rest to get her back here. She will have been fitted with a new one. I need to get word to the Tempests.” he replied and went to his study to write some messages.

  Caroline sighed and held young James tightly, her man was about to run off and do what he loved most, exercising his talent for trouble.

  That night she reminded him of what he would be missing, he got very little sleep.

  Chapter 7: A Rainy Month in Portsmouth

  Marty arrived in Portsmouth on the first of April 1806 and went straight to the harbour. There, swathed in a fine mist, two hundred yards offshore was the Formidiable, yards crossed, harbour gaskets fitted. She looked different from the first time he had seen her.

  Her hull was the same but now she sported bigger gun ports to take the twenty-eight, eighteen-pound longs the Navy had fitted. She had a pair of thirty-six-pound carronades fitted on the fore deck and four massive sixty-eight-pound carronades on the quarterdeck. He also knew she had a pair of twelve-pound longs as fore chasers and another pair in his cabin as stern chasers. She was classified as a thirty-six as she would normally have four twelve-pounders on the quarterdeck, but the big carronades were far more effective at close range.

  Her rigging was, however, totally different. She was now fitted with a taller main mast than before that had a jaunty rake to it and her sail layout was purely English. She was three years old and quite a bit of her was much younger than that.

  “She is prettier than the last time we did see her,” Sam commented. He was now officially Marty’s Cox as Tom had decided he preferred life in Cheshire with his wife. Blaez nudged his hand as if to say, come on let’s get on with it.

  “Call us a boat Sam, the others will be here soon,” Marty said without taking his eyes off her. The ‘others’ were the rest of the Shadows, his followers, who weren’t going to let him go anywhere without them, and Fletcher, who had volunteered to be his purser and had somehow bribed, or blackmailed more likely, someone on the Navy board to give him the position at very short notice. They were following in a pair of carts containing his luggage and furniture.

  Sam gave a piercing whistle and a boat manned by an old man and a teenage boy pulled up at the steps. Blaez jumped straight in scaring the boy but Sam quickly followed and reassured him, but the boy hadn’t seen a black man before and Sam was very fierce looking so all he succeeded in doing was scaring him even more. Before the whole thing dissolved into a farce Marty stepped down, commanded Blaez to lay down and sat between Sam and the two boatmen.

  His presence calmed them, and they pushed the boat away from the steps and started to row across to the frigate. There was absolutely no wind, so they didn’t attempt to raise a sail. The drizzle was persistent though and soon Marty’s boat cloak was dripping water.

  There was a hail from the ship, and the boatman replied, “Formidable!” which was close enough and indicated the Captain was approaching. Marty asked him to row around the ship once before hooking onto the chains by the entry port. It gave him a chance to look her over and the crew onboard to organise a reception committee.

  From the papers he had been given he knew he had new second and third lieutenants, a pair of midshipmen, the usual warrants, less a purser, a division of Marines and half a crew already on board. Ackermann was his First and he was expecting him in a couple of days with Shelby, the ships physician/surgeon.

  She was a beauty! Spanish built to a French design she was long at over two hundred and fifty feet on the gun deck, forty feet wide at the beam and drew a tad under fourteen feet fully laden. The gingerbread on her stern had been picked out in gold at some time and looked a bit scabby now with all the repairs and she had a brand-new rudder.

  The circuit completed, the teenager hooked onto the chains and Marty stood ready to board. He moved his sword to a place where it wouldn’t trip him, stepped onto the first batten and gripped the side ropes, which he noted were freshly whitened. Up he went and as his head cleared the deck the Spithead nightingales started to sing their song.

  His two new lieutenants were there to greet him, fresh faced, neither was more than twenty-two years old.

  “Captain Stockley, welcome aboard the Formidiable,” his new second lieutenant said and touched his forelock after Marty had doffed his hat to the quarterdeck.

  “Phillip Trenchard, Second Lieutenant at your service,” he continued as Marty locked eyes with him. Christ, he is intense! he thought, caught by Marty’s very direct look.

  “Any relation of Captain Trenchard of the Poseidon?” Marty asked.

  “My uncle, sir,” he replied. “What the hell?” he exclaimed.

  Marty turned to see Sam’s head appear over the side with Blaez draped around his neck. He twisted so the dog could reach the planking and then tilted his shoulders, so he slid off on to the decking.

  Blaez looked around his new domain stepped forward, sniffed Trenchard’s groin then took up position on Marty’s right. Sam took the time to get up onto the deck and position himself just behind Marty’s left shoulder.

  “My cox, Samuel, and my dog, Blaez,” Marty said in introduction then looked at the third lieutenant who was nervously moving his weight from foot to foot.

  “May I introduce Third Lieutenant Andrew Stamp,” Trenchard said, getting the hint and moving down the line. Marty shook hands then moved on down the line, forcing Trenchard to keep up.

  “Please assemble the men so I can read myself in,” he said as the introductions finished.

  He walked up the steps to the quarterdeck and positioned himself by the rail. He took his commission from his pocket and read it out in a clear strong voice. At the end he cast an eye over the ship. It looked in good order, despite just coming out of the yard, then looked across the crew. He didn’t recognise any of them.

  Dammit! I suppose I had better say something.

  “I don’t know what you were told when you were ordered to join this ship but if you are here you are a volunteer. Pressed men have no place in the work we will be doing.” A muttering ran around the men and he waited until it stopped. “You will be joined shortly by the crew of my last ship; they will tell you what you need to know and if you decide you don’t want to be part of our happy band then you can leave. The Formidiable is the lead ship of the Special Operations Flotilla and will be involved in dangerous, sometimes profitable, and always interesting missions. Mr. Ackermann, our First Lieutenant, will join us in a couple of days, as will the rest of the crew. In the meantime, we will continue to provision and prepare the ship for sail. Dismiss the men, Mr. Trenchard.”

  Marty had been looking around the faces as he spoke and had seen curiosity, amusement and caution but no fear. They’ll do, he thought.

  “I will carry out a ship-wide inspection in twenty minutes,” he said quietly to Trenchard. “I will expect to meet all the officers, mids and warrants on my way around.”

  He entered his cabin to find it sparsely furnished. There was a cot suspended by ropes from the ceiling in his sleeping
quarters and an old desk and chair in his day room. The room was bigger than he remembered it when he had been a prisoner, when the Spanish captain had furnished it with a lot of chunky chairs and tables. He was going to have to go shopping.

  There were the two twelve-pound stern chasers tied down securely either side against the hull ready to be run out if the need came upon them. He would need a cover for them as well.

  Sam came in from the direction of the steward’s cabin, he was going to need one of those as well. Shit! I am unprepared for this, he thought in panic. Forcing himself to calm down he grinned at his cox.

  “A bit bigger than we’re used to isn’t it,” he said.

  “You can give de dog a room of his own if you got too much boss,” Sam replied with a grin.

  Marty ignored the incorrect honorific as Sam only used it when they were alone and looked up when there was a loud bump of what sounded like a heavily laden boat hitting the side and then there were shouts of alarm.

  “What the hell?” he said and made his way up to the quarterdeck.

  It was chaos. They were being boarded over both sides, screaming men swarmed over the sides grabbing the crew and shoving them into a huddle amidships. Some screaming a war cry – AY, AY, AY AY, AY, EEEAAAAH. Any that didn’t move fast enough were kicked and pushed; a group of half-naked black men with white markings painted on their bodies waved broad bladed spears and danced a macabre dance of death. Samuel started to chuckle; the Tempests had arrived.

  Marty fought hard to keep a straight face as Ackermann, resplendent in his new uniform, walked out of the group and up to the quarterdeck.

  “The Formidiable has been secured sir,” he reported as he saluted, “and I wish to inform you that the ship is now at full strength.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Ackermann,” Marty replied, touching his hat in return. “You may release the prisoners and meet me in my quarters to explain how you got here two days early with the entire crew of the Tempest.”