Hoare and the Portsmouth Atrocities cbh-1

by Wilder Perkins

  "We Coastguardsmen have to make do with ourselves as clerks," Mr. Popham explained as he cleared a clutter of papers from the table and the extra chair.

  "Give me your opinion of this burgundy, sir, will ye? Took it off Rose just last week."

  It would be one of the Coast Guard's quiet perquisites, Hoare knew, and it was worth every penny the smugglers would have gotten.

  As soon as courtesy permitted, Hoare brought up the matter of the sandy "anker." In doing so, of course, he dutifully distinguished between anker, a vessel for holding liquids, and "anchor," for holding a vessel, and joined Mr. Popham in the obligatory laugh.

  Mr. Popham remembered the anker well. He also knew well Dickon Dee, the sand-loving fisherman, and was amused at Hoare's description of their encounter.

  "It did, indeed, come ashore just where he told you it did," he said. "I would have told you that had you asked me… but then, I think you really wanted to meet Dickon Dee and test his powers."

  Hoare smiled acknowledgment.

  "It was an interesting little object," Popham said. "Did you notice what I noticed?"

  Hoare looked inquiring and waited.

  "We're accustomed to seeing French cooperage, of course-ankers, demi-kegs, kegs, barrels, even a tun now and then. They come ashore as well as being brought ashore, if you take my meaning. But you could tell from the scarfing and rabbering that this was a good, stout English anker, not French. The French coopers contrive it differently, Mr. Hoare."

  "I had not known, sir," Hoare said.

  "Now, sir," Popham went on, "what puzzles me is why an English anker would be cast adrift in such a fashion, with the contents that puzzled you.

  "What did you make of the message?"

  "What message?" Hoare asked.

  "The message in the anker, with the clockwork, of course."

  "There was no message in the anker… at least, not when it passed through my hands. What was it like?"

  "A cipher, or I'm a lizard. On gray waterproof paper…"

  Mr. Popham might be describing either the message Mrs. Graves had described or the ones Hoare had seen with his own eyes. Here was another piece in the puzzle, but where did it fit?

  "I'll be damned, Popham," Hoare said. "This is most interesting information. I'm greatly obliged to you for it-as well as the burgundy.

  "But now, I must be under way, or I'll miss my tide."

  Popham rose to usher his guest from the cutter. "You'll have ten minutes to get out into the Channel and catch it. It's been a pleasure, sir. Come visit Walpole again, next time you're this way."

  "And let me offer you a glass of Madeira, Mr. Popham, when you call in Portsmouth. The Swallowed Anchor will find me."

  Unimaginable idled along under the slowly circling summer stars on a broad reach, her high mainsail and full clubbed jib drawing her gently toward Portsmouth at no more than a knot. The flowing tide, Hoare reckoned, would give her perhaps four knots over the ground. At this rate, she would reach home by noon tomorrow. He sighed, leaned back against her taffrail, and mused about Dr. Graves's clockwork. Had the doctor possessed enough leisure and enough talent to keep not just one but two inquiries in the air at a time-the clockwork project and his undertaking with Morrow? More distressing: Dr. Graves could have built his clockwork devices for an English agent, as he had told his wife. But Hoare could not understand why an Englishman would have been so havey-cavey about the arrangement. Unwittingly-or wittingly-Dr. Graves could have undertaken the work for a man in French pay. If so, had he done so unwittingly? Had he known? Had he himself, perhaps, been the agent?

  These thoughts interwove themselves in Hoare's brain with thoughts about the ciphered messages. Now, he was sure. There must be a link between the anker full of clockwork, Dr. Graves, and the late Mr. Kingsley of Vantage. What was it? And why had the two men-so different in ability and calling- been killed?

  The fog's sudden onset caught Hoare by complete surprise. A slightly heavier breath of breeze, a brief gurgle under Unimaginable's bows, and the stars vanished. With them went the wind. The pinnace slowed perceptibly. Hoare's view forward shortened, was gone. Within a minute, he could barely make out Unimaginable's own mast, and she lay idle, sails slatting in a low, greasy leftover swell. Only the faint red and green glows of her running lights reached him now.

  He went below to get out the conch shell he used as a fog horn. Back on deck again, he returning to his niche against the taffrail and blew a long, mournful hoot into the featureless gray-black. He repeated the blast about every minute, counting by his regular pulse. Between hoots, he listened.

  There were no other hoots, though once he thought to hear a faint echo of his own.

  Aft, a faint blur in the darkness. He aimed the conch toward it and hooted.

  "Ahoy," came a quiet call.

  Not being able to reply, he set down the conch, drew out his boatswain's pipe, and twittered.

  A blaze, a crack, and a stunning blow across the back of his head, and the stars returned, flickering across his vision like so many fireworks. He slumped sideways. So this was death, he thought.

  He could not have been unconscious for more than a minute. He could not understand, he could not see, he could not move… but he could feel, for he felt a soft thump against Unimaginable's larboard side. He could hear. He heard a man say something. He could not understand. As far as he could tell, he was sprawled against the tiller, looking upward and seeing only the fog… or nothing.

  He felt Unimaginable lurch to larboard with the weight of someone coming aboard. Whoever it was-he could see! — leaned over him, picked him up by the shoulders, and shook him. His jaw lolled. Pain lanced through his head, and he heard the steady, slow drip of his blood on Unimaginable's quarterdeck. Damn him, he thought, and laughed at himself. I'll make the bloody bastard pay for bloodying my bloody quarterdeck with my own bloody blood.

  "Mort. Bon." He understood this, well enough. "Aides-moi, louche. Mettons-le en bas."

  Another man came aboard. Between the two of them, they hauled Hoare to Unimaginable's hatchway and dropped him below. He landed on his face and felt his nose crunch against the cabin table. He heard at least one of the men follow him, using the more civilized ladder. A light flared. A fist took him by the hair, picked his head up, and dropped it onto the floorboards.

  "Vous devez lui couper la gorge, monsieur, pour la surete," said the second man. ("You'd better cut his throat, sir, to be sure.)

  "Non. Il a ete officer et gentilhomme. Viens; prends-toi les pieds. Vite, alors!" (No. He was an officer and a gentleman. Come on, take his feet. Quickly.)

  Both men's French had an odd, eerily familiar accent. But Hoare was very tired. He decided to go away again.

  Hoare's right side lay in water. The other side was cold and wet. The back of his head throbbed, and he could not breathe through his swollen nose, so he could smell nothing. But he could see again. A square of fog showed him the open hatchway through which the boarders had dropped him. And he could hear-the heavy slosh of seawater about him and the regular bump, bump, bump of some pot or other swanning about in Unimaginable's bilges.

  And he could move. He reached painfully up with one arm, gripped the edge of the table, and heaved enough so as to bring the other arm up in aid of its friend.

  Had the boarders stove Unimaginable in, then? If they had, he thought wildly, he'd have their balls for breakfast. But she could not have taken on much water yet. If he knew where he was… He was sitting in water, not on the combined floorboards and trail boards that bore Unimaginable's aliases, but directly in her bilges. The hard object intent on grinding him a new arsehole was her open seacock. Being a small, tight vessel, she only needed one cock. By being lightly impaled on it, he was keeping Unimaginable afloat by keeping it from doing its proper work of letting in the Channel. He apologized to the seacock, turned it off, vomited an ounce of bitter bile, rolled over, and fainted again in the bilges.

  Hoare returned to his senses to see gray da
ylight outlined in the hatchway. Unimaginable still lay hove-to, swaying heavily in a slow, greasy swell. He summoned the strength to clamber up the ladder onto her deck, where he crawled forward and manned her pump. Stopping to rest after every few feeble heaves, he was able to summon a thin, intermittent stream of seawater from below to pour over the side.

  Twice he had to make his way back below to clear floating debris from the intake. On the second of these trips, he thought to get a piece of soft tack from the waterproof cupboard over his stove. He picked up a soggy stocking, wrung it out, and returned topside. He wrapped the stocking around his throbbing head and sat himself beside Unimaginable's idly swinging tiller while he devoured the bread. When he was through, he felt stable enough on his pins to get to his feet and look about him, holding onto her larboard shrouds.

  Though the sky was still a dull gray, the fog had lifted, and he could see several fisherman in the middle distance, between Unimaginable and Anvil Point. Through the haze on the horizon ahead, he could see the Needles. Unimaginable, praise God, had carried him quietly with the flowing tide past the eddies of St. Alban s Ledge during the night, without his help. She had brought him more than halfway home.

  Hoare found the strength to trim the two standing sails and set Unimaginable on an easterly course under the faint southerly breeze. Still too full of ocean for comfort, she wallowed but complied.

  Hoare felt weary, dizzy, and languid. He went below and sloshed about among the flotsam until he laid hold of a half-empty bottle of vin ordinaire and a slab of braxy ham, which he brought back on deck. Since this soaked him to the crotch once more, he resolved not to return below until Unimaginable was home and dry. The trip had been worth it, however, for the meat and wine brought a bit of energy to his body. He went forward and worked the barge's pump in a desultory way, while she idled on toward the Solent, helped along by the last of the flood. As the tide went slack, the breeze picked up, as often happens in these waters, until Unimaginable began to leave a gurgling wake. Hoare's deadened mind began to function again.

  Obviously, the two men who had boarded his craft in the fog and left him for dead were French or Channel Islanders. More likely the latter, for they were scattered all over the south coast of Britain, making their living as fishermen, workboat men, smugglers. Searching his memory, he found within a hundred miles of here only one Frenchman who was not a prisoner of war or an officer on parole-Marc-Antoine de Chatillon de Barsac, the maitre d'escrime whose Portsmouth establishment Hoare haunted whenever occasion offered. But de Barsac was a friend and, moreover, suffered from violent seasickness. He had vowed never to set foot on a waterborne vessel again until he could return to France in triumph, with his King. He would hardly have been lying in wait for Hoare off St. Alban's Head on the sunniest of June days, let alone a foggy night.

  Channel Islanders were another matter. Most of them were bilingual. They were scattered all over the Channel coast of England, earning their living as gardeners and as seamen of various types. More than one officer of the Navy-Sir James Saumarez, for instance-was a Channel Islander. Yes, his assailants could easily be Channel Islanders.

  Hoare gradually recovered his energy as the sun broke through, but for the most part, he left Unimaginable to find her own way home with only the most necessary guidance, her captain brooding as she sailed. By the late sunset of late May, she eased into the Inner Camber, still listing slightly and lying heavy in the water. She rolled like a woman about to give birth. Hoare made her fast with the help of Guilford the watchman and betook himself up the strand to the Swallowed Anchor. Here Susan the pink girl took him in hand, binding up his head and putting him to bed with a hot toddy.

  Chapter XII

  Tell me more about Kingsley," Hoare said to Janus Jaggery two mornings later. They were basking in the sunny kitchen garden of the Bunch of Grapes. The bench was out of earshot of Mr. Greenleaf's other customers, and the garden was ablaze with blossoms whose scent overbore the mild rotten reek of the kitchen s wastes. Nearby, young Jenny served "tea" to herself and three creatures that her da had just cleverly twisted out of straw to keep her company.

  "Ain't nothin' to tell, Mr. 'Oare. 'E was always a cove to try an' buy 'is way into favor with presents what 'e give to anyone 'e thought might 'elp him to advancement.

  "'E was a bum-sucker, yer worship, and a wild spender. Where did 'e get his blunt, then? 'E was too well-known in the Navy to try the gentry-lay, an' those bits of 'ardware we traded was as nuffin'. 'E was a bully. An' that's what set me off the Navy in the first place, Mr. 'Oare-the bullyin'."

  "And what else did you do to help him?" Hoare asked.

  "Well," Jaggery said reluctantly, "sometimes I'd put 'im in the way of a bit of fine goods from t'other side the Channel- a length of silk, like, for one of 'is morts. Then there was the brandy. In ankers. Lots of them. 'E got 'em himself and tended to 'em 'imself, most particular. Wouldn't 'ave me lay me 'ands on 'em, no, not at first."

  "And where did you meet to do these bits of nefarious business?"

  "I've a friend, Yer Honor, what 'as the night watch at Arrowsmith's ware'ouse. You know-the ship chandler? 'E let us use it, so long as we never took none of Arrowsmith's wares. Didn't take much space no'ow."

  "Space or no space, Jaggery, that's cappabar, as well you know-disposing illegally of His Majesty's property. Get taken up for that, and off they pack you to Botany Bay, before you can whistle. And what will happen to your little Jenny then?"

  Upon Hoare's words, Jaggery instinctively searched the tiny garden. No Jenny.

  Through the wall behind them came a squeal. Silent as any cat, Hoare got to his feet and, stooped over, threw open the door into the inn kitchen. There was a yell of pain, a crash of crockery, and the clatter of fleeing feet. Hoare went through the door in a rush, almost tripping over Jenny as the child darted back out into the garden.

  "I bit 'im, Da!" Jenny shrieked. "I bit 'im!" In her pale face, the child's eyes sparked like black fire.

  For a fraction of a second, a dark figure was silhouetted in the doorway beyond, leading into the barroom. Another crash followed, and a shout of rage from Greenleaf. Hoare raced across the barroom and thrust his head out the front door. Down the cobbled lane he saw the fugitive dodging through the throng, running like a started hare toward the water. The object the man carried in one hand caught against an awning pole, and he dropped it, continuing his flight. Hoare caught it up. It was a tapered, flexible tube, like the one Dr. Graves had demonstrated that night in Weymouth.

  It brought certain memories together: Morrow's interest in it; the enciphered messages in Kingsley's correspondence and the similar messages whose appearance Mrs. Graves had sketched; Morrow's birthplace; the oddly familiar accents of the two French-speaking men who had boarded him and beaten him a few nights ago; Janus Jaggery's admissions just now about Kingsley's ankers of "brandy." Put together for the first time, these assorted facts melded into a certainty: the man behind the mystery was Mr. Edward Morrow.

  Hoare stopped in his tracks. At forty-three, he had no hope of catching the eavesdropper himself on foot. Moreover, he sensed a far greater opportunity to forestall the fugitive in his rush to escape and report to his master. If he were to seize opportunity as well as device, there was not a moment to be lost.

  But how? True, the fugitive seemed to be making for the harbor, suggesting that he would make his escape by sea. He could, however, have been laying a false track and would change course for some inshore spot where a horse awaited.

  Hoare felt himself on the horns of a dilemma. Should he pursue by land? He had no idea how long it would take a troop of horsemen to ride from Portsmouth to Weymouth, but it had to be an eighty-mile journey. He doubted that horsemen would be able to change mounts en route, as a solitary postboy or a scheduled coach could do. And they would not want to travel at night, he supposed. It could be two days before they reached their destination. By then, the fugitive- traveling every minute except to change horses-would have
long since reached Weymouth and alerted Morrow. If Hoare traveled by land, the race was lost from the start.

  No, his only chance was to go by sea. With today's northerly wind likely to endure, Inconceivable could make the passage in less than a day, but she would arrive with an inferior force. Given the terms on which he stood with Sir Thomas Frobisher, Hoare could hardly hope to recruit a force in Weymouth or its environs. Yet if his Inconceivable were to make her best speed, she could accommodate no more than two besides himself. Well then, they'll have to be the best fighting sailors in Portsmouth, Hoare told himself. He hastened to the Admiral's offices to gather his trivial reinforcements.

  With two experienced, intelligent-looking tars in tow, Hoare was about to work his way back through the town to where Inconceivable lay when it occurred to him to search the harbor first from a spot on the Common Hard, to see if he could catch sight of the fugitives among the waterborne traffic. With a whispered apology, he seized a telescope from an elderly nautical-looking gentleman and set to examining every small craft he could see working its way southward toward the Solent.

  "See, Cyril!" came a woman's voice at his side. "Only see how our nation's guardian bends his eagle brow in search of one of His Majesty's enemies on which to swoop!"

  Hoare could not help himself. He glanced in the speaker's direction, to see a plainly dressed woman of about his own age, bending to address a child of perhaps six. Seeing that she had caught Hoare's attention, she simpered and moved away, looking over her shoulder widowlike. Hoare returned to his search.

  On the low southern horizon, about to disappear behind Gosport, a sleek schooner was just hoisting her flying jib to the soft northerly wind. She was too glossy for a fisherman; her masts were daringly raked. Besides, no mere fisherman troubled with little handkerchiefs like flying jibs. Hoare recognized her as the yacht Morrow had proudly pointed out to him from his own doorstep outside Weymouth-his Marie Claire.