Dead Man's Island

by David McDine

  It had been many years now since his widowed mother had brought him and his sisters from the newly independent United States to Portsmouth. And as soon as he was old enough he had joined the marines rather than go into his mother’s tailoring business.

  Now his accent and use of words only occasionally revealed his New England upbringing. Mostly, others mistook him for an East Anglian and Hoover was content for them to do so rather than have to answer the inevitable question about what was an American, who must therefore be a rebel, doing in a red coat.

  *

  Sarah found a jug and together they walked across to the Mermaid inn where Hoover cadged some water from the giant soot-blackened kettle kept simmering in the open inglenook fireplace.

  As they walked back Sarah asked: ‘Do I understand, sergeant, that you are from America?’

  He sighed but with the ghost of a smile. Others who asked usually got short shrift, but he did not mind telling her. ‘I can’t deny it, Miss Shrubb. I was born there true enough, but I have been in this country – your country – for a good long time now. I’m kind of, well, almost British now.’

  ‘Did you know that my father was a surgeon’s mate in the navy and served there during the American war?’

  ‘I did know that and I admire him for it.’

  ‘But would you not have been enemies then?’

  He laughed. ‘Bless you, no, Miss Shrubb. I was just a child but my father was a loyalist. Loyal to the British crown, that is. We didn’t support the rebels and as a matter of fact my father was killed by them at the Battle of Brandywine in Pennsylvania. There was nothing left for us in the States once they’d won their independence, so my mother brought me and my sisters to England.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. I did not mean to open old wounds.’

  ‘Not to worry ma’am. It was a good while ago. My mother died a few years back and my sisters are married and gone I don’t know where. Now I owe my loyalty to the marines, and my friends here. They are my family now.’

  ‘But you are still an American?’

  ‘I was born there and will ever be an American. I love America and one day I hope to return. I pray the day will come when we don’t think of people as being rebels or loyalists – just Americans.’

  She smiled understandingly. ‘My father has told me about the Bill of Rights and of all men being equal, with unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those are declarations I find I could subscribe to, just as I do the truths of the Sermon on the Mount. They are sentiments few could dispute.’

  Hoover smiled. ‘I find myself much in accord with you, Miss Shrubb, much in accord, but for now back home I’d be seen as a loyalist lackey.’

  ‘But one day you may return?’

  Hoover nodded. ‘Could be – could very well be … some day …’

  ‘My father tells me that it is not unusual for Americans to serve in our navy.’

  ‘That’s true, although most have been pressed.’

  ‘But to wear that red coat?’

  He conceded: ‘To volunteer? Yes, I guess that is a mite unusual.’

  ‘From what I hear of your escape from France with Lieutenant Anson, you are an unusual person, sergeant.’

  ‘Ma’am, Miss Shrubb, I’d reckon it real friendly if you’d drop the sergeant and call me by my proper first name.’

  She blushed. ‘Thomas, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, them that’s close call me Tom, but I’d happily settle for Thomas from you. It’s what you might call an improvement on sergeant.’

  As they re-entered the fencible building she asked: ‘Do you have religion, sergeant … Thomas?’

  ‘I was brought up in the Baptist way, ma’am, much like yourself. But I’m not exactly what Lieutenant Anson calls a God-botherer, if you’ll excuse my language.’

  They were interrupted by her father. ‘Ah, there you are, and you’ve managed to find some hot water. Well, sergeant, I’m pleased to report that all is well with the casualties. Ned Heale’s missing fingers are still absent without leave of course, and will remain so, I fear. However, the wounds are healing nicely, as is his shoulder – very clean and not in need of treatment by maggot.’

  Hoover grimaced. ‘Glad to hear that. Don’t relish the thought of seeing those grubs chewing away at a wounded man.’

  ‘But it works.’

  ‘How about Joe Hobbs?’

  ‘His thigh wound is also clean and healing well, as is Tom Hogben’s face. The stitches from temple to jaw have not improved his looks and have given his right eye a somewhat droopy look, but his mates have been telling him all will be well if he confines his courting to the hours of darkness.’

  ‘So all in all we came out of that scrap with Égalité pretty well?’ Hoover asked.

  ‘Very well indeed, when compared to the French. Now, I just need Sarah to bathe these wounds with salted water and put on fresh dressings. Then all will be shipshape. Oh, by the way, Jacob Shallow heard I was here and turned up with a nasty head cold so I have dosed him with a tincture of garlic and milk. That should do the trick.’

  Hoover grinned. ‘It’ll sure keep the rest of us well away so with luck we won’t catch it off him!’

  Leaving Sarah with the patients, Shrubb and Hoover went outside to find Tom Marsh waiting with his pony and trap.

  On the way Shrubb confided: ‘Please don’t tell him so, but I am gratified that Lieutenant Anson sought me out to help with the fencibles. It has taken me back to my own navy days and given me much more of a purpose than prescribing cures for villagers’ backaches and bowel disorders.’

  ‘Glad to hear it, Mister Shrubb, and I can tell you that we all appreciate what you and Sarah …’ he hesitated,‘I mean what you and your daughter, do for us.’

  ‘Good, good! So when Lieutenant Anson returns kindly report to him that on the whole everything is very satisfactory concerning the wounded.’

  ‘That I will, Mister Shrubb.’ Hoover hesitated again. ‘By the way, your daughter …’

  ‘What about her?’

  Hoover hesitated. ‘I was just wondering … but no, it’s nothing.’

  Phineas Shrubb looked puzzled, but kept his peace.

  3

  A Mysterious Mission

  Back in the Commissioner’s House at Chatham Dockyard, Anson followed Captain Wills into his office and they both took off their jackets and hung them beside a pot-bellied stove to dry.

  ‘Thank God that’s over!’ Captain Wills exclaimed as he waved his visitor to a chair and filled two glasses from a decanter on his desk.

  Fixing Anson with a penetrating but not unkindly stare, Wills was apparently noting that, since they had last met, the small scatter of powder burns on the lieutenant’s right cheek had been joined by a livid V-shaped scar above his left eye.

  ‘Well, my boy, I hear, and indeed I can see that you had a torrid time of it over that cutting-out raid by HMS Phryne on the Normandy coast – hit in the head, captured, escaping from France and all, eh?’

  The attempted cutting-out of a privateer from the heavily defended harbour of St Valery-en-Caux the year before had ended in disaster, leaving several dead and Anson, Fagg and Hoover stranded ashore, wounded and taken prisoner. Their eventual escape had been some feat, but nevertheless the whole episode had proved a setback to his naval career.

  ‘Torrid is a pretty good word for it, sir, and it cost me my place in the ship – any ship.’

  Missing, presumed dead, he had been replaced as second lieutenant of the frigate and on his return from France all the Admiralty had seen fit to offer him was pen-pushing, the impress service or a Sea Fencible appointment.

  The thought of being a glorified clerk had appalled him. Nor could he stomach leading gangs pressing unwilling men for naval service. So a fencible command had been his reluctant choice.

  The captain, himself serving ashore while others were winning glory, prize money and promotion afloat, was sympathetic. ‘But from what I hear since then yo
u have been earning your keep down at Seagate.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. It was not my choice but I must say it’s had its moments!’

  The captain laughed. ‘I believe that’s what they call an understatement. I was referring to the capture of that French brig.’

  ‘Égalité?’ Anson was pleased to learn that news had spread of how his fencible unit had taken the troublesome Normandy privateer that had been wreaking havoc along the south coast.

  Wills stroked his chin. ‘Yes, quite a coup capturing that blighter. I hear your divisional captain is claiming it as his personal triumph. But those who know him, well …’ Captain Wills stopped himself from speaking ill of one of equal rank in the presence of a junior, but his hesitation spoke volumes.

  ‘I’ve not seen his report, sir. He chose not to let me have sight of it before he sent it to the Admiralty.’

  ‘Well, I’m told that Hoare’s report belittles the part you played in the affair. And you’ve obviously not seen that it’s just been published in the London Gazette, so it’s now gospel.’

  This came as no surprise to Anson. ‘I’m not concerned sir. My men know what happened. They were there—’

  ‘And the district captain was not, I hear.’

  Anson smiled ruefully. His senior officer, Captain Hoare, was a self-seeking poser who had arrived on board the privateer after she had been taken but had immediately set about convincing the powers that be and anyone else who would listen that the glory was his.

  But Anson had lost no sleep over it. ‘I am happy for it to be seen as a team effort, sir, and I am proud of my Sea Fencibles. They may be thought of by some as a bunch of harbour rats, but in taking Égalité I believe they performed in the best traditions of the service.’

  He well knew that many in the navy proper, notably Hoare, were dismissive, contemptuous even, of the fencibles, largely because they were exempted from sea service at a time when men-of-war were undermanned. And, to add insult to injury, they were paid a shilling a day when undergoing training of dubious worth.

  But Captain Wills was clearly not among the doubters. He waved his hand dismissively. ‘What you have shown, Anson, is that when properly led, these “harbour rats”, as you call them, are perfectly capable as a second line of defence should the Frogs elude our men-of-war.’

  ‘That may be, sir, but of course no-one can be sure how they would perform in the event of an invasion. They’ve yet to be properly tested. Like swallows in spring, one Frenchman does not a summer make. However, our secondary role is to attack and annoy small privateers or retake any vessels that may have fallen into the enemy’s hands, and in that they have been thoroughly tested and, I trust, not been found wanting.’

  Wills banged a fist on his desk and declared: ‘Wanting? Certainly not! I hear you and your Seagate men certainly attacked that Normandy privateer with great spirit and annoyed the hell out of him, so there’s no need whatsoever to apologise for your fencibles – on the contrary!’

  ‘Thank you, sir. I must confess to being rather proud of them myself.’

  The captain raised his glass in salute. ‘Excellent, Anson, excellent! We’ll drink to that.’ He took a swig. ‘And then I have arranged for you to visit the hulk where the officer whose funeral we have just attended was incarcerated.’

  Anson was mystified. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Yes, I wish you to return the few belongings he had to the senior French officer, personally, and for you to make sure that his fellow prisoners know that the perfidious English gave their comrade as decent a burial as possible, with the appropriate military honours.’

  ‘But won’t those Frenchmen who helped bury him take his possessions back and tell them that, sir?’

  Wills shook his head and produced a canvas bag. ‘They were from a different hulk. In any event the prisoners are in such dire straits that there’s no guarantee that these few possessions would ever reach those he wanted to have them. Those fellows at the funeral would doubtless have converted his belongings, pathetic though they may be, for their own use.’

  ‘But how will I know who to hand his things to?’

  ‘I understand the man accepted by the other prisoners as their leader is a fellow named Bardet. He’s listed as a lieutenant but apparently chooses to be known as Citizen Bardet, or Citoyen Bardet as the Frogs call him. The Transport Office people and the hulk’s staff have to deal through him.’

  ‘So I am to hand the bag to him?’

  ‘Yes, to him and him alone. It’s important that he receives it from a British officer, and a sea officer at that, as I’m told he is a naval man himself. And you will do well to tell him that you were not long since a prisoner yourself – and that the French treated you well, as I hope they did. They tell me he speaks pretty good English.’

  ‘That’s a relief, sir. I tested my schoolboy French to the limit after the Normandy raid and was found wanting. None of the Frenchmen I encountered mentioned la plume de ma tante …’

  ‘Ah, yes! I, too, learned useless phrases like that at school. It’d have been much better if we’d been taught how to call upon the Frogs to strike their flags and useful stuff like that! Anyway, here’s Lieutenant Hurel’s kit, such as it is.’

  Taking charge of the bag, Anson couldn’t help looking puzzled and the captain could see that. ‘Look, my boy, I am not at liberty to put you fully in the picture at present. The reason for all this will be made known to you later.’

  ‘Very well, sir.’

  Retrieving his by now merely damp jacket, Anson put it on but as he made to leave Captain Wills held up his hand.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘By the by, Anson, meant to ask you before, I noticed you giving something to the French burial party and shaking their hands …’

  Anson paused with his hand on the door handle. ‘As you said, I was a prisoner myself, sir, and by and large the French behaved decently to me. I gave the prisoners some coins because I imagine they will use them to make their lives a little more comfortable for a few days at least.’

  Noting the captain’s quizzical look, he added: ‘War is war, sir, but I take the view that we are not savages, and nor are the French.’

  Wills smiled, his opinion confirmed. ‘Young man, you are indeed one of a kind!’

  4

  Damned With Faint Praise

  The Reverend Thomas Anson, distant kinsman many times removed of the late, great, circumnavigator and reformer of the navy, Admiral Lord Anson, paced his shingled driveway impatiently awaiting the arrival of the local carrier.

  The rector of Hardres-with-Farthingham, a large, remote and scattered parish nestling high up in the North Downs, had a particular reason for wanting to intercept Hezekiah Dale’s cart today. As well as carrying anything from occasional passengers to pots and pans ordered from Canterbury shops by the local farmers and smallholders, and taking their produce to market, he brought the mail and the newspapers three times a week.

  It had been Hezikiah who brought the rector’s wounded and exhausted son Oliver home from Dover after his escape from France. But today the rector was expecting not his son but the latest edition of the county newspaper, the Kentish Gazette.

  He was nigh on certain it would contain a report, copied from the official London Gazette, of Oliver’s capture of the Normandy privateer Égalité off the Kent coast.

  The Reverend Anson would have liked to have gone to sea himself, but family tradition dictated otherwise and sent him into the church. He liked to say that he was pressed into the church rather than the navy and that his own parents had led the press gang.

  His eldest son, Augustine, named after the saint who had come to Kent from Rome in 597 AD to Christianise Britain, had followed him into the church, and was now a minor canon at Canterbury Cathedral – an ambitious man already well practised in church politics. A bishop’s crozier could be within his grasp one day.

  Truth be told, although gratified at his eldest son’s blossoming career in the church, the rector could not br
ing himself to like the man – however much he tried. Gussie, as he had been known as a boy, was too fond of himself, too self-seeking and too much of a prig to endear himself to anyone.

  Other than his mother – and the archdeacon’s thin-lipped and angular daughter, whom he intended to marry – Gussie was disliked by most, especially the servants whom he brow-beat and bullied.

  The rector’s youngest son, Abraham, was still at school but destined for the army, and as for his daughters Elizabeth and Anne, well, if he had been honest with himself he would admit that he would be happy if they stopped becoming a drain on his purse and married well.

  However, there had been nothing to stop his second son fulfilling his frustrated dream as a sea officer. And so it was apt, the rector thought, that he should take a vicarious interest in his son’s naval career.

  As a distant kinsman of the Anson, the rector had been thrilled at Oliver’s early appointments in ships of the line and then a frigate.

  But he had been hugely disappointed when his son, through no fault of his own, was put in charge of a Sea Fencible detachment down at Seagate following his daring escape from France.

  Commanding a bunch of man-of-war-dodging harbour rats was not exactly the stuff of naval legend. But then came the Égalité affair and the armchair sailor was enthused once again.

  So far all he had been able to glean was that the privateer was cruising the coast picking off small merchant vessels when lured into a trap, attacked, boarded and taken by the Seagate Sea Fencibles.

  But although the exploit was the talk of the county, the rector was anxious for details – and the Gazette would provide them.

  At last Hezikiah’s cart rounded the bend and made its way slowly down towards the rectory.

  As it approached, the carter touched his whip handle to his old pointy hat. ‘Good day t’ye, your reverence. Waitin’ for the paper, is it? Wantin’ to read all about that son of yourn’s hexploits?’