Smuggler's Moon

by Bruce Alexander

  Mr. Bilbo’s sloop lay half in and half out the water at a slight angle, ready to be launched into the Thames. All glistening and new-looking it was from the many coats of varnish it had received. I saw that the tempo of work had increased markedly since last I visited. Where earlier workmen had walked about in a manner near casual, they now scrambled about from one end of the deck to the other. And in the middle of all this stood Black Jack Bilbo, shouting directions and encouragement, reminding them, none too gently, of their obligations.

  “If you’re lookin’ to get paid tonight, gents, you’d best finish the job.”

  Then did he give his attention to another group, one which seemed not to be performing to his high expectations. ”Work, lads,” he hectored them, ”work!”

  And so it went. I watched, fascinated, for minutes as he hammered away at them with threats, a few blandishments, and occasional curses. Yet at last I reminded myself of the business at hand.

  ”Mr. Bilbo,” I called out to him. ”Permission to come aboard!”

  He turned round and looked in my direction, squinting a bit against the afternoon sun.

  “Ah, Jeremy, it’s you, is it? Permission granted.”

  I made my way carefully across the gangplank, finding that the slight slant of the deck made quite a difference when out on the board between slip and sloop. In any case, I made it across and found Mr. Bilbo waiting at the far end to steady me as I jumped down.

  “Good lad!” said he. ”How goes it down there on the east coast? Has Sir John come back with you?”

  “No, he sent me back with letters to deliver. One of them’s for you.”

  With that, I brought it out and handed it over. From some secret pocket he produced a pair of spectacles and carefully hooked them over his ears. Putting the sun to his back, he broke the seal and read the letter. When he had done, he folded it with a dark frown and tucked it away.

  “It sounds bad,” said he.

  “It is bad.”

  “Well, as it happens, we’ll be leaving here on the morning tide on a run down through the Channel, to Cornwall and return, just as a test voyage, as you might say. Sir John’s asked that I bring you and a pair of his Bow Street Runners with us to Gravesend. I can do that with no trouble at all. He says that he’ll meet us there, for he has something to discuss with me which he’d prefer not to commit to paper. Do you have any idea what that’s about, Jeremy?”

  “None at all,” said I.

  “Hmmm, well, I’ll find out when we get there, I suppose. In the meantime, you’d like to talk to Bunkins, would you?”

  “I would.”

  “He’s belowdecks. Go find him. He’ll show you round the vessel. I do believe that he’s as proud of the Indian Princess as I am.”

  I took my leave of him and went, as I’d been told, to search out Jimmie B.

  Finding him offered no difficulty; keeping him was quite another matter. He was overseeing the finishing touches to be put upon the cabins belowdecks and seemed to be taking his responsibilities every bit as seriously as his cove. And so likewise did he use the same devices upon those doing the work. He railed at some and encouraged others, shook his finger at some and patted others upon the back. Yet it was all taken in good stead, and the work continued at the same furious pace below as on deck.

  As Bunkins called the attention of one of the carpenters to a bit of indifferent sanding, I interrupted with a hand upon his shoulder. He whirled about, ready for anything (like the street boy he once had been), but then, recognizing me, he relaxed, laughing, and pushed my hat down over my face.

  “Well, Jeremy, how’s my old chum?”

  “Right as rain,” said I. ”The cove said you’d show me round the boat.”

  “Ship, Jeremy, ship,” he instructed me. ”Vessel, you might say, but it’s never a boat. A sloop’s just too big to be called so.”

  “I stand corrected,” said I. It was seldom that Bunkins had the opportunity to put me in the right on matters of proper usage, and it did seem to me that he was belaboring the matter a bit.

  “That’s as the cove says, anyways.”

  “Ah, yes, well … ahem,” said I, waiting.

  He looked at me oddly for a moment, but then the light in his eyes rekindled, and he gave a great, loud laugh.

  “You’re waiting for me to show you ‘round down here, an’t you?”

  “Well … yes. That is, Mr. Bilbo said …”

  ”True, but he didn’t know how much more we still got to do down here.”

  “Another time, then?”

  “Whenever you’re next aboard.”

  “That’ll be tomorrow. I’m going to passenger down to Gravesend on the Indian Princess with a couple of the Bow Street Runners.”

  “We’ll do it then, I swear.”

  And saying thus, he raised his right hand and placed his left over his heart, making it official.

  He was as good as his word; that next day, he took me on a quick tour belowdecks immediately as I again set foot upon the Indian Princess. I had come, as I had promised, in company with constables Bailey and Patley. They, who had packed light, tossed the little they had into one of the cabins and went above to await our departure. It was then that Bunkins grabbed me by the wrist and began showing me cabin after cabin, far more than I had expected.

  “We put in four extra,” he explained. ”That’s what all that work was yesterday—trying to get them done proper before we sailed.”

  The gun deck, where the crew slept, was correspondingly smaller. But then, as Bunkins explained, not so many would be needed to man the sloop if it were to be used for pleasure. As it was, the crew which would take the Indian Princess on its test run was hardly more than it would take to sail a yacht.

  “Just a few who sailed with Mr. Bilbo in the old days,” said Bunkins. ”They’re off together on a lark.”

  It remained for me to inquire about the gun ports. I had noticed that they had not been sealed, but rather, had been fixed with hinged doors, so that they might still be put to their original use.

  “That’s a sort of secret,” said he. ”Keep a dubber mum, will you, chum?”

  I promised that I would indeed keep a dubber mum.

  There was a bit of a creak from below, another from above, and then there was a curious feeling of floating free; we were launched—afloat in the Thames.

  “Come, Jeremy, let’s up and out and watch all London go by!”

  And that was what we did, hanging out over the gunwale, near the prow of the ship. A light wind touched our faces, giving to me the feeling that we were hurtling along at a very high rate of speed; whereas we were moving at little more than the speed of the current. Still and all, the buildings and roads on the shore along the way seemed absolutely to flash by at a rate much faster than that achieved by any horse-drawn conveyance.

  A few watermen in their boats deigned to wave us a greeting. We waved back most enthusiastically. I know not why—perhaps it was no more than the face of one of the watermen which reminded me—but my thoughts were carried back in an instant to him I had met the day before in Mr. Bilbo’s gaming club. I decided to ask Bunkins about him.

  “Jimmie B,” said I. ”I chased about a good long while, looking for you and your cove. And the last place I looked before I came to Wapping was the club in Mayfair.”

  “Yes?” said he. ”What about it?”

  “Well, there was a cod there, he was helpful enough, told me where to go to find you, but there was something about him …”

  “Something you didn’t much care for?”

  “Well … yes, that’s right.”

  “That’d be Mr. Slade, and truth to tell, I don’t care for him much myself.”

  “What’s he doing there? Does he work for Mr. Bilbo?”

  “No. You know the cove, he don’t talk much about his business, or his plans for the future, or any such matters, but he’s let it out that this here Mr. Slade has made an offer to buy the gaming club.”

  “
To buy it? I didn’t know it was for sale. I mean, what’s Mr. Bilbo say about it? Does he want to sell?”

  “He says he’s thinking it over.” Bunkins sighed. ”He must take it pretty seriously, though. He’s given him the run of the club whilst we’re gone, so he can see how it works.” He shook his head in a gesture of disapproval. ”I’ll tell you, Jeremy, there’s a lot going on that I don’t understand, but I’ve got the feeling that there’s some big changes coming.” He looked distinctly unhappy.

  Neither of us knew his future, and that put a pall upon the present. Even though it was great fun to see London and its eastern villages scattered out along the riverbanks, it did not seem enough to raise our spirits. Yet we entertained ourselves by pointing out each to the other various oddities and curiosities viewed along the way. Thus we passed our time during the comparatively short voyage downriver to Gravesend. There the great river had widened and deepened to the extent that it was possible for Mr. Bilbo, who served as helmsman, to steer in close to shore and drop anchor. Bunkins was called upon to oversee this, and I realized what should have been clear to me yesterday: that he had picked up a good deal of maritime lore and practice and would probably learn more on this voyage and on others like it.

  Along the riverbank I caught sight of a hackney coach thundering up the riverside road to meet us. The coach—or perhaps the team of horses—looked familiar to me, as indeed they should have. Yet I could only be sure of who was inside when it stopped and Mick Crawly climbed down to assist Sir John from the interior of the coach. The magistrate jumped down, as he usually did, but Mick was on hand to steady him and made sure he did not fall.

  “Halloo, the Indian Princess! Permission to come aboard?” Sir John’s powerful baritone cry floated steady across the water to us.

  “Permission granted!” Mr. Bilbo’s response, which sounded even stronger, was returned most immediately and, it seemed to me, quite enthusiastically.

  Then, almost as an afterthought, Mr. Bilbo instructed Bunkins (whom he addressed as Mister Bunkins) to lower a boat, and indeed Bunkins saw to it.

  Constables Bailey and Patley, and I myself did climb down the rope ladder to the waiting boat. Of us three, Constable Patley had potentially the greatest difficulty because of the rifled musket he carried. Yet he solved his problem with a strap which ran from the bottom of the stock to the barrel. Using it, he simply slung the weapon over his shoulder, and thus had both hands free to use to descend the rope ladder. Neither Mr. Bailey nor I had any such problem.

  The two oarsmen supplied by Mr. Bilbo had no difficulty ferrying us to the riverbank, nor was the bank so steep that it caused difficulty; steps had been cut into it. Once constables Bailey and Patley had ascended to the high ground, where they were greeted by Sir John, I climbed the stairs that I might assist him down them and into the boat. That much he allowed, but when I moved to climb in after him, he barred my way.

  “It will not be necessary to accompany me, Jeremy. I take it you have with you a document from Lord Mansfield giving me a temporary appointment in Deal?”

  “Right in my pocket, Sir John.”

  “Excellent. Then you accomplished all the tasks I gave you commendably well. I shall take over at this point, having offered you my thanks.”

  “But … but won’t you need me to help you up the ladder?”

  “Jeremy, I am quite capable of climbing a rope ladder by myself. I climbed hundreds of them during my time in the Navy.”

  ”As you wish, Sir John,” said I with a sigh.

  “That is how I wish it.”

  With that, he took his place in the boat. The oarsmen pushed off, and in not much more than a minute, were there at the Indian Princess. As he had predicted, Sir John made it to the top of the ladder without incident, and there was met by Mr. Bilbo, who helped him over the gunwale and onto the deck. Then, for nearly half an hour, the two men parlayed as they walked every inch of the sloop’s topdeck.

  At one point, as I stood watching with the two constables, Mr. Patley remarked to us, ”I wonder what Sir John is planning with that old pirate.”

  “Whatever it is,” responded Mr. Bailey, ”it’s going to cause some smuggler one hell of a great lot of trouble.”

  NINE

  In which Mr. Eccles

  returns just as the

  horsemen arrive

  The afternoon drive from Gravesend back to Deal was uneventful, save for the one incident which I have described, wherein quite unexpectedly Sir John declared that an attack upon an officer of the court was an attack upon the law itself. He broke what had been a long silence to say that—yet silence, in this case, should be understood only in a relative sense. Certainly, there had been naught said by the two constables for many miles; having put in a full night marching about the unruly precincts of London, they were naturally quite tired. They promptly fell asleep as Mr. Crawly set his coach upon the main road and headed for Deal. I remained awake, yet though I sat next to Sir John, he showed little inclination to talk to me. Nevertheless, he was far from quiet. There were steady murmurings and grunts from him; he must be either in deep conversation with himself, or in a troubled sleep. All other signs—his erect posture in the seat, the swiftly altering expressions of his face—indicated that the former was the more likely.

  I wished to ask him questions. Indeed I wished to know just what it was he and Mr. Bilbo had discussed at such length as they ambled back and forth cross the decks of the Indian Princess. Clearly, Sir John had a plan, one which included Mr. Bilbo and perhaps also his ship. And I had an important matter to communicate to Sir John as well: I had not yet had the opportunity to tell him of the detachment of cavalry which would soon be under his command. Nevertheless, I kept my peace. There was simply no getting through to him whilst he was in such a state.

  I did make only one attempt to do so, and that was just following his sudden pronouncement. He had spoken out with such authority that he roused both the sleeping constables; they sat up in their seats, blinked, and waited for him to continue. When he did not, they allowed their eyelids to droop once more and soon were fast asleep just as before. For my part, I took a chance, and once it was clear that he would add nothing to what he had said, I decided to tell him what I had to tell.

  “Sir John,” I blurted, ”I’ve an important bit of information for you.”

  “Can it wait?”

  “Well, I suppose it can.”

  “Then later, please.”

  And having said that, he went back to his muttering. His conversation with himself thus continued.

  As it happened, I had not the chance to tell him of the cavalry’s impending arrival until much later that day; it was, in fact, well into evening when I did. After we had eaten dinner—and a fine dinner it was, prepared for us by Mrs. Sarton (Clarissa also had a hand in it)—Sir John met with his constables to acquaint them with the situation in Deal before Mr. Perkins took them out to show them the town. Only after they had departed did I take it upon myself to knock upon the door to the little room which had served Albert Sarton as his study. Invited inside, I took a chair just opposite the one in which Sir John sat at the desk.

  “Well, Jeremy,” said he, ”I believe you told me earlier that you had an important bit of information which you wished to pass on to me.”

  “That’s right, sir, I do.”

  “I asked you then to hold it until later. Well, this is later, is it not? Let me hear this information.”

  Whereupon I disclosed that he would, in a day or two, have a small contingent of cavalry at his disposal.

  “Good God!” said he. ”This is terrible!”

  Did he truly think so? But why? Actually, I thought it rather a grand idea, but I kept this opinion to myself.

  “Whose notion was this?” asked Sir John.

  “Lord Mansfield’s,” said I.

  “Well, if it was his idea, then there’s no sending them back, is there?”

  “I suppose not,” said I. Then, after a moment’s
hesitation: ”He must have felt that the situation here, as you described it in your letter, was so desperate that you would need such aid to set it right.”

  “Hmmm, well, yes, I fear I did paint rather a grim sort of picture. Perhaps I should have been a little less … convincing.”

  “Can’t you find some use for them, Sir John?”

  He gave that some thought. ”Perhaps I can. I just hadn’t thought of such before. But … but … where shall I put them?”

  There I could give him no help at all, and so I simply kept silent.

  “I shall give it some thought.” He nodded then, which I took as a sign that he wished to be left alone.

  I rose, excused myself, and made to go. He had, however, one last word for me.

  ”Jeremy, I had neglected to tell you this, but the funeral for Mr. Sarton will be held tomorrow at ten. We shall all attend. Please wear your best. I trust you have a clean shirt?”

  The services, which were held at St. George’s church, were coldly formal, remarkably short, and sadly ill-attended. If a person were to have come in as a stranger (as I did), it would not have taken him long to perceive that the vicar had been no friend to the man in the coffin. Where he might have made remarks in praise of Mr. Sarton, he said nothing, even went so far as to call attention to the omission.

  “At this point,” he had said, ”time is often taken to speak well of him whom we bury. We shall instead return to the Service for the Dead.” And return to it he did.

  Molly Sarton, sitting quite nearby, started up from her place and was restrained by Mrs. Keen and Clarissa, who were on either side of her. I do believe she meant to attack the vicar, and I, for one, would have thought her justified. This was explained sotto voce by Clarissa to Sir John, who sat farthest away.

  Was all this evident animosity to the Sartons caused by the irregularities at the start of their marriage? The scandal of a single man and woman living under the same roof, et cetera? Had I not heard that at first the vicar had refused to marry them? Such a to-do over so little!