"That is a point I had not considered, Sir Frederick. Would government expect it of you?"
"Jamaica is worth more than my life, I believe, sir."
“Would the Spanish expect you to attack them without a substantial force to hand, Sir Frederick?”
“They might believe me to have been taken unawares, given the correct circumstances, Mr Murray. As well, they might believe us to be scouting for a fleet and so try to run the squadron down before we could make our report. All would depend on their admiral – a cautious man would huddle round his convoy, possibly even turning back or sending them into shelter. A bolder gentleman might loose all of his powers against the squadron, leaving the troopers with a frigate as escort or, again, sending them into harbour.”
“Sending them into harbour would be a very desirable end in many ways, Sir Frederick, was we to be able to make it a harbour of our choice.”
Frederick did not follow Murray’s trend of thought, was forced to beg for elucidation.
“A harbour with only a few guns and where Wallsend could anchor offshore, sir.”
“As we did off of Isle Djerba, in fact. A good idea, but there would be at least one frigate as escort and that would bring about a rapid farewell to Wallsend. Better far to destroy the convoy before it reached the port, if that could be arranged. It demands much of coincidence, sir; probably too much to plan on its basis.”
There was they concluded little alternative to placing themselves where they could observe and hopefully intercept any Spanish force and then, having sent Nimble off to Antigua with the news, see what, if anything, might turn up.
“Aruba first, gentlemen, and do our best to cause despondency and dismay there, and then towards Surinam and hope that we may not be dismayed in our turn.”
Nimble was sent off with the despatch to Antigua. The report stated only that there was no sign of troopships in The Havana and detailed the ships of war in commission; there was not a word of their speculations.
Nimble rendezvoused off Aruba, reported having been chased by a French corvette out of Martinique, fortunately a good knot slower and less handy at pointing up.
“She was too great for us to attempt her, sir. Eighteen of long guns, eight or nine pounders, I believe.”
“Twelve pounds of broadside is not quite adequate for the purpose, Mr Perlman, and cutters are, when one considers the matter, expected to, ah, ‘cut and run’, one might say!”
Perlman applauded his wit, in duty bound.
“No despatches, sir, but a little of mail for the squadron. Just two bags, sir.”
It was the first mail since leaving Portsmouth, a matter of almost six months.
Frederick received five letters.
His mother wrote to inform him of the passing of his father, much to be regretted but easy and quick in the end, which was the best one might hope for. The family lawyers sent a far larger packet which included any number of documents to be read and signed by the new head of the family and holder of the Boorley Green estate. Most important of the papers was that which gave them Power of Attorney in his absence to pay the Poor Rate and the Income Tax, neither of which should be permitted to fall into arrears on pain of legal action against the estate.
Frederick sat and signed for half an hour, so he believed, and then placed the papers into a large envelope which he handed to his clerk to be canvas-wrapped and tied and sealed within a leather satchel. The chances of the documents being spoiled by water were lessened, but the ship carrying them could be lost so he wrote as well a general Power of Attorney to be sent on a separate vessel. He turned then, somewhat guiltily, to the pair of serial letters from Abbey.
His Elizabeth was well indeed, experiencing few of the discomforts of her condition and confident in a happy outcome. The weather had improved during the year and there were hopes of a rich harvest, much to be desired as evidenced by the rise, again, in wheat prices. The boys were healthy and all was as it should be; she had received one letter from him, telling of their arrival in the Sugar Islands. She hoped Captain Jackman was in good health and spirits and ventured to offer her sister’s good wishes to him.
He penned a few words to his own long diary letter telling of his joy in hearing from her. He was not too great a hypocrite, he supposed, for he did love her dearly – but one could hardly expect a man to be continent for years at a time, human nature being what it was.
He turned to the final missive with some relief, the flourishing script of Mr Russell promising him much of entertainment.
The Governor of Jamaica, he discovered, was a man struggling against adverse circumstance – nine living children, the last the son he had long hoped for. He had eight marriage portions to put away against need and without impoverishing his heir.
‘He is a gentleman of some ambition, one discovers, my dear Sir Frederick, and wishes to advance his family by judicious alliances. Sadly, he has found, even the eldest son of a very trivial baron will look for a bride of not less than ten thousand pounds while to marry into an earldom is to call for thirty, even forty thousands. Thus he finds himself in need of large sums in the near future, for his eldest girl is already of fifteen summers. In the ordinary way of things governorship of a rich colony such as Jamaica is worth not less than ten thousand a year over and above the official emoluments, and he may expect five years or so in office – which will provide him with barely half of the extra he requires.’
Frederick laughed – eight girls to marry off! Poor chap, and even more unhappy a lady mother, for she must carry the burden of match-making.
‘The governor is, poor fellow, no more than a fourth baronet, of some antiquity but not of great family. He can hardly thus marry off two or three of the girls to rich merchants in exchange for dowries for the rest. Was he a viscount or better then he could certainly auction off his daughters to those East India merchants anxious to climb in the world, but a baronet is very small beer. Add to his woes that he is the highest of Tories in a day when the Party is barely recovering from its low ebb. He is forced to chase every penny he can lay his hands upon; one is desolate to hear of the poor man’s afflictions.’
Frederick could find very little sympathy in him for the unfortunate Governor – he must trim his ambitions to his worth and marry his girls into the County rather than the aristocracy. It was rather annoying that he must go to lengths to protect the man in his island.
Book Six: The Duty and Destiny Series
Chapter Five
The squadron sailed along the Main, westward towards the Dutch islands and seeing almost nothing on the coast. They met Durdle Dor sailing on the opposite tack with a little tail of ketches and droghers and island schooners, each of them small but together amounting to a few hundred tons of sugar and furniture wood and hides and lesser products; provided the Admiralty Court would condemn them in a single sitting then they would be worthwhile. Frederick exchanged signals with Captain LeGrys, offering his congratulations and best wishes – there was little else to say.
“Will they not treat each capture as a separate case, sir?”
“Not if they are presented correctly, Mr McPherson, and Mr LeGrys is a knowledgeable young man. He will state that he discovered them as a convoy and took them in a single action. All must thus be condemned together. My Mr Fraser did thus when he had a little cutter, in the year Ninety Five, I think it was, and made a very respectable sum, more than once, a dozen little island boats paying as well as a five hundred ton ship. Mr LeGrys was present when he told me of it.”
McPherson made a mental note for future reference; the war would be more advanced and prizes less easily available when he reached captain’s rank. No doubt he would have to make do with smaller captures.
“Captain Murray told me that Mr LeGrys has but the one leg functioning, sir. To become master of a privateer is unusual in such a circumstance, is it not, sir?”
“He is very young. I think, though I cannot in the circumstances be certain, that he must needs show that h
e is all of a man, despite being perhaps in his own mind only half a man, a cripple. I hope, very much, that he will make this one cruise and then retire to land trading with a few more thousands in his pocket.”
“To prove himself, you say, sir, to himself… I can see how that might be… He is a brave man, sir, but I hope he will not kill himself and his crew while making his point.”
“I have more than once thought the same, Mr McPherson. I have a high regard for the young man – he has become part of my family in many ways – and I would be sad to see him push himself into the grave.”
They viewed the Dutch islands from afar, inspecting their harbours and discovering them to be almost empty of traders and wholly without ships of war.
“One wonders, Mr Murray, whether this notional Dutch ship ever existed other than in our imaginations? Perhaps it sailed and was taken in the German Ocean by the blockaders. It is a difficulty, because one cannot wholly discount it, yet neither may we make any great allowance for it in our plans. Not to worry, sir. What have you in mind for your landings?”
“Aruba first, sir, if you would be so good. Then, if there is no reason to suppose otherwise, to Curacao, which is the richest of the three, or so I understand. Should I gather that there is an active Committee of Public Safety on any of the islands then I shall avoid them. They have a habit of guillotining the wives and children of those they call traitor, and that tends to create an ostentatious loyalty among the ordinary folks who do not wish their families to go the same way.”
“What swine they must be, sir!”
“It gives one a reason to fight the French, certainly, sir.”
“I have never needed a reason, Mr Murray – it has always seemed the most natural of occupations to me. I have come to believe that the French were created merely so that the pugnacious English would have a legitimate target for their aggression.”
“Well… that is certainly a point of view, Sir Frederick.”
“Who do you wish to take in your boat party, Mr Murray?”
“Goldfarb and four men of his choosing, if you would be so good, sir. I prefer seamen to Marines when it comes to stealth, and Goldfarb is of a black humour these last weeks, sir, and will welcome the opportunity to ‘scrag’ a foreigner or two. Besides which, he is an intelligent man to have at one’s side. What a wonderful word that one is, ‘to scrag’ – short, blunt and evocative!”
Frederick had no comment to make upon the seaman’s language.
“I shall give you one of the midshipman’s boats, Mr Murray, as your own. Have you any preference?”
“Young Walker, sir. He is bright and will make a good officer one day. He is of an age, sir, fifteen or sixteen at a surmise and some four years of service to his name. He has some judgement, I would guess.”
“Mr McPherson! Captain Murray’s boat party as he will detail. Kindly put them together and allow them the opportunity to practice a little. Entering and leaving the boat quietly; landing and leaving the shore in utter silence, without noisy commands; rowing and setting a sail in stealth – all of the normal skills, but surreptitious to be the word. The men to choose their own weapons, if you please, except that the boat carronade will always be mounted.”
They hove to off a tiny coral reef with a sand beach and a single coconut palm that evening, let the boat make its first essay of a silent landing.
The cutter was on tow behind them, was brought to the side and her crew sent down to replace the single man who had been watching the boat. Walker had the oars in their rowlocks and the three small masts stepped and sails bent on within five minutes, all without more than a muttered order.
“Ready, sir!”
Goldfarb and his four swarmed silently down, reached up for the musketoons that were handed down to them, carefully upright.
“Loaded but not primed, sir, for speed and keeping dry on the boat. Locks wrapped in oilskin. They will prime before they land, last minute.”
Frederick watched as the four quickly cast off the carronade barrel and loaded with grape, setting the flintlock on its butterfly screws and again swaddling the firing pan with a waterproof covering.
“Goldfarb has pistols and a blade, will be leading and expects to do his work at hand-to-hand.”
Walker showed a flash of his dark lantern, called in little more than a whisper. “Mr Murray, sir!”
"I believe Mr Walker prefers me not to be underfoot while he is about his seamanship, sir!"
Murray took on his other persona, discarded the hesitant, gently spoken dilettante and sped quickly down the rope and dropped to one knee beside Goldfarb close to the bow, to land at his shoulder.
McPherson had never seen Murray ready for a fight before, had not quite believed it was wise to allow him ashore; he had in fact taken Goldfarb to one side earlier and reminded him to ‘look after the little chap’.
Frederick saw the expression on his first lieutenant’s face and laughed.
“He has seen more action than the rest of us put together, Mr McPherson, and cut more throats than you have had hot dinners, I doubt not. He is no seaman, that is for sure, but on land he is far more at home than you or I. I pity any man who ever falls foul of him, sir!”
The boat cast off and sped silently towards the shore; a crew member lifted the long sounding pole and readied himself to give the depths.
They landed, ran from the boat and then scurried back down again, all in silence. Frederick decided they needed no more rehearsals, ordered course for Aruba.
The boat landed outside a small fishing village and the landing party made its quiet way along the beach. The land was too rocky even a few yards away from the sand to be walked safely at night.
They circled the village, looking for a guard post, found nothing. Murray and Goldfarb made their way silently to the largest house in the village, reached within ten feet of the door when a pair of barking, screaming and very large dogs came for them, chains rattling. They left, at speed, discovered the dogs had thirty feet long chains and a sense of humour and a good judgement of distance; both were bitten at the twenty-eight foot mark.
“Bastards!”
“Let me get the musketoon, sir, ja?”
“No. Too noisy. Too foreign – the people here have no guns, I think.”
They hobbled back to the boat and then to the sick berth for their wounds to be cleaned.
The following night they landed again, on the other side of the biggest settlement on the tiny island. They located the largest house and sneaked slowly, silently towards it, slithering on hands and knees to a lit window. It was the local brothel. There was a deal of interesting activity to be observed, but none of it of military significance.
Murray and Goldfarb stood up and limped away – no one there was in any way concerned about anything that happened outside.
They made their way towards the harbour where they had thought there was a battery. There was a small fortification, empty of people but containing a pair of ancient brass cannon, culverins of the previous age. No man in his right mind would have attempted to fire them. They gave up on Aruba.
“Curacao, if you please, sir.”
The main harbour at Curacao was still empty of a naval presence but possessed a small fort, ancient but defensible, and showed a visible garrison. There was a battery across the harbour that displayed the muzzles of emplaced cannon. Two fishing villages along the short coastline possessed small towers and guns, how many uncertain.
"We need to know more of these places, Sir Frederick."
"We do, Mr Murray. Tonight?"
"Little gain to delay, sir. A night and a day, sir, to be picked up tomorrow after sundown."
Frederick did not like the prospect of leaving men ashore for so long, could find no alternative. He fretted through a long day and sent the boat back in more in hope than in expectation of success.
Murray returned aboard quite unharmed, bearing with him a large wicker bag of fruit donated by a friendly native of the island.
/> "Oranges, sir, and papayas, which I find I rather like!"
"Very good, Mr Murray! What of the island itself? Militarily speaking, what have you to tell me?"
"A battalion of Dutchmen, much thinned by fevers and wishing only to go home. They have been here for ten years and more. They would like nothing more than to be taken prisoner and then exchanged so that they might see the Low Countries again. There is a local militia, of poor quality - ill trained and worse armed, just a few hundred of them. I talked an hour with the colonel of the Dutch and have an agreement that if a sufficient fleet should appear offshore he will immediately seek an armistice and negotiate a peaceful surrender. He cannot allow a frigate or two to take the island - he fears the French would be upset with him - but will say nothing at all to a superior force. Aruba and Bonaire will follow his example."
"Very good, Mr Murray. There seems to be little more for us to do here, sir."
"One small matter, Sir Frederick. The colonel would be obliged if you would sail within range of his battery of eighteen pounders so that he may drive you off in disarray and report his bold defence to his political masters. Having a reputation for belligerence will enable him to surrender to overwhelming force the more easily. He promises to miss, by the way, sir."
The two frigates performed the pantomime demanded, firing a pair of blank broadsides apiece, creating a vast noise and scaring the local residents into flight. The battery responded with great glee and raised a number of very impressive waterspouts in the harbour, thus causing the wicked invaders to flee in obvious panic, to the joy of the few remaining to watch. It was all highly satisfactory, no doubt.
"If he does not surrender to the fleet, I shall seem remarkably foolish, Captain Murray!"
"But in a very good cause, Sir Frederick!"
"Sod the cause, Mr Murray! How long have we been away from home, sir?"
Sugar and Spice (The Duty and Destiny Series, Book 6) Page 13
