Dying Trade

by David Donachie

  It had been good fortune for them that their father’s old friend had put into Gibraltar before they left. They’d been forced to stay longer than they would have wished, called upon by the navy to participate in the investigations which had followed their arrival. Everyone had been shocked at their tale, but instead of being grateful to them for exposing wrongdoing, most naval officers had tended to cold-shoulder them. For one, they did not much favour privateers. Worse than that, as a breed they were painfully sensitive about their collective and personal honour. Harry’s actions might have exposed serious wrongdoing, as well as solved more than one outright crime. But he had brought the entire service into disrepute in the process.

  And the Ludlows had not raised their standing when it emerged that they’d brought ashore a fair quantity of gold, the proceeds of an action against a French merchantman, who had, in turn, taken it off a Spanish ship. No one aboard the Magnanime had even had an inkling of its existence, supposing, when Harry regaled them with the tale, that the specie had been shipped home in one of his previous captures. Nor did he or James let on once they were ashore. The agent of this further piece of approbation was the banker whose offer of purchase Harry declined. Gold in Gibraltar took its price from Spain, a country which offered notoriously low value when trading bullion. So the brothers elected to ship it home. Offended, the banker breached his normal rules of discretion.

  In a small place like Gibraltar, word got round quickly. To have taken a quantity of gold was bad enough. To be a ‘damned’ privateer was worse. To be wealthy enough to delay before turning it into ready coin enraged certain people further. It was then easy for such types to cloak both envy and dislike in the mantle of their love of the service. Most had kept their distance, reserving their unflattering remarks for each other, rather than aiming them at the Ludlows. But a few of the naval officers were less restrained, especially when drink and braggadocio had loosened both their manners and their tongues. The challenge which Clere engineered was inevitable.

  They had been seeking to book a passage home to England, always assuming that Harry survived the impending encounter with Captain Clere, when the Victory, at the head of ten sail of the line, had been sighted from the top of the Rock weathering Algiceras Bay. All thoughts of business, deadly or dull, were put into abeyance as everyone went down to welcome the fleet. Hood welcomed Harry and James aboard like his own sons. To the subsequent chagrin of his officers, he offered them a passage to Genoa, from where they could take the land route home through Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands. Harry had demurred, preferring a sea passage. But James, fired by memories of his Grand Tour, and the thoughts of the artistic splendours of Italy and Vienna, had prevailed.

  Hood’s regard for the Ludlow brothers forced a certain amount of official respect from the Victory’s officers. But their disapproval, once they’d been fully apprised of recent happenings, was never far from the surface. And Harry had not raised himself in the general estimation by his unorthodox humiliation of Clere. Finally losing his temper one day, he asked James loudly, in the hearing of all the officers on the quarterdeck, how they would have stood if he’d just killed the bastard.

  To the general relief, it would be a short voyage. Hood was making for Toulon, to reinforce the ships already there, Spanish and English, blockading the great French Mediterranean port. But, unless the situation had changed in the meantime, he’d be forced to victual his ships at Genoa, and Harry and James would transfer to whichever ship was next due to take on stores.

  CHAPTER THREE

  HARRY held up the white hose stocking, pointed to the very obvious repair, and smiled at Pender. ‘They are, without doubt, repaired, I’ll grant that much. Though the stitch is more suited to a bolt of number seven canvas than a gentleman’s stocking.’

  ‘I reckon my talents don’t lie in that direction, your honour. All a matter of upbringin’, no doubt.’

  Pender, sitting astride the great gun that occupied half the cabin, was smiling too, unabashed by this seeming rebuke. He was a small man with a lively dark-skinned face and a ready smile. And he had a way of addressing those in authority which undermined them, without them being quite aware of how it had happened.

  ‘Indeed they don’t,’ said Harry. Pender had been allotted to him as a servant aboard the Magnanime, and it was plain from the first day that sailoring was not his true profession. His success in his true field of endeavour meant there were any number of hands waiting to lay themselves upon him to answer for his previous actions in England.

  Hence his haste to join the navy. Harry, desperate for ways to aid his brother James, had sought Pender’s help, which had been forthcoming in no uncertain terms. Now, having been an inexperienced member of the king’s navy, he had taken to the role of Harry’s servant with great enthusiasm. And he had been an almost unqualified success. The one thing he couldn’t master was the art of sewing, surprising in a man with such nimble fingers.

  Harry had engineered his release from the king’s service, and the instructions to Harry’s brother-in-law, Lord Drumdryan, guardian of the Ludlow family wealth, to seek out Pender’s dependants and take them under his protection, had been sent off in the first mail packet leaving Gibraltar after the Magnanime limped into port.

  ‘You’ll be lookin’ forrard to having your own ship again,’ said Pender.

  Harry shot his brother a quick glance to see if he’d heard, before giving Pender what he thought was an imperceptible shake of the head. Since they were sharing a berth there was little room, though, being one of the wardroom side cabins, it had the benefit of daylight. James was lying on his cot, his back to the casement window, apparently engrossed in a book by John Evelyn, who’d travelled in the part of Italy for which they were headed. Harry was therefore surprised when he spoke.

  ‘Am I being excluded from something?’ James turned towards the silent pair and snapped his book shut, trapping his thumb to maintain the page.

  Harry Ludlow was the picture of innocence abused. ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘An unnatural silence, Harry. Plus the fact that Pender seems intent on making himself so busy that he will avoid eye contact with me.’

  ‘I do have work, Mister James.’ Pender had a hurt tone that had fooled many a sheriff’s man.

  ‘You have not answered Pender’s question, Harry.’

  Harry now assumed a perplexed look. ‘What question?’

  ‘Now I know something’s afoot.’ He opened the book again, and began to read it. ‘By the way, Lord Hood’s clerk was looking for you earlier.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Harry did not attempt to hide his suspicion. He looked like a man who had seen his watch on someone else’s waistcoat.

  ‘Nothing important, I gather.’ James yawned, increasing the tension in the cabin. ‘The fellow just wanted to know if you had made up your mind. Seems the admiral is interested.’

  Harry, on the other side of the gun, looked pointedly at the stocking, still in his hand. ‘Made up my mind? About what?’

  ‘About buying another ship, and continuing your privateering in the Mediterranean.’ James looked up from his book again, his face devoid of expression. ‘Instead of going home as we originally intended. After all, brother, you don’t lack funds.’

  Harry flushed guiltily, his hand rubbing his coat involuntarily, to check that the oilskin pouch containing their letters of credit was still there. James observed this, aware that the sums named therein considerably outweighed the value of their gold.

  ‘It’s as well that those fellows in Gibraltar knew nothing of our true financial position. If they had we’d have been stoned like Christian martyrs.’ He followed this observation with another studied yawn. ‘I believe I posed a question. Or was it Pender?’

  Pender busied himself even more as Harry gave a grudging reply. ‘It was only a thought. Nothing’s decided.’

  ‘Really. Fellow had some charts of the Ligurian Sea, and was full of talk of the situation in Leghorn, which, if I’
m not mistaken, is just down the coast from Genoa. Talkative cove, the admiral’s clerk. He was telling me all about the place. He seemed quite sure of your plans, though he doubted that you would persuade the admiral to reissue your exemptions. Strange that you didn’t see fit to mention any of this to me.’

  ‘I am still investigating the possibilities, which I may say I’m entitled to do. There are any number of obstacles. But regardless of all else, any thoughts I may harbour would all come to naught if I can’t safely crew the ship, so getting those exemptions back would be vital.’

  There was truth in Harry’s words, but also a grain of dissimulation. They did not explain his eagerness to be at sea. Prior to his previous voyage, his brother-in-law had sought to persuade him that it was folly, using cogent arguments that a man with his responsibilities should not be chasing around the oceans trying to earn money he didn’t need. Arthur, while happy to look after Harry’s affairs, none the less saw telling the truth as part of his duties. He was ably supported by Harry’s sister, though her concerns were emotional rather than practical. If he went back to England, he knew he would have no end of trouble getting afloat again. Arthur would seek to enmesh him in politics and business immediately. His sister would load him with concerns about their estate. There was no point in saying any of this to James, who had no time, and even less regard, for their brother-in-law. Ignoring Arthur was a long-standing habit with James. He would not comprehend his brother’s reservations.

  ‘Pender,’ said James, smiling. ‘Do try and stop inventing little tasks. You sound like a ship’s rat scrabbling about.’

  ‘Sorry, your honour,’ said Pender softly, addressing Harry. ‘Sort of let the cat out of the bag.’

  ‘Of course it’s really none of my concern, Harry. After all that has happened these past weeks, I can understand your reluctance to have me sail with you again.’

  ‘That’s unfair,’ snapped Harry.

  ‘I know.’ His brother laughed, closing the book on his thumb again. ‘But I do so enjoy catching you out. Now pray tell me what you have in mind.’

  Over the next few days, Harry spent much time in the great cabin with Hood, seeking to persuade the admiral that the loss of his hands from the Medusa, all of them exempt from naval service, was just as much a matter for compensation as reimbursing him for the loss of his ship. Hood was unmoved, despite Harry’s oft-repeated argument that without having his hands exempt from the press, he might as well not bother to search out a crew, since any naval vessel, coming across his ship, with him flying under a British flag, could whip off as many of his hands as they cared to.

  ‘A fine state of affairs for an Englishman,’ cried Harry, with a dramatic flourish of his arm. ‘To have to run from the ships of his own country.’

  Hood merely laughed. They both knew the tricks of the trade, like having your men dress in odd costumes and speaking gibberish when asked any question about their past. Legally, a man could only be taken out of a ship if he volunteered, or could be positively identified as a deserter. But they also both knew that legality counted for little in the middle of the ocean, far from any authority other than the barrel of a cannon.

  ‘Perhaps you have chosen the wrong game, Harry,’ replied Hood, eyebrows raised, and with a humorous twinkle in his eye.

  ‘Does that mean that the answer is no?’

  Hood shook his head. ‘It means that I’ve yet to make up my mind.’

  Their rendezvous with the rest of the fleet off Cape Sicie was attended by endless discharging of signal guns as the various admirals, Spanish and English, exchanged courtesies. But that was all the polite behaviour in evidence, for when the man being relieved, Admiral Hotham, came aboard the Victory, any pretense at good manners evaporated. Such a meeting was rarely a happy occasion. The incoming commander would always question the activities of his predecessor, probably in writing for the sake of his own skin, while the man relinquishing command would be on edge to smoke an insult to his name or reputation.

  But this time the participants excelled themselves, for Samuel Hood not only held that Hotham’s actions had been unworthy, but he also implied that they’d been positively criminal. He had, in Hood’s view, used the ships of the king’s navy to enrich himself. Stiff formality was the tone of their first exchange. But once Hood had read the reports and had words with some of the more efficient senior captains, he used his superiority and prestige to blast Hotham. Being intimate with Hood, and with the older man seeing no cause for discretion, Harry and James were quickly apprised of the situation.

  ‘You’ll find precious little to line your pockets in these waters now, Harry,’ he snapped, banging a fist on his polished desk, before turning angrily to stare out of the sternlights at the distant shore. ‘For that scrub Hotham has used the fleet to sweep the Mediterranean clean.’

  ‘I gather from your clerk that he’s initiated no action against the enemy,’ said James, who had seen in this man a source of useful information, and cultivated him accordingly.

  Hood spun round and gave him a sharp look, but he let the remark about his clerk pass, concentrating instead on the matter uppermost in his mind. ‘None that can shoot back. All his targets have been merchantmen.’

  He waved his arm in the direction of the French coast. ‘There are thirty sail of the line in Toulon, most with their yards uncrossed. Damn it, they’re not even ready for sea. We could destroy them at their moorings.’

  ‘It’s not an easy place to attack, my lord,’ said Harry. It wasn’t that he sought to support Hotham. But he was more aware than James of the traditional disputes between high-ranking officers.

  ‘Nobody says it is, Harry. But Hotham hasn’t even tried. Damn near every ship has been detached on a cruise, and with the war so young they’ve scooped the pool. They’re all cock-a-hoop with the money they’ve made, and who can blame them?’

  ‘I suppose that Admiral Hotham has also done well?’ asked James.

  The huge hand hit the desk again, even harder. ‘He’s had his eighth all right. He’s made more money than anyone.’

  Hood looked at James to make sure he understood that an admiral received an eighth of the value of any prize taken by the ships under his command. He needn’t have worried. He was addressing the son of a commander who’d secured his fortune in the West Indies from just such an avenue, whilst simultaneously receiving the thanks of Parliament for his endeavours.

  Hood threw himself angrily into a chair. ‘I had an inkling of this in Gibraltar when I was told the number of prizes he was sending in. If he’d shown the slightest inclination to attack the French as well, I’d be after a peerage for him. God only knows what the neutrals think.’

  ‘Surely you can find that out,’ asked James. ‘Do we not have a representative in Genoa?’

  Hood looked surprised, as though what he was about to say was something the brothers should have known. ‘Our man, Lord Fenner, died before I left Portsmouth. We haven’t yet got a replacement, though I harried the government to send someone out with me.’

  The ruddy face closed up again, with Hood’s voice positively growling with anger. ‘To cap it all, we’ve just had word from Genoa that our victualling agent, Gallagher, the only man we have in situ, has decamped, taking the funds for the purchase of our stores with him. There is a whole cargo of guns missing it seems, including carronades. And it will be me that has to account for it.

  ‘Look at this!’ His voice rose even more and his huge hand thumped the desk again, before reaching out to pick up a letter. ‘If you doubted Hotham’s bare-faced thievery, this would convince you. I’ve got here a petition from the English privateers in Leghorn, asking that the activities of the navy be curtailed.’

  ‘Will they be?’ asked Harry anxiously, for he still had hopes of sailing from the port that had long been home to British privateers.

  ‘Of course they will,’ Hood cried, quite forgetting he was talking to a privateer. ‘We’re here to make war, not line our pockets!’

/>   There was no chance to talk to the admiral for several days, with a spate of conferences aboard the flagship as Hood sought to turn the combined fleets back to their original purpose. Captains were questioned for offensive ideas that might confound the enemy, their previous attitudes and actions called to account. Just as ruthlessly their logs, muster books, and accounts were thoroughly examined. Hannibal, the last ship to return from Genoa, received more scrutiny than the others, and Hood tried to collate a picture of what was going on. What he heard didn’t please him. With no ambassador at present in the Republic, and as Hood put it, ‘damned little influence’, he was given good reason to wonder at the security of the arrangements. Over the last century, Genoa had usually sided with France in the wars between the Bourbon monarchs and the British. At best they’d assumed a neutrality which favoured the French.

  This had less to do with brotherly love than with geography. The French navy, the most powerful in Europe before the Revolution, was less than a day’s sailing from their city. For the French army an attack on Genoa required less than a week’s march. The only thing that had changed was that some of the most powerful Genoese magnates, fearing for their heads and the safety of their banks, now inclined towards Britain instead of France. Fear of the ‘Terror’ was greater than fear of attack.

  At a last private meal before the brothers transferred to the Swiftsure, a frigate on its way into Genoa to take on stores, Hood raised his glass to wish them God speed and good luck. Harry took both with a pinch of salt, considering that the admiral had not yet answered his request for exemptions. But Hood did have some information that he thought might be of interest.

  ‘Seems that there’s a bunch of privateers running out of Genoa itself,’ he said, cracking a pair of walnuts between his huge hands.

  ‘That’s unusual,’ Harry replied. ‘Sardinians yes, but not English. They usually stick to Leghorn.’