Dying Trade

by David Donachie

Pender gave Harry another wide smile. ‘This being marooned on a desert island lark ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.’

  They started the water out of its casks and pumped it out, lightening the ship considerably. Harry took a spell on the pumps himself. The three eunuchs had collapsed, not being used to performing any kind of physical work. But they’d shown concern for the casualties, and an ability to tend their wounds, being gentle souls, for all the nature of their trade. Harry had passed them over to Fairbairn to help run the hospital.

  The next job was back-breaking, for with few fit hands clearing the holds was punishing work. Harry couldn’t remove everything, some of it would have needed a full crew on the capstan, but he shifted enough to satisfy himself that the Principessa was still reasonably sound. She had taken a nasty jolt, and some of her copper bolts were looser than they should be, especially in the forepeak. But he knew that given a complete hull she’d sail, though it was inevitable that she would take in a lot more water through her seams than she had before.

  They carried out a temporary repair on the gash in the hull, using a tar-covered sail. Harry righted her again, pumped her out some more, and had her hauled up the beach as far as possible, taking care to place her at low tide. Then, having shifted as many of the remaining stores as possible, he heaved her right over so that half her hull was out of the water. They beached the merchant ship beside the Principessa, at an angle to act as a breakwater, then started to cannibalise the timbers from her hull. It wasn’t neat, for neither Harry nor any of his remaining hands were true carpenters. But it was enough, and they sawed and planed and hacked with their adze, sometimes up to their knees in water as the tide rose enough to flood the temporary staging, until the hole was repaired. Harry coated the timbers with several layers of tar, and four days after the battle, having worked every daylight hour, he was ready to float her off again. He waited until the tide was high. Not that it made much of a difference in the Mediterranean. But the extra couple of feet sufficed, for she was a great deal lighter now than when he’d beached her.

  They eased her hull down, very gently, into the rising water, in order not to dig her keel into the sand. Harry had his fittest men in the cutter, with a cable to the bows, with the others aboard the merchant ship standing by to push with the capstan bars. As she started to lift he yelled an order. They began to push and pull like the devil, and with a sucking sound, the Principessa’s head came off the beach. The water flowed under her stern as she righted herself, and quite suddenly the ship seemed to bounce and she was afloat. Those who had the energy let out a ragged cheer.

  He had everyone sleeping ashore in proper beds, though he himself used the storeroom, since some of the wounded screamed terribly in the night. The three eunuchs seemed tireless in their efforts to treat their charges, and they fussed around with buckets of cool water and sponges from the bay, dabbing at the sweating brows of the wounded men, and dosing them with herbal remedies of their own devising. In the evenings, after a decent meal, Harry had time to try and communicate with them, for there was nothing he could really accomplish in the dark.

  It was a slow process, which of necessity started with the word Bartholomew. It progressed from there, using sign language and drawing in the soft earth with a stick, through ‘yes’ and ‘no’, to a graphic description of their home, which seemed to be somewhere on the Black Sea coast if their pointed fingers were to be believed. They drew a ground plan of a large building, some sort of palace, indicating that this was the place they’d come from. It had many servants and a powerful master. Mention of their master led them into some kind of joke which involved chopping motions with their hands around their mouths and their groins. When Harry had tempered their giggling he managed to establish that this master, whoever he was, had been dead for some time. Then it was the number of suns and moons to establish that they’d been on this island for the past two years.

  On the fourth night, Harry, for once wearing his coat, reached into his pocket for a handkerchief. As he pulled it out, the key that had been in there since the day of the explosion fell out also. One of the eunuchs bent to pick it up, and as he saw the crest, he beamed with pleasure. But his face froze when he saw Harry’s reaction to the one word he’d said. Harry quickly composed his features, smiling again, as though the mere dropping of the key had been the thing to cause him annoyance. He took it back, made his excuses, and left.

  He went through to the hospital. Fairbairn had set up home in the eunuchs’ room, taking one of their beds so that he could be near his patients. He looked up at Harry as he approached, and the dark circles under his eyes, plus the stubble on his chin, made him look as he had when Harry had first clapped eyes on him. But the cause this time was genuine exhaustion, not opium.

  ‘How is Sutton?’ he asked.

  Fairbairn pushed his lank hair out of his eyes. ‘He doesn’t answer, Ludlow. It’s not the wound. That is healing well, and he doesn’t want for attention from your eunuchs. His spirit, or the lack of it, is killing him.’

  Harry had seen a steady trickle of men returning to duty over the past few days, some seeming to make remarkable recoveries. He knew that he was in the presence of an exceptional surgeon and physician, and pleased that even at the low ebb to which his tiredness had reduced him, he had shown no desire to return to his former habit.

  ‘Have you spoken with him?’

  Fairbairn nodded.

  ‘Why is he so low?’

  ‘The man sees no future for himself. And can you blame him? If he’d still been in the king’s navy, he would at least have been entitled to set up shop selling spiritous liquor. But he’s not. He talks of Botany Bay, wishing that he’d refused the royal bounty and gone there.’

  Fairbairn rubbed a hand over his brow, then tried to squeeze the exhaustion out of his eyes. ‘I have often noticed that in the criminal class. A compulsive desire to start anew.’

  Harry thought how with his help Pender had done just that. He went and sought him out now, taking him away from a game of dice.

  ‘Sutton’s all right deep down, your honour,’ said Pender, once they were out of earshot of the other players. ‘Leastways, I think he is.’

  ‘Then why did we have all that trouble with him?’

  ‘Not at first. I seem to recall he was willin’.’

  Harry looked at the clear night sky. ‘Yes. So do I. How honest is he?’

  ‘I told you, he was a thief.’

  ‘Pender, you were a thief. I would trust you with everything I possess.’

  Pender was slightly abashed, then smiled at the compliment. ‘To my mind there’re two sorts. There’s those that does it ’cause they’re too bone idle to do owt else, and there’s others that refuse to buckle under. But they don’t feel inclined to starve.’

  ‘Sutton’s not the type to buckle under. He would have left the ship alone that first day out. And I had a hell of a task getting him to admit to anything when I questioned him.’

  ‘That’s right. He came to thieving to avoid hunger, I reckon. Much like me. An’ like me, seeing he found he was good at it, he didn’t see no reason to do any other work.’

  ‘So if I offered him a place, say on my estates, you think I could trust him?’

  Pender was wary; he didn’t want the responsibility, even although he knew Harry would never blame him. ‘That I cannot say for sure. Just as I can’t say if’n it’s a good idea to go filling your property with villains.’

  ‘Would you trust him?’

  There was a long pause. Reluctant he might be, but Pender was not the type to let a mate down. He’d regretted belting Sutton in Genoa, but that was a case of higher loyalty, and no time to mess about. And Sutton hadn’t forgiven him for that, staying well out of his way ever since.

  ‘Let’s say I’d be willin’ to give him a chance, though I’d keep an eye on him for a while.’

  ‘So the answer is yes?’

  Pender nodded, but he made sure that it carried reluctance as well as a
greement.

  Harry laughed, though he didn’t have much to be amused about. ‘That, my friend, was like extracting a healthy tooth with just my fingers.’

  ‘It’s not everybody that can afford to be certain, your honour.’

  Sutton looked away as Harry sat down by his bed. He shook his head when his visitor enquired after him. But Harry spoke to the back of his neck.

  Harry decided he might as well start with a pure guess. ‘The night we met, on that quayside, where had you come from?’

  That brought his head round, slowly for sure, but round nevertheless, to look Harry Ludlow in the eye.

  ‘I wondered at Broadbridge making you his right-hand man. When I opened his chest.’ Sutton’s eyes showed a flicker of reaction. ‘I had Pender open it the morning after we found his body. As I was saying, I wondered at your position. After all, if Broadbridge was intent on being a privateer, he needed good sailors, not good dips. Then we found all those certificates he had. He wasn’t a sailor at all, was he?’

  ‘That was plain enough,’ croaked Sutton.

  ‘What was he up to?’ Sutton didn’t reply, so Harry continued. ‘Those share certificates were no good to him in Italy. But they pointed to the kind of man he was. Is that how he got those guns? Did he persuade the navy victualling agent to invest in one of his schemes? You said that you went ashore the night Howlett was murdered, to see Gallagher and get some “more” money. So that wasn’t the first time Broadbridge had met him, was it?’

  Sutton gave a single shake of his head.

  ‘He had involved Gallagher in some scheme. One that cost the man dear. That would explain why he ran away. Admiral Hood said he’d absconded with the money entrusted to him to purchase stores. How much of that money had Broadbridge already dunned him for?’

  ‘How the hell should I know?’

  ‘Broadbridge was on his uppers, yet a few days later he was talking about turning the Dido into Fiddler’s Green. What happened to elevate his spirits to that degree?’ Sutton didn’t reply. ‘The night you rescued us from those men on the quayside, had you been up to something?’ Sutton still didn’t speak, but he did turn to look at Harry. ‘An odd direction to come from, that. That’s not the place to catch deserters. You do that on the quayside or the beach.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re driving at.’

  Harry took the key out of his pocket. Sutton looked at it and tried to keep his eyes from showing any reaction. ‘We found this in Broadbridge’s chest as well.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So? It has the same crest as the key to the cabin on my ship. Odd that, wouldn’t you say?’

  Sutton had become more animated, in fact near angry. Harry felt that this loss of listlessness was caused by his feeling threatened. ‘Can’t see that it is. He was after buying the fucking ship, weren’t he?’

  ‘Count Toraglia said they’d never met.’

  ‘Then he must be a lying bastard. They all are in those parts.’

  ‘The first night we went there, in the sedan chair, you seemed scared of something. So scared you avoided the duty the next morning.’

  He turned his head away. ‘Can’t recall.’

  ‘In fact, you’ve behaved oddly ever since. This key was in Captain Broadbridge’s chest. The captain, dead, was in the cabin of the Principessa. But this key doesn’t fit my cabin. It was made for another door, though for the same owner. You just happen to be a dip, a man adept at pinching a purse. I would reckon a key is easier to lift from a pocket than a purse. Especially from the pocket of a blind man.’

  Sutton spun his head round sharply. ‘Look. I don’t know nothin’, leave me be.’

  ‘Mr Fairbairn says that you’re going to die.’

  Fear filled the man’s eyes at that. No one had said anything to him. All he heard were the normal sounds of medical reassurance.

  ‘He maintains that you’re not fighting hard enough, that you’ve lost your vital spark, and that if you don’t want to live there’s nothing he can do for you.’

  Sutton settled back on his cot, leaning against the wall and closing his eyes. ‘What’s to live for?’

  ‘I asked Pender about you.’

  ‘I’ll not say nowt against Pious, even if he did clip me one. You have a good ’un there.’

  ‘That’s more or less what he said about you.’

  ‘Then I thank him kindly.’ Harry saw Sutton’s eyes turn watery, then he blinked and turned away again.

  ‘He said that if I was to offer you a future, you could be trusted to take it, and not repay me by stealing my possessions. I have large estates and there’s work even for a man with one arm. The offer is there if you want it, and if you live.’

  Sutton was confused. He knew he’d caused Harry a lot of trouble. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I want to know certain things, or perhaps I just need them confirmed. You’d been to the Toraglia villa before. You were involved in some scheme with Broadbridge to make money, and it wasn’t out of sailing as a privateer. The source of funds from Gallagher had dried up, but he found something else to provide his keep. He was a crimp, and you were to be his accomplice.’

  Harry held up the key. ‘I asked where you came from the night you rescued us. You’d been somewhere in the town. Was it to try this perhaps, and see if it fitted? Or did you already know the answer to that? What was the idea? Did you plan to rob a blind man? Or was it something to do with the syndicate?’

  That scared him. He pushed himself onto his elbows and glared at Harry. ‘How do you know all this? Not that I’m saying you’re right, mind.’

  ‘Because I just dropped this key next door. I was with the eunuchs, and one of them picked it up. He recognised it right away.’

  ‘So he recognised it. They can’t tell you anything, they don’t speak English.’

  ‘They speak enough, Sutton. Just enough. You see when he picked it up, he said the one word he does know.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘He said Bartholomew. Is that where you got it from?’

  Harry came back into the room where the three eunuchs sat lounging on cushions. He had Pender and a brace of pistols with him, for he had no illusions about the difficulty, and the capacity for confusion, in asking three men who didn’t speak English to take their clothes off.

  As it was, the amount of sign language was excessive, as was the quantity of giggling. Pender’s pistols didn’t scare them at all. But if they’d been looking into Harry’s eyes when he examined their backs, they would have stopped laughing damned quick. Harry’s eyes were diamond hard and full of hate. All three had that crescent-shaped mark and the badly deformed skin, with the strange lettering down the side, in exactly the same place as the black-clad villain Harry had killed aboard the Principessa.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  ‘PEOPLE who’ve lived on the wrong side of the law can spot one another right off.’

  Sutton had been sitting up when Harry returned, and some of the waxy grey colour had gone from his skin. He doubted that it was because of his offer. More likely Sutton had revived because of the attention being paid to his every word. ‘Not that Broadbridge ever said he was a felon. For he’d never tell a truth where a falsehood would serve.’

  ‘Do you know where he came from?’

  Sutton shook his head. ‘No. But he had money to spend, at least to begin with, and he was free with it.’

  ‘Someone else’s most like,’ said Pender, unaware of the connection between Broadbridge and Gallagher.

  ‘Too right, Pious. Anyway, he cottoned on, right off, that I was no sailor. That was when he was beggin’ to get a slice of the syndicate.’

  ‘Bartholomew told me how hard he badgered them.’

  ‘But he’d not tell you why. Broadbridge knew they was up to no good, ’cause I tell you he could smell it.’

  ‘I never liked the set-up, I’m bound to say,’ said Pender. Harry gave him a sharp look, pleading that he shut up and let Sutton speak.

 
‘I don’t even know how long he’d been around, or if he’d come out straight from England. But he had a hound’s snout for money. He could smell a profit a mile off.’ Sutton shook his head again, smiling a bit this time. ‘He was a bit of a card, old Broadbridge.’

  Harry conjured up the ace of spades. ‘So you think he’d already found out what the syndicate was about before he asked to join?’

  ‘Not the sort of thing he’d let onto the likes of me. But I take leave to doubt that he knew. He spent an age trying to find out where they got their money, for they never seemed to bring any stuff ashore. He just knew it wasn’t on the up an’ up. He’d had a sniff around before I ever met him, and he’d spotted that Bartholomew was forever skulkin’ out the back way. That he did tell me about. So we followed him and saw him going into that villa, sneaky like. That’s when he set me to get the key.’

  ‘When was that?’

  Sutton put his tongue between his lips, deep in thought. ‘Not long after that Captain Howlett was murdered. Three or four days.’

  ‘Everyone I spoke to said that he was scared witless after that happened.’

  ‘An’ no mistake.’

  Harry spoke gently now. ‘Yet you don’t think it was him?’

  Sutton’s voice was filled with scorn for that notion. ‘He didn’t have it in him, drunk or sober.’

  ‘Could he have seen who did it?’

  ‘I told you, he was arseholed drunk. If’n he saw anything it would be double.’

  ‘He told me he’d had words with Bartholomew the night you rescued us.’

  A slight frown at the change of tack. ‘Aye, that’s right.’

  ‘Do you think he threatened to expose him?’

  ‘Expose what? He still hadn’t cottoned on to what they was about. Besides, Broadbridge wasn’t the sort to threaten. No, he wanted a slice of what was goin’, that was all.’

  ‘But if Bartholomew threatened him …?’

  ‘Then I dare say he’d give warning in return.’