The Gathering Storm

by Peter Smalley

  Rennie lay in his little bedroom under the eaves, and was restless. He had looked in again on James after supper, and found him sleeping peacefully. The tremors and sweating had gone, and he had felt easier about his friend. Rennie's own headaches, that had recently plagued him, had receded now, and his head was clearer – but that only added to his wakefulness and unquiet contemplation.

  The commission had been a hopeless failure in all distinctions. His ship was so badly damaged that she would probably have to be sold out of the service, or broken up. He had lost more than half of his people and his officers. To what purpose?

  'Young Souter, that I never liked, poor fellow. And cheerful, steadfast Tom Makepeace, that I have known since Expedient was first commissioned. What am I to say to his widow? I should have wrote to her as soon as we made landfall, and have not. So many letters I have neglected, in my rush to get to London. What for, in God's name? What am I to say to Their Lordships? I do not care anything about Mappin, in the end, the fellow. His whole purpose is to conceal, and obfuscate, and omit. But what am I to say to Their Lordships, who wrote my warrant? I have lost the most valuable passengers that was ever in a British ship of war. They will wish to lay the blame for what has happened ... and their eyes will fall on me. I will be blamed.'

  This bleak realisation weighed heavily in on him now in the darkness, and for a moment his head buzzed and he could not get his breath. He sat up.

  'I see it quite clear, by God. I was always meant to take the blame. In course, they will like to pretend that they wished to save King Louis, and they will say that through my miserable ineptitude I have cost France everything. Her last and only hope and I have wrecked it, and now only disaster can follow. They meant to have a scapegoat from the beginning. I will be cashiered, that is certain. And afterward ... after all that ...'

  The feeling that he was being crushed alive drove him from his bed. He rose and stumbled to the window. The cool night air on his face was no comfort.

  'Who will employ a disgraced post captain, even in the humblest merchantman? And what will become of my darling Sylvia? I shall lose my Norfolk home, and everything I value. What will become of poor James, if he lives? He will likely be cashiered himself. Christ's blood, has not he suffered enough?' Leaning his head on the window frame.

  'And young Leigh, that I placed in command of what is left of my people, and my ship – what will become of him? Even with all his family interest and connection, will not he find his career broke and destroyed by the sheer ill-fortune of having served under Captain William Rennie?'

  He breathed deep in an effort to calm and comfort himself. An owl hooted in the solemn dark, the sound carrying through the wood. Long silence. Another deep, sniffing breath, and now he did feel a little better. He was about to turn away from the window when from the wood came the sudden shrieking cry of a small creature caught in predatory talons. He tilted his head, listening. The cries rose in a desperate crescendo, and were cut off. A moment, and:

  'Aye.' Whispered. 'Aye, that is life on this earth. Timid and lost in the scurrying dark, blind and fearful and lost – and sudden painful death.'

  He stared into the blackness.

  'Why are we given life at all, when it is only harshness and suffering? Why?'

  A tear fell on his cheek. Another, and another, and he wept.

  'Oh, Christ ... I am lost ... lost ...'

  All the destruction and horror and strain of the past weeks beat in on him now, and lashed him like a storm of wind. He bent his head, and was so overwhelmed that at first he scarcely noticed a light brushing movement against his leg. Again something nudged him there, and trod light over his foot. He dashed tears from his eyes, and peered down. And heard a distinct thrumming purr.

  'Good God ...'

  He bent down, felt about him blindly and found the creature, and lifted it up.

  Presently he returned to his bed, and lay quietly back against his pillow with the cat on his breast, its head bumping against his chin and the thrumming of its pleasure in his ear. He stroked the animal, and felt misery and sadness retreat. Softly:

  'You are not Dulcie, my dear, but you are a very great comfort to me in my hour of need.'

  Soon after he drifted peacefully down into deep relieving sleep, and did not wake until the sun stood broad in the sky.

  *

  Dr Denfield came and went twice more during the course of the next two days, and James slowly regained his senses, and his sense of self, so that on the third day he was able to sit up in bed, take broth and a little solid food, and converse with the doctor, who told him:

  'On the morrow, Lieutenant, y'may rise and walk about.'

  'Not today?'

  Dr Denfield held up a hand, closed his eyes against further interruption, then continued:

  'Walk about, breathe the air, and measure your strength. If you no longer feel faint, nor queasy, then on the following day y'may safely go to London, if you wish.'

  'Yes, thank you, Doctor. Thank you indeed for all your kindness in attending to me.'

  The doctor inclined his head, and encouraged, James continued:

  'But ain't it possible that I could rise later today, walk about and so forth – and then go to London tomorrow? It is very urgent that I should go, d'y'see.'

  Dr Denfield took a breath. 'You are a sea officer, sir, as are my uncle and cousins. You are a very singular race of men, not much given to heeding medical advice. I have given you mine.' A very direct gaze. 'What you do with it, once I have driven away in my gig, I cannot govern.'

  'Thankee, Doctor. I am in your debt.' Reaching for his purse. 'Erm ... may I settle that part of it that is monetary, sir?'

  'Y'may.' A nod, a half-smile.

  And when the doctor had gone, James drank off the dregs of his broth, stretched his arms over his head, and lay back.

  'I will rise presently, and go outside.'

  He fell asleep at once, and did not wake until the evening. And found when he did wake that his spirits were low. Dreams had troubled him, and the mood of the dreams lingered now – anxiety, and gloom, and a sense of foreboding. He tried to shake off the mood by attempting to rise and wash his face, but as he got up on his legs and reached for the ewer and basin he felt himself weak and faint, and had to lie down again.

  As he lay there on the bed in the deepening shadow of evening, he began to reflect on everything that had recently happened to him. At first his thoughts were tumbled and jumbled together in a maelstrom of moments and images; then as his weakness and faintness retreated his thoughts grew more ordered, until he was able to discover in himself a kind of sombre understanding.

  'I have changed ...'

  He had changed. A few years since – nay, a few months – he would never even have thought of embarking on a new life with a woman like Juliette. Yet he had begun to do so, and had continued until she was lost at the inlet. Never before would he have thought of leaving his beloved Catherine – no matter her continued wan listlessness and melancholy. In a few months the world he knew had seemed to change so much, not only his private world but the world at large. It seemed to him now that everything was darker and less certain, less accommodating of his private self – of any individual man. It was as if all manner of new and barbarous things were possible, and probable.

  He sighed, and looked at the light waning in the window, the last sunken glow of the sun. It was not that the seasons had altered, nor the birds that came and went with them, soaring on the sky, nor the shape of the hills and the spires of churches across the undulating quiet green fields of England. But that now over it all lay a long shadow, a gathering storm in the still of the evening and the hush of dawn. When the substance of that shadow would come rolling darkly over the land he did not know, but he was certain now it would come, and would carry away on its black tide all of the things he had known and trusted and loved, and render them into mud and ash.

  'A few months ago none of these things would have entered my thoughts.' M
urmuring in the quiet air of the little room. 'My God – I would never have dreamed of striking my captain, no matter how compelling the reason, nor dire the circumstances. And yet I did do it, without a moment's hesitation, because I thought I had the right to save the ship – and in course myself. Six months ago my home was the centre of my life, it was my life's blood. How could I wish to see it spilled away? How could I wish for such things? The storm ain't just out there ... it is gathering inside of me, in all of us, and making us into selfish madmen, loose guns on the deck of the world.'

  Returning sleep allowed him respite from these heavy things, at last.

  *

  Recovered, Lieutenant Hayter made the proposal that he and Captain Rennie should hire horses and ride to London. He was vociferously opposed and contradicted by Dr Denfield, Mr and Mrs Temple, and Rennie himself. He took James aside.

  'Good God, ye've only just got up on your legs. Have you the smallest notion how far it is to London?'

  'Erm ... where are we exact?'

  'We are five or six mile from Haslemere, and fifty mile from London. A very exhausting ride for anybody that has lately been ill. Pray do not again think of riding there, if y'please.' Sternly.

  'Ohh, very well, just as you like.' A shrug. 'We must try for seats in one of the turnpike coaches, I expect, at a post inn.'

  And that was what they did. The farmer carried them to the inn in the early morning in his cart, and was duly thanked. James was accepted inside the coach – which was already very full – by virtue of his recent debility, and Rennie was obliged to ride on top under the open sky – which soon became wet. The journey to London was long, with several stops at inns – this was not a fast mail coach, after all – and several showers of rain, and when at last they arrived at their destination Rennie was monosyllabic with cold, despair, wretchedness, and loathing for the world and all its works. James, on the other hand, had slept most of the journey, and arrived refreshed, comfortably dry, and in equable humour.

  'Shall we take chairs, and go to Mrs Peebles's hotel?' Looking about him in the noise and bustle and smell of the London evening.

  'Chairs!' Ferociously.

  'Well, yes ... you do not suggest that we should walk there, do you, sir?'

  'Walk!'

  They engaged chairs, and were conveyed to Bedford Street. Rennie had a hot bath, and was restored. James lay down to rest, and woke in returning gloom.

  At a late supper in the dining room, he said:

  'We must arrange the interview with Mappin, I suppose. We must tell him our bad news.'

  'No supposin' about it, my boy. We are already late, and we must arrange it, right quick.'

  'Tomorrow, then?'

  'Why not now?'

  'Tonight? I – I am still feeling a little faint, you know. Tomorrow will answer, surely?'

  'First thing, then. We should go to him first thing after breakfast. Hey?'

  'Hm.'

  But when they met again in the morning over the breakfast table, Rennie's brief mood of uplift and optimism had drained away, and he was apprehensive, pallid, and had cut his chin with his razor.

  'You are bleeding, sir.'

  'Eh?'

  'Your chin.' James tapped his own chin, and nodded as the girl brought his bacon and eggs.

  'Damn the thing.' Rennie dabbed at the cut with his napkin, and when his own eggs came: 'Nay ... I am not hungry today.' And he pushed them aside.

  Presently James too lost his appetite, laid aside his knife and fork, and settled for a cup of strong coffee.

  Rennie sucked down hot black tea; sniffed, sighed, grimaced. 'Damn the fellow.'

  'Sir?'

  'It is all his doing, that will be our undoing. He is the same kind of wretch as Greer, the fellow.'

  'We must face him, all the same.'

  'Aye ... I cannot cut him with my sword, but by God I shall cut him with my tongue, James.'

  * * *

  Captain Rennie and Lieutenant Hayter decided to go to the Admiralty to enquire after Mr Mappin, since they had no other address. The address of the Secret Service Fund – if such an address existed – had never been vouchsafed them. They made their way to Whitehall on foot, but when they came to the Admiralty and went in under the arch, they could discover nothing. The whereabouts of Mr Mappin were unknown. His name produced frowns of unrecognition in the Admiralty officials, who obliged the two sea officers to wait in a small side room downstairs until they were summoned.

  'Summoned?' Rennie.

  'By a representative of Their Lordships.' The clerk who attended on them, bleakly.

  'Ah.'

  The brusqueness of these instructions was lost on neither man, and each began to be privately and deeply apprehensive. They had been engaged in momentous international events in one of His Majesty's commissioned ships of war, and had failed. The most telling words in any officer's warrant of commission, plainly written out, were these:

  Hereof nor you nor any of you may fail as you will answer the contrary at your peril.

  Even though Rennie alone presently had a warrant of commission, neither man was in any doubt that both now faced that peril – in its own implacable way greater and more formidable than all the dark and stormy perils of the sea. James's involvement was as whole as Rennie's, commissioned or no, and his entire future was equally in jeopardy.

  In the event they faced only the Third Secretary, Mr Soames. They were shown into his stuffy office, and seated upon plain wooden chairs. Presently Mr Soames came in, dressed as ever in black coat and white linen, and exuding wafts of astringent cologne.

  'Captain Rennie. Lieutenant Hayter.'

  Both officers stood up and bowed.

  'Mr Soames.' Rennie, politely neutral.

  'Sir.' James, equally polite.

  Mr Soames motioned them both to sit down, and sat down himself at his desk. He adjusted the position of the inkwell, glanced into a drawer, made his expression agreeable, and:

  'Now, gentlemen, how may I assist?'

  Rennie and James glanced at each other.

  'Assist, Mr Soames?' Rennie. 'Do not you wish us ... to assist Their Lordships?'

  'In what distinction?' Eyebrows politely raised. He dabbed at his lips with his lace kerchief, and returned it to his sleeve. A further waft of cologne. 'Hm?'

  'Well well ... in the question of ... in the matter of ... of the commission, and so forth. The coast of France?'

  'France?' Glancing from one to the other.

  Rennie took a breath, and:

  'Perhaps, Mr Soames – you yourself cannot assist us, after all. We had wished to see Mr Mappin, Sir Robert Greer's successor at the Fund. You are acquainted with him, I am in no doubt?'

  'Mapple? No.' A little shake of the head.

  'Come come, Soames. Mappin. Mr Brough Mappin.'

  'Hm.' Another little shake of the head. 'Since Sir Robert's unfortunate death I have been privy to none of the deliberations of the Fund, none of its activity.'

  A knock on the inner door of the office. Mr Soames turned his head there.

  'Come.'

  A clerk entered, and came to Mr Soames's desk. A brief whispered exchange, and the clerk gave Soames a document, and retired. The squeak of the door-hinges, the click of the latch. Soames felt for his spectacles in his coat, spread open the document and perused it. Presently, lifting his head to look at his visitors:

  'Hm. A preliminary report of inspection, concerning your ship, Captain Rennie. Quite why it has come to me I could not say. But since you are here in my office, perhaps that is why. So far as I can gather ...' tapping the document '... your ship is in a parlous condition. I am not unfamiliar with dockyard language, in course, but the injuries to the fabric of the ship listed here are too great in number to allow of immediate whole comprehension.' Glancing again at the document. 'However ... it would appear that the quartermen that wrote out this report have concluded that your ship must probably be broke up.'

  'Broke up! Expedient? Nay ...' James, in
angry astonishment.

  'My dear Lieutenant Hayter – it ain't my decision.' Soames, mildly.

  'I don't believe it! Broke up? The notion is absurd.' James had stood up, ignoring Rennie's warning look, and now advanced to the desk. 'May I see the report, Mr Soames?' Holding out his hand.

  'I notice you ain't in uniform, Mr Hayter.' Soames, again mildly.

  'Well, no ... we came from Portsmouth, and I had not time—'

  Soames, over him: 'In fact, you are not presently commissioned – are you?'

  'Well, no, but I am—'

  'Not attached to HMS Expedient?'

  'Well, not official, but I—'

  'Then the report cannot possibly concern you. To speak plain, it is not your business. Is it?'

  James bit his tongue, made his back straight, took a deep breath, and obliged himself to say:

  'You are right, in course. Strictly speaking, it ain't my business. I beg your pardon, Mr Soames.' He bowed, and resumed his seat.

  But Rennie had now stood up again, and he said to Soames:

  'You deny knowing Mappin, do you, Soames?'

  'I do not know him.'

  'Then we need trouble you no more. Our business is with him, and he is not here.'

  'Forgive me, Captain Rennie, I had thought you said your business was to assist Their Lordships. Since none of Their Lordships is presently available – I am here.'

  'Good day t'ye, Soames.' Rennie took up his hat and put it on, motioned to James to join him, and strode from the room.

  EIGHTEEN

  In a coffee house in the Strand Rennie drank off a second cup of tea, and:

  'Well, James, we have made our attempt. We have done our duty.'

  James looked at him a moment, then leaned forward earnestly. 'Sir, with respect – we have not. In least, I have not. I have given no report to Mr Mappin, that charged me with this task. I have wrote no letter, made no explication. I have discharged nothing of my final obligation.'

  'No letters was to be wrote, James. That was the strict understanding, good God. Nothing to be wrote down official. In that way no lies could be nailed, and we was lied to from the beginning. What did they expect from us! Hey! That we alone should save France!'