Freebooter

by Tim Severin

  Lockwood waited for a dozen swings of the pendulum before he gently closed the clock door. ‘So far I’ve heard nothing from either place, and each day makes it less likely that Avery will be found. I’ve delayed long enough.’

  Hector waited, there was nothing he had to say. He was grateful for the three-week interval since Rochester. He had been able to collect Maria and Isabel from Maynard at Blackwall, and Lockwood had raised no objection when Jezreel suggested that they accompany him to Sussex when he went to seek out his own family. As it turned out, Jezreel’s brothers and sister had prospered. They had expanded their smallholding and now owned or rented several adjacent farms. One of them had a cottage they were happy for Jezreel to occupy in return for help on the land. It was here that Hector had left Maria and Isabel when Lockwood sent word that he needed Hector in Leadenhall. The hunt for Avery had stalled.

  ‘Sir Jeremiah has had no luck in Lombard Street either.’ Lockwood had begun to prowl the room, stopping to examine various display ornaments, all of them costly. ‘The magistrates had Dann’s lodgings searched. They found a thousand pounds’ worth of gold sequins and ten gold sovereigns sewn into a waistcoat. One presumes that Avery brought back much more, in bullion if not in coin.’

  He selected the statuette of a dove, one of a pair carved from a green translucent stone, and held it up to the light to admire. ‘If Avery reached London, he’d have to put his prize somewhere secure. His only choice is to use the goldsmith-bankers of Lombard Street. Sir Jeremiah has approached all his contacts among that fraternity. None of them has recently accepted a large amount of gold, least of all in foreign currency.’ He put down the green dove, and allowed himself a cynical smile. ‘Or they didn’t admit doing so.’

  The thief-taker moved across to a corner to inspect an ornamental globe on its mahogany stand. Large and showy, the globe was useless for practical navigation but it spoke of Sir Jeremiah’s wealth and worldwide trade. ‘Therefore, while I think Avery is in England, I don’t believe he’s in London, at least not yet.’

  He gave the globe a gentle turn, so it spun on its axis. ‘In theory Avery could still be anywhere,’ he mused, ‘but I have a hunch that he is here.’ He stabbed his finger down so the globe stopping spinning. ‘In Bristol where he first landed.’

  He turned to Hector and asked, ‘And you’ve just told me why?’

  ‘Because he’s waiting to learn whether any of his company, men like Dann, have been arrested by the authorities?’

  Lockwood nodded. ‘And that’s why I’m sending you to Bristol, Lynch, to sniff around. See if you can pick up the trail of Long Ben.’

  ‘I know nothing of Bristol. Never been to the place,’ Hector protested.

  ‘So you’ll arrive there with fresh eyes. Get inside his head; imagine what he would have done when he disembarked the ship from Dublin.’

  Hector had been expecting something like this ever since receiving Lockwood’s summons. His heart sank. He wondered how long he would be away on this wild-goose chase. It could be months, and if Jezreel was with him, Maria and Isabel would be left on their own in Sussex . . .

  The thief-taker must have read his thoughts, for Lockwood’s next words shook him. ‘Lynch, don’t look so glum!’ he snapped. ‘Find Avery for me, and all charges of piracy against you will be dropped.’

  Hector stared at Lockwood in open disbelief.

  There was a touch of impatience in the thief-taker’s voice. ‘Ask yourself this, Lynch: who put up the five hundred pounds bounty?’

  ‘The East India Company,’ Hector said. ‘That’s what I heard.’

  ‘The Company is supplying the money, but the Board of Trade decides who receives it. The Board is largely made up of ministers of the Crown and has exceptional powers.’

  Hector waited for him to go on.

  ‘The talk in the streets and taverns is always about the money, the five hundred pounds.’ The thief-taker’s voice dripped with contempt. ‘That’s what’s in the big print of my handbills and posters. But the full government proclamation states, “any person or persons whose information leads to the arrest and conviction of Henry Avery will receive a pardon for all crimes of piracy while under his command”.’

  Lockwood allowed a short silence to pass, before he added softly: ‘If you doubt me, Lynch, you can read it for yourself in the London Gazette. Find Avery for me, and I will recommend that all charges of piracy against you will be set aside.’

  Hector’s mind was whirling. ‘And against Jezreel Hall too?’

  ‘Of course. But Mr Hall doesn’t go poking around Bristol with you. If Henry Avery is as alert and clever as his reputation says he is, and he hears that a large man with the look of a prize-fighter is asking questions about him, Long Ben will vanish again.’

  For a moment Hector’s guard was down as he thought about what Lockwood had said. He imagined the freedom of no longer living in the shadow of his questionable past. Yet something in Lockwood’s manner struck him the wrong way. The thief-taker had returned to the spot where he could stand with his back to the light. It was impossible to read the expression in his eyes. Hector could only judge Lockwood’s sincerity by his voice. His words carried an undertone that rang hollow.

  ✻

  The journey from London to Bristol was in a bone-shaking hackney coach that had no springs and was crammed with passengers. Hector spent the jolting hours trying to improve on Lockwood’s instructions: he was to begin his search at Bristol docks. Lockwood had given him the money to bribe customs officials to show him their record books for ships arriving from Ireland. But Hector was sure that if Avery had indeed passed that way, those same officials had already taken the freebooter’s money to make false entries. By the afternoon of the third day, when the coach drew up beside the High Cross in the centre of Bristol, he had still not come up with a better plan.

  He stepped down into the street, stretched to ease his cramped muscles, and looked up at the sky. Fast-moving rain clouds were coming in from the west. He needed to find lodgings quickly. A fellow passenger had recommended a bookseller in Broad Street who rented out rooms above his shop, and he called up to the coach driver for directions.

  ‘If you’re going that way you can deliver this – his name’s George Lewis.’ The driver threw him down a flat package tied with twine. Shouldering his bag, Hector started walking. His first impression of Bristol was that it was just like London, only smaller. There was the same sense of hurry and bustle in the streets, the same air of making money while paying due respect to the Almighty. Huddles of prosperous-looking merchants stood talking business amongst themselves in a pillared arcade directly across from two churches on opposite corners of the central crossroads. The imposing building with a square tower and flagpole, and larger than either church, had the look of Council Chambers.

  Broad Street was lined with four-storey buildings with timber-and-plaster fronts, and Hector had gone just a few steps along it when he realized the difference from London: there were no handcarts and wagons delivering goods, everything was being shifted on sleds. Even more surprising was the absence of a central gutter. Despite the warmth of the day, there was little smell. He could only conclude that the city drains were buried somewhere beneath his feet.

  The bookseller’s premises were much like its neighbours, tall and narrow, the upper floors projecting slightly. The door from the street opened into a long, low-ceilinged room that extended almost the full depth of the building. As Hector stepped inside, a tall, painfully thin man looked up from where he had been arranging volumes on a table at the back of the shop.

  ‘Mr Lewis?’ Hector enquired.

  ‘How may I help you?’

  Hector offered the package. ‘This arrived with the London coach. The driver asked me to deliver it.’

  ‘That’ll be the latest Gazette. Thank you.’ The bookseller took the parcel from him.

  ‘Also I believe you rent out rooms?’

  ‘Indeed I do.’ The bookseller untied the par
cel string and removed the wrapper, revealing a thin sheaf of printed pages.

  ‘I’d like to rent a room for myself, for a week, perhaps longer.’

  ‘I have a room available on the fourth floor. Three shillings a week. For meals you’ll have to fend for yourself. The Three Crowns round the corner serves good food.’

  ‘I’ll take it,’ Hector said. He watched the bookseller lick his thumb and count the sheets, twenty-one of them. ‘You say that is the Gazette?’

  ‘The London Gazette, printed two or three times a week and sent out to subscribers. The Council House receives a copy direct and the magistrates, and our two coffee houses of course. I have a list of private clients who like to keep abreast of affairs. A few of them will drop by to collect their copies during the afternoon. A lad will deliver the remainder to their homes this evening.’

  ‘May I see a copy?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Hector took the newspaper. It was a single sheet, about seven inches by twelve, closely printed on both sides. ‘Published by Authority’ appeared below the title. The front page had a double column with various news items from England and abroad. He turned it over and found government notices, official proclamations, commercial information, and snippets of more lurid news: several fires, a report of a series of highway attacks on Hampstead Heath, cockfights, and a two-line account of the Tyburn hanging of a notorious criminal.

  He handed back the page, and waited while the bookseller found the key to his room. After paying a week’s rent in advance he climbed the stairs. His room was a garret with sloping ceiling but it was clean and dry. It had a bed, a cupboard and a chamber pot. He could hear the patter of raindrops on the tiles above him. Placing his bag on the bare floorboards he went across to the small window that looked out over Broad Street. For a long time he stood staring across the wet roofs of Bristol, thinking.

  ✻

  Next morning when he came down the stairs on his way back to the Three Crowns where he had eaten supper, he found his landlord already in his shop.

  ‘Good day, Mr Lewis, perhaps you can help me,’ he began. ‘Is there a glass grinder in Bristol?’

  The bookseller put aside the book whose scuffed leather binding he had been examining with a critical eye. ‘You’ll find one in Tower Lane off the Pithay. A Mr Stephen Ormsby. I cannot tell you anything about the quality of his work as the council licensed him just last February. He would be your only choice.’

  ‘Thank you. I’m sure I can find my way there.’ His day had begun well, Hector decided as he went out into the street. If there was only one glass grinder in Bristol, that increased his chances of success.

  Mr Stephen Ormsby’s apprentice was taking down the shutters when Hector arrived. The glass grinder’s front room, where Hector had to wait for half an hour, was sparsely equipped with a table, two chairs, an obviously second-hand four-foot telescope on a brass tripod and a glass-fronted cabinet with an array of spectacles. The door to the back room was closed. Hector imagined that was where the glass grinder kept his lathe and raw material. Stephen Ormsby, when he arrived, proved to be a pale-skinned, earnest man somewhere between thirty and forty years old, with an unremarkable face and a dry, reedy voice.

  ‘How long have you been having trouble with your eyes?’ he asked after apologizing for his lateness.

  ‘For the past two years,’ Hector lied. ‘I notice it when reading charts.’

  ‘You are a mariner, then?’

  ‘My ship is in port, and I decided to take the chance to get some spectacles made. We’re due to set sail in a few days’ time, so they’ll need to be ready as soon as you can manage.’ Hector hoped that the spectacle maker would not ask the name of his vessel.

  Ormsby had a nervous habit of toying with a button on the front of his coat, twisting it on its thread. ‘That will depend on the difficulty of the work, and whether I have some blanks that are suitable.’

  He despatched his apprentice into the back room to fetch his trials box and there followed half an hour of tests while the spectacle maker held up various sample lenses to Hector’s eyes, and asked how they affected his vision.

  Hector had to be careful in inventing his answers but finally the glass grinder reached his conclusion. ‘You need very little magnification, Mr . . .’

  ‘Lynch, Hector Lynch.’

  ‘. . . And I can supply what is required from my existing stock of blanks, with minor adjustments. I can set the lenses either in a standard metal frame that grips the nose or a newer model with flat bars that extend back to the temples above the ears.’

  Hector reached into his pocket and produced a sheet of paper which he spread out on the table. ‘Here’s a sketch of the spectacles used by a friend of mine, a fellow navigator I’ve sailed with. They were well suited for our type of work.’ The drawing was of the spectacles that Hector had seen Avery use in Baldridge’s office in St Mary’s and later when Fancy’s captain was reading charts.

  The glass grinder made a face. ‘Very old-fashioned and rather clumsy, if I may say so.’

  Hector tapped the drawing. ‘The ribbon behind the head holds them in place when a vessel is being tossed about, and remember: we navigators must lean forward and look down when we consult our spread-out charts. The pinch-nose spectacles you propose would fall off.’

  He sat back and allowed several seconds to pass in the faint hope that the glass grinder would announce that he had a client with very similar spectacles.

  Instead Ormsby gave a resigned shrug. ‘If that is what you prefer, Mr Lynch. But I’m afraid that means there will be a delay.’ He took a closer look at Hector’s sketch. ‘I presume the lenses are held in leather surrounds.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I can grind the lenses and have them ready for you in two days’ time, and could have made metal frames here on the premises. But leatherwork is specialized and I’d have to find a skilled man, perhaps a glove maker who can do fine stitching.’

  ‘How much longer would that take?’

  ‘At least a week.’

  ‘Then I’ll wait,’ Hector told him.

  ✻

  The next edition of the Gazette was due to reach Bristol after three days, and Hector spent them as a man of leisure. After breakfast he strolled down to the docks and chatted with port officials, then sauntered back up the High Street and paid the one penny entry fee at one of the city’s two coffee houses. There he passed the rest of the morning. He took dinner in the Three Crowns, and afterwards he found himself a comfortable seat in the other coffee house. He positioned himself in a quiet corner where he could view the other customers, listened to their conversations as he sipped his coffee, and glanced through the copy of the Gazette brought by a servant. He neither saw nor heard anything about Henry Avery, nor had he expected to. Late in the afternoon, shortly before the bookseller closed for the day, he returned to his lodgings. If there were no customers in the shop, George Lewis was happy to discuss almost any topic, including local politics and the latest news from London. Little by little Hector managed to learn the identities of most of his clients with a subscription to the Gazette. He bought the names and addresses of the others on the list by slipping a few coins to the apprentice who made the deliveries.

  The Gazette, Hector reasoned, might lead him to Avery. If Long Ben was lying low in Bristol before making his next move, the Gazette was his only reliable source of information about the fate of Fancy’s crew. He would check each issue for reports of arrests and trials, as well as official government announcements. With so few copies of the Gazette available in Bristol, it was possible that Avery had joined the bookseller’s subscription list. Hector accepted that this was unlikely, but he had to make sure.

  So he was not unduly disappointed that the only person to take out a recent subscription to the Gazette was an elderly physician who had moved to Bristol for his retirement.

  He was more optimistic about working with Stephen Ormsby’s spectacles. As soon as they were r
eady, he carried them on his daily strolls around the docks. Choosing his moment, he showed them to port officials and dockworkers. He claimed to have picked them up on the quayside and would like to return them to their owner. No one recognized them.

  With a greater expectation of success he tried the same approach in both coffee houses where he was now a familiar figure. But again he met with blank looks.

  At the end of three weeks of fruitless enquiries, he had decided to abandon the search. He would wait for one more edition of the Gazette to be distributed, return to London and report to Lock-wood that he had failed to find any trace of Avery. On the day of the Gazette’s delivery, he dawdled in the bookseller’s shop watching George Lewis remove the sheaf of fresh newspapers from their wrapping. The bookseller followed his set routine. He licked his thumb and began counting the sheets. There should have been twenty-one, but that day there were twenty-two. Carefully the bookseller placed the extra copy on one side.

  ‘What will you do with that one?’ Hector asked.

  ‘No point in sending it back. You’re welcome to take it up to your room.’

  ‘That’s kind of you; I’ll drop it back in the morning.’

  ‘Put it behind the counter, out of sight. I would not want my regular subscribers thinking that anybody can read it gratis in the shop when they have to pay for their own copies.’

  On an impulse Hector asked, ‘What will you do with it afterwards?’

  The bookseller was puzzled by the question. ‘You mean, what happens to the old newspaper?’

  ‘How long do you keep it?’

  ‘Until the next edition comes out. Then my apprentice will put it with the other shop waste. A scavenger calls at the back door every day to collect old paper and rags.’

  Hector felt a faint tremor of excitement. ‘This scavenger, does he collect from other houses?’