By the Mast Divided

by David Donachie

  Rocking back and forth, aware that his backside now ached as much as his head, Pearce tried to sort out in his mind the consequences of what had happened and how he would get out of this. That was an absolute necessity, since so much depended on it. He had been sent back from Paris with the express task of facilitating his father’s return – friends had to be mobilised, petitions had to be made to those in power to allow a sick man, now no more loved in Paris than he was in London, to come home to live out his remaining time in peace. A twinge of that guilt he had felt since leaving France surfaced then, the feeling that in acceding to his father’s request to undertake this task his real concern had been to secure his own safety.

  In a less than ordinary life, travelling from place to place with Adam Pearce, son John had experienced much upheaval – the early death of his mother, endless strange towns and cities, the smiles and kindness of those who shared his father’s vision, the visceral hatred of those who did not, and finally the hell of prison life made worse by the calculated indifference of the warders in the Bridewell Gaol, who would do nothing; provide a decent cell, food and drink, or carry letters to those outside, friends who would help to alleviate their suffering without a bribe.

  Eventually, after many months of effort, those same friends had secured them first a degree of comfort, then freedom. What followed was so very different from what had preceded their incarceration; the thrill of being close to a father whose time had come, for the French Revolution had rocked the established order. Now he walked alongside a man who gathered crowds by the thousand instead of the hundred, who was plagued by profit-seeking printers demanding pamphlets. For a whole year and more, life was exhilarating, but that euphoria faded, to be followed by confusion, as that seemingly massive support, frightened by events across the Channel, began to atrophy.

  His writings had, by that time, made Adam Pearce a national figure – polemics railing against the wealth of the few and the poverty of the many, of exploitation and endemic corruption, views that had made him anathema to those who governed the land. Then finally, one radical pamphlet too many – too abusive to let pass, in which he had called for King George to be tried for treason – had given them the excuse to throw both him and the son who aided him back in gaol, this time with little prospect of quick release. Avoidance of that – and the men who would arrest them for a government bounty – entailed a hurried flight abroad.

  Paris had made Adam Pearce welcome in the winter of 1790, for his fame and his ideas had crossed the Channel to a society dedicated to making them real. He was lauded as an honorary Frenchman, invited to address the National Assembly and granted a pension; great thinkers had sought his views, radical newspapers had published his writings and the salons of the Revolutionary greats hung on his words. Not any more; that too had turned sour. His star had waned as French politics steadily became more deadly: men who had risen on the fury of the Paris mob to become the rulers of France could not tolerate dissent any more than the rulers of Great Britain.

  Was his father still at liberty or had the Parisian tyrants carried out their threat to imprison him? How desperate was the situation here at home? He had been on his way, this very morning, to find out from an old family friend, one of those who had helped secure their release from the Bridewell. Only lucky chance had allowed him to see the men watching the house, and avoid the hand that had been within an inch of grabbing that prominent collar. How had they known he was back in England, for he had only landed on the Kent coast three days previously? Or were those men bounty-seekers, freelance narks just watching the house of a well-known radical politician in hope rather than anticipation?

  Why did he have to run anyway? His sole crime was that he shared the blood of Adam Pearce, a man Billy Pitt and his minions saw as dangerous, a freethinker who expounded and wrote a message so perilous that his progeny must be likewise tainted. Such an accusation might not hold up in a court of fair judgement: but what court now, aware and in fear of the fervour across the Channel, and with war just declared, would acquit even the innocent?

  There was a faint chance that some authority might intervene in the present situation, but as a hope it didn’t rate very high; if the common gossip he had heard about press-gangs was true, and that had to be dredged from distant memory, this Barclay would take them straight aboard ship, well out of the reach of any law that could constrain him. He could swim but escape was very likely impossible, and almost certainly dangerous. Even assuming he could get free from the ropes that bound him, he was not sure they would not actually kill him rather than let him go. An oar on his head would mean he might drown, to become just one of the dozen dead bodies fished out of a river like the Thames every day.

  It was not worth the chance. Best to get aboard ship, get free from his bonds, see the lie of things, and find some way of escaping or communicating with the shore. Could the latter be the most promising option? Adam Pearce had made some powerful friends, who if they did not share his father’s views nevertheless did not agree that a man should be condemned and incarcerated for freely expressing them. These were people who had the power to get the proscription on both Pearces annulled – if they could work to get the King’s Bench warrant lifted, they could likewise work to get him free from the Navy.

  And perhaps, all that achieved, they could also help Pearce bring to bear on the offending officer, a man who had pressed illegally, the full majesty of the very same law that now threatened him. There was no doubt at all that Barclay had broken every statute in creation, so Pearce, in a pleasantly vindictive train of thought, and the all too painful memory of the blows he been forced to endure, comforted himself with the vision of that bastard, not him, in the dock of a court, as a red-cloaked judge passed sentence.

  Cornelius Gherson stood with his back to the parapet of London Bridge, in the gloomy recess between two covered stalls, searching for the words that would get him out of the beating that was about to be administered. The man who would oversee it, though take no part, Alderman Denby Carruthers, stood well back behind the four bruisers he had hired to teach the young swine who had cuckolded him a lesson. The noise of the great artery that was London Bridge, of carriages, hawkers, and sedan chair lead-men yelling to clear a passage, was a low hum in the background. And in the spilt light that allowed Gherson to examine the faces before him, it was a world away.

  It would do no good for him to plead an accident; that Denby’s wife, Catherine and he had found themselves alone and overcome by passion. She was, after all, at thirty-three, a good fifteen years older than her lover. To say that, full of food and wine, nature had taken its course sounded very lame. Even worse would be to allude to love, first because it was untrue – if there was any devotion on Gherson’s part it was to the love of conquest and access to her purse, and, secondly, it would not serve to calm the man whom he had offended. It was too late for promises of better behaviour and the look in the alderman’s eyes did not encourage the idea that an apology would settle the matter. But given that it was the only thing Gherson could think of, he said, ‘I am truly sorry, Alderman Carruthers.’

  The four scarred faces between him and Denby Carruthers, the men who had trapped him in here, didn’t move a muscle. But Gherson did note that there was no ill will in them, just indifference.

  ‘I am here to ensure that you are sorry, Gherson,’ said Carruthers, in a voice that betrayed a great deal of suppressed emotion. ‘Firstly, you will oblige me by handing over that fine topcoat you are wearing, and the silk one underneath. Also those fine silver-buckled shoes which, I think I am right in saying, my household monies paid for.’

  Gherson obliged, trying to palm the purse he had into his breeches. But the villains before him were too practised to allow that, and swiftly had it off him.

  ‘I know that in acting as I do,’ Carruthers continued, ‘I will be saving a substantial group of men the worry that they too might find themselves in my position. To think that I took you into the bosom of my family, and
that you betrayed me so…’

  ‘I…’

  ‘Do not deny it,’ Carruthers shouted, ‘do not deny that you are a damned lecher and a rogue! I gave you employment when you were strapped, got you out of Newgate gaol as an act of Christian charity, only to find out later that I am not the first to fall for the lies you spill with such ease. God only knows how many people you have dunned, how many good women you have corrupted. You have left behind you a trail of broken hearts and damaged households. You, Gherson, are a menace to every decent man in the City of London.’

  Gherson was thinking that there were few enough of those, and if they devoted their lives to the acquisition of wealth, and spent their evenings at the card tables or in the company of high-priced whores, it was hardly surprising that their neglected wives looked elsewhere for comfort or entertainment. But that too was not a thing to say out loud.

  ‘I admit to a weakness, sir, one I have often fought to overcome.’

  In just a shirt and breeches, with the cold stone of the bridge beginning to chill his shoeless feet he began to shiver, thinking it must look very like fear. Not that he wasn’t frightened – there was no way of avoiding a beating – but Gherson wondered if it might be ameliorated, so he managed to get a bit of a sob into his voice.

  ‘I realise that I have deeply offended you, and for that I can only curse myself.’

  The tone became more woeful as Gherson berated himself for a wretch: swore that he would never transgress again; damned the God that had made him incapable of resisting temptation. Casting his head and body around in a theatrical manner, Gherson’s eyes never ceased examining the faces before him, and he could not decide which was more alarming, the professional apathy of the alderman’s hirelings, or the hateful look of the man himself.

  ‘I deserve a beating, sir,’ Gherson pleaded, ‘and perhaps in your wisdom you will chastise me enough to change my nature. I swear that I shall go on my knees to God as soon as I can and beg to be relived of the burdens of my ardour.’

  ‘He’s a fellow,’ said one of the hard men, finally speaking. ‘He could do for a playhouse.’

  ‘Girlish lookin’, mind,’ added another.

  Gherson threw his arms in the air, knowing that his histrionics had made no impact whatsoever. It was with a last forlorn hope that he said, with what he thought was becoming bravado, ‘Damn you all! Beat me if you must. Do your worst!’

  ‘You think a beating sufficient, Gherson?’ asked Carruthers, facetiously, adding himself, with a deeper timbre, the answer to his question. ‘I don’t, and I have in mind my responsibilities as a city alderman. The good citizens of London require to be protected. You speak of an ardour that requires to be cooled, and I feel that as a Christian soul it behoves me to oblige you with the means.’ The voice changed to a low growl. ‘Tip the bastard in the river, and let’s see if the Thames chills him enough.’

  ‘Sir,’ Gherson shouted, before adding, ‘help!’

  He got no further. One of the ruffians slapped him hard to shut him up, then, with another they lifted him bodily on to the parapet of the bridge.

  ‘Can you swim?’ asked the man who had praised his acting, taking hold of a leg.

  ‘No,’ Gherson croaked, as a second ankle was grasped.

  ‘Why that be a damn shame.’

  Both heaved together, to send him tumbling over the edge, his body spinning in the air, a scream emanating from his lips, his mind a mass of whirling thoughts, of dozens of warm beds, endless tipped petticoats and pliant female flesh, of angry spouses and wives weeping with shame. The one thing he did not think of was cold water, but that changed as soon as he hit the black, freezing Thames, disgorging icy inland waters into the sea. The shock was near to heart-stopping, the mistake of that continued scream evident as soon as his mouth filled with liquid.

  Gherson went under, into a dark void of nothingness, but his natural buoyancy brought him back to the surface, one hand raised, his flaying feet keeping him afloat long enough to let the water clear from his eyes. He could see the lights of London Bridge moving away from him; that is till he realised that it was he who was moving, being carried downstream on the riptide of creaming water that had come through the arches of the bridge.

  The cry of ‘God help me’ was cut off by another mouthful of the Thames as Gherson went under once more, with his mind pursuing two opposing thoughts. One that he must stay afloat and survive, the other the certainty that it would be impossible and that he was about to die. Hands and feet lashing, he again resurfaced, feeling in an open palm a round piece of wood. He grasped it with all the desperation of a man in fear of death, pulling himself up until he got a second hand in place – which was just as well as his original grip had slipped due to the wet surface.

  ‘God in blessed heaven!’ cried Abraham Coyle, Master at Arms of HMS Brilliant, looking at the hands grasping an oar that, feathering, was only touching the water and acting as a brake.

  ‘What have we got here?’

  ‘Man in the water,’ cried Kemp, in a voice that had Pearce trying to sit up to see what was happening, only to find his movement constrained by his being lashed to another, so that his view was cut off by the top strakes of the boat’s planking.

  ‘In the name of Christ get a hand on him,’ Coyle cried.

  That was easier said than done; having just shot through the central arch of London Bridge they were still caught in the disturbed and fast-flowing scud created by that narrowing of the waterway. Indeed, if Gherson had not been caught in the same current he would have been lost, but the tumbling cataract was carrying him downstream at almost the same pace as the boat. Dragged inboard, Gherson felt a hand grasp his wrist just as his grip was going for the second time. Then a rope was round his other hand and he was being hauled roughly over a rowlock, before he tumbled in a soaking heap amongst a pile of other bodies.

  ‘Find out where he came from,’ demanded Coyle, passing back the lantern. The question was put to Gherson by the sailor who had dragged him inboard, with Kemp holding the light close so that Coyle could see his face, an act which revealed his own rodent like features, and highlighted a drop of mucus that glistened on the end of his nose.

  ‘The bridge,’ gasped Gherson, ‘London Bridge.’

  Pearce had a view of him now, dripping water from a sodden shirt, slicked down, soaked hair and a youthful face that, even in the grip of a deep and justifiable fear, had a sweet and innocent quality – full lips, a slightly Levantine nose and pale unblemished skin. It was also instructive to look at the others who had taken an interest in this providential gift to the press-gang, Walker and Rufus among them. There was no sympathy for one who now shared their plight, more a look of abhorrence, as though this soaking specimen had somehow compounded the nature of their own situation.

  ‘What will old Ralph Barclay say, young Martin,’ Coyle hooted to the boy marine, ‘when we tell him that hands are dropping out of the sky?’

  Kemp lifted Gherson’s head, none too gently by the hair, to glare into eyes that looked to be in the grip of the terror of death. ‘Might be worth an extra tot of rum, Coyle, but with that sod it might also get you disrated.’

  ‘Best rope the bugger.’

  ‘No need,’ replied Kemp, dropping Gherson’s head. ‘The only place this cove can go is back in the river, and looking at him, I don’t reckon that is a way he would choose.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  Captain Ralph Barclay, ahead of Coyle in the pinnace, felt he could be content with his night’s work, though he could not help but consider that his world had come to a sorry pass when a full Post Captain of twelve years seniority had personally to take to the task of recruiting. Nor was this night’s effort likely to gift him many sailors, all he could hope for was a clutch of untrained landsmen, albeit ones who would find it hard to complain. But a body was a body: anyone would do to a desperate commander, as long as he had two legs and two arms. In twenty years at sea, Ralph Barclay had learnt that a bit of decent discipli
ne could turn even the most dim-witted clod into a useful crew member. Given that he could be ordered to weigh at a moment’s notice, he had no time to wait for those in authority to solve for him the problem of a lack of hands.

  But underlying his muted satisfaction was a residue of worry. He knew well that he was not allowed to take a press-gang into the Liberties of the Savoy. Would there be a hue and cry? The majority of the people in the Pelican had escaped and they would have filled the streets with their noise. But in a city accustomed to riot, and it being late at night, he hoped that most of the inhabitants would keep their shutters and doors bolted. Nor could the majority of the customers, a bunch of debtors and felons, readily involve the law, which was available only outside the confines of where they themselves were safe. But it was a thought that nagged at him, given that the expense of redress, should he be arraigned for the offence, would be very high indeed. He ran over the faces he had looked into, mostly of creatures in distress. But there had also been one showing a defiance that called for a knotted rope’s end, delivered hard and twice. That was a fellow, a mouthy sod, who might require further constraint. So be it, if it was necessary, then the captain of HMS Brilliant would provide it.

  Try as he might to concentrate on such matters, thoughts of penury soon resurfaced to dominate Ralph Barclay’s thoughts – it was eloquent testimony to the present state of his finances that he was leaving London, not even in a public coach, let alone a private one, but in a boat. With his frigate berthed at Sheerness, a visit to the capital should have been made overland. It would not have been comfortable, or speedy, but it would have been a damn sight more so than the pinnace in which he had set off in the cold predawn of that morning. He had lugged up the Thames Estuary on a biting wind with his longboat and cutter in company, masts stepped in favour of oars as soon as the river narrowed, because the amount of waterborne traffic precluded tacking and wearing under sail with any degree of safety.