An Uncertain Peace (The Making of a Man Series, Book 3)

by Andrew Wareham

  "Sir Richard? I was expecting just the one passenger."

  "Plaistow is my man. He is here to watch our backs."

  "Yes, sir. Close to the docks, sir, in the old rookery. We will have to walk the last quarter of a mile - carriages do not go there."

  They pulled up just fifteen minutes later, joined the other three.

  "The building, if you can call it that, is no more than a two up, two down terraced ‘house’. Back to back, so only the one entrance, at the front. The place at the rear is occupied so they have probably not been able to knock a bolt-hole through the back wall. They have a workshop up the road some three hundred yards; James and Michael will break in and pick up any man there, being careful of bombs, of course."

  Two large, dark figures muttered their acknowledgement of the order; they broke away from the group and walked off. By the time they had gone the extra distance the main raid should be in - they needed no other timing.

  "There is a pair of windows on either side of the door. The stairs will be a pace inside; no hallway. Robert will go straight upstairs, I shall face to the right, you to the left Sir Richard. Shout them to put their hands up, but give them no time to argue. There should be gas-lighting inside, sufficient to see by. I do not know which side is kitchen and which is probably another bedroom."

  Dick nodded and said that Plaistow would stand in the street, just to the left of the door and watching the staircase for any who tried to run out.

  "None to escape, if you please."

  "Shoot any who do not stop on seeing you, Plaistow."

  "Yes, sir!"

  The door was flimsy and fell flat at a single kick.

  The leader jumped in and took the more difficult stance to the right, shouting for hands up. Dick turned to the left, pistol in hand. He had chosen to carry the heavier revolvers as well as his pocket pistols, was a little concerned that he might miss and send a bullet through the wall into the neighbouring house.

  His room was the kitchen, tiny, no more than ten feet by eight and with a small table where two men had been sitting with a bottle between them. They jumped to their feet and one started to pull an old flintlock pistol. Dick fired four quick rounds; they dropped and blood trickled across the uneven floor, started to pool close to his feet. Both men were chest shot; neither was likely to move in the immediate future, if ever; he turned to the other room. There was a woman with two small children, sat on a single wooden bed, all three silent.

  "Two. Both down. I will go upstairs."

  Dick ran up to the silent bedrooms, found them empty and Robert busily ransacking a pair of unpainted cupboards.

  "Nothing, sir. Clothing; no weapons; no fuzes; no papers."

  Dick reported downstairs.

  "Annoying - we need evidence or we shall have to explain these two away."

  Robert was told to hold the house and to keep any onlookers away; the search could be completed later. The woman had begun to weep softly, holding the children to her. They ran outside into an empty street.

  "Plaistow, go inside and keep everyone out."

  He obeyed instantly, glancing at the corpses with mild interest, no more.

  "No crowd?"

  "Not in these places, Sir Richard. Keep your nose clean is the motto here."

  They walked quickly up to the workshop, its doors wide open and weak gaslight shining out onto the cobbles.

  "James, Michael?"

  "Inside, sir. Three prisoners, sir. One dead. Michael is wounded, sir, but not too much."

  The shed was bigger than it seemed from the front, stretching back a good forty feet. There was a pair of large benches, one on either side, four beer barrels on each, medium size wooden firkins.

  "Fifty pounds of black powder, thereabouts, in each, sir. Hollow top, sir, a false floor under each barrelhead, with slow match coiled round in circles, sir. Light the end and there's twenty minutes or so, provided it doesn't get too hot so that the flame jumps across the coil. Three men working on making up more barrels, sir. One standing guard with a knife and a club, sir. They wouldn't want to fire shots with the amount of powder they have here. He stuck Michael through the arm as he broke the door down, sir."

  "Very silent?"

  "I pushed the barrel tight into him before I shot, sir. His clothes muffled the noise."

  "Well done. Any papers?"

  "Damned fools! They are working to a plan, sir - drawings of bombs and instructions for where they are to be placed, all signed in the name of the Committee!"

  "Almost too good - a court may be inclined to disbelieve such a document, thinking none could be so stupid as to have such!"

  Book Three: The Making

  of a Man Series

  Chapter Three

  They boarded the ship in two parties – Sir Richard and Lady Burke bowed up the covered gangway to the First Class accommodation while Plaistow and Merret heaved cases and trunks from a trolley into the hands of the longshoremen and then walked up the stern entry to the servants’ quarters at the rear, close to but not actually part of the steerage hutches for the poor emigrants.

  Not all Cunarders carried more than one class of passengers, but the very largest now did so, thoroughly segregated so that the riff-raff did not come in sight of their betters.

  Sir Richard and his lady were ushered into their cabin, roomy and with a separate sitting lounge attached, for their convenience. They were shown the private bathroom belonging to their suite, an innovation that by no means all of the best hotels in England had yet taken up. Their steward introduced himself, said that he was theirs to command, exclusively, for the voyage.

  “Blake, my lady, Sir Richard.”

  “Very good, Blake.”

  “We do not dress for dinner this evening, Sir Richard, because high tide is inconvenient. We must sail less than an hour before dinner is served and the ship’s officers would be unable to change, sir. Your servants will wish in any case to unpack your shipboard necessities and would barely have time. You are sat at the First Officer’s table, Lady Burke, Sir Richard.”

  Seating was arranged by the Ship’s Purser and was strictly according to status, which was determined by scrutiny of the individual’s title, place in Public Life and recent notoriety. The Purser was an ingrained snob and a connoisseur of the gradations of the elite of society – the knowing passengers would commit his place cards to memory for their own future reference.

  Dick was a second baronet, thus an inherited title, far better than one awarded to him; he had rank as a Major, but only of the Engineers; he was known to be rich; he was said to be a ‘coming man’ who did this and that for the government.

  There were two peers aboard, with wives and adult daughters, and they took the Captain’s Table together with a pair of elderly and safely heterosexual MPs and an Austrian diplomat on his way to Washington; next most senior was the First Officer’s table with Dick and three assorted businessmen and a banker and their spouses, all worth half a million and upwards. Money did not necessarily equate to social standing, but it was a very useful extra. Lesser gentry occupied the other four tables which would be presided over by whichever officers were off-watch at the hour.

  The Purser observed all from his position to the side where he supervised the waiters and chefs. All was very formal and kept strictly under order.

  There was a string quartet placed close to the Purser where he could supervise their intake of alcohol, musicians being renowned for their thirsts at sea. He had already examined their programme and had rigorously banned Beethoven’s later quartets on the grounds that they were unplayable by all except the most talented musicians, and no audience could comprehend them in any case.

  “Mozart, by all means. Mendelssohn, of course – this is an English ship! Spohr? Never heard of him, but play him if you wish. All safely German, as goes without saying – there are no English composers and one cannot trust the French not to be vulgar!”

  There was a pianist as well, who would entertain in the passen
gers’ lounge during the afternoons and possibly of an evening if he was requested; his renderings of Fur Elise and the Moonlight Sonata were quite famous and in frequent demand. No expense was spared to keep the First Class amused.

  The meal was something of an ordeal for Louise; she had attended few dinner parties as a miss – having married enviably soon after her come-out – and she was still uncertain in company. She was intelligent enough to observe and to remain silent, not attempting to disguise her nervousness with a flow of inanity. The others at the table were all far older, in their forties and upwards, and were conscious of their own importance and were very ready to fill in the silences with their own utterances; they decided she was a very pretty and bright little girl, worthy of their acquaintance. She was invited to pay them a morning call when she was next in London.

  “I hear that the bombings have been solved, Sir Richard! The workshop uncovered with the materials ready for a number of atrocities and many arrests made, while a few traitors taken under arms were killed.”

  Dick said that he had heard the same, assessing the source of the comment – did the man know or was he merely commenting on an event of recent importance? The gentleman was the banker, on his way to Washington ‘to discuss matters of mutual interest’ with his American counterparts. Meaningless verbiage – he would hardly discuss matters that did not interest both parties. Possibly considering a settlement of the issue of the privateers built in British yards for the Confederacy – the North was more than a little upset at the total destruction of the American merchant marine that had resulted. There were those in Washington who had noticed that Britain now carried more than ninety per cent of all Atlantic trade and considered this to be no coincidence – they were demanding financial reparations for the lost ships and cargoes. The word Dick had heard was that the British would, with public reluctance, acquiesce in a neutral enquiry and final adjudication of the claims; the profits being made in one year on the monopoly of the Atlantic would more than pay the total of any judgement.

  Would a banker be aware of the activities of English security in Liverpool? Only if he had been told of the matter because he was to make himself available at need to Dick in Washington. It was wise to assume that he was obliquely introducing himself. Best to respond with cautious welcome.

  “I am told, sir, that the Liverpool police received assistance from the authorities nationally, with perhaps a dozen bombs and more than half a ton of black powder discovered.”

  That information had not reached the newspapers, the Home Secretary believing that people might either panic or riot against the Irish in the big cities.

  “I heard the same, Sir Richard.”

  Confirmation that he had access to sources in London; Dick smiled at him. He would find time to talk him over a drink in the lounge or walking the deck for quiet exercise.

  One of the wives was indignant and much alarmed and was of the opinion, rather loudly, that they should all be hanged and as soon as possible. The menfolk all agreed that this was highly likely, particularly as imprisonment for life was a very costly business. The ending of transportation two decades before had led to an increase in the numbers actually hanged, a paradox that the reformers had not expected, but all had agreed that sending convicts to Australia was no longer tenable in the modern age.

  “What say you, Sir Richard? Is there an answer to the Irish problem?”

  “There are many answers, sir, but all demand that the Income Tax be raised by at least a shilling in the pound. Without spending English money I can imagine no solution at all, sir.”

  Raising the iniquitous Income Tax was an outrage worse than the bombing – it could not possibly be considered. The Tax was paid only by the very rich and amounted at the time to little more than one per cent of their incomes, but it was totally unacceptable. The topic of the Irish had become slightly indecent, being financially embarrassing, was not raised again at the table.

  The food offered was remarkably good, but none of the chefs were English, the company making a great point of haute cuisine in its advertising. Louise had never eaten so well and ventured to suggest that they might consider setting on a chef in place of the cook at Burkes. Dick had never been particularly concerned about his meals but was happy to agree; she had asked him for almost nothing and he was pleased to make such a present.

  “When we return to Dorset, most certainly, my dear. I do not know exactly how one goes about discovering a French chef, but I am sure I can discover an acquaintance who will be able to assist me”

  The banker spoke up, suggesting the name of a Major Hewitt whom he knew quite well and could be relied upon for all sorts of little services.

  They talked a little over the voyage, never being specific but agreeing to keep in touch in Washington and elsewhere. Dick decided that unfortunately, he would be unable to make any meeting – the banker was a little too loud, too overt, for his taste – he had mentioned Major Hewitt’s name at the dinner table!

  They discussed their expected activities in America at some length, Dick establishing himself as innocuous, just in case the name of Major Hewitt might be familiar to others in their company.

  “I am to take Lady Burke to the Falls at Niagara and then to the Old North West, where to some extent I grew up and where I have some interests. Thereafter? I do not know, but much suspect that it will be back to England for us, for some years at least.”

  “Very wise, Sir Richard. I believe that the bulk of English interests will be directed to the South West – a number of purchases have already been made in the Texas, I understand. There are old Spanish land grants of hundreds of square miles in size which have already been brought into British hands, and there will be many more, I doubt not, when this war is finally over. The influence of the Germanic settlers in the Old North West will continue to increase, one suspects.”

  That sounded as if a deal had been made in Europe – the Prussian settlers encouraged to the great grain-growing lands, the English to the beef-rearing prairies. No doubt the Americans would assimilate both, eventually, when they recovered from their debilitating war. For the while, the Yankees were weak and the Europeans must profit from them.

  “What of the Railways, Mr Hobart?”

  “Soon to be completed, Sir Richard. The East will be linked to the West by the iron thread, much to the benefit of civilisation. The voyage from San Francisco to New York can take more than four months, doubling Cape Horn; the railway – railroad, one should say – will take five or six days.”

  The question arose of whether he should continue with his purchases of land in the Old North-West – if it was to become German territory then he might be an unwelcome landlord. Perhaps he could make some arrangement with a bank based in Prussia for his acres to be taken up by settlers who would purchase rather than rent; some sort of mortgage basis, the bank to pay him a lump sum and then take annual payments from the farmers for twenty or thirty years. He would talk to his agent in Kansas City; there might be a bank already present which could be spoken to – unlikely, because the American banks tended to be small-scale, local enterprises, more in the habit of dealing in thousands than millions.

  It became clear to him within the few days of the voyage that he was in fact considering getting out of America. He did not want to become a rancher in Texas or some other part of the West and spend the rest of his life peering at the rear-end of herds of cattle, though no doubt it would be a very wholesome and eventually rich existence, and he could not imagine that his wife would be ideally suited to the wooden house and primitive plumbing. Add to that, his reputation would always be with him, and he rather felt that the Sharps Kid should be permitted to fall by the wayside – the whole concept was really rather vulgar for a gentleman who had once wished to be a scholar.

  He was perceptive enough to notice that he thought of himself as a gentleman – which was in itself not unamusing. He knew that he could never quite achieve that status in English eyes – there would always be t
he whispers in the background. ‘Burke? All very well in himself, but did you know his father?’

  His children would not have that problem – two generations removed was perfectly sufficient to expunge the stigma in English Society – the great bulk of peerages were recent political creations and many politicians had been very queer fish!

  He must actually talk to Louise, he supposed, to discover what her opinions were, though she lacked the education and experience of the world to have much to say that was worthwhile. Still, he could not dispose of their life without offering her some little courtesy, even if not too much – the final decision must be his.

  They came to dock in the great city of New York, which Louise was amazed to discover to be larger than Liverpool at first appearance. She was not sure that it was right that any overseas harbour should be superior to an English port city.

  “Does Her Majesty know of the size of New York, Sir Richard? Would she not wish something to be done about it?”

  He considered that question, at some length.

  “I rather doubt that the good lady is aware of the existence of New York, my dear. It is not part of her domains, of course.”

  “But it is a place where English is spoken, is it not? Does not that really mean that the people would wish to be her subjects?”

  “An interesting philosophical concept, my dear, but one that may be logically invalid. As I remember, the Americans fought for quite a number of years so as to cease to be subjects of George the Third – I cannot imagine that they would wish to be taken under Queen Victoria’s wing, though it would, I doubt not, be better for them. I believe they may be quite touchy on the point, in fact, and it might be better not to suggest to them that they would be happier back under England’s rule.”

  She did not understand why, but she was well-trained by her mother and knew that a husband was to be obeyed without quibble, in public. She had observed her mother’s household and knew as well that out of sight matters were arranged differently, but that was for another day.