Spies and Subterfuge

by Christopher Hoare

  “Due Nor’east, Miss,” he answered. “Captain wants to use a day or two at sea to exercise the crew before joining the Commodore.”

  “Yes, I see.” She really did see. No Captain would want to risk being shamed before the squadron by the poor seamanship of a new crew. “How did the gunnery go?”

  “Port side are being assessed by the Third Officer at the moment. Once their deficiencies have been noted he will have the starboard guns exercised.”

  “What is he using for a target?”

  The Second Lieutenant smiled. “No target yet, Miss. Have to make sure they can hit the ocean without harming their own ship afore we get fancy.”

  “I see,” she answered with a smile of her own. “What is our location at the moment?”

  “About fifty nautical miles off Yarmouth, Miss. We made good sailing during the night.”

  “Oh.” She found the news a little disconcerting, having a purpose fixed in her own mind that would see her quickly established off Flushing and ready to receive any communications from Lord Bond ashore. This course would send them away into the North Sea instead. Had she been a salt water sailor longer and less of a steamship navigator, with the freedom to steer her own course, she would have expected their progress to depend on the vagaries of wind and tide.

  “Did Captain Bell say when he expected to join the squadron?”

  “Ah, now, Miss. You must know that captains keep their own counsel. We in the wardroom supposed he would look for the Commodore off the Texel on Sunday, say three days’ time.”

  “And when would we be on our station off Flushing?”

  “No sooner than Monday, if I’d hazard a guess.” He looked away quickly to shout up at the mizzen mast. “Belay that line, up there. What do’yuh think you’re doing? Bo’sun, bring me that man’s name.” He turned back to her. “Excuse me, Miss Stephenson, loose clews swinging about could hang somebody.”

  Roberta nodded; she knew how important good order was, and was doubly glad she had always been able to rely upon Mr. MacRae’s experience aboard her own ships. The first cannon shot from the starboard tier chose that moment to boom out and warned her that keeping up a conversation would become impossible until the practice was done. She turned away from the Watch Officer and headed for her cabin to retrieve her novel—perhaps a few more pages of Clarissa would be more fruitful a lesson than aimlessly pacing the deck.

  She found a spot on the mid-ship grating with her back to the Captain’s gig where it was stored upside down with the other boats and tenders used in harbour. She picked her spot where she could look up from her book to see the sun reflecting off the water whenever there was a gap in the endless procession of white clouds. The busy ritual of the day went on around her and even when Lieutenant Farley arrived with his compliments of the morning he was on his way to some duty he had been asked to perform.

  She decided that her awkward situation on the ship was just that—no one could ask her to carry out a duty because the navy had no official duties for women aboard ship. Even when Captain Bell stopped on his mid-morning circuit of the ship he only made small talk and wished her much enjoyment of her novel.

  Just before noon the Second Lieutenant, the Master, and the Master’s Mate, a Mr. Dashwood, arrived at the ship’s rail with sextants in hand, ready to shoot the sun. By the time two “sighters” positioned themselves at the starboard rail, Willis and another midshipman arrived to keep notes, with Mr. Dashwood reading the watch chronometer and supervising the youngsters. Roberta did not get up from her seat but watched the process with interest—one that she was herself greatly familiar with.

  The first sights were called while a cloud conveniently floated away from the sun, leaving a narrow canyon of blue sky for the officers’ observations. There followed an inconvenient delay while they awaited another appearance through the white mists. Everyone stood silently patient while the roll of the ship in the swell rocked them to and fro.

  The sun then played hide and seek awhile which the Second Lieutenant defeated by snatching a sight at the partly obscured globe. At this, the clouds ceased playing and broke up into mere wisps for the remainder of the sights.

  Roberta watched and thought how much of Naval lore had been passed in this same way, from the recently trained to the newcomers. It made Commander Worthington’s new role as steamship instructor all the more novel.

  She glanced down at the novel in her lap. Now she had two friends anxious to save her from the machinations of Lord Bond. Did she really need saving? What was wrong about his courting her? Several people had warned her of his transgressions, but she had also been told his were no more than the high spirits to which most young lords were heir. Perhaps there were more secrets to discover, something even more alarming . . . she felt that, felt it quite strongly, but could not put a name to her unease.

  The sighting crew were at the end of their duties. “I suggest we send the juniors to the gunroom for the rest of the work, Lieutenant,” the Master proposed. “It will be good practice for them, and we can go over their calculations at our leisure.”

  “A fine thought, Sir. I would as soon continue with the inspection of my division.”

  Roberta watched the parties go their separate ways, the midshipmen staring at the notes recorded in their hands, seemingly as anxious as if they were going to a flogging.

  Would Commander Worthington really disobey the Admiralty’s orders, and bring the Spiteful to the enemy coast to watch over her? The commander of a ship had a great deal of leeway in following the instructions of admirals far away, but Flushing was no more than a day’s sail. He may have some justification if he brought new orders, mail, or needed items for the ships on watch.

  What made him so careless of his own interests and his so recent command? She could find only one reason, and that involved examining thoughts she could hardly entertain. But there was nothing except the workings of a newly discovered passion and concern for her safety to account for his very emotional outburst.

  What did she think of that? Was she flattered? Like a young girl after her first meeting with a gallant young fellow? She did not think so. She was surprised, and somewhat intrigued . . . he was a man of her own class whom she may come to understand, not a baffling scion of a socially distant family. But she knew next to nothing about him. If only he wasn’t so self-effacing she would have been more aware of his feelings before; but perhaps that was about to change.

  Midshipman Willis came by from his mathematical labours below, seemingly none the worse for the experience, and occupied a little of her time with questions about steamships. He seemed interested mainly in learning if any faster routes to lieutenancy existed aboard them than waiting for one of the lieutenants to die on a sailing warship.

  “Oh, Willis, that is a terrible thing to say. I know for a fact that midshipmen can ask for their lieutenancy examination whenever they feel confident enough of their competence.”

  “Ah, so they can, but in a squadron at sea in wartime there will be no examination given unless there are spaces in the wardrooms to be filled.”

  “You are very young to have become such a cynic, sir. How long have you been at sea?”

  “Nigh on five years, Miss Stephenson. I was promoted from ship’s boy, but that was the end o’t. I had no chance since.”

  “That was an unusual promotion . . . did you have a preferment?”

  “That I did when my brother was bos’un’s mate, but he died o’ fever in the West Indies. I expec’ I shall be a grey haired midshipman when ’tis my time to go to Greenwich Hospital.”

  They would have spoken more but the First Lieutenant appeared on deck, and Willis left hurriedly to get back to work.

  Chapter Three

  Both Sight Quarries

  Lord Bond and Elise stood across the street from the Poste Restante, pretending to have just met there as they waited for their quarry to emerge. Captain McNab, still on duty as the deaf and dumb beggar, nodded once to confirm they were in
time. The two talked loudly and laughed a lot as they waited.

  At last a man wearing a top hat, morning coat and grey breeches, and twirling a gold tipped cane emerged from the office, in the act of putting a mail package in his inside pocket. “That is the man,” Elise said.

  Bond glanced toward the beggar, and then at his threatening nemesis. “So that is Mr. Gideon Paine.” He bowed to Elise and turned his back to the building. “I don’t want him to notice me, so you follow him back to the hotel and alert your people that our man has arrived.”

  “And you?”

  “I will go again to the south docks to see if Mr. Holmes’ barge has returned. He should be here soon, it is past time that I take the Nederlander out to the blockading squadron.”

  “Very well. I will send a message to you at the pensione tonight. Will I see you again before you leave for Neuzen?”

  “Better not. You are Freiherren Louise while you watch Paine at the hotel. If you have anything new to report after I leave send a message post haste to van Aa in Neuzen.”

  Elise nodded and held out a hand for him to kiss. They parted in time for her to walk after Paine as he strolled along the street, raising his hat to any ladies he passed.

  Bond hurried away toward the docks. Hopefully Mr. Paine would accept the post script he had changed in the letter from the Ambassador and be lured into trusting the replacement instructions by the authenticity of the previous pages. He did not want to find Paine dogging his footsteps as he looked for this American schooner with the official dispatches.

  All he needed before leaving Antwerp was the information from Symington about the iron shipments and he could take what he had to Miss Roberta on her naval ship. The report was very thin, little had been learned so far, which would make the rest of his plans more plausible. He hoped that she was ensconced aboard a flagship with a full complement of supernumeraries, particularly a chaplain.

  Roberta hurried her dressing and made her way to the quarterdeck when she heard the call to stations. She had promised Captain Bell that she would not get in the way if the order to beat to quarters was given, but was not about to go below before she had seen what had alerted the crew.

  Medusa had turned south the day before and was now fifty nautical miles from Texel on the Dutch coast, and a hundred and fifty from their blockade position off the Schelde. The sea was rising, with waves some eight feet from crest to trough; she surmised that a gale was on its way. She looked up at the masts to see Medusa now had all sails set to a northeaster, a chill blast coming all the way from the frozen north.

  Looking around the quarterdeck she found a place with the lieutenants at the lee rail. The First Lieutenant stood watching a distant sail through his telescope. Roberta stood close between the Third Lieutenant and Lieutenant Farley, making it hardly polite for them to ignore her in the excitement of duty.

  “We sighted a sail at three bells,” the Lieutenant said.

  “And then he turned away,” Farley added. “He looks to be a two-masted schooner—”

  “Likely American. And likely coming in on a course around the north of Scotland to avoid our ships in the Channel.”

  “So what is the plan?” Roberta asked. “It will be quite a race, American schooners are fast.”

  “Aye, Miss, but he have just come across an ocean, and likely in need of dockyard work, while Medusa is still clean and well canvassed enough to make it worth a try. She might make thirteen knots on this wind.”

  Roberta looked toward the distant ship. “He turned away, you say? What was his course?”

  Lieutenant Farley lowered his telescope. “Likely where we are supposed to make for—the Texel—”

  The Third Lieutenant smiled expansively. “Him to slip past our blockade to reach Amsterdam, and us to meet our Commodore offshore and hand over our dispatches and orders.”

  “What will Captain Bell do?”

  “He hasn’t said yet,” Farley replied. “He has ordered us to try to overhaul the blighter, and will decide when he sees what we have gained.”

  “How far away is the American? Can I use your telescope?” Roberta asked.

  Farley handed it over. The Third Lieutenant started to help her with it, but she shook her head. “I am quite familiar with the device, Lieutenant. Thank you, all the same.”

  She raised the telescope and adjusted its extension until she could focus on the distant vessel. The roll of Medusa was much reduced with the wind in the full rigging pressing her over against the waves, but it took Roberta a minute or two before she had seen what she wanted. A two-masted schooner with fore and aft sails trimmed to the wind and a somewhat ragged square-rig topsail on the mainmast, she seemed to be fighting the sea rather than taking it confidently. Roberta could visualize the anxiety of her Master with an English frigate bearing down, but he displayed the colours of the Stars and Stripes boldly from a jack-staff on the mizzen mast.

  “Have we overhauled him any since sighted?” she asked.

  “Very little,” Farley replied, “but if we oblige him to hold all that sail in a rising wind he will likely lose that tops’l.”

  Roberta watched the chase until six bells of the morning watch, when the officers were called to prepare themselves to engage and board—if they should succeed with the chase. She felt it unlikely, but then, she was impatient of sail. The Spiteful would have gained four or five cables already if it were here.

  She decided to go to her cabin and write some letters. She must let her father and Aunt Nelly know that she was well and that the officers and crew were very careful about her well-being. She also wanted to write to Commander Worthington to thank him for his generous offer of overwatch and assistance when they met at Chatham.

  She reached the covered entry to the coach and the Captain’s quarters at the stern end of the quarterdeck and stood a moment looking toward the closed door to his sleeping cabin, opposite hers. Her cabin was one that was usually allotted to the Captain’s clerk, if he had one aboard, or to the chaplain if he had requested one for the ship. Being so close to the quarterdeck and to the Great Cabin with its stern windows had made it the ideal accommodation for an admiral . . . particularly when Lord Nelson had been aboard.

  She made sure that she wrote home with a judicious smattering of innocent stories about shipboard life on a frigate, with the more serious information of the request the First Lord had made of her kept unwritten. She said nothing of the plan should it be necessary for her to accompany Lieutenant Farley to Neuzen. As for the expectation that she might meet Lord Bond when he came with his spying information for her to evaluate; she wrote only of meeting the Nederlander while safely at sea, and without mention of who might be aboard.

  That letter was far easier to write than the one to Commander Worthington. She sat staring at her blank page for the duration of one whole stroke of the ship’s bell; a half hour on the hourglass. The more she thought, the more she had to admit how little she knew of him. To admit to any form of endearment to him was completely out of the question.

  Her father had had several conversations with him and had mentioned him to her afterward, but she had not paid sufficient attention to remember much that he had said. The only snippet she remembered was that he was from a farming family, which his broad muscular frame also proclaimed. It was evidence of his growing up on the land in a family that grew their own food and where he had not experienced the stunting of his growth through scarce winter rations.

  How did he make the transition from farm to the sea? She could remember nothing, if she had indeed been told.

  She had to admit that if her thoughts had required her to consider the background or situation of any one of her new gentlemen friends, it surely would have been Lord Bond. He was like the sun in the sky that turned the moon to a pale shadow. No wonder Mr. Holmes had always seemed so indecisive a suitor.

  She would have known nothing about the unfortunate circumstances of his paternity if Lady Finch had not told her.

  This wa
s not getting the letter written. She dipped her quill in the ink and formed the salutation.

  My Dear Commander Worthington.

  No. That would not do. Their degree of connection did not allow for “my dear.” The paper found a resting place on the deck and she pulled out another.

  My most warm greetings, Commander.

  She sat to look at the page for a while. What did she want to say? Her heart wanted to know his degree of interest in her person. Did he love her? What was the extent of her own commitment of partiality to him? She could not pen any of those passionate questions.

  She must, however, let him know that she had come to consider him much more than a sometime collaborator in steam propulsion. That if his degree of regard was at least as strong as hers, she might welcome his interest, but it would be scandalous for her to write such.

  If they were sitting quietly together in this cabin such powerful emotions might be signalled by manner and expression with no need to vet every letter and comma that she now had to trust to the paper—But when would they likely meet in such circumstances? Most unlikely until Napoleon’s invasion was thwarted.

  She rose from the tiny desk and its even smaller stool and walked up and down as far as the cabin walls would allow; three steps forward and three back. How could she judge the strength of his regard—or of hers—without comparing such degree of attachment with that of hers to His Lordship, and his to her? And how difficult was that to assay when her heart and mind were so troubled at the prospect of changing her life from her present duties to become a pampered lady with little to occupy her time. She might feel for Lord Bond in his absence, but in person, he was likely to distress her by displaying a cavalier attitude toward her class. Yet how charming he could be.

  Was His Lordship to be the bellwether of every attachment for the rest of her life?