Tarver's Treasure

by Malcolm Archibald

  He faced her, appalled. ‘I can’t talk to so many people,’ Jack said urgently.

  ‘Go on, silly!’ Bethany pushed him to his feet and he stood there, suddenly a nervous youth again and not a married engineer with 28 years of life behind him.

  There seemed to be a thousand faces staring at him. He swallowed hard and felt the colour rushing to his face. This was different from his words in the church; for there, he had been schooled in what to say. Now he must be spontaneous, witty and sincere all at the same time.

  ‘Say something, Jack!’ Robert was showing off his diplomatic skills. ‘Now you’re married to the Proud Gal, you won’t get many more chances!’ The laughter of the gathering added to Jack’s torment, but he clung to the word ‘married’ like an anchor.

  He looked around the assembled people and his nervousness departed. This was his wedding day and everybody here wished him well. He could feel waves of good fellowship rolling towards him. He smiled.

  ‘Sit down, please,’ he said, and felt gratified when they obeyed. ‘I know it is customary to only say a few words,’ he began, ‘and that is an admirable custom when the landlord and his good lady have gone to so much trouble to provide such a splendid feast.’ He bowed in their direction, aware that Bethany was slightly puzzled. She had expected a halting, hesitant delivery. Well then, let her see that she had married a man, not a tongue-tied boy. ‘So I promise only to keep you as long as I need.’

  ‘Praise the Lord for that,’ Robert shouted, but this time there was no supporting laughter and Bethany hissed him into silence.

  ‘Until I met Bethany’ – Jack spoke quietly, as if to himself, but he was aware that the whole room was silent and Bethany was listening very attentively, as he intended – ‘I was a young boy and nothing else. She has given me everything I have, including, I hope, the friendship of this room. I have never felt more welcome than I do in Merrington-on-Wye and for that I thank you all, but especially my wife…’

  He waited for the ripple of laughter to die away before continuing, ‘And my father-in-law, Mr Harry Gethin. I would also like to thank Mr William Gethin for accepting me as his apprentice, and Robert here…’ he indicated towards the blacksmith, who smiled and bowed to everybody at the table, ‘for agreeing to be my best man. So, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your good wishes and for your company, but most of all I thank you for accepting me as Bethany’s husband.’

  There was no laugher, just a murmur of appreciation and a rising of glasses. Bethany touched his shoulder and, leaning closer, kissed him most tenderly as he sat down.

  ‘That was beautiful,’ she said.

  ‘That was the truth,’ Jack told her, draining his glass in a sudden panicky reaction.

  He was more nervous later, when they arrived at the house that he rented. They had taken the post-chaise from Merrington-on-Wye to the market town of Ludlow, and now they stood outside his front door.

  ‘Well, here we are,’ Bethany smiled to him, one hand brushing away that rebellious lock of hair that had finally escaped its severe restrictions to flop over her forehead.

  ‘Indeed,’ Jack said. Fumbling for the key, he opened the door and stepped inside. The interior smelled of polish and new paint, for he had taken pains to ensure that everything was as perfect as possible for Bethany. The fact that he had known her for years did not help in the slightest. She would be too aware of his faults, and now, as his wife, might expect flawlessness. Jack felt the flutter of apprehension return, stronger than before; he hoped desperately that their first night as man and wife would not alter their relationship.

  Alter it? Jack shook his head. Of course it would: everything had changed and the thought was utterly terrifying. All the responsibility, all the doubts and fears and worries crashed back on to him. Here he was, Jack Tarver, quite literally the unwanted orphan of the storm, now a married man. And his wife was staring at him, waiting for … waiting for what?

  Waiting for him, of course. Pushing open the door with his foot, Jack scooped Bethany up in his arms and strode over the threshold.

  ‘Welcome to our home,’ he said.

  ‘I thought you were going to forget,’ Bethany said, and laughed.

  It was the same old laugh, starting low and controlled and rising to genuine mirth, which seemed to come from her heart, and Jack knew that everything was going to be all right. What had he been afraid of? This was his Bethany and they were together and there was even a job easing over the horizon.

  ‘Well, Jack’ – again, Bethany seemed to read his mind – ‘as Dr Pangloss said, “All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.”’

  They laughed together and fell kissing onto the couch.

  Chapter Two

  Facing the French

  ‘One of them’s a Frenchie, sure as death!’ Lieutenant Cockburn had his spyglass trained on the two vessels that were hull down over the horizon. ‘I can see the tricolour against her mizzen. What the other is, I have no idea, sir.’

  ‘Damn, damn, damn!’ Captain Edwards tapped his hand against his thigh. Despite the heat of the Mediterranean sun, his heavy blue coat was buttoned to his chin. He stepped away, lifting his head to sniff at the rising southerly breeze, which kept the temperature bearable.

  ‘As she’s French, sir, would you like us to clear for action?’ Grasping the rigging, Lieutenant Cockburn pulled himself up for a better view. Tall and lithe, he looked like a coiled spring awaiting his chance to erupt into action. ‘She’s a three master, sir. Could be a frigate, or even a battleship.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Cockburn, but we have our mission to fulfil.’ Captain Edwards focused on the sails, which punctured the otherwise flawless horizon. ‘Such an adventure would cause us delay, and we could not stand against a battleship. I cannot hazard the ship, Mr Cockburn.’

  ‘That might be a British ship under attack, sir,’ Cockburn encouraged. ‘Do I have your permission to go aloft and check?’

  ‘No, no, Mr Cockburn. I really do not think it compliant with your dignity.’ Captain Edwards removed his hat and stroked his thinning grey hair. ‘We really should be getting along.’

  Standing on the windward side of the deck, Jack glanced at Bethany and frowned. All his life he had believed that the Royal Navy was something invulnerable. While the army bumbled along, trying its best but usually failing gloriously, the navy was the pride of Britain. It was the navy that kept the seas free; it was the navy that had daunted French and Spanish hopes of invasion, and now here was a captain of that navy refusing to investigate a French ship. The idea was so alarming that Jack nearly intervened, but he knew he could not.

  Captain Edwards had welcomed them on board with old-fashioned politeness, allocated them a cabin from which a trio of unfortunate warrant officers had been ejected and allowed them the freedom of much of the deck. After such a favourable beginning, the captain had ignored them as he ran his ship, sailing her slowly and carefully down the Channel, past the Bay of Biscay and through the Strait of Gibraltar as if HMS Rowan was a ponderous West Indiaman rather than a lean fighting frigate.

  The roll of gunfire reached them, carrying across the sea as clearly as thunder on a summer’s day.

  ‘Oh, damn!’ Edwards shook his head. ‘This is too tiresome. I suppose we really had better have a look, Mr Cockburn.’ He looked around. ‘Do what you have to, but don’t hazard the ship, pray, or engage without my permission.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir!’ Cockburn touched a hand to his hat, his face suddenly animated. He raised his voice. ‘Larboard a point, helmsman! Make all sail!’ His grin could not have been wider. ‘Set stun’sails!’

  After cruising under easy sail for so long, the Rowan seemed to spring forward as the studding sails, which extended from each mast to increase her wind-catching capacity, fell into place. Bethany looked forward, where the stem bit into the sea, throwing back white and silver foam. She put a hand to her head to hold her hat in place. It may have been broad-brimmed and unfashionable, but one of the fore
mast hands had fashioned it for her out of stiff canvas and she wore it with pride. ‘Mr Cockburn is taking us straight for that Frenchman,’ she told Jack, her voice filled with anticipation.

  ‘So I see.’ Jack did not share her excitement. ‘Maybe you had better go below, Bethany, in case there is a battle.’

  ‘Oh, go to Bath, Jack. I will be perfectly safe here.’

  Cockburn extended his telescope again. ‘Hands to quarters! Beat to quarters, drummer.’

  Jack had never heard such a sound before, the rolling rattle of a drum that sent some 200 men galloping around the ship, clearing away every unnecessary item, removing and stowing away bulkheads and readying the warship for its primary purpose of slaughter. The atmosphere, which had been of semi-supine slumber as the Rowan sailed slowly along, was suddenly animated.

  Cockburn appeared at their side, doffing his hat to Bethany and trying to control his excitement. ‘Sorry to inconvenience you, Mr and Mrs Tarver, but we will be clearing away your quarters too. I’m afraid there is no help for it.’

  Bethany curtseyed. ‘If there is no help for it, Mr Cockburn, then, why, we can have no objections. Will we be fighting that Frenchman?’

  ‘I hope so, Mrs Tarver. I really do hope so.’ When Cockburn grinned, his white teeth contrasted with the deep tan of his face. ‘But if we do, then I must insist that you both go below. We can’t have our prettiest passenger hurt, nor her husband.’

  Bethany ignored Jack’s ‘I told you so’ look. ‘Can we not watch, Lieutenant Cockburn? I have no love for the French and I would dearly love to see us beat them.’ She had no doubt about the outcome of any action between a British and a French ship.

  Cockburn smiled. ‘Quite the little firebrand, are you not, Mrs Tarver? By God, I wish we all had your spirit.’ He looked away for a second, as if he had said something he should not have. ‘But no, Mrs Tarver, I am afraid not,’ Cockburn said, shaking his head. ‘I will not put you in danger, while the presence of somebody so beautiful may well distract the crew from their duty, and I am sure you would not wish that.’

  Bethany curtseyed again to acknowledge the compliment. ‘I think you greatly overestimate my effect, Mr Cockburn, but we will accede to your orders, of course.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Tarver,’ replied Cockburn, lifting his hat. ‘But now, if you would excuse me, I have my duty to perform.’ He stepped away, eyes darting all over the ship. ‘Mr O’Neill! We’ll have the guns loaded and run out, if you please! Get these powder monkeys moving!’

  Again there was pandemonium, as the hands scampered to the black-snouted cannon that lined the deck. Jack knew that the Rowan was a thirty-two-gun frigate, well able to take care of herself against vessels her own size, and fast enough to run from anything too large to handle. He heard Mr Cockburn shouting again and hoped that the nautical language did not offend Bethany, but she merely watched, smiling, as young boys and a handful of women, chattering like the monkeys of their nickname, carried up powder cartridges from the magazine.

  With all her sails set, the Rowan was crashing closer to the battling ships. The masts were now in plain sight from the deck, although drifts of powder smoke tended to hide many of the details.

  ‘At least get in the shelter of the mainmast,’ Jack advised, as Bethany stretched forward for a better look.

  ‘In a minute, Jack! We’re still miles away.’

  Stripped to the waist, men rammed powder and ball down the muzzles of the twelve-pounder cannon.

  ‘Guns ready, sir!’

  ‘Very good, Mr O’Neill. Now we’ll rig boarding nettings, if you please!’

  ‘What are they doing, Jack?’ Bethany asked, as the hands began to lay huge nets all around ship, before fastening them to the rigging so they sloped from the bulwarks to the yardarms of the masts.

  ‘It is a defence against the French,’ Jack explained. ‘If they attempt to board us, they will first have to hack away the netting.’

  ‘And while doing so,’ continued Cockburn, who was still standing nearby, ‘they are nicely positioned for us to pike them, so!’ He demonstrated with an upward thrust of his hand. The curved sword remained buckled around his waist.

  ‘What if the French vessel is more powerful than the Rowan?’ Jack asked.

  ‘She is.’ Cockburn slapped the breech of the nearest cannon. ‘We have twelve-pounder cannon on the main deck and twenty-four-pounder carronades on the quarterdeck, so we have a broadside of 282 pounds. That Frenchman appears to be a forty-gun frigate, so she will have a main battery of eighteen pounders and perhaps four thirty-six-pounder carronades. She comfortably outmatches us both in range and weight of shot.’ He then looked around the Rowan and said, ‘But we have the edge in seamanship and skill. If we can get within range without being dismasted, we can beat him!’

  ‘Of course we can,’ Bethany said softly, and Cockburn laughed.

  ‘And the other vessel?’ Jack wondered. Due to the angle of their approach, they could make out little of the third vessel, but she seemed smaller than her opponent.

  ‘Out of it, I fear,’ Cockburn said. ‘By the time we reach them, she’ll have been pounded to splinters, or more likely will have struck her flag.’ He bowed to Bethany. ‘Pray excuse me, Mrs Tarver.’

  Scrambling aloft, Cockburn stood on the crosstree of the mainmast, focusing on the rapidly approaching ships. He remained there for some time, until the ships were hull up but half hidden by a huge cloud of white smoke through which the occasional flare of orange was seen. Gunfire battered the air, either sharp single reports or in rolls of deep thunder.

  ‘Keep her at this heading,’ Cockburn said, ‘and send word to the captain that we are closing with the enemy.’

  There were two ships locked together, the larger of which wore the tricolour of France, but Jack could not see any flag on the smaller.

  ‘She’s not British,’ Cockburn mused. ‘Maybe Neapolitan, if they have a navy.’ He stiffened to attention and touched his hat as Captain Edwards appeared. ‘We’re all ready for action, sir. Approaching the French and awaiting your orders.’

  ‘So I see, so I see, Mr Cockburn.’ Edwards frowned. ‘I do not believe they have seen us, yet.’

  ‘No, sir. They seem preoccupied with that other vessel.’ He slapped a hand against his thigh in triumph. ‘We’ll catch them stone dead, sir!’

  Edwards looked doubtful. Removing a telescope from its bracket by the mizzenmast, he peered forward. ‘Have you identified the other ship yet, Mr Cockburn?’

  ‘Not yet, sir.’ Cockburn said. ‘But she’s getting pounded. May I suggest we manoeuvre to rake the Frenchman?’

  Edwards shook his head. ‘Not yet, Mr Cockburn. I have found that it is best not to be so eager. We shall investigate the situation first, before we take any further action. Indeed, I fear you have already been over-eager in sailing so close.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Even at this distance, Jack could sense Cockburn’s frustration.

  Amidst the general thunder of battle, they did not hear the shot. It may have been deliberately aimed, or a stray ball, but it sliced through the boarding netting and passed between Cockburn and Captain Edwards with a sound like tearing cloth. While Cockburn flinched, Edwards crumpled to the deck and lay there, still clutching the telescope.

  ‘Get that net re-rove!’ Cockburn bellowed, bending over the body of his captain. ‘And get the captain down to sick bay immediately.’ When he looked up, he caught the glance of Jack. ‘Although much good will it do him.’

  ‘What?’ Bethany rushed to kneel on the deck at Edwards’ side. She looked up, mouth agape at the suddenness of it all. ‘I think he’s dead. But the ball did not touch him!’

  Cockburn nodded. ‘I’ve seen it before, people killed by just the passage of a shot.’ He straightened up. ‘He was a good man, but we have not time to mourn him now. It is time for you to go below, Mrs Tarver, and Mr Tarver. Things are about to get busy here.’

  ‘Come, Bethany,’ Jack pulled his wife back, just as C
ockburn gave a lungful of orders that saw the Rowan alter her course slightly to approach the battling ships from a different angle.

  ‘You go below, if you wish,’ Bethany replied, shaking free of Jack’s hand. ‘But I would not miss this for anything!’

  ‘Bethany!’ Jack looked up frantically. The French ship was very close as the Rowan entered the outlying tendrils of the bank of smoke. He could see that grappling hooks linked both vessels together, but the smaller had lost one of her two masts. The gunfire was dying down and there was a mass of men fighting on the deck of the smaller vessel, with the clatter of metal on metal a sign of some vicious hand-to-hand combat.

  ‘I want the larboard side gun crews and the idlers armed for boarding,’ Cockburn shouted, grinning. He was obviously enjoying the thrill of imminent battle. He drew his sword and held it aloft in a gesture that Jack thought overly melodramatic but which set the crew cheering.

  ‘Steer half a point to starboard, helmsman!’

  ‘Half a point to starboard, sir,’ the helmsman repeated. Barefoot and bare headed, he chewed on a quid of tobacco, his face impassive. He was about forty, an old seaman who had probably seen battle before, Jack mused. He realised with a start that Bethany was still at his side, watching everything. He took hold of her arm.

  ‘Bethany! I order you to get below.’

  Reaching up, she stroked his face. ‘I know you do, Jack dear, but I said I would be a poor wife. I will stay here and watch.’

  ‘Bethany!’ In his agitation, Jack searched for some way to care for her. ‘I am your husband …’

  ‘I know, dear Jack.’ Bethany favoured him with a smile. ‘But you are still learning how to do it.’

  ‘Beautiful!’ Cockburn said. ‘We’re only a cable’s length apart. Stand by on the starboard battery.’

  The gunners hunched over their cannon, gun ports open, sponges ready, men peering eagerly at the small square of sea and sky that was their view of the world.