Game of Bones

by David Donachie

  ‘I am not convinced, sir,’ Villiers cried, a new drop of fluid on the end of his nose shaking, threatening to come loose and join its predecessor.

  Harry called over his shoulder, ‘Then that, Mr Villiers, is entirely your affair.’

  ‘It is not, sir,’ Villiers called at the retreating backs. ‘I await my letters of authority. We will meet again, and in circumstances where you shall be compelled to satisfy me.’

  ‘You’re blockin’ the doorway,’ growled Pender. Villiers turned and tried to glare at him, but the look he got in return killed that. ‘It’s not only the captain that’s in a hurry.’

  ‘Where is he going?’

  ‘Why, didn’t he tell you?’ said Pender, a twinkle in his eye, the depth of his voice adding a conspiratorial air to his words. ‘He’s off to Brest to tell the French it’s safe to come out and play.’

  Leybourne was most obliging in the article of charts and tide tables. They chatted for a while about the local currents, which properly used were an asset to any sailor who knew them. He promised to get a note to Illingworth, informing the merchant captain of the need to fetch along his steward and be on the Hard this evening to wait for the boat that would bring James back to Portsmouth. Then Harry told him about the visit from Villiers.

  ‘I believe you spoke with him this morning.’

  The flag-lieutenant rolled his eyes slightly. ‘The man is a damned pest. He’s been sent down by someone in London to enquire into the causes of the mutiny.’

  ‘Not the Admiralty, I take it?’ asked Harry.

  ‘Heavens, no! Claims that his employers are so secret that proof of his authority cannot be provided.’

  ‘Then why not send him packing?’

  ‘He is here officially. Lord Spencer confirmed that. When the admirals told the First Lord we had our own people looking into things he made it quite plain that Villiers was to have any assistance he required. So whoever his patron is, it must be someone powerful.’

  ‘Why do I get the feeling that you have not complied?’

  Leybourne smiled. ‘We have rendered him every courtesy. But since we have no information ourselves, we can hardly share it with him.’

  ‘And if you had,’ Harry continued, ‘you’d want to make damn sure you knew where it was going to end up, and to what use it would be put.’

  ‘That is a very succinct appraisal of the situation, Captain Ludlow.’

  Ben Harper came into Portsmouth, a good hour after the Ludlows had left, sitting on top of the midday mail coach, the intended recipient of his letter now well out in the Solent. His horse, Lightning, of which he was so proud, was hobbling around a field near Hindhead, lame from finding a pothole. He himself was bruised where he’d come off, only the way he rolled along the ground saving him from serious injury. As he climbed down he saw the postal agent take the sack of mail from the coachman. That was galling. Lord Drumdryan would have saved himself some money if he’d just used ordinary delivery.

  Never having been to Portsmouth before, and hearing what was said in London taverns about the mutiny, he’d feared turmoil. But although there was ample bustle around the front of the Fountain there was none of the mayhem and murder he’d been led to expect. Enquiries for directions to Mistress Blackett’s were greeted with derision, with many a ribald comment that a lad his age shouldn’t need the services of a bawdy house. In vain he protested that he had a letter to deliver, and the good Samaritan that saved his blushes only did so after he told all and sundry who the letter was for.

  ‘Captain Ludlow, you say, young ’un.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Ben replied, looking up into the pock-marked face under the large round hat. ‘Lord Drumdryan told me to enquire for directions at the Fountain.’

  ‘You need ask no more. I will show you where Captain Ludlow is stopping. I got a letter about him myself this very morning. Seems he’s come into a bit of good fortune.’

  ‘Lord Drumdryan didn’t look as though he was passing on good news. Nor did he sound like it. The other is more true. I never in my life saw a man more alarmed.’

  ‘News takes folk in different ways. Can you read, lad?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Pity.’ He pulled a bill from inside his coat, and with a sharp flick of the wrist, opened it so that Ben could see the writing, as well as the list of figures. ‘If you could read this we could see if they have the same news.’

  ‘Mine’s sealed,’ said Ben, holding it up. ‘So it makes no odds.’

  ‘Then you best look after it,’ the man said, whipping it out of his hand. The youngster’s cry of despair was stifled by the way he rammed it into a pocket in Ben’s coat, an act which was followed by a cautionary pat. ‘If you go waving it about in a den of thieves like this, then one of them will have it off you.’

  The man grinned and pointed straight ahead, pocketing Drumdryan’s letter as the boy looked away. ‘That there is Mistress Blackett’s.’

  Ben Harper’s voice was half fearful, half excited. ‘Is it really a bawdy house?’

  ‘It is, boy. And who knows, Captain Ludlow might just stand you the price of one of the girls. Got to dip your wick some time, I reckon.’ He laughed as Ben Harper blushed, the sound bouncing off the high walls of the surrounding buildings. ‘All you need do now is haul on the knocker.’

  ‘Would you mind coming with me?’ asked Ben.

  ‘Not in the slightest,’ the man replied, that followed by another laugh. ‘But only as far as the door.’

  That made Ben blush, and the older man turned away, the noise of his humour continuing even after he was out of sight. That left Ben Harper alone to confront Mary Blackett. At first she refused to acknowledge that she’d had any guests at all, let alone Captain Harry Ludlow. But at the look on young Ben’s face she finally admitted that he’d stayed there.

  ‘But he’s gone,’ she said.

  ‘Gone! Gone where?’

  ‘Back to his ship, where else? Paid for his room and victuals, handsomely an’ all, and left at around ten of the clock.’

  ‘I have an important letter for him,’ said Ben. There was desperation in the boy’s voice as he asked, ‘Do you reckon he will be coming back?’

  His horse was lame, he was far from home, and he’d failed miserably.

  ‘I’m not sure he is, but his brother will definitely be stopping by tonight, before he takes the coach for London in the morning.’

  ‘I was told to give the letter to him if need be.’

  Mary Blackett was as fond of a virgin as Captain Jack Willett Payne, and she prided herself that she’d rescued several such from a life in the gutter. Country boys fresh to the town, like Pender. She was thinking at that very moment that this London lad might be tender in years, somewhat downcast and nervous, but he was fine-looking, a well set-up young man, with soft blond lashes over gentle blue eyes. And if he didn’t need to be rescued, then at least he was in need of comfort.

  ‘Then you’d best come inside, lad. Things’ll look brighter after a drop of gin.’

  ‘Gin,’ Ben replied, casting an anxious look at the open door.

  ‘Never been in a place like this, have you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then come with me. You’ll come to no harm. Why, I intend to look after your well-being myself.’

  Illingworth was ensconced at the Fountain, two streets away from his steward, Derouac, who’d been left shivering on the Hard, overlooking the inner anchorage of Portsmouth harbour, to keep watch for the return of James Ludlow. The captain of the Lothian had in his pocket a note from London regarding the value the East India Company insurers put on his ship. In his hand he held the latest of several drinks. Harry Ludlow had become a subject of much conversation in Portsmouth after the previous day’s events, and no one saw himself better placed to dissect the privateer’s deeds and actions than a man who’d been his enforced guest and was now his partner in a daring enterprise.

  The merchant captain was drunk enough to be boastful. An
d he was an obliging man by nature, a seeker of harmony rather than confrontation, especially in his cups. This was a trait which had served him well in his professional capacity, ensuring that his passengers to India remembered him fondly and recommended the Lothian for the journey home.

  Addressing a naval audience that had little desire to hear Harry Ludlow praised, he couldn’t help himself. Besides, as he saw it he’d been exposed to an overbearing condescension while aboard Bucephalas, and that very afternoon, at the conclusion of the interview with Parker, he’d suffered a bit of a verbal drubbing on the subject of gratitude, with a pointed question about his lack of concern for the wounded men Harry had taken charge of. Smarting from that, as well as the indignity of reimbursing the sermoniser for their care, Illingworth was game enough to list Harry’s faults rather than what might be considered his virtues.

  Naturally, in diminishing his rescuer he elevated his own abilities, waxing lyrical on the way he had fooled Rykert of the Amethyst, adding the rider that Captain Harry Ludlow should have been more grateful for his efforts. The officers he was addressing cared nothing for this, even if he was, in his intoxicated way, rubbishing one of their number. Their interest lay elsewhere. All had heard rumours regarding the success of Harry’s cruise. Eager to extract the details, they quizzed him almost as energetically as they plied him with drink.

  ‘He’s made a mint. One of his crew told me he’d bought half of America, and that the government of that benighted spot might well have crumbled but for his intervention.’ Illingworth took a long swallow, then gave his audience a knowing look. ‘Strange thing for a true-born Englishman to do, don’t you think, with the Americans more friends to France than they are to us. Strikes me, with what happened on the London, that Mr Harry Ludlow is not as sound in the political line as he should be.’

  That was followed by growls of agreement, plus a greater arching in Villiers’s back as he heard that sentiment receive grunts of assent. He nearly fell out of his chair as he sought to pick up every word.

  ‘Mind you, it is my opinion that any success he’s enjoyed has turned his head. Why, I had to practically force the sound advice I gave him down his throat, and this to avoid his entire crew being pressed.’

  Villiers, eager to find more evidence of political unsoundness, heard all about Harry’s exemptions. Illingworth had, it seemed, with masterly cunning, persuaded him to extend them to the Lothians. He listened even more carefully as the merchant captain outlined their forthcoming mission to recover both his ship and the passengers, one that would take them to the very shores of France.

  ‘If I’d had the price Lloyd’s is prepared to pay, I’d be there now. Just as well, since Ludlow needs time to get his ship repaired. James Ludlow ain’t coming, which is a pity, since he is more of a gentleman and certainly, by comparison, congenial company. I’d rather sail to Normandy with him than his elder brother.’

  ‘Just how successful was his cruise in pounds sterling?’ asked one naval captain, eschewing subterfuge and posing a direct enquiry in his eagerness to hear the truth.

  Illingworth looked at the questioner, an officer whom he suspected had been slung off his ship, a man who might never find employment in the service again. He touched the side of his nose with a finger, then leant forward to impart an amount. Villiers didn’t hear what he said, but he did hear the response of all those at the table, a very profound sucking in of collective breath.

  ‘I hope he chokes on it,’ said one of the naval officers. ‘Damned privateers are all thieves.’

  ‘I just hope his ship is repaired, sir,’ said Illingworth. ‘I have no mind to be kept hanging about on the Hard for half the night.’

  Villiers considered himself an expert in the art of subtle eavesdropping. Yet he didn’t notice that he wasn’t alone. There was a stocky, dark-looking man with a pock-marked face, sipping port. He too was close enough to hear what Illingworth was saying, and anyone looking at him hard enough would have noticed the way he arched his body backwards.

  He pulled a letter from his pocket, opened it, and began to read. The smile seemed to indicate that what he’d read and what he heard added up to something that pleased him.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  GOLD obviously spoke loudly at Buckler’s Hard, where Adams’s men had excelled themselves in the speed of their repairs. The quay was lined with the stores from the hold of Harry’s ship, and Bucephalas, having been hauled over to show where Spanish shot had wounded her below the waterline, was now upright again, with a stretch of New Forest oak replacing the damaged timbers, the join covered by a fresh sheet of copper. Now she was alongside a great barge, waiting for a new foretopmast to be stepped in, the stump of the old one having been plucked out just before the party from Portsmouth had arrived. Another team of men were working to slot home the bowsprit, yet more employed in repairing some of the more obvious damage to the bulwarks.

  ‘The tropics never was good for a ship’s bottom,’ said Balthazar Adams dolefully. ‘Copper-sheathed notwithstanding. And there’s little to be achieved in one tide. To be put to rights the hull needs a proper scrape, and that can only be done in dry dock.’

  ‘I never intended that you should make it anything other than seaworthy, Mr Adams, and repair those parts of the upperworks where we’d suffered badly. What I must ask you now, is this: can that undertaking be completed any quicker than you originally proposed? It would aid me to save a day.’

  ‘Why the hellfire haste, Captain Ludlow?’

  ‘Opportunity, sir,’ Harry replied. ‘That and a desire to get home.’

  It was only partly true. The Beaulieu Estuary had turned from a safe haven into a trap. He didn’t believe that Admiral Parker would go back on his word, but then neither did he entirely discount the possibility. Stranger things had happened in his life, when events outside his own control had thrown relative calm into complete turmoil.

  Crossing the Solent his imagination had supplied any number of reasons why things might change. Tressoir, sailing his tub of a corvette with the Lothian in company, had to pass through a very crowded stretch of water, one in which other British letters of marque operated. On top of that, sloops and frigates of the Royal Navy cruised the area. They could easily encounter other navy vessels, setting out or returning from the duties which took them to every corner of the globe. Outward bound, or returning, they’d not pass up the chance to take back a fat East Indiaman as prize.

  Sir William Parker and his family could at this very moment be warming their toes before the fire of some south coast inn. And if that was the case, and his admiral brother learnt it to be so, Harry could find the Royal William’s boats barring his exit from the Beaulieu, while the Lymington road was blocked by Vosper. Then the letter Sir Peter had given him to extend his exemptions stating the reason that he was employed on navy business would be worthless.

  His first task was to get the proceeds of his cruise out of the hold, into a boat, and back to Portsmouth, so James could take it on to London. Even although it looked like nothing special, just a large oilskin pouch, its arrival on deck showed just how much gossip it had created. What should have been kept in confidence was common knowledge. There was hardly a soul in Buckler’s Hard, it seemed, who didn’t know what the pouch contained.

  ‘Loose tongues,’ Harry said to James, observing the way the work slowed, as the locals, trying to look unconcerned, watched him go over the side. ‘Sailors do love telling a tall tale. And I’ve little doubt that there are young girls here, as well as married women, who’ve been promised a life of ease in the American hinterland in return for their favours.’

  Balthazar Adams was watching too, his face a mixture of longing and relief. Once the boat carrying it and James began to drop downriver, he cursed it as much as his Christianity would allow.

  ‘It was like having Satan beneath our feet, sir,’ he said to Harry. ‘And I know that despite my best efforts the tentacles of sin have spread through the village.’

  ‘H
ow long before the ship can sail?’

  ‘Some time tomorrow forenoon, God willing, though you will know as well as the Almighty what can go amiss when stepping masts. But things look set to go fair, and the Lord be thanked, I say.’

  ‘You’ve done well, Mr Adams.’

  The look the yard owner gave him was less than friendly, an indication that he wished he’d never agreed to the repair in the first place, and over the next few hours, through words and hints, he let Harry know why. Visitors were rare at Buckler’s Hard, never numbering more than the people necessary to take delivery of a finished vessel. Harry’s numerous crew, with their deep-sea ways and tales of wealth and exotic places, had turned every female head in the place, not to mention a few atop the shoulders of the younger men. Fathers and husbands were displeased. Trouble was brewing, and the only way to cap it was to get the ship, and the crew, out of the estuary.

  With the exception of the wounded, Harry was happy to oblige; it had little or nothing to do with Parker’s request and everything to do with his own nature. He hated to be idle and that was exaggerated by his sailors’ wish to be free of the shore. Added to that was the prospect of action. He would have scoffed at anyone who hinted that what lay ahead excited him. But it did. Having been cajoled into sailing for Normandy he could not completely ignore the possible outcome. And for a man to whom the taking of a prize was the staff of life the idea of capturing the Lothian acted as a powerful spur to his imagination.

  So he harried his men to restow the holds and refill the water casks. Then followed a hurried visit to the injured men, each one of his own receiving a promise that he would return to pick them up. Next he went to see Lord Montagu’s steward at Beaulieu House, and on being granted permission, he sent parties out to cut and collect wood from the abundant New Forest. Fresh meat and vegetables were available, and could be bought from the surrounding countryside. Likewise beer, which in the absence of lime was useful as an antiscorbutic. No one complained, or asked their captain why he was preparing for what looked like another cruise. They knew his nature, as well as their trade, and were aware that Harry Ludlow would never put to sea unless fully provisioned.