With All Despatch

by Alexander Kent

  Bolitho had hurried to the big door at the top of the stairs, Allday limping behind him, that same cutlass still in his hand.

  Craven had shouted, “In the King’s name!” Then he had kicked the door inwards with his boot.

  Bolitho knew he would never forget the sight which had waited in that room. Hoblyn crouching beside the huge bed, rocking from side to side, his hands and arms thick with dried blood. For a moment longer they had imagined that he was injured, or had attempted to kill himself without success. Until a sergeant had brought more candles, and together they had stared at the bed, at what was left of the naked body of Jules, the youthful footman and companion.

  There was not a part of his body which had not been savagely mutilated or hacked away. Only the face was left unmarked, like the murdered informer aboard the Loyal Chieftain when Bolitho had first confronted Delaval. From the youth’s contorted features it was obvious that the horrific torture had been exercised while he had been alive. The bed, the floor, everything was soaked in blood, and Bolitho had realized that Hoblyn must have carried the corpse in his arms round and round the room until he had collapsed, broken and exhausted.

  The Brotherhood had thought that he had betrayed them, not realising that Bolitho’s search for Allday had provoked the attack on the boatyard.

  From all the rewards Hoblyn had gained from them by his help and information, they had selected the possession he had prized the most, and had butchered the youth, then left him like a carcass at the gates.

  Craven had said huskily, “In the King’s name you are charged this day—” He had broken off and had choked, “Take him. I can stand no more of this charnel house!”

  It had been then that Hoblyn had come out of his trance and stared at them without recognition. With a great effort he had got to his feet, and almost tenderly covered the mutilated corpse with a blanket.

  In a steady voice he had said, “I am ready, gentlemen.” He had turned only briefly to Bolitho. “You would not heed me.” Then he had tried to shrug his shoulders, but even that had failed him.

  At the door he had said, “My sword. I am entitled.”

  Bolitho and Craven had looked at one another. Maybe each had known in his own way.

  They had waited outside the door, while the dragoons lined the halfway below, where some dazed servants were peering in at the bloodstains and the plaster which had fallen to Hoblyn’s pistol.

  The bang of the shot brought more cries and shouts from the waiting servants. They had found Hoblyn lying on the bed, one arm over the blanketed shape, the other crooking the pistol which had blown away the back of his skull.

  Bolitho realized he had stopped speaking, that the din outside the inn was louder now.

  Sir Marcus Drew said quietly, “I am distressed to learn it, Bolitho, and I grieve that you should have been forced to witness it. In the long run, it will have been the best way out. Perhaps the only way for him.”

  Bolitho moved to the large window and watched the scene below. The pattern had changed, and the dragoons were mounted now, lined, saddle to saddle, across the square, each sabre drawn and shouldered, the horses restless, uneasy in the presence of death. A mounted major was patting his own horse’s neck, but his eyes were on the swaying crowd. It could have been Craven, but it was not.

  Drew stood beside him and sipped at his claret, his mind still with the image of Hoblyn’s death.

  “He was a fool, not the man I once admired. How did he come to—” He could not continue.

  Bolitho eyed him coldly. “Come to love that youth? It was all he had. The woman who had waited for him during the war would not even look at him when she was told of his terrible scars. So he searched elsewhere, and found that boy.” Bolitho was again surprised at the emptiness of his voice. “He learned too late that there are no pockets in a shroud, no money box in a coffin.”

  Drew licked his lips. “You are a strange fellow, Bolitho.”

  “Strange, sir? Because the truly guilty go free, or hide in safety behind rank or privilege?” His eyes flashed. “One day—”

  He stiffened as he saw Delaval’s slight figure mounting the scaffold, a trooper on either side. Dressed in a fine velvet coat, his dark hair uncovered, his appearance brought a chorus of cheers and jeers from the expectant crowd.

  Bolitho looked down and saw Allday directly below him, leaning against one of the inn’s pillars, a long clay pipe held unlit to his mouth. In the ensuing weeks he had lost the scars and his eye was as clear as before. But he had changed nonetheless; he seemed quieter, less ready to make a joke of everything. In one way he had not changed. Like dog and master, Bolitho had often thought, each fearful that the other might die first. Loyalty? That was no description of it. Probably Paice was there too, watching, remembering.

  The horses were more restless, and the major raised his arm to steady the line.

  Drew said softly, “A rogue, but you can pity him this moment.”

  Bolitho retorted equally quietly, “I pray he rots in hell.”

  It was nearly done. An official from the sheriff ’s office, a quavering clergyman whose words, if there were any, were quite lost in the hubbub of shouts and jeers.

  Bolitho had seen hangings before—too many, and mostly those of sailors, men found guilty of mutiny or worse, run up to the mainyard by their own messmates.

  But this display was little better than Madame Guillotine across the Channel, he thought.

  The noose was placed around Delaval’s neck but he shook his head when one of the executioners made to blindfold him.

  He looked composed, even indifferent as he called something to those nearest the scaffold.

  At that last moment an elegant, dark red phaeton with a fragile gold crest painted on the door, cantered around the fringe of the crowd until the coachman reined it to a halt.

  Delaval must have seen it too, for he stared until his eyes almost bulged from his head. He tried to scream something, but at that instant the trap was sprung and his legs thrashed wildly in space, the air choked from his lungs while excreta ran down his fine nankeen breeches.

  Bolitho saw the phaeton move away, but noticed a man’s face watching from the open window. The face was smiling until it withdrew out of sight, and the fine carriage gathered speed away from the square.

  The crowd was silent now in a mixture of disgust and disappointment that the spectacle was almost over. The puppetlike figure still twisted and flinched on the rope, and it would take another few minutes for the man who had been murderer, rapist, and smuggler to snuff out his life completely.

  Delaval’s last bravado might have carried him across the threshold of darkness but for that face in the carriage window.

  Bolitho turned away from the window, his limbs shaking uncontrollably. He had seen it before, on the road to Rochester when it had been in company with the deputy sheriff and his mob. The missing piece of the pattern.

  He faced the rear-admiral and asked calmly, “So, may I ask why I am here, Sir Marcus?”

  Bolitho watched the purple shadows standing out across the square and felt the cooler air of evening against his face. It had been a long day spent with Rear-Admiral Drew, a man so obviously worried by the prospect of implicating himself in anything which might damage his secure position in Admiralty that conversation had been stilted and fruitless.

  All he had discovered of any value was that they were here to meet a man of great importance. His name was Lord Marcuard.

  Bolitho had heard Marcuard discussed in the past, and seen brief mentions of him in the Gazette. A man of supreme influence, above the rules of Parliament, who was called frequently to offer his advice on matters of policy to no less than the King himself.

  Drew had said at one point, “Do not provoke or irritate His Lordship, Bolitho. It can do nothing but harm and you will be the poorer.”

  Bolitho saw some men working on the empty scaffold. Two highwaymen who had prowled together on the Dover Road would share Delaval’s fate tomorrow
. They might attract an even larger crowd. Yet another myth, that highwaymen were somehow different from murderers and thieves.

  Drew was so typical, he thought bitterly. When war came, young captains would be expected to obey the commands and instructions of men like him. Admirals who had gained their advancement in times of peace, who had become soft in the search for their own advantages.

  The old secretary opened the door and darted a quick glance between them.

  “Lord Marcuard’s carriage approaches, Sir Marcus.”

  Drew twitched his neckcloth and glanced at himself in a mirror.

  “We are to wait here, Bolitho.” He sounded incredibly nervous.

  Bolitho turned away from the window. The carriage had not arrived by the square. The meeting was to be a secret affair. He felt his heart beat faster. He had imagined it might be one of routine, a few words of encouragement perhaps for future aggressive tactics against the smugglers. Lord Marcuard was rarely known to leave his grand house in Whitehall. Even when he did he usually remained secure in his great estate in Gloucestershire.

  He heard boots on the stairs and saw two grooms, each armed with a pistol and sidearm, take up a position on the landing beyond the open door. Despite their livery they looked more like seasoned soldiers than servants.

  He murmured, “It seems we are to be protected, Sir Marcus.”

  The admiral turned on him. “Don’t be so damned flippant!”

  A shadow crossed the doorway and Bolitho bowed his head. Marcuard was not what he had expected. He was tall and slender, of middle age, with a finely chiselled nose and chin, and eyes which turned down in a fixed expression of melancholy disdain. He was dressed in a finely cut coat and breeches of pale green which Bolitho guessed to be pure silk, and carried an ebony stick. His hair, which was gathered to the back of his collar in an un-English fashion was, Bolitho noticed, heavily powdered. It was a small enough vanity, but Bolitho had always disdained men with powdered hair. This was most certainly a man of the Court, and not of any field of battle.

  Drew stammered, “I am honoured, m’lord.”

  Lord Marcuard seated himself carefully on a chair and arranged the tails of his elegant coat.

  “I would take some chocolate. The journey—most tiresome. And now this place.” His eyes turned to Bolitho for the first time. He sounded bored, but his glance was as sharp as any rapier.

  “So you are the man of whom I have heard so much. Splendid exploit. Tuke was a dangerous threat to trade.”

  Bolitho tried not to show his surprise. He had imagined that Marcuard was referring to the seizure of the Loyal Chieftain. At the same time he guessed that he had been intended so to think. Like being tested.

  Drew was flushing badly, taken aback by the switch from hot chocolate to Bolitho’s last command in the Great South Sea.

  Bolitho was glad that unlike the rear-admiral he had taken hardly any wine during the day. Marcuard might dress and act like a fop, but he was nobody’s fool.

  He said, “I had a good company, m’lord.”

  Marcuard gave a cool smile. “Perhaps in their turn they were fortunate in having an excellent captain?” He touched his chin with the knob of his stick. “But I doubt that would occur to you.” He did not wait for a reply.

  “His Majesty is concerned about France. William Pitt is attempting to take precautionary steps, of course, but—”

  Bolitho watched the stick’s silver knob. Fashioned like an eagle, its claws around a globe—the world perhaps? Marcuard had not said so, but Bolitho felt he did not like Pitt very much.

  Marcuard added in the same bored tones, “His Majesty’s perspective does tend to alter from day to day.” Again the faint smile. “Like the winds to France.” He gave a small frown. “Do see if you can distract someone long enough to procure the chocolate.”

  Bolitho made to move for the door but he snapped, “ No. I must hear your voice in this.”

  Bolitho felt almost sorry for Drew. Was the snub real, or only another demonstration of this man’s immense authority?

  As Drew hurried away Marcuard said, “I was too late to see Delaval swing. The roads. I’d have laid a wager otherwise.” Then he said sharply, “Your taking of the brig and the decoy schooner was brilliant. A frigate captain you once were, and no matter what fate awaits you, I suggest that in your soul you will remain one until you are in your grave!”

  Bolitho knew his remarks were not casual. He had not come to Dover for idle conversation.

  He replied, “I was determined, m’lord. Much was at stake.”

  “Yes.” The eyes passed over him again without curiosity. “So I have heard. The matter of Commodore Hoblyn, well—” He gave a slight grimace. “Once a brave man. A knave nonetheless. You are still troubled, Bolitho, that I can see without difficulty. Speak out, man.”

  Bolitho glanced at the door. Drew would have a seizure if he knew he was being asked to reveal his thoughts like this.

  He said, “I was convinced that Delaval expected to be saved from the gallows, m’lord. Despite all the evidence and the discovery of his foul murders of young Frenchwomen, he was confident to the end.” He paused, expecting Marcuard to silence him, pour scorn on his ideas as Drew had tried to do. But Marcuard said nothing.

  Bolitho continued, “Sir James Tanner owns much of the land where deserters and smugglers were given shelter between their runs across the Channel. I obtained evidence that he, and only he could have controlled the organisation which such movements required. He bought people, anyone who could offer duplicity, from that wretched midshipman to the commodore, and many others respected in high places.”

  “I can see why you are oft unwelcome here, Bolitho. What are you telling me now?”

  “This man Tanner has been able to ignore every suggestion of involvement. There is not a judge or magistrate who will listen to any criticism. How can the government expect, no, demand common seamen to risk their lives, when they see the guilty flouting the same laws which have impressed them?”

  Marcuard nodded, apparently satisfied. “I was influenced by your last action. In a fog too. Your three cutters must think most highly of you now.”

  Bolitho stared at him as if he had misheard. Had all the rest fallen on deaf ears?

  Marcuard said, “If, nay, when war comes, we cannot depend upon the French remaining a leaderless rabble. Many of their best officers have been beheaded because of the lust and madness of this present revolution. But there will always be other leaders, as there were in England when Charles lost his head on the block.” He reached out with the long ebony stick and tapped the floor to emphasise every word. “Perhaps there will be a counterrevolution; only time will allow this. But France must have her King on his rightful throne.” He saw Bolitho’s astonishment and smiled openly for the first time. “I see I have confused you, my gallant captain! That is good, for if others penetrate my mind, our hopes will be dashed before we are begun!”

  Marcuard stood up lightly and crossed to a window. “We need an officer we can trust. No civilian will do, especially a man of Parliament who sees only his own advancement no matter what his tongue might proclaim!” He turned on his toes, like a dancer, Bolitho thought dazedly. “I have chosen you.”

  “To go where, m’lord? To do what?”

  Marcuard ignored it. “Tell me this, Bolitho. Do you love your King and country above all else?”

  “I love England, m’lord.”

  Marcuard nodded slowly. “That at least is honest. There are people in France who are working to release their monarch. They need to be assured they are not alone. They will trust no spy or informer. The slightest flaw, and their lives end under the blade. I have seen it. I know .” He eyed him steadily. “I am partly French, and your report of the two girls who died at sea interested me very much. My own niece was guillotined in the first month of the Terror. She was just nineteen. So you see—” He turned irritably as voices came from the landing. “Damn their eyes, they make chocolate too fast in Kent!
”

  Then he said evenly, “You will be advised, but will tell nobody until a plan is made. I am sending you to Holland.” He let his words sink in. “When war comes, Holland will fall to the French. There is no doubt of that, so you must be doubly careful. Spain will throw in her lot with France for her own good.”

  Bolitho stared at him. “But I thought the King of Spain—”

  “Was against the Revolution?” He smiled faintly. “The Dons never change, and I thank God for it. They value their Church and gold above all else. His most Catholic Majesty will soon convince himself where his loyalty lies.”

  The door opened and Drew followed by two inn servants bowed his way forward.

  “I regret the delay, m’lord!” Drew’s eyes moved like darts between them.

  “It will be worth it, Sir Marcus.”

  As Lord Marcuard leaned forward to examine the tray his eyes met Bolitho’s and he added softly, “It has to be worth it.”

  Then he looked away as if it was a dismissal.

  “You may leave us, Bolitho. Your admiral and I have weighty matters to discuss.”

  Bolitho walked to the door and turned to give a brief bow. In those seconds he saw Drew’s relief, shining from his face like a beam of light, in the knowledge that Marcuard, the King’s man, was not displeased, that life might continue as before.

  He also saw Marcuard’s final gaze. It was that of a conspirator.

  12. THE POWER AND THE GLORY

  FOR Bolitho, the weeks which followed the capture of the Loyal Chieftain and the decoy schooner were uneventful and frustrating. Commodore Hoblyn was not replaced by a senior officer; instead, a studious official came from the Admiralty to supervise the purchase of suitable vessels, and to list possible applicants for letters of marque should war be declared in the near future.

  The house where Hoblyn had killed himself remained empty and shuttered, a landmark of his disgrace and final grief.

  Bolitho found himself with less and less to do, and had to be content with his three cutters acting without his personal supervision, while they carried out their patrols or assisted the revenue vessels in the continuing fight against smugglers.