The Normandy Privateer

by David McDine

  The rector claimed they slunk about dressed in puritanical black preaching against just about everything including horse racing, card-playing, dancing, cockfighting – cricket, even – and ensnaring gullible yokels from his own flock. In fact, they abhored most of the pastimes a sporting gentleman parson like him enjoyed.

  Yet in his narrow view, despite their holier-than-thou demeanour and certainty about the rightness of adult baptism, they, too, had their own schisms – the General Baptists believing in unlimited atonement versus the Particular variety favouring redemption for the chosen elect.

  Not least, it had grieved the rector greatly to have to admit in his official returns for church hierarchy visitations to parishes in the Canterbury Diocese that there were any non-conformists locally.

  In fact, in answer to the questions on the printed form about the presence of chapels and dissenters in his parish, he had consistently written ‘none’ and ‘six or seven’ respectively, justifying – to himself at least – his misleading response by the fact that the nearest General Baptist enclave and meeting house was just outside his boundary, in extra-parochial no-man’s-land between his parish and the two neighbouring livings.

  ‘This Phineas Shrubb, was he not once a surgeon’s mate in the navy?’ queried Anson.

  The rector nodded. ‘So I understand, and you can be certain the navy’s well rid of a mean-minded, dissenting, pinch-penny quack like him. Well rid!’

  Anson chose not to comment, but determined to call upon the former surgeon’s mate.

  *

  Somewhat gingerly mounted on Ebony, he rode over the downs that very afternoon to the quaintly-named hamlet of Wealden Bottom, tucked away in a narrow fold that perhaps once had been a river valley. From memories of taking part in the annual beating the bounds of his father’s parish as a small boy, he recalled that it was indeed outside the grip of the Anglican church.

  A scattered handful of smallholdings flanked the rough track, and a peg-legged man sitting breaking flints with a club hammer to fill potholes, pointed the way to Shrubb’s flint and pink-bricked and tiled cottage with a cheery: ‘Arter a cure, are ye, brother?’

  Anson touched his hat and rode on, lowering himself stiffly from the saddle at the apothecary’s gate.

  A young woman emerged from the cottage and watched, hands on hips, as he tied his horse to a gatepost.

  ‘If you are seeking my father I’m afraid he is out gathering, sir.’

  ‘Lost souls?’ Anson asked playfully.

  She smiled. ‘Always that, sir, but it’s plants for his cures that he’s seeking today.’ Despite her severe dress and black bonnet, her smile revealed that she was no pinch-faced, dried-up old maid, but a handsome woman. Anson calculated she must be in her mid-20s.

  ‘Miss Shrubb?’

  ‘That is me, sir.’ And noting his uniform she added: ‘You are in the navy, I see.’

  ‘As was your father?’

  ‘He was, sir – a surgeon’s mate during the American war.’

  ‘That’s why I’m here. The navy has need of his skills again.’

  ‘I am very much afraid he is too old for the navy now, sir. He has kept to his cures these many years since my mother died. His life’s work now is saving souls as a preacher and treating ailments of the body as an apothecary. I was born soon after he returned from the wars and I have never known him to go afloat in all that time …’ She hesitated as the thought occurred to her: ‘Are you with the impress, sir? I hope that it has not come to taking old men …’

  He smilingly shook his head. ‘No, no. My name is Anson, Lieutenant Anson. I am taking command of a detachment of Sea Fencibles on the coast and need a good surgeon’s mate to check that they are sound of wind and limb.’ And he added: ‘For a price, of course.’

  ‘Why not a doctor?’

  ‘Because only a navy man will know if a sailor’s fit to serve – and all the tricks he can pull to escape duty.’

  She smiled. ‘He will hear you out, sir, I’m sure, but I cannot promise more. Will you come in and I’ll fetch you some beer while you are waiting?’

  Following her into the cottage, he countered: ‘I thought those of your religion forswore the demon drink?’

  ‘We do, sir, just as we recommend to our members to abstain from worthless games like cricket and all forms of gambling, dancing and other such disgraces to the Christian name. But small beer is an exception. You would have to drink a great deal of it to become even mildly intoxicated and father says it’s safer to drink than the water – something to do with the brewing process, I believe.’

  ‘He should know,’ said Anson. ‘For myself, whenever possible I have long drunk only alcohol or boiled water. I’ve heard boiling it kills the creatures we can see swimming in it when we draw it from the barrels on board ship. And, by the by, I’ve not played cricket these ten years or more. It’s a little tricky at sea …’

  She smiled at the thought, and he sipped at the beer she brought him, pleasantly surprised by the taste. Noting his approving look, she added: ‘Father has a small hop garden and he is meticulous about his brew.’

  ‘I’ve heard of his advertisements.’

  ‘For cures?’

  Anson nodded. ‘And do they work?’

  She smiled gently. ‘With the Lord’s help.’

  ‘But if you take the Lord out of the equation?’

  ‘The Lord is everywhere, Mr Anson, wouldn’t your own father agree?’

  He blinked. ‘You have flushed me out as the parson’s son, Miss Shrubb. My problem is that everyone hereabouts tars me with my father’s brush. He’s the man of God, not me.’

  ‘And you are more of a man-of-war?’

  He grinned at the teasing. ‘Well said, Miss Shrubb. But leaving God out of it, do these cures work or no?’

  ‘Let’s say that they help, sir. Certainly boiled nettles and a root tea of bracken fern relieve diarrhoea, and sphagnum moss makes a fine bandage.’

  She glanced towards the bottle-laden shelves that lined the wall. ‘As you can see, there are many others – for wounds, sores, rashes, coughs and colds, headaches and stomach problems.’

  ‘Cures for all ills then?’

  ‘The ills are natural, so it seems natural to use the healing qualities of plants, does it not?’

  Anson teased her further. ‘So, conveniently your father is able to pluck these curing plants from the hedgerows and sell them on, for half a crown a time I understand?’

  She flushed. ‘They are God’s bounty sure enough, and yes, anyone can gather them. But only a few have the knowledge to transform them into cures.’

  Anson smiled. She was unlike any female he had ever met – intelligent, articulate, confident, yet gentle and vulnerable too. And attractive, in a wholesome way, despite her plain dress and bonnet. A God-botherer obviously, but somehow alluring.

  ‘I’m teasing you, Miss Shrubb. Our naval surgeons and their mates, the better ones at least, know something of the curative properties of plants, of fruit against the scurvy and so on …’

  ‘It is the knowledge that counts, sir, passed down since biblical times. Like fungi, handling and consuming plants or extracts from them can be risky. Only those with certain knowledge can do this in safety. Even some who rated themselves experts have died through misidentifying and consuming poisonous species.’

  ‘And you, too, are an expert?’

  She blushed. ‘I am learning, sir, ever learning. My father is the expert.’

  ‘May I?’ He indicated the bottle-filled shelves.

  Nodding, she pointed out some of the labels. ‘There’s essence of catnip, good for alleviating headaches, and you chew the leaves to cleanse the teeth. This one’s wild mint. You make a tea of it to induce sleep, and boiling these acorns makes a wash that soothes skin irritation and stops bleeding.’

  ‘Sarah?’ A call from outside heralded her father’s return. Silhouetted in the doorway, Phineas Shrubb, former surgeon’s mate, saver of souls and curer of the il
ls of the body, was a kindly-looking man, but put Anson in mind of a throw-back puritan, severely dressed as he was from head to foot in black except for the collar of a white shirt showing at his neck. He was carrying a basket of plants that he set down beside the door.

  Sarah told him: ‘This is Mister Anson, father, come to talk with you.’

  Shrubb removed his black tricorn hat revealing a mane of iron-grey hair and luxuriant white eyebrows that gave him an oddly beetle-like look. ‘Anson?’ he said. ‘So you must be the rector’s sailor son?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Welcome to Mount Zion.’

  ‘Zion?’

  The preacher wrinkled his nose. ‘It’s a small biblical conceit of mine. To us, what you would call non-conformists, naming our meeting houses and homes after sites in the holy land is a way of demonstrating our simple faith. Have you come to seek a tithe, perhaps?’ the old man asked mischievously.

  Anson was beginning to get the picture that the tithe system was not exactly popular.

  Shrubb added: ‘You may not be aware that this barbarous enclave is outside your father’s, shall we say, control?’

  ‘Please do not label me, Mr Shrubb. I am a naval officer, not an Anglican clergyman like my father. I am the navy’s man, not his.’

  Shrubb shrugged in surrender. ‘You are a plain speaker, sir, as I hope I am. You may not know, I was once in the navy myself.’

  ‘That, Mr Shrubb, is precisely why I’m here. I am on the navy’s business, not my father’s, and I am here to talk to the apothecary – the surgeon’s mate – not the preacher.’

  ‘Nor the glover,’ Shrubb teased. ‘I also make gloves for the winter time, you know?’ He smiled. ‘And what might that navy business be? I swallowed the anchor long since, sir.’

  ‘I have come to enlist your aid, Mister Shrubb. I am just taking command of a detachment of Sea Fencibles at Seagate and I need a medical man to look over my recruits.’

  Shrubb raised a bushy eyebrow. ‘There are medical men aplenty in Seagate, Folkestone and Hythe, are there not?’

  ‘I don’t want one of those fashionable doctors who tell their patients what they want to hear and charge them for it in guineas. I want a naval man who’s used to seamen’s ways and ailments, someone who knows if they’re fit to serve and when they’re swinging the lead. And I have a notion that you fit the bill, Mr Shrubb.’

  The preacher sat, appraising Anson, his gaze falling on the powder burns and the clearly recent v-shaped scar, while Sarah brought him a mug and poured him a drink.

  ‘I heard about your escape from France, and what you ask is flattering to an old man, but there is a hindrance.’

  ‘Age makes no matter to me. I can see you are as fit as men half your age.’

  ‘It is more than that. You are the son of the rector and I am a Baptist preacher. You’ve been long at sea and doubtless not twigged why I mentioned that this little hamlet is extra-parochial – just outside the parish.’

  Anson nodded: ‘I know that. You are not part of my father’s flock.’

  ‘He might call us lost sheep. Here we are in no-man’s-land and that’s why we non-conformists – what your father calls dissenters or worse – choose to live here. We’re not on the tithe map so we pay no taxes to your church.’

  Anson bridled. ‘It is not my church and my father doesn’t command the Sea Fencibles. I do.’

  ‘That may be, but he’ll not look kindly on you using a dissenter to cure your men’s ills.’

  ‘Ills no, souls may be. But it’s fitness you’d be assessing, and it’ll be illnesses and in due time maybe wounds you’d be healing, not souls.’

  Sarah, who had been following the discussion with close interest, asked: ‘Do you not have faith, sir?’

  Anson nodded. ‘At sea, when you look up at the heavens, you can but believe in a supreme power. But I cannot abide the politics of the church. I leave that to my father and my brother.’

  A knowing look passed between father and daughter. It would be difficult to live only a few miles from the rectory without being aware of the doings of Anson’s father and his much disliked older son.

  ‘You realise that as Baptists we do not accept state religion? We live by Hebrews Chapter Six, and would never do anything that might compromise our beliefs.’

  From his rectory upbringing, Anson knew this referred to the biblical doctrine of general redemption and the pursuit of perfection, of baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, eternal judgment …

  He countered: ‘As a naval officer I abide by the navy’s Bible – the 37 Articles of War. There is no hindrance. Didn’t Jesus say something about rendering unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s?’

  ‘And unto God the things that are God’s. The book of Matthew.’ Shrubb smiled, enjoying the repartee, and sipped his beer, contemplating Anson’s invitation.

  Anson sensed he was close to agreeing and pressed on. ‘The men we have so far are a mixture. Some are strong, right seamen – no doubt smugglers in the main – only too glad of a protection from the impress. Others are poorly nourished, sickly, and the older men have few teeth between them. I should like you to at least look ’em over and refit them as needs it. You’ll be paid, of course.’

  The preacher shook his head. ‘This is not about pay. I will come and take a look at your men and tell you what’s what and who to keep and who to reject. But that is all, and I will take not a penny piece for it. As an old navy man I will do this for the service.’

  Anson gripped his hand, delighted that he had achieved all he could for now, and determined that Shrubb should become a permanent member of the detachment.

  As he left he caught Sarah’s eyes on him, and they exchanged the ghost of a smile.

  28

  A commotion greeted Anson on return to the fencible building that his new bosun had dubbed the ‘stone frigate’ as many a land-locked naval establishment was named despite the fact that it was built entirely of wood topped by Kent peg tiles.

  Fagg, hands aloft, was fending off a short, stocky, crippled young man who was supporting himself on one wooden crutch and gesticulating with the other.

  ‘Bugger orf, we can’t take yer!’

  Anson asked: ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘This bloke wants to join, sir, but we can’t take ’im, can we, ’im bein’ a cripple an’ that?’

  Anson turned to the crutch-waver, who had temporarily fallen silent, perhaps sensing different tactics would be required in the face of higher authority. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Marsh, sir. Tom Marsh.’

  ‘Any kin of Sampson Marsh?’

  ‘Sampson’s me uncle.’

  ‘And you want to join us?’

  ‘Yes, sir – an’ peg-leg here won’t let me, but if he’s allowed to be in it why can’t I? It’s not as if I’m going’ for a sodjer. Sea Fencibles don’t march, do they?’

  Anson smiled at the man’s incontrovertible logic. ‘No, not a lot. Mostly we’ll be firing the great guns – and rowing ourselves about killing Frenchmen.’ He appraised the young cripple’s powerful over-developed shoulders, the result of maybe 20 years of manipulating his crutches. ‘Can you row, Tom Marsh?’

  ‘Yes, I surely can, sir. Put me in a boat with an oar or a pair of ’em an’ I could row you across to Boologny single-’anded. And I can drive a pony and trap. Mebbe I can’t march, but I can ’op along on these …’ he waved a crutch aloft ‘… good and quick as any of them you’ve got so far.’

  ‘And why are you so keen to join? Do you need the shillings?’ For some, he knew, the guaranteed shilling for a day’s training was a strong lure.

  ‘I ain’t ’ard up,’ Marsh protested. ‘I’ve got me work as a snob, mending boots and such, and I’ve got me own pony and trap to get around and do a bit o’ this and that to turn a penny or two. No, it ain’t for the money. I want to do me bit for old England.’

  Anson considered for a moment. The man could row, work horses – and
his cobbling skills could prove useful. Above all, he didn’t have need of a protection; even the most desperate impress officer would jib at taking a cripple. So, crippled or not, his keenness to serve made him a worthwhile acquisition.

  ‘Very well, Tom Marsh. You shall do your bit for King and country. Get him to make his mark, bosun. He is to be one of us.’

  Marsh could clearly not believe his ears. ‘Oh thankee, sir, thankee. I promise you shan’t regret it.’

  ‘Somehow I’m sure I shan’t, Tom Marsh. As you have your own pony and trap I will hire it when needed, for the going rate, and you can ferry me about on the King’s business as well as being my personal oarsman and runner.’ He shrugged. ‘Well, let’s say message-carrier. On a month’s trial to see how it goes.’

  Marsh’s face was a picture of joy at his new status, but behind him Fagg grimaced. ‘Some runner,’ he muttered just below hearing level. ‘Hopper, more like!’

  *

  Bosun Fagg was again taken aback when Anson announced before the men paraded for their first day’s training under the new regime: ‘There will be no starting – and certainly no flogging.’

  ‘Starting’ was the naval euphemism for chivvying up slow-off-the mark sailors, or beating them when they transgressed, with a rope’s end.

  Anson saw the doubt in the bosun’s eyes, so he quickly added: ‘I prefer encouraging our sailors to do their duty from cheerfulness and inclination rather than from abuse.’

  ‘So ’ow are we goin’ t’keep this bunch of vagabonds and lubbers from skiving an’ slopin’ orf?’

  ‘Simple. If they slope orf, er, off, or give us any trouble whatsoever we tear up their protection and we pass their names to the impress service. They’ll do the necessary.’

  The mere mention of the press made Fagg shudder, safe though he was from it on various counts, not least due to his current legitimate employment with the fencibles – surely protection enough.

  To every seafarer and any man of likely age living anywhere near the coast the impress conjured up a fearsome image. The press gangs, made up of rough, tough, man-of-war’s men, were licensed to target, beat and virtually kidnap any man bred to the sea – ‘seamen, seafaring men and persons whose occupations and callings are to work in vessels and boats upon rivers as shall be necessary to man His Majesty’s Ships’. But no landsman in the coastal towns could count himself entirely safe, either.