A Parade Of Virtue (A Poor Man At The Gate Series Book 9)

by Andrew Wareham

  "My God! Knowing that, there are men who choose his trade?"

  "It appeals to many, my lord. And some are lucky, meeting up with a young lady at an early enough age and turning their talents into other fields."

  "I must endeavour to put Captain Hood in the way of a young miss of respectable birth and no husband in the offing!"

  "It would be a kindness, my lord."

  Robert took a turn about the room, pulling out his watch.

  "We cannot expect Mr James for another hour at least. What is your advice, Mr Michael?"

  "Inform the marine underwriters at Lloyds Exchange, my lord. They will wish to investigate, I have no doubt. Send a note to the respectable newssheets - if such be not a contradiction in terms - telling them of a disaster with probable fatalities, its extent as yet unknown; they will come to hear the rumours, better they should be given the facts as we understand them. Inform the Board of Trade - they like to know of such things."

  “What business is it of theirs?”

  “One day, my lord, they hope to provide a degree of protection for sailors. There are many owners who will send coffin ships to sea, often heavily over-insured. Some owners are criminal, some careless; some turn a blind eye to managers who cut corners to make them a profit, some demand that those managers behave in such a way. Few owners seem to care that the seamen shall live.”

  “So government is forced to intervene, out of human decency, and thus increase costs and decrease efficiency, and sometimes achieve worthwhile reform. A pity!”

  James appeared and had the situation explained to him, in detail.

  “Men drowned, boiled or blown to pieces. Passengers lost, which will be the greater cause for concern to the authorities.”

  “We do not know for sure that it was a passenger carrier, James.”

  “Let us hope it was not. What of, what do you call them, rowing boats? Small boats, for people to escape on?”

  Robert had not heard of such things; Michael had not either.

  “Sir William is to investigate the cause of the wreck, is he, Robert?”

  “Not really… more to be our representative. I doubt that he would know how to go about an investigation, as such. I would not…”

  Michael shook his head; he would not know how to go about the process either.

  “A job for Captain Hood, perhaps? A task suited to a naval man, after all, and he is an investigator of no mean order. As well, it would turn his interests into another field, away from his incessant ferreting out of the criminal and the corrupt. Was he to become our, what is a good name? Our ‘Marine Investigator’, perhaps? Then he could be brought into a more normal existence, as he should be – he is one of our people, we have a responsibility to him.”

  Robert thought the suggestion good, gave a little thought to the title.

  “I think I might prefer ‘Maritime Safety Supervisor’, you know, Mr Michael. An ‘Investigator’ says that we are ignorant, do not know what is going on in our own ships, while a supervisor of safety is no more than one charged with the prevention of accidents.”

  James agreed, he much preferred an emphasis on safety.

  “It is not as if we actually have to do anything differently, gentlemen, but it sounds much more the thing!”

  “Do you know where Captain Hood is the while, Mr Michael?”

  “Not off hand, my lord, but he will have left a point of contact at my office. If he is away for any reason he will always ensure that he can be reached. I should beg him to go immediately to Southampton, my lord, or will you wish to speak to him first?”

  “Waste no time, Mr Michael. A message to him to make all haste to the scene, there to discover all that he may – he will know far better than I what is best to do.”

  Captain Hood reached Southampton mid-way through the next day, proposing first of all to interrogate all of the witnesses to the tragedy. There were none.

  A dozen craft of various sizes had been in the vicinity, minding their own business, tending nets or crab pots or carrying small coastal cargoes, and all first hearing a bang and then looking to discover its cause and within a fairly short time noticing the steamer in distress. No crewman happened to have been looking at the ship at just the right moment to see the actual event.

  The Harbourmaster had taken brief statements and made Hood free of them.

  “It went bang and there was smoke and steam everywhere.”

  “A fair summary, Captain Hood.”

  “And the wreckage, sir?”

  “Is under the water off the Spit, sir, deep in the mud I suspect, or being dragged by the tidal currents, which are strong there. I have no means of discovering it, or accessing it or lifting it to the surface, sir.”

  “Did none of the crew escape?”

  “It was very cold, Captain Hood. There are two men in the Infirmary, and a chance that one may live. It is fortunate that it was carrying no passengers, cargo only.”

  “Do we have a manifest?”

  “The ship was owned by Houghtons, and I would expect that they should have some record of the load, sir.”

  Captain Hood followed the directions and found ‘Houghtons the Shippers’ in the docks. He saw another paddle steamer tied up and taking on a load for Cowes, business continuing as usual.

  “People on the Island must still eat, Captain Hood! The lost load of flour and general comestibles must be replaced and the ordinary provision runs must continue.”

  “Was there anything out of the ordinary aboard, Mr Houghton?”

  He read the manifest, passed it back with his thanks.

  “Nothing at all unusual, so we may assume that it was not the cargo that sank the vessel.”

  “I do not believe so, sir. Weather was calm, no reason to believe there was a collision, and she was well in the marked channel, neither close to the Brambles nor too far inshore.”

  Captain Hood thanked Houghton and returned to his hotel and a conference with Sir William.

  “Yard says they didn’t know nothing, Captain Hood.”

  “I shall spend a day or two drifting around the front, Sir William. The Infirmary tells me that if the less injured man survives at all then I will not be able to speak to him for a week, so there is little else to do. Mr Houghton has aroused the strongest suspicions in me, I would add – he has been entirely reasonable, has made neither claim nor accusation. I had thought that he might have been shipping gunpowder for use in a quarry, or perhaps coal-oil for lamps, but that does not seem to be the case, so I shall buy a few beers in the local pubs and talk to local sailormen, who generally see much and hear everything.”

  “You will excuse me, Captain Hood, but if Houghton has been reasonable, calm and sensible, why should you suspect him of ill-doing?”

  “At least eight of his people have died; his ship is lost; his customers must be dunning him – yet he is not flustered, upset, stricken by anger or grief for his men. Would you be calm and reasonable in such circumstances, Sir William?”

  “No, sir, I would not!”

  “Nor me, I trust. I shall send a letter to London, begging a sight of the insurance policy on the ship, as a first step. Then, as I say, I shall listen to the local folk.”

  Sir William nodded thoughtfully.

  “What if the insurance is normal, Captain Hood?”

  “Then seek another line of inquiry, sir. Does the yard have any suggestions for the actual process of the shipwreck?”

  “’A bang and clouds of steam’ gives little to work on, they tell me. They assume that the boiler blew, but cannot guess how.”

  “What are the possibilities, Sir William?”

  “Too little water; too high a temperature; too great a head of steam. None of those should be permitted by any awake engineer.”

  “As the engineer will be first and most certain to die if the boiler blows, then one might expect him to be alert. I presume he has some sort of indicator to inform him of these things?”

  “One for each, sir. All of th
em invented by our Mr Joseph, I would add.”

  “We may assume them to be good, then.”

  Robert joined them next morning and they made a performance of being sailed out to the spot where the steamer had sunk.

  “A pointless exercise, gentlemen, but one that amuses the newssheets and hence necessary.”

  “Uncover your head, my lord?”

  Captain Hood had brought a local rector along and he conducted a brief service at the appropriate location.

  “It will be well thought of locally, my lord. Nothing like a pious gesture for placating the generality of people.”

  “No choir, Captain Hood?”

  “Damn it, my lord! I knew I had forgotten something!”

  Sir William hushed them, their giggles a little too loud.

  “My lord was moved to tears, vicar. He has a great feeling of responsibility, you know, sir.”

  The parson was rather pleased – his words rarely had that affect upon his congregations.

  The surviving crewman was a deckhand, could only tell of being blown into the water and finding a floating hatch-cover at his side, a large enough set of timbers to support his weight for the ten or so minutes before rescue.

  “Nothing else, Captain. We was making a good old rate of knots, I reckon – second run of the day, goin’ to Cowes in early afternoon and the master wanted us to be back in Southampton before dark, so as to load up overnight and sail with the next dawn.”

  “Thank you. When you rise from this bed you are to make your way to Roberts Yard at Northam, if you so wish. There will be a job of some sort, depending on how much you remain injured, and a wage to live on. Has Mr Houghton come to see you?”

  “That old skinflint? Not a bloody chance, Captain! Thank’ee for the job, sir, for the doctor do say I ain’t likely to walk so fast when I do get up, due to having half me toes blew off, and there ain’t no place for a deckie what can’t move quick-like.”

  The word of Roberts' generosity would spread along the waterfront, might encourage a few memories, unearth oddments of information.

  “Impossible to say what happened, my lord. The inquest will be held and the coroner will be unable to find any cause and will content himself by saying that steamships are dangerous vehicles – which will not be desirable but is unavoidable.”

  “What do you think happened, Captain Hood?”

  “The engineer interfered with the safety valve so as to permit a greater steam pressure and a higher speed, of that I am quite certain, my lord. There is a second steamer in the firm’s possession and it may be possible to persuade her engineer to testify – but I doubt it. The firm must pay the men to take the risk.”

  “So… Roberts Shipyards gets a bad name and a greedy little man gets away with it!”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “And nothing to be done, you say?”

  “Other than perhaps make a small noise, nothing, my lord.”

  “I would like you to take charge of that process, Captain Hood, using your marine knowledge in the field solely for the future. Pass the investigations across to Mr Murphy and he will put a man onto them. We can use you better, I think.”

  The newssheets made a splash of the inquest, of the dead men, of how lucky it was that it had not been a passenger ferry, they sometimes having as many as two hundred passengers aboard. A couple of ship owners cancelled their orders for new steamers, but most just accepted that accidents happened.

  Government was too busy playing politics to take any interest in the matter – Catholic Emancipation was taking all of their time. Had it been a dead season with no other amusement available in either House, then there might have been an official enquiry or even a reference to a Committee of the House of Commons, but as it was the affair simply brushed by.

  Captain Hood was unable to obtain evidence that would stand in court, rather to his irritation; he knew that Houghton had fully insured his ship and had then ordered his engineer to run at unsafe working pressures. By getting extra trips in he greatly increased his profits while the insurance meant he could take no loss other than inconvenience. Particularly annoying was that Houghton used the insurance pay-out to buy another steamer from Roberts.

  “He is a crook, my lord. No worse than the majority of ship owners, no doubt – but men have died so that he can put a few extra sovereigns in his pocket. And he will get away with it – I can demonstrate no crime before a court of law.”

  “Nothing to be done? No lessons to be learned?”

  “I think we should include a pair of small boats, or three even, on every ship we build. Crane davits to either beam and at the stern carrying a four-oar dinghy would sometimes save lives. They would cost very little, and the newssheets would be most impressed by our action.”

  “Mr Michael said something to me about a timber-carrier which he was a little concerned by?”

  Hood shuddered.

  “A steam ship to carry a deck-cargo of building timber! Pipes and tobacco are forbidden on most of the Baltic boats, my lord, for fear of fire – yet here we have a man proposing to stack boards by the hundred in the closest proximity to a coal-burning furnace!”

  “What is to be done?”

  “Nothing! The contract has been taken, the ship is almost built. She has been launched and is fitting-out at the moment, will be in Newcastle before the end of next month. I have spoken personally to the owner and have been able to persuade him that we should fit a water pump and hosepipe powered off the boiler, to give the crew some small hope of being able to fight a fire. Additionally, he has agreed to take his engineers from our school, thus hiring the best of young men to run his ship.”

  “Well done! What is next on your list of tasks, Captain Hood?”

  “I am to spend a few days with Mr Joseph when he comes down to London before the Season begins. We shall wish to discuss boiler safety. Besides that, the Elder Brothers of Trinity House have signified their wish to discuss matters with me. What, I do not know – they tend towards a Masonic degree of closed mouthedness in their ordinary business.”

  “Lighthouses?”

  “And pilotage in all British harbours, my lord. They as well play some role with the Hydrographer’s department – producing charts and that sort of thing.”

  “Cooperate, of course. We are more than willing to assist in their vital work – you know the form of words to use.”

  “Were you aware, my lord, that His Grace, the Duke of Wellington is the Superior, or some such title, of Trinity House?”

  “I was not, Captain Hood. Purely a ceremonial function, one presumes – he is hardly a maritime personage!”

  “He was present, however, my lord, and personally made the invitation to me to become a Younger Brother of Trinity House. My position with Roberts combines with my naval career to make me an ‘eminently suitable candidate’ for such a function. Obviously, I accepted – it would take a far braver man than I to refuse His Grace! There will be some useful work to be done, particularly in the adaptation to steam – there are no pilots in the whole country who have trained in steam, my lord! It is, however, mainly an honorary position.”

  “A first step to public recognition, of course, Captain Hood. Your cloak and dagger days are behind you, sir!”

  Hood had realised that he must become publicly known as the result of this minor eminence; he was not entirely convinced that it was at all desirable.

  “It is not entirely the done thing, you know, my lord. Men such as myself are expected to exercise a degree of discretion for the whole of their existence.”

  Robert smiled, suggested that he had not thought the matter through to a sufficient extent.

  “Gentlemen who have worked for the less visible agencies of the State are never brought before the public eye. Is that not correct, Captain Hood?”

  “It is, my lord.”

  “You have been singled out in public by no lesser a personage than the Iron Duke himself. It is patently obvious, therefore, that there is no reas
on for you to remain in obscurity. Hence, sir, you cannot possibly have been employed in clandestine activities!”

  “Quod erat demonstrandum – a wonderfully circular argument, my lord, and deeply impressive. Are you to commence a political career, my lord?”

  They chuckled together – it was clear to both that the premise Robert had offered would be accepted without query by the great bulk of the people. Those who knew better would in any case be silent, by their very nature.

  “What now, my lord?”

  “Have an office built at the London yard and announce yourself as a fixture of London’s maritime and commercial establishment. There will be tasks to perform in plenty, I do not doubt, in the field of steam navigation in the Thames and the Estuary. If I might make so bold as to intrude upon your personal life, Captain Hood, then I might suggest that your house and piece of land out towards Blackheath would benefit from a wife and family!”

  “No longer hostages to fortune – it might not be an impossibility, my lord… Perhaps I might look about me.”

  “Your birth is such that an appearance with the Family in the Season might not be impossible, Captain Hood.”

  “A kind and generous offer, my lord, but I suspect that I may desire to farm my few acres eventually, and I will certainly not wish to employ a plethora of servants. A decorative butterfly would not, perhaps, be ideal for me.”

  Robert was aware that Captain Hood’s ‘few acres’ totalled not fewer than four hundred around his house and that he owned at least one other nearby package of land. He had never quite discovered how Hood had come by the funds to buy such a spread. He was on easy terms with him, and he was not quite so directly an employee as many – he decided to ask.

  “Oh, that… the ordinary way, my lord. It was when I was engaged in the American desk, which does not exist, of course, as all business in North America is dealt with by the Canada Office.”