by John Drake
“Bah!” says Howe, at last. “You’re a bloody fool, Fletcher. But I’ll help you if I can. I’m in your debt, sir, for my victory. Now then — who are your friends? To whom shall we send word that you might have their assistance to prepare a defence?”
And that, my jolly boys, was one of the worst moments of gloom in my entire life.
I thought hard about that. Who could I turn to for help? I had nobody to pull strings for me and work the levers of influence. The best I could do was mention the name of Mr Nathan Pendennis who’d been my employer in Polmouth. He was a powerful man on his own ground, but what weight he carried in London I did not know. And maybe he’d not put himself to trouble on my account, in any case. None the less, I gave his name.
“Pendennis?” says Howe’s Clerk. “Mr Nathan Pendennis, Lord Mayor of Polmouth?”
“Yes,” says I.
“He may prove an excellent ally,” says the Clerk. “He is acting together with Lucey and Lucey, solicitors, as executors to the Coignwood estate, to which you, Mr Fletcher, are heir. I remember reading an article to that effect in the Morning Post, last year.”
“Oh?” says I. I hadn’t known that.
“Yes,” says the Clerk.
“Write to him at once!” says Howe. “This day!”
“Yes, my Lord,” says the Clerk.
I still had little hopes of action from Pendennis, but I supposed that he was better than nothing.
And as for real friends, my old shipmates, Kate Booth, Lucinda, Cooper and his Uncle Ezekiah (twisting sods the pair of them, those last two, but I’m sure they did actually like me after their fashion), not to mention a certain coal black African King and his five daughters — yes, I had friends all right, but either I’d left them, or they’d left me, or they were across the ocean and couldn’t help anyway. So they weren’t much use. All except one.
“And Sammy Bone,” says I finally.
“What?” says the Clerk, looking up from his notes.
“I beg your pardon, Mr Fletcher,” says the Clerk, realising he’d been rude, surprised by the plebeian nature of the name I’d just given him.
“Sammy Bone,” says I. “He’s a lower-deck hand who was taken out of Phiandra by Captain Cutler and entered into Fydor. I suppose he’s still aboard her.”
“A lower-deck hand?” says Howe. “And you regard him as a friend?” He turned over this unaccountable fact in his mind and produced the only possible explanation. “Ah!” says he. “I take it that Mr Bone is a gentleman swept in by the press. I have known such cases. Would you like me to investigate his circumstances, Mr Fletcher?”
“No, my Lord,” says I, “but I’d like to see him if that can be arranged.” Howe was deeply puzzled.
“But can this person be of assistance to you, in your plight?” says he.
“I don’t think so, my Lord,” says I, “but I’d still like to see him.”
“As you wish,” said Howe. “But is there no one else?”
“No, my Lord,” says I.
“What an unaccountable fellow you are, Mr Fletcher, but you have my promise of assistance,” says he, and turned to Curtis. “See if this Mr Bone can be found, Sir Roger, and bring him aboard.”
“Aye-aye, my Lord,” says he, “I’ll signal the fleet.”
*
Half an hour later I was on the lower gun-deck secured by leg irons, like a drunken seaman awaiting the lash. But they rigged me up some canvas screens to form a little private cabin and I had an open gun-port for daylight and fresh air. A bored Marine with a drawn bayonet was set to guard me, so there was no chance of trying my strength on the irons, or the bolts that secured them to the deck.
I hadn’t been down there very long when, much to my surprise, I received a visitor. It was Lady Sarah in company with a couple of Queen Charlotte’s Lieutenants. They gazed at her in wonderment, hung on her words and contorted themselves into knots to please her. They’d have made a spectacle of themselves before their men if the men hadn’t been even worse: goggle-eyed, knuckling their brows, bowing half double, and grinning like half-wits.
She made a great play of surprise at coming across me and then somehow managed to manoeuvre things such that she was close enough to me to have a few private words while everybody else was busy casting off the lashings of a 32-pounder, ready to run it out for her. The Lieutenants bawled and got in each other’s way and the men hauled and struggled like madmen in their eagerness to please, and to show off.
She was outwardly calm, and cheerily encouraged the gun-crew and the Lieutenants. But I think there were very strong emotions surging within her.
“I’ve come to lay a ghost,” she said.
“What?” says I.
“You are your father,” says she. “Oh, well done, gentlemen! Haul away!” She clapped her hands for their benefit, but I could see she was nervous, darting little glances at me, as if to prove that I was really there. “My God!” says she. “It’s witchcraft … you are he!”
“Aye,” says I, “back from the grave to take my revenge, madam!” She shuddered as if confronted with a spider, for I’d correctly guessed what was bothering her. I’m the dead image of my natural father. Her blasted son Alexander told me that. Even he was unsettled by the likeness and I think with her it was worse. She actually lived with Sir Henry, after all.
“Capital! Capital!” she cried, laughing merrily. “You’ll hang, you swine! I’ll see the rope choke the life out of you and your legs kicking in the air, and then I’ll spend your money!”
It was my turn to shudder now. It ain’t nice to see that kind of spite come out of a beautiful woman.
“I never wanted your bloody money,” says I, “not at first, anyway.”
“Well, you shan’t have it now, so you should be pleased.” She sneered at me in hatred, and a sudden flash of bitterness swept through her. “By Christ, you filthy ...” and such a stream of putrid oaths poured out that I was sickened. But she’d not done yet. “I have your little friend Miss Booth,” says she, and I stirred at the name.
“Splendid! Oh, splendid!” she cried for the benefit of her other audience. “I see you know Miss Booth. She thinks she’s in love with you, but I’ve told her you abandoned her. What shall I do with her?”
“Let her go, you creature!” says I, my ears still ringing from the assault of her putrid tongue. “She’s nothing to do with you.”
“Ah!” says she. “You care for her, do you?”
“Why should I tell you?” says I.
“You were lovers, were you not?” says she.
“Yes.”
“Then I take it you’d have her back?”
“Yes,” says I thinking of her pale, sweet little face. “I wanted her to come with me when I left Phiandra but she wouldn’t.”
“Ahhh! So it was her!”
“Yes.”
“Then I shall give her back to you.”
“What?”
“Which parts shall I send first?”
“What?”
“Hair? Fingernails? Ears? Or would you prefer larger portions? If you won’t choose then I’ll make my own selection. Then I will send them for you to see before they hang you.” The cold, lovely eyes bored straight into mine and she leaned close to make sure that I understood. “I shall do this. I promise on the sacred memory of my darling, my Alexander.”
For a second I still didn’t realise what she meant, but then it sunk in and Madame La Belle Coignwood got a very nasty fright.
I leapt from where I was sitting and went for her to wring her bloody neck. I was madder with anger even than I’d been in the action on Queen Charlotte’s fo’c’sle. My leg irons tightened and checked me, but she’d come too close for safety and I seized her with a roar of anger. I saw the fright contort her face and then my hands were round her neck and throttling. They couldn’t hang me twice, and I was determined to take her with me. We crashed to the floor and she raked my face with her nails, trying to drive the thumb nails, sharp as a cat
’s, into my eyes. I screwed tight my eyes and shook my head from side to side and squeezed all the harder.
But it was no go. At least twenty men were on my back, battering and hammering with whatever heavy objects lay to hand: rammers, handspikes and the Marine joined in with his brass-capped musket butt.
God knows how I’ve survived some of the assaults I’ve suffered. This one was one of the worst beatings I ever took. And it was handed out by British tars, too.
When they’d rescued the “poor lady” and fussed her away, they threw a bucket of water over me to wash the blood off. They had two Marines there now, different men, with levelled muskets and ball cartridge loaded. I hurt all over and one eye was closed. I was bleeding from cuts to my head and coughing as if I’d bring my lungs up.
Later, when the fuss had died down and things were quiet again, one of the Marines had a little word with me, just to make sure I understood the new rules that were in force.
“Oi!” says he, prodding me with the long bayonet at the end of his musket. “Oi! Lissen, you baskit!” I raised my head and squinted through the good eye. “Our mate’s gettin’ two dozen tomorrow, on account o’ you,” says he, and he turned his musket to show me the lock — it was fully cocked awaiting only a touch on the trigger. “See this, you baskit? You try that again, what you did just now, and we’ll shoot you fuckin’ dead!”
I’d almost have preferred it if he had. And if I could have got myself out of the gun-port, I’d have dropped over the side and sunk without trace. I’ve had some bloody awful moments of misery in my life and that was one of them. I felt as if I hadn’t a friend in the world and my enemies were taking their pleasure with me.
30
I sat in my misery, hardly even touching the food I was given at tea-time, and simply stared out of the gun-port at the shifting waves. The double-notes of the ship’s bell gave the time, and I thought of the early days of my service when I’d just been pressed and all seemed black. There seemed to be no way out at all.
Then at about ten o’clock with the summer light beginning to fade, I got another visitor. I was feeling so sorry for myself that I didn’t even look up as footsteps approached. Then I heard his voice.
“Hallo, lad,” says a Yorkshireman’s voice, and I looked up to see Sammy Bone with his worldly goods over his shoulder in a canvas trug. He was dressed in his best, with round glazed hat, black ribbon in his long pigtail, coloured tapes sewn down the seams of his blue seaman’s jacket, and a red and white striped shirt with a blue silk handkerchief at the neck. He even had silver buckles on his shoes.
“Black Dick sent for me,” says he, grinning with pride: “Lord Howe, Admiral of The Fleet, who I sailed under in the American Wars! Sent for me to come alongside and come aboard. Asked for me by name, he did!”
There was a Lieutenant at Sammy’s elbow. He stepped forward and touched his hat to me. Perhaps he was the Lieutenant with the handkerchief from the fight on the fo’c’sle, I don’t know. But he had a civil word for me. “Sorry to see you circumstanced after this fashion, Mr Fletcher,” says he, and gabbled at me in some gibberish that I took to be French. “Fortoon der lar gair,” says he, which in the King’s English means “Don’t worry old fellow, it could happen to anyone,” which was a kindly sentiment at that particular moment.
Then he turned to my two Marines.
“Mr Fletcher is to have private conversation with this good,” says he indicating Sammy. “That is the wish of his Lordship.”
“Sah!” says the two Marines and they stamped their boots and saluted with their muskets.
“And Bone,” says the Lieutenant to Sammy, “you may ask for me outside the wardroom when your business is completed.”
“Aye-aye, sir!” says Sammy, raising a hand to his hat. “Good day to you, Fletcher,” says the Lieutenant, “and may you have better luck.” And off he went.
My two guards backed off, and Sammy crouched down beside me.
“Stap me, Jacob,” says he, “who did that to you, us or the French?” He was trying to joke, but I could see from the anxious look in his eyes that I was knocked about worse than I thought.
“Us,” says I. He nodded and took his silk handkerchief from round his neck.
“Here,” says he, “let’s get the muck out of your eye.” He looked around for something, “Hey! Jolly!” says he to the nearer of the two Marines, “get us some water, mate?”
“Fuck you, matelot,” says the Marine, “I ain’t your bleedin’ skivvy!” Sammy stood up and stabbed his finger at the Marine. “You!” says he. “Lobster! What’s your name?”
“Whatssat to you?” says the Marine.
“I want to know so’s I can tell Lord Howe, that’s why?”
“Gam!” says the Marine. “Lord Howe! Who might you be then?”
“Me?” says Sammy. “I’m Sammy Bone, I am. Sammy Bone that was signalled through the fleet to repair on board of the old Queen Charlotte to wait upon Lord Howe’s pleasure … so if you don’t get me some soddin’ water I’ll see you striped red, white and blue at the gratings! One word from me, my lad — that’s all it takes!”
The two Marines looked at one another, nervously.
“Garn ...” says the one Sammy had spoken to, but he gave his musket to his mate and went and got a bucket of fresh water.
“Let’s clean you up, son,” says Sammy and soaked his handkerchief before wiping the clotted blood out of my hair and eyes. I found I could see out of the closed eye when he had done. My eyelids had been stuck together.
I was something amazing glad to see Sammy. It reminded me of the happy days aboard Phiandra with him and my other messmates. I’d never had any sort of family and I’d been raised as an orphan. Sammy was much older than the rest of us and was the natural leader of the mess. And in Sammy’s mess it’d been share and share alike. It’s a good thing to have friends and desperate bad to be without them.
“They told me what’s happened,” says Sammy, when he’d finished cleaning me up. “It’s that bugger Dixon, isn’t it? The one you killed on the Bullfrog?”
“Yes,” says I, “and her, Lady Sarah Coignwood. I’ve met her, Sammy. She was here.”
“Her?” says he. “Your father’s wife?”
“No,” says I, “he’s not my father. I can’t think of him as that.”
“No?” says he.
“No,” says I, and I put my arm around his shoulders. “He ain’t my Pa.”
“Get off, you daft bugger!” says he, but he patted my hand and made no effort to move away, and so we sat there for a bit without talking.
“So what’re we going to do?” says Sammy, finally.
“I don’t know,” says I, then a thought struck me. “What about Norris?” says I. “Norris was there when those other two saw me kill Dixon. D’you think Norris would say Dixon attacked me first? Would he do that for me?”
Sammy sighed and shook his head.
“‘Course he would lad, but he ain’t able.”
“Oh no!” says I. “He isn’t dead?”
“No, lad,” says he, “but he was bad wounded. Him and me was entered on board of the Brunswick as lower-deck gunners, and in the battle we was laid so close alongside of Vengeur that we had to fire through our own gun-ports, ‘cos we couldn’t get ‘em up! And Norris got all mangled by the splinters off our own fire. He’s taken ashore to the Haslar Hospital and God knows if he’ll live.” He looked at me and smiled sadly. “So here’s you and me left of the lads from Phiandra, Jacob, and the old ship on the bottom of the sea.”
“Oh,” says I, “then I’m done for.”
“Bollocks!” said he, fiercely. “By God, Jacob, you give up easy sometimes!”
“But I’m guilty,” says I miserably. “It weighs on me, Sammy. I thought it didn’t at first, but it does.”
“You silly sod,” says he, “you was killing Frenchmen like flies on the first of June, from what I hear, and that don’t seem to bother you!”
“That was them or
me,” says I.
“Yes,” says he, “and it was you or Dixon on the Bullfrog! The bugger was persecuting you.”
“They’ll hang me for it, just the same,” says I.
“They’ve got to prove it first,” says he.
“There’s witnesses: Oakes and Pegg.”
“So call ‘em bloody liars!”
“But who’d believe me?”
“Every bugger! You’re a rich man!”
“What difference does that make?”
“Every difference! Who’s going to believe a couple of common, lower-deck hands against a gentleman who’s heir to a fortune?” Sammy frowned and shook his head. “That ain’t the way of the world, my lad, and I can’t believe a fly young cove like you don’t know it.”
Sammy was right. And I knew he was right. But I couldn’t find the heart for the fight. On most subjects I could lie with the best of ‘em, but not this. Dixon’s murder had struck at the roots of me and I knew that should I be brought to trial, then I couldn’t face it out. I did my best to explain this to Sammy.
“You are a funny one and no mistake,” says he when I’d done. He shrugged his shoulders and tipped his hat back on his head. “So be it, my boy!” says he. “Then we’ll come about on another tack. Leave it to me. I’ll find Mr Oakes and Mr Pegg and offer ‘em fifty pounds a head to forget what they saw. Better still, make it a hundred. They’d swear they couldn’t find their own arseholes for that!”
That was better. Much better. And I perked up. But there was a practical problem.
“How can you find ‘em?” says I. “They’re gone ashore.”
“I’ll run,” says Sammy. “Hop ship. But you’ll have to slip me some Belt, Jacob. The lubbers’ll need to sniff ready money to bring ‘em around. Don’t have to be the whole whack. Just enough to show ‘em what’s on offer. How much’ve you got?”
But I wasn’t listening. Sammy had set my mind working.
I was trying to hold a dozen ideas together all at once. And it was hard, ‘cos one thing kept slipping away just as I got the others nicely lined up. And it had to be all or none.
What Sammy had proposed was good. It was a way forward. And he’d cut the knots inside my head. But there were flaws. Maybe he could run, maybe not. Maybe he’d get a musket ball in the back from a Marine as he tried to steal a boat. Maybe he could find Oakes and Pegg, maybe not. Most likely Sarah Coignwood and her chum Slime would have their two witnesses safely locked away. And above all there was Kate Booth. I didn’t know whether Sarah Coignwood’s terrible threats were real or only said to torment me. But I thought of poor little Kate screaming as that monster sliced her with a knife and it made me sick: physically sick till my guts heaved.
