by Hunter, Seth
“If you were to take this to the Bank of England in Threadneedle Street, you would be able to exchange it for ten pounds of silver. Not that you would need to of course,” he smiled indulgently, “as the note itself is good for that amount and considerably lighter on the pocket, ha, ha.”
The smirk was replaced with a frown as he indicated its neighbour.
“The value of this fellow, however, is not based upon silver or gold or any other precious metal. It is based upon land. Land owned by the state. Or I should say stolen by the state from its previous owners—the aristocracy and the Church.”
The banker went on to apprise them of the fact that the Church of Rome had, over the past fifteen hundred years, acquired between one-fourth and one-third of the total land and property of the French nation, worth approximately two thousand million livres or fifty million English pounds.
“I need hardly remind Your Lordship that the annual budget of the King’s Navy amounts to a little over three million,” he said smugly. “So you will appreciate that we are speaking of a substantial sum of money, a very substantial sum indeed. However,” he picked up the French bank note and waved it in Chatham’s face, “if you were to present this note for payment would you get your piece of land to the value of ten livres? No, sir, you would not. Indeed you would more likely get your head cut off.”
Chatham restrained a strong impulse to damn him for his impudence.
“No, the value of this piece of paper depends entirely upon the presumption that people trust it to be worth exactly what it says it is worth. If that trust should ever be lost it becomes worth less than the paper it is printed upon.”
He screwed up the note in his fist and tossed it back upon the table.
“Which is why I believe we are here,” he concluded, looking very pleased with himself.
A silence. Lasting a little longer than it should. Chatham, who had entirely forgotten why they were here—if he ever knew in the first place—regarded his brother expectantly.
Pitt was undoubtedly cleverer than he, always had been, though he was always in debt. How could you be First Lord of the Treasury with all that money at your disposal and still be in debt? It was quite beyond Chatham.
His brother picked up the crumpled bank note and began to straighten it out as if it would be a pity to let it go to waste. His eyelids were heavy from lack of sleep or drink or both. He had always been a tippler and he had been hitting the bottle with a vengeance of late.
“Is it one of theirs or one of ours?” he inquired.
“That’s the Frenchie,” Chatham informed him, shaking his head a little. “The fellow’s just told you.”
The banker was smirking again.
“One of the first batch from Haughton Mill,” he declared as if he had just done something very clever. “Only an expert could tell them apart.”
Pitt put it back on the table.
“And so now you want a ship,” he said.
“Ah,” exhaled Chatham as the fog cleared a little. “A ship.” His department, ships. Very good. Except that everybody seemed to want one and there were nothing like enough to go round.
“Yes, my lord,” said the banker, fixing him with his fanatic glare. “A ship and a crew that may pass for American. And a captain. One whose discretion may be relied upon and who speaks at least a little French. And while I would not say he should be expendable, he should not be of such seniority or influence that his apprehension, as it were, would be an embarrassment to us.”
Chapter 5
an Unusual Commission
The town of Rye, high and dry on its little island above Romney Marsh, basked in the warmth of the sun: as warm, indeed, as a mid-summer’s day though April not yet out. Nathan leaned against the parapet of the battery, high above the town, and closed his eyes for a moment, hatless, his long hair untied, luxuriating in the warmth of the sun on his face and the red glow that flooded his eyelids. He was, as near as damn it, happy.
There were a number of reasons for this rare condition. Primarily, a simple pleasure in being alone after several weeks at sea with never a moment, even in the precious sanctuary of his cabin, when he was not aware of the noxious presence of 108 human bodies crammed into 110 feet of hull.
He could see the brig riding at anchor in Rye Bay a little off the mouth of the Rother with a small fleet of bum-boats around her and her sails hung out to dry. He could just make out the small cradle under her beak where the carpenter or one of his mates was finally repairing the damage to the figurehead. The war had started badly for Nereus, and prematurely, but the next three months had seen an improvement in her fortunes and in Nathan’s. Though HM Customs continued to petition them for support and the smuggling fraternity continued to put profit above patriotism, the war had given the Nereus more useful employment. Nathan had sailed her across the Channel on a number of occasions to look into the various harbours, rivers and inlets between Dunkirk and Dieppe, taking note of the defences, harassing the coastal shipping, landing the odd spy and generally making a nuisance of himself. In short, fulfilling the purpose for which the sloop had been designed.
She had even taken her first prize, the Bonne Jeanne, off Étaples: an eighty-ton hooker with a cargo of cider, salt pork and ship’s biscuit. There she was, out at the mouth of the river, a little closer to shore than the Nereus, among a score of other coastal traders moored under the guns of Winchelsea Castle. No Spanish treasure ship but a welcome boost to the crew’s morale for all that; and to Nathan’s meagre fortune, for he had only a small allowance from his father and would accept nothing from his mother on the grounds that she who paid the piper would invariably call the tune. So the several hundred pounds of prize money he anticipated was not to be sniffed at.
There were other, less material factors that contributed to his good humour. The sun, the cloudless sky, the apple trees dense with blossom: blossom so heavy on the bough that for all its fragile impermanence he felt he could reach out and feel the weight of it in his cupped hands like a bunch of grapes or—such was the current state of his imaginings—a woman’s breasts.
He allowed himself to fantasize about the woman he had met the previous day . . . Not met, precisely, but seen: a vision of loveliness comparable to the blossom itself, emerging from the Mermaid Inn in the company of an older woman who might have been her mother. She had given him a look—the vision, not the mother—that Nathan considered encouraging. A mixture of curiosity and regard, he thought—for he had dwelt on it subsequently and at length—and he had high hopes of meeting her again and of knowing her better.
He was on his way to the Mermaid now for a conference with the commodore of the Dover squadron and several of his captains whose ships and sloops lay moored in the bay. The narrow streets of the town were filled with their crews, sent ashore on various missions, a jaunty, jostling sometimes boisterous assembly of blue jackets and sailcloth trousers, tarpaulin hats and tarred pigtails (and all the stripes and embroidery that the service would allow) so that Nathan’s previous impressions of Rye as a smuggler’s port occupied by hostile forces and glowering faces was entirely altered.
The town clock chimed the half-hour and he resumed his climb—he had only paused so as not to arrive in a sweat—fanning his face with his folded hat and looking forward to a jug of ale with only a little less enthusiasm than the possibility of running into the Vision of Loveliness once more.
He was approaching the inn, in the shade of the houses across the street, when he saw her. Emerging from the dim interior just as she had the previous day and almost as if she had been waiting for Nathan to appear. But she was not alone—and her companion was not her mother. It was the master’s mate of the Nereus, the former Guernsey smuggler, Mr. Tully.
Nathan stepped back into the shadows, the better to observe them as they came down the steps of the Mermaid. Tully guided her gently by the hand a
nd then tucked it in the crook of his arm as the pair set off jauntily down the street. They were chattering away, so engrossed in each other’s company—and there was such a confusion of carts and carriages and what-have-you in the forecourt of the inn—that they did not notice Nathan standing under the overhang of the building opposite. Tully looked happier than Nathan had ever seen him and the young woman if anything more gorgeous than yesterday, her features animated now where they had then been thoughtful. A few strands of blonde curls strayed artfully from under a pert little bonnet, she had delicate feet in white stockings with pink bobbles on them—Nathan had observed them as she tripped down the steps—and her bosom was . . . Nathan rejected the blossom analogy as entirely inadequate but could think of nothing comparable for the moment. She had a kind of glow about her.
He watched them walk down the steep hill and realised that he was smiling to himself rather foolishly; they looked so charming together, the beautiful young woman and the handsome naval officer. Lucky devil, he thought. He was as much pleased for Tully as envious of him. His respect for the master’s mate increased. He shook his head to remove the foolish grin and the dreams of yesterday and stepped across the road into the inn.
Commodore Harris was seated at a table in the saloon with an officer Nathan had not encountered before, a captain of marines.
“Ah, Peake, there you are,” the commodore greeted him. “This is Captain Marsh. He has been sent by the Admiralty especially to find you and bring you to London. Indeed your carriage awaits you.”
“What, now?” Nathan recoiled theatrically, half thinking it was a joke. But no one was smiling.
“If that is not inconvenient,” the captain responded with a polite but uncompromising bow.
“I will have to send word to my sloop,” Nathan heard himself say as he collected his scattered thoughts. His mother, he was thinking. The report of his presence at her little soiree had finally reached their lordships and he was called to account for consorting with the enemy.
“That will be arranged,” the commodore assured him firmly.
“And when shall I expect to return?”
“That is for their lordships to determine. I leave you in the safe hands of Captain Marsh.”
Nathan wondered if he was already under arrest.
His gloom deepened with every mile they advanced along the London Road and the weather adjusted to his mood. By the time they reached Maidstone the sky had clouded over and the first drops of rain were spattering against the carriage window. They travelled in silence, a circumstance suspicious in itself, as if Nathan’s escort could think of no topic safe enough to discuss with so tainted a companion. The reflections that had so pleased Nathan earlier now returned to torment him as grim parodies of their previous incarnation. His passion for the young woman now appeared foolish fantasy, the jolly tars a pack of rowdy thugs in garish finery, no better than smugglers—in fact considerably worse for at least the smugglers displayed their malice openly. The Nereus was a mere brig, one of the smallest sloops in the service, the prize she had taken a piddling little hooker. And besides, now he came to think on it, he had no business taking the vessel in the first place, for it was little better than piracy. He blushed now to think of the self-righteous satisfaction he had felt as he watched the crew scramble into their launch when he might so easily have taken them prisoner for the head money. He remembered the way the skipper, probably the owner, had stood up in the stern and shaken his fist at them with the tears pouring down his face. The Bonne Jeanne had doubtless been as beautiful to him as the Nereus had to Nathan; more so, for she was his living and he faced an impoverished future without her, a broken old man on the beach . . . The more Nathan thought about it, the more it seemed that his present predicament was a judgement upon him. What business did he have to be making war on civilian mariners, French or otherwise?
Nathan was not a great admirer of Dr. Johnson whose observations he frequently regarded as trite. As a writer of verse who often struggled to find the right word he had cause to resent such remarks as, “A man may write at any time if he will set himself doggedly to it,” but he was inclined to agree with the good doctor’s assertion that “patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel.” Nathan had always felt uncomfortable raising his glass with his fellow officers and drinking to “the next war and promotion for us all,” as if the mere fact of holding the King’s commission justified any atrocity they may take it into their heads to commit. He had sworn loyalty to King George and was not disposed to break his oath; he would do whatever the King or the King’s ministers required of him. On the other hand he had no particular regard for either the King or his ministers. He was neither Whig nor Tory and inclined to wish a plague on both their houses. He had felt some admiration for Billy Pitt when he had become chief minister, approving his youth and his zeal for reform, but it had swiftly faded and he shared the contempt of his fellow officers when Pitt appointed his own brother—a soldier—as First Lord of the Admiralty.
And now they were at war with Revolutionary France.
Nathan had been nineteen when the Paris mob stormed the Bastille and began the Revolution. He could not remember what he had thought about it at the time—he had been in the Pacific and when they eventually heard the news, it had appeared so distant he could not regard it as important much less earth-shattering, but he had spent some months in America later that year with his cousins in New York and everyone he met had been most persuasive in its support. It was much the same in England. And not just among poets like Wordsworth but politicians too—even Pitt had spoken cautiously in its favour. Then the Revolution turned ugly and the mood in England turned against it. Nathan’s mother and her friends said the situation in France was nothing like as bad as the press reported and the government wanted people to believe. They exaggerated the violence in order to persuade their own people to keep things as they were and not be forever clamouring for change or progress or higher wages. The Tories wished to provoke a war to crush the newfound freedoms in France and stop them spreading to England . . .
Nathan was not normally inclined to agree with his mother’s politics. Only a short time ago he had been only too happy to be involved in a war against Revolutionary France and to profit by it. But now . . . Now he felt that if their lordships were to utter one word against his mother, or condemn her for the friends she kept, he would hurl his commission in their faces.
He glanced at the marine officer, dozing in the far corner of the carriage. One word from you, he thought, one sneer of those fastidious lips and I’ll split them against your teeth. But the officer remained comatose, his head nodding in rhythm to the jolting of the coach, and after a while Nathan’s own eyes began to droop and his chin to fall on his chest and he did not wake until they were on the outskirts of London.
“Peake,” said the First Lord of the Admiralty, bringing his nose up from his papers like a fractious rodent disturbed in its hunt for scraps. He blinked at Nathan from across his desk as if he was trying to remember who the devil he was and what he was doing here.
It was dark outside and raining still. Dark inside, too, for the most part, it being late evening and the Admiralty apparently deserted, save for the hall porter who had let them in and the cleaning lady they encountered on the stair. And of course the First Lord scratching at the papers on his desk. (Though it was entirely possible, Nathan considered, that the same officers still waited behind the closed door of the waiting room in hopes of a commission or command while the cleaning lady came in from time to time to flap at them with her feather duster.)
He had not met Chatham before. Nor had he expected to meet him now. An interview with the First Lord was rare, even for a post captain; it only happened, Nathan had been led to believe, if you were up for a particularly important command or an important mission, neither of which appeared likely in his case. He suspected that a serious complaint had been made against him and t
hat out of respect for his father Chatham had decided to meet him face to face before passing sentence.
The door closed behind him and Nathan realised that they had been left alone. He began to think he was not considered dangerous. He looked about him and tried to relax. There was a haze in the air from the small fire in the grate and the seven or eight candles, two of which were smoking furiously. Portraits of the First Lord’s predecessors peered down from the walls through a veil of smoke and varnish. Most of them were admirals, one or two civilians, but none of them, as far as Nathan was aware, had been a soldier—as Chatham had, before his brother made him head of the King’s Navy. A flurry of rain spattered on the window and the frame shook a little.
“Peake,” Chatham repeated, thoughtfully. His eyes darted down to his papers again and he ferreted among them for a moment until he unearthed a letter. He frowned as he waved Nathan to a chair. “Admiral Gardner speaks highly of you,” he said in a tone of surprise.
Nathan contrived an expression of polite interest but his blood quickened. Admiral Gardner was a lord of the Admiralty, an inferior one to Chatham, but a serving officer and a former shipmate of Nathan’s father.
“He tells me you speak French like a native.”
“I would not say that, my lord,” Nathan objected cautiously.
A look. Not pleasant. The features jaundiced in the candlelight. Chatham had the wary eyes of a man who knew he was not greatly liked or respected and that most of his colleagues considered he would not have risen above the rank of major if his father had not been the greatest man of the age and his brother the King’s chief minister.
“What would you say? Can you speak it or not?”
“I can make myself understood, my lord. I sometimes have difficulty understanding—if they speak too fast.”
Why were they talking about his French? Was he to have a job as interpreter?
