Foreign Mud

by Andrew Wareham

  “Accompanied by your own most loyal Chinese retainers, I do not doubt, sir.”

  “Exactly so, Mr Smith.”

  It seemed that he was a sharp-eyed little man, had spotted the pistol deposited in my lap.

  I accompanied Smith to the door, as was only polite. As he made his farewells he suddenly asked whether I had forsworn travelling.

  “Might you be able to pay the occasional visit to places at foreign at government’s commission, perhaps, sir?”

  “I am more of a trader, Mr Smith.”

  “No doubt you could combine commercial ventures with other activities, sir. Do say that you could accommodate us – Mr Dundas would be so pleased.”

  I smiled wearily and agreed – I could understand a threat as well as any man.

  It was fortunate that I found the rural English life tedious – I was likely to experience less of it.

  Only a little thought said that I should speak to Ainslie at earliest.

  “Weel, Mr Jackson, ye are not inexperienced as a travelling man. A few more years will do ye no great harm, and there is no alternative that I can see. Sunny may be less than delighted, however.”

  We considered that and decided that she was still barely fifteen. Matrimony was a time away yet even though she was definitely growing up. There was much to be said, in fact, for a distance between us for some few years yet – I was no by no means ready to take a wife and the responsibilities that came with her.

  I had made my mind up that when I wed, I should play the husband’s role to my best. I was not to go roaming leaving the little woman behind, except when she could not travel for good reason. It might well lead to an interesting life, I suspected.

  “Did your Mr Smith suggest where ye might be sent, Mr Jackson?”

  “Not a word said, Sir Alexander. I suspect he might not wish for me to go to Denmark, however.”

  He agreed it was a less likely destination.

  Rural tedium for a week, enlivened only by morning calls from the neighbourhood, the gentry gathering together to exchange courtesies and scandal in equal quantities. Boring little meetings except that they were essential for being the means of discovering what might be happening in the county.

  The Denham squires between them knew everything that was going on and were responsible for most of it. Particularly, they had contact with the smugglers who provided all of our foreign news. They also were a source of the best cognac, not of overwhelming importance to me but it was desirable to have a few bottles for entertaining.

  “The Terror, Mr Jackson, now seems to be a thing of the past. France is resuming a degree of respectability in government.”

  I had no doubt that was desirable.

  “Will they wish to bring the wars to an end, Mr Denham?”

  He thought not – the French had attained substantial spoils from Italy and the Low Countries and probably would like more. The country was impoverished and needed a source of gold.

  Not a form of political economy that appealed to me. Understandable in a country so beaten down by poor harvests and revolution. I hoped I would not be called upon to venture into France – even without an official Terror there would still be disorder and instability for years until government finally established itself.

  The Directory was still formally governing France, I believed; there had been word of the young general, Napoleon, having ambitions towards a new throne of his own creation. Apparently, he was to be sent away with an Army, probably back to Italy.

  On application, Denham admitted that was the change he had been referring to.

  “The leaders of this Directory were all of a revolutionary pedigree, Mr Jackson. They are now effectively supplanted by the military, by this Corsican adventurer the meanwhile. He is, of course, far too young and of no birth at all. He will not last. Other, more mature, heads will ease into power and send him back to his battlefields. One gathers he is a competent general and he will undoubtedly be delighted to return to his proper place.”

  Likely enough, I thought, not especially interested then in the fortunes of a French provincial military man.

  “Is there word of the war at sea, sir?”

  Most of the squires had sons who had gone to sea – it was a respectable way of making a living and far cheaper than the Army. A son who was a lieutenant in even a minor regiment of the line needed a couple of hundred a year at least, in addition to his pay, increasing as he was promoted, contrary to the ordinary way of things. In business, success meant money coming in; in the Army, rising in the world meant money laid out. The Navy, however, generally lived on its pay after the rank of midshipman, and there was always a slight chance of prize money.

  Denham had a son at sea in a line of battle ship, enduring the tedium of blockade, a hundred miles from home and seeing leave from his ship perhaps once in three years. He had nephews as well, one in a frigate in the Sugar Islands and in the way of making a few thousands, that being the richest of stations and frigates the most profitable of ships.

  “My brother’s boy writes that the French are much reduced in the West Indies, Mr Jackson. They have few naval ships remaining and the small craft are snapping up their traders, those that the privateers do not take first. He tells his father of a most audacious and large private man of war with a crew of Chinese, if you please! Taking a fortune, one gathers.”

  I showed amazed and totally ignorant – the less I knew of Pearl River, the safer I might be. I was just a little distressed that she should be known of generally in England

  Chapter Fourteen

  I saw no more of Mr Smith. A gentleman of only twice my age came a-visiting instead, bearing with him a brief letter from Smith saying merely that the bearer, Mr Brown, shared his confidence.

  “And of what are you confident, Mr Brown?”

  “Why, sir, I am confident that you will wish to assist me, and your country, in the performance of certain minor tasks.”

  He made no further threat – there was no need.

  I smiled at his venture into wit.

  “What have you in mind, sir? I will almost certainly be able to assist you, provided only that it be understood that I am based here, in Shawford, and will not dwell overseas for decades at a time.”

  “It is not the intention that you will become resident elsewhere, Mr Jackson. You will return here quite quickly – bearing in mind the vicissitudes of sea travel – and will spend more of your days at Shawford than elsewhere. You will be able to marry your lady in two or three years, I do not doubt.”

  A not especially subtle way of telling me that his people had poked their noses into my background and knew much of me.

  “I will look to be accompanied at minimum by my man Fred, Mr Brown.”

  “Valet and Barber as well, no doubt, Mr Jackson. We do not wish to subject you to hardship, sir. You are not a poor man, we are aware, and you have expectations of a great fortune. As such, we hope you will assist us and are aware that we must not demand too much of you.”

  An olive branch, more or less. Brown had in effect admitted that I must not be subjected to abuse by his powerful employers.

  “Eventually, Mr Jackson, government must recognise your virtues, provided you continue to be virtuous.”

  A sweetener added to the unspoken threats – if I behaved then I would be granted some sort of honour, a ‘sir’ to tack onto my name, I presumed. Depending on my good behaviour, it might be a baronetcy, a hereditary title rather than a knighthood.

  I wondered whether I cared about such trivial embellishments, found that I did. Sunny would love to be a ‘lady’ and would delight in the prospect of a son to inherit title as well as wealth. So I thought then. I have not asked her the specific question, I will admit; I think I am right.

  “What, Mr Brown, and when?”

  “Gibraltar, initially, Mr Jackson. Depending on all you discover on the Rock, then into the Empire of Morocco, there to speak with any of several middle-ranking officials who may be able to pass you o
n to more senior figures. You are to offer the dedicated cooperation of the Royal Navy to the Empire in exchange for food convoys north to the Mediterranean Fleet, when such is to be found in being, and to Gibraltar itself. We will pay a fair price for the foodstuffs as well. You will also discuss trading links with London – those you may organise to your own satisfaction. Finally, you will dangle before them the possibility of great guns – fortress weapons of the heaviest calibre – to protect the Empire’s harbours and to besiege Spanish enclaves, using Moroccan troops and possibly British gunners in the first instance. The guns might well be offered against gold. Quantities of dust cross the Sahara from the south and Britain is short of bullion.”

  I nodded, trying to assimilate all and make sense of it.

  “The Empire will have some commerce with the Barbary Pirates, will it not, sir? What am I to say to them?”

  “Promise that the Navy will protect Moroccan waters against the freebooters from the eastern ports, and will see nothing of the few using Moroccan harbours, particularly those operating to the south in Atlantic waters.”

  “Primarily slave traders, those few?”

  “Exactly, Mr Jackson.”

  “What of English slaves in Moroccan hands?”

  “Offer to purchase them if the topic arises. Suggest that His Britannic Majesty’s government would be deeply appreciative of any initiative to release our people from servitude. Do not jeopardise our relations with the Empire by harping on that particular topic.”

  “Should I mention French or Spanish ships of war, or merchant vessels, Mr Brown?”

  “No. There is an ambassador who will make formal contact, publicly and above board. He will deal with the proper functions of diplomacy.”

  I was to be the invisible arm of the government – the one to offer bribes and subtle sweeteners.

  “Are there French or Spanish gentlemen acting in a less overt fashion, sir?”

  “Undoubtedly. We do not know who they are. If you can identify them and remove them, well and good. Do not indulge in open warfare in Moroccan streets.”

  Less easily performed than commanded, I suspected. I noted that covert actions were available to me.

  “I gain the impression that I am not to offer simple sums of gold, sir…”

  “We cannot afford the amount it might require, Mr Jackson. Trade over many years, with all of its profits through the generations, must be a prime attraction. We cannot send tons of bullion – for that might be what was needed – on a yearly basis. We have not got it. Morocco is in some ways richer than England, having access to gold and silver mines, so we believe, and to diamonds as well, all coming from the south. What they have not got, and will not develop, is a great mass of coal mines and mills and foundries such as distinguishes England from every other country just now. These industries, for such they are now sometimes called, grow on the back of a complicated financial system, inspired usury, one might say, which is forbidden to the Mussulman. They also depend on freethinking and independent and often self-made masters of industry; these again are not to be found in Morocco where all are subservient to the mosque. You will not find the like of Sir Alexander Ainslie in Fez, willing to wave a well-filled purse and spit in any man’s eye.”

  “So… I am to offer what they have not got in exchange for what we want, remembering that to an extent I am working from a position of weakness.”

  “Exactly so, Mr Jackson. I would wish you to leave within days, sir.”

  “Only if you can give me an idea of prices of English cotton goods from the mills, and an indication of what would be demanded for say a long forty-two pounder fortress gun. I am not to go out ignorant, Mr Brown. Guineamen will carry cottons, I suspect, sir. They would be able to give some of the costs you must discover.”

  “Slave goods, Mr Jackson!”

  “Just so, sir. Light cotton robes and shirts and such, or so I would imagine. From the little I have heard, typical wear of the inhabitants of the lands of the Sahara and its coast.”

  Brown accepted that I might know what I was talking of and seemed to be more convinced that a man of my age might have something useful to offer.

  I made ready to travel.

  “Valet, are you familiar with the pistol?”

  “I have never fired one, sir.”

  His English was much improved – he scorned to use Pidgin now.

  “We must try you out. It will be useful if you can shoot. If not, then it is knifework for you.”

  “I am familiar with the sword, sir, as well as the knife.”

  “Short or long?”

  “Both, sir. In our old way, sir.”

  I had seen Chinese swordsmen on the junks we had taken in the South Seas, knew them to be skilled.

  “What of you, Barber?”

  “Knife, sir, and I have fired a musket.”

  I took them into Winchester, a city with a large barracks and a military habit. There were gunsmiths there and two sword cutlers.

  Most of the swords were officers’ ceremonial blades, to be worn on the parade ground. They had a few of working hangers as well and one or two of less usual blades.

  Valet spotted a claymore, the Scottish straight blade a good forty inches in length and weighing almost half a stone, far too great for a slender Chinese man, or so I thought until I saw him move with it.

  “It has balance, Mr Giles. Not like the blade I was taught with, yet sits as easily in my hand, sir.”

  I bought it together with four long knives for Barber.

  The cutler himself admired Valet’s fluency with the weapon.

  “I took it from the widow of a Scottish gentleman, sir, more as a kindness than thinking it to be of value. I did not imagine that a man could swing it so wildly and yet with such a degree of control. I would not care to stand in front of the Chinese gentleman, sir, that I will tell you!”

  “I have faced his like in the Great South Sea, sir. I was most thankful to be carrying pistols and to shoot from a distance. Warriors indeed!”

  The gunsmith supplied workmanlike pistols, two brace for the men. He suggested that I might like to examine his own latest product.

  “Double-barrelled, sir, over-and-under, three-quarters of an inch calibre.”

  It was heavy but well balanced, and wholly impractical, having a pair of flintlocks, one either side. I did not see how it might be holstered.

  The gunsmith admitted that to be a difficulty, saying that it was more the sort of thing to be kept dangling from a lanyard or laid down on a table in a banker’s office.

  “You might give some consideration to this machine, sir.”

  He displayed a duck’s foot pistol – four barrels side by side and splayed out, each at an angle to the next. There was a single lock to fire the barrels simultaneously.

  “Half an inch bore, sir?”

  “A little less. More like four tenths of an inch but taking a greater than normal powder charge. The barrels, you will note are eight inches in length. Thus four high velocity rounds, sir.”

  “The aim, I presume, is to fire into a mass of men charging at one. High velocity so that any that ricochet or bounce off bone may find another home. Fired into a small room or down a passageway, there is a good chance of hitting more than one man with each. A most unpleasant weapon, sir. I will take two. How does one carry them?”

  There was a ring on the butt and the fortunate bearer would attach a cord thereto and loop it around his neck and shoulders.

  “Useful when riding in a coach, sir.”

  I suggested that it might be handy in a boarding at sea.

  “For the private man of war, no doubt, sir. The Navy has refused it.”

  Not surprising – the Navy had no love for novelty.

  Mr Brown reappeared on his day and loaded the four of us and an amount of baggage into a travelling coach with six horses, old-fashioned and slow but useful still. He took us across to Portsmouth and put us aboard a cutter, very fast and most uncomfortable, commanded by a
young lieutenant whose sole aim in life appeared to be to average twelve knots. It seemed that the magical twelve knots would be the key to a successful career.

  “Twelve knots, sir, as fast as any vessel in the Western Ocean, sir. Despatch carrying from Pompey to Gib, you know, which demands celerity. A year of twelve knot passages and I shall be made, sir. Master and Commander before I am twenty, sir. Having been made as a compliment to my efficiency, I shall be employed, as a certainty. Once having a sloop, sir, then I shall make my fortune in prize money and soon be a post captain. Every prospect that I would be admiral before I am forty-five! Less than twenty-five years to flying my flag, sir – while I make my twelve knots, that is!”

  “Is it certain that you will be promoted, sir?”

  He shook his head. He was sure it was very likely, however.

  To assist him in achieving his aim, we passengers should keep out of harm’s way – we should sit where we were put and never venture on deck or get in the way of any crewman.

  “Not possible, Lieutenant! My servants must perform their functions. They cannot sit down twenty-four hours a day, unseen and unheard. No more can I.”

  The boy had been Navy since the age of ten, was used to concepts of subordination and could not comprehend that any lesser being might tell him ‘no’. Even worse, his admiral had ordered him to look after us and ensure we came to no harm. We were important people, more so than him.

  “Very well, sir. In that case, you may use the deck while you do not interfere with the sailors.”

  I resisted the temptation to tell him that I had never in my life interfered with a sailorman – he would not have understood.

  The cutter was a tiny ship with a single tall mast and a mass of sail dependent on it. Most of the canvas was set fore and aft but there was a large square topsail, frequently pointed out to me as a nautical rarity. It enabled the little vessel to make remarkable speed, a necessity because she was almost unarmed. I wondered why that might be, in the captain’s presence.