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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Serie: Privateersman
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
It wasn't quite the homecoming ex-privateer Harry Ludlow had anticipated. Having cheated death and made a handsome profit into the bargain, Harry and his brother James expected their return home to be quiet - until they become embroiled in a fierce contest between smugglers in the English Channel.
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A Hanging Matter
DAVID DONACHIE
To Pamela and Michael
Deal is a most villainous place. It is full of filthy looking people. Great desolation of abomination has been going on here; tremendous barracks, partly pulled down and partly tumbling down, and partly occupied by soldiers. Every thing seems upon the perish. I was glad to hurry along through it, and leave its inns and public-houses to be occupied by the tarred, and trowsered, and blue and buff crew, whose very vinicage I always destest.
WILLIAM COBBETT.Rural Rides 1823
Contents
THE WORDS OPPOSITE were written some thirty years after the action that takes place in this book, when the town was suffering from the recession caused by the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Cobbett did not stay long enough to witness the new war that had broken out between the excise and the smugglers, a conflict that, once the state had provided the resources in ships and men, could only end one way. Slowly, due to a combination of official harassment and increasing free trade, the industry was smothered.
But during the war the activities of the contrabandiers were vital to the area, just as they were vital to the enemy. To term smuggling as a way of life on the East Kent coast was almost understatement. Napoleon could not have fought his campaigns without the gold that these men smuggled into France. So important were they to the French economy that the government allotted them a portion of Dunkirk harbour for their own use. Unfortunately, they were so rowdy that the burghers of Dunkirk complained and the Emperor had them moved to Gravelines. An early case of the English hooligan abroad?
Today Deal stands as the last Georgian seaside town in England, a model example of that remarkable and elegant age. The anchorage is comparatively empty, unless there is a great storm in the Channel. Yet the history is not far from the surface. A Hanging Matter is a work of fiction, yet some of the characters did exist. The landscape still does!
The Goodwin Sands remain as a formidable barrier guarding the coast, as do two of the three Tudor castles. Boats, fewer in number, are still hauled high upon the beach, though the town behind has become more respectable. The Hope and Anchor is fictitious, though there is a public house on the site. The Paragon has disappeared. Portobello Court is now a charming cul-de-sac of white cottages. The Ship Inn stands where it did in the 1790s and the Griffin’s Head at Chillenden still provides good food and drink for travellers. And if you look closely, you will see that the owner of the Griffin, at the time this book is set, was a widow called Naomi Smith.
DAVID DONACHIE DEAL, 1993
PROLOGUE
THEY WERE getting noisier, the more they drank, and their voices echoed off the low rafters of the Griffin’s Head. They’d already turned a few disapproving heads with their boisterous behaviour. Three men, young, dissolute, but well dressed: these bucks were no doubt wealthy. They had money to spend, plus an air of easy assurance about them. Outside stood a coachload of contraband, with armed servants left to guard it. Such creatures were not an uncommon sight at the Griffin’s Head, for it lay on the route between Deal and Canterbury. Many a well-heeled individual made his way to the coast to buy his untaxed goods direct from the smugglers that infested the Kentish shore, returning by this route and avoiding the Dover to London road with its ever-present nosy excisemen.
Tite, sipping his ale, took a step backwards and peered myopically through the doorway, his attention attracted by a sharp, feminine squeal. With his poor eyesight, and at this distance, the faces were something of a blur, but the picture was plain enough. The men were laughing as the serving girl Polly Pratchitt in some distress struggled to get free. Two tenant farmers at the bar of the small tap-room who could see through the hatch into the main parlour removed their pipes from their mouths and shook their heads. What they murmured to each other made him move through the doorway that led into the main parlour in the hope of a proper view.
Unfortunately Polly was just a blur, running back towards the kitchens, attempting to cover her naked breasts with the tattered remnants of the blouse one of the bucks had torn away. He smiled. It was little wonder that they’d chosen to jest with her; she was a nubile creature, with an ample bosom that needed no support, one designed by nature to catch the roving eye. Hoots of derision followed her fleeing form as those who’d combined to assault her yelled noisily for more claret, as well as a sight of more bare flesh. He grinned: he was as partial as the next man to the sight of a naked breast. He put his tankard on the nearest empty table and made for the kitchen, jerking himself into the gait of a man with an urgent need to relieve himself.
He was in luck. Polly, feeling safe in the kitchen, had removed the torn blouse so that she and her friends could assess the damage and engrossed in the task they failed to register the hunched figure in the doorway. Tite, a mere three feet away, got a heartwarming eyeful of Polly’s exposed flesh from waist to neck. The shout that followed his grunt of pleasure was accompanied by a flurry of activity, as Polly and her friends panicked in their attempts to render her decent.
“Get away, you dirty, slimy old bugger!”
“Can’t a man have a piss?” growled Tite, determined to trot out his excuse.
“Filthy old sod,” hissed Amy Igglesden, the oldest of the girls. “It wouldn’t surprise me if you piss in the kitchen!”
But she addressed this remark to an empty doorway, for he had exited through the back of the inn. He turned and faced the outside wall, close to the partially open window, and unfastened his breeches. He was half angry, half amused at the stream of abuse directed at him, his age, and his probable abilities which wafted out through the open kitchen window.
“Never you heed my age, girls,” he chuckled softly to himself. “Old Tite can still manage enough of a gallop to pleasure any of you lot.”
As the thin trickle of water began to play on the wattled walls, his mind wandered off to the past and to his days at sea. He’d served the late admiral when the man was a mere lieutenant and kept the post as his master rose in rank. It had been a good life. As a personal servant, Tite wasn’t subject to the harsh discipline of the other hands. They were denied shore-leave, for they couldn’t be trusted not to desert. He, given the task of stocking his master’s private larder, got ashore often. As a man who knew how to turn a coin from such a lucrative post, Tite always had the means to visit the local bawdy-houses. There had been more permanent attachments, of course, some that lasted months if his master was lacking a ship. But in the main he’d gratified his lusts on whores, of all shapes, sizes, ages, and colour.
“I say that they’re going to get worse. An’ tearing at Polly’s blouse is not to be borne. We should rouse out Mrs Smith to sort them out.”
That remark, from Amy Igglesden, dragged Tite’s mind back from his fond, wistful memories. He’d assumed that Naomi Smith, the young widow who owned the Griffin’s Head, was absent; it was her habit to visit her late husband’s grave each morning, to change the flowers. What was she doing upstairs with all this turmoil below? She was strict about the way her customers behaved. She harboured a particular dislike for those who preyed on the poverty of the people who lived on the coast, seeing poor men, with wives and children to feed, forced into smuggling to feed the vanity of others. There was little choice, since there were few alternative methods of turning an honest coin in these parts, even if the war with France had broken out again.
To lay a hand on one of Naomi’s girls was an outrage that called for a drubbing in the horse trough. Had she been in the tap-room or the parlour those boisterous bucks would have been shown the door before they’d got halfway down their first bottle. Tite had seen it happen before, when customers got out of hand. And if things took a turn for the worse, Naomi had the loyalty of her regular customers to back her up.
Polly answered Amy. “She said that she and the gentleman were not to be disturbed. Not at any price.”
Now Tite’s ears were positively twitching. For a man who’d been reminiscing about past fancies, such words as these struck an immediate chord. When a lady with the good looks of Naomi Smith entertained a gentleman, and said she was not to be disturbed, it could mean only one thing. He knew she was no widowed wallflower, despite her daily visit to the cemetery. The late admiral’s son, who just happened to own the land on which the Griffin’s Head stood, had a relationship with Naomi Smith that he suspected went beyond mere politeness.
Tite, assuming an innocent air, walked away from the building towards the stables. That, he knew from experience, gave the best view. As he passed the wood-shed he saw Naomi’s small cart safe in the stable, its empty shafts pointing towards the red-tiled roof. But it was the horse in the next stall, a dappled grey mare, that took his attention. He recognised it at once. It came from the stables at Cheyne Court. He’d seen it that very morning leaving the house, bearing his master’s brother-in-law, a man he loathed. Tite spun round to look back at Naomi’s window. There was someone, wearing a wig and a black coat, standing with his back to the window. Then he moved away.
Tite hurried back the way he’d come, slipping past the kitchen without being seen then turning right and making for the bottom of the stairs. The rowdy trio in the parlour were now singing a loud and vulgar version of “Tom Bowling,” which made it hard to hear the conversation that was taking place on the landing, but he recognised the voices. The unmistakable Scottish burr of Lord Drumdryan, and the deep, slightly rasping voice of Naomi Smith.
Here with his arse bare lies lucky Tom Bowling,
The darling of our crew …
“I’m flattered, of course,” said Lord Drumdryan. “But I do have a dinner arranged for that …”
Tite missed the rest, which was lost in the next censored verse of the song.
His form was of the manliest beauty,
His heart was kind and soft.
Naomi’s voice was clear enough, but Tite missed her opening words. “… afterwards. I have told the girls what I plan, and they are very taken with the notion.”
Faithful below he did his duty
And now he’s gone aloft,
Still with his breeches doffed.
Singing gave way to unrestrained laughter. They banged their tankards on the table, demanding more claret.
“I fear your guests are getting out of hand, madam.”
“I must attend to them,” said Naomi. “But I’d be obliged if you’d tell me how you view my invitation.”
The polite tone in Drumdryan’s voice seemed oily to someone as ill disposed as Tite. “It would seem churlish to refuse, madam. I can do nothing but accept.”
Naomi grew a touch louder. “Then I can go ahead with the arrangements?”
“By all means.”
The sound of the lady’s feet on the stairs had Tite dashing away. Reclaiming his ale, he took station by a window that looked out over the front of the inn, his eye on the road that led back to Knowlton Court, muttering under his breath and wondering what value such knowledge might have. His train of thought was broken by Naomi’s voice. It was low, quiet, but firm, and right behind him.
“My hospitality does not extend to an allowance of filthy songs. You will have nothing more, sirs. You will pay for what you’ve consumed, and leave.”
“My dear Barrington,” said the one with his back to the wall, “I fear we are under threat. And from such a handsome creature.”
“Why, madam,” said Barrington, the nearest of the trio, responding to his friend’s sally, “I have yet to eat or drink my fill. It would break my heart to depart prematurely. Especially from such a pretty morsel as you.”
He was flushed with wine, and his wig was a touch askew. His exaggerated air of gallantry did nothing to dent Naomi Smith’s resolve. Her face was set hard, and she stood, hands behind her back, eyeing her three “customers” by turns.
“You may well have a broken head if you stay, sir.”
The young man called Barrington turned to sneer at his companions, for he couldn’t see the cudgel she carried, which was hidden in the folds of her dress.
“Break my head indeed! I have more in mind to break some wench’s hymen.”
The idea obviously appealed to the third one, who’d spent the last minute in a careful examination of Naomi’s figure.
“Too late for that, Barrington. But she’s a spirited mare, an’ no mistake. Mind, I’d rather engage myself to the one with the large udders.”
“My good friend Stanly, here, wishes to bed the serving wench. Her name is Polly, I gather. He may even consent to buy her a new blouse. Do you have a tariff for the creature?”
The voice didn’t change. “You have a bill to pay, sir, for food and drink, which are the only things on offer in the Griffin’s Head. You may leave it on the table. Be so good as to settle now, before matters take a nasty turn.”
Barrington looked past her, as if searching the room for some other form of compulsion. He noted the men who’d filled the doorway to the small tap-room, observed Tite standing by the window, and cast a jaundiced eye at the ragtag collection of customers in the half-filled parlour. In a strange place he couldn’t know how many were local, how they’d react if he attempted to bait the owner, so his response carried an element of bluff, rather than any threat.
“Am I to be so addressed by a mere woman?”
“This mere woman happens to own the premises, sir,” said Naomi.
Barrington leant forward, his face stiffening as he looked up at her. “Then you will cease your insolence, madam. If you do not, my friends and I will reduce the furniture to matchwood.”
It was Blake who added the words that mattered. He couldn’t see Barrington’s face, couldn’t observe the bluff. He took his friend’s bellicose statement at value, and decided to overlay it with a threat of his own.
“And perhaps, madam, we will take from you, and that milch cow who served us, something you seem unwilling to offer, even for a decent price. Indeed you may wish to remove your blouse, and afford us a view, to save it from the same fate as the other trollop’s.”
There was no word of warning. No cry of anger. Naomi’s cudgel took Barrington right on the forehead. He was catapulted out of his chair by the force of the blow and ended up in a crumpled heap on the wooden floor. The other two scrambled to their feet, but the upraised club, in the hands of a woman clearly determined to use it, made them pause.
Naomi wasn’t calm now. Her bosom heaved with anger or effort and her voice was like ice. “Pay, gentlemen, or I’ll ask my regulars to douse you in the trough.” This statement was greeted with a collective growl from all the men in the room. Polly Pratchitt stood by the kitchen door with a meat cleaver in her hand. The only other sound was that of coins rolling on the tabletop. “Now take this vermin and load him into your coach.”
The place was silent as the two others, suddenly sober, sought to comply. They lifted Barrington between them and staggered towards the door. But Naomi wasn’t finished.
“Should you be tempted to seek revenge, sirs, I would count the cost of your contraband cargo. Then ask yourself if you’re willing to lose both that and your liberty when you’re brought before the local magistrate and gaoled for transporting unexcised goods.”
The thought of the contraband made Tite turn back to the window. But he didn’t look at the heavily laden coach. Instead his eye caught the rear end of the dappled mare heading up the hill towards Cheyne Court. He swore under his breath. Lord Drumdryan, who must have known that there was trouble in the parlour, had ridden off, leaving Naomi Smith to deal with matters herself. What could she see in a man like that? No one with an eye to see or an ear to listen could doubt that he was enjoying a dalliance with the lady. What would his master say when he found out that his brother-in-law had moved into a bed that had welcomed him? There would be the devil to pay and no pitch hot.
“Come back soon, Captain,” murmured Tite. For he knew that Harry Ludlow wouldn’t have behaved so badly. He’d have behaved like a man and turfed those noisy buggers out single-handed.
He’d had a lot to drink by the time he started on the journey home and staggering as he was, he was nearly run down by the man on the horse. He had time to curse at the disappearing hindquarters of the animal and through his bleary gaze he saw the flash of a red military coat.
“Damn bullocks!” he cried, waving a drunken fist.
But the rider, if he heard him, didn’t bother to respond.
CHAPTER ONE
JAMES LUDLOW’S face creased with pain as the coach bounced over another frozen rut. The driver had little choice, attempting to increase their speed by weaving his way through the mass of fleeing refugees. In this milling crowd of exhausted humanity, men, women, and children each bore a bundle containing their meagre possessions. It was a mob which only maintained any forward motion because it was heading in one direction: away from the cannon which could be heard booming to the south. The faces of those they passed who retained sufficient energy to raise their heads said more about the horror of war than James’s expression, or his words, which seemed exaggerated in proximity to such evident hardship.
“Damn it, Harry. If I ever complain about the discomfort of life aboard ship, you have my full permission to staple me to the deck.”
Harry Ludlow was suffering as much of a buffeting as his brother, constantly moving his musket to ensure it didn’t accidentally go off. But having spent most of his life at sea, often in conditions that made this crowded Flemish road seem like the pathway to paradise, he was less prone to grousing. James, a more domestic creature by far, tended to be loud about his comfort, aboard ship as much as anywhere else. Pender, their servant, perched atop their sea-chests at the rear of the coach, aimed a grim smile at the back of James’s head. For him, being spared the need to walk, like the flotsam of humanity around them, served as a source of deep pleasure.
“I should have a care, brother, lest I remember that,” said Harry, his breath forming clouds of vapour in the freezing air. “I’ve known you to complain of cramped quarters and fetid odours before we ever won our anchor.”
James was in a foul mood, and the landscape, under the grey and threatening sky, seemed to match his temper. There was nothing in the gloomy countryside to alleviate the depressed spirit. It was flat and featureless, windswept and treeless. The roadway showed more evidence of defeat than these fleeing refugees. They’d passed several carts laden with the wounded and anyone who cared to look closely would see that many of the tattered uniforms were British. Their driver, sitting on the elevated box, used his whip again, forcing the horses to drag the coach out of yet another frozen trough. It lurched dangerously to one side, causing several people to jump clear.
James ignored their cries of protest. He gave the coachman’s ample buttocks a sour look as he continued, shifting himself again in a vain attempt to ease his discomfort. “The privations that you sailors tolerate never cease to amaze me, brother. Even the most elevated soul aboard the ship is denied true comfort. A captain’s cabin is no drawing-room, regardless of the wiles you employ to disguise it. I’ve seen enough ships’ interiors to last me a lifetime.”
“Then you’ll be glad to get home.”
The element of mischief in that remark was evident by the way James frowned. But he directed the resulting ire at the coachman, not his elder brother. “All this about the French being hard on our heels is so much stuff. A canard designed to increase this villian’s fee.”
The guns boomed out once more, as if to give the lie to James’s words. Harry, again shifting his musket slightly, looked to the south, towards the front lines. True, those cannon were a good way off, and they would represent the epicentre of any battle. But the French would have cavalry patrols out. The mob on the road were afraid of the danger, even if James was not. They’d been told the French border was teeming with an army of Jacobins, afire with revolutionary fervour, and determined to “free” their fellow sufferers to the north, the poor benighted peasants who lived in Flanders. Given the news from France, it was hardly surprising if quite a few of the locals felt the need to decline the offer.
Having disposed of their own royal house the French were now bent on exporting the benefits of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité to all those who shared their borders. But those high-minded sentiments included the Terror, which travelled with the guillotine as its bloody mistress. The revolutionary despots had set the whole of Europe alight. The Ludlow brothers’ route home from Genoa had been determined by that one fact, as they’d skirted a host of potential battlefields, making the trip very much longer. They were now faced with the prospect of undertaking a Channel crossing at the end of October, a notorious period in a stretch of water not renowned for gentility even in the height of summer.
“You may very well be correct, James. The guns are miles away. But I for one shall follow the evidence of my own eyes. And what I observe looks remarkably like an army in retreat.”
James could see as well as his brother. He too had noticed that the Allied troops they’d encountered were mainly heading north. But he was not to be deflected by that, or such reasoning. If anything the idea made him even angrier.
“This fellow we’ve hired to drive us should be on the boards. I’ve never known such an actor.”
As if to underscore James’s words, the driver, who’d already performed the same manoeuvre several times, turned on his box and gave James Ludlow a most fearful look. If he didn’t comprehend the meaning of the words, he could not fail to quail at the look in his irascible passenger’s eye.
“I reckoned when he’d dunned us out of our money for this trip, a fee which I still consider exorbitant, he would dispense with the need for such melodrama. Yet here he is, still favouring me every two minutes with a terrified roll of the eyes.”
Harry Ludlow had also been made curious by the coachman’s actions. But it was only on this occasion, by careful scrutiny, that he discovered the true reason for the man’s anxiety. Being a sailor to his fingertips, and a rougher man by far than the elegant James, he rarely managed the languid tone of voice, the air of bored indifference that his younger brother, in better mood, found so effortless. But he did so now, even going so far as to feign a yawn.
“I would hazard that, at this moment, you frighten the poor fellow somewhat more than the French.”
James was surprised. “In God’s name, why?”
Harry affected another elaborate yawn, then flicked a gloved hand towards his brother’s lap. “Have you observed the direction in which your musket is pointing?”
James looked down at the long gun on his lap. Then his eyes lifted as he followed the line of the barrel, till he found himself once more looking at the ample posterior of their coachman, straining at the leather breeches he wore.
“I dare say,” Harry continued, “on this treacherous, uneven surface, and having to weave his way through this mob, he fears you may inadvertantly discharge your weapon.”
Pender laughed, his teeth flashing in the grim daylight, his voice heavy with false foreboding. “You might leave him with more holes in that part of his body than he truly requires, your honour.”
James quickly moved his musket then spun round to look at their servant, trying to maintain his angry look. But his twinkling eyes betrayed him. He was clearly amused. “A tempting thought, Pender, such a tempting thought.”
They could no longer hear the distant cannonfire, but that did nothing to lessen the hint of panic in the air. Flushing was bulging at the seams. The little fishing port had to deal with an army landing supplies in one direction, east, while the wealthier citizens of Flanders fled west, seeking the security of the English shore. Added to this mix were the casualties, as well as a good number of soldiers who’d become separated from their units. Every hostelry, which in this sleepy backwater didn’t amount to much, was full to bursting, and the narrow streets teemed with coaches and carts, none of which could be brought to consider giving way to their fellow émigrés. The Ludlow brothers had been sat in the same spot for twenty minutes, listening to the shouts and catcalls, which were tinged with desperation, while those intent on flight tried to sort out some bottleneck further ahead. Pender had gone to investigate, returning with a glum expression on his normally cheerful face.
“We’d be better off walking from here, your honour. An overloaded Berlin coach has cast its wheel. Can’t see them jackin’ it up with what they has aboard, so they’ll be at that repair for an age.”
“Right then, Pender. Light along into the town and see if there’s somewhere we can get some dinner, and fetch a couple of porters to lug our sea-chests.”
Pender nodded, then turned and pushed his way back through the crowds that hemmed in the coach. Harry turned to James, who had been silent for some time. “I doubt that a room will be easy to come by, with the place so crowded. And if the rumours are to be believed the French could arrive at any moment. It might be better, right off, to seek out a berth aboard a ship, rather than try and spend any time here.”
James didn’t even raise his eyes. “Do as you think fit, Harry.”
It was all there in his demeanour. Normally James was a keen observer of all that went on around him, his painter’s eye obsessed with detail. The emotions, especially the fear in the faces of their fellow travellers, should have been a source of deep curiosity; Harry, who even without a particular destination or a pursuing army was always in a hurry, had remonstrated with him often about his dilatory ways. Not now. All the things that he had put to the back of his mind while they’d travelled from Italy had clearly returned to haunt him, and Harry shared some of the evident disappointment. He’d been given good grounds to feel that the matter had resolved itself, given the lapse of time and the distractions they’d encountered. Now, on the last leg, as they were about to take ship for England, all the reasons why James had left were crowding in on him.
Harry spoke gently. “We can’t stay here, James. But we could go north to Amsterdam.”
James finally raised his eyes, looking at Harry directly. Then he smiled. “No, brother. You have the right of it.” He slapped his thigh, in a most uncharacteristically hearty gesture. “Forgive me for being poor company, Harry. The prospect of getting home seems to have dried in me.”
“Perhaps things will have resolved themselves to your advantage.”
James replied gamely, smiling, but his eyes still told of his reluctance. “Perhaps. But first we must eat, I’m close to starving.” His eyes lit on the coachman’s back, and the man’s stoic acceptance of all that was happening ahead annoyed him, for his face clouded again. “Nearly as much as I am bored of staring at this fool’s arse.”
“I’m glad that joining me at sea has done something for your language. I imagine your rich friends and clients will remark on how salty it seems.”
James leant forward and touched Harry’s knee. “I have gained a great deal from being with you, brother, both on land and at sea. If I seem a little down, it’s not your doing.”
Pender’s return, with two grubby porters, saved them both embarrassment, for though they were friends they had the good manners to avoid too much intimacy, each well aware that certain areas of their lives were not open for discussion. The driver turned as the porters took their chests off the back of the coach, his eyes holding that universal gleam of a man hoping for a reward. It would have been hard to tell what James was thinking when the fellow caught his eye, but the look was more than enough to kill any hope of extra remuneration.
If anything, the crowds had increased. The dirt on the road had long since thawed and the pounding feet had turned it into mud. Harry and James slithered and slid in the sucking morass as they followed Pender and the porters, elbowing their way through the mass of bodies. It was with some relief that they ducked into the straw-covered courtyard of the tavern. A small urchin dashed forward with his bucket and brush, eager to clean the gentlemen’s boots for the sake of a coin. Not having the heart to dismiss him, they both stood while he sloshed around their feet, talking non-stop in a barrage of conversation that neither of them could comprehend.
“This young fellow seems to have transferred most of the mud from my boots to the hem of my coat!” said James; yet he was grinning, and Harry was glad to observe that the pleasure was in his eyes as well as his smile. This was more like the James of old. His own coat was in a similar condition, but that did nothing to dent his generosity. The coin he gave the boy was a good deal bigger than his services, or his expertise, deserved.
They had to duck low to enter the tavern, both coughing immediately as the warm air, laden with pipe-smoke, filled their lungs. Pender was sitting against the wall by the blazing fire, guarding their sea-chests, his coat open and his face red with the heat. He addressed them directly, without rising to his feet, his soft Hampshire burr seeming to add a feeling of welcome to their surroundings.
“I bespoke the owner, your honours, who has enough of English to be understood, and he says that he couldn’t even find us a place in the stable.” The eyes twinkled in his red face. “We are, as you might say, worse off than Joseph and Mary.”
An observer might have wondered at a servant addressing his master so, finding it odd that he dared to sit, let alone exercise his wit, in their presence. Yet neither of the Ludlow brothers seemed affected. For them Pender was more than a servant, if something less than an equal.
“I’m more interested in food than a bed,” said James, opening his coat gratefully to welcome the heat of the fire.
“That he can provide, though I reckon, being so busy, he’ll charge for it.”
“Damn the expense,” said Harry, who was as sharp-set as his brother. “Get us a table, Pender, and tell the landlord to dig out some decent wine. And while you’re about it, tax him to see if he knows of any berths on a ship heading for Kent.”
They were sitting in a high-backed booth talking quietly. James hacked off another piece of the tough fowl and waved it in his brother’s direction. “This bird is a Methuselan creature, judging by its texture. The cook has sought and failed to make it palatable with this rich sauce.”
Harry stopped with the food halfway to his mouth. “I’m rather enjoying it.”
“The cold air must have dulled your tastes, brother.”
Harry barely heard him. He’d turned as soon as he observed the stranger approach. He knew him for a sailor right away. It was in his rolling gait, as well as the weather-beaten face. He had salt and pepper hair, worn long and loose, with two tufts high on each cheek. His clothes, though of a decent quality, were streaked with salt, and the brass buttons that lined each facing were dull and green rather than shiny bright. Harry, looking at the singular tufts of hair, had the vague impression that he had seen him somewhere before, but he couldn’t place him.
“Mr Ludlow?” he said, looking from one to the other, his heavy eyebrows creased in confusion.
“We are both of that name, sir,” said Harry.
The man gave a small bow, then sniffed loudly. “Tobias Bertles, gentlemen, Captain of the Planet. She’s a snow, sir, which is a broad and comfortable class of vessel. I have had words with your man, an’ he says you are in urgent need of a crossing.”
“That we are, Captain Bertles,” said James, quickly. He knew he’d cut Harry off, just as he knew that it would have been wise to question the word “urgent.” Moving over on his seat to give room, he pointed to the huge platter in the middle of the table. “Would you care to join us? For we have here a dish that seems to please sailors.”
Bertles missed the sarcasm, just as he missed the fact that the remark was aimed at the brother, not him. He slid easily into the booth and gave Harry, on the other side of the table, a happy jerk of the head.
“Why, I wouldn’t say no to a feed, sir, if there be some spare.”
“Dig in, sir,” said James, pushing his plate towards their guest. “Though I would advise you to have a care for your teeth.”
Bertles looked at him, perplexed, the tufts of greying hair on his ruddy cheeks twitching slightly. As he ducked his head to take a mouthful of food, he swung his brown eyes towards Harry, with a look that begged to know if he was being practised on, only to find himself under examination. His name meant nothing to Harry. But he hated the idea that he could forget a face.
“My brother has refined tastes, Captain. He finds the bird is not to his liking. As to pleasing sailors, he refers to me.”
Bertles nodded sharply, as if that information was obvious.
“Without a ship, of course,” replied Harry.
“I sail on the ebb, sir.”
“Nothing could suit us better,” said James. “That is, if you have an available berth.”
“I can offer you only my wardroom, sir, which you needs must share with me, my officers, and another passenger, for my own cabin has been given over to a married couple.”
“Your destination in England, Captain?” asked Harry.
Bertles looked at him directly as he replied, as if he was challenging Harry to place him. “I hail from Deal, sir. It is to there I shall return, weather permitting.”
That smacked of remarkable good fortune, for Deal was the anchorage closest to the Ludlow house at Chillenden.
“Then it only remains for you to name a price,” said James.
“So you are bound for Deal!” said Bertles, smacking the table, as though he’d solved a puzzle. He sat forward slightly, evidence of some eagerness. James, who was about to reply in the affirmative, felt the gentle pressure of Harry’s foot on his own.
“The Kent coast suits, Captain Bertles, though landing in the Downs will still leave us a journey.”
The other man’s eyes narrowed, bringing his heavy eyebrows close to the tufts of hair on his cheeks. But the accompanying smile was knowing. Bertles was used to bargaining. “Makes no odds, Mr Ludlow, do it, for if you seek another berth you could be stranded here. If I hear things aright, Flushing ain’t going too healthy for an Englishman. An’ I dare say you’ve seen as many wounded as I.”
“Are you transporting any of them?” asked Harry.
“No, sir, I am not. Tobias Bertles operates for cash on the barrel, not for some slip of paper that the Horse Guards will pay out on, rock bottom, at their convenience. An’ I’m not short on passengers. There’s many a well-heeled local trying to get away from the Jacobins. Such a flood has pushed prices pretty high. Not that I’d favour a foreigner over a fellow Englishman, you understand. But I cannot be required to ask less than the going rate.”
“Which is?” said Harry, still pressing down on James’s foot. His eyes were fixed on those of Bertles.
“Twenty-five guineas a nob.”
“Ten,” said Harry immediately, holding up his hand to stop Bertles’s reply. “And before you protest, Captain, that you will be made penniless, be aware that I’ve sailed these waters many times, both in peace and war.”
Bertles held Harry’s gaze, though his eyes moved fractionally, as if seeking a chink in his adversary’s resolve. Finally he spoke.
“I dare say you have, at that. But anything less than fifteen would be robbery.”
“Done,” said James. Harry started to glare at him, which he responded to with a smile. “My foot was going numb.”
Bertles took another mouthful of food, ignoring the sauce which ran down his chin, and looked from one to the other, wondering what these two “passengers” were about. But the price pleased him and he clapped James on the shoulder. “Well, sir. For fifteen guineas I shall include a capital dinner.”
James looked at the plate, so recently his own. “Tell me, Captain, what did you think of the fowl?”
“Why, it’s tasty, sir. Very tasty.” He ducked to eat again, and so missed the look of despair in James Ludlow’s eyes.
They’d barely finished their cheese when the hullaballoo commenced. The news that was spreading like wildfire in the streets soon penetrated to their inn, rippling through the packed room like a tidal wave. Voices were raised in evident alarm and the crowd seemed to disperse as soon as they comprehended the information. Suddenly the room was empty, except for Pender, who’d pushed his way forward, against the flow of the crowd, his face creased with anxiety.
“The French are at the gates, your honour,” he said to Harry. “Cavalry in the main. Whoever’s in charge here has thrown up a defensive line with some of the troops that were bringing in the stores.”
“That won’t hold,” Bertles observed calmly. “There’s scarce five hundred soldiers in the whole port.”
“It would seem prudent to get under way, Captain,” said James.
“It may be prudent to board ship, sir. But I’ll not be shifted by a ravaging pack of Jacobins. I will sail on the ebb as I originally intended.”
“Far be it from me to question your decisions, sir—”
Harry interrupted James, lest he offend Bertles. If Flushing had been invested, even by a cavalry screen, they needed him now, more than ever. “Don’t be alarmed, brother. The French will attempt nothing till they’ve fetched up some artillery—”
Bertles now cut in. “By which time our lads will have torched their stores and be ready to either take ship or offer surrender.”
“So you apprehend no real danger?” asked James.
The tufts of hair on Bertles’s cheeks twitched as he replied. “Unless the Jacobins have learnt to walk on water, Mr Ludlow, unlikely you’ll grant me, then the answer must be no.”
He picked up the bottle on the table, which was still half full. “I’d say we’ve got time to finish this, sir, and toast damnation to the French.”
James knew he’d been the butt of Bertles’s condescension, so his reply was a trifle sharp. “Forgive me if I decline, Captain. I cannot abide the damning of an entire race.”
CHAPTER TWO
TOBIAS BERTLES’S “capital dinner” came as a pleasant surprise, for though it was plain, the food was of the very best quality. Fresh fish to start, herrings and turbot, followed by a fine bowl of brawn, with a proper English roast as the main course. No part of the beast was to be wasted and this was accompanied by a remove of sweetbreads and faggots.
The captain had reclaimed his tiny cabin to entertain his passengers and since the Planet was riding gently at anchor, it was more like a shore-based affair than a nautical one, with only the occasional exploding warehouse, with the dull boom and accompanying flash, to remind them of their situation. Bertles, who’d appeared a trifle shifty on first acquaintance, blossomed in the role of host, introducing his guests to each other in a grand voice and pressing upon them a glass of sillery to “whet their whistle.” But with barely enough room to accommodate the five extra diners and a red-hot stove contributing to the warmth, it was an intimate dinner, and every time the door opened to admit another dish the blast of freezing air made all present shiver.
The married couple were military, a middle-aged major of engineers, Franks, and his young wife Polly, decidedly pretty, with a cornflour complexion and blonde curls. But the lady was unsuited to mixed company, since she could not let a word pass her lips that didn’t have more than one interpretation. That she was innocent and completely unaware of this fault entertained the Ludlows and infuriated her husband as she delivered every sally with her blue eyes wide and excited and her blonde hair escaping, one curl at a time, from under a very fetching cap. Franks felt the need to explain his presence at the table when his fellow soldiers were engaged in a desperate attempt to throw up some kind of fortifications to protect the town: he had offered his services and been politely declined. The colonel in charge of the operation had informed him that the earthworks he was digging were a sham: he had no intention of trying to protect Flushing. Their first purpose was to give the French pause, their second to reduce the danger of panic in the town itself, which would seriously hamper his attempts to destroy what he could before withdrawing his men to their transports, something he fully intended to do before the day was out.
The other passenger was a young man from Warwickshire named Wentworth, whose family traded into the Low Countries, selling the new manufactures and startling innovations that spewed out of the factories springing up in such towns as Birmingham. He was tall and thin, with fair hair and a serious demeanour made more apparent by a pair of half spectacles which continually slipped to the end of his nose. His conversation, which was plentiful, for he was a garrulous soul, consisted entirely of profit and opportunity, even extending to those avenues, like the sale of armaments, which had been opened up by this latest war. Yet it was mixed with a string of complaints about everything he’d encountered: Flemish food and manners, the roads, the inns, and the attitude of the locals to the glittering opportunities he represented to them. The fact that their country was suffering invasion was held a poor excuse for such behaviour. Harry and James, who would rather have listened to Polly Franks any day, were bored rigid by the time they were called to eat. The dinner, however, once they sat down, was very convivial.
Having embarked these few passengers, the Planet had none of the desperate air of the other ships in the harbour. The anchorage was full of small boats, busy loading casualties, portable stores, and refugees by torchlight. None of that panic penetrated this cabin. The crossing, Bertles assured them, would be brief, for the wind was steady in the east, its prevailing quarter. So they regaled each other with background and anecdotes, in the shallow fashion that people in transit do.
“I have travelled extensively in these parts, sir,” said Wentworth, who had, to Harry’s relief, turned his attention to Major Franks, “and it is not just the fortifications that are in need of an overhaul.”
“Pray, sir, not fortifications,” cried Polly. “I have suffered enough in that area for a lifetime. There is nothing in life more tedious than to be surrounded by men, all ardent …” She paused at that point and took a mouthful of turbot, leaving her fellow diners in anticipation. “… in the matter of castles and the like. If they are not intent in sticking things up, they want to take them down. And guns, poking this way and that. Poking things out and blasting away! I wonder if it’s all men ever consider.”
“Gentlemen,” said Franks hurriedly, “I have been attempting to persuade the Dutch to renovate their fortress line, especially in the light of what is happening not two miles from where we sit.” Franks had originally been sent across from Shorncliffe to look at the Flemish forts that lined the border with France. Many had long since fallen into disrepair, and those capable of offering some resistance had suffered from the incursions, earlier in the year, of the French army under Doumouriez. He had of course deserted to the Royalist cause and the invasion had collapsed. But the threat resurfaced, with new armies, under generals like Pichegru and Lazare Hoche, more committed to the Revolution. A hasty programme of rebuilding was essential. But they had not heeded the advice and all the Allied armies had paid the penalty. Franks had tried the same persuasive tactics on the Dutch further north. But despite the evidence of their own eyes, it would not prevail.
“Do you think the burghers of the Rhine towns will heed your advice?” asked Harry.
“Certainly they will rebuild, but only if we subsidise them with British gold, Mr Ludlow. They are no more willing to fend for themselves than any other nation in Europe.”
James interjected at this point. As a man who had initially welcomed the Revolution in ’89, he felt that despite the recent excesses there was a case to be made for the French. “Our Gallic foes do not seem to seek our subsidies. Nor do they seem to require your advice. They are sustained by the strength of their ideas.”
“What are these brown balls, Captain Bertles?” demanded Polly, poking at a dish on the table. Her husband, who’d been about to bristle at James, had to divert his energies immediately. “They are faggots, my dear.”
“Are they, husband. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one so big.” She turned a dazzling smile on their host. “I dare say they are not meant to be taken whole. Why, I’m sure I would choke if I were to swallow a ball that size.”
“Major Franks, allow me to apologise,” said James, trying not to grin at Polly’s latest gaffe. He realised the lack of tact involved in defending the Revolution to a serving officer who had just witnessed his army in full retreat. “I spoke hastily and too freely.” It didn’t emerge well, but the good major took it in the proper spirit: “Being an Englishmen, sir, I am conscious of the benefits of liberty.”
The conversation flowed, as did the food and ale, with James and the major deeply embedded in his concerns over Dutch fortifications. “For the French are not idle, Mr Ludlow.”
Polly, who’d been busy hearing of Mr Wentworth’s Birmingham buttons, a penny a pair by the newest process, rose to the unoffered bait once more. “They’ll come again, Mr Ludlow, even if they are repulsed. And I should know, sir. I hear it morning, noon, and night from my husband. The French are forever coming. But I hope they never arrive, for they are frightful, sir, given to all manner of rapine …”
It is impossible to put two sailors within ten feet of each other, particularly those who captain their own ships, without the talk turning to the sea and its hazards and the nature of ships and fellow sailors good, bad, and downright criminal.
Harry was very tempted to ask if they’d met before, for the feeling that they had was as strong as ever. But Bertles gave no indication that this might be the case, nor left a gap in the conversation for him to enquire. And his questions regarding Harry’s recent movements were merely polite, with scant attention paid to the answers. Not that Harry volunteered much. Bertles was left unaware that he was dining in the presence of a very successful privateer; nor did Harry divulge any of the strange events of the last eighteen months since he and his brother had set sail from England. He confined the conversation to the ports they’d visited and the sights they’d seen.
Below decks, Pender, close-mouthed by nature and given to withholding information as a lifetime habit, showed equal restraint. But his companions probed nevertheless, curious about all the passengers, and sailors being a gossipy lot, the name Ludlow quickly rang a bell, forcing Pender to confirm certain facts. The wealth and potency of the Ludlow brothers was readily conceded, as was their parentage. After all, who but a wealthy man could carry a personal servant halfway round the Continent? But for all the answers he gave, he avoided more. His response to an endless stream of lower-deck questions, with pots of ale provided to wash down his supper, seemed to leave his companions somewhat dissatisfied.
“It must be a fine thing to have your pa as an admiral,” said one of the men at the mess table, who’d tired at last of asking questions about the brothers.
“There’s admirals and admirals,” said another. “Some ain’t got a pot to piss in. But, like I said already, I heard o’ the name Ludlow, and I seem to remember that he’d done all right.”
Pender looked at the man over the rim of his tankard. Admiral Ludlow had done more than all right. He’d made a mint from the West Indies command. But that fact was also none of their concern, so he left them to wait in vain as he sipped his ale. Seeing, finally, that they were getting nowhere, they changed the subject.
“Now what’s the military cove doing with a wife half his age?”
“If’n you don’t know the answer to that, then you’re as thick as a plank. It won’t only be the swell that’s rockin’ the barky this night.”
Things were no less amusing in the main cabin. Bertles, like most of his guests, perspiring freely, was clearly pleased at the air of conviviality. As soon as the cloth was removed he set forth the port and a large bowl of nuts. Major Franks’s face froze as he saw it; he knew what was coming.
“Nuts!” cried Polly gaily, her face now flushed with the addition of port wine. “I long to crush a pair beween my hands. My father could manage it, but the art of crushing nuts has ever eluded me.” Her husband looked at the deck-beams above his head, as if seeking deliverance. But he could not be unaware that the other men envied him, none more so than young Mr Wentworth, who’d made every endeavour to monopolise Polly Franks this last hour. James was enchanted, thinking her a creature from another age, positively Jacobean in her wit. He was game to paint her for free and said as much. She trilled dismissively. James was too well mannered to add how sought after he was in fashionable London circles. Harry, who would have spoken up for his brother’s talent, missed this exchange, registering instead the different motion of the ship. But he soon turned back to join in the conversation. To him Polly spoke of home and comfort, of England and domesticity. Like all sailors he longed for it at sea, and chafed to be away again once he’d tasted it.
Yet she had made him hanker after more than that. Even if her speech caused mirth, she had an independence that reminded him forcibly of the one person he was looking forward to seeing again more than any other. He was a healthy bachelor, prey to the same desires as any man, and since nature had favoured him with looks and birth with money he’d enjoyed the favours of a good number of the fairer sex. As a sailor, these things were transitory, of course; but there was one relationship which could be said to be more than that, without ever threatening to place a curb on him, something he would resent.
When it came to Naomi Smith, jealous souls mouthed droit de seigneur, which only demonstrated how little they knew her. Their relationship had nothing to do with pleasuring her landlord. Naomi, widowed young and now sole owner of the Griffin’s Head, seemed as determined to remain as unentangled as Harry himself. Decidedly pretty and obviously secure, she’d been exposed to innumerable offers of marriage; most had been subjected to a good-humoured refusal. Not that she was all jollity.
She was as prone as Polly to speak as she found, though less likely to make a gaffe: she paid little heed to the nature of the gender of her company, cast her own opinions instead of borrowing them from others, and disdained to seek defence from mere males. She could, in short, stand up for herself. Some men found such behaviour unbecoming. Harry Ludlow esteemed it.
His mind was dragged back to the present by his host’s topping up his glass. Bertles, continuing round the table, was evidently pleased. He poured port liberally into Polly’s glass, well aware that he owed some of the success of his dinner to her. All complimented her husband and extolled his good fortune in having a wife like Polly. He remained silent in the face of this. But if he had been challenged on his own attitude, Major Franks would have opined that they didn’t have to live with her.
“My lady and gentlemen,” said Bertles, rising to his feet, “forgive me, I feel the ebb tide under our counter. I must see to the unmooring of the ship.”
He reached behind him, to a desk which had been pushed out of the way to accommodate the diners, and fetched an inkstand, plus a leather-bound folder, with the name of the ship picked out in gold tooling.
“One request, since I may not have time to join you again, this being such a busy anchorage. You must enter your names on the manifest. I also like to have the comments of my passengers noted, be they favourable or not. If you would be so good as to list your names and addresses, with your occupations and opinions, on the ship’s manifest, here in this ledger, you would be doing me a service.”
“Will a favourable comment gain a reduction in the crossing fee?” asked Wentworth. He tried to make it sound like a jest, but he failed, for it was plain he meant it.
“After such a fine dinner, sir?” said James nailing him.
Bertles, who seemed less full of ale, wine, and port than his guests, beamed at him, his little tufts of hair twitching on his puffed-up cheeks. He watched as Harry filled in his details in the folder. Such examination was unwelcome. Not that his name and address presented any problem. The difficulty arose with his occupation. He had no desire to put down privateer. But ship’s captain hardly seemed sufficient for someone who nowadays never sailed in a vessel he hadn’t bought. Harry scribbled ship owner and put the quill back in the stand.
“I trust I will not be in the way if I join you on deck,” he said, pushing the folder across the table as he began to rise to his feet. He stopped when he saw the flicker in Bertles’s eyes, as though he was about to refuse, which left him half in and half out of the chair.
“Of course not,” said Bertles, with a sudden smile.
James was on his feet in a flash, though bent double to avoid the low overhead beams. “I am in no way the sailor that my brother is, Captain. But if I promise to stay out of harm’s way, I too would welcome the air.”
The pause was too long by a second, as if Bertles was seeking another motive for the request. But he nodded eventually, bowing slightly as he replied, “By all means.”
Mr Wentworth looked at the soldier, as if hoping he too would go on deck. But Franks was not about to leave a young bachelor alone with his wife, even if the sweat was visibly running down his face. He wanted to keep an eye on this overly solicitous young fellow. The look the major gave Wentworth, and what it portended, was so obvious as to kill all other conversation. In the awkward silence that followed, Bertles’s request that they list their names was forgotten.
The chill air made Harry shiver as he came on deck. It was a clear night, with the moon near full in a sky ablaze of stars. Torches flared across the whole anchorage as boats plied to and fro carrying the last of the wounded. Blazing buildings were dotted around the town, with an obvious arc of fire inland where the colonel was destroying houses to provide a clear field of fire. What would the locals say, having sacrificed their homes, when they saw the troops marching for the jetty, and the safety of their transports?
The wind was still in the east, slightly north, faint but steady. The hands had been called and were already bringing the Planet
