9,59 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Serie: Privateersman
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
Part naval swashbuckler, part mystery story, "The Dying Trade" tells the story of smuggling and death in the Mediterranean at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Harry Ludlow and his brother James find themselves in Genoa where Harry is commissioned to investigate a British officer's death.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 645
Ähnliche
The Dying Trade
DAVID DONACHIE
To Tom
Contents
PROLOGUE
DRUNK HE MIGHT BE, but William Broadbridge knew he was in the wrong part of the port. The only light he could see was the thin strip of pale night sky directly above his head. The moon hadn’t risen sufficiently to penetrate this dank and stinking carruga, an alley so narrow that two men would struggle to pass each other. That very lack of width allowed him to support himself while he tried to make sense of where he was and what was going on. He peered into the darkness trying to identify the source of the scuffling noises, hearing a quiet, oddly familiar, yet seemingly disembodied laugh as he staggered forward. It must be imagination, for there was no one to be seen. It was the creaking sound of the straining rope, followed by a strangled gasp, that made him look up. The feet were kicking violently, but they were not aimed at him. The crack on the head from one polished toe was not, in itself, enough to cause him to collapse. But it combined with the effect of drink and the mere act of looking up. He fell heavily against the stone wall and slid down into an untidy heap.
He was not out for long. Enough time for the moon to traverse far enough in the sky to send a shaft of silver light down one dirt-streaked wall. That light, and the fluid dripping onto his tricorn hat, sped his waking. Broadbridge sniffed loudly, aware, even in such a noxious port as Genoa, of the overpowering smell of human waste. He looked up, ill-advisedly, since another drop of urine parted from the polished toe, this time missing his hat and landing square in his eye. His angry shout reverberated off the walls of the alleyway as he struggled to his feet. He looked up again, this time with more caution. The body, closer now and fully lit, wore the full-dress uniform of a British naval officer, a senior captain judging by the twin epaulettes. It swung gently in the slight breeze, turning this way and that as though it could not settle. The eyes seemed to start from their sockets and the tongue, clasped between his clenched teeth, had been bitten through in death’s agony, adding blood to the mixture of fluids staining the hard-packed earth below. The man was dead, and in his death he had voided himself, as all men do.
Broadbridge turned to get away, kicking the gold-braided hat as he did so. In one swift movement he picked it up and ran unsteadily towards the well-lit quayside, trying desperately to quell the pending upheaval in his stomach. Vaguely he registered his proximity to the looming bulk of the Customs Fort, with the added tinge of unease caused by the thought that he shouldn’t be anywhere near the place. He managed to get his head over the low harbour wall before he was sick, retching noisily, ignored by the guards standing duty under the torches which lit up the fortress gates.
Eventually he pulled himself upright, wiping his sleeve across his mouth, cursing the burning sensation in his throat. He looked at the hat, still in his hand, fingering the gold that covered its edge. Then he turned it over, and peering inside he saw Howlett clearly marked on the nametape sewn inside. With a swift movement he flung it out into the harbour. William Broadbridge wanted nothing to do with the navy, nothing to do with murder, and nothing whatever to do with a man called Howlett.
That damned Customs Fort. He knew now that he’d turned the wrong way on leaving Ma Thomas’s tavern. Not that he’d wanted to leave. William Broadbridge would much rather have stayed in that overheated, smoke-filled place, with a full pot of ale to drink, a wench on his lap, and a winning bet on the fight that would be taking place in the pit at the far end of the room. But it was not to be. His tankard would stay as empty as the pockets of his blue broadcloth coat. Silently he cursed under his breath, damning God, the devil, and his fellow men, and wondering where in the world his next penny would come from.
The quayside became busier and brighter as he made his way north, away from the Customs Fort towards the area near the centre of the bay called the Madelena, with its teeming bawdy houses and taverns. He wiped his brow to remove the sweat caused by the warm night air and tried to adjust his eyes so that each image passing before him was singular, instead of the double he was seeing now. And he roundly cursed the citizens of Genoa, as though his poverty and his inability to focus could be laid entirely at their door.
That was the theme which dominated his thoughts as he staggered along. This cursed place, bankers to half the known world, bursting at the seams with gold, none of which he could get his hands on. A city state, a thriving port, and a so-called republic that was really just a swindle perpetrated by the rich upon the poor. The waterside tenements, rising up from the narrow alleyways into the sky till they nearly met at the top, crowded together with the warehouses, left little room for traffic of any sort. Yet beside a building teeming with ragged, hungry, and filthy inhabitants, amid the stink of crowded and deprived humanity, you could find an intricately carved doorway that would lead to a secret and spacious palazzo. Behind the buildings that bounded the port the new palaces of the rich, built cheek by jowl in glaring display, vied in size with the numerous churches and cathedrals of an earlier age.
Men spoke of revolution, of emulating their French cousins and setting up the guillotine before the cathedral in the Piazza San Domenico, so that the aristocrats and bankers who controlled their miserable lives could be brought to justice. Yet the advent of Jacobinism merely added another strain of conflict to a city at perpetual war with itself. Men fought ancient feuds, with Guelphs and Ghibellines still ready to carry their loyalty for Pope or Emperor to open conflict, even if the true cause was lost in the mists of time. Freemasonry flourished despite the efforts of friars and Jesuits to stamp it out. Business rivalries overlaid all this, with families pitted against each other in a bewildering series of shifting alliances. Few wealthy men ventured out into the streets without an armed escort to protect their person, and they took care to build their houses and palazzos with barred windows on the lower floors that made a surprise attack impossible.
Broadbridge, still cursing the city and his luck, bundled people aside. He was in the Soparipa now, the arcade that ran under the sea wall, each arch a stall or shop with the vendors loudly crying out to shift their wares. The smell of exotic spices filled his nostrils, which did nothing to assuage his raging thirst. The hungry, adults and children alike, wandered about or sat listless where they could. Some, with more food inside them, sought to beg from him. Perhaps they would seek to rob him. The Englishman laughed at the thought of some dip stealing his purse. They were welcome to it, for its only value lay in the leather it was made of.
Little of the great wealth of Genoa permeated down to these wretches, who stood to gain something from any revolutionary upheaval. He swore at them in turn, for as a true-born Englishman he’d have no truck with turmoil unless, of course, it smacked of profit. Broadbridge sucked in a great breath of air as he emerged onto the quayside again, though to call it fresh would leave out mention of the stench of the port. He swayed through the crowds which parted uncertainly to avoid him, and fixed his bleary eyes on the entrance to Ma Thomas’s place. Dry-mouthed and with a still-burning throat, he debated returning to his ship. But the problems there were, if anything, worse than those he faced here. The tavern was full of people. Folk with money to spend. Perhaps, at this late hour, one of them would be far enough gone, or so flush with a successful wager, that they would stand him a drink. And you could never be sure that there wasn’t a soul inside just dying to invest in William Broadbridge. After all, he’d been lucky once. Perhaps he could manage the same good fortune twice. Volubly he reassured himself that for William Broadbridge something would turn up. Something always did!
CHAPTER ONE
IT HAD BEEN a mistake for the Ludlow brothers to attend the ball given in honour of Admiral Hood. Yet what excuse could they give to such a close family friend? You could not say they were being ignored, since all the proper forms were fully observed, and the officers of the newly arrived fleet, unaware of what was about to take place, were agog to hear about the action they had just participated in, a battle in which the Magnanime of seventy-four guns had engaged two Frenchmen of equal strength, though they studiously avoided any allusion to the other events which had resulted in a number of dead bodies aboard the ship.
But those based here were giving them a wide berth, lest by association they would be thought to be taking sides. Gibraltar was, in all respects, a garrison town. The governor was an army officer. Those posts in the administration not filled by officers of the army or the navy were filled by civilians who depended on the military for their very existence, and aware of the quarrel and its possible outcome the civilians were taking their cue from those in uniform.
The admiral had stopped by and had a word, and for a brief moment they were at the centre of a busy throng. But the guest of honour could not be expected to expend his time on them, and Hood had passed on, circulating round the room in the company of the governor, exchanging a word with everyone in turn. A number of ladies glanced in their direction, for the Ludlows were a handsome pair. But with strict orders from their husbands or fathers, none dared approach within ten feet.
James turned to his brother, having listened to him explain the recent action for the twentieth time. ‘I think we could decently leave, don’t you?’
Harry took a glass of punch from a passing servant, ‘Let’s wait till the admiral leaves. It won’t be long. He’s not overfond of this sort of gathering.’
James frowned slightly. ‘Do you think he knows?’
‘I doubt it. If he did, he would likely forbid it,’ said Harry.
‘He surely cannot forbid you.’
‘Duelling is illegal. Especially for serving officers. He could most certainly stop Clere.’
‘I should think there are any number of people in this very room who could stop Clere.’
James had raised his voice so that a fair number of the people close by could hear him, including a knot of officers standing in a group by one of the tall windows. Some of them turned sharply at the sound of his words, flushed with embarrassment or anger.
Harry knew that James was indulging in a touch of family loyalty. He’d spent the last two days trying to persuade Harry that he was being foolish. Indeed, that his opponent wasn’t worth the effort. But Harry took what James had done at face value, adding a small laugh. ‘Hush, James. We can’t fight them all.’
Hood, at the other end of the room by the double doors, was just taking his leave. Seeing the admiral finally depart, a lieutenant detached himself from the group by the window and walked towards them.
‘Mr Ludlow,’ he said, stopping in front of them and addressing James. ‘My principal wishes me to inform you that an apology is still possible.’
James just shook his head. He didn’t even bother to ask Harry. Despair he might, but he knew his brother too well for that.
‘Then I must inform you that Captain Clere has chosen swords for the encounter.’
‘Thank you, Lieutenant,’ said James stiffly. ‘We shall see you at dawn.’
The man turned on his heel and walked away. With a sudden show of anger, Harry flung the contents of his glass down his throat and stalked out of the room, followed by his brother.
At dawn, the top of the Rock was a beautiful place to be. The sun would rise in the east, clear across a thousand miles of sea, catching the tip of the mountain and bathing it in light, while the town below remained in darkness. Indeed, they had walked up in darkness and in silence, for all that had to be said had been tried. Harry could have declined this encounter with no real loss of honour, for Captain Clere, who had engineered the challenge, had been drunk at the time. It seemed to Harry that Oliver Carter, late captain of the Magnanime and his old adversary, whose body now lay in the cemetery, was going to cause him as many difficulties in death as he had in life.
Clere stood with his second silhouetted against the first hint of light in the morning sky, the false dawn that came when the sun had yet to clear the rim of the Earth. The effect was grey and morbid. The surgeon stood off to one side, fussing around, not sure whether to sort out his instruments or the two swords he was holding under his arm. The sky was lightening quickly, as the new sun lay just below the horizon. They stood watching as it rose, turning the night sky from blue through grey. The red rim of the emerging orb added a slim line of bright orange to the very east.
‘I suppose one last appeal to reason would be a waste of breath?’ said James softly.
‘It would only be putting off the day, James. If I decline this challenge, I only open myself up to others.’
‘You do that anyway, brother. It is not good to have a reputation for going out. There are people who love this sort of thing, and will challenge you for mere sport.’
‘One thing at a time. Let me survive this and I promise you I will worry about the rest.’
James spoke again, the light from the east now strong enough to show the anger on his face. ‘Someone could have stopped him, Harry.’
‘The good of the service, James. He might have been behaving like a drunken oaf. It may be that none of his fellows esteems him very highly. But our actions have not endeared us to his fellow officers. Call it partly envy if you like. But while they don’t feel strongly enough to challenge us themselves, they are quite prepared to let Clere have his chance. Besides, to interfere may expose them to the same threat. He has quite a reputation for his temper, I believe. A hard man to control. All that about Carter being his friend is so much eyewash.’
‘All the more reason for you to decline,’ said James.
‘You have the flask, Pender?’ Harry used this question to his servant to avoid answering his brother. Pender passed him the flask containing coffee laced with brandy. Harry took it, and allowed himself a small sip, before passing it to James. ‘You may need this more than I, brother. Watching a duel is much more disturbing than taking part.’
James just shook his head, and Harry passed the flask back to Pender with the injunction to help himself. His servant did so gratefully, giving an exaggerated shiver as he did so.
The formalities had started as soon as the first edge of the sun tipped over the horizon. The surgeon approached both parties, giving them the option to withdraw. Once refused, cloaks and coats were removed, and with their white shirts taking on the colour of the blood-red sun, now just clearing the horizon and steadily turning gold, the two combatants joined the surgeon in the centre of the open space. Quietly he ordered them to abide by the rules of the engagement.
‘For the last time, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘is there no way to avoid this encounter?’
Both shook their heads. Harry looked at Clere, seeing him for the first time without wig or uniform coat. The hair was long, mouse-coloured, straggled, and thin. His face bore the marks of many physical encounters, including a nose that had been on the receiving end of a fair number of heavy blows. His blue eyes were opaque and lifeless, and the lips, which always seemed to have a superior smile, were now tightly pursed together, evidence of the tension he was feeling. And the shoulders seemed hunched without the benefit of his epaulettes. Like this, Clere was an altogether less imposing figure. Harry felt himself relax. Now that he was finally going into action, the knot of fear, always present in the period of waiting, evaporated. He felt alive, able to see and think with absolute clarity, and the grin he gave Clere as they took up the ‘on guard’ position caused a look of fear to flash across the man’s eyes.
Harry knew then that he was in the presence of an opponent who talked a good fight, a man who intimidated people by his sudden loss of temper and the violence of his language, a man who was now afraid, for on this occasion his passion had carried him to the point of a proper duel, and with a dangerous opponent. He didn’t want to be there any more than Harry Ludlow, yet he could not withdraw for fear of losing face.
The sun was full up now, bathing the grassy slope that capped the mountain in a brilliant light, and making the carpet of long grass sparkle as it caught the tiny drops of morning dew. Below them the sea had gone from black to grey. Soon, as it reflected the light from the sky, it would turn to blue. The swords scraped together as the surgeon commanded the duel to commence. Clere tried to circle round, forcing Harry to face the low, blinding sun. Harry declined and thrust at his unprotected side. Clere parried and started to swing his sword to cut at his opponent. But Harry Ludlow wasn’t there. In defiance of the proper rules of swordplay, he leapt past Clere and gave him a mighty whack on the buttocks with the flat of his blade. Clere gave a strangled cry, spinning round swiftly. Harry’s sword sliced right through his flapping shirt, swept in an arc to push Clere’s sword away, before he darted round to the back again and fetched him another mighty blow on the arse.
Clere staggered forward, propelled by the force of the blow, and Harry followed through, hitting him again and again, driving him on like a beast of burden. Every time Clere tried to turn to face him, Harry plied to with his sword, smashing down his opponent’s blade to check him, before getting behind him again. Half his eye took in the astonishment on the faces of Clere’s party as he alternately whipped his adversary with the flat of his blade, or slashed another slice out of his now tattered shirt. And they winced as their man’s cries of pain rent the morning air.
He had no doubt that Clere would have put up a decent show in a proper contest, fought according to the rules. No doubt the man would have taken a wound and chosen to carry on, even have died, rather than face the humiliation of being thought a coward. For Harry the choice was simple. To kill him or debunk him. He could see no point in the former course, for it would, to him, be tantamount to murder. Inelegant it might be, but this was a course that appealed to him more than the futile taking of a life.
Another blow to the buttocks, followed by a foot jammed into the back of his knees, forced Clere to fall forward. Harry waited for him to struggle to his feet before commencing again. The cries got louder, turning to screams as Harry’s sword fell heavily on a part already bruised. The air resounded with the sound, the loud smack as the metal made painful contact, interspersed with the increasingly rare sound of blade upon blade.
Clere fell again, his breath coming in great gasps. Harry stood back, allowing him to rise. He moved like an old man, the pain he was feeling obvious in his eyes.
‘Damn you, Ludlow. Stand still and fight,’ he gasped.
Harry lunged forward. Clere raised his sword and managed to parry a few blows before Harry was through his guard, his sword on the man’s chest. Clere had a look of defiance on his face, daring Harry to finish things and run him through. But Harry just leapt past him again and started on the same tactic of beating him. Clere went down several times, struggling to his feet more painfully on each occasion, his breath coming in great gulps. There was a look of despair in his eyes now, mirrored in the faces of his party, as they saw how fresh his enemy was, hardly even perspiring as he danced around, always out of reach of Clere’s flailing sword.
It could not go on, and Harry, realising that Clere would never give up, thrust forward with ease and put his blade through the fleshy upper part of the man’s sword arm. A great spurt of blood came from the wound as Clere dropped his weapon. He clasped his other arm across his chest, his hand seeking to stem the flow of blood, and looked defiantly at Harry.
‘Go on, sir. Finish it off.’
Clere was a victim of his tongue to the last. He could not see a way to withdraw and would not acknowledge that honour had been satisfied. Harry lunged forward again, his sword aiming straight for a point just under Clere’s rib cage. He saw the look of terror in his opponent’s eyes, just before they went glassy and blank.
The surgeon, standing behind Harry’s opponent, rushed forward as Clere slid to the ground, turning him over and looking to stem the wound in the man’s chest. He spun round startled, looking at Harry, who was standing, breathing easily, in the golden light of a full and sunlit morning. When he spoke, it would have been easy for the surgeon to mistake the target, for the distaste was evident in his voice. But it wasn’t aimed at the comatose naval officer. Harry Ludlow was angry with himself, both for being here in the first place, as well as for the manner in which he’d behaved.
‘Tend his arm, Doctor. I didn’t touch his chest. He just passed clean away from fright.’
Harry walked back to where his brother and Pender stood. He took the flask his servant offered and allowed himself a deep swallow before saying anything.
‘It’s always seemed to me, brother, that the last word one should use at the conclusion of a duel is satisfaction.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘DAMNED STUFF and nonsense,’ snapped the old man, looking directly at Harry Ludlow from under his thick grey eyebrows. ‘I can’t think what your father would say to hear you talk like this.’
‘Perhaps it would be better not to discuss it at all, sir.’
James Ludlow, Harry’s younger brother, looked at the two men and tried to suppress a smile. Both faces held expressions of politely masked displeasure. The older man sat at the head of the long table, set across the great cabin of the Victory, with the two brothers on his right and left. His dark blue coat was covered in sparkling decorations, with the red sash of the Order of the Bath across his snow-white waistcoat, evidence of his success, many years before, as a fighting sailor. And for all his years ashore, both at the Admiralty, in the House of Lords, and in attendance at the court of King George, Hood’s language had lost none of its salty flavour. He was a man accustomed to silencing opposition, be it on a quarterdeck or in an oak-panelled debating chamber.
Harry Ludlow, despite his regard for Admiral Hood’s age and reputation, did not enjoy being talked down to. He had spent too many years in command of his own ships to relish the tone of avuncular disapproval which had been an ongoing feature of their voyage aboard the flagship.
‘I will discuss at my table any matter I please.’ Hood, perhaps being a mite sharper in his response than was strictly polite, tried to stare Harry down.
‘Then you will very likely find yourself dining alone,’ snapped Harry, returning the stare, and the tone of the admiral’s observation, in full measure.
Hood’s face started to show real anger, the mouth hardening, his nostrils flaring, and the eyebrows seeming to thicken as they joined above his nose. But he suddenly leaned back in his chair and laughed out loud. He was a tall man, with a long raw-boned face, a big nose, and a high red colouring, set off by his thick grey eyebrows. Handsome in his youth, he’d aged well, seeming much younger than his years. Yet he had the kind of hearty, heaving laugh that with his ruddy complexion made one wonder for his health.
‘You always were a gamecock, Harry, even as a nipper. I recall your father tellin’ me how often he had to stretch you across a gun and thrash you.’
He dropped his voice to a clearly audible whisper.
‘None of this lot would dare talk back to me. They agree with everything I say, sane or stupid. It makes for a dull voyage.’ He looked down the long dining table at the assembled officers, senior captains amongst them. None even dared to catch his eye.
Hood sat back in his chair, the bony red face adopting an air of polite enquiry as he turned to his left to address his other civilian guest.
‘What about you, young James. Do you share the Ludlow family temper? Or are you more of your mother’s sort?’
‘I do think, my lord, that the last person to cast an opinion on their demeanour should be oneself. After all, if it manifests itself as a high opinion, it’s self-aggrandisement, and if a poor one, it’s likely to be false modesty.’
The thick eyebrows twitched as Hood looked at James. He saw before him a slim, fair-haired young man with a lively, handsome face, elegantly dressed, perfectly at ease. Neither exalted company nor an elegant setting would dent James Ludlow’s self-assurance. He was a man at home in graceful society, a well-known artist, sought after for his portraits. He was also known to have a sharp tongue, and mercurial temper. A man well able to look after himself. Yet it was not the bulldog temperament of his elder brother. The likeness in the two was evident. But with Harry there was a girth that was lacking in James, plus a physical presence, a life-long sailor’s colouring and want of refinement.
Hood adopted a mildly disapproving air, though the bright blue eyes, twinkling merrily, belied the effect. ‘No, I think not. You’re not like Harry at all. I don’t see your father in you, as I do in him. Tell the truth, you seem like a bit of a cold fish to me, James Ludlow.’
His guest held the old man’s eye, unblinking. ‘And I dare say that you imagine yourself as a jovial old cove, full of wit and bluff charm.’
There was a second’s silence. It was Harry Ludlow who was now suppressing a laugh. James had a wry grin on his face now, but everyone else stared at their plates, anticipating, indeed wanting, the coming blast.
‘Insolent swab. Whole damned family the same,’ said Hood gently, his face relaxing into a wistful smile.
The cloth had been drawn, and the port was making its rounds. Pender sat in the pantry with Hood’s steward, eating as well as those they had just served. It would be a foolish servant who didn’t instruct the cook to prepare enough food, with a respectable quantity left over. Likewise with the wine. Having sipped fine clarets and burgundies, they were now treating themselves to a rich plum duff, and a fair quantity of an excellent Marsala.
‘You don’t know the half of it,’ said Crane, the admiral’s steward, through a mouthful of food. He was as tall as his master, but thin as a rake, stooped from years in cramped quarters. He moved in a very fastidious way, his bony fingers elegantly and methodically wielding a knife and fork. The long doleful face was dominated by a large pointed nose, surmounted by sunken eyes. As he bent slightly to his food, he reminded Pender of a heron feeding in a marsh.
‘Then I’d be obliged if you’d fill me in.’ Pender lacked the refinement of the other man. He had a tendency to stab at his food with his knife, the fork poised useless in the other hand. But then he’d only recently had the chance to become acquainted with such surroundings, whereas Crane had been doing the job, afloat and ashore, for decades.
The old servant popped a morsel into his mouth. ‘Thick as thieves they was, and always looking to advance each other’s chances of a plum.’
Pender was fascinated by the background of the Ludlow family. He’d picked up bits here and there about the two brothers who now employed him, from things they’d said, and from general lower-deck gossip. But Crane’s memory could hark back to before James was born, to the friendship of Hood and their father, Admiral Sir Thomas Ludlow.
‘There was a good case against that bastard he challenged,’ Crane continued, munching steadily. ‘Evidence that he had provoked young Harry Ludlow to a duel. If he’d saw fit to apologise to the court, your master would still be a serving officer. Still, the sod got his comeuppance in the end, eh?’
Crane’s calm manner, and his stuck-up air of superiority, offended Pender. ‘He damn near did for both of them second time round. It was touch and go, I can tell you.’
The other man sniffed loudly. ‘So you say.’
It was obvious Crane believed he was exaggerating. What a pleasure it would be to tell the parchment-skinned bugger how wrong he was. To tell him the unvarnished truth about life aboard the Magnanime and the actions, never mind the preferences, of the ship’s premier, Bentley. The despicable way that the Ludlows’ ship had been sunk. Of how that old feud with the Magnanime’s captain had seemingly led to murder. Or the accusations laid against James, with evidence so strong that he was set to hang, for certain. Crane wouldn’t eat so steadily, nor look down his nose with such deliberate scorn, if he informed him of the assistance that he himself had rendered. But Pender bit his tongue. Such a tale might require him to explain his background as well, to say where he acquired certain skills that helped Harry Ludlow prove his brother’s innocence. A thief, especially a good one, does not go boasting, unless he’s determined to hang himself.
Crane missed the look in Pender’s eye. He thought the youngster cocky, mistaking his assured air for bravado. And lacking a sense of humour himself, he couldn’t fathom the jokey way Pender went about his duties. To Crane, the lad was no proper servant. He was wrong about most things regarding his fellow-diner, but not about that. Just a few weeks before Pender had been a common seaman.
‘It is sort of insultin’, you know, Harry. I am not the only one who stood ready to help you. Indeed others spoke out, risking a rebuff on your behalf. Not only did you damn yourself out of your own mouth, but you threw our offers of assistance back into our faces.’
Not even the eminent Lord Hood would have wanted to utter such words in the presence of others. He was seated on the row of velvet-covered locker-tops by the sternlight of the Victory’s main cabin, still wearing his wig, but down to his shirtsleeves on this warm Mediterranean evening. The sun, sinking in the west, streamed through the seven windows that stretched across the rear of the great cabin, its rays flashing off the silver and the highly polished furniture. James sat in a captain’s chair halfway across the room, hidden from view, his brow furrowed as he concentrated on the sketch pad balanced on his crossed knees.
‘Reinstatement is not something I can ask for,’ said Harry, his eyes fixed on the straight white line of the flagship’s wake, which stretched into the distance across the smooth blue sea.
‘Damn me, you won’t get it if you don’t. I should have insisted in sitting on that court martial myself.’ He gave Harry a glare that had made the most senior officers in the navy tremble. ‘I’d like to have seen you refuse to apologise to me.’
Harry allowed himself a slight smile. ‘I seem to recall that you were rather busy.’
Hood, second in command to Admiral Rodney, had just assisted his superior to rout the French fleet under the Comte de Grasse. The Battle of the Saintes had left both Rodney and Hood with other preoccupations. The trial of a junior officer for challenging his superior to a duel, expressly forbidden by the Articles of War, could hardly have distracted the attention of someone in that position, regardless of the nature of their relationship.
‘All you have to do is apologise. Even now. Then we can petition the king.’
Hood’s head snapped round angrily as Harry said an emphatic ‘no.’
James looked round the side of his sketch pad. ‘I dare say that Harry has in mind the fact that he will have to behave like all the other officers aboard, and forgo the pleasure of insulting you if he dons a king’s uniform again …’
Hood opened his mouth to reply but James, his head now back behind the pad, cut him off. ‘And I would be obliged if you would keep your head still. The hope is that this sketch will form the basis of a portrait. If you keep bobbing about it will end up like a Gillray cartoon.’
Hood, his thick grey eyebrows quivering, glared at the back of the pad. ‘All I’m saying is this, James. That if your brother had good cause not to reapply for his commission, I would esteem it a kindness to be told. After all, the man he challenged is now dead, and in circumstances which cannot harm your case.’
‘Will that become public?’ asked Harry.
‘Lord, no,’ said Hood emphatically. Then his face darkened. ‘It’s bound to get about in the service, of course.’
‘Then I don’t see how it can help,’ said Harry. He left out that regaining a commission in such circumstances might be equally demeaning.
‘I can’t abide pessimism in you, Harry. It’s positively unnatural in a man of your stripe.’ Hood paused, his ruddy face assuming a look of concentration as he marshalled his thoughts.
‘So I must blacken his memory.’
‘What’s the matter with that? You couldn’t abide the fellow when he was alive. Damn it, man, you put a bullet in Carter and sacrificed your commission rather than retract. All you’ll be saying is that he was as bad a first lieutenant as he was a commander. That puts the offence of your challenging him to a duel in a different light. Believe me, if you can get the Court to see him in bad odour, then you are as good as back in the navy. Take my word for it. That bunch of gossiping arrivistes that surround the king love nothing more than a reputation to blacken.’
There was appreciable bitterness in his last words. Hood himself had just been involved in conflict with those very forces, a battle he’d lost. ‘King’s mad of course, so a lot depends on the Prince of Wales. If you can stop him whoring for a moment, you might catch his ear.’
‘That, my dear Admiral, is lèse-majesté,’ said James, with deliberate irony, poking his head round the pad again.
That brought a flush to Hood’s already ruddy cheeks. ‘If you can find anyone with less majesty than that family, I’ll be surprised. Royalty! They’re not fit to be yeoman farmers.’
‘Especially ‘Black Dick’ Howe?’ James raised an amused eyebrow.
‘Don’t bait me, you young brat. But it may be that the king gets his habit of talking to trees from trying to converse with his bastard cousin. Are you acquainted with Lord Howe, Harry?’
‘I was introduced once.’ Harry smiled. ‘He didn’t say much.’
‘He never does. Talking to him is like talking to this.’ He rapped his knuckles on the wooden bulkhead, and frowned, then sniffed dismissively. ‘Corruption, pure and simple.’
Lord Howe had pipped Hood, then serving as the senior naval Lord of the Admiralty, to the command of the Channel Fleet. Hood knew, as did anyone with tactical sense, that in this new war with Revolutionary France the Mediterranean was a sideshow. The real naval battles would take place closer to home. That was where the true glory lay.
Harry couldn’t resist a little baiting himself, after the drubbing he received for his intransigence. ‘I have heard that he is a competent commander.’
‘He damned well better be,’ snapped Hood, with a gratifyingly apoplectic response. ‘Or His Britannic Majesty, Cousin George, the third of that name, may find himself in deep water! He might find himself living next door to his French cousins in exile, or back in Hanover where the brood was sired.’
There was a great deal more in this vein, with a good deal of arm waving, as Hood vented his spleen on those who’d thwarted his ambitions. James, having surrendered any hope that his subject would remain still, used the gamut of expressions to effect a goodly number of less than flattering sketches, including one with the mad King George, portly and goggle-eyed, addressing the admiral, drawn in the guise of a furious oak tree. Harry was merely pleased that the conversation had moved on from his concerns to those of their host.
It had been good fortune for them that their father’s old friend had put into Gibraltar before they left. They’d been forced to stay longer than they would have wished, called upon by the navy to participate in the investigations which had followed their arrival. Everyone had been shocked at their tale, but instead of being grateful to them for exposing wrongdoing, most naval officers had tended to cold-shoulder them. For one, they did not much favour privateers. Worse than that, as a breed they were painfully sensitive about their collective and personal honour. Harry’s actions might have exposed serious wrongdoing, as well as solved more than one outright crime. But he had brought the entire service into disrepute in the process.
And the Ludlows had not raised their standing when it emerged that they’d brought ashore a fair quantity of gold, the proceeds of an action against a French merchantman, who had, in turn, taken it off a Spanish ship. No one aboard the Magnanime had even had an inkling of its existence, supposing, when Harry regaled them with the tale, that the specie had been shipped home in one of his previous captures. Nor did he or James let on once they were ashore. The agent of this further piece of approbation was the banker whose offer of purchase Harry declined. Gold in Gibraltar took its price from Spain, a country which offered notoriously low value when trading bullion. So the brothers elected to ship it home. Offended, the banker breached his normal rules of discretion.
In a small place like Gibraltar, word got round quickly. To have taken a quantity of gold was bad enough. To be a ‘damned’ privateer was worse. To be wealthy enough to delay before turning it into ready coin enraged certain people further. It was then easy for such types to cloak both envy and dislike in the mantle of their love of the service. Most had kept their distance, reserving their unflattering remarks for each other, rather than aiming them at the Ludlows. But a few of the naval officers were less restrained, especially when drink and braggadocio had loosened both their manners and their tongues. The challenge which Clere engineered was inevitable.
They had been seeking to book a passage home to England, always assuming that Harry survived the impending encounter with Captain Clere, when the Victory, at the head of ten sail of the line, had been sighted from the top of the Rock weathering Algiceras Bay. All thoughts of business, deadly or dull, were put into abeyance as everyone went down to welcome the fleet. Hood welcomed Harry and James aboard like his own sons. To the subsequent chagrin of his officers, he offered them a passage to Genoa, from where they could take the land route home through Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands. Harry had demurred, preferring a sea passage. But James, fired by memories of his Grand Tour, and the thoughts of the artistic splendours of Italy and Vienna, had prevailed.
Hood’s regard for the Ludlow brothers forced a certain amount of official respect from the Victory’s officers. But their disapproval, once they’d been fully apprised of recent happenings, was never far from the surface. And Harry had not raised himself in the general estimation by his unorthodox humiliation of Clere. Finally losing his temper one day, he asked James loudly, in the hearing of all the officers on the quarterdeck, how they would have stood if he’d just killed the bastard.
To the general relief, it would be a short voyage. Hood was making for Toulon, to reinforce the ships already there, Spanish and English, blockading the great French Mediterranean port. But, unless the situation had changed in the meantime, he’d be forced to victual his ships at Genoa, and Harry and James would transfer to whichever ship was next due to take on stores.
CHAPTER THREE
HARRY held up the white hose stocking, pointed to the very obvious repair, and smiled at Pender. ‘They are, without doubt, repaired, I’ll grant that much. Though the stitch is more suited to a bolt of number seven canvas than a gentleman’s stocking.’
‘I reckon my talents don’t lie in that direction, your honour. All a matter of upbringin’, no doubt.’
Pender, sitting astride the great gun that occupied half the cabin, was smiling too, unabashed by this seeming rebuke. He was a small man with a lively dark-skinned face and a ready smile. And he had a way of addressing those in authority which undermined them, without them being quite aware of how it had happened.
‘Indeed they don’t,’ said Harry. Pender had been allotted to him as a servant aboard the Magnanime, and it was plain from the first day that sailoring was not his true profession. His success in his true field of endeavour meant there were any number of hands waiting to lay themselves upon him to answer for his previous actions in England.
Hence his haste to join the navy. Harry, desperate for ways to aid his brother James, had sought Pender’s help, which had been forthcoming in no uncertain terms. Now, having been an inexperienced member of the king’s navy, he had taken to the role of Harry’s servant with great enthusiasm. And he had been an almost unqualified success. The one thing he couldn’t master was the art of sewing, surprising in a man with such nimble fingers.
Harry had engineered his release from the king’s service, and the instructions to Harry’s brother-in-law, Lord Drumdryan, guardian of the Ludlow family wealth, to seek out Pender’s dependants and take them under his protection, had been sent off in the first mail packet leaving Gibraltar after the Magnanime limped into port.
‘You’ll be lookin’ forrard to having your own ship again,’ said Pender.
Harry shot his brother a quick glance to see if he’d heard, before giving Pender what he thought was an imperceptible shake of the head. Since they were sharing a berth there was little room, though, being one of the wardroom side cabins, it had the benefit of daylight. James was lying on his cot, his back to the casement window, apparently engrossed in a book by John Evelyn, who’d travelled in the part of Italy for which they were headed. Harry was therefore surprised when he spoke.
‘Am I being excluded from something?’ James turned towards the silent pair and snapped his book shut, trapping his thumb to maintain the page.
Harry Ludlow was the picture of innocence abused. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘An unnatural silence, Harry. Plus the fact that Pender seems intent on making himself so busy that he will avoid eye contact with me.’
‘I do have work, Mister James.’ Pender had a hurt tone that had fooled many a sheriff’s man.
‘You have not answered Pender’s question, Harry.’
Harry now assumed a perplexed look. ‘What question?’
‘Now I know something’s afoot.’ He opened the book again, and began to read it. ‘By the way, Lord Hood’s clerk was looking for you earlier.’
‘Indeed?’ Harry did not attempt to hide his suspicion. He looked like a man who had seen his watch on someone else’s waistcoat.
‘Nothing important, I gather.’ James yawned, increasing the tension in the cabin. ‘The fellow just wanted to know if you had made up your mind. Seems the admiral is interested.’
Harry, on the other side of the gun, looked pointedly at the stocking, still in his hand. ‘Made up my mind? About what?’
‘About buying another ship, and continuing your privateering in the Mediterranean.’ James looked up from his book again, his face devoid of expression. ‘Instead of going home as we originally intended. After all, brother, you don’t lack funds.’
Harry flushed guiltily, his hand rubbing his coat involuntarily, to check that the oilskin pouch containing their letters of credit was still there. James observed this, aware that the sums named therein considerably outweighed the value of their gold.
‘It’s as well that those fellows in Gibraltar knew nothing of our true financial position. If they had we’d have been stoned like Christian martyrs.’ He followed this observation with another studied yawn. ‘I believe I posed a question. Or was it Pender?’
Pender busied himself even more as Harry gave a grudging reply. ‘It was only a thought. Nothing’s decided.’
‘Really. Fellow had some charts of the Ligurian Sea, and was full of talk of the situation in Leghorn, which, if I’m not mistaken, is just down the coast from Genoa. Talkative cove, the admiral’s clerk. He was telling me all about the place. He seemed quite sure of your plans, though he doubted that you would persuade the admiral to reissue your exemptions. Strange that you didn’t see fit to mention any of this to me.’
‘I am still investigating the possibilities, which I may say I’m entitled to do. There are any number of obstacles. But regardless of all else, any thoughts I may harbour would all come to naught if I can’t safely crew the ship, so getting those exemptions back would be vital.’
There was truth in Harry’s words, but also a grain of dissimulation. They did not explain his eagerness to be at sea. Prior to his previous voyage, his brother-in-law had sought to persuade him that it was folly, using cogent arguments that a man with his responsibilities should not be chasing around the oceans trying to earn money he didn’t need. Arthur, while happy to look after Harry’s affairs, none the less saw telling the truth as part of his duties. He was ably supported by Harry’s sister, though her concerns were emotional rather than practical. If he went back to England, he knew he would have no end of trouble getting afloat again. Arthur would seek to enmesh him in politics and business immediately. His sister would load him with concerns about their estate. There was no point in saying any of this to James, who had no time, and even less regard, for their brother-in-law. Ignoring Arthur was a long-standing habit with James. He would not comprehend his brother’s reservations.
‘Pender,’ said James, smiling. ‘Do try and stop inventing little tasks. You sound like a ship’s rat scrabbling about.’
‘Sorry, your honour,’ said Pender softly, addressing Harry. ‘Sort of let the cat out of the bag.’
‘Of course it’s really none of my concern, Harry. After all that has happened these past weeks, I can understand your reluctance to have me sail with you again.’
‘That’s unfair,’ snapped Harry.
‘I know.’ His brother laughed, closing the book on his thumb again. ‘But I do so enjoy catching you out. Now pray tell me what you have in mind.’
Over the next few days, Harry spent much time in the great cabin with Hood, seeking to persuade the admiral that the loss of his hands from the Medusa, all of them exempt from naval service, was just as much a matter for compensation as reimbursing him for the loss of his ship. Hood was unmoved, despite Harry’s oft-repeated argument that without having his hands exempt from the press, he might as well not bother to search out a crew, since any naval vessel, coming across his ship, with him flying under a British flag, could whip off as many of his hands as they cared to.
‘A fine state of affairs for an Englishman,’ cried Harry, with a dramatic flourish of his arm. ‘To have to run from the ships of his own country.’
Hood merely laughed. They both knew the tricks of the trade, like having your men dress in odd costumes and speaking gibberish when asked any question about their past. Legally, a man could only be taken out of a ship if he volunteered, or could be positively identified as a deserter. But they also both knew that legality counted for little in the middle of the ocean, far from any authority other than the barrel of a cannon.
‘Perhaps you have chosen the wrong game, Harry,’ replied Hood, eyebrows raised, and with a humorous twinkle in his eye.
‘Does that mean that the answer is no?’
Hood shook his head. ‘It means that I’ve yet to make up my mind.’
Their rendezvous with the rest of the fleet off Cape Sicie was attended by endless discharging of signal guns as the various admirals, Spanish and English, exchanged courtesies. But that was all the polite behaviour in evidence, for when the man being relieved, Admiral Hotham, came aboard the Victory, any pretense at good manners evaporated. Such a meeting was rarely a happy occasion. The incoming commander would always question the activities of his predecessor, probably in writing for the sake of his own skin, while the man relinquishing command would be on edge to smoke an insult to his name or reputation.
But this time the participants excelled themselves, for Samuel Hood not only held that Hotham’s actions had been unworthy, but he also implied that they’d been positively criminal. He had, in Hood’s view, used the ships of the king’s navy to enrich himself. Stiff formality was the tone of their first exchange. But once Hood had read the reports and had words with some of the more efficient senior captains, he used his superiority and prestige to blast Hotham. Being intimate with Hood, and with the older man seeing no cause for discretion, Harry and James were quickly apprised of the situation.
‘You’ll find precious little to line your pockets in these waters now, Harry,’ he snapped, banging a fist on his polished desk, before turning angrily to stare out of the sternlights at the distant shore. ‘For that scrub Hotham has used the fleet to sweep the Mediterranean clean.’
‘I gather from your clerk that he’s initiated no action against the enemy,’ said James, who had seen in this man a source of useful information, and cultivated him accordingly.
Hood spun round and gave him a sharp look, but he let the remark about his clerk pass, concentrating instead on the matter uppermost in his mind. ‘None that can shoot back. All his targets have been merchantmen.’
He waved his arm in the direction of the French coast. ‘There are thirty sail of the line in Toulon, most with their yards uncrossed. Damn it, they’re not even ready for sea. We could destroy them at their moorings.’
‘It’s not an easy place to attack, my lord,’ said Harry. It wasn’t that he sought to support Hotham. But he was more aware than James of the traditional disputes between high-ranking officers.
‘Nobody says it is, Harry. But Hotham hasn’t even tried. Damn near every ship has been detached on a cruise, and with the war so young they’ve scooped the pool. They’re all cock-a-hoop with the money they’ve made, and who can blame them?’
‘I suppose that Admiral Hotham has also done well?’ asked James.
The huge hand hit the desk again, even harder. ‘He’s had his eighth all right. He’s made more money than anyone.’
Hood looked at James to make sure he understood that an admiral received an eighth of the value of any prize taken by the ships under his command. He needn’t have worried. He was addressing the son of a commander who’d secured his fortune in the West Indies from just such an avenue, whilst simultaneously receiving the thanks of Parliament for his endeavours.
Hood threw himself angrily into a chair. ‘I had an inkling of this in Gibraltar when I was told the number of prizes he was sending in. If he’d shown the slightest inclination to attack the French as well, I’d be after a peerage for him. God only knows what the neutrals think.’
‘Surely you can find that out,’ asked James. ‘Do we not have a representative in Genoa?’
Hood looked surprised, as though what he was about to say was something the brothers should have known. ‘Our man, Lord Fenner, died before I left Portsmouth. We haven’t yet got a replacement, though I harried the government to send someone out with me.’
The ruddy face closed up again, with Hood’s voice positively growling with anger. ‘To cap it all, we’ve just had word from Genoa that our victualling agent, Gallagher, the only man we have in situ, has decamped, taking the funds for the purchase of our stores with him. There is a whole cargo of guns missing it seems, including carronades. And it will be me that has to account for it.
‘Look at this!’ His voice rose even more and his huge hand thumped the desk again, before reaching out to pick up a letter. ‘If you doubted Hotham’s bare-faced thievery, this would convince you. I’ve got here a petition from the English privateers in Leghorn, asking that the activities of the navy be curtailed.’
‘Will they be?’ asked Harry anxiously, for he still had hopes of sailing from the port that had long been home to British privateers.
‘Of course they will,’ Hood cried, quite forgetting he was talking to a privateer. ‘We’re here to make war, not line our pockets!’
There was no chance to talk to the admiral for several days, with a spate of conferences aboard the flagship as Hood sought to turn the combined fleets back to their original purpose. Captains were questioned for offensive ideas that might confound the enemy, their previous attitudes and actions called to account. Just as ruthlessly their logs, muster books, and accounts were thoroughly examined. Hannibal, the last ship to return from Genoa, received more scrutiny than the others, and Hood tried to collate a picture of what was going on. What he heard didn’t please him. With no ambassador at present in the Republic, and as Hood put it, ‘damned little influence’, he was given good reason to wonder at the security of the arrangements. Over the last century, Genoa had usually sided with France in the wars between the Bourbon monarchs and the British. At best they’d assumed a neutrality which favoured the French.
This had less to do with brotherly love than with geography. The French navy, the most powerful in Europe before the Revolution, was less than a day’s sailing from their city. For the French army an attack on Genoa required less than a week’s march. The only thing that had changed was that some of the most powerful Genoese magnates, fearing for their heads and the safety of their banks, now inclined towards Britain instead of France. Fear of the ‘Terror’ was greater than fear of attack.
At a last private meal before the brothers transferred to the Swiftsure, a frigate on its way into Genoa to take on stores, Hood raised his glass to wish them God speed and good luck. Harry took both with a pinch of salt, considering that the admiral had not yet answered his request for exemptions. But Hood did have some information that he thought might be of interest.
‘Seems that there’s a bunch of privateers running out of Genoa itself,’ he said, cracking a pair of walnuts between his huge hands.
‘That’s unusual,’ Harry replied. ‘Sardinians yes, but not English. They usually stick to Leghorn.’
‘Damn it, Harry,’ cried Hood, eyebrows raised. ‘What’s usual these days?’
‘Surely that proves their neutrality now?’ asked James, thoroughly bored by the lengthy discussions of naval tactics and the politics of the region. He was about to steer the conversation back towards a discussion of various Genoese painters, but the old man snorted derisively, and cut right across him.
‘Genoese neutrality is governed by money, not morality. Mind I dare say that the locals don’t relish the prospect of the kind of France that we’re dealing with now.’
‘I’ll wager they still do business with them if they can. A Genoese would trade with the devil for profit. I imagine their sole objection to revolutionary France is that they might not pay their debts.’
Hood let out a great laugh, slapping his thigh, his face flushing with pleasure at the sally.
‘Damn me, Harry, you’ve hit the nail right on the head, and no mistake. The whole damned place is one counting house. And as for reliability, Hannibal’s captain tells me that Tilly, the French chargé d’affaires, is walking about the place bold as brass with an armed escort. And damn me if there isn’t a French warship, with a full crew and a detachment of marines, sitting in the middle of the harbour, flying their new-fangled flag.’
James, still smarting from being interrupted, showed a rare degree of interest, not to mention a dash of mischief, at the mention of the French ship.
‘They are, I’m given to understand, being credited with the murder of Captain Howlett.’
