Larcum Mudge (Alexander Clay Series Book 8) Read online

  Larcum Mudge

  Philip K Allan

  Contents

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 Recruiting

  Chapter 2 Prize

  Chapter 3 English Harbour

  Chapter 4 Guadeloupe

  Chapter 5 Pointe-à-Pitre

  Chapter 6 Alone

  Chapter 7 HMS Peregrine

  Chapter 8 A Flag of Truce

  Chapter 9 The Centaure

  Chapter 10 The Bull and the Terrier

  Chapter 11 Battle

  Chapter 12 Larcum Mudge

  Chapter 13 Antigua

  Chapter 14 Home

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  To my mother, who never got to read her son’s novels

  Acknowledgements

  Success as an author requires the support of many. My books start with my passion for the age of sail, which was first awakened when I discovered the works of C S Forester as a child, and later when I graduated to the novels of Patrick O’Brian. That interest was given some academic rigor when I studied the 18th century navy under Patricia Crimmin as part of my history degree at London University.

  Many years later, I decided to leave my career in the motor industry to see if I could survive as a writer. I received the unconditional support and cheerful encouragement of my darling wife and two wonderful daughters. I first test my work to see if I have hit the mark with my family, and especially my wife Jan, whose input is invaluable.

  One of the pleasures of my new career is the generous support and encouragement I continue to receive from my fellow writers. In theory we are in competition, but you would never know it. When I have needed help, advice and support, I have received it from David Donachie, Bernard Cornwell, Marc Liebman, Jeffrey K Walker, Helen Hollick and Ian Drury. I have received particular help from my friends Peter Northern, Alaric Bond, creator of the Fighting Sail series of books and Chris Durbin, author of the Carlisle & Holbrooke Naval Adventures.

  This book is my first venture into self-publishing, something I told myself I would never do. It has only been made possible with the help of Dr Catherine Hanley’s excellent editing, and Christine Horner’s splendid cover design. Whether this is the first of many, or only a brief foray, I will always be grateful to Michael James, and the team at Penmore Press, for having the faith in me to publish my first seven novels.

  Cast of Main Characters

  The Crew of the Frigate Griffin

  Alexander Clay – Captain RN

  George Taylor – First lieutenant

  John Blake – Second lieutenant

  Edward Preston – Third lieutenant

  Thomas Macpherson – Lieutenant of marines

  Jacob Armstrong – Sailing master

  Richard Corbett – Surgeon

  Charles Faulkner – Purser

  Nathaniel Hutchinson – Boatswain

  Josh Andrews – Boatswain’s mate, who formerly served on the Peregrine

  Able Sedgwick – Captain’s coxswain

  Sean O’Malley – Able seaman

  Adam Trevan – Able seaman

  Larcum Mudge – Able seaman

  Samuel Evans – Seaman

  In Antigua

  Sir George Montague – Rear admiral commanding in the Leeward Islands

  John Sutton – Commander of the sloop of war Echo. Married to Clay’s sister Betsey

  Stephen Camelford – Commander of the sloop of war Daring

  In Lower Staverton

  Lydia Clay – Wife of Alexander Clay

  Francis Clay – Their son

  Others

  John Jervis, Earl St Vincent – First Lord of the Admiralty

  Jack Broadbent – A mutineer

  John ‘Tombstone’ Graves – A mutineer

  Prologue

  It was a warm night in the Mona Passage, with a gentle breeze blowing in from the Atlantic. Off to one side lay the island of Hispaniola, a presence crouching across the horizon. The moon hung in the clear sky, its light frosting the rigging and topsails of the Royal Navy sloop Peregrine as she slipped through the dark water, leaving swirls of phosphorescence behind her. The windows of her stern cabin were aglow with lamplight, where her captain caroused with some of his officers. On the deck above, the officer of the watch stood beside the quartermaster, their faces lit by the faint glow from the compass binnacle. Farther forward the ship seemed strangely quiet. The planking on her forecastle was divided between silver triangles of moonlight, and deeper patches of shade in which most of her crew had gathered in silence.

  ‘Lay aside your arms, and drink your fill of knock-me-down, lads,’ urged John Graves, a hulking seaman with a long, puckered scar across his face. ‘You’ll be wanting some Dutch courage, presently.’

  He handed the first of the earthenware jars to one of the waiting sailors. The night filled with the clink and rattle of muskets and cutlasses being placed on the deck, followed by the gentle popping of cork stoppers.

  The lean face and thick sideburns of Jack Broadbent appeared from beneath the shade of his hat as he tilted his head back. The others watched him drink his fill, his Adam’s apple working. ‘Ah! That be a nice drop of grog, Tombstone,’ he commented at last, wiping his mouth on his shirt sleeve and passing the heavy container on to the next man. ‘Better than the gut-rot that arse of a purser serves. Thank’ee kindly.’

  ‘How did you come by it?’ asked one of the other sailors.

  ‘You after turning your nose up at a mug of rum, Seamus O’Connell?’ queried Graves, to quiet laughter. ‘That’s a bleeding first. If you has to know, I took it from the wardroom pantry.’

  ‘Might have known they’d have the good stuff,’ spluttered another of the crew, rum dripping from his chin. ‘Strange to tell, but it being lifted do give it a better savour.’

  ‘Oh, I have been a naughty boy this night,’ chuckled Graves, as he handed out another jar. ‘Stealing from the Grunters, on top of breaking into the arms chest.’

  ‘Both of them be hanging matters, Tombstone,’ cautioned another voice, a silver-haired veteran with a pigtail that reached his waist.

  ‘There’ll be no more call for hanging aboard the Peregrine after tonight, Old Ben,’ explained Graves. ‘Nor any flogging neither. We’ve had our fill of the cat, ain’t we lads? Now it’s that bastard Daniels’s turn, may he burn in hell for what he’s done.’

  ‘Hear him!’ rumbled the sailors, as the drink started to take hold.

  ‘I ain’t so sure about this,’ said a younger sailor, the jar of rum untouched on the deck before him.

  ‘There be no shame in feeling shy afore such deeds as we be minded to do,’ said Graves. ‘But grog will serve in place of courage, so just you drink up.’

  ‘What did Daniels give you them two dozen for last week, lad?’ asked O’Connell.

  ‘Leaving a gasket untied on the mizzen topsail,’ he replied. ‘I were that flustered, I clean forgot.’

  ‘One line untied, no harm done, and I dare say you only forgot ’cause you didn’t want to cop it for being last man down ag’in?’ said Graves.

  ‘Aye, ain’t that the truth of it,’ said the youngster. ‘Maybe I will have a drop of that rum.’

  ‘Floggings for trifles, day after day,’ continued Graves, his voice rasping with anger. ‘Two good men dead after falling from aloft in their haste to avoid the lash. An’ what does that devil of a captain do? Has ’em pitched into the sea for the sharks to feast on, without so much as a Christian word spoke over them.’

  ‘I’d like to toss Daniels to the fecking sharks, so I would,’ growled O’Connell.

  ‘So you shall, Seamus, and h
ere be my hand upon it,’ said Graves, before turning to the others. ‘Life on board ain’t going to change any, lest we make it so, lads. Which of us on this cursed ship ain’t been flogged by Daniels on a whim? An’ which of us will he spare tomorrow?’

  ‘None, and that’s the bleeding truth,’ said another voice.

  ‘What of the Lobsters, Tombstone?’ asked the tall figure of Broadbent, who stood back from the others, leaning against the foremast. ‘Them is trained in proper soldiering, an’ all.’

  Graves smiled at this. ‘Don’t you go a fretting over them, any. Their Grunter’s below, dying of the Yellow Jack, and that fool of a corporal couldn’t find a tit in a whorehouse. With no direction, they’ll be meek as lambs. Most of them’ll be with us, and the rest shan’t lift a finger.’

  ‘What happens once the ship be ours?’ queried a voice. ‘Ain’t the navy sure to track us down?’

  ‘They can hang me, if they chose, so long as I can throttle Daniels first,’ snarled another. ‘I’ve had my fill of his ways.’

  ‘You’ll have to beat me to him, Josh!’ exclaimed another voice.

  Graves glanced back towards the quarterdeck, and held up his hands to quieten the crowd. ‘None of us need swing for this, if we plays matters right,’ he urged. ‘Look around you, lads! Ain’t no one to mark what we do this night, save ourselves. Once the ship be ours, we shall vanish into the heart of the Caribee, like summer mist. It’ll be the hurricano season afore long. Those arses will just reckon we must have foundered.’ Sailors muttered their approval at this, others banged the deck, the volume of sound rising as the rum took hold.

  ‘Steady, lads’, urged their leader. ‘Keep the noise down.’

  ‘But where shall we go an’ bleeding hide, Tombstone?’ asked another of the sailors. ‘When it comes on to blow, like.’

  ‘Over yonder be the Frogs on Guadeloupe,’ said Graves, pointing towards the east. ‘After the barky be ours, we shall trade it to them. Nice sloop like this’ll earn us a hatful of chink each. Then we all changes our names and swears to never mention the Peregrine or what we done again. If every man here holds his tongue, we’ll be safe enough.’

  ‘And then where shall we fecking go?’ asked O’Connell.

  ‘We be sailors, ain’t we?’ said Graves. ‘Frog privateers in Guadeloupe will take any jack as can hand, reef an’ steer. No end of work with the Yanks, an’ all.’

  ‘That be true, lads,’ agreed Broadbent, who continued to listen to the exchange from the edge of the group. ‘I was pressed off a New Bedford whaler. They be always short of hands, with no master too fussed ’bout where you hails from.’

  ‘An’ what of the navy, Tombstone?’ asked Old Ben. ‘What will they do when they gets to hear of this? They got a proper long reach.’

  Graves pulled off his hat and leant close to the others. His face was stone-hard in the moonlight, the eyes fierce above his scar. ‘It’s like I said. Every man changes his name, and holds his tongue,’ he said. ‘If we all does that, how will tidings reach them?’

  ‘What of the loyal hands, or the other fecking Grunters?’ asked O’Connell. ‘They’ll talk, readily enough.’

  ‘None so silent as they what cannot speak. Them as ain’t with us, can’t see the dawn.’ He held out his hand, palm down. ‘Swear it!’

  ‘But some of them midshipmen be no more than nippers,’ protested Old Ben.

  ‘You want to spend another day serving under that bastard?’ asked Graves. ‘Coz I bleeding don’t!’

  Graves glared around the forecastle, and one by one the men placed their hands in the ring. After a long pause, Old Ben added his, which left only Broadbent, still leaning against the foremast, the expression on his face lost beneath the shade of his hat.

  ‘You with us, Jack?’ growled O’Connell. ‘Or you going to stand with that fecker Daniels?’

  ‘I’ll be the first to strike that bastard down, right enough,’ said the sailor. ‘But I ain’t going to kill no nipper.’

  ‘Too damned high and mighty for dirty work, is it?’ said Graves, spitting to one side and fingering the hilt of his cutlass.

  O’Connell held his arm, and bent across to whisper in his ear. ‘We needs him, Tombstone,’ he murmured. ‘The lads look up to him. We’ve enough fecking hot-heads soaked in grog to do the slaughtering.’

  Graves considered this, while continuing to glare at Broadbent. Then he shrugged his shoulders. ‘You play me false, and I’ll strike you dead with my own bleeding hands, Jack Broadbent,’ he threatened. ‘The rest of you keep at the grog. It’ll give you heart for what’s to come.’

  Another half hour of steady drinking and the men on the forecastle were all fighting drunk. From the stern cabin a burst of laughter accompanied the crash of a chair being knocked over.

  ‘Them Grunters sound proper pissed, an all,’ commented O’Connell. ‘They’ve no notion of what we’re about.’

  ‘Ain’t that the truth,’ agreed Graves, a smile spreading across his face. ‘This is going to be a deal easier than I thought. On your feet, lads, and let’s be at them! Now be our time!’

  Chapter 1 Recruiting

  Captain Alexander Clay stood in the tight little basement room and looked around with distaste. The space would have been uncomfortable for him at the best of times. Even with his head stooped, his curly chestnut hair brushed the beams that ran across the ceiling. All the benches and shelves about him were piled high with stacks of printed paper, demijohns of dark liquid and boxes of assorted letter blocks. The walls were smeared with ink, as were most of the flat surfaces, and the atmosphere was damp and musty. Looking through the grimy window, he found he was at eye level with the pavement outside. The boots and shoes of passers-by clattered past; the number of feet multiplied by each little diamond-shaped pane of glass.

  He had declined the stained chair that Mr Rashford had offered him, and instead stood holding his Royal Navy uniform coat close, so as to avoid it collecting any ink from the furniture. While he waited, he looked over some examples of the printer’s work stacked ready to be collected. The nearest pile was of song sheets. The Rambling Sailor – A Ballad of the Sea was picked out in copperplate letters across the top. Intrigued, he read on.

  I am a sailor stout and bold,

  Long time I've ploughed the ocean;

  I've fought for king and country too,

  Won honour and promotion.

  ‘Ain’t rambling the word,’ muttered Clay, eyeing the multitude of verses that followed the first, before moving on to glance over some of the other stacks. There were political pamphlets, deploring the price of grain or the intrusion of the new census; flyers announcing various events, from a local fair to an Abolitionist meeting; and bills advertising all manner of products. There were also a depressing number of naval recruitment posters, just like the one that he had commissioned.

  ‘Here we are, Captain,’ announced Rashford, bustling in, ‘and still wet from the press.’ He spread out the sheet on the only empty space in the room, then stepped back, wiping his hands on his filthy apron and pushing his stained periwig a little straighter. Clay leant over the desk and examined the poster. The print quality was poor and some of the letters had smudged, but the large bold type was certainly legible.

  GOD SAVE THE KING!

  it began.

  The mighty GRIFFIN, of 38 GUNS, currently lying at PLYMOUTH, is a new and uncommonly fine FRIGATE, returned triumphant from LORD NELSON’S most famous VICTORY over the PERFIDIOUS DANES before COPENHAGEN! Captain ALEXANDER CLAY, that famous SCOURGE of BONEY, commands her!

  She awaits fresh ADVENTURE, as soon as some more GOOD HANDS are on board! None need apply but STOUT HEARTS, wishing for PRIZE MONEY by the HATFUL, able to rouse about the cannon, and carry an hundred weight of PEWTER, without stopping, at least three miles.

  In the place where this notice is displayed may be found an officer of the GRIFFIN, with a BOUNTY for any men of SPIRIT who thirst for GLORY!

  S. Rashford, Printer, War
dour Street, Plymouth.

  It was well crafted, if rather deceitful, thought Clay to himself. That reference to carrying pewter, naval slang for silver bullion, hinted at a voyage after Spanish treasure, even though Clay had yet to learn where his ship might be sent next. There was also no mention of the casualties the Griffin had suffered at Copenhagen, leaving him so under-manned that he was having to send his officers out into the countryside to recruit volunteers, armed with this very poster. His sleep was still haunted by images of the waves of Danish boarders who had clawed their way onto his frigate, and the desperate and bloody hand-to-hand fight that had followed.

  ‘Will it work, I wonder,’ mused Clay, as he read through the wording one more time. He settled his pale grey eyes on the printer.

  ‘Oh, for certain it will, sir!’ said Rashford, with a burst of enthusiasm. ‘We do no end of such sheets in these times, what with the shortage of good sailors. Most flyers answer well enough, especially those for frigates. I don’t doubt you’ll find enough prime hands. It’s captains trying to man ships of the line for the blockade that struggle. After so many years of war, the press gangs have run dry. Gaol bait and ne’er-do-wells is all they can generally find, God help them. Not that I don’t appreciate the work, but I do sometimes think that peace can’t come soon enough.’

  ‘It takes two to dance a reel, Mr Rashford,’ said Clay. ‘The French have to be willing to play their part.’ He returned to the poster and came to a decision. ‘Kindly strike me off a gross, as soon as may be convenient.’

  ‘It shall be done this very morn, Captain,’ said the printer, ‘the moment I have completed an urgent commission for the port admiral. His messenger has just now brought it across. Details of some mutineers who are being hunted.’

  ‘Mutineers?’ queried Clay. ‘From a king’s ship? I have not heard of any such incident.’

  ‘If it’s of interest, I have the particulars here,’ said Rashford, plunging a hand deep into the pocket of his apron and dredging out a sheet of paper. He next produced a pair of spectacles, barely cleaner than the window, and hooked them over his ears. ‘They are sought from a man-of-war by the name of Peregrine for rebellion and murder. Goodness! The Admiralty are not stinting in the matter of the reward on offer. The main part is a list of the malefactors, headed by one called John Graves, and another by the name of Seamus O’Connell. Ha! I might have known that a papist would be at the root of such mischief. Please make free to examine the message, if you care to.’ He held out the ink-smudged paper.