A Man of No Country Read online

  ‘So the murder occurred after we arrived here in Naples, then?’ said the purser.

  ‘That would make sense,’ added Blake. ‘The hands’ lives are so closely regulated by the needs of the ship at sea, it would be hard to find the leisure to commit such an act unobserved, but at anchor the men have a deal more liberty.’

  ‘How did this Oates meet his end?’ asked Blake.

  ‘Oh, that is plain enough,’ said Corbett. ‘A single slash from a sharp blade, delivered from behind the victim I should say.’ The surgeon pantomimed a curved, slicing blow in the air above the table top as he spoke.

  ‘Would that not have generated a prodigious quantity of blood?’ asked Faulkner. ‘It seems odd that the murder was not detected sooner.’

  ‘Aye, it was a fair way to being a charnel house,’ said Macpherson. ‘The perpetrator had chosen his spot with care. It was in a dark, seldom visited part of the ship where we found the poor laddie. Were it not for the flies, my men might have missed him entirely. If the murderer did indeed approach Oates from astern, he might well have barely a spot of gore upon him.’

  ‘So all we are certain of is that we seek a man in possession of a sharp knife?’ snorted Faulkner. ‘Well that narrows it down! Every seaman aboard owns such a thing. Does anyone have any insights to offer?’

  ‘Perhaps I might,’ said the marine officer. ‘Watching Mr Corbett’s wee demonstration of the how the murder was done just now, has put me in mind of that new hand we took off the Russian pirate ship. The sailor who helped the captain’s coxswain during that storm.’

  ‘John Grainger?’ said Blake.

  ‘Aye, that’s the one. Mr Preston and I saw him dispatch a Spanish sentry in a not dissimilar fashion to that playacted by our good surgeon. He did it during the assault of that battery on the Cape de La Nao.’

  ‘Did he now?’ said Corbett. ‘That is interesting. I must tell Mr Taylor.’

  ‘Was your search yesterday fruitful in other ways, Tom?’ asked Blake. ‘Had this Grainger a suspicious lot of money about himself?’

  ‘He did not, and nor did anyone else for that matter,’ said the marine. ‘We found nothing of note save the discovery of the body. My men did their best, but they are soldiers, not thief-takers. They have a natural disinclination to be overly thorough when required to finger their way through their shipmates’ possessions.’

  There was a thunder of knocking at the wardroom door. The officers exchanged glances.

  Someone is in a perishing hurry to tell us something,’ said Blake. ‘Shall we make him wait awhile to gain a little patience?’

  ‘Come in!’ called Macpherson, and an excited midshipman burst into the room.

  ‘Mr Taylor’s compliments, and the Blue Peter has just been hoisted in the flagship, sir,’ reported Midshipman Butler. ‘We shall weigh anchor before nightfall.’

  ‘Do you know what has occasioned this, Mr Butler?’ asked Blake.

  ‘I am not sure that it is really my place to say, sir, but I did happen to overhear the captain and Mr Taylor discussing matters on the quarterdeck. Not that I listened to them on purpose, of course.’

  ‘I understand, Mr Butler,’ said Macpherson. ‘What is it you chanced to learn?’

  ‘One of those Neapolitan navy sloops entered the bay earlier with all sail set, sir. Apparently the Frogs have been seen at last, just off the coast of Malta.’

  *****

  Even though the line of warships was in close formation, they still stretched across the sea for over a mile. In the centre of the long line was the Vanguard. She was easy to distinguish, with her admiral’s blue flag flying at the top of her mizzen mast and her distinctive foremast, now a little shorter than the others after the damage of the storm. As for the other seventy-fours, they were as identical as a row of well matched pearls on a string. Each one had a black hull and twin gun decks picked out by long lines of yellow. Every ship had top and topgallant sails set, and every yard was braced around at the same angle. Behind the column of ships the coast of Sicily slid by, brown and rocky close by the sea, rising to pine covered slopes farther inland.

  ‘There is something very pleasing in a well-drilled column of ships,’ said Lieutenant Edward Preston as he leant against the quarterdeck rail and admired the view.

  ‘Particularly in this case, when they are all of the same proportion,’ added Richard Corbett, who had borrowed Preston’s telescope and was moving it along the line. ‘So often one has a variety of different ship sizes in a fleet, as was the case with the one we joined off Cadiz. Although it is a little vexing that your spy glass should present such an indifferent image.’ Preston leant across and, unnoticed by the surgeon, eased the tube of the telescope in a little. ‘Ah, they have suddenly become clearer,’ exclaimed Corbett. He continued to examine the ships for a moment, then returned the glass to its owner.

  ‘My thanks, Edward, but there is one thing that I find troubling,’ he said. ‘Are we not part of the squadron?’

  ‘Indeed we are,’ said the lieutenant. He pointed towards the flag that flapped in the breeze over their heads. ‘That is why we too fly the blue ensign.’

  ‘Then why, pray, do we not have a part in this magnificent line of ships, and are instead banished to a position out here on the flank?’

  ‘Why, it is a singular honour bestowed on us by Admiral Nelson,’ explained Preston. ‘We are here so that we may appreciate the magnificent view all the better. But you must make good use of this time, Richard, for soon it will be the Culloden’s turn, and we shall be obliged to take her place in the line.’

  ‘Is that so?’ said the surgeon. He polished his glasses on his shirt and gazed at the rest of the fleet with renewed interest. Preston turned away from the rail and tried to disguise his laughter in a fit of coughing.

  ‘He makes game of you, Richard,’ said Blake, who was officer of the watch. ‘This is our proper station. When the fleet is at sea, our role is to repeat all the admiral’s signals, so that those ships at the ends of the line need only observe us to know what they should be about. It saves them the inconvenience of attempting to read signal flags through a dozen masts and sails. In fact here is a signal now. Mr Russell, have you seen it?’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ replied the midshipman, who already had his telescope focused on the Vanguard. ‘General signal, wear ship in succession. Get it hoisted, Jennings.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ said one of the sailors who worked with him. He pulled the relevant flags from the locker and handed them to his mate, who attached them to the halliard. The signal rose up to the masthead and broke out to flap in the wind. Corbett looked back towards the line of warships and noticed the same flag had been hoisted aloft in each.

  ‘Mr Russell, signal the flag to say that all ships have acknowledged receipt of the signal,’ ordered Blake. ‘Mr Hutchinson! Call all hands to wear ship, if you please.’

  Down in his cabin, Clay looked up from the letter he was writing to listen to the flow of orders that Blake gave, as they drifted down to him through the open skylight. He heard the squeal of the boatswain’s call as the crew was summoned, the thunder of bare feet on oak as the crew responded, and shortly afterwards he felt the ship begin to turn to keep station with the rest of the fleet. All was being done as it should be, he decided, and he returned to the half-written page in front of him.

  He was writing to his wife Lydia, which for him was still a relatively new activity. His first few letters had been composed as the Titan had beaten her way through the winter storms of northern Europe and had been full of the emotion of their recent parting. How much he loved her, how he longed to be with her and how much he missed her. But as the months had gone by, he had realised that he could not simply repeat the same formulas, even though, if anything, he missed her more with each passing week. So he had begun to add fresh content to his letters, filling them with glimpses into his world. The places he had seen, the people he had met and the events that surrounded him in the little wooden world of his
ship. So far this had worked well, but his frankness to date now presented him with the fresh problem of how honest he should be. He sat back in his chair and looked at the portrait of his wife that his officers had given him. Her smiling blue eyes met his calm grey ones across the space of the cabin.

  ‘Oh, Lydia, my dear,’ he said. ‘I do so love you, but does that love require me to be wholly honest? On the subject of Lady Emma’s nocturnal visit, for example?’ Her eyes seemed to twinkle with mischievous encouragement, willing him to tell all. ‘And what shall I set down on the subject of poor Oates? How disturbed will you be with the knowledge that my ship has a murderer on the loose?’ He looked for an answer in her face for a moment, and then set down his pen in frustration as he thought about the murder. Taylor and the master at arms had made almost no progress with the investigation in the two days since they had left Naples, and he could sense the unease the death had caused among the crew. He rose from his desk and began to pace up and down the line of windows at the back of the cabin, his head tucked down to avoid the low ceiling as it skimmed past.

  There were two hundred and fifty souls aboard the Titan, he said to himself. No, two hundred and forty nine now. All of them lived in a ship that was a bare hundred and seventy feet long from end to end, and less than forty feet wide. How could it be possible for this to happen, and yet no one have seen anything? His arms jerked in frustration as he paced. Then he stopped at the midpoint of the run of windows, directly above the rudder, and looked down at the sea. A churned mass of ever renewing white bubbled up from under his feet, like a millstream that stretched away behind the ship, straight for a while across the blue sea, before it bent at the point that the frigate had turned. He watched the troubled water for a while and let the constant motion calm him. Of course someone must know something, he told himself. He turned towards the door and called to the marine sentry stationed outside.

  ‘Pass the word for my coxswain!’ he ordered. A little later there was a knock at the cabin door.

  ‘Come in,’ called Clay. ‘Ah, Sedgwick, my thanks for arriving so promptly. How do your hands fare?’ The sailor came into the cabin and stood in front of the desk, his legs apart and his powerful body swaying with the motion of the ship. He presented his bandaged fists for inspection.

  ‘Mr Corbett says as how there is no sign of corruption, and that the dressing will be off by the end of the week, sir,’ he replied. ‘Which shall come as a blessed relief.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said his captain. ‘You have my gratitude for what you and Grainger did.’

  ‘Thank you, sir, but I would like to think if matters were reversed, some tar might do the same for me.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Clay. ‘Well, you may be on the mend, but our poor ship is not. We live in troublesome times, do we not? First all these damned thefts and now matters have progressed to murder. The men have had much to endure. What do you think of their morale?’

  ‘Not good in truth, sir,’ said the coxswain. ‘They will be game enough come a fight, but some have taken to moving about in the company of others, and they start to shun the newer crew members.’

  ‘Their unease is understandable. Unfortunately, I can hold out very little prospect of us laying hands on the person or persons behind all this,’ Clay spread his arms wide. ‘The master at arms has no notion who it may be, nor do any of my other officers. Frankly, I have no damned idea where to turn next.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear that, sir.’

  ‘Sorry enough to help me?’

  ‘You knows I will help if I can, sir, but I don’t know who has done all this either.’

  ‘I am sure you don’t, Sedgwick,’ conceded his captain. ‘But somebody on the lower deck must. There will be one of your shipmates who knows who the perpetrator is, or at least has some piece of intelligence that will lead us to that person. The men admire you, Sedgwick, and respect you, even more so after your heroic rescue of that poor man. Might you not be in a position to help me to solve these crimes?’ The sailor shifted from foot to foot before he replied.

  ‘I mean no disrespect, sir,’ he began. ‘But if the men do like me, as you suggest, it is in part because they trust me. They know I would never grass on a shipmate, if you understand my meaning, sir.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Clay, his voice a little bitter. ‘The famous solidarity of the lower deck, where no man shall betray a confidence to an officer. But surely this case is different? All the victims have been your fellow shipmates. A man has been killed. Perhaps he shall not be the last. You may be able to prevent that from happening — God knows I can’t!’

  ‘But, sir,’ pleaded Sedgwick. ‘I honestly do not know who has done these things.’

  ‘But could you not find out? Part of your role as coxswain is to supply a link between myself and the lower deck, you know?’ Clay watched his coxswain’s face, with its sad brown eyes and solid jaw, and willed it to move. It remained immobile, the eyes stared ahead. After a moment Sedgwick began to speak.

  ‘I am sorry, sir,’ he said. ‘I do not wish to be unhelpful, nor to seem ungrateful for what you have done for me, but I truly have no name to give you.’

  ‘A truly grateful man might seek to repay past kindness,’ urged his captain. ‘I am asking you to help me, man. You need not even betray the particulars, just give me a name. A member of the crew whom I should discharge from the ship at our next port of call, perhaps, with no more said. I trust you. It would only need a nod on your part, Sedgwick. Mr Taylor has suspicions already about that name, that it might be John Grainger, for example?’

  ‘Please do not press me, sir,’ he said. ‘You were right in what you said earlier, I can serve you best while the men respect me. No one will trust an officers’ lackey.’

  Clay pushed his chair back from the desk in exasperation, stood up and glared out of the window once more. The churned wake was still there, now running straight as the fleet headed towards Malta. He let the bubbling water calm him again, and when his breathing had returned to normal, he realised that his coxswain was right.

  ‘Very well, Sedgwick,’ he sighed. ‘I understand the delicacy of your position, and I will press you no further on this matter. I will not ask you to betray any confidences.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said the coxswain, relief evident on his face. He thought for a moment, and then spoke again.

  ‘Captain, sir. May I make a suggestion?’

  ‘Of course. What do you have in mind?’

  ‘If I did find out who had done all this, I could never bring you the name,’ said Sedgwick. ‘But things might yet be resolved, nevertheless.’

  ‘How might that happen?’ asked Clay.

  ‘Do you remember Josh Hawke, ordinary seaman on board the Rush?’ said Sedgwick.

  ‘Yes, a singularly nasty piece of work,’ said Clay. ‘I had you and he flogged for fighting with knives as I recall, so perhaps I have not always shown you the kindness you remember.’

  ‘My dozen was fair enough, sir, especially as he got three dozen.’

  ‘And if I remember right, he applied for a transfer out of the ship shortly after,’ continued Clay. ‘It was much to my relief and I suspect strongly against his inclination. Was that all arranged by the lower deck?’

  ‘Aye, that’s right, sir,’ said Sedgwick. ‘A course of action was suggested to him, and he was obliged to follow it. Would it serve if a similar solution could be found in this case?’

  ‘By all means,’ said the captain. ‘What did you have in mind?’

  ‘Maybe I can find who’s done all this, sir. I could not betray him to you, like I said, but things might be done to solve matters without the need for that. With the mood that the men are in there would be no shortage of people to help. Would that answer at all?’

  ‘Sedgwick, I only desire for this mess to be resolved,’ said Clay. ‘If you come to me and tell me it has been, without the need for any names, no one will be more delighted than me.’

  ‘I understand, sir. Leave it with
me.’

  *****

  ‘Would you be so kind as to wait in here, sir,’ said Nelson’s flag lieutenant as he ushered Clay into the great cabin of the Vanguard. ‘The admiral will join you shortly. Steward, a glass of wine for the captain, if you please.’

  ‘Ah, Clay,’ said Captain Saumarez. ‘So you have been summoned too?’ He rose from the bench seat that ran across the back of the cabin under the stern windows and held out a hand towards him. ‘Delighted, I am sure.’

  ‘Likewise, Sir James,’ said Clay, shaking the Channel Islander’s hand. ‘I trust I find you well?’

  ‘Tolerably so, although I should be markedly better if we could find the damned French fleet.’ He indicated the view out of the window. It was a bright summer day, the sky was dotted with puffs of white cloud above, and the view below was filled with the massive walls and towers of the fortified entrance to Grand Harbour in Malta. Beyond the walls, Clay could see the domes of churches and the roofs of the buildings. The ship was hove to just out of long cannon shot from the nearest battery, but close enough for him to be able to see the large French tricolour that streamed out from its flag pole, high above the main fortress on Valetta point.

  ‘How did the French come to seize Malta so easily?’ he asked. ‘I had always thought of it as a place that might require a lengthy siege?’

  ‘Any fortress is only as good as those who garrison it,’ said Saumarez. ‘If it is defended by poltroons it don’t signify how thick the walls might be. Bonaparte turned up a couple of weeks ago with his enormous fleet, and the Knights of St John surrendered without firing a shot, the blackguards.’

  ‘What happened then, Sir James?’ asked Clay

  ‘Why, he annexed the place for France. Then he toured the island like a damned Prince, changing everything in sight, from the official language to giving the poor blighters the metric system. Finally, he confiscated a mass of treasure and has gone on his way, leaving a rather more resolute garrison of French troops behind to keep order.’