A Man of No Country Page 3
‘Hush there, my beauty,’ he said, as he ran a hand along her back. Her skin flinched a little under the contact, but she seemed otherwise content. Hanging on a rail at the back of the stall was a bridle and reins, but no saddle. Father O’Connell listened to the sound of the family out in the farmyard for a moment, before he left the horse and made his way to the back of the barn. There was a second, smaller door here. He peered out between the slats, and saw a path that led across an area of rough grazing, bordered on its far side by a farm track. He opened the door with care and peeped both ways, but could see no sign of life. Once he was satisfied the coast was clear he turned back to the sailor.
‘Sean, my boy,’ he said. ‘Would you be knowing how to ride a horse, at all?’
‘In truth I never had occasion to try, Father, but I can run along the top of a wet yard when it’s blowing a fecking gale. How much harder than that can it be?’
Chapter 2
Privateer
For the first time in over four months, His Majesty’s frigate Titan was at sea again. She had slipped out of Plymouth at high water, and as she cleared the lee of Rame Head, the full force of the westerly wind heeled her over. It was almost winter now, and the air that swept across the ship had a chill sting to it. Green waves flecked with spume battered against her bow and tossed up cascades of white water that spilt across her forecastle and streamed out of her scuppers.
Had anyone been out to enjoy a blustery walk along the cliff tops, they would have been treated to a magnificent sight. The Titan was a fast ship and her lofty masts bore a profusion of sail to drive her out into the Channel. Her long, freshly painted hull was a hundred-and-seventy feet from where her name was picked out in gold letters across her stern to the muscular figurehead of a titan glowering out at the world from beneath her bowsprit. As she drove on, across the strengthening wind, a thin strip of her shiny new copper flashed like the skin of a fish as it broke clear of the waves. On her quarterdeck her captain breathed a lungful of the keen air deep into his chest and smiled at his first lieutenant.
‘Ah, this is more like it, Mr Taylor,’ he said. ‘There is nothing to compare with a good topsail gale to make one feel alive once more.’
‘Or indeed to find out any faults in this new rigging that the inattention of the dockyard may have left us,’ said his first lieutenant, looking aloft. George Taylor was a shorter man than his captain. He was fifteen years his senior, and had short, iron-grey hair and anxious brown eyes.
‘I am sure Mr Hutchinson has it all in hand,’ said Clay. ‘He is an excellent boatswain, and quite as suspicious of the dockyard hands as you are. But look how well they have repaired her. See the gunwale over there? Not a trace of that ugly hole the Immortalite left us with.’
‘No, that has been well done, sir,’ admitted Taylor. ‘The carpenter is less impressed with some of the repairs to the frames, but overall I am pleased.’
‘A newly restored ship, almost a full complement of hands, and adventure ahead, perhaps just over the horizon,’ said Clay. ‘What could be better?’
‘We are fortunate to have as many men as we do, sir,’ said the first lieutenant. ‘With so long spent on leave, I was very apprehensive that some of the Irish hands might desert. But we have them all back, although Sean O’Malley only rejoined the ship an hour before we weighed anchor, in a very indifferent state.’
‘Ah, the dissipation and vice of a sailor ashore,’ said Clay. ‘Was he drunk?’
‘Not on this occasion, sir. He was so badly battered that he had to be helped aboard. Mr Corbett reports him to have a broken clavicle and several cracked ribs. He has him bound up like a Christmas goose and confined to the sick bay till he should recover.’
‘Had he been fighting again?’
‘He claims to have fallen from a horse, sir,’ replied Taylor. Captain and first lieutenant exchanged glances and both men burst out laughing.
‘Oh, the deceptions that the people come up with to explain their misdemeanours,’ said Clay. ‘Pray tell, was he riding to hounds or racing in the St Leger?’
The men were still chuckling together when the Titan’s young third lieutenant came up the ladder way and staggered over to them across the steep pitch of the deck. Edward Preston was a pleasant looking, gangly young man of nineteen with dark hair and eyes. He saluted his two senior offices by touching a hand to the hat that he struggled to keep in place in the wind.
‘I see that your mother has been feeding you up over the autumn, Mr Preston,’ said Clay. ‘You are in danger of filling that coat of yours at long last. Yorkshire fare must agree with you.’
‘Aye, she does try her best when I am home, sir,’ he replied. ‘She also wanted me to thank you on her behalf for my promotion.’ Clay waved the compliment aside.
‘Thank yourself, Edward,’ he said. ‘You have amply earned your step. What was it that you wanted?’
‘Begging your pardon, sir, but it was Mr Taylor I required to see on this occasion,’ replied the young officer, turning to the first lieutenant. ‘Mr Blake’s compliments and the item is now in position and ready to be viewed.’
‘Ah, that is good news,’ enthused Taylor. ‘Kindly pass the word for the others to gather in the vicinity of the, eh… item, and I will be down presently.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ replied Preston. He hurried back below and Clay turned towards his first lieutenant.
‘This all sounds very intriguing, Mr Taylor,’ he asked. ‘What manner of viewing do you have planned?’
‘Just something that has been installed in your cabin, sir,’ he replied. ‘It is in way of a gift to you from your officers. Please do not press me for the particulars, as I would not wish to spoil its first effect on you.’
‘How very mysterious you are, Mr Taylor! So be it, I shall push my interrogation no further.’ Clay looked around the quarterdeck for a moment and indicated the Titan’s new sailing master, who was officer of the watch. ‘Is Mr Armstrong to be part of your gathering?’
‘No, sir,’ replied the first lieutenant. ‘Our surprise was arranged before he joined the ship. If you will excuse me, sir, I will go and check on progress. I will call for you directly.’
While he waited, Clay studied the ship’s new master as he stood by the wheel. He rode the lively motion of the frigate with ease, with his legs spread apart and his body swaying with each new plunge the ship made. Jacob Armstrong was a large, rotund man in his late forties. His head was quite bald, and he wore a horse hair periwig which was held in place by a hat pulled so firmly down against the wind that only his hazel eyes could be seen beneath the brim.
‘Have you settled in now, Mr Armstrong?’ asked Clay as he came over to join him.
‘Yes, thank you, sir,’ drawled the new officer. ‘The wardroom has been most welcoming.’ Clay looked at him in surprise.
‘Are you an American, Mr Armstrong?’ he asked. The master shrugged his shoulders in reply.
‘I guess that I might be so described, sir,’ he replied. ‘Back in the year fifty-one when I came into this world no such nation existed. I was born as British as you, sir. My family were prominent Tories in the New York colony during the revolution, so when the damned Yankees won the war, we had to depart in haste with the rest of the loyalists.’
‘I see,’ said his captain. ‘I ask because when the Admiralty assigned you to the ship they informed me you were an expert on the Mediterranean. Was that correct?’
‘And so I am, sir. My father made use of the compensation he received from the government to buy into a merchant ship on the Smyrna run. I served first as mate and then as master for most of the peace. Why, I am as familiar with that sea as I know the hairs on my head.’ Clay glanced first at Armstrong’s wig, and then at the twinkle in the officer’s eye, and laughed out loud.
‘We are ready for you now, sir,’ said Taylor, returning to the quarterdeck. ‘Would you kindly accompany me below?’
‘Good day to you, Mr Armstrong,’ said Clay. ‘We will speak
further. When I started my career in the navy as a boy, it was on the North American station during that very war.’
Outside the captain’s suite the marine sentry snapped to attention at the two men’s approach, and then held open the door. Clay ducked under the low frame, stepped into his day cabin and looked around him. The chart of the western approaches to the Channel was where he had left it on the table, and all else seemed the same. From the great cabin at the rear of the ship the sound of quiet voices drew him on, and he entered that space followed by Taylor, his face wreathed in smiles. Ahead of him was the broad sweep of glass that ran across the entire back of the ship, through which he could see the remains of the Cornish coast as it disappeared into the distance to be replaced with a growing plain of lumpy, green sea. He turned towards the sound of voices and saw his officers gathered around one of the bulkheads. On it hung a large gilt-framed oil painting of a lady in a blue dress. Staring out at him from the canvas, and holding his gaze, was the face of his wife Lydia.
‘God bless my soul!’ he exclaimed. ‘How simply splendid!’
‘Felicitations from the wardroom of the Titan on the occasion of your marriage, sir,’ said Taylor, and the other officers all politely applauded.
‘Gentlemen, you have me taken all aback! How has such a magnificent portrait come to be produced?’
‘Would you care to meet the artist, sir?’ asked Thomas Macpherson, the Titan’s Scottish marine officer.
‘Above all things!’ said Clay. ‘But surely he cannot be aboard?’ He looked from face to face and stopped at the ship’s second lieutenant. John Blake was a thin young man with sandy hair and blue eyes. He had blushed as red as Macpherson’s scarlet coat. ‘I knew you to be a talented draftsman, Mr Blake, but I had no idea you were capable of this. The likeness is astounding. But Lydia has barely left my side these last several months. How on earth did you even contrive to meet with her, without my knowledge?’
‘I will be the first to confess it was not easy, sir,’ replied the young lieutenant. ‘Your friend Captain Sutton arranged for me to conduct an initial sitting before the wedding with Miss Browning, as she then was. I principally used my sketches from that, supplemented by another portrait I borrowed that was in the possession of her aunt, Lady Ashton. I am delighted to hear that you believe that I have captured her likeness. I was most uncertain about the nose, and thought perhaps I had made her ears a little too small.’
‘You have done it perfectly, Mr Blake,’ Clay assured him. ‘It is as if she were here with us. Thank you all so very much for my gift.’
*****
Two weeks later Clay was still enjoying the portrait of Lydia. He had repositioned his desk such that whenever he looked up from his work, his eyes would meet hers, and he would be reminded of the wife who waited for him at home. But it was a pleasure that was bitter as well as sweet. Sometimes, like now, gazing at her face only served to bring to mind the yawning gap between them that opened ever wider with each passing mile that the frigate sped on.
He looked away from the portrait in response to a knock on the cabin door. He had been expecting a visit from one of the frigate’s collection of ungainly midshipmen, ever since the hail from the masthead had echoed down through the skylight above him.
‘Come in!’ he called, picking up a piece of paperwork from the desk and making sure he appeared to be studying it when the door should open. He looked up to see the figure of Midshipman Butler shamble into the cabin.
‘Mr Blake’s compliments, sir, and there is a sail in sight two points off the starboard bow,’ he said. Clay looked at the youngster for a moment. He was stood to attention in front of his captain’s desk with both his arms held down by his sides. A two inch wide strip of shirt sleeve protruded from each arm of the coat.
‘How old are you now, Mr Butler?’ Clay asked.
‘I turned sixteen August last, sir,’ replied the midshipman.
‘And have you been growing particularly quick of late?’
‘I am not sensible of having done so, sir,’ the boy replied, looking puzzled. Clay indicated his sleeves. ‘Well, I never did. I had thought that my coat was a little snugger than before we went on leave, sir.’ In his mind’s eye, Clay was transported back to his time in a crowded midshipman’s birth, with all its fights and rivalries, and laced through with the cruelty of the young. He wondered how the slow-witted Butler would cope with being teased over his coat.
‘See that you have it altered,’ he concluded. ‘I will ask my steward, Hart to furnish you with broadcloth, and help you with the work. My compliments to Mr Blake, and I will be up directly.’
When Clay came on deck, Jacob Armstrong was locked in a heated discussion with the officer of the watch.
‘I assure you, Mr Armstrong, she will just prove to be one of our merchantmen engaged in the wine trade,’ insisted the young artist.
‘I dare say she might, Mr Blake, but why then did she alter course the moment she saw our topsails?’ asked the ship’s new sailing master.
‘Good morning, Gentlemen,’ said Clay. ‘What an animated discourse you are having. Has all this been occasioned by one scrap of sail on the horizon?’
‘We have a sailing brig on the bow ten miles distant, sir,’ reported Blake. ‘She was on a similar course to ourselves when sighted, but she has now changed direction and is heading directly away.’
‘What is the ship’s position?’
‘We are thirty miles from the Portuguese coast with Oporto bearing north northeast, sir,’ reported Armstrong.
‘Get the topgallants on her if you please, Mr Blake, and let us close with your trading brig,’ ordered Clay. ‘I dare say she will be one of ours, but I am inclined to Mr Armstrong’s view. If she should prove to be a British ship full of port wine, it is passing strange that she was not heading north from Oporto, back home with her cargo. If I understand you correctly this ship was on a southerly course.’
With her topgallants set, the frigate began to shoulder her way through the long Atlantic swell and quickly closed in on the ungainly little brig.
‘She is flying British colours,’ reported Armstrong as the distance dropped.
‘Send up the private signal for merchantmen, if you please, Mr Blake,’ ordered Clay.
‘They seem to be having difficulty making their reply, sir,’ reported the officer of the watch. Clay took his telescope and saw the figures of two sailors on board the brig as they hauled backwards and forwards on the signal halyard, as if trying to clear a blockage.
‘When it comes to playing for time, that’s one of the oldest of tricks, sir,’ said Armstrong. ‘Ah! Here we go.’ A single flag climbed up the mizzen mast and broke out at the top. It was plain yellow.
‘A yellow jack?’ queried Blake. ‘What kind of response is that?’
‘It means he has an outbreak of disease on board,’ said Clay. He lowered his telescope and looked thoughtful. ‘Stranger and stranger. Order them to heave to if you please, Mr Blake, and have a boat crew ready to go across to them.’
‘What is all this talk of fever, sir?’ asked Taylor, as he joined the other officers by the rail.
‘A trading brig on the wrong course, unable to make a correct reply who now claims to have disease onboard,’ replied Armstrong. ‘All very suspicious, if you ask me.’
‘Matters will soon be clear. They have heaved to at last,’ said Clay. He picked up a speaking trumpet from the becket by the wheel. ‘Bring us to within hailing distance, if you please, Mr Blake.’
‘But not too close,’ added Taylor. ‘We would not want any infectious miasma to drift across.’
‘Ahoy there,’ yelled Clay. ‘What ship is that?’
‘Charlotte of Bristol,’ came the bellowed reply. ‘One day out of Oporto with cargo of vine.’
‘Even I can tell that is no Bristol accent,’ muttered Armstrong. ‘He sounds more like a German.’
‘You are on a strange course for a ship bound for Bristol,’ said the captain.
‘That doesn’t sound right, sir,’ said Blake. ‘How would he propose to dock there if he has fever onboard?’
‘Why are you showing a yellow jack?’ asked Clay.
‘We are having three cases of bilious fever,’ said the man. ‘Oporto full of it, so we are leaving.’ Clay put his head on one side and listened with care.
‘Can anyone hear the sound of banging?’ he asked the others. ‘Mr Blake, you have young ears.’
‘I can, now you mention it, sir,’ he replied. ‘And perhaps some shouts too.’
‘Might it be the delirious ravings of the sick?’ suggested Taylor.
‘They seem very animated for persons who are unwell,’ snorted Armstrong. Clay thought for a moment, then raised his speaking trumpet to his lips again.’
‘Are you master of this ship?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘How high does the spring tide reach above low water at Bristol?’ The man hesitated for a moment before replying.
‘Two or three fathoms?’ he offered.
‘I am sending a boat over,’ said Clay. ‘If you move, I shall have you and your ship blown out of the water.’
‘But, sir,’ protested Taylor. ‘What of the bilious fever on board? Think how it will spread amongst the crew.’
‘Balderdash, Mr Taylor!’ exclaimed Clay. ‘That flag is just a ruse to put us off the scent. Quite apart from his strange accent, did you ever hear tell of a Bristol trader who is unaware that his home port has the largest tidal range in Christendom? If there is so much as one man suffering from a cold aboard I’ll... I’ll... eat Mr Armstrong’s wig. You had best have the boat crew armed, and once he has been rescued, have the master of that ship brought back here, if you please.’