A Man of No Country Read online

  ‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed Clay. ‘I can’t say I am acquainted with the lady, my lord.’

  ‘And I suspect Mrs Clay would prefer you to keep it that way. She has a reputation for eating men for breakfast, and is rather partial to a naval uniform I am told.’ Lord St Vincent seemed to bare his teeth at his new subordinate, and it was only with difficulty that Clay realised the admiral was smiling, for once. Five clear bell strokes rang out from up on the forecastle of the Ville de Paris, and the admiral pulled himself out of his chair, followed by his two subordinates.

  ‘Amery will give you your orders on the way out,’ he said to Clay, shaking his hand once more. ‘Take on fresh stores at Gibraltar, but when you leave the Rock you shall be on your own. I cannot aid you if you get into difficulty. The Titan will be the sole Royal Navy ship in the whole damned Mediterranean. Good luck, Captain Clay. Come back in a few months and tell me what the deuce is going on.’

  *****

  HMS Titan sailed into the bay of Gibraltar soon after sunrise and dropped her anchor in waters made dark by the long shadow of the mountainous rock that dominated the little peninsula. The crew then set to work with a will to replenish the frigate’s water and food, certain of a run ashore once the task was completed. Barrels and bundles of stores were swayed up from the lighters that rowed out to the frigate from the dockyard, to disappear deep into her hull. By early afternoon, the gratings had been put back in place over her hatchways, the hoists and lifts cleared away, and the deck scrubbed back to a smooth white that satisfied even First Lieutenant Taylor’s critical eye. Soon the ship’s boats were busy ferrying the hands ashore. Some headed for the delights of the markets, full of exotic Moorish trinkets from North Africa just across the narrow strip of sea. The more adventurous set off to climb the massive rock to admire the view, and to laugh at the antics of the apes that lived up there, but the vast majority got no further than the first convenient grog shop where the prices were low and the serving wenches comely.

  At one such establishment, deep in the old town, a group of the Titan’s crew took their ease at a trestle table in front of a low building that stood at a busy intersection. They sat with earthenware jugs of wine before them, and watched the world go by in the streets around the grog shop.

  ‘Well, it ain’t ale, but sometimes a drop of bishop can make a pleasurable change,’ said Rosso, as he sipped at his mug of rough red wine. ‘You certain you will not essay any, John?’ The Titan’s newest recruit shook his head. He was dressed in the same clothes as the other sailors now, but his short hair and big beard still picked him out from the rest, as did the glass of fruit juice that sat before him.

  ‘Thank you, Rosie, but no. My religion forbids it,’ he said.

  ‘Remind me never to become a fecking Mohammedan, won’t yous,’ said O’Malley. ‘At least Rosie’s new friend here is not shy of a mug of knock-me-down.’ Daniel Oates smiled at the Irishman and took a sip from his own cup. He was a small, shy young man, with pale sandy hair and hazel eyes, who had joined the ship at Plymouth as a volunteer. Rosso clapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘He may be new to the sea, but he ain’t no Quaker,’ he said. ‘Bristol born through and through, just like me, ain’t you, Dan?’

  ‘That’s right, Rosie,’ said the volunteer, with a weak smile.

  ‘So does you know each other, like?’ asked Trevan. ‘I mean from back home, an’ all?’

  ‘Not really, Adam,’ said Rosso. ‘We come from the same side of town, but I don’t remember no Daniel Oates.’

  ‘I am the same,’ said Oates. ‘I thought Rosie’s face was familiar when I first came aboard, but I don’t recall any Rossos. Dago name, ain’t it?’

  ‘Italian,’ he answered. ‘Mind, Bristol is a big enough place for that not to be strange. Now come, lads, we should be celebrating the return to us of our shipmate. I give you Sean O’Malley, the famous horseman, raised at last from his sick bed.’

  His friends gave a mock cheer at this, and the Irishman bowed low to all sides.

  ‘What I don’t get is how you came to be on this bleeding nag in the first place,’ said Evans. ‘Was you trying your hand for a highwayman?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ O’Malley began. ‘See, I had been caught with this colleen I was after visiting....’

  ‘Aye aye! Ain’t that you all over, Sean,’ snorted Evans. ‘I might have known there’d be a bleeding wench at the bottom of all this! Was her Pa coming after you with his blunderbuss and a set of gelding irons?’

  ‘It was not like that at all,’ protested the Irishman. ‘Well, the bit about her father sort of was, although it was more clubs and knives, like.’ O’Malley waited for the laughter to subside before he continued.

  ‘Anyways, what with him having roused half the county against me, I needed to push off sharp like. So I climb aboard this horse and even though I am no dragoon at all, I’m thinking how I’ve seen it done enough times by others. Well, it turns out that getting your actual horse underway is easy enough. You does a deal of shouting and kicking, and the angry mob coming up astern serves to do the rest. The horse shot off up the Ballymore road, which was the wrong fecking way, but any port in a storm, I am after thinking.’

  ‘So how was it that you came to fall off?’ asked Trevan.

  ‘Ah, it would seem that getting your horse underway is a deal easier than getting the beast to fecking stop,’ said the Irishman. ‘We were well clear of trouble, and she’s still going along like her tail is on fire. Time for us to heave to, I’m a thinking. I gives a shout of “Avast there! Belay!” and the like, but on she runs like I never said a word. So I leant forward, took hold of her ears and gave them a kind of a tug. Just to bring her to her senses like.’

  ‘Oh! She wouldn’t have liked that!’ spluttered Rosso.

  ‘No, she didn’t,’ confirmed the Irishman. ‘How was I to know she would take on so? She reared up like one of them stallions, capered around in a circle and sets herself to jump across the ditch, as was next to the road. She cleared it too, but not with me onboard. Back over her arse I goes and down onto my own. She disappears and I am left in the bottom of the ditch, all bust up. It’s a fecking miracle I made it back to the barky at all.’ His friends all thumped the table with pleasure at the Irishman’s story.

  ‘Seems right strange to talk of home when we be out here, a sitting in the sun in the middle of winter, like,’ said Trevan, once the laughter had subsided. The Cornishman was basking with his back settled against the wall of the tavern.

  ‘True enough, Adam,’ said Rosso. ‘I mean, it’s not what you’d call hot, but back home it’ll be bleak as a Puritan’s wake. Is it always like this here, John?’

  ‘Here in the offing of the Barbary coast it is always warm, yes,’ said Grainger, pointing through a gap between two buildings towards the coast of Africa. ‘But farther north in the Mediterranean proper, it’s cold now. There you will find rain and storms and maybe even a little snow.’

  ‘And fecking prizes galore, what with us being the only British ship in sight,’ added O’Malley. ‘Here’s to a bumper voyage, fellers!’ The group of sailors gathered around the table brought their drinks together above the centre with a collective bang and wine sloshed onto the scrubbed tabletop.

  ‘What manner of tattoo is that, mate?’ asked Evans. He pointed to Grainger’s hand that held his drink. On the back ran a line of shapes. There was a triangle, then some circles and loops, all in smudged blue ink.

  ‘That is right peculiar,’ said Trevan, who sat on the other side of him. ‘Do it mean anything in foreign, like?’ Grainger rubbed his hand, as if to remove the tattoo, and then moved it under the table.

  ‘I am not sure what it means,’ he said. ‘I was only a young boy when it was done. All the sailors on my ship had it, but what for, I don’t know.’

  ‘Well if you wants to see something a bit more regular, like,’ said Evans, ‘feast your eyes on this!’ The big Londoner placed his two huge fists down next to each other on
the table. On each knuckle a single blue letter had been freshly tattooed.

  ‘Bloody hell, Sam!’ exclaimed Trevan. ‘When did you have them done?’

  ‘Just now,’ he replied. ‘That’s why I was a bit behind you all in getting here. I wanted them to set down “Dread Naught” but it seems as how you need a few more fingers for that. Good, ain’t it?’ His largely illiterate audience looked at the fists in wonder.

  ‘So go on,’ urged O’Malley. ‘What does it fecking say?’

  ‘Holdfast!’ announced Evans. ‘Hold on this paw and fast on that.’

  ‘That be right good, Sam,’ enthused Trevan.

  ‘Except that isn’t what it says at all,’ said Rosso, ‘From over here it’s set down “fast hold”, unless you do this.’ He picked up the shocked sailor’s hands and crossed his wrists over. ‘Now it works.’ His friends all roared with laughter, and even Grainger and Oates smiled, while Evans face grew red.

  ‘I am going to kill that little bleeder!’ he bellowed. ‘He said he had his letters an’ all!’

  ‘Talk about the blind leading them as can’t fecking see!’ laughed O’Malley. ‘Why did you not take one of the scholars with you, to see it was set down right? Rosie here, or even Able.’

  ‘Where is Able?’ asked Rosso. ‘I thought he was going to join us, like.’

  ‘He was after visiting the market first, but if I aren’t mistaken that be him now,’ said Trevan, waving down the hill. Sedgwick waved back and pushed his way up the crowded street to join the sailors outside the tavern. In his hand he held a book bound in soft brown leather which he placed on the table as he sat down. Grainger glanced across at it, looked again, and then rose from the bench, his face dark with rage.

  ‘My book!’ he exclaimed, snatching the volume up. ‘Thieving Blackamoor! You have been searching in my kit bag!’

  ‘Easy there,’ said Sedgwick, shocked by the fury of Grainger’s reaction.

  ‘Hold your tongue, Grainger!’ roared Evans, rising to his feet. ‘Don’t you go talking to my bleeding mate like that.’

  ‘But he is a thief!’ spat the newcomer. ‘This book is mine.’

  ‘Steady, lads,’ said Trevan. ‘I am sure there ain’t no cause to take on so.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Sedgwick, standing up to confront the furious sailor. ‘You’re wrong. I just bought this journal in the market.’ Grainger tore open the book and saw that all the pages were blank.

  ‘Please forgive me,’ he muttered. ‘The Moroccan leather, the markings on the cover, it is quite the same as mine. I am sorry.’ He returned the book and sat down again.

  ‘Well, glad we got that settled without a mill,’ said Trevan. He poured Sedgwick a mug of wine. ‘I would say have a drink on it, but John here is dry as a Quaker on the Sabbath.’

  ‘Hey, what do you make of Evans’s new tattoo, Able?’ said O’Malley, breaking the awkward silence that followed. Evans held out his hands for inspection.

  ‘Fast hold?’ queried the coxswain. ‘I am not sure I follow, Sam. Is it some manner of prize fighting term?’

  ‘It’s a fucking mistake,’ growled the Londoner. ‘Them words is the wrong way round.’

  ‘Ah, I see,’ said Sedgwick. ‘Hold fast does make more sense. Is it marked on your hands for good?’

  ‘Aye, it bleeding is. I should have got you or Rosie to check it for me first.’

  ‘That would have been better,’ agreed the coxswain. ‘Mind you, some might congratulate you on a narrow escape. The man who did this could have set down any manner of word, with you none the wiser. “Sodomite” has eight letters too, you know.’ The others all roared with laughter again, while Evans smouldered with rage.

  ‘Ahoy there! Some more grog here!’ called O’Malley in the direction of the serving hatch. One of the girls came over with a fresh jug of wine. While the others were busy chuckling at the Londoner’s tattoo, Sedgwick sat a little back from the group. He was still puzzled about Grainger’s extraordinary outburst earlier over his book, and watched him thoughtfully. The serving girl slipped her way between O’Malley and Trevan to place the jug on the table and reached forward for the empty one. As she did so, she spotted the tattoo on the back of Grainger’s hand. The smile slid from her face and she recoiled back from the table, almost dropping the empty jug in her haste. Then she crossed herself and returned to the serving hatch, still looking back over her shoulder.

  ‘What you about then, Able?’ asked Rosso. ‘Got your eye on that wench, have you? She is a handsome piece, and no mistake.’

  ‘No, Rosie,’ said Sedgwick. ‘I was just pondering on something. What do think of my new book?’ Rosso picked it up from the table and hefted it in one hand.

  ‘Nicely tooled bit of leather, that,’ he concluded. ‘Are you going to keep some manner of journal then?’

  ‘I mean to set down the story of my time as a slave,’ said the coxswain. ‘Would you help me with it?’

  ‘Course I will, Able, although you’re near as good as me with your letters now. What has brought this desire to write on?’

  ‘Do you remember Mr Linfield back on the Rush?’

  ‘The sawbones as saved Pipe’s arm?’ said Rosso.

  ‘That’s right. He was real hot on Abolition, and held that stories like mine would further that cause. He wanted to write my story down, but I said no. But now I got my letters an’ all, I thought I would try to do it. Pipe’s sister, Miss Clay, she has written books, and she said she would help me to get it turned into something proper. When we return home, like, whenever that shall be.’

  ‘Well I never did,’ said Rosso. ‘No sooner have you got a fix on your letters, than you’re after writing books, eh?’

  ‘I was more thinking of one of them pamphlets, really.’

  ‘Even so, that is mighty impressive, and no mistake.’ He held up his mug and knocked it against Sedgwick’s. ‘Good luck to you, Able.’

  Some hours later O’Malley was the first to notice how low the sun was, as it sank towards the western horizon. He pushed himself up from the table.

  ‘Only a scant hour before we’re due back onboard, lads,’ he announced. ‘Who fancies a whore?’

  ‘I thought you were going to stop all of that, Sean?’ asked Trevan. ‘On account of that wench you was sweet on back in Ireland.’

  ‘And so I shall,’ said the Irishman. ‘First thing in the morning.’

  ‘Well, I will stay true to my Molly,’ said the Cornishman. ‘I’ll be heading back to the barky.’

  ‘I am with you, Sean,’ said Evans. ‘It’ll take my mind of these bleeding tattoos.’

  ‘Good man,’ enthused O’Malley. ‘You coming too, John, or ain’t it part of your religion either? How about you, Able?’

  ‘I’ll stay a little longer and try my luck here,’ said the coxswain. O’Malley followed his gaze in the direction of the serving girl.

  ‘Good fecking luck with that!’ he said. ‘You’re a fine looking feller an' all, but when she slaps your face for the second time, come and find us in the bawdy house.’ Sedgwick waited till the laughter and oath-edged talk of the sailors had disappeared down the street. Then he finished his drink, picked up his new notebook and rose from the table. He made his way across the terrace to find the girl.

  ‘I am not whore,’ she announced, before he could speak, giving her stock reply when approached by a British sailor. ‘There are plenty of brothels by the fish market. A few may be willing to accept a black man.’

  ‘No, miss, I am not after that,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to ask you something. The sailor I was with, the tall one with very brown skin and a beard. He had some manner of tattoo on the back of his hand.’

  ‘He is very bad man, to have such a thing,’ she spat.

  ‘Do you know what it means?’

  ‘I know the mark of my enemy! Men with these things have plagued this coast for hundreds of years,’ she said. ‘This is mark of a Barbary slaver.’

  ‘You mean he was a slave?’
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br />   ‘No, not slave,’ she corrected him. ‘The ones who take innocent people, and make them into slaves. Be very careful of him. They are cruel as the devil.’

  Chapter 4

  Cartagena

  Alexander Clay came on deck just after dawn to find that the Titan was sailing in thick fog. He looked towards the forecastle, where the foremast rose like the trunk of a forest tree, wreathed in mist. Beyond it nothing was visible. From above him moisture dripped from the masses of rigging and canvas lost in the gloom over his head. He shrugged his shoulders deeper into his pea jacket and scowled at his officers.

  ‘I had been told that the Mediterranean was warm and clear, Mr Armstrong,’ he said. ‘This is worse than the Channel.’

  ‘There can be early morning fogs on this coast, when the sea is cold in winter, sir,’ replied the master, his wig a pearly mesh of water droplets. ‘But it is rare that they persist for very long, once the sun gets to work upon them.’

  ‘So my plan to steal up at dawn and spy on the Spanish fleet at Cartagena before they smoke what we are about will have to wait till that happens, I collect?’

  ‘I fear so, sir.’

  ‘As we have an enforced delay before we can start our observations, may I take the opportunity of inviting you to sup with us in the wardroom tonight, sir?’ said the first lieutenant. ‘We plan to see in the New Year with some dash.’

  ‘That is very handsome of you, Mr Taylor,’ said Clay. ‘I accept with pleasure. What revels do you have planned?’

  ‘Tom Macpherson has them in hand, sir,’ said Taylor. ‘Apparently we English celebrate the New Year in a very indifferent fashion. He has all manner of Caledonian practices he wishes to introduce us to.’

  ‘How intriguing! What do you suspect will be involved?’

  ‘I am not sure, sir. He has secured a pipe of port wine that somehow got removed from the cargo of the Charlotte, so there will be no shortage of good cheer. I did overhear him asking the purser for salt, but for what purpose he wants it is a mystery.’