The Death Card (A Charlie Raven Adventure) Read online

  The Death Card

  Jan Needle

  © Jan Needle 2014

  Jan Needle has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  This edition published 2014 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Extract from Nelson: The Poisoned River by Jan Needle

  Preface

  In the long middle years of the eighteenth century, the navies of France and England kept up a running struggle which only occasionally degenerated – or developed – into total war. Captain Hector Maxwell is very much a man of this time. He commands the sloop Pointer with an iron hand, and scant regard for morals or for men.

  Cutting out a French sloop, Maxwell’s crew have clashed with smugglers from the Isles of Scilly, with deaths on both sides. Despite the islanders seeing themselves as patriotic Englishmen, he is determined to punish them – as well as his own nephew Charlie Raven, who has stood up for a common seaman called ‘Sawdust’ Simpson. Maxwell’s hatred for his sister’s son is irrational; it is also absolute…

  Chapter One

  It was not many hours after the anchor had been dropped into the peaceful waters of the bay that Captain Hector Maxwell decided to invade the Scilly Islands. His men were lying drunk around the decks, his nephew was in the sick berth halfway drowned, and he went, as so many times before, from peaceful calm to instant, foam-flecked fury.

  Around the silent cabin table, his officers stiffened perceptibly, while his servant, Winterson, moved the wine carafe covertly out of danger. They recognized the burst of deadly malice, the muscles working round his hard-clenched jaw.

  ‘They have shamed us, that is what!’ he spat. ‘They have tricked us, they have killed us, they have betrayed their duty to their Crown! Now mark you well, sirs – I shall have revenge!’

  The silent officers looked at each other surreptitiously. The Pointer had succeeded in her mission, had gone to France, cut out a ship, returned – a quiet triumph. Now Maxwell had become a raging bull no one could speak against. Not even to point out it was an English island he was planning to attack. Their lips were pursed, pale with tension.

  ‘First thing in the morning, as you have not the wit to ask, you dummies! We pour on shore and flush the villains out with gun and whip and cutlass. Nay! I have it! We’ll rouse out the people now, finished at the trough or no! We’ll get them on the beach before it goes pitch-black, and take the fight straight to the traitors! We’ll comb the ditches! Burn down their hovels! Break heads! Now!’

  Still silence. He stared at his stolid first lieutenant, his own eyes bright and bulging.

  ‘You, sir! By God Mr Stewart, have you lost your tongue? What say you, sir?’

  Dinner in the cabin had hardly started when this sudden rage had seized the captain, supplanting the strange euphoria the brutal punishment of his nephew Charlie Raven had brought on. Until now the plan for the morning had merely been the flogging of a mutineer.

  But Lieutenant Stewart was a calm and thoughtful man.

  He took a modest sip of wine, cleared his throat, and said mildly, ‘I beg your pardon, sir, but I fear the people are hardly in a fit condition for such an action. They are excitable, and perhaps a little drunk. They expected to be flogged, and instead you let them off and gave them liquor. A good reward for taking the French sloop.’

  ‘It was kind of you, sir,’ a chubby youngster ventured, eager to please. This was Ross, the only midshipman at the table, quite clearly tipsy. As he spoke he blushed, and Lieutenant Daniel Swift made a rough sound of contempt. ‘Perhaps too kind,’ Ross mumbled.

  Lieutenant Swift’s lip curled.

  ‘You are a fool, boy, and should learn to hold your tongue,’ he said. ‘The captain talks of treacherous dogs who dare defy their king, and it is not a cause for sucking up. They have killed two of us already, and injured three. The sickbay is bursting at the seams. Any more, and we will have to toss some overboard.’

  Ross may have been a fool, but he was not a coward. He dared to have another go.

  ‘The French, you mean, though? We would not destroy our own hurt men?’ He backtracked, pathetically. ‘Indeed,’ he said, ‘just prisoners, of course. I’m sorry, sir, I’m very sorry.’

  Somehow, Maxwell seemed mollified. He did not normally respond so well to idiocy, but the reminder they’d brought back prisoners from France turned the trick, maybe. And the captured prize, limping behind them under jury rig, that was expected soon. Money in the bank…

  ‘Well, we did have hot work beating off the Scillymen while Mr Swift’s gigs swanned off across the Channel, but never mind. They achieved some useful damage, and we live to fight another day.’

  ‘Aye, Captain,’ said Lieutenant Stewart. ‘Between us all we robbed them of some half a dozen dangerous men, and a got a sloop into the bargain. And when we get ashore, that payment shall be doubled on the Scilly renegades.’

  ‘Doubled, trebled, we will kill them all!’ crowed Maxwell. Then calmed. ‘They will be on their home ground though, and doubtless have reinforcements. I intend to strike hard, Mr Stewart, but I take your point about our drunken animals and their capabilities. Have them cease drinking now, on pain of death – and then I have a jolly trick to bring them to the sharp point of their duty.’

  ‘A trick, sir?’ said Daniel Swift. ‘This will be worth hearing! When will you set it on?’

  ‘First off we finish dinner, sir.’ Maxwell pointed at the midshipman, flicking his finger to indicate that he should stand. ‘Mr Ross; you have pigged enough. Leave off instantly, and go and find the bo’sun. There is to be a whipping after all, and it will be a good one. Tell him we need flares and lanterns. In great profusion!’

  ‘Look lively, boy,’ snapped Swift. ‘I shall keep my eye on you from now on, Ross. You are a shade too derelict. And fat.’

  ‘How many gratings, sir?’ said a milder voice. It was the master, Mr Collins. ‘Just the one already rigged for Simpson, or will you rope in other miscreants? Make it a spectacle?’

  There was a brief pause. Then Maxwell threw his head back and barked a laugh.

  ‘Aha, now there’s a thing, that’s a pretty thought indeed! Aye, a blessed spectacle! Belay that whipping, Mister, that’s old hat! What I want is more than flogging, it’s a blessed execution! A man shall dangle, dying in full sight, to show the others how they should behave. Merde! A necking from the yardarm!’

  Midshipman Ross, already on his feet, hung on the words. Every man, indeed, including the servant, was aghast. The captain’s face became a bitter smile.

  ‘We’ll hang Simpson,’ he said. ‘That bastard Sawdust Simpson.’ He laughed once more. ‘And we’ll do it in the morning — immediately after prayers! He can go to meet his Maker with a soul like driven snow!’

  Chapter Two

  Midshipman Charlie Raven remained unconscious for many hours on the fetid palliasse after they had fished him from the sea. Unconscious or asleep, no one could truly tell. Not dead though; they were sure enough of that.

  Although he was Captain Maxwell’s nephew, Raven was not the butt of cruel
ty from the men, even in the secret confines of the sickbay. His uncle was a demon in their eyes, who had dubbed his nephew ‘Craven’ most unfairly, and who took delight in his humiliation.

  He it was, finally, who had sent him to the masthead as a punishment, after the Pointer had returned from the cutting-out in France. And, for further punishment, Maxwell had made Lieutenant Swift shoot him for refusing to come down. It was a naked hatred no man could comprehend.

  The misdemeanour had been minor, but Raven was the captain’s sister’s son, and Maxwell held her husband in unfathomable contempt. Below decks there were many theories as to why he possessed such hatred, but in the way of things, no one exactly knew. In the way of things ditto, no one exactly cared. The villain and the victim were both gentlemen. They were of another world.

  Any other midshipman perceived so lacking in protection, though — Edward Ross say — would have suffered from the men unbearably. Raven however, had earned respect. He was not large, but he was brave and strong, and a great hand with an oar. He was also generous towards them, and knew their names.

  Hector Maxwell’s latest and most powerful weapon against him had been his discovery of Raven’s fear of heights. A fear of heights at sea is terrible, and most who suffer from it either quit or die. Falling from aloft kills more seamen than battle ever does, and the reasons sometimes remain mysterious.

  His nephew was unconscious in the cockpit now precisely because Maxwell had made this discovery, and chosen to make him climb up to the main truck and balance there, as a punishment. It is an old test, designed to see if a young officer lacks in courage; and also to demonstrate another’s power over him. A captain’s power, naturally, is absolute. So Lieutenant Swift, when ordered, had raised his musket, sighted, pulled the trigger.

  Without a scream, Raven had bounced and battered off the yards and rigging, until the lower shrouds had catapulted him into the sea, watched by the assembled company. And in the aftermath, the man called Sawdust Simpson, enraged, had publicly accused his lord and master of attempting to kill his nephew, nothing less. After a savage beating on the quarterdeck, Simpson was chained below to await a flogging in the morning. To be followed by a trial when they returned to Portsmouth, and perhaps an execution.

  But now, the sentence was commuted. Simpson was to strangle at the yardarm, dance the sailors’ jig. On Maxwell’s iron whim…

  *

  It was not until the morning of the hanging that Charlie Raven came back to some form of consciousness. Aware at first of only smells – blood and excrement – he picked up slowly on the sounds of groaning, then voices, some of which seemed to be French. A wave of panic rose up in him.

  What had happened? He had vague memories of a battle in the bowels of a ship, then memories of a crowded gig, men rowing frantically, shots fired, screams heard.

  Then, horrifyingly, he was crouching on the mainmast truck, a bolt of nausea bursting in his throat. He heard Hector Maxwell screaming from the void below that he would shoot him down. A sharp bang and a flying splinter as a musket ball slammed into the tarred wood at his feet. A piercing pain, a spasm of his muscles, the realisation he was falling.

  Lying in the cockpit, panting, Raven remembered the fall as brief, blurred details. He had bounced off solid wood and unforgiving cordage, he felt the painful crash as he hit the surface of the sea, as solid as a floor of oak. He recalled his indrawn breath, the water rushing in. But he remembered nothing else.

  He was alive. He was in the sickbay, surrounded by hurt sailors, some of whom were French. The prisoners, no doubt, from Brittany.

  It was many minutes before he had the strength to move, however hard he tried. He was on his back, and by the smoking glims he perceived he was in uniform, what was left of it. White shirt, blue jacket, trousers of blood and vomit, everything still wet. But then he could move; he could move his arms and legs. Then raise his head, and roll onto his belly. He could crawl.

  It was twenty minutes before he found the sailor Simpson, and it was only by the help of sympathetic men. Simpson was in irons, in a filthy little alcove in the orlop far away, bent double and in chains, as naked as an oven-ready goose.

  Simpson was unmoving. He was dead.

  Chapter Three

  Captain Maxwell was not a man who had much truck with dallying. When the sun was barely up next morning, the grating rigged for flogging had been replaced by the grander set-up for a good old-fashioned choke.

  The marine contingent, under command of Lieutenant Adler, had looked to their cockades and pipe-clay, had primed and oiled muskets. The sailors had scrubbed away all traces of hard drinking and been piped to prayers and breakfast.

  And Simpson, as a special privilege, was allowed a few extra minutes to live – ‘in peace.’ He would be dragged up, stripped, and sluiced down thoroughly before he met his Maker — social niceties must be observed! — but until that time, no need to even check him.

  It was the first lieutenant, unsurprisingly, who raised the first objection. Stewart was a stolid man, assumed by the more mercurial to be somewhat slow, or even stupid. He was prepared, however, to go beyond what he’d voiced the night before, and far beyond what other men would dare.

  They were eating a mess of pork and fried potatoes, and Stewart started off his ploy obliquely. He speared a chunk of meat on his fork, and addressed it as though it were another person’s face.

  ‘The people are in a pretty pass from what I hear below decks,’ he said. ‘They have worked out that there is to be no whipping, but the rumours for a hanging have gone wild.’

  The other officers looked at him. When the first lieutenant spoke it was a matter for attention. The captain stared at him suspiciously.

  ‘And so, sir? But they are hardly rumours, in the meaning of the word.’

  ‘In drink last night,’ Stewart continued, ‘they were wild enough against the idea of a mere flogging, let alone the worse. Simpson is a well-liked man. There is the stink of disaffection down there now.’

  ‘Well merde to all of them!’ said Hector Maxwell. ‘I will hang one, and if they rise against it, I will hang the whole damn lot! Beloved Mary, these scum are unconscionable! I am the captain here, I have the law behind me. Hang one, hang all! Simpson is a mutineer, and mutineers must die!’

  Mr Collins, a sailing master noted for more courage than discretion, said quietly, ‘But last evening, sir, did you not talk of taking him back to England to face fair trial?’

  ‘To be found guilty, naturally,’ said Lieutenant Stewart, smoothly. ‘There surely will be no doubt at all of that.’

  ‘That was for insolence,’ said Maxwell. ‘This is for mutiny! Who knows what some namby-pamby judge might choose to give for insults only? For mutiny there is no doubt, on board of here or in the highest court in London. Simpson would hang there, so let us hang him here, and end the shilly-shally! He will hang this morning.’

  The tension round the table was palpable. A nervous smile appeared on Collins’ lips, but he had no more to say. Lieutenant Stewart was pondering.

  The captain’s servant, Winterson, coughed discreetly.

  ‘Do you wish me to clear —’

  ‘I wish you to shut your mouth, sir! How dare you interrupt your betters! These men are accusing me of murder!’

  They were silenced. Midshipman Ross, indeed, appeared to be on the verge of a seizure. For long moments the only sound within the stateroom was laboured breathing.

  Maxwell sighed. Then he laughed. It was a chilling sound.

  ‘Truth is, gentlemen, that Simpson is insane. You heard him railing at me on the deck last night. He was frothing at the mouth, he lost his reason. For the safety of the ship’s company, we must stretch his neck. It is our clear and bounden duty.’

  He eyed them one by one. He nodded. He seemed satisfied.

  ‘And any one of you who refuses to participate in this just punishment, proves himself to be lost in insubordination. As bad or worse as Simpson’s, and without the excuse of rank
insanity. This breakfast is over. Prepare yourselves for an execution. Winterson – now you may clear away.’

  Chapter Four

  Simpson had not been frothing at the mouth the night before, as Captain Maxwell had pleased himself by claiming, but he had been in a very violent passion.

  He had heard Charlie Raven, whose initiative and bravery had been key to cutting out the French ship from the hidden bay in Brittany, accused by Daniel Swift of insubordination and cowardice.

  Lieutenant Swift had claimed that Charlie had betrayed their presence to the anchored sloop as they had approached her in the darkness, although it had, in fact, been one of his own men who had shouted out the warning. Maxwell’s orders had been to wait secretly upon his own arrival in the Pointer before attacking the Frenchman, even if they had to lurk for hours. Some of the people had considered that absurd. Had they been spotted early, their chances of a surprise attack would have been ruined.

  When the lieutenant chose to tell Maxwell bare-faced lies after the successful sortie, Raven had naturally been powerless. Maxwell was a martinet, a stickler for protocol, who would have exploded had a junior spoken out of turn. Raven’s eyes had widened, his face had paled; but he had kept his mouth tight shut.

  The lieutenant’s tale was right in all but three particulars. His men had broken the silence, not Raven’s, he it was who had failed to control his crew, and it was his fault that the captain’s order had been broken.

  And in the bloody mayhem that had followed, Raven had been guided and protected by Simpson, the coxswain of his gig. Who had also, on learning of the calumny later, burst into a rage of insults, and spat them directly in the captain’s face.

  Which had been a hanging matter, it would now appear…

  When he found him on the orlop, it was some minutes before Raven realised Simpson was in fact still alive. So badly bent was he, his wrists and ankles chained together, his chin trussed down to meet his belly, it seemed impossible he could even breathe. He had on a scrap of cloth around his loins, gashes and bruises everywhere.