The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers Read online

  The one who had spoken next was taller than Thomas, much taller than the fair-haired officer. He had a high voice, and was clearly not the leader. Alone he would have worried Thomas; to have been in the presence of such a grandly dressed personage would have unsettled him. But alongside the small one, he was nothing to fear. He looked a jolly type, just young. He drank slowly on, aware of the gulping noise, the movement of his Adam’s apple. He wished they would go away.

  When the hot mutton pie arrived Thomas stood like a criminal.

  His eyes were stuck on the fair one’s face. He tried to speak, but could say nothing. His bread lay in the dirt at the pot-boy’s feet. His dirty toes wriggled, as though they were hungry and could smell it.

  William Bentley, master of all, watched the scene with relish. Before him stood a great booby, this country simpleton. Older than he, bigger, and trembling quite noticeably, in terror and confusion. A boy, a man almost, with pale cheeks, long black hair. What was he afraid of? The lower orders were truly strange. Just the presence of himself, younger and smaller, and that great bore Jack Evans, and he was like jelly. But the booby had nothing to fear, of course. In law. Nothing.

  In law, Thomas also knew, he was safe. He was too young for the press, even without allowing for the other reasons that he could not be taken. He lowered his pot helplessly.

  ‘Well,’ said the pot-boy impatiently. ‘Ain’t anyone a-going to eat this ’ere pie or drink this drink, eh?’

  ‘Begging your honours’ pardons, but I’ve got work to be a-doing of.’

  ‘Take it, dear fellow,’ William told the shepherd boy, indicating the ale. ‘Take it, and spare me a moment of your time if you please. I have business with you.’

  The pot-boy took the mug from Thomas’s hand. He pushed the full one into its place. He put the hot pie, dripping grease, into his free hand. Bentley gave the pot-boy a coin, while Evans attended to their gins. The pot-boy bobbed and left.

  ‘Beg pardon, your honour,’ Thomas mumbled. The grease from the pie ran down his smock. He licked it off his thumb, miserably.

  ‘Come now, sir,’ said William heartily. ‘Business. Drink your ale, eat your pie and listen. But first, sit you down. Jack! Get those barrels over, eh?’

  Evans rolled over three small casks, which he upended.

  William took Thomas by the shoulder and pushed him down. Thomas sat and gulped his ale. He felt dizzy, for he drank little in the normal way. He wished himself at home, or at market. At market. He had to sell his sheep. There they were, all twelve. They were eating the clumps of grass between the flags, quite content. He gulped more ale.

  ‘Now,’ said the fair-haired officer. ‘Let me introduce myself. I am William Bentley, of His Majesty’s frigate Welfare, at present anchored in St Helen’s Roads. This is my friend and colleague Mr Jack Evans. Midshipmen, by the grace of God and His Majesty, sworn to save old England from her enemies. And your name, sir?’

  Thomas Fox blinked. The grease from the pie had filled the palm of his hand, congealing as it cooled.

  ‘And your name?’ squeaked Jack Evans.

  ‘No matter,’ said William. ‘Listen, Mr No-Name, the King needs your help.’

  Thomas’s eyes opened wide. The King? He took another pull of ale. It tasted odd. Then the mug was empty. Needed his help?

  William laughed.

  ‘It is true, young man. The King needs your aid. Urgently. Are you a loyal subject?’

  Thomas shook his head to clear it.

  ‘I cannot go to sea!’ he said. He was surprised at his own sharpness. He spoke again, more gently, like an apology. ‘I cannot be impressed, your honour,’ he muttered. ‘I am too young, and vital to my family’s needs. We have a farm…’

  The two officers laughed. He wondered why, then thought of his sheep and his besmocked, country look. He smiled. And the pot-boy appeared, unbidden. More gin. More ale.

  He would have refused, but had he not heard the fair one say he would not be pressed? He blinked. He heard it now, in any case.

  ‘You have us wrong, young sir. Who talks of pressing? No no, for the moment your King needs only your services as a farmer. In short, we want to buy your sheep. All twelve of ’em.’

  Jack Evans piped up: ‘Our men need sheep, our officers need sheep, our ship needs sheep. Therefore, our King needs sheep. You have sheep, therefore our King needs you. What is your name, you helper of Royalty?’

  Bentley watched with satisfaction as the black pot of ale was raised once more to the now rosy face. Judging from the effect it was having, it was more gin than ale – which was, after all, what he had paid the smiling pot-boy to provide. When the Adam’s apple stopped moving, the shepherd boy wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

  ‘Thomas Fox,’ he said thickly. ‘Begging your honour’s pardon.’

  ‘Good man!’ said William. ‘’Tis a pity you will not come yourself, young Thomas, for you are a fine figure and would take to water like a duck. But no matter. Will you sell your sheep? To help the King?’

  The noise outside the inn-yard had become blurred in Fox’s ears. Inside the high wall a mist seemed to have gathered. He stared at his sheep. They wobbled in his eyes. Twelve sheep. To serve the King. Well, he had never heard of such a thing, to sell the sheep and not at the market, but he could not see the harm in it. Why not sell to these fine young officers, when all was said – and serve the King to boot?

  ‘I shall serve my lord the King,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Speak up, speak up, sir!’ cried William Bentley. He turned to Jack and beamed. Jack winked heartily.

  ‘I shall serve!’ said Thomas. ‘How much do you offer though? I must have my price, or the family will suffer. My family shall not suffer, sir, not even for his honour the King!’

  ‘Fine words!’ squeaked Jack, beside himself with excitement. ‘Fine words, young Fox, well spoken!’

  ‘Well, well,’ said the fair-haired one. ‘If you were able, I should offer you a full five pounds.’

  ‘Haha!’ roared his friend.

  ‘And if you were merely ordinary,’ said the fair one, ‘two pounds ten shillings would be your price.’

  ‘Haha!’ roared his friend.

  ‘But as you are a man of the land, shall we say…thirty shillings!? How does thirty shillings sound, landman?’

  Truly, Thomas could not say. He could not think at all clearly. Thirty shillings for twelve sheep. Was that better or worse than he could expect at the market?

  ‘Landman, I say. Will you accept thirty shillings? To serve the King?’

  Thomas blinked as the fair-haired boy in blue stood up off his tub and came towards him.

  ‘Hold out your hand, Thomas Fox. I will pay you in... silver.’

  ‘Oh good, Will, oh good,’ said the squeaky one. ‘Oh, very good!’ Thomas, who had a heavy black pot in his right hand, held out his left and opened it. There was a gasp from the officer. He looked downwards at his palm. In it were the remains of the mutton pie; a vile mess of cold grease, black meat and dirty pastry. Thomas wiped his palm on his once-white smock and accepted the thirty shillings of the King’s bounty.

  Suddenly the high-voiced officer said something harsh and abrupt, which Thomas did not catch. But the fair-haired one waved it aside.

  ‘Thomas,’ he said pleasantly. ‘You must help us to the Sallyport. We are men of the sea. To a flock of sheep we would be like lambs. They would rule us. Come now.’

  It was not easy, but it was done. Thomas had a headache. His arms and legs, let alone the sheep, were not inclined to do what he wanted of them. The trip down High Street, with its heavy traffic, its crowds of people, was difficult. In fact he blessed himself, over and over again, drunkenly, that he did not have to go to market and drive a bargain. He was thankful to the midshipmen officers too, for they occasionally kicked a sheep back into line for him, and chased off marauding dogs. They were very jolly, treating it as a game; they called it a convoy, and Thomas the flagship. Thomas was glad he’d met them, although he
wished they had not bought him so much ale. They were fine fellows. But thirty shillings, thirty shillings; was it enough, he wondered.

  They drove the sheep, bawling, through the narrow entrance to the Sallyport, under King Charles’s head. The stiff breeze, blowing straight onshore, beat Thomas Fox’s smock hard against him, cut through his thin coat. It was suddenly cold. His teeth chattered. He felt very sick. He wished he had eaten the pie.

  The sheep were nervous as he drove them along the pier. But now Thomas had many more helpers. A large band of sailormen padded the boards behind him and his officer friends. The sheep kept stopping, bleating, turning. But the wall of grim-faced men pressed them forward. The air was clean and cold and wet, the sea darkening as the sun dropped down the late autumn sky. They passed several moored boats, several bunches of Navy men who stared incuriously and said nothing. Then below him, a flight of green slippery steps to a jetty. There was a boat alongside it, pitching in the swell. A muffled boat-keeper sat hunched on a bollard.

  Thomas turned to the midshipmen.

  ‘How to get ’em down them steps, your honour,’ he said. ‘That’s a question I should not like to answer.’

  The fair-haired one laughed. He shouted something. Three seamen leaped on one of the sheep. There was a swift struggle, a terrified bleating. Before Thomas saw exactly how it was done, the sheep was scampering around the bottom of the boat. Within a few minutes all were in.

  Only the two midshipmen, another, older, officer, and four seamen were left on the pier. The boat-keeper, hunched on his bollard, had not moved.

  ‘Well, Thomas Fox,’ said William Bentley. He looked at the green-faced youth with contempt. ‘Do you have to be carried, or can you crawl?’

  Thomas stared.

  ‘Begging your pardon,’ he said. ‘I’m off home now. It will be dark one time, and there’s still work to be done, I suppose.’

  ‘Get in the boat, Fox.’

  ‘That I shan’t, young fellow. It was the sheep you bought, not I.’ He made to walk along the jetty. The gate in the city wall was clearly visible, a hundred yards away. Across his path the four seamen stood.

  ‘Thomas Fox,’ said William Bentley. ‘Get into that cutter before I drop my hand, or you will be carried.’

  ‘And if you disobey another order,’ Jack Evans shrilled, ‘you shall be flogged. You took the bounty, Thomas Fox. You are the King’s man now.’

  ‘The bounty? I sold my sheep! My lords! I sold my sheep! My father’s sheep! I took no bounty!’

  A sick void opened in his stomach. He dropped to his knees, burying his face in his hands.

  ‘Mr Dolby,’ said William Bentley coldly. ‘Have this poltroon carried aboard the cutter if you please. My God,’ he said to Evans, ‘to think we must man the King’s ships with suchlike scum…’

  Three

  At two o’clock the next morning William Bentley sat in the stern-sheets of the cutter once more, huddled in his thick boat-cloak, watching the dark seas off the easternmost point of the Isle of Wight. The boat rocked gently in the swell, and William was perishing with cold. Beside him sat the third lieutenant of the Welfare, a man of twenty-two called Higgins. William despised him for a fool and was glad their task forbade them to speak. All the officers on board his uncle’s ship were fools in one way or another, he reflected savagely. He longed for the day he might bring off something splendid, be made acting lieutenant by the captain.

  But he did not let his dreaming dull his concentration.

  The cutter was silent, except for the occasional creaking of the two stern oars, which were shipped and ready. Every now and again the two seamen at them dipped and pulled quietly, to keep the boat’s head across the seas towards where France must be. The other oarsmen sat the wrong way round on their thwarts, staring into the blackness over the bow. William stared too, till the dark glittered and flashed in his eyes. They had been there since midnight, waiting. So far nothing had happened.

  William was glad to be on the cutter. He had asked his uncle’s permission to join the ‘expedition,’ and had got it because of his successful recruiting drive in Portsmouth. Higgins did not like him much, and would rather have brought the boat’s crew out alone; but that had meant nothing once Uncle Daniel had given the word.

  He had been waiting on the quarterdeck when William had brought the boat neatly alongside with its chaotic cargo of sick sheep and sicker shepherd. William had nipped up the ladder smartly, leaving the mundane task of unloading everything to Dolby and Evans. There was a fairish sea running in the Roads, and he watched the lubberly antics of the waisters for a few minutes before his uncle invited him below. Before they went Swift spoke to the boatswain about the state of the crew. That illustrious warrant officer took deeply to heart the captain’s observations about what would happen if some seamanship was not soon beaten into them.

  In his uncle’s cabin, full glasses in their hands, William described his trip ashore.

  ‘The sight of a blue coat has a truly strange effect, uncle. You could almost hear the scurrying as the loathsome rats disappeared into their holes. Women and children aplenty. But of able-bodied men not a sign. I beg your pardon.’

  Swift chuckled.

  ‘Do not fish for compliments, my boy,’ he replied. ‘You know you have done admirably. I expected less. Half a dozen sheep and a shepherd. Excellent.’

  ‘A round dozen, sir. And they cost me no more than a landman’s bounty.’

  ‘All legal and above board,’ said Swift.

  William speculated. Did his uncle wish to know of the illegalities, or was he to keep it dark? He cleared his throat.

  ‘As to that, sir…’ ‘Well?’

  William put the tips of his forefingers into his mouth and bit them gently.

  ‘Well, sir. Let us say that Thomas Fox might claim he did not volunteer.’

  Swift looked at him under his fierce strong brows. ‘But he accepted the bounty?’

  ‘He accepted thirty shillings.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He might claim it was not so much the King’s bounty as… Well, sir, he was on his way to market.’

  Swift smiled bleakly.

  ‘Surely he would not be so foolish as to have parted with his flock for thirty shillings?’

  ‘He seemed satisfied at the time, sir.’ A short laugh.

  ‘No no, Mr Bentley, I’ll not believe it. Thirty shillings is thirty shillings. Whatever the value of a dozen sheep, and I confess I have not an inkling, the sum is too pat; too appropriate. Five pounds for an able seaman, two pounds ten shillings for an ordinary, thirty shillings for a landman.’

  ‘As I told him, sir.’

  The man looked into the eyes of the boy. ‘As you told him?’

  ‘Yes sir. Evans heard me, if it were ever to be in dispute.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Captain Swift after a moment’s silence, ‘perhaps I might see my way to offering him some more money, however. For his beasts. Sheerly out of generosity, as there can be no doubt that he took the bounty with his eyes open. Another thirty shillings, perhaps.’

  He motioned with his hand and their glasses were refilled.

  ‘Most appropriate, sir,’ William said gaily. ‘But I am sorry indeed to have provided only sheep and a landman. Perhaps you will allow me to try again? To go ashore and forage one more time?’

  That was not to be, however. Daniel Swift dismissed his servant, then dropped his nephew a hint. It was very apparent, without one word breaking such secret matters, that the frigate Welfare would soon be putting to sea. William felt a surge of excitement. By God, he thought, a little action would be a very fine thing.

  ‘As to the paucity of hands,’ said Uncle Daniel, ‘I have another string to my bow. It is a gamble, but one worth taking. Higgins will be out tonight with a strong crew, and I hope to catch a prize.’

  He watched William’s eyes. William asked the question without a word being spoken.

  ‘Smugglers,’ the captain continued. ‘I have
been watching ever since we anchored in the Roads. And I have spoken to several experienced shore officers in the city. The trade’s a flourishing one in these parts. They use the beaches at Southsea and Eastney, the bay here, the creek at Bembridge. Tonight I have high hopes.’

  It was too much for William. ‘Higgins!’ he blurted out.

  Captain Swift’s pale eyes became cold. He stared at his nephew.

  ‘An officer with great potential,’ he said. His voice was smooth and hard. William swallowed. He thought Higgins a toady, and dangerously weak. But it was not his place to breathe a word of that.

  ‘I beg pardon, sir,’ he said dearly. ‘My excitement ran away with me. I merely expressed disappointment at not being named. My natural conceit, sir. Forgive me.’

  A smile creased the thin face. William felt another rush of excitement, and warmth. Captain Swift was a hard man, and he wondered sometimes at his choice of officers. But of his affection for William there was no doubt. He knew he was forgiven, and went on.

  ‘Please, Uncle Daniel,’ he said impulsively. ‘Let me go too. Will there be many of them? Will there be a fight? My God, sir! I’d love a fight!’

  It didn’t take much persuading. He left the cabin a few minutes later as happy as a lark, and clattered down to the midshipmen’s berth, deep in the ship, aft. His friends greeted him with good-natured envy. His fame in recruiting twelve sheep and a ‘half-wit boy’ had gone before him. He revelled in their admiration, freely given, but refrained from telling them of the hot work to come. That would feed the fires of adulation for the next day, perhaps.

  *

  At about the same time, right at the farther end of the ship, Thomas Fox came slowly out of his drunkenness with a mounting panic that approached terror. All around him there was darkness, and heat, and the smell of vomit and animals. He lashed out wildly with his arms and legs, and awakened a chorus of bellowings and bleatings. He felt hot fur, saw the outlines of beasts – and slowly remembered.