Ratcatcher

19

“You’ve got a choice, Corporal,” Jago growled. “Either you find Chief Magistrate Read and bring ’im here, or else you take me to ’im. Either way, you’d better be quick, or else I’m going to tear your bleedin’ head off, piss down your neck, an’ go and look for ’im myself. What’s it to be?”

The marine gripped his musket and swallowed nervously. An angry Jago was an awesome sight, and the corporal who had stopped Jago at the top of the dockyard jetty stairs was beginning to regret his dedication to duty. Not that he’d had much say in the matter; his orders had been clear. Halt and prevent all unauthorized personnel from entering the dockyard area. The directive had been handed down by Sergeant of Marines Burnside, and where Corporal Elias Watkins was concerned, Sergeant Burnside’s word was law. So the corporal stood his ground.

“Can’t do that. You ain’t got authorization.” The corporal stumbled over the last word.

Jago reached under his jacket. “This here’s all the authorization I need, laddie.” He held out Hawkwood’s baton. “So, why don’t you stick your neck back in, and you and me can take a little walk. What about it?”

The corporal looked Jago up and down.

“Right now would be a good time,” Jago hinted ominously.

The corporal regarded the baton, its royal crest, and the fearsome expression on Jago’s face, then took a cautious look over his shoulder. Indecision furrowed his brow. Finally, after what seemed like an age, he shouldered his musket.

“You’d best come with me.”

The big warship lay at anchor, paintwork gleaming. Her two-decked hull was mustard yellow, her upper wales and gunports jet black. She dwarfed the flotilla of smaller dockyard support vessels that hustled and bustled feverishly around her high chequered sides like worker ants around a queen.

Cutters, buoy boats, hoys, pinnaces, skiffs and lighters scurried between ship and shore, loaded to the gunwales with equipment and victuals, while yachts, yawls and gigs transported officers and men with all the dexterity of waterborne sedan chairs.

Her name was inscribed boldly for all to see on the counter of her stern: Thetis.

The dockyard rang with the sounds of industry. Enclosed within the yard’s stout protective walls were all the workshops and raw materials vital to maintaining the British Navy’s command of the high seas. From launching and building slips, wet and dry docks, mast houses, boat ponds, saw pits and timber berths to tar and oakum stores, sail lofts, rigging-houses, rope-walks, smithies and copper mills, and accommodation for a score of other trades besides.

Adjacent to the dockyard lay the huge victualling yard. Had the capital, by some cruel circumstance, found itself in the grip of a deadly epidemic, the chairman and commissioners in charge of the navy’s Victualling Board could rest easy, secure in the knowledge that the Royal dockyard and its workforce would emerge from the plague unscathed. All they’d have to do was bar the gates. The yard was as self-sufficient as a small town. Aside from dry-storage facilities, the Deptford yard boasted its own bakery, brewery, cooperage and slaughterhouse. This was evidenced not only in the sounds that carried across the water but also in the smells that accompanied them. Some pleasant, like the warm aroma of freshly baked bread and biscuits and fermenting hops, some not so agreeable: the pungent odour of boiling tar and the sweet, sickly whiff of cow shit, untreated hide, fresh blood, and offal.

James Read stood by the side of the launching slip and surveyed the activity before him. His right hand toyed idly with the handle of his cane.

“You think she’ll pass muster?” The voice came from the man at his side.

Commissioner Ezekiel Dryden was tall and loose-limbed. His heavy-lidded eyes and languid exterior gave the impression of a lifetime spent in idle pursuits. Dryden, however, was a former naval captain, as were the majority of dockyard commissioners. He had commanded ships in action. Now he was in charge of both the Deptford and Woolwich dockyards. He had full authority over all dockyard personnel, both military and civilian, and movement of all vessels therein. He reported directly to the Navy Board.

James Read looked pensive. “She’ll have to. I fear time’s against us.”

A movement on the dockside diverted the Chief Magistrate’s attention. Two men were approaching, a marine and a civilian. Read’s heart quickened.

The marine drew to a halt and saluted. “Beggin’ your pardon, your honour…” But he was given no chance to expand as James Read held up a hand.

“Thank you, Corporal. You may go.”

The corporal blinked at the curt dismissal. He looked towards Dryden, as if seeking some kind of moral support. When none was forthcoming, he glanced at Jago with renewed respect and not a little confusion.

“Don’t let us detain you, Corporal.” Commissioner Dryden’s dry voice broke into the marine’s thoughts.

“Yes, sir. Very good, sir.” Discipline finally overcoming curiosity, the corporal gave a flustered salute, shouldered his musket, and turned on his heel, no wiser than he had been before the big man had arrived.

Read wasted no time. “You have news, Sergeant?”

Jago nodded. “Aye, an’ none of it’s good.”

“Explain.”

Read and Dryden listened in silence as Jago described his own entry and investigation of the Mandrake warehouse. Read’s expression grew even more severe as Jago described his discovery of the clockmaker’s corpse.

“God in heaven!” Dryden, though a seasoned officer, experienced in the harsh reality of war at sea, was plainly shaken by the cold-blooded murder of Josiah Woodburn.

“And Officer Hawkwood?” the magistrate prompted. “You say there was no sign of him?”

Jago shook his head. “It’s my guess they took ’im.”

Read frowned. “Took him where?”

“On board with ’em.”

The magistrate looked taken aback. “On board? You mean the submersible?”

“I reckon.”

“God almighty!” Dryden said. The commissioner turned and stared balefully out at the river.

From the other side of the wall, separating the dockyard from the victualling yard, there came a sudden mournful lowing followed by a succession of ear-piercing grunts and squeals; the cacophony heralding a fresh intake of stock, newly arrived from Smithfield. Somewhere nearby, a hammer clanged against an anvil. The reverberation was followed by a wail of invective. While in a distant corner another, more strident voice, could be heard berating some hapless unfortunate for botched workmanship. Life in the yard went on.

“And you definitely saw the craft submerge?” Read pressed.

Jago hesitated. “You’re askin’ if I’m positive I saw the bloody thing. Can’t say as I am. All I can tell you is that the boat was there one minute and gone the next, Sparrow along with it. Could’ve been the top of a bloody barrel that I saw go under, could be the two shit-shovellers were lookin’ at something else, but if it was this submersible you told us about, then it’s still out there—” Jago nodded towards the water. “Somewhere.”

All three men gazed out at the river. The water looked suddenly deeper and darker and infinitely more menacing than it had a few moments before.

“So what do we do now?” Jago asked.

The Chief Magistrate remained silent. Dryden looked down at his shoes. Jago didn’t like the way they were avoiding his eye. “We’ve got to stop the bloody thing! What about the captain? What are we goin’ to do about him?”

James Read continued to gaze at the river. “Officer Hawkwood, I fear, is on his own. If he is on board the submersible, then we must pray that he finds a way to disable the vessel and gain the upper hand. If not, then there’s nothing any of us can do to assist him.”

Jago swore under his breath. They were not the words he had wanted to hear, even though he knew the magistrate was right, “But what about the ship? You’ve got nets out, right? And patrol boats?”

James Read turned slowly. There was a stillness about the magistrate’s face which Jago had not expected.

“No, Sergeant, we do not have nets out. Neither have we employed extra patrol vessels.”

Jago stared at the magistrate in horror. “But she’s a sittin’ duck!”

“Indeed she is, Sergeant.”

Jago looked at the ship, at the boats bobbing around her, at the men on her deck. “Oh, Jesus! What the hell have you done?”

James Read followed Jago’s gaze. The magistrate’s mouth was set in a grim line. “We have a contingency plan. Should Officer Hawkwood fail in his mission, we intend to let William Lee continue with his attack.”

Jago’s face distorted with shock. “You’re not bleedin’ serious?”

“Perfectly serious,” Read said.

Jago stared first at the magistrate then at the commissioner. “You can’t do that. You’ve got to stop the bastard!”

James Read raised his cane to shoulder height and swung the tip in an encompassing arc. “Take a look around, Sergeant. Tell me what you see.”

“What?” Jago blinked, temporarily thrown by the magistrate’s cool manner.

“Tell me what you see,” Read repeated calmly.

Jago shook his head in frustration. What the hell was going on? A ship was about to be destroyed by a madman and innocent men were going to die. And he was being asked to admire the view?

Which consisted of what?

Ashore, as far as he could see, there was nothing untoward. Plenty of activity, as might have been expected of a working yard. There were possibly more marines in evidence than usual, but that was about all. There were no marines stationed at Deptford, Jago knew. Those on current duty, like the vigilant corporal, would have been sent up from the Woolwich yard. But other than that, Jago couldn’t see anything that merited special attention.

His gaze moved to the water. There was the new warship, conspicuous in its gaudy paintwork, with several dozen small support craft flitting back and forth. Lying close by was the sheer hulk, the yard’s largest support vessel. The hulk was traditionally an old warship, cut down, with a mast fixed amidships. Fitted with extra capstans, sheer frames and tackles, the vessel was used to heave out or lower masts into newly fitted ships of the line. The hulk was the dockyard workhorse. The Deptford hulk was a particularly decrepitlooking craft, obviously long since fallen from grace, with its scabby hull more reminiscent of a coal barge than a retired man-of-war.

Further downstream, just beyond the dockyard limits, he could make out the prison ship. All the dockyards had them. Like the sheer hulk, they were usually former ships of the line or else captured vessels too old and too far beyond repair for further sea duties. At permanent moorings, they’d been used initially as temporary accommodation for transportees, but now the navy used them largely as holding pens for prisoners of war. There was a fleet of them on the Thames, lying off the mudflats in a scattered convoy stretching all the way down to the estuary. With their cut-down masts and decks and rigging often hung with drying laundry and mildewed bedding, they had become an ugly and all too common sight along the shoreline, though many a canny boatman continued to turn a handsome profit by running sightseeing trips to see the convicts at work digging and dredging the foreshore in preparation for some new riverside construction.

Jago’s eyes moved back to the warship and the movement of craft around her. There were a number of men onboard, he saw: a skeleton crew ready to take her downriver. Jago looked along her deck. A group of sailors stood clustered at her stern rail. By their dark blue coats and bicorne hats, Jago could see that most of them were officers. Nothing remiss, as far as he could tell. Other than the flags and bunting, there was not the sense of jubilation among the onlookers he might have expected, given the launch of a new ship, but this was a working dockyard and the experience was probably old hat to the local workforce. Jago dismissed the thought and was about to turn his attention elsewhere when the group at the ship’s rail broke apart to reveal the figure in its midst. Stouter and taller than his companions, he cut an imposing, colourful vision due, not only to his size, but to the wide sash around his waist, the ceremonial sword at his hip, the ribbons, medals and tassels adorning his broad chest, and the tuft of feathery white plumes in his hat.

Jago gaped. The reason why there were more marines around than usual was suddenly made clear. He swung towards James Read. “God Almighty! It’s Prinnie! What the hell’s he doin’ here? You were supposed to stop ’im!”

The Chief Magistrate did not reply. The corners of his mouth twitched. Commissioner Dryden studied his toes.

Before he could remonstrate further, a splash and a cry from one of the support boats reached Jago’s ear. He turned towards the sound.

A seaman had missed his footing transferring from bumboat to warship and fallen into the water, much to the amusement of his shipmates. Their laughter as he was hauled back aboard the bumboat in an undignified heap floated over to the quayside. It was what happened next that caused Jago to gasp. As the luckless seaman lay floundering in the well of the bumboat, the marine seated in the stern of the craft slammed the butt of his musket across the seaman’s shoulders. He was further amazed when the seaman’s companions rounded on the marine and let loose a broadside of abuse.

It had not been the spectacle of the blow from the musket or the seamen turning on the marine that had stunned Jago so much as the language that had been used. His first thought was that he must have misheard, but as he looked on the insults continued to be traded back and forth until a sharply issued command from the stern of a nearby officer’s gig stung the seamen into an uneasy silence.

Jago searched for the source of the order. There were half a dozen or so officers in the gig, and another armed marine. Jago looked closer. Something about the officers’ appearance didn’t sit quite right. He wasn’t sure what it was, but there was definitely something odd about them.

The commotion had drawn the attention of the men on the warship’s deck. A group of them had gathered by the starboard rail to see what the fuss was about. Another cry went up as a dark object tumbled from the rail. A feather bedecked hat. It spiralled down, bounced off the side of the ship and splashed into the water like a wounded seagull. Before it had time to sink, however, it was rescued by a member of the bumboat’s crew. Another derisive cheer marked the hat’s expeditious retrieval. The seaman who had performed the rescue waved the hat above his head. The hat had not survived the fall undamaged. The feathers lay flat and sodden. What was more noticeable, however, was that one side of the hat had been newly branded by a broad yellow streak.

Jago’s stomach turned over. He looked quickly from the hat back up to the warship’s deck. Deprived of the sheltering brim, the features of the hat’s owner were now clearly defined. It was a disclosure that rocked Nathaniel Jago to the core.

“Bloody hell!”

Jago swung round to discover that Chief Magistrate Read and Commissioner Dryden were regarding him closely.

Senses reeling, Jago took another, longer look at the occupants of the officer’s gig. What was it about the uniforms that had caught his eye? True, they weren’t the smartest he’d ever seen; decidedly scruffy, in fact, considering the occasion. If Jago didn’t know any better, he’d have said the state of the uniforms was more reminiscent of a slop chest’s contents than of a newly commissioned crew set to join a brand-new man-of-war.

And then it hit him like a bolt of lightning. He spun, taking it all in: the ship, the men on board her, the activity on the dockside, the presence of the marines, and the words that had been bandied in jest by the men in the boats.

“Mother of God!” Jago said in awe. He looked at James Read with horror on his face. “You’re mad! It’ll never bloody work!”

William Lee stroked his jaw tenderly, feeling the bristly beginnings of his new stubble, and a welcome sense of pleasure moved through him. He had missed the feel of a beard. He had worn one for the last ten years or so and felt naked without it. Now that his mission was coming to an end, with the necessity for disguise no longer paramount—it would have been unusual for a French aristocrat to have been so hirsute, Lord Mandrake had advised him—he was looking forward to the beard’s return. It would be like greeting the appearance of a long-lost friend.

Lee took his hand from his chin and prepared to deploy the Narwhale’s eye.

It was an invention of his own, independent of Fulton’s design, and necessitated by a fundamental flaw in the operation of the submersible. In order to keep its target under constant observation, the vessel had to keep breaking the surface, which inevitably increased the risk of the dome being spotted. The obvious key to the problem, Lee had reasoned, lay in providing a means by which the commander could keep the target in sight while remaining submerged. The solution, after much trial and error, had been simple and ingenious: a two-inch diameter sealed metal tube with a reflecting mirror set into each end. The surface of the mirrors ran parallel to each other at a 45-degree angle to the axis of the tube. Opposite each mirror, set into the side of the tube, was a small inlay of glass. Looking through either glass into the adjacent mirror one could see a reflection from the mirror at the other end of the tube.

Lee had sunk the device into the roof of the tower. Seated beneath the dome, the commander of the vessel could raise or lower the tube at will. With the vessel submerged and the tube raised, the commander, by looking into the bottom mirror, could see what was reflected in the top mirror, above the surface of the water.

Through experimentation, he had settled on twenty-six inches as the optimum length of the eye tube. Any longer and the image relayed back from the surface was severely distorted and too small to be of any use. Taking further inspiration from a spyglass, Lee had attempted to incorporate a series of lenses between the mirrors in an effort to magnify the image, but so far he had not been successful.

Lee raised the eye and wiped a tear of moisture from the rim. The device, though effective, had its drawbacks. The sealant—a concoction of pig grease and wax—had a tendency to leak over prolonged periods. Once water had seeped inside the tube, the mirrors would mist over with condensation. Lee hadn’t yet managed to solve that problem. He’d tried various methods of prevention and, although each successive attempt had been an improvement, he was still some way from devising a foolproof, not to say waterproof, solution. But for the time being it would suffice. At a distance of eighty yards from the target, the eye enabled him to observe the ship in close proximity. He could even see the name board at her stern. Lines were being hauled on board and made fast. The fleet of support craft was dispersing. Through the glass he could see the bunting and the flags in fine detail. He searched and picked out the one that marked his target: the standard of the Prince of Wales. It meant the Regent was on board, probably among that group of men at the stern, he reasoned.

“Closer, Mr Sparrow, if you please.”

The hull of the ship rose broad and sheer out of the water like the side of a cliff.

Lee lowered the eye. He discovered that his mouth was as dry as sand.

He looked at his watch. It was time.

“Take her down easy, Mr Sparrow. Gently does it.”

Lee adjusted the rudders. Narwhale crept forward.

Hawkwood pulled impotently at the bonds securing his wrists. There was some give in the rope, but not nearly enough. He glanced towards Sparrow. The seaman’s scarred back was towards him. Carefully, Hawkwood eased himself into a sitting position and drew his knees towards his chest.

“Rest easy, Mr Sparrow. We’re almost there.” Lee’s voice was a hoarse whisper.

Sparrow stopped turning the crank. Lee’s hands continued to move gently on the rudder controls, relying on the submersible’s momentum to carry them forward. Slowly, a dark shape moved across one of the windows. One by one, the tiny slivers of light illuminating the interior of the hull were extinguished as the Narwhale slid beneath the warship’s great hull.

A chill ran down Hawkwood’s spine. Was it his imagination, or had it become colder inside the darkened compartment? He heard the strike of a flint. A pale, spluttering orange glow told him that Lee had lit the lantern.

There was a bump, followed by a scraping sound. Hawkwood realized what it was. The top of the sub-mersible’s tower had made contact with the bottom of the warship’s hull.

It was Lee’s signal.

Suspending the lantern from a rib in the roof, Lee worked quickly. He didn’t have much time. Thetis would be underway within minutes. It would be impossible to drive the spike into the warship’s hull while the vessel was in motion. Lee lifted two items from hooks on the bulkhead. One was a small iron maul. The other was a thin, rounded T-shaped piece of metal. The stem of the T was threaded and resembled an auger. Lee lifted his head and probed the roof of the tower with his fingertips for the hollowed base of the Narwhale’s horn. Using his left hand for support he screwed the auger into the end of the horn. Ensuring that the join was tight, he reached for the maul.

It took four firm strikes with the maul to drive the barbed tip of the horn into the ship’s hull. Satisfied that the horn was firmly embedded, Lee reached up and unscrewed the auger from the shaft. From his pocket he removed a small wax plug and, using the maul, tapped it into the end of the shaft to seal it. Satisfied that there was no seepage, he resumed his seat.

Hawkwood was astonished at the ease and speed of the operation. It had taken less than a minute to attach the horn to the belly of the ship.

“Stand by, Mr Sparrow.” Lee leaned forward and released the lock on the forward windlass. “Now, take us down and out, if you please.”

Sparrow began to crank. Slowly, painfully, inch by cautious inch, the Narwhale began to nose forward. The click of the windlass could be clearly heard as the line running from the winch through the cleft in the horn to the torpedo at the stern of the submersible was reeled out. As the vessel emerged from beneath the shadow of the warship’s hull, light from the surface began to filter into the compartment once more and Lee extinguished the lantern.

It was in those few seconds, between the snuffing out of the lantern and the ingress of natural light, that Hawkwood was finally able to reach down, tendons stretched to breaking point, and remove the knife from the inside of his right boot.

Hawkwood had no idea how much time he had before the torpedo was set to explode. The count down to detonation was dependent on the length of the trigger line, and that, he suspected, given the diameter of the windlass, wouldn’t be long. And while he was sitting there thinking about it, vital seconds were ticking away. With Lee and Sparrow preoccupied with making good the Narwhale’s escape, he knew it was the only chance he had left. Reversing the knife and gripping the shaft precariously in his left hand, Hawkwood began to saw at his bonds.

Sparrow was cranking hard. The muscles in his shoulders and forearms bulged as he powered the submersible through the dark water. His back and chest looked as if they had been smeared in oil. The sweat dripped off him as the submersible began to pull away.

Counting steadily under his breath, Lee took out his pocket watch once more and squinted at the dial.

The Narwhale was travelling at two knots. Two hundred feet from the warship, the submersible checked. The movement was barely noticeable, but it was the moment Lee had been waiting for. It meant the line on the windlass had reached its full length and the submersible’s forward motion had been transferred to the keg at the stern. The torpedo had been released. It was heading unerringly for its target.

Ten seconds later, there was a second tug as the torpedo made contact with the warship’s keel, severing the line and its last connection with the Narwhale.

Lee gripped the bulkhead. “Brace, Mr Sparrow!”

The last strand of rope parted. Hawkwood reversed the knife and came off the deck with the blade angled towards Sparrow’s throat.

And the torpedo detonated.