With All Despatch

6. The Brotherhood

JOHN ALLDAY sat on a stone bench with his back resting against the wall. There was only one window, small, and too high to see out of this damp, cell-like room, but he had kept his eyes open since he had surrendered to the press gang and knew that the lockup house was somewhere on the road to Sheerness. They had passed a small cavalry barracks, no more than an outpost for a handful of dragoons, but enough, it seemed, to allow the press gangs to come and go without fear of being attacked by those who might try to release their captives.

Allday guessed it was about noon and tried to disperse his own sense of uneasiness, the conviction that he had acted rashly and might find himself in worse trouble.

His companions, just five of them, were a poor collection, he thought. Deserters probably, but no loss to any ship of war.

Feet clattered on cobbles and somewhere a man laughed. There was an inn just a few yards from the lockup house, and he had seen two fine-looking girls watching from its porch as they had hurried past. He had thought of the inn he visited in Falmouth. He felt suddenly alone, and lonely.

He recalled too the time he had been taken by Bolitho's press gang in Cornwall. He had tried to lie his way out of it, but a gunner had seen the tattoo on his arm, the crossed cannon and flags which he had gathered along the way when he had served in the old seventy-four, Resolution. If what he had suspected was a fact, this same tattoo would help rather than hinder his hazy plan. If not, he might find himself aboard a seagoing ship, outward bound to some hell on the other side of the world before he could make himself believed. Even then, a captain short of trained men would scarcely be willing to listen.

What would Bolitho do without him? He screwed up his brows in a deep frown. He had watched Bolitho's despair as he had met one barrier after another, and then the affair with the Loyal Chieftain had been more than enough.

He glanced at the door as a key grated in it and the same gunner's mate with the foul breath peered in at them.

He gestured with his key. "Outside and get cleaned up. Then there's some bread and cheese, ale too if you behaves yerselves!" He looked directly at Allday. "You stay 'ere. We need some more words about you."

Allday said nothing as the others hurried away, already lost. Was the gunner's mate merely dragging it out for no purpose, or was there something behind his remarks?

But it was another who finally entered the dank room. Allday recognised him as a member of the press gang, the one who had spoken to him on the way here.

"Well, Spencer?" The man leaned against the wall and regarded him bleakly. "Got yerself in a right pot o' stew, eh?"

Allday shrugged. "I ran once. I'll do it again."

"Mebbe, mebbe." He cocked his head to listen to some horses cantering along the roadway.

"With them bloody dragoons on yer tail you'd not get far, matey.

"Then there's no way." Allday lowered his head, to think, to hide his eyes. It was something like a wild animal's sixth sense, an instinct which he had always possessed, and which had saved his skin too many times to remember. Something Bolitho admired and respected, and had told him as much.

The man said, "Sailmaker, y'say?"

Allday nodded. He had no fears there. He had learned to stitch and use a sailmaker's palm before he was eighteen. There were not many tasks aboard ship he could not manage.

"Does it matter now?"

"Look, matey, don't take that tone with me-"

Allday sighed. "You know how it is."

The other hid his relief. For a moment he had felt something akin to fear when the big man had stirred from smouldering anger.

"Right then. There are ways. An' there's those who needs the likes o' you." He gestured contemptuously at the closed door. "Not like them bilge rats. They'd rob an' cheat anyone, gallows meat th' lot of 'em!"

He moved closer to Allday and added quietly, "We're movin' tonight. So wot's it to be? Another poxy ship o' th' line, or a berth in somethin' a bit more-" he rubbed a finger and thumb together "-rewardin', like?"

Allday felt cold sweat on his chest. "Can it be done?"

"No questions. But yes, it can, an' it is!" He grinned. "You be ready, see?"

Allday leaned over to pick up his old jacket and was careful that the other man saw his tattoo. "I can't stomach being locked up."

"Right you are. But make no mistake. If you betray those who might be willin' to 'elp you, you'll pray for death on a halter. I've seen things-" He straightened up. "Just believe me, see?"

Allday thought of the corpse on the Loyal Chieftain's deck, the rumours he had heard from some of the Telemachus's hands that the murdered man's family had vanished too. It did not need a magician to discover why.

The door opened and the gunner's mate came in. "You can get yer grub now, er-Spencer."

Allday watched for a hint of understanding between them, but there was none. In this game nobody trusted anyone. Perhaps the gunner's mate was controlling this strange business?

Any deserter would probably take an offer of help, even if it landed him in the midst of a gang of smugglers. Being retaken by a press gang at best meant the same life from which he had tried to escape. At worst it could mean real hardship, plus a savage flogging as a warning to others.

The gunner's mate walked beside him to a long, scrubbed table where the others were already eating bread and cheese as if it was their last meal on earth.

He said, "Stick to the sea, Spencer. Don't get like them scum."

Allday asked casually, "What did you want to talk about?"

The gunner's mate picked up a tankard and waited for a seaman to fill it with ale for him.

"Don't matter now. Your ship, the London, 'as sailed for the Caribbean. You'll just 'ave to take what you're given."

When Allday had been pressed and taken to Bolitho's frigate Phalarope he had seen nothing like this. From a quiet Cornish road to the messdeck of a man-of-war. He smiled grimly. Him and Ferguson who had later lost an arm at the Saintes. Now they would serve no other. It was more like love than duty.

He glanced around the yard. Small groups of men were being mustered and checked by the lieutenant and some other members of a press gang.

His heart sank. Not a good seaman amongst them… he almost laughed. How could he care about the needs of the fleet when at any moment his own life might be in danger?

But there had to be a way of doing it. If not the gunner's mate, then who? No ordinary seaman, press gang or not, could manage it alone. It would be more than his life was worth. A brief court martial, a few prayers, and then run aloft to some big ship's mainyard to kick your breath to the wind. No, there had to be more involved than that.

He watched the lieutenant, the same one who had called on him to stand and be examined. Allday knew ships, and he knew officers. This lieutenant had not the brains even to be dishonest.

The lieutenant shouted, "Pay attention. I'll not say it twice!"

Silence settled over the uneasy gathering.

He continued, "In view of the situation here you must move at dusk to Sheerness. You will go in separate parties, and obey all orders without hesitation. I shall personally see that any disorder is treated as mutiny." He glared around. "I need not say more, I think?"

Allday heard someone whisper, "Sheerness, up the road! Christ, Tom, we'll be signed into some ship afore the week's out!"

A tall figure with white patches on his collar moved from one of the outhouses.

Allday watched, his heart suddenly beating hard. The midshipman looked old for his lowly rank, about the same age as Telemachus's Lieutenant Triscott. A pale, embittered face, the mouth turned down like someone permanently out of humour. Passed-over for lieutenant, or held back because of a senior officer's disfavour? There could be a dozen reasons.

Allday reached out to pick up some cheese and saw the midshipman give him a quick glance, then another at the seaman who had made him the offer.

So this was it. Allday tried to think clearly and calmly so that the chunk of dry cheese almost choked him.

There had to be an officer mixed up in it, even if it was an unimportant, passed-over midshipman.

The gunner's mate said, "That's Mr Midshipman Fenwick. 'E'll be with your lot." He glanced at him curiously. "Between us, 'e's a pig, so watch yer step!"

Allday faced him. "I'll remember."

He returned to the cell-like room, his mind already busy on the next tack. If Bolitho discovered what was happening, it would be Mr bloody Fenwick who would need to watch his step.

Allday grinned. And that's no error.

Commodore Ralph Hoblyn climbed up from the schooner's cabin and leaned heavily on an ebony stick while he looked along the upper deck.

Bolitho watched him and tried to read his thoughts. The schooner, originally Dutch, had been renamed the Four Brothers, and, according to her papers, was used for general trading from the port of Newcastle. Her owner and master were one and the same, a man named Darley who had died in the brief but savage fight with Telemachus.

Now she lay at anchor off Sheerness, with the scarlet coats of a full marine guard at bow and stern in case anyone inside or outside the dockyard might be tempted to pilfer her cargo.

Hoblyn regarded the great bloodstain which had defied all attempts of the captured smugglers to remove it. The remains of those cut down by the carronades' devastating bombardment had been thrown unceremoniously overboard, but the stain, and the shattered timbers and planking were evidence enough of the battle.

Hoblyn wiped his mouth with his handkerchief. Bolitho had noticed that he seemed to tire very easily. Was it just that he had become unused to the sea, or did this schooner's deck act as a cruel reminder of his last command?

He said, "I am extremely gratified, Bolitho. A full cargo, and a well-found vessel to boot." He glanced up at the rigging, some of which had been spliced by Paice's hands for the passage to Sheerness. "She'll fetch a good bounty at the next prize court, I shouldn't wonder. The dockyard can patch and paint her beforehand, of course."

Bolitho asked, "You'll not take her into the service, sir?"

Hoblyn shrugged and winced. "I should be delighted to act on Their Lordships' behalf, naturally, Bolitho, but money first-theirs or someone else's." He turned towards him. "No favours."

Hoblyn walked to the vessel's wheel and touched it thoughtfully.

"I shall send word immediately. To the Customs Board too."

"So there were no arrests at Whitstable, sir?"

Bolitho half-expected Hoblyn to show concern or discomfort. If he felt either he concealed it well.

Only two smugglers had been caught on the shore by a patrol of dragoons who had been forewarned by Hoblyn about the expected run. In the skirmish both had been killed.

"No, more's the pity. But you took the Four Brothers, and that will make these felons think before they try again." He half-smiled. "I'm afraid you'll not get many recruits from the prisoners, though."

Bolitho stared across the water at the anchored cutter. He had never seen such a change in any vessel. The whole company seemed shocked and unable to believe what had happened. The fight had left five of their people dead and three more who were unlikely to recover from their wounds. In their small, tight company the losses had left a gap which new hands would be hard put to fill. Of the dead, the helmsman named Quin had been one of the most popular aboard. Ironically he had originally come from Newcastle, the Four Brothers' home port.

"Had we been able to take her by boarding, sir, then…"

Hoblyn made as if to touch his arm but withdrew it to his side. Another constant reminder.

He replied harshly, "It was not to be. They fired on a King's ship. There's not a judge in the land who would let them escape the scaffold, and rightly so!" He seemed to overcome the passion in his tone and added, "Be patient, Bolitho, you will have your men." He waved his stick towards the shore. "They're there, somewhere."

Bolitho turned away as Allday returned to his thoughts. It was not the first time he had acted alone. But now it was different. This enemy flew no flag. It could be anyone.

He watched as Hoblyn limped to another hatch where some men were preparing tackles for hoisting smaller items of cargo on deck. His mind kept returning to the boy Matthew Corker's discovery. The berlin concealed in Hoblyn's stables. Where did it come from? Hoblyn had arrived at the dockyard in an expensive carriage of his own, so had proved once again, if proof was needed, that he was a rich man. There could be no connection between Hoblyn and the schooner. It was far too risky. Any one of her hands might have turned King's evidence to save his neck, and damn anyone who was left secure.

Hoblyn remarked, "I suggest you do your utmost to get Snapdragon out of Chatham. I think you're going to need her. After your escapade with this schooner Their Lordships will likely feel more inclined to offload some of these patrols from the revenue cutters to your shoulders." He turned so that the sunlight glittered in his eyes. "Who knows? I may discover more intelligence for you to act upon." He shaded his eyes with his disfigured hand and watched as his carriage moved slowly along the waterfront.

Bolitho followed his gaze and saw what he imagined was the white wig of Hoblyn's servant inside the carriage.

A lieutenant of the guard called to the boat alongside as Hoblyn limped carefully to the entry port.

Then he paused and glanced once more along the scarred decks.

"Speak to Paice's people, Bolitho. It would come better from you." He gave him a searching stare. "Your man was unhurt, I trust? I know how you value his services."

So casually said. Or was it?

Bolitho replied, "He is on an errand for me, sir."

He felt something like sick relief as Hoblyn lowered himself into the boat.

I wish to God I knew where he was.

The marine lieutenant watched him impassively and said, "We shall have a guardboat pulling around us until all the cargo is unloaded, sir."

Bolitho looked at him. A young, untried face. He remembered Paice's words. A man of war. Am I really like that?

"Good. Keep your men away from the spirits too." He saw the sudden indignation in his expression. "Even marines have been known to drink, you know." He saw Telemachus's boat hooking on to the chains. "I shall leave it to you, Lieutenant."

On the short pull to the anchored cutter he noticed the way that the oarsmen watched him when they thought he was not looking. What was it now, he wondered? Respect, fear, or to learn what they were expected to become?

Paice greeted him at the cutter's side and touched his hat.

"All the wounded have been removed, sir. I fear that another of them died just before they left." He shifted unhappily. "His name was Whichelo, but then you'd not know him, sir."

Bolitho looked at the tall lieutenant and said, "Know him? Yes, of course. The one who was standing in full view by his gun. I am sorry the lesson had to be learned in death." He walked towards the companionway. "May I have the aid of your clerk, or is he the purser today?" He stepped down and almost expected to see Allday on the deck below, watching and waiting. "I have some despatches to be copied." He turned on the companion ladder, his face warm in the sunlight. "After that, prepare for sea, Mr Paice."

Paice stared after him, his mind still grappling with Bolitho's cool acceptance of what had happened. Such a short while in their midst and yet he had even recalled the man who had just died.

Paice clenched his big hands. Bolitho had somehow managed to use that information like part of a lesson as well as a warning. Perhaps what he had seen and done since he had first gone to sea as a twelve-year-old midshipman had honed all the pity and compassion from him.

Paice thrust through the throng of seamen who were working on repairs to seek out Godsalve the clerk, so he did not see the man who had just left him in turmoil.

Bolitho knelt in the small cabin, the uncompleted model ship grasped in both hands like a talisman.

A man of war?

Allday groped his way around the small timbered outhouse feeling for anything he might use as a weapon.

All afternoon the party of six prisoners with an armed escort of seamen had marched along the road towards Sheerness. When dusk came, the midshipman named Fenwick who commanded the group ordered a halt at a small inn where he was received with familiarity, although not with warmth. The other five prisoners were locked in an outbuilding with their legs in irons as an extra precaution. Allday, apparently because of his superior status as a sailmaker, was kept apart.

Allday returned to a crate where he had been sitting. The stage was set, he thought vaguely. He had heard the midshipman explaining just a bit too loudly to the seamen in the press gang why he was separating them in this fashion.

Once, the man who had first approached Allday came to the outhouse with some water and a hunk of bread.

"Is this all?" Allday had smelled the rum on the man's breath. It was what he needed more than anything.

The man had grinned at his anger. "The others ain't gettin' nuthin'!"

Allday had tried to question him about the proposed escape. How would the midshipman explain it to his superior?

The man had held up his lantern to study him more closely. "Leave it to us. Yer talks too much. Just remember wot I told yer!"

If only he could lay hands on a dirk or a cutlass. Maybe they had already seen through his feeble disguise? Someone might even have recognised him, and they were holding him apart so that he could be silenced for good when night came.

At sea Allday could tell the time almost by the pitch of a hull, and on land, when he had spent a short while guarding sheep in Cornwall, he had grown used to reading the stars and the moon's position for the same purpose.

But scaled up in this dark hut he had no way of telling and it made him more uneasy.

He wondered what Bolitho was doing. It worried him to think of him managing on his own. But something had to be done. He tensed as he thought he heard a slight sound through the door.

Now the truth. He could feel his heart pounding, and tried to control his breathing.

If it is to be murder-he would take one with him somehow.

Lanternlight made a golden slit up one side of the door, and a moment later a bolt was drawn. Then the seaman peered in at him.

Allday saw the midshipman's white collar-patches glowing beyond the lantern, and sensed the sudden tension. Even the sea-man seemed ill at ease.

"Ready?"

Allday left the hut and almost fell as the lantern was shuttered into darkness.

The midshipman hissed, "Stay together!" He peered at Allday. "One foul move and by God I'll run you through!"

Allday followed the midshipman, his eyes on his white stockings. It was not the first time he had made this trip, he thought grimly. Rough ground, with scrub and bushes, the smell of cows from a nearby field. Then over a flint wall and towards a dark copse which loomed against the early stars like something solid. Allday's ears told him that nobody else from the press gang was coming with them. He heard the seaman behind him stagger, and tensed, expecting the sudden agonising thrust of steel in his back. But the man uttered a whispered oath and they continued on through the darkness. The trees appeared to move out and surround them like silent giants, and Allday knew from the midshipman's uneven breathing that he was probably doubly afraid because of his own guilt.

"This is far enough!" Midshipman Fenwick raised an arm. "Here it is!"

Allday saw him stopping to peer at a large, half-burned tree trunk. The meeting point. How many others had come here to sell themselves, he wondered?

The seaman spat on the ground and Allday saw the glint of a pistol in his belt, a cutlass bared and held in his fist; no doubt he was ready to use both.

Allday pricked up his ears. The creak of harness, perhaps, but if so the horses must have muffled hooves. Where was it? He strained his eyes into the darkness, so that when the voice spoke out he was surprised at its nearness.

"Well, well, Mr Fenwick, another of your adventures."

Allday listened. The speaker had a smooth, what he would call an educated voice. No accent which he could recognise, and Allday had heard most of them on all the messdecks he had known.

Fenwick stammered, "I sent a message."

"You did indeed. A sailmaker, you say?"

"That is so." Fenwick was replying like a frightened schoolboy to his tutor.

"It had better be, eh?"

"There is just one thing." Fenwick could barely form his words for trembling.

The voice snapped, "More money, is it? You are a fool to gamble. It will be your undoing!"

Fenwick said nothing, as if he was unable to find the courage.

Allday watched the shadows. So it was gambling. The midshipman was probably being threatened because of debts. Allday stiffened and felt the hair rise on his neck. He had heard a footfall somewhere to his left, a shoe kicking against loose stones. He could still see nothing, and yet he sensed that there were figures all around them, unseen among the trees.

Fenwick must have felt it too. He suddenly blurted out, "I need help! It's this man-"

Allday crouched, ready to spring, and then realised that Fenwick was pointing at his armed seaman.

"What about him?" The voice was sharper now.

"He-he's been interfering, doing things without coming to me. I remembered what you said, how it was planned-" The words were pouring out in an uncontrollable torrent.

The voice snapped, "Put down your weapons, both of you!" When neither of them moved, Allday heard the metallic clicks of pieces being pulled to full cock. Then two shadows emerged from the opposite side, each armed with what appeared to be a hanger or, perhaps, a cutlass.

The seaman dropped his own blade and then tossed his pistol to the ground.

He rasped, "It's a bloody lie! The young gentleman's gutless! You can't take 'is word fer nuthin'!"

Allday waited. There was defiance in the man's tone, anxiety too.

The voice asked, "And Spencer, if that is your name, why are you here?"

"I'll repay my escape by working, sir."

"Mr Fenwick, how have you left matters at the inn?"

Fenwick seemed completely stunned by the change of manner. The unseen questioner was smooth, even jocular again.

"I-I thought we could claim Spencer had escaped-"

The seaman sneered, "See? Wot did I tell yer?"

"I have a better idea." There was a creak, as if the man was leaning out of a window of his carriage. "To have this sailmaker make good his escape, we need a victim, eh? A poor dead sailorman murdered as he tried to prevent it!"

The two shadows bounded forward and Allday heard the seaman gasp in pain as he was beaten to his knees.

"Here!" Allday felt the cold metal of a cutlass grip pushed into his fingers.

The voice said calmly, "Prove your loyalty to the Brotherhood -Spencer. That will bind both you and our gallant midshipman closer than ever to our affairs."

Allday stared at the kneeling figure while the others stood clear. The cutlass felt like lead, and his mouth was as dry as a kiln.

The voice persisted, "Kill him!"

Allday stepped forward but at that moment the seaman threw himself on one side, scrambling for the pistol which he had dropped.

The explosion and the flash which lit up the motionless figures by the burned tree was like a nightmare. It all happened in seconds and Allday gritted his teeth as he saw the pistol fall once more, still gripped by the sailor's hand, which had been severed at the wrist by one blow from a cutlass. Even as the man rolled over and gave one last shrill scream the same attacker raised his blade and drove it down with such force Allday heard the point grate into the ground through the man's body.

The sudden silence was broken only by the sudden muffled stamp of nervous horses, the far-off barking of a farm dog, then the sound of wheels on some kind of cart-track.

The figure by the corpse bent down and picked up the fallen cutlass, but left the pistol still gripped by its severed hand.

He stared at Allday, his expression invisible. "Your turn'll come." To Fenwick he added, "Here, take this purse for your gaming table." There was utter contempt in his voice. "You can raise the alarm in an hour, though, God knows, some picket might have heard the fool shoot!"

Fenwick was vomiting against a tree, and the man said softly, "I'd finish him too, but-" He did not go on. Instead he watched as Fenwick picked up his weapons and the small bag of coins before adding, "We had best be moving." He could have been grinning.

"You can keep the cutlass. You'll need it."

Allday looked back at the untidy corpse and wondered if Fenwick would be the next victim.

He followed the other man through the trees, the shadowy figures of his companions already on the move.

Allday had had cause to kill several men in his life. In anger, and in the fury of battle, sometimes in the defence of others. So why was this any different? Would he have killed the seaman to give his story more value, if the other man had not struck first?

Allday did not know, and decided it was better to keep it that way until the danger was past.

How quickly fate could move. Soon the midshipman would raise the alarm, and later they would find the corpse. A common seaman who had been murdered by an escaping prisoner named Spencer.

Allday thought of the unseen man in the carriage. If he could only manage to learn his name-he shook himself like a dog. One thing at a time. At present he was still alive, but the knowledge he had gained so far was enough to change that just as quickly.