Francis Delancey, the Port Admiral's Flag Lieutenant, smirked at Hoare. Delancey wasted no time but ushered him into his master's presence.
"You take your God-damned good time, sir, in obeying the orders of your superior officer," the Admiral declared. "I've cautioned you before: I will have no man loiter about at his ease while I await his attending me at whatever hour it pleases his slovenly self."
The heaps of paper on Sir George's desk did not appear to have changed in the ten days since Hoare had last seen it, nor did the Admiral look any less restless. Delancey gave Hoare a sour look and departed.
"Man's in a temper," Sir George said of his aide, sailing out of his own little squall as easily as he had sailed into it. "Your friend Gladden took my Felicia aside the night before Frolic weighed anchor, having received my permission to pay her his addresses. As if the slyboots hadn't been 'payin' his addresses' to the poor fat thing this year and more! Puts Delancey quite in the shade, just when he thought he was about to have a free run at my little girl. Ha!
"Anyhow, as I told you the other day, I'd thought to put young Gladden into Royal Duke as your Lieutenant, but the incumbent brought her in yesterday, as I suppose you noticed, and when he reported here, I had second thoughts. What would I do with him, after all?"
This was ominous. If Sir George felt he must ask the question, even if only rhetorically, what else he could do with Royal Duke's present Lieutenant if he were to put Gladden there in his stead; what sort of monster awaited him?
"Here are your orders. Now, take yourself off and read yourself in. I'm busy."
Back in the anteroom of the Port Admiral's office, Hoare must eat 'umble pie and ask Delancey where his command might lie. The Flag Lieutenant replaced his sour look with a sneer.
"Look yonder," he said, pointing.
Admiral Hardcastle had assigned Royal Duke to a mooring a mere cable's length offshore, a mooring that could have taken Victory through a hurricane with ease. The little brig dangled from it like a fierce mouse with its teeth clenched in a tomcat's tail. Hoare left Admiralty House, his precious orders in his hand, and once on the Hard hailed a wherry, with an ear-piercing whistle through his fingers, to take him out to his tiny command.
The wherry man first looked him askance, as if to ask, "Wouldn't it be quicker to swim out to her?" But, after all, every one of His Majesty's ships that was fit to sail had been shoveled out of Spithead to back up Nelson's fleet, and the roadstead was all but empty. Empty as the Admiralty's cupboard. These days, the pickings for watermen must be thin, indeed. An occasional light, spitting sprinkle, moistened them on the way.
"Royal Duke!" the wherry man cried at the end of the perilous voyage, in answer to the hail from the yacht's watch signifying that he had her Commander aboard. The man treated Hoare as if he carried two swabs instead of one-and that one on the inferior larboard shoulder-and offered him a hand to help him aboard. But to reach Royal Duke's flush deck would involve no climb at all; the boarding port that was opened for him in her bulwark was below his chin. Hoare handed the man the customary shilling and reached his portmanteau up to a hand on deck.
After pausing for a heartbeat to savor what was to come, Hoare hoisted himself aboard his command-his command! — with a single heave of his arms. The thin skirl of a boatswain's call sounded, followed by a thunder of booted feet as all hands formed to receive him. He could easily have out-tweetled the piper with his own silver whistle, the one he used to signal those persons he had trained to its calls.
But where was his Lieutenant, that mysterious, unemployable monster whom Sir George must perforce leave in place for lack of anything else to do with him? The person facing him was a mere midshipman.
"Welcome aboard, sir," said the boy in a surprisingly big voice, raising his round hat in salute. Wishing he had only half as much voice, Hoare looked at the speaker more sharply. This was no mid, as he had first thought, but a Lieutenant. Moreover, he was no lad, either, but a man of at least thirty. He was less than five feet tall.
"Permit me to introduce myself, sir," said the minikin.
"Harvey Clay, at your service. I look forward to serving under you, sir."
"Thank you, Mr. Clay," Hoare whispered. He felt unutterably pompous as he continued, "It is, indeed, a pleasure to make your acquaintance, and I am happy to have you under my command.
"I shall inspect the ship's company."
In a double rank facing him, Hoare's second surprise now presented arms-no fewer than six strangely uniformed men.
"Who the hell are these? Or what?"
"Our Marines, sir."
Hoare had never seen a Marine in any uniform other than the regulation bright red coat and white breeches. These men's coats and overalls were a dull green. Instead of pipeclay and twinkling brass, their accouterments were finished in lusterless black. Their Sergeant presented his gleaming halberd as smartly, nevertheless, and the men presented arms as crisply, as any other contingent of Jollies he had encountered. Hoare passed on to the crew.
He had long since decided that eye-to-eye contact was his best way to make an instant appraisal of another's character. The first one or two seamen offered no surprises, being the kind of cheerful grinning horny-footed creatures Hoare had known since he was twelve. But here he left familiarity behind. He was stopped by the appearance of the third hand. Cheerful and grinning like the others he might be, but this man had the longest, hairiest arms Hoare had ever seen on a human being.
"Who are you, sir?" Hoare whispered. The man looked at him from under his beetling brows in a startled way; perhaps he had never been called sir before in all his days.
"Iggleden, sir. Foretopman." An appropriate rating; the man might have been a gibbon. He bared enormous yellow teeth in a grin and brought his right hand to his low, hairy forehead in salute. The movement was an impressive one.
"Second-story man, sir, as well," said Mr. Clay. Iggleden must have overheard, for he grinned still more widely and bobbed his head.
What had this little Lieutenant said? Hoare withheld comment and continued his inspection.
The appearance of the remaining hands on Royal Duke's spotless deck was equally unexpected. Hoare found himself viewing a row of men who, while they looked fit enough in their varied jumpers and petticoat breeches, must hardly ever have faced wind and weather. Except for a blackamoor and one manifest Oriental, their intelligent faces were noticeably paler than that of the typical tar, and three of them actually wore spectacles. In the navy, this was unheard of. The Oriental might be a Japanese, or he might be a Chinese; Hoare had never been able to tell one nation from the other, let alone identifying individuals.
Hoare now found himself staring into the green eyes of a woman, an unmistakable, full-bosomed woman, and a fine-looking woman at that, as he could not help observing. Her eyes were level with his own, which made her nearly a six-foot woman. She wore a seaman's roundabout jacket and loose trousers, not as if she had dressed up in costume for a masquerade or a prank, but because they were simply what any seaman or seawoman would wear.
"And who have we here, may I ask?"
Like Iggleden before her, but more gracefully, she knuckled her forehead.
"Taylor, sir, Sarah Taylor. Master's Mate."
"And your duties?"
"Cryptographer, sir. And geometer, when needed."
"What?"
"A superb navigator, sir," Clay murmured. "Theoretically, that is."
Those cautionary words reminded Hoare of Sir George's admonition: Hoare must keep close to his desk and never go to sea.
A neat turn of phrase, Hoare thought. Perhaps he should keep a little commonplace book for clevernesses of the kind and pass it on to his biographer when he died famous.
In addition to Taylor, two other hands were female. The Royal Dukes were, as Sir George had told him, indeed, "manned in quite an unusual manner." So that was why the Admiral had all but bitten his tongue to keep from laughing out loud.
"You must explain all this to me later," Hoare told his Lieutenant, handing him the commission still clutched in his hand. "First, however, I must read myself in. At least, I shall begin to do so; you will be so kind as to read the balance on my behalf when my voice gives out."
"Aye aye, sir," Mr. Clay said in an undertone. Then, in his normal, enviable full-bodied voice: "Off hats. Fall in aft." The Royal Dukes broke ranks and gathered around their vessel's mainmast.
Hoare began. "By the Commissioners for executing the office of Lord High Admiral of Great Britain and Ireland, et cetera, and of all His Majesty's plantations, et cetera. To Bartholomew Hoare, Esquire, hereby appointed Master and Commander of His Majesty's ship Royal Duke…
Clay took the paper that Hoare handed him and continued.
" 'By virtue of the power and authority to us given, we do hereby constitute and appoint you Commander of His Majesty's ship Royal Duke, willing and requiring you forthwith to go on board and take upon you the charge of Master and Commander in her accordingly, strictly charging and commanding all the officers and company of the said ship to behave themselves, jointly and severally, in their respective employments with all due respect and obedience unto you, their said Captain, and you likewise to observe and execute the General Printed Instructions and such orders and directions as you shall from time to time receive from us or any other of your superior officers, for His Majesty's service. Hereof nor you nor any of you fail as you will answer the contrary at your peril. And for so doing this shall be your warrant…' "
After twenty-two endless years, Hoare thought as he listened to the dignified ritual, he was in formal command of one of His Majesty's ships, with a firm grip on another rung of the ladder, and within reach of his Post-Captaincy.
Mr. Clay concluded his reading of Hoare's commission, folded it, and returned it to his Commander. "And now, men, three hearty cheers for Captain Hoare! Hip-hip…"
"Huzzay!"
"Hip-hip…"
"Huzzay!"
"Hip-hip…"
"Huzzaaaay!"
At the last cheer, all hats flew into the air, one of them flung overboard by its exuberant owner.
"Thank you, men," Hoare whispered tritely, "and women." Then, with a glance at his Lieutenant, he gave the signal for him to relay his next words at an audible level. When Mr. Clay obliged, one or two hands looked mystified by the process. "As you can hear, I never speak above a whisper, so I shall usually relay my orders through Mr. Clay. I do have certain signals, however…"
He broke off, withdrew his boatswain's pipe, and blew "All Hands."
"You know that one, I see," Hoare whispered, Clay echoing his whisper out loud for the crew at large. Hoare pocketed the pipe. "But you do not know this one…"
Putting two fingers of one hand to his mouth, he emitted a piercing, rising whistle. Clay jumped, and so did a good half the crew. There was also a fluttering noise dead aft, behind Hoare's back. He forbore to turn in search of the noise's origin.
"That," he continued, "was my summons to Mr. Clay. I have many more such signals, which I wish you to learn in time. You will find me firm but fair. Do your duty, and you will have nothing to fear.
"Dismiss the hands, Mr. Clay."
Hoare took the next few minutes to walk the flush deck of his new command, guided by his new Lieutenant. She was a conventional Navy brig in half-scale. If he remembered Beetle correctly, she was perhaps less cluttered than her sisters. Beetle had been Hoare's very first ship; she had made his fortune for him before he was nineteen. It was all very well that Royal Duke's eight brass four-pounders, bowsed tight against her low bulwarks, gleamed to perfection in the October sun. All the same, they looked like toys and would have little more striking power than so many firecrackers. Her broadside would be a fearsome sixteen pounds, equal to no more than the blow of a single one of a frigate's main guns. Hardly fit to stand in the line of battle, Hoare repeated to himself.
Two strange high wooden cases squatted in her stern sheets. They would surely carry away at the first sign of a breeze. Whatever they were, he must have them stowed elsewhere-if, that is, Royal Duke was going to sea, a supposition that was already beginning to stir in Hoare's mind. For now, though, he suppressed issuing an order to have the obtrusive cases pitched overboard, since upon closer inspection he saw that the cases were neatly divided into pigeonholes. That, he realized, was exactly what the boxes held-holes, pigeons, for the use of. In fact, a few were occupied by murmuring birds. One occupant and then another took wing, circled, and returned; the fluttering that had taken place at his whistle a few moments ago explained itself.
Belowdecks, Hoare found Royal Duke's architecture bewildering. Forward of the guarded doorway to the cabin suite that was to be his own new home, a clean sweep reached into her forepeak. It was low but surprisingly spacious. Unlike every other vessel's he could remember, her 'tween-decks was well lit; thick glass prisms were let into the overhead at frequent intervals, and several skylights admitted the cool October sunshine. Its overhead itself was high enough to accommodate Hoare's height without his needing to stoop. Long hanging tables, interrupted only by the brig's masts and flanked by hanging chairs and benches, stretched along her center line.
But it was the arrangement of compartments stretching the full length of the space, on both sides, that was most unusual. Between their louvered doors-there were no fewer than eight to a side-the brig's builder had set ranks of cabinets and bookshelves.
Several of the crew had already reseated themselves at their tables and were at work over various papers, while others looked over their shipmates' shoulders and still others had congregated into groups. One of these had gathered round a messmate who seemed to be doing magic tricks for them. Any ship's officer who was attentive to his duty would have sent these people about theirs, Hoare thought, and was about to chide Clay but then realized that perhaps they were about their business.
The woman Taylor-"Master's Mate," as she had named herself-had donned spectacles to resume a task that apparently involved the use of mathematical tables and an abacus. Double the length of her neighbors' queues, her own thick sandy pigtail reached the bench on which she sat. A Mate, indeed, Hoare thought.
All in all, the 'tween-decks space of HMS Royal Duke reminded Hoare less of a man-o'-war than a counting-house or some other kind of lay monastery that, like those of the early Irish Christians, accommodated both sexes in mutual, uncomfortable celibacy. If his command was intended to be a countinghouse, what was he doing here, he who had never in his life more than walked through one? His heart sank.
"May I show you your quarters, sir?" came Clay's voice at his side.
"If you would be so kind, Mr. Clay."
The other went to the glossy teak door set high in the after bulkhead of Royal Duke's great main compartment and signaled the Marine sentry to open it for his commander. The man wore the same uniform as his mates. On this second sight, Hoare found it oddly familiar.
"What's your name?" he asked.
The marine looked about him to see whom his Captain might be addressing. "Me, zur?" he replied at last.
"Yes. You."
"Yeovil, if you please, zur. Gideon Yeovil, of Harrow-barrow. That's north of Plymouth…"
"Very good, Yeovil. And… isn't that a rifle you're carrying?"
"Yes, zur. We Johnnies in Royal Duke, zur, we'm all Riflemen."
That explained the green uniform. It was the same as the one some unknown genius had designed during the late American war, for the first Riflemen in the Army. Hoare had seen it in Halifax then, but hardly ever since. As sharpshooters, Riflemen were better off unseen, and the lobster coat had drawn fire as a whore did sailors. Hoare wondered if the same principle might not save lives among the soldiery in general but set the idea aside as absurd. After all, he supposed, Lobsters were meant to stand there and be shot at. But not his lobsters, by God. Now that he had his very own live, unboiled green lobsters, he would guard their lives just as they guarded his.
Hoare stepped into a blaze of sunlight pouring through the cabin windows. Struck not only by the sun, he stood stupefied. Though he must still stoop, this was luxury.
The book-lined space might be lower than the Captain's quarters in a fifty-gun, two-decker fourth-rate ship of the line and half the breadth, but it was little shorter. It was laid out in a similar fashion. A wide, heavy table stood before a comfortable chair just forward of the glazed window opening onto Royal Duke's gallery, his gallery. Other chairs stood about the black-and-white diaper-patterned canvas laid on the deck underfoot. Suspended from one overhead beam was an enormous construction whose purpose eluded him. It was evidently still another chair-but a chair for what? It could have held a young elephant.
"What on earth is this?" Hoare whispered.
"Sir Hugh's special chair, sir," Mr. Clay replied. "Admiral Abercrombie was wont to visit Captain Oglethorpe quite frequently when we lay in Greenwich."
"Sir Hugh Abercrombie must be a very big man."
"A very great man," Clay said in a neutral voice. Personal size, Hoare realized, might be as sensitive a topic for this wee man as commercial sex or whispering was for himself. He would have to be very mindful of this.
He was about to ask Mr. Clay to assemble the officers when he remembered that in addition to the two of them, if his memory was correct, Royal Duke counted only King's warrant officers in her complement, plus, of course, the seamen and a boy or two. He decided, instead, to query Clay about their mission.
"Take a seat, won't you, Mr. Clay?" Clay complied. Hoare noted in passing that the poor man's toes did not reach the deck when he sat.
"Did Captain Oglethorpe leave a servant when he died?"
"Oh, yes, sir. Whitelaw by name."
At the sound of his name, Whitelaw himself entered, bringing with him a tray of delicacies: a decanter of what looked like a tawny port, glasses, and a plate of biscuits. He was portly, but portly in the way of a wild boar: heavy, solid, and probably extremely strong. He placed the refreshments on the table and withdrew without a word.
"Tell me about yourself, Mr. Clay," Hoare whispered when he had poured each of them a glass.
The little Lieutenant was quite willing to speak of himself When he first went to sea, he told Hoare, he was no smaller than other midshipmen of the same age.
"I simply failed to grow," he explained, apparently feeling no more embarrassment about his stature than Hoare did about his silence.
Hoare needed little time to learn that his Lieutenant was mentally quick. Though small, he looked physically fit-nimble, in fact. He had, he said without affectation, been out twice and obtained satisfaction each time.
"I chose swords both times," he said. "My adversaries were so surprised at being up against such an unexpectedly long reach on the part of such a miniature opponent that, on each occasion, I drew first blood with no ado."
Since one of his maternal uncles was an Admiral and an Earl-. "My stature may be negligible, sir, but my standing is not." Mr. Clay's interest had sufficed to overcome any reservations the examining board might have had about his lack of stature, so he eventually found himself a Lieutenant. But since his commissioning, Mr. Clay had never seen action. Most of his service had been in auxiliary vessels or, naturally enough, in cutters, brigs, and others of the smallest men-o'-war.
He had been seconded to Royal Duke a year ago. He knew her crew and her mission from main truck to keelson, for the late Captain Oglethorpe, as he faded out of life, had lately relied more heavily upon him every day. In these last months, Mr. Clay said frankly, he had commanded the yacht in all but name.
"And to tell you the truth, sir," he said, "I am happy to be relieved of full responsibility for both the vessel and her business. A person with my limited experience in the world of statecraft has no business meddling in the sorts of affair that come aboard us here."
Of these affairs, there were four important ones at present, Clay explained. The first was the dissection and improvement, for similar use against the French, of the clockwork timers whose provenance Hoare himself had just run down in the course of a previous Herculean labor for Admiral Hardcastle. The second was the plugging of an information leak that had appeared among the clerical staff in Portsmouth. The third was an inquiry into a sharp reduction in morale and hence in productivity among certain mateys in the Navy Yard. The fourth involved breaking the cipher that Hoare had encountered during his inquiry last spring. Clay had sensibly delegated the day-today pursuit of each mission to a different individual.
"If I may, sir," he said, "I propose that we summon each in turn to tell us about his task. Or hers in one case, for Taylor is responsible for the cipher."
"Very good," Hoare said. "Let us begin with Taylor, then. Will you pass the word for her?"
Taylor still wore her spectacles but had pushed them to the top of her head. Hoare thought they made her look like a highly premature grandmother.
"Be seated, if you please, Taylor," Hoare whispered. Clay's face took on a surprised look, as if he was none too sure that Royal Duke's Captain was wise to address a hand with "please," let alone inviting her to be seated in his presence.
"Tell me," Hoare asked, "what progress have you made in deciphering the set of messages… that originated with the affair of the infernal machines last spring?"
"Almost none, sir," she admitted. For her impressive size her voice was quiet, her accent ladylike. A gentlewoman in reduced circumstances, perhaps?
"I am convinced that the key to them is a passage in some text carried by both sender and recipient. The Bible is the most common key, as you must know, being the most widely distributed text. But I have tried both the King James and Douai versions without success."
Not only ladylike: prim. A bluestocking, then, disguised as a sailor.
"But why are you using English translations of the Bible when the messages are almost certainly in French?" Hoare asked.
"In French, sir?"
"Yes. You knew that, surely. In the covering letter I enclosed with the messages, I informed the Admiralty that at least two of the men using the cipher spoke French and that one left a French Bible next to his worksheets."
"That information never reached me, sir," came the quiet voice.
"I can corroborate that, sir," Clay said. "I received the material and inspected it before handing it on to Taylor. There was no covering letter, just the messages."
So, Hoare thought, someone had slipped up, either at the Admiralty or in Portsmouth. Was it by carelessness, he wondered, or intention? Could this have to do with the information leakage problem? Whichever and whoever it was, the omission had kept Royal Duke's cryptographer from deciphering the messages. The delay might have serious consequences, for while the writer himself might have been put out of the way, his unknown master remained at liberty. Furthermore, the prospect of still more French agents lying doggo in his working network was disconcerting.
"Is there a French Bible aboard?" Hoare asked.
"I'm sure there is, sir," Taylor said. "If you'll give me leave, I'll ask McVitty to find it and begin forthwith."
"Do so, Taylor. But who is McVitty?"
"Our librarian, sir," Clay interjected. "The short, square woman with spectacles."
"Good heavens," Hoare said. "Thank you, Mr. Clay. Carry on, Taylor. And look first in Kings."
"Aye aye, sir. I remember-Jehu and Ahab. Second Kings, chapter nine, verse twenty. Thank you, sir.
"But, sir, I must point out that there are surely as many editions of the Bible in French as there are of our own King James version. Would it be possible to obtain the particular volume to which you just referred?"
"We shall try to get it for you."
Taylor's legs were not to be seen beneath her sailor's wide breeches, Hoare thought, but yes, her stockings were surely blue.
"Shall we go on to review the timers, sir?" Clay asked.
Before Hoare could assent, a knock came on the cabin door. Hoare gave Clay a meaningful look, intended as an instruction to call, "Come!" but it took the other a full second to realize what was being asked of him. When Clay finally spoke the magic word, the sentry Yeovil appeared.
"Mr. 'Ancock here says as how there's a signal from Admiralty House, sir," he said, looking squarely between his two officers.
"Very good," Hoare whispered. "And, Yeovil, if I whistle like this"-he uttered a gentle chirruping noise- "it means for you to come straight in."
While he had the man's attention, he went through several other signals and had him repeat them.
"I want you to teach those signals of mine to your messmates tonight," he said.
"Aye aye, sir," said Yeovil. "An' Mr. 'ancock? He was actin' like the message was urgent."
"My God. I was carried away. Have him bring it, please."
"Hancock's our pigeon fancier," Mr. Clay murmured. "And one of our signalmen, since we have no young gentlemen in our complement."
"Sir, Admiralty House signals for you to report to the Port Admiral forthwith," Hancock said. Hoare found him hard to understand, for he had few teeth remaining, and those rotten. His breath was horrible.
Hoare thanked Hancock but took up his hat and fled the confinement of his new cabin as swiftly as he could, Clay trotting behind him.
"Never let that man into my quarters again, Clay," Hoare said. "Have my gig manned, if you please." Clay thundered the order.
Hoare had saluted his command's nonexistent quarterdeck and was about to swing down into the gig when an exciting thought came to him.
"Tomorrow, Mr. Clay, be so kind as to send two men to the man Guilford at the small boat dock in the Inner Camber. Have them inform Mr. Hackins of the Swallowed Anchor… that I shall now be living aboard Royal Duke regularly. I shall settle my account with him on my return." (Breath.) "They are to pack up the gear in my rooms and bring around my pinnace-er-Neglectful. I shall attach her to Royal Duke as tender."
That had been a three-breath sentence for Hoare-too long for comfort.
"Aye aye, sir," Clay said, and doffed his hat in salute as Hoare dropped over the side into the gig.
That will be enough to make all stare, Hoare said to himself as the gig's crew rowed him awkwardly ashore. Surely Royal Duke would be the first Admiralty yacht to have her own tender. Yet he knew that, even with the continuity provided by Neglectful, he would miss the peaceful, monotonous life he had lived at the Swallowed Anchor. What, he asked himself, was he to do about his ward, the tubular little Jenny Jaggery? He had promised her father, Janus, that he would care for the creature, yet she would hardly belong in Royal Duke. He must take counsel with Eleanor Graves the next time he saw her. Perhaps she, like the dauntless partridge she was, would take the child under her wing into her personal pear tree.
"I didn't expect to see you again so soon, Hoare," the Admiral said. This was, Hoare thought, the very first time Sir George had failed to chide him as a laggard.
"We have another unexplained killing on our hands. Or two, rather. A message has just reached me to the effect that the bodies of Francis Getchell, Captain of Agile, twenty-eight, and his cousin Benjamin, Captain of Argilla, thirty-two, have been found in the Nine Stones Circle near Winterbourne Abbas."
"This is dire news, indeed, sir," Hoare said. He had known both officers, liked one, and admired the other.
"You know Winterbourne Abbas, of course."
"I fear I am not acquainted with the gentleman, sir," Hoare whispered.
"It's a place, Hoare, not a person. Nor, to be candid, did I know of it. Rabbett had to enlighten me; it appears that he used to nibble the farmers' cabbages thereabouts."
Rabbett, Hoare knew, was a minor clerk in the office of the Admiral's secretary, Patterson. Heracles, when Sir George was in a jovial mood, was Hoare himself.
"I'm little acquainted with the inland geography hereabouts," Sir George confessed. "I'm a Staffordshire man myself. It seems Winterbourne Abbas lies west of Dorchester. The Nine Stones Circle, Rabbett tells me, is one of those ancient British temples, a miniature Stonehenge, if you will. You do know of Stonehenge?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, I am told the two Captains were en route from London to Plymouth by hired coach to rejoin their ships. A shepherd found their bodies in the Circle, beheaded and robbed. They were both under orders to join Nelson. Since Nelson is already desperate for frigates, this strikes him a hard blow at a bad time. The two vessels will sail, of course, but neither First Lieutenant has enough experience to be put in permanent command. Their Lordships are taking two jobbing Captains off half-pay to replace the dead men. With frigate Captains in such short supply, you can imagine those fellows' caliber. Barrel scrapings, I'll warrant.
"Nobody saw fit to inform me about this until this morning, which is why I did not call it to your attention during your previous visit. However, that is beside the point. What is to the point, sir, is that I am requesting your new command to take it upon itself to investigate these killings, find the perpetrator or perpetrators, and bring him or them to justice. Sir Thomas Frobisher thinks himself King in the region. You know all too well what he thinks of the Navy, and of you in particular. I can hardly rely on him to pursue this outrage with the requisite energy."
Hoare heard Sir George's next words with only half an ear. The Nine Stones Circle was in Dorset. Weymouth was in Dorset. The recent plot to blow up His Majesty's ships had been spawned in Weymouth, by Edouard Moreau. Moreau had been all too hobnob with the frog-shaped Sir Thomas, who, as Sir George had said, considered himself the absolute ruler of southern Dorset. Ever since Sir Thomas had goaded Hoare into an ill-timed jape about bat fanciers in the Midlands who flew their treasures against flies and used the prey to nourish their pet frogs, the Baronet had loathed him.
Sir Thomas was a rare breed, both a Baronet, the title he had inherited from his forebears, and a made knight like Sir George himself. When they had last run athwart each other's hawse, the knight had elected to encroach upon Hoare's destruction of Edouard Moreau and insisted on riding victoriously all the way back to Portsmouth, ahead of the troop of horse marines bearing the renegade's body, leading his own mesne of retainers. In fact, the two knights, Sir Thomas Frobisher and Sir George Hardcastle, had held an oral passage at arms thereafter, in this very office.
The thought had passed through Hoare's mind before that Sir Thomas might be "Himself," as he had heard agents call the mysterious personage believed to lurk behind Moreau and perhaps others. Could this be a new initiative on the part of Himself?
"You are not attending, Mr. Hoare!"
"Sorry, sir. What you were saying made me recollect Sir Thomas Frobisher to mind."
"Him? The man's mad, mad as King George. If he had his way, he'd be King Thomas the First, that's what. 'Crown of Ethelred,' indeed! But, as I was saying, I cannot require you to accept this request. After all, I do not command the movements of Royal Duke. She and now you come directly under Admiralty orders. In principle, I have only the same administrative responsibility for your ship as I assume as Port Admiral the moment the anchor of any of His Majesty's ships is dropped at Spithead.
"No, I can only request this service of you, Heracles. Of course, I am reasonably confident that, if pressed, Sir Hugh Abercrombie would accommodate me. If I took steps to do so, nothing would be lost but time, I assure you.
"Happy to be of service, sir, as always," Hoare whispered.
"Very good. Carry on, then, Heracles."
In another of his classical moods, Sir George had dubbed Hoare "Heracles" by reason of the endless series of tasks that he was required to perform. This meant, as the Admiral had happily added, that he himself must be the hero's eccentric master and monarch, while Patterson, flag secretary, was Talthybius, the herald who brought the missions to lay upon Heracles' back. Clumsy, in Hoare's opinion, but it made Sir George happy, and that was no small task itself.
"Aye aye, sir." Just as his hand was on the doorknob, a thought struck Hoare, and he turned.
"May I borrow Rabbett, sir, if need be?"
"Rabbett? What on earth… oh. Of course. Excellent notion. I'll have Patterson hold him in his hutch for you. Don't let the Whispering Ferret get him."
The Admiral chuckled. He knew, it seemed, that Whispering Ferret was one of the names used by people who bore an antipathy to Hoare. The Admiral, in fact, knew a great deal.
"Now go."
"Here you are, sir." Outside the Admiral's door, Patterson held out a folder of papers. And, in response to Hoare's whispered request, "Yes, of course. I'll hold Rabbett for you, sir, by the ears if I must."
As the gig rowed him back to Royal Duke, Hoare found himself wondering, not for the first time, what it was that made people persist in jesting and japing over others' unusual names. Surely they must realize that the name's owner had long since heard every possible weary play upon it. Moreover, the jester often went in harm's way. Mr. Clay's understated story this noon had demonstrated that. For his own part, even before Captain Joel Hoare had arranged for his son to go into Centurion, 60, as midshipman, young Bartholomew had run a jeering schoolmate through the thigh with a carving knife.
Hoare shrugged. He was used to the weary custom by now and had learned ways of either diverting or damaging those who offended him. So far, he had avoided killing anyone in his affairs of honor.
The nights were drawing in, Hoare noticed as the gig shoved off. It was more than halfway to its destination when he saw that Royal Duke was now accompanied by another, still smaller, more familiar vessel. So Mr. Clay had already complied with Hoare's request and had Neglectful brought over from the little estuary where Hoare had kept her. Very brisk of Mr. Clay. Hoare made a mental note to have a spare rifle put aboard her; his own had been missing since he made that first momentous call in Weymouth. The rifle had, he supposed, been carried off to France in Moreau's schooner Marie Claire after her owner had died in the surf off Portland Bill. It had been a work of art, but since there would be no replacing it this side of the Atlantic, he would have to make do with one of the Marines' standard-issue Baker weapons.
Neglectful's larboard bow, Hoare saw, bore a fresh, raw, newly painted patch.
"I'm pleased to see our new tender, Mr. Clay," he said as he returned the Lieutenant's salute. "But somebody has been mishandling her."
Clay's face reddened in the dusk. "Yes, sir. Joy, sir; boatswain. Timothy Joy."
"Boatswain, is he? And he can't bring a boat alongside without tearing her sides out? He should be disrated."
"Aye, sir. But…"
"But what?" Hoare demanded.
"We haven't a better. He's our quarterstaff instructor. And he's excellent with the brightwork and a superb marlinspike seaman."
"Hmph."
"He's waiting to report to you, sir." Clay nodded toward a wrinkled man who stood beside Royal Duke's mainmast, twisting his hat anxiously in both hands. When Hoare beckoned to him, he came up and knuckled his forehead, looking at his enormous boots, shamefaced.
"Well, Joy, I see you've managed to practically wreck our new tender. How long have you been rated boatswain?"
"Gone these forty years, sir," the wrinkled man said.
"Forty years? And you still can't bring a boat alongside without staving her in?"
"No, sir. 'Twere me eye, sir. I can't judge distances no more, sir." Joy raised his head, and Hoare saw that where his right eye should have been was a red, oozing hollow.
"Very good, Joy. Carry on, now."
"Beggin' your pardon, sir, but I've a message from the shore."
"Well?" Hoare asked.
"From Miss Jenny, sir. She says like she's learned to write all her letters now, as far as K, and please will you remember about the kitting you promised her?"
At the mention of "Miss Jenny," Hoare's heart forgot his rage at the inept Joy. He had not forgotten the kitten. He thanked Joy and dismissed him once again.
He turned back to Clay.
"If you can find no more suitable man for this ship's boatswain than a one-eyed antique like Joy, Mr. Clay, we shall have to take a very hard look at our readiness for sea."
"Aye aye, sir," was all Clay could say.
"I bring us a new assignment, Mr. Clay," Hoare said. "Come below, if convenient, and I'll tell you about it."