Squelching through the night on the oblong disks that kept him from sinking to his knees in the foul Thames ooze, the mudlark made his way toward the promising mound at the edge of tidewater. If he knew his corpses, this was a corpse. And a fresh one, too, likely. For once, he might be in luck. But he'd best make haste, for the tide had turned already.
Yes, by God and his father, he was right for once. A dead 'un it was. Fully clothed, too; too fresh to stink, yet with the death-shit already washed away. A hot bath and bottle of Blue Ruin there'd be, at the end of this night, and a willing dollymop to share 'em both. He rolled the corpse over and began to rifle its pockets. That there was a charred hole in the placket of the breeches drawn tightly over its belly troubled him not at all.
And, omygawd, a pogue! A loaded wallet!
Off upstream, from under the bridge, the mudlark heard the same sloshing sound he himself had made in getting out to the bloater. More than one. He wasn't going to chance it, not he. He'd leave 'em the joy of turning out the bloater and taking his clothes, brass buttons, hole in the breeches an' all. It 'ud hold 'em up from chasing him through the mud, back to solid ground.
Never mind. It 'ud be two pretty judies for him, an' he'd be on the randy for a month.
Close-hauled, her weather shrouds humming with the strain in the raw January northerly, Royal Duke heeled to her task. A light wash poured into her scuppers with each leeward roll, then out again as she righted. A pair of gulls swept effortlessly across her wake, heads turning as they wheeled, in their never-ending search for nutriment. The low clouds dumped an occasional spatter to support the light spray thrown from her weather bows. There would be no need to wash down the decks this morning, Hoare told himself. Instead, the watch could continue to accustom themselves to working below while under way. In his opinion, the ordinary cipher clerks and file-matchers would have no trouble, though the two forgers-"screeners," he had learned, they were termed in thieves' cant-might find it hard to keep a steady hand.
At Hoare's side, Mr. Clay grinned ecstatically into the wind, his hair, short though it was, whipping behind him.
"Her best point of sailing, I do believe, sir," he declared. "We're overhauling that transport to windward. She bears a full point farther off the weather bow."
Hoare could hardly expect the other to hear his whisper, so he merely nodded with an answering smile. It was exhilarating travel, indeed.
"Shall I have the log cast, sir?" Clay asked. Hoare nodded assent, and Clay roared out the order.
One of Sergeant Leese's Green Marines clumped forward to handle the timing glass. Since Royal Duke carried no midshipman, Taylor undertook the heaving of the log. Newlywed Hoare might be, but the sight of Taylor's statuesque figure as she went about the task stirred his own maturing loins. It would, he thought, have stirred those of the yacht's coroneted figurehead, had it been so mutinous as to peer aft with its painted china-blue eyes.
"Mark!" Taylor cried, and tossed the log over the side. Its thin cord whipped through her horny hands until the marine, in belated echo, called, "Mark."
"Turn."
"Stop."
She nipped the line to check the log and release its chip, and brought the instrument back aboard with a thump. After reading the nearest marking on the line, coiling it as she overhauled it, she called out the result. "Ten knots and a fathom, sir!" she announced to Mr. Clay. She sounded triumphant. Another echo, Clay repeated the finding to the captain at his elbow, in his powerful voice.
"She moves along, doesn't she?" Clay said. Fleetingly, Hoare thought of responding with a question as to which "she" his lieutenant meant, but decided that this was no occasion for double entendres. Instead, he merely whispered, "And lies most amazing close to the wind."
His mouth was close enough above Clay's ear so he could be reasonably sure of being heard. And if not, what matter? It was a casual, trivial remark, one he was sure would not be missed.
He watched Taylor coil log line and chip, deftly and in Bristol fashion. Like a surprising number of her shipmates, almost all of whom were volunteers taken aboard on account of skills quite unrelated to the sea, she had made astonishing progress as a sea-"man" in a matter of weeks. All credit to Clay and the few seasoned hands-and the unusually high level of their intelligence. Already, out of the thirty-four Royal Dukes, he would not hesitate to rate a good ten of them topmen. As gunners, now… if only they could master their gunnery as well, he could rest satisfied that his peculiar command would do him credit against any other bantam brig afloat.
–
A sudden notion crystalized in his mind.
"You have the deck, Mr. Clay," he said. "Thus, thus, call me if anything untoward takes place."
"Aye, aye, sir." Bare-headed at the moment, Clay touched his forelock, gamekeeper-style. Hoare, with his notion in mind, slipped below to make a certain inquiry of Stone, Royal Duke's acting gunner, and Titus Thoday, official holder of the gunner's. At this speed and with this wind, Royal Duke would easily reach the Straits of Dover by nightfall and, if the wind were to back, might even break into the Thames estuary by dawn. But however handy the crew might be, it lacked practical sea time, and the brig's course through these crowded waters, in darkness and with no vessel showing running lights, would be fraught with danger. An awkward encounter with some wayward Englishman was the most likely hazard, but one had to bear in mind as well that Trafalgar had not swept the Channel clean of every mischievous predatory Froggy bottom.
The orders of Sir Hugh Abercrombie himself had forbidden Hoare ever, ever, to put to sea in Royal Duke, yet here they both were, by that same admiral's command, hard on the wind in mid-Channel, in the gathering darkness of a raw January night, a weakling at the mercy of all comers.
Having made his inquiry of Stone and issued certain corrective instructions, Hoare now removed to his truncated cabin and called for his silent servant Whitelaw. Unlike his master, Whitelaw had a perfectly healthy man's voice; he simply forbore to use it except in extreme need, a trait that Hoare found quite desirable in a captain's servant. Within two minutes and without orders, Whitelaw brought him a supper of soft bread, a chunk of hard cheese, and a few slices of ham, with a carafon of adequate Burgundy to wash it down. While consuming these, Hoare jotted down his rough log for the day. He read a scene or two of As You Like It in the selection of Shakespeare's works, which- with the chess set whose mysteries she had not yet had time to unlock for him-had been Eleanor's wedding gift. At last he disrobed, blew out the lamp, and turned in to his swinging cot.
On the larboard, windward side of the cabin, the enormous special chair that had been kept for Sir Hugh Abercrombie swayed gently in unison with the cot. To the sound of Royal Duke's quiet working and the occasional mutter of her sea-pigeons in their quarters of unearned privilege aft of the bulkhead, he fell asleep.
It seemed no more than a minute before the brig's change of course awakened him. For another minute he lay confused. He had been awakened at the climax of a highly erotic dream in which the body he embraced mingled Eleanor's firm roundness with the muscular limbs of Sarah Taylor. This must cease, he ordered himself as he swung his feet to the deck. The sound of Mr. Clay's roaring voice told him that his lieutenant was simply tacking ship; he supposed Clay had chosen to tack rather than wear, so as to give the watch the challenge of groping its way through the more difficult maneuver in the dark. The brig did not fall into irons but eased to an even keel and, with a slatting of canvas and a banging of blocks and Mr. Clay's great bellows, came 'round nimbly enough, falling off onto the larboard tack.
So far, so good. If he could put Royal Duke about in the dark with her half-trained crew, Clay was as good a seaman as himself. If not better, Hoare admitted. He should be as good, heaven knew. Clay had been at sea since boyhood without interruption, while Hoare had been shore-bound for eleven years. He feared he had lost the exquisite timing it took to execute even the basic maneuver Clay had just made. But the handling of small fore-and-aft-rigged craft, slooplings like his beloved pinnace Nemesis, now towing obediently behind Royal Duke, Hoare knew he still had no master.
Hoare thoughtfully dressed himself in the dark. He took down the superb set of French foul weather gear that he had brought aboard from the pinnace, donned it, and went on deck into the spitting midnight gloom.
"I was on the point of calling you, sir," Mr. Clay said into his ear. "The lookout in the fore crosstrees is sure he glimpsed the loom of some vessel to windward, off the larboard bow."
"Hail him for details."
"Deck there!" came the reply. "She be about a cable's length to windward, steerin' the same course as we be! We be closing' on 'er fast!"
"Order silence aboard, Mr. Clay," Hoare directed. "Ease the spanker sheet and slack the main topsail braces. I don't want to run aboard of her until we know more about her, and I'd rather not call her attention to us."
"Aye, aye, sir," came Mr. Clay's acknowledgment; in a quiet voice, he gave the requisite commands. In response, Royal Duke's passage through the water slowed noticeably.
"How does she bear now?" This time, Clay's bellow was muted.
"Oldin' 'er own, sir!"
Hoare made a decision. He might have no voice, but his eyes were as keen as those of anyone aboard. He swung himself into the larboard main shrouds and swarmed up the ratlines as nimbly as Miss Austen would have. At least, he thought as he climbed, his cruises in Nemesis had left him hard-handed enough.
The lookout slid himself out onto the brig's fore crosstrees to accommodate the new arrival. He gave a startled grunt on seeing his skipper's face up here. Hoare could read his mind: "Captain Oglethorpe, bless 'is ol heart, 'ud never 'a made it up 're wifout a block an' taykle."
Sharp eyes or no, it took Hoare a good minute, even with the other's patient guidance, to find the stranger in the murk, but at last he had her. From all he could tell, she was a sharp-looking craft, a three-masted lugger with a topsail on her main. She looked at least as handy as the smuggler Fancy Hoare had seen founder off the Isle of Wight over a month ago. But her masts were more sharply raked, and there was that mizzen besides. There was something familiar about the rig.
"Frenchman, sir, or I miss me guess," the lookout said.
"What makes you think so?" was Hoare's whispered question.
"Seen enough of'em in St. Malo 'arbor, sir, durin' the peace. Chaz Marie."
Hoare was slow in understanding the man's word. Then it sank in. Chasse-maree was what he had said, mangling the French as every good Englishman should. The Chasse-maree, the "tide-chaser," was a fast French coaster, always lug-rigged, always three-masted.
"Smell 'er, sir? Only a Frenchman smells like that, or a Portygee. Garlic. An' she wouldn't be no Portygee, not in these waters. Besides, she don't pong of fish like a Portygee. No, sir, that's French cookin', or I'm a lobster."
"Clever man." Hoare could only agree. Now that the lookout mentioned it, even he could smell the rich scent of garlic, wine, and onions. The product of English sea-cooks was one thing, he thought sadly; French sea-cooking was another kettle offish entirely. And now he remembered who the lookout was: he was Danny Quill, an Irishman for all his Cockney speech, cook's mate.
"She'll be a privateer, sir," Quill said, "packed as full of Frogs as a keg of sardines."
"I think you're right, Quill," Hoare whispered. "Keep a sharp eye out until you're relieved. Are you a good shot?" He had a mind to see a Frenchman served the way that unknown marksman had served him, those years ago.
"Not much of an 'and at musketry, sir, fer a fact. Need practice fer that."
"Well, then, I'll have Leese send up one of his Marines to keep you company. I plan to put a spoke in that Frog's wheel." So saying, Hoare grasped the main backstay to windward, preparatory to sliding down it to the deck.
" 'Ave 'im bring a spare musket with 'im, sir," Quill suggested. 'Oo knows, I might strike it lucky."
"Aye, aye," Hoare answered, and let himself slide. He slid prudently, having seen more than one rash young man peel the skin off his palms on the harsh, tarred cordage of a backstay, just by the sliding.
"Call all hands, Mr. Clay, to quarters," he ordered once on deck, his hands burning a trifle despite his care. "But quietly, man, understand?"
How Clay was to manage preparing the brig for battle quietly was something he decided to leave to the lieutenant.
"Aye, aye, sir," said Clay, quietly, and did as Hoare had ordered. Silently, the Royal Dukes collected at their stations. The stranger's loom was ever so slightly greater.
Hoare knew what his next order must be, and his heart sank.
"And let Nemesis slip," he said. Towing behind Royal Duke as she was, she could only hold the brig back. Then he added, "Belay that. I'll do it myself."
Every man, he thought, should be man enough to shoot his own dog at need, or-if, like himself, he had no dog, at least to let go of his private bark, at need. He stepped to the taffrail and cast his sweetheart's towline off the cleat to which she had been made fast. As he watched, she disappeared astern in the mid-Channel gloom.
"Have the gunners load with chain shot, and run out the guns," Hoare now ordered. "When I whistle, they are to fire. High. High, Mr. Clay!" Clay relayed Hoare's order. All too well, Hoare knew the propensity for even trained gunners to hull the enemy whenever possible, the hull being the most massive target and the place where humans could be hit. Aiming high to disable was a foreign trick; hulling was the English way, and it generally worked. But if this craft was what he thought she was, he had no vestige of hope either of unmanning her or fleeing.
Now, how to assure himself absolutely of the other craft's nationality? It was all very well for Quill's culinary nose to identify her as a Frenchman, and the distinctive Chasse-maree brig could belong to a prize. How to smoke out her identity without revealing Royal Duke's own?
Hoare resolved upon a nocturnal version of the simple old ruse by which a ship flew false colors. As long as she hauled them down and replaced them before firing, honor was observed.
"Hail 'em-in French, Mr. Clay," he said.
"In French, sir?"
"In French, Mr. Clay."
"Aye, aye, sir," he said with a resigned shrug. "Kell vessow?" he shouted.
The awful sound he made in copying Hoare's whispered French delighted Hoare. Though his bellow was enviable, his accent was appalling, but it did as Hoare had hoped and must have left the Frenchman wondering for a precious few seconds, which was just what Hoare wanted.
The stranger gave no reply. Instead, he bore off and laid a course to cross Royal Duke's bows and rake her from ahead-or, more likely, to board. This could only be a tactic of the lookout Quill's privateer, packed as full of Frogs as a keg of sardines.
"Bear away, Mr. Clay, and hoist our colors."
"Aye, aye, sir." Clay relayed Hoare's first order to the helmsmen. There were two of them now, as was normal practice when going into action, neither of them more than two feet from Hoare. They would have heard his initial order, but, as they had been taught, refrained from complying until they heard Clay's clear command. There being no signal midshipman at hand, Clay bent the Union Jack to its halliard himself and ran it up to Royal Duke's gaff.
Hoare watched, watched, waited, eyes fixed on the other ship, judging their relative positions, courses and speeds, counting seconds with snap, snap, snap of his fingers as he had been taught when still a junior mid. Having the inner one of the double curve the two vessels were drawing across the midnight sea, Royal Duke visibly fore-reached upon the Chasse-maree, while each of the two closed upon the other. By the time they were abeam, both were sailing on a broad reach, the Frenchman taking some of Royal Duke's wind and commencing to draw ahead. By the nature of things, she was heeling toward the brig; in daylight, Hoare would have had a clear view of her cargo of privateersman. As it was, Hoare could hear the sound of the many men aboard her, as they nerved themselves to board.
He shut one eye. Thrusting two fingers into his mouth, he gave the shrill, piercing whistle that on this occasion his gun crews knew meant "Fire!"
Mr. Clay's command, unneeded, was drowned in the near-simultaneous crack of Royal Duke's larboard battery-all four laughable four-pounders. Hoare opened his shielded eye. The faint afterglow of the burning powder sufficed to give him a brief picture of the broadside's effect on the Chasse-maree.
Of the four chain shot, one must have gone astray, but the other three had done their duty, and more. One had struck the fore lugsail yard near where it met its mast, and left the sail drooping, useless. A second had struck the forestay, leaving the already weakened foremast unstayed forward, and the lugger herself without a rag drawing forward of her undamaged mainsail. The third ball must have struck in the neighborhood of her steering position, for Hoare could see a mass of heaving confusion about her wheel and could imagine cries of pain and rage. Her colors-the Tricolor, thank God-still flew.
It had been an absolute freak of luck, Hoare knew. Even at so close a range-point-blank musket shot and no more-he would have been overjoyed to see even two shots from his landlubber-manned popgun crews even hit the enemy. Well…
"Rule Britannia, and take no prisoners!" he felt impelled to shout. Being unable to shout, he successfully suppressed the impulse, thanking himself fleetingly for his muteness. Such a command would have doomed Royal Duke's gentle little crew, their ship, and its cargo of secrets.
As it was, Hoare could have asked for no better. Wheel or no wheel, nothing could have prevented the Frenchman, with no foresail to keep her off the wind, from losing way and falling into the wind, where she hung. There she lay, helpless against a second, raking broadside, as Royal Duke continued on course.
"We have her!" Mr. Clay roared, pounding his little fist on Royal Duke's rail.
"Steady as you go! Reload!" Mr. Clay roared into the reddened darkness. The four gun crews commenced to scuttle about the darkened deck, preparing to reload.
"Cease fire, Mr. Clay!" Hoare ordered. "Secure from quarters, and resume our original course!"
"Sir! I protest!"
"Do as I've ordered, sir!" Hoare croaked, as forcefully as his scarred throat would allow. "Do not dismiss the watch below. I'll explain when we have stood down."
Grumbling audibly, the gun crews secured their popguns, closed the ports on both sides of the brig, and returned the rounds of chain shot to their waiting-grooves.
"A word in your ear, Mr. Clay." Hoare bent to that ear so he could be heard, and conducted his seething officer to the slight lee offered by Royal Duke's coach-house coaming.
"Think, sir. What would have been the outcome if our people were to give battle against more than thrice our number of enraged, experienced, greedy privateersman? Why, we would have been overwhelmed within minutes, and our survivors under hatches."
"I had not…"
"I know, Mr. Clay. You were carried away by the rage of battle. I understand, and I honor you for it. No one, no one, could doubt your courage. But there's more, sir-a truly compelling reason why I turned away when I did. You… will remember at least as well as I the Admiralty's original stricture against our going to sea at all under our own control, and their lordships' reasons for the prohibition… With that in mind, how, pray, would you explain even a victory when you gave your report to our masters? 'You,' I say, for… I assure you that honor would not permit me to survive long enough to give it myself." Hoare meant this with all his heart. His demeanor must have showed it, for his little lieutenant hung his head.
"I did not think, sir. I… as you say, I was carried away by the heat of battle."
"Now, Mr. Clay," Hoare went on, "I must do my best to persuade our people that my refusal to do battle was not mere poltroonery… but was in the best interest of the service. And I must ask you, once again, to act as my mouthpiece… whatever your true feelings may be." With that, he had Mr. Clay summon the Royal Dukes to the purely imaginary break of the quarterdeck.
A child could have sensed the feelings that radiated from them as they stood there in the dark of the night-shame, scorn, thwarted greed. Given a lead, there would be shot rolling about the deck, the private signal that was so often the precursor of mutiny. These people had wanted to conquer, kill, and loot. The urge to violence was all the greater, perhaps, for the memory of the contemptuous laughter from the observing men-o'-war in Portsmouth harbor, when they made their first feeble, laughable attempt to handle Royal Duke. "The Dustbins" had been the least insulting of the watchers' mocking appellations. Now, their own commander had thwarted them. During the next few minutes, Hoare must explain himself convincingly, or his command was dead and rotting.
So, without rodomontade, he set out, with Clay's big voice at his side booming out his words, to tell his people why he had turned tail in the face of the enemy instead of leading them into what they had been sure was certain, easy victory. First, though, he praised them for the calmness and order with which they had mustered in the dark and delivered the first broadside Royal Duke had ever delivered in anger. Then he asked them, as he had Clay, what outcome they, a mere thirty-odd, could have expected from battle against a hundred enemies-enemies who were not cowed but enraged.
"I ask you this," he said, "now that the thing is over and you've had a chance to cool down."
"We coulda taken 'em," came a voice; there were mutters of agreement.
"They'd'a made mincemeat of us, ye lubbers." Hoare recognized Bold's deep voice.
"Aye." That was Slopey, the brig's Oriental; Hoare had yet to determine if he was Chinese or Japanese. They all looked alike to him.
Now he reminded them of the vast treasure of vital knowledge they themselves had created and bore with them, and confessed to his own madness at having put their creation at risk. In all truth, now that the encounter was past, the thought of his recklessness appalled Hoare, and he said as much.
His offer to hear questions resulted in a few of them. Most had to do with what he thought of the crew's behavior, especially that of the individual questioners. He repeated his praise. One remark he found tough to handle.
"Ogle, sir, private of marines."
"Yes, Ogle?"
"I jest wanted to tell ye, sir. Sergeant posted me in the foretop with me rifle. I missed fire, sir."
"Shame on ye, Ogle," Leese said.
"But, sir, I brung up a musket fer Danny Quill, an 'e shot the Frog's captain, he did. Saw it wif me own eyes, I did."
Hoare knew quite well that Ogle could have seen nothing of the kind. But he believed he had, and it was a creditable thing for him to believe. The Royal Dukes were learning to pull together.
"Well done," he said through Clay's voice. "Well done, the both of you."
Three bells sounded now. He felt justified in dismissing the men with his thanks, and the feeling that his motives were better understood and his courage no longer questioned. For now.
"Thank you, Mr. Clay," he said. His lieutenant might have spoken his words in truth, or he might not. They had sounded convincing enough. Suddenly he recalled that Clay had stood watch for a good eighteen hours without relief, fought the skirmish just passed, and been rebuked by his commanding officer. The man had had enough, Hoare felt. He relieved the other and sent him below. He gave the deck to Taylor but remained on deck himself lest she run into danger.
The events of the past hour had shown him that, while Mr. Clay was undoubtedly a gallant officer, a fine seaman, and-he believed-well-disposed toward him, he wanted the cool judgment that the commander of this little craft, with its peculiar mission, must possess. Before they went into action again… Here, Hoare stopped himself with a wry internal laugh. Royal Duke must never again go into action.
"Permission to speak, sir?" It was Taylor.
"Permission granted, Taylor."
"Before we go too far on our course, sir," she said, "the tide is just turning. Could we not take two hours-no more, sir- return in our tracks, and see if we might not recover our tender? She has been a valuable asset to the ship, and it would be almost criminal to leave her behind before we have exercised due diligence in searching for her."
Put this way, the argument was an appealing one. In a manner of speaking, his pinnace was part of the brig's equipment, just as he himself was, and all his possessions-including Nemesis. From that point of view, he would even be wanting in attention to his command's condition were he to leave the pinnace behind without "exercising due diligence" in preserving it.
Suddenly it struck him. Perhaps, having spent time in Nemesis herself during the Nine Stones affair, the little craft had seduced this big woman just as she-the pinnace, not the person, as he reminded himself sharply-had seduced Hoare himself.
He thought. The picture of his crisp little craft lying in the trough of the Channel seas, abandoned, bereft, there to be caught up by any passing stranger, made him bleed anew. By God, he'd do it.
Three hours ago, Hoare, seeing Taylor grinning triumphantly astern at the recovered Nemesis, had left the deck to her and turned in himself. She had handled the recovery masterfully, and without calling the watch below, though the alert Mr. Clay, weary though he was, had awakened when Royal Duke wore, not to return below until Hoare all but thrust him along.
Hoare himself was awakened now, as he was almost every morning, by the snuffling, scratching sound of the bear on the deck over his head. He knew the bear well; in keeping with Royal Duke's size, it was a small bear. It might, in fact, be considered a bear cub, Hoare thought sleepily, for it needed only two men to draw it back and forth between them across the yacht's deck. Like an organic sandpaper, the bear's coarse coir surface smoothed the deck for the day, while producing its peaceful snuffling sound. Hoare was tempted to roll over and go back to sleep, but remembered that, upon arriving in the Thames estuary, he was to appear before his master at the Admiralty. Besides, last night's brush with the French had thrown Royal Duke's schedule all awry It had gone six bells already, he saw, yet the watch on deck was still preparing her for her arrival.
On deck, in the gray morning, he found matters had progressed well, bear or no bear. The four light smears of soot from last night's single broadside had been cleared away. A brace that must have been parted by one of the few musket shots the Frenchman had been able to get off had been spliced. The bear leaders were already returning their charge to its den in the fore-peak; and Mr. Clay, up again, stood beside the helmsman, small, brisk, and proud. The hands were cheerful enough as they moved about their duties. Hoare could sense no residue of ill temper. The brig was close-hauled on the starboard tack, sailing briskly full and bye, heeling to the icy January breeze and bowing to the short chop. Sarah Taylor, master's mate, was not to be seen.
Mr. Clay made his salute and his report. "We rounded the North Foreland an hour ago, sir, and managed a good ten miles before the wind began backing westerly. We're still making progress, but of course we'll be headed by the tide before long. At this rate, we shan't be abreast of the Isle of Sheppey this tide."
"Hmph," was all Hoare could reply. Happily, it meant that the flooding tide would start helping them up the narrowing Thames at about the time they passed Woolwich. All the same, it would be evening by then. Royal Duke would be lucky to make Greenwich tomorrow, and would therefore have to risk sailing at night once again, with all the risk of collision that entailed. For the Thames estuary was packed with shipping, inbound and out. This was England's great artery that brought nourishment to her heart, and delivered so much of the power that held the French the other side of the Channel, where they belonged.
"With your permission, sir," Mr. Clay said, "I'll see that the people are at work below. There are some documents-correlations, I think they call them-that should be brought to a close before we bring them to Greenwich."
"By all means, Mr. Clay," was Hoare's reply. "But, while you are about it, you might be considering a different station for Green. I suspect that Quill would make a better cook."
"Perhaps she could be attached to Leese's marines, sir," Clay offered, "as heavy infantry." With that sally, he went below. The monstrous Green had formerly been a terror among the "brutes" that served and serviced the seaman population of Portsmouth; as a member of Hoare's crew, she had wielded a lethal cleaver at the Nine Stones affray last All Hallows' Eve.
It had been a good fifteen years since Hoare had been in these waters. They had a different, grayer color than the sea along the southern coast, a more choppy motion, and-above all-a different smell. Most likely, Hoare thought, it was the effluvium of London. The river served not only as an artery but as a sewer. As that thought passed through his mind, a bulbous, greasy object bobbed past in Royal Duke's leeward bow wave and disappeared in her wake. A dead dog, it would be, a long-dead dog. It was not hard to find an explanation for the name of the Isle of Dogs, which lay not too far ahead.
Hoare realized that he did not look forward at all to this mission. It was taking him out of his comfortable accustomed south-coast waters, and into the malodorous, trap-ridden capital. He would flounder, he felt certain, and fail. To jolt his mind out of this unwonted gloom, he began to compose his report to the Admiralty on last night's skirmish. It made him feel no better.
While Greenwich was a trivial port compared with the great yards at Deptford immediately adjoining, it still warranted a Port Officer of its own. Perhaps, Hoare thought, the honor was due to the town's faded glory as a favorite haunt of England's monarchs and their wives and concubines. Whatever the reason, the Port Officer existed, and it was to him that Royal Duke made her number and received berthing orders. She was to anchor close into shore, off the Crane Stairs.
The place was all but vacant now, deserted only a few days ago by the hordes that had assembled for the obsequies of the late Lord Nelson. His body had been landed here, had lain in state in the Painted Chamber, and then been carried, the center of a vast black-clad cortege, by barge up to London. Vacant the town might be, it remained littered with all that a great crowd can leave behind it-mislaid umbrellas, odd papers, empty bottles by the score. And little would remain in the line of sustenance, whether liquid or solid.
"So I missed him again." It was Titus Thoday, titular gunner, beside him. Hoare knew it would be all but hopeless to demand more than the most superficial respect from this dignified, proud, gentlemanly, clever, meticulous man. He was a superb… detective, would that be the word?… but, as a sailor, he was a king's bad bargain.
Just as the news of Nelson's death had reached Weymouth, Hoare and Thoday had been fellow passengers in the chaise bearing them and their prisoner Walter Spurrier into the town.
"I shall never forget this moment," Thoday had said then, in a voice pregnant with feeling. "The morning of November the sixth, 1805. This is the place, and the time, where I was when I learned of Nelson's death."
"I fear we have both missed him again, Thoday," Hoare now replied, and turned to ship's business. He must go ashore and make his number to the Port Officer in person.
That gentleman was occupied, as Port Officers tended to be at all times.
"He will not be long, sir," said the clerk. "Captain Hornblower is with him, and he will be wishing to speed the parting guest.
"The two gentlemen do not see eye to eye in the matter of the honors due Captain Hornblower's new midshipman, sir," he went on in a confidential whisper, little louder than Hoare's own ghost of a voice. When Hoare did not prick up his ears at his breath of gossip, he subsided into sullen silence.
Hoare had met Hornblower almost exactly two years before, during the brief, uneasy peace of Amiens with the French. In fact, it had been Hornblower from whom he had acquired Nemesis. They had both been lieutenants then, but Hoare had at least been employed; he had then been, as he had remained until kind Fate brought him his present command, a general dogsbody to Sir George Hardcastle. Hornblower, on the other hand, had then been without a ship, and as long as the peace endured had hardly the slightest prospects of obtaining one. Moreover, due to a spitefully meticulous Navy Board, he had been penniless. It was that situation that had forced the pinnace's change of master. Their paths had not crossed since, though-the navy being a band of brothers after all, Hoare had been aware of the other's career. Now the one was a post captain, albeit a very junior one, while Hoare would never make post. Well, that was the way the world wagged; Hornblower was a gallant officer with, as Hoare had heard, an unfortunate doting wife and no money in the family. No one deserved post rank more than he. Save Hoare himself, of course.
At this instant, Captain Hornblower himself emerged from the Port Officer's office, and stood in the doorway just long enough to bid a courteous, cold farewell to the person within. When, turning, he caught sight of Hoare, his eyes lit up.
"Hoare, by God!" he grinned. "Well met!"
"Recovered from your cold, I see, sir," Hoare replied. The day the pinnace had changed hands-another wintry day, as it happened-the other officer's nose had been streaming.
"But not until recently, I see," he added, since he saw that Hornblower's nostrils were still red.
"A new cold, Hoare, upon my honor."
The two men drew to one side.
"I must pay my respects to the gentleman within, sir," Hoare whispered, "but would you tarry long enough to break bread with me? I should not be but a moment."
"I am genuinely sorry, sir," Hornblower replied, looking as though he meant it, "but I have a prior duty to Mrs. Hornblower, who has just been brought to bed of a son."
"My felicitations, most sincerely, sir."
"But tell me, how do you and the pinnace suit? What did you name her?"
"She goes by Nemesis now. We suit very well. We have had some interesting cruises together. She lies astern of Royal Duke; in fact, if you peer out the window there, you may see her for yourself."
Hornblower peered, approved her new, unorthodox rig, told Hoare that he and his family were to be found at the George in Deptford, where they would… when the loud clearing of an official throat at the door summoned Hoare back to the formal world and they parted.