Chapter 1
William had received no specific orders to sail south,
so was waiting to either sail with Mornington and the ‘Endeavour’, or to be
sent orders to come on his own.
He was not expecting to be hailed with a request for
permission to come aboard by a well-set gentleman in his fifties. His once
sandy-blond hair was ‘pepper and salt’, liberally sprinkled with grey, and his
light blue eyes were shrewd and searching.
William had the instinctive feeling that this was a man in whom he might
place his trust.
William invited him up and ushered him to his tiny
Great Cabin.
“What can I do for you, sir?” he asked.
“Well, now, that depends,” said the man. “My name is
William Wickham; have you heard of me?”
William shook his head.
“No, sir, I’m sorry.”
“Well, in a way it is just as well, since my return to
intelligence has been covert since I retired from Parliament. I need some people of resource, initiative and
boldness, and I need at least one of them to be a young boy. Which led me to
consider the navy, where boys learn to be self-sufficient very young. And then
copies of reports about yourself, and a Mr. Scully and a Mr. Prescott crossed
my desk. You see, I want to plant agents in a school which is ... not all it
seems. And of course, as I am not one of the Lords of the Admiralty, you and
your officers would be at liberty to refuse me, but since your ship, the
‘Thetis’ is going to be refitted in any case, you might like to spend the
couple of months she is being fitted out ....”
William’s eyes glowed and his heart hammered.
“I have been awarded the ship? As Master and
Commander?” he asked clarification.
“Why, yes, so I understand,” said Wickham. “The Navy
want someone expendable in an American ship who understands it to do something
unpleasant. I expect that sort of thing is familiar to you.”
“Yes,” said William. “And you would offer a job in the
meantime to Colin, John and me. And my wife, of course.”
“Oh, of course,” murmured Wickham. “Your father-in-law
has some influence too, of course.”
“On one condition,” said William.
“Ah, excellent, I trust a man who will haggle more
than one who gives in,” said Wickham. “What is it?”
“I want my men to be assigned to the ‘Thetis’ with
papers to that effect in their pockets, and for them to be given leave if they
want it.”
“Won’t they ‘run’?”
“No,” said William. “And if any did, then it would be
me looking foolish for it, would it not?”
“True enough,” said Wickham. “That’s it?”
“No. I want Scully to have his time at sea waived and
to have the chance to take the lieutenant’s exam,” said William. “If I am to go
on some unpleasant mission I need him to be treated as credible by any other
lieutenant the navy board sees fit to give me. I have two midshipmen in mind as
well as Mr. Prescott, but I don’t see why I shouldn’t have a decent lieutenant
I can work with.”
“I can make that happen,” said Wickham. “Also your
crew. Do you need any others?”
“My crew used, many of them, to be mutineers and were
disrated. They form a backbone for any raw recruits I take on,” said William.
“Let me have them on the ‘Thetis’ and I will do whatever dirty job Intelligence
wants. But John and Colin answer for themselves.”
“Then we had better ask them.”
Scully and Prescott listened to Wickham’s explanation
that he wanted a schoolboy and a schoolmaster in a school about which he had
deep suspicions, and both looked at William.
“I said I would do what was needful,” said William.
“I think it would be fun,” said Colin, “Though
ordinary boys might be a bit tedious.”
“Just go back to your practical jokes, Colin,” said
William. “You can’t kill anyone on dry land with them. That will make you look younger.”
Colin brightened.
“Is Mr. Price to be my father, sir? Only he’s too
young.”
“I can be his brother, and visit at weekends,” said
William.
“Admirable; a plan already,” said Wickham. “Mr.
Scully?”
“I’ll do it, if only to keep an eye on young Mr.
Prescott,” said Scully. “And what are we looking for?”
Wickham looked grim.
“It has come to my notice that several alumni from a
particular small private school have taken jobs inside the commissariat
branches of Horse Guards, Trinity House, the Board of Ordnance and even in the
Treasury. A number of shortfalls can be
tentatively but not positively traced back to their offices. It has been
well-co-ordinated and I want to know if they are being trained to be traitors,
perhaps for pay, since it has meant that ammunition has not reached the points
at which it was needed, pay and prize money has been diverted, and general
supplies have not been sent.”
“That’s terrible!” cried William.
Wickham gave a thin smile.
“Naturally, pay and prize money are made up
appropriately but a failure to properly provision ships or regiments must make
some loss of efficiency. Where possible,
a few of the wealthier officers have been asked to make up the shortfall in the
short term, and they will be compensated later.
But as my people in the Home Office move in on those we believe to be
the ones responsible, we want someone at source to look into the school.”
“May I ask a few questions about these alumni?” asked
William. “You have traced something
which connects them, which is the school, but I wonder what else might connect
them? Do you have information on them?”
“As it happens, I do,” said Wickham.
“Very well.
What is the birth of each of them?” asked William.
“Let me check.”
Wickham looked in his heavy leather portfolio of notes. “One is the son
of a beached lieutenant of the navy.
Another is the son of a sergeant in the artillery, of nominally gentry
birth, but as you know, the artillery only promote on merit. Another is the son of an army chaplain and
the fourth is the son of a purser.”
“And their fathers? Are they still living?” asked William,
intently.
“Dear me, no,” said Wickham. “Ah.”
“Resentment over being left destitute by the war?”
asked Scully.
“It would rather appear so,” said Wickham.
“Then I’m not going to be approached if I have a
brother,” said Colin. “It would be
better if my father was an underling of Mr. Price’s, and I didn’t want to have
anything to do with joining the navy, but my father having been in it rather
explains any use of naval expressions.”
“It does indeed,” said Wickham. “I was quite right to
choose you, my lad; you are a shrewd young man.”
“And being a middy, it’s what I am; a young gentleman,
not a little boy,” said Colin. “I have
an advantage over the other boys. Mind,
I find reading and writing hard, despite a tutor before going to sea, I owe
what I can do to Mr. Scully and Mrs. Greerson who’ve helped the letters and
numbers not to jump about so much when I look at them. Mr. Squeers used to say
I was stupid, but Mrs. Greerson says that some boys just can’t interpret the
shapes of letters. She made me learn
them with the signal flags, so now I can think of the signal flags when I’m
reading or writing. It makes life a lot easier because I don’t do it to be
awkward.”
“He’s a hard-working lad to overcome such a difficulty
so well,” said Scully. “And now he can
write his own language, he’s finding Latin easier too.”
“Actually Latin helps my spelling, sir,” said Colin.
“Not that it matters for this job, I can be beaten just as well over a desk as
over the gun, I dare say.”
“And when have I ever had you beaten for your Latin,
Colin?” demanded Scully.
Colin grinned.
“You haven’t sir; but at times I’d prefer it to having
to copy and translate odes.”
“Be thankful I don’t make you write odes,” said
Scully. “So what has Will to do with the
boy?”
“Buy me a house in the village,” said William to
Wickham. “And let it be known about that it is for a beached officer. I will then write to the school, saying that
I made a dying man a promise to see his son cared for, and that the boy does
not care for the sea, so I need a school which keeps pupils over the holidays
as well in which to leave him. He can be
the son of a warrant officer of relatively lowly origins, and as I am just
married, I don’t want to have to bother with him.”
“Perfect,” said Wickham. “What about contacting him?”
“Scully will come up with a way,” said William. “Or ... a groundsman? If Walden has no relatives living, I’d like
him, but I’ll not deprive him of his chance to see his family. Where is this school?”
“Romford, in Essex,” said Wickham.
William brightened.
“Walden’s from around that way,” he said. “Certainly
it wouldn’t be far. He’d be paid, of
course?”
“Naturally,” said Wickham. “I notice you haven’t asked
about pay.”
William looked surprised.
“I assumed we’d get our half-pay while waiting for the
‘Thetis’ and a bit of patronage for it,” he said.
“Oh, you’re all on full pay,” said Wickham. “Though I don’t guarantee to get Walden’s
prize money through.”
“Twenty-seven pounds, fifteen shillings and
eightpence,” said William. “He valued up
everything we got as prizes and worked it out.”
“Surely it is more than that? Why the Gobelin cloth alone is worth more
than the lugger you captured, and the laces and brandy must make it near thirty
pounds each for your crew.”
William brightened.
“Really? Well
that’s an added incentive for them to come back to me – the hopes of more.”
Wickham laughed.
“Or they may cut their losses and ‘run’ as soon as
their prize money comes through.”
“No, they’re good men,” said William. “I need to talk to Walden. Will you dine with us so I can ask him if he
will play gardener for a while? I’ll
only take him if he volunteers.”
“Does the Royal Navy provide guests with anything
better than salt beef and biscuit?” asked Wickham.
“This ship will provide a plenitude of better food for
all the crew because Amelia is prepared to pay for American biscuits stored in
new wine puncheons, which stay fresh.
And chickens and goats, of course, and we will try Bonaparte’s canned meat
as well, which Amelia also says is more palatable. There is no point having an American
father-in-law if I do not use his shipping to make my men more
comfortable. And we shall have fruit and
vegetables to stave off scurvy too. It will supplement the more usual ‘salt
junk’,” said William.
“Well, I have heard of many a wealthy captain spending
his money on extra paint for the ship, or providing himself with an orchestra,
and in making sure of vegetables and fruit. I should think you won’t get
deserters if you can feed your men better than what they would get on land,”
said Wickham. “I will stay. I want you to sail as soon as possible; indeed, if
you can get to Portsmouth faster than the stage can get me to London, I’ll ship
with you and discuss as much as I know in detail.”
“Unless the winds are contrary, or we meet heavy
weather, I believe any ship can beat the mail, never mind a stage coach,” said
William. “And we go particularly well against the wind, even if a square-rigged
ship could beat us all standing in going before the wind across the Atlantic.”
“Walden, you come from Romford or thereabouts, don’t
you?” asked William.
“Yessir, and hoping to take some prize money to me
poor old ma,” said Walden. “She’s
getting by sewing shirts, but it ain’t much of a living.”
“Do you think she’d take a job sewing on board?” asked
William. “I miss having Sew-and-Sew, as
he’s on the ‘Endeavour’.
“I should think she’d jump at it; salt junk ain’t much
good but we get fed better nor a lot o’ folks ashore,” said Walden. “Wot I means is, we get fed, and we don’t
never ‘ave to worry abaht where ve next meal is coming from.”
William nodded.
“That’s settled then; I’m to be master and commander
of the newly named ‘Thetis’ after a refit and I’ve asked for protections for
all of you, if you’ll like to serve with me.”
Walden chuckled.
“Well, Captain, you have a knack of finding prizes,
and the extra thirty-one quid, seven and sixpence from the smugglers isn’t
likely to lose you men.”
“Oh, you worked it out?” said William. “Of course you
worked it out. I should have realised.”
“Yessir. Why
did you want to know where I come from, sir?” asked Walden.
“Because Mr. Scully, Mr. Prescott and I have been
asked to see if we can find out about what might be spying,” said William.
“It’s based in Essex, at a school. And I
wondered if you’d be prepared to be a gardener or groundsman in the school, to
run messages for Mr. Prescott and Mr. Scully.
And if it would make you happier, Mrs. Price and I would have your old
ma in the house where we shall be living while we are there.”
“Gawd, yes, sir,” said Walden. “I’ve been worrying that much about ‘er. If you and Missus Price was lookin’ arter
her, I wouldn’t ‘ave ter worry.” His whole face looked more relaxed than it had
been for a while.
“Well, we shall be in Portsmouth faster than the mail,
though the house won’t be organised immediately,” said William. “Maybe I could put you ashore in Harwich so
you could see her, and ingratiate yourself in the school. And Mr. Scully too.”
Walden nodded.
“Yerse, you don’t want everyone turning up at once,”
he said. “I’ll go see me ma; and when
the house is got, I’ll take her there and go to the school. And Mr. Scully hopefully with his feet under
the table.”
“This is what I am hoping,” said William. “I am glad Mr. Prescott and Mr. Scully will
have you to rely on.”
“Me an’ Taff reckon he could do wiv a couple o’ good
servants,” said Walden. “An’ Peacock an’
Jackson for you. Account o’ wantin’ good
positions when this perishin’ war is over.”
“I certainly account the four of you poachers very
reliable,” said William. “So long as
none of you get Mr. Prescott or me into trouble with our respective
neighbours.”
Walden went into a paroxysm of laughter.
“They got to catch us first,” he said.
