Hoare and the Portsmouth Atrocities (10 page)

“
Are
you guilty?” asked Hoare. “And I do not whisper for secrecy's sake but because I cannot speak in any other way. It is a nuisance, I know, but one has to make the best of it.”

“No, sir, I am
not
guilty. I admit Captain Hay's outburst made me tremble with anger, which is why I spoke up to him. I realize I never should have done that. But
he
was so angry that he turned purple and laid hands on me, forcibly. That is why I—”

“Fled,” said Hoare. “Have you any way of proving what you say, that you grappled with the captain only in order to escape him?”

“No, but I would suppose the Marine guard would speak up for me,” Arthur replied.

“Then there was a Marine guard at the cabin door?”

“Of course there was, Mr. Hoare.” The prisoner's voice was stiff. “Have you ever known the captain's cabin in any of His Majesty's ships
not
to be guarded?”

For the first time, Hoare thought, the man sounds like a naval officer.

“Who was he, do you know?” he asked.

“A Marine, just a Marine,” Arthur replied. “Truly, I don't think anyone can tell one Lobster from another—except perhaps another Lobster. They're all statues in red coats and heavy boots. Don't you think so?”

Hoare looked at Peter Gladden as if to say, “I told you so.”

“As I said,” Arthur went on, “there was a Marine on guard when I reported to Captain Hay's cabin. In fact, he opened the door and announced me, just as they always do. Frankly, I did not notice him as I left, since I was pressed by an urgency.”

*   *   *

T
HE MORNING DAWNED
bright, clear, and busy on the day of Lt. Arthur Gladden's court-martial on charges of having murdered his captain, Adam Hay. Flotillas of watercraft made their way across the sparkling harbor to converge on
Defiant,
74, the venue selected by Charles Wright, her captain and president of the court-martial.

Vantage
's own vacant cabin would have been the proper place for the court-martial of one of her officers. But both the prominent and the curious were expected; rumor had reached Portsmouth that even royalty might appear. On these grounds and Mr. Bennett's advice, Captain Wright allowed his own life to be disrupted and his own cabin in
Defiant
to be taken over.

On the table behind which the members of the court were to sit, among the quills, inkwells, and sand, lay Arthur Gladden's sword. It was placed athwartships. If the court arrived at a “guilty” verdict, the blade of the sword would face him on his return to the cabin after the court's deliberations.

“Make way!” called a Marine. As the members filed into the cabin along the way cleared for them, the audience rose almost to a man. One guest, a massive figure in admiral's gold braid and the vivid blue Garter ribbon, remained seated in his comfortable chair squarely in front of the court.

“Does Your Royal Highness wish to be made part of this court?” Captain Wright asked.

Admiral of the White Prince William, Duke of Clarence, shook his head. The head, which bore a jovial expression, was shaped like a pineapple.

“Gad, no, old boy. Came down to get
away
from court, don't ye know?” The cabin filled with appreciative chuckles. Royal ribaldry, Hoare observed to himself, always amuses.

When the chuckles had died down, Captain Wright read out Admiral Hardcastle's order convening the court-martial, concluding with the words: “‘… that, on the twenty-first day of June, eighteen-oh-five, in His Majesty's ship
Vantage,
Lieutenant Arthur Gladden did assail and murder his captain, Adam Hay.'”

Recognizing Hoare's lanky figure standing beside the prisoner's friend, Captain Wright raised his eyebrows and interrupted himself. “Does the accused really require
two
‘friends,' sir?” he asked.

“Actually, sir, he does not. The accused officer asked that, as his brother, I stand as friend for him. Both blood and certainty of his innocence required that I agree to do so. However, Mr. Hoare is a far more skilled investigator than I—”

“Mr. Hoare is well-known to me and to others on this court,” Captain Wright said impatiently. “But which of you speaks for the accused officer? You or he?”

“I shall do so for the most part, sir, if only because of Mr. Hoare's impediment of speech. And Admiral Hardcastle suggested Mr. Hoare and I collaborate.”

“Irregular, but I see nothing wrong with it, nor, of course, with the Admiral's point of view. Do any of you gentlemen?” Captain Wright looked left and right along the table, clearly expecting no contradiction. “Very good,” he said. “Now, Mr. Bennett, will you give us your opening remarks? I know you, at least, have no difficulty in speaking up.” A soft titter ran through
Defiant
's cabin.

Bennett now outlined the case against Arthur Gladden: how he had been overheard in disputation with his captain; how Captain Hay had cried out; how Arthur had fled the full length of
Vantage;
how Mr. Watt had discovered his dying captain; and the last words the clerk had heard. That, except for Watt, who hardly had the strength to have stabbed his captain, Arthur was the last man known to have seen Captain Hay alive.

Mr. Hopkin, the surgeon, made the same statements under oath that he had made to Hoare and Peter Gladden. He was followed by the man Lynch. The quartermaster, too, had no more and no less to say than he had a day or two before.

John McHale sounded more evasive.

“And what did you hear through the skylight, Mr. McHale?” asked Mr. Bennett.

“I resent the implication, sir! I am no eavesdropper, especially not upon my captain!”

“Then you are prepared to state—under oath, remember, Mr. McHale—that, at anchor on a calm night, on deck, at your proper post within feet of the cabin skylight, you heard nothing through it? Not even any raised voices?”

“Under penalty of perjury, Mr. McHale?” interjected the junior member of the court, a commander, from his place at the left end of the table.

Vantage
's master gulped.

“In the face of what Lynch said he heard, and he well forward of you, leaning against the quarterdeck rail?”

Mr. McHale paused for a thoughtful moment. “Gentlemen, I retract my earlier evidence. Mr. Gladden is a weak man, gentlemen, but an honest one.”

From his seat behind the prisoner Hoare saw Arthur Gladden's ears redden.

McHale continued, “He wouldn't hurt a flea, let alone his captain. Why, he hasn't the gumption of a rabbit. His division of men was already well on the way to becoming a very mob because he couldn't bring himself to control them. I pity him. He doesn't belong in the Navy. I do not wish him to lose his life by my doing, on my evidence. But I have my own wife and children to consider.”

“Confine yourself to the facts, Mr. McHale,” warned Captain Wright. “What, then,
did
you overhear?”

“I heard Captain Hay order Mr. Gladden to put his division through an exercise on the morrow.”

“What sort of exercise?”

“Fire drill, sir,” said McHale, “followed by a simulated battle against a French frigate on either side. Then, if I knew the captain, he'd declare our mainmast shot away at the crosstrees or the like, kill off all the senior officers, and leave Mr. Gladden to get himself out of it. A hard trainer, sir, was Captain Hay, but a good one.

“I then heard Mr. Gladden cry out at length against Captain Hay. He accused the captain of prejudice against him … of being ‘unfair,' as he put it. In the middle of Mr. Gladden's outburst, I heard a roar of rage, and a grunt. Then I heard the cabin door close behind Mr. Gladden—”

“How did you know it was Mr. Gladden?” asked Hoare.

Mr. McHale looked surprised. “Why, sir, Mr. Gladden and the captain were the only men in the cabin. And it certainly wasn't the captain that ran out the cabin door.”

“And if you believed Mr. Arthur Gladden and his captain to have come to blows, why did you not raise the alarm?”

“I could not be sure of that, sir, not from where I was standing. Besides, there was the Marine guard at the cabin door.”

“So you, an experienced sea officer, left it to an unknown Marine private to decide whether or not to raise the alarm. Eh? This will do your career little good, Mr. McHale. That will be all, sir.”

Called and sworn, Mr. Watt repeated in essence the story he had told Hoare a few days ago. When the little man arrived at his captain's dying words, the junior member of the court spoke up again. He had been the only one besides Captain Wright to take an active part in the proceedings. Bernard Weatherby was his name, master and commander in
Crocus,
20; a man of promise and one to remember, Hoare told himself.

“Frankly, gentlemen, I'm at a loss,” Captain Weatherby said. “No one has suggested for a minute Captain Hay was poisoned by one of the lobsters he had been consuming, and Mr. Bennett tells us the captain's steward swears the creatures were alive when he dropped them into the pot of hock. We have no reason to doubt the man's word. Why did the captain talk of ‘lobsters' as he was dying, then?”

“‘A babbled of green tomalley,'” someone muttered in the back of the cabin. Someone else tittered.

“Belay that nonsense.” Captain Wright's quiet, flat voice brought silence. “Another episode of that kind, and I'll have the perpetrator publicly gagged, even if he's a post captain.”

Silence fell.

Mr. Prickett slipped into the cabin and whispered a few words into Hoare's ear. Nodding his thanks, Hoare leaned forward and relayed the whisper to Peter Gladden.

“Having received the court's prior permission, gentlemen,” said the latter, “Mr. Hoare asked Sergeant Miller of
Defiant
's Marine detachment to take as many of his men as required and board
Vantage,
where he was to replace
Vantage
's entire Marine detachment for as long as might be required. I also gave Miller certain instructions.

“Sergeant Doyle of
Vantage
has now mustered his detachment in the waist below the break of
Defiant
's quarterdeck. Mr. President, may I ask you to adjourn this court to the quarterdeck?”

Captain Wright caught Bennett's eye and nodded. Arthur Gladden, guarded by his two Marines, left the cabin first, to be followed by his brother, Hoare, Bennett, and the members of the court. Next, His Royal Highness clambered up the companionway to gleam in the summer sun. Behind them all limped Lieutenant Wallace in a pair of loose pantaloons. The lieutenant would see himself damned if he would witness any man of his being grilled by some whispering upstart of a duelist without his officer present to protect him in case of need.

Sergeant Doyle had drawn up
Vantage
's forty-seven Marines in the waist of
Defiant,
in two facing ranks. Upon catching sight of his officer among the gathering on the quarterdeck above him, the sergeant called his redcoats to attention, and they presented arms with a familiar
clank.
Wallace hitched himself painfully down the larboard companionway into the waist, and took position between the two ranks. From there he looked up at Captain Wright and raised his hat in salute.

“What d'ye want to do now, sir?” Wright rasped at Peter Gladden. “You may as well know these fancy departures from proper procedure do your client no good at all in the eyes of this court.”

Mr. Gladden bowed. “By your leave, sir, I would like him to accompany me down the ranks of these Marines. I want him to identify the man who stood on guard outside Captain Hay's door when he reported to the captain on the evening of the murder.”

“Very good, Mr. Gladden. You may accompany your bro—the accused into the waist.”

The procession made its way down the starboard gangway—first a Marine guard, then the prisoner, then the second Marine, and finally the prisoner's friend and brother. Arthur Gladden walked slowly and gravely along the first rank of lobsters, stopping now and then to peer into a face. He came to the end of the first rank, turned, and walked the length of the facing rank, until he had examined every Marine in
Vantage
's detachment. Concluding with Sergeant Doyle himself, Arthur looked up at the officers of the court-martial as they stood at the quarterdeck rail.

“He's not here,” said Arthur Gladden.

“What d'ye mean ‘he's not here'?” Captain Wright barked.

“The man I saw is not one of this detachment, sir. As I think of it now, the man on guard had a most unusual face. The skin had a peculiar coarse, florid quality; his eyes were larger than normal. And his mouth … Well, sir, his mouth looked almost painted. Like a mask. I can see no Marine here with those features. I am sorry, sir.”

“I have an explanation for that, sir,” said Peter Gladden. He spoke on his own, without Hoare's prompting. “However, I must ask that what follows be heard in … in…” He turned to Hoare for the proper term.

“Yes.
In camera.
”

“If you expect this court to subject itself to still more harlequinades, Mr. Gladden,” said Captain Wright, “you will have to convince a very skeptical group of officers, I assure you. Draw nigh, sir—yes, Mr. Hoare, you, too—and explain yourselves.”

Thereupon the officers of the court-martial put their heads together to hear the whispered explanation Hoare and Gladden had prepared for them. Considerable head-shaking and protest followed, especially from the fire-breathing Commander Weatherby. At last Captain Wright rapped sharply on the quarterdeck rail.

“Mr. Hoare, Mr. Gladden,” he said with some asperity, “I would be happy to let these proceedings run as long as necessary to arrive at a true bill. By doing so, as you pointed out just now, this board would conform with the letter of Admiralty regulations. However, I, like you, am an officer of the Royal Navy. My first duty, like yours, is to marshal all our naval forces as swiftly as may be to the defense of the realm which we serve.