A Ship for The King (3 page)

Easton had subsequently made himself useful to the Duke of Savoy; had been ennobled and, taking a wealthy Catholic lady to his wife, retired a Savoyard Marquess, luxuriating in wealth and status. After Easton's departure Henry Mainwaring succeeded him as the pirates' ‘admiral'.

By this time, however, other forces were stirring. Exasperated by English weakness at sea and King James's reluctance to clear his own waters of the plague, the Dutch, whose trade had suffered from the captures of Easton and his cronies, took matters into their own hands. In 1614, a powerful Dutch squadron had descended upon Crookhaven, one piratical lair in the south-west extremity of Ireland. It was clear that matters were coming to a head and Mainwaring considered his future, a fact well known to Strange who had, by this time, become one of Mainwaring's lieutenants.

Mainwaring's skills in negotiating the release of Protestant slaves from the Moroccan Sultan conveyed an odour of morality to his conduct and allowed him to seek a reconciliation with the English King. James's conciliating policies towards the European powers had earned him no friends at home and he was in need of men of action beholden to him. Gone were the glorious days of Elizabeth; the country had sunk into despondency, her navy rotting, her trade stagnant, except for some wildly gambled enterprises to the East Indies, the outcome of which remained uncertain. James's unpopularity was made manifest when, calling a Parliament to raise funds, his efforts were rebuffed and the so-called ‘Addled Parliament' was dissolved for failing to finance him. Amid this stalemate came news of a victory at sea; one Henry Mainwaring had taken five Spanish ships and he was even now cruising off Ireland with two vessels, seeking an accommodation and pardon from King James. James was mooting a change of policy and released Sir Walter Raleigh from the Tower on the supposition that the old adventurer could capitalize on a treasure-seeking voyage to
El Dorado
. Raleigh had failed and lost his head, but Mainwaring, hearing of the King's intention of pardoning him, sailed up-Channel and captured a Moorish pirate in the estuary of the Thames itself. He could hardly have accomplished a more appropriate feat: it cleared his name and legitimized his pardon. He became a gentleman and thereafter he acquired shares in several ships, to which he acted as ship's husband, entering a legitimate trade with the West Indies and the Mediterranean, which he knew well.

This much Strange knew, but while Strange took the
Swallow
to Smyrna, Mainwaring had been composing his
Discourse of Pirates and the Suppression Thereof
, admission of which had caused Strange his importunate curiosity.

Mainwaring's silence was on the verge of becoming awkward when he removed the pipe from his mouth, blew smoke and turned to his friend. ‘My dear Gideon, you and I have made money from our partnership. You came from a mercantile background and while I rescued you from slavery, you came back to your family's shareholdings in the
Swallow
, the
Lark
and the
Bristol Rover
. It does not suit me to languish here in this city. I have a mind for more and have friends at court, as you know through my connections with old Walsingham's family. But their stars are in the wane, as is Nottingham's, and I look to new. Buckingham may be pretty as a girl, and the King may nurse an unseemly passion for his prettiness, but Buckingham has a need for competent sea-officers, for the King's policies will draw our enemies upon us and I have the stomach for a fight—'

‘You seek a commission!' Strange almost shouted as he divined Mainwaring's intentions, but his friend merely raised an eyebrow in mock astonishment.

‘Is that what you think?'

‘You shall be an admiral again, only this time your flag will be atop the mainmast of a King's ship, by God. Harry, I drink to your success.' Strange raised his glass and swallowed its contents with a wince. ‘God's truth, but that is vile wine!'

Mainwaring made a self-deprecatory gesture, allowing Strange to add, ‘And you intend to make Mr Rat one of your lieutenants after I have trained him.'

Mainwaring lowered an empty glass to the table and regarded Strange through the haze of blue tobacco smoke. ‘You have divined my mind, Gideon, and tomorrow we shall see what young Mr Rat makes of my proposal . . . at least the first part of it. We have no need to reveal it all until we see whether he possesses the qualities I believe he does. Now,' he went on purposefully, ‘I want to consider some other worthy seafaring men of our acquaintance . . .'

‘God, you would strip my ships of the most able, damn you, Harry. You are already thinking like a naval officer!'

‘Why not, Gideon. 'Tis not so very different from being a pirate.'

Kit Faulkner woke to the new day uncertain of his surroundings. The cat had gone, though the warmth of its companionship lingered. Inured to sleeping on a hard surface in any odd corner, it was the slight movement of the
Swallow
that reminded him of the previous day's events and his quickening heartbeat woke him fully. All previous attempts to board ships in the dock had run the risk of a thrashing from the elderly ship-keepers who tended them, and while a nimble chap could usually elude the grunting and rheumaticky pursuit of these guardians, they had their nasty accomplices, like the boy Kit had witnessed stealing hosepipe from his benefactors. As if the thought conjured a spectre, the galley door was flung open and a figure stood silhouetted against the grey autumnal daylight. A shadow fell across the stirring Kit as he drew up his legs and scrambled to his feet.

‘You little bastard,' the ship-keeper's son said. ‘The old boy took it into his head that I had lifted some pipe and I have you to thank for the lie . . .'

‘'Twas not a lie, and you know it.' Kit was standing now and backed himself against the bulkhead. His right hand was behind him, fumbling briefly until it closed round a handle hanging from a hook.

‘It was a filthy lie,' the other said, advancing into the galley as Kit, his heart thundering in his chest, carefully twisted his hand and freed the implement from its hook. Just as the youth lunged for him he brought his hand round and caught his attacker a sharp blow across his outstretched wrist. Fortunately it was a sharpening steel that Kit had alighted on, and not a knife; nevertheless, the youth squealed and withdrew his hand. Although he made a move as though to renew his assault he thought better of it. A moment later he had hopped backwards, slammed the door and shot the bolt. Kit could hear him running off and settled to wait, scouring the galley for food. Curiously there was nothing beyond a small bag of oats from which he broke his fast. He was vaguely aware of raised voices somewhere in the vessel.

An hour later he heard footsteps approach. He took up the steel again, but the door opened to reveal the old ship-keeper. ‘Come with me,' he grumbled, making no mention of the encounter between the two youngsters. Kit followed as Jones led him ashore, muttering testily, by which means he indicated to his charge that he thoroughly disapproved of his present task. It took some time for Jones to execute his master's commission, for it required a series of commercial transactions for which the old man was unfitted. During the course of these Kit realized this and he was able to cajole a number of decent garments out of the vendors, calling upon the skills that his vagrant life had equipped him with. Thus he emerged from the pawnbrokers' shops and the cobblers, in and out of which Jones led him, with two sets of under-drawers, three pairs of stockings, two pairs of breeches, three blouses and a rough coat of the kind that sailors wore. He also argued for a decent pair of shoes that were too big for him and a hat that was likewise oversized but marked him for a fledgling dandy. Jones, who grumbled incessantly at the diminishing stock of coin he held, nevertheless managed to accomplish his task with the minimum of outlay, as Mrs Jones had insisted: all-in-all, it would get this infested boy out of his hair and his own son off the hook of his own stupidity.

It was not far short of noon when Jones and his charge, weighed down by his bundle, hung about with his shoes and sporting a stubby clay-pipe that the cobbler had thrown in for good measure, reached Captain Strange's lodgings. If Kit thought, by acquisition of the pipe, that he had been elevated to the estate of manhood, he was swiftly disabused for Captain Mainwaring, barely looking up from some papers he was studying with Captain Strange, dismissed Jones and summoned a chambermaid.

‘Take this boy, Miss, and scrub him under the pump. Then have a barber shave him . . . No, Mr Rat, leave those clothes here. You may take a pair of breeches and throw those rags you are wearing away before you come back.'

Kit Faulkner endured twenty minutes of humiliation under the yard-pump, with several servants, men as well as women, looking on as his skinny frame was soused and scrubbed. The chambermaid had no liking for her task, and took her own displeasure out on the boy, though she warmed to her part with the encouraging shouts and advice from her fellows. Kit's backside was red from rubbing and he clutched his private parts lest her enthusiasm should entirely dispossess him of them. However, when finally released and clad in rough breeches, he privately acknowledged an invigoration as he fled for the stairs leading to Strange's rooms.

Mainwaring was still working on his papers, but Strange was enjoying a pipe by the window that overlooked the street below. Turning as the boy knocked and entered the room, Strange gestured to the screen behind which the pisspot stood on a stool and said quietly, ‘You had better dress yourself properly, Mr Rat.'

Awkward in his new clothes, the hat clasped in his hand and the overlarge boots making of him a figure of fun, he emerged and stood before the two men. Mainwaring looked up, laid down his quill, and sat back in his chair, suppressing a smile. ‘Well, Gideon, where has Mr Rat gone? I think we are looking at the makings of a gentleman.'

At which, in some imitated reflex, Kit Faulkner shyly advanced one foot, flicked his broad-brimmed hat and made a not inelegant bow.

‘Indeed, Harry, I think maybe you are right. Well, sir, you are welcome,' Strange said kindly. ‘Please take a seat and –' Strange came forward and, searching among the papers before Mainwaring, drew one and laid it before Faulkner as he sat awkwardly at the table – ‘can you read?'

‘A little, sir.'

‘Do read that, and when you have digested its contents you may make your mark here . . . It is an indenture, boy, binding you to serve me as your master for four years, during which I undertake at my own expense to teach you the business of a seaman . . .'

‘And if you prove resolute and efficient, if you learn your duty quickly, Captain Strange will impart to you the business of navigation, conning and lodemanage,' Mainwaring added, ‘after which you shall, if you wish, seek advancement.'

Faulkner stared at the two men and then at the bewildering document before him. It was covered with words, only a few of which he could decipher, though his mouth tried to form those he could not. ‘Read it to him, Gideon, while I finish these accounts.'

And so Kit Faulkner, a semi-illiterate vagrant orphan aged somewhere between twelve and fourteen years old went to sea, bound apprentice to Captain Gideon Strange, Master under God of the ship
Swallow
, of two hundred tons burthen and ten guns. In March 1618 the vessel slipped down the Avon and took a strong ebb tide to the westward, passed between the islands of Flatholm and Steepholm and for three days anchored under the lee of Lundy Island, where marauding Barbary pirates had raised ramparts in defiance of the King's Majesty, before catching a slant of wind from the north-west, whereupon Captain Strange set course for the Mediterranean.

The same day Henry Mainwaring, having previously waited upon His Majesty King James and presented his sovereign with his
Discourse upon Pirates and their Suppression Thereof
, was summoned to attend the King at Woking. Here he was knighted and appointed a Gentleman of the Bedchamber, whereupon the first person to offer his congratulations was George Villiers, the Marquess of Buckingham. The court favourite was eagerly seeking new allies among seafaring men, for his intrigues had recently secured the ousting of the Howards from the King's favour. The Earl of Nottingham, once the victorious admiral who had turned aside the Spanish Armada, wrecked by age and corruption had given way to a younger man of subtle skills – considerable administrative ability but infinitely greater venality. Buckingham's star was rising, for soon he would be a Duke and not merely the Lord Admiral as Nottingham had been, but Lord High Admiral of England.

Far to the westward of these grand proceedings the
Swallow
lay over to the wind, her yards braced sharply, her sails full and the sea a-roiling along her lee tumblehome. Here, the boy Kit Faulkner, damp and unhappy, threw up the contents of his stomach and wished he was scavenging apples on the waterfront of Bristol.

Part One

The King's Whelp

One

Awaiting
El Dorado