Gentleman Captain (29 page)

'Damn us all, Tremar,' cried Kit. 'What do they feed you on? Or are you old Samson reborn?' Carvell, grinning in defeat, slapped Tremar's back to roars of laughter from his messmates.

Everywhere, it was plain to see that Kit Farrell was at ease with the men, and they with him. The crew's early suspicions of him had evaporated once we were at sea and they had seen that he was a fine seaman, not a worthless favourite puffed up by a boy-loving gentleman captain. His acceptance was made easier by the behaviour of his superior officer. Landon, the master, may have detested me, but he was far worse with his crew. They in turn despised him for his haughty arrogance, the superstitious dreads that threatened the ship's equanimity, and the violent unpredictability that would see him laugh uproariously before handing out the severest punishment for the smallest offence. Landon's other mates were too good at playing the sycophant, and too bad as seamen, to win much love among the messes. It was no surprise that Kit Farrell had earned respect so soon and so completely.

We made our way back down the deck–toward the stern, that is–and when we reached the ladder by which we had descended, Farrell said, 'So, Captain, will you take a turn about the orlop too?'

Now, I had never gone down beneath the waterline to the half-deck known as the orlop, or its neighbouring hold. It was an unknown land of store rooms, barrels of victuals and strange, dark recesses; the domain of my standing officers and them alone. But I was in the mood for exploration, and with my expedition to the fort curtailed, I resolved to inspect every inch of my command instead.

We descended the ladder that led from the main deck. I reached the bottom and found myself stooped at an odd angle; this was a world where only the likes of John Treninnick could stand fully upright, and my height was such that I had to bow my head whenever I was belowdecks. My forehead already bore several bruises which testified to my failure wholly to master this necessity. Scots waters lapped hard against the hull, the ship's timbers creaked and groaned like a regiment of the dead, and the stench of the bilges rose to salute me. My eyes began to adjust to the darkness. Only a few small lanterns lit the crowded space; the powder room was very near, and many great ships have been blown to oblivion by fumbled candles or lanterns, so naked flames were unwelcome in these lower regions of the hull.

We went forward on the larboard side, negotiating with difficulty the cable tiers–where the ship's cables were laid out across the deck–and the great knees that supported the deck above. We negotiated our way round the galley, a brick structure surrounding great copper pots; Janks and his assistant tugged their forelocks in salute and returned to breaking open a barrel of salt pork. There were gunner's, boatswain's, and carpenter's storerooms on either side of the deck, looking much like the officers' cabins on the decks above, but larger. Farrell opened the door of each store in turn, and it struck me in that moment that any man on the ship could do the same. True, my officers were meant to keep an exact tally of all their stores, but did they? If something went missing, how would they ever know, given the great jumbles of stores that lay before me, stacked high from deck to deck? And if they did not record any loss, so that their papers remained serene and correct, how would any captain ever know? I resolved then that I would order locks on each storeroom forthwith.

We turned to walk back down the starboard side. Farrell paused at one of the sail stores and opened the door. There, perched high on the folded spare sails, was my enigmatic Frenchman, Roger Le Blanc, reading by the light of that lantern. He looked at me in amazement, then smiled.

'Well,
mon capitaine. Un visiteur–
an unexpected visitor, indeed!' He got to his feet and essayed a touch of the forelock in a salute that lacked even the faintest whiff of deference.

'You choose strange quarters for a library, Monsieur Le Blanc,' I said questioningly.

'Ah,
Capitaine,
reading on the decks above, it is not possible. The men talk and shout, and the English ever look on reading with suspicion. So I avoid their insults, and when I have repaired a sail or two, they are transformed into my couch, and so I read.'

I was intrigued despite myself. 'And what is your choice of reading, Monsieur?'

He handed me the book. It was in French, of course, but thanks to my grandmother, I had no trouble with scholarly writing in that tongue.
Discours de la méthode,
it was called, but as I turned the pages, and although I could understand the words, I could follow almost nothing of the sense. I turned another page. There seemed to be deductions drawn from a piece of wax.
Je pense, donc je suis,
I read aloud. And what the blazes was that supposed to mean? Shaking my head, I handed the book back to Le Blanc.

'So,
Capitaine
, I cannot then convert you to the thinking of Monsieur Descartes? As well, perhaps, that I do not introduce you to his Cartesian geometry, for that is a mystery even to me.'

I looked into the amused, dark eyes of the Frenchmen, and momentarily thought of clapping him in irons. He was not who he claimed to be, and here he was mocking me. I could interrogate the truth of his identity out of him for was I not the captain? But we are all entitled to our secrets. James Harker had evidently left Roger Le Blanc's well alone, and so, I decided, would I.

Nevertheless, I said flatly, 'Monsieur Le Blanc, if you are truly a runaway tailor, then I am the Sultan of Turkey.'

Le Blanc bowed his head and smiled. 'As you say,
monsieur le capitaine.
But you are a man who knows your history, I think, even if you do not know your natural philosophy. Remember, then, the history of the reign of
le Roi François Premier,
and the times since. France was ever the best friend to the Grand Turk, and he to him.'

We left Le Blanc to his strange book and continued our way towards the stern. Past the cable tiers once more and we came to the starboard side of the cockpit, the confined but essentially open space where Surgeon Skeen was tending to a patient on a bier that had been erected on the deck. I stood a little way from this scene, for Skeen's usual odour was complemented by a deathly stench of decay from the patient who lolled there, insensible with drink.

'Gangrene, sir,' Skeen said. 'Will have to take the leg off shortly.' I looked at the patient, but his face was unfamiliar. 'One of
Royal Martyrs
men, sir,' said Skeen, in answer to my look, 'sent over to us while you were ashore yesterday. They have no surgeon, only an ill-natured surgeon's mate with strange ideas of treatment.'

I felt a faint remembrance stirring in my mind; something I felt sure was important, if I could but take hold of the memory and see it clearly. I had no wish to smell any more of that unwholesome stink, let alone witness Skeen sawing off a man's leg. We turned away in relief and continued astern.

At the very back, Farrell opened a scuttle, pointing out the bread room that lay below, with the fish room next to it. I looked down into the little holds, and by the light of a lantern I could see a pile of loaves stacked against one corner of the room, coming perhaps halfway up to the deck on which we stood. I did not need the mathematics of Le Blanc's Monsieur Descartes to estimate the number of loaves in that space; nor to comprehend the difference between that number and another figure I had been shown but recently.

There was a commotion on the ladder from the main deck, and Purser Peverell appeared before me, red-faced and breathless.

'Captain, I had no idea you were making an inspection—'

'Not a formal inspection, Mister Peverell. Far from it. Merely taking a stroll around my ship, in fact. But now you mention it, Purser, I think that a formal inspection is long overdue. Tomorrow, let's say, at four bells of the forenoon watch. Ten o'clock, if you're not certain of sea-methods, sir. Just after the prayer of
terce,
if you prefer the watch-keeping of your Roman Church.' That struck home, for like all Catholics who clung on to public office in those days, Peverell was not keen to have the fact trumpeted. I went on, keeping my tone light and enjoying myself immensely, 'You can bring all your papers, and we shall go down to the hold, Mister Peverell. Naturally, the figures that you have shown me so often in my cabin will tally exactly with what we shall find in the stores, but when I next report that fact to Mister Pepys and His Royal Highness the Lord High Admiral, both my conscience and yours will be so much clearer if we have properly compared the one with the other. Don't you think that's so, Purser?'

To my dying day, I will remember and relish the expression that had come over Peverell's complacent, condescending face. The previous triumph over the loathsome purser had been Francis Gale's. This was mine, and I cherished it.

***

'Thank you, Mister Farrell,' I said, when we had returned to my cabin. 'As you predicted, that was a most instructive lesson. Perhaps more for the purser than me, though.'

Kit smiled merrily at me. 'I had my suspicions, sir, but then, all seamen have suspicions of all pursers. Rogues to a man, thieving from the king and the common sailor alike. But this one is altogether the worst I've ever come across. I began to make it my business to enquire into Peverell's. Not that I had the grasp of numbers and manifests to do so to any great purpose. But another did.'

The door flew open as though someone had kicked it. Musk appeared, glowered at Farrell, and said sourly to me, 'You're dining the Provost of Oban, remember. Need to get the table ready.'

Musk set about his task with his usual infinite bad grace. As I watched him, it dawned on me that somehow the hatred he had displayed toward Kit Farrell since his first day on the
Jupiter
had been replaced by something else, something that I could not quite grasp. Understanding, when it came, was as welcome as it was unexpected.

'Well, Musk,' I said, 'I think you have been assisting Mister Farrell? Investigating our purser's frauds against the king?'

Musk grunted. 'Someone had to,' he said, 'and most seamen can't count.'

I remembered my brother's comment on sending Musk to me, that the old rogue was 'good enough'. In truth, he was much more than that. His immaculate command of the domestic and estate accounts of the London house was the reason why my mother, and now my brother, had kept him on all these years. It seemed out of character in one so churlish, so villainous in appearance. But perhaps it was
not
so out of character. For who better to keep a set of accounts than the man who understood every fraud that could possibly be committed against them?

Farrell and I sat in my stern gallery, talking of the means by which a captain could check the activities of his warrant officers without causing them to take umbrage. I heard the bell toll seven times; but half an hour to the changing of the watch. As we talked, Musk went grumblingly about his business, preparing a lavish reception for this Provost of Oban, protesting now and again at the workload that, in truth, he imposed upon himself. The tide was ebbing and our ship had swung on its single anchor, its bow to the shore. I knew such things, now; felt them, rather. From my windows we looked out onto the bleak shore and, through the channel behind us, a glimpse of open sea.

I could see a small boat coming out from the shore of Ardverran. I thought nothing of it, for we were visited daily by at least a dozen such craft, most of them manned by curious Scots or cunning rogues come to peddle their wares–say, overpriced whisky–to the king's gullible mariners. But as I idly looked upon it, I noticed with a start that this boat's passenger had an unmistakeable and vast beard.

Minutes later, Macdonald of Kilreen came aboard and was shown to my cabin. There, he delivered an invitation to the esteemed Captain Quinton to join the Lady Macdonald the next day, for a short cruise. My acceptance may have been a little too rapid. When I turned I caught, for just a moment, the trace of a knowing smirk upon the countenance of that old rogue, Phineas Musk.

The Macdonald birlinn came alongside us just before noon, shortly after I had concluded a revealing and (from his viewpoint) acutely discomfiting inspection of Peverell's accounts. There were twelve rowers, six on each side, all in extravagant tartan finery and plumage; a servant girl and a helmsman completed the entourage. Close to the stern, cushions had been heaped into a comfortable divan, and on them reclined the Countess of Connaught. She was dressed soberly and practically in a masculine jacket, cloak and long, encompassing skirts, for although the sun was shining, the wind was still from the west and fresh enough to be counted cold.

A disconcertingly large number of my crew had found an excuse to come to the starboard side to observe the spectacle, and to offer advice in tones quite clearly audible to their captain on courses of action to take with his visitor. Boatswain Ap circled menacingly with his cudgel and growled something about being more respectful to the captain and lady, but his heart seemed not to be in it. Perhaps he had abandoned me as a lost cause of undue leniency.