The Battle of All the Ages (16 page)

‘And here, Sir Matthew, will be a demi-bastion, modelled upon the very latest French practice!’

De Gomme was unconscionably proud of his creation. We had already spent most of the morning, the third after my arrival in
Plymouth
, touring the foundations and earthworks, and there was as yet no trace of his enthusiasm waning. With no sign of Nathaniel
Garrett
coming forward, despite placards having been placed around the entire town and my men asking after him from inn to inn, I could not in conscience avoid the engineer’s invitation to come up to the Hoe to view the vast building site. Hundreds of stonemasons, carpenters and labourers were hard at work. Great ditches were being dug, strong ramparts erected. The Citadel would be a formidable fortress: that much was clear.

‘And this will be the Katherine Bastion, named for Her Majesty, of course –’

De Gomme enthused on, but my mind was far away. It was with the men of my ship, racing against time to get her repaired and fit for sea once again. It was out at sea, imagining De Ruyter’s mighty fleet probing our defences, seeking a way to come up the Thames and wreak havoc, perhaps even to invade – for this was what all the
newsletters
from London, eagerly opened and read aloud in Plymouth’s inns, spoke of. It was with my brother and Musk, burrowing into the rotten heart of government to see what dark secrets lay there. And above all, it was with Cornelia, hoping and praying that she was well. It was…

‘Sir Bernard!’

The shout came from the side of the new Citadel nearest to the Barbican. There appeared to be a commotion under one of the new ramparts, with several men standing around, pointing excitedly into the ditch.

De Gomme and I strode across the future parade ground as rapidly as dignity permitted. We clambered up onto the new rampart and looked down. Two men were down in the bottom of the ditch, turning over what appeared at first to be a sack of some sort. Then I saw an arm, and a bloodied hand.

‘It’s a body, Sir Bernard!’ cried one of the men in the ditch. ‘Stabbed many times. Near hacked to death, God help us!’

‘A woman’s body, or a man’s?’

‘Man’s, Sir Bernard! Seaman, by his garb!’

‘I will make a wager with you, Sir Bernard,’ I said, although the thrill of gaming was the last thing in my mind. ‘I’ll wager that we have just found the missing Nathaniel Garrett.’

I sent word to the
Jupiter
, plainly visible across the Cattewater, and to Francis Gale, who came up from the Turk’s Head with the rest of the men. Francis said prayers over the body before permitting Carvell, Ali
Reis and Macferran to carry it down into Plymouth Castle, the
crumbling
old keep on the harbour side of the Citadel which was destined to be demolished once the new fortress was complete.

‘We should inform the Mayor,’ said De Gomme. ‘There will need to be a coroner’s court, and a hue and cry for the murderer.’

‘As you say, Sir Bernard. But before we do that, I think we need to prevent a riot.’

The
Jupiter
’s longboat was coming across the harbour, steering for the quay at the foot of the Lambhay Hill, on which stood both the old castle and the warehouses which Conibear used for naval stores. A crowd was already gathering at the quayside, and the shouts of both women and men carried clearly to the ramparts of the citadel.

‘Coward, for not sailing against the hell-hound!’

‘Ignorant gentleman captains, all of your kind!’

‘I could command yonder
Jupiter
better than you!’

‘Coward, that struck to the Dutch in the Lowestoft fight!’

‘Coward! Coward!’

The taunts angered me. As the longboat approached the quay, they grew louder and louder.

‘Fuck the
Jupiter
– a runt of a ship and a cunt of a captain!’

‘Damn the whoremaster King! Here’s to the Commonwealth’s
halcyon
days!’

My eyes seemed to turn red. They could insult my kind. They could even call Beau Harris a coward: that was the last thing he was, and he was strong enough to rise above that demeaning word. But they would not insult the ship that had made me what I was, nor all the gallant men who had died in her. Above all, they would not insult and demean my King, even if the charge of whoring was wholly true. I drew my sword and began to run down the slope toward the quay.

I heard De Gomme behind me, calling to me to stop, to wait for him to assemble a file of infantrymen. I was vaguely aware of Francis
behind me, but I knew he was unarmed, and I doubted whether the ugly Puritanical mob ahead of us would pay heed to an Anglican Churchman. I simply charged down the hill, heedless of all dignity, making directly for the mob.

The bawlers, denigrators and fishwives were all looking the other way, toward the
Jupiter
’s boat. Only at the very last moment did those at the very back of the mob, and at the side, turn and see what must have been the extraordinary spectacle of a single yellow-uniformed, red-faced senior officer charging at them. I struck out with my fists and the flat of my blade. The sheer force of my charge carried me clean through the mob, down to the edge of the quay, where I turned and held up my sword.

‘The next man or woman who calls out learns the taste of steel!’ I bellowed.

Nowadays, of course, I could simply call for a reading of the Riot Act, that monstrosity of a law passed when German George came in – a vile travesty that seeks to prevent Englishmen from gathering to insult their fat Teutonic masters and the timeserving lickspittle
ministers
who serve them. Then, though, the sight of a single sword was sufficient to disperse the mob, whose members moved away slowly, scowling and murmuring. Those who might have been inclined to argue the case were swiftly disabused by the arrival of Ali Reis, Carvell and Macferran, running down from the castle: a little army at once so unsettlingly exotic and so determinedly ferocious of countenance (not to mention armament) that even those who fancied themselves the hard men of Plymouth slunk away shamefacedly.

I turned in time to see Beau disembark from his longboat. For once, he was not overdressed, wearing merely a simple buff jacket over his shirt, and no wig.

‘I did not think you could run so fast, Sir Matthew.’

‘It is an honour to exhaust myself for your safety, Captain Harris.’

Beau laughed. ‘Come, then, Matt – come, Francis. Show me our
corpse. I need to study the condition, for if my corroborating witness is truly dead, then I think I will be in the same state soon enough.’

Beau, Francis and I stood in what had once been the lord’s chapel of Plymouth Castle, looking down on the remains of the man who had once been Nathaniel Garrett.

‘It’s him,’ said Beau.

‘You met him?’

‘Only the once, just after we came into harbour after the cruise to Lisbon. Sir Bernard brought him to me, saying Garrett had important information about the French which had been sent up to London.’ Beau grimaced at the memory, and at the sight of the bloodied face before us. ‘He was one of the crew on a Plymouth ship, taken by a Frenchman last winter when she was on passage home from Alicante. His ship was taken into La Rochelle, and the crew were held prisoner there until an exchange was arranged and they were sent home. But as they were being paraded down to the dock, he said he saw a great army drawn up, all around the town. He asked why they were there, and was told the army was going to invade Ireland.’

‘One man’s word?’ said Francis, clearly incredulous.

‘He saw the army with his own eyes,’ said Beau. ‘He swore it upon oath.’

But that was not what Francis had meant. He and I exchanged glances, but held our peace.

‘And this intelligence had already been sent up to London when you returned from Lisbon?’

‘At least two weeks earlier,’ said Beau, ‘while I was still escorting the convoy. But it made sense, when I came to send my own letters to Sir William Coventry and My Lord Arlington later that same day.’

‘Sense, Beau? How did it make sense?’

He smiled in the way that benevolent schoolmasters do when
patronising
a backward pupil.

‘Why, Matt, it made sense of my fleet at Lisbon. It had to be the Duke of Beaufort, heading for La Rochelle to embark the invasion army.’

Francis closed his eyes: whether in prayer or in anguish, I could not tell.

‘Yes, it makes perfect sense, Beau. Apart from one thing. It was not Beaufort’s fleet. The noble Duke had not even left Toulon when you saw what you saw off Lisbon. So we have a phantom fleet, a phantom army, and a phantom invasion. And because of all those phantoms, Rupert was sent west with some of the best ships in our fleet, leaving the rest of us at the mercy of De Ruyter.’

Beau was strangely unapologetic.

‘A mystery indeed, Matt. But surely, the King and our great
ministers
– Clarendon, Arlington, all the rest of them – would not have divided the fleet on my word alone, or that of poor Garrett here?’

I said nothing. I stood there, looking down at the increasingly pungent corpse of Nathaniel Garrett, and tried to stifle my growing suspicion that this was exactly what England’s rulers had done.

I sat on a markedly uncomfortable oak chair in my room at the Turk’s Head. It was very late and very dark, but three candles still gave me enough light to pen a report to my brother. I did not write down my suspicions about the intelligence provided by Beau Harris and
Nathaniel
Garrett: even if the ascetic Charles Quinton, Earl of Ravensden, did not read between the lines of my letter, the calculating and
ruthless
Lord Percival most certainly would.

There was a gentle knock on the door, so indistinct that I barely heard it.

Following the morning’s events at the quay, it was entirely possible that some young hothead or old rebel meant to stick a blade into my guts. Thus I took up my dagger, took my bearings on the room where my men were quartered in case I needed to call out, then walked across the room and lifted the latch.

A very thin and very young girl stood there. She was poorly clothed in an ill-fitting smock that must once have belonged to an older woman – a dead mother or sister, perhaps? – but her face and hands were clean, which seemed to be a rarity in Plymouth. She could not have been more than fourteen, and at that time of night, I assumed there was only one thing she could be.

‘I have no need of you,’ I said.

She cocked her head to one side and looked up at me strangely.

‘I have no need of you either,’ she said, with unbridled impudence for one so young. Her accent was broadest Devon. ‘You’re Quinton?’

‘I am Sir Matthew Quinton, child. Address your betters properly.’

‘
Sir
Matthew Quinton. My apologies,
Sir
Matthew Quinton.’ But her expression was not in the least apologetic, and she seemed to take a particular pleasure in pronouncing ‘Sir’ in the West Country manner, very nearly as ‘Zir’. ‘You’re to come with me.’

It should have screamed of a trap, but there was something
disarming
about this strange, brazen child. If I was being led into a trap, surely my intended assailants would have sent a rather different kind of messenger?

‘Come with you? And why would I do that, child?’

‘If you want me to address you as Sir Matthew, you’ll stop
addressing
me as child, this very instant, that you will. My name’s Isabella Mendez. Father was Spanish, but he’s dead. Mother was from
Stonehouse
, but she’s dead too. So are you coming or not? He wants to meet you.’

‘And who is he?’

She crossed her arms impatiently. ‘He who wants to meet you, of course! Are all knights of the realm so stupid? Well, are you coming or not? I don’t have all night.’

I thought of donning my uniform; I thought of summoning my men. But for some reason, I did neither. I paused only to buckle on my sword, then followed the mysterious Isabella out into the night air.

She led me down toward the harbour, ever deeper into a warren of narrow lanes running between tall houses with overhanging upper floors, after the old fashion. Despite the hour, the Barbican was still very much alive. Shouts and songs came from the inns, the screams of children and angry wives from some of the houses. Two or three
beggars
, crippled in the previous year’s fighting at sea or perhaps in even earlier wars, still shambled along the streets, asking hopefully for alms. If there was a night watch in this part of Plymouth, it was a markedly ineffectual one.

At last, we came before a house which seemed to be entirely dark. The child Isabella looked around several times, as though she was checking to see that the alleyway behind us was empty, then knocked on the door: a rhythmic, patterned knocking, presumably some kind of a signal to whoever was inside.

The door opened to reveal a very round, squat woman, as unlike the girl as two creatures of the same gender could be.

‘This is him, Aunt,’ said Isabella. ‘This is Sir Matthew Quinton. Too tall and not enough hair for my liking, even if he is a knight.’

‘Be off with you, Bella!’ The broad woman’s voice was gruff, almost manly, and I had difficulty following her strong Devon accent. ‘Sir Matthew,’ she said, with markedly more deference than her niece had managed. ‘You are welcome. He is just through here, Sir Matthew.’

She led me through the entirely dark front room, then down a narrow passageway and into a small, low room at the back of the house. This was better lit in the sense that it had both a solitary candle and a blazing fire, the latter despite it being the second half of a markedly warm June. In front of the fire, sitting on a large settle, was Heale, the ancient who had sailed with my grandfather.

He stood, albeit slowly and with obvious discomfort. ‘Sir Matthew. God be with you, and also with the soul of your noble ancestor, the late Earl. I trust Bella did not lead you astray?’

I thought,
in what sense?
, but dared not utter the words.

‘She was an excellent guide, Mister Heale. Your granddaughter?’

‘Great-granddaughter. A blessing that she still lives, Sir Matthew. There is no greater trial to a man than to have to bury not only most of his children, but many of his grandchildren too.’

He gestured for me to sit on a rickety old stool opposite the settle, very nearly next to the fire. I felt myself back in the heat of battle on the deck of the
Royal Sceptre
, and could feel the rivulets of sweat
running
down my back.

‘Well, Mister Heale? What business is worth bringing me here, at such an hour as this?’

‘I was told that Garrett was dead. Killed, and dumped in the
Citadel
moat.’

‘You knew Garrett?’

‘He was a good man. A steady man. So few in this town are. But that was why Conibear had him killed, of course.’

‘Conibear?’

‘There is much you do not know about our so-called Navy Agent, Sir Matthew. The corruptions in which the man is involved are legion. He has half the town in his pocket, and fleeces the navy itself mercilessly.’

‘I have yet to meet a naval supplier who does not, Mister Heale. But why would that make Conibear kill Garrett?’

The old man coughed violently.

‘Garrett had been at La Rochelle. He knew of Conibear’s dealings there.’

‘
Conibear
has dealings at La Rochelle? Mister Heale, this is a matter of importance to the kingdom!’

‘Sir Matthew, I swear to you upon the honour of my family and your noble grandfather, Conibear’s duplicity is boundless. Inspect the warehouses – the navy warehouses, on the Lambhay. Let me tell you –’

Whatever he intended to tell me was swallowed by another racking cough. Bella Mendez appeared, and gently stroked her great-
grandfather
’s bent back.

‘You’ve overtaxed him,’ she said. ‘If you live to be his age, Sir
Matthew
Quinton, you’ll know how easily that happens.’

I have; and I do.

But Heale was clearly impatient to tell me more, and I was eager for him to do so. It made no sense. If Conibear was somehow involved with the French army at La Rochelle, why was the old man
insisting
that I inspect the Lambhay storehouses? Through the coughs, Heale continued to gesticulate with his hands. But it was to no avail. I waited…

Waited until the loud hammering on the front door began. Bella’s aunt appeared in the doorway of the room.

‘Conibear’s men! Quick, Bella! Get him out the back!’

I drew my sword and followed Bella Mendez out into the tiny yard at the back of the house. A shape moved ahead of us – I saw the glint of a blade – I lunged with my sword, heard a gasp and the gurgling of blood in a throat, then ran on.

Back out into the maze of narrow lanes. Which way? The Citadel was nearest, but the town wall lay in the way, and the gates would be locked…

‘Too far to the Turk’s Head!’ Bella shouted. ‘They’ll know to cover that way too, although if she can, Aunt Joan will send word to rouse your men.’

I now knew enough of Plymouth’s geography to realise that we were running down toward the harbour-side. But surely that gave no way of escape…

Out onto the wharf, a few score yards inland of where I had berated the mob. Without hesitation, Bella ran up the gangplank of the vessel alongside the wharf, a wide-hulled and grimy Welsh collier by the looks of her. She took hold of the shrouds and began to pull herself upward.

‘Come on then, Sir Matthew! If you’re a King’s captain, you’ll have been aloft!’

‘The commission does not require it,’ I said, but followed her example nonetheless.

In truth, I had been aloft no more than half-a-dozen times since I first went to sea. Not only was it beneath the dignity of a captain: I also had a markedly weak head for heights.

I followed Kit Farrell’s advice and kept my eyes upward, never daring to look down. I could hear the shouts of men on the quay, could hear them running hither and thither, but whether they were pursuing us or their own private quarrels, it was impossible to tell.

Bella reached the yardarm of the collier and embraced it as
confidently
as any topman in the Navy Royal, pulling herself along the spar. I followed suit, although I wondered what in the name of God she had in mind. My chest, stomach and groin pressed against the yardarm as I pushed with my arms and legs.

‘That’s it, Sir Matthew!’ she cried. ‘Just like swimming!’

She was at the end of the yardarm already, and now I saw her intent. The ships on that side of the harbour were moored three deep, their yardarms almost touching. Almost, but not quite. The ship outboard of the collier was smaller, her yardarm perhaps five or six feet below that to which we clung. The motion of the ebbing tide and the fair breeze made the spar sway away from us, then back again.

‘Come on, Sir Matthew! Fortune favours the bold!’

With that, Bella let herself drop over the end of the yardarm, clinging to it with her outstretched arms. She dangled there for what seemed an eternity, but could only have been a few seconds as she judged the motion of the outboard ship. Then she planted her feet on the other spar, let go, and fell, all in one motion, wrapping herself around the smaller ship’s yardarm as though embracing a lover.

I edged along to the end, then repeated her actions. I let myself fall away from the yardarm, keeping a tight grip of it…

And pain seared through my entire frame. My shoulder, bruised when the
Royal Sceptre
struck the Galloper during the third day of the
battle, erupted in agony. Nearly every instinct in my body screamed at me to let go.

Thankfully, though, not quite every instinct. I held on, and being taller than Bella, my feet found the lower yardarm without my
needing
to jump. I fell, gripped the spar for dear life, and rested the aching shoulder.

‘Easy, isn’t it?’ said Bella, up ahead of me, standing upright against the mainmast of the smaller ship. ‘Played this game since I could walk. Come on, Sir Matthew.’

With that, she scuttled off across the yardarm toward the
outermost
of the three ships. By the time I caught up with her, she was staring upwards.

‘Too high, even for me.’

The third ship was higher out of the water, and the yardarm must have been some eight feet above the one to which we were clinging. Unlike the two we had already negotiated, this one had a footrope; but it also had a cursedly tidy crew, who had wrapped that rope tightly around the spar while the ship was in port.

I edged my way along to where Bella was.

Do not look down, Matt Quinton.

But I did. In the darkness of the night, the deck far below looked like an inviting black carpet, tempting one to move one’s head just a little to lay down on it.

Do not look down.

There was but one way for us to get onto the yardarm of the next ship.

‘Get behind me,’ I said.

Nimbly, Bella crawled across my back. I had a sudden, vivid memory of my long-dead twin Henrietta and I playing upside-down pick-a-back in the gardens of Ravensden Abbey when we were children.

I pushed myself up until I was perched on the spar like a monkey, gripping it tightly with my hands and feet. I judged the movement
of the outboard ship, took a deep breath, stood, and at once jumped for the third mainyard. My scabbard slapped against my thigh as my hands gripped the spar. My shoulder protested again, and for a moment I dangled there, like a prisoner of the Inquisition strung up on a dungeon wall. Then I pulled myself up and clung for dear life to the higher yardarm.

‘Wish I was that tall,’ said Bella, clambering back to the end of the yard below and stretching out her hand.

I reached down and pulled her up, then turned, drew my sword, and slashed at the lashings of the footrope. It duly fell into position.

‘An easier passage, Mistress Mendez.’

‘Easier indeed, Sir Matthew.’

We hauled ourselves across, around the mainmast, and onto the larboard half of the spar. From this new vantage point, we could see our next objective: the two ships that lay against the wharf on the opposite side of the harbour. Get across them in the same elevated fashion, then we could get back down to the ground, with only a short distance to go to the Turk’s Head and Conibear’s men still looking for us back on the other side. But there was a problem.

‘Bigger gap than I thought,’ said Bella. ‘They must have moved the Topsham lugger to a new berth on the last tide.’

A good twenty feet separated us from the outboard vessel on the other side.

‘Perhaps we should have swum for it,’ I said.

‘And now he chooses to tell me he can swim,’ she said. ‘Never met a man of breeding who could swim before. But it wouldn’t have done us any good – nowhere back there to get into the water without diving, and the splash would bring them after us in an instant. So what do we do, then, Sir Matthew?’