A Scandal to Remember (8 page)

Chapter Five

Dance awoke before first light to an ache in his neck from sleeping in a chair, and the depressing news that two more men had deserted during the night.

“Gone, sir.” Morris delivered the news with the sad-eyed look of a dog who expects to be kicked—his tail was all but tucked between his legs.

“The hell you say.” Dance growled his way out of the damned uncomfortable chair, and scrubbed a hand through his short hair, as if he could chafe some better ideas into his tired brain. “How?”

It ought to have been damn near impossible. Both the officers and the marines had been standing regular watches. Dance himself had stood watch on watch for the better part of the night, and had only retreated to a chair in the wardroom at four bells of the middle watch—near two o’clock in the morning—when Mr. Lawrence had finally made his groggy way to the deck. Which meant that the deserters had been gone for at least four hours. Too long ago to make any pursuit feasible.

God’s balls. What a fucking mess Dance had gotten himself into—he had never worked so hard in his life for such little good result. This was meant to be an easy, soft posting, not a job where he was like a grave digger—up to his arse in the business with nowhere to turn. “Tell me the worst of it.”

“They took the captain’s gig, sir,” Morris explained. “Some watermen found it abandoned at the sally port and towed it back out. And wanted to be paid for the service, besides.”

Despite being a smaller boat, the gig could hold a lot more than just two men—Dance should feel lucky to find that
only
two men had absconded. “Get the necessary coins to pay the watermen from the purser.”

“About Givens, sir.”

“Yes, Givens.” Dance still had a bone to pick with the man, for though the purser had done his duty in seeing all of the Royal Society’s party suitably settled, the damn man had still not yet produced the muster rolls or the ship’s accounts, despite Dance’s insistence. “And send him to me.” The man had seemed anxious enough to flatter his way into their guests’ good graces, buttering up Sir Richard to no end. But Givens was evidently not that interested in staying in Dance’s good graces.

Dance scrubbed his hand across his face. He needed a shave. And a pot of coffee. Perhaps even poured over his head.

“But that’s the problem, sir.” Morris’s voice was full of apology. “It was Givens, sir.”

The shave would have to wait. As would everything else. “God’s balls.” Dance was on his feet and cursing himself for a fool. He hadn’t curtailed the purser when he might have—and should have—when he had first sensed the man was less than honest. The man must have simply taken the money and gone. “How long has he been gone? Send Mr. Ransome to me this instant. I want this damn ship turned upside down and inside out for those books. Which one is Givens’s cabin?”

“Don’t know, sir.”

But Dance had already left Morris and the wardroom behind, opening the doors of the warrant officers’ cabins himself, only to find Ransome tearing open his own door, looking much the worse for wear, shading his eyes from the glare of the dim lantern and stinking of sour beer.

“Damn your eyes, man.” Was there no one on whom he might count? How in hell was he supposed to keep order and discipline when the men whose duty it was to keep order were drunk or less than honest? “Is there no one on this damned barge who can keep to his feet?”

“No, sir,” the bosun stammered, scratching one of his mighty paws across his bristly maw as if he might find his answer there. “’E poisoned me.”

It was not the first time Dance had ever heard one warrant officer accuse another, but he had never thought to hear Ransome, of all men, admit to being a victim of any sort. “The devil you say. Who?”

“The devil Givens,” the bosun ground out. “He’s absconded, damn ’im—” Ransome choked himself off from saying anything more, but Dance had heard enough. The devil was surely at play along
Tenacious
’s decks.

“He’s had a head start of four hours.” Dance reckoned a man that canny—and clearly the purser had enough brains to take advantage of a drunken, inept captain, put a sleeping powder in the belligerent Ransome’s ale, and make away with any ready monies
Tenacious
had possessed—had enough smarts not to wait around Portsmouth, drinking away his ill-gotten gains in a local taproom. But there was something—something in Ransome’s frantic manner, a suspicion that nagged at the back of his brain like a Billingsgate fishwife—that made him uneasy about the bosun and the purser. When he had come aboard, he had thought the two were as cozy as a clutch of thieves. “Why would he do such a thing to you?”

“To get off, on his own, din’t he?”

Ransome hadn’t said, “without me,” but that was what Dance heard. Or perhaps he just wanted to hear it. Perhaps he just wanted an excuse to dislike the man more than he already did. “You knew him best, Mr. Ransome. If you had any chance of finding him, where do you reckon he’d be?”

The question—or perhaps the fact that Dance had been the one to ask it—caught the bosun off guard. “Ball and Anch—” He cut himself off with a scowl. “Don’t rightly know, sir. But I’ll go after him, sir, I will,” he amended, and reached back into his cabin for his coat and cane.

“The Ball and Anchor. A very good idea, Mr. Ransome. Well done.” Dance knew the dingy taproom on the city’s west side well. “I’ll report to the captain, and have the port authorities set after Givens, because I can’t possibly spare you now. We’re better off without him, and will waste no more time on the damn purser, Mr. Ransome, for the tide will turn within the hour, and if we do not make the most of the run of the tide—”

Dance didn’t want to think about what would happen with such an ill-trained and ungainly lot of men as were
Tenacious
’s crew if they did not catch the outgoing tide on which to depart Portsmouth harbor. “Pull yourself together and call all hands, Mr. Ransome, ready to up anchor.”

“Up anchor?”

“D’ya really mean for us to go?” Beyond Ransome, the berth deck was growing crowded with sailors.

“We are a Royal Navy frigate, not a damn harbor sheer hulk. Of course I mean for us to go.”

“Mr. Ransome said as how we won’t be ready for months yet.”

Dance raised his voice, and pinned the man in question with his most cutting look. “Mr. Ransome says that, does he?”

“No, sir,” Ransome stammered.

It was good to know even Ransome’s thick hide could be nicked from time to time.

But while Dance waited for Ransome to come up with the appropriate thing to say, another seaman lent his opinion. “Mr. Ransome’s got the right of it.” Larsen, one of the bosun’s mates, stuck up for his superior. “Best wait.”

“Thank you, Larsen. While I value and share Mr. Ransome’s opinion of the decrepit state of our vessel and her crew, it were best that this ship’s crew resign themselves to proceeding to sea. A good blow in the Channel will make better sailors of all of you.”

“True enough.” The topman, Flanaghan, spoke—presumably for them all. “But is
she
really staying on, Mr. Dance? For the whole of the voyage?”

There was no need to ask to whom the sailor was referring. “She’s not going to swim to Tahiti, Flanaghan.” But his attempt at humor was lost on the men.

“Put her in the drink, and see if she can,” growled a disgruntled voice from the back of the pack.

Was that the voice of Mercer? Dance couldn’t see through the small sea of faces peering up at him in agitation. Damn, but sailors were a credulous, superstitious lot. “I begin to think you’re all a lot of old women yourselves. Think of her as one of these sober-suited scientists, and leave it at that.”

There were more mutterings from the back, while at the front of the crowd, Flanaghan crossed himself before he tried again to appeal to Dance. “You can’t mean to let her stay, Lieutenant?”

Did they think
he
had the authority to change anything about the plan of the voyage? His only responsibility was to man the ship to the best of his and the crew’s ability. Past that, they all just had to live with the way things were. “I mean to take the Royal Society’s scientists wherever in hell the Admiralty tells me they are to go, Flanaghan. And I mean for this ship’s company to do so without complaint.”

“But she’s a woman, sir,” he sputtered.

“That much is obvious, Flanagan. But she could be a sandpiper for all I care. Put her from your mind, and see to your work.”

“Sandpipers be bad luck,” another voice griped from the back. “When one crosses in front of you in the tide—”

“That’s cats crossing in front of you,” one of his mates contradicted.

“Just listen to yourselves,” Dance admonished. “Like old fishwives. To my way of thinking, Miss Burke can never be the only woman aboard with you lot around. You bring your own luck upon yourselves. Now get you ladies to your work.”

“But how can we see to our work with her aboard?” Flanaghan persisted. “Already things are starting to go wrong—that new foretop we fidded on last dogwatch just won’t take right. That’s just bad luck, sir. Bad luck.”

“That is just poor skills and lazy working habits. This ship has been out of trim and out of practice for far too long. And a few weeks of daily sail and gun drill will knock the collywobbles out of you.”

This time there were out-and-out groans from the men. “We can’t put to sea with her aboard.”

Dance could feel their barely constrained discontent, but he reminded himself that Miss Burke was just a convenient excuse—were she not aboard, they would have made some excuse or trouble about the black-coated, white-collared parson on the expedition, or about the purser’s having absconded—which
was
damnable bad luck—and the moment an out-of-repair line wore through, they would have blamed their bad luck on the parson. Or upon Able Simmons for joining on late. Or upon him for bringing the new lieutenant aboard.

Any excuse would do.

Yet, they all stood there gawping at him as if their complaints were as real as the rot in
Tenacious’
s bow timbers. Dance lit the slow match to his temper. “What a load of womanish rubbish. Whether you like it or not, this ship is going down Channel. So look lively, or I’ll look lively for you.”

The men took their grumbling threat with them and went away. But the bosun had watched his conversation with the men without comment, measuring him out like a short charge of powder.

“Do you have something to add, Mr. Ransome?”

Ransome settled his tarred-straw hat on his head, and took his time in answering. “Worried about the men, I am, sir.”

“I thank you for your diligence on their behalf, Mr. Ransome, but the matter is settled.”

But Ransome was immune to irony. And tone of voice. He did not know when to leave well enough alone. “It’s bad luck, sir, to take a woman over the line.”

“Not as much bad luck as disobeying an order, or speaking against a superior officer, or proceeding to sea in a ship that hasn’t been properly kept up, Mr. Ransome. Have those lines in the mainmast’s larboard blocks and tackles been replaced? Or that new cable for the best bower anchor been bent on?”

“Beggin’ yer pardon, sir.” Ransome spread his hands before him, all open, excusable innocence. “But you sent Givens to pay for that cable. We’ve done all we can without fetching more. The cable tier is near to empty now. We’ve no more to spare.”

Fuck all. “Do you mean to tell me that
you
haven’t done your job, Mr. Ransome, and seen to it that
Tenacious’
s cable locker and boatswain’s stores are adequately supplied?” Dance had been over the ship from bilge to masthead, making a long list of fittings, rigging, and canvas that were out of repair. “There was cable enough to see to it that the breeching tackles on the guns could be replaced.” He pulled out his book from beneath his coat, and checked for the entry of the bosun’s locker.

This was exactly why he wrote such things down—so thieving bastards like Givens, and perhaps Ransome, couldn’t swindle him. “Do you mean to tell me that two hundred twenty-six yards of bloody cable the size of a man’s leg have disappeared?” The outrage and menace in his voice could have weighted down an anchor. “Are you suicidal, or just incompetent?”

“No, sir.” Ransome spread his big, tar-stained palms out wide, as if he had nothing to hide. “I knows my job. There’s cable enough for the guns, sir, just as you say.” And the professional pride that had been temporarily vanquished by Givens was back in his rough voice. “But that Givens, sir.” He growled the name. “Be selling off things, secret like. And now ’e’s made off with all the money.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck all.

Every time he thought the situation aboard
Tenacious
could not get any worse, a devious fate took delight in proving him wrong.

All the money, not just the money Dance had allocated for the replacement cables. All. “How long have you known this? And why did you not report it to the captain?”

Not that reporting the theft might have done any good—Dance reported all sorts of things that needed attention to the captain daily, and had yet to receive a satisfactorily coherent response. “And why did you not report it to me?”

Unlike the captain, he would have done something about it. He would have at least kept from giving the man an easy excuse to abscond from the ship.

“Only just figured it out myself, sir.” Ransome touched the brim of his hat. “And I couldn’t figure if you was in on it or not.”

Doubt crept under his skin like an icy dousing. He had never, in the course of sixteen long years in the service of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, had his honor called into question. Never. He had always felt his conduct spoke for itself, and was above reproach. He had thought that by running the ship as any normal captain could want, and keeping Captain Muckross’s drunkenness as much as possible from the men, he was upholding that honor.

But perhaps he had been wrong.

“What about the boatswain’s locker? And the carpenter’s stores as well? Did Givens gain access to those?”

“No, sir.” Ransome was quick to answer. “I know my job,” he said again.