Cooper straightened, but continued in a firmer voice, ‘She’s stuffed with supplies for the rebels, including a vast amount of powder. It’s a miracle she didn’t blow, given the pounding she received at our hands, so you have made us all rich if we can get her into home waters.’
‘What says our carpenter to that?’
‘That we can make her sail, though he’d like to tan Meredith for taking out the mainmast.’
‘Good. You’ll command her, Cooper. Pick your crew as soon as repairs are sufficient to make us both seaworthy.’
‘Thank you, sir. But there’s something else. It seems their Captain had a guest ‒ a civilian, Frenchman – and the officer reckoned it was on his account that their Captain made them fight so hard.’
‘Indeed?’
‘Yes. He told them the passenger could not fall into English hands.’ James frowned. ‘Is he alive?’
‘He is, though he has a nasty splinter-wound in the belly. Seems he owes his life to Meredith. When the French Captain was shot, he had just given his Lieutenant the order to cut the man’s throat.’
James began to put his coat on once more. ‘Where is he?’
‘Just being brought over to our surgeon now, sir. Theirs is dead, so our boys are seeing what they can do for the prisoners. What will you do, sir?’
James looked at him, his expression hard. ‘There are too many men dead, Cooper. That Frenchman is not going to die without telling me what he knows.’
The surgeon was sent away from his post to rest an hour, and Heathcote placed to give the Captain and his guest some privacy. Heathcote never looked round, though he heard the sounds and could think what they meant. For a moment in the midst of all the French talk spoke low behind him, the Captain’s voice harsh and strong, the man from the other ship whispering and gurgling, he thought he heard a thin voice inging. Then there was another rattling gasp, a whimper like a dog struck, and the sounds ceased.
Thursday, 15 November 1781, Highgate, North London
Mrs Harriet Westerman was watching her hands. They were shaking slightly. The door to the parlour opened suddenly and she looked up. The owner of the house had entered the room; he started on seeing her then said softly in his light Scots voice, ‘My apologies, Mrs Westerman. I had thought you still with your husband. Is everything as it should be?’
Harriet tried to smile at him, but found she could not and looked back at her hands, which trembled still on the stiff purple silk of her skirts like nervous children forced to recite in front of the diningroom draperies. She did not know why she had let herself be persuaded into buying this dress. It was uncomfortable and James had never liked this colour.
‘My visit this evening was not particularly successful, Dr Trevelyan,’ she said. She heard him take up a chair, positioning it close to her with the sort of sigh that precedes bad news calmly spoken, and she added in a rush, ‘Please do not take away my hope, sir.’ Even in her own ear her voice sounded rather desperate.
The doctor caught his breath and waited a moment before speaking.
‘There is always hope, madam,’ he said finally. He stood again and moved across to the fireplace, picking up the poker to stir the logs a little. The flames chattered and shrugged; there was a pale-coloured thread hanging loose from the high collar of his bottle-green coat. ‘Your husband’s mind is struggling to repair itself. His injury was grave. Because you see his limbs are whole, you expect him to be himself. Do not. He is changed.’ Trevelyan turned back towards her, frowning. ‘Madam, you push him too much. Your love and energy in your care of him are commendable, but you cannot
will
him into health.’
A wave of frustration knitted her fingers together and made her joints whiten. As the wife of a Naval Commander in time of war she had feared shot, the vicious killing splinters of wood that flew deadly from the impact of a cannon ball, fierce winds and high seas. She had met widows enough, or women whose husbands returned to them with a sleeve pinned up, or swinging on crutches, but she never thought to fear something like this, this invisible maiming. ‘It was such a stupid accident.’
‘A blow to the head that left him unconscious two weeks, madam.’ Trevelyan ceased frowning at her and said more gently, ‘But, my dear Mrs Westerman, let me give you hope ‒ I will
not
take it away. I believe parts of his memory are returning. I believe he will, in the coming months, better learn to govern his emotions and behave more fittingly towards his family, but you must allow time to do its work. He has improved since he arrived here, and he will continue to do so.’
She was silent a few moments.
‘You said when we first met, sir, there was a man in your home town who recovered from a similar injury . . .’
t="1em" width="1em" align="justify">
Trevelyan turned away from her again and let his eyes rest on the painting of a stag at bay that decorated the wall over his mantelpiece. The beast was injured, but its great pronged horns were still lowered, ready to joust with the dogs that had cornered it, its sides torn and bleeding. The morbid little scene was surrounded by a landscape of purple heather which was beautiful and felt nothing. ‘I did,’ he said, as his eyes travelled over those distant hills. ‘John Clifford lived with his family again and earned his bread. But he was changed. Commander Westerman will never again be the man you married, madam. You must both find the courage to accept that.’
Harriet bit her lip and listened to the fire before speaking in a small and rather helpless voice. ‘What must I do?’
‘Do not come here—’ he raised his hand as she started to protest. ‘
No
, madam, I speak in all seriousness. Promise me you will not visit here for a few days, and when you do, bring your son.’
Harriet thought of her little boy, his face pale and afraid, his terrible confusion. ‘Stephen has become frightened of his father.’
Trevelyan nodded slowly. ‘Perhaps a little. But he has not seen the Captain in some time. Stay away only for a few days, madam. The Captain will certainly miss you and make efforts to manage himself better when you return, and greater efforts still in the presence of your son.’
Harriet managed to unclasp her hands. ‘Perhaps if I no longer tried to force him to recall events . . .’
‘A few days, Mrs Westerman. Occupy yourself in other ways.’
PART I
I.1
Friday, 16 November 1781, London, near Black Lyon Stairs
‘
C
OME ON!
PULL
, damn your eyes!’
‘No use breaking your lungs at me! He’s tied or stuck or something.’
The two red-coated men hunched in the wherry looked down into the dirty waters of the Thames and considered.
It was already full light, or as near to full light as it could be on a London day in November, and up and down the river the city was awake and hustling. Carts and cattle fought for space across Westminster Bridge and the people walked fast with their heads down through the clatter and stink. Among the jostling crowds the hawkers shouted and swore and rattled their pails. Mud spattered up from the horses’ hooves and the fat wooden wheels of wagons. The air was heavy with city scents: woodsmoke, horse manure, fried meat; and tanged with frost. In any place within a half-mile of the river bank you’d hear hammering and the crash of stone on stone. Someone was always building, someone else knocking something down. Smoke poured from the chimneys along the south bank into the damp air and blackenheightt. London’s skyline was smudged in blood and soot.
There was no peace on the water either. The Thames, the fat brown God of London, its flowing heart, was belching and grumbling with boats from dawn. It offered to the city its food and trade; all its riches and influence were borne on its broad twisted back one way or the other. Sometimes the mudlarks who swarmed over the shingle at low tide found little fetishes, some ancient sword or offering to the river from times past, to show them they were nothing but the latest of its acolytes. Sometimes the river spat up what it was offered more speedily.
The current pulled at the wherry. The two men it held made an odd sort of couple. One of them was skinny and young; the other had a chest like a rum barrel and a thick beard that stood out angrily from his chin. Proctor and Jackson. Uncle and nephew, now partners of a sort and servants of the river in their way. The passage across the waters put bread on their table. The nephew’s ready smile got them trade, and the uncle’s strong shoulders got them a reputation for a swift and easy crossing through the currents and their rivals.
Proctor was working hard enough now at the oars to make his face red just keeping his place in the water. With a fierce pull on his right arm he inched the boat far enough upriver so he could see better what they had noticed from the bank. It was certainly a man, or at least it had been. The back of his green jacket was hissing bubbles under the swell, and his wig was still attached to his head; the wisps of horsehair swam about him in searching tendrils. The body’s arms were outstretched and the head hung forward like the Christ on the Cross in St Martin’s Church, as if the man was looking for something lost in the muddy waters below.
Proctor spat into the river on the opposite side on the boat. Of course the body was tethered somehow. If he hadn’t been, the river would have given itself a laugh flying him halfway to Woolwich by now. Nothing stayed in this part of the river that wasn’t stuck.
‘Well, get a rope round him, cut him loose from what binds him and get him in then.’
Jackson shot him an angry look, before tying a lasso from a length of rope in the bow then slinging it round the body’s chest, working it under the arms with an unhappy frown. Drawing the noose tight, he checked the knot on the samson post before stripping off his coat and shirt. His pale skin turned goosish at once. He slipped off his shoes and pulled a knife from his waistband.
‘Why’d you never learn to swim then, Proctor?’ he grumbled. ‘Twenty years on ships and boats and not a stroke. I’d be ashamed.’
The older man scowled back. ‘Fate might see it as an invitation to throw me in, boy. Now get to it, will you!’
The younger man drew a deep breath, put the blade between his teeth and hauled himself over the side, gasping as the chill of the waters held him; then, he duck-dived. Proctor held the boat steady, watching as his nephew used the body as ladder and anchor in the muck of the river. Strong tides. He saw the activity in the water, then felt a sudden yank as the weight of the body shifted from its anchor to the g on his own boat and the river tried to carry the corpse off over its shoulder.
The boy rolled himself back in – then, settling solidly on the floor of the boat, he pulled on the rope. The wet lengths slapped onto the wood as he hauled on it, then as the dead man’s spine knocked against the gunwales, the boy reached back into the water, got his arms round the corpse’s chest and with a shout of effort dragged it in over the side. He toppled backwards and the body followed. With a shove and shiver he got out from under it.
‘Christ!’ He backed his way into the bow to catch his breath and began to rub himself dry with his shirt.
‘Least he’s fresh,’ Proctor said. The boy did not reply but took his place and clambered back into his red coat. They began to pull out for the Black Lyon Stairs. ‘Though we could have towed it.’
His nephew looked black. There’d be a crowd there already, ready to tut at the corpse and bless themselves for having survived another day. Damn, his hands were cold! The noise of London was fullthroated now. Whistles and shouts rang from the boats making their way up and down the river. Smoke poured out of every chimney and the banks were alive with hammerings and thumps as the warehouses were filled and emptied with sugar and timber, cloth and spices, fancy goods and dried fruits. Off downstream on the far side of London Bridge where the Tower stared down into the waters, the merchant ships would be pulling at their anchors like dogs eager to be off and running again, yapping over the oceans for fresh trade.
The body’s head lolled to one side and the mouth drained the dirty water of the Thames onto the floor of the scull.
In other parts of London one could breathe sweeter air. On Bruton Street in Mayfair, a lady paused as her maid plied the door-knocker of one of the graceful buildings at the Berkeley Square end of the street, and touching her high and powdered hair, which so bore down on her neck she was rarely free of a mild headache, she noticed a man on the opposite side of the street. He was consulting a pocket-watch and frowning a little. She marked the cut of his plum-coloured coat and thought it gentleman-like, if rather plain; and saw the man who wore it was not unpleasing, though the dustings of youth had been mostly knocked off him. He had a slightly Roman look to his face, long-nosed and rather serious, but nothing in his dress or bearing marked him out as anything remarkable.
Turning away, she began to think of the gossip she was about to trade with the lady of the house outside which she waited, what she would be willing to reveal, and what keep secret. It might have surprised her to learn that the gentleman whom she had been observing was thinking also of the trading and flow of information, the commerce and management of knowledge. The gentleman was a spy, and a controller of spies. He had ears and eyes in every court in Europe and he collected their whisperings and spun it into the gold of intelligence – at least, that was his intent. Her friend’s footman opened the door to her, and the lady never thought of the idle gentleman again.