Watery Grave (5 page)

“Well, keep a dubber mum, cause all who get a chance at the sea should jump at it, but pal Jonah crapped on the Malabar Coast.”

“Mum’s the word. But … did he get caught napping?”

“Oh no, we left all that ashore, the two of us. Jonah Falkirk died a fair seaman’s death in a battle with Indian pirates.”

“Injun pirates, is it? Crikey, Tom, you got some stories to tell, ain’t it?”

“A fair few.”

“My cove HUhf a seaman,” said Bunkins proudly. Then whispered: “They say he was a pirate, but he don’t talk none about such.”

“Your cove, is it? And who might he be?”

“John Bilbo, so he is.”

“Black Jack Bilbo? Him who has the gaming house in Mayfair?”

“The same, on’y he don’t let just everybody call him that. He asks me to call him Mr. Bilbo, and I obliges, for he treats me fair and looks out for me.”

“I’d noticed you’d come up in the world, ” said Tom, “and not just that you’d grown a few inches. You’ve a proper suit of clothes on you, and I see your face clear and unsmudged for the first time in memo It’s a new Jimmie Bunkins I see before me.”

“Chum, you don’t know the half. Mr. Bilbo’s got me learnin’ to read and to do sums!” He looked craftily about.” How would you like to meet him, Tom Durham? Walk right up and give his daddle a wiggle? He’s a good sort, ain’t he, Jeremy?”

“Oh, he is indeed,” said I.” A friend to Sir John —though it’s true they have their differences.”

“Well, then, come along—you, too, Jeremy. He speaks good olyou, always askin’ after Sir John and yourself.”

Shaking my head with a show of regret, I held up the bag of vegetables I had bought at the stalls. “If we are to eat tonight,” said I, “then I must return with these. Go, Tom, and on the way tell Bunkins the tale of the grabs.”

They said their goodbyes and waved. As they started off together.

I heard Jimmie Bunkins ask, “What, for Gawd’s own sake, might a ‘grab’ be?”

Walking on by myself across Covent Garden in the direction of Bow Street, I reflected that Tom Durham and his Jimmie B. seemed an odd pair —but then, so must Bunkins and I appear equally ill matched.

I had not realized Tom had quite such a history in petty crime. The two were reformed villains and each had done his separate form of penance. It would be best, I decided, not to tell Lady Fielding where her son had gone and with whom. She might indeed draw the wrong conclusions.

Upon my return, I visited Mrs. Gredge, and then I was free to seek out Sir John. He had asked me to be ready as soon as he concluded his court session, and we would travel to the Navy Board office for the meeting with Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Redmond. Only minutes before, I had tested the door to the courtroom and found him engaged in the examination of a witness. It seemed likely then that this would continue for quite some while, yet when I left Mrs. Gredge and returned to the courtroom, I found it empty.

Quite in a panic, for I did not wish Sir John to make such a long trip alone, nor did I wish to lose the chance to meet an admiral, I went searching and found him directly in the little alcove that served Mr. Marsden, the court clerk, for an office.

Yet before I spoke, he had turned his head in my direction.” Jeremy,” said he, “is that you?”

“It is, sir.”

“Good, then let us be off. I believe our business is complete, Mr. Marsden?”

“Yes, I shall have the letters on your desk for your signature before I leave tonight.”

“Shall we go then, Jeremy?”

Mr. Marsden or Mr. Fuller, or one of the other daytime gentlemen, had seen to the matter of the hackney carriage. One stood waiting on the street just outside the door.

As we ascended into the carriage cabin, Sir John called out our destination to the driver.” Tower Hill,” said he.” The office of the Navy Board.”

I brought the carriage door shut behind me and turned to Sir John with a question:

“Sir, when I came up to you just now at Mr. Marsden’s desk, you knew quite immediate it was me. I had not even spoken, yet you knew. It has happened just so more times than I can remember. IF I may ask, Sir John, how are you able to tell?”

He smiled.” Oh, it was partly a matter of anticipation,” said he.” I was expecting you, after all, for we had agreed to go off together to Tower Hill. But then, too, I may have noted your step. It is a bit quicker and lighter than most heard in Bow Street.”

Then he hesitated but a moment, frowning, as if weighing the wisdom of proceeding. Yet eventually he did:

“There is another matter to be taken into consideration, as well.”

“And what is that. Sir John?”

“You have a smell.”

“I … I stink?” Surely I washed clean enough to rid myself of those noxious odors of the body which so many disguise with perfume.

“No, no, do not take offense, Jeremy. Each of us has a distinctive odor. That is how dogs tell us apart —not by our clothes, which matter little to them, nor by our faces, which they seldom see, but rather by our odor. Their sense of smell is much superior to their sight.”

“And yours is also so keenly developed?”

“Oh, I am no hunting dog, yet I can pick up a scent when the situation requires.” He laughed at his little joke.

We rode in silence for a time; then I thought to ask:

“What is my smell like?”

“Oh, what indeed?” said he.” What makes one face different from another? A longer nose, perhaps? A chin stronger or weaker? It is, rather, the combination of all the elements, their balance, that gives the look of a face —or so I recall from my days with sight. Is that not so? Well then, just so, your smell is compounded of a good many elements—sweat, yours has a rather high odor; milk, you drink a good deal of it; and —oh, other things I suppose. It is not, in any case, an unpleasant smell, if that was your fear. Simply your smell.”

“And each has his own?”

“Precisely.”

That silenced me, giving me much to consider, for a good piece of our journey. Sir John kept his quiet, as was often his way. Not until the Tower was in view did he speak up.

“Did you have an opportunity to look in on Mrs. Gredge?”

“I did, sir, yes.”

“How did she seem to you? Better? Worse?”

“In some ways better. She was awake and alert, but I noticed some difficulty in her speech, as if her tongue had grown too big for her mouth.”

“I noticed that. Apoplexy may be the cause. She must not work again. I fear it would be the end of her. I shall try to contact her sons. There are three, I believe — two in London.”

All discussion of Mrs. Gredge’s sorry situation ended at that point, for the hackney driver pulled up before a large, imposing building in a row of such imposing buildings. Although they stood within sight of the great rampart and moat, I had not noticed them on my previous day’s visit, so taken was I by the prospect of the Tower.

These buildings housed the offices of the Navy Board. In one of them Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Redmond awaited our visit. Up the stairs and inside, we presented ourselves to a petty officer, who chose a seaman from three on a bench nearby and detailed him to accompany us to the proper office. It was then up a good many more stairs and down a long hall. Sir John had no difficulty keeping up but had as little notion as I just where we were headed. There were two unanticipated turns at which we nearly collided with our guide, but at last we found ourselves before the proper door.

The seaman rapped smartly upon it, then bawled forth, “Permission to enter, suh!”

Then, from beyond the door, in a voice near as strong: “Permission granted!”

The door was thrown open before us and we two. Sir John and I, entered an outer office at which a young lieutenant presided. The door slammed behind us. We were left in the lieutenant’s charge. He stood rigid in full-dress uniform, hat folded beneath his arm, and spoke forth in an unnatural nasal singsong tone, as if issuing orders to us.

“I take it, suh, you are Sir John Fielding?”

“I am he.”

“And the young man?”

“My companion.”

That seemed to baffle him. He hesitated, then nodded sharply, about-faced, and made for the large door that stood behind his desk.

We were ushered into an inner chamber twice the size of the one we had left. In size and furnishing, the room reminded me of the one occupied by Sir Percival Peeper at the East India Company in Leadenhall Street, not too far away from this very building. Yet where Sir Perci-val’s was a dark room made darker by drawn curtains, the admiral’s was all light and bright, the rear wall but one wide window by which I was near dazzled by the sunlight reflected upon the great river below. The Thames was there in full view, its docks and wharves busthng with activity, ships and boats, large and small, plying its streams in both directions.

The man who stood in the midst of this vast picture was of course the same who had addressed the seamen on Tower Wharf. Yet he did not stand long, but rather shuffled quickly around his wide desk and came out to greet Sir John. They managed to shake hands, embrace, and pound one another on the back all at once —no easy feat, as it seemed to me then. And all the while, they kept up a steady chaunt of friendship, braying enthusiastically at one another of the great length of time it had been since they had last been together; delighting in this opportunity to renew their relation; in short, saying all those things that grown men will when reunited aher a long separation.

“Yet Jack, who is this lad?” asked Sir Robert.” Is he your son?”

“No, but he will do until such time as nature provides one. His name is Jeremy Proctor, and he aids me in every way possible.”

I was so overcome at Sir John’s eulogistic presentation of my humble self that I scarce knew what to say— nor do. I stared so long at him that I near missed Sir Robert’s outstretched hand as it was offered. Yet not completely, for at last I grasped and shook it enthusiastically, if perhaps a bit tardily.

“I noticed, ‘ said Sir Robert, “that you were quite taken with our view of the Thames, Master Jeremy.’

“Yes sir, indeed.”

“Well, just to the right there, the largest ship in sight, is the H.M.S. Adventure, just returned from duty in India. Do you see it?”

“I do, sir,” said I.” Yes, I do.”

“Well, that, Jeremy, and that, my dear friend, Jack, is the cause of my problems. But here, sit down, both of you. and I shall make all this plain.”

He gestured in a rather lordly manner toward a couch which stood against one wall. With a touch at Sir John’s elbow, I assisted him back toward it. We took our places just as Sir Robert began. He proved in the minutes that followed a talker much given to perambulation, pleased to move around and about the grand space provided him as he told his tale. It struck me later that this habit of restless pacing must have been developed on shipboard; this office seemed to serve him as his quarterdeck.

“1 was much dismayed, ” said he, “when I discovered that my promotion to admiral meant the end of my career on the sea. What I liked most about the Navy was life on shipboard, and now that was all over. I was put in charge of Naval Stores at Portsmouth, made certain changes in accounting and inventory that were helpful, all of which led to my nomination to the Navy Board and my arrival here in London. Now, I am greatly in favor of a strong representation of Navy men on the Navy Board. Matters of acquisitions, supplies, and stores are far too important to be left in the hands of politicians and clerks. Don’t you agree. Jack?”

“What? Oh? Oh, yes, of course I do.”

Which was said by Sir John in such a way that I half suspected he had not been paying close attention. That, of course, surprised me no little.

“Yet when I arrived to begin my duties less than a month ago I was asked —nay, ordered, for I could not refuse —to serve as chief judge on what I was assured would be those rare courts-martial that come to be held in London, rather than Portsmouth, since they deal with capital offenses — piracy, mutiny, and of course, murder.

“Well, indeed it turns out that such courts-martial may not be all that rare, for what do I find waiting for me but a letter that has been passed from hand to hand and office to office for a year or more. When I read it, I quite understood why none had wished to take responsibility in the matter.”

At this point the admiral paused, halting his restless feet at one and the same moment. From the way he peered at Sir John he seemed to be soliciting a comment or a question. Yet the magistrate would grant him only a nod.

“May I read it to you. Jack?”

“By all means, Bobbie. Is it so difficult a matter?”

“Sticky, rather, damned sticky. There are so many irregularities, so many questions suggested by what is said that I for one would like to know what is not being said. If you follow?”

“I may,” said Sir John, “but I cannot be truly certain about that until you read me the letter in question, can I?”

“What? Oh … oh no, I suppose not. I have it here somewhere. If I may … just a moment.”

He turned his back to us then and rummaged hastily through the papers piled on his desk. He found the letter in question after a brief search and turned back to us, a pair of spectacles perched upon his nose.

“It is addressed,” said Sir Robert, ” ‘To him who is judge in His iMaj-esty’s Navy’s courts,’ and it proceeds thusly: ‘Let the Following stand as a formal statement of charges against William Landon, Lieutenant, R.N., who did, upon the evening of April 12, 1767, off the Cape of Good Hope and during a fierce storm, push and propel Captain Josiah iMark-ham, R.N., over the taffrail and into the ocean waters where he did drown himself, such act constituting murder and homicide of Lieutenant Landon’s superior officer. This act was witnessed personal bv the eye of the undersigned, to which he swears by almighty God.’ And it is signed, ‘Lieutenant James Hartsell, R.N., acting captain, H.Al.S.
Adventure
.’ “

“Well,” said Sir John, after a moment had elapsed, “it is not ver)’ gracefully writ, but he has got the important points in. If you want my opinion on the matter, it will stand as an indictment.”

“Except, Jack, for the date attached, which is 25 November, 1767 — near seven months after the event it describes.”