Fletcher's Fortune Read online

  “Where is he?” says he, foaming at the mouth. “Where is he?” I tried to dodge but he caught my collar. Up went his arm with a cudgel and I cringed before the blow ... only to gasp in wonderment as he shrieked hideously and leapt high up in the air. Hanging to the cheeks of his arse was our faithful Bonzo, teeth well into the meat and grinding down to the bone.

  Everything changed. The Bosun’s peril gave focus to the gang’s efforts and they crowded in to save him. First they seized Bonzo and tried to haul him off: the worst of all possible things to do, once he’d taken hold. It only made him grip all the harder, as the extra pitch of the Bosun’s screams soon told them. Next they drew out their cutlasses and fell to jabbing at him. But this was no good since neither dog nor man would keep still so they could stab the right one. Finally, one of them got a pistol into Bonzo’s ear and managed to blow out his brains without killing the Bosun into the bargain. And so died a Noble British Dog. But by George, he went like a good ’un!

  Once they’d levered Bonzo’s jaws out of the Bosun, it was time for the reckoning. David and Enoch had run when I told them, and were long gone. But I was trapped and had to take my medicine.

  If Bonzo hadn’t weakened him, I suppose the Bosun might have killed me. As it was he took out his anger until some of his men pulled him off and I was lucky to be left with all my teeth and with no bones broken. My memories of the rest of that night are dim and painful. I staggered along with the Bosun kicking me whenever he felt he should. I fell down and was dragged up several times, and I remember climbing some stairs and a heavy door slamming. Then I was trying to sleep on the floor of a black, stinking room crammed with bodies and there was someone who coughed and spat in my ear all night.

  And that my boys, my jolly boys, was how it felt to join the King’s Navy when I was young.

  3

  The old hog’s choked on his claret.

  (From a letter of 1st February 1793 to Lady Sarah Coignwood at Bath, from Alexander Coignwood at Coignwood Hall.)

  *

  The dining-room at Coignwood Hall was extremely quiet. Candles gleamed and the light twinkled on the lavishly spread table. After a while Alexander Coignwood got up and walked steadily down the table to stand behind his father, the late Sir Henry Coignwood.

  Mastering his revulsion, Alexander hauled at the head and shoulders. It took all his strength to move the limp mass but finally there came a fat squelch and the grey face emerged from its last meal to flop up and over the chair-back. It came to rest with its eyes aimed at the ceiling and its jaws wide apart. Gobbets of food slid down the cheeks and wine ran over the sagging chin. Alexander stuck his fingers into the massive neck and felt for a pulse. He put an ear to the mouth and listened.

  “Is he ... ?” whispered his brother Victor, cowering at the other end of the table.

  “Yes!” said Alexander, relishing the pleasure of the word and all that it meant.

  “Are you sure?” said Victor not daring to move. Alexander sneered. “Still frightened of him, little brother?” he said, and taking an apple from the table he stuck it into his father’s gaping mouth. He laughed. “Never fear! The old hog’s choked on his claret. The dropsy’s taken him off at last.”

  “Horrible!” said Victor, shuddering. “How he called and called for his medicine ... ”

  “Which you had every bit as much pleasure as I in denying him,” said Alexander, “so don’t play the innocent with me, ’cos it don’t become you!” Victor sniggered, then frowned.

  “The servants,” he said. “D’you think they heard?”

  “No,” said Alexander. “He didn’t make much noise. Just croaking, wasn’t it ... ” he looked down and gave his father’s nose a playful tweak, “ ... just croaking, weren’t you, Papa?”

  “Don’t!” said Victor.

  “Oh shut up!” said Alexander. “He’s gone.” Victor grinned and leaned back in his chair affecting a histrionic pose.

  “Leaving our darling mother a widow, poor creature! And she so young and so beautiful ... ”

  “And so sad!” Alexander added.

  “Yes,” said Victor. “Still, think how well she’ll look in black.”

  “Indeed,” said Alexander. “I only wonder which of us should have the pleasure of writing to her with the news?”

  “Oh you’re the one for letters, Alexander. But do make sure you give all the details. What a pity she’s gone to Bath. She’ll never forgive herself for missing this.”

  Suddenly Victor shot to his feet with shining eyes as a thought drove all else from his mind.

  “The keys! The keys!” he said and the brothers instantly fell upon the body, tearing and pulling at the pockets. This unsettled the dead mass and it slid into the darkness beneath the table. But Alexander and Victor fell to their knees and heaved together to draw it out into the light, bumping the head on a chair-leg and dislodging the apple which fell out and rolled away. The search continued.

  “Got ‘em! Got ‘em! Got ‘em!” shouted Victor, waving a ring of keys.

  “Shut up!” hissed Alexander, forcing a hand over Victor’s mouth. “You’ll tell the whole damned house!” He snatched the keys. “Come on now. And quietly.” With a last lingering look at the shape on the polished floor, where it lay so very delightfully dead, they left the dining-room. Alexander softly closed the door and they headed for their father’s study. Victor was chattering with excitement and would have run all the way, but Alexander grabbed him in the dark corridor and twisted his arm savagely to bring him to heel.

  “Quiet!” he said. “We’ve waited long enough for this, and now we’ve got it, we don’t want the servants to know, do we?” He gave Victor’s arm another wrench to make the point. “Understand?” he said. Victor gasped.

  “You bastard!” he said and tried to bite.

  “You bitch!” said Alexander and jammed his brother against the wall to keep him still. “Listen you bloody little fool. We’ve got the keys! Don’t you understand? We can find out everything. All about the Brat ... ” Victor stopped wriggling.

  “Then let go.”

  “Will you behave?”

  “Yes.”

  “Promise!”

  “Yes!”

  The brothers straightened up, smoothed the wrinkles from their coats and looked at each other. They smiled, then laughed.

  “The Brat!” said Victor.

  “Yes!” said Alexander and jingled the keys in the air. He bowed and offered Victor his arm. Victor smirked, laid his fingers lightly on Alexander’s hand and the two went off together, the one bold and manly in his Service coat and powdered hair, the other slim and glittering in his French incroyable rig, the uttermost peak of fashion.

  Ten minutes later they were inside their father’s private study: the forbidden study which they had never been allowed to enter. The door was safely locked behind them and drawers, cabinets and strong boxes gaped open all around. Mere coins and bank notes were ignored as the brothers hunted busily for bigger game. Victor searched the desk for secret hidy-holes and Alexander reviewed the army of figures marching down the pages of a big ledger in his father’s own hand.

  Alexander was not an excitable man. He kept a tight control on himself, letting the world see only what he wanted. But as he read, his hands shook and he could not stop the nervous little phrases that jumped from his lips.

  “ ... more than we dreamed!” he muttered. “ ... Pottery manufactory sells £22,000 a year to the London trade, let alone foreign exports ... Coignwood Hall and estate valued at £150,000 ... gold bullion in the bank!”

  “What?” said Victor, engrossed in his task. Alexander shook his head.

  “Why was he content with a baronetcy? He could’ve bought a peerage!” He turned to his brother. “Victor! It’s the answer to everything: your debts, mine and mother’s. We knew he was rich, but Holy Jesus! This may be the greatest fortune in England.”

  “Ah!” said Victor as his fingers found a hidden spring and a small drawer shot out of
the side of the desk. He snatched a wad of papers from the drawer and Alexander dropped his ledger at once. Both knew what this could be, and for once they did not squabble. They spread the papers across the desk and read them together.

  “Where’s the Will?” said Victor anxiously.

  “Here!” said Alexander snatching at a document and they read its every word, dot and comma.

  “So,” said Alexander. “It really tells us nothing we did not already know.”

  “Quite,” said Victor. “We already know what matters. The old bastard made a new will in ’75 leaving everything to the Brat. He told us so enough times, didn’t he?” Alexander nodded and jabbed his finger at the letters laid out before them.

  “Anyway,” he said, “look at these. It’s everything about the Brat. Here’s a letter to the mother!”

  “How grotesque,” said Victor. “A love letter from our father to one of his own servant girls — ‘My own little true love Mary, from whom never shall I be parted’ — how touching! Who’d have thought the old hog had poetry in him? What do you suppose happened to little Mary?”

  “Died in childbirth,” said Alexander. “It says so here — a letter from the Reverend Dr Woods of Polmouth. It seems the Brat was sent into the good doctor’s care to be safe from his stepmother and half-brothers! Now what do you think of that?”

  “What?” said Victor, affecting horror. “Would we have offered harm to a baby?” He produced a handkerchief and applied it to the corners of his eyes. “I weep with the very contemplation of it!”

  He laid a hand on his brother’s arm and looked into his eyes. “Why,” he said, “could you imagine slitting a baby’s dear little throat?” He frowned as a thought occurred to him. “No,” he said, “that would leave marks, wouldn’t it? Better to drown it in a tub.” He put his mind to the problem. “It would have to be dry afterwards, of course. So I’d take off its clothes first, and then ... ”

  “Victor,” said Alexander, interrupting the discourse. “Do you know you make me shudder sometimes?” Victor smiled and took Dr Woods’s letter. He kissed it.

  “No matter,” he said, “the child is now the man. But at least we know where he is.”

  “Yes,” said Alexander. “After all these years, we can do something about him. You must go straight to London for the lawyers, and I shall go to Cornwall. At last we know where he is and we know his name: Jacob Fletcher.”

  4

  In fact, that’s how it felt like to be pressed into the Navy and I spent the night locked into one end of an upstairs room behind a heavy oaken grating which ran from wall to wall and floor to ceiling, dividing the place in two. In fits and starts I noticed what was around me. Beyond the grating (which I was jammed against), I could see the filthy wreck of a room with some tables and chairs, and the accumulated rubbish of long occupation by a body of men. What light there was came from a few candles flickering on the table where some of our guardians sat or slumped asleep, supposedly keeping watch. There were nearly as many on their side of the barrier as on ours and, like us, they were mainly asleep on the floor. But they had far more room and they had blankets and straw palliasses.

  It was not a pleasant night. I was lumped in with dirty humanity in bulk. In that cramped place there was just room for me to slump on the floor with my back to the wall, the grating for a pillow and a rum-sodden fisherman beside me. Like everyone else in that lock-up other than me, he was pole-axed with drink. And yet the place wasn’t quiet. All night, it echoed to the coughing, and moaning of men who were neither properly awake nor properly asleep. In my waking moments I worried what might happen to me and how this dreadful mistake should be put right. For I knew just where I was: this was the “Rondy”, the press-gang rendezvous at the “Three Dutch Skippers”, an old inn by the lower harbour in the worst part of Polmouth. It was right by the harbour stairs, convenient for the sea. Everyone knew where the Rondy was and sailormen never walked past it alone or at night. But the Press had never worried me as I was supposed to be exempt ... so what was I doing here?

  Finally I fastened on to that idea; that come morning, all would be explained and I should go free. In any case, David and Enoch would surely tell Mrs Wheeler, and she would tell them at Pendennis’s and my certain rescue would follow. And so the night passed and the dawn came up as it always does. Slowly the light brightened through the two windows of the big room. From where I sat, I could just see out of one of the windows. I could see the little waves twinkling across the water. A pretty sight, but one that filled me with dismay on that occasion.

  Then the fisherman began to stir and to elbow for room. He smelt like dung and looked like death. Slowly the whole herd awoke and began to talk and complain. The talk was all of ships and floggings and the horrors of Naval life. Even worse, the fisherman, he was the one who’d been coughing all night, began deliberately to scrape his bare knee against the rough brick of the wall. He didn’t like what he was doing, and set his teeth against the pain of it. Soon he had an open wound that trickled blood down his leg.

  “What are you doing?” I croaked, all dry and gummy from the night.

  “Taint fair ... Shan’t go,” says he. “Wife and litluns at home ... Navy won’t take a cripple.”

  “What?” says I, but he ignored me. Bit by bit, he scraped out a crater in his knee, and now and again he stirred in some dirt from the floor. He was manufacturing the appearance of a chronic ulcer so as to seem unfit to serve. I came over weak at the sight of it and turned my back. But I couldn’t avoid the sound of his movements or his gasps of pain as he stubbornly kept at the work. In my innocence, I thought that this was a truly horrible example of what men would do to avoid the Navy.

  About an hour after dawn, things began to happen. A door opened at the far end of the room and an Officer entered. He was about sixty, with several days of white stubble on his face. Both he and his uniform were shabby and drooping and he was fat and awkward and leaned on a stick. As he entered, the gangsmen rose and those wearing hats removed them. Hitching up their belts and scratching their backsides, they formed an untidy line and awaited his pleasure. He came up to the grating and peered into the pen with baggy eyes.

  “I’m Lieutenant Spencer, by God!” he declared, “Lieutenant Spencer and you’ll learn to know me.” He turned to the Bosun and damned him up and down. “Is this your night’s work, Mr Bosun? Is this what you call men? I could find better in a Pox-Doctor’s shop!” To my great satisfaction, I saw that the Bosun was having trouble in standing and was still in considerable pain from Bonzo’s attentions.

  Meanwhile, Spencer paraded up and down, bawling out curses till his belly shook, and driving his stick through the bars to stir the prisoners. Behind his back, I could see his men nudging one another and grinning at him. For this was all for show. Lieutenant Spencer was not a real Sea Officer at all. Not any more. He was just an old worn-out Lieutenant in the Impress Service. Later I came to despise such as he but at that moment, he was a figure of real terror.

  Suddenly he changed his tune as he recollected a duty.

  “Urrumph!!” says he. “Now listen here, you bloody lubbers; by the grace of our Sovereign Lord, King George the Third ... God bless him!” (and would you believe it, there was an answering murmur of “God bless him!” from the prisoners around me) “... every man of you has the chance to enter voluntarily. And all who do shall receive the volunteer’s bounty. But I warn you; them as don’t step forward, I shall take ‘em as pressed men in any event!”

  There followed a calling of names and an edging forward as some dozen of the prisoners came forward and had their names taken in a ledger. I kept my mouth shut, knowing that I’d be released as soon as I could speak to the Officer. So did the man with the scraped knee; he was bitter contemptuous of the “volunteers”.

  “Damned fools,” says he. “All they’ll get is their rights took away and their money stole by the pay clerks.”

  And then my moment came and I could have fainted with the reli
ef of it. I saw blessed salvation bearing down upon me without even an effort on my part. The Bosun dragged himself across to Lieutenant Spencer, trailing one leg all the way, and said something in his ear, while pointing at me. This sent the Lieutenant’s eyebrows up to his scalp. He came across to me directly.

  “Now then, mister,” says he. “Is that right, you’re a ’prentice?”

  “Yes sir,” says I.

  “And what might be your name?”

  “Jacob Fletcher. I’m apprenticed to Pendennis’s Counting House in Wharf street.”

  “Jacob Fletcher,” he said and smiled at me; a big beaming smile which I took to be an attempt to ingratiate himself with me.

  “Smile away, my lad,” I thought, “and much good may it do you!” I was already rehearsing what I should say to the courtroom about the abusing of innocent apprentices and the cruel murder of our poor little dog. My employer, Mr Pendennis, was the Mayor of Polmouth and a magistrate. Only imagine what was in store for Lieutenant Spencer when he came before Mr Justice Pendennis!

  Spencer frowned and bit his lip. Ponderous engines of thought were turning in his brain like ancient millstones (looking for the way out for himself, I didn’t doubt). He lowered his voice to a whisper, and beckoned me close.

  “Thing is, Mr Fletcher,” says he all respectful, “if I was to let you out right now, then these here swabs,” he indicated the other prisoners, “why, there’d be no holding ’em whatsoever, d’you see? There’d be men killed in there and I’d be held responsible. So just bide a while till we empties the cage ... and you can be on your way before the day’s out.”

  I wasn’t too pleased with this but I thought I’d keep my temper in check and save it for the magistrate. So that’s what we agreed and I sank down in my corner and tried to be patient. After a few words with the Bosun, Spencer left the room and things went quiet. For a couple of hours, nothing happened except that, outside the Rondy, a crowd gathered and began to call out names. These were the wives and relatives of the men taken last night. Some of the prisoners called back as they recognised the voices. And then one of the wives appeared.