Gentleman Captain Read online

  'Murder, sir. It can only have been murder.' Taken off guard, I experienced an unpleasant thrill at his words. How neatly they chimed with my morbid thoughts on the way down to Portsmouth. I struggled to keep my expression neutral as, without waiting for a reply, he continued.

  'My uncle was the healthiest man I ever knew. He'd spent years in the Indies where men die like flies, and never had a day's sickness. He'd been in twenty-six battles by sea or land, great and small, and never suffered a scratch. Not one. Only on Monday, the very day he died, we breakfasted together. He was in the best of spirits.' Silence followed these words, and I tactfully busied myself with again refilling my glass. 'He told me how this mission would be the making of me, a sure route to the attention of the king and the duke.'

  'Sir,' I said, 'the mission remains. You can still make your mark.'

  'After breakfast, he went ashore,' Vyvyan said, ignoring me. 'He had a meeting in Portsmouth, he said, though he never said who it was with. I went to the commissioner and the deputy governor this morning, and it was neither of them, nor any of their staffs. It wasn't with Captain Judge, either, as they always met on Royal Martyr, and Judge hasn't been off his ship in five days. My uncle's servants didn't know where he went, for he took none of them with him. He came back aboard about six that afternoon and took a turn about the deck, as was his wont. He knew every man by name, and took his time to talk and jest with them. He was no flogger and no tyrant, Captain Quinton. He looked after his men, and in turn, they loved him.'

  This was evidently just as much a model and a warning for me as it was a recollection of the methods of Captain James Harker. Still, I was grateful for the change in Vyvyan's conversation, and took advantage of it. I asked, 'Most of the crew are Cornish, I take it?'

  'Perhaps two dozen Devon men, whom we let sail with us out of pity and sufferance, and two dozen other stragglers, like Carvell the blackamoor and Le Blanc, the French tailor. The rest, Cornish to the bone. He had a great name in our county, Captain. Men flocked to serve under him.'

  The old way of the navy is much diminished in these days, where so many men are press-ganged, or turned over from ships coming in from their voyages into ships going out, keeping them from their families for years on end. Granting shore leave and other privileges to such a crew is inconceivable, for they would desert in droves, probably slaughtering their officers in the process. But once, not long ago, the navy was a different and perhaps a kinder world. Then, it was still the case that a popular captain could draw most, if not all, of his crew from volunteers, commanding the prime seamen of his native county. Men served their captain first, their king and navy second, and God a far distant third. Loyalties were more direct and more personal. There was a profound trust and respect between such captains and such crews. Coming from an inland county like Bedfordshire, and being in their eyes but a trumped-up and ignorant young courtier, I had no hope of creating such a crew of men; men who, I could see, would have followed Captain James Harker to the grave. As they had, in one sense.

  'Cornwall was the truest county to the king in all of the civil wars,' Vyvyan continued. 'Our soldiers bled and died for both Kings Charles, the elder and the younger, from Lansdowne Hill to Worcester fight–but our sailors had no one to fight under, after the navy declared for the rebel Parliament. So the Cornish took ship in merchantmen, or privateers, or fought for France or Spain or the Dutch. Then, in the year '48, the fleet mutinied against Parliament and its preference for paying only its soldiers, and the king had a navy again. He called my uncle back from King Louis's navy, and when the men of Cornwall heard that James Harker was back at sea for his king, they came from all parts to sail under him. This isn't just a crew, Captain Quinton. This is Cornwall afloat, ready to fight and die for their proud Jimmy Harker.'

  It had been a long day, I was weary and saddle sore, I was still shaken by my encounter with the Royal Martyrs, and I was starting to become unconscionably irritated by the invisible, all-pervading presence of the deceased Captain James Harker. Too quickly and too peevishly, I snapped, 'As they would have done, no doubt, if he hadn't gone to his grave before all of them, Lieutenant.'

  For the first time he looked directly at me. I saw then not a king's lieutenant, but a hurt, nineteen-year-old lad who had lost the uncle he worshipped barely two days before.

  'As you say, Captain Quinton.' Vyvyan placed his palms on the table, as though steadying himself to rise without my permission, but his uncle had trained him well. He composed himself and continued. 'He took a walk, as I said, and spoke to perhaps twenty men from the starboard watch. None of them noticed the slightest sign of sickness in him. He was himself, they said, the same as ever he was. Then he went up to the quarterdeck, leaned on the starboard rail, put his hand to his chest and fell dead on the deck. They called me from my cabin and I was there in seconds. But he was gone.'

  Knowing full well how unwarrantably harsh I had been to the boy, and recalling the deaths that I had witnessed, I said as gently as I could, 'A tragedy, Lieutenant–for a great man to be cut down like that. But to die so quickly ... well, there are many worse ways to die.' Vyvyan, staring blankly at the deck, did not respond. 'I've seen apparently healthy men drop dead in the street, or at their desks,' said I, determined to quash this morbid fancy of his. 'Such things happen, Lieutenant. We try to blame others, or we blame God, but most often there's some fault in the body, unknown for all a man's life, that brings about such deaths.' This last was pure fraud, for although I had seen enough deaths of that sort, and more than enough of every sort, I was actually parroting one of my uncle Tristram's many discourses on the human condition, delivered long before such profound wisdom (not to mention his bibulous loquacity, generosity of purse, and blood relationship to one of the king's favourites) had won him the mastership of an impecunious Oxford college. Nevertheless, conjuring up the words that Doctor Tristram Quinton might have said had a settling effect upon my own dark fears; that and Vyvyan's own description of his uncle's death, which hardly spoke of foul murder.

  Of course, a nephew in the depths of grief would think otherwise, and Vyvyan looked at me with contempt. 'This was murder, Captain Quinton. Who did he meet in Portsmouth? What poisons did they give him? But above all, tell me, Captain Quinton, with all your knowledge of this world: why did my uncle have this note on him when he died?'

  He took a torn and crumpled piece of paper from his sleeve and handed it to me. It read, ' Captain Harker. Fear God, sir, remember His grace. Go not ashore this day.'

  I shrugged. 'Surely, Lieutenant, this is one of those notes that field-preachers and street prophets thrust into the hands of passers-by every day–the judgement of the millennium is at hand, and so forth—'

  'And where would be the field-preachers and street prophets on the Jupiter, sir, with a crew that's good Cornish Anglicans almost to a man, and against the Ranters and Quakers and all their lunatic kin...'

  I already sensed uneasily that this matter of the imagined murder of Captain Harker would dominate much of our voyage, but we had no more time to ponder the meaning of the note, or for me to try and repair my disastrous beginning with my young and grief-stricken second-in-command. Through one of the open windows in the stern I heard our lookout's cry: Jupiter, ahoy! Royal Martyr, laying alongside!' There was a small commotion on the deck above as Boatswain Ap hastily assembled a side party and piped someone aboard us. Minutes later I heard firm steps on the deck of the steerage, the space between my cabin and the open deck, and then an equally firm rap on what even then I knew to call a bulkhead.

  Three men stepped into my cabin. Two were seamen, their heads as shaven as the crop-head who had attacked me earlier that evening. The third was the very image of one of Cromwell's praetorian guard, the swordsmen of his New Model Army. He even resembled Cromwell, from the portraits I had seen of the old tyrant: squat, strong, his face disfigured by warts. His buff jacket and cavalryman's sword added to the unnerving effect.

  Vyvyan was enough of a king's o
fficer to remember his duty. He said, 'Captain Quinton, permit me to name Captain Nathan Warrender, lieutenant of his Majesty's ship the Royal Martyr.'

  Warrender made a salute and bowed his head stiffly, as they do in Germany. 'Captain Quinton,' he said, 'Captain Judge's compliments, sir, and he requests that you sup with him aboard Royal Martyr.'

  I was exhausted; another boat journey followed by yet another awkward encounter and a no doubt fraught discussion of the afternoon's war between our two crews, was not what I needed at that moment. But apart from a mouthful of Andrewartha's mouldy cheese, I had not eaten at all since my piece of bread at Petersfield hours before, nor had I tasted a full meal since my repast with my family at Ravensden in the middle of the previous day. It was apparent that in his grief, Vyvyan could not be relied upon to attend to my comforts aboard the Jupiter. Most pertinently of all, though, Godsgift Judge was my senior officer, and a request from him was as good as an order. I said, 'Very good, Mister Warrender. Lieutenant Vyvyan, resume command of the ship in my absence.'

  The boat pulled away from the side of the Jupiter, bound for the dark bulk of the Royal Martyr, which loomed between us and the lights of Portsmouth. I swiftly learned that Nathan Warrender was a man of few words; or if he could have his preference, of none at all. The two men who had accompanied him to my cabin sat behind him still, not pulling on oars, but silent and forbidding. Warrender's servants, I guessed, though they seemed rather unlikely as such.

  Despite his surly demeanour, I tried to engage Warrender in conversation and prepare myself a little for the encounter ahead. He was less forthcoming than a mollusc on the topic of his captain, and on his own former captain's rank, he who now served as a lieutenant. He admitted that he himself was once of Plymouth, that bastion of Parliament's cause in the civil war, but I could glean no more than this. He seemed the very archetype of the dour Puritan that we Cavaliers at once mocked and feared. We soon fell to silence, and I had time to ponder whether this captain, Godsgift Judge, of whom the king and his family spoke so ambiguously, was cut from the same cloth. I thought, I have a crew still loyal to a dead man, a lieutenant set to be consumed by melancholy, rumours and gossip flying amongst the men–and now, here am I, off to sup with the reincarnation of Noll Cromwell and some dull, Puritanical captain who will talk endlessly of lanyards and tackles. O God, look down on thy poor servant Matthew Quinton, for he is surely at the very gates of Hell.

  The side party provided by Royal Martyr was exemplary in its discipline and put the Jupiter's to shame. There was no sign of my would-be nemesis, Linus Brent. Warrender and his two ever-present attendants led me below decks, to the door of Captain Judge's great cabin. He knocked, and a high, affected voice warbled, 'Enter.'

  Timorously, I walked into the cabin, and was assailed at once by an overpowering sense that I had been transported by a sorcerer's incantation to some enchanted realm. This was no ship's cabin. Rather, it resembled the salon of one of London's more degenerate hostesses. There was no trace of the stern windows, for they were masked by great curtains of extravagant purple silk, trimmed with cloth of gold. The bulkheads at each side were adorned with cherubs and the hangings patterned with crowns. The panels above our heads were decorated with paintings of the present king enthroned in splendour, while above him his martyred father ascended into heaven, attended by the archangels. The fragrance from scented candles competed vigorously with the odours of a dozen expensive perfumes, drowning out the usual shipboard smells of wood, tar and sweat. My amazed eye took all this in, then fell upon a table groaning with sweetmeats, fruit, cold meats, and cheeses. There were silver goblets, ready to be filled with what would undoubtedly be the finest of wines in the silver jugs that stood comfortably next to the candles.

  At the centre of all this astonishing luxury, so unexpected within half a mile of the swills of Gosport, stood a figure who would not have been out of place at the grandest of court balls. Captain Godsgift Judge–for it could be no one else–was of medium height, but puffed up to an unwarranted elevation by a monstrous wig, from which a little cloud of powder emanated at his every movement. His pinched, raised shoes could have been fashionable only at Fontainebleau, in the court of Louis le Grand. His remarkable grey-green frock coat was studded with jewels that glittered too much in the candlelight to be the paste substitutes favoured by the more impoverished rakes of the City. His perfectly white breeches were rounded off by delicate scarlet garters. Finally, and by far the worst of all, his long, harsh face was perfectly white, a fashion affected only by the most daring, or perhaps foolish, of London's wealthiest citizens.

  As I took in the whole preposterous spectacle, a recollection crept into my mind. A supper–yet another rather drunken affair–at anchor in an Irish bay the year before. Judge? Oh, he's the greatest courtier of all Noll Cromwell's old captains. Desperate to stay in employment, so he seeks every means he can to endear himself with the king and duke. Runs a good ship, but looks more ridiculous by the day.

  To my utter horror, Judge opened his arms and embraced me after the French fashion, leaving traces of powder on my face and shoulders.

  'My dear, dear Captain Quinton!' he all but sang. 'Judge, sir, Godsgift Judge. Forgive my seemingly fanatical name,' here he leant in confidentially with a hint of perfumed breath, 'but my mother was a great Puritan, don't you know, and bent my father to her will in this matter, as in so much else. Ah, but when I think of my poor sister, Diedforthysins Judge, I can but thank God for carrying her off when she was but four ... If it were possible for a man to change the name he was born with, I would be a John or a Charles in the blink of an eye.' He rolled his eyes. 'But my dearest captain, I really must begin by apologizing for the appalling treatment you received at the hands of some of my crew. I have placed the man Brent in the bilboes, and will have him flogged in the morning. Will that suffice for your honour, Captain? We can bring him to court-martial, of course. In fact we shall, we must! Though it would take quite some time to assemble, and he is at bottom a useful man on this ship, and our orders demand urgency, so we must sail once the wind changes. But your honour, sir, shall come before all ... No?' and here he paused expectantly.

  Not knowing which part of this speech to attend to first, I murmured something about the mission not being held up on a matter of so little import.

  'Magnanimously said, sir,' and he swept me a bow. Then straightening up, he clapped his hands and four servants appeared from behind the hangings, all of whom I would have marked for certain as canting crop-headed London apprentices, were it not for their delicate pageboys' uniforms. One took my cloak, another my sword, the third bade me sit, the fourth poured wine (the finest, as I had anticipated). Nathan Warrender sat, too, his face a mask. Presumably he was inured to his captain's ways. His silent attendants stood rigidly to attention at one side of the cabin. I did my best to ignore their presence, turning to my host, who was clasping his hands together gleefully and simpering at me over the table.

  'What did I tell you, Warrender? Did I not tell you that a scion of the noble house of Quinton would be at once truly honourable and truly forgiving? A pleasure to have you aboard, Captain. And, if I may say so, it will be a pleasure to sail with you. A tragedy, of course, about poor Captain Harker–a great captain, and a valiant fighter for the king's majesty.'

  We raised a glass to James Harker's memory. I began to relax a little, for I thought I now had the measure of this Godsgift Judge. During the last two years I had seen many other examples of the phenomenon that he represented, and not just in the navy. The king's Restoration mysteriously witnessed the disappearance overnight of those who had served the old Commonwealth and Oliver Cromwell so enthusiastically. In their place came forth a new breed of men, out-cavaliering us Cavaliers in their protestations of loyalty to the monarchy, slavishly aping whatever the court was wearing, trying desperately to find some patron among the king's friends to ensure that their past would be conveniently forgotten under our new royal dispensation. Such bewilderin
g transformations of men had even been apparent in deepest Bedfordshire, which sent hundreds of its sons to fight for Parliament in the civil wars–yet now, strangely, it was a place where Roundheads were as rare as three-headed goats.

  Our supper progressed. Whatever else he was, Godsgift Judge was a notably generous host, his table resplendent with duck, jellies, rice pudding, and tarts. Cornelia would have been furiously, unforgivingly jealous if she had known her husband was feasting on such fare while she endured the charred meats and sloppy puddings of Ravensden. Judge's wine, too, was impressive, and most efficacious at putting the captain of the Jupiter at his ease. I had never known a Commonwealths-man who could tell his Rhenish from his Bordeaux, but Judge was the exception. The wine was Gascon, and old, and very, very good. But as I drank, I remembered how Cromwell had entered into the unholiest of alliances with Cardinal Mazarin, then the ruler of France. The terms of his treaty had driven my brother out of comfortable quarters at Dieppe to a pestilential garret in Flanders, and led me to fight in a hopeless battle against Cromwell's and Mazarin's invincible united armies. Well, I thought, quaffing my wine, at least that same treaty had brought the finest of wines to sober, Puritanical England; as good a proof as one could seek that the Lord will always provide adequate compensation for human woes.

  In conversation, Captain Godsgift Judge proved a fluent and utter embarrassment. I learned but little of the man himself. He was not a man of birth and honour, of course, and thus his lack of social grace was to be expected; he was the son of a Yarmouth shipowner, he said, and had skippered colliers between the Tyne and the Thames before the civil wars began and he entered the Parliament's service. By the time of the Commonwealth's Dutch war he was an able and experienced captain, and he distinguished himself in battle at Portland and the North Foreland. At the end of that war he was sent in command of one of the squadrons despatched to Scotland to harass the Earl of Glencairn's Royalist rising in the west–the service which made him virtually the only man suitable to command our current expedition to the same waters. I tentatively asked whom we would meet there, their amities and jealousies, and enquired about the lie of the land, but Judge stopped me abruptly.