Midshipman Bolitho & The Avenger Read online

  `He was doing his duty.'

  Vyvyan took a few paces from the fire. He sounded impatient, exasperated.

  `See it this way. We know the wrecker's identity. We may well catch him again, when there'll be no escape from the hangman. But Dancer's life is valuable, to his family and to his country.' He hardened his tone. `Besides which, it will look better.'

  `I don't see that, sir.'

  Hugh Bolitho was pale with tiredness but showed no sign of weakening.

  `You don't, eh? Then let me explain it for you. How will it sound at a court of enquiry later on? A midshipman's loss is bad enough, the deaths of all those sailors and revenue officers hard to explain, let alone those damned muskets which are now in the wrong hands. But who got clean away without hurt? The Avenger's two officers, both of this family!'

  For the first time Hugh Bolitho looked shocked.

  `That was not how it was, sir. But for the schooner, we would have been well placed to assist, dragoons or no dragoons.'

  The colonel entered at that moment and said quietly, `I have just had word that the schooner's crew are ashore and under close guard. They will be taken to Truro.'

  Vyvyan handed him the crumpled letter and watched his face.

  The colonel said savagely, `I guessed it would not end there, damn them V

  Hugh Bolitho persisted stubbornly, `That schooner was carrying gold coin by the box-load. The crew are all American Colonists. I have no doubt they intended to use the money to buy muskets, here in Cornwall. Then they would likely transfer them to a larger vessel at some safe rendezvous elsewhere.'

  The colonel eyed him coldly. `The schooner's master insists he is innocent. That he was lost, and that you fired on him without warning. He took you for a pirate.' He raised one hand wearily. `I know, Mr Bolitho, but it is what everyone will believe who wants to. You lost your muskets, failed to capture any of the smugglers, and several men have died for no good reason. I know there is talk of unrest in the American Colony, but it is only talk at present. What you have done is very real.'

  Vyvyan said gruffly, `Be easy on him. We were all youngsters once. I told him we should agree to exchange our prisoners. After all, we have a good prize in the harbour, if the magistrates can prove she was after the guns. And when we get Dancer back safe and sound he might tell us more.' He gave a crooked smile. `What say you, Colonel?'

  De Crespigny sighed. `It is no matter for a landowner or a young lieutenant to dabble with. Even I will need to be directed in this case.' He looked round to make certain that the gamekeeper had gone. `However, if your captured felon should escape, I see no reason to report it just yet, eh?'

  Vyvyan grinned. `Spoken like a true soldier! Well done. I'll have my men deal with it.' His eye moved across the Bolitho family. `But if I am wrong, and they harm young Dancer, they will eventually be very sorry for what they have done.'

  Hugh Bolitho nodded. `Very well. I accept the plan, sir. But after this I will stand no chance of success in these waters. My command and all in her will be laughed into oblivion.'

  Bolitho looked at his brother and felt sorry for him. But there was no other way.,

  The others eventually left the house and Hugh said vehemently, `If I could have laid hands on just one of them. I'd have finished this damned affair once and for all !'

  The next two days were filled with suspense and anxiety at the Bolitho house. There was silence from Dancer's captors, although no further proof was needed as to the value of the letter. Some gilt buttons, cut from a midshipman's coat,. and a neckcloth which Bolitho recognized as Dancer's were found outside the gates as a blunt warning.

  On the second night the two brothers were alone by the fire, each unwilling to break the silence.

  Then Hugh said suddenly, `I shall go down to the Avenger. You had better remain here until we hear something. One way or the other.'

  Bolitho asked, `After this, what will you do•?T

  'Do?' He laughed. `Go back to some damned ship as a junior lieutenant, I expect. Promotion went through the window when I failed to finish what I came to do.'

  Bolitho stood up as horses clattered in the yard. A door banged open and he saw Mrs Tremayne staring at him, her eyes filling her face.

  `They've got him, Master Richard! They've found him!'

  In the next instant the room seemed to be full.

  Servants, some troopers and Pendrith, the gamekeeper, who -said, `The soldiers discovered 'im walkin' along the road, sir. 'Is 'ands were tied behind 'is back and 'e was blindfolded. Wonder 'e didn't go 'ead-first off the cliff!'

  They all fell silent as Dancer, covered from head to foot in a long cloak, came into the room, supported on either side by two of de Crespigny's dragoons.

  Bolitho strode forward and gripped his shoulders. He could barely speak, and they looked at each other for several more seconds until Dancer said simply, `Near thing that time, Dick.'

  Harriet Bolitho pushed through the watching figures and lifted the cloak from Dancer's shoulders. Then she took him in her arms, pulling his head to her shoulder, tears running unheeded down her cheeks.

  `Oh, you poor boy!'

  Dancer's captors had stripped him of all but his breeches. Blindfolded and stumbling barefoot along a road unknown to him, had he fallen, he would certainly have died of the bitter cold. Someone had beaten him too, and Bolitho saw weals on his back like rope burns.

  Mrs Bolitho said huskily, `Mrs Tremayne, take these good men to the kitchen. Give them anything they want, money too.'

  The soldiers beamed and shuffled their boots.

  'Thankee, ma'am. It was a real pleasure to be sure.'

  Dancer lowered himself in front of the fire and said quietly, `I was carried to a small village. I heard

  someone say it was supposed to be a witches' place.

  That nobody would dare come looking for me there. They laughed about it. Told me how they were going to kill me if you didn't release their man.'

  He looked up at Hugh Bolitho. `I am sorry I failed you, sir. But our attackers looked like real soldiers, and acted without mercy.' He shuddered and touched his arm as if to hide his nakedness.

  Hugh replied, `What's done is done, Mr Dancer. But I'm glad you are safe. I mean it.'

  Mrs Bolitho brought a cup of hot soup. `Drink this, Martyn. Then bed.' She sounded composed again.

  ,Dancer looked at Bolitho. `I was blindfolded all the time. When I tried to get it off I felt them holding a hot iron close to my face. One of them said that if I did it again I would not need a blindfold. The iron would take care of my sight.'

  He shivered as Nancy covered his shoulders with a woollen shawl.

  Hugh Bolitho banged his fist against the wall. `They were clever. They knew you'd not recognize their faces, but thought you might recall where you were being held!'

  Dancer got painfully to his feet and grimaced. He had cut them badly along the way before the troopers had found him.

  `I know one of them.'

  They all stared at him, thinking he was about to break down.

  Dancer looked at Mrs Bolitho and held out his hands until she took them in hers.

  `It was the first day. I was lying in the darkness, waiting to die, when I heard him. I don't think they'd told him I was there.' He tightened his grip on her hands. `It was the man I saw here, ma'am. The one called Vyvyan.'

  She nodded slowly, her face full of sympathy.

  `You've suffered enough, Martyn, and we have been very worried for you.' She kissed him gently on the lips. `Now to bed with you. You'll find everything you need.'

  Hugh Bolitho was still staring at him as if he had misheard.

  `Sir Henry? Are you certain?'

  She exclaimed, `Leave it, Hugh! There's been harm enough done to this boy!'

  Bolitho watched his brother's strength returning, like a sudden squall approaching a becalmed ship.

  `A boy to you, Mother. But he is still one of my officers.' Hugh could barely conceal his excitement. `Right here unde
r our noses. No wonder Vyvyan's men were always nearby and we never caught anyone. He had to rid himself of his so-called prisoner before an examining judge arrived. The man would have informed on him to save his own life.'

  Bolitho felt his mouth go dry. Vyvyan had even had some of his own men shot down to make it look perfect. He was a monster, not a man at all. And it had nearly worked, might still work if Dancer's story was not believed.

  Wrecker, smuggler and an important part of some planned uprising in America, it was like a growing nightmare.

  Vyvyan had planned all of it, outwitted the

  authorities from the very beginning. He had even put the idea of exchanging hostages in their minds.

  To his brother Bolitho said, `What will you do?'

  He gave him a bitter smile. `I am inclined to send word to the admiral. But now we will try to determine where this village is. It cannot be far from the sea.' His eyes shone like fires. `Next time, Richard, next time he will be less fortunate P

  Bolitho followed Dancer up the stairs, past the watching portraits and into his room.

  `In future, Martyn, I will never complain about serving in a ship of the line.'

  Dancer sat on the edge of the bed and cocked his head to listen to the wind against a window.

  `Nor I.' He rolled over, worn out with exhaustion.

  As his head lay in the glow of some candles, Bolitho thought of that other one, dead in the wet grass, and was suddenly grateful.

  9

  The Devil's Hand

  Colonel de Crespigny sat stiffly in the Avenger's stern cabin looking around with a mixture of curiosity and distaste.

  He said, `As I have just explained to your, er, captain, I cannot take a risk on such meagre evidence.'

  As both the midshipmen made to protest he added hastily, `I am not saying I disbelieve what you heard, or what you thought you heard. But in a court of law, and make no mistake, a man in Sir Henry's position and authority would go to the highest advocates, it would sound less than convincing.'

  He leaned towards Dancer, his polished boots creaking on the deck.

  `Think ofit yourself. A good advocate from London, ,an experienced assize judge and a biased jury, your word would be the only voice of protest. The schooner's crew, can be held upon suspicion, although there is nothing so far to connect them with Sir Henry or any evil purpose. I am certain that fresh

  evidence will come to hand, but against them, and not the man we are after.'

  Hugh Bolitho lay with his shoulders against the cutter's side, his eyes half closed as he said, `It seems we are in irons.'

  The colonel picked up a goblet and filled it carefully before saying, `If you can discover the village, and some good, strong evidence, then you will have a case. Otherwise you may have to rely on Sir Henry's support at any court of enquiry. Cruel and unjust it may be, but you must think of yourselves now.'

  Bolitho watched his brother, sharing his sense of defeat and injustice. If Vyvyan was to suspect what they were doing, he might already have put some further plan into motion to disgrace or implicate them.

  Gloag, who had been invited to the little meeting because of his experience if not for his authority, said gruffly, `There be a 'undred such villages an' 'amlets within five miles of us, sir. It might take months.'

  Hugh Bolitho said harshly, `By which time the word will have penetrated the admiral's ear and Avenger will have been sent elsewhere, no doubt with a new commander!'

  De Crespigny nodded. `Likely so. I have served in the Army for a long while and I am still surprised by the ways of my superiors.'

  Hugh Bolitho reached for a goblet and then changed his mind.

  `I have made my written report for the admiral, and to the senior officer of Customs and Excise at .Penzance. Whiffin, my clerk-in-charge, is making the copies now. I have sent word to the relatives of the dead and arranged for the sale of their belongings within the vessel.' He spread his hands. `I feel at a loss as to what else to do.'

  Bolitho looked at him closely, seeing him as a far different person from the confident, sometimes arrogant brother he had come to expect.

  He said, `We must find the village. Before they move the muskets and any other booty they've seized by robbing or wrecking. There must be a clue. There has to be.'

  De Crespigny sighed. `I agree. But if I send every man and horse under my command, I'd discover nothing. The thieves would go to earth like foxes, and Sir Henry would guess we were on to him. But "capturing" that wrecker and then exchanging him was a master-stroke. It would convince any jury, let alone a Cornish one.'

  Dancer exclaimed, `Sir Henry Vyvyan told you he knew the prisoner and would catch up with him one day.'

  De Crespigny shook his head. `If you are right about Sir Henry, he will have killed that man, or sent him far away where he can do no harm.'

  But Hugh Bolitho snapped, `No, Mr Dancer has made the only sort of sense I have heard today.' He looked about the cabin as if to escape. 'Vyvyan is too clever, too shrewd to falsify something which could be checked. If we can find out who the man was, and where he came from, we may be on our way to success!' He seemed to come alive again. `It is all we have, for God's sake!'

  Gloag nodded with approval. ''E'll be from one of Sir 'Enry's farms, I'll bet odds on it.'

  Bolitho could feel the flicker of hope moving around the cabin, frail, but better than a minute earlier.

  He said, `We'll send to the house. Ask Hardy. He used to work for Vyvyan before- he came to us.'

  De Crespigny stared. `Your head gardener? I'd need a higher trust than that if I had so much in the balance !'

  Hugh Bolitho smiled. `But with respect, sir, you do not. It is my career in the scales, and the good name of my family.'

  Avenger rolled lazily at her cable, as if she too was eager to be at sea again, to play her part.

  Bolitho asked, `Well? Shall we try?'

  Bill Hardy was an old man whose touch with his plants and flowers was better than his fading eyesight. But he had lived all his life within ten square miles and knew a great deal about everyone. He kept to himself, and Bolitho suspected that his father had taken him on because he was sorry for him, or because Vyvyan had never tried to hide his admiration for and interest in Mrs Bolitho.

  Hugh Bolitho said, `As soon as we can. Carefully though. An alarm now would be a disaster.'

  Surprisingly, he allowed his brother and Dancer to return to the house with the mission. To keep it as simple as possible, or to avoid the risk of losing his temper, Bolitho was unsure.

  As they hurried across the cobbled square Dancer said breathlessly, `I am beginning to feel free again! Whatever happens next, I think I am ready for it!'

  Bolitho looked at him and smiled. They had been looking forward to Christmas together and facing one of Mrs Tremayne's fantastic dinners. But the immediate future, like the grey weather and hint of rain, was less encouraging than it had seemed in Avenger's cabin. It seemed likely they would be facing the table of a court of enquiry rather than Mrs Tremayne's.

  Bolitho found his mother in the library writing a letter. One of the many to her husband. There must be a dozen or more at sea at any one time, he thought. Or lying under the seal of some port admiral awaiting his ship's arrival.

  She listened to their idea and offered without hesitation. `I will speak with him.'

  `Hugh said no.' Bolitho protested, `None of us want you implicated.'

  She smiled. `I became implicated when I met your father.' She threw a shawl over her head and added quietly, `Old Hardy was to be transported to the colonies for stealing fish and food for his family. It had been a bad year, a poor harvest and much illness. In Falmouth alone we had some fifty people die of fever. Old Hardy lost his wife and child. His sacrifice, for he was a proud man, was for nothing.'

  Bolitho nodded. Sir Henry Vyvyan could have saved him.. But Hardy had made the additional mistake of stealing from him. It was another glimpse of his own father too. The stern, disciplined sea captai
n, who to please his wife had taken pity on the poor-sighted gardener and brought him here to Falmouth.

  Dancer sat down and looked at the fire-place. `She never fails to amaze me, Dick. I feel I know her better than my own mother!'

  She returned within a quarter-hour and sat down at the desk again as if nothing had happened.

  `The man's name is Blount, Arthur Blount. He has been in trouble before with the revenue men, but this is the first time he has been taken. He's never in honest work for long, and when he is it is of little value. In and around farms, repairing walls, digging ditches. Nothing for any length of time.'

  Bolitho thought of the dead informant, Portlock. Like the man Blount, a scavenger, getting what he could, where he could.

  She added, `My advice is to return to your ship. I'll send word when I hear something.' She reached out and rested her hand on her son's shoulder, searching his face with her eyes as she said, `But take care. Vyvyan is a very powerful man. Had it been anyone but Martyn here, I might have disbelieved he could do all these terrible things.' She smiled sadly at the fair-haired midshipman and said, `But now that I know you, I am surprised I did not realize it for myself far earlier! He has links with the Americas and may well have further ambitions there. Force of arms? It is the way he has always lived, so why should he have changed now? It has taken a newcomer like Martyn to reveal him, that is all.'

  The midshipmen made their way back to the anchored cutter, feeling the freshening edge to the wind, and noting that several of the smaller fishing boats had already returned to the shelter of Carrick, Roads.

  Hugh Bolitho listened to their story, then said, `I have had a bellyful of waiting, but I can see no choice this time.'

  Later, when it was dark, and the anchorage alive with tossing white crests, Bolitho heard the watch on deck challenge an approaching boat.

  Dancer, who had been in charge of the anchorwatch, clattered down the ladder and struck his head against a deckhead beam without apparently noticing.

  He said excitedly, `It's your mother, Dick!' To the cutter's commander he added in a more sober tone, `Mrs Bolitho, sir.'