A Ship for The King (24 page)

‘I took the liberty,' he explained, and Faulkner brushed the apology aside as Lazenby handed the glass over.

‘It is of no matter; what do you make of her?'

‘Little activity on board, sir. I think we might take her if we had powder to stand off and scour her deck of those infernal blackamoors . . .'

‘He does not know we have no powder,' Faulkner said. ‘Suppose we were to bear down upon her boldly . . .' He left the sentence hanging and Lazenby picked up its meaning.

‘I'll stand the hands to and see just how many guns we could load,' Lazenby paused, a calculating look on his face. ‘Small shot, I think,' and with that he made off, calling to the men, many of whom had slumped on the deck in the hiatus, exhausted with the bloody business of murder. Faulkner rallied himself and called for a man at the helm and for two or three others to clear the decks of the dead. After a few moments of activity, the yards were braced round, the helm put over and, with a few buckets of water thrown over the worst of the bloodstains, three guns were loaded with langridge and primed, their crews spiking them round and anticipating the best angle at which to fire as the
Perseus
bore down upon her disabled quarry.

There followed several long minutes of silent suspension as the full topsails drove the
Perseus
forwards with an inexorable progress, her two ensigns still flying bravely. Faulkner studied the corsair. She seemed inert, no sign of activity on her deck, indeed no obvious awareness of approaching nemesis. Was this an ambush? Faulkner felt the prickle of sweat as apprehension took a cold grip of his gut. There was no doubt that she had initially possessed a far larger complement than the Englishman, but despite those left dead or dying aboard the
Perseus
, she might still overwhelm them if they got close enough to attempt a second boarding. The near-silence grew as the distance shortened and Faulkner, weak from loss of blood, felt his knees buckling and his hands shaking. He gritted his teeth and growled at the helmsman, ‘Steer small . . .'

Then a shout of alarm went up and Faulkner realized he had achieved surprise. A second later and men were lining the pirate's rail, one or two of whom fired their long arquebusses. The balls passed harmlessly, though several sank themselves in the
Perseus
's stout planking. Their speed, relative to the wallowing pirate, her waist encumbered by the fallen spars from which her crew had been trying to free her, seemed to increase as they now rapidly closed the distance. Then they were sweeping past and the sparkle and pop of small arms rippled along her rail. Faulkner was spun round and knocked off his balance as a ball struck his shoulder, but otherwise passed him without leaving more than a severe bruise, by which time Lazenby had discharged his three guns with cool deliberation and swept the pirate's deck, scouring it with iron and reducing it to a bloody shambles at pistol-point. Then the
Perseus
had swept past and Faulkner, who had regained his balance and his composure, ordered the men to the braces and put the helm over again, quite forgetting that they had no powder left at all.

It took them some minutes to put the vessel on the wind and only when they did so did Lazenby have the time to remind him of the deficiency. ‘Whatever small arms we have, every man to line the rail and . . .' He had no need to say more; Lazenby again scurried off, kicking the inert and generally exhorting the tiring crew with a torrent of foul language to which they responded with curses of their own. As Faulkner approached to make a second pass a solitary figure stood above the pirate's taffrail and raised a white cloth, calling in heavily accented English, ‘I am your prisoner!'

‘Hold your fire!' snapped Faulkner, moving swiftly to the rail as the
Perseus
again passed the corsair. ‘Have you a serviceable boat?' The man with the white cloth shook his head. ‘Then I will tow you, stand by to take a line forward . . . Mr Lazenby . . .'

‘Aye, sir, I'll make all ready.'

When Admiral Rainsborough arrived off Safi three days later in the
Leopard
, he had with him the
Mary Rose
, commanded by Captain Thomas Trenchfield, like Rainsborough an Elder Brother of Trinity House, and the pinnace
Roebucke
under Mr Broad, both reinforcements that had reached him off Sallee. Here he found Faulkner's
Perseus
, her guns run out and commanding her prize. When Faulkner reported aboard the flagship, Rainsborough shook him warmly by the hand and congratulated him.

‘Well done, Captain Faulkner,' he said, nodding towards the anchored prize, ‘now we have some additional bargaining counters here to add lustre to our cause.'

Faulkner had made contact with the Arabic-speaking English merchant Blake, and now Rainsborough entered another tedious period of negotiating through Blake, who had been appointed the Farmer of Customs by Sultan Moulay Zidan and had access to His Highness. On 19th September, having embarked another two hundred and thirty manumitted Christian slaves along with Blake, some merchants and an envoy from the Sultan, Rainsborough's ships weighed anchor and two days later took their departure from Morocco. Faulkner had lost his prize in the negotiations, but had the consolation of carrying over a hundred of the liberated Englishmen home in the
Perseus
and the action had increased his reputation. Those men among his crew who complained were swiftly silenced by others among their number whose zeal for the Lord of Hosts ensured them that their repudiation of Mammon ensured a state of grace.

Faulkner took no part in the celebrations attending the arrival of the Moroccan envoy in London. He had long broken his promise to his wife of a three month absence, but was anxious to make amends, and only heard later of the procession through the streets which, although conducted by night, were lit as though by day. The Moroccan ambassador, Blake and his fellow merchants, all wearing gold chains and extravagantly dressed, rode into London on Arab horses. Behind came a large number of the freed slaves dressed in white, some of whom had been captive for thirty years. They were met by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen in their robes. Finally, on Sunday 5th November the ambassador was received by King Charles and presented to the King several saker falcons and four richly caparisoned Arab stallions, led by red-liveried Moorish grooms.

Faulkner was in Bristol the same evening. It was a black night of wind and sleeting rain such that it occurred to him that nothing had changed since the day he had left. He was tired and saddle-sore as he stumped up the stairs. Seeing the light under the door he paused a moment, puzzled by the unfamiliar noise of the squalling cry of a baby. When he came into the room he saw first Gooding and another man of his brother-in-law's acquaintance, a member of his congregation, Faulkner recalled. The two were bent over a printed bill which they had been reading in silence until interrupted by the sudden, unexpected opening of the door. Both men looked up in surprise. Faulkner had not intended to startle them and apologized.

‘It was thoughtless of me, Nathan; I am sorry.'

Obviously preoccupied by the bill he had been reading, Gooding picked it up in a fury and waved it in Faulkner's face. ‘This is your King's doing!' he said, taking no notice of his brother-in-law's unannounced arrival, nor making any comment on his overlong absence. He was beside himself, such as Faulkner had never previously seen him. ‘It is infamous! Infamous!'

‘What the devil do you speak of? And what do you mean by “my” King?'

‘Are you not a King's officer?' Gooding's co-religionist asked, as if seeking not to be omitted from this vilification of a man lately arrived home from God-alone knew where.

Faulkner was taken aback by this welcome and met it with a rising anger of his own. ‘What if I am? And what are you doing here? I barely know you, so by what right do
you
have to accost me thus on my arrival in my own home?'

Aware of Faulkner's temper and that he himself had behaved shamefully in the manner of their greeting, Gooding let his breath out in a long, exasperated exhalation. ‘I am sorry, Kit. That was unforgivable of us both; please forgive us but we are outraged by the contents of this bill.' He waved the paper and then slapped it down upon the table.

‘Prynne, Burton and Bastwick have been not merely been pilloried but mutilated!'

‘What is that to me, for Heaven's sake? Or to you for that matter? Who is Prynne . . . do I not recollect hearing his name before, for causing trouble and criticizing the court and Archbishop Laud? And who are the others?'

‘Good men, Kit, good men. Men who speak truth unto power . . .'

‘What is their offence? They cannot have been mutilated for nothing, not even by “my” King, who I increasingly hear called a tyrant.'

‘He
is
a tyrant, Captain Faulkner,' Gooding's friend put in, his tone now moderated and indicating a desire to put the newly returned mariner in the political picture. ‘A black and bloody one. You probably recall Prynne having been fined and thrown into the Tower, his ears cropped, for seditious writings three years ago. Well, he has – thank God! – been at it again despite his incarceration and has been fined a further five thousand, ordered to lose the remainder of his ears and to be branded on both cheeks . . .'

‘He is a Puritan,' Faulkner said with an edge of sarcasm, as that explained the matter and cutting this lengthy peroration short.

‘And bears witness, Kit,' put in Gooding.

‘That's as maybe, Nat, but for myself I care not. I came here to see my wife and on the stairs I heard—'

The noise of a baby's loud and fractious crying came again and then was abruptly cut off. A light dawned on Gooding's face, as though the noise recalled him to the reality of the present moment.

‘Kit, I am so sorry! I had quite forgot!' He was laughing and held out his hand to Faulkner to shake the now thoroughly bewildered man's hand. ‘I am sorry. We made you the King's whipping boy and all the while we neglected your timely homecoming! Thank God you have arrived safely, we had almost given you up for lost. Come . . . come, Julia is within . . .'

Gooding backed away towards the door of the bedroom which he indicated, almost bowing to Faulkner as he realized the truth. He was across the room and flung open the door in a second, to find Julia, sitting before a fire, with a child suckling greedily at her breast.

Eight

Civil War

It was by such cumulative degrees that England descended into civil strife. While war raged in Europe between Protestant and Catholic, England fell into factions of a more political complexion, though religion lay at the root of them. A King of unwearying duplicity whose French and Catholic Queen caused suspicion as to the King's true allegiance to the Protestant Church of England – itself ruled by an Archbishop of strong political views and a hater of Calvinism who owed his position to the late and hated Buckingham – found himself pitched against an increasingly intransigent Parliament whose members were opposed to the King's assumption of powers that he conceived he received directly from God and argued that no policy could be enacted without the consent of itself. Those in Parliament most affected by this zeal for the rights of the House of Commons were largely Puritans whose sober dress, strong principals and convictions that, contrary to the King and Royalist party's belief, God was of
their
opinion.

Like most of his fellow countrymen, Faulkner continued his own life, following his own interests. The steady expansion of the new colonies in North America enabled the Bristol ships owned by Gooding and himself to return handsome profits, while his participation in the expedition to Sallee had persuaded him to try the
Perseus
in the Mediterranean trade – sailing to Oporto, Leghorn and Smyrna. It had also widened his acquaintance with the Brethren of Trinity House, and early in the following year he was persuaded by several others, Rainsborough included, to invest in two Indiamen and thereby he was inexorably drawn towards London, removing himself there with Julia and their son Henry Gideon, named after Faulkner's patrons. Here, soon afterwards in the summer of 1639, their second son was born at their new home in Wapping, and named Nathaniel in compliment to his uncle who remained in Bristol.

‘It is right that we should leave Nathan to manage affairs in Bristol,' Faulkner told his wife, ‘for he must surely marry and settle himself, and while we all occupy that old lodging nothing will change.' Julia did not like London. Unlike Bristol the rain and wind did not scour it clean; rain brought soot from the sky and wind kicked indescribable muck about the streets. It was a huge and filthy place, a veritable warren of narrow alleyways, of running ordure and manufactory stinks, of soap-works and tallow-makers, its river an open sewer, its inhabitants mixed, its daily turmoil endless and without rhythm or regulation.

In the following eighteen months Faulkner's affairs prospered; his weekly assemblies at the Trinity House where the conviviality of his companions in both arms and commerce flattered him, so that it sometimes seemed inconceivable that he had risen from the gutter. He never forgot it, however, and became known for his casual generosity to the street fruit-sellers, in tribute to that unknown – and probably long-dead – girl who had first sent him in pursuit of apple cores. London for Faulkner was all absorbing, and while he regularly encountered Sir Henry Mainwaring at the Trinity House, neither man sought to disturb the tranquillity of their respective lives. If Mainwaring was disappointed that Faulkner had failed to become a naval officer, he rarely referred to the matter, nor to Faulkner's lack of political colour. He, perhaps better than others, was aware that a man's life took unpredictable twists and turns. As for himself, Sir Henry, a widower after only three years of marriage, was now an admiral and seemed content that his protégé had made a success of his life. Once or twice, out of a solicitous and natural interest in Faulkner's affairs, Mainwaring would refer to their past association.