Deluded Your Sailors (35 page)

The sergeant whispered him a warning: —Sir.

—I do not like his cough, Captain. But if he rests, he should avoid a lung fever.

—Bring him my compliments, and advise him to carry on his interrogation of Pilgrim.

Finn mumbled.

Suddenly disgusted, feeling gifted with new sight, Pollard wanted to kick Finn himself.
Down there in bile and shit, like a
fucked pig: stand up, man. Desserts, this, for naught else makes sense.

Rods and spheres and orbits.

—Captain, I remind you I stand by in sickbay should my services be needed.

—Very good, Dr Pollard. That will be all.

In the passageway, Pollard leaned a few moments against the cabin's locked door as Finn spat and begged for a moment's peace and Cleasby argued peace carried the price of truth.

—I will elicit confession if it takes all night. Gold, Finn.

Where lies your prize?

—Innocent.

On deck, and despite the impediments of a smashed nose and a close guard, Finn's throaty voice carried. The wind stirred, and the dangling weight very slightly bent the yardarm.

—Con Pilgrim killed no one. You just hanged an innocent man. Men muttered. The midshipmen and the second lieutenant looked to Kelly. The corpse slowly twirled. Captain Cleasby bawled for silence.

Lieutenant Kelly strode to Finn, and the two stood close enough to whisper. Finn shook. Kelly clasped his hands behind his back and murmured Runciman's name. Captain Cleasby joined them and clapped his hands down on Finn's shoulders.

—See that rope round his neck? A bitter end. You're cuntspliced to the bummary now, Finn, and that mortgage must be paid.

—I paid with the truth.

—Where lies your prize?

Finn tried to point to
Kittiwayke
, but, arms and shoulders stiff with bruises, failed. —Prize? There! All I possess is on board her.

Is
her! Take
Kittiwayke
, for all the poxy good it might do ye. Give
Kittiwayke
over to the King! Pry her off the rock, dog-fucker. I'd be glad of it.

Captain Cleasby did not strike Finn. He looked instead to Lieutenant Kelly, strange emotion tugging at his jaws, then back at Finn.—Mr Kelly, it seems our mission is near complete, and seeing you understand the mission better than any man on board, being trusted and favoured by the admirals, guided to soft chairs by the hearth of ease when I must whine at the door for food, I say it is your deserved task to board
Kittiwayke
with a party and retrieve the prize. —Tis fraught with hard risk, Captain. She lists the further as we watch. —Duty is fraught with hard risk, sir. Would you shirk duty and orders? Do take care to your answer.

Finn snorted, starting another nosebleed. —Stout discipline.

Kelly spoke calmly. —I will certainly not disobey you, sir. May I ask to take but a small party, as I've no wish to bear the burden of wasted lives?

—You will bear the burden I set, Lieutenant. Take the third man from
Kittiwayke
, Seward, as incentive for Finn, and two of our own to guard him while you go below and retrieve the gold.

And you, Finn. I've torn your bluffs, exposed your folly. Were this a game of Ruff and Honours, you'd be pleading bankruptcy. I hanged your Constant Pilgrim! Hanged him, in the King's name, and I will hang young Seward, too, to squeeze the prize from you.

Blood dripped off Finn's lips.—Gold is essential. Buy passage.

—Speak up?

—Stop men's mouths; the sailmaker failed. The gold, the gold, the gold. Nennorluk.

Then Finn smiled.

Seductively, Cleasby decided, as though daring him – to see?

I'll be damned. Whatever it takes, hey, my man.

Kittiwayke
squealed and groaned.

Kelly, Seward and two men readied themselves to swing over from
Dauntless
. The fishermen had rowed well clear of the wreck, fearing the sloop would collapse onto them as they passed. Sunkers had holed
Kittiwayke
's hull, just past her famous lead bum. Lines streeled out on the wind, thumped against hull and masts. Sail filled and snapped.

Kelly, Seward and the men swung over, landing badly. Kelly limped when he rose.

Cleasby's order carried well. —Get below, Mr Kelly. The captain's cabin, you fool! Where else would the gold be hid?

Pushing Seward out of his way, Kelly stumbled below.

Kittiwayke
, finally breaking, slid off the sunker and rapidly sank.

The water foamed round the sloop, sucking at men, timber, canvas and line, and the wake of it rocked anchored
Dauntless
. Captain Cleasby ordered a boat lowered, while from the shore of Port au Mal, Tom Truscott and John Dunn rowed out. One of the
Dauntless
tars broke the surface with his face and tried to float upon his back; Truscott got him, sighting the other sailor far below – the water so clear – struggling, spinning, unable to right. Near him, pinned and torn, Seward drowned. His bones lie there still, and tiny fragments of them would wash ashore for many, many years, mistaken for shells when noticed at all. Kelly surfaced, slipped under, surfaced again, fighting the weight of his coat. Dunn grabbed for Kelly's long red plait and caught it, nearly falling overboard. Helped by Dunn and the tars and sobbing for breath, Kelly hauled himself over the gunwale of the boat from
Dauntless

and fell to safety against the bottom. Captain Cleasby leaned hard on a
Dauntless
rail, scowling, and ordered Finn to be taken below.

Men and officers helped Kelly climb aboard; Cleasby only snorted when the saluting lieutenant collapsed at his feet.

25) BOOKING PASSAGE
C
ANNARD
'
S LEDGER
.

When the
Dauntless
tars returned Lacey from an interview with Cleasby and came asking for me, in the evening after they hanged the sailor Pilgrim, my hard despair fell away. Had God's deal with His humble servant, John Cannard, come due? Had grace arrived in the shape of a navy frigate and a red-haired lieutenant? Surely, once Kelly heard my tale of accidental settlement, of my being cast away, he would convince his captain to grant me passage back to England.

Lieutenant Kelly met me on deck, his plait still heavy and wet, coughing. He suffered in the evening wind, which, despite the calendar insisting June, cut to the bone. We stayed near the bow, speaking rapidly. The strong
Dauntless
deck rocked lightly beneath my feet as we came to risky and allusive understanding, he asking me if I knew a man with one wandering blue eye. The men on watch did their best to ignore us, only giving away their anxiety with sudden efficiency at the watch officer's announcement, ‘Captain on deck.'

Kelly stood to attention, and I copied him. Cleasby came towards us, squinting and angry yet somehow satisfied of something, and speaking in a jolly manner that hardly fit. ‘What, sir? Will you invite landsmen aboard without my knowledge?' Kelly attempted explanation, but Cleasby talked the louder, saying, ‘Shipwrecked? Him? No, Mr Kelly, he is a settler here, and he will return to his settlement and his obligations. I will brook no further dissent, you see. I've just come from Dr Pollard. The prisoner has suffered an injury.'

‘An accident, no doubt,' the lieutenant remarked.

‘Exuberance and zeal for the truth. Now, Mr Kelly, you will return this landsman to shore, and then you will accompany me to the sickbay.'

Captain Cleasby returned below.

Kelly, pale, said only ‘Undone.' Then he placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘I am sorry, Cannard. You must return to shore. I will do what I can for your passage.' He clouted a hovering midshipman on the head. ‘So long as you're eavesdropping, you know to get Mr Cannard ashore.'

Watching tars ready the jollyboat again, watching Kelly go aft to the companionway, watching my chance at England disappear, I sagged against a fiferail. Belaying pins poked at my back.

Debt laws' intricacies lie beyond my knowledge, and the laws themselves are, I fear, bent like trees beneath snow. I can say that all of the men in Port au Mal, and at least one in Harbour Grace, probably more scattered about Conception Bay, were indebted to Robert Lacey. That is to say, the men of Port au Mal owed Lacey not just their livelihoods but their lives, for he not only acted as their agent with merchants, he fed them in winter and advanced them gear and other necessities against the next season's catch, as the merchants advanced Lacey. A bad season's catch delayed repayment, and the poor seasons of the 1720s had indebted the fishermen yet more. By Lacey's take on these laws, the debtor could work nowhere else, until he paid his debt, whether in money, goods or time served. The fishermen here, few of them had ever seen money, and they could spare no goods. Their currency was time.

Therefore, I suppose, Cleasby had reason enough to believe what he did and to send me back to Port au Mal, to what the captain called my ‘obligation' and what Lacey called ‘indebture and abeysance
.

' The following day I helped Lacey tidy his Hall and rooms.

Footprints in flour and heaps of disturbed earth pointed to the odd pageant of the past week.
Dauntless
had departed in the night, and I viewed the empty harbour at dawn. Fog loomed. Lacey bade me pour him a drink and said ‘Do you know I should have had you flogged?'

Even after all my years of serving Lacey, of learning to expect his offensives, this jarred and galled me.

‘All those times you tried to run away, on my own ketch yet, I laugh when I think about it; all those times when you tried to get to Harbour Grace, you challenged me. You undermined me. This is my settlement. You know that. I know that. The only reason I did not bring you to justice was that I respected you, as a man of your station. And you respected me and my station. And with that respect came my promise that if ever I heard while in Harbour Grace of transport to England, I would tell you. I heard naught, but that be hardly what matters. The laws are that this is my settlement. I am the obsolete fishing admiral, yet here I stand, right here. Right now. Both Lieutenant Kelly and Captain Cleasby asked if you knew anything of Finn's gold.' He fingered his cheek. ‘I protested your innocence and did my damnedest to prevent them taking you on board for useless questions.'

The thrill of descent: will I freeze, or will I drown?

Lacey sighed and said, ‘As I made clear to Captain Cleasby, one cannot transport a debtor from Newfoundland back to England, no matter what he wears about his neck. Help me scrape up the flour, Cannard, there's a good man. My God, how much did they waste?'

Horribly,
Dauntless
returned the following day, some bad dream. They lowered a boat, which swayed and crashed against the hull. It carried Lieutenant Kelly, much weakened by a catarrh and a fever on his lungs. Sailors and midshipman rowed Kelly ashore, and the midshipman explained that the Lieutenant Kelly must wait in Port au Mal for a rendezvous. Stunned, we said no word to the midshipman. The tars regarded us with a sullen hatred better placed in our own eyes.

I cared after Kelly myself during his last few weeks, assuring him that
Dauntless
had indeed departed and promising I would carry his news to Runciman, for Kelly possessed much knowledge of the truth of Captain Matt Finn. I said many things to calm him down.

26) FINAL REPORT
A
UGUST
17, 1734,
HOME OF
A
DMIRAL
S
IR
A
LEXANDER
D
UNTON
, P
ORTSMOUTH
, E
NGLAND
.

Death, sirs. That and bad weather. Mr Runciman, Lieutenant Kelly did press me to get you the message that we did indeed apprehend the Finn you sought. But the enterprise ended badly.

Finn confessed to all accusations but denied possession of any prize and indeed was quite ill. The surgeon suspected kidney troubles.

Sirs, I wish you to know that Lieutenant Kelly died bravely in the line of duty. On his second foray to the wreck of Finn's sloop
Kittiwayke
, he nearly drowned. Lung fever finished the job. My ship's log indicates his grave's latitude. I always regret the need to bury a man at sea.