Gentleman Captain (22 page)

Leading me to the quarterdeck, his servants close behind, Warrender explained. 'Accident with the recoil, sir. Should have known better than to be standing there, a man with fifteen years' service. He'll only be good for a cook now, if he can get a warrant, or else an almsman's place. May God have mercy on those whose day is done. Those like poor Captain Harker.'

Warrender spoke these words in a quiet, detached voice that puzzled me. There was no opportunity to dwell on his strange mien, however, for we were already at the quarterdeck stair. Godsgift Judge looked almost military, at least by his own, entirely unique, standards. He wore a red jacket after the Persian fashion, which could have been mistaken from a distance for a Guardsman's tunic. His sword hung by his side, his great wig was capped incongruously by a black turban, and he held a large goblet of wine in his hand.

'Captain Quinton!' he trilled. 'A very good day, my dear sir. I trust our little salute did not startle you?' With a coy smirk he tapped me on the shoulder. 'I should have forewarned you, perhaps, but I was so impatient to hail the happy news.'

'News, Captain?'

'A princess, sir! A new daughter to the Duke and Duchess of York! A cock-boat out of Cardigan Bay brought us the news but half an hour ago. You'll join me to toast the glorious event, I trust?'

Now, my love of my country and my king was as strong as any man's, but I felt not a little embarrassed as I stood once more in Judge's aromatic great cabin, toasting an infant girl in far-offWhitehall. Surely, I reasoned, this child was hardly worthy of such attention. She would either die in infancy, or she would be supplanted by all the sons the duke would have, and even more by all those that King Charles would have with his new Portuguese queen. It seemed to me that, once more, the exquisite Judge was attempting to prove himself a true Cavalier, the staunchest Royalist. It turned my stomach. His chosen way of marking the royal birth, demonstrating in the process the very real superiority of his ship and crew over my own, doubtless did its part to shape my feelings.

Such were my thoughts, for we cannot read the future. Neither Godsgift Judge nor I knew that on that day in April 1662 we were toasting the birth of Her Most Gracious Majesty, Mary the Second, who would one day, by the grace both of God and several unlikely turns of fate, find herself Queen Regnant of England and the wife of William of Orange, our late and unlamented Dutch King. A queen twenty-two years younger than myself, yet I saw her buried, and that long, long ago.

After we had drunk what Judge considered to be an appropriately loyal amount of wine, and he had again nakedly solicited the good offices of the House of Quinton on his behalf, he sat me down at his table and unrolled a sea-chart of the west coast of Scotland. Like our sovereign lord the king, when he turned to matters of life and death Godsgift Judge put aside his outward appearance and superficial mannerisms, and became a very different man, decisive and clear. In truth, he became precisely the sort of man to whom Oliver Cromwell would have given the command of a great man-of-war.

'So, Captain Quinton,' he said, 'this is what I propose. When we come off the head of Kintyre, we'll send word to Dumbarton for the king's regiment to begin its march toward the coast. You'll take on your pilot for Scottish waters thereabouts–I can manage without any such, of course. Then, we'll make for the Sound of Jura, here, pass into the Firth of Lorne, here, and show ourselves around Mull, Lismore, and the coasts up to Skye.' He pointed at inlets and islands on a coastline that even on a chart looked to be strange and remote. I saw fingers of sea that stretched far into a land of mountains, and marked the many rocks and shoals scattered along our course. 'That should alert Glenrannoch to our coming, and perhaps be sufficient to change his mind before the soldiers reach Oban. We'll call on him, of course, and on some of the other chiefs in those lands. Maclean, certainly, Macdougall of Dunollie too, and some of the Macdonald septs: Clanranald, Glengarry, Lochiel...' He stopped and thought for a moment, drumming absently on the chart with his manicured fingertips. 'And perhaps Ardverran too. Yes, Ardverran, I think. They'll all benefit from a gentle reminder that the king's writ runs even in their black fastnesses.'

I was guarded, and feeling not a little resentful of Judge that day. Not at all put out, he leaned back on a chair that would not have been out of place in a salon, and shook his head slowly.

'Blood feuds, Captain Quinton. Endless blood feuds, these clansmen indulge themselves in. Generation after generation, century after century. God knows, when I was there last, I came to feel that many of them looked on our great civil wars as but a trivial and annoying diversion from their business of avenging themselves on each other for all eternity.'

'So what should I know of these lands and these people, Captain,' I asked, 'before we reach our destination?'

He smiled. 'More than I have time to tell you, Matthew, and more than you want to learn. Trust me in that. I was in those waters a whole year, and learned but a fraction of it. These people are a century or more behind us in manners and warfare alike, and their feuding makes the Italians look like saints. But it will work for us. For instance, if we but hint to the Macdonalds that the Campbells are rising under Glenrannoch, they'll likely do our work for us, at no expense to the king. Campbell against Macdonald, Captain Quinton. Forget all the lesser names, and the lesser feuds. Once, the Macdonalds had a kingdom in those lands, the Lordship of the Isles as they called it, but then the Kings of Scots and the Campbells brought them down. So in the late wars, when Campbell sided with Parliament, Macdonald fought for the king. They suffered harshly in those times, of course, but now, with the king restored and the Campbell Earls of Argyll brought low, the Macdonalds have risen again in the world. They'll not want to see Glenrannoch with an army, Captain Quinton, for though his aim is to conquer Scotland, you can be certain that somewhere along that road he'll use it to slaughter every last Macdonald.'

I asked, 'You knew Glenrannoch, when you were there before?'

'No, he was still abroad then. But I dealt with all the rest of the Campbells–and old Argyll, of course, Glenrannoch's cousin and chief, in name at any rate. He was still holed up at Inveraray after betraying every side he ever joined. Glenrannoch's name was everywhere, though, from Galloway up to Shetland. "When Glenrannoch comes back to his own," they'd say, as if he was some sort of Arthur returning from Avalon. They made him out to be the greatest general that ever lived: a cross between Gustavus Adolphus and Noll Cromwell. "Clan Campbell wouldn't be brought so low," one told me, "if Glenrannoch was here, and in Argyll's stead." All so much vainglorious Scots bluster, of course. We'll bring him low in his turn, Captain Quinton.'

Judge raised his cup to me. His rings sparkled in the sun, and I saw he was his simpering self once more. 'So, sir, I give you a swift and prosperous outcome to our mission.' He sipped his wine and dabbed delicately at his lips, all trace of the warrior gone. 'And then, who knows what beneficence we might expect from His Majesty, eh?'

My boat's crew was sullen as they rowed me back across the calm Irish Sea towards the
Jupiter.
It was Le Blanc, with that unfailing capacity of the French to disregard the moods of the English, who finally broke the silence.

'So,
monsieur le capitaine,
shall we, too, salute
l'enfant royale?'

Lanherne glared at him for his impertinence and I made no answer, but Le Blanc's question reflected my own thoughts. We would have to fire a salute, of course, but I knew full well that we could not hope to match the speed or immaculate coordination of the
Royal Martyr
's broadside. Judge and his men might laugh our efforts to the skies, and that would be a humiliation too far for these proud Cornish lads and their captain.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Le Blanc engage in a whispered conference with Polzeath and Lanherne. With a dismissive gesture at the
Royal Martyr,
Polzeath then turned to Treninnick. The simian oarsman's face broke into perhaps the most terrifying grin I ever saw and then, quite suddenly, he began to sing. For such an ugly creature, his voice was soft, almost feminine. I had encountered good singing many times, of course–only the previous winter, my brother Charles and I had encountered Desgranges, the great French bass, sing in London–but I never heard any, no matter how cried up, who could frame a tune as John Treninnick did in the
Jupiters
longboat that day. It was an old, old song, Lanherne said, of King Mark of Cornwall and the loves of the fair Isolde, and it was in the Cornish tongue. Treninnick finished the last verse just as we came alongside the starboard side of the
Jupiter,
and as he shipped his oar, Roger Le Blanc turned to me.

'Since I have been on this ship,
mon capitaine,
I have observed two things about these Cornish.' He looked at me, a strange smile playing about his lips. 'Yes, they can fight. But they can also sing.'

Thus it was that several hours later, His Majesty's ship the
Jupiter
fired precisely one gun to mark the birth of Her Royal Highness, the Princess Mary. But no man of the
Royal Martyr,
or of any other ship in the navy, could have saluted her so well. For as the echo of that single gun died away over the Irish Sea, John Treninnick sang a note, and one hundred and thirty-five Cornishmen, by birth or adoption, starboard and larboard watches together, with the Mahometan Ali Reis on his violin and our trumpeters matching the harmony, sang the great coronation anthem of Mr Lawes–'Zadok the Priest'–in which they had been hastily coached by Le Blanc and me. I had heard the same words sung almost exactly a year before, in Westminster Abbey, when King Charles was crowned. They tell me that German Handel made a new setting of it for his present majesty, German George, no doubt sung by his legion of Italian sopranos–great God, the country is overrun with foreigners–and though I have not heard it, I'll wager it is inferior to our good old English Lawes. But no matter. For I will swear on the graves of every Quinton in the vaults of Ravensden that whichever Zadok suits your preference, neither the choristers of the Chapel Royal nor Mr Handel's swarthy divas were even the slightest match for the men of the
Jupiter
on that April day so very long ago.

'God Save the King!' they sang. 'Long Live the King! May the King Live For Ever!' As they reached the final crescendo, Phineas Musk drew my attention to the
Royal Martyr.
Many of her crew were lining her larboard rail, watching and listening. I saw Godsgift Judge on his quarterdeck, and when he saw me, he smiled and raised his turban in salute. Then the
Royal Martyr
bore away, put on sail, and took up station well ahead of us once more.

I dined all the officers that afternoon, determined to make amends for my lack of attention to them since we had sailed from Spithead. Moreover they would all be well aware of the altercation over the boy Andrewartha, for no doubt most of them had been listening avidly in their cabins throughout. I wished to shore up the frail sense of unity and solidarity that existed between us before we sailed into what might prove to be enemy waters. Thus it was that at my order, Janks provided a meal fit for visiting royalty to delight the dullards of the
Jupiter's
officers: boiled pork; a gigget of excellent mutton and turnips; a piece of beef, well seasoned and roasted; a green goose; and best of all, a great fresh Cheshire cheese. I commanded our fullest range of liquor and my board fairly groaned with bottles of Canary, sherry, Rhenish, claret, white wine, cider, ale and beer, and punch like dishwater for the toasts.

The wind had died almost to nothing as we came to the table. We were somewhere in the middle of the Irish Sea, making barely any headway at all: no danger, then, of our lavish feast being tipped off the tables by an April storm, a fate that befell many a meal afloat; no danger, either, of our table being blighted by Malachi Landon's sourness, for he had the watch on deck where, no doubt, he was still brooding over his premonitions. Even the malevolence of Stafford Peverell seemed to have been put aside for once. He was still evidently abashed from the events of the previous day; as a result his society proved almost tolerable, for he said not a word. Those same events also seemed to have served as a catharsis for James Vyvyan. To my relief he kept his thoughts on his uncle's 'murder' to himself and acted the lieutenant's part admirably, serving as co-host at the far end of the table. The mood of my other officers was tentative; they were hardly exponents of courtly repartee at the best of times, but in the circumstances no man (their captain included) seemed quite to know which conversations were safe, and which were bound inexorably for the rocks of embarrassment.

We were seated, with Musk standing glumly behind my chair as my attendant, when the door opened to admit the Reverend Francis Gale. I noted with relief that he was attired rather more fully than on the occasion of our previous meeting.

'I heard there was finally a meal worth eating on this ship,' he said without ceremony.

Suppressing a smile I ordered a place to be laid for him alongside my own, and all the officers moved down, which caused a moment of pandemonium in the cramped cabin. Peverell, who had paled and turned away, his fist clenching upon the tablecloth, suddenly exclaimed that he felt quite ill, and with the captain's permission, he would retire to his cabin. That permission was immediately and unreservedly granted, and as the door closed upon him, the chaplain took his seat beside me.

Gale had been absent yet again from the day's prayers, conducted by the captain with his customary lack of enthusiasm, but he seemed sober enough now. A state that was unlikely to last, I thought wryly, as Musk, at an impatient signal from Gale, poured both Canary and then a cup of claret which was drained in two draughts. My opportunity to learn something of the chaplain would plainly be brief.