The Devil's Own Luck (10 page)

Bentley, still red-faced from ill temper, ran at a group of men laying out a sail on the upper deck. He grabbed the first one he came to and spun him round.

“Lazy swine!” he cried, and struck the man around the ears. “Marines. Seize him!” The man, wholly innocent in Harry’s eyes, staggered back as two marines came forward to take his arms.

“Leave him be,” shouted one of his mates, stepping in front of the victim. “You murderous bugger. Weren’t Larkin enough for you?”

Bentley froze at this. Then he seemed to go berserk. Seizing a marine’s musket, he swiped the offending speaker in the groin. The man doubled over and fell to his knees. Bentley raised the gun over his head, obviously intending to crush the man’s skull.

“Mr Bentley,” screamed Turnbull, the marine officer. His expression, like Mangold’s, was one of fear. Perhaps not for himself, but for his superior, who was in the act of committing murder. The gun reached the top of its arc and stopped. The man on his knees looked up into Bentley’s face, not with fear, but with defiance. The premier brought the weapon down at speed, stopping it just above the man’s face. He then tapped him painfully on the cheek.

“We’ll see how long that look is maintained when you are at the grating.” Bentley had his back to them, but Harry would have sworn that he was smiling.

Punctuality was highly prized in the Navy, and so all those who were invited to Carter’s dinner were ready well before the appointed hour. Judging by the number assembled, he had indeed invited everyone on board bar the officers of the watch. Most stood in small groups talking quietly. The formality of the occasion was highlighted by everyone being in dress uniform. Dark blue broad-cloth alternated with silver facings and newly powdered wigs. The exception was Bentley, who had not troubled to change out of his everyday clothes. By his demeanour, let alone the state of his dress, it was plain that he was already in drink. He was showing away to Craddock and Turnbull in a loud voice. The contrast between the elegant, red-coated marine and the dishevelled premier was stark, despite the fact that neither had bothered to don their wigs.

Harry with his bandage, and James, bareheaded also, stood talking with the captain of the
Verite.
In contrast to the officers of the
Magnanime
he had taken the first opportunity to commiserate with them on the loss of the
Medusa.
They discussed the action between the three ships without rancour, the French captain striking his head in a theatrical way as Harry explained to him about the kedge that had so slowed the
Medusa.
He had been a mere master’s mate before the Revolution, from which position he had never dreamed of command. His promotion to his present rank had been because of his abilities, rather than any revolutionary fervour. Most of his superiors, being well born, had fled France to avoid the “Terror.” People with enough experience to sail a ship, let alone command, were in very short supply.

Inevitably their discussion came to the point at which the
Magnanime
had failed to support the
Medusa.
Suddenly the Frenchman’s friendly air, and his fluency, seemed to evaporate, to be replaced by an inability to properly express himself in either English or his native tongue. He mumbled haltingly about the need for the larger ship to avoid a trap, but it was plain that he was merely trotting out what he had been told rather than something he believed. He was saved from further embarrassment by the announcement that the time had come to take their places for dinner.

“Today, at least, we can anticipate a good dinner, a meal liberated from the enemy,” barked Bentley, looking across to where they stood. “Add to that the fact that it is free, and it promises to be a capital affair.” It was not plain if he was addressing the Ludlows or their companion.

“Remember,” said Harry, “be hearty. We won’t spoil Carter’s feast by being glum.” Harry had said this to James several times, each mention producing a very glum response. How could James explain to his brother that he thought being “hearty” the height of bad manners.

On entering the cabin they split up. The table which Carter had used as a desk now had the extra leaves fitted, and was set across the whole width of the cabin. James was directed to sit at one end of the table next to Bentley. Harry was off to the side, out of Carter’s line of sight, seated between Crevitt and the young midshipman Prentice. Craddock sat opposite him, but he immediately engaged a large florid man on his right, well dressed and well fed, in deep conversation. It would never do to be seen talking to a Ludlow at the captain’s dinner. Harry looked down the table to see Bentley talking across James to the young marine officer. His brother’s eyes were looking at the oak beams above his head, his face a picture of utter boredom. He declined to show any interest as the soup was placed before him.

Harry turned to the midshipman, wondering if Carter disliked the boy. He seemed to make a point of giving the lad unpleasant messages to deliver, and now he had placed him next to Harry, which could not be construed as a mark of favour.

Prentice sat stiffly, not looking right or left. Harry could not know that the tales of his temper, so avidly spread by the lower deck, had caused an even greater stir in the midshipmen’s berth. Prentice, convinced that he was a sacrificial offering on the part of the ship, was terrified, fully expecting to be dead before he had finished his soup.

“Well,” said Harry quietly, trying to put the boy at his ease. “How kind of the captain to put me next to a sailor. I shall have someone to talk to.” Harry dropped his voice to a whisper, indicating with his eyes the parson busily engaged in talking to an officer on his left. “I fear I won’t have much in common with a parson.”

Prentice merely blinked, but Harry’s pleasant manner had served to blunt his fear.

“The gentleman opposite, talking to Mr Craddock. Would he be the purser?”

The boy’s head jerked forward once.

“You can always tell a purser. Best-fed man aboard.” A smile nearly showed on the midshipman’s face. For people like midshipmen, who were always hungry, a fat man was a source of some jealous speculation.

“Now, you must tell me how long you have been at sea,” Harry continued. “And then we can compare notes on the differences between your mid’s berth nowadays, and what it was like in my day.”

Prentice turned and looked at Harry strangely. He could not conceive that this fully grown man had once been like him.

“I served aboard the
Magnanime
once. May well have had the same berth as you. I dare say, like me, you’ll never forget the first day you came aboard a ship. The first thing I remember is the smell. How about you?”

“Yes, the smell,” croaked the boy.

“It seemed to get worse as you went down in the ship. Mind, the one I joined was fully commissioned and had just come back from a cruise. And the hands had been paid, so they were having a high old time on the gundeck. Bodies everywhere, and no sense of shame in the women or the men. Bit of a shock that. To me anyway. A ship is nothing like home.”

Harry had struck the right chord. Like most of the boys who joined the Navy, Prentice had come from a warm domestic atmosphere to the floating maelstrom of a fighting ship. Prentice vividly remembered the shock of joining the
Magnanime.
How different it had been from the thoughts he had entertained, and the home he had left.

“It seemed to me like I was walking into hell.”

The boy nearly smiled. Crevitt on the other side, having leaned back to allow a manservant to fill his soup plate, responded to the word.

“Do I hear you lecturing young Mr Prentice on the evils of the midshipmen’s berth, Mr Ludlow?” Harry turned to face him. There was little warmth in his look, but that did not deter the parson. “I sincerely hope so; for if we cannot turn the young away from vice, then what chance do we have with fully grown men?”

To Harry, Crevitt was Carter’s man, body and probably soul. He felt no reason to be polite. His soup was poured from a ladle as he replied.

“In my experience, Mr Crevitt, attempts to deny men their passions merely excited their ingenuity. Where there’s a will . . .”

“Indeed.” Crevitt’s soup spoon stopped half-way to his mouth, his face closing. The thought, be it passion or ingenuity, obviously displeased him.

“Why, some men cloak themselves in all manner of garb,” continued Harry, “adopt a high moral tone, and condemn others, while themselves indulging in the very acts that they seek to bar to their fellow man. That is probably the best example of ingenuity.”

“Perhaps hypocrisy would be a better word.”

“Perhaps. Yet I dare say in your time you have occasioned across the odd parson whose behaviour has concerned you. Not all men of the cloth are upright and honest?”

“Ordination is one thing, Mr Ludlow. Salvation is quite another. None of us are free from sin. But as a general rule, men of the cloth are better at avoidance than your average tar.”

Crevitt was looking at Harry in a very direct manner. He was clearly not a man to take an insult lying down. Harry beamed at him over his spoon.

“Why, Mr Crevitt. I fear you have taken me in entirely the wrong manner. But I shan’t worry, you being in the business of forgiving.”

“It is God who is in that business, Mr Ludlow. I am merely his servant.” His air of superiority goaded Harry.

“It has been my experience that servants often know more than their masters.”

“That is bordering on blasphemy, sir.”

“I speak in the terrestrial sense, of course. Looking around this collection of sinners, who would you say is a candidate for divine favour? Or more interesting, who here is destined for the fires of damnation?”

There was a loud crash and everyone at the table looked over to see Bentley being helped to his feet. His wine had spilled across the white cloth, and a servant was busy mopping it up.

“Damn chair,” snapped Bentley. “Went from under me.”

He sat down and held out his empty glass to be refilled. Harry leant forward and looked over towards Carter. The captain was the only one at the table not looking at his first lieutenant. He was staring at his soup plate, his face perfectly blank. Yet his struggle to control himself was obvious. After a few seconds he lifted his head, and with a false smile turned to engage his neighbours in conversation. As if on cue, everyone else followed suit.

Strange, thought Harry. Can Carter really ignore the fact that his second in command has turned up drunk and improperly dressed?

“I fear Mr Bentley is beyond your ministrations, Mr Crevitt, though you can’t fault his timing. But such saintly behaviour on the part of the captain. Such restraint. Surely that must excite divine admiration?”

“If not yours?”

“I have little experience of Mr Carter restraining himself, unless you referred to the events of yesterday.”

The spoon stopped half-way to the mouth. “From the little Captain Carter has told me about you, restraint is not a virtue you would be able to advise him about.”

“Touché,
Mr Crevitt.”

“It is my impression that you have a wholly wrong view of Captain Carter.” The spoon was now pointing at Harry.

“Perhaps. My view is coloured by his continual insults and his deliberate endangering of my life. I will not mention the cost of replacing my ship.”

“Such things are the effect of your quarrel. It would be more advantageous to examine the cause.” Crevitt put his spoon in the plate, since Harry’s look left him in little doubt that he disliked being addressed so.

“You are addressing the wrong person, Mr Crevitt,” said Harry sharply. The parson opened his mouth to speak, but an angry voice from across the room made them both turn their heads.

“You, sir, are a drunken oaf.”

James’s voice, raised in anger, cut across the buzz of conversation. Every head turned and silence fell. James was on his feet, his napkin in his hand. Bentley, his chair tipped back, was leering at him with a drunken smile.

“I intended it as a compliment, sir.”

“You are a disgrace to the uniform you wear.”

“Mr Ludlow,” Carter said. “I would remind you of your manners.”

“You!” spat James, going red in the face. Harry had never seen this side of his urbane brother before. He looked as though he was about to burst a blood vessel. “You have no right to remind me of anything. And as for this specimen here—” James indicated the still smiling Bentley.

“What a sensitive crew they are, these Ludlows.” Bentley leant on the table and looked bleary-eyed at Carter. “Not like us, Captain Carter.”

“I would not wish to have to remind you of your manners too, Mr Bentley.”

“Neither would I.” There was a discernible pause before he added
sir.
Bentley’s face had changed. The smile had vanished to be replaced by a challenging look. Harry, like everyone else, waited for Carter to check his first lieutenant. No one could doubt the insolence in the man’s look and manner.

Carter said nothing.

“And as for you, sir,” said Bentley, turning back to James, “perhaps you’re accustomed to a more refined society, where allusions to the attractions of the fair sex are more guarded. But you’re aboard a man-of-war now. And we address such things differently.”

James was staring at Carter. Plainly he too could not believe that he was allowing Bentley to behave this way. He turned back to the seated premier.

“I would not have a sodden lecher like you make any allusion to a woman in my company, let alone my sister.”

“All women are someone’s sister, sir. But I never bother to enquire after their brother’s health when I bed them.”

“Mr Bentley,” said Harry sharply. “I have served in the King’s ships, yet I cannot recall such a lack of manners in someone so close to being the host.”

“Manners?” sneered Bentley. “Ah yes. Was not this denizen of the drawing-room telling me about mine today?”

“James,” snapped Harry. “Sit down.”

His brother looked set to argue, but when he saw Harry turn towards Carter, his face drawn with repressed anger, he obliged.