The Old Vengeful (13 page)

Elizabeth smiled as she lifted the dryer.
Five
counting everyone she could think of meant one more from somewhere … maybe Humphrey Aske, whom Paul clearly didn’t like?

“You switch on
there
—the little button … I’ll hold it—I do it for Mummy,” said Cathy helpfully.

“’Scrambler’?” Mercifully, it was a very expensive hair-dryer, which made shouting unnecessary. “What’s that?”

“Oh … it’s a thing that scrambles up words in the telephone, so no one else can hear them, except at the other end. Daddy doesn’t know how it works, because he’s not scientific—Mummy will tell you, if you’re interested.” Cathy held the hair-dryer away for a moment. “But don’t you work for Daddy? I thought you did—?”

That had been a mistake. But then perhaps this was all a mistake— to assume that the child knew more than was good for her, like all her pupils.

“What made you think that?” The sharpness of the question belied the false smile that went with it, warning her that she was still a beginner at Paul’s game. “Of course … I’m helping your father—
naturally
…
but…” She pretended to be more interested in her hair, which was frizzing out abominably, as it always did. “What made you think that?”

“Mummy said you’d had a bad time—that’s why I’m not supposed to bother you—but you don’t need to worry—not with all those men of Daddy’s, I mean—“

“What men?”

“At the back—on the hill … and there are another two down the drive, by Clarkie’s cottage—I saw them when I came back from Lucy’s. And Uncle Jack phoned—my godfather, he is—I know, because I took the call—“

“Uncle Jack?”

“Colonel Butler—don’t you know him? He’s awfully nice, and frightfully important—and, d’you know, he’s got
three
daughters— but they’re all much older than me, of course—do you have any sisters … or brothers?”

The mixture of prosaic family detail with the casual revelation of the guards Audley had set around his home for its protection—
her
protection—was somehow all the more frightening. “No, I’m an only daughter—no sisters, no brothers, Cathy.”

“Me too. Rotten luck!” Sisterly sympathy loosened the child’s inhibitions further. “And Mummy too—although she was meant to be one of three, all named after Gloster Gladiators, you know—“

“What?” Confusion enveloped Elizabeth.

“Gloster Gladiators. ‘Faith, Hope and Charity’—they were three aeroplanes at Malta during the war. But Mummy’s father—my
grandfather
—was killed before Hope and Charity could be born—he was an RAF pilot, you see … And Daddy’s father was killed too—that’s why I’ve got no grandparents, like everyone else … And
that
’
s
why Daddy does what he does—and Uncle Jack too—like the Rangers in
The Lord of the Rings
—you remember, Miss Loftus, Elizabeth, I mean—Aragorn’s people, who fought ‘the dark things from the houseless hills’ in secret.” Cathy plied the hair-dryer expertly. “ ‘The last remnant of a great people … the Men of the West’—I always think that’s a sad bit of the story, about them.”

So that was what they’d told the child, thought Elizabeth. And it was a clever way of handling an inquisitive child, too—not to cut her off from the secret, but instead to make her part of it so that she could take it for granted.

“
Cathy
!” Faith Audley’s voice came from somewhere outside the room. “
Are you bothering Miss Loftus
?”

Cathy switched off the hair-dryer and went to the long, low window. “No, Mummy—I’m drying her hair. She asked me to.”

“Hmmm! Very well… Would you tell her, when she’s ready, that Dr Mitchell is on the terrace, and he’d like a word with her?”

Cathy turned back into the room. “You mustn’t mind Mummy— she used to be a school-teacher, you know. She says that Dr Mitchell—did you hear?”

“Yes.” Any chance of pumping the child was gone now, and it hadn’t been such a good idea in the first place.

“I think it’s almost dry now, anyway.” Cathy surveyed her handiwork critically. “It’s going to be like those paintings Daddy likes— sort of Lady of Shalott-ish.”

Frizzy
was the word. Elizabeth scowled at her reflection, waiting for the mirror to crack from side to side. “Yes … it looks fine, dear.”

Then I’d better go.” Cathy turned at the door. “Good luck with Daddy, and all that, Elizabeth. And long live the Paul—and Dunedin!”

The Dunedin? Elizabeth stared at the door. The Dunedin were … they were Aragorn’s people, of course—the Rangers who hunted those “dark things” …

Her eyes came back to herself, to her own eyes watching her in the mirror, dark-shadowed. It was obvious, what the child meant—so obvious, and also oddly flattering, to be type-cast not as just another school-teacher, like Mummy, but as one of the select band of the Dunedin, the SAS of Middle Earth … obvious and flattering—and quite wrong.

And, anyway, she must not keep one of the genuine Dunedin waiting on the terrace, thought Elizabeth as she reached for the caftan.

“Ah—Elizabeth!” The genuine Dunadan rose at her approach, looking at her strangely, from out of a welter of scattered type-script.

Strangely
, as well he might with the way she looked, she thought, grasping the voluminous silken folds in an effort not to trip as she negotiated the stone steps. And then the whole scene around him took her mind right off her own bizarre appearance.

The suitcase from her interrogation—the pink files were the completed chapters from Father’s book, the green ones his vestigial notes and rough drafts—and other things she couldn’t place … but they were of no consequence compared with Father’s
Vengeful
box, also gaping open—but
empty
!

Her eyes met Paul’s and her mouth opened stupidly, and worried avarice progressed instantly to shame as he grinned at her.

“Don’t fret—we haven’t made away with your prize-money. Faith just doesn’t like piles of loose cash lying around her house, that’s all, so she’s locked it all up safely somewhere.” He reached towards the empty box. “ ‘
William Willard Pike
—
Surgeon, HM Ship Vengefull
’
—I hope Dr Pike’s medical skill was more reliable than his spelling … But who are these others, inscribed on the inside of the lid?
Amos Ratsey, Jas. O
’
Byrne, Octavius Phelan
and the rest? Would they be the ship’s officers?”

“No.” It was a relief to cover her embarrassment with even half-baked information. “Father thought they might be his grateful patients—the ones who presented him with the box of instruments when he joined the ship. But that doesn’t really fit.”

“Why not?” He flipped the lid closed. “Wasn’t he a good surgeon?”

“Nobody knows … Father couldn’t trace him on shore. But ships’ doctors certainly weren’t the cream of the profession in those days—a lot of them were failures and drunkards who couldn’t make a go of it ashore … In fact, they weren’t even rated as officers until the 1840s—they were warrant officers—or, technically, they were just civilians, on the same level as the purser and the chaplain, you see.”

“I don’t really see. But it doesn’t matter.” He picked up the pages he’d been holding when she’d hobbled out of the French windows. “This is what’s fascinating—what a rotten old tub the
Vengeful
was!”

“She wasn’t old. She was launched in 1805.”

“The year of Trafalgar! Okay—not old, but just rotten. Did we always build so badly?” He gestured towards one of the chairs on the terrace. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth—my manners are appalling … Do sit down—would you like a drink? Sherry or beer … or something stronger?”

“Nothing, thank you.” He seemed to have forgotten yesterday completely. “Does it surprise you that we built inferior ships?”

He shook his head. “No, not at all, actually … We built the first dreadnought in 1905-1906… But we didn’t build a good capital ship until the 1912 estimates—the
Queen Elizabeth
class—up to then everyone else seems to have made a better job of it… But your father says we actually copied the
Vengeful
design—from the French?”

“That’s right. It was based on a French frigate that was captured in 1797, and measured at Chatham—the French and the Spaniards always built better ships than we did … better sailers, with more guns. But it was the Americans who built the best frigates—Father called them ‘pocket-battleships’—he thought the
President
was the finest frigate ever built, but we didn’t capture her until 1814 … By then we were actually cutting down ships-of-the-line—battleships— to take on their frigates, after what had happened to the
Guerriere
and
the Java
and the
Macedonian
.”

“But HMS
Shannon
took USS
Chesapeake
, I seem to remember?”

“Yes—but the
Shannon
was our best frigate—Broke was gunnery-mad—and the
Chesapeake
was their worst one—“ Elizabeth halted her enthusiasm in mid-flow, aware that it was Father who was speaking out of her mouth, and that none of it had anything to do with the
Vengeful
anyway.

“I once wrote a very bad essay on the War of 1812, you know.” He seemed to catch her incomprehension. “Or, it was about Anglo-American relations in the early nineteenth century actually, only it got bogged down with the war of 1812 … But, of course, the
Vengeful
was at the bottom of the sea a month before the Yankees stabbed us in the back, wasn’t she?”

He was putting her at ease again, decided Elizabeth. And that was something she no longer needed. “You wanted to have a word with me, Mrs Audley said—?”

He focussed on her. “Yes—that’s right, Elizabeth. Now … this was the chapter your father was re-writing—the one about the seventh
Vengeful
—you made a guess about it, but you don’t actually know?” He held up the original chapter, all her beautiful typing, without a single erasure.

“No. But there ought to be something in his notes.” She looked quickly at the suitcase.

“Yes … maybe. But I’d like to get the original details clear first.” He smiled. “So … Number Seven was coming back from Gibraltar, via Lisbon, for a major refit—or maybe to be condemned as unfit— when she met the
Fortuné
off Ushant … in the early summer of 1812?”

“May 5th.” Her eyes were drawn to the typed pages. “It’s all down there.”

“Uh-huh. That was the usual route home, was it?”

“What d’you mean—usual?”

“Well, if they were going to run into trouble, it would be most likely close to the French coast, wouldn’t it?”

“Trouble?” Now she could smile back—at his innocence. “I expect that’s what Captain Williams was hoping for. Frigate captains were always on the look-out for trouble—and prize-money. One good capture could make him rich … like a French Indiaman. There were still one or two of them around, even as late as 1812.”

“Instead of which he met the
Fortuné
, though—“

“That would have done almost as well. Prize-money
and
glory!”

“But the
Fortuné was
much bigger—44 guns and 1200 tons to his 36 guns and 975 tons … and the French crew was substantially bigger too, and the
Vengeful
was desperately under-strength—“ he started to riffle through the pages “—it’s here somewhere, the figures—“

“It doesn’t matter—he wouldn’t have thought twice about any of that.”

He frowned. “Why not?”

“It isn’t in there, but Father had me draw up an appendix about frigate losses during the whole war, from 1793 to 1815—he liked appendices.” Elizabeth switched on her memory, and the neat columns of figures came to her photographically. “We lost eighty-two of them altogether, but only nine of those were by enemy action—and that includes wars against practically every country in Europe, plus the United States … the rest were wreck or accident, and mostly wreck, like the
Vengeful
. But in the same period we sank or captured … oh, I think it was nearly 250 enemy frigates—238, it was.” The way he was looking at her, she had to shrug modestly. “I remember the numbers because Father made me total them all for him.”

“I see …” He grinned lop-sidedly. “Now I understand what
Rule Britannia
meant! So Captain Williams thought he was on a statistical winner, in fact?”

“He’d have expected to win.” Elizabeth shrugged. “He’d have been court-martiallcd if he hadn’t fought, anyway.”

“But the Frenchman fought better than he expected, apparently?”

She had to shrug again. “They probably did more damage to the
Vengeful
than he expected. But that was because she was in such a rotten condition, Father thought—and that came from the testimony of the survivors from the prize-crew on the
Fortuné
, after she sank … The French always fought bravely, though.” She looked at him curiously. “What’s the object of all this?”

“Nothing really … The
Fortuné
couldn’t have been waiting for the
Vengeful
, could it—she, I mean?”

“No.” She shook her head decisively. “That’s quite out of the question. With sailing ships in those days … no way. It’s quite out of the question.”

“I see … So they met by accident, and they beat each other to a pulp … And after the surviving officer in the
Vengeful
had sent across his prize-crew to take over the
Fortuné
—including the good Dr Pike—“ he pointed to the surgeon’s box “—the worst storm of the year started to blow up … Is that the size of it?” He bent over the type-script again. “Where is it, now? Ah … ‘
leaving the victor in a more desperate case than the vanquished, partially dismasted, and her remaining sails, spars and rigging much cut about
’
—that was because the French aimed for the masts, on the up-roll, and the British aimed for the hull, on the down-roll … I’m getting the picture, you see … and that also accounted for the disproportionate casualties the French usually suffered, I suppose. Although your father is a bit imprecise on them—in fact, he’s a bit vague about Number Seven’s last voyage in general, wouldn’t you say? Compared with the other chapters” He cocked a critical eyebrow at her.