Twenty-Five
They buried Shockhead Eaton's body within sight of his home coast, with little ceremony but enough emotion. Lieutenant Kaye conducted, having decided as was his right not to transport the man's remains to land, there being little point. As far as anybody knew he had no people waiting on him, he'd never talked of home or family. Sam and William remembered the maid he'd stayed to be with, but knew neither name nor place by which to trace her. Or indeed, if she were wed to someone else, which would make a welcome for the sorry corpse a shade unlikely. They did not even bother to heave the Biter to, just handed spokes to bring her to the shake, so cranky was she under bodged-up head sails a jury staysail instead of fore course and her brig sail Shockhead was popular but men died, that was the general attitude: he should have kept his eyes aloft, and not sailed with such a drunken crew. By the time they buried him the spree was long past, and the company were very far from liveliness.
In Surrey that same day they buried Charles Yorke at Sir Arthur Fisher's house. This too was done with deep emotion but no great pomp, except that all the women of the household were swathed in black, and Sir Peter Maybold, the Surveyor General, was invited to represent the Customs House. He did arrive by splendid coach, but respected his friend's request for simple dignity, although his periwig, chosen by his wife Laetitia, was rather full and lustrous, and a touch archaic. Laetitia, who enjoyed a funeral for the dressing up, had been persuaded to stay in town and make some other amusement for herself. She had pouted, thought for three seconds, and announced that she had hit on 'just the thing'. Maybold, sombre eyes across the rolling green of Fisher's land, had looked the very picture of well-bred misery. It was no act.
The decision to retrieve the body from the Devil's Punchbowl had been forced on Sir A by the fact that, heavy with the knowledge brought by the two midshipmen, he could no longer bear to wait to see the right thing done. It had become apparent within a day that they were not coming back as planned, which was confirmed by a letter the day after that from Bobby Beaumont at the Admiralty. Kaye had slipped his moorings without a by-your-leave, it said, and 'for all his papa is a bloody duke, I'll roast the bugger's buttocks'. That same morning Tony and some trusted men had set off with a light closed cart, and muskets, cutlasses, and picks and shovels. They had found the marked trees, then the cairn and body, and had met no opposition. The undertaker had begged Sir Arthur not to view the corpse before he'd coffined it, but Sir Arthur had insisted.
Kaye's buttocks were not roasted when the Biter was lodged finally alongside a quay at Deptford, but there was a reception for him that all on board found immensely shocking. The last minutes were a monument to chaos in any case, as Gunning's men, within a sniff of shore, behaved as private seamen always did and ran. As the dockyard pull men manoeuvred her the last few complex yards, unmanageable in a falling tide, they dropped all vestiges of obedience, ignored orders from Gunning or the Navy officers, and perched themselves on the bulwarks and in the chains to get first jump for shore. Before the Biter's side was six feet from the staging the first men had launched themselves above the swirling water, and when they hit the ground they scampered off like rabbits. Gunning did not even watch them as they went. Within two minutes of the mooring lines being secured, he had also gone.
But on the shore, watching this performance, was a post captain with severe eyes like an owl's staring out from underneath his wig, a pair of Navy Office clerks, and an old, thin man who Sam said could only be a lawyer, for any odds. In moments he was proved right, as the party came on board and spoke to Lieutenant Kaye, the thin old chap wagging a furled parchment like a judge's gavel. As Kaye heard them out his when changed from its normal bored superiority, his insouciance seemed lost. As he led them aft to the cabin's privacy, Sam swore Slack Dickie's eyes had flashed alarm.
He guessed the Noble Goring's captain had lodged complaints, and had the pull with someone to back them up. When Black Bob was ejected, to stand disconsolate and watch the Deptford shore, they asked him what was up below, but he would not reply, and ran off forward where he disappeared.
The truth, when they came to it, was stranger yet. They busied themselves for half an hour with their people and the Deptford men in snugging the Biter for her dockyard work, until one of the clerks sought them out and bade them aft. When they pointed to unfinished work he told them it was orders, not of Lieutenant Kaye, but Captain Oxforde from the Admiralty. There were no more answers to their questions, but soon they stood in front of this august man, who was at a table flanked by the other clerk and the aged legal type. Kaye sat to one side, his self-satisfaction overlaid by a glower, and stared intensely at them in a way William took as threatening.
The post captain had a voice to match his looks, and he outlined what he was there for with crystalline acidity. The owner of a ship called Katharine, on information from her master James McEwan, had raised a yeoman posse that had come to London from the depths of Hertfordshire to effect an arrest on the person of their own commanding officer, Lieutenant Richard Herbert Kaye, for the alleged murder of one Peter Morris, Katharine's first mate, by discharge of a pistol. Their lordships, he added, viewed the allegations with the utmost seriousness, reflecting as they did on the honour and integrity of the service. Naturally, Lieutenant Kaye was scandalised by the accusation, which he denied in its entirety. However
"However," interrupted Kaye. "As you fellows damn well know '
"Lieutenant Kaye," said Oxforde. "You stand across me, sir."
"But '
"You interrupt me. I will not put up with it. You deny this charge, that is understood. The posse is disarmed and waiting. They have a warrant, signed by a magistrate, but we have lawyers also. I am here to give them ammunition. You do not help by blustering."
The lawyer cleared his throat.
"The Impress is not a favourite service with the layman," he said.
His voice was soft but clear. "Before I can have that warrant set aside I must have facts that will make even a country justice see there is no case. That, gentlemen, is what I hope from you."
"Within the truth, of course," said Captain Oxforde. "That is understood, I hope."
William could see it with an awful clarity. He could see the Katharine's great cabin, he could smell the burning powder, remember what that young man looked like, chest torn open in a bloody hole. He could see Kaye with the first mate's pistol, pawing at its action. His stomach sank inside him in disgust.
"I heard a row, sir," he started. "We heard '
"You were not asked to speak." Oxforde's voice was cutting. His finger moved up from the table, to point at Sam. "You. Tell me what you saw."
Sam wet his mouth.
"As Mr. Bentley says, sir, we heard a '
The captain's hand slammed down, a loud, sharp bang. Sam stopped.
"It is an easy language," said Captain Oxforde, almost pleasantly. "Speak it with me. I said tell me what you saw. The incident was in the cabin, was it not? So we are in the cabin, aren't we? You, sir, and Lieutenant Kaye, and your friend Mr. Bentley. And the ... ah ... Lieutenant Kaye's attacker. What did you see?"