The Privateersman (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 1) (2 page)

The track quickly led him to the highway, such as it
was; it was an old road, not a modern turnpike, which meant that it had no
gates to pass but also that its surface was rutted, potholed, broken, thickly
muddy where it crossed a stream, a dust-bath when it was dry, a quagmire when
wet, but it was better than trying to force a slow passage across the heathland
or through the river valley. It was a dry night and he was able to make an easy
trot under the sliver of a moon and the bright starlight. There was enough
light for him to be able to pick out movement at a safe distance, but the road
was empty, only his figure moving through the desert of the night, local people
had no call to be out of their villages after dark and carriers and carters
worked the daylight hours solely; only the Mail coaches ran at night, and there
were none of them on this local road.

A tawny owl passed silently over his head, a rush of
air its only indication, and a pair of screech owls talked to each other for a
few minutes. Once he spotted a bat against the moon. Otherwise he was alone,
but that was nothing new, he always had been. He could not remember his mother,
she had died when he was two or three, and his father had always been a distant
figure – not unkind, protective, making sure there was food on the table and
clothes on his back, teaching him the ways of the fishing boats, and the
associated trade, but never with much to say, almost never touching him. His
father had found the pennies for dame school, had never begrudged them, had
insisted that he went to school, in fact, and in one of their very few
conversations had asked him if he wanted to go on to the Latin school in
Bridport, the dame having said he was bright enough to be successful there; he
had accepted his assurance that he would rather go to sea without comment either
way. They had lived in their own small cottage, a little removed from the
village, with their own short crescent of shingle where they drew the boat up,
just far enough out to keep themselves to themselves and to make sure that his
acquaintances from school never became close friends. It had the advantage that
there was nothing to regret, no kin, no soul-mate to sever ties with; very
little in the way of personal possessions either, nothing to cherish for
sentiment – he could look forward, there was nothing behind him; he wondered if
there would ever be anything in front.

For miles the road crossed the empty heaths before
dropping down to the coastal clays, equally desolate at first, the soil
unfriendly to farming except after a lot of labour and money had been put into
drainage and dung and marl, but close to Poole and its market there was arable
land, made fields with smallholdings and hamlets to work them. In the nature of
things, the road would go through the middle of each cluster of houses, and
that presented him with a gamble. If he kept to the road he might be stopped in
any of the villages – strangers in the night were rare and unwelcome beings,
especially close to a villainous set of townies, thieves and rascals to a man;
if he moved out into the fields he might wake the dogs, might be chased down by
suspicious farmers who would certainly hale him off to the constable for being
on their land without reason. On the road he might be able to claim that he was
a bona fide traveller, a seaman, say, from Wimborne, who had dallied over-long
at home or with his girl and had to make the morning tide; in the fields he had
to be a poacher at best. If the hue and cry was up for him then he was lost,
but if there was no alert out then he might be able to talk his way through a
village.

In the event he was not stopped at all; he walked
the road and was ignored, if he was ever seen. The constables remained tucked
up warm in their beds and the busybodies occupied themselves elsewhere while
the watchdogs were used to foot-traffic on the road and would only raise the
alarm for those who strayed off the carriageway.

Soon after dawn he was in Poole, ambling down the
High Street to the quayside, lost in the early-morning bustle of the waking
working day. He found a pie-shop as it opened, joined a dozen other men
grabbing a hot breakfast.

‘Rabbit pie’, so the board said, ‘hot for d1’.

It was hot and it cost a penny, so the shopkeeper
wasn’t a complete liar, but it tasted unlike any rabbit he had ever eaten.

“Rabbit, mister?”

“Well, what do you expect for a bloody penny?
There’s a bit of ‘orse in it. About fifty-fifty, I suppose.”

“Yeah, one ‘orse, one rabbit!”

It was edible and he was hungry; he finished it and
wandered off, down to the waterfront to see what was about.

The town was old and rich and the port was bustling,
the harbour full of coasters and small merchantmen and one big whaler, immediately
identifiable by the basket crow’s nest. Nothing else bigger than two hundred
tons, he estimated, most much less, typical local traffic. A dozen or so of
fishing smacks, the larger drifters who would follow the herring run all the
way from Newcastle to Penzance, selling at each port along the whole coast;
they would work the mackerel off the West Country and then make their way back
north before the worst of the winter storms set in; good money, but six or
seven months out at a time. A few smaller boats, mostly local crabbers, not
many in Poole, they were mostly working out of the local fishing villages, had
probably come in to market. Three schooners and a lugger that looked a little
too prosperous for working boats, well-kept and smart; smugglers for sure,
working out of the Jersey entrepot, bringing in wines for the gentry and thus untouchable
by the excise men, their bribes paid at the highest level and willing to be
seen in daylight. One brig, somewhat larger than most, pierced for five or six
guns on the broadside; not smart enough for navy and too few men in sight; too
big to be a Revenue cutter, and probably too slow as well; a trader to Africa,
maybe, or a Levanter, needing to defend herself against the Barbary pirates;
being Poole, she might well be a private ship of war. Worth thinking about if
he couldn’t get out any other way, there was money to be made on the privateers,
but they were poorly regarded, generally speaking, too willing to turn to
slaving in peacetime, and slaving was low. Besides that, there were always
rumours about privateers – inconvenient prisoners, such as crewmen and poor
passengers who could not pay a ransom, knocked over the head and thrown
overboard, worse happening first to the females amongst them, that was always
said; of some private men of war the accusation was made of downright piracy –
they were said to take English ships into French ports, French ships into
English. It was all possible, even likely, which was why generally speaking
fisher folk did not go into privateers, or if they did, never came back to the
nets again.

The quayside was lined, alternately it seemed, with
boozers and ships’ chandlers – Poole was famous for its drinking houses, there
were said to be ninety two along the mile of the High Street alone – Saturday
night was famous for its drunken rioting. Not so many years back a drunken mob
had hanged every Excise man in town outside their own office – though that was
regarded as excessive, a one-off jollification which had not been repeated, the
redcoats had been sent in afterwards and had been more than usually brutal. The
pubs acted as meeting houses and often as ships’ agents, places where crew
could sign on or passengers find a cabin; it was just a question of finding the
right one. He looked up and down the whole quay before determining on the
Horseshoes Inn because it was older, bigger, stone-built, respectable-seeming,
likely to deal with a better class of mariner, perhaps. He sat and waited for a
couple of hours, until the sun was higher – the drinkers of early morning would
have no interest in business, would have nothing useful to say; anyone who
needed to drink his breakfast was unlikely to be a successful, prosperous,
honest sailor.

He did his best to spruce himself up, splashed water
on his face and hands and smoothed his hair down, trying to look within reason
respectable himself, then walked into the bar and took a pint of mild, the
cheapest and weakest of beers. A quick pull at his mug and he asked the potman
how he would go about buying a passage out of Poole; he wanted to go to the
Americas, he said, and understood he needed to take passage on a Bristolman.

“Or from Cork, young master. You won’t be wanting to
go up to London, to pick up a cabin there, so the easiest way be to take a
coasting ship to Bristol or to the Cove of Cork. There’s three Bristolmen in
that I know of the while, but whether they be bound east or west, I can’t say,
off hand, like, young sir. I could find out for thee easy enough, sir. Will you
be staying here, overnight, sir? A dinner and a bed and bite to eat in the
morning, sir, your own room, all for eighteen pence, sir.”

He had to sleep somewhere, did not want to rough it
in a back alley – a room made sense.

“Yes, please, I’d not thought of having to stay a
night, but that makes good sense.”

“Yes, sir. What be the name, sir?”

“Andrews, Thomas Andrews.”

As he said it he realised that he should not have
given his own real name, he should have invented one, but it was too late now,
and he would be gone tomorrow.

“If so be you’re wishful to go to the Americas, Mr
Andrews, you’ll be wanting some clothes for the voyage, I should reckon.”

“I suppose I will – I can get them this morning.”

“Would thee like to pay for the room, up front,
like, sir?”

Tom dug into his pocket, took out his leather
drawstring purse, pulled out silver for the room, putting gold back, not awake
to the bartender’s eyes making a rapid valuation of the contents.

“Thank’ee, sir. If you be wishful, you can pick up
warm clothes and a bag and necessities in the shops along the High Street,
sir.”

Tom thanked him for his help and obediently went out
to make his purchases – a heavy leather valise and working shirts, canvas
trousers, thick socks and a warm woolly jumper, a waterproof jacket to go over
all; he decided to buy boots as well, found a pair that fitted quite
comfortably and would provide him with something to wear on land. A little
thought saw him invest in two pairs of flannel drawers to wear week and week
about, and then a length of towelling and a bar of soap. Equipped for all of
his needs, he took his new kit back to the Horseshoes Inn and stowed it away in
the small back room that was his for the night. He ate an early dinner of
mutton and greens and new potatoes followed by a big plateful of summer
pudding, the strawberries a rare treat. He wandered back down to the quay to
look at the sights and ease his digestion, idling in the sunshine. He passed
several unaccompanied young ladies, which was unusual in his limited
experience; two of them asked him if he would like a good time but he smiled
politely and said he was enjoying himself already, thank you.

The barman greeted him in the friendliest fashion
when he came back to the Inn and drew a pint for him, on the house.

“The Swallow lugger be sailing on the morning’s
tide, Mr Andrews, bound for Plymouth and Bristol, and there’s an empty cabin
that’s yours for five bob, sir, if you takes your own grub along, ten bob if
you eats at the master’s table. The master’ll be in later on, sir, and I’ll
take you over to ‘im if you wants.”

“Yes, please, that would be very good of you. I’m
much obliged to you.” Tom could see that he would need to give the man a tip as
a thank you, wondered anxiously just what the right amount would be.

Tom leant on the bar and chatted idly for the next
couple of hours – it was not busy in the early evening, it seemed. After three
pints he found the need to ease his bladder and ambled out into the back yard
at the barman’s instructions, found the appropriate wall by its smell; he was
just adjusting his clothing when a wooden club caught him firmly above the
right ear and dropped him neatly to the cobblestones, unconscious but not
severely hurt, a very tidy, professional job.

Chapter Two

His head hurt; it throbbed; when he felt very gently
behind his ear it was tender.

“Some bastard hit me!” The sound of his voice gave
him a headache; he closed his eyes again. It put the seal on a bad week, he
felt, the whole world was against him, was creeping up behind his back.

Reluctantly, he decided he should make some effort
to find out what had happened, discover the worst, whatever it might be – if he
was in prison he might as well know at once, and start to prepare his mind for
a fairly rapid hanging.

It wasn’t as bad as it might have been – he was
lying on a wooden floor, not stone, and there was a thin palliasse underneath
him and a rough woollen blanket drawn up to his chin. Some effort had been made
to look after him, but he wasn’t in the room he had taken in the Horseshoes Inn.

He was wearing his new clothes, and the boots he had
bought the previous day; knowing it must be a waste of time, he checked his
pockets. No purse. Thirty guineas up the spout – six months and a dozen runs it
had taken to put that much together, saving every penny his dad had given him,
spending nothing, risking his neck, all for some thieving bugger to grab and
piss up against the wall! A hundred and he had been going to buy his own boat,
then he could have gone out with his dad seining rather than drifting, more
than doubling their catch, with a bit of luck. He swore, then shrugged, at
least he was alive and what he had made once he could do a second time, easier
for knowing a bit more about the way the world worked now; in any case, he
wouldn’t ever be going out with dad again and it didn’t seem likely he would be
doing much fishing for a while yet. He stood up and stumbled as the floor
pitched.

It was a deck, he was at sea, shanghaied.

Not the navy – if a press gang had taken him and
somehow got him on board a man of war then he would be waking up in a crowded
mess-deck, not on his own in a cabin or store-room like this. He sat down again
to think.

He had to get out of England, that was given, and he
had to stay away for a year or two, until the hue and cry had died down; when
he came back it must not be to the fishing in Dorset, and it might be better
not to come back at all. He had no money now, could not buy a passage out, so
he had to sign on as a seaman, as a forecastle hand, which had always been on
the cards; he was on a ship already, one that had taken some pains to get him
on board and was hardly likely simply to let him go again. Wiser to make the
best of it – he’d got some of what he wanted. He just hoped it wasn’t the
whaler – a three year run to the Great South Sea by way of Cape Horn was not
the way out he would have chosen, though he would be a thorough-going deep sea
sailor by the end of it.

The door cracked open – he had not bothered to try
the handle, it had to be locked and they weren’t about to forget him and leave
him to starve, nor would they leave him long in idleness.

A cautious voice called in to him.

“You awake?”

“Yep.”

“You want to come out, then?”

“On me way.”

He walked slowly out of the small cabin, hands
showing clear and empty – no knife or bottle or billy - glanced about him. He
was below decks, had been kept in a bos’n’s store by the looks of things, hard
up in the bows, a paint room, maybe; possibly purser’s lazaretto, but neither
should have been empty, leaving harbour. He could just see a figure in the half
light, pointing him to a ladder.

He blinked in the sunlight, his head complaining at
the brightness; he wondered if this one was the bloke who had hit him, decided
to let it wait – he would find out in time and he wasn’t too concerned anyway,
what was a thump on the head after all that had happened already this week?

He was on the brig, and a dirty, scruffy, ill-cared
for vessel it was! Eight small cannon and two empty ports on each side, there
should be twelve all told. Four pound, he estimated. A chaser in the bows,
roundshot in the ready-use rack about the size of an orange, probably six
pounds. Not navy, as dirty as this. Not a merchantman, they carried
stern-chasers for defence, had no use for a great gun in the bows. Not a
smuggler – they ran, would fight only as a very last resort, never carried
broadside guns which would condemn them as pirates. Must be a privateer, and an
unlucky one, at that; profitable private ships turned would-be crewmen away,
never had to resort to force to make up their numbers.

He looked more openly about him as his eyes became
accustomed to the light. There was a watch of fifteen or sixteen men, which
suggested a crew of about forty when he would have expected the better part of
a hundred, privateers needing boarders and prize crews.

Stood six feet away, out of arm’s reach, was a lean,
medium-tall, hard-looking seaman, a man who knew what he was doing. He was
unarmed, so he thought he had no need for any weapon; best to take him at his
own price, assume that he did know just what he was doing. He was dark-haired,
swarthy, brown-eyed, hook-nosed, looked more like a Spaniard or a Romany than a
local Englishman, Tom thought.

“Captain wants to speak to you. What’s your name?”

“Tom Andrews.”

“I’m Jack Smith, prize master, Star of the Avon.
Captain’s name is Blaine, by the wheel. You coming?”

“Yes, sir.”

Smith – if that was the name he wanted – relaxed,
turned his back and led Tom aft, happy he would not be attacked from behind,
not by a man who had just called him sir – he would have had other names for
him if he was after blood.

“New man, Captain. Name is Tom Andrews.”

The captain nodded and coughed and sniffed; he stank
of gin, explaining, perhaps, the state of the Star. He was skeletally thin,
undernourished, the bottle probably his only sustenance, far gone; he was watery-eyed,
fair hair uncut and thinning, blowing wildly in the light wind. Tall but
stooped, Blaine would have been much the same height as Tom, looked over his
shoulder, never into his face.

“How old are you, Andrews? You look big enough to do
a man’s work.”

“Sixteen, sir. Last month.”

“Still got some height to make, and a lot of muscle
to bulk out – you will be a big fellow before you’re finished! By the way you
stand you have used the sea, Andrews?”

“Yes, sir. My dad had a drifter, a thirty footer. I
crewed with him since I could walk, just about.”

“Good. You’re here now and you can make a choice –
gun crew or boarder, whichever you wish. Ordinary seaman, not a landsman, so
that will make you a one-and-a-half share man. If you show you’re good enough
we’ll change that to ‘able’ and two shares. You don’t have to sign on, of
course – if you want you can always swim back to Poole.”

Tom smiled at his wit – captains always had to be
humourists. He had already seen that there was no land in sight, that they were
well out into the Channel. He raised his hand, politely.

“I volunteer, sir. Boarder, if you please.”

“Captain Blaine knows the sea, Tom, he just had a
bit of bad luck which turned him sour a bit,” Smith explained. “Beginning of
the war, he was doing well, a young man, I don’t know how old exactly, say
twenty-five or so, but he had his own frigate, Arrow, 28, nine-pounders, was
cruising off Chesapeake Bay when the lookouts called a sail at dawn, making out
to sea in the fogs you get there, couldn’t see hardly nothing. Captain closed
her and then made the challenge at a cable, gave her a gun across the bows as a
wake up. She made no reply and set her topsails and seemed to swing towards, so
he gave her a full broadside and closed and boarded. Kestrel ship-sloop, had
taken damage from a big blockade runner the previous day, lost her captain and
first and the youngster left didn’t know what to do when he couldn’t hoist the
lights for the reply, thought to come within hail. Anyhow, the broadside killed
a dozen of her men, including a midshipman whose mother was a niece of the
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs! The court found for the captain, but he
was beached and wasn’t never going to command a King’s Ship ever again. I was
master’s mate on watch with him, stayed with him when he was offered a berth as
master of a privateer. He made enough to buy Star in the first twelvemonth, but
his luck’s been out since.”

Smith was resigned, philosophical almost.

“How long has he had Star, Mr Smith?”

“Eight months; long enough to fit her out and take
her on two empty cruises. Not so much as a sniff of a prize. Anything we chased
ran up English colours!”

Tom nodded; judging by the store-room he had seen
this was not going to be a long cruise.

“So where are we bound, Mr Smith?”

“Bordeaux stream, then the Spanish coast if we have
no luck. Rich waters, French West Indiamen as well as coastal traffic.”

Tom nodded; he knew nothing of those waters, having
previously crossed the Channel only to run directly to Normandy to pick up
smuggler’s cargoes from the smallest fishing villages. He noticed that Smith
was uncomfortable, had left something important unsaid. He waited, let the
silence draw out, dad had always said that the silent man heard most.

“Thing is, Tom, those are heavily patrolled waters,
too. Both the French and the Spanish keep an eye open in that part of the Bay.
You need to be wide awake in those waters.”

Tom thought of the picture Blaine had presented – he
could have described him in several different ways, but ‘wide awake’ was not a
term that leapt to his mind.

The Star was a strangely disorganised vessel – there
were two watches, but no petty officers to run them, the men splitting the work
between them as they fancied, the result being that the least popular jobs simply
were not done and the decks grew dirtier on a daily basis while the heads were
utterly appalling. Blaine and Smith were the sole officers – there had been two
other boarding masters but they had refused to sail for a third cruise on the
Star, preferring to earn a living wage instead. The cook had sailed again, and
he boiled the ration beef daily and issued them with biscuit and cheese for
breakfast and supper; for the rest, there were onions for those who wished to
cut them up, and suet and flour and dried plums for anyone who wished to boil
up a pudding. Small beer was issued by Smith, thrice daily, a quart pot per man
at each issue as the water was somewhat dubious, safe only when well boiled
because the barrels had not been scrubbed out before filling; there were no
spirits outside of the captain’s cabin. Discipline was relaxed, to the point of
being effectively non-existent – the men were almost all volunteers and they
could see their own interest as being best served by good behaviour, while there
was no such concept as ‘desertion’ as they were all free to resign at any time,
in theory, though it might have been somewhat impractical to hand in their
notice in the middle of the ocean. In any case, most of the men had a reason to
be where they were, at sea and invisible, not on land in their home towns or
villages, though, naturally, they tended to keep those reasons to themselves.

Over four uneventful days Tom came to know the names
of the men in his watch, the five other boarders particularly.

George and Joby Coles were brothers, either side of
twenty, although they did not know their ages for certain. They were Diddicoy,
settled travellers who claimed their families to have been Romany, once upon a
time. They were short, squat, sandy-haired and kept themselves to themselves;
both carried knives where they could be seen.

John Murray was an older man, nearly forty,
toothless and balding, lean and slightly bent over; his back ached and he
moaned that it was crippling him; he had a very short temper, it was said, with
drink in him could explode in anger, blade or bottle in his fist, whatever was
close to hand. He was thought to be a Scot who had come south years before; he
had little of the accent of the far north, sounded to Tom very much the local
man – perhaps he had been brought to England by his parents as a small child.

Dick Smithers was a big, fair Dorset man, much like
Tom in appearance and perhaps ten years older, and deeply, fundamentally
stupid. He had been a farmhand for years, had had to leave his village near
Blandford a few days previously; he had not chosen to say why.

Luke Mundy was from Hampshire, a flash, good-looking
young man, forever combing his jet-black hair, always clean-shaven and with a
ready smile to show off his white teeth and sparkling blue eyes. He made no
secret of the fact that he came from a little village near Southampton, Durley
its name, and that he had had to run like hell for getting a leg over the
squire’s daughter – very frequently, he claimed – and putting her in the family
way; they would have called it rape, to save her name, and stretched his neck
for his pains, he said, laughing mightily. He did not think he would go home
again.

“What about you, nipper? Where’s home for you, Tom?”

“Towards Bridport, Luke. I don’t reckon I’ll be
going home no more, neither. Mum’s dead these ten years and Excisemen put a
pistol ball in Dad’s chest last week.”