Authors: Peter Smalley
The Hawk
THE
HAWK
Also by Peter Smalley
HMS Expedient
Port Royal
Barbary Coast
PETER
SMALLEY
HAWK
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ISBN 9781407005942
Version 1.0
Published by Century 2008
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Copyright © Peter Smalley 2008
Peter Smalley has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author's
imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First published in Great Britain in 2008 by
Century
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London SW1V 2SA
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is available from the British Library
ISBN: 9781407005942
Version 1.0
Again for Clytie
Cutter.
A small vessel commonly navigated in the channel of
England, furnished with one mast and a straight running
bowsprit. Many of these vessels are used on an illicit trade,
and others employed by the government to seize them; the
latter of which are either under the direction of the Admiralty
or Custom-house.
(Falconer's
Dictionary of the Marine
, 1815)
1790: Swallow Street, London
Sir Robert Greer looked at himself in his glass, and was
frightened.
'Fender! Fender!'
'Sir?' His valet appeared at the door.
'I am unwell. Summon Dr Robards.'
'Unwell, Sir Robert?' Peering at his master. Not five
minutes had passed since the valet had fastened the final
buttons on his master's coat, turning him gently a little
further towards the morning light from the window, and
straightened his snowy stock. He had looked very waxy,
certainly – but had not complained of feeling ill. 'Is it just
come on, sir . . . ?'
'Yes. Yes. Do as I say, man. Dr Robards, at once.' His
deep voice a-quiver. He reached a hand for the back of the
chair, steadied himself, and sat down. The bumping click as
the door of his dressing room swung shut. Fender's footfalls
on the stair. Voices. The subdued thud of the great door. A
shaft of sun brightened on the floor, and now – a return of
the pain.
'Hnnh . . .'
Sir Robert gripped the arm of the chair, the carved
mahogany arm. His naturally pallid face was ghastly white,
tinged blue about the mouth, his black eyes sunk in his skull.
That was what had alarmed him so, when he looked in his
glass. His sickly pallor, and his sunken eyes. And now the pain
that had woken him this day, as early light crept in discs
across the wall, had come back.
Interminable seconds passed as the longcase clock in the
corner ticked, and tocked, and ticked. The distant shout of an
ostler in the street. Hooves, and passing wheels.
'Where in God's name is Dr Robards – ?' The question
ending in a hiss of breath. The knuckles tight on the arm of
the chair.
At last the sound of a carriage arriving, and the bustle of a
person of importance entering the house. A clatter on the
stairs as Fender ran on ahead, the creaking of the door, and
Fender stood aside.
'Good morning, Sir Robert.' Dr Glendower Robards came
in, tall in his black coat, carrying his medical instrument case.
He placed it on a second chair, waved Fender out, and
approached the patient.
'Thank God you are come, Robards . . . I am not myself . . .
hnnh . . .' Dr Robards took the outstretched, clutching hand,
and gave reassurance with a squeeze.
'You are in pain, I perceive, Sir Robert. Will you tell me
the place, now?' Taking Sir Robert's pulse, and observing its
rate against his pocket watch, slipped smoothly from his
waistcoat.
Sir Robert pointed to his lower belly with his other hand.
'In my vitals . . . deep in my belly . . .'
'What have you ate, today? You have breakfasted?'
'Nay, I have not. Nothing.'
'Off what did ye dine then, yesternight?' He let go of Sir
Robert's wrist, and put away the watch. Adjusted his small
frameless oval spectacles, and stared into each of Sir Robert's
eyes in turn. 'Hm?'
'Partridge, and a little claret.'
'How little?'
'Eh?' Swallowing, and breathing shallow.
'How little quantity of claret?'
'Very little. A glass only.'
'One glass?'
'Aye.' A further spasm struck, and he hissed, and gripped
the chair. 'Damnation . . . ohh . . .'
'We may easily dispose of the pain, in a moment. But first
tell me – has it been like this before? Ever before?'
'Yes. Yes. Once or twice before today. But never so bad as
this . . . ohh . . .'
'When? Will you tell me exact?'
'For God's sake, Robards. Give me something. Give me
some relief.'
'In a moment, Sir Robert. I will not allow you to suffer
longer than is entirely necessary. Now then, if you please,
when did the pain come?'
'In the morning, once or twice, after I had woke.'
'Early?'
'Aye.'
'Before you had recourse to your piss pot?'
'Yes. I believe so, yes.'
'And was the pain lessened afterward? After ye had passed
water?'
'Perhaps it was, a little. But I do not feel pain in my
bladder, Robards. Only in my belly.'
'Hm, well. A calculus must pass from the kidney, through
the region of your anatomy where you are feeling the spasms.
Hm?'
'It is a stone – you think so?'
'Very possibly. Very possibly. Ain't uncommon in
gentlemen of your years, Sir Robert.'
'What is the – the treatment?'
'The stone may pass of its own accord. Or it may possibly
lodge and remain.'
'Lodge – and remain?'
'In which case, Sir Robert, we must consult the King's own
surgeon, Sir Wakefield Bennett.'
'I cannot allow myself to be unwell. I have important
business in hand. People that must be pursued, and
punished.' Sir Robert drew a determined breath and clasped
the arms of his chair as if to rise. A further spasm of pain
pinned him in his seat. 'Ohh . . .'
'Do not attempt effortful movement, Sir Robert.' Dr
Robards moved to his instrument case. 'I will give you
something for the pain.'
'Is it physic?' Shallow, panting breaths.
'It is paregoric elixir, Sir Robert, a liberal measure.' He
tipped fat drops of camphorated tincture of opium into a
glass, and added water. 'I may prescribe pareira, also.' He
handed the glass to his patient. 'Should there be pus in the
urine.'
'Pus?' Appalled, clutching the glass.
'You have observed no discoloration of the urine?'
'Nay, none.' Sir Robert drained the glass in one sucking
gulp.
'The stream is free-flowing?'
'It is.'
'Hm, that is well.' Taking the empty glass. 'We may
perhaps, with good fortune, avoid infection.'
'I wish to put a question. What must I do? What course of
action d'ye propose?'
'That is two questions, Sir Robert. In answer to the first,
you must practise indolence. As to the second, we must await
– developments.'
'Indolence! What nonsense is this? Did not y'hear me? I
am engaged on grave matters –'
'Hm. Yes.' Regarding his patient, making a face. 'Grave is
the word I fear most, in such a case. I will not like to stand in
the rain over yours, and hear the burial service read.'
'Eh?'
'I will like you to be indolent, Sir Robert, if you please.
Take broth, and a light diet. No wine. I will leave paregoric
to be took at intervals of – let us say – three or four hours. We
will wait a week, and if the stone has not yet passed, we will
then consult the King's man. Good morning.'
And Dr Robards took up his bag, and quit the house. Sir
Robert sat long in his chair, and felt the opium take effect.
Felt the pain ease, felt a gradual numbing of his limbs and his
senses.
'Indolence,' he said at last. A sigh. If he must be indolent,
then he must. His pursuit of Captain William Rennie RN,
and Lieutenant James Hayter RN, in the question of
treasonable conduct, must lapse for the moment.
'Aye, lapse.' Another breath. 'But not permanent, by God.
I will pursue them, and bring the charge home, the moment
I am well again. – Fender! Fender!'
'Sir?' At the door.
'I will like to go down to my library. Is there a fire lighted
there? Give me your arm, man.'
His Majesty's
Hawk
cutter, ten guns, lay at her mooring off the
Hard at Portsmouth, immediately south of the dockyard, and
some two cables distant from His Majesty's ship
Tamar
, sixtyfour,
and His Majesty's frigate
Tempest
, thirty-six.
Hawk
's guns
were not yet in her, nor was she provisioned or stored. She had
recently been purchased from the small private yard of Thos
Varder at Dover, where she had been built to the specification
of the Board of Excise, to add to their small fleet, and then
commandeered by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty
in His Majesty's name. She had no guns, and was trimmed
only by her ballast of pigs and shingle, but she was a handsome
vessel. She was 68 feet long in the lower deck, 51 feet at the
keel, 23 feet 6 inches in the beam, and the depth of her hold
was a fraction over 10 feet. Her tonnage by builder's measure
was 131 and a few ninety-fourths. Her new paint, black along
the wales, and her bulwarks red, was reflected in the riding
water and emphasized her neat, purposeful lines. Her mast,
with topmast and topgallant mast fidded, was tall and slightly
raked. That, and her long, flat-sleeved bowsprit, marked her as
a revenue ship, able to carry a prodigious spread of canvas both
on her square yards and on her steep gaff and long boom. At
present her square topsail alone was bent, the yards angled to
aid her anchors against the tide. Her commander was absent,
as were her midshipmen, her standing officers – boatswain,
gunner, carpenter – and her sailing master and steward purser.
Indeed, none but her commander had been appointed. A small
dockyard crew, assembled by the Master Attendant at the
behest of the Admiralty, and the Navy Board, now temporarily
manned her. This crew had bent the topsail and mounted an
anchor watch.
BOOM.
The noon gun echoed across the harbour, and a flight of
black-headed gulls rose wheeling and raucous in alarm, and
swooped away towards Gosport across the glinting water.
The Master Attendant Mr Tipping, very florid, stood a
little way down the Hard and looked at the
Hawk
from under
his shading hand with something like disapproval. To his
clerk he said: 'I cannot allow her that mooring very long, with
the fleet due.'
'No, sir.' The clerk, nodding.
'
Tamar
must weigh and go up a little, and
Tempest
also. I
cannot allow a cutter to occupy that number more than
another day or two. It will not answer.'
'No sir.' Shaking his head.
'She don't belong here, unattached. Unmanned,
unattached, and God knows where her officers and people
may be. I do not. I don't like mystery, and I don't like private
ships lying where they oughtn't, Mr Tite.'
'No, sir.'
Mr Tipping looked distractedly at his clerk, frowned down
at him, then looked out across the water again. 'I will allow
her that number two days more, then I must grow severe.
Make a note, Mr Tite.'
'Yes, sir.' Scribbling with his pencil, and following along as
Mr Tipping stumped away to the dockyard gates, his wig
scattering powder on the shoulder of his coat.
'Mr Tipping?'
'Ain't here, sir, just at present.'
'Are not you Mr Tite?'
'I am, sir, yes.' The little clerk, hunched over his desk, saw
a well-made young man in the doorway, not in naval dress but
with an unmistakably naval bearing; the set of his shoulders,
and the placing of his feet a little apart, said that he was a
naval officer.
'Were not you the Master Shipwright's clerk, Mr Rundle's
clerk . . . ?'
'I was, sir, many a year, but then Mr Rundle passed, d'y'see,
and Mr Tipping wanted me – and here I am.'
'Ah.' Nodding. 'I am Lieutenant Hayter, and I – '
'Yes, sir, yes. Mr Tipping did wish to see you most particular
urgent, immediate on your coming to Portsmouth.'
Laying aside his pen, and rising from his chair.
'Ah. I wished to see the
Hawk
cutter, that I understand –'
'The
Hawk
is here, sir, indeed. Mr Tipping is most
desperate anxious that she should weigh and proceed.'
'Weigh and proceed?' Lieutenant James Hayter RN
unfastened his cloak and stared at the clerk in the dim light of
the Master Attendant's office. 'But I have yet to accept the
commission. I have not got my papers, Mr Tite. I wished
merely –'
'Oh dear, oh dear. Yes, I see.' A sigh, and he opened and
then closed the ledger on his narrow desk, and pushed the
inkwell to one side in a tidying motion, and pursed his lips.
'Mr Tipping will be very distressed by that intelligence, I
fear. He wished most particular for the
Hawk
to vacate her
numbered mooring without further delay.'
'May I see the
Hawk
? Where is the mooring? Is she far out
at Spithead, or closer –'
'She is just off the Hard, sir.'
'Is she? Excellent. Then I will go there at once, Mr Tite.'
Refastening his brown cloak, and putting on his hat.
'Do you not wish to see Mr Tipping, though? Will I tell
him that you – '
But Lieutenant Hayter was already out of the door and
striding away across the cobbled dockyard towards the gates,
his cloak swirling in the breeze.
He came to the Hard a few minutes after, and strode down
the shallow slope towards the water's edge. Boats lay there,
and casks, and a group of seamen stood by their barge, smart
in their blue jackets and round, beribboned hats, waiting for
their officer. James came to a halt, and looked out over the
wind-ruffled water. And there he saw the cutter riding at
anchor, her topsail angled to the wind, pretty as a picture.
'The
Hawk
,' he murmured.
'Are you for me, sir?' A voice behind him, brisk in tone.
James turned.
A short-statured, stooping figure, in an admiral's undress
coat and hat. Pale blue eyes, staring cold and direct. Admiral
Hollister, Vice-Admiral of the White, commander of the
Channel Fleet.
'Well?'
'Sir?' James shook his head a little, entirely at a loss.
'Do not shake y'head at me, sir. Are you our new Third for
Vanquish
– for Captain Repton and myself – or are you not?'
'I am not, sir.'
'Are not you Lieutenant Newell? Lieutenant Rutherford
Newell?'
'I am not, sir. I am Lieutenant Hayter, and I – '
'Why are ye not properly dressed, Mr Hayter?'
'I beg your pardon, Admiral, but I am not yet – that is, I am
just come to Portsmouth to look at my new ship, and I – '
'New ship?' Admiral Hollister regarded him with a frown,
then: 'Yes, now. Was not your First in the
Expedient
frigate,
under Captain Rennie?'
'I was, sir, but she has paid off, and lies in Ordinary – '