to my face, and I need not worry about what they call me behind my back. I have been out too often.' Hoare's whisper began to fade again.
Mr. Gladden would be neither diverted nor discouraged. 'Admiral Hardcastle also said he would be greatly obliged if you would take poor Arthur's case in hand.'
'Admiral Hardcastle said that, did Admiral Hardcastle?'
Admiral Sir George Hardcastle, KB, was currently Port Admiral at Portsmouth, one of the highest and most lucrative posts to which a naval officer could aspire. Bartholomew Hoare's current ultimate commander, he was known as a grim, merciless man.
'Well, sir, that puts a different face on things, does it not?' Hoare said. 'Let me think a bit.' He refilled both glasses. 'Tell you what,' he added. 'Suppose you carry on officially for your brother. And I shall stand just behind your ear and… er… whisper instructions into it with my foul rum-laden breath as long as you can stand it.'
'I should be overjoyed,' Gladden said. 'How are we to begin?'
'Begin at the beginning,' Hoare replied. 'Go on to the end, and then stop.'
'Well,' began Gladden, 'on Tuesday last, as Arthur tells me, Captain Hay summoned him to his cabin 'to give an account of himself.' It seems the captain was displeased with the lack of discipline shown by the men in Arthur's division. All waisters, they are; of course, all the crew are new hands-new to Vantage, that is, and most of them new to the service. Lumpkins who have yet to see their first anchor weighed. Arthur had to get all of these.
'Even the standing officers are new to the ship and to one another. They have a long way to go before they shake down together.
'Do you-did you-know Captain Hay, Mr. Hoare?'
'Know of him, sir.'
'Hot-tempered. Greedy. Bullying,' Gladden suggested.
'Command sometimes changes a man in disappointing ways, don't you find?' Hoare replied, managing to make his whisper sound noncommittal. 'I have also heard,' he continued, 'that he is-was-a believer in hard, continued practical training, at anchor as well as at sea. And I confess that I agree. After all, the crew of any vessel must be ready to work their ship and fight it, too, night or day, and in all weathers. Should they not have done so as a part of their training in harbor before they face reality at sea and in battle? But I interrupt you.'
'In any case,' Gladden went on, 'Captain Hay made it clear to Arthur that he expected his division to show a marked improvement in discipline and in their performance in the drills to which he had set Vantages entire crew'
'Which were?'
'As you might expect, they included exercises on deck and aloft-setting up and housing topmasts, exercising the great guns, setting and furling sail, and the like. The men were expected to respond intelligently to emergencies. Arthur tells me the captain took special pleasure in 'killing off' key men- quartergunners and the like- and watching the confusion that resulted. The more confusion, the more wrathful was Captain Hay, and the happier.
'But it was apparently his captain's manner toward my brother that caused the explosion between the two. It seems that Captain Hay was extremely partial to what he called 'drunken lobsters'-lobsters stewed in hock instead of seawater as is usual. I understand he claimed that because they died dead drunk and happy, the creatures ate more tender. His steward had made up a brace of them for his dinner.
'Arthur had reported aft the moment the order reached him. That would have been shortly after six bells of the second dogwatch. We know that, for unfortunately, his arrival in the cabin coincided with the lobsters'. Captain Hay insisted on having his dinner served at six bells precisely.
'As soon as Arthur reported, the captain began to recite a virtual litany of my poor brother's manifold sins and wickednesses. He had failed to report cases of insubordination in his division-answering back, for instance. His gunners were by far the slowest to run out their guns and complete dumb-show firing at anchor, his few topmen fumble-footed.
'The captain accused him of having interrupted his feast on purpose, out of perverse insolence. It was this accusation, I gather, that led poor Arthur to protest his captain's abuse… at length. It seems Captain Hay was so enraged at my brother's outburst that he roared with anger, sprang from behind his dining table, and actually grappled with him.'
'Dear me,' whispered Hoare.
'Here, sir, the stories diverge. Arthur swears to me he broke free by an extreme effort. My brother is not a very strong man. He fled the cabin at a panicked run, not stopping until he had gone the full length of the frigate and reached the heads. Here he was overcome by nausea and a looseness. I am ashamed to say he admits to having fouled his breeches before he could drop them-as indeed I could sense all too well when I visited him in his place of confinement ashore.
'Others of Vantages people tell a somewhat different story. A quartermaster, one Patrick Lynch, had the watch on the quarterdeck. Lynch says that he heard the altercation, even from two decks below, and that in his opinion it culminated with a shout of pain and not of rage. Yet John McHale, master, was within feet of Lynch and says he heard nothing.'
' 'Altercation,' Mr. Gladden? 'Culminated'? The man Lynch sounds more like a schoolmaster than a quartermaster. Were those his very words?'
'Er… no, sir. I have not actually spoken with Lynch. That is what I am told he said.'
'By whom, sir?' came Hoare's whisper.
Mr. Gladden explained that he had interviewed only his brother and Francis Bennett, Admiral Hardcastle's judge advocate.
'Bennett and I are old friends,' Hoare said, 'but friendship disappears in the arena of a court-martial.'
'Now you see why I welcome your participation,' Gladden replied. 'I am no barrister.'
'Nor am I,' Hoare reminded him. 'But we shall see. Go on with your story, if you please.'
At seven bells, Gladden went on, Andrew Watt, captain's clerk, had entered the cabin with some correspondence that he had been preparing. He found his captain bleeding and breathing his last on his cabin floor. Finding the Marine guard unaccountably missing, Watt had shouted, 'Help! Murder!' with all the strength of his little lungs and pelted up the companionway to the quarterdeck to report his news to the officer of the watch. Only then had he fainted.
In his turn, that officer, John McHale, had sent Lynch, the quartermaster, to summon David Courtney, first lieutenant, and left the quarterdeck himself to view the scene of the crime. Here Mr. Courtney had joined him and summoned all the ship's other officers.
Peter Gladden could not tell Hoare exactly how, but word of the altercation between the captain and his third lieutenant came out in no time. Half Vantage's company, it seemed, had been on deck to witness the latter's frenzied flight along her gun deck.
'So they took Arthur's sword,' said his brother. 'Then they sent a signal ashore and, when the admiral ordered him brought ashore, made it so-fouled breeches and all, poor wight. That is really all I know,' Gladden concluded.
'Well, we must jump about cheerly, sir,' Hoare said. 'We have I cannot guess how many of Vantage's people to question, and-' He interrupted himself, 'Has a date been set for the court-martial?'
'Thursday, Mr. Bennett told me.'
'Thursday? Here it is Monday already. We must really stir our stumps, then. I must see if I can persuade the Admiral to postpone-' He interrupted himself again, 'My God. I must beg you to excuse me, for I am commanded to the reception this evening at the Admiral's and Lady Hardcastle s residence. I must improve on my appearance as best I may. Let us plan to go aboard Vantage tomorrow. Shall we share a wherry out to her, at eight bells of the morning watch?'
'A pleasure, sir. But we shall certainly encounter each other again at the reception, and Mr. Bennett as well.'
'Excellent, sir. Let us take him aside, tell him our plans, and enlist his assistance-insofar as his duty permits him to provide it.'
Upon this, Hoare saw his guest to the Swallowed Anchor's door. He piped for a bath to be brought to his rooms-using the 'Sweepers, man your brooms' call-and withdrew to titivate for the ordeal that gatherings of this kind always inflicted upon his voice and his equanimity.
