remained seated in his comfortable chair squarely in front of the court.
'Does Your Royal Highness wish to be made part of this court?' Captain Wright asked.
Admiral of the White Prince William, Duke of Clarence, shook his head. The head, which bore a jovial expression, was shaped like a pineapple.
'Gad, no, old boy. Came down to get away from court, don't ye know?' The cabin filled with appreciative chuckles. Royal ribaldry, Hoare observed to himself, always amuses.
When the chuckles had died down, Captain Wright read out Admiral Hardcastle's order convening the court- martial, concluding with the words: ' '… that, on the twenty-first day of June, eighteen-oh-five, in His Majesty's ship Vantage, Lieutenant Arthur Gladden did assail and murder his captain, Adam Hay.' '
Recognizing Hoare's lanky figure standing beside the prisoner's friend, Captain Wright raised his eyebrows and interrupted himself. 'Does the accused really require two 'friends,' sir?' he asked.
'Actually, sir, he does not. The accused officer asked that, as his brother, I stand as friend for him. Both blood and certainty of his innocence required that I agree to do so. However, Mr. Hoare is a far more skilled investigator than I-'
'Mr. Hoare is well-known to me and to others on this court,' Captain Wright said impatiently. 'But which of you speaks for the accused officer? You or he?'
'I shall do so for the most part, sir, if only because of Mr. Hoare's impediment of speech. And Admiral Hardcastle suggested Mr. Hoare and I collaborate.'
'Irregular, but I see nothing wrong with it, nor, of course, with the Admiral's point of view. Do any of you gentlemen?' Captain Wright looked left and right along the table, clearly expecting no contradiction. 'Very good,' he said. 'Now, Mr. Bennett, will you give us your opening remarks? I know you, at least, have no difficulty in speaking up.' A soft titter ran through Defiant's cabin.
Bennett now outlined the case against Arthur Gladden: how he had been overheard in disputation with his captain; how Captain Hay had cried out; how Arthur had fled the full length of Vantage; how Mr. Watt had discovered his dying captain; and the last words the clerk had heard. That, except for Watt, who hardly had the strength to have stabbed his captain, Arthur was the last man known to have seen Captain Hay alive.
Mr. Hopkin, the surgeon, made the same statements under oath that he had made to Hoare and Peter Gladden. He was followed by the man Lynch. The quartermaster, too, had no more and no less to say than he had a day or two before.
John McHale sounded more evasive.
'And what did you hear through the skylight, Mr. McHale?' asked Mr. Bennett.
'I resent the implication, sir! I am no eavesdropper, especially not upon my captain!'
'Then you are prepared to state-under oath, remember, Mr. McHale-that, at anchor on a calm night, on deck, at your proper post within feet of the cabin skylight, you heard nothing through it? Not even any raised voices?'
'Under penalty of perjury, Mr. McHale?' interjected the junior member of the court, a commander, from his place at the left end of the table.
Vantage's master gulped.
'In the face of what Lynch said he heard, and he well forward of you, leaning against the quarterdeck rail?'
Mr. McHale paused for a thoughtful moment. 'Gentlemen, I retract my earlier evidence. Mr. Gladden is a weak man, gentlemen, but an honest one.'
From his seat behind the prisoner Hoare saw Arthur Gladden's ears redden.
McHale continued, 'He wouldn't hurt a flea, let alone his captain. Why, he hasn't the gumption of a rabbit. His division of men was already well on the way to becoming a very mob because he couldn't bring himself to control them. I pity him. He doesn't belong in the Navy. I do not wish him to lose his life by my doing, on my evidence. But I have my own wife and children to consider.'
'Confine yourself to the facts, Mr. McHale,' warned Captain Wright. 'What, then, did you overhear?'
'I heard Captain Hay order Mr. Gladden to put his division through an exercise on the morrow.'
'What sort of exercise?'
'Fire drill, sir,' said McHale, 'followed by a simulated battle against a French frigate on either side. Then, if I knew the captain, he'd declare our mainmast shot away at the crosstrees or the like, kill off all the senior officers, and leave Mr. Gladden to get himself out of it. A hard trainer, sir, was Captain Hay, but a good one.
'I then heard Mr. Gladden cry out at length against Captain Hay. He accused the captain of prejudice against him… of being 'unfair,' as he put it. In the middle of Mr. Gladdens outburst, I heard a roar of rage, and a grunt. Then I heard the cabin door close behind Mr. Gladden-'
'How did you know it was Mr. Gladden?' asked Hoare.
Mr. McHale looked surprised. 'Why, sir, Mr. Gladden and the captain were the only men in the cabin. And it certainly wasn't the captain that ran out the cabin door.'
'And if you believed Mr. Arthur Gladden and his captain to have come to blows, why did you not raise the alarm?'
'I could not be sure of that, sir, not from where I was standing. Besides, there was the Marine guard at the cabin door.'
'So you, an experienced sea officer, left it to an unknown Marine private to decide whether or not to raise the alarm. Eh? This will do your career little good, Mr. McHale. That will be all, sir.'
Called and sworn, Mr, Watt repeated in essence the story he had told Hoare a few days ago. When the little man arrived at his captain's dying words, the junior member of the court spoke up again. He had been the only one besides Captain Wright to take an active part in the proceedings. Bernard Weatherby was his name, master and commander in Crocus, 20; a man of promise and one to remember, Hoare told himself.
'Frankly, gentlemen, I'm at a loss,' Captain Weatherby said. 'No one has suggested for a minute Captain Hay was poisoned by one of the lobsters he had been consuming, and Mr. Bennett tells us the captain's steward swears the creatures were alive when he dropped them into the pot of hock. We have no reason to doubt the man's word. Why did the captain talk of 'lobsters' as he was dying, then?'
' 'A babbled of green tomalley,' ' someone muttered in the back of the cabin. Someone else tittered.
'Belay that nonsense.' Captain Wright's quiet, flat voice brought silence. 'Another episode of that kind, and I'll have the perpetrator publicly gagged, even if he's a post captain.'
Silence fell.
Mr. Prickett slipped into the cabin and whispered a few words into Hoare's ear. Nodding his thanks, Hoare leaned forward and relayed the whisper to Peter Gladden.
'Having received the court's prior permission, gentlemen,' said the latter, 'Mr. Hoare asked Sergeant Miller of Defiant's Marine detachment to take as many of his men as required and board Vantage, where he was to replace Vantage's entire Marine detachment for as long as might be required. I also gave Miller certain instructions.
'Sergeant Doyle of Vantage has now mustered his detachment in the waist below the break of Defiant's quarterdeck. Mr. President, may I ask you to adjourn this court to the quarterdeck?'
Captain Wright caught Bennett's eye and nodded. Arthur Gladden, guarded by his two Marines, left the cabin first, to be followed by his brother, Hoare, Bennett, and the members of the court. Next, His Royal Highness clambered up the companionway to gleam in the summer sun. Behind them all limped Lieutenant Wallace in a pair of loose pantaloons. The lieutenant would see himself damned if he would witness any man of his being grilled by some whispering upstart of a duelist without his officer present to protect him in case of need.
Sergeant Doyle had drawn up Vantage's forty-seven Marines in the waist of Defiant, in two facing ranks. Upon catching sight of his officer among the gathering on the quarterdeck above him, the sergeant called his redcoats to attention, and they presented arms with a familiar clank. Wallace hitched himself painfully down the larboard companionway into the waist, and took position between the two ranks. From there he looked up at Captain Wright and raised his hat in salute.
'What d'ye want to do now, sir?' Wright rasped at Peter Gladden. 'You may as well know these fancy departures from proper procedure do your client no good at all in the eyes of this court.'
Mr. Gladden bowed. 'By your leave, sir, I would like him to accompany me down the ranks of these Marines. I want him to identify the man who stood on guard outside Captain Hay's door when he reported to the captain on the evening of the murder.'
'Very good, Mr. Gladden. You may accompany your bro- the accused into the waist.'
