'Gone these forty years, sir,' the wrinkled man said.
'Forty years? And you still can't bring a boat alongside without staving her in?'
'No, sir. 'Twere me eye, sir. I can't judge distances no more, sir.' Joy raised his head, and Hoare saw that where his right eye should have been was a red, oozing hollow.
'Very good, Joy. Carry on, now.'
'Beggin' your pardon, sir, but I've a message from the shore.'
'Well?' Hoare asked.
'From Miss Jenny, sir. She says like she's learned to write all her letters now, as far as K, and please will you remember about the kitting you promised her?'
At the mention of 'Miss Jenny,' Hoare's heart forgot his rage at the inept Joy. He had not forgotten the kitten. He thanked Joy and dismissed him once again.
He turned back to Clay.
'If you can find no more suitable man for this ship's boatswain than a one-eyed antique like Joy, Mr. Clay, we shall have to take a very hard look at our readiness for sea.'
'Aye aye, sir,' was all Clay could say.
'I bring us a new assignment, Mr. Clay,' Hoare said. 'Come below, if convenient, and I'll tell you about it.'
Chapter III
In Hoare's cabin, the silent Whitelaw already awaited them, once again bearing biscuits and port. Hoare did not believe he had yet heard the man speak. Was he, perhaps, even more totally mute than his master?
'Well, Mr. Clay, it is my turn to inform you.' So saying, he conveyed to his Lieutenant all he had just learned about the affair in the Nine Stones Circle.
'All too little,' he concluded. 'I propose to make at least the first investigation myself. But I would like your recommendation of a man-not a woman at this time, if you please-to serve as my deputy or amanuensis. I have never worked with one, and it is clear that I must learn how. In your experience, which of our crew is best suited to handle this mission?'
Clay gave Hoare's question a full fifteen seconds' consideration before saying, 'Thoday, sir.'
'Of course, today,' Hoare said in a displeased voice. 'Tomorrow at the latest. There isn't a moment to be lost.'
'Thoday is his name, sir. Accent on the ultimate. His father was one of Sir John Fielding's best men-the 'blind beak,' you know-and Titus Thoday takes after him. Experienced, cold, sharp. Rated Gunner's Mate, nominally.'
'Very good. Let's have a look at him.'
Hoare chirruped, and Whitelaw reappeared.
'Get me Titus Thoday, Whitelaw,' Hoare said. But first…'
Hoare demonstrated to Whitelaw a few simple signals besides the chirrup that he had found useful in dealing with persons waiting on him-the trills on his boatswain's pipe he had developed with pink Susan Hackins at the Swallowed Anchor, for example. He was already confident that the silent man would need no rehearsal. In fact, the brief experience told him that Whitelaw might well foresee his master's requirements before he knew them himself.
'Now, get me Thoday,' he concluded.
'Aye aye, sir.' These were the first words the man had uttered. That settled one question: Whitelaw was not mute, but merely taciturn-a rare but welcome characteristic for a Captain's servant, Hoare thought.
Had Hoare been anyone but his Commander, the demeanor of the person who appeared within moments would have been quite intimidating. Thoday stooped to clear his head in what Hoare considered a condescending way, even though Royal Duke's low overhead made the stoop necessary. Thoday's nose was a beak, his eyes an icy pale gray, his thin lips habitually compressed. He accepted as merely his due Hoare's invitation to be seated and listened in silence until Hoare finished his story for the second time in half an hour.
'I shall accompany you ashore tomorrow morning, sir, when you depart,' Thoday then said. Neither Hoare nor Clay had said a word about Hoare's coming journey, nor did Thoday seem to doubt that his Commander would accommodate him without boggling.
'We shall require an assistant with local knowledge,' he continued.
'Lemuel Rabbett is one of Admiral Hardcastle's clerks,' Hoare said tersely. 'He is a native of the area, and he has been told to make himself available. I hope you'll find that satisfactory,' he added with mild sarcasm.
'I shall find out quickly enough.' Thoday's voice was hard, but it bore a faint hint of approval. 'We can pick him up in the morning, as we leave town.'
Thoday rose to his feet.
'And now, gentlemen, I have my preparations to make-as, no doubt, have you.'
'A bit above himself, isn't he?' Hoare asked as the cabin door closed behind the Gunner's Mate.
'You will find, sir, that most of my, your crew have little innate respect for rank,' Clay said. 'They are something like the Americans in that respect. But, fortunately, our people at least know what correct behavior is and generally choose to adopt it when strangers are present, so no self-esteem is lost on either side.
'I am given to understand that Thoday is an excellent gunner as well, although he has had no chance to demonstrate his prowess with our poor little popguns.' So Mr. Clay was a secret fire-eater, thought Hoare.
Aloud, he whispered, 'We shall have to correct that as soon as I return, shan't we?'
They had ordered an Admiralty chaise to be ready to leave at the turn of the watch, so Hoare would not even have time to shave. Whitelaw picked up the portmanteau he had yet to unpack for his Commander and, lugging it, led the way from Royal Duke's cabin into the misty evening.
At the boarding port, Whitelaw handed the bag to Thoday, who accepted it without blinking an eye. Mr. Clay doffed his hat in salute.
'Since you have issued no orders to the contrary, sir, may I presume that I should continue with the projects assigned us before Royal Duke left London?'
'Exactly. But I would like you to add some drill with her-er-great guns.'
'Even without her gunner, sir?'
'Especially without her gunner, Mr. Clay.'
'Aye aye, sir.' Hoare thought to see an ironic smile on Thoday's thin lips. Was there an undercurrent of something here? he wondered.
'Give way, all,' said the coxswain.
Before the chaise departed Portsmouth in the chill of late evening, Lemuel Rabbett had to undergo Thoday's inquisition. The little clerk showed himself as full of local knowledge about the Nine Stones Circle, and the copses and heathy moors in which it was set, as any harbor pilot must necessarily be about his local waters. Not so long ago, he explained, the area had been largely enclosed and left fallow to support the growing flocks of several local landowners. As the party already knew, it was one of the shepherds whose dog had sniffed out the bodies of Captains Francis and Benjamin Getchell. In his boyhood, Rabbett had roamed the area, studying the birds and his namesake coneys, and he knew most of the lonely men, as well as their dogs.
The Nine Stones Circle, he told them as the chaise trundled through the moonlit October countryside, was itself something of a magnet for the curious. He had even heard that strangers gathered in and around its nine stones at the equinoxes and solstices to conduct ungodly rites. After all, the Poor Lot Barrows lay only a few miles farther west, and everyone knew that there, on those same occasions, the wights came out to dance with the neighboring witches.
Of course, if one were to ask Rabbett his opinion, only the locals believed in that sort of thing. A native of Dorchester himself, four miles distant, Mr. Rabbett knew perfectly well there was nothing in it. Besides, since neither an equinox nor a solstice was at hand, as the Naval gentlemen surely need not be told, the Captains' deaths could have had nothing to do with any Satanistic celebrations in the Nine Stones Circle.
'Nonetheless,' Rabbett said, 'it's odd, is it not, gentlemen, that All Hallows' Eve is not so many days
