Bruce Alexander - Watery Grave

“Mum’s the word. But … did he get caught napping?”

“Oh no, we left all that ashore, the two of us. Jonah Falkirk died a fair seaman’s death in a battle with Indian pirates.”

“Injun pirates, is it? Crikey, Tom, you got some stories to tell, ain’t it?”

“A fair few.”

“My cove HUhf a seaman,” said Bunkins proudly. Then whispered: “They say he was a pirate, but he don’t talk none about such.”

“Your cove, is it? And who might he be?”

“John Bilbo, so he is.”

“Black Jack Bilbo? Him who has the gaming house in Mayfair?”

“The same, on’y he don’t let just everybody call him that. He asks me to call him Mr. Bilbo, and I obliges, for he treats me fair and looks out for me.”

“I’d noticed you’d come up in the world, ” said Tom, “and not just that you’d grown a few inches. You’ve a proper suit of clothes on you, and I see your face clear and unsmudged for the first time in memo It’s a new Jimmie Bunkins I see before me.”

“Chum, you don’t know the half. Mr. Bilbo’s got me learnin’ to read and to do sums!” He looked craftily about.” How would you like to meet him, Tom Durham? Walk right up and give his daddle a wiggle? He’s a good sort, ain’t he, Jeremy?”

“Oh, he is indeed,” said I.” A friend to Sir John — though it’s true they have their differences.”

“Well, then, come along-you, too, Jeremy. He speaks good olyou, always askin’ after Sir John and yourself.”

Shaking my head with a show of regret, I held up the bag of vegetables I had bought at the stalls. “If we are to eat tonight,” said I, “then I must return with these. Go, Tom, and on the way tell Bunkins the tale of the grabs.”

They said their goodbyes and waved. As they started off together.

I heard Jimmie Bunkins ask, “What, for Gawd’s own sake, might a ‘grab’ be?”

Walking on by myself across Covent Garden in the direction of Bow Street, I reflected that Tom Durham and his Jimmie B. seemed an odd pair — but then, so must Bunkins and I appear equally ill matched.

I had not realized Tom had quite such a history in petty crime. The two were reformed villains and each had done his separate form of penance. It would be best, I decided, not to tell Lady Fielding where her son had gone and with whom. She might indeed draw the wrong conclusions.

Upon my return, I visited Mrs. Gredge, and then I was free to seek out Sir John. He had asked me to be ready as soon as he concluded his court session, and we would travel to the Navy Board office for the meeting with Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Redmond. Only minutes before, I had tested the door to the courtroom and found him engaged in the examination of a witness. It seemed likely then that this would continue for quite some while, yet when I left Mrs. Gredge and returned to the courtroom, I found it empty.

Quite in a panic, for I did not wish Sir John to make such a long trip alone, nor did I wish to lose the chance to meet an admiral, I went searching and found him directly in the little alcove that served Mr. Marsden, the court clerk, for an office.

Yet before I spoke, he had turned his head in my direction.” Jeremy,” said he, “is that you?”

“It is, sir.”

“Good, then let us be off. I believe our business is complete, Mr. Marsden?”

“Yes, I shall have the letters on your desk for your signature before I leave tonight.”

“Shall we go then, Jeremy?”

Mr. Marsden or Mr. Fuller, or one of the other daytime gentlemen, had seen to the matter of the hackney carriage. One stood waiting on the street just outside the door.

As we ascended into the carriage cabin, Sir John called out our destination to the driver.” Tower Hill,” said he.” The office of the Navy Board.”

I brought the carriage door shut behind me and turned to Sir John with a question:

“Sir, when I came up to you just now at Mr. Marsden’s desk, you knew quite immediate it was me. I had not even spoken, yet you knew. It has happened just so more times than I can remember. IF I may ask, Sir John, how are you able to tell?”

He smiled.” Oh, it was partly a matter of anticipation,” said he.” I was expecting you, after all, for we had agreed to go off together to Tower Hill. But then, too, I may have noted your step. It is a bit quicker and lighter than most heard in Bow Street.”

Then he hesitated but a moment, frowning, as if weighing the wisdom of proceeding. Yet eventually he did:

“There is another matter to be taken into consideration, as well.”

“And what is that. Sir John?”

“You have a smell.”

“I … I stink?” Surely I washed clean enough to rid myself of those noxious odors of the body which so many disguise with perfume.

“No, no, do not take offense, Jeremy. Each of us has a distinctive odor. That is how dogs tell us apart — not by our clothes, which matter little to them, nor by our faces, which they seldom see, but rather by our odor. Their sense of smell is much superior to their sight.”

“And yours is also so keenly developed?”

“Oh, I am no hunting dog, yet I can pick up a scent when the situation requires.” He laughed at his little joke.

We rode in silence for a time; then I thought to ask:

“What is my smell like?”

“Oh, what indeed?” said he.” What makes one face different from another? A longer nose, perhaps? A chin stronger or weaker? It is, rather, the combination of all the elements, their balance, that gives the look of a face — or so I recall from my days with sight. Is that not so? Well then, just so, your smell is compounded of a good many elements-sweat, yours has a rather high odor; milk, you drink a good deal of it; and — oh, other things I suppose. It is not, in any case, an unpleasant smell, if that was your fear. Simply your smell.”

“And each has his own?”

“Precisely.”

That silenced me, giving me much to consider, for a good piece of our journey. Sir John kept his quiet, as was often his way. Not until the Tower was in view did he speak up.

“Did you have an opportunity to look in on Mrs. Gredge?”

“I did, sir, yes.”

“How did she seem to you? Better? Worse?”

“In some ways better. She was awake and alert, but I noticed some difficulty in her speech, as if her tongue had grown too big for her mouth.”

“I noticed that. Apoplexy may be the cause. She must not work again. I fear it would be the end of her. I shall try to contact her sons. There are three, I believe — two in London.”

All discussion of Mrs. Gredge’s sorry situation ended at that point, for the hackney driver pulled up before a large, imposing building in a row of such imposing buildings. Although they stood within sight of the great rampart and moat, I had not noticed them on my previous day’s visit, so taken was I by the prospect of the Tower.

These buildings housed the offices of the Navy Board. In one of them Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Redmond awaited our visit. Up the stairs and inside, we presented ourselves to a petty officer, who chose a seaman from three on a bench nearby and detailed him to accompany us to the proper office. It was then up a good many more stairs and down a long hall. Sir John had no difficulty keeping up but had as little notion as I just where we were headed. There were two unanticipated turns at which we nearly collided with our guide, but at last we found ourselves before the proper door.

The seaman rapped smartly upon it, then bawled forth, “Permission to enter, suh!”

Then, from beyond the door, in a voice near as strong: “Permission granted!”

The door was thrown open before us and we two. Sir John and I, entered an outer office at which a young lieutenant presided. The door slammed behind us. We were left in the lieutenant’s charge. He stood rigid in full-dress uniform, hat folded beneath his arm, and spoke forth in an unnatural nasal singsong tone, as if issuing orders to us.