Bruce Alexander - Smuggler's Moon

“Halloo, the Indian Princess ! Permission to come aboard?” Sir John’s powerful baritone cry floated steady across the water to us.

“Permission granted!” Mr. Bilbo’s response, which sounded even stronger, was returned most immediately and, it seemed to me, quite enthusiastically.

Then, almost as an afterthought, Mr. Bilbo instructed Bunkins (whom he addressed as Mister Bunkins) to lower a boat, and indeed Bunkins saw to it.

Constables Bailey and Patley, and I myself did climb down the rope ladder to the waiting boat. Of us three, Constable Patley had potentially the greatest difficulty because of the rifled musket he carried. Yet he solved his problem with a strap which ran from the bottom of the stock to the barrel. Using it, he simply slung the weapon over his shoulder, and thus had both hands free to use to descend the rope ladder. Neither Mr. Bailey nor I had any such problem.

The two oarsmen supplied by Mr. Bilbo had no difficulty ferrying us to the riverbank, nor was the bank so steep that it caused difficulty; steps had been cut into it. Once constables Bailey and Patley had ascended to the high ground, where they were greeted by Sir John, I climbed the stairs that I might assist him down them and into the boat. That much he allowed, but when I moved to climb in after him, he barred my way.

“It will not be necessary to accompany me, Jeremy. I take it you have with you a document from Lord Mansfield giving me a temporary appointment in Deal?”

“Right in my pocket, Sir John.”

“Excellent. Then you accomplished all the tasks I gave you commendably well. I shall take over at this point, having offered you my thanks.”

“But … but won’t you need me to help you up the ladder?”

“Jeremy, I am quite capable of climbing a rope ladder by myself. I climbed hundreds of them during my time in the Navy.”

”As you wish, Sir John,” said I with a sigh.

“That is how I wish it.”

With that, he took his place in the boat. The oarsmen pushed off, and in not much more than a minute, were there at the Indian Princess. As he had predicted, Sir John made it to the top of the ladder without incident, and there was met by Mr. Bilbo, who helped him over the gunwale and onto the deck. Then, for nearly half an hour, the two men parlayed as they walked every inch of the sloop’s topdeck.

At one point, as I stood watching with the two constables, Mr. Patley remarked to us, ”I wonder what Sir John is planning with that old pirate.”

“Whatever it is,” responded Mr. Bailey, ”it’s going to cause some smuggler one hell of a great lot of trouble.”

The afternoon drive from Gravesend back to Deal was uneventful, save for the one incident which I have described, wherein quite unexpectedly Sir John declared that an attack upon an officer of the court was an attack upon the law itself. He broke what had been a long silence to say that-yet silence, in this case, should be understood only in a relative sense. Certainly, there had been naught said by the two constables for many miles; having put in a full night marching about the unruly precincts of London, they were naturally quite tired. They promptly fell asleep as Mr. Crawly set his coach upon the main road and headed for Deal. I remained awake, yet though I sat next to Sir John, he showed little inclination to talk to me. Nevertheless, he was far from quiet. There were steady murmurings and grunts from him; he must be either in deep conversation with himself, or in a troubled sleep. All other signs-his erect posture in the seat, the swiftly altering expressions of his face-indicated that the former was the more likely.

I wished to ask him questions. Indeed I wished to know just what it was he and Mr. Bilbo had discussed at such length as they ambled back and forth cross the decks of the Indian Princess. Clearly, Sir John had a plan, one which included Mr. Bilbo and perhaps also his ship. And I had an important matter to communicate to Sir John as well: I had not yet had the opportunity to tell him of the detachment of cavalry which would soon be under his command. Nevertheless, I kept my peace. There was simply no getting through to him whilst he was in such a state.

I did make only one attempt to do so, and that was just following his sudden pronouncement. He had spoken out with such authority that he roused both the sleeping constables; they sat up in their seats, blinked, and waited for him to continue. When he did not, they allowed their eyelids to droop once more and soon were fast asleep just as before. For my part, I took a chance, and once it was clear that he would add nothing to what he had said, I decided to tell him what I had to tell.

“Sir John,” I blurted, ”I’ve an important bit of information for you.”

“Can it wait?”

“Well, I suppose it can.”

“Then later, please.”

And having said that, he went back to his muttering. His conversation with himself thus continued.

As it happened, I had not the chance to tell him of the cavalry’s impending arrival until much later that day; it was, in fact, well into evening when I did. After we had eaten dinner-and a fine dinner it was, prepared for us by Mrs. Sarton (Clarissa also had a hand in it)-Sir John met with his constables to acquaint them with the situation in Deal before Mr. Perkins took them out to show them the town. Only after they had departed did I take it upon myself to knock upon the door to the little room which had served Albert Sarton as his study. Invited inside, I took a chair just opposite the one in which Sir John sat at the desk.

“Well, Jeremy,” said he, ”I believe you told me earlier that you had an important bit of information which you wished to pass on to me.”

“That’s right, sir, I do.”

“I asked you then to hold it until later. Well, this is later, is it not? Let me hear this information.”

Whereupon I disclosed that he would, in a day or two, have a small contingent of cavalry at his disposal.

“Good God!” said he. ”This is terrible!”

Did he truly think so? But why? Actually, I thought it rather a grand idea, but I kept this opinion to myself.

“Whose notion was this?” asked Sir John.

“Lord Mansfield’s,” said I.

“Well, if it was his idea, then there’s no sending them back, is there?”

“I suppose not,” said I. Then, after a moment’s hesitation: ”He must have felt that the situation here, as you described it in your letter, was so desperate that you would need such aid to set it right.”

“Hmmm, well, yes, I fear I did paint rather a grim sort of picture. Perhaps I should have been a little less … convincing.”

“Can’t you find some use for them, Sir John?”

He gave that some thought. ”Perhaps I can. I just hadn’t thought of such before. But … but … where shall I put them?”

There I could give him no help at all, and so I simply kept silent.

“I shall give it some thought.” He nodded then, which I took as a sign that he wished to be left alone.

I rose, excused myself, and made to go. He had, however, one last word for me.

”Jeremy, I had neglected to tell you this, but the funeral for Mr. Sarton will be held tomorrow at ten. We shall all attend. Please wear your best. I trust you have a clean shirt?”

The services, which were held at St. George’s church, were coldly formal, remarkably short, and sadly ill-attended. If a person were to have come in as a stranger (as I did), it would not have taken him long to perceive that the vicar had been no friend to the man in the coffin. Where he might have made remarks in praise of Mr. Sarton, he said nothing, even went so far as to call attention to the omission.