Imogen Robertson: Anatomy of Murder

“Prepare to board!” The Splendor began to inch back alongside the Marquis .

Meredith watched in horrid fascination as a French gunner put a slowmatch to his cannon. The world disappeared in smoke for a moment and Meredith heard the air spilled with a scream. Hobbes had been caught and thrown to his knees on the deck. His arm was shattered and already his blood was making the boards under Meredith’s feet slippery and treacherous. “Get below, Hobbes!” he yelled, and the boy began to drag himself toward the hatch with his good arm. Then: “Fire!”

The Splendor’ s broadside at this distance was devastating. Metal ripped through the French ship like a holy fire. Meredith aimed for the base of the Frenchman’s main mast. There was a thunderous crack and it fell toward them, catching on the Splendor ’s spars and holding the two ships together in a bloody embrace-yet still the French did not cease firing.

The captain was striding back down the length of his ship, his face set and his sword already in his hand. Behind him, men were lifting pikes from their racks under the mainmast, and the little boys who fetched the powder from the magazine were pressing fresh cartridges into the hands of the marines. Meredith felt for his sword.

“Boarding party!” he roared, and his men dropped their business at the gun and ran for pikes of their own. As he swung his legs over the bulwark, preparing to leap onto the deck of the Frenchman, below him he could see others of the crew clambering from their portholes over their dead and their guns to swing themselves into the Marquis through the gaping holes torn in her sides. Meredith leaped and caught onto the Frenchman and hauled himself up. A light wind touched his cheek and in front of him the smoke parted enough for him to see a couple of French officers in fierce argument even as the English surged toward them across their bloody, shattered decks. He looked behind him and noticed a marine, his musket loaded and raised back on the Splendor .

“There!” he shouted, pointing at the two men with his sword. The marine nodded and Meredith dropped to the deck as the musket fizzed and cracked behind him, his arms over his head and his whole body trembling. One of the officers fell, the other at once dropped to his knees and began to fumble under the corpse’s coat, pulling his sword free with such force the body rolled on its back, gaping up sightlessly at the fallen mast.

The officer remained kneeling and lifted his captain’s sword above his head, shouting as loudly as he could above the yells and gunshots: “ On se rend! On se rend!”

Captain Westerman emerged from amidst the smoke: “Cease firing!”

The English cheered and the gunfire came raggedly to a halt. Meredith lifted himself to his feet and looked around him. Dotted about the decks, his fellows from the Splendor stood over their French captives looking bloody and wild. The captain looked more ferocious than Meredith had ever seen him; his sword was red and wet.

The living officer remained on his knees, still offering up the sword. Westerman grabbed it from him, spun on his heel and smashed the flat of the blade against the fallen trunk of the mainmast. The blade flew away from the hilt and skittered on the deck.

The French officer flinched.

“ Rendez vos armes!” Westerman shouted, and as the pikes, guns and knives of the remaining French crew clattered to the deck, he threw down the hilt of the captain’s sword by his corpse and turned back toward the Splendor .

EIGHT BELLS OF THE AFTERNOON WATCH (4 P.M.)

James’s cabin was restored to order while he visited the surgeon and sick bay to find out what men he had lost. When he finally returned to his cabin, there was already more coffee on his table, his wife’s letter had been returned to the place where he had left it and his first lieutenant was waiting for him.

“How bad is it, Captain?” Mr. Cooper asked.

“Forty dead. One of the young gentlemen, Hobbes, has lost an arm, but he took the operation bravely and will live. Major Mansel is dead.”

Around them, the ship echoed with the sound of hammering and the shouts of the carpenter. Mr. Cooper shifted on his boots and put his hands together behind his back. His captain’s mouth was set in a thin line. He was like a being formed from the ship’s mind. The rage each member of the crew felt at the false surrender soaked through the timbers and into James Westerman’s flesh.

Cooper cleared his throat. “I’ve been talking to the officer-the one who gave up his captain’s sword.” James looked up sharply and Cooper wet his lips before continuing. “His English is as good as mine. They had a run-in with one of ours a week ago, but managed to get away. Half the crew was in the sick bay being treated for their wounds before we came near them. Good thing too, or that broadside would have ripped us to shreds. They wanted their captain to find a safe harbor for repairs, but he insisted on pressing on. I think they were near enough shooting him themselves.”

James sighed and passed a hand over his forehead. “Any notion as to why he wouldn’t stop?”

Cooper straightened, but continued in a firmer voice, “She’s stuffed with supplies for the rebels, including a vast amount of powder. It’s a miracle she didn’t blow, given the pounding she received at our hands, so you have made us all rich if we can get her into home waters.”

“What says our carpenter to that?”

“That we can make her sail, though he’d like to tan Meredith for taking out the mainmast.”

“Good. You’ll command her, Cooper. Pick your crew as soon as repairs are sufficient to make us both seaworthy.”

“Thank you, sir. But there’s something else. It seems their captain had a guest-a civilian, Frenchman-and the officer reckoned it was on his account that their captain made them fight so hard.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes. He told them the passenger could not fall into English hands.”

James frowned. “Is he alive?”

“He is, though he has a nasty splinter wound in the belly. Seems he owes his life to Meredith. When the French captain was shot, he had just given his lieutenant the order to cut the man’s throat.”

James began to put his coat on once more. “Where is he?”

“Just being brought over to our surgeon now, sir. Theirs is dead, so our boys are seeing what they can do for the prisoners. What will you do, sir?”

James looked at him, his expression hard. “There are too many men dead, Cooper. That Frenchman is not going to die without telling me what he knows.”

The surgeon was sent away from his post to rest an hour, and Heathcote placed to give the captain and his guest some privacy. Heathcote never looked around, though he heard the sounds and could think what they meant. For a moment in the midst of all the French talk spoke low behind him, the captain’s voice harsh and strong, the man from the other ship whispering and gurgling, he thought he heard a thin voice singing. Then there was another rattling gasp, a whimper like a dog struck, and the sounds ceased.

THURSDAY, 15 NOVEMBER 1781, HIGHGATE, NORTH LONDON

Mrs. Harriet Westerman was watching her hands. They were shaking slightly. The door to the parlor opened suddenly and she looked up. The owner of the house had entered the room; he started on seeing her then said softly in his light Scots voice, “My apologies, Mrs. Westerman. I had thought you still with your husband. Is everything as it should be?”

Harriet tried to smile at him, but found she could not and looked back at her hands, which trembled still on the stiff purple silk of her skirts like nervous children forced to recite in front of the dining-room draperies. She did not know why she had let herself be persuaded into buying this dress. It was uncomfortable and James had never liked this color.