Wilder Perkins - Hoare and the matter of treason

"Go on, O'Gock."

Hoare could barely follow the man's dialect, a strange variation of heavy Dorset. But since there was no interpreter handy, he must do his best.

"Well, zur, w'en I were a lad I bin tole dat, long long ago, back in de ol' country, us 'uns was fisher-folk an' 'unters like, mostly. Zeemly us 'uns should be 'unters an' fisher-folk agin, zeein' it be in our blood. Us 'uns bean't 'oss-folk by natur' like youse folk be; no, zur."

"And what about Sir Thomas?" Hoare asked.

" 'I'm, zur? W'y, 'e be moithered in de 'ead, 'e be, poor man. An' 'sides, w'ere 'e be a-goin', 'e won't be no 'elp to us O'Gocks, will 'e now?"

Hoare was not sure himself what was going to happen to Sir Thomas Frobisher, and he hardly knew how Dan'l O'Gock would know better. Perhaps, as the direct descendant of shamanistic savages, the man was privy to secret messages from the ether whose detection was long since lost to the civilized.

"What can I do for you, then?" he asked.

"W'y, zur, take me aboard yer brig, for now, an' let me show ye w'at kind o' zailor we'uns be. We be 'andy in zpecial boats, zur, like."

"You would be, of course," Hoare whispered. "You are of Inuit stock, are you not?"

O'Gock goggled at him, almost like Sir Thomas.

"Why, yer worship, that I be, an' my people with me. But, beggin' yer parding, 'ow do ye be knowin' de name we 'uns use to name oursel's?"

Hoare explained briefly, then asked, "How did you come to be carrying an Irish name, then?"

"Rackon 'twere best de folk could do with de name my great-great tole 'em, yer worship. We' uns don't name our families, ye'll remember. Tale goes, my great-great were named 'Okkak' or like. So de udders, dey done best dey could gettin' roun' de name, zeemly."

"Well enough. Now. As far as small craft are concerned, O'Gock, that's easily said, and easily done. Tell Stone… you know Stone?"

"Aye, zur. De barefoot man."

"Yes. Tell Stone I want you taken downstream to Royal Duke. Tell him what you'll need in the matter of a boat, or, at least, materials to build one of your own. Go now, please. I have much to do, and there is not a moment to be lost."

"Aye, zur thanky, zur."

Dan'l O'Gock knuckled his forehead below his heavy shag of coarse black hair, and was gone. If only, Hoare thought, all their needs, including his own, could be met with equal ease.

Hoare had gone through the previous night with no sleep at all, being preoccupied with chasing to London from Greenwich and then trying to cope with his womenfolks' captors. So he had slept the clock around one time and a half, and then made absentminded sleepy love with his absent minded sleepy wife. In today's dawning, he had dressed and come below, ravenous, to deal with the matters stemming from the events of the last night but one. After putting a tidier plaster over the nick in her husband's left ear, Eleanor had gone about her own affairs-to replace the undergarments she had left behind in the fracas at 18, Gracechurch Street, if Hoare had understood her mission properly in his half doze. Since Sarah Taylor accompanied her, she would not be at personal risk, but, by the same token, the two women could not go far toward rescuing his Jenny for him.

For, on his rejoining the exhausted Hoare at the inn early the day before-or was it two days? — Titus Thoday's face had been somber.

"We could not find her, sir," he said. "We ransacked the entire place. We even had Sir Thomas's assistance in pointing out several nooks and crannies that even I would have had trouble in finding without him. I must conclude, sir, that Goldthwait took Miss Jenny with him when he and his people absconded from Sir Thomas's house.

"I failed you, sir. I regret it most sincerely."

"It's all right, Thoday," Hoare had answered. "It was I who failed her, not you who failed me.

"But I do have a bone to pick with you, sir," he had gone on. He had been too weary to feel astonished at having just addressed one of his own crew as "sir"; besides, rating or no, he knew Thoday to be a natural gentleman. He must look into this, later.

"Before I left my ship, Thoday," he had said, "I gave absolute orders to all hands that under no circumstances was anyone to follow me to London… in some misguided hope of helping me recover my family. In the event, I am happy to admit, it was most fortunate that you disobeyed those orders, but…

"I owe you, Leese, Taylor, and the others my thanks for my deliverance, but I also owe you condign punishment for disobeying the direct orders of your captain."

"By your leave, sir," Thoday had answered, "I was not aboard Royal Duke at the time you issued those orders. In fact, I knew nothing whatsoever of the distressing happenings at Dirty Mill. You will recall that I had come up to London to back up young Collis the sweep, when he sent word that he was on the trail of the man Floppin' Poll named as 'Sol.' The one, actually a mere figment, whom we had assumed must be Solomon."

The lean investigator was quite right, Hoare had realized. So Thoday, at least, must be acquitted of insubordination. The man had a gift for catching him aback and rolling him onto his beam ends. He gritted his teeth and apologized.

"I could get you a warrant, Thoday, as master's mate," he said, "or even midshipman, if you wish to make yourself a career as a naval officer."

"You forget my faith, sir," the other answered.

"I have taken care never to inquire about it, you may have noticed, though I assume you to be of the Roman persuasion." Openly avowed, they both knew, this would debar the communicant, by Act of Parliament, from responsible office of any kind under the king.

The other nodded gravely.

"But," Hoare went on, "consider the case of Mr. Terence O'Brien. Rumor has it that he has been named third in Devastation, even though rumor also has it that he is a quiet Catholic. He has simply never proclaimed his faith openly."

"It is precisely that, sir, which is a stumbling block. While I do not cry my faith before all hands, in my case my conscience would never allow me to deny it if asked, as I would be, and be damned to that recusant O'Brien.

"But there's more, sir. By upbringing, and perhaps by my inherited nature, I believe I am not a naval person but another creature entirely. As you may remember, my late father was principal aide to Sir John Fielding of Bow Street."

Hoare nodded. He remembered well.

"I believe myself," Thoday said, "to have a vocation…"

He stopped in mid-sentence and even grinned slightly at Hoare's expression of sudden alarm.

"No, no, sir; not to the priesthood, not at all. In fact… well, never mind. A vocation, I mean, to investigate, to track down, to… to detect. A career different from any other under the sun." The sunken cheeks on either side of his hawk nose almost glowed, but not quite.

"More than possible, I agree," Hoare whispered. He remembered very well the crisp deductions that Thoday had produced, one after another, during their first adventure together. Thoday's deductions, and not his own, had been largely responsible for Walter Spurrier's being laid by the heels.

"If, sir, I were-eventually, perhaps at the end of the present war with the French-to be seconded to Sir George Hardcastle's office, or perhaps even to Mr. Prickett senior's, I believe I could become of great and enduring service to my country and the Crown."

"Well, well, Thoday. We must see."

Thereupon, Hoare sent Thoday off to take up his search for Mr. Goldthwait and his followers.

But Taylor, Stone, and Leese were not off the hook yet; all had been aboard Royal Duke when he had issued his "do-not-follow" command. He had seen them with his own eyes. They had heard him. So, when they all had returned to their ship, they must be brought before him and formally charged with disobedience to orders. The notion of the consequence-the mental picture of Leese's green jacket stripped of its stripes and then stripped from his body in preparation for his being lashed to a grating and flogged-the thought was purely ridiculous. And as for Sarah Taylor-Hoare's tired mind boggled. The thought of executing the navy's raw justice on that handsome, robust body might arouse the nasty, but not, he told himself, Bartholomew Hoare. No, he would, simply and quietly, call each of them before him, tell them never, never again to disobey the direct order of their captain, thank them, shake hands, and put the whole thing behind him. Duty be damned.