Wilder Perkins: Hoare and the headless Captains

"What on earth is this?" Hoare whispered.

"Sir Hugh's special chair, sir," Mr. Clay replied. "Admiral Abercrombie was wont to visit Captain Oglethorpe quite frequently when we lay in Greenwich."

"Sir Hugh Abercrombie must be a very big man."

"A very great man," Clay said in a neutral voice. Personal size, Hoare realized, might be as sensitive a topic for this wee man as commercial sex or whispering was for himself. He would have to be very mindful of this.

He was about to ask Mr. Clay to assemble the officers when he remembered that in addition to the two of them, if his memory was correct, Royal Duke counted only King's warrant officers in her complement, plus, of course, the seamen and a boy or two. He decided, instead, to query Clay about their mission.

"Take a seat, won't you, Mr. Clay?" Clay complied. Hoare noted in passing that the poor man's toes did not reach the deck when he sat.

"Did Captain Oglethorpe leave a servant when he died?"

"Oh, yes, sir. Whitelaw by name."

At the sound of his name, Whitelaw himself entered, bringing with him a tray of delicacies: a decanter of what looked like a tawny port, glasses, and a plate of biscuits. He was portly, but portly in the way of a wild boar: heavy, solid, and probably extremely strong. He placed the refreshments on the table and withdrew without a word.

"Tell me about yourself, Mr. Clay," Hoare whispered when he had poured each of them a glass.

The little Lieutenant was quite willing to speak of himself When he first went to sea, he told Hoare, he was no smaller than other midshipmen of the same age.

"I simply failed to grow," he explained, apparently feeling no more embarrassment about his stature than Hoare did about his silence.

Hoare needed little time to learn that his Lieutenant was mentally quick. Though small, he looked physically fit-nimble, in fact. He had, he said without affectation, been out twice and obtained satisfaction each time.

"I chose swords both times," he said. "My adversaries were so surprised at being up against such an unexpectedly long reach on the part of such a miniature opponent that, on each occasion, I drew first blood with no ado."

Since one of his maternal uncles was an Admiral and an Earl-. "My stature may be negligible, sir, but my standing is not." Mr. Clay's interest had sufficed to overcome any reservations the examining board might have had about his lack of stature, so he eventually found himself a Lieutenant. But since his commissioning, Mr. Clay had never seen action. Most of his service had been in auxiliary vessels or, naturally enough, in cutters, brigs, and others of the smallest men-o'-war.

He had been seconded to Royal Duke a year ago. He knew her crew and her mission from main truck to keelson, for the late Captain Oglethorpe, as he faded out of life, had lately relied more heavily upon him every day. In these last months, Mr. Clay said frankly, he had commanded the yacht in all but name.

"And to tell you the truth, sir," he said, "I am happy to be relieved of full responsibility for both the vessel and her business. A person with my limited experience in the world of statecraft has no business meddling in the sorts of affair that come aboard us here."

Of these affairs, there were four important ones at present, Clay explained. The first was the dissection and improvement, for similar use against the French, of the clockwork timers whose provenance Hoare himself had just run down in the course of a previous Herculean labor for Admiral Hardcastle. The second was the plugging of an information leak that had appeared among the clerical staff in Portsmouth. The third was an inquiry into a sharp reduction in morale and hence in productivity among certain mateys in the Navy Yard. The fourth involved breaking the cipher that Hoare had encountered during his inquiry last spring. Clay had sensibly delegated the day-today pursuit of each mission to a different individual.

"If I may, sir," he said, "I propose that we summon each in turn to tell us about his task. Or hers in one case, for Taylor is responsible for the cipher."

"Very good," Hoare said. "Let us begin with Taylor, then. Will you pass the word for her?"

Taylor still wore her spectacles but had pushed them to the top of her head. Hoare thought they made her look like a highly premature grandmother.

"Be seated, if you please, Taylor," Hoare whispered. Clay's face took on a surprised look, as if he was none too sure that Royal Duke's Captain was wise to address a hand with "please," let alone inviting her to be seated in his presence.

"Tell me," Hoare asked, "what progress have you made in deciphering the set of messages… that originated with the affair of the infernal machines last spring?"

"Almost none, sir," she admitted. For her impressive size her voice was quiet, her accent ladylike. A gentlewoman in reduced circumstances, perhaps?

"I am convinced that the key to them is a passage in some text carried by both sender and recipient. The Bible is the most common key, as you must know, being the most widely distributed text. But I have tried both the King James and Douai versions without success."

Not only ladylike: prim. A bluestocking, then, disguised as a sailor.

"But why are you using English translations of the Bible when the messages are almost certainly in French?" Hoare asked.

"In French, sir?"

"Yes. You knew that, surely. In the covering letter I enclosed with the messages, I informed the Admiralty that at least two of the men using the cipher spoke French and that one left a French Bible next to his worksheets."

"That information never reached me, sir," came the quiet voice.

"I can corroborate that, sir," Clay said. "I received the material and inspected it before handing it on to Taylor. There was no covering letter, just the messages."

So, Hoare thought, someone had slipped up, either at the Admiralty or in Portsmouth. Was it by carelessness, he wondered, or intention? Could this have to do with the information leakage problem? Whichever and whoever it was, the omission had kept Royal Duke's cryptographer from deciphering the messages. The delay might have serious consequences, for while the writer himself might have been put out of the way, his unknown master remained at liberty. Furthermore, the prospect of still more French agents lying doggo in his working network was disconcerting.

"Is there a French Bible aboard?" Hoare asked.

"I'm sure there is, sir," Taylor said. "If you'll give me leave, I'll ask McVitty to find it and begin forthwith."

"Do so, Taylor. But who is McVitty?"

"Our librarian, sir," Clay interjected. "The short, square woman with spectacles."

"Good heavens," Hoare said. "Thank you, Mr. Clay. Carry on, Taylor. And look first in Kings."

"Aye aye, sir. I remember-Jehu and Ahab. Second Kings, chapter nine, verse twenty. Thank you, sir.

"But, sir, I must point out that there are surely as many editions of the Bible in French as there are of our own King James version. Would it be possible to obtain the particular volume to which you just referred?"

"We shall try to get it for you."

Taylor's legs were not to be seen beneath her sailor's wide breeches, Hoare thought, but yes, her stockings were surely blue.

"Shall we go on to review the timers, sir?" Clay asked.

Before Hoare could assent, a knock came on the cabin door. Hoare gave Clay a meaningful look, intended as an instruction to call, "Come!" but it took the other a full second to realize what was being asked of him. When Clay finally spoke the magic word, the sentry Yeovil appeared.

"Mr. 'Ancock here says as how there's a signal from Admiralty House, sir," he said, looking squarely between his two officers.

"Very good," Hoare whispered. "And, Yeovil, if I whistle like this"-he uttered a gentle chirruping noise- "it means for you to come straight in."