Julian Stockwin - Seaflower

‘Rodney,' explained Jacobs.

Of course. Renzi remembered. Admiral Rodney had fought the French de Grasse to a smashing defeat in a great fleet action some ten years earlier off Guadeloupe; as a result, Jamaica had been saved from French colonisation.

He looked around the square: it had a slightly offended air, as of an older gentleman put out by a younger man not fully recognising his dignity. But the cool, ochre-painted stone of the government offices was real enough. There he would see out his working life for the immediate future. These were his prospects. He could envisage only a dreary vista of daily sameness in the months ahead.

The work was easy enough: the endless round of returns, reports, minutiae of the Fleet, now lying at anchor. It had to be victualled, clothed, repaired, administered. As Renzi dealt with his tiny part of the steady stream, he grew increasingly respectful of the scale of the operation: tens of thousands of men, the Fleet as big as a county town, a moving town that might be anywhere, yet needing the same flow of all manner of goods.

In the main Renzi was left to himself. He often caught flashes of suspicion from Jacobs, but realised that these were because of his reserved, indeed secretive nature. His, however, was a circumstance of endurance, of serving a sentence, and he had no care of what his interim fellows supposed. His thoughts strayed to Kydd. By now he would probably be a lonely corpse in up-country Guadeloupe, or a prisoner-of-war in a French vessel on his way to incarceration, anything. In the absence of any knowledge, logic was useless, and in sadness he forced his mind to other things.

The Admiral did not live in Spanish Town: his mansion was out of town in the cooler hills north of Kingston, and after several weeks Renzi was summoned there.

Admiral Edgcumbe received him at his desk, leaving him standing respectfully. 'What do ye think o' that?' he said, thrusting a newspaper at him and jabbing a blunt finger at the top of one column. It was a copy of the Moniteur from Paris, not three months old, and the article about the unstable, now executed Robespierre was interesting and significant. Renzi hesitated — what was he being asked to do? Had the Admiral sent for him merely to ask his opinion on a newspaper article?

'By this, sir, I believe we find that the Thermidor coup has established itself. Robespierre overstepped himself, the Committee felt threatened, combined to overthrow him, execute him, and then—'

'Belay all that, what does it mean?'

Renzi resumed carefully, 'It means that the Terror in Paris is spent. The revolution is now controlled.' He paused, the Admiral's intense eyes on his. 'It would be reasonable to suppose that their attention is no longer distracted by the fratricide, that they are now able to turn their attention outward to the larger considerations of the war, perhaps even—'

'Enough.' The Admiral sat back with a loud grunt. 'And now be so good as to tell me who in Hades you are, sir.'

A fleeting smile forced its way on to Renzi's face. 'May I sit, sir?'

'You may.' The flinty eyes did not spare him.

Deliberately, Renzi relaxed. He crossed his legs and clasped them over the knee, languid and confident, a

London beau manque. 'You may believe I am a gentleman,' he said, in tones he had last used in the company of the Duke of Norfolk. The Admiral said nothing, but his gaze did not alter. 'And you may also know that I have done nothing of which I need be ashamed — you have my sacred word on that' There was a 'Humph'.

'My beliefs include a devotion to the Rationalist cause, I do not care for the comforts of the old thinking.' He straightened and fixed the Admiral with a level gaze. 'Sir, if I am to say more, I must ask for your word, as a gentleman, that this will go no further than yourself.' He held his breath. This was, on the face of it, a preposterous impertinence from a lowly clerk to a blue-blood admiral.

'You have it.'

Renzi gathered his wits. The only course was to tell the truth: any less would be detected instantly. 'Sir, my philosophies compel me to satisfy their moral demands in a way that others might consider — eccentric. I find them sufficiently logical and consistent. Therefore, when faced with a matter bearing on my personal moral worth I must answer for myself.

'My father procured an Act of Enclosure — there was grief and suicide occasioned by it. For the sake of my conscience, sir, I am undertaking an act of expiation. I sentenced myself to five years' exile, not to a foreign shore, but to the lower deck of a man-o'-war.'

At first it seemed there would be no response. Then the Admiral's quarterdeck expression eased, and a glimmer of a smile appeared. 'A glass of Madeira,' he growled, and reached for the decanter. Renzi accepted thankfully.

The Admiral looked at him speculatively. He felt for a key and unlocked a drawer, extracting a closely-written piece of paper. 'Cast y' eyes over this,' he said.

Renzi took it and scanned quickly. 'This is a letter, from a Monsieur Neuf. It is to his son, I think.'

The Admiral nodded. 'Just so. We took it fr'm a brig that thought it was going to France.' He smiled thinly. 'And now it is not. What I am exercised with is just how to spread half a dozen ships o' force over a thousand miles of sea.'

Renzi met his ferocious stare equably - but his heart sank. He could see now where it was all leading, and wanted no part of it. 'Sir, I am a perfect stranger to dissimulation, deceit and the other necessary qualities to make a spy, and must decline in advance any such service.'

The Admiral's eyebrows shot up. 'What do you mean, sir? I wish you merely to exercise your intellects in the reading of any chance material bearing on intelligence the fates throw our way — see if you can sight any clue, any unguarded slip o' the pen, you know what I mean. That is, if y’ morals will allow of it.'

Renzi found himself quickly removed from the vast hall filled with labouring quill-drivers and sharing an upper-floor room with two others. To his satisfaction, they were uncommunicative and self-absorbed, and he found he could work on without interruption.

Each morning, a locked box would be opened in their presence and each would receive a pack of papers of varying size. On most days Renzi received nothing and then he would assist one of the others. Occasionally the Admiral would call for him, and he would find himself reading a letter, pamphlet or set of orders - there was a pleasing sense of discretion in the proceedings that considerably eased his mind at the odious act of violating the privacy of another.

It was a strange, floating and impermanent existence; and above it all hung the knowledge that at any time he could be brought into confrontation with his past, to mutual embarrassment. When it happened, there was not a thing he could do.

'Renzi, blue office, if y' please.' This was where petitions from the populace were initially heard. He was generally included where matters touching the navy were involved, taking notes in the background and making himself available if explication were needed. He sat at his little table to one side, readying his paper and ink, leaving the bigger desk to Jacobs.

'Mr Laughton,' called the usher from the door.

Renzi froze.

The man came striding in, looking past the lowly Renzi to Jacobs, who assumed an oily smile.

'Another loss!' Laughton snapped. 'This is insupportable, sir!'

'Sir, you will recollect that the navy is much committed in the Leeward Islands—'

'Damn your cant! Without trade this island is worthless, and with these losses you will soon have none.'

Renzi kept his head well down, and scratched away busily, taking his 'notes'. The talk ebbed and flowed inconclusively, Jacobs stonewalling skilfully. Laughton snorted in frustration and rose suddenly. 'So, that is all you have to say, sir?' He turned and stormed out without a glance at Renzi, who sat back in relief.