Longitude
1706- Plymouth
“Bloody idiot!”
His father tossed the file on the desk with a contemptuous snort. He’d been lying on the floor by the fire, copy book open in front of him. His mother said mildly,
“Language, Charles.” Then, having looked up from her reading and seen the fury in his face, frowned, “What is it?
He waved a hand at the papers, “Six ships lost off Scilly and God knows how many men all because the man in charge was too bloody minded to countenance he might be wrong.”
They’d been out by two days and fifteen degrees, and the admiral had hanged the man who knew it and said so, for undermining his command. Two hours later and they’d torn apart every ship in the fleet against the jagged coastline.
His father’s scorn not with-standing, they’d gone to the funeral, of course. There was open, palpable mourning. Somehow, that man had been loved, by the papers, by his community, by his colleagues.
He found out, later, as an older man, reading archived reports, that the admiral had survived long enough to be murdered on the beach by a woman who wanted his jewellery. She’d then immediately confessed to it. He’d imagined the horror of a hoped-for rescue turned sour, the knife coming out from under a shawl to slit his throat. He’d wondered at the image of a woman overcome by greed or desperation, who then couldn’t just follow through and live with it. He’d thought of the hanged man, dead just hours before the rest, years before James ever stood on a deck. Felt the weight of his gaze over every command, the imagined creak of the noose imploring him to be better than that, to never be the man who killed for stupid pride.
1712- Greenwich
Greenwich was richer than he remembered it; richer and more built up. He’d only been away from London two years, and yet along the river fashionable houses were in various stages of construction. The pockets of the men and women strolling its banks would have made ample pickings were it not for the heavily armed servants following behind. That was the problem with the properly rich; they could pay for other people to look after them. Still, he had enough from his share of the prizes taken on the crossing back to England from Gibraltar. The rest of the crew had disappeared once they’d found a dockyard for the repairs and if he was honest, he’d not likely see them again. He was bored of the ship and her privateer captain and couldn’t face another voyage with either. He was still young, there was more of the world to see.
Truly, it was curiosity which had brought him this far up the Thames, and curiosity that had pushed him to accept the offer of a job. He didn’t need the money. He wanted to see these men who were trying to pin the stars in place up close.
One of them sat across the table from him now, pushing a pint glass and a key towards him,
“We’d reward you handsomely, of course.”
He smiled and took a deep draught, “I should think you would, Mr Halley, seeing as it’s no small risk to me and none to you whatsoever.” The old man had not only met him in person, he’d used his actual, given name, which told you enough about him, if you thought on it. “Seems a mite premature to me mind.”
Halley laughed, “No, no time like the present Mr Smith. These charts will be the spark that ignites the future of navigation.” He regarded him with dark eyes that suddenly seemed too perceptive, and the man who called himself Smith had to remind himself that no one knew him here, “Just think, you could go anywhere. The seas would truly be open. Truly free.”
He spent the first day wandering around the observatory. There were guards, of course, everywhere had guards in those days, but they were just footmen really, not guards who anticipated having to do much in the way of chasing and shooting. They were by-passed with the cover of a wig and a good hat, a wave of a roll of charts and a “Mr Flamsteed is expecting me”. Halley’s instructions had been exact, and he had the key in his pocket. Even with no map it wasn’t hard to anticipate where a man like Flamsteed would keep his most treasured work.
Night found him on the roof, slipping through an open window. It was darker than it felt like it should be. No moon, heavy cloud, the candles all doused, and he moved slowly, acutely aware of himself trying to not to make a sound. It took longer than expected to find the room, but the key turned in the lock easily and the door swung in.
This was the dangerous bit, the bit where he earned the money. He relaxed into the task, silent and fluid. There was a single bed, which he did not look at. He focused on the trunk, on picking the lock as quickly as he could without making too much noise. And he knew he didn’t, so was dimly surprised when a match flared in the dark just as he had levered it open and withdrawn what he knew had to be what he’d come for.
“I’ve not got any money there.”
Flamsteed hadn’t drawn (or at the very least hadn’t been heard to cock) a pistol, and instead was lighting a candle by the bed.
“Oh.” His voice wasn’t thick with sleep, just old and tired. “You’re not here for money.”
The thief eased himself round, “Not directly, no.” He wondered if the other man had been awake when he entered the room, if he had studied him rifling through his belongings before deciding to speak.
“Halley sent you.”
“Couldn’t tell you that.”
“Do you know what you’re taking?”
He found his voice was strangely hoarse and earnest as he replied, “Oh yes.”
The old man smiled, “They’re not finished. They’re no good ‘til they’re finished”. He swung his legs out of bed and padded over. “Would you like me to show you?”
He knew then that he would not be taking what he’d been sent for. There were any number of things he could do at this point and his task would be complete, but they weren’t worth it. Not if they meant giving up this moment.
Flamsteed gently took the rolls of parchment and spread them on the desk. He felt his mouth go dry, feasting on the detail of each carefully positioned star, as the astronomer explained the use of each in a gentle patter.
Eventually he said, “I should go.” He backed away towards the door, then paused. “I think everyone should see these. It doesn’t matter they’re not done. It would give… it would make them with the wit to see it hopeful about how…full the world is.”
He fled then, and when he thought of it later it felt like he didn’t stop ‘til Bandar Abbas a year later, where a beautiful boy in a breezy room by the harbour showed him a woodcut copy of the very same charts, and laughed as he traced his fingers over each familiar face.
Hull March 1720
He took a room in a pub by the docks. He couldn’t have really told you why he’d travelled North. There were no naval bases here. Shipyards aplenty, but little in the way of warships.
He slept most of the way up, propped in the corner of coaches, a hat pulled down over his eyes, and only once had he woken up shouting. An elderly gentleman in a fashionable wig with a long scar down one side of his face stared back at him with sympathetic eyes, offered him some brandy from an expensive flask, said, “it gets better”. He’d smiled, taken a swig the proffered drink and got off as soon as the coach stopped. He’d carried on on foot a way, pleased to find his mobility improving, and got outrageously drunk at a coaching inn that night, but alone, in his room, and passed out before he could make any trouble for himself or anyone else.
He'd felt a wave of nausea alighting in Portsmouth from a ship that wasn’t his. Peace had brought a prosperity he'd never imagined, and yet every beggar he saw looked like some warrant officer or seaman or marine he’d known years ago in a different country. He’d not been granted half-pay, which wasn’t terribly surprising given the circumstances. He’d savings enough to last him for the moment, if he was careful. It had, at some point, occurred to him that in the current climate he could leave without leaving. That one could just disappear entirely, that had there been anyone left to hunt for him they’d not know where to start. He’d paid the fare for a place on a mail coach that night.
They’d plucked him from the wreckage of the ship half dead and clinging to the body of a sailor whose head he thought he’d been managing to just keep above the water but, they explained gently but firmly, was long past needing air. In the dingey office, James attempted a cautious thanks, but nothing came out. Someone passed him a cup of something which, in retrospect, was laudanum, and pressed him with one hand against the table. He was dimly aware of the pain, and the surprise of feeling his brain slip away from him, and came back to himself several days later,
His voice had gone with the fire or from screaming orders, but no matter, the little surgeon had explained briskly, it would come back. And the leg, the leg was bad, but not so bad. If he didn’t get an infection, the flesh would grow back. It would become strong again. The rest were just small scars to add to the collection. The ladies love the scars, it shows you’ve been brave. And he was alive, they said again and again, he was alive, and they would get him home, because everyone was friends now and wouldn’t the British be happy to have their famous Captain back. Yes, there was a British ship not twenty, maybe thirty leagues from here, and it was slow and heavy, so they would catch it, and they’d be pleased to have him back and reward a poor merchant ship handsomely for bringing him. So, we all win, hey?
He tried to ask about Port Royal. The surgeon hesitated, said no, no we’ll not take you back there, we will find your Admiral’s flagship on the way to Boston and you will go back to England.
He was in too much pain, too fogged with laudanum and weary to protest, and perhaps even then, even before the surgeon had said, there is too much chaos there now, the hurricane, the flood, you will be needed in your home, he knew he couldn’t go back.
The captain was tall, and moved neatly, contained, in a way that suggested he was a much smaller man than was in fact the case. He spoke less than the surgeon; put a huge hand on the man’s shoulder and said something to quiet him when he saw James could take in no more.
In those days it was on its way to becoming a handsome town. It was still mostly farmland around it, and some sailors lived in the same hand to mouth misery they’d always lived, but there were signs of change. Money was pouring off the whalers straight into the town, or transported back from Holland, and it was all converted into full shops and elegant houses. On his first night in the pub he’d caught sight of himself in a mirror as he was negotiating for dinner; he’d a week’s worth of beard, his hair a tangled mat around what had once been a green ribbon, the shadows around his eyes were deep. And the eyes themselves had lost…something.
No wonder the serving girl looked poised to flee. He’d immediately requested a bath drawn and sent his clothes to be washed, unearthed a cleaner pair of trousers and an only marginally crumpled shirt. He’d cleaned and polished his boots. He’d shaved slowly and deliberately in front of the cracked dressing table mirror, washed his hair, avoided looking at the ugly knot of healing flesh across his thigh. He emerged looking presentable, if not really himself. If anyone had asked, he’d probably have said he was spending a few days before presenting himself to a shipping company and offering his services to their merchant fleet. How hard could it be? He might even enjoy it. Not being a captain. Doing the same dull crossings carrying the same dull objects, never having to think beyond getting from one port to the next. Perhaps there would be pirates, but he wouldn’t have to seek them out. Perhaps there would be war, but he wouldn’t need to be the one to execute it.
Yet every time he tried to settle to the thought, to try to present himself to the offices of these whale harriers and tulip carters, he baulked. He managed, once, to take himself to dockside where men stood by barrels advertising work, to assess the situation, to see what possibilities there were. The sight of the ships made him queasy; the noise and the industry again too familiar and somehow alien. He saw the serene masts cracked under fire, the timbers split, gutted fish turned to fallen men, the harbour turned to rubble. The wind blew straight off the Humber and bit through his jacket, its sudden chill steadying his nerves. With it came the certainty that, for now at least, the sea was behind him. He could see nothing ahead.
Bad weather meant it took longer than expected to make it to Boston. The flagship had moved on. It also meant James was able to walk by the time they got there. Not well, and he needed a stick, and God it hurt, but he could do it. There was a British ship there though. It wasn’t a naval ship; he didn’t need a glass to tell that. He knew her immediately, though he’d never seen her before. She sat low and wallowing in the harbour; looked smug and sinister. He’d resented escorting those ships, even as a comparatively junior officer, and it had been far worse as the most senior captain in the Caribbean. But he’d told himself he resented it because it was boring; because he was supposed to be fighting wars, not being a sheepdog for traders. As an older man he’d resented it because it meant dealing with the glutinous representatives of the ships’ owners, and because their violent, gnarled captains weren’t deferent enough to the gold trim on his coat. He was smart enough to know that he hated them because they made him feel like a stupid boy. He wasn’t honest enough, yet, to recognise the shame driving the anger, or where the shame came from.
Still. If that was to be his berth home, so be it. Afterall, it would be crossing back to England. It would only be carrying molasses and suchlike. All the…. the other…. business would have been… concluded.
Now (then), the Spanish captain is staring at him, as his first mate hails the slave ship. The master of the ship is hard all over, speaks bad Spanish, runs a cold blue eye over James. Captain Norrington, eh? Captain Edwards. I’ve heard of course, the Mercury, bad business, yes. We’ll get you back to the flagship, and if not, well we’ll be heading back to London. Not many stops along the way, hahaha. No, wouldn’t dream of accepting payment, patriotic duty, national hero.
James wills his leg not to give way, tries not to let the fear overwhelm him, to imagine he is still the man he was a month ago. Tries not to imagine being weak and ill and alone, surrounded by these men. The Spanish captain’s hand swamps his as he shakes it, and then he pulls him in close and whispers, “You are a brave man. We can’t keep you here. It would be bad for us all. Peace is fragile. It is our new duty.” He nods and breathes deeply.
The mistress of the pub was a kind, solid woman. She’d seen enough broken, unmoored men since seventeen-thirteen to know how to handle them. What they mostly wanted was to be left alone. Sometimes what they wanted was to drink until the rage boiled over and they’d fight ‘til they had to be laid out. Neither was good for them.
She allowed Mr Norrington a week of taking his meals in his room and getting out of bed at midday, neat and polished, but bleary eyed and stinking of rum, before loudly remarking to her husband that it did make it very difficult for the chambermaids if the rooms were still occupied when they attended their duties. Once James’ face was familiar at the breakfast table, she commented while clearing his coffee that most of the gentleman found the room used for dinner very cosy even when it was still so cold outside. He took the point, and when some time into his third week she refused to serve him any alcohol at all before five in the evening or after eight, he nodded and smiled, grateful for someone to step in and help him plaster over all the cracks in his self-control.
On the Monday of the fourth week, two young men, well dressed and self- confident, took the table near the one James had started to think of as his own. One couldn’t be entirely self-contained for that long. He had a nodding acquaintance with the regulars, there was a man he spoke to about the newspapers, there was a serving girl who smiled at him and one who regarded him with arch contempt, and he was fond of both.
He was nursing his ale, trying to make it last so that he didn’t ask for another, and perusing a local broadsheet’s list of jobs. The money he’d withdrawn from his bank in Portsmouth was running low, and he didn’t want to return to withdraw more.
The younger of the two said,
“That crossing was diabolical- four hours to go four miles and bobbing around like a cork in a washtub the entire time. I will never understand why they can’t make the damn ferry more comfortable and faster. You’d think in this day and age something could be done about it.”
The older rolled his eyes, “Christ, how you take on, Harry. Have a drink and be quiet, there’s a good chap.”
Harry slurped his beer, “Thomas, I just can’t believe you dragged me across the Humber to look at a blasted clock. In a church tower. In a village.”
Thomas affected a pained expression, “Blasted clock, he says. That, you philistine, was a demonstration of possibility. It was the future in action. Some of Mister Harrison’s finest work. Besides, I took you to Lincoln, didn’t I?”
Now it was Harry’s turn to moan, “The things those people have done to that canal. It’s criminal. I can’t see they’ll ever make it workable again. I don’t think I shall be telling father to give them any money- the parish clearly doesn’t know how to manage the repairs. Good cathedral though.”
Norrington found himself drawn in, despite himself; they seemed out of place, too exuberant, too caught up in themselves, too young.
Thomas had turned lecturer, “The thing about that clock, Harry, is that he’s devised a new escapement for the pendulum, which reduces the friction and prevents the need for lubrication.”
Harry snorted, “Well, I need some lubrication- Miss! Another round please.”
The barmaid brought their drinks. Harry looked up to thank her, caught James’ eye. James looked down. Thomas was still talking about clocks:
“You don’t seem to quite grasp the weight of this. In the six years since the Longitude Board was founded, very little advancement has been made. Now, the only real impediment to a really decent marine chronometer is the accuracy of the escape- I’m sorry, sir, did you have something to add?”
James had burst out laughing. He couldn’t quite place what had struck him, but found his shoulders shaking, eye streaming. Harry regarded him a moment, then said, “I think you have bored him to tears, Thomas.”
James shook his head, “No, not at all, it’s fascinating; please, forgive me. I just… tell me, have either of you ever been to sea?”
Thomas seemed nettled, “Not in the way you mean I suspect, but I’m well aware of the theoretical-”
James was enjoying the warm buzz from the food and alcohol and the distraction from his search for work; “The damp, sirs, is not a theoretical concern, nor is cold, nor the rolling of the ship. Unless your Mister Harrison has some way to account for these, then an improved escapement will not move us very far forward.” He warmed to his theme, “Derham described the theory very well, however no one has managed to turn theory into a clock which can cross the equator and keep time.”
Harry sighed, “Oh lord, you’ve found another one.” He pushed out a chair with his foot, “Join us, Mister…”
James hesitated briefly, then settled on, “James Arbuthnot.” He’d had a cousin who’d married an Arbuthnot.
Thomas look was searching as he shook his hand, “Really? I’m Thomas Fairfax, no don’t look like that it’s a family name, and this southern wretch is Henry Hampden.”
“But call me Harry.”
He had met rich men’s sons before of course. The navy was full of them, but they were, after ten years of life at sea, all broadly speaking people he understood. Naval men. Harry and Thomas were, to James, an entirely new sort of creature. Part natural philosopher, part gentlemen of leisure, part financier; it seemed they had interests in everything, that there wasn’t a subject they hadn’t read a treatise on, a play they hadn’t seen, music they hadn’t heard. Thomas’ family were a lesser branch of some noble Yorkshire family, and indulged their son’s interests with the good-humoured tolerance of the very rich indeed. Harry’s father was Treasurer to the Navy, which gave James a deep sense of unease, until he reminded himself no one knew him here. By Harry’s account he had sent him North to stay with Thomas and look for worthy companies to invest in, although by James’ reading, he appeared to have sent him to stay with Thomas to get him out of the way. They were… possibly old family friends? It was hard to tell, or indeed to keep up with much of the rapid-fire chatter over the course of the evening. A lot of it was about clocks. James had taken a professional interest in the theory of course. If you could tell the time at sea, and you knew what time you started and how long you’d been going, and what time noon was where you were, you could calculate your longitude accurately enough. It would open up so much of the sea to exploration were it possible. It just wasn’t.
The problem was clocks weren’t good enough, and to James’ mind were unlikely ever to be. Nor would the Admiralty be able to afford them if they were.
“Oh, you cynic,” Thomas’ eyes were alight. His hair was red, like Gillette’s, and glowed in the firelight. “You’ll see, this is the key to the oceans. A totally open world. Freedom.”
Harry laughed, “Enough of this. I’m still stuck on that last problem from the Manchester Mathematical Society news-sheet. See what you make of it.”
Thomas glanced at it and snorted, “They printed that in The Lady’s Diary, last month. Never did figure it.”
James knew the magazine of course. His sister had once sent him a copy; it was a kind of almanac, which printed enigmas and mathematical problems aimed at young women. It had unsettled him. It was such an innocent thing, on the face of it; why shouldn’t a genteel woman wish to puzzle things out, to have the satisfaction of applying her mind to a problem, and seeing the solution pinned down to the page. Apparently, it was very popular. Yet, it had been accompanied by one the fevered, energetic letters she used to send, full of sentiment and declarations of love for this new friend, or that old pony, and demands that he should write her back with stories of his adventures that she was sure he was having. It was that, the horror at the gulf between the little girl he’d left at home, and the girl in the letters who loved riding and dresses, and the woman who sat, he imagined, in their father’s study, working on her mathematics, and himself. Each aspect of her a fragment of the life he was not part of. What else would he never share with her?
He’d dutifully written back to every letter though, struggling for adventure stories, but always sending her his solutions to the problems she sent.
She’d never send the answers, so he never really knew how he was doing. And then she’d died.
“And how do you know what’s printed in the Lady’s Diary, Thomas?”
Still, whoever set the problems was getting sloppy-
He dipped a finger in his beer glass, and drew the figures on the table
Harry stared at him, “Of course, he does it half-cut, first time. Look here, James, father’s been on at me to get a bit of tutoring. Thinks it’ll do me good for Thomas and I are both going back to York tomorrow, why don’t you join us?”
He took a breath, started to decline and then stopped. An old man by the fire, with a scarred face and stumps for three fingers of his left hand, was slowly dozing off, beer glass tipping precariously towards the hearth. The landlady rescued it, and gently propped him back in the chair, covered him with a blanket.
James nodded, “With pleasure.”
There was an office he was to use as a cabin, which he had nothing to put in, but which kept him separate from the crew and the officers. He tried to take stock, to think of what he could say when, if, he ever made it back to Portsmouth to explain himself. He found there were holes in his memory. There had been the hurricane, but where had he been when it started? Was that what had sunk his ship? But there had been fire and explosions, what had caused them? He had images of bloated corpses in the harbour at Port Royal, but were they real? How had they got there? In the end he put it to rest; hoped the picture would eventually come clear again, that whatever had happened to his mind was just one more injury that would need time to heal.
Edwards mostly ignored him, and the crew took their lead from their captain. He realised this was the first time he had ever been on a ship and not had a role within it. It left him a silent observer. Everything that happened on board seemed like watching his own life in a cracked mirror. All the business of sailing was the same, the division of labour, the rewards and the punishments. But there was none of the order, none of the focus of a gun crew, none of the even handedness of which he had been proud. He could feel the mutinous tension in the men but was powerless to do anything about it. He’d served on one such ship before, under a captain with no understanding of the strains on the men, of the resentments and the politics.
But that wasn’t what was happening here. Edwards just didn’t care. His authority was absolute, as was his willingness to exercise it. There was no way of avoiding seeing the floggings. Two men were executed for theft in two weeks, and he’d had to see that too. His disgust gave way to self-loathing. James had had men flogged. He’d held prisoners on ships for weeks in the baking Caribbean heat. He’d, once, had a man hanged at sea. He’d been sure at the time, that it was right, that there was no way to let the man live after what he’d done; not and justify it to the crew or himself, or the men he’d had brought to trial and seen hanged for lesser crimes. And afterwards, well that was just one of the things he had to live with. Like all the other things.
His mind drifted back to prisoners.
The voice inside him that was still the Commodore said, we were at war with those men, and you always made sure they were fed and watered and if it was in your power to ensure it, they got back to dry land in one piece, and if they could be exchanged for your own and got home, they were.
The voice that was whoever James was now said, you took the ships though, and their gold. That’s what paid your wages.
But, and for some reason it was Jack’s voice he heard saying this, you weren’t making a fucking packet selling them on like fucking farm animals, even though you knew full well they were thinking breathing feeling people. James, these people fucking know, and you know it. They write in their diaries about how God must think it’s all fine and tidy or how could He let them get so rich off it because they know what they’re doing is gonna send them to Hell.
Had they ever spoken so freely together?
The hold was empty save for barrels and sacks now. James had forced himself to look. He was ashamed at the relief he felt; felt he had once again been delivered from truly seeing what it was his life had been supporting and supported by. But the big iron staples for the chains were still there. And the deep, stained scratches in the boards.
Over dinner one day, Harry said, “Father’s bought a lot of South Sea stock. Did you have much dealing with their agents when you were abroad, James? What did you think of their business practices?”
Warehouses full of chained men and women, dragged out to be auctioned off; and I thought very little about it at all. But how could he explain that to them? And how would they take it if he tried?
“I…don’t really feel like I could comment. My interest was in ships.”
And how would you react if they reacted like the way you think people like them react, eh Jamie?
Thomas frowned, “The value of the shares seems to be increasing rather wildly.”
James shook his head, “I don’t understand who’s buying it. There can’t be that many rich men willing to take this sort of gamble.”
Or what if they didn’t? What if they were disgusted? What if they really saw you for what you’d been?
Harry waved a hand, “Oh it’s not just rich men. The woman who does our linens, her husband’s a baker and has put half their savings into the South Sea Company. It’s hardly a gamble though. They’ve made twice that back in two weeks.”
Thomas rolled his eyes, “I have absolutely no idea what our washerwoman is doing with her money.” He emptied his glass, poured another. “James, look. Mother’s just given the nod that she’ll consent to our taking a Tour this year.”
James tried to catch up with the sudden shift in conversation, “A… tour?” gears clicked into place, “On the continent?”
“Yes, on the continent, ass. Harry’s old enough now, and I was ill when I was twenty- one, so I couldn’t go then. We’ll start in Paris in the Spring and see how far we get.”
He felt a tightness in his chest, would he have to move on again so soon?
Thomas sensed his discomfort and poured him more wine, “We want you to come with us.” He waved a hand, “No no, it’s all worked out, and our parents will feel happier if they know we have someone with your worldly wisdom along.”
What would it be like? To go abroad just to see things? He would be totally at leisure. He could walk and sketch and drink coffee, brush up his French. He would fence and climb mountains. Perhaps, with Thomas’s help, he would come back the kind of man who would be useful to the crown. Not publicly of course, but this year might give him enough polish to be someone’s private secretary: trusted, reliable, invisible.
He cocked his head, “Well, I hope your mother is wise to trust me not to lead you astray.”
Harry’s smile was so open, so carefree, his expression so guileless, James wasn’t sure he had heard him say, “It’s not us you have to worry about.”
Captain Edwards made a show of dining with him that night. He said,
“How are you finding our ship?”
James sipped his wine, “I am recovering well, and I thank you for it.” His voice still hissed and stuck but was becoming a little more reliable.
“Not much like a naval vessel though, eh?”
James’ tried to demur, but his eyes betrayed him.
Edwards smiled humourlessly, “I know your type. You think I am an elevated thug. Well, maybe. But you like the sugar, don’t you? Where do you think the cloth for those fine clothes comes from, Commodore? You like the libraries, and that new fort, and that naval college they’re building back home. Where do you think all the money comes from?”
James studied the tablecloth. Edwards’ voice almost softened, would almost have been kind, if it wasn’t so mocking;
“You’re still younger than you think, and all that military ceremony shit rots your brain. You’ll see soon enough. There’s no good men; there’s no virtuous life. There’s just them that can pay to keep the brutality and the filth at arm’s length, and then there’s them that makes their money in it.”
James managed a hoarse, “And what of those who suffer it?”
Edwards’ laughter told him all he needed to know about what he thought of those people.
He came to him in his cabin later that evening. James let him, neither willing nor unwilling. As though it made any difference; the man’s authority was absolute, after all, and his only remaining duty was not to die.
1720- September, York
The bubble had burst. If he’d found the frenzy of speculation bewildering, it was nothing on the devastation after. He’d told himself, in Port Royal, he was a sophisticated man. He understood joint stock companies, he understood the poorhouses, he understood how a man could be undone by fluctuations in the price of wool half a planet away. But, truly he had never seen it himself, and he had never imagined it writ large across an entire country.
Harry was sitting at his desk in the office in his father’s York townhouse, writing a letter with a loaded pistol in front of him.
James knocked on the door, “Harry?”
He ignored him.
“Harry, I can hear you in there. Thomas is waiting for you. Open the door.”
He croaked out, “I’ll… join you later, James. Just leave me for a little bit.”
James leant against the door, eyes closed, “You know I’m not going to do that, Harry.”
Thirty long seconds passed, each tightening the knot in his stomach, but he’d had lots of practice riding that feeling. He heard a sigh. The bolt slid back, he felt the door give an inch, and he didn’t wait for an invitation in. He barged past Harry to the desk and took the pistol. He blew out the powder, eased the flint, banged the ball out onto the wad of papers strewn on top.
Only then did he turn to Harry, standing mute and red-eyed behind him.
“What. The fuck. Do you think you’re doing?”
Harry said nothing, and for a second James wanted to punch him, to deal with this boy as he had once had to deal with men at sea. But he’d had practice riding out that impulse too, and he controlled himself. This wasn’t that sort of situation. Instead he sat on the desk, keeping his eye on Harry and read the half-finished letter.
Finally he said, “I see.”
Harry’s voice was hoarse, “The money’s all gone. And father…father used Naval funds to buy the stock.” He sank down against the wall. “We’re ruined. Mother and Anne could stay with my grandfather I suppose but I…I helped him do it.” He gestured helplessly at the desk, “It…seemed like the honourable thing to do.”
James fought to banish the image of men with skulls crushed by musket fire which rose unbidden, and crossed to him, knelt and took his face in both hands and said quietly, “There’s no honour in this.” He thought, I’m sure your father isn’t sitting in his office at Parliament preparing to blow his brains out, you bloody young fool. He’ll have hidden what cash he has left. That’s the kind of man he is; why didn’t he teach you how to be?
After that, he couldn’t stay. Thomas arranged him a coach South. Untouched by the chaos around him, he’d arranged travel to the continent for Harry as easily. Not that he would be going with him now; his mother had been very clear about that.
He stuck his head into the carriage to say goodbye and to say “Please don’t be too angry with him. He’s just... not used to failing.”
James caught his chin in his fingers and kissed him gently, “I hope you’re right about the clocks.”
1721- Bristol
His ship carries coffee and rum, and he carries the pardon tucked safe in a pocket as he has for the last three years. After making good with the harbour master, he leaves the unloading to Gibbs, and walks the few streets back to inspect the town house his agent had arranged for him. It was a handsome house, tall and thin, and he could see his ship from the office. He left most things to Gibbs these days, and was dimly aware that, the passage of time being unstoppable and Gibbs being ten years his senior, this may have not been the most sustainable course of action, even if it had seemed the wisest in the short term. The man’s sight is half gone from the sun, and the cannon’s made him totally deaf in one ear, and truth told he’d be lucky if his liver held out another five years, so possibly not the safest bet.
God, but trade was boring. The ledgers were boring, the goods were boring, the sailing was boring, the fights were boring. Once, just once, on this last crossing, a Spanish sloop, possibly unaware of the peace or possibly not actually filled with Spaniards, had threatened to take them. And yes, he had greatly enjoyed relieving them of their brandy, gold, guns, swords, jackets, jewellery, hats, and, of course, the ship itself which had looked very trim following along behind The Pearl. And yes, the look on that young Company man’s face when he’d sailed into Gibraltor with the lot had given him the same thrill it always did, that look that told you you could have them on their knees with your prick in their mouth by the time the gold was counted. But even so, that had been the once, and he hadn’t got to keep much of the spoils, had he? He’d had no say in who got to sail that ship he’d risked his hide to capture, and he’d probably have personally made as much off the insurance if he’d just let the probably-not-even-Spaniards make off with the cargo anyway, and that nice young man had dusted his breeches off and gone back to the barracks to get drunk with his mates, and Jack had spent the rest of the evening with the accounts, alone, Christ.
Still, it had got him back to England. He’d been gone fifteen years, and everything the Caribbean had offered him felt used up and gone. Almost everyone he’d liked was dead. All the enemies he’d respected were dead. He’d not thought twice at Nassau, and he wasn’t about to make the mistake that idiot Vane did. Turned out there were easier ways to rob people, and often they’d pay you to do it.
But that wasn’t the point was it? The money had never been the point. The money had just… made it all possible. And it wasn’t like there were no pirates left. Rogers had barely made a dent in the raw numbers, and rumour had it he was rapidly running out of goodwill and cash, so who knew how long that was going to last.
Which begged the question: What, precisely, was he doing here?
Gibbs is rowing with the customs man. It’s heated enough to have drawn a small crowd, and a man selling pies off a barrow has set down a few yards away. Jack buys one and props himself against a stack of boxes to assess the situation.
“And I’m telling you there’s no way we’re paying six guineas to bring in rum we’ve already paid four on in Gibraltor.”
A stiff figure in a wide hat detaches itself from the wall. The voice is clear and familiar even over the din of the dock, though Jack can’t place it straight away,
“If I may be of assistance, gentleman? I think you’ll find as each barrel curves thus and is narrower at the top than the bottom the volume of each is no more than one gill, which should make the duty perhaps two thirds that you suggested.”
The customs officer sniffs but nods in acceptance, and Gibbs hesitates a second, squinting at the man, puzzled. Then he shrugs, hands over the coin and strides off shouting orders at the crew.
Jack finishes the pie and draws closer, ignoring the nagging sense that he should be doing just the opposite, should be fleeing. The man has his back to him, watching the industry, hands clasped tight behind him.
“My thanks, mate. Saved us a pretty penny there, Mister…” The man turns, Jack’s stomach lurches,
“Norrington.” The name comes out fast, no time for disbelief, no space for the panic rising in his chest, and or the something else, something like relief. He’s older, looks older than he is. His hair is longer than he remembers, his face gaunter, and he’s favouring his right leg.
James smiles a brief, strange, tight smile, “Good to see you, Jack.” His voice is different. It has a hoarseness cutting through the old baritone. The green eyes hold his steadily, unsurprised by his presence, knowing for once he was the one caught off-guard, enjoying it.
Well nothing for it. He was here and this was now, and he’d not got where he was by denying the apparent just because it seemed impossible,
“Drink?”
Norrington nods, and it has the same tense, sharp quality as his smile.
They split the first bottle, and have half of it drunk in near silence before Jack managed,
“I took the pardon you know.”
James regards him a moment, “I had supposed you must have done, when I saw you’d come back. I rather think that hadn’t been Rogers’ intention. He wanted you all to found the New World.”
“Werl, I never really was one for doing what others intended.”
“No.”
There’s an insubstantial quality to the man. He’s flesh and blood sure enough, Jack had seen enough ghosts by this point to know the difference. And yet, it seems he would melt into the wall if he took his eyes off him.
“And what of you? You’re just here doing…mathematics? Guess the volume of the barrel, the weight of the cake, the sort of thing?”
James snorts, “And being paid a wage for it, thank you very much. Between that and tutoring young women, I’m living well enough.”
Now that Jack had not expected. He knew, in a vague sort of way, the difficulties of being a naval man in a time of peace. But he’d thought they only applied to the sort of men he’d poach for his own crews. He’d thought a man like Norrington would have a big house somewhere, a family who would have taken him in; that the Navy would always have another ship with a Norrington sized hole waiting to be filled. He stares at him, tries to conjure up the man as he’d seen him last, all shiny buttons, sharp sword and barely contained bloodlust. He finds it is still all there in the shadows round his eyes and the thin, drawn lines around his mouth. He tries to find a way to put that into words, fails, settles on:
“A long time to be between ships.”
James says nothing, reaches for the bottle, his fingers not-quite-brushing Jack’s, who has to bite down on the urge to grab the hand, prove it’s real. Instead he says, mildly,
“I thought you were dead.”
James takes a long pull on the rum, “Not yet.”
Jack doesn’t ask what happened, to James or the others, either the others in Port Royal, or the others on The Mercury. He’d heard the rumours, and he read the papers when he came across them.
Instead he pays for the next bottle, and he pays for the hackney back to the tall, thin house. The lock is stiff and takes some encouraging. No fires have been lit in the grates for some time and it has the dank smell of an unloved place. He doesn’t touch James at all as he leads him to the office, frightened to turn around on the stairs in case there’s no one behind him, in case he sees him vanishing away, beckons him through with the open door. But once it swings softly shut behind them, Jack fists his hands in James’ shirt and slams him bodily against the wall, knee pressed between his thighs, bites his lip as he slides his tongue into his mouth. He revels in the heat of him, the solidity. He smells of soap and rum, and he’s taut as a full sail under his hands.
They watch a funeral procession from the study window in the morning half-light. There are big black carriages in front of the hearse, and big black horses drawing both. There are women in the blackest of silks, with jet necklaces peeking out underneath fine veils. There are men in deep dark velvets.
Jack nudges James, “Know him?”
James shrugs, “Slaver.”
Jack makes a moue of disgust.
The procession disappears down the street.
James stares after it.
“Do you think he ever saw any of it?”
“Eh?”
“Do you think he ever actually stood on the deck of one of those ships he paid for? Do you think he ever… saw who was in the hold?” Jack can see he’s somewhere else; somewhere dark.
“Did you ever see the sharks that used to follow them?”
Jack had, and had calculatedly drunk away the memory almost immediately, which hadn’t helped. They still swam somewhere in the back of his mind, the roiling bloody foam always waiting to wash over him if he wasn’t careful.
James is pulling his clothes back on, stiff and miserable. Jack says, cheerfully,
“Y’know. I was a slave m’self. For a bit. On The Bellamy.”
James frowns, “It’s not the same.”
Jack wants to point out that, speaking as the one who had been chained to that fucking oar, it had bloody well felt like it was, but he knows, in his heart of hearts, he knows what James means and that he’s right.
James sighs, staring moodily at the docks, “When we were in- I mean when I was over there, I… thought it would feel different. Being back I mean. That I’d…get to enjoy what I thought I’d been defending. That I’d been a part of building something…worthwhile.” The procession has turned a corner “But…look at this place. These…people.”
He can’t bear the thought that this might be their last conversation, that this man who had hated and hunted and haunted him in his blue and gold would now leave in a stained shirt, and patched trousers and vanish into this awful city.
“Come with me”, not sure until after he’s said it that he means it.
Later, he comforts himself with the regret in those green eyes.
The men had complained of the stink. Enough of them had been prisoners at some point in their life to know that cocktail of terror, and sickness and shit, and the discipline of a naval ship was supposed to keep that all buried. They were furious about being reminded, and James had Groves double everyone’s rum ration for the remainder of the voyage. Gillette had started a tally of the dead men heaved over the side of that heavy ship they guarded. Then he ran a tally of those who were heaved against those who jumped. He started placing bets. And James had thought it just the callousness of youth, the ghoulish game of a man jaded too young by war and death, until Gillette said very quietly, while they poured over maps in the office, “You know they’re not always dead when they throw them.”
A day later, “Sir, have you seen what they do to the jumpers they catch?”
And then a little later, “There are women on that ship.”
James filed it all away, somewhere inside, so he could examine it more minutely when it was safe.
That was the second time he’d let Sparrow go, of course. They’d sighted the Pearl early in the morning, proud and clearly hunting in the sunrise. He’d looked at Gillette and Groves who had stared back at him with drawn, exhausted faces. He’d decided he wasn’t losing a single man in defending the indefensible and taken a gamble on what little he knew of the man. He’d called Murtogg to his office, all smart in his new chief petty officer’s coat, handed him a couple of saw-bladed knives and said, “I think we’re going too fast, Mr Murtogg, don’t you?” And hadn’t he done a good job. The ruined lines looked for all the world like they’d worn through (though who would believe a line would ever be in such a state, on Norrington’s ship?).
He'd watched through the glass as his men busied themselves in repairs, just quickly enough to suggest they may be done, Gillette and Groves shouting and Murtogg bellowing and everyone suddenly enjoying themselves in a way they hadn’t for the past three weeks. He’d watched Sparrow’s crew gently unloading gaunt figures onto the Pearl. He watched Sparrow’s first mate, the woman, put a pistol to that greasy bastard captain’s head, and waited.