A King's Cutter (17 page)

It brought a measure of personal satisfaction to Harry Appleby.

Leaning on the rail Drinkwater stared across the muddy waters of the Medway, over the flat extreme of the Isle of Grain to the Nore lightvessel, a half smile on his face.

‘What the deuce are you grinning at, Nat?' Drinkwater's reverie was abruptly shattered by the portly bulk of Appleby.

‘Nothing Harry, nothing.' He crackled the letter in his pocket.

‘Thinking of Elizabeth no doubt.' Appleby looked sideways. ‘Ah you are surprised our worthy commander is not the only person capable of divining others' thoughts,' he added with a trace of bitterness, ‘and the symptoms of love have long been known. Oh, I know you think I'm good only for sawing off limbs and setting broken bones, but there's little enough of that to occupy me so that I am reduced to observing my fellows.'

‘And what have you observed of late then?'

‘Why that you have received a letter from Elizabeth and will be looking for some furlough before we sail.'

‘Is that all?' replied Drinkwater with mock disappointment. ‘No my friend, I doubt there'll be time for leave, Griffiths is eager to be gone. Ah, but it's a beautiful morning ain't it?' he added, sniffing to windward.

‘Nat.' Appleby was suddenly serious.

‘Uh?' Drinkwater turned abstractedly, ‘what is it?'

‘I have also been observing Bolton. What d'ye make of him?'

‘Bolton?' Drinkwater frowned. ‘He seems well enough content since we brought him aft. Surely you're in a better position to answer your own question since he's been pounding pestle and mortar in your service.'

Appleby shook his head. ‘No I mean the inner man. What d'ye make of the inner man?'

Drinkwater's pleasant introspection following the arrival of Elizabeth's letter was gone beyond recall. He sighed, slightly resentfully.

‘For heaven's sake, Harry, come to the point.'

‘Do you know what passed between Bolton and Short the afternoon they had their altercation?'

Drinkwater hesistated. He had not mentioned Bolton's crime aboard
Kestrel
. The relish with which the twisted clerk had mentioned it had sickened Nathaniel. He had had no desire to promulgate
such gossip. He shook his head. ‘No. Do you?'

Appleby's chins quivered in negation. ‘I gather it was some sort of an unpleasant accusation. The point is Nat, and recollect that I spend a great deal of time between decks and am party to much of the rumour that runs about any vessel, the point is that I'd say he was eating himself up.'

‘What d'you mean?'

‘His mind is close to the precipice of insanity. I've seen it before. He lives in his skull, Nat, a man with a bad conscience.'

Drinkwater considered what Appleby had said. A ship was no place for a man with something on his mind. ‘You reckon he's winding himself up, eh?'

Appleby nodded. ‘Like a clock spring, Nat . . .'

Drinkwater stood on the Gun Wharf at Sheerness and shivered, watching the boats coming and going, searching for
Kestrel
's gig among them. Beside him James Thompson, the purser, stood with the last of his stores. Merrick and Bolton were with him. Drinkwater was anxious to get back on board. The winter afternoon was well advanced and the westerly wind showed every sign of reaching gale force before too long.

Their refit was completed and they were under orders to join Vice-Admiral Duncan at Yarmouth.

‘Here's the gig now,' said Thompson and turned to the two mess-men, ‘get that lot into the boat smartly now, you two.' Drinkwater watched the boat pull in, Mr Hill at the tiller. As soon as it was secure he passed a bundle of charts, the letters and newspapers to the master's mate. Then he stood back while a brace of partridges, some cheeses, cabbages, an exchanged cask of pork and some other odds and ends were lowered into the boat.

‘Bulman completed watering this afternoon, Mr Drinkwater,' volunteered Hill.

Drinkwater nodded. Thompson looked at Drinkwater. ‘That's it, then.'

‘Very well, James, let's get on board before this lot breaks,' he nodded to the chaos of cloud speedily eclipsing the pale daylight to the west, behind the broken outlines of the old three-deckers that formed the dockyard workers' tenements.

‘Come on you two, into the boat . . .' Merrick descended the steps. ‘Come on Bolton!' The man hesitated at the top, then turned on his heel.

‘Hey!'

Drinkwater looked at Thompson. ‘He's running, James!'

‘The devil he is!'

‘Mr Hill, take charge! Come on James!'

At the top of the steps Drinkwater saw Bolton running towards the old battleships.

‘Hey!'

The wind was sweeping the wharf clear and Bolton pushed between two lieutenants who spun, a swirl of boat cloaks and displaced tricornes. Drinkwater began to run, passing the astonished officers. Already Bolton had reached the shadows in the lane leading to what was called the Old Ships, traversing the dockyard wall and away from the fort at Garrison Point. He knew that Bolton could not pass the sentries at the gates or cross the ditches that surrounded the place. He was making for the Old Ships and a possible way to Blue Town, the growing collection of inns, tradesmen's dwellings and brick built houses that was accumulating outside the limits of the dockyard.

Abruptly he reached a ditch, James Thompson puffing up beside him. At the top of the low rampart a short glacis sloped down to the water. It was slightly overgrown now, elderberry bushes darker patches against the grey-green grass. The pale sky in the west silhouetted a movement: Bolton. Drinkwater began running again. Thompson came after him then tripped and fell, yelling obscenities as he discovered a patch of nettles.

Drinkwater ran on, disturbing a rabbit which bobbed, grey-tailed, ahead of him before turning aside into a burrow. Then he approached the first of the hulks, vaguely aware that behind him shouts indicated where someone had turned out a foot patrol.

The old battleship rose huge above him, its lines made jagged with additions: chimneys, privvies and steps. The rusting chains from her hawse pipes disappeared into the mud and men were trudging aboard, looking at him curiously as he panted past them. The smell of smoke and cooking assailed his dilating nostrils and he drew breath.

A shadow moved out from the far hulk, a running man stooped along the tideline and Drinkwater wished he had a pistol. Bolton was making for a ramshackle wooden bridge that lay over the fosse, an unofficial short cut from the Old Ships to Blue Town. It was getting quite dark now. He clattered across the black planking over mud and a silver thread of water. The violent tug of the rising wind at his
cloak slowed him and the breath was rasping in his throat at the unaccustomed exercise. To his right the flat expanse of salt marsh gave way to the Medway, palely bending away to Blackstakes and Chatham. To the left the huddle that was Blue Town.

It was almost dark when he entered the first narrow street. He passed an inn and halted. Bolton had evaded him. He must draw breath and wait for that foot patrol to come up, then they must conduct a house-to-house search.

‘Shit!' Exasperation exploded within him. They had been at Sheerness for weeks. Why had Bolton chosen now to desert? He turned to the inn to make a start in the search. In the violence of his temper he flung open the door and was utterly unprepared for the disturbingly familiar face that confronted him.

The two men gaped in mutual astonishment, each trying to identify the other. For Edouard Santhonax recognition and capture were instinctively things to avoid. His reaction was swift the instant he saw doubt cloud Drinkwater's eyes. For Nathaniel, breathless in pursuit of Bolton, the appearance of Santhonax was perplexing and unreal. As his brain reacted to the change of quarry Santhonax turned to escape through a rear exit.

He attempted to shout ‘Stop! In the King's name', but the ineffectual croak that he emitted was drowned in the buzz of conversation from the artisans and seamen in the taproom. He pushed past several men who seemed to want to delay him. Eventually he struggled outside where he ran into the foot patrol. A sergeant helped him up.

‘This way,' wheezed Drinkwater, and they pounded down an alleyway, no one noticing Bolton crouched beneath a hand cart in the inn yard, his heart bursting with effort, the scarred and knotted muscles of his back paining him from the need to draw deep gulps of air into his heaving lungs.

The sergeant spread his men out and they began to search the surrounding buildings. Drinkwater paused to collect his thoughts, realising they were now hunting two men, though the soldiers did not yet know it. He thought Santhonax might have doubled on him. It was quite dark and Drinkwater was alone. He could hear the sergeant and his men calling to each other further down the lane. Then the rasp of a sword being drawn sounded behind him.

He spun round.

Santhonax stood in the alleyway, a grey shadowy figure with a faint gleam of steel barring the passage. Drinkwater hauled out his hanger.

They shuffled cautiously forward and Drinkwater felt the blades engage. He could hear a voice in his head urging him not to delay, to attack simply and immediately; that Santhonax was quite probably a most proficient swordsman. Now!

Barely beating the blade and lunging low, Drinkwater extended. But Santhonax was too quick and leapt back, riposting swiftly though off balance. Drinkwater's parry was clumsy but effective.

They re-engaged. Drinkwater was blown after his run. Already his hanger felt heavy on his arm. He felt Santhonax seize the initiative as his blade was beaten, then, with an infinite slowness, the rasp of steel on steel, he quailed before the extension. He clumsily fell back, half turning and losing his balance and falling against the wall. He felt the sharp prick of the point in his shoulder but the turn had saved him, he was aware of Santhonax's breath hot in his face, instictively knew the man's belly was unguarded and turned his point.

‘
Merde
!' spat the Frenchman leaping back and retracting his sword. Drinkwater's feeble counter attack expended his remaining energy on thin air. Then he was aware of the swish of the
molinello
, the downward scything of the slashing blade, He felt the white fire in his right shoulder and arm and knew he was beaten.

He had been precipitate. He had broken his promise of circumspection to Elizabeth. As he awkwardly sought to parry his death thrust, the hanger weighing a ton in his hand, he felt Santhonax hesitate; was aware of running feet pounding up the alleyway from his rear, of something warm and sticky trickling over his wrist. Then he was falling, falling while running, shouting men were passing over him and above them the wind howled in the alleyway and made a terrible rushing noise in his ears.

He could run no more.

‘Hold still!'

‘Damn it Harry . . .' Drinkwater bit his lip as
Kestrel
slammed into a wave that sent a shudder through her fabric.

‘There!' Appleby completed the dressing.

‘Well?'

‘Well what?'

‘What effect is it going to have? My arm's damned stiff. Will I fence again?'

Appleby shrugged. ‘The bicep was severely lacerated and will be stiff for some time, only constant exercise will prevent the fibres from knotting. The wound is healing well, though you will have a scar to add to your collection.' He indicated the thin line of pale tissue that ran down Nathaniel's cheek.

‘And?'

‘Oh, mayhap an ache or two from time to time,' he paused, ‘but I'd say you will be butchering again soon.'

Drinkwater's relief turned to invective as
Kestrel
butted into another sea and sent him sprawling across Appleby's tiny cabin, one arm in and one arm out of his coat. In the lobby he struggled into his tarpaulin while Appleby heaved himself onto his cot, extended one leg to brace himself against the door jamb, and reached for his book. Drinkwater went on deck.

Eight bells struck as he cleared the companionway. The wind howled a high-pitched whine in the rigging, a cold, hard northerly wind that kicked up huge seas, grey monsters with curling crests which broke in rolling avalanches of white water that thundered down their advancing breasts with a noise like murder, flattening and dissipating in streaks of spindrift.

Spume filled the air and it was necessary to turn away from the wind to speak. As he relieved Jessup a monstrous wave towered over the cutter, its crest roaring over, marbled green and white, rolling down on them as
Kestrel
mounted the advancing sea.

‘Hold hard there! Meet her!' Men grabbed hold-fasts and the relieving tackles on the tiller were bar taut. Drinkwater tugged the companionway cover over as the roar of water displaced the howl of
wind and he winced with the pain of his arm as he clung on.

Kestrel
staggered under the tremendous blow and then the sea was all about them, tearing at them, sucking at their legs and waists, driving in through wrist bands, down necks and up legs, striving to pluck them like autumn leaves from their stations. A man went past Drinkwater on his back, fetching up against number ten gun with a crunch of ribs. Water poured off the cutter as she rode sluggishly over the next wave, her stout, buoyant hull straining at every strap and scarph. Men were securing coils of rope torn from belaying pins and relashing the gigs amidships. Shaking the water from his hair Drinkwater realised, with a pang of anger that fed on the ache in his bicep, that he would be cold and wet for the next four hours. And the pain in his arm was abominable.

The winter weather seemed to match some savage feeling in Drinkwater's guts. The encounter with Capitaine Santhonax had left a conviction that their fates were inextricably entwined. The ache of his wound added a personal motive to this feeling that lodged like an oyster's irritant somewhere in his soul. What had been a vague product of imagination following the affair off Beaubigny had coalesced into certainty after the encounter at Sheerness.