Battlesaurus (37 page)

“Fran
ç
ois is right,” Frost says. “On both counts.”

Willem nods. There is no time to argue. “Here.” He hands Fran
ç
ois the papers. “And take this also. In case you are stopped.” He reaches back into the bag and withdraws Thibault's pistol, then a paper cartridge.

He tears open the cartridge as he has been shown and loads the pistol quickly and efficiently.

“Be careful, and be quick,” he says, handing the gun to Fran
ç
ois.

“I will return soon,” Fran
ç
ois says, tucking it out of sight somewhere inside his coat.

He disappears around the corner of the pier.

“H
é
lo
ï
se, what will you do?” Willem asks. “Will you come with us to England?”

“What would I do in England?” she asks. “I know nobody. I do not even speak the language.”

“Where will you go?” Willem asks.

“I do not know,” she says. “Goodbye, Willem.”

“Thank you, H
é
lo
ï
se,” Willem says.

She nods a farewell to the others and is quickly out of sight.

*   *   *

The dockmaster's office is just inside the door of the stone building. A guard, a Dutch soldier, stands in a corner. He looks bored and his musket leans against the wall beside him.

A clerk glances up as Fran
ç
ois enters, then looks back to a logbook he is writing in. Fran
ç
ois slams the oilskin wallet noisily down on the counter and waits.

The clerk looks up again after a moment, sniffing the air, then screwing up his face.

“When did you last bathe, peasant?” he asks, with a glance and a grin at the guard in the corner.

“Do not mock me,” Fran
ç
ois says. “This is of great importance.”

“My chamber pot would not piss on you,” the clerk says. “Get out of my office.”

“French soldiers will be here shortly, seeking a fugitive,” Fran
ç
ois says. “That person aims to escape on a brigantine called the
É
paulard.
Here are its papers.”

That seems to perk up the clerk's interest and he rises and crosses to the counter, picking up the wallet with an expression of distaste. He extracts the papers and flicks through them.

“These papers seem to be in order,” he says.

“I have no doubt,” Fran
ç
ois says. “But the boat must not be allowed to leave.”

“You say the French will be here soon?” the clerk asks.

Fran
ç
ois nods.

“Then I will show them these papers, and discuss it with them,” the clerk says.

“That may be too late,” Fran
ç
ois says. “Close the gates or the fugitive will escape, and it will be on your head. Napol
é
on himself will hear of your incompetence.”

“And Willem will learn of your treachery,” a small voice says from behind him.

Fran
ç
ois whirls. H
é
lo
ï
se is crouched in the doorway.

“H
é
lo
ï
se,” Fran
ç
ois says. “Why did you follow me?”

“It does not matter,” she says.

“I wish it were not you,” he says, the pistol coming out from under his coat. He cocks it without thinking. The guard in the corner no longer looks bored, and reaches for his musket.

“You would shoot me?” she asks.

“Against my will,” Fran
ç
ois says.

“I tended you when you were ill. I danced with you at the f
ê
te. You saved my life in the Ruien. You would shoot me now?”

“Those were but small moments,” Fran
ç
ois says. “God makes far larger demands.”

He looks away for a moment and there is genuine sadness in his heart. The pistol wavers.

She takes advantage of his indecision and leaps away from the door, running out along the wharves. He races after her and takes aim. Still something stays his hand: could it be a kind of love, or is it simply compassion for a wild but damaged creature? She is almost to the safety of a wooden shed when God guides his finger to the trigger.

The sound of the explosion echoes off the buildings around him. A puff of smoke surrounds the muzzle and he wishes it were thicker, to hide what he does not want to see. But it is not and so he sees the blood spurt from her spine as her body arches backward. She collapses onto a low wooden rail, looks back at him for a moment with pleading eyes, then rolls off into the water.

Fran
ç
ois runs to the edge of the dock and watches for a moment. In death she looks so fragile, stripped of the savagery that gave her size and purpose. Now she is just a small, dead girl, facedown in the center of a spreading red mist in the water, floating away under the docks with the fish heads and the rum bottles and the rest of the refuse.

“Hold where you are.”

François turns to see the guard from the dockmaster's officer, his musket leveled.

Down the road at the barricade the French soldiers are looking in his direction.

“Place the pistol on the ground at your feet,” the guard says.

Fran
ç
ois obeys, and cannot quite understand why he is crying.

 

DEPARTURE

“What do we do?” Jack asks.

The sound of the shot is still echoing off the wharf buildings.

“We don't know that was Fran
ç
ois's pistol,” Frost says.

“It was,” Willem says.

“We must wait for him,” Frost says.

“You heard the pistol shot,” the skipper says. “I do not know what has happened, but if we do not get out of the dock before they can shut the gates, then we will not get out at all.”

“We would not have made it this far without him,” Frost says.

“My instructions are to get Willem to safety,” the skipper says. “They did not mention Fran
ç
ois.”

Crewmen scurry up the masts, unfurling sails, and within a few moments the mooring lines are cast off and the brigantine starts to ease away from the pier.

“Wait,” Willem says. “Look!”

*   *   *

“On your feet,” the guard says, and Fran
ç
ois reluctantly complies.

“Let us go to the French, and see what they want to do with you,” the guard says.

As he stands, Fran
ç
ois sees the bow of the brigantine emerge from behind the pier. He glances at the lock, where the gates stand wide open.

“Shut the gates,” he says.

“That is not my concern,” the guard says. “That is up to the dockmaster.”

“They will get away!” Fran
ç
ois says.

“And that will be on the head of the dockmaster,” the guard says. “Move.”

He kneels to pick up Fran
ç
ois's pistol, balancing his musket on his knee so that his aim does not falter. He tucks the pistol into his shoulder belt, then gestures with the musket. He keeps well out of Fran
ç
ois's reach as they head toward the barricades and the waiting French soldiers.

Every few paces Fran
ç
ois glances back. The brigantine is now gathering speed, slicing through the water toward the lock, leaning over under the weight of the wind that now swells its sails.

Ahead, beyond the barricades where a large covered goods wagon is being inspected, he can see the ranks of the French soldiers approaching at a quick march. There is at least a company of them, an officer on horseback at their head.

Without warning there are shouts from the barricades and a musket shot. Red British uniforms are suddenly everywhere, scattering in all directions out from the wagon as the French soldiers kneel and take aim.

More muskets sound and, taking advantage of the distraction, Fran
ç
ois spins around, dropping below the guard's musket and springing forward. The musket fires but the aim is high and now the discharged gun is no more than a club. It is not a fair fight. The Dutch soldier is no match for arms and shoulders that have spent their life swinging axes, and a solid uppercut lifts the man off the ground, sending him flying backward in an untidy pile where he lies still.

The soldiers at the barricade are still busy dealing with the escaping British soldiers, but eyes now are turned in his direction, alerted by the shot.

Fran
ç
ois snatches up the pistol and scrabbles in the guard's ammunition pouch for a handful of paper cartridges. Then he starts to run.

The outer gates are slowly starting to close, but the brigantine is already entering the lock. It will be tight, but he thinks the brigantine will win the race. He sprints along the wharf to the lock.

Faces on the boat look up at him now. Willem, Jack, even Frost turns in his direction.

“Fran
ç
ois!” Willem shouts.

The crew on the boat ignore him. The skipper especially is focused on the angle of his boat. The sails are trimmed for maximum speed but the gap ahead of them is closing fast.

The end of the lock approaches and Fran
ç
ois reaches it just about the same time as the brigantine does. He does not hesitate, but runs out across the top of the still-moving gate. It is barely the width of a man, and its movement threatens to topple him into the estuary, but somehow he keeps his feet, balancing with his arms out wide, racing to the end of the gate that scrapes the side of the brigantine as it slips past. He leaps, landing half on the deck and half on the side of the ship, winding himself on the low gunwales.

Then the gate is past them and they are out into the open estuary.

Hands haul him up onto the deck and he lies there gasping for air, surprised to find the pistol is still in his outstretched hand.

The ship is coming about now, bearing away up the estuary, the start of the long, winding voyage toward the open sea.

“Get down,” the skipper shouts, and Fran
ç
ois sees the others flatten themselves on the deck beside him as musketfire comes from behind. Holes rip in the sails and splinters fly from the gunwales.

Fran
ç
ois turns his head to see a row of French muskets on the edge of the stone wall, busily reloading. They fire again, but already the distance has increased and this time the shots do not come close.

By the time the soldiers can reload for a third time the brigantine is well out of range, her sails full, water surging up past her bow.

 

BRESKENS

Baston's horse seems to float effortlessly down the undulating roads that lead to Breskens.

Stones fly from the hooves and dust rises in a cloud around him. The blue streak that is the Western Scheldt glitters to his right and a white patch on the blue is the sails of the brigantine.

It is a three-hour ride from Antwerp, but he has made it in little more than two and a half.

He is furious that they arrived at the docks too late for him to stop the brigantine from leaving. The commandant at the Antwerp garrison will pay dearly for his inertia.

But the Western Scheldt is a long and winding estuary with many turns, while the road between the two towns is fast and straight.

The gates of the fortress are closed, a precaution against the bands of British soldiers, leaderless and aimless, that still roam the area.

Muskets up on the battlements cover his arrival and a voice calls down a challenge.

“Open the gates,” Baston calls back. “I must see Count Cambronne immediately.”

*   *   *

The count is in discussion with the emperor and Marshal Ney when Baston enters, hot and dusty from the ride. After a hurried discussion with an adjutant he is allowed to approach.

They all glance up as he clicks his heels together and stands at attention before them, but continue with their conversation without acknowledging his presence.

“Excuse me, Count Cambronne,” he says after a moment.

This earns a glare from Ney, but no more than a raised eyebrow from Napol
é
on.

“Captain Baston,” Cambronne says, indicating the emperor. “You can see who I am with. I am sure that what you have to say can wait.”

“It cannot, sir. My apologies, sire,” Baston says.

“Who is this brazen young man?” Napol
é
on asks.

“Captain Baston of the Imperial Guard, Second Dragoons,” Cambronne says.

“You are from the Sonian?” Napoléon looks up with sudden interest. “Where is General Thibault?”

“He is missing, sire, and I bring news that cannot wait.”

 

LA GRANDE ILLUSION

“There is activity on the fortress, sir,” Jack says.

“What kind of activity?” Frost asks.

“Soldiers, sir,” Jack says.

“What are they doing?” Frost asks.

“I think they might be readying the cannon, sir,” Jack says.

“That was to be expected,” Willem says.

“Perhaps it is just a drill,” Jack says. “We was always doing drills, wasn't we, sir?”

“I don't think this will be a drill,” Frost says.

The Western Scheldt has proved a demanding sail; many times they have come about to make the most use of the wind, or to round one of the sharp turns in the estuary.

But since passing the coastal town of Terneuzen they have only had to bear away once, as they approached a large sandbar. This new bearing, the skipper assures them, with a little careful rudder work, will take them straight down the mouth of the estuary.

The brigantine is close-hauled, leaning over and running fast as it makes for the open sea.

“Skipper,” Willem says. “I thank you for your efforts. We will soon be on our way to England, and unless you wish to come with us, I suggest you take your leave. Can your men swim?”