By the Mast Divided (43 page)

‘Are they being fed?’

The sentry shrugged. ‘They brought some victuals with them when they came ashore.’

‘Fresh food would be better. Who do I speak to about providing them grub?’

‘Search me, citizen,’ the sentry replied, to a fellow who was wondering from where those words had surfaced. It was the only thing he could think of, and seemed directly linked to his own lack of funds and his empty gut. It also sounded lame and stupid, though the sentry didn’t seem to think so, which emboldened Pearce to keep going.

‘I was thinking to bid for it?’

‘It won’t be worth much, citizen, they’re off to St Malo as soon as that English pig and his warship clear the coast.’

Pearce grunted. ‘A little is a lot to a man who has next to nothing.’

‘Where you from?’ the sentry asked, a trifle more animated in the way he looked Pearce up and down.

That, since he had heard the local dialect, was a dreaded question, yet with only one answer, given the city where he had learnt his French.

‘Paris,’ Pearce said, which produced a look of deep inquisitiveness that invited explanation. Parisians were not popular outside their city; they were held to be rude and arrogant. That was something Pearce knew to be true himself, having suffered from much Parisian condescension – a trait that had nothing to do with Revolutionary spirit.

‘Wanted to be a sailor until I found it was no life for a dog. Ran away, I did – young and stupid, then, citizen, wiser and poorer these days, and likely to be scraping for want of employment. Now there’s a war on, and few ships setting out because of the English blockade, berths are hard to come by.’ Pearce cocked his thumb. ‘Any chance of a word.’

That really brought the sentry upright. ‘A word?’

‘I speak a bit of theirs. Landed cargoes over the water in the peace. Worked a few of their women as well, though they are smelly, ugly brutes.’

‘They’re not much different here, citizen, in case you ain’t noticed,’ the sentry with a bitter laugh. ‘I know, I live with one.’

Pearce lifted a hand, making a fist with his middle finger out as if to knock on the shutter. There was a long pause while the sentry thought about it, before he gave another shrug and resumed his leaning position against the wall, which allowed Pearce’s heart, which had seemed to move up into his mouth, to return, pounding, to where it belonged.

The rap on the shutter echoed down the narrow alley, as did the creak as it opened, and Pearce found himself looking into a rubicund face with a pair of questioning bright blue eyes and a long clay pipe clamped between the teeth. Having got this far on inspiration Pearce had no idea how to proceed. He could hardly just address the fellow in fluent English – even if the guard wouldn’t understand a word, any ease with the language was bound to make him suspicious, so he asked lamely, ‘
Parlez-vous français?
’

‘No, mate.’

Pearce pointed at the man. ‘British’, then at himself, ‘friend’.

The reply was sarcastic. ‘Why that be right nice.’

‘Shut that fucking winder, Dusty, the draft is freezing my balls off.’

Pearce put a hand out to hold back the shutter, in case the injunction was obeyed, turned his back full on the sentry, put his shoulder against the wall and whispered, ‘Don’t shut it.’

‘Who the…’

The finger to the lips shut him up, and Pearce said, ‘HMS
Brilliant
.’

‘You’re having a laugh,’ the man cried, turning back into the room. ‘This arse claims to be one of those no good buggers from that frigate.’

‘Well, if he is, tell him to bugger off,’ came the reply, from a different voice, ‘’cause they’s done enough harm as it is, the useless sods.’

‘I need to talk,’ Pearce insisted, with a jerk of the head back at the sentry. He followed that with a stream of louder, pleading French, on the subject of poverty, before dropping his voice once more, ‘and he thinks I’m a frog.’

‘Sounds like he has the right of it, mate.’

‘You have to talk to me.’

‘Talk? What about?’

That made Pearce angry. ‘Anything, you dozy turd.’

That rubicund face went taut and but for the bars on the window Pearce might have found himself ducking away from a clout, but then the man he was talking to was pulled violently backwards and there was another face at the bars, a more battered affair, with a long nose, prominent cheekbones and one tooth in the middle of a wide mouth. ‘He ain’t no frog a’talking like that.’

‘
Vous comprendez manger?
’ asked Pearce, loudly, making a very obvious gesture with his fingers to his mouth, before adding softly, ‘I’m supposed to be bidding for the job of feeding you.’

‘Then you best go see that tight-fisted mate that took over captaincy of our ship.’ Pearce just shrugged, which made One Tooth continue with a subject clearly close to his heart. ‘He’s set himself up good and proper in the best tavern in the place, eating heartily and quaffing wine, while we are left to rot.’

‘
Dit-moi
– tell me, just keep talking.’

‘What’s your game?’

‘You’re prisoners, right?’

‘No, mate! We’s here on one of them soddin’ Grand Tours that rich folk take.’

John put his hand up to silence the sarcasm, before calling back over his shoulder. ‘
Il est tres difficile, mon ami. Les anglais sont des idiots, non? En particular cet homme avec un seul dent
.’

‘
Tout les anglais, citoyen, sans exception
,’ the sentry replied.

Pearce looked at One Tooth, whom he had just insulted, listening to a tirade against the East Indiaman’s mate, who, after the captain had suffered a seizure and died, had got them into this mess by failing to come up with the convoy. Captured, he had seemingly abandoned his crew to their fate while seeking favours for himself, using the dead captain’s private ventures as a bribe. St Malo was where these sailors would go, and to a future that, according to what Dysart had told him, even taking out the embellishment, was at the very least going to be damned unpleasant. Did these men share Dysart’s view, that captured British seamen were put to toil that could best be described as slavery? If they did they would be desperate to escape.

This lazy sod leaning against the wall must have the key to that door – Pearce had heard it open and close – and it was hardly likely that fellow
who had brought them here carried it with him. It was simple: clout the guard, open the door, free the crew of the Indiaman. And what then?

‘How many are you?’ One Tooth didn’t like being interrupted, that was plain by the look on his face. So Pearce spoke quickly, hand held up, reeling off for the benefit of the sentry every French dish which he had ever heard of or tasted, before reverting to English. ‘We have a party ashore from
Brilliant
. We’re stranded – no boat – we can try and get you out…’

Pearce stopped, because One Tooth, judging by the look in his eye, could obviously guess the rest. ‘How big a party?’

‘Seven,’ Pearce replied. No use saying that included two boys and a broken arm. ‘You?’

‘Twenty-five.’

‘Wounded? I saw some wounded.’

‘Two. Not bad enough to leave. Coin?’ One Tooth demanded, rubbing thumb and forefinger together, to which Pearce shook his head.

‘Wait.’

The babble of noise inside the room was silenced by a bark from One Tooth. ‘Shut your gobs and listen.’ His voice dropped then, becoming too soft to overhear, so Pearce turned back and engaged the guard in conversation, the man being unaware that the question posed to him about how long he was on duty had nothing to do with sympathy and everything to do with trying to put together some form of plan. Pearce’s mind was racing. Darkness would be best – and the tide, like last night would be high. How to get his stranded party into the town without being seen, or at least arousing suspicion? Then they would have to free One Tooth and his mates. It would be a different guard from this one. Would he be as easy to fool? Could they gather any weapons?

‘Froggie!’

One Tooth was back at the window, his hand cupped as he held it out through the bars. ‘Money.’

‘Not French?’ said Pearce, looking at the small pile of shillings and sixpences in his hand, every one bearing the head of an English King.

‘Makes no odds, mate. Take my word, they’ll ’cept anything in a port as long as it’s silver. A golden guinea is even better. Use it to buy grub, then come back here and see if that arse that’s a’guarding us will let you inside. If we’s to do ’owt we has to talk free.’

One Tooth, despite what Pearce had said earlier, was clearly no idiot. He was right about the money too, though the silver was not taken without being tested with a strong tooth and some murmuring, for he
was obliged, because of those same coins, to lie about who he was, where he was from, and for whom he was buying. The idea of British prisoners eating at all was bad enough when, he was repeatedly informed, no fisherman dared go far out on what was a good day because that damned frigate was still in the offing.

The notion that some shit from Paris, and an impatient one at that, who ate almost as much as he purchased, was earning out of it, was worse. Pearce was as rude as anyone from the capital would have been, because time was not on his side. He bought, for prices that were an outrage, bread, cheese, some cooked fish and cider, taking, when any change was proffered, the useless paper assignats that were the debased currency of Revolutionary France.

Pearce listened too, and in doing so overheard several different versions of what had happened the night before, some too overly fantastic to be true. But the depth of Barclay’s failure was obvious. His enemies had been waiting for him and had given
les rosbifs un nez sange
. The locals were proud that the little bastion that protected the anchorage, manned by their own citizens, had repulsed the English, unaware that taking the place had never figured in Barclay’s plan. The crew of the
Mercedes
won less praise, probably because they were strangers, the general opinion being that if the locals had not stood firm, then the result might have been different.

Still, there was some pride that a Breton crew had bested the English, though the number of related British dead was many more than had tried to cut out the privateer. But the possibility existed, as Pearce listened to the reprise of every shot and cut from axe or cutlass, that not one of the main raiding party had got away alive. Against that there was only that one dead marine still laid out on the dockside, a magnet for more degradation, flies and scruffy looking dogs that would have fed on him if they had been allowed.

He made his way back to that alley, laden with food, doubts and images of a boat full of dead men drifting out to sea. He arrived back while the sentry he had spoken to would, according to his own reckoning, still be there. It took a silver shilling to get inside, where he found that One Tooth, along with his mates, had not wasted any time either.

‘You’ve got to get clear before they change the guard,’ One Tooth insisted, grabbing the food. ‘Tide will be high when it’s dark, don’t know the exact time, but if we’s to get our ship out of here…’

‘Ship? I was thinking of the boats.’

‘If’n you want to try and get clear in a boat, you’s welcome to try,
mate, that be some of the worst water in creation out there, no place for ’owt but a deep hull. The fall of the tide is fierce and sets up a right strong current, so as long as the wind ain’t dead foul and blowing a gale we can drift out.’

Pearce still could not believe he was hearing right. ‘You want to take back the
Lady Harrington
?’

One Tooth grinned, making the single molar even more stark. ‘One in the eye for them frog bastards and our mate an’ all.’

‘And where would you sail her if you did?’

‘Why, back to England, you stupid arse. Where else?’

‘Can you do that? I mean the navigation and all.’

‘Ain’t hard, mate. All we has to do is set a course straight north and we will run into the coast of England.’

Pearce was shaking his head, as One Tooth babbled on, making what seemed impossible sound as simple as tossing a coin. The prospect was tempting, the solution to his whole dilemma of getting both his whole party and himself away made even more sound – a ship instead of a boat.

‘I would not want to meet our ship.’

‘Neither would I, mate. King’s ships is to be avoided lest you be in a convoy.’

If they could avoid
Brilliant
he had a chance to get back quickly to where he had been a week before, on British soil and in a position to help his father, a much better prospect than the notion of going to Paris or Calais. But Pearce still had to stop himself from being over-optimistic.

‘We don’t even know how many men are guarding your ship.’

Pearce was hustled to the door. ‘Then you’ve got the rest of the day, mate, to find out.’

Making his way back to the waterside with the remaining food, Pearce reckoned what was being proposed was impossible; until he considered the alternative, which was to do nothing and leave those men incarcerated until they were taken to St Malo. They could not get free without his aid, and he could not get to where he would ideally like to be without theirs. A long look at both ships on his way out of the port highlighted the first and most obvious problem: the
Mercedes
was downstream of the Indiaman. Did One Tooth know that? He must, and perhaps he had taken it into account. The next difficulty was one of which he was already aware; he would have to formulate any plan – the prisoners could not do so from their confinement and the rest of his party would be obliged to stay outside the place till after dark – and he did not feel tremendously confident of his ability to come up with something that had a chance of success.

The factors militating against a coup multiplied the more he gnawed at them. They had few weapons and their opponents would be armed. How alert would they be after last night? They might have given
les rosbifs
a bloody nose, but could they be sure that Barclay would not try again? They might well be on the lookout for another raiding party, armed and waiting as they had apparently been the night before. These thoughts stayed with him as he trudged out to the woods, a heavy sack swinging over one shoulder.

His shipmates fell on the food, curious to know where he had got it but too hungry to really care about Pearce’s replies. Huddled in a small clearing, out of sight and the wind, they were cold and tired as well as famished. Pearce waited until they had eaten before recounting his tale, which was received with varying degrees of disbelief.

‘I must leave you again. If the French are getting ready to repel another assault, I will see it.’

‘If they are?’ asked Dysart.

‘Then we must wait.’

Pearce walked down to the shore and looked up the inlet. That chimney-shaped rock onto which they had smashed marked the point
where it joined the open sea. It was almost as if he could feel the presence of the frigate; the locals were sure
Brilliant
was still there. Why that should be Pearce could not fathom; no genius was required to deduce that the privateer held all the cards in any game that Barclay cared to play, being able to sit in Lézardrieux until doomsday if necessary. Bested three times already, only a fool, or a desperate man, would hang about to be embarrassed again. But seemingly he had, which meant not just escape from France; if they were to get to England they had to avoid Barclay as well.

‘We ain’t seen so much as a topsail,’ Dysart insisted, when Pearce alluded to
Brilliant
.

‘But the local folk must have. They were all moaning that they couldn’t fish in deep water because of the English warship. And if she wasn’t out there, if she was gone, I reckon that privateer would have upped his anchor and set a course for St Malo.’

‘Upped his anchor and set a course,’ O’Hagan exclaimed. ‘Jaysus, you’re beginning to sound like a proper tar, John-boy.’

Pearce grinned. ‘God forbid.’

‘Now, would that be the one you don’t believe in?’

‘The very same, Michael.’

‘Sure, I’d want to be there the day you meet our maker.’

‘If you don’t mind, Michael, I’ll leave you to represent me.’

Death! That brought forth an unpleasant image, that of the marine in Lézardrieux. If this went wrong it would be his body they were kicking and spitting at, be it dead inert meat or the repository of a soul. ‘I might have to find some faith, Michael, for what I am proposing we do will require divine intervention.’

‘Let me do the asking,’ O’Hagan replied, putting an arm round Pearce’s shoulders. ‘Sure, I’ve had more practice, and I don’t doubt more need.’

There was a lot to sort out, and Pearce worried that he had failed to think of everything. They needed an easy rendezvous, because he would be coming for them after dark. What weapons did they have? Apart from his knife, only what they had salvaged from the beach. Then he remembered the barrel of gunpowder that had helped Charlie Taverner and Rufus to get ashore, which they had left behind at that spot because it was too much trouble to carry. That led to an argument about who should go back and fetch it, solved by Michael saying that he would rather be busy and about some task than sitting on his arse all day with these miserable sods. Surprisingly, Martin Dent, with an embarrassed
look at Pearce, offered to accompany him. The boy was mellowing.

The rest Pearce set to fashioning clubs from the ample deadwood that lay all around, with the caveat that they must be careful and stay out of sight.

O’Hagan and Martin Dent made their way back to the landing place through the trees, until the Irishman felt they were far enough away from Lézardrieux, and sight, to use the strand of beach. The silence between them was of the awkward kind: Michael not sure what to say to the boy, Dent showing signs of the kind of withdrawal that went with his age. In the end Martin was more at home in that state than an Irishman to whom a lengthy silence was anathema.

‘Has anyone ever told you, boy, that you’re a proper bane?’ The words, delivered without rancour, were followed by a sideways look at a bowed head and hunched shoulders. ‘I ache still from the blows that sod Devenow laid on me, and all because of you.’

Still, the boy wouldn’t speak, refusing any form of eye contact as well. Michael put a hand out to ruffle his hair as a way of breaking the ice, only to have Martin skip sideways as if he was dodging a blow. ‘Sure, something tells me you’ve felt a few clips in your time.’

Martin shrugged as he bent down to lift a large stone and throw it into the calm undisturbed water of the inlet, creating a huge splash that sent ripples streaming out for twenty feet.

‘Perhaps not all of them were deserved, though I take leave to doubt it the way you carry on. We talked about chucking you over the side at our table. The whole mess was in favour, bar two.’

That got Martin’s attention – not a look but a distinct stiffening of the shoulders.

‘And would you be after believing John Pearce said no to that idea. Odd that, since you was so bent on doing him in. Saved your life too, though only the Holy Mother knows why.’ Michael’s voice hardened. ‘Which I hope he don’t live to regret.’

Finally goaded to reply, Martin’s voice was muffled by his chin being on his chest. ‘I ain’t goin’ to say sorry, if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘Not even for the soul of poor old Abel Scrivens, who would have done you no harm?’ Michael laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder with just enough force to stop him and he turned his head, albeit with his chin still on his chest. ‘For he was the other one who said no to dropping you in the drink.’

Martin’s reply was spirited, like that of someone wrongly accused,
and with a direct stare to support it. ‘That were a mistake!’

‘I don’t doubt it, boy. Trouble is, old Abel ain’t here to forgive you.’ Martin Dent looked at O’Hagan a second time, fear in his eyes, leaving the Irishman unsure whether the fright was prompted by the idea of what he might do, or, less likely, some notion of eternal damnation. ‘Probably would, too, kindly old gent like him.’

The repetition was a mumble. ‘I said it were a mistake.’

Michael bent down himself and picked up a stone, flat and
flint-like.
‘Now that looks to me like a skimmer.’ He launched the stone as he spoke. It hit the water flat and bounced four times before it sank. ‘Jesus, that was a goer. In Ireland, where I come from, they say if you can get a seven skimmer you’re sure of salvation.’

Martin’s doubtful expression almost made O’Hagan laugh, and that humour was in his voice as he said, ‘You might as well try it, boy, for something tells me that the way you go on, you’re destined for hell.’

That one activity, an attempt over fifteen minutes, ultimately unsuccessful, to find the magic seven-skimmer changed the whole nature of the relationship. Martin lost his reserve through competition, though Michael was startled at the amount of effort the boy put into winning. His concentration, tongue firmly lodged in his teeth, was total.

‘How long you been a ship’s boy?’

‘I was born on one,’ Martin replied, followed by a curse as he heaved a stone that sank straight away.

The rest of his tale emerged between the gasps of his endeavours; born to a sailor father he never knew and a mother who plied her trade in Portsmouth dockyard and the Spithead anchorage, a woman spoken of with no affection who was dead of drink and disease by the time he had survived five winters. A berth aboard a seventy-four followed, if you could call a few strakes of planking on a lower deck by such a name, a place where he was at least fed, where he learnt to make himself useful to the gunner as a powder monkey; to the Yeoman of the Sheets as a tyke who could top the highest point on the yards, and to the Bosun as a right handy nipper when the ship raised anchor and the cable was hauled in on the messenger. Another fellow, a marine, had taught him to rattle the side drum, and that, when he got aboard
Brilliant
, had got him the post of marine drummer.

‘Have you lived ashore?’

‘A fiver,’ Martin hooted, as a fresh stone skimmed the water. ‘Lived so when I was a bairn, for my Ma changed husbands regular, though I don’t recall it now. Had to sometimes when a ship I was on paid off, but I allas
got myself another berth damn quick, ’cause ashore is no life for a grown man, let alone a lad.’

Relating the nature of that life had Martin putting extra effort into stone throwing, which tended to spoil his shots rather than aid them. He had scrabbled through pig swill bins for food, fought for a deep doorway to sleep in of a night, nearly frozen to death in winter from want of a blanket, and been scared to sleep lest some other sod stole what little he had, ‘like a pair of clogs, for which those grass-combing buggers would steal your eyes and come back for the holes!’

‘That I have seen myself, boy.’

Martin Dent stopped suddenly, arm raised for another throw. ‘Have you ever thrown a seven skimmer?’

Michael laughed and shook his head. ‘Never, boyo. So when you get to hell, like as not I’ll be waiting there for you, fists raised to give you the hiding I cannot, for your size, give you now.’

‘I won’t be so easy, mate,’ Martin insisted, with the bravado of youth. ‘I’ll be a grown man and a match for the likes of you.’

‘Maybe you will be a handful at that.’ O’Hagan put an arm on the boy’s shoulder, this time without engendering alarm. ‘Enough of this, you and I best be on our way to get that gunpowder, or the others will reckon us taken.’

Martin Dent grinned then, which lit up his urchin face. ‘Happen they’ll reckon I’ve done you in.’

It was difficult for Pearce, in a fishing port made idle, to find a spot from which he could observe both the
Mercedes
and the
Lady Harrington
without drawing attention to himself. Any number of souls were sitting around on casks and wooden bollards, or on the gunwales of beached boats, yarning away. Wandering from place to place, he could only hope one solitary figure who sat down occasionally to whittle on a piece of wood was unlikely to be noticed. That assumption proved correct – he was left in peace by everyone except the odd curious urchin and an alarming number of sniffing dogs.

He had to move constantly because it was too cold to stay still. In doing so – time and again – he passed the tavern that housed what he reckoned must be most of the crew of the
Mercedes
, celebrating their great victory, by the sound of it. The mate of the
Lady Harrington
was probably inside; maybe he too was drinking himself senseless. Would he wake in the morning to find his ship gone?

The tide was in again and had raised both sailing vessels so that they
towered over their surroundings, snubbing on their cables. The way they strained, upriver one minute, downriver some time after, told him at what point it ceased to rise and began to fall. The fishing boats stuck in the mud had been sucked free and lifted to float as well, and as a result activity had increased markedly, with fishermen working on nets and tackle. Pearce realised he was looking at the conditions that would prevail later – at about midnight – with the exception that the whole anchorage should be quiet, both on the water and on shore. Would there be a moon by which they could see their way? The sky was blue, with large, high and white clouds. The wind, which had picked up as the day went on, was coming in off the sea, which meant it was from a northerly direction. Would that wind fall as darkness descended?

Questions piled on questions, as the water in the inlet receded exposing mud once more, with solutions hard to come by. His confidence ebbed and flowed – nothing in his life had prepared him for this. He thought back to the previous night, to the abortive attack Barclay had made. Much as he hated to admit it, he knew that he would have to think like the captain of HMS
Brilliant
. That raid had been carried out working on a set of assumptions – that they turned out to be wrong was a consequence not of stupidity but of chance. He must operate on the same principles. There was no way success could be guaranteed. All he could do was slowly think each imagined situation through, eliminate the impossible and try to minimise the risks.

The chorus of voices from the waterside tavern rose and fell as the afternoon wore on, sounding ever more raucous as the men inside got steadily more drunk, with constant comings and goings between ship and shore that made counting the number of potential enemies difficult. The singing began to tail off as inebriation turned to stupor, and it seemed to Pearce there were fewer voices to chant what was, he thought, a very small repertoire: a mixture of sentimental ballads alternating with the same kind of vulgar and salacious chants he had heard all over his native land – songs of men with massive endowments, or of women with less than endearing habits. Occasionally he heard the sound of a fight, and once or twice that spread out onto the hard earth of the quay, making the locals, in their boats or just walking by, shake their heads.