Quicksilver (110 page)

The sun had found a rift in the high clouds and illuminated veils of steam rising from the sweaty coats of their horses. “They’ll never catch him,” Eliza demurred, “in this wind he can out-sail them with ease.”

“Perhaps the Prince will take notice of
that!
” Fatio said, startled by a ragged volley of cannon-fire.

“He’ll only assume it is a salute, for some ship approaching the harbor.”

“What can we do, then?”

“Follow orders. Leave,” Eliza said.

“Then pray tell why are you dismounting?”

“Fatio, you are a gentleman,” Eliza called over her shoulder, kicking off the rabbit-pelts and stepping barefoot across the sand towards the other sailer. “You grew up near Lake Geneva. Do you know how to sail?”

“Mademoiselle,” said Fatio, dismounting, “on a rig of this plan I can out-sail a
Dutchman.
I want only one thing.”

“Name it.”

“The craft will heel over. The sail will spill wind and I will lose speed. Unless I had someone small, nimble, tenacious, and very brave, to lean out of the vehicle on the windward side, and act as a counterweight.”

“Let us go and defend the Defender then,” Eliza said, climbing aboard.

THEY COULD NOT POSSIBLY BE
moving as fast as it
seemed,
or so Eliza told herself until they caught up with the squadron of Blue Guards. With a twitch of the tiller Fatio could have veered round them as if they were standing still. Instead he let out the main-sheet and spilled a huge dollop of air, causing the sailer to drop to what felt like a slow walking pace—and yet they were staying abreast of the galloping Guards. The sailer dropped back onto all three wheels and Eliza, leaning way out on what had been the high side, nearly planted her head in the sand. Fortunately she was gripping with both hands a line that Fatio had hitched round the mast, and by pulling hard on this she was able to draw herself up faster than the zooming sand could lunge at her. And now she had a few moments to wipe spray and grit out of her face, and to tie her hair into a sodden knot that lay cold and rough against her neck. Fatio had got the attention of some of the Blue Guards by gesticulating and shouting in a hotchpotch of languages. Something came flying towards them, tumbling end-over-end, plopped into the mainsail, and slid down the curved canvas into Fatio’s lap: a musket. Then another, flung by a different Guard, whirled just over their heads and embedded itself barrel-first in the sand, surf swirling around its stock, and fell away aft. Now a pistol came flying toward them and Eliza, finally ready, was able to reach up and slap it out of the air with one hand.

Instantly Fatio hauled in on the sheet and the sailer hurled itself forward. He got in front of the foremost of the Guards and then
veered up away from the surf onto drier and firmer sand. Eliza had had time to shove the pistol into her coat-sash now, and to get that rope wrapped securely round her hands; Fatio hauled the sheet in recklessly, and the sailer bit so fiercely into the wind that it nearly capsized. One of its wheels was spinning in the air, flinging sand and water at Eliza, who clambered over its rim, planted both of her bare feet on the end of the axle, and let the rope slither through her numb hands until she was leaning back almost horizontally and gazing (when she could see anything) at the undercarriage of the sand-sailer.

It occurred to her to wonder whether they were now traveling faster than any human beings had ever gone. For a minute she fancied it was so—then the Natural Philosopher in her weighed in with the observation that ice-boats had less friction to contend with and probably went even faster.

Then why was she so exhilarated? Because despite the cold and the danger and the uncertainty of what they might find at the end of the journey, she had a kind of freedom here, a wildness she had not known since her Vagabond days with Jack. All the cares and intrigues of Versailles were forgotten.

Craning her neck around, she was able to look out to sea. There was the normal clutter of coastal traffic, but mostly these vessels had triangular sails. The square-rigged
jacht
of the duc d’Arcachon should be conspicuous. Indeed, she thought she could see a square-rigger standing off several leagues from shore, a short distance to the north—that must be
Météore!
The longboat would have come in at dawn and been hauled up on the beach so that the Prince would not notice it until too late.

Fatio had been raving for some minutes about the Bernoullis—Swiss mathematicians, therefore friends and colleagues of his. “Sail-makers of a hundred years ago phant’sied that sails worked as literal wind-bags, which is why ships in old pictures all have a big-bellied appearance that is very odd to our modern eyes, as if they need to be taken in…now we have learned that sails develop force by virtue of air-currents to either side, shaping, and shaped by, the curve of the canvas…but we understand not the
particulars…
the Bernoullis are making this their field of specialization…soon we’ll be able to use my calculus to loft sails according to
rational
principles…”

“
Your
calculus!?”

“Yes…and it will enable us to attain speeds even…better…than…
this!
”

“I see him!” Eliza shouted.

Fatio’s view ahead was blocked by sail and rigging, but Eliza was
in the clear, and she could see the top of William’s mast protruding above a low hummock of sand and beach-scrub. The Prince’s sailer was heeled over, but not so much as theirs, since he lacked a human counter-weight. He was perhaps half a mile ahead. Halfway between them, but coming up on them rapidly, was the said hummock, which (Eliza realized) was just the sort of visual obstacle behind which the dragoons would want to set up their ambuscade. And indeed she could see the mast of William’s sailer swinging up to vertical as he faltered and lost speed…

“It is happening now,” she shouted.

“Would you like me to stop and let you off, mademoiselle, or—”

“Don’t be foolish.”

“Very well!” Fatio now steered the sailer in a slashing arc around the end of the hummock. In that moment a mile of open beach was revealed to them.

Straight ahead and alarmingly close was a longboat, still cluttered with branches that had been laid over it as camouflage. This had just been dragged out of a hiding place on the north face of the hummock and was now being hauled and shoved down toward the water by half a dozen hefty French dragoons. At the moment its keel was slicing directly across the tracks that had been laid in the sand by William’s sailer a few seconds ago. It was cutting off the Prince’s line of retreat—and it barred Eliza and Fatio’s advance. Fatio jerked on the tiller and steered up-slope, round behind the boat. Eliza could only hold her rope. She clenched her teeth so that she would not bite off her tongue, and kept her eyes closed through a series of jolts. The wheels that were on the ground plunged across the furrow that had been cut by the longboat’s keel, and the one that was in the air smashed into the head of a startled dragoon and felled him like a statue.

The trim of the sails and balance of the vehicle were now all awry, and there was some veering and bouncing as Fatio brought matters in hand again. Sheer speed was not as important as it had been, and so Eliza put her whole weight on the hand-rope, raised her knees, and swung inwards far enough to plant her feet near the mast of the sailer. Fatio settled into a slower pace. They both looked up the beach.

A bow-shot ahead of them, another contingent of half a dozen dragoons were running in pursuit of the Prince of Orange’s sand-sailer. This had come to a stop before a barrier consisting of a chain stretched along a row of pilings that the Frenchmen had apparently pounded into the sand. The ambushers all had their backs to Eliza and Fatio, and their attention fixed upon the Prince, who had clambered out of his sailer and turned round to face the attackers.

William strode free of his sailer, shrugged his cape off into the sand, reached round himself, and drew his sword.

Fatio sailed into the line of dragoons, taking two of them, including their captain, from behind. But this was the end of his and Eliza’s sand-sailing career, for the vehicle planted its nose in the sand and tumbled over smartly. Eliza landed face-first in wet sand and sensed wreckage slamming down near her, but nothing touched her save a few snarled wet ropes. Still, these were an impediment to getting up. When she struggled to her feet, all water-logged, sand-covered, cold, and battered, she discovered that she’d lost the pistol; and by the time she’d pulled it up out of the sand, the action at this end of the beach was over—William’s sword, which had been bright a moment ago, was red now, and two dragoons were lying on sand clutching at their vitals. Another was being held at bay by Fatio with his musket, and the sixth member of the squad was running toward the longboat, waving his arms over his head and shouting.

The longboat was in the surf now, ready to convey the dragoons and their prisoner back out to
Météore.
After a short discussion, four of the men who’d dragged it down the beach detached themselves and took off running towards the stopped sand-sailers while another stayed behind to mind the boat’s bow-rope. The sixth member of that contingent was still face-down in the sand with a wheel-track running over his back.

Eliza had not been noticed yet.

She crouched down behind the broken frame of the sand-sailer and devoted a few moments to examining the firing-mechanism of the pistol, trying to brush out the sand while leaving some powder in the pan.

Hearing a scream, she looked up to see that William had simply walked up to the captured dragoon and run him through with his sword. Then the prince took the musket from Fatio, dropped to one knee, took careful aim, and fired toward the five dragoons now running toward them.

Not a one of them seemed to take any notice.

Eliza lay down on her belly and began crawling south down the beach. In a moment the dragoons ran past her, about ten paces off to her left. As she’d hoped, none of them noticed her. They had eyes only for the two men, William and Fatio, who now stood, swords drawn, back to back, waiting.

Eliza clambered to her feet and shed her long heavy coat. Before boarding the sand-sailer at Scheveningen, she’d borrowed Fatio’s dagger and used it to slit the skirt of her nightgown and cut
off the bottom few inches, freeing her legs. She sprinted toward the longboat. She was dreading the sound of pistols or muskets, which would mean that the dragoons had decided to drop William and Fatio on the spot. But she heard nothing except surf. The Frenchmen must have orders to bring the Prince back alive. Fatio was unknown to them and wholly expendable, but they could not shoot at him without hitting William of Orange.

The solitary dragoon holding the longboat’s bow-rope watched, dumbfounded, as Eliza ran towards him. Even if he hadn’t been dumbfounded there was nothing he could have done save stand there; if he dropped the rope, the boat would be lost, and he lacked the strength to beach it unaided. As Eliza drew closer she observed that this fellow had a pistol stuck in his waistband. But since the troughs of the waves were around his hips, and the crests wrapped themselves around his chest, the weapon was no cause for concern.

Eliza planted herself on the shore, took out the pistol, cocked the hammer, and took dead aim at the dragoon from perhaps ten paces. “This may fire or it may not,” she said in French. “You have until I count to ten to decide whether you’ll gamble your life and your immortal soul on it. One…two…three…did I mention I’m on the rag? Four…”

He lasted until seven. It was not the pistol that concerned him so much as her overall jaggedness, the look in her eye. He dropped the rope in the sea, raised his hands, and sidled up onto the beach, keeping well clear of Eliza, then turned and took off running toward the other group. ‘Twas not a bad play. If he’d stayed, the pistol might have fired, and he’d be dead and they’d lose the boat for certain. But there was a good chance that they could get it back from Eliza if he got help from the others.

Eliza let the hammer down gently, tossed the pistol into the longboat, waded out a few steps, reached up over her head to grip the boat’s transom, and hauled herself up. After a few kicks she was able to get an ankle hooked over the top of the transom, and then she brought herself up out of the water and rolled sideways over the stern and dropped into the bottom of the boat.

Her first view was of a caulked sea-chest. Pulling herself up on it, she saw that it was one of several massive lockers that rested on the deck. Presumably they contained weapons. But if it came to gunplay they were all lost.

The weapons she
needed
were oars, and these were lying out in plain sight on the boat’s simple plank benches. She tried to snatch one up and was dismayed to find it was twice as long as she was tall,
too heavy and unwieldy to be snatched; but at any rate she heaved it up off the benches and rotated its blade down into the water. Standing in the stern, where the water under the keel was shallowest, she stabbed down through the surf and into the firm sand. The longboat was reluctant to move, and one who had not recently familiarized herself with the contents of Isaac Newton’s
Principia Mathematica
might have given up. But the elemental precepts of that work were certain laws of motion that stated that, if she pushed on the oar, the boat
had
to move; at first it might move too slowly to be perceived, but it
had
to be moving. Eliza ignored the unreliable evidence of her senses, which were telling her that the boat was not moving at all, and pushed steadily with all her might. Finally she felt the oar’s angle change as the boat moved out from shore.

The moment she pulled the oar out, wind and surf began pushing her back, sapping the
vis inertiae
she had imparted to the longboat. She planted the oar a second time. The water seemed very little deeper than the first time around.

She wanted in the worst way to look up the beach, but looking would not do any good. Only getting the boat clear of the beach would serve their purposes. And so she waited until she had planted the oar half a dozen times, and doubled her distance from the surf-line, before she dared to look up.