Hoare and the Portsmouth Atrocities (21 page)

Obviously, the two men who had boarded his craft in the fog and left him for dead were French or Channel Islanders. More likely the latter, for they were scattered all over the south coast of Britain, making their living as fishermen, workboat men, smugglers. Searching his memory, he found within a hundred miles of here only one Frenchman who was not a prisoner of war or an officer on parole—Marc-Antoine de Chatillon de Barsac, the
maître d'escrime
whose Portsmouth establishment Hoare haunted whenever occasion offered. But de Barsac was a friend and, moreover, suffered from violent seasickness. He had vowed never to set foot on a waterborne vessel again until he could return to France in triumph, with his King. He would hardly have been lying in wait for Hoare off St. Alban's Head on the sunniest of June days, let alone a foggy night.

Channel Islanders were another matter. Most of them were bilingual. They were scattered all over the Channel coast of England, earning their living as gardeners and as seamen of various types. More than one officer of the Navy—Sir James Saumarez, for instance—was a Channel Islander. Yes, his assailants could easily be Channel Islanders.

Hoare gradually recovered his energy as the sun broke through, but for the most part, he left
Unimaginable
to find her own way home with only the most necessary guidance, her captain brooding as she sailed. By the late sunset of late May, she eased into the Inner Camber, still listing slightly and lying heavy in the water. She rolled like a woman about to give birth. Hoare made her fast with the help of Guilford the watchman and betook himself up the strand to the Swallowed Anchor. Here Susan the pink girl took him in hand, binding up his head and putting him to bed with a hot toddy.

Chapter XII

“T
ELL ME
more about Kingsley,” Hoare said to Janus Jaggery two mornings later. They were basking in the sunny kitchen garden of the Bunch of Grapes. The bench was out of earshot of Mr. Greenleaf's other customers, and the garden was ablaze with blossoms whose scent overbore the mild rotten reek of the kitchen's wastes. Nearby, young Jenny served “tea” to herself and three creatures that her da had just cleverly twisted out of straw to keep her company.

“Ain't nothin' to tell, Mr. 'Oare. 'E was always a cove to try an' buy 'is way into favor with presents what 'e give to anyone 'e thought might 'elp him to advancement.

“'E was a bum-sucker, yer worship, and a wild spender. Where did 'e get his blunt, then? 'E was too well-known in the Navy to try the gentry-lay, an' those bits of 'ardware we traded was as nuffin'. 'E was a bully. An' that's what set me off the Navy in the first place, Mr. 'Oare—the bullyin'.”

“And what else did you do to help him?” Hoare asked.

“Well,” Jaggery said reluctantly, “sometimes I'd put 'im in the way of a bit of fine goods from t'other side the Channel—a length of silk, like, for one of 'is morts. Then there was the brandy. In ankers. Lots of
them.
'E got 'em himself and tended to 'em 'imself, most particular. Wouldn't 'ave me lay me 'ands on 'em, no, not at first.”

“And where did you meet to do these bits of nefarious business?”

“I've a friend, Yer Honor, what 'as the night watch at Arrowsmith's ware'ouse. You know—the ship chandler? 'E let us use it, so long as we never took none of Arrowsmith's wares. Didn't take much space no'ow.”

“Space or no space, Jaggery, that's cappabar, as well you know—disposing illegally of His Majesty's property. Get taken up for that, and off they pack you to Botany Bay, before you can whistle. And what will happen to your little Jenny then?”

Upon Hoare's words, Jaggery instinctively searched the tiny garden. No Jenny.

Through the wall behind them came a squeal. Silent as any cat, Hoare got to his feet and, stooped over, threw open the door into the inn kitchen. There was a yell of pain, a crash of crockery, and the clatter of fleeing feet. Hoare went through the door in a rush, almost tripping over Jenny as the child darted back out into the garden.

“I
bit
'im, Da!” Jenny shrieked. “I
bit
'im!” In her pale face, the child's eyes sparked like black fire.

For a fraction of a second, a dark figure was silhouetted in the doorway beyond, leading into the barroom. Another crash followed, and a shout of rage from Greenleaf. Hoare raced across the barroom and thrust his head out the front door. Down the cobbled lane he saw the fugitive dodging through the throng, running like a started hare toward the water. The object the man carried in one hand caught against an awning pole, and he dropped it, continuing his flight. Hoare caught it up. It was a tapered, flexible tube, like the one Dr. Graves had demonstrated that night in Weymouth.

It brought certain memories together: Morrow's interest in it; the enciphered messages in Kingsley's correspondence and the similar messages whose appearance Mrs. Graves had sketched; Morrow's birthplace; the oddly familiar accents of the two French-speaking men who had boarded him and beaten him a few nights ago; Janus Jaggery's admissions just now about Kingsley's ankers of “brandy.” Put together for the first time, these assorted facts melded into a certainty: the man behind the mystery was Mr. Edward Morrow.

Hoare stopped in his tracks. At forty-three, he had no hope of catching the eavesdropper himself on foot. Moreover, he sensed a far greater opportunity to forestall the fugitive in his rush to escape and report to his master. If he were to seize opportunity as well as device, there was not a moment to be lost.

But how? True, the fugitive
seemed
to be making for the harbor, suggesting that he would make his escape by sea. He could, however, have been laying a false track and would change course for some inshore spot where a horse awaited.

Hoare felt himself on the horns of a dilemma. Should he pursue by land? He had no idea how long it would take a troop of horsemen to ride from Portsmouth to Weymouth, but it had to be an eighty-mile journey. He doubted that horsemen would be able to change mounts en route, as a solitary postboy or a scheduled coach could do. And they would not want to travel at night, he supposed. It could be two days before they reached their destination. By then, the fugitive—traveling every minute except to change horses—would have long since reached Weymouth and alerted Morrow. If Hoare traveled by land, the race was lost from the start.

No, his only chance was to go by sea. With today's northerly wind likely to endure,
Inconceivable
could make the passage in less than a day, but she would arrive with an inferior force. Given the terms on which he stood with Sir Thomas Frobisher, Hoare could hardly hope to recruit a force in Weymouth or its environs. Yet if his
Inconceivable
were to make her best speed, she could accommodate no more than two besides himself. Well then, they'll have to be the best fighting sailors in Portsmouth, Hoare told himself. He hastened to the Admiral's offices to gather his trivial reinforcements.

With two experienced, intelligent-looking tars in tow, Hoare was about to work his way back through the town to where
Inconceivable
lay when it occurred to him to search the harbor first from a spot on the Common Hard, to see if he could catch sight of the fugitives among the waterborne traffic. With a whispered apology, he seized a telescope from an elderly nautical-looking gentleman and set to examining every small craft he could see working its way southward toward the Solent.

“See, Cyril!” came a woman's voice at his side. “Only see how our nation's guardian bends his eagle brow in search of one of His Majesty's enemies on which to swoop!”

Hoare could not help himself. He glanced in the speaker's direction, to see a plainly dressed woman of about his own age, bending to address a child of perhaps six. Seeing that she had caught Hoare's attention, she simpered and moved away, looking over her shoulder widowlike. Hoare returned to his search.

On the low southern horizon, about to disappear behind Gosport, a sleek schooner was just hoisting her flying jib to the soft northerly wind. She was too glossy for a fisherman; her masts were daringly raked. Besides, no mere fisherman troubled with little handkerchiefs like flying jibs. Hoare recognized her as the yacht Morrow had proudly pointed out to him from his own doorstep outside Weymouth—his
Marie Claire.

Hoare clapped the pilfered telescope to with a snap and returned it to its nonplussed owner with an unctuous, apologetic smile. He beckoned to his two men and set off again at a run across the dockyard. By the time he reached
Inconceivable, Marie Claire
would have thirty minutes' lead on him. On a broad reach, the schooner would be at her best. Nonetheless, Hoare thought as he panted along, it was over ninety miles to Weymouth by sea. With the low sea and the favorable breeze,
Inconceivable
had a fair chance. Morrow—or his yacht, at least—would have his race after all, it seemed. But there was not a moment to be lost.

With the very possibility in mind that he would have other naval men aboard her, Hoare had rigged
Inconceivable
Navy fashion throughout. In pitch dark, any able seaman could find any of the lines cleated to her tiny pin rail without fumbling. His two men turned to as though they had been aboard her for a month. Within minutes, with the aid of the docker-watchman Guilford, they had all shore lines inboard and had turned her end for end.
Inconceivable
's tall triangular mainsail gave his new crew pause for a moment. But since the whole rig could have been grasped by an eight-year-old—let alone men like these—in no time,
Inconceivable
was under way, her bow wave beginning to chuckle softly as if she were confident of her race's outcome.

By the time
Inconceivable
had reached the Solent proper,
Marie Claire
was well on her way to Cowes. Hoare saw her change course to larboard, ease her sheets, and straighten up slightly. She had a good three miles on
Inconceivable.
This would be the schooner's best point of sailing, so it would be a long, stern chase, devoid of maneuvers unless—as seemed unlikely—the wind veered westerly.

Hoare eyed his scratch crew unobtrusively. Though one was ruddy and the other black, the two were cut from the same human cloth, tough, horny-handed, pigtailed men in clean frocks. Both had kicked off their heavy buckled shoes immediately on coming aboard, showing big, almost prehensile feet as horny as their hands. As soon as her two simple sails were drawing to Hoare's satisfaction, both had turned to and begun priddying
Inconceivable
's already-spotless deck. Hoare beckoned them to join him beside the tiller.

“My name's Hoare,” he whispered. “Don't trouble to laugh, either of you. I've been known to wipe the laugh off a man, together with the rest of his head.” He smiled to show that he was not wholly serious, and the two men relaxed visibly. “We're too small a ship for formality, men, so make yourselves at home. I can't talk in more than a whisper, so you'll want to keep one eye on me and one on
Inconceivable
here.”

He stopped to catch his breath, and went on.

“And one eye on that flash schooner up ahead. I want to take her if I can, sink her if I can't. She's carrying at least three Frenchmen, maybe more. I think they are the ones that have been blowing up so many of His Majesty's ships. At least, I believe so, and the Admiral thinks so, too, so that's all you really need to know. But I want to tell you a bit more. Bear with me if I must stop to wet my whistle once in a while.”

With this, Hoare began to expound his suspicions. When he had brought the two up-to-date with his discovery of the listening device, he asked them about themselves.

“Now, tell me who you are, and your ratings.”

“I'm Bold, sir,” said the black man. “Cox'n of Sir George's barge. Bold's me name, and bold's me nature.
Har har har.
An' this smart lad Stone here, 'e's just been named stroke oar. We knows who
you
are. You're the gentleman what found all of
Amazon
's mids.”

“Yes,” Stone said. “An' you 'auled me aboard thicky little barky of your yerself, zur, when
Vantage
blew up t'other day. For which I says ‘thanky,' zur.”

“Which one of you should I rate as ‘sailing master,' for now, and which as ‘gunner'?”

“Well, sir, Stone was capting of one of
Vantage
's carronades.”

“Then that's that. Bold, you're master, and Stone, you're gunner. Take turns at her tiller for a bit, and get used to her. I'd have you both take her 'round the compass, but we haven't time now, if we're to catch
Marie Claire
up there.”

When Stone had had his turn, Hoare left Bold at
Inconceivable
's tiller and took the gunner below. He wanted the craft's odd armory overhauled.

“First, Stone,” he said, “draw the charges in all the weapons. Here's a worm. They must have all been wet when she took on water awhile back. Reload the lot from this barrel.”

Stone rolled up his sleeves and set to. Hoare returned on deck.

After a bit, Stone's head looked up at him from below. He was carrying the powder keg.

“No good, zur. She be started in the 'ead. Soaked through, she be.”

“Clear through?” Hoare's whisper was filled with dismay.

“To the very core, zur. All twanty pounds of 'er. Look 'ere. This lump, she be from the very center of the keg.”

“The pistols? The swivel?” Hoare asked piteously. “The crossbow?”

“Dunno about the crossbow, zur. Never seen one of 'em before. But like you said, the powder in the other weppings was all damp.”