Rapscallion (12 page)

"Some
of them were naked!" Lasseur said, unnecessarily.

Charbonneau
nodded. "They're the lowest of the lot. They'll be the ones who've gambled
all their belongings away. It's how they exist. They have a mania for it. Cards
and dice dominate their lives. Most start with money. When that's gone, they
wager their clothes and their bedding, even their rations. Sometimes they
starve themselves, hoarding their rations to sell them off and then start over
again. When they run out of belongings or food they steal from others or roam
the decks looking for peelings or fish heads. Even the rats aren't safe. Now
and again they send out raiding parties, like the one you just saw."

"Rafales,"
Hawkwood
murmured.

"Some
call them that," Charbonneau said, eyes narrowing. "You've heard of
them?"

Hawkwood
nodded.

"Why
don't the guards punish them?" Lasseur asked.

Charbonneau
gave a dry laugh.
"How?
Look around. You think
this place isn't punishment enough? In any case, the commander's hands are
tied. They can't be flogged. No prisoner can. Direct physical
punishment's
forbidden, unless a British soldier or crew
member is harmed."

"So
he wouldn't have given the order to fire?" Lasseur said.

"Not
unless there'd been a full-scale riot which threatened the safety of his men.
As far as our commander's concerned, any disagreement between prisoners is
dealt with by prisoners' tribunal." Charbonneau sniffed dismissively.
"What goes on below deck stays below deck. It's got so that the guards
hardly ever enter the orlop now. They leave them to get on with it. The rest of
us don't go down there either. It's not safe. You saw what they were
like."

Hawkwood
remembered the scream he'd heard on his first night and the lack of reaction it
had provoked. He looked across the Park towards the quarterdeck and watched as
the hulk's commander removed his hat, turned his face to the sun and closed his
eyes. The lieutenant stood still, letting the warmth soak into his skin. His
hair was dark and streaked with grey.

After
what must have been half a minute at least, the lieutenant opened his eyes and
dropped his chin. Running a hand through his hair, he placed the hat back on
his head and turned to go. Abruptly, he paused, as if aware that his unguarded
moment had been observed. He looked over his shoulder. Hawkwood made no attempt
to glance away as the lieutenant's brooding eyes roved slowly along the line of
prisoners. As Hellard's gaze passed over his own, it seemed for a second as
though the hulk commander's attention lingered, but then, as the lieutenant's
stare moved on, the moment was gone. Hawkwood decided it had been his
imagination, which was probably just as well. Clad in civilian clothes rather
than the ubiquitous yellow jacket and trousers, Hawkwood knew he'd risked
drawing attention to
himself
by making eye contact
with the lieutenant. It had been an unwise move.

"Unless
I'm mistaken," Lasseur commented softly as the lieutenant made his way
from the deck, "there's a man who spends a lot of time in his own
company."

The
world began to revolve once more. Charbonneau drifted away. Beneath Hawkwood's
and Lasseur's vantage point, a fencing class was being conducted. In the
absence of edged weapons, the students were reduced to wielding the thin sticks
that had been used to quell the recent invasion - still a risky venture given
the confines of the classroom - and the Park echoed to the click-clack of
wooden foils.

"Can't
say I care much for their instructor," Lasseur said dismissively, looking
down at the scene. "The man's style is abominable. Do you fence?"

"When
the mood takes me," Hawkwood said.

Lasseur
grunted at the noncommittal answer and then said, "A splendid exercise;
the pursuit of gentlemen. Perhaps we should give lessons, too? Earn ourselves
some extra rations."

The
dry tone in the privateer's voice hinted that Lasseur was being sarcastic, so
Hawkwood didn't bother to reply. He looked out across the water. Lasseur did
the same. The two frigates were nearing the mouth of the river. Close hauled,
yards braced, their nearness to one another suggested a friendly rivalry
between the crews, with each ship determined to steal the wind from her
opponent, knowing the loser would be left floundering, sheets and sails
flapping, her embarrassment plain for all to see.

From
Lasseur's distant gaze and by the way his hands were holding on to the rail,
knuckles white, Hawkwood sensed the Frenchman was thinking about his own ship.
Hawkwood tried to imagine what might be going through the privateer's mind, but
suspected the task was beyond him. His world was so far removed from Lasseur's
that any attempt to decipher the faraway look was probably futile.

While
there were inherent dangers attached to both their professions, it was there
the similarity ended. Hawkwood's world was one of ill-lit streets, thieves'
kitchens, flash houses, fences, rogues and rookeries. Lasseur's, in total
contrast,
was
the open deck of a sailing ship, running
before the wind. It seemed to Hawkwood that, whereas his world was an enclosed
one, almost as dark and degrading as the hulk's gun deck, Lasseur's was one of
freedom, of the open main and endless skies. For Lasseur, being cooped up on
the prison ship would be like a bird whose wings had been clipped. Small wonder
his desire to escape was so strong.

"How
long
will
it take, do you
think?" Lasseur asked. He did not look around but continued to follow the
frigates' progress towards the open water.

"Murat?"

Lasseur
nodded.

"He
has the advantage," Hawkwood said. "He'll probably be content to keep
us waiting, even if it's just to teach us
who's
pulling the strings. It could be a while."

Lasseur
turned. There was a bleak look in his eyes. "Any longer in this place and
I swear I'll go mad."

"One
day at a time," Hawkwood said. "That's how we have to look at it. I
hate to admit it, but the bastard was right about one thing."

"What's
that?"

"We
should be patient."

Lasseur
grimaced. "Not one of my better virtues."

"Mine
neither," Hawkwood admitted, "except, we don't have a choice. Right now,
I don't think there's much else we can do."

Lasseur
nodded wearily. "You're right, of course. It does not mean I have to like
it, though, does it?"

Hawkwood
didn't answer. In his mind's eye he saw again the mob of prisoners rising out
of the hatches and the mayhem they had created. Lasseur had referred to the
hulk as a version of Hell. From what Hawkwood had witnessed so far, the
privateer's description had been horribly accurate. In his time as a Runner,
Hawkwood had visited a good number of London's gaols: Newgate, Bridewell, and
the Fleet among them. They were, without exception, terrible places. But this
black, heartless hulk was something different. There was true horror at work
here, Hawkwood sensed. He wasn't sure what form it took or if he would be
confronted by it, but he knew instinctively that it would be like nothing he'd
encountered before.

The
interpreter had been wrong about the smell. After four days, Hawkwood still hadn't
grown used to it. Grim smells were nothing new, living in London had seen to
that, but in the enclosed world of the gun deck, four hundred bodies generated
their own particular odour and, despite the open ports and hatches, the warm
weather meant there was no way of drawing cooler and fresher air into the ship.
The sea breezes afforded no respite. They brought only the damp, faecal aroma
of the marshes, which hung across the polluted river like a moisture- laden
blanket.

That
said, Hawkwood decided Murat might have got it wrong when he'd nominated fever
and consumption as the most prominent causes of death aboard the ship. From
what Hawkwood had seen, it was more than likely one of the main culprits was
unremitting boredom.

While
a proportion of the hulk's inmates did engage in productive pursuits such as
arts and crafts, giving or receiving lessons, or setting themselves up as
shoemakers or tradesmen in tobacco or other goods, it seemed to Hawkwood that
they were in the minority. A vast number of the ship's population opted to pass
their days in idleness. Even on the gun deck, men gambled. It wasn't difficult
to recognize the ones who'd fallen under the spell. The quiet desperation in
their eyes as they laid down their cards or took their time lifting the cup
from the little cubes of bone, knowing their inevitable descent to the deck
below had already begun, was evidence enough. Others engaged in more dubious
dealings: the manipulation of weaker inmates through theft, intimidation and
sexual gratification, followed by threats of reprisal if their authority was
questioned. Some sought sanctuary by curling up and sleeping wherever there was
room - and there wasn't much room. The remainder seemed content merely to wait
and to die.

In
an attempt to evade the stink, Hawkwood kept to the forecastle as much as
possible, sometimes with Lasseur for company. To avoid remaining sedentary,
he'd lent his labour to the hulk's work parties. This had drawn comment from
some of his fellow prisoners. Most officers regarded such labour as beneath
their dignity and preferred to pay a substitute to carry out any manual tasks
assigned to them. The going rate was one sou or ten ounces of bread from the
day's rations.

Hawkwood
had no such qualms, having served in the Rifles, where every man was expected
to pitch in. And even before that, as a captain, it had always been Hawkwood's
contention that he would never assign a task to one of his soldiers that he
wasn't prepared to do himself. It had been a good way to garner loyalty and in
the heat of battle it had served him and the men he'd led very well. So
Hawkwood had willingly lent his back to hoisting supplies on board and swilling
down the foredeck and the Park after supper. Better the smell of honest sweat
in his nostrils than the all-pervading stench of the hulk's lower deck.

Lasseur,
too, had done his share of manual graft, working alongside Hawkwood at the
hoist and in the ship's hold. The temperature within the ship was such that
jackets and shirts were soon discarded. The prisoners' backs ran wet with sweat
and it was easy to tell whether an inmate was new on board or a regular member
of a work party: the irregulars were the ones whose flesh was as pale as paper.

Lasseur's
hide carried the healthy sheen of a seaman whose voyages had taken him to
warmer, far-flung climes. His torso was well formed without being muscular, and
evenly tanned - in contrast to some of the men, whose forearms and faces were
the only areas of their bodies that showed the effects of exposure to the sun.
The rest of their skin, normally covered by a shirt, looked bleached white in
comparison.

What
also set Lasseur apart were the marks of the lash across his spine. Hawkwood
had passed no comment on the scars. He'd enough of his own, including the ring
of bruising around his throat, which had drawn a few curious looks both when
he'd taken the bath prior to his registration and when he removed his shirt
during the work details.

Lasseur
had noticed Hawkwood's passing glance at his back and had made only one comment:
"I wasn't always a captain."

"Me
neither," Hawkwood had told him, and that had been enough. The rest of the
men, whose quizzical looks might have indicated a desire for explanation, they
ignored.

When
he wasn't labouring in a work party or talking with Hawkwood or Fouchet, or
sometimes with the boy, Lasseur spent most of his time pacing the deck and
gazing restlessly across the estuary, locked within his own thoughts. With so
many bodies crammed in one place, physical solitude was but a dream. Hawkwood
knew there wasn't a man on board who wouldn't try and seek solace in the
privacy of his own mind. He sought it himself when he could, and took advantage
of the opportunities it offered to observe shipboard routine at close quarters.
And in the course of his observations Hawkwood had seen enough to know that
making a successful escape from the hulk looked well nigh impossible. Moored a
stone's throw from the middle of a busy estuary; surrounded by inhospitable
marshland; heavily guarded by its contingent of militia and a commander who was
fully prepared to use deadly force against the slightest infraction, the ship
was too well sealed.

According
to Ludd's reckoning, four men had made it off the hulk in recent weeks. In the
short time he'd been on board, Hawkwood had yet to uncover a single clue as to
how they might have done it. He'd tried to pin Fouchet and the others down, but
to his frustration they had been of no more help than Lieutenant Murat.