Rapscallion (24 page)

It was
inconceivable that the Admiralty would have sanctioned prisoner involvement
or, quite possibly, even the hangings themselves, particularly on board the
ship; officially, at any rate. Unofficially, Hawkwood began to wonder. He
suspected that the Admiralty, like the army, politicians and the judiciary, was
perfectly capable of nefarious dealings when it suited its purpose. The
tribunal's participation had lent an air of legitimacy to the sentencing and
method of execution. If there were repercussions, the Admiralty could lay the
blame squarely on Hellard's already blackened shoulders by accusing him of
acting of his own volition.

As for Hellard,
it could be construed that he was exerting his authority, both to the prisoners
and his superiors as well as an audience closer to home, namely Lieutenant
Thynne and the rest of the ship's company. By setting up the hangings, Hellard
had established himself as a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps, in some
bizarre way, he'd even seen it as a means of restoring himself in the eyes of
the Admiralty.

Hearing Lasseur grunt,
Hawkwood looked up to see a familiar figure limping towards them, carrying two
knapsacks held high.

"I received
permission to bring you these. Thought you might need them," Fouchet said.
"And we can't have you going hungry." Handing over the knapsacks, the
teacher fumbled in his pockets.

"Please
tell me it's not pork again," Lasseur pleaded.

"Breakfast
- the usual.
Don't eat it all at once."

Hawkwood looked
down at the hunk of dry bread Fouchet was pushing into his hand. It would keep
the hunger pangs at bay for a short while.

"You'd have
made someone a lovely wife, Sebastien," Lasseur said.

Fouchet
chuckled. "Someone's got to look out for you." The smile slipped
suddenly. "Remember what I said; you might want to save that for
later."

Lasseur
stiffened,
the bread paused halfway to his lips.

"You've
heard when they're shipping us out?" Hawkwood reached into his sack and
extracted his one spare shirt. It wasn't much cleaner than the one the surgeon
had cut off him. He put it on, taking care not to dislodge the dressings
covering his wounds.

The teacher
turned to look towards the aft compartment where, through the open hatchway,
the orderlies could be seen sewing the bodies of the hanged men into sailcloth
burial sacks and where Millet and the others, under the bored eyes of the two
militia guards, were awaiting instructions.

As Lasseur and
Hawkwood followed the teacher's gaze, two more men appeared at the bottom of
the stairs. One wore a militia uniform; the other caused Lasseur's face to
cloud over. It was the interpreter, Murat.

The guard nodded
towards the orderlies. "Tell the buggers the burial boat's 'ere and that
Lieutenant Hellard wants the bodies off the ship in double-quick time. This
bleedin' tar bucket stinks bad enough as it is." With a grimace at the
smell in the sick berth, and after throwing a look of sympathy at his two
colleagues, the guard retreated back up the stairs.

Murat relayed
the information in French to the orderlies and the waiting men. "You can
start taking them out."

Hawkwood, Lasseur
and Fouchet watched as the first body- bag was picked up by the head and feet
and carried out towards the stairs. It was a laborious business. The men
carrying it were nearly bent double, both by a combination of the corpse's dead
weight and the space in which they had to manoeuvre, which included the
restricting height of the deckhead. There was no sense of reverence. The team's
curses were as vociferous as they had been when the bodies of the hanged men
had been brought down for wrapping.

As the first of
the dead began their journey up the stairs under the supervision of Murat and
the surgeon, inside the compartment the orderlies continued sealing up the rest
of the sailcloth burial sacks.

Watching the
procedure, Hawkwood wondered how many times the surgeon had carried out this
particular duty.

It was as the
seventh or eighth bundle was being hefted up the stairway that the calamity
occurred. There was a clattering sound and a cry of woe, followed by a loud
thump and barrage of invective as the man supporting the corpse's head and
shoulders lost his footing and his grip. As man and cadaver slid down the
stairs, careering into the pair coming up behind, a second sack slid from its
handlers' clutches. Within seconds the stairs were a tangle of tumbling bodies,
both alive and dead.

Alerted by the
commotion, the two sick-berth guards turned quickly. With insults and
accusations flying around their ears as to which imbecile had lost his footing,
the militia men waded in to restore order.

The moment the
guards' attention was distracted, Fouchet grabbed Lasseur's sleeve. "Come
with me now," he hissed urgently. Leave your knapsacks." Reaching
out, the teacher extinguished the lantern strung from the nearby deckhead.

Instinctively,
Hawkwood looked towards the rumpus. Another lantern blinked out, but there was
just enough light remaining for him to see two men - prisoners - hurrying
towards them through the cots; Millet and Charbonneau. Each of them had a body
slung over his shoulder.

Hawkwood rose to
his feet. "Do it," he snapped, quickly seizing his jacket.

Lasseur looked
beyond Hawkwood, to where a third man was standing by the aft compartment
hatchway.
Murat, beckoning furiously.

The guards'
backs were still turned.

Lasseur sprang to
his feet. Keeping his head low, he dodged under the beams and, half stumbling
in his haste, followed Hawkwood and Fouchet towards the aft compartment.

Hawkwood knew,
as sure as night followed day, the guards were going to turn round. He was
still thinking that as he ducked through the hatchway and realized to his
astonishment that he'd made it. Twisting, he saw that Millet and Charbonneau
were placing the bodies in the vacated cots and covering them with the sheets.
Then Murat was pushing him towards two half- sewn, blood-splattered sailcloth
cocoons laid out side by side on the deck.

Murat pointed to
the sheets. "Get inside. Cross your wrists over your stomachs. Try to
remain still.
Quickly!"

Hurriedly,
Hawkwood and Lasseur did as they were told. As soon as their feet were at the
foot of the sacks, the orderlies pulled the two lapels of the cloth around
them, tight enough to prevent displacement of their bodies, yet just loose
enough to still allow movement in their limbs.

At a nod from
Murat, the orderlies took up their needles.

"Wait!
Out of the way!"
Thrusting Murat and the orderlies
aside, the surgeon bent down next to Hawkwood, a wooden bowl in his hands.
"Close your mouth."

"Hurry!"
Fouchet hissed
from the hatchway. "We haven't much time."

Hawkwood clamped
his jaws shut. His eyes widened as the surgeon lifted a blood-soaked rag from
the bowl and hastily squeezed it out over his lips, chin and jowls. The surgeon
repeated the process with Lasseur.

"It won't
fool a close examination, but it's the best I can do under the
circumstances." The surgeon started as two shadows appeared in the
hatchway behind Fouchet. Relief flooded across his face when he saw it was
Millet and Charbonneau.

"It's
done," Millet said.

Murat glanced
through the hatch. "All right, the excitement's over. Get ready to start
passing out the rest of the bodies." He nodded towards the two orderlies.
"Sew them up." He paused. "And don't forget to piss on
them."

He looked down
at Hawkwood and Lasseur, at the horror on their faces. "Would you want to
look inside something that was bloodstained and reeking of piss? No, me
neither. And remember, you're supposed to be dead men. Not a sound. It will
seem like a lifetime and the smell will be terrible. Try to keep your breathing
steady. I'm sorry we had no time to warn you earlier. We received word that
your passage has been agreed. We thought we had another day, but I overheard
the commander and Lieutenant Thynne talking. You're due to be transferred to
the
Sampson
tomorrow. This was our only chance to get you off the
ship. We've managed to signal to our contact ashore. No matter what happens,
remain calm. Millet and Charbonneau are part of the burial party. Trust them.
They both know what to do.
God speed."

"Hellard
will know you helped us," Hawkwood said.

Fouchet
shrugged. "What can he do to us
that's
any worse
than what we have to endure now?"

"I hope you
get a good price for our sleeping spaces," Lasseur said.

"Sold them
already."
Murat grinned. He snapped his fingers at the orderlies.
"Come on! We need to get them out of here."

"They could
put you in the hole," Hawkwood said.

Fouchet smiled.
"They'll have to move Juvert out first.
Though I could
do with some peace and quiet."

"Be careful
what you wish for," Hawkwood said. He looked up at Murat. "Is this
how the others got out?"

Murat's face
darkened. "No."

Despite the
heat, Hawkwood felt a chill. "Matisse?"

Murat nodded
unhappily.

"How
many?"

"Two,
according to Sarazin.
One through the heads, the other -"

Christ!
Hawkwood thought.

"We managed
to get two off," Fouchet said.

"How?"

Fouchet glanced
at Murat, who somehow managed a weak smile as he said, "You expect us to
reveal all our little secrets, do you, Captain?"

"Give them
our regards, if you see them," Fouchet said.
"Lieutenant
Masson and Captain Bonnefoux."

"I'll do
that," Hawkwood said.

Lasseur looked
up at Murat. "I might have misjudged you, Lieutenant. I'm sorry."

"You're not
free yet, Captain."

Lasseur glared
at the orderly who was sealing him in. "Put that stitch through my nose
and I'll have your guts. And your piss had better smell of roses."

The orderly said
nothing, but as he secured the final suture in the cloth, his hands shook.
Lasseur's blood-smeared features disappeared from view.

Hawkwood's last
sight was of Fouchet staring down at him. The teacher's mouth formed the
whisper, "
Vive la France/"

Not the words I want to hear going to my grave
, Hawkwood
thought as the needle punctured the cloth over his face for the last time.

Murat had been
right. The smell inside the sack was truly appalling. The tang of urine filled
his nostrils while the coppery taste of blood lingered unpleasantly at the back
of his throat. He wondered what other body fluids the cloth had been subjected
to. It was probably best not to think about that.

He assumed
Lasseur was suffering the same discomfort. A perverse part of him hoped so.

Suddenly, the
hands under his shoulders shifted their grip and then his legs dropped. They
were ascending the stairway. At least they were bearing him up head first, he
thought.

It was a strange
sensation, being carried and sightless at the same time. It was too dark below
deck for him to make out anything through the cloth, other than subtle changes
in the density of shadows, but his other senses had already started to
compensate. Every footfall, every groan of timber, every thump, every vocal
emission, from a shout to a whisper, began to take on a new resonance. When
he'd climbed into the burial sack, his first instinct had been to let his body
relax so as to mimic dead weight. Now, with his senses heightened, there was
not a muscle, tendon, nerve or sinew in his entire body that wasn't drawn as
tight as a bowstring. The fear of discovery had become all-consuming. So when
he heard Charbonneau murmur throatily, "We're coming on deck," he
felt the sweat burst from his palms.

The
transformation from gloom to daylight was instantly noticeable. Hawkwood still
couldn't discern anything specific through the cloth, but the mere fact that
there was light beyond the confines of the material made the inside of the sack
seem marginally less claustrophobic.

His mind shifted
back to the day he and Lasseur had been witness to the burial barge's previous
voyage. On that occasion there had been seven corpses requiring passage. This
time there was more than double that number. Pray to God, Hawkwood thought,
they wouldn't have to make two trips.

"Belay
there!" The shout came from somewhere close.

The men carrying
Hawkwood froze. Hawkwood felt sure they would be able to hear his heart thudding
like a drum against his chest.

The same voice
came again. "All right, shift your arses, then! Toss the bloody thing!
Lively, now! He ain't goin' to feel anythin'. He's bleedin' dead already!"