The Hawk (32 page)

'They paid you to bring me in your boat to them without
fail, and to make sure that I was at the oars, blindfolded, and
you at the helm, so you could keep your eye on me all the
way. Yes?'

The ferryman was silent.

'They forgot that a sea officer of long experience would
wish to ask certain questions. That he would not just obey
orders blindly, so to say. Hey!'

'I am only doing what I was told to do.' Sullenly now.

'Paid to do! How much?' Barking out the words, trying to
assume the authority of a post captain, in spite of the
blindfold and his apparently helpless position.

'I have been paid adequate.'

'I will double it, whatever it was, if you will tell me the
truth! Where do we go?'

'I dare not do anything against them – '

'Not even for double what they gave for your loyalty?'

'They ain't men to cross, I knows that. I do not wish for a
knife in my guts.'

'Then we will drift. I will not row any more.' Determined
not to proceed until he was certain that the
Lark
was their
design, since the plan he and James had devised could only
succeed if this were so.

The plan was for Rennie to go in the ferryman's boat to the
Lark
, and when they approached the cutter, overpower the
ferryman. Rennie would then fire off the red rocket that he
had brought with him to Bucklers Hard, and slung inside his
coat. James would be waiting at sea in the
Hawk
, standing off.
As soon as he saw the rocket on the night sky he would fly to
the place, and attack, while Rennie kept clear in the boat.
Attack and take the
Lark
, and Aidan Faulk. The strongest
part of this scheme was the element of surprise. The weakest
part – of many weak parts pointed out by James when Rennie
first put the scheme into words – was that
Hawk
might be far
away from the
Lark
when Rennie fired the rocket, and thus
unable to prevent her escape. Or Rennie's capture, or worse.

'The only surprise to them would be your rocket, sir,'
James had said. 'If I am far distant I will have no advantage at
all.'

'Well well, it is a risk worth taking, don't you think so?'

'Supposing they blow the boat out of the water, to prevent
you firing further rockets?'

'But I will have only one rocket with me.'

'They will not probably know that in
Lark
, sir – will they?'

'You make difficulty where none exists, James.' Rennie had
begun to grow irate, and impatient.

James was disinclined to be deflected:

'Even if they did know it, they could well decide to smash
you to splinters out of vengeance. Could not they?'

'I do not think so, I do not think so. They will be thrown
absolutely into confusion. It will not occur to them to fire on
me in a damned little boat.'

At length Rennie – by virtue of his greater years, authority
and experience, and his passionately expressed wish to see
Aidan Faulk took and the whole affair concluded – had
persuaded James to agree to the plan, in spite of his grave
doubts, and even graver misgivings. They had calculated
roughly where the
Lark
might lie, waiting for the boat, and
decided where
Hawk
should lie accordingly. But it had all
been guesses. The whole thing hung upon guesses.

And now here in the boat on the open water, with the
clammy menace of the night all about him, and the cold,
rippling tide, Rennie had begun horribly to doubt those
guesses, and to fear that it was not after all the
Lark
for which
they were bound, but another vessel, a larger ship altogether,
hidden far offshore in the slow swirling fog. He felt the boat
sway as the ferryman stood. Rennie sensed his anger.

'Lissen, now . . . you 'ear this?' The ferryman's voice, then
a further rustle of movement and a metallic click. 'You knows
that sound?'

Rennie lifted a hand to snatch off his blindfold, and felt
cold metal at his throat.

'Ho, no. You do not require to see what is in my 'and. It is
a pistol, cocked. Which I shall not 'esitate to pull the trigger
of it, if you continue in dis'bedience. Give way!'

Rennie lowered his hand, sighed, then took up the oars and
did as he was told. He would have to bide his time, and carry
the plan through whether or no they were headed for the
Lark
. He felt the movement of the boat as the ferryman
returned to his tiller and resumed his seat, and heard the
subdued, ratcheted click as the hammer of the pistol was
carefully lowered. Rennie bent his aching back, and rowed
on.

A rolling bank of fog off the coast, and
Hawk
standing away
in the lightest of airs on the larboard tack. The cutter showed
no lights, according to the plan Lieutenant Hayter had
agreed with Rennie. No lights, no bells at the turning of the
glass, no stamping of feet, shouting in the top or at the falls
as sails were trimmed. No undue noise below, at the Brodie
stove, or at the messes. Hammocks down had been accomplished
with nearly unnatural quiet. Even the issuing of grog
– in usual accompanied by jokes and laughter – had been done
with preternatural solemnity. Lieutenant Hayter had been
fiercely in earnest about the need for silence, and his people
had seen it in his eye, and the set of his mouth, heard it
resonating in his voice as he enjoined and instructed them
before they weighed at Portsmouth:

'Never be in doubt, we must be quiet – or fail. I will not like
to fail. I will not allow it. Our business tonight is to
prevail
.
Are you with me in this?'

'Aye sir.'

'Aye.'

'We are with you, sir.'

'And what are we called?'

'We are Hawks.'

'I cannot quite hear you. Do not fear to speak out, now. It
is your last opportunity. What are we called?'
'Hawks! We are Hawks!' Roaring together.

'Very good. – Mr Love!'

'Sir?'

'Stand by to weigh and make sail!'

And now
Hawk
came over on the starboard tack, and slid
silent to the west-sou'-west. All her carronades were doubleshotted
at full allowance, and her swivels loaded with
canister. The fog floated and slowly rolled, eddying before
puffs of breeze through the shrouds and ratlines and yards,
through stays and halyards and blocks.

'Shall we find out our speed, sir?' Richard Abey, very
quietly, by James's side.

'Very well, Mr Abey, thank you. I should estimate not
above three knots, but we may as well discover it as near exact
as may be possible.' Whispering.

'Aye, sir.' His hat quietly off and on in the feathery dark.
Presently: 'Two knots and a half, sir.'

'Thankee, Richard. We will remain on this tack half a glass,
then go about.'

The rippling wash of the sea, and the splash of a fish half a
cable to starboard. All sounds both muffled and oddly
echoing in the engulfing mist, as if the wide expanse of the sea
were artificially enclosed beyond the vessel by a great unseen
wall.

James waited in vain for the glow of the rocket, suffusing
the mist away to the south. No sign came. There was no
glow, no pink-diffused bursting of stars. He waited, and
presently:

'Where the devil is the signal?'

'Is it the
Lark
, sir?' Richard Abey, thinking James had seen
something.

'Nay – I do not know what has happened.' Half to himself,
shaking his head. 'The boat should have worked near to the
Lark
by now, and fired the rocket to give us her bearing.'

'Are we to attack her, sir?'

'Our task is to take her, Richard. Take her, and her master.'

'Is Captain Rennie aboard her?'

'He is in the boat. In least, he ought to be in the damned
boat.' A deep breath, and he let it out – and made his decision.

'We will go about, Richard. Say so to Mr Love – very quiet,
now.'

Hawk
came about, silently, and the helmsman at the tiller
steered her toward the place James thought and felt the
Lark
must be, to the south-east. He could not wait longer. There
was little enough wind now, the merest zephyr in the wafting
fog, and
Hawk
was seriously delayed in her approach. Her
shrouds and stays dripped with moisture as she drifted
through the laden air, her canvas hanging nearly limp. James
ordered men to the sweeps.

'Cheerly now, lads! But quietly, too.' A fierce, hoarse
whisper.

Nearly a glass, and by now James was deeply dismayed. No
hint of a boat, or of the
Lark
. The man in the chains with the
lead sent back his soundings by a boy, to be whispered in
James's ear. Likewise the lookout in the bow, standing and
peering into the mist. James paced from windward to lee and
back, tearing his hat from his head. Peered into the dense
darkness, desperate for the merest glimmer of light, the
smallest sign, anything.

At last the mist lifted, abruptly lifted, became threadbare –
and cleared. The open, darkly glistening sea, the broad swell
stretching away on all sides – and nothing more. No
Lark
. No
boat.

James lifted a hand to the back of his neck, his hat at his
side in his other hand, flapped hard against his thigh.

'Christ's blood . . .' To himself. '. . . I am a blind fool. I did
not
see
the bloody rocket in the mist, it was too thick. And in
course as soon as it was fired, they did not tarry. They made
sail at once.'

'Sir?' Richard Abey.

'Why should they wait?' A quick glance at his mid, keeping
his voice instinctively low. 'They have took Captain Rennie,
and run! Oh, why did I allow the foolish man to persuade me!'

'Sir?' Abey again, risking his commander's wrath.

'Well?'

'Should we – should we not chase, sir?'

'Aye, Richard, aye . . . but
where
? That is the question!'
Dashing his hat to the deck.

James stalked aft, paused, stalked forrard. Midshipman
Abey dared say nothing further, and stood well clear of his
commanding officer, mutely waiting. James retrieved his hat,
brushed moisture from it with his sleeve. Breathed forcefully
through his nose, as if to force a decision from himself. He
lifted his head, and saw the lookout's boy approaching.

'Light ahead, sir!' Urgently whispering.

'Thank God!' Urgently whispered in turn, peering ahead.
'Where away?'

'Away to starboard, sir. About half a league distant.'

James brought his short night glass from his coat, and
found the light. Focused the refracting lens. And saw that it
was a stern light, its glow faintly illuminating the tafferel not
of a cutter, but of a much larger vessel.

'Nay – nay – that ain't the
Lark
.' Lowering his glass with a
sigh. 'That is a ship.' He shook the head, then raised the glass
– from habit raised it – and attempted to make out the name
of the ship in the subdued glow of the light, enhanced by the
lens. Saw a boom, vangs, a spanker, and chase ports, and
surmised that here was a small single-decker, a small frigate –
what the French called a corvette. Lowered the glass.
Frowned.

'Why is she hove to, I wonder, at night?'

'The fog, sir.' Richard Abey, thinking he had been asked a
direct question.

'The fog has lifted, though.' Distractedly, and again he
brought up the glass, peered a moment, lowered it. 'Who is
she?'

'Perhaps she is a smuggler, sir, waiting for just these
conditions – the fog dispersed – so that she may steal inshore.'

'Nay, Richard, she is too large a vessel for a smuggler – and
a smuggler would surely use the cover of a mist to creep close
in.'

But again he raised his night glass, and caught in the lens
the image of several men crowding upon the quarterdeck of
the corvette, their faces illuminated a moment in the light of
the opened binnacle. One of those faces produced in him a
sharp intake of breath, and:

'By God, that is the captain!'

'The captain of the vessel, sir?'

'Captain Rennie! They have got him a prisoner there
aboard her!'

The binnacle light was now shut off, but not before James
saw in his sensitive, enhancing lens that Rennie's chalk-white
face was streaked with blood, and that he was supported in a
half-fainting condition between two of the men.

'Mr Abey! Mr Love!' His fiercest whisper. They attended
on him.

'We will hoist out the boat, as quiet as mice, now. Boat's
crew to muffle thole pins. I will go into the boat myself.
Richard, you will remain and take the conn in my absence.
Should I not return within one glass and a half – forty-five
minutes – you are to assume command of
Hawk
and make for
Portsmouth. Mr Love, I want five extra men, your strongest
and stoutest. You and they will come with us in the boat.
Every man to be armed. – You there, boy.' To the lookout's
boy.

'Aye, sir?'

'Find the cook and ask him to provide you with a can of
blacklead from the stove. We must all blacken our faces. –
Quiet there!' A furious husk as a fid was dropped forrard with
a dull clatter.

In the boat James settled himself in the stern sheets with Mr
Love, his face blackened. As the boat's crew gave way, he
began to feel distinctly odd – and then felt a return of the
debilitating weakness of body and spirit that had followed on
his wounding in the action against the
Lark
: a wave of nausea
washed through him, rising from his swirling guts into his
swimming head. He attempted to stand, and found he could
not keep his legs. He lurched, gripped the gunwale,
attempted to steady himself and to fight off dizziness, but to
no avail. He slumped forward on the thwart with a groan.

As a child James had been inclined to walk in his sleep, an
affliction that greatly alarmed his mother, who feared that he
could march blithely out of his bedroom window and
plummet to his death. Bars were fixed at the window, until his
father Sir Charles saw them there, and heatedly objected:

'I will not have the boy imprisoned in the house! Are we
living at the Clink, good heaven? Nay, nay, I will not allow it.
The bars are to be removed at once.'

'But you know that he walks asleep.'

'Madam, it will not do. The boy ain't a madman. Only
madmen are confined so.'

'But surely, dearest, it is – '
'Did not y'hear me, madam! – Knox! Knox!' To his butler.
'Summon Tobias Hodge, Knox, and ask him to bring his
tools. I have a job for him.'

And so the bars had been duly and patiently removed by
Tobias Hodge, the estate carpenter – who had patiently
installed them at Lady Hayter's request – and James left to his
troubled dreams without their protection. Nor was his door
to be locked at night.

'The boy must be let alone,' his father had said. 'Certainly
it is true that Nature protects the somnambule, and thus we
need have no fear.'

'I have never heard of that, dearest. Where is that wrote?'
Lady Hayter had felt obliged to be defiant and vigilant in
defence of her son's safety. Sir Charles had not been swayed.

'The King's own physician has said it, madam. I do not
presume to know better.'

And there the matter had rested – even though James had
not.

On one occasion he had waked to find himself in a field, in
dense mist, just at the grey glimmering of dawn, bemused but
not at first frightened. Until a monstrous shape loomed out
of the vapour, dark and terrible, thudding, growing huge.

'Oh, help! Help me!' Backing away from the awful shape,
that breathed in rushing snorts, a dragon, a behemoth, come
to crush out his life.

'He-e-e-e-elp!'

But there was no help. He was alone in the field, trapped in
the mist, as the great creature inexorably advanced, tall,
lumbering, towering over him as he stumbled backwards and
fell. He had opened his mouth to scream again, sucked in a
lungful of cold morning air . . . and found himself staring up
at a curious shire horse, that stood peering down at him in
equine surprise. Its mild eye rolled a little as James sat up, and
it took a backward step, snorted, twitched a little, then
lumbered away, trailing whorls and eddies of vapour, and was
lost.

This memory was in James's head as he found himself
gripped under the arms, and helped into a seated position
again, in the boat. As he had in the misted field he sucked in
a lungful of cold air – sea air – and came back into himself,
and the watery present.

'Are you quite well, sir?' An anxious Mr Love, whispering
at his side. The coxswain also peering at him anxiously.

'Yes, yes, I am perfectly hale.' He murmured it with
confidence, remembering to keep his voice down, and stood
up in the stern sheets to give the declaration emphasis. Blood
drained from his head.

'Very good, sir.' Doubt remained in his subdued voice, and
James heard it, dimly.

'Have ye a flask, Mr Love? I have forgot mine.'

Mr Love passed James his flask, and James took a pull of
neat spirit, swallowed, coughed, and handed the flask back.
And noticed now that they were not moving, that the doublebanked
boat's crew rested on their oars.

'Why have we ceased rowing?' To Mr Love.

'We wished to know if you was unwell, sir. It did not seem
right to proceed if you – '

'But I am not unwell, Mr Love.' To the crew: 'Give way,
there!' in a hoarse whisper. The men at once began rowing
again, quietly and in a steady rhythm, the padded thole pins
muffling the oars.

'Sir?' Mr Love, persisting. 'It was not just your health, sir –
only the fog has come on again.'

James, fighting off a further wave of dizziness, sat down
without properly hearing this last.

'Eh? What'd y'say, Mr Love?' Blowing out a breath,
sniffing in another, peering away into the darkness. 'Where
the devil is the ship?'

'The fog has drifted in again. But we are headed correct,
sir, to find her. She is hove-to.'

'Damnation to that. We must go careful, else fall upon her
without warning and give ourselves away. – Lay on your oars,
there!'

And the boat again drifted to a stop on the wide sea. Soon
they were altogether enveloped in the dense, rolling bank.

'Well, then, Captain Rennie, you have had your "breath of
air" on deck, as you wished. And now it is time for you to pay
for it, with information.'

'I have told you – told you all I know.' With an effort, since
his wrists were again bound with twine behind him, and his
ankles bound. He was again kneeling on the forrard platform
of the orlop in the corvette, in the glow of lanterns. The place
was narrow, the timbers hard under his knees. On either side,
cramped storerooms and lockers. The stink of the bilges in
this French ship was repellent to him, but his tormentors
seemed scarcely to notice it. Their concentration was wholly
upon him.