Читать книгу Rebellion - James McGee - Страница 11

Chapter 6

Cannon fire; no doubt about it.

Howitzers, from the sound of them, or maybe six-pounders. Whatever they were, they were clearly raining hell down on some poor devils. Though he could tell they were a fair distance away; a couple of miles at least, perhaps more.

He lifted his head slowly and opened his eyes.

And wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved when he saw that it wasn’t cannon fire that he’d heard. No six-pounders or howitzers; in fact there was no artillery of any description. There was only the surf crashing on to the beach behind him, loud enough to wake if not the dead then certainly any half-drowned, shipwrecked soul who happened to be within earshot.

He remained prone, taking stock while his head cleared. There was daylight, and he was alive. For the moment, that was all he needed to know. Cautiously, he tried flexing his arms and legs. To his relief, all four limbs appeared to be in full working order, which had to be another kind of miracle, though there was enough residual pain in the small of his back to make him wince and think twice about making any sudden movements. There was blood, too, he saw, where his skin had been scraped down the inside of his forearms, which struck him as odd. The side of his skull was sore to the touch, as well. He flinched when his fingertips hit a tender spot beneath his hairline.

He continued the examination of his other aches and pains. Further probing confirmed he had no major injuries. Finally confident that he could get to his feet without falling over, he took a deep breath and pushed himself up. It still took a while. The involuntary coughing fit was a hindrance, though it did help to clear his lungs, as did the retching. When there was nothing left to expel, he straightened and looked about him.

A narrow, rock-strewn foreshore rose gently towards the foot of a sandy-coloured and heavily eroded cliff face. The beach wasn’t long, no more than a couple of hundred paces in length. A jumble of boulders littered the edge of the water at either end. He could see dunes and clumps of tussock grass in the distance where the cliffs flattened out. There were no signs of human habitation.

He spat out another clod of mucus and turned. The sea was a uniform grey and still rough, with high waves and strong swells, but the heart of the storm had moved eastwards leaving behind a grainy sky filled with dark, scudding clouds. There was no sign of the ship; an observation which afforded him neither surprise nor comfort. He shivered, not so much from his damp clothing but from a memory of the cutter’s final death throes.

An object lying a few yards away drew his attention. It was Griffin’s forward hatch cover. Hawkwood stared down at it. Proof, he thought, that saviours, whether by accident or divine intervention, came in all shapes and sizes. He realized the contusions along his arms had to be the result of his skin chafing against the wooden battens.

His mind went back to the panic that had gripped him as he fell and the terror that had turned his bowels to gruel when he entered the water, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that the next few minutes were to be his last.

It was the coldness of the water that had shocked him the most; the bone-numbing, blood-freezing chill that had him gasping for breath within seconds. Though there had been enough cohesive thought filtering through his brain for him to know that he had to rid himself of the tarpaulin coat. It’s weight had been pulling him down and shedding the thing hadn’t been easy, with the mast, shorn of its main yard and looming over him like an uprooted tree and the hull about to capsize at any second, not to mention he’d ingested enough sea water to float a frigate. But, somehow, he’d managed it, summoning a reserve of strength he hadn’t known he possessed, only to find himself at a distance from the ship that made retrieval impossible.

With every feeble thrash of his arms widening the gap between hope and despair, he’d almost been on the point of surrendering to the inevitable when the hatch grating that had been ripped away by the first rogue wave struck him a heavy blow on his right shoulder and he’d reached for it, knowing it was the only chance he had of remaining afloat. It was after he’d pulled himself on to it that things had become hazy.

Fortune, he’d heard, favoured the bold. It seemed it favoured the lucky, too. The circumstances that had almost driven the cutter on to the rocks, causing the crew to take evasive and disastrous action, had, in the end, been the saving of him. Had Griffin been struck further from land, Hawkwood knew he wouldn’t have been carried ashore; he’d be dead.

Though where he’d ended up was anyone’s guess. He looked towards the south. The land sloped more quickly in that direction. Knowing his first priority was to get off the beach, he set off, stumbling on the uneven surface, ignoring the hurt, shaking and windmilling his arms in an attempt to generate warmth. It occurred to him that anyone looking on from afar would probably take him for a complete half-wit; in other words, someone worth avoiding. He windmilled harder.

He’d travelled less than a hundred paces when he came upon the first body. It lay face down in a shallow tidal pool, at the base of one of the large boulders he’d seen earlier. He splashed his way towards it, causing small crabs to scuttle for cover.

Squatting, Hawkwood turned the body over. It wasn’t easy. The dead were never cooperative and his fingers were cold and when he saw the state of the face he wished he hadn’t bothered. The waves and the rocks had inflicted a lot of damage and sea creatures had already taken full advantage of a free meal. Hawkwood doubted the man’s own mother would have known him. Though she might have recognized the tattoos on the left forearm; a Union Jack and an anchor, under which was inscribed the word: Dido. The name of a ship, Hawkwood presumed, rather than a wife or sweetheart.

Despite the discrepancy, it was safe to assume this had to have been one of Griffin’s crew. He thought about the forty or so men that had made up the ship’s complement and looked to where the sea was pounding relentlessly against the edge of the rocks. Rising to his feet, still shivering, he scanned the broken shoreline.

The second body lay about fifty paces from the first, though he nearly missed seeing it. The black tarpaulin coat merged closely with the surroundings and, even as he drew near, Hawkwood thought it looked more like a dead seal than a man. It, too, rested face down. He hesitated before raising the head and was relieved to see that this one hadn’t taken as much of a battering as the first, though the lips and eyes showed clear evidence of nibbling from teeth and claw. There were enough of the features left to aid recognition but as Hawkwood hadn’t been introduced to the cutter’s entire crew, despite there being something vaguely familiar about the face, he wasn’t able to put a name to it.

With some difficulty he removed the coat. He felt no guilt at doing so. The dead man had no use for it and, though it had received a soaking it would help provide extra insulation on top of his shirt and waistcoat.

He was about to get up when he saw the remains of the boat. A stempost and four feet of splintered bow lay several feet away, wedged among the seaweed-encrusted rocks like shattered pieces of discarded bone. There were no markings to suggest what ship they might have come from. He looked around for more wreckage but couldn’t see anything and he knew it was probably pointless to continue the search. In any case, it was time to move on. Still finding his feet, he made his way back to the beach.

He looked up at the cliff face. The worn parts of it looked soft and crumbly. There had been recent slippage, he saw, which suggested that a good many of the boulders he was skirting were the results of landslides. Emerging from the debris, he placed that thought firmly at the back of his mind and headed for the dunes.

A distant, low-hanging smudge drew his gaze. Drifting wood smoke; which meant a dwelling of some sort, but the contours obscured his view so whether it was evidence of a village or town or a single isolated abode, it was too far away to tell. By-passing the place and proceeding on his way was one of the options open to him, but when he thought about it, that idea didn’t make much sense. Where was he proceeding to? Far better to find out where he was and then determine his next move. And the only way to accomplish that was either look for a convenient signpost, or ask somebody.

That was when he heard the groan.

He stopped dead and listened, his skin prickling. The noise came again, from close by; a low exhalation, as if someone was in pain. He turned towards the source and saw movement; a dark shape slinking behind a bank of grass close to the entrance of what looked to be a narrow gulley running between two dunes. There was something else, too, leading away from the gulley back towards the sea; shallow and uneven depressions in the sand; scuff marks, as if an animal had dragged its way ashore.

God’s blood! Hawkwood thought.

He moved swiftly and silently, keeping low, knowing it was still a risk, but driven by a feeling of expectation that was impossible to ignore. The hairs rose along the back of his neck when he saw the black jacket and the hunched shoulders of the figure that was trying desperately to burrow itself into concealment.

Sensing imminent discovery the figure stopped moving, but only for a second and not before Hawkwood had seen that it was favouring its left arm. As fear overcame caution, the prone man suddenly tried to rise and run, but the effort proved too much and he stumbled and fell to his knees, chest heaving. Hawkwood stepped forward. The man turned and looked up over his shoulder, resignation on his pale, pain-streaked face, which expanded into shock when Hawkwood said evenly, “Going somewhere, Lieutenant?”

He knelt quickly, just in time to allow Griffin’s commander to collapse into his arms.

There were livid bruises and abrasions on Stuart’s cheeks and forehead. His clothes were damp and encrusted with sand. He stared up at Hawkwood as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “Good God, you’re alive!” he breathed hoarsely.

“I could say the same to you,” Hawkwood said, cradling the lieutenant’s shoulders. “Can you sit up?”

Stuart nodded. With his back propped against a stout tuft of grass, he swallowed and coughed. When he’d recovered, he stared at Hawkwood. “I still don’t believe it! We launched the boat but when we couldn’t find you, we thought you’d perished.” He cleared his throat again and with an expression of distaste wiped a loop of spittle from his chin.

Hawkwood looked at the lieutenant in amazement. “The bloody ship was turning turtle! How in God’s name were you able to launch the boat?”

To Hawkwood’s further astonishment, Stuart shook his head, wincing as he did so. “She didn’t sink.” And from somewhere, a wry smile appeared. “I told you she was a sound ship. It’d take more than last night’s blow to break her. Griffin lives to fight again.” Suddenly, the smile fell away, replaced by an expression of acute sorrow. “Though the cost was far greater than I would have imagined.”

“How many did you lose?” Hawkwood asked, thinking about the difficulties the crew must have endured just trying to get the boat into the water, let alone conducting a search in waves as high as a three-storeyed house.

The lieutenant hesitated and then said with despair in his voice, “Fifteen, including Marlow and Sheldrake.”

“The men in the jolly boat?”

Stuart looked at him, his brow furrowing. “How . . .?”

“I found their bodies,” Hawkwood explained.

The sadness remained etched on Stuart’s bruised face. His jaw tightened. “They were good men. When I asked for volunteers they were the first to step forward. But the waves proved too much for us. They carried us ashore but the boat foundered on the rocks. We were cast into the water and separated.”

Another of the Almighty’s cruel japes, Hawkwood thought bitterly. It had been the jolly boat, built for purpose, that had fallen victim to the fierce and unforgiving sea while he’d been transported to safety on what had amounted to little more than a piece of driftwood. He recalled Fitch and the wrath in the helmsman’s face when he’d voided his anger in the midst of the storm. Hawkwood hadn’t even reached his destination and already the mission had cost the lives of fifteen men.

Stuart emitted a grunt of discomfort as he shifted position. He continued holding his left arm close to his chest.

“Let me take a look at that,” Hawkwood offered.

It didn’t take a moment to confirm the arm wasn’t broken but the lieutenant’s wrist was badly sprained.

“We should get off the beach and find shelter,” Hawkwood said.

Stuart nodded and Hawkwood helped him to his feet. When they were both standing, he found that Stuart was gazing at him. Sorrow had been replaced by a kind of weary amusement.

“What is it?”

“I was thinking it’s true: the Lord does work in mysterious ways.”

“How so?”

“We’re alive when we’ve no right to be.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“On the contrary, I’m exceedingly grateful. I’ll make a point of telling Him so when we do finally meet.”

Hawkwood smiled. “Paradise over purgatory? You’re that certain you’ll be going up, not down?”

Stuart returned the smile with a tentative one of his own. “Well, if I wasn’t sure of it before, I am now. Why else would He have chosen to save a poor sinner?”

“You’ve a theory, I take it?” Hawkwood said drily.

The lieutenant tilted his head and threw Hawkwood a specul ative look. “Perhaps we’ve been delivered for a reason. Did it ever occur to you that you may have been put on this earth to serve a higher purpose?”

“Every God-damned day,” Hawkwood said, wondering if Stuart had expected him to give the enquiry serious consideration. “But I’ve learned to live with it. Now let’s get off this bloody beach, shall we?”

The lieutenant nodded firmly. “An excellent suggestion.”

“By the way,” Hawkwood said, tugging on the coat he’d taken from the dead seaman. “Where’s the ship? You never said.”

“I instructed Lieutenant Weekes to ride out the storm as best he could and if possible lay three miles off the point, out of sight and range of the shore battery.”

“Shore battery?” Hawkwood paused, the coat half-on and half-off his shoulder.

“Fort Mahon.” Stuart nodded towards the northern end of the line of cliffs. “At Ambleteuse, the next town up the coast. The fort guards the town and the mouth of the Selaque River. It was due to be one of Boney’s embarkation depots when he was planning his invasion back in ’05. Turned out that wasn’t such a good idea. There’s too much silt. It makes navigation a bugger. The winds along this coast don’t help either, as we found out. The garrison’s been reduced since then; reassigned to other districts. Now it’s us who’re doing the invading. There’s a kind of justice there, don’t you think?”

Hawkwood didn’t respond to that. The history of the place didn’t interest him. It wasn’t as if he was taking the Grand Tour. However, the proximity of a fort and a shore battery, irrespective of troop numbers, was relevant only in as much as it called for one thing: a rapid departure. He pulled the rest of the coat on and secured it. It was heavy and damp and a dry coat would have been far preferable, but the tarpaulin was still a welcome protection against the snappy sea breeze.

“Griffin will rendezvous later this evening and pick me up,” Stuart added.

Hawkwood gave him a sceptical look. “Your jolly boat’s wrecked. How do you propose to get out to her? Swim? I wouldn’t recommend it.”

Stuart shook his head. “Our agents will provide the necessary assistance. As fortune would have it, we’ve landed remarkably close to our intended destination. Wimereux’s not much more than a mile or so yonder.” Stuart indicated in the direction of the smoke, still visible beneath the overcast sky. “We should make our way there with all dispatch. The Frogs might not be too conscientious when it comes to maintaining seaborne surveil-lance of their coastline but they’ve an annoying tendency to send out shore patrols, so it doesn’t pay to be too conspicuous.” The lieutenant slid the wrist of his injured arm between two of the fastened buttons on his coat to form an improvised sling.

Amen to that, Hawkwood thought, though he wondered if the French would seriously expect anyone to have come ashore during the furore of the previous night’s storm and then felt infinitely foolish when it struck him that’s exactly what had happened, albeit at nature’s behest.

As if reading his mind, Stuart added, “The sooner we make contact with our friends, the better. There’s likely to be concern for our safety. They’ll be expecting word and in any case we need to send you on your way.”

The colour was gradually returning to the lieutenant’s face and there was a renewed confidence in his tone. Ten minutes ago, he’d been a shipwrecked mariner, alone and injured on a hostile coast with a third of his crew missing, presumed drowned. Now, his spirits lifted by the unexpected arrival of an ally, he appeared anxious to get back into the fray.

They left the beach behind. The dunes began to give way to an area of grassy hummocks freckled with clumps of wind-blown gorse. Further inland, the gorse merged into thickets of prickly, waist-high scrub. Beyond the scrub, Hawkwood could see pine trees. The smell of resin hung heavy in the damp morning air. Sandy, needle-strewn pathways weaved through the gaps between the thickets. They were criss-crossed with enough tracks to suggest it was an area well visited by humans and animals – mostly of a domestic kind, to judge by the amount of sheep and goat droppings that lay scattered about like fallen berries – which explained the shorn state of the turf, Hawkwood reasoned.

He glanced over his shoulder. The reward was a limited view over a choppy sea corrugated with heaving swells. He looked towards the horizon, but visibility was poor and there was no sign of land and then Hawkwood remembered that north lay on his right-hand side and he was, in fact, looking down the Channel towards its far western approaches. He felt an unexpected knot form in the pit of his stomach and wondered why that should be. God knows, he’d served his country and fought the king’s enemies in more foreign climes than most men could dream about and only rarely had he felt the tug of England’s green and pleasant pastures, and yet here he was, striving for a glimpse of a coastline not thirty miles distant and feeling bereft at his inability to catch so much as a whiff of familiar headland.

There was no sign of the ship, either, but as it was hard to tell where the sea ended and the sky began, it would have been difficult to spot any vessel more than a mile or two from shore. In any case, Stuart had told him that Griffin was lying off the point and the curve of the coastline still hampered his view. And there was no telling if she had even survived the night.

Hawkwood looked towards where Stuart had told him the fort was located but the cliffs and vegetation blocked his line of sight that way as well. He turned back, in time to see Stuart tense and say suddenly and softly, “We have company!”

Hawkwood followed the lieutenant’s gaze and his pulse quickened as a blue-uniformed rider trotted his mount out from the edge of the trees. Half a dozen similar-hued infantry men materialized in a ragged line behind him. All the foot soldiers carried muskets.

It was too late to hide. The troops would have had to be blind not to have seen them.

Stuart swallowed drily. “Any suggestions?” There was a new-found fear in his voice.

“Don’t run’s the first one that comes to mind.”

Act like a fugitive and you’ll be treated like one, Hawkwood thought.

The soldiers – fusiliers from their dress – were perhaps two hundred paces away. A musket ball would be ineffective at that range but Hawkwood had yet to see a man outrun a horse; not that there was anywhere to run to. He wondered if his and Stuart’s appearance had come as a surprise to the patrol or whether they’d been under observation for a while. Best to assume the latter, he thought.

“How’s your French, Lieutenant?” Hawkwood asked.

“I’ve a fair understanding,” Stuart murmured. “But I ain’t fluent enough, if that’s what you were hoping.”

It was, but Hawkwood didn’t say so.

“Are you wearing anything likely to identify you as a British naval officer?” Hawkwood asked Stuart quickly, assessing the lieutenant’s garb. He was acutely conscious that both he and Stuart bore all the damp and bloodied evidence of their traumatic arrival, on their faces and in the condition of their clothing.

There was a pause. “No.” Then, his composure slipping, the lieutenant hissed feverishly, “We’ve no bloody papers. They’ll shoot us as spies!”

It was on the tip of Hawkwood’s tongue to point out that if their identities were discovered they were liable to be shot as spies anyway, whether they had papers or not.

“You men! Halt! Stay where you are!”

The command came from one of the foot soldiers, a corporal; Hawkwood could make out the chevrons on the sleeve.

Too late to take evasive action, anyway, Hawkwood thought. They’ve seen the state of us.

Led by the mounted officer, the patrol drew near, fanning out in a semi-circle, muskets levelled. Close to, Hawkwood could see that their uniforms – those of the foot soldiers at least – were not in the best of condition but rather well worn and with a grubby cast. The way they were hefting their weapons was also telling. Hawkwood had the distinct impression these were far from frontline troops and he recalled Stuart’s remark about the bulk of the garrison – presumably the more seasoned of the fort’s contingent – having been transferred. The way these men carried themselves seemed to bear that out for, despite the uniforms, the squad had all the deportment of a militia force rather than a detachment of regulars.

“Not a word,” Hawkwood said. “Let me do the talking.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Stuart murmured.

“One more thing,” Hawkwood said.

“What’s that?”

“Fall down.”

“Eh?” Stuart flashed him a look of alarm.

Hawkwood said. “You’re injured. Your ship’s foundered and you’ve just crawled ashore. You’re exhausted. Fall down. Do it now.”

Stuart’s collapse was rather more theatrical than Hawkwood would have liked and probably wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Drury Lane pageant, but anything that gave the patrol pause for thought and less reason to fix bayonets was all he was looking for.

With Stuart slumped on the ground, Hawkwood raised his hand and called out in French, “Help! Over here!” He gestured frantically and then knelt, as if he was trying to help a stricken comrade regain his sea legs.

“Not a word, Lieutenant,” Hawkwood said again, though he knew the warning was superfluous. He looked towards the oncoming troops, adopted what he hoped was an urgent expression, and called out once more: “We need help here!”

The officer reined in his horse. He was a gaunt individual with pale, sullen features. A thin moustache that looked as if it had been pasted on as an afterthought traced the line of his upper lip; a futile attempt to add character to an uncharismatic face. Late thirties, Hawkwood guessed, and rather old for his rank; suggesting a career path less distinguished than a man his age might have expected, or hoped for. Which could account for him being put in charge of a shore patrol, Hawkwood thought as he stood up, leaving Stuart screwing his face in agony and clutching his arm, giving a credible impression that his injury was worse than it actually was.

The lieutenant’s eyes took in Hawkwood’s matted hair, the torn clothing, the scars, the cuts and the stains and the man at Hawkwood’s feet.

“What’s going on here? Who are you men?”

“Lieutenant!” Hawkwood hoped he wasn’t over playing the relief in his voice. “By God, you’re a welcome sight!”

The lieutenant gestured his men to close in. “Identify yourselves.”

Hawkwood drew himself up. “Captain Vallon, 93rd Regiment of Infantry. And you are?”

The lieutenant’s eyebrows rose.

Hawkwood had dragged the name out of the air and awarded himself the promotion to circumvent the man on the horse from pulling rank. The ploy worked. Taken aback and not sure whether he should offer salutations to a senior officer whose dishevelled appearance was, to say the least, questionable, the lieutenant’s eyes moved back to the still wincing Stuart.

“I am Lieutenant Gaston Malbreau of the Mahon garrison. Where are you billeted, Captain? I wasn’t aware the 93rd was deployed in this district.” The lieutenant’s gaze lifted.

“It isn’t,” Hawkwood said, deflecting the question and uttering a silent prayer as he did so. Another snippet of information to be stored away.

The lieutenant frowned. “Then where have you come from?”

Hawkwood jerked his thumb seawards. “There.”

The lieutenant followed Hawkwood’s gesture and stared out towards the Channel’s murky horizon. His features twisted in puzzlement. He turned back. “I’m not with you, Captain. What are you telling me?”

“That I’m here by the grace of God and the efforts of this brave fellow,” Hawkwood said, indicating Stuart. “And I’d appreciate a couple of blankets and a canteen, Corporal. Sharpish, if you please. We’re thirsty and we’re bloody freezing.” Hawkwood held out his hand impatiently, indicating that the corporal didn’t have a choice in the matter.

The corporal blinked and looked to his lieutenant for authorization.

The lieutenant hesitated and then nodded curtly as if annoyed at having his chain of command usurped. As the corporal directed two of his men to hand over their bedrolls and a canteen, he addressed Hawkwood once again. “I’m still not following you, Captain. Are you telling me you’ve just come ashore?”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

Hawkwood’s enigmatic response drew an immediate frown. “I see no signs of a vessel.”

“No,” Hawkwood said drily. “You wouldn’t. She was lost in last night’s storm. We’re the only ones who made it. The rest of the crew went down with her. Between you and me, Lieutenant, I wasn’t so foolish as to expect a garland of flowers and a kiss on the cheek from the Emperor, but this wasn’t the way I wanted to return to the motherland, not after two years in a God-damned British prison ship.”

The lieutenant’s chin came up sharply. “Prison ship?”

A murmur ran through the rest of the patrol. Hawkwood draped one of the blankets around Stuart’s shoulders and held the canteen to the lieutenant’s lips. Stuart took the canteen with his good hand and gulped greedily. This time there was no fakery in his actions.

Hawkwood took back the canteen and raised it to his own mouth. The water was warm and brackish but it tasted like nectar after the amount of salt water he’d ingested. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Eight hundred of us; kept like animals and fed on swill you wouldn’t feed to a goat. You ever tasted salted herring and turnips, Lieutenant? You wouldn’t like it, trust me. Two years was more than enough.”

“You escaped?”

Hawkwood nodded wearily. He handed the canteen back to the corporal and made a play of wrapping the remaining blanket around himself. The material was threadbare and in keeping with the rough state of the patrol’s uniforms. As a result there wasn’t a great deal of comfort or warmth in it, but beggars, Hawkwood reflected, couldn’t be choosers. “Damned right, I did.”

The patrol’s musket barrels, he saw, were beginning to droop.

Malbreau nodded towards Stuart, his face set. “And this man? He was also a prisoner?”

Hawkwood shook his head and placed his hand on Stuart’s shoulder. “No, he’s a British sea captain and if it weren’t for him I wouldn’t be talking with you now.”

The members of the patrol exchanged startled glances. The lieutenant stiffened. His eyes narrowed. “How so?”

“He’s a smuggler; what the English call a free trader. It was Captain Stuart’s ship that I took passage on. Cost me a fortune; four thousand francs, if you can believe it. Not what I’d call free trade. Not by a long shot! But I’ll say this for them: they’re damned well organized. Arranged my escape from the hulk, accommodation and all my transportation.”

Hawkwood gave Stuart a reassuring pat on the shoulder and wondered how much of the conversation Griffin’s commander had managed to follow. “So I want him taken care of until we can arrange his return home. His arm needs looking at. You’ve a medical officer back at the garrison, I take it?”

“Surgeon Manseraux.” It was the corporal who replied, to a tart look from the lieutenant, Hawkwood noted.

“Competent?” Hawkwood asked.

“He’s a bloody butcher.” The soldier grinned, showing teeth as yellow as parchment.

Hawkwood returned the grin. “Excellent. What’s your name, Corporal?”

Hawkwood had no interest whatsoever in the corporal’s name but he was following one of the first principles of military prudence: cultivate the non-commissioned men. Get them on your side and you could win wars.

The corporal straightened. “Despard, sir.”

“Then I thank you for your advice, Corporal Despard.” He turned to the man on the horse. “I regret I’m not too familiar with this part of the country, Lieutenant. How far are we from this garrison of yours? Mahon, did you say?” Hawkwood forged an expression that suggested he was trying to search his memory. “Wait, that would be . . . Ambleteuse, am I right?”

The lieutenant twisted in his saddle and jerked his chin towards a point over his shoulder. “Two miles up the coast beyond the dunes.”

Still very formal, though, Hawkwood noted. A warning bell began to tinkle.

“Good. Then we should proceed there without delay. The sooner I’m reunited with my regiment the better. Now that I’m home, I’m anxious to get back to the fight. But then, who wouldn’t be, eh?”

The lieutenant turned and drew himself up. “Quite so, Captain. Permit me to congratulate you on your safe return.” The lieutenant paused and his face took on a new severity. “My men and I will of course accompany you to the fort, though I regret we are required to escort you under arms.”

Malbreau flicked his hand at the corporal and his men, who responded with a look of surprise before taking a renewed grip on their muskets. “As you’ve been away for some time, you may not be aware that the Empire is still under considerable threat from Bourbon sympathizers. There have been a growing number of incursions by royalist agents disembarking from British vessels along our northern coasts and we’ve been warned to remain vigilant, so you’ll forgive me for taking precautions.”

In that one moment, the expression on Malbreau’s face told Hawkwood all he needed to know. He’d sensed his comment about wanting to return to the fight had hit a raw nerve. The lieutenant’s response confirmed it. At some time in his past, Malbreau’s army career had obviously been blighted, probably due to an indiscretion or a poorly judged command. As a result, despite the Emperor’s dire need for able troops to reinforce his eastern divisions, the lieutenant had been consigned to the doldrums: a small, once significant but now poorly manned coastal garrison miles from anywhere. Mahon was going to be the pinnacle of Malbreau’s army career, and he knew it and the inevitability of it consumed him.

And as with all such men, the lieutenant clearly placed the blame for his misfortune squarely on everybody’s shoulders but his own. The bitterness was engrained in every frown, shrug and thrust of his jawline. It oozed from his pores like sweat on a toad. As far as Lieutenant Malbreau was concerned, he was still a cut above everyone else, be they a general, a corporal or, more specifically, anyone holding the rank immediately above him, which on this occasion, turned out to be one Captain Vallon of the 93rd Regiment of Infantry: frontline officer, escaped prisoner of war and, therefore, in the hearts and minds of the Republic, a returning hero. In Malbreau’s eyes, targets of resentment probably didn’t come any bigger.

Hawkwood forced himself to nod in acquiescence and keep his voice calm. “Absolutely, Lieutenant. Quite right, too. For all you and your men know, we could well be subversives, come ashore to wreak havoc about the Empire. It wouldn’t do a lot for your career if you let someone like that slip through your hands without adequate investigation, now, would it?” Hawkwood added blithely.

A nerve moved along the lieutenant’s pale cheek. Hawkwood looked sideways and caught the corporal regarding him with what appeared to be a degree of embarrassment. In response, Hawkwood offered Despard what he hoped was a wry shrug. A corner of the corporal’s mouth lifted; silent affirmation that Lieutenant Gaston Malbreau wasn’t much liked by his own men either and that it was a friction that appeared to transcend the boundaries of rank. Possibly something worth exploiting, Hawkwood mused, should the need arise. He stored that thought away.

His authority sealed, at least in his own mind, Malbreau gripped the reins of his horse. “When we reach Mahon I’ve no doubt the garrison commander will be able to verify your particulars and arrange for your onward journey. Though it may take a while. The same goes for your . . . companion. Does he speak French, by the way?”

Hawkwood shook his head “A few words only and I’m no linguist, alas, so I can’t tell you much about him, other than his name. We were introduced at the beginning of our voyage. Since then, I’m afraid our exchanges have consisted mostly of pointing and waving our arms about. You know how it is.”

“I see.” Malbreau nodded. There was no warmth in his voice. He stared hard at Griffin’s commander and, in passable though heavily accented English, said. “You are Captain . . . Stuart? Is that correct?”

Christ! Hawkwood thought. If Stuart contradicts the story we’re dead men. He held his breath.

Stuart lifted his head. Slowly he got to his feet. Cradling his injured arm, he nodded. “Captain Jonathan Stuart at your service, Lieutenant.”

“What is the name of your ship?”

For a tiny second, Stuart hesitated. Then he frowned, as if deciphering the lieutenant’s pronunciation, and said, “The lugger Pandora, out of Rye. Or at least she was until the storm ripped her to pieces. I’d like to know who’s going to bloody pay for her.”

The lieutenant’s brow creased. “What do you mean?”

“What the hell do you think I mean?” Stuart replied hotly. “You think I was on my own time? I was working for you lot when she went down. Delivering the captain here to the bosom of his family. It wasn’t only my ship. I lost my living and my crewmates in that bloody storm. Like brothers to me, they were; with wives and children. They’re going to need recompense for a start. You going to arrange for me to speak to somebody about that?” Stuart glared hard at the lieutenant before throwing Hawkwood an equally accusatory look.

Hawkwood was struck by the emotion in the English captain’s voice. Stuart’s outburst had not been a piece of theatre; it had been genuine. Angry and distraught at the loss of the crewmen from the Griffin, he was letting anyone within earshot know it, Hawkwood included. Stuart was also, Hawkwood knew, sending him another message: that he’d understood the gist of his exchange with Malbreau.

Feigning incomprehension and bemusement at Stuart’s tirade, Hawkwood turned to the French officer. “What did he say?”

Malbreau gave a derisive snort. “The scoundrel’s only demanding compensation for the loss of his boat.”

“Is he indeed?” Hawkwood appeared to give the matter some thought. “Well, you can’t deny the fellow has a point. Seems only fair after the risks he’s taken. I’ve no doubt something can be arranged. Tell him, I’ll do my best to see he’s suitably reimbursed.”

Malbreau stared at Hawkwood askance.

Hawkwood raised an eyebrow. “What? You doubt the fellow’s claim? You do realize that without friends like the captain here, a lot of good Frenchmen are likely to be spending the rest of the war and possibly the rest of their days in British prisons. What do you think’ll happen if Captain Stuart returns home to tell the rest of his smuggling brethren that we didn’t see right by him? I’ll tell you, Lieutenant: there’ll be no one to give aid to our brave comrades; no one to provide them with shelter or arrange their safe passage across the Sleeve. From what I’ve heard, the war hasn’t been going at all well. France needs every able body. You wouldn’t want to deny experienced men the chance of returning home and answering the Emperor’s call, would you?”

Malbreau flushed. “No, of course not.”

“Damned glad to hear it,” Hawkwood said, turning the screw. “Then tell him what I said.”

Malbreau, after hesitating with his teeth clenched, did as Hawkwood instructed. Stuart listened to the grudging translation then turned to Hawkwood and, after fixing him with a calculating stare, gave a brief nod as though acknowledging the offer of restitution. Hawkwood nodded back. For Malbreau’s benefit, Hawkwood hoped, honour had been satisfied.

“So.” Hawkwood stroked the mare’s smoothly muscled neck. “That’s settled then.” He looked up. “Well, lead on, Lieutenant. The sooner we report to this garrison of yours, the sooner we can arrange Captain Stuart’s repatriation. That way, he’s out of our hair and ready to bring more of our men back. And if either of us drops by the roadside I’m sure Corporal Despard and his men will be only too happy to manufacture stretchers for the two of us.”

Unseen by Malbreau and the other members of the patrol, Hawkwood and Stuart exchanged another quick glance. It wasn’t hard to interpret the desperate query in Stuart’s eyes. Hawkwood didn’t have to be a mind reader to know that Stuart was asking him what the hell they’d got themselves into. And, more to the point, how the hell were they going to get themselves out?

As Lieutenant Malbreau wheeled his horse about, Hawkwood was asking himself the very same thing.