Rapscallion (2 page)

Sark's chest
rose and fell. He looked back towards the dogs and raised his pistol. He aimed the
barrel at the leading beast and tracked it with the gun's muzzle.

He heard one of
the men on the bank curse and saw that they had all drawn weapons of their own.

Sark could hear
the dogs' paws scampering across the mud. They were coming in very fast; close
enough for him to see the light of anticipation in their eyes.

The lead hound
was less than a dozen paces away when Sark thrust the barrel of the pistol
under his own chin and pulled the trigger.

The back of
Sark's head blew apart. The powder smoke barely had time to dissipate before
the still kneeling body was engulfed in a frenzy of snapping jaws and thrashing
limbs. As the men on the bank ran towards the melee, the snarling of the hounds
rose into the night and carried, like the devil's chorus, down the muddy,
bloodstained foreshore.

Outlined against
the gunmetal sky, the ship's blackened
hull towered above the
men in the longboat like
some enormous Hebridean cliff face.

The men were
silent, wrapped in their thoughts and awed by the grim sight confronting them.
Only occasionally was the silence broken, by the dull clink of manacles, the
splash and creak of oars and the wash of the waves against the side of the boat
as it was pulled through the cold grey water.

Someone was
sobbing. At the sound, several men crossed themselves. Others bowed their heads
and, in whispers, began to pray.

There were
fifteen men in the boat, excluding the oarsmen and the two marine guards. With
few exceptions their clothes were ragged, their faces pale, unshaven and etched
with fear; fear caused not only by the ship's forbidding appearance, but also
by the smell coming off her.

It had been with
them even before they had embarked, carried across the river by the light easterly
breeze. At first, the men had paid little mind, assuming the odour was rising
from their own unwashed bodies, but then understanding had dawned. As the
longboat had pushed away from the harbour wall they had become transfixed by
the grim nature of the fate that was about to befall them. As if to emphasize
their passengers' rising sense of horror, the marine guards traded knowing
looks and raised their neck scarves over their lower faces.

The longboat
approached the rear of the ship. High above, embedded beneath the stern
windows, a nameplate that once had been embossed in gold but which was now
tarnished beyond repair proclaimed the vessel to be the
Rapacious.

Close to, the
ship looked even more intimidating. The dark- hulled vessel had all the appearance
of a massive smoke-stained sarcophagus rather than a former ship of the line.
There was no mizzen mast and the main mast and the foremast had been cut down
to a third of their original size. Only the lower yards remained. Between them,
festooned from a web of washing lines running fore and aft, was an array of
what, from a distance, might have been taken for signal flags but which, on
closer inspection, turned out to be a selection of tattered stockings, shirts
and breeches. Age, wear and constant washing had turned every visible scrap of
clothing a universal shade of grey, with the majority of the garments
exhibiting more holes than material.

These were not
the only refurbishments that had been inflicted upon the once proud ship. Her
bowsprit had been removed, and where the poop deck had been, there now stood a
clinker- built, soot-engrained shack, complete with sloping roof and chimney
stack, from which grey smoke was billowing. A similar construction adorned the
ship's forecastle. It was obvious from her appearance that a great many years
had passed since
Rapacious
last experienced the roar and thunder of battle in her search for prey. This
was further confirmed by the lack of heavy ordnance; her open gun ports
revealed that cannon muzzles had been replaced by immovable cast-iron grilles.

The truncation
of her masts and the lack of armament had lightened the ship's weight
considerably. As a result, she was riding much higher out of the water than was
normal for a vessel her size. A walkway formed from metal gratings followed the
line of the orlop deck. From it a series of wooden stairs rose towards a small
platform, similar to a church pulpit, affixed adjacent to the boarding gap in
the ship's handrail.

Huge chains at
bow and stern secured
Rapacious
to the riverbed. Beyond the ship, four more vessels in
a similar state of disrepair sat moored in mid-stream, line astern and a
cable's length apart, their blunted bows facing downriver.

All around, a
bewildering variety of other vessels lay at anchor, from brigs to cutters and
from frigates to flush-decked sloops, their yellow and black hulls gleaming,
masts rising tall and straight, while pennants, not grubby pantaloons,
fluttered gaily from their yardarms. They were Britain's pride and they were
ready for war.

By comparison,
isolated from the rest of the fleet,
Rapacious
and her
four sister ships looked as if they had been discarded and left to rot; victims
of a terrible and terminal disease.

Seated in the
waist of the longboat, one man ignored the lamentations of his companions and
gazed at the ship with what could have been interpreted as interest rather than
dread. Two scars were visible on the left side of his face. The first followed
the curve of his cheekbone, an inch below his left eye. The second scar, less
livid, ran an inch below the first. His long hair was dark save for a few
streaks of grey above the temple. His jacket and breeches were severely worn
and faded, though in a better state of repair than the clothes of many of the
men huddled around him, some of whom were clad in little more than rags. And
while the bulk of his companions were either barefooted or else wearing poorly
fitting shoes, his feet were shod in what appeared to be a pair of stout but
well-scuffed military boots.

"A sou for your
thoughts, my friend."

The words were
spoken in French. They came from an aristocratic-looking individual dressed in
a dark grey jacket and grubby white breeches, seated on the dark-haired man's
right.

Matthew Hawkwood
remained silent but continued staring over the water towards the black-hulled
ship.

"Heard she
fought at Copenhagen," the speaker continued in a quiet voice. "She
was a seventy-four. They took the idea from us.
Extended
their seventies.
They use them as standard now.
Can't
blame the bastards.
Good sailing, strong gun-power, what is there not to
like?"

The speaker,
whose name was Lasseur, grinned suddenly, the expression in marked contrast to
the unsmiling faces about him. The neat goatee beard he wore, when added to the
grin, lent his features a raffish slant.

The grin
disappeared in an instant as a series of plaintive cries sounded from beyond
the longboat's prow.

Ahead, another
longboat was tied up against the boarding raft in the shadow of the ship's
grime-encrusted hull. A cluster of men had already disembarked. Huddled on the
walkway, under the watchful eyes of armed guards, they were preparing to ascend
the stairs. Several of the men had difficulty walking. Two were crawling along
the grating on their hands and knees. Their progress was painfully slow. Seeing
their plight, their companions lifted them to their feet and with arms about
their shoulders shepherded them along.

There were still
men left on the first boat. From their posture, it was clear that none of them
had the strength to make the transfer on their own. Their cries of distress
floated over the water. The two marine guards on the boat were looking up
towards the ship's rail as if waiting for orders, breaking off to jab the
barrels and butts of their muskets against the supine bodies around them.

Lasseur bared
his teeth in a snarl.

His reaction was
echoed by dark mutterings from the men seated about him.

"Silence
there!"
The order came from one of the marines, who stared at his
charges accusingly and brandished his musket, bayonet affixed. "Or so help
me, I'll run you through!"
Adding, with ill-disguised
contempt, "Frog bastards!"

A face had
appeared at the ship's rail. An arm waved and an inaudible command was given.
One of the marines in the boat below responded with a half-hearted salute
before turning to his companion and shaking his head. At this the rowers raised
their oars and they and the two guards climbed out on to the boarding raft.
Turning, one of the rowers used his oar to push the boat away, while one of his
fellow boatmen unfastened and began to pay out the line connecting the longboat
to the ship.

Caught by the
current, the longboat moved slowly away from the ship's hull. When the boat was
some thirty or so yards out, the line was retied, leaving the boat's pitiful
passengers to drift at the mercy of the tide.

Angry shouts
came from the line of men on the grating. Their protestations were met with a
severe clubbing from the guards. Retreating, the quietened men began their slow
and laboured ascent of the stairway.

Hawkwood watched
grim-faced as the men made their way up the side of the ship. Lasseur followed
his gaze and murmured softly, "We'd have been better off with the damned
Spanish."

"Bastards,"
a voice interjected bitterly from behind them. "I've seen this before."

Hawkwood and
Lasseur turned. The speaker was a thin man, with sunken cheeks and watery eyes.
Grey stubble covered his jaw.

"I was in
Portsmouth last winter, on the
Vengeance.
They had a delivery of prisoners
transferred from Cadiz. About thirty, all told. As thin as rakes they were;
ghost white, not an ounce of flesh on their bones and not so much as a set of
breeches between them. Only ten of them made it on to the
Vengeance
on their own. The rest were too ill to leave the
longboat. The
Vengeance's
surgeon refused to take them.
Ordered them to be delivered to
the hospital ship.
Only the commander of the
Pegasus
refused to
have them on board, not unless they were washed first. So the
Vengeance's
surgeon ordered them thrown into the sea to clean
them and left the
Pegasus
to pick up the bodies. Most of them were dead by the time
the
Pegasus'
s boat got to them." The man nodded towards the
drifting longboat. "Looks to me,
that's
what's
happening here."

"My
God," Lasseur said and fell into a reflective silence as their own
longboat, its way now clear, began to manoeuvre towards the ship's side.

Hawkwood
regarded the manacles around his ankles. If the men on the drifting boat, who
presumably had also been wearing shackles, had been thrown overboard they would
have been beyond help, sinking to the bottom of the river like stones.

He took a look
at his fellow passengers. No one returned his gaze. They were too preoccupied,
staring up at the ship, craning their necks to take in the vast wooden rampart
looming above them. The sense of unease that had enveloped the boat was
palpable, as if a black storm cloud had descended. Behind their masks, even the
guards looked momentarily subdued.

He could still
hear weeping. It was coming from the stern. Hawkwood followed the sound. The
boy couldn't have been much older than ten or eleven. Tears glistened on his
cheeks. He looked up, dried his eyes with the heels of his hands and turned
away, his small shoulders shaking. His clothes hung in rags about him. He'd
been one of a consignment of prisoners, Hawkwood and Lasseur among them, picked
up earlier that day from Maidstone Gaol. A midshipman or powder monkey,
Hawkwood supposed, or whatever the French equivalent might be, and without
doubt the youngest of the longboat's passengers. It seemed unlikely that the
boy had been taken alone, but there didn't appear to be anyone with him, no
shipmates to give him comfort. Hawkwood wondered where the boy had been
captured and in what circumstances he might have been separated from the rest
of his crew.

The order came
to boat oars. A dozen heartbeats later, the longboat was secured to the raft
and the transfer began.

The odour from
the open gun ports was almost overwhelming. The river was bounded by marshland.
On warm days with the wind sifting across the levels, the smell was beyond
foetid, but the malodorous stench issuing from the interior of
Rapacious
eclipsed even the smell from the shore. It was worse
than a convoy of night-soil barges.

Hawkwood
shouldered his knapsack. He was one of the few carrying possessions. Most had
only the clothes they stood up in.

The marines set
about prodding the prisoners with their musket butts. "Goddamn it, move
your arses! I won't tell you again! No wonder you're losing the bleedin' war!
Useless buggers!"