Rapscallion (6 page)

Murat followed
his gaze. "The long-termers get used to a particular spot. They mark their
territory. You can take any hook that's free. Hammocks are slung above and
below, so there'll be room for both of you. Best thing is for you to put yours
up now. The rest are on the foredeck; they're taken up there every morning and
stowed. When they're brought back down you won't be able to move. You've got
about six feet each. Come night time there are more than four hundred of us
crammed in
here.
You're new so you don't get to pick.
When you've been here a while you might get a permanent place by the
grilles."

"How long
have you been here?" Hawkwood asked.

"Two
years."

"And how
close are
you
to the grilles?"

Murat smiled.

"What if we
want a place by the grilles
now?
" Lasseur said. His meaning
was clear.

Four hundred?
Hawkwood thought.

"It'll cost
you," Murat said, without a pause. He read Hawkwood's mind. "Think
yourself lucky. You could have been assigned the orlop. There are four hundred
and fifty of them down there, and it isn't half as roomy as this."

"How
much?"
Lasseur asked.

"For two
louis
, I can get you space by the gun ports. For ten, I can
get you a bunk in the commander's cabin."

"Just the
gun port," Lasseur said. "Maybe I'll talk to the commander
later."

Murat squinted
at Hawkwood. "What about you?"

"How much
in English money?"

"Cost you
two pounds." The interpreter eyed them both.
"Cash,
not credit."

Hawkwood nodded.

"Wait
here," Murat said, and he was gone.

Lasseur stared
around him. "I boarded a slaver once, off Mauritius. It turned my stomach.
This might be worse."

Hawkwood was
quite prepared to believe him.

Lasseur was the
captain of a privateer. The French had used privateers for centuries. Financed
by private enterprise, they'd been one of the few ways Bonaparte had been able
to counteract the restrictions placed upon him by the British blockade. But
their numbers had declined considerably over the past few years due to
Britain's increased dominance of the waves in the aftermath of Trafalgar.

Getting close to
Lasseur had been Ludd's idea, though the initial strategy had been Hawkwood's.

"I need an
edge," he'd told James Read and Ludd. "I go in there asking awkward questions
from the start and I'm going to end up like your man Masterson. The way to
avoid that is to hide in someone else's shadow. I need to make an alliance with
a genuine prisoner, someone who'll do the running for me so that I can slip in
on his coat-tails. You said you're sending me to Maidstone. Find me someone
there I can use."

Ludd had met
with Hawkwood the day prior to his arrival at the gaol.

"I think I
have your man," Ludd told him.
"Name of Lasseur.
He was taken following a skirmish with a British patrol off the Cap Gris-Nez.
The impudent bugger tried to jump ship twice following his capture; even had
the temerity to make a dash for freedom during his transfer from Ramsgate. If
anyone's going to be looking for an escape route, it'll be Lasseur; you can
count on it. He's made a boast that no English prison will be able to hold him.
Get close to him and my guess is you're halfway home already."

The introduction
had been manufactured in the prison yard.

Lasseur had been
by himself, back against the wall, enjoying the morning sun, an unlit cheroot
clamped between his teeth, when the two guards made their move. The plan would
never have been awarded marks for subtlety. One guard snatched the cheroot from
between Lasseur's lips. When the Frenchman protested, the second guard slammed
his baton into Lasseur's belly and a knee into his groin. As Lasseur dropped to
the ground, covering his head, the guards waded in with their boots.

A cry of anger
went up from the other prisoners, but it was Hawkwood who got there first. He
pulled the first guard off Lasseur by his belt and the scruff of his neck. As
his companion was hauled back, the second guard turned, baton raised, and
Hawkwood slammed the heel of his boot against the guard's exposed knee. He
pulled his kick at the moment of contact, but the strike was still hard enough
to make the guard reel away with a howl of pain.

By this time,
the first guard had recovered his balance. With a snarl, he swung his baton
towards Hawkwood's head. But the guard had forgotten Lasseur. The privateer was
back on his feet. As the baton looped through the air, Lasseur caught the
guard's wrist, twisted the baton out of his grip, and slammed an elbow into the
guard's belly.

Shouts rang out
as other guards, wrongfooted by the swiftness of Hawkwood's intervention, came
running. It had taken four of them to subdue Hawkwood and Lasseur and march
them off into a cell.

The clang of the
door and the rasp of the key turning in the lock had seemed as final as a
coffin lid closing.

Lasseur's first
action as soon as the door shut was to take another cheroot from his jacket,
put it between his lips and ask Hawkwood if he had a means by which to light
it. Hawkwood had been unable to assist. Whereupon Lasseur had shrugged
philosophically, placed the cheroot back in his jacket, extended his hand and
said, "Captain Paul Lasseur, at your service." Then he'd grinned and
touched his ribs tentatively. "I suppose it was one way of getting a cell
to ourselves."

Hawkwood hadn't
thought it would be that easy.

Lasseur had
managed to maintain the devil-may-care facade up to the moment he'd seen the
men in the longboat being cast adrift from the hulk's side.

Around them, the
other fresh arrivals assigned to the gun deck were also looking for places to
bed down. The invasion of their living quarters had caused most of the
established prisoners to pause in their tasks to take stock of the new blood.
The mood, however, seemed strangely subdued. Hawkwood wondered if the original
prisoners resented this further reduction of what was already a barely
adequate living space.

Among the new
batch was the boy. He was standing alone, weighed down by his hammock, mattress
and blanket, utterly bewildered by the activity going on around him; though he
was one of the lucky ones in as much as he did not have to amend his posture in
order to move about inside the hull. He looked like a small boat tossed by
waves as he was turned this way and that by the men brushing past him, mindless
of his size.

The boy turned.
One of the other prisoners, a slight, weak- chinned, effete-looking man with a
widow's peak of thinning hair - a long-standing resident of the hulk if the
decrepit state of his yellow uniform was any indication - was crouched down
with his right hand on the boy's shoulder.

Hawkwood watched
as a look of doubt crept over the boy's face. The boy shook his head. The man
spoke again, his expression solicitous. The boy tried to squirm away from the
man's touch, but the latter took hold of his jacket sleeve. The hand on the boy's
shoulder slid down and began to make gentle circular movements in the small of
the boy's back. The boy looked petrified. Hawkwood took a step forward.

"No,"
Lasseur said softly, "I'll deal with it."

Hawkwood watched
as Lasseur ducked beneath the beams and the hanging sacks. He saw the privateer
place his hand on the man's shoulder, lean in close and speak softly into his
ear.

The man said
something back. Lasseur spoke again and the man's smile slipped. Then he was
holding his hands up and backing away. Lasseur did not touch the boy but
squatted down and spoke to him.

A voice in
Hawkwood's ear said, "Right, it's all arranged; a room with a view for
both of you." Murat looked around. "Where's your friend?"

"Here,"
Lasseur said. He was standing behind them. The boy stood at his side, clutching
his bedding. "This is Lucien. Lucien, say hello to Captain Hooper and our
interpreter, Lieutenant
..
.
my
apologies, I didn't catch your given name."

"Auguste,"
Murat said.

"Lieutenant
Auguste Murat," Lasseur finished. He fixed Murat with an uncompromising
eye. "I want space for the boy as well."

Murat's eyebrows
rose. He shook his head. "I regret that's not possible."

"Make it
possible," Lasseur said.

"There's no
room, Captain," Murat protested.

"There's
always room," Lasseur said.

Murat looked
momentarily taken aback by Lasseur's abrasive tone. He stared down at the boy,
took in the small, pale features and then threw Lasseur a calculating look.
"It could be expensive."

"You
do
surprise me," Lasseur said.

Murat's brow wrinkled,
unsure how to respond to Lasseur's barb, before it occurred to him it was
probably best to tell them to wait once more and that he would return.

Hawkwood and
Lasseur watched him go.

"I have a
son," Lasseur said. He did not elaborate but looked down. "How old
are you, boy?"

The boy gripped
his bedding. In a wavering voice, he said, "Ten, sir."

"Are you
now? Well, stick with us and you might just make it to eleven."

Murat reappeared
and, unsmiling, crooked a finger. "Come with me."

Stepping around and
over bodies, heads bent, the two men and the boy followed the interpreter
towards the starboard side of the deck.

"You're in
luck -" Murat spoke over his shoulder "- another place has become
vacant. The former owner doesn't need it any more."

"That's fortunate,"
Lasseur said. He caught Hawkwood's eye and winked. "And why's that?"

"He
died."

Lasseur halted
in his tracks.

Murat held up
his hands. "Natural causes, Captain, on my mother's life."

Lasseur looked
sceptical.

"From the
fever.
They say it's due to the air coming off the marshes."
Murat jabbed a thumb towards the open grilles. "It's the same both sides
of the river. It's what most men die of, that and consumption. That's the way
it happens on the hulks. You rot from the inside out."

Hawkwood noticed
that the prisoners near the gun ports were making use of the light to read or
write, using the bench along the side of the hull as a makeshift table. Some
were conversing with their companions while they wrote. As he passed, Hawkwood
realized they were conducting classes. He looked over a hunched shoulder and
guessed by the illustrations and indecipherable script that the subject was
probably mathematics.

"It's best
to try and keep busy," Murat said, interrupting Hawkwood's observations.
"You'll lose your mind, otherwise. Many men have." The lieutenant
pointed. "Here you are, gentlemen. Welcome to your new home."

Compared to
where they'd just come from, it was the height of luxury. Hawkwood wondered how
Murat had persuaded the previous incumbents to relinquish such a valuable
location. It didn't seem possible that anyone would want to do so voluntarily.
Maybe they were dead, too.

They weren't,
Murat assured them. "It's just that they prefer food to a view. You'd feel
that way, too, if you hadn't had a square meal for a week," Murat added,
pocketing his fee. "You'll learn that soon enough. If I were you, I'd
guard my purse. Don't indulge in fripperies. The price you've just paid for
your sleeping spot will buy three weeks' rations. Not that they give us anything
worth eating, mind you. There are some who'd say death from the fever would be
a merciful release. If you want to make a bit of money, by the way, you can
rent out your part of the bench."

"I knew I
could count on you," Lasseur said. "I had this feeling in my
bones."

The interpreter
permitted himself a small smile. His teeth were surprisingly even, though in
the gloom they were the colour of damp parchment. "Thank you, Captain. And
might I say it's been a pleasure doing business with you."

Murat turned.
"And the same goes for you, Captain Hooper. It's a pleasure to meet an
American. I've long been an admirer of your country. Now, if there's anything
else you require, don't hesitate to ask. You'll find I'm the man to do business
with. You want to buy, come to Murat. You have something to sell, come to
Murat. My terms are very favourable, as you'll see."

"You're a
credit to free enterprise, Lieutenant," Lasseur said.

Murat
volunteered a full-blown conspiratorial grin. "You're going to fit right
in here, Captain." The interpreter gave a mock salute. "Now, if
you'll excuse me, gentlemen." And with that, he turned on his heel, and
walked off. To hand the money on, Hawkwood assumed, minus his commission, of
course.

"I do
believe we've just been robbed," Lasseur said cheerfully, and then
shrugged. "But it was neatly done. I can see we're going to have to keep
our eyes on Lieutenant Murat. Did you ever have any dealings with his
cousin?"