The Smugglers (14 page)

“Stop!” shouted Captain Crowe again. I saw his shaggy gray shape at the rail. He swore. “After him, Dasher!”

Then Burton's calm voice chilled me right to the bone. “And Dasher,” he said, “if the boy gets away, it is
I you
will answer to.”

The
Dragon
hit for a third time, harder than ever. I heard the blow shiver through the masts and the rigging. Dark,
flitting forms vaulted over the rail, and I raced for the last of the boats, a tiny clinkered dinghy. I fumbled with the line and cast off; I threw myself down at the oars.

Behind me came a band of men, and Dasher was in the lead.

D
asher moved as if he were dancing, leaping high, bounding from boat to boat.

“Ten guineas!” roared Crowe. “Ten guineas for the man who brings me the ugsome head o' that swine.”

It was at least a quarter mile to shore, and I rowed faster than I'd ever rowed before. The little boat bounced along, veering madly in the swell, shipping water bow and stern. There were other boats shuttling barrels to shore, and I passed them far to leeward as my little craft wandered down the wind.

The
Dragon
grew indistinct behind me, her hull and masts black against the moon. But a froth of white glimmered in the bulk of her shape, and I knew at least one boat was coming after me. I bent to the oars until my entire body ached, too frightened to glance even once over my shoulder.

I hit the beach so suddenly that I tumbled backward from the thwart. And when I finally scrambled over the bow,
oozing mud waited for me. It sucked at my feet and dragged me down, and I plodded more than I ran.

I heard a crunch of wood and looked back as Dasher leapt from a boat he'd beached beside mine. His legs were longer and he waded easily up through the mud, while for me each step was a struggle.

“Wait!” he shouted. “Wait. I can help you.”

Once I might have listened, but now I had no trust in him at all. I carried on until the mud gave way to the hard, smooth rock of shingle, and I raced up the beach with Dasher behind me. After days at sea, the land made me dizzy. I reeled, but I was free, I thought; at last I was safe. Then I looked up at the cliffs. They rose impossibly high, all craggy and worn by the sea and the wind. I could no more climb them than hope to fly to the top, and I hesitated for a moment. Turn north or turn south: My life could hang on the decision I made.

To the north were the smugglers. They formed a long line across the beach, from the sea to the cliffs. In the dim glow of moonlight I saw them standing–Dasher's black guard, fifty men or more, each with a stick or a cudgel. And up the line, bent under the weight of the barrels, staggered a dozen more. When they reached the bluff and put their barrels in a pile, they turned and started back for more. Others took them on from there, up a path along the cliffs, lined again by the men of Dasher's black guard.

To the south the cliff stretched on forever, and the beach came up to meet it. Surf broke right against the base–a line of breakers I could not hope to cross.

Dasher gained the shingle and stopped there at the edge
of the mud. He went to one side and then the other, trying to find me in the shadows at the base of the cliff.

“John!” he shouted. “John, where are you?” Then he pulled off his corks, cast them down, and went at a sprint to the south.

I went north. I walked up to the smugglers and slipped in among them. No one challenged me; no one spoke at all. I took a barrel from the heap and fell in place with the men going up the cliff.

They carried two each, in slings that let the barrels hang down their backs and their chests. Even boys my own age carried two barrels this way. But the one weighed me down, and I was pleased to find myself in the wake of a fat man who wheezed like a tired old horse. Up we went as others came down, while the guard stood watch on the trail.

The path twisted back on itself and rose up again. And the line seemed to vanish ahead. Each man came to a certain point on the trail and disappeared, as though one by one–like lemmings–the smugglers were stepping from the edge of the cliff.

With a start, I heard Dasher below me. I glanced over the edge and saw him, a pistol in his hand. He was shouting my name. “John!” he cried. “John Spencer!” And then, half winded, he asked the men around him, “Have you seen a boy dressed like a sailor? Has a boy gone by?”

I felt every eye on my back but didn't look up. I pressed myself against the heels of the fat man and cursed him now for slowing me down. I heard Dasher start up the trail. There were oaths and grunts as he forced his way through.

A yard ahead the fat man disappeared. In the blink of an
eye he was gone. And right after him, I slipped into utter darkness. Into the mouth of a tunnel.

It closed around me, hot with the breath and the sweat of the smugglers, and thick with a stench of burning oil. But even in the darkness I could see the feet of the man ahead of me, for an eerie light rose from the broken shells covering the floor. In the shards that crunched under our shoes was held the sea's phosphorescence, a pale and shim-mering green. The tramp of the smugglers' boots, the slosh of the brandy, echoed through the space with a sound like surf on a beach.

The tunnel slanted down, so I felt myself pulled by the weight of my load, pushed by a breeze that blew from behind. Then it sharply turned and rose at a steeper angle; lanterns set in the wall cast thin little blades of gold. And in this smoky haze was lit the line of wretched men, bent and coughing as they trudged along.

Dasher's shouts came louder, closer. But each time I tried to get past the fat man, it was only to meet other men coming down. Someone cuffed me on the ears and told me roughly, “Get back in line.” My fingers burned where they held the barrel; my arms felt stretched to twice their length.

I must have gone half a mile before I felt a gust of air, as the tunnel turned once more to open at a storeroom. It was an enormous cellar built of stone, without a window anywhere. In a near corner was a staircase. In the far wall, an open door led to a ramp that climbed steeply to a village street, and the smoke from the tunnel swirled out in coils of
gray. At the top was a wagon, with a pair of patient horses and a dozen men around it.

Dasher's shouts came close behind me, loud and short of breath. “The boy!” he cried. “Stop the boy.”

I followed the fat man toward the door. He put his barrels down on the cellar floor, but I kept on going. Another moment would get me free from there; fifty paces would take me to a road. I passed through the door and started up.

Hands closed on my shoulder, pulling me back. “Where do you think you're off to?”

It was the fat man. He pulled the barrel from my arms and set it down with his. “Others take them up,” he said. “You go back for another.”

A suspicious look came to his face. He bent toward me, his hand on my collar. “Who are you?” he asked. “I've never seen you before.”

Dasher shouted, “Stop the boy!”

I wrenched away as Dasher came hurtling from the tunnel mouth. I ran for the door, but the guards were coming down. I wheeled away and raced for the staircase. I pounded up the wooden steps, and others came behind me.

At the top was a hallway, wooden-floored, even darker than the smugglers' tunnel. Not the faintest glimmer of light showed me which way I should go. With my back pressed to the wall, I shuffled along until I came to a corner, and around it to another flight of stairs set deep in a narrow doorway, rising to a second floor. But the boards creaked horribly under my weight, and I dared not make another sound. I crouched at the bottom and waited.

Dasher was first up the steps from the cellar. His voice boomed down the hall. “Where are you?” And then, in a whisper, “Lord love me, I don't like the darkness.”

Others thundered up behind him, and then the glow of lanterns spread along the walls, painting them yellow and gold. I could hear the smugglers breathing. Their boots tapped and scuffed on the floor. They were sure to find me.

But Dasher cried, “This way!” And I could hear that they took the wrong turn at the top of the stairs.

For a long time I crouched there, listening. A door opened, and then another. The footsteps stopped, but the voices didn't, and I crept from my doorway and poked my head round the corner. At the end of the hall was a kitchen, and there the smugglers stood in a half circle, their backs toward me as they huddled at a counter. Halfway between us, on the far side of the hall, an open door spilled the lanterns' light onto a street.

I wanted to run, but I dared not do it. Instead I crept along, close to the wall to keep the floorboards from squeaking. I moved slowly but steadily. I made no sound at all, and I kept my eyes on the smugglers.

I was only yards from the door when a voice called out from the kitchen. It was reedy and old, a woman's voice.

“Is that you, Flem?”

I was too surprised to move. The huddle of men broke open, and old Mrs. Pye came out from behind them. “Fleming?” she asked in that broken voice. “Is that you, Fleming? Is that you at last?”

She tottered toward me, smiling grotesquely, preening her thin bits of hair.

I would never have guessed I'd come back to the Baskerville Inn. But as I stood there, utterly helpless, I felt the same waft of air through the tunnel that I'd felt here what seemed like a lifetime ago. I remembered the smell that came with it, the one of the sea.

“My darling,” said Mrs. Pye. “At last you've come home.”

It was Dasher who spoke. “It isn't Fleming, you old dish-clout. It's a boy,” said he. “An informer. A rat of a boy.”

He barged past her and grabbed me. The others came after, and the old woman spun and staggered along, groping for the wall. If the smugglers had had their way, they would have killed me right there; they would have bashed me to death with the clubs they carried. But Dasher said, “No! He's mine. I've waited long for this.” And he hauled me out through the door, dragging me into the street.

“I'll kill him!” he shouted. “I'll shoot him down like the dog that he is.”

Dasher pulled me and pushed me to the banks of a little stream. He whirled me round, and his hands filled with pistols. “I'll blow his head off!” he shouted. “I'll put a ball through his heart.”

And he fired the guns.

What they say is true: Your life flashes before you. But mine was a short little life, and I saw myself grow in an instant from a baby to a boy. I saw myself on my father's shoulders with my hands pulling at his hair. I saw my
mother's deathbed and her horrid, twisted face. I saw the
Isle of Skye,
and then Mary's kind face, her sweet smile. And last I saw the towering waves of the Tombstones. I felt them close over me as cold as ice, and I tumbled backward into the rushing stream.

T
he water was fast and bubbly, not salty at all. It shocked me with its coldness and its blackness, as deep as all eternity. I seemed to fall forever, though the stream was not much more than a foot in depth.

Dasher hauled me out. He slid me up the grassy slope, on my back, until I lay with only my legs in the water. He looked worried; I thought he might be crying.

“You're all right, aren't you?” he whispered.

“I don't know,” I told him.

“Sure you are.” He grinned. Then he lifted his head and shouted back at the inn. “Still alive! Damn me, the boy's still alive.” And he pulled another two pistols out of his belt.

They were bright with gold that flashed in his hands. Larson's pistols. He aimed them down and cocked the hammers.

“No,” I said. “Please.”

“It's all right,” he told me. “They're not loaded. Not a one
of them's loaded.” And he fired them both. “That will show you!” he shouted fiercely. “That's you done for!” He pulled pistols from his belt and his bandolier; he stuffed them back as the smoke still swirled from the barrels. With each shot, a shout: “Take that, you devil. Take that, you rogue!” Then he winked at me. “Oh, isn't this grand?”

He put on quite a show for the smugglers, who hadn't moved from the doors of the inn. And he reveled in the noise and the smell of the powder, in the sudden flare of orange that lit him each time against the black of the sky. But there were still half a dozen pistols untouched in his belt when the smugglers called out and told him to stop. “They'll hear you in Ashford,” they shouted. “You'll have the whole preventive here.”

Dasher put his guns away. “I'll just cut his throat, then,” he said, and came down to crouch beside me.

I was nearly deafened, and half blinded by the glare and the smoke. But I wasn't hurt at all, and I realized now why my father had come away with only a burn on his coat.

“I couldn't harm you,” said Dasher. “I could never hurt a soul.” He got me sitting on the bank; he told me to rest for a while. “Then slip away to London. You'll get the coach at St. Vincent.”

“London?” I said. “And leave the
Dragon
with Captain Crowe?” I shook my head. “My father's fortune is in that ship.”

“It's lost at any rate,” said Dasher.

We heard voices coming nearer, and lantern light flashed across the ground. Dasher thrust his head up over the banks and shouted out, “You lot stay where you are! I'll just
turn out his pockets!” Then he bent to me again. “I have to go,” he said. “But here, take this.”

He reached inside his coat and pulled out a dark little bundle. I stared in astonishment at Larson's oil-skinned packet. “I found this on Harry,” Dasher said. “Lord knows how he got it. I told Captain Crowe not to trust that one.” He pressed the envelope into my hands. “Take it to London. Straight to the Old Bailey. Find one of those gents with a cauliflower on his head–you know those white wigs they wear. Put that straight in his hands and tell him, 'Here you go, sir. Here's a present from Dashing Tommy Dusker.' ” He chuckled. “I guess that will bring an end to old Haggis. And to a whole lot of others who put on the airs when they see me.”