Blown Off Course (23 page)

Winston came back up from below. ‘There are a dozen cutlasses down in a rack but nothing else I could see.’

‘No muskets?’

‘No.’

Pearce, looking astern and calculating the distances, pointlessly cursed himself for not taking time to buy more powder and shot for his pistols, useless as such self-castigation was; but well-employed cutlasses, added to their greater deck height, could do great service. He ran through in his mind what would come should they get alongside, for they would have to – he would not heave-to. First they would try to take his wind, that then pressing their scantlings on to his, followed by those brave enough jumping up to grab on to his bulwark, at which point they would be at the mercy of him and his friends.

They were not likely to be fighters in the true sense, though he would not guess at the depth of their anger or commitment to the purpose. Unless they had the means to keep them away from their own side, the Pelicans would wreak havoc on those scrabbling fingers. Did they have those means? Only time would tell, as it would demonstrate the level of their determination – more unknowns. They could, of course, lower that jolly boat and abandon both ship and cargo, but Pearce saw that as a very last resort, given it would mean abandoning any chance of profit.

‘Arthur, you best lay-down and get some sleep, for whatever happens we have a busy daytime at sunrise.’

That was an injunction he also gave to the others, as well as reassuring words that, from what he could observe, they should be safe overnight, and they went below, leaving him alone on the deck, with only the light for the binnacle for company, illuminating enough for him to see his watch and so call out upon the others
in turn to hold the wheel for a spell. It was truly dark now, the half-moon reflecting off the black waters, the ship moving before the wind, so the whistle through the rigging was slight. Looking up at the star-filled sky, providing more glow than the moon, he calculated the odds once more.

If they pursued him all the way to the English shore it would be tricky, yet that depended on what they had in the way of weaponry, and it was doubtful if a boatload of suddenly gathered Flemish traders would run to much in that line. If they did, he would have no choice but to run the ship ashore and hope that, with aid being signalled for, there would be enough bodies to discourage a landing. Eventually he grew tired of speculation: that his mind wandered was hardly surprising, where it wandered to even less so.

It was Michael O’Hagan on the wheel when the first grey light tinged the eastern horizon, the unpleasant sight of that big red sail not a shock in itself, only in its proximity: they were no more than two cable lengths astern. As the sun rose on what was likely to be another clear day the lugger came into focus, as did the people on her deck and Michael, craning to look, was taken by what he saw. To get the telescope open and focused while keeping the wheel steady was difficult, but the excess time meant there was much more daylight available to show him the lugger’s low maindeck, and even then it took him time to realise what he was looking at. He yelled out for John Pearce to wake up and as soon as he appeared, bleary-eyed and curious, with Charlie and
Rufus on his heels, he handed him the magnifier.

‘Have a look at the men on that deck.’ As soon as he did so, Michael said, ‘Do you recall the tavern we entered?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I have to tell you, John-boy, if you have not already smoked it, those buggers back there look uncommonly like the folks we saw drinking and singing, and you know as well as I do they is not Flemish, but English.’

Arthur Winston’s strained voice came from behind the quartet. ‘I think I had better explain.’

‘I found out that my agent had sold my cargo to another Englishman, but I had no idea to whom.’

‘Well I have to tell you, Arthur, it looks like it was a gang of right hard bargains.’ The question he posed then was obvious, even if Pearce thought he already knew the answer. ‘Did you know he had sold it before you engaged me?’

Winston’s nod was slow and full of meek regret – hardly surprising given the look he was getting was one that could kill – while he still appeared a bit green around the gills. ‘I must confess that I did.’

‘How?’

‘He sent the letter with a British officer going on leave, though he, of course, had no idea what it contained.’ The next words were delivered in a garbled fashion such was the speed of his speech. ‘I thought it to be a set of projectors trying to make their way on my misfortune, businessmen like me, who would do what we are now trying to do.’

‘Were about to do,’ Charlie growled.

‘What do you mean?’

‘It be simple – we take to the jolly boat and give them behind us this barky and the cargo.’

‘We could not get away from them in a jolly boat,’ Pearce said, ‘they would overhaul us in no time.’

‘A nice notion, Charlie,’ Michael added, ‘if they be of a saintly nature. But having seen them closer than you, I take leave to doubt it. You recall those fellows who got us over in that galley? Well, those on our tail are of the same stripe.’

‘I smelt smugglers on that Deal beach,’ Charlie spat.

‘And so did I,’ Michael replied.

‘If they are that,’ Pearce added, grimly, ‘they will be bloody-minded and might not just take repossession of the boat—’

‘Repossession!’ The word brought colour to Winston’s cheeks as well as force to his voice. ‘This boat is
mine
.’

‘I was about to say, Arthur, that they could then just toss us into the sea, which is the common act of pirates.’

‘You’re mad.’

‘No, it is they who are mad and by their lights they have every right to be. Let us say it’s a possibility and not one I wish to test.’

‘We got to get goin’, then,’ Rufus insisted, to both agreement and surprise. ‘And outrun them.’

‘Well said, young fellow,’ Winston cried.

Pearce’s reply was grim, as he looked around the cold
grey sea for any sight of another sail. ‘We might not be able to, and there seems no one with sight of us to prevent them doing as they please.’

‘So, John-boy, if we cannot do that, sure, we has to fight them off, for if I have no notion of where we are, I know that we are not close to shore and they are not far off our stern.’

His friends looked at him for enlightenment, but they looked in vain. There had been no casting of a log, no notation of the course and no writing both those pieces of very necessary information on the slate by the binnacle. If Pearce knew they were roughly somewhere in the North Sea, he had no idea precisely where and none of the skill required to make any more than an educated guess. Yet, not being about to admit his own failure to do what he should, he pulled out his watch and flicked it open.

‘Then we need to find a log and cast it, so we can get some idea of our speed.’

‘Damned slow,’ Charlie replied, ‘an’ even I know that.’

‘We cleared the Flanders shore about eight of the clock on my Hunter, so we have been at sea for just under nine hours. If our rate of sailing has varied it will not be by much.’

‘Will that tell us what we need to know?’ Rufus asked.

‘Not exactly, but close is better than ignorance and it will allow us to decide how to act. There has to be a log and line somewhere, so go and find it.’ He looked hard at Winston. ‘Can I have a word?’

‘Happen we might want to hear what he has to say.’

‘Charlie,’ Pearce replied wearily, indicating to Michael to take back the wheel, ‘you will hear every word, for I will tell you verbatim.’

‘Come on, Charlie,’ Rufus insisted, ‘let’s get to it.’

Charlie was slow to move, but he did so eventually, the words he posed to Rufus just loud enough to be heard. ‘What does “verbaithem” mean?’

‘Search me, mate.’

‘How do we stop them, John-boy?’

‘Depends on what arms they have, Michael. I thought they were just a bunch of irate Flemish traders, but if they are not that …’

‘How could I be so foolish?’ Winston wailed. ‘We might all suffer for my stupidity.’

‘No we will not,’ Pearce snapped. ‘We are going to get to where we are supposed to be and the only question that matters is are we going to be alone when we do so?’

‘I don’t see how—’

Pearce cut right across Winston then. ‘You don’t have to see, Arthur … I do!’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You have a great deal to be sorry about. Now, that explanation, if you please.’

Winston, who had shrunk visibly when barked at, no doubt also through his fearful imaginings and disturbed constitution, seemed to gather himself then. ‘I do not want you to think that I approached you in anything other than a spirit of honesty, John. That day, when I
first met you in the Pelican, was the happenstance it appeared to be.’

‘That matters not, get to the point where it ceased to be honest.’

‘The letter I spoke of came that same day, I got it upon my return to my bureau and damned unpleasant reading it made.’ Seeing the impatient look on John Pearce’s face, he continued hurriedly. ‘I tried to engage some seamen to undertake the recovery, I told you that, but they all declined, not from the notion of regaining the ship, you understand, but more from the illegality of getting my property ashore and sold. I was driven to making increasingly generous offers, none of which were accepted. Then you came to see me.’

‘Someone you took the trouble to enquire about?’

‘Only because your name rang a bell and I asked. In truth, given you had taken the prizes you mentioned, I was surprised to see you at all.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, when we were having breakfast and I discerned that you had come seeking employment, it occurred to me that you were a person who had possibly less fear of the law than most, an adventurous sort of fellow, and then you informed me that you needed money and perhaps a great deal of it.’

‘So you thought,
How convenient
.’

‘Please do not make me sound like a deceiver.’

‘One moment, Arthur, if you’re not that, you are damned untrusting. The required destination I had to drag it out of you, you held secret the name of the ship until we were across the Channel and, as of this
moment, I have no idea of the signal those ashore are waiting for because you have yet to tell me.’

‘Chase is no more’n a cable’s length away now,
John-boy
,’ said Michael, calmly.

‘Three white lanterns at the foremast in a vertical line.’

‘Thank you, and did I forget to mention that you lied from the very beginning of our second meeting?’

‘For which, I hope, you will forgive me, but as I have said, I did not imagine this. Would it help if I offered you a larger share of the venture?’

‘No!’ Seeing the look of surprise on Winston’s face, even if he tried to disguise it, Pearce added, ‘You could have trusted me with everything, Arthur, and that is the one thing which you have not understood and which has irritated me no end.’

‘Obviously,’ he responded in a soft, regretful tone, ‘I have misjudged you.’

‘More than you know.’

‘If you will not take an increased share, how can I make it up to you?’

‘You cannot, and it makes no odds. We are in a bad situation and we have to get out of it. I have to find a way, without any of the weapons I need to effect it, how to encourage this lot pursuing us to desist. If you have any ideas, I would be grateful.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Is that for lying, or for a lack of imagination?’

The crack of what sounded like a musket was loud enough to carry, even if the range at which it was discharged was too far off to be a risk. It was a message
being sent over the water telling Pearce to heave-to. He shot down below to where he had left the pistols – now wormed and unloaded – and came back on deck with one, horn in his other hand. Priming one quickly he cocked it, laid it on the bulwark so it could not be seen for what it was, and fired it off, only to turn back to face a curious Arthur Winston.

‘Let’s hope they think we have muskets too. The sound is not too dissimilar, even without a ball.’

‘As long as they don’t guess what little we’ve got in the way of powder and shot,’ Michael replied.

‘I think they will be a last resort, Michael, but load them anyway.’

The Irishman nodded; they were not much good unless you could see the whites of an opponent’s eyes and would only be of any use if they were actually close to being boarded.

The cry came from the bows. ‘By the mark, three.’

‘They found a log,’ Michael said. ‘Bless them.’

Doing a quick calculation in his mind, Pearce grabbed the telescope and, tucking it into his breeches, ran for the mainmast shrouds, his still-bare feet gripping the tarred lines. He was over the cap in record time and well on his way to the crosstrees before Winston asked Michael what he was doing.

‘Holy Mary, can you not guess? He’ll be looking for our landfall and he will also look for any sails that might give those bastards pause.’

‘Do you think he will succeed?’

Michael just shrugged, but looking aloft he could see Pearce throwing a leg across an upper yard, then securing
himself so he could use the spyglass, the point of that moving left and right before steadying, indicating he had spotted what he was looking for. That was held for a while before he searched the horizon in all directions, naturally including the pursuit, to observe that the man conning her had every available body standing on his bulwark to stiffen the lugger against the wind and improve her rate of sailing.

The faces were not yet distinct, but he could see the bodies of the more adventurous as, almost on the tips of their bare feet, they hung on to a shroud or a line as they leant out over the grey-green waters below, loose shirts billowing, but eyes fixed on the Bilander with a degree of concentration that testified to their determination. Pearce knew it was fanciful to think he could feel their hatred, yet he could not put aside the sensation, and since it was an uncomfortable one he returned the telescope to his breeches and, grabbing a backstay, slid back down to the deck.

‘There are no vessels close by that can either aid us or prevent those fellows doing what they please, but I have seen the white cliffs below Ramsgate. We are close to home, and more to the point, close to requiring a change to a more southerly course. The pity is that will aid the pursuit.’

‘How so?’

‘They will shave the corner, Arthur. Still, it matters not, if we are going to put an end to this chase we have precious little time to think of a way to do it. Michael, hold this course for now while I see what I can find below.’

‘I will join you,’ Winston said, quick to dog his heels. Just as they reached the hatchway the pursuit discharged another musket, another demand to heave-to. ‘You’re sure it would not be wise to just surrender?’

‘We do not know who these fellows are, only that we are in possession of what they see as their property, and they will be of a mind that it is us who have stolen it. Think of the likely nature of the men we might be dealing with, then ask yourself what you would do in their place.’

‘I would certainly not commit foul murder. It is barbarous.’

‘Well, I for one will not trust to their morality, on the grounds they might have none.’

‘But if we dispute with them it will make matters worse.’

There was just enough light to see Pearce’s grin. ‘Not if we beat them.’

Michael’s voice came down the hatchway. ‘Well short of a cable now, John-boy, they’ll not be long in trying musket range.’

The holds were full to capacity and Pearce was reminded of what he had noticed last night when coming below to sleep: literally there was no room to swing a cat below decks on a merchant vessel. Had there been a full crew they would have been squashed into a cubby hole in the forepeak, while the master used the poky cabin in which they had slept the night before. This caused something to occur to him he should have thought of before.

‘Arthur, look in the lockers of that cabin and see if you can find any flags.’

‘Why?’

‘Please stop asking questions and do as I bid you.’ The look that got, again barely visible, was still obvious: Winston was miffed to be spoken to in such a manner. ‘Arthur, I have no time for hurt feelings and neither have you.’

Struggling to recall the exact cargo, Pearce called out to ask Winston, but there being no reply, he guessed he was inside the cabin and had not heard. It was packed so tight that nothing beyond the aft outer layer was available to him, and the space left to get round the whole was so cramped he had a genuine fear that, if it moved while he was between the scantlings at the bales, he might be crushed. Everything was wrapped in tarpaulins, making it difficult to see other than that which lay right before his eyes.

With some effort he pushed himself upwards, reaching forward a hand until it made contact with straw. Feeling further he felt cold glass and roundness: it was a flask and should mean quality brandy. It took even more effort to get higher, but stretched fingers told him the flagons lay close to the deck timbers and would be reached easier through the hatch covers.

An image of that low-decked lugger coming out in pursuit came to his mind at the same time as an idea. What he envisaged would not stop the pursuit but it might slow it down and that was better than nothing, so he struggled to get down till his bare toes touched the deck, then to squeeze himself out till he could breathe properly. There he found Winston holding a pair of flags, one the stripes of the Dutch Republic, another
the triple-turreted white castle on a red background of Hamburg.

‘I have found the brandy.’

‘I am all for an uplifting libation, John, but …’ Winston was talking to himself: Pearce was running up to the deck, calling out to bring up the flags. By the time Winston reached fresh air he saw three of the Pelicans tearing at the covers of the hatches, pulling back the canvas to reveal the cargo, first some thin packets right up against the deck beams, then under those, row upon row of tightly packed brandy flasks in wooden boxes, each wide part of the glass wrapped in protective straw.