Blown Off Course (25 page)

‘Last bales coming out,’ called a voice, just as the ship began to heel over, which told Pearce that she was now well and truly beached and any notion of sailing her away before the tide came in again was gone; they had thought of everything.

‘Time to go, I think,’ said the man who had made a fool of him, the sudden thought coming to him, entirely inappropriate, that Charlie Taverner was an amateur by comparison.

‘Right, everybody off,’ called the fat man.

The tip of Winston’s pistol – Pearce could not think of what else to call him – was lifted to his hat in mock salute. ‘Let me say this, John Pearce, you were very nearly a worthy adversary. There were times when you had me jumping, and to think, when I offered you more of a share, you turned me down! Such a sense of nobility,
mon ami
.’

That had him laughing again, a sound that faded as he departed the ship and walked up the beach, leaving the fat fellow to deliver the last message. ‘Stay on board the ship and make no attempt to follow, for if I say I am more of a barbarian, you will understand.’

Then he too was gone, waddling down a ramp that disappeared from the top of the bulwark as soon as he was off it. He watched as the lanterns disappeared, all except the last one, which was held in one of the fat
fellow’s hands. In the other he had his pistol, which he raised and discharged, sending out a flash, as well as a sound that did echo round the narrow bay; then the light went out. By the time the fat man had carried out his last task, a gunshot to alert the Excise, the others had joined him by the binnacle. Pearce was no longer looking at the cliffs, he was looking at the rim of the heights and, sure enough, before that echo died away, pinpoints of light appeared.

‘That was a sign.’ Pearce said, having given his friends the briefest of explanations.

‘We’re trapped,’ said Rufus, ‘so we’ll have to fight them.’

‘We still has the cutlasses,’ Charlie added.

‘Belay,’ Pearce barked. ‘That is to risk a hanging if any of them are killed.’

He pulled what money he had left from his pocket and, emptying out the purse, handed half of it to O’Hagan. ‘Michael, lower yourself over the side and help the others down. There’s a path right in the middle of the bay and it’s the only way in and out, but with a low tide you can go north. You might get wet feet but I know it is possible to walk to Deal from here and the tide is still falling.’

‘How do you know?’

‘There’s no time to explain,’ he replied.

In truth, he did not want to say he had taken his boating trip without telling them anything about it: vital was the fact that ‘Winston’ had no knowledge of it. In the gloom he thought he saw Charlie Taverner unwilling to accept that statement, but Michael cut
him off, for he at least must appreciate the need for speed.

‘What about you, John-boy?’

‘With this foot, I can’t go anywhere and if I tried I would slow you down, so I will stay by the binnacle, so they can see me. In coming for me it will give you a chance to get clear. If you can get away, best you try to get in touch with Mr Lutyens, I’m sure he will help you. There is money owing to you and I from a fellow called Davidson, which he knows about.’

‘Pearce?’ said Charlie, not in complaint, but worry. ‘How in hell’s name can we just leave you?’

‘Charlie, there’s no time to waste, every one of you is in double jeopardy. Get off from this damned boat and find at the very least somewhere to hide till the tide is right out. Now go!’

‘A hand, John Pearce,’ asked Rufus, holding out his own.

He took each hand in turn and, with a lump in his throat said, ‘Take care, all of you.’

It was agony watching those lights weaving down the steep slope, trending left and right as they followed the steep, winding path. His foot was throbbing, but the real pain was seated in his damaged pride. Once they got low enough he walked away from the binnacle light to look onto the beach, and there, as he had been told there would be, was a line of contraband, several barrels and bales, hardly a problem for a gang that must have cleared thousands in money from those packed holds.

Finally the lanterns were on the beach, with no indication of a hue and cry, so perhaps the others had got clear. The crunch as the Excise men came down the beach was like the knell of doom, for Pearce knew he could look forward to a life of misery from now on. Then he put his hand in the pocket of his blue broadcloth coat again, to touch that tin of earth from Paris, which had travelled with him. What would old Adam Pearce say about his son now, and would he ever get those bones out of their Parisian resting place?

‘You there, don’t move,’ called a voice, and John Pearce burst out laughing, wondering as he did so if they would go below and fetch for him his ditty bag, and most of all, his shoes.

A week in the Sandwich gaol was not unpleasant, given he had enough money left to pay the warder for food and comfort as well as a medical man to tend to his now-healing foot, though it would not yet take a shoe. More troubling were his own thoughts, for, hardly surprisingly, he could not get out of his mind what had just happened, and every reprise of recent events made him feel more of an idiot than the last. With hindsight he could see so many flaws in the way he had been deceived that it beggared belief he had fallen for them in the first place.

Still, he would soon have more to worry about: a letter to Davidson, pen and paper provided by the warder for a fee, had established his affairs were still up in the air, nothing was resolved, so the fine he was expecting of one hundred pounds, standard for smuggling as he had been informed, he could not pay. So it was either hard labour or transportation he was facing, and he was up
before the Justice of the Peace in an hour.

He had written to Emily Barclay too, but that letter, to his mind unfinished, was yet to be sent. Time to put the last touches to a missive that would tell her that, while he loved her deeply, the notion of their being together was one she would have to put aside, if indeed she had ever truly harboured it.

I have instructed Davidson to provide for you as best he can, and said that any prize money should go to you unless it can be used to secure my release, not that I think that a likely event once sentence has been passed. Please be assured once more of my deep love for you and my wish that if you can find happiness you should do so. It would probably be best to forget you ever knew a man called John Pearce.

With that he signed it.

‘Lieutenant John Pearce?’ asked the clerk of the court.

All he could do to that was nod and reply yes; he had used his naval rank in the hope it might ameliorate what was coming. The court was crowded with the usual set of ghouls, many hoping for a hanging, no doubt, but there was a commotion at the back as three men elbowed their way to the front, and that made Pearce curse. What the hell were his Pelicans doing here? The charges were read out and he entered a plea of guilty, all the while glaring at the body of the court, where his friends now sat, a look that was returned with bland indifference.

‘The fine for evading the excise duty is set by statute at one hundred pounds. Do you have that sum to pay to the court?’

‘No.’

The Justice was about to speak when Charlie Taverner stood up and cried out, ‘May it please, Your Honour.’ That got him a jaundiced look over the magistrate’s half-glasses. ‘Is it not the case, that if a fellow convicted of smuggling can provide two men for His Majesty’s Navy, who have the skills of the sea, the fine is waived?’

‘That is so.’

‘Then can I say that my mate here and I,’ Rufus stood up, looking far from confident, ‘were approached by this here Lieutenant Pearce to join up for the bounty, which we will happily put aside in his favour.’ Charlie held up his piece of parchment. ‘Even having this.’

A sharp instruction was given and the clerk of the court took from the pair their protections, which were handed up to, and closely examined by, the Justice of the Peace, before he looked back out to the well of the court.

‘You are volunteering for the navy?’

‘That’s right, Your Honour.’

That set the court a-buzzing: if it was not expected for men to condemn themselves out of their own mouths as smugglers, that was what this pair were doing, for only a fool would believe their connection to the man in the dock was other than that. The navy was not much given to taking criminals – in truth they were dead against it – but smugglers were the exception, given they were bound to be at home on a ship and thus highly valued.

‘You are competent seamen?’

‘We are,’ Charlie replied.

‘Both of you?’

‘Yes.’

The magistrate paused for a moment to consider his response, but when he did speak it was with firm purpose. ‘Sergeant of the Court, take these men into custody to be handed over to the receiving officer of the Impress Service at Dover. You, Lieutenant Pearce, have satisfied the needs of justice and you are thus free to go.’

‘I protest.’

The words he was about to utter, that he would not accept the verdict, died in his throat: Michael O’Hagan was shaking his head, and in truth, any intervention he could make was too late. Charlie and Rufus were already on their way. Minutes later, a free man, he hobbled out of the courthouse to join the Irishman.

‘That was madness!’

‘Was it, John-boy? We talked long, this last week, while we hid out in Deal to see what became of you.’

‘Where I must go to look for those who near did for us all.’

‘You’d be wasting your time, they would be unlikely to show and if they did, what can we two do against so many? Charlie and Rufus had no mind to go back to the Liberties, as I have not myself, but I will wait to find what risk I am under, since you say my name is not known. It was plain we all owed our freedom to you …’

‘They did not have to go back,’ Pearce protested.

He knew, even as he said the words, they were false. Charlie and Rufus with writs against their name could not just wander the land in safety: if it was not the
Liberties, it was more likely to be the same kind of risk Pearce felt he had faced before going into the court.

‘Take it for what it is, John-boy, two men who consider you a friend, doing what they thought best and that included for themselves. They have no love of sea service, but even that is better than what they had afore. At sea they are safe from the law.’

‘And what of us, Michael?’

The Irishman just smiled; if he was aware of the turmoil in the mind of John Pearce he said nothing. Just abandoning Charlie and Rufus he could not do and live with himself, while he was at a stand to know what to do with his life, Emily Barclay notwithstanding. It was the same dilemma he had laboured under ever since coming back from Paris, the lack of a clear path to a decent future, for he was not fitted for much. Those prizes might pay out, and then again they might not, and even then the sums were not great enough to provide security, which, if it engendered a painful reminder of how foolish he had been in going to Gravelines, also harked him back to the reason. The solution was obvious, if not entirely pleasant: he needed security for both himself and the woman he loved, he needed to help his friends and there was only one place that could be achieved.

‘You must see I have to find a way to repay them, or at the very least ease their lives.’ Michael nodded and gave a look that told Pearce he understood what that meant. ‘How do you feel about being servant to a naval lieutenant?’

‘Sure, I would be a cack-handed one.’

‘Not as cack-handed, or -headed for that matter, as the man you will be obliged to see to.’

‘So, John-boy, where to now?’

‘First back to the town jail to retrieve a letter I wrote, then we must go to Dover and see what we can do for Charlie and Rufus.’

‘And then?’

‘Then, Michael, I am going to beard the First Lord of the Treasury, whom you might know as William Pitt, as well as a companion of his called Henry Dundas. They made me certain promises and I intend they should keep them.’

If you enjoyed
Blown Off Course
, read on to find out about the next book in the John Pearce series …

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D
AVID
D
ONACHIE
was born in Edinburgh in 1944. He has always had an abiding interest in the naval history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as well as the Roman Republic, and, under the pen-name of Jack Ludlow, has published a number of historical adventure novels. David lives in Deal with his partner, the novelist Sarah Grazebrook.

T
HE
J
OHN
P
EARCE SERIES

By the Mast Divided

A Shot Rolling Ship

An Awkward Commission

A Flag of Truce

The Admirals’ Game

An Ill Wind

Blown Off Course

Enemies at Every Turn

Writing as Jack Ludlow

T
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R
EPUBLIC SERIES

The Pillars of Rome

The Sword of Revenge

The Gods of War

T
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C
ONQUEST SERIES

Mercenaries

Warriors

Conquest

T
HE
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OADS TO
W
AR SERIES

The Burning Sky

A Broken Land

A Bitter Field