By the Mast Divided (45 page)

A sleeping sentry, but where was the key – on his person or in the door? Running a hand into the gap at the top he felt for the cord that must hold the skylight in place, and, finding it in the centre, steadied both it and himself on the frame. He cut slowly with the edge of his knife until the string parted, at which point he began to lower the skylight. It did not go far, about six inches at the top, as it had a metal catch to stop it from being fully opened, a protection against thieves using the gap as
a way of entry. He tried to push it aside but the metal was too thick and he could not apply enough pressure. Dropping down, he explained the problem to One Tooth.

‘What’s the state of the tide?’

‘Coming to its peak, very likely.’

‘Then you have to do something.’

That niggled Pearce – and he was close to saying so – but what was the point? A sentry asleep, suddenly awakened, was not going to be thinking as clearly as he should. This was no professional soldier but some layabout recruited into the local National Guard, given a worn blue coat, a hat and a big cockade. He had seen enough of them, often the scum of the earth, to have little respect for the breed. There was no way through that door unless the sentry opened it and he probably would not respond to a knock. But he might, just might, react to a row. Then he paused, holding up his hand to stop One Tooth saying any more, because once they were committed there would be no going back. The noise he anticipated would certainly wake up more than the sentry – for there were the people who lived above. What would they do? There was no time to decide if he was right or wrong – he had to act!

John Pearce could hardly say that rioting was his speciality, but he had seen enough in his time – not least the night he was taken from the Pelican – to know that most people kept their shutters closed if they heard a disturbance outside. In France, or certainly in the Paris he had so recently left, that was doubly the case for fear of implication in something that might see a person in a tumbrel on the way to the guillotine. And really there was no choice, except to revert to the original idea of leaving the crew of the Indiaman to try for a boat on their own. They had a chance tonight that would not last.

‘Pretend I’m your mate,’ he said, taking the lantern from Michael.

‘What?’

‘You miserable swabs,’ Pearce shouted, trying to be loud and slur his words at the same time. ‘You can rot here in hell for all I care, I shall buy my way back from St Malo and set my feet on my own good hearth.’

He had to make a really sharp gesture to get a shocked One Tooth to reply, and his shouted response was not truly effective, more of a growl than a yell.

‘Get them all shouting, man,’ Pearce yelled, ‘we need a commotion.’

One Tooth hesitated for a second then gestured to his shipmates, who had been standing back, no doubt hoping for their prison door to open. Within half a minute they were crowded at the window trading
insults with Pearce, who was staggering around like a drunk. Michael, unbidden, had placed himself on the jamb side of the door, one fist raised to clout the sentry if he showed his face.

The door only opened a crack, and showed nothing more than a nose, but Michael dropped both fist and shoulder then hit it with all the force he could muster, sending the man at the rear flying back into the wall behind, his musket clattering along the flagged floor. Michael was through and on him before the poor soul realised what had happened. Unable to deliver the kind of blow he would like, Michael was reduced to scrabbling about the man’s body for his throat, ignoring the screaming pleas in French for mercy. The lantern saved the fellow’s life, for it illuminated him seconds after Michael got his hands round his neck. The sentry’s eyes were already popping from his head, his face going a dark red colour, as Pearce intervened, shouting to O’Hagan that the keys were more important.

Michael let the man go and he fell sobbing into a heap. Pearce lent over him, loudly demanding ‘
les clés
,’ and giving him several rough shakes to keep him frightened. Michael picked up the musket and jammed the weapon against his head.

‘
La porte, dans la porte
,’ he cried, a feeble finger trying to point to the door, which revealed a pair of large keys on a ring, one in the lock. Pearce grabbed at them, and found that his hands were shaking as he tried to open the interior door. He had to take a deep breath to get the key in the lock, only to find that he had inserted the wrong one. Cursing, he tried the other and the door swung open to reveal a group of anxious sailors. They could not see but only hear what was going on, and they had fists raised, ready for a fight.

‘Get him in here, Michael,’ said Pearce. ‘And somebody close those shutters and the outside door. I want his hat and his coat.’

That took a few seconds, not because the sentry resisted, merely because in his fearful state he could not comply. Pearce put on the large cockaded hat first and the blue coat next. He took the musket out of Michael’s hands, said, ‘Wait here,’ and went back out through both doors, shutting the outer one behind him.

Those inside heard a tirade of French that meant nothing to them, followed by slurred but clear English, as John Pearce ordered away the imaginary mate of a captured East Indiaman. The last thing they heard, again incomprehensible, was Pearce assuring a couple of citoyens who had finally opened their shutters that it was nothing with which to concern themselves and that they should go back to bed. That done, he 
came back inside, to find the sentry trussed and gagged with the shreds of his own shirt. Michael was standing over him, the bayonet that had been on the man’s belt now in his hand, his powder horn and cartridge case over his shoulders. The only thing that had not changed were the Frenchman’s eyes, which were those of a fellow still convinced he was about to die.

‘We wait,’ Pearce insisted.

‘Why?’ demanded One Tooth.

‘Let those who looked out settle.’

Pearce stood by the open door for several minutes, the trembling returning as he wondered at his own audacity, while simultaneously questioning where the inspiration had come from to act as he did. When he was sure it was totally quiet he came inside and beckoned to One Tooth.

‘Michael will go ahead, and fetch the rest of our party. You should leave in small groups to keep the noise down, and no running for the noise will echo off the alley walls. It is down to the end and turn right for the quay, but stay in the dark until we are sure we can get a boat to take us out to the ship.’

One Tooth looked amazed. ‘You mean you ain’t yet got a boat?’

‘No, I dammed well have not,’ Pearce growled, looking round the assembled sailors, who were of all shapes and sizes. He was thinking that if they were like the man who appeared to lead them then he, like their mate, would be tempted to leave them behind. ‘Now, I want to know who are your fighters, because they are the ones that we will have to put aboard.’

‘You’ll be with us,’ said the round, pink-faced fellow called Dusty who had first come to the window. ‘And you is Navy.’

‘You know the ship, we don’t. We think there is somebody in the main cabin but we can’t be sure.’

‘All day,’ moaned One Tooth, ‘and that is all you’ve discovered.’

Pearce lost it then, and grabbed the man by the front of his shirt. ‘If you want to hang on to your last fang, mate, you will stow it.’

‘There you go again,’ said Michael, moving into separate them, ‘sounding like a tar.’ He had to stand foursquare before One Tooth, who looked set to take Pearce up on his offer of a scrap. ‘And don’t you go threatening to clout anybody. That, John-boy, is my job.’

One Tooth was no fool. Pearce he might be able to match but this Paddy towering over him was way too much of a handful. His whole body changed shape, the shoulders dropped and his head tipped, smiling
to one side as he said, ‘We shouldn’t be a’squabblin’ boys. We’s in this together, is we not?’

‘Right, give us a layout of the ship, and let’s decide who is going to do what.’

Getting twenty-five men down the alley in what should have been silence tested Pearce’s patience even more. They sounded, to his sensitive ears, like a herd of bullocks that had found a hole in a fence and run for freedom. But they made the quay without incident or alarm and joined Michael and the others, whom he had brought into the darkness of the alley.

‘There was some shouting to the ship,’ said Taverner. ‘God knows what they were saying, but a boat has come in.’

A sudden noise made Pearce edge out, to see a group of four men stagger from the now-dark front of the tavern, two holding each other upright, the others looking in need of the same support. They lurched towards the water’s edge, occasionally stopping for a drunken exchange of insults, and lowered themselves with little skill into the small boat. A bored-looking oarsman sat hanging on to the sticks, looking balefully at his inebriated companions.

‘Did that fellow in the boat see you?’ he whispered to those behind him.

‘If he did,’ Taverner replied, ‘he paid us no heed.’

‘We didna try to hide,’ Dysart added, ‘like you said, we acted normal.’

The oarsman cast off with some difficulty, for his shipmates insisted on helping. They rowed noisily and aimlessly out into the midstream. Pearce could hear the sober one cursing his mates to let him row, but they paid no heed and it took an age for them to get to entry port on
Lady Harrington
, which they clattered into in a fashion that seemed designed to wake everyone aboard. The time they took to get on to the ship was even longer, took several attempts and just as many fallbacks, before they crawled on to the deck followed by the disgruntled fellow sent to fetch them.

‘Not every one of our foes is drunk,’ said Pearce.

‘We have to move swiftly,’ insisted One Tooth, ‘or we’ll forfeit the run of the tide.’

‘A minute or two more,’ said Pearce. ‘Let them get below.’

If it was a minute or two it seemed an eternity, one in which Pearce wondered why he was making all the decisions, a task he had assumed
would cease once the crew of the
Harrington
gained freedom. But they were like his shipmates, quite happy to let him assume the responsibility. Why? Fear or habit, he could not tell, and decided right now it didn’t matter – if no one else had a clear purpose he did! Finally the French sailors and their drunken exchanges were no more, and the whole area was again silent. Pearce, feeling very vulnerable, with One Tooth behind him, moved out to the edge, looking at the ship and the water in between, but mostly at a pair of boats tied up to the side of the Indiaman.

‘That cutter by the entry port will do nicely to get us out of there,’ whispered One Tooth, pointing to the larger of the pair. ‘The jolly boat they just used is too small.’

Pearce pointed further down the estuary, to where the fishing fleet was gathered, some on lines that would allow them to be dragged in. ‘What about one of these fishing smacks, they’re tied to the shore.’

‘Too risky, mate! Lots of fisher folk will have a dog chained on board at night. That’s how they keep them secure and make sure no bugger steals ’em. Only have to set one of them barking and they’ll all be off, raising Cain and their owners. No, the cutter be best.’

‘Would I be right in thinking you can swim?’

‘Never in life, brother, water is mortal to mere flesh. Can’t any of your lot oblige?’

‘Well, I hope when we get aboard you damn well know how to sail a ship,’ Pearce growled.

Pearce was in the water in a minute, breasting out, the cold near
heart-stopping
in its intensity. Getting aboard the cutter proved impossible, the gunwales were too high out of the water and if he tried to lift himself he risked clattering noisily into the ship. Treading water, he tried to undo the painter, but the knot was too difficult. Hanging on with one hand, he got his knife out of his waistband. It took an age to slice through the rope, but it parted eventually. Lying back, he began to swim, towing the cutter very slowly behind him.

One Tooth was as grateful as ever. ‘Christ, you took your time.’

‘Shut up,’ Pearce snapped, as he stood up, water dripping from his clothing. ‘Just get in.’

The
Harrington
s took their places without talking. Pearce was followed by Charlie and Rufus, still carrying their cask of gunpowder. He helped Dysart aboard, took station in the prow with Michael and his musket and prepared to hand off the cutter when they reached the side of the ship.

‘Mr Burns, I want you first aboard, keeping a lookout. Get to the
upper deck, and keep an eye on the cabin door.’

‘John-boy,’ said Michael. ‘Send Martin.’

‘Is that wise?’

‘If Martin wanted to betray us, he’s had all day to do it. He could do it now.’

‘Not if he wants to live.’

‘I will vouch for him.’

Both men looked at the boy, who was looking at Pearce, almost pleading to be trusted. Pearce nodded, then added, ‘Martin, you go with him.’

‘Jackets off, lads,’ hissed One Tooth, ‘and make fenders.’

Those not rowing obliged, removing their coats, rolling and draping them over one side of the cutter so that when it touched, side on, it did so in silence. Pearce took hold of a manrope on one edge of the entry port to hold it close, One Tooth the other. Martin, shoeless, was already gone, skipping over the side with ease and disappearing into the darkness of the deck, followed with more circumspection by Midshipman Burns. Slowly, too noisily for Pearce’s liking, the rest began to follow.

‘Rufus, Charlie, stay in the cutter with Dysart, and man the oars. If this goes wrong we might need this sod to get out of here.’

Pearce went aboard and joined a clutch of whispering sailors. One Tooth was sending some to find axes. They would go the hawser on the maindeck that held the Indiaman to the baulks, and, once the commotion started, cut the ship free regardless.

‘Two of you get yourself a place near the wheel, for once she’s free she might well run aground.’

‘Where can I get a weapon?’ asked Pearce.

‘Outside the main cabin, which is where we are headed, right after we’ve seen to the forepeak.’