The Hawk (10 page)

'Each?' The taller hand.

'Eh?' Rennie regarded him a moment, then: 'Yes, very
well. A guinea each. For which payment you are to carry out
your task – and keep silent. Will you give me your solemn
oath?'

'It is give, sir.' The taller.

Rennie looked at the shorter, stockier man, who: 'Oh, aye.'

'Say it. Give me your oath.'

'I do, sir. Solemn oath.' Touching his forehead.

'Very well.' Standing back. 'There he is. Take him out.'

'When shall we get our payment, sir?'

'When you have done it.'

The taller man looked at his shorter companion, sucked his
teeth, and: 'I think we will like to have half now, sir, by your
leave.'

'Aye.' The shorter man.

'Oh, very well. Here is a guinea between you.' Opening his
purse and finding the coin. He held it up, but did not yet pass
it over. 'Remember! Absolute discretion, now. Go very quiet.
Not a word breathed to a living soul.' He gave them the
guinea.

The two men lifted the unconscious man and carried him
out, their way lighted along the passage by the boy with his
candle. A door opened to a rear stair. Creaks and muffled
thuds as they carried their burden down the narrow stair and
away. Presently the sound of wheels scraping over cobbles
below.

Rennie let out a breath – he had not been aware that he was
holding it in – and found that he was thoroughly done up. He
found his shoes and put them on the chair, and then was too
tired to undress. He lay down on the bed, and fell into a fitful
doze.

In the morning Captain Rennie changed his hotel. He liked
the Marine, had stayed there happily in the past, but the
incident in the night had greatly dismayed and unsettled him,
and he wished to become wholly anonymous, and to reassess
his position. Having to fend off three armed assailants in the
space of a few days, and having been obliged to shoot two of
them dead – one of them a young woman – had taxed his
endurance to the limit, and made him uneasy and fearful.

'If I don't go careful I shall become like Rountree's
undertaker, good God.' But even this determined attempt at
jocularity, directed at his face in the shaving glass, did not
cheer him.

Troubled thoughts continued to run in his head as he
moved from the Marine Hotel to the substantial old Mary
Rose Inn at the corner of St Thomas Street. A further
thought came to him as he went in at the door:

'I must disappoint Langton, that is a good fellow, a decent
fellow. He will wonder what has become of me, and no doubt
think me ill-mannered in not taking him up on his offer of
dinner.'

He gave his name to the clerk as: 'Mr Birch, of
Dorsetshire.' He was not in naval dress, and since all the best
rooms were occupied again had to accept a very small one at
the rear, but he had disguised his presence, and was content.
Sitting on the hard narrow bed he said to himself:

'Langton must wait. Today I will seek out James, very
discreet, and discover what that blackguard at the Marine
Hotel meant by his questions. Aye – this damned bed is
uncommon firm – I must discover from James what is afoot.
If he will tell me. If he will oblige me.'

He fell silent, and thought of his house at Middingham, of
the quiet life he had grown used to there, his pleasant easy
routine, his understated clothes, his agreeable diet, his every
comfort attended to by his servant girl Jenny. Every comfort
– excepting one. A little sigh, and he lifted his head.

'In course I had much rather be at sea, I had much rather
have a ship under my legs,' he told himself briskly, coming
out of his brief reverie with a slapping of palms on thighs.
'But my condition of life at Norfolk – was I a landlubber by
nature – could not be better, I think. Nay, it is very pleasant
there – was I a lawn-loving, pond-gazing fellow, wandering
tranquil among shrubs.'

Captain Rennie found Lieutenant Hayter, not as he had
expected by assiduous discreet enquiry as to the location of
the
Hawk
cutter, and the whereabouts of her commander –
but by chance. He found him at Bracewell & Hyde, trying on
his new coat. Rennie happened to glance in at the window as
he passed by, and caught sight of his friend inside. He went
in, to the sharp jingling of the above-door bell.

Mr Bracewell's assistant, that was not Mr Hyde – Mr Hyde
had sold the business to Mr Bracewell long since, and then
had died – came forward with a professional smile, recognizing
the naval look when he saw it, in spite of the civilian
dress, and:

'Sea officer, sir? In need of new – '

'Nay nay, thank you, ye may strike that measuring tape.'

The sound of that familiar voice caused James Hayter to
turn from the long glass.

'Good heaven, it is you, sir. Here in Portsmouth.' A happy
thought. 'You have got a ship! You have got a commission!'

'Nay, I have not, James.' They shook hands, James in his
half-made coat, one sleeve attached, and the back marked
with chalk. 'I came to find you, to say the truth.'

'From the Admiralty? They have changed their minds,
then?' James as Mr Bracewell waited.

'Eh? No. No, I am here privately. What made you think I
had come from the – '

'Give me one moment, sir, if you please.' James nodded,
touched his forearm, and returned to Mr Bracewell at the
glass. He shrugged out of the new coat, handed it to Mr
Bracewell, and retrieved his old coat from a chair. He slipped
it on. 'Thank you, Bracewell, I shall return tomorrow, or very
soon after.' To Rennie: 'And now, shall we stroll a little way,
sir, and talk?'

'I should like very much to talk, James. That is why I have
come to Portsmouth, you know. In that hope.'

They went out into the busy street, and walked – at
Rennie's urging – away from the press of people, and the
traffic and noise, along Battery Road to the fortifications,
the castle away to the east against the sky. Rennie walked
with his plain hat jammed well down on his head, nearly
hiding his face.

'I had myself hoped – half-hoped, anyway – that you would
come, sir.' James, as they came to the wall.

'Eh? Had you?' A sideways glance. 'You surprise me,
James. Twice in five minutes you have surprised me.'

And the two officers talked. James about his commission,
his duties, the murder of Captain Marles – he held nothing
back – and Rennie about Sir Robert Greer, his flight from
Norfolk, the incident on the road and the intruder at the
Marine Hotel, with his questions about James – he held
nothing back, in turn.

'I am living under the name Birch, at the Mary Rose.'

'Birch?'

'Aye, you notice the choice of name. Mr Birch of
Dorsetshire. I hope y'don't mind me using the name of your
house, James.'

James laughed. 'In course I do not, sir. I am flattered.
Catherine would be flattered, I am in no doubt.'

A moment of quiet now between the two men, in the
echoing cries of gulls, and the distant crack-crack of mallets
aboard a moored frigate. The church clock struck the
quarter-hour. Clouds slowly drifted, unfurling on the wide
blue sky. The moment was significant for both men. Both
men knew that if it passed unseized their immediate
convergence – here, today, upon the great stone wall – would
cease at once, and their lives in the service drift wide apart,
perhaps never to converge again. The Royal Navy was by its
nature deep and wide in its purpose and duty; oceans and
continents could divide and separate its officers over long
months and years in pursuit of that purpose, in compliance
with that duty; if they let the moment pass, a great deal might
be lost. They did not let it pass.

James took a breath. 'I have need of a senior officer to give
me assistance, sir, to advise me as Captain Marles would have
done in a commission I do not yet wholly understand. It
cannot be official, since the Admiralty I know will not
sanction a replacement – but I wish it.'

'I am your man.'

And so it was settled, very simply, there on the stone wall,
with a handshake.

'I thought it best to sail on the evening tide.'

'Not at first light?'

'No, sir. I wish to be at sea, waiting for her, at first light.'

The two officers stood aft of the pumps on the diminutive
quarterdeck of
Hawk
, one of them in the uniform of undress
coat and hat, the other in plain frock coat and plain dark hat.

Lieutenant Hayter – in uniform – continued: 'We must try
to make an interception at sea, I think, rather than attempt to
take her when she stands in to put her cargo ashore.'

'Ain't that when she will be the more open to being took,
though? When she is vulnerable?'

'From all I hear,
Lark
can never be thought to be vulnerable,
sir. At sea I can outgun her with my smashers, and – '

'Forgive me, James, but how d'y'know that?'

'Because I have ninety pound weight of iron broadsides,
sir, and
Lark
– '

'She may well have the same, mayn't she? Hey?'

'No, sir. No, I do not think so. A fast cutter like the
Lark
will carry four-pounders, probably. Six-pounders, at the
highest. Even if she carried eight six-pounders in each
battery, her weight of metal broadside could only be a little
more than half of my own.'

'Was not your instructions to take the
Lark
, though? Take
her, and never damage her at all? How will you manage that,
I wonder, if you go at her smashing with ninety-pound
broadsides? Hey?'

James had given Rennie all the information he had thus far
himself been given, and had told him his proposed strategy.
Rennie did not like the strategy. He felt that the
Lark
would
be nearly impossible to intercept at sea, fleet as she was; that
she could run up from France as quick as be damned, and
likely not even be sighted; that she would be taken, if she
could be found, only when close in to shore, in a bay or cove,
and her pursuer upward of her, with the wind gage, cutting
her off. But he had not felt himself able to say so, direct – until
now. And even now he could only demur, politely demur, and
say why. He could not countermand an order given by a
commanding officer at sea. In spite of his rank of senior post
captain he was rated as nothing and nobody here aboard the
Hawk
, not even as supernumerary, since he was not listed on
the ship's books. Officially he did not exist.

And yet James had asked for his assistance, his advice, his
opinion – had not he? Could not a senior post make a
suggestion or two, in least? He opened his mouth again, but
at that moment James stepped close to the tiller and said to
the helmsman:

'Luff and touch her, Alden Knott, will you. I will like her a
point closer, if she will answer.'

'Aye, sir.'

The helmsman put his weight on the tiller and brought the
cutter a fraction closer to the wind, so that she heeled to
larboard, on the point of sails a-quiver, but not beyond it,
cutting sweet and true into the westerly wind, the sea hissing
in a froth of lace along her wales and tumbling in on itself
astern in the glow of the light. Presently James judged that
they had run far enough on their starboard tack, and:

'Stand by to tack ship!' Striding to the weather rail he
nearly knocked Rennie down, and there was a moment of
embarrassment between them. Both men apologized, a little
too quickly, and each stood aside. James did not mind that
Rennie was on deck – indeed had felt obliged to invite him
there – but he sincerely wished and hoped that Rennie would
have the good sense, and the common courtesy, to keep out
of his way. Rennie in turn wished to keep out of that way, but
James was such an energetic commander, forever striding this
way and that, looking aloft at his canvas, going to the weather
rail, then to the lee, asking his helmsman how she lay, &c.,
&c., that in truth the senior man did not know where he
should place himself to be out of the way. Should he go
below? He asked the question.

'No. No, indeed, sir. I would not wish it. It is damned
cramped below, and the air gets stale so quick. You are better
off on deck, snuffing the wind.'

Both men knew that the real question had not been
answered, had not in fact been properly put. Should Rennie
be giving advice at all, about anything, unless he was
particularly asked? A big sea rolled heavily in, smacked under
Hawk
's flat-sleeved bowsprit and bluff bow, and sent both
men reaching to clap on to a back stay. The helmsman
allowed her to sag off a little as she rode the wave, and Rennie
drew breath to say something – and had to bite his tongue.
To himself:

'Nay, I must not say a word. I must not say anything about
the handling of the ship, good God.' And even as he thought
it, James spoke:

'She is sagging off, Alden, bring her back now.'

'Aye, sir.'

James and his people brought the cutter through the wind
and on to the other tack, so that now she heeled steadily to
starboard, heading west-north-west into the wind, the coast
away to starboard in occasional faint glimmerings of light.
They sailed on, through the night.

They did not sight the
Lark
by hammocks up, when
Hawk
lay south in the Channel between St Alban's Head and
Portland Bill. Rennie did not expect to see her. James had
only half-expected it himself, their first foray into the open
sea. They went below to breakfast.

'I hope you do not take it wrong – if I make suggestions,'
said Rennie at breakfast, which they took together in the
cramped little great cabin.

'Nay, in course I do not take it wrong.' James drank coffee.
He did not eat. His guts had troubled him in the night, the
sea chopping and disturbed, with a deep wind-enhanced swell
as they had run close-hauled, tack on tack, heading west, then
had come about and gone large, boarding long, in long
sweeps. He had insisted on keeping guncrews on deck, fifteen
men to man the weather guns, crossing the deck as their
course dictated, and the weather side became the lee. This
deployment, and the constant requirement of hands to make
sail, haul, trim, sheet home, had tested his people to the full,
and now they were tired. James had given the order to stand
down, and a further order that a measure of grog was to be
issued with their oats, to be taken unwatered by those who
wished it.