The Hawk (26 page)

'Goodnight. And thank you for your kindness.'

'Nay, sir – thank you for yours.'

The Drawbridge Inn at the Point in Portsmouth was a lowbuilt,
part-timbered, grimy structure, with lead-mullioned
lights and sturdy timber door. It stood as its name suggested
immediately adjacent to the wooden bridge spanning the
moat between the town side and the island of the Point. The
door had been replaced three times, occasioned by raids on
the tavern by constables, revenuers and others, in pursuit of
miscreants among patrons, or 'clients' as the landlord Sawley
Mallison liked to call his guests. It was now a door made of
oak – some said oak recovered from a shipyard – studded with
heavy nails. There was a cobbled yard at the rear, and a low
entrance to one side that led through pantries and the kitchen
to the interior. This entrance was in usual barred, and locked.

The taproom was at night blue with tobacco smoke and
rumbling with the din of voices. Light came from lanterns
hung from beams above, and the atmosphere was not unlike
that of the lower deck of a ship of war, with hands piped to
their dinner at the messes. Save for the pipe smoke, reflected
Captain Rennie as he made his way through the rows of
rough tables towards the figure of Sawley Mallison at the
rear.

'Mr Mallison.'

'I am 'ere.' Turning his good eye on Rennie. His other eye
was walled white. He removed his clay pipe from strong
yellow teeth. Grey-flecked hair grew low on his forehead,
emphasizing his one clear eye and giving him a distinctly
simian appearance. But Sawley Mallison was no slow wit.
Here was a man of high acuity and understanding, as Rennie
had begun to learn.

'Mr Mallison, I am expecting a letter. I will like it that you
inform me the moment it comes.' He fumbled, found a coin,
and was about to pass it when a strong hand closed over his, and:

'There ain't need to pay me each time you was wanting a
simple service, sir. I looks out for naval men, always.'

'Ah. That is kind in you, Mr Mallison.' Lowering his voice
a little. 'I am – I am no longer in that service, however.'

'I knows all about that, Captain Rennie. You was done
down, sir. Put your money away, now. I shall send word to
'ee, soon as letter comes.'

'Very good, thankee, Mr Mallison.' Putting the coin away
in his pocket, then bringing it out again. 'May I give you a
glass of something?'

'Oh, well, now. That I will not resiss, no. Bliss!'

'Sir?' The potboy, pausing with tankards.

'Brandy, Bliss, two glasses, corner table. Sharp.'

The boy nodded, and dodged away between tables,
slopping ale. Mallison led the way to a small table in a corner,
away from the great seething of the room. They sat down,
and Mallison lit his pipe with a taper from the candle. He
offered his pouch to Rennie.

'Smoke, sir?'

'I don't, thankee. My vices are tea and alcohol only.' A nod,
politely. He was not quite at home in the taproom of the
Drawbridge.

'Would you prefer tea now, sir?'

'Nay, Mr Mallison, I will like a splash of something else, at
night. Brandy, indeed.' Another nod.

'I knows this ain't your notion of a pleasant place to stop,
sir.' Mallison sucked on his pipe, then put it aside. 'But you
need never fear while you is under this roof.'

'You are very kind.'

'I knows your surgeon very well, see.'

'My surgeon? Dr Wing, d'y'mean?'

'Aye, Tom Wing is my old friend. He has come 'ere many
a time, when one of my clients was poorly. Other surgeons
would not like to come 'ere, not in darkness like. When Tom
was prenticed over to the Haslar, he would come always, if
asked. Many a time he has stopped 'ere a night or two. A gent,
is Tom.'

Rennie thought a moment, and did vaguely recall the
connection from a previous commission, when Dr Wing's
dunnage had been collected from the inn, and brought into
the ship. Recalled too, with a pang of shame, that he had
pronounced Mallison a scoundrel, and the Drawbridge a
place of iniquity.

Their brandy had come, and Mallison poured two glasses.
'Your health, Captain Rennie.'

'Your health, Mr Mallison.'

And as the fiery spirit ran down his throat Rennie felt his
own spirits rise a little, for the first time in many days.

The letter came not at night, but in the morning, by an
errand boy, who did not wait for a reply, only demanded his
penny and was at once gone into the grimy bustle of Broad
Street. Rennie read the letter – by invitation – in the landlord's
own small parlour, where he drank a pot of strong dark
tea.

'Will you take a drop in your tea, sir?' Mallison offered his
flask.

'Thankee, no. This is excellent tea, excellent tea.'

'Aye, and I never gives a farthing more for it than I must,
neither.' Tapping his broad nose. 'I will leave you to read
your letter, sir.'

When Mallison had gone Rennie unfolded the letter, and
to the muffled sounds of the landlord cursing his potboy in
the taproom beyond, he read:

Dear Colleague,

We wish to know details of new vessels to be
employed in pursuit of another. To wit:

Tonnages of each vessel

Rigging & sail plans

Number of guns

Numbers of crew

Exact dates of deployment

Present deployment of vessels already in service

Proposed plan of action should our vessel find herself
outrun by the new increased deployment. Take her?

Or sink, burn, destroy? Take her master alone? Take
her people also, or dispose of them?

Please to respond in writing, and the boy will call
again in the forenoon tomorrow.

You must be mindful, dear colleague, that upon your
accurate & detailed reply will depend all else, inclusive
of yr safe passage to another place.

A friend

Rennie remained indoors at the Drawbridge all the day,
and drafted a careful reply, according to Sir Robert Greer's
plan, and with some additional refinements of his own
invention. At length he had a suitable text, and wrote it out
diligently – as diligently as he would have written one of his
formal letters to the Admiralty, at sea.

My dear Friend,

I thank you for your most welcome letter of yesterday's
date, and the proposals therein.

I am obliged to say at once, for yr own protection, that
I am loth to send all of the details & particulars you
require by the hand of a boy.

I will like to bring these particulars to you by my own
hand, not merely as a safeguard, to obviate impairment
to their delivery by interests inimical to our design; I
have, in another distinction, further information I wish
to give you, in the form of a most heedful, intricate and
safe route of departure, whereby all hazard and difficulty
may be put aside.

I send this by the boy, but dare not entrust to his
immaturity anything more of my intention & purpose.

In the most earnest hope & expectation that you will
look favourable on this proposal, I await yr earliest
response.

I will only add that in course I am willing to come to
you at any hour, at yr convenience.

I remain, sir, yr most humble & obedient servant,

A colleague

On the morrow Rennie waited at the inn all the morning,
and the boy did not come. He waited until the evening, and
then ventured out for a breath of air – as relief from the stale
and foetid fug of the taproom, and the sparse solitude of his
room upstairs – with the earnest injunction that if the boy
came there in his absence he was to be detained until Rennie's
return.

He walked along the fortifications in the gathering darkness,
saw the lights of the Gosport shore, and the riding lights
of ships at anchor, and smelled the wind coming off the sea.
The evening was unseasonably chill. Rennie shivered, turned
up the collar of his coat, and imagined himself on the canting
deck of the
Hawk
.

'What will James be thinking, now?' he asked himself.
'Will he wonder at his instructions, his duty? Yes, very
probably he will – since he ain't a fool, and will put two and
two together when he don't find the
Lark
. He will do his
duty, all the same, as I would in his shoes . . .'

He shivered again, hunched into his coat, and walked back
to the Point. When he reached the Drawbridge Inn, Sawley
Mallison took him aside in the taproom, cupped a hand and
in a brandy-wafting husk spoke in Rennie's ear.

'There's a gen'man to see you, sir. Urgent, in the parlour.'

'Who is it? Did not the boy come?'

Mallison shook his head. 'He did not. Gen'man's name is
Scott.'

'Scott?' Mystified. 'I know no one of that name . . .' Had
the fellow come in the boy's place?

Rennie made his way to the parlour door, and went in. He
saw no one, and then heard the door click shut behind him.

'Captain Rennie.'

Rennie turned sharply, and saw a man in a shabby brown
coat and breeches, and plain buff stockings and worn shoes.
His face was half-hidden beneath a brown hat in the subdued
light – until he came forward and removed the hat.

'Good God – Sir Robert!'

'Indeed. Shall we sit down?'

Rennie saw that on Sawley Mallison's little parlour table a
tray had been laid, with a jug of wine, glasses, and a plate of
biscuits. The fire had been stoked in the grate, and a new
candle lighted. They sat down, and now Rennie remembered.

'We have met before in this way, Sir Robert, have not we?'

'Indeed, Rennie, we have. Years since, at the Marine Hotel,
when I had adopted this same disguise in pursuit of my
various aims, you came to me there, in a private parlour.'

'Exact, I did.'

Sir Robert poured wine, offered biscuits. 'I will like to
know what progress ye've made, and why there has been so
great a delay in communication.' The black gaze.

'I am awaiting upon a reply to my letter, sent by hand
yesterday.'

'You made a copy of the letter?'

'Ah – no. I had – '

'No copy! Did not I tell you most particular, you must
make a fair copy of anything sent? Hey!'

Rennie began to bristle, checked himself, and instead of a
snappish reply he said:

'I have kept the original letter, that came to me here.'

'Show it to me.' Putting down the jug and holding out an
impatient hand.

Rennie brought the folded letter from his coat, the broken
seal catching in the pocket and sending a crumble of red wax
on the floor. He gave the letter to Sir Robert, who perused it
with a frown.

'Very well. Now then, tell me accurate – line by line – what
you have said in reply to this.'

Rennie told him, and Sir Robert listened intently, head
cocked on one side. When Rennie had finished:

'Very well. I do not quite like your embellishment about
the route of departure, and so forth, but no matter. If it
will aid us in arranging a meeting between you and Faulk,
then your work will have been done, and our design
accomplished.'

'Thank you, Sir Robert.' Inclining his head in what he
hoped was not too ironical a manner, damn the fellow.
'However, there may be an impediment . . .'

'Yes?' The gaze.

'When I was brought back here – did I tell you of this? –
when I was conveyed from the house where I was took after
the brawl in the Pewter Tavern, I was blindfolded, so that I
would not know the location of the place – '

'D'y'mean – where Aidan Faulk was? He was there,
himself?'

'I do not know that it was Faulk. I could not see his face, Sir
Rob—'

'You was at his hiding place! You was took there! And did
not contrive to get word to me! Good heaven, Rennie, the
wretch might have been took! This whole episode might now
have been concluded, and Faulk in chains!'

'Sir Robert,' with great forbearance, 'I was carried there
unconscious from the Pewter Inn, and woke very hazy in a
low-lit room – '

'Surely y'could have contrived to escape! Surely y'could
have sent word! Why do I learn of this only now, tonight?' Sir
Robert turned away down the little room, and stood with his
hands clenched at his sides. Turned back with a piercing dark
furious glare.

'I wonder if I have not chose the wrong man in you,
Captain Rennie. The wrong man entire, for this exacting
work. You are not a man of high education, nor understanding,
nor enterprise. You are found wanting, in the
nation's interest. Timid, faltering, and inept.'

And now Rennie could contain his anger – his furious
anger – no longer. All the duties, pressures, requirements and
stipulations lately placed upon him, in all their exhausting
cost to him, to his very sanity, now welled up and surged in a
tide from his breast into his head. Sir Robert came to the
table, and opened his mouth to say something more, and
Rennie:

'Damn your infernal cruelty and impudence, sir! Nay
nay
!
Do not utter a single further syllable, or by God ye'll know
the consequence!
D'y'hear me?
'

In spite of himself, of the great inner conviction of his
power and position, Sir Robert was given pause by the bitter
ferocity of Rennie's outburst. He took a step back, quite
involuntarily, and opened his mouth to reassert his authority.
Before he could say a single word:

'Did not I say,
do not speak
, damn your blood! You will
allow me – by God, you will – to tell you my only proposal as
to this affair! I absolve myself from it! Aye, absolve!'

Sir Robert closed bloodless lids over his black eyes, a
gesture he had used to great effect in many past circumstances
where his authority must needs be imposed upon
unruly naval men. Closed them, and raised an imperious
hand, and drew a deep breath. However:

'
Hush! Hush, sir!
Do not have the temerity to speak to me,
until I allow it! I absolve myself, release myself, find myself at
liberty entire! And you may do your worst, sir! Threaten, and
condemn, and have me bound in chains, instead of your
damned quarry Aidan Faulk! I do not care! I am no longer
your slave, your snivelling, complaisant, gutter-low creature!
Y'may go to the devil, and may he welcome you with open
arms, too, you miserable savage, for you and he are
blood
brothers
!'