Rapscallion

“We could use the cover of night,” Lasseur said. “Steal a boat.”

Murat shook his head again. “They hoist the boats up alongside. They’re at least ten feet above the water. One’s kept afloat, but it’s secured by a chain from the boarding raft and that’s always under guard.”

“Damn.” Lasseur bit his lip.

Hawkwood addressed Murat. “How did the others get off?”

“Others?” Warily.

“There have been others, haven’t there?” Lasseur pressed.

There was a noticeable hesitation. An artful look stole over the interpreter’s face. “As I said, Captain, you’ve only been here a short time. You wouldn’t expect all our little secrets to be revealed to you quite so soon.”

So, you do have secrets, Hawkwood thought.

Lasseur’s eyebrows rose. “Why, Lieutenant, anyone would think you didn’t trust us.”

The interpreter spread his hands. “For a start, there’s the matter of the pot. You haven’t put anything in yet.”

“Pot?” Lasseur looked to Hawkwood for enlightenment. “What pot? What the devil’s he talking about now?”

“Your friend Fouchet didn’t tell you?” Murat said, a half smile forming on his lips.

“Tell us what?” Hawkwood sat back.

“There’s a contribution taken from our food rations. It’s kept back for prisoners on punishment. If anyone disobeys the rules or does damage to the hulk, they’re reduced to two-thirds quota. The food we put by is used to help them out.”

“Very generous,” Lasseur said. “And maybe a little something’s put aside for escapers as well? Is that it?”

Murat hesitated again.

“Why, Lieutenant, you sly boots!” Lasseur grinned.

The interpreter coloured.

“All right,” Hawkwood said. “Let’s not piss around here. What’s it going to cost?”

Murat blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t take us for fools, Lieutenant.”

“Think of your commission.” Lasseur arched an eyebrow suggestively.

“And how generous we might be,” Hawkwood added.

A light flickered behind the interpreter’s eyes.

“Well?” Hawkwood prompted, recognizing the bright glint of greed.

Murat stared at them for a long time. Finally he sighed. “If such a thing could be arranged – and I’m not saying it could – it would not be cheap. There are expenses, you understand.”

Lasseur patted the interpreter’s knee. “That’s my boy.” The privateer turned to Hawkwood and winked. “Didn’t I tell you Lieutenant Murat was the man to see?”

Murat seemed to flinch from the touch, but he recovered quickly.

Hawkwood leaned forward. “All right, how much?”

The interpreter hesitated again. Hawkwood suspected he was doing it for effect.

“Just for the sake of argument,” Hawkwood said.

“For the sake of argument?”

“The three of us having a little chat, nothing more.”

Murat looked around. Then, in a low voice, he said, “I’m assuming you would not be expecting passage all the way back to America?”

“You get me as far as French soil and let me worry about the rest.”

Murat sat back. “Very well; four thousand francs, or two hundred English pounds, if you prefer.”

Hawkwood sucked in his breath.

“Each,” Murat finished.

“God’s teeth!” Hawkwood sat back. “We don’t want to buy the bloody ship. We just want to get off it. The highest offer I had for my boots was only twenty francs. We’ll both be dead from old age or the flux before we’d earned enough. Are you mad?”

“The price would include all transport, accommodation and safe passage to France.”

“For that sort of money,” Hawkwood said, “I’d expect the Emperor to collect me in a golden barge and carry me up the bloody beach when we got there!”

Lasseur chuckled. Then his face grew serious.

“How the hell do you expect us to find that sort of money?” Hawkwood demanded.

The interpreter shook his head. “An agent makes contact with your families. It’s they who arrange payment. Once the full fee’s been paid, preparations for your departure would begin.”

“How do we get off the ship?”

Murat smiled. “Come now, gentlemen; I’m sure you understand the need for discretion. The less you know at this stage, the safer it will be for all of us. I would also urge you to keep this conversation to yourselves.”

“You’re telling us the walls have ears?” Lasseur asked.

Murat grimaced. “It’s not unknown for the British to plant spies among us, but no, sadly, there have been occasions when betrayal has come from closer to home.”

Hawkwood felt his insides contract.

“Traitors?” Lasseur said.

“Not necessarily. You forget, we’re not the only nationality on board these hulks. Captain Hooper is proof of that. We’ve got Danes, Italians, Swedes, Norwegians … take your pick. France has many allies. There’ll be some who’d look to alleviate their misery by claiming a reward for informing on their fellow prisoners.”

Hawkwood prayed that nothing was showing on his face. At least he’d discovered one thing: if there was an organized escape route, it was only available to the rich. He wondered how deep Bow Street’s coffers were and what James Read’s reaction would be when Ludd relayed details of the amount involved: four years’ salary for a Runner.

Hawkwood felt Lasseur’s hand on his arm.

He realized the privateer had misinterpreted his silence for doubt when Lasseur said, “You’re wondering how you would raise the fee?”

“It’s not the money,” Hawkwood said, recovering. “It’s making the payment.”

That could prove an interesting exercise, Hawkwood thought, unless Ludd came up with a practical idea during their meeting.

Lasseur patted Hawkwood’s shoulder reassuringly and, to Hawkwood’s surprise, said, “No need to fret, my friend.” The privateer turned to Murat. “I will cover the fee for Captain Hooper.”

Murat looked momentarily nonplussed, then shrugged, almost dismissively. “Very well.”

“How long will it be before we hear anything?” Lasseur asked.

“I cannot say. I’ll require the name of the person you wish the agent to contact and a note to prove the agent is acting on your behalf. You’ll be notified as soon as we receive word that agreement has been reached and payment made.” Murat looked at them. “Are the terms acceptable?”

Lasseur and Hawkwood exchanged looks.

“For the sake of argument?” Lasseur said. “Perfectly.”

“Well?” Lasseur asked. “What do you think?”

“I think Lieutenant Murat’s a duplicitous bastard,” Hawkwood said.

They were back on the forecastle. The stifling atmosphere below had been too much to bear. They had emerged topsides to find that the breeze, although still persistent, had dropped considerably.

“I believe we’d already established that,” Lasseur said drily, and then frowned. “You’re still worrying about the fee, aren’t you? As I said, do not concern yourself. You can repay me when we’re home.”

“You hardly know me,” Hawkwood said.

“That’s true,” Lasseur agreed. “But I’m an excellent judge of character. You’ll honour the bargain. I know it.” The privateer grinned disarmingly. “And if you prove me wrong, I shall cut out your heart and feed it to the pigs.”

“Your wife’s parents can find that amount?” Hawkwood asked. He had no idea, but he didn’t think a French farmer’s income was that high.

“No.” Lasseur shook his head, and then said firmly, “But my men can. The name I gave to the lieutenant was one of my agents.”

“You have agents in England?” Hawkwood said.

“But of course.” Lasseur looked surprised that Hawkwood had even thought to ask. “I have a number in my employ. They keep me advised of British naval movements.”

Hawkwood sensed his preoccupation with the means of payment must still have shown on his face, for Lasseur paused and then said, “What? Don’t tell me you were thinking of waiting in case your parole is granted? Forgive me, but I do not see you as a man content to bide his time in an English coffee house waiting for the war to end. You said I don’t know you. Well, I do know you’re a soldier, and you know both our countries need men like us to continue the fight. That’s why we’re going to escape from this place. I shall return to my son and my ship. You will return to your woman and your Regiment of Riflemen, and between us we will defeat the British. You will do it for your new country and your President Madison and I will do it for my Emperor and the glory of France. One can never put a fee on patriotism, my friend, and four thousand francs is a small price to pay for victory. What say you?”

Confronted by Lasseur’s earnest expression, Hawkwood forced another grin. “I say when do we leave?”

Lasseur slapped him on the back.

It had turned into a fine summer’s day. The sunlight and the sharp cries from the gulls circling and diving above them, although plaintive in tone, were a welcome relief after the gloom of the gun deck. Shirts and breeches flapped from the lines strung between the yards. Faint sounds of industry carried from the dockyard: the ringing clang of a hammer, the rattle of a chain, the rasp of timber being sawn. Out on the river, a pair of frigates, sails billowing like grey clouds, raced each other towards the mouth of the estuary.

It was only when the eye returned to the deck of the hulk and on across the sterns of the other prison ships visible over her bow that the view was marred. The hulks squatted in the water as if carved from blocks of coal. Plumes of black smoke pumping from their chimney stacks spiralled into the azure sky, proving that darkness could be visited even upon the very brightest of days.

And as if to emphasize the fact, the calm was shattered by a blood-curdling howl and up on to the already crowded well deck erupted a seething tide of horror.

From his vantage point on the forecastle Hawkwood saw the throng of prisoners break apart. Sharp cries of panic rang out. He heard Lasseur draw in his breath. He wasn’t sure what he was seeing at first. It was like watching beetles swarm over the carcass of a dead animal, except the creatures that were spewing out of the hatches and trampling over the Park were not beetles, they were human, and many of them were naked. Their hair was long and matted; their bodies were daubed with filth. The ones that were not naked might as well have been, for the rags they were wearing were little more than strips of tattered cloth. Some of them, Hawkwood realized, were wearing blankets, which they’d wrapped around themselves like togas. Hissing and screeching, fangs bared, they surged around the other prisoners like a marauding pack of baboons, leaping and prancing and in some cases laying about them with fists and feet. Others were beating mess tins. The noise was ferocious.

Yells of alarm echoed around the quarterdeck. As the militia gathered their startled wits and hurried to unsling their muskets, a uniformed officer materialized behind them, tall and thin. The dark, cocked hat accentuated his height. It was the commander of the hulk, Lieutenant Hellard. Flanked by the guards, the lieutenant strode quickly to the rail and stared down at the fracas below. His face contorted. Without moving, he rapped out a command. Half a dozen more guards, led by a corporal, appeared at a clattering run from the lean-to on the stern. Their fellow militia, already at the rails and secure in the knowledge that reinforcements had come to support them, drew back the hammers on their muskets. Within seconds, a battery of gun muzzles was aligned along the width of the quarterdeck.

With the ruction on the Park in full spate, the lieutenant raised his arm. The corporal barked an order and the militia took aim.

God’s teeth! Hawkwood thought. He’s going to do it!

But the lieutenant did not give the order. Instead he continued to watch the drama playing out on the deck. The militia guards’ fingers played nervously with the triggers of their guns.

For two or three minutes the uproar continued. Then, suddenly, as if a signal had been given, the situation changed. The naked and toga-clad creatures began to pull back. The other prisoners started to regroup. Several, emboldened by the sight of the retreating horde, waded into their former tormentors, beating them towards the open hatchways. Some were wielding sticks. Arms rose and fell. Cries of pain and anger told where the blows landed. Driven back, the invaders were disappearing down the stairways from which they had so recently emerged, like cockroaches scuttling from the light.

Within seconds, or so it seemed, the attackers had all dispersed. Immediately, several hands were thrust aloft, palms open; a signal that the prisoners left on deck had the situation under control. The lieutenant, however, did not move, nor did he give any indication that he’d even seen the raised hands. Remaining motionless, he watched the deck. The prisoners stared back at him, chests heaving. Some were bloody and bruised. A tense silence fell over the Park. A gull shrieked high above. No one moved. It took another ten seconds before the lieutenant finally let his arm relax and stepped back. Immediately, the tension on the well deck evaporated. The militia uncocked and shouldered their muskets. The reinforcements turned about. The deck guards resumed their posts. The atmosphere on the well deck settled back into its habitual torpor. The hurt prisoners retired to lick their wounds.

Hawkwood discovered he was holding his breath. He let it out slowly.

“What happened there?” Lasseur breathed. “Who in God’s name were they?”

“Romans,” a voice said behind them. “Bastards!”

Hawkwood and Lasseur turned. It was Charbonneau.

“Romans?” Hawkwood said, thinking he must have misheard.

“Scum,” Charbonneau said, his eyes blazing. “They live on the orlop. We don’t see them very often. They prefer the dark. Some of them have been here longer than I have. We call them Romans from the way they wear their blankets, like togas. They have other names, but they’re still animals. They used to be held in prisons ashore. Got sent to the hulks as punishment, I was told. Now it’s the rest of us who’re suffering – twice over.”

“Some of them were naked!” Lasseur said, unnecessarily.

Charbonneau nodded. “They’re the lowest of the lot. They’ll be the ones who’ve gambled all their belongings away. It’s how they exist. They have a mania for it. Cards and dice dominate their lives. Most start with money. When that’s gone, they wager their clothes and their bedding, even their rations. Sometimes they starve themselves, hoarding their rations to sell them off and then start over again. When they run out of belongings or food they steal from others or roam the decks looking for peelings or fish heads. Even the rats aren’t safe. Now and again they send out raiding parties, like the one you just saw.”

“Rafalés,” Hawkwood murmured.

“Some call them that,” Charbonneau said, eyes narrowing. “You’ve heard of them?”

Hawkwood nodded.

“Why don’t the guards punish them?” Lasseur asked.

Charbonneau gave a dry laugh. “How? Look around. You think this place isn’t punishment enough? In any case, the commander’s hands are tied. They can’t be flogged. No prisoner can. Direct physical punishment’s forbidden, unless a British soldier or crew member is harmed.”

“So he wouldn’t have given the order to fire?” Lasseur said.

“Not unless there’d been a full-scale riot which threatened the safety of his men. As far as our commander’s concerned, any disagreement between prisoners is dealt with by prisoners’ tribunal.” Charbonneau sniffed dismissively. “What goes on below deck stays below deck. It’s got so that the guards hardly ever enter the orlop now. They leave them to get on with it. The rest of us don’t go down there either. It’s not safe. You saw what they were like.”

Hawkwood remembered the scream he’d heard on his first night and the lack of reaction it had provoked. He looked across the Park towards the quarterdeck and watched as the hulk’s commander removed his hat, turned his face to the sun and closed his eyes. The lieutenant stood still, letting the warmth soak into his skin. His hair was dark and streaked with grey.

After what must have been half a minute at least, the lieutenant opened his eyes and dropped his chin. Running a hand through his hair, he placed the hat back on his head and turned to go. Abruptly, he paused, as if aware that his unguarded moment had been observed. He looked over his shoulder. Hawkwood made no attempt to glance away as the lieutenant’s brooding eyes roved slowly along the line of prisoners. As Hellard’s gaze passed over his own, it seemed for a second as though the hulk commander’s attention lingered, but then, as the lieutenant’s stare moved on, the moment was gone. Hawkwood decided it had been his imagination, which was probably just as well. Clad in civilian clothes rather than the ubiquitous yellow jacket and trousers, Hawkwood knew he’d risked drawing attention to himself by making eye contact with the lieutenant. It had been an unwise move.

“Unless I’m mistaken,” Lasseur commented softly as the lieutenant made his way from the deck, “there’s a man who spends a lot of time in his own company.”

The world began to revolve once more. Charbonneau drifted away. Beneath Hawkwood’s and Lasseur’s vantage point, a fencing class was being conducted. In the absence of edged weapons, the students were reduced to wielding the thin sticks that had been used to quell the recent invasion – still a risky venture given the confines of the classroom – and the Park echoed to the click-clack of wooden foils.

“Can’t say I care much for their instructor,” Lasseur said dismissively, looking down at the scene. “The man’s style is abominable. Do you fence?”

“When the mood takes me,” Hawkwood said.

Lasseur grunted at the noncommittal answer and then said, “A splendid exercise; the pursuit of gentlemen. Perhaps we should give lessons, too? Earn ourselves some extra rations.”

The dry tone in the privateer’s voice hinted that Lasseur was being sarcastic, so Hawkwood didn’t bother to reply. He looked out across the water. Lasseur did the same. The two frigates were nearing the mouth of the river. Close hauled, yards braced, their nearness to one another suggested a friendly rivalry between the crews, with each ship determined to steal the wind from her opponent, knowing the loser would be left floundering, sheets and sails flapping, her embarrassment plain for all to see.

From Lasseur’s distant gaze and by the way his hands were holding on to the rail, knuckles white, Hawkwood sensed the Frenchman was thinking about his own ship. Hawkwood tried to imagine what might be going through the privateer’s mind, but suspected the task was beyond him. His world was so far removed from Lasseur’s that any attempt to decipher the faraway look was probably futile.

While there were inherent dangers attached to both their professions, it was there the similarity ended. Hawkwood’s world was one of ill-lit streets, thieves’ kitchens, flash houses, fences, rogues and rookeries. Lasseur’s, in total contrast, was the open deck of a sailing ship, running before the wind. It seemed to Hawkwood that, whereas his world was an enclosed one, almost as dark and degrading as the hulk’s gun deck, Lasseur’s was one of freedom, of the open main and endless skies. For Lasseur, being cooped up on the prison ship would be like a bird whose wings had been clipped. Small wonder his desire to escape was so strong.

“How long will it take, do you think?” Lasseur asked. He did not look around but continued to follow the frigates’ progress towards the open water.

“Murat?”

Lasseur nodded.

“He has the advantage,” Hawkwood said. “He’ll probably be content to keep us waiting, even if it’s just to teach us who’s pulling the strings. It could be a while.”

Lasseur turned. There was a bleak look in his eyes. “Any longer in this place and I swear I’ll go mad.”

“One day at a time,” Hawkwood said. “That’s how we have to look at it. I hate to admit it, but the bastard was right about one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“We should be patient.”

Lasseur grimaced. “Not one of my better virtues.”

“Mine neither,” Hawkwood admitted, “except, we don’t have a choice. Right now, I don’t think there’s much else we can do.”

Lasseur nodded wearily. “You’re right, of course. It does not mean I have to like it, though, does it?”

Hawkwood didn’t answer. In his mind’s eye he saw again the mob of prisoners rising out of the hatches and the mayhem they had created. Lasseur had referred to the hulk as a version of Hell. From what Hawkwood had witnessed so far, the privateer’s description had been horribly accurate. In his time as a Runner, Hawkwood had visited a good number of London’s gaols: Newgate, Bridewell, and the Fleet among them. They were, without exception, terrible places. But this black, heartless hulk was something different. There was true horror at work here, Hawkwood sensed. He wasn’t sure what form it took or if he would be confronted by it, but he knew instinctively that it would be like nothing he’d encountered before.

6

The interpreter had been wrong about the smell. After four days, Hawkwood still hadn’t grown used to it. Grim smells were nothing new, living in London had seen to that, but in the enclosed world of the gun deck, four hundred bodies generated their own particular odour and, despite the open ports and hatches, the warm weather meant there was no way of drawing cooler and fresher air into the ship. The sea breezes afforded no respite. They brought only the damp, faecal aroma of the marshes, which hung across the polluted river like a moisture-laden blanket.

That said, Hawkwood decided Murat might have got it wrong when he’d nominated fever and consumption as the most prominent causes of death aboard the ship. From what Hawkwood had seen, it was more than likely one of the main culprits was unremitting boredom.

While a proportion of the hulk’s inmates did engage in productive pursuits such as arts and crafts, giving or receiving lessons, or setting themselves up as shoemakers or tradesmen in tobacco or other goods, it seemed to Hawkwood that they were in the minority. A vast number of the ship’s population opted to pass their days in idleness. Even on the gun deck, men gambled. It wasn’t difficult to recognize the ones who’d fallen under the spell. The quiet desperation in their eyes as they laid down their cards or took their time lifting the cup from the little cubes of bone, knowing their inevitable descent to the deck below had already begun, was evidence enough. Others engaged in more dubious dealings: the manipulation of weaker inmates through theft, intimidation and sexual gratification, followed by threats of reprisal if their authority was questioned. Some sought sanctuary by curling up and sleeping wherever there was room – and there wasn’t much room. The remainder seemed content merely to wait and to die.

In an attempt to evade the stink, Hawkwood kept to the forecastle as much as possible, sometimes with Lasseur for company. To avoid remaining sedentary, he’d lent his labour to the hulk’s work parties. This had drawn comment from some of his fellow prisoners. Most officers regarded such labour as beneath their dignity and preferred to pay a substitute to carry out any manual tasks assigned to them. The going rate was one sou or ten ounces of bread from the day’s rations.

Hawkwood had no such qualms, having served in the Rifles, where every man was expected to pitch in. And even before that, as a captain, it had always been Hawkwood’s contention that he would never assign a task to one of his soldiers that he wasn’t prepared to do himself. It had been a good way to garner loyalty and in the heat of battle it had served him and the men he’d led very well. So Hawkwood had willingly lent his back to hoisting supplies on board and swilling down the foredeck and the Park after supper. Better the smell of honest sweat in his nostrils than the all-pervading stench of the hulk’s lower deck.