Under Enemy Colours

by Sean Thomas Russell

  “How is it with your wound?” Hayden asked.

  Bourne returned from his thoughts, his smile reappearing. “Oh, it’s nothing. I’ve sustained worse wounds during my morning skirmish with the razor.”

  Hayden followed Bourne onto the deck into a blue Biscay day.

  “A fine morning to set sail for England. My crew are most anxious that you not neglect our mail, Mr Hayden.”

  “Not for a moment.” He shook hands with Bourne. “I cannot thank you enough for your kindness.”

  Bourne looked almost perplexed. “Kindness? I should never grant you more credit than you deserve, Mr Hayden. The Admiralty might promote the careers of men who are undeserving, but I would never do it. Luck to you, Mr Hayden.”

  Hayden went quickly over the side and down into the cutter. The French ship had no boats, as some of her crew had escaped in them to Belle Île, so Bourne had given them one of his cutters—a great sacrifice on his part. If fortune did not favour Hayden, having a ship’s boat might save his vessel and the lives of his crew.

  As he was rowed over the slowly heaving sea, Hayden found himself staring at the captured frigate—a lovely-looking vessel, all told. If he had remained in France, with his training and background, he might have just such a command now. It was an unsettling thought, in part because the idea was as attractive as it was repellent. It was with some trepidation that he took hold of the ladder rung and scaled the topsides.

  Unlike his reception aboard the Tenacious, little fuss was made when he reached the deck of the French prize. Bourne’s acting second lieutenant congratulated him heartily, but then Hayden’s disquiet was thrust down so that he could attend to business. His own men from the Themis were ferried over from the Lucy, and he made Wickham his acting first (and only) lieutenant. The ship was surveyed from stem to stern and keel to truck, all her damage assessed.

  Forward on the orlop-deck, substantial bulkheads had been erected to curtail the liberty of the French prisoners. Hayden called for the master-at-arms to unlock and open the door. The low murmuring of his mother’s tongue died away as he ducked into the dim chamber. A little light and air funnelled down from a grated scuttle, but the air was musty and noisome all the same. The prisoners lounged about the cramped space, staring darkly at the Englishmen who had suddenly appeared in their midst. They had a dolorous, aggrieved air about them, as though they had somehow been falsely accused and imprisoned unjustly. Hayden was about to speak, but his mouth went suddenly dry, and he backed quickly out the door, nodding to the sentry who threw the bolts and clapped the lock in place. He had a desperate need for air, but before he could retreat toward the ladder, Bourne’s lieutenant spoke.

  “There is one among the prisoners who appears to be shunned by the others,” the man informed him. “He has been trying to speak to us, but we have not enough French among us to fathom what he is saying. The only Frenchman who appears to speak a little civilized English will only shrug when we ask what the man is saying. Likely a pederast, I would think. The French crew call him something that sounds like ‘Le Boho,’ whatever that might mean.”

  “Boho?” Hayden repeated, surprised. “Do you know the man’s name?”

  The young officer stopped and gazed at Hayden. “He calls himself Fournier, I believe, but the prisoners name him Sanson.” And then, seeing Hayden’s reaction, “Have you heard of him?”

  “Sanson is a name not unknown among the French. Can you bring the man out to me?”

  “I can.” The young lieutenant hurried off.

  Hayden retreated to the light and air of the quarterdeck, where Wickham found him.

  “Stores are adequate to see us to England, Mr Hayden,” the newly minted officer reported, “though little further. Powder, shot, cordage all sufficient to our needs. The only commodity we seem to lack is grog, sir, though this appears to have been made up for by a surplus of wine.”

  “The poor hands shall have to make do with French claret, then,” Hayden answered, not without a smile, “and French victuals, too.”

  Bourne’s lieutenant appeared in the companionway, accompanied by a man with his hands bound, watched over by two sailors with muskets. Hayden took the measure of this Frenchman, feeling both repulsion and intrigue. He was young, early twenties, and darkly handsome, though of small stature. His manner was grave, wounded, as though he expected to be badly used, yet he carried himself with some pride all the same, or perhaps defiance.

  “Monsieur,” Hayden said.

  “Capitaine,” the man replied, making a deferential nod, a slight raising of the bound hands as though in supplication. “I am Giles … Sanson,” he said in the French of an educated Parisian. “It might be of little consequence to you, monsieur, but if I am left among my own countrymen they will likely do me harm, for the few junior officers who remain have not the authority to restrain them.”

  “And why would they do this, Monsieur Sanson?”

  The man hesitated only an instant—a quick glance into Hayden’s eyes. “Though I have tried to hide it,” he replied, “they have learned that my family have been … executioners for many generations. We are disdained, monsieur, and though I have never so much as assisted at an execution—in truth, have endeavoured to separate myself from the occupation of my family—they hate me all the same. I must throw myself upon your mercy, Capitaine, and beg for your protection. Without it I believe I will be gravely harmed, perhaps murdered.”

  Hayden regarded the young man. He had heard of les bourreaux during his time spent in France, but like most of the inhabitants of that country, he knew little about them. A small cadre of families had been the executioners for several centuries; despised, feared, ostracized. They married among themselves, lived often in proximity to one another, and maintained a mysterious little society of their own, keeping the guillotine and passing the secrets of their trade down from one generation to the next. Hayden’s uncle had told him that some individuals had conducted several hundred executions during their tenure. And here stood a child of such a family, hands bound, appealing to him for protection.

  “I can keep you separate from your countrymen, Monsieur Sanson, but I will have to put you in leg irons while you remain aboard ship.”

  “Capitaine, I will accept this gladly rather than stay among my countrymen, but if there is any small service I might perform I will give you my oath that I shall not attempt to escape, or cause you the least distress.”

  Hayden regarded the man’s eyes, trying to sense a lie. “What was your position aboard ship?”

  “I assisted the chef until it was discovered who I was, and then the men would not deign to touch food I had prepared. The capitaine allowed me to act as his servant, though I believe that secretly his feelings toward me were no different from the others’.”

  “Then you will be my servant, though if you make any trouble I will toss you back in with your countrymen in a moment. At night you will be put in leg irons.”

  The man bowed his head. “I shall do everything within my power to repay your kindness, and I swear, I will act, under any circumstances, as an Englishman would.”

  Hayden waved a hand at the Frenchman and said in English, “Release him. The man will act as my servant until we reach Plymouth.”

  Sanson’s bonds were removed, and he chafed his wrists, his eyes glistening with tears barely held back.

  “I have come aboard ship with no kit. Not even a razor,” Hayden stated to the Frenchman. “I shall have to scavenge what I can from among the French officers’ belongings.”

  “The late capitaine has no need of his effects now,” Sanson replied. “I will see if they are still in order, if you wish.”

  “Yes, go down into his cabin and find what you can. We will speak later.”

  The man bobbed his head, and then with a glance at the two seamen who still trained their muskets on him, he slunk away.

  “I trust you know what you’re doing, Mr Hayden,” Bourne’s lieutenant observed.

  “That is
my hope as well.”

  “Who is he, Mr Hayden?” the man asked. “Why do his fellows treat him so?”

  “They think him a gypsy,” Hayden lied.

  “Ah,” the lieutenant said, “he has a dark countenance, doesn’t he? Don’t you worry that he’ll steal from you?”

  “He won’t steal from me.”

  The lieutenant looked a bit embarrassed, uncertain of Hayden’s blunt response. “I’m sure you know what you do,” he repeated. “I’ll take myself back to the Tenacious if you have no further use for my services.”

  Hayden thanked the lieutenant for his assistance, and shook his hand as he climbed over the rail.

  He turned to Wickham then. “Did you understand the conversation I had with the Frenchman?”

  Wickham took off his hat and wiped a sleeve across his brow. “I did, Mr Hayden. How … remarkable.”

  “I would ask that you repeat it to no one. The man appears to have been persecuted enough.”

  Wickham nodded. “Of course, sir. Not a word. But when we reach England it will be into the hulks for him. You won’t be able to protect him then.”

  “No, but for the next few days he can live without fear. That I can manage. Come, we have much work to do. I want to be under way before the sun reaches its zenith.”

  But the sun’s zenith had passed, if only by a little, before Hayden had his ship under sail. He gazed out over his new command, the tiny crew—forty men—running about the deck and scrambling aloft. He prayed the winds would be fair all the way to England, for he had hardly men enough to reduce sail, let alone deliver them from a gale of wind.

  “Does she not move handsomely through the water?” Wickham asked. The young midshipman stood by the man at the wheel, gazing over their ship, eyes fairly gleaming. His first commission as acting lieutenant. It did not matter that he had only received it due to a terrible shortage of officers and because his own ship had sailed off and left him. He was an officer—at least for a few days.

  “That she does, Mr Wickham.”

  “I think she is making better speed than would the Themis in the same wind and sea.”

  “Very possibly,” Hayden answered, suppressing a smile. He went to the stern rail and looked about the horizon. The Tenacious and the Lucy were both dropping astern, and in toward the French coast he could just make out some specks of sail half-submerged in the low fog—coasters or fishermen, hardly worth his notice even if he had enough crew to fight his ship, which he certainly did not. If they encountered the enemy he would be forced to subterfuge and prayers, for his tiny crew could not hope to man even a few guns and at the same time handle sail.

  Hayden patted the rail—French oak. Although the ship was only distinguishable from an English frigate in her details, she felt both familiar and terribly alien.

  “On deck!” came the familiar cry. “Open boats, point and a half off the starboard bow.”

  Hayden gave his head a shake and turned to his duties. “Are they fishermen, Price?”

  “Don’t appear so, sir. Look like ship’s boats. Cutters, mayhap.”

  “Run aloft and see what you make of them, if you please, Mr Wickham.”

  “Sir.” The midshipman hurried forward and scrambled up the shrouds with the same energy he always displayed, and Hayden was glad to see his temporary rise in status had not gone to his head, making him feel that such a task was beneath him.

  A moment later Wickham stood in the fore top, looking down at Hayden, who had made his way forward. “I would wager that Price knows his business, Mr Hayden. These are ship’s boats or I’m a black-fish.”

  “Alter course to starboard, if you please,” Hayden called back to the man at the wheel, “a point and a half. Sail trimmers to their stations.”

  Crewmen were in such short supply that Hayden helped slack the sheet of a foresail himself, almost having forgotten what salt-hardened hemp felt like. He called for his glass and stood at the bow a moment gazing at the distant boats, too far off to make out clearly as they were swallowed and then bobbed up to the top of a wave. He swung the leather strap of his glass over a shoulder and joined Wickham on the fore top. The acting lieutenant had his glass trained on the sea almost dead ahead.

  “Do you know, sir, there is a man sitting in the bow of the nearer boat that looks for all the world like Mr Barthe. I swear I can see his red hair, grey strands and all.”

  Hayden fixed his glass on the closest boat. “You have better eyes than I, Wickham. I can make out the boats, but little more, though I did think I detected a flash of red in the further boat.”

  Wickham moved his glass a little, and for a moment concentrated silently to focus his glass on the moving boat, trying to allow for the motion of his own ship as well. “There are men in red jackets, I think,” the boy said. “Do you suppose a French ship might have sunk out here?”

  “Perhaps, but those boats are travelling north with the wind, not toward the shore as you would expect. Do they wave a jacket or do anything at all to gain our attention?”

  “They don’t appear to, Mr Hayden. They are an uncharacteristically retiring assembly of castaways, I should say. Perhaps they’ve mistaken us for an Englishman …”

  “Which would be no mistake, but I take your meaning. We shall have our answer by and by.”

  Hayden was about to set out for the deck, when Wickham exclaimed, “Sir! Those are British marines; I swear to it.”

  Hayden returned to his position, braced himself against the roll of the ship, and tried to fix his glass on the distant boat. To keep the tiny object centred in the lens was maddingly difficult, but after a few moments he at least agreed that there were a number of people dressed in red. Whether they were marines, or even men, he could not say, but Wickham had better eyes than he.

  Hayden climbed down to the deck, though a strange feeling of disquiet began to overtake him. During the course of the next half hour he twice made the journey forward with his glass, where he paused to gaze at the distant boats, their white oars flashing rhythmically in the bright summer light. As he stood by the bow-chaser the second time, trying to hold the little boats in the wavering eye of his glass, Wickham called from aloft.

  “That is Mr Barthe, Mr Hayden! Those boats are from the Themis. I can see Mr Hawthorne, I’m sure.”

  A small breeze of whispers passed among the men on the deck, and more than a few hurried to the rail and leaned out to peer forward. A half hour crept slowly by. The boats crested a wave and the dispirited—some, bloodied—faces of Hayden’s crew mates became unmistakable. Wickham raced down the shrouds and appeared beside Hayden, who stood at the forward rail.

  “What has happened?” the midshipman wondered, but Hayden had no answer.

  The lieutenant could hardly remember seeing such looks of dejection. The boats, overcrowded in the extreme, were brought alongside, their occupants silent as mourners. Mr Barthe stood in the bow of one cutter and addressed the ship in broken French.

  “You may speak the King’s English here, Mr Barthe,” Hayden answered. The sailing master was, for a satisfying moment, held speechless.

  “Mr Hayden?” he finally managed. “This is the French prize! God be praised.”

  This revelation raised the men’s spirits noticeably, and they began to scale the ladder. A good number required assistance and a few wanted slings, too injured to climb. Almost all the men were bruised and powder-stained, their clothing torn and soiled.

  Barthe came over the rail stiffly, and collapsed against the hammock netting. He gathered in a long, ragged breath and closed his eyes a moment. Hawthorne reached the deck, showing great concern for his fellows, and Mr Barthe in particular.

  “What has happened, Mr Barthe?” Hayden asked, feeling deeply shocked to see his own crew mates in such a state. “You look as though you’ve had a terrible battle.”

  “Where is the Themis?” Wickham interrupted. “Is she lost?”

  Hawthorne himself looked as though speech would fail him, but then he mana
ged in a harsh, parched voice, “No, Mr Wickham. And yes. There was a mutiny, and we are the men loyal to the King. They put us into boats—out of fear, I think—and sailed off toward Brest, where I assume they intend to offer our frigate to the French.”

  Hayden heard himself curse, and the men gathered round filled the air with muttered oaths.

  “Quiet on the deck!” Wickham called out.

  “Have a care there!” Griffiths called out from one of the cutters. “Captain coming aboard.”

  The tackles creaked, and, barely able to keep himself in the bosun’s chair, Captain Hart was slung aboard. Landry scrambled over the rail at the same moment and eased the captain down onto the deck, Hart moaning terribly as he did so. The captain’s coat, thrown over his shoulders, slipped off as he was lowered, and silence washed over the gathering like a cold sea. Hart’s back was flayed to bloody ribbons.

  Landry looked up, his face powder-burned and eyes sunken into dark pits. “Two dozen lashes,” Landry declared, “applied with a will.”

  “Who did this?”

  “It was Stuckey who swung the cat …”

  “Stuckey … ?” Hayden heard himself echo.

  Griffiths came onto the deck then, needing a little help to stand steady. “We must get Captain Hart below,” he said, wiping the back of a hand across his unshaven face.

  “The French surgeon has a sick-berth rigged forward,” Hayden instructed.

  “I will treat him myself,” Griffiths insisted.

  “Of course.” Hayden bent to help lift the captain. “Take him up gently, now. Gently.”

  Hart was eased below and settled into a cot, where Griffiths began to converse with the ship’s surgeon in halting French. Hayden left them, hearing the sounds of Hart crying out and demanding succour, as he retreated.