Rapscallion

by James McGee

  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."

  "Rafales," 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.

  CHAPTER 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.

  Lasseur, too, had done his share of manual graft, working alongside Hawkwood at the hoist and in the ship's hold. The temperature within the ship was such that jackets and shirts were soon discarded. The prisoners' backs ran wet with sweat and it was easy to tell whether an inmate was new on board or a regular member of a work party: the irregulars were the ones whose flesh was as pale as paper.

  Lasseur's hide carried the healthy sheen of a seaman whose voyages had taken him to warmer, far-flung climes. His torso was well formed without being muscular, and evenly tanned - in contrast to some of the men, whose forearms and faces were the only areas of their bodies that showed the effects of exposure to the sun. The rest of their skin, normally covered by a shirt, looked bleached white in comparison.

  What also set Lasseur apart were the marks of the lash across his spine. Hawkwood had passed no comment on the scars. He'd enough of his own, including the ring of bruising around his throat, which had drawn a few curious looks both when he'd taken the bath prior to his registration and when he removed his shirt during the work details.

  Lasseur had noticed Hawkwood's passing glance at his back and had made only one comment: "I wasn't always a captain."

  "Me neither," Hawkwood had told him, and that had been enough. The rest of the men, whose quizzical looks might have indicated a desire for explanation, they ignored.

  When he wasn't labouring in a work party or talking with Hawkwood or Fouchet, or sometimes with the boy, Lasseur spent most of his time pacing the deck and gazing restlessly across the estuary, locked within his own thoughts. With so many bodies crammed in one place, physical solitude was but a dream. Hawkwood knew there wasn't a man on board who wouldn't try and seek solace in the privacy of his own mind. He sought it himself when he could, and took advantage of the opportunities it offered to observe shipboard routine at close quarters. And in the course of his observations Hawkwood had seen enough to know that making a successful escape from the hulk looked well nigh impossible. Moored a stone's throw from the middle of a busy estuary; surrounded by inhospitable marshland; heavily guarded by its contingent of militia and a commander who was fully prepared to use deadly force against the slightest infraction, the ship was too well sealed.

  According to Ludd's reckoning, four men had made it off the hulk in recent weeks. In the short time he'd been on board, Hawkwood had yet to uncover a single clue as to how they might have done it. He'd tried to pin Fouchet and the others down, but to his frustration they had been of no more help than Lieutenant Murat.

  With the exception of those who'd retreated into their own little world and the denizens of the orlop deck, most of the prisoners seemed content to co-exist in small social groups centred round their messes. Many would probably have no idea there'd been an escape, let alone have any knowledge of how it had been accomplished; their first inkling that something untoward had taken place would come with the increased activity of the hulk's commander and his crew, and the heavy-handed actions of the guards as they inspected and emptied the deck to take an unexpected body count. Someone as well informed as Fouchet would know more, but the teacher was too cautious to discuss such matters with a new arrival, particularly in the light of Murat's reference to informers. Hawkwood had operated clandestinely before and, though patience did not come easily to him, he'd learned that a subtle approach would achieve better results than barging around asking too many pertinent questions.

  Ludd's suspicion that there was organization behind the escapes had been confirmed by Murat. Yet Hawkwood was still no wiser as to who was behind it. He wondered how long it would be before the translator got back to them. A week? Two? Or would it be a month? Or longer? The thought made his blood run cold. His rendezvous with Ludd was in three days. Would he have anything positive to report? It didn't seem likely. Unless a man could change himself into something the size of a rat and slip between the grilles like Hawkwood's scaly-tailed friend the other night, the only way off the hulk seemed to be as a corpse wrapped inside a burial cloth. Even then you wouldn't get very far.

  There had been seven death
s in the time Hawkwood had been aboard. The cause was marsh fever. During the summer months the fever claimed many victims among the weak and undernourished. Age was an inevitable contributing factor, though in the close-knit squalor of a prison ship, fever, typhus, pox and depression showed no favouritism. Two of the dead men had been in their twenties.

  There had been no ceremony in the removal of the deceased. Wrapped in filthy sacks of hastily sewn sailcloth, the corpses had been lowered into a waiting boat using a winch and net. Then, accompanied by a burial detail of prisoners and a quartet of militia, the sorry cargo had been rowed to a bank of shingle half a mile off the hulk's stern. Hawkwood and Lasseur had watched in sombre silence as the bodies had been carried up the foreshore and thrown into a pit dug at the back of the beach. From what they'd been able to see, no words were spoken over the burial before the boat made its return journey.

  What had been noticeable to Hawkwood was that, aside from himself, Lasseur and a few of the newer prisoners, no one had taken any interest in the proceedings. On Rapacious, death and burial were commonplace.

  Mid-afternoon of his fifth day on the hulk, Hawkwood was leaning on the forecastle rail, taking a rest after three hours spent hauling barrels of dried herring and sacks of onions on board. The work had been hard, but there had been a sense of purpose to the task, and, more importantly, it had made the time pass quicker. Now the sun was warm on his back and the estuary was calm. If he closed his eyes and nostrils, a man could, for a moment or two, imagine he was a thousand miles away.