by James McGee
"No wonder the lieutenant wants to get rid of us," Lasseur snorted. "When do the hangings take place?"
"Dawn."
"Then I'll pray for fine weather," Lasseur said. His face lit up suddenly. "Sebastien!"
Hawkwood and Girard turned.
The teacher was limping towards them. In his hands were two mess tins and two spoons. "I saved you a little something from supper. I thought you might be hungry."
"As long as it's not herring," Lasseur said, grimacing. "Or I may throw up like those other poor devils."
"Bread, potatoes and a bit of pork." Fouchet passed the mess tins over. "It's not much."
Lasseur studied the contents. "You're sure it's pork?" He glanced at Hawkwood.
"It could be mutton," Fouchet said, frowning. "What day is it?"
"Maybe I'll just eat the potatoes," Lasseur said.
"I think it's safe," Fouchet said. "Matisse hasn't killed anyone for a while, that we know of."
"You heard?" Hawkwood said.
Fouchet nodded. "It's all round the ship."
Lasseur continued to stare bleakly into his mess tin. "What about Juvert?"
"He's in the black hole with the rats, licking his wounds. A week in there and he'll be eating his own shit." Without a trace of sympathy, the teacher nodded at the food. "What you don't eat now, you can save for later."
Lasseur placed the mess tin to one side.
"I'll leave you to it," Girard said. "I've patients to see to. And you should eat. It will keep your strength up." He nodded to Fouchet, fished the vinegar-soaked rag from his waist and walked away through the cots.
Fouchet watched him go then laid a hand on Hawkwood's arm. "Tell me the boy did not suffer."
"It was quick," Hawkwood said. "That's about the only thing good you could say about it."
The teacher's face sagged. "He would still be alive if I'd kept watch over him," he said forlornly.
"The boy died at Matisse's hands, Sebastien," Lasseur said gently. "Not yours."
Fouchet eyed Hawkwood's and Lasseur's bloodstained bandages. "I would have liked to have seen you kill the swine."
"If you had, we wouldn't be here," Hawkwood said. "If it wasn't for you bringing the guards, they'd have been delivering us to the heads in buckets ... or worse."
"And now they're sending you to the Sampson," Fouchet said unhappily.
"Better than to the yard," Lasseur said.
"You might not think so when you get there."
I think I've had this conversation before, Hawkwood thought.
"I heard there was a fight to the death on the Sampson only a month back," Fouchet said. "Two men went into the black hole. Only one came out."
"I wonder where they got that idea from," Lasseur smiled thinly.
Fouchet leaned close. "Charbonneau heard two of the militia talking. The British believe the revolt on the Sampson is part of a plot to foment a rising of all foreign prisoners in England."
Lasseur gnawed at the inside of his cheek. "That must have put the fear of God up them."
Fouchet shrugged. "One can understand their quandary. While their Admiralty believes there's a benefit to containing all the instigators of the revolt in the one location, by the same token, they're mindful of the dangers in placing so many trouble-makers in close proximity. Clashes between prisoners don't bother them; they regard it as one way of culling the herd. But to have so many malcontents under one roof could place British lives at unnecessary risk."
"The last thing they need is another two joining them," Lasseur said. "No wonder they're delaying our arrival. I'm beginning to wonder why Commander Hellard didn't sentence us to the noose."
"Because that's what his second-in-command wanted him to do," Hawkwood said. "Lieutenant Thynne believes his commander isn't fit for the purpose. Hellard thinks Thynne is after his command. I'd say we owe our lives to Commander Hellard's contrariness."
"Lucky for us it wasn't the other way round then," Lasseur said, "and it wasn't Thynne suggesting clemency."
"Amen to that," Hawkwood said.
There was a shout from outside. A bell began to clang.
"Curfew," Fouchet said. "I have to go."
Hawkwood looked towards the grating. The last of the daylight had disappeared. The only illumination left came from the lanterns suspended from the deckhead.
The teacher shook their hands solemnly. "I am very glad you are alive, my friends. I'll gather up your belongings and make sure no one helps themselves." He gave a smile. "Not that they'd dare. You've both gained quite a reputation."
"I doubt that'll stop Murat from selling our spaces to the next lot of new arrivals," Lasseur said moodily. "What's the betting he'll even try and turn our reputation to his advantage? 'Captains Lasseur and Hooper slept here. That'll be ten francs extra, thank you very much.'"
Hawkwood couldn't help but grin.
"You shouldn't judge the lieutenant too harshly, Captain," Fouchet said seriously. "In this place, all of us make do as best we can."
"And some of us make do better than others," Lasseur said.
Fouchet wagged an admonishing finger. "I'm off before they put me in the hole for breaking curfew. If I were you, I'd try and get some sleep. We've an early start tomorrow morning."
"We have?" Lasseur said. "How come?"
"Hadn't you heard?" Fouchet said drily. "There's going to be a hanging."
There was no scaffold.
Bisected by the stub of the main mast, the yard was outlined against the dawn sky like the arms of a scarecrow. Suspended from the yard's port and starboard quarters were three wooden blocks. A rope was threaded through each block. One end formed a noose. The free end of each rope was secured to a cleat at the ship's corresponding port and starboard bulwarks.
A line of militia guarded the ship's rails, bayonets fixed. The rest of the ship's complement was drawn up on the quarterdeck. An unsmiling Lieutenant Hellard was standing with the equally stern Thynne on his right and the interpreter Murat on his left, their backs to the newly risen sun. Both officers were in full uniform. Opposite them, on the port side of the deck, a row of prisoners stood in line abreast, some in prison uniform; some in civilian dress. At first glance, Hawkwood had taken them for the men under sentence until he took a closer look and did a count and realized how cleverly Hellard had played his hand. They were the eight members of the prisoners' tribunal.
You convened quickly enough to see Matisse's crew swing, Hawkwood thought.
He'd witnessed punishment on board ship before, on a voyage taking him back to England after the ignominy of Corunna. It had been a flogging; a seaman had been found guilty of disobeying an order while drunk. He had been tied to a grating on deck where he had received twenty-four lashes administered by the boatswain's mate. The ship's crew had been assembled to witness the event, with marines standing by, muskets at the ready.
Squeezed against the forecastle rail with Lasseur at his shoulder and the two militia escorts from the sick berth at their backs, Hawkwood was struck by the similarity. But while the scene was almost identical, the mood was not. The flogging of the seaman had been greeted by an almost sullen silence, whereas the atmosphere on the deck of Rapacious was more reminiscent of a public execution outside any London gaol.
It had been Commander Hellard's directive that all prisoners, as well as the ship's complement, were required to view the punishment, excluding those too ill to leave the sick berth, but the sheer number of prisoners housed on the hulk rendered the order impractical. In the end, the summons had been amended to the requirement that at least two delegates from each mess were to be present, including Rafales. As a result, the decks were full. Hawkwood didn't think he'd ever seen such a woebegone, ragbag gathering of human beings in his life.
Down on the Park the air, sour with the stench of the befouled, prickled with a sense of anticipation bordering on excitement. So much so that Hawkwood was half expecting the ship's pedlars to come crawling out of the woodwork and start touti
ng for business like the pie and sweetmeat sellers that played the crowds outside Newgate.
As he looked on, Hawkwood tried to ignore the compression that was forming inexorably at the back of his throat and the sweat that was leaking from between his shoulder blades.
A murmur ran through the watchers as the condemned were brought out on deck, hands tied behind their backs and flanked by a militia guard. Two of the men were wearing togas, the rest were dressed in the yellow uniform. Half the men had cuts and bruises on their faces. The pair wearing the togas also had wounds on their arms and legs. Hawkwood wondered how many of the injuries had been inflicted during the fight in the hold and how many were due to the militia's late intervention.
Someone yelled an obscenity from the Park, which encouraged a cacophony of catcalls. The condemned men were white- eyed with terror and visibly shaking.
"Silence!" Sergeant Hook's voice boomed across the deck.
As the militia began to place nooses about the men's necks, two of the condemned collapsed weeping on to the deck. A jeer went up as they were lifted to their feet. Both swayed precariously as the ropes were finally slipped around their throats. When all the nooses had been made fast, hoods were placed over the men's heads.
Lieutenant Hellard stepped forward, accompanied by Murat. He raised his arm and the deck fell quiet.
Hellard spoke. Murat translated.
Hawkwood wondered about the other nationalities on board. Who translated for them?
"Let it be known that the ship's company and prisoners are gathered here this day to see justice done. The men you see standing before you have been found guilty of the most heinous crimes. It is upon the order of the Admiralty of His Britannic Majesty that each man is hereby sentenced to death, to hang suspended by his neck until dead. May God have mercy on their souls."
Abruptly, as if embarrassed by the brevity of his pronouncement, Hellard stepped back and nodded towards the members of the tribunal.
The surgeon was right! Hawkwood thought.
He watched as twelve men dressed in yellow prison uniforms stepped forward. The twelve broke into three teams of four. Each team retrieved a rope end from the cleat by the port bulwark. Turning their backs on the condemned men, the three teams stood in silence, each man holding a section of rope over his right shoulder.
"Carry on, Sergeant Hook," Hellard said.
The sergeant nodded towards a pair of militia guards, one of whom pointed his musket into the sky. The men on the ropes took up the strain. The militia escort stepped away.
Hawkwood's fists clenched. The guard fired his musket.
At the instant the shot rang out, the men holding the ropes sprinted hard towards the ship's stern. Behind them, three hooded bodies shot into the air, heading for the yard. As the ropes were pulled tight, and with the musket report still echoing around the deck, the rope ends were made fast. Only then did the members of the teams look up at their handiwork. High above them the three corpses, still spiralling from the momentum of the hoist, dangled below the yard like grotesque ornaments.
The teams moved to the starboard ropes. The militia escorts stepped aside.
At another nod from Hook, the second guard discharged his musket and the hangmen repeated their charge. Three more bodies ascended rapidly into the warm air.
A sigh, like a small wind, went around the deck.
One of the militia let out a curse as a shower of urine and a splatter of faecal matter released from one of the slow-swinging cadavers missed his shoulder by inches and hit the deck at his feet. Casting startled looks skywards, his companions jumped back to avoid the flow of piss and shit raining down from on high as the bladders and sphincter muscles of the hanged men relaxed. A ripple of laughter broke from the mass of prisoners. The tension in the air began to dissipate.
"Silence!"Another roar from Hook.
"A surgeon once told me it's a quick way to die." Lasseur stared up at the bodies.
Hawkwood said nothing. He had known that already. The fact that there had been no kicking or pedalling from the victims' legs after the bodies had left the ground confirmed the anonymous surgeon's statement. Death had occurred the second the ropes were pulled taut, from a swiftly broken neck rather than protracted asphyxiation. He looked down at his hands, to the redness in his palms where his nails had bitten into the skin.
He heard Lasseur mutter something sharp under his breath and turned to find the privateer regarding him with a mortified expression on his face. Lasseur's mouth opened.
"It's all right, Captain," Hawkwood said. "It was a long time ago."
For a moment Lasseur looked as if he was about to respond. His eyes flickered to Hawkwood's throat and the weals on his palms and he nodded silently.
Hawkwood turned away and looked towards the quarterdeck where Hellard and Murat were in consultation with the tribunal, while above them the six bodies, their lower limbs wet and stained with excreta, continued to sway gently in the morning breeze. His eyes moved over the water to some of the other hulks. Figures, both prisoners and crew, were lining the rails; all eyes focused upon Rapacious. Hawkwood wondered how quickly it had taken for word of the impending executions to spread around the estuary. Not long, if navy rumour mills were as effective as the army ones he'd known.
Slowly the prisoners started to disperse. The mood was subdued. It was as if the full reality of all that had just happened was finally sinking in. There were a lot of baleful glances up towards the yard. Hawkwood recognized the signs. The collective euphoria that had greeted the hangings was giving way to doubt and the realization that, in the guise of the tribunal, every prisoner on board Rapacious had just, in effect, given support to the enemy.
Hawkwood had also been aware for a while that his and Lasseur's presence on deck was becoming the focus of some attention. They were drawing glances, both overt and surreptitious, some respectful, some wary, and the sick-berth guards were getting twitchy. Hawkwood allowed himself to be led back below deck.
He glanced over towards the quarterdeck. The planking below the yard was being swabbed and the militia were letting out the ropes and lowering the bodies. It was tradition, Hawkwood knew, for the corpses of hanged men to remain suspended from the yard sometimes for an hour or two, as a potent warning. He suspected Hellard wanted the latest victims brought down, either as a gesture to the tribunal or, more likely, because the smell of the bodies in the heat of the morning would be too much to bear.
The surgeon, Girard, was watching the proceedings. Hawkwood presumed he was there to pronounce the men dead; not that there was likely to be any doubt. If there was one skill in which the navy enjoyed mastery, it was the tying of knots.
Hawkwood and Lasseur returned to their cots. Even with the smell of sickness seeping from every pore of the compartment it was a relief to be back in the sick berth after the overcrowded topside.
"When do you think they'll transfer us?" Lasseur looked pensive.
Hawkwood shrugged, glancing towards the guards who'd resumed their positions over by the hatchway. "It could be any time. As soon as the commander receives authorization, would be my guess. It was never going to be before the hangings. We were always going to be present for that. Hellard and the Admiralty wouldn't want to miss the opportunity to use us to warn the prisoners on the Sampson what will happen to anyone who breaks the rules. I wouldn't put it past the bastards to have shown the two of us leniency just so that we can spread the word and put the fear of God up any other would-be insurrectionists."
Lasseur threw Hawkwood a sideways glance. "Did anyone ever tell you, my friend, that you've a very suspicious mind?"
"All the time," Hawkwood said. "It's a curse."
Lasseur forced a grin, stroked his goatee, lay back and placed his arm over his eyes.
It was odd, Hawkwood thought, how easy it had become to align himself with the plight of the prisoners and how quickly the Admiralty had become the villain of the piece.
The sound of weighted footsteps and an ou
tpouring of profanities interrupted his ruminations. Two prisoners were stepping off the bottom tread of the stairway. Slung awkwardly between them was a body. Lasseur let go an exclamation of disgust. The dead men that Hawkwood had seen being removed from the yard were starting to arrive.
Hawkwood and Lasseur watched as one by one the corpses of the hanged prisoners were delivered into the hands of the orderlies. Millet and Charbonneau were among those delegated with the task of toting the dead. They caught Hawkwood's eye and nodded imperceptibly. The surgeon Girard brought up the rear.
Hawkwood wondered who had come up with the suggestion that prisoners should play such an active role in carrying out the sentence. If it had been Hellard, in many respects it had been a master stroke. Matisse and his Romans had waged their war of intimidation on their fellow prisoners. If Hellard, having taken full advantage of the loathing felt by all the prisoners for the Corsican's crimes, had, by some subtle stroke, put the idea in the heads of the tribunal, in one fell swoop he'd not only adhered himself to the prisoner hierarchy, he'd also partly absolved himself of what could have been seen as implementing a draconian sentence on foreign nationals.
It was inconceivable that the Admiralty would have sanctioned prisoner involvement or, quite possibly, even the hangings themselves, particularly on board the ship; officially, at any rate. Unofficially, Hawkwood began to wonder. He suspected that the Admiralty, like the army, politicians and the judiciary, was perfectly capable of nefarious dealings when it suited its purpose. The tribunal's participation had lent an air of legitimacy to the sentencing and method of execution. If there were repercussions, the Admiralty could lay the blame squarely on Hellard's already blackened shoulders by accusing him of acting of his own volition.
As for Hellard, it could be construed that he was exerting his authority, both to the prisoners and his superiors as well as an audience closer to home, namely Lieutenant Thynne and the rest of the ship's company. By setting up the hangings, Hellard had established himself as a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps, in some bizarre way, he'd even seen it as a means of restoring himself in the eyes of the Admiralty.