The Launching of Roger Brook rb-1

by Dennis Wheatley

  As the light deepened they watched their pursuers with terrible anxiety. Both ships had altered course and were now beating sea­ward on lines converging with that of the schooner in the hope of cutting her off. The frigate and the Expedition were both faster ships than their prey and it was soon perceptible that they were gaining on her.

  Roger prayed for darkness as he had never prayed before, yet it seemed that the long summer twilight scarcely deepened and that night would never fall. Dan stood grimly by the wheel getting every ounce of way out of the schooner of which she was capable. His crew had wrenched aside her hatches and, working like madmen, were now jettisoning her cargo, in the hope that if they could only get all the great blocks of salt overboard before the frigate came up with her they would be able to show a hold free of contraband.

  As Roger lent a hand, he kept an anxious eye on the frigate. Staggering under the weight of one of the blocks he was just about to tip it overboard when he saw a little cloud of white smoke issue from her fo'c'sle head. A moment later he heard a sharp report. He did not see the shot but guessed that their pursuer had fired a round from her long gun at some point ahead of their bows to bring them to.

  The shadows had deepened now and, ignoring the warning, Dan held on his course, still hoping that night might cover their escape from French waters.

  The gun boomed again and Roger saw the second shot ricochet across the waves within ten yards of the schooner's starboard quarter. Still Dan doggedly held on and gave no order to lower sail.

  A third time a little white cloud issued from the frigate's fo'c'sle and the report echoed across the water, to be followed almost instantly by the crashing of woodwork in the schooner's stern. The roundshot had found a mark in her poop, and, crashing through it, bounded along her deck.

  As to what happened next Roger was not quite sure. He heard the gun fire a fourth time, then there was a frightful splintering of wood. The schooner's main mast heeled over and came crashing down. Sails, ropes and spars seemed to be flying in all directions. Something hit him a terrific buffet in the back, knocking him off his feet and throw­ing him forward. Next moment he found himself in the water struggling for his life.

  CHAPTER VII

  THE MAN IN RED

  ROGER was a good swimmer, but never before had he been plunged into the sea fully dressed; within a moment he found that his sodden clothes hampered him enormously. In addition he had coins in his boots and several pounds weight of precious metal around his waist. As he felt the pull of them dragging him down he was overtaken by panic and opened his mouth to let out a yell. His shout for help was cut short by a wave crest slapping into his face. Choked by sea water, he gulped, and went under.

  The next minutes were a nightmare to him. Lack of breath caused a suffocating pain in his chest and as he sank he thought that he was done for. In a violent effort to save himself he attempted to kick off his boots; they did not come off but his frantic kicking brought him back to the surface.

  Gasping in air he struck out wildly, with no thought of direction or husbanding his strength but simply with the animal instinct to keep himself from drowning. After a dozen flailing strokes he saw that he was heading towards the French frigate. Seen from low down on the water she seemed much larger now and she was still coming on under full sail.

  By swimming with all his strength he found that he could keep afloat and make a little headway; but he knew that the frigate would pass him at some distance and that, in the gathering gloom, it was most unlikely that anyone on her deck would see him struggling there in the water.

  Thrusting himself round he looked towards the Albatross. He was now about two hundred yards astern of her, since her way had carried her on that far before the shattered main mast, that now hung over her side, had dragged her to a standstill.

  He wondered desperately if he would have the strength to gain her. Georgina's treasure now threatened to be his death; it hung like a thick belt of lead resting on his hips, and, as it was under his clothes, there was no way in which he could get rid of it. With every stroke he took its weight seemed to increase and it kept him so low in the water that every wavelet broke over his face, filling his eyes and nostrils with salty spume. Despair now gripped his heart and he felt that each moment would be his last.

  His range of vision was very limited and he had only glimpsed the schooner by heaving himself up with a special effort, so he did not even see the big spar that had come adrift from her main mast until it was washed right on top of him. With a gasp of relief he threw his arms over it and hung there, panting.

  Having got his breath back and shaken the water from his eyes he hoisted his head above the spar and took a quick look round. He was still a good hundred and fifty yards astern of the disabled Albatross.

  The frigate was now coming up abreast of her and in the failing light he could just make out the Expedition a quarter of a mile astern of the frigate. Dropping back he remained for about five minutes swaying gently in the water while his agitated mind sought a way of getting himself rescued.

  When he looked again he saw that the frigate and cutter had both hove to. Their lanterns were lit and the former was lowering a boat. It was too dark to make out any details but faintly he could hear a French officer shouting orders and then the splash of the oars as the boat was pulled towards the Albatross to take the smugglers in her prisoner.

  At that thought his heart sank even lower. As long as he could cling to the heavy spar he was safe from a watery grave but rescue meant the frightful prospect of being sent as a slave to the French war galleys. For a few moments he was racked with indecision whether to hang on there, on the chance of being washed ashore or picked up by another ship, or to put all his strength into shouts for help, and accept the grim alternative.

  The summer night had now closed down, and when he bobbed up he could make out the stricken Albatross only as a vague whitish blur; the positions of the frigate and cutter were indicated by their lights. For a few moments more he wavered, then he decided that he dared not ignore this chance of rescue, however frightful the future that it portended, and he began to shout.

  After a minute he thought he heard an answering cry, and paused to listen, but it did not come again and he realised that an altercation was going on between Dan and his men and the Frenchmen in the boat. Panicking again at the thought that he might not be able to make him­self heard he began to yell with all the force of his lungs.

  Again he paused to listen, there was silence now. The Albatross was no longer visible and the lights of the frigate and cutter seemed farther off. Grimly it came to him that the tide must be carrying him away from them, and frantically now, he called again and again; but there was no response.

  After ten minutes, his throat sore and his breath coming in gasps from the effort, he gave up. Full darkness had come and as he could now see only the mast lights of the two ships in which his hope of rescue lay, he knew that he must have drifted at least half a mile away from them.

  His one hope was that he would be able to cling on to the spar until he was washed ashore or daylight came with a new chance of rescue. Fortunately it was high summer and the water was quite warm but, even so, he feared that his hands would grow numb and lose their grip on the spar before many hours had passed.

  With the idea of finding an easier hold he began to pull his way along the spar and soon came upon a length of rope that was trailing from it. Hanging on, first with one hand then with the other, he got the rope under his arms and managed to lash himself to the spar sufficiently firmly for only a light hold on it to be necessary to keep his head above water. Slightly relieved in mind he relaxed a little but now that he had leisure to think for the first time since he had been thrown overboard his thoughts brought him little comfort.

  The thing that had made the greatest impression on him in the past hectic hour was Mr. Ollie Nixon's betrayal of his compatriots to the French. It was obvious now that the Expedition had left the Albatross's tail only to ma
ke for Le Havre, and that Nixon had tipped off the authorities there that a smuggler craft was just down the coast well inside French territorial waters. He had then followed the frigate in order to gloat over the ill fate that he had brought upon the unfor­tunate Dan and his companions. Roger would never have believed that an Englishman could be capable of such baseness and he made a mental vow that, if he lived, he would somehow get even with Nixon on Dan's account as well as his own. But, at the moment, the chances of his surviving to carry out his vow looked far from good.

  The mast lights of both the ships had now disappeared below Roger's limited horizon and, although the stars had come out, there was no hint of human life whichever way he peered through the surrounding gloom.

  For what seemed an eternity he hung there, submerged up to his armpits in water, his dangling legs swaying gently with the motion of the waves. Georgina's prophecy that water would always be dan­gerous to him reoccurred to his mind. He thought how surprised she would be if she knew how swiftly it had been fulfilled; as by this time she no doubt fondly imagined him to be lodged at some comfortable inn in London having safely deposited the proceeds of her jewels in Messrs. Hoare's bank. He sought such comfort as he could from the idea that her other prophecies had yet to be fulfilled, but he remembered with misgiving her once having told him that things seen in the glass would come to pass only if the subject pursued a path made natural to him through his character and environment—as indeed most people did—but that an abnormal exercise of free will might cause deviations from it, or the whole future suddenly be rendered void by a higher power decreeing death for the subject.

  As he tried to weigh the pros and cons of the matter in his mind he was temporarily cheered again by the thought that he was off the coast of France, and it was in France that Georgina had seen him fight­ing a duel. Yet she had been very definite that the duel would not take place for several years, and if he was washed ashore he meant to get back to England as soon as he possibly could, so that did not get him anywhere either.

  He had now been in the water for an hour and a half and with the advance of the night he was becoming chilly. As he began to jerk his limbs about to restore his circulation he turned his head, and suddenly saw a moving light no more than fifty yards distant from him. Instantly he began to shout.

  A French voice answered his cries, excited shouts followed; the direction in which the light was moving changed, now coming towards him, and the bulk of a small craft, with her sails set, loomed up out of the darkness. A few minutes later he was being hauled aboard her.

  Roger's French consisted only of what he had picked up at school during a year of lessons, and the handful of sailors who crowded round him as he was dragged squelching on to the deck questioned him in their Normandy patois, which he found it almost impossible to understand. But his flair for languages had enabled him to make good use of his comparatively slender instruction. He managed to convey to them that he had fallen overboard unnoticed in the darkness from an English merchantman an hour earlier, and to gather that their boat was one of the fishing fleet which he had seen after they had put out from Le Havre, just before dusk that evening.

  A short, swarthy man with gorilla-like shoulders, who appeared to be the Captain, took him below to the tiny cabin. He had borne up so far, but now the reaction from the shock and strain of the last few hours set in and he practically collapsed. It was all he could do to swallow the fiery Calvados that was poured down his throat and to keep his senses while his soaking garments were peeled from his body. Within a quarter of an hour of his rescue he was wrapped up like a mummy in four thicknesses of rough blankets and sound asleep.

  When he woke it was daylight and he found the swarthy Captain staring down at him. They exchanged a few more sentences with diffi­culty, from which Roger learned that the smack had had a good night's fishing and was now heading back to Le Havre. The man then gave him a basin of gruel and left him.

  Roger's first thought was for his possessions, but with great relief he saw that the sausage-like bundle, containing Georgina's jewels, had been laid, still tied by the piece of hemp, beside him, and that near it in a small crockery pot were the gold and silver coins that he had had in his boots. His rescuers were evidently honest men, or, perhaps, having recognised that he was a person of quality by his clothes, had been afraid to rob him; but he felt that on discovering his wealth they must have been highly tempted and might well have thrown him back into the sea after despoiling him, so he blessed their integrity.

  As he looked round the mean little cabin he thought it all the more striking from their evident poverty. That of Dan's lugger had smelt almost as evilly, but there had been an air of rough comfort about it; bits of spare clothing, worn but of good thick material, stout leather sea-boots, a flitch of bacon and a cask of rum. Here, there was nothing but the refuse of semi-destitution. Even the Captain, Roger had noticed, wore ragged trousers of some thin cotton stuff and wooden clogs, while the gruel he had been given was obviously the crew's normal fare, as there was no good English odour of liver, onions and bacon lingering about the cabin.

  The blankets, too, in which he was wrapped were little better than sacking; but, since his clothes had been taken away, there seemed no alternative to lying there until they were returned to him.

  For some two hours he dozed and meditated on his own miraculous preservation, the strange sequence of events that had led to his being where he was and the wretched fate which he had good reason to suppose had overtaken the crew of the Albatross. Then the Captain clattered down the ladder, bringing him his clothes.

  They had been rough-dried on deck in the morning sunshine and, apart from the fact that they were sadly rumpled, appeared to be little the worse for their immersion. As he put them on he thought sadly of the fine warm greatcoat, and of the satchell with his silver-mounted pistols and other items he valued in it, all of which he had left behind in the cabin of the Albatross; but he swiftly upbraided himself for worrying about such comparative trifles when a merciful Providence had spared him his life, liberty and little fortune.

  On going on deck he found that the smack and some two score of her fellow craft were running before a fair breeze towards a smudge on the horizon which must be the coast of France. The bulk of the little ship was occupied by its hold and this was now more than half-filled by a great heap of shiny silver fish, mainly haddocks, whiting and plaice. While he was looking at it one of the crew leant over and gathered a few of them into a small basket, which he took below. Then, half an hour later, the Captain came to Roger, took off his cap, bowed to him and invited him down to the cabin.

  In it he saw that some food had been put ready on a rough pine table, but to his surprise the Captain did not sit down with him. Indicating a bench to Roger he tipped the fish from a saucepan out on to a large earthenware dish, cut from a loaf a great hunk of rye bread which he laid beside it, then stood back, respectfully.

  Seeing that he was expected to eat with his fingers, Roger set to. The fish had been plain boiled with a clove of garlic and, owing to their freshness, Roger found them excellent. He would have much preferred them fried, but guessed that these poor fisher-folk could not afford the luxury of fat. There was a jug on the table, but no glass, and on drinking from it, Roger found that it contained still cider of an incredible sourness; and it was all he could do, in deference to his host, to prevent his face screwing up into an agonised grimace.

  When he had done the Captain bowed him up on deck again and calling to two of his men they went down to eat their share of the mess of fish.

  Roger now found that the coast was clearly visible and an hour later the masts of the shipping in the great port of Le Havre could be clearly made out. The fishing fleet duly put into its own harbour, which was some little way from the big naval dock and the basins in which the merchantmen were berthed.

  There were no landing formalities to go through here so it remained only for Roger to thank his rescuers. Having Georgina's jewels
safely round his waist again he felt that he could well afford to be at least as generous as he had been with Dan, so he gave the swarthy Captain five out of the fourteen pounds that remained to him. The Frenchman did not appear to have expected so handsome a present and with many barely understandable expressions of gratitude bowed Roger on to the wharf as though he had been a veritable Prince.

  Roger had yet to learn that the poor of France were in such a sad condition of slavery to the nobility that, far from daring to lay a finger on him, they would almost certainly have executed any reasonable order that he cared to give without expecting to be rewarded in any way for their services. As it was, he walked off into the town with the happy feeling that he had satisfactorily maintained the honour of England and the belief that every English gentleman was a milor rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

  The clocks of the city were dnming half-past three as he landed and it was again a pleasant sunny afternoon. Turning into the Rue Francois 1er, which, as it chanced, was the busiest and most fashionable thoroughfare of the town, he entered its turmoil, turning his head swiftly from side to side as each new sight or sound of this strange foreign town caught his attention. Although the street was com­paratively broad for the times the upper storeys of the houses that lined it projected so far above the lower that they almost met overhead. In this it differed little from the streets that he knew well in Winchester and Southampton, but its occupants seemed to him almost as if they were all got up in fancy dress.

  In France, a much richer and more colourful standard of attire was still maintained among the upper classes than had of recent years become the fashion in England. Few gentlemen had as yet abandoned wigs unless their own hair was prolific and in that case they still wore it powdered. Cloth was still regarded as a bourgeois material, except for wear when travelling, and the men from the smart equipages who were shopping in the street were nearly all clad in satin or velvet, while their ladies were dressed in flowered silk skirts with bulging panniers and wore absurd little hats perched on elaborate powdered coiffures, often as much as a foot and a half in height.