by David McDine
He explained that he had served in the navy of the ancien régime, but escaped when his family were taken – and when he learned of their fate changed his appearance and rejoined under an assumed – or at least abridged – name.
‘The republicans were glad enough to recruit any experienced sea officer not to bother with making too many enquiries. As far as they were concerned I was willing to serve the new régime under the tricolour and that was sufficient.’
Anson asked: ‘How did you come to be captured?’
‘It is quite easy to be captured by you English, mon ami. All you need to do is to go to sea and they will find you—’
‘And send you to the hulks?’
‘Just so, but that was my wish. As soon as I could after I was made prisoner I whispered in the right ear who I really was and that as a royalist I was willing to undertake any mission that might ’elp undermine the republic.’
‘But nevertheless you were sent to the hulks?’
‘Certainly. It was part of what I believe you call a cover plan. I have been acting the part of a revolutionary fanatic since I rejoined the navy and while a prisoner in the hulks. But what motivates me is revenge – revenge for the assassination of my parents and brother – and the restoration of our family estate. Now I ’ave the chance to strike back!’
There was fire in his eyes as he spoke and any initial doubts Anson may have had about the Frenchman’s motives evaporated.
*
On the third morning Emily appeared from the village having heard via that unseen miracle of local communication that her former patient had returned.
She greeted Anson effusively and he flushed at the memory of her administering to his every need at the time of the mutiny – including giving him a bed-bath – when he had been laid low with the fever.
To allay his embarrassment she had told him she’d had two husbands, brought up five boys, and laid out the dead in this parish, so he didn’t have anything she hadn’t seen a hundred times before.
He had been far from reassured at the time, but the recollection amused him now.
‘How did you hear I was back, Emily?’ he asked.
‘Why, Mister Anson, the word’s round the village that you’d come back with a foreign gent. Some say ’e’s a Dutchman and some says ’e’s a Frog – sorry, I mean a Frenchie. Anyhow, they say as he spoke some foreign lingo – not one as we’ve heard of round here.’
‘Good grief! But how did the word get round?’ He turned to Parkin. ‘No-one from Ludden Hall has been down to the village since we arrived, have they?’
His host shook his head. ‘No, but in the country news has a habit of spreading, perhaps a chance sighting on the road, who knows?’ And he added, mysteriously: ‘It’s rather like jungle drums without the drumming.’
A thought occurred to Anson. ‘Hurel, have you spoken to anyone since we arrived here, apart from our hosts and the servants, that is?’
‘No, mon ami, no-one except for the man with the gun …’
‘Good grief! What man with a gun?’
‘The man who arrived when you went into the house with Monsieur Parkin and left me sitting beside the little lake. The man with dead animals ’anging from ’is belt …’
A gamekeeper! No doubt bringing more creatures for the old gentleman to dissect.
‘Did you speak to this man?’
‘Merely to wish him bonjour …’
Anson winced. So that was it. News of a foreigner, possibly a Frenchman, staying at Ludden Hall would spread like ripples on a pond when a pebble was thrown in.
They were compromised and would have to move on. But when he explained the situation to Parkin, the old gentleman persuaded him to stay for one more night and make an early morning start.
And at the prospect of another evening with his host – and especially with his niece – Anson was happy to concur.
Meanwhile, as Cassandra showed Hurel around the Ludden Hall gardens, in which he had expressed great but suspect interest, Anson joined Parkin in the summerhouse to take morning coffee and peruse the newspapers – just as they often had three years before.
*
Next day the old gentleman and his niece bade farewell to their guests with some reluctance and Anson assured them he would be back for a longer stay at the earliest opportunity. They had enjoyed another pleasant evening together although Anson had found he was becoming increasingly irritated with the close attention the Frenchman was paying Cassandra.
After downing a considerable amount of wine le Baron, as he had started styling himself, burbled on about his family’s estates, lost to the revolutionary tyrants. He invited Parkin and his niece to visit him there ‘as soon as the war is over’ as if winning back his land was a simple matter, which Anson doubted.
And as they took their leave Hurel drooled over Cassandra’s hand for far too long for Anson’s taste, mouthing ‘Au revoir’ over and over again with some fervour before he could be shepherded into Parkin’s carriage.
The coachman-cum-butler Dodson had already attached Ebony’s head collar to the coach so that the gelding could trot behind and off they set with Hurel monopolising the window calling: ‘Au revoir, à bientôt!’ as they crunched down the gravel drive.
Anson was feeling more than a little annoyed with his companion. If Hurel had not foolishly addressed the gamekeeper in French they could have stayed with Parkin and his niece for as long as it took.
But move on they must and Seagate was out of the question. He would never be able to keep Hurel out of the public eye there – certainly not at the Sea Fencible detachment or his room at the Rose Inn.
Now the only place he could think of going where they could hope to keep a low profile was his father’s rectory.
There was no time to warn his family, but so be it. The important thing now was to prevent Hurel from compromising them again once they got there.
And so he resolved to spend the journey coaching the Frenchman on the importance of security. Judging from the man’s performance at Ludden Hall things did not augur well.
9
A Cunning Plan
Back on board the hulk Anson had visited in the Medway, the prisoner known to one and all – including the guard force – as Citizen Bardet, thought over the visit from the English naval lieutenant who had brought him a dead man’s possessions.
There had been something unusual about it, something he could not quite put his finger on. Why hadn’t the few pathetic items simply been left with the guard commander? Why had the Rosbifs bothered to return them at all?
Perhaps the English lieutenant had deliberately sought him out to size him up, but why? Bardet was certain the authorities could not possibly know of the escape he planned to make imminently.
His daring and, he hoped, foolproof plan, was known to only those he was taking with him and a few others sworn to secrecy on pain of death. In any event, the support team had a vested interest in keeping the escape plan under close wraps, because if he succeeded – when he succeeded – they could use the same means to spirit themselves away from this hell on water.
He had been surprised at the respect shown him by the visiting lieutenant and could have grown to like him if he had not been English. But had his apparent humanity hidden some ulterior motive?
Bardet shrugged. ‘Ça ne fait rien.’ By the time the English got their act together he and his companions would be long gone. And he smirked at his own audacity in telling the lieutenant to his face that he intended to escape whenever he chose.
The two he was taking with him were men he had served with since hostilities began: the Parisian Girault, a butcher in civilian life; and the Corsican known as Cornacchia, the crow, who looked as if he might cut your throat as soon as look at you – and probably would.
When elected as their leader by his fellow prisoners, Bardet had appointed these two as his bodyguards and he trusted them completely. Their loyalty, if ever in doubt, was ensured by the perks of their office –
the extra food and privileges that came their leader’s way.
One loudmouth who had the temerity to question Bardet’s authority had disappeared one stormy night. Some believed he had escaped. Others thought he had been murdered and thrown overboard, but that would have been next to impossible owing to the sentinels’ walkway around the hull. And so the rumour grew that he had been chopped up by Bardet’s butcher henchman and fed to the starving wretches on the lower deck.
The truth was that the missing man had been an informer and when the authorities feared that his cover had been blown they had spirited him away for his own safety and replanted him in a land prison many miles away to continue his treachery.
Not knowing this, Bardet was content to allow the rumour that the man had ended up as dinner for the lower deck to continue to circulate because it strengthened his authority. The meat that had been fed to them that night had in reality come from a visitor’s dog which had been lured below deck by artful miscreants offering it scraps.
There had been a minor hoo-ha when it disappeared, but the search for it was called off when a saintly-looking elderly prisoner assured its owner he had witnessed it jumping over the side trying to catch a seagull and it had last been seen swimming ashore. The owner had been misguided enough to press a few coins on the prisoner for his honesty …
Bardet’s bodyguards had been captured with him when their ship had been out-run, boarded and taken a year earlier when trying to evade the Channel blockade. That meant that that he had spent twelve long months in this floating pigsty and he did not intend to waste another day here.
For the umpteenth time he thought over his escape plan. His preparation had been detailed, thorough, and conducted in great secrecy.
He had employed two former ship’s carpenters to saw a round hole – just big enough for a man – in a secluded compartment just above the low tide water-line.
Despite the relative ease of obtaining – or making – the necessary tools, the work had taken many weeks. Small saws used in model-making were regarded by the authorities as legitimate craft tools, no-one dreaming that they could be used to cut a hole in the side of a warship, however old and decrepit.
But Bardet knew about the long-term effect of dripping on a stone and had been prepared for slow progress. If his team had been able to do the work during the day it would have only taken a relatively short time. But Bardet insisted that they work only at night, on low tides – and in silence.
Whenever the carpenters set to work one of his henchmen was always on hand to keep others at bay. Other trusted lookouts were posted and ready to cause a diversion if ever guards showed signs of coming near. The lookouts were wise enough not to poke their noses too far into what was going on, accepting – as the carpenters had – that they would have their own chance to escape when the hoo-ha had died down after Bardet had got away.
Although the timbers were massive they were spongy and gradually a circular furrow appeared, to be disguised with a mixture of tar and glue at the end of each shift. A plank bearing hooks was secured to the ship’s timbers each side of the escape hole with iron nails. This was done at a time when many of the model-makers on the main gun deck were told to make as much noise as they could for ten minutes to disguise what was going on below. But the nails were not fully knocked in. That would be done later. For the moment it was sufficient that they could hold the bar in place.
The sawyers had made their cut sloping inwards, and the reason for this finally became clear when water began to seep in. Work stopped but was resumed during the ebb and in the meantime the bar was sufficient to keep the circular escape hole in place. The furrow was again filled with the mixture of tar and glue and filthy old rags were then draped from nails above to disguise it. Anything better would not have lasted long in a hulk where clothing was gambled away or exchanged for food as a matter of course.
The final cut had been made the night before and, if Bardet ever prayed, it would be to ask that the filling of glue and tar inserted into the cuts would stop water seepage during the coming high tides. Not being a believer, he did not pray. But the water did not come in.
The roundel was just big enough for the bulkiest man – the Corsican – to slip through. They had measured it carefully.
Bardet called his escape team together and ran over the plan for the last time. ‘Tonight, after we have eaten, Girault and Cornacchia will get our escape kit ready and go down to the hole with the carpenters. The ship’s committee have agreed to stage a diversion which will involve a boxing match. The English love their sports so they will be watching that, too.’
His companions exchanged a grin at the prospect of fooling their guards.
‘I will make myself seen around the ring. In fact I will announce the match. Then I, too, will slip away and make my way below. At the height of the fight, which will be staged carefully, others will enter the ring and start a general brawl with plenty of noise. That will be our moment.’
There was nodded agreement.
‘Meanwhile the carpenters will take out the panel and we will climb through and emerge under the walkway. It will be low tide and we will cling to the walkway while those inside seal the escape hole up again. Simple, is it not? Then, using our inflated pigs’ bladders for flotation we three will paddle for the shore just below Gillingham. What happens after that is secret. Suffice it to say that there is a plan …’
While the other prisoners and a number of their guards gathered on the main gun deck ready for the match, Bardet’s escape team slipped quietly away and, singly, so as not to attract attention, made their way down the companionway to the lower deck.
He remained until last and entered the chalked area that was to be the boxing ring. There was mounting excitement as he held up his hands for attention and announced the match, loud cheers greeting the two boxers as they stepped forward. A burly petty officer acting as referee held up a neckerchief, dropped it, and the adversaries waded into one another throwing punches.
*
Bardet pushed his way through the excited prisoners and followed his escape team below.
They had brought with them some left-overs from the evening meal and threw them to the naked wretches who infested this noxious place.
While the down-and-outs fought over the scraps the carpenters quickly removed the tarry paste from the rim of the escape hole and lifted the wooden roundel free. A little water spilled in at the bottom but Bardet had judged the tide right.
He stripped swiftly, was greased with lard by one of the carpenters, climbed on the man’s back and disappeared through the hole. His prison clothes would be put to good use by the support men – and he had more suitable attire in his canvas bag.
Girault threw off his yellow jacket and trousers, was similarly greased around the shoulders, chest and back and slipped through the hole, followed moments later by Cornacchia.
After him went a narrow canoe-like craft, not big enough for the escapers, but fashioned by the carpenters to carry and keep dry the clothes they would put on once ashore.
Last of all the canvas kit bags containing their escape gear was pushed through the hole after them and within minutes the back-up team had secured the roundel in place and resealed the rim.
Satisfied that the escape hole was well enough disguised, the carpenters and lookouts made their way back up to the main gun deck and joined the excited spectators as the boxers punched, butted and shoved one another around the ring.
Once outside the hulk, hidden under the sentinels’ walkway, Bardet took stock.
He waited for a while listening for the thud of boots above, but could hear nothing but the lapping of the water and the loud din emanating from the barred but open ports on the main gun deck above.
Satisfied that there was no sentinel close by, he gripped the staging overhead and made his way to the edge of the walkway where he again checked for footsteps above.
Still there were none, and he imagined, correctly, that most of the guard for
ce had found reasons to be at the boxing match.
Hanging on to the edge of the walkway, he called softly to the others and they joined him, Cornacchia, the strongest swimmer, pulling the canoe-like raft now carrying their escape kit behind him.
Once again Bardet checked for activity above, but still there was none – and then, on cue, the noise level emanating from the gun ports increased to a crescendo.
By the watery moonlight his companions could see the flash of his teeth framed by his bearded mouth and they grinned too. The diversion had started as planned, bang on time.
*
The match was already in full swing when the escape back-up team, carpenters and lookouts arrived, unnoticed, back on the main gun deck.
The burly Breton appeared to have the upper hand over the Marseilles bruiser, who had already been down twice, but the two boxers, amply bribed by Bardet, were merely putting on a show. Blows were connecting sure enough, but there was little if any power in them.
To unknowing spectators, especially members of the ship’s crew and guard force, it looked as if the Breton was handing out a real battering and bets were being laid at increasingly changing odds.
Pushing his way through the crush of spectators to the front, Chambon the carpenter waited for the right moment and then deliberately and openly shoved the Breton from behind so that he stumbled forward awkwardly, took a blow to the head from his apparently surprised opponent and fell to his knees.
This was the signal for those in the know about the plan to create a diversion to make sure that all hell broke loose. But it was hardly necessary to simulate disorder. Those, unaware of the trick, who had placed bets on the Breton, were outraged that their man had apparently been sabotaged and within seconds the circle had been broken and the boxers sank beneath a wave of bodies as rival supporters waded in, fists flying.