‘Someone you took the trouble to enquire about?’
‘Only because your name rang a bell and I asked. In truth, given you had taken the prizes you mentioned, I was surprised to see you at all.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, when we were having breakfast and I discerned that you had come seeking employment, it occurred to me that you were a person who had possibly less fear of the law than most, an adventurous sort of fellow, and then you informed me that you needed money and perhaps a great deal of it.’
‘So you thought, How convenient.’
‘Please do not make me sound like a deceiver.’
‘One moment, Arthur, if you’re not that, you are damned untrusting. The required destination I had to drag it out of you, you held secret the name of the ship until we were across the Channel and, as of this moment, I have no idea of the signal those ashore are waiting for because you have yet to tell me.’
‘Chase is no more’n a cable’s length away now, John-boy,’ said Michael, calmly.
‘Three white lanterns at the foremast in a vertical line.’
‘Thank you, and did I forget to mention that you lied from the very beginning of our second meeting?’
‘For which, I hope, you will forgive me, but as I have said, I did not imagine this. Would it help if I offered you a larger share of the venture?’
‘No!’ Seeing the look of surprise on Winston’s face, even if he tried to disguise it, Pearce added, ‘You could have trusted me with everything, Arthur, and that is the one thing which you have not understood and which has irritated me no end.’
‘Obviously,’ he responded in a soft, regretful tone, ‘I have misjudged you.’
‘More than you know.’
‘If you will not take an increased share, how can I make it up to you?’
‘You cannot, and it makes no odds. We are in a bad situation and we have to get out of it. I have to find a way, without any of the weapons I need to effect it, how to encourage this lot pursuing us to desist. If you have any ideas, I would be grateful.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Is that for lying, or for a lack of imagination?’
The crack of what sounded like a musket was loud enough to carry, even if the range at which it was discharged was too far off to be a risk. It was a message being sent over the water telling Pearce to heave-to. He shot down below to where he had left the pistols – now wormed and unloaded – and came back on deck with one, horn in his other hand. Priming one quickly he cocked it, laid it on the bulwark so it could not be seen for what it was, and fired it off, only to turn back to face a curious Arthur Winston.
‘Let’s hope they think we have muskets too. The sound is not too dissimilar, even without a ball.’
‘As long as they don’t guess what little we’ve got in the way of powder and shot,’ Michael replied.
‘I think they will be a last resort, Michael, but load them anyway.’
The Irishman nodded; they were not much good unless you could see the whites of an opponent’s eyes and would only be of any use if they were actually close to being boarded.
The cry came from the bows. ‘By the mark, three.’
‘They found a log,’ Michael said. ‘Bless them.’
Doing a quick calculation in his mind, Pearce grabbed the telescope and, tucking it into his breeches, ran for the mainmast shrouds, his still-bare feet gripping the tarred lines. He was over the cap in record time and well on his way to the crosstrees before Winston asked Michael what he was doing.
‘Holy Mary, can you not guess? He’ll be looking for our landfall and he will also look for any sails that might give those bastards pause.’
‘Do you think he will succeed?’
Michael just shrugged, but looking aloft he could see Pearce throwing a leg across an upper yard, then securing himself so he could use the spyglass, the point of that moving left and right before steadying, indicating he had spotted what he was looking for. That was held for a while before he searched the horizon in all directions, naturally including the pursuit, to observe that the man conning her had every available body standing on his bulwark to stiffen the lugger against the wind and improve her rate of sailing.
The faces were not yet distinct, but he could see the bodies of the more adventurous as, almost on the tips of their bare feet, they hung on to a shroud or a line as they leant out over the grey-green waters below, loose shirts billowing, but eyes fixed on the Bilander with a degree of concentration that testified to their determination. Pearce knew it was fanciful to think he could feel their hatred, yet he could not put aside the sensation, and since it was an uncomfortable one he returned the telescope to his breeches and, grabbing a backstay, slid back down to the deck.
‘There are no vessels close by that can either aid us or prevent those fellows doing what they please, but I have seen the white cliffs below Ramsgate. We are close to home, and more to the point, close to requiring a change to a more southerly course. The pity is that will aid the pursuit.’
‘How so?’
‘They will shave the corner, Arthur. Still, it matters not, if we are going to put an end to this chase we have precious little time to think of a way to do it. Michael, hold this course for now while I see what I can find below.’
‘I will join you,’ Winston said, quick to dog his heels. Just as they reached the hatchway the pursuit discharged another musket, another demand to heave-to. ‘You’re sure it would not be wise to just surrender?’
‘We do not know who these fellows are, only that we are in possession of what they see as their property, and they will be of a mind that it is us who have stolen it. Think of the likely nature of the men we might be dealing with, then ask yourself what you would do in their place.’
‘I would certainly not commit foul murder. It is barbarous.’
‘Well, I for one will not trust to their morality, on the grounds they might have none.’
‘But if we dispute with them it will make matters worse.’
There was just enough light to see Pearce’s grin. ‘Not if we beat them.’
Michael’s voice came down the hatchway. ‘Well short of a cable now, John-boy, they’ll not be long in trying musket range.’
The holds were full to capacity and Pearce was reminded of what he had noticed last night when coming below to sleep: literally there was no room to swing a cat below decks on a merchant vessel. Had there been a full crew they would have been squashed into a cubby hole in the forepeak, while the master used the poky cabin in which they had slept the night before. This caused something to occur to him he should have thought of before.
‘Arthur, look in the lockers of that cabin and see if you can find any flags.’
‘Why?’
‘Please stop asking questions and do as I bid you.’ The look that got, again barely visible, was still obvious: Winston was miffed to be spoken to in such a manner. ‘Arthur, I have no time for hurt feelings and neither have you.’
Struggling to recall the exact cargo, Pearce called out to ask Winston, but there being no reply, he guessed he was inside the cabin and had not heard. It was packed so tight that nothing beyond the aft outer layer was available to him, and the space left to get round the whole was so cramped he had a genuine fear that, if it moved while he was between the scantlings at the bales, he might be crushed. Everything was wrapped in tarpaulins, making it difficult to see other than that which lay right before his eyes.
With some effort he pushed himself upwards, reaching forward a hand until it made contact with straw. Feeling further he felt cold glass and roundness: it was a flask and should mean quality brandy. It took even more effort to get higher, but stretched fingers told him the flagons lay close to the deck timbers and would be reached easier through the hatch covers.
An image of that low-decked lugger coming out in pursuit came to his mind at the same time as an idea. What he envisaged would not stop the pursuit but it might slow it down and that was bett
er than nothing, so he struggled to get down till his bare toes touched the deck, then to squeeze himself out till he could breathe properly. There he found Winston holding a pair of flags, one the stripes of the Dutch Republic, another the triple-turreted white castle on a red background of Hamburg.
‘I have found the brandy.’
‘I am all for an uplifting libation, John, but …’ Winston was talking to himself: Pearce was running up to the deck, calling out to bring up the flags. By the time Winston reached fresh air he saw three of the Pelicans tearing at the covers of the hatches, pulling back the canvas to reveal the cargo, first some thin packets right up against the deck beams, then under those, row upon row of tightly packed brandy flasks in wooden boxes, each wide part of the glass wrapped in protective straw.
‘Out with them.’
‘What for?’ asked Rufus.
‘Can’t you tell, lad?’ Charlie joked, cutting off any explanation. ‘We’s goin’ to get them drunk.’
‘Get them out,’ Pearce ordered, ‘and line them along the larboard bulwark.’
‘Might I ask you to take care, given they are quite valuable,’ Winston said. ‘French brandy fetches a very high price now.’
Pearce grinned. ‘It always did, I seem to recall.’
‘Now’t amiss with apple brandy,’ Charlie insisted.
‘People of refinement don’t agree, Charlie.’
Mock surprise was the response. ‘You sayin’ I ain’t a nob, John Pearce?’
‘No times for banter, friend,’ Pearce jerked his head to indicate the lugger was close indeed. ‘Rufus, get aloft with a line to the mainmast cap and drop it over. Quick now, before they are in range to take a potshot at you.’
Rufus had all the agility of his years and enough real fear to respond like a startled hare to what he was being told. He grabbed a spare line off a cleat and went up the shrouds like a squirrel, hand over hand, the rope over his shoulder. Once on the cap, he was told to throw his rope over and the first flagon was lashed on.
‘Haul away, Rufus,’ Pearce called and up it went on command, an act that was repeated half a dozen times.
The next report of the musket had Pearce looking at the lugger’s forepeak, where a fellow, balanced on the bowsprit, was passing back the discharged musket, while one of his mates was handing him another loaded weapon. That had to be ignored: it would be a damned lucky shot to hit anyone at that range, muskets being inaccurate at anything over fifty paces, while the fellow was standing on a moving platform, rising and falling on the swell.
Pearce called up to Rufus to give him instructions, the first of which was to crouch down behind the mast and wait. ‘Arthur, get below and fetch up the cutlasses.’
The man stood rooted to the spot, as if Pearce had not spoken, until the second musket was fired. This time the ball crossed over their heads, the crack of that making him move; Pearce ran for the binnacle, talking to the man steering.
‘Michael, you’re too much of a target and besides I need you with a sword in your hand. Let us change our course now and then lash off the wheel.’
‘We’ll need to trim the sails as well, that spanker most of all.’
Pearce grinned. ‘The navy has made a sailor of you.’
He called to Charlie to lay the pistols behind the binnacle, then had him help trim the braces on the main canvas. Even if he knew it would cost them speed, he had Michael alter course and lash off the wheel before they could attack the set of the spanker, a sail they would not have been able to handle without the Irishman, with a struggling Charlie Taverner, using what breath he could muster, calling aloft to Rufus that he was an idle bugger, and getting as much abuse in reply.
For all he was hauling on a rope he was not sure he was totally in control of – not aided by the pitch and roll of the ship – Pearce experienced a strange feeling of pride then: they were in danger and it might be mortal, but they could still jest with each other, while nothing made him more satisfied than the way they obeyed every instruction he issued without complaint; in short, his Pelicans trusted him, and for a man who had had few long long-term friends in his life it brought a lump to his throat.
That emotion evaporated as another musket ball cracked by; the pursuit had closed to the point where the man on the lugger’s wheel was edging his bowsprit close to the Bilander’s taffrail, and, as expected, to windward. Those men stiffening the keel had abandoned the bulwarks and were now preparing themselves for boarding and it was obvious they had no shortage of weapons.
‘Where’s Winston with those cutlasses?’
He was not on deck so Pearce rushed below as another musket was discharged. Once down the hatchway he found Winston crouched down and visibly trembling, the cutlasses gathered in his arms.
‘God help me, John, I fear I am about to soil myself and my stomach is in turmoil.’
The sound was so pitiful it halted Pearce’s angry bark; clearly the fellow was terrified, and if he knew anything, he knew there was no time to do anything about it. ‘Give me the weapons.’ The hands that passed them over were shaking. ‘For the love of creation stay here.’
‘I must help.’
‘The only help you can give is to pray to whatever gods you believe in.’
‘I’m sorry, John.’
There was really no point in doing other than patting his shoulder and leaving. Back on deck he threw the swords into the bulwarks, calling on the others to get there and crouch down.
‘We can’t do a tot of rum, lads, but you might want to crack the neck off one of those bottles and have yourself a nip.’
‘I’ll drink when it’s over,’ Michael replied, which surprised Pearce: Michael was an imbiber of note.
‘Bugger that,’ Charlie whooped, as he lifted a flask and cracked it on the top of a cleat, severing a jagged edge. Then he lifted it and, keeping the glass clear of his mouth, had an untidy swallow, that before he growled. The brandy hitting the back of his throat caused that and was followed by a furious headshake. ‘By Christ, that’s a fine brew.’
They could hear loud shouting now and in amongst that clear indications of what they intended to do. There was no more musket fire now, they probably reckoned they did not need it, though Pearce harboured a hope, very faint he knew, that they had run out of powder or shot. The noise rose, the voices became clearer: their guts were going to be garters, their gizzards were going to be sliced open and most fearful of all were the threats to feed them to the fish.
Pearce, as the lugger took their wind, stood up and looked straight down into a vessel now close to coming alongside, into a sea of faces, more than two dozen in number, all screaming imprecations. A musket being levelled to take him, it was agony to hold still for several seconds before it was discharged, he ducking back down only just in time.
‘Rufus, as soon as you think you can.’
‘Not yet, John.’
Was it the wrong man in the wrong place, Pearce thought, before putting such a useless thought aside? What he did know was that he was required to cause another distraction, to stand again and let another musket fire at him – at all costs he had to keep their eyes on the deck. This time he stood and stepped out into plain view, only to see that the gap was close to gone and he was facing not one musket but three, all of them discharged as soon as he became visible.
He dived sideways and shouted as the balls cracked past him. ‘Damn it, Rufus, now!’
Back to safety, he craned his neck to see if his instructions had been obeyed. The youngster had the first flagon, now stripped of straw, by the neck and he threw the dark green bottle, with Pearce watching it tumble through the air, its progress seeming to be dreamlike it was so slow. But there was no mistaking the sound of breaking glass, nor that the second was on the way.
‘You too, Michael,’ he called.
The Irishman, sitting with his back to the bulwark, lobbed another bottle into the forepeak and that too broke, Charlie at the same time standing just enough to throw another flagon at
the head of the man on the wheel, every one braking on contact. Pearce grabbed the pistols and scurried across the planking, then got upright enough to discharge first one pistol then the second, which got heads ducking and stopped in its tracks the idea of reloading those muskets. Better still, it made those planning to board move and, as they did so, he heard the loud pained curses as they trod on the broken glass, his hope that such wounded feet would cut the numbers who could board and might even make them sheer off to clear their deck, granting him time to reopen the gap.
What followed, Pearce could not have foreseen: his idea had been merely to cause delay, coming to him from seeing those barefooted men stiffening the keel by standing on the bulwarks, reasoning that they would still be likewise when they came alongside. The notion of inflammable vapour had not occurred, while the flash he saw could only have come from a dropped musket, one that was already primed. There was a sudden burst of bluish flame and it rose high enough to shoot up that great red sail. More than that, short in duration as it was, it scared the men who lined up on the deck and had them running in all directions over all that broken glass.
There was one fellow with sense and a healthy fear of flames. He grabbed an axe and cut away the falls holding the sail, trying to get it clear before it set fire to anything else. The sail began to flap as the way came off the lugger, its head falling to starboard as the current pressed it over, and the gap between the vessels opened up.
An elated John Pearce stood to jeer and he moved towards the larboard bulwark without looking down. Unshod, he cut his own foot on the jagged top of the bottle from which Charlie Taverner had imbibed, and the sharp pain made him drop to his knees. Looking back he was able to see the blood oozing through his toes, as well as the gash on his sole.
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