Secrets of the Fearless

by Elizabeth Laird

  ‘Yes,’ Kit said delightedly. ‘An excellent story. Yes, I could say all that.’

  ‘You do realize, Catherine,’ Mr Erskine went on gently, ‘that once you have left us and broken through the British positions to reach the French army, you will not be able to return to the Fearless? You will have to follow the thing through, in the character you have assumed, and go back to your home in Bordeaux.’

  Catherine glanced quickly at John, then away again.

  ‘It’s what I want to do,’ she said. ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘Excellent. Splendid. Good . . . er . . . lad,’ said Captain Bannerman. ‘Be off with you now. Dismissed from the service. Delighted to have had you on board. Very irregular circumstances, but we’ve brushed through the whole thing as well as possible, with no fuss or scandal. Women on ships . . . humph! I will say no more. Now, Mr Erskine, if you please, arrangements for the evacuation of the guns . . .’

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ interrupted Kit.

  ‘Yes, girl? What now?’

  ‘Do I understand that John Barr is to be my escort, sir, through the British lines? Until I’m in sight of the French army.’

  The captain raised his massive eyebrows.

  ‘Of course. For what other reason do you suppose he was summoned here with you? Mr Barr will take you through to the far side of the British army before returning to the ship. You will proceed alone.’

  ‘Sir, I must go with her all the way,’ John burst out. ‘I can’t let her go alone into a rabble of soldiers! I’ll pretend to be her footman again, her manservant. I’ll be able to guard her, if—’

  ‘Think, John. Think,’ said Mr Erskine, his injured cheek twitching. ‘Mlle de Jalignac will be far safer on her own. Your presence will instantly arouse suspicion. A young man, with the tar-stained hands of a sailor, who speaks only English – why, you would give the game away at once. You are recognizable at a glance as a seaman, and a British one at that.’

  John stared at him.

  ‘I suppose you are right,’ he said unhappily, after a silence.

  ‘Right? Good God, of course he’s right!’ boomed Captain Bannerman irritably. ‘Damn your impudence! To “suppose” the rightness of a superior officer? I never heard of such a thing. Now be off with the pair of you, and . . . ah . . . may your mission be crowned with success.’

  Mr Erskine led them both to the door of the great cabin. He smiled down at Kit, then, to her great surprise, took her hand in his and kissed it.

  ‘I salute you, mademoiselle. You are a young woman of immense spirit and high courage. I predict a great destiny for you. If I wasn’t a penniless sailor, old enough to be your father, with a ruined face, I believe I would . . . but I will send you off in the tender care of Mr Barr. There’s no need to glower at me, young John. Catherine, take your leave of Mr Catskill, assume your female dress and be ready to leave within the hour.’

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  It was quite dark by now. John and Kit, eager to get out of earshot of the marine guards at the door of Captain Bannerman’s cabin, took refuge in a quiet corner of the quarterdeck. A chill wind was blowing off the sea, but though they both shivered, they barely noticed it.

  ‘You don’t have to do this.’ John took Kit’s arm and shook it more roughly than he had meant to.

  She pulled gently away.

  ‘I do! Don’t you see? This is my only chance to get back to Jalignac. Once the Fearless is on convoy duty, she may never return to the coast of France. It could be years before I am home again. And just think, John, what if I don’t go? What if the French attack the convoy and there’s a battle? How many men will the Fearless lose? Which of our friends will they be? Jabez? Tom? Mr Erskine? Davey? You?’

  ‘Not Davey,’ John said, trying to smile. ‘His fortune-teller told him he’s going to live forever.’

  ‘You know what I mean. I couldn’t bear it if any of them died, knowing there was something I could have done to prevent it.’

  They were huddling close together, sheltering from the wind. John could hear her teeth chattering. He wanted to put his arms round her to shield her from the wind, but knew that the eyes of the marines guarding the great cabin door were on them.

  ‘You’d do the same if you were me, wouldn’t you, John? It’s the right thing to do.’

  He nodded reluctantly.

  ‘I would. Yes, I suppose I would.’

  He wanted to say more, to try to give voice to the turbulent feelings raging inside him, but one of the marines began to cough and shuffle his feet. He was closer than John had thought.

  ‘Anyway –’ he could hear the smile in her voice – ‘only think what an adventure it will be!’

  He took a deep breath. He couldn’t let her courage leave his behind.

  ‘You needn’t worry,’ he said. ‘I won’t argue any more. I’ll help you as much as I can.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He heard the relief in her voice. ‘I must go back down to the sickbay. I don’t know what to do about clothes. All I have is the ball gown I was wearing in Bordeaux. I’ll freeze to death in a few minutes if I go out in only that.’

  They were descending the companionway now, down to the gun deck, the surface of which had all but disappeared under a jumble of military gear. Exhausted soldiers, some with bloody bandages round their heads or slings holding their arms, their clothes in tatters, their filthy feet bound in rags, had already been brought on board. They were leaning, eyes shut, against the bulkheads or lying prone on the floor.

  A cavalry officer, his spurs still attached to his boots, was kneeling on the deck holding a flask of water to the lips of a groaning man who lay on his back on the scrubbed boards.

  John’s eyes narrowed at the sight of the thick cloak which the officer had thrown back over one shoulder. He waited until the man had stood up again and went across to him.

  ‘Excuse me, sir.’

  The officer turned. John was struck by how pale and thin he was, his cheeks so wasted that his eyes seemed to have sunk deep into his head. They blazed, though, with such relief and happiness that John stepped back.

  ‘Yes, yes, my dear fellow,’ the officer said, grasping John’s hand. ‘How may I be of service?’

  ‘I . . . it’s an odd request,’ began John, taken aback by the man’s enthusiasm. ‘I need . . . you see, for a very particular reason, I need to purchase a thick cloak, such as the one you are wearing. It’s not for myself, but for . . . a person who needs it. If you know who might have such a one to spare . . .’

  The officer was already unclasping the chain at the neck of the cloak and tearing it off. He thrust it into John’s arms.

  ‘It is yours. Have it. No, no, I protest. If you only knew how all of our sad army have longed for this moment of rescue – when we saw your beautiful ships, our English ships, so serene and strong, sail into the harbour, and knew we were saved . . .’ He stopped and, to his great embarrassment, John saw that there were tears in his eyes. ‘Safe at last, within these wooden walls, and warm, and fed . . . Thanks to our friends, our brave tars.’

  He stopped at last.

  ‘But I must pay you,’ John said, mortified.

  ‘Pay me? My dear young man, you have not examined the cloak. At least three bullet holes . . . a sabre rent . . . mud coating the hem . . . scorch marks . . . and the silk lining is sadly tattered. I would not dare show my face in London in such a garment. Why, I would be the laughing stock of Hyde Park. No, no. Such as it is, it is yours.’

  The man on the floor groaned again. The officer knelt down and held his flask once more to the thin cracked lips.

  ‘No more groaning, Curzon, my good fellow. You are safe, do you hear? And you are to be fed. Fed! I have it on good authority that a supper of – what do these sailors eat? . . . salt beef and pea soup – is to be served to us shortly. So there is no need for you to die after all now. None at all.’

  John hesitated for a moment longer, then turned away.

  I don’t have any money to pa
y him with anyway, he told himself.

  In the darkness and confusion, the shouting and bustle, with boat-load after boat-load of troopers, wounded men, guns, ammunition and supplies being brought aboard the Fearless, nobody noticed another midshipman clamber down the cleats into the next empty boat, and no one even glanced at the heavily cloaked and hooded figure nimbly following him. The sailors, bending to the oars, sent the boat scudding through the water towards the shore, where the next group of soldiers was waiting to be taken off.

  John and Kit threaded their way across the crowded beach till they were standing under the harbour wall.

  ‘Wait here,’ John said. ‘No one will see you here. I’m going to find out where we should be going.’

  Catherine stepped back into an angle of the wall where the deep shadow hid her.

  ‘Yes, go. I’ll stay here.’

  He moved along the beach, peering to right and left, not knowing whom to approach. In the small gleams of light coming from the windows of the town some way away he could barely see anything, but the cries and groans of the men all around told him he was among the crowds of sick and wounded soldiers. Hands grasped at his trousers and voices pleaded with him to bring water.

  No point in asking anything of these poor souls, he told himself, shuddering. They seem more dead than alive.

  A sudden, terrified, whinnying scream brought him to a halt, and a second later something huge and black, something snorting and rearing, surged at him out of the darkness. A horse, maddened with fear, was bolting along the beach. Even in the darkness he could see the white of its rolling eye, the foam flecking its open mouth and the mane erect along its neck. Instinctively he put out his hands to protect himself, and found he had caught the horse’s reins. It plunged to a halt, jibbing and bucking, lashing out with its hoofs.

  He was trying ineffectually to calm it when a cavalry man came running up.

  ‘You’ve caught ’im,’ panted the trooper. ‘Thank you, my friend. I don’t want no one but me to do the deed, not after all me and ’im ’ave been through together. Come, Rufus, quiet, Rufus. ’Ere, ’old ’im, will you, while I cock my pistol.’

  ‘Your pistol?’ John was needing both hands and all his strength to hold the panic-stricken horse.

  ‘Yes. One clean bullet to the brain. It’s the last service I can do for ’im.’

  ‘But why? Why do you want to shoot your horse?’

  The man laughed bitterly.

  ‘’Tain’t me as wants to shoot ’im. Ask the colonel, God rot ’im. “You’re off on the boats,” ’e says. “Can’t take no ’orses with you. Don’t want to leave them to the French. A gift they would be to them. Shoot ’em, boys,” he says. “Do it quick.” But a ’orse to a trooper, well, ’e’s closer than a man’s own brother. Rufus and me, we’ve been in that many battles, you wouldn’t believe the times ’e’s saved me with ’is quickness.’

  He caught hold of the horse’s mane and Rufus stilled, trembling, as his master murmured, broken-voiced, into his ear.

  ‘I’m sorry, Rufus, me old friend,’ John heard him whisper. ‘Forgive me for this. I’ll make it quick and easy. You wouldn’t want no butcher doing a bad job, would you, boy?’

  He pulled back, and with a trembling hand lifted the pistol till it was pointing directly at the white diamond star between the horse’s ears.

  ‘No, no!’ John struck his hand aside. ‘I could use a horse. Give him to me. There’s a . . . there’s someone I have to transport from here. I hadn’t thought of it before, but a horse is just what we need.’

  The man gaped at him.

  ‘You’ll take ’im? You’ll take Rufus? Oh, lad, if you only knew . . .’

  ‘Yes, but listen.’ John was thinking fast. ‘I need help. I’ll take your horse, I’ll save him, I promise you, but you must give me information.’

  The man squinted at him, his eyes narrowed.

  ‘Wait a minute. I can see you proper now. You’re a sailor, ain’t you? What’s a tar like you doin’ wantin’ a man’s ’orse? What’s your game, bully boy? What are you plannin’ on doin’ with my Rufus?’

  ‘It’s not for me.’ John stepped back from the man’s face, which was now thrust into his own. ‘There’s a . . . a lady. I’m to escort her. Up there.’

  To his relief the trooper laughed and stepped back.

  ‘Oho! A lady, is it? Bit young for all that sort of thing, ain’t yer? ’Sright what they say about you sailors, then? A wife in every port! Spanish, is she? Pretty, I’ll bet.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, she’s Spanish. I’ve promised – for someone else – to take her back to her village. But I need to know – how close are the French? How far do the British lines extend back from the town?’

  The trooper was still patting Rufus’s neck, and the horse was calming down.

  ‘Hard to say, sailor. Our boys are up on that ridge, nearest the town. That I do know. In a bad way, too, most of them. Shocking state they’re in. Why—’

  ‘Yes, but the French!’ John interrupted. ‘Where’s the French army? How far away?’

  ‘Comin’ up behind us fast.’ The trooper had eyes only for his horse. ‘A day, two days, I dunno. Not more’n five miles at the most, I’d say. They’ve followed us up the road all the way from the south, ’arrying, ’arrassing, skirmishing. Mad beasts they are. Mad, mad beasts.’

  Shots rang out further along the beach, and the unearthly screams of dying horses filled the night air. Rufus reared back and seemed about to bolt again.

  ‘Take ’im, quick. Just take ’im and get ’im away from ’ere, before my sergeant finds out I ain’t done it,’ the trooper begged. He leaned forward and kissed the horse’s nose. ‘Go on, my old darlin’! I done what I could for you.’ He stepped back. ‘Brave as a lion, ’e is. Charge into any guns. Only one thing scares ’im: water. If there’s a stream you ’ave to cross, don’t try to ride ’im through it. ’E’ll do it for me, but not for no one else. Dismount, and lead ’im. Talk ’im through, gentle like. Oh, I can’t stand this any longer.’

  He turned and stumbled away.

  John, left standing with the reins of the huge black charger in his hands, felt a moment’s misgiving. Wouldn’t it have been easier, after all, to manage on foot, in this unknown country, in the dark? What if the horse was vicious, or nervous? It might shy and throw Kit off.

  ‘Here, Rufus,’ he said uncertainly, clicking his tongue. To his relief, the horse stepped forward and began to follow him, stepping neatly between the wounded men on the beach.

  ‘Hey! You!’ someone shouted behind him. ‘All horses to be shot! You heard the order!’

  ‘Not this one. He’s requisitioned for the navy!’ John called back, making his voice sound as commanding as he could. ‘Come on, Rufus. We’ve a long way to go tonight.’

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  The narrow streets of Corunna were hopelessly crowded with men, mules, heavy guns and baggage carts, making their way down towards the shore, and it seemed impossible to John that they would be able to force their way uphill against the tide of traffic. There was no point in trying to ride Rufus. Kit, who had welcomed the old charger with surprise and pleasure, had taken control of him, and Rufus, calm now, accepted her authority with perfect docility.

  ‘It would have been much easier to get through without him,’ John said, as Kit tried to back Rufus under an arch out of the way of a huge piece of heavy artillery. ‘Perhaps we should just let him go.’

  ‘No!’ She had to shout to make herself heard over the deafening rumble of iron-bound wheels on the cobblestones. ‘He’d be killed, and anyway I just know he’ll be useful later.’

  Rufus snorted and dropped his great black head on to her shoulder as if he understood.

  They were out of the town at last. They stood on the verge of the road that led up the hill watching the endless lines of weary troops stumble down towards the beach.

  ‘Which way do you think now?’ Kit asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’
<
br />   He bit his lip and looked up. A long line of fires flickered above them, and he guessed that the soldiers, waiting for their turn to be sent down to the shore, had lit them on the ridge above to keep themselves warm during the cold night.

  ‘I suppose they’re ours, but what if . . . maybe they’re the French,’ he wondered out loud.

  ‘Those ones are British, I’m sure,’ Kit answered. ‘Look there. Behind. In the distance.’

  He could see now, where she was pointing, much smaller, fainter pinpricks of light as if on a far range of hills.

  He shivered.

  ‘Yes. The French army. That’s where it must be.’

  It was impossible to tell how far away the French fires were, and how long it would take Kit to reach them. John felt his confidence ebbing away and at the same time tiredness threatened to overwhelm him.

  ‘Let’s find somewhere to rest till it gets light,’ he suggested. ‘We can’t see where we’re going, anyway.’

  ‘Yes!’ She sounded grateful. ‘It must be very late. It’ll be morning soon.’

  The shadow of a building loomed up ahead of them. They felt their way round it. It seemed to be some kind of barn. The great wooden doors were locked, but on the far side, away from the wind, there was an open shed full of straw.

  Kit led Rufus inside and tied his reins to a corner post. Then she sank down, exhausted, with her back against the bales of straw. John sat down beside her. It was a little warmer in here than outside in the biting wind, but his short midshipman’s jacket and canvas trousers were only a poor protection from the cold and he rubbed at his arms, trying to warm them.

  ‘Here,’ Kit said shyly, ‘this cloak’s big enough for both of us.’

  She unhooked the clasp and threw it round John’s shoulders, then leaned back against the straw. He did too. He could feel the warmth of her against his arm and shoulder and smell the freshness of her skin.