A Sea of Troubles (8 page)

Then he spun his pony again and, slowly, pulled out his sword, rested it on his shoulder and kicked his mount into a trot.

‘He’s going to do a death or glory charge,’ suggested Franklin. ‘He wants us to kill him.’

‘Then shoot his pony,’ growled Jahleel.

If they wondered what Pearce was about they were too busy looking at his face to concern themselves overmuch. Halting some twenty feet away he smiled at both brothers and said. ‘Gentlemen, I ask you to cast an eye over your shoulder.’

‘Oldest trick in the game,’ Jahleel snarled, unaware that Cole had done just that.

‘Best have a look-see, Jahleel.’

‘Don’t be a fool …’

The elder Tolland had only turned to look at Cole, but he got no further, for there, in the very corner of his
vision, lined up on the road, stood a party of a dozen sailors, each with a musket up and aimed at their backs. When he looked for Pearce he was no longer there; he and Michael were heading for the trees and out of the line of fire, at the same time opening enough distance to render the Tolland pistols close to ineffective.

‘Hell and damnation!’

‘Don’t you go getting a twitch,’ called Matthew Dorling, at Jahleel Tolland’s cry. ‘In fact, don’t so much as do other than let those pistols drop to the road.’

‘You reckon to do murder?’ Franklin called, hoping to bluff a way of escape.

‘We reckon to match what you was about, yes. We’ll down you if you want, but at this range, I reckon a musket ball will tear a right hole in your flesh, enough to maim if not kill.’

‘I should do as he says,’ Pearce called, as he and Michael O’Hagan emerged from the copse in which the Tolland gang had been camped, to take up station halfway between his tars and the gang, but to the side to remain out of the line of fire. ‘Drop the pistols, then the swords.’

‘You have not the heart to kill, Pearce.’

‘No, but I have the heart to put a couple of balls into your knees so that none of you will ever walk again.’

‘Sure,’ Michael cawed, ‘I am not soft. One right in your eye will do for me.’

‘It won’t end here, Pearce, so happen you best let your Paddy do his worst.’

‘Mother of God, the man doesn’t know how close to the wind he’s sailing.’

‘You can, of course, send for a Justice of the Peace and
perhaps explain that you are not highwaymen. I wonder if he would believe you when you are up against the word of a King’s Officer, half the crew of one of his vessels, not to mention two total and foreign strangers. I think you know the penalty for highway robbery. Make quite a spectacle, and bring a huge crowd, eight men swinging at once.’

Dorling had brought his men forward in a line, so close that the musket barrels were now close to being pressed into the backs of the gang.

‘Drop the weapons. Now!’

‘You saying you won’t hand us in?’

‘To the Justice, no.’

‘Murder us?’

‘You can choose that course if you wish.’

‘Jahleel, for the love of Christ.’

‘Best listen to Cole, brother,’ Franklin hissed. ‘We’ve been right humbugged but at least we’ll live to fight another day.’

Jahleel Tolland slowly let fall the hammer on his pistol and one of the sailors leapt forward to grab it from his hand, an act repeated until they were all unarmed and their weapons, swords and knives included, were gathered and made safe. Then they were obliged to dismount and once on the ground their horses were taken to be tied to the trees. The men of HMS
Larcher
, not without the odd sly and painful poke, expertly tied their hands, the whole eight then lashed to make it easy to walk in line.

‘Mr Dorling, perhaps you would show our captives something, that little notion you whispered to me last night.’

‘Line them up,’ the master shouted, ‘an’ get your muskets, all of you.’

Weapons that had been laid aside were fetched, those who had stood armed and ready joining in to stand ten feet away from the Tolland gang, each musket raised and aimed, eye along the barrel, at a man’s heart.

‘I reckoned not to believe you,’ Jahleel rasped.

‘You’ll hang of this, Pearce,’ Franklin shouted, but if it was laced with anger there was high dose of fear included.

‘Sir,’ Cephas cried, ‘we was only doing—’

He got no further; Jahleel headbutted him, which would have sent him reeling if he had not been tied. ‘Don’t beg, never beg.’

‘I want you to know what kind of man I am,’ Pearce replied. ‘Steady yourself, lads, take good aim and now …’ He held the suspense, saw many eyes close, but not those of Jahleel; he spat on the ground to let his executioner know what he thought of him. ‘Fire.’

‘Holy mother of Christ,’ the one called Cole yelled, his open mouth showing his lack of teeth.

A dozen triggers were pulled, a dozen cocked hammers struck the flints to produce the necessary spark but there was no flash in the pan – the only sound was a dull click, and then the crew began to laugh. One of the gang fainted and had, like the still groggy Cephas, to be held up by the ropes that tied him. Two, judging by the pools that began to form at their feet, had soiled themselves and one was weeping. But there was one pair of eyes fixed on those of John Pearce that told him that the next part of his plan was as essential as what had just taken place.

There were matters to sort out, not least that the count and Amélie should be allowed to choose a horse to replace their ponies; they, like the carthorse, would be taken back to Buckler’s Hard. Michael O’Hagan was going to be their escort to Lyndhurst, his task to get both on to the coach to Winchester, where, after a night’s stay they could catch the flyer to London. The Irishman would then make his way to Lymington to where Pearce would go after and if his scheme was complete.

The old man continued to press for a more detailed explanation than Pearce was inclined to give; the men now sitting in a circle on the ground were people who meant him harm for things that had happened in the past and these were matters about which he was prepared to divulge the facts. He had underestimated the count’s persistence and eventually, to fob him off, he hinted at there being a lady involved. That to a Frenchman made perfect sense; such a pity that Amélie overheard
it, thus further diminishing him in her eyes; from being that young and eager lover in Paris he had, no doubt, descended to being seen as something of a satyr.

There was another argument with O’Hagan, who hated to see good money wasted. ‘You can’t just let the spare mounts go, John-boy, five good horses, not to mention the saddlery and harness.’

‘They won’t starve, Michael, we are surrounded by some of the best pasture in Britain, neither will they be lonely given the place is full of mare ponies. Who knows, they might improve the stock and, in time, some of the forest verderers will rope them in.’

‘They would fetch a goodly sum of money.’

‘They would also attract attention, Michael, for you will only be mounted on three. Why would such a small party have so many spare horses? No, we will let half of them go, take a fourth for the chests and if you can sell them in Lyndhurst, do so, but I have my doubts that anything equine has much value around here. In which case stable them until we can pick them up when we make our way back to London. We’ll get a better price for them somewhere on that road, I’m sure, and besides, they can be got rid of one at a time, which will arouse less comment. Now I have to tell our French friends what I have in mind for them, so fetch me that bag of coins we raided earlier.’

‘The others?’

‘Will go with me.’

That took time and it was obvious neither of his one-time passengers was entirely happy at the proposed arrangement, that was until Pearce produced that which
he had held back, a half-full purse of gold. If Puisaye did not know how much it contained he could feel its weight and that mollified him somewhat, his only objection that without John Pearce he would struggle to make his case to the British Government.

‘Monsieur, I will be in London in three days at the most. Please take the coach and make for Nerot’s Hotel, where my name will aid you to get rooms. I will come to Nerot’s as soon as I can and from there we will send word to Whitehall.’ Then he turned to Amélie. ‘I will also, from there, make contact with the French émigrés already in London, in the hope that one of them will find both you and the count a more permanent residence.’

‘I have no desire to be a burden, Jean, on your conscience or your purse.’ That made Pearce smart; he was having his own words thrown back in his face. ‘I have my jewels to sell to support myself.’

‘I do not say,’ he responded coldly, ‘that you will not have to consider such a sale, but not yet, not until I have seen you comfortably settled. Now, Monsieur the Count has the means to keep you until then, so if you do not mind I have matters to attend to which cannot be delayed.’

Michael had to be provided for as well, which Pearce did from his own purse, more than enough to get him to Lymington, and he took off him the satchel Michael had so that he could carry his pistols, recovered case included, and the remains of the government gold. While they were mounting up to depart, Pearce had the smugglers’ saddlebags taken round so they could extract any personal items, he joking that unlike them he was not a thief and
that what they took out could be rolled into their riding dusters, these tied into bundles for them by the
Larcher
’s crew. As that was happening, with much unobserved rummaging from Jahleel Tolland, he was saying a final farewell to his friend, now mounted.

‘I take it, John-boy, that none of what has occurred here is to be told to Mrs Barclay?’

‘God no, and forgive me if I remind you not to call her by that name. Remember its Raynesford in these parts.’

Emily Barclay knew that, waiting outside for the midday coach to make a short and prearranged stop at the King’s Head – the morning one had been full – she was the object of much interest from the local population. Many women had found an excuse to promenade up and down, for her imminent departure had been passed down the parochial rumour-fed grapevine. All seemed to be in pairs, this no doubt so they could whisper to each other under their parasols and compare impressions, not one of which would be flattering.

There were a fair number of menfolk too, the idle of course, who might have been loitering anyway, but not just them. Better dressed and more well-fed creatures seemed to have found a reason to traverse Quay Street, which they did alone and, if they glanced in her direction and she caught their eye, Emily saw in that a message wholly different from that of their womenfolk – nothing short of a desire that, in better circumstances, they might have become acquainted.

Partly to damn the whole charade, she had dressed well in a gown that showed a decent amount of décolleté
and done her hair so it was a crown above her head, that flattering her long and slender neck. She had also eschewed the wearing of a bonnet so that anyone who wished to gaze on her very obvious beauty could do so, that not being the reason Emily had dressed in that manner; like many very attractive women she did not see herself in that way, which would have meant indulging in the sin of vanity. Her motive was to face down their ill-informed criticism and to send the message that, for her, their opinion, especially that of the ladies of the town, carried no weight whatsoever.

There was also the fact that those well-heeled male admirers who had looked in her direction – many if not all of whom would have been hard-pressed to give a valid reason for their perambulations – would be marked, and she was in no doubt they would pay a price in local tittle-tattle for showing any interest in a person perceived as a fallen woman. Lymington, if smaller, was little different from her hometown of Frome; these were the provincial mores that were followed there and they would likewise pertain here.

The curious seemed to congregate as the four-horse coach made its way up the incline that formed the road to the harbour, its iron hoops rattling on the cobbles and the driver calling loudly to his team to put in more effort, till finally it stopped outside the front entrance. For a moment Emily thought she was going to be obliged to load her own luggage, so tardy was the man on the box to get down – no one from the inn itself was to hand – but having fixed him with a cold stare, he responded with a grunt and leapt down to do his duty.

‘An’ where would you be headed, lady?’

‘Does it not suffice that I am leaving Lymington?’

‘Curious, that’s all.’

As, thought Emily, is everyone else; the whole town is dying to know where I am going, no doubt with a mind to writing if they have a close-by relative or friend to warn of what now resided in their vicinity. This was what John Pearce did not appreciate, that the act of living openly with another man out of wedlock was far from as simple as he supposed. Still, it could have been worse: she had once seen someone named as a strumpet pelted with sods of mud when being driven ignominiously out of Frome; it was to her shame now, as she took a seat in the coach, that she, a fourteen-year-old, had heartily approved of both the censure and the method of demonstrating it.

There were three other passengers in the coach and they had obviously been advised of her character; none would catch her eye.

With Michael gone in one direction and the Buckler’s Hard equines in another, the time came for Pearce to gather his charges and get them moving, which took them into the forest and down a sloping track to the riverbank. Enquiries as to where they were being taken were ignored, as they joined two eight-oared ship’s boats waiting in a small inlet, brought there by eight more sailors. Untied, the captives were split into two parties of four, were ushered aboard and once their restraints had been lashed to the thwarts on which they would sit, their escorts followed to take up the oars.

‘What’s the game, Pearce?’ Franklin Tolland asked
as the two boats were pushed off, the oars beginning a rhythmic dipping that took them quickly downriver.

‘Peace and quiet, the latter of which you would be best served to follow, lest you want to be gagged. That goes for all of you. Stay silent and breathe easy or take a gag and struggle to get in air.’

Pearce would have loved to talk, to seek to tell them the whole story of his foolishness, to prove to them that he as a source of any information was a waste of effort. He probably would still not be believed and, besides, he had no desire to diminish himself in the presence of even such a benign group of tars that manned his boat. Not that his offence was extant: he had paid his price for the crime of smuggling, or rather Charlie Taverner and Rufus Dommet had done so by volunteering for the navy to get any sanction against him set aside. Smugglers, which they claimed and were believed to be, were highly prized aboard a warship, given they were already competent sailors who required no training in any aspect of sailing a ship or keeping it in good repair.

It had been a well-practised gambit for
contrabandiers
over the years to avoid being jailed or strung up for their nefarious trade: sacrifice a couple of their least competent men to the King’s Navy and magistrates would set aside their convictions and see them wiped from the record. It never seemed to occur to those freeing their villains that they immediately went back to their old trade; replacing lost hands was never a problem in east-coast and Channel towns where smuggling was a near industry.

The boats moved at a steady enough pace on fresh water and a falling tide but that became less so as they
exited the estuary and pulled out on to the Solent, where if there was not much of a sea it was enough to making rowing twice as hard. Pearce went down to four oars at a time and settled for the slower pace that imposed; if he wanted the business finished he had no mind that the crew of HMS
Larcher
should suffer for it.

In a busy shipping lane they occasionally came under scrutiny, in one instance close enough to a frigate for Pearce’s blue coat to tell them that here were a pair of navy boats. Also the dishevelled state of their passengers, being in riding clothes clearly not tars like the men on the oars, was noticeable. The hail from the quarterdeck for information got no more than a wave; he was not about to shout out where he was going and given the frigate was heading out to sea they passed each other by in such a short space of time to not allow for repeated request.

‘No need to be shy, Pearce,’ Jahleel Tolland said, speaking for the first time since he had been forced aboard and lashed down. ‘Don’t take a sharp mind to work out what you’re about, given the heading.’

‘It won’t last, Pearce,’ Franklin spat. ‘I for one will come after you till death takes my breath and there will be no more mercy in my thinking.’

‘I never thought there was much anyway, and I would say this is a poor place to be sending out threats, that is unless you can swim.’

‘Idle that,’ Jahleel crowed. ‘You ain’t got the stomach to see a man die an’ your hand in it.’

‘So you keep telling me, which sits odd with the fellow you think I am. No, even if I can imagine what extremes you might have gone to question me, I cannot just do
murder, nor condemn you to the hangman’s noose. All I can assure you is a degree of discomfort that will be a daily burden on your black heart, for I have served before the mast in a King’s ship.’

‘You, now’t but a hand.’

‘More than just that, I hope, but none of your concern. Now be silent or face the gag.’

It was a long row, four on four, rarely out sight of the shore, until they raised the classical frontage of the Haslar seamen’s hospital and Pearce got all the oars working. There was no mistaking the vessel he wanted, given it had three short stumps on its deck instead of tall masts. An old 100-gun ship it was now a hulk anchored offshore, the proximity to Haslar more to convenience the medical coves that needed to visit with frequency than anyone aboard.

As a vessel anchored head and stern and one that never moved, the receiving hulk HMS
York
was surrounded by its own filth – waste from both cooking, cleaning and the heads – dependent on the tide to remove the effluent, and that only ever wholly successful when there was a bit of a blow. Thus the smell easily overwhelmed the briny odour of clear water and had even Pearce’s oarsmen looking uncomfortable as they swept round the stern to pull close to a gangway that led up to the barred entry port to the main deck.

If Jahleel Tolland had worked out the destination long past, half his gang had not and the sight and smell set them cursing and wailing, noises which Pearce made no attempt to stop; he had never taken pressed men aboard a vessel such as this but he had good grounds to feel that that was how they commonly behaved. Ordering the
boats to be tied off he made his way up the gangway and spoke to the marine sentinel, who unlocked the gate and ushered him in. There was no ceremony here, no bosun’s whistles or guard lined up, even if an admiral came calling; this was the pit of hell and indifference as far as the navy was concerned.

Nor was it a posting to attract the better class of officer, and the man in command, a Lieutenant Moyle, though he had granted himself some comfort in what had once been the captain’s cabin, was very much not out of the top drawer. There were, to Pearce’s mind, an excess of mirrors in the space but Moyle had a settle on which he could conduct business and a comfortable chair for his visitors or guests, for the pay and perks were good. It was a command that went to someone well connected or perhaps a fellow owed a favour by some superior officer.