Rebellion

He shook his head. “I’d never do that.”

She gazed at him intently and took a deep breath. Then, without speaking, she leaned forward and kissed him fiercely before turning on her heel and exiting the room.

Leaving Hawkwood to his packing, alone with his thoughts.

There was something eerily familiar about her lines, even by moonlight, and as he drew closer Hawkwood saw why. She was a cutter. The long horizontal bowsprit, the sharply tapering stern and the preposterous size of her rig in proportion to her length and beam were unmistakable. The last time he’d boarded a similar vessel it had been at sea, in the company of Jago and the French privateer, Lasseur, and he’d been fully armed with a pistol and a tomahawk and screaming like a banshee. This time, his arrival was a lot less frenetic.

The journey from London had taken four changes of horses and the best part of the day, so it was late evening when the coach finally made its bone-rattling descent into the town; by which time Hawkwood’s throat was dry with dust, while his spine felt as if it had been dislocated by the constant jolting.

Even if it hadn’t been for the silhouette of the castle ramparts high above him and the lights clustered at the foot of the dark chalk cliffs, it would have been possible to gauge his proximity to the port purely by the miasma of odours arising from it; the most prominent being smoke, cooking fires and sewage, the unavoidable detritus of closely packed human habitation.

Dover was home to both an ordnance depot and a victualling yard, and keeping the navy armed, watered and fed was clearly a twenty-four-hour operation, if the number of people on the streets – both in uniform and civilian dress – was any indication. The town looked to be wide awake. The public houses in particular, to judge by the knots of men and women weaving unsteadily between them, were still enjoying a brisk trade.

The coachman, clearly adhering to prior instruction, steered the vehicle away from the main part of the town and into a maze of unlit cobbled alleyways leading down towards the outer harbour. After numerous twists and turns, the coach finally drew to a halt and Hawkwood, easing cramped muscles, stepped out on to a darkened quay.

The cutter had the dockside to herself, her tall, tapering mainmast and canvas-furled yards reaching for the moon like winter-stripped branches. Lantern lights were showing above the closed gun ports and Hawkwood spotted shadows moving around the deck. He turned his coat collar up.

The concoction of smells was even stronger here and he guessed they were within spitting distance of the navy supply stores, for the combined aromas of unrendered animal fats, stale fish, offal, baking bread and fermenting hops hung heavily in the night air alongside the more familiar dockyard scents of grease, cordage, tarred rigging and mildewed timbers. Though, he supposed, looking around, it could all have been just an exaggeration of Dover’s natural reek.

Noise always seemed magnified at night and the thudding of hammers and rasping of saws floated across the ink-black water from the surrounding jetties. At the same time, from the opposite direction, a stiff breeze was coming off the Channel, carrying with it a soulful requiem of creaking spars and clinking chains from craft moored along the outer harbour walls. To add to the lament, a watch bell clanged mournfully in the darkness.

Behind him, the coachman, satisfied that his passenger had been delivered safely, clicked his tongue and the coach trundled off into the night.

As Hawkwood neared the ship, he noted that the vessel wasn’t displaying a man-of-war’s standard colour scheme. Instead of the customary buff-painted hull, he saw that all the external timbers, from bowsprit to counter, were as black as coal. As his mind deciphered the significance, a slim, uniformed figure stepped nimbly from the cutter’s gangplank.

“Mr . . . Smith?” The speaker touched the brim of his hat. “I’m Lieutenant Stuart. Welcome aboard Griffin.”

He hadn’t taken Brooke all that seriously when the superintendent had given him his boarding instructions. Brooke’s explanation for the false name, when he’d seen the sceptical expression unfold across Hawkwood’s face, had been that it simplified the process and avoided prevarication. Hawkwood had been tempted to ask Brooke what the procedure was if there was more than one passenger per voyage and then had decided against it. Brooke, he’d suspected, wouldn’t have found the enquiry amusing.

As he took in Hawkwood’s appearance, the lieutenant’s head lifted, revealing more of his features. He looked, Hawkwood thought, disturbingly young to be in charge of his own ship; though as vessels went, Stuart’s command was unlikely to see an admiral’s pennant fluttering from her masthead any time soon. She was too small and too far down the lists for that. Nevertheless, from the serious expression on his boyish face it was plain her captain thought no less of her for that.

The lieutenant led the way on board. A second officer, and the only other man Hawkwood could see dressed in uniform, was waiting by the rail.

“Lieutenant Weekes,” Stuart said. “My second-in-command.”

There wasn’t that much difference in their ages, Hawkwood thought. Weekes may have been a year or two older, but that was all. Though it might have been his deep-set eyes and serious expression that made him appear so.

“Sir.” Weekes favoured Hawkwood with a brief nod before looking expectantly at his captain.

Stuart obliged. “Prepare for departure, Simon, while I take our passenger below.”

“Very good, sir.”

As his first officer turned away, Stuart turned to Hawkwood. “Just as well you arrived when you did. The tide’s already on the ebb. Another half an hour and we’d need deeper water beneath our keel. We’d’ve had to anchor her outside the walls and ferry you out in the jolly boat. I don’t think you’d have cared much for that.” The lieutenant threw Hawkwood an unexpected and surprisingly roguish grin. “I’ll show you to your quarters. I apologize in advance; there aren’t too many home comforts.”

The lieutenant took off his hat to reveal a mop of unruly dark hair, and led the way past the tied-down carronades towards the cutter’s stern and an open hatchway. Hawkwood noticed that none of the crew were paying much attention to his arrival. As he followed the lieutenant across the deck, he wondered if that meant they’d become used to passengers embarking in the dead of night.

The lieutenant drew Hawkwood’s attention to the top of the ladder. “Watch your step.”

Hawkwood, reminded of the last time he’d been below decks, nodded dutifully before following Stuart down the near vertical companionway.

Stuart said over his shoulder, “As you see, it can get a mite cosy at times. We’re not rigged to carry passengers. Though we’ve had our fair share,” he added conspiratorially. “Mind your head.”

It’s still not as bad as a prison hulk, Hawkwood thought, as he ducked below the beam, but he didn’t tell Stuart that.

Stuart opened the door to the cabin and stood aside to allow Hawkwood to enter, which he did, shoulders lowered.

“You’ll forgive me if I leave you to get settled,” Stuart said, remaining by the companionway. “I must return to my station.”

Without waiting for an answer the lieutenant, with another hesitant smile, turned and made his way topside. Hawkwood surveyed his quarters.

The lantern-lit space was just about large enough to accommodate the single narrow cot, table and locker. If he’d been of a mind to assume the crucifix position in the middle of the cabin, Hawkwood was quietly confident his palms would have touched the opposing bulkheads. Not that there was much space to stand upright, save for the square of deck immediately beneath the closed skylight. The thought struck him that if there was a cat on board, there’d be precious little room to swing it. The air smelled vaguely of bilge water, candle grease, tobacco and sweat.

Footfalls sounded throughout the ship as the crew made last-minute haste, stowing and making fast all items not required in getting the vessel underway. From somewhere – Hawkwood presumed it was the galley – there came the ringing clatter of a pot falling to the deck, followed by a sharp, one-word obscenity, quickly hushed.

A low call sounded from above and Hawkwood caught the order: “Let go forrard!”

The deck moved beneath him and the light in the cabin dipped as the lantern swung. As he held on to the side of the cot for support, he was reminded, not for the first time, why sea voyages failed to excite him.

And we haven’t even left the bloody harbour yet, he thought dismally.

A drawn-out groan came from close by and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled before he realized it was only the rudder turning below the transom on the other side of the bulkhead. Slowly, Griffin’s bow began to come around.

Another directive sounded from on high: “Let go aft!”

There were no stern windows in the cutter and thus no means of fixing upon either the horizon or an aligned point in order to counteract the movement of the ship, save for the deckhead lantern which continued to swing gently on its hook as though it had a mind of its own. Hawkwood had the sudden overwhelming desire to feel cool air against his cheek. Leaving his unopened valise on the cot, he left the cabin, closed the door behind him and made his way back up the companionway and on to the deck, in time to see one of the hands hauling in the last few feet of stern line.

Reliant on the momentum of the tide and the helmsman’s control of the tiller bar, the cutter continued her gradual revolution. The quayside, Hawkwood noted, looking over the rail, remained dark and empty, unlike the rest of the dockyard where random lights flickered like tiny glow worms. Hawkwood supposed that was why the Griffin had had the isolated mooring to herself. So that their departure would go unnoticed.

His gaze travelled beyond the quay, up over the congested, smoke-stained rooftops and on towards the Western Heights, the near vertical rock face that rose behind the port like the encircling tiers of a vast and moonlit amphitheatre.

“Found your sea legs, Mr Smith?” The enquiry came from Lieutenant Stuart, who was standing by his shoulder. “Chances are you’ll need them before the night’s out.”

“You’re expecting rough weather?” Hawkwood asked, his heart sinking at the prospect.

Stuart laughed. “It’s the English Channel and it’s October. What else would I be expecting?”

Hawkwood knew his expression must have reflected what was in his mind for Stuart said immediately, “Don’t worry, Griffin might not be the youngest or the largest cutter in the fleet, but she’ll get us there.” Stuart patted the high bulwark affectionately and looked over his shoulder. “You may ready the mains’l, Mr Welland.”

“Aye, sir.” The acknowledgement came from a burly man with long side whiskers and dark jowls, dressed in a pea jacket and dun-coloured breeches. The ship’s bo’sun, Hawkwood guessed. He looked older than his commanding officer, by at least ten years.

“All right, you idle buggers. You heard the lieutenant – stand by. That includes you, Haskins, if you’re not too busy.”

Hawkwood saw the corner of the lieutenant’s mouth twitch as the order was relayed.

There had been no raising of the voice, Hawkwood noted, as the crewmen readied themselves, and no tongue lashings. The order – even the aside to seaman Haskins – had been spoken rather than shouted and yet every word had carried the same quiet authority. The tone had been more reminiscent of a schoolmaster coaxing his pupils to open their text books than a hardened warrant officer demanding unconditional obedience. Hawkwood knew that only a man with many years of experience under his belt could draw that amount of respect. It also said a lot for the quality of the cutter’s crew that they were anticipating the commands before they were given and were reacting accordingly: with speed and efficiency and in relative silence. There was little doubt that they’d been well drilled.

“Volunteers?” Hawkwood said, taking a guess.