The Hawk Read online

  And when Commander Carr had gone into his boat, grim and silent, Rennie said: 'Attempt to blackguard him? Fffff. The fellow has done that by himself, out of his own mouth.'

  'Oh, I don't know.' James, musingly. 'Perhaps I should feel the same, was I in his place. The Excise, after all, is obliged to take smugglers, seize their vessels and so forth. I have heard – in fact I know – that in seizing certain vessels with valuable contraband, part or all is retained by officers as their unofficial due. They may not take these vessels as prizes, official, but in effect that is what happens.'

  'Surely the Excise Board takes possession of such vessels, don't it?'

  'If it is aware of them, if it is informed. Smuggling vessels may easily be spirited away, I think, re-rigged, painted over, disguised. They are not great ships, but only cutters, most of them.'

  'Well well, it is a damned disgrace, James. That fellow Carr is a damned disgrace to his blue coat.'

  'Is he, though? The Royal Navy does the same in war, exact – don't it? Is that a disgrace?'

  'It ain't the same thing, not at all. They are enemy ships, prizes of war, and we must declare them down to the last cask and nail to the Admiralty Court. We are not at war, at present, and smugglers cannot be considered enemies, good God.'

  'Not quite, I expect, but the morals of it are the same.'

  'No no, smugglers are merely rogues, that is all. Rogues bringing in such goods that people will like to smoke, or drink, without being obliged to pay the unconscionable taxes the government wishes to impose.'

  'Unconscionable, sir? Do we not serve the same government? Are we not duty bound ourselves to intercept smugglers?'

  'One smuggler. The Lark.'

  'But if by chance we came upon another, or more than one, we would be obliged to attempt to stop them, would not we?'

  'Yes, yes, in course you are right. Hm. – I resent having to pay tax on my brandy. Only a damn fool would not resent it.'

  'Have not you just contradicted yourself, sir?'

  'What?'

  'You have said that Commander Carr was a disgrace for wishing to gain from his activity, and yet you approve of the other activity behind it – the smugglers' trade.'

  'It ain't the same, it ain't the same!' Indignant. 'Carr is a thief and a scoundrel!'

  'And smugglers? What are they?'

  'Rogues, miscreants, knaves, nothing more. Nothing vicious.'

  'Ah.'

  'You disagree?'

  'It could not matter less what I think, I expect. My task is to take the Lark if I can – and if I can, I will. Commander Carr had better keep his distance, whatever his motive, else I shall be obliged to remind him of the very great disparity between us.'

  'Aye, we are sea officers in an honourable duty, and he is a blackguard wretch.'

  'No, sir. Weight of metal, simple weight of metal.' And he walked aft to the rail. 'Mr Abey, we will get under way, if y'please.'

  Pipistrel retired east, tall and graceful in the gathering darkness, shaking out reefs, and Hawk continued sou'-west, to where James – by reason of the pattern of dates, tides, and times of sighting, &c., contained in his detailed instructions – believed that he must lie in wait for the Lark. Captain Rennie he knew thought different. Captain Rennie believed that Hawk should stand in, hug the shore, and wait there for their prey, 'like a lion crouching in the jungle grass'.

  'I don't know that jungles are grassy,' James said to himself. 'Nor am I a lion. I am a bird of prey, as old Holly said, circling and circling in light airs, waiting my opportunity to fall swift on the Lark's neck.'

  James remained on deck long after dark, long after Captain Rennie had retired to his narrow screened corner of the cabin, and his hammock – having no hanging cot. While Rennie slept James allowed his mind to disengage from the immediate, and to ponder questions that came to him sinewy and shadowy, coiling about his head, out of the flowing night. How the devil did Commander Carr know specifically about the Lark, if he was only a 'cise officer, sweeping the Channel for any and all smugglers? How did he know that Hawk had been assigned to find and take her, when that was supposed to be a secret? And evidently he knew that the cargo Lark carried was of great value, and thus wished to take her for himself – but how did he know that? And:

  'He was headed east as we made sail, but will he stay on that course?' Under his breath, treading the little quarterdeck. 'Will he not double back, and dog me?'

  Presently he decided something, and:

  'You there, boy!'

  'I am Michael Wallace, sir, that Mr Abey has chose to be his junior acting mid.' A stocky lad of thirteen attending, hat off.

  'Chose? When? Why was not I informed?'

  'He – he did not like to disturb you, sir, when you was pacing so intent.'

  'Ah. Ah. Very good, Mr . . . ?'

  'Wallace, sir.'

  'Aye, Mr Wallace. We will douse our stern light, and our masthead light, also. I will like to be invisible this night.'

  THREE

  Doctor Bell stepped down from his gig and went up the shallow steps and in at the door, between the great stone urns that flanked the entrance in the Palladian façade. He had been here before to Kingshill House, at the time Lady Kenton was in residence. That lady had long since sold the house and departed. Dr Bell's present patient was Sir Robert Greer, who had bought the house from her; Sir Robert had been his patient for some little time, until now merely on occasions of minor indisposition. Today was different. Today Sir Robert was ill. Dr Bell knew that he had been under a physician in London, Dr Robards, for a stone. Had been operated on by the King's own physician, Sir Wakefield Bennett, and the stone removed. And now, down here, he was again suffering. When Dr Bell was shown into the sickroom – the large green-silk-canopied French bed was the one Lady Kenton herself had slept in – he saw a man very gaunt, very reduced and weakened. Sir Robert had ever been pale, but now he was deathly livid. The voice, in usual deep and vibrant, was now a reedy groan.

  'Doctor . . . I need you today . . . I need . . . elixir . . .'

  'Good morning, Sir Robert.' Attending at the bedside, laying down his bag.

  'I had a stone, you know . . . and it was removed . . . cut out of mhh . . .' Attempting to sit up.

  'Do not tax yourself, Sir Robert. I will ask a question or two. A nod, or brief shake of the head, will suffice in answer.'

  'I wish to say . . . hhh . . .' A quivering nod. 'I wish to tell you . . .'

  'Nay, sir. Lie quiet, now.' Settling him on the pillows, and taking his pulse. As he counted Dr Bell noted the slight rattle at the end of each breath. Unless he was mistook – this man was dying.

  His hand now firmly grasped, with fingers surprisingly strong. And the black eyes held his.

  'Y'think me already dead, d'y'not?'

  'Nay, Sir Robert. Calm yourself.' Releasing himself from the fierce grip.

  'Let me . . . assure you . . . I am nothing of the kind . . . I am going to live d'y'hear! . . . I shall . . . hhh . . . I . . . shall outlive you . . . and all of them!'

  'No doubt you will, Sir Robert. But you are not well now, sir, and you must be quiet – still and quiet, so that I may examine you.' He lifted the covers.

  'Nay, I do not wish it! . . . hhh . . . I do not wish hht . . .' A feeble wrench at the covers, all his strength dissipated. 'Give me a paregoric . . .'

  Dr Bell, firmly: 'Sir Robert, you have called me to your bedside, and I will not do my duty by you as my patient if I do not examine you. Cannot do it, indeed.'

  'Ohh . . . ohh, very well . . . do it, then . . .' And he allowed the covers again to be lifted from his person, his nightshirt lifted, and he submitted to indignity.

  'Is there pain – here?' Dr Bell, pressing the lower abdomen.

  'Hnnnh! Damn you, Bell . . .' Panting.

  'There is pain. And – here?' Pressing again, higher up.

  'No . . . only where ye pressed before . . . there! Hnnh! Aye, that is where I feel it, low in my vitals . . . and now I want pa
regoric . . .'

  'How long since you opened your bowels, Sir Robert?'

  'That is the least . . . of my concern . . . I cannot recall.'

  'Try to recall, will you? It is pertinent.'

  'Some few days . . .'

  'Several days? A week, perhaps?'

  'Perhaps . . . I do not recall.'

  'And your appetite?'

  'Appetite! I have none . . . none.'

  'You have not ate? Since how long, Sir Robert?'

  'Two days . . . three . . . and then only gruel.'

  'You make water readily?'

  'There is . . . no difficulty there.'

  'Hm. Hm. I think it very probably a case of costiveness.' His small oval spectacles gleamed briefly as he straightened up by the bed. He removed them, polished them on a white kerchief, turned reflectively to the window. His patient watched him with anxiety.

  'Nothing . . . nothing more?'

  Dr Bell replaced his spectacles, turned back with a professional smile and: 'Probably nothing more.' He did not believe what he said. He said it because he did not like to alarm his patient. He did not wish to say, straight out: 'There is probably a growth in the bowel, and very likely you will be dead in a fortnight.' That was too harsh. That was too abrupt and cruel. So instead he had said something reassuring, and he followed it with:

  'And now I will allow you paregoric elixir, Sir Robert.'

  'Eh? Now? Now, you will give me elixir? Should not you give me a purgative?'

  'On the morrow, on the morrow. For now – it will be better to soothe the discomfort, reduce the pain in the lower abdomen, and the like. Hm?'

  'Well . . . if you think so . . .' And he lay back exhausted and waxy on the pillow.

  A few minutes after, having left his patient, Dr Bell spoke to the housekeeper in the kitchen.

  'Mrs Reese, I will call again tomorrow in the forenoon. If he will take it give him broth, nothing solid for the moment.

  And a spoon measure of this physic, that I shall leave with you.' Handing her a phial of paregoric.

  'I shall give it to his manservant. He don't like me to go to the bedchamber. He will not allow it.'

  When the doctor had quit the house, Sir Robert called to his bedchamber his man of business, Mr Purvis. Mr Purvis had been attached to his household since Sir Robert had acquired Kingshill, several years before. He was a man wholly unlike Sir Robert in looks, manner, character – he was rubicund, and stout, and did not care about his appearance, the cut of his coat, the buckles on his shoes, &c. – and yet he was astute and businesslike in his own provincial way, and a stickler for detail. Sir Robert trusted him. He smelled of cheese, and port wine, and the foxiness of unwashed parts of himself, but he was absolutely to be trusted because he was a man without ambition or imagination.

  'I will like to dictate something to you, Purvis.' Pushing back fatigue and weakness with a deep effort of will.

  'Very well, Sir Robert.' He brought a chair, and took from the pocket of his coat his book of incidental accounts, turned leaves and found a blank page. Sighed, shook snuff on his fist, sniffed, sniffed again, and settled himself with his pencil. 'I am here, sir.'

  'I am going to dictate to you my last will and testament.'

  'Good God. That is, that is – are you sure?'

  'In course I am sure. Do not stare so, Purvis. I am not yet dead. It is a precaution only. If on the morrow, as I fully intend, I am restored – ye may put this aside. Do not destroy it, though.'

  'As you like, Sir Robert, as you declare and wish. – I am here, sir.' Pencil over the page.

  And Sir Robert dictated his wishes.

  Later, when Mr Purvis had left him, Sir Robert swallowed not paregoric, but two blue pills, that he had concealed in his bedlinen. These blue pills had been given him long ago by Dr Robards in London, and he had eschewed them then – but had kept them aside for just such an eventuality as this. They would either cure him, or kill him. He did not wish – he would not allow himself – to be made to suffer days of further agony and despair.

  As night fell the blue pills began to have their effect, and Sir Robert was convulsed. Fender, his manservant, came hurrying in alarm –

  'I – I will fetch Dr Bell, sir.'

  – but was made immobile by a peremptory bark:

  'Ye'll do no such thing-eeennhh! Do nothing, damn yeeegh! Go away! Hnnngh! Away, man!'

  Fender hesitated, alarmed and appalled by the poor writhing creature half crouched by the bed – and then retired, cowed by further agonized barks. Retired to the foot of the stairs, where he and the housekeeper Mrs Reese – worrying at her apron, cocking her capped head – stood in hushed consternation, listening.

  Hawk heeled over on the starboard tack, and sheets and braces were hauled tight on cleats. As she came just so, the moon broke through a silvery patch of cloud ahead, and rode staring on the black night. The moon was full, and so bright that the whole of the sea around the slipping, slanting vessel glittered and crawled with reflected light. Her wake flashed and tumbled, became living lace, and swirled sloping far astern.

  Mr Wallace the acting mid, sent aloft, answered the quarterdeck:

  'No sail in sight, sir!' and was ordered down, his newly issued long glass strapped safe on his back.

  James handed him his silver flask. 'Take a nip of this, Mr Wallace.'

  'Thank you, sir.' The boy sucked half a mouthful of rum, swallowed, coughed, and felt the spirit burn down and warm him.

  'We are in an empty sea, hey?'

  'Aye, sir!' He handed the flask to James, who took it and sucked down a mouthful or two, then put the flask away in his coat.

  'In least that bla— that 'cise cutter ain't following. I was afraid that she would.'

  'Pipistrel, d'y'mean, sir? I did not see her.'

  'Nay, she has gone to her bed elsewhere, I expect. That is well. The last thing we need is her company, on this nor any other night.'

  Four bells of the middle watch, and the moon at its staring height over the trucktop of the mast, Hawk patrolling on the larboard tack to the south, at that extreme of a quadrant James had determined on his charts was the likely part of the Channel that Lark would traverse in attempting to make landfall on the south coast.

  'D-e-e-e-ck! Sail of ship to the east! On our larboard quarter!'

  James had kept a lookout aloft all the night, and now he bellowed from the quarterdeck:

  'What ship is she! How many masts?'

  'A single mast, sir! She is a cutter!'

  'By God, that is the Lark, or I am a Hollander talking Dutch.' James leapt up into the weather shrouds, his glass at his back, and climbed nimbly hand over hand into the top, then swarmed up the Jacob's ladder to the crosstrees. The lookout made room for him on the yard, and James unshipped his glass, focused, and found the vessel, far to the east, a dark shape and a sail against the glittering crawl of the sea.

  'She is a cutter, right enough.' Muttering, then to the lookout: 'Can y'make out any colours, Logan Barker?'

  'No, sir.' Peering a long moment, then lowering his own glass. 'She is too far from us, I reckon.'

  'Aye. Too far, for the present. We must alter that, hey?'

  'Sir?'

  'We must come about, and chase her down. She heads north.'

  'Shall I remain here, sir, or return to the deck?'

  'Stay at your post. I will like to hear her every move, as soon as she makes it. Change of course, crowding on of sail, anything. At once, d'y'hear me?'

  'Aye, sir.'

  James nodded, peered a last time at the distant cutter, slung his glass on his back, clapped on to a stay, and plunged to the deck. As his feet touched the planking:

  'Mr Dench! Mr Abey! All hands on deck!'

  Running feet. A scramble of bodies. Shouts and curses. Captain Rennie, his nightcap perched atop his sparse hair, came on deck and along the lee rail to where James stood by the helmsman at the tiller.

  'May I join you, James? What is afoot?'

  '
Indeed, indeed y'may, sir. We are about to give chase. Mr Dench!'

  'Here I am, sir.' Attending, shrugging into his jacket.

  'We will come about and head east-nor'-east. As soon as we are on the new heading, we will beat to quarters.'

  'Aye, sir.' He raised his call, and the piercing notes sounded along the deck.

  Presently, as Hawk swung east with the wind, and ran large on the starboard tack, her guncrews assembled by their squat charges, cartridge boxes were brought up, and sand scattered.

  'It is the Lark, James? You are sure?' Rennie, attempting to focus his glass.

  'If she runs, she is the Lark.'

  'Might not she be Pipistrel, patrolling like ourselves?' Half to himself – but the question irked Hawk's commander, who frowned. Frowned, but made no reply.

  Hawk swept on, steady and true and fast, her speed reaching nine knots with the light following breeze. James ordered stunsails bent, and her speed increased to ten knots. The distant cutter, as yet unidentified, remained steady on her own course, heading north toward the English coast.

  Thirty minutes passed, and now Hawk was less than half a league from her quarry. The lookout hailed the deck:

  'Cutter changing course, sir! She heads sou'-east, crowding on sail!'

  'Very well! Keep a sharp eye!' And James gave the order to alter course. Hawk swung on to the larboard tack, and began to bear down on the fleeing shape, quickly narrowing the gap between them. Another glass, and they had gained on her again. She was painted black, her sails were dun and drab, and she wore no colours, not even a pennant. She was ported for eight guns per side, and her runs were run out.

  'Four-pounders, I think,' said James, his glass to his eye. 'Sixes, at most.'

  'She is a big cutter, James.' Rennie, his own glass fixed to his eye. 'Bigger than Hawk, but not so wieldy, I think. Nor quite so swift, else she would have outrun us.'

  'Since she wears no colours in English waters we will give her a gun. Mr Abey!' He gave the order.