by James McGee
"My God," Lasseur gagged. "The smell."
"Wait till you get below."
The voice came from behind them. Hawkwood looked back over his shoulder and found himself eye to eye with the dark- haired interpreter from the weather-deck.
"Don't worry; in a couple of days, you won't notice. In a week, you'll start to smell the same. The name's Murat, by the way. And we call this area the Park. It's our little joke." The interpreter nodded towards the open hatch and the top of the ladder leading down. "You'd best get a move on. Squeeze through, find yourselves a space."
"Murat?" Lasseur looked intrigued. "Any relation?"
The interpreter shrugged and gave a self-deprecatory grin.
"A distant cousin on my mother's side. I regret our closest association is in having once enjoyed the services of the same tailor. I -"
"How much do you want for your boots?"
Hawkwood felt a tug at his sleeve. One of the yellow- uniformed prisoners had taken hold of his arm. Hawkwood recoiled from the man's rancid odour. "They're not for sale."
There were ragged holes in the elbows of the prisoner's jacket and the knees of his trousers shone as if they had been newly waxed. His feet were stuffed into a pair of canvas slippers, though they were obviously too small for him as his heels overlapped the soles by at least an inch. Several boils had erupted across the back of his neck. His shirt collar was the colour of dried mud.
"Ten francs." The grip on Hawkwood's arm tightened.
Hawkwood looked down at the man's fingers. "Let go or you'll lose the arm."
"Twenty."
"Leave him be, Chavasse! He told you they're not for sale." Murat raised his hand. "In any case, they're worth ten times that. Go and pester someone else."
Hawkwood pulled his arm free. The prisoner backed away.
The interpreter turned to Hawkwood. "Keep hold of your belongings until you know your way around, otherwise you might not see them again. Come on, I'll show you where to go."
Murat pushed his way ahead of them and started down the almost vertical stairway. Hawkwood and Lasseur followed him. It was like descending into a poorly lit mineshaft. Three-quarters of the way down Hawkwood found he had to lean backwards to avoid cracking his skull on the overhead beam. He felt his spine groan as he did so. He heard Lasseur chuckle. The sound seemed ludicrously out of place.
"You'll get used to that, too," Murat said drily.
Hawkwood couldn't see a thing. The sudden shift from daylight to near Stygian darkness was abrupt and alarming. If Murat hadn't been wearing his yellow jacket, it would have been almost impossible to follow him in the dark. It was as if the sun had been snuffed out. Hawkwood paused and waited for his eyes to adjust.
"Keep moving!" The order came from behind.
"That way," Murat said, and pointed. "And watch your head."
The warning was unnecessary. Hawkwood's neck was already cricked. The height from the deck to the underside of the main beams couldn't have been much more than five and a half feet.
Murat said, "It's easy to tell you're a soldier not a seaman, Captain. You don't have the gait, but, like I said, you'll get used to it."
Ahead of him, Hawkwood could see vague, hump-backed shapes moving. They looked more troglodyte than human. And the smell was far worse down below; a mixture of sweat and piss. Hawkwood tried breathing through his mouth but discovered it didn't make a great deal of difference. He moved forward cautiously. Gradually, the ill-defined creatures began to take on form. He could pick out squares of light on either side, too, and recognized it as daylight filtering in through the grilles in the open ports.
"This is it," Murat said. "The gun deck."
God in heaven, Hawkwood thought.
He could tell by the grey, watery light the deck was about forty feet in width. As to the length, he could only hazard a guess, for he could barely make out the ends. Both fore and aft, they simply disappeared into the blackness. It was more like being in a cellar than a ship's hull. The area in which they were standing was too far from the grilles for the sunlight to penetrate fully but he could just see that benches ran down the middle as well as along the sides. All of them looked to be occupied. Most of the floor was taken up by bodies as well. Despite the lack of illumination, several of the men were engaged in labour. Some were knitting, others were fashioning hats out of what looked like lengths of straw. A number were carving shanks of bone into small figurines that Hawkwood guessed were probably chess pieces. He wondered how anyone could see what they were doing. The sense of claustrophobia was almost overpowering.
He saw there were lanterns strung on hooks along the bulkhead, but they were unlit.
"We try and conserve the candles," Murat explained. "Besides, they don't burn too well down here; too many bodies, not enough air."
For a moment, Hawkwood thought the interpreter was joking, but then he saw that Murat was serious.
There was just sufficient light for Hawkwood to locate the hooks and cleats in the beams from which to hang the hammocks. Many of the hooks had objects suspended from them; not hammocks but sacks, and items of clothing. They looked like huge seedpods hanging down.
Murat followed his gaze. "The long-termers get used to a particular spot. They mark their territory. You can take any hook that's free. Hammocks are slung above and below, so there'll be room for both of you. Best thing is for you to put yours up now. The rest are on the foredeck; they're taken up there every morning and stowed. When they're brought back down you won't be able to move. You've got about six feet each. Come night time there are more than four hundred of us crammed in here. You're new so you don't get to pick. When you've been here a while you might get a permanent place by the grilles."
"How long have you been here?" Hawkwood asked.
"Two years."
"And how close are you to the grilles?"
Murat smiled.
"What if we want a place by the grilles now?" Lasseur said. His meaning was clear.
Four hundred? Hawkwood thought.
"It'll cost you," Murat said, without a pause. He read Hawkwood's mind. "Think yourself lucky. You could have been assigned the orlop. There are four hundred and fifty of them down there, and it isn't half as roomy as this."
"How much?" Lasseur asked.
"For two louis, I can get you space by the gun ports. For ten, I can get you a bunk in the commander's cabin."
"Just the gun port," Lasseur said. "Maybe I'll talk to the commander later."
Murat squinted at Hawkwood. "What about you?"
"How much in English money?"
"Cost you two pounds." The interpreter eyed them both. "Cash, not credit."
Hawkwood nodded.
"Wait here," Murat said, and he was gone.
Lasseur stared around him. "I boarded a slaver once, off Mauritius. It turned my stomach. This might be worse."
Hawkwood was quite prepared to believe him.
Lasseur was the captain of a privateer. The French had used privateers for centuries. Financed by private enterprise, they'd been one of the few ways Bonaparte had been able to counteract the restrictions placed upon him by the British blockade. But their numbers had declined considerably over the past few years due to Britain's increased dominance of the waves in the aftermath of Trafalgar.
Getting close to Lasseur had been Ludd's idea, though the initial strategy had been Hawkwood's.
"I need an edge," he'd told James Read and Ludd. "I go in there asking awkward questions from the start and I'm going to end up like your man Masterson. The way to avoid that is to hide in someone else's shadow. I need to make an alliance with a genuine prisoner, someone who'll do the running for me so that I can slip in on his coat-tails. You said you're sending me to Maidstone. Find me someone there I can use."
Ludd had met with Hawkwood the day prior to his arrival at the gaol.
"I think I have your man," Ludd told him. "Name of Lasseur. He was taken following a skirmish with a British patrol off the Cap Gris-Nez.
The impudent bugger tried to jump ship twice following his capture; even had the temerity to make a dash for freedom during his transfer from Ramsgate. If anyone's going to be looking for an escape route, it'll be Lasseur; you can count on it. He's made a boast that no English prison will be able to hold him. Get close to him and my guess is you're halfway home already."
The introduction had been manufactured in the prison yard.
Lasseur had been by himself, back against the wall, enjoying the morning sun, an unlit cheroot clamped between his teeth, when the two guards made their move. The plan would never have been awarded marks for subtlety. One guard snatched the cheroot from between Lasseur's lips. When the Frenchman protested, the second guard slammed his baton into Lasseur's belly and a knee into his groin. As Lasseur dropped to the ground, covering his head, the guards waded in with their boots.
A cry of anger went up from the other prisoners, but it was Hawkwood who got there first. He pulled the first guard off Lasseur by his belt and the scruff of his neck. As his companion was hauled back, the second guard turned, baton raised, and Hawkwood slammed the heel of his boot against the guard's exposed knee. He pulled his kick at the moment of contact, but the strike was still hard enough to make the guard reel away with a howl of pain.
By this time, the first guard had recovered his balance. With a snarl, he swung his baton towards Hawkwood's head. But the guard had forgotten Lasseur. The privateer was back on his feet. As the baton looped through the air, Lasseur caught the guard's wrist, twisted the baton out of his grip, and slammed an elbow into the guard's belly.
Shouts rang out as other guards, wrongfooted by the swiftness of Hawkwood's intervention, came running. It had taken four of them to subdue Hawkwood and Lasseur and march them off into a cell.
The clang of the door and the rasp of the key turning in the lock had seemed as final as a coffin lid closing.
Lasseur's first action as soon as the door shut was to take another cheroot from his jacket, put it between his lips and ask Hawkwood if he had a means by which to light it. Hawkwood had been unable to assist. Whereupon Lasseur had shrugged philosophically, placed the cheroot back in his jacket, extended his hand and said, "Captain Paul Lasseur, at your service." Then he'd grinned and touched his ribs tentatively. "I suppose it was one way of getting a cell to ourselves."
Hawkwood hadn't thought it would be that easy.
Lasseur had managed to maintain the devil-may-care facade up to the moment he'd seen the men in the longboat being cast adrift from the hulk's side.
Around them, the other fresh arrivals assigned to the gun deck were also looking for places to bed down. The invasion of their living quarters had caused most of the established prisoners to pause in their tasks to take stock of the new blood. The mood, however, seemed strangely subdued. Hawkwood wondered if the original prisoners resented this further reduction of what was already a barely adequate living space.
Among the new batch was the boy. He was standing alone, weighed down by his hammock, mattress and blanket, utterly bewildered by the activity going on around him; though he was one of the lucky ones in as much as he did not have to amend his posture in order to move about inside the hull. He looked like a small boat tossed by waves as he was turned this way and that by the men brushing past him, mindless of his size.
The boy turned. One of the other prisoners, a slight, weak- chinned, effete-looking man with a widow's peak of thinning hair - a long-standing resident of the hulk if the decrepit state of his yellow uniform was any indication - was crouched down with his right hand on the boy's shoulder.
Hawkwood watched as a look of doubt crept over the boy's face. The boy shook his head. The man spoke again, his expression solicitous. The boy tried to squirm away from the man's touch, but the latter took hold of his jacket sleeve. The hand on the boy's shoulder slid down and began to make gentle circular movements in the small of the boy's back. The boy looked petrified. Hawkwood took a step forward.
"No," Lasseur said softly, "I'll deal with it."
Hawkwood watched as Lasseur ducked beneath the beams and the hanging sacks. He saw the privateer place his hand on the man's shoulder, lean in close and speak softly into his ear.
The man said something back. Lasseur spoke again and the man's smile slipped. Then he was holding his hands up and backing away. Lasseur did not touch the boy but squatted down and spoke to him.
A voice in Hawkwood's ear said, "Right, it's all arranged; a room with a view for both of you." Murat looked around. "Where's your friend?"
"Here," Lasseur said. He was standing behind them. The boy stood at his side, clutching his bedding. "This is Lucien. Lucien, say hello to Captain Hooper and our interpreter, Lieutenant.. . my apologies, I didn't catch your given name."
"Auguste," Murat said.
"Lieutenant Auguste Murat," Lasseur finished. He fixed Murat with an uncompromising eye. "I want space for the boy as well."
Murat's eyebrows rose. He shook his head. "I regret that's not possible."
"Make it possible," Lasseur said.
"There's no room, Captain," Murat protested.
"There's always room," Lasseur said.
Murat looked momentarily taken aback by Lasseur's abrasive tone. He stared down at the boy, took in the small, pale features and then threw Lasseur a calculating look. "It could be expensive."
"You do surprise me," Lasseur said.
Murat's brow wrinkled, unsure how to respond to Lasseur's barb, before it occurred to him it was probably best to tell them to wait once more and that he would return.
Hawkwood and Lasseur watched him go.
"I have a son," Lasseur said. He did not elaborate but looked down. "How old are you, boy?"
The boy gripped his bedding. In a wavering voice, he said, "Ten, sir."
"Are you now? Well, stick with us and you might just make it to eleven."
Murat reappeared and, unsmiling, crooked a finger. "Come with me."
Stepping around and over bodies, heads bent, the two men and the boy followed the interpreter towards the starboard side of the deck.
"You're in luck -" Murat spoke over his shoulder "- another place has become vacant. The former owner doesn't need it any more."
"That's fortunate," Lasseur said. He caught Hawkwood's eye and winked. "And why's that?"
"He died."
Lasseur halted in his tracks.
Murat held up his hands. "Natural causes, Captain, on my mother's life."
Lasseur looked sceptical.
"From the fever. They say it's due to the air coming off the marshes." Murat jabbed a thumb towards the open grilles. "It's the same both sides of the river. It's what most men die of, that and consumption. That's the way it happens on the hulks. You rot from the inside out."
Hawkwood noticed that the prisoners near the gun ports were making use of the light to read or write, using the bench along the side of the hull as a makeshift table. Some were conversing with their companions while they wrote. As he passed, Hawkwood realized they were conducting classes. He looked over a hunched shoulder and guessed by the illustrations and indecipherable script that the subject was probably mathematics.
"It's best to try and keep busy," Murat said, interrupting Hawkwood's observations. "You'll lose your mind, otherwise. Many men have." The lieutenant pointed. "Here you are, gentlemen. Welcome to your new home."
Compared to where they'd just come from, it was the height of luxury. Hawkwood wondered how Murat had persuaded the previous incumbents to relinquish such a valuable location. It didn't seem possible that anyone would want to do so voluntarily. Maybe they were dead, too.
They weren't, Murat assured them. "It's just that they prefer food to a view. You'd feel that way, too, if you hadn't had a square meal for a week," Murat added, pocketing his fee. "You'll learn that soon enough. If I were you, I'd guard my purse. Don't indulge in fripperies. The price you've just paid for your sleeping spot will buy three weeks' rations. Not that they give us anything worth ea
ting, mind you. There are some who'd say death from the fever would be a merciful release. If you want to make a bit of money, by the way, you can rent out your part of the bench."
"I knew I could count on you," Lasseur said. "I had this feeling in my bones."
The interpreter permitted himself a small smile. His teeth were surprisingly even, though in the gloom they were the colour of damp parchment. "Thank you, Captain. And might I say it's been a pleasure doing business with you."
Murat turned. "And the same goes for you, Captain Hooper. It's a pleasure to meet an American. I've long been an admirer of your country. Now, if there's anything else you require, don't hesitate to ask. You'll find I'm the man to do business with. You want to buy, come to Murat. You have something to sell, come to Murat. My terms are very favourable, as you'll see."
"You're a credit to free enterprise, Lieutenant," Lasseur said.
Murat volunteered a full-blown conspiratorial grin. "You're going to fit right in here, Captain." The interpreter gave a mock salute. "Now, if you'll excuse me, gentlemen." And with that, he turned on his heel, and walked off. To hand the money on, Hawkwood assumed, minus his commission, of course.
"I do believe we've just been robbed," Lasseur said cheerfully, and then shrugged. "But it was neatly done. I can see we're going to have to keep our eyes on Lieutenant Murat. Did you ever have any dealings with his cousin?"
Hawkwood shook his head and said wryly, "Can't say I'm likely to, either, considering I'm an American and he's the King of Naples."
"I keep forgetting: your French is very good. Murat's cousin served in Spain, though."
"I know," Hawkwood said. "And your army has been trying to clean up his damned mess ever since."
Lasseur looked taken aback by Hawkwood's rejoinder. Then he nodded in understanding. "Ah, yes, the uprising."
It had been back in '08. In response to Bonaparte's kidnapping of the Spanish royal family in an attempt to make Spain a French satellite, the Spanish had attacked the French garrison in Madrid. Retaliation, by troops under the command of the flamboyant Joachim Murat, had been swift and brutal and had led to a nationwide insurrection against the invaders, which had continued, with the assistance of the British, ever since.
