A King's Cutter

by Richard Woodman

  ‘Very well, my lord,’ he growled, ‘but only under protest and providing there is no swell.’

  Dungarth nodded. ‘Good, good.’ The earl turned to the window. ‘There will be no swell with the wind veering north-east. You must weigh this evening . . . Mr Drinkwater, how pleasant to see you again, come join us in a glass before you go. Madoc, pray allow Drinkwater here to send his mail up with yours, I’ll have it franked gratis in the usual way, messieurs . . .’ Dungarth addressed the Frenchmen, explaining the arrangements were concluded and Drinkwater noted a change in the seated man’s expression, the merest acknowledgement. And this time he could not repress a shudder.

  Neither the wine nor the facility of writing to Elizabeth eased his mind after he and Griffiths returned to Kestrel. The sparkling view, the shadowing castle, the frantic desperation of the Frenchman, the haunted aura of his companion and above all the misgivings of Griffiths had combined with a growing conviction that their luck must run out.

  Kestrel must be known to the fanatical authorities in France and sooner or later they would meet opposition. Drinkwater had no need of Griffiths’s injunction that as a British officer his presence on a French beach was illegal. An enquiry as to the fate of his predecessor had elicited a casual shrug from the lieutenant.

  ‘He was careless, d’you see, he neglected elementary precautions. He died soon after we landed him.’

  Drinkwater found his feeling of unease impossible to shake off as Kestrel carried the tide through the Alderney Race, the high land of Cap de la Hague on the weather quarter. The sea bubbled under her bow and hissed alongside as the steady north-easterly wind drove them south. The Bay of Vauville opened slowly to larboard and, as the night passed, the low promontory of Cap Flammanville drew abeam.

  Judging by his presence on deck Griffiths shared his subordinate’s uneasiness. Once he stood next to Drinkwater for several minutes as if about to speak. But he thought better of it and drew off. Drinkwater had heard little of the conversation at Walmer. All he really knew was that the night’s work had some extra element of risk attached to it, though of what real danger he had no notion.

  The night was dark and moonless, cold and crystal clear. The stars shone with a northern brilliance, hard and icy with blue fire. They would be abeam of the Bay of Sciotot now, its southern extremity marked by the Pointe du Rozel beyond which the low, dune-fringed beach extended six miles to Carteret. The wide expanse of sand was their rendezvous, south of the shoals of Surtainville and north of the Roches du Rit. ‘On the parallel of Beaubigny,’ Griffiths had said, naming the village that lay a mile inland behind the dunes. ‘And I pray God there is no swell,’ he added. Drinkwater shared his concern. To the westward lay the ever-restless Atlantic, its effect scarcely lessened by the Channel Islands and the surrounding reefs. There must almost always be a swell on the beach at Beaubigny, pounding its relentless breakers upon those two leagues of packed sand. Drinkwater fervently hoped that the week of northerlies had done their work, that there would be little swell making their landing possible.

  He bent over the shielded lantern in the companionway. The last few sand grains ran the half hour out of the glass and he turned it, straightening up with the log slate he looked briefly at his calculations. They must have run their distance now. He turned to Griffiths.

  ‘By my reckoning, sir, we’re clear of the Surtainville Bank.’

  ‘Very well, we’ll stand inshore shortly. All hands if you please.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Nathaniel turned forward.

  ‘Mr Drinkwater . . . check the boats, now. I’ll sway out the second gig when you leave. And Mr Drinkwater . . .’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Take two loaded scatter guns . . .’ Griffiths left the sentence unfinished.

  Drinkwater paced up and down the firm wet sand. In the starlight he could see the expanse of beach stretching away north and south. Inland a pale undulation showed where the dunes marked the beginning of France. Down here, betwixt high and low water, he walked a no-man’s-land. Behind him, bumping gently in the shallows, lay the waiting gig. Mercifully there was no swell.

  ‘Tide’s making, zur.’ It was Tregembo’s voice. Anxious. Was he a victim of presentiment too?

  It occurred to Drinkwater that there was something irrational, ludicrous even, in his standing here on a strip of French beach in the middle of the night not knowing why. He thought of Elizabeth to still his pounding heart. She would be asleep now, little dreaming of where he was, cold and exposed and not a little frightened. He looked at the men. They were huddled in a group round the boat.

  ‘Spread out and relax, it’s too exposed for an ambush.’ His logic fell on ears that learned only that he too was apprehensive. The men moved sullenly. As he watched he saw them stiffen, felt his own breath catch in his throat and his palms moisten.

  The thudding of hooves and jingle of harness grew louder and resolved itself into vague movement to the south. Then suddenly, running in the wavelets that covered its tracks a small barouche was upon them. The discovery was mutual. The shrill neighing of the horses as they reared in surprise was matched by the cries of the seamen who flung themselves out of the way.

  Drinkwater whirled to see the splintering of the boat’s gunwale as a hoof crashed down upon it. The terrified horse stamped and pawed, desperately trying to extricate itself. With the flat of his hanger Drinkwater beat at it, at the same time grabbing a rein and tugging the horse’s head round clear of the gig.

  A man jumped down from the barouche. ‘Êtes-vous anglais?’

  ‘Yes, m’sieur, where the hell have you been?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘How many? Combien hommes?’

  ‘Trois hommes et une femme, but I speak English.’

  ‘Get into the boat, are you being followed?’

  ‘Oui, yes . . . the other man, he is, er, blessé . . . he struggled with the English.’

  ‘Wounded?’

  ‘That is right, by Jacobins in Carteret.’

  Drinkwater cut him short, recognising reaction. The man was young, near collapse.

  ‘Get in the boat,’ he pointed towards the waiting seamen and gave orders. Two figures emerged from the barouche, a man and a woman. They stood uncertainly.

  ‘The boat! Get in the boat . . .’ They began to speak, the man turning back to the open door. Angry exasperation began to replace his fear and Drinkwater called to two seamen to drag the wounded man out of the carriage and pushed the dithering fugitive towards the gig. ‘Le bateau, vite! Vite!’

  He scooped the woman up roughly, surprised at her lightness, ignoring the indrawn breath of outrage, the stiffening of her body at the enforced intimacy. He dumped her roughly into the boat. A waft of lavender brought with it a hint of resentment at his cavalier treatment. He turned to the men struggling with the wounded Frenchman. ‘Hurry there!’ and to the remainder, ‘the rest of you keep this damned thing afloat.’ They heaved as a larger breaker came ashore, tugging round their legs with a seething urgency.

  ‘Damned swell coming in with the flood,’ someone said.

  ‘What about the baggage, m’sieur?’ It was the man from the carriage who seemed to have recovered some of his wits.

  ‘To hell with the baggage, sit down!’

  ‘But the gold . . . and my papers, mon Dieu! my papers!’ He began to clamber out of the boat. ‘You have not got my papers!’ But it was not the documents that had caught Drinkwater’s imagination.

  ‘Gold? What gold?’

  ‘In the barouche, m’sieur,’ said the man shoving past him.

  Drinkwater swore. So that was behind this crazy mission, specie! A personal fortune? Royalist funds? Government money? What did it matter? Gold was gold and now this damned fool was running back to the carriage. Drinkwater followed. He pushed to the door and looked in. Two iron bound boxes lay on the floor, just visible in the gloom.

  ‘Tregembo! Poll! Get this box! You m’sieur, aidez-moi!’

  They staggered un
der the weight, the breath rasping in their throats as they heaved it aboard the gig. The boat was lifting now, thumping on hard sand as larger waves ran hissing up the beach. Then from the direction of Carteret they heard shouts. The sand vibrated under the thunder of many horses’ hooves; a troop of dragoons!

  ‘Push the boat off! Push it off!’ He ran back to the barouche, vaguely aware of the Frenchman struggling to get a canvas folio into the gig. Drinkwater stretched up and let off the brake. Running to the horses’ heads he dragged them round then swiped the rump of the nearer with his hanger. There was a wet gleam of blood and a terrified neigh as the horse plunged forward. Drinkwater jumped clear as the carriage jerked into motion.

  He ran splashing to the boat which was already pulling out, its bow parting a wave that curled ashore. The water sucked and gurgled round Drinkwater’s thighs as he fell over the transom. A splinter drove into the palm of his hand and he remembered the plunging hoof as the nausea of pain shot through him. For a moment he lay gasping, vaguely aware of shouts and confusion where the barouche met its pursuers. Then a ball or two whined overhead and from seaward came a hail from the other boat asking if they required help. Drinkwater raised his head to refuse but a seaman stood and fired one of the blunderbusses beside his ear. Drinkwater twisted round and looked astern. Not ten yards away rearing among the breakers a horse threw its rider into the sea. Both were hit by the langridge in the gun.

  ‘A steady pull now lads. We’re all right now.’ But a flash and roar contradicted him. The six-pounder ball ricochetted three yards away. Horse artillery!

  ‘Pull you bastards! Pull!’ They had no need of exhortation. The oar looms bent under the effort.

  Another bang and a shower of splinters. Shouts, screams and the boat slewed to starboard, the woman standing and shrieking astern, her hands beating her sides in fury. They were firing canister and ball and the starboard oars had been hit. The boat was a shambles as she drifted back into the breakers.

  Then from seaward there was an answering flash and the whine of shot passing low overhead as Kestrel opened fire. A minute later the other boat took them in tow.

  Drinkwater threw his wet cloak into a corner of the main cabin. He was haggard with exhaustion and bad temper. His inadequacy for the task Griffiths had given him filled him with an exasperation brittle with reaction. Two dead and three wounded, plus the Frenchman now lying across the cabin table, was a steep price to pay for a handful of fugitives and two boxes of yellow metal.

  ‘Get below and see to the wounded,’ Griffiths had said, and then, in a final remark that cut short Drinkwater’s protest, ‘there’s a case of surgical instruments in the starboard locker.’

  Drinkwater dragged them out, took up a pair of tweezers and jerked the splinter from the palm of his hand. His anger evaporated as a wave of pain passed through him, leaving him shaking, gradually aware of the woman’s eyes watching him from the shadows of her hood. Under her gaze he steadied, grateful for her influence yet simultaneously resentful of her presence, remembering that hint of enmity he had caught as he passed her into the gig. Two men stumbled into the cabin slopping hot water from basins. Drinkwater took off his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves, taking a bottle of brandy from the rack.

  Drinkwater braced himself. The swinging lantern threw shadows and highlights wildly about as Kestrel made north on a long beat to windward. He bent over the Frenchman aware that the others were watching him, the woman standing, swaying slowly as they worked offshore, as if unwilling to accept the sanctuary of the cutter. The two men watched from the settee, slumped in attitudes of relieved exhaustion.

  ‘Here, one of you, help me . . . m’aidez!’

  Drinkwater found a glass and half filled it with cognac. He swallowed as the elder man came forward. Drinkwater held out the glass and the man took it eagerly.

  ‘Get his clothes off. Use a knife . . . d’you understand?’ The man nodded and began work. Drinkwater invoked the memory of Surgeon Appleby and tried to remember something of what he had been told, what he had seen a lifetime earlier in the stinking cockpit of Cyclops. It seemed little enough so he refilled the tumbler, catching the woman’s eyes and the hostility in them. The fiery liquid made him shudder and he ignored the woman’s hauteur.

  He bent over the Frenchman. ‘Who the devil is he?’ he asked.

  ‘His name, m’sieur,’ said the elder Frenchman working busily at the seam of the unconscious man’s coat, ‘is Le Comte de Tocqueville, I am Auguste Barrallier, late of the Brest Dockyard . . .’ He pulled the sleeve off and ripped the shirt. ‘The young man beside you is Etienne Montholon, mam’selle is his sister Hortense.’ From the woman came an indrawn breath that might have been disapproval of his loquacity or horror as Barrallier revealed the count’s shoulder, peeling the coat and shirt off the upper left breast. De Tocqueville groaned, raised his head and opened his eyes. Then his head lolled back. ‘Lost a lot of blood,’ said Drinkwater, thankful that the man was unconscious.

  Barrallier discarded the soaked clothing. Drinkwater swabbed the wound clean and watched uncertainly as more blood oozed from the bruised, raw flesh.

  ‘The arabs use a method of washing with the wine, m’sieur,’ offered Barrallier gently, ‘perhaps a little of the cognac might be spared, yes?’ Drinkwater reached for the bottle.

  ‘He was shot . . .’ The young man, standing now next to Barrallier, spoke for the first time. He stated the obvious in that nervous way the uncertain have. Drinkwater looked up into a handsome face perhaps twenty years old.

  Drinkwater slipped his hand beneath the count’s shoulder. He could feel the ball under the skin. Roughly he scraped the wound to remove any pieces of clothing and poured a last measure of cognac over the mess. He searched among the apothecary’s liniments and selected a pot of bluish ointment, smearing the contents over the wound, covering it with a pledget and then a pad made from the count’s shirt.

  ‘Hold that over the wound while we turn him over.’ Drinkwater nodded to Barrallier who put out his bloody hands, then he looked at Montholon. ‘Hold his legs, m’sieur, if you would. Cross them over, good. Now, together!’

  Bracing themselves against Kestrel’s windward pitch they rolled De Tocqueville roughly over. Drinkwater was feeling more confident, the brandy was doing its work well. An over-active part of his brain was emerging from reaction to the events of the last hours, already curious about their passengers.

  ‘Your escape was none too soon.’ He said it absently, preoccupied as he rolled the tip of his forefinger over the blue lump that lay alongside the count’s scapula. He did not expect the gasp to come with such vehemence from the woman, cutting through the thick air of the cabin with an incongruous venom that distracted him into looking up.

  She had thrown back the hood of her cloak and the swinging lantern caught copper gleams from the mass of auburn hair that fell about her shoulders. She appeared older than her brother with strong, even features heightened by the stress she was under. She stared at Drinkwater from level grey eyes and again he felt her hostility. Her lack of gratitude piqued him and he thought of the two dead and three wounded of Kestrel’s crew that had been the price of her escape.

  Angry, he bent again over the count’s shoulder, picking up the scalpel and feeling its blade rasp the scapula. A light headed feeling swept over him as he encountered the ball.

  ‘Hold the lantern closer,’ he said through clenched teeth. And she obeyed.

  The musket ball rolled bloodily onto the table.

  Drinkwater grunted with satisfaction as he bound a second pledget and passed a linen strip round the count’s shoulder. They strapped his arm to his side and heaved him onto the settee. Then they turned to the seamen with the splinter wounds.

  Daylight was visible when Drinkwater staggered on deck soaked in perspiration. The chill hit him as he lurched to the rail and, shuddering, vomited the cognac out of his stomach. He laid his head on the rail. Hortense Montholon lay in his cot and he sank down beside the b
reeching of a four pounder and fell asleep. Tregembo brought blankets and covered him.

  Standing by the tiller Lieutenant Griffiths looked at the inert form. Although no expression passed over his face he was warm with approval. He had not misjudged the qualities of Nathaniel Drinkwater.

  Chapter Three

  December 1792–February 1793

  A Curtain Rising

  The incident at Beaubigny had ended Kestrel’s clandestine operations. Temporarily unemployed the cutter rolled in the swell that reached round Penlee Point to rock her at her anchor in Cawsand Bay.

  Perspiring in his airless cabin Drinkwater sat twirling the cheap goosequill in his long fingers. Condensation hung from the deckhead, generated by the over-stoked stove in Griffiths’s cabin next door. Drinkwater was fighting a losing battle against drowsiness. With an effort he forced himself to read over what he had written in his journal.

  It was a matter of amazement to me that M. De Tocqueville survived my butchery. His debility was occasioned by loss of blood due to a severe grazing of the axillary artery which fortunately did not rupture entirely. The pectoral muscle was badly torn by the angle of entry of the ball but it seems we had the only chip of bone out of him. If it does not yet putrefy he will live.

  He had been mildly interested in the medical details for it had been an old friend who had looked over his rudimentary surgery. Mr Appleby, appointed surgeon to the frigate Diamond then fitting in the Hamoaze, had been ordered aboard Kestrel to check the wounded. He had been complimentary about Nathaniel’s unschooled suturing but had not let him escape without a lecture on the count’s injuries.

  Drinkwater smiled at the recollection. It had been an odd passage home. Of all the refugees Kestrel had brought out of France that last quartet had left an indelible impression. The feverish nobleman muttering incoherently in his delirium and the attentively ineffectual young Etienne Montholon were a contrast to their fellow travellers. The garrulous and enthusiastic Barrallier was a lively and amusing companion who let no detail of Kestrel escape his criticism or admiration. He seemed to cut himself off from the others, turning his back on France, as if desperate to be seen as anglophile in all things. Markedly different from the men, Hortense remained aloof; cold and contemptuous in the isolation of her sex. Her beauty caused a whispering, wondering admiration among the hands and a vague disquiet among the officers with whom she was briefly accommodated.