Game of Bones

by David Donachie

  ‘This is extra labour,’ said one.

  ‘Worth more than the money he promised us,’ added the other.

  ‘Take my word for it. When he reads the letter, he’ll shower you with gold coins.’

  ‘Anchor’s aweigh, your honour,’ said Pender, softly.

  Harry’s push was gentle, but still enough to persuade the two old sailors he was serious. Grumbling for the sake of appearances they obliged him, and by the time they’d got their oars in the rowlocks and turned towards the long strand of shingle beach the anchor was clear of the water, catted, and fished, and the Good Intent had dropped her sails to take the wind.

  ‘Just what did you put in that letter, your honour?’

  ‘I told Villiers that he would expire from seasickness if he spent too much time in a ship.’

  ‘You could have the right of it there,’ Pender replied, with a shake of the head. ‘But he’s still not going to be pleased.’

  ‘But I’ve left him a worthy task to perform.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You know that Billy Pitt burnt all the boats on Deal beach a few years back.’

  ‘He hates a smuggler and that’s no error.’

  ‘Well, I told him he could ingratiate himself with his uncle in our absence if he was to launch a thorough search of the town of Deal for banned smuggling boats known as centipedes. I’ve told him to pay particular attention to St Leonard’s Church, in Upper Deal.’

  ‘That’s goin’ to please him even less, Capt’n, especially since what he’ll be huntin’ is tied to our davits.’

  ‘But that’s the whole point, Pender. I live near here, and I don’t think it will be long before it’s known who’s pinched them. So I’ve left information with a reliable source, to let on to the Deal smugglers, that in order to avoid their valuable galleys being taken and burned I have shipped them out of the town for a while.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  IF ADMIRAL Parker was surprised to have Harry Ludlow calling on him again, his visitor was shocked when having been kept waiting for nearly an hour he entered the office and found Derouac, Illingworth’s steward, sitting there, his cratered yellowing skin making him look more like frog-spawn than ever.

  ‘I didn’t think to see you here, Ludlow,’ Parker said, his eyes wandering to a looking-glass to make sure his facial expression was stern enough. ‘I should have thought you’d be brought to the blush by presenting yourself before me again.’

  Harry didn’t want to be there. Time was exceedingly precious, and never was the old saw that it and tide would wait for no man more apt. But brother-in-law Arthur, clearing up every loose end from the previous unsuccessful mission, had written to Sir Peter Parker to recount the details of that failure. There was no way Harry could sail to Normandy without knowing what steps the admiral had taken since. Not trusting to a correspondent who could be as dilatory as he liked, Harry had been forced to come to Portsmouth in person.

  And what a depressing journey it had been, in a ship more crank than any he’d ever known: three whole days from Deal to Chichester Harbour, and a two-hour journey in a hired shay over a poorly maintained road. The only consolation was that most of that trip would have been necessary in any case, since the currents in the Channel favoured an approach to the French coast from well west of the Dover Strait. So in truth he only risked losing one day. But he was in a hurry. More than that, he was in no mood to accept Parker’s condescension.

  ‘I’m even more surprised to see Derouac occupying one of your chairs,’ Harry replied, ‘when I haven’t even had the courtesy of a similar offer.’

  The steward shot to his feet, as though sitting in the presence of such an elevated personage had been a gross breach of trust.

  ‘M. Tressoir has sent me as an emissary, Captain, to discuss the terms for the release of the passengers, our ship and its cargo.’

  ‘So he’s still willing to bargain?’

  ‘That is no longer any of Captain Ludlow’s concern,’ snapped Parker, as Derouac opened his mouth to reply.

  ‘It most certainly is, sir. Lord Drumdryan sent you word that Tressoir has taken my ship as well.’

  Parker sat forward, paused to check posture and countenance, then growled at Harry. ‘And this fellow has obliged me with something you failed to. He’s told me how it happened, and hearing the details, sir, I can comprehend your reluctance to recount such folly.’

  Harry had no desire to reprise all that so he turned to the crouching Derouac. ‘How is Captain Illingworth?’

  ‘The wounds were grave, as you know. But when I left he was recovering well, able to take light soup.’

  It was Parker who’d gone red, annoyed at the way Harry had ignored him to make his enquiry. The strain of holding his voice normal was obvious, as he sought to regain control.

  ‘Derouac is not gifted in the description of sea battles. But then, given such a pathetic display as you put on between the Aubins, he barely needs to be. I might hardly add that you seriously exceeded your brief.’

  ‘I used my judgement, Admiral Parker! And I would point out to you that I have paid a higher price for my mistake than you. Considering you coerced me into going to Normandy in the first place, I hold you partly responsible for the loss of my vessel.’

  ‘I sent you to negotiate, sir, and to fight only if the situation was propitious. You declined to do the former in any meaningful way, and failed ignominiously at the latter.’

  ‘I also lost a ship.’

  Parker sat back again, his expression smug. ‘If you are looking for recompense here, Ludlow, you will whistle for it.’

  Harry was desperate to know what Parker had done. Now that the Spithead mutiny was settled, he certainly had the power and the means to dispatch a frigate. If he had, then Harry’s options would be severely curtailed, if not scuppered altogether, but he also knew that a direct enquiry wouldn’t necessarily produce an honest answer, so he tried to pose his request in an oblique manner.

  ‘I expected nothing less. My sole purpose in coming here was to ask for what assistance I can expect in my attempt to get it back myself?’

  ‘Get it back, man? After Tressoir gave you such a drubbing! Are you a glutton for punishment?’

  ‘No, Admiral Parker. I am a privateer without a hull.’

  ‘Then long may you stay that way,’ Parker barked. ‘As a breed you’re pestilential, so will be no loss, to my way of thinking.’

  ‘So, having attempted to rescue your family from captivity, I have no call whatsoever upon your good offices.’

  That sent Parker into even more of a temper. ‘Good offices, sir? It’s a wonder they are still alive. How dare you fire roundshot into a vessel that harbours my relatives?!’

  Harry matched Parker, the primary purpose of his visit submerged under his increasing indignation, voice rising so that those in the ante-room looked at each other in alarm.

  ‘With a brother as pompous as Sir William, I should have been encouraged. Must I remind you that he is there because of his own boasting? You need have no fear of him suffering from roundshot. He has a head empty enough to accommodate any number of 12-pounder balls without pain.’

  Parker came half out of his chair. ‘You will get out of here, Ludlow, before I call for a file of marines to eject you.’

  Harry, partially recovering himself, gestured to Derouac who, faced with these two battling sailors, had shrunk back into his seat.

  ‘I came here to find out what steps you’d taken, if any, to communicate with Tressoir. I will not depart until I have been apprised of them, as well as the state of the defences at Isigny. If I cannot look to you to make up my loss, then I must do something on my own.’

  ‘You will stay away from the Normandy coastline, Ludlow, do you hear?’

  ‘That is not something you can command, Admiral Parker.’

  ‘Is it not?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And how, pray, do you intend to get there?’

  Harry wa
s just about to bark, ‘By ship, you damn fool,’ when Parker, in the act of regaining his chair, turned to another mirror, the triumphal look in his eye immediately duplicated. To tell him about the Good Intent would be suicidal. The Channel Fleet might be gone but Parker had plenty of smaller ships at his disposal. Given the sailing qualities of Buckner’s vessel there would be precious little need to send a swift sloop to catch him. A water hoy with a decent officer could achieve that before he’d managed to clear Hayling Island.

  Happy with his appearance, the admiral turned back to look at his angry visitor, who was forcing himself, with great difficulty, to appear humble.

  ‘You must help me,’ Harry said, the need to contain his resentment making his voice sound properly tense and servile.

  Parker squared his shoulders and replied calmly, all need for anger spent. ‘I will not, sir, out of either duty or inclination. Now be so good as to get out of my presence.’

  Derouac wasn’t allowed to even make it back to his lodgings. Pender and Flowers, when they appeared either side of him, didn’t need to explain what they were about, the look in their eyes quite sufficient to persuade the Guernseyman that he was in the last hour of his life on earth. The hands that took him were gentle enough, and he was round the corner, lying, moaning softly, on the floor of Harry’s coach, before a minute had passed. As soon as the door closed they set off for the return journey to Chichester Harbour.

  ‘You will now tell me, Derouac, what message you brought back from Normandy.’

  ‘I was told to divulge that to no one.’

  ‘If you’d rather have Pender in here asking the questions, and not me, I’ll be happy to oblige.’

  That started a gabbling account that only made complete sense when he was finished. The message he’d carried was simple enough, a repeat of the demand to trade for both the Lothian and the hostages, with this time no threat of violence.

  ‘When does Admiral Parker expect to see you again?’ Harry demanded, jabbing Derouac with his foot.

  ‘I don’t know. He told me to go back to my lodgings and wait.’

  ‘What are his plans?’

  ‘He didn’t tell me.’ That earned him another jab with the foot, one that encouraged him to continue. ‘He intends to send an emissary, but not until the last week of the month, when the tides are low. That will convince Tressoir that there is no danger of his being attacked a second time. All he wants is the hostages. He cares nothing for the ships.’

  ‘Good!’

  Harry had to fight to keep the sense of relief out of his voice. If Parker had no ship off the Baie du Grand Vey, and no intention of yet sending one, then all he had to do was get the Good Intent there in time for the next high tide. That brought forth a silent prayer. They’d need a benign wind, and luck with the currents: failure meant the next opportunity was the first week of June.

  ‘What are you going to do with me?’

  ‘You have nothing to fear, Derouac,’ Harry said, adopting a friendly tone, then leaning forward to pat the steward’s shoulder.

  ‘Then you will set me free?’ he wailed.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then where are you taking me?’

  ‘Where else would we take such a faithful servant? You’re going back to Normandy, to see your master.’

  They got to sea on the morning ebb, and sailed south, on a gentle north-westerly breeze, Harry busy working out the times of the tidal flows so that he could employ them to maximum advantage. When free from that, and the needs of the Good Intent, he interrogated Derouac relentlessly, seeking to find out what defences Tressoir had mounted. It was like drawing teeth, made worse by the ample time that the ship provided, yawing and wallowing. Only the first question was answered with alacrity, the information being that the Frenchman’s corvette was called l’Hyène.

  Slowly, using charts, drawings, cutlery, and crockery, as well as threats of violence from Pender, a picture began to emerge of the area around Isigny-sur-Mer, the watercourse that led up to it, and the precautions that had been taken against an attack. Tressoir had told the steward personally, in a message for Admiral Parker, that a boat was kept permanently at a location called the Point de Grouin looking out for a signal warning of any danger, probably from the highest point on les Îles de St. Aubin.

  Taking a break, Harry consulted his charts. The Baie du Grand Vey was a wide estuary up to the point where the two main rivers diverged. To the east lay les Roches de Grandcamp, to the west a long spit of sand that pointed north, both well covered at high tide, exposed at low. The Point de Grouin was at the head of the bay, where it narrowed to form the deep-water channel that led up the River Vire. Some two miles upriver the watercourse split again, at the confluence of the Aure and the Vire: a long way to row just to deliver a warning. This provoked the question of what other defences this messenger was meant to alert.

  Derouac showed more assurance at that point, since his knowledge of the local argot had served him well. He’d overheard some of Tressoir’s men talking about a boom laid no more than a quarter of a mile from the wharves at Isigny. Set in stakes and hauled taut by mules, it lay at the point where the effect of water rising in the tidal basin petered out. Even taut, Harry reasoned it unlikely to hinder the centipedes, with their shallow hulls drawing little water.

  The last thing Derouac had pointed out to him worried Harry more: a battery of cannon being set up on the northern bank, probably the very guns the Frenchman had used at Aubin. This was constructed at a point where the Aure narrowed between the only two pieces of raised ground for miles, if you excluded the town itself.

  ‘By rights, he should have cannon on both banks,’ said Harry, which earned a shrug from the steward. ‘Tell me about the ships.’

  Lothian, with cargo and passengers intact, lay beside the harbour wall, in deep fresh water, no more than thirty yards from the nearest inhabited buildings, in the same state as he’d last seen her. Bucephalas was further upriver, at the far end of the town near the high stone bridge, berthed inside Tressoir’s corvette, which was acting as an exterior platform while Harry’s ship underwent repairs. Their progress proved the least difficult questions Derouac had to contend with. He might be a steward, but as he’d pointed out to Harry on another occasion he’d served a long time at sea. Her upperworks had been repaired, but the yards and masts had yet to be replaced. More importantly she was still without guns.

  ‘Are you sure of this?’

  ‘I am,’ Derouac replied firmly, showing a confidence which had up till then been rare. ‘I walked the entire length of that very quay the day that M. de Tressoir put me in my boat, and we both agreed that your ship was a long way from being ready for sea.’

  ‘What about the Lothian’s guns? Are they still aboard?’

  ‘No. They have been taken ashore, and are lying on the quayside downriver of the ship.’

  ‘So when you left the only armed vessel was l’Hyène?’

  ‘I think so,’ Derouac replied, suddenly lacking conviction again. Then he looked Harry square in the eye and puffed out his chest. ‘No, Captain Ludlow, I am certain.’

  ‘And she was at the very far end of the quay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Now,’ said Harry, ‘tell me about the fortifications around Isigny itself.’

  ‘Captain,’ the steward wailed, ‘I saw nothing of them.’

  ‘You’d be amazed at what you can observe if you think about it, Derouac, believe me. Look what you’ve managed already.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  PENDER spun the wheel a touch, to compensate for the ship falling off the wind. ‘Remember what that Frog did before, your honour. I’ve said it afore, and I’ll say it again, he’s a tricky bastard.’

  Harry paced back and forth in front of Pender. A persistent feeling was nagging at the back of his mind, but for the life of him he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  ‘Don’t worry, Pender, I’m not going to underestimate him this time.’

  ‘Good!
’

  ‘He sent Derouac to see Admiral Parker, so while the tides are high he’ll be on the lookout for a warship. The thought of us coming back for Bucephalas will never occur to him.’

  ‘He’ll know the Good Intent is there.’

  ‘That can’t be avoided. No ship, even a crack frigate, could get past those sentinels on the Aubins. And if they stand off till it’s dark the only wind that would get them to the estuary in time to launch an attack would make it impossible to get out again. No, if it was a ship attack, they’d go in well aware that he knew they were coming.’

  ‘So tide or no tide, the only way to surprise him is to use ships’ boats.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘An’ that don’t need no warship, any old tub would do.’

  ‘True,’ Harry replied, a slight touch of asperity evident in his tone. He hated to be interrogated, no matter who was doing the enquiring, especially when he was trying to think himself. ‘There’ll be some system of alarm, starting with St. Aubin, that means he can get his men into position before any boats arrive upriver.’

  ‘If he’s got any sense he wouldn’t wait. If’n I was him I’d go on alert the minute I sniffed a threat.’

  ‘Ships must pass through the channel all the time, Pender,’ Harry snapped. ‘He can’t go on the alert every time his lookouts spy a merchant vessel. You’re right when you say our presence will be noted, but surely, in a tub like the Good Intent, that will be precautionary. He’ll not do anything until he has more cause, and he certainly wouldn’t man his defences at Isigny, a good ten miles away, unless he was absolutely sure he was facing an imminent assault.’

  Pender smiled, not in the least fazed by Harry’s show of temper. ‘Strikes me, Capt’n, that you’d act different. And what you’ve just said, as well as the way it was spoke, would be what your brother James reckons as guesswork.’