“There, there’s the cart!” Major Denis Clary cried, pointing to the west, caught up in the chase despite his misgivings, as he caught sight of the weary horse trying to feed on the spotty, dry weeds and shrubs by the landward side of the road. The cart was crosswise upon the road, and the poor horse was fortunate that the cart had not gone into one of the ditches.
They drew rein short of the cart. “Is this about where it was first discovered?” Fourchette demanded, wheeling his mount to search for that sluggard dim-wit gendarme who’d found it. “Speak up, you!”
He wasn’t much of a horseman, so it took the gendarme some time to thread his way through the others. “Uhm, near here, m’sieur. When I first came across it, it was on the right side of the road, back near a little cart track, uhm—”
“Show us!” Fourchette ordered impatiently. At the walk, they had to re-trace their way about two hundred metres east, ’til the gendarme at last pointed to two faint ruts in the poor vegetation. “It was here I saw it, m’sieur,” the gendarme told him. “By this path to the old hut. The one down there, m’sieur.”
“And you did not think to explore the hut?” Capt. Vignon snapped.
“By myself, Capitaine? Against four dangerous criminals? Non, I rode for re-enforcements. To raise the alarm.”
“What about the hut?” Fourchette asked. Vignon quickly informed him that it had been abandoned for a decade or better, caving in upon itself. “And is there a beach down there, below the bluffs, m’sieur?”
“Oui, there is a beach, a small one,” Vignon said. “And there is a path down to it. But this useless simpleton—”
“Dismount, everyone, and arm yourselves,” Fourchette cried. “We must inspect the hut, find the path, and look for them. They are here, I know it, I feel it!”
Choundas insisted that his Chasseur stay mounted and take him to the edge of the cliffs at once. As armed troopers and policemen crept down the slope to surround the hut, as torches or lanthorns were lit to aid the search, Charité kneed her mount to follow Choundas, and Major Clary, fearing for her safety on the cliff edge, below the hut, where their quarry might shoot at her before the troopers cleared it, trotted his own horse after her, urging her to wait in a harsh whisper . . . to which she paid no heed. She’d drawn one of her long-barrelled pistols, intent on her revenge, as intent as that twisted monster!
Choundas reached the edge of the bluff first. His cavalryman drew rein with a gasp and fumbled for his scabbarded musketoon. One instant later, Charité came up alongside him.
“Here! Down here!” Choundas cried in a feral rasp. “There is a schooner! A boat! They are here! Come quickly!”
Charité used her rein-hand’s wrist to draw her pistol to full cock, even though the range was far too great, and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Oh, Christ on a crutch!” Lewrie groaned as he heard the shot, and the “View, Halloo” from the top of the cliff s. They had been discovered, and the rowing boat was still a half-mile offshore, and they weren’t yet on the beach. “This’ll be close as dammit.”
“Sir, such language . . . ,” Sir Pulteney objected, stiffening.
“Bugger me, that’s that bastard Choundas up there,” Lewrie went on, recognising his crow-caw voice, then Charité’s, and paying the prim Sir Pulteney no mind. “And that Charité bitch, t’boot!”
They half-slid the last of the way, in a cloud of dirt, bounding recklessly through the last of the scree to hard, bare ground, then to deep, above-the-tideline sand! They would have rushed on to the surf, but for a second shot from above that ricocheted off one of the large boulders at the back of the cove, making them duck quickly into shelter of those boulders. “Lewrie! I have you at last!” Choundas howled.
Lewrie dug into his limp, mostly empty sea-bag to pull out the pair of old, used single-shot pistols he’d bought with his last French coin in St. Omer. They were big, blunt, ugly things, akin to the pistols dealt out from the arms chests aboard ship when a boarding action was likely; good for ramming into a foe’s stomach or chest and fired, but unpredictable for anything much beyond ten or fifteen feet. “Pray God it’ll take ’em about five minutes t’pick their way down that path. I don’t s’pose you’ve a brace o’ barkers handy, too, Sir Pulteney?” he said as he quickly loaded both with powder and shot, and primed their pans.
“No, there never was need of them back when I . . . ,” Sir Pulteney confessed, huddled over Lady Imogene, who was cowering close against the boulder. “Lived by our wits, d’ye see?” he lamely added.
“Wit’s played out,” Lewrie snapped. “Got a signal for ‘hurry up’ to yer schooner? Best make it, if ye do!”
Fortunately, the crew of the rowing boat, the mate conning her in, had heard the shots, had seen the torches and lanthorns atop the cliffs, and were almost bending their ash oars to hasten their pace.
“Tirez, tirez!” Choundas was demanding as soon as he was set on solid ground. “Shoot!” he commanded. “Kill them before they get off the beach!” A few Chasseurs obeyed him, firing wildly.
“Hold your fire!” Capitaine Vignon ordered his gendarmes. “The range is too long, and we are to arrest them!”
“Hold fire!” Major Clary was ordering the Chasseurs in a firmer command voice than Choundas’s. “Down the path, mes amis, and capture them!”
“No, Denis, no!” Charité shrilled, fumbling her re-loading with her furious haste. “Order your men to fire, for God’s sake!”
“Down the path!” Clary ordered again, dismounting and drawing his musketoon from the saddle scabbard. “Right, Fourchette? Capture them?”
“Oh, Christ!” Fourchette cursed under his breath. It could’ve been so simple! One couple and two coachmen, buried in an un-marked forest grave! Now four people must die, along with the sailors from that schooner, yet the ship would still escape, and all Europe would hear of the First Consul’s orders, hear and be outraged! But taken and privately executed later . . . “Marksmen! Keep them in hiding and away from that boat! Oui, capture them, Major Clary!”
“What? Non, dammit!” Choundas screeched. “You two . . . carry me down to the beach!” he ordered two Chasseurs. “I must be there to see them dead!” The Chasseurs looked to Major Clary, who nodded his assent with a sneer, and they hoisted him up, with a musketoon under his legs, and moved towards the head of the path down. Charité, at last re-loaded, dashed ahead of them with the first of the soldiers.
Fourchette shook his head in disbelief as he followed, shoving his way past cavalrymen to catch up with her and Major Clary.
“Might be able t’pick one or two off and block the path,” Lewrie muttered, with one loaded pistol stuck in a pocket of his slop-trousers, and the second in his hand. He rose to a half-crouch to look up-slope. Torches and lanthorns showed him his pursuers’ progress; it was damned slow, so far! Above the sounds of the surf, he could make out the noise the French were making, stumbling, tripping, and sliding, and setting off small showers of gravel. There was a surprised shout as someone up there turned his ankle!
Soldiers or gendarmes atop the cliff fired at him, and he ducked down again as lead balls spanged off the boulders. Once the volley was spent, he popped up again, taking quick note that the people coming down the path were armed with short musketoons, weapons about as in-accurate as his own pistols, at any decent range.
Yonder t’that boulder, Lewrie schemed; up t’that big’un, then I will have a good slant at that sharp bend. Can’t hope t’hit anyone, but they might waste a volley, duck, and have t’re-load. That’d slow ’em down. Do it, damn yer eyes!
“Hang on a bit . . . be right back,” Lewrie told the others, ducking down as another blindly aimed volley came their way.
“Alan, no!” Caroline wailed as he broke cover and ran for the first boulder, her hand trying to snatch at his loose fisherman’s smock. “Why must he be such a damned fool!” she cried.
Only one or two shots followed him to his first hide, and then Lewrie was up an
d scrambling to the second. A moment to get his wind back, to calm his twanging nerves, and he stood up, levelling one of his pistols over his left arm to steady it, cocking it, and taking aim.
Bang! and he dropped out of sight. Spang-wail! went the ball as it caromed off the rocks by the sharp bend, then the instinctive discharge of seven or eight return shots, and the rattle of balls round his sheltering boulder.
A quick pop-up for a look-see! Soldiers were hunkered down in the boulders, groping for cartridges and ramrods. More shots—from the top of the cliff this time. Once they were spent, Lewrie rose and took aim with his second pistol at a Chasseur with a torch at the head of the pursuit, squeezing himself through the first tight space. He fired and ducked. Bang! Then a meaty Thunk! and a frightened shout. He’d hit one of the bastards!
That summoned another ragged volley from the cliff top, and one from the pursuers on the path, and Lewrie dashed back to that first boulder, then back to rejoin the Plumbs and Caroline.
“Pinked one, I think!” he chortled, quickly re-loading pistols. “They’re tryin’ t’be quick about it, but they’re clumsy,” he told them. “Frog chivalry! There’s two of ’em carryin’ Choundas, and more takin’ care that Charité don’t fall and break her neck . . . please Jesus! One I hit was only at the first tight squeeze, and they’ll have t’move him ’fore they get round it.”
Another quick peek that drew more fire, and Lewrie put his back to their boulder to look out to sea. The schooner’s rowing boat, with eight oarsmen stroking away like the Devil was at the transom, was only 150 yards off, and coming on strong. Another pop-up showed him that the leading French soldier was only halfway down the path, and behind him, there was a jam-up where the Chasseurs had to put Choundas down so he could squeeze through the first tight space on his own.
“Tide’s out,” Lewrie said. “It’ll be round fourty or fifty yards to the boat when it grounds. Be a real dash t’get into her as soon as she grounds, which’ll be . . .’bout a minute, or less. They’ll not have us! When we run, go straight to the boat, no weavin’ about, that’s useless. Understand me? Caroline?”
Voices above were shouting; oddly, Lewrie could understand every word, for once. French must be gettin’ better, he thought, sharing a joyful grin with his wife. There was another volley of about a dozen rounds from the cliff top, a ragged later shot from the soldiers on the path. He stood and fired over the boulder, not even bothering to aim this time, just to make them cower . . . to fear, and slow down!
He looked at the Plumbs; they were not taking this well. Lady Imogene was whey-faced, her teeth chattering. Sir Pulteney, holding her, looked glazed-eyed and ashen in the first hints of false dawn, staring off at nothing.
He claimed t’be a soldier once! Lewrie scoffed; most-like the parade-ground sort, in a fashionable regiment, and their sort doesn’t get sent to battle that often. Schooled in arms, sometime long before, but . . . playin’ chameleon’s more his style, not fightin’ for his life!
Lewrie waited out another volley, then rose and fired his other pistol, quickly tumbling down upon his back as a few cleverer French waited for his response and took pot-shots at him.
“Alan!” Caroline yelped, crawling to him.
“I’m fine! Get back against the boulder!” he told her, dusting himself off and taking his own advise to scramble back to cover, too, where he began to re-load with what little powder, shot, and wadding he had left; enough for four more shots, total, he reckoned.
The sea, the surf; it didn’t look much higher than two-foot waves as the waters funnelled into the inlet and raled upon the sands. A bit choppy, but . . . their salvation was now within fifty yards offshore. Lewrie risked one more peek and saw that a Chasseur officer—damme but wasn’t he the one he’d met at Bonaparte’s levee?—another one with a torch, Charité, and a weaselly-looking man in a dark suit were at the bottom of the worst of the path, just about to hit the scree-slope. There was Choundas, too, in all his ugliness, past the last squeeze-point and being carried again by two soldiers. It would be a very close thing!
Time t’run! Lewrie decided for them all.
“We’re breakin’ cover, now!” he snapped. “Kiss for luck, m’dear?”
He put his arm round Caroline, she took his face in both hands and kissed him as fiercely as their first night wed; it was hard for Lewrie to break away, to gather his nerve, and let go of her!
“On our feet, ready?” He asked. “Ready, ready . . . wait!”
There was yet another volley from the cliff top. Lewrie stood and backed out into the open, bracing himself for any clever bugger up yonder. Presented with a good target at last, those last few clever Frenchmen fired, but, thankfully, they were gendarmes, not soldiers, and missed wide of him with their short-barrelled musketoons.
Now for the rest! Lewrie told himself, dancing further out onto the beach, capering and waving his arms. “Va te faire foutre! Foutre Napoleon! And God bless King George!” he yelled at the Chasseurs on the path, then lifted one of his pistols and fired upwards, striking a Chasseur carrying a lanthorn in one hand and his musketoon in the other. He yelped, dropped both, and clapped a hand to his thigh, losing his footing. The Chasseur in front of him, trying to aim and fire, was swept off his feet, too, as the first landed on his back, then began to slide down the scree slope, taking the lead man with him in a whirl of arms and legs!
“Shot their bolt!” Lewrie yelled as he rushed back to the rocks, followed by sharp cracks of musket fire and plumes of sand from misses. “Ready, ready, go!” With Caroline’s hand in his left, and his last pistol in his right, they dashed for the surf line and the boat, which was now pitching in the shallows, not ten yards from grounding!
There were a couple of stray shots chasing them, but the party remained untouched. The deep sand above the tide line dragged at their feet like cold treacle, slowing them, and all the while, weapons were being reloaded and desperate soldiers were all but throwing themselves down the path and the slope. Lady Imogene hitched up her skirts with both hands to run faster, and Lewrie let go Caroline’s hand for her to do the same. Sir Pulteney dodged astern of his wife, to shelter her.
“Kill them, kill them, someone!” Guillaume Choundas was howling.
“On, men, on!” Major Denis Clary was urging with his sword out, his musketoon in his left hand. Yet another Chasseur slipped on loose rock and shale and went tumbling, arses and elbows, to join the first two who’d fallen and who lay at the base of the slope barely moving, still stunned. Clary came to a halt at the top of the scree, fearing that half his borrowed troopers would break their necks or legs if they went on.
Charité half-slid to a stop beside him, eyes wild and hair dishevelled, panting open-mouthed at the exertions. Fourchette thumped to a halt with them, too, then came another Chasseur with a torch.
“It’s too steep to . . . ,” Clary said, dry-mouthed.
“Shoot him!” Fourchette ordered. “You soldiers, shoot him!”
“Not loaded, m’sieur,” the torch-bearer told him, fumbling for cartridges.
“Shoot which one, m’sieur?” a second asked, also re-loading.
“The younger man, shoot him!” Fourchette snarled, nigh crazed. “Major Clary, you are loaded?”
“Oui, shoot him, Denis!” Charité shrilly demanded.
“I am loaded, m’sieur,” Clary calmly told Fourchette. “But I will take no part in murder. Here . . . do it yourself,” he added as he shoved his weapon at the police agent.
“They’re almost in the boat!” Guillaume Choundas screamed with frustration as he stumped down to join them at last, leaning on one of the Chasseurs who had been carrying him. “Someone do something for God’s sake!” he said, punching the soldier in the arm to urge him to raise his musketoon and use it.
As if in answer, the gendarmes atop the cliff let off a ragged volley, but at that range, their shots only struck sand-plumes round the fleeing Anglais, raised a waterspout or two somewhat close to the boat, which was now grou
nding, but fell wide of their marks. Choundas was almost whimpering with rage, grinding what few teeth remained as the bow men sprang from the rowing boat into waist-deep water to steady it and help the escapees aboard!
Fourchette sneered at Major Clary’s ill-placed ideas of honour and tugged the lock of the musketoon to full cock, then put it to his shoulder. He reckoned himself a decent shot with a pistol or musket, and this fumier Lewrie would not be the first man he had had to shoot down, but most of his kills had been at much closer range. He put the rudimentary notch rear sight and front blade sight in line, on Lewrie’s back, just at the top of his spine, trying to lead his target as he ran the last few yards to the waiting boat. A down-hill shot, fifty mètres or more off? Should he not hold even higher, to allow for the bullet-drop? he wondered, then lifted the sights to aim at the top of Lewrie’s skull. Fourchette took a deep, steadying breath and let it out slowly, gently stroking the trigger . . . which did not move even a millimètre rearward. His own weapons were made by a talented Parisian gunsmith, and this musketoon was a crude, mass-produced military firearm. More pressure on the trigger, then the lock released with an audible clunk, then . . . Bang!
Sir Pulteney might not have been an impressive figure of a man, but he was wiry; when he and Lady Imogene reached the boat, he lifted her from behind, not breaking stride, and practically hurled her into the arms of the second-tier oarsmen, then scrambled over the larboard side, tumbling into the boat head-down. Lewrie reached it a second later, hoisting Caroline with both hands on her waist, his face in the small of her back for a second as a starboard oarsman took her by her upper arms to hoist her up and over the gunnel.
Sailors’ shouts, the mate’s orders by the tiller, the thud and rushing hiss of surf and . . . a buzz-hum! and then a meaty thunk of a bullet. Hot wetness sprayed his face, blinding him.
Christ, I’m killed! he thought, amazed that he’d neither heard the fatal shot nor felt the hammer-blow impact of his death.
King, Ship, and Sword Page 25
