by David McDine
At the news of Oliver’s death, the rector comforted his daughters. But although mightily upset, neither Elizabeth nor Anne could feel close to a brother they had seen so infrequently since he left to become a midshipman at the age of 13. His last brief visit had been during the Nore mutiny, and then he had suddenly upped and left for service in the Mediterranean.
Their brother’s life as a naval officer was so remote from theirs. The rambling rectory, its extensive grounds cared for by several gardeners, and the houses of a familiar circle of what passed locally for society were the extent of their world.
Life for them was a round of church-going and related activity, such as the flower arranging rota, and harassing the sick and poor with well-meant but condescending, uninvited visits.
Their creative diversions included embroidery, painting insipid floral watercolours and devouring romantic novels. They were much looking forward to reading one that was currently being written by a Miss Jane Austen, whom they had met during a visit to nearby Godmersham House.
Calling upon neighbouring, similarly as-yet-unattached young women and engaging in endless speculation about the perceived merits or shortcomings of potential husbands to be found within a ten-mile radius was undoubtedly their favourite pastime.
In a strange way their brother’s death would draw not unwelcome attention to them, and both would bask – demurely of course – in this unfamiliar limelight. Any lingering sorrow was lessened by their father’s assurance: ‘He has died a quick but honourable death. That is our comfort. And now we must honour him and put his soul to rest.’
Eldest brother Augustine drove out from Canterbury and 14-year-old Abraham had been sent for from school and came post haste. They were told: ‘There can be no funeral without a body, so we will place a marble plaque in the church and dedicate it at a memorial service. Without such a service your mother will never rest easy.’
Augustine Anson was still basking in the glory of his new role at the cathedral as a minor canon and Six Preacher, an ancient office that gave him lodgings in the precincts in return for preaching on nominated holy days, plus 20 more sermons elsewhere. He agreed: ‘We must invite the squirarchy, the members of parliament of course, selected churchmen – certainly the dean and archdeacon …’
He fingered his chin. ‘Why not invite the archdeacon? Why not indeed? Oh, and perhaps some navy people or someone from the army. Our family’s contribution to the war with France and our great sacrifice must not be allowed to go unnoticed.’
*
As his family prepared to honour him as a dead hero, the object of their mourning was still very much alive and heading for a French prison. His fellow-prisoners took turns at feeding him and Hoover helped him into the bushes when nature called during periods of consciousness.
Several more uncomfortable nights, in wayside barns and hour after hour of boredom as the horses slowly but surely pulled the wagon further away from the coast, passed without incident.
Then, at a crossroads, a pair of mounted gendarmes called them to a halt. While one examined the papers Whiskers offered, quizzing him aggressively, the other looked the wounded prisoners over haughtily.
Simple Simon did his best to look alert, but Hoover noted that the young soldier’s hands gripping his musket were shaking. It was evidently unwise to incur the wrath of a gendarme whether you were on the same side or not.
Finally satisfied, the gendarmes waved the wagon on. Out of earshot Hoover heard Whiskers mutter: ‘Cochons!’
On the fifth day the wagon with its motley and dishevelled crew trundled into a small village dominated by a twin-spired, slate-roofed church. Scattered around the tree-lined central square were stone-built houses, flaking doors and windows shuttered for the afternoon doze. To the right was an inn. A weather-beaten sign with a crude painting of a seaman identified it as the Auberge du Marin.
The French corporal called a halt and the driver jerked on his reins, bringing the wagon to a lurching stop. Fagg and Hoover stretched aching muscles and their French escorts jumped down.
Anson awoke, looked up at the sign and muttered: ‘The Sailor’s Inn, how appropriate.’ Fagg jerked his head and leaned over one of the hay bales to find himself staring into the officer’s no longer dazed eyes.
‘Welcome back Mr Anson, sir,’ he grinned. ‘Feelin’ better?’
Anson gave a slight nod. ‘Don’t make it too obvious,’ he whispered. ‘Let the Frogs think I’m on my last legs.’
Fagg caught on right away and put a finger to his lips. ‘Aye aye, sir, mum’s the word.’ And, as an afterthought, he whispered: ‘I’ve got yer little sword thingey tucked in me shirt.’
‘Good man. Hang on to it ’til we’re alone.’
With the Frenchmen out of earshot, Anson caught Fagg’s attention again and whispered: ‘We must convince these idiots that we need to rest up here for a few days and then disappear and make our way home.’
Hoover was listening in. ‘We’re with you there, sir,’ he said, clearly surprised that the officer was not half as badly hurt as he had been making out. Fagg nodded: ‘Just give us the word.’
The Auberge du Marin took up most of one side of the square. The sprawling, ramshackle building was clearly the result of various haphazard extensions in the past and Hoover noted that it looked like it could do with more than a lick of paint and the close attention of a roofer.
Beside the front door, the inn’s large-bellied proprietor could be observed urinating nonchalantly against the wall. Otherwise the square was empty.
The French corporal surveyed the inn keenly. Scenting alcohol, he stirred himself and approached the patron to negotiate.
Relieved, the inn-keeper shook himself, adjusted his clothing and held out his now free right hand to shake with Whiskers. Business was slow and the newcomers promised custom.
The prisoners waited as the corporal, clutching his sheaf of papers, disappeared into the inn with the patron to sort out billeting arrangements.
Eventually the old sweat emerged, wiping his now wine-sodden droopy moustaches on his sleeve, leaving a red stain on his cuff. He beckoned and announced: ‘Nous sommes ici.’
Fagg nodded to Hoover. ‘Orl right, yankee, let’s get the orficer on board and into ’is ’ammock.’
But it was Whiskers and his simpleton comrade who, with surprising gentleness, carried Anson into the inn and laid him on an old couch in the low-ceilinged bar.
A young woman appeared, took in the scene, and fetched a pitcher of red wine. Whiskers, leaning proprietorially on the bar, poured himself a generous measure and pushed the jug towards the grizzled wagon-driver. Simple Simon patiently awaited his turn.
Anson, lethargic through loss of blood and enduring mile after mile in the swaying, creaking cart, watched through half-closed eyes, apparently totally indifferent to what was going on. His lank black hair was still spikey and reddened with dried blood.
The woman produced a second pitcher of wine and an earthenware mug. She tutted at Anson’s blood-stained face, poured some wine and handed him the mug.
‘Prisonniers?’
Anson nodded.
‘Anglais?’
He nodded again and motioned for her to pass the mug to Fagg, who protested: ‘Arter you sir—’
Anson shook his head. ‘You first. As they say, thy need is greater than mine. Anyway I’ve already got a headache. And if you drink first I’ll know if it’s poisoned.’
Fagg grinned. ‘Most thoughtful, sir!’ He sipped gingerly but after the first mouthful registered approval. ‘It ain’t ’alf bad for Froggie drink. Gonna try it, lobster?’
The American turned up his nose at being addressed by the mildly insulting nickname sailors gave their red-coated soldier shipmates. ‘Just don’t go abusin’ the marines, Jack Tar. Could be the last thing you say afore I rip out your tongue,’ he muttered good-naturedly as he accepted the proferred mug.
Having witnessed the English officer’s unselfish gesture, the woman had disappeared, returning with
a small glass. She poured wine from the pitcher and handed it to him. ‘Vin,’ she said softly. ‘Wine, not poison.’
He smiled and took a sip. ‘Merci, mademoiselle.’
‘Madame.’
Anson corrected himself. ‘Merci, madame.’
Whiskers and the patron were deep in negotiation in, to Anson, unintelligible French. The first pitcher of wine was already empty and the French corporal commandeered the prisoners’ jug for consumption in the service of the Republic.
From his sheaf of documents he produced some voucher-like papers which Anson guessed the innkeeper would be able to redeem for services rendered. Simple Simon fetched the sack containing provisions from the cart and that, too, was handed over.
Having made their deal, Whiskers and the patron shook hands on it.
There was more unintelligible gabble which seemed to concern where the prisoners would be billeted and, with his bayonet, Simple Simon encouraged them to rise until Fagg told him to ‘Bugger orf!’ so fiercely that he jumped back fearfully.
The patron led Whiskers and the prisoners to a dilapidated outhouse and indicated a pile of straw. As he passed the younger Frenchman, Fagg hissed ‘Boo!’ making the simpleton jump again.
Helped to the outhouse by Hoover, Anson took in the scene, gave the patron a look normally reserved for idle back-sliders, and shook his head. ‘Non!’
‘Non? Pourqoui non?’
‘Chambres. Vous avez chambres.’ The golden coin that had appeared as if by magic between Anson’s index finger and thumb forestalled further debate. Realising there could be more gold wherever this had come from, the patron took the coin and muttered a response.
‘What’s ’e say, sir?’ asked Fagg.
Anson shrugged. ‘He says now he has rooms.’
Famished, they sat at a small, wine-stained table in the bar, stomachs grumbling as tantalising cooking smells wafted in from the adjacent kitchen.
Fagg drummed his fingers on the table. ‘I could eat a ’orse.’
‘And you more’n likely will,’ observed Hoover.
The meat, when it came, did indeed have a bluish tinge. But they wolfed it down just as voraciously as if it had been choice beefsteak.
6
The first night at the inn turned into two, then three. Whiskers was, as Fagg aptly put it, ‘Like a pig in shite,’ quaffing the rough red wine with the innkeeper and dozing in between bouts. His side-kick appeared content to sit on the front step, whittling pieces of wood into strange soldier-like figures.
The enforced rest with plain but wholesome food was helping the Phrynes to recover their health and strength.
Soon after their arrival, madame had insisted on confiscating their blood-, sweat- and dirt-stained clothes and laundering and mending them.
She had also bathed Anson’s head, washing the congealed blood from his hair and removing the stitches from the livid v-shaped scar above his left eye.
Examining the wound carefully, she told him: ‘Il fait bon.’ Gently, she tried to wash off the scattering of blackened impregnations beside his right eye, but he reached out to stop her and then she understood. These were old powder burns.
Sitting in lukewarm water in an old metal bath, Anson examined the wound that had caused the searing pain in his left leg. Again, it was probably the work of a musket ball that had ploughed a surface furrow without damaging bone or muscle. And it, too, was clean and healing well.
When she fetched more warm water, madame lingered a little longer than was necessary and he sensed she was appraising his lean, muscular body. But when he looked up at her she dropped her gaze, appearing not to pay any attention to his nakedness.
Over the next few days she remained caring but subdued and serious; an unhappy marriage, Anson supposed.
Far younger than the fat, balding, uncouth innkeeper, she was dark-haired, with clear skin and a full figure, but by no means overweight. Small wonder – she was constantly on the move, cooking, waiting at tables, fetching drinks and laundering, as well as caring for the wounded Englishmen.
Anson used the lengthening stay at the auberge to get to know his fellow-prisoners a little better. Corporal Hoover intrigued him. Rebellious seamen could easily be kept under control by the navy’s draconian disciplinary code, fiercely emphasised by the rope’s end and enforced by the lash. But the marines were buffers between officers and the lower deck, and total loyalty was demanded of them. The scarlet jacket was not something the average son of a now-independent United States would aspire to.
Hoover was happy to confirm what the officer had already deduced. His family were loyalists and after his father was killed fighting alongside the British at the Battle of Brandywine in Pennsylvania his mother had brought him and his sisters over to England.
They had sailed into Portsmouth and his mother, an accomplished needlewoman, opened a tailoring shop and settled there. Hoover confessed: ‘She wanted me to go into the business and I did for a while, but I guess measuring, cutting and stitching just wasn’t for me, so when I was old enough I joined the marines.’
What he did not add was that although loyalty to the British crown had been instilled in him from birth, part of his heart was nevertheless with the new country.
He was strangely proud of the fact that the former colonists had won their independence and created a new order in which, according to the Declaration, ‘all men are equal … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among those are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness …’
It was a fine aspiration, and although it was as yet too soon, some day, when the wounds had healed and there were no longer ‘rebels’ nor ‘loyalists’ but simply Americans, he would return.
His accent, which sometimes resulted in him being mistaken for an East Anglian, betrayed to the careful listener his New England upbringing. It was perhaps the due emphasis he gave to each syllable in a word, a habit attributable to the custom at his childhood school for pupils to read words aloud together as one class.
In England he had learned from bitter experience that most people deemed all Americans to be rebels. So it was easier to let people assume he was from Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire or Essex than to be quizzed about why an American would be willing to put on the scarlet jacket so hated by most of the former colonists.
Having been brought up in the new world where blasphemy, slander, cursing, lying, railing, reviling, scolding, swearing and threatening were all punishable offences, Hoover was looked upon by his fellow Phrynes as an upright man, unlike most of his whoring, hard-drinking shipmates.
He was fit, hard and dependable, a textbook marine.
Fagg was chalk and cheese different. The son of a Chatham dockyard matey, he had grown up amid the jumble of ale- and whore-houses, chandleries and tailors’ shops that had leeched off the navy for many a decade.
The hard school of the dockyard town’s mean streets had sharpened him into a wiry, chirpy, cheeky chancer – an ace procurer of whatever was required to make life bearable, be it an extra tot on board or a willing floozy ashore. A good man for a situation like this, Anson told himself.
Corporal Hoover’s shoulder was healing well, but Fagg’s ankle caused some concern. He had made himself primitive crutches and hopped around wisecracking like a cheerful stork, but it could be weeks before he was able to put any weight on it.
All three needed to be fit to travel if they were to take the opportunity to escape from their lackadaisical guards before they reached prison.
For Anson there would be no advancement, glory or honour being cooped up for what could turn out to be years. In his thinking, there was no question of sitting out the war. Escape was a necessity, and sewn into the lining of his coat was the wherewithal.
It was the 20 guineas of his entitlement drawn from the prize agent in Gibraltar that he had sewn carefully into separate hidden mini pockets behind the buttons in the inner lining of his old naval uniform jacket before they set off on the St Valery raid.
All he had to do to free a coin was to unpick a few stitches at the top of each pocket and work it free. In this way he had been able to produce the guinea that had secured them as if by magic proper rooms at the auberge. That it bore King George’s head meant nothing to the patron. Gold was gold.
Anson was acutely aware that to make their escape with a reasonable chance of success it was absolutely necessary that they should go no further inland. Every mile they rumbled away from the coast would have to be retraced if they were to escape. And each extra mile on the road dodging gendarmes or cavalry patrols would present greater dangers of recapture.
If they could ensure that the inn was the end of the line, successful escape remained a real possibility. For him it was not a matter of if they would attempt it, but when.
An unspoken bargain was struck with Whiskers – drink for recovery time. Every time the Frenchman showed signs of moving on, Anson indicated that the wounds he and the others had suffered on the mole were far worse than they were – and ordered more wine.
To the inn’s handful of regular drinkers Anson’s head-wound looked far worse than it was. Yellow and purple bruising now covered his left temple and the bandage that he allowed to slip down over his left eye when others were about hinted at unseen disfigurement.
Fagg played his part well, having mastered dumb insolence and swinging the lead during the 12 years he had inhabited His Majesty’s upper rigging and lower decks. On board ship, when it came to making the most of a strain or knock to win light duties, he was a past master.
His ankle was genuinely painful, but he made it seem ten times worse. Every time he put his foot to the floor he winced and groaned so convincingly that even the patron or Whiskers would give him a hand.
Hoover’s shoulder wound hurt less when his arm was supported by a sling, but it ached dully and, Fagg told him, made him even more cack-handed than your average marine.
Theoretically they could overpower their two guards, one boozy the other dozy, on any lonely stretch of road after leaving the inn. The elderly peasant driving the two-horse wagon was unlikely to give any trouble.
