A Shot Rolling Ship

by David Donachie

  ‘Do we need to run? Even if they are revenue and they come aboard, there’s nothing to find.’

  ‘There’s you, sir, and I ain’t asked you, ’cause it’s no part of our bargain, what you are about that needs such a fee to get over the water.’

  ‘I could disguise myself as one of your crew.’

  The empty mouth opened in an exaggerated burst of laughter. ‘What do you take revenue men for, fools? They know the measure of my boat an’ all the others, and they know the crew numbers if not every face. You wouldn’t pass for a fisherman in a month of Sundays, for all you have a bit of tar in your palms, even if we could clothe you in someat right. Now you tell me it makes no odds if you’re taken back to Sandwich and I’ll alter course to close with the buggers, but I take leave to doubt that a man so secret about his travel wants that to happen?’

  ‘Can we outrun them?’

  The master nodded, for the question answered his own. ‘Depends on our true position, sir, and that is more reckonin’ than certainty, but I was hoping to spy a line of dunes as soon as the sun rose enough to light them, so we best get back on deck and see if’n I is right.’

  Both emerged and looked east, peering harder as the smack lifted on the swell. The master grabbed hold of one of the hoops that ran up the back of his mast and began to climb, this while Pearce looked at the threat to the north, and saw that it was much closer, not just the highest sails now, but the mainsails below them were visible on the rise.

  Halfway up his mast the master stopped and pointed again, his voice carrying to Pearce in spite of the wind. ‘Just as I had it.’ Then he looked at the sail to the north, before clambering down to put his warm and smelly breath into Pearce’s ear. ‘It’ll be too close a thing to set you ashore without your feet getting wet. We don’t draw much water under our keel so I will take us in as close as I dare. Thank Christ the wind is off the land and the tide is falling, for I’d never have got you beached if it were a lee shore.’

  ‘How close in can you get?’

  ‘I doubt you’ll have to hang on to your hat, but I don’t think you’ll get much comfort from your breeches till you find a fire.’

  It was an unpleasant thought, wet breeches, a freezing wind and sand, but the alternative was worse, for he would have great difficulty in explaining himself to anyone from the revenue. Indeed, with the clothes he was wearing under his cloak, midshipman blue, he might be taken for a spy. For certain he would be taken back to his home shore, there to be questioned and Pearce doubted if whatever tale he came up with would stand up to much scrutiny. He felt lonely then and wished that his fellow Pelicans, particularly Michael O’Hagan, were around to share his plight. Michael would be as stalwart as always, even useless Rufus would be someone to talk to, and Charlie, when it came to escaping the clutches of the law, had more experience than he. Whatever, he could talk with them, and give some clarity to what was, at this moment, a whirl of confused thoughts in his mind.

  The master had gone to a locker by the wheel, and he came back with a battered box that contained a pistol, a powder horn and a small bag of lead balls. ‘Do you know how to load this.’ Pearce nodded, so the man continued. ‘Then you’se got to keep it dry, and fire off a shot at us once you’se on land, and it would be right handy if they was close enough to see the powder from the muzzle. Then I can say you came aboard by surprise like, and forced us to take you to France. It was that or a ball in the guts.’

  It was thin, very thin, and the next words the master used underlined that. ‘They has to prove we’s liars, for we’ll all stick to the same tale and you being armed and taking us unawares, we’s not likely to know your name. I’ll have to say you was in naval garb, that you knew more’n enough to tell us how to sail our boat, and that it was you who set the course. My guess is they will not believe a word of it, but they’ll let us go after a bit of chest poking.’

  The ship closing with them was hull up now, and, as Pearce, back to the wind, prepared the pistol for firing, the master confirmed it was a revenue cutter, crewed by customs officers who would be afire to take them, for they had a lean time against the men who plied the contraband trade. Those who traded illegally across the Channel knew the waters like the back of their hands, which way the tides ran and the effect of every fluke of wind and if they were in a galley, unless the sea was rough, they could show them a clean pair of heels anytime. Added to that nearly every citizen on both shores was an enemy to them, either selling smuggled goods or trading them to England. There was scarce a house on the East Kent or Essex shore that did not have a hiding place for contraband, and there was not a soul would spit on his neighbour to say what was hidden there. Even the quality were in on the trade, often financing the cargoes, and no faith could be placed in the local magistrates; they were more likely to aid their fellows than some busybody that threatened to bankrupt them. Try as the revenue men might, they rarely found smuggled goods, and it was a red letter day if they made a capture.

  The wind had dropped slightly, the rising dunes that were now in plain view taking just the edge off it. The beach ran north and south for miles, and Pearce, once he had confirmed his intention to head inland, questioned the master about what lay beyond.

  ‘There’s a highway that runs up the coast, not too far in, but my advice would be to get across that and use the fields to get to the outskirts of Calais, ’cause it’s a military road and it is bound to have patrols and barriers manned by them new-fangled National Guards. Beyond that, I don’t know.’

  Pearce declined to tell him that he did, for he had come to this part of the coast on his way to England less than two months before. He would miss out Calais and head inland for a coach stop at the little village of Ardres, a place that was less likely to be under observation than the main port for cross channel traffic. The shore was close now, the waves breaking across the beach and carrying them south. The master did not seem too worried about this, more concerned to keep his rudder and sails in a position that would prevent the smack from grounding. His last words to Pearce were simply that he could not do more than back his sail to take the way off the boat and that only for a moment. Then he must get away, and tack towards the revenue cutter, to underline the tale that they had all been taken under coercion. Pearce had removed his boots and the captain, having put the now loaded but cocked pistol in one, with a tiny wad of tow between flint and cap, and the powder horn and spare lead balls in the other, tied them round Pearce’s neck.

  ‘Roll up your cloak and wrap it round your shoulders, for it will foul you in the water left loose.’

  ‘My ditty bag?’

  ‘Put your hat in it and toss that ashore, is the best way.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Pearce said, and the look he added told the master that it was for more than the given advice. ‘I have not even asked your name.’

  There was just a hint of embarrassment in the reply. ‘Nor should you, for I never had a hankering to know yours. As for the passage and the revenue, friend, we can’t have anyone saying that Sandwich Town fisher folk don’t abide by a paid bargain, that would never do. Now get yourself set, chuck your dunnage and jump when I say, and may God speed you to wherever it is you’re in such a hellfire hurry to get to.’

  The single sail flapped as it was hauled round, the rudder put hard over to bring the smack up into the wind, then it was a hard tap that told John Pearce it was time. The bag, weighed down by the sextant, flew through the air and he followed, jumping over the side into the icy water that came right up to his lower chest, which made him gasp.At first being in the lee of the smack meant he was under no pressure, but the sail was reset quickly and they were heading offshore which exposed him to the waves. It was a blessing that they pushed him shoreward, but he could feel the undertow that tried to drag his lower half back out again. He came ashore in a series of jumps more than a walk and made it to the flat, sandy beach.

  Letting go of his cloak, he turned to look at his saviour, now clawing off with ease, drive
n by the wind that jagged at Pearce’s back. The revenue cutter was in clear view now, the forepeak crowded with men as it raced towards the shore, all sail set. Pearce, not rushing, pulled out his hat and Conway’s cockade, which he fixed to the brim. That on his head, he took out the pistol, and after carefully removing the tow while keeping a strong thumb on the hammer, aimed it out to sea and fired. That it was a wasted shot in terms of a threat was obvious; a musket ball would have done no harm to either vessel, let alone a pistol, but there was a satisfying crack and a belch of visible smoke, which was what was required. He just hoped that it would suffice.

  With that he put the pistol in his waistband, picked up his boots and turning, headed inland, trying to get himself to think in French, so that if challenged by anyone, he would reply in that language.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It was easy, trudging across fields on the flat and barren landscape between Calais and Ardres, with what houses existed visible for a mile or more, to forget the upheavals that had gripped France in the last four years, turmoil that would eventually affect even the most isolated farmhouse. No doubt there would be those this far north and west that were unaware of what had happened in Paris; having been exposed to deep rural stupidity all over his homeland, John Pearce had no doubt the same depth of ignorance existed here. Not that the tenor of their lives would be upset by knowledge if they had any; they would likely worry more about the seasons than any Legislative or National Assembly, think more of the health of their livestock before that of a beheaded King or an arraigned aristocrat.

  Though cold because of the wind, it was not unpleasant due to the clear blue skies and the sharp sunlight, and given time to ruminate, John Pearce surmised that the two nations were probably not so very different, much as the opposite was trumpeted. The French were Catholic and held to be deeply superstitious, while they were also at the mercy of rapacious abbots, bishops, and feudal lords; was it so very different in Britain? He had witnessed as much foolish belief in demons and evil spirits in shire counties as would exist in any Papist country; most vicars lived very much like French country priests prior to the Revolution, hand to mouth, needing several livings to make ends meet, unlike the princes of the French church who had amassed wealth beyond the dreams of avarice; indeed it was the sequestration of that and the land the church held which had sustained the public purse following the Revolution.

  While not as rapacious, neither John Pearce nor his father Adam had ever met an abbot or a bishop in England who was not sleek and well fed, while around their monasteries and palaces people lived on the verge of starvation, and having attended both High Anglican and Catholic liturgies he was at a loss to see much of a difference. He and his father had, on the odd occasion been admitted to the great country estates of Britain’s elite, Adam Pearce the radical orator having a certain cachet as a house guest for the outrageously wealthy. The British aristocracy, to his mind, needed no lessons in acquisitiveness from their French counterparts. At some point he stopped his mental condemnation and, with hunger rumbling his belly, he reminded himself that he was being a hypocrite; he liked good food, wine and clothing, interesting conversation, the company of intelligent and beautiful women and right now he would sell the soul he doubted he possessed for a carriage to carry him to Paris.

  He had had disputes with his father’s friends in the spring and summer of the previous year, about the course events had taken, no longer the dutiful son who agreed with everything Adam Pearce stood for, but a person growing to manhood with his own opinions. How many people had to flee or be proscribed to guarantee the safety of the Revolution? The rise of the good men who had clipped the wings of monarchy had been eclipsed by the subsequent elevation of demagogues who competed with each other to satisfy the dregs of the city, the so-called enragés who whipped up the passions of an out of control mob who had come to be called sans-culottes. It took time for his father’s certainty to waver; Adam Pearce was not about to surrender a lifetime of ideas – which had seen him trudge the length and breath of England to preach – to the reality he saw all around him.

  Then, in early August came the butchery and mutilation before the Tuileries Palace, this followed by the September massacres. That was when Adam Pearce, who in between these two events had been offered and declined a seat in the new National Assembly, had spoken out regarding excess, and he had committed his views to paper, arguing against Marat’s call in his journal, The People’s Friend, to engage in “A merciless struggle with the enemies of the Revolution”. He found that the new rulers of France were no more inclined to accept critical opinions than their confrères across the Channel, found that his stock as a long time radical who had suffered for the cause of freedom counted for a lot less than his unwelcome views.

  John Pearce mourned for the Paris of the year ’91 when freedom had been in the air and yet still there was an atmosphere of elegance and excitement. It was a time when young John, in the salons of the knowledgeable ladies who ran such things, had attracted attention for his youth, manners and fine bearing in a society famous for the laxity of its morals. It was also lax in the matter of hierarchy, so John found himself ordered to amuse the likes of Germaine de Staël or a famous wit like Talleyrand, while they, without condescension, openly sought the views of a young man who was not French, and knew something of the outside world. He thought of the restaurants and cafes where glittering minds and beauty congregated; Ramponneau or Le Tour d’Argent, the exciting cuisine of Les Frères Provençaux; there were tableaux, theatres, balls and the great festivals celebrating freedom.

  Dozens of encounters surfaced from his memory as he trudged across the muddy unploughed fields, of meals consumed and wines drunk, sometimes to excess, of beautiful women and opportunities both taken and missed, the warmest being of Amelie Labordière, the lady, ten years his senior, who had become his mistress, though he recalled that he had been the victim of a seduction rather than the initiator. Her husband was too busy with his own liaisons to care that his wife had taken a lover, nor did he mind that she spent some of his money on presents that turned a gauche young man into a bit of a dandy. It was too good to last; he had watched those salons thin out and cease; it was no longer sensible to openly debate the rights and wrongs of the regime, or to show even a hint of wealth, grace and good manners. Then Amelie and her husband had disappeared, saying nothing to anyone; one day she was there, laughing, sensuous with delightful vulgarity, the next, like so many others, she was gone. Where he did not know; all he could hope was that her escape had been successful.

  The Paris he was going back to was a place of caution if not downright fear, of food riots and increasingly authoritarian government. The thought that came to him then, as he approached the hamlet of Ardres, was that this was the simple part of his journey, alone with only the odd distant peasant to observe his passing; from now on it would get more difficult until he reached the capital itself, at which point it might become deadly. Yet nothing outlined the difference between Britain and France more than what lay straight ahead. He had crossed half of southern England at risk only from his own loose tongue; there were no barriers or officious busybodies demanding to know his name and his reason for travel. He was less than ten miles inside France, and that obstacle, the first of many he knew he would encounter, stood before him. But he had to go through it, had to get off country fields and on to the road, where he could take a coach from the local auberge, which lay just beyond, it being a regular stop for a change of horses on the St Omer to Calais road.

  The scruffy quartet of National Guardsmen who manned the Ardres crossroads, crowded round a flaming brazier, watched Pearce approach, and he could almost feel them, as they looked him up and down, assessing his worth. The cloak which he had acquired was of reasonable quality, but had fortunately, like his shoes, suffered from the cross country mud and the need to force his way through hedgerows. He let it fall open to reveal the poor quality of his short blue naval coat, so faded from the original deep blue
as to be unidentifiable in terms of which nation he belonged to. The canvas ditty bag he carried over his shoulder likewise pointed to a young man in straitened circumstances.

  His tale was ready, and, thanks to the Reverend Conway and his skill with pen and paper, as well as the language, he had papers to show that he was a French sailor heading home. He had the advantage that he was heading inland, not towards the coast, so he was unlikely to be an émigré fleeing to safety, but most of all, as he examined the men manning the barrier that stretched across the road, and saw the threadbare nature of their once bright uniforms, he had in his palm a gold coin and he was sure that would, in the event he could not persuade them otherwise, see him through better than any explanation.

  ‘Bonjour, bon soir,’ he said, as the men straightened into some semblance of a military posture. The one in charge, a portly fellow with a substantial moustache over a fat face held up a hand for him to stop and demanded to know if he had any papers. Pearce pulled Conway’s folded letter from his pocket and presented it, with an imposing anchor-shaped seal over a three strand tricolour ribbon of the same material that made up his cockade, that surmounted by a florid signature. Very likely it would not stand up to too rigorous an examination, but one advantage lay in the fact that in the many changes of government there were no papers of the kind that existed in monarchical times, so that made up documents could rarely be nailed as outright forgeries. If the fellow could read, which Pearce doubted, he would see that Capitaine de Vaiseau, Henri Dumont, had given permission for sous-officier Jean-Louis Martin, a good Republican, to leave his ship and proceed to Paris to attend to his dying father. The blue coat, the tricolour cockade he had fitted to his hat, and the sextant poking out from his ditty bag all proclaimed his profession; the letter gave good reason for his being away from the sea.