Absolute Honour (10 page)

‘Glad to hear it.’ Engledue turned, calling out, ‘Let’s take in the forestay, Lavalier. Then braille up the main course and
spanker, if you please.’ He turned back to Jack. ‘We’ll find ourselves broaching-to, if we don’t hearken to that wind.’

He tipped his hat, walked off. Jack may not have understood ships or the terms by which they were sailed, but he
understood two things clearly: Engledue, with his boots on his own quarterdeck, had shed years to become the sailor he’d obviously
once been, and he was using those skills to slow the French privateer so he could keep the
Sweet Eliza
astern to larboard and in range of a telescope.

Jack glanced back. It was a speck in the distance to his naked eye. He understood why Engledue was keeping them apart. Link
would have been furious to see Jack Absolute or Red Hugh McClune upon the deck when he’d ordered Engledue to storm the cabin
and take them.

But Engledue had needed the Irishman’s physician skills to help with the crew that had been cobbled together from the
Sweet Eliza
the
Robuste
and the
Constantine.
Near half of them had died. All said it would have been many more without Red Hugh’s insistence on rest and rainwater.

The Irishman had administered as well as he could while reserving special treatments for his special patient: mistletoe tea,
sulphurous poultices made up from his stock of gunpowder, and most especially the nut that he’d tied to Jack’s neck with a
blue woollen thread and insisted was never taken off.

‘It has the power, lad, trust me,’ he said. ‘Sure, hasn’t the same thing saved the McClunes three times in the last hundred
years?’

Jack hadn’t been hallucinating. The nut did indeed serve as house to a spider. He sometimes thought he could hear the creature
scratching at its prison walls but his weakened fingers had failed to prise open the caulking with which it had been sealed.
Now he held it, looked at the water and thought of Até, his blood brother. The Mohawk would have liked the nut because it
would have given him the chance to quote from his infernal
Hamlet,
the only entertainment they’d had during that winter in the cave: but since he wasn’t there, and Jack found himself missing
the savage, he stared at the horizon and quoted for him: ‘Oh I could be
bounded in a nutshell, and count myself the King of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.’

‘I thought you weren’t a praying man, lad.’ Red Hugh had approached quietly as Jack stared at the waves.

‘I’m not. Just talking to myself.’

He offered a bowl which Jack accepted, though he sighed at the savoury smell. It seemed heartless to be supping upon his old
comrade Jeremiah the goat, even if it did aid his recovery. He sipped. ‘How fare the rest of your patients?’

The Irishman rolled his shoulders. ‘Two more dead in the night. But at least the last five have had their crisis and survived
it. So we’re not doing too badly. Unlike them.’ He nodded back to the
Sweet Eliza.

‘What do you mean? How can you know?’ Jack feared the Irishman was going to start talking about the senses he’d acquired as
the seventh son of a seventh son or some such bollocks but the answer was more prosaic.

‘Why do you think Engledue keeps holding us back?’

‘The
Eliza’s
a slower ship.’

‘Aye. But the crew are telling me she’s sailing even slower because she’s being sailed poorly. Now, Link is every kind of
poltroon but he’s canny of sea, wind and sail. Something’s up. Engledue’s slowing us so we can find out what.’ He nodded to
starboard. ‘See that cloud? That’s the coast of France, at the tip of Normandy. Pass that, and it’s a clear run to Bristol.
A few days, I’m told, if this wind keeps up.’

‘England. Home,’ said Jack, feeling his chest flutter as he said the words.

‘England, anyway.’ That darkness that could sometimes eclipse the light even in Red Hugh’s eyes came.

‘Do you go on to Ireland straightaway?’

‘Ireland?’ The darkness faded. ‘Sure, did I not leave my poor country twenty years ago to make my fortune and vow not to go
back until it was made?’

‘But the prize money. You said—’

‘Unhappily, the
Robuste
has not proved a treasure ship, though I’ve no doubt she’ll pay handsomely enough. Still and all, it’ll be a teardrop in
yon ocean. McClune Hall is mortgaged nine times over. And I’ve other owings.’ He slapped Jack’s shoulder. ‘What do you say,
lad? Shall we post an advertisement in the
Bristol Record,
gather a crew of cut-throats and turn privateer? Three more voyages like this one might make a dint in the auld debt.’ He
laughed. ‘Once this story gets turned to a song, won’t they flock to the brave Grenadiers of the
Sweet Eliza?’
He began to whistle.

‘I’m sorry, but if I ever set foot on a deck again it will be too soon. And as for elephants …’ Jack shuddered.

‘Now, lad, and after all the fun we’ve had?’ Red Hugh smiled.

Jack looked past his friend’s shoulder. The slowing of the
Robuste
had brought the
Sweet Eliza
and Link a little closer. ‘Fun that will be leading us to the yardarm perhaps. Isn’t that the punishment for mutiny?’

Red Hugh looked where Jack did. ‘Now now. The good Captain will listen to reason. I have no doubt upon it.’

Captain Link would not listen to reason. For the very good reason that he was dead.

‘Three days,’ said the Scot, McRae, when he arrived in the Eliza’s jolly boat. He had taken on the running of the ship. ‘The
grippe got him and didnae let him go. Despite
his
caring.’ He nodded down to the boat, where Barabbas, the Negro, rested on an oar.

Jack tipped his head. ‘Link’s slave had the tending of him?’

‘Aye. Never left his side. Despite the screams and curses and the last two days of whimpering. I took the Cap’n for a man
of stronger will. He made more noise than any of the other sick.’

They all looked at each other, then looked away. Jack glanced down, into the boat. Barabbas held his gaze. Jack
shivered, took a breath. ‘What will happen to him? Will he still be a slave to the Links?’

‘Now there’s a strange thing,’ replied McRae, ‘for didn’t the Cap’n give the Darkie his manumission before he died? We thought
he was too delirious to write but there was his signature, clear as day. And witnessed by the surgeon.’ He paused, sucked
at his teeth. ‘Which was a wee bit strange, ken. Seeing as he’d been dead himself near a week.’ He shook his head. ‘So, like
the Bible story, our Lord dies and Barabbas goes free – and immediately expressed a desire to serve with this crew.’

Each was still finding something else to study. Finally, Red Hugh spoke. ‘So, does Link feed the fishes now?’

‘He doesnae. He was a shareholder in the company and an alderman of the city.’ McRae smiled. ‘So we’ve given him one last
taste of the grog he so loved. He’s pickled and waits in a barrel below.’

Jack tried to find anything sad in the situation. He failed. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘at least with his last act Link has made some
reparation for his evil trade.’

‘What, man? Freeing Barabbas?’

Jack smiled. ‘Spoiling the liquor. No man will be turned into a slave for
that
cask of Guinea rum.’

He lay there, back pressed into wood, bayonet already in his hand. He didn’t remember drawing it nor descending the path to
reach this log barrier. Night and mist obscured his sight and his fingers were numb with cold. All that
was
clear was the sound that must have halted him there – footsteps on shale, coming ever closer, up from the beach below. Instinct
had prompted him to unsheathe his weapon. Instinct would tell him what to do next.

And yet, when he heard the voices, recognized the enemy tongues – French, Abenaki – instinct failed. He could not move. Even
when a leg came over the log, when both his duty and his need urged him to the attack, he couldn’t. All he could do was drop
the bayonet, press himself back into the rough wood. Perhaps they might not notice him if he made himself very small.

Another leg followed, a body, a face. And though he’d only seen this face so briefly on this same path up the cliffs of Quebec,
on another night long ago, he recognized it. He’d never forget the face of the young Frenchman he’d killed. The first man
he’d ever killed.

And yet here he was, walking past, without a glance down.

Other men came over, other victims. He’d killed them all,
these shadows flowing over the log. Here were the two cavalrymen he’d stabbed on the Plains of Abraham. Three Abenaki followed,
slain on the same field, then and later. Then three more came, French again but not regular soldiers,
coureurs de bois,
in their furs and tasselled caps, the last one still clutching the arrow in his chest that Jack had shot into him. Yet he
was laughing with his companions, following them up the slope. Finally, men he could not recognize but wearing the varied
garb of privateers came, marching on into the dark.

Jack breathed, a long exhalation of relief. Though they each bore terrible wounds, which he had inflicted, it didn’t seem
to inconvenience any of them. They were alive, all these men he thought he’d killed. And even though their deaths had been
necessary, in battle and fair fight and for survival – his own, and that of his comrades – he thought it was better that they
were still alive. And so, presumably, did they.

The idea made him chuckle. He had better be moving on, away from his dead. He was just beginning to rise when he heard another
slip of shale from below him. He sank back just as a body swathed in red serge straddled the log, dropped his side of it.

This was wrong. This man wore the King’s uniform. Jack hadn’t killed anyone on his own side. And then he remembered and, just
as he did, the man turned and looked at him.

‘How do, Jack?’

‘Craster.’

The sight of him brought all kinds of memories. Cousins, both Absolutes, Jack and Craster had grown up together and loathed
each other from the very beginning. Yet loathing had turned to something far worse; for when this brute ravished the girl
Jack had adored, Jack had tried to kill Craster at the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in revenge. They had even fought a duel,
of sorts, their schoolboy efforts dwarfed by the larger
event, when Jack’s father had killed His Majesty’s Minister, Lord Melbury. What the actions of that night had set in motion!
At the least, all the men who had preceded his cousin up the slope would still be alive – if only Craster Absolute had not
raped Clothilde Guen.

He studied his cousin now. Thinner than he remembered him. Haggard. A winter in a cave will do that, Jack knew by experience.
Then he remembered what he had done to this man. He had not killed him, merely marooned him in the middle of the Canadian
wilderness with his wits, a knife, enough food to last only a week, and something else. He’d left him there with some … one
else.

‘Fancy some breakfast, Jack?’ His cousin spoke in the accent they’d both largely shed, that of their shared Cornish boyhood.
And he had something in his hand, hidden behind his body. A pasty?

‘That’d be proper,’ Jack said, and watched as the hand began to emerge from behind his cousin’s back. It came slowly, as did
Jack’s scream, when he saw that what Craster Absolute was offering him was a human head; an Abenaki head, grasped by the warrior’s
top-knot above another face Jack recognized …

He thought it was his scream that woke him, no longer bounded by his dream. Or perhaps it was the hardness of wood, because
he’d forced the thin mattress off the frame and splintering slats dug into him. Or it may have been the cold, the blankets
were all thrown about. Whatever it was, it took a while to halt the scream, until the thin window coverings could be ripped
aside and dawn’s wretched light reveal to him a room cleared of ghosts.

Footsteps came – up stairs, not shale. He crossed to the bed, managed to get the mattress centred on the frame and a blanket
half across him before the door opened.

‘Awright, my lover?’ Clary stood there, a gated lantern in her hand. She was across to him swiftly, the lantern put
down, her hand reaching to caress his forehead. ‘So hot, Master Jack,’ she said. ‘Shall I fetch ’ee some water?’

‘Ale,’ Jack replied. It was early but he only needed to quench his thirst. Small beer would do him no harm. And the water
in this inn had a curious taint.

‘I’ll fetch it right away,’ Clary said, but did not move, her hand still to his head, the other moving to the opening of his
shirt. ‘So hot,’ she said again, in a different way, as her hand slipped inside.

His own came up to meet and hold it. ‘Ale, Clary.’ He let go her hand and she withdrew it reluctantly.

‘Are ye sure, Master Jack?’ She was twisting a curl back under her Abigail’s bonnet. ‘S’ just everyone’s still abed, like,
and …’

He had made a mistake the week before. A relapse in his fever had forced Red Hugh to leave him at the Llandoger Trow tavern
on Bristol Docks and journey only he knew where, vowing to return soon. He’d taken a kiss and, this first course accepted,
the main meal was immediately proposed. He blamed his weakness for the result, unable to resist or, indeed, to take much of
an active part. He was determined not to fall even thus far again. It was not that Clary was unattractive. She was slim at
hip, small but well formed at bosom, with lascivious lips and a low gurgle of a laugh that lured. If she was none too clean,
well, neither was he. As his recovery progressed, he’d been ever more tempted … and then he’d hear that same low gurgle, counterpointed
by many groans, somewhere in the attic rooms above him. And some mornings Clary would appear with a new bonnet or bracelet,
a new tortoiseshell comb for her hair. He didn’t blame her at all, a maid’s wages would be poor. Yet to succumb again did
not seem quite … honourable.

However, Clary took his musing silence as a signal. Her hand returned, lower, and he groaned. Thus encouraged, she lifted
the blanket, her hand sliding down still further,
‘Course, if you are still feeling weak, sir, your Clary could be as … obliging as she was afore, if’n … oh, Master Jack!’
Her fingers had slipped all the way down and a big smile came, before head followed hand under the blanket.