Jack Frake (29 page)

Jack Frake did not hear the hooves behind him, nor the musket balls whistling around him, and was oblivious to the Revenue men closing in a circle around him. He did not know that the second and third horsemen tried to bring him down by firing at a gallop, but had missed. One officer, Fix, came swiftly from behind and swung the stock of his spent musket at the boy’s head. It connected with a sharp crack.

The encounter with the Revenue men had lasted less than a minute.

When he opened his eyes again, it was to the shock of water thrown into his face. He was lying on a pile of straw in a dark, foul-smelling room. It was a fisherman’s cottage in Penlilly. Richard Claxon lay on another pallet a few feet away from him, his right leg wrapped in rags. He moaned quietly, his head rolling back and forth in the straw. Henoch Pannell and two of his men stood over them, watching and waiting. Pannell drew placidly on a pipe.

Jack Frake tried to move. His ankles and wrists were cuffed together. The back of his head ached and throbbed, but his awareness of the pain receded when he saw his predicament.

“Look at them, gentlemen,” said Pannell, putting his arms behind his back, his teeth clenching the pipe. “Live Skelly men. Not very impressive now, are they?”

His men said nothing. Fix, who had been the longest with Pannell, felt it wiser not to mention that it had taken them nearly five years to capture but two of the gang. And none of the gang here, dead or alive, had been armed.

“Well, let’s get this over with.” Pannell turned to Jack Frake. “Get him up.” Fix and Craun came over and lifted the boy to his feet. Pannell took a step closer and said, “You are Jack Frake, aren’t you? It has been some time since we both occupied the same room. I recognize you from the Sea Siren. You’ve grown, of course. The criminal life seems to have agreed with you.”

Jack Frake said nothing.

Pannell nodded to the prone figure of Richard Claxon. “And we know who he is, too. There was a Bible in his saddlebag, and his name inscribed in it. Your late friends remain nameless. What were their names, Master Frake?”

Jack Frake said nothing, but regarded the Commissioner with curiosity
and fear.

Pannell frowned. “You look at me as though I were not a man, but a monster,” he said. “But, a man I am, and one who is doing his job. Some men work with their hands in metal or wood. I am a man who works in law.”

Jack Frake shook his head and spoke. “You surrendered your manhood when you joined the Revenue — and your humanity. So, I have nothing of consequence to say to you.”

Pannell scoffed in amusement, then shook his head lightly. “A somewhat sophisticated opinion for a smuggler, that. It reflects a fairly exotic education, sir.” He paused to shake out the contents of his pipe, which he tucked inside of his coat. “Well, so much for civil chatter. I will ask you this once, Master Frake, and civilly. If I need ask it again, it will not be so civilly.” He took another step closer to the boy, and stood so that his face was only an inch from Jack Frake’s. “
Where
is Augustus Skelly’s headquarters?”

Jack Frake permitted himself to speak. He could not control his emotion. “In England, the country you betray by hunting, robbing and murdering its best citizens, as you did today!”

Pannell’s hand swept up and erased the accusing face with a powerful backhand. Jack Frake was knocked off his feet and fell to the dirt floor. “
Must
I resort to the Hawkhurst gang’s methods, Master Frake? Shall I take a whip to you? Shall I tie you to the underbelly of a horse and set it loose in the brambles? Beat you with a stick? Dangle you up-side-down in a well and feed you water? Or — I can improvise on Newgate methods here, Master Frake! Outside there are countless rocks. You can be tied down and some of the heaviest of them placed on your chest one by one, and left there for hours until you can’t breathe! But there’s no need for any of that. You and your friends have ballyragged me for too long a time. The trick must
end
, and you with it, if necessary!”

“I won’t tell you a thing,” said Jack Frake. “I’ll die with dignity.”

“Dignity?” barked Pannell. He took his riding crop from under his belt and began to beat the boy with it, the crop rising and striking with each word. “Dignity? Let’s — see — how — dignified — you’ll — feel — when — I — ”

Fix and Craun, who neither condoned nor condemned Pannell’s behavior, nevertheless winced at each blow.

“Leave him alone, sir,” said Richard Claxon. The sound of his voice, a
voice sweetened with gentleness and forgiveness, charged the air and dispelled its miasma of brutality. “It wasn’t his fault. It was God’s will. Jack isn’t to blame… ”

Pannell, his arm and crop poised for another blow to Jack Frake’s back, stopped and stared at the other boy. He lowered his arm and stepped over to look down at the sweating, agonized face. “
What
was God’s will, Mr. Claxon?”

“I know who you are,” said Claxon. “You’re the Commissioner of Revenue. They make jokes about you in the caves.”

“Jokes? Caves? Make sense, sir!”

“God has punished me, sir. It was not your doing… my leg here. God directed your actions.”

Pannell blinked once, and rose to his full height. He studied the boy’s face. It was ashen white, and the eyes looked back up at him with an eerie mixture of kindness, pain and an intensity that made him uneasy. “
My
actions, Mr. Claxon?”

“I broke a man’s legs, once,” explained Claxon. “He was a judge. But this is His punishment for me, for taking His justice into my own unworthy hands. It is His way of revealing Himself to me… ”

Pannell smiled, then glanced smugly at Jack Frake, who had managed to sit up in a corner. “God clearly is on my side, Master Frake!”

“God is your ally,” confirmed Claxon.

Pannell tossed the crop away and held out a hand in back of him. “Hat, Mr. Fix!” The officer removed his tricorn and gave it to his superior. Pannell leaned down and slipped it under the boy’s head. “There now, Mr. Claxon. That must be much more comfortable for you.” He snapped his fingers. “Chair, Mr. Fix.”

Fix found a stool and brought it over. Pannell sat down. “Now, Mr. Claxon. Let’s have a serious chat here. If God directed my actions, then I must be His instrument, mustn’t I?”

“Yes… ”

“And if I have served as His instrument of action, then I must also be His instrument of
truth
.”

“Yes,” said the boy. “You could not be otherwise… ”

Pannell cleared his throat before he spoke again. He felt uneasy exploiting the boy in this manner, but his greed for information hurtled him forward. “Then tell me the truth, Mr. Claxon, and earn God’s complete forgiveness for your… er… crime.” Pannell held his breath, then asked,
“Where is Augustus Skelly’s headquarters? And where is the actual landing?”

“No!” shouted Jack Frake, stumbling to his feet. “Don’t say anything, Richard!”

Claxon seemed not to have heard his colleague. “Portreach,” he said.

“That’s his headquarters?” asked Pannell eagerly.

“No, that is where he has already landed contraband.”

“And his headquarters? Where is he taking this contraband?”

“No, Richard!” shouted Jack Frake again. He tried to move toward Claxon, but the links of the cuffs tripped him and he fell again to the dirt floor. “Don’t tell him!” he cried, crawling toward Claxon. “He’ll kill Skelly, and Redmagne, and all your friends!”

Claxon moved his head on the tricorn so that he could see his straw-mate. “I must, Jack,” he said. “He’s God’s instrument of truth, and my means of salvation for all my sins. I have thought of women and drink and all the other fatal distractions. I strayed, I have sinned. I confess. You must confess, too, Jack… ”

Jack Frake saw a species of madness in Claxon’s eyes. At another time he might have felt pity, or even fear. But here he answered with anger and contempt. “That’s rubbish! He’s tricking you! You’re not well! Your head’s afire with fever! You’re — ”

Pannell rose and kicked Jack Frake in the side. “How dare you pronounce such… such blasphemy!” he said. He was genuinely shocked by the boy’s words. He looked at Fix and Craun. “Get him out of here.” The two men picked up Jack Frake and carried him outside the cottage and shut the door behind them.

Pannell returned to his stool and grinned with benevolence. “Now, Mr. Claxon. Let’s go on. Where is Skelly’s headquarters? How many men does he have? Are they armed?”

He came out of the cottage five minutes later. Some village fishermen and their wives stood at a distance, watching the Revenue men loiter outside the cottage. Jack Frake was sitting on the ground, leaning against a water trough. The bodies of John Fineux, Aubrey Shakelady, and William Ayre were heaped like logs a few yards away.

Pannell smiled triumphantly, and said to Fix, as he slipped on his gloves, “Find a cart, Mr. Fix. The Claxon boy must be taken to Gwynnford and a doctor, and these dead ones must be hauled into town, too, I suppose.” He locked his hands together behind his back and wandered away.
His next task would be to trap the men in the caves near Marvel. He did not know how he could do this with only seven men, when there were some twenty who would be defending those caves. He would need to act soon. News of the capture of the two boys would spread quickly.

It was at that moment that he heard the beat of drums and the cadence of marching feet. He glanced up at the county road, and saw a column of soldiers approaching. Mounted officers glanced down with curiosity at the scene below. He saw artillery drawn by teams of horses, spaced between three companies of disciplined scarlet. He saw two companies of regulars, and one company of grenadiers. Pannell’s eyes grew bigger with an idea that was blooming in his head.

He laughed once again, turning to his men and pointing to the column. “God clearly
is
on my side!”

M
AJOR
A
DAM
L
EIGH, RIDING AT THE HEAD OF THE COLUMN WITH HIS
aides, had a premonition that the man galloping determinedly up the slope from the village below was bringing trouble. The rider wore the heavy gray coat of the Revenue Service, and even under the gray sky the silver Crown coat of arms on his black tricorn glinted a little.

Henoch Pannell rode up to the major and doffed his hat in salute. “Good day to you, sir! Whom have I the privilege of addressing?”

“Major Leigh, of the Middlesex Brigade. And you, sir?”

“Henoch Pannell, Commissioner Extraordinary of His Majesty’s Revenue.” Pannell trotted beside the frosty, wary major. “I must have a word with you, Major Leigh, and a stationary position would be a more amenable means of conversation. In private.”

“We are in a bit of a rush, Mr. Pannell,” said the major, not turning to the Commissioner.

“In too much of a rush to pass up a bit of glory — at the request of your King?”

The major sighed in annoyance and ordered his aide to halt the column for a rest. As the order was relayed from company to company down the column, the officer and the Commissioner wandered out of earshot of the major’s aides and stopped several yards away. “All right, Mr. Pannell,” said the officer, still holding the reins of his mount. “What is it?”

Pannell said, “”I’ve just sprung a trap and caught myself some smugglers!”

“Congratulations,” drawled the major in ill-disguised unconcern. “It must have been a pleasurable experience, to judge from your demeanor.”

“Oh, pleasurable it was! Shot three of the scum dead, me and my men. Got two of them alive, and one of them has given me some very important information.”

Pannell watched the major, expressly indifferent to the news, reach inside his coat for a snuffbox, open it, inhale a pinch of the powder, and sneeze. Not before he had returned the delicate cameo-decorated box to his coat did he give Pannell his attention again.

Pannell was impervious to the rebuff. Instead, he glanced back at the column. “Fine looking troops you have, Major. Have any of them seen action?”

“The grenadiers were in Flanders two years ago, under another commander. The rest are recruits, mostly. Why do you ask?”

“They look fitter than most troops I see in these parts. What is your hurry?”

“We are escorting artillery to Spithead for shipment to the colonies. We must be there in three days. Then we rejoin our colonel and march to our home barracks.”

“Artillery for the colonies,” mused Pannell. “How long have you been marching, Major?”

“We were billeted near Falmouth. The batteries there are being dismantled. We’re out of the war now, you know.”

“Er… When were your men last paid, Major?”

“Three months ago. What has that to do with whatever subject you seem reluctant to bring up?”

“Only this,” said Pannell. “They would be paid more frequently if the Army received its due from the Treasury. But the Army does not receive its due, because the Treasury does not receive its due from Customs — which does not receive its due from this country’s commerce. Free-traders and smugglers cheat your men, Major, and the free-trader I can trap today and extinguish is none other than Augustus Skelly!”

“I appreciate the logic, Mr. Pannell, but what has it to do with me?”

Pannell assumed his own air of frost. “This is a most urgent matter, Major. Quite simply, I am authorized to draft you in the service of His Majesty’s Revenue. I require your assistance to help me capture Skelly.”
Pannell reached inside his coat and pulled out a document he was never without. It was his commission, signed by the King and the prime minister and bearing both their seals. He held out the cream-colored sheaf of paper to the officer. “It will cost you but a day’s delay.” He paused, then added with mocking drollery, “We’re out of the war now, you know.”

The major’s jaw became rigid, but he took the document. He unfolded and read it, then handed it back to Pannell. “I can’t go chasing after smugglers and owlers, Mr. Pannell, not even one as notorious as Skelly. My orders are to get this ordnance to Spithead. Besides, I must also account for every musket ball, ounce of powder, and inch of boot leather I expend.”