The Blighted Cliffs (14 page)

We
all stared in silence, waiting for her judgement; the only sound in
that courtyard was the rasping of a spade on the stones. Isobel
looked between us, anger plain on her gaunt face, and I could guess
that after my boorish behaviour she would have few regrets in
condemning me. Every second that passed was, I felt certain, only
postponing my fate, and the waiting was like a slow-burning fuse in
my gut. If she was to convict me, why could she not deliver the blow
swiftly?

'No,'
she said, her voice quiet even in the silence. 'I was in the home all
night. Miss Hoare can tell you so. Is that all?'

The
relief that flooded my face almost matched the fury in Cunningham's.
'You are quite sure?' he asked dangerously.

His
anger seemed to give her strength. 'I'm sure,' she said with a shrug.
'What would I want to be doing with a man like him?'

'What
indeed?' From the twitch in Cunningham's face, I guessed even his
cold mind could imagine something. Possibly something quite exotic, I
thought, remembering his wife. 'Thank you, Mrs Dawson. We will no
doubt be calling if we have a further use for you.'

'You
can save your bulldog next time,' she spat. 'You might find nicer
questions get nicer answers.' Avoiding my grateful eye, she turned,
and marched stiffly out through the gate.

'I
do not know what you did to her,' said Cunningham, 'but you clearly
managed to break her in well enough.' Stubb made a crude gesture with
his fingers. 'Though I suppose there never was a girl who couldn't be
tamed if you pricked hard enough at her thighs.'

If
he hoped to goad me into an indiscretion protecting Isobel's honour,
he had misread me badly, but I could not leave his smug leer
unchecked. 'Does that include your wife, I wonder?' I asked politely.

I
fancied I saw his body jerk under the cloak. 'My wife?' Menace filled
his voice. 'What do you know of my wife?'

There
were many answers I could have given, from the bland to the
slanderous. 'I know that she is a most hospitable lady.'

Perhaps
he would have taken my words at their literal meaning and had done
with me, or perhaps not, to judge from what came later, but at that
moment a scrawny boy, in a hat that was at least a size too large,
walked into the courtyard. He held a bundle of blue and white cloth
before him, and marched straight towards me, tilting back his hat to
peer at me as he approached.

'Lieutenant
Jerrold?' he asked, and with a shock I recognized him as Samuel, the
servant boy. 'Lady Cunningham said to give you back your clothes that
you left with her last night.'

Had
he announced that Lady Cunningham was in the stables waiting to
pleasure each of the grooms in turn, I doubt the reaction could have
been fiercer. Even as I dumbly took my laundered uniform, I heard a
strangled roar from my right. Without warning, Cunningham crossed the
yard and with a vicious kick sent the boy sprawling across the
stones. He lay there, whimpering, while the magistrate bent his face
very close to mine.

'Your
little band of whores and traitors may have protected you again,
Jerrold,' he hissed, spittle spraying over my cheeks, 'but you cannot
defer justice for ever. You find it amusing to trifle with me now,
but you will not make me look the fool.'

There
were several obvious retorts to that, but this time I wisely left
them unsaid.

Cunningham
departed, dragging Samuel by the collar and trailing Stubb in his
wake. I pitied the boy his misfortune, both in his employment and his
timing, and wondered whether his mistress would fare any better at
Cunningham's hands. I could not say I had any great feeling for her
after her games the evening before, but I would not have wished Sir
Lawrence's vengeance on anyone.

Particularly
when it seemed only a matter of time before he meted it out on me.
For all that, I did not want that punishment forestalled by
Crawley's. I had little idea of the time, but little hope that it was
in my favour. I set out for the harbour with all speed, praying that
I did not encounter Cunningham on the way.

To
my relief, I reached the quay without incident; to my greater relief,
Crawley was not on hand to castigate my timekeeping.

Instead,
Ducker was there, leaning against a piling and sucking his pipe.

'Mornin',
sir,' he greeted me. 'Expectin' the smugglers to surrender at the
sight o' you?' He gestured to my side, and I realized with
embarrassment that I had forgotten my sword.

'Where's
the captain?' I asked, avoiding the question.

'In
there.' Ducker jerked a thumb at the white-washed building. 'Coin'
over the plans with Cap'n Bingham from the army. Just as well,' he
added thoughtfully. 'Said if you wasn't 'ere afore 'e was done, 'e'd
sail without you an' court-martial you 'imself later.'

Wonderful.
Between Crawley and Cunningham, I marvelled I was still alive at all,
let alone at liberty.

'I
was making investigations,' I told Ducker huffily. 'I have discovered
that our corpse was seen drinking at the
Crown
and Anchor
the
night before we found him.'

Ducker
nodded. 'No wonder 'e washed up dead, then.'

'Lieutenant.'
Crawley had emerged from the building. 'You honour us with your
presence.' He checked his watch, and I braced myself for another
assessment of my punctuality, but he clearly had higher things on his
mind. Or had given up. 'We had best be off the tide waits for no
man.'

I
sat stiffly in the stern of the boat while the coxswain guided her
through the jumble of craft filling the basin. There was little hope,
in that narrow space, of the sort of sharp rowing that had been
expected from the
Téméraire's
boats, but the men worked cheerfully enough. I recognized a few faces
from the party that had found me on the beach, and caught several
sidling glances aimed in my direction. Clearly a fresh start aboard
Orestes
would be impossible.

With
that thought, the cutter herself swung into sight. I had seen some of
her sort before, of course, around the harbours at Portsmouth and
Gibraltar, but never this close, and I was startled to see how small
she appeared. A single, improbably tall mast rose out of the flat
line of her deck some way in front of the centre, with a long boom
jutting back well over her stern and a bowsprit protruding almost as
far forward, like some ancient narwhal. Those spars would support an
enormous sail area, giving her the speed and agility for which her
type was famed, but they utterly dwarfed the deck beneath.

The
crew raised their oars as our boat glided alongside her black hull. I
could hear a whistling and banging from the deck as Crawley made his
entrance; then it was my turn to mount the rungs in her side and
scramble over the gunwale. It did not feel very dignified, still less
so with two-score men lined up to watch me, but I managed to keep
hold of my hat and offer Crawley a half-hearted salute.

'No
time to lose.' Crawley was all action. 'If we are to use this tide,
we had best get the anchor up. Put the men on the capstan,
Lieutenant.'

'Yes,
sir.'

There
were barely fifty men aboard
Orestes
,
against the seven hundred-odd there had been aboard the
Téméraire
,
but the cutter's size made her deck seem twice as crowded, and I had
a devil of a time finding her petty officers to get the men to work.
I was dazed by the bustle, the constant shouting and creaking, the
smell of tar and salt, the myriad diverse tasks needed to put a ship
to sea, all forgotten in my time ashore. The pitching that began as
we passed the pier heads and the shelter of the headland weakened my
legs, and I had to dive below for a nip of rum to steady myself.
Crawley showed no such failings: he stood by the tiller - for
Orestes
had no wheel to steer by, but a long handle ideally placed to knock a
man's knees out in heavy seas - and barked orders to the crew, the
wind streaming his grey queue behind him. For all that he had us
running around onshore so much of the time, clearly this was his
element.

We
spent the day beating westwards down the Channel, for it was
Crawley's plan that we should come back on the smugglers with the
wind behind us. He had let it be known in Dover that we were headed
for Portsmouth with dispatches, and we maintained that course all
through the day until nightfall, pausing only once in the afternoon
to exercise the guns. Five on each side, I noticed glumly, and while
they might give the smugglers a scare, they'd hardly raise a splinter
against a real ship.

'Best
'opt the wind don't drop,' Ducker observed, as
Oreste
'
s
bow swung back into her wake. 'Otherwise they'll have a clear run
inshore.' He had a chart in front of him, weighted down on the deck
with a lantern. Otherwise we carried no light.

'What's
our position?' Crawley, who had been in his cabin, was back on deck
and looking anxious. The carelessness he had shown as we left harbour
was gone.

Ducker
tapped the chart. "Ere, sir.' He had had men measuring our speed
with the log line since sundown, and with frequent glances at the
compass he was plotting our course in intricate detail.

'Still
some ways to go. Should get there about midnight.'

'Too
soon,' muttered Crawley. 'And too dangerous. It'll be low tide then -
best take in a reef.'

He
seemed jittery, and I remembered Davenant's gibe about shallow
waters. None but an idiot ever liked to sail close to land at night,
but even here, a mile out, Crawley looked unduly worried.

Before
I could broach the subject with him, though, he was away again,
giving orders to shorten sail. Which might eventually bring us upon
the smugglers in deeper water, I thought, but would in the interval
simply prolong our journey through the darkness, with all its
attendant hazards.

Like
so many dangerous situations, though, the majority of the trip passed
uneventfully: however close you may be to a rock, there will be no
excitement until you actually strike it, and we struck none that
night. At three bells, on Crawley's suggestion, I went below to my
hammock - itself something of a rebuke, for I was used to having a
cot - and tossed my way through a few hours of restless half-sleep. I
had felt much relaxed since coming on board, for despite the
unfamiliarity of the vessel and her unknown crew, the routine of the
navy was unmistakable, and strangely comforting after the constant
disorientations of Dover. Here my rank conferred immediate authority,
and the tasks, though straightforward, demanded my full attention.
But in hammock mind at liberty to wander, my was and it returned
always to the unsettling sights of the last three days: the gulls
pecking at the body, the filth in the gaol, the statue in the
cemetery and a furious Sir Lawrence Cunningham raging at me in the
dawn mist.