The Blighted Cliffs (15 page)

I
must have fallen asleep somewhere in those memories, for I awoke to
the soft thud of men sliding from their hammocks and climbing the
ladder. It must be midnight, I realized, the start of the middle
watch: I had best go up.

The
air on deck was fresh, and very cold. I could just see a hazy moon
through shreds of cloud; otherwise, the only light was the dim circle
from Ducker's lantern. Picking my way around the cannons and over
piles of coiled rope, I went aft, where the quartermaster sat
crosslegged in front of his map, like some Persian mystic communing
with his gods. Crawley stood next to him, leaning against the
gunwale, his face very pale in the grey light. He wore his sword.

'Good
morning, Lieutenant,' he said quietly as I approached. He seemed
unusually subdued. 'Did you sleep?'

'A
little.' I waited awkwardly to see if he would give me the watch and
retire to his cabin, but he showed no sign of moving. 'How much
further?'

Ducker
looked up. 'A ways yet, sir.' He tapped a finger on the chart. 'We're
'ere. And the smugglers ... who knows? There's one good bay between
Dover and Folkestone, but whether they'll go east or west, I couldn't
say.'

'They're
building fortifications on the west side,' said Crawley.

'Saw
them this morning. I guess they'll go east.'

'They
ain't buildin' forts at this time o' night, sir,' retorted Ducker.
'An' I never knowed a builder as couldn't look the other way if there
was a barrel o' rum for 'im to see. Nor a soldier neither.'

That
sparked a thought. 'If we're unsure where they're landing,' I asked,
'how will we ensure that we rendezvous with the soldiers?

They
might end up facing them on their own.' Worse yet, we might end up
facing them on our own.

'If
the infantry find them first, they will set off a false fire from the
beach. If we find them, we wait until they land their cargo, and then
fire the guns.'

'And
what of
Lancelot
?'

'Davenant
should be over there.' Crawley gestured out to sea, where somewhere
in the darkness lay the coast of France. 'With the tide as it is, he
will wait there, so if one of the smugglers makes a run for it he can
intercept her.'

For
the next three hours we saw precious little. Occasionally a light
would flare on the shore, but there were no other boats visible, and
Crawley refused to let us alter course to investigate without a
signal from the soldiers or a clear sighting of a ship. And so we
sailed on, with no sound but the pull of the ropes and the slapping
of the sea on the prow. I began to yawn, for my turn in the hammock
barely counted as a nap, and anticipation soon became boredom when
nothing happened. ' About half past three – seven bells, though
in our secrecy we did not strike them - we cleared for action. All
the crew were on deck now, crouching by their guns, and despite the
order for silence there was a low, excited murmuring among them.
Clearly they looked forward to the battle far more than I, who was
not altogether unhappy that there had been no sign of the enemy.

'There,
sir.'

Ducker,
with his keen eyes, had seen it first: another light, towards the
shore but clearly at sea, flashing with a deliberate rhythm that must
be some sort of signal. I turned my telescope on to the land, but
there was no reply to be seen.

'Probably
behind a rock,' muttered Crawley.

I
took the glass from my eye and looked back at the light. It still
flashed in the same pattern, and was definitely moving towards the
coast.

'Alter
course two points to larboard,' Crawley ordered, and I had to step
smartly out of the way as the tiller went over.

The
lantern was put out, and two men went to the fo'c'sle with leads, for
the tide was still only half in and our new course was taking us into
ever shallower waters. Their soundings were relayed back along the
deck in whispers, and I thought back to childhood games of Gossips,
hoping that the message would not become too garbled in transmission.

'Eight
fathoms.'

We
were close enough now to see the land, a lumpy darkness between the
greys of sea and sky. Still there were no lights there.

'Bring
in the mainsail.'

Crawley's
face looked drawn; his eyes flicked between the land and the mast
with a frantic intensity. There was a flapping of canvas, and a
hollow rattling from the beaded collar of the boom. It sounded
horribly loud in the silence of the night, but better that, I
thought, than the cracking of the hull on the seabed.

We
had slowed almost to nothing, with only the jib to drive us forward.
The men at the guns were looking about anxiously, and I could feel an
unspoken terror at the invisible hazards all around us, the rocks and
enemy we could not see.

'Four
fathoms.'

'Drop
the anchor.'

There
was a splash from for'ard. Crawley was scanning the shore line for
any sign of movement, but against the black of the land we could see
nothing.

'Lieutenant.'
Crawley beckoned me over. 'Take the jollyboat inshore and see what
you find. If the smugglers are there already, set off a musket.
Otherwise, stay silent and observe them.'

'Yes,
sir.'

A
cold panic gripped me, for in an open boat we would be terribly
exposed when the cannons started firing. Nor was I reassured when
Crawley gave me only four men, none of them looking any more grateful
than I at the assignment.

"Ere,
sir.' Ducker found me just as I was about to go over the side. 'In
case they don't run when they sees you.' He handed me a cutlass. It
was no officer's blade, but the smugglers would hardly make a
distinction. Though if it came to that, I doubted any sword would be
much help.

I
took the weapon. 'Thank you.' I must have looked quite the pirate,
with a musket over my shoulder and a cutlass in my belt. All I needed
was a dagger in my teeth and a parrot by my ear.

We
cast off. 'Slowly and quietly,' I ordered, but the impending danger
must have put the wind up them, for I never heard so many splashed
strokes and jumped locks. Every noise only heightened the tension,
and soon our little crew was in a proper funk. It didn't help that
they had their backs to the land, and constantly craned their heads
about despite my orders to keep shipshape.

A
harsh creak tore the night air, very loud, and very close off our
starboard side. All five of us turned instinctively to see its
origin.

With
a splash and a clang and a thump, one of my men dropped his oar and
fell off his thwart.

'Silence,'
I hissed. I thought I could see the shadow of a hull, but in the
darkness, and with more than enough nerves to colour my imagination,
I couldn't be sure. 'Pull harder,' I whispered, 'but quietly this
time.'

I
pushed the tiller over, and watched the shadow slowly draw away from
us. If it was a boat she must have had an unusually shallow draught,
for almost immediately I noticed that the noise of the waves had
grown louder: we were close in on the beach. I peered intently at the
pale strip of surf that glowed before us. There seemed to be a dark
shape breaking the line, but it could as easily have been a rock as a
boat. 1 tried my glass, but in the darkness it gave me no firmer
impression. We needed to go closer, but we were already within range
of a musket, and I remembered Cunningham's prediction of fifty
ruffians gathered onshore. There were, I knew, plenty of revenue
officers whose devotion to duty had taken them straight to the
hospital, or the cemetery.

'Can
any of you swim?'

There
was a vigorous shaking of heads. I was at an impasse: I dared not
fire my musket without proof that the men were on the beach, but
equally I dared not go in closer to make sure. But what if they were
on the beach, and then left? Crawley would be livid if they stole off
from under our noses, for even if he intercepted their boat at sea,
all evidence of their illicit commerce would be long gone.

With
a hiss and bang, a white light flared in the sky, illuminating the
beach like a sheet of lightning. In a flash, I saw a boat piled with
barrels on the sand, and dark figures unloading it; I took my musket,
and, holding it well away from me, fired into the air. The sound was
lost, though, for even as I pulled the trigger a broadside exploded
out of the darkness behind us, five great tongues of flame. With a
whimper I flung myself into the bottom of the boat, and felt others
piling in on top of me. But there was no scream of iron overhead, no
splashes, and mercifully no sign of the jollyboat splintering into
matchwood. After a safe interval, I jabbed an elbow into the body
above me, and felt him reluctantly lift himself off.

I
pulled myself up, chilled by the bilgewater that had soaked into my
side, and looked about. We were surrounded by lights: lanterns showed
in at least two places out to sea, while on the beach there flickered
a chain of torches. A double line of bayonets glinted in the orange
glow, and behind them I could see the white crossbelts and trousers
of our soldiers, their red coats turned brown by the firelight.

Before
them, as I had seen, a small boat lay at the water's edge, the two
men standing near it silhouetted against the torches.

'At
'em, lads.' Apart from those two lonely figures, there did not appear
to be any danger on the beach, but there remained the real
possibility of a sea-battle between
Orestes
and the ship the smugglers had come from, and I was determined to be
well clear of it. My crew were obviously of much the same mind, for
they pulled several mighty strokes until our hull ground into the
sand and we could leap ashore.

I
heard the rattle of muskets, and stopped cold at the sight of a dozen
steely barrels trained on my chest. 'Don't shoot,' I called weakly.
'It's Lieutenant Jerrold.'

'Jerrold?'
It was Captain Bingham, the red-headed officer who'd been at the
meeting in the castle, striding out from behind his line of men.
'What the devil are you up to, sneaking around here and waving that
bloody great cutlass like One-Eyed Jack the pirate? You're supposed
to be cutting off their retreat.'

'Captain
Crawle
y
was impatient for your signal,' I explained, letting the sword droop
by my side. 'He sent us in to reconnoitre. And to join the action,' I
added defensively. '
Orestes
is
still out there.'

'I
gathered that,' said Bingham drily. 'And it seems she's found the
lugger these two came from.' He gestured out to sea.
Orestes
'
crew had struck a lantern, and by its light I could see her second
boat against the hull of a small lugger. The rough shouts of our
boarding party drifted over the waves. 'Doesn't sound like they're
putting up much of a fight,' Bingham continued, cocking an ear. 'Much
like these two ruffians.'

'Not
exactly your army of fifty bloodthirsty villains with enough spirits
to render every man, woman and child in England insensible.'