The Blighted Cliffs (23 page)

The
jollyboat slapped into an oncoming wave.

'A
lucky thing I wasn't there,' I thought aloud.

'Your
name did get said.' Ducker looked at me inscrutably. 'But the cap'n
got 'em to thinking you 'ad nothing to do with it.'

'As
well he should.'

The
moon disappeared as we came under
Orestes
'
shadow, and I heard the grating of Ducker's boat-hook on the hull -
the same hook, I thought with a shiver, that had helped hoist poor
Webb inboard the day before. Ice was forming on the ladder, chilling
my fingers and undoing my footing: the sword at my waist clattered
into the hull, but I managed to gain the deck without mishap.

Crawley
was against the far gunwale, peering to the southwest where, far off,
three small lights pricked the darkness. Straightening my hat and
sword, I crossed to stand behind him and coughed discreetly.

'Lieutenant
Jerrold.' Crawley's face was taut, but he remained civil. 'Ducker
found you, then.'

'Yes,
sir. After I had made some significant discoveries in the matter of '

'Doubtless
they are fascinating.' Crawley cut me off sharply, then reconsidered
his tone. 'Of course, these things are of great importance to you.
But there are more immediate matters to hand. Captain Davenant
believes he has had news of a pair of luggers making sail from
Boulogne - had it off a fisherman, apparently.'

There
was no hiding the doubt in his voice. 'His design is that
Orestes
will meet them and drive them back towards the coast of France, where
he will be waiting to intercept and engage them.'

'Playing
the hounds to his huntsman,' I said.

Crawley's
face twitched. 'Curiously, Lieutenant, those were his words exactly.'
Instantly I regretted them. 'Perhaps they will even make it into the
Gazette
,
when it reports on this glorious action.'

'If
they've anything to write of.'

Although
success would doubtless be lauded as doughty Davenant defying the
odds, the chances seemed far higher that we'd manage little more than
a night sailing up and down the Channel, playing blind man's buff
over an area of too many square leagues.

'Precisely,
Lieutenant.' The edge came off Crawley's words as he saw I shared his
misgivings. 'And if we fail to bring the luggers to account, it will
all be down to
Orestes
.
Lancelot
will have been on station and in position throughout.'

What's
a man to do if his pups can't run, eh? I could almost hear Davenant
explaining the situation to his friends. But I didn't share Crawley's
fear that we might be denied our share of glory. Far more worrying to
me was the thought that the luggers might not be acting from the same
script; might, instead of running at the sight of us, decide that the
pair of them against a small cutter made for alluring odds.

The
wind was off the beam, coming straight over the starboard side, and
although it lacked power it was steady enough to put us on course. We
headed west, and a little south, our decks cleared for action and
every spare eye trained on the sea to leeward. The night was clear,
and we followed the broad, silver road rippling before us with ease,
while our deck and sails shone in the moonlight.

'Be
a bold smuggler to risk a run on a night like this,' muttered Ducker.
'Usually they prefers the new moon.'

'After
our recent run of form, I doubt they apprehend us to be much risk.'
Crawley's gaze never left the horizon. 'Sometimes I feel they must
know our movements before we ourselves do.'

'Hoop-eyed,
the smugglers is, sir,' said Ducker sagely. 'An' if we can see 'em,
then they'll not have the height o' difficulty seein' us back.'

'Though
that problem may soon cease.'

I
gestured forward, where wisps of fog were beginning to blow over the
bow. Already the seas about us were becoming hazy, and the horizon
was closing in fast. One by one the crew on deck began to vanish; the
mist enveloped the mast, blocked out the moon, then surrounded us
until I could see little more than Crawley, Ducker, and the
half-dozen men immediately to hand. Even the sounds of the ship's
movement seemed curiously distant. We were marooned in the fog; it
seemed that nothing else could exist beyond our close circle. And it
was bitterly cold.

'Strike
a lantern,' ordered Crawley. 'Even if there are enemies about,
they'll never see it through this.'

One
of the seamen fetched the light. It cast a sickly, yellow glow, and
although we could now see one another better, it reflected off the
mist to make the walls about us seem more solid than ever.

I
heard a thud from for'ard, and a second later a sailor emerged from
the gloom.

'What
is it, Harvey?' asked Crawley.

'I
were in the shrouds, sir,' said Harvey. His voice had a soft, country
drawl. 'Just afore the fog came down, sir. I thought I saw a shadow
out to larboard.'

'You
think?' As a rule, and unlike most of the officers I'd known, Crawley
believed in addressing the men courteously when he could, but now
there was a clipped sarcasm in his words. 'I cannot be chasing
shadows, Harvey.'

'Sorry,
Cap'n Crawley, I couldn't get a good eye on her. The more I were
lookin', the more she went.'

Crawley
bit his lip. 'To larboard, you say. Towards France.'

'Aye,
sir.' Harvey looked most uncomfortable. 'Like I say, sir, beggin'
your pardon, it were too hazy to be sure.'

'Very
well, Harvey, thank you.' Crawley waved a dismissal, and the seaman
vanished gratefully into the mist. 'What would you do? Mr Jerrold?'

My
head snapped up at the sound of my name; although I had heard his
question, I had assumed it to be directed at Ducker. But the
quartermaster was now a blurry shape standing aft by the tiller, and
Crawley's gaze was very much on me.

'Well,
Mr Jerrold?'

'We...'
I tried to piece together a response, for I have ever found myself
vacant when asked for an opinion. 'We seem unlikely to have much
chance of getting a better sight of anything while this fog's about.
We may as well test his story. One course'll be much the same as
another when everything's near invisible. And it ought to be safer
heading out to sea: the tide'll be on the ebb now, and we don't want
to be too close inshore.'

Crawley
frowned, then nodded. "True enough. Although in this weather, we
could skin the cathead from another ship and still not notice.'

I
kept silent. Crawley could take my advice or not as he would; I cared
not, for I had no better guess. Still, I was quietly gratified, and a
little apprehensive, when I saw that he did order
Orestes
around on to a more southerly heading. He might even have entertained
some hopes of success, for he ordered the lantern doused and put the
seaman back in the shrouds lest the mist fade.

For
my part, I began to regret my suggestion almost as soon as the tiller
had turned us on to our new course. Davenant had been sharp enough to
place the burden of this fool's errand on Crawley; now it was my
judgement that would be held to account if, as I suspected, we
encountered nothing more dangerous than fog all night. Not, I thought
with grim consolation, that Crawley was then safe, for ultimately the
decision to take my advice was all his own. And from what I knew of
his position, I doubted he would be allowed any more failures than I.

But
even if I could shift some of the blame on to Crawley, that still
left me on this freezing, fog-bound ship sailing blindly towards what
was probably a superior force, with a treacherous and implacably
hostile coast beyond. My shoulders became tight, my breathing was
sharpened, and my breeches came to feel very snug about my waist.

Occasionally
one of the men would pad silently past, heading aft to confer with
Ducker or forward to attend to the sails, but otherwise we moved in
silence. It began to seem that we inhabited a ghost world, that we
were no more real than the mist that wraithed us, and I had to lay a
palm against the cold iron of a cannon to reassure myself that there
was yet substance about me.

'What
was that?' Crawley, hunched over the rail, looked up. 'Jerrold,
Ducker- did you hear it?'

I
had been so lost in my thoughts that I had not, but I saw Ducker
beside me nodding his agreement, and so hastily did likewise.

'Somewhere
to larboard,' Ducker whispered. 'Some bangin', and voices.

I
strained my ears, hearing nothing save the roll of the waves. But the
breeze was stiffening, I noticed, and the circle of fog about us
seemed less oppressive. There was even the faintest hint of grey
light in the air.

'There
again, sir.'

Ducker
was leaning over the gunwale, peering out; he must have heard
something, though try as I might I still could not be sure that I
made out anything other than the sounds of
Orestes
.
My imagination needed little enough prompting to amplify even those
familiar noises.

'If
the owlers is out there, they'll be slipping past while we're
talking.

Should
we come about, sir?'

'It
could as easily be
Lancelot
,'
I countered. We had enough chance of getting lost in the fog as we
were, without needing some damn fool maneuvering to disorient us
further on the slight chance that another ship, friendly or
otherwise, might be somewhere in the darkness.

Ducker
ignored me. 'If it's an enemy, we'll want to come round an' get
upwind of 'em. Otherwise we'll be drivin' 'em the wrong way, an'
they'll never run into
Lancelot
.'

'Bring
the ship about and lay her on the larboard tack.'

Crawley's
cheeks glistened with the moisture that had settled on them, and I
realized as I saw it that the moon must be strengthening.

Men
stood from where they had crouched by their guns and, following
Ducker's whispered instructions, took their places on the rigging. I
saw the helmsman put the tiller over, and felt the timbers stiffen as
the wind caught the boat on her beam. A cannonball rolled free of its
position by the gun captain and spun across the heeling deck, almost
taking off a man's foot before it thumped harmlessly into the
bulwark. The rumble seemed very loud, and was joined by a staggered
squeaking as the stays took the strain of our new course.

I
could make out the mast now, see our bow coming round, and I looked
anxiously ahead of it to see if Ducker's and Crawley's ears had
really heard any more than the sounds of their imaginations. Still
there was no sign of any vessel, friend or foe, but I could see an
ever widening expanse of water about our hull; the fog was drifting
in ever more feeble shreds. The men must have felt as relieved as I
that we no longer sailed blind, for they began to smile again, and to
whisper to one another.