The Blighted Cliffs (34 page)

I
walked off, less steadily than was respectable, leaving a fuming
general and a horrified colonel to their pleasures.

14

'DID
YOU ENJOY THE NIGHT'S FESTIVITIES?' ASKED CRAWLEY. It was an
uncharitable question. My red eyes and grey face were answer enough,
and it was only because of a wretched hangover that after a mere four
hours of sleep I had returned to
Orestes
.
It seemed a safer way of seeking fresh air than another stroll along
the beach.

'They
entertained well enough.' I was desperate for a drink. 'Did you
attend, sir? I did not see you there.'

'I
left early.'

'I
arrived late.'

'I
am hardly surprised,' said Crawley. 'What does surprise me, though I
confess perhaps it should not, is the note I received from Colonel
Copthorne this morning.'

'Yes,
sir?'

'A
curious request. He tells me he has a distinguished guest he wishes
to show over our ship. I am happy to oblige, though we are hardly
rigged for visitors.' He glanced over the half-strung mast.

'However,
he suggests that you, Lieutenant Jerrold, should be sent on some
errand that takes you well away from the vessel.' He stared at me
sharply. 'He also conveys his hope that your head is recovered - a
reference to the
Thermidor
action, I take it.'

'I
cannot imagine to what the colonel alludes,' I said carefully. 'But I
had been thinking: it may be well for me to take the jollyboat over
to the beach and have a look where that riding officer saw the
smugglers. Maybe they, er, left something behind.'

Crawley
was not deceived by my bluff for a second, but he had insufficient
facts at his command to do anything other than scowl. 'An estimable
project, Lieutenant,' he allowed. 'But I require all hands for the
rigging work this morning. Maybe this afternoon they can be spared.'

'I
see, sir.'

I
remained impassive. Talking was too much effort, and I was not about
to let Crawley prise any more details of the previous night from me.

He
rapped his knuckles on the gunwale, and frowned deeper. 'I suppose,
Lieutenant, I might send you to the victualling yard. On the London
road - do you know it?'

I
nodded. Although I had never been there, I knew it by reputation: it
was the navy's local brewery and bakery. Nor could I have missed the
flotilla of small boats which flocked to the harbour daily, ferrying
supplies up the coast to the fleet at Deal. Mazard and Cunningham's
boats, I remembered.

'You
may pay my respects to the agent victualler, and pass on my request
for the next month's supply of beer and biscuit.' It was a delivery
errand, unvarnished and quite unworthy of my rank, but I accepted it
with due humility. Anything to escape. 'And if you should encounter
any persons of rank along the road, Lieutenant,' finished Crawley,
'please be sure to pay them due deference.'

I
did not know exactly where the yard was situated, so I had little
alternative but to wander up the London road until I encountered it,
hoping that it would be obvious, and that I would not have arrived in
Southwark before finding myself gone too far. The town stretched for
about a quarter of a mile out of the market square, the houses
generously built for the most part, but it was something of a façade,
for very quickly I could see stretches of meadow and green field
through the gaps in the buildings. Birds were calling, and I thought
I heard the sound of a stream to my right.

Eventually,
just past where the houses ceased and the open countryside began, I
found the victualling yard. I could hardly have missed it, for the
rich smells of hops and malt and baking dough steamed from its
chimneys, a sickly mix which turned over my frail stomach. I wondered
whether Crawley had deliberately sent me to a brewery in my enfeebled
state, for I could quite imagine the old abstinent playing me such a
trick.

It
was as well I had the odour to guide me, though, for without it I
could easily have mistaken the building for a church - which, I
guessed from its square tower and arched doorway, it must once have
been. What the good Lord would have thought of His house being
commandeered for the navy's purposes I did not presume to guess, but
I doubted that their ephemeral lordships at the Admiralty had asked
His opinion. Besides, it had obviously been built in a time when
religion was a far more dangerous pursuit, and it suited the navy
perfectly: its walls reached far up the tower, and were everywhere
studded with sharp outcrops of flint. To this charm the navy had
added, bricking up the thin windows in its side so that the complete
effect was one of a monstrous, overblown mausoleum which even the
jumble of thatched outbuildings against its far wall could not
dispel. It seemed exactly the place where, as the rumour had it, a
man might have fallen into a boiling copper and been brewed through
into the fleet's beer supply.

A
small wall encircled the compound, though it was hardly necessary:
the narrow gate was not even guarded. I lifted the latch and let
myself through. Pack animals grazed in the yard, while behind them
loomed great stacks of casks with cabbalistic numbers chalked upon
them. A squat man in seaman's dress, with two arms worth of muscle
bulging from the one that remained, crossed over and enquired my
business.

'I
have a supply order from Captain Crawley of the
Orestes
to give to the agent victualler,' I told him.

He
stuck out a fist, in a way that might have given offence were it not
so large. Instead, I could do nothing but pass over the paper. He
grunted.

'Is
anything more required?'

He
shook his head.

The
errand had taken me less than half an hour; I could hardly return
already.

'Could
I perhaps look into the brewery, or the bakehouse? I have often
wondered at the provenance of our supplies.' Usually with a few
choice words for the purser thrown in.

The
seaman's bullish neck turned a fraction. 'Can't do that, sir,' he
said with a leer. His teeth numbered more than his limbs, but it was
a narrow victory. 'Nasty things 'appens in there.' I wondered whether
he was referring to the reputed accidents, or merely to the produce.

'I
see.' I shifted on my feet. 'Well, go about your work then, seaman.'

'Reckon
I will,' he said, and scratching the stump on his shoulder he
wandered away.

He
left me at a loss. It would be several hours before I could safely
return to
Orestes
,
and in the interim I did not care to be in town lest I encounter
Copthorne and his general, or anyone else who bore me a grudge. But I
well knew the perils of wandering the countryside alone. And I hardly
wished to spend hours in contemplation of the brooding edifice before
me.

The
clatter of a drum brought the answer. At first I thought it simply
the rattle of casks being shifted inside the depot, but a glance down
the road revealed twin columns of infantry emerging from between the
houses. Captain Bingham, whom I'd last seen on the beach near
Folkestone cursing the salt-water smugglers, was at their head.

'France
is that way, you know,' I told him, pointing back towards Dover. '.Or
are you bound for London to overthrow the government?'

He
grinned down from his mare, his unruly red hair squeezing out from
under his hat. 'Perhaps I'm hunting down suspicious villains seen
lurking on the public highway. Deserters, probably.'

'Scum,'
I agreed cheerfully. 'A peril to society. I shall inform you if you
see any.'

He
laughed. 'Actually, we're due to block the road about half a mile up
there. See if we can intercept any contraband bound for London.'

'If
it's a drink you're after, the
Crown
and Anchor
can supply you quite readily, I'm sure. But I'll accompany you, if I
may - ensure that none of your seizures gets misappropriated.'

'From
what I'm told,' said Bingham drily, 'they'd be safer with Caleb
Drake.'

I
looked up at him, sensitive to any injury he insinuated, but there
was malice in neither his voice nor his face, and I let it pass.
Clearly he had referred to my reputation as a sot rather than to
Cunningham's allegations of treachery, and I'm honest enough not to
stand on a dignity I don't possess.

The
next half mile was pleasant enough as we walked the edge of the
meadow that descended to the placid river on our right. A chalk
escarpment rose steeply beyond it, the towers of the castle just
visible over the brow, while to our left a valley stretched back
beyond old abbey buildings. The air was sharp, tinged with a hint of
woodsmoke, and a few hardy birds chirruped from the leafless boughs
by the roadside.

As
we reached a weatherbeaten finger of upright stone, Bingham called a
halt. 'Boundary of the Corporation,' he told me. 'Allows us a choice
of magistrates. If we catch anyone, we just make sure we arrest them
on the right side of the line. Over here and they'll be taken back to
Dover, a few more paces and we can send them elsewhere.

Wherever
we've the best chance of convicting them.'

'And
where is that?'

'Dover,'
he said unhesitatingly. 'Certainly while Cunningham's in charge.' He
must have seen the loathing in my face. 'Oh, I agree he's an ogre,
but there's not been a judge to touch him for putting away the rogues
we catch. Most of the rest are so well in with the smugglers they
have their own accounts at the Calais markets.'

Bingham
arrayed his men in a loose cordon across the road, with pickets
spread out across the fields to catch anyone trying to circumvent the
blockade. Then we waited. Bingham and I swapped accounts of our
careers - the superiors we'd toadied, the pranks we'd played, the
girls we'd conquered, or tried to - but otherwise little interrupted
the hazy peace of the morning.

Bingham
had just finished a lengthy tale concerning a drummer boy and a
Spanish whore when a whistle from the sergeant drew our attention. A
hay cart had rounded the turn in the road behind us and stopped, its
driver looking anxiously at the line of scarlet coats that blocked
his progress. There was nothing he could do without drawing
unfavourable attention, however - the width of the road did not even
allow for the cart to turn - so, reluctantly, he shook his reins and
ordered the horse forward to where we waited.

'I
thought you might be gen'lemen of the road,' he explained, when
Bingham enquired the reason for his hesitation.

'A
pearl of wisdom for you,' Bingham told him. 'Highwaymen and thieves
rarely parade around in bright red coats and crossbelts.'

'Some
does. I knowe
d
a man got robbed by a colonel of dragoons once.'