The Blighted Cliffs (35 page)

Suspicion
and concern had added even more lines to the carter's face, and the
hand holding the reins trembled.

'And
what is your business?'

Bingham
stroked the horse's flank. It was a handsome beast, its coat far
glossier than its driver's.

'Takin'
'ay from the priory down to Mr Thanncy's farm. 'E's bought 'isself a
new cow.'

'Marvellous,'
said Bingham, with profound indifference. 'Anything else under that
hay, carter?' Lazily, he pulled out his sword.

A
pair of narrow eyes looked worriedly at the blade. 'No, sir.'

'Really?

Bingham
slashed a couple of strokes through the air, the steel humming; then,
reaching up, he ran his sword over the cart's edge and straight into
the pile of hay. The carter watched, horrified. It came out clean,
but Bingham took a step forward and again sank the blade in up to its
hilt. Again, nothing. He moved on around the side of the cart, tried
again, and this time I heard a thud, saw the few projecting inches of
steel quiver with the impact.

'Carrying
firewood as well, are you?' asked Bingham, bracing himself against
the cart to pull the sword free.

The
carter nodded, his eyes tight with fear, but Bingham was ignoring
him.

'Sergeant,
uncover this.'

Two
of the soldiers pulled themselves onto the cart and began throwing
the hay onto the ground. If the carter felt injured by the cavalier
way in which his load was dispersed, he made no comment, but kept his
back turned and his eyes downcast. I wondered whether that was in
part due to the two bayoneted muskets held close by his side.

'Look
at this, sir.'

I
looked to the voice that had spoken: it was one of the soldiers on
the cart. Straw and chaff clung to his scarlet coat, but he looked
triumphant as he held up a short length of rope, each end knotted
onto a small, stout barrel.

'What's
in those, carter?' Bingham's tone was mild but unbending, like a
schoolmaster with an errant pupil. 'I can hammer them open perfectly
easily, so you've nothing but a few seconds to gain by lying.'

The
carter whispered something inaudible. Only after three promptings
from Bingham could finally discern the solitary syllable: 'gin'.

'Gin,'
repeated Bingham. 'And of course, you've paid the duty on it.'

The
old man shuffled his head up and down.

'There's
four more pairs o' tubs in 'ere,' reported the soldier on the cart.
'Ten in all.'

'Naturally
you will have a receipt from the customs agent, or at least from the
merchant you bought them off',' prompted Bingham.

The
carter's head trembled from side to side. 'Left it in town,' he
whispered.

'In
town?' Bingham was unsurprised. 'That is a pity. You know what we
must do with unaccustomed liquor, I suppose?'

'Yes.'
His voice was slowly returning, though the eyes remained fixed on the
ground.

'We
shall take them to the customs house. You may reclaim them there on
production of a receipt within the ensuing week. If not, they may be
confiscated.'

The
soldiers had jumped down from the cart and were now busily tossing
the hay back onto it, though a fair portion of the load was lost to
the breeze, or stayed stuck in the muddy road.

'Where
did you get them?' asked Bingham, keeping his attention on the
carter.

'Don't
know. They ain't mine. They wasn't there when I loaded the hay on.'

'Come
now, you surely cannot tell me that you were unaware of your hidden
cargo?' Bingham was abrupt. 'Where did you get them?'

The
carter shook his head silently.

With
an impatient shrug, Bingham took the flat of his sword and swatted it
against the horse's rump. It bounded forward, jolting the cart into
motion and bouncing the driver near off his seat. For a taciturn
fellow, I discovered, he certainly had a voice for cursing. We
watched him rattle into the distance, his ten barrels still lying on
the roadside.

'You
let him escape,' I said, surprised.

'Of
course.' Bingham wiped the strands of hay off his sword. 'I doubt a
jury would have convicted him for owning a few tubs of geneva whose
provenance we could not prove.'

'But
he was a smuggler,' I protested. It was the first time I had seen one
face to face, and although he had hardly been the cutthroat villain I
expected, it seemed outrageous that he should go free.

'He
was nothing of the sort,' said Bingham airily. 'He was an errand-boy.
He may have been carrying the gin for himself, or for a friend, or
for one of the gangs or for his poor sick mother's chill, but I'll
wager he's no more met the man who brought it into the country than
you or I will have met King George in a Chatham tavern.'

I
had met some intriguing characters in Chatham taverns, but never, I
had to confess, our esteemed monarch.

'Had
we arrested him, whether the court sent him home to his wife or off
to Botany Bay, it would have made not an ounce of difference to the
problem of the smugglers.' Bingham was quite exerted now. 'They would
have found someone else to carry their cargo, some gull who fancied
earning more in a day than he could in a month of honest labouring,
and barely noticed the trouble. No, the men we want are the
venturers, those who finance the enterprise; failing that, the gangs
that bring it ashore. Once they've had done, there's not a man who
can stop it making its way inland.'

'We
stopped it,' I pointed out.

'We
stopped ten tubs - forty gallons. There's probably a hundred times as
much passing through even as we speak. What do the smugglers care?'
Bingham waved his hand. 'They know perfectly well that some of their
cargo, some very small fraction, will be intercepted. They allow for
it, part of the costs of the business. Natural seepage, if you like.'

'So
why bother with the roadblock?' My voice was sharp, for his
bitterness had riled me and I did not care to be informed that my
every effort was futile.

'Maybe
we'll catch someone important one day. But more to the point, it
makes it harder for them to get their cargoes through. They have to
be cleverer, which means spending more time and money. With any luck,
eventually they'll tire of the effort and either do something foolish
or retire from the business. But at the moment, we're like a man
trying to stem a flood with a mop.

Bingham's
words affected me greatly. I suppose I had always had a notion,
somewhere in my head, that although I rarely seemed to accomplish
anything, much of that must be down to my own incompetence and
failings. I had never considered that even the unlikely habit of
executing my duties perfectly might still be fated to fail. I suppose
I ought to have felt vindicated in my idleness, but strangely I felt
only a tugging sadness.

'Still,'
I said positively. 'At least we have those forty gallons of gin. What
happens to them?'

'On
the assumption that the carter does not defy expectation and return
with a letter from the customs collector, it will be taken away and
destroyed.' Bingham smiled. 'Probably by the regimental mess.'

There
was surprisingly infrequent traffic on the road that morning, and
what little we did meet proved entirely honest.

'The
word must be out. I reckon we'll not find anyone carrying contraband
now,' said Bingham. 'Unless he's a particularly fine specimen of
fool.'

His
prediction proved gloomily accurate, and my belly was already
signalling that the lunch hour was drawing near before our next
excitement. This did not come from Dover, though, but from the
opposite direction, from London. It was a coach and pair, with two
well-matched white horses in the traces and little more than a single
journey's mud to spoil the gleaming paint, and the coat of arms
emblazoned on it. A squat figure in a very upright hat drove it,
while a liveried footman stood behind the compartment. It was, by
some distance, the most respectable vehicle we'd encountered that
morning. We were instantly suspicious.

So,
it seemed, was the driver. Although we were in plain sight across the
road, he did not spare his whip until he was almost upon us; then,
when it became apparent that the file of soldiers would not give way
(I was safe by the roadside), he pulled his reins up short and
brought the beasts and the carriage slithering to a halt directly
before us. Steam puffed from the horses' nostrils; their flanks
heaved. Behind them, I saw the coachman had one hand under his cloak.

'Name
yourselves,' he snarled. 'I've orders to stop for no-one, least of
all vagabonds who block the public highway.'

'Well,
you now have orders to hold your damn tongue,' said Bingham. 'Most
particularly when you address one of his Majesty's officers. Where
are you bound?'

The
coachman leered silently, pointing to his mouth in an insolent
gesture of holding his tongue. I saw his right hand was still hidden.

'What
the devil's going on?' A sallow face was poking out of the coach's
window, its powdered wig knocked askew by the frame.

'Thought
I told you not to stop.' His piggish eyes caught sight of Bingham and
his company. 'And who the deuce are you?'

'Captain
Bingham. We had a report that smugglers were using this road.'

The
man gave a braying laugh. 'Smugglers? Smugglers, my dear, d'ye hear
that?' He spoke into the coach, then rapped a weak looking fist on
the crest that was painted under his window. 'D'ye see that, Captain,
eh? Does that not tell you all you need know?'

'Unfortunately
not.'

'Arlington.'
He spoke it like an incantation, and looked keenly at Bingham, as if
expecting the word to work some magic on him. 'Arlington - does the
name mean nothing to you?'

'Unfortunately
not.'

'Well,
damn me, Captain, you ought to pay more attention to your betters. I
am Lord Arlington, and Lady Arlington is inside with me. You are
distressing her, and insulting me. I propose you remove yourself from
my path immediately.' His cheeks were quite puffed up now; it made
his face seem uncannily like a scone.

'Sadly,
Lord Arlington, it is not unknown for smugglers and villains to
pretend at being nobility,' said Bingham evenly. 'I would be grateful
if you would dismount your carriage - and Lady Arlington, too.'

'Certainly
not.' Lord Arlington's cheeks coloured. 'You are the villain here,
sir. I do not pretend at bing nobility, I am nobility.'

'Then
would you kindly - nobly - dismount?'

Bingham
maintained his composure, but even as he spoke one of his men stepped
forward and pulled the carriage door open over Arlington's head. It
banged the back of his skull and almost pitched him into the mud; he
had to leap out with a yelp to keep his balance.