The Gathering Storm (16 page)

The royal party came toward James in the darkness, and
he was forced back down to the water's edge by several of
the guard.

'I must find Juliette,' he protested. 'I must find Madame
Maigre.'

'You will assist Their Majesties into the boat, Lieutenant.'
M. Félix, accompanied by the officer James had spoken to
earlier. 'Juliette must make her own way.'

'But where has she gone to? I must look for her.'
Attempting to push past this officer, who cocked his musket
and stood in James's path.

'There is not time. We must get into the boat.' And M. Félix,
pistol in hand, forced James backward down the shingle.

'Oh, very well. I will do as you ask, but then I must certainly
find her.' And he turned and went down to the water. Cupping
his hands: 'Boats ahoy! Who is in command!' In English.

Although the boats were now very near to the beach, and
James could make out white paint along the wales, as well
as the two lanterns, no reply came from either craft. The
ripple of oars was the only sound.

'You there, in the lead boat! Who is in command? Tom
Makepeace, are you there?'

No reply, only the rhythm of oars in thole pins, and the
splash of the blades. Doubt, combined with fear, coiled and
clawed in James's guts. He peered at the boats, and now
heard – low but distinct over the water – a voice in French:

'Leve rames!'

'Christ Jesu ...' Murmured. 'They are French boats.'
Turning, bellowing: 'Take cover! Take cover! These are not
our boats! They are National Guard boats!'

Crack! Crack!

The royal guard fired past James at the incoming shapes
of the boats. Confusion as the royal party retreated. James
followed, reflecting briefly that he had never yet got close
enough to see any member of the royal family, that they had
always been so shielded that his only impression of these
demi-gods, whose lifeblood he was attempting to save, was
of cloaks and hats and hidden faces, in shadowed light.

Crack! Crack-crack!

Further shots from the guards now, as they fired up at the
lights still descending the cliff.

'How in God's name did they know our signal?' James,
muttering to himself as he stumbled and slipped on wet
shingle, crouching down to avoid being hit by a stray ball.
He peered over his shoulder, and saw that the boats were
now gliding right in to the water's edge. Soon he, and Félix,
and the royal party entire, would be trapped between two
superior forces – one from the sea, and the other from the
cliff.

'What I would not give for my sword and a brace of sea
pistols!'

A shout now behind him, across the water. An unmistakably
English shout.

'Ahoy there, ashore! Take cover!' A moment, then: 'Take
aim! – Fire! Fire! Fire!'

Followed almost immediately by the most welcome sound
James had heard in all the days since this fraught business
had begun.

Crack! Crack!

Half-pounder swivel guns, firing canister. Explosions of spray.
Splintering thuds. A shriek.

James ducked down, but before he covered his head he
glimpsed the boat behind the two French boats, which had
now beached. It was
Expedient
's pinnace, approaching at an
angle to enable the best broadside coverage for her little
guns.

Crack! Crack!

Canister shot raked the two beached boats in a hail of
lethal metal. Further splintering thuds, and the chilling sound
of shot smacking into flesh. Horrible screams.

The landing party in the French boats was now in utter
disarray. Half of them were killed or gravely wounded, and the
others wished only to preserve themselves from further
murderous fire. The able-bodied survivors flung themselves
ashore, abandoning the boats and their hapless companions,
and ran for cover into the rocks on the southern side of the inlet.

A final 'Crack!' and a hissing scythe of shot, then:

'Cease firing! Cease firing!' Bellowed in the pinnace.

James jumped to his feet. 'Who is in command of the pinnace,
there!'

'I am Lieutenant Leigh, in command! Who are you?' The
voice, like James's, in carrying quarterdeck.

'Lieutenant James Hayter, Royal Navy! Beach your boat
right quick, Mr Leigh! We are in desperate trouble here,
and there ain't a moment to lose!'

More shots from the cliff, and when James glanced there
now he saw that the bobbing lights were more than halfway
down. The pinnace came in, and was held in the shallows
by two seamen who jumped out at the bow. Lieutenant Leigh
jumped ashore.

'You are Lieutenant Hayter?' Peering at James in the
darkness.

'I am, Mr Leigh. Formerly of
Expedient
. We must—'

'That was Mr Tonnelier, hey?'

'Yes yes, I was. We must get our party off, as quick as you
like. Quicker, by God.'

Merriman Leigh turned his attention to the large party
now hurrying down to the water's edge, the guard at the
rear firing back toward the cliff. In dismay:

'Christ's blood, Hayter, we cannot take all of these people
in one boat. Where are Their Majesties?'

'In their midst, hid and protected. Look here now, we will
have to take one of these French boats as well. Are ye double-banked?'
Glancing into the pinnace.

'Aye, we are.'

'Then send some of your people into the other boat, and
man 'em both single-banked.' Striding to the first French
boat. 'This one.' But even as he tapped the bow of the boat
with his hand he saw that the starboard gunwale was smashed,
and the boat unseaworthy. Turning: 'Nay, we must go into
t'other boat.' Splashing to the second boat, his clothes now
thoroughly wet. The second boat was sound, aside from
splintered timbers here and above the waterline. Groaning
and dead men lay slumped on the thwarts. James looked at
them briefly, made a face, and:

'Mr Leigh, we must clear this boat of dead and wounded.'

'D'y'mean – just leave them on the beach?' Coming to his
side, peering into the boat.

'Mr Leigh, my task – and yours – is to get King Louis
out of France. Kindly make this boat ready.' Pushing
past him and striding a little way up the beach. Behind
him he heard Lieutenant Leigh give the appropriate
orders, and was relieved. Mr Leigh had allowed him to
assume command without argument. Had Rennie instructed
him to do so? James thrust these questions aside, and in
French:

'Monsieur Félix! Bring your party down!'

An anxious glance at the cliff. The flashes of muskets there,
and the crack of the shots. The lanterns were now reaching
the base of the cliff.

The royal party arrived at the water's edge, at the centre a
huddled group, faces hidden, surrounded by guards, M. Félix,
and Serge. No sign of Juliette.

Merriman Leigh, aghast: 'My God, there is upwards of
twenty people here, Hayter.'

'Aye, Mr Leigh. We must get them all into the boats, if
y'please, without the loss of a moment. And I must find one
more passenger.' Treading away up the shingle before
Lieutenant Leigh could protest. Over his shoulder:

'Do not shove off without me!'

But when he rejoined an anxious Lieutenant Leigh three
minutes after, just as the cliff party began storming down
the beach toward the water, James was alone. He ran,
splashed, leapt.

Crack! Crack-crack-crack!

James tumbled into the already swimming boat, and:

'Give way together! Cheerly now, lads! Cheerly!'

And the two boats slipped away from the beach into
grateful, disguising darkness.

*

Rennie stood alone at the tafferel, his head bent and his eyes
closed, and his right hand gripping his left elbow across his
body, the whole of him tensed like a spring. He was not aware
of quite how coiled up he was in defence of his thoughts
against his immediate surroundings. As soon as he had heard
the gunfire from the beach he had ordered the ship cleared
for action, had contemplated sending in another boat and then
decided against it, had fretted and paced in a fever of anxiety,
and had at length withdrawn into himself and gone aft. The
ship lay quiet, guncrews waiting in readiness along the sand-strewn
decks. Rennie's thoughts – driving out all miserable
visions of calamity and disaster at the beach – lay with his
wife Sylvia, and she in his imagining lay in their bed at home
in Norfolk, under a peaceful starlit sky, to the sounds of owls
and nightjars and the distant barking of a fox at the edge of
the wood. He could hear these night-wafted sounds quite
distinct in his head ... and now he was brought back. He
became aware of someone approaching on the quarterdeck.
He opened his eyes, lifted his head with a clearing sniff, and:

'Yes, Mr Abey? Why are you not at your station? Is the
boat's lantern in view?'

'No, sir. Asking your indulgence, I – I thought I heard a
sound just now.'

'What sound? From the beach?'

'To the west, sir, farther out to sea. Like a kind of clattering,
very brief.'

'To the west?' Swinging round, striding to the larboard
rail. He brought his glass to his eye and peered into the
darkness. Nothing.

'Did ye see a light?'

'No light, sir. Only a very brief clattering sound.'

'Did anyone else hear it?' Raising his voice slightly and
calling: 'Mr Souter.'

That officer attended, coming up the ladder and treading
aft.

'Did y'hear anything, Mr Souter, out to sea?'

'No, sir, I did not.'

'Very well, thank you. Let me know the moment there is
any sign of the boat.'

'Aye, sir.' Lieutenant Souter's hat off and on, very correct,
and he returned to his station, pausing briefly at the binnacle
to take up his glass and remove it from its case.

Rennie raised his own glass and peered again to the west,
and again found nothing in the darkness there. He peered
a moment longer, frowned and was lowering the glass when
vivid orange flashes lit the sea.

BANG BANG BANG-BANG-BANG BOOM-BANG

Grapeshot smashed through
Expedient
's larboard rigging
in a stuttering, clipping, shredding turmoil of flying metal.
At the breast-rail Mr Souter coughed as if punched in the
ribs, stumbled, and fell to the deck. The junior midshipman
Mr Nicholas, coming aft on the larboard gangway, was spun
like a puppet, lost the use of his legs, and pitched into the
waist, his hat flying over the side. Ropes and blocks broke
and tumbled. Shouts, moans, confusion.

'Mr Abey!' Bellowed.

'Sir?' Half-deafened, a sleeve torn off, his own hat gone.

'Return to your station and stand by! Mr Loftus!' Seeing
a powder boy: 'You there, find the master, and—'

'I am here, sir.' Mr Loftus, attending, kicking away a tangle
of rope.

'We must cut our cables and beat west, Mr Loftus, and
go straight at our opponent. We cannot lie here and allow
ourselves be smashed to splinters.'

'Aye, sir.' Turning, bellowing: 'Hands to make sail!'
Striding forrard. 'Spare numbers to remain at their guns!
Topmen aloft! On the fo'c's'le there! Stand by with sea axes
to cut the cables!'

Further flashes, but these from a new direction. From the
south, flickering in reflection on the sea.

BOOM BOOM BOOM-BANG BOOM-BANG-BANG

Roundshot zoomed and droned past
Expedient
and kicked
up explosions of spray beyond. No shot hit home, and Rennie
closed his eyes in a silent prayer of thanks. Had his stern
and rudder been smashed, all hope would instantly have been
lost.

Within a short space of time – that seemed an eternity to
Rennie –
Expedient
swung clear of her cut cables, and caught
what little breeze there was to make headway westward. As
a roundshot broadside exploded out of the darkness from
that direction she was head on to it, and most of the shot
went wide of her except for one apparently glancing strike
forrard. But she had suffered grievous damage from the
first fire, to her rigging and to her people, and Rennie was
by no means sanguine she could survive the night, even
though she had assumed the condition of a belligerent ship,
and stood prepared. A boy had brought a message from the
surgeon: thirty-six men wounded, and four killed, including
Mr Souter. Attacked from the west, and the south,
Expedient
had only one ally – the dark, that would soon recede as dawn
too became her pursuer. Beyond all that, beyond the immediate
heavy danger to his ship and the need to fight his way
clear, was the fact that Rennie had been obliged to leave the
pinnace behind, to abandon that boat and the momentous
duty it embodied to heaven knew what peril, alone upon the
sea.

'God help them now, for I cannot. I must save
Expedient
,
and then return and attempt to rescue them if I am able.
That is the only hope for any of us this night.' To the sailing
master, now standing at the helmsman's shoulder: 'Cannot
we make more headway, Mr Loftus? We must get well clear
of the coast to give ourselves sea room. Room to fight, and
aim our guns. I cannot even see the enemy plain, only the
flash of his broadsides.'

'We could put men into the boats, sir, and pull
ourselves—'

Over him: 'Nay, that will not answer, when we have so
many wounded, and short numbers on the guns as it is. Find
me a wind, Mr Loftus.' Looking aloft at his shadowy canvas,
nearly all of it limp.

'I will do my best, sir.' And under his breath: 'Even if I
am not God Almighty, for Christ's sake.'

'If you please, sir.' Mr Abey, at his elbow.

'Why are y'not at your station, Mr Abey?'

'I come with a message, sir. Mr Makepeace is gravely
wounded.'

'Tom? How bad hurt is he?' Gripping the boy's shoulder.

'He – he is calling for his wife, sir.'

'Dr Wing is with him?'

'Aye, sir.'

'Then he has been got below?'