The Spider's Touch (13 page)

It was still another half-hour before a cry came floating up out of the dark, in a carrying whisper from off the starboard bow. Captain Larouche’s crew scrambled to catch the ropes that started thumping on the deck, cast from the little fleet of boats below.

Then, strong, sinewy arms heaved bale after bale of raw English wool onto the sloop until every hole was filled and every surface covered. Smaller packages of finer goods were passed back down. Gideon spied what he supposed to be bundles of silk and lace. Crates of tea and barrels of brandy joined them over the side. When the exchange had been made, all but one of the boats set off for shore while one of the smugglers climbed aboard.

He was dressed in a shepherd’s smock that reached to his knees. His hair was covered by a snug woolen cap, and his rough country face had been blackened with coal. He and the captain settled their accounts by the light of a lantern held cautiously below the level of the sloop’s side. The lantern was of a style Gideon had never seen, its flame sheltered by a curved piece of metal. It must have been built especially for smuggling, since viewed from the shore any light it threw would seem too soft to have come from a lamp.

“Well, that does it,” the smuggler finally said, raising himself to go.

As he pocketed his papers and his money, Captain Larouche gestured for Gideon to come forward. “I have one more piece of cargo for you. This gentleman needs a passage ashore.”

Now that he’d moved nearer, Gideon could see that the smuggler’s face had been severely marked by the smallpox. He measured Gideon with a shrewd look. “One of his Majesty’s men, eh? Well, yer welcome, though I warn ye, I charge the same for cargo whether it be quick or dead.”

At Gideon’s prompting, he named an exorbitant price which Gideon disputed, even under his trapped circumstances.

“Take it or leave it,” the man said. “I would hate to disoblige his Majesty, God bless ‘im, but I’m not in it fer him, ye see. And you gen’lemen are a risky cargo I can’t sell. What I will do is this,” he said, after a moment’s reflection, seeing the negotiations might cost him the tide, “if ye want to stick with us as far as Cranbrook and help us unload, I can take ye for less.”

Gideon knew he could not risk being seen in Cranbrook, which was too close to Hawkhurst. He might easily be recognized by the smuggler’s customers, and, besides, he needed to make his way farther north. Captain Larouche had told him that these men were part of the Mayfield gang, and Mayfield was too far west in Sussex to be on his route. They would be creeping ashore in the marshes near Lydd, and pack their contraband inland as fast they could ride. He would need to part from them and head into the heart of the Weald.

He had been tempted to enter England without letting Tom know. He did not want to draw him into any treasonable activities. But he knew that Tom would fret so much at his long absence that he might even decide to head for France. When he didn’t find his master where he expected him to be, Gideon did not know what Tom would do, and he hadn’t been able to reconcile his conscience to that scenario.

He shook his head at the smuggler’s offer and, without another word, handed over the amount the man had originally asked for. “I shall need a horse. Can you take me somewhere to hire one?”

The smuggler indicated agreement, so Gideon wasted no time before climbing over the side into the waiting boat below. A few seconds later, the smuggler joined him, and before the boat had stopped rocking from side to side, they got underway.

His crew, assuming that he
was
the leader, plied their oars both expertly and quietly. Orders given even this far from shore had to be issued in soft whispers. Gideon couldn’t help but reflect on how different his escape from England had gone.

He had boarded a merchant vessel in London on a day that was heavy with fog. The ship was carrying a load that had not been entered at the Customs House, and the captain had formed the intention of slipping past the sentinel at Gravesend. Under cover of the thick, grey air and hiding behind the scores of larger ships that crowded the Thames, they had escaped the sentinel’s notice until drawing even with the block-house, at which point he should have been firing his second warning shot. Then, having caught a strong ebb tide under full sail, they quickly flew past the cannons both there and at Tilbury-fort.

Gideon had relished the speed of that escape, with its mad rush for freedom, which had reminded him of racing his horse across a wide, open field with the wind raking his scalp. Silence had been the order of the day, however, on that journey, too.

This night-time row into unseen danger was much too slow and too quiet for his liking. How could the smugglers tell what awaited them on shore? The government had recently assigned excise men and dragoons to ride these coasts. On this moonlit night, how could they know that they had not already been spotted? And, if they had been, where was there to run? They could do nothing, but keep rowing towards the narrow beacon of light that guided them towards home.

As the sea gave way to marsh, the owlers, as smugglers were called, went over the sides of their boats to wade in the cold, brackish water up to their thighs. As they went, they even managed to splash quietly. They pulled the boats forward with ropes until Gideon felt the bottom of his scrape against sand. That was when he first spied the pack horses waiting, hidden between the dunes.

No commands were issued aloud now. Every order came from a hand signal, though not many were needed, as the men went rapidly about their work, transferring bundles, kegs, and wooden crates to the waiting animals. They bustled Gideon ashore, too, signaling to him to keep his hat pulled down and his head bent low. Unaccustomed to standing still while others were active, he waited awkwardly for them to finish. As he leaned into the sandy shelter of a dune, he noticed that all the smugglers were dressed alike, from the length of their smocks to the tiny barrel of spirits each wore on a rope about his neck.

If a man was caught with his face blackened this close to shore, he was assumed to be a smuggler and would be taken with no questions asked. That was the law.

The same would be true for Gideon, if he were caught. He was entering his country as a traitor, when before he had only been suspected of treason. To some there would be little distinction, but the difference to him was vast. He only prayed to be able to realize when his actions were causing more harm than good.

In hardly more than a trice, the horses were loaded, and the fleet of boats put out to sea. They would lie on the beach at Lydd, right under the noses of the officials until needed again.

Gideon was pointed to one of the pack horses. He counted himself lucky that more goods had been smuggled out than in, leaving a beast for him to ride.

The caravan then started its trek westward across the marsh, the local animals sure-footed in both water and sand. Then they turned inland, following a great ditch, which had to be the ditch dividing Kent from Sussex. Its sheltering walls should hide them, unless a Riding Officer divined their route, but there was too much coastline and too few men assigned to the task of patrolling it for that to be likely. The owlers rode in single file, their sturdy horses keeping a regular pace. They had to hurry to reach cover before the sun lightened the sky.

They followed this ditch for only a few miles before climbing out to head north over low-lying ground. The only reason Gideon could figure for this risky move was that they must have a delivery to make. He did not care for the feeling that they were exposed, and he had just pulled the corner of his hat farther down when a shot rang from the left. There was cry, one of the smugglers fell off his horse, and another man shouted.

“After him!”

In a split-second, three of the men took off at a gallop in the direction from which the shot had been fired. They dropped the leads to their packhorses, and other men hurried to grab them before the frightened animals could bolt.

Gideon’s first instinct was to ride after the men. Not only was it in his nature to act, but he greatly feared that the smugglers might kill the man who had fired upon them. It had most likely been a Riding Officer or one of the dragoons and neither deserved to be murdered for doing his job.

But the horse he’d been given to ride was a pack animal, not a racer, and he soon realized how futile a pursuit on it would be. He looked about for something else to do and saw that, in the haste and confusion, the owler who had fallen lay untended upon the ground.

He urged his horse in that direction, dismounted, and, holding fast to his reins, helped the wounded man, who was struggling to rise.

In the dark, and with the man’s face blackened, he could not make out his features, but he helped him to sit. Then when the smuggler spoke, Gideon realized he was the leader who had talked to him on board.

“Did they catch him?” he said, in a terse voice edged with pain.

“I don’t know. But I haven’t heard a second shot.”

He felt the man relax. “They’ll catch him, then. He didn’t have but one of his pistols loaded, else he would have let off another. No sign of Dragoons?”

“No.”

At Gideon’s short syllable, the man looked up, as if only then aware of who had come to his aid. “And you didn’t take off when you could have neither. Well
...
I’ll have to buy ye a drink for that. Come on, then. Get me up on my horse.”

Gideon helped him into the saddle, then remounted and followed the smugglers as they rode on, as if no interruption had occurred. The leader seemed not to be badly wounded. The bullet must only have grazed him for he used both arms with no sign of difficulty. It had been too dark for Gideon to see any blood.

The smugglers rode back in the direction from which they had come. In another mile they were joined by the three who had ridden off. They were pulling a Riding Officer behind them, tied on his horse. He had been gagged and blindfolded, but from what Gideon could see, he had not been harmed.

“Shall we leave ‘im tied up somewhere?” one of the men asked.

“No, just point his horse shoreward and turn him loose. We’ll be far away before anybody finds him.”

Gideon had kept his face well-hidden during this exchange, but his hand had moved to the handle of his loaded pistol, ready to prevent a murder. Relieved that he was not dealing with a group of cutthroats, he released his hold on his gun.

As the Riding Officer lurched to the east, hurried on his way by a slap on his horse’s rump, Gideon felt a touch of pity for the man. If there was a thankless task it was the Customs jobs. No one respected the work they did, neither commoner nor peer. The men he was riding with tonight were likely farmers who only wanted decent pay for their wool, but they were thwarted by the Customs laws.

As soon as the government man was out of sight, the smugglers reversed their course again. Gideon wondered if their dialogue had been designed to deceive the Riding Officer about their destination. His suspicion was confirmed when the gang rode to an inn, boasting the sign of a woolpack, just above Romney Marsh and turned their horses into the yard. They quickly unpacked their goods into a cellar with an outside door.

“Don’t you worry that the Dragoons will search this place?” he asked, as he and the leader dismounted. Gideon saw that the smuggler favoured one leg, so he offered him his arm.

As the innkeeper opened his door, the smuggler answered, “They’ll be too busy looking for us south of here. And by the time they get around to searching—when they’ve lost our trail—all them things ye saw ‘ll be packed under the church down the road. We’ll come back and move ‘em inland later, when things settle down.”

The two men left Gideon in the half-filled taproom while the innkeeper ministered to the smuggler’s wound upstairs. He had taken a grazing shot to his thigh. His horse had reared, he claimed, else he would never have taken a fall. Gideon ordered a glass of French brandy, which was brought to him without the slightest hesitation. Then, his companion rejoined him, and they sat near the fire to sip the fruits of a previous night’s work.

After a few appreciative swallows, the smuggler introduced himself as Gabriel Tomkins, a former bricklayer by trade.

“I won’t ask for
yer
name,” he said, with a shrewd look. “I doubt ye would part with yer real one, not in the sort of game yer in. His Majesty’s men are usually that close. But around here, except for that fellow who took a pot-shot at me, I don’t have any cause to worry. These honest folk are glad for the goods I bring ‘em. But I would hate to be tooken up for yer line o’ work. So we’ll just leave it at that.”

“And, yet, on the sloop you seemed sympathetic to King James.”

“Well, he’s our king, an’t he? And he’s better’n this lot we’ve got on the throne right now.” Gabriel raised his glass in a salute. “Here’s to his Majesty King James III.” He tossed the wine back. Gideon noted that Tomkins hadn’t bothered to lower his voice, and yet no one in the taproom took exception to his toast.

“Are the people hereabouts for James, then?”

“Oh, not all of us, I reckon, but nobody loves the Turnip neither. Now if there was a magistrate in here, I wouldn’t be so free and easy with my toasts. Most of ‘em are Whigs now.”

“If James were to come to reclaim his crown, how many people in this parish would rise to fight with him?”

Gabriel’s grimace was revealing. “Well
...
I don’t know as any of ‘em would. Unless he had a great, big, hulking French army at his back.”

Gideon questioned him with a look.

“I mean, they’d sort of have to then, now wouldn’t they?” Gabriel spoke without the slightest trace of irony. “If he had an army behind ‘im, it would be better to join ‘im than to be against ‘im, which they’re not. They just want to be left to mind their own business, which is what every man needs to do if he wants to put grub on his table, and don’t want to be strung up with his arms thrown over here and his legs t’ other way and his head up on London Bridge. No—” he shook his head— “I don’t know anybody fool enough to risk that unless he had an army behind ‘im—or better—out in front.” He gave a chuckle, then as he raised his glass again, he seemed to remember Gideon’s connection with James’s cause, for he cocked him a sideways glance and a rueful grin. “But I’ll raise my glass to yer king, and no offence meant, so I hope none taken.”