Rebellion. James McGee

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      Chapter 7

      They headed north.

      Malbreau had told them it was only two miles to the fort. Two miles in which to come up with a plan of escape. Not far enough, Hawkwood calculated bleakly. To make matters worse, he was being herded further away from his destination: Wimereux and the diligence that was to transport him to Paris. So far, the mission was turning into an unmitigated disaster.

      He thought about the consequences of their being taken to Mahon. There was a slim chance the subterfuge might work. Ultimately, their fate lay in the hands of the garrison commander, but if the latter was cut from the same cloth as his subordinate, they were in trouble. Hawkwood revised that thought. Deeper trouble. Just how deep remained to be seen.

      The path wound its way through the pine trees, rising steadily before finally emerging on to a narrow road bordered to the east by scrubby heathland and to the west and north by a rolling landscape of grass-topped sand dunes which, Hawkwood presumed, sloped all the way back down to the sea. The path was heavily indented with cart tracks and hoof prints, many cloven, indicating it was a well-worn route for cattle as well as horses and probably a main drover road, linking settlements up and down the coast.

      As if taking Hawkwood’s direction literally, Malbreau had chosen to ride ahead of them, guiding his horse along the ruts, maintaining point in haughty silence. Hawkwood wasn’t sure about the horse. He couldn’t recall if it was a requirement for a French officer of fusiliers to be mounted or whether it was a personal affectation. He suspected the latter. Either way, it was another facet of Malbreau’s style of command that distanced him from his men, which made Hawkwood wonder if that was why Malbreau had chosen it. Perhaps, Hawkwood thought cynically, the lieutenant considered it more convenient than having his men carry him around in a sedan chair.

      Though, in truth, he was thankful for Malbreau’s lack of civility. Had the lieutenant been the garrulous type, anxious to discuss the course of the war or exchange tales of hearth and home, Hawkwood knew the journey to the fort would require constant vigilance on his part to ensure he didn’t say the wrong thing and inadvertently let something slip which would lay open his and Stuart’s deception. Malbreau’s unwillingness to engage in conversation had granted Hawkwood a useful respite in which to think. Or at least, that’s what Hawkwood had supposed when they’d set off.

      Blankets over their shoulders, Hawkwood and Stuart made no attempt to communicate with each other, for obvious reasons. In that regard, Hawkwood had drawn the short straw for, as none of the patrol other than Malbreau understood English, Stuart had been left guarding his own thoughts. Unfortunately, this had left Hawkwood, not to his own devices, as he’d first hoped, but prey to interrogation by his new-found friend, Corporal Despard who, in the absence of supervision by his lieutenant, was most interested, almost to the point of sycophancy, in Hawkwood’s fictitious capture and flight from the bastard British and their infamous prison hulks.

      It might have been wiser, Hawkwood knew, to have pulled rank and kept the corporal in his place from the outset, in keeping with his masquerade as a French officer. But with Malbreau having removed himself from conversational range, Hawkwood had revised his original thinking and reasoned that, if his disguise was to be believed, a prisoner of war newly restored to his own country would probably want to converse with a fellow soldier – irrespective of rank – if only to avoid marching in a strained silence, which would have made the journey to the fort smack even more of prisoners being transferred under escort. Which might have satisfied Lieutenant Malbreau, Hawkwood reflected, but it wouldn’t have been conducive to either his or Stuart’s sense of well-being. So, remaining alert, he’d given in to the corporal’s enquiries.

      Fortunately, Hawkwood had been able to draw on his own experiences to satisfy Despard’s curiosity. The events that had taken place on the hulk, Rapacious, and his association with Lasseur were still vivid in his mind and the physical scars he bore added credence to his story. There had been no need to СКАЧАТЬ