Rapscallion. James McGee

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СКАЧАТЬ frowned, while next to him the lieutenant’s head snapped round. His eyes darkened.

      The clerk recovered his composure and turned his eyes to the grainy sheet of paper at his elbow. He ran the nib of his pen down the page and gave a small click of his tongue as he found the entry he was looking for. Hawkwood assumed it was the list of prisoners transferred from Maidstone and that the clerk was confirming his name.

      The lieutenant peered over the clerk’s shoulder.

      The clerk sneered. “Our first American. Not so independent now, are you?” He sniggered at his own wit.

      The lieutenant viewed Hawkwood with undisguised hostility as the clerk began to transfer the details into the ledger, repeating the information under his breath as he did so. “Rank: captain; date of capture: 20th January; action in which taken: Ciudad Rodrigo; date of arrival: 27th May; application for parole under consideration; physical description …” The clerk raised his eyes again and murmured, “Height: approximately six feet; scarring on left side of face … surly-looking brute. Assigned to the gun deck. Next!”

      After listening silently to the description and the comment, the lieutenant favoured Hawkwood with a final grimace of distaste before he turned away.

      “Damned renegade,” Hawkwood heard him mutter under his breath.

      The interpreter jerked his head for Hawkwood to move along. Behind him, he heard Lasseur give his name and the clerk’s litany began again.

      At the next table the prisoners were presented with a rolled hammock, a threadbare blanket and a thin, wool-stuffed mattress.

      Hawkwood studied the armed guards ringing the deck. Their escort had been composed of marines, seconded to the shore establishment, but neither the army nor the navy liked to assign regulars to the prison ships. True fighting men were needed abroad. This lot would be members of a local militia, specially recruited, Ludd had told him. He’d seen two of the guards exchange knowing grins as they stared at the boy’s milk-white buttocks during the enforced bathing. One of them had nudged the other and sniggered. “Wait till His Majesty gets a look at that!”

      Hawkwood wondered what that meant.

      The processing stretched over two hours. There were not that many new arrivals – three boatloads in all, perhaps forty men in total – but the ill-tempered admissions clerk seemed intent on proving how pedantic he could be. Slowly, however, the line of men began to shorten. Hawkwood was intrigued as to why they’d been herded into one half of the quarterdeck rather than escorted below. His question was answered as the last prisoner was handed his bedding.

      A figure appeared at the rail of the deck above them. He was tall and raw-boned. His face was gaunt and pale. The white piping on his lapels proclaimed him to be another lieutenant, though he looked old to be holding the rank. Hands clasped behind his back, he gazed dispassionately at the crowd of men gathered beneath him. His eyes were very dark. Gradually, as the prisoners became aware that they were being observed, an uneasy silence descended upon the deck. Beneath his hat, the lieutenant’s eyes moved unblinkingly over the upturned faces. The clerk and the lieutenant at the table rose to their feet.

      The gaunt lieutenant remained by the rail, his body incredibly still, as he continued to stare down. Not a word was uttered. Only the sound of the gulls wheeling high above the ship broke the stillness. Then, abruptly, after what seemed like minutes but could only have been twenty or thirty seconds, the lieutenant stepped back from the rail, turned abruptly, and, still not having spoken, returned from whence he came.

      “Our brave commander,” Lasseur whispered. “Rumour has it he once captained a frigate, had a run-in with one of our eighties off Finisterre, and surrendered his ship. After they exchanged him, he was court-martialled.” Lasseur sucked in his cheeks. “Took to drink, I’m told.”

      Hawkwood wondered where Lasseur had got his information. Some people had an uncanny knack of picking up all kinds of rumours. Though, in fact, Lasseur was only half right. The commander of the hulk, if that’s who the lieutenant had been, was named Hellard and he had indeed been demoted from captain. But it had been Funchal not Finisterre where the lieutenant’s fate had been sealed, and he had taken refuge in the bottle before the engagement, not following it. Hawkwood had been told the correct version by Ludd during his briefing; though it didn’t alter the fact that Hellard had been assigned to Rapacious as punishment. Furthermore Ludd had told Hawkwood that Hellard’s background was modest, which meant he’d been unable to call on a patron to rescue him from exile and set him back on the promotion ladder. Commanding this floating tomb was as high as Lieutenant Mortimer Hellard was ever going to get. And he knew it. It accounted for the stony countenance, Hawkwood thought. This was a man resigned to his fate, resenting it, and suffering because of it.

      “Take them below, Sergeant Hook.” The order came from the lieutenant with the bitten fingernails. “And do something about those. They’re making the place look untidy.”

      The lieutenant scowled at a pair of prisoners whose legs had given way. Hawkwood assumed they were the two who had been helped up the stairs by their fellow detainees. He wondered what had become of the men who’d been left in the longboat, and whether anyone had bothered to retrieve them. No one in authority on Rapacious seemed interested in taking a look. It was more than likely the boat was still drifting at the end of the line.

      “Aye, sir.” The sergeant of the guard saluted lazily and turned to the prisoners. He nodded towards the stairway. “Right, you buggers, let’s be having you. Simmons, use your bayonet! Give that one at the back there a poke. Get the bastards moving! We ain’t got all bleedin’ day! Allez!”

      Lasseur caught Hawkwood’s eye. The Frenchman’s smile had slipped from his face. It was as if the reality of the situation had finally sunk in. Hawkwood shouldered his bedding, remembering Lasseur’s earlier whispered comment. As he descended the stairs to the well deck it didn’t take him long to see that Lasseur had been mistaken. Hell would have been an improvement.

      Hawkwood was no stranger to deprivation. It was all around him on London’s cramped and filthy streets. In the rookeries, like those of St Giles and Field Lane, poverty was a way of life. It could be seen in the way people dressed, in the looks on their faces and by the way they carried themselves. Hawkwood had also seen it in the eyes of soldiers, most notably in the aftermath of a defeat, and he was seeing the same despair and desperation now, carved into the faces of the men gathered on the deck of the prison hulk. It was the grey, lifeless expression of men who had lost all hope.

      They ranged in age from calloused veterans to callow-eyed adolescents and they looked, with few exceptions Hawkwood thought, like the ranks of the walking dead. Most wore the yellow uniform, or what was left of it, for in many cases the prison garb looked to be as ragged as the clothing that had been stripped from the backs of the new arrivals. Many of the older men had the weathered look of seamen, though without the ruddy complexion. Instead, their faces were pallid, almost drained of colour.

      Some prisoners huddled in small groups, others stood alone, if such a feat was possible given the number of wasted bodies that seemed to cover every available inch of space. Some of the men were stretched out on the deck, but whether they were sleeping or suffering from some malady, it was impossible to tell. The ones that remained upright gazed dully at the new arrivals being directed towards the hatch and the stairs leading into the bowels of the ship. Some of the men looked as though they hadn’t eaten for days.

      “My God,” Lasseur gagged. “The smell.”

      “Wait till you get below.”

      The voice came from behind them. Hawkwood СКАЧАТЬ