The Smugglers Page 12

  “You're a brave lad.” He put his cutlass into my hand. “Ready?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  He stood, and I stood beside him. He raised his hand in the air, and I lifted the sword. We started forward at a walk and, yards from the inn, broke into a run.

  He shouted out, “Hold there! Hold in the name of the king!”

  The smugglers, like rats caught in daylight, scurried for the cellar. They dropped the barrels on the ground; they trampled each other in a rush to escape.

  I saw bright flashes of powder, and a crackle of gunfire burst through the night. I hurdled a ditch, crossed over the road, then raced past the hearse and down the ramp to the cellar.

  It was madness inside. Men were locked into pairs, struggling with fists or with swords. The blue jackets of the revenue men were lost in the mass of smugglers. A pistol shot banged in my ear; a hand clamped on my shoulder. I whirled round.

  And there stood Burton, his stick in his hand.

  “You!” he said. “So this is your doing, is it?”

  “Yes,” said I. Just to see him standing there gave me shivers that knocked my knees together. Never had I felt such fear of a man, but neither such hatred.

  “You're nothing but a pup,” he said, as calmly as before. “A meddling little dog that's hardly worth my trouble.”

  He spun his stick in an arc past his knees. It seemed to fly from his hand; I saw it sail high through the cellar, then heard it clatter against the ceiling. But it was only the sheath he'd cast away. The sword was still in his hand, and it glinted in the light of the lanterns.

  I raised the cutlass. He knocked it aside. I took a step back, and he came after me.

  “Come, come,” he said. “You'll have to do better than that.”

  I wasn't a fencer. I'd never used a sword. Again I raised the cutlass; again he knocked it away.

  I went backward into the storm of swirling men, a step at a time, right through the mass of them. And Burton came steadily on. He lunged at me and put a nick in my sleeve. He lunged again, and I twisted aside with the blade passing an inch from my heart.

  The cellar was thick with dust and a clamor of voices. The heat filled my eyes with sweat. The hilt of the cutlass slithered in my fingers as I tried to parry Burton's thrusts.

  He swept the blade aside. He came forward with a smile on his face, poking at me like a child at a cat. Then he surprised me with a slashing cut that jangled off the cutlass guard. And when I stepped back I felt my shoulders touch the wall. I could move no farther.

  “A pathetic little fight,” he said. “It's a sorry ending for you, boy.”

  He attacked with the point of the sword. He put all his weight into that lunge, and I watched with a dreamlike terror as the point tore through my shirt.

  I didn't feel the blade go in. I heard Burton grunt, and it was as though he had hit me with his fist instead. The blow slammed against my stomach with a solid thud, and when he drew his arm away, the sword slipped from his hand and hung there, sagging from my stomach.

  Unbalanced, Burton staggered back. I gripped the cut-lass with both my hands, swung it up, and swung it down. It twisted in my palms, and I struck him with the flat of the blade, on his jaw and neck. But the blow knocked him to the floor, facefirst into the dust and the blood. And before I could strike him again, the revenue officer threw himself between us. He came at a rush from the mass of men and stopped my hand with his.

  “Wait!” he cried. “There's a trophy for the hangman.”

  Then again I saw Burton's sword poking from my stomach. And my knees gave way, and I sank down against the wall.

  The fighting had ended, leaving the cellar littered with bodies. The smugglers were being led from the cellar in groups of three and four. A dozen more came shuffling out of the tunnel, with revenue men herding them on.

  The officer used his neckerchief to bind Burton's hands at the wrists. He tightened the knot until Burton groaned.

  “Shut up,” growled the officer. “One more sound–a single word–and I'll slit your throat.” He grinned. “Just ask me if I won't.”

  Burton made no sound at all.

  The officer crawled toward me. “Don't move,” he said. “Let's have a look at you there.”

  “I don't feel hurt,” I said.

  “It's the shock,” he told me. “Now lie quiet, boy.”

  Chapter 17

  A JERKIN OF CORKS

  The revenue officer opened my shirt. He probed with his fingers down the blade of the sword, but I couldn't feel his movements at all. Then he pinched the blade in his hand and yanked it free. And with it, skewered on its tip, came Larson's oilskin packet.

  “There's a bit of luck,” he said, and plucked the packet from the sword. “Look at that, boy.”

  He passed it to me, and I opened it. The point had pierced the envelope and embedded itself in Larson's book. It was all that had saved me.

  “Is that your book?” he asked. “The smugglers' names?”

  I nodded.

  “It will have to go to London.”

  He reached out to take it, but I held it away. I had made a promise to Dasher, and I meant to keep it before I gave the book to anyone else. “I could take it there myself,” I said.

  “And why not?” said he. “You're going directly to London, are you?”

  “As fast as I can.”

  It was the truth, but not entirely so. Yes, I would go to London as quickly as possible. But first I had to see to the Dragon. First I had to deal with Captain Crowe.

  The revenue officer hauled Burton to his feet. For a moment my eyes met the smuggler's, and I saw there the same look a mouse would see in those of a cat about to spring upon it.

  “You'Ve lost the ship,” said Burton. “You know that, don't you? The ship and the cargo and all that you have. What a fine job you've done, to lose so much so fast.”

  The officer struck him on the mouth, and blood bubbled at Burton's lips. “Shut up, I told you!” the officer said. And then, to me, “Are you coming along?”

  I said, “I'd like to sit for a while.”

  “I understand.” He tugged viciously at Burton's arms and sent him staggering toward the door. “I owe you a debt, boy,” he said. “All of England owes you a debt.”

  I watched him go through the door. Then I climbed to my feet and started off down the tunnel.

  I ran down its length in the glow of the lanterns, in the shine of the shells, out through the mouth and down to the sand. A faint glimmer of starlight was enough to show me that the beach was deserted. There was not a soul to be seen, not a smuggler or revenue man. Yet the Dragon was right where I'd left her, hulking and huge, barely afloat on the rising tide.

  It seemed that Captain Crowe had abandoned the ship. Perhaps he had fled at the sight of the revenue, leaving her stuck in the mud, empty of all but the wool. If I could get to the Dragon, I thought, I still might save her. Even alone, I could raise enough sail to take her back to the Downs. “A man and a boy can handle a schooner,” the captain had told me.

  Soon I discovered that my dinghy was gone, as was the boat that Dasher had used. The whole little fleet seemed to have vanished, though it shouldn't have surprised me. Likely it was the first thing the smugglers did, for an empty boat in the morning would be a sure sign to the revenue that work had been done in the moonlight. But my discovery left me disheartened.

  As I plodded along the beach, I came to the footprints I'd left in my rush from the schooner, and a thought occurred to me – a desperate last hope. I scuffed through the black stones and the shells at the edge of the mud. I got down on my hands and knees. I crawled and I groped and finally found what I wanted: Dasher's jerkin of corks.

  It was loose and bulky on me, but it was the best I could do. I tied the strings as tightly as possible and waded down through the mud, into the sea. The breeze had hauled around to blow softly from the land, but there was no sign of fog, and that pleased me. The thought of losing my way and drifting off t
o God knew where was enough to start my knees knocking.

  The water was bitterly cold, and as it rose to my stomach, my breath came in short little gasps. The jerkin bunched around my arms, and I was chest-deep in the Channel before I felt my feet lift from the bottom. I tipped backward, then forward, and the sensation of floating –so strange to one who'd never learned to swim–filled me with an instant panic. I thrashed and kicked; I clung with a death grip to the jerkin of corks. And round I spun, round and round as I beat the water into froth, nearly screaming from my fright. Then my feet touched the bottom again, and I stood there until I'd gathered myself. I knew I had to get out to the Dragon.

  Slowly my panic subsided. I found I could move forward as a dog would, by paddling my arms and my feet. I aimed myself toward the schooner, pushed off from the mud, and went forward at a crawl.

  The rising tide was stronger than the breeze. I went toward the Dragon so slowly that I seemed to make no head-way. The groundswell lifted me and dropped me in the troughs, and salt water lapped at my mouth and my nose. Yet each time I looked up, the masts were a little bit taller and the bulk of the hull loomed a bit closer. And I'd gone too far to turn back when I heard the voices come across the sea.

  “Cut it,” said Crowe. “Cut the damn thing. We'll never need it again.”

  The Dragon wasn't deserted at all.

  Soon I saw figures on the foredeck. Crowe and two others. I heard a steady, hammering pulse, and at once I knew they were cutting the anchor cable. So the schooner was floating already, and any moment the men would make sail. I paddled and kicked. And with a pop of threads, and then another, the corks started coming loose from the jerkin.

  They floated past me, borne by the breeze. First two or three, then half a dozen, they spun and leapt in the ripples of water. Absurdly, I grabbed for them, and my motions brought others loose. For the first time I felt the sea at the back of my neck. I was starting to sink.

  The hammering stopped. I heard the slither of rope as the cable fell from the rail. The Dragon turned, slowly at first, and then faster. A pair of boats tied to her stern followed with a jerk and a nod, like goslings behind a goose. The jib went up, and then the mainsail, and the schooner gathered way.

  I threw myself forward. I no longer paddled but swam, reaching far out before me, taking handfuls of water, pulling myself through the swell the way a man would climb a cliff. The last of the boats swung toward me, and I reached up and grabbed on to the transom. But I was a moment too late; it pulled from my fingers and slipped away. A cork-filled eddy went behind it.

  All alone in that black of sea and sky, I felt the panic returning in a rush. I forced it down and kept on going. The water rose to my chin.

  Even now I like to think that the Dragon turned to fetch me. I like to think she saw me somehow and tried her best to save me. But it was only Captain Crowe. He had taken the schooner in to shore on a winding, twisting path, and he took her out the same way. He jibed and came back, and the big wooden jaws of the dragon ate through the swells. The teeth were high above me, then buried in the sea. They rose and fell and rose again, then snatched me from the water.

  It seemed the greatest bit of luck at first, and I lay resting within the jaws as the water coursed around my legs. Then the Dragon turned again, to sail from the lee of the cliffs, and every wave overwhelmed me. The figurehead became my prison, the teeth the bars to hold me in. The bow soared up, then hurtled down, and I was buried in the sea. And the motion that I had loved to watch on the outward journey was now a nightmare sure to drown me.

  I shouted for help, with no thought of who might respond. I would have been happy to see Captain Crowe himself come climbing down to haul me out from there. But with the roar that the figurehead made, I was sure no one could hear.

  The bowsprit dipped, and half its length was buried in a wave. I rode the dragon's mouth toward the sea and then beneath its surface. The water hit me like a pile driver, and when the schooner lifted, I tumbled back. I slammed against a bulk of wood that trembled and groaned behind me. The schooner threw me forward; the water hurled me back. The wood rattled each time I bashed against it. And I heard a voice in all that racket, a voice as high as a boy's but old as all the hills. “Who's there?” it said. The ship herself, I thought. “Who's there at the mouth of the dragon?”

  Up I soared, the schooner climbing from the sea. She rolled and took me down. The water burst through the teeth, slammed against my chest. And the wood gave way behind me. I somersaulted backward in a flood of boiling sea, down through the throat of the dragon, into the hull of the ship.

  I lay on a planked floor, staring up at a withered old man who held in his hands a panel of wood. I could look beyond him, right through the bow and the teeth of the dragon.

  “Knock me down with a feather!” said he. “Where the devil did you come from, boy?”

  I was too surprised to answer. The schooner dipped her bow again, and a blast of water shot through the hole. It poured across the deck and washed me down against the planking and the ribs. The man struggled forward and pressed the panel over the hole. It fit exactly, locking in place, sealing us into darkness.

  “And now me candle's gone out,” said the man. “Oh, this is the end. This is the bleeding last straw, this is.”

  I heard him groping round, banging on wood and metal. Then came the tap of a flint, and sparks flew in a fluny from his hands. “You see what you'Ve done?” he said. “You'Ve got me tinder wet. Blast you.”

  There were more sparks, and then a faint glow, and at last a flame as he held a candle to the tinder. He held it high above him, and the light made a yellow circle on the overhead. His hands were big and pale, his nose enormous. Hair as white as cotton thread grew in thick tufts from his nostrils and his ears. I knew at once that he was the same old man I'd seen lurking on the dock in France, the one who had passed in front of the Dragon and never appeared again.

  “Who are you?” I said.

  “I'm Fleming Pye,” said he. “And more's to the point, who are you?”

  Chapter 18

  THE ONLY ONE LEFT

  The old man would tell me none of his story until he'd heard every detail of mine. Then he hurled questions at me, beginning each one with a cry of “Tell me this!”

  “Tell me this!” he said. “Just what do you plan to do now?”

  I shrugged. “I have to get the ship back somehow. They're going to scuttle her for certain.”

  “Tell me this! How many are up there?”

  “Three at least,” said I. “Maybe more.”

  “And that's including Turner Crowe.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “He's a rascal,” said Fleming. “He's a wily old eel of a man.”

  “How do you know him?” I asked.

  “Used to sail with him, boy. Until he sold me out to the French. Until he left me to rot in prison.”

  Fleming mounted the candle on the top of his tinderbox. It skittered all over the deck as the Dragon sailed along. And in its dim and hazy light I saw how this hidden space extended down the ship in narrow aisles as cramped as rabbit warrens. This would be the place, I thought, where French spies had waited out their trip to England, emerging from the bow like water rats in the safety of the night.

  “I'm the only one left,” said Fleming. “There was twenty men sailed with Turner Crowe, when we went privateering. There was sixteen alive in seventy-nine when the French took us on the last day of September, just after dawn. That was the last sunrise I saw for twenty-two years. Now tell me this! You know what I want? The only thing that I want? ”

  “To kill Captain Crowe,” said I.

  He laughed. He sat in a crouch in that dank, foul-smelling place, and he laughed until I thought it would shake his old bones apart. “Kill Captain Crowe?” he said. “You can't kill a devil, boy. You can't kill the father of evil.”

  “What, then?” I asked.

  “I want to get home to me woman. She's all I've got left in the world. I'
ve forgotten what me house is like, but I remember me Sally like it was yesterday I saw her.”

  “Is that Mrs. Pye?” I asked foolishly.

  “Sally Pye,” he said, and smiled. “Tell me this! Do you know her?”

  “I've met her,” I said. “She waits for you at the Baskerville Inn.”

  “Oh, the poor thing,” said Fleming. “The poor, simple thing. 'Wait here,' I told her. 'Wait for me here.' And she did, the poor thing.” His eyes closed. He combed with his fingers the wiry tufts that grew from his nostrils. “Tell me this! Is she every bit as pretty? Is her hair more gold than gold itself? Is her skin as smooth as porcelain?”

  I didn't know what to say. I thought of the haggard old woman going blindly through the inn. And I suppose I waited a moment too long.

  Fleming's face, which the smiles had made young again, aged in an instant. “Tell me this!” he said. “Is she all right? Is she well?”

  I couldn't bear to tell him the truth, so I shifted the conversation. “We were there,” I told him. “We anchored just under the inn.”

  “I knew it,” said he. “I said to myself, 'That's the mud of St. Vincent I'm smelling.' The mud and the apple trees. And I could hear that little brook that bubbles down from the cliffs. But the panel was jammed and I couldn't get it open. It needed a bang. It needed a blow from beyond.”

  “You could tell all that without a look outside?”

  “Why, sure,” said he. “I've come to this place a hundred times. There were nights I could stand at the wheel and not see the binnacle. I couldn't see me hands on the spokes, or me feet on the deck, but I could always get back to the Baskerville.”

  “Could you take us into Dover?” I asked.

  “In me sleep,” said Fleming.

  I had a scheme that seemed too wild to tell him. I watched the candle slide toward the bow, and I asked, “Can we get from here to the lazarette?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  “And could you steer the ship from there?”

  The candle slid the other way. Fleming shoved out his foot and stopped it. “Tell me this!” He took the tinderbox in his hands. “Do you want me to take her to the Eastern Docks or the jetty under the castle?”