they used to train their pieces. Royal Duke rolled a trifle.
'Fire as you bear.'
The sharp little hiss of the burning fine powder in the first gun to bear was the only one of its kind not drowned by the subsequent bursts. As Clay had said they would, the gun crews broke into spontaneous cheers at the noise, the orange-red bursts of fire, and exhilarating backdraft of pungent powder smoke.
Three little waterspouts rose, all well distant from the target keg. More cheers. Number Two gun, last to bear and to fire, now had all hands' attention. The cask flew apart in a shower of staves.
'I'll be go to hell,' said Stone. Then, under Clay's shout of, 'Stop your vents!' he added, 'You've just earned yer grog back, Gridley.'
'Sponge your guns!' Clay called.
Then, 'Load with cartridge.'
The four powder boys-none under twenty, actually, and one a woman-ran up with the grub-shaped charges, handed them firmly to the spongers. One sponger fumbled his catch, dropped his rammer, and tripped over it.
'Pick up the cartridge, Williams,' Stone quietly told the powder boy. Then, seeing that the sponger had recovered his rammer, Stone said, 'Now. Hand the cartridge to Miller. There. Carry on.'
When he saw that all four cartridges had been loaded, Clay gave his next command. 'Shot your guns.'
Now the cycle was complete; all four larboard guns were ready to fire again.
'What time do you make it, Mr. Clay?' Hoare asked. He could not believe his own findings.
'Four and a half minutes, sir,' Clay answered.
'Appalling,' Hoare said.
'Yes, sir.'
'Tack ship, Mr. Clay,' Hoare whispered. 'Larboard guns, cease fire; prepare for action starboard.'
The four crews must now leave the weapons they had just fired and switch sides. This time, no cartridges were dropped, and Stone could stand fast to watch the crews do their utmost to prepare the starboard battery while Mr. Clay gave the commands that brought the brig about. To Hoare's relief, she did not hang in stays but went about like a lamb-though slowly, slowly. Another keg was dropped.
This keg survived, though the fall of shot threw spray on all sides of it. Royal Duke eased away and left it behind in the gathering twilight. The starboard broadside had achieved even worse time. At least, though, Hoare mused, he had let the brig fulfill Clay's desire to exercise the great guns in reality.
Royal Duke's gun ports once closed and her guns bowsed solid against them, the watch below could rest from its labors. Hoare's own labors, however, had just begun. During the morning, while the yacht was still short of the Needles, he had summoned Sergeant Leese to choose his landing party.
Hoare knew perfectly well that Leese knew far more than he himself ever would about the Dustmen's individual fighting and sneaking talents, so he had told the lantern-jawed Sergeant what he wanted and left the landing party's selection up to him. Bold and Stone had pressed themselves upon Hoare and Leese but were firmly rejected.
'You're needed aboard Royal Duke,' Hoare told them.
'But I'm black, sir!' Bold said. 'Black, and sneaky, too.'
'No, Bold. You and Stone remain aboard. You're both too important to the ship's handling.'
Leese's own five surviving Lobsters had threatened mutiny unless he gave them all the chance to avenge their beheaded messmate. To them he had added Butcher, master-at-arms and gymnast; the apelike Iggleden; Blackman, carpenter's mate and all-in wrestler; Jellyboy, black Indian strangler; and Mary Green, cook. Green had enlisted from among the 'brutes' of Portsmouth. With forearms the size of many men's thighs and a projecting jaw under cropped hair, the very look of her gave Hoare a grue. As if she were not daunting enough in her own person, she carried her favorite cleaver.
Now, Hoare gathered the entire landing party around his lamp-lit cabin table for a briefing.
'We're going ashore tomorrow night,' he told them. 'Let me tell you why. You already know about how someone who doesn't like the Navy chopped off two Captains' heads-'
'An' cut poor Baker's froat, tu,' came a voice. From the accent, it was Blackman, the wrestler. There was a general growl of agreement with Blackman's implication.
'Probably,' Hoare said. He should have remembered that; it was only natural that the Royal Dukes would care more about their murdered shipmate than about the decapitation of two Post Captains whom they had never seen. It would go hard with any foe who got within these people's reach.
'Our objective,' Hoare went on, 'is to capture the leader or leaders of the band. I want to question him. If we cannot capture him, he must be killed. The leader may be in some kind of fancy dress. He could be either…'
Hoare described Spurrier and Sir Thomas Frobisher as best he could. He could not be certain that either would actually be the leader, but most signs pointed to it. He could not bring himself to point the finger at royalty as well, although he feared a second encounter with Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, more than he could say.
'He, or they, will probably speak like gentry and-I imagine-will do most of the talking, or preaching.'
' 'Spect so, sir. The gentry ginerally do,' said a voice from the group. Soft laughter followed. Even if he had wanted to, Hoare could not have helped joining in.
'Take the leader at all costs, and then as many of the others as you can, but don't chase any who get away,' he continued.
' 'Ow many of 'em do yer expect us to be takin' on, sir?' Green growled.
'There's no telling, Green. Probably between five and fifteen. Some of them will be women,' he added on a hunch.
Leese at his side, Hoare now showed them by map the terrain between their landing spot and Langton Herring and thence to Winterbourne Abbas.
'Any questions so far?'
'Where are we to lay up, sir?' Green asked.
'I'm coming to that,' Hoare said, and told them the arrangement he had made with Mr. Dunaway for their accommodation.
'There's a chance there'll be others ahead of us in the barn,' he said, 'on business of their own. If so, you are to treat them as neutrals-neither friend nor enemy. Before any of us gets close, I'll signal to alert them. That'll show we're on their side.'
' 'Appen they'll 'ave an anker of brandy fer us, then,' Blackman said.
'If they do, we'll have to wait to broach it till our job is finished,' Hoare said. 'Now, listen carefully: ' I shall repeat this tomorrow evening, before we go ashore and again before we shove off from the barn… By then, though, I'll expect each and every one of you to be able to tell it to the rest of us. In fact, I may have one of you do just that, so be prepared.
'All of you save Leese and myself will shift to landsmen's clothing before going ashore… Blackman and Green, for example, can easily pass for tinkers, Iggleden and Butcher for itinerant acrobats.'
'That's wot I was, sir,' Butcher declared.
'All the better,' Hoare said. 'Gather around, now.
'Here's a sketch map of the place where the enemy will be meeting. I got it from a man who's familiar with it in the line of business…
'… Get the map firmly in mind and take bearings. Do that now, for you won't have the map by you on the day. Leese will pass out compasses. Any of you who can't read a compass?'
Silence.
'Sergeant learned us t'other day, sir,' Ledyard explained.
'Very good,' Hoare whispered. 'Now, at the barn, we shall divide into groups of two. Each pair… stays together, at all costs. We shall have the day to filter up to the Nine Stones Circle, each pair going its own way. Do not seem to be in haste, for you do not want to attract attention…
'… Besides, we have all day in which to make the Circle. In fact, any of you who are within sight and hearing of the Stones in daylight must heave to until dusk, keeping watch. In case the venture goes awry or you lose your way, Royal Duke should be lying off Weymouth by then. If she isn't, the rendezvous will be the cutter Walpole.'
'If any of ye do go adrift, I'll 'ave yer guts fer garters,' Leese interrupted as Hoare drew breath.
'After it's nearly dark, Sergeant Leese will signal you to take your places in the Circle. Leese, can you make some sort of country noise?' Hoare asked.
