A King's Cutter

He saw the man break away from the shadow around the base of the cliff. Saw him stumble and recover, saw the spurts of sand where musket balls struck.

'Over here!' he yelled, reaching the grapnel.

He uncoiled the loop of light line and passed it around his waist in a bowline with a three fathom tail. The man blundered up gasping.

'Major Brown?'

'The same, the same…' The man heaved his breath in as Drinkwater passed the end of the line round his waist.

'A kestrel…'

'… for a knave.' Brown finished the countersign as Drinkwater grasped his arm and dragged him towards the sea. Already infantrymen were running down on to the beach. Resolutely Drinkwater turned seawards and shouted: 'Heave in!'

He saw Tregembo wave and felt the line jerk about his waist. The breath was driven out of him as he was hauled bodily through a tumbling wavecrest. He lost his grip on the spy. Bobbing to the surface he glimpsed the night sky arched impassively above his supine body as he relinquished it to Tregembo's hauling. He desperately gasped for breath as the next wave rolled over him. Then he was under the transom of the boat, feeling for the stirrup of rope Poll should have rigged. His right leg found it and he half turned for Major Brown who seemed waterlogged in his coat.

'Get him in first, Tregembo,' Drinkwater gasped, 'he's near collapse.'

Somehow they pulled him up to the transom and Drinkwater helped turn him round with his back to the boat. 'Get clear Mr Drinkwater!' It was Tregembo's voice and Drinkwater was vaguely aware of the two seamen, their hands on the shoulders of the Major, lifting him, lifting him, then suddenly plunging him down hard, down so that he disappeared then thrust to the surface where they waited to grab him and drag him ungainly into the boat. Drinkwater felt the tug on the line as Brown went inboard. He wearily replaced his foot in the stirrup and tried to heave himself over the transom but his chilled muscles cramped. Tregembo grabbed him and in a second he was in the bottom of the boat, on top of Brown and it no longer mattered about the coils of rope.

'Beg pardon, zur,' Tregembo heaved him aside with one hand and then his axe bit into the quarter knee cutting the grapnel line. Forward Poll showed the lantern and on board Kestrel all hands walked away with the hemp rope. Musket shot whistled round them and two or three struck splinters from the gunwales.

Wearily Drinkwater raised his head, eager to see the familiar loom of Kestrel over him. Ten yards to go, then safety. To seaward he thought he saw something else. It looked very like the angled peaks of a lugger's sails.

Even as he digested this they were alongside and arms were reaching down to help him out of the boat on to the deck. Roughly compassionate, Griffiths himself threw a boat cloak around Drinkwater while the latter stuttered out what he had seen.

'Lugger is it? Aye, bach, I've seen it already… are you all right?'

'Well enough,' stammered Drinkwater through chattering teeth.

'Get sail on her then. Mr Jessup! Larboard broadside, make ready…' Griffiths had given him the easy, mechanical job, Jessup's job, while he recovered himself. He felt a wave of gratitude for the old man's consideration and stumbled forward, gathering the men round the halliards at the fiferail. Staysail and throat halliards went away together, then the jib and peak halliards. The great gaff rose into the night and the sails slatted and cracked, the mast trembled and Kestrel fretted to be off.

There was a flash from seaward and the whine of a ball to starboard, surprising the men who had not yet realised the danger from the sea but who assumed they were to fire a defiant parting broadside at the beach.

The halliards were belayed and Drinkwater went aft to Griffiths.

'Da iawn, sheet all home to starboard then stand by to cut that cable.'

'Aye, aye, sir.' Drinkwater felt better. From somewhere inside, fresh reserves of strength flowed through him. The exercise at the halliards had invigorated him. He called the carpenter to stand handy with his axe and found Johnson already at his station. The sails thundered less freely now the sheets were secured.

'Larbowlines, man your guns, stand by to fire at the lugger!' Griffiths's words were drowned as the lugger's gunfire rent the air. A row of spouts rose close to starboard. 'Short by heaven,' muttered Drinkwater to himself.

'Cut!'

The axe struck twice at the cable. It stranded, spinning out the fibres as the strain built up, then it parted. Kestrel's bow fell off the wind.

'Meet her.' The stern was held by the spring, led from aft forward and frapped to the end of the severed cable. Kestrel spun, heeled to the wind and drove forward.

'Cut!'

At the after gunport Jessup sawed against the cavil and the spring parted. Leaving her jolly boat, two anchors and a hundred fathoms of assorted rope, Kestrel stood seaward on the larboard tack.

Drinkwater turned to look for the lugger and was suddenly aware of her, huge and menacing ahead of them. He could see her three oddly raked masts with their vast spread of high peaked sails athwart their hawse and he was staring into the muzzles of her larboard broadside.

'Oh my God! She'll rake, sir, she'll rake!' he screamed aft, panic obscuring the knowledge that they had to stand on to clear the bay.

'Lie down!' Griffiths's rich voice cut through the fear and the men dropped obediently to the deck. Drinkwater threw himself behind the windlass, aware that of all the cutter's people he was the most forward. When the broadside came it was ragged and badly aimed. The lugger was luffing and unsteady but her guns took their toll. The wind from a passing ball felt like a punch in the chest but Drinkwater rose quickly from his prone position, adrenalin pouring into his bloodstream, aware that the worst had passed. Other shots had struck home. Amidships a man was down. The lee runner and two stays were shot through and the mainsail was peppered with holes made by canister and two ball. Daylight would reveal another ball in the hull and the topsides cut up by more canister.

Griffiths had the helm himself now, holding his course, the bowsprit stabbing at the overhanging stern of the lugger as she drew out on the beam at point blank range. Drinkwater saw the captain of number 2 gun lower his match and his eyes lifted to watch the result of the discharge. As they crossed the stern of the lugger the priming spurted and the four-pounder roared. Not twenty feet away from him Drinkwater stared into the eyes of a tall Frenchman who stood one foot on the rail, grasping the mizen shrouds. Even in the darkness Drinkwater detected the commanding presence of the man who did not flinch as the ball tore past him. The two little ships were tossing in the rough sea and most of Kestrel's shot passed harmlessly over the lugger, but the flashes and roar of their cannon, firing as they bore, were gratifying to the cutter's crew.

Kestrel cleared the lugger's stern and Drinkwater walked slowly aft as Griffiths bore away. 'Get a couple of pairs of dead-eyes and lanyards into that lee rigging Mr Jessup,' he said passing the bosun who was securing the guns. He said it absently, his mind full of the sight of that immobile Frenchman.

'Do you think she'll chase, sir?' he wearily asked Griffiths.

He was relieved to hear Griffiths's reply took notice of reality.

'Bound to, boy-o, and we must run. Now slip below and shift that wet gear. Major Brown is opening my cognac. Help yourself and then we'll trice up a little more canvas and see what she'll do.'

She did very well. She was still being chased at daylight by which time they had rigged preventer backstays, had the squaresails drawing and stunsails set to leeward. At eight bells in the morning watch Drinkwater logged eleven knots as the cutter staggered, her bow wave a mass of foam driving ahead of her. Aft, by the weather running backstay, Griffiths hummed a tune, never once looking astern. By mid afternoon they could see the white cliffs of Dover and the lugger had abandoned them. Leaving the deck to Jessup they dined with Major Brown.

'That chasse marée was the Citoyenne Janine, French National Lugger,' said Brown, hungrily devouring a slice of ham. 'She's at the disposal of an audacious bastard called Santhonax… By heaven Madoc, I thought they had me that time; Santhonax had clearly got wind of my departure and intended to cut you off.' He munched steadily and swallowed, gulping half a glass of brandy. 'They