A King's Cutter

'What d'you mean?'

'His mind is close to the precipice of insanity. I've seen it before. He lives in his skull, Nat, a man with a bad conscience.'

Drinkwater considered what Appleby had said. A ship was no place for a man with something on his mind. 'You reckon he's winding himself up, eh?'

Appleby nodded. 'Like a clock spring, Nat…'

Drinkwater stood on the Gun Wharf at Sheerness and shivered, watching the boats coming and going, searching for Kestrel's gig among them. Beside him James Thompson, the purser, stood with the last of his stores. Merrick and Bolton were with him. Drinkwater was anxious to get back on board. The winter afternoon was well advanced and the westerly wind showed every sign of reaching gale force before too long.

Their refit was completed and they were under orders to join Vice-Admiral Duncan at Yarmouth.

'Here's the gig now,' said Thompson and turned to the two mess-men, 'get that lot into the boat smartly now, you two.' Drinkwater watched the boat pull in, Mr Hill at the tiller. As soon as it was secure he passed a bundle of charts, the letters and newspapers to the master's mate. Then he stood back while a brace of partridges, some cheeses, cabbages, an exchanged cask of pork and some other odds and ends were lowered into the boat.

'Bulman completed watering this afternoon, Mr Drinkwater,' volunteered Hill.

Drinkwater nodded. Thompson looked at Drinkwater. 'That's it, then.'

'Very well, James, let's get on board before this lot breaks,' he nodded to the chaos of cloud speedily eclipsing the pale daylight to the west, behind the broken outlines of the old three-deckers that formed the dockyard workers' tenements.

'Come on you two, into the boat…' Merrick descended the steps. 'Come on Bolton!' The man hesitated at the top, then turned on his heel.

'Hey!'

Drinkwater looked at Thompson. 'He's running, James!'

'The devil he is!'

'Mr Hill, take charge! Come on James!'

At the top of the steps Drinkwater saw Bolton running towards the old battleships.

'Hey!'

The wind was sweeping the wharf clear and Bolton pushed between two lieutenants who spun, a swirl of boat cloaks and displaced tricornes. Drinkwater began to run, passing the astonished officers. Already Bolton had reached the shadows in the lane leading to what was called the Old Ships, traversing the dockyard wall and away from the fort at Garrison Point. He knew that Bolton could not pass the sentries at the gates or cross the ditches that surrounded the place. He was making for the Old Ships and a possible way to Blue Town, the growing collection of inns, tradesmen's dwellings and brick built houses that was accumulating outside the limits of the dockyard.

Abruptly he reached a ditch, James Thompson puffing up beside him. At the top of the low rampart a short glacis sloped down to the water. It was slightly overgrown now, elderberry bushes darker patches against the grey-green grass. The pale sky in the west silhouetted a movement: Bolton. Drinkwater began running again. Thompson came after him then tripped and fell, yelling obscenities as he discovered a patch of nettles.

Drinkwater ran on, disturbing a rabbit which bobbed, grey-tailed, ahead of him before turning aside into a burrow. Then he approached the first of the hulks, vaguely aware that behind him shouts indicated where someone had turned out a foot patrol.

The old battleship rose huge above him, its lines made jagged with additions: chimneys, privvies and steps. The rusting chains from her hawse pipes disappeared into the mud and men were trudging aboard, looking at him curiously as he panted past them. The smell of smoke and cooking assailed his dilating nostrils and he drew breath.

A shadow moved out from the far hulk, a running man stooped along the tideline and Drinkwater wished he had a pistol. Bolton was making for a ramshackle wooden bridge that lay over the fosse, an unofficial short cut from the Old Ships to Blue Town. It was getting quite dark now. He clattered across the black planking over mud and a silver thread of water. The violent tug of the rising wind at his cloak slowed him and the breath was rasping in his throat at the unaccustomed exercise. To his right the flat expanse of salt marsh gave way to the Medway, palely bending away to Blackstakes and Chatham. To the left the huddle that was Blue Town.

It was almost dark when he entered the first narrow street. He passed an inn and halted. Bolton had evaded him. He must draw breath and wait for that foot patrol to come up, then they must conduct a house-to-house search.

'Shit!' Exasperation exploded within him. They had been at Sheerness for weeks. Why had Bolton chosen now to desert? He turned to the inn to make a start in the search. In the violence of his temper he flung open the door and was utterly unprepared for the disturbingly familiar face that confronted him.

The two men gaped in mutual astonishment, each trying to identify the other. For Edouard Santhonax recognition and capture were instinctively things to avoid. His reaction was swift the instant he saw doubt cloud Drinkwater's eyes. For Nathaniel, breathless in pursuit of Bolton, the appearance of Santhonax was perplexing and unreal. As his brain reacted to the change of quarry Santhonax turned to escape through a rear exit.

He attempted to shout 'Stop! In the King's name', but the ineffective croak that he emitted was drowned in the buzz of conversation from the artisans and seamen in the taproom. He pushed past several men who seemed to want to delay him. Eventually he struggled outside where he ran into the foot patrol. A sergeant helped him up.

'This way,' wheezed Drinkwater, and they pounded down an alleyway, no one noticing Bolton crouched beneath a hand cart in the inn yard, his heart bursting with effort, the scarred and knotted muscles of his back paining him from the need to draw deep gulps of air into his heaving lungs.

The sergeant spread his men out and they began to search the surrounding buildings. Drinkwater paused to collect his thoughts, realising they were now hunting two men, though the soldiers did not yet know it. He thought Santhonax might have doubled on him. It was quite dark and Drinkwater was alone. He could hear the sergeant and his men calling to each other further down the lane. Then the rasp of a sword being drawn sounded behind him.

He spun round.

Santhonax stood in the alleyway, a grey shadowy figure with a faint gleam of steel barring the passage. Drinkwater hauled out his hanger.

They shuffled cautiously forward and Drinkwater felt the blades engage. He could hear a voice in his head urging him not to delay, to attack simply and immediately; that Santhonax was quite probably a most proficient swordsman. Now!

Barely beating the blade and lunging low, Drinkwater extended. But Santhonax was too quick and leapt back, riposting swiftly though off balance. Drinkwater's parry was clumsy but effective.

They re-engaged. Drinkwater was blown after his run. Already his hanger felt heavy on his arm. He felt Santhonax seize the initiative as his blade was beaten, then, with an infinite slowness, the rasp of steel on steel, he quailed before the extension. He clumsily fell back, half turning and losing his balance and falling against the wall. He felt the sharp prick of the point in his shoulder but the turn had saved him, he was aware of Santhonax's breath hot in his face, instinctively knew the man's belly was unguarded and turned his point.

'Merde!' spat the Frenchman leaping back and retracting his sword. Drinkwater's feeble counter attack expended his remaining energy on thin air. Then he was aware of the swish of the molinello, the downward scything of the slashing blade. He felt the white fire in his right shoulder and arm and knew he was beaten.

He had been precipitate. He had broken his promise of circumspection to Elizabeth. As he awkwardly sought to parry his death thrust, the hanger weighing a ton in his hand, he felt Santhonax hesitate; was aware of running feet pounding up the alleyway from his rear, of something warm and sticky trickling over his wrist. Then he was falling, falling while running, shouting men were passing over him and above them the wind howled in the alleyway and made a terrible rushing noise in his ears. He could run no more.