A King's Cutter

Drinkwater found the sudden froglike jerks of his arms amusing as the man burst into a torrent of French. But the atmosphere of the room extinguished this momentary lightening of his spirit. The silent man remained rigid.

Dungarth placated the Frenchman in his own tongue, then turned to Griffiths. The lieutenant was still shaking his head but Dungarth's look was sharply imperative. Drinkwater caught a glimpse of the old Devaux, not the ebullient first lieutenant, but a distillation of that old energy refined into urgent compulsion. Griffiths's glance wavered.

'Very well, my lord,' he growled, 'but only under protest and providing there is no swell.'

Dungarth nodded. 'Good, good.' The earl turned to the window. 'There will be no swell with the wind veering north-east. You must weigh this evening… Mr Drinkwater, how pleasant to see you again, come join us in a glass before you go. Madoc, pray allow Drinkwater here to send his mail up with yours, I'll have it franked gratis in the usual way, messieurs…' Dungarth addressed the Frenchmen, explaining the arrangements were concluded and Drinkwater noted a change in the seated man's expression, the merest acknowledgement. And this time he could not repress a shudder.

Neither the wine nor the facility of writing to Elizabeth eased his mind after he and Griffiths returned to Kestrel. The sparkling view, the shadowing castle, the frantic desperation of the Frenchman, the haunted aura of his companion and above all the misgivings of Griffiths had combined with a growing conviction that their luck must run out.

Kestrel must be known to the fanatical authorities in France and sooner or later they would meet opposition. Drinkwater had no need of Griffiths's injunction that as a British officer his presence on a French beach was illegal. An enquiry as to the fate of his predecessor had elicited a casual shrug from the lieutenant.

'He was careless, d'you see, he neglected elementary precautions. He died soon after we landed him.'

Drinkwater found his feeling of unease impossible to shake off as Kestrel carried the tide through the Alderney Race, the high land of Cap de la Hague on the weather quarter. The sea bubbled under her bow and hissed alongside as the steady north-easterly wind drove them south. The Bay of Vauville opened slowly to larboard and, as the night passed, the low promontory of Cap Flammanville drew abeam.

Judging by his presence on deck Griffiths shared his subordinate's uneasiness. Once he stood next to Drinkwater for several minutes as if about to speak. But he thought better of it and drew off. Drinkwater had heard little of the conversation at Walmer. All he really knew was that the night's work had some extra element of risk attached to it, though of what real danger he had no notion.

The night was dark and moonless, cold and crystal clear. The stars shone with a northern brilliance, hard and icy with blue fire. They would be abeam of the Bay of Sciotot now, its southern extremity marked by the Pointe du Rozel beyond which the low, dune-fringed beach extended six miles to Carteret. The wide expanse of sand was their rendezvous, south of the shoals of Surtainville and north of the Roches du Rit. 'On the parallel of Beaubigny,' Griffiths had said, naming the village that lay a mile inland behind the dunes. 'And I pray God there is no swell,' he added. Drinkwater shared his concern. To the westward lay the ever-restless Atlantic, its effect scarcely lessened by the Channel Islands and the surrounding reefs. There must almost always be a swell on the beach at Beaubigny, pounding its relentless breakers upon those two leagues of packed sand. Drinkwater fervently hoped that the week of northerlies had done their work, that there would be little swell making their landing possible.

He bent over the shielded lantern in the companionway. The last few sand grains ran the half hour out of the glass and he turned it, straightening up with the log slate he looked briefly at his calculations. They must have run their distance now. He turned to Griffiths.

'By my reckoning, sir, we're clear of the Surtainville Bank.'

'Very well, we'll stand inshore shortly. All hands if you please.'

'Aye, aye, sir.' Nathaniel turned forward.

'Mr Drinkwater… check the boats, now. I'll sway out the second gig when you leave. And Mr Drinkwater…'

'Sir?'

'Take two loaded scatter guns…' Griffiths left the sentence unfinished.

Drinkwater paced up and down the firm wet sand. In the starlight he could see the expanse of beach stretching away north and south. Inland a pale undulation showed where the dunes marked the beginning of France. Down here, betwixt high and low water, he walked a no-man's-land. Behind him, bumping gently in the shallows, lay the waiting gig. Mercifully there was no swell.

'Tide's making, zur.' It was Tregembo's voice. Anxious. Was he a victim of presentiment too?

It occurred to Drinkwater that there was something irrational, ludicrous even, in his standing here on a strip of French beach in the middle of the night not knowing why. He thought of Elizabeth to still his pounding heart. She would be asleep now little dreaming of where he was, cold and exposed and not a little frightened. He looked at the men. They were huddled in a group round the boat.

'Spread out and relax, it's too exposed for an ambush.' His logic fell on ears that learned only that he too was apprehensive. The men moved sullenly. As he watched he saw them stiffen, felt his own breath catch in his throat and his palms moisten.

The thudding of hooves and jingle of harness grew louder and resolved itself into vague movement to the south. Then suddenly, running in the wavelets that covered its tracks a small barouche was upon them. The discovery was mutual. The shrill neighing of the horses as they reared in surprise was matched by the cries of the seamen who flung themselves out of the way.

Drinkwater whirled to see the splintering of the boat's gunwale as a hoof crashed down upon it. The terrified horse stamped and pawed, desperately trying to extricate itself. With the flat of his hanger Drinkwater beat at it, at the same time grabbing a rein and tugging the horse's head round clear of the gig.

A man jumped down from the barouche. 'Êtes-vous anglais?'

'Yes, m'sieur, where the hell have you been?'

'Pardon?'

'How many? Combien d'hommes?'

'Trois hommes et une femme, but I speak English.'

'Get into the boat. Are you being followed?'

'Oui, yes… the other man, he is, er, blessé' …he struggled with the English.

'Wounded?'

'That is right, by Jacobins in Carteret.'

Drinkwater cut him short, recognising reaction. The man was young, near collapse.

'Get in the boat,' he pointed towards the waiting seamen and gave orders. Two figures emerged from the barouche, a man and a woman. They stood uncertainly.

'The boat! Get in the boat…' They began to speak, the man turning back to the open door. Angry exasperation began to replace his fear and Drinkwater called to two seamen to drag the wounded man out of the carriage and pushed the dithering fugitive towards the gig. 'Le bateau, vite! Vite!'

He scooped the woman up roughly, surprised at her lightness, ignoring the indrawn breath of outrage, the stiffening of her body at the enforced intimacy. He dumped her roughly into the boat. A waft of lavender brought with it a hint of resentment at his cavalier treatment. He turned to the men struggling with the wounded Frenchman. 'Hurry there!' and to the remainder, 'the rest of you keep this damned thing afloat.' They heaved as a larger breaker came ashore, tugging round their legs with a seething urgency.

'Damned swell coming in with the flood,' someone said.

'What about the baggage, m'sieur?' It was the man from the carriage who seemed to have recovered some of his wits.

'To hell with the baggage, sit down!'

'But the gold… and my papers, mon Dieu! My papers!' He began to clamber out of the boat. 'You have not got my papers!' But it was not the documents that had caught Drinkwater's imagination.

'Gold? What gold?'

'In the barouche, m'sieur,' said the man shoving past him.

Drinkwater swore. So that was behind this crazy mission, specie! A personal fortune? Royalist funds?