would be most uncivil!” Barnpfylde laughed at his small jest. Those crewmen of the Thuella who were suspected of being British seamen and deserters would face the worst fate. They would be placed in a ship’s boat and rowed past all the ships of Bampfylde’s command. In front of each ship, under the gaze of the crews, they would be lashed with the cat o‘ nine tails as a visible, bloody warning of the price a deserter must pay. The knotted thongs would flay their skin and flesh to the bone, but they would be restored to consciousness before they were hanged from the Vengeance’s yardarm. The others, the Americans, would be hanged ashore, without a flogging, as common pirates.
Lieutenant Ford hesitated. “Captain Frederickson, sir…” he began nervously.
“Frederickson,” Barnpfylde frowned. “That’s the fellow with the beggar’s face, yes?”
“Indeed, sir. He did say they were his prisoners. That he’d guaranteed them honourable treatment.”
Barnpfylde laughed. “Perhaps he thinks they should be hanged with a silken rope? They are privateers, Ford, pirates! That makes them the Navy’s business, and you will oblige Captain Frederickson to keep his opinions to himself Barnpfylde smiled reassurance at his lieutenant. ”I shall talk to the American officers myself. Send me my bargemen, will you?“
The capture of Cornelius Killick had given Captain Barnpfylde a particular and keen pleasure. American sea-men had twisted the Royal Navy’s tail, winning single-ship battles with contemptible ease, and men like Killick had become popular heroes to their countrymen. The news of his capture and ignominious death would teach the Republic that Britain could lash back when it so wished. Their Lordships of the Admiralty, Bampfylde knew, would be well pleased with this news. Not many enemies still defied Britain on the waves, and the downfall of even one, even though he be a common pirate, would be a rare victory these days.
“I am not,” Cornelius Killick said when he was brought into Bampfylde’s presence, “a pirate.”
Bampfylde’s fleshy face showed ironic amusement. “You’re a common and vulgar pirate, Killick, a criminal, and you’ll hang as such.”
“I carry Letters of Marque from my government, and well you know it!” Killick, like Lieutenant Docherty, had been stripped of his sword and his hands were bound behind his back. The American was chilled to the bone, furious and helpless.
“Where,” Bampfylde looked innocently at Killick, “are your Letters of Marque?”
“I got ‘em, sir.” Bampfylde’s bo’sun produced a thick fold of papers that Killick had carried in a waterproof pouch on his belt. Bampfylde took, opened, and read the papers with scant interest. The Government of the United States, in accordance with the customary laws, gave permission to Captain Cornelius Killick to wage warfare on the enemies of the Republic wherever on the High Seas those enemies might be found, and extended to Captain Killick the full protection of the said Government of the United States.
“I see no Letters of Marque.” Bampfylde threw the document on to the fire.
“Bastard.” Killick, like every privateer, knew that such letters offered small protection, but no captain liked to lose his papers.
Bampfylde laughed. He was scanning the other papers that were certificates of American citizenship for the Thuella’s crew. “A fanciful name for a pirate ship, Thuella?”
“It’s Greek,” Killick said scornfully, “and means storm-cloud.”
“An American educated in the classics!” Bampfylde mocked the fine looking man. “What miracles this young century brings!”
Bampfylde’s bo’sun, the man who governed the captain’s private barge, elbowed Lieutenant Docherty in the ribs. “This one’s no Jonathon, sir, he’s a bloody Mick.”
“An Irishman!” Bampfylde smiled. “Rebelling against your lawful King, are you?”
“I’m an American citizen,” Docherty said.
“Not any longer.” Bampfylde threw all the certificates on to the fire where they flared bright, then shrivelled. “I smell the whiff of the Irish bogs on you.” Bampfylde looked back to Killick. “So where’s the Thuella?”
“I told you.”
Bampfylde was not sure he believed Killick’s story that the Thuella was stranded, stripped, and useless, but tomorrow the brigs could search the Bassin d’Arcachon and make certain. Bampfylde also hoped that the rest of the privateer crew could be hunted down and brought to his justice. “How many of your crew are British subjects?” he asked Killick.
“None.” Killick’s face glared defiance. Fully one-third of his men had once served in the Royal Navy and Killick well knew what ghastly fate awaited them if they were discovered. “Not one.”
Bampfylde took a cigar from his case, cut it, then held a twisted paper spill made of a page torn from Lassan’s copy of Montaigne’s Essays in the fire. “You’re all going to hang, Killick, all of you. I could claim that you’re all deserters, even you!” He lit his cigar, then dropped the flaming spill. “You fancy a thrashing, Killick? Or would you prefer to tell me the truth?”
Killick, whose cigars had been stolen from him by a Marine, watched enviously as the British captain drew on the glowing tobacco. “Piss on you, mister.”
Bampfylde shrugged, then nodded to the bo’sun.
There were seven bargemen, all favourites of their captain, and all strengthened by their time at the oars. They were also veterans of countless brawls in dockside taverns and of the fights they had won when part of a press gang, and two bound men, however strong, were no match for them.
Bampfylde watched impassively. To him these two Americans were pirates, pure and simple, who wore no recognized uniform and their fate did not disturb him any more than he might worry about the rats in the Vengeance’s bilge. He let his men hit them, he watched the blood smear from split lips and noses, and not until both men were on the floor with bloodied faces and bruised ribs did he raise a hand to stop the violence. “How many of your men, Killick, are deserters?”
Before Killick could make any reply the door opened. Standing there, and with taut fury on his face, was Captain William Frederickson. “Sir!”
Bampfylde twisted in his chair and frowned at the interruption. He was not concerned that the Rifleman should witness this beating, but it offended Bampfylde that the man had not had the simple courtesy to knock first. “It’s Frederickson, isn’t it? Can’t it wait, man?”
It was evident that Frederickson was struggling to control his temper. He swallowed, drew himself to attention, and forced civility into his face. “I gave Captain Killick my word, as a gentleman, that he would be treated with respect and honour. I demand that my word is kept.”
Bampfylde was truly astonished at the protest. “They’re pirates, Captain!”
“I gave my word.” Frederickson stood his ground stubbornly.
“Then I, as your superior, have rescinded it.” Bampfylde’s voice was suddenly infused with anger at this soldier’s impertinence. “They are pirates and in the morning they will hang from a gallows. That is my decision, Captain Frederickson, mine, and if you say one more word on it, just one, then by God I will have you put under arrest like them! Now get out!”
Frederickson stared at Bampfylde. For a second he was tempted to dare Bampfylde to make good his threat, then, without a word, he turned and stalked from the room.
Bampfylde smiled. “Shut the door, Bo’sun. Now, where were we, gentlemen?”
In the fort’s yard, carpenters from the Scylla hammered six inch nails into beams that, when all the work was done, would be raised to make a gallows for the morning where Cornelius Killick, instead of dancing scorn about the Navy, would dance attendance on a rope.
Thomas Taylor, the Rifleman from Tennessee who had so far done his duty without murmur or protest, stopped Captain Frederickson close to the busy hammers. “Sir?”
“It’ll stop, Taylor, I promise you.”
Taylor, satisfied because of the fury on his captain’s face, stepped back. The air about the fort was ghostly with a mist that blurred the stars and touched frigid on Frederickson’s scarred skin. He saw his own anger mirrored in Taylor’s eyes and knew that loyalties were being stretched in this cold night. “It will stop,” he promised again, then went to wake Sharpe.
Sharpe struggled out of a dream in which he saw his wife as a flesh-rotted skeleton presiding at a tea- party. He groped for his sword, flinched from a stab of pain that seared in his bandaged head, then recognized the eye-patched face in the light of the horn-lantern that Frederickson carried. “Dawn already?” Sharpe asked.
“No, sir. But they’re beating the hell out of them, sir.” Sharpe sat up. It was piercingly cold in the room.
