Ratcatcher

“Of course he did,” Hawkwood said. “I heard it. I saw it, when Nathaniel brought me ashore.”

The Chief Magistrate shook his head. “No. He blew up a ship, not the ship.”

Hawkwood thought he might be going mad. Except Jago was grinning like a loon. He stared at them both.

Jago said, “They switched them, Cap’n. The sly buggers switched ’em.”

Hawkwood closed his eyes, waited, opened them again. Jago was still there, still grinning.

Jago glanced at the magistrate. “Well? Are you goin’ to tell ’im, or am I?”

James Read smiled. “I’d hate to deprive you of the pleasure, Sergeant.”

“Well, someone tell me,” Hawkwood said.

“All right,” Jago said. “First off, it wasn’t Thetis that blew up. It were the sheer hulk.”

“The what?”

“It’s what you might call the yard’s work ’orse, used for fetchin’ and liftin’. Dunno what ’er name was originally. Probably last saw action before we were born—well you at any rate. Now, where was I? Oh, aye…anyway, that’s how they did it.”

“The art of deception, Hawkwood. To hide in plain sight—isn’t that what they say?” The Chief Magistrate walked to the window and looked out on to the dockyard, where work was returning to normality after the morning’s excitement. “It seemed a logical solution to our dilemma. What to do if you failed in your assignment. We decided to employ a decoy. The sheer hulk was the only vessel close enough and large enough for our purposes. Our main problem was her appearance. Fortunately, we were able to employ both the yard’s workforce and the contents of her stores. We used two teams of men; one to paint the hulk, one to tarnish Thetis. Don’t forget, Thetis only had a jury mast. Neither was she rigged or coppered. It was not that difficult: some muddy canvas strategically placed, a web of old netting here and there, black paint to cover the ochre. The hulk was a bigger challenge, but we had the paint and the men. The carpenter’s shop provided us with a false name-board which we adhered to the hulk’s stern. Add banners, the Regent’s standard, crewmen…The disguise would not deceive a close observer, but we thought it might fool someone with a limited view, someone like William Lee on board his undersea boat.”

“God Almighty,” Hawkwood said.

“Our greatest enemy was time.” The magistrate turned from the window. “We could only guess, if you were unable to stop him, that Lee would wait until the morning tide to make his attack. We barely had time to board her crew. It was a close-run thing.”

“Paint was still wet,” Jago said. “That’s what finally tipped me the wink.” Then he saw the expression on Hawkwood’s face.

“You put a crew on board as well?” Hawkwood said. His voice was cold.

“We had to,” Read said. “To complete the deception.”

“Men died,” Hawkwood said.

Read nodded solemnly. “Four dead, seven injured.”

“An’ not an Englishman among ’em,” Jago said, then paused. “Well, save for one.”

Hawkwood looked at him.

“They used Frog prisoners of war. Togged ’em up in castoffs from the yard’s slop chests. That’s another thing that caught my eye: state of the officers’ uniforms. Bloody disgrace, they were. No self-respectin’ English officer’d be joining his ship lookin’ like he’d just walked out of the poor ’ouse. Thought it a bit strange. That, and the fact that everyone started yellin’ at each other in Frog. Weren’t natural.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” James Read said quietly, interpreting Hawkwood’s expression. “That there are conventions covering the treatment of prisoners of war. Quite true, though I would urge you not to grieve for the prisoners who perished on Thetis. Their fate had already been sealed. Had they not been killed in the explosion, they would have met their death on the gallows.”

Hawkwood continued to stare at the Chief Magistrate.

“The men who died were the ringleaders of a plot to gain control of the prison ship Gryphon. Four days ago, two dozen prisoners, under the leadership of a Lieutenant Duvert, led a revolt. Two marines were murdered. Their bodies were hung, naked, from the hulk’s gun ports. It was only through the bravery of the hulk’s commanding officer, Captain Childers, who led his marines into the bowels of the ship to apprehend the culprits, that the revolt was quashed and disaster averted.

“Some of the scoundrels attempted to conceal themselves among the rafales in the hulk’s lower decks to avoid detection. They even shed their clothes to blend in. Fortunately, the ruse failed. They were given up by their fellow prisoners who were sickened by the violence. It also helped that there was no love lost between Duvert and his cronies and the rafales.”

Hawkwood had heard of the rafales from a former marine who’d served as a prison guard on the hulks at Chatham. The rafales occupied the bottom rung of the prison ladder, literally. They lived in a state of perpetual darkness in the lowest parts of the prison hulks. Naked as moles, or with only a blanket for warmth, their miserable existence was due to their mania for gambling, which led them, upon the loss of their money, to part with their clothes, bedding and rations. The stronger-willed prisoners—such as Duvert and his followers—preyed upon them with the cold-blooded detachment of sharks. Which accounted for the rafales’ willingness to betray Duvert and his henchmen, Hawkwood supposed.

“Duvert and his men had already received their sentence before we learned of Lee’s plans for his submersible. I’ll lose no sleep in having consigned them to an earlier grave. I agree, Hawkwood, that the rules of war carry with them obligations, as do the regulations covering military prisoners. I shed no tears for cold-blooded murderers, however. Duvert and his men forfeited their rights as prisoners of war when they displayed the bodies of those two marines like plucked fowl on a butcher’s block.” The Chief Magistrate frowned. “We did make some allowances, endeavouring to reduce unnecessary carnage by positioning them all at the bow and stern, deducing that those would be the areas least likely to suffer damage. Though, in that regard, it would appear we made a severe miscalculation.”

“You said there was an Englishman.”

Jago nodded. “Aye. A mate of yours, as it happens.” The big man threw a glance at the magistrate.

James Read pursed his lips. “Proof of the pudding, Hawkwood. We had the ship, the flags, the Royal standard. We weren’t sure how good Lee’s intelligence was, how close he might get, so we needed the one thing that would convince William Lee that he had the correct target in his sights. We needed the Prince of Wales.”

Hawkwood rose from the pillows. Pain lanced through his shoulder. He sank back with a grimace, which changed to an expression of disbelief. “The Prince was on board?”

Read shook his head. “A substitute. A flesh-and-blood decoy who could pass for the Prince at a distance. Someone with the right girth and stature.”

“And he was a friend of mine?”

Read smiled. “Not exactly. The sergeant was being facetious, though you are acquainted with the individual.” The magistrate paused. “Certainly with his mother.”

Jago said, “They used Eli Gant.”

“Gant!” Hawkwood winced as pain flared again. These revelations were doing nothing for his chances of a speedy recovery.

“I recalled that he and the widow were occupying berths on one of the transportation ships at Dudman’s Yard, awaiting passage to the colonies. We did not inform the widow of the reason we were borrowing her son. Young Eli seemed quite taken with the notion. He liked the clothes.” The magistrate’s tone darkened. “I’ll see he’s buried in them. It seems only fitting.”

There was a silence in the room.

“Why the deception?” Hawkwood asked. “Why didn’t you put out nets? Why not just stop Lee? Why did you want him to carry out the attack?”

The Chief Magistrate remained silent. Hawkwood sensed a deep disquiet. Finally James Read spoke.

“Because we needed to see if the submersible worked.”

Despite the sunlight slanting through the windows, a chill moved through Hawkwood.