Hoare and the headless Captains

Chapter XIII

Mr. Hackins of the Swallowed Anchor had an additional packet of correspondence for Hoare, routine correspondence about Royal Duke's high costs, so the lie he had told his conscience had been unnecessary.

He found Eleanor Graves standing in the inn's sundrenched parlor window, foursquare as always, roundabout and appealing. There was an empty basket on her arm, and she was smiling gently at a jubilant Jenny. Dignified, the kitten Order lay in the child's arms, making the sound of a very small tumbrel. Mrs. Graves's friend, Miss Jane Austen, sat across the room by the fireside, her slightly angular, slightly faded face observant now as always. He acknowledged her presence with a polite bow, which she returned from where she sat.

When Mrs. Graves saw Hoare, her smile disappeared. She merely nodded at him before returning her attention to the little girl.

"Look, look, Mr. Hoare! The nice lady brought me a kitten! Please, sir, may I keep 'er-her?"

"I promised you that when you had learned to write all the letters in the alphabet you should have a kitten, and Susan told me you have done so," Hoare said. "But if I remember correctly, it is a boy kitten."

"Yes, I 'ave-have, sir, and now she's teaching me to 'broider them. Soon as I've comforted my kitten, I'll show you, shall I?"

"Do so, Jenny. But you are Order's Captain now, you know, and must make sure he is fed whenever he goes on watch… And you must teach him to be a sober cat and true, and attentive to his duty."

"Oh, I will, sir; I will! Susan, Susan! See what the lady's brought me!" Jenny spun on her toes, pale hair flying, and was about to dart off when Hoare brought her up all standing.

"Manners, Jenny. You must remember to thank Mrs. Graves."

Jenny turned again, made an awkward bob to Eleanor Graves and said, "Thank you, ma'am," quite properly, and sped into the kitchen with her Order in her arms.

Eleanor Graves had not yet spoken to Hoare. Now she did.

"I learn, Captain Hoare," she said, "that I am to wish you happy in your forthcoming marriage to Miss Anne Gladden of Broadmead. I do so, of course." Her voice was not that of one who extended the wish in all sincerity. Did it even sound a little forlorn? He gulped. He had not yet had the chance to explain the charade to Eleanor.

"The news will have come from Miss Austen," he declared.

"Indeed. And confirmed by Sir Thomas Frobisher."

Sir Thomas must have rushed back to Weymouth in all haste, to announce Hoare's perfidy to all the world- especially, and foolishly, to Eleanor Graves. But Hoare had not yet clawed off this lee shore.

"Not so, Eleanor," he said. "What neither of your… eager informants could know, and therefore could not tell you, is that the betrothal is a farrago, a fraud, a piece of make-believe."

Miss Austen's expression did not change, not by a jot. This woman, Hoare thought, is formidable, indeed. But why had she taken him in such distaste, almost from the beginning? She had spoken then of her and Eleanor having "dowded it together" in Bath before Eleanor married her crippled physician of a husband and left Jane to dowd it alone. Could she have feelings for her old friend Eleanor Graves that were of a Sapphic nature? He had heard of such things.

"Oh?" Eleanor Graves asked. "That is hardly what I expected you to say, sir. Are you telling me that you have offered for the poor girl for reasons of your own-reasons that are hardly likely to be gentlemanly, since you openly state your intention to jilt her? A knavish trick indeed, sir. I had thought you more of a gentleman."

"The case is quite different, Eleanor," Hoare whispered. "Will you not be seated while I explain it?"

"Not at present, sir. I prefer to remain standing. But begin, if you wish."

Hoare began. Soon Eleanor Graves took the seat Hoare had offered her. Shortly thereafter, the welcome crinkles reappeared at the corners of her mouth. At last she burst into a throaty gurgle of laughter. Miss Austen's expression was carefully null.

"My, Bartholomew. You have, indeed, embroiled yourself. But I must say, you have embroiled poor Sir Thomas even more deeply. You have forked him, in fact."

Hoare was not at all sure he had heard the lady correctly. "Ma'am?" he asked.

"Oh. I recall now; you do not play chess, do you? We shall have to remedy that in due course. Well, Bartholomew, the 'fork' is a move in chess-a truly wicked move- to a spot from whence a player can take either of two of his opponent's major pieces without risking more than the loss of his threatening lesser piece. Often a knight will threaten a queen and a castle or even put the other player's king into an ignominious check.

"You have done that to Sir Thomas. With one inspired move, you have deprived the poor knight, at one time, of two possible captures-wives, that is. For when he rushed to tell me how you had snatched little Miss Gladden out from under his nose, he did not think of how I would react to his disclosure that, while vowing undying love for me, he had been hot after another. Well done, Bartholomew, well done!" Her chortle broke into a full-throated, unladylike belly laugh.

Miss Austen, who did not laugh, had a sudden headache, begged to be excused, and withdrew.

"But you would not have accepted Sir Thomas in any case, would you?" Hoare asked anxiously.

"Sir Thomas? At this point, I should play the flirt, if only in revenge for the shock you gave me," she said. "But-no, Bartholomew, no. I would not. I am no Princess, so I need kiss me no frogs. Besides, my heart is bestowed elsewhere.

"Now, Miss Austen and I have calls to make and a visit to pay to Madame LaFarge, the mantua maker in the High Street. So go, and examine Miss Jenny's prowess with her pen. Come, Jane!" she called upstairs, merciless as Admiral Sir George Hardcastle.

Once Jenny Jaggery had proudly displayed her sampler and her calligraphy to Hoare, returned into her mouth the tongue that had helped her perform, and obtained Hoare's confirmation that she was properly and permanently entitled to the kitten, Order, she demanded to accompany him to Royal Duke's gig.

"Can you find your own way back to the inn?" Hoare asked.

"Oh, yes, sir." Jenny's voice was earnest. "Susan lets me go everywhere with her. She even lets me carry her market basket sometimes."

"Good. Come along, then. You may carry my packet."

Having bade farewell to Order and told him to keep a sharp lookout for the Frogs, Jenny took Hoare's packet of correspondence in her little paw. She put her other hand in his and stepped off at his side, swinging their linked hands and skipping occasionally to keep up with her guardian as he strode.

"The fat lady who gave me my kitten. She's nice. Is she your doxy, then?" Jenny looked up at him with wide black eyes. They widened still farther when she felt Hoare's reaction. He stopped in the middle of Weymouth's esplanade and glared down at her in a way he had never thought to use upon her before.

"Fat lady? Doxy? Are you speaking of Mrs. Eleanor Graves, you young vixen?"

"Me famble, sir!" Jenny squeaked, slipping back into the cant she had heard her father use. "Yer 'urtin' me dab!"

Realizing he was crushing the hand he had been holding so gently before she spoke, Hoare brought himself under control. He crouched down so as to look the child in the eyes. They were full of tears.

"I'm s-sorry, sir! Did I say summat what made ye parky? I'll never do it again, sir, truly. But she is fat, sir; ain't she?" Jenny asked timidly.

"The more for us to love, lass, if so. But I would be far more pleased if you were to speak of her as 'well endowed.' "

"Well endowed then, sir. But… what about t'other?"

"The other, Jenny?"

"Wot I called her."

"Oh. No, Mrs. Graves isn't my doxy. I hope she will do me the honor of becoming my wife."

"Ooh," Jenny said.

Looking down at the little person beside him, Hoare realized she was a person, indeed, a cheerful, determined person who deserved far more attention-love, in fact- than a toy or a pet casually picked up in some foreign port like a monkey. "Cause me to remember thy loving kindness in the morning," he said, dredging the words from some part of his unconscious.

"And… if we are both good," he added, "your stepmother. And Order, the kitten's, as well. Now, come along. We mustn't keep Royal Duke waiting, must we? There isn't a moment to lose."

"Ooh," Jenny said again. In her astonishment, all her new, precarious, proper pronunciation fled once more. "I never really 'ad, had, a muwer, mother, before. Orta be nice."

On deck in the light October mizzle, Hoare placed himself where, without interfering, he could observe the attempts of Royal Duke's starboard gun crews to complete the mock reloading of their pieces. While they were still agonizingly maladroit, the men no longer tripped each other up as a matter of course. Nonetheless, if the Royal Dukes did not soon better their current four minutes between broadsides, Mr. Clay and Stone would join in an apoplexy. Two minutes would rate as only fair for a broadside of eighteen-pounders, so one minute should have sufficed for Royal Duke's popguns.

Stone, the borrowed gunner, was at least visibly suppressing the stream of oaths with which he would have accompanied his teaching had he been dealing with experienced hands. Instead, Hoare was glad to see, Stone had the judgment to know that these people, inept though they might still be, had come to their task more than willing already. They needed no tongue-lashing to do their best.

Meanwhile, Mr. Clay was exercising another gun crew.

"Hand me your handspike for a minute, Burkitt," he said. "Now, watch the way I use it to move the piece."

With the handspike, Clay shifted the aim of the piece, from as far aft as the port allowed to a point well forward of the beam.

"Now try doing it my way," he said, handing the implement back to the burly Burkitt. "It took me two hands. With your size, you should even be able to do it with one hand and handle the outhaul with the other."

Burkitt did so. "I'll be swiggled," he said.

Coming alongside, a waterman hailed Royal Duke's quarterdeck. He had to reach up to grasp the brig's rail with only one hand while extending an envelope with the other.

"For Captain 'Oare," he said to the ship at large. "There'll be a shillin' for me, messenger sez."

The man snatched the envelope out of reach as Hoare reached for it.

"Not till I sees the color of yer money, mister. No shillin', no letter."

Hoare dug into his pocket for the ransom. It was outrageous, but, after all, the man had rowed out to the yacht just to deliver one letter, a trip that was no shorter than it would have been had he been bringing Hoare himself aboard.

"Thanky, guv'nor," the wherry man said, and shoved off. Hoare examined the letter where he stood. The seal's sapphire blue wax marked its sender for him instantly; of his acquaintance, only Selene Prettyman had the audacity to use such a color. He broke the seal without further thought, however, and tore open the envelope.

The communication within was brief, but it brought all Hoare's senses to the alert.

Plymouth, 23 October

Mr. Hoare:

I return from Dorchester, where H. R. H. and his cronies-including your humble servant-have been rehearsing a Black Mass or similar pagan rite of an orgiastic nature. The ceremony itself, I am told, is to take place on the night of 31 October, at that Nine Stones Circle, which is of such interest to you. I am to play a major part in it, such as Hecate, Baubo, or some other equally naughty deity.

I have taken the liberty of informing Sir George to that effect. You will know what to do about it, if anything.

Yr. obedient, etc.

SP

Now, perhaps, Hoare's training of the seamen and Marines in Royal Duke would bear fruit. He ducked below into his shrunken cabin, lit now only by the skylight, to write ashore on a slip of tissue for permission from Admiralty House for a cruise to the westward. Then he wrote a second message, this one to Rabbett and Thoday in Dorchester. A faint acrid scent of pigeon guano seeped from behind the ugly new bulkhead that blocked the brig's beautiful little stern window from view.

His messages written, Hoare summoned Hancock, the pigeon man, to send them off. Now, by God, was the time to put his plans for Royal Duke into effect. If only Niobe, too, were about to weigh anchor! He hoisted signal to Admiralty House: "Preparing for sea," and directed the same signal to the attention of Niobe. He vowed one of the ship's pigeons to Aeolus as a thank-you offering for the mild northerly breeze. Perhaps, given the gentle seas that would result, enough of Royal Duke's people would be able to keep their bellies in order to handle the brig. Hoare was lucky that his Marines were back aboard, for while they had pigeons with them that could bring him their news, he could send nothing by that means. The birds would be unable to find a moving destination like his live green Lobsters.

The Admiral must have been in good spirits, for it was less than ten minutes before Royal Duke's number rose to the signal mast at Admiralty House, followed by the expected: "Why have you not weighed anchor?"

Hoare whistled for Mr. Clay.

"Sir?" Clay could read the signal as well as Hancock or Hoare. He was already at Hoare's side, breathing fire.

Hoare, too, stood straighter as his Lieutenant brought Royal Duke to life at last. It all came back to him.

"Set sail, Mr. Clay. Set her course for Weymouth."

Mr. Clay nearly goggled at his Commander. Then he grinned and turned.

"All hands to unmoor!" he cried in a voice that would have roused a sleeping seventy-four. "This is no drill!"

More calmly, as the astonished Royal Dukes set about obeying in earnest, he added, "Let fall the topsails!"

In so small a vessel, topsails were commonly set before unmooring. Led aloft by the hooting Iggleden, the assigned topmen swarmed out onto the two topsail yards. His heart in his mouth lest one of his Jack Newcomes lose his footing and drop, Hoare craned his neck to watch them. The snowy virgin topsails dropped, flapping gently in the light air.

Clay had recovered his self-control. "Tacks and sheets; cast for the starboard tack."

The topsails, still flapping, were brought under control. Royal Duke jibbed like a filly, straining to go westerly but still restrained by her mooring.

"Ready there, forrard?"

"Aye!" came from the forepeak.

"Cast off, then!"

As the slip rope came aboard, Royal Duke gathered stern way momentarily, but when Clay called for tacks and sheets to be trimmed, the topsails gave a soft, brief thunder, took on their graceful sheer, and thrust the brig forward. Now the hands set topsails, fore-staysail, and spanker. For the first time in her career, Royal Duke was under sail in the charge of her own crew, proud and eager.

"Brace up forward. Make a course for Yarmouth, Mr. Clay," Hoare ordered.

Hoare realized that he had hardly breathed during the entire simple maneuver. Royal Duke had run athwart no one's hawse; nothing had carried away; no one had gone overboard. Though woefully slow by Navy standards, her crew had unmoored as well as the average merchantman could, and a good deal more tidily.

"No jeers from our neighbors this morning, Mr. Clay," Hoare said.

"No, sir."

Royal Duke steadied on her course. Under easy sail, she threw only a small bow wave against the blue waters of the Solent. Now she heeled a strake or two. Her tender, Hoare's Alecto, chuckled along in her wake like a filly foal behind her dam.

A light leftover sea from ahead threw a sprinkle of foam over her bows; she gave a minute heave. In response, one or two smothered groans of distress arose forrard.

"To leeward, damn you, to leeward!" Clay bawled.

Stone picked up one sufferer bodily and heaved him to the larboard rail just in time to spew over the side. Other hands set to without orders to pretty up all lines once again-the one skill the Royal Dukes had learned during those endless months when their ship had lain in the Thames estuary, in danger of grounding on her own beef bones.

"Now, then, steady as he goes, Taylor," said Lovable Bold, the borrowed bosun, as he turned the helm over to the cryptographer. "Time you earned yer rating."

Seeing that Taylor's lips were clenched in her teeth, Bold waited within reach until she had begun to learn the brig's ways before starting forward.

"How does she steer?" Hoare asked.

"She gripes a bit, sir," Taylor said.

"Better than a lee helm."

"Aye. Especially with this crew," Clay inteqected. "But if we want to make her easier, all we need do is move a handful of pigeon feed forrard."

Hoare suppressed a snort of laughter. That had been the first witty remark he had heard his Lieutenant make. Perhaps getting under way at last was putting him at his ease; certainly it was unknotting Hoare.

The two now hastily put together a schedule of training that would break in the Royal Dukes between Spithead and their arrival off Weymouth.

"Perhaps, sir, we shall even be able to fire the great guns. It would surely encourage the crew were we to do so. The noise, you know." Mr. Clay sounded eager. Since there was no longer any point in Hoare's keeping his plans from the other officer, he revealed them. Clay was visibly jubilant.

"Let us complete the day by saluting the sunset, then," Hoare concluded. "But first, let us put her through her paces."

So, once they had cleared the Needles and were out of sight of the nearly empty anchorage, Clay set all hands to lowering Royal Duke's topmasts and topgallants and sweating them up again, stretching out onto her yards and back again, over and over, until their palms bled and they could barely stagger. Even then, they needed no urging. At the last, Clay even had them set the brig's stun-sails and her kerchiefs of royals. Under these, the little yacht swept seaward until Hoare recollected his orders and made his Lieutenant take in the little scraps so they could beat back into protected waters. All this while, Alecto towed obediently behind.

Finally, Hoare permitted Clay to drop off a beflagged cask. After working her up to windward, he shortened sail and put Royal Duke in position to sweep down again upon the cask, gliding westward a cable's length north of the target.

"Proceed, Mr. Clay," Hoare said.

"Silence, fore and aft."

The command was not necessary, for Royal Duke was only whispering across the water. Silence was already complete, expectant. Up flew the four larboard gun ports.

"Cast loose your guns," Clay ordered. "Out tompions."

At each side-tackle, a man heaved, to roll the four-pounders inboard so the tompions could be removed from their muzzles. Long since, Mr. Clay had had the charges drawn and replaced. There had been a rat's nest in one of the guns, though how the rat had gotten inside the gun in the first place passed Hoare's imagination.

"Run out your guns." Out trundled her gleaming miniature broadside.

"Level your guns."

"Prime." Each Captain broke the fresh cartridge at the bottom of his gun's bore, using the priming iron hung from a lanyard around his neck. The Captain of Number Two gun, however, fumbled at his throat and looked at his Lieutenant in agony.

Stone reached out with a spare. "Ere, Gridley. But yer grog's stopped tonight."

After using Stone's iron, Gridley returned it.

"Now get on with it, man. Catch up with the others; they're a-waitin'."

"You may fire when ready, Gridley," Clay said.

Hastily, Gridley poured a handful of powder into his gun's vent and stood to attention.

"Point your guns." The four Captains leaned over to peer along their guns' barrels and heaved on the pry-bars they used to train their pieces. Royal Duke rolled a trifle.

"Fire as you bear."

The sharp little hiss of the burning fine powder in the first gun to bear was the only one of its kind not drowned by the subsequent bursts. As Clay had said they would, the gun crews broke into spontaneous cheers at the noise, the orange-red bursts of fire, and exhilarating backdraft of pungent powder smoke.

Three little waterspouts rose, all well distant from the target keg. More cheers. Number Two gun, last to bear and to fire, now had all hands' attention. The cask flew apart in a shower of staves.

"I'll be go to hell," said Stone. Then, under Clay's shout of, "Stop your vents!" he added, "You've just earned yer grog back, Gridley."

"Sponge your guns!" Clay called.

Then, "Load with cartridge."

The four powder boys-none under twenty, actually, and one a woman-ran up with the grub-shaped charges, handed them firmly to the spongers. One sponger fumbled his catch, dropped his rammer, and tripped over it.

"Pick up the cartridge, Williams," Stone quietly told the powder boy. Then, seeing that the sponger had recovered his rammer, Stone said, "Now. Hand the cartridge to Miller. There. Carry on."

When he saw that all four cartridges had been loaded, Clay gave his next command. "Shot your guns."

Now the cycle was complete; all four larboard guns were ready to fire again.

"What time do you make it, Mr. Clay?" Hoare asked. He could not believe his own findings.

"Four and a half minutes, sir," Clay answered.

"Appalling," Hoare said.

"Yes, sir."

"Tack ship, Mr. Clay," Hoare whispered. "Larboard guns, cease fire; prepare for action starboard."

The four crews must now leave the weapons they had just fired and switch sides. This time, no cartridges were dropped, and Stone could stand fast to watch the crews do their utmost to prepare the starboard battery while Mr. Clay gave the commands that brought the brig about. To Hoare's relief, she did not hang in stays but went about like a lamb-though slowly, slowly. Another keg was dropped.

This keg survived, though the fall of shot threw spray on all sides of it. Royal Duke eased away and left it behind in the gathering twilight. The starboard broadside had achieved even worse time. At least, though, Hoare mused, he had let the brig fulfill Clay's desire to exercise the great guns in reality.

Royal Duke's gun ports once closed and her guns bowsed solid against them, the watch below could rest from its labors. Hoare's own labors, however, had just begun. During the morning, while the yacht was still short of the Needles, he had summoned Sergeant Leese to choose his landing party.

Hoare knew perfectly well that Leese knew far more than he himself ever would about the Dustmen's individual fighting and sneaking talents, so he had told the lantern-jawed Sergeant what he wanted and left the landing party's selection up to him. Bold and Stone had pressed themselves upon Hoare and Leese but were firmly rejected.

"You're needed aboard Royal Duke," Hoare told them.

"But I'm black, sir!" Bold said. "Black, and sneaky, too."

"No, Bold. You and Stone remain aboard. You're both too important to the ship's handling."

Leese's own five surviving Lobsters had threatened mutiny unless he gave them all the chance to avenge their beheaded messmate. To them he had added Butcher, master-at-arms and gymnast; the apelike Iggleden; Blackman, carpenter's mate and all-in wrestler; Jellyboy, black Indian strangler; and Mary Green, cook. Green had enlisted from among the "brutes" of Portsmouth. With forearms the size of many men's thighs and a projecting jaw under cropped hair, the very look of her gave Hoare a grue. As if she were not daunting enough in her own person, she carried her favorite cleaver.

Now, Hoare gathered the entire landing party around his lamp-lit cabin table for a briefing.

"We're going ashore tomorrow night," he told them. "Let me tell you why. You already know about how someone who doesn't like the Navy chopped off two Captains' heads-"

"An' cut poor Baker's froat, tu," came a voice. From the accent, it was Blackman, the wrestler. There was a general growl of agreement with Blackman's implication.

"Probably," Hoare said. He should have remembered that; it was only natural that the Royal Dukes would care more about their murdered shipmate than about the decapitation of two Post Captains whom they had never seen. It would go hard with any foe who got within these people's reach.

"Our objective," Hoare went on, "is to capture the leader or leaders of the band. I want to question him. If we cannot capture him, he must be killed. The leader may be in some kind of fancy dress. He could be either…"

Hoare described Spurrier and Sir Thomas Frobisher as best he could. He could not be certain that either would actually be the leader, but most signs pointed to it. He could not bring himself to point the finger at royalty as well, although he feared a second encounter with Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, more than he could say.

"He, or they, will probably speak like gentry and-I imagine-will do most of the talking, or preaching."

" 'Spect so, sir. The gentry ginerally do," said a voice from the group. Soft laughter followed. Even if he had wanted to, Hoare could not have helped joining in.

"Take the leader at all costs, and then as many of the others as you can, but don't chase any who get away," he continued.

" 'Ow many of 'em do yer expect us to be takin' on, sir?" Green growled.

"There's no telling, Green. Probably between five and fifteen. Some of them will be women," he added on a hunch.

Leese at his side, Hoare now showed them by map the terrain between their landing spot and Langton Herring and thence to Winterbourne Abbas.

"Any questions so far?"

"Where are we to lay up, sir?" Green asked.

"I'm coming to that," Hoare said, and told them the arrangement he had made with Mr. Dunaway for their accommodation.

"There's a chance there'll be others ahead of us in the barn," he said, "on business of their own. If so, you are to treat them as neutrals-neither friend nor enemy. Before any of us gets close, I'll signal to alert them. That'll show we're on their side."

" 'Appen they'll 'ave an anker of brandy fer us, then," Blackman said.

"If they do, we'll have to wait to broach it till our job is finished," Hoare said. "Now, listen carefully: " I shall repeat this tomorrow evening, before we go ashore and again before we shove off from the barn… By then, though, I'll expect each and every one of you to be able to tell it to the rest of us. In fact, I may have one of you do just that, so be prepared.

"All of you save Leese and myself will shift to landsmen's clothing before going ashore… Blackman and Green, for example, can easily pass for tinkers, Iggleden and Butcher for itinerant acrobats."

"That's wot I was, sir," Butcher declared.

"All the better," Hoare said. "Gather around, now.

"Here's a sketch map of the place where the enemy will be meeting. I got it from a man who's familiar with it in the line of business…

"… Get the map firmly in mind and take bearings. Do that now, for you won't have the map by you on the day. Leese will pass out compasses. Any of you who can't read a compass?"

Silence.

"Sergeant learned us t'other day, sir," Ledyard explained.

"Very good," Hoare whispered. "Now, at the barn, we shall divide into groups of two. Each pair… stays together, at all costs. We shall have the day to filter up to the Nine Stones Circle, each pair going its own way. Do not seem to be in haste, for you do not want to attract attention…

"… Besides, we have all day in which to make the Circle. In fact, any of you who are within sight and hearing of the Stones in daylight must heave to until dusk, keeping watch. In case the venture goes awry or you lose your way, Royal Duke should be lying off Weymouth by then. If she isn't, the rendezvous will be the cutter Walpole."

"If any of ye do go adrift, I'll 'ave yer guts fer garters," Leese interrupted as Hoare drew breath.

"After it's nearly dark, Sergeant Leese will signal you to take your places in the Circle. Leese, can you make some sort of country noise?" Hoare asked.

"Mm-ooooo-ooo-uh," Leese said lowly.

"Now, Leese will show you on the map where you are to place yourselves. Imagine it is dark, remember; and remember the map!"

Leese pointed out to each pair a spot in the Circle where it would be out of the other groups' way yet would have clear lines of sight to the place where he and Hoare would establish themselves. The Sergeant went over these posts with his people, with and without the map, until he could turn to the waiting Hoare and declare himself satisfied.

"When I judge that it's time to move on the enemy," Hoare now said, "I'll sound my whistle. Not before! On your life!"

With those words, not thinking of the likely consequences, Hoare demonstrated his whistle. A mounting thunder of footsteps ensued, from all parts of Royal Duke. First to burst through the door of Hoare's cabin was Mr. Clay, but the little Lieutenant was crowded out of the doorway and all but trampled underfoot by the press of his shipmates as they rallied to their Captain's summons. This ended the rehearsal.

"We shall have to cool that hot blood of yours, Mr. Clay," Hoare said, "before you shove off for Broadmead."