King, Ship, and Sword

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Oh, Christ on a crutch!" Lewrie groaned as he heard the shot, and the "View, Halloo" from the top of the cliffs. They had been discovered, and the rowing boat was still a half-mile offshore, and they weren't yet on the beach. "This'11 be close as dammit."

"Sir, such language…," Sir Pulteney objected, stiffening.

"Bugger me, that's that bastard Choundas up there," Lewrie went on, recognising his crow-caw voice, then Charitй's, and paying the prim Sir Pulteney no mind. "And that Charitй bitch, t'boot!"

They half-slid the last of the way, in a cloud of dirt, bounding recklessly through the last of the scree to hard, bare ground, then to deep, above-the-tideline sand! They would have rushed on to the surf, but for a second shot from above that ricocheted off one of the large boulders at the back of the cove, making them duck quickly into shelter of those boulders. "Lewrie! I have you at last!" Choundas howled.

Lewrie dug into his limp, mostly empty sea-bag to pull out the pair of old, used single-shot pistols he'd bought with his last French coin in St. Omer. They were big, blunt, ugly things, akin to the pistols dealt out from the arms chests aboard ship when a boarding action was likely; good for ramming into a foe's stomach or chest and fired, but unpredictable for anything much beyond ten or fifteen feet. "Pray God it'll take 'em about five minutes t'pick their way down that path. I don't s'pose you've a brace o' barkers handy, too, Sir Pulteney?" he said as he quickly loaded both with powder and shot, and primed their pans.

"No, there never was need of them back when I…," Sir Pulteney confessed, huddled over Lady Imogene, who was cowering close against the boulder. "Lived by our wits, d'ye see?" he lamely added.

"Wit's played out," Lewrie snapped. "Got a signal for 'hurry up' to yer schooner? Best make it, if ye do!"

Fortunately, the crew of the rowing boat, the mate conning her in, had heard the shots, had seen the torches and lanthorns atop the cliffs, and were almost bending their ash oars to hasten their pace.

"Tirez, tirez!" Choundas was demanding as soon as he was set on solid ground. "Shoot!" he commanded. "Kill them before they get off the beach!" A few Chasseurs obeyed him, firing wildly.

"Hold your fire!" Capitaine Vignon ordered his gendarmes. "The range is too long, and we are to arrest them!"

"Hold fire!" Major Clary was ordering the Chasseurs in a firmer command voice than Choundas's. "Down the path, mes amis, and capture them!"

"No, Denis, no!" Charitй shrilled, fumbling her re-loading with her furious haste. "Order your men to fire, for God's sake!"

"Down the path!" Clary ordered again, dismounting and drawing his musketoon from the saddle scabbard. "Right, Fourchette? Capture them?"

"Oh, Christ!" Fourchette cursed under his breath. It could've been so simple! One couple and two coachmen, buried in an un-marked forest grave! Now four people must die, along with the sailors from that schooner, yet the ship would still escape, and all Europe would hear of the First Consul's orders, hear and be outraged! But taken and privately executed later… "Marksmen! Keep them in hiding and away from that boat! Oui, capture them, Major Clary!"

"What? Non, dammit!" Choundas screeched. "You two… carry me down to the beach!" he ordered two Chasseurs. "I must be there to see them dead\" The Chasseurs looked to Major Clary, who nodded his assent with a sneer, and they hoisted him up, with a musketoon under his legs, and moved towards the head of the path down. Charitй, at last re-loaded, dashed ahead of them with the first of the soldiers.

Fourchette shook his head in disbelief as he followed, shoving his way past cavalrymen to catch up with her and Major Clary.

"Might be able t'pick one or two off and block the path," Lewrie muttered, with one loaded pistol stuck in a pocket of his slop-trousers, and the second in his hand. He rose to a half-crouch to look up-slope. Torches and lanthorns showed him his pursuers' progress; it was damned slow, so far! Above the sounds of the surf, he could make out the noise the French were making, stumbling, tripping, and sliding, and setting off small showers of gravel. There was a surprised shout as someone up there turned his ankle!

Soldiers or gendarmes atop the cliff fired at him, and he ducked down again as lead balls spanged off the boulders. Once the volley was spent, he popped up again, taking quick note that the people coming down the path were armed with short musketoons, weapons about as in-accurate as his own pistols, at any decent range.

Yonder t'that boulder, Lewrie schemed; up t'that big'un, then I will have a good slant at that sharp bend. Can't hope t'hit anyone, but they might waste a volley, duck, and have t're-load. That'd slow ' em down. Do it, damn yer eyes!

"Hang on a bit… be right back," Lewrie told the others, ducking down as another blindly aimed volley came their way.

"Alan, no!" Caroline wailed as he broke cover and ran for the first boulder, her hand trying to snatch at his loose fisherman's smock. "Why must he be such a damned fool!" she cried.

Only one or two shots followed him to his first hide, and then Lewrie was up and scrambling to the second. A moment to get his wind back, to calm his twanging nerves, and he stood up, levelling one of his pistols over his left arm to steady it, cocking it, and taking aim.

Bang! and he dropped out of sight. Spang-wail! went the ball as it caromed off the rocks by the sharp bend, then the instinctive discharge of seven or eight return shots, and the rattle of balls round his sheltering boulder.

A quick pop-up for a look-see! Soldiers were hunkered down in the boulders, groping for cartridges and ramrods. More shots-from the top of the cliff this time. Once they were spent, Lewrie rose and took aim with his second pistol at a Chasseur with a torch at the head of the pursuit, squeezing himself through the first tight space. He fired and ducked. Bang! Then a meaty Thunk! and a frightened shout. He'd hit one of the bastards!

That summoned another ragged volley from the cliff top, and one from the pursuers on the path, and Lewrie dashed back to that first boulder, then back to rejoin the Plumbs and Caroline.

"Pinked one, I think!" he chortled, quickly re-loading pistols. "They're tryin' t'be quick about it, but they're clumsy," he told them. "Frog chivalry! There's two of ' em carryin' Choundas, and more takin' care that Charitй don't fall and break her neck… please Jesus! One I hit was only at the first tight squeeze, and they'll have t'move him 'fore they get round it."

Another quick peek that drew more fire, and Lewrie put his back to their boulder to look out to sea. The schooner's rowing boat, with eight oarsmen stroking away like the Devil was at the transom, was only 150 yards off, and coming on strong. Another pop-up showed him that the leading French soldier was only halfway down the path, and behind him, there was a jam-up where the Chasseurs had to put Choundas down so he could squeeze through the first tight space on his own.

"Tide's out," Lewrie said. "It'll be round fourty or fifty yards to the boat when it grounds. Be a real dash t'get into her as soon as she grounds, which'll be… 'bout a minute, or less. They'll not have us! When we run, go straight to the boat, no weavin' about, that's useless. Understand me? Caroline?"

Voices above were shouting; oddly, Lewrie could understand every word, for once. French must be gettin' better, he thought, sharing a joyful grin with his wife. There was another volley of about a dozen rounds from the cliff top, a ragged later shot from the soldiers on the path. He stood and fired over the boulder, not even bothering to aim this time, just to make them cower… to fear, and slow down!

He looked at the Plumbs; they were not taking this well. Lady Imogene was whey-faced, her teeth chattering. Sir Pulteney, holding her, looked glazed-eyed and ashen in the first hints of false dawn, staring off at nothing.

He claimed t'be a soldier once! Lewrie scoffed; most-like the parade-ground sort, in a fashionable regiment, and their sort doesn't get sent to battle that often. Schooled in arms, sometime long before, but… playin' chameleon's more his style, not fightin' for his life!

Lewrie waited out another volley, then rose and fired his other pistol, quickly tumbling down upon his back as a few cleverer French waited for his response and took pot-shots at him.

"Alan!" Caroline yelped, crawling to him.

"I'm fine! Get back against the boulder!" he told her, dusting himself off and taking his own advise to scramble back to cover, too, where he began to re-load with what little powder, shot, and wadding he had left; enough for four more shots, total, he reckoned.

The sea, the surf; it didn't look much higher than two-foot waves as the waters funnelled into the inlet and raled upon the sands. A bit choppy but… their salvation was now within fifty yards offshore. Lewrie risked one more peek and saw that a Chasseur officer-damme but wasn't he the one he'd met at Bonaparte's levee?-another one with a torch, Charitй, and a weaselly-looking man in a dark suit were at the bottom of the worst of the path, just about to hit the scree-slope. There was Choundas, too, in all his ugliness, past the last squeeze-point and being carried again by two soldiers. It would be a very close thing!

Time t' run! Lewrie decided for them all.

"We're breakin' cover, now!" he snapped. "Kiss for luck, m'dear?"

He put his arm round Caroline, she took his face in both hands and kissed him as fiercely as their first night wed; it was hard for Lewrie to break away, to gather his nerve, and let go of her!

"On our feet, ready?" He asked. "Ready, ready… wait!"

There was yet another volley from the cliff top. Lewrie stood and backed out into the open, bracing himself for any clever bugger up yonder. Presented with a good target at last, those last few clever Frenchmen fired, but, thankfully, they were gendarmes, not soldiers, and missed wide of him with their short-barrelled musketoons.

Now for the rest! Lewrie told himself, dancing further out onto the beach, capering and waving his arms. "Va te faire foutre! Foutre Napoleon! And God bless King George!" he yelled at the Chasseurs on the path, then lifted one of his pistols and fired upwards, striking a Chasseur carrying a lanthorn in one hand and his musketoon in the other. He yelped, dropped both, and clapped a hand to his thigh, losing his footing. The Chasseur in front of him, trying to aim and fire, was swept off his feet, too, as the first landed on his back, then began to slide down the scree slope, taking the lead man with him in a whirl of arms and legs!

"Shot their bolt!" Lewrie yelled as he rushed back to the rocks, followed by sharp cracks of musket fire and plumes of sand from misses. "Ready, ready, gol" With Caroline's hand in his left, and his last pistol in his right, they dashed for the surf line and the boat, which was now pitching in the shallows, not ten yards from grounding!

There were a couple of stray shots chasing them, but the party remained untouched. The deep sand above the tide line dragged at their feet like cold treacle, slowing them, and all the while, weapons were being reloaded and desperate soldiers were all but throwing themselves down the path and the slope. Lady Imogene hitched up her skirts with both hands to run faster, and Lewrie let go Caroline's hand for her to do the same. Sir Pulteney dodged astern of his wife, to shelter her.

"Kill them, kill them, someone!" Guillaume Choundas was howling.

"On, men, on!" Major Denis Clary was urging with his sword out, his musketoon in his left hand. Yet another Chasseur slipped on loose rock and shale and went tumbling, arses and elbows, to join the first two who'd fallen and who lay at the base of the slope barely moving, still stunned. Clary came to a halt at the top of the scree, fearing that half his borrowed troopers would break their necks or legs if they went on.

Charitй half-slid to a stop beside him, eyes wild and hair dishevelled, panting open-mouthed at the exertions. Fourchette thumped to a halt with them, too, then came another Chasseur with a torch.

"It's too steep to…," Clary said, dry-mouthed.

"Shoot him!" Fourchette ordered. "You soldiers, shoot him!"

"Not loaded, m'sieur," the torch-bearer told him, fumbling for cartridges.

"Shoot which one, m'sieur?" a second asked, also re-loading.

"The younger man, shoot him!" Fourchette snarled, nigh crazed. "Major Clary, you are loaded?"

"Oui, shoot him, Denis!" Charitй shrilly demanded.

"I am loaded, m'sieur" Clary calmly told Fourchette. "But I will take no part in murder. Here… do it yourself," he added as he shoved his weapon at the police agent.

"They're almost in the boat!" Guillaume Choundas screamed with frustration as he stumped down to join them at last, leaning on one of the Chasseurs who had been carrying him. "Someone do something for God's sake!" he said, punching the soldier in the arm to urge him to raise his musketoon and use it.

As if in answer, the gendarmes atop the cliff let off a ragged volley, but at that range, their shots only struck sand-plumes round the fleeing Anglais, raised a waterspout or two somewhat close to the boat, which was now grounding, but fell wide of their marks. Choundas was almost whimpering with rage, grinding what few teeth remained as the bow men sprang from the rowing boat into waist-deep water to steady it and help the escapees aboard!

Fourchette sneered at Major Clary's ill-placed ideas of honour and tugged the lock of the musketoon to full cock, then put it to his shoulder.

He reckoned himself a decent shot with a pistol or musket, and this fumier Lewrie would not be the first man he had had to shoot down, but most of his kills had been at much closer range. He put the rudimentary notch rear sight and front blade sight in line, on Lewrie's back, just at the top of his spine, trying to lead his target as he ran the last few yards to the waiting boat. A down-hill shot, fifty mиtres or more off? Should he not hold even higher, to allow for the bullet-drop? he wondered, then lifted the sights to aim at the top of Lewrie's skull. Fourchette took a deep, steadying breath and let it out slowly, gently stroking the trigger… which did not move even a millimиtre rearward. His own weapons were made by a talented Parisian gunsmith, and this musketoon was a crude, mass-produced military firearm. More pressure on the trigger, then the lock released with an audible clunk, then… Bang!

Sir Pulteney might not have been an impressive figure of a man, but he was wiry; when he and Lady Imogene reached the boat, he lifted her from behind, not breaking stride, and practically hurled her into the arms of the second-tier oarsmen, then scrambled over the larboard side, tumbling into the boat head-down. Lewrie reached it a second later, hoisting Caroline with both hands on her waist, his face in the small of her back for a second as a starboard oarsman took her by her upper arms to hoist her up and over the gunnel.

Sailors' shouts, the mate's orders by the tiller, the thud and rushing hiss of surf and… a buzz-hum! and then a meaty thunk of a bullet. Hot wetness sprayed his face, blinding him.

Christ, I'm killed! he thought, amazed that he'd neither heard the fatal shot nor felt the hammer-blow impact of his death.

"Sweet Jesus, no!" Lady Imogene was screaming.

"'Em murd'rin' Frog bashtits!" a sailor cursed while two men seized him by his arms and armpits and threw him into the boat, down onto the sole, with his legs atop a thwart.

"Alan?" a faint, weak, and fearful cry, almost lost in the rale of the next wave breaking on the beach, a phantom voice.

Go game! Lewrie told himself; make a brave face for her!

Lewrie lifted a hand from the sole, dripping with seawater from the splashing of the chop, and swabbed his face, wondering when pain would come. His hands came away almost black in the false dawn light.

What the Devil? If my head's blown open, how am I still able t'see? he goggled. Oarsmen were sitting back down to back-water, some were poling off the sand, and he was getting trampled, so he grasped the next-aft thwart and rose to his knees.

"We get her aboard quickly," someone aft was saying, "we might save her… even with no surgeon aboard."

"Alan?" came that phantom cry again, weaker and more fearful.

"What? Caroline? Good God!" he cried, scrambling aft to her. She lay on her back in an inch or two of seawater in the sole, head and shoulders in Lady Imogene's lap. "No! No, no!"

Her light-coloured blouse, so cheery that morning, was covered in large nigh-black stains that slowly spread, even as he crawled to her. Lady Imogene was pressing her shawl and bright kerchief to try and staunch the flood at its source, but there was so swift an out-welling that both cloths had turned almost completely dark, too!

"Caroline!" Lewrie cried as he got to her and took her hands in his. A thin trickle of blood sprang from the corner of her mouth, and she coughed, spasming and gasping. Her eyes opened and she looked up at him, eyes wide for a moment, and her hands squeezed back, then lost their strength. She let out a long sigh, then lay very still.

"Caroline?" Lewrie croaked, gathering her to his chest, knowing she was gone. "God damn them, God damn them!"

The boat was now off the sands, one bank of oarsmen stroking ahead, the other still backing water to turn her bows out to sea, and the mate at the tiller was judging the best moment to put the helm over between incoming waves, so she would not be upset, spinning her in her own length before both sides of oarsmen could row together.

"You bastards!" Lewrie howled, unaccustomed tears in his eyes. "You murderin' bitch, Charitй! You foul child-fucker, Choundas!" he raged, searching for the pistol he'd lost, but he'd dropped it when he'd lifted Caroline into the boat. "Any guns aboard? Any sort of gun!"

"Aye, we've…," the mate said, jutting his chin towards a pair of muskets near him, intent on his steering.

Lewrie snatched one up, jerked from the muzzle the cork used to keep out the damp, and tore off the greasy rag that sheltered the fire-lock and primed pan. He scrambled right aft to the transom, crowding the mate at the tiller, to kneel and drag the lock to half-cock, and check the powder in the pan and the tightness of the flint clasped in the dog's jaws.

The boat was rowing out now, swooping wildly as the incoming waves lifted her bows and the oarsmen dragged her through the troughs, making the stern soar upwards in turn. He braced one foot on the aft end of the sole boards and the vertical stub of the keel where it emerged. He had to try!

"Lewrie, no, what matters, it will make no difference!" Plumb was cautioning him.

He dashed a hand over his eyes once more, squinting away those tears; he had grim work to do. Then he'd weep. "Stop yer bloody gob!" he told Sir Pulteney.

There were several French Chasseurs on the beach now, some of them tending to their fellows who had slid or tumbled there, none with a weapon at the ready, as if they realised that firing would be pointless. With them was a man in a dark suit and narrow-brimmed hat, and he held a weapon at high port-arms. Lewrie could conjure that spent powder smoke still fumed from its barrel, but… up above the beach, at the top of the scree slope stood that Major of Chasseurs, Charitй de Guilleri, and that bastard Choundas, who was crowing and waving his cane in triumph.

Seventy, eighty yards? Lewrie gaged it; shootin' uphill, so if I take one of 'em… the man on the beach's closer. Which? Who do I kill? Who deserves it most? Please, Jesus, help me shoot true, help me kill just one of 'em!

"We are damned," Major Clary whispered.

"Fouchй will be furious, oui," Charitй numbly agreed, "and the First Consul…," she trailed off, numb and drained and horrified by how badly her vengeance had gone amiss.

"I speak of God and our souls, mademoiselle," Clary said with a rasp of anger. "Mon Dieu, does he intend to shoot at us? Bon!" Clary said, sheathing his sword and standing to attention, chest offered as a target.

"Is she dead, Lewrie?" Guillaume Choundas was cackling and huzzaing. "Do you suffer now, hawn hawn? Weep, lament! Suffer as I, vous fumier!"

Charitй suddenly felt ill, sick at her stomach and exhausted beyond imagining. Even her long desire to kill Lewrie was gone, flown away, and all she felt was deep sadness, and revulsion to be a part of the deed, and those with whom she had shared it, and at everything-they had failed.

The boat was now over hundred mиtres offshore, and there was nothing to stop it, short of a miracle. It was pitching and swooping wildly, yet Lewrie was still aiming at them? Charitй took one step away from Denis Clary and squared her own shoulders to make herself an open target, and crossed herself for the first time in a long, cynical time, in expiation.

There was a sudden tiny bloom of gunsmoke from the boat's stern-sheets, whipped quickly away by the wind.

"Stupid!" Choundas yelled seaward. "You always were a hopelessly stupid salaud, Lewrie! Mistaking muscle for brains! See your last hope dashed, and fear for my revenge! I will get you in the end. Suffer, and… Eee!"

Thunk! as lead slammed into flesh and bone! Choundas reeled on his good leg for a moment, looking down at the blood spurting from his chest before toppling forward, turning a clumsy pirouette as he slid down to the beach in a shower of loosed gravel and flinty stones, going over and over, head then feet, before thudding to a stop at the foot of the slope in the deep sand, his cloak spread out like a shroud and his corpse resembling a pile of cast-off laundry.

Major Clary let out a whoosh of relief, agog that anyone could kill with a smooth-bore musket at that range… and delighted that he had not been this Lewrie's mark!

"You see, mademoiselle, there is a judgmental God!" he said in wry delight, beginning to whoop with laughter for a moment. "We must thank Him for removing that thing from the earth. And pray that we've been allowed to live for a good reason."

"Denis?" Charitй said, amazed herself, smiling and shuddering to be spared, as well. She reached out a hand to her amour. If Denis was now in good spirits, would he not wish to…?

"Non" Major Clary told her with a sad shake of his head, that good humour vanishing as quickly as the gunsmoke. "I now bid you adieu, mademoiselle. Au revoir." With that he turned and began to trudge back to the top of the cliff, summoning Chasseurs to help their injured comrades.

Below on the beach, Matthieu Fourchette lifted his re-loaded musketoon to his shoulder, but gave it up as hopeless after a second of thought. He un-cocked it and handed it to one of the dazed soldiers. There would be Hell to pay when he reported this fiasco to Minister Fouchй. They'd killed a woman yet let the others escape to England, where news of the entire pursuit, Napoleon's involvement, and the murder would enflame British, perhaps world, outrage.

Fourchette heaved a deep sigh, contemplating the utter ruin of his promising career, shrugging and shaking his head sorrowfully, as he turned to face the cliffs, wondering if he should cross over the frontier and lose himself in the Germanies.

"What's that?" he asked a woozy Chasseur, who was aiding one of his mates with a twisted ankle, as he spotted the bundle of clothing.

"That's that hideux fellow, sir," the Chasseur told him, rather cheerfully. "Amazing, that shot. Be a trial… to get what's left of him back to the top of the cliffs."

"Don't bother," Fourchette told the soldier. "Leave him here, and let the crabs and gulls have him." And wondered if he could couch his report to place some of the blame for his failure on Choundas… well, a bit of it!

He went past the corpse, struggling to make his way up through the loose scree slope.

The Chasseurs, more practical and realistic, took a little time to loot Choundas's pockets, though they found little of value; seventy francs, a poor watch, some cigarros, a flint tinder-box, and a decent pistol with all accoutrements. The ogre's cane wasn't even scratched, and it, at least, was of good quality.

Then they walked away from him, too.