Breakfast had been a mug of water and a hunk of dry bread left over from the previous evening's supper. The fist-sized block of stale dough had been made marginally more digestible when dunked into the water. It remained small consolation for what had been, despite Hawkwood's ability to negotiate the hammock, a fitful night's sleep. Though it was a soldier's lot to bed down when and wherever he could, it did not always follow that slumber came easily. The night had seemed endless. Lasseur looked equally unrested as he peered out across the choppy brown water.
Perched at the extreme north-west corner of the Isle of Sheppey, Sheerness dockyard lay across the starboard quarter; an uneven line of warehouses, barracks and workshops. Rising above these was the fortress; its squat, square outline surmounted by a grey-roofed tower. Guarding the entrance to the Medway River, the fort dominated its surroundings, a stone defender awaiting an unwise invader.
To the south, at the edge of the yard, lay Blue Town. The settlement provided accommodation for the local workforce and owed its name to the colour of the buildings, all of which had been daubed in the same shade of naval paint. Made almost entirely from wood chips left over from the dockyard work, the small houses weren't much more than crude shacks, clumped together in an untidy rat-run of narrow lanes. Even so, they were several steps up from the previous riverside accommodation. Originally, dock workers had been housed in hulks, not dissimilar to Rapacious, moored to break the flow of the river and reduce the loss of shingle from the foreshore. A couple of them still remained, stranded on the mud like beached whales after a storm.
Across the river, a mile away to port, the Isle of Grain was a dark green smudge in the early-morning light, while beyond the stern rail, less than two miles to the south, lay the western mouth of the Swale Channel, separating Sheppey from the mainland.
The weather had improved considerably. Despite the sunshine, however, there was a stiff breeze and it brought with it the smell of the sea and the cloying, foetid odour of the surrounding marshes, which stretched away on both sides of the water.
A cry of warning sounded from the quarterdeck where Lieutenant Thynne was supervising the delivery of provisions from a small flotilla of bumboats drawn up alongside the hulk. Fresh water casks were being hoisted on board to replace the empty ones lifted from the hold, and one of the casks had come adrift from its sling. It was the second delivery of the day. The bread ration had arrived less than an hour before and had already been delivered to the galley.
Lasseur eyed the activity with interest. "What do you think?" he said.
Hawkwood followed his gaze to where the wayward cask was being secured. "It'd be a tight fit."
Lasseur grinned.
Hawkwood looked sceptical. "How do you know they don't check inside as soon as they get them ashore?"
"How do you know they do?"
"I would," Hawkwood said. "It'd be the first place I'd look."
"You're probably right," Lasseur murmured. "Worth considering, though." He reached into his coat, drew out a cheroot, and gazed at it wistfully.
"I'd make that last," Hawkwood said. "They tell me tobacco's hard to come by. Expensive, too."
Lasseur stuck the unlit cheroot between his lips and closed his eyes. He remained that way for several seconds, after which he placed the cheroot back in his coat and sighed. "The sooner I get off this damned ship, the better."
Latching on to Lasseur appeared to have been a sound investment. From the moment they'd been thrust into the Maidstone cell together, the privateer captain had made it clear he was looking to make his escape. Gaining the man's confidence had been the first step. James Read had been correct in his surmise that Hawkwood's background story and the scars on his face would stand him in good stead. Lasseur and the others had accepted him as one of their own. Hawkwood's task now was to find some way of exploiting that acceptance. Where Lasseur went, Hawkwood intended to follow.
Hawkwood allowed himself a smile. It was strange, he thought, given the short time he'd known him, how much he'd come to like Lasseur. It had been an unexpected turn of events, for the privateer was, after all, the enemy. But wasn't that what happened when men, irrespective of their backgrounds, were thrown together in unfamiliar surroundings? It reminded him of his early days in the Rifle Corps.
When Colonels Coote Manningham and Stewart had put forward their plan for a different type of unit, one which would fight fire with fire and carry the war to the French, the men who were to form the new corps had been drafted in from other regiments. Suddenly the past didn't matter; whether they were draftees or volunteers, was irrelevant. The men's loyalty was to the new regiment, and the glue that bound them together was their willingness to fight for their country and against the French.
On Rapacious, it was a similar situation. It didn't matter whether you had been a sailor or a soldier, privateer, teacher or tradesman. The important thing was that you shared a common enemy. And in the case of the men confined aboard the hulk - Hawkwood included - it was the officers and men of His Britannic Majesty's prison ship Rapacious who were the foe.
According to Ludd, Rapacious hadn't been her only name. During her years as a man-of-war, as a mark of affection her crew had bestowed a nickname upon her: Rapscallion, a tribute to her role in causing mischief to the French.
It was doubtful, Hawkwood reflected, looking around him, if any of the seamen who'd raised her sails, scaled her rigging and run out her guns would have recognized her now. Any beauty or sense of pride she might have possessed as a mighty ship of war was long gone. Even with the morning sun slanting across her quarterdeck, with her once graceful profile buried beneath a ramshackle collection of weather-beaten clapboard sheds, she was as ugly as a London slum.
Another cry sounded from the work party. The full water casks had all been taken aboard and the last bumboat was pulling away with its cargo of empty barrels. Several of the full casks remained on deck. The contents were needed for the day's midday soup and to replenish the drinking water tanks. The hoist was repositioned in preparation for the next round of deliveries.
Lasseur turned from the rail. "Walk with me, my friend. I'm in need of some exercise."
The number of prisoners strewn around the deck made it more of an obstacle course than a walk.
"How many soldiers are there on board, do you think?" Lasseur asked. He kept his voice low as they picked their way through the press of bodies.
"Hard to tell," Hawkwood said. "Not less than forty would be my guess." He looked aft, where two members of the militia were patrolling back and forth across the width of the raised quarterdeck, muskets slung over their shoulders. Other militia were spread evenly around the hulk, including one on the forecastle from where they had just descended. Hawkwood had counted three on the gantry and one on the boarding raft, and there was one at each companionway. He suspected several others were standing by, poised to deploy at the first sign of trouble.
The two men left the forecastle and made their way below.
"I did a count last night," Lasseur said as they descended the stairs. "Six on the grating, one manning the raft, and I could hear others on the companionways."
"You didn't waste any time," Hawkwood said.
Lasseur shrugged. "It was hot, I couldn't sleep. What else was I going to do? Besides, I've seen the way you've been looking around."
"There's the crew as well," Hawkwood said.
"I'd not forgotten. How many, would you say?"
Hawkwood shook his head. "On a ship this size? You'd know better than me. Thirty?"