The leaving of the merchant ship had been as unpleasant as the time on board of her. Kaye had spoken to the captain when they had emerged on to the quarterdeck, even expressing a type of peremptory regret. James McEwan had been more stunned than anything, looking horribly to Will Bentley as if he might die himself, so grey and vague did he become. But when Kaye had suggested that he might perform a simple burial there and then, with aid from the Biter men, the old captain had refused with vehemence approaching rage, and screamed at Kaye to go, and take his "villains, worse than pirates, villains!" with him. Moments later he had changed again, and almost pleaded with the Navy man not to take all the seamen he had rounded up.
"We are not enough," he cried. "Sir, I beg of you, we are not enough to get this ship to port! I must have men to hand the sails, to anchor!"
All told, he had fifteen unless more able hands were hidden below, which was eminently likely. Certainly Lieutenant Kaye thought so. He glanced round the crew the aged, the infirm, the crestfallen, the hangdog and let out a well-bred snort.
"But you have enough to undertake your own burying," he said. "Sir, my patience is worn out with you. You can square your yards with this fine lot, you can drop your anchor in the offing, you can signal for the pilot that you must engage. Hold! I will be generous with you. Mr. Bentley, a commission! Keep Tilley there and, ah, Behar is it? Two fine strong lads, and oh, have Mr. Eaton, too. There you are, sir! One officer, one warrant, and two of my strongest men. Now are you satisfied? You will not come to grief like that, will you?"
William saw through the ruse, even if the merchantman did not. If he kept all the Katharines on deck and got her under way, who knew what might not creep out of the woodwork, thinking the coast was clear? He wondered at the illegality of under manning a ship so drastically, but then Kaye's attitude to law was wondrous in any way. A picture of the young man's corpse came to his mind, and he thought he heard Kaye say again, "He aimed to murder me." Oh how I wish, thought Bentley, that I had asked him, "Why?"
It took ten minutes to reorganise the boats' crews, and another fifteen to get the pressed men all on board. Tilley and Behar were pleased at first to see their shipmates go, then furious that Bendey had guessed their plan to go below and search out liquor, and got Eaton to scotch it. Between them they must have been three times his weight, but Eaton had a firearm, while they had only cudgels. Not only that, but the stocky, wild-haired man had gained his warrant, it appeared, as much through his way with men as through sea ability. He faced them at the after scuttle and there ensued a silent battle that Will guessed the content of, but did not know. Then Eaton told them off to man the braces as the Katharine's men were shaping up to do.
Bentley joined the captain at the con and watched with little passion as the yards were hauled round to fill and take her off the wind and sailing. A cable's length to leeward Biter rode, still hove to, with die first boat already back and hooking on. By the time die Katharine, slow and unwieldy, was under way, Gunning had got his ship paying off, increasing sail, and the small boats strung out astern of her for the tow. Will imagined Richard Kaye climbing up the tender's steep, dark side, and hoped, absurdly, that he had fallen down and drowned. His mind wrestled with the problem of the man below, lying abandoned in a pool of blood, and wondered what could, should, would happen to Lieutenant Kaye for it. Nothing; the word kept ringing in his head, a knell. Nothing, and why not? Kaye had killed someone, and said it was in self-defence, and left him with a complex knot inside his skull. I do not believe you, Richard Kaye, he told himself. I do not believe you. But in this life, in this Navy life in England, who will find you out?
The wind was strong, but not so strong, and Biter soon creamed away from them under a full press. The Katharine still had much canvas stifled, and her captain was determined he should not shake it out to push her up to speed. He consulted Bentley, as if he were the commander and Katharine his prize, but Bentley replied frostily that such matters were naught to do with him; he was there to render aid if necessary, as were his 'men in lieu'. Over half an hour the sails were snugged, and the tired ship lumped along towards the north Kent coast, with Biter dwindling into the ruck of boats and ships converging on the estuary. It was Will's assumption that Kaye would ply the Impress trade with any hopeful-looking vessel, then come back to pick them up when McEwan had dropped hook and signalled for a pilot.
After about two hours, when the shore was clearer in the falling light, and Behar and Tilley extremely bored and frisky, William consulted with the boatswain's mate and decided they should be allowed below, ostensibly to see if they could flush out any more lurking hands. Eaton went with them though, and Bentley made it very clear they should avoid the cabin, and the corpse, under every circumstance. The merchant captain, watching the three men disappearing, asked stiffly for permission to view the dead officer himself, a request Will could see no way of refusing. He would not let the seamen leave the deck, however, and took a large pistol into his hand to emphasise the point. These men, who were huddled into any lee that they could find, sat stoically in silence. The oddity overcame him yet again. A British ship, a British crew, and him a British officer. To them, it must appear they had been overwhelmed by an enemy. He was alone beside the helmsman, and pondering, when he saw a sail he thought he recognised, making up for them, hard on the wind. No certainty, but he would bet on it: the free trade lugger.
Wishing for a glass, he moved unhurriedly towards the larboard rail. Most of the ships on that side were moving parallel with the Kentish coast, with a few beating up towards him to gain the open sea. As Katharine neared the Thames mouth she was getting into heavy traffic, but in that direction little could be made out against the glare of the westering sun reflecting from the surface. The lugger, though, as she beat closer, he was certain was the one. Black hull, high topsides, her two big lug sails making her look almost overcanvased. William considered the cargo still scattered about the deck. It was unfinished business, surely. She had been interrupted by the Press, the Press had gone, so she was coming back to get the rest.
Watching her, he realised he was ambivalent in what he felt. She was a beauty of a boat, extremely fast and weatherly, and he remembered Jesse Broad's strictures on the trade as harming no one in any great essential. The rich needed their brandy, the poor their gin, and everyone should pay less for tobacco and for tea. Even in his own house he knew they bought illicit goods, and in truth the trade had led to little violence he knew of in their locality, despite what chapbook men and village gossip sometimes said. The lugger went about, her men dipping the yards fast and handily, and he wondered what would happen as she got nearer. His duty must be to await them, to entice them if possible to come on board, and arrest them for the service, although he had no warrant on his person. This made him smile. Himself, Eaton, two men with sticks. Against a lugger crew of half a dozen, maybe more, plus the Katharines, who might welcome some revenge. It occurred to him that he should call his people up to consider a defence, and that right quickly. Maybe check one of the vessel's swivel guns for firing, at the very least.
At that moment the red hair of Eaton emerged from a scuttle, in a commotion. Will assumed that they had found more seamen down below, but the boatswain's mate was shouting over his shoulder and two men were shouting back Behar and Tilley, who had found and taken drink, he feared. But as they made the level of the deck Behar not drunk by any means saw something away to starboard in the dying sunlight, shielded his eyes, then gave a whoop.