Rapscallion by James McGee Page B

Hawkwood's passing glance at his back and had made only one comment:
"I wasn't always a captain."
    "Me
neither," Hawkwood had told him, and that had been enough. The rest of the
men, whose quizzical looks might have indicated a desire for explanation, they
ignored.
    When
he wasn't labouring in a work party or talking with Hawkwood or Fouchet, or
sometimes with the boy, Lasseur spent most of his time pacing the deck and
gazing restlessly across the estuary, locked within his own thoughts. With so
many bodies crammed in one place, physical solitude was but a dream. Hawkwood
knew there wasn't a man on board who wouldn't try and seek solace in the
privacy of his own mind. He sought it himself when he could, and took advantage
of the opportunities it offered to observe shipboard routine at close quarters.
And in the course of his observations Hawkwood had seen enough to know that
making a successful escape from the hulk looked well nigh impossible. Moored a
stone's throw from the middle of a busy estuary; surrounded by inhospitable
marshland; heavily guarded by its contingent of militia and a commander who was
fully prepared to use deadly force against the slightest infraction, the ship
was too well sealed.
    According
to Ludd's reckoning, four men had made it off the hulk in recent weeks. In the
short time he'd been on board, Hawkwood had yet to uncover a single clue as to
how they might have done it. He'd tried to pin Fouchet and the others down, but
to his frustration they had been of no more help than Lieutenant Murat.
    With
the exception of those who'd retreated into their own little world and the
denizens of the orlop deck, most of the prisoners seemed content to co-exist
in small social groups centred round their messes. Many would probably have no
idea there'd been an escape, let alone have any knowledge of how it had been
accomplished; their first inkling that something untoward had taken place would
come with the increased activity of the hulk's commander and his crew, and the
heavy-handed actions of the guards as they inspected and emptied the deck to
take an unexpected body count. Someone as well informed as Fouchet would know
more, but the teacher was too cautious to discuss such matters with a new
arrival, particularly in the light of Murat's reference to informers. Hawkwood
had operated clandestinely before and, though patience did not come easily to
him, he'd learned that a subtle approach would achieve better results than
barging around asking too many pertinent questions.
    Ludd's
suspicion that there was organization behind the escapes had been confirmed by
Murat. Yet Hawkwood was still no wiser as to who was behind it. He wondered how
long it would be before the translator got back to them. A
week? Two? Or would it be a month? Or longer? The thought made his blood run cold. His
rendezvous with Ludd was in three days. Would he have anything positive to
report? It didn't seem likely. Unless a man could change himself into something
the size of a rat and slip between the grilles like Hawkwood's scaly-tailed
friend the other night, the only way off the hulk seemed to be as a corpse
wrapped inside a burial cloth. Even then you wouldn't get very far.
    There
had been seven deaths in the time Hawkwood had been aboard. The cause was marsh
fever. During the summer months the fever claimed many victims among the weak and
undernourished. Age was an inevitable contributing factor, though in the
close-knit squalor of a prison ship, fever, typhus, pox and depression showed
no favouritism. Two of the dead men had been in their twenties.
    There
had been no ceremony in the removal of the deceased. Wrapped in filthy sacks of
hastily sewn sailcloth, the corpses had been lowered into a waiting boat using
a winch and net. Then, accompanied by a burial detail of prisoners and a
quartet of militia, the sorry cargo had been rowed to a bank of shingle half a
mile off the hulk's stern. Hawkwood and Lasseur had watched in sombre silence
as