rising sense of horror, the marine guards traded knowing looks and raised their neck scarves over their lower faces.
The longboat approached the rear of the ship. High above, embedded beneath the stern windows, a nameplate that once had been embossed in gold but which was now tarnished beyond repair proclaimed the vessel to be the Rapacious.
Close to, the ship looked even more intimidating. The dark-hulled vessel had all the appearance of a massive smoke-stained sarcophagus rather than a former ship of the line. There was no mizzen mast and the main mast and the foremast had been cut down to a third of their original size. Only the lower yards remained. Between them, festooned from a web of washing lines running fore and aft, was an array of what, from a distance, might have been taken for signal flags but which, on closer inspection, turned out to be a selection of tattered stockings, shirts and breeches. Age, wear and constant washing had turned every visible scrap of clothing a universal shade of grey, with the majority of the garments exhibiting more holes than material.
These were not the only refurbishments that had been inflicted upon the once proud ship. Her bowsprit had been removed, and where the poop deck had been, there now stood a clinker-built, soot-engrained shack, complete with sloping roof and chimney stack, from which grey smoke was billowing. A similar construction adorned the ship’s forecastle. It was obvious from her appearance that a great many years had passed since Rapacious last experienced the roar and thunder of battle in her search for prey. This was further confirmed by the lack of heavy ordnance; her open gun ports revealed that cannon muzzles had been replaced by immovable cast-iron grilles.
The truncation of her masts and the lack of armament had lightened the ship’s weight considerably. As a result, she was riding much higher out of the water than was normal for a vessel her size. A walkway formed from metal gratings followed the line of the orlop deck. From it a series of wooden stairs rose towards a small platform, similar to a church pulpit, affixed adjacent to the boarding gap in the ship’s handrail.
Huge chains at bow and stern secured Rapacious to the riverbed. Beyond the ship, four more vessels in a similar state of disrepair sat moored in mid-stream, line astern and a cable’s length apart, their blunted bows facing downriver.
All around, a bewildering variety of other vessels lay at anchor, from brigs to cutters and from frigates to flush-decked sloops, their yellow and black hulls gleaming, masts rising tall and straight, while pennants, not grubby pantaloons, fluttered gaily from their yardarms. They were Britain’s pride and they were ready for war.
By comparison, isolated from the rest of the fleet, Rapacious and her four sister ships looked as if they had been discarded and left to rot; victims of a terrible and terminal disease.
Seated in the waist of the longboat, one man ignored the lamentations of his companions and gazed at the ship with what could have been interpreted as interest rather than dread. Two scars were visible on the left side of his face. The first followed the curve of his cheekbone, an inch below his left eye. The second scar, less livid, ran an inch below the first. His long hair was dark save for a few streaks of grey above the temple. His jacket and breeches were severely worn and faded, though in a better state of repair than the clothes of many of the men huddled around him, some of whom were clad in little more than rags. And while the bulk of his companions were either barefooted or else wearing poorly fitting shoes, his feet were shod in what appeared to be a pair of stout but well-scuffed military boots.
“A sou for your thoughts, my friend.”
The words were spoken in French. They came from an aristocratic-looking individual dressed in a dark grey jacket and grubby white breeches, seated on the dark-haired man’s right.
Matthew Hawkwood remained silent but continued staring over the water towards the black-hulled ship.
“Heard she fought at Copenhagen,” the speaker continued in a quiet voice. “She was a seventy-four. They took the idea from us. Extended their seventies. They use them as standard now. Can’t blame the bastards. Good sailing, strong gun-power, what is there not to like?”
The speaker, whose name was Lasseur, grinned suddenly, the expression in marked contrast to the unsmiling faces about him. The neat goatee beard he wore, when added to the grin, lent his features a raffish slant.
The grin disappeared in an instant as a series of plaintive cries sounded from beyond the longboat’s prow.
Ahead, another longboat was tied up against the boarding raft in the shadow of the ship’s grime-encrusted hull. A cluster of men had already disembarked. Huddled on the walkway, under the watchful eyes of armed guards, they were preparing to ascend the stairs. Several of the men had difficulty walking. Two were crawling along the grating on their hands and knees. Their progress was painfully slow. Seeing their plight, their companions lifted them to their feet and with arms about their shoulders shepherded them along.
There were still men left on the first boat. From their posture, it was clear that none of them had the strength to make the transfer on their own. Their cries of distress floated over the water. The two marine guards on the boat were looking up towards the ship’s rail as if waiting for orders, breaking off to jab the barrels and butts of their muskets against the supine bodies around them.
Lasseur bared his teeth in a snarl.
His reaction was echoed by dark mutterings from the men seated about him.
“Silence there!” The order came from one of the marines, who stared at his charges accusingly and brandished his musket, bayonet affixed. “Or so help me, I’ll run you through!” Adding, with ill-disguised contempt, “Frog bastards!”
A face had appeared at the ship’s rail. An arm waved and an inaudible command was given. One of the marines in the boat below responded with a half-hearted salute before turning to his companion and shaking his head. At this the rowers raised their oars and they and the two guards climbed out on to the boarding raft. Turning, one of the rowers used his oar to push the boat away, while one of his fellow boatmen unfastened and began to pay out the line connecting the longboat to the ship. Caught by the current, the longboat moved slowly away from the ship’s hull. When the boat was some thirty or so yards out, the line was retied, leaving the boat’s pitiful passengers to drift at the mercy of the tide.
Angry shouts came from the line of men on the grating. Their protestations were met with a severe clubbing from the guards. Retreating, the quietened men began their slow and laboured ascent of the stairway.
Hawkwood watched grim-faced as the men made their way up the side of the ship. Lasseur followed his gaze and murmured softly, “We’d have been better off with the damned Spanish.”
“Bastards,” a voice interjected bitterly from behind them. “I’ve seen this before.”
Hawkwood and Lasseur turned. The speaker was a thin man, with sunken cheeks and watery eyes. Grey stubble covered his jaw.
“I was in Portsmouth last winter, on the Vengeance. They had a delivery of prisoners transferred from Cadiz. About thirty, all told. As thin as rakes they were; ghost white, not an ounce of flesh on their bones and not so much as a set of breeches between them. Only ten of them made it on to the Vengeance on their own. The rest were too ill to leave the longboat. The Vengeance’s surgeon refused to take them. Ordered them to be delivered to the hospital ship. Only the commander of the Pegasus refused to have them on board, not unless they were washed first. So the Vengeance’s surgeon ordered them thrown into the sea to clean them and left the Pegasus to pick up the bodies. Most of them were dead by the time the Pegasus’s boat got to them.” The man nodded towards the drifting longboat. “Looks to me, that’s what’s happening here.”
“My God,” Lasseur said and fell into a reflective silence as their own longboat, its way now clear, began to manoeuvre towards the ship’s side.
Hawkwood regarded the manacles around his ankles. If the men on the drifting boat, who presumably had also been wearing shackles, had been thrown overboard they would have been beyond help, sinking to the bottom of the river like stones.
He