Bruce Alexander - Smuggler's Moon

“Not far at all,” said the driver. ”I should not doubt we will see it take shape when the road next climbs a hill.”

“In that case, I would give a good wager that yonder hangs all that is left of Rufus Tucker.”

“The one you were talking about? The one who killed the exciseman?” I had not seen Clarissa so animated since her first meeting with Samuel Johnson.

“The very same, miss, for I know very well that there was no such body on display before I left here. And I now remember running into a lad from Deal whilst I was in Aldershot waiting transfer to another regiment. He told me old Rufus’s body had been shipped back to Deal for display purposes. The idea was that he was to hang there to warn all against shooting excisemen.”

“Imagine!” sighed Clarissa. ”That could be Rufus Tucker.”

“JEREMY!”

That was Sir John’s bellow from across the road. Quite unmistakable it was, though not near so fierce as I may make it seem, writ so in capital letters. It was loud enough, nevertheless, to suggest to me that he might be in distress. Adding to that, he was not where I had left him. I looked uneasily about but he was nowhere to be seen.

“Jeremy!”

Another bellow, somewhat more impatient, rose from a spot a bit behind me. I hastened to the place and found Sir John lying disheveled and somewhat disappointed with himself at the dusty bottom of the deep ditch which ran along that side of the road.

“Is that you, Jeremy?”

“It is, Sir John. Are you hurt?”

“No, no, though my pride is a bit bruised. I fear I must ask you for a hand up.”

That I gladly offered him. I tugged hard, and up he came. Yet though on his feet, he still required help in scrambling up the crumbling wall of the ditch to the road. I pushed-though that did no good at all. But then, as I bent low from the road level to grasp one of Sir John’s hands, I found a helper beside me-none other than Mr. Perkins. The constable gave his only hand to the magistrate, and we two hauled him up.

“Who is that helping poor Jeremy? Is it you, Constable Perkins?”

“It is, Sir John.”

“Ah well, I should have called earlier for Jeremy to lead me back but I heard your voices, and I thought I could simply walk to the sound of them. But I misstepped, lost my balance, and fell to the bottom of that … what would you call it? A ditch?”

“It was a ditch, yes sir.”

“Sometimes I fear that I attempt too much. Perhaps I should accept the limitations my blindness has put upon me.”

“Ah, do not say that, sir. If you was to give in to your fate, there’s a certain one-armed constable might be forced to give in to his.”

Sir John chuckled. ”Well, I would not wish to encourage that-no, certainly not.”

Sir John had accepted my help in seeing him back to the coach. Yet without notice, he stopped of a sudden and said to me, ”Jeremy, I have something to discuss with Mr.

Perkins. Would you then go to the coach and tell all that we shall be with them in just a few moments’ time?”

Having no choice in the matter, I agreed, though I saw little need for such secrecy. Ultimately, their conversation lasted many more moments than a few and became at one point quite heated before it was done. When at last they returned to the coach, Sir John called up to the driver and asked that he stop when the town of Deal came into view. Only then did he ascend to the coach’s interior, bang upon the ceiling, and set us into motion once again.

“Jeremy,” said he, ”you serve as treasurer on this expedition. Give Mr. Perkins a few pounds. How much would you be needing, constable?”

“Oh, a pound or two. Two pounds should be more than enough.”

“Then give him three.”

I counted out the amount and handed it over.

“Mr. Perkins will be going out alone to do some listening for us. It will be to you that he reports if indeed he has anything to report. Where might you two best meet?”

“There is an inn on High Street, name of the Good King George,” said Mr. Perkins. ”Suppose we get together there about noon each day and have us an ale, and I’ll tell you what I know. How does that strike you?”

“Why, I’m thirsty already.”

“Enough of that, you two. We’ll-”

Sir John, interrupted by the sudden halt of the coach, gave a firm nod. ”God bless you, sir,” said he to the constable. ”And remember well what I told you.”

“Goodbye, all.” And so saying, Mr. Perkins threw open the door and jumped from the coach. I pulled the door shut behind him, took his wave through the window and returned it.

The magistrate said nothing during the rest of the trip. That left it to me to puzzle out what he had discussed with Mr. Perkins there in the road. It seemed likely that Sir John had asked him to serve as his spy. After all, Mr. Perkins was, if not well known in Deal, at least remembered. He had known his way round the owling trade and been forcibly enlisted into the Army. The last any of the townsmen had seen of him, he was no doubt being led away in chains by the recruiting sergeant and his party. Those who did recall him would quite naturally assume that he had lost his arm in military service. They would be willing to answer any of the questions he might put to them. He would be perfect in such a role.

Yet having formed that notion, I dismissed it immediately. There was something in it which rang false for both men, yet I could not determine what it was for either. Ah well, perhaps Perkins would be more forthcoming than Sir John when I met him next midday.

But for now, here was Deal before me. As I stared out the window at the shops along Broad Street and at those we passed by, I realized how much more prosperous-looking was the picture before me than would have been a tableau from any comparable section of London. The people were better dressed; they walked with a more confident step. The shop windows were filled with goods of a quality that only the grandest shops in lower St. James Street might carry. The smuggling trade may have been illegal, but it had certainly brought good times to Deal.

Looking away from the coach window for a moment, I happened to catch Clarissa’s eye. She was obviously most impressed by what she saw all round us. Her eyes were wide with excitement.

“Why, Deal is near as grand as Bath!” said she. ”Had you ever imagined it so?”

I admitted I had not. But then, as we came to the bottom of Broad Street, the driver turned the team right. And there, through the window, off to our left, was a great body of water.

”Oh, there it is,” said Clarissa,”-the sea, the ocean, the English Channel.”

“And there beyond it,” said I, ”is France. Can you see it?”

She studied the horizon carefully. ”I … I don’t know. I think I can. How far is it?”

Before I could respond, Sir John spoke up: ‘Thirty-five miles, give or take a mile or two.”

“So close?” Clarissa exclaimed. ”Why, we’re nearer to France than we are to London.”

“Indeed we are,” said he.

The driver reined the horses to a halt. I heard him call out, asking another for directions to the residence of Sir Simon Grenville. The response I heard not quite so clearly, but in a moment more we were off. We drove up a street, and in less than a mile the street became a road, and so on until we were back into the country. Ever upward we went by easy degrees, so that when at last we turned off the road and into a driveway, we must have been a few hundred feet above the town and the sea. We were so long on the way that I began to suppose that we had taken some secondary road that led still farther upward. But not so, for the team of four slowed at the driver’s direction. I heard the brake applied. We came to a halt just at the door of a manor house, which had been added onto so often and grandly that it had reached the proportions of a small castle.