James McGee - Ratcatcher

Jago bent low. “Sorry, Cap’n. Didn’t catch that.”

Hawkwood took a deep breath, succumbed to a brief wracking cough, and tried again.

“Nathaniel?” His voice now a rasping croak.

“That’s me.”

“You were right.”

“I was?” Jago frowned. “What about?”

A grin rearranged Hawkwood’s face.

“It wasn’t much of a plan.”

And Jago started to laugh.

The surgeon, a burly man with a reassuring smile, stowed his instruments in his bag and turned to the Chief Magistrate. “The stomach wound is superficial; a scratch, nothing more. As far as the knife wound is concerned, I’ve cleaned it as best I can. He’s strong. I see no reason why he shouldn’t make a full recovery.”

James Read received the news with a nod. “Thank you, Doctor.”

As the surgeon stood, Commissioner Dryden, standing behind him, coughed discreetly. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I too have duties to attend to. And I’ve no doubt there are matters you wish to discuss in ah…private.” Dryden smiled, almost shyly, at Hawkwood. “Honoured to make your acquaintance, sir.” A nod to James Read and to Jago, who was standing at the bedside, and he, too, was gone.

They’d taken Hawkwood to the commissioner’s house. Commissioner Dryden had summoned his own doctor to examine Hawkwood’s injuries.

“He’s an excellent man,” Dryden had assured Read. “Served with Collingwood on the Dreadnought.”

James Read waited until the two men had left the room before turning to the patient. A rare smile hovered on the magistrate’s lips. “Welcome back.”

Sunlight flooded the room. A servant had arrived earlier to close the curtains, but Hawkwood had stopped her. His entombment in the submersible was still fresh in his memory. He craved light and warmth, lots of it. Those last moments in the Narwhale had been the most terrifying ordeal of his life. Trapped in the flooded tower, the water over his head, the will to fight slipping away until, in a moment of startling lucidity, he recalled Lee’s words. You hold your breath and pray.

So, in the pitch darkness, Hawkwood had held his breath and prayed that he could open the submersible’s hatch before the air in his lungs finally gave out. It had been a frantic few seconds, searching for the catch, one arm useless, the freezing cold invading his body with a crippling intensity. Eventually, the catch had yielded, and he was pulling himself through and clawing his way towards the light.

He did not respond to the magistrate’s greeting.

James Read frowned. “Your wounds pain you?”

“I was thinking about Lee,” Hawkwood said. “I wasn’t able to stop him. He still blew up the ship.”

A muscle twitched in the magistrate’s cheek. He looked at Jago. Jago returned the look and raised an eyebrow.

“What?” Hawkwood said.

“No he didn’t,” Jago said.

“Didn’t what?”

“He didn’t blow up the ship,” James Read said.

“Of course he did,” Hawkwood said. “I heard it. I saw it, when Nathaniel brought me ashore.”

The Chief Magistrate shook his head. “No. He blew up a ship, not the ship.”

Hawkwood thought he might be going mad. Except Jago was grinning like a loon. He stared at them both.

Jago said, “They switched them, Cap’n. The sly buggers switched ’em.”

Hawkwood closed his eyes, waited, opened them again. Jago was still there, still grinning.

Jago glanced at the magistrate. “Well? Are you goin’ to tell ’im, or am I?”

James Read smiled. “I’d hate to deprive you of the pleasure, Sergeant.”

“Well, someone tell me,” Hawkwood said.

“All right,” Jago said. “First off, it wasn’t Thetis that blew up. It were the sheer hulk.”

“The what?”

“It’s what you might call the yard’s work ’orse, used for fetchin’ and liftin’. Dunno what ’er name was originally. Probably last saw action before we were born-well you at any rate. Now, where was I? Oh, aye…anyway, that’s how they did it.”

“The art of deception, Hawkwood. To hide in plain sight-isn’t that what they say?” The Chief Magistrate walked to the window and looked out on to the dockyard, where work was returning to normality after the morning’s excitement. “It seemed a logical solution to our dilemma. What to do if you failed in your assignment. We decided to employ a decoy. The sheer hulk was the only vessel close enough and large enough for our purposes. Our main problem was her appearance. Fortunately, we were able to employ both the yard’s workforce and the contents of her stores. We used two teams of men; one to paint the hulk, one to tarnish Thetis. Don’t forget, Thetis only had a jury mast. Neither was she rigged or coppered. It was not that difficult: some muddy canvas strategically placed, a web of old netting here and there, black paint to cover the ochre. The hulk was a bigger challenge, but we had the paint and the men. The carpenter’s shop provided us with a false name-board which we adhered to the hulk’s stern. Add banners, the Regent’s standard, crewmen…The disguise would not deceive a close observer, but we thought it might fool someone with a limited view, someone like William Lee on board his undersea boat.”

“God Almighty,” Hawkwood said.

“Our greatest enemy was time.” The magistrate turned from the window. “We could only guess, if you were unable to stop him, that Lee would wait until the morning tide to make his attack. We barely had time to board her crew. It was a close-run thing.”

“Paint was still wet,” Jago said. “That’s what finally tipped me the wink.” Then he saw the expression on Hawkwood’s face.

“You put a crew on board as well?” Hawkwood said. His voice was cold.

“We had to,” Read said. “To complete the deception.”

“Men died,” Hawkwood said.

Read nodded solemnly. “Four dead, seven injured.”

“An’ not an Englishman among ’em,” Jago said, then paused. “Well, save for one.”

Hawkwood looked at him.

“They used Frog prisoners of war. Togged ’em up in castoffs from the yard’s slop chests. That’s another thing that caught my eye: state of the officers’ uniforms. Bloody disgrace, they were. No self-respectin’ English officer’d be joining his ship lookin’ like he’d just walked out of the poor ’ouse. Thought it a bit strange. That, and the fact that everyone started yellin’ at each other in Frog. Weren’t natural.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” James Read said quietly, interpreting Hawkwood’s expression. “That there are conventions covering the treatment of prisoners of war. Quite true, though I would urge you not to grieve for the prisoners who perished on Thetis. Their fate had already been sealed. Had they not been killed in the explosion, they would have met their death on the gallows.”

Hawkwood continued to stare at the Chief Magistrate.

“The men who died were the ringleaders of a plot to gain control of the prison ship Gryphon. Four days ago, two dozen prisoners, under the leadership of a Lieutenant Duvert, led a revolt. Two marines were murdered. Their bodies were hung, naked, from the hulk’s gun ports. It was only through the bravery of the hulk’s commanding officer, Captain Childers, who led his marines into the bowels of the ship to apprehend the culprits, that the revolt was quashed and disaster averted.

“Some of the scoundrels attempted to conceal themselves among the rafales in the hulk’s lower decks to avoid detection. They even shed their clothes to blend in. Fortunately, the ruse failed. They were given up by their fellow prisoners who were sickened by the violence. It also helped that there was no love lost between Duvert and his cronies and the rafales.”