James McGee - Rapscallion

Fouchet wagged an admonishing finger. "I'm off before they put me in the hole for breaking curfew. If I were you, I'd try and get some sleep. We've an early start tomorrow morning."

"We have?" Lasseur said. "How come?"

"Hadn't you heard?" Fouchet said drily. "There's going to be a hanging."

There was no scaffold.

Bisected by the stub of the main mast, the yard was outlined against the dawn sky like the arms of a scarecrow. Suspended from the yard's port and starboard quarters were three wooden blocks. A rope was threaded through each block. One end formed a noose. The free end of each rope was secured to a cleat at the ship's corresponding port and starboard bulwarks.

A line of militia guarded the ship's rails, bayonets fixed. The rest of the ship's complement was drawn up on the quarterdeck. An unsmiling Lieutenant Hellard was standing with the equally stern Thynne on his right and the interpreter Murat on his left, their backs to the newly risen sun. Both officers were in full uniform. Opposite them, on the port side of the deck, a row of prisoners stood in line abreast, some in prison uniform; some in civilian dress. At first glance, Hawkwood had taken them for the men under sentence until he took a closer look and did a count and realized how cleverly Hellard had played his hand. They were the eight members of the prisoners' tribunal.

You convened quickly enough to see Matisse's crew swing, Hawkwood thought.

He'd witnessed punishment on board ship before, on a voyage taking him back to England after the ignominy of Corunna. It had been a flogging; a seaman had been found guilty of disobeying an order while drunk. He had been tied to a grating on deck where he had received twenty-four lashes administered by the boatswain's mate. The ship's crew had been assembled to witness the event, with marines standing by, muskets at the ready.

Squeezed against the forecastle rail with Lasseur at his shoulder and the two militia escorts from the sick berth at their backs, Hawkwood was struck by the similarity. But while the scene was almost identical, the mood was not. The flogging of the seaman had been greeted by an almost sullen silence, whereas the atmosphere on the deck of Rapacious was more reminiscent of a public execution outside any London gaol.

It had been Commander Hellard's directive that all prisoners, as well as the ship's complement, were required to view the punishment, excluding those too ill to leave the sick berth, but the sheer number of prisoners housed on the hulk rendered the order impractical. In the end, the summons had been amended to the requirement that at least two delegates from each mess were to be present, including Rafales. As a result, the decks were full. Hawkwood didn't think he'd ever seen such a woebegone, ragbag gathering of human beings in his life.

Down on the Park the air, sour with the stench of the befouled, prickled with a sense of anticipation bordering on excitement. So much so that Hawkwood was half expecting the ship's pedlars to come crawling out of the woodwork and start touting for business like the pie and sweetmeat sellers that played the crowds outside Newgate.

As he looked on, Hawkwood tried to ignore the compression that was forming inexorably at the back of his throat and the sweat that was leaking from between his shoulder blades.

A murmur ran through the watchers as the condemned were brought out on deck, hands tied behind their backs and flanked by a militia guard. Two of the men were wearing togas, the rest were dressed in the yellow uniform. Half the men had cuts and bruises on their faces. The pair wearing the togas also had wounds on their arms and legs. Hawkwood wondered how many of the injuries had been inflicted during the fight in the hold and how many were due to the militia's late intervention.

Someone yelled an obscenity from the Park, which encouraged a cacophony of catcalls. The condemned men were white- eyed with terror and visibly shaking.

"Silence!" Sergeant Hook's voice boomed across the deck.

As the militia began to place nooses about the men's necks, two of the condemned collapsed weeping on to the deck. A jeer went up as they were lifted to their feet. Both swayed precariously as the ropes were finally slipped around their throats. When all the nooses had been made fast, hoods were placed over the men's heads.

Lieutenant Hellard stepped forward, accompanied by Murat. He raised his arm and the deck fell quiet.

Hellard spoke. Murat translated.

Hawkwood wondered about the other nationalities on board. Who translated for them?

"Let it be known that the ship's company and prisoners are gathered here this day to see justice done. The men you see standing before you have been found guilty of the most heinous crimes. It is upon the order of the Admiralty of His Britannic Majesty that each man is hereby sentenced to death, to hang suspended by his neck until dead. May God have mercy on their souls. "

Abruptly, as if embarrassed by the brevity of his pronouncement, Hellard stepped back and nodded towards the members of the tribunal.

The surgeon was right! Hawkwood thought.

He watched as twelve men dressed in yellow prison uniforms stepped forward. The twelve broke into three teams of four. Each team retrieved a rope end from the cleat by the port bulwark. Turning their backs on the condemned men, the three teams stood in silence, each man holding a section of rope over his right shoulder.

"Carry on, Sergeant Hook," Hellard said.

The sergeant nodded towards a pair of militia guards, one of whom pointed his musket into the sky. The men on the ropes took up the strain. The militia escort stepped away.

Hawkwood's fists clenched. The guard fired his musket.

At the instant the shot rang out, the men holding the ropes sprinted hard towards the ship's stern. Behind them, three hooded bodies shot into the air, heading for the yard. As the ropes were pulled tight, and with the musket report still echoing around the deck, the rope ends were made fast. Only then did the members of the teams look up at their handiwork. High above them the three corpses, still spiralling from the momentum of the hoist, dangled below the yard like grotesque ornaments.

The teams moved to the starboard ropes. The militia escorts stepped aside.

At another nod from Hook, the second guard discharged his musket and the hangmen repeated their charge. Three more bodies ascended rapidly into the warm air.

A sigh, like a small wind, went around the deck.

One of the militia let out a curse as a shower of urine and a splatter of faecal matter released from one of the slow-swinging cadavers missed his shoulder by inches and hit the deck at his feet. Casting startled looks skywards, his companions jumped back to avoid the flow of piss and shit raining down from on high as the bladders and sphincter muscles of the hanged men relaxed. A ripple of laughter broke from the mass of prisoners. The tension in the air began to dissipate.

"Silence!" Another roar from Hook.

"A surgeon once told me it's a quick way to die." Lasseur stared up at the bodies.

Hawkwood said nothing. He had known that already. The fact that there had been no kicking or pedalling from the victims' legs after the bodies had left the ground confirmed the anonymous surgeon's statement. Death had occurred the second the ropes were pulled taut, from a swiftly broken neck rather than protracted asphyxiation. He looked down at his hands, to the redness in his palms where his nails had bitten into the skin.

He heard Lasseur mutter something sharp under his breath and turned to find the privateer regarding him with a mortified expression on his face. Lasseur's mouth opened.

"It's all right, Captain," Hawkwood said. "It was a long time ago."

For a moment Lasseur looked as if he was about to respond. His eyes flickered to Hawkwood's throat and the weals on his palms and he nodded silently.