James McGee - Rapscallion

As the first of the dead began their journey up the stairs under the supervision of Murat and the surgeon, inside the compartment the orderlies continued sealing up the rest of the sailcloth burial sacks.

Watching the procedure, Hawkwood wondered how many times the surgeon had carried out this particular duty.

It was as the seventh or eighth bundle was being hefted up the stairway that the calamity occurred. There was a clattering sound and a cry of woe, followed by a loud thump and barrage of invective as the man supporting the corpse's head and shoulders lost his footing and his grip. As man and cadaver slid down the stairs, careering into the pair coming up behind, a second sack slid from its handlers' clutches. Within seconds the stairs were a tangle of tumbling bodies, both alive and dead.

Alerted by the commotion, the two sick-berth guards turned quickly. With insults and accusations flying around their ears as to which imbecile had lost his footing, the militia men waded in to restore order.

The moment the guards' attention was distracted, Fouchet grabbed Lasseur's sleeve. "Come with me now," he hissed urgently. Leave your knapsacks." Reaching out, the teacher extinguished the lantern strung from the nearby deckhead.

Instinctively, Hawkwood looked towards the rumpus. Another lantern blinked out, but there was just enough light remaining for him to see two men — prisoners — hurrying towards them through the cots; Millet and Charbonneau. Each of them had a body slung over his shoulder.

Hawkwood rose to his feet. "Do it," he snapped, quickly seizing his jacket.

Lasseur looked beyond Hawkwood, to where a third man was standing by the aft compartment hatchway. Murat, beckoning furiously.

The guards' backs were still turned.

Lasseur sprang to his feet. Keeping his head low, he dodged under the beams and, half stumbling in his haste, followed Hawkwood and Fouchet towards the aft compartment.

Hawkwood knew, as sure as night followed day, the guards were going to turn round. He was still thinking that as he ducked through the hatchway and realized to his astonishment that he'd made it. Twisting, he saw that Millet and Charbonneau were placing the bodies in the vacated cots and covering them with the sheets. Then Murat was pushing him towards two half- sewn, blood-splattered sailcloth cocoons laid out side by side on the deck.

Murat pointed to the sheets. "Get inside. Cross your wrists over your stomachs. Try to remain still. Quickly!"

Hurriedly, Hawkwood and Lasseur did as they were told. As soon as their feet were at the foot of the sacks, the orderlies pulled the two lapels of the cloth around them, tight enough to prevent displacement of their bodies, yet just loose enough to still allow movement in their limbs.

At a nod from Murat, the orderlies took up their needles.

"Wait! Out of the way!" Thrusting Murat and the orderlies aside, the surgeon bent down next to Hawkwood, a wooden bowl in his hands. "Close your mouth."

"Hurry!" Fouchet hissed from the hatchway. "We haven't much time."

Hawkwood clamped his jaws shut. His eyes widened as the surgeon lifted a blood-soaked rag from the bowl and hastily squeezed it out over his lips, chin and jowls. The surgeon repeated the process with Lasseur.

"It won't fool a close examination, but it's the best I can do under the circumstances." The surgeon started as two shadows appeared in the hatchway behind Fouchet. Relief flooded across his face when he saw it was Millet and Charbonneau.

"It's done," Millet said.

Murat glanced through the hatch. "All right, the excitement's over. Get ready to start passing out the rest of the bodies." He nodded towards the two orderlies. "Sew them up." He paused. "And don't forget to piss on them."

He looked down at Hawkwood and Lasseur, at the horror on their faces. "Would you want to look inside something that was bloodstained and reeking of piss? No, me neither. And remember, you're supposed to be dead men. Not a sound. It will seem like a lifetime and the smell will be terrible. Try to keep your breathing steady. I'm sorry we had no time to warn you earlier. We received word that your passage has been agreed. We thought we had another day, but I overheard the commander and Lieutenant Thynne talking. You're due to be transferred to the Sampson tomorrow. This was our only chance to get you off the ship. We've managed to signal to our contact ashore. No matter what happens, remain calm. Millet and Charbonneau are part of the burial party. Trust them. They both know what to do. God speed."

"Hellard will know you helped us," Hawkwood said.

Fouchet shrugged. "What can he do to us that's any worse than what we have to endure now?"

"I hope you get a good price for our sleeping spaces," Lasseur said.

"Sold them already." Murat grinned. He snapped his fingers at the orderlies. "Come on! We need to get them out of here."

"They could put you in the hole," Hawkwood said.

Fouchet smiled. "They'll have to move Juvert out first. Though I could do with some peace and quiet."

"Be careful what you wish for," Hawkwood said. He looked up at Murat. "Is this how the others got out?"

Murat's face darkened. "No."

Despite the heat, Hawkwood felt a chill. "Matisse?"

Murat nodded unhappily.

"How many?"

"Two, according to Sarazin. One through the heads, the other — "

Christ! Hawkwood thought.

"We managed to get two off," Fouchet said.

"How?"

Fouchet glanced at Murat, who somehow managed a weak smile as he said, "You expect us to reveal all our little secrets, do you, Captain?"

"Give them our regards, if you see them," Fouchet said. "Lieutenant Masson and Captain Bonnefoux."

"I'll do that," Hawkwood said.

Lasseur looked up at Murat. "I might have misjudged you, Lieutenant. I'm sorry."

"You're not free yet, Captain."

Lasseur glared at the orderly who was sealing him in. "Put that stitch through my nose and I'll have your guts. And your piss had better smell of roses."

The orderly said nothing, but as he secured the final suture in the cloth, his hands shook. Lasseur's blood-smeared features disappeared from view.

Hawkwood's last sight was of Fouchet staring down at him. The teacher's mouth formed the whisper, " Vive la France/"

Not the words I want to hear going to my grave, Hawkwood thought as the needle punctured the cloth over his face for the last time.

Murat had been right. The smell inside the sack was truly appalling. The tang of urine filled his nostrils while the coppery taste of blood lingered unpleasantly at the back of his throat. He wondered what other body fluids the cloth had been subjected to. It was probably best not to think about that.

He assumed Lasseur was suffering the same discomfort. A perverse part of him hoped so.

Suddenly, the hands under his shoulders shifted their grip and then his legs dropped. They were ascending the stairway. At least they were bearing him up head first, he thought.

It was a strange sensation, being carried and sightless at the same time. It was too dark below deck for him to make out anything through the cloth, other than subtle changes in the density of shadows, but his other senses had already started to compensate. Every footfall, every groan of timber, every thump, every vocal emission, from a shout to a whisper, began to take on a new resonance. When he'd climbed into the burial sack, his first instinct had been to let his body relax so as to mimic dead weight. Now, with his senses heightened, there was not a muscle, tendon, nerve or sinew in his entire body that wasn't drawn as tight as a bowstring. The fear of discovery had become all-consuming. So when he heard Charbonneau murmur throatily, "We're coming on deck," he felt the sweat burst from his palms.

The transformation from gloom to daylight was instantly noticeable. Hawkwood still couldn't discern anything specific through the cloth, but the mere fact that there was light beyond the confines of the material made the inside of the sack seem marginally less claustrophobic.