Andrew Pepper - The Revenge of Captain Paine

By the time they had pulled into Canterbury, a little after two o’clock in the afternoon, the town dominated by the soaring Norman cathedral, the mail coach was nowhere to be seen, and while the rest of the passengers stretched their legs and took their lunch, as well as some brandy and water, Pyke asked the driver and groom where the rival coach might be, whether it had already started back on the road. Shaking his head, the driver assured him that the mail coach stopped at a different inn and, after he had harried the passengers back into and on to the carriage, they had soon left the old cathedral town behind them. For the final leg of the journey, Pyke had insisted on swapping places with the groom and, having convinced Milly that she would be all right without him inside the carriage, he had taken his seat next to the driver. As the horses pounded the road, straining in their harnesses to go faster, the open land passing by them on either side as a blur, the driver cracking his whip to further encourage them, it was hard not to feel exhilaration at the mixture of speed and fresh air. Behind him Pyke could hear those travelling up on the roof chatting nervously about the prospect of the carriage overturning or coming off the road.

Half an hour after they had left Canterbury, he spotted the mail coach on the road ahead of them and, having pointed it out to the driver, he borrowed the whip and cracked it over the backs of the already straining horses. The coach ahead of them was both newer and faster, especially as it was pulled by eight horses rather than six, but it was carrying at least four more passengers in addition to the sacks of mail, and as such they were able to make up a little ground. But at some point the driver of the mail coach realised that they were closing, the gap no more than a few hundred yards, and urged his own horses to go faster, and soon the final leg of the journey had turned into a full-blown race, one that the passengers riding outside the carriage embraced without question, egging the driver and horses on. Over the next mile or so they closed the gap to less than a hundred yards, close enough to see the faces of those travelling on top of the mail coach, but after that the gap between them remained constant and Pyke realised that if they were going to catch or pass the mail coach they would have to lose some weight. Without saying anything to the driver, he clambered back to where the four passengers were sitting and the luggage was stowed and asked for their help. The plan, he whispered so the driver wouldn’t hear him, was to discard the luggage, piece by piece, off the back of the coach. He paid them a half-crown each and said they could keep their own cases. Then he rejoined the driver at the front of the coach. The gradual loss of weight helped a little and though their horses were beginning to tire, they closed the gap still further, until the mail coach was perhaps only ten or twenty yards ahead of them. At this point, Pyke relieved the driver of the reins and urged the six horses to go faster, looking ahead of them for a suitable place to try to pass the mail coach. It came in the form of a long, wide, straight section of the road. Taking his chance, he steered the coach out on to the other side of the road and lashed the horses’ backs with the whip, shouting and urging them on. Above the rattle of the harness and the sound of hoofs and wheels clattering in unison across the ground, the cheers of support from the other passengers and the bray of the driver’s horn took them alongside the mail coach just as the road ahead of them fell away sharply to the right. At the last moment, Pyke (who had pulled his cloak up around his neck to try to conceal his identity) saw a hay wagon moving slowly towards them in the other direction. They had pulled ahead of the mail coach by a nose and rather than trying to slow down Pyke cracked the whip even harder and went for the fast-closing gap, moving across the mail coach’s line. This drew enraged shouts from the driver of the mail coach but Pyke held his line and continued to race for the gap and then, within the space of a few seconds, it was over. Afterwards, Pyke wasn’t exactly sure what had happened, whether their wheels might have touched or whether the mail coach had struck something in the road and one of the wheels had come loose, but the result was the same: the mail coach skidded off the road, careening into a field and finally toppling over and overturning, the harness snapping loose and freeing the eight horses, which cantered on for a few hundred yards, eventually coming to a halt in the middle of the field. The driver of their coach wanted to stop to make sure no one was hurt but Pyke assured him the best thing they could do was make it to Ramsgate as quickly as possible and send another carriage out to pick up the passengers. It would give the mail coach’s driver time to cool down, too. Despite the fifty pounds he would earn, the driver appeared anxious about the repercussions and insisted that Pyke return to his berth inside the carriage.

Pyke willingly agreed and spent the final hour of the journey chatting with Milly. By the time they had started the slow, tortuous descent into the small port of Ramsgate, the afternoon light was starting to fade and it was almost dark when the weary horses trudged into the coaching yard. Pyke settled his debt with the driver and led Milly to an inn across the road, before any of the passengers realised their cases had been thrown from the roof of the carriage.

Despite the pleasant setting between two chalk cliffs, Ramsgate was a dismal little town and Pyke was glad to be staying only for a night. Having left Milly in their room and assuring her he would return within an hour, he hailed a coachman from a stand in front of the inn and instructed the driver to take him to the Albion hotel. It was a clear, chilly evening and away from the smog of the city the air smelled fresh and the sky was filled with seagulls circling above the returning fishing boats. At the front desk, Pyke asked the hotel’s porters to pass a message to Helen Milner-Gibson and returned to the carriage. He had to wait only a few minutes before the bonneted figure of the princess’s lady-in-waiting emerged from the hotel.

‘Am I to believe you have word from my family, sir?’ she asked, peering into the carriage. This was the message Pyke had told the porter to pass to her.

‘Please, it’s such a chilly evening, why don’t you step in here out of the wind.’ He smiled disarmingly and moved across to the far side of the carriage.

Reluctantly she hitched up her skirt and did as he’d suggested, but left the door ajar in case she needed to make a quick exit. She was an attractive woman with a pale, angular face dotted with freckles, doe-like eyes, dark brown hair gathered up in a comb and long, wispy eyelashes. Without having to ask, he could tell she came from a wealthy family: it was the way in which she carried herself, as though the world owed her something, rather than the other way around.

‘Please, sir, you said you had news from my family. Is it good news or bad news?’ She removed her straw bonnet and looked at him pleadingly.

Pyke waited for a moment, staring out of the window at the masts bobbing up and down in the harbour. ‘I’m told you’re an acquaintance of Kate Sutton.’

Before she could scramble to safety, he had grabbed hold of her wrist and reached across to shut the door. The driver had already been instructed, and indeed paid, to ignore what happened in the back of his cab, and took up the reins, the carriage rolling slowly forward.

‘I just want to know whether Kate is still alive or not,’ Pyke said, quietly, once the cab was moving.

Helen looked at him, her expression revealing antipathy and fear.

‘I’m here to help but I can only do this if you’re honest with me. I’m sure I don’t need to underline the seriousness of the situation but, even so, you might not realise just how much danger you’re in as a friend of Kate’s. Her disappearance has left behind a trail of bodies, including her betrothed as well as her mother and father.’