Wilder Perkins: Hoare and the Portsmouth Atrocities

… but there. Dugas knew too much to be left in enemy hands. He had to be silenced. I owe penance for that, and for the death of the honest doctor. He, too, was well-meaning-"

"Mais qu'est-ce que vous dites, monsieur?" came Fortier's appalled voice in Hoare's ear. Moreau fell silent for a moment.

"There," he then said. "I've told you all this so you can meditate about it while you drown. Overboard with him. Now."

Each of the men holding Hoare was well-muscled, and their grip was unbreakable for a man of Hoare's age and condition. He found himself swinging by his arms and legs between two pairs of powerful arms. Helped along by a light, disdainful push from Moreau, they tossed Hoare over Marie Claire's low rail. He barely had time to draw breath before he struck the water.

Irish Pennants-the occasional tag ends of line left by careless crewmen to drag along over a vessel's side-had always spelled slipshod seamanship to Hoare, and, like his fellow officers, he had suppressed them wherever found, as if they were so many signs of sodomy. Now, however, he thanked fortune that Moreau, at least, cared nothing for them. From a cleat below Marie Claire's toy stern gallery a good three fathoms of half-inch line trailed sinuous in her wake. One of Hoare's flailing hands found its bitter end. It might have been the painter of a poorly minded skiff, for it was frayed and not whipped. Whatever else it may have been, it was a blessing.

Hoare kicked off his shoes. As silently as he could, he hauled himself up the line in the dark, hand over hand. As silently as he could, he hoisted himself far enough out of the water to shift his grip to the rail of the stern gallery. The carven structure was a mere flourish which Moreau must have installed to make his little schooner seem bigger. It was rugged enough to carry part of Hoare's weight, but when he tried to hoist himself as silently as he could out of the water, it creaked softly, alarmingly, out of the vessel's own rhythm.

His gently searching feet struck against something vertical beside them. It was Marie Claire's rudder, its gudgeons groaning gently in the pintles as the helmsman adjusted her course. There Hoare squatted, secure, but seized by occasional chills, and waited in the night to discover what fate might bring his way.

Above him, he could hear French being spoken. The voices came and went.

"I must… London as soon… close down… You must go.. Jaggery in Ports… Dispose…" This voice was Moreau's.

"… in London, sir?… Louis-…?"

This was one of Moreau's men. To Hoare's straining ears it had sounded as though the Frenchman was naming someone, presumably Moreau's man-or master? — in London. "Louis." How agonizing not to have caught the rest of the name.

"Never mind who. Tend to your own business. Get forward, you lubber, and trim the fore-staysail…" Moreau's words came loud and clear. Yes, the other had, indeed, been naming someone. Damn.

Silence fell on deck. Hoare resigned himself to clinging where he was while his destiny worked itself out. Marie Claire ghosted on toward Weymouth. He clung, schemed, dozed.

"Here." after the long silence, Moreau's sharp command struck hard on Hoare's ears. "No, we won't anchor. I must get ashore, and since you, you cretin, let our skiff go adrift, you must put me onto the quay. There, beside that interfering revenue cutter. Then take her out again. I'll send two or three men out in a skiff.

"Stand off and on offshore of the Bill until I signal you. It may be three or four days. If you don't see my signal by Wednesday, make for Douarnenez and report to Rossignol.

"Now, repeat my orders."

Mumble.

"Very good. Now come up, Bessac! D'you want to put our bowsprit through the cutter?"

The rudder swung over to port. Hoare took advantage of the Marie Claire's concentration on setting Moreau ashore to part company. He slid silently back into the water and swam to the strand as quietly as he could, to cast himself on the mercy of Eleanor Graves. The east was red.

"Well, Mr. Hoare, what next?"

Eleanor Graves had heard enough of Hoare's whispered story. The manservant Tom had at last assured himself that the coatless, unshod, bedraggled figure that had roused him out of his bed and to her doorstep was, indeed, Mr. Hoare. Tom had awakened his mistress and sent the maid Agnes off to help Cook prepare an early breakfast. Now he sat, a mute Jack Horner, in a corner of the drawing room lit by the early morning sun, on guard.

Eleanor Graves was seated on her tuffet. From beneath a sensible, sexless flannel nightgown ten small straight sallow toes peeped out. They made Hoare think of so many inquisitive hatchlings. He felt impelled to comfort them but answered the lady instead.

"It would be futile," he said, "to try persuading Sir Thomas to lend me men to hunt Moreau down."

Eleanor Graves snorted. "Rather, he would hunt you down, pop you into one of his dungeons, and torture you to death. Mr. Morrow-Moreau, I suppose I should call him now-will have spun him an enticing yarn about you by now. And Sir Thomas is sure to have been inveigled. He has taken you into a strong aversion, you know. Any posse comitatus he calls up will be on your trail, not Moreau's. And so?"

Hoare had no handy plan to offer up in reply. He excused himself to himself by reflecting that he had, after all, been awake all night, either towing behind Marie Claire like so much shark bait or hanging from her counter like a six-foot simian. And he was, after all, forty-three years old.

"Think a bit, Mr. Hoare, while I remove my improper person from your sight and make myself as ladylike as I can. Agnes will bring you a breakfast in a moment."

Eleanor Graves rose from her tuffet and went upstairs. She took her toes with her. Hoare was left alone with Tom.

"You could 'scape by hidin' in the mistress's shay," Tom said.

Hoare started out of a doze. "I don't drive. Can you?"

"Not me, Yer Honor. I were no plowboy afore I went into service wi' Doctor, and no ostler. I were a sweep's boy. Doctor saved me balls, 'e did."

Hoare understood. He had learned during one of his snooping ventures that the tarry dust from the flues, up which their masters sent them, coated the orphan lads' immature scrota, generally remaining there, eating away, for months or more between baths. The children generally succumbed to cancerous ulcers before puberty, dying as little eunuchs.

The silence that ensued was broken when the maid Agnes entered with steaming porridge and a plate of crisp bacon for Hoare's breakfast. She set the tray down on her mistress's tuffet.

"There be a man at kitchen doooor," she announced. "Sailor man like. 'E be askin' for Mr. 'Oare." Maidenly, she blushed as she spoke the dirty word. " 'Is name be Stone, 'e sez."

Stone?

"Will you go and inspect him, Tom?" Hoare whispered. "Ask him what Bold looks like. Then come back and tell me what he says."

Tom nodded, preceded Agnes from the room. Too late, Hoare saw what he had just done. Whoever the man at the door was, he would know now that Hoare was within. Damn his sleepy mind.

"'E says Bold be black." In the doorway, Tom looked puzzled.

"Bring him in then, if you please, Tom. He's on my side, and the mistress's."

Stone's face lit up when he saw his officer. He knuckled his forehead. The officer in question was quite sure that his own face lit up as well.

"What fair wind blows you here, Stone?" he asked.

"Me an' Bold, zur, when we sees you left aboard thicky schooner, we sez to each other, we sez, 'Mr. 'Oare'll be off to Weymouth with 'er, and 'e'll be in shoal waters an' on a lee shore.' So we stops up the sweep-ports what you an' I jes' finished a-carvin' in yer yachtet, an' gets 'er under way again. We didn't want to go a-drivin' into Weymouth 'arbor like we owned the place, not wi' thicky schooner already in port, so we sets a course for Ringstead Bay instead.