‘Haha!’ roared his friend.
‘And if you were merely ordinary,’ said the fair one, ‘two pounds ten shillings would be your price.’
‘Haha!’ roared his friend.
‘But as you are a man of the land, shall we say…thirty shillings!? How does thirty shillings sound, landman?’
Truly, Thomas could not say. He could not think at all clearly. Thirty shillings for twelve sheep. Was that better or worse than he could expect at the market?
‘Landman, I say. Will you accept thirty shillings? To serve the King?’
Thomas blinked as the fair-haired boy in blue stood up off his tub and came towards him.
‘Hold out your hand, Thomas Fox. I will pay you in... silver.’
‘Oh good, Will, oh good,’ said the squeaky one. ‘Oh, very good!’ Thomas, who had a heavy black pot in his right hand, held out his left and opened it. There was a gasp from the officer. He looked downwards at his palm. In it were the remains of the mutton pie; a vile mess of cold grease, black meat and dirty pastry. Thomas wiped his palm on his once-white smock and accepted the thirty shillings of the King’s bounty.
Suddenly the high-voiced officer said something harsh and abrupt, which Thomas did not catch. But the fair-haired one waved it aside.
‘Thomas,’ he said pleasantly. ‘You must help us to the Sallyport. We are men of the sea. To a flock of sheep we would be like lambs. They would rule us. Come now.’
It was not easy, but it was done. Thomas had a headache. His arms and legs, let alone the sheep, were not inclined to do what he wanted of them. The trip down High Street, with its heavy traffic, its crowds of people, was difficult. In fact he blessed himself, over and over again, drunkenly, that he did not have to go to market and drive a bargain. He was thankful to the midshipmen officers too, for they occasionally kicked a sheep back into line for him, and chased off marauding dogs. They were very jolly, treating it as a game; they called it a convoy, and Thomas the flagship. Thomas was glad he’d met them, although he wished they had not bought him so much ale. They were fine fellows. But thirty shillings, thirty shillings; was it enough, he wondered.
They drove the sheep, bawling, through the narrow entrance to the Sallyport, under King Charles’s head. The stiff breeze, blowing straight onshore, beat Thomas Fox’s smock hard against him, cut through his thin coat. It was suddenly cold. His teeth chattered. He felt very sick. He wished he had eaten the pie.
The sheep were nervous as he drove them along the pier. But now Thomas had many more helpers. A large band of sailormen padded the boards behind him and his officer friends. The sheep kept stopping, bleating, turning. But the wall of grim-faced men pressed them forward. The air was clean and cold and wet, the sea darkening as the sun dropped down the late autumn sky. They passed several moored boats, several bunches of Navy men who stared incuriously and said nothing. Then below him, a flight of green slippery steps to a jetty. There was a boat alongside it, pitching in the swell. A muffled boat-keeper sat hunched on a bollard.
Thomas turned to the midshipmen.
‘How to get ’em down them steps, your honour,’ he said. ‘That’s a question I should not like to answer.’
The fair-haired one laughed. He shouted something. Three seamen leaped on one of the sheep. There was a swift struggle, a terrified bleating. Before Thomas saw exactly how it was done, the sheep was scampering around the bottom of the boat. Within a few minutes all were in.
Only the two midshipmen, another, older, officer, and four seamen were left on the pier. The boat-keeper, hunched on his bollard, had not moved.
‘Well, Thomas Fox,’ said William Bentley. He looked at the green-faced youth with contempt. ‘Do you have to be carried, or can you crawl?’
Thomas stared.
‘Begging your pardon,’ he said. ‘I’m off home now. It will be dark one time, and there’s still work to be done, I suppose.’
‘Get in the boat, Fox.’
‘That I shan’t, young fellow. It was the sheep you bought, not I.’ He made to walk along the jetty. The gate in the city wall was clearly visible, a hundred yards away. Across his path the four seamen stood.
‘Thomas Fox,’ said William Bentley. ‘Get into that cutter before I drop my hand, or you will be carried.’
‘And if you disobey another order,’ Jack Evans shrilled, ‘you shall be flogged. You took the bounty, Thomas Fox. You are the King’s man now.’
‘The bounty? I sold my sheep! My lords! I sold my sheep! My father’s sheep! I took no bounty!’
A sick void opened in his stomach. He dropped to his knees, burying his face in his hands.
‘Mr Dolby,’ said William Bentley coldly. ‘Have this poltroon carried aboard the cutter if you please. My God,’ he said to Evans, ‘to think we must man the King’s ships with suchlike scum…’
Three
At two o’clock the next morning William Bentley sat in the stern-sheets of the cutter once more, huddled in his thick boat-cloak, watching the dark seas off the easternmost point of the Isle of Wight. The boat rocked gently in the swell, and William was perishing with cold. Beside him sat the third lieutenant of the Welfare, a man of twenty-two called Higgins. William despised him for a fool and was glad their task forbade them to speak. All the officers on board his uncle’s ship were fools in one way or another, he reflected savagely. He longed for the day he might bring off something splendid, be made acting lieutenant by the captain.
But he did not let his dreaming dull his concentration.
The cutter was silent, except for the occasional creaking of the two stern oars, which were shipped and ready. Every now and again the two seamen at them dipped and pulled quietly, to keep the boat’s head across the seas towards where France must be. The other oarsmen sat the wrong way round on their thwarts, staring into the blackness over the bow. William stared too, till the dark glittered and flashed in his eyes. They had been there since midnight, waiting. So far nothing had happened.
William was glad to be on the cutter. He had asked his uncle’s permission to join the ‘expedition,’ and had got it because of his successful recruiting drive in Portsmouth. Higgins did not like him much, and would rather have brought the boat’s crew out alone; but that had meant nothing once Uncle Daniel had given the word.
He had been waiting on the quarterdeck when William had brought the boat neatly alongside with its chaotic cargo of sick sheep and sicker shepherd. William had nipped up the ladder smartly, leaving the mundane task of unloading everything to Dolby and Evans. There was a fairish sea running in the Roads, and he watched the lubberly antics of the waisters for a few minutes before his uncle invited him below. Before they went Swift spoke to the boatswain about the state of the crew. That illustrious warrant officer took deeply to heart the captain’s observations about what would happen if some seamanship was not soon beaten into them.
In his uncle’s cabin, full glasses in their hands, William described his trip ashore.
‘The sight of a blue coat has a truly strange effect, uncle. You could almost hear the scurrying as the loathsome rats disappeared into their holes. Women and children aplenty. But of able-bodied men not a sign. I beg your pardon.’
Swift chuckled.
‘Do not fish for compliments, my boy,’ he replied. ‘You know you have done admirably. I expected less. Half a dozen sheep and a shepherd. Excellent.’
‘A round dozen, sir. And they cost me no more than a landman’s bounty.’
‘All legal and above board,’ said Swift.
William speculated. Did his uncle wish to know of the illegalities, or was he to keep it dark? He cleared his throat.