Greater confidence came from Griffiths on an afternoon of polar air and brilliant December sunshine when the gig landed them on the shingle strand below Walmer Castle. Within its encircling trees the round brick bastions embraced the more domestic later additions. Lord Dungarth was waiting for them with two strangers who talked together in French. He led them inside. Drinkwater spread the charts as he was bid and withdrew to a side table while Dungarth, Griffiths and the livelier of the two men bent over them.
Drinkwater turned to the second Frenchman. He was sitting bolt upright, his eyes curiously blank yet intense, as though they saw with perfect clarity not Drinkwater before him, but a mirrored image of his own memories. The sight of the man sent a chill of apprehension through Drinkwater. He restrained an impulse to shiver and turned to the window by way of distraction.
Outside the almost horizontal light of a winter afternoon threw the foreground into shadow; black cannon on the petal-shaped bastions below, the trees, the remains of the moat and the shingle. Out over the Downs sunlight danced in a million twinkling points off the sparkling sea, throwing into extraordinary clarity every detail of the shipping. Beyond the dull black hull and gleaming spars of Kestrel several Indiamen got under way, their topsails bellying, while a frigate and third-rate lay in Deal Road. A welter of small craft beat up against the northerly wind, carrying the flood into the Thames estuary. The sharp-peaked lugsails of the Deal punts and galleys showed where the local longshoremen plied their legal, daylight, trade. In the distance the cliffs of France were a white bar on the horizon.
Raised voices abruptly recalled Drinkwater's attention. The three men at the table had drawn upright. Griffiths was shaking his head, his eyes half closed. The stranger was eagerly imploring something. From the rear Drinkwater found the sudden froglike jerks of his arms amusing as the man burst into a torrent of French. But the atmosphere of the room extinguished this momentary lightening of his spirit. The silent man remained rigid.
Dungarth placated the Frenchman in his own tongue, then turned to Griffiths. The lieutenant was still shaking his head but Dungarth's look was sharply imperative. Drinkwater caught a glimpse of the old Devaux, not the ebullient first lieutenant, but a distillation of that old energy refined into urgent compulsion. Griffiths's glance wavered.
'Very well, my lord,' he growled, 'but only under protest and providing there is no swell.'
Dungarth nodded. 'Good, good.' The earl turned to the window. 'There will be no swell with the wind veering north-east. You must weigh this evening… Mr Drinkwater, how pleasant to see you again, come join us in a glass before you go. Madoc, pray allow Drinkwater here to send his mail up with yours, I'll have it franked gratis in the usual way, messieurs…' Dungarth addressed the Frenchmen, explaining the arrangements were concluded and Drinkwater noted a change in the seated man's expression, the merest acknowledgement. And this time he could not repress a shudder.
Neither the wine nor the facility of writing to Elizabeth eased his mind after he and Griffiths returned to Kestrel. The sparkling view, the shadowing castle, the frantic desperation of the Frenchman, the haunted aura of his companion and above all the misgivings of Griffiths had combined with a growing conviction that their luck must run out.
Kestrel must be known to the fanatical authorities in France and sooner or later they would meet opposition. Drinkwater had no need of Griffiths's injunction that as a British officer his presence on a French beach was illegal. An enquiry as to the fate of his predecessor had elicited a casual shrug from the lieutenant.
'He was careless, d'you see, he neglected elementary precautions. He died soon after we landed him.'
Drinkwater found his feeling of unease impossible to shake off as Kestrel carried the tide through the Alderney Race, the high land of Cap de la Hague on the weather quarter. The sea bubbled under her bow and hissed alongside as the steady north-easterly wind drove them south. The Bay of Vauville opened slowly to larboard and, as the night passed, the low promontory of Cap Flammanville drew abeam.
Judging by his presence on deck Griffiths shared his subordinate's uneasiness. Once he stood next to Drinkwater for several minutes as if about to speak. But he thought better of it and drew off. Drinkwater had heard little of the conversation at Walmer. All he really knew was that the night's work had some extra element of risk attached to it, though of what real danger he had no notion.
The night was dark and moonless, cold and crystal clear. The stars shone with a northern brilliance, hard and icy with blue fire. They would be abeam of the Bay of Sciotot now, its southern extremity marked by the Pointe du Rozel beyond which the low, dune-fringed beach extended six miles to Carteret. The wide expanse of sand was their rendezvous, south of the shoals of Surtainville and north of the Roches du Rit. 'On the parallel of Beaubigny,' Griffiths had said, naming the village that lay a mile inland behind the dunes. 'And I pray God there is no swell,' he added. Drinkwater shared his concern. To the westward lay the ever-restless Atlantic, its effect scarcely lessened by the Channel Islands and the surrounding reefs. There must almost always be a swell on the beach at Beaubigny, pounding its relentless breakers upon those two leagues of packed sand. Drinkwater fervently hoped that the week of northerlies had done their work, that there would be little swell making their landing possible.
He bent over the shielded lantern in the companionway. The last few sand grains ran the half hour out of the glass and he turned it, straightening up with the log slate he looked briefly at his calculations. They must have run their distance now. He turned to Griffiths.
'By my reckoning, sir, we're clear of the Surtainville Bank.'
'Very well, we'll stand inshore shortly. All hands if you please.'
'Aye, aye, sir.' Nathaniel turned forward.
'Mr Drinkwater… check the boats, now. I'll sway out the second gig when you leave. And Mr Drinkwater…'
'Sir?'
'Take two loaded scatter guns…' Griffiths left the sentence unfinished.
Drinkwater paced up and down the firm wet sand. In the starlight he could see the expanse of beach stretching away north and south. Inland a pale undulation showed where the dunes marked the beginning of France. Down here, betwixt high and low water, he walked a no-man's-land. Behind him, bumping gently in the shallows, lay the waiting gig. Mercifully there was no swell.
'Tide's making, zur.' It was Tregembo's voice. Anxious. Was he a victim of presentiment too?
It occurred to Drinkwater that there was something irrational, ludicrous even, in his standing here on a strip of French beach in the middle of the night not knowing why. He thought of Elizabeth to still his pounding heart. She would be asleep now little dreaming of where he was, cold and exposed and not a little frightened. He looked at the men. They were huddled in a group round the boat.
'Spread out and relax, it's too exposed for an ambush.' His logic fell on ears that learned only that he too was apprehensive. The men moved sullenly. As he watched he saw them stiffen, felt his own breath catch in his throat and his palms moisten.
The thudding of hooves and jingle of harness grew louder and resolved itself into vague movement to the south. Then suddenly, running in the wavelets that covered its tracks a small barouche was upon them. The discovery was mutual. The shrill neighing of the horses as they reared in surprise was matched by the cries of the seamen who flung themselves out of the way.