The young man standing by one of the tables and playing the pipes was plump and stocky with wavy black hair which fell over eyes now glazed from the effort of blowing and keeping the small bag full of air.
The tune, a strange one to English ears, was nevertheless haunting, and the dozen or so seamen in the bar had fallen silent, watching the piper, whose expression showed that the melody he was playing had momentarily carried his thoughts to a distant country.
Finally the tune ended and he snatched the bag from under his arm, cutting the notes off sharply. He sat down at the table, grinning at the three men already seated, and waving to other seamen who called their appreciation.
One of the three, a lean-faced, raggedly-dressed individual with thinning sandy hair, who was apparently more than a little drunk, pushed a mug in front of the piper. 'Have a pint of Kentish ale, Rosey, and play some more. Those Italian bagpipes kick up a nice tune.'
'You like, eh? Sono doloroso ... I so sad now; is a long time...'
'You'll go back one day; Genoa has been there a long time - no one will steal it.'
'You don't know Rosey's mates,' a Cockney said. 'Like pursers, they are; steal it bit by bit, so's no one really notices 'til it's all gorn!'
'Is true, Staff,' the Italian said. ‘This Bonaparte steal it all now, but one day we chase him out and go back, eh - Nick?’
There was a slight hesitation as the Italian (who until a few hours earlier had been noted down in the Muster Book of a ship of the line in Portsmouth as Alberto Rossi, born in Genoa, and rated ordinary seaman) used the name Nick: he was finding it hard to be familiar with Lieutenant Nicholas Ramage, the man who had for so long been his commanding officer.
Now, in common with the other two men who, when sudden orders had been received from the Admiralty by the new telegraph linking Portsmouth and London, had travelled to Dover with him from the same ship in Portsmouth, he was doing his best to carry out Mr Ramage's orders. These wen simple enough: they were all - including Mr Ramage - to behave like fishermen or seamen from a merchantman while in England. Once they reached France they would receive fresh orders.
France! He was hot and nearly winded from playing the pipes, but the thought of landing in Bonaparte's own country chilled him. Not because the prospect of a fight with a bunch of Frenchmen was frightening: no, it was more the idea that Bonaparte's armies now strutted like peacocks over most of Europe - the Low Countries, Spain, most of the states in Italy, Austria, maybe even Switzerland. In fact it was easier to remember that they were not in Britain and Portugal. Perhaps some of those places round the Baltic - Sweden, for example - had not been invaded, but Rossi knew that the only possible reason was that they were too insignificant for Bonaparte to be bothered with. Russia? Probably too big ...
Will Stafford, born in Bridewell Lane, within the sound of Bow Bells, and apprenticed to a locksmith before going to sea, had a wide-eyed naïveté about some aspects of life which contrasted with a remarkable knowledge of other aspects, most of the latter picked up while working as a locksmith at dead of night and usually without the owner of the lock knowing or being charged. Yet Stafford had an instinctive understanding of people; he usually sensed moods in his shipmates and recognized the sudden stab of nostalgia in time to murmur a comforting phrase or divert the mood with a quick joke.
As he watched Rossi fold the pipes before putting them down on the table, he saw that the Italian was brooding and knew he had to be brought back from the past of the hills of Piedmont and Tuscany to the present of the bar parlour of the Kentish Knock, with its low ceiling blackened round the fireplace from years of wintry evenings and smokey chimneys.
'Them pipes is more musical than the Scotch ones,' Stafford commented. 'Ain't got so much body, though.'
'Accidente,' Rossi said, 'I never hear the Scotch, but pipes sono Romani!The Romans have the bagpipes first. These Scotch -' he waved, dismissed kings and clans contemptuously, 'they copy them. They eat the porridge and drink the whisky and blow hard.'
'Scots,' said the lean-faced man sitting on the form next to Ramage. ' "Scots" if it's people, "Scotch" if it's things.'
‘That's why it's called "Scotchland", eh Jacko?' Stafford said sarcastically. 'Anyway, I've heard the Irish had 'em afore the Scots.'
Jackson gave an easy laugh. 'Don't expect an American to explain that. Why -'
He broke off suddenly as he saw a man come through the door from the street and stop, peering round at everyone in the bar. The man saw Ramage and began sidling over towards him, but he had not moved six feet before Jackson, in one catlike movement, had left the table to intercept him.
'Hello, Jacko,' the man said nervously, half-expecting to see a knife, 'it's an right, I'm expected!'
Ramage, equally startled, signalled reassuringly to the American and looked at the man, his face unsmiling and questioning.
'You remember me, sir?' the man said almost slyly, keeping his voice low so that only Ramage and his group could hear him. 'I served with you in the Triton.'
Ramage gestured to him to sit down and said icily, 'You did too, by Jove. Dyson, isn't it?'
'Slushy Dyson, sir, an' I want ter say I'm sorry, an' thank you fer puttin' me on board the Rover.'
‘Two dozen lashes, I seem to remember,' Ramage said his voice still cold. 'I logged it as drunkenness, I believe, not mutiny.'
'Yes, sir; I deserved to 'ave been 'anged, an' I know it. Lucky you was the capting, sir; anyone else would've made sure I was strung up by the neck from the foreyardarm.'
Ramage began to realize that Dyson's appearance might not be a matter of chance: at first he had thought that the seaman's 'You remember me, sir? I served with you in the Triton,' had been an extraordinary coincidence - the normal thing for the man to say, and not the password arranged with Simpson. Now Ramage remembered Dyson's reassuring comment to Jackson, 'It's all right, I'm expected.' Had Dyson come from Simpson? One thing seemed certain: Dyson was no longer in the King's service!
'So when I transferred you to the Rover, I suppose you deserted. Are you marked "run" in her books?'
He watched Dyson shaking his head half-heartedly and noted that Jackson, Stafford and Rossi were staring at the man with curiosity: their wary suspicion had vanished. Yet but for these very men, Slushy Dyson, cook's mate, would have led a mutiny in the Triton within hours of her sailing from Portsmouth for the West Indies. Dyson was not exaggerating when he said he deserved to have been hanged, and his gratitude at being let off with a couple of dozen lashes and transferred to another ship was genuine enough. If the Admiralty ever found out all the details, Ramage himself would probably be court-martialled as well, for failing to bring Dyson to trial. But he was curious to know why Dyson, having been in the shadow of the noose very briefly on board the Triton should have deserted so that he was now in it permanently. His life was in perpetual jeopardy if he was now a deserter, his liberty was in perpetual jeopardy if he was now a smuggler.
Ramage decided that this must be Simpson's emissary and said: 'As I gather we are going to be - er, shipmates again, Dyson, you'd better tell us all about it, and clear the air,
The bar was almost dark now and Dyson waited while the innkeeper put candles on the tables where customers were sitting. The innkeeper was used to sailors and did not try to press them into ordering more drinks: he knew they would shout loud enough when they were thirsty and were likely to turn truculent if they suspected they were being forced. The candle on Ramage's table flickered in the faint draught from he door, and Dyson's narrow, shifty face seemed even more haggard than Ramage remembered it nearly two years ago. Every wrinkle was shadowed by the weak flame, the eyes were still as shifty, and the ears oddly pointed, almost fox-like.