There was a burst of activity aboard. Urged on by a stentorian voice, the crew hoisted the canvas, pulled up the gangplank, cast off and made ready to sail on the morning tide. Seurel was uneasy.
'I hate being at sea,' he said.
'Think of the benefits, Frederic.'
'What benefits? Feeling sick, unable to touch food, spewing up my guts time and again? Where is the benefit in all that, Charles?'
'At the end of our voyage,' said Catto. 'We catch our prize.'
'I wonder.'
'Trust me. I know how to stalk a man.'
'We don't even know that he is in England,' said Seurel.
'Yes, we do.'
'How?'
'A spy will always run back to his paymaster,' said Catto, 'to pass on what information he has found out. My guess is that Daniel Rawson will have headed straight for the Duke of Marlborough. We know for certain that the Duke is still in England. He won't sail for Holland until next week at the earliest.'
Seurel was startled. 'Are you sure of that, Charles?'
'We have our own spies.'
'Yes, you've been one of them in the past.'
'I'm pleased to say that I have,' admitted Catto proudly. 'I've enlisted in more than one British regiment in order to gauge its strength and ferret out its marching orders. If they ever caught up with me — and I'll make sure they don't — I'd be shot as a deserter.'
'You're like me,' said Seurel, spitting over the bulwark then wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. 'You enjoy danger.'
'I thrive on it.'
The wind was freshening now and filling the sails. As the ship gradually picked up speed, it began to tilt and ride over the waves. A rhythmical creak set in as the timbers met the relentless force of the sea. Catto was interested to watch the sailors going about their duties but Seurel pulled a face and rubbed his queasy stomach. He tried to take his mind off his discomfort by renewing the conversation.
'There's something I never understand about you, Charles,' he said, brow furrowing. 'Why does an Englishman fight for France?'
'I prefer to be on the winning side.'
'Is that the only reason?'
'No, Frederic,' replied the other. 'The French army has been the finest in the world for a very long time and it is a privilege to serve under its flag. What really appeals to me, however, is that I can fight alongside men of my own religion.'
'You are a Roman Catholic?' said Seurel in surprise.
'I joined the army for the pleasure of killing Protestants.'
'So did I. Each bullet I fired was in the name of the Pope.'
'My family was as devout as any in Rome. It did not make us welcome in England. We were persecuted because of our beliefs. My grandfather died in prison, my father was driven into exile when King William sat on the throne. Who can ever forget what that butcher did to the Catholics in Ireland?' he asked with sudden vehemence. 'Those who talked of toleration showed precious little of it during his reign. We were glad to leave England. We settled in Beauvais and I grew up there. I look upon France as my home.'
'Me, too,' said Seurel. 'I wish I was there now.'
'We're still in French waters.'
'I like to have solid ground beneath my feet.'
'You'll have that soon enough,' Catto assured him. 'As for the benefits I mentioned, just remember how much we'll be paid for this little adventure.'
'Only if we catch up with Daniel Rawson.'
'We will, I promise you.' 'What if he has left England?'
'We follow him wherever he goes, Frederic.' He patted his purse. 'We are well-provided with funds. He can run but he will never escape us. Sooner or later, we'll find him.' 'And then?'
'We obey the general's orders to the letter. We kill Daniel Rawson and take him certain proof of the man's death.' 'To do that, we'd have to carry his dead body back with us.' 'There's a much easier way than that, Frederic.' Seurel looked blank. 'Is there?'
'We simply cut off his head,' said Catto. 'That will suffice.'
CHAPTER THREE
It was a regular pilgrimage. Whenever he returned to England, Daniel Rawson always found time to visit the county where he had been born and where his father had been executed for his part in the Monmouth rebellion. He reached Somerset that afternoon to find it gilded by the sunshine and scoured by a stiff breeze that blew his horse's mane almost vertical. Daniel was prompted by curiosity as well as by a sense of duty. He wanted to see how the farm they had once owned was now faring, and if anyone in the vicinity still remembered him. Most of all, he wanted to see again the fields, hills, woods, ponds and rivers he had known and loved as a boy.
As he rode along, he was struck by how different it all was to Holland. When he and his mother had sailed to Amsterdam, they had left rolling countryside behind them and settled in a land that was uniformly flat and menaced by the sea. Only the ingenuity of Dutch engineers kept the waters at bay. Instead of farming the broad acres of Somerset, Daniel had moved to the busiest port in Europe, a clean, well- ordered, prosperous city that taught him to live another kind of life altogether. But he never forgot the joy of growing up in rural seclusion in England even though that joy had been rudely curtailed.
After visiting his old farm, he went on to Chedzoy and Westonzoyland, deliberately crossing the site of the battle that had led to Nathan Rawson's capture. It looked so peaceful and untrammelled now. Where scores of rebel soldiers had met gruesome deaths, cattle grazed unconcernedly. Thick green grass covered the mass graves into which brave men of the West Country had been tumbled after they had been shot or cut down in the searing heat of battle. Daniel could almost hear the thunder of the cavalry, the rattle of musket fire, the angry clash of weaponry, the roar of artillery, the frantic neighing of wounded horses and the heart-rending cries of agony from dying men. Sedgemoor would always be a field of slaughter to him.
It was ironic. Nathan Rawson had been hanged for fighting against a royal army that was led, in part, by the very man whom his son now served. Daniel saw no betrayal in that. John, Lord Churchill, as he had been at the time, had earned his respect by condemning the sergeant who had tried to rape Daniel's mother and by presenting the boy with the sword he had used to kill the man. Three short years after the battle, Daniel had returned to England as a drummer boy in a Dutch army led by William of Orange. King James II had been deposed in a bloodless revolution and Churchill, having fought in the royal army at Sedgemoor, had adroitly changed his allegiance.
Daniel had come to see it as a clever tactical move rather than the action of a traitor. Survival was all. Like any good commander, Churchill had known which way the wind was blowing. In fact, his military career had later stalled under William and Mary, only to be revived in spectacular fashion when Queen Anne came to the throne. As the Duke of Marlborough, he was now captain-general of the forces of the Grand Alliance, fighting against the very army in which he had once served. In waging a war against France, Marlborough could put into practice all he had learnt from his mentor, the great Marshal Turenne, during the war in the Netherlands. At his disposal were soldiers, like Daniel Rawson, drilled to a high standard and honed into professional warriors.
The journey stirred many memories for Daniel, his bitterness softened by nostalgia, his sadness lightened by the fact that he had been able to carry on from his father and achieve, in the army that had ousted the Stuart dynasty without firing a shot, what Nathan Rawson and his fellow-rebels had failed to do. Dedicating himself to military life, Daniel had now risen to the rank that his father had held at his death. One Captain Rawson had been succeeded by another.