Sam laughed.
"How well you know the service! But no, that is another string to the old man's bitter bow. He is a drunkard who can no longer drink. The story is and it may be just that, but I think not the story is he cannot even wet his lips with liquor, be it never so dilute, without he vomits it out of every pore and every orifice. He was taken once another story by a crew of young men he was releasing to a frigate, and they forced some brandy down his throat, they held him down and filled him through a copper tun dish like a Strasbourg goose. He shit like a firework they tore his trowsers off and vomited from nose and mouth, and bled through his ears and round his eyeballs. The story is not true, though. He would have killed them after. Which is, I promise, not a joke. Avoid him, Will. He is wholly hazardous."
There was a noise not far from them, and voices William could recognise. The seamen, who had flitted off without an order, began to reappear. Before, they were a cutter's crew a good one, to his surprise, despite the fact no one issued orders, and Sam played passenger, not command now they were a band of desperadoes, armed to the teeth. It occurred to him, that apart from the blue he and Samuel wore, these could be a gang of men from any ship, intent on mayhem. If other men avoided them, as sure as hell they would, who could blame them for that, or gainsay them if they gave fear as their excuse?
"Hell, Sam," he said, 'it is a gang of pirates. Tell me again how we're within the law."
He said it as a joke, and Sam responded with a laugh, but grimly.
"The King needs sailors, but the dogs won't come," he said. "Merchants want protection, but they won't give up their sailors; indeed, they pay them more than we do and they let them go on shore when they're not sailing. The law is this, Wilclass="underline" certain people we must leave alone, like children, water men sailors outward bound, apprentices, bona fide men of business, clerics, all persons with a pass that says they're clear. Those we take, we pay; we offer bounty before we force them, and on board we give them money in advance, or a ticket for it, anyway. Look at it in this fashion the Navy needs the men, and if we don't do it someone else will, harder. Alternative: we starve."
The men were gathered round them now, and some were getting restive. There were eight of them, led by the boatswain Taylor, the small, squat man of Irish face who seemed to merge rather than lead, which may have been bare wisdom in the case of one or two. One named John Behar, Will was to learn was tall and bony, his loose limbs all point and knuckle, his face a picture of affronted cunning. Tom Tilley was yet larger, of enormous bulk and heavy tread, with deep-set, unpleasant eyes and a twisted mouth. Indeed, on close inspection, they were all formidable, all held their cudgels with anticipating love, and all were mixing for a violent fray.
"We're ready, sir," said Taylor, as if summing up a mood. "We're fit to crack some heads for King and country!"
Taylor's bold statement was maybe meant to mock them, and as he issued it, he and his cohorts moved forward as a body, crowding them towards the entry port. William was aware of the issued pistol heavy at his waist, and he saw Sam's knuckles tighten on his club. But they were pushed backwards not touched, but moved as if by a human tide and emerged almost willy-nilly through the port on to the pontoon alongside which the cutter lay.
Outside the air was clean and warm, although a certain nip of autumn touched the skin, and the smell off the river was ten times sweeter than the reek inside the hulk. She lay above them like a sheer black cliff, not a light along her length save at the quarter windows, behind which Lieutenant Coppiner presumably sat and nursed his hate and grievances. And waited, thought William, like a spider in the centre of his web for flies, or sailors, or innocents abroad, to be thrust into the sticky, massy darkness where he could feed on them.
"Sir?" The boatswain glanced at him, a sideways look. He was already at the tiller, and two men were holding the pontoon, waiting to let slip. William lightly stepped on to the gunwale, then joined his fellow officer in the well. The cutter without an order was freed, sliding sideways and outwards from the receiving hulk until all the oars were shipped and clear and the men began to pull towards the shore. Silhouetted against a starry sky she was enormous, high from the water because empty of all heaviness, and sporting only one stump of mast, abaft of midships. The rising moon threw a white glare as it slipped from behind a cloud, but she still had no reflected beauty. She had been a ship, and lovely as ships are. Now she was a floating, rotten dungeon.
"Are there men on board?" asked William. "Surely not just Coppiner?"
"That ent a man," said Jem Taylor, unexpectedly. "That be a black spirit, run away from hell."
"He's a bastard, sir. I beg your pardon."
There was laughter from the boat's crew at this William had no idea who had spoken the latter sentences and no sense at all the apology was meant. Sam Holt was smiling, too.
"Just Coppiner, and a crew of four or five or so. His imps, perhaps, if Jem is right about their master! They're wrecks, or mad, or drunkards anyway, there's no gainsaying that, they act as jailers, to his command. Us and the other tenders provide for him, and bring the muscle when it's needed. Tonight, say. We'll go out and fetch them in, and Jem here and the lads will chain them in the pens while you and me go aft with Coppiner to his office and sort out cash and papers. We'll sign them over, he'll sign them in, we'll go out for more."
"Ho ho," came from the middle of the boat, quiet but distinct.
"Depending on the time and circumstance," said Samuel, unperturbed. "There's none on there tonight, if that's what you mean, though. I guess our being here means there's a flurry on. What did he say she's called? The Claris, was it? I don't know the ship."
A voice from forward: "Forty gun; Captain Anderson. She lost a hundred in the Straits. The smallpox."
Further aft: "Then sixty more from scurvy, coming home. She lies at Sheerness."
"Well, we can't ship 'em down there," said Samuel, cheerfully. "That's one bright aspect, if we find some rogues. On short-haul trips like this," he explained to Bentley, 'pressed men can be a deal of trouble. Drunk, furious, with friends and wives and sweethearts ready to row out and take them off of us. But Biter's stuck down in Deptford, so we take 'em back to Coppiner and away like buggery. He has some soldiers, of course, as well as his imps, eight or ten or so, in case of boarding parties in a rage. But we'll sleep like quiet babies in our beds."
It was black once more, the moon behind a bigger cloud. They were slipping past moored merchant ships, and ahead of them were wharves, and yards, and docks. Huddled houses right down to the bank, and wherry traffic, water men boats, activity. Bentley did not know the river, but this was seaman-land, and with a vengeance. Dark though the night was, the sense of life and fervour was enormous, growing greater as they approached the public stage. One end was set aside for mooring boats, and Taylor nosed the cutter in amongst them as the bow man made ready to put a rope ashore. There were two or three shore men on watch, but none offered to take a line. A Navy cutter with armed men aboard most likely meant the Press. William saw one of the watchers, younger than the rest, merge with the dark and vanish out of sight, and as they climbed the stair into the dock-street proper he noted that -although the place was swarming men in sailor's garb were few, and kept their distance.
Holt stopped when they reached the level, with the men all gathered round him. About them moved foot passengers of every degree except that they all were pretty low, thought William. Costers, tradesmen, servant-types, beggar-boys and merchants' runners. Carts also, drawn by oxen, and mules packed with goods. He studied them, wondering how they were to choose potential targets, but Holt and the gang ignored them. They had other fish to fry.