They put him in a fissure, with horse blankets under him. Without a word, they indicated a small trickle of a spring that wet the rock, beside a stone water jug they'd brought, and a flaxen saddlebag, full of bread. Two of them, one ginger, the other very young, crouched above him as he lay, as if they might speak or say farewell and have some friendly conversation. But in the end they turned away, and clambered up the narrow rocky chimney he'd been brought down, their boots sending dust and stones cascading. When they were gone, enough light still spilled in for him to see the food and water, and the walls, and for a time he could hear feet and voices. He also heard rocks being manhandled, rocks clonking down, to block the passage was his only guess. The light did dwindle, in fits and starts, but when they stopped he still had enough to see by. Not that there was much to see.
Charles Yorke, lucid for a while, tried to think what it all meant, and whether this cleft was intended for his tomb. But he thought of Big Peter, and the red-haired man, and the crying youngster, and it gave him hope. He had water and food, and with water by itself one could survive for many days. Then there were the leaders, who had offered him a trade for information. Someone would return when he was softened up enough. If they did not, even, somebody else must surely chance along.
Men are not animals, he told himself, men are not beasts. They would not leave me here to starve to death, they could not. In any way, that was not their plan.
That night, after Swift had been rowed upriver and William had tried to 'settle Kershaw in', it looked to him and Samuel as if they might find liberty. Word seemed to be, among the dockyarders and the people, that the work was almost finished, and it would be 'out on service' soon, or at least a trip to victualling wharf and then powder and supplies. Indeed, before he'd left, and in despite his hurry, Captain Swift had had some private words with Kaye, that had been apparently galvanic. The man had strode about the quarterdeck, and issued orders, and even done some shouting, in the great tradition. Some men had even jumped, Sam pointed out, laconically.
"It cannot last, though," he said. "God knows what your uncle said to him, but Kaye will relapse by nightfall, he must. The fellows too, I haven't seen them move like this for aeons. They will need a night in bed."
Kaye did relapse. After disappearing to his cabin in late afternoon, and sending Black Bob to the cook to get him ham and muffins, he sent word for them to attend on him for a little wine. They found him lounging across a settle, in silk shirt and linen drawers, with a mild sweat on. Languid was the word, but a fresh clothes suit was laid out, and Black Bob was labouring with a silken cravat and a pleating iron.
"This is beastly, men," he told them, when they had seats and glasses. "We have worked ourselves like slaves, the men have been like Trojans, and now there's nothing for it but to wait."
Sam Holt and Bentley did not demur. The wine was good, the view across the river soothing. Most likely, they had the feeling, they would be sent ashore.
"So where is Gunning?" asked Lieutenant Kaye, rhetorically. "Where is the master and his men? He had word yesterday to be here today, he knows the work is almost done. It is too bad, too bad. Your uncle' was this slyness, gleaming in the blandness of the eye? - 'your uncle, Mr. Bentley, would be in fits."
William, although he had not had chance to tell it to Samuel, had a fair idea of the stimulus for the lieutenant's keenness. Before he had left, Swift had called him peremptorily to one side, to give him 'final information' on the way ahead. He was to dine with Kaye on shore that night, then in the morning would take coach to Plymouth and his ship. He would be away a year or two, and in that time Will Bentley had this task to do: serve Kaye, but serve him to the purpose, as explained. He was a good, rich man who would one day be a lord and have great power but he was lacking.
"That navigator," Swift said. "That tutor whom you looked at all askance. He is for you, undoubtedly I know your attitude to honest learning, and it does me pain but he is for Kaye as well. You were a way to get him on this ship without an insult. Lieutenant Kaye will rise to post if only he can fail blotting his copybook, if you take my meaning. You must help him. That is your bounden task."
Swift beamed, although Will's face could have hardly asked for it.
"Ah, my boy," he said, 'how glad I am to see you on board a ship again, and grown so keen at last! Ready for service to your King and family after all the wasted years. Rise through your work and education, pass for lieutenant, pick Kershaw's brain. He still has one, doubt that not, despite what he suffered as three years a Spanish prisoner; do not underestimate him. Rise, help Kaye to rise, and then we'll talk again about that ship I'm building, and of dynasties, and wealth! Remember what I told you, my sister's son: wars do not last for ever, and there are fortunes must be made."
He had wrung Will's hand then, and startlingly embraced him with vigour. Before he dropped into the borrowed pinnace, he said lightly: "I have kicked Kaye's arse this afternoon, between us, William. I told him what he has to do to please their lordships, and rule one is a hard and busy ship. You will see a change in him; to you I look to keep it up. Tonight at dinner I will go at him again."
It was the coming dinner, possibly, that made Kaye spoil their own plans. The blow fell as they sat and sipped his wine and watched the traffic on the river. His grumbles about Gunning and his 'infernal slackness' finished, Kaye had wandered over victualling, the badness of the Deptford rigging crews, the quality of woodwork the yard had 'botched up' in the cabin (at his own expense, which was the worst of it by far!) and the general inferiority of everyone and sundry.
"Indeed," he said, 'while I'm on shore with Captain Swift tonight, there is much labour to be done, and not just on board the Biter here. Labour! What do I say, it's "duty" is the word! I fear, my friends, a certain slackness has crept into your souls while we've been at Deptford, perhaps that rogue Gunning has infected you. Last night you went out with a crew and picked up pensioners and cripples, as Coppiner has told it at the Lamb, and that the first time that you'd served him in a week! Mr. Bentley, you are new, but that is no excuse where Coppiner's concerned, he is an ever-open maw. Your uncle warned me I have to say this, sir that you can be too pure, pedantic, prudish with the common man, and said I should have no truck at all with it. There now, it's out and you must put yourself together, pull your weight."
The strangest thing about this ambush of his uncle's was the way it was delivered. Kaye's bulbous eyes, bright with something that was not brightness, avoided direct contact with William's, as if what he said was not really meant for him, and in any case was not of great importance. It was as if he was recounting something he'd heard about another party, who was not there and did not matter anyway. The upshot, nevertheless, was clear. That night they were ashore once more, with an Impress crew, and they were expected to do better. Meanwhile, as a measure of his new-found love of duty, their captain would stuff his head on shore with Daniel Swift, and afterwards God knew what debauchery by way of pudding. This joke the burden of Holt's song as they trudged the muddy streets of Wapping in the rain helped keep their spirits up, but it was a dispiriter from start to finish. They took no able-bodied men, three wrecks worse than the night before's, and were all quite bruised, some cut about by stones, when they were ambushed in an alleyway.