The nub was, when they'd talked it round and round, that a movement started many months before, resisted 'on the lower deck' and fought and argued over passionately, was getting close to being clinched irrevocably. The Kent and East Sussexers would no longer be gainsaid, and the local venturers and shadows had decided to go in. There was money in the question, a mint; thirty, forty, fifty thousand pounds perhaps. In a week or two Isa and Mary were vague on this there was to be a meeting of the sides, possibly with a brandy run as a diversion, an enormous show of arms to discourage interference and, perhaps, to mark it as a special time. Behind the beach though, in a house they used beside the River Adur mouth, would be the highest-level business, a shaking of hands and meeting of minds among the greatest of the shadow-guard, the venturers. It was this rendezvous, and the local names behind it, that Charles Warren and Charles Yorke had uncovered or been on the point of doing, and had therefore had to die. After the rendezvous, said Mary, such sort of action, such beastliness, would spread along the coast like cancer.
Outside, people were calling as they crossed the causeway, cows were lowing. It only served to emphasise the quietness within.
"These men," asked William, at last. "These local men. They are not working people, like yourselves. What kind of men are they? If we were to, somehow, get to this rendezvous ... how would we know ... ?"
He let the question tail, because he had a growing sense inside, a vague foreboding. But Isa Bartram, impatient, interrupted him.
"What mean you? Get to the rendezvous? Lord, sir, there will be the wildest men to guard it in three counties, men of blood and iron. We told you, a show of force unprecedented. We did not tell you this to have you murdered out of hand! An' you went near it you would be torn to pieces!"
"Then what," asked Sam, 'have you in mind? You've told us for a reason, we are not bumpkins, are we? What is it that you hope we'll do? And why?"
"The "why" is simple!" said Mary, passionately. "John Hardman, and Mr. Yorke, and Warren! We are free traders, we earn a living, not a great one neither, and everybody knows the law is mad and breaks it at their will and buys their necessary luxuries from us! We are not savages, nor murderers, nor rich! The "what" we have no real idea of, except you're of the Navy Royal and we have trusted you. You could have us hanged, the lot of us, the moment that you go away from here. Or you can find a way to help us, if you can. Us and our country, that needs it sorely. These new ways; this greed for money. It is growing out of conscience, it is wrong!"
Bartram, whose lean and bitter features were not prone to warmness, looked at Mary with pity and affection, and leaned to touch her arm.
"You see," he said, 'we are not common criminals. John died for honesty, despite he took some cash for it. If you don't have us hanged and we're found out by the great ones we want to thwart well then, we'll all end up butchered too, I guess. Mary is fearful for the future of her little Jem. I too have children. I wonder who would take them in?"
"But we are midshipmen," said Sam. "We are the lowest of the low in some respects. If we had times and dates and places, well, perhaps we could set up a Customs force. We have been told they should co-operate, but we are Navy men, as you so rightly say, and the rivalry is bitter. Likewise if we tried to get the Navy in, what would the Customs say? In any way, we need times and places, something firm, or we will be laughed out of court. You say next week, or later. How can we work on that?"
Bartram nodded.
"I see your troubles, but ... Look, I can try to find out more, although we are in suspicion, because of John. Can you not go away and try yourselves? Not to find out the detail, but if you can get a force? The Navy would be better because we know the Customs too damn well. Some would be bought off, some would blab your secrets to the families, and if they made the beach and the force was strong or odds too great, they'd run. Warren and Yorke, among their other annoyances, were not bribe able The way they died will make all lesser men think hard before they copy them, I promise you. Whatever else I've heard about the Navy, courage is not a doubt, is it?"
He did not need an answer, although Will's mind, and Sam's, slipped on to Kaye and his absurdities. But they took the point about the Customs House. This operation, if it should come, would be a facer even for the bravest men. They could call in dragoons perhaps, more like militia or the mounted yeomanry, but then again ... It was not so very long ago that they'd been hunted by that sort of gallant band, and jailed. For what? For catching smugglers.
"We will go," said Will decisively. "We will try. If we had names, you understand; if we could name men and say that they'd killed Warren and Yorke?" He sighed. "No, it would be too easy. And even if you knew, and told, you would be done to death. But without names we can only stick our necks out and make promises, predictions. It may go hard with us to drum up a response."
"We do not know the names," said Mary. "Believe us, Will. We were thorns in their side in this right from the start, and you're right, they'd kill us. They'd kill us if they knew about your being here, if they knew the half of what we'd told you. It's growing dark. You must wait until it's truly black before you do set off. Isa and the friends will look out for you and set you on your way. Look, there is bread and cheese and I will mash some tea. Isa, go next door and bring your Kate and the children in, let's have a little normality round here. And let me say that when we have a date, a fair idea, you will know of it. But we will need a go-between to get the news to you, or one of you will have to ride again. We must work that out."
She went and checked the kettle as it bubbled, and stirred the fire under it.
"Now, tea," she said.
Before they left, three hours later when it was pitchy dark, Mary took some trouble to speak to Will alone. Sam had gone outside to see the horses and talk to Isa and the others, with whom he was much easier now all the cards were out. Will would have gone, but Mary held him with a look.
"A word," she said. "I hope we meet again, but if we don't, I wish to say farewell, and properly. I need to thank you face to face for trusting me. And say sorry if I've used deceit."
Will protested, but she shook her head.
"Celine," she said. "Young Sally, who we told you was a Guernsey maiden. She's not as you now know, and her usual job, that I so gulled you on, is to get Frenchmen back to France, man-smuggling, under the Customs' very noses. And yours, I suppose, the Navy's. I'm sorry."
Sorry for what, he wondered. For deceiving him? But what about her patriotic duty, the treachery involved? He caught her gaze and found his mouth was open. He had been about to speak, but no words had come.
"You take it very light," he said. He faltered. "But Mistress Broad; our countries are at war!"
She hastened to explain then, and he tried hard to take it in. Firstly, she said, Celine brought Englishmen across the Channel too, it was a both-ways trade. She was French, yes, and they were the enemy, but not many years ago they had been allies against the Dutch or Spanish, and would doubtless be again. Sometimes she worked with Englishmen, on the same boats, sometimes exchanging prisoners in mid-sea. Sometimes it turned out that the Frenchmen she took back were English in reality, going to be spies she guessed, and she it was who had been tricked except that Englishmen she brought were sometimes French.