DARE THE WILD WIND (21 page)

"Wasted effort.  The Duke and I have that much in common.
"

The officers assigned to conduct the census of prisoners were piped aboard, and the captain of the
Hornet
ushered the Duke below to his quarters for brandy.  Prodded and chivied, the first of the captured Rebels emerged stumbling from the hold, blinking and dazed in the sudden light.  Their reward was the day's dole of meal.  No longer the screaming savages who struck terror as far south as Derby, they were a humbled lot.  With nothing else to hold their measure of meal, they were glad enough to stretch out their shirttails and knot the ends around the precious ration.  Laughter rippled from the ship's officers at their bare exposed legs
.

"All of them are able
bodied  men," Thomas said, puzzled.  "What's become of the badly wounded?"   

The Marquess clamped his handkerchief more firmly over his nose.  "Dead, we can devoutly hope, by now.
"

"Or left behind in the hold," Drake said.  He strode for the ladder to the lower deck
.

"What of the men too ill to climb on deck?" he asked the ensign jerking the weaker men out of the hatch above the hold
.

"Let them swill bilge," he said with a laugh, shoving a hobbling prisoner forward.
 

Drake swore.  He wheeled and called out to the first mate.  "I'll have two sacks of meal and two of your men to carry them," he said when the officer snapped to attention in front of him
.

"We're to pass out the rations in an orderly fashion, m'lord," he sputtered with an uneasy glance at the officer in charge
.

"Forgetting any man too weak to climb up from the hold?" Drake challenged in a dangerous voice
.

"I don't have orders to take rations below," he said, a trapped, surprised look in his eyes.
 

"Then allow me to give the order," Drake told him.  "If there are prisoners below decks too weak to walk, they're to be fed.
"

"Just as you say, m'lord," he said, taken aback by the tightly
contained anger in Drake's face.  "I'll have one of my men see to it."        
 

"I'll see to it," Drake snapped.  "And now.
"

Hastily the first
mate signaled to two sailors, and ordered them to shoulder the heavy sacks of meal.  Then he called to the ensign at the hatch to make way for them to go below.  With a cabin boy to carry a lantern ahead of them, Drake started down the companionway ladder, the recruited seamen behind him.  The stink of waste and vomit and corrupting flesh rose to choke them.  The line of prisoners fell back to let them pass, but beyond the men able to get to their feet, Drake saw as many more
.

And conditions of incredible filth.  Human waste swam in the bilge at the bottom of the hull, the dying and the helpless lying so deep in the foul soup it threatened to choke and drown them.  Few of the prisoners were shackled, but the hands of those who had been manacled had swollen until the irons were no longer visible, and the proud flesh suppurated and broke the skin
.

"Please, sir."  A young boy with a soft burr and eyes that pled
caught at Drake as he passed.

"Tell them the irons are too tight."  He spoke not in his own behalf, but for a handcuffed man who by his resemblance was an older kinsman.  "Only change them for bigger. Only ask them for that.
"

Shame clotted Drake's throat.  The boy sank back away from him, as if he had no real hope of an answer.  Corpses lay s
tacked as far from the sickest men as the prisoners could manage.  He wheeled to the first sailor behind him
.

"Why haven't these bodies been removed?
"

The man mumbled before he replied.  "We'll heave 'em over the side, y'r lordship.  When them as gives orders has a mind for it."   
 

"When they've counted an even dozen," a bitter voice gibed.  The sailor's head whipped around to seek the source, but it came from a corner in the dim murk beyond reach of the lantern
.

Sickened, Drake could barely master his rage.  The hold of the
Hornet
was a place of pestilence, a charnel house, not by necessity, but by design.  Cumberlandshould be dragged by his heels into this sinkhole, to smell the stench and face the dying
.

Dispensing food to men in such circumstances was woefully inadequate, but it was the first step Drake could take.
 

He turned on his heel, bent on confronting
Cumberland with what he saw.  But as he pivoted toward the ladder, the beam of the lantern played across blunt features Drake recognized.  He leaned in the crook of one of the great ribs of the ship, only his booted ankles submerged in the wash of the bilge, leonine head erect, and very much alive, despite a chest and shoulder swathed in bandages.
 

It would be easy enough to pass without a word.  But Drake's conscience or his pride wouldn't allow it
.

Reddish stubble covered Cameron MacCavan's jaw and chin, and his pallor testified to his brush with death.  But the eyes that glared back at Drake were bright with resentment, not fever.
 

"Have you come to see how starved men fare?" MacCavan said caustically when Drake stood above him
.

"You have a hardy look for a man who hasn't taken any nourishment," Drake said, glancing at other, sicker men around him
.

"Scots look after their own.  The men who can climb above deck share their rations with those who can't.  Scant as they are."      
 

Drake knew the full day's dole was far from enough to keep one man alive for long.  "I've given orders for food to be brought below decks as well as above," Drake said with a short nod toward the two sailors distributing their store of rations
.

"A pity you can't improve the accommodations.
"

Drake ignored his sarcasm.  "How do you fare, Lord MacCavan?"  He examined the rugged Scot's face more closely.
 

It was gaunt and haggard, and Drake could guess MacCavan was weaker than he wanted him to think.  At Lochmarnoch, Cameron MacCavan had been a man of at least fifteen stone, but weight had dropped from his powerful frame, and Drake judged him closer to fourteen now.  But in the midst of conditions certain to be lethal to many of the wounded, he didn't wear the look of death.  Like a cat, Brenna Dalmoral's lover had a gift for landing on his feet
.

As if he read Drake's mind, he summoned a tight smile.  "I may surprise you and live.
"

"Enough
men have died," Drake said curtly, preparing to take his leave.  "I wish you health.
"

MacCavan's voice stopped him.  "They told me you saved my life."  The words were grudging, but said
.

Drake swung to face him again.  "I don't tolerate butchery.
"

"I can't be sure I'd have done the same for you," the Scot told him with cold candor
.

"It wasn't required."  Drake's gaze fell on the sandy
haired man who lay next to MacCavan in the wood  ribbed arms of the ship.  There was something familiar about him as well
.

"Iain MacCavan, my cousin and second
in command."  He paused for a second.  "You saved him from the same bayonet.  He'd thank you, but he took a shot through the throat.
"

Lord MacCavan's cousin looked to be in a far worse state than his chief.  Though a crude splint braced one of his legs, the hip appeared crushed, and blood still seeped through the stained bandage around his throat.  But no froth or bubble indicated the bullet had pierced the passage to his lungs.  If it had, his body would already be stacked with the other corpses in the hold, and more likely he wou
ld never have reached the
Hornet
alive.

MacCavan had propped his clansman on a pile of coiled ropes above the level of the foul bilge.  Drake saw the man's lids flutter.  The mention of his name had roused him.  Forgetful, he tried to speak.  The effort produced nothing but a gurgling rasp and a spasm of frustration and pain on his face
.

"Has a surgeon seen him?" Drake asked, though the clumsy splint on his leg was evidence no physician had attended him. 

MacCavan shook his head.  "I'll send a doctor from the town for your kinsman and the rest of these men." 

Drake would pay him personally for his services.  From what he had seen here, it was quite clear to him no army surgeon would trouble to treat these men.  He signaled to the boy with the lantern. 

"I doubt you'll accept my apologies for the conditions you find yourself in, but I assure you I mean to make my regrets heard outside the hold of this ship."

"You'll forgive me if I don't rely too greatly on that promise," MacCavan said with a humorless twitch of his mouth.

Despite Drake's guilt at the treatment of the prisoners, he felt a renewed stab of dislike for Cameron MacCavan.  The Scot had seen fit to acknowledge the service Drake had done him, but he had stopped short of thanks.  What about this arrogant fool prompted the kind of loyalty Brenna Dalmoral displayed, the risks she had been willing to take for his sake? 

"Dispute politics with
me, Lord MacCavan.  But never dispute my given word."

Drake turned his back on the Scot and mounted the ladder to climb out of the hold, flaying himself for the angry question MacCavan's skeptical reaction had inspired.  He had told himself he had driven Brenna Dalmoral from his mind.  And very near believed it, until the sight of her lover had brought her defiance and determination all too clearly back to him. 

Why hadn't he put the image of the titian
haired baggage behind him?  She was nothing but the willful daughter of an undistinguished Highland family, the sister of a minor baron with a bent for cruelty and ambitions that exceeded his reach. 

Women threw themselves at Drake's feet at court, in truth, very nearly wherever he went.  Drake had never been entirely prey to vanity.  He knew quite well his title as well as his personal attractions accounted for his success with women.  But from his early teens, nubile serving girls and highborn women with powerful husbands had slipped discreetly into his bed, with no design on his title or his name. 

Drake delighted in women, and their cries and entreaties bore witness he gave them pleasure in return.  He had told himself it was Brenna Dalmoral's indifference that snared him.  But desire speared through him at the mere sight of her, at her slightest unwitting touch.  And when her parted mouth had yielded unexpected
ly, with instinctive sensuality, under his, he had nearly lost all reason, nearly taken her there on the moor. 

But he wouldn't play the brute she thought him.  Drake didn't resort to rape, and he wouldn't act the fool with her.  If he employed seduction, she would still despise him.      

The Pretender's defeat had doomed her hopes for a life with Cameron
MacCavan—whether he was condemned to prison or transported, she would never see him again.  But Drake wanted no part of a woman in love with another man.

He had done what he did for Cameron MacCavan out of conscience, not out of any regard for Brenna Dalmoral.  He could do no more for him now than for any other captured Rebel.  Lord MacCavan and the rest would have to face whatever justice the Crown dealt them.

Drake finally would be free to forget Brenna Dalmoral.  On deck, Drake dispatched Thomas Wolcott ashore in search of a doctor willing to come aboard the
Hornet.
  Thomas took a purse heavy with gold and the promise to pay for medical supplies the surgeon would require.  And a pass in Drake's own hand to allow the doctor aboard.

Chafing at the Duke's inflexible schedule, Drake could make no opportunity to confront him alone until that night.  When he was ushered into the Prince's quarters in the Lord Mayor's house, Drake spoke plainly, though every instinct warned him what
Cumberland's response could be.  It was blistering.  When the Duke's tirade was spent, Drake spoke with quiet finality.

"Since you find my view so objectionable, I have no recourse but to ask that you
release me from my duties here in Scotland."   

Cumberland
's flushed, rotund face registered surprise.  "Damn me, Stratford, I've dressed you down before.  No need to turn tail for home."

"It's clear I'm no longer useful to you here, Your Highness."

The Duke emptied his gold
  chased goblet.  "Rot."  He wiped his thick hand across his mouth.  "You're my most valuable aide."

"Of very little value, it would seem, when it comes to advis
ing you about the condition of your prisoners."

"Your honesty isn't in question.  You're the only man near me who tells me the truth."

"It appears you don't find what I tell you acceptable," Drake said with thin control.

"You fail to make one distinction.  I don't doubt the accuracy of what you describe.  I simply see no bloody need for the measures you recommend."