HMS Aurora: A Charles Mullins Novel (Sea Command Book 3)
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Authors: Richard Testrake
HMS Aurora
Richard Testrake
061816
Richard Testrake
All rights reserved
Table of Contents:
The straining, mud-covered horses looked little like the well-groomed animals that had been put to the traces at the last posting inn. The equally filthy coach was transporting a wounded Royal Navy captain from Portsmouth to his home in London. Accompanying him was his housekeeper, Mrs. Cooper and her maid, Doris Walker.
The coach’s driver had left the post road after the last stop, swearing he knew a better route that would avoid a difficult hill. The hill had indeed been bypassed, but at the expense of traversing a particularly muddy stretch of highway. At one point, the passengers had to dismount to help the horses get the coach through a bad, low-lying area.
Initially, only Commander Charles Mullins was asked to lend his back to assist the horses to extract the coach from a deep, mud hole in the road. When he injured his wounded leg from the strain of pushing the nearly immobile coach. Mrs. Johnson and Doris also dismounted to put their shoulders to the wheels. With their traveling clothing ruined from the cloying mud, the travelers were happy to see a roadside inn come into view.
This was not one of the more prosperous-appearing inns often encountered on the post road. This one probably got little custom other than the locals who might frequent it for food and drink on days like this when little work could be done in the fields. Mullins’ leg was now bothering him from the strain he had put on it an hour before, and he was content to remain in the coach.
Mrs. Cooper got out to inspect the facilities, returning to the coach sputtering her disgust. It was necessary for the passengers to leave the coach though, to refresh themselves and allow the worst of the mud to be cleaned from the coach.
The horses were finished for the day. If they were required to drag the coach to the next station, it would likely be their ruin. The driver negotiated the hire of another team and the return of their own animals to their parent stable. These animals were not of the quality of the exhausted horses they were replacing, but they would suffice to get the coach and passengers to the next proper posting inn. When it was time for Mullins to dismount and go into the inn though, he found he could not walk.
He had received a musket ball in his thigh some weeks ago, which had not completely healed. The stain he had put it to this afternoon had exacerbated the injury. It was necessary for his driver to borrow a wide board from the stable. He and another man laid Mullins on the plank and carried him into the inn where they placed it across a pair of chairs.
They had missed the dinner hour, so all sat down to some cold slices of boiled beef and watery beer. While the party was dining, a crew of ruffians at the bar made comments concerning the travelers. Doris especially, interested them. Audible comments were plainly heard from these men commenting the activities they wished to perform with this young woman.
Doris was a lovely young lass of seventeen or so, fresh-faced and innocent. Mullins ground his teeth in outrage at his helplessness, knowing he could do nothing to these men. His sword was in the coach, but he could hardly wield it lying here on this board. The louts were drinking gin and were becoming obstreperous. Their meal half done, Mrs. Cooper judged it was time to leave and board their coach, even if it was not ready yet.
They had to sit in the motionless coach for half an hour while the new horses were brought in and harnessed. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the coach pulled out of the yard. Mullins expected to be saluted by a volley of jeers from the louts as they left, but there was no sign of them.
Although the road here was in decent condition, their driver proceeded slowly at first, wishing to let the animals warm up a bit before exerting them. Glad they had not been subjected to worse treatment back at the inn, Mullins, now feeling a bit better, began exploring his surroundings. His carry-board was placed across the facing seats on the starboard side of the coach, while Doris sat next to his head and Mrs. Cooper sat across from her.
This was not a familiar coach. Mrs. Cooper had borrowed it from a neighbor to transport him to London in a more comfortable vehicle than a normal post coach. As his hand ran over the exquisite woodwork of the interior, he felt a little latch. Pushing it, a drawer popped open and in it was a heavy pistol, with its accoutrements.
Interested in weapons, he pulled it out and examined it. It was a finely made weapon, although plain in finish. A little container in the drawer held a half-dozen lead balls, a pair of flints and a small brass flask of powder. Checking the weapon, he found priming powder in the pan and a load in the barrel. While wishing he had had the pistol in the confrontation at the inn, he placed the weapon back in the drawer.
A few minutes later, he was beginning to feel tired. He had no sooner told Mrs. Cooper he thought he might try to get some sleep, when he heard the driver up on the box plainly utter, “Oh shit!”
The brakes squealed as the driver tried to halt the vehicle on a downward slope. The wooden brake shoes would not grip the muddy iron tires and the coach suffered a series of jolts as it left the road and went into the adjoining ditch. Next came a confused period when screams from Doris and an injured horse mingled, while Mrs. Cooper voiced some choice vocabulary that Mullins did not realize she knew. The coach, after teetering on its port wheels, fell on its side and there was a moment of silence. Mullins was jammed against the inside of the coach with Doris on top of him.
Mrs. Cooper had managed to begin to get her head and shoulders through the open door above her when a grimy hand reached down and pulled her out. Doris also made for the opening and the same hand pulled her free also.
Confused and not really sure whether he was in one piece or not, Mullins became alert when he heard Doris gasp and Mrs. Cooper venting her anger on someone. A voice Mullins remembered from the inn told her to shut up or she would have her throat cut then and there and miss the rest of the entertainment.
Ignoring the pain signals from his injured leg, Mullins hoisted himself upright. Taking the pistol from its drawer, he also found his sword. Discarding the scabbard, he was considering how he was going to get through the open door above him.
It was then, above the frantic pleadings of Doris and the vehement cursing of Mrs. Cooper, he heard one of the men outside say, “What about the cripple? We can’t leave a witness. Joe, you climb up and finish him. Make sure he’s dead before you come down.”
The warning gave Mullins added strength and he got up on one leg preparatory to climbing through the door. Slowed by his pistol and sword, the bandit was there before him and the first evidence he saw of his danger was the rusty old musket laid across the door opening. He heard the lout say, “Stand easy young gentleman. It will all be over soon.”
The light coming through the door dimmed as the outlaw dragged his body over the opening, supporting himself with the aid of his weapon. Apparently, the idea was to finish off the crippled officer below with a shot from the ancient relic. In the heat of the moment though, the man had not thought his problem through. The musket was a full-length Land Pattern Brown Bess musket, rather unwieldy for its intended purpose.
As the highwayman attempted to maneuver the ungainly firearm through the door, Mullins was able to reach up and hold the muzzle of the firelock with his right hand. Dropping his sword, he pulled up the pistol with his left hand, cocking the weapon by snagging its cock on the edge of an upholstered seat. When the assailant put his head through the door to see what was amiss, Mullins shot him through his head. There would be no doubt of his passing. The skull exploded from the effect of the heavy ball and blood and gore sprayed the inside of the vehicle.
Dropping the empty pistol, Mullins, with his hand still on the musket across the window, pulled himself up. The two bandits below had expected to hear a shot dispatching him and were too occupied with abusing the women to take notice of him emerging from the interior of the coach with musket in hand.
He had to pause a second to study the problem. One of the felons had the girl by her hair, having already torn her gown from bodice to navel. The other was trying to hold off Mrs. Cooper as she tried, without much success, to savage her attacker. Judging the girl’s assailant to be of the most danger, he leveled the musket. Normally, he would not trust an old musket with a matter of this importance, but with no other weapon, it must do. At least, his target was only a few yards away.
Using the bayonet lug on the muzzle as a crude sight, Mullins held it on the highwayman as he struggled with Doris. When the pair turned to the side, he saw his chance and pulled the trigger. Only a few sparks came off the frizzen into the pan and there was an unseemly delay before the weapon discharged with an almighty explosion. When the wind blew away the smoke cloud, Mullins saw the hole that had been blown in the fellow’s side, before he collapsed to the ground.
The musket shot startled Mrs. Cooper’s attacker, and he turned to see what had happened. As he turned, he released his hold on Mrs. Cooper, who stooped and snatched up her reticule, which had fallen to the ground early in the struggle. She pulled out a tiny woman’s pistol, silver plated with ivory grips. With its equally small bore, it was not really a firearm to overawe an enemy, but she fired its single shot straight into the bandit’s belly.
He did not fall, but did lose interest in the activities and staggered away. Mullins now had a chance to take stock of the situation. Doris Walker was standing there, in a state of shock, bare from her shoulder to her waist, after her gown had been torn away.
Mrs. Cooper’s assailant had departed, although still in sight, staggering down the road. He shifted his attention to Miss Walker’s attacker, who was lying in a pool of blood, with much of his right rib cage blown away. Mullins removed his own blood-spattered coat and gently put it over the shoulders of Doris Walker, before setting out to find the driver, who had seemingly disappeared,
Using the musket as a crutch, Mullins hobbled over to the brushy embankment where he found the driver. Thrown from his box when the coach overturned, the man had struck his head and was just regaining conscious.
One of the horses was badly injured and had to be put down with a shot from the reloaded coach pistol. The other three were fit enough to pull the coach for a short distance. The driver went into the woods and cut a pair of sturdy poles, which might be used to right the coach. The three bandits had arrived at this ambush point on a pair of farm work horses, so one of these was put into harness with the three remaining animals.
Mullins and Mrs. Cooper used the poles to attempt to pry the coach upright while the driver did his best with the team. The side of the coach was badly marred by scraping along the road’ surface, but eventually the vehicle jolted upright. Some logs the bandits had piled in the road to halt the coach had to be cleared away. Once the party was able to get the heavy coach on the road again, it was mutually decided to leave the bandits, two alive and one dead and the party set out to find a magistrate, with no more nonsense from the driver about ‘easier routes’. A few hours later, they came to a hamlet that had an inn where they could be put up overnight.
A magistrate arrived as they were settling in and listened to their story. With a party of interested villagers, the magistrate set out on horseback, accompanied by a wagon and team to bring back the bodies. It was morning before the mud-spattered party returned, satisfied with a job well done. They had not only brought back the two highwaymen left at the scene, they had also tracked down the remaining man as he travelled down the road. The pistol ball in his gut had slowed him down, and he willingly came out of the bramble where he had taken refuge and surrendered when the men called for him.
When asked their fate, the magistrate pondered. “Right now, I would like nothing better than to have a glass of brandy and then go to bed. However, there is some hurry here. The one you shot in the ribs will not likely last much longer, and the horse doctor says the gut-shot fellow will go within the next few days. I’d like to see them convicted and hung before that happens. So, as soon as I visit the necessary, we will have the inquest, then the trial. The ladies need not testify. We will hear your testimony, then that of the driver. That will be enough to convict them.”
“We really should wait until tomorrow to hang them, but the time is fleeting, so I think we will have some men erect a simple gallows during the trial and hang them right after.”
Next morning, Mullins was awakened by someone outside hammering together three coffins. The burial for the three highwaymen was expected that afternoon. Of course, no ceremony or burial service had been planned. Notice had been sent to the inn where the men had first made themselves known to the Mullin’s party, but it was not expected any of the felons’ acquaintances’ would attend.