Under Enemy Colors (23 page)

Wickham carefully replaced the stone and Hayden knelt and pressed the turf close around it. He was back on his feet in a moment, examining the ground. “We must all march here, in the dirt track, to cover our boot-prints. Do you see? It must look like a company of soldiers has passed. No marks of anyone standing or moving about the dead man. But don’t overstep any of the horse’s hoof-marks. He came after the soldiers.” Hayden pointed. “Something spooked the horse, here, and he threw his master. Do you see, where Hawthorne threw himself from the trees? The horse’s hoofs dug in as though he sprang forward, frightened. The Frenchman was thrown from his saddle and by the worst luck struck his head on this stone. It is all plain as morning.”

He began marching over the dirt, and the others fell in behind. They covered their boot-prints with others heading in the same direction as the soldiers. Hayden quickly ran his eye over the ground in the area, walking up the lane to where they had joined the path, and marching over their prints so that it seemed only the French officer had passed this way. The horse had come trotting back and stood grazing a few yards from its master, who lay, a mass of blue and white, fallen like a bit of cloud and sky.

“Let us hope the girls and their charges do not learn of this man’s fate before the day is out,” Hayden muttered. He waved down the road. “Come. This way.”

He set off after the French troops, trotting along the road’s grassy marge.

“But Mr Hayden…” Wickham said, catching up with the lieutenant and jogging alongside. “The soldiers went this direction. Surely they will send a rider back to find out what has become of their comrade.”

“Yes, but we cannot go back the other way without risking discovery. On that tack lie houses. And this is where we must go to view the Rade. Pray the soldiers do not miss their officer for a few moments yet.”

Luck, which had been running against them, reached slack then, and they managed to find a little hollow where they could leave the road without being observed. They crossed a pasture, liberally littered with sheep droppings, and dove into a thick hedge of chestnut and oak, a dense underwood beneath. But as Hayden suspected, down the centre ran a narrow path, shaded and hidden from hostile eyes.

“This is rather snug,” Hawthorne observed as they hurried along.

“Not an uncommon feature in this part of France,” Hayden answered, “but these paths are well used and we’ll be fortunate not to meet the locals abroad upon the same track. Hurry on.”

Two hours’ time found them peering out of a thicket at a small company of blue-coated soldiers beating the bush beyond a wide, sloping meadow.

“Are they looking for murderers?” Wickham asked, “or just some possible English spies who came in from the sea this evening last?”

Hayden shook his head. “Let us hope it is some bishop still loyal to Rome.”

“Damn Hart for sending us forth so close to dawn!” Hawthorne cursed. “I swear, he did not intend us to return.” The man’s face was red with anger and drawn with fear. “The countryside is awash with French soldiers hunting our poor British hides. I should turn myself in before I give us all away. The two of you can pass for French without me.”

“I will not hear of it,” Hayden said firmly. “We will swim together or sink as one.”

Wickham immediately echoed Hayden and the marine nodded, grateful but uncertain.

The party of soldiers disappeared over a small rise, and Hayden waved his companions forward. “Now, before others appear.”

They ran, bent low, over an open meadow, along a shattered, dry-stone wall, then down into a wood. The Rade de Brest was visible through the trees, the blue waters broken by small whitecaps whipped up by a sudden breeze.

“It is a miniature sea,” Wickham observed.

“Five leagues, or thereabout, from south to north, with three sizeable rivers spilling their waters into the harbour. It would contain our entire fleet, and never see an anchor fouled.”

They broke out of the trees, and the Rade opened before them, enclosed within the battered, ancient cliffs, though here and there the green sloped down to the water’s edge. Brown tidal flats spread, smooth as skin, along the distant shore and inside Île Longue, which was below them and some distance to the left. Across the bay, to the north-east, the French fleet lay at anchor, the ships barely rocking in the wind.

“Well, sir,” Wickham said, staring out over the harbour, “there are no ships anchored inside Île Longue.”

“No. I didn’t expect there would be,” Hayden answered. Open pasture angled down toward the cliff top perhaps a quarter-mile distant, with only a few hedges and meandering, low stone walls breaking up the sward. With his glass, Hayden carefully examined the open area and the edges of the wood.

“I think we’re alone here, for a few moments,” he said. “Let us make a count of the ships, and be off. The sun will set in two hours, and there will be no moon until after midnight, so we would be wise to reach the coast before darkness is complete. We don’t want to miss our boat.”

“If only someone would cut down that stand of chestnuts.” Hawthorne pointed. “It is spoiling our view.”

Hayden looked around. “Mr Wickham…you like to climb trees, don’t you?”

The boy smiled, knowing what came next. “More than pudding, sir.”

The lieutenant gestured at a tree. “Up you go, then.”

The two men boosted the midshipman up to the lowest branches and he made his way to a high vantage point.

“Keep a sharp eye for any sardine-eating warblers, will you, Mr Wickham?” Hawthorne whispered up.

“I will, Mr Hawthorne,” the midshipman said seriously. “There’s a big three decker with her topmasts housed, Mr Hayden. A hundred guns, perhaps one hundred twenty.”

“Yes, I see her.
La Côte-d’Or
, I think,” Hayden said, gazing through his own glass. Hawthorne scratched the numbers down on a sheet of paper. Thirty minutes later Wickham dropped out of the branches and brushed lichen from his hair and coat.

“What do you think, sir?” he asked as Hayden finished the tallies.

“I think these are precisely the same numbers Landry gave Hart.”

Hawthorne shook his head, unable to disguise his dismay. “Fucking hell,” he muttered. “We’ve risked our necks for nothing.”

Wickham gave him a bitter smile. “The moon is not on our side, is she?”

Hayden considered their surroundings. “No, she will not rise for some time. We will have to travel by dusk, and trust to luck. Either that, or swim out to the
Themis
.”

“Which we might be doing anyway,” Hawthorne added resentfully.

“Whatever do you mean?” Wickham turned his innocent gaze on the marine.

Hawthorne glanced at Hayden, suddenly awkward. “Only that I wonder if Hart did not put Mr Hayden and me ashore to be rid of us.”

Wickham nodded seriously. “I don’t think my father would much approve of such a plan,” the boy said.

Hayden looked at the boy with new-found appreciation. “Is that why you slipped ashore with us?”

“Not at all, Mr Hayden. It is unthinkable that a captain in the King’s Navy would strand officers on a hostile shore. I came to appraise the agriculture.”

“And does it meet with your approval?” Hawthorne wondered, breaking into a broad smile.

“Well, I do not comprehend scientific agriculture as some gentlemen do, but the hedgerows are unequalled in all of Surrey.”

They made their way back through the trees, and paused to search the margins of the pasture with a glass.

“I think it is all clear, Mr Hayden,” Hawthorne said, passing the lieutenant the glass.

“Quickly, then.” Hayden set out at a trot, bending low and making as little noise as he could.

They were just scrambling over a low stone wall when a cry broke the quiet evening. A French soldier emerged from a hedge to the south and gestured frantically, pointing at the Englishmen caught out in the open.

“Damned luck!” Hawthorne said.

“I don’t think we’ll bluff them this time,” Hayden said to Hawthorne, and the marine nodded, understanding immediately: his French would give them away.

The three began to run. Glancing back, Hayden saw the French soldier raise his musket. The dull
crack
of a firearm sounded, but the ball missed its mark. They redoubled their speed just as more cries reached them. Hayden dug a hand into his satchel as he pounded across the grass. Drawing out his pistol, he wondered how long he could keep up such a pace. Life aboard ship did not build up one’s stamina for a foot-race, and to make matters worse, he was sure he’d opened the gash on his side, which stung like he’d been flogged.

More gunfire broke the quiet, and as they finally reached the hedge, a blue coat appeared out of the trees ten feet away. Hayden shot the man before he could raise his musket. Three more French soldiers appeared behind the first. Hawthorne and Wickham each counted for a man with their pistols and Hayden clubbed the last man to the ground with his gun, hammering him repeatedly until he lay still. The Englishman could hardly catch his breath, and his heart felt as though it would break out of his chest.

Hawthorne snatched up a musket, took careful aim, and shot the lead soldier crossing the field. Immediately he threw that gun aside, seized another, and fired again. The soldiers threw themselves down behind a stone wall and began to return fire. Putting a tree between himself and the enemy gunfire, Hayden loaded his pistol with shaking hands.

“Take these!” Hawthorne ordered Wickham as he stripped a dead soldier of his powder and shot. The midshipman barely hesitated, unbuckling a fallen man’s shoulder straps, even as he lay moaning, blood oozing from a wound. The muskets were quickly loaded and the Englishmen were off again at a run, each bearing a French gun and a freshly loaded pistol.

They took to a path that ran down the centre of a hedge, shouts and calls breaking in on all sides. Unable to keep up the pace, the three slowed to a jog, gasping for breath. A sharp pain stabbed into Hayden’s side, and Hawthorne was forced to stop for a moment, almost reeling.

“Go on,” he gasped. “I’ll keep them at…bay.”

“We leave no one behind,” Hayden managed, bent double, hands on his knees. Over the sound of three men struggling to breathe, he could hear the cries of French soldiers, though it was difficult to gauge their direction. Within the hedgerow, shadows were thickening, spreading out from beneath jumbled limbs.

“Sun should set in a few moments,” Wickham observed. The midshipman was the least affected by the run, standing upright, pulling aside branches in an attempt to look out into the surrounding fields.

“A hay field to the sou’east, Mr Hayden,” he whispered.

“How long are the grasses?”

“Well tasselled, sir, but I don’t think there’s half a fathom over the bottom. About two foot, I would wager.”

“Who leaves hay standing this late in the season?” Hawthorne muttered.

A drumming reached them, and Hayden stood upright, listening.

“They’re coming!” Hawthorne whispered urgently, and the fugitives dove into a thick bramble, forcing their way through and leaving bits of clothing and skin behind.

They were on their bellies, snaking forward through the shallows of the hay field. As the French soldiers thundered by, led by an officer on horseback, the Englishmen lay still. Hayden thumbed the flint on his musket, expecting to hear a cry of discovery, but the company passed. Hayden began crawling again, no thoughts for knees or elbows. It took an ungodly long time to cross the field, the sweet smell of dry grass and clover all around them in the gathering dusk. When finally they surfaced on the field’s far shore, they lay for a few moments, listening, letting the darkness grow and deepen.

Finally, Hayden sat up and whispered for the others, who were not too distant. They all rose from the whispering hay, and slipped into the dark hedge. Hawthorne’s large, pale face appeared in the dimness.

“Mr Hayden?”

“Here, Hawthorne. Where is Wickham?”

“Behind you, sir.”

“Glad you accompanied us now, Wickham?” Hayden asked pointedly.

“Aye, sir,” the boy said quickly.

Hayden shook his head. “This hedge is tending in the right direction, but I’m a bit lost. We have a good distance to travel before our boat arrives, so we cannot creep along too quietly. We must risk some noise, for if we are stranded in this country it will be only a matter of time until the French run us down.”

He could barely make out the others’ faces nodding in the dark. Good night-vision allowed Wickham to lead the others to a narrow path out onto the field beyond. Staying to the shadows, they made their way at a slow trot, stumbling now and then in the poor light.

Even without the ship’s bell, Hayden was aware of the time passing by. Midnight would be upon them before they knew it. He was not sure what they would do if they missed their meeting with the boat. Go to the same beach one hour after midnight the next night and hope Hart would not give up on them, he supposed.

A road opened before them, and Hayden gathered the others into the darkness beneath an overhanging tree. Unfortunately, they could not afford to wait the time that Hayden would have preferred, and after ten minutes he waved them on. A call broke the stillness a hundred feet off, and they scrambled over a low wall and raced across an open field, the light of the stars casting faint but frantic shadows before them.