Chapter 20

His Majesty's Cutter Tenacious was certainly a beautiful little ship. Quite old-fashioned with a very square stern and short, high bows. Her figurehead was some slender sea nymph with flaming red hair, bearing a sword in one gilt hand and a shield in the other, both peeling and salt-attacked with the dark grain of the wood emerging beneath. As the waves dipped around her, Lorna could just glimpse, at intervals, the green, barnacled features of her hull. But despite the little cutter's age, she was as clean and trim as anything she could have hoped for with a new brace of sails aloft and a fresh orange stripe painted across the black curve of her bows.

Lorna's critical eye was soon satisfied: she was a fast, manoeuvrable vessel, though perhaps prone to unsteadiness on the swell, and ideal for the task before her. Her eyes clouded over momentarily, though within a blink her distracted thoughts were pushed to the back of her mind, and a stray lock of curling fringe to behind her ear. She shifted her weight slightly as she leant forward on the taffrail. She looked down to the teeming main deck, where man after man swarmed from clerk to clerk, in an effort to fill out the necessary administration that would allow them to make way with the evening tide. Cartloads of supplies were being hauled aboard on great lengths of anchor cable swung from the booms.

The cutter's crew would be small - Sir Edward had allowed Horatio's division and her own to be transferred aboard from the Indy. And here she found herself Captain, on her own quarterdeck, acutely aware of every movement made below and the presence of two figures flanking her either side. Archie and Horatio stood casually at ease, their hands clasped behind their dark blue jackets, buttons gleaming in the sunlight, white duck-trousered legs standing squarely apart and their black cocked hats worn 'fore 'n' aft'. As she stood between them, Lorna keenly felt the smooth press of an admiralty envelope pressed against her breast bone. She could barely repress a smug grin at the weight of it.

"You can get that self-satisfied expression off your face, madam!" Archie acquired a look of pained indignation, not mirrored in his dancing eyes. "A lieutenant, by god! If I did not know better, I would say this was your way of gloating! Enjoying the sense of power?" Leaning forward, his smirking face looking across her to Horatio, he scrunched his face into a theatrical wink. Keeping his voice carefully monotone, Horatio almost drawled his contribution.

"And now you're dragging us into whatever half-cracked first mission you've got planned - most unsporting of you, Lorna, I should say." His sallow face remained completely deadpan, to match his voice. If there was any bitterness, she could not detect it.

"Oh very subtle, gentlemen! And Horatio, you know that you're looking forward to your own ship." Once again deliberately talking across her, Archie spoke in a conspiratorial whisper made much more difficult by the smile.

"Women, eh? You an I both know perfectly well that it is in fact her ship and she has no intention of sharing her at all!" As Horatio began to nod emphatically, with a deliberately injured expression Lorna could only sigh and roll her eyes as she turned back from them to the mechanical workings below. For a second she craned forward, a scowl wiping away the smile.

"Styles! Belay that at once!" She roared over the taffrail.

***

As the ship swung over the foaming waves, the golden flame flickered over its dirty tallow sending the shadows dancing about the captain's cabin. The trio sat about a table, which stood in the centre of the pool of guttering radiance cast by the solitary lamp. Horatio moved slightly in his seat in order to reach for another. There was a brief pause, and a barely audible crackle before another wick spluttered into life and the room began to brighten.

"I'm sorry I can't tell you any more. It's a precaution you see. It's not that I don't trust you… Or any of the men; I do. It's just that if the plan were to fail I could have you know of it and be guillotined as spies." Lorna noticed Archie's face pale ever so slightly. "Perhaps I have already told you too much for what's good for you." Lorna's tone was too solemn to be laughed off as mere melodrama.

"We understand." He spoke bravely, forcing his eyes to meet hers. Horatio's face remained unchanged as he nodded slightly to approve the sentiments expressed on his behalf.

"I understand the orders… but what are we to do when we are captured?" His dark eyes betrayed no emotion as he spoke, though Archie's lip was beginning to blanch where he was nibbling it. Lorna reclined back into her chair for a moment, before replying as promptly as possible: it was a question she had been expecting.

"Yes… The Admiralty was… not entirely clear on this point, though I have interpreted the orders thus: attempt escape. At every opportunity that presents itself you should attempt to break out and return to England. However, and this is me saying this so pay attention, do not risk lives! If an escape is impossible, then I am aware that there may be other means by which I can affect your liberty. And once again, more than that I am not able to disclose." A reassuring smile was the best mask she could find to remove the horrified expression from Archie's stricken countenance. Lorna fought the urge to kiss Horatio when he produced a matching grin even if it was, if possible, even more artificial than her own weak attempt.

"That'll hardly be necessary. We shall escape." Lorna could not help but admire his calm assurances of success. Even she had doubts as to odds on her own survival. Archie remained silent; bearing an expression that seemed to imply he was savouring some particularly sour taste in his mouth. She shook her head in disgust.

"Oh for heavens sake, Archie. We haven't even left port yet! Please, in the name of the mother, get that look off your face before you make me lose me nerve as well! Now, let's get above decks and this little beauty under way!"

As Horatio and Lorna followed Archie's retreating back through the gloomy corridor, a look of foreboding passed between them.