Chapter 21

With a fair wind and a calm sea, as Styles would say, HMS Tenacious skimmed across the green ocean, dipping and rising, like a pelican in search of fish. To the wheeling gull above, an emissary of the proximity of France far better than any glimpse of coastline, what looked like two minute dolls could be glimpsed on the quarter deck - one as upright and unmoving as a statue, the other anxiously pacing to and fro before the wooden balustrade. Upon closer inspection, our aerial observer would notice the look of anxiety upon the face of the rapidly striding Archie Kennedy, though it was the other who spoke:

"Archie, if you do not stop your pacing, the men will become as nervous as you." Archie came to an abrupt halt facing away from his friend. At first he glowered at his feet, blonde brows knitted upon his forehead, before turning to face the man who had spoken.

"Nervous? Who says I'm in the least bit nervous?" He coughed, "and even if I was, Horatio, I shouldn't be ashamed. I know you don't like this any more than I. It can't be long before some blasted Frog spots us, takes us for a sitting duck, and there'll be no going back from there…"

"She'll be fine - "

"She will NOT be FINE!" He coloured even before the words had fully come out of his mouth. But since Horatio showed no signs of responding he continued, speaking bitterly to the floor. "She's below decks now, you know, in the leg irons. That's dangerous enough as it is! What if we're holed? She can't swim with those monstrosities on! And if were not… What next? They'll see she's a girl soon enough, but will they believe that revolutionary escapee drivel? And what about us, for mercy's sake… If we're stuck in that gaol, for the rest of the war or worse: discovered? She'd be guillotined for sure. How the hell can you be so calm?"

There was a moment's awkward silence before he spoke again, to apologise. Horatio just brushed him off with a wave of his hand. He knew his friend's propensity to panic; though it was reassuringly not about himself this time! Unfortunately, he didn't have many words of pacification - the same thoughts had been running through his own mind for the last two days and nights in a turbulent array of ghastly pictures. In silence, Horatio returned his brown eyes to the horizon and before long the heavy sound of boots resuming their course upon the planking could be heard behind him…

It was quiet below; even the roaring of water was muffled by the walls of wood that imprisoned her on all sides, on board her own ship. It had been over three hours she had been sitting there, the metal cuffs weighing down on her ankles and wrists like lead weights. It felt as though her fragile bones would crack under their pressure any moment, but she ignored it… And real prisoner of the English would have had to suffer no less a fate, and without her surety of release. She drummed her fingers absently from their position on her knees. They must have been spotted by now. A tiny cutter sailing parallel to the coastline unprotected, who wouldn't take the bait? A convoy could easily have left them behind; there was no hint of danger to any passing French frigate - just an easy victory.

She pushed the felt cap of the revolution lower over eyes and leant back against the dark panelling behind her, staring through the grate above… Her last musing thought before the sound of shouting and running footsteps rang down from above, was the grimace of pain on Archie's sweet face before he snapped the padlock tight on her legs. She grinned with anticipation,

"Here we go…"

The moment the canvas sails had sprouted over the horizon like an ugly rose, the decks had become a blur of confused men and commands, or so it seemed to Archie screaming his own set of instructions from below the mizzenmast. The Frigate, with the wind full behind her, was bearing down on their helpless vessel like a grotesquely gaping shark upon a drowning child. He heard Horatio bellowing at the gun crew and managed a weak smile: A child that would at least go down fighting. A black cannonball executed a slow parabola through the air before landing with a crash on the Frigate's fore deck, as it came into firing range. He saw with horror, blue eyes widening, her gun ports start to open in retaliation, a grisly succession of little clicks - the shark grinned before the kill…

The French monster pulled along side, raking the helpless cutter from end to end with her obtuse bows. Archie felt the timbers shiver and groan beneath him as his feet gave way. And then it was chaos… Men scattered to take on whatever came at them as what seemed like a hundred ropes swung in from all directions to drop their heavily armed burdens on Tenacious' decks. A giant appeared before him, at least 6"5 and grinning a mouth full of metal. From one hand protruded a glittering cutlass, in the other was being hefted a butcher's axe. Archie ducked, and felt the whistle of sliced air above his head before his hat went flying.

To describe a battle requires poetry, something, which at that moment Archie felt he lacked as waves of adrenaline washed over him. His mind could only relay back dull flashing images as he fought: Fighting… Screaming on all sides… Death… Blood… His own? His last vision before his head slammed into the deck below and his world dissolving was that of a Frenchman supporting the limping French prisoner from below, his dark curls protruding from under the red felt cap reminding him very much of someone he knew.

He awoke dizzy and nauseous, his head resting on cold stone and a blur of shadows dancing before his eyes. He lay still waiting for the painful throbbing at his temples to abate somewhat before attempting to rise. The blurs began to solidify into a stone chamber; flickering red from the torches hung in their high brackets. About him he could just discern his crew mates in varying degrees of sentience and uprightness, the glint of chains stretching between them and the heavy iron rings embedded into the walls. He rolled onto his back, wincing at cracking of his vertebrae. Something sticky and red dripped from his shirt to the floor, but he only felt numbness. A silhouette appeared above him in a mass of black curls, temporarily blotting out the light.

"Hereto?" The curls shifted, to be replaced by the rugged outline, reminding him distinctly of a gargoyle. He could hear a muffled conversation passing over him.

"Bad, sir?"

"He'll live, Styles." Then it was just jumbles of words as Archie desperately tried to remember what had happened since he had been beaten down. He had awoken three times prior to this but the images were very dark in his mind and insubstantial. The first was of a cramped space, the weight of shackles and a thin man shouting something in a language he couldn't understand. The second was on a boat; a small boat with oars dipping on either side and the cry of a gull. The hazy shape of land loomed large before him, then blackness.

The last time he had awoken was in a hall, empty but for a small bureau at the far end, and a small man shifting papers. He could remember feeling rough arms supporting him on either side, and the glint of a bayonet at his throat. Voices: "Citizen, Justice of Calais", "Prisoner"… The small form of a boy in white duck trousers being pushed towards the desk, the red hat low over his face. The hat being pulled away, curls falling contrived about the pallid face. The Justice of the Dock's mouth hanging open. He remembered the thought: "Lorna!" But no sooner had his lips parted to voice it, than a hand had been clamped over his mouth, and he had succumbed to the dark again.