By the Mast Divided by David Donachie Read Free Book Online Page B

quality – full lips, a slightly Levantine nose and pale unblemished skin. It was also instructive to look at the others who had taken an interest in this providential gift to the press-gang, Walker and Rufus among them. There was no sympathy for one who now shared their plight, more a look of abhorrence, as though this soaking specimen had somehow compounded the nature of their own situation.
    ‘What will old Ralph Barclay say, young Martin,’ Coyle hooted to the boy marine, ‘when we tell him that hands are dropping out of the sky?’
    Kemp lifted Gherson’s head, none too gently by the hair, to glare into eyes that looked to be in the grip of the terror of death. ‘Might be worth an extra tot of rum, Coyle, but with that sod it might also get you disrated.’
    ‘Best rope the bugger.’
    ‘No need,’ replied Kemp, dropping Gherson’s head. ‘The only place this cove can go is back in the river, and looking at him, I don’t reckon that is a way he would choose.’

CHAPTER THREE
    Captain Ralph Barclay, ahead of Coyle in the pinnace, felt he could be content with his night’s work, though he could not help but consider that his world had come to a sorry pass when a full Post Captain of twelve years seniority had personally to take to the task of recruiting. Nor was this night’s effort likely to gift him many sailors, all he could hope for was a clutch of untrained landsmen, albeit ones who would find it hard to complain. But a body was a body: anyone would do to a desperate commander, as long as he had two legs and two arms. In twenty years at sea, Ralph Barclay had learnt that a bit of decent discipline could turn even the most dim-witted clod into a useful crew member. Given that he could be ordered to weigh at a moment’s notice, he had no time to wait for those in authority to solve for him the problem of a lack of hands.
    But underlying his muted satisfaction was a residue of worry. He knew well that he was not allowed to take a press-gang into the Liberties of the Savoy. Would there be a hue and cry? The majority of the people in the Pelican had escaped and they would have filled the streets with their noise. But in a city accustomed to riot, and it being late at night, he hoped that most of the inhabitants would keep their shutters and doors bolted. Nor could the majority of the customers, a bunch of debtors and felons, readily involve the law, which was available only outside the confines of where they themselves were safe. But it was a thought that nagged at him, given that the expense of redress, should he be arraigned for the offence, would be very high indeed. He ran over the faces he had looked into, mostly of creatures in distress. But there had also been one showing a defiance that called for a knotted rope’s end, delivered hard and twice. That was a fellow, a mouthy sod, who might require further constraint. So be it, if it was necessary, then the captain of HMS Brilliant would provide it.
    Try as he might to concentrate on such matters, thoughts of penury soon resurfaced to dominate Ralph Barclay’s thoughts – it was eloquent testimony to the present state of his finances that he was leaving London, not even in a public coach, let alone a private one, but in a boat. With his frigate berthed at Sheerness, a visit to the capital should have been made overland. It would not have been comfortable, or speedy, but it wouldhave been a damn sight more so than the pinnace in which he had set off in the cold predawn of that morning. He had lugged up the Thames Estuary on a biting wind with his longboat and cutter in company, masts stepped in favour of oars as soon as the river narrowed, because the amount of waterborne traffic precluded tacking and wearing under sail with any degree of safety.
    Nor could he lay any claim to having had, of his three other appointments, a good day. His first port of call had been to the people he wished to appoint as his prize agents. The firm of Ommanney and Druce