Free Rapscallion by James McGee Page A

Made almost entirely
from wood chips left over from the dockyard work, the small houses weren't much
more than crude shacks, clumped together in an untidy rat-run of narrow lanes.
Even so, they were several steps up from the previous riverside accommodation.
Originally, dock workers had been housed in hulks, not dissimilar to Rapacious ,
moored to break the flow of the river and reduce the loss of shingle from the
foreshore. A couple of them still remained, stranded on the mud like beached
whales after a storm.
    Across the river,
a mile away to port, the Isle of Grain was a dark green smudge in the
early-morning light, while beyond the stern rail, less than two miles to the
south, lay the western mouth of the Swale Channel, separating Sheppey from the
mainland.
    The weather had
improved considerably. Despite the sunshine, however, there was a stiff breeze
and it brought with it the smell of the sea and the cloying, foetid odour of
the surrounding marshes, which stretched away on both sides of the water.
    A cry of warning
sounded from the quarterdeck where Lieutenant Thynne was supervising the
delivery of provisions from a small flotilla of bumboats drawn up alongside the
hulk. Fresh water casks were being hoisted on board to replace the empty ones
lifted from the hold, and one of the casks had come adrift from its sling. It
was the second delivery of the day. The bread ration had arrived less than an
hour before and had already been delivered to the galley.
    Lasseur eyed the
activity with interest. "What do you think?" he said.
    Hawkwood
followed his gaze to where the wayward cask was being secured. "It'd be a
tight fit."
    Lasseur grinned.
    Hawkwood looked
sceptical. "How do you know they don't check inside as soon as they get
them ashore?"
    "How do you
know they do?"
    "I
would," Hawkwood said. "It'd be the first place I'd look."
    "You're
probably right," Lasseur murmured. "Worth considering,
though." He reached into his coat, drew out a cheroot, and gazed at
it wistfully.
    "I'd make
that last," Hawkwood said. "They tell me tobacco's hard to come by. Expensive, too."
    Lasseur stuck
the unlit cheroot between his lips and closed his eyes. He remained that way
for several seconds, after which he placed the cheroot back in his coat and
sighed. "The sooner I get off this damned ship, the better."
    Latching on to
Lasseur appeared to have been a sound investment. From the moment they'd been
thrust into the Maidstone cell together, the privateer captain had made it
clear he was looking to make his escape. Gaining the man's confidence had been
the first step. James Read had been correct in his surmise that Hawkwood's
background story and the scars on his face would stand him in good stead.
Lasseur and the others had accepted him as one of their own. Hawkwood's task
now was to find some way of exploiting that acceptance. Where Lasseur went,
Hawkwood intended to follow.
    Hawkwood allowed
himself a smile. It was strange, he thought, given the short time he'd known
him, how much he'd come to like Lasseur. It had been an unexpected turn of
events, for the privateer was, after all, the enemy. But wasn't that what
happened when men, irrespective of their backgrounds, were thrown together in
unfamiliar surroundings? It reminded him of his early days in the Rifle Corps.
    When Colonels Coote
Manningham and Stewart had put forward their plan for a different type of unit,
one which would fight fire with fire and carry the war to the French, the men
who were to form the new corps had been drafted in from other regiments.
Suddenly the past didn't matter; whether they were draftees or volunteers, was irrelevant. The men's loyalty was to the new
regiment, and the glue that bound them together was their willingness to fight
for their country and against the French.
    On Rapacious, it was a similar situation. It didn't matter whether
you had been a sailor or a soldier, privateer, teacher or tradesman. The
important thing was that you shared a common