Free The Smugglers by Iain Lawrence Page B

London.
    Captain Crowe watched it from the rail, his head swinging back and forth to follow the path of the barrels. When a sling came loose and the nest of barrels lurched, then caught, he bellowed at the men who worked the hoist. He spoke, much to my surprise, in French, though his accent was abysmal.
    “Prenez garde
there!” he shouted.
“En douce,
ye Froggy bastards.” And he stomped up and down the deck, muttering as he tugged at the white cravat around his neck.
    I was deeply troubled to see him at a business he clearly knew well. I had imagined we would load our cargo amid suspicion and secrecy, without a word being said. But Captain Crowe was no stranger to these Frenchmen.
    They delighted in his bluster and collapsed in laughter when he spoke. One, a small man in enormous boots, his face nothing more than a flowing mustache, walked behind him, mocking his seaman's roll. And the others, laughing, accidentally let a barrel tumble from its sling to shatter on the bulwark. The overpowering smell of brandy covered the ship in an instant. And in the next, a score of Frenchmen threw themselves to the deck, dabbing with their fingers at a pool of spirits so potent that it had no color at all.
    “I'm no paying for that!” bellowed Captain Crowe.
“Levezvous!
Back to work, ye mangy dogs. And don't forget the barley sugar; I've got to color every drap o' that.”
    I felt a shiver of despair. I wished I had never come to France.
    He saw me watching, and turned his anger onto me. “Whit are ye gawking at?” he said. “Ye were telt to stand a watch.”
    “You're
paying
for this?” I asked.
    “Ye think they give it away?” He spread a hand across his face and squeezed with thumb and fingers. And slowly the color drained from his skin. He dragged his hand across his nose, across his mouth and chin. He
scraped
away his anger.
    “Look,” he said. “Use some sense, lad. Ye canna just come waltzing in and waltzing out wi' cargo.” He took my arm and bent closer; his cravat tickled my chin as he whisperedin my ear. “If they think for a moment that a' that brandy's no waiting for the
Dragon,
then the game's up right there and then.”
    I shook off his arm. “They know you here,” I said. “You speak French; you knew which dock to come to.”
    “Whit are ye saying?”
    “Don't cross him,”
Dasher had said. But it was too late for that. I squared myself up beside him. “I think you're a smuggler, Captain Crowe.”
    His mouth fell open; he gaped at me. I waited for a rage like none he'd shown before, and cringed when he raised his arm. But he didn't strike me. He only scratched his ear, and he hung his head like a repentant child. “It's true enough,” said he. “I
was
a smuggler. To my everlasting shame, I was.” He turned his back to me. “But no more, Mr. Spencer. That Burton gang the manny wrote about? I want to see it ruined. I want to see every one o' they villains hanging from a gallows.”
    “Hanging?” I said. “That's not the way you talked at the Baskerville.”
    “Och, that's a' it was, is talk.” He sat on the rail, and his toe scraped at the deck. “I remember when I first saw ye, your father and yourself,” he said. “At the old Baskerville, mind. I thought your father was the doubter, the one to smell the smoke where there wasna any.” He glanced up, then down again. “Yet now he trusts me wi' his ship and his very own son, but yourself, ye give me none at a.”
    He seemed truthful enough, but I'd seen his acts before.
    “Ye're a careful one,” said Crowe. “That's good; I like that in a man.” He fumbled at the cloth below his chin.“Weel, look at this,” he said as he whisked away the white cravat. It was the first time I'd seen his neck, and around it was a livid welt of frightening proportions.
    “They tried to hang me,” said Captain Crowe. “The smugglers did. It's whit they do to they who turn against them.”
    I could see the patterns of the rope burned upon his skin,