Free By the Mast Divided by David Donachie Page B

and his father fled to France, when the name of Adam Pearce had been on everyone’s lips. Having been absent two years he had no idea if that notoriety had faded. Charlie Taverner had certainly stirred at the mention, or was that just apprehension?
    ‘Ah! The simplicity of the English,’ O’Hagan exclaimed. ‘You never fear the deities will lose you.’
    ‘My father is Scottish.’
    ‘Of what faith?’
    ‘None that I, or he, would admit to.’
    ‘It is not possible to live without faith in Christ.’
    Pearce smiled. ‘It is. Michael, believe me it is.’
    ‘Shut them up, Kemp,’ growled Coyle.
    Kemp made his way unsteadily up the boat, timing his move to miss the rower’s actions, his decorated pigtail swinging behind him, causing groans and cries of muted anger as he stepped across the bodies that lay between him, Pearce and O’Hagan. When he reached them he leant over, his pointed rodent face as ugly as the whiff of his breath. As he leant forward the dewdrop of mucus, which seemed a permanent feature of what was a red-tipped and pinched nose, threatened to detach itself; but it did not – by some miracle it stayed affixed.
    ‘You two ain’t got the message, ’ave you?’ Kemp said, raising a cosh and giving them each in turn a none too gentle tap on the crown of their heads. ‘Coylie don’t want you a’talking, so that means, my hearty lads, that you will shut your gobs.’
    ‘That’s a terrible thing to be asking of a son of Erin.’
    ‘Don’t get bold, mate.’
    ‘Can I sing then?’
    Pearce winced in sympathy as Kemp caught O’Hagan a heavier blow, one that caused an audible crack and made the Irishman duck away with his whole face screwed up. ‘You’ll sing enough when we get you aboard, Paddy, and to any tune we care to whistle. Now shut up, or else I’ll be forced to stuff your mouth with this here cosh.’
    O’Hagan looked up, his eyes full of defiance. But he met those of Pearce, and acknowledged the shake of the head.
    ‘Sit down, Kemp,’ said Coyle, who had been given clear orders from his captain not to allow the pressed men to be seen by anyone, with the added warning that should that happen he would not be alone in facing the law. ‘We’s passing Gravesend. There’s Men o’ War set there. Anyone on a ship about here sees you and that pigtail swinging a cosh they won’t need much thinkin’ to get what we’s about. Remember this lot ain’t rightly ours till they is sworn in. Be just the thing for some other crew of bilge-water buggers to get a boat in the water an’ try and snaffle our goods.’
    ‘Bollocks,’ said Kemp, with a loud sniff and a deft use of the sleeve to clean the end of his nose, but the words were so soft only those next to him could hear it.
    Pearce was one, and, looking up he could see the higher masts of half a dozen ships poking up into the morning sky. Gulls flew overhead, swooping down or swinging out of sight on the breeze, in a free manner that seemed to mock those confined in the boat.
    ‘How long till we raise the barky?’ asked Kemp.
    ‘Few hours yet, mate. Tide’s turned agin us,’ said Coyle, ‘an’ this sodding wind don’t aid us nowt.’
    ‘Captn’ll be well aboard before we, I reckon,’ Kemp opined, ‘which will not make him happy. Hope to Christ he didn’t get back to a charge to weigh, for there was a rumour flyin’ that the order was set to come from the Commodore to up anchor and make for Deal.’
    ‘There’s always a rumour on the wing, as you well know, mate, just as there’s bugger all or little that’ll make Ralph Barclay happy, ’cepting, happen, that pretty wife of his.’
    ‘Now there,’ said Kemp, with real feeling, ‘is a flower it would be nice to pluck. I saw her in the Sheerness yard when she came down first to look out to the ship, pretty as a picture.’
    ‘Happen you’ll get the chance, mate. Old Barclay ’tends to take her to sea with him. He’s even had a double cot shipped aboard for their