A King's Cutter Read Online Free PDF

looked astern. Not ten yards away rearing among the breakers a horse threw its rider into the sea. Both were hit by the langridge in the gun.
    ‘A steady pull now lads. We’re all right now.’ But a flash and roar contradicted him. The six-pounder ball ricochetted three yards away. Horse artillery!
    ‘Pull you bastards! Pull!’ They had no need of exhortation. The oar looms bent under the effort.
    Another bang and a shower of splinters. Shouts, screams and the boat slewed to starboard, the woman standing and shrieking astern, her hands beating her sides in fury. They were firing canister and ball and the starboard oars had been hit. The boat was a shambles as she drifted back into the breakers.
    Then from seaward there was an answering flash and the whine of shot passing low overhead as Kestrel opened fire. A minute later the other boat took them in tow.
     
    Drinkwater threw his wet cloak into a corner of the main cabin. He was haggard with exhaustion and bad temper. His inadequacy for the task Griffiths had given him filled him with an exasperation brittle with reaction. Two dead and three wounded, plus the Frenchman now lying across the cabin table, was a steep price to pay for a handful of fugitives and two boxes of yellow metal.
    ‘Get below and see to the wounded,’ Griffiths had said, and then, in a final remark that cut short Drinkwater’s protest, ‘there’s a case of surgical instruments in the starboard locker.’
    Drinkwater dragged them out, took up a pair of tweezers and jerked the splinter from the palm of his hand. His anger evaporated as a wave of pain passed through him, leaving him shaking, gradually aware of the woman’s eyes watching him from the shadows of her hood. Under her gaze he steadied, grateful for her influence yet simultaneously resentful of her presence, remembering that hint of enmity he had caught as he passed her into the gig. Two men stumbled into the cabin slopping hot water from basins. Drinkwater took off his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves, taking a bottle of brandy from the rack.
    Drinkwater braced himself The swinging lantern threw shadows and highlights wildly about as Kestrel made north on a long beat to windward. He bent over the Frenchman aware that the others were watching him, the woman standing, swaying slowly as they worked offshore, as if unwilling to accept the sanctuary of the cutter. The two men watched from the settee, slumped in attitudes of relieved exhaustion.
    ‘Here, one of you, help me
    m’aidez,’
    Drinkwater found a glass and half filled it with cognac. He swallowed as the elder man came forward. Drinkwater held out the glass and the man took it eagerly.
    ‘Get his clothes off. Use a knife
    d’you understand?’ The man nodded and began work. Drinkwater invoked the memory of Surgeon Appleby and tried to remember something of what he had been told, what he had seen a lifetime earlier in the stinking cockpit of Cyclops. It seemed little enough so he refilled the tumbler, catching the woman’s eyes and the hostility in them. The fiery liquid made him shudder and he ignored the woman’s hauteur.
    He bent over the Frenchman. ‘Who the devil is he?’ he asked.
    ‘His name, m’sieur,’ said the elder Frenchman working busily at the seam of the unconscious man’s coat, ‘is Le Comte de Tocqueville; I am Auguste Barrallier, late of the Brest Dockyard
    ‘ He pulled the sleeve off and ripped the shirt. ‘The young man beside you is Etienne Montholon; mam’selle is his sister Hortense.’ From the woman came an indrawn breath that might have been disapproval of his loquacity or horror as Barrallier revealed the count’s shoulder, peeling the coat and shirt off the upper left breast. De Tocqueville groaned, raised his head and opened his eyes. Then his head lolled back. ‘Lost a lot of blood,’ said Drinkwater, thankful that the man was unconscious.
    Barrallier discarded the soaked clothing. Drinkwater swabbed the wound clean and watched