A King's Cutter by Richard Woodman Page B

watch their feet in those two coils.
    â€˜Ready lads?’ Tregembo and Poll answered in the affirmative and Drinkwater hailed the deck in a low voice, ‘Let go the painter and veer away the four inch.’
    â€˜Aye, aye, sir.’ Drinkwater could see heads bobbing at the rail as Jessup eased the little boat downwind. ‘Good luck, Mr Drinkwater,’ came Griffiths’s low voice.
    Bucking astern Drinkwater raised his arm in acknowledgement and turned his attention to the beach. Tregembo touched his shoulder.
    â€˜Lantern’s ready, zur.’
    â€˜Very well.’ They were bobbing up and down now, the seas shoving the craft shorewards, the hemp rope restraining it, jerking it head to sea then veering away again as they rolled into ever steepening seas. The moment he saw the waves begin to curl, gathering themselves before tumbling ashore as breakers, Drinkwater ordered the shaded lantern shown seaward. Almost immediately the boat came head to sea and remained there. Tregembo came aft.
    â€˜They’re holding, zur.’
    â€˜Very well.’ Drinkwater slipped off his shoes. He was already stripped to his shirt. As he stood up to fasten the light line about himself Tregembo said: ‘I’ll go zur, it ain’t your place, zur, beggin’ your pardon.’
    Drinkwater grinned in the darkness. ‘It
is
my place, Tregembo, do you tend the lines, on that I rely absolutely . . . now Poll, pass me the grapnel and I’ll secure the stern.’
    Thanking providence that it
was
August Drinkwater slipped over the transom and kicked out shorewards, the small grapnel over his shoulder, shaking the lines free.
    He felt himself caught in the turbulence of a breaking wave, then thrust forward, the thunder of the surf in his ears, his legs continually fouling the ropes. Desperately he turned on his side and kicked frantically with his free leg, thrashing with his unencumbered arm. The undertow dragged him back and he felt his hand drive into sand. Another wave thundered about him, forcing the breath out and turning him over so that the ropes caught. Again his hand encountered sand and he scrabbled at it, panic welling in his winded guts.
    Then he was ashore, a raffle of rope and limbs, stretched out in the final surge of a few inches of water, grasping and frightened.
    Another wave washed around him as he lay in the shallows, then another as he struggled to his feet. Recovering his breath by degrees he sorted out the tangle of ropes, knowing Tregembo and Poll had each an end over opposite quarters. The need to concentrate steadied him. He drove the grapnel into the sand and jerked the line hard. He felt it tighten and saw it rise dripping and straight. Wading out he could just see the grey shape of the boat bobbing above the white line of the breakers. He untied the line from his waist and belayed it slackly around one of the exposed grapnel flukes. Moored head and stern the boat seemed safe and Drinkwater settled down to wait. Presently, despite the season, he was shivering.
    An hour later he was beginning to regret his insistence on making the landing. He was thoroughly cold and thought he detected the wind freshening again. He watched where
Kestrel
lay, watched for the lantern at the masthead that would signal his recall. But he knew Griffiths would wait until the last moment. Even now he guessed Jessup and the hands would be toiling to get a spring on the cable so that, when the time came, the cutter could be cast away from the wind and sail off her anchor. She was too close inshore to do anything else. He preoccupied himself as best he could and was oblivious of the first shots. When he did realise something was wrong he could already see the flashes of small arms on the cliff top and just below it, where a path dropped down to the beach. From his shelter he leapt out and raced for the grapnel, looking along the sand expectantly.
    He saw the man break away from the shadow