A Sea of Troubles by David Donachie Page B

tide and an ample supply of suitable timber, long-matured oaks, near at hand from the forests planted eight hundred years before by William the Conqueror to facilitate his love of hunting. Boats had originally been built on the single hard that stood between two rows of red-brick cottages, these sitting at right angles to the River Beaulieu, literally rising from frame to hull outside the front doors of the resident workers, a practice that lapsed as vessels grew too large in size.
    Now twin slipways rose out of the still waters, they containing the vessels presently under construction, one a sleek frigate, the other hull a much more bulkyseventy-four. The cottages remained, the homes of the workers and their families, creating a charming aspect given the open ground between them. There were more than a dozen trades accommodated in those cottages and many more workers came in from the surrounding countryside; shipwrights, ironworkers, caulkers, the sawyers with their ten-foot serrated blades used to cut the great planks from solid oak trunks. There were coopers and smiths, plumbers and riggers, all the way down to labourers and oakum boys. Over the intervening distance came the sound of hammers on wood and metal, while smoke rose lazily into the warm evening air from the pitch heaters and forges.
    ‘I got your dunnage ready, sir,’ said Michael O’Hagan, very quietly. ‘As well as that of the French lady and gent.’
    That ‘sir’ made Pearce smile; if ever there was man not naturally a servant it was his friend and, in truth, it had been no more than a convenience; Michael was to be admired for his loyalty, his strength and his good sense but not his gentility. Pearce’s reply, made without turning round, was equally soft, though it was hardly necessary as the commands began to be issued as shouts by the various warrants that would see the armed cutter at anchor.
    ‘You’ll be able to go back to calling me John-boy as soon as we’re ashore, Michael.’
    ‘Sure, and won’t I be grateful for it, for I’m weary of the sound of my grovelling. Mind, I might have occasion to curse you an’ all, given you’ve become too fond of that blue coat of yours, as well as ordering folk about.’
    There was no need to turn to note that the remark was intended to be humorous, it was in the deliberatelymordant tone. ‘Somehow, Michael, I don’t think any curses heading my way will be coming from you.’
    ‘There’s a rate of trouble awaiting, that’s for certain.’
    ‘I’m sure Emily will see sense once matters are explained,’ Pearce replied, more from hope than conviction; he was not about to be open on the subject of his doubts even with a close friend.
    ‘Weren’t her I was thinkin’ of. Your Frenchie might not go quiet.’
    ‘I’ve already told her that she’s …’
    ‘Not your squeeze,’ Michael said, filling in the gap Pearce had left by not quickly finishing the sentence. ‘She might have said that to you, but I see the look in her eye when your attention be elsewhere and you allow her the deck. It is not short of hope.’
    ‘You’re mistaken.’
    Michael laughed softly. ‘Holy Mary, if I were you I’d be looking for an easier life, like puttin’ about and seeking out to tackle those French escorts we slipped by a few days past.’
    That conversation and the aid of the wind had got them near abreast of the village so that the twin lines of cottages were in full view; so was the lack of anything beyond them, for behind the twin rows of red brick lay a flat landscape bereft of any distinguishing features barring a few fields and endless forest. Both Pearce’s passengers were on deck to observe the arrival.
    ‘Monsieur,’ called the Count de Puisaye in his own tongue, his face bearing a look of distaste as he gazed at the barren and open countryside now exposed. ‘Surely we are not to land here?’
    ‘We will do so,’ Pearce replied, speaking in the same language and including an equally