A Shred of Honour by David Donachie Page B

off.’
    ‘Dead?’
    ‘Wouldn’t want to be alive without his nuts, would he, sir?’
    Markham jabbed the tip of his sword into the man on the table, which brought his eyes open. Black and bloodshot , they were nevertheless steady and full of hate, with an intensity that, allied to his other features, gave him a demonic look. What he’d seen in the back room, added to what Tully had just reported, indicated he might well belike that. He struggled, rather feebly, to move. Given the number of empty bottles in the place, it was a fair guess that he was suffering from the effects of too much drink, not all of which had worn off.
    ‘Get him upright and take him outside.’
    The Frenchman started moaning as soon as the soldiers grabbed his shirt-front, the supplication softening his features. The protests began as he was dragged outside. They were only halfway to the back of the building before he started sobbing, as though he’d worked out what was in store for him. The sight of the body, wrists and neck tied to the split wood fence, its feet splayed over the deep pool of mixed flesh and blood, brought forth the first hint of a scream. Tully hit him, a blow that swept across his moustachioed mouth, jerking his head to one side and producing an immediate flow of bright red froth from the split lower lip. Hollick, hanging onto another post, was trying not to retch.
    ‘Cut down that poor fellow and put this sod in his place,’ said Markham, his voice and manner as cold as ice. ‘And as soon as you’ve done that, undo those fine breeches he’s wearing and show him your bayonet.’
    That instrument, dull gleaming steel playing tantalisingly around the curled black hairs of his exposed groin, had the Frenchman gabbling replies to Markham’s question in a manner that guaranteed truth. He confirmed ownership of the letters Markham was waving, and that his name was Fouquert. He claimed to be a French naval officer, who’d been unsure which cause to follow, that of the Republicans or the Monarchists. The Royalist commander in Toulon, Admiral Trugueff, had been deposed. When Hood threatened that any warship which hadn’t landed its powder would be treated as an enemy, Fouquert and his men had gathered muskets and pikes, then abandoned both vessels and forts. He’d brought the main body here, then sent them on to Marseilles while he waited for the stragglers.
    ‘How far behind are these stragglers?’ It was hard to shrug in that position, but Fouquert managed it. If they’d been on the road, seeing his soldiers approaching, they must have taken to the hills. ‘How many men did you bring out of Toulon?’
    The reply produced such a shock in his lieutenant that Tully’s bayonet, acting like an extension of Markham’s surprise, drew blood from the inside of the man’s thigh. Both soldiers then looked at him hard, wondering what had produced such a response.
    ‘According to this turd there are five thousand well-armed French sailors roaming around these hills, mostly in front of us, God be thanked, but some behind.’
    The figure really wasn’t that surprising. Hood’s fleet, if you included tenders and supply ships, was manned by more than twenty thousand sailors. The French Mediterranean fleet would need that many, if not more, to be effective.
    ‘I say we make it one less,’ said Hollick, leaning forward so that his face was less than an inch from Fouquert’s, the words delivered in a growling, manly fashion to cover his recent, retching response to the sight of dead man’s blood.
    Tully waved the bayonet before the terrified Frenchman ’s eyes, so close that Hollick had to pull back. ‘You ain’t got the stomach for cold death, mate. Best leave it to a man.’
    Hollick, upright again, had his own bayonet out in a flash. ‘Damn you, Tully, I can do it as easy as you.’
    ‘Never,’ the older soldier replied. Then he spat, deliberately , at the prisoner.
    Fouquert, convinced he was about to be stabbed,