The Moonless Night by Joan Smith Page B

belonged. He went on so point out that the yachts were each equipped with tinned foods, drink, blankets and Brown Besses, procured by means of Sir Henry’s former connection with the supplies office.
    “A musket with a range of one hundred yards won’t do you much good on the high seas,” was Sanford’s belittling comment.
    “If you will look up the garrison wall, you will see there are big guns mounted at the openings” Sir Henry replied curtly, “We’ll go back up and you can have a look at them.” He was really far from ready to scrabble up the cliff so soon, but had no desire to hear his preparations further denigrated.
    “My father finds the climbing hard,” Marie mentioned to Mr. Benson, who had remained by her side.
    “I’ll give him a hand,” he volunteered at once. Marie gave him another, so that the three of them went up slowly, while David and Sanford bounded up the cliff at a pace strangely at odds with Lord Sanford’s stately bearing.
    “Lord Sanford holds some surprising views,” Benson remarked.
    “The man is a lunatic,” Sir Henry declared with vehemence, “and I wish I had not invited him to stay. If he goes calling on Mr. Hazy, I hope the fellow will offer to put him up. They belong together, the pair of upstart Whigs.”
    “Who is this Mr. Hazy exactly?” Benson asked.
    “He is a liberal that lives hereabouts. Was a liberal M.P. some years ago, a friend of Holland. He was always ripe for any foolishness the Whigs came up with. Has given the Prince Regent the devil of a hard time about money, expecting a prince to live in a hovel. His present mania is to set Napoleon free, to do it by an Act of Parliament or some such thing, with the help of other left-wingers like Brougham and this Capell Lofft. And Lord Sanford,” he added grimly.
    “How would they go about it?”
    “No doubt Lord Sanford will inform us,” he said through clenched teeth. Speech was difficult in his pained condition, and he said no more. Marie, glancing to her spy, saw his eyes were narrowed suspiciously, as he examined Lord Sanford with the keenest interest.
    They had soon reached the plateau that held the garrison wall, entering through a rounded stone archway. There was an area of about fifteen yards depth between the garrison wall and the Hall proper. In this spot were several former fieldhands piling up cannon balls, polishing ramrods, oiling cannons, and generally behaving as they imagined a soldier would behave, which involved a good deal of ribaldry and cursing, till they discerned their employer had come amongst them. Sir Henry strode importantly to the closest gun opening, where a cannon was mounted. He took a grip on the handles and turned the gun from left to right. “Swivels, you see,” he pointed out to Sanford, with a vastly superior air. “All my guns do. I can cover the whole seaward mouth of the river that runs in past my place. A ship won’t get up the estuary in one piece if I don’t like the looks of it.”
    “Do these antiques actually work? Where did you find such relics? Are they left over from the Civil War?” Sanford fired off this series of questions without allowing time for replies.
    “They are in working order,” Sir Henry told him, and didn’t see fit to mention that they had not actually done so in the last generation.
    “Very effective, if it happens the rescuers decide to bring Boney ashore here. What makes you think they will choose the one guarded dock with hundreds of miles of unguarded coastline? No one would be foolish enough to land him anywhere near here,” Sanford pointed out.
    “There is very little anchorage anywhere along the coast. Sheer rock cliffs by and large, with a little inlet at Wembury of course, and Sinclair has a neat dock at Sinclair Point, though it doesn’t have as deep a clearance as my own. At low tide it is perfectly useless. I have had my dock dredged all around.”
    “Wettering’s is dredged, too,” David added. Sanford and Benson