Although the new Army barracks at Shorncliffe were nearby, so few Scottish or Irish regiments marched through the streets of Folkestone that bagpipes were rarely heard in the town. Yet the deep-throated skirl of the Scottish and Irish pipes had a little in common with the thin and reedy yet lilting music coming from the Kentish Knock's bar parlour, in Piecrust Lane, one street inland from the harbour, so that passers-by paused to look in.
The young man standing by one of the tables and playing the pipes was plump and stocky with wavy black hair which fell over eyes now glazed from the effort of blowing and keeping the small bag full of air.
The tune, a strange one to English ears, was nevertheless haunting, and the dozen or so seamen in the bar had fallen silent, watching the piper, whose expression showed that the melody he was playing had momentarily carried his thoughts to a distant country.
Finally the tune ended and he snatched the bag from under his arm, cutting the notes off sharply. He sat down at the table, grinning at the three men already seated, and waving to other seamen who called their appreciation.
One of the three, a lean-faced, raggedly-dressed individual with thinning sandy hair, who was apparently more than a little drunk, pushed a mug in front of the piper. 'Have a pint of Kentish ale, Rosey, and play some more. Those Italian bagpipes kick up a nice tune.'
'You like, eh? Sono doloroso ... I so sad now; is a long time...'
'You'll go back one day; Genoa has been there a long time - no one will steal it.'
'You don't know Rosey's mates,' a Cockney said. 'Like pursers, they are; steal it bit by bit, so's no one really notices 'til it's all gorn!'
'Is true, Staff,' the Italian said. ‘This Bonaparte steal it all now, but one day we chase him out and go back, eh - Nick?’
There was a slight hesitation as the Italian (who until a few hours earlier had been noted down in the Muster Book of a ship of the line in Portsmouth as Alberto Rossi, born in Genoa, and rated ordinary seaman) used the name Nick: he was finding it hard to be familiar with Lieutenant Nicholas Ramage, the man who had for so long been his commanding officer.
Now, in common with the other two men who, when sudden orders had been received from the Admiralty by the new telegraph linking Portsmouth and London, had travelled to Dover with him from the same ship in Portsmouth, he was doing his best to carry out Mr Ramage's orders. These wen simple enough: they were all - including Mr Ramage - to behave like fishermen or seamen from a merchantman while in England. Once they reached France they would receive fresh orders.
France! He was hot and nearly winded from playing the pipes, but the thought of landing in Bonaparte's own country chilled him. Not because the prospect of a fight with a bunch of Frenchmen was frightening: no, it was more the idea that Bonaparte's armies now strutted like peacocks over most of Europe - the Low Countries, Spain, most of the states in Italy, Austria, maybe even Switzerland. In fact it was easier to remember that they were not in Britain and Portugal. Perhaps some of those places round the Baltic - Sweden, for example - had not been invaded, but Rossi knew that the only possible reason was that they were too insignificant for Bonaparte to be bothered with. Russia? Probably too big ...
Will Stafford, born in Bridewell Lane, within the sound of Bow Bells, and apprenticed to a locksmith before going to sea, had a wide-eyed naïveté about some aspects of life which contrasted with a remarkable knowledge of other aspects, most of the latter picked up while working as a locksmith at dead of night and usually without the owner of the lock knowing or being charged. Yet Stafford had an instinctive understanding of people; he usually sensed moods in his shipmates and recognized the sudden stab of nostalgia in time to murmur a comforting phrase or divert the mood with a quick joke.
As he watched Rossi fold the pipes before putting them down on the table, he saw that the Italian was brooding and knew he had to be brought back from the past of the hills of Piedmont and Tuscany to the present of the bar parlour of the Kentish Knock, with its low ceiling blackened round the fireplace from years of wintry evenings and smokey chimneys.
'Them pipes is more musical than the Scotch ones,' Stafford commented. 'Ain't got so much body, though.'
'Accidente,' Rossi said, 'I never hear the Scotch, but pipes sono Romani!The Romans have the bagpipes first. These Scotch -' he waved, dismissed kings and clans contemptuously, 'they copy them. They eat the porridge and drink the whisky and blow hard.'
'Scots,' said the lean-faced man sitting on the form next to Ramage. ' "Scots" if it's people, "Scotch" if it's things.'
‘That's why it's called "Scotchland", eh Jacko?' Stafford said sarcastically. 'Anyway, I've heard the Irish had 'em afore the Scots.'
Jackson gave an easy laugh. 'Don't expect an American to explain that. Why -'
He broke off suddenly as he saw a man come through the door from the street and stop, peering round at everyone in the bar. The man saw Ramage and began sidling over towards him, but he had not moved six feet before Jackson, in one catlike movement, had left the table to intercept him.
'Hello, Jacko,' the man said nervously, half-expecting to see a knife, 'it's an right, I'm expected!'
Ramage, equally startled, signalled reassuringly to the American and looked at the man, his face unsmiling and questioning.
'You remember me, sir?' the man said almost slyly, keeping his voice low so that only Ramage and his group could hear him. 'I served with you in the Triton.'
Ramage gestured to him to sit down and said icily, 'You did too, by Jove. Dyson, isn't it?'
'Slushy Dyson, sir, an' I want ter say I'm sorry, an' thank you fer puttin' me on board the Rover.'
‘Two dozen lashes, I seem to remember,' Ramage said his voice still cold. 'I logged it as drunkenness, I believe, not mutiny.'
'Yes, sir; I deserved to 'ave been 'anged, an' I know it. Lucky you was the capting, sir; anyone else would've made sure I was strung up by the neck from the foreyardarm.'
Ramage began to realize that Dyson's appearance might not be a matter of chance: at first he had thought that the seaman's 'You remember me, sir? I served with you in the Triton,' had been an extraordinary coincidence - the normal thing for the man to say, and not the password arranged with Simpson. Now Ramage remembered Dyson's reassuring comment to Jackson, 'It's all right, I'm expected.' Had Dyson come from Simpson? One thing seemed certain: Dyson was no longer in the King's service!
'So when I transferred you to the Rover, I suppose you deserted. Are you marked "run" in her books?'
He watched Dyson shaking his head half-heartedly and noted that Jackson, Stafford and Rossi were staring at the man with curiosity: their wary suspicion had vanished. Yet but for these very men, Slushy Dyson, cook's mate, would have led a mutiny in the Triton within hours of her sailing from Portsmouth for the West Indies. Dyson was not exaggerating when he said he deserved to have been hanged, and his gratitude at being let off with a couple of dozen lashes and transferred to another ship was genuine enough. If the Admiralty ever found out all the details, Ramage himself would probably be court-martialled as well, for failing to bring Dyson to trial. But he was curious to know why Dyson, having been in the shadow of the noose very briefly on board the Triton should have deserted so that he was now in it permanently. His life was in perpetual jeopardy if he was now a deserter, his liberty was in perpetual jeopardy if he was now a smuggler.
Ramage decided that this must be Simpson's emissary and said: 'As I gather we are going to be - er, shipmates again, Dyson, you'd better tell us all about it, and clear the air,
The bar was almost dark now and Dyson waited while the innkeeper put candles on the tables where customers were sitting. The innkeeper was used to sailors and did not try to press them into ordering more drinks: he knew they would shout loud enough when they were thirsty and were likely to turn truculent if they suspected they were being forced. The candle on Ramage's table flickered in the faint draught from he door, and Dyson's narrow, shifty face seemed even more haggard than Ramage remembered it nearly two years ago. Every wrinkle was shadowed by the weak flame, the eyes were still as shifty, and the ears oddly pointed, almost fox-like.
‘’Twas all right in the Rover, sir,' he said softly, his eyes dropped and yet apparently focused on a distant object, 'an' I reckoned you had told her captain all about it.'
'No,' Ramage interrupted, 'he was told you'd been flogged for drunkenness.'
'Oh,' Dyson said, obviously absorbing the information. ‘Well, in Portsmouth I was sent to a ship of the line. The fellows saw the scars on m' back from the cat-o'-nine-tails, and one of the bosun's mates got it in fer me. Seemed to guess what really happened, but I don't know 'ow 'e could. Well, I couldn't move without gettin' a floggin'. Case o' give a dog a bad name, I reckon. That cat would 'ave killed me if I ‘adn't run, sir, and that's the bleedin' truth.'
And Ramage believed him: he had heard at least one captain declare that flogging ruined a good man and made a bad man like Dyson much worse. But at the time there had been no choice: Dyson had quite deliberately planned a mutiny, and a couple of dozen lashes was an almost derisory punishment: a court martial would have hanged him or given him five hundred lashes - which would probably have killed him before they were all administered. Dyson's life had in fact been saved because Ramage's orders were to carry urgent dispatches to the fleet off Brest and to the West Indies: there was no time to land him, let alone wait for several days for a court-martial.
Dyson was a bad man; even in time of peace he would always have been on the run from the law, a clumsy pickpocket, a noisy cutpurse, a highwayman whose horse always went lame or whose pistols misfired . . . War had only hastened the process of dissolution.
Meanwhile they had to work with Dyson - and Dyson had to work with the three seamen who had forced a confession out of him, and the officer who had ordered his flogging. He was ideally placed, Ramage thought uncomfortably, to get his revenge by betraying them all in France.
'Who chose you to help us?' Ramage asked curiously.
Dyson glanced round to make sure no one else was within earshot. 'The leader of the Folkestone and Dover smacks - the contraband smacks, you understand? - had a chat with three or four of us skippers. Didn't say your name, o' course, 'cos he didn't know it, but when he said the password - mentioning the Triton - I straight away thought of you, sir. An' - well, I volunteered because I - well, you treated me all right, sir, an' I thought if I could 'elp you ... I guessed it was summat unusual, so . . .'
Surprisingly, Ramage believed him: the story was so improbable that it had to be true. 'I understand, Dyson. We'll forget the past now because we've got a busy future ahead of us.'
He called for more beer, and was thankful that Dyson's story ruled out Simpson having had a direct hand in the seaman's choice. The man living in the shadow of Studfall Castle would have been capable of arranging it as a veiled threat: reminding Ramage that he was at the mercy of a former mutineer. .
'Well, when do we sail, Dyson?'
'You'd better call me Slushy, sir, while we're in 'ere, just in case one of the local lads 'ears us. Sounds less formal, like,’ he explained apologetically.
Ramage nodded. 'Very well. How about your crew?'
Dyson looked up quickly. ‘I 'aven't signed on a crew apart from two of me regulars' - he managed to avoid saying 'sir’ – ‘’cos they said you 'ad three men. I -' he looked nervously at the three seamen, as though uncertain how they would react to what he was about to say, 'I sort of 'oped it'd be these three, and the five of us is enough for the smack, wot wiv the other two . . .' He stopped, confused and glanced round the bar, noting the group of seamen drinking at the far end. 'Mebbe we'd better get on board the smack where we can talk wivart whisperin'.'
It was difficult to distinguish the shape of the smack in the darkness, except that Ramage saw she had a squarish transom which made her look more French than English. But as hw hauled himself on board from the heavy rowing boat he could see she was strongly rigged: the lanyards were freshly tarred, and the shrouds were hemp. Expensive stuff for a smack; at least if she had been a smack whose catch came in nets, not casks.
The name carved into the wood across the transom was Marie, with 'Dover' in smaller letters on a board beneath: small enough to be almost indistinguishable.
Dyson muttered sheepishly, 'Welcome on board, sir,' and led the way to the little cuddy, climbing down the hatch and hanging the lantern he had been carrying on a hook screwed into the beam over a small table.
Crouching because there was little more than sitting head-room, Dyson squeezed to one side of the companion ladder so that Ramage, Stafford, Rossi and Jackson could pass him and sit on the U-shaped seat built round the two sides and the forward end of the table. As soon as they were seated, Dyson leaned back, sitting partly on one of the companion ladder steps, his head at the same level as the others.
The wind was from the south-west, pushing just enough swell into the inner harbour to make the Marie roll at her mooring. The lantern swung on the hook, sending shadows dancing round the cuddy, but its long handle and the low head-room meant the flame dazzled Ramage, sitting at the forward side of the table, and prevented him from seeing Dyson's face. The suspicion that the seaman had deliberately placed him at a disadvantage vanished when Dyson reached over with an oath and put the lantern on another hook on a beam farther aft. 'Let's all shift round a bit so's I can sit here at the table; that bleedin' lantern's blindin' me.'
There was just enough room for him to squeeze on to the seat next to Jackson, with Rossi and Stafford facing him and Ramage to his right, as though at the head of the table. Dyson sat for a minute or two alone with his thoughts while the other four men wriggled themselves into comfortable positions.
Two years - it wasn't a long time, really, but a lot had happened in Dyson's life. Two years ago he had existed only as an entry in the Muster Book of His Majesty's brig Triton. All that the Navy wanted to know about him had been written in one cryptic line under several headings: Albert Dyson; born Lydd, Kent; age on entry 28; rating, cook's mate; pressed; served in the brig fourteen months before being discharged to the Rover.
Various other reports and returns now gathering dust on the shelves of the Admiralty and the various boards which administered to the Navy's needs recorded the rest of the brief and mundane history of Albert Dyson's efforts towards defeating France. The slop book recorded the clothes and other items issued to him when he first joined a ship ('1 shirt, 1 frock, 1 trowsers, 1 shoes, 1 bed, 3lb tobacco,' and the prices he was charged - 15s 8d for the clothing, 10s for the bed, which was of course a hammock and blanket, and 4s 9d for tobacco). He appeared once in the Triton's log and in her Captain's journal: in the 'Remarks' column, next to the time, distance sailed, speed and wind direction, was noted the fact that Albert Dyson had been given two dozen lashes for drunkenness. But Albert Dyson's name appeared most frequently in the Surgeon's daily journal, not because he was ever really sick but because he was imaginative enough to invent aches and pains which at first had led the surgeon to allow him a day in his hammock from time to time. This had continued until Ramage's predecessor as captain of the Triton became exasperated and suggested to the surgeon that a few tots of castor oil might well bring about a miraculous and permanent cure of all the cook's mate's varied ailments. The Surgeon's journal eventually recorded - if only by the subsequent absence of Dyson's name - the captain's diagnostic skill.
As he sat in the Marie's cuddy, Dyson for once found himself tense but not nervous. Normally the two went together because tension was caused by the fact he was usually engaged in some illegal act, and the nervousness came naturally since he knew the penalty. Experience had taught all the Dyson family that only quick wits, a smooth tongue and very careful planning could keep their bodies clear of gibbets and outside prison walls.
Albert Dyson had been eleven years old when the uncle after whom he was named was marched off to Maidstone Assizes, charged with sheep-stealing, and finally hanged. Albert's father had discovered that his brother was caught only because he had been almost blind drunk as he hurried a dozen stolen ewes over a narrow bridge across one of the Marsh dykes - indeed, it seemed more likely he followed rather than guided them. A pony and trap rattling towards him from the other direction had scattered the startled sheep, and an enraged Uncle Albert had whacked the pony across the rump as it passed and hurled a shower of abuse at the farmer driving it before realizing that the man was the rightful owner of the sheep and a magistrate driving to Romney to sit at the brewster sessions.
All that could have been put down to bad luck, but the Dysons had never been able to live down what followed: the farmer had eventually managed to quieten the horse after a mile's wild gallop, turned the trap on the narrow Marsh lane, and went back to the bridge to find Uncle Albert sitting on its low wall tippling from a bottle of contraband brandy and by then oblivious of what had just happened. The wrathful farmer was met with a splendidly vacant grin and an invitation to share the brandy, to which he had responded by shoving Uncle Albert over the wall and into the dyke and nearly drowning him.
Thus Uncle Albert had brought shame to the Dysons. His brother was so angry and disillusioned at having named his eldest son after such a man (and virtually apprenticed the boy to him) that young Albert was then unofficially apprenticed to a highwayman who worked the road from Ashford to Folkestone. Albert, who acted as lookout, had been present but managed to escape, when his wrong identification led to the highwayman holding up a carriage containing five Army officers instead of the carriage transporting the Bishop of Dover. Expecting to find a cringing prelate with proffered purse, the highwayman was cut down by a fusillade of pistol shots, the Bishop's carriage arriving in time for him to mutter a perfunctory prayer as the highwayman departed this life and young Albert, watching horrified from behind the hedge down the road, departed hurriedly for home.
By now young Albert was twelve, and he spent the next few years picking pockets, starting off by sampling the visitors to Ashford market on Tuesdays, Canterbury market on Wednesdays and Maidstone on Fridays. That produced next to nothing, since the farmers and their wives were not given to carrying much money, so he started working the fairs, where the visitors were more bent on pleasure than business, but the travelling and the need to watch the calendar proved too much. After all these years he could remember the dates.
The year began with Maidstone on the 13th January and Faversham on the 25th, then came a long wait for Great Chart on the 25th March and Biddenden on 1st April (better than Deal and Lamberhurst, which fell on the same day). Another long wait for Charing on 1st May (with the choice of Wittersham and Wingham the same day), Hamstreet or Winchelsea on the 14th, Benenden the next day, Ashford two days after that, and then nothing until Cranbrook on the 30th. And so it went on throughout the year. The life was feast or famine: either so many fairs on the same day or so close he could not visit them all even by riding half the night, or weeks with nothing except weekly markets which yielded very little,
But, Dyson recalled without bitterness, it was growing up that had done him in as a 'dip.' He had been small and skinny for his age and no one noticed him at work in a crowd, and he was agile enough to dip his hand into a pocket or pouch without much risk. A night ride from one fair to another, or sleeping under a hayrick or in a barn, did not matter until he was old enough to shave. Then, and he was the first to admit it, a couple of days' growth of beard on his face made him look just what he was, and if he was also a bit red eyed from drinking and wenching and lack of sleep - well, the sight of him made wise men keep their hands on their guineas and mothers call their children and clutch their purses . . .
His last year had been a disaster when his father worked out the tally. It was the year the damned spavined horse broke a fetlock and had to be shot, miles away from anywhere so he could not even sell the flesh and had to walk eleven miles with the saddle over his shoulders, and he had 'lifted' under twenty guineas from seventeen fixed fairs. Then Dad, who had long since given up trying to keep a calendar on the moveable fairs, swearing one needed to be a parson to do it properly, got in with Mr Simpson up at Studfall, and young Albert had become a fisherman. Not a fisherman who caught fish, but a fisherman who went out in a boat with nets and lines and hooks and bait, in case a Revenue cutter became nosey, and who came back long after dark . . . Bottle fishing, some folk called it, even though the haul was in casks.
For a few years the Dyson family flourished, thanks to Albert. Everyone was proud of Young Albert — until one rainy night he and five others in the boat stepped ashore at Camber to land some casks and the pile of rocks at the back of th beach turned out to be Customs men crouching down, waiting for them. Five years in gaol, the judge had said, or they could walk out of court, with a Navy press gang waiting in the road.
After a month in a receiving ship, a hulk at Sheerness, and six months in a ship of the line, Albert had decided that the galley was the safest and warmest place in any ship, and got himself rated cook's mate. Everyone sneered at the job, which meant keeping the galley fire stoked or clear of ashes, and cleaning and polishing the big copper kettles, but there was money in it. When the great chunks of salt pork or salt beef were boiled in the kettles, gobs of fat (known as slush) floated to the surface, and the cook's mate skimmed it off and put it to one side. Later he sold it illicitly to the seamen, who spread it on the biscuit which passed for bread. The slush not only softened it, if it had grown hard, or bound it together if it had begun to crumble, and suffocated the weevils, but it gave Slushy Dyson his nickname and put money in his pocket.
Slushy Dyson knew better than most men that all good things come to an end, whether because of the drunken carelessness of an Uncle Albert, the thoughtless dating of fixed fairs, the sprouting of the whiskers of adolescence or the mischance of the ship of the line in which he was serving being paid off, resulting in the transfer of Albert Dyson, cook's mate, to the Triton brig where he had less than sixty customers for his slush, instead of five hundred or so. It hit a man cruel hard, that sort of luck; indeed there were times when Slushy almost gave up hope. In the end he had realized that this run of bad luck, extending over several years, was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Just before Mr Ramage came on board to take command and sail for the West Indies, the whole of the Fleet at Portsmouth had mutinied. Albert Dyson had been caught organizing a mutiny on board the first night out of Portsmouth. The three seamen now sitting round the table had captured him but he had got away with a couple of dozen lashes, been transferred to an inward bound ship, and had later been able to desert.
Three years at sea in the King's ships had taught him a lot. When he had called on Mr Simpson at Studfall and told him the tale, he had been welcomed back into the Trade. Within a couple of months a clerk at the Navy Office had passed the word to Mr Simpson that the Two-monthly Book from Dyson's last ship - which was a copy of the Muster Books - had been received, and one letter against the name of Albert Dyson had been carefully erased and two others written in. The changes were simple: originally the letter 'R', for 'Run', the Navy's word for deserting, and the date, had been written in the appropriate column. The clerk had carefully changed 'R' to 'D.D.', which was the only legal way of leaving the King's service apart from being so badly wounded or permanently sick as to be no use on board a ship. The record therefore showed that Albert Dyson, cook's mate, had died on the date shown, and been 'Discharged Dead.'
Dyson knew that there were too many other reports and logs coming in from the ship during the next few months for that single change in the Two-monthly Book to make him vanish altogether as far as the Navy was concerned. However, the clerk was sure that the general inefficiency in the Navy Board, which had to deal with a Navy which now comprised more than 100,000 men, meant that he was safe enough; clerks tended to deal with discrepancies or contradictions by ignoring them, particularly if there was no widow asking awkward questions. And then, as an insurance, Mr Simpson had obtained a Protection for him: a regular Protection made out in his own name and describing him as a regular waterman. With that Albert Dyson could not be taken up by a naval press gang: watermen, along with masters, mates and apprentices in merchant ships, and a few others, were admitted by the Admiralty to be better left alone rather than swept into the Navy.
Dyson reached under the seat and pulled out a box, extracting a bottle carefully wrapped in a piece of cloth, and several tin mugs so dented from use they looked like carelessly hammered pewter.
'Best brandy,' he said, pushing a mug across to Ramage. 'How about you, sir: a "welcome on board" tot?'
Ramage had an inflexible rule that he never drank at sea in his own ship; but the little Marie was far from being his ship, and before they sailed he was anxious to find out a great deal more from Dyson than he knew already. Refusing a drink might upset the fellow, who had all the touchy pride of a real rogue.
'A small one, then; just enough for a toast.'
Dyson poured a little into five mugs and passed them round. 'Won't do to get drunk; we'll need our wits about us a'fore the night's over.'
Jackson felt the pressure of Ramage's knee and immediately took the hint, asking: 'How so, Slushy?'
Dyson lifted his mug: 'Here's to a successful cruise.' When the other four had echoed his toast he put his mug down with an exaggerated gesture, as if to lend weight to what he was about to say. 'We have a lot of dodgin' to do, an' we're due to meet another smack . . . let's 'ope it ain't too rough.’
Jackson knew Mr Ramage must have his reasons for wanting him to question Dyson. 'Aye, dodging the Frogs is going to be difficult. . .'
‘The Frogs?' Dyson exclaimed, obviously startled and with more than a hint of outraged indignation in his voice. 'T'ain't the Frogs we got to worry about; it's our own bleedin' Revenue cutters first, then 'is Britannic Majesty's frigates once we get near the French coast.'
'Why?' Jackson asked innocently. 'What harm will they do us?'
'Come orf it,' Dyson growled. 'Just give a sniff. Go on, sniff 'ard.'
Jackson sniffed and shrugged his shoulders. 'Can't smell anything odd. Tarred marline - Stockholm tar, from the nets I suppose. Bit musty —some rot around in the planking or the frames .. .'
'Nothin' else?'
'No-o,' Jackson said cautiously. 'Whiff of fish, perhaps.'
'Just a whiff, eh?'
When Jackson nodded, Dyson said contemptuously, 'You wouldn't make much of a Customs searcher, Jacko! Just a whiff o' fish in the cuddy of a smack - why it should stink o' fish!'
Stafford gave a tentative sniff. 'S'fact. What 'appened, Slushy - all the fish swum away, or you gettin' lazy?'
Dyson looked round the group suspiciously, as though suspecting they were teasing. Then, deciding they were not, he leaned forward and said mysteriously. 'It's a special sort o' fishing.'
'Ah, bottle fishin',' Stafford said scornfully. 'You're a bleedin' smuggler, Slushy! I couldn't see you 'auling in 'alibut, I must say.'
Dyson's face fell and he drank from his mug to hide his disappointment at not being able to reveal his secret with a flourish.
Jackson had been waiting patiently. 'You said we have to meet another smack tonight, Slushy, and you hoped the sea wasn't rough . ..'
Instead of answering the American, Dyson turned to face Ramage. 'They left it up to me how much I tell you, sir. They're worried about when you get back: you - well, they -'
'They're frightened I'll inform the Revenue men, eh? Tell me, Dyson, if you get us over to France and back again, do you think I'd be so ungrateful that I'd give you away? Be honest, man; this is your ship and you're free to say what you think.'
Although the anguished look on Dyson's face told him all he needed to know, Ramage waited. The man sipped from his tin mug - whatever else he might be, he was not a heavy drinker - and, suddenly setting the mug down, he said simply; 'I owe you my life, sir: any other capting would 'ave brought me to trial and made sure I 'anged. I don't forget that in a hurry; in fac', I'll remember it to me dyin' day. No, the trouble is the uvvers, sir; they don't know you and they 'ave to take my word for it -' he broke off embarrassed.
'Don't they trust you, Slushy?' Jackson asked.
'Well, yus and no. They do as far as bottle fishin' goes - I've proved meself long ago. It's just they're a bit suspicious 'bout what went on while I was - well, was in the King's service.'
'Why the distinction?' Ramage asked.
'It's like this, sir. When I heard what the password wasgoin' to be and guessed it was you, I got so excited I told 'em all about - well, the Triton brig business. Instead of that 'elping, it made 'em suspicious, on account of them thinking it gave you a sort o' twist on my arm: you'd know I was a deserter, an' you could threaten to hand me over to the authorities if I didn't tell you everything you wanted to know about 'ow contraband is landed on the Marsh - all that sort o' thing.'
'But nevertheless you managed to persuade them?' Ramage asked quietly.
Dyson looked uncomfortable. 'I made a bargain. I can use the Marie, but I had to put up a sort o' guarantee. It's all arranged, sir; there's nothin' to worry about.'
'What was the guarantee?' Ramage said.
'Just some money as security for the Marie, and my young brother - he usually sails with me as mate. I had to leave him behind.' Dyson saw Ramage's raised eyebrows and added uncomfortably. 'Better security than money, my brother, an' they know it.'
Was the brother literally a hostage? Ramage was not sure and phrased his next question carefully: 'What does the money and your brother's life guarantee, exactly?'
The seaman shrugged his shoulders. 'Hard to say, come to think of it. Our good behaviour, I s'pose. That you don’t interfere with the contraband trade and don't hand me over to the authorities; and - well, that I get you there and back and don't take risks with the smacks.'
So the smugglers were quite ruthless: Dyson's brother would get his throat cut if Slushy put a foot wrong. Ramage also pondered over 'smacks.' Was another one due to sail with the Marie, or was Dyson referring to the one they were supposed to meet? He decided to wait and see: at the moment Dyson seemed angry with his smuggler friends and genuinely anxious to repay what he regarded as a debt to Ramage himself. Yet Ramage was curious at the way Dyson had been treated - it contradicted Simpson's airy and open-handed behaviour of a few hours ago.
'Tell me, do you have much to do with - well, no names, but he lives near Studfall?'
"The gentleman you went to first,' Dyson nodded. 'No one sees 'im. Like the Navy, it is. If he's the Commander-in-Chief - and I ain't sayin' he is,' Dyson added hurriedly, 'then the like o' wot I deal wiv is bosuns, and me a bosun's mate.'
'A big organization,' Ramage commented. 'But when I talked with the man at Studfall, he promised me everything I asked.'
'I'm sure he did, sir and meant it too. The trouble starts among the men under him. It's money, Mr Ramage; contraband round the Kent coast brings in a great deal of money, and where there's that kind of money men get greedy and suspicious o' each other. Money never bought loyalty, sir. The gentleman at Studfall won't have any idea about the guarantees I 'ad to give; fact is, I dare say 'e'd get very angry. But 'e'll never know; not from me, anyway: more than my life'd be worth, to make any complaint. An' I ain't complaining, reelly; you was askin' me. Fact is, no man's yer friend as far as bottle fishermen are concerned.'
Rossi tapped the little table with his mug. 'So sad; Slushy; I cry for you. Poco tempo fa - not so long ago - you sell off the slush from the Triton's coppers to make the extra soldi; now you are the grand signor. Of course is dangerous; of course is not many friends. But the Navy, amico mio, is short of friends, too. The Triton after you waved goodbye - two, three times we are in battle. And a hurricane - Madonna! such wind - and we lose our masts and run on a reef. Yes, Slushy, I cry for you - on your saint's day.'
'Thanks,' Dyson grinned. 'That'll be a great comfort to my old mother, p'ticularly since she reckons the Devil's a Catholic. You want some more brandy in that mug?'
Before Rossi could reply, Ramage interrupted: 'What time do you intend sailing, Dyson?'
The seaman pulled out his watch. "Bout eleven, sir - in fact, won't 'arm any to leave earlier. We can go now. If you'd let my men pass down your seabags we can stow 'em and then get under way.'
He made no move as he put his watch away, and Ramage looked questioningly. 'Do you have any special orders for me, sir? I mean, is there anything I need to do a'fore we get under way?'
'Is anyone going on shore before we sail?' Ramage asked cautiously.
'No, sir; my two lads are coming with us - part of the trip, anyway.'
Unsure whether Dyson was deliberately talking in riddles or assumed he had guessed more than he had, Ramage decided to wait before asking any more important questions: Dyson seemed to be the kind of man of limited intelligence who thrived on mystery; who for various devious reasons made secrets from what others would regard as idle gossip or the kind of information imparted when passing the time of day,
'What exactly were you told had been arranged with the man at Studfall?' asked Ramage.
'No one seemed right to know. Take you and some men to Boulogne; stand by to bring you out again; mebbe bring some things back in between - reports and the like.'
Ramage felt relieved. 'That covers everything,' he said. 'How will you be able to stand by?'
'Smack'll be waiting in Boulogne 'arbour, sir,' Dyson said, his voice showing surprise that Ramage did not know that. ‘’Ow else can I be standing by?'
Ramage shook his head, trying to stifle his exasperation. 'Dyson, I don't know a dam' thing about how you people run your affairs, so you'd better -' He broke off. The devil take it; he had neither the wish nor the patience (and too much pride?) to squeeze Dyson like a lemon for drops of information.