"SUCH IS MY LOVE."
"Where did your little friend find this, Mr. York?"
Jom York said not a word but stuck out a black-nailed paw. Hoare was accustomed to this; he crossed the palm with silver as if York were a gypsy fortuneteller. The silver disappeared into one of York's dingy pockets.
"Not in Portsmouth 'arbor, yer honor," York said.
"Where, then?"
Out came the palm again and would not withdraw until it held five pieces of silver.
"The 'Amble," yer honor," York said. The Hamble, Hoare knew, was an estuary leading into Southampton Water, some miles to the west of Portsmouth. He had already explored it in Devastation, found it unremarkable except for mud, some hungry-looking fishing smacks, and the derelict hulk of a long-outdated fifty-gun battleship, and left it alone thereafter.
"I hadn't realized your reach extended that far, Mr. York," Hoare whispered.
"It's a broad reach I'm on, yer worship," the other chuckled. "Mi-key Pollock, 'e's the one as found it. Mikey's a fisherman's orphing and went into the trade on 'is own, like. Now I coulden 'ave that, could I now, so I takes 'im under me wing, like. Promisin' tyke, Mikey is. 'E'll go far, if 'e lives long enough."
The life of a mudlark, Hoare had been told, was nasty, brutish, and short.
"And where in the Hamble did young Mikey find the item?"
Out came the black hand. Into it went the coins-clink, clink, clink.
"H.M.S. Devastation, yer honor, that's where."
"What! You're gammoning me, York. You know perfectly well that's what I'm calling my own little yacht these days. You've got your thirty pieces of silver; now be on the square with me."
"I am bein' on the square wif ye, yer honor," York said with an aggrieved look. "Never been nuffin' else wif ye. Devastation I said, and be 'er, a-layin' derelict 'alfway up the 'Amble. She lays 'igh an' dry of a spring tide, she do, an' Mikey, 'e said 'e found that there shiv under 'er counter t'other night."
"I'll be damned to breakfast," Hoare breathed. "Get me this Mikey. Now."
What with Hoare's gentle grilling, a whole sovereign, and the promise of more to follow, Mikey the mudlark furnished far more information than he had given even Jom York. Had the latter Known All, in fact, he would have demanded at least double his thirty pieces of silver.
Mikey Pollock's accent was even heavier than Jom York's; Hoare was hard put to it to understand him. And he would tell his story in his own way.
Well, sir, Mikey admitted, he had not actually found the dirk in the mud; he had been wading painfully around the old Devastation hulk looking for castaway treasures. He had noticed signs of life aboard her lately, and three or four times, usually at night, a shore boat had delivered people or picked them up. So, for an alert mudlark like Mikey, the ooze surrounding Devastation might be an untapped lode.
He was scraping away with his rake when a "psst!" above him made him jump. Someone was watching him from the hulk. "They wuz a nole cut into 'er side, w'ere no 'ole orta be," Mikey said. "And they wuz a nead stickin' outa that theer 'ole.
"'Boy,' sez that theer 'ead. "Would ye liketa make yeself rich?"
"O'course I do, master, right? So I sez aye right off. So 'e tells me as 'ow 'e an' some shipmates bin caught up, like, an' 'e wants me to tell 'is capting.
"Wull, ain't no way a lad like me 'ull get to see no capting, so I ups an' tells the 'ead to gimme sumpin' to show I ain't hon. An' 'e t'rows down that shiv you showed me. An' Jom York took it off me, an' 'e sold it to you, and w'ere be Mikey Pollock but left out inna col' oncet agin." Mikey sniffled and wiped his nose with a filthy, ragged sleeve.
A plan took instant shape in Hoare's mind.
"Can you draw me a picture of where the hole is, Mikey?" he asked.
"Aye."
"Here, then." Hoare handed him a piece of paper-the back of one of his printed message slips, actually — and a pencil.
"Won't." Mikey's lower lip stuck out stubbornly.
"I'll go wit' yez, though."
More quickly than he'd believed possible, due to the mudlark's handiness, Hoare had his own Devastation under way, back to Hebe. Once aboard the frigate again, he explained his plan to her captain. like most frigate captains, Davison was always ready for a good venture; the prospect of getting his mids back aboard and the wrathful dignitaries out of the admiral's hair made him all the happier to help.
"My armorer has some smoke bombs," he offered. "You're welcome to 'em. Now as to your boarders…"
"I must remind you, sir, that Serene has little space aboard, so…"
"Serene?" Captain Davison sounded puzzled, so Hoare hastened to explain.
"There can hardly be two Devastations in this action, sir, especially not on opposing sides. So I took advantage of the short trip to switch my Devastation's trail boards. She's now Serene, if you have no objection."
"None at all, sir," Davison said. "How convenient. An even more legitimate ruse de guerre, I suppose, than flying a neutral nation's colors until your enemy is under your guns. And we all do that."
When word spread of Hoare's plan, he was besieged by three times more volunteers than Serene could carry.
Mr. Steptoe, the sole remaining mid, vowed that unless he were taken along he would swim in chase until he drowned, so he had to come. Besides, he was small and lithe. Hoare felt he would need those qualities before the night was over.
Millar the coxswain felt a degree of guilt for letting the mids go adrift, so he too had a claim.
Finally, Hoare picked Galloway the marine and two of his toughest men. Lobsters might be stupid, but hard fighting was their business.
With Hoare himself and the mudlark Mikey, they were seven- enough, with their personal weapons, to make Hoare anxious. Carrying a weight like that, Serene would roll her cockpit under in any kind of sea at all, and that would be the end of her.
A list, however, would be all to the good, and a general logy quality, so that in the dark she would appear to be abandoned.
To catch the flood tide in the mouth of the Hamble, they must move smartly. Hoare let his men waste no time in farewells but loaded them aboard and bundled all but himself and Millar below, where he packed them in, head to tail, like sardines. He made sure that the yacht's two sweeps were ready to ship and assigned Millar and the less lubberly marine to man them in case of need. Hoare must make the mouth of the Hamble while the tide was still flooding so his expedition could drift casually up to the hulk.
Almost as far as the entrance to Southampton Water the beam wind favored them. Then they had to resort to the sweeps. Hoare used the time to detail his plan with the help of the mudlark-who, after all, was the only member of the party with any real local knowledge.
The tide, bless it, was still on the flood when they struck the Hamble's mouth. There was no moon, so Serene, her sails furled except for a handkerchief of trysail to give her steerage way and her bare mast barely visible even to her crew, slipped invisibly up the estuary.
"There she be," Mikey whispered at last. Sure enough, the hulk loomed in the murk, not a cable off. There were lights in her cabin. As they drew closer, a loud conversation carried across the water. A meeting of the Committee, perhaps.
Now they were under the hulk's tumble-home, and now just under her high-pitched quarterdeck. The cabin lights were bright, the conversation louder. Yes, it was surely an Irish meeting. There was an Irish pennant handy, too, a line dangling sloppily from the hulk's deck; Millar caught it and let it slip through his great paws until Serene brought to alongside the hulk's weed-covered rudder, under its cabin windows and adjoining a ship's boat lying astern.
The two boys tiptoed up from below. Each took in hand a grapnel attached to a sufficient length of land line knotted at intervals for easy climbing, even by lobsters.
Swinging the grapnels to make ready, they eyed Hoare, waiting for his signal.
Galloway and his marines appeared, each with his bayoneted musket slung across his back and carrying a lit smoke bomb that sputtered softly in the blackness.