Race Before the Wind

Copyright © Jill Salkeld 1988

Part Three: 1826-1831

The Men of Enterprise

Chapter Eleven

He was determined to keep his plans even from Jess. It was too soon to worry her; nothing was fixed or certain.

The first step, however, required her approval. He raised the subject next morning, when they were about to go downstairs for breakfast, and Jessica's reaction was much as he had anticipated.

"You want to send our children to Guernsey? To a woman who was your mistress for years? And you expect me to like it?"

"I'd rather you went too," he said, ignoring her look of outrage. "Though I know quite well that you won't be persuaded."

"Well, full marks for knowing your own wife, Tom Elderfield!"

He went to her, placed his hands on her shoulders. "Jessie....."

She folded her arms. "No. Annis is only a baby."

"She's nearly two years old, and Honor is used to looking after her. Jess, Mace is dead. The yard is a burnt-out ruin. If Wickham is only out for revenge, as you believe, he won't care what he does or who he hurts. For the next fortnight, I want our children well out of range."

Her eyes sought his, not in anger but with the stirrings of fear. "You're saying that in a fortnight it won't matter any more?"

"It won't, if I win."

"What you're going to do," she said, "it's dangerous, isn't it? I mean really dangerous....in the way that East Cowes was."

"This time I'll be holding all the aces."

"I want to help." She held his wrists and lowered his hands from her shoulders. "I love you, you proud stubborn bastard. Don't you dare shut me out!"

He kissed the end of her nose. "Then stay with me", he said, "and we'll keep the secret together. But the children should go to Madame de l'Eree."

He won the argument. Jessica would not risk her children's lives for the sake of petty jealousy over some long-dead affair. Tom wrote to Helene at once, and rode into Southampton with the letter, to ensure that it would catch the Guernsey mail-boat.

Jessica had been warned that he might be gone all day. When he had told her the plan she had been afraid for him, saying it would be worse than East Cowes, much worse, because this time the duel would be to the death. But he knew that she understood and shared his thirst for revenge. Mr Justice Parke had spoken of living in an 'enlightened age'. There was nothing enlightened or remotely civilised about Jessica's feelings towards the Earl of Wickham.

Besides, even doing nothing had become too perilous for sense.

Having delivered his letter aboard the appropriate sailing packet, he led his horse along the Quay to where a gig waited to row passengers out to the anchored Cowes ferryboat. Steamers still did not run during the winter. Jeremy Lomer stood in the bows of the gig, attempting earnestly to attract custom in the face of lively competition from the crew of a rival vessel.

His pleasure at seeing Tom was tempered by genuine regret over his partner's fate. Although Jem had visited Crosstrees occasionally, the house having been his childhood home, he had always felt rather overwhelmed by Mace's personality; but he resented any blow that Fate dealt his one-time skipper.

Tom forestalled his sympathetic philosophising. "Can you spare me half an hour before you sail? I need to talk to you, Jem."

Jem willingly delegated his duties to the ship's boy, and jumped ashore. He walked at Tom's side beneath the ancient city walls that stretched right down to West Quay. They could be certain they were not overheard.

"What's become of old Hicks these days, Jem?"

"The Captain?" Jem was evidently surprised by the question. "He's still running things, I am told. Winter Witch has been sold to a yachtsman."

"Yes, I've seen her on the Solent. So Hicks keeps his finger on the pulse, does he? Tough old bugger. He must be all of seventy-five."

Jem slanted him an apprehensive glance. "You cannot be thinking, after so long -"

"Of vengeance? Not the kind you mean."

"The Earl of Wickham?"

Tom whistled softly. "That would be aiming high. What makes you think I've anything against such a good and loyal Englishman?"

"Rumours. Whispers. People surmising that more happened at County Hall that day than the trial of a handful of rioters. Hicks cannot help you, you know. The days of picking hired murderers from smuggling gangs are gone. And as for hoping to murder an Earl -"

"Hicks killed my wife, or at least sanctioned her 'execution'. He owes me. But murder is not what I'll be asking." Tom looked straight as Jem. "All I want are the men who crewed Marshlight while I was skipper. Their services, for a week or two. Nothing more. You're excused, being legitimately employed, but I'll need all the rest - including Eddie Verity."

Jem blinked. "I have not seen the Captain in years. Can you not approach him yourself?"

"I may be watched. I absolutely cannot afford to be seen visiting a man with Hicks' reputation until this business is sorted out. I trust you, Jem. You've a good brain in your head, and you'd put my case fair and square. Will you do it?"

Jem Lomer gave one of his rare, glowing smiles. "You had better fill me in on the details, skip," he said.

The men arrived by ones and twos, usually during the hours of darkness as Tom had instructed Jem. They ambled down the lane when the villagers were abed, or came ashore from small river craft that dwindled at once into the night. A furtive bunch, indeed, who found themselves greeted warmly by the family at Crosstrees. They were lodged in the spare rooms, and did not show their faces by day, when shipwrights and painters worked on the flyer, and general labourers began clearing the debris from the yard. There were none to question the strangers' presence; the maid had been dismissed with a month's pay, and departed to inform the people of Bursledon that it was a real shame that the master had lost all his money, but it came hard to folk done out of a job so sudden.

The last of the eleven seamen to arrive was Trekker Verity. Tom shook his hand - a gesture of truce, not goodwill - and Trekker nodded and said in an undertone, "Well....I owe 'ee some help, Aristo, if anyone does." All the same, they mainly kept out of one another's way.

Tom received a letter from Helene, expressing her pleasure in being asked to do such a delightful favour for an old friend. She would adore to have the children with her, she said; for old times' sake. Tom was mildly embarrassed by such gushing sentiments from the calm and sophisticated Helene, and wished he had not let Jessica open the letter. He wondered fleetingly whether Helene had been more fond of him that he had been permitted to guess. Jessica arched her brows at the wording and pointedly made no comment.

Next day the twins and baby Annis set sail for St Peter Port, with Luke mutinous to the last, and Honor convinced that she would not see her father alive again. Mace's death had shaken the sense of security which the twins had begun to take for granted.

"Will you be angry with me for ever," Honor asked her father, "because of what I told Uncle Obadiah?"

"That's all forgiven and forgotten. We've got to think of the future, not the past. Don't cry, sweetheart, I'll make Crosstrees safe for us. Didn't I promise your Uncle Mace?"

But standing with Jess to wave at the children as their ship set sail, he knew too well that Honor could be right, and he may not live to see their return. Optimism had never come so hard to him before; but if the gamble cost him his life, so be it. Whichever of them were to die - himself or Wickham - the odds were that his family would be safe afterwards. Even if Wickham was the survivor, Jess would repel any advances pretty sharply, and he would surely not harm her for that alone, with no rival suitors on the horizon.

Tom's first job, on reaching home, was to set the boatyard's smithy in order. Much of the interior had been gutted by the fire, but the place was adequate as a working forge, once the damaged tools had been replaced. Tom shut himself in for several each day, hammering and experimenting, drawing on the memories of his youth - and not only for the purpose of re-acquiring a blacksmith's skills.

He found the work shattering, and in the mornings could hardly move. It was a severe blow to a man's pride, as he told Jessica wryly, to realise that he had been tougher at fifteen than he was at thirty-two. But at the end of a week, he had created a couple of items that satisfied him. He kept the smithy doors locked, after that.

Meanwhile, a rather startling occurrence in Durley gave the villagers cause for gossip. A group of half a dozen smocked labourers called one evening at the alehouse. They spoke with New Forest accents, and declared themselves, with many a wink, to be a gang of ambitious 'night=workers' roaming Hampshire in search of 'suitable work'. They had heard there were rich pickings to be had on Lord Wickham's estate

A group of men seated in the corner immediately wished to hear where the strangers had come by such information.

"For 'tis well known," said the villagers' spokesman, "that guns and traps are set all over the estate. And maybe there are men hereabouts who wouldn't welcome newcomers poaching his lordship's game. Maybe there are men who'd think that the right of Durley folk only."

The strangers left the alehouse with speed and little dignity, claiming they had not come looking for a fight, and would not make so bold as to trouble the villagers again. But the incident was considered odd and vaguely shocking, for gangs of itinerant poachers were fortunately not common.

Some few days later Mr Snelgrove, head gamekeeper at Durley Park, pondered the matter as he sat in his favourite chair, feet resting on the hearthstone before a log fire. The way he had heard the tale, the strangers would not show their faces at the alehouse again. The vexed question was were they likely to start poaching on the estate despite their denials?

Thinking of the illegal but reassuring crop of spring-guns, Snelgrove grunted with callous humour. Let them try it, that was all. Let them try.

A sudden rapping on the front door of the cottage made him jump. He muttered a curse. The watchers on the night shift were not supposed to report for duty for another twenty minutes, and he had been hoping for a peaceful smoke and a cup of tea before then.

He rose grumbling, to admit the offending watchers.

The grumbles died in his throat. He retreated from the pistol aimed at his chest, and sat down heavily in the padded armchair. About a dozen men followed the man with the gun as he strolled casually into the room. Though he was evidently the leader, he was clad like the rest in the usual labourers' garb of smock and old-fashioned breeches, and a low-crowned billycock hat. He stood on the hearthrug looking totally at ease. Not to difficult, Snelgrove reflected sourly, for a man holding a loaded pistol.

The gamekeeper said in righteous anger, "What the hell do you mean by bursting into a man's own house in such a manner? If it's money you want, I haven't got any."

"Mr Snelgrove," said the leader, "you'll know me by name, if not by sight. I am Elderfield, of Elderfield & Tandy, boatbuilders for the Royal Yacht Club."

Snelgrove swallowed, he began to be really afraid, "I wasn't at the trial, I'm no friend of Kitcher's. I had nothing to do with any of it."

The blond man acknowledged this with a small, bitter smile. "I'd like you to understand, Mr Snelgrove, that the men with me tonight are not shipwrights, they are seamen. Six of them were at the alehouse some days ago, posing as poachers. You may not be aware that I was once very successful in the Free Trade. Old loyalties die hard. These are eleven men from a gang of four hundred - the number excludes a network of waggoners and middle-men stretching from the Forest to London. When someone betrays them, their vengeance is swift and sure. Wherever he tries to run they'll find him. But I'm sure you're not going to betray us, Mr Snelgrove."

Snelgrove ran his tongue over dry lips. "Damn you, I'll not be threatened in my own house!"

The blond man arched his brows. "We'd like to ask a favour of you, Mr Snelgrove. It is up to you whether you agree to our terms, but your refusal would be taken very personally by every man in this room."

Snelgrove had never thought of himself as a coward; but Durley was several miles from the Solent. He had heard that the coastguards were making life impossible for the Free Traders. But he had also heard, like everyone else, of men shot down in front of their wives, of informers, who disappeared during dark winter nights, and of thirty decomposed bodies once found dumped in a well.

He said, as steadily as he was able, "What sort of favour might this be?"

The man called Elderfield sat down, passed his gun to the smuggler next to him, and proceeded to explain.

Eddie Verity banged with both fists on the kitchen door at Durley Grange, and thought if that did not shake the wool out of a few heads, nothing bloody well would.

It was quite dark now; a clear, cold, moonlit night. Just what Aristo had been waiting for. It was over an hour since they had left Snelgrove's cottage.

The door was opened by the butler, who regarded his visitor with suspicion. Unknown faces were welcomed less since the Swing riots - and, at Durley Grange, since the trial of Mace Tandy.

Trekker cut across the butler's first words, saying with apparent desperation, "I have to speak to his lordship. 'Tis terrible important. I do beg 'ee, let I inside."

The butler was dubious, but the man on the doorstep was alone, small, and harmless-looking There were sufficient servants to usher him firmly out again if he started any trouble.

Once in the kitchen, Trekker horrified Wickham's servants with as gruesome a tale of mayhem as they had heard for some time. Nothing like it had ever happened on his lordship's estate before, although the newspapers told of such incidents from time to time. The butler was convinced that, in the lamentable circumstances, Lord Wickham should be informed. Trekker, having proved that he was unarmed and therefore not one of the poaching gang, was escorted upstairs to the drawing-room.

The butler entered to announce him, and Trekker glimpsed the Earl standing at the window, abstractedly taking snuff as he peered into the dark. Lady Wickham reclining on a sofa, was saying peevishly, "Must we have so little light? You know how it depresses me - and I am quite sure there is nothing of interest to be seen in the garden at this hour."

Wickham turned from the window. "Yes, what is it, Skelton?"

"Edwards, my lord. One of the watchers."

Wickham showed immediate interest. "I knew there was something afoot. Thank you, Skelton, you may go. Edwards, what is amiss? The hillside is alive with men."

"Sir - my lord - 'tis the poachers. A great gang, my lord. Ten at least, we do think."

"Good God! I hope Snelgrove has his wits about him." Wickham frowned, and looked down his nose at Trekker. "Do you hail from the Forest?"

"I be living in Botley, my lord, since I was wed. Mr Snelgrove be dead, and three of the watchers."

Wickham's reaction was downed by a shriek from his lady. He threw her an impatient glance, and made no attempt to reassure her. His attention fixed once more on Eddie Verity.

"What the devil are you saying, man? Is there pitched battle being fought? How is it possible for four of my men to have lost their lives? What of the traps?"

"Most of the poachers are armed, and they do seem to know the placing of the traps as well as we. We've driven they up as far as High Coppice, but that be more like a wood, as you do know. We don't have the men to surround he. And there ain't traps nor spring=guns in there."

"Then there damned well should be! What the deuce was Snelgrove thinking of?" Wickham turned to his wife, who was fanning herself rapidly. "It seems that reinforcements are needed, my dear. And," he added to Trekker, "I shall take the greatest delight in shooting down personally any poacher who crosses my path."

Lord Wickham did not leave the Grange alone with Trekker. They were accompanied by three young footmen and the middle-aged butler Skelton. The Earl and two footmen carried loaded shotguns. Trekker, who had expected this, nevertheless experienced a qualm or two. Aristo must be stark raving mad.

Climbing the hill in the moonlight, Eddie Verity's doubts were overlaid by satisfaction at the scene being enacted just below High Coppice. Aristo Elderfield and the men of Marshlight had not been idle since he left them.

Tom had indeed been busy. He squatted now in the shadow of a holly bush at the edge of the wood, surveying his handiwork. Some distance away, a watcher lay apparently dead, his body partly concealed by his stooping comrades, one of whom was testing for signs of life. The crew of Marshlight had missed their vocation, Tom thought. They should have formed a travelling theatre company.

A dozen or more men - assorted seamen and genuine watchers, though Wickham was not to know that - were taking their stations in a line along the perimeter of the wood, as if preparing to close in on the supposed gang of poachers.

Snelgrove was not present. He and several watchers and underkeepers, who had reported on time for duty, were passing an evening somewhat reluctantly in the game-keeper's cottage, under the eyes of two Keyhaven sailors. The penalty for informing on smugglers had been pointed out to them all; as it would be to Wickham's servants, if necessary. The watchers' silence could be guaranteed.

Wickham approached the group around the 'dead' man. This was one thing Tom could not risk - the Earl's close inspection of a corpse with normal breathing and no visible wounds. The time had come to act.

He carried no weapons. He might otherwise have been tempted to use one, if things turned out badly, thereby condemning himself to certain death.

He had seldom been so frightened.

He drew a deep breath, stood up and raced along the edge of the wood, before taking the first path into it.

There were shouts behind him, a shot fired hastily, without a hope of hitting its target. Tom's heart beat fast from more than the sudden exertion. It was up to the crew of Marshlight, now, to ensure that none of the servants followed him.

He glanced back. Three cheers for the seamen; only one man was on his track, though that man was obviously cursing his servants' cowardice.

The path curved, then forked after another few yards. Tom slowed his pace; it mattered that Wickham should see which direction he chose.

The Earl sprinted around the bend in the path. Tom was already running by the time he raised the gun to his shoulder and fired.

Hundreds of pellets spattered the undergrowth and smacked into the bark of a tree. Less than thirty found their mark.

Tom fell with an agonised oath and rolled at once to his knees. The back of his left thigh felt pierced by red-hot daggers. He looked at Wickham. The Earl was advancing without haste, sure of his quarry.

The brim of the billycock hat shadowed Tom's features from moonlight falling through the trees. Keeping his head low, he clambered awkwardly to his feet. Blood flowed warmly down his leg. He absolutely did not want to run another fifty yards.

Fifty yards might be all that was needed.

He broke into a lurching, hobbling run. He could hear the Earl walking behind him, unhurried. Tom's painful progress was setting him an easy pace.

Wickham called out, with mocking courtesy, "You had better halt, if you value your life."

Tom recognised the tree ahead; the distinctive, twisted trunk. On his visit to the coppice an hour ago, he had chosen the place for that very reason. Further along the path was another place, chosen with equal care; but with luck he would not need that one.

He ducked behind the twisted tree, as anyone might if they feared a shot in the back, then emerged again on to the track.

Wickham shouted in grinding disbelief, "Elderfield!"

Tom turned, staggering on to his good leg, and looked straight into Wickham's eyes. The Earl appeared astonished, even then, to have his suspicions confirmed. He frowned, slanting wary glances at the undergrowth on either side. Then he smiled at Tom.

"Throw down your firearms, Elderfield. Whatever you carry beneath that convenient smock."

Tom shook his head, retreating before Wickham's steady advance. "No firearms," he said. "Nothing."

Wickham paused only to reload the gun. "Throw them down, Elderfield," he said conversationally, "or I shall be obliged to blow your head off."

"You'll do that anyway. What would I gain by obedience?"

Still smiling, Wickham raised the shotgun. Tom made a bound for the sheltering undergrowth. His wounded leg buckled. He fell heavily on the path and for vital seconds lay in agony, unable to rise even though his life depended on it.

Jessie, he thought, Jessie - Mace - I'm sorry.

The Earl of Wickham did not fire. He continued to walk towards Tom, with that small, gloating smile, and the shotgun ready.

It came to Tom that the Earl wanted his enemy to sweat - and wanted to be close enough to blow his head off literally. Wickham drew level with the twisted tree.

The Earl tripped, and recovered his footing with a curse. For Tom, it seemed an echo of the past, a dream from long ago that still had power to make his skin crawl. The click, the swivelling motion of that squat, grotesque machine hidden in show beside the path. The flash, the deafening report.

The tall figure of the Earl of Wickham spun round, arched backwards. The gun flew from his hand. The spring-gun, grimly crafted in the forge at Crosstrees, squatted in silence. Wickham's body thudded down on to the path. What remained of his face stared up at the branching, naked trees.

He had been luckier than Mace. He could not have taken more than a second to die.

Part 3, The Men of Enterprise, Chapter 12

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