3
“That the lot?” the lugger captain bellowed.
“Aye,” answered his mate.
“Cast off that shore boat then and let go forward soon’s she’m clear.”
“Aye, aye. Pull clear, you; look lively!”
The Gamecock’s crew jerked their oars into the pins and dragged the gig out of harm’s way.
The moorings buoy splashed overboard, the lugger, her mainsail backed, came round before the wind and was gone.
“Give way,” said Anson; “the wind’s getting up a fright.” He turned to Ortho. “You’ll have a trip to-night . . . rather you nor me.”
Ortho spat clear of the gunwale. “Have to go, I reckon; the stuff’s wanted, blast it! Has that boat ahead unloaded yet?”
“She haven’t signaled,” the bowman answered.
“No matter, pull in,” said Anson. “We haven’t no more than the leavings here; we can land this li’l’ lot ourselves. Give way, all.”
Four blades bit the water with a will, but the rowers had to bend their backs to wrench the gig in against the wind and tide. It was a quarter of an hour before they grounded her nose on the base of the slip.
“Drag her up a bit, boys,” said Anson. “Hell!—what’s that?”
From among the dark huddle of houses came a woman’s scream, two—three—and then pandemonium, shouts, oaths, crashes, horses stamping, the noise of people rushing and struggling, and, above all, a boy’s voice hysterically shouting, “Fire! Curse you! Fire!”
“Christ!” said Ortho. “The Riders! Hey, push her off! For God’s sake, push!”
The two bowmen, standing in the water, put their backs to the boat and hove; Ortho and Anson in the stern used their oars pole-wise.
“All together, he-ave!”
Slowly the gig began to make stern-way.
“Heave!”
The gig made another foot. Feet clattered on the slip-head and a voice cried, “Here’s a boat escaping! Halt or I fire!”
“Hea-ve!” Ortho yelled. The gig made another foot and was afloat. There was a spurt of fire from the slip and a bullet went droning overhead. The bowman turned and dodged for safety among the rocks.
“Back water, back!” Anson exhorted.
There were more shouts from the shore, the boy’s voice crowing shrill as a cockerel, a quick succession of flashes and more bullets went wailing by. The pair in the boat dragged at their oars, teeth locked, terrified.
Wind and tide swept them up, darkness engulfed them. In a couple of minutes the shots ceased and they knew they were invisible. They lay on their oars, panting.
“What now?” said Ortho. “Go after the lugger? We can’t go back.”
“Lugger’s miles away, going like a stag,” said Anson. “Best chance it across the bay to Porthleven.”
“Porthleven?”
“Where else? Wind’s dead nor’east. Lucky if we make that. Throw this stuff out; she’s riding deep as a log.”
They lightened the gig of its entire load and stepped the mast. Anson was at the halliards hoisting the close-reefed mainsail. Ortho kept at the tiller until there was a spit of riven air across his cheek and down came the sail on the run.
He called out, “What’s the matter?”
There was no answer for a minute, and then Anson said calmly from under the sail, “Shot, I b’lieve.”
“What is—halliards?”
“Me, b’lieve.”
“You! Shot! What d’you mean? Where?”
“In chest. Stray shot, I reckon; they can’t hit nawthing when they aim. Thee’ll have to take her thyself now. . . . O-ooh. . . .” He made a sudden, surprised exclamation as if the pain had only just dawned on him and began to cough.
“Hoist sail . . . thou . . . fool. . . A-ah!”
Ortho sprang forward and hoisted the sail; the gig leapt seawards. The coughing began again mingled with groans. They stabbed Ortho to the heart. Instead of running away they should be putting back; it was a doctor they wanted. He would put back at once and get Anson attended to. That he himself would be arrested as the ringleader, tried and either hung or transported did not occur to him. Half his happy boyhood had been spent with Anson; the one thing was to ease his agony.
“Going to put back,” he yelled to the prostrate man under the bow thwart. “Put back!”
“You can’t,” came the reply . . . and more coughing.
Of course he couldn’t. If he had thought for a moment he would have known it. Wind and tide would not let him put back. There was nothing for it but the twelve-mile thrash across the open bay to Porthleven; he prayed there might be a doctor there.
He luffed, sheeted home, rounded the great mass of Black Carn, braced as sharp as he dared and met a thunder clap of wind and sea. It might have been waiting for him round the corner, so surely did it pounce. It launched itself at him roaring, a ridge of crumbling white high overhead, a hill of water toppling over.
The loom and bellow of it stunned his senses, but habit is a strong master. His mind went blank, but his hand acted, automatically jamming the helm hard over. The gig had good way on; she spun as a horse spins on its hocks and met the monster just in time. Stood on her stern; rose, seesawed on the crest, three quarters of her keel bare, white tatters flying over her; walloped down into the trough as though on a direct dive to the bottom, recovered and rose to meet the next. The wild soar of the bows sent Anson slithering aft. Ortho heard him coughing under the stroke thwart.
“She’ll never do it,” he managed to articulate. “Veer an’ let . . . let . . . her drive.”
“Where for?” Ortho shouted. “Where for? D’you hear me?”
“Scilly,” came the answer, broken by dreadful liquid chokings.
The waves broke with less violence for a minute or two and Ortho managed to get the Gamecock away before the wind, though she took a couple of heavy dollops going about.
Scilly! A handful of rocks thirty miles away in the open Atlantic, pitch dark, no stars, no compass, the Runnelstone to pass, then the Wolf! At the pace they were going they would be on the Islands long before dawn and then it would be a case of exactly hitting either Crow Sound or St. Mary’s Sound or being smashed to splinters. Still it was the only chance. He would hug the coast as near as he dared till past the Runnelstone—if he ever passed the Runnelstone—and then steer by the wind; it was all there was to steer by.
It was dead northeast at present, but if it shifted where would he be then? It did not bear thinking on and he put it from his mind. He must get past the Runnelstone first; after that . . .
He screwed up every nerve as tight as it would go, forced his senses to their acutest, set his teeth—swore to drive the boat to Scilly—but he had no hope of getting there, no hope at all.
The Gamecock, under her rag of canvas, ran like a hunted thing. It was as though all the crazy elements were pouring southwest, out to the open sea, and she went with them, a chip swept headlong in a torrent of clamorous wind and waters. On his right Ortho could just discern the loom of the coast. Breaker-tops broke, hissing, astern, abeam, ahead. Spindrift blew in flat clouds, stinging like hail. Flurries of snow fell from time to time.
He was wet through, had lost all feeling in his feet, while his hands on the sheet and tiller were so numbed he doubted if he could loosen them.
On and on they drove into the blind turmoil. Anson lay in the water at the bottom, groaning and choking at every pitch.