Kenneth Roberts by Captain Caution (txt)

Author:Captain Caution (txt) [Caution, Captain]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

390 CAPTAIN CAUTION

The three of them stared out over the wind-swept waters of the Medway. Ahead and astern extended the long line of soiled and misshapen hulks, each one attended, as though it had spawned during the night, by a small fleet of vegetable and supply boats. Along the main channel of the river, between the hulks and the windmills and neatly hedged fields, moved brigs and ships and sloops, bound to or from the docks of Chatham.

Newton turned an uncertain eye on Argandeau. “There’s some situations that require frank speaking,” he said to Marvin. “Now I’ve got nothing against this French friend of yours; but what I’ve got to say is important; and if anyone should be careless enough to blab, it might be the death of us.”

Marvin nodded. “What you’ve got to say can be said before Argandeau or not at all. He’s here himself because of helping me try to stay away. If I get out, he gets out too.”

“All right,” Newton said hastily. “All rightl That’s understood. Now look here.” He spat negligently at a passing supply-boat. “Opposite this hulk, on shore, is a village. See it?”

“We see it,” Marvin said.

“All right,” Newton whispered. “That’s Jillingum, that village is. Spelled ‘Gillingham,’ but pronounced ‘Jillingum,’ the way they do here. To the right of the village there’s two windmills. In line with ‘em, and fifty yards off shore, there’s a mud bank. See it?”

Marvin nodded.

“That bank runs all the way along this reach, out of water most of the time. Sometimes only a little out. Could you swim that far at night in cold water real cold water?”

“Easy,” Marvin said.

“The mud in those banks is like glue,” Newton remarked. “You go into it pretty near up to your middle. That’s the trouble with getting to shore if you swim as far as the banks, you’re pretty tired, on account of having to carry things with you; so when you strike the mud, you can’t get through it, sometimes. Sometimes, when the ports are opened in the morning, we see men in the mud, dead. The British leave ‘em there all day two days, sometimes so they’ll be a lesson to the rest of us.” In a thoughtful voice, he added: “The crows eat ‘cm.”

The three men stared silently at the square green fields and the slowly turning windmills, toy-like against the clear sky.

“Well?” Newton asked.

“Well what?” Marvin demanded.

“Do you think you could get through the mud?”

CAPTAIN CAUTION 391

“Why, I’d have to,” Marvin said.

“Men have got through it, no?” Argandeau asked.

Newton nodded. “Three out of five got through it a month ago Americans. Frenchmen have got through it, but mostly they were new men privateer captains. Tom Souville got through it four times, and reached France twice, but he was captured three times and brought back.”

Argandeau laughed silently. His close-cropped black head wagged gently from side to side. “Tom Souvillel” he exclaimed. “When I am a young man in Calais, I have taught Tom Souville tricks in swimming. There is nothing Tom Souville can do that I cannot do.

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