I SAT FOR several minutes watching the extraordinary scene in the distance. The English ships, at anchor and with sails reefed, looked terrifyingly vulnerable. I wondered why the huge French fleet did not advance and assumed the wind was against them. A little way along from me, near the burning beacon, a group of country women stood watching the fighting. They were silent, anxious-looking, and I wondered if they had menfolk down there.
My instinct was that I was too late, I should turn and ride back. But Emma had been only three hours ahead of me at most; if she had come to Portsmouth she could surely not have found her way into battle yet. I thought of her watchfulness, her carefully considered speech. With the companies short of men it was perfectly possible she could get herself taken on, all the more now the French were here. I remembered Hobbey saying how Abigail had helped her bind up her breasts as they grew, and Hugh rubbing uncomfortably at ‘his’ chest. How much discomfort must she have undergone these last six years?
At the bridge linking the mainland to Portsea Island everything had changed since the morning. Now people were trying to get off the island, not on to it. A stream of people was crossing from the seaward side; women with babies, children, old people hobbling on sticks, all fleeing a possible siege. Most were poor; they carried bundles or hauled their possessions stacked on rickety carts. I remembered Leacon talking of the populace of the French countryside, begging and starving beside the road. I thought, is this about to happen here?
I waited till the refugees had passed. They began wearily climbing Portsdown Hill. An old couple started to argue about whether to abandon their cart, which contained a dismantled truckle bed, some poor clothes, pewter plates and a couple of stools. People trying to get past shouted at them to get out of the way. Then I heard drums, and a company of militia with an assortment of weapons marched rapidly down the hill. The refugees jumped quickly aside. The soldiers marched rapidly past me, the half-armour some wore clinking and rattling. The guards at the bridge saluted as they tramped across in a cloud of yellow dust.
When they had gone, I rode up to the nearest guard and asked what the latest news was. He looked at me with irritation. ‘The Frenchies have come, that’s what.’ He was an enlisted man, who normally would not have dared talk to someone of my class like that; but as I had seen many times now, the war was dissolving social boundaries.
‘Can I get into the city?’
‘Everyone’s trying to leave.’
‘There is someone I need to try and get out. A friend.’
‘Well, master lawyer, if you can persuade them to let you in, I wish you the best of luck.’ He gave me a glance of grudging respect, and waved me on.
ON PORTSEA ISLAND the soldiers’ tents still stood, but they were all empty now, the flaps open, only a handful of men on guard. Small objects were scattered here and there on the grass – a bowl, a spoon, a cap – the soldiers had been called away in a hurry.
As I approached the town walls, where men still laboured hard to strengthen the fortifications, I passed another group of refugees trudging towards the bridge, among them a group of prostitutes, their painted faces streaked and dusty. Then I had to pull into the side again to allow another company of soldiers to march past; foreign mercenaries this time in bright slashed doublets, talking in German. I had a view of the fleet: the ships still rode at anchor, among them the Great Harry and the Mary Rose; I saw the Galley Subtle with the galleasses, between the warships and the huge French galleys half a mile off. I wondered if Leacon and his company were already aboard the Great Harry. A cloud of dark smoke came from the front of a French galley, followed by a distant boom; an English galleass had fired back.
I reached the tents outside the city. As I feared, they, too, were empty. Looking up at the walls, I saw the soldiers lining the top had their backs to me, watching what was happening out at sea; the city wall now blocked my view. I turned Oddleg towards the tents, hoping someone had been left on guard who could give me information, but could see nobody. It was strange riding among the tents and hearing no noise, no shouting or clattering. The tents of Leacon’s company, like the others, were empty. I was about to turn back when I heard a voice calling weakly.
‘Lawyer Shardlake! Over here!’
I followed the voice to a tent from which a cesspit smell emanated. Hesitantly, I looked through the open flap. In the half-light within I saw bowls and clothing scattered about. In a corner a man lay, half-covered by a blanket. It was Sulyard, the bully who had been so full of bravado the night before. His ugly bony face was white as a sheet. ‘It is you,’ he said. ‘I thought I was having bad visions.’
‘Sulyard? What ails you?’
‘There was a barrel of bad beer last night. When we went into Portsmouth this morning four of us were sent back with the flux.’ He gave a little smile, and I saw that he was glad.
‘Where is the rest of the company?’