Clarisse had never been so cold. The rough blanket she had managed to cover herself with when the English mariners had burst into the cottage was threadbare and provided little protection from the biting wind. She had tied two corners into a knot at her throat and wrapped the remainder tightly around herself to form a makeshift toga but her bare arms and lower legs were now blue with cold .
They seemed to have been marching for hours since their brutal capture.. For the first few kilometres the sailors had beaten Tom mercilessly every time he stumbled. Now, his face and naked torso covered in fresh and dried blood, he seemed more dead than alive. Clarisse had no idea how he kept on his feet. She was hardly faring any better The soles of her un shod feet ached from the pounding of the rocky ground and her calves and thighs were crisscrossed with cuts from the sharp grass and thorny undergrowth they seemed to crash through . Her captors had obviously sacrificed stealth for speed If she so much as paused for breath the sailor behind her would prod her, non too gently, with his musket.
Suddenly they broke out the forest In front of them, in the distance, they could see the roof tops of the bustling port of Calais and beyond, stretching to the horizon, the dark waters of the North sea.
"Hey!" A group of three ragged revolutionary soldiers, taken by surprise by their sudden appearance, approached suspiciously. Although not officially at war at present, relations between England and France were never friendly.
"'Ello mon amies" The huge brute who was the sailors' leader, Collie by name, greeted the Frenchman with a wide gap toothed smile!
"No worries ere mates we're just passing through... Nous go to ship...Grande boat yeah?!" He pointed in the general direction of the port.
The three revolutionaries discussed his reply in rapid French, Clarisse of course understood every word;
"Fat English pig!"
" There's more of the cunts than us!"
'Bastards wander about as if its their fucking country!'
'Girl's pretty!'
The smallest of the three whose face was badly scarred with small pox walked up to Clarisse and grabbed a breast through the thin blanket
"Prendre votre main dégoûtante de moi vous le paysan" She snarled without thinking as she batted his filthy hand away
"Aristocrate!" snarled the soldier raising his bayonet. His eyes suddenly widened as Collie thrust a huge knife to its hilt into his back
"'Fraid we've got our own plans for her my little cheese eater! Get em boys!" The two remaining Frenchmen didn't even have time to turn before they were grabbed, two sailors to each man.
Collie removed his knife and slowly wiped the blood off on his trousers . He approached the terrified men
"Don't like frogs!" He said and, quick as a flash, drew his knife across the throat of the first captive. The doomed man looked down in horror at the bright spurt of scarlet flooding down his chest! He looked up again at the grinning Collie and, as his eyes clouded over, his captors dropped him to he floor
"And then there was one" The giant matelot approached to remaining prisoner who was weeping and gibbering, presumably, begging to be spared.
" There there! Now don't take on so!" He put a huge hand around the back of the man's neck, lowered his own head and gently pulled until they were touching, forehead to forehead
"Every man has to die son!" He said quietly
"Some die easy and some...." With a sudden thrust he drove his knife into the man's lower abdomen
"Die hard!" with enormous strength he jerked the knife upwards slicing through the man's stomach and ribs. The Revolutionary screamed into Collie's face but still he didn't release his grip on his neck. He just stared into the dying man's eyes
