From the Deep of the Dark (20 page)

‘I am neither one thing nor the other,’ said Boxiron. ‘I am stuck in an existence I did not ask for.’

‘Yes, I believe I know how you feel.’
Is that it?
Daunt mused.
Are you merely the steamman reflection of myself? Poor Jethro Daunt. Cast out of the church, seeking redemption where he can find it? No, there must be more to it than that. We’ve come so far together since I found you working as a hulking enforcer for the flash mob; too far for it to end like this.

‘Have I ever thanked you for saving me?’ asked Boxiron.

‘I believe we’ve saved each other,’ said Daunt. ‘Many times in fact, over the years.’ He looked at the steamman. Daunt knew his friend well enough to know what he was thinking. How easy it would be to fall over the side, allow the fury of the waves and the depths of the seas to claim his walking corpse of a body.

One day, this won’t be enough.

For Dick Tull, having a believable alias was second nature in his line of work. Second officer of a u-boat or an anarchist with a taste for sedition and assassinating parliamentarians, you observed the traits and tricks of the type, then you mirrored them right back. When you were dealing with amateurs like the ex-parson and his metal mate, you had to work with what you’d been given. A brief, tight cover story that was easy to hold onto and remember under duress. Jethro Daunt was now masquerading as a wealthy eccentric who had decided to sink the greater part of his fortune in a shipping concern, transporting high value caffeel beans and tea powder between the colony plantations and the Kingdom. A part that the churchman played to perfection with his strange habits: humming nonsense ballads and limericks to himself; the way he would drift off into a daydream and start pointing and wagging his finger as if he was conducting a debate against an invisible opponent, lecturing unseen students. Meanwhile, the steamman’s cover story was that he was the brute of a first mate whose clinking metal fist kept the unruly crewmen in order. Barnabas Sadly was the general officer who kept the stores, ran the books and oversaw the galley. There was one thing none of the party from the
Purity Queen
had to fake. All the u-boat crewmen in the gathering carried the same untidy, dishevelled air compared to the officers from the convoy’s surface freighters, paddle ships and liners. Living cheek by jowl in the cramped, sweaty confines of a submersible had that effect on a sailor, and even a cursory attempt to scrub up for an engagement couldn’t quite remove the impression.

Four of us hard-pressed to tell stem from stern. It’s a good thing the convoy’s brass seem more interested in the spread of food than the conversation.

‘It don’t seem right, Mister Tull,’ Sadly whispered by Dick’s side. ‘All this food laid out and nobody with a care to charge by the plate.’

Dick found it hard to contradict his informant. The main mess of The
Zealous
had been arranged with linen-covered tables and a sizeable buffet set across its surface. Sailors in white dress uniforms and enough braid to befit an admiral served behind the tables, lifting silver domes to reveal slices of lamb and beef roasted to perfection, meats swimming in their own juices. There were plates with cheeses from every county in Jackals, others overflowing with oranges, grapes and exotic fruit that Dick couldn’t even put a name to. The crew on the ship wouldn’t get to eat like this normally, that was a given. Probably not the officers, either.

All the money it costs for the state to mollycoddle a few rich merchants on this tub, and they’ll still make me scrabble like a swine in muck for a decent pension.

Every few minutes the distant sound of whining stabilisers swelled above the rumble of chattering guests, the flagship’s platform adjusting its angle to match the pitch of the seas she was cutting across. Officers from The
Zealous
were circulating through the hundred or so guests, making polite conversation with hands steadied on dress cutlasses hanging from their belts.
Braying arses
. They moved with an easy confidence, as if they were born to command. And in a sense they were. Mill-owners’ sons, wealthy quality, carrying the clout to launch them into an officer’s career in the fleet sea arm.
How many of them’ve had to start as a common sailor and work their way up the ranks? How many of them’ve had to pull an honest day’s duties on board this tub? This is what my ancestors fought on Parliament’s sodding side for? To swap one bunch of masters for another?
That was Dick Tull all right. Always the tenant, never the landlord.
But your ancestors weren’t sitting on a comfortable saddle behind the lines waving an expensive sabre in the air
, needled an envious little voice inside him
.
His ancestors?
Just muddy-fingered citizen soldiers, clutching a pike or balancing an old heavy rifle on a tripod as they faced their mirror image across a field. Peasants who happened to be in the pay of gentlemen factory owners rather than gentlemen farmers when the war started.

There was a loud clinking on a glass as one of the officers called for silence. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, honoured guests of The
Zealous.
Pray silence for Vice-admiral Cockburn.’

Stepping forward, the vice-admiral looked more like a pugilist than a navy officer. Short and stocky, he had shoulders wide enough for his crew to build seats above his lapels and place a sailor on either side to mount the vessel’s watch. Hard, ruthless eyes swept across the convoy’s visiting officers and Dick had no problem imagining his tenacious pursuit of old Blacky across half the world’s seas. The old sod resembled a pitbull, and once a pitbull sank its teeth into your flesh, it never let go until it’d claimed a healthy-sized chunk of meat.

‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of
Operation Pedestal
. I trust you are finding the wardroom’s hospitality as abundantly in your service tonight as our guns are in your vessels’ safe passage. The majority of you standing here today are merchants, and you do not need reminding that the prosperity of our nation has been built on free trade. That prosperity depends on the free passage of our vessels. But it seems there are some who need to be reminded that we will not suffer its impediment lightly. We lay no claim to what is under the waves. We cast no nets for fish here. We send down no divers to explore for minerals. However, where the Fire Sea has withdrawn, opening up a passage free of the need of firebreakers, we will allow no nation to extend its territorial limits and then demand a bandit’s toll priced in threats for transgressing open waters. We braved these currents when they were threatened by volcanoes and fire, and any enemy who seeks to close them to us now will find that we carry with us fire of our own. Fire enough for all foes foolish enough to play the privateer against
our
people!’

Polite applause echoed around the mess hall and the vice-admiral circulated through the crowd, shaking hands with a firm grip and making reassuring noises to the commercial masters.
Spoken like a reliable little politician on the make.

Jethro Daunt’s beak-like nose appeared to be twitching in distaste. ‘There is something amiss here,’ he whispered.

‘You’re not wrong, amateur. It’s my tax brass being used to fatten up a mob of merchants who don’t need a crumb of it.’

‘No,’ said Daunt, sotto voce. ‘It’s the vice-admiral. He’s a blank to me – his body language, all of the tells that should be in his gestures and his voice, none of them are present. According to my finer intuition, it is as if he doesn’t exist.’

‘You might be having a bad day with that mumbo jumbo you’re taught in the church, but he looks solid enough to me.’
Solid enough to thump a shark unconscious with one hand and make a soup out if it with the other.

‘Synthetic morality is hardly mumbo jumbo,’ protested Daunt. ‘My skills in these matters have never failed me before.’

‘Maybe you’ve eaten a bad prawn,’ said Dick, toying with his greying moustache. He was enjoying needling the ex-churchman.

Sadly clung to his cane, waving away a sailor circling the room with a tray of drinks. ‘I don’t blame you, Mister Daunt. All that pitching and rolling in the launch to get across here. It’s enough to muck up anyone’s plumbing.’

Daunt peered across the room. ‘But it’s only the vice-admiral. Everyone else I’ve observed at the function is reading normally by my faculties. I wonder? I think it’s time that the master of the
Purity Queen
was introduced to our host for the evening.’

Dick groaned. They were meant to be keeping a low profile on the warship. Just enough for their absence not to be noticed and the
Purity Queen
’s position in the convoy fall under suspicion. Having the ex-parson bearding the commanding officer in his own lair just because the amateur’s church senses were running spiky was hardly part of the plan. It wouldn’t take much for Daunt’s ignorance of the smooth running of a u-boat to be called into question, the kind of conversation that would be expected to pass between two nautical masters. Dick was desperately casting for a way for a first officer to divert his skipper without arousing additional suspicions when the ship’s siren sounded and did the job for him.

A voice followed the alarm, reverberating around the room from wall-mounted speakers. ‘General Quarters! All hands, all hands man your battle stations!’

Saved by the bell, except I don’t think this indicates any improvement in my sodding fortunes.

Two officers came running into the mess deck, out of dress uniform, a seriousness of purpose as they whispered to the vice-admiral. He nodded grimly and then departed with one of the pair trotting after him, leaving the task of explaining the situation to the remaining lieutenant. Even the vessel’s stabilisers couldn’t disguise the fact that the warship was picking up speed, the mess slanting upward as the ship rose higher on her aquaplanes. Outside her portholes the spray of stars in the sky flitted past as the flagship pressed on faster, the sounds of water churning under her monstrous propulsion wheels swelling to a crescendo. The assemblage fell into a hush for an explanation. As the strident wail of the alarm dropped away, the silence that replaced it hung heavy enough in the air for the
Purity Queen
’s screws to carve slices out of it.

‘Quiet, please. We’ve picked up the sonar signature of Advocacy war craft ahead of the convoy. When we attempted to alter course to bypass them, other elements of the gill-neck fleet rose to the surface to our bow and stern, blocking our safe passage.’

Sounds of panic started to rise among the merchant crewmen.

‘They mean to extract their toll,’ noted Boxiron. It sounded as if the brute was relishing the chance for battle.

‘Send us back to our ship,’ someone shouted. The cry was picked up and began to echo out among the milling merchants and trader officers.

‘We are manoeuvring too fast to drop our launches,’ called the lieutenant. ‘You’ll need to stay confined to the wardroom until we’ve outrun the gill-necks.’

Angry shouts came from the guests, demands to slow down and sail them back to the vessels where their responsibilities lay. Used to unquestioning command on their own ships, hard men who could command coarse sailors, this wasn’t, Dick considered, the kind of crowd you wanted to turn ugly on you.

Dick watched the sailors who had been acting as stewards and hosts vanishing purposefully into the bowels of the ship, called to their battle stations. Not sprinting, but hardly slouching either.
Well trained. Cogs in a machine that’s been greased by practice.
‘We need to get back to the boat bay.’

‘I concur,’ said Daunt, his gaze flitting between the angry faces of the convoy’s shipmasters. ‘It’s only a matter of time before someone on the bridge thinks to assign a company of marines to ensure the safety of their guests – not to mention our compliance.’

Sadly groaned and extradited himself from the comfort of a chair where he had sunk. ‘I’m not one to shy away from a little aggro, Mister Tull, but does it have to kick off at sea?’

‘I won’t let you die,’ said Dick, pushing his informant towards the door they had used to enter the mess hall. ‘I still need you to testify for me, don’t I?’

‘My word won’t count for much, says I.’

‘It’ll count for a lot less if I let Walsingham’s assassins toss your corpse in an alley back home.’
And it’s not as if I’ve got that many friends left alive, is it?

Boxiron closed the door behind them. The four of them were standing in the open on a deck gantry, the ship’s aft lanterns running behind them. Dick stared out between the flagship’s churning wheels.
Nothing.
How could you hope to spot anything out there? Just dark crashing waves, the night sky’s canopy only set apart from the sea by stars. No sign of the gill-necks. No sign of a war brewing.

‘They haven’t tried to stop a convoy before, have they?’ Sadly asked.

‘Harried only,’ said Boxiron. ‘I believe this counts as an escalation in tensions.’

It’s never made easy. Not for me.
But it was more than that. Something about tonight felt wrong, and it wasn’t only the ex-parson’s odd reaction to the vice-admiral. The gill-neck force just happened to have chosen the precise time to corral the convoy when the masters of the convoy were off their bridges and on the flagship. Even at the best of times, moving a convoy was more akin to a drover driving his flock to market. With the captains gathered here, it wasn’t so much a convoy, as a seaborne shooting gallery. And as used as Dick was to bad luck, this felt too much like it was straying from coincidence into the realm he specialized in.
Treason
.

‘T
he escort ships are pulling out of line and forming up as an independent flotilla,’ announced the sailor on the
Purity Queen
’s sonar station, two greasy hands clasped to his earphones with his eyes shut, as if he could picture in his mind the ironclads taking position.

‘A grand disposition for cutting through the gill-necks’ ranks,’ said the commodore. ‘But it leaves our line of civilian tubs as ripe for picking as plums on a warm summer’s day. They’re not going to be happy out there.’