The Blighted Cliffs (50 page)

Through
my terror, I heard his words repeated; not from nearby, though, but
from back by the eastern walls. Had they found Cunningham as well?
But the cry was being taken up around the courtyard, and with ever
greater urgency; I saw men leaping down from the ramparts and running
to form a loose line behind me. My captor glanced uncertainly in
their direction, and I needed no more invitation to act: I seized the
barrel of his musket and dragged it to one side, at the same time
kicking him hard in the crutch of his trousers. He staggered; I
jammed the musket upwards and saw the butt collide with his chin. He
dropped to the ground.

Keeping
hold of the musket, I stood, my legs trembling from the fright I had
had. The way to the gatehouse was clear, but I wondered whether it
mattered now, for almost all the French soldiers I could see were
desperately firing at some invisible enemy around the corner of the
keep. Even in the few seconds I watched them, several fell screaming.
It must be Isobel, I thought jubilantly, she must have led Bingham's
men through the tunnels and brought them up inside the walls, even
while others attacked from without. No wonder the invaders did not
know where to turn.

I
moved my gaze. Drake was frantically waving his sword and screaming
to know what was happening. Where was Laminak? I could not see him in
the French line. But then, there was so much darkness and confusion
he could have been anywhere.

A
rising light by the keep caught my attention; I turned, and stared.
It was the most extraordinary thing, and for a second it transfixed
me utterly. The tent I had seen earlier no longer sagged, but swelled
taut and majestic, raising itself as if by a magical power into the
night. It was a balloon, such as I had once read of in the
newspapers, powered by some mysterious property of air or gas;
suspended beneath it on ropes, being lifted swiftly upwards, hung a
wicker basket. A fire blazed in its centre under the open mouth of
the balloon, and by its flames I could see - quite clearly, for he
was very close to it - the bearded figure of Laminak feverishly
throwing fuel onto the blaze.

I
put the musket to my shoulder and pulled the trigger. The recoil
knocked me backwards, but either my aim was foul or the ball had
rolled out, for nothing halted the balloon's progress. I looked
again. Some of the ropes that had moored it still dangled down off
the basket's edge, but they too were rising quickly away. This was my
last chance to reach Laminak.

Launching
myself across the courtyard, heedless of the gunfire that crackled
around me, I reached for one of the lines and grabbed it. For a
moment, nothing happened; then I felt a jerk on my arms and my feet
left the ground. I think I may briefly have slowed the balloon's
ascent, but Laminak must have thrown on more tinder, for the ground
receded precipitately beneath me. I clung onto the rope with all my
strength, the fibres digging into my hands; I twisted my arms through
it so that I should not fall, but that cut them so tight I feared
they would be severed through. I could not hang there for long. Even
if I could, I realized, if Laminak saw me he would have little
difficulty cutting me loose, leaving me to plummet to the ground. At
that thought I trembled, and, against all training and reason, like a
virgin midshipman sent for the first time to the masthead, I looked
down.

So
intent had I been on holding on that I had not realized how far we
had risen. We were high up, inconceivably high, two or three times as
far as you could climb on a ship, and still ascending. The castle
below was like a child's plaything, the rows of men in the courtyard
all but invisible, though it struck me that if I could see anything
at all from this distance, the dawn must be coming. Not soon enough
to warm me, though: the air was very cold, and the wind whipped at
me, swinging me on my rope like an enormous pendulum. It was also, I
saw with apprehension, blowing the whole contraption further up the
coast.

I
had never had a head for heights, and I had never had a taste for
violent motion. High over England, I vomited my guts out, and
immediately the wind blew half of it straight back over my coat. I
convulsed, and it was as well I was so tightly wrapped through the
rope or I would easily have fallen.

The
fit passed. I shook myself, and started to climb. Laminak could not
yet have seen me, for the horror I held that he would appear above
and slice through the line had not yet been realized. The thought
that he might, though, spurred me on as I inched ever further up that
bucking rope, managing to refrain from looking down again.

By
the time I reached the top my arms were so sore I was minded to snap
them off and throw them away. Clutching the rope between my knees, I
flexed my aching fingers; I still had the pistol, and I did not want
to lose that precious advantage through a loose grip. The rim of the
basket was only a foot or so above me now, tantalizingly close. Had
it been a tree branch, and I an eight-year-old, I would have mounted
it without a thought. Trying hard to imagine that that was the case,
I locked my knees together more tightly than ever, lifted one hand
after the other onto the vicker rim, offered a prayer to God - who,
after all, could not be so far away up here – and heaved with
all the strength I possessed.

It
was not the most decorous entry I have ever made, but the ungainly
manner of it was my salvation: I dropped over the rim with a flood of
relief and in so doing rocked the basket so much that Laminak,
opposite me, lost his balance and was pitched to his knees. As he
regained his footing I sat back against the wall of the basket and
raised my pistol, resting the barrel on my knee to keep it from
shaking.

'You've
done this before,' I shouted over the roar of fire and wind. I saw
now that he could not have cast my line loose, for the cockpit of
this peculiar vessel was divided by bulwarks into three even
compartments. Laminak was on one side, I on the other, and in the
space between us the fire made an almost insuperable obstacle.

'Oui,'
he shouted back, his bearded face twisted with shock. To my enormous
relief, it seemed he was not carrying a weapon. 'An Englishman tried
to sabotage that also.'

'Webb,
I presume.'

He
nodded angrily. 'He killed Major Vitos, before I gave him the same
death.'

I
gestured towards the side of my compartment, where sausage like sacks
of sand hung from ropes. 'With one of those to keep him down.' At
long last, much was becoming clear. 'You've inflicted a great deal of
trouble on me, Laminak.' Strictly speaking, of course, Webb had
caused the trouble, but he had done it with the best of intentions.
'I would happily shoot you right now, if I did not require your skill
to land this flying carriage before it blows us into the sea.'

Already,
I had noticed, we were beginning to sink, possibly because Laminak
had ceased feeding the fire between us.

'I
agree,' said Laminak. 'If you do not shoot me, I will bring us onto
the land.' He bent down and I stiffened, but it was only to pick up a
pile of straw from about his feet. 'We will need this.'

Everything
after that happened quickly. I saw him raise the straw as if to feed
the fire that drove this strange ship, but as it came up he flung it
violently forward. It passed through the flames and scattered over
me. The fire flared; then came a snapping sound, and suddenly the
floor was falling away beneath me. The flames had licked through the
ropes that suspended my half of it, and without support it had
see-sawed down until it was almost perpendicular. It was as well I
had already been braced against its side, for on its new angle that
was become its base; had I not been nestled in its crook I would have
fallen immediately. As it was, my left side was pressed tight into
the wicker, while on my right was only empty space.

Coals
and hot ash tumbled down over me. I shut my eyes and pressed my face
into my shoulder to duck them, but still I could feel them burning
into my hands and neck. The basket was rocking and shuddering; at any
moment I might be tossed from its cradle.

Shielding
my eyes with my fingers, I tried to peer up through the smoke and
flame. I could scarcely see anything, but I had a sense of Laminak
trying to stand on the inner bulwark of his compartment, his arms
pushed against the edges to clamp himself in. But if he had hoped to
topple me out and save himself, he had misjudged it badly. Though the
embers from the fire were falling over me, its flames rose higher
than ever, licking over his body and igniting his clothes, his hair,
the basket and ropes about him. There was nowhere for him to go;
already the fire was edging towards the envelope of the balloon above
him. With a horrible, unforgettable scream, he leaped off his perch.
Arms flailed and smoke poured off him as he fell past me, down into
the same oblivion that had overtaken Webb and Vitos before him.

Even
had I felt anything other than relief, I had no time to savour his
passing. My own clothes were already beginning to smoulder, and
though I knew little enough of the forces keeping the vessel aloft, I
could guess that the flapping, billowing shreds of the canopy would
not suit the purpose. I looked down, and saw only waves rushing ever
closer.

When
the sea beneath seemed close enough to offer less hazard than the
rising heat around me, I closed my eyes and let go. Air rushed past,
and I suddenly remembered once seeing a sailor fall from his yard,
remembered wondering what he had felt in those few infinite moments
between the heavens and the depths. Surprisingly little, I now found
- only a tight pressure against my chest and a dizzying vortex of
colour below, moving so fast I could not grasp it. I felt a fearsome
punch. Then darkness.

The
tide carried me ashore, half drowned, half charred, half dead and
less than half alive. It rolled me up onto the beach, like any one of
the ten thousand other pebbles it would pick up that day, and left me
near the tidemark. Seaweed filled my nostrils and flies buzzed
through my ears, but I gave them no thought. I had none left.

The
ticklish stroking of water about my ankles woke me: the tide was
coming back in. And not just the tide. If I concentrated, I could
hear footsteps grinding over the shingle. I opened my eyes.

'Jerrold,'
said Crawley disdainfully. 'I had not expected to see you again.'

'Nor
I you, sir,' I replied after a moment. Nor, now I considered it, had
I expected to see him half naked and soaking wet. 'Have you been
swimming?'

Even
as I shook my head in hopeless consternation, I saw Ducker arrive
behind Crawley. He, too, was dripping everywhere, but he eyed me with
an unmistakable satisfaction.

'Lieutenant
Jerrold, sir,' he said triumphantly. 'I knowed it.'

'Knew
what, Ducker?'

He
waved at the beach. 'Scene o' the crime. Knowed the killer'd come
back.'

I
tried to laugh, but only coughed up a small trickle of sea-water.

'You
may be right.' Through his legs, behind him and a little further up
the beach, I thought I could see the twisted limbs of Laminak's
broken body. 'But I am not he.' I choked a little. 'Sir Lawrence
Cunningham will vouch for me.'

It
seemed the funniest joke in the world. No wonder they looked at me as
though I were a madman.

22

THE
BELLS WERE TOLLING AND THE CHURCHES DISGORGING THEIR
congregations as we passed the smoking castle walls and came into the
town. I did not imagine the government would want it widely known
that a French army had managed to invade the country, but I could see
the rumours already beginning to spread over the passing faces, all
of which steadfastly refused to look at the unlikely trio of naval
officers - grimy and soaking wet, one of them supported by the others
- who walked, ghost-like, through their midst.