The Devil's Own Luck (34 page)

He was enough of a distance from Harry now to stand up. Harry still had the pistol aimed at him, but to no effect.

“An’ you can turn me in if you want. But I’ll say nothin’ to no one. Not about my mates, or anythin’ else.”

“You know who killed Bentley?”

“I do not. But I knows this. That if’n you’re lookin’ for another candidate for the rope, you’ll make up some story against one of the hands, most likely. It won’t be the first time one of our number has paid a price on this fuckin’ barky to save a gent.”

“Larkin.” He kept coming back to that boy.

“Please a gent, was more his problem. But the price was the same. Over the side in a bloody sack, and no questions asked.”

“I must save my brother.”

“I can’t help you, no more’n I could help that lad. Those in power will do as they pleases, and flog any poor bastard if he dares protest.” Talking about Larkin had blunted some of the man’s anger. “But times’ll change, and different folks will hold the power. So be sure: if you put some poor sod in your brother’s place, make certain you have the right of it. For your day will come, the fuckin’ lot of you, an’ I hope I am there to see you and all your kind swing.”

The man turned and walked away, disdaining the need to run. Harry knew that he had wasted his time. He was down to his last chance. The men playing dice had helped, but he could not be sure how far that would extend. One more place to look, with no idea of what he’d find at the end of it.

Harry approached the pump shaft slowly, looking as he passed into the hammocks, to see if they were occupied. His first task: to find out if there were people missing, and if possible how many. He shivered. Narrow spaces were not to his liking, and he knew that if certain people were out of their beds, he was going to have to go down the pump shaft and look for them.

He came to the hammocks slung round the cistern. They swung with the motion of the ship, but unlike the others he had examined on the way, no sleeping face looked up at him. He counted eight empty berths, all of them the ones closest to the shaft. An entire mess. Men who would eat together, drink together, and, in this case, crew the barge together. They should be the most trusted hands on the ship, men who could form the backbone of a press gang.

Desertion was rife in the Navy, especially in wartime, and ships in commission when they touched an English-speaking port refused their hands permission to go ashore. But that could not apply to everyone, especially not the commander, and the barge crew were particularly favoured in this respect. It was held to be a great privilege to be part of that mess. For one, they were excused a lot of the normal duties undertaken by the other hands. They were encouraged to dress well, some captains providing them with a special rig. They withstood the cat-calls of their shipmates. It was worth it for the perquisites.

Harry checked his rig before opening the hatch. Pistol, knife. Then a sudden feeling of being watched made the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He turned suddenly but could see no one in the dim light.

Nerves, he thought. The lantern was a problem. Did he need it? He did not know where he was headed, nor what he would find when he got there. But it was an awkward thing to carry whilst climbing a ladder. He took the garrotte and made a sling out of it, looping the two wooden ends around the handle, and slinging the line over his shoulders. Again he had that feeling of being watched, of unseen eyes boring into his back. This time he turned slowly, but the effect was the same. Nothing stirred.

He opened the hatch and slipped through, his foot finding the ladder. The pumps had been used that day, and the air was damp and foul smelling from the bilge water. This had passed through holes in the canvas hose which ran up the centre of the shaft. Not very well maintained, he thought.

There would be precious little room in the shaft if the pumps were in use, but now the canvas hung loose and empty. Harry opened his lantern a little, just enough to see, and enough to send the rats scurrying for a dark place. Then he closed the hatch to the gundeck and started down the ladder.

Half-way down to the orlop-deck he remembered his previous journey up this same ladder and climbed back up to the gundeck hatchway, before descending again, counting the rungs as he went. Twenty brought him to the next hatch down, the orlop. He made a mental note, before continuing down to the hatch that would open into the hold.

There was an easier way to do this. Just go down into the hold and search it from end to end without using this shaft. But the men he had seen used this very exit in an emergency. Pender had no idea of any secret openings down there, just as he could not tell Harry what the barge crew were about in their nefarious nighttime journeys. So this shaft might lead directly to the point at which they met.

Another twenty rungs. He was abreast of the opening to the walkways just above the various holds. Gingerly he opened it and climbed out. The compartments below, sectioned off, contained the mass of the ship’s stores, plus a fair amount of ballast. Walking up and down, he could see nothing that indicated where a party of eight men might gather.

Reluctantly he climbed back into the shaft. There should be another hatch lower down. But that could only be got at by shifting the ship’s powder barrels, a laborious task at any time. It was only used if the pumps fouled and the hose needed to be cleared. He clambered down. The ladder was very wet now. His foot slipped and he had some difficulty regaining some purchase, as his fingers clutched a wet rung above his head.

He came to the lower hatch. Sometimes, in ships that tended to make a lot of water, there was a gap left by the hatch, an access space, so that it could be got at without shifting all the powder. He pushed and it opened, a sure sign that this was the case. Strange in such a dry ship? He heard a low moan, then the sound of muffled laughter. Where was it coming from? He pushed the hatch open a bit further, shutting off his lantern for a moment to see if there was light coming from anywhere else. Nothing, just stygian blackness.

A laugh, very faint. Harry pushed both the hatch and his lantern full open, before climbing through. There was a ladder on the other side, set in a narrow gap between the roped-off powder barrels and the side of the hold. Getting his bearings he shut off his lantern again, and swiftly climbed to the top of the hold. His head bumped painfully against the walkway. Again he opened the shutter and saw that he was above the barrels of powder, in the open hold, with the walkway just a few feet away.

He stood still and listened for a full minute. No sound. Leaving the lantern open he set off back down to the pump shaft hatch. He climbed back on to the dripping ladder and opened his lantern fully, trying to see if there was anything below him.

Again a voice. One word, sounding like a command. In the circular shaft, there was no way of telling where it had come from, since the sound seemed to be coming from all round him. He shut his lantern again, turning his head in the blackness. A thin white line, forming a rectangle, was plain on the other side of the shaft.

Another hatch, one that should not be there. Harry pressed his ear to the wood, hearing muffled voices. Unshading his lantern he looked for the footholds that must be there. Now that he was looking in the right place, he saw that there was a special sliding section fitted to the shaft, no doubt to shut off the secret place beyond. And just below it was a strake that held the circular planking of the shaft together. But this strake was a lot wider than any of the others, and it formed a perfect place to stand while the hatch was opened.

Harry let himself down on to it. He shut his lantern again and felt for the mechanism that would open the other hatch. Nothing! It must push open. A moment’s hesitation, his hands poised against the wood. Would making an entrance now be the right thing to do, or would it be better to wait and come back when the place was empty? He knew, as these thoughts flashed through his mind, that there was little time, and if he did not look now, he could never be certain who was in there. He leant on the hatch. It shot open with surprising speed, and Harry was momentarily blinded by the bright light coming from the room.

A second’s glance took in the walls lined with drapes, the fancy brass lanterns, the floor covered in multi-coloured velvet cushions, and the men lying around in various stages of undress. Harry grabbed the top of the opening to stop himself from falling in. The men inside were frozen, as if in a tableau. Harry, reaching behind himself, whipped out his pistol and levelled it at the nearest member of the barge crew, Marchant, the coxswain. They had all started to make for him and the hatch, but froze at the sight of the pistol.

Marchant, wearing a silk robe which had been held closed by his hands, had started to reach for the intruder. Now it had fallen open to reveal that he was naked underneath. Harry took them all in in one sweeping glance, counting to eight as he went.

He could see bottles and glasses around the place, and a hookah sat on a small table. Meehan, completely naked, stood with his hands covering his genitals. Another member of the group was trussed like a bird, his skin showing the signs of a recent beating. It seemed like an age, but only seconds passed before Harry spoke. He could not keep the shock out of his voice.

“Don’t move, any of you!” His mind racing, he could not believe what he saw before him. It wasn’t what these men had been about, though the trussed sailor was strange. Harry had never served on a ship that had been entirely without it. Indeed he had been approached so many times by pederasts, as a midshipman, that he had become very early in life, like the rest of the service, blasé about sodomy. It happened. Most did not indulge, but those who did tended to be discreet, and no one was really harmed by it.

But the room. He was shocked by the room. It was so elaborate. It must be tin-lined behind those drapes to keep out the rats. The velvet cushions would not last a week if rats got at them. And you could feel how dry it was, and that in a damp part of the ship. He reasoned that it was the section of the hold set aside for holding shot. And that meant that with this space taken up, the ship was deficient in that article. There was no way that a room like this could exist without the knowledge of a higher authority. Yet Carter was not of that inclination, at least he had not been when Harry had served with him.

Men change, he thought. He turned the pistol on to the naked Meehan.

“This is where you were when Bentley was murdered.” The man’s eyes did not move. No one moved. The sense of danger struck Harry just as the decanter smashed into his gun. There were nine men in the room, not eight, and one of them was behind the open hatch.

The gun flew out of his hand and glass sprayed everywhere. The hatch was slammed shut, jamming Harry’s hand in the join. He yelled an oath as the pain took over from the shock. With all his strength he threw himself at the opening. He must have caught whoever was on the other side off his guard, because the hatch opened a little. Not much, but enough for Harry to pull his hand out.

He knew he was in great danger. Having discovered this secret room, these men would have to kill him. There could be no promises of silence this time. The two men who claimed to be witnesses were in there. Harry raised his injured hand and tried to get it round a rung above his head. It was nearly useless. He could not close it to get a grip. He pulled his hand down, jamming his elbow in between a lower rung and the side of the shaft. That held him while he reached up with his good hand. He jammed his elbow in again to repeat the manoeuvre, when the hatch flew open and a head popped out. Harry kneed the face, and the man shot backwards into the room.

That gave Harry enough time to get up three more rungs, before another, cleverer than the last, put both of his hands on the top of the hatch, and came through feet first. Harry tried a kick to stop him, and he did connect, but the man was moving too fast to be stopped and, scrambling and cursing, he grabbed one of the rungs well below Harry.

Elbow and hand, elbow and hand. Harry was up two more rungs before the man recovered. He looked up. The light from the hatchway showed Marchant’s face. He’d thrown on a shirt and breeches and, having recovered, he started up the ladder after Harry. A kick aimed at his head achieved nothing. Marchant just ducked away from it. He tried to catch the swinging foot with his free hand, but failed. Harry moved his elbow up another rung, struggling to get a grip. The action of his arm opened the lantern still tied round his neck. The shaft was flooded with light. Looking down he saw Marchant grin. The light had revealed that Harry had only one good hand.

“Everybody out,” he cried. “The bastard’s done for!”

Marchant reached inside the open hatch. His hand came out with Harry’s pistol. Slowly he lifted it, to aim at the man above him. Harry put his good hand on the lowest rung he could reach and just dropped. His foot connected with the gun as it went off, and his still dropping body carried on until it hit Marchant square in the face. His upper arm was wrenched as it took the full weight of his body, but he had dislodged Marchant, who fell backwards, desperate to maintain his hand and foot holds. Harry reached up and, despite the pain, pulled himself up with his injured hand. Marchant, recovering quickly, came after him.

The coxswain was much faster, having two good hands. Leaping up, he grabbed Harry’s foot.

“Go!” shouted Marchant, desperately hanging on, his weight pulling Harry down. Harry hooked his bad arm round a rung. He pulled the knife from his belt, and swung it down to try and wound his adversary. He saw a figure dive through from the secret hatch, straight across to the powder-room hatch. He swung again, but the knife could not reach Marchant’s head. The man seemed content to hang on to Harry’s leg, taking no other action to either hurt or stop him. Another figure shot through from one hatch to the other. Then another. They were taking their second escape route whilst Marchant occupied Harry. He kicked violently. Marchant gasped as the foot drove down into his ribs. He lost his hand hold on the ladder, but he still did not let go of Harry’s leg, merely swinging out into the centre of the shaft and back again.