by James McGee
A shot rang out. Pepper heard a window break.
"Hold your fire!" he called. They were too far out of range for a pistol to do effective damage.
He was suddenly aware that his left arm had developed a ferocious itch. He reached to scratch it and then remembered there wasn't anything there to scratch. It had been ten years
since he'd lost the limb to a cutlass slash and yet the phantom tickles persisted. Sometimes, the sensation was so real he had to take a look to convince himself his arm really was gone.
Suppressing the impulse to grind his stump into the wall of the barn, Pepper surveyed their objective. The front of the house was a killing ground, as Tyler had found out to his cost. The safest approach would be via the rear, using the outbuildings as cover. From the nearest shed it was only a scurry over the vegetable garden to the back door. The side wall was reachable through the orchard. From there the attackers could plant themselves in the lee of the building, where the angle of the wall would offer protection against shots fired from the windows.
Behind him, Pepper's crew checked their weapons. Each of them had a brace of pistols. A couple carried cudgels. Four had short cutlasses held in scabbards on their belts. Hard, seasoned men, they had all served their apprenticeship either as escorts, bat men or tub carriers. The four cutlass bearers had all served in naval press gangs before joining Morgan's organization. Good men to have at your back in a fight, which was why Pepper had chosen them. He was prepared to forgive the errant shot a few moments ago. Seeing one of your number gunned down like that would spook anyone.
Pepper wondered about the opposition. Outnumbered they may be, but Hawkwood and Lasseur had proved themselves. The woman, too, though there was no telling how she would fare in the event of an assault on the house. As for Gadd, he'd seen action before, but he was old and he was a cripple. I low effective would he be? Pepper knew that they had weapons at least two long guns and a pistol - but did they have anything in reserve? Pepper doubted it.
The safest option would have been to wait it out, but Pepper and his crew had an appointment to keep, and it wouldn't do to be late. Certainly not tonight of all nights. Best to get the matter over with as quickly as possible.
Pepper drew the pistol from the holster across his chest.
"Billy, you stay with the horses. Keep them calm. Deacon, Roach and Clay - you're with me. The rest of you, go round the front. It's the Runner and the Frog we're after. As far as they're concerned, it's no quarter given or expected. If the widow and the old man get in the way, that's their misfortune."
Pepper waited as the four men he'd dispatched to the front entrance worked their way to the other side of the barn and ran in single file towards the corner of the house, using the orchard as cover. No one shot at them.
"On me," Pepper said. Pistol half-cocked, he stepped out from the wall. With Deacon, Clay and Roach at his heels, he ran towards the nearest outbuilding. They made it without incident. Pepper took stock. He could see that the other half of the crew had reached the orchard and were making their way through the trees. Two of them had drawn their cutlasses. Pepper looked towards the back door and the broken kitchen window. He could see vague movement inside the kitchen, but the rays of the low-hanging sun were reflecting off the remaining glass and the gloom inside the house prevented him from making out details.
The second outbuilding - the one nearest to the house - was only a few paces away. An eager Deacon sidled out from the wall. Pepper, seeing a dark shape move behind the broken window, opened his mouth to hiss a warning only to be silenced by a sharp report. Deacon's body was flung back against the outhouse wall. It remained motionless for several seconds, as if suspended from a hook, before toppling to one side like a puppet with severed strings. As Deacon hit the ground, blood seeping from the wound in his chest, a volley of small-arms fire sounded from the front of the house.
Hawkwood lowered the Manton. The gun wasn't as comfortable in his hands as a Baker rifle. Thankfully, the target had been an easy one. He had been hoping to get a clear shot at Pepper, but it had been one of Pepper's crew who had showed himself first, and beggars couldn't be choosers.
That left eight.
All they had now was the fowling piece and the two pistols, and not enough shot between them to make much of a difference.
As he laid the rifle down, Jess Flynn passed him the pistol. A second later he heard Gadd yell in the other room and then the seaman's cry was obliterated by an explosion of gunfire and the splintering of glass.
Hawkwood took the spare ball from his pocket and laid it next to the sink with the flask of powder and one of the squares of wadding. It looked as insignificant as a pea left at the side of a dinner plate. Knowing he probably wouldn't have time to reload anyway, Hawkwood drew back the pistol hammer and spoke over his shoulder. "If one of us goes down, you pick up the gun. Make each shot count."
Jess nodded nervously. "I understand."
Now let them come, he thought.
And they did.
At Pepper's nod, Roach broke from concealment, and Clay poked his head round the side of the outhouse and aimed a covering shot towards the kitchen window. As the pistol cracked, Roach, his cutlass drawn, veered left, heading towards the parlour end of the house.
Clay loosed off his second pistol and ducked back behind the outhouse to reload.
Pepper waited to see what would happen.
From the kitchen, Hawkwood saw Roach come into view. He heard the report and saw the puff of powder smoke by the corner of the outhouse wall, and ducked just as the ball broke the surviving window pane and thrummed past his ear. He heard a plate break into pieces on the dresser behind him.
Before the shattered china hit the floor, Hawkwood's pistol was up, tracking the running man. As the man's companion let off his second shot, Hawkwood fired. The ball struck the running man in the groin, pitching him to the ground with a ragged cry. His companion's pistol ball buried itself in the wall beneath the window frame.
Pepper emerged from cover, pistol in hand and running towards the corner of the house, as Roach went down.
Hawkwood stepped back from the window, rammed the ball down the pistol barrel, placed the powder in the pan and snapped the frizzen in place. His hands were steady as he thumbed the hammer back. By the time he was done, Pepper had disappeared from view.
Hawkwood swore.
Behind him, Jess Flynn was crouched by the fireplace. From the other side of the chimney breast came the sound of somebody trying to kick in the front door.
"Jess, find out what's happening out there!" Hawkwood whispered.
In the parlour, Tom Gadd had been busy proving he could hit more than rabbits. Another of Pepper's crew lay dead, his throat pumping blood into the dirt beneath one of the apple trees. Gadd had whooped aloud as the ball from his fowling piece struck home, only to have his exclamation of triumph cut short as the dead man's companions returned fire with venomous fervour.
The window and the clock case took the brunt of the damage, but it been a close shave. Gadd recalled Hawkwood's remark about rabbits not shooting back. Crouching by the wall, the old man tapped powder into the muzzle of the fowling piece and reached into his pocket for his final round. He glanced across at Lasseur and grinned, only to lose the grin as the front door shook under a bombardment of boots. He looked up as Jess Flynn called his name from the kitchen.
"Stay where you are, Jessie!" Gadd called back. "We're all right."
At the sound of Jess Flynn's voice, Lasseur turned away from the rear window. As he did so, he saw Gadd's eyes widen in alarm at something behind him. Lasseur swivelled just in time to see the cutlass blade hammer the pane into a thousand shards and a pistol muzzle appear in the opening. Lasseur swung his arm up and fired in the same instant as the attacker. The room was lit by simultaneous flashes and two thunderclaps. A shriek of pain sounded outside the window and a body dropped away. "THOMAS!"
Lasseur spun back at the sound of Jess Flynn's cry of horror.
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The fowling piece had dropped from Gadd's hands. The seaman was slumped back against the wall, clutching his shoulder. The blood on his shirt looked almost black in the half- lit room. Jess Flynn was scrambling towards him on her knees.
Lasseur sprang across the room. Shouts sounded from outside. The attackers had heard Jess Flynn's cry. From the anguish in her voice they had guessed someone inside had been hurt.
"Quick!" Lasseur looped his arm under Gadd's shoulder, ignoring the wounded man's wail of agony. Between them, they half-pulled, half-carried Gadd back into the kitchen.
"Tom's hurt!" Jess Flynn cried. She opened the pantry door. The dog leapt up at her.
"Down, Rab!"
Hawkwood turned to see Jess Flynn lift the flap to the cellar and push the dog down into it. Closing the trap she reached out to support Gadd as Lasseur lifted the seaman over the table and into the pantry.
Then Lasseur yelled.
Hawkwood turned and his throat went dry at the sight of Pepper, teeth bared in anger, curving the axe blade towards the window.
Hawkwood hurled himself backwards. The heavy blade demolished what was left of the glass and a good portion of the lattice. As Hawkwood's spine hit the floor, Pepper threw the axe to one side, pulled the pistol from the holster at his chest and fired through the open window. Hawkwood rolled and felt the wind from the ball as it struck the floor by his head. Pepper let out a roar of frustration. Hawkwood brought his pistol up and fired, but he was too late, Pepper had gone.
From the parlour came the sound of a window frame being turned to matchwood and from the upper floor the breaking of glass.
And then the back door reverberated to the sound of axe blows.
Hawkwood backed away from the door and joined the others behind the table. "How bad is he hit?"
The back door was shaking under the onslaught.
"The ball went through his shoulder," Jess Flynn said.
Lasseur reversed the pistol in his hand. "I'm out of powder."
Hawkwood looked towards the powder flask he'd left by the sink. Maybe he could still retrieve it.
The wood around the door lock was splitting. Suddenly the axe head appeared in the opening, then withdrew, tearing a great chunk of wood away with it.
Maybe not.
"Me, too," Hawkwood said. "But they don't know that."
Lasseur smiled.
"Stay down, Jess," Hawkwood said.
Then, suddenly, as if time had come to a halt, it went quiet. The blows on the door ceased. There was no sound from the front of the house either, except for a faint crackling.
"I smell burning," Lasseur said.
With a crash, the back door swung inwards.
The straw bundles were well ablaze. Three came through the doorway in quick succession, landing in a fiery cascade of sparks. One broke apart, scattering tendrils of fire in all directions. The noises in the parlour intensified as more burning straw was tossed in through the broken windows. Flames reached for the curtains and the furnishings, running up towards the roof beams in ribbons of fire. Smoke began to weave across the floor.
"Out!" Hawkwood yelled. He ran to the door and felt the breeze from the pistol ball as it thudded into the wall. A second gun cracked and he knew then that Pepper did not intend to let them leave the burning building.
Another plate tipped off the dresser and smashed behind him. In the other half of the house, the parlour was well alight and flames had begun to devour the underside of the ceiling. Plaster was splitting from the wall. The smoke was getting thicker and more acrid.
"The cellar!" Hawkwood yelled.
Lasseur pushed the table out of the way. Jess Flynn flung open the trapdoor and as the dog came out like a shaggy brown missile shot from a cannon, she grabbed a handful of fur and hung on tight. The dog yelped and tried to pull free, but with grim determination she strengthened her hold and bundled the protesting animal, claws skittering, back down into the cellar with her. Lasseur bent and scooped Tom Gadd up in his arms. The wounded man groaned as Lasseur carried him down into the darkness.
Hawkwood was about to follow Lasseur down the stairs when his eyes fell on the pail beneath the sink. He guessed it was used to carry water from the stream and as a reservoir for the sink, but he couldn't recall if he'd actually seen water in it. For a split second he hesitated as he heard Lasseur call his name. Then, the decision made, he crossed to the pail. It was half full. Grabbing it, Hawkwood retreated to the pantry. He thought he heard the sound of a shot behind him. Pepper or one of his men must have seen movement within the smoke. Eyes watering, with the heat of the flames lapping at his back, he descended the cellar steps and shut the trapdoor behind him.
"We thought Pepper had got you," Lasseur said. He sounded angry. "What were you doing? What's that you've got?" His expression changed when he saw what was in the pail.
Jess Flynn had lit a candle. She handed it to Lasseur, who held it over Gadd's wound. "Keep it still," she said.
Gently, she lifted the blood-soaked shirt off the wound and examined closely the rent the pistol ball had made in the material. She pressed the torn edges of the cloth together. Hawkwood knew from experience that she was checking to see if any of the material had travelled into the wound. If it had, there w is more risk of Gadd dying of infection from the dirty cloth than of expiring through trauma and blood loss. The bloody edges of the tear fitted together perfectly. She breathed a sigh of relief.
Hawkwood took out his knife and cut a flannel-sized strip of material from the hem of Gadd's shirt. Jess took it from him and dipped it in the pail then began to clean the blood from Gadd's shoulder. Gadd groaned and his eyes flickered open.
"It was Jed Cooper who shot me," he murmured. He peered at Lasseur. "Hope you got the bastard."
"Take it easy, Tom," Hawkwood said. "Don't speak."
Gadd lapsed into silence, flinching as the cloth skirted the edges of the wound.
Hawkwood looked around. The cellar wasn't large; about the size of the kitchen above it. Punnets containing fruit and vegetables rested on shelves around the walls.
"I don't know if we're that safe from the fire. This cellar's stone-built, so it won't burn; but if too much smoke gets in here, we're dead. We'll run out of air, which means we'd have been better off letting Pepper shoot us. If you've got any petticoats under there, Jess, we can cut them into scarves to soak in the water and cover our faces. I'm told it's what heroines are supposed to do."
She dabbed the last of the blood from Gadd's shoulder, wetted the cloth again and squeezed out the moisture. Then she held out her hand. "Knife."
She cut four strips of material from her underskirt and dropped them in the pail.
Hawkwood got up and examined the underside of the trapdoor. It was heavy wood banded with iron. Though a snug fit, it would not keep out a determined fire. If the flames grew hot enough, the metal would warp and the wood would burn and smoke would infiltrate the cellar and kill them where they lay. There was no sign of the grey demon yet, but it was up there, searching, and eventually it would find them.
A crash came from above. Hawkwood wondered if part of the ceiling had come down. He returned to the others. The dog was pacing back and forth, whining and uttering plaintive yips of distress. It looked at Hawkwood and gave a tentative wag of its tail before lying down next to Jess Flynn with its head on its paws. It did not remain still, however, but kept raising its head and staring dolefully towards the cellar roof.
More noises came from within the burning house. The dog's ears twitched.
They stubbed out the candle to conserve air and their one source of light. And then, in the darkness, in silence, they waited.
Hawkwood wasn't sure whether he had been sleeping or not. He hadn't been conscious of closing his eyes, and in the absolute blackness of the cellar it wouldn't have made any difference, but it occurred to him that he felt curiously rested. He knew that in the absence of light the mind could play strange tricks. Once the candle was extinguished,
his thoughts had been full of random images; all of them, without exception, violent and bloody and fearful. But then, as the time passed, the darkness had begun to have a palliative effect. His body ached, but there was no pain. He wondered if it was because his mind had accepted the inevitability of death. His fate had been ordained, so why fight it?
But so long as he was thinking, he was still the master of his own fate and nothing was inevitable.
He was conscious of movement close by and of a panting sound. It was the dog, suddenly on its feet and making faint gruffling noises at the back of its throat. Then it let out a bark. Hawkwood heard a flint strike and then there was a spark and the candle flickered into life. Jess Flynn's face materialized out of the shadows.
Lasseur said uneasily, "I smell smoke."
Hawkwood could smell it, too. He wondered why he hadn't been aware of it sooner. He looked up, but couldn't see anything untoward. The stone at his back was still cool to the touch. Retrieving one of the strips of cloth that had been soaking in the pail, he tied it around his nose and face, then he picked up the candle.
The dog broke into a fit of frantic barking. In the confines of the cellar, the cacophony was so intense that Hawkwood thought his eardrums might burst.
As he approached the trapdoor, despite Jess Flynn's soothing words, the noise behind him grew more abrasive.
The smell of smoke was stronger now. He suspected it was because it had been building up steadily over the time they'd been down there, which indicated they'd been underground for a while.
There was no sign of burning on the underside of the trapdoor, but the smell of charcoal was pervasive. As he reached out to touch the iron banding, he heard a scraping noise above him followed by a heavy thud.
