Hazard of Huntress

by V. A. Stuart

  “I have my orders, Mr Quinn,” Phillip returned, careful to control his voice. “And I must carry them out.”

  “Yes, I know and I …” Quinn hesitated, watching his face in the dim light. “If you could see fit to acquaint me with the nature of your orders, Commander Hazard, then perhaps—”

  “My orders are confidential, Mr Quinn.”

  “I’m aware of that, sir, and of the fact that you received them from the Admiral himself,” Quinn said, his tone faintly resentful. “But I presume you have been instructed to make— er—well, to make observations in the port of Odessa and carry back a report to the Admiral of what is going on there. Is that not so?”

  “Your presumption is reasonably accurate,” Phillip conceded.

  “Well, sir,”—the First Lieutenant raised his voice and hearing this, both seamen turned instinctively to listen to what he had to say—“I am physically in a better state than you are and, if I may make so bold, sir, just as capable of using my eyes and ears. Let me stay, while you go back to the ship. I’d be only too willing to take your place, Commander Hazard.”

  What was the man driving at, Phillip wondered. “Do you speak Russian, Mr Quinn?” he enquired, with a distinct edge to his voice. “And are you familiar with the port of Odessa?”

  Quinn shook his head. “No, to my regret, Captain. All the same, I—”

  “Then I fear—to my regret—you cannot take my place.” Was this the answer his second-in-command had expected, Phillip wondered and then, observing the renewed smile with which Quinn received his refusal, knew that it was. He wished he were not quite so tired, so that his dull wits could follow the tortuous working of Quinn’s mind. But … the gesture had been made and the two men from the gig’s crew would carry the tale of how it had been made and rejected back to their shipmates. He had no one but himself to blame if the tale grew in the telling, either. … He gave vent to a resigned sigh and motioned to the still gaping seamen to pick up his brother. “Have a care with him, if you please, both of you. He’s in a bad way and—” but Ambrose Quinn had not yet done.

  “Commander Hazard,” he put in quickly, intent, it seemed, on gilding the lily, “if you need a volunteer to replace your brother, you have only to say the word. I’m quite sure that any one of us would willing offer his services and I—”

  “Are you volunteering to remain on shore with me, Mr Quinn?” Phillip asked and, despite the dim light, had the satisfaction of glimpsing what he could only suppose to be an expression of dismay on his First Lieutenant’s face. But it swiftly vanished as Quinn answered smugly, “I did not imagine that you would wish us both to be absent from the ship for any length of time, sir. It may have slipped your mind that Mr Cochrane is still indisposed but, if you are satisfied to leave him in command then, of course I’ll remain here with you. Or either of these men would, I am confident, be proud to do so—eh, lads?”

  Both seamen, thus invited, nodded assent and the younger of the two, a strapping young Welshman, offered eagerly, “Take me, if you please, sir.” His hand went to his cutlass and he grinned. “I would dearly love a go at them Roosians, sir, truly I would.”

  Phillip clapped a hand on his shoulder, smiling. “Thank you, Williams, but no. That’s not what I’m here for, unfortunately. Carry on, both of you, and get the Master down to the beach as quickly as you can.” The men looked crestfallen but they went obediently about their task. If one of them had been O’Leary, Phillip thought, he might have been tempted but as it was … He went to the cliff edge, to assist them to find the easiest route and, kneeling there, called out a warning to watch for loose rocks, which Williams acknowledged with a confident, “Aye, aye, sir.” They disappeared from view, the sound of their descent, punctuated by the occasional clatter of falling stones, continuing to reach him as he crouched on the cliff top, all the energy suddenly draining from him.

  He would wait to make sure they got down without mishap, he decided and, smothering a yawn, wondered whether he dare snatch half an hour’s sleep before setting off on the long, cold walk back to Odessa. It might be a wise precaution if he did; he was reasonably safe here but, once in the town, he would have to keep his wits about him and certainly could not afford to rest for very long, if at all, while he was there. Ambrose Quinn, preparing to follow the two seamen, paused to set the lantern down beside him with a murmured, “In case you need this, sir,” and then, evidently divining his intention, gestured to a cleft in the rock a few feet below them. “That’s a snug spot, sir, if you were thinking of a cat-nap. Shall I lend you a hand to get down there?”

  “No, no, I’ll manage, thanks—you get under way.” Phillip pointed to the now rapidly greying sky. “It will take you all your time to pull back to the ship before sunrise, Mr Quinn, so don’t delay on my account.” He repeated his instructions for his next rendezvous with the gig and nodded, in brisk dismissal. But Quinn ignored the nod.

  “You won’t delay me, sir, and I’ve got to climb down in any case. Better let me help you. It wouldn’t do to break a leg now, would it? This way, sir.”

  His tone was insolently assured and Phillip, too tired to argue with him—or to wonder why—permitted his second-incommand to assist him to the spot he had indicated which, he realized, as he lowered himself into it, was indeed ideal for his purpose. Hidden from anyone standing on the cliff top by what appeared to be a slight overhang, it was dry and sheltered from the wind and, thankful to be able at last to relax, he drew his cloak about him and lay back, his head pillowed on his linked hands.

  “Sleep well, Commander Hazard,” Ambrose Quinn said softly and set off after the two seamen, his surefooted silence in marked contrast to their noisy, slithering descent. Phillip listened for the sound of his footsteps and then, determined not to allow himself to fall asleep until he was quite certain that the whole party had reached the foreshore safely, he sat up, staring down into the blackness below him.

  He heard someone cough and then, from behind him, a sharp crack and the patter of tiny stones, followed by a low rumbling sound, as if rock were grating on rock. Instinctively sensing danger, he flung himself forward but a fraction of a second too late. A heavy object struck him on the side of the head with such force that he collapsed with a smothered groan, his last memory of a dreadful, searing pain, followed almost instantaneously by merciful oblivion. …

  On the beach below, Able-Seaman Williams and his companion were joined by two more men from the waiting gig, who came splashing through the shallows to relieve them of their unconscious burden, when the sound of a heavy fall of rock caused all four men to look back apprehensively at the cliff face.

  “That will be the First Lieutenant,” Williams said. “Coming down after us, he was, at a rare pace … and it is all loose rock, that cliff is, believe me.”

  “Maybe he has broken his bleeding neck, then,” an anonymous voice suggested, from the stern of the gig.

  “No such luck, boyo,” Williams told him glumly. “Here he is, coming now, the bastard … and he is running like a mountain goat!”

  The coxswain reproved him half-heartedly and, as they lifted Graham into the boat and settled him carefully in the stern, he asked sharply, “Where is the Captain?”

  “Oh, he is staying on shore. He—”

  “Alone?” the coxswain snapped incredulously.

  “Yes, alone. Oh, we were all volunteering to stop with him, of course … even the First Lieutenant—but he would have none of us. We are to take him off tonight, I believe and …” Williams broke off, as Lieutenant Quinn came running across the foreshore towards them. He was breathing hard but swung himself into the gig with practised ease, bawling an order to the coxswain to put to sea at once.

  “Look alive, there!” he admonished, as one of the men, who had been engaged in pushing the boat out of the shallows, lost his footing and had to be dragged bodily from the icy water, soaked to the skin and shivering. Quinn cursed him long and fluently for his carelessness but, for some reason, his admonition la
cked its accustomed venom, and the seaman glared back at him in sullen surprise before picking up his oar. “Handsomely now,” the First Lieutenant bade them. “We’ve to be back aboard the Huntress before daybreak, on the Commander’s express instructions … so put your backs into it, my lads, or I’ll mark ’em for you! This isn’t a pleasure boat outing for Margate—that is the enemy coast astern of us, and don’t you forget it!”

  “We are not likely to forget it,” Williams muttered rebelliously, out of the side of his mouth, to the man on the thwart next to him. “For haven’t we just left the Captain there, all on his own? Aye and brought the Master back from there, half dead, into the bargain!”

  Lieutenant Quinn affected not to hear him. He was smiling quietly to himself as, with belated solicitude, he bent to lift Graham Hazard into a more comfortable position at his side. The Captain’s brother looked in very poor shape, he thought, so that it seemed probable that neither he nor Lieutenant Cochrane would be fit to command the gig on its return journey to the cove at nightfall. …

  CHAPTER SIX

  Phillip recovered consciousness to feel the sun on his face, his first thought the guilty fear that he had overslept. He struggled into a sitting position, unable at first to establish his whereabouts, for the sky whirled about him, weaving kaleidoscopic patterns of light and shade before his startled eyes and he had to cling to the rock on which he lay in order to remain upright.

  His head was throbbing painfully, his mouth parched and dry, and his left arm appeared to have neither strength nor feeling in it. Gradually, however, by dint of closing his eyes for several minutes and then opening them again, he was able to make out that he was lying on a narrow ledge of rock some twenty feet below the summit of a cliff. Below him he could see a small cove, hemmed in by crumbling cliffs similar to the one on which he was so precariously perched. The cove was deserted, although there were what looked like footprints here and there on the few patches of sand the cove boasted … footprints which disappeared when they reached the tide-line, suggesting that whoever had made them had left the cove by boat.

  But … his brow furrowed in perplexity. What boat? Whence had it come and where had it gone? And where, in the name of all that was wonderful, was the cove? Rack his brain as he would, he could not remember, could not recall ever having been here before. There were no familiar landmarks, nothing to offer him a clue and, after a while, he gave up the useless attempt to identify the cove and, turning with infinite difficulty, gave his attention to what lay above his head. He was lying in a cleft in the rock face, he saw, with nothing above him but the sky … a grey, somewhat forbidding sky, lit by a watery sun. And it was cold, bitterly cold. Instinctively he put out his right hand to draw the cloak he was wearing closer about him, in the hope of keeping out the cold. It was his boat-cloak, he realized, and he was in uniform but, in addition to the cloak, an unpleasantly smelling oilskin—a fisherman’s oilskin, judging by its smell—was wrapped about him. He fingered it distastefully, noticing with some astonishment that both cloak and oilskin were stained with dried blood—heavily stained.

  Had he, then, been hurt? Was this blood his own? Gingerly he felt along his forehead, up to the hair line and then swore softly as his questing fingers encountered a painful swelling just above his right ear, which extended to the back of his head. His hand, when he withdrew it, was wet with blood. So he had been injured, he told himself, and the blood was his own but … how and when? More important, perhaps, by what—or whom—and why? And where, in heaven’s name, was he?

  Phillip expelled his breath in a sigh of exasperation and attempted to get to his feet. It took four attempts and all the will power he possessed but finally he forced his cramped and feeble legs to obey him, only for his earlier attack of vertigo to return with greater severity than before. He had again to cling to the rock face until at last it ceased and he was able to clamber unsteadily to the top of the cliff. This change of situation, while it afforded him a more extensive view of his surroundings, was of little help to him in deciding where he was.

  On all sides, a flat, marshy wilderness stretched in front of him, seeming more like a nightmare landscape than one which actually existed. As far as he could make out, the bleak plain had no end. All he could see was mile upon mile of frozen, featureless ground, with a few stunted bushes, on whose drooping branches earlier falls of snow had been caught and immobilized into ice. There were no tracks, no signs of human habitation and nothing moved, animal or human, within his range of vision.

  A description of the Russian Steppes, which he had read as a boy, in a geography lesson, came suddenly, unbidden, into his mind and he stared about him, shocked, unable to believe that he could be in Russia. This was a dream, he told himself, a nightmare, as he had thought a few minutes ago … and yet the injury to his head was no dream and the blood, on cloak and hands, was real enough. He moved forward a pace or two and his foot kicked against a small metal object that, when he bent to examine it, proved to be a lantern … a signalling lantern, with a shutter, by means of which the light from its squat, slow-burning tallow candle could be shown or cut off, at will.

  This, also, was real enough, Phillip’s numbed brain registered and, convinced now that he was not dreaming, he sank down, still holding the signal lamp in his cold hands as if— absurdly—he could derive some warmth or comfort from his contact with it. Or, perhaps, some clue to unlock his memory of what had gone before … He closed his eyes, making a great effort to think, to remember why and for what purpose he had come to this desolate place. The lantern had some purpose, obviously—tied in, perhaps, with his own—if only he could recall what either might have been.

  Slowly, in odd, seemingly unrelated flashes, memory returned. He was in—or near—Odessa. Yes, that must be so, for the name of the town persisted, as if it had been burned into his brain. Odessa and … oh, God, of course, the Tiger! She had run aground in the fog—it was strange with what vivid clarity he was able to remember every detail of the ill-fated Tiger’s end. He and his brother Graham were together— Graham had been his Assistant-Master—and he had brought a boat in, to try to take off some of her crew … but the boat had been hit and he had had to swim to the stranded frigate. He could see the cannon-flashes, smell the acrid smoke, as red-hot shot from the Russian guns on the cliff top struck her wooden deck, setting it ablaze, whilst salvo after salvo of chain-shot wrought havoc with her masts and rigging until, the work of destruction almost complete, the gunners had loaded with grape and brought their field-pieces to bear on the struggling for their lives in the water.

  And then, he recalled, appearing with dramatic suddenness from the fog and smoke of battle, a rider on a splendid white Arab horse had come to the cliff edge, to direct the gunners to concentrate their fire on the single 32-pounder which still spat abortive defiance from the Tiger’s smouldering upper deck … Narishkin, Prince Andrei Narishkin, Colonel of the Chasseurs of Odessa and aide-de-camp to the Tsar. That name, too, was burned indelibly into his memory, Phillip thought, for had not Mademoiselle Sophie married the Prince Narishkin in the Cathedral at Odessa, a few weeks after the loss of the Tiger? He tensed and then felt his stiff, chilled body relax, as the memory he had secretly treasured for so long came, in its turn, to fill his mind, erasing that of the loss of the Tiger and of the wound he had sustained during the battle … a wound that had come near to costing him his life and, indeed, might have done so, had it not been for Mademoiselle Sophie.

  He had not allowed himself to remember or to think of her for months but now, no longer conscious of his sternly imposed self-discipline or of any reason for it, he gave his thoughts free rein, pleased to find that—whatever else the blow on his head had caused him to forget—his recollections of the slender, dark-haired girl, whom he had known as Mademoiselle Sophie, were as fresh and clear as if their parting had been yesterday. Instead of … he shook head in bewilderment and, as the agonized throbbing began again, wondered how long ago that parting had been. Weeks … mon
ths, perhaps? Yes, months ago, he was sure. And yet she was in Odessa and so, too, was but he had not gone to her, had not tried to find her although that might be the reason for his presence here.

  It was possible, surely, that he had been on his way to Odessa to seek her out when something—or someone—had struck him on the head, with the object of what? Of preventing their meeting? But who could have wanted to prevent him seeing Mademoiselle Sophie? Who could have guessed that this was his purpose in landing here? There was the war, of course … fool that he was, he had forgotten that a state of war existed between his country and hers. But if he had been seen by a Cossack patrol, they would have shot him or taken him prisoner. No Cossack would have been content merely to strike him down and leave him where he had fallen. Who, then, could have done so? Prince Narishkin, perhaps? No, Narishkin was dead, killed at Balaclava. He had died of his wounds in the tent of one of the 93rd’s women … and died gallantly, with his wife’s name on his lips and … Phillip felt his throat tighten.

  This memory was also very clear and he knew that he could not have imagined it. Narishkin had given him back the ring that had been Mademoiselle Sophie’s gift to him when she had left the Trojan and … he felt for it in his pocket, his fingers closing about the case in which he always carried it. The case snapped open and, as he had known it would be, the ring was there—a magnificent emerald, carved with the double-headed eagle crest of the Imperial Family of the Tsar, flashing in the pale winter sunlight as it lay in the palm of his hand. The ring was no dream, he told himself, and, replacing it carefully, let his throbbing head fall on to his outstretched hands, as he endeavoured to decide what his next move should be, his thoughts again confused.

  But, it was obvious, he could not stay here in the biting cold. He would have to find his way to Odessa and … he dragged himself awkwardly to his feet, to stand at the cliff edge, looking about him. He would have to clean himself up, wipe the blood from his cloak and jacket, and fashion some sort of dressing for the wound on his head before he dared risk showing himself in Odessa. Very slowly and carefully, his limbs like leaden weights, Phillip made the descent to the cove. At the water’s edge, he knelt and examined his head, as well as he could, using his watch-case as a mirror. The time, he noticed, with some surprise, was seven-thirty—early enough to allow him ample time for his cleansing operations, so he set about them methodically.