Medi-Evil 2

by Paul Finch

  He flirted his cigar-end away and took a fresh one from his pocket.

  “Course, we tried to hack ourselves free. We’d descend in parties, armed with axes, but it was savage work. The vile stuff was filled with flies and mosquitoes and giant horseshoe crabs which nipped so hard they drew blood. There were also these black slug-things, maybe eight or nine inches long … give ’em half a chance, they’d cling to your flesh like leeches. Could only be removed with salt-rub. The kelp was thick as cable … strength-sapping to chop through. Even when we managed to clear a patch of it, a new swathe rolled in. It was a jungle … a living, thinking jungle floating on the top side of the sea.”

  “Sounds like a nightmare,” Harry said.

  Kaplain chuckled again. “That was only the start of it. Thanks to those Yankee corvettes, we already had more wounded than fit … horribly wounded in most cases, and dying. As they popped off, there was no other way but to throw ’em over the side. Even this backfired. Those freshly dead turned the water crimson. This brought sharks and cuttlefish. Every so often we’d see some giant specimen surge by under the weed, a massive backwash behind it.”

  The memory made him shudder, and Harry, who’d never been further out to sea than Yarmouth’s lower pier, could well imagine why.

  “Those moments were a terror to us,” Kaplain said. “But worse was to follow. We’d been marooned about a week, I reckon … before the first one of ’em came.”

  “First one?”

  “The first of them … the amphibians.”

  “Amphibians?”

  “What else are they?” Kaplain said. “By the looks of ’em, they prefer the deep ocean, but they seem mighty comfortable topside too.”

  Harry wondered about this. Amphibians? Men who could live both in and out of water?

  Kaplain was still talking, in low monotone - as though discussing these things aloud was somehow sacrilegious.

  “Our master-at-arms spotted the first one. And screamed. It was the sort of scream you normally hear from a sailor when he’s got a belly-full of splinters from a twenty-four pounder. I remember … we gathered on deck to stare at the thing. Naked, it was, pallid all over, but fat and doughy and glistening wet, and crouched flat on the weed like some bloody great frog on a lily-pad. It looked enough like a human, though, for the ship’s surgeon to try and hail it. He thought it a deranged survivor from some other stranded vessel. But as soon as he called, it vanished. Straight under in the blink of an eye.”

  Kaplain paused, as if his memory of the following events wasn’t entirely clear.

  “The next time we saw ‘em, there were two or three together. Crawling across the surface, circling us, but ducking under sharpish once they realised they’d been spotted.”

  “Did anyone open fire?” Harry asked.

  “No.” Kaplain’s brow furrowed. “We should’ve done, though. Scaly bastards!” He glanced around. “You’re probably more familiar with ’em than you know.”

  “Me?”

  “You’ve heard of them before, you just don’t realise it. They’re the mer-folk, aren’t they? You’ll have read it in nursery books. Most likely you’ll think ‘em bonny lasses sitting on rocks by the beach, great fish-tails for legs, a neat pair of conches over their paps.”

  Harry nodded dumbly. He had seen this, of course. But who hadn’t?

  “A pretty picture,” Kaplain said. “Ask any mariner though, lad, and he’ll tell you a different tale. There isn’t much to entertain kiddies in the depths of the sea.”

  “Did they attack you?”

  “Aye … in cruel but crafty fashion. God alone knows how many times they’d done it before. Slowly encroaching on stranded ships, wearing the crews down, not just their rations, but their morale as well, their sanity … their faith in the Lord. We were half-starved as it was, our water-stocks almost gone. And we still had a bag of sick and wounded. Even then, they left it weeks. Watching us from afar with those flat, empty eyes, knowing we were getting weaker. When they finally made their move, it happened in less than a second. The crack of dawn, it was. All of a sudden the two or three we’d got used to seeing were joined by hundreds of others … literally hundreds.”

  Kaplain shook his head, his teeth clamped on his cigar. “Came scuttling over the weed like locusts, hopping, skipping, slithering at fantastic speed. We thought we’d be ready for ’em, but we only got off a single volley before we were boarded. And then …” His cheek waxed. “Oh Jesus, then …”

  *

  It was late afternoon when Martha Coxton closed up her shop.

  She took a long glance along the street, before fastening the shutters. The evening traffic was building to its usual crescendo, pedestrians moving back and forth, sailors, tradesmen, coster-folk hawking wares. Lurries and carriages swarmed past, slewing mud and straw. Beyond the quayside, the harbour was a jumble of sails, masts and rigging. Martha wondered why she felt so uneasy. Harry should be in London by now, his cargo safely delivered. Hopefully, that would be the last of it. Of course, their alarming visitor of the previous week was still on her mind, not to mention the gold he’d wanted.

  Martha pondered this, as she went down to the workshop to check the furnace and bolt the undercroft door. The Metals Exchange had valued Kaplain’s payment at two thousand pounds. And that was before he’d so casually posted her another two hundred. Such riches didn’t make sense. The customer had willingly paid more than three times the cost of the work he’d commissioned.

  There was a sound from the rear-yard – a clatter of metal, as if something had brushed one of the dustbins. Martha stood still in cool darkness of the workshop and listened. It would be a cat or rat. Both were commonplace on the docks. She made her way upstairs and through the kitchen and scullery to the back door, where she paused briefly. Everything seemed quiet now. She opened the door.

  The rear yard was small and hemmed in by high walls. Two dustbins stood to one side of it, while at the far end there was a coal bunker and next to this a gate, which now was standing open. Martha walked towards it and peered out. The back street beyond was narrow, crooked and heaped with refuse. It was also deserted. Other gates gave through to different yards, but all of these appeared to be closed.

  She shut the gate, barred it and withdrew to the shop, making sure to lock the scullery door. Nothing amiss had happened out there, but Martha knew that neither she nor Harry would ever have left that back gate open.

  *

  “It was when it got to close-quarter that the lads weren’t up to it,” Kaplain said, as they drove through the village of Ditchingham. “We had at them hard as we could, but they were stronger, faster. Batons, hooks, spars … we laid on them with everything we had. It was no use. I lopped off a couple of froggy legs with this cutlass of mine, but it was a lost cause. Even as we fought ’em, they were dragging lads overboard, lugging them under the kelp before you could say ‘Davey Jones’. Our skipper put a pistol to his head as they hauled him down … blew his old skull apart just as the weed closed over it.”

  “But how did you get away?” Harry asked.

  “Wasn’t easy.” Kaplain’s expression was now distant. “Meant abandoning my shipmates, but what else was there? I went over the side of my own volition, long before that fight was done.”

  “Over the side?”

  “Aye … carried only what I needed. A knapsack of ship’s biscuit, a water-bottle, pistol and shot, and my cutlass of course.”

  “But how did you escape the weed?”

  “Luck, partly. But also quick-thinking. Still had a pair of old snowshoes from our days on the Great Lakes. I put ’em on … started walking.”

  “Walking?”

  “Well, floundering. But I was that scared I made good time.”

  “They didn’t follow you?”

  “Couple, but I did for ‘em.”

  “And where did you go?”

  Kaplain shrugged. “The next brig. There were plenty to choose from. Rotting old hulks dotted here and
there. Terrible sights inside ’em, of course … rats, swarming roaches, gnawed bones where once there’d been men.”

  Harry gazed at him in awe, fascinated that any human had endured such a thing. Kaplain smiled.

  “I know what you’re thinking, lad, but I’m a survivor. I’ve been flogged seven times during my service – once around the fleet. Another time, I was keelhauled off Cape Wrath. If I survived that I could survive anything, don’t you reckon?”

  He paused to light another cigar.

  “All that’s meaningless now, of course. The point is I had no option but to keep going. For days, it was. I was parched, famished, scorched by the sun, tortured by insects. Plodding from wreck to wreck, where I got what sleep I could, though it was never easy with all them empty skulls laying around me. Often, when I was walking, I’d sink as deep as my knees, sometimes my thighs. Once or twice I went clean through … into brine as black and cold as swamp-water, only the luminous eyes of fish to light the chasms beneath. I tell you, those were instants of sheer horror. Always though, I scrambled back up. Kelp so thick that it gobbled ships-of-the-line proved a life-saver to me.”

  His words tailed off. They rode in silence for a time.

  “And the gold?” Harry finally asked. “You found it all out there?”

  “Aye, well … that was a mad thing.” Kaplain seemed almost embarrassed to admit it. “One of the stranded vessels was a Spaniard, an ancient galleon from King Philip’s treasure fleet. You’ve never seen anything like the haul inside. Jewels, silver plate, ingots. Question was how much could I carry when I was relying on snowshoes to keep my own body afloat?”

  “I’m surprised you could carry any?”

  Kaplain shrugged. “As far as I could see, I was facing my own doom anyway. I thought ‘what’s to lose?’ So I pilfered a sack of coins and tried to paddle my way out in a coracle. I knew one thing only … if I did manage to get out alive, I’d reward myself richly. I wouldn’t have got a penny from the Admiralty. More likely a mutineer’s rope. That gold seemed the only solution.”

  Harry appraised Kaplain’s fine clothes. “Clearly it was.”

  “Aye, well … my luck changed that day. A few hours’ struggle along an inlet, and suddenly the weed was breaking up. Don’t ask me why. I first joined the king’s ships as cabin boy. 1789, it was. I was nine. Even now, thirty-four years on, I have only vague notions about the sea and its ways. Anyway, there I was, adrift in an open boat. Only this time there was help. A Portuguese sloop gathering shellfish and seabird eggs along the Sargasso edge. Even in the worst places on Earth, it seems, there are common folk making good.”

  “At least you could pay them for passage?”

  “That was true. As far as San Domingo, they took me. I could’ve gone to Martinique, but I might’ve been drafted back into the colours, where I’d have had some explaining to do. Anyway, from there I took a tramp-schooner to Curacao. I had enough coin to travel luxury class if I’d wanted, but that wouldn’t do. Half the bastards on the Spanish Main are still cutthroats at heart. I kept it simple and cheap, tried to work my way along as much as I could. Course … there were some who knew I was now a wealthy man.”

  Harry was puzzled by this final comment. Then it struck him. “The amphibians!”

  “Who else? First I knew of them following me was about a year later. I was aft on the Lady Anne, a charter-yacht from Jacksonville to Marseilles, working as second mate. The planter who’d hired us says ‘are those seals out there?’ All the passengers reckoned they were. I mean, what’re ten flat heads bobbing up and down in the water to a lubber? I knew different of course. Seals don’t swim that far from land, and they don’t follow boats willy-nilly as if they’ve nothing else to do. And there’s one other thing … they don’t ignore fishtails thrown to ’em, or buckets of chum. These were no seals.”

  “But why would they follow you?”

  Kaplain glanced at the lad as if he was as simpleton. “Why else? The gold I took.”

  “They wanted it back?”

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t understand that.”

  Kaplain shrugged. “Why do jackdaws guard shiny old spoons they’ve pinched? Not as if they can eat off ’em, or pawn ’em. Who knows what the answer is? I guess they just felt I had what was theirs.”

  “And they’d followed you all that way?”

  “You don’t know the half of it, boy. I ain’t never been able to shake ’em off. Ever since that day, I’ve been dogsbodying from boat to boat. Every so often I lose sight of them, think they’ve finally given up. But they’re never far behind. Just waiting their chance, trying to catch me alone. Thing is, I’ve had enough of it now. That’s why I’m back in England … so I can meet ’em on familiar turf. First, I set my heart on a weapon like this …” He slapped the volley gun alongside him. “Thought I might be able to pot ’em all together as they swam. But they’ve taken the bait quicker than I expected. Not that it matters. Dry land’s just as good a spot for decisive battle, don’t you think?”

  *

  Martha wasn’t sure what time it was when she woke, but she knew at once that something was wrong. Tense minutes passed as she lay under her quilt. Occasionally a dog might disturb her in the night, or the laugh of some drunken sailor relieving himself against her property wall, but these were noises she was well used to.

  This had to be something else.

  At first there was no sound at all, until she heard a muted scuffling just below her window. And not just scuffling – a slithering sound as well, as if someone in damp oilskins was shifting about down there. Martha listened intently.

  That dread moment had arrived, she realised – that moment all householders fear, when the knowledge strikes you that a trespasser is seeking access to your home. Wild thoughts raced around her head. Should she call for help? Even if she did, would anyone hear? Even if they heard, would they answer? She could always flee – simply dash from the house. But would that be wise, a woman of her age alone and at night in a rough naval town like this?

  There was a long, low squeal of woodwork.

  Martha’s mouth went dry. It was the hatchway to the undercroft. Only a single bolt held it. The undercroft’s internal door was also closed, but this too was held only by one bolt, and, from what Harry had told her, these devils possessed infernal strength.

  She was now almost paralysed with fear, too frightened even to reach out and light a candle. The idea came to her that she might fight them; there were guns in the building – this was a gunsmith’s. But all the guns were downstairs, and now they were downstairs. Even as she lay there she heard the dull crunch of wood from somewhere inside. That was the undercroft door. The invaders were already through it. In moments they’d be on their way upstairs.

  She fairly leapt from her bed, and, more by instinct than logic, flung herself at the bedroom door to turn its lock. How long it would hold them she didn’t know, but any barricade was better than none. No sooner had she done this than a weight was pressed against the door from the other side – a considerable weight. The handle swivelled; the hinges creaked.

  Martha backed to her bedside, glancing wildly around. The room was only small. A closet stood in the corner, but it was too obvious a hiding place. She looked upward, to the trapdoor in the ceiling. In her panic she’d almost forgotten it. She scrambled to the closet, yanked it open and took out the crook. Behind her, the door to her room shuddered as blows landed against it. Woodwork splintered.

  Martha reached up with the crook, but, in the darkness, the trapdoor was little more than a dim outline. The crook-head scraped and clattered, unable to locate the latch. With a crash, the doorjamb split and partially dislodged. Now Martha could hear the grunting and breathing of the things behind it. Tears of terror filled her eyes as she struck and struck at the trapdoor, refusing to accept that she was beaten. With a snap and twang of metal, a hinge flew across the room. She might have screamed at that, screamed and wept and thrown herself onto the bed
, expecting nothing but death – had the crook not suddenly, by some miracle, caught the latch.

  In one liquid movement, the trap swung open and the hinged ladder fell through it, unfolding to the floor. Sobbing with relief, Martha drew up her nightgown and climbed swiftly into the loft-space overhead, from where she hurriedly began to crank the ladder back up. Below, there was a loud cracking sound as the bedroom door was broken open another few inches. Clearly there were only seconds left, though seconds might just be enough.

  Martha only allowed herself to breathe again when the ladder clicked back into place, its spring-loaded arm drawing the trapdoor up behind it. Once it was secure, she scrambled away into the farthest corner. Several slates were missing from this part of the roof, and cross-shafting moonbeams exposed the attic as a tiny crawlspace containing little more than dust, cobwebs and mice-droppings.

  Below meanwhile, chaos erupted. Martha listened in horror as the intruders blundered in, as they smashed the closet door, overturned her furniture, threw the bed from wall to wall. But then, for no obvious reason, the destruction promptly ceased.

  Silence followed – a brooding silence, a listening silence.

  Martha sat frozen, hands tangled in her hair. They must know that she was up here. Where else could they think she’d be? Almost in answer to her question, the next assault was launched on the trapdoor. The wood trembled violently as something struck it, but it was hardboard and it held. Immediately after that, blows were launched against the ceiling, and these were more successful.

  Martha screamed aloud as, in the pale gleam of moonlight, three blade-like points smashed up through the aged plasterwork next to her

  *

  Kaplain drove furiously along the Yarmouth streets.

  Though the hour was late, one or two pedestrians still had to scamper from his path. Even in the weak glow of the halogen lamps, the horses were visibly lathered with sweat, their hooves throwing up gouts of mud. With every sharp bend, the coach’s iron-shod wheels skidded.