by Seth Hunter
‘Is everything all right, sir?’
Nathan turned to find Mr Vivian regarding him with polite concern as he groped about his private parts.
‘Thank you, Mr Vivian, everything is quite all right,’ Nathan assured him, and the midshipman rewarded this confidence with a seraphic smile, gazing about the decks with perfect wonder. ‘Eton wall game ain’t in it,’ he remarked obscurely – and then rushed off to find someone else to kill.
Nathan took a moment to look about him. There appeared to be plenty of fight left in the Shivas – more than he had anticipated after the blows they had dealt her with the heavy guns. The crew were mostly Asians and Chinese, and even as he fought for his life, a part of Nathan’s mind had been wondering what made them so resolute, for this was no war of theirs. But then his own men were Danish or French for the most part and had as little reason to fight and die for King George or the Honourable Company.
A great many of the enemy seemed to be aloft, either because they had been ordered there to take in sail or because it had occurred to them that it was a much safer place to fight than on the decks. Whatever the reason, they had a great assortment of weaponry up there and they were employing it with murderous effect. Captain Dudley had directed his men to fire into the tops, but they were barricaded with hammocks, and only a few bodies were falling from the sky to add to the confusion and hazards on the decks.
It was quite impossible to tell who was winning. There was too much smoke around, for one thing, and the wind was too light to clear it. Nathan wondered if there was anything he could do to improve the situation, to impose some discipline upon his own side at least, but nothing immediately occurred to him. Then, suddenly out of the chaos and confusion, he saw the masts of another ship, looming up to windward. The Bombay. She announced her arrival with a great battle-cry from the boarders assembled on her decks, and the usual hail of grappling hooks and missiles as the two ships ground together.
The advent of a hundred fresh men proved decisive. Picket had half as many again in the tops, adding to the fire of Dudley’s redcoats, and with more effect, judging from the sudden increase in the number of bodies falling from the sky. At last, the enemy seemed to lose heart. All the fight went out of them and they began to throw down their weapons. The battle was almost won.
A familiar face loomed up out of the murk. Blunt. And with him another midshipman, whose name Nathan had not yet committed to memory. Slater, Salter, something of that sort.
‘Come with me,’ he instructed them.
What he had in mind was to find the Shiva’s code book, and any other books and papers that might be useful to him. The usual practice before a battle was to secure them in a canvas bag weighted with shot, which was concealed somewhere close by the captain, so that it might be thrown overboard if the ship was in danger of being taken. Quite possibly this had been done already, but it was also possible that it had not.
The two midshipmen guarded his back while Nathan checked the flag locker and the cupboard for the binnacle light. Nothing there, save flags in one and candles in the other. Nathan looked about him. There was no office, or shed, like the one on the Pondicherry. Then he saw a man in the blue coat and facings of an officer, lying by one of the quarterdeck 6-pounders. He was clearly wounded but he was propping himself up on one elbow and groping for a pistol that lay on the deck. Nathan kicked it away and lifted him by the collar.
‘Where is the chartroom?’ he demanded.
The officer pointed feebly towards the stern quarters under the poop deck and Nathan let him fall back and led the way aft. The whole area had been cleared for action and there was nothing obviously resembling a chartroom, but Nathan’s eyes were still adjusting to the change of light. He felt oddly disorientated. It was like being on a stage in a theatre, dressed to resemble a forest in some fairytale, with shafts of sunlight pouring through the holes in the shattered stern.
Then he saw a body lying in the far corner with something bulky next to it. He was moving over to it when there was a shout of alarm and he turned to see a dark shape outlined in the doorway they had just come through. He was pointing something at Nathan’s head. There was a blinding flash that seemed to come from within his own skull, and then nothing. He did not even feel the pain.
Part Three
Island of the Dead
Chapter Twenty
The Boy in the Front Pew
‘A wicked man walketh with a froward mouth. He winketh with his eyes …’
Reverend Judd’s own eyes scanned the cowed ranks of his congregation with righteous anger … and settled at length upon a small boy in the front pew, flanked by two stout female attendants. For some moments he subjected this individual to an intense regard, much as an owl might regard a small cowering creature of the night before swooping to make its kill. There was no apparent reason for this scrutiny or for the perceptible wrath of the beholder. The boy’s mouth was not especially stubborn or peevish, and his eyes flickered no more than might be considered normal in an eleven-year-old boy during the interminable progress of the Sunday service. His expression, in fact, was one of the most earnest interest and innocent candour.
‘He deviseth mischief; continually he soweth discord.’
Nathan registered the rebuke and stored it away for future reckoning. His immediate concern, however, was to catch the attention of another small boy in the front row of the choir and cause an explosion of inappropriate mirth. Thus far he had been unsuccessful, the individual in question staring resolutely ahead, though the strain about his features betrayed a certain weakness in this regard.
Nathan allowed his gaze to travel briefly to the large stained-glass window above the altar. It depicted the cataclysmic events of Judgement Day, with the righteous being led to eternal solace, and the wicked to the fires of Hell. But the sunlight, dimly visible beyond this panorama was a constant reminder of more urgent matters requiring the boy’s attention once he had escaped his present confinement. The Sussex Downs might have been appropriated by the adult world for the rearing of sheep, but it still possessed a great many amenities for the diversion of small boys. In the two or three miles between Nathan’s house and the sea were several woods, countless streams and ponds, a river, a great many barns filled with rats and other vermin, two villages and endless opportunities for the mischief against which the parson so weightily inveighed.
Nathan was aware, of course, that Reverend Judd had singled him out for particular attention. It was not the first time he had been the subject of the parson’s invective, and it would almost certainly not be the last. It was partly for this reason that he had led the village boys in a raid upon the parson’s orchard the evening before, stripping it of its considerable bounty only a few days before it was due to be harvested. Reverend Judd was extremely protective of his orchard and partial to the cider it produced. What he did not imbibe personally, he sold to the local inn-keepers at a considerable profit, so this assault represented a serious personal and financial loss. To add insult to injury, the commander of the raiding party had left a note thanking him for his generosity to the poor of the parish, signing this missive ‘Robin the Hood’.
Despite this subterfuge, Reverend Judd had clearly discerned Nathan’s hand in this enterprise, but he had not a shred of evidence to lay against the perpetrator. Hence this morning’s sermon, which had now reached a pitch of intensity and venom that was causing serious disquiet to his parishioners.
‘Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly,’ he bellowed, slamming his fist down upon the open bible and glaring down from the pulpit upon the object of his censure. ‘Suddenly shall he be broken without remedy.’
The parson’s unseemly passion and the principle direction of his gaze was not lost upon Mrs Madison and Mrs Moody, the two female attendants who had been deputed to see Nathan through the weekly ordeal of the church service. They shifted uncomfortably in the pew; they exchanged the briefest of glances over the head of their charge; they looked down at him
with deepening suspicion. Their charge appeared perfectly oblivious to their apprehension and met the parson’s gaze with unflinching complacency, but as the sermon drew to an end, and the congregation stood for the Creed, he caught the eye of his confederate in the choir and deliberately winked.
It had the desired effect. The chorister’s glee could no longer be suppressed and he exploded in untimely mirth. The parson’s normally choleric complexion turned a shade darker. For a moment, Nathan thought he might interrupt the affirmation of the faith and leap down from the pulpit to seize him by the collar and administer a brutal flogging before the eyes of the entire congregation. This would not have been entirely unwelcome – driving the parson into a public display of lunacy was one of Nathan’s private ambitions – but the Reverend managed to control his emotions and continue with the service, and Nathan allowed his mind to drift off entirely, roaming his beloved Downs at least in his imagination and recalling the adventures it had recently afforded him, not all of which would have met with the unbridled support of his minders. In the past month alone, he had acted as a lookout during the landing of a consignment of French brandy on the shores of Cuckmere Haven, assisted the notorious Black Jack Hinchcliffe in a poaching expedition on the estates of his father’s neighbour Lord Gage, and culminated this lawlessness with the previous evening’s assault upon Reverend Judd’s apples. There was a growing body of opinion among the more respectable of the parish that the boy was running wild and would very likely end his days in a penal colony – if the hangman did not make an end to him sooner and save the taxpayer the expense of transportation.
There was general agreement as to the reasons for this neglect. The boy’s father, Captain Sir Michael Peake, was one of the greatest landowners in the shire and a fine upstanding Tory gentleman, not noted for his indulgence to the wicked or profligate. However, he was away at sea fighting for King George against an unholy alliance of American rebels, French scoundrels, Dutch charlatans, and Spanish idolaters, and to assist him in this enterprise, he had taken his body servant, Gilbert Gabriel, who, despite his own history of criminality, was widely reckoned to be the only man beside the boy’s father who could impose a measure of restraint. His mother, Lady Catherine Peake, was a lost cause, being half-American and half-French and therefore doubly damned. She was, besides, almost permanently up in London engaged in the world of fashion and politics, where she lent her voice and her considerable fortune in support of the King’s – and her husband’s – enemies. As for the rest, the boy’s tutor, Dr Urquhart, was a learned gentleman with a degree from Dublin University, but he had as much notion of discipline as an Irishman in an alehouse, while servants like Mrs Moody and Old Maddy, who were expected to take charge of him in the absence of more senior figures, found themselves unable to curb his excesses beyond the boundaries of their immediate domain, and then only with the most vigilant watchfulness and the aid of a switch or such kitchen implements as came conveniently to hand.
It was, in every way, an idyllic childhood for a boy of spirit and initiative. Although he missed his parents, especially his mother, Nathan was perfectly aware of the advantages that accrued from their absence, and quite capable of exploiting them to the full. Even the existence of several enemies wholly committed to his downfall only added spice to his adventures. The only problem, to the boy’s way of thinking, was that they lacked focus. In fact, at the present time, he was having difficulty in making them conform to even the most basic rules of time and motion. One moment he was sitting in the front pew of Alfriston Church while the trees of the adjoining elms waxed golden in the autumn sun, the next he was lying in the long grass on the upper slopes of the Long Man of Wilmington, at the height of summer, playing the flute.
Even more puzzlingly, his toes seemed a great deal further from his head than they had been when he was standing in the pew, and for a moment, indeed, he thought he had exchanged places with the giant who gave the hill its name.
Otherwise, he had little to complain about. It was certainly a great deal more pleasant than being in church. There were clouds of gossamer seeds drifting in the warm breeze and hordes of daddy-long-legs bowling across the grass as if they were off to the Midsummer Ball, while far below the whole of the Cuckmere Valley lay open to his benign inspection. This pleasing vista was further improved by the figure of a young woman advancing towards him up the path from the village. As she came closer, he recognised her as Frances Wyndham, the daughter of Lord Egremont, who was one of his father’s neighbours. Though once accounted a great nuisance and cry-baby, she had improved with the years and now must be counted among the shire’s finest amenities. Moreover, with a delicious frisson of shock and pleasure, he realised that with the exception of a pair of lace-up boots and a sennit hat, she was perfectly naked. His delight at this unexpected bounty was swiftly checked, however, by the remembrance that she was now his father’s mistress. Even more alarmingly, she appeared to be heavily pregnant, although he could have sworn this was not the case only a few moments previously, and that the child in her belly was very likely his little half-brother – or half-sister, which would, in the circumstances, be preferable.
Nathan had the wit to appreciate that this was very probably a dream – though it was an unusual dream for a boy of eleven, whose wicked imaginings had not previously led him into territory more dangerous than the parson’s orchard. The spectre instantly vanished, leaving him with an interrupted view of the village and the square tower of Alfriston church, where Reverend Judd no doubt continued to spit bile at the reprobate in the front row.
He should really get back there, Nathan thought, before his absence was generally noted. But it was very pleasant to lie here in the sunshine, playing his flute and watching the daddy-long-legs dancing to his tune. So pleasant, indeed, that he began to feel exceedingly sleepy. Perhaps if he just dozed off for a few minutes, he could still make it back to the church before the end of the service. But the dream of Fanny Wyndham had left him with the uneasy feeling that all was not well, that the world was – in some undefined way – seriously out of kilter. He even began to wonder if it had not been a dream at all, but some prophetic vision of the future – a future, moreover, in which he did not exist. The child in Fanny’s belly was not destined to grow up in his shadow, but to replace him. He had been gazing upon the new heir to the Windover estate – or at least its progenitor. Which was not, in itself, such a terrible blow as the realisation that this injustice could only occur because he himself was dead.
So alarming was this notion, that he left the dancing opiliones and the floating gossamer and hurried back to join his younger self, but when he entered the church he saw that a great many changes had occurred in his absence. A haze of dust and debris floated in the splintered light from the windows. The stained glass was shattered, the Last Judgement lay in a thousand fragments about the nave, and the body of Reverend Judd was draped over the pulpit with a long splinter of oak embedded in his back. While this may not have been too distressing in itself, Nathan’s unease was compounded by less edifying sights. The pews were filled with corpses, many lacking heads and limbs, and the stone floor was stained by an inordinate amount of blood and other substances that were best kept within the confines of the human body. The air was filled with shreds of scorched flesh, or paper, which lazily circled, like motes of dust, in the beams of light pouring through the holes in the roof. And someone, somewhere, was ringing a bell.
It was all very alarming, and the worst of it was that it was all his fault. Reverend Judd had been right. He deviseth mischief; continually he soweth discord. And this was the result.
With this insight came an intense pain in the region of his left ear, and a sudden change of perspective. Instead of the interior of the church, he was looking upon the recent scenes of chaos on the deck of the Shiva. As they flashed before his eyes, they became reduced to one powerful image: the figure standing in the doorway of the captain’s cabin with a raised pistol pointing at his head.
Nathan struggled to emerge from these nightmares, as a drowning man struggles to surface from the fatal grip of the ocean. Distantly, he could see a gleam of sunlight. No, not sunlight – more the warm, flickering light of a lantern at the end of a tunnel. He forced himself to move towards it, though his limbs felt impossibly heavy, and in the centre of the glow he discerned a head – not a severed head, but more like the heads in the stained-glass windows of the church, framed by the golden halo of saints and seraphim. Gradually, his eyes found their focus and the head its form, and as it bent towards him he recognised the angelic features of Sister Caterina Caresini.
‘Where am I?’ His voice was a feeble croak, even to his own ear. From what he knew of the nun’s past, he might be in heaven or hell. If it was hell, it did not seem a matter for immediate concern.
‘You are in your cabin,’ she murmured, ‘in your own ship.’
He tried to raise himself from the pillow but the pain that had been lurking in the space above his left ear instantly became severe and took over his whole head. He sank back upon the pillows.
‘What happened?’
‘I will fetch Captain Tully,’ she said, rising from her chair. ‘He said to tell him as soon as you were awake.’
‘No. Stay.’ He tried to reach out a hand, but she was gone.
‘You were shot,’ Tully informed him. ‘In the head.’
Tully mistook his silent stare for incomprehension. ‘In the stern quarters of the Shiva,’ he continued. ‘By one of the French officers. With a pistol.’
‘I know that,’ Nathan’s voice was still a croak, but not quite so weak. ‘But how bad is it?’
Tully’s expression grew a little less concerned. ‘Clearly not as bad as I feared,’ he confided. ‘It creased your skull, just above the left ear. You have been unconscious for four days.’
