The rebel heart hg-4

by Martin Stephen

  Thus a pistol bullet does not have to kill a man to incapacitate him. It can, quite literally, knock him out, deliver such a shock to his body that it shuts down and goes into total shock.

  Of the six pistol shots fired by Gresham and his men, one killed a man instantly, three condemned men to lingering, gangrenous deaths, blowing flesh out of their bodies for which nature could not compensate. More importantly for the defenders, the odds were reduced: eleven functioning men reduced to seven. Seven against six. Except for the four upright seamen on board the attacker, still stamping out flames but capable of joining the attack at any minute. One of them, the small man with the goatee beard, seemed in control.

  Seven men leapt on board the Anna. Seven men who a short while earlier had been in a company of twenty. Seven men who had seen two thirds of their companions diced into bleeding red meat. Seven men crazed by combat, by the loss of their fellow men, by sheer blood lust. Seven men who had nothing to lose.

  Gresham and Jack vaulted the front rail of the quarterdeck, landing hard on the deck. Two of the attackers veered towards Gresham, seeing in his finer clothes his status as captain. There was a shout, a command. It was the small man with the beard. His first words were strange. Then he shouted again, more clearly, 'Not him! Not him! Keep him alive!' Was it accented? The faintest hint of something unusual in the inflexion?

  The two men backed off, sabres pointing warningly towards Gresham. On either side of him, fierce, hand-to-hand fighting was skidding across a deck slippery now with blood. Mannion was locked in a gut-wrenching exchange of blows with a man as big as he was, the clang of their blades something primeval. Jack seemed to have the better of his man, probing at him thoughtfully, deflecting his enemy's wilder and wilder blows with almost intellectual precision, forcing the man back further and further, with occasional feints with his boat axe confusing his enemy even more. Edward, as thin and lugubrious as ever, was dancing across the deck, showing the agility of a dancer, drawing the tail, thin man on, attacking him, tiring him out. He had noticed the thin stream of blood flowing from the man's leg, where the grape must have brushed against him. Young Dick, dark hair matted against his forehead, was losing ground, out of breath, on the edge of panic, flailing out widely and wildly. He was being played with, as a cat plays with a mouse, as Jack was playing with his opponent. Dick's opponent, the one whose shoulder had been nicked by the pistol ball, was showing no sign of any serious injury, and was eyeing Dick with the same predatory caution with which Jack was eyeing his man. It was only a matter of time. Tom… where was Tom? He was nowhere to be seen. The seventh attacker, his cap ripped off his head to reveal a startlingly bald pate with a diagonal scar across it, had seen Dick as the weakest of the opposition, was turning to attack him. At the same time, the two men who had been called off Gresham had retreated enough to leave a gap through which Gresham could see the grappling iron, cutting deep into the wooden side of the ship. Cut them free? Or help Dick?

  Gresham's sword was out, the boat axe in the other hand. He turned as if to head for the grappling iron, and his two guards instinctively turned with him. With extraordinary agility Gresham swung round the other way, and in the brief moment that one of the men exposed his chest Gresham plunged his sword directly under his ribcage, twisting and turning the blade as he did so and ripping it back out with a savage downward heave. The man screamed, more in anger and fear than in pain — and dropped his sabre to clutch at the gaping wound through which blood was now pouring. The other man backed off, fear in his eyes. Gresham had turned in a moment, impossibly, the blade a mere flicker. There was no time for finesse. Dick had seen bald pate coming towards him, and was almost crying now. His first attacker chose not to wait for bald pate, and suddenly leapt forward, smashing Dick's blade aside and raising both hands to bring his heavy edge down on Dick's skull. An expression of surprise came over his eyes, and he looked down to see a sword blade protruding from his chest. Gresham had pirouetted round in one seamless movement and lunged forward again. As the man gaped and blood began to dribble from round his mouth, Gresham put his foot firmly in the man's back and pushed with all his strength. With a sad, sucking, sighing noise the blade pulled out of the man's body, as he was hurled forward onto Dick, who screamed and half scrabbled out of the way of the descending body. Dick's face was a mass of blood now. Not his blood. The blood of the man who had so nearly killed him. Gresham faced up to bald pate, who suddenly halted his onward rush. Gresham saw something in the man's eyes, and started to turn.

  The man behind him, one of the two who had been told not to kill him, was about to make a last brave effort and disobey orders. Scarface. He had a scar down one side of his face, a scar which had closed off his left eye. Whether the eye was still there or not, God only knew. Scarface had seen Gresham's skill, knew there would be no prisoners from this fight, knew it was kill or be killed. He was experienced enough, whoever he was, to see that this was his one chance, even if he had only one eye left to see it.

  Gresham had lunged at one man, then turned and skewered the other man, but it had taken time to kick the body off his blade. He had then turned a third time to face the bald-headed man. Reacting to three opponents was miraculous. Reacting to four was simply impossible. For a brief moment Gresham was unbalanced, exposed. Scarface wielded his crude blade like a scythe aimed at Gresham's neck. Gresham turned his head to see it heading inexorably for him. Even as he brought his own aching sword arm up he knew he would be a fraction too late, even as he tried to spring back away from the gleaming steel. He had killed two men, and parried a third. The fourth would kill him. He greeted the prospect with something approaching relief.

  There was a clang that could have come from Titan's armoury, and the swinging blade hung in mid-air, stopped. Mannion and his opponent had been exchanging blows of vast force with monotonous regularity, almost taking turns, when for no apparent reason one of Mannion's massive strikes did not stop at his enemy's sword, but seemed to carve down straight through it, snapping the defending blade as if it was glass and carrying on to split the man's skull, grey brain matter and blood spurting out like a newly constructed fountain in a noble's garden. Mannion had not waited to see the man's body drop to the ground, but had turned just in time to cover the four paces to Gresham and stop his attacker's blow. Gresham, half on his knees, looked for a brief moment into Mannion's eyes, a moment in which both men said all they needed to say to each other, and thrust up at his exposed attacker. The shock of Mannion's block had sent a stinging blow up the blade and hilt. The cheaper the weapon, the more likely it was to let its user feel every hit in nerve-tingling detail. Slightly off balance, Gresham would have compensated for his awkward position, half kneeling and half falling, had his foot not slipped on a patch of blood and skidded out from under him. The sword thrust he had intended to go up and under the ribcage of his assailant instead went low, the superb steel slicing straight into the man's genitals. The scream was as if someone had rubbed razors across the man's eyes, a screech of pure agony. Almost pityingly, Mannion brought his heavy blade down on the man's head, mercifully cutting short the inhuman noise.

  'Bet that hurt,' he said, turning to face the bald-headed man, who was looking nervously from Gresham to Mannion and back again, unsure as to who was his opponent. Gresham leapt to his feet, a throbbing, burning pain in his head, and the man's eyes swivelled to him. Mannion leapt forward and enacted an exact replica of the blow that had just been intended to kill Gresham, a scything, sweeping cut of sheer brute force. There was no one to help bald pate, and the blow half severed the man's neck. Perhaps he wanted to scream but all that emerged from his mouth was a frothy, red, bubbling gurgle.

  Jack had been aiming blows at his opponent, swinging them at head height, forcing the man to raise his arms, tiring him even faster. Suddenly and without warning he swung low, breaking the man's knee with the force of his blow. His enemy sank to the deck, gargling, face up, pleading. Jack centred his blade, and pushed it hard into the man's
neck. Dick had scrambled out from under the body of the man Gresham had killed, and was standing wild-eyed on the deck, looking for someone to kill. Edward was still dancing around his man, who suddenly looked up and saw that he was alone on the deck, five blood-stained men facing him. He stepped back, dropped his blade, put up his hands palms outwards to his attackers. There was no mercy in their eyes. Before any of them could move, he jumped onto the guard rail, dropping his hands. The Anna gave a sudden lurch, and the two hulls started to pull apart, opening a three-foot gap between the two vessels. The man began to slip, paddling his arms ludicrously to try and keep his balance. He fell between the two hulls just as the wind and the waves forced them together with a grinding crash, mellowed by the sound of something soft being crushed, like eggshells being trodden on.

  There was screaming from the other boat. The small bearded man was shouting at the three seamen left on board his vessel, pointing with a sword to one of the two small cannon on his deck. He was yelling at the men to fire the guns, but they were huddled under the forecastle, clearly scared out of their wits and mutinous.

  The man stopped yelling, realising it was a lost cause. He turned, and looked at Gresham. Then, remarkably, he gave a brief bow.

  It was simply business. A gesture of recognition from one professional to another. He laid his sword blade across the rope of the grappling hook that still tied the two ships together. The blade must have had the sharpness of a razor. With only two or three strokes, the rope was cut, and the enemy vessel veered away, vanishing in seconds into the gloom.

  Damn! thought Gresham, not for the first time in the past few hours. There went his last real chance of finding out who had decided to try and take the Anna. Then an awful recollection dawned on him.

  'Where's Tom?' asked Gresham. 'Did anyone see what happened to him?'

  'Yeah,' said Mannion. ‘I saw. That bald-headed bastard came straight at 'im, and 'e forgot where the rail was, backed into it 'e did, and fell straight over. No point in looking. He caught his 'ead a right crack as he went over. Must 'ave been unconscious as 'e 'it the water. Stupid bugger.'

  'God help him,' said Gresham, a part of him starting to die alongside the man he had lost. 'He was my responsibility. He was only here because of me.'

  'It's bad,' said Mannion, 'but don't fret yourself too much. We all of us know the odds. Loved a fight, did Tom. Knew what 'e'd signed up to. Best way for man like 'im to go. 'E'd never have made old bones.'

  There was the crash of a pistol from below deck. Gresham looked up, the burning pain in his head getting worse by the second, and a shockwave went through his body as he saw that the sailing master was no longer tied up by the wheel, strands of rope suggesting he had somehow found a knife and cut himself free.

  Gresham started to run for the door that led into the cabins, but fell back as it was kicked open.

  The master was dragging the sailing master on deck. The sailing master's left shoulder was a mass of blood and pulp where the master had clearly fired one of Gresham's pistols at him.

  'You bastard! You bastard! Betray me would you? Betray me and my crew? I'll kill you! I'll fuckin' kill you!'

  The master kicked the sailing master hard in the groin, his muted groan a measure of the pain overload he was already in. There was a seaman's knife in the sailing master's belt, the one that had cut him free, and the master reached for it, and was about to plunge it into the sailing master's neck when something cold touched his temple.

  Jane was holding the second pistol at his head. Her hair was streaming in the wind and she was barefoot. She looked insane, the intensity in her eyes the hallmark of the truly mad. As if to emphasise her insanity and the insanity of life, the bodies of those killed by Gresham and his men littered the deck, surrounded by dark brown pools. The deck of the Anna would never be the same again.

  ‘I heard him talking to the sailing master,' she hissed, the pistol rock steady. 'There's a hatch from the hold through to the cabin space. You can only unlock it from the cabin side. That man there let the master out, and they started to argue. When there was that terrible noise of fighting.' Some hint of the agony she had undergone from the moment the cannons crashed out came into her voice.

  'They were accusing each other. Then the sailing master said they should take me hostage, use me to bargain with you, force you to put them ashore and take the rowing boat. Then they broke into my cabin, and the master here shot his friend. Without warning.'

  'Now why would he do that?' asked Gresham softly, starting to edge towards his ward.

  'Because he must have thought that if he could blame this man he could pretend to be innocent. Keep himself on a big boat. Not have to trust himself to a rowing boat.'

  It was the girl's icy calm that was more frightening than any display of emotion would have been.

  'Good thinking,' said Gresham conversationally. 'What do you intend to do now?'

  'I think I very much want to pull this trigger,' said Jane, with an intensity that would have cut through ice-hardened rigging. 'I want this man to know that I am no one's property, that I am not owned by anyone, that I am not something to be used.'

  'And you think shooting him will let him know that?' asked Gresham. He was nearly by her side now, but if she knew of his approach she was showing nothing of it.

  'Perhaps,' she said, 'and perhaps not. But it will help me know that I am a person. It will help me to have fought back. Not to have been passive. Not to have been a… victim. I am so tired' — and there was the faintest crack in her voice now — 'of being… nothing.'

  'Please give me my gun,' he said gently.

  'Why?' she said calmly, and he saw her finger start to tighten on the trigger.

  Because it cannot be good for a young girl to blow a man's head off. Because if you did kill this man it might leave more scars than it healed. Because there is something awful, something terrifying about the cold dedication of your voice. Because girls cried or got the vapours, or came over all feeble. Or spread their legs to the invaders. Girls were defenceless. 'Because I would like you to.'

  He put out his hand, very, very slowly, and laid it gently over the barrel. It was cold under his fingers. She had not looked at him at all, and did not do so now. There was the briefest of flickering moments when he felt sure she would pull the trigger. Then, as slowly as he had put his hand out, she started to lower the pistol, looking fixedly all the time into the eyes of the master.

  'Know I could have done it,' she said to him, as if they were the only two people left in the world. 'Know that I would have done it.'

  No one who heard her doubted her words.

  Gresham closed his hand over the barrel, and very carefully removed the pistol from her grasp. The butt was warm where she had held it. It was at full cock.

  Gresham swung round, making all the watchers except Jane jump. Suddenly the pistol was jammed against the master's breast.

  'I rate loyalty above all other virtues,' he said simply, and pulled the trigger.

  The lock came forward, the pyrite sparks fell down into the now open priming chamber. There was a dull click. He ignored the expression on the master's face, and spoke conversationally to Jane.

  'The powder's fallen out of the priming pan. Happens a lot. Next time, check it before you mean to fire. You're probably right to carry out a threat like that, if you can.'

  The girl's face was white in the darkness. Was there the faintest hint of a passing smile on her lips? Not in her eyes, certainly.

  'Take her below,' said Gresham to Mannion, still speaking softly. 'She's cold. Jack, get back on the helm. And you…' he turned to the master. 'Drop that rubbish.'

  Mannion took Jane under his wing, and with an arm round her shoulders led her below, muttering something that no one else could hear. She went uncomplainingly, suddenly docile.

  She has courage, Gresham thought. Real courage. He was not used to it in a woman, other than the Queen of course, and he had never thought of her as a woman. But where
did Court ladies have a chance to grow or show courage? Perhaps only in fighting the mysteries and pain of childbirth.

  The master let go of his grip on the sailing master, who was in a swoon, and crumpled to the floor. With a quick nod to Edward and Dick, Gresham stepped back. Dick was potentially as unhinged as Jane. Some action would help him.

  Take him,' he said.

  'Over the side?' asked Jack, mildly.

  'Over the side,' confirmed Gresham. The master watched in horror as his sailing master was dragged to the rail and rather unceremoniously hurled into the sea.

  'He can't swim!' said the master stupidly.

  'Well, there's never been a better time to learn,' said Gresham casually. There was a faint splash, hardly audible amid the noise of the sails and the sea. 'Now, tell me. Where are we?'

  'We're bein' driven up the Channel. Shore's about two maybe three mile off. We're safe enough, unless the wind veers. Which it hardly ever does here.' Desperate to please. Now, at least. A short while ago he had been willing to sell Gresham to the highest bidder.

  'Final question. How many others of your crew were suborned?'

  'None of them, I swear!' The man was shouting now, pleading. 'It was jus' the sailing master and that look-out there.' Lowbrow was still strung to the mast, showing no signs of returning to consciousness. The flagon Mannion had crowned him with had not broken, despite the force of the blow, and could be heard rolling around the bottom of the crow's nest. 'It warn't my fault!' The toughness Gresham had noted on their first meeting had gone, replaced by a wheedling sycophancy. 'They threatened my family! They made me do it.'

  'Who is "they"?'asked Gresham, quietly.

  'Dunno. I really dunno. Small man, with a beard like… didn't talk at all, got his 'enchman to do it, man was a sailor… just wanted to know when we were goin' to sail. We had to let 'em board. Said they'd be no harm to anyone. All they wanted was the package they reckoned you were carrying. That's all.'