by James McGee
“Nice try, cully, but you’re dead. I’m going to break your skull, then I’m going to chop you up. The night soil men can take the pieces downriver. They’ll be burying your bones with the rest of the shit, come morning.”
Hawkwood couldn’t move. His right arm was paralysed. He was as helpless as a turtle on its back. He tried aiming a double-footed kick at Scully’s ankles, but it was a futile gesture. The chair hampered all movement.
Scully laughed contemptuously. “Thought you’d put up a fight, did you? Won’t do you no good.” Scully juggled the marlinespike in his hand. “Y’know, your mate was tougher than he looked. I spiked ’im hard. Thought ’e was dead when we put ’im in the boat. We were goin’ to take ’im upriver and dump ’is body, too. Couldn’t believe it when ’e went over the side. Figured ’e’d gone under for good when we couldn’t find him. I ’eard ’e actually made it to shore. Game sod!”
There was nowhere to run, nowhere to crawl.
“Rot in hell, Scully!”
Scully raised the marlinespike. Hawkwood turned his head away and waited for the blow.
The door crashed open. “SPIKERRRR!”
Scully whirled, the grin dying on his lips as the body hurtled towards him. The cutlass swept down. The sound of the blade carving into flesh was sickeningly loud.
Hawkwood looked on in horror as Weazle’s body hit the floor beside him. Blood was pumping from the gaping wound in the little man’s throat. The dwarf’s eyes were wide open, but Hawkwood doubted Weazle had even seen the blow that had struck him. A gag had been tied round Weazle’s mouth to prevent him from crying out a warning. As he watched, Hawkwood saw the light in the dwarf’s eyes flicker and die.
The speed and force of Jago’s shoulder-charge lifted Scully off his feet and pitched the seaman across the table. As the two men tumbled backward, the cutlass point struck the overhead lantern, sending it smashing against the bulkhead. Burning oil splashed over the unmade bunk, igniting mattress and blanket. Small flames began to lick the deck.
Jago got to his feet. His right hand was clamped around a heavy wooden cudgel.
“Cap’n!” He bent down and saw the chains. “Christ!”
“Nathaniel!” Hawkwood yelled the warning as Scully rose into view from behind the table, eyes blazing.
Jago stood up and turned. “I warned you, Scully! Harm him and you’d answer to me!”
Scully was still holding the sword. His left hand gripped the marlinespike like a dagger. “Jago, I’m going to rip your heart out!”
Scully came round the table and lunged forward. Jago leapt backwards, the sword blade missing his ribs by a hair’s breadth. Scully cursed and tried again. Recovering his balance, Jago countered quickly, scything the cudgel towards Scully’s head. Scully ducked. The club caught him on the shoulder. The big seaman bellowed in anger and retreated.
The fire from the broken lantern had begun to spread. The oil-soaked bedding was now well alight. The wooden bunk was also burning. The flames had traversed the deck and were lapping the bottom of the bulkhead and the underside of the door. The hem of Weazle’s coat had begun to smoulder.
Hawkwood struggled to get himself upright. Feeling was returning to his arm. Placing his boots against Weazle’s corpse for purchase, his first intention was to try and push himself clear of the expanding flames.
In the confined space, Scully and Jago circled each other warily. Scully slashed the cutlass towards Jago’s arm. Firelight danced along the blade. Jago swapped the cudgel to his other hand. Parrying the steel, he smashed the cudgel against Scully’s exposed wrist. Scully roared as the bone snapped. The sword fell from his nerveless fingers. Desperately, he jabbed the marlinespike towards Jago’s throat. Jago swatted the spike aside and followed through, ramming the end of the cudgel into Scully’s stomach. Air exploded from the mutineer’s lungs.
Jago didn’t hesitate. Kicking the marlinespike out of Scully’s hand, Jago drove the cudgel head hard against the seaman’s bald skull. Scully toppled sideways. His heel caught the table leg and he went down. Jago moved in. The seaman was on all fours, trying groggily to push himself off the deck. He had retrieved the marlinespike. Blood was streaming down Scully’s face. Jago stood over the kneeling mutineer, his face dispassionate. He raised the cudgel and brought it down for a second time. There was a noise like an axe splitting a melon in two. Scully’s carcass pitched forward and lay still. The marlinespike clattered across the deck.
Jago viewed the body with disgust. “Gutless piece of shit!”
Weazle’s hair and clothing were ablaze. Hawkwood could smell burning flesh. The pool of blood from Weazle’s throat was sizzling like bacon fat in the heat. Smoke filled the cabin. Shouts of alarm could be heard outside.
Hawkwood found his voice and nodded towards the dwarf’s pockets. “The key! Look for the bloody key!”
The search seemed to take for ever, until, with a grunt of satisfaction, Jago held the key aloft. Quickly, he knelt down, unlocked the manacles and hauled Hawkwood to his feet.
Hawkwood rubbed circulation into his wrists. The cabin was now well and truly alight. The fire had taken full control and the heat was ferocious. Hawkwood looked frantically for an escape route. “The window!”
He had his foot halfway over the sill when Jago said firmly, “Not on your bleedin’ life!”
“What?” Hawkwood gasped as he saw the big man draw back.
“I ain’t jumpin’,” Jago said.
“Christ, Nathaniel! The bloody ship’s on fire!”
Jago shook his head. “Take a look. It’s as black as a witch’s crotch down there. Can you see what you’re jumping into?”
The roar and crackle of the flames were getting louder. Hawkwood could hardly see the door for smoke. He stared at Jago in disbelief. “You jumped ship to avoid the provost, for God’s sake! What’s the difference?”
“Difference is I could see what I was doin’! It’s the middle of the bleeding night f’r Chris’sakes!”
“I don’t believe this!” Hawkwood swore, pulling his foot in. “All right, we’ll use the bloody door!”
He was halfway across the cabin when he paused. It was Jago’s turn to swear as Hawkwood stepped over Scully’s body and ran back to the table. The sergeant watched as Hawkwood appeared to thrust his hands into the fire. Then Hawkwood had the ebony baton in his fist and he was following Jago out of the door.
Entering the passage, Hawkwood was unprepared for the astonishing speed with which the fire had taken hold. Already the flames had travelled beyond the stern of the ship and into the sleeping areas. Hammocks and bunks were being abandoned in haste, though a number of the addicts, Hawkwood saw with amazement, were still stretched out, clutching their pipes, oblivious to the danger. Among the rest, blind panic had taken over. People were scrambling for safety. Pockets of fire, caused by upturned lamps and candles, had broken out all over the deck. No effort was being made to douse them. Everyone was too intent in finding an escape route and saving his or her own skin.
Hawkwood couldn’t see a damned thing. The back of his throat was raw. His eyes were streaming. It felt as if his lungs were being grilled. He sensed Jago moving ahead of him, pushing bodies aside, many of them half naked. A man howled in pain as he tripped and fell. His cry for help was cut off by the trampling feet of those coming up behind him.
The blaze was not only spreading upwards, it was moving down, into the bowels of the ship, destroying everything in its path. Burning hammocks were disintegrating and dropping through open hatchways, igniting material on the lower decks. A rising tide of humanity was fleeing for its life, climbing over everything in its path, like a rat pack in a drain. The Rat’s Nest was being devoured.
Smoke had fast become the main enemy. In the inky darkness below decks it was insinuating its deadly coils into every nook and cranny. The air was heavy with the pungent smell of burning hemp, tar and opium.
Hawkwood was thinking that he should have pushed Jago out of the stern window when
he’d had the chance. They might have suffered a broken arm or leg, but it would have been better than burning to death. Hawkwood knew they didn’t have much time. The air was being sucked from his lungs.
And then, mercifully, he felt Jago’s massive hand on his collar and he was being pulled upwards. They were at the bottom of the companionway and Jago’s strong arm was around his shoulder, guiding him up the stairs. Smoke was billowing out of the hatchway as Hawkwood clambered on to the deck and the night air, which before had seemed the foulest concoction, had never tasted so pure.
If the establishment had a name, Hawkwood could not recall it. He assumed it was just one of the many two-penny houses that existed within the river districts, where a sailor with money in his pocket could find himself a bed and a bottle, and a whore for the night.
They had been admitted to the house by a hard-faced woman, who had greeted Jago not with annoyance or surprise at the late visit, but with warmth and affection. After a murmured conversation, during which no introductions were made, the woman led them through to the small kitchen at the back of the building. Bidding them goodnight, she left, the sound of her footsteps fading as she made her way upstairs, candle held aloft.
Jago pointed to a chair. “Sit yourself down.”
Hawkwood watched as Jago raided the pantry, returning with a jug and two tin mugs. “Get some of this down you.”
“This from Boney’s cellars too?” Hawkwood asked, pouring from the jug and taking a sip. He winced as the brandy rinsed the split in his gum.
Jago grinned and raised his own mug. “Just like old times. You in the wars, and me lookin’ after you.”
Jago’s words, spoken with a grin, were like nails being driven into his heart.
The ex-sergeant frowned. “What?”
“I thought it was you, Nathaniel. I thought you’d fed me to Scully.”
“You talkin’ about the note?”
Hawkwood nodded. “I should have known. I’m sorry, Nathaniel. I was a bloody idiot.”
“Is that all? Bloody hell, Cap’n. If I’d been in your shoes, I’d have thought that too. Don’t go tearing yourself up. We been through too much together for me to hold that against you.”
“Which is why I should have known better,” Hawkwood said, shaking his head. “I was a damned fool.” Then the thought struck him. “So, how the hell did you know where I was? How did you know about the note?”
Jago shook his head. “Blind luck. I finally had a tickle from Lippy Adams over in Bell Lane, regardin’ the goods ’oisted from your coach ’old-up. Lippy owes me a favour or two. Couldn’t believe my luck when he told me it was Spiker who’d dropped the stuff off. Figured I’d get a message to you, using young Jenny. Would you credit it, she told me she’d passed one message on already. From bloody Spiker, no less! Which was when alarm bells started ringing. Mind you, Jen weren’t much use. Can’t read, can she? She couldn’t tell me what the bleedin’ note said!”
Hawkwood waited patiently. He knew Jago would get to the point eventually.
“Well, Spiker’s nowhere to be found—no big surprise. But then I gets to thinking that likely as not he can’t read nor write neither. Which means he must ’ave ’ad someone write ’is note for him. And in our neck o’ the woods there’s only one scribe who’d do that for ’im. Solly Linnett.”
“So, you had words with Solly.”
“That I did. In fact we ’ad an entire conversation. Very obligin’, is old Solly, given the right inducements. Told me everything I needed to know, and not a moment too soon, from what I could see.” Jago’s face split into another disarming grin. “Swear to God, I don’t know what you’d do without me. You’re not safe to be let out on your own.” The ex-sergeant’s expression turned suddenly serious. “Now, would you mind tellin’ me just what the bleedin’ ’ell’s goin’ on?”
“I’m not sure you’d believe me,” Hawkwood said wearily.
“Try me,” Jago offered. “We ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
So Hawkwood told him. Beginning with the coach robbery, through to the missing clockmaker, Warlock’s murder and William Lee and his submersible boat. By the time he’d finished, Hawkwood’s throat, though well lubricated with brandy, felt as if it had been stuffed with nettles. He suspected it had as much to do with the amount of smoke he had inhaled as with his telling of the tale.
“Bloody hell!” Jago said, after a lengthy silence. “You weren’t kiddin’, were you? So, what happens now?”
“We find Lee and stop him.”
“Whoa!” Jago said. “What do you mean, we? Jesus, you’ve got a bloody nerve!” The big man fell silent, then he sighed. “Christ, all right, I’m in. But how are we goin’ to stop the bugger if we don’t know where he is?”
“I don’t know,” Hawkwood said. “I’ve a feeling I’m missing something, something important.”
Both men stared into their drinks.
“Bleedin’ generals,” Jago said.
Hawkwood looked at him. “What?”
Jago sighed. “Bleedin’ generals—remember? What was it we used to say? They never tell you anything. They keep you in the dark and feed you on shit, like bloody mushrooms. Well, if you ask me, I reckon that’s what’s been happening here. I think someone up there ain’t tellin’ you the full story. I reckon once you find out what it is they ain’t been tellin’ you, you’ll be able to figure it out.”
“They should have made you a bloody general,” Hawkwood said.
16
Hawkwood grinned at the big man’s discomfort. “No need to look so worried, Nathaniel. You’re safe. You’re with me.”
“If you say so.” Despite the reassurance, Nathaniel Jago did not look like a man convinced.
But then at two o’clock in the morning, in the Chief Magistrate’s chambers at Bow Street, Hawkwood thought with amusement, who could blame him?
A bleary-eyed Ezra Twigg had answered the door. The little clerk, clad incongruously in a calf-length nightshirt and tasselled cap, had taken one look at Hawkwood’s smokeblackened clothes and bruised face and the big man standing beside him, and let them into the house without uttering a single word.
“I need to speak with him, Ezra,” Hawkwood said. “Is he up?”
“Course he’s up,” the clerk grumbled. “Still dressed, too. Doesn’t need any sleep, that one. Not like some of us,” he added tartly.
As Twigg padded off, muttering dire threats of retribution, Hawkwood led the way upstairs.
Did the Chief Magistrate ever go to bed? Hawkwood wondered. When James Read appeared, shadowed by the now hastily attired Ezra Twigg, he looked as well turned out and as urbane as ever, and not at all put out by the lateness of the hour.
“Good morning, Hawkwood.” James Read paused as his eyes took in both men. “Ah, the redoubtable Sergeant Jago, I presume?”
Jago shot Hawkwood a startled glance.
“Come now, Sergeant,” Read said. “No need to be alarmed. Your description and reputation precedes you.” Read looked Hawkwood up and down. “I suspect I’m going to regret asking this, but why do you look like something that has been trampled by a squad of dragoons?”
“I’ve been having words with one of our highwaymen.”
The Chief Magistrate brightened instantly. “Have you indeed? Capital!”
“Not really,” Hawkwood said. “He’s dead. Nathaniel killed him.”
James Read’s face fell. “That is most unfortunate.” The magistrate peered questioningly towards Jago. “His death was unavoidable, I take it?”
“He’d have killed me, if he’d had his way,” Hawkwood said. “Nathaniel saved my life.”
“In that case, Sergeant, we’re much obliged to you.” Read moved towards his desk. “So, who was he?”
“His name was Scully. Ex-navy, which explains his lack of horse sense. He was the one who shot agent Ramillies. He and his partner were working for William Lee.” Hawkwood paused. “We met him, too.”
It was almost comical the way
the Chief Magistrate froze in mid stride. “You met Lee? He’s here?” Suddenly Read checked, looking first at Jago then at Hawkwood. His eyes darted a warning.
“Sergeant Jago knows, sir. I told him everything.”
The Chief Magistrate cocked an eyebrow. “Did you indeed? That was rather presumptuous of you.”
“Nathaniel did save my life.”
James Read’s severe expression did not waver. “Yes, so you said.”
“I thought he should know what he’s got himself into.”
“Quite.” The Chief Magistrate did not speak for several moments. Finally, he broke the uncomfortable silence. “As you may have gathered, er…Sergeant, I’m well aware of your—how shall I put it?—current activities. I’m equally familiar with your background and your connection with Officer Hawkwood. It’s for that reason, and due to your actions this night, I’m prepared to abide by his commendation. You’ve become privy to highly sensitive information, however. Do I have your word of honour you’ll not speak of these matters to anyone outside these walls?”
Jago looked at Hawkwood then back at the Chief Magistrate. The ex-sergeant drew himself erect. “You have my word, sir.”
Read met the promise with a curt nod. “Very well.” The Chief Magistrate took his seat. “All right, tell me about William Lee. You’re certain it was he?”
Hawkwood nodded. “Turns out I’d already met him, though I didn’t know it at the time. He was passing himself off as Lord Mandrake’s house guest, probably as a means of taking a sly look at me, the cocky bastard. Anyway, the message from the girl was a ruse. Nathaniel didn’t send it. Lee did. He wants me dead. It seems I’ve become a nuisance. They used the girl because Scully knew I’d recognize her.” Hawkwood hesitated. “Scully killed Warlock, too.”
A shadow passed over James Read’s face. He listened in silence as Hawkwood recounted the details. When the Runner had finished, the magistrate sighed heavily. “I see. Then it appears we’re doubly indebted to you, Sergeant. You’ve saved us the expense of a hanging.” To Hawkwood, he added, “You say you still don’t know the identity of his accomplice?”
