Killigrew’s Run

by Jonathan Lunn

  ‘What?’ spluttered Thornton.

  ‘That your notion of keeping us spirits up, Wes?’ Endicott asked with a crooked grin.

  ‘Keeping our spirits up is one thing, but we’ve got to face facts.’

  ‘But… they can’t!’ protested Thornton. ‘Sir Charles Napier knows we’re here; that’s why he sent your Commander Killigrew to negotiate our release.’

  ‘Fat lot o’ good ’e’s done,’ Fuller added sourly.

  ‘I reckon Old Charlie picked Mr Killigrew for this mission because he was afraid something like this might happen,’ said Molineaux.

  ‘Don’t he like Killigrew, then?’

  ‘It’s not that; he knows that Mr Killigrew’s got skills other than negotiation.’

  ‘Well, Old Mother O’Leary’s boy isn’t waiting around for some bastard Ivan to put a bullet in the back of his head,’ said one of the Milenions. He threw his shoulder at the door. He was a big, strong lad, but the door was bigger and stronger.

  ‘You’re wasting your time,’ said Ned Yorath.

  Hughes turned to Molineaux. ‘You can pick locks, can’t you, Wes?’

  ‘Sure. But that jigger’s padlocked on the other side, and they took my betties.’

  ‘What about the window?’

  Molineaux crossed to the wall below it and got down on all fours. ‘Stand on my back and see if you can bend the bars, Ben.’

  Iles complied, but after several seconds of grunting and straining he was forced to admit defeat. He stepped down off Molineaux’s back. ‘’Sno good: they’se too firmly cemented in. Now, if I ’ad a file, maybe…’

  ‘Brilliant!’ said Yorath. ‘I’ll ask the guard, shall I? See if he’ll bring us one.’

  ‘Stow it, Ned,’ ordered Uren. ‘Squabbling amongst ourselves won’t do us a blind bit of good.’

  ‘Come on, Wes!’ pleaded Endicott. ‘This is your field of expertise. Didn’t you once tell us your mate Foxy could break out of any gaff? He taught you everything you knew, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yur, but I don’t think he was ever a prisoner of the Tsar…’ Molineaux looked about the cell, searching for inspiration. He stared at the bucket. Then he stood up, crossed to the door and peered through the grille. There was no sign of any sentry, but he knew there would be one not far off. ‘Sing, lads.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Vowles. ‘What do we want to sing for?’

  ‘Keep our spirits up, of course.’

  ‘I think Wes has got an idea,’ said Endicott. ‘Now, how about a rousing chorus of “The Girl I Left Behind Me”? Hearty as you like.’ Endicott began singing, and Iles, Hughes, and Vowles joined in the refrain while the Milenions watched them in disbelief. Molineaux walked across to the slop pail, kicked it on its side, and stamped on it, reducing it to its constituent staves.

  ‘Brilliant!’ said Vowles. ‘Now what are we going to crap into?’

  ‘Your kissing trap, if you don’t put a sock in it,’ Molineaux told him. ‘Stretch out your arm.’

  Vowles sighed and lifted one arm. Molineaux caught hold of his cuff, and with one yank he jerked the sleeve clean off the jacket. He grinned. ‘Pusser’s slops, eh? Typical Brummagen rubbish.’

  ‘Oi! What did you want to go an’ do that for?’

  ‘You’ll see. Anyone need to pump ship?’

  The others exchanged glances. ‘Not right now, Wes,’ said Hughes. ‘Besides, you broke the bucket…’

  ‘Come on, lads. Surely one of you must have a full bladder? Think of fountains playing musically; water flowing from a pump; cataracts tumbling down rocky hillsides; great cascades of water gushing through narrow gorges, splashing liquidly over rocks with a merry tinkling sound; vast rivers in flood…’

  Sweat broke out on Vowles’ brow. He bit his lip, then stood up and clutched himself, hopping from one foot to the other. ‘Oh Christ, Wes! Now you’ve been and gone and done it! And after you broke the bucket too…’

  Molineaux tossed the sleeve into one corner of the room. ‘Do it on that.’

  As peculiar as the request sounded, Vowles was in no state to argue. He fumbled frenetically with the buttons on his flies and relieved himself over the sleeve with a gasp of satisfaction.

  ‘That’s it, Andy. Make sure you spread it all over, get it soaked through and through.’

  ‘Has Wes finally gone out of his head?’ asked Hughes.

  Endicott shrugged. ‘I dunno what he’s after, but you can be sure he’s got a plan. Watch and learn, lads, watch and learn.’

  Vowles shook off the drips and tucked John Thomas back in bed.

  Molineaux took a deep breath. ‘All right, lads: now comes the unpleasant part. If we ever get out of this alive, I hope you all remember the sacrifice I’m about to make. Just promise me you’ll never speak of it.’

  The others exchanged bewildered glances, but all became clear when Molineaux picked up Vowles’ dripping, urine-soaked sleeve.

  ‘Eurgh!’ protested Yorath.

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Molineaux. ‘It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it. My plan, my hands. Red, make yourself useful and stand against the wall so I can cool out the window.’

  Hughes complied, without much show of enthusiasm, and clasped his hands to make a step-up. Molineaux scrambled up to stand on his shoulders. The bottom of the window was level with the ground outside: even as he peered through, a dozen booted feet marched past. Molineaux waited until the tramp of boots had faded, and wrapped the sopping sleeve around two of the bars, tying it tightly in a knot. ‘Hand me up one of them bits of wood, Seth. The longest you can find.’

  Endicott picked up one of the staves of the broken bucket and passed it up. Molineaux slid it through the loop of the sleeve and began to twist it. Each turn of the stave tightened the sleeve’s grip on the bars.

  ‘It’ll never work,’ snorted Vowles.

  ‘You’m wrong,’ said Iles. ‘It be workin’.’

  ‘Jesus!’ said Uren. ‘It is too!’

  ‘Mad, am I?’ Molineaux asked with a grin.

  Then the plank snapped in two and he fell off Hughes’ shoulders, sprawling on the flagstones.

  ‘You were saying?’ asked Vowles.

  ‘Rotten!’ Molineaux spat in disgust.

  ‘Of course!’ scoffed Vowles. ‘It’s a slop bucket. What did you expect? You know what’s really funny? You got your hands covered in my piddle… for nothing!’

  ‘Shurrup, Andy,’ snarled Endicott. ‘At least Wes is trying. I don’t hear you coming up with any clever notions.’

  A silence fell over the prisoners as they pondered their fate. Molineaux was beaten, and if there was one thing he could not bear, it was to be beaten. He sat down with his back to the wall, racking his brains for inspiration and massaging his stockinged feet. You’re a Henson, his mother had always taught him. You can do anything.

  He frowned, fingering the woollen thread of his socks. Then he ran a finger over the mortar between the granite blocks that formed the walls of the cell.

  It could work.

  No. It would work.

  ‘Lads?’

  ‘What now?’ Hughes demanded impatiently.

  ‘We’re getting out of here.’

  ‘Aye, right,’ snorted Vowles.

  Molineaux plucked one of the brass buttons off his jacket and used it to scrape at the mortar.

  ‘We’re going to tunnel out?’ scoffed Vowles. ‘Brilliant! It only took the cove in that book fourteen years, and he had a spoon.’

  As Molineaux scraped at the mortar, a small pile of mortar grains formed on the floor at the base of the wall: not much, but it was a start. ‘Seth?’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Come over here.’

  Endicott crawled across to join him.

  ‘I want you to scrape at the mortar with this button.’

  ‘I hate to agree with Andy, Wes, but he’s right: it’ll take for ever…’

  ‘We’re not tunnelling out. We’re going through that window. See this little mound of du
st I’ve made here? That’s what I’m after.’

  ‘What do you want with it?’

  ‘You’ll see. Trust me.’ Molineaux took off his sock. He pulled at it, but his mother was too good at knitting: he had to bite into the fabric to snap the woollen threads.

  ‘We’re all hungry, Wes,’ said Vowles. ‘But surely if we wait long enough, the Ivans are bound to bring us something to eat?’

  ‘Borsch, or Wes’s sweaty socks,’ said Endicott. ‘Talk about being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea!’

  The woollen thread finally snapped, and once Molineaux had got started the rest came easily. He unpicked his sock until he had nothing more than a dozen lengths of woollen thread, a few inches long. He took one of the threads and dipped it in the puddle in the corner of the room where Vowles had relieved himself over his sleeve. Then he crossed back to where Endicott was making a tiny pile of mortar grains.

  ‘That’s good, Seth. Now make another pile further down.’ Molineaux plucked a couple more buttons from his jacket and tossed them to Hughes and Iles. ‘Get to work, lads. I want mortar dust, and lots of it.’

  ‘Totally off his head,’ was Vowles’ diagnosis.

  Molineaux took the urine-soaked thread and dragged it through the tiny mound of mortar dust until it was coated all over. Then he laid the thread to one side, picked up another, and repeated the process. After half an hour of scraping, dipping and dragging, he had two dozen threads of wool, coated in mortar dust.

  ‘It’d be nice to know where all this is leading you,’ said Thornton.

  ‘Out of here, with any luck.’ Molineaux left the threads to dry, and sat down with his back to the wall, tipping his bonnet forward over his eyes. ‘Let’s have a doss, lads. I’ve a feeling tonight’s going to be a long one.’

  * * *

  Killigrew was awoken by Charlton gently slapping him on the cheek. The commander raised a hand to his head. ‘Who hit me?’

  ‘No one. Hate to be the one to break it to you, Killigrew, but I’m afraid you fainted again.’

  Killigrew grimaced and glanced around the cell. Dahlstedt was hunched in one corner: there was no sign of Bullivant. ‘Where’s his lordship?’

  ‘They took him a few minutes ago.’

  ‘Heard any shots since then?’

  ‘No. Why? Surely you’re not suggesting they’d…? They couldn’t!’

  ‘They could and they would!’ growled Dahlstedt. ‘The Russians don’t hold their nobility in the same awe you English do. They think nothing of executing their own aristocrats if they think they’re a threat to the Tsar. You think they’re going to be any more concerned about an English aristocrat? The Russian secret police make people disappear all the time. We’re just the latest victims of the White Terror.’

  ‘But they wouldn’t dare!’ protested Charlton. ‘Dirty Charlie knows we’re here… and the Russians must know he knows. There’d be an uproar back in Britain if news got out that Lord Bullivant and his family had been executed in cold blood, along with three British officers and a score of seamen.’

  ‘The Russians will just deny it ever happened,’ Dahlstedt said wearily.

  ‘No one would believe them.’

  ‘I expect the Russians must be used to no one believing their bare-faced lies by now,’ opined Killigrew. ‘What can our government do? Declare war on Russia?’

  They heard footsteps on the stairs outside, and presently the door was opened and Lord Bullivant thrust through, adjusting his collar and lapels with an aggressive thrust of his jaw.

  Lieutenant Kizheh indicated Dahlstedt. ‘You next.’

  The Finn rose to his feet. ‘Well, gentlemen, see you after the war.’

  ‘Don’t let the bastards grind you down, Sten,’ said Killigrew.

  Dahlstedt smiled sadly and marched out. The door was slammed and locked behind him.

  Lord Bullivant shot his cuffs. ‘Damned impertinence! I’m going to have some pretty sharp things to say about that feller when I get out of here. He’s an absolute disgrace!’

  ‘If you get out of here,’ said Charlton.

  ‘What feller?’ asked Killigrew.

  ‘Colonel something or other. Russki chap. Speaks good English, though. Impudent swine tried to get me to sign a confession.’

  ‘Confession to what?’

  ‘Espionage, would you believe? Me, the thirteenth Viscount Bullivant, accused of something as low and grubby as spying! He’s got a nerve!’

  ‘You didn’t sign it, did you?’ asked Killigrew.

  ‘Certainly not! What do you take me for?’

  ‘Thank Christ for that! Did he torture you?’

  Bullivant stared at him. ‘Of course not! He wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that, my lord.’

  ‘You know what he said? He said he was going to give my daughter to his men… “to amuse themselves”, as he put it… if I didn’t sign. The man’s a disgrace to the uniform!’

  ‘From what Dahlstedt’s been saying about the Third Section, I don’t think it’s possible to be a disgrace to that particular uniform,’ said Killigrew.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ protested Charlton. ‘He said he was going to give Miss Maltravers to his men, and you still refused to sign? Jesus Christ, my lord! It’s only a bit of paper! You’d sacrifice her honour for that?’

  ‘Ah-ha!’ Bullivant said triumphantly. ‘I knew he was bluffing. He wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘You were quite right not to sign, my lord,’ said Killigrew. ‘Oh, not because he was bluffing – I’m sure he wasn’t – but you sign that confession, and we’re all dead men and women. And I dare say your daughter would still be used cruelly beforehand.’

  ‘But… this is ludicrous! We were merely on a pleasure cruise! You’re not suggesting they’d kill us, for that? This is all a ghastly mistake!’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Killigrew. ‘And the Russian government would rather execute an entire aristocratic family – not to mention three British officers and a score of seamen – than confess to making a mistake. Too embarrassing to admit that they captured a civilian yacht, fired on a cutter sailing under a flag of truce and murdered a British officer in cold blood,’ said Killigrew. ‘So they’ve got to dispose of the witnesses.’

  ‘Us, you mean,’ Charlton said glumly.

  Another ten minutes passed before Lieutenant Kizheh returned with Dahlstedt. The door was opened and Dahlstedt fell through on to the floor. Charlton and Killigrew rolled him on his back, and saw that the pilot’s face was a mask of blood.

  ‘Oh, Jesus!’ gasped Charlton. ‘His hands! Look at his hands!’

  Dahlstedt’s hands had been smashed to a bloody pulp. The pilot bared his teeth in a grimace of pain, revealing that one had been knocked out. ‘He guessed I was Finnish,’ he muttered.

  ‘You next,’ Kizheh told Killigrew.

  Chapter 8

  Nekrasoff

  5.00 p.m.–8.30 p.m., Thursday 17 August

  Kizheh and the two guards led Killigrew to the courtyard, and then back into the keep via a second door nearer the gate. Most of the interior of the keep was taken up with a large and airy chamber, with light entering through crumbling windows on three of the four walls. This must have been the great hall of the castle once, but there was no sign of its former medieval splendour now, just bare granite walls where rich tapestries would have hung in days of yore. A wooden staircase up one side led to a gallery that ran round the walls above them. There was a raised dais at one end, where a dark-eyed man in an ornate sky-blue uniform sat behind a table.

  Kizheh and the two guards withdrew, closing the door behind them, revealing another man standing against the wall beside the door, stripped to his shirtsleeves. Although not tall, he was broad-shouldered and bull-necked. Killigrew guessed the man was not present for his sparkling repartee: he had blood on his shirt, doubtless a souvenir from Dahlstedt’s interrogation. He jerked his head towards the man on the dais, indicating that Killigrew should approach.
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br />   Killigrew’s feet clacked unevenly as he walked across the bare wooden floor, still limping with the heel gone from one of his boots. The officer seated behind the table looked up from his papers as he ascended the steps leading to the dais.

  ‘Ah, Commander Killigrew. Permit me to introduce myself: I am Colonel Radimir Fokavich Nekrasoff, of the Third Section of His Imperial Majesty’s Chancery.’ His English was flawless, spoken in smooth and urbane tones. ‘Do forgive the melodramatic surroundings: I’m afraid these were the only premises available for me to set up my temporary headquarters.’ He rose to his feet and leaned over the table to proffer a kid-gloved hand.

  Killigrew folded his arms.

  Nekrasoff looked pained. ‘Oh dear,’ he drawled sardonically. ‘It’s not going to be one of those interviews, is it? I was rather hoping we could keep this civilised.’

  ‘As civilised as your interrogation of Herre Dahlstedt was?’

  ‘Herre Dahlstedt is a Finn: a Russian citizen, aiding the enemies of the Tsar, and therefore a traitor.’ Nekrasoff indicated the other chair. ‘Do take a seat.’

  Killigrew hitched up the hems of his ragged trousers before sitting down and crossing one leg over the other.

  ‘You, on the other hand, are a British officer captured in war—’

  ‘Illegally attacked while sailing under a flag of truce.’

  ‘So you say. But the men in the battery that fired upon your cutter all deny that you were displaying any such flag.’

  ‘There’s a surprise. What time is it?’

  Nekrasoff took out his fob watch and glanced at it. ‘Just after five. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I’m supposed to report back on board the Ramillies by six this evening. If I don’t, Captain Crichton’s going to sail up the inlet and bombard Ekenäs.’

  ‘Oh, I doubt it. You see, I know as well as you that even if the Ramillies could get past the chain across Vitsand Sound, she’s too deep-draughted to sail up the inlet. No, perhaps he’ll send a second cutter to investigate. This one will be allowed to reach Ekenäs, where an officer will greet the crew to inform them of the demise of yourself and your men when your boat was blown out of the water by one of our batteries. A tragic waste of life, but that’s what happens when you fail to display your flag of truce adequately.’