Killigrew’s Run

by Jonathan Lunn

  ‘We’d best get back to the others,’ Killigrew murmured to Hughes.

  The seaman nodded and the two of them were about to turn away when they heard a crackling amongst the foliage as the Russians hauling on the log appeared through the trees behind them. Killigrew and Hughes ducked down amongst the bracken, waiting for the Russians to pass.

  * * *

  Pechorin’s matrosy beached the gig and the count got out with Nekrasoff and crossed to where Captain Tikhon Maksimich Aleksandrei sat at a table in the open air with some of his officers, discussing how the repairs on the Ivan Strashnyi were progressing.

  Aleksandrei was a heavily-built man with salt-and-pepper hair, the eyes beneath his bristling eyebrows slightly slanted. Of peasant stock, he enjoyed the unheard of distinction of having been promoted from before the mast – back in the days of the war with France – and he wore the Cross of St George on his rumpled uniform. No two officers in the Imperial Navy could have had less in common than Pechorin and Aleksandrei, and yet they were old friends: the captain did not have a chip on his shoulder about his humble origins, and when the count had served on board his first command as a michmani, Aleksandrei had learned that if a commoner could be just as good a man as an aristocrat, then so too could an aristocrat be as good as a commoner.

  As soon as Pechorin approached, Aleksandrei rose to his feet and, instead of returning Pechorin’s salute, seized him in a bear hug.

  ‘Mikhail Yurievich! It is good to see you.’ He turned to one of his officers. ‘You see, Fedorinchik? Did I not tell you Count Pechorin would not abandon us?’

  Pechorin snapped his fingers at two of his gig’s crew, who lifted a hamper out of the boat and carried it across to the table. ‘I thought this might make your sojourn on this island a little more tolerable,’ Pechorin explained. If the Atalanta had not had to pursue the Milenion, she would have been sailing back to Jurassö this morning anyway. The buckles were unstrapped and the count flicked back the lid with the toe of one boot to reveal the contents: cold meat, white bread, butter, eggs, beluga caviar and other delicacies, along with a couple of bottles of champagne. ‘Ekenäs is not St Petersburg, but my valet found an excellent épicerie fine down an alley in the town.’

  Aleksandrei took out one of the champagne bottles and studied the label. ‘The ’forty-six vintage! You never cease to amaze me, Mikhail Yurievich.’ He handed both bottles to his steward. ‘Put these in the stream to cool.’

  ‘We’ve also brought the supplies and materials you requested,’ Pechorin told him. ‘My men are bringing them ashore now.’

  ‘What about Lord Bullivant and his friends?’ Chernyovsky growled impatiently.

  Pechorin regarded him with amusement. ‘What’s the matter, Starshina? Are you afraid they’ll run away?’

  Aleksandrei cast a glance at Nekrasoff and Chernyovsky. ‘You keep some very dubious company today, Count! A Cossack starshina, and a colonel of the Third Section… has this bastard come to arrest me for almost losing the Ivan Strashnyi, hey?’

  Smiling, Pechorin shook his head. ‘Captain Aleksandrei, may I be permitted to present Colonel Radimir Fokavich Nekrasoff and Starshina Chernyovsky? Colonel Nekrasoff is the man who permitted Lord Bullivant and his family to escape—’

  ‘I was not the one dallying with a woman on board the Milenion when Commander Killigrew recaptured it,’ Nekrasoff snorted mildly.

  Aleksandrei waved him to silence. ‘So my lookouts were right! It was the Milenion they saw you engage off the west coast of this island.’

  Pechorin flushed, still hot with shame at having been defeated by an unarmed yacht, no matter how temporarily. ‘You saw that?’

  ‘My men did. They also report seeing some men and women landing from the yacht shortly before you blew it to pieces with your bow chaser. I’ve already sent some men to hunt them down: it won’t take long to find them on an island as small as this.’

  * * *

  ‘Looks as though the place is deserted.’ Thornton was about to step from among the trees when Molineaux stretched out an arm to bar his path.

  ‘“Looks” and “is” ain’t the same thing, cully.’ The petty officer motioned for him to stay out of sight, and watched the place patiently. He was in no hurry to walk into a potential trap.

  The ironworks were not large: a long, windowless wooden building with half a dozen coarse-brick chimneys rising up from the slate-tiled roof at regular intervals; a few outbuildings; a low hut with a shingled roof that probably served as the workers’ barracks; and a dilapidated wooden jetty rotting at the water’s edge.

  ‘I’ll take a closer look,’ Molineaux told Thornton when a quarter of an hour had passed without any sign of life. ‘You wait here until I signal you.’

  ‘Want me to keep you covered?’ Thornton unslung the shotgun he was carrying.

  Molineaux shook his head. ‘If I get into trouble, you just get back to where the others are waiting and tell them what happened. Mr Killigrew will know what to do.’

  Thornton shrugged. Molineaux broke cover, walking across the open space to the workers’ barracks. He wiped his neck and the underside of his jaw with his neckerchief. The wind had died and the air was oppressively hot: they would have a storm before the day was out, unless he knew nothing about the weather. Reaching the barracks, he peered through a broken window. Mildewed mattresses lay on the rusting iron bedsteads, and a few shards of broken pottery were scattered across the wooden floorboards. The place was clearly deserted, but Molineaux checked the other buildings anyway before waving Thornton across from the trees. The two of them entered the iron foundry and surveyed the interior with jaded eyes. Someone had taken a sledgehammer to the pyramid-shaped brick furnaces beneath each of the chimneys, and the hot-blast stoves and pig beds had been smashed up. Some storage bins contained a few scraps of iron ore or coke, and here and there a skimming ladle was abandoned on a floor spattered with bird droppings. As soon as Molineaux and Thornton entered, the petty officer heard rats scampering for cover.

  ‘Not exactly ship-shape and Bristol fashion, is it?’ he said.

  ‘The Russians must’ve slighted the place to stop us from using it.’

  ‘They could’ve saved themselves the bother. I don’t reckon an island as small as this has enough iron in it for the navy to bother with the effort of seizing it.’

  They were about to emerge into the sunlight from the door at the far end when Molineaux saw a matros with a musket slung over one shoulder emerge from the trees less than fifty yards away. Thornton had seen him too, and was about to shoot him when Molineaux knocked the shotgun’s barrels up. He pushed the captain out of sight before the Russian saw either of them.

  ‘You want to bring every Russki seaman on this island running?’ hissed the petty officer.

  ‘How many Russki seamen can there be on an island as small as this?’

  ‘I dunno, but I’ll bet that one ain’t alone.’

  A matter of seconds proved Molineaux right, when another matros emerged from the trees, then another and another, until a dozen of them stood there.

  ‘This island’s too small and insignificant to justify a garrison,’ said Thornton. ‘This must be a shore party from the Atalanta.’

  ‘I knew it was too clush when they sailed off without putting a search party ashore,’ groaned Molineaux.

  The NCO leading the matrosy gave orders to his men, pointing around the ironworks. The men split up to search the place, two of them walking straight towards the foundry. Molineaux tapped Thornton on the shoulder and indicated the furnaces. The captain nodded, and the two of them ran across and ducked down beneath the most intact of the furnaces moments before the two Russians entered.

  One of the Russians immediately produced a cigarette and lit it with a match, taking a deep drag before passing it to his comrade, who took a thankful puff. Neither of them seemed to be in any hurry to reach the far end of the building, enjoying their crafty smoke while they could, but at the same time they did not seem
intent on making a very thorough examination of the place, otherwise they would have glanced behind the furnaces. Nevertheless, it was a tense and uncomfortable couple of minutes for Molineaux and Thornton, who moved round the back of the furnace to stay out of sight of the matrosy as they made their way to the door at the far end. At last, the matros whose turn it was to hold the cigarette took a final puff, pinched off the end, and stowed it away inside his forage cap before stepping out through the door, followed by his comrade.

  Molineaux and Thornton ran across to the door in time to see the matrosy reconvene outside the barracks. Another dozen matrosy emerged from the trees, their officer shouting orders.

  ‘Jesus!’ breathed Thornton. ‘The island’s crawling with Russkis!’ The matrosy spread out into a skirmishing line and headed into the trees behind the foundry.

  ‘It looks as though they’re quartering the island in search of something,’ mused Thornton.

  ‘Yur,’ Molineaux agreed glumly. ‘Us!’

  ‘We must get back to the others and warn them.’

  ‘Plummy notion. Just one problem: they’re between us and the others now.’

  * * *

  When Killigrew and Hughes rejoined the others in the forest, the commander had barely had time to tell them about the Ivan Strashnyi when Iles, who had been on lookout duty, came running back through the trees from the east.

  ‘Ivans coming this way, sir!’ he reported breathlessly. ‘Skirmishing line; they’ll be here in a couple of minutes.’

  ‘We’d best get moving, then,’ said Bullivant.

  Killigrew stared at him. ‘Where to?’

  The viscount rolled his eyes. ‘God save us, man! If the Russians are coming from that direction—’ he pointed to the east – ‘might I suggest we head in that direction?’ He pointed to the west. ‘And let’s look sharp about it!’

  ‘And get bottled up at the west end of the island?’ Killigrew pointed out patiently.

  ‘We could hide in the lighthouse there,’ said Charlton.

  ‘Capital thinking, Mr Charlton! The Russians are quartering the island for us; I hardly think they’re going to neglect to look in the lighthouse, do you?’

  The assistant surgeon hung his head.

  ‘Well, we have to do something,’ said Lady Bullivant. ‘Or are you suggesting we wait here until we’re captured?’

  Killigrew had to admit she had a point. He looked around for a solution, but saw only trees… and then realised he had not seen the trees for the wood. ‘Up the trees, quick!’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Lady Bullivant exclaimed in disbelief.

  ‘It’s our only chance! Mr Uren, be so good as to help her ladyship into that tree… Fuller, perhaps you could do the same for Miss Maltravers? Attwood, can you make sure Nicholls—’

  ‘I’m perfectly capable of climbing a tree without help!’ the maid protested indignantly when the steward tried to take her by the arm. And she quickly proved it too, scrambling up the trunk of one of the pines hardly any less nimbly than Hughes, Iles, O’Leary and Yorath. ‘No peeking up my skirt neither!’ she added tartly.

  ‘You too, Minty,’ Killigrew told Miss Maltravers.

  ‘But… we’ll be seen!’

  ‘Perhaps,’ admitted Killigrew. ‘Perhaps not. One thing I do know, we’ll be spotted for certain if all of us try to hide here on the ground. Get up as high amongst the boughs as you dare!’

  ‘Eh, begging your pardon, sir, but I don’t think I’m in any fettle to go climbing trees,’ said Endicott. ‘And as for Mr Dahlstedt here…’ He indicated the pilot’s bandaged hands.

  Killigrew had not forgotten. ‘Charlton, help me drag Endicott over to the hollow between the roots of that tree. We’ll cover them over with bracken. You lie next to Endicott, Herre Dahlstedt.’

  ‘You lie still, sir,’ Endicott told the Finn as the two of them huddled beneath the tree. ‘We’ll be all right, you’ll see.’

  Killigrew and Charlton tore up some ferns and laid them across the two wounded men as quickly as they could, constantly glancing in the direction of the approaching Russians. After a minute, they stood back to admire their handiwork.

  ‘That’ll fool the Russians,’ Charlton commented drily, ‘if they’re blind.’

  Killigrew grimaced. The assistant surgeon had a point: the covering of ferns looked about as natural as the Great Wall of China, and almost as obvious. Telling himself it was only obvious because he was looking for it was no consolation, given that the Russians would be looking for it too.

  He heard shouting through the trees, the Russians in the skirmishing line calling out to one another as they advanced. Killigrew had run out of time: nothing for it but to scramble up the nearest tree and pray for a miracle. His hopes were not high: they had benefited from more than their fair share of miracles in the twelve hours since they had broken out of Raseborg Castle. He made himself comfortable on a bough on the opposite side of the trunk from where Uren stood on a branch, hugging the bole of the tree with his arms.

  He was just in time: the foliage on the trees was thick enough to help hide them from the Russians, but through it he could see the skirmishing line approach, the matrosy marching through the undergrowth with their heads bowed. It was a phenomenon he had learned playing hide and seek as a boy in Cornwall: a man searching for another rarely bothered to look up for his quarry, even in woods, and that knowledge had served him well before now.

  He caught his breath as one of the Russians passed directly beneath the bough where he perched, and then moved on… straight towards Endicott and Dahlstedt.

  Chapter 20

  To the Lighthouse

  11.30 a.m.–10.00 p.m., Friday 18 August

  Ten yards, nine yards, eight yards… surely the Russian must see them; and even if he could not, he was about to trip over them. Killigrew placed one hand on the hilt of his sword, wondering what the hell he was going to do with it if Endicott and Dahlstedt were discovered. His heart thudded in his chest: if they were discovered, all he could do was let the Russians take them – and murder them, in all probability – because to jump down from the trees would only reveal the hiding place of the others.

  The Russian below was only five feet from the two wounded sailors now, brushing the bracken with the blade of the bayonet on his musket. Four feet, three… he stopped abruptly, and to Killigrew it seemed he was staring right at the bracken that covered the two men.

  He’s seen them… he must have seen them…

  Attwood dropped from a tree some distance away. The Russians did not see him fall, but they heard the thump of his boots hitting the soil, and the rustle of the undergrowth as he set off running through the trees. Killigrew’s first thought was that the cook must have panicked: then he realised Attwood was deliberately distracting the Russians, trying to draw their attention away from the others.

  It was one of the bravest deeds Killigrew had ever seen: an act of pure self-sacrifice; sacrifice, because it could only have one consequence. Seeing him haring off through the trees, one of the Russians shouted a cry of warning. Another raised his musket to his shoulder and fired. Attwood let out a sob and twisted, sprawling amongst the bracken. The Russian skirmishing line broke as several of the men ran across to where Attwood had fallen. His body was hidden from Killigrew by the ferns, but he saw an NCO standing over the place where the cook had fallen, a pistol in his hand, barking out a terse question in Russian. He took a step forward, and Killigrew heard Attwood scream in agony… Jesus, the bastard was torturing him, treading on the wound!

  Attwood spat an expletive at the NCO, who fired his pistol, once, before spitting on the corpse at his feet.

  Araminta gasped in shock.

  The Russian who had been on the verge of discovering Endicott and Dahlstedt had now moved away from where they lay to stand directly beneath her tree. He glanced up, eyes and mouth widening in shock as he saw her and Fuller perched amongst the boughs overhead.

  Fuller dropped from the tree, clasp knife
in hand, and fell on the Russian, knocking him down amongst the bracken. Landing on top of him, he stabbed frantically at the man’s throat. Then he lay still on the Russian’s corpse not even daring to look up to see if he had been spotted; if he had, they were all dead.

  But the rest of the Russians were all gazing across at the NCO who had murdered Attwood. He ordered two of his men to pick up the cook’s body, and looked about, but did not notice that one of his men had disappeared. While the two men carrying Attwood’s corpse headed off to their right, in the direction of the lagoon where the Ivan Strashnyi lay, the NCO ordered the rest of the skirmishing line forward, and they continued through the trees.

  ‘Everyone stay where you are,’ whispered Killigrew.

  They remained in the trees for another couple of minutes, and the commander was about to climb down to make sure the coast was clear when he heard someone moving stealthily through the undergrowth below. He waited, and Molineaux and Thornton stepped into view.

  ‘Where the hell have they got to?’ wondered the petty officer.

  ‘They must’ve been driven off by the skirmishing line,’ said Thornton.

  Killigrew jumped down to the ground, rolling in the bracken before picking himself up and dusting himself off. ‘We’re right here.’

  ‘Lumme!’ exclaimed Molineaux, starting in fright. He looked up, saw the others perched amongst the boughs, and grinned at Nicholls, who sat immediately above him. ‘Now, that’s a rare-looking-bird!’

  The maid scowled. ‘Stop making jokes and help me down!’

  ‘Jump: I’ll catch you.’

  The maid pushed herself off the bough. Molineaux caught her around the waist to slow her fall. ‘You can let go of me now,’ she told him.

  ‘Must I?’

  She gave him a warning look. He released her at once.

  Killigrew gave Araminta the same assistance, without taking the same liberty. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  Uren helped Lady Bullivant down.