Death Hulk

by Matthew Sprange

  "Jessop, you're an ignorant bully, which is a shame, as you 'ave guts and the makins of a good sailor about you. Right now we need every man we got, so get back to your guns and make us ready for battle should that damned ship make another appearance."

  "An' if I refuse, Bosun?"

  "Then I told you before. You want some o' the Cap'n, you got to get through me first. An' don't you think I won't be enjoyin' it!"

  Letting the challenge hang between them for a few seconds, Jessop smirked then half-turned away from Kennedy. He sprang round like a coiled spring, aiming a meaty fist squarely at Kennedy's nose but the Bosun had been ready for the ploy. He ducked under the punch and then exploded into action, launching a series of heavy blows into Jessop's body, the thump of each hit echoing across the gun deck. Jessop exhaled noisily but forced himself to stand up straight, just in time to take a blow to the chin which sent him reeling.

  One of Jessop's crew mates took a step to join the fight but was arrested by Bryant's firm grip on his shoulder.

  "This is between Jessop and the Bosun," he said.

  "Aye, that's right," said Kennedy. "What about it, Jessop? You 'ad enough? You wantin' to be droppin' this matter and getting' back to work?"

  As a reply, Jessop roared and charged Kennedy, ignoring another blow to the face as he crashed into the man. They fell, arms and legs flailing as each sought to get a quick advantage. Jessop's crewmates surrounded them, shouting out words of encouragement. Curiosity getting the better of them, Bryant, Brooks and Murphy joined them, but remained silent.

  On the wooden floor, Jessop had hooked a leg across Kennedy's body, trying to pin him down while he started to rain punches downwards. Kennedy took a few blows to the face and chest before catching Jessop's fist in his hand. Raising his head, he bit down on Jessop's hand, getting a howl of pain for his efforts. Distracted by the blood that now flowed, Jessop relaxed his hold on Kennedy slightly, giving the Bosun the opportunity he had been looking for. Jabbing with a knee, he caught Jessop in the side of the head and knocked him sideways before standing up, fists at the ready for another assault.

  Jessop rolled across the deck, panting. Too late, Bryant saw a flash of metal on the floor nearby, a short blade that he guessed one of Jessop's friends had dropped. As he cried a warning to the Bosun, Jessop grabbed the knife and stood, turning to face Kennedy with a look of triumph.

  Spitting in disgust at the low tactic, Kennedy remained impassive, merely beckoning Jessop on. All too keen to oblige, Jessop charged forward again, stabbing down at Kennedy's chest. Freed from any excuse to restrain himself, Kennedy watched Jessop's movements closely before springing into action again. He caught the descending knife hand, then twisted his body, forcing his back into Jessop's chest. With his free arm, he hooked his elbow backwards into Jessop's face but instead of letting him stagger backwards, he brought the hand still holding the knife down onto his raised knee.

  Again, Jessop cried out in pain and the knife fell from his nerveless fingers. Releasing his grip, Kennedy stooped to pick up the weapon but twisted round as Jessop grabbed him from behind. They struggled for an instant before Jessop managed to curl a foot behind Kennedy's leg and, heaving forward with all his strength, threw the Bosun to the floor again with a solid crash.

  Back-swinging with his free hand, Kennedy caught Jessop across the side of the head, throwing him on his back. In a sudden lunging motion, Kennedy planted the knife firmly in his opponent's chest. Jessop, exhaled one bubbling breath and then fell still.

  Leaving the knife in Jessop's chest, Kennedy stood and cast a withering glance at the ring of sailors who had now all fallen silent.

  "Anybody else 'ave a problem with 'ow the Cap'n is doin' things?" he said, demanding a response from Jessop's crew. To a man, they avoided his grim stare.

  "Thought not," said Kennedy. "Clean that mess up. Then get back to work."

  Reluctantly, Jessop's crew started heaving their fallen friend towards an open gun port as Kennedy gave them one last glance and then turned to check on the repair details on the upper gun deck. Bryant's crew slowly drifted back to their own gun carriage, Murphy smiling as he produced a length of stout rope. Brooks was wide-eyed.

  "That was incredible," he said. "The Bosun knows how to fight!"

  "You don't get to be a Bosun unless you can give as well as you take," said Bryant. "Just you remember that in later years. You never, ever cross the Bosun."

  Using the light of the breaking dawn pouring through the windows of the Elita's great cabin, Havelock poured over Guillot's navigational charts. He had to admit, they were most complete. Havelock had heard rumours of French explorers and their accuracy in producing maps of the southern seas, but this was the first time he had seen a set first hand. It was little wonder that a French commerce raider could retain an advantage in these waters.

  His impressions of the rest of the ship during his brief tour were less than complimentary, and the frigate had pretty much lived up to every stereotype due a French vessel of war. The cabins used by the officers, including the lodgings of the former Captain in which he stood, were luxurious and well-equipped, and he had already heard reports of the contents of the galley which was stocked with preserved foodstuffs that made the Whirlwind seem primitive. There was little doubt that his voyage back to England would be one of the most comfortable journeys he had ever made by sea.

  Take one step out of the officers' cabins, however, and Havelock was all too aware of the ship's deficiencies. Leaving aside the damage the Whirlwind had done to the frigate in its duel, which his crew would have to work hard to repair while sailing, the Elita had not been maintained in a manner befitting a ship of the King's Navy.

  Structurally, it was sound and the hull had weathered his earlier attacks well, even if the fixtures and fittings had not. The living conditions, however, were terrible and he did not envy his crew who would have to make the best of them until the Elita pulled into port and could be stripped down, from stem to stern. The decks had not been regularly scrubbed, refuse had not been disposed of properly, if at all, and the air had been allowed to linger. Havelock knew that more than a few of his crew would succumb to various maladies over the next few weeks

  The one consolation would be that, with so few crew on board, they would have a great deal of individual space, a luxury in itself on board a ship of war. They simply had to live with the dreadful stench that seemed to permeate the very wood of the entire vessel.

  The disastrous casualties his men had sustained weighed heavily on Havelock's mind as he turned his attention away from Guillot's charts and back through the large windows of the great cabin. The Elita had already raised anchor and was now sailing towards the entrance of the cove, leaving the wounded on the beach behind. So many men were being left behind but far more were already dead, shipmates that had looked to him for wise command and reasonable assurance that they would see the green fields of England once more, whether they were volunteers or pressed. Once on board his ship, it made little difference to Havelock how a man came to be there.

  The loss of the Whirlwind was a savage blow too and, in some ways, it pained him more than the deaths of British sailors. His claims to the prowess of the frigate had not all been bluster by any stretch, for she had truly been a fine ship, quick across the waves and nimble of turn. The speeches to the crew of prize money and great wealth might also turn to dust, for the loss of any ship in the King's Navy inevitably resulted in a court martial for its Captain, with a board ascertaining the circumstances of its loss. Quite what he could tell them about the Whirlwind, he did not know. He began to fervently hope that the tales heard in the Admiralty of Napoleon using the walking dead within his armies in Europe might actually be true. It might lend his own story some credence.

  As a replacement ship, the Elita could do well, he knew. With a thorough strip down and refitting, along with a new crew, the two gun deck frigate would be both fast and powerful, with few equals in her class. Right now, she was a pale
shadow of what she could be. He could feel it in her movements beneath his feet, there was something in the way she rode the waves and made sharp turns that just did not feel quite right. It would be hard, sailing on board a ship of such unrealised potential for so long.

  Thoughts of returning to England might quickly become academic, of course. The jungle-covered island, now beginning to recede behind the Elita, seemed idyllic in the growing rays of the morning sun, but Havelock was not deceived. An evil lurked in these waters and he could feel in his heart that a reckoning was coming. The Whirlwind had already been claimed, along with most of his crew, and Dubois would no doubt seek to finish his vengeance. Havelock had not been completely unsympathetic to the plight of the old mariners, their souls doomed by the actions of his own blood.

  There would have been some honour in a Captain's sacrifice for the good of his crew but Havelock had come too far now to simply roll over and die, and the encounter with Dubois had ended any possibility of making recompense with the dead. He had already resolved to fight the dead captain and sink his ship in return for what had been done to the Whirlwind. History be damned, it was time to live in the here and now. Havelock vowed to ensure his crew and the Elita made it back to England safely, death hulk or no.

  His military mind began to turn over, considering feints and countermoves that may work against the supernatural horror that pursued him across these waters. He still had an agile ship that could keep the lumbering death hulk off balance, though it was no match for the Whirlwind in that area. The Elita did have potentially greater armament but the big guns on the lower deck especially would take some time to restore to full working order and, in any case, he did not have the crew to man them all. Initiating or receiving a boarding action was completely out of the question. His crew had only escaped with their lives by the skin of their teeth the last time they had met the hulk and with so few of them left now, the battle would be a foregone conclusion. Havelock had few illusions that the hulk still held hundreds of zombies that had not yet been committed to battle.

  He knew he could simply hope that the death hulk and its unholy captain would not notice their departure from these waters but Dubois had so far seemed to know exactly where he was at all times. In any case, he had witnessed the Deja's straight-line speed and knew there was not a ship afloat that could outrun it, though he was painfully aware that he was still entirely ignorant as to how long the hulk could sustain such speeds. It had not appeared to be entirely dependant on the wind for motion.

  The cannon fire of the Deja had been notably sporadic in their last battle, which gave Havelock a little hope, as he knew his return fire might be no better. However the report given by the wounded man who escaped from the Whirlwind had seemed to indicate that the hulk was at least capable of co-ordinated fire, and this was a very real concern. He might be happy to chance trading broadsides, fancying the accuracy and speed of his own gun crews to be far superior to those of walking corpses, and French ones at that. The balance would lie somewhere between the skill of his gun crews and the heavy 32-pounders that lined the triple gun decks of the Deja, which were far larger than the cannon of this frigate. If they could indeed be fired in unison by Dubois, the Elita would be shredded into matchwood in minutes.

  It all seemed to come down to ifs and buts, leaving Havelock with few real options. Perhaps he could score a series of lucky hits that would hole the hulk and sink it, or dismast it - if it even needed sails to manoeuvre at the sea, which he was beginning to doubt. Maybe he could outwit Dubois and force his ship to ground on a reef or sand bank. However, the waters around this island seemed clear and deep, typical of a land mass thrust up to the surface by volcanic activity. With Guillot's charts he might be able to find a suitable area off the coast of Africa or further afield but he doubted he would be given enough time to sail that far.

  Whatever the outcome of their next encounter, Havelock made himself a solemn promise. He would not make it easy for Dubois to find victory and, if possible, he would save as many of his crew as he could. As a gentleman and officer of the King's Navy, he could do no less.

  Footsteps outside the great cabin diverted his attention from the panorama outside and he turned before a sharp rap at the door resounded in the small room.

  "Enter!" he said, feeling resolve come back into his voice. Thrusting the door open, Corbin appeared.

  "Captain. Sail sighted to larboard," he said.

  "Is it our old friend?"

  "Yes Sir. Looks like the death hulk has come for us."

  Clearing the steps two at a time, Havelock ran up to the quarterdeck, telescope already in hand as he scanned the horizon behind the Elita. The jungle island was to their rear larboard quarter but no hulk was in sight. Kennedy waited for both the Captain and Lieutenant, pointing towards the island.

  "Saw 'er as we left the cove, Cap'n," he said. "Disappeared as we rounded the island but she'll be back."

  Havelock raised his telescope to view the shoreline but saw nothing but sand and trees. Making a decision, he turned to Corbin.

  "Full sail, Lieutenant. Let us put some water between us, and that island. At sea, we have options - here, none."

  "Aye, Sir. Mr Kennedy?" The Bosun scrambled down the stairs to the main deck, bellowing orders that unfurled canvas and filled the sheets with wind. The Elita soon picked up speed noticeably and, despite his sense of foreboding from the impending battle, Havelock began to feel the old thrill of a fast frigate skimming across the waves.

  Damn the hulk, he thought. This would be a fine and well-fought battle, whatever the outcome.

  A dark shadow appeared to pass over the island, arresting Havelock's attention. Raising his telescope once more, he saw his enemy. Sweeping from behind the curve of the island's shore, the black hull of the Deja surged forward, already turning to face the Elita. The arrival of the ship seemed to suck energy from the climbing sun and every man on board the frigate felt a blackness descend upon him, chilling his bones.

  Now in broad daylight, Havelock had his first clear look at the ship of the line that had chased him all this way. The sails were ragged and though they looked as if they were filled with the wind, their angle appeared all wrong to him, as if Dubois had not cared how his lines were set. The speed the ship drew from the sails, however, could not be denied and an impressive wake extended from its stern, the water churning from the quick passage of something so large. Casting his eyes forward, Havelock studied the hull, trying not to feel intimidated by the triple line of gun decks that could amass a truly terrible weight of firepower. The painted wood was flaking all down its length, with barnacles and sea plants gracing every square yard. More than a few planks along the hull had popped free of their fixtures, robbing the vessel of any atheistic grace - though they seemed to do little to hurt its performance.

  Lining the deck and grasping at vantage points on its masts and rigging were the crew. Havelock thought of them more as a horde, a ragged and decaying mass of zombies that soundlessly gesticulated, seeming to jeer and mock the ship they pursued. Adjusting the focus of his telescope, Havelock studied the Deja's quarterdeck, searching for his counterpart and took a sharp intake of breath when he realised that Dubois was indeed standing there. Rigid, the zombie Captain's attention fixed on the telescope he held in his mouldering hands, Dubois looked straight back at Havelock. As the two stared at one another, Havelock thought he could make out a chilling grin on the face of his opponent. He lowered his telescope before turning to Corbin.

  "Are the crew steady?" he asked.

  "They will follow your orders, Captain," said Corbin, not quite evading the question.

  "Good. We'll let her follow us a little longer, gauging her speed. I imagine she will close range in good order but let us test the theory first. If we can outrun her, we should."

  "I heartily agree with you, Sir."

  Havelock cast a glance back at Corbin. "Be prepared to fight, Lieutenant," he said. "I fully expect she will overhaul us and that battl
e will be inevitable."

  "As you say, Sir."

  "Good." Havelock rubbed his chin, ignoring the stubble he found there as he watched the hulk sailing towards them. Though it had moved with great speed as it sailed round the island, the Deja had now seemed to settle in its pace, matching that of the Elita's.

  That gave Havelock cause to wonder. He had already guessed that the warship did not draw on the same winds as he for its sails. Could it be that whatever supernatural source drove it on was limited in some way? Perhaps it was daylight that robbed the ship and its crew of power, or maybe the remaining crew of the Whirlwind had damaged it in some way before they fell.

  It was equally possible that Dubois was merely toying with him, of course.

  Across the deck of the Elita, Havelock saw that his crew went about their tasks with a certain mechanical detachment, and he noted that more than one took strenuous pains to avoid casting a look back at their pursuer. He winced involuntarily as it was suddenly made apparent that the main deck and rigging were conspicuously empty of able bodies. The Elita was a larger vessel than the Whirlwind, true, but the casualties he had sustained would be a major factor in the fight ahead, and one he would have to contend with if victory was to be secured. The first step, he decided, was to instil some backbone into his shaken crew.

  "Mr Corbin, gather all men that can be spared," he said. "I wish to address them."

  Corbin, called for order and those on the wooden deck looked up at the quarterdeck, while others still working high in the rigging of the sails dutifully relaxed in their efforts to give the Captain their attention. Havelock stepped forward to the railings of the quarterdeck and looked down at them, hesitating for a moment as he marshalled his thoughts.

  "I have met Lord Nelson just once," he said, his statement catching the crew off-guard. Expecting to hear another platitude appealing to their own bravery, they leaned forward to hear a tale of the Navy's greatest hero, one who had constantly met and confounded England's enemies. Private stories of the man from officers who met him were rare and always eagerly received by a ship's crew.