by Killigrew of the Royal Navy (Killigrew RN) (retail) (epub)
Salazar smiled. ‘I dare say you have. But I’ll be long gone by then. Sinking this ship will buy me all the time I need to clear out of here and set up my operations at a new location. It will cost me a great deal of money, but that will be a drop in the ocean compared to the profits I make from the trade. You see, Mr Killigrew, your schoolboy heroics will result in nothing more than the loss of one year’s profit for me, and the deaths of the crew of a British frigate. Oh, and your own death, of course. Which, I might add, is long overdue. Perhaps you’d like to do the honours, Captain Madison?’
‘With pleasure.’ Madison levelled the pistol at Killigrew’s forehead. ‘No pithy last words, Mr Killigrew? You disappoint me. Then let the Good Book supply your epitaph. Isaiah, chapter fifty-three, verse seven: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter”.’
‘Amen,’ said Salazar. ‘Goodbye, Mr Killigrew.’
Chapter 20
The Reckoning
‘Pull!’ hissed Molineaux. ‘Pull, damn your eyes!’ He knew the other slaves could not understand his words, but he hoped they would get the general idea.
The captives pulled on their fetters, seeking to break them away from the wooden pillars which supported the roof. If they succeeded the whole roof would probably come down on their heads, but it was only made of palm leaves and a few bamboo poles, and a few cuts and bruises were preferable to a life of perpetual slavery. But the wooden beams were fixed deep in the ground, and they could not be budged.
Molineaux heard voices outside. He quickly motioned for everyone to stop pulling and resume their earlier positions. A light showed through the gate of the shed, and he saw Prince Khari standing on the other side with Tobias, who held an oil lamp aloft. ‘See, your highness? There’s no one here but these slaves, and they ain’t going anywhere.’
‘I want to be sure. Open the gate.’
The two men entered the shed, and Tobias moved the light of the lamp over the slaves, moving along the row. Khari eyed them warily, looking for anything which suggested that all was not well.
Molineaux rose up on his knees as they approached him, his hands clasped together. ‘Please doan’ make me no slave, mas’er! I beg you! I ain’t no African, I is a freeborn Englishman! Oh lawdy, please doan’ send me to th’ Americas, please!’ He grabbed Tobias by the belt in supplication. The slaver slapped him across the face with his left hand, and Molineaux fell back to the floor.
‘Shut your noise, you crazy nigger sonuvabitch!’
‘Poor dumb white trash,’ Molineaux muttered under his breath, as Tobias led Khari to the end of the row. Khari heard him and glanced over his shoulder with one eyebrow raised, but he did not see that Molineaux had expertly filched the ring of keys from Tobias’s belt.
‘All right,’ said Khari. ‘Salazar was wrong. He did come on his own.’
The two of them turned and strode back towards the gate. Molineaux did not bother to wonder who had come on his own. He had about fifteen seconds. He inserted the key into the padlock on his left manacle. The other slaves shifted where they lay, clinking their fetters so that Khari and Tobias would not hear the keys jingle in Molineaux’s hands.
The first padlock snapped open and Molineaux’s left hand was free. Two more to go, but Khari and Tobias were only a few feet from the gate now. The right manacle was trickier, because he had to use his left hand to unfasten it. His hands were trembling so much he could barely get the key in the hole. He dropped the keys, cursed himself silently, and tried again. The key turned at once.
Khari and Tobias had reached the gate.
Now the neck-collar. But the first key did not fit. Molineaux tried the next one, and again found it did not fit.
Khari and Tobias went outside and closed the gate behind them. Tobias snapped the padlock on the gate back into place and then reached for his keys to lock it.
Molineaux inserted a third key into the padlock on his collar.
‘What’s wrong?’ Khari asked Tobias.
‘My keys… damn it, I must have had them a moment ago, otherwise how did I let us into the shed…?’
Khari looked up and Molineaux saw his eyes peering through the gate. Their eyes locked in the same instant that the padlock on Molineaux’s collar came free. Khari patted Tobias on the shoulder and pointed through the gate at Molineaux.
‘Kill him. I’ll raise the alarm.’
‘What the… Goddamn it!’ Tobias jerked the padlock off the gate just as Molineaux tore the collar from his neck and handed the keys to the next slave in the row.
As Khari disappeared, Tobias charged towards Molineaux, reaching for the pistol holstered at his side. Molineaux ran to meet him. The two of them clashed just as the pistol came out of its holster, and they struggled for a moment with the gun between them. Molineaux managed to force the muzzle down towards the ground and it went off with a flash that was blinding in the darkness of the shed. He broke free of Tobias’s grip and threw him towards the row of chained slaves. One of them stood up to receive him, looped his fetters over the slaver’s head and drew the chain hard against his throat. Tobias gurgled horribly as the slave throttled him.
‘I’m going after Khari…’ Molineaux told the slaves, and then gestured dismissively and turned and ran for the gate. ‘Ah, what the hell. You can’t understand a word I say anyhow.’
He emerged from the shed in time to see Khari sprinting towards the entrance of the stockade. The guards silhouetted on the catwalk peered down into the darkness below, trying to work out what was going on. One of them called down in Portuguese.
‘Sound the alarm!’ shouted Khari. ‘Slave rebellion!’ He reached the gate of the stockade and hammered on it. The gate was opened, and Molineaux saw two guards standing there in the moonlight with muskets in their hands. Khari shouted something at them in Portuguese and dodged past.
The guards raised the stocks of their muskets to their shoulders and levelled them at Molineaux. His eyes widened, and he threw himself behind the shed just as the muskets flashed and two bullets thrummed in his direction.
He rolled over on the compacted earth, picked himself up and ran around the far side of the shed nearest the main gate. The guards there were still trying to reload their muskets. Molineaux charged towards them, his naked feet pounding the earth. One of them raised his musket and fired. Molineaux swerved and felt the bullet sing past the side of his head. The other was still ramming his next shot home with the ramrod when Molineaux reached him.
The seaman snatched the musket from his hands and smashed the butt against the side of the guard’s head. The guard went down, and Molineaux turned the musket on his companion, shooting him through the chest with both ramrod and ball at point-blank range.
The guards on the catwalk were shooting down into the stockade now, but not at Molineaux. The slaves were pouring out of the first shed, one of them unlocking the gate to the next and disappearing inside with Tobias’s keys. Molineaux snatched a Bowie knife from the belt of one of the guards and went after Khari. Emerging from the stockade he glanced around, wondering which way the so-called Prince of the Leopard Men had gone. The tolling of the alarm bell soon told him.
The bell hung from a wooden pin between two tall upright posts on the next island. Molineaux sprinted across the bridge. Already the guards were pouring out of the barracks to suppress the rebellion. He cursed himself for his stupidity. Armed with muskets, they would easily slaughter the slaves.
Molineaux’s one consolation was that he would at least be able to kill Khari.
But as he drew near to Khari the leopard prince turned and saw him. Molineaux slashed at him with the knife, but Khari caught him by the wrist and twisted his arm up into the small of his back. Molineaux cried out and dropped the knife, and Khari threw him towards the reeds which lined the bank of the nearest waterway.
Molineaux rolled over, stood up quickly and turned to meet Khari’s next attack. Khari had picked up the knife and
now he advanced on Molineaux, taking his time. ‘I knew you were trouble the moment I laid eyes on you,’ he snarled as the two of them circled. He lunged, slashing at Molineaux’s throat. The Englishman leaped back and landed amongst the reeds on a mud bank. Khari came at him unhesitatingly and thrust at his stomach. Molineaux tried to catch him by the wrist, but the thrust was only a feint and Khari at once followed it up by slashing Molineaux across the chest. He hardly felt a thing other than a slight burning sensation, but when he glanced down at himself he could see a thin cut across his chest weeping blood.
Khari moved in for the kill.
* * *
Madison would have been less than human not to have turned his head when the first shot sounded from the direction of the stockade. An opportunity like that came along once in what would be a very short lifetime if one was careless enough to let it slip past. Killigrew seized it in both hands, along with the pistol Madison held to his head. He pushed the muzzle aside and the two of them struggled chest-to-chest for a moment. Killigrew twisted Madison around until the gun pointed at the stack of powder cartridges outside the bunker. He pressed down on Madison’s trigger finger and the revolver discharged its single remaining shot harmlessly into one of the cartridges.
Snarling with rage, Madison threw the gun away and seized Killigrew by the throat. As his hands crushed his windpipe, Killigrew saw the slaver’s eyes flicker past his head, and glancing at the ground he saw Salazar’s shadow in the moonlight, poised to swing the cutlass at his back.
Killigrew whirled Madison around as a human shield. The slave captain gasped as the heavy blade bit deep into his spine. Then his legs crumpled and he fell to his knees. Killigrew watched him without compassion. ‘Ecclesiastes, chapter three, verses one to two,’ he said coldly.
Madison puckered his brow. ‘Ecclesiastes…?’
‘“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die”.’
Madison nodded, and died.
Salazar stared down at Madison’s body, and then levelled the point of the cutlass at Killigrew’s throat. ‘You are going to spend a long, long time dying for that, Mr Killigrew.’
Killigrew tried not to stare as behind Salazar, one of Sampson’s men picked up the powder cartridge that had been pierced by the bullet from the pistol. As the man carried the cartridge on his shoulder, he was oblivious to the gunpowder which spilled out of the bullet-hole and left a trail in his wake. ‘Do I get a last request?’ Killigrew asked Salazar.
‘Such as?’
‘A last cigar.’
Salazar shook his head. ‘My cigars are back at the house, and I don’t intend to give you a chance to think up some new trickery while I send someone to fetch one.’
The man carried the powder cartridge to the cannon closest to where Killigrew and Salazar stood, only ten feet away.
Two more shots sounded in quick succession from the direction of the stockade, followed by a whole fusillade, but Salazar did not take his eyes off Killigrew for a moment. ‘Mr Sampson, he so good as to send someone to find out what all the shooting is about,’ he called impatiently.
‘Aye, aye, sir. You heard him, Caspar. Go down to the stockade and find out what the problem is.’ One of Sampson’s men nodded and ran off as the alarm bell sounded. The rest of them ran out the guns and aimed them at the frigate anchored beyond the bar.
‘We’re ready to fire, sir,’ reported Sampson.
Killigrew glanced to where Madison had thrown the revolver. It lay between him and the trail of powder leading back to the stack of cartridges outside the bunker. But Salazar stood between Killigrew and the revolver with a cutlass in his hand.
‘Then what are you waiting for?’ Salazar snapped over his shoulder at Sampson.
Killigrew ducked underneath the blade of the cutlass and dived for the revolver. He snatched it up, rolled over and came to a halt by the trail of gunpowder.
Salazar whirled around. He swung the cutlass but the blade met only air.
Pointing the muzzle at the charcoal-grey dust, Killigrew cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger. The cartridge in the chamber fired and spat flames down the barrel. The trail of gunpowder sparked and ignited at once.
‘Look out!’ shouted Sampson, as a white flame burned rapidly down the trail and the air filled with acrid smoke.
‘Will someone please put that fire out?’ Salazar snapped in exasperation, swinging the cutlass back over his shoulder to aim a blow at Killigrew’s neck. Killigrew threw the revolver at his head. It struck Salazar in the middle of the forehead and he blinked once and went down.
Sampson tried to stamp out the burning trail of gunpowder as it raced towards the stack of cartridges outside the bunker; then he thought better of it and turned and ran for his life. So did his men.
Killigrew picked himself up and ran to the wall, vaulting over it. He dropped about fifteen feet and landed heavily amongst some bushes. He clasped his hands over his head and waited for the explosion.
Seconds came and went. Nothing happened. Perhaps the gunpowder trail had not reached as far as the cartridges. Killigrew unclasped his arms and glanced up in disappointment.
* * *
On the quarter-deck of the Thor, Lieutenant Masterson watched as the last of the frigate’s boats was swung back aboard in the davits and the men went below to man the guns. He reached for his watch for the sixteenth time in the past hour, only to remember yet again that he had loaned it to Killigrew.
‘Three minutes to two bells, Lieutenant,’ said Captain Crichton, seeing the motion. ‘We’ll be on time. We’d better pray that Killigrew, Reynolds and the others got out of there.’
‘They know what they’re doing,’ Masterson said tightly, hoping it was true.
‘And the consequences of failure,’ agreed Crichton.
The ports on the gun deck were opened and the long guns loaded and run out. ‘Ready when you give the word, sir,’ reported the gunner.
‘Very good, Mr Andrews,’ said Crichton, and checked his watch again. ‘One minute…’
There was a bright flash from the coast, and everyone turned with a gasp. A moment later there came a terrific boom as a cloud of fire mushroomed up from behind the low ridge above the beach. The roar of the explosion echoed with a rumble like thunder off the hills behind the barracoon. A vast cloud rose slowly into the night sky.
‘What in God’s name was that?’ spluttered Masterson.
Crichton smiled. ‘That, Lieutenant, I believe to have been Mr Killigrew’s handiwork.’
* * *
At the foot of the wall, the flash of the explosion was blinding, as bright as the sun, and the blast was deafening. Killigrew hurriedly clamped his arms over his head once more and rolled in against the foot of the wall as the flames shot out over his head with a roar. The very earth seemed to shake around him, and then the wall crumbled and cracked. Chunks of masonry rained down on the slope of the escarpment, bouncing and spinning amongst the undergrowth, and one of the cannons crashed down inches from where Killigrew was huddled.
The roar faded slowly as dust sheeted down from above and thick smoke filled the still air. As it slowly disseminated, Killigrew glanced up and saw only flaming wreckage where the battery had previously glowered over the beach. It took him all of his self-control not to whoop with exultation in an undignified manner.
But it was not over yet. Out at sea, he could see the Thor waiting to do its share of the destruction. He glanced at his watch. One minute to one: and Miss Chance was still locked in her room in the palazzo, right at the heart of the barracoon. He scrambled up the rubble of the shattered wall to where the battery had stood. A huge, charred crater marked where the cartridges had been stacked, and the bunker had been completely flattened. There was no sign of anyone except for one or two grisly remains of those who had not managed to get clear of the explosion.
An echoing boom sounded from the Thor, and he turned to see a great bank of cloud
rising from her side. A split second later the scream of a dozen shells hurtling through the air filled his ears. He threw himself flat on the ground as the shells screeched overhead, and a moment later a vast wall of flames burst out of the ground, completely obscuring the rest of the barracoon from his sight. The multiple explosions seemed even louder than the stack of cartridges going off, and chunks of soil and mud rained down all around him.
He did not wait for the dust to settle but at once got up and ran into the cloud of smoke. If the Thor’s gunners were up to snuff – and he had a feeling they would be – then he had about one minute before they reloaded and fired again.
The first shells had left no trace of the bridge which led to the central island, and precious little trace of the watercourse it had crossed. Killigrew stumbled through the mud and sprinted across the grass to the palazzo. The door was wide open. He dashed up the steps and inside. A moment later a blade swung at his head. He ducked down, rolled over on the marble floor, and twisted in time to see Salazar standing there with the cutlass still in his hand. The slaver’s clothes were torn and scorched and his face was blackened, but he did not appear to have suffered any kind of serious injury; he had the devil’s own luck, Killigrew mused grimly.
‘I hope you weren’t thinking of depriving me of my guest,’ said Salazar, swinging the cutlass as he advanced.
In the distance, Killigrew heard the sporadic boom of the Thor’s guns as her men fired independently, as soon as they were ready. Once again the air was filled with the screech of shells. One landed on the lawn in front of the palazzo. There was a blinding flash followed by a roar, and the windows all exploded inwards. Killigrew flinched as shards of glass flew across the room.
Salazar, who had instinctively ducked, straightened and resumed his advance. He charged forwards suddenly, hacking at Killigrew’s head, and Killigrew barely ducked aside in time. Salazar slashed at Killigrew, the point of the cutlass slicing through his shirt and scoring a line of blood from his shoulder.
