'Them green lights!' shouted Verity at the girl. 'Hold a course for them! Slap between, if you can!'
'Cold!' she howled. 'So cold!'
'If I have to stop,' Verity swore, 'you'll get such a hiding as’ll make sure you never feel the cold again! 'old that bloody tiller straight!'
A smother of rain, spray and seas came drenching over the bows of the gig and fell with the pain of hail on his bare back. The ache in his arms and shoulders flamed as though the muscles and ligaments were being systematically torn apart by the strain of rowing into the squall. But the Lady Flora was dropping away astern, nothing visible of her at a distance but the three red lights at the masthead, treacherously simulating the warning buoy. Quarter of a mile, Verity thought. How far had they gone, and how fast? If they could only move at a slow walking speed, it would be enough, but with every surge of the dark water he felt the effort of his rowing countered. The gig seemed to be stock-still in the middle of a great ocean with the dark, curling seas racing past.
Then, to his dismay, he saw the Hero, her outline clear against the faint luminosity of the sky. The frigate and the gig were now on parallel courses, which would bring them broadside-on to the two green marker-buoys, though on different sides. There was no mistaking one of the newest and fastest of England's warships. Behind the curling bow-wave, the dark stalwart sides of the great ship rose menacingly from the water, the square gun-ports open and lit, the guns themselves rolled forward and ready for action. There were two rows of gun-ports on either side and tiny circles of light under each, indicating the portholes of the lower deck. The lights on the deck showed the three tall masts and the short, squat funnel amidships. Verity guessed that Lord William Jervis and his visitor would view the gunnery practice from the quarter-deck, which was on the high poop at the stern. There were two or three life-boats hanging from davits by the poop, but there would be no time to lower them once the bottom of the ship had been torn away by the granite teeth and by the force of her own speed.
Both the warship and the gig were close to the green lights of the marker-buoys, the Hero about to overhaul the rowing-boat. Verity shipped the oars and seized the smooth brass cylinder which he had purloined from the paddle-box of the Lady Flora. He slid back the shutter, praying that it was already lit and would not need a flame kindled. To his relief it was. The gig would hardly remain steady if he stood upright, but on his knees he held aloft the red glow of the port riding-light from the Lady Flora. Surely they would see. Surely someone would see. He waved the light to and fro as hard as his aching arms could manage. The Hero was no more than two hundred yards off, the great ship thundering past in the darkness. But every eye on the quarter-deck was on the firing range marked out by the two green lights. The gig rocked in the swell of her passing, and soon she appeared only as a squat stern and a flurry of broken water above her twin screws.
Verity put the lantern down.
'Gotta tie it to that iron tower above the Wolf Rock buoy,' he said furiously, as though it mattered to the girl as much as it did to him. Seizing the oars he began to row strongly across the remaining hundred yards or so of water which separated them from the first buoy. In a matter of seconds, he knew his error. From behind him there came a whisper, which grew louder than any stage-whisper he had ever known. The sea ahead of them erupted with a crash into a great water-spout, sending a wave so powerful that it almost stood the little gig on its stern. The girl screamed and fell, but her hold on the tiller saved her from being thrown into the sea. In her terror she was beyond all reason and all control, beating at Verity with her little fists, her dark eyes flashing with panic, shrieking at him to save her.
Flame lapped the ports of the Hero again. There was a whisper, a roaring, and then a new thunder of spray was thrown skywards, drenching the occupants of the gig and almost swamping the fragile craft. But away from the flame and the storm of water, Verity was engaged in simple arithmetic once more. Ninety-one guns, say forty-five a side. Two rows on each side, say twenty-two each. They'd never fire off more than a single row at once, then reload that while the other was being fired on a second manoeuvre. Twenty-two. He counted the fourth and fifth. And the water-spouts would move further and further on as the Hero passed the target area. Now! It must be now!
Seizing the oars again, he pulled strongly for the first of the green marker-buoys. It would help to have extinguished it, but there was no time and, in any case, they would assume it had been accidentally hit by the guns. He rowed on towards the darkened warning buoy above the Wolf Rock with its black swaying tower of iron latticework. Just able to make it out in the gloom, he brought the gig alongside. The Hero was turning in a foaming sweep of water to race back between the green markers, loop round and discharge her other guns from the opposite side.
Clumsily, for the numbness of his hands, Verity made the gig fast to the buoy, threaded the handle of the riding-light on his right arm and tried to grab the iron latticework of the swaying twelve-foot tower. He was aware of the girl shrieking in terror behind him, but the time had come to put such things from his mind. He tried the buoy itself, but the slippery surface rolled away from under the pressure of his foot. Then the surge of the tide dipped the latticework tower far enough towards the gig. Verity seized it, felt at once that it would bear his weight, and rode with it forwards and upwards.
He seemed suddenly high above the water, in a world where the cold was more bitter and the air was full of screaming, whether of the wind, or the girl's terror, or sea birds in the dark, he could not tell. His feet were as numb as his hands, but they were securely lodged in toe-holds on the iron framework. His left arm was threaded into the latticework to hold him to it. Gripping the handle of the red port-hand riding-light in his right fist, he held it outwards and upwards as far as he could.
The Hero had turned completely, her broad blunt bows head-on to the dark tower. The water rose in two cresting plumes on either side as the powerful ship gathered full speed from her massive engines and bore down on the black and treacherous rock. Almost sobbing from the ache and the chill, Verity waved his tiny lamp and prayed.
On the quarter-deck of the Hero the thunder of the ship's engines was discreetly muted. Lord William Jervis, in the splendour of cocked hat and gold braid, stood close to General Lord Bruce, surveying the froth which now marked the surges after the firing of the first salvo. Lord William spoke to the elderly General Bruce, who wore the plumed hat of a British staff officer, but the other officers on the quarter-deck had not the least doubt that his lordship's aim was to engage in conversation the young man who stood at the General's side. He was a dark-haired adolescent, rather too weighty, with a round face and a heavy mouth. The mouth gave him an appearance of perpetual sullenness, which was unfortunate since he had made every effort to be as agreeable in his behaviour as he might be, ever since boarding the Hero at Plymouth several days before.
As the green lights seemed to rush upon them, General Bruce inquired,
'You find markers of great use, my Lord William, on such occasions as this?'
'Use, sir?' said Lord William, smiling confidentially at the General's young companion, who seemed a little embarrassed by such public intimacy. 'Never try a ship without 'em! Why, sir, only think of the scandal when they steamed battleships over the measured mile at Maplin Sands. Damme, there were posts stuck in the sand for the ships to steam past, out to sea. By altering his angle, a commander could steam a measured mile that was a hundred and fifty yards short! And he might set a course for another ship that was a hundred and fifty yards long. Why, there were ships that did the same speed but one was noted as two knots faster than the other! Now, sir, when the course is from buoy to buoy. . . .'
'Red warning light dead ahead, sir! Range two hundred yards!'
Lord William clapped a spyglass to his eye, dropped it on the deck, and turned to his subordinate, crouching as though he might actually spring at the man.
'Hard a-starboard!'
The urgent shout ec
hoed across the quarter-deck. Lord Bruce stood rigid and deathly pale, the young man beside him seemed tense but nonplussed by it all. The deck beneath their feet slewed and canted as the ship swung in a churning suction of water. The men on the quarter-deck braced their feet against the angle of the ship as she turned, and then there was a mighty thump which suggested the meeting of two blunt surfaces.
'What in God's name . . . ' said General Bruce, but Lord William ignored him.
'Stop engines!' he shouted down the voice-pipe. 'Go astern!'
A breathless lieutenant appeared from below.
'Struck an unknown obstruction in turning, sir. No major damage apparent. Passing blow, sir.'
Lord William Jervis shook his head, as though to clear it. He went to the rails of the quarter-deck as the Hero's searchlight sprang across the water in a blinding shaft of magnesium brilliance. The beam probed the dark water.
'What the devil's that?' said Lord William suddenly.
'It's the Wolf Rock warning buoy, sir.'
'Dammit, can't I read for myself?' said his lordship ungratefully. 'But what's the bloody thing doing across the bows of my ship?'
Verity almost wept with relief as the great dark shape of the Hero, looming the height of a house over the warning buoy and its tower, turned in a surging thunder of foam, shearing away at the last moment from the savage sharpness of the long rock. But the relief was soon overwhelmed by other considerations as the wash from the mighty hull and the powerful screws struck the buoy with the force of a sea driven by a gale. The riding light was spun from his hand, hitting the water and sinking at once. He lost his footing, his right hand brushed uselessly against the cold wet metal and, as he fell, his weight tore his left arm from its grip on the iron struts. In the second between falling and hitting the water he thought, for the first time since leaving Plymouth, of Bella and Paddington Green.
Carried down into the trough of the waves and then up on the next crest, he had hardly the breath to cry for help. As the water bore him up, he saw the iron latticework now brilliantly lit, but there was no sign of the gig or the girl. He had not the strength left even to cry for rescue. The sea had taken him at last, an unresisting victim to be borne to his death wherever the tides drew him.
And then there was a terrible pain in his eyes as a white radiance seemed to hit him with the force of a blow. He longed only for the ease of darkness, and darkness came. It was followed abruptly by the same cruel brilliance, the sound of voices, and something falling. The voices were closer, the words quite clear.
'Back starboard! Down port! Give way together!'
For a long moment he was alone in the painful white light. Then a voice, almost at his shoulder, said,
'In bows!'
Though his body was numb, he could just feel the hands which took him under the arms and pulled with such strength that Verity's portly body seemed to flip effortlessly into chill air and then to fall on to the boards of the ship's cutter.
'Girl,' he said drowsily, 'Jolly, girl in the water.'
'Could have been swept anywhere by now,' said one of the men doubtfully, though not addressing Verity. Verity attempted to shake his head.
'Was in boat, tied to warning buoy.'
There was more shouting and the bright beam of light again. Someone said,
'Still in the boat? No. Capsized. Hanging fast to it! Dead ahead! Give way together!'
Verity opened his eyes. Someone was wrapping a blanket round him. Two other men were leaning over the side. They had seized Jolly by the back of her bodice and the seat of her pants and were hauling her in over the side. Despite her second immersion, her eyes now shone with dark suspicion of the boatload of men. Presently the cutter glided and bumped alongside the steps which had been let down the Hero's side by davits and chain. Verity had to be helped up at first but, to his surprise, he found that when he reached the main deck, he could actually stand unaided. With the girl following, under heavy escort, he was led to the quarter-deck. The dark young man had gone below and the stage was held by Lord William Jervis, with General Lord Bruce standing back in the shadows.
'What's this?' asked Lord William, as though he might have been reprimanding a light-fingered butler.
'Sergeant Verity, sir. Metropolitan Police, "A" Division, Private-Clothes detail, sir. 'ave 'ad the honour o' making your acquaintance before.'
'You!' said Lord William indignantly. 'What the devil are you doing here? And by what right have you tampered with the Wolf Rock warning buoy?'
'Ain't, sir. Captain Ransome and his crew done that, and towed the green markers there to decoy your ship on to the rocks. It's you they want dead, sir, so's Ransome can get his hands on everything that would come to Mr Richard. Mr Croaker knows that Ransome murdered Lord Henry and he sent me to warn you as soon as the Hero docked. Only I'd a-bin too late to save you then, sir, you and your men, and 'o course 'is 'ighness.'
Lord William looked sharply round at General Bruce. The General nodded his elderly, distinguished head, as though the time for anger or irritation were long past. He came forward and laid a hand on Verity's shoulder.
'Well done,' he said. 'Well done, sergeant.'
And then General Bruce went below.
'Sir,' said Verity. 'Gotta say one thing more. What you think is the warning buoy, over there, is a pleasure steamer called the Lady Flora. It's got Ransome and several of his men and two of his girls on it. And it's got poor Mr Richard. No, sir, the poor creature as went to the mad 'ouse near Acton was never Mr Richard. Honest Jack Ransome saw to that. And, sir, there's two sailor-men on there, Captain Joshua and another, and there's Sergeant Albert Samson. Ransome may have cut all their throats by now, and if he hasn't already, then he soon will.'
Lord William nodded.
'You may be an unconscionably fine detective, Sergeant Verity, but give us credit for knowing our own business. The searchlight picked out that vessel as soon as we hove to. Quarter of an hour ago, a cutter with two dozen blue-jackets put off. She's to be boarded and taken into Plymouth. See for yourself.'
'Then they ain't even had time to get steam up!' said Verity thankfully.
He turned and peered through the darkness. Presently, the first lights sprang alive on the deck of the Lady Flora. There were sounds of distant commotion, but in regular succession, the little circles of light at the portholes appeared, as Lord William's boarding-party took the steamer and her occupants into their custody.
'I never thought they'd cooper me,' said Samson with great confidence. 'Not after you'd got clean away. You'd have had a tale to tell. They'd never risk it. They had me and Captain Joshua and his mate, and them two doxies, Simona and Stefania, all tied up in one cabin with a cove as threatened to slit our gizzards if we gave trouble. However, the moment the 'ero went down, they was going to slit 'em anyway. They saw the 'ero stop dead, and couldn't tell if she was on the rocks and sinking or not. Course, the searchlight flashed about, as it might if she was going down. And then, just as they decided she wasn't on the rocks, there's footsteps all over the deck. I swear I never even 'eard them blue-jackets come alongside, let alone climb on to the deck. Well, being as there was only Ransome and three of his coves, it was over in a minute. Soon as the coves saw the marines, why they couldn't a-bin more 'elpful. Bless you, they even wanted to change sides without being asked.'
'You 'ad quite a little adventure, Mr Samson,' said Verity, pulling at the rum which had been brought to the cabin on Lord William's orders. 'Cor, I 'ate this stuff! 'ow you can drink it for pleasure, I shall never knowl'
' ‘had an adventure!' snorted Samson. 'What you had was twice that, and a doxy that's now got to be admitted Queen's evidence. Not the first time she's saved her lovely skin that way!'
'Don't seem right, after all she's done, Mr Samson. Why, she'll get clear away!'
'Not clear away,' said Samson with a thoughtful smile. 'She won't hang, she won't be transported to 'Straliar, nor anything like that. But while there's Mrs Rouncewell and the
steam laundry, and while I'm in Mrs Rouncewell's good books, I think I can promise as Miss Jolly won't get clear away with what she done.'
16
The windows of the drab houses were aflame with the reflection of dawn, the trees in the squares bright and green against a sky of pale, brilliant blue, as Verity and Samson turned into Snow Hill. Even the smoke of Samson's penny cigar rose in a white unruffled plume in the stillness of the new day. The 'Magpie and Stump', which had blazed with light since the previous evening stood with doors open wide and tables strewn with a litter of ale-glasses and jugs, carcases of cold fowl and rabbit, remains of kidneys and lobster, and pickled onions in jars. A scattering of scraps and the butts of cheroots lay among the sand of the uncarpeted floor.
On the roofs of the houses, makeshift galleries had been formed overlooking the street, where men with matted hair and grimy hats cocked on one side, lolled and drank with laughing girls whose white scarves had been pulled down to reveal the pallor of bare shoulders. At the windows of the rooms below sat parties of young subalterns, among sleeping dandies and the brokers of the 'Swell Mob'.
As the two sergeants turned the corner there was the humming of thousands of voices, a packed and impenetrable crowd of men and women filling the length and width of Newgate Street and Snow Hill. Several uniformed constables at the rear of the crowd were enduring volleys of ribaldry from stunted and sallow youths of sixteen or seventeen, while the dandies at the upper windows stroked their moustaches, twirled their cigars and shouted their encouragement of this sport.
Well back from the rear of the crowd, family parties of respectable-looking tradesmen and their wives sipped tea as calmly as if they had been in their own parlour, never taking their eyes from the sight on which the gaze of the entire throng was soon directed.
Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments Page 25
