However, these were dangerous thoughts, subversive of all societal and family ties. Frankenstein consciously turned away from them lest he too catch the disease that had turned France mad.
‘Do you despair of your former ship, young sir?’ he asked.
Burdened by responsibility, Third-lieutenant appeared to have forgotten he had passengers. The youth jumped at being suddenly spoken to in non-sailor.
‘What? Oh, it’s you...’
‘You’ included Ada. Earlier she’d tried to ingratiate herself, joining Third-lieutenant on his bench. His quick scan and resultant ‘ugh!’ made her retreat to ponder how much things had changed since a flashed eyelash would open any door. She’d sulked in silence since.
But there were other strangers aboard beside her; plainly living ones. Third-lieutenant felt obliged to reply.
‘‘Despair’? Well, that’s a strong word... But, um, yes. Sadly so.’
Things weren’t yet quite as before. One of the senior seaman felt free enough to speak without bidding.
‘She’s impaled,’ he affirmed. ‘You mark my words mate: next big wave will move her along and take ‘er bottom. Poor old Bridget!’
Third-lieutenant frowned but wasn’t so sure of his authority as to protest. Maybe when they were on dry land...
‘Yes, thank you, Cowley. Steady as you were...’
‘Cowley’ recalled himself and knuckled his brow—the Service’s sign of subservience—before knuckling under.
Just on the edge of it not mattering any more, the storm showed signs of dying down. The thunder and lightning display had played itself out ages back; now ‘only’ a wicked wind and frenzied sea remaining to finish the job.
Which it would. It drove them on stronger than sail or oar could counter. Returning to open sea to sit things out wasn’t an option: proper professional seamen agreed on that and so even Ada had to believe.
The coast was very close now and the larger sand dunes discernible. But first the offshore rocks awaited like jagged teeth; a giant’s jaw line showing just above the water.
There hadn’t been opportunity before and Frankenstein’s curiosity was piqued. He didn’t want to die not knowing.
‘What happened to you?’ he asked swiftly, to keep Third-lieutenant’s attention.
There was nothing the over-promoted youth could do to materially effect things—Cowley and co. were in charge of that—and so he seemed almost glad of diversion.
‘A mutiny,’ he said. ‘It happens occasionally.’
Ada and Julius exchanged glances. Third-lieutenant’s words said one thing but his face another. Frankenstein had heard enough of England’s famous navy to know that loss of a ship attracted mandatory court martial. Third-lieutenant was probably the senior surviving officer and, should he continue to survive, must eventually give account of himself on behalf of all.
That same thought must have occurred to the youth. In giving further detail he was probably rehearsing his testimony.
‘We’re a ship of war, not a troop transporter: especially not that sort. And they didn’t supply enough chains. Plus the Lazarans weren’t broken: too fresh. Things aren’t going well in the Basque enclave, so we were rushing reinforcements...’
It satisfied Frankenstein, but not, alas, Third-lieutenant himself, who must have had the less generous audience of the Admiralty board in mind. Just like the Allies’ enclave in Spain his defence required reinforcement.
‘It was during feeding,’ he added. ‘One of them refused to eat from the offal barrel. I think it must have been an officer or gentry beforehand and had residual memories. So we made it take its turn... forced it to eat. And things went from there. The spirit of rebellion spread like smallpox...’
‘Too quick, too many,’ contributed Cowley, again without being asked. ‘No time for the swivel guns.’
Reliving the vivid scene before his eyes, Third-lieutenant may not have heard, or maybe graciously overlooked the breach of etiquette.
‘Captain Barker tried to get on deck...’ There was a catch in the young man’s voice. He was no longer before an imaginary tribunal but explaining to a wider audience, including the Almighty and himself. ‘But they got him at stairwell. They... tore him apart.’
Suddenly, he stared straight at Julius in frank appeal.
‘I fought. I did fight. But when we were trapped on the poopdeck getting off seemed the right thing to do. Yes, we left people but they just couldn’t be rescued. We only got one boat away as it was: there wasn’t room for all...’
It mustn’t have been a bad ship to serve in. The half dozen seamen, tattooed veterans all, looked on the young officer with compassion, as to a son in distress.
‘You did the right thing, sir,’ said Cowley for all. ‘Chin up, there’s a good gentleman! Stiffen y’lip. Oh—and stiff grip on the sides too, all of ye. We’re going in!’
It still looked like standard sea to Frankenstein but he submitted to a trained eye. He and Ada and Foxglove braced themselves against the stern rail.
The stranded Bridget was breaking up. Waves penetrated to have their way with her and departed taking whole timbers as souvenirs, making it easier still for the next in. Each watery inundation likewise swept up a bevy of Lazarans and sucked them into the deep. They wailed and waved until a bashing against the half-seen rocks pacified them.
Frankenstein heard the mainmast crack and saw the Union flag atop it dip in surrender. The next fluid hammer blow, or maybe the one after that, would swallow it up.
He was not alone in observing. Maybe half their new friends in the skiff had brimful eyes. Julius was torn between thinking it shameful sentiment or touching.
‘Now!’ said the man watching at the prow—and secured himself a death grip to either side.
Something implacable started to eat the bottom of the boat, chewing and spitting away splinters. It roared as it dined.
Frankenstein felt a powerful impulse to swing his feet up on the bench to escape the unseen monster below, but at the same time feared to appear womanish. Self-respect won over self-preservation—but only just.
Ada, who had a perfect excuse for effeminate acts, was reacting better than he—by not reacting at all. She sat quite still, the remnants of her parasol unfurled again, and awaited what would be. Foxglove was as close to her as decorum allowed, poised to put himself between her and harm. Lady Lovelace showed no sign of acknowledging that devotion, or indeed any external fact.
Looking to the future (and assuming they had any) Julius could now see individual rockpools and flotsam accumulations on the beach. It looked as inviting as Eden after their eternity afloat. Even the early Lazaran arrivals, or bits thereof, could not detract from the lovely sight.
‘Now or never, boys!’ called Cowley, just audible above wave, wind and ripping wood. ‘Jump!’
* * *
‘I can’t see what all the fuss was about!’ commented Lady Lovelace as she stepped ashore, barely getting her boots wet (or wetter).
If his hands hadn’t been busy keeping his balance Julius would have pinched himself. In his experience, when things seemed too good to be true then they generally were. Yet, apart from a scraped palm courtesy of some barnacles, he made it to dry land unscathed. Ditto Foxglove and almost all of them. They even retained the essential baggage they’d refused to let Mariner heave overboard, plus all their portable wealth: the latter safely secured to their bodies in waterproofed money-belts.
The skiff retained vestigial structure long enough to surf the worst rocks, sacrificially absorbing the punishment they doled out, and in dying delivered its charges into merely waist-high water beyond. As related, Ada was extra-special lucky. The stubborn pair of spars on which she stood kept their form to the last gasp, allowing her to merely step off onto sand, as though even the cruel sea deferred to her sense of dignity.
Not only that, but their undertaking to ‘Stephen,’ the cutter officer, regarding the skiff was fulfilled without further effort or conscience searching.
It had been a good old boat to them and they were belatedly grateful to it, but now, as per vow, it was no more.
All that spoilt things was a final wave, which reached into the still(ish) waters and snatched back two seamen. Like a spiteful child it lifted them up and smashed them against stone. Suddenly very relaxed, they surrendered to the sea and let themselves be drawn into its embrace. Seconds later they mixed with the skiff components and receded from view into ocean. No one gave them a second glance.
They were the past; the beach was the future. The survivors embraced it.
Alas, some who had preceded Lady Lovelace and co. wanted to embrace them. A host of Lazarans, many of them displaying grievous rock damage, were stumbling ashore, dripping water and attitude. Rough treatment might have softened their bodies but not their anger. They understood dimly but well enough. Warm humans had brought them to this: warm humans were the enemy...
The random scatter of Lazarans on the beach were still enough to comprise a ‘surrounding.’ It was time for clear thinking and clear direction of forces. The polite fiction about the chain of command which prevailed on the skiff was brutally jettisoned. Frankenstein cut through Third-lieutenant’s first hesitant ‘er...’ and took charge.
‘Form a circle! Anyone with any weapons?’
They could oblige with the first but not the second. Then Third-lieutenant recalled he retained a midshipman’s dirk tucked into his stocking. Julius snatched it.
The nearest Lazaran was the best of a pretty basic bunch: no patchwork at all and fairly similar to what he’d once been. Possibly even some memories of previous life and status lingered. Therefore he was ringleader of all the enmity. He reached out for the warm ones and beckoned others.
Julius knew the score: in such situations it is vital to something—anything—rather than nothing. Frankenstein surged and slashed. Third-lieutenant had kept his midshipman rank memento in good order. The blade cut clean through Lazaran trachea and jugular, not producing the normal claret spectacular but causing the head to loll at a crazy angle.
It served. The Lazaran leader couldn’t see straight any more—his world had gone all cock-eyed. Using the interval of adjustment, the ring of warm-bloods slipped past him.
Into the arms of more like him. Cowley succumbed to a malicious embrace and could not escape it. Other Lazarans caught up and joined the group hug till the confused bundle overbalanced and hit the sand.
Frankenstein could not restrain himself from a sidelong glance. The sand under where he presumed Cowley to be was staining red.
Foxglove felled one, two and then three foes who menaced his mistress. Julius saw the terrible blows leave knuckle imprints on targets’ faces or entirely flatten noses. It was very effective as far as it went but meant neglecting a boy Lazaran who had mounted Foxglove’s back to bite.
Third-lieutenant wrestled with the stripling undead to complete absence of effect. Only when teeth met bone and a scream produced was Foxglove’s sense of duty overruled. He reached back and stabbed a stiff finger into his tormentor’s eye. Julius couldn’t help but cringe when he saw it go in right up to the knuckle.
The boy fell off and Third-lieutenant kicked him. The reward for that was to have his leg grasped and held hard. Failing to drag himself away, he called out in panic.
His companions pretended not to hear. They would have abandoned him, no doubt about it, for self-preservation dissolves all hierarchies and decencies. ‘Every man for himself’ was only seconds away—always assuming anyone could be bothered to say the actual words.
That wouldn’t have looked good at the time or sounded well in retrospect. How kind, then, of the Deity or Fate or random events to send salvation.
Chapter 17: DON’T MESS WITH THE BELGIANS
Happily, at that moment friends came over the hill.
Less happily, with friends like these most enemies were redundant. The long drawn out agony of the stricken ship must have been seen and a robust response mobilised.
The line of lancers paused at the dune line to take the situation in—and seconds later plunged in.
It was a universally agreed precept that ‘turned’ Lazarans were no more use to anyone. Even the most miserly of slavers didn’t dare keep rogue Revived about them. Once they’d developed a taste for flesh and discovered that the warm-bloods weren’t invincible that was it. Sooner or later, one dark night when vigilance was low, new lessons learnt would be put into practice. There was the Marseilles Mutiny as terrible example, and the time it proved necessary to burn Liverpool…
That principle was an expensive one. In the West Indies whole islands had to be cleared and re-stocked when local rebellions broke out. Accordingly, liberal-minded plantation owners were frowned upon, and even run out of the place if particularly kind to their Lazarans. It only took one good apple to spoil the whole barrel, and then you were looking at months of massacres, not to mention ruinous expense. And that was just on smallish Caribbean islands. If the cancer set in on a continental land mass it didn’t bear thinking about.
Which is why the lancers didn’t ask questions. They simply piled in and skewered the scattering Lazarans with zest—and twelve foot plumed lances also.
Contrary to what you might expect, some Lazarans had highly developed survival instincts. Having already lost life once before was the most likely explanation. And with this bunch, escaping captivity and surviving shipwreck reinforced such sentiments. Added to that, the more rational undead present were disinclined to take on cavalry unarmed. Accordingly, the sensible elements fled in every direction.
The rest, the barely sentient ‘patchwork’ jobs and botched revivals, or those eaten up with universal rage, disputed ownership of the beach. They rushed howling at the new arrivals—and as a by-product left Julius and friends unmolested.
The horsemen met them at the gallop and transfixed a fair few. Then, having burst through and out the other side, they wheeled and returned to deal with the remainder. It was pretty simple work for trained men, as these appeared to be. Several saddles were emptied as they passed and comrades ripped to bits, but it didn’t seem to faze them.
Two traverses did the trick and after that it was a merry chase along the shoreline, making a game of how many fugitives could be spitted on one stick. Frankenstein was queasily reminded of a kebab dinner he’d once had in Constantinople.
But stronger still, he was reminded of what a fragile bag of flesh the human frame is—and the alive variety yet more so than the Revived kind. There was little to distinguish them in their present drowned-rat state from the Lazaran horde, except perhaps pinker skin— and in Ada’s case not even that. They couldn’t just assume they would be immune from the rough justice being meted out to the mutineers.
Already, individual lancers were starting to notice the knot of people trying to pretend they were invisible. You didn’t need to be Nostradamus to foretell that things were about to take an unfortunate turn.
‘Screen her!’ Frankenstein instructed Foxglove. ‘Don’t let them see her face.’
How refreshing it was to deal with the swift of understanding! Without so much as a ‘wot?’ the servant complied. He no longer had his top hat but even without it was tall enough to serve as a human shield.
‘And you…,’ Julius addressed the trembling Third-lieutenant, ‘step forward—your uniform might count for something.’
There was no time to wait for comprehension. Frankenstein grasped the youth’s collar and dragged him along.
‘Wait!’ Julius tried it in French, since that seemed the best bet. Certainly, the lancers were resplendent enough in green and gold to number in that nation’s army. ‘Wait! We are not like them! Or with them!’
But several soldiers had already couched their lances to pedestrian level. Their mounts pawed the sand, awaiting the word
Julius repeated in German and, for good measure, Italian. You never knew—they might be men from one of the French conquests. It could do no harm. Only one thing was certain: this
side of the Channel speaking English wasn’t going to do them any favours.
One of the lancers advanced—but at a walk. Frankenstein and his captive put on a burst of speed to meet him more than halfway, to maximise mutual visibility.
‘See?’ (French again) ‘See?’ Julius pinched his cheek to produce a blush. ‘We are living. They were our enemy. You have saved us!’
The man exchanged words with one of his comrades, but Julius couldn’t catch it. Either the distance was too great or it was a language not in his repertoire. The man spoken to shrugged.
Such battle as remained had moved to the outskirts of vision. A sort of peace had returned to the beach save for a few lancers ambling about, pig-sticking those undead who wouldn’t lie still. Those not engaged walked their horses over and gradually formed a loose circle round Frankenstein and friends.
Foxglove, Ada (still shrouded) and the remaining sailors caught them up. There was minor comfort in huddling close.
Julius bore up under the scrutiny. It was not in his nature to beg, nor, he thought, good policy at present. In the context of being soaked and shivering and he-knew-not-where, it was a brave show.
Which was rewarded. One of the lancers, an obvious officer from the extra epaulettes and gold braid, rode close.
‘Hello.’
He spoke French, but accented in a way Julius failed to recognise.
‘Good day, sir,’ said Frankenstein in kind, bright as he could.
The hand which held the lance wavered side to side, equivocating.
‘It may be, it may not. For you, that is. I have not decided. What are you?’
Third-lieutenant was going to say something but Julius nipped it in the bud by treading on toes.
He chose words carefully; most salient facts first.
‘We are living. Victims of the sea. And of mutinous Lazarans.’
The officer raised one eyebrow, in a not-unfriendly ‘you don’t say…’ manner.
So far so good. Julius moved on to specifics.
‘I am Swiss. A neutral. With me are my manservant and Lazaran sister.’
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