by Iain Gale
‘It’ll be your turn soon, Mister Steel, sir. Don’t you worry.’
Steel did his best to smile and wondered how long that would be. He needn’t have worried. A full half-hour later, they had still not done with Marius Brouwer.
Steel could not bear to look. The pirates were taking their time now, making every cut, every shot, every blow hurt as much as possible, prolonging the poor man’s agony as far as they could. Brouwer’s body was a mass of cuts and he was covered in blood. His legs too were bleeding heavily. It seemed there was hardly a part of his body that had not been ripped or gouged by some weapon. And still they came on. Surely to God, thought Steel, this vile butchery could not last much longer. He knew that there was no point in protesting. That would only make his own suffering worse. He knew too that in part this spectacle was being enacted for his benefit. That Trouin, who had stood throughout in a darkened corner of the room, looking on, was revelling in what he knew would be Steel’s increasing terror. And Steel knew too that Brouwer was a lost cause. He prayed silently that the man would expire soon. He was thankful at least that Lady Henrietta was still in a faint and that Trouin had not thought to force her awake. It occurred to him though that, when his own turn came, the pirate captain would ensure that she was fully conscious of what was happening to him and that she saw every ghastly, degrading stage in his own slow execution.
Brouwer was crying now. Or rather he was trying to cry. He had lost an eye to one of the daggers and the bloody hole gaped sightlessly out at the room. And, of course, he was unable to speak. But still a ghastly sound emanated from the gaping, gory ruin of his mouth. Through his miserable mewings Steel thought he could detect that the man was now begging for death. He thought about Marius’s family, the children soon to be orphaned and poor Berthe. They would know nothing of this, of the way their father had died like a butchered animal. When Steel returned to them and broke the news – as he kept reassuring himself that he would – he would tell them that their father had died a hero, fighting to the end. When he got out of here. He looked around and suddenly began to doubt that certainty. If he got out of here. The pirates were flagging slightly in their perverse exertions now and it seemed to Steel that Brouwer must be on the brink of death.
Trouin too noticed both and advanced from his dark corner. ‘Gentlemen, I believe that this miserable miscreant has at last paid for his crime.’
He nodded to Ajax. The pirates stepped back as the giant walked up to Brouwer who did not seem aware of anything beyond his own suffering and who had stopped even the small, animal noise which until now had signalled that he still retained a breath of life. The blackamoor snatched up Brouwer’s head by the hair and at the same time drew the huge pearl-handled sword from its scabbard at his side. Then, with one quick and terrible move, he flicked up the blade with such power that it completely severed the Belgian’s head, which flew from the body in a horrid, spouting arc, before falling to the floor.
Trouin applauded: ‘Oh, well done. Bravo. Ah well, that’s the end of any idiotic notions of freedom for these peasants. Better to embrace the only true code of life, the code of the corsair. Eh boys? Let’s have a song.’
Steel looked on as, even with the mutilated, headless corpse of Brouwer still hanging on the wall, one of the pirates took up a fiddle and began to play and a few others, less inebriated than the rest, managed a passable jig. With the music, Lady Henrietta stirred and awoke. Looking across the room she focused instantly on Brouwer’s decapitated body and screamed. The fiddler played on and Trouin walked towards her.
‘Oh no, dear madame. Don’t worry. We still have his head.’ From behind him Ajax pushed the bloody severed head, now impaled upon a pike, towards her face and she fainted back into unconsciousness. Trouin stroked her breast. ‘Such a sensitive beauty. So very soft. So … ready.’ He stopped himself and turned back to Steel. ‘But now, Captain. We come to you.’
Steel felt his throat grow dry with fear as Trouin approached with the huge black man as always close behind.
‘What I wonder will be your fate? What should we do, do you think, to one who so blatantly disregards the code of honour by which we live? Who sullies my own house and the very earth with his presence. What shall it be?’ He turned to the pirates. ‘You will decide, men.’
The fiddler stopped playing and those who were able, through the alcoholic haze, looked towards Steel.
‘We shall take a vote on it. That is the way of the pirate. We are fully democratic, are we not? A band of brothers.’ There was a cheer from the company. ‘So what shall we say first? What exquisite end shall we devise for this traitorous scum?’
There was a groan from Lady Henrietta in the corner, who was coming round.
Trouin heard it. ‘Ah. I believe that our other guest is waking up. And just in time for our little entertainment.’
She was staring at him, wide-eyed. Slowly her head turned and she surveyed the room, saw the shambles that remained of Brouwer hanging from the wall by chains. But she did not scream this time, merely gawped. She looked across to Steel and he could see the pure terror in her eyes.
Trouin saw it too: ‘Do not be afraid, madame. Your fate will be as nothing compared to your friend here. We were just deciding what to do with him. Have you any imaginative ideas?’ She said nothing. ‘No? Well then, I shall put it to the ship’s company. What is it to be? Shall we pull out his tongue too, like that fool? Or shall we blind him first?’ A cheer went up around the room. ‘Yes, good. Or perhaps, yes, perhaps we should simply geld him and prevent him from siring any more of his breed to sully this earth with their dishonour.’
Another cheer, louder this time. Stringer huzza-ed. Steel grimaced.
‘Yes. Perhaps that would be the way. What do you say, Mister Steel. Would you rather be without sight, or without your manhood? Speak up.’ Trouin smiled and cupped his ear in mock deafness. ‘I can’t hear you.’ He bent his face closer to Steel’s: ‘Come on, tell me, Captain. What’s it to be?’
No words came to Steel, but in a last defiant gesture he managed to summon up sufficient phlegm in his mouth to spit directly into Trouin’s face. It was too much. The pirate lashed out and dealt Steel a stinging blow across the face. His head spun. He felt as if his jaw had been broken. Then Trouin’s fist connected with Steel’s abdomen and knocked the breath from him. He closed his eyes. Another blow came in fast, then another and another, with unexpected strength, until Steel felt as though the pirate must be splitting his organs beneath the taut skin, smashing the bruised bones. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the frenzied assault stopped. Steel blinked and watched as Trouin wiped his spit from his face with a bloody, gloved hand and spat words back in his face.
‘You disgusting piece of filth. When we’ve finished with you your own mother won’t know you and no other woman will ever want to know you again. Oh yes. We’re going to let you live. You will be a worthless piece of shit, a blind, castrated beggar.’ He turned to his servant. ‘Ajax, you may begin. And then we shall all enjoy whatever pleasures may be had from this English milady. I think I have decided not to sell her after all. I think that I will keep her for my own amusement, and for whoever else in my crew I deem worthy to sample her.’
He moved across to Lady Henrietta and with a deft gesture ripped off the remaining portion of her yellow dress, leaving her yet more exposed, half-naked in only her short petticoat. ‘Yes. Well Ajax, don’t stare, she’s not for you. You would kill her. What are you waiting for? Get on with it.’
Steel stared wild-eyed as the negro bore down on him, a short knife gleaming in his hand. He struggled against the chains but only succeeded in gouging further into the cuts around his wrists. But he knew that the agony was nothing to that which he was about to experience. Reaching Steel, Ajax grasped his left arm and with a swift motion flicked the tip of the blade towards it. It made contact and left a faint, thin line along the flesh. Steel felt nothing and gazed at it and as he did so blood began to trickle from the cut and the p
ain kicked in.
Trouin laughed: ‘What’s wrong? He’s only playing with you, Steel. He just wanted to make sure that the blade was keen enough before he got on with the real business. Continue.’
Again the blade flickered forward, cutting another thin line into Steel’s arm and then again and again. The black giant stepped back and surveyed Steel, who had forgotten in his terror and pain what it was they intended to do to him first. Blind him or castrate him. It didn’t seem to matter. Again Ajax advanced towards him and Steel closed his eyes, waiting for the awful impact of the razor-sharp metal on his skin.
But before it could happen the room burst into thunderous noise as a volley of musket shots raked the door and shattered the wood around the lock. Steel opened his eyes. In front of him, thankfully, Ajax had stopped in his tracks, distracted by the cacophony and Steel watched with the others as through the white smoke around the door uniformed men began to pour into the room. For a moment Steel thought that it must be a dream, that he must have passed out under the pain or be having hallucinations. He was uncertain whether he wanted to will himself back to reality, knowing what it would bring. And then it gradually began to seem real. There were voices – dimly, he saw two ranks of men form up and level their muskets at the pirates. He was conscious of a movement to his right. One of Trouin’s men hurled a knife at the soldiers, missed and paid with his life as another shot rang out. Steel’s mind was spinning. Surely the British assault had not yet begun? And how would his men know to find him here?
He peered into the smoke, looking for a familiar face; Williams, Hansam. Instead though he saw only anonymous soldiers. And the coats they wore – white. These were Frenchmen, regular army. Steel shut his eyes again, unable to take it in. He opened them and across the room he could see Lady Henrietta, still shackled as he was. And then a voice was talking to him. In English. He turned his bloody head towards it.
‘Jacob?’
Jacob Slaughter pressed his face close to Steel’s ravaged features. ‘Don’t worry, sir. You’re safe now. Christ almighty, but what they’ve done to you. This place is a butcher’s shop. Looks like we came just in time, sir.’
Steel mouthed words. None came. He wanted answers.
‘Don’t try and talk, sir. You’re safe now. And the lady.’
He looked across to Lady Henrietta still half-naked as she was, and looked quickly away, finding only Brouwer’s headless corpse, still hanging in chains from the wall.
‘Poor bugger.’
Another voice rang out from the doorway and Steel strained to see from whom it came. A tall young French officer was standing framed in the arch.
‘Captain Trouin, I am placing you under house arrest for gross misconduct. This is not the behaviour of a French officer.’
Trouin grinned at him: ‘But I am not a French officer, merely an officer in French pay, monsieur. Unlike you I did not lick the king’s arse to get my commission. I earned it in blood.’
The officer prickled: ‘You will desist from such conversation, sir. And hand me your sword.’
Trouin considered his options. There were none, for the present at least. Reluctantly, he unbuckled the wide leather belt that encompassed his hips and let the sword clatter to the stone floor.
‘Come and take it for yourself. If you have the stomach for it.’
The officer signalled to his sergeant who moved swiftly across to Trouin, picked up the sword and handed it to the lieutenant who spoke again: ‘And now, you will release your prisoners into my care.’ He saw Brouwer. ‘What is left of them. The keys, if you please, Captain.’
Trouin reached into his waistcoat and produced a ring on which were hung several large keys. He threw it across the floor. The officer gestured to two of his men, one of whom stooped to pick up the keys. Then, together they went across to Lady Henrietta. While one of them covered her nakedness with a cloak, the other worked the key in the locks of the shackles before helping her down.
Trouin spoke: ‘You wil regret this, Lieutenant. What is your name?’
‘Lejeune, sir. And I would advise you to choose your words most carefully, Captain. For what I have witnessed here is evidence of an act of gross indecency and will surely result in your court-martial.’
Trouin laughed: ‘D’you suppose for one minute, young man, that I am afraid? That I am at all intimidated by your justice? I am not subject to your military laws, nor to any others. Do you know who I am? What I have done?’
‘That, sir, is only too evident.’
It occurred to Steel that he recognized the voice. He peered through the still smoky room which now reeked of powder, mingled with the stench of sweat and blood. Did he know his saviour? A French officer? He tried to place the man, but his head was still filled with images of blood and he was trying to grasp the reality of the fact that he had been saved by some miracle from a fate so agonizing as to be unimaginable.
The two soldiers, having escorted Lady Henrietta to the safety of their comrades, now turned to Steel. Carefully, they unlocked his chains and eased his bloody arms out of the manacles and down from the wall. One of them folded him in a cloak. Somehow Steel managed to mutter a grateful word of thanks before Slaughter came to his aid and helped him slowly across the room, towards the French. He looked up into the eyes of the officer, who spoke first.
‘Monsieur, I cannot express my sorrow. This is monstrous. Thank God we were in time.’
Steel just gazed at him and said nothing. Then he had it. He recognized the face from what seemed now like years ago. A village, an angry peasant mob. This was the terrified junior officer that he had saved from a lynching, D’Alembord’s lieutenant. And now it seemed the man had found a chance to repay that debt. Steel thanked God. He smiled through the blood that had crusted around his face, and tried again to speak.
Lejeune saw it: ‘Do not thank me, Captain. I see that you know me and yes, this is a debt of honour. But it is no more than I would do for any man. This is not war, it is cold-blooded murder. Worse than that. This is not the war that I fight, Captain. I hope that you will believe that, that we in France do uphold a code of honour.’
He turned to his men, uttered a command in French and the rear rank filed around and to the side of the front and slowly and deliberately began to take Trouin’s men prisoner, binding them together in pairs.
Again the pirate commander laughed: ‘D’you think that these few drunkards are all of my men, Lieutenant? Don’t you know that I have many more above in the tavern and others on the two ships lying in the harbour? Don’t you suppose that they will rescue me?’
Lejeune shrugged. ‘Your men in the tavern are already under my guard, monsieur, on their way to the cells. As for those in the harbour, we shall see. Soon though, I surmise that we will have more pressing problems. We have received information that the British are about to attack – most probably in the morning. Even now my major is making plans to defend the town.’
Trouin spat: ‘Malbec? What does he know? Does he know of this? I can’t believe that he ordered you to arrest me.’
‘He didn’t. I came here on my own initiative. And thank God I did.’
Leaving behind a small party to take care of the mess that had been Marius Brouwer, they left the cellar, Lejeune first with Lady Henrietta, followed by Steel and Slaughter. Then came Trouin and behind him in small groups, contained with stout ropes and prodded on by bayonets, his men. For Steel every one of the stone steps they took back up into the real world, away from the charnel house of the cellar, was agony. He made no sound. But with every pace the pain in his entire body seemed to grow, cutting through him like a red-hot knife. They reached the main room of the tavern, which had been cleared of Trouin’s men, and went out into the street. It was early morning now and the bells of the great church had begun to chime for matins. Steel turned to Slaughter and smiled and finally found the words.
‘Christ Jacob, you took your bloody time.’ And as he spoke he felt his knees suddenly give way and then there wa
s no choice but to let himself go, thankfully into the peaceful velvety blackness.
THIRTEEN
Steel awoke with a start. The nightmare had been horribly real, the pain palpable. Exhausted and drenched in sweat, he lay flat on his back. Opening his eyes he blinked at the cool light streaming in through a small mullioned window and stared up, hypnotized momentarily by the lacework of patterns the shadow cast upon the ceiling. He had no idea where he was, and could not recall how he had come to be here. Outside he could hear seagulls calling and concluded that he must be in a port, or at least close to the sea. His fuzzy mind began to make sense of it all, bringing a feeling of dark foreboding and the beginnings of memory. Ostend. A mission for Hawkins. A girl. And blood. Too much blood. He thought that perhaps he should sit up. Tentatively, he flexed his right arm, and instantly a pain shot along it from fingertip to armpit. Putting his weight on his left elbow, he tried with some difficulty to raise himself up. And as he did so the pain in his back, his arms and his stomach hit him with nauseating clarity.
Closing his eyes, Steel fell back on to the bed. And only now did he begin more fully to remember, and in that one ghastly moment it occurred to him that it had not been a dream.
Now Steel relived the full horror of what had happened. The thought brought an unaccustomed feeling of panic. Then he recalled the rescue and it dawned upon him that he must be in the house of a friend. He relaxed and let his arms move across his torso – he was naked. He reached for his legs and found to his relief that both were still there. Moving upwards he felt for any terrible wounds that he might not have remembered. All seemed as it should be. He opened his eyes and saw that he was lying on a wooden bed, a simple affair, covered with a clean sheet and a blanket. Turning his head to the left brought a pain in the muscles. On a table beside him stood a flask of water and a glass. Lying across a white porcelain bowl was a small, clean towel. He saw that his coat, breeches and waistcoat had been carefully draped across the wooden chair opposite the table along with his sword and belt. They looked as if someone must have brushed them. A clean shirt hung on a hook at the door, and in the corner of the room were his prized boots, which too it seemed had been polished. It was only then that Steel realized that someone else was in the room. For a second he panicked again, then managed to raise his head and saw Jacob Slaughter. The sergeant was sitting on a wicker-seated chair, across from the bed, close to the door.
