Killigrew and the Incorrigibles

by Jonathan Lunn

  ‘All right,’ acquiesced Fallon. Mrs Cafferty did not believe a word of it; but that would be Jarrett’s problem, at a later date.

  ‘Tie him up.’ Jarrett indicated Killigrew. ‘I’ll keep him covered.’

  ‘If you shoot me, the servants will come running,’ warned Killigrew.

  ‘True,’ said Jarrett. ‘But if you make a move and I don’t shoot you, I think I’ll be doomed anyway. I suggest that neither of us puts your theory to the test.’

  ‘Get face-down on the floor,’ ordered Fallon. Killigrew complied, and the Irishman tied his hands behind his back and his feet together at the ankles. He pulled out his own silk handkerchief to gag the lieutenant, but Jarrett stopped him.

  ‘Leave it. We’re running out of time. The horses are already hitched to the carriage. Put the girl in the back and bring it round to the front. I’ll meet you there as soon as I’ve dealt with Ben Backstay here,’ he added, gesturing at Killigrew with the revolver.

  ‘You’re not going to kill him, are you?’ Fallon demanded suspiciously.

  ‘Of course not,’ Jarrett said impatiently. ‘We need someone to tell Commander Robertson that we’ve got Mrs Cafferty, don’t we? There’s no point in having a hostage if no one knows we’ve got her.’

  ‘All right.’ Fallon took Mrs Cafferty by the arm and dragged her towards the door, holding the blade of his sword at her throat. ‘Come on. We’re going for a long ocean voyage. Act sensible and it may even be beneficial to your health.’

  * * *

  ‘Go on,’ Jarrett sneered at Killigrew as soon as Fallon had closed the door behind him. ‘Tell me what you’ll do to us if we harm one hair on her head.’

  ‘No matter where you go,’ the lieutenant promised him, ‘no matter how far you run, no matter where you hide, I’ll hunt you down like dogs if it takes me the rest of my life.’

  ‘Don’t worry. The rest of your life won’t be for much longer, I assure you.’ Before Killigrew could protest, Jarrett gagged him with Fallon’s handkerchief. He stood up and crossed to the desk. ‘It’s nothing personal, you understand. But I think we’ll stand a better chance of making our escape if the garrison is occupied elsewhere while we’re about it.’

  He took the lamp off the desk, removed the stopper and started to splash oil across the bookshelves. Killigrew struggled against his bonds, but Fallon had done too good a job of trussing him up.

  ‘It’s true what they say about the Irish being trusting simpletons, isn’t it? I’ve already double-crossed him once tonight, and yet he still believed me when I told him I had no intention of killing you.’ Jarrett helped himself to a cigar from a silver box on Price’s desk and snipped the end off it with a cigar cutter. ‘But people have always trusted me. Even when I meant them nothing but harm. It’s what comes from speaking like a gentleman, I suppose. Benefit of a good education, you see: the only thing my father bequeathed me,’ he added bitterly, taking a match from a box. ‘I could have been just like you, if I hadn’t been born on the wrong side of the blanket. Just another case of the sins of the father visited on the son.’

  Killigrew heard the sound of hoofs and the soft rattle of a carriage moving on to the track in front of the house. Jarrett heard it too, and looked up. ‘Well, that’s my ride.’ He struck the match and applied it casually to the end of his cigar. After a few puffs, the end was glowing nicely. ‘I’ll be on my way now, but don’t worry.’ He tossed the still-burning match against the bookshelves, and the oil flared at once. ‘I’ll leave you a nice fire to keep you warm. You’d be amazed by how cold it gets here at night.’ He stepped outside the door and pulled it to behind him. Killigrew heard him walk down the hallway and close the front door behind him.

  Chapter 7

  Breakout

  From the corner of the wall surrounding the new gaol, Solomon Lissak peered across to the old gaol. He could not see the front of the gaol from where he crouched, but he knew there would be two privates from the garrison on sentry-go at the entrance to the courtyard.

  He moved stealthily and silently through the shadows in front of the new gaol until he was directly behind the old. A seven-foot-high wall linked the buildings of the old gaol to form an enclosure no more than fifty feet square. He took a little run up to the wall, leaped, hooked his hands over the top of it, and hung there for a moment. He tried to pull himself up, but his ageing bones protested at the effort and he suppressed a gasp. I’m getting too old for this gammon, he told himself.

  Bracing the toes of his boots against the stonework, he managed to boost himself up, and climbed on to the wall, peering through the stone framing over the courtyard below. After waiting to make sure the courtyard was deserted and that the men on guard outside the front gate opposite had not heard him climb the wall, he dropped down through a gap in the framing. He landed lightly on the flagstones below; his body might not be as strong and supple as it had been in his youth, but he had lost none of his stealth, and his bones made more noise creaking as he pushed himself to his feet once more than his boots had done hitting the flagstones.

  He crept across to the outer door of one of the buildings, picked the lock – it was the work of about three minutes using the picks he had made – and let himself silently in. The corridor beyond was deserted. He tiptoed down to the second cell and peered through the grille in the heavy wooden door. ‘Wyatt?’ he whispered.

  ‘Shh! The lock,’ Wyatt hissed back.

  Lissak picked the lock on the door – it took him even less time than the one on the outer door had – and let himself into a cell fifteen feet by five. There were ten convicts in there, lying on straw mats, all joined by their fetters to the same chain which was linked to ringbolts in the wall at either end of the long cell.

  ‘Good work, Solly,’ whispered Wyatt. ‘Now get these clinkers off us.’

  It took Lissak the best part of a minute to pick the locks on the fetters of the first man he came to, but all the locks were of the same pattern and as he went on he worked faster; in about seven minutes he had released all ten of them.

  ‘Where’s Speeler?’ asked Wyatt.

  ‘On his way.’

  ‘Good! Piggy, you come with me and Solly to help do for the guards; the rest of you wait here.’

  None of them seemed inclined to argue: when Wyatt gave an order, it was invariably obeyed. Mangal ‘Piggy’ Griddha was an Indian, a tubby little fellow with a round, cherubic face. He did not look as though he would harm a fly, although Lissak knew that in Mangal’s case appearances were deceptive. When Wyatt wanted someone killed and could not do it for himself – if he was in the water pit, for instance – then Mangal was his croaksman. A member of the thuggee cult, he could garrotte a man in seconds; he was the prime suspect for the murder of the warder who had earned Wyatt’s wrath. In return, Wyatt used his influence to make sure Mangal got enough extra rations to maintain his rotund shape.

  Lissak followed Wyatt and Mangal out of the cell block into the courtyard, where they crept across to the door set in the gateway.

  Wyatt indicated the lock. Lissak nodded and went to work. While he was picking the lock, Wyatt produced a crude knife, fashioned from one of the tin plates the convicts were given to eat from; Mangal produced a strip of cloth torn from his fatigues and gripped it at both ends, wrapping it around his hands a couple of times.

  The bolt on the lock snapped back with a sound like a musket shot in the silence of the night. The three convicts froze, waiting for a challenge from the two sentries on the other side of the door. But all they heard was the rattle of an approaching carriage: the soldiers had other things to occupy their attention. Wyatt eased the gate open a crack and outside Lissak could see one of the sentries, and beyond him Price’s carriage approaching from the left. On the driving board of the carriage, Jarrett reined in the horses, and the sentry Lissak could see moved away from the gate to challenge him.

  Wyatt tapped Mangal on the shoulder, and pointed to the sentry. Mangal nodded.

  Go, mout
hed Wyatt.

  Mangal went out first, Wyatt immediately behind him. As the second sentry stared at Mangal’s back and started to unsling his musket, Wyatt caught him from behind, clapping one hand over his mouth to silence his warning shout. With his other hand, he buried the blade of his crude knife in the sentry’s neck, slicing through his windpipe and silencing the man’s cry of warning. Mangal brought down the other guard before he got halfway to where Jarrett had reined in the carriage. With one knee in the small of the soldier’s back, the Indian looped his garrotte over his head and pulled it tight. The soldier struggled, and then the death rattle sounded in his throat and he lay still.

  Wyatt wiped the blade of his knife on the dead sentry’s tunic and then crossed to the waiting carriage. ‘All set, Speeler?’

  Jarrett nodded.

  ‘Go and get the others, Sol.’

  * * *

  His hands and legs bound, Killigrew squirmed across to the library door and banged the soles of his feet against it repeatedly. The door was too solid to break, but the banging made an awful racket. He lay motionless and listened for any sounds of the household stirring, but all was still except for the flames that licked along the bookshelves. He tried yelling, but the silk handkerchief bound over his mouth muffled his cries. He glanced across to where Price lay: the commandant was still unconscious, and even if he did revive in the next few seconds, he too was bound and gagged. The bookshelves that lined the wall were fully ablaze now. The room was rapidly filling with acrid smoke that stung Killigrew’s eyes.

  Then he remembered the pistol beneath the desk that Mrs Cafferty had drawn his attention to. He squirmed across the floor to the desk and squeezed himself into the kneehole space, grasping for the pistol. His groping fingers touched the gun but only pushed it further out of reach. He wedged himself more tightly into the space and got a proper grip on it.

  He fumbled with it. There did not seem to be any trigger he could find, until he pulled back the hammer and a small tang popped out under the breech. He pointed the gun into the wainscoting and squeezed the trigger, but it would not budge: it must have had some kind of safety catch. He explored it with his fingers, pushing and twisting at various parts of it and cursing through his gag.

  A sliding catch moved back from the breech at the top of the butt. He pushed it back until it would go no further and pulled the trigger. This time the gun went off, but with little more than a disappointing pop. Wedged under the desk, his own body had muffled the sound. He squirmed out from under the desk, managed to rotate the two barrels, bringing the lower one into position. Then he lay on his side and rolled on to his front so he could aim the pistol at one of the windows. He fired again, through the curtains and shattered the window beyond. Someone must have heard that!

  The flames were spreading towards the rug where Price lay. Killigrew squirmed across to him and put his shoulder to the commandant’s body, laboriously pushing him away from the blaze. Even with the gag across his mouth, the smoke was starting to claw at his lungs and make him retch.

  The door opened and Robertson stood there in a striped nightshirt and tasselled nightcap. ‘What the blazes…?’ He appraised the situation with a single glance, roared ‘Fire!’ at the top of his lungs, and then entered the room to drag the unconscious Price out. He returned for Killigrew, dragging him into the hallway.

  ‘Fire! Fire!’ Robertson left Killigrew in the hallway and disappeared towards the back of the house.

  Light spilled down the stairs as one of the bedroom doors opened, and Hartcliffe appeared on the landing above him. He glanced down and saw Killigrew and Price bound and gagged at the foot of the stairs. ‘What in the world…?’ The young aristocrat slid down the banisters in his nightshirt and vaulted over them at the bottom. He tore off Killigrew’s gag. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Fallon and Price’s butler took Mrs Cafferty hostage and then set fire to the library to create a diversion while they rescue Cusack and Wyatt,’ Killigrew explained, turning his back on Hartcliffe so that he could fumble with the bonds.

  ‘Leave that,’ commanded Robertson, returning from the kitchen with a carving knife. ‘I’ll untie these two. Get everyone out of the house. Start with the children.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ Hartcliffe ran back up the stairs and started hammering on doors. ‘Fire! Fire! Everyone out!’

  ‘You say Fallon and the butler have gone for Cusack?’ demanded Robertson, sawing through the cords on Killigrew’s wrists.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Killigrew rubbed his chafed wrists, and then took the knife from the commander to saw at the bonds on his ankles. ‘I think they must have arranged for a ship to pick them up at Cascades, where Cusack’s house is.’

  ‘Right. I’ll take care of everything here: as soon as we’ve got everyone safely out of the house, I’ll go back aboard the Tisiphone with Hartcliffe and see if we can’t head them off on the other side of the island. You grab a horse from the stables and alert the garrison. Tell the commanding officer to detail a platoon of men to come up here and help fight the fire; the rest can try to catch Fallon and the others at the old gaol.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Killigrew handed the knife back to Robertson so he could free Price, and sprinted to the back of the house. The kitchen door was not locked; he found a hurricane lantern hanging from a hook close to the door, lit it with a match, and went outside.

  A full moon was shining, bathing the mews at the back of the house in its pale light, but he needed the lantern when he entered the stables. There were three horses left in there; he eliminated two of them at once: a skittish bay and a scrawny-looking nag. He quickly saddled the third horse, a likely looking grey, and led it out into the yard. He vaulted into the saddle and goaded it round the side of the house and down the path that led from the knoll to the buildings of the garrison which lined Quality Row, perhaps half a mile from the main settlement at Kingston. The horse broke effortlessly into a gallop and minutes later Killigrew was jumping down from the saddle to approach the two sentries on duty outside the gates to the barracks.

  ‘Sound the tocsin!’ he barked.

  They gawped at him.

  He pointed impatiently at the bell on the wall. ‘You: sound the tocsin,’ he said, pointing at one.

  ‘Yes, sir!’ The soldier nodded and sprinted to the bell.

  Killigrew pointed to the other. ‘You: find the duty officer and tell him there’s a breakout in progress at the old gaol, and Government House has been set on fire.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  As the bell clanged loudly, Killigrew glanced down the road and saw a carriage moving towards the barracks from the direction of the old gaol. The only road that led out of Kingston passed right by the barracks, only a few yards from where he stood. There were about six men crouched on the roof of the carriage, and two more clung to each of the running boards on either side. Clearly Jarrett had not wasted any time in freeing Wyatt and the others from the old gaol. It looked as though he intended to escape with as many of his fellow convicts as possible.

  Killigrew cursed himself for having left his pistols on board the Tisiphone. He ran back to the compound in front of the barracks and called across to the soldier frantically ringing the tocsin. ‘Is your musket loaded?’

  The soldier did not hear him above the clanging bell. Killigrew ran across to him and grabbed him by the shoulder. The soldier started and turned.

  ‘Your musket! Is it loaded?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  ‘Give it here!’ Killigrew snatched the musket and ran back out of the compound. The carriage was still a hundred yards away, moving slowly because it was so overloaded, but gathering speed nonetheless as the team of four horses drawing it got into their stride.

  Killigrew stood in its path and waved his arms above his head, still holding the musket. The moonlight was so bright, it was impossible the driver of the coach could fail to see him.

  He waited until the carriage was fifty yards away. ‘Halt!’ he roared. ‘Or I’ll fire!’<
br />
  Perhaps the driver could not hear him above the rattle of harness and the thundering of the horses’ hoofs; perhaps he could. Either way, he merely lashed the reins to urge the horses on even faster.

  Killigrew raised the stock of the musket to his shoulder. It was tempting to shoot one of the horses, but if one went down the whole team would stumble and there was a good chance of a real smash if the carriage went over. He knew he could not risk that if Mrs Cafferty was a prisoner on board. He sighted down the barrel at the driver and waited until the carriage was less than ten yards away.

  He fired. There was a bright flash and the stock slammed back against his shoulder. He leaped aside barely a second before one of the horses would have smashed into him, and reversed his grip on the musket to swing it like a club at the man clinging to the near side of the carriage. The musket whacked him in the side and he tumbled from the running board to land a few feet from where Killigrew stood. He tried to push himself to his feet, but before he could get up the lieutenant cracked him over the skull with the musket.

  As the carriage continued down the road past the barracks, Killigrew saw a second figure lying in the road: his shot had found a mark. He crouched over the man: it was another convict in ‘magpie’ fatigues, a man he did not recognise. If this had been the man driving, then someone else on the roof had managed to grab the reins before they fell between the traces.

  He looked back towards the barracks. Apart from the one dopey-looking private he had borrowed a musket from, there was still no sign of the garrison other than lights behind a couple of the windows. He cursed and, slinging the musket over one shoulder, ran back to where the horse stood, calmly cropping the grass at the roadside. Killigrew vaulted in the saddle, hauled on the reins to wheel his mount, and set off at a gallop after the carriage.