Distant Thunders d-4

by Taylor Anderson

  “But what of Lawrence?”

  “I can ’anage!” Lawrence said. “As soon as this huge creature puts La’rence down!”

  “Dee-lighted, you ungrateful little turd,” Dennis said. “Snatch onto that line. You can turn your tail loose in the boat! Maybe you’ll be good fer somethin’ then.” He looked at Rebecca. “After you, li’l sister!”

  With only the slightest hesitation, perhaps reliving old memories, the far different person who’d become Princess Rebecca grasped the rope and disappeared into the darkness below. Lawrence went next.

  “Now you, Sister Audry!” Dennis ordered, after the engineer disappeared.

  “I… I’m not sure I can!”

  “Sure, you can. It’s a cinch. Besides, if you don’t go, I’ll just drop you over the side and hope you land in the boat.”

  Audry looked at him, utterly uncertain whether he was serious or not. He’d spoken with the flat firmness of fact. “Very well, Mr. Silva,” she said sharply.

  “Prepare to fire!” Rajendra roared.

  “You’re next, Loo-tenant Tucker!”

  “No. You must get weapons. Where’s Midshipman Brassey?”

  “Here, ma’am!”

  “Good. Lead Mr. Silva to the magazine. Take two of these other men. We need weapons and ammunition! We’ll pass well enough up here for now, Mr. Cook and I.”

  Silva knew she meant to guard against treachery. He wasn’t sure how she’d do that, but he also knew it would be pointless and time-consuming to argue with her. “All right, Miss Tucker, we’ll be back in a flash!” He turned to Brassey and two of the men who’d been hauling the rope. “C’mon!”

  “Fire!” bellowed Rajendra. With a stuttering, rolling, earsplitting bark of thunder, Ajax vomited an uneven broadside port and starboard. Silva and his pickup team of commandos vanished in the swirling smoke.

  “Follow me,” Brassey cried. As he’d explained, Ajax had two magazines. The one they sought was aft, beneath the orlop and essentially below the waterline, which afforded it some protection from enemy shot. They met a steady stream of grim-faced, sweaty boys hurrying back to the guns, charges in their pass boxes. Reaching the magazine, they found it virtually deserted, the powder boys having already come and gone. The first compartment had a lantern illuminating racks of muskets. Silva was surprised and joyful to see the Doom Whomper secured at the far end of one rack along with his shooting pouch and belt. From the belt still hung his holster, magazine pouches, cutlass, and ’03 bayonet in its scabbard. The bayonet was a respectable “sword” in its own right.

  “Hot damn!” he hissed, wrapping the belt around his waist and clipping it in place. He then grabbed his massive rifle. He could see movement in an adjoining compartment through a thick pane of wavy glass. The gunner and his mates, most likely, preparing charge bags.

  “Whose side’s the gunner on?” Silva asked.

  “I don’t know,” Brassey confessed.

  “Okay. You fellas get a double armload o’ them muskets and some cartridge boxes. Anything in ’em?”

  “There should be a battle load of forty rounds apiece,” one of the men supplied. “The door is usually locked and guarded.”

  “Huh. Well, gather all you can carry and take ’em up.” He grinned. “If anybody asks, say it’s Billingsly’s orders!” While the men did as he said, Silva turned to Brassey. “Loose shot and powder? How ’bout musket flints?”

  Brassey pointed. “Those small kegs hold balls and flints, but powder will be in there,” he said, referring to the space where the gunner was.

  Silva nodded. Taking off the Imperial ordinary seaman’s striped shirt, he quickly knotted the sleeves and dropped two thirty-pound kegs of shot and a single keg of flints into it. Tying it all together, he handed it to Brassey, who staggered under the weight. “You handle that?”

  “I’ll manage,” said the youngster.

  Seeing the other men festooned with muskets, cartridge boxes, and a few baldrics with cutlasses and bayonets, Silva sent the group on its way. “I’ll get powder,” he said, shooing them off.

  Another shattering broadside shook the ship. Any minute now, the compartment would fill with powder boys again. Hmm. Backing out of the magazine, he slipped into a compartment across the passageway, leaving the door open a crack so he could see. He smelled something pungent and glanced behind. “Well, well,” he muttered. “Rum, by God!” One of the short, thick black glass bottles must have cracked and soaked the padding around it. There was a sack hanging on a hook and he filled it with the bottles, leaving two aside. Pulling the cork on one, he took a long swig. “Ghaaa!” he hissed appreciatively. Not great, but not bad. He wondered what they used for sugar? Lowering the bottle, he took a length of light line that had probably once bound the padding together and stuck one end into the bottle. Then he wrapped it around the open mouth and tied it. Nothing to do now but wait.

  Soon, the boys had all apparently come and gone and he slipped back across the passageway. He held both bottles by their necks between the fingers of his left hand, and drew the cutlass with his right. Anyone who saw the cutlass would know it didn’t belong. It was longer, straighter-and much better-than anything like it on the ship. He shrugged. Time to do his thing. He’d behaved himself long enough.

  “Open up!” Silva growled at the inner door. A short man with spectacles and the almost universal Imperial mustache opened the heavy door and peered out. Silva drove the cutlass into his chest and pushed his way inside. Without a sound, the man slid off the blade and onto the deck when Silva lowered the cutlass and regarded the other man. He was bigger and might require more exercise.

  He screamed shrilly.

  So much for first impressions, Silva thought, and pinned the man to the bulkhead. The gunner, or mate-whichever he was-screamed even louder. “Well, shit!” Dennis hissed indignantly, skewering the man again. “I’ve seen bunnies make manlier noises when a dog gets ’em by the ass!” Still sobbing, but mortally wounded, the big man fell to the deck when Silva freed the blade.

  Quickly, he laid the cutlass on the gunner’s table and hung the rope and rum bottle from a hook on the beam overhead. Snatching up a fifty-pound keg of powder, he hurried to place it in the passageway. He knew he was running out of time. Imperial drill for deterring mountain fish seemed to be three broadsides, and the next would fire any minute. He didn’t know what would happen after that. He doubted the powder boys would return the pass boxes to the magazine-there was limited space inside, after all-but somebody was liable to come down. He ran back inside, picked up another barrel of powder, and smashed it against the deck.

  “I thought I might find you here,” came a voice from the armory compartment.

  Silva looked up. “Well, how do, Mr. Truelove,” he said. “For some reason, I thought you might too.” He nodded at the pistol held casually in Truelove’s hand. “You gonna shoot that in here?”

  Truelove grimaced at the pistol and slid it on his belt, where it hung by a hook. “I don’t suppose I really need it. I’m actually quite good with a sword. I’ve seen you use one, you know, at Baalkpan, before I gave you that little tap on the head. You fight quite… dynamically and enthusiastically… but your sword work is just that: work. To me, it is play.”

  “Why’d you conk me then?”

  Truelove shrugged. “Unsportsmanlike, I know, but necessary at the time. Perhaps now we might meet each other properly?”

  “Sure. Just a couple o’ questions first. ’Twixt gentlemen.”

  Truelove nodded. “Of course. Adversaries should know each other at times like this, and I already know a good deal about you.”

  “How did you know I’d be here?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Call it intuition. You are a resourceful man. I thought it likely you might take advantage of the situation facing the ship. I don’t know what you hope to accomplish, but I’ve no doubt you have a plan. I almost regret thwarting you. I view you as a fellow professional in a way, and suspect I would have enjoyed
seeing your plan unfold.”

  So, thought Silva, he’s here on a whim. Everything else might still be going swell. He had no doubt Truelove was better with a sword, since Silva had no proper training at all. A real fight wouldn’t do, and besides, it might take too long and draw too much attention. A moment earlier he’d been in a rush. Now he needed to stall. “Why Billingsly?” he asked conversationally. “A fella like you’d go just as far on the right side, I figger.”

  Truelove laughed. “Well, let us just say that I had gone quite as far as I could in His Majesty’s Secret Service, and I like money. Yes, indeed.” He nodded at Silva’s cutlass and reached for his sword. “Shall we be about it then?”

  “Sure, but there’s just one thing you may not know about me,” Silva said, shaking his head with a conspiratorial grin and a prolonged display of being a man with a great secret.

  “Oh?”

  The third broadside erupted, jarring the ship and making the lantern in the adjoining compartment jump. Silva launched himself like a torpedo and struck Truelove in the chest with his head before the man could clear his blade. They sprawled together in the armory compartment, and quicker than his opponent could recover, Silva’s mighty fists were already slamming into his face like pile drivers. Truelove was still trying to free his sword, but with six inches of the blade free, Dennis paused long enough to grasp the man’s hand in his and wrench it to the side, breaking several of Truelove’s fingers against the guard and snapping the blade off at the top of the scabbard. He pitched the twisted guard in among the musket stocks. The last thing Truelove might have heard before darkness took him was Silva’s final, gasping explanation: “Sometimes I can be a little unsportsmanlike too.”

  For the moment, Truelove was out. Sore from his leap, Silva struggled to his feet and dragged the heavy, limp form into the magazine. Tearing off a piece of wadding made of something he didn’t recognize, he stuffed it into Truelove’s mouth and propped him against a heavy upright beam. Finding a spool of slow match, he fiercely tied the man’s head to the post, across the gag, then proceeded to secure him quickly and professionally against any attempt to escape. Tearing away a piece of Truelove’s shirt, he lit it from the lantern and carefully lit the rum-soaked cord that held the bottle suspended. He had no idea how long the cord would hold, five minutes or half an hour, but he needed to be gone.

  As he fled the armory, as an afterthought he snatched Truelove’s pistol from where it had fallen from his belt, then shut the outer door and locked it with his heavy brass key. He’d taken a chance the same key would work, but he’d expected it would. He knocked the top off the second rum bottle and liberally doused the passageway on both sides of the magazine, taking pains not to spill any right in front of it. Finally, he slung his big rifle and hoisted the keg of powder onto his shoulder. He lit another piece of Truelove’s shirt from the lantern in the passageway and pitched it onto the far splash of rum. It lit with surprising fervency. Beyond the sudden flame, he saw a boy’s panicked face appear and then quickly vanish, yelling, “Fire!” Oh, well. Dropping the lantern on the nearest splash, he hoisted his sack of rum bottles with a clinking sound and dashed up the companionway.

  Things on the gun deck had calmed significantly when the leviathan they’d apparently struck failed to reappear. He even caught a snatch of a rumor that the starboard anchor had been discovered hanging in the sea. Maybe it was all just a false alarm. Silva paid no heed. His old maxim of doing sneaky stuff right out in the open seemed to be holding up. If a guy with a strange-looking gun came running by with a keg on one shoulder and a canvas sack on the other… he must have a good reason-or whoever had ordered him to did. Cries of “Fire!” began to increase, further distracting the crew. The alarm bell was sounding again when Silva reached the quarterdeck-and saw Billingsly pointing a pistol at Sandra, Rajendra, and Cook.

  He was dressed in a probably stylish robe, with clashing colors and frills, and stood in stocking feet. He must have finally emerged from his spacious cabin to investigate all the commotion. Like Truelove, perhaps he suspected something and armed himself. Or maybe he was just paranoid. Regardless, there he stood with his long pistol aimed at Sandra. Again. He was shouting for guards, Marines-anyone-but no one could hear him over the alarm bell, the renewed uproar, and the still-venting steam. He didn’t hear Silva either, when the big man stepped up behind him and laid him flat with the sack of rum bottles. To Silva, the wild pistol shot was only slightly more alarming than the mournful crash and tinkle of an unknown number of the little prizes in the sack.

  “Silva!” cried Sandra. “Thank God! I don’t know whether to yell at you for taking so long, or hug you for showing up when you did!”

  He flashed a grin. “A hug’ll do, but later! We’d better scram! Over the side with you!” He ran to the rail. “Here, somebody strong’d better catch this!” he said, and tossed the powder barrel at the boat. Next went his sack, and he heard someone cry out when they must have found some broken glass. Sandra and Abel were sliding down the rope.

  “You next, Mr. Silva!” Captain Rajendra said. “I must be last to leave my ship!”

  “I know that sounds all noble an’ shit, but not this time,” Silva replied. He nodded at a group of men approaching, cutlasses out. Billingsly was beginning to revive as well. “I can handle ’em a lot quicker than you.” Rajendra hesitated; then, with a nod, he left Dennis Silva alone on Ajax ’s quarterdeck. Almost nonchalantly, Silva popped open the holster flap and drew his beloved 1911 Colt. He’d considered it-and all his weapons-as much a hostage as the rest of them. There was a magazine in the well, but if he remembered, he’d emptied it. Besides, the weight was wrong. Depressing the magazine release with his thumb, the-sure enough-empty magazine clattered on the deck at his feet.

  “Stop him, you fools!” Billingsly screamed at the swordsmen. “That is a repeating pistol of some sort!” The crewmen hesitated. A few more scampered up the stairs; one was an officer. “Kill that man this instant!” Billingsly shrieked.

  Silva fished another magazine out of a pouch on his belt, inserted it, and racked the slide. “Too late,” he said, and shot the officer. A large red hole appeared on the white jacket, exactly in the center of his chest, and he toppled backward onto the gun deck. Methodically, he then shot the three closest men and they sprawled on the deck around Billingsly. The other crew, who’d arrived with the officer, fled into the waist. Silva pointed the Colt at the Company warden and grinned hugely, his single eye gleaming. Smoke was beginning to coil up out of the ship and there was a growing panic.

  “Well, Mr. Billingsly! Just you an’ me!” He gestured with the pistol. “’S a wonder you didn’t fiddle around with this thing, learn how it works. A fella like you coulda used it-at a time like this!” He laughed.

  “Just do it!” Billingsly shouted. “Do you mean to mock me to death? Shoot! I swear I will kill you and all your pathetic friends! I’ll hang that precious princess of yours, damn you!”

  Silva’s grin vanished and something akin to… regret crossed his face. “I already have killed you, you stupid, measly son of a goat! And at least you deserve killin’. You know, I was kinda groggy at the time, but seems I remember ol’ Spanky yellin’ somethin’ about you not knowin’ who you was monkeyin’ with.” He shrugged. “Now you do.”

  With that, Silva slid down the rope to the waiting boat below. “Cast off!” he said. “Out oars! Get us the hell outta here!”

  “They’ll fire on us!” Brassey shouted.

  “No, they won’t. Row.”

  Rajendra gave Silva a strange look. “Do as he says. All together!”

  “I want this ship turned in pursuit of that boat this instant!” Billingsly shouted.

  “There’s no steam!” returned Ajax ’s first lieutenant. “Someone has wrecked the emergency valve! We’ll have to let the boiler go completely cold before we can fix it!”

  “Then make sail! I want that boat! Where’s Truelove? Has anyone seen him?”

  “
No, sir. We have almost extinguished the fire in the orlop passageway. It is very strange. The fire was deliberately set, but also set in such a way as to make it difficult for us to reach the magazine! With all those flames that close… it makes me shudder to think!”

  Billingsly’s eyes went wide. “Has anyone inspected the magazine yet?”

  “No, sir. It is locked, would you believe it? Locked!”

  “Quickly! Who has a key?”

  The executive officer was taken aback, both by the line of questioning and by Billingsly’s intensity. “Why, Captain Rajendra, that traitor, would have one.”

  “Who else?”

  “Only the master gunner.”

  Billingsly covered his face with his hand. “Get axes! Every man who will fit in that passageway this instant, with axes! You must chop a way into the magazine! There isn’t an instant to lose!”

  The officer raced off and Billingsly turned to face in the direction the boat had pulled away. It was invisible in the darkness, but he knew they would be watching. Probably that fool Rajendra had no idea, but Silva would be watching… and waiting. As he’d said, Billingsly was a man with few regrets, but one nagging little minor regret-letting the hostages live as long as he had-suddenly lunged to the very top of his list.

  Truelove managed to open one eye but the other was swollen shut. For several moments he couldn’t figure out where he was, why he was there, or why he was so uncomfortable. Slowly it all returned to him. Unsportsmanlike! He would have chuckled if he didn’t hurt so badly and if something painfully large and well secured wasn’t stuffed in his mouth. He’d been in the business long enough to appreciate the work of a professional, even at his own expense. Sometimes, given the nature of that brilliant fool Billingsly and the treacherous cause they served, Truelove couldn’t help but appreciate a fellow professional, especially when it came at his expense. He’d been at it too long and he’d grown jaded. He did like the money, but his heart just wasn’t much in it anymore. Another thought would have made him laugh. He’d told his adversary his swordsmanship was work while Truelove’s own was play. It suddenly occurred to him that, though that may be true, Silva’s… “professionalism” was still play, while his own had become work. Such irony.