Killigrew and the Sea Devil

by Jonathan Lunn

  The jäger levelled his musket. ‘Stand up – slowly!’

  Killigrew stood up – quickly. He grabbed one end of the feed trough as he did so, flipping it end over end so that it fell against the jäger, knocking him down. The jäger had barely hit the ground before Killigrew picked up his ski poles and pushed off over the snow.

  He had covered perhaps a few hundred yards before they came after him. The first he knew of it was when shots rang out behind him and he saw the bullets kicking up little spurts of snow. He glanced over one shoulder to see half a dozen reindeer-drawn sledges coming after him. The sledges were low, barely large enough for a grown man to sit in, but perfect for travelling across country in the Finnish winter. The jägers drove them with one hand on the reins and another holding a carbine with the stock hard against their shoulders. They did not seem to have much difficulty shooting while on the move, and gripped the reins between their teeth when they needed to reload. Even as he looked, one of the sledgers brought his carbine up to his shoulder and fired, without releasing the reins in his left hand. Killigrew heard the crack of the carbine and saw smoke plume from the muzzle. The bullet came close enough for him to hear it sough through the air: they had to be using rifled muskets; but even so, they were good shots.

  Drawn by the reindeer, the sledges moved much faster over the snow than Killigrew could hope to on skis. There was a thick belt of trees off to his right and he made for them: the sledges might be swifter, but they would be less manoeuvrable. He only had to make it as far as the trees, he told himself, and he would stand a chance.

  He zigzagged right and left, trying to throw off their aim, but by the time he reached the trees they were only a hundred yards behind him. Even as he shot between two trunks, a bullet smacked into a bough overhead and sent the snow heaped on the branch cascading down into his eyes.

  He slalomed in and out of the trees gingerly at first – there had been no forests in the Arctic where he had learned to ski – but he could not afford to be cautious with six Finnish jägers in reindeer-sledges breathing down his neck. He pushed as hard as he could with the ski poles, powering himself over the snow at break-neck speed.

  The ground sloped down, enough for gravity to give him a helping hand. He tried to take a path that would be impossible for the sledges to follow, ducking under branches lower than a reindeer’s antlers or using snow hummocks to launch himself over fallen tree trunks, almost crashing into a bush on the other side of one. When the track became straight enough for him to risk another glance over his shoulder, however, he saw his pursuers were still gaining. He glimpsed three of them, moving through the trees in a skirmishing line, the nearest less than fifty yards off now.

  Abruptly there were no more trees in front of him, and the ground dropped away sharply to reveal a sunken road. One of the sledges moved up the track below him: a jäger had cut around the outside of the forest to head him off. He had not seen Killigrew yet, but it was only a matter of time. The commander’s first instinct was to brake: he ignored it, and pushed off the edge of the slope with his ski poles, aiming for the sledge.

  The jäger saw him and tried to level his carbine from the still-moving sledge. Killigrew’s skis glanced off the barrel of the gun, throwing the man’s aim off. The commander landed on the other side of the road, falling heavily on his side. But the jäger had been thrown from the sledge. Still gripping the reins, he jerked the reindeer around. The beast turned sharply, the sledge skidding on the icy track before hitting a rock. It bounced into the air, spinning, and smashed against the side of a tree.

  Sprawling in the snow, the jäger fumbled for his carbine. Killigrew flung one of his ski poles like a spear, taking the man in the throat. Steaming blood pumped on to the snow, almost black against the whiteness.

  Another carbine barked, the bullet narrowly missing Killigrew. He glanced up to see a second jäger had halted at the top of the slope above him. As the man reloaded, Killigrew skied across to where the first jäger lay dying. He snatched up the carbine, aimed and fired; the man tumbled from his sledge and rolled down the slope to lie still at the bottom.

  Two more sledges appeared a hundred yards down the road and turned to meet him. Glancing in the other direction, he saw the other two sledges appear. Past the road the ground sloped down again to the coast, less than fifty yards away now. Beyond, the sea ice stretched out into the distance, a smooth, unbroken expanse of white. A few miles off, Killigrew could just make out a black speck that might have been the Sankt Georg, the fishing boat that had brought him here and would – he hoped – take him away again. But if he tried to ski towards her, the jägers would overtake him before he got halfway.

  He glanced at the sledges of the two men he had killed. The first was smashed beyond repair; the second at the top of the slope above him, and by the time he had climbed up there the other four would be upon him. Taking his clasp-knife from his pocket, he skied across to the reindeer that had been drawing the first sledge. Skittish, it shied away, but he managed to calm it. He slashed through the harness that attached it to the wreckage of the sledge, and then pocketed his knife, taking the reins in one hand and the traces in the other.

  ‘Giddyap!’

  The reindeer did not understand English, but got the general idea from the way Killigrew flicked the reins. It sprang away, drawing him after it on his skis.

  * * *

  ‘I do not like it,’ the skipper of the Sankt Georg said in his broken English, flapping his arms about his body to keep warm.

  ‘You ain’t being paid to like it,’ Petty Officer Wes Molineaux told him. ‘And paid well, I might add.’

  A seaman from the back streets of Seven Dials, Molineaux looked out of place on the deck of a Swedish fishing boat – a stout-hulled, fore-and-aft rigged galease, fifty feet from stem to stern. Molineaux had not spoken a word of Swedish when the boat had set sail from the Åland Islands just over a week ago, although he had picked some up since then, the skipper being the only other person on board who spoke English.

  In retrospect, Molineaux reflected, Mr Killigrew could have picked someone better to help him on this mission – Vice Admiral Napier had given him his pick of any man from the British fleet – but Molineaux had been the commander’s first and last choice. The two of them had met while working undercover for the Slave Trade Department seven and a half years ago. Since then they had shared all manner of adventures together in the far-flung corners of Her Majesty’s Empire: some routine, some anything but. Now, once again, they were on one of their less routine assignments, up to their necks in the kind of cloak-and-dagger misadventures that Napier seemed to take especial delight in embroiling them in.

  But – being black – Molineaux did not exactly blend in with the crew of the Swedish fishing boat.

  Despite his reservations about this particular mission, Molineaux had been delighted that Killigrew had chosen him for this job: it was flattering to be picked out of an entire fleet, especially when the man doing the picking did so because he knew his life would depend on you coming through for him. Not that Molineaux had not proven to the commander that he could depend on him time and time again, but Killigrew had saved the petty officer’s own life enough times to make keeping score irrelevant. Molineaux would not have presumed to describe himself as one of Killigrew’s friends, but the petty officer had hopes that one day he would earn a boatswain’s warrant, and Killigrew was one of the few officers willing to let him prove himself worthy of it. Besides, the commander had a knack for getting himself out of scrapes rivalled only by his knack for getting himself into them in the first place. Whatever else you could say about Killigrew, life was never dull when he was around.

  ‘What’s that?’ The skipper pointed to where some dark specks in the distance advanced across the ice towards them.

  Molineaux adjusted the aim of his telescope, and a grin spread across his face when he picked out a figure on skis being dragged across the ice by a reindeer. Four reindeer-drawn sledges were in ho
t pursuit, and Molineaux saw the occasional muzzle flash in the early morning gloom.

  He handed the telescope to the skipper. ‘See for yourself.’

  ‘Is that who I think it is?’

  ‘It ain’t St Nick, that’s for sure! Draw us in to the ice.’

  While Molineaux headed below to fetch his rifled musket, the skipper ordered his men to pull on the mooring ropes until the fenders on the side bumped against the ice. By the time the petty officer returned on deck, the jägers were within range: he raised the rifle to his shoulder and fired. He hit the nearest in the chest and had the gratification of seeing him fall back out of his sledge.

  Killigrew reached the edge of the ice about two hundred yards ahead of his pursuers. ‘Whoa!’ He hauled on his reindeer’s reins and skithered to a halt a few yards from where the boat was moored. As Molineaux reloaded his musket, the commander used his knife to cut the bindings on his skis. He paused to fondle the reindeer’s ears affectionately. ‘Bravo, Blitzen!’

  Molineaux laughed. ‘You certainly know how to make an entrance, sir!’

  ‘But now I’m more interested in making an exit; the sooner, the better.’ Killigrew took a run up, leaped from the edge of the ice and hooked his hands over the galease’s gunwale. Molineaux hauled him inboard, and the skipper ordered his men to unfurl the sails while Killigrew slumped in the lee of the gunwale.

  The skipper crossed to the helm and spun it, putting the galease on a north-westerly heading to take the best possible advantage of the south-westerly winds. The strong breeze rapidly carried them away from the coast, and by the time the other sledgers reached the edge of the ice the fishing boat was all but out of range. They unslung their carbines and fired after it anyway, without making any of their shots tell.

  Once the danger was past, the skipper put the galease about – they would have to tack to reach the Åland Islands – and ordered one of his men to take the helm. There was no danger of pursuit: the ships of the Russian navy would be frozen in their harbours at Kronstadt and Sveaborg by now, with no chance of breaking free before the spring.

  Molineaux took Killigrew down to the saloon, where one of the fishermen supplied the commander with a blanket to drape round his shoulders, and a steaming mug of cocoa.

  ‘What about the cove you were s’posed to meet?’ asked Molineaux.

  ‘Didn’t make it,’ Killigrew told him tightly.

  ‘Wasted trip?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Killigrew reached under his guernsey, took out a large piece of paper and unfolded it. He stared at it with a thoughtful expression. ‘Perhaps not.’

  Chapter 1

  Secret Weapons

  From the Åland Islands, Killigrew and Molineaux travelled by steamer to Danzig, where Killigrew purchased them both railway tickets to Stettin and showed them to the guard at the barrier.

  ‘You’d better give me my ticket, sir,’ Molineaux said once they were on the platform and had seen their traps loaded into the baggage van. ‘I dunno about these Prooshan trains, but in England they sometimes have cads in the third-class carriage what checks you ain’t trying to get a free ride.’

  Killigrew gave him a deprecating look. ‘After what we’ve been through together, Molineaux, you’re not seriously suggesting I’d expect you to ride in third while I travel first are you?’

  ‘First class? Are you sure, sir?’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Molineaux! It’s not as if I can’t afford it now I’m on a commander’s pay.’

  ‘Very kind of you, sir.’

  ‘Nonsense. I shall be glad of your company.’

  Molineaux and Killigrew chatted easily on the journey from Danzig to Stettin, and if it had not been for the coarser cloth of Molineaux’s clothes, the colour of his skin, and the fact he threw the occasional ‘sir’ into his side of the conversation, an eavesdropper fluent in English might have taken them for social equals. They discussed poetry, a subject on which Molineaux’s knowledge far outweighed Killigrew’s, as he was conversant with every English poet from the anonymous author of Beowulf to Alfred Tennyson.

  The conversation turned to the army’s mismanagement of the campaign in the Crimea, a revelation that had surprised neither, as they shared the bluejackets’ contempt for ‘sodgers’, although their contempt was not unleavened by pity for the sufferings of the brave men who had risked life and limb at Inkerman, the Alma and Balaclava. The previous year’s naval campaign in the Baltic had not been without its horrors, but seemed like a church outing compared to the kind of news they had received from the Black Sea.

  They reached Stettin shortly after noon. After dining at one of the cafes in the town they caught a train to Berlin, where they spent the night at a hotel on the Unter den Linden. Early the following morning they took a diligence to the Potsdamer Bahnhof and travelled by train via Hanover and Cologne to the Belgian border, where they passed through customs without incident and the train continued on to Liège. Molineaux dozed, his feet up with a newspaper under his boots so they would not dirty the seat opposite, and as Killigrew gazed out of the window at the snow-covered Ardennes his thoughts turned to the Honourable Miss Araminta Maltravers.

  They had met at Cowes four years ago. That had been the year of the Great Exhibition, the year Killigrew had discovered that he did not have to be on the quarterdeck of one of Her Majesty’s ships to find true happiness. It had not been long before a passionate affair had turned into a romance. He could not remember which of them had first mentioned marriage, but before he knew it they had become engaged, despite the opposition of her parents: Viscount and Viscountess Bullivant.

  But in his bitter experience, happiness was something that never lasted; and perhaps it was this knowledge that had driven him to pre-empt fate by breaking off his burgeoning relationship with Araminta and volunteering to join Sir Edward Belcher’s expedition to rescue the missing Franklin expedition. It had always been his dream to join one of the Arctic exploring squadrons, and he had even put his name forward for Franklin’s expedition when it had set out, although he had been rejected at that time.

  How to break the news to Minty had been another matter altogether. In the end he had lost his nerve. Well aware that he might never return from the Arctic, he had not wanted to leave her widowed before she was even married, so he had told her nothing, convincing himself that making her hate him was the kindest thing he could do. The first she had learned of it was when she had seen his name in the newspaper as one of the officers who had already sailed in Sir Edward Belcher’s squadron. If he did survive, he had told himself, he could explain his reasons for jilting her and, perhaps, pick up where they had left off.

  But Belcher’s expedition had been almost as big a disaster as Franklin’s, except that at least most of Belcher’s men had returned. By the time Killigrew had got back to England, weak from malnutrition and scurvy, more than a year after he had set out, Society gossip was linking Araminta’s name romantically with that of Lord Dallaway, and Killigrew had discreetly kept his distance.

  An invitation from Vice Admiral Sir Charles Napier had made it easier for him. By the late summer of 1853 talk of war with Russia had already been in the air, and Napier had known that if Britain sent a fleet into the Baltic she would need experienced pilots to guide them through the shoals in the Gulf of Finland. Killigrew had travelled to Helsingfors, posing as an ichthyologist to recruit pilots from the duchy’s community of fishermen and merchant seamen. At the time it had been something of a lark, and he had not thought of himself as a spy at all. Only later had he encountered the Third Section.

  That had been the following year, after war had finally broken out, and Killigrew had been with the Baltic fleet by then, the second in command of HMS Ramillies. Apart from the capture of the Åland Islands, they had not seen much fighting and had lost more men to cholera than to enemy action.

  And then Araminta and her parents had gone and got themselves captured by the Russians.

  Lord Bullivant had been just one of sev
eral aristocrats for whom taking a yacht to the Baltic so they could watch the fighting seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. The Russians had not agreed and wanted to try the Bullivants for espionage, so Napier had sent Killigrew ashore with a flag of truce to negotiate their release. After several alarms and excursions he had succeeded, although not without sinking his lordship’s yacht and falling foul of Colonel Nekrasoff of the Third Section in the process. But none of that had seemed to matter when Killigrew had been able to hold Araminta in his arms once he was safely back on board HMS Ramillies.

  But there had been four months left in the year before the onset of the winter ice would force the British fleet to withdraw from the Baltic until the following spring, and the Bullivants could not stay on the Ramillies, even those of them who would have liked to. So Araminta had gone back to England and Killigrew had stayed behind with the fleet in the Baltic. He had hoped to see her over Christmas – he had had an invitation to spend the festive season at the Duke of Hartcliffe’s country house in Somerset, and it was a fair bet that Araminta would be there. But just as the Ramillies had been preparing to leave the Baltic with the rest of the fleet, Vice Admiral Napier had summoned Killigrew on board the flagship with another invitation. He had made it sound so easy – nip ashore, collect Jurgaitis and bring him back to London. Jurgaitis was an old friend, so Killigrew could hardly refuse.

  As the train approached the French border, Killigrew wondered what sort of reception he would get from Araminta if he turned up on the doorstep of her father’s town house on the fashionable side of Grosvenor Square. His lordship was one of the leading lights of the Tory Party, and with parliament in session he and his family would be residing in town rather than at his country seat in Rutlandshire. But Araminta was of age, and if she agreed to receive Killigrew there was little her father could do to stop it.