Killigrew and the Sea Devil

by Jonathan Lunn

  There was no sign of a breech in the hull, but Adare could hear the trickle and splash of water coming from the next compartment. He opened the door to reveal the engineers’ bath, and laughed with relief: the pipe leading from the water tank to the tap was broken. ‘There’s your leak!’ he told the petty officer.

  The damaged pipe did not take long to plug. Adare made his way back on deck and told the officers gathered there that there was no real damage.

  The Firefly hauled to within a cable’s length of the Merlin to see if she could lend assistance when a third explosion erupted under the paddle-sloop’s bow.

  ‘Signal the Firefly again, Underwood,’ ordered Sulivan. ‘Find out if they’ve sustained any damage.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  The signal hoist was raised, and presently the reply came back in the negative.

  ‘Somebody up there likes us,’ said Mr Carmichael, glancing heavenwards.

  ‘Either that, or the Russians aren’t using sufficiently powerful charges in their infernal machines,’ Crichton remarked drily.

  ‘Impossible to say without knowing how close to the hull these things were when they exploded,’ said Sulivan. ‘All right, let’s see if we can get back to the fleet without running into any more of these infernal machines. Too dangerous to press on without knowing exactly what we’re dealing with here.’

  Chapter 7

  Infernal Machines

  ‘Stroke!’ ordered Adare.

  The oarsmen pulled on their oars, gently; enough to give the cutter some headway, but at no great pace. Then they lay on their oars, waiting for the lieutenant to repeat the order, while the crew of the second cutter – rowing parallel to the first a few dozen yards away – did likewise. Adare looked to Molineaux, who crouched in the bows, dangling a rope over the prow. The other end of the rope was held by a petty officer in the bows of the other cutter, but it was weighted in the middle so it would catch the line mooring any infernal machines hidden beneath the water between the two boats. When the two cutters ran out of momentum and the petty officer shook his head, Adare repeated the order.

  ‘And… stroke!’

  One more pull on the oars propelled the boats forward a few more yards. Again Molineaux shook his head.

  ‘And… stroke!’

  The Ramillies’ cutters were just two of dozens of boats that crept across the surface of the water between Kotlin Island and the Russian mainland to the north. The enterprising commander of a Russian gunboat could have had a field day, ramming them one after another, if it had not been for a couple of British frigates anchored to oversee the operation, close enough to give the boats cover if necessary.

  It was 21 June, midsummer’s day and so far from feeling cold – even here in the Baltic – Molineaux was grateful for an excuse to take his jacket off and sit in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves. More than a week had passed since the Merlin and the Firefly had run into the minefield, and since then the Ramillies had been dispatched with HMS Exmouth and a couple of gunboats to look into the mouth of the River Narva, where they had been engaged in a swift exchange of shots with a regiment of artillery ashore. The Russians had come off worse, the British ships sustaining no serious casualties at all.

  The rest of the fleet, meanwhile, had sailed to Nargen Island off the Estonian Coast, where the Exmouth’s flotilla had rendezvoused with them before returning to weigh anchor off Kronstadt once more. At times like this, Molineaux wondered if Dundas and Seymour had the faintest idea what they were doing. Certainly as far as the infernal machines were concerned, their initial approach to the problem had been to ignore it until it went away; the flaw in this plan had been brought sharply home to them the previous day, when HMS Valorous had discovered yet another infernal machine the hard way. The paddle-frigate had sustained relatively minor damage, but even if Dundas and Seymour did not see that sooner or later the Russians were going to realise they were not putting enough explosives in the machines, Captain Sulivan did. With Pénaud’s help, he was able to persuade the two British admirals of the necessity of sweeping for the mines and, if possible, retrieving one or two for examination.

  The Ramillies’ cutters continued their slow progress across the water, quartering backwards and forwards in the intricate search pattern Sulivan had laid down. During the course of the past hour they had managed to dredge up a sledge, half a cartwheel, and some bladder-wrack, but no infernal machines.

  ‘This is a bloody waste of time,’ Endicott declared at last. ‘There’s nuttin’ down there. I reckon the Ivans only put those infernal machines down where they could be sure the Merlin would run into them, knowing that we’d spend weeks dredging every inch of the sea before we dared send one of our ships into it.’

  ‘You may be right, Endicott,’ Adare said grimly.

  ‘Hold it, hold it, hold it!’ said Molineaux. ‘I got a bite!’

  ‘Lie on your oars!’ Adare told the crews of both cutters. He took the glass-bottomed bucket from the bottom of the boat and picked his way over the thwarts to join Able Seamen Hughes and Iles in the bows. Leaning over the side, he immersed the end of the bucket into the water, and ordered his cutter to move towards the other. They had covered half the distance when he spied what looked like a disc floating in the gloom about three feet below the surface cutter. Then he saw that the disc was in fact the base of a cone floating upside down, another rope running down into the inky depths below.

  ‘I think we’ve found one,’ he said softly. He withdrew the bucket and handed it to Endicott, who took a look for himself.

  ‘Just looks like a buoy to me,’ said the Liverpudlian.

  ‘Yes. Except that buoys are supposed to float on the surface where they can be seen, not half a fathom below it.’

  ‘So that’s an infernal machine, is it?’ said the Liverpudlian. He sounded disappointed. ‘Strange… it don’t look much, when you think about all the fuss these dooflickers have caused.’

  ‘It isn’t much, if the lack of damage to the Merlin and the Firefly is any indication,’ agreed Adare. ‘On the other hand, if one blew up beneath this cutter, I think we’d soon know about it. That is, if we ever knew anything ever again.’

  ‘Doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?’ said Endicott. ‘Eh, now what do we do? Try to, you know, hook it up with the grapnel, like?’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ asked Petty Officer Kracht, the Ramillies’ blacksmith. ‘Do that, and you might just set the verdammt thing off!’

  A German by birth, Jakob Kracht was the kind of man who could take one of McGregor’s finest chronometers apart… and then put it back together so that it worked even better than before. Unable to get their tongues around the guttural sounds of his name, his shipmates called him ‘Jim Crack’ in tribute to his skill at fixing things. Molineaux had had a feeling that Kracht’s technical know-how was going to come in handy if they found an infernal machine, which was why he had brought him out with the cutter.

  The petty officer started to strip down to his undershorts.

  ‘Er… you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking, are you, Molineaux?’ asked Adare.

  ‘That depends, sir. If you were thinking that I was thinking of going over the side to take a closer look, you’re dead right. We’ve got to get one of these things intact so we can take it apart and find out what makes it work; so first one of us has got to find a way of getting it into this boat without blowing us all up.’

  Adare nodded glumly. ‘That’s what I was afraid you were thinking.’

  ‘Be careful,’ said Riggs, the carpenter’s mate.

  ‘Thanks for the tip,’ Molineaux said wryly. He took a deep breath and was about to dive over the side when Kracht caught him by the arm.

  ‘See if you can work out what makes it explode,’ suggested the blacksmith. ‘It’s got to work in one of two ways: either it’s set off from shore using a galvanic charge carried along a wire, or there’s some way it registers contact with the hull of a ship and ignites. See if there ar
e wires to carry a galvanic charge coming out of it.’

  Molineaux nodded and turned to Riggs. ‘Hear that? That’s helpful advice, Jerry. Maybe you should take a leaf out of Jim Crack’s book.’ He turned back to the blacksmith. ‘What if there aren’t any wires coming out of it?’

  ‘Then – as Jerry says – be very, very careful with it.’

  Molineaux grimaced and dived over the side. The water was bitterly cold, even in June, but at least the Baltic was less salty than most other seas, so it did not sting his eyes so much when he opened them under water. He swam down and trod water at a depth of about half a fathom, looking the device over. The cone was two feet deep and fifteen inches across the top. A rope ran down from the base of the device into the murk below, presumably leading down to some kind of anchor to prevent it from floating to the surface. Molineaux examined the rope closely, but found no sign of any wires.

  He swam back to the surface and clung to the side of the cutter. ‘No wires… must be set off by contact with a hull. I think I can bring it to the surface. Pass me my fi’penny, Seth.’

  Endicott nodded and fished in the pockets of Molineaux’s jacket, taking out his clasp-knife. The petty officer looped the lanyard around his neck and let go of the cutter’s side, treading water. ‘Better back off now, sir. If this thing comes up under the keel, they’ll be sweeping bits of us up off the streets of St Petersburg for days to come.’

  Adare nodded and ordered the rest of the men to backwater. They took up their oars and rowed clear. Molineaux waited until they were a safe distance off, then opened his clasp-knife and gripped it between his teeth like any proper pirate. He duck-tailed beneath the water and swam down beneath the device. Steeling himself, he caught hold of the rope and began to saw through it, reflecting that if it exploded now, at least his death would be swift and painless.

  The last strands parted, and the device floated slowly up to the surface. Molineaux surfaced beside it, and waved for the cutter to come back. They rowed alongside. ‘Handsomely does it now, lads.’

  ‘Be careful of these horns,’ warned Kracht, indicating two rods projecting sideways from the top of the inverted cone. ‘These must be the triggers that set it off.’

  Molineaux waited until they had got the device in the boat before climbing back aboard. ‘Maybe I should dismantle it,’ offered Kracht, producing his own clasp-knife and approaching the infernal machine. ‘If we know how these things explode, perhaps we can find some way to—’

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ snarled Adare. ‘Our orders are to take one on board the Exmouth as soon as we can get our hands on one intact. There’ll be no monkeying about with its workings!’

  Endicott threw Molineaux a towel so that he could dry himself off while the two cutters rowed back to the fleet. The petty officer was dressed again by the time they approached the Exmouth’s side.

  ‘Boat ahoy!’ the marine on sentry duty at the entry port called down to them.

  ‘No, no!’ Adare called back.

  An officer appeared at the entry port. ‘Permission to come aboard?’ Adare called up from the stern sheets, and indicated the cone-shaped device tenderly wrapped in a towel at Molineaux’s feet.

  The officer nodded, and a rope was lowered from a yard-arm. Molineaux tied the end of it to the ring at the base of the cone.

  ‘Haul away, boys!’ Adare called up. ‘Handsomely does it!’

  As the device was hoisted up the Exmouth’s side it started to swing perilously close to the bulwark. ‘Handsomely, I said, handsomely!’ Adare called up angrily from the side ladder. It would be just their luck to be the men who helped to sink Admiral Seymour’s 90-gun flagship, Molineaux thought wryly.

  Once the device had been swung in over the bulwark, out of sight, Adare turned to Kracht. ‘Are you sure you want to be the one who tries to take it apart?’

  The blacksmith nodded. ‘Someone has got to do it. Might as well be me, hein? Or do you know someone in the fleet who is better qualified?’

  Adare shook his head. ‘All right, follow me up. We’ll offer your services to Admiral Seymour. You’d best come too, Molineaux, in case we need another pair of hands. I don’t know any steadier than yours.’

  Molineaux sighed and followed Adare and Kracht up the accommodation ladder to the entry port, where they were just in time to see the device lowered to the deck with a thud that made them both wince. Adare made his obeisance to the quarterdeck before turning to the Exmouth’s commander.

  ‘Where do you want it, sir?’ he asked, indicating the infernal machine.

  ‘Oh, just put it with the others.’ The commander gestured to where thirty more infernal machines stood on the deck amidships.

  Molineaux and Kracht exchanged wry looks.

  There was a huddle of officers on the poop, and the Exmouth’s commander approached them. ‘Lieutenant Adare’s here, sir. He’s brought another infernal machine for your inspection.’

  Seymour and Captain Hall turned away from the huddle, and Adare saluted them. They returned the salute curtly before turning back into the huddle, and Molineaux’s heart leaped into his mouth when he saw what they were all studying: yet another infernal machine, balanced precariously on its apex, with the top prised off so they could study its workings.

  ‘This is Petty Officer Kracht, sir,’ Adare told Seymour, indicating the blacksmith. ‘He’s a regular wizard with anything mechanical. He’s bravely volunteered to take one of these devices ashore and dismantle it, so we can learn how the mechanism works.’

  ‘Ah. That’s very good of him, Lieutenant, but I think we’ve pretty much worked it out for ourselves,’ Seymour said loftily. ‘At the top there’s an air chamber to make it float, at the bottom a gunpowder charge – no more than eight or nine pounds of powder by the look of it; how the Russians think that’s going to sink a ship is beyond me – and here in the middle is the firing device.’ He stepped back up to the cone and reached down inside it.

  ‘I’d be careful with that, sir, if I were you.’

  ‘It’s all right, Lieutenant, I know what I’m doing.’ Seymour glanced up at one of the other officers, a captain in the Royal Marines. ‘I suppose the liquid in this glass tube contains some kind of acid,’ he said, tapping something inside the cone with a pencil. ‘When it’s broken, the acid ignites the primer.’

  ‘Be careful, sir,’ said Captain Hall. ‘You might set it off.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Seymour placed a finger against one of the horns. ‘This is the way it would go off—’

  He pushed the slide in.

  Boom.

  * * *

  A polar bear was the last thing Killigrew expected to see when he entered the room, and it brought him up short. The nightmares had faded, but even twenty-two months after his return from the Arctic, the sight of the beast was enough to send a frisson of icy fear down his spine. Then he realised that this particular specimen was long dead, even if the taxidermist responsible had made a fair job of giving it a lifelike appearance.

  His next thought was that he was in the wrong room, so he backed out of the natural history department and set off once more through the maze of galleries in search of the Egyptian Court. He kept a weather eye out for Nekrasoff and Ryzhago as he went, and slipped a hand into the pocket of his greatcoat for the reassuring feel of the grip of his revolver.

  The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park had been disassembled while Killigrew had been in the Arctic, only to be reassembled at Sydenham on an even grander scale, using twice as much glass, covering a hundred more acres and with an additional three storeys on top, as well as a basement containing machines, vehicles and carriages. Industrial courts celebrated the products of particular British cities and regions, while other courts illustrated the art and architecture of different periods in history. The Egyptian Court in the north transept was the most spectacular, with two rows of reproduction sphinxes gazing enigmatically at one another across the central aisle, real palm trees flourishing in the humid atmosphere of the giant glass
house, and two gigantic statues seated with their hands on their knees – modelled on those at Luxor Temple at Karnak – towering over the far end.

  Killigrew stood at the railing of one of the galleries overlooking the court and searched the faces in the crowd. Rude artisans in rough jackets and cloth caps wandered with their wives, sweethearts and children, munching on pies and swigging from bottles of Allsop’s as they gazed in awed incomprehension at the exhibits. There was no sign of Nekrasoff or Ryzhago, or anyone who looked as though they might have been sent to collect the passport from Leventhal. Detective Inspector Jordan had been right: Nekrasoff had made alternative arrangements to get himself a forged passport, and this rendezvous was a waste of time. Still, there were worse ways of spending a Saturday afternoon away from Portsmouth than wandering through the glittering halls of the Crystal Palace.

  Hearing someone moving behind him, he whirled to see three men standing there. He did not recognise any of them, but all three were looking at him with cold expressions on their faces. They had crept up on him so silently it was impossible to believe their intentions were benign.

  ‘Commander Killigrew?’ asked one, a long-jawed, sharp-eyed man.

  ‘Yes?’

  By way of explanation, the man merely opened his coat just long enough for Killigrew to see the revolver holstered under his left armpit. ‘I wonder if you’d mind coming with us, sir?’ he asked. His English was so flawless, Killigrew might have taken him for a native if he had not known better. ‘Someone would like to talk to you.’

  ‘Do I have any choice?’

  The man smiled. ‘Yes, but I wouldn’t recommend the alternative.’

  The four of them left the building – the long-jawed man leading the way, Killigrew following and the other two bringing up the rear – and made their way to where a carriage was parked on Crystal Palace Parade with a coachman already on the driving board. The long-jawed man climbed in first. Killigrew followed and sat down opposite, only for the other two to enter via opposite doors and plump themselves down on either side of him, so he was wedged between them.