Killigrew and the Sea Devil

by Jonathan Lunn

  The iron cleared the roof on the third attempt, once more rolling down into the gutter between two gables. He gathered the rope in once more, expecting the iron to fall free again, except this time it caught on something out of sight. He hauled on it: it seemed fast, but could he trust his weight – his life – to it? Since he could not free it, it seemed he did not have much choice in the matter. There was no turning back now.

  Killigrew shrugged himself out of the harness and swung away from the tree, hitting the wall at an angle with an impact that snatched the breath from his lungs and sent him spinning dizzyingly back out again, before gravity mastered the situation and swung him perilously close to a window. Bracing his feet against the bricks, he clambered up hand over hand until he was able to haul himself up on to the roof.

  He crawled into the gutter between two gables, out of sight from the windows of the houses on the other side of the canal, and lay on his back on the tiles of the roof, panting. When he had caught his breath, he edged his way to the far end of the roof, and was able to look down into the space at the middle of the island.

  The two channels that led between the warehouses joined in a single, large basin in the middle. The fronts of the inward-facing warehouses formed another triangle, more than three hundred yards down each side. Limelights floodlit the whole area, and Killigrew could see crew-cut matrosy – Russian sailors – in grey pea jackets and flat forage caps working on the docks around the basin, unloading naval stores from a fifty-foot pinnace on the far side of the basin. A funnel rising amidships betrayed the presence of a steam engine on board. It was unusual to see such a small craft with a steam engine: an experimental craft, Killigrew presumed. There was no sign of the Sea Devil, but a boat-house facing across the basin on the quay below him looked promising.

  He retreated from the edge of the roof and looked around. As he had surmised, there was a skylight amongst the tiles. The pitch of the roof was not too steep, and he clambered up to it without difficulty. A grille of iron bars a foot apart protected the glass, which was grimy and covered with algae. The space below was in darkness. Killigrew took off his belt and tied it tightly around two of the bars, sliding the pry-bar through the loop and turning it. The belt was tightened against the bars, until they bent perceptibly. He went on turning the pry-bar, tightening the belt, until the two bars touched in the middle. Repeating the performance with the next two bars, he managed to create a gap two feet wide.

  Next he took out the bottle of treacle and emptied it on to the skylight, smearing it all over the glass with the paintbrush until every inch had been covered. He unrolled the brown paper, laying it over the treacle-covered glass and fixing it there. Then he took the pry-bar and tapped the glass through the paper, increasing the force of each blow and hoping the sound of the men working in the middle of the island would mask the noise. At last the glass cracked, and he repeated the blow at the same strength all the way around the pane. He peeled back the brown paper carefully, bringing the shards of glass stuck to the underside with it, so that none dropped to the floor below to make a tinkling noise. It was amazing what you learned when you had a former burglar as a boatswain’s mate on your ship.

  Pulling the last shards of glass from the window-pane, he peered into the darkness below. He had the impression it was a long way down: all the way to the ground, in fact, which had to be at least fifty feet. He untied the rope from the grappling iron and belayed it around two of the bars that had been bent together. He tied a knot in the other end, a couple of feet from the bottom, so he would know when he was running out of rope, and dropped it through the skylight. Then he eased himself through, gripping the rope tightly, and shinned down into the darkness.

  There was still some light from the moon coming through the skylights and the windows, and his eyes quickly adjusted to the gloom. Tall spars were stacked around the sides of the warehouse, standing on their ends so they would dry out more quickly, but most of the floor seemed to be covered in some strange, circular objects that he could not quite make out.

  Killigrew was still a few feet off the ground when the soles of his half-boots touched the knot at the end of the rope. He looked at the strange objects below him. There were dozens of them, all cones; about two foot tall, their bases about fifteen inches in diameter.

  Infernal machines: he had seen a diagram of one in the Illustrated London News shortly before leaving England.

  He muttered a word that a gentleman like himself only knew from spending so much time in the company of coarse-mouthed sailors.

  The devices were packed so closely together that their rims touched, and any spaces between them had the explosion-triggering horns projecting into them.

  He lowered himself a couple more feet, and then unfolded one leg until the sole of his boot rested on the mooring ring, now at the apex of the cone. He wondered how much weight one of the zinc cones could bear. Perhaps if he divided his weight between two of them…? Slowly, he relaxed his arms until the two cones took most of his weight. Still holding on to the rope, he straightened, trying to balance on the cones.

  To get to the clear floor space just inside the door, he would have to move from cone to cone, and taking his foot off one would leave all his weight on the other. Still keeping his hands on the rope so he could haul himself up the moment he felt the cone start to buckle under his weight, he lifted one foot and put it down on top of the next cone.

  It did not crumple or explode. He lifted his foot from it, and put it down on the next.

  So far, so good.

  Now he had to let go of the rope if he was to make any further progress towards safety. Balancing awkwardly on the two cones, he lifted one leg and put his foot on the next cone. When he lifted the other foot, however, he felt himself teetering. He flailed his arms wildly in an effort to keep his balance, see-sawing his body back and forth. Best to keep moving, he told himself, and put his foot on the next cone. Arms spread like a tightrope walker – let’s see M’sieur Blondin try this one! he thought wryly to himself – he picked his way across the cones. He had almost made it when he felt one of the cones start to crumple beneath his foot. He quickly lifted his leg and transferred his weight to the apex of another cone, but now his legs were spread so far apart it was almost impossible to keep his balance. He straightened and stepped on to the next cone. Feeling himself falling forwards, he kept moving in that direction, struggling to keep his feet below his centre of gravity, until he was able to leap from the last of the cones and roll over on the dusty flagstones beyond.

  He glanced back at the partially crumpled cone, and scrambled back against the doors of the warehouse, throwing his arms up to protect his face from the blast. If the glass ampoule within had been cracked, he had only a few seconds before the acid ignited the powder. Eight pounds was not a big charge by any means, but it was enough to set off the mines surrounding it, and they would be enough to set off the mines surrounding them: a wave of explosions, spreading outwards through the infernal machines stored there. The zinc casings of the cones would be shredded like paper, the jagged pieces of metal hurled in all directions like shrapnel. Throwing his arms up to protect his head was a futile gesture. At least his death would be relatively swift and painless…

  How long had passed since the cone had begun to crumple? Ten seconds? Fifteen? From what he had heard, the infernal machines that had detonated under the Merlin’s hull must have exploded more or less simultaneously. With growing confidence, he permitted himself to believe the device would not explode after all.

  Picking himself up and dusting himself down, he turned his attention to the huge door. There was a Judas gate, and he opened it a crack to peer out. Two stacks of timber were arranged on the quayside before him, and through the gap between them he could see the matrosy unloading the naval stores from the pinnace in the glare of the limelight: kegs, casks, crates and bundles. Were they going to work all night?

  Limelight or no, Killigrew knew that sooner or later he was going to have
go out through that door. But to delay the moment as long as possible, he turned his attention back to the infernal machines and the rope that dangled from the skylight above them. He might have to leave in a hurry – assuming he got the chance to leave at all – and he did not want to play tiptoe over the infernal machines again. He started to move them, one at a time, clearing a path through to the bottom of the rope.

  He crossed back to the Judas gate and peered out again. The matrosy working on the quayside gave no indication that they were nearing the end of their task; fortunately none was looking in the direction of the warehouse. Killigrew slipped out, crouching low, and dashed across the cobbles to duck down behind one of the stacks of timber. Glancing back at the warehouses behind him, he saw each had a number painted on the doors in large, white Arabic numerals. The one he had just emerged from bore a ‘13’. My lucky number, he thought ruefully.

  He peered around the stacked timber. No one had seen him emerge from the warehouse. The large wooden doors at the front of the boathouse were shut, but he could not see anywhere else in the shipyard where the Sea Devil might be stored. Creeping from timberstack to timberstack, he made his way around the back of the quayside, working his way towards the boat-house. At least the bright limelights cast the shadows into relative darkness.

  There was a door at the rear of the boat-house, but it was padlocked. There was a small window beside it. He opened his clasp-knife and inserted the blade between the frames of the sash, sliding the catch open. He pushed the window up and dragged himself inside, rolling on the flagstone floor within. Gasping for breath, he sat up. The only light within filtered through the grimy window behind him and through the water beneath the gate at the front of the boat-house.

  As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he realised there was a figure standing against the wall a few yards away. Killigrew froze, waiting for the other man to speak first, but the figure remained motionless. Had he not even seen him climb in through the window?

  Killigrew spent what seemed like an eternity waiting for the other man to speak or move, but the man remained as motionless as a tailor’s mannequin. Slowly, moving an inch at a time, Killigrew reached inside his satchel until his fingers closed around the comforting grip of his revolver.

  He whipped it out and levelled it at the man.

  Who still did not stir.

  Killigrew picked himself up and walked towards the man, keeping the gun aimed at his chest. As he drew nearer, he realised what he was looking at. He raised the gun and tapped the muzzle gently against the glass plate in the front of the brass helmet. The diving suit was empty, of course.

  He tucked the revolver in his pocket and took out the bull’s-eye, opening the front to light the wick inside with a match. He closed the front once more, shaking out the match, and cast the beam about the interior of the boat-house, taking care not to let the light shine against the gap in the gate or the windows.

  A dock some seventy feet long ran in from the front, with a slipway at one end and a winch for hauling boats out of the water. In addition to the diving suit, there was an air pump, workbenches, and racks of various tools.

  But no iron cylinder fifty-two feet long and twelve feet wide. Nothing of any description that might be an underwater boat, for that matter. He crossed to the dock and aimed the bull’s-eye’s beam into the gently lapping water. The beam picked out the concrete bottom of the dock.

  No Sea Devil.

  He felt the cold steel of a pistol muzzle touch him behind one ear. ‘Don’t move! Turn around… very slowly.’

  Killigrew turned around… very quickly. With his left hand he batted the arm holding the pistol aside, while with his right he thrust the bull’s-eye’s light into the moustachioed face of his opponent, a pigeon-breasted young man in the uniform of a michmani in the Imperial Russian Navy. Killigrew barely had time to register that the michmani was alone, and then agony exploded through his loins as a knee was lifted into his crotch. Even as he doubled up in pain, he instinctively seized the michmani’s right hand in his left, holding the gun aside, and clapped a hand over his mouth to prevent him from crying out. The two of them fell to the flagstones, grappling. Killigrew reached for the michmani’s throat, missed, and clutched at the young man’s bosom instead.

  His soft, yielding, decidedly feminine bosom.

  The bull’s-eye had fallen on the flagstones beside her head, the light shining through its cracked lens to reveal the false moustache was coming adrift.

  ‘A woman!’ Killigrew hissed in astonishment.

  ‘Get your hands off me!’

  She punched him in the jaw, snapping his head around, and drew her legs up between them, kicking him off her. Writhing in the agony of his throbbing scrotum, he fumbled in his pocket and managed to pull the revolver out. She kicked it from his wrist and he heard it clatter in the shadows off to his left. Then she had picked up the bull’s-eye, and its dazzling light shone in his tear-filled eyes.

  ‘You!’ she exclaimed. ‘I might have known!’

  ‘Do I know you?’ he gasped.

  She turned the light on her own face, pulling off the moustache with her other hand. He squinted up at her to see her cap had fallen off in the struggle, her brunette hair spilling down in ringlets on either side of her face. There was no mistaking those large, dark eyes or the cheekbones that flanked her amused smile.

  ‘Countess Vásáry,’ he groaned, shifting himself into a sitting position and massaging his aching crotch. ‘Or whatever your real name is.’

  ‘Plessier,’ she told him. ‘Aurélie Plessier.’

  ‘French?’ he asked.

  She nodded.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘The same as you, I should imagine: trying to destroy the underwater boat your government so carelessly lost to the Russians.’

  ‘A lady spy?’

  She grinned. ‘Do not be fooled, mon brave: as you yourself observed, I’m no lady!’

  ‘Yes, but… even so… espionage is no job for a woman.’

  ‘Was not Delilah a woman? I have managed very well so far; is it not so?’

  ‘You’ve been lucky so far, I’ll grant you, but this is a job for a man.’

  ‘Lucky mon cul! I’m doing better than you, at least!’

  ‘And just how do you come to that conclusion?’

  ‘I’m not the one sitting on his backside clutching his testicles.’

  Still wincing in pain, Killigrew realised he was not keeping the British end up. He forced himself to his feet, although he could barely stand straight. ‘The Sea Devil isn’t here.’

  ‘Your powers of observation do you credit. They must have moved it.’

  ‘Any idea where to?’

  ‘If I knew that, would I be standing here now?’

  Before Killigrew could think of a suitable retort, light flooded the boat-house as the door was opened and a soldier stood silhouetted on the threshold. Seeing Killigrew and Aurélie, he shouted ‘Stoi!’ and started to unsling his musket.

  Forgetting all about his pain, Killigrew dived across the room to where his revolver had fallen. He snatched it up and raised it in one hand, squeezing off a couple of shots. One of them hit the soldier in the chest and he slumped back against the open door, dropping the musket as he crumpled to the flagstones.

  ‘Bravo!’ Aurélie said scathingly. ‘Why not simply send calling cards to the Russians announcing our presence?’

  ‘And just what would you have done?’ demanded Killigrew.

  ‘This!’ As another soldier stepped through the doorway, she whirled and produced a stiletto from her sleeve, flinging it across the boathouse. It took the soldier in the throat, and he crumpled with blood jetting on either side of the haft.

  The two of them ran across to the door. As Aurélie retrieved the stiletto, wiping the blade clean on the dead soldier’s greatcoat, Killigrew looked out to see six more soldiers charging across the quayside towards the boat-house. He brought up his revolver and squeezed off a c
ouple more shots, missing all six of them but making them dive to the cobbles or scatter for cover, at least. It would not be long before they rallied, however, and more and more soldiers seemed to be emerging on to the quayside. He slammed the door.

  ‘Now listen to me,’ he told Aurélie firmly. ‘If we work together, and you do exactly as I tell you, we might just have a chance of getting out of here alive…’

  ‘Mon cul! Every woman for herself!’ She sprinted across the boathouse, diving head first into the dock. She cleft the water like a knife and swam out under the gate.

  Killigrew was still staring after her in astonishment when the door shuddered as one of the soldiers outside started throwing his shoulder against it. Killigrew fired twice, splintering holes through the planks. The shuddering stopped and there was the sound of a body hitting the ground immediately outside. A moment later the window shattered as something smashed through to land at Killigrew’s feet: a grenade with the fuse sputtering. He took the brass helmet from the diving suit and dropped it over the grenade. It exploded, the helmet shooting up on a column of flame to smash a hole through the roof. It smashed a second hole on the way down before splashing into the dock.

  Three more grenades came flying through the window. Killigrew thought about kicking them into the dock to extinguish their fuses, but there was not time to get all three: he took a deep breath and threw himself into the dock instead. The surface lit up above him as the grenades exploded, the water pounding his ears. He swam out under the gate into the basin outside, surfacing amongst the shadows in the lee of the quayside. There was no sign of Aurélie. Glancing back towards the boat-house, Killigrew saw the Russians were being very cautious before entering the building, even though the explosion had blown all the windows out. He took another deep breath and duck-tailed under the water once more, swimming across to where a set of stone steps were cut in the side of the quay. He hauled himself out of the water and peered over the top of the steps to see Aurélie standing with her palms pressed against the side of a stack of timbers while two Russian soldiers levelled their muskets at her and a third frisked her under the watchful eye of a burly NCO.