Killigrew and the Sea Devil

by Jonathan Lunn

  ‘Oh, what a brilliant notion, Lieutenant! In my hour of triumph, I’m going to walk away without pausing to witness Killigrew’s execution! I’m just going to assume you carried out your orders without a hitch! No! I’m going to stand here and watch and see him die with my own eyes, if it’s all the same with you.’

  ‘We could wait until you get back—’

  ‘No! No, damn it! I know what’ll happen if I go and see what Matyushkin wants: when I get back I’ll find you and your men all dead or unconscious and Killigrew will have mysteriously vanished! I think not! Shoot him now, damn it! If it hadn’t been for all these damned interruptions, he’d be dead by now and I could be on my way to the rear admiral’s office to report another job well done.’

  ‘But if what the rear admiral wishes to discuss concerns the prisoner? Would it not be best to establish exactly what—

  ‘No! No! You’re not listening to me, Lieutenant! Killigrew is there, the firing squad is there, and I’m staying right here until I’ve seen him die with my own eyes, do you understand?’ Nekrasoff’s voice had risen to a screaming pitch, but he made a visible effort to control himself. ‘Carry out your orders, Lieutenant. I will take full responsibility.’

  ‘As you command, sir.’ Rudenko saluted with his sabre. ‘Squad! Present… arms!’

  ‘Any last words, Commander?’ demanded Nekrasoff.

  Killigrew shook his head, smiling faintly. ‘You won’t live long enough to write them down for posterity, anyhow.’

  ‘Ready…’ said Rudenko. ‘Aim…’

  ‘Wait!’

  To Killigrew’s astonishment, it was Nekrasoff who had interrupted. The colonel ran in front of the firing squad, and unbuttoned the front of the tunic Killigrew wore, groping inside his pockets.

  ‘You know, it’s customary to wait for a man to be dead before you rob his corpse,’ Killigrew remarked mildly.

  ‘Just making sure you haven’t got a Bible in your breast pocket, or a cheroot case, or anything else that might stop half a dozen bullets.’

  Nekrasoff moved out of the way of the firing squad. ‘As you were, Lieutenant.’

  Rudenko drew his sabre. ‘Ready…’

  The six soldiers raised the stocks of their muskets to their shoulders. ‘Aim…’

  They squinted down the sights on their muzzles at Killigrew’s breast. Raising his sabre, Rudenko took a deep breath…

  Chapter 24

  Hell on Earth

  ‘The Duke of Wellington is signalling, sir,’ reported the lieutenant on the deck of HMS Pickle. ‘“Mortar vessel open fire with shell.” And it’s about time too, I should say!’

  ‘You heard the man, Guns,’ said Captain Weymiss. ‘In your own time.’

  The gunner proffered the lanyard he was holding to Weymiss. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but I thought you might like the honour of being the one to fire the first shot.’

  ‘No, no. I wouldn’t want to rob you of your duty. Carry on, Jones.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Jones turned back to face the mortar and, beyond the prow, the batteries of Sveaborg in the distance. Standing with his feet spread, his weight distributed evenly, he grasped the lanyard and looked at Weymiss.

  ‘Fire!’

  Jones hauled the lanyard down with a jerk, bringing his left hand down smartly on his right. The hammer fell on the vent of the mortar, striking sparks from the friction tube. The powder flared in the vent, and a moment later the very air around the men on deck seemed to split asunder as the mortar roared, belching smoke and flame. The whole vessel shuddered under the impact of the recoil as the shell arced high into the sky above the fleet, trailing smoke from its sputtering fuse.

  And then the other twenty-five mortar vessels in the fleet fired their shells as one.

  All hell did not break loose. But the denizens of the infernal regions could only look on in envious awe at what was about to hit Sveaborg.

  * * *

  ‘Did you hear something?’ asked Rudenko.

  The soldiers lined up facing Killigrew still had their fingers on their triggers, waiting for the order to fire. Before any of them could reply, they heard a sound like a not-so-distant peal of thunder: one of those long, rumbling crashes that seemed to last for ever. The sound echoed off the walls and bastions of the islands, and even as that faded a new sound replaced it, a strange sort of whistling noise.

  The muzzles of the muskets wavered and fell as the soldiers exchanged bewildered glances. The whistling sound increased in volume by the second.

  Nekrasoff realised what it was. ‘Shoot him!’ he screamed, waving his revolver at Killigrew. ‘Shoot him now! Fire, damn you, fire!’

  ‘Chert!’ Rudenko dropped his sabre and sprinted for the nearest cover, one of the barracks on the far side of the parade ground.

  The whistling sound was rising in pitch to become an ear-splitting shriek.

  The soldiers threw down their muskets and broke. Realising he still held the revolver and it was loaded and cocked, Nekrasoff aimed at Killigrew. Before he could squeeze the trigger, however, one of the fleeing soldiers had slammed into him, knocking him sprawling to the cobbles, the revolver flying from his hand. He started to pick himself up, and the ground shuddered under the impact of a terrific crash.

  Nekrasoff whimpered and folded his arms over his head to protect it from falling debris after the explosion.

  Except there was no explosion. He looked up, and saw a large hole had been punched through the cobbles about thirty yards from where he stood.

  A dud?

  He picked himself up, and took a hesitant step towards the hole, drawn towards it as a sailor was lured to his death by the sirens. He took another step…

  …and the world was ripped apart around him.

  Earth and cobbles shot up, shredding the air with a roar like a locomotive crashing through the side of a brick warehouse at full speed. A wall of hot air slammed into him, lifting him off his feet and hurling him several feet. A roar filled the air, the noise of twenty-five more shells shrieking earthwards, and then the cobbles thrown up by the first explosion rained down all around him, shattering with cracks like musket shots against the cobbles still in place to hurl shards like razors in all directions. One of them embedded itself in his cheek, but he was too relieved that none of them had landed on his head to care about that. He looked up, gazing to where Killigrew had been standing, waiting for the smoke to clear and the dust to finish sheeting down.

  No debris had landed where Killigrew had been standing. The cobbles that had been beneath his feet were intact.

  But the commander himself had gone.

  More explosions erupted all over Sveaborg. Two shells had overshot the fortress altogether, exploding in the waters of the anchorage behind, while three more had fallen short to send up great fountains of spray before the batteries.

  But the remaining twenty had landed on target, hurling fountains of dirt and debris high into the sky over the complex.

  Nekrasoff noticed his cap on the cobbles at his feet. He stooped to retrieve it, brushing dust from the back of it with a kid-gloved hand, before placing it on his head with fastidious precision.

  He took a deep breath…

  …and whipped the cap off his head, hurling it down to the cobbles with all his might before kicking it across the parade ground. Lifting his face towards the heavens, he let out a bellow of primeval rage.

  A moment later the guns of the Russian batteries – some nine hundred of them – spoke as one, spitting flame, shot and defiance in response to the Allies’ opening salvo.

  The bombardment of Sveaborg had begun.

  * * *

  Explosions erupted all over Sveaborg as Killigrew dashed between the arsenal and the barrack block behind it. His hands were still tied behind his back, but he was very much alive and determined to stay that way. He might have been living on borrowed time for years, but now he had been granted another reprieve he saw no reason to waste it. A grin crept across his face as it occurre
d to him that Nekrasoff had just saved his life: if the colonel had not spent so long arguing with Rudenko, the firing squad would have done their duty before the fleet could fire its first salvo.

  Now they had the range, the gunners on the mortar vessels were concentrating on Vargon, throwing up a creeping barrage that steadily worked its way backwards from the west coast. They made no attempt to fire in salvoes, simply hurling shot at the island as fast as they could sponge and reload. The gunboats, meanwhile, engaged the batteries on the west coast, and the far side of the island looked like one wall of smoke and flames shooting high into the sky.

  Killigrew emerged from the side of the arsenal and ran smack into a couple of artillerymen dashing towards the magazine on the far side of East Svarto. Before they could unsling their carbines, he kicked one in the crotch, and lifted his knee into the man’s face as he doubled up, snapping his head back and throwing him down, unconscious. The other managed to level his carbine, but Killigrew knocked the barrel up with a high kick before smashing a heel into his kneecap. The man went down with a scream, and Killigrew kicked him in the neck, breaking it.

  He dropped to the ground, sitting next to the unconscious man with his back to him so he could grope for the bayonet on his belt. Drawing it from its sheath, he wedged the tip in the ground so he could saw his bonds against the edge of the blade. Finally they parted, and he pushed himself to his feet, taking both men’s carbines and slinging them over one shoulder. Pulling the last strands of rope from his chafed wrists, he ran to the bridge leading to Vargon.

  Another round of shells burst across the island, throwing up fountains of bricks and dust. One shell overshot, landing in Artillery Bay and drenching Killigrew with spray as he ran across the bridge. On the far side he dashed between two buildings and emerged into the square beyond, only to run slap bang into half a dozen infantrymen emerging from the citadel. He unslung one of the carbines, but before he could even level it they ran straight past him. He gaped in astonishment, belatedly realising he was still wearing the dark-green uniform of a captain-lieutenant of the Russian navy; with shells bursting all over Vargon, everyone had too many problems of their own to want to stop him and check his papers.

  He dashed past the telegraph tower, heading for the bridge on to Gustafvard, when he heard Nekrasoff screaming behind him. ‘There he is! Kill him!’

  Shots whistled through the air around Killigrew’s head and he threw himself off the path, landing behind a low brick wall. Peering over the wall with the carbine, he saw three dozen infantrymen shooting at him from the side of the citadel, Nekrasoff blazing away with a revolver in his hand. Killigrew quickly ducked back down again as a bullet smacked against the brickwork inches from his head. Crawling on his belly to the end of the wall, he pointed the carbine around the corner and took aim at Nekrasoff. The carbine barked as he pulled the trigger, and he saw an infantryman standing several feet to the right of the colonel clap a hand to his shoulder and fall. Killigrew started to unsling the other carbine, but the infantrymen had already seen him, and he squirmed back out of sight as the bullets plucked at the greensward behind him. Glancing towards Gustafvard, he saw only 120 yards of open space: Nekrasoff’s men would cut him down before he covered ten paces.

  Another fusillade crackled to his right, and he saw a dozen more figures advancing through the trees of a coppice to the south of the citadel, firing as they came.

  Except that they were firing not at Killigrew, but at the Russians. The commander did a double take, and realised the newcomers wore the bonnets and hooped guernseys of French matelots, while their leader wore the uniform of an enseigne de vaisseau. For a moment Killigrew thought the French had been crazy enough to attempt a landing, until he saw Aurélie, Stålberg and Lindström following them through the trees. Evidently the prisoners he had been on his way to free had grown impatient and broken out for themselves!

  Realising that the French sailors presented more of a threat than a lone British officer, Nekrasoff’s men directed their fire at the coppice, giving Killigrew a chance to bob up over the wall and take another shot at them. He saw his bullet pock-mark the masonry of the citadel, a foot above the heads of the Russians, but it was enough to convince them they were enfiladed. They fell back behind the angle of a ravelin long enough for Aurélie, Stålberg, Lindström and the enseigne to dash across the open space to where Killigrew squatted, firing revolvers as they went, while the twelve matelots gave them covering fire from the coppice.

  Ducking down behind the wall, Aurélie flung her arms around Killigrew’s neck and smothered his cheeks with kisses. ‘Kit! I thought you were dead!’

  ‘So did I! Steady on, old girl! There’s a time and place for everything… and this most certainly isn’t the time and the place for what you’ve got in mind!’

  She pushed him away suddenly, bringing up a revolver in her left fist and squeezing off two shots. For a split second Killigrew thought she was shooting at him, that once again he had been betrayed, except that both shots missed; and even he could not have missed at that range. Hearing a thud on the ground behind him, he twisted to see the corpses of a couple of Russian infantrymen who had been trying to outflank them.

  Stålberg, Lindström and the French officer crouched behind the wall; all three of them had a revolver in each hand, and they fired over the wall at Nekrasoff’s men. Aurélie produced yet another revolver, and handed it to Killigrew.

  ‘Where’d you get this?’ he demanded.

  ‘Armoury in Fort Gustaf,’ she told him.

  ‘And the Russians just let you take them?’

  The French officer grinned. ‘My men had to break a few Russian skulls. M’sieur Killigrew, I presume?’

  ‘That’s me. I’m afraid you have the advantage of me, M’sieur…?’

  ‘Verne. Enseigne de Vaisseau Paul Verne of La Mouette, at your service. My men and I were captured raiding…’

  The rest of his words were drowned out as a shell screamed down to explode in the ground between the low wall and the citadel. A great cloud of dust rose over the surrounding battlements, and as it sheeted down Verne gestured frantically to his men, signalling for them to dash across and join him while the curtain of dust hid them from the Russians’ view.

  When they reached the wall, Killigrew saw they were not so very different from their British counterparts: squat, brawny men with rough-hewn faces and tattoos on their forearms beneath a thick covering of hairs; not the sort of men you’d want your daughter to marry, but there were none better to have on your side in a fight.

  ‘I’m not sure we’re any better off,’ Killigrew told Verne. ‘We’ll still be pinned down when the dust clears…’

  ‘Look out!’ yelled Stålberg, as the figure of a Russian infantryman appeared through the dust and smoke. Lindström shot him through the head, and when the cloud cleared enough for them to see a dozen more following behind him, Verne and his men picked off half of them while the remainder fled headlong for the safety of the ravelin where Nekrasoff crouched with the rest of his men.

  Verne and his men ducked back down behind the wall to reload their muskets and revolvers. ‘What’s the plan?’ Killigrew asked Aurélie. ‘You did have a plan, didn’t you?’

  She nodded. ‘Get on to East Svarto, steal the ferry and steam across to the fleet.’

  Killigrew shook his head. ‘The ferry will have high-tailed it for the south harbour as soon as the shooting started.’ He frowned. ‘But there’s a gunboat in one of the sheds on East Svarto. If we can get to it, we might still have a chance.’

  ‘But first we have to get to East Svarto,’ said Lindström, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate Nekrasoff and his men. ‘And with those pigs between us and the bridge, that’s going to be easier said than done.’

  ‘There must be another way to the bridge,’ said Aurélie.

  Killigrew looked about them, and his eyes fell on the two Russian soldiers she had shot earlier. ‘There is! Those two got here: there must be a w
ay along the east side of the island.’

  ‘You four go ahead,’ said Verne. ‘Charrondier, take Ingres and Laval and go with them. The rest of us will stay here and hold them as long as we can.’

  ‘Oui, oui, mon enseigne.’

  Killigrew, Aurélie, Stålberg and Lindström crawled to the far end of the wall with the three matelots. There were about thirty yards of open ground to cross before they reached the cover of the next ravelin.

  ‘We’ll give you a volley to cover you!’ Verne called.

  Killigrew nodded, and Verne and the rest of his men bobbed up, blazing away over the wall. The commander motioned for Charrondier to go first, and as the matelot dashed across, Killigrew stood up and fired his revolver at the Russians. Aurélie, Stålberg and Lindström followed Charrondier, while Killigrew brought up the rear with the other two matelots. They had almost made it when a musket barked overhead, and one of the matelots twisted and fell. Killigrew looked up to see a Russian at an embrasure on the battlements above them. The other matelot raised his musket and fired, and the Russian fell back out of sight. Then he slung his musket across his back and helped Killigrew drag the matelot who had been shot past the angle of the ravelin.

  Killigrew crouched over the wounded man. He had been shot in the chest and his guernsey was covered in blood. Killigrew felt for a pulse in his neck and found none. ‘Sorry, mon ami; it’s all up with your shipmate.’

  The other matelot nodded. ‘At least I got the Russkoff pig who killed him.’

  Leaving the dead man where he lay, they followed the others as they crept along the side of the ravelin, Charrondier leading the way with his musket in his hands. They found themselves in a man-made canyon between the ravelin and a blockhouse with a battlemented roof. The canyon angled to the right, and Charrondier and the others dashed across to the far side so they could get right up to the corner, where Charrondier crouched down to peer around it.

  ‘All clear!’ he announced, stepping out from the side of the blockhouse and motioning the others through. ‘Where’s Ingres?’ he asked Laval.