Distant Thunders

by Taylor Anderson

  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, s
ir. 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.

  He could barely move his head, but with his one good eye, he gazed around the compartment. Two dead men. A lot of blood. Wait! He was back in the magazine itself! There were no muskets, just barrels of powder secured all around. If I’m in the magazine, where is that flickering light coming from? He looked up, but couldn’t quite see. After much wriggling, he managed to force his head back just far enough.

  Oh, bravo! he said to himself as the charred rope parted and the burning rum bottle dropped.

  The current ran swiftly here and the men and women in the launch had rowed for their lives. All knew Ajax might turn at any moment and chase them down, but a couple of those on the boat suspected there might be further reason for gaining distance while they could. Ajax’s own momentum and the prevailing wind kept her pointed east, while the current carried the launch and its occupants west-northwest. Therefore, they’d gained almost two miles’ distance from the ship when the night suddenly lit with a blinding flash that drew all their stares.

  The entire aft half of Ajax erupted amid a yellow-red ball of fire, scattering masts, beams, yards, timbers, shards of burning rope and drifting canvas far across the sea. There was little steam left in her boiler, but a great steamy plume shot skyward when seawater touched the hot iron. Another similar blast demolished the forward part of the ship when the other magazine went. The bowsprit was launched entirely out of view like an enormous javelin. Ajax’s death took only seconds, but to those in the distant boat, it seemed to last much longer. The rolling, staccato, thunderous punch of the blast finally reached them with a physical jolt, and for what felt like whole minutes, flaming debris, blocks, an entire gun and carriage, bodies—or parts of bodies—rained down to splash amid the already vanishing flames.

  “My ship,” murmured Rajendra.

  “My God, Silva, what have you done?” Sandra whispered.

  Dennis stood up in the boat and glared around at the dozen or so survivors. “Why is it ever’ time somethin’ like this happens, it’s ‘Lawsy me, what’s ol’ Silva done now’? I’m sick an’ tired of it, hear! Might give a fella the benefit o’ the doubt now an’ again!”

  “Did you . . . do something . . . that might have destroyed that ship?” Rebecca asked quietly.

  Dennis looked harshly at her for a moment, then glanced at his feet. “Well . . . what if I did? What were we gonna do? Row off from ’em? That wadn’t ever gonna work, not after Rajendra and his bunch decided they wanted to come with us! Sneakin’ off ourselves was one thing. They wouldn’ta noticed us gone till they came to feed us the next day, and we woulda had a lot of ocean to hide in.” He glared at the men from Ajax again. “A ship’s captain, engineer, carpenter—an’ who knows what else—disappear in the middle of a distraction like was necessary to get so many off, somebody’s gonna take notice! Somebody did!”

  Rajendra stood too, slightly jostling the boat. “You . . . murdering filth! You murder my ship and all her crew and then have the nerve to say you did it because of us? Because we came with you? How would you have escaped without our help—without the help of some of the men you killed this night who had to stay behind?”

  “It wadn’t your ship no more, genius!” Silva bellowed. He was fed up. “You were in the same fix we were. Don’t you dare stand there an’ act all sancti-fidious at me when you wouldn’t even rear up on your hind legs an’ try to take your ship back! When you blew Cap’n Lelaa’s ship outa the water with all her people on it! You coulda saved your ship then, if you’d pulled your pistol an’ shot Billingsly square betwixt the eyes! That prob’ly woulda been the end of it right there, because whatever else you are, or your crew was, you were the goddamn captain ! Instead, you said, ‘Yes, sir! You’re the boss!’ an’ killed two hundred of our folks! Then you slunk around whinin’ how it wadn’t your fault!”

  Silva looked at Sandra, knowing she, at least, would believe his next words. “I had me a little plan to get us off the ship. Mighta worked. We mighta got off without killin’ hardly anybody”—he shrugged—“or I mighta still blown up your ship. That was always plan B. When I heard your plan, I figgered it ’ud be easier—an’ safer—for us an’ the princess. But only if I dusted off plan B an’ made it part o’ plan A! Well, the plans worked, yours an’ mine, an’ here we are. I’m sorry if I killed some good fellas, but I ain’t that damn sorry.” He pointed at the pistol on Rajendra’s belt. “You can try to shoot me now, an’ maybe that’ll prove you ain’t as yellow as I think you are, but I’ll kill you an’ you’ll just be dead instead o’ helpin’ out now, when your princess needs you. Or you can prove you weren’t never yellow at all—just confused an’ a little scared, in a fix you hadn’t come upon before. I’ve heard that happens to folks. You can prove that by bein’ a good captain for what’s left of your crew, an’ by helpin’ Larry an’ Captain Lelaa—if she’ll have you—navigate our way to the boosum o’ Larry’s lovin’ home.”

  Slowly, Rajendra sat. Some of what Silva had said must have struck a chord, because he lowered his eyes and then stared at the few distant flickering fires that marked the grave of his ship and crew. His expression was desolate. “Who is to be in charge, then?” he finally asked, controlling his voice.

  “Lieutenant—rather, Minister—Tucker,” Princess Rebecca said in a tone that brooked no argument. “Now that we’re all on the same side, she is the highest-ranking official present, myself excluded. If you prefer, you may consider her as my proxy, but you will obey her.”

  “What about him?” asked the engineer, referring to Silva.

  “As has been most . . . eloquently . . . presented, if Mr. Silva is to be arrested, I must have Captain Rajendra arrested as well. What purpose would that serve? Mr. Silva will retain his position as my chief armsman and personal p
rotector—provided he at least consults me before destroying any more of His Majesty’s property.”

  Dennis looked at the girl. He’d more than half expected her to despise him for what he’d done, and the relief he felt was indescribable.

  “Well,” he said, a bit huskily, “I’ll sure try.”

  Sandra took a deep breath. “All right, let’s get on with it. Captain Lelaa, you have the helm. Lawrence, assist her with the compass, if you please. Captain Rajendra? I assume this vessel has a sail?”

  CHAPTER 24

  “Report from the crow’s nest, Captain,” Reynolds said. “Sail on the horizon, bearing zero one zero.”

  “Very well. Helm, make your course zero one zero, if you please,” Matt ordered. He raised his binoculars.

  “Making my course see-ro one see-ro, ay!” replied Staas-Fin at the wheel.

  “Uh, Skipper?” Reynolds continued. “Wouldn’t this be a good time to put my plane in the water and let me fly over there and have a look?”

  Matt restrained the grin that tried to form. Reynolds took his new calling as a naval aviator very seriously, and by all accounts he was a good pilot. He and his small flight and maintenance crew cared for the Nancy meticulously. They’d even worked out a number of the problems associated with stowing, rigging out and recovering the plane, and protecting it from the elements. They still hadn’t had a chance to actually fly the thing yet, and partially that was due to the time it required to launch and recover the aircraft. Mostly, Matt admitted to himself, he personally didn’t want to risk the valuable, fragile resource the plane represented, or the young, excitable, but steady ensign he’d grown so fond of. So far, in addition to his Special Air Detail duties, Reynolds had been stuck in his old job as bridge talker, for the most part. He was starting to feel a little put-upon and it showed.