Stormchild

by Bernard Cornwell

  “Alas”—he smiled—”I came here in a sea kayak and didn’t think to bring a radio.”

  “I’ve got one,” I said.

  “Splendid! But I fear it won’t transmit from this rock pit!” Von Rellsteb gestured about the high walls of the machine hall which would, indeed, block any transmission. “But if you want to climb the outside stairs to the roof you can talk to the settlement. They monitor channel 16. The reception is sometimes a bit erratic, but if you persevere you should succeed. Please.” He took a pace backward and courteously invited me to walk to the staircase. I did not move. Von Rellsteb smiled and still held his hand toward the stairs. “Nicole might very well answer herself”—he enticed me—”she often takes a radio watch about this time of day.”

  I still did not move, nor did I lower the rifle, though in all honesty von Rellsteb had completely unsettled me. He had thrown all my accusations and suspicions out of gear. Had Berenice fed David and me with fantasy? It seemed impossible that von Rellsteb meant me harm, for he was facing me unarmed and he seemed utterly unworried by the threat of my gun. And still he smiled at me, so that I was beginning to feel mesmerized by the piercing blue eyes in his kindly face. Everything he said was so plausible, and I felt my defenses against him weakening.

  “Please?” he said again, and gestured to the staircase, then, as though an idea had suddenly struck him, he tapped his hands lightly together. “But this is ridiculous! Your boat must be moored nearby, so why don’t you just sail to the settlement! It’s ten miles up the straits, that’s all. This old mine is such a very uncomfortable place for a family reunion.”

  “My boat isn’t in the straits,” I said. My left forearm, bracing the barrel of the Lee-Enfield, was beginning to ache.

  Von Rellsteb stared at me with a disbelief that slowly turned into genuine admiration. “Are you moored in the Almagro Channel?” He waited a second, and, when I gave no answer, he shook his head. “No! You can’t be! It’s never been done!”

  I still said nothing. My lips felt dry despite the rain which whirled about the great rusting machines under the broken roof.

  Von Rellsteb shook his head in astonishment. “Did you sail up the fjord? Is that what you did? I don’t believe it can be done!” He gave me a very suspicious look. “You can’t have dared the fjord! I’ve never risked it, nor has Nicole for that matter, and there isn’t much she won’t dare in a boat! There can’t be more than five feet of water in the entrance to the Almagro Channel!”

  “There’s over fifty feet!” I said scornfully, and thus I betrayed Stormchild’s whereabouts to my enemy.

  “Thank you, Mr. Blackburn.” Von Rellsteb smiled, then abruptly stepped into the shelter of the closest crushing machine as he shouted to his hidden troops. “He’s in the Almagro Channel! Johnny? Come with me. Lisl? He’s got a rifle, so be careful!” Von Rellsteb was still shouting instructions as he ran away, but he switched into German and it took me a few seconds to make the linguistic transition. I thought he told Lisl to finish me off, then to meet him at the farmhouse.

  I had pursued von Rellsteb to the corner of the rock-crushing machine, intending to cut him down, but suddenly the whole high shed echoed with the terrifying sound of automatic gunfire and I saw flecks of brilliant metal appear on the rusting flank of the machine beside my head. It took me a full astonished second to realize that the bright flecks were the strikes of bullets and that the stinging on my cheek was caused by flakes of rusting metal struck off the machine, then I desperately threw myself sideways onto the wet floor, scrabbling in panic for the shelter of the neighboring engine, while all around me the air rang with the ricochet of bullets, the stuttering crash of the gun, and the shout of laughter from the stairway above me. I had a glimpse of a gunman firing at me, the muzzle flames making a pale, bright aureole around the gun’s muzzle, then I saw it was not a gunman at all, but a red-haired girl with a long, fierce face. She had to be Lisl, who, I remembered, Berenice had said was Caspar’s lover. I tried to bring my rifle to bear on her, but she saw the movement and whipped her fire toward me.

  I wriggled desperately into cover. A second gunman opened fire from my right, but his bullets went high and he stopped firing almost immediately. The clangor of the bullets striking the old machinery was much louder than the firing of the guns. I heard people shouting. I thought I identified three voices, one belonged to Lisl, while the other two were mens’ voices. Somewhere in the huge machine hall a door slammed hollowly, then I heard the scrape of a huge bolt. From what von Rellsteb had shouted I gathered he must be going to the fjord, where, with one of his gunmen, he would lead the attack on Stormchild.

  I had to get out, which meant that I had to know where my enemies were so I could get past them. I knew Lisl was above me on the rickety staircase. She had stopped firing, presumably to reload. At least one of the other gunmen was to my right, and the third voice had also seemed to come from that direction. So I should go left toward the landward end of the crushing shed, where the raw limestone had been fed into the huge hoppers. Except my small glimpse of the great machinery room had suggested that the only escape route from the crushing shed was at its eastern end, where the huge ramp angled down toward the sea. So I had to go to my right. I knew I could not stay where I was because my enemies knew where I was hiding, and it could only be moments before they surrounded me.

  So run! Yet somehow my tired legs would not move. I was terrified and angry at myself for being gulled by von Rellsteb. The bastard had lied so smoothly, and I had not been able to resist his flattery. Boasting of my achievement I had betrayed Stormchild’s whereabouts.

  So, to save David, I should run. I knew I had to run. I heard a footfall way off to my right, then, outside the shed, the sudden roar of motorbike engines. I had forgotten about the scrambling bikes, and I cursed myself for thus forgetting because until now I had stood a chance, admittedly very remote, of escaping this place and reaching Stormchild before my enemies. But that chance had evaporated with the sound of the bikes as they roared off.

  I had to forget Stormchild for the moment. My task was to escape this trap, and of all the trap’s components I most feared Lisl in her aerie, because to her I was like a mouse under the eye of a hovering falcon. I peered up through a spoke of the nearest machine’s huge driving wheel and saw her as a bright-haired shadow in the upper doorway. I raised my rifle, but she saw the movement and opened fire. I flung myself to the left, astonished that there was any strength remaining in my legs, then cannoned off the machine to go in the opposite direction. I ran across the open passage. Lisl was following my abrupt motions with her gun’s barrel, hosing bullets across the vast room, but she was too slow and I was safe under cover again.

  I crouched, short of breath, terrified, watching the eastern end of the shed where a flood of rainy light showed where the loading ramp spilled its way out of this death trap. Then I saw a man run across that patch of light and I pulled the trigger, much too late, and heard my bullet ricochet off metal to crack against a ceiling girder.

  I ran again, and once again Lisl saw me a second too late. Bullets flicked and shrieked and sang and banged through the shed. I sheltered beside a different kind of machine, one that had a crawlspace beneath it. The dank space was no more than a foot high, but it offered me a chance. Lisl would be watching for me in one place, but the crawl space would let me appear in another.

  The crawl space was filthy with rust-colored puddles. I hung my bag with its few precious implements about my neck, took a breath, then wriggled my way under the giant machine. The first few feet were easy enough, though I could feel the stinking water soaking through my trousers, but once I was deep under the great mechanism some bolts on its underside snagged on the rope that I still had wrapped about my torso. I dared not use great force to tear myself free, for any noise might betray my predicament.

  Instead I slowly edged backward and forward, freeing myself of the obstruction inch by cold inch. I heard voices echoing, the slap of feet again,
but my enemies preferred to stalk me rather than rush me, presumably for fear of my rifle. Lisl, worried by my silence or perhaps just trying to flush me out of hiding, fired some shots that rang like bells as they smacked into the iron frame of the machine above me. When she stopped firing I could hear the spent bullets rattle down into the mechanism’s rusting bowels.

  I paused, watching the passage into which I would emerge. I could see no one there. I twisted my body till it was sideways onto the passage, rolled out, scrambled to my feet, and ran in panicked desperation toward the ramp. It took my enemies a second or two to see me, and another two or three seconds to react. Then Lisl opened fire and her bullets flicked and smacked and whined about me. I knew I did not have time to hurl myself over the ramp’s lip, so instead I dived into the shelter of a stone wall that hid me from her deadly perch.

  “Where is he?” one of the men demanded.

  “Last hopper! This side!” Lisl shouted, then her German-accented voice was abruptly filled with panic. “I said this side! This side!”

  Her panic was justified, for the man had mistaken her instructions and now stepped into view just paces from me. He was facing a hopper on the hall’s far side and had his back to me, but Lisl’s panicked voice whipped him round and his eyes widened with terror as he saw me. He was a broad-shouldered man with a huge and springy beard of tangled brown hair that blossomed wildly across his broad chest. I felt a sudden, wild hope that the bearded man would have the sense to leap back into hiding, thus saving me the need to shoot him, but instead he raised his hands and I saw he was carrying a submachine gun. I was swinging the rifle toward him. I had never shot at anyone in all my life, but he was beginning to flinch as though he feared the noise his own gun would make, and I knew that I had about one second to live if I did not squeeze my trigger first.

  So I squeezed my trigger.

  He fired, too.

  My shot missed. So did his.

  The man was screaming as he fired, not because he was hurt, but to disguise his fear. He had fired too soon and his bullets went to my left and kept going away from me as the recoil of the small gun pounded him around. I worked the Lee-Enfield’s bolt and heard my ejected cartridge tinkle as it clattered across the stone floor. I raised the rifle, taking better aim then before. The bearded man had managed to control the swing of his gun’s shuddering recoil and he was forcing the barrel back toward me. The world was reduced to noise, just noise, a splintering thunder of cartridges and of metal striking stone, and I was probably shouting as loudly as my enemy, then I fired again and the man just leapt backward as though he had been yanked off his feet by a hidden steel cable, and then there was a sudden silence.

  Rainwater dripped on the floor. The wind fretted and creaked at a sheet of corrugated iron. The man I had shot took a breath that sounded like the workings of an ancient bellows. I worked the rifle’s bolt. I had fired three bullets, or was it four? I knew I should count the magazine down so as not to be trapped without ammunition. I was sure it was three. My breath was coming in panicked gulps. I could see the bearded man’s legs protruding from behind a wooden hooper. He was wearing a green jerkin, brown corduroy trousers, and old climbing boots with worn vibram soles. One of his legs was jerking spasmodically. His breathing sounded awful, like bubbles and scraping gravel and unimaginable pain. I thought I was going to be sick. I had a sudden vivid memory of the man’s blood pulsing bright in the air as he jerked backward.

  “Chris is hit!” Lisl’s voice was shocked.

  “Where is he?” another voice shouted.

  The man called Chris suddenly screamed. It was a terrible scream.

  I moved. I ran out from the wall. I turned and looked up. Lisl was leaning over the balustrade. I brought the rifle up and stared at her through the open battle sight. She was turning her gun toward me, then, seeing me and fearing my shot, she leaped backward like a scalded cat.

  I turned and ran the few steps to the great ramp that sloped down to the pier and the sea. Wooden steps ran down beside a huge metal-lined chute that had once carried the crushed lime to the waiting ships and now I hurled myself onto its metal lining and slid down as though it was a giant slide in a childrens’ playground. Except that this slide was rusted, and bolts snagged me, and I part rolled and part slid and sometimes scrambled my way down to the bottom. I heard something break in the bag of supplies that I still carried about my neck.

  The man called Chris still screamed behind me. The sound of his agony faded as I escaped, or almost escaped, for a sudden whine and whipcrack told me that I was being fired at. The sound of the gun echoed down the ramp’s tunnel. The bullets missed, then, bruised and bleeding, I spilled over the ramp’s end onto the flagstoned surface of the old quay.

  I looked up one side of the chute to see another bearded man running down the steps with a gun in his hand. I aimed, fired, and missed. The man suddenly realized how vulnerable he was and turned. I fired again, but the range was long, I was firing uphill into shadows and the man was running fast. I fired a third time, missed yet again and saw the man make an ungainly leap off the stairs and into cover.

  I ran down the quay. The rain bounced to make a fine spray on the flagstones. Beneath me, on a small shingle beach where they were concealed from the sea by a ridge of rocks, were four sea kayaks. Two of the slender craft were single-seaters, while the others had two small cockpits apiece. Six paddles lay alongside the kayaks. I jumped down, painfully turning an ankle as I landed. The slender craft were made of fiberglass. I walked past their sharp prows, firing into their bellies. A bullet apiece was enough to make sure that the kayaks could not be used in a hurry, but I had to change magazines to finish the job and the delay betrayed my whereabouts to my enemies. Suddenly their bullets began whipping at the quay’s edge above me, chipping scraps of stone that dropped around me. I slung the kayak’s six paddles far out into the water, where, with any luck, they would float away.

  Six paddles for six canoeists? If I had understood von Rellsteb’s parting instructions, then he had taken one other person to help capture Stormchild. Which left four at the mine, one of whom was screaming with a bullet in his guts. Was Nicole here? No, I could not believe my daughter would conspire for my death, though now, still shivering from the gunfight, I did not really understand anything except that I had sailed ten thousand miles to discover nightmare.

  Another bullet flicked overhead. I wondered if one gunman was trying to trap me on the small beach while the others came down the ramp to finish me off. I looked to my right and saw that I could stay in the shelter of the stone quay all the way to a jumble of dark rocks which lay at the base of a broken and torn cliff. The rocks extended far along the shore, and I guessed that once I was in their cover I would be safe. I limped to their shelter. It was low tide and the stones were slippery with rain and weed, but I found a deep cleft that offered me complete protection from any gunmen in the buildings, and, deep in the cleft’s protective shadow, I paused to catch my breath and to plan my next move. I was sobbing, not with pain, but with a kind of self-disgust. Then I forgot my misery for, far above me, and muffled by distance and half drowned by the rush of wind and rain, there was a sudden shot. The screaming of the man called Chris abruptly ended.

  “Oh, my God,” I murmured in prayer. I had caused a man’s death. I had not meant it to be like this. Mingled sweat and rain were running down my face. I refilled the Lee-Enfield’s empty magazine. My fingers were cold and clumsy, or perhaps they were shaking because I had killed a man. I was shivering. They would be coming for me. These people were ruthless. Christ! They took no prisoners and left no wounded, not even their own. I knew I must do something. I had to think!

  Von Rellsteb had been waiting for me, expecting me. That was the premise from which to start. I had to work out what they wanted, and therefore what they might do, and only then could I decide what I should do, except that whenever I tried to think logically the panic and adrenaline distracted and unnerved me, making me so jumpy that I
twisted and almost fired when a kelp goose paddled into view at the seaward end of my hiding place. I tried to relax, but I was shivering uncontrollably.

  They had been waiting for me. They knew I would come to the mine and not to the settlement. Why?

  They had known I would come to the mine, but they had not foreseen everything. They had expected Stormchild to sail up the Desolate Straits, presumably passing the settlement in the darkness, and they had taken care to have their kayaks hidden so that on Stormchild’s arrival we would have assumed that the limestone workings were abandoned, and once we had gone ashore they would have attacked us because they wanted us silenced, and, doubtless, because they wanted our boat. That was obvious. They wanted Stormchild.

  They wanted Stormchild, yet von Rellsteb’s plans to capture her had gone awry when I chose to use the Almagro Channel. But, once my presence in the limestone workings had been detected, von Rellsteb had quickly regrouped his forces and had then dealt brilliantly with me, which meant that by now, unless David had put up a stout fight or had already taken her to sea, Stormchild was probably captured, David and Berenice likely dead. But I could not think about those possible disasters, not while a different disaster still threatened to overwhelm me.

  I was still not thinking straight. I was shaking and cold and blaming myself. I had been so certain the Genesis boats would sail north to pursue Stormchild, but von Rellsteb had known I would come for my daughter. I had done everything he had expected me to do, except for one thing. He had expected me to die, and I was alive.

  Now it was time to defy von Rellsteb. It was time, God help me, to fight—for David, for myself, and for Nicole.

  It took me about ten minutes to realize that I had trapped myself between a she-devil and a cold, flooding sea. I had thought myself entirely safe in the cleft, which hid me from every landward vantage point, but I had forgotten the tide. The straits, agitated by a strengthening wind, were rising fast, and the icy flooding water would very soon force me out of my hiding place and into the waiting sights of Lisl and her gunmen.