by Dave Freer
She wanted to talk about it. And she didn't dare talk to her mother about him. She was scared it would build the dam again. And, well, she didn't really know who else to talk to. She supposed…they were all rebels, trying to bring down the British Empire. Or at least outlaws. She and mother were that too, now. But she knew very little about it, about the struggle to be free, about the people who lived in hiding under London, about how it all fitted together, and she was too embarrassed to ask. They'd all know, and they would think her strange for not knowing. She'd had enough of being out, and being different. She wanted their acceptance, she realized.
She saw Tim come trotting down to the beach—a thin band of black sand—and collect the bag from Cookie and then begin running up the hill again. Then it came on to rain: big, heavy drops. Maybe that would wash the chief engineer's coal a bit. So she went below and collected her sou'wester and oilskin jacket. She'd just come back on the deck when she heard something up the slope.
It sounded like a distant gunshot.
Tim had started to draw the cutlass from his belt. Then the bosun's words came back to him, “We're no match for the king's soldiers.” He knew, in his heart of hearts, that he couldn't fight anyone with it.
But his rifle was still under the eave. He crawled forward. He at least knew how to work the bolt and squeeze the trigger. He'd fired a whole three shots at the training range back in the tunnels. Even hit the target. He took the rifle down, carefully took the safety off, and crept to the door arch.
Inside were the submariners…and three Ulster Hussars, their red breeches and green pelisses no longer looking parade-ground smart.
Tim didn't notice their appearance. He was too scared. “Drop your weapons.” His voice cracked.
The one, startled, did. The other two looked at him. And the bigger of the two, the one with the sergeant's stripes, snorted. “Wee kiddie. Put it down, or I'll kill you.”
So Tim shot him.
Well, he tried to.
He'd only ever fired a rifle while lying down, as instructed. With the butt firmly pulled in against his shoulder. As instructed again. It had kicked him into bruises then. Standing up, not with an instructor making sure that the rifle was well against his shoulder, his shot never hit anything, but it knocked Tim half off his feet. He dropped the rifle in the process. The Hussar lunged at him—with a bayonetted rifle. Tim rolled, narrowly managing not to get impaled by the bayonet. The moss-chinked wall was less lucky. The bayonet screeched on a piece of rock and slid its full length into the mossy crack…and a rock fell down onto the rifle. The Hussar tried to wrench it loose and failed. Frantically, Tim pulled at the cutlass in his belt as the man let go of his rifle and dived for Tim's dropped one. The cutlass came free, and Tim's desperate, wild swing got the Hussar across the hand. Tim had hit him with the back of the blade—not the sharp edge—in sheer panic. It didn't cut the Hussar's fingers off as it might have otherwise done. But it hit his hand hard enough to make him drop the rifle, as Tim staggered upright, pointing the cutlass at his chest, tip wavering. “Don't move.”
“I wouldn't, or I might shoot you,” said the bosun, pushing the muzzle of a rifle into the man's back. And the sergeant might have thought he could beat Tim, but the bosun's voice was grim and steady. The prisoner's hands came up slowly.
Tim looked at the rest of the scene now, feeling as if he might just faint. Olaf had the man who had dropped his weapon in a bear hug. The other Hussar was lying on the ground, his caubeen off and his head bleeding.
“See if there are any more of them, Tim-boy,” said the bosun. “And pick up your rifle!” He prodded the man with the rifle he was holding. “How many of you are there?”
“Hundreds,” said the Hussar sergeant sullenly. “If you surrender I'll be seeing you get fairly treated. And the boy too.”
The bosun chuckled. “Likely. I reckon you'd have to kill him, and your mates, to stop the story getting out.”
Tim peered into the rain. “Can't see anyone. Can't really see anything. It's bucketing down.”
“I reckon it'd be no use firing a Very light in this, except to tell his friends—if he has any—where he is. How's that one?” He jerked his head at the bleeding man. The submariners were busy tying up the man who Olaf had squeezed.
“He's not dead. You hit him hard with that rock,” said Jonas.
“Tie him up, and haul him under the roof,” said the bosun.
“Why?” asked Jonas.
“Because he's wet through and he'll probably die otherwise,” said the bosun.
“But, I mean, he would have killed us,” protested the submariner.
“He might have, but I'm no Hussar,” said the bosun. “Come on. I think we may as well leg it down until we can see the boat. No use signalling in this.”
“And the other two?” asked the other submariner.
“Bring 'em. That's for the captain to decide. Give me some more of that cord of yours, Sam.” He prodded the captive. “Roll over, you. I'll have nothing against shooting you if you try anything. Put a leash on that one's neck.”
So they tied the man's hands behind his back, and, after taking a careful look outside the half-fallen walls, where all they could see was rain, they retreated down the hill.
“Was that a shot?” Clara asked the mate.
“I do not think so, no,” he said in his guttural Dutch-accented voice.
Clara was sure that it had been, but wasn't sure what she could do next, except to listen. Listen really really hard, and stare into the rain.
She was sure it was a shot. But why just one?
Halfway down, Tim had to stop and be sick. The bosun stopped with him as he retched.
Tim stood up, wiping his mouth. “I made a proper mess of it, didn't I?”
The bosun chuckled. “Well, you saved our lives, and maybe the boat and probably the men on the barge. There were only three of them, but if they had got down, got into a good position, and started shooting, well, they'd have killed a few, and the skipper would have dived without us.”
“Oh. Leave us here?” Tim asked, trying to deal with the idea.
“If he had to. So you did good, lad. How was the loading coming on?”
“Dunno. I just took the food from Cookie…Cookie. I left the food and his bag up there. I've got to go back.” Tim turned.
The bosun grabbed him by shoulder, turned back him downhill. “No, you don't, you young chump.”
“But it's food!” protested Tim. Food in the tunnels under London was always a little tight, even at the best of times.
“And we've got more, and chances are you wouldn't find it, and the skipper is going to leave. You want to stay here?” asked the bosun.
“Um, no,” admitted Tim.
“Well, get a move along then,” said the bosun.
When they could just see the barge and the submarine, the bosun picked out a tumble of rocks. “Right. Take cover here. Sam you run down and find the duty officer and tell them we've got prisoners and that the Hussars might be close. Judging by the state of these we can hold them off if we have to.”
So they watched the hill. Tim made very sure to hold that rifle so that the butt was pulled in tight to his shoulder. He hoped that he wouldn't have to use it.
Clara spotted the man running down out of the rain. Too big for the cabin boy, and too pale-faced too. The lieutenant was over on the half-beached barge, helping load bags of coal dust. She couldn't quite hear what the man panted out, but the word “Hussar” carried. Lieutenant Willis ran across the planks they'd been using to carry the coal across and down into the submarine.
Minutes later three of the crew went off with the man who had run down, and the coal loading got an extra boost of haste added. Then the three came back…with two extra men in very dirty and battered Ulster Hussar uniforms. They were hustled across to the submarine—but not before Clara had been told very sternly to go to her cabin and stay there. “It's important that they don't see you,” said Captain Malkis.
Up on the slope, Tim watched nervously. And his stomach, now that it was completely empty, gurgled and grumbled about the bag of food up there in the rain. He could see the coaling barge was riding a bit higher in the water. Some of her crew were fiddling with the engine powering their big stern-paddle. By the looks of the steam-cloud, not with much success.
“Sprung a seam, I reckon,” said the bosun, knowledgably.
Then there was a green Very light flare, obviously fired low over the water. It whizzed over the barge and hit the bank they were on. “Must be troops from the garrison at Tórshavn,” said the bosun. “I reckon that's our recall, boys. Yes. The barge has cast off. I hope the others make it. I wouldn't care to be on an inflatable boat when they're shooting at me.”
“Look.” One of the men pointed. “That was what they saw.”
There were several small boats coming down the fiord—from the upper end. “They crossed over and got boats from the village at the top of the fiord!”
There was a crackle of gunfire…and the submarine—while Tim and his companions were nearly at the shore now—slipped away, underwater.
“They're leaving us!” screamed Tim, as the smoke trail from the engines bubbled up.
The bosun swore. Long and colourfully. Then said, “We'd better head back uphill. See if we can find the food bag, and see if Olaf's people will hide us. No point in your shooting at them, Mac,” he said to the man who was carefully lying down and taking aim. “It'll just tell them we're here. You'll never hit them anyway. They must be half a mile off. And we might need those bullets.”
“She's not running away, Smitty,” said the submariner. “Look at the smoke.”
Tim could do more than that, now that he knew what to look for. He could see the periscope, slicing through the water at speed towards the two small fishing boats. “They're going to ram them!”
The bosun shook his head. “Probably lift them.”
As he said that, the two attacking boats turned as one, racing towards the shore, the troops in them firing down into the water.
“Fat lot of good that'll do them. Water's powerfully slowing stuff. Idiots are giving the skipper their tails. Bows are harder.” As he said this one of the boats did a good imitation of a bucking horse, and nose-dived. It didn't quite sink, but there were uniformed men in the water. The other vessel…suddenly stopped. People fell off that too. Olaf laughed. “Hit Shteen for the vorter.” He tapped a rock.
They looked at him in puzzlement. Sam was quickest on the uptake. “They've run aground. And look, the other patrol has the inflatable out. They're rowing down as fast as they can, away, towards the sea.”
“They're thinking quicker than we are.” The bosun spat. “There are too many of us for that little boat. Olaf, are you coming with us? We need to get to where we can get aboard the sub. And this water is too cold for swimming.”
Olaf shook his head, pointed up into the cloud and the rain-shrouded mountainside. “You go. Me goot.”
“She'll take three, not more. Mac, boy, and Jonas, onto her. And don't argue,” said the bosun. “We'll run along the shore, and you can come back for us if you've got the chance.”
So they paddled out, and sure enough, the Cuttlefish came up, water pouring off her flanks. “Jump. I'm going to fetch Smitty and Sam,” yelled Mac. So they did. Nearly had the little boat over, and the water was icy, but someone on the deck flung a loop at them and they were hauled, gasping, over the curve of the deck and up. “Get below. We're after the inflatable,” said the lieutenant.
“Sir, the bosun…”
“We'll be back if we have the chance.” The sub was already accelerating toward the inflatable, which was paddling towards them as fast as the submariners could. Tim could hear small-arms fire in the distance. Tim, heart-sore and scared, almost fell down the spiral stair and was hauled in. Just behind him came the first of the other patrol. The Cuttlefish turned. Tim desperately wished he knew just what was happening.
“Get yourself dry,” said someone roughly. It was the mate. “Sir. But I need to know—”
“That's an order. Move,” he said with rough kindness.
So Tim moved to his tiny shared cabin and shed his very wet clothes. Put dry ones on and went back out to try to find out what had happened.
He walked smack into Clara. She looked ready to faint. “Oh. It's not you.”
“What? What's not me?” he asked.
“Someone got shot,” said Clara, uneasily. “Just as they were getting them off the boat, I heard.”
Tim closed his eyes. “Are they…dead?”
“I don't know. I didn't even know if it was you or not,” said Clara.
Just then Lieutenant Willis came along. “He's alive, before you ask. Boy, they could probably use you with the greasers in the engine room.”
“Yessir. Uh. Who is alive, sir?” asked Tim.
“McConnell. We hauled him out of the water. Mac is not in a good way, but alive,” said the lieutenant. “I'd like to have a good surgeon to treat him, but at the moment he's holding his own.” The lieutenant was the submarine's medical officer.
“And the bosun, sir?” asked Tim. Ever since the net incident the bosun had looked out for him.
The lieutenant bit his lip. “He, Sam Jones, and the local, Olaf, fled up the mountainside. I didn't see them being pursued. It's possible that they got away. The local resistance is quite well organised. We'll be in touch with them by radio tonight.”
“Any chance of picking them up, sir?” asked Tim, still hopeful.
The lieutenant shook his head. “Not much, lad. The Faroes see quite a few submarines, though. If they don't get caught, there is a good chance of them getting a berth on another boat.”
It was not much comfort, but it was all he got. So he went to work in the engine room.
Clara could see how upset the boy was. She hadn't known either of the submariners that well, so it didn't hurt as much. Still, it felt like desertion. She smiled at the lieutenant. “I hope I am allowed out of our cabin again?”
“I didn't know you were confined to it. What did you get up to this time?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. The lieutenant was fast becoming one of her favourites.
“I didn't do anything. I got told to go into my cabin and stay there, when the Hussar prisoners were brought aboard.”
“Ah. The skipper didn't want them confirming that you, and therefore your mother, were actually on board. They're down in the brig now. So long as you stay away from there, it will be fine.”
“What are we going to do with them?” asked Clara.
“Probably drop them on one of the outer islands,” said the lieutenant. “We're waiting to hear from the local resistance if they can use them for some kind of prisoner swap—if the Imperial forces caught our men, that's likely something we'll try, not that they usually agree. But at least the two of them talked. Gave us a bit more information.”
“Oh? What did they tell us?” asked Clara.
“Us?” He smiled. “You're far too quizzy, young lady.”
“Please?” she asked, giving him her very best smile. She'd found it worked quite well. She wasn't too sure why.
He laughed. “You'll just pester it out of someone else, if I don't. They didn't want to talk either, but when we separated them, we persuaded each of them that the other one would never know, and it was a case of whether we dropped them overboard…or dropped them back on the Faroes. It seems the skipper was right. We lost our tail at the Shetlands, but they got a tip-off that we were heading here. The nearest ship was a long way off, so they came from Aberdeen in the airship. There were only twenty of them and they had a terrible jump, in the dark, and in the wind, onto mountainous terrain. They failed to find the rest of their squad—they left two injured men behind on the mountain and came on, just the three of them. They hoped to keep us from loading fast, or at least from filling our coal bunker—because the dreadnought Invincible George is on its way here as fast as it can steam.
Clara hoped that that at least was true.
Tim was in the mess, finally catching up on some of the food he hadn't seen much of, when Lieutenant Willis sought him out. He was a good sort, the lieutenant. “You'll be happy to know your friend the bosun and Jones are in good shape, and being hidden. They've been moved to another island—and now, too late, all of the Faroe Islands is under lockdown, so they can't move. Anyway, we can drop off the two Hussars.”
“Drop them off?” asked Tim.
“It's that or feed them. And they eat even more than you do. We'll drop them off on a life-raft just off Fugloy. It's a little eastern-most island with some sheer cliffs. It'll take our Winged Hussars a little while to find their way to one of the villages on the other side, and still longer to get news off the island.”
Tim found out, in his apology to Cookie about the bag and food, that oddly he had barely been at the fight with the Hussars. Well, he hadn't exactly been very good at fighting them. But it seemed that he'd turned up, given the others the distraction they needed, and they'd overpowered them. It was kind of…annoying. Not that he expected to be a hero or anything. Not after the mess he'd made of it. But he hadn't seen what Jonas had done in the fight either, so he couldn't say much. Cookie asked what had happened. “Dunno. I was too busy falling over my own feet and dropping my rifle to see.”
Cookie laughed. “That sounds more like me sort of heroics.”
Still, his adventure with the Hussars had its reward. Well…sort of. More like a punishment really. He got to clean the rifles. And the quartermaster, who was also the armourer, showed him how to hold and cross-draw the cutlass. “I tried to do it in the fight. I wasn't any good at it,” explained Tim, when he asked for advice.