The Eye of Neptune

by Jon Mayhew

  Dakkar tried to sit up, only to find himself bound to the seat. ‘What happened?’ he groaned. ‘And who are you?’

  ‘I’ll ask the questions here, boy,’ the girl growled, an American accent giving her voice a nasal twang. ‘Now where’s my uncle?’

  ‘Your uncle?’ Dakkar spluttered. ‘How would I know where he is? I don’t even know who you are!’

  ‘Don’t make me slug you again!’ she snarled, raising an arm. ‘You were on that British ship. Now where’s Robert Fulton?’

  ‘Fulton?’ Dakkar felt the blood drain from his face. ‘What d’you mean, where’s Fulton?’

  The girl swung her hand, stinging Dakkar’s cheek. His eyes watered and he glowered at her.

  ‘I said, I’ll ask the questions,’ she hissed. ‘My uncle went for his usual constitutional walk in the evening, then I saw him being grabbed and dragged towards the sea.’

  Dakkar noticed a purple bruise on the girl’s temple. ‘And you tried to stop them,’ he guessed. ‘Only they were too strong.’

  ‘Too strong? Hah!’ she said, folding her arms. ‘One of them snuck up behind me and knocked me senseless. When I came to, I saw your ship on the horizon and launched the L–’ She closed her mouth suddenly, swallowing her words and blushing slightly as if she’d said too much.

  ‘This submersible,’ Dakkar finished, unable to stifle a grin at her shock.

  ‘How do you know that?’ she gasped. ‘You must be a spy. You have got my uncle.’ She launched forward, almost sitting in Dakkar’s lap, and started to bang his head against the back of the seat. ‘Give him back, you good-for-nothing savage!’ The craft rocked and tipped with the violence of her attack.

  ‘I’m not a savage,’ Dakkar yelled through gritted teeth. ‘I’m not a spy either. Just stop and let me explain!’

  Panting, the girl backed off and stared at him through narrow eyes. ‘Go ahead then,’ she murmured.

  ‘My name is Prince Dakkar,’ he said, catching his breath, ‘son of the Rajah of Bundelkhand, in the province of –’

  ‘I don’t have much time for princes,’ the girl snapped, raising her fist. ‘We got rid of one king and don’t need another.’

  ‘I was staying with Count Oginski,’ Dakkar added quickly.

  ‘Oginski?’ the girl repeated. ‘I’ve often heard Uncle talk of him but I thought he was Uncle’s friend.’ She froze and her face flushed again. ‘Wait a minute. You mean Oginski betrayed my uncle?’ She leaned towards him, fists clenched.

  ‘No, no!’ Dakkar yelled hurriedly. ‘Oginski has been taken too.’ Dakkar’s voice fell and tears stung his eyes again. ‘They came in the night, killed Mrs Evans, our housekeeper. Oginski was working on a craft just like this one. He shared his notes with Fulton.’ He gave a slight gasp as the realisation dawned on him. ‘Your uncle must have been making a submersible at the same time as Oginski,’ he said slowly. ‘While your uncle built a sub on this side of the ocean, Oginski built one in England. They were building the subs and exchanging advice with each other but first Oginski was kidnapped and now your uncle.’

  ‘A likely story,’ the girl snorted. ‘Why would my uncle share his ideas with this Count Oginski?’

  ‘Think about it – you said yourself that they’re friends,’ Dakkar replied. ‘They’re the greatest engineering minds in the world, so of course they would collaborate.’

  ‘I don’t trust you, your highness,’ the girl said, jabbing Dakkar with her index finger. ‘If your precious Oginski is missing, then what are you doing here with the Brits, kidnapping my uncle?’

  Dakkar gave an exasperated groan. ‘I didn’t kidnap your uncle! I thought the “Brits” on that ship had kidnapped Oginski so I went after them in my submersible – I called her the Makara.’

  The girl sat quietly for a moment, chewing her lip. Dakkar could tell she wasn’t convinced.

  ‘So how come you were on board the Palaemon?’ she demanded. ‘And not in your . . . Marraka?’

  ‘Makara,’ Dakkar corrected, his face burning as he remembered how he lost her. ‘I attacked a pirate ship and got caught in the wreckage. The sub sank and they rescued me.’

  ‘You got caught,’ she said, pulling a disapproving face at Dakkar. ‘At least I can use the Liberty to good effect!’

  ‘So you call this submersible Liberty,’ Dakkar said, looking around. ‘Was it you who sank the ship, thinking that your uncle was on board? Are you an imbecile?’

  ‘Who are you callin’ an imbecile?’ the girl spat, and she jumped up, fists balled again.

  ‘If Fulton was on that ship, surely he would have drowned by now,’ Dakkar said, his voice cold. ‘And you thought that sinking the ship was a good plan? You’re lucky he wasn’t aboard.’

  The girl’s face crumpled as she realised her mistake. Dakkar could see the worry lining her brow. Tears glistened in her eyes. She threw herself back in her seat.

  ‘I know,’ she said, sniffing back the tears. ‘I was so angry but I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. When the ship began to sink, I realised my mistake and panicked. That’s why I came back. I was looking for survivors, anyone who might know anything. ’

  ‘I know how you feel.’ Dakkar nodded, thinking back to when he almost rammed Blizzard’s ship. ‘But they didn’t take your uncle.’

  ‘Then where is he?’ she sobbed. ‘And who has taken him?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Dakkar said gently. ‘But I bet it was the same people who took Oginski. Untie me and we can find them together.’

  Chapter Eleven

  The Boathouse

  They sat in silence as the girl steered the Liberty through the waves towards land. Dakkar’s cheek still tingled from the slap she’d given him. After some time she began to relax, and as she did she began to talk.

  ‘My name’s Georgia,’ the girl said. ‘Georgia Fulton. I live with my Uncle Robert. Aunt Harriet scolds him for showing me his inventions and all but I find it interesting. His own children are too young. The eldest is eight and not really interested yet. The girls are adorable though . . .’

  Dakkar rubbed his face and pressed his fingertips against his eyes. Does she ever shut up? he thought. His wet clothes still clung to him and he felt chilled and shivery.

  He scanned around the Liberty as Georgia rambled on. The sub looked incredibly similar to Oginski’s version, only larger. The engine whirred at the back of the craft. A number of keys studded the surface of the control panel, each turning at a different rate. The central crank looked larger than the others and clacked as it whirled round. It’s clockwork too, like the Makara was. Dakkar remembered the letters from Fulton in the Makara. They had compared notes closely. Dakkar recognised the lever for forward and back, the ballast wheel and even the auger in the roof.

  ‘Is this how you sank the ship?’ he asked, giving the auger wheel a twist.

  ‘No, I just rammed her,’ Georgia said, blushing. ‘The Liberty has a steel spike in her nose. Was your sub, the Maka-waddayacallit, the same?’

  ‘The Makara. Yes, but not quite as big,’ Dakkar said. ‘The small cabin of the Makara had a lid instead of this hatch.’ Dakkar pointed to the hatch in the roof above the captain’s seat. He felt a pang of loss and guilt. Oginski would have wanted the submarine destroyed and sunk rather than falling into enemy hands but, still, to have all that hard work just drift into the depths . . .

  ‘It’s more stable in the waves with just a hatch,’ Georgia said. ‘Uncle had a lid that lifted on an earlier boat but it tipped over. He nearly drowned!’

  Dakkar gave a faint smile but for some reason he felt protective of his old craft. ‘I’m sure Oginski had his reasons for not using a hatch,’ he said, trying not to sound too defensive.

  Georgia had stopped talking and was gazing intently at him. ‘So,’ she said. ‘Tell me how you ended up on the Palaemon?’

  As the engine whined, taking them nearer dry land, Dakkar told her about his escape from the castle and Blizzard. He didn’t mention the fish-men. You have to s
ee them to believe them, Dakkar thought. She’d think I was mad.

  ‘What do we know?’ Georgia said when Dakkar had finished his tale. ‘Someone has kidnapped the two greatest inventors of our time, but who?’

  ‘Apart from Oginski, did your uncle mention anyone else in connection with the submersible?’ Dakkar asked her.

  ‘No, but he did seem agitated these last few days,’ Georgia replied. ‘Maybe we can find some answers in the boathouse.’

  ‘The what?’ Dakkar said, frowning.

  Georgia pulled on the drive lever and the engine quietened. Dakkar glimpsed the dark outline of trees as they glided up a woody creek. In the distance, a large rounded roof stood black against the moonlit sky.

  ‘The boathouse,’ Georgia explained, stopping the engine as the building loomed nearer. ‘It was where Uncle Robert did most of his work. His papers are here too – most of them.’

  Slowly the Liberty drifted into the shadow of what looked like a huge barn and they were engulfed by its darkness. Leaning up, Georgia popped the catches on the hatch and pushed it open.

  ‘Are you going to tell your aunt and Mr Fulton’s family what’s happened?’ Dakkar said, as he clambered out of the Liberty and on to the wooden staging that surrounded it on three sides.

  ‘What? Oh no,’ Georgia whispered, her face lost in shadow. ‘There’s no time. Whoever took my uncle is getting away. There’d be too much to explain. Plus they wouldn’t let me go after him.’

  ‘But they’ll be worried,’ Dakkar said.

  ‘It sounds awful, I know, but they’ll be worried either way so I’d rather not tell them,’ Georgia said. ‘Are you really a prince?’

  Without waiting for an answer, she hurried to a small door at the back of the boathouse and disappeared through it. Within seconds, the glow of an oil lamp threw feeble yellow lines across the timbers of the boathouse. Dakkar heard Georgia rummaging and things being thrown aside. He crept up and peered inside.

  The room was small and cobwebby. Boxes and cases lined its walls in a disorderly heap. Georgia had her back to Dakkar and was flicking through sheaves of papers.

  Dakkar looked at the untidy desk with an aching heart. It looked so like Oginski’s. A brown leather-bound journal, sitting on the edge of the desk, caught his eye.

  ‘What’s this?’ Dakkar murmured, picking it up. ‘Your uncle’s diary?’

  ‘We shouldn’t read that!’ Georgia gasped, putting a hand to her mouth.

  ‘You said yourself that we don’t have time to waste,’ Dakkar said, raising his eyebrows and flicking through the pages.

  Much of the diary outlined deliveries of materials and social appointments with the family. Boring details.

  ‘Look at more recent entries,’ Georgia suggested.

  ‘Here, what’s this?’ Dakkar held the page up to the light and read aloud: ‘Somehow my dealings with Lafitte have drawn the attentions of C. Had I known that the two did business together, I would have found another supplier, no matter how rare some of the components I needed proved to be.’

  ‘Lafitte?’ Georgia gasped. ‘Surely not!’

  ‘Who is Lafitte?’ Dakkar said, shaking his head.

  ‘A pirate,’ Georgia spat. ‘He’s wanted from here to the Bahamas! What would my uncle want with him?’

  ‘It sounds like Lafitte was supplying goods to him,’ Dakkar said, raising his eyebrows. ‘If Fulton’s anything like Oginski, he doesn’t like to be too public about his inventions. Maybe this Lafitte was able to get things quietly with no questions asked.’

  ‘I can’t believe that Uncle Robert would trade with such a man!’ Georgia whispered.

  ‘Your uncle seems more concerned about this ‘‘C’’, whoever he is,’ Dakkar said, turning the page over. ‘Here, listen to this. C’s shadow grows longer. I saw something out to sea this morning that quite terrified me. From his letters, I can tell that Oginski is worried too. It may be wise to halt the submersible project and destroy what I have made. It would break my heart but if it fell into the wrong hands . . .’ Dakkar paused and looked up at Georgia. Her face was pale and she bit her lip.

  ‘What does he mean about shadows and seeing something out to sea?’ Georgia said faintly.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Dakkar replied, thinking about the time he and Oginski saw the giant squid. ‘But whoever this ‘‘C’’ is, he also deals with Lafitte. If we find Lafitte, then maybe we stand a chance of finding ‘‘C’’ and Oginski.’

  ‘And my Uncle Robert,’ Georgia added, narrowing her eyes.

  ‘But where can we find Lafitte?’ Dakkar said, slamming the diary down on the desk. ‘He could be anywhere in the world!’

  ‘No,’ Georgia said, leafing through the papers again. ‘Lafitte keeps to this side of the Atlantic, if the rumours I’ve heard are true.’

  ‘It’s still a large area to search,’ Dakkar grunted.

  ‘These letters here are bills of sale,’ Georgia muttered, holding one up. ‘They aren’t from Lafitte.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Dakkar snorted. ‘Pirates don’t write out receipts!’

  ‘No, but they’d use go-betweens, wouldn’t they?’ Georgia said, waving the paper. ‘Mr Abercrombie Woolford-Potts, The Lime Tree Hotel, San Teresa . . .’

  ‘San Teresa?’ Dakkar said. ‘That might be a place to start, wherever it is.’

  Georgia scrabbled through another pile, pulled out a sea chart and rolled it open on the table.

  ‘Here! It should take us three or four days to get to San Teresa Island,’ she said, sweeping her finger across the map. ‘We’ll need food, water and spare clothing.’

  She turned and hurried over to an old sea chest and began rifling through the contents. She scrunched up a red bathing dress and threw it behind her. It landed on Dakkar’s head and he wrestled to pull it off. More clothes flew at him – trousers, undergarments – and he narrowly missed being hit by a boot.

  ‘Put these in that trunk there,’ she said, pointing to the corner. ‘Here are some dry clothes for you.’

  Dakkar felt his cheeks flush but he began to stuff the clothes into the trunk. Georgia stamped around the shed, grabbing tins and boxes from shelves and throwing them in. Dakkar sidled off into the shadows, dragged off his damp clothes and pulled on the dry ones. They hung loosely on him but weren’t too oversized.

  They must belong to Fulton, he thought.

  Shafts of moonlight shone through the open door to the sea. Once the trunk was full, they dragged it down to the Liberty and manhandled it through the hatch along with two barrels of drinking water.

  ‘Shouldn’t we check we have everything we need?’ Dakkar murmured, looking up at her from inside the Liberty.

  ‘We’ll be fine,’ Georgia snapped. ‘And what we don’t have we can buy.’

  As if to emphasise the point, she threw a bag down to him. Dakkar snatched it from the air and felt the weight of metal, the hard edges of coins through the leather. She clambered down through the hatch and squeezed past him into the captain’s seat.

  ‘Maybe I should go alone,’ Dakkar said, putting his hands on his hips. ‘It might be dangerous.’

  ‘Do you want another pasting?’ Georgia growled, wrinkling her nose. ‘This is my uncle’s ship!’

  ‘I’m a prince of the blood,’ Dakkar said, lifting his chin. ‘It’s natural that I should sail.’

  ‘Are you gonna sit down or do I have to knock you down,’ Georgia growled, ‘your highness?’

  Dakkar stood for a moment but Georgia slammed the drive lever to Backwater, sending him into a crumpled heap at her feet.

  ‘That wasn’t funny,’ he muttered, crawling into the passenger seat. ‘You should show more respect.’

  ‘You earn respect where I come from,’ Georgia said, staring ahead. ‘I’ll need to sleep at some point and I guess you’ll have to take over then, though where we’ll end up I don’t know. For now, shut up and let me sail.’

  ‘Very well,’ Dakkar growled back. ‘Now, let’s go.’

>   ‘Thank you,’ she said, nodding to herself and reversing the Liberty out of the boathouse and into the creek. ‘Here’s the chart,’ she said. ‘Due south will do for now but we’ll need to modify our course as we go. Can you navigate at sea?’

  ‘Of course,’ Dakkar muttered, hiding his face behind the crinkled map.

  ‘And you want to be at the helm,’ she said under her breath.

  They sailed on in silence. The trees of the creek passed them and soon the water opened out. Georgia submerged the Liberty and the rough choppiness of the waves vanished. The engine whirred and clicked and Dakkar stared out into the empty sea.

  Or was it empty? Dakkar peered harder through the glass portholes.

  In the distance, something huge kept pace with the Liberty. Dakkar shivered. With its long trailing tendrils and a body that ended in a finned point, it looked horribly familiar.

  Chapter Twelve

  Worse Than Sharks

  Dakkar kept a wary eye out of the porthole but the shape remained an indistinct outline. Soon the motion of the ship and the stubborn silence lulled him into drowsiness. He began to wonder if he’d imagined the shape. His eyelids felt like lead and, finally, he fell asleep.

  Dakkar woke and jumped in his seat, wondering at the strange girl steering the submersible. His memory caught up with him and he breathed a sigh. He squinted through the porthole into the murky depths but couldn’t see anything.

  Georgia’s head nodded wearily. She quickly corrected herself and widened her eyes.

  ‘You’re going to have to sleep sometime,’ Dakkar said, his voice deliberately loud.

  Georgia gave a start and then glowered at him. ‘You gave me a shock . . .’ She broke into an involuntary yawn and Dakkar suppressed a grin.

  ‘I think you should let me steer for a while,’ he said, sitting up straight. ‘A good captain gives his crew responsibility.’

  ‘You’re right, I guess.’ Georgia yawned and rubbed her eyes. ‘But don’t crash into anything, and wake me if something happens.’