Dahlstedt directed the coxswain to steer to port of the first cluster of islands. Once level with the western-most they turned to starboard, and presently the Ramillies was hidden from view behind the islands they had just passed off the starboard quarter. There were more low-lying islands up ahead, ranging in size from the tiny, smoothed rocks of the skerries that barely projected above the water to some isles a mile or two in length. The Finnish coast was visible to port, but some five miles south-west of where they wanted to be. They passed between two of the larger islands – the one on the right shielding them from the coastal town of Lappvik, according to the chart – and emerged on the other side of the strait to see more islands beyond. In some places there were fishermen’s huts sheltered amongst the pines lining the shores, but there were few real landmarks and the larger, tree-covered islands had a uniformity that would have had Killigrew hopelessly lost without a compass and chart. Fortunately, Dahlstedt seemed to know where they were going.
‘Steer to port of this next island,’ the pilot told the coxswain.
‘Is it much further to Ekenäs?’ Killigrew asked him in Russian. Dahlstedt had been giving him lessons, and Killigrew insisted that the two of them always conversed in Russian, so that he could practise his tenuous grasp of the language.
‘Vitsand Sound lies just beyond this next island, between Odensö and the mainland. The channel narrows to a cable’s length, and then broadens out into the Ekenäs Inlet. From there it’s another three miles to the town itself.’
Killigrew nodded. It was already half-past ten; he reckoned they would be in Ekenäs by noon.
‘Shh!’ Latham held up a hand for silence. ‘Hear that?’
Killigrew listened. All he could hear was the gentle flapping of the canvas and the slop of the waves against the cutter’s strakes. He shook his head and regarded the mate quizzically.
‘Red-flanked bluetail,’ Latham explained.
‘Red-flanked what, sir?’ asked Powell.
‘Bluetail,’ Latham told him. ‘It’s a kind of bird.’
‘Good eating, sir?’ Endicott asked disingenuously, winking at Molineaux.
‘No!’ snorted Latham, who had yet to learn to tell when the hands were ribbing him, and thus became the butt of many of their jokes. ‘Bluetails are no bigger than robin redbreasts. You’d have to catch and cook a lot of them to have a meal!’
They rounded the next island and entered the Vitsand Sound. The entrance to the Ekenäs Inlet was about a mile off: the forested shores of Odensö and the mainland formed a funnel into it. Within half an hour they were close enough to see that a chain had been stretched across the narrow strait to prevent the passage of ships. When Arrogant, Hecla and Dauntless had been here three months ago, there had been a cable here, which the seamen had been forced to hack through to gain access to the inlet; evidently the Russians had decided to replace it with something stronger in the aftermath of the British raid. Supported by rafts every hundred yards or so, the heavy chain nevertheless sagged so much it hung beneath the waves: an effective barrier for a deep-draughted ship, perhaps, but no obstacle at all for a cutter with a draught of two feet.
A battery of four light field guns stood on the left shore, protected by a rampart of earth-filled wicker gabions. Killigrew could see Russian artillerymen in drab grey greatcoats and flat, peaked caps working the guns.
‘Battery coming up to starboard, sir,’ Latham reported about two minutes after Killigrew had seen it for himself.
‘They can see our white flag clearly enough,’ Killigrew replied mildly, nevertheless removing his cocked hat and waving it at the artillerymen, to reassure them that their intention was peaceful.
The cutter was in mid-channel when the first gun boomed, at a range of a little over a hundred yards. The report sounded dull and flat, yet the plume of smoke bursting over the gabions was unmistakable.
‘Salute?’ Dahlstedt asked dubiously.
The shriek of a cannon-ball hurtling through the air with a sound like canvas rending quashed his hope. It landed in the water only thirty yards from where the cutter glided over the waves, throwing up a great plume of white spray.
‘Warning shot?’ Dahlstedt was an incurable optimist.
‘Let’s heed their warning,’ said Killigrew, determined not to take any unnecessary chances. ‘Furl the sails and out oars.’
The second shot landed close enough to drench the men in the cutter. ‘Jesus Christ!’ blasphemed Able Seaman Sheppard. ‘The bastards are trying to kill us!’
‘Can’t they see our white flag?’ moaned Latham.
‘Make for the shore to starboard!’ Killigrew told Vowles, pointing.
As the rowers strained at the oars, the coxswain put the tiller over to port. ‘Come on, you buggers! Put yer backs into it!’
Another shot landed even closer, drenching them a second time. Latham rose to his feet and cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Flag of truce!’ he yelled. ‘Stop firing, for Christ’s sake! We’ve come to parley!’ He moved between the rows of double-banked oarsmen to indicate the white flag flying above their heads.
‘For God’s sake, Latham, sit down!’ snapped Killigrew. ‘Are you trying to—’
His words were drowned out by the boom of the fourth cannon, and his body was twisted around violently as the boat spun clockwise; or rather, the stern spun clockwise, for a cannon-ball had hit them squarely amidships, smashing the cutter in half. Everything went red as one of the oarsmen disintegrated in a crimson mist and the air was full of dust and splinters.
Chapter 5
Prisoners of the Russian Bear
9.00 a.m.–11.00 a.m., Thursday 17 August
The world seemed to spin around them – Killigrew glimpsed a body flying through the air, cut clean in two at the waist, entrails spilling out – and then the stern tipped over and Killigrew was thrown backwards over the transom.
The water was icy-cold, even in summer. Killigrew went under, the world beneath the waves oddly quiet and peaceful after the cacophony of the artillery barrage. He opened his eyes to see the water full of seamen, twisting and turning beneath the waves. A vermilion cloud stained the water, and the two halves of the wrecked cutter floated above them.
He had not had time to gulp down a lungful of air before he went under, and when his head broke the surface he whooped the breath back into his body. Even through the water in his ears he could hear the cheers of the Russians in the battery. There were a dozen men in the water: they did not need to be told to strike for the south shore. Killigrew looked around, saw someone thrashing about wildly nearby, and swam across to help him. It was Latham, screaming as he flailed about, the water around him full of blood. Killigrew hooked a hand under his jaw and pulled the mate after him as he backstroked for the shore. It was only a hundred yards or so, and he was a strong swimmer: he had been born with a caul on his head, and so could not be drowned, if you believed in old wives’ tales.
The old wives said nothing about bullets, however, and, as the rattle of musketry sounded on the north shore, musket-balls kicked up little spurts in the water all around him. The Russians had to be using sharpshooters armed with rifled muskets, to judge from the accuracy of their shooting. Killigrew saw Able Seaman Brooks shudder in the water as a bullet slammed between his shoulder blades, and he floated face down.
The others reached the shore well ahead of Killigrew, but Molineaux came back and waded out into the shallows to help him with Latham. The two of them each took an arm and dragged the mate out on to the rocky shore. Latham was quiet now. He had passed out, and it was easy to see why: he had lost both his legs below the knees, and blood jetted from the stumps to stain the pale rocks crimson. But they were still close enough to the north shore for the sharpshooters to send bullets soughing about their ears, so they took an arm each and dragged the mate into the cover of the trees beyond.
Most of the others were already crouched there amongst the bracken. Killigrew was relieved to see the assistant surgeon amon
gst them.
‘Mr Latham is wounded, Mr Charlton. See what you can do for him.’
Charlton took one look at Latham’s blood-pumping stumps, and blanched. In his brief time in the navy, the only cases he had been called upon to attend were constipation, hernias, venereal disease, cholera, and smallpox. None of those prepared a man for the sight of a fellow human being with a limb or two ripped off, his lifeblood flooding out through severed arteries.
‘I lost my medicine chest!’ he stammered.
‘Do what you can!’ Killigrew snapped back.
The assistant surgeon swallowed hard and crouched over Latham. Killigrew turned to the rest of them to take a quick head count: Dahlstedt was there, and Molineaux, Endicott – who had lost his bonnet in the water and was tying his neckerchief over his head in its place as a bandanna – Coxswain Vowles, Able Seaman Hughes, and Ordinary Seaman (Second Class) Ben Iles. That left five men missing. ‘Where are Phipps, Ridley, Powell, Joyner and Sheppard?’
‘Phipps and Sheppard were sitting amidships,’ Molineaux reminded him. ‘That last shot cut right through them.’ His matter-of-fact tone belied that he had lived with these men below decks for the past five months. ‘Poor bastards never stood a chance. And I think someone got hit by a splinter – might’ve been Powell. Whoever it was, he was wounded so bad, I doubt he made it ashore.’
‘What about Phil?’ asked Endicott.
‘Brooks is dead,’ Killigrew told him. ‘Caught a ball in the water. Ridley and Joyner?’
‘Bill never could swim a stroke,’ said Vowles. ‘Daft bugger.’
‘Us seen Sam reach the shore ahead of us,’ said Iles, a big, one-eyed seaman with the broken nose and scarred knuckles of a pugilist. The eye patch made him look even more piratical than Molineaux, and anyone who saw him would never imagine he had not lost the eye swashbuckling on the high seas, but in a bonfire night accident in Bristol. ‘’E made it a’ the trees…’
Killigrew cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Ridley! Sam Ridley! Where are you?’
They listened. The only reply was the chirruping of the birds in the boughs above them.
‘Shall we search for him, sir?’ suggested Molineaux.
Killigrew shook his head. ‘We stick together. If that lubber hasn’t sense enough to stay with his shipmates, he can take his own chances.’
‘What do we do now, sir?’ asked Vowles. ‘Press on overland for Eckness?’
Killigrew shook his head. ‘It’s got to be three miles to Ekenäs from here—’
‘Nearer thirteen, overland,’ Dahlstedt corrected him. ‘Getting on to the mainland will be easy enough – there’s a bridge over the channel – but once on the mainland we’ve got to get around the eastern arm of the Ekenäs Inlet.’
‘How far to the south coast of this island?’
‘No more than a mile, sir.’
‘What are our chances of finding a boat when we get there?’
‘Odds on, I’d say. Plenty of fishermen’s huts hereabouts.’
‘Then that’s the way we’ll lead. Lord Bullivant and his family will have to take their chances for now.’ Killigrew very much doubted the Russians would harm them. ‘We have to get Mr Latham back on board the Ramillies, where Mr Dyson can attend his injuries. And we’ve got to report what happened here. Old Charlie will have to find some other way to exchange Bodisco for Bullivant.’
Charlton had finished binding Latham’s stumps with a couple of handkerchiefs, which were already soaked with blood. He stood up, wiping his bloody hands on the front of his tailcoat. ‘What if we can’t find a fishing boat when we get to the south coast? Latham isn’t going to last long without proper medical attention.’
‘You have a better suggestion, Mr Charlton?’
‘We surrender – some of us, at least – and hand him over to the Russians. They can look after him better than I can without medicines or surgical implements. I’m volunteering to stay with him. The rest of you can go on without me.’
‘No, we take Latham with us.’
‘Damn it, sir! He’ll die without proper medical attention!’
‘And you think the Russians will give it to him, after they fired on a boat sailing under a white flag?’ Killigrew shook his head. ‘No, we’ll try to take him back to the Ramillies. Tie his hands together so I can carry him on my back.’
Molineaux removed his neckerchief so they could bind Latham’s hands, and they managed to get him on Killigrew’s back. ‘Molineaux, you lead the way,’ ordered the commander. ‘Iles, bring up the rear. Make sure no one straggles. Come on, let’s look lively! The Russians know we’re here, and it can’t be long before they send Cossacks to ride us down.’
Molineaux had no compass, but enough of a sense of direction to find the way, and Dahlstedt was at his elbow at every step. Weighed down by the unconscious Latham, Killigrew was the only straggler, falling behind the others as they hurried through the trees. His legs soon ached, his head swam and he gasped for breath. A couple of years ago he could have carried the slight mate for a mile without even breaking into a sweat, yet now his clothes, which had quickly dried out in the warm summer forenoon, were soon soaking with sweat instead. He hated this feebleness that had plagued him since his return from the Arctic and wondered if he would ever again be the healthy, strong young man who had sailed in search of Franklin.
‘Wan’ us a’ take ’ee, sir?’ offered Iles.
‘It’s all right, Iles. I can manage.’
‘Wi’ all due respec’, sir, you’m look ready to drop. An’ then us’ll ’ave two to carry, ’stead o’ jus’ one. Let us carry ’ee.’
‘All right,’ Killigrew conceded reluctantly.
Between them they managed to get Latham on to Iles’ back. The mate was ashen-faced, the blood dripping from the makeshift bandages Charlton had tied over his stumps. But Iles carried him easily and, relieved of the burden, Killigrew found the going much easier. Iles was a rum feller, Killigrew reflected. Unlike most big men who – with one or two notable exceptions – tended to be gentle giants, Iles was an aggressive swine, always looking for a fight, especially when he had ‘drink taken’. In the five months since he had joined the crew of the Ramillies, hardly a week had gone by without his getting into a brawl with one of his shipmates on the lower deck. Yet he always obeyed orders without question, and catch him in the right mood and he could be as gentle as a lamb.
Having fallen behind to make the transfer, they hurried to catch up with the others, and found them gathered in a glade a few hundred yards further on. Molineaux had drawn his Bowie knife and held it in one hand, the other raised for silence, his face a picture of concentration.
‘What is it?’ asked Killigrew.
‘Horses, sir,’ said Molineaux. ‘Lots of ’em.’ He pointed off through the trees. ‘That way.’
‘Let’s keep moving,’ decided Killigrew. ‘We’ll go this way.’
Before they had gone another hundred yards, however, they saw a figure riding through the trees on a stout, shaggy pony. Dressed in a long, dark blue tunic and a woolly papakha on his head, he was unmistakably a Cossack. He shouted something over his shoulder in Russian, and galloped forward to intercept them, unslinging his carbine and levelling it at the British seamen.
‘Stoi!’
Molineaux flung his Bowie knife. It turned end over end before burying itself in the Cossack’s throat, right up to the hilt. As the Cossack tumbled from his saddle, his finger tightened on the trigger of his carbine, blasting a plume of smoke up at the boughs above.
The petty officer shooed the horse away so he could get at the Cossack’s body. He retrieved his Bowie knife, wiping the blade clean on the Cossack’s tunic. He pulled an ancient flintlock pistol from the dead man’s sash and tossed it to Killigrew, who caught it. Molineaux took the carbine, and a cartridge from one of the pouches stitched across the breast of the Cossack’s tunic. He was still reloading the carbine when a dozen more riders materialised through the trees from all directions,
surrounding them with carbines levelled.
Killigrew threw down the pistol at once and raised his hands. ‘Drop the carbine, Molineaux,’ he ordered. ‘It’s useless to resist.’
‘Your officer speaks wisely,’ the leader of the Cossacks said in tolerable, if thickly accented, English. He was a tall, broad-shouldered ruffian with a shaven head and a bushy walrus moustache.
Scowling, Molineaux lowered the carbine to the ground by its strap.
The leader of the Cossacks swung himself down from the saddle and walked around Molineaux, looking him up and down as if he had never seen a Negro before. He said something in Russian to his men that made them laugh. Then he hunched his shoulders, bent his legs, and curled his arms under his armpits, making a noise like a chimpanzee. The Cossacks found this hilarious, although their carbines did not waver for an instant.
Killigrew saw Molineaux clench his fists at his sides. Normally one of the most cool-headed men the commander had ever known, the petty officer had a fiery temper when people made jokes about the colour of his skin, and the leader of the Cossacks was going to get a broken jaw if Killigrew did not intervene quickly.
‘You are the senior officer of these men?’ he asked.
‘Starshina Vyacheslav Petrovich Chernyovsky,’ the Cossack leader replied, turning from Molineaux to Killigrew.
‘Commander Christopher Killigrew of HMS Ramillies,’ Killigrew returned. He wanted to protest about the way his boat had been fired upon while sailing under a white flag, but there were more pressing matters to attend to. ‘One of my men urgently requires medical attention.’ Iles had taken Latham from his back and laid him gently on the ground. Now Chernyovsky looked down at the wounded mate. He drew a sabre from his belt and thrust the tip into Latham’s heart.
Killigrew’s Run Page 10