‘Are you all right, ma’am?’ Killigrew asked her.
She smiled wanly. ‘A little shaken, but glad to be still alive.’
‘Aye.’ Endicott sat up, startling Molineaux and Thornton a second time, and picked the bracken off himself and Dahlstedt. ‘That one were much too bloody close for my liking, and I don’t care who knows it!’
‘What were those shots?’ asked Molineaux.
‘They shot Doc Attwood,’ O’Leary said grimly. ‘Murdered him in cold blood, the bastards!’
‘A reminder of the fate in store for all of us, if the Russians capture us,’ said Killigrew.
Fuller picked himself up off the Russian he had killed, wiping blood from his right hand with a rag. ‘Well, at least I managed to even the score.’
Bullivant rounded on him and slapped him across the face. ‘You damned fool! You nearly got us all killed! What the devil d’ye think you were playing at?’
Fuller stared at the viscount with sullen eyes, hurt and angry. Bullivant raised his hand to strike him again, but this time Molineaux caught him by the wrist, staying the blow.
Bullivant glowered at the petty officer. ‘Unhand me, you filthy nigger!’
The petty officer’s bunched fist came up without warning, clipping Bullivant on the chin. The viscount staggered back, tripped over a tree root and sprawled on his back, staring at Molineaux in disbelief. ‘Killigrew! You saw that! Your pet monkey just struck me!’
‘Did he?’ The commander met Bullivant’s gaze with an expression as if butter would have frozen in his mouth. ‘Sorry, I was looking the other way. Did any of you other lads see it?’
Iles grinned. ‘Not us, sir. Us got summat in us eye.’
The other sailors were grinning too.
‘Thornton!’ snorted Bullivant. ‘You saw it, didn’t you?’
‘Saw what, sir? I only saw you trip over that root and fall on your face.’
‘Damn you, Thornton! You’re fired!’
‘Good! Because quite frankly, my lord, I’ve had just about all I can take of working for a miserable, arrogant, mean-spirited bastard like you.’
Bullivant stared at him in astonishment, and rounded on Killigrew. ‘This is your doing! You’ve turned my men against me!’
‘You turned them against yourself.’
‘You’re finished, Killigrew! When I get back to England, I’ll see to it you never get another appointment in the navy so long as you live.’
‘Quite frankly, I’d rather not have a posting in any navy in which an arrogant, loud-mouthed bully like you has any influence,’ Killigrew told him cheerfully, and levelled his shotgun at the viscount’s chest. ‘Now I’ll thank you to be a good fellow and keep your opinions to yourself: one more word out of you, my lord, and instead of trying to save your life I’ll take great pleasure in marching you down in person to the beach where Nekrasoff’s waiting; do I make myself clear?’
Bullivant sat there, glowering, at a loss for words.
‘At the risk of being the sole remaining voice of sanity, might I remind you that we’re still stranded on this island?’ said Dahlstedt. ‘An island that now seems to be crawling with Russian sailors, I might add.’
‘Thank you, Herre Dahlstedt,’ said Killigrew. ‘Right: we need to find a hiding place. Molineaux, what about those ironworks?’
‘Uninhabited, sir,’ the petty officer assured him. ‘And the Ivans have already searched them; reckon we’ll be safe there for a while: they won’t look for us there again before nightfall.’
‘Lay on, Macduff.’
Killigrew and Molineaux led the way through the trees, and the others followed, Araminta helping her father to his feet. O’Leary and Yorath carried Endicott between them, and Iles and Hughes brought up the rear.
When they finally emerged from the trees overlooking the iron foundry, Killigrew noticed there had been a change in the quality of the light. The sky was overcast, a ghastly hue somewhere between off-white and pastel pink, casting a sickly pallor that was at once too bright and too dreary over the scene. He could almost feel the charge of static electricity in the air.
‘It ain’t a palace,’ Molineaux warned the two ladies as they approached the foundry. ‘But it’s the best we’ll find, under the circumstances.’
‘Everyone inside,’ ordered Killigrew. ‘We’ll stay out of sight until nightfall.’
‘And then what?’ asked Thornton. ‘Sooner or later the Russians are going to find us. And if we light a fire to attract the attention of any passing ships, it’ll only bring the Russians down upon us sooner.’
Killigrew glanced to where the top of the lighthouse, at the far end of the island, showed above the trees behind them. ‘We’ll just have to find some other way of signalling a ship, won’t we?’
As they entered the iron foundry, Araminta wrinkled her nose. ‘What’s that smell?’
‘Guano, ma’am,’ said Thornton.
‘Really? I thought guanoes grew only in tropical climes.’
Thornton stopped dead in his tracks, leaving Araminta to pass blithely on ahead of him. The captain turned to Killigrew with an expression of disbelief; the commander only shrugged, and turned to his men.
‘All right, with any luck we’ll be able to stay here for the next few hours, so we’d best get some rest while we can. I want one man on watch at either end of the building at all times. We’ll work shipboard watches: Uren and O’Leary take the afternoon watch, Fuller and Hughes the first dog watch and Dahlstedt and Yorath take the last.’
Dahlstedt looked up in surprise, but said nothing.
‘The rest of you get your heads down,’ Killigrew told them. ‘All of you. And no one leaves this building without my say so, is that understood?’
‘What if one of us needs to answer the call of nature?’ Lady Bullivant demanded.
‘You’ll have to go behind that furnace,’ he said, pointing to Molineaux and Thornton’s earlier hiding place.
‘That is hardly satisfactory!’
‘This whole situation is hardly satisfactory, ma’am; I’m afraid we shall have to grin and bear it.’
‘What about food?’ growled Lord Bullivant. ‘I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and all I got then was a few dry biscuits.’
‘There isn’t any. Unless you’d like to ask the Russians if they’d care to spare us a bite to eat?’
‘No food since breakfast!’ Endicott muttered while Charlton changed the dressing on his wound. ‘When we was in the Arctic, we had to go for days on end without scran! And he’s complaining because he’s had nowt to eat since breakfast!’
‘Take heart, lads,’ Killigrew told them. ‘If all goes according to plan, we’ll be dining on board one of Her Majesty’s ships this time tomorrow; and if I get my way you’ll all have double helpings, and an extra tot of rum to wash it down with.’
Uren and Iles took up their positions at the doors, and the others settled down to try to sleep. Molineaux sat down next to Nicholls and talked to her while she pretended not to be interested in his attentions. Killigrew found a patch of floor that was clear of bird-droppings and sat down with his back to the wall, tipping his cap forward over his eyes.
Dahlstedt came across and sat down next to him. ‘I must confess to a certain degree of curiosity as to how you intend to fulfil that promise, Herre Killigrew.’
‘I promised nothing,’ the commander told him in a low voice. ‘But there is a chance.’
‘You have a plan?’
‘Perhaps. How far would you say it is to Hangö Head from here?’
‘About twenty miles. Why?’
‘There’s usually at least one of our frigates stationed off Hangö Head. I intend to try to signal her.’
‘From here?’ Dahlstedt thought about it. ‘The lighthouse?’
‘It’s got to be at least a hundred and thirty feet tall. Should be visible from twenty miles off.’
‘Barely.’
Killigrew grimaced. ‘“Barely” is all we’ve got.’
>
‘How will you signal? Morse code?’
The commander shook his head. ‘I don’t know it, and even if I did it would be asking too much to hope that anyone on the frigate would know it as well. But the Russians have stopped operating their lighthouses all along this coast ever since war was declared. I’m hoping that if the frigate sees the one on this island lit up, she’ll come to investigate.’
‘And if she doesn’t?’
‘Then we’re scuppered.’
‘You realise that you won’t be able to keep that light on for long. The moment you light it, the Russians from the Ivan Strashnyi will come to investigate.’
‘I’ll have to find some way to black out the light on the east, north and south sides of the tower. Canvas or sacking or something like that.’
‘They’ll still be able to see the beam.’
‘Yes, but it may increase the amount of time that passes before they see it and come to investigate. Especially if I can give them some other problems of their own to worry about. I expect you’re wondering why I asked you to stand the last dog watch with Yorath?’
‘The thought had crossed my mind. I don’t like to stand on ceremony, and I know you’re short of men, but I notice that you didn’t ask Molineaux or Iles to stand watch. You think they’ve done enough for one day?’
‘Under normal circumstances, perhaps: but present circumstances are far from normal. Molineaux and Iles are going to be busy tonight, which is why I want them to rest now.’
Killigrew tugged the peak of his cap down another inch, folded his arms, and rested his jaw on his chest to signify that the discussion was over.
But if he had hoped to sleep, he had hoped in vain. It was not the discomfort of the floor: in the navy, one learned to sleep whenever and wherever one got the chance. But there were too many imponderables in his plan, too much that could go wrong or simply not happen. He lay awake trying to think of ways to iron out these wrinkles, to come up with contingencies if things did not go as he intended, or an alternative plan to replace altogether the desperate, hare-brained scheme that was all he had come up with so far. On all three counts, he drew a blank. Nothing for it but to press ahead with the plan when the time came, because the alternative was to be captured and executed by the Russians. If nothing else, his lack of choices at least lent him a certain clarity of thought.
After a while, Dahlstedt stood up and picked his way between the men sleeping on the floor to go behind the furnace. Araminta stood up at once and walked across to take his place next to Killigrew.
‘You could have handled that better, you know.’
He did not lift his head. ‘Handled what better?’
‘Your confrontation with papa.’
‘There are many things I’ve done in my life that I could have handled better, with the benefit of hindsight. If there’s one thing it’s taught me, there’s no use crying over spilled milk.’
‘No, but only a fool makes no attempt to rectify a mistake. You might at least apologise to him.’
‘Go crawling to him begging him not to have me dismissed from the navy?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that…’
Killigrew pushed his cap back on the top of his head. ‘But that’s what you mean, isn’t it?’ He shook his head. ‘As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing to apologise for. Fuller saved all our lives when he killed that Russian, and we’d never have made it this far if it hadn’t been for Molineaux. Damn it, if it hadn’t been for Molineaux I’d’ve died seven years ago on the Guinea Coast.’
‘Kit!’
‘It’s the truth.’
‘I don’t doubt it; but is it really necessary to curse?’
He stared at her in astonishment, and then shook his head with a wry chuckle. ‘Frankly, yes. And I’ll tell you something else: if Molineaux hadn’t clobbered your papa, I’d’ve done it myself.’
‘Aren’t you being a little harsh? I know he can be a crotchety old fellow at times, but he means well; and you’ve got to admit, he’s been under a good deal of strain these past couple of days.’
‘I never did tell you about the time he sent a couple of ex-pugs round to my rooms in Paddington to try to convince me of the error of my ways in aspiring to your hand, did I?’
She stared at him. ‘They assaulted you?’
‘They didn’t come for tea.’
She shook her head. ‘No. You’re lying… Papa would never do such a thing.’
‘Remember that time we went to the theatre, and I turned up with a black eye? I told you I’d had a fall out riding earlier that day? Take a good, long look at your papa, Minty: he isn’t the man you think he is.’
She blanched.
Killigrew shook his head dismissively. This was no time for raking over the coals. ‘We’ve all been under a good deal of strain the past couple of days, in case it had escaped your notice; yourself and your mama included. Your papa is the only one of us who has not conducted himself in a manner that would impress his medieval ancestors.’
‘You’re just as stubborn as he is!’
‘Yes, but not nearly so great a pain in the… in the neck. Now if you’ll excuse me, Minty, I need my beauty sleep.’ Killigrew pulled his cap down over his eyes once more, folded his arms and pretended to doze.
* * *
Lieutenant Yurieff checked his fob watch. ‘It’s getting dark, sir.’
‘Still plenty of light to search by,’ grunted Pechorin, slashing at the undergrowth with a standard-issue cutlass: the sabre slung at his hip was a weapon of honour, not a gardening implement.
He had spoken the truth up to a point: even after sunset at eight in the evening, the high latitude meant that twilight would last most of the night at that time of year. But while it was still light out in the open, beneath the pine trees that covered most of the island it was too dark to see one’s hand in front of one’s face.
‘Beregovoi! Go back to the Atalanta and fetch some lanterns,’ Pechorin ordered his quartermaster. ‘We’ll meet you at the foot of the lighthouse.’
‘Yes, sir!’ Beregovoi left the party of ten men, who were searching with Pechorin and Yurieff, and headed back towards the lagoon.
‘The men are tired, sir,’ Yurieff told the count in a low voice, reluctant to gainsay an officer whom he had always respected until these past few hours. ‘Some of them have been on the go since yesterday morning.’
‘Killigrew and his men must be just as tired, if not more so,’ retorted Pechorin. ‘If they can go on, so can we.’
‘Captain Aleksandrei’s men will have returned to the lagoon by now.’
‘Good! Then we will be the ones who find Killigrew and the others.’
‘We’re on an island, sir. The English cannot go anywhere. They’ll still be here in the morning. We can resume our search then.’
‘And so will Aleksandrei’s men!’
‘What’s more important, sir? That the English are found? Or that we are the ones to find them?’
‘They made fools of us today, Borislav Ivanovich. You saw how Aleksandrei’s men sneered at us. The only way we can begin to live it down is if we’re the ones who capture them.’
With so many men combing such a small island, he had known it was unlikely that his party would be the first to discover the fugitives’ hiding place; but he had neglected to warn Captain Aleksandrei that Killigrew was an extremely dangerous and resourceful individual, and the first men to find him might not necessarily be the one who brought him to heel. He felt a little guilty about that, but told himself that it should have been self-evident that Killigrew was resourceful and dangerous. After all, by now all of Aleksandrei’s men must know that the British fugitives had escaped from Raseborg Castle, stolen back the Milenion, out-sailed a paddle-steamer and got the better of it armed only with bottles of flaming lamp-oil. If any of Aleksandrei’s men put that down to Pechorin’s incompetence rather than Killigrew’s skill, they would be in for the nasty surprise they deserved when the
y caught up with the fugitives. Pechorin had learned the hard way not to underestimate his adversary; but he was determined to prove himself the better man in the end.
A yell came from nearby.
‘Who’s there?’ called Pechorin, gripping his cutlass tightly.
‘Me, sir. Klossovsky. It’s nothing: I tripped.’
Yurieff looked pleadingly at the count. ‘Sir…?’
Pechorin sighed. ‘All right! Let’s get back to the lagoon.’
Dark clouds were rolling in from the west by the time they reached the coast. A picquet of matrosy at the perimeter of Aleksandrei’s camp challenged them on their return. Pechorin identified himself and his men, and as they trudged across the shingle towards the centre of the camp, lightning flickered silently behind the clouds somewhere off to the west. The bright flash picked out a shape hanging from a tree off to their right, black and white with a splash of dark crimson. The flicker of light lasted only a fraction of a second, and it was dark again before Pechorin realised what he had seen.
A man hanging from the boughs of one of the trees overlooking the lagoon, strung up by the ankles.
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
Pechorin crossed to where the man hung and struck a match to examine his face. A gust of the rising wind blew out his guttering match, but not before he had recognised the face of Lord Bullivant’s cook, a third eye gouged in his forehead by a bullet, most of the back of his skull and its contents missing.
‘One down, seventeen to go,’ a voice said nearby.
Pechorin turned and saw Chernyovsky sitting on a barrel, placidly puffing on a clay pipe.
‘You caught him?’
The starshina shook his head. ‘Some of Aleksandrei’s men. They’re in there, celebrating,’ he added scathingly, and gestured with his pipe stem to where sounds of drunken revelry issued from a makeshift tent.
‘The rest?’
Chernyovsky indicated the trees. ‘Still out there, somewhere.’
Pechorin nodded and crossed to the tent. ‘The man outside!’ he shouted above the hubbub of laughter. ‘Who caught him?’
The matrosy fell silent at once. One of them stepped forward. ‘I did, sir. That is to say, my men and I.’
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