The shrieking wind hit him like a solid wall, and he would have staggered back on to the point of Pechorin’s sabre if the shock of the icy blast had not stunned the count as well. Killigrew forced himself out on to the gallery, whirling sword in hand to face the door. The rain still slashed down, slicing through his greatcoat, and lightning rent the sky, each flicker accompanied by a crash of thunder.
The beam dazzled him again, and Pechorin chose that moment to lunge through the door. Killigrew barely managed to sidestep in time. The count slipped on the rain-washed platform and skidded against the railings, almost losing his grip on his sabre as he reached out to brace himself against the handrail. Killigrew slashed at his neck, but Pechorin got his own blade up in time to parry, driving the commander back with a counter-thrust.
Spreading their feet, leaning into the wind that whipped their hair about their heads, Killigrew and Pechorin faced one another, sword-point to sword-point. Pechorin performed a balestra, lunging forward to thrust at Killigrew’s chest. The commander parried, but the thrust was a feint, and Pechorin followed through with a remise. Killigrew parried awkwardly, and the count’s blade slashed through the fabric of his greatcoat, drawing blood from his side. He tried to riposte while Pechorin was still close, but the count responded with a counter-riposte that forced the commander to twist away. Pechorin sprang back, grinning.
He’s actually enjoying this, the bastard! thought Killigrew.
The commander did not wait to let Pechorin get his breath back, using a nimble flèche to bring himself close in to the count, thrusting at his face. Pechorin parried, but when Killigrew’s thrust proved to be another feint, the count was waiting for it and parried the redoublément effortlessly before following up with his riposte. Killigrew counter-riposted, and sprang back.
The two of them fenced back and forth around the outside of the lantern room, feeling one another out, looking for the patterns in each other’s style, the set-pieces that could be anticipated and turned against their opponents. Killigrew much preferred fencing to shooting – any fool could point a gun and pull the trigger – but fencing was about brains as much as skill, trying to anticipate one’s opponent, thinking three or four moves ahead. He had a slight advantage here, for he had already watched Pechorin fence in the duel with Lord Dallaway. Perhaps he had suspected it might come to this sooner or later, which was why he had been so keen for the match to take place, never dreaming that it would end with Dallaway’s death.
But fencing was not much fun against an opponent who was clearly more skilled than he was, and if their sparring now taught him one thing, it was that he was clearly outclassed by the Russian.
‘You are good,’ Pechorin acknowledged with a grin, shouting to make himself heard above the wind and the thunder. The two of them closed, swords crossed between them, faces inches apart. ‘I’m glad to find your skill with the blade exceeds your skill with the pistol. You should not hide your qualifications under a bushel.’
‘In that case, perhaps I should warn you about my other sporting accolade,’ Killigrew shouted back, the rail behind him hard against his spine.
‘Oh?’ Pechorin forced him steadily backwards until his feet barely touched the platform. ‘And what is that?’
Killigrew brought his forehead down sharply against the bridge of Pechorin’s nose. As the Russian staggered back, the commander kicked him squarely in the crotch.
‘Dirtiest fighter in the Royal Navy, eighteen fifty-four.’
Pechorin doubled up in agony, but still had presence of mind enough to slash at Killigrew with his blade. The commander evaded the wild cut with ease, but had to grab the rail with his left hand as his feet slipped on the platform.
‘Have you no honour?’ Pechorin hacked at his head, and Killigrew barely brought his sword up in time to parry. The force of the blow was enough to jar his right arm.
‘You make a lot of noise about honour and being a gentleman, for a man who was trying to blow an unarmed ship carrying two women out of the water earlier today.’
‘Nekrasoff’s orders, not mine.’ Pechorin swung again, and again Killigrew barely managed to parry it. ‘Make it easy on yourself, Commander. I promise you a swift death.’
‘And what about the Bullivants? Will you give them a swift death, too?’
Pechorin slashed again. ‘I do not make war on women.’
Killigrew parried. ‘Nekrasoff does. What do you think he’s going to do with them, if you kill me?’
‘I shall deal with Nekrasoff after I have dealt with you.’ Pechorin launched into a series of brilliantly executed thrusts and cuts, driving Killigrew back around the gallery. ‘Where are you going, Commander? You cannot run for ever!’
‘I don’t intend to! I’ve got bad news for you, Pechorin: don’t you know the villain always loses?’
Pechorin smiled, and forced Killigrew to duck with a swing aimed at his neck. ‘That’s only in those romance novels you were talking about earlier. Anyhow, what makes you think I’m the villain? Yours is the country supporting a backward, heathen state that butchers innocent Christians by the thousand.’
Killigrew parried Pechorin’s next cut and tried to follow up by slipping under his guard, but the count twisted aside. ‘Turkey may not have the most enlightened regime in the world, but that doesn’t give Russia the right to invade the Ottoman Empire! International disputes need a congress of nations to decide things peacefully, not unilateral action by an Empire scarcely less backward and autocratic than the Turks’!’
Pechorin slashed a rent across the breast of Killigrew’s greatcoat. ‘Cowards talk while heroes act!’
‘No, Count: heroes think before they act; only cowards bully smaller nations!’ Sick of being on the defensive, Killigrew launched into a set piece of his own, driving an astonished Pechorin back the other way around the gallery. ‘Besides, do you really think the Tsar plans to replace the Sultan with a more enlightened regime? Or will he set up a puppet state to expand the Russian Empire even further, and take control of the Bosphorus?’
‘History will judge us.’ Pechorin finally managed to stand his ground, and no matter how many feints and thrusts Killigrew tried, he could not penetrate the web of steel the Russian wove between them.
Killigrew was gasping for breath. His arms ached with the exertion of this prolonged bout, and the weariness accumulated over the past couple of days was catching up with him with a vengeance. He remembered his old fencing instructor’s advice on what to do when faced by a clearly superior opponent: the straight thrust. No feint: any skilled fencer always made his initial thrust a feint, before launching into the reprise, remise or redoublément, and any skilled opponent was ready for the feint.
‘God will judge you, Pechorin! And I intend to see to it he gets a chance to do so at the earliest opportunity!’
He thrust. No feint: a straight thrust to the heart, unwavering, unstoppable.
Pechorin brushed the thrust aside with a bored expression, and then lunged, pinking Killigrew in one shoulder.
The commander staggered back with a gasp of shock. He sank to his knees, one hand on the handle of the open door to the lantern room for support, the blade of his sword touching the platform as if he was too weak even to lift it any more. He felt another wave of dizziness sweep over him. Oh Christ, not now, he thought desperately. Dear God, let me stay conscious just a few moments longer…
The count smiled triumphantly. ‘You’re finished. Credit where credit is due: you were a worthy opponent. But the game is ended. Goodbye, Mr Killigrew.’
Pechorin lunged, thrusting the blade at the commander’s throat.
Killigrew pulled the door away from the side of the lantern room, using it to shield him from the thrust. The tip of the sabre scraped against the glass. Killigrew slammed the door, trapping the blade. Pechorin tugged at the hilt, but his sabre was firmly caught between door and jamb. Realising he had been outmanoeuvred, he stared at Killigrew in horror.
‘You know what they say, Count,’ the com
mander told him. ‘As one door closes…’ He thrust the point of his sword deep into Pechorin’s stomach. ‘…another one opens.’
The count stared down at the wound in shock and disbelief, and then raised his eyes to meet Killigrew’s. The commander twisted the blade and withdrew it.
Pechorin crumpled. Letting go of his trapped sabre, he slumped against the railing. He tried to push himself up, but his legs gave way and he fell, slipping under the railing to plunge into the night.
Killigrew leaned on the rail and gazed down to where he saw the count’s broken body sprawled on the spume-washed rocks below. He opened the door once more – Pechorin’s sabre clattered on the platform – and staggered into the lantern room. He found an oily rag and used it to wipe the blood from his own blade before he slotted it back into its scabbard. Then he clambered gingerly down the ladder to the watch room below. As his feet touched the floor, someone touched him on the back of the neck with something cold and metallic. He turned and found himself staring down the barrel of Nekrasoff’s revolver. The colonel was flanked by two of Chernyovsky’s Cossacks, who levelled their carbines at the commander.
Nekrasoff smiled broadly, and hit him on the temple with the pistol’s grip. Killigrew saw the colonel’s face waver, and then the floor was rushing up to meet him, and the light finally went out.
Chapter 23
No Witnesses
Saturday 19 August
The following morning dawned bright and clear, the sun shining once more, the previous night’s storm little more than a half-remembered dream. After a brief conference with Aleksandrei involving much angry gesticulation but which nevertheless ended with the captain turning away in disgust to wash his hands of the business, Nekrasoff marched the fifteen prisoners away from the lagoon, with an escort of two dozen of the Atalanta’s matrosy armed with muskets, under the command of one of the lieutenants from the Ivan Strashnyi. Iles and Hughes carried Endicott between them on the litter.
The Russians herded the prisoners through the woods at the centre of the island to the south coast, not far from where the fugitives had landed the previous morning. They were made to stand in a row, spaced a few feet apart, and three of the matrosy passed along the line with bundles of spades, handing them one each. Not a good sign, Killigrew could not help thinking.
‘Dig,’ ordered Nekrasoff.
‘I beg your pardon?’ spluttered Lord Bullivant.
‘You heard me: dig!’
‘I’m the thirteenth Viscount Bullivant! I do not dig!’
The lieutenant stepped up to the aristocrat and pistol-whipped him. Bullivant sank to his knees with blood running between his fingers.
‘Dig!’
‘Why should I?’ sobbed the viscount. ‘You’re going to murder us anyway.’
‘Better later than sooner,’ Lady Bullivant said pragmatically, and started to dig with little ability and less enthusiasm.
‘What are we supposed to be digging?’ asked Araminta. ‘Some kind of ditch?’
Killigrew gave her a look.
‘Oh!’ She blanched when realisation finally dawned.
Killigrew attacked the soil with the spade as viciously as he would have liked to attack Nekrasoff. The anguish of having come so far only to fall at the final hurdle was like a knife in his guts.
‘Twenty-six of them, fifteen of us,’ observed Molineaux, digging next to Killigrew. ‘Reckon we could take a few of the bastards with us, sir.’
‘Not yet, Molineaux: something may yet turn up.’
‘Gotta be a way we can get them in closer,’ the petty officer muttered out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Maybe if I pretend we’ve dug up some buried pirate treasure…’
‘No tricks!’ barked Nekrasoff.
As they dug, Hughes began to sing ‘Rule, Britannia’. His voice sounded cracked and hoarse, and yet soon all the other prisoners joined in: apart from ‘Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves; Britons never, never, never will be slaves,’ none of them knew the words, so they sang that couplet over and over again, drawing strength from one another in what none of them doubted was their final hour.
Nekrasoff marched up and down the line, inspecting their handiwork. ‘Enough!’ he told Molineaux, who in spite of his efforts to delay had dug a pit deep enough to contain a body. ‘Help her.’ He indicated Araminta, who was making heavy weather of the task. Presently Killigrew was ordered to help Dahlstedt, who was struggling even to hold the spade with his bandaged hands, and Hughes was ordered to help Lord Bullivant.
Within an hour, the graves were dug, each of them standing on the lip of one with their backs to the sea, while the matrosy moved behind them, aiming their muskets at the back of the prisoners’ heads.
Killigrew turned to face his own would-be executioner. ‘If you’re going to kill me, at least have the sand to look me in the face when you pull the trigger.’
The matros did not look happy about that, so Nekrasoff pushed him aside and drew his revolver from inside his coat, levelling it at the commander’s forehead. ‘With pleasure. I’m going to enjoy killing you, Killigrew.’ He lowered the revolver’s muzzle, aiming at the commander’s throat, his chest, his stomach. ‘You’re going to spend a long time dying, Commander. Any last words?’
‘Yes: “Look behind you”.’
Nekrasoff threw back his head and laughed. ‘Now really, Commander! Is that the best you can do? After the resourcefulness you’ve shown thus far, I’d expected better of you.’
The Russian lieutenant had turned ashen. ‘I think you should do as he says, sir.’
Nekrasoff frowned, and backed away from Killigrew before glancing over his shoulder.
A frigate was sailing around the next headland, less than a cable’s length from the shore, the French tricolore flying from her mainmast.
Killigrew smiled. ‘No witnesses, you said?’
Seeing the French ship, one of the matrosy broke. Slinging his musket from his shoulder, he ran past the prisoners towards the trees.
‘Come back here, you coward!’ The lieutenant levelled his pistol and fired, but the shot went wide. The running man just redoubled his efforts. The lieutenant snatched a musket from one of the other men. Molineaux launched himself at the Russian before he could fire and threw him down on the ground. While the two of them grappled, rolling over and over, the rest of the matrosy panicked and began to run to the trees. Four of them covered less than a few yards before they were brought down by Hughes, Fuller, Iles and O’Leary, who snatched up their spades to go on the attack.
Killigrew was still staring down the barrel of Nekrasoff’s revolver. ‘It’s over, Colonel,’ he said softly.
‘For you, it is,’ agreed Nekrasoff, and began to squeeze the trigger.
Araminta caught him around the waist in a flying tackle that would not have disgraced William Webb Ellis. As Nekrasoff squeezed the trigger, Killigrew felt the bullet sough past his ear. Araminta sank her teeth into the colonel’s wrist. He screamed and dropped the revolver, then punched her on the jaw and broke free, rising to his feet to run after the others.
Killigrew dropped to his knees and took her in his arms. ‘Minty! Are you all right?’
‘Do I look as if I’m all right?’ she snapped back. ‘That brute punched me!’
He could have laughed with relief. ‘You stupid ninny! You almost got yourself killed!’
‘Well, I like that!’ she protested indignantly. ‘I just saved your life!’
‘So you did.’ He took her head in his hands and planted a big kiss on her astonished lips, before grabbing Nekrasoff’s revolver and rising to his feet. The colonel was already out of range, disappearing into the trees. Molineaux sat astride the Russian lieutenant and was slowly but surely throttling him with the musket the lieutenant had taken from one of his men. Lord Bullivant had waded knee-deep into the surf and was waving frantically at the French frigate. He need not have bothered: a swift glance assured Killigrew that the ship had already dropped anchor and was lowering boat
s into the water. Matelots and marines armed to the teeth were shinning down the lifelines.
Killigrew grabbed Dahlstedt. ‘When they get here, tell them to circle around the island and head off the Atalanta, before she escapes! ’
‘A sailing frigate against a paddle-sloop? They’ll be lucky: the Atalanta already had steam up when they marched us away from the lagoon. The French ship will never catch her.’
‘It’s got to be worth a try. At least they’ll get the Ivan Strashnyi.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘After Nekrasoff.’ Killigrew sprinted across to the trees. He heard Dahlstedt crying out after him, but turned a deaf ear.
He sprinted through the trees, his exhaustion forgotten. There was no room in his heart for elation at knowing that, whatever else might happen, the Bullivants and what was left of their crew were safe now: all that mattered was catching the man who had tried so hard and so ruthlessly to eliminate them all. No one knew better than Killigrew that violence was not always the answer, but there were some men who were beyond redemption, beyond any kind of rehabilitation; men so steeped in villainy it was impossible to punish them proportionately for their crimes. There was only one thing for such men: if nothing else, a bullet in the brain would at least prove their executioners had enough mercy left in them to provide a cleaner and quicker death than they deserved. Nekrasoff was just such a man, and Killigrew was in no doubt that he could perform mankind no greater service than to exterminate the Third Section colonel once and for all.
He was halfway through the woods when a fusillade rang out ahead of him. Bullets whipped through the undergrowth as a great cloud of smoke billowed from the matrosy’s muskets. He threw himself flat amongst the bracken, cursing his folly for failing to anticipate that Nekrasoff would leave a rearguard to hold off any pursuit. As the Russians reloaded, Killigrew crawled through the undergrowth on his belly, trying to outflank his ambushers. It seemed to take forever to get into an advantageous position, and all the while Nekrasoff was getting further and further away.
Killigrew’s Run Page 44