'Bunker, Mr Samson!' he shouted, throwing himself to one side in the shelter of the little recess with its sloping mound of coal. There was no time to coordinate the movement, and as he sprawled on the slithering grit Samson's weight fell on him with an impact which knocked the breath from Verity's lungs. And in the same second there was an explosion which struck his ears with a ringing deafness in the confined and iron-walled space. But he knew his instinct was right, the air was filled with a bee-like singing as tiny lethal fragments of metal sprayed the area between the door and the furnace, even pitching and scattering on the lower slope of the bunkers themselves. It crossed Verity's mind that a man who was as expert as Ransome appeared to be in the matter of shot-guns would know that they were the unanswerable weapon against two men trapped in a small hold. 'Finish them now!'
It was Ransome's voice, the words precise and unperturbed. Verity guessed that the First discharge of shot had been fired by him but he must be accompanied by at least two of his seamen, each of whom was likely to be armed with a similar weapon, They would count on doing the job without even having to reload. He gripped Samson's shoulder, willing him to lie still, and felt rather than heard the throb of the engines which announced the approach of HMS Hero.
Two things alone were against Ransome and his bullies. The darkness, only half-lit by the Fiery patterns of the furnace, made it difficult to judge a target, let alone aim at it. And even if Ransome knew where his two prisoners were lying, he could not be sure, after the First salvo, whether they were unscathed, wounded, or already dead. Moving his right arm gingerly, Verity chose the smallest attainable piece of coal. He lobbed it high, so that it moved in the darkness above the firelight, and heard it clatter in the opposite bunker. It would hardly deceive them into supposing that he and Samson were hiding there, but at least they would have to investigate. There were whispers beyond the door and Ransome said irritably,
'Go! They cannot hurt you now, and there is another gun here to cover your path!'
Unmistakably there were slow, awkward footsteps on the iron stairway from the furnace-hold door. The man would have a gun, of course, and there was another aimed from the door itself. But that, Verity judged, would be all. There could hardly have been time to snatch up, let alone prepare, more than three weapons. And if he could move quickly enough, the battle would be hand-to-hand before they might even reload the first. The footsteps were closer now, five seconds more and the man would reach the edge of the bunker and see his victims sprawled helplessly on the piled coal in front of him. Verity braced himself for what must come, his eyes on the furnace and his hand closing round the hard gritty contours of coal. In his mind, as though detached from all this, he was doing simple arithmetic. HMS Hero sighted at about eight miles distance, breasting the horizon. Steaming at, say, fifteen knots. Near enough thirty minutes away. Five minutes, at least, gone.
He pictured the man in the darkness, standing at the foot of the iron steps, far enough back to keep his gun free of any assault. Stalemate, it might be, but it was a stalemate which suited Ransome as the Hero thundered closer to disaster with every second that passed.
And then Verity moved with that speed which his weight and demeanour always made so improbable and which was only seen in moments of great peril. The second lump of coal rattled in the opposite bunker as he tossed it, accurately, through the darkness. It was a larger piece this time and it started a tiny avalanche, just as he had intended. Even now it would not deceive the hunter into thinking that his prey was hidden there, but he would not have been human if he could have suppressed the instinct to look in that direction as the mound of coal rattled and shifted in the darkness. The little avalanche trickled on for several seconds more, partially concealing the sound of Verity who flung himself from the opposite recess in a hefty spring. Samson watched him, dismayed to see that he made no attempt to reach the man with the gun but threw himself in the opposite direction, silhouetted immediately before the furnace door. In a continuous movement, Verity landed on his feet, seized the handle of the shovel where it projected from the bed of hot coal, and faced his adversary. Samson turned his head away slightly, knowing that Verity's bare chest and belly were about to be blasted to shreds of bloody flesh by the discharge of shot. There was no way that he could reach the bully with the gun before the trigger was pulled.
In the instant before the fusilade of metal fragments roared out from the muzzle, Verity stood four-square, as though about to put the weight at a village fair. In a massive arc, he swung the loaded shovel upward and forward, hurling a dozen white-hot Fists of coal the length of the stoke-hold.
'Now, Mr Samson!' he shouted.
Samson took a standing jump into the arena of battle and saw the dark shape of the first man cowering backwards under the rain of burning coal. But, injured or not, he recovered his balance, levelled the gun and fired it as Verity's arm knocked the barrel upward. The hot blast of the explosion swept over Verity's head, a scalding pain from the metal barrel burnt his forearm like a brand, and it seemed that molten lead dripped on his bare shoulders as the shot was deflected harmlessly from the roof of the hold. But the gun was wrenched from the man's grip, Verity holding him and propelling him to the steps below the iron door. Ransome and another man were visible beyond the opening, and Verity could see Ransome taking something from his companion's hand.
'Mr Samson!' shouted Verity warningly.
The man he was holding saw it too, wrestling and twisting to free himself as he was forced backwards to the door. Ransome had raised the gun. The man Verity was holding screamed with terror. The long, metallic roar came again and the body in Verity's grip jerked convulsively, emitting breath in the long sigh of a punctured gourd. Something had hit and numbed Verity's left arm above the elbow but whether it was the shot he could not tell. The man in his arms became a dragging, downward weight. Several little pulses of warm liquid throbbed through Verity's fingers where they pressed on the man's back and then, presently, even that movement ceased.
It was not how he had planned things at all, and he saw that even before he could extricate himself from his gruesome embrace with a-corpse, the stoke-hold door would be closed and bolted again. Once that happened, there would be no second chance for him, or Samson, or those on board the Hero. He could see that Ransome was drawing back from the opening, but then Verity was thrust aside by the weight of his colleague, Samson leaping the stairs in two great strides and hurling himself against the door as it began to close. His speed, added to his size, threw the door wide again for long enough to allow Verity to charge after him.
The foot of the rear companionway, just aft of the stoke-hold, was the scene of considerable confusion. There was no sign of Captain Joshua or his mate, but Ransome's men had come running from their posts at the sound of the shots. Four of them, with Ransome himself, now formed a semi-circle confronting the two sergeants. In the background were Simona and Stefania, grinning in anticipation at Verity and Samson and a darker figure in the shadows. Jolly, thought Verity, no doubt of that. Captain Joshua and his mate were either bound and gagged in their cabins or, perhaps, already dead. And then he noticed something else. Though the oil-lamps were lit below decks, every porthole had been tightly covered with coarse black cloth. The Lady Flora would have to be blacked out, apart from the Wolf Rock warning lights on her mast, if Ransome's plan were to succeed.
For what seemed a full minute, but must have been a few seconds, the sergeants and their antagonists stood motionless. It appeared to Verity quite absurd that Ransome's men made no attempt to come at them. But then he glanced quickly aside and saw Samson, levelling the shot-gun of the dead bully in the stoke-hold.
'Take it!' said Ransome with calm authority. 'It's not charged.'
'First one that makes a step this way is going to find out different!' Samson announced triumphantly.
Even Verity was deceived, though he knew it was impossible for Samson to have reloaded.
'Just aim at 'em, Mr Samson, while
I have the coverings off them portholes.’
But even as he spoke, the men moved round and took up positions to deny him an approach to the tight black covers. The bluff of the unloaded gun would not last for much longer, certainly it would not survive an attempt to uncover all the Lady Flora's ports. Even then, at a distance, she might be taken for a ship beyond the Wolf Rock, by the Hero's look-out. Verity improvised a desperate plan.
"Mr Samson, shoot the person Ransome. Shoot low to avoid the head and chest, he may be needed for questioning.'
Samson concealed the bewilderment he must have felt. 'Right,' he said, levelling the gun.
There was no way in which Verity could convey his actual intentions to his colleague. Samson must gather them from what came next. The bullies watched motionless. They had been hired by Ransome, and they were prudently loyal to their paymaster, but not to the extent of taking the blast of a shot-gun on his behalf. Ransome, the four bullies and the three girls, stared at Sergeant Samson as though mesmerized. It was in this moment of uncertainty that Verity moved slowly round behind Samson and reached the companionway. Before any of the others could have followed him, he had set foot on the first step, climbed rapidly and gained the deck. From below him he heard the sudden movements and shouts of a struggle. The bluff of the unloaded shotgun was over. But to have reached the deck evened the chances considerably. It was the one place where Ransome and his men dared not use a light, with the Hero no more than Fifteen or twenty minutes away. A Fight in the dark was infinitely to be preferred when it was one or two men against half a dozen.
In the few moments before his pursuers appeared through the entrance of the companionway, Verity busied himself with further improvisations. He mounted the port paddle-box and felt in the gloom for a smooth familiar cylinder. Carrying this to the stern, he set it down where he could find it again. The little gig, which had appeared from the stern when he and Samson had watched it altering the buoys, was still made fast there. It was equipped as the only life-boat of the Lady Flora, but it took two men to handle it properly, one at the oars and one at the tiller. However, he tied a line to the brass cylinder and lowered it carefully into the gig. Now he needed Samson.
There was a clatter of feet on the deck and Verity armed himself with the boat-hook which had been propped against the rail at the stem for use in the gig. The groan and struggle of two men wrestling together assured him that Samson was at least on the deck with him. Verity could make out a dim, ill-defined shape, which he knew must be the combatants, and then another man approached. Rising from the shadows, Verity drove the boat-hook hard into the face of the man as he ran forward, closing his mind to the appalling injury which the metal hook might inflict and thinking only of the Hero as she ploughed at full speed towards the teeth of the Wolf. The man screamed and fell back, hands to his eyes, as Verity swung round to see if there were any more of Ransome's men in the vicinity. He was about to go to Samson's aid when a figure, which must have moved with the stealth of a shadow, leapt at him from behind, clinging to his back like an incubus, sharp fingers scrabbling for his windpipe.
There was one way of dealing with such an attack, and he had known it since childhood. Making no attempt to resist, he threw himself further and violently forward, sending the attacker off his shoulders and over his head. But he need not have put such power into it, he decided, for his attacker was the lightest he had ever known. He was aware of a figure flying over him, somersaulting above the ornamental rail of the Lady Flora and hurtling towards the dark surface of the sea. In the instant before the falling body splashed into the waves, Verity stood motionless with a chill of astonishment as he heard his late antagonist emit a decidedly feminine scream. Her chance of success had been so remote that he could guess her identity and the sheer hatred which had prompted her to fly at him.
Knowing there would be little enough time when the moment came, he cast off the gig and let it drift slowly from the stern. At the very worst, it meant that Ransome and his bullies would now have no way of escaping from the ship if they attempted to sink it. He was satisfied to see that the tide carried it very slowly indeed.
The remainder of the deck seemed ominously silent. Then he heard Ransome's voice,
'Take him down and tie him fast.'
A body was pulled unceremoniously towards the companionway.
'Sergeant Verity! Come forward and give yourself up! Your friend will otherwise suffer greatly!'
Torn between loyalty to Samson and his wider duty, Verity looked about him. The lights of the Hero were clear now, the tall dark hull picked out by the row of lit portholes. Her engines beat strongly and the churning bow-wave as she cut the Channel tide was just visible in its white phosphorescence.
'Get clear, Verity! Get clear, for God's sake!'
Samson's words ended with the sound of a blow and a cry of pain. Verity could see that the others were coming towards him. They had searched the deck and they knew where he was. He backed against the rail, shivering in the tattered breeches which were all the clothes he wore apart from his boots. His plump flesh still shuddered with cold as he softly unlaced the boots and pulled them off.
'Take him!'
They must have seen his outline against the faint glow of the sea. Three of them came in a rush. But Verity was on the rail in an instant and, as their arms went for him, he jumped, feeling the rush of night air against his face, and then hit the water with a floundering splash.
He broke the surface, gasping. His first impression was that someone was, after all, trying to light a lamp on the deck of the Lady Flora. Then, as a single hailstone seemed to plop into the water a few yards from him, he recognized the flash of Ransome's revolver. They were on the side of the deck hidden from the Hero, which explained the apparent rashness. He knew that the chance of hitting a man at such range was remote enough, even for a man of Captain Ransome's proficiency. And, of course, if they were going to fire at him, they could hardly risk sending one of the bullies in after him. Verity swam slowly, paddling like a dog, to the place where he last saw the gig as it drifted from the stern of the little paddle-steamer.
It was not until he could almost put his hand on the gunwhale that he thought of the girl. Her cry of terror, half choked by the water in her throat, would hardly have reached the steamer. He knew that if he swam to her and attempted to rescue her in the water, she would cling to him frantically, and he was not a good enough swimmer to keep them both afloat in that manner. With the puffing and shuddering of a willingly stranded whale, Verity pulled himself carefully into the little gig, near the stern. At all costs it must not be overset. Then he peered forward and saw the disturbance of water where the girl was struggling to keep her head free of the waves. She was no more than ten yards away. Taking the oars, he sculled forwards and drew as close as he dared, turning the boat so that its stern was nearest to her. She clutched wildly, her fingers slipping against the white-painted planks of the gig's clinker-built hull.
The gown she had been wearing, plum-coloured merino, was gone. Either she had struggled out of it in the water, or more likely its buttoning had been ripped away by the force with which Verity had thrown her over his head. She was wearing a pale blue bodice and knickers which he saw, as he hauled her in over the stern, were so wet that they revealed her body in as much detail as if she had been naked, even the coppery flesh-tones appearing through the clinging semi-transparency of wet silk. She writhed in the bottom of the gig, drawing breath in a muted howl, retching sea water, and then choking for air again. Verity seized her by a cold, slippery arm.
'Right, miss! You got one last chance to decide whose party you'm to belong to! There's been murder done on that ship, and there's worse still planned for the souls on that other boat that's bearing down this way! You and all Ransome's crew shall wear a rope collar and dance a polka in the air outside Newgate. ..."
He saw the flash of the whites of her eyes as fear broke from her in a long wail.
'No-o-o!'
; 'Then you better join my crew sharply. Else it's over-the-water-to-Charley you dances, my girl. Eight o'clock sharp with the parson reading your burial service to you, and Jack Ketch pinching your bum most familiar as you goes through the trap.'
Her teeth were chattering, either from cold or fear, or both.
'I never knew they'd kill!' she shrieked. 'There was nothing said but brandy and perfume from France!'
'They'll hang you all the harder for lying,' said Verity, sitting on the little seat with his back to the bows and taking the two oars in his hands.
'I'll be the approver!' she cried. 'I'll give Queen's evidence, if I'm let! I'll say anything they want! Oh God, I will!'
'It'll go for nothing if I speak against you with the Crown lawyers,' said Verity gruffly. 'You'd best please me first, miss.'
Whimpering, she scrabbled at the waist of the clinging pants, about to wrench them down.
'No!' said Verity. 'Ain't you got a brain anywhere but between your legs? Hold that tiller and keep this boat straight till I tell you different!'
As he bent his back to the oars and pulled with all his strength, the gig drew slowly away from the lee of the Lady Flora. At this level, the prospect was less encouraging than it had seemed from the deck of the paddler. What had looked like a mere swell with occasional eddies of falling droplets was a different matter in the little gig, no more than eight feet long. On all sides they seemed menaced by steep seas, bitter wind, rain squalls and a surging tide. Verity knew that the lights of the Hero were at his back, the hammer-beat of her engines appallingly close. By his calculations she must be at least ten minutes from the Wolf Rock and the savage granite teeth now treacherously hidden beneath two feet of high water, yet the sound of her screws throbbing in the great ocean spaces seemed a good deal closer than that.
Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments Page 24