by Paul Finch
The others considered this, then Palmer removed his helmet, Munro took off his bowler and Kenton his plumed shako.
“A word about Burnwood,” Craddock added, before they went their separate ways. “This is no ordinary criminal. No drunken, dull-witted brute likely to come out screaming and shooting at the first sign of intruders. More than anything else, he’s clever. Calculatingly so. And, of course, completely ruthless.”
The men exchanged grave, lamp-lit glances, but said nothing.
Craddock nodded. “Best of luck, gentlemen.”
The group broke apart. Munro and Kenton were looking to make entry somewhere around the fo’c’s’le – the front upper quarter of the ship, where the heads and sickbays were located. Craddock and Palmer went the other way, climbing the stairs back to the quarter-deck, where they’d previously noticed a single door leading under the poop-deck. When they reached it, they held back for a minute, breathing hard, getting themselves together. Then Craddock drew his pistol, turned to the tall young constable and gestured that it was time to go. They went forwards together, only to find that the door had expanded so that it was now swollen in place. They rammed it with their shoulders, and at last it began to shift, its hinges giving a loud, arthritic squeal, which echoed through the labyrinth of compartments below. In the same instant, there was another sound: a distinct rustle in the darkness before them.
In one motion, Craddock cocked and pointed his pistol. Palmer raised the sawn-off shotgun to his shoulder. Tense seconds passed as they stood there in the open doorway, but the light of their lanterns showed an empty cabin.
“Could’ve sworn I heard something, sir,” the constable said.
His voice sounded eerie, sepulchral.
“The thing’s probably alive with rats,” Craddock replied.
He lowered his pistol. Palmer kept the shotgun to his shoulder. Cautiously, they ventured forwards. This first cabin was utterly bare and reeked of mildew. Palmer had expected to see chains and fetters, though none were visible. He mentioned this, but Craddock shook his head.
“We’re aft of the quarter-deck,” he said. “By rights, this would’ve been part of the captain’s apartments. I wonder if the master of the hulk used it for the same purpose.”
The masters of the hulks had been a notorious breed: some-time magistrates or aldermen, full-time merchants and profiteers, they’d worked the prison-ship system for every penny they could make, allowing conditions of hopelessness and degradation to flourish below decks. Almost certainly, on the few occasions they came aboard their wretched vessels, they’d demand private lodgings. Further examination of the first cabin appeared to confirm this. Faded patches on the bulkheads showed the spots where plates or maybe paintings had once hung. There were two rusted hooks on the ceiling, from which a cot had been suspended.
“They lived in comfort while their charges starved and died,” Palmer said.
“Their charges were common criminals, let’s remember that.”
They pressed through an adjoining door into what the major assumed was once the master’s day cabin. This too was empty, but wide, covering the ship from one side to the other; along its rear wall there were seven small-panelled windows. The glass in these was intact but thick with grime, so that only a modicum of starlight entered. It fell in spectral shafts, plunging the far corners into complete darkness, which even the glow of the lanterns failed to penetrate.
Craddock glanced sideways at Palmer. The young constable was white in the cheek. He caught the major looking and tried to smile, but it was a weak, ineffectual effort.
“Keep it in mind that we are the hunters and Burnwood the prey,” Craddock said.
The constable nodded. “And Nethercot …?”
“Nethercot is an old man. He’ll be hiding somewhere, terrified. Burnwood is the one we need be wary of.”
And so they proceeded, slowly and carefully, from one section to the next, first checking a smaller cabin, which, by the fixed table in its centre, had once served as the master’s dining room, and then descending a companionway into another windowed chamber, which again ran from one side of the ship to the other. There were more cot-hooks on the ceiling in there, two parallel rows in fact, and the major thought this might once have been the turnkeys’ wardroom. They spent only a minute looking the place over, then moved on, exploring as thoroughly and quietly as they could. Every moment, they found themselves glancing over their shoulders for fear that someone had crept up behind. The cavorting shadows cast by the lamps didn’t help, nor the ancient timbers, which squeaked and groaned continuously.
At length they came to an empty door frame giving through to a short, downwards-sloping gangway, which led into what one could only assume were the first of the prisoners’ quarters. It was soullessly black down there and, despite the intervening years, still stank of filth and unwashed bodies.
“Damn!” Craddock said, the echo of his voice running through the vaults below.
They went forwards slowly, pushing side-by-side down the narrow gangway. Even over that short distance, the stench grew noticeably thicker, but now there was something else too: an atmosphere – not just of neglect or emptiness, but of despair, of misery beyond imagining. Then Palmer gave a gasp of fright, and came to a halt. Craddock halted too, and felt the hairs on his neck bristle.
Fleetingly, in the blink of an eye, they saw someone: a figure at the end of the gangway; an emaciated man with crudely shorn hair, wearing black-and-white striped pyjamas, which hung from his shrunken frame in threadbare rags. His flesh was ash-gray, the eyes deep and hollow in his drawn, skullish face.
Then the apparition was gone. It hadn’t ducked backwards, nor stepped out of sight. It simply wasn’t there any more. Nothing confronted the two officers but the impenetrable darkness on the edge of their lamp-light.
“What in the name of God?” Palmer said slowly. “That wasn’t Burnwood, was it?”
“No. No, that wasn’t Burnwood.”
“Then who? I mean …”
“A ghost, Palmer.” Craddock strode on. “Just a ghost.”
Munro and Kenton had entered the ship through the fo’c’s’le.
Like Craddock and Palmer, they explored with utmost caution, guns to the ready, but it soon became evident that even a squad of men would have difficulty searching this vessel properly. The normally spacious areas of the gun-decks had been divided up by plywood hoardings into myriad passages and cramped, dungeon-like rooms, many still hung with rusted shackles. With the already low ceilings and their lower support beams, even a man of middling height would frequently have to duck to avoid injury. The floors were covered with rotted, trampled straw. It was easy to picture these hellish rabbit-holes packed with huddled, pathetic figures; ragged, lice-riddled, barely alive in the darkness and the damp. One dismal level followed another as they descended amidships. It seemed depthless, a multi-layered maze of ropes, timbers and corroded grille-work.
At length, they entered a more open space where the air was fresher. Munro suspected they were on the middle-deck, probably in the area that had once been used as the galley. A large cast-iron stove occupied a central position, with a cylindrical flue running up from it and vanishing through the ceiling. Topside, the flue probably emerged as a chimney, but like the stove, it was long in disuse. Its metal was caked with soot and had split wide open. Munro raised his lantern. About twenty yards beyond the stove, was the capstan, the gigantic winch once used to haul in the anchor. It was essentially a solid hub with twelve timber poles projecting out around it; opaque cobweb now shrouded it.
They moved past, the hussar only grunting in response to Munro’s occasional comments. The policeman still wasn’t happy about having Corporal Kenton at his back, though his carbine would doubtless come in handy if they ran into Burnwood.
After the capstan, they entered what appeared to be some sort of punishment block. A tight walkway ran between two walls of shelving. These shelves had been sub-divided by partitions and front
ed with taut wire-mesh. At first glance they were like pens for small animals, but it rapidly became clear that their true purpose had been for the confinement of human beings. An average-sized man might just have been able to lie flat in one of them, though a taller fellow would find his face pressed into the wire. They were brimming with vermin-infested humus. The stench that came out of them was intolerable.
“Many of the men who first ran these ships, ran the original slavers,” Munro said, a hand clamped to his nose. “Not perhaps the ideal folk to put in charge of a penitentiary.”
Again, the hussar only grunted.
Beyond the shelves, there was an open area divided by rows of posts – tethering posts, Munro realised with a shudder. There was even a steel box, bolted to the floor and with bars fitted across its front; a man held inside it would need to sit in a permanent painful crouch, his head bowed, his knees to his chest. The knowledge of what these things had been used for left a hollow feeling inMunro’s belly. This place had been out of service less than a decade, and with him a sixteen-year veteran of a relatively local police force, it was highly likely that men he personally had arrested had been sent here.
They bore on – and a monstrous shadow loomed up. Both men reacted sharply, guns cocked and leveled – but it was only the head of the vessel’s chain-pump.
Munro felt foolish. He apologised to Kenton.
“Don’t worry yourself about it, sir. When you’re dealing with a killer of men, it’s best to be on your guard.”
They had now come to the top of another companionway. Munro peered down, holding his lamp aloft.
“Else, who knows what could happen,” Kenton added. And, with the stock of his carbine, he landed a savage blow between Munro’s shoulders.
The detective toppled forwards. The next thing he knew, he was flying through space at great speed, turning and twisting, rebounding from sharp edges. Then his head was hurting and everything was a daze. He was gazing groggily upwards; at first he saw two Corporal Kentons come stumping down two different stairways.
“George only needs your Major Craddock,” came the hussar’s voice. “Reckoned you could be dispensed with.”
None of this made sense to Munro.
“I’m George’s half-brother, in case you were wondering,” Kenton added. “I came here to the West Lancs barracks special. Just for him. He only wanted Craddock. That was his plan.” Kenton stooped and picked something up: it was Munro’s revolver. He cocked it and pointed it. “You, I can deal with any way I like.”
Major Craddock and Constable Palmer were now on what the major assumed was the lower gun-deck. It had been fully adapted for the holding of convicts: chains hung everywhere; there were barred-off sections; rows of poky little cells had been constructed. The place was damp and repulsive. Despite the lanterns, bottomless shadows skulked on all sides. There was the constant creaking of old woodwork, both above and below, and a sense that in every hidden space unseen things were happening. Craddock wasn’t given to flights of fancy, but he could easily imagine they were being observed, their every move scrutinised by silent spectators in the deep black recesses.
“I wish that bugger Burnwood would attack us, sir,” came Palmer’s tremulous voice. “We know there’s a fight coming. Why can’t we just get on with it?”
Craddock looked him over. Palmer was young and raw-boned, and,unlike many of the major’s constables, he had not come direct to the civilian police from the armed services. So, brave or not – and he was brave, otherwise Craddock would never have kept him on the payroll – he was bound to be softer in the belly than some of the older hands. The young copper’s eyes were now wide in their sockets. Despite the cold, he’d unfastened the button on the collar of his tunic. His breath came in short, sharp gasps. To his credit, when he realised he was being watched he tried to smile. “Sorry if I’m letting you down, Major Craddock, sir.”
“You’re not letting me down. At least, you haven’t done yet. Just concentrate on the job in hand, and you’ll be fine.”
“Sir.”
“Let’s keep moving.”
They reached the top of another companionway. The light of their lanterns filtered down it, showing what looked like piles of sacked goods.
“That could be the orlop-deck down there,” Craddock said. “We’re not too far above the hold, I shouldn’t think.”
“Be a good place for him to hide, I suppose,” the constable muttered. “The very bottom of the ship.”
“My thoughts too. Come along.”
They descended slowly, acutely aware of how loud their feet sounded on the treads. Each thudding impact echoed and re-echoed.
It seemed to take an age before they were on level decking again. This was a far more spacious area than the cell-passages they’d explored above; in fact it was cavernous. As the major had suspected, it was the orlop-deck – in other words the deck that ‘overlapped’ the hold. The sacked goods they’d spied had apparently been abandoned down here. There were great heaps of them, with only narrow aisles passing between.
“What is all this stuff?” Palmer wondered. “Why hasn’t it been taken away?”
The major shook his head, then said: “Put your lamp down.”
“Sir?”
“Do as I say, Palmer. No need to make ourselves easier targets than we already are.” Craddock placed his own lantern near the foot of the stairway. “Leave it here. We can see enough to look around.”
The constable did as he was told.
The major wasn’t quite sure why this particular part of the ship made him more nervous than any other, but his soldierly sixth sense had put him on guard. The vastness of the room – the fact that they would be sitting-targets once they were out in the middle of it – was unsettling, but in addition to that, a bulkhead door stood open at the far side. There was nothing unusual in that perhaps, but briefly, for an hallucinatory half-second, he imagined he’d seen a flicker of green light in the darkness beyond it.
As they prowled forwards, Craddock watched for this again, his eyes straining to penetrate the gloom. For a feverishly intense moment, he almost convinced himself he could see someone lurking there; he visualised a misshapen body, large and twisted limbs. Then he realised that he was letting his nerves run away with him, and he made a conscious effort to relax.
And that was when someone did appear in the doorway.
It was the figure of a man, suddenly silhouetted on a glaring green background.
He’d come from nowhere, at startling speed. Though both officers were alert, they were taken by surprise. He’d appeared in the blinking of an eye – and had begun to fire.
He was equipped with two pistols, both of which roared repeatedly, the gun-flashes blinding in their brilliance. Though Craddock and Palmer returned fire, their assailant had already got off four or five rounds. Had he been shooting directly at them, he’d have killed them both. As it was, he appeared to have taken aim at the heaps of bulging sacks, which now burst open, spraying their contents into the air. The next thing Craddock and Palmer knew, they were engulfed in clouds of choking, yellowish dust.
“What the hell!” the constable coughed, his voice cracking. “Can’t see nothing, sir …”
Craddock didn’t answer. He fell to a crouch, using his left hand to draw his scarf up over his nose and mouth, and, with his right, taking careful aim. No clear target was now visible, but he pumped four rapid shots through the spreading murk.
“G-God!” Palmer stammered. He’d emptied one barrel of his shotgun, but the weapon now hung from his finger by its trigger-guard while he wafted at the polluted air. “I can’t … I can’t breathe!” he screamed.
“Don’t panic, Palmer, it’s only brimstone.” Craddock tried to grab him by the collar and yank him down.
But it was a futile effort. The constable blundered forwards, gagging for breath.
“For Christ’s sake,” Craddock yelled. “Get back here! It’s nothing dangerous, it’s used for fumigation. Every sh
ip has it!”
Palmer wasn’t listening. Nor was he looking. He never even noticed the open hatchway in the deck until he’d fallen through it.
Craddock cursed. He quickly reloaded his revolver, then went on the offensive, standing up and bullocking his way through the yellow fog towards the bulkhead door, blasting round after round at it. The brimstone was starting to settle, and finally the major was able to see that he was shooting at nothing. The green light had disappeared, as had the gunman who’d emerged from it. Craddock moved to the hatchway, and peered down.
Twelve feet below, Palmer was lying sprawled on what looked like a bed of raked earth. Whether dead or alive, it was impossible to tell.
“Palmer! Palmer … you alright?”
The prone figure didn’t respond, but someone else did. Another shot was fired at the major, this one from below. He ducked back as the bullet zipped past him, but caught a fleeting glimpse of a bulky shape emerging from the shadows beside the unconscious constable, grabbing him by the collar and hauling him away.
“You criminal lunatic!” Craddock bellowed down. He took aim with his revolver, but didn’t dare fire for fear of hitting his own man; both figures swiftly vanished from view. “What the devil do you think you’re playing at? For God’s sake, give it up!”
The only reply was a distant, hollow laugh.
Munro was vaguely aware that, somewhere close by, shots had been fired, but he was in no fit state to work out what this meant. He fancied he was being carried through a series of black, creaking corridors. When he was finally flung down, he simply lay there. Lamplight swum over him, but he could still hardly move. There was a dull throb in his back, and his head was spinning.
“Now, I ain’t got nothing against peelers,” he heard Kenton say, “’cept at Hyde Park back in ’62, when I fair got my head stove in. But if I had a mind to, I could put a bullet through you right now and there’d be no-one the wiser. George says how he doesn’t need you. That’s the only thing I’m here for – to keep you off his back. You can have that easy, or hard. It’s up to you. For now, though, you’re staying here. You keep your head down, and I reckon you might get by. But any trouble, and I do you no problem.”