Sergeant Verity and the Blood Royal

by Francis Selwyn

  'Strip 'em!' said Crowe. 'Quick as you can!'

  'You nearly left it too late, Mr Crowe! That one of yours was going for the drawer!'

  ‘I guess that's something else they never taught you at Scotland Yard, Mr Verity. We're going to need his weapon, and one sure way to find it was to give him just the chance to start moving for it. I reckon it wouldn't be much use asking him for directions in his present state.'

  Crowe had opened the drawer and drawn out a clumsy-looking pistol with an elaborately-engraved butt and a barrel that seemed absurdly long.

  'Hudson!' he said disparagingly. 'A toy for rich young gentlemen who fancy fighting duels without the risk of hitting anyone! Still, most guns look alike when pointing close to a man's guts!'

  The cabin locker provided ample cord, used as throwing-line for the ship's main ropes. Crowe used this to truss the naked bodies of the captain and the engineer, while he and Verity did their best to struggle into the dark blue corduroy-trousers and jerseys. After a quick inspection to confirm that the other forward cabins were empty, Crowe glanced down at his ill-fitting clothes.

  'Not that we look much like 'em, I guess,' he said ruefully, 'but in the dark, it'll make Dacre's bullies stop just long enough to give us first chance at a shot. With four of them and two of us, we could use an advantage.'

  ' 'ow many bullets that thing got in it, Mr Crowe?'

  'Two, Mr Verity. But they aren't likely to know that from a distance.'

  They went forward as far as the engine-room. Crowe inspected several of the small iron wheels and the dials above them. He turned one of the wheels energetically to open it and closed another so tightly that the veins in his forehead were swelling with the exertion. Then he motioned Verity toward the saloon. The oil lamps on the polished table were still lit, the glasses half empty, and a fog of stale cigar smoke in the warm air. Of Dacre's accomplices and the girls there was no sign.

  'I guess,' said Crowe thoughtfully, 'I guess Mr Verity we must all be hunting men at heart.'

  Lucifer continued to simper, but Bull-Peg in his simple and rough manner was guffawing with sheer pleasure and with anticipation of the delights to come. Cowhide and Raoul stood back a little and watched the white men with quiet amusement. Maggie and Jennifer clung naked to one another, the blonde girl's eyes wandering hopelessly with terror, while Jennifer's dark eyes flashed with a half-cowed resentment at her tormentors. Under Lucifer's supervision, Cowhide and Raoul stood the two victims side by side. With locking cuffs they joined them at their adjacent ankles. Then, by bending them, they looked each girl's outer wrist to the same cuff-chain. Lucifer giggled.

  'And now, if you two beauties aim to cheat the hunt by swimming off the island, you are surely welcome to try!'

  Bull-Peg untied the leash from a tree and held the straining bloodhound.

  'You'll find, my dears,' said Lucifer to the two stooping girls, 'that you'll go better on elbows and knees. Now, in five minutes more we shall come for you. Cowhide and Raoul come beating and the dog come looking for his dinner. The harder you go, the longer you live. Within reason, of course.'

  Lucifer nodded to Cowhide and Raoul. There were two sudden movements, two sharp reports and young women stumbled grotesquely forward on their terrified career.

  'Four abreast,' said Lucifer to the others, 'dragging the ground end to end of the island. Cowhide and Raoul beat with them whips to flush 'em out if they go to ground. Bull-Peg, give that brute another good sniff at the Khan girl's things, then let it follow its nose. And remember, it's the dog that does the business. That way it looks like misadventure.'

  'Ain't it time yet?' pleaded Bull-Peg, his large crude features contorted in an expression of genuine anxiety.

  'Now,' said Lucifer reprovingly, 'ain't you been let do everything you asked with Miss Jennifer? Nothing but selfishness to spoil this for the rest of us by rushing at it now!'

  Bull-Peg lowered his head submissively, not raising it again until Lucifer in his wisdom decided that the time had come for the hunters to move after their prey.

  Crawling, stumbling, weeping with fright engendered by days of ill-treatment and the promise of death, the two young women scrambled through thickets and mud. There was no sense of direction, no thought of purpose, only the insane zeal of trying to escape a death that was inevitable. Somewhere to one side of them, as it seemed, the sound of Cowhide slashing at the undergrowth with his thong was ominously clear. Behind them, the howl of the dog, though more remote, carried the chill of death to their hearts. The tawny sheen of Jennifer's hips and thighs, her ribs and upper arms, bore the fresh scars of brambles and rough twigs. Maggie's pale body was so splashed and smeared with the black mud that it was hardly lighter than Jennifer's. Despite their mutual affection, each girl now wept in her own solitary terror.

  They were close to the end of the islet, with death by drowning before them and the jaws of the hound at their backs. The sound of a man's breath stilled them in their fear, knowing that it was his soft expression of triumph. Now there would be no more but Cowhide's flushing-out until the arrival of the killer-hound, and the last appalling moments. The hand which trailed the thong moved back, and the man spoke in a sharp whisper.

  'Right, miss,' he said firmly, 'now you just act like a pair o' good brave girls, and these villains are going to get the shock o' their bleedin' lives!'

  As they had arranged on leaving the Anna, it was Verity who was to guide the girls back to the little ship, while Crowe remained at large in the swampy wilderness. Maggie was, at first, too far gone in terror even to understand Verity's words, but Jennifer had begun to recover her composure and he addressed himself to her.

  'Now, miss, it ain't as bad as you might fear. That blood 'ound of theirs keeps losing the scent. Having tried to abuse you by making you crawl through mud like this, o' course it do mask the scent. Villains is stupid in the end, miss. And the crueller they are, the more stupid, generally.'

  The Asian girl looked at him sceptically.

  'The cuffs and chains,' she said urgently, 'we can go nowhere like this.'

  Verity examined them.

  'I'm a detective officer, miss, and I know that cuffs, like most things, can be opened if necessary. These ain't even proper police handcuffs. Good sharp bang might spring 'em.'

  As the two young women crouched naked and mud-spattered, clutching one another, he found a stone with a blunted point and set to work. After several attempts the anklets still held fast.

  'Miss,' said Verity, trying to rouse Maggie, 'I gotta do something more. You and your chum must wet the side o' your foot with mud and then pull as far apart as you can. There's a pistol in my pocket. What I must do is put the muzzle to the chain and fire it. The ball will go into the mud, safe enough. But there's bound to be a flash and a burn. We gotta get these things off, and quick!'

  The girl nodded, the movement of her soiled blonde curtains of hair indicating that she had understood him at last. When they were both ready, Verity applied the barrel of the Hudson pistol to the centre of the stretched chain, about two inches from each girl's ankle. He chose the weakest part of the metal link, knowing that any fracture would be enough to destroy all Cowhide's careful manacling. He held his breath and squeezed the trigger. There was a roar, a flash that seemed to light the river itself, and a double cry from the two girls. With the acrid smoke in his nostrils, Verity inspected the chain, noticing for the first time the pain in his right arm from the recoil of the gun. There was a gap in the thin metal link of the little chain, quite wide enough to work the entire system of fetters loose.

  As he completed this, Verity could hear shouts from the darkness, quite close by. Lucifer was petulantly inquiring which of his companions had fired a gun. Then came Raoul's voice.

  'Cap'n! Cap'n! Quickly here! Here's Cowhide lying, Cap'n! Looks like he fall and break his neck!'

  Verity motioned the two girls away from the voices, toward the dark water of the river. He had watched Sergeant Crowe, with the effor
tless skill of a trapper, stalk Cowhide and bring the man down with a single, terrible blow to the neck. Raoul was now at the same spot, and Lucifer must still be with him. Only Bull-Peg with the dog was now between Verity and the Anna. Yet Bull-Peg would be hunting for the girls in the tangled brushwood, not in the shallows.

  He led his two dishevelled charges into the water to kill any scent which the dog might pick up, and waded back, parallel to the track they had followed. They were about half-way to the Anna when there was a booming like distant gunfire, followed by a whistling and hissing close at hand. Verity had a brief visual recollection of Sergeant Crowe in the engine-room of the Anna turning the wheels of her valves. To one who had heard a ship's boilers blow, the sound was unmistakable. By the time that he caught sight of her, steam was seeping through every outlet, and Lucifer's hope of escape had taken on a significant list toward the shore.

  Of Verney Dacre there was still no sight or sound. It had been Lucifer's voice which seemed to command the hunting-party. With the girls crouching to one side of him, Verity settled down in the shadows with the Hudson pistol, and its last bullet, to watch the Anna. So far as he knew anything about trapping, this was his snare and the crippled steamer the inevitable bait.

  The sky had just begun to lighten when he saw the first figure emerge from the trees and move toward the Anna. He made a gesture with his hand to still Maggie's whimpering from cold. Verily had stripped himself to the waist to provide a shirt and a jersey for the girls but there was little more he could do. Peering at the newcomer again, he gave a sigh of relief as he recognized Sergeant Crowe. He was about to move forward and attract his friend's attention, when he heard a low reverberating growl. From the undergrowth behind Crowe rose the massive outline of Bull-Peg, his posture indicating the forward strain of the bloodhound on the leash.

  The drama was being acted out fifty yards or so away, across the muddy foreshore. Crowe looked about him uncertainly and Verity rose to his feet with hands cupped and mouth wide.

  'Behind you, Mr Crowe! Coming from them bushes!'

  There was no way in which he could reach Crowe or Bull-Peg in time to prevent what followed. Only the bullet in the Hudson pistol would intercept the dun-coloured beast before it tore at Crowe's throat. He saw Bull-Peg slip the leash and, hardly thinking of what he proposed to do, Verity ran forward. The dog was bounding toward Crowe who half turned to meet it, though his attention was partly caught by Verity's movement. At twenty yards' range, with the Hudson pistol in a double-handed grip, Verity stopped abruptly, knowing he must shoot before the animal was too close to Crowe to make it possible. He followed the dog, his eye sighting down the barrel and, at the last opportunity, fired the pistol for the second time that night. The gun bucked in his grip and the bullet sang harmlessly over the bloodhound's back.

  In an agony of failure, Verity ran on, stumbling in the soft mud and picking himself up again. Even if he had been able to reach Crowe in time, he was aware that Bull-Peg was loping forward, bellowing encouragement to the dog, on a course which was set to collide with his own. Crowe was staring at the bounding creature, as though paralysed by the menace of the fangs. The long canine body rose in a powerful dive. Crowe seemed to sag at the knees, raising his hands before him as if in a feeble attempt to shield his eyes from the savage fangs. He fell back with apparent gentleness, as if he had resigned himself to the rending torment of death and wished only to lie quietly and let the heavy beast do its work.

  In his desperation, Verity took the hot barrel of the Hudson pistol and threw the gun at the dog with all his strength. Crowe was holding the animal high up on its forelegs, as its muzzle touched his throat. And then with his powerful wrists, Crowe wrenched the forelegs out and up as far as they could be forced. The hound emitted a high-pitched snarl and rolled away from its antagonist, thrashing to and fro on the ground as if in great distress. Verity supposed that Crowe must have learnt some technique for breaking the legs of a killer dog, but he had no leisure to consider the possibility. With the force of a recoiling cannon, Bull-Peg charged him in the side and knocked him sprawling.

  He slithered across several yards of mud and spun on to his knees to raise himself just as Bull-Peg's heavy boot, aimed at his head, caught him on the shoulder and knocked him on his back again. It could only be a matter of a minute or less before Crowe arrived, and Bull-Peg had to finish his business fast. A second paralysing kick to the shoulder sent Verity slithering across the mud. But he had seen enough wrestling in his Cornish childhood to know when the time had come to ride with a blow and let it carry him beyond harm's reach. He spun himself as far and as fast as he could across the dark slime of the foreshore, gaining the few vital seconds necessary to get to his feet before Bull-Peg could kick again.

  Bull-Peg, head lowered and fists fencing ahead of him, came at a charge. Verity caught a blow to the side of the face, which brought a flow of blood from a split gum, but he stepped back and spun, launching himself after and getting his adversary's neck in the crook of his arm. Now it was a simple matter of bowing Bull-Peg and holding him, 'in Chancery', until Crowe came to his assistance. Ten seconds more and the crop-headed giant would be done for.

  Yet in that brief space several things occurred. The first was that Verity, with all his weight and strength, was unable to bow Bull-Peg's powerful shoulders. The huge man seemed, if anything, to straighten up further and threw Verity from him with a tremendous backward thrust of his doubled arms. The impact of the knuckled elbow drove like a hammer into Verity's navel, so that he fell retching on his knees. Bull-Peg was on him in an instant, holding his victim flat on his back, ham-like knees pinning Verity's arms to his sides as he sat astride the sergeant's limp body. Grunting with irritation at the delay in despatching him, Bull-Peg set his fingers round Verity's throat and clamped the wind-pipe tight. The blood began to roar like a torrent in Verity's ears. His arms were immobilized and he could not throw Bull-Peg's weight from him. Only his legs were free to kick vainly in the air. How many seconds before Crowe could reach him? Too many, he thought.

  And then, with the greatest gentleness and consideration, Bull-Peg relaxed the grip and allowed him to breathe again. Verity saw the big man's head nod, as though he might be falling gradually into a light doze. The head nodded a second time and the heavy body turned in a casual motion and lay beside Verity. Crowe was still twenty yards away, running towards the scene. Verity looked up and saw fury in a pair of beautiful Asian eyes as Jennifer raised the cone of rock to strike a third blow at the head of her tormentor.

  'No!' shouted Crowe urgently. 'Let him be! Without him there may be no witness to send Lucifer and Dacre to the gallows!'

  The girl paused, unconvinced but uncertain. She held the stone tightly, eighteen inches or so above Bull-Peg's wounded crown. She was wearing only the blue jersey which Verity had stripped off for her. The naked gold of Jennifer's full hips and agile legs bore witness to the man's ill-treatment of her. Crowe approached her warily.

  'There's murder done, miss,' he said coaxingly. 'But one of them must be broken before the talc can be told. Kill this man, and the others who laughed at you during your misery may go free to mock you still. Spare him now, and he may live to suffer worse than death, or come to the gallows himself.'

  As she continued to hesitate, he closed his hand over hers and took the stone from her. She looked at neither of the two sergeants, walking back with eyes lowered to the place where Maggie still crouched. Verity struggled to his feet. The bloodhound lay as still as Bull-Peg himself.

  ' 'ere, Mr Crowe! What you done to that savage brute then? I thought you was lying down to let it eat you up!' Crowe looked very modest.

  'I heard it worked with wild prairie dogs, Mr Verity, and I hadn't much option but to try it on this one. Never mind the fangs nor the mouth, I guess that's the mistake a man makes when he loses his sense. The legs, sir, you make 'em do the splits out and up. Breaks 'em from their sockets, I hear, and pierces the lung with the end as you turn it.'r />
  'Well, I never, Mr Crowe!'

  'Can't swear to it mind you,' said Crowe, maintaining his modesty, 'but something sure came over that vicious beast.'

  Verity, naked to the waist, looked about him. 'What now, Mr Crowe?' 'Listen,' said Crowe patiently.

  Verity listened. From somewhere on the far side of the islet he could hear brisk shouts and the sounds of brushwood being hacked clear. It was no more than five minutes later when, with a waving of branches to indicate their progress, Captain Oliphant and three uniformed Marine privates stepped out of the marshy thickets. Oliphant surveyed the foreshore and its occupants in the early morning light, as though he found nothing at all remarkable about the scene. Verity stepped forward.

  'Sir!' he said gratefully. 'How d'yer find us?'

  Oliphant looked at him with mild pity.

  'A report of your direction and approximate range of patrol was left for me by Sergeant Crowe,' he said quietly. 'Your two horses were left tethered with some conspicuousness on the river bank. Pistol shots and commotion were clearly audible from the island, and that river-boat over there has created a cloud of steam that might be seen five miles away. I daresay that even your own Mr Croaker would have been here in a day or two more.'

  'But you never swum the river, sir?'

  'Sergeant,' said Crowe patiently, 'I cannot speak for the Metropolitan Police, of course, but when my own men face the likelihood of having to cross a river, they generally provide themselves with the means of doing so.'

  Puzzled and hurt, Verity withdrew, listening to Crowe and Oliphant as they continued their survey of the night's events.