Nick of Time

by Ted Bell

  “Your next stop. Mr. Blood will be most unpleasantly surprised to see you, I should imagine, my lord.”

  “Yes, I suppose he shall. We shan’t be gone too long, I wouldn’t imagine, old boy. To do so might, as my hero Sherlock Holmes was fond of saying, generate too much unhealthy excitement among the criminal classes. Take good care of this pretty young lady, won’t you, Hobbes?”

  “Indeed I will, sir,” Hobbes said, “My nursemaid skills are a bit rusty, but I think they’ll come back to me. And now, sir, as the French are so fond of saying, ‘Bon voyage et bonne chance!’ ”

  CHAPTER XX

  Pigs and Stowaways

  · 3 October 1805 ·

  H. M. S. MERLIN, AT SEA

  Two thunderous raps sounded at Captain Nicholas McIver’s cabin door. It was Old Ben’s knock.

  “Just a moment, Ben, I’m writin’ the log! Can’t jawbone and scribble at the same time, damn your eyes! If we ain’t sinkin’, I’ll thankee to keep that door between us.” He heard a grunt and the door stayed shut.

  Captain McIver sighed, and looked back down at his half-written ship’s log entry. Frowning, he picked up his quill once more. He’d been in the middle of describing the morning’s ferocious engagement, the near fatal encounter with the Frenchman Rambouillet, and Merlin’s current precarious state. His ship was afire and sinking, and this entry could well be McIver’s last, he knew, depending on how events worked out in the next few hours. The sounds of muffled chatter and movement of his men upon deck above his head was reassuring at any rate. Still floatin’, weren’t they? Couldn’t Ben give a moment’s peace?

  Old Ben, so called because of his prematurely white hair, stood outside his captain’s door that morning on one good leg and one wood peg, polishing his tooth. He was the proud possessor of a lone tooth that had been fashioned from an old musketball in a spectacularly unsuccessful piece of shipboard dentistry. Ben was quite prideful of it however and kept it polished to gleaming perfection.

  Now that the captain had put Mr. Stiles in charge of dousing the fire and plugging the holes the French cannonballs had made, the peglegged steward had been told the captain was to be disturbed only if it was necessary to give the order to abandon ship. Or, as he had told Ben, if “anything unusual” should happen.

  Unusual? Ben, to his complete befuddlement, no longer had any idea what his captain meant by anything unusual. Was the fact that McQueeney, the gunner’s mate, was nightly rumored to be threatening to steal the captain’s blue gig and take a score of feverish deserting rats with him unusual ? Or that Slushy, the cook, said ghosts were turning his tureens arsy-versy behind his back? Or that someone, maybe the boatswain himself, had let all the pigs loose and that wild porkers were even now terrorizing the barky’s sick bay? Unusual? The word no longer had meaning on this vessel, at least in Old Ben’s opinion.

  Ben turned to the man beside him, a cold, shivering British tar they’d just plucked from the sea. They’d found the half-drowned sailor drifting by, clinging to what had once been some kind of dory, now reduced to floating rubble. The man claimed to have recently escaped from Blood’s flagship, Mystère. The question to Ben’s wary mind was, was this fellow surprising or unusual enough to present to his captain?

  “Hold up there, shipmate,” Ben said to the shivering wretch. “Whilst I ponders just how unusual my skipper may perceive your tale to be!”

  “Unusual?” the poor man croaked. “Blood’s got himself a floatin’ prison out there, I tell you! A bloody seagoin’ jail! Kidnapped children, dogs, horses, and that ain’t the worst of it! Got Lord Nelson’s own niece held captive, down in that hell-hole of a brig deck! Lady Anne herself? That ain’t unusual enough for the likes of you?”

  Ben frowned, and raised his hand to rap again on the captain’s door. Admiral Lord Nelson’s own niece now held as Bill’s captive? Surely that was newsy and unusual!

  But ever since the blasphemous turncoat Billy Blood had mutinied against Captain McIver and all his old shipmates, everything on board this blasted vessel had been unusual, Ben thought. Mr. Alex Griswold, the midnight watch, had sworn up and down the deck that Blood frequently appeared out of thin air on the quarterdeck beside him. Once he’d even grabbed the helm and put her hard over for a towering iceberg on the port side of the barky! Then he’d disappeared just as ghostlike as you please. Of course, Mr. Griswold was a wee bit overly fond of his grog, as were many of the hands who ended up standing the lonely hours of the graveyard watch.

  “Cap’n, may be I have somethin’ the least bit unusual out here!” Ben shouted, rapping on the door, having decided the news that Billy had captured Nelson’s beautiful niece was worth disturbing the captain over.

  Unusual? McIver wondered, trying to concentrate on his log. He doubted it. “Blast it, Ben, leave me be! I’ve got to finish me log!”

  The captain of the Merlin, too, was no longer clear as to what constituted strange or unusual on this blasted vessel. He had decided, for instance, that he’d best not mention to Ben that he was expecting a visitor from another century. As loyal as Ben was, he wasn’t sure Ben could keep such a fantastical secret. You couldn’t stop shipboard rumors, of course, but you needn’t fan the flame.

  In fact, no one on the ship, or indeed in the entire Royal Navy, knew about his letter to the future or, indeed, the un-worldly powers of the magical golden ball. Should he unburden himself of his secret in the ship’s log? There was only one other man on the Seven Seas who knew of the ancient machine’s power, and he wasn’t a man at all. He was the lowest form of life, lower even than a traitorous dog.

  A turncoat mutineer named Captain William Blood.

  Blood had stolen one of the two precious golden balls from his former captain the night of his treacherous mutiny. In fact, the betrayed captain had come upon Billy in his cabin during the robbery itself and it was the confrontation and scuffle that had led to the mutiny. McIver had put a pistol on Billy and made him put the time instrument back into the sea locker. Billy did so and then fled to the quarterdeck, where his fellow mutineers were waiting. Unfortunately, he had the other, second, machine safely in the folds of his jacket.

  McIver and First Lieutenant Mitchell Stiles were able to put down the mutiny that dreadful night, but not without a lot of bloodshed. The scuppers had run red with the stuff, and, unfortunately, Billy Blood had managed to escape with his life, and the second of the two miraculous time instruments.

  With the Tempus Machina in his possession, Blood could roam the earth, travel through time and space to wreak havoc wherever he went. However, having only one of the two golden orbs put Old Bill at a grave disadvantage. It meant, McIver knew, that whenever and wherever Blood traveled, he would always be looking over his shoulder.

  McIver, or whoever possessed the second orb, would give Bill no rest, no peace. Blood knew whoever had the second orb would follow him to the ends of the earth, to the very boundaries of time itself, to regain possession of both devices.

  The man who owned both of Leonardo’s miraculous machines would be all-powerful. Captain William Blood was determined to be that man, no matter what it took.

  But Captain Nicholas McIver was equally determined that such a catastrophe must never happen.

  Captain McIver suspected that once Billy had gotten wind of the machine’s immense power, the temptation of possessing both machines had brought the truly dark side of Blood’s character to the fore.

  Billy possessed one of the most brilliant military minds in the Navy and there were those who’d once believed he’d rise through the ranks to First Sea Lord. Some even said he’d go as high as Prime Minister. Now, they’d all be happy if he went to the devil.

  There was only one soul alive who could help McIver. A kindred spirit, a distant great-great-grandson, and he wouldn’t be born for another hundred and twenty-two years! But the captain’s letter and the infernal time machine might bring the lad running, at least that’s what McIver hoped.

  Suddenly, the cabin do
or blew open with such violence it almost flew off its hinges. Stiles rushed past Ben and the poor drowned rat beside him, into the cabin.

  “What in life—” the captain shouted, turning to see his first officer, not Ben, bounding in.

  Stiles, a tall, handsome officer who always wore his long sandy brown hair in a carefully braided pigtail tied with a black velvet ribbon, stood before his captain. His blue jacket bore not a few decorations for heroism and was normally immaculate; now he was soaked to the skin and covered with black soot from head to toe. McIver looked up, startled. The first officer’s face was so blackened that the whites of his deep green eyes seemed to pop out of his head.

  “Sir!” Stiles said, much out of breath. “Begging your pardon!”

  “Close that door, will you, Lieutenant?” the captain said, seeing Old Ben’s anxious face peering through the opened door. “In case of bad news, I’d like to be the one as spreads it,” said the captain, calmly, “not Old Ben.”

  Calm in any sea was McIver’s trademark in the service and it had served him well. The first officer closed the door on the scowling countenance of the steward kept waiting outside.

  “We’ll just wait here, thankee kindly, Lieutenant,” Ben said with as much sarcasm as he could muster as the door closed on them.

  “All under control then, Mr. Stiles?” McIver said, eyeing the man carefully.

  “Afraid not, sir!” the young lieutenant said. “Fire’s out, sir, finally, but the barky’s taking far more water than we can handle with the pumps as are still working. She’s down a good two feet by the head, sir, in this last hour! If we keep taking on seawater at this rate, she’ll go to the bottom within the hour!” Down by the head meant the bow was two feet lower in the water than the stern—an unhealthy state for any ship to be in, especially the one under your own two feet.

  “An hour! Blast it, Mr. Stiles. I saw where she was holed. She couldn’t be shipping that much water that quickly!”

  “With respect, sir, there was a second hole we didn’t see at first on account of all the water she’d already taken on. It’s just below the one you saw, sir, a gusher!”

  “A second bloody hole! Well, blast it all, Lieutenant!” McIver cried, his face reddening. “Redouble your efforts! Plug them, man! You’ve got crew lazing on deck, for all love! Get them below with buckets, all hands! I’ll not see my ship go down, sir. Is that perfectly clear, Lieutenant?”

  McIver knew, as every good seaman knew, that the best pump on a sinking ship was a scared sailor with a bucket.

  “Aye, aye. Bucket brigade, sir, at once!” said Stiles, but he made no move to leave the cabin. The man was clearly troubled.

  “Is that all, Lieutenant?”

  “A bucket brigade won’t be enough, sir. With all due respect, Captain, I’m afraid there’s only one way out of this,” the lieutenant said, still standing rigidly at attention, fumbling with his three-cornered hat. “Perhaps if we got the barky—that is, if you would consider it, sir, uh—”

  “Spit it out! I don’t care where a notion comes from if it’s a good one, Lieutenant,” the captain said. He then added, more calmly, “Speak your mind. And please stand at your ease, Lieutenant.”

  “Thank you, sir,” the lieutenant replied, and leaned forward earnestly, putting his two fists down on the captain’s desk. “We need to get under way at once, Captain. If we can press on all available sail, and get her heeled over hard to port, the holes on the starboard side will both be above the waterline and we can make our repairs, sir. Shouldn’t take the carpenters more than twenty minutes once she’s not taking water.”

  The captain stared at the lieutenant, thinking it over.

  “Only a thought, sir,” Stiles said.

  “A damn good one, by my lights. But what about these infernal reefs we seem to have gotten into? They’re like the toothsome tentacles of some giant sea creature! They’re everywhere I look! To get her heeled over enough to make repairs, she’s going to need running room. She’ll need sea room, some deep water under her keel. There’s precious little of either in this cove, Lieutenant.”

  “That’s one of the problems, sir.”

  “And the other, Mr. Stiles?” the captain said, standing up from his writing desk.

  “The masthead lookout reports a sail due north, sir, hull down and headed this way!”

  “One of ours?” the captain said, allowing a tiny light of hope to creep in. “An advance ship for Nelson’s fleet?”

  “Afraid not, sir. It’s Blood’s flagship. Since we’re not comin’ out, he’s comin’ in. With a full press of sail, even his topgallants, sir. He’s flying over the water. And his Mystère is a lightning fast sailer when she’s on her wind.”

  “How long have we got, Lieutenant?”

  “We’ll be in his cannon range in less than an hour, sir. Already close enough to read his signals. Lookout reports Blood’s run up our own Union Jack, the one he stole off the Merlin’s stern. He’s flying it, sir, he’s flying our own flag upside down from his royal topmast! Upside down, Captain!”

  “The dog! I’ll—”

  “That’s not all, sir,” Stiles said. “He’s run up signal flags, sir. Masthead signalman took the message and just sent a boy down. Here it is, Captain.” Stiles handed the folded scrap to the captain, wincing at the sooty smudges he’d left on it.

  McIver opened the message and stared at the four words scrawled there.

  LADY ANNE IS MINE.

  The captain crumpled the paper into his clenched fist and kicked the nearest chair halfway across his great cabin. He started to say something, thought better of it, and forced himself to regain his composure. This was the gravest affront yet to Nelson, and the great admiral of the British fleet would be most aggrieved. The beautiful Anne was Nelson’s dearest relative on this earth.

  “Anne? So, he’s got Nelson’s own niece in his brig now, has he? He’ll use her as a pawn to lure Nelson out, won’t he? Well, we’ll just have to find a way to get her back, we will. Anything else, Mr. Stiles?”

  “That’s all, Captain.”

  “We’ve no choice, then,” McIver said, anger and resolve hardening his voice once more. “We’ve got to stand him down! We’ll go out and face him undergunned and under-manned and two holes in her bottom, to boot! How’s our rigging? No matter! Give the order to run up every inch of canvas she carries! All abroad! Mains’ls, jibs, tops’ls and stuns’ls, royals, too! And run out every cannon that’ll still hold powder. Tell every gun crew to double load! We can’t just sit here and wait for that vile creature to come send us to the bottom, can we, Lieutenant?”

  McIver raised his glass and peered through the stern window for a long moment. Blood was coming. Whether or not his desperate gamble with the letter to the future would pay off, he knew he had to act now. They had not a second to lose.

  “Aye, ’tis Blood, all right,” the captain said, collapsing the telescope with a sharp snap. “Beat to quarters, Mr. Stiles!”

  “Aye, aye, Captain!” Stiles shouted and ran from the cabin to carry out his captain’s orders. In seconds, the captain heard the muffled thunder of the drummer’s rolling drum-beat, calling the men to quarters and then the scurrying of hundreds of feet overhead. He could feel the ship above and all around him springing back to life with the promise of a fight with Billy Blood! There wasn’t a soul aboard who didn’t have a score to settle with Bill.

  “Ben! Ben!” the captain shouted to his steward who came racing in straightaway with his peglegged gait, the sodden stranger in tow. “Pray, come pour us some grog, man,” McIver said heartily. “We’ll need a bit o’ sustenance afore this day is over! We’ve another fight on our hands, old son! Hello! Who’s this poor wretch?”

  “Aye, Captain, a splash of grog by all of us!” said Ben. Never one to shun the offer of a wee dram of rum, he quickly pulled three hammered silver mugs from the swinging rack over the captain’s head. “Plucked this poor devil from the briny, we did, and he’s fresh escaped from Bill
y’s Mystère. Was originally a bosun’s mate on Reliant, sir, till Bill sent her to the bottom a fortnight ago. He claims Blood’s holding Nelson’s own niece aboard that brig, sir. If that don’t top all! Tell the captain if that ain’t what you claim!”

  “My c-compliments, Captain,” said the shivering sailor, and then he collapsed in a puddle on the floor without saying a word. Ben gave him a sharp kick to see if he was dead. He moaned once, so Ben figured he hadn’t yet departed.

  “No news to me, anyhow, Ben, and get this fellow to a medico,” McIver said, cocking a sympathetic eye at the shipwrecked sailor. “I already know Bill’s got Anne, blast you. I thought you had news, man, something out of the ordinary for me!”

  “This ain’t news, sir?” Ben asked, shaking his head in wonder. He poured a healthy measure of rum into each mug, taking his time. He couldn’t imagine how the captain already possessed such information. “Well, if Nelson’s niece bein’ held prisoner ain’t news enough, I got more powder in me hold,” he said hopefully.

  “Speak up, Old Ben, speak up,” the captain said, quaffing his own hearty swig of rum and the passed-out sailor’s as well. “What blasted other news have you got?”

  “Pigs, sir.”

  “Pigs?”

  “Aye, pigs. Well, it’s pigs, sir, is how I found out,” Ben said, enjoying the sharp bite of the rum. “Ah, nothin’ I likes better than a hearty breakfast! To your very good health, Captain!” McIver frowned and waved his mug impatiently.

  “Pigs, you say? What about the rummy creatures?”

  “Escaped their confines, sir.”

  “Porkers on the loose? And an action coming? That’s all we need!”

  “Aye. Y’see, someone loosed them squealin’ porkers out of their hold, sir,” Ben said. “They was terrorizing the sickbay. Causing a terrible unholy ruckus down there. Knocked over the surgeon and one poor bloke broke his crutches tryin’ to escape from ’em! So, while you was in here scratchin’ in yer log, I went below to gather ’em up and put ’em back as where they belongs, in the pig locker, and that’s when I discovered ’em, sir.”