At that exact moment, the door to the room flew open, and in stepped the most wonderful sight Twitch had seen in days. Commander Andrew Sharpe.
“Doctor,” Andrew said to the surgeon, “The men heard yelling. They said they weren’t allowed to enter, so I…”
Commander Sharpe drifted off as his eyes lit on Twitch. Commander Sharpe’s face paled.
“Emery,” he said hoarsely. He looked like he wanted to cry with relief. “You’re not—”
“Dead?” Twitch asked. “No. And I’d like to stay that way. Get him off of—”
Commander Sharpe made for the bed in a swift motion and the doctor moved back.
“Finally,” Twitch groused, swinging his legs over the edge. “Now we have got to—”
The rest of Twitch’s breath whuffed out of him as Commander Sharpe grabbed Twitch in a bearhug, pinning him so tightly that he couldn’t move. His bullet wound throbbed. Twitch sighed into the commander’s uniform, but at least took the opportunity to drop his hand to the commander’s side arm. It felt like a standard issue Colt 1911. So that probably cleared Sharpe right there.
It did feel good to be hugged, though. Especially by somebody who cared. It felt damn good.
“Commander,” the surgeon said. “He was recently shot in the chest.”
Commander Sharpe let go of Twitch and tried to reassume his professional air. He gripped Twitch’s shoulder and shook him gently. He was groping for words, but Twitch held up a hand.
“I’m glad I’m not dead too, sir,” Twitch said. “But we have to go to the Captain’s cabin right now.”
Commander Sharpe straightened. “Why would I let you do that, sailor?”
Twitch glanced at the telegram, which the doctor had dropped on the bed when he and Twitch began to tussle. The telegram only contained three words, two and a half words, actually, but it spoke volumes. It spoke of danger and time and trust. It spoke the truth.
Wake Emery. Sabo.
Twitch met Commander Sharpe’s eye when he answered his question. “Sir, you’ve got to let me save us, because I might be the only one who can.”
Less than a minute later, Commander Sharpe dragged Twitch up to the door to the Captain’s cabin. At the beginning of the journey, Twitch had tried to walk. That hadn’t lasted more than a few yards. Commander Sharpe virtually carried him the rest of the way.
“Open it,” Twitch wheezed. “We’ve got to go in.”
Commander Sharpe leaned Twitch against the facing. Twitch used all his strength just to stay upright while Commander Sharpe opened the door. Sharpe’s face was still riddled with guilt.
“Emery,” he said haltingly. “I regret… that I was forced to shoot you.”
“I don’t think you did, Commander.” Twitch replied.
Commander Sharpe opened his mouth in consternation, but Twitch just gestured weakly inside. Sharpe hauled him over the threshold and through the door.
Twitch saw the hole almost as soon as they entered, but only because he was looking for it. It could have been a knot or any other dark blemish in the polished wood, but it wasn’t. It was a small hole. Small enough to have been made by the passage of a steel bullet.
“Well that clears you,” Twitch said. “Can you put me in his chair, sir, the chair behind the desk.”
“What do you mean it clears me?” Commander Sharpe demanded as he dragged Twitch across the room and deposited him in the chair.
In answer, Twitch dropped the bullet on the desk top with one hand as he reached below it with the other.
“You carry a .45, sir,” Twitch said as he felt around beneath the desk. “Yep. Right there it is.”
“What are you talking about sailor,” Sharpe demanded, losing patience.
“See for yourself, sir,” Twitch said. The chair wasn’t on rollers, and Twitch was too weak to push it back, but he leaned out of the way. Sharpe reached under the desk. Beneath it, pointed at the door was a .30 caliber pistol, mounted on a swivel. Bankers and even bartenders sometimes mounted guns that way, though Twitch hadn’t heard of a naval captain doing it. It fit the situation, though. Maxwell had known the saboteur might get desperate enough to come for him directly, and the best way to get away with an assassination would be to try it in the place the Captain went when he wanted to be alone: his cabin.
Commander Sharpe’s face opened with surprise. “You mean…?”
“Aye sir,” Twitch said. He pushed the mushroomed bullet along the desk towards Commander Sharpe. “This is the bullet the surgeon took out of me. It’s .30 caliber. That,” He pointed at the Colt 1911 strapped to Commander Sharpe’s hip. “Is not.”
“You are saying that Captain Maxwell—”
“Shot me?” Twitch finished. “Yes sir, he did. When you squeezed the trigger, did you hear the second boom? I thought it was a reverb, or some kind of trick of the mind, since I’d just been shot in the chest.”
Commander Sharpe blinked. Apparently he’d heard it too.
“It wasn’t,” Twitch continued. “Two shots were fired. One from your gun, and one from this.” Twitch patted the .30 mounted beneath the desk.
Sharpe appeared to be having trouble accepting Twitch’s explanation.
“You’re telling me your own uncle shot you?”
Twitch nodded. “Father, but yes.”
Commander Sharpe drew his side arm, laid it across a palm, and stared at it in consternation. Despite the weakness in his body, and the butterflies in his stomach, Twitch felt himself grinning. The higher the stakes, the more fun the game. This one was deadly.
“I couldn’t have missed at that range,” Sharpe said reasonably.
“Let’s see about that,” Twitch said, “Pull your clip. But we’ve got to hurry. The others will be here any second.”
Commander Sharpe pulled the clip out of his Colt. The top shell in the rack didn’t contain a bullet. It was only a brass shell with a thin cork cap over the powder. It was a blank.
Twitch actually laughed.
Commander Sharpe thumbed the rest of the bullets out of the clip onto the desk and even shucked the shell out of the chamber. They were all blanks.
“Was there any time Captain Maxwell could have gotten to your gun when you weren’t around?” Twitch asked eagerly.
Commander Sharpe shook his head. “No. I always carry it when I’m…”
Twitch watched the realization dawn on Sharpe. Sharpe said, “I came back to my cabin after we tried to save that sailor under the pipe. The door to my cabin was open. Captain Maxwell was leaning against my desk. He wanted to talk to me about you. When he left, I saw that the lid to my pistol box was open.”
Twitch nodded. “All part of the plan then,” Twitch said. He turned his attention to the door, and the people who were about to come through it.
“This isn’t a plan,” Commander Sharpe said, hands open. “This is craziness! Why would Captain Maxwell do this?”
Twitch only replied, “I know how he thinks, sir. Plans evolve, changing moment by moment. Only the goal stays the same.” Twitch looked up at him. “He meant for us to complete this, Commander. Me and you. Now.”
Sharpe looked down at Twitch, his face hardening. “None of this changes the fact that you’re the saboteur. You admitted as much yourself.”
Twitch shrugged a little, which made the bullet wound in his chest hurt worse. “I thought I was at least.”
Commander Sharpe burst out in exasperation, “What in the hell do you mean you thought you were the—”
At the sound of approaching footsteps, Twitch turned to face the door. I hope I make you proud, Captain Maxwell… Dad.
Across the threshold stepped the surgeon, holding a stack of medical papers. Behind him came Mr. Pauley, the chief engineer; and two enlisted men. They were electrical strikers, by their patches. They had been running the telephone switchboard. Everyone was either bewildered or upset, and all of them were looking at Twitch.
Let the ga
mes begin, Twitch thought.
Chapter 39
For a tense moment, everyone sized Twitch up, and he sized them up in return.
Commander Sharpe had recovered his air of authority, so everyone was looking at him. He crossed his arms. “Do you want to tell us what this is all about before I take you to the brig, gunner’s mate?”
“Sir,” Twitch said. “Can we close the door?”
“Why?”
“Because the saboteur is in this room.”
At that statement, no one jumped to escape. Twitch had hoped someone might. That would have made this a lot easier. After a moment of consideration, Commander Sharpe gestured and Mr. Pauley closed the door.
Twitch turned to the surgeon. “Sir, what was your conclusion about Roogie’s cause of death?”
The surgeon frowned as if Twitch was being disrespectful to the dead, but answered, “Electrocution.”
“Why did you do the post mortem instead of Dr. Dobbs?” Twitch asked.
The surgeon glowered this time. “Dr. Dobbs was consumed with other matters.”
“Gunner’s Mate,” Sharpe said shortly. “I don’t know who you think you are, but if you have a point, get to it quickly.”
Twitch’s confidence was beginning to falter. He had all the suspects in one place, so it should just be a matter of shaking the right person the right way, but as they all stood before him, he was drawing a blank.
“What about a blow to the head?” Twitch guessed.
The surgeon nodded. “Yes. It wasn’t the cause of death, but he’d sustained a blow to the head. Probably when he fell.”
Okay that probably clears the surgeon. Twitch had long suspected that Roogie had actually been knocked unconscious and positioned so as to distract and mislead the investigation. If the surgeon had been the one who hit him, and the one to write the report, he would have omitted the mention of the blow to the head. The body was about to go overboard, so if he himself had been the saboteur, there would be no reason to mention potentially incriminating evidence.
So Commander Sharpe and the surgeon are clean. Two down, three to go.
“Mr. Pauley,” Twitch said. “The night we almost ran Kearsarge aground, what was the problem?”
“The gland nut had been torqued down,” Mr. Pauley answered sorrowfully. “We didn’t know that at first though. We thought—”
Twitch held up a hand, aware that he was greatly overstepping his nonexistent authority.
Commander Sharpe grabbed Twitch by the arm. “You’re going to the brig.”
“Sir,” Twitch said. “I didn’t torque down the gland nut.”
Sharpe stopped, looked Twitch in the eye. “Why would I believe that, gunner’s mate? You admitted to being the saboteur.”
“Sir,” Twitch pled, “You’ve got to let me finish. I admit I tried to run us aground. You know why I did it. You know I was afraid of using the Astra. So I cut the oil line, but—” Twitch emphasized. “I didn’t tighten the gland nut. I would have if I had thought of it, but it didn’t cross my mind.”
Everyone was staring at Twitch now. After a long moment, Sharpe released his arm.
“Answer his questions,” Sharpe said to the rest of the men in the room.
“So you think I did it?” Mr. Pauley asked Twitch, horrified. “You think I tried to hurt the Kearsarge?”
Damn it, Twitch thought. I’d swear everybody in this room is as honest as the day is long. But one of them has to be the saboteur!
There had to be a way to reason through this, but Twitch was afraid it was going to take too long. He needed the answer right now.
These men are the only ones who have the position, the knowledge, and the courage to do all the things that…
Wait. Courage? Twitch paused as his thoughts began to run a new direction.
Is it possible that I’m still looking at this inside out?
Every reasonable suspect was in the room right now. Yet Twitch felt certain the traitor was not among them. How could that be?
Unless…
Courage. Who was the last person anyone would ever suspect because he had no courage? Who was the sniveling little weasel who always ran for a corner, blaming someone else for his own mistakes all the way? A person like that couldn’t be expected to perform their own job properly, let alone mastermind the sabotage and surrender of a battleship on which he himself depended for survival.
Oh my God…
The saboteur had been hiding in plain sight all along. Twitch was talking aloud now.
“Who could have sabotaged the rudder and the dynamos? Who could have sabotaged the phones and the wireless telegraph, right as Captain Maxwell was telegraphing instructions to wake me up?”
“Sabotage?” Commander Sharpe said. “The phones were installed incorrectly.”
“Who told you that?” Twitch asked, getting angry with himself for not seeing it sooner. “Who told you that every goddamn time!”
Commander Sharpe narrowed his eyes, and Twitch saw the pieces begin to fall into place for him too.
Twitch added, “Who’s the only person who could have hit Roogie over the head and then positioned him to make it look like he’d been killed because he made a mistake with the dynamos?” Twitch drew a breath. “Because there’s one more thing. I didn’t kill Roogie. I’ve gone over it and over it in my head trying to figure out how my crossslink could have killed anyone. I was so careful not to get anyone hurt. When Roogie died, I assumed I must have made a terrible mistake, but I didn’t. The only way Roogie could have died was if someone came behind me and altered my work—and Roogie caught them at it.”
Mr. Pauley spoke. “Just like somebody came behind you and tightened the gland nut.”
Twitch felt a chill as he followed the logical train to its conclusion. “Oh no. Commander, I called everybody here except him, so I’ve alerted him that he’s about to be caught.”
Commander Sharpe tensed. “So whatever his last-ditch plan was, he’s working it right now.”
Only one person had known enough about the phone system to tell Commander Sharpe that it had been installed incorrectly. Only one person had known enough about the dynamos to rig them to kill: the sniveling chief electrician, Mr. Carr, who blamed everyone else for everything he did wrong.
Commander Sharpe dashed out of the cabin, scattering men like bowling pins.
“Commander, wait!” Twitch called, but it was too late, Sharpe was already gone. Twitch stood, on his own, finally. He was tired, sick, and weaker than he’d ever been, but the energy from the food was starting to kick in.
Twitch lurched around the desk, pushed off, and staggered across the room. The surgeon caught him as he fell towards the door.
“Where do you think you’re going, son?” the surgeon asked as he propped Twitch up.
“I’m going to the hold,” Twitch said, “And I need you to help me, sir.”
“The hold? Why…” The surgeon’s face whitened. “The cyanide,” he said. “You think the saboteur’s going to try to release it.”
“We can get there faster,” one of the switchboard operators said.
“No!” Twitch barked. “Keep everyone else away! It has to be me. You guys go find Commander Sharpe and tell him that wherever he’s looking, it’s the wrong place. Send him to the forward cargo hold.”
For once, finally, no one argued.
The old surgeon grabbed Twitch under the arms and hauled him towards the hold as fast as they could go.
W
Commander Sharpe burst through the doors into the starboard engine room. “Full stop!” He ordered. The huge triple expansion steam engine thundered away above him, its five ton piston and con rod assemblies whirling.
“Find Mr. Carr and stop whatever he’s doing!” Andrew boomed to the startled engineering crew, just as he had done in every compartment he’d passed through along the way. He pointed to the door between the starboard and port engine rooms. “If Mr. Ca
rr’s over there, do whatever is necessary to bring him down, and if he’s not, then check the port engine for any evidence of sabotage! And I ordered full stop! Move!”
Men scattered to obey. Sharpe ran around the engine looking from the bottom to as high as he could see. Startled engineer’s mates stumbled out of his way, but he couldn’t see anything on or around the engine that appeared out of the ordinary. Just moving, black iron mechanical components the size of barn doors, and young men covered with grease. Mr. Carr was nowhere to be seen, and as far as Andrew could tell, nobody else was trying to blow anything up.
Twitch was right, though, Andrew thought grimly. Mr Carr was the only logical culprit, though Andrew was still a bit shaky on how Twitch had put it all together. Plus, the fact that the telegraph had cut out right in the middle of Captain Maxwell’s warning message was too convenient to be coincidence.
Andrew ran up the ship’s ladder to the engine catwalk. “Out of the way,” he barked at a couple of engineer’s mates who were descending. They flattened themselves against the rail as he rushed past.
As Andrew scanned the spinning pieces of the engine, he realized that tightening the gland nut wasn’t a particularly brilliant or devious idea. It was just made devious by the fact that Twitch had already cut the oil line, creating the perfect red herring. Mr. Carr saw his opportunity and took it. That’s what Mr. Carr did. He sat back and let others take the blame. Let others go first. Let others take the pressure. That’s what he’d been doing to Twitch the entire voyage, and Andrew had stood idly by, letting him do it.
Andrew cursed his own blindness as he peered down at the multi-ton crank shaft. He should have suspected Mr. Carr from the beginning. He should have known. The entire ship was run by electricity. There were lights in every compartment, so the chief electrician was the only person aboard who could go anywhere on the ship, any time, day or night, without arousing suspicion. He was the perfect man for the job of saboteur.
Andrew scanned the innerworkings of the engine, stem inlet valves and steam expansion chambers. The valves clattered and hissed. He knew nothing about engines, but he knew basic explosives well enough, and he saw nothing that could be an explosive device.
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