SV - 03 - Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments (33 page)

'Very clever! The
Hero
takes our mast-lights for the Wolf
Rock and the green lights as the place for Admiralty manoeuvres! They ain't to know, in the dark, that the whole set has been moved a few hundred yards to the left! She'll be doing full speed between them green markers, slice her clean as an apple! Honest Jack ain't missed a trick on this bloody caper!'

'There's always compasses,' said Samson hopefully. 'They'll check the course by 'em perhaps.'

'When they can see the lights, Mr Samson? A compass has to be set and it don't always stay true. After I heard of Mr Richard Jervis' adventure, I read the old report on the
Birkenhead.
It was compasses that did for her. Not being true, they drove her straight on to the reef. If her officers had used their eyes, they might all a-been safe. In a night like this, Mr Samson, a good sailor uses his eyes first and his compasses next.'

They lay on the coal, faces close to the porthole, watching the glimmer of red and green lights on the shifting waves.

'I keep thinking, Mr Samson. She'll be full ahead on both her engines. When they see that dark iron tower ahead of them, it'll be too late. And I keep thinking of the last minutes and the uproar, the brave men going down, sucked under by the ship sinking. And I keep thinking that one of them is otherwise to be King of England in his time.'

'Thinking might kill a cat, old son,' said Samson gloomily, 'but you ain't going to think your way out of here. They won't even open that door until it's all over and they come to blow us to Kingdom Come. You might let the boilers go out now, for all they care. When they've coopered us, their own men can stoke 'em up quick enough.'

Verity nodded, as though all this were entirely reasonable. He said,

'I ain't a man that enjoys thinking to no purpose, Mr Samson. P'raps I've thought my way out of here and p'raps I haven't. What I ain't going to do is sit here like the patience of Job and watch it all happen out there. There ain't nothing promised, but if you was to do as I say, we might have a fighting chance.'

'And what
do
you say?' Samson asked doubtfully.

Verity slithered down the heap of coal and picked himself up.

'They got coal enough to get 'em back to Plymouth, Mr Samson. So we may as well lend 'em a hand and start shovelling it in.'

'You ain't going to 'elp the bastards?'

'Do as I do, Mr Samson, and have the goodness not to argue.'

Verity paused a moment, shovel in hand. The two sergeants looked at one another. Across the surface of the darkened sea, as though from a great distance, came a strong insistent rhythm. Its dulled regularity sounded like the deep and powerful beat of a heart. They scrambled to the porthole once more and peered into the night. What they saw was so far away that it appeared to be almost beyond the First slight curvature of the horizon. But there was no mistaking the pattern of sound and the cluster of riding-lights as the great ship, with the Prince on board, churned towards them in her remote thunder of engines.

15

Without another word, Verity took his shovel, reversed his grip and forced open the porthole with a single blow of the handle. In the starless night, the dark water rippled and ran along the hull less than twelve inches below the little opening. To Samson's bewilderment, he loaded the shovel with as much coal as he could balance on it and shot the contents through the porthole. The black nuggets, varying in size from a clenched fist to a full brick, fell into the sea with a scattered and prolonged splash. Working with a sudden desperation, he loaded the shovel and repeated the procedure.

'Buckle to, Mr Samson! If we want to get out of 'ere, we must make 'em open that door and come down to settle with us! There ain't no surer way than by letting them see their precious coal going to the bottom! If they wait till the 'ero's done for, there won't be a lump left! Fancy 'em stuck eighty miles out from Plymouth and being carried further and further to sea when the tide alters again!'

Samson said nothing, but the perfect simplicity of the idea was beyond question. Taking the second shovel, he opened the porthole of the other bunker and began shooting coal into the dark water in a long and vigorous slinging gesture.

'Kick up a row, Mr Samson! Let 'em see what we're doing.'

'Slap! Bang!' roared Samson, "ere we are again! 'ere we are again! 'ere we are again! Slap! Bang! 'ere we are again! What jolly dogs are we!'

'That's it, Mr Samson! Let 'em think we're half seas over! It'll help to take 'em off guard!'

The coal was now falling into the sea with a rythmic splashing, first on one side and then the other. As he worked, the perspiration on his body icy cold in the night breeze from the open porthole, Verity heard the first sounds from the deck. There were voices in puzzled exchange, then a shout, and footsteps as someone strode towards the companionway.

"alf a minute more, Mr Samson! Keep shovelling while I get ready for 'em! When you hear the bolts go back, come and stand between me and them!'

Samson had hardly time to sling two more loads of coal into the sea before there were voices at the stoke-hold door and the tiny metallic scratching of the bolts being furtively eased back. Verity was in the act of driving his shovel into the glowing coals of the furnace when the iron door of the little hold was wrenched back. In the shadowy glare of the fire he half saw and half guessed the fate which Ransome had prepared for them.

'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 i
nstinct was right, the air was f
illed 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 r
attled and shifted in the dark
ness.
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 warn
ingly.

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.