The Hunter From the Woods (14 page)

She studied him for a moment with a number of sidelong glances. “There’s something strange about you,” she decided. And amended the word: “
Different
, I mean.” 

“Possibly so.” He wondered if she could sense the animal in his soul cage.

She stared out upon the sea. “I think,” she said, “you’re a gentleman pretending to be a roughneck.”

“That’s interesting.” Again he scanned the mists with his glasses. “I’ve always thought of myself as a roughneck pretending to be a gentleman.”

“You’re hiding something,” she said.

“Who isn’t?”

“What you’re hiding…isn’t like anyone else. It’s…” Marielle frowned. “Very deep,” she finished.

“Not so very deep,” Michael said, but he didn’t wish to say anything more.

She was silent for awhile. Michael suddenly wished she would go away, because he thought she could see more than she realized.

“Do you think I’m crippled?” she suddenly asked. “Is that why you told me the story about Vulcan? Because he was crippled, too?”

“I told you the story about Vulcan because I could see him working at his forge in the sky.”

“
No,
” she said, and abruptly she took a lurching step forward on her high shoe and the sixteen-year-old girl regarded him with the calm and knowing composure of a woman. “Herr Gallatin, I don’t ask anyone to feel sorry for me. I don’t want that, and I never have. I don’t really like being as I am. I don’t like the sound I make as I walk. I don’t like the attention it draws, because it’s always people feeling sorry for me. Either that, or laughing at me behind my back. But I can abide that, better than the other. I can’t stand looking into the faces of people and seeing what they’re thinking of me, that I’m a poor pitiful child who wears a heavy shoe and can never walk right and can never dance. But I never ask anyone to feel sorry for me, Herr Gallatin. And I saw that in your face the first time I looked at you. I see that in many faces aboard this ship. So, yes, I may be crippled and I may not wish to be around people very much, for just the reasons I’ve said, but…”

And here she hesitated, as if to draw up from her depths what she really had to say.

“Please,” she said, and in her eyes there gleamed the bright shine of tears, “do not cripple my dignity.”

He faced her directly. “I would never dream of such a thing,” he said. “I told you about Vulcan not because he was crippled, but because he knew pain. I think
you
know pain, Marielle. I think that’s what
you
hide, very deep. And I think you have to find a way to let it go, so you can forge a life.”

Her eyes were glassy. Her mouth twisted a bit. “What do
you
know of it?” she asked, in a bitter whisper.

How to answer such a question? he wondered. He realized she couldn’t see herself. She couldn’t see her potential for beauty, or for joy. She couldn’t see how lovely her eyes were, or how soft was her hair. She couldn’t see the German roses in her cheeks, or her own svelte slim body beneath the shapeless overcoat. She could only see the malformed leg and the heavy shoe that weighted her like an anchor to the earth. And of all the faces that held pity for her, no one held more pity than the face in the mirror.

A lookout shouted from the aft crow’s nest. Another shout replied, over on the starboard side.

The
Javelin
was coming. Michael had expected it from the port side. Even though he couldn’t see the warship, he realized from the crew’s warning shouts that it had crossed their stern and was probably even now swinging its guns toward the target.

Billy Bowers stood within calling distance. Michael said, “Billy! Come here! Get the girl below!”

Billy hurried over and, though Marielle recoiled in abject fear, he took her hand. “I won’t bite you!” he said. She resisted him and jerked free. She tried to stagger away, but she lost her balance and fell against the gunwale. “Damn it, girl! Hold
still
!” Billy told her, and then he scooped her up in his arms and nearly ran with her across the deck.

Michael strode to the starboard side. And there through the glistening mist, just barely visible, was the deadly silhouette of Manson Konnig’s
Javelin
.

It was too distant for any bullet from
Sofia
to reach. Michael saw flame gout from the forward cannon and heard the blast, and he realized with a sinking heart that in a few moments
Sofia
might well be reduced to a bucket of blood.

Water shot up just short of the hull. The crewmen with rifles were firing, as if it would do any good. The next shell from
Javelin
sizzled over the deck and spewed up water on the port side. Getting the range, Michael thought. Where the hell was Beauchene? As if he could do any good, either!

Michael cursed Valentine Vivian. One thing was certain: a wolf could drown as easily as a man.

The third shell hit
Sofia
amidships, just above the waterline. The shock may have been cushioned by a mattress, but who could say? A vibration rippled across the deck. Another shell cut a gash across the forward mast. And then both of
Javelin
’s guns began firing in rapid succession, and in a matter of seconds the shrieking projectiles slammed one after the other into
Sofia
’s hull, her deck and her superstructure.

The freighter heeled to port. Michael lost his footing and was thrown back against a capstan. He went down to his knees, and there felt what must have been another shell rush past him with a high-pitched whine and a smell of burned matches. Behind him, a lifeboat exploded into kindling. Something crashed against metal and screamed off into the air. He heard shells hitting like punches being thrown against human flesh. A figure stumbled past him, holding the bleeding stump of a right arm.
Sofia
pitched back and forth under the barrage, and when Michael looked toward the wheelhouse he saw holes being torn in the superstructure as if it were made of flimsy cardboard. More portholes exploded. The ship shuddered along her length, and still the shells continued to strike.

A lycanthrope could know horror. He knew it, when he saw the glass windshield of the wheelhouse blow inward from a direct hit.

Over the ear-blasting noise of shellfire and the rending of steel he heard a man screaming and did not know if it was his own voice or the voice of a comrade.

 He knew only that the ship’s wheel was most likely unmanned, or in the best case helmed by a Swede whose eyes had been cut to pieces by flying glass.

He got up off his knees and ran across the deck, which shivered like the spine of a kicked dog. He reached the staircase and climbed up, and as he climbed he saw the red flames spouting from
Javelin
’s guns and
Sofia
being torn apart below him.

On the bridge, the Russian radioman was fighting for control of the wheel. The Swede lay with a blood mask for a face and his throat sliced open. Medina had collapsed in his own pool of gore next to the engine order telegraph. Overhead, cables dangled down and electric sparks jumped. A fresh insult of rain swept through the opening where the windshield had been.
Sofia
, gone mad with pain, was turning herself starboard toward
Javelin
as if to end her agonies.

“I’ve got it!” Michael shouted, and he grasped the spokes of the glass-slashed wheel and wrenched it to port. How long did it take for the rudder to respond?
Sofia
went on, heedless of human hands. He thought the rudder must have been blasted away. Under his feet, the bloody planks jumped from the percussion of more shell hits. A hot sizzling thing, smoking like a comet, burst up from
Sofia
’s deck into the air.

Michael felt the rudder bite hold and the freighter begin to turn. He put his back into the wheel. The Russian radioman retreated to give him space. Fire suddenly rippled along the torn electrical cables above Michael’s head. Still the ship was turning, responding by slow inches. Waterspouts shot up on either side of
Sofia
and then through the rain that flew into his eyes Michael saw ahead of them a white mass that hid the sea.

A fogbank, he realized. He glanced at the engine telegraph. The pointer was set to
All Ahead Flank
, the fastest possible speed order. Medina must have rung it before the wheelhouse was hit. The bow was headed right into the fog. So be it, Michael thought.

And then:
Go, you bitch
!

Someone shoved him aside.

Gustave Beauchene, blood streaming from a wound on his forehead and his shirt and yellow rainslicker streaked with it, took charge of the wheel. He, too, had seen the fogbank. Shells crashed into
Sofia
’s stern. The thunder of cannonfire echoed across the sea. Michael smelled blood and gunpowder and the sweat of fear. “Get to the stern!” Beauchene shouted to the Russian. “Find whoever you can and start throwing the ropes and nets in our wake! Go,
now
!”

The Russian ran out and down the stairway. Michael realized Beauchene was desperately hoping something might foul
Javelin
’s props, because the warship was going to be right behind them.

Trembling,
Sofia
entered the fog.

It closed around the freighter like a huge cloud. In a matter of seconds, tendrils of fog drifted across the deck and visibility was cut to maybe twenty meters. The sound of the diesels pulsed against the white thickness. “
Allez
,
allez
!” Beauchene whispered, as blood ran down through the seams of his face to his chin.

In another moment he turned the wheel a few degrees to port. Then again to starboard. White fog swirled into the wheelhouse, the breath of ghosts. Michael went into Beauchene’s cabin and found a nasty oil-stained rag; he brought it out and gave it to the captain, who silently pressed it against the wound on his forehead.

Beauchene turned the wheel to port once more. He said, “Hold her steady,” and Michael took the helm. Beauchene rang up a change on the telegraph:
All Stop
.

The voices of the big diesels faded to a low rumble.

Then…there was only the hiss of the fog and the sea, the pained creaks of
Sofia
’s injured flesh and bones, and the noise of men calling to each other in the gloom.

Sofia
drifted.

Beauchene fetched a fire extinguisher from the radio room and sprayed out the overhead flames. His bloody face stared impassively at Michael Gallatin.

His voice was a dry croak. “I’m going to go find out the damage. If we’re sinking or not. I’m going to go find out how many men have just died. And
your
people may be dead, too. That may be for the best, for
them
. We can’t take another beating like that, do you understand?”

Michael answered, “I understand.”

“She’s been
hurt
,” said Beauchene, as if that explained everything.

Then the
Sofia
’s master, suddenly a very small and weary man, turned away and stumbled down the stairs where his bloody handprints stained the rail.

Eleven

The Specialist

Twelve men wounded, four severely. Five men dead, including the doctor when the infirmary was hit by two shells one nearly after the other. The pumps working at full capacity to fight the gushing leak near the stern until a patch could be welded in. Some electrical damage forward. Many new hull, deck and superstructure scars, though nothing critical. Damage to one of the engines due to running at flank speed, but thankfully the engineers vowed to repair it within six hours.

Darkness fell. The fog remained. All of
Sofia
’s lights were cut except for a few bulbs belowdecks. Shadows began to claim the ship.

“Not very fucking good,” was Beauchene’s report to the remainder of the crew in the mess hall. A bandage was plastered to his forehead, his eyes puffed with pain. “We’re alive and afloat, but when this fog clears we’re dead, plain and simple. We’ve got three lifeboats left. I’m telling you that anyone who wants to strike out on their own can go. You can take some food and water. If you’re going, dress warm and get out
now
. Maybe you’ll be picked up by another freighter and you’ll live to tell the tale. All right, then. God be with you.”

The three lifeboats stayed where they were.

The night moved on.

Crewmen stood watch in their fields of fog. They listened for the throb of engine noise, but if
Javelin
was out there she was gliding.

They had no doubt
Javelin
was out there.

Beauchene did have a plan, of sorts. Every so often he ordered the engine room to provide enough power to creep forward a few hundred meters, then
Sofia
was allowed to drift again. The intent was to keep the noise down, keep the bow aimed toward England, and maybe—maybe—get out on the other side of this fogbank before
Javelin
could find them. In the meantime, the radio jamming continued and no messages could get through.