Craddock (9 page)

Read Craddock Online

Authors: Paul Finch,Neil Jackson

BOOK: Craddock
9.05Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“
Let’s keep moving.”
They reached the top of another companionway. The light of their lanterns filtered down it, showing what looked like piles of sacked goods.
“
That could be the orlop-deck down there,” Craddock said. “We’re not too far above the hold, I shouldn’t think.”
“
Be a good place for him to hide, I suppose,” the constable muttered. “The very bottom of the ship.”
“
My thoughts too. Come along.”
They descended slowly, acutely aware of how loud their feet sounded on the treads. Each thudding impact echoed and re-echoed.
It seemed to take an age before they were on level decking again. This was a far more spacious area than the cell-passages they’d explored above; in fact it was cavernous. As the major had suspected, it
was
the orlop-deck – in other words the deck that ‘overlapped’ the hold. The sacked goods they’d spied had apparently been abandoned down here. There were great heaps of them, with only narrow aisles passing between.
“
What is all this stuff?” Palmer wondered. “Why hasn’t it been taken away?”
The major shook his head, then said: “Put your lamp down.”
“
Sir?”
“
Do as I say, Palmer. No need to make ourselves easier targets than we already are.” Craddock placed his own lantern near the foot of the stairway. “Leave it here. We can see enough to look around.”
The constable did as he was told.
The major wasn’t quite sure why this particular part of the ship made him more nervous than any other, but his soldierly sixth sense had put him on guard. The vastness of the room – the fact that they would be sitting-targets once they were out in the middle of it – was unsettling, but in addition to that, a bulkhead door stood open at the far side. There was nothing unusual in that perhaps, but briefly, for an hallucinatory half-second, he imagined he’d seen a flicker of green light in the darkness beyond it.
As they prowled forwards, Craddock watched for this again, his eyes straining to penetrate the gloom. For a feverishly intense moment, he almost convinced himself he could see someone lurking there; he visualised a misshapen body, large and twisted limbs. Then he realised that he was letting his nerves run away with him, and he made a conscious effort to relax.
And that was when someone
did
appear in the doorway.
It was the figure of a man, suddenly silhouetted on a glaring green background.
He’d come from nowhere, at startling speed. Though both officers were alert, they were taken by surprise. He’d appeared in the blinking of an eye – and had begun to fire.
He was equipped with two pistols, both of which roared repeatedly, the gun-flashes blinding in their brilliance. Though Craddock and Palmer returned fire, their assailant had already got off four or five rounds. Had he been shooting directly at them, he’d have killed them both. As it was, he appeared to have taken aim at the heaps of bulging sacks, which now burst open, spraying their contents into the air. The next thing Craddock and Palmer knew, they were engulfed in clouds of choking, yellowish dust.
“
What the hell!” the constable coughed, his voice cracking. “Can’t see nothing, sir …”
Craddock didn’t answer. He fell to a crouch, using his left hand to draw his scarf up over his nose and mouth, and, with his right, taking careful aim. No clear target was now visible, but he pumped four rapid shots through the spreading murk.
“
G-God!” Palmer stammered. He’d emptied one barrel of his shotgun, but the weapon now hung from his finger by its trigger-guard while he wafted at the polluted air. “I can’t … I can’t breathe!” he screamed.
“
Don’t panic, Palmer, it’s only brimstone.” Craddock tried to grab him by the collar and yank him down.
But it was a futile effort. The constable blundered forwards, gagging for breath.
“
For Christ’s sake,” Craddock yelled. “Get back here! It’s nothing dangerous, it’s used for fumigation. Every ship has it!”
Palmer wasn’t listening. Nor was he looking. He never even noticed the open hatchway in the deck until he’d fallen through it.
Craddock cursed. He quickly reloaded his revolver, then went on the offensive, standing up and bullocking his way through the yellow fog towards the bulkhead door, blasting round after round at it. The brimstone was starting to settle, and finally the major was able to see that he was shooting at nothing. The green light had disappeared, as had the gunman who’d emerged from it. Craddock moved to the hatchway, and peered down.
Twelve feet below, Palmer was lying sprawled on what looked like a bed of raked earth. Whether dead or alive, it was impossible to tell.
“
Palmer! Palmer … you alright?”
The prone figure didn’t respond, but someone else did. Another shot was fired at the major, this one from below. He ducked back as the bullet zipped past him, but caught a fleeting glimpse of a bulky shape emerging from the shadows beside the unconscious constable, grabbing him by the collar and hauling him away.
“
You criminal lunatic!” Craddock bellowed down. He took aim with his revolver, but didn’t dare fire for fear of hitting his own man; both figures swiftly vanished from view. “What the devil do you think you’re playing at? For God’s sake, give it up!”
The only reply was a distant, hollow laugh.

 

Munro was vaguely aware that, somewhere close by, shots had been fired, but he was in no fit state to work out what this meant. He fancied he was being carried through a series of black, creaking corridors. When he was finally flung down, he simply lay there. Lamplight swum over him, but he could still hardly move. There was a dull throb in his back, and his head was spinning.
“
Now, I ain’t got nothing against peelers,” he heard Kenton say, “’cept at Hyde Park back in ’62, when I fair got my head stove in. But if I had a mind to, I could put a bullet through you right now and there’d be no-one the wiser. George says how he doesn’t need you. That’s the only thing I’m here for – to keep you off his back. You can have that easy, or hard. It’s up to you. For now, though, you’re staying here. You keep your head down, and I reckon you might get by. But any trouble, and I do you no problem.”
There was a momentary silence, then a clumping of feet. The light slowly receded. Munro caught a vague impression of the hussar ascending a three-tread stairway, then vanishing behind a flap of loose material.
The detective’s senses were slowly trickling back into place, but only after several minutes was he able to prop himself up on one elbow and look around. Kenton’s light was still visible through the hanging material, which was apparently gauze or netting. Kenton could also be seen, standing guard out there. Munro felt at his armpit-holster; it was empty. He glanced from side to side, his eyes attuning to the dark.
The cabin he was in was small and low-roofed even by the standards of the others he’d seen. There was a second doorway in it. This stood open, but Munro couldn’t imagine it led anywhere, or else he’d never have been left here in the first place. All the same, he took another minute to regain his strength, then rolled over onto his stomach, gritted his teeth – at least two of his ribs felt broken – and began to slither forwards, finally working his way into the next room. The light didn’t penetrate that far, which meant that at first he couldn’t see much. Gradually however, its dimensions took shape; it was much the same size as the previous one, but there was something different in here, an odour. It was rank, eggy, sulphurous.
Slowly, a chain of thoughts connected.
Sulphur, the gauze curtain over the doorway …
The truth dawned.
Munro rose to his knees, so quickly that pain lanced through him and he had to double over. Despite this, it was a struggle to suppress his excitement. These twin-rooms must once have formed the ship’s magazine. The gauze-curtain would have been kept sodden to reduce the danger of fire; the sulphurous smell was a left-over from the powder kegs that had been stored here.
He wasn’t sure how much of a chance this gave him, but he rose to his feet and began to search around properly, first in the second room, then back in the other one. Both were strewn with pieces of string and sacking; items once probably used to pack and bind cartridges. There were also, as he’d hoped, small traces of spilled powder. He began to scrape as much of this together as he could, though even after several minutes there was only a negligible amount. In addition, it was damp. When Munro had served under Major Craddock in the army, it had been in the 14th Light Dragoons as a cavalry subaltern. On occasion they’d handled explosives, but not to the extent that he’d learned the chemistry of such materials. He didn’t know how much of it he’d need, nor whether its dampness would hinder him. But he knew he had to try.
He tapped at the pocket of his greatcoat, and was relieved to find that he still had his box of matches. He now worked more quickly, depositing all the powder he could in a small mound at the foot of the entrance stairway. So doing, he stepped too eagerly on a loose board, which gave a squeal of protest. Swiftly, he slumped down against the nearest wall. There was a rustle of cloth, and Kenton stuck his head around the gauze. He registered that Munro was conscious, and frowned.
“
You can have another kicking, if you want,” he said.
Munro shook his head, a seemingly broken man.
Kenton glared at him, wondering perhaps if there was more here than met the eye. He indicated the guarded hilt of his sabre and the grip of Munro’s revolver, which he’d tucked into the belt beside it. “On top of this lot, of course,” he said, producing the carbine, “I’ve got this here man-stopper. So don’t be thinking about anything heroic.”
Again, the prisoner shook his head. Kenton withdrew behind the curtain. There was a
thud
as he placed his lantern down.
Munro let several minutes pass before he went back into action. By his reckoning, a relatively small charge at the foot of the stair would devastate the entire doorway, and anyone standing behind the net-gauze would take the brunt. The thought that it might actually kill that person wasn’t pleasant, especially as Kenton had spared Munro’s life. But there was no possibility of sitting here and letting things take their natural course.
The powder was now heaped several inches deep. Munro still wasn’t sure how volatile such a quantity
would
prove to be, if it was volatile at all, but the only way to find out was to light it, and he began to assemble a fuse: he took four matches, bound them end to end with pieces of string, then slid forwards on his knees and placed it with one end at the top of the mound, resting at an angle. The lower end he lit, before backing away across the room. When he reached the door to the adjoining chamber, he halted. Agonisingly slow moments passed as the tiny flame spread. It was creeping uphill so it should continue to burn, but
would
it? The fuse was crooked; the air in here saturated.
Munro watched tensely, but, despite all his misgivings, the flame made gradual progress. At any time over the next minute it might reach the powder. He retreated into the next room, where he sought out the furthest corner and crouched down.
And then something odd. Something totally unexpected.
Beyond the curtain Kenton began to talk, as though to challenge someone. But it wasn’t his normal threatening tone. It was in a quavering, high-pitched voice.
“
You … hey, I said you!” he bleated. “What are you doing there? Who … hey, keep back … oh,
oh Jesus!
”
So shrill was this final shout that Munro moved back to the connecting doorway to stare at the curtain. It had been torn aside and Kenton stood there, a black silhouette on the light of his lantern. His back was turned, his carbine clearly aimed at someone. “Get away!” he squealed.
“Get away, I said!”
Then the burly hussar – who didn’t believe anything unless he saw it for himself – spun around and faced Munro, and in the small, wavering light, his face was a picture of horror, the skin taut around his bulging eyes and obscenely gaping mouth …
And then the powder blew.
Directly below him.
The flash came first, then the
roar
as the charge detonated. A wall of force hit Munro like a battering ram. He was thrown violently backwards into the second chamber, only one image etched on his mind: Corporal Kenton catapulted up against the ceiling, arms and legs flailing, then rebounding downwards, a limp, twisted thing made from tatters and smoke.

 

When Craddock heard the dull
crump
of the blast, he was down on the ‘Carpenter’s Walk’, a special gangway that ran along the inner skin of the hull at roughly the level of the waterline. Its original purpose had been so that crewmen might attend quickly to breaches caused by enemy cannon fire, though Craddock was using it to access the hold below. The sound of the explosion stopped him in his tracks. It was faint and muffled, but a violent shudder accompanied it and passed through the entire frame of the ship.

Other books

Kept by Bradley, Sally
Tasty by Bella Cruise
Nothing is Forever by Grace Thompson
Armada by Stack, John
A Different Trade by J. R. Roberts