In The Belly Of The Bloodhound (49 page)

“Hughie! Break it down! You can do it! I know you can!” I cry desperately. “Come down to the bottom of the stairs and take a run up and put your shoulder to it! Please, Hughie, try!”

He lumbers back down, turns, and charges up the stairs, and Hugh the Grand crashes through the top door as if it were made of straw.[_ Hooray, Hughie!_]

I go back down to look under the Stage. The girls are going through. Dolley and the Dianas are already gone. There goes Cathy, grabbing a bottle of water on her way out. Now Annie and Sylvie are guiding Rebecca through, now Sally, now…

There is another roar from outside. I can only imagine that Clarissa is playing her part well.

There go Caroline and Frances and Julia, and now Dorothea is bending down to light the fuse. It catches and I see her mouth working[_ one one hundred, two one hundred, three one hundred,_] and then she, too, is gone through the Rat Hole.

I look about me. I am the only one in the Hold of the[_ Bloodhound,_] and it is weirdly quiet, the only motion being the white rags hanging under the Stage, swaying slightly with the motion of the ship.

In the hurly-burly of getting the Plan in motion, there was no time for doubtful thoughts to creep into my mind and to sap my spirit, but because I am alone in the now-quiet Hold, such thoughts do come to me and my heart starts to pound and my knees start to shake. Oh,[_ to hell with it! The Plan will either work or it won’t and there’s no stopping now. We have everything to gain and nothing whatsoever to lose._]

Another cheer from outside. I go over to begin my climb up the tub rope.

Then I see the tub starting to lift.[_ Christ! I thought I’d have to climb the damned thing, but what the hell, I’ll take the ride._]

I run over to it, leap to catch the rope, swing my feet onto the edges of the hole, straighten up, and wait as I am cranked, legs trembling, into the blessed sunlight for what may well be my last fight on this earth. Or rather, on this sea. The absurdity of it strikes me: the knight-errant Lieutenant Jacky Faber, Royal Navy, sword in hand, being lifted up to the field of battle, riding not on noble steed, but on the lip of a chamber pot. It is somehow fitting.

When my feet are level with the hatch top, I step off onto it and blink for a moment as my eyes get used to the sunlight. I see Mick’s back, his hand still working the ratchet that lifted me up, his head turned, gazing aft. There is yet another cheer, but it is not for my grand entrance, oh no, it is not for me, and for once I don’t mind. The cheers are for Clarissa, and I see her there, seated on a bollard, languidly peeling off her second stocking and tossing it aside. Clarissa may be an aristocrat, but right now she is showing a part of her that is pure pagan temptress. There is not a single pair of eyes on me, or anywhere else, for that matter.

Clarissa Worthington Howe rises to her feet, arches her back, and puts her hands on the hem of her undershirt. Then she slowly, slowly pulls it up. The crew sucks in a common breath.

I look back at the lifeboat. I see Dorothea getting in, her lips moving in her careful count. I turn back to face the crowd and draw my sword. I hear the soft sound of Katy’s bare feet on the hatch top as she comes up on my right side.

Then Chrissy comes up on my left. Both of them have arrows nocked and ready.

Clarissa puts her hands on the waistband of her drawers and slowly, slowly pulls them down, and then off.

“Fifty!”
comes the call from Dorothea.[_ “Fifty-one…fifty-two…”_]

“Clarissa! Now!” I shout and there is a pink-and-white blond blur as she leaps up and dashes past me on her way to the lifeboat. All heads turn to watch her go and their gaze falls on me.

“What the hell?” is the most common of the expressions of surprise. “The girls are out!”

“Listen to me! All of you!” I shout. “There is a fuse right now burning down in the powder magazine! Lift your noses and perhaps you can smell the burning powder…”

“Fifty-three…fifty-four…”

“It is a timed fuse, and when that girl gets to one hundred, the powder’s gonna blow the guts out of this ship and send it straight to the bottom!”

“Like hell it will,” says Bo’sun Chubbuck, swinging his club as he comes for me.

He doesn’t reach me, however, for Katy’s bow twangs and she puts an arrow in his throat and another quickly follows into his belly. He doesn’t seem to notice that one so much as the one in his neck, which he bats at as if it were a bothersome bee instead of what will be the end of his life.

“...[_ fifty-five…fifty-six…”_]

The crowd seems stunned into inaction. Then the Mate Dunphy gathers up his courage and says, “I’ll get that damned fuse!” and he would easily have done it, I’m sure,

since he had a good forty seconds to get down below and pull it, if Chrissy hadn’t stopped him with a shaft in his side as he tried to run past her. She did it as coolly as if she were setting out plates for a tea party for her dollies. Katy and her girls have been practicing shooting and reloading and they can do it with amazing speed. When Dunphy pitches over and falls to the deck, Christina King of the Beacon Hill Kings puts another arrow in his chest.

“...fifty-seven…fifty-eight…”

“Sailors!” I cry out to the stunned crew. “You may yet save your lives! You have time to get in that lifeboat there! You have no weapons, you cannot take us! The Captain was going to kill you anyway, you know that! Why try to save him and his lousy ship?”

“...fifty-nine…sixty…”

I see Mick down below me, looking up all stupid. “Go, Mick! Keefe! Run! Save yourselves!”

“[_ …sixty-one…”_]

That does it. Those two break and run for the boat and the rest of the crew follows them, frantic to get off the ship. The first ones there let loose the davit lines and the boat plunges down and men pile in, crawling over each other in their haste. I’m sure there were some who thought to get in our boat, but the sight of Rose, Hermione, and Minerva with drawn bows and arrows pointed right at them made them reconsider and flee back to the boat we had provided for them. I look around and see that there is one sailor, Carruthers, I think, kneeling on the deck, blood running out of his neck and over his hands. I look in the boat, where delicate little Julia Winslow sits with a strange expression on her face and a jagged, bloody, broken bottle in her hand.

I turn back to check the action on the quarterdeck.[_ “...sixty-two…”_]

“This is not happening,” says the Captain, shaking in rage and disbelief. All this time, he has been standing there, stock-still. Then he runs down into his cabin.

What? Does he think that will save him?

“Katy. Chrissy. Get back to the boat. Help your other Dianas cover the retreat.”

“...sixty-four…sixty-five…”

They immediately turn and go and I’m about to follow them, when a purple-sleeved arm goes around my neck and a pistol is pressed against my ear. My heart sinks. It is Sin-Kay. I hadn’t counted on him doing anything in the fracas, but he had been hanging back, waiting for his chance, and I guess he found it and I am that chance. I am held fast.

“You scheming bitch. You think you have triumphed, but you have not,” he hisses in my other ear. “We are going over to that boat. You are going to tell those girls to drop their weapons. We will then get in that boat and we will sail away.[_ I will not lose my cargo!”_] He grinds the barrel hard into my temple. “Do you hear? Now move!”

I’m trying to get my sword around on him, but I can’t.[_ I can’t—he’s_] holding me too close—and he begins to shove me toward the boat, then…

“What? Hurt Mary? Mister hurt Mary?” cries Hughie.

Uh-oh…
Hughie has gotten out of the boat and is coming toward us, pointing at Sin-Kay. “No, Mister, don’t hurt Mary. Stop, Mister…”

“Get the hell away from me, you idiot, damn you!” yells Sin-Kay, but Hughie doesn’t get the hell away. What he does is clamp his massive paw around Sin-Kay’s neck and rips him off me. As I spin away, Hughie wraps his arms around Sin-Kay’s, pinning his arms to his sides.

“...[_ seventy-two…seventy-three…”_]

The pistol fires, and Hughie jerks. A strange look comes over his face, a look of bewilderment that changes quickly to anger. Hughie squeezes, his left hand grasping the wrist of his right. Sin-Kay gasps, his breath gone, his face swells, his eyes bulge. Hughie squeezes harder.

Then there is a sickening[_ pop._]

I know it is the sound of Sin-Kay’s lower spine snapping. “Hughie! Get back to the boat!” I plead, shaking him by the shoulder. “Go now, Mister’s done!”

Confused, Hughie steps back, releasing his hold. Sin-Kay slumps to the deck, his legs flop around, all useless now. And—Oh, Lord—there is a spreading red stain on the front of Hughie’s shirt. I choke down a sob and shove him back toward the boat. He goes.

“...[_ seventy-eight…seventy-nine…”_]

Sin-Kay raises his torso by pushing up with his hands. Sheer terror is writ large on his face, as he knows full well that he is now a dead man.

“Enjoy your time in Hell,[_ Jerome.”_] I sneer down at him, and staying well clear of the clutch of his hands, I turn to go to the boat. I wish I could be more gracious in victory, but I can’t.

On my way over the hatch top, I see that the crew’s boat is filled to overflowing, and,[_ wonder of wonders,
] there’s Nettles, staggering out of the hatch, holding his head and moaning. We didn’t kill him after all—the scumbag just went into a coma and he woke up just in time.[
Glory be…_]

He lurches forward and falls into the boat, just as it pulls away from the side.

“...[_ eighty-one…eighty-two…”_]

Time to go.[_ Farewell,_] Bloodhound.

I see that Hughie has gotten the boat down to the water, and I’m almost to it, when I find that things ain’t over yet. Captain Blodgett has come out of his cabin, and aside from a crazed look on his face, he bears two pistols in his hands.

Uh-oh…

“Katy, get your girls in! Cathy, pull away and lay off! Pick me up in the water! Do it, now!”

Katy sends me a sharp look, but she follows orders, and I turn to confront the Captain.

“...[_ eighty-six…eighty-seven…”_]

There’s still time for him to get down and pull the fuse, and I can’t let him do that. I run back over the hatch to face him and he levels a pistol at me and fires. I fall on my back and the bullet whizzes harmlessly across my chest. I drop my sword and roll over and over across the deck. He fires again, and again he misses, for it’s hard to hit a moving target, no matter how close. Seeing me down, he lunges for the hatchway.

I scoop up Persephone and beat him to it, holding the point of the sword next to his neck.

“Whip me, will you?” I say as I thrust, but he brings his heavier sword up and deflects it.

“...[_ ninety-two…ninety-three…Jacky, come on!...ninety-four…”_]

Captain Blodgett knows he has no more chance at getting at the fuse. All he wants to do now is kill me, the cause of his ruin. He snarls and raises his sabre and comes at me. I crouch down and assume Position Four and wait for it. When he brings his sword down, I drop the tip of mine and entangle his blade in an envelopment parry, ending up in Position Six.

...[_ ninety-six…ninety-seven…”_]

He recovers, pulls back, and thrusts, in Four. I try a beat parry by knocking his blade to the side, but I don’t have the strength to do it, so I don’t knock it out of the way far enough. The point of his sabre goes into my left thigh, high up.

Yeeow! Damn!

I fall back, clutching my leg.[_ Son of a bitch!_]

“...ninety-eight…ninety-nine…”

I’ve had enough.

“You’ve won this duel, Captain, but you have not won the war. Now, witness your judgement!”

“...[_ one hundred!”_]

With that, I dash to the side and dive over, leaving the astounded Captain Blodgett looking helplessly after me.

The explosion comes as a tremendous, dead[_ thump!
] when I am in midair, and after I penetrate the warm, clear, blue-green waters of the lower Atlantic, I open my eyes and look back upon the death throes of the[
Bloodhound._]

The blast had opened up the middle, and the ship was already headed down. Even in the space of one held breath, I saw the nose go under and then the stern and then the entire ship.

Go down,
Bloodhound,[_ you vile and filthy thing, go down. Go down, you purveyor of human flesh, you destroyer of men’s_]

souls, go down, go down, oh yes, go down to the very depths of Hell, itself Go down…

It is strangely quiet now, down here under the waves, after the tumult of the past few minutes. Strange, too, is the aspect of the[_ Bloodhound_] as it sails down to its watery grave, for sail down it does, all its rigging and sails perfectly set as it goes farther and farther down into the deep blue-green sea, leaving a trail of oddly beautiful sparkling bubbles as its last wake.

It leaves some other things as well. I see Sin-Kay, clear as day, holding his breath and trying to claw his way back to the surface with his still-good arms. And I see as well a layer of dark and sinister shapes down below the fast-disappearing[_ Bloodhound,_] a layer of gray that begins to move and separate and become the individual, massive sharks that follow ships like these for whatever they can pick up. They come up to feed.

Sin-Kay almost makes it to the surface before one of the brutes, which has got to be twenty feet long, comes up and goes at him. Considering the shape he’s in, I don’t know if he can feel anything when the first shark takes off his leg…Maybe not, but I guess we’ll never know that. The second one takes off his right arm, and then another cuts him off at the waist, and from then on it is all just guts and plumes of blood in the water. The last thing I see is his face, which bears that look of complete and total surprise that many men wear when the unthinkable, their own end, becomes certain.

Captain Blodgett fares no better. He struggles, but the sharks, now in a frenzy, take him apart piece by piece, and then turn to the still forms of Dunphy and Chubbuck and Carruthers, floating arms-and-legs out, like leaves in a gentle breeze, putting up no fight at all.