Down: Trilogy Box Set (68 page)

“How much are builders worth, Mr. Fletcher?” the captain said.

“A couple of crowns ordinarily. But I’d expect some sort of premium for their novelty.”

“Take it out of my percentage then,” the captain said, lifting the tip of his sword and running it through Eddie’s chest.

“No!” Charlie screamed as Eddie collapsed to his knees.

Martin scrambled to help him but the blood gushed so violently from his pierced heart that he was gone in seconds.

Tracy howled in hysteria and the captain’s men restrained a raging Charlie. The captain pushed Martin aside and inspected Eddie’s lifeless body.

“It seems he was indeed, alive and that he is now, indeed dead,” he said. “In the span of mere minutes I have seen two things I have not seen even once in all my time in Hell—men who are alive and a man who can be killed.”

John and the others debated how best to travel to Greenwich but they all decided to defer to his judgment. It was John’s opinion that an overland journey would require at least two horses with tack and enough weapons to fight their way through any situations they might encounter in the towns and villages along the route. Dirk agreed, his white-knuckle ride with John through Thamesmead still fresh in his mind. That left a river passage. It wouldn’t be without its own challenges but, if successful, was bound to be quicker.

“What do you think?” John asked Dirk.

“I can tell you this,” Dirk said. “There’s been a steady procession of sailing ships coming up from the estuary this past fortnight, but they don’t stop ’ere, do they? They sail right past.”

“Heading where?”

“London, I expect, or the palace at ’ampton.”

“Soldiers?”

“Definitely, I’d say. ’Enry’s men.”

John told everyone they were probably coming from Francia. He recounted the last time he saw King Henry, raging upon his black horse, exhorting his troops in the desperate midst of a battlefield rout at the hands of the Italians.

“Did he survive it?” Brian asked.

“I don’t know,” John said.

“I’d love to meet the man,” Brian said. “Can you imagine?”

“It’s quite the experience, but I don’t think he’ll be best pleased to see me again,” John said.

“So how do we manage to capture a passing boat?” Trevor asked.

They discussed several tactical options, none of which sounded very practical until Emily, who’d been quiet, announced, “I know exactly how we can do it.”

Before trekking to the river they stopped at Alfred Carpenter’s empty house opposite the road from Dirk and Duck’s place. Dirk and Duck stood guard outside while the rest of them made entry. Brian immediately spotted an object of desire, a rusty sword, short and heavy.

“This’ll do nicely,” he said, testing it in his hand. “It’s a Roman design, a gladius, nicely balanced. I can get a good edge on this with a bit of elbow grease.”

Before leaving, they added some knives and another club to their armamentarium and headed for the river, two miles away across marshlands. There were no boats in sight so Brian got to work, finding flat river stones and teaching Trevor how to hone the knives, wetting the stones with spittle. Then he began working on the sword under the shade of a small grove of trees.

Dirk and Duck squatted on the bank, tossing stones into the murky current like a couple of kids at play while Emily and John sat back, watching the hawks ply their trade in the lifeless, pale gray sky.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “we’ll find them.”

“God I hope so.”

“We’re less than a week behind them. It’ll be okay.”

“You’ll like Arabel.”

“How come I never met her?”

“It was only a matter of time,” she said. “You haven’t met my parents either.”

“You think they’ll approve?”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“Completely wrong pedigree. One, I’m not a Brit. Two, I’m not a scientist. Three, I’m a soldier. Four …”

“Four, I’m in love with you. That’s all they’ll need to know, plus all the mad heroic bits which we may or may not ever be permitted to speak about.”

“Trevor’s a soldier too. They’ll have a double-whammy if he hooks up with Arabel.”

“They’d do well to have both of you in the Loughty clan.”

Dirk whistled for their attention. He pointed toward the east. A boat was approaching fast, its sails full of the afternoon breeze.

Brian came over and told them, “It’s a river barge, about forty feet, flat-bottomed I’d be willing to bet to allow navigability in channels. Rigged with a mainmast and a mizzenmast. No cannon I can see. It was a typical late eighteenth century, nineteenth century design. Not a naval vessel but perfectly fine for ferrying provisions about.”

“Is there anything you don’t know about?” John asked.

Brian beamed. “Glad you brought me then?”

“I am.”

“So am I,” Emily said.

“I’d dearly love to have a spyglass,” Brian said, “but I don’t think I see many men on the deck.”

Trevor drew closer. “There could be men below,” he said.

“Doubt it,” Brian said. “The hull’s going to be too flat for that. Those what we see is those what we’ve got.”

“Right, then,” Emily said, standing. “It’s show time. I do hope I don’t go to Hell for this.”

“Already there, luv,” Brian said.

Dirk and Duck watched awestruck as she shed her denim jacket and undid the wooden buttons on her blouse. They whispered to each other when she stripped down to her cotton bra.

“Sorry boys,” she said. “That’s as far as I’m going.”

John told the brothers to join them hiding behind trees as Emily, clad only in her bra and hip hugging khakis, went to the river’s edge.

When the barge was a hundred yards away, she began waving at it and calling out. At first there was no reaction but suddenly, shouts emanated from the vessel and the tillerman jerked a change of course hard to port.

Emily held her ground and continued to wave as the barge steered directly for her.

“I make it seven men,” John said.

“I agree,” Brian said.

“What are those, pikes?” Trevor asked, pointing at a couple of long objects upright at the stern.

“More likely barge poles for maneuvering in the shallows,” Brian said. “But at least a couple of blokes have swords on their belts. They’re probably guards to protect the cargo. I doubt we’ll have seven soldier-types to contend with.”

“All right,” John said, twisting his torso to test the pain and mobility around his flank wound. “Get ready to fight.”

Dirk took a step back. “You do that. We’ll just keep an eye on Miss Emily.”

“You do all the looking you want but that’s all you’re going to do,” John warned.

As the barge approached land, the men on board reached a fever pitch of excitement at the sight of a partially clad blonde siren waving them to the shore. She began backing up when a man jumped overboard and splashed toward her, anxious to beat his mates to the prize. A few sailors had the presence of mind to drop sail as the boat beached. Five men were soon in the water. That’s when Emily began to move fast. She ran straight for the grove and kept going into the tall bulrushes.

John saw Brian cross himself and tighten his grip on the sword. Trevor and he would have to make do with clubs and if those failed, knives.

“Brian, I never asked you,” John whispered, preparing to rise from his crouch, “have you ever killed anyone?”

Brian stood and said, “I’ve never even drawn blood, mate.”

“First time for everything,” Trevor said, straightening himself and taking a last deep breath before combat.

As the men approached the grove John stepped out from behind a tree, brandishing his club like a baseball bat. Brian joined him, a knife in one hand, the sword in the other, and Trevor circled around the grove to flank them.

One of the men cried it was a trap. He stopped in his tracks and he and two other soldiers drew swords. The other two appeared to be unarmed and began running back to the barge.

“Trev, you’re going to have to stop them from sailing away,” John shouted.

One of the soldiers, a ruddy-complexioned man, charged at John with an upraised sword but Brian stepped in front of him, shouting “action,” as if the only way he could get ready to fight was with a director’s cue ringing in his ear. The two other soldiers were holding back so John paused to see how Brian acquitted himself.

There was a single clang of metal upon metal and then unexpectedly the soldier stopped fighting. John saw why. Brian’s knife hand was red and blood was oozing from the soldier’s chest. The man gasped loudly a few times and collapsed in a heap.

Brian looked stunned.

John shouted at the two other swordsmen who looked no older than Dirk and Duck, “You want some of that, boys, just keep on coming. Otherwise throw down your swords and we’ll let you walk away.”

As the soldiers contemplated their next move, Trevor was making contact with the two unarmed men fleeing toward the boat, swinging at them with his club and shouting at them to halt. In a panic they complied and begged him not to hit them any more.

“Off you go then,” Trevor instructed. “Run along the bank in the direction you came from and I’ll stop thumping you, all right?”

They ran off, looking frantically over their shoulders to make sure he wasn’t following.

Meanwhile, the swordsmen also thought better of fighting and tossed their weapons to the grass and fled, quickly catching up with their comrades.

The two sailors on the barge decided they too were not interested in hanging about. They jumped into the river and tried to free the boat from the bottom but Trevor yelled at them to stop pushing. When he got closer they panicked and furiously swam off downstream, sped by the current.

John knelt by the fallen soldier, checking his condition. On Earth he would have been dead, of course, but he wasn’t dead; he continued to gasp and moan. Brian dropped both sword and knife and sat down on the grass in a daze.

“You all right?” John asked.

“Fuck me. I killed a man.”

“He’s not dead.”

“I pierced his heart.”

“Different rules here.”

Brian came closer and shook his head at the sight of the man. “Apparently so.”

“You’re fast, you know, very fast,” John said. “I’m impressed.”

Brian shrugged and tried wiping his bloody hand in the grass. “What are we going to do with him?” he asked.

“We’ll leave him as he lies. Nothing else to do.”

Brian stood over the man and said, “Sorry, mate. Someone should’ve told you not to screw around with a man who’s got his own show on the BBC.”

Emily returned with Duck and Dirk, the two lads clearly disappointed she had chosen to put her shirt back on.

Trevor was calling at them from onboard the barge.

“Our ride’s here,” John said.

“Do you know how to sail?” Emily asked him.

“It’s been a while, but I can probably get by.”

Brian was busying himself gathering the dropped weapons and removing the fallen soldier’s belt and scabbard. “I’m a fully qualified sailor,” he offered.

“This man can do it all,” John said, slapping him on the back.

“What do you want us to be doing?” Duck asked.

John told them to return to the village. “As soon as we find the others we’ll come back and stay with you boys until the four weeks has passed.”

“Tell Delia that Duck’ll be waiting to see ’er again.”

“I will,” John said. “I’m sure that’ll make her day.”

“Safe journey then,” Dirk said. “I’ll busy myself making a fresh batch of beer. I know how you like your beer, John Camp.”

“Christ, John,” Emily said. “You’ve even got a reputation down here.”

The dormitory wing at MAAC had been hastily converted into a prison by a small army of government contractors who installed bars on the doors, lavatory facilities, and interrogation rooms. As in real prisons, the jailers learned that televisions were effective pacifiers. The underworked and over trained guards from MI5 relieved their boredom by watching Alfred and the other three Hellers watch their TVs. None of these men had been alive past the eighteenth century and they exhibited a simian fascination with their screens, grabbing at images of food, pleasuring themselves at even modestly dressed women, cowering at cars, airplanes, and any action involving explosions and fire.

After only a few days of interrogations, Ben had decided that Alfred and his lot had little value. They were uneducated and crude and had spent their entire existence in Hell in and around Dartford. They had never even been to London and had no knowledge of affairs of state. They were, however, a notch above rovers, an assessment he noted in his report. Mitchum, a bona fide rover, was still recovering in his hospital bed but he would be coming to a cell in MAAC before long.

Ben paced the loading dock nervously, awaiting the newest arrivals from South Ockendon, Rix and Murphy, and the two intruders from the Iver North waterworks. The percussive thumping of an approaching helicopter drew him to the lawn and he shielded his eyes as the chopper touched down. The MI5 officers who offloaded the cuffed and shackled men were wearing surgical masks, gloves and paper over clothes that Ben found interesting since he hadn’t issued a biohazard warning. It was likely a field decision in response to their odor.

He recognized the two men from the security cameras. He had decided to make the tactical gesture of welcoming them as law enforcement colleagues in the hopes of fostering a sense of camaraderie and using it to his benefit.

“Ben Wellington,” he said. “Security Services. Sorry we can’t shake hands. You’ll be processed this way, officers.”

Rix looked him over. “You in charge?”

“I’m in charge here. I have superiors.”

“Old enough to shave?” Murphy asked.

“Just started. Come along.”

“It beggars belief we’re here,” Rix said, letting the sunlight splash his face.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Ben said.

Inside, the men were allowed to luxuriate in hot showers and encouraged to use liberal amounts of body scent before being taken to individual cells for medical checks and a meal. While they were being processed the Iver intruders were choppered in and within seconds of greeting them Ben concluded they would be about as illuminating as Alfred Carpenter and his mates. They seemed dimwitted, almost feral, with short, powerful limbs and scared, darting eyes.