SV - 03 - Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments (34 page)

For what seemed a full minute, but must have been a few seconds, the sergeants and their antagonists stood motionless. It appeared to Verity quite absurd that Ransome's men made no attempt to come at them. But then he glanced quickly aside and saw Samson, levelling the shot-gun of the dead bully in the stoke-hold.

'Take it!' said Ransome with calm authority. 'It's not charged.'

'First one that makes a step this way is going to find out different!' Samson announced triumphantly.

Even Verity was deceived, though he knew it was impossible for Samson to have reloaded.

'Just aim at 'em, Mr Samson, while I have th
e coverings off them portholes.’

But even as he spoke, the men moved round and took up positions to deny him an approach to the tight black covers. The bluff of the unloaded gun would not last for much longer, certainly it would not survive an attempt to uncover all the
Lady Flora's
ports. Even then, at a distance, she might be taken for a ship beyond the Wolf Rock, by the
Hero's
look-out. Verity improvised a desperate plan.

"Mr Samson, shoot the person Ransome. Shoot low to avoid the head and chest, he may be needed for questioning.'

Samson concealed the bewilderment he must have felt. 'Right,' he said, levelling the gun.

There was no way in which Verity could convey his actual intentions to his colleague. Samson must gather them from what came next. The bullies watched motionless. They had been hired by Ransome, and they were prudently loyal to their paymaster, but not to the extent of taking the blast of a shot-gun on his behalf. Ransome, the four bullies and the three girls, stared at Sergeant Samson as though mesmerized. It was in this moment of uncertainty that Verity moved slowly round be
hind Samson and reached the com
panionway. Before any of the others could have followed him, he had set foot on the first step, climbed rapidly and gained the deck. From below him he heard the sudden movements and shouts of a struggle.
The bluff of the unloaded shot
gun was over. But to have reached the deck evened the chances considerably. It was the one place where Ransome and his men dared not use a light, with the
Hero
no more than Fifteen or twenty minutes away. A Fight in the dark was infinitely to be preferred when it was one or two men against half a dozen.

In the few moments before his pursuers appeared through the entrance of the companionway, Verity busied himself with further improvisations. He mounted the port paddle-box and felt in the gloom for a smooth familiar cylinder. Carrying this to the stern, he set it down where he could find it again. The little gig, which had appeared from the stern when he and Samson had watched it altering the buoys, was still made fast there. It was equipped as the only life-boat of the
Lady Flora,
but it took two men to handle it properly, one at the oars and one at the tiller. However, he tied a line to the brass cylinder and lowered it carefully into the gig. Now he needed Samson.

There was a clatter of feet on the deck and Verity armed himself with the boat-hook which had been propped against the rail at the stem for use in the gig. The groan and struggle of two men wrestling together assured him that Samson was at least on the deck with him. Verity could make out a dim, ill-defined shape, which he knew must be the combatants, and then another man approached. Rising from the shadows, Verity drove the boat-hook hard into the face of the man as he ran forward, closing his mind to the appalling injury which the metal hook might inflict and thinking only of the
Hero
as she ploughed at full speed towards the teeth of the Wolf. The man screamed and fell back, hands to his eyes, as Verity swung round to see if there were any more of Ransome's men in the vicinity. He was about to go to Samson's aid when a figure, which must have moved with the stealth of a shadow, leapt at him from behind, clinging to his back like an incubus, sharp fingers scrabbling for his windpipe.

There was one way of dealing with such an attack, and he had known it since childhood. Making no attempt to resist, he threw himself further and violently forward, sending the attacker off his shoulders and over his head. But he need not have put such power into it, he decided, for his attacker was the lightest he had ever known. He was aware of a figure flying over him, somersaulting above the ornamental rail of the
Lady Flora
and hurtling towards the dark surface of the sea. In the instant before the falling body splashed into the waves, Verity stood motionless with a chill of astonishment as he heard his late antagonist emit a decidedly feminine scream. Her chance of success had been so remote that he could guess her identity and the sheer hatred which had prompted her to fly at him.

Knowing there would be little enough time when the moment came, he cast off the gig and let it drift slowly from the stern. At the very worst, it meant that Ransome and his bullies would now have no way of escaping from the ship if they attempted to sink it. He was satisfied to see that the tide carried it very slowly indeed.

The remainder of the deck seemed ominously silent. Then he heard Ransome's voice,

'Take him down and tie him fast.'

A body was pulled unceremoniously towards the companionway.

'Sergeant Verity!
Come forward and give yourself up! Your friend will otherwise suffer greatly!'

Torn between loyalty to Samson and his wider duty, Verity looked about him. The lights of the
Hero
were clear now, the tall dark hull picked out by the row of lit portholes. Her engines beat strongly and the churning bow-wave as she cut the Channel tide was just visible in its white phosphorescence.

'Get clear, Verity! Get clear, for God's sake!'

Samson's words ended with the sound of a blow and a cry of pain. Verity could see that the others were coming towards him. They had searched the deck and they knew where he was. He backed against the rail, shivering in the tattered breeches which were all the clothes he wore apart from his boots. His plump flesh still shuddered with cold as he softly unlaced the boots and pulled them off.

'Take him!'

They must have seen his outline against the faint glow of the sea. Three of them came in a rush. But Verity was on the rail in an instant and, as their arms went for him, he jumped, feeling the rush of night air against his face, and then hit the water with a floundering splash.

He broke the surface, gasping. His first impression was that someone was, after all, trying to light a lamp on the deck of the
Lady Flora.
Then, as a single hail
stone seemed to plop into the water a few yards from him, he recognized the flash of Ransome's revolver. They were on the side of the deck hidden from the
Hero,
which explained the apparent rashness. He knew that the chance of hitting a man at such range was remote enough, even for a man of Captain Ransome's proficiency. And, of course, if they were going to fire at him, they could hardly risk sending one of the bullies in after him. Verity swam slowly, paddling like a dog, to the place where he last saw the gig as it drifted from the stern of the little paddle-steamer.

It was not until he could almost put his hand on the gunwhale that he thought of the girl. Her cry of terror, half choked by the water in her throat, would hardly have reached the steamer. He knew that if he swam to her and attempted to rescue her in the water, she would cling to him frantically, and he was not a good enough swimmer to keep them both afloat in that manner. With the puffing and shuddering of a willingly stranded whale, Verity pulled himself carefully into the little gig, near the stern. At all costs it must not be overset. Then he peered forward and saw the disturbance of water where the girl was struggling to keep her head free of the waves. She was no more than ten yards away. Taking the oars, he sculled forwards and drew as close as he dared, turning the boat so that its stern was nearest to her. She clutched wildly, her fingers slipping against the white-painted planks of the gig's clinker-built hull.

The gown she had been wearing, plum-coloured merino, was gone. Either she had struggled out of it in the water, or more likely its buttoning had been ripped away by the force with which Verity had thrown her over his head. She was wearing a pale blue bodice and knickers which he saw, as he hauled her in over the stern, were so wet that they revealed her body in as much detail as if she had been naked, even the coppery flesh-tones appearing through the clinging semi-transparency of wet silk. She writhed in the bottom of the gig, drawing breath in a muted howl, retching sea water, and then choking for air again. Verity seized her by a cold, slippery arm.

'Right, miss! You got one last chance to decide whose party you'm to belong to! There's been murder done on that ship, and there's worse still planned for the souls on that other boat that's bearing down this way! You and all Ransome's crew shall wear a rope collar and dance a polka in the air outside Newgate.
..."

He saw the flash of the whites of her eyes as fear broke from her in a long wail.

'No-o-o!'

'Then you better join my crew sharply. Else it's over-the-water-to-Charley you dances, my girl. Eight o'clock sharp with the parson reading your burial service to you, and Jack Ketch pinching your bum most familiar as you goes through the trap.'

Her teeth were chattering, either from cold or fear, or both.

'I never knew they'd kill!' she shrieked. 'There was nothing said but brandy and perfume from France!'

'They'll hang you all the harder for lying,' said Verity, sitting on the little seat with his back to the bows and taking the two oars in his hands.

'I'll be the approver!
' she cried. 'I'll give Queen's evidence, if I'm let! I'll say anything they want! Oh God, I will!'

'It'll go for nothing if I speak against you with the Crown lawyers,' said Verity gruffly. 'You'd best please me first, miss.'

Whimpering, she scrabbled at the waist of the clinging pants, about to wrench them down.

'No!' said Verity. 'Ain't you got a brain anywhere but between your legs? Hold that tiller and keep this boat str
aight till I tell you different!
'

As he bent his back to the oars and pulled with all his strength, the gig drew slowly away from the lee of the
Lady Flora.
At this level, the prospect was less encouraging than it had seemed from the deck of the paddler. What had looked like a mere swell with occasional eddies of falling droplets was a different matter in the little gig, no more than eight feet long. On all sides they seemed menaced by steep seas, bitter wind, rain squalls and a surging tide. Verity knew that the lights of the
Hero
were at his back, the hammer-beat of her engines appallingly close. By his calculations she must be at least ten minutes from the Wolf Rock and the savage granite teeth now treacherously hidden beneath two feet of high water, yet the sound of her screws throbbing in the great ocean spaces seemed a good deal closer than that.

'Them green lights!' shouted Verity at the girl. 'Hold a course for them! Slap between, if you can!'

'Cold!' she howled. 'So cold!'

'If I have to stop,' Verity swore,
'you'll get such a hiding as’ll
make sure you never feel the cold again! 'old that bloody tiller straight!'

A smother of rain, spray and seas came drenching over the bows of the gig and fell with the pain of hail on his bare back. The ache in his arms and shoulders flamed as though the muscles and ligaments were being systematically torn apart by the strain of rowing into the squall. But the
Lady Flora
was dropping away astern, nothing visible of her at a distance but the three red lights at the masthead, treacherously simulating the warning buoy. Quarter of a mile, Verity thought. How far had they gone, and how fast? If they could only move at a slow walking speed, it would be enough, but with every surge of the dark water he felt the effort of his rowing countered. The gig seemed to be stock-still in the middle of a great ocean with the dark, curling seas racing past.

Then, to his dismay, he saw the
Hero,
her outline clear against the faint luminosity of the sky. The frigate and the gig were now on parallel courses, which would bring them broadside-on to the two green marker-buoys, though on different sides. There was no mistaking one of the newest and fastest of England's warships. Behind the curling bow-wave, the dark stalwart sides of the great ship rose menacingly from the water, the square gun-ports open and lit, the guns themselves rolled forward and ready for action. There were two rows of gun-ports on either side and tiny circles of light under each, indicating the portholes of the lower deck. The lights on the deck showed the three tall masts and the short, squat funnel amidships. Verity guessed that Lord William Jervis and his visitor would view the gunnery practice from the quarter-deck, which was on the high poop at the stern. There were two or three life-boats hanging from davits by the poop, but there would be no time to lower them once the bottom of the ship had been torn away by the granite teeth and by the force of her own speed.