Ratcatcher

bulkhead. Hawkwood drew in his knees and kicked out. Only one boot made contact, but it was just enough to shift the seaman’s dead weight. Hawkwood sucked in air, used the rib for support, and dragged himself upright. His eardrums felt as if they were on fire.

The submersible gave another massive lurch, this time to starboard. The motion was accompanied by what sounded like a heavy wooden door straining on a rusted hinge. Hawkwood felt the short hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He managed to hang on by his fingertips and stared at the horror around him. Whatever the cause of the second explosion, the effect had been catastrophic. With her stern section severely holed, the boat was flooding at a phenomenal rate. Hawkwood looked forward and saw Lee working feverishly to regain control. But the lack of response from the vertical and horizontal rudders and the angle of the bow told their own story. With all power lost, the Narwhale was dropping like a stone.

The ship was ablaze.

The explosion had echoed around the dockyard like the voice of God, sending every man—labourer, seaman, marine and magistrate—diving for cover. Voices rose sharply in panic. Shrieking gulls wheeled across the sky in massed confusion. Somewhere an alarm bell began to clang loudly.

The Thetis’s midsection was a smoking ruin and she had lost her mast. It lay like a fallen tree across her foredeck, boom and temporary sail still attached, canvas draped over the gunwales like a huge grey funeral shroud. The standards that had flown so proudly above her now hung in tattered and scorched disarray. Flames licked hungrily from her gun ports and open hatchways. Slowly she began to list.

Several men had gone over the side, either catapulted there by the force of the blast or having leapt over the rails to escape the terrible conflagration. Thrashing limbs, splashes and urgent cries for help showed where they had landed. The water was tinged with blood. Many of the survivors were screaming.

Jago, ears ringing like Bow Bells, almost missed it.

What made him glance out over the river at that precise moment he would never know. Even then, he wasn’t sure what he had seen: a commotion in the water, a hundred yards or so beyond the stricken warship. What looked like a small waterspout, or a splash, as if something had risen to the surface and dropped back down, causing a series of widening concentric ripples. A disturbance of some kind below the surface.

A marine hurried past, musket at the ready. Jago recognized him as the corporal who had stopped him earlier. “You, lad! Come with me!”

The look in Jago’s eyes told the corporal that dissent was not an option. Without a word he followed Jago to the dockyard stairs, watched as the big man climbed into the row boat and picked up an oar.

“Come on, son, we ain’t got all bleedin’ day!”

The corporal shouldered his musket and stepped gingerly into the boat.

Jago untied the painter, pushed them away from the quayside, and thrust the oar into the corporal’s hands. “Now, boy, you row!” Jago picked up the second oar. “You bloody row until I tell you to stop!”

Below the surface of the Thames, as the pitch of the vessel altered, the angle of illumination penetrating the submersible from above was changing. It was growing darker by the second.

The underside of the bow hit first. In the gloom of the compartment, the sound of the submersible’s keel scraping along the river bed was like a forty-two-pounder sliding across a storm-lashed deck, amplified a thousand- fold. It seemed as if a lifetime had passed before the noise began to diminish. Finally the tumult died. There followed a moment of eerie silence. Slowly the stern began to settle. Then, with a final protest from its creaking timbers, the Narwhale came to rest, canted at an angle like a broken barrel in a snowdrift.

Chest heaving, Hawkwood let go of the rib and checked himself for injuries. Miraculously he appeared to be unscathed. Self-preservation foremost in his mind, he groped frantically for the knife. The water was already hip- deep and icy cold. Sparrow’s corpse lay face down and wedged against the pump handle. Hawkwood clambered over the inert body, feeling urgently with his fingers. His hand brushed what might have been the knife blade, but even as he knelt to retrieve the object, with the incoming water surging around his legs like a whirlpool, the blade slid from his grip and Lee was upon him.

The American had lost his own pistol in the confusion, but his hand held another weapon. Instinct had Hawkwood twisting aside, arm rising to ward off the blow as the iron maul curved towards his skull.

The maul-head missed Hawkwood’s ear by less than a finger width. He felt the breath of its passing on his cheek. His hand encircled Lee’s wrist and he used Lee’s own impetus to overbalance the American and ram him against the bulkhead. He heard Lee grunt as his shoulder made contact with the metal rib. Hawkwood drove a fist into the American’s belly and was rewarded with another gasp of pain. But Lee, recovering fast, lashed out once more. This time the attempt was successful. The strike took Hawkwood under the ribcage, slamming him back against the propeller crank. Lee, eyes suddenly bright with the expectation of victory, moved in. Through tears of pain Hawkwood watched the approach of death.

The submersible tilted violently and Sparrow’s body rolled. In the water-filled darkness of the hull, Lee failed to see the obstacle in his path. His foot turned on Sparrow’s thigh and, hampered by the water, he lurched off balance, the maul falling from his hand.

Hawkwood threw himself against the American. The two men went down. Hawkwood had but a second to draw air into his lungs before the water closed over them.

In the swirling darkness, Hawkwood clawed for a killing hold. Lee was the older man but he was strong, and he was fighting for his life. Lee’s hands found Hawkwood’s throat. A red mist descended behind Hawkwood’s eyes as he fought for breath. The blood began to pound in his ears. The weight on his chest was colossal. His lungs felt as if they were about to explode. He gripped Lee’s wrists in a frantic attempt to break the American’s hold, but his energy was ebbing fast. He let go with his right hand, reached down, clamped his fingers around the American’s balls, twisted and pulled hard. Immediately, Lee’s hold slackened. Hawkwood released his grip and heaved himself upwards. His head broke from the water and inhaled greedily. He sensed Lee surface next to him, turned to meet the danger and took the full force of the knife thrust as Lee drove the blade deep into the muscle of his left shoulder.

Curiously, Hawkwood felt no pain until, with a ragged scrape of steel against bone, the blade was withdrawn. He felt it then. As if someone had poured fire into the wound. He fell back, his sound arm lifting in pathetic defence as the American stabbed down once more. The strike missed. Hawkwood went under, limbs flailing, fumbling in the inky blackness, scrabbling blindly for a weapon of his own—any object with which to defend himself. His fingers touched something, moved on, came back. Lee’s hand was on his sleeve. Hawkwood sensed the shift in the American’s weight, knew it would be over soon. The knife blade was coming around again. Summoning his last reserve of strength, he hurled himself out of the water and swung his arm.

The tip of the auger entered Lee’s right eyeball, piercing the front of the American’s skull with devastating force.

The scream that erupted from Lee’s lips was inhuman.

Hawkwood tightened his grip, thrusting deeper, increasing pressure. The scream died away, fading to a low whimper. The knife fell. Lee’s hands rose in mute supplication. A long, bubbling sigh emerged from the American’s lips. His body jerked violently and then went limp.

For what seemed an age, Lee’s body remained upright, suspended as if by an invisible hook, until Hawkwood finally relinquished his hold. He watched without emotion as the American’s corpse fell away and sank from view beneath him.

Another deep shudder moved through the boat as the Narwhale settled further into the silt. Hawkwood was suddenly conscious of how high the water had risen. It was up to his chest. Before long it would be lapping his shoulders, then his throat. After that…

It struck him that he was going to die down here, alone in the blackness, with only the bodies of Lee and Sparrow for company. Thetis had been destroyed. He would die, having failed in his assignment; an ignominious end to a short-lived career. In the heat of battle, Hawkwood had faced death many times. On those occasions, he’d viewed the prospect without self-pity or recrimination. Facing an enemy with rifle and sword in hand, knowing you were going to die, was almost acceptable. But this…?

The water was suddenly up to his chin. Christ, but it was cold! Shivering, he pushed himself towards the last place of refuge, the standing space in the tower. He was moving blindly now, all light having been extinguished. His