coming down and belayed around the pins on the frame.
With their backs to the bitts, Doud and Bowyer silently reached behind and each eased up a belaying pin, then both brought them forward and smacked them suggestively across their palms.
“You comin’, then?” said Doud to Yates, who now faltered, and looked at the others for support.
It was all Doud needed. Like lightning his hand flicked up his belaying pin, which spun crisply through the air and at Yates’s head. Yates screamed and clutched at his bloody face while the others turned and fled.
The man at the wheel was terrified but took no part in the fight, keeping the ship steadily on course in the same dogged way he had faithfully pumped.
It was a matter of moments to round up the others and free the master, who hurried on deck to confront his mate.
“We’re not going to get much outa Scully,” said Doud. He looked around. “Wong, me old shipmate, I think this ’ere Yates could do with a bath, don’t you?”
Wong nodded. He dragged Yates to the ship’s side, where the sea foamed a few feet down. In one casual move he bent, and seized Yates’s ankles and hurled him over the side, then left him suspended upside down inches above the waves.
Yates struggled and shouted, but Wong effortlessly held on to his skinny frame. Then he let the man descend. Yates saw the sea come closer and wriggled frantically, but his head dipped under.
Wong waited until he saw bubbles, then hoisted him back up. Yates panted and spluttered. Again Wong slowly let him descend. The struggles became frenzied. When the bubbles came again Wong set him roughly on deck and folded his arms.
It all spilled out: Scully had made an arrangement with the owners of the vessel unknown to the master whereby he and his four accomplices would sink the ship, then take to the only boat, ensuring there would be no witnesses. It was barratry, an insurance swindle, and would have succeeded but for the storm. The men lost no time in damning Scully as the man who had killed Warren, and also revealed that he had planned to complete the deed that night by eliminating those remaining.
The master breathed in deeply and took control. “I’ll fix our position and have you aboard your ship as soon as I can.”
CHAPTER 7
Three days later, back aboard
One moment Kydd was standing watching for orders, the next he heard a brief cry and turned to see a gap where Bowyer had been shortly before. He stared down and saw men hurrying over to a still form, face down and at a distorted angle. For a moment he was stunned. Then, in a rising storm of feelings he shouted, shrieked – and flew down the shrouds.
A small crowd had gathered around Bowyer. Kydd thrust past, distraught at the spreading dark wet stain beneath. Gently he pulled Bowyer around to face upward. His eyes were closed and he was very pale, blood issuing from his nose and ears. His breathing was unnatural; harsh and stertorous.
“Where’s the doctor?” Kydd’s hoarse cry rose above the hushed voices. He cradled the barely breathing Bowyer, feeling the warmth seeping from his body.
“Stand clear – what happened?” the surgeon asked breathlessly.
“Fall from the yard,” said an officer, arriving from the quarterdeck.
The surgeon dropped to his knees and felt for a pulse, his eyes passing briefly over the inert body. He rolled back an eyelid. Holding a small silver mirror to Bowyer’s lips, he inspected the result. “He lives yet, but I’ll not be sanguine about the outcome.” He straightened and looked around.
In the shocked silence nobody moved.
“Broken bones bear on his brain – it must be relieved. Tie him to a grating and take him below to the cockpit.”
The main hatch grating, which had so often seen the blood of floggings, was now smeared with the bright red of Bowyer’s lifeblood. There was no lack of men to help Kydd carry it below.
In the center of the noisome gloom of the cockpit Bowyer was placed on a table. Lanthorns could only provide their usual dim light, leaving much of the scene in shadow. The loblolly boys, broken-down men who were fit for no other work, stretched out Bowyer’s limbs, tying them to stanchions. Then they stood back and waited for the surgeon to return with his chest.
Suddenly Bowyer’s back arched and with a loud, tearing groan his body strained in a terrible convulsion. Kydd threw himself at his friend and tried to force him down. “F’r God’s sake, help me!” he screamed at the loblollies, who were standing well back in the shadows.
They remained still, one rhythmically chewing tobacco.
“Help, for Chrissake!” Kydd sobbed. The body was rigid and contorted in a grotesque upward spasm. His efforts to press the spine down were hopelessly ineffective.
There was a movement in the lanthorn glow and the surgeon was at his side.
Kydd gasped with relief. “He – he’s -” he tried to say.
“Opisthotonos,” the man muttered.
Kydd stared at him.
“Not unusual in these cases – leave him, it’ll pass.” He casually upended a green bottle, wiped his mouth and replaced the bottle in the capacious side pocket of his black coat.
Kydd reluctantly let go of his friend and hovered next to the convulsed body, unsure and cold with horror.
The surgeon pulled at Kydd’s jacket and said testily, “Be so good as to let me get on with it, will you?”
Kydd stepped back and watched as the surgeon rummaged in his chest, bringing out some steel instruments, which he laid on a small collapsible table next to Bowyer’s head. The convulsion passed and Bowyer sank down.
The surgeon went to Bowyer’s head and addressed himself to the task. A razor was flourished, and Bowyer’s head was shaved around the seeping blood, leaving a monk-like tonsure.
“More light, you oaf!” he growled at the taller loblolly, who obediently held two lanthorns each side of Bowyer’s head.
The surgeon felt the skull all over, then picked up a scalpel and, stretching the scalp with one hand, drew the blade smartly across in a three-inch incision. He made a similar cut at right angles at one end of the first incision, then peeled the scalp away in a triangle.
The sickly white of living, gleaming bone was clear in the close lanthorn light. The surgeon bent nearer and traced the long depressed fracture to where it continued under the scalp. Another incision and the whole was exposed. “Mmm, we have a chance, possibly,” he muttered. He lifted a complex instrument. “Basson’s patent trephine,” he said, with pride. Carefully he felt around the floating skull plates until he found a sound area, then applied the instrument and set to work.
In the breathless silence the tiny bone-cutting sounds grated unbearably. Kydd looked away at the loblolly boys, who watched the operation stolidly. The men who had helped him carry Bowyer down retreated farther and Kydd caught the gleam of a tilted bottle. The lanthorns gave off a hot oily smell.
A young midshipman from their nearby berth lingered, fascinated, and glanced up at Kydd with a twisted grin.
The surgeon exchanged his trephine for another instrument and inserted it in the skull cavity. Kydd let his gaze drop to the wound and saw Bowyer’s brain tissue, blood dripping slowly in small threads down the side of his face and to the deck. He could not control the sudden heaves – he staggered and held desperately to a deck stanchion. The surgeon straightened and glared at Kydd. “If ye’re going to cast your accounts now, kindly do it somewhere else.”
