front from over Lee's left shoulder when he faced down the quay.
Behind him, the Captain was shouting orders, and Lee heard a muffled bang from belowdecks, followed by a coughing throb, which told of the detonator starting the heavy-oil engine. On the foredeck, two sailors were busily removing the cover from the forward hatch, while another man was checking the tackle on a derrick that had been rigged over it on the foremast.
Suddenly Hester said, 'Top floor right, Lee.'
He swung the rifle up towards the warehouse and saw what she'd seen: a flicker of movement behind the third window in from the end. He kept the rifle trained directly on it, but saw no more movement.
Iorek Byrnison stood beside Lee, glaring down the length of the quay towards the crowd. The Captain and the mate came down to join them.
'Now, Mr. Mate,' said Lee, 'how you going to move that cargo of yours?'
'It's on trucks,' the mate said. 'We set it all up ready before they locked us out. It won't take half an hour.'
'Right. Captain, tell me this: what's the layout in the warehouse? What do we see when we open the door?'
'The space is fully open. There are columns, I don't know how many, stone columns supporting the floors above. On the ground floor at present there are mostly bundles of furs and skins. My cargo is near the far wall on the left-hand side, stacked ready on trucks.'
'These bundles of skins—how high are they stacked? Can I look right across the whole space in there, or are they too high to see over?'
'Too high, I think.'
'And what about stairs?'
'In the center at the back.'
'And the upper floors?'
'I don't know what—'
'Lee! Top left!' said Hester, and in the same moment Lee caught a flash of sunlight as a window opened.
He swung the rifle up, and that must have put the sharpshooter off, because the one snatched pistol shot went past him and thudded into the deck of the schooner. Lee fired back at once. The window shattered, scattering broken glass down three floors to the ground, but there was no sign of the gunman.
Iorek Byrnison looked up briefly, and then said, 'I open the door.'
Lee half expected to see him charge and flatten it in one rush, but the bear's behavior was quite different: he touched the steel door several times in different places with a claw, tapping, pressing, touching with the utmost delicacy. He seemed to be listening to the sound it made, or feeling for some quality in the resistance it offered.
Lee and Hester were standing back from the building, at the edge of the quay, from which point he could see all the windows.
'Lee,' said Hester quietly, 'if that's McConville in there—'
'Ain't no if, Hester. I've known he was in there from the first.'
'Mr. Scarsby,' said the bear, 'shoot a bullet at this spot.' He scratched an X at a point near the upper hinge of the right-hand door.
Lee looked up to make sure the gunman at the window was still out of sight, checked back along the quay to see the crowd hanging back still, unwilling to come closer just yet, checked with the Captain that the men were ready.
'Right,' he said. 'Now this is what we'll do. York Byrnison and I will open the door, and I'll go in first. There's a gunman in there—maybe more than one— and I want to make sure they're not intending any unpleasantness. If you take my advice, Mr. Mate, you and your crew will wait on board and out of sight till you hear from me or York Byrnison that the place is safe.'
'You expecting more trouble?'
'Oh, I always expect trouble. York Byrnison, you ready?'
'Ready.'
'Here goes.'
He lifted the rifle, took aim at the X on the door, and fired. A neat hole appeared in the steel sheet, and that was all; but then Iorek Byrnison reached out a paw and pushed gently, and the entire door fell inwards with a deafening crash.
At once Lee leapt past Iorek and ran into the warehouse, making for the open staircase he could dimly see straight ahead.
And at the same moment a shot blazed out from dead ahead, somewhere in the ranks and rows of stinking bundles. The bullet clipped the shoulder of Lee's coat, feeling like the clutch of a ghost, and then came a cry and a crash from the ship outside. Lee stopped and took cover behind a row of bales. Stupid to rush in like that, he thought: after the bright sun on the quayside, this was almost like night, and his opponent's eyes were already well adjusted.
'Where is he?' came the bear's voice from behind him.
'He fired from dead ahead,' said Lee quietly. 'But there's at least one other man upstairs. If you take this one, I'll go on up and deal with him.'
As he said that, he heard another shot, and another, from above, and a cry of distress and alarm from the ship.
