Across The Sea (9 page)

* * *

The crew of the HMS Glide looked
down at the water. There no longer was a Red Mist; there was only
water between the two British ships. Two heads emerged from the
surface. One belonged to Captain Strick, hat-less, his combed hair
now pasted wet against his scalp; and the other to the limp form of
a stringy-haired, little girl, whom Captain Strick held in one
arm.

“Get us up!” Captain Strick
barked. He had just dived into the water without giving anyone
notice. Everyone had been taken by surprise. Only now did they
realize he had gone down to get the girl. Everyone jumped to
action.

A lifeboat, on ropes and
pulleys, was dropped into the water with two sailors who reached
out and pulled Strick and the girl aboard. The lifeboat was heaved
back up.

On the floor of the boat,
Captain Strick was breathing into Lily’s mouth and then giving
short thrusts to her chest. Once the lifeboat was back on deck,
Doctor Scholten, the ship’s short, plump physician, hopped
aboard.

“How is it?” the doctor
asked.

“Not good,” Strick said.

Doctor Scholten moved closer.
“Here,” he said, pushing Captain Strick away, “let a physician do
this.”

“No!” Strick blasted back. “No!
Get out of my way!”

Strick breathed into Lily’s
mouth and then pumped her chest again. Lily coughed, and water shot
from her mouth. She coughed again, her eyes remaining closed, and
this time she turned her head and spit. Captain Strick sat her up.
She coughed more, opening her eyes. She cried. Lily did not know
why. She just cried.

Captain Strick, before his
entire crew, wrapped his arms around her.

“Everything is back to
perfect,” he assured, holding her. “Everything is perfectly right.
You’re safe. You’re safe.”

“Francis…” Lily muttered.

“Bodin’s taken him,” Strick
replied. “But he’ll not get far.”

Vice-Admiral Wister, Captain
Mann and Captain Strick, now in a dry uniform, stood on deck aboard
the mammoth HMS Whisper. Several crew members from both the Whisper
and the HMS Glide stood with them.

“There is always the chance
that they drowned with the ship,” Kenworth suggested.

“Not Bodin,” Strick
interjected. “He’s much too resourceful. I’m certain he managed to
swim away with the boy.”

“Grand Marine must be searched
immediately,” Vice-Admiral Wister ordered. “He’ll be in the market
for a vessel.”

“Where do we begin?” Captain
Mann asked. “He’ll likely go to a seller who is underground. A
seller we know nothing of.”

Silence. No one could suggest
an answer.

“I can help you,” a small voice
sounded.

Everyone turned. Lily, now
wearing a man’s oversized tunic over breeches, stood behind
them.

“You are to rest, Lily,”
Captain Strick admonished.

“My father used to take me to
Grand Marine. He knew a man he thought met with pirates. And this
man sold everything. Even boats. I can take you there.”

“You’ll provide us with
directions,” Captain Mann said. “We shall approach this individual
ourselves.”

“I don’t know the directions,”
Lily claimed.

Captain Strick shot her a stern
look.

Vice-Admiral Wister shook his
head; he did not approve of a little girl walking about on Royal
Navy ships. If only the Admiral knew what his son allowed on his
and other's ships.

“I’m telling you the truth,”
she told all of them. “I can just show you. I don’t know the names
of the streets, or the shops, or even this man.”

Now it was Captain Strick’s
turn to shake his head.

* * *

One of Strick’s crew members was
dressed in the plain clothes of a merchant and ordered to walk with
Lily through the cobblestone alleyways of the tall, prosperous city
of Grand Marine. Behind them, Captain Strick and a handful of his
crew members followed, hiding behind corners and gates. Lily, still
dressed in the oversized tunic and breeches, came to a pink door
and stopped. She turned in the direction where she thought Captain
Strick might be hiding and nodded her head.

The crew member in merchant
clothes pulled Lily away by hand, escorting her back up the
alleyway. Five of the uniformed crew with Captain Strick knocked on
some of the other doors in the alley and asked to enter. The
tenants who answered had no choice but to let them in. Some were
even eager to help the Royal Navy in any manner they could. These
five sailors took to the stairways inside which led up to the
roofs.

Outside, Captain Strick hid in
a doorway. He looked up and saw his five men jumping from rooftop
to rooftop, heading toward the roof of the townhouse with the pink
door.

Captain Strick moved down the
alley. Behind him, another six uniformed sailors came out from
their hiding spots and followed. Captain Strick reached the pink
door and lifted its latch. He pushed it open.

Facing him was a lobby with
wallpaper peeling in spots, a nicked corner table and a long, dusty
mirror which leaned against the far wall. On the floor lay an oval
rug, now too stained with long ago dirt to show any pattern. Ahead
was a stairway, its carpet torn, exposing cracked wood.

No sound could be heard.

Captain Strick stepped up the
cramped, narrow stairway. Lily had told him that the boat seller’s
room was on the third floor. From what she could remember, she had
thought that it might be the first door on the right, but she had
not been certain.

Captain Strick reached the
third floor and looked down the confined corridor. No one who
resided in this townhouse had yet to show themselves. The uniformed
sailors came up behind him with stealth, and passed him, hiding
about the corridor. Captain Strick turned to the first door on his
right.

He knocked.

No answer came.

Strick unsheathed his
sword.

And kicked hard at the door,
the lock snapping as the door flew open. Inside, Captain Leonard,
Ratwell and a greasy-haired man looked up from a tattered card
table. The rest of the room was bare.

Leonard and Ratwell had their
swords in hand before Strick could take another breath. The six
sailors behind Strick jumped into the room with swords drawn, and
through the open window behind the card table, the five sailors
from the roof leaped in, blades also at the ready.

Captain Leonard, Ratwell and
the seller were surrounded.

Captain Strick ordered, “Put
your swords...” but stopped in mid-sentence as Leonard and Ratwell
swung round and each punctured a man through the heart. They pulled
their swords back to block the other sailors’ blades as they swung
at them. Ratwell moved his weapon with deadly precision; no move
went to waste. Every motion killed a man.

Strick charged at them as both
catlike killers bounded out the window.

All five sailors who had come
in from the rooftop now lay dead on the fractured wood floor.

Captain Strick stopped and
turned to one of the six men who were still alive. “Grab him!” he
bid, gesturing toward the seller who stood wide-eyed by the table.
The sailor seized him by the arm as Captain Strick stormed out the
door.

“The rest of you!” he
commanded. “To the roof!”

Five sailors launched out the
room after him. In the corridor, they saw their captain at the far
end, climbing a ladder. Everyone raced to join him. The ladder led
up to a trapdoor. Through the trapdoor, they all found themselves
on the roof, and saw Captain Leonard and Ratwell jumping off their
rooftop over to the next. Captain Strick and his men gave chase.
One of the sailors aimed his crossbow at Ratwell and pulled the
trigger. An arrow zinged at the murder-happy bladesman and hit the
roof, inches behind him.

Below, Lily and her guardian
walked down a street, its crowd growing. Lily looked up and
witnessed Ratwell and Leonard pursued across the rooftops by Strick
and his sailors.

Ratwell let Captain Leonard
move ahead toward a ladder which ran down one side of a building.
The pirate captain grasped onto it and slid down. Ratwell followed
suit.

On the ground, both pirates
bolted from the alleyway.

Toward Lily.

“We have to stop them,” Lily
said to her guardian.

Ratwell and Leonard were just a
few feet away.
What can I do?
Lily bent her knees, ready to
lunge forward, but she never got the chance – the guardian sailor
shoved her out of the way. Lily flew down, hitting the hard dirt.
Her guardian unsheathed his sword, positioning himself to
fight.

Ratwell barely moved his own
talisman but stabbed his mark straight through the heart. He
plucked his weapon from the sailor’s chest as he and Leonard ran
on.

Lily’s guardian fell to the
ground, dead.

Lily hurried to her feet, as
Captain Strick and his men flashed past.

“Get out of here!” Strick
yelled down at her. He snapped his fingers at one of the sailors
and pointed to Lily’s guardian on the ground. The sailor remained
behind and kneeled down to the guardian.

“He’s dead,” Lily said.

The sailor had no other choice
but to rejoin his captain.

Captain Strick and his men
chased Ratwell and Leonard toward a shop. A stout woman of forty,
from the open shop window, had seen the guardian sailor killed on
the street and had already locked her door and window shutters.

Ratwell kicked at the door and
it gave way as the lock splintered the wood. Ratwell and Captain
Leonard bounded in, slamming the door behind them.

Captain Strick and his five
sailors rushed toward the shop’s door not knowing what to expect
once they got there. Strick was apprehensive but he had to keep
onward. The killing wunderkind accompanying Gustavo Leonard
terrified him.
Who is this man
?

He and his crew stopped before
the door and stood off to one side. Strick pushed it, and the door
creaked open. With his men stepping into battle position behind
him, Captain Strick moved into the shop.

Inside, books and bookshelves
took up most of the shop’s space. This was a book seller. The lady
whom Strick had seen in the window was now standing still behind
the main counter, as if any movement was punishable by death. There
were patrons in the shop as well, lying down on the floor in the
aisles of shelves. A woman looked up at Strick and saw his uniform.
She pointed up. Strick turned to where she was pointing.

A stairway.

The Captain moved toward it.
His men followed. He ascended the first steps.

“Be careful!” the shop lady
shrieked.

Strick veered round. Captain
Leonard had dropped down from the opening for the stairway on the
second floor and was now right behind Strick’s men, adjusting his
wide hat.

“Behind you!” Strick yelled, as
three of his men had already begun to turn around.

Captain Leonard plunged his
sword into the back of one of the sailors who had yet to turn.

“No!” Captain Strick screamed.
He turned around to look toward the top of the stairway. Sure
enough, there was Ratwell, a few steps up, smiling as he swung his
sword down. All Strick could do was step back. The tip of Ratwell’s
sword slashed into his chest. A sailor behind Strick lunged
forward, swinging his sword at Ratwell. Ratwell stopped the sword
with his. A second sailor swung at him as well. Strick swivelled to
glance at Gustavo Leonard who was now also fighting two of his men.
A dead sailor lay on the floor. Strick turned back to Ratwell and
swung away; three men could put an end to this madman. A boot came
up from Ratwell, kicking Strick in the chest, as the pirate drove
his sword into one of the sailors. Strick’s back smacked the
stairway’s railing.

Ratwell neared the top of the
stairs, fighting off the second sailor. Strick shot himself up the
steps, as Ratwell plunged his sword into the sailor and kicked him
down the stairway at Strick. Strick caught the dying man in his
arms, giving Ratwell enough time to grab onto the upper railing of
the second floor and swing himself up.

I must let the maniac go and
help capture Leonard
, Captain Strick thought, laying the dead
sailor down.
He’s much more important.

Strick turned, but was
blindsided as a hand gripped his throat and he found himself
staring into Captain Leonard’s dark eyes, and his scarred face
which was an inch away from his own. A sharp blade was pushed
against the side of his neck. The pirate Leonard smiled as he held
onto Strick’s throat and pushed him backwards up the stairs. Strick
looked down toward the main floor. His five uniformed sailors lay
scattered, none alive.

Outside, a crowd had gathered
across the street.

Lily stood ahead of them. She
had an uneasy feeling that events inside had taken a disastrous
turn. The shop door flew open and children, women and men dashed
out, the shop lady amongst them.

“The sailors are all dead!” she
exclaimed, zipping past Lily toward the crowd behind her. “Only the
captain is alive,” she continued, panting as she reached everyone.
“And they’ve taken him upstairs.”

Lily ran toward the shop, but
an arm enclosed around her from behind.

“Stay here,” said the man who
held her back. “There is nothing you can do.”

“Let go of me,” Lily replied,
struggling to break free. “They’ll kill him.”

“You are a child,” the man
argued. “Those are grown monsters in there.”

“We just need a group of men,”
Lily proposed, turning her head to get a good look at this man. He
was older, with greying hair. “A handful of strong men can take
those two down. We have to save the Captain.”

The man turned to his fellow
villagers.

“Who’ll come with me?” he
asked.

Everyone just stared at him, no
response from their voices, or their eyes.