Cuttlefish (14 page)

“Like
sangria, paella
, and
toreador
?” the lieutenant said with a laugh. “Very useful I am sure those would be, but no.”

Tim found watch duties in the swamp warm, and just as full of the insects Big Eddie had complained of on the little island. At least he didn't suffer from sunburn the way some of the crew did. There weren't many advantages to a West Indian father, growing up in the
tunnels, but here a darker skin was an advantage. Not that he could blame his father for leaving the Caribbean, even if it had been slightly cooler back before the Melt. But someone had to do the job, so Tim stared intently out of his watch place. The little hide was made of dead branches draped with netting filled with a mixture of reed tops and green twigs—which all had to be replaced every night, so they looked like all the rest from the air. Not that he could see a lot from the observation post: a channel of dark water, clattering reeds, a corner of one of the little lagoons.

They were just farther inland from where the swamp changed from mangroves to an endless sea of reeds and patches of trees, and the water became mostly fresh. It would seem that the Royal Navy were sure that they'd be in the mangroves, which made sense really, as there was more cover, so it was just as well they weren't. The only other thing Tim could see from his little floating hide was the sky—in which an airship was slowly crisscrossing the swamps. It had flown right over the
Cuttlefish
earlier, but had only drifted on past. No drop-mines, no flares…which didn't mean it hadn't spotted her, and that boats weren't closing in on them.

“You're a dozy beggar, Barnabas,” said Jonas, scornfully, coming up behind him. “If I'd been a Royal Navy marine I could have cut your throat.”

Tim was developing an increasing dislike for Junior Submariner Jonas. But he kept his temper. And it was partly true—he'd been staring at the water, not concentrating on sounds. Nothing could come through the reeds without making a huge racket anyway. “Good thing you weren't, then. What's up? I'm not due for relief yet.”

“All of the crew for tonight's coaling trip get to rest now. That means you. They're sending out the deadwood off with some local guides. If you're this dozy now, they'd better hope you sleep. Not that that's likely down in the tin can. It's noisy, hot, and airless down there,” said Jonas, grumpily.

The sub was, except when the silent light shone, not the quietest
place on earth. But by now it was home. Tim got a slightly more complete briefing from Lieutenant Willis. They needed manpower to load as much coal as possible onto a raft. He was to report at 2100 and have collected his small arms from the arms master before that. And he was to have eaten and slept. “And I'll be with you,” said the lieutenant, “so no more heroics from you, Barnabas!” he said, smiling. “Mac told me about what a fine hand with a cutlass you are, taking on those Winged Hussars.”

Tim felt eight feet tall, and felt himself stand that way. Mac was still invalided out and, once they got to a safe port, would probably go ashore and stay there until he recovered. But Lieutenant Willis was also their medical officer, so he'd obviously got the story. Huh. Deadwood. The lieutenant was the best officer on the boat, except maybe the captain. If he was going, it could be no easy mission.

Tim soon found it was a muddy one, and that the lieutenant was a wary officer who planned things carefully. They'd met the local rebels at an islet nearly a mile off, where they left the inflatable boat, and went with the locals in two large flat-bottomed punts. The men spoke very little English, but seemed to know their way around the dark waterways. They led the
Cuttlefish
crew, poling through a complex network of channels, along to a stand of swamp trees with buttress roots.

There was almost no way that Tim could have found his way back—but he had noticed that the lieutenant reached out and nicked a reed with his cutlass every now and again.

“Won't they be able to follow that, sir?” asked Tim, working out what it was for.

“Not unless they can read my mind,” said the lieutenant. “Now shut up. I memorise the turnings. The cuts are a number pattern of turnings apart. We used to do it in the upper sewers of London, when I was with the Militia.”

They rowed on. Occasionally a searchlight from an airship shone down across on the vast swamp, fortunately nowhere near them.

When they landed, the lieutenant ignored the local rebels who were all for charging in straightaway, and stationed a guard, and then went to scout the path. And then came back, motioned them to stay and stay quiet, and went off to scout another. He scouted with one other crewman and the only one of the locals who could speak more than two or three words of English, so Tim and the others had to wait. The other five local men liked it not at all.

Eventually, talking in Spanish, they got up and headed inland. Not a thing that the
Cuttlefish
crew could say to them would stop them.

“I reckon the lieutenant's going to be as mad as a cut snake,” said Artificer Thorne, who was the next most senior submariner, and had a pair of very big muttonchop sideburns that Tim really envied. Tim didn't have any really decent chin hair yet, but one day…

The thought was disturbed by some shots in the distance. Some yells.

They all froze for a second. Then Thorne said, “Right boyos. Let's take cover. It might be all right, but if—”

Lieutenant Willis reappeared with the men who had gone along with him. “There was a trip-wire on that trail. Who the Hades went up it?” he demanded.

“Them foreigners, sir. Excitable lot,” explained Thorne.

The lieutenant hissed his irritation. Spoke to the other local, whose eyes were the size of saucers in the moonlight. “Ees trap,
señor
! Only one guard always. We go!” In the distance, there were more shouts and shots. And then, from above, a searchlight came stabbing down onto the trees.

“Trap all right,” said Lieutenant Willis, laconically, lifting his rifle. “No, hold your fire. No need to advertise with the muzzle flash of more than one rifle.” He took careful aim at the questing searchlight. Fired.

It swung wildly about and began to rise, presumably with the airship. “Right,” said the lieutenant. “Into the boats, gentlemen. We'll push off and watch—”

“Stand in the name of the King,” yelled someone in the distance. And there was another yell, in Spanish, closer.

“Esteban! Is calling for help!” said the local guide, getting to his feet.

“Stay put,” said the lieutenant, pushing him down. “You show them the way back if we don't make it. Tamworth and Gordon, with me. The rest of you, give us some covering fire. Aim for the tops of the trees; otherwise you'll probably hit us.”

The three left at a run, and the rest of the crew fired their rifles. It was enough to draw a lot of fire into the night from some distance off. The other side weren't firing into the treetops though.

Minutes later the lieutenant and the other two submariners came back with three of the five men, carrying one, and half carrying another. They scrambled in to helping hands, and the punts pushed off. Just as they got there, several bright flares exploded into the sky, making the scene quite light, and the shadows stark. They could hear a motorboat suddenly, and the airship's searchlight began playing over the reeds again, from far higher up.

The
Cuttlefish's
crew and the two unhurt locals poled the boat down the channel with such a will that Tim nearly fell overboard from holding on to the pole too long. The channel curved, and the local men wasted no time in getting them into a shallower, narrower inlet, where the reeds almost met overhead. High above more flares burned and the searchlight quested. Bullets ripped blindly through the reeds.

“Right. Barnabas. You're about the smallest. Pull your pole in the boat, and give me a hand.” The lieutenant's voice sounded a little strained.

Tim did as he was told, expecting to have to help with the injured. What he hadn't realised was the lieutenant was one of them. In the flare-light crisscrossed with reed shadows, Tim could see that Lieutenant Willis's arm was dark with blood, and his hand was dripping it.

Tim had to cut away the cloth, trying to control his own breathing, and fright, and the feeling that he might just fall over. But it had to be done, so he did it, with the lieutenant telling him
what to do. In the meanwhile they fled deeper into the swamps—avoiding going back towards deeper channels, where several patrol boats were now to be heard, but keeping to the shallower water, and the narrow channels. Getting out and pushing occasionally. Listening to the airship's machine-gunners strafing anything that they thought might be a boat.

It did seem that the hunters had made the assumption that their quarry would go for the main channels towards the sea. That was a good thing, as the
Cuttlefish's
crew were not in the area that was getting searched and strafed hard.

It was a bad thing in that they'd have to cross that area, later, to get back to the sub.

“Wonder why they're so hot down that way, instead of searching here?” said Thorne, listening to the distant gunfire.

The local shrugged. “I think they shoot at prawn fishermen, and the fishermen, they shoot back. They have the guns for the crocodile.”

“I suppose around here if you shoot at someone, they shoot back, and the airship is a big target,” said Lieutenant Willis.

It took them nearly eighteen hours to get back—incidentally with quite a lot of coal, looted off a half-sunken river-gunboat that had been abandoned on a mud bank.

Clara took the first chance she got to ask Tim all about it, not an hour after they'd all returned to the submarine.

“I wish I'd been there,” she said, eyes bright with the excitement of the story.

Tim thought of the lieutenant's arm and the blood, and the fear. Shuddered. “You could have had my place.”

“W
ell, it appears we've got them cornered,” said Duke Malcolm, looking at the map. “How long until they are captured or killed, gentlemen? This has gone on long enough.”

The two naval officers looked at each other. Finally the older man spoke. “Well, Your Grace, the Zapata swamps are a very large area, actually. More than a million acres. And the area is a hotbed of resistance. We'd…we'd do better if they were in open water. We have several vessels fitted with the trackers that pick the high-frequency radio pulse of the submarine engines in the area. They were just lucky escaping in the Bahama shoals. Sooner or later they'll bolt for America again. Probably as soon as the weather turns bad. By travelling underwater—”

Duke Malcolm slapped his hand down on the desk. “I know we have more accuracy than that, gentlemen. You should have rounded it down to ten square miles by the information we have. Saturate it. And patrol the Florida channel with those tracking vessels!”

He had more on his mind than these bumblers. There was disturbing news out of the Australian territories, as well as trouble in Africa, and yet another rebellion in India. There were looming coal shortages, trouble with the Chinese in Tibet.

The Empire was short of food, short of coal, and being nibbled at by lesser peoples. Duke Malcolm knew that it was up to him to keep it alive.

He sighed. “Look. Saturation bomb the area from the airships. They're waiting for a patch of bad weather to try and sneak across to
the United States. As I recall, this is the season for storms and hurricanes there. We cannot afford to pussyfoot about, gentlemen. And now I have work to do. Report back to me when you have something to report. I expect that to be within three days.

Duke Malcolm shook his head. They probably thought that he did not know that they'd had one gunboat run aground, and looted before it could be salvaged. Or of the sporadic resistance the marines had encountered from the locals who knew the swamp far better than the marines did.

He did not approve of the fact that they had not seen fit to tell him of these matters, though. He'd have to punish a few people.