Mariah Mundi and the Ship of Fools (11 page)

Mariah heard the hatch to the stairwell open and close. He could sense that Max Arras was still close by. He peered over the top of the cage. Eduardo growled, angered by the presence above him.

‘What’s a big cat getting so upset about?’ Max Arras joked as he prodded the beast with the cane that hung from the door. ‘Won’t they let you go and play with the passengers?’

He stopped and looked up to the roof of the circus. As the lights dimmed for the procession of the snow tigers the heights above him shone like a galaxy with miniscule lights that looked like stars.

‘What would you give to see this, eh, tiger?’ Arras teased as he prodded the beast once more with the stick. ‘Betelgeuse and Orion’s belt – how fitting that it should be those stars that shine
tonight.’ Eduardo growled and bared his teeth as he smashed his gigantic paw against the bars of the cage and sniffed the air above him. Max Arras looked up. ‘Something bothering you, tiger? Something up there?’

Just as Max Arras smashed the cane against the roof of the cage, the circus fell into complete darkness. The stars faded and a spotlight followed the ghostly pageant of white tigers. Everyone stood up and the circus erupted with applause. Arras walked the length of the cage in the twilight, staring upwards as if he knew someone was there.

‘A good place to hide, Mariah Mundi – but not good enough,’ he said as he took a pistol from his pocket and aimed it at the roof. ‘If you don’t come down I will be happy to shoot you – just where you are.’

Mariah realised he was trapped. He slipped from the roof and onto the sawdust floor. He gave no protestation and didn’t try to run away.

‘Will you shoot me here?’ he asked as Max Arras pointed the gun at him.

‘Not here – perhaps not at all,’ he replied. ‘Let’s get moving. Back into the stairwell, now! And before we go, I would like your gun.’

Mariah looked towards the hatch. He knew that if he stepped through the doorway, he would never see the light of day again. He felt in his pocket and took out the pistol and stepped towards Arras.

‘When can I have it back?’ Mariah asked.

‘Never. I have always wanted a Bureau pistol. What an invention, a flamethrower and a gun in one weapon. Mr Cody is still smouldering from his encounter with you,’ Arras said as he took the weapon from Mariah’s hand.

‘Then I’ll have yours,’ Mariah said as he snatched the other gun from Arras.

Arras grabbed him by the throat and both pistols fell to the floor. Although older than Mariah, Arras was lighter and not as strong. Mariah twisted him to the floor and they rolled towards the cage. Arras kicked and punched, not sparing the boy because of his age, but fighting him like a man. Mariah fended the blows from his head and kicked back with his feet as he tried to get away. Arras was the quicker, a seasoned fighter with no care for what pain he inflicted. He punched Mariah again and again. Then, when Mariah could take no more, he dragged the boy to his feet and held him upright.

‘Stupid boy,’ he said breathlessly. ‘To think you could fight me …’

‘I had to try – I couldn’t just give in,’ Mariah replied.

‘Brave, but foolish. And if I let go will you try to run?’ he asked as he pushed Mariah towards the cage.

‘I have no strength left – what’s done is done,’ Mariah replied, his legs shaking.

‘Very well. This shall be the place,’ Arras said, and he pushed Mariah back and bent to pick up his pistol from the floor.

Mariah seized the moment and grabbed Arras by his long white hair. He kicked the man and then pushed him back against the bars of the tiger cage in one last attempt to break free.

Without warning, Eduardo leapt from the dark corner of the cage. The tiger seized Max Arras by the shoulder. The man kicked and screamed. Mariah let go of him, falling backwards to the floor in panic. He watched in horror as Max Arras was slowly dragged through the bars, screaming and screaming. His cries could not be heard over the shouts of the crowd in the circus as they watched Rollo the tiger dance around the arena to a Viennese waltz.

The last thing that Mariah saw was the booted foot of Max
Arras disappearing into the cage. He turned his head and looked no more as he grabbed his pistol from the sawdust and crawled under the trailer cage and hid. Above his head he heard the growling of the tiger, and then all was silent.

M
ARIAH didn’t know how long he had waited, but from where he was hiding he had heard the tigers return to their cages. No one had seemed to realise what Eduardo had done or could see any remains of Max Arras. They had opened the cages and put the white tigers inside. Mariah could now hear the crowd laughing at the clowns as they tried to chase a kangaroo around the circus ring. He could see nothing. The tarpaulin hung like a thick, heavy curtain around the base of the cage, covering the wheels from view. Occasionally he could hear Eduardo growl and crunch bone in the small sleeping compartment at one end of the tiger cage. Mariah wondered how much of a man a tiger could eat. He knew he would have to explain to Captain Charity what had happened. He lay in shocked silence, knowing he had to move, knowing he must find Captain Jack.

It was soon clear that once the tigers had been put in their cages the wranglers looking after them had other jobs to do. Mariah listened to their bickering conversations. He heard one man say that it would all be over in ten minutes and then the man was to return to his cabin to sleep.

‘Don’t want to waste more time here than needed,’ the man said. ‘Better be getting off as soon as this lot has finished.’

Mariah stayed silent. He knew he could only move when the men had gone. In his mind’s eye he could see Max Arras struggling with the tiger and then giving up as if he knew he could not fight his fate – it was as if he had allowed Eduardo to drag him through the bars of the cage, as if this was meant to be.

Soon, all was quiet. He could still hear the clowns falling from an exploding carriage. The passengers laughed and cheered as Mariah waited for the moment to escape. Pulling a flap of the tarpaulin, he looked out. There was no one. He slipped from underneath the cage and looked back to see if Eduardo was waiting for him. In seven paces he had crossed the shadows and was by the hatch door.

Mariah knew Cody would be waiting for him. He spun the wheel of the hatch and then stood back. A long shadow crossed the open doorway. It was the size of a man – it was Cody. He was expecting to see Max Arras. Mariah hid behind the hatch, waiting for the right moment. Cody stepped from the door. As Mariah saw his shadow cross the floor he pushed the steel hatch as hard as he could. It slammed shut, knocking Cody from his feet. The man screamed in pain and rolled on the floor, clutching his face. Mariah pulled the pistol from his pocket and aimed it at Cody.

‘Promise me you won’t follow,’ Mariah said, opening the hatch with one hand.

‘Where’s Max?’ asked Cody.

‘He’s gone,’ Mariah replied.

‘What you done with him?’ the man asked.

‘I did nothing,’ Mariah answered as he aimed the gun at Cody.

‘You burnt me once – you won’t be doing that again,’ Cody said. He began to get to his feet.

‘Don’t come after me. I warn you now.’ Mariah stepped back and then turned to run.

A hand caught his leg just as he was stepping through the hatch. Cody pulled him back.

‘You’re not getting away that easy – not until I finish what I was going to do,’ the man said as he struggled with Mariah.

‘Don’t make me –’ Mariah gasped as he threw back the hand holding the gun.

Cody collapsed silently. Mariah looked down at him. He was an old man with a half-burned white beard and lined face. He had deep wrinkles and sea-brown skin. Every crease looked as though it had been seeped with ship oil from a life at sea. Cody looked peaceful as he breathed sleepily. He was unconscious. Mariah had knocked him cold.

Mariah looked at the pistol. The tip was covered in blood from the wound on Cody’s head. He felt detached, distant, as if it were a dream from which he could not escape. Again he had a vision of himself on the gangplank. He was looking back towards the ship. He could see the outline of the woman who had brought him there. She was tall, thin and elegantly dressed. A shadow covered her face from view. He could hear her words – she was telling him to jump.

It was the shouts of the crowd that broke his dream. The circus had come to an end. The clowns took their bows as the acrobats cartwheeled around the ring. Cody was still unconscious, breathing heavily, snoring and snorting with every other breath. Mariah turned him onto his side so he wouldn’t choke. He searched the pockets of his jacket. In the last one he found a strange steel key with a twisted hook on the end. On the black leather fob was the word
Ketos
.

Mariah put it in his pocket and stepped through the hatch, pulling the door shut. He saw the red box to one side, broke the glass with his pistol and took out the axe. He jammed the
handle of the axe into the wheel so it couldn’t be turned and Cody couldn’t follow.

At first he went slowly as he took the stairs down and down. He listened constantly to discover if he was being followed. He saw no one. When he got to the door of Deck 2 he felt the air grow hotter. It smelt of the sea. Mariah could hear the Zane Generator and the pumps pushing the water out of the back of the ship in a steady flow. The generator whirred and hissed as the water boiled. Four flights later he was at Deck 1.

Mariah opened the inner door. He knew he was under the water line. Everything sounded muffled and different; the walls were hot to the touch. There was a creaking of the metal plates, as if the outer skin might be torn off with the speed of the ship. The long passageway led in both directions. It was searing, dank and musty.

Mariah could hear the bilge pumps whirring as they sucked the brine from below his feet. He looked down through the mesh grille of the deck. In the shadows below, he could see the water running back and forth with the motion of the ship.

‘Deck 1, Locker 17,’ Mariah said out loud as he turned and ran along the passageway, passing a door with number 35 upon it. ‘Must be near here somewhere.’

Within a minute he was at the door of Locker 17. It looked just like all the others – a black hatch with a brass wheel and two dead bolts that pinned it to the wall on either side.

‘Captain Jack – you in there?’ he shouted as he banged on the door. It thudded dimly as if it were a solid wall. Mariah banged again and again. There was no reply.

Mariah began to turn the wheel. At first it wouldn’t move. It felt heavy as if gripped by unseen hands that wanted to keep it locked to the world. He pulled harder. The wheel began to move slowly as the bolts slid cautiously from each steel wall.

It was then that he saw the water seeping from the bottom of
the door. It bled faster and faster with every turn of the wheel.

‘You in there, Captain Jack?’ he shouted as he realised the locker was full of water.

There was no reply.

He spun the wheel harder and waited for the bolts to burst from the locks. Suddenly, the door blew open. A surge of water pushed him back along the passageway as it forced its way from Locker 17 in a vast torrent. The bilges whirred even louder as they pumped the deluge. Steam filled the passageway. Mariah got to his feet.

‘Captain Jack!’ he shouted as he stumbled to the hatch. ‘You in there?’

There was no reply. Mariah looked inside the dark locker. It smelt just like the crab-boiling house in the street next to the Prince Regent Hotel. Mariah used to pass it every morning. Large crabs were hung from the doorway, and in winter they steamed and sizzled in the cold air.

Locker 17 was empty. A tap bubbled in the corner of the room. Mariah stepped inside. By the far wall were a raggle of woman’s clothes and the arms of a mannequin doll.

‘Took your time,’ said a voice above him. ‘I nearly drowned.’

‘Captain Jack,’ Mariah said as he looked up at the open hatch above his head. ‘How did you get up there?’

‘Whoever locked me in here didn’t realise that all the lockers are linked. Quite simple, really. I just waited for the water to lift me higher and then undid the hatch.’

‘They tried to kill me.’ Mariah babbled quickly as Charity slipped through the hatch and dropped to the wet floor. ‘A man called Max Arras said he was from the Bureau. He showed me a letter he said was from you, but I didn’t trust him. He lied.’

‘Max Arras works for Lord Bonham – where is he now?’ Charity asked.

Mariah didn’t speak. He turned away and stepped outside the hatch. Charity followed.

‘Where is he?’ he asked again.

‘Dead.’ Mariah replied reluctantly. ‘He was eaten by a tiger. Arras tried to kill me – we had a fight. The tiger dragged him into its cage and I couldn’t look.’

‘Sometimes these things have to take place. It is never easy.’ Charity put his hand on Mariah’s shoulder.

‘He just let it happen as if it were fate,’ Mariah replied as in his mind the event went on, relived over again.

‘I knew of Max Arras in the army. Strange he should be involved in such a thing as this. Are you sure it was him?’

‘That’s what he said – Max Arras. Told me he was in the Bureau. It was Arras who mentioned Deck 1 and Locker 17. They were going to bring me here,’ Mariah said as the heat of the Zane Generator caused his clothes to steam.

‘I think that there is another side to our dilemma,’ Charity said thoughtfully. ‘I was brought here by a man called Sachnasun – he works for Lorenzo Zane. It was convenient that this should take place.’

‘A trap?’ asked Mariah.

‘A conspiracy, Mariah, a total conspiracy,’ he replied.

Far away, a sea hatch suddenly creaked. Charity looked into the darkness. The heavy footsteps of two men clattered on the steel.

‘Cody!’ whispered Mariah. ‘He was one of the men who was with Arras.’

‘Then the hunted shall start to hunt. Quickly, Mariah, inside,’ Charity said as he stepped back inside Locker 17, followed by Mariah. Silently he pushed the door and turned the locking wheel. ‘Let them get inside and then we attack.’

‘Cody is injured – I used the pistol,’ Mariah said, half hoping that Charity wouldn’t hear him.

‘Then he shall be even quicker to catch. Stand by the wall – let them see you first,’ Charity said as he jumped, caught hold of the rim of the hatch above and pulled himself through.

Mariah waited as the footsteps clanged against the metal floor of the passageway. Locker 17 steamed with the heat of the generator. A small shaft of light came down from the open hatch in the corner of the room. Mariah stood by the far wall. He held his pistol behind his back, his hand trembling.

He was trepidatious about what would happen next. It was as if all that was his life had passed away, and everything familiar was now no more. Mariah was at war and in war; he knew that men would seize the world with violence. He found the battle hard, foreign, harrowing. Its companion was always fear and anguish. It was far away from the books he had read of valiant heroes, but he knew it was what he had to do. It had been this way since the start of his life at the Prince Regent – one by one his adversaries had come to him and had fallen. Death had made him a man with the heart of a boy. His eyes looked on this new life and still could not comprehend it.

‘Locker 17, Mr Brogan,’ he heard the muffled voice of Cody say as the hatch lock began to turn. ‘No sign of Mariah Mundi – who do you think he’s gone to tell?’

‘None would believe him. We’ll have this ship as soon as we have Charity and Mundi dead,’ the man replied. ‘We’ll be changing course before we get to America and then we’ll see.’

The man stopped speaking as if he knew something was wrong. There was a tap, tap, tap on the door of the hatch as if it were being tested.

‘Empty already?’ Cody asked. ‘Thought he was going to fill it with brine when he trapped Charity inside and have him soaked like a turbot?’

‘Must have done its job. Take no chances,’ Brogan replied through spittle.

The hatch unlocked slowly and steam oozed from the opening.

‘Smells like he’s dead,’ Cody chirped cheerfully. ‘All we need now is the boy and –’

Cody stared into the gloom. There before them was the mannequin doll in her ragged and soaked dress. By the far wall was a shadow, still and lifeless.

‘Mundi! Get him!’ shouted Brogan as he leapt inside.

‘Stand or I’ll shoot you dead!’ Mariah said as he aimed the pistol.

‘One of you and two of us,’ Brogan said as he drew closer, pulling a knife from inside his jacket. Cody followed close behind. He seemed reluctant and somewhat fearful.

‘You don’t have to do this, Cody. I warned you before,’ Mariah said as he aimed the gun at him.

‘Shoot him,’ Brogan said without reservation. ‘I have no concern for him.’

Cody looked hesitant. He looked at Brogan and then to Mariah.

‘They care not for you, Cody,’ Mariah went on. ‘They would see you dead and think nothing of it.’

‘Put down the gun, Mariah Mundi. You won’t shoot us,’ Brogan said as he cut through the air with his knife.

‘He will, Brogan, mark my words,’ Cody went on. ‘The lad’s not frightened of pulling that trigger.’

‘And neither am I,’ said Charity as he slipped from the upper hatch and landed on the floor behind them. ‘Two pistols, one knife and time for you to talk.’

Brogan spun on his heels to face Charity.

‘Jack Charity? I am so glad to meet you – but not to talk to you,’ he said as he stood his ground. ‘I’m sworn on my life not to say a word to the Bureau of Antiquities.’

‘Very well,’ Charity said as he nodded to Mariah. Then
Brogan’s eyes opened widely and he slumped to the floor. ‘Well done, Mariah. Take his knife and we shall see what Mr Cody has to say for himself.’ Charity threw a pair of silver handcuffs to Mariah. ‘Place him in these. We shall see what Captain Tharakan has to say about the mutiny of his crew.’

‘You won’t get far with Tharakan,’ Cody said as Mariah handcuffed Brogan. ‘He can’t do a thing.’

‘He’s the captain of the
Triton
,’ Mariah said as Brogan moaned.

‘That may be so, but –’ Cody was about to go on.

‘Tell him no more, Cody,’ muttered Brogan as he tried to get to his feet. ‘You’ve been well paid for this.’

‘Blackmailed and beaten, Mr Brogan. I remember what you said to me. I hold you no favours,’ Cody replied.

‘Then you’ll be cursed and dead before midnight,’ Brogan spluttered.