Angels in the Gloom_ A Novel - Anne Perry [120]
Then the shooting got more accurate. Shells tore into the decking, sending splinters of hot metal flying. One gun turret erupted in fire and there was a desperate scramble to get the injured men out. Matthew was sent with a message, stumbling down the gangways, choked with the acrid fumes of cordite and the smell of burning rubber from the corticine.
He saw smoke-grimed faces bent to guns, stokers heaving coal into the boilers, bodies gleaming in the red light of flames, skins almost black, other men injured, blood on their uniforms, eyes hollow with shock.
This time there was no conclusion, no strike of depth charges and wreckage spewed up and floating on the sea, no wait for bodies, just a long, slow winding down of tension and release of fear as time stretched out after the last burst of gunfire.
They had lost two men dead and thirteen wounded, most of them flesh injuries or burns. Three were serious; one would be fortunate if he survived. He had been in the gun turret that was hit.
Matthew was coming up from carrying a message to the ship’s surgeon, and on the way back up to the bridge, when he passed Robertson in the passage. For a few moments they were alone, the thrum of the engines loud, like a mechanical heartbeat, the air close, suffocating with the smell of oil and smoke and rubber, the swing and surge of the sea now so familiar they both adjusted to it without thinking.
Matthew was the senior. Robertson stood aside for him. He was broad-chested and heavy shouldered. His face was expressionless except for the illusion of lopsidedness created by streaks of oil on his nose and left cheek.
It was a chance that Matthew could not afford to pass by, little as he wanted to take it. He was exhausted as well, and he realized how physically afraid he was. He had just survived a battle and he wanted to escape and be safe, even if only for a few hours. He stopped. He needed to say something, provoke an answer. With every hour there was less time ahead.
“Are you all right, Robertson?” he asked. “Is that blood on your face?”
Robertson looked alarmed. He brushed off the smear then put his hand to his nose. His relief was palpable. “No, it’s oil, sir.”
“Good. Makes one wonder why I chose the navy and not the army,” Matthew said with a slight smile.
Robertson met his eyes squarely. “Why did you, sir?” In the narrowness of the corridor he was about two feet away from Matthew.
Matthew drew in his breath to answer just as the ship juddered and pitched, and Robertson lunged forward, throwing his arms out to save himself, and catching Matthew, pinning him to the wall.
Matthew lifted his knee to jab Robertson in the groin just as Harper came around the corner. “What the hell’s going on?” he shouted at Robertson. He charged forward ready to attack him.
Matthew felt a wave of relief so intense he almost burst out laughing, he could feel it well up inside him, hysterical and absurd.
Robertson looked stunned. “Sorry, sir,” he said with alarm. “Suppose I haven’t got my sea legs as well as I thought.” He turned to Matthew. “Didn’t mean to hurt you, sir. Meant to go against the wall.”
Matthew did not believe him, but there was no point in saying so now.
“No harm done,” he replied, straightening up. “Thank you,” he said to Harper. There was no need to let him know what he had interrupted. “All a bit tired, I expect. It must be dawn soon.”
Harper stretched his hand out to look at the watch on his wrist.
“Yes sir, in about half an hour.”
Matthew stared at it. It was beautiful, wrought of mixed silver and gold, with a green line around the face. He had seen it before, when Detta had showed it to him as the gift she had selected for her father.
Matthew was standing in the bowels of the Cormorant, facing Patrick Hannassey. That level, hard gaze, the bony features that looked