Doctor Who_ The Roundheads - Mark Gatiss [63]
She spun the wheel around and the Demeter began to respond, lurching and creaking at the sudden change of direction.
Ben joined her on the poop deck and glanced anxiously at the increasingly close Teazer.
‘Why risk this when his mission’s so important?’ he bellowed above the din.
Winter kept a tight hold of the wheel, her silver nose flashing in the winter sun.
‘Ah, the arrogance of the nobility!’ she spat. ‘He thinks he’s untouchable, the cur. But we’ll outrun him, or sink him. I stake my life on it.’
Ben was not so sure. The masts of the enemy ship were heaving perilously close into view. He could already see the crew lining up to board them.
‘Ben!’ cried Winter. ‘Get those cannons firing, will you, or, by God’s wounds, they’ll be upon us.’
Racing across the deck, Ben couldn’t help but wonder at the irony of finding himself in the middle of such a scene.
‘Funny,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I always wanted to be a pirate.’
He took the stairs down to the lower deck three at a time and found a state of utter devastation. A blast from the Teazer‘s cannon had scored a direct hit, knocking out the deck’s armoury completely.
‘Oh bIimey!’ groaned Ben, looking around at the dead and wounded that littered the room.
He found young Hugh unconscious on a pile of sacking and slapped the boy’s pale, smoke-blackened face until he came round.
‘Hugh!’ he barked. ‘Come on! I need your help.’
The boy looked dazed, then focused on Ben’s face and nodded. Ben grabbed his skinny arm and dragged him back up the stairs to the upper deck. He bent down to the boy’s level.
‘Now look, son, you’re going to have to steer the ship while me and the captain take on those pirates, all right?’
Hugh looked dumbfounded but then found his voice. ‘Me, sir? The wheel?’
Ben held the boy’s face between his hands. ‘You can do it.
You know you can. Now get up there and tell the captain I need her down here.’
Hugh nodded and grinned, his teeth showing white through the grime that covered his face. He raced up to the poop deck.
Ben turned and raised his cutlass.
The Teazer was right by them now, scraping alongside the hull, its crew ready to jump ship.
Ben took a deep breath and waited for them to come.
‘You’re insane!’ screeched Godley, forcing himself back against the walls of Stanislaus’s cabin and clutching his cloak around him.
Stanislaus sat in his chair, unperturbed by the booming cannon fire which shook the room.
‘Do not distress yourself, my friend,’ he said in his heavily accented voice. ‘’Tis no matter. We have the package and now we will have a little sport before we return to London.’
Godley shook his handsome head, his features blanched with fury and nausea.
‘This is hardly the time, Captain. You know the urgency of our plan. What if something were to go wrong? What if this ship is sunk? What then?’
Stanislaus smiled coolly and leaned back in his chair. ‘The Teazer will not sink, sir. I promise you that. Besides, we know that we had visitors last night. One glance at my strongbox and the information provided by our friend Ashdown tell us that it was that sluttish captain, Winter. It would be better for all of us if she were not involved in this... adventure at all.’
Godley groaned. ‘To risk everything for some pathetic vendetta! ‘Sblood, there will be a reckoning if this ever gets out!’
‘Then it must not get out,’ said Stanislaus firmly, ‘Eh, Mr van Leeuwenhoek?’
He turned to face the third occupant of the room, a bald, almost skeletally thin man, swathed entirely in black like a huge, malevolent bird. His skin was dry and cracked like old parchment and when he smiled, as he did now, his mouth appeared more like a blackened maw. He let out a throaty chuckle and then his mouth sealed again like a rat trap.
Stanislaus laughed too and glanced towards the window.
‘Well,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘I suppose I had better go out and win the day.’
With a tremendous tearing screech, the Teazer slammed against the hull of Captain Winter’s ship