Doctor Who_ The Roundheads - Mark Gatiss [73]
Reluctantly, Ben had agreed with the plan but tried to cover the length and breadth of the ship as quickly as he could in order to rejoin his friend. After all, she had lost an arm, a leg, and her nose, so she probably needed all the luck she could get.
Ben was conscious of the sound of his own breathing as he ran across the deck, crouching low as he moved, his shoes slapping against the wet planks.
He cried out and jerked backwards as a slew of men suddenly charged right past him, arms flailing as they fought, shirts and sashes creating a blur of colour. There was sharp tang in the air as steel rang against steel, and Ben threw himself down to avoid getting caught up in the fighting. He encountered a dozen or more of the Demeter‘s crew who had taken the fight to the enemy ship, their swords clashing as they took on the Teazer‘s band of pirates.
Sorely tempted though he was to come to the aid of Sal Winter’s crew, he knew he wouldn’t help the captain by getting himself pointlessly killed. So he pulled himself snugly into the shadows as hooted feet raced by and the air was filled with rallying yells. He carefully avoided them all and, though he saw many he recognised, there was no sign of Captain Stanislaus.
Ben crouched down low and scurried towards the cabin, confident that he and Winter could ransack the place unmolested, at least for the time being. He raced forward and then pulled up sharply as he collided with a heavy weight which was swinging in the air directly before him.
A cry of horror left him involuntarily as he realised the weight was a man’s body, swinging from the yardarm. Worse than that, it was the body of Isaac Ashdown, his face bloated and black, his purple tongue protruding sickeningly from his open mouth. A viciously tight noose was wrapped around his broken neck.
So, Stanislaus had rumbled them, he thought, and tortured the truth out of the only decent man in his crew, just as O’Kane had said.
Filled with bitter anger, Ben ran towards the captain’s cabin. A light was blazing within and Ben positioned himself as close to the little window as he dared.
Inside, he saw a sight that made his heavy heart sink further still. Winter stood behind the desk, her hands raised above her head, being covered with a pistol by Godley.
Another man, all in black, whom Ben did not recognise, stood by the cabin wall, a thin smile on his skeletal features.
‘Quite a prize!’ Godley was saying. ‘Wait until the captain returns. It seems he had no need to board your ship. You were in too much of a hurry to come here!’
Winter scrutinised him closely. ‘Mind your tongue, lad, lest you lose it.’
Godley cocked the pistol and levelled it coolly at Winter’s face. ‘You don’t scare me, you she-ape. I’ve faced down far more dreadful apparitions than you.’
Again Winter looked at the young man and this time her weathered, powder-pocked face assumed a puzzled frown. ‘Do I not know you, sir?’
Godley smiled, almost, thought Ben, like some actor stopped for his autograph. But then the handsome fellow shook his rich curls. ‘I think not, Captain. Unless you have seen me in your nightmares!’
Winter shook her massive head. ‘No. I think it would have been somewhere altogether more corporeal.’
Godley seemed a little unnerved by her attention and glanced quickly at the other man. ‘Where is that idiot Pole?’
he hissed. ‘We must get him word that the Demeter‘s mistress is our prisoner.’ The stranger nodded but made no move to help. ‘Well?’ thundered Godley. ‘Away, man! ‘Sblood! Must I do everything myself?’
For the first time, the curious man spoke and Ben found himself physically recoiling, even with the window between them.
‘I am not concerned with this pettiness. I have work elsewhere.’ The voice was dry as dust and Dutch in accent.
Ben suddenly realised that this must be the man Stanislaus and Godley had visited in Amsterdam.
Godley raised his pistol as though to strike the man and Ben took his chance. He hurled himself through the window, which exploded inward, and landed