Doctor Who_ The Roundheads - Mark Gatiss [90]
‘Captain Winter,’ he called. ‘Sal? Are you there?
Surrender yourself.’
He looked around, the gale blowing his long black hair off his face.
‘Surrender yourself or this boy will gain a new mouth. Just here.’
He jerked the cutlass and nicked the side of Hugh’s throat.
The boy gasped and a little bead of blood glistened down his skin.
There was movement close to Ben and he looked up as Winter appeared, her arms above her head, still brandishing her cutlass.
Stanislaus smiled delightedly. ‘Tell your men to surrender their arms.’ Winter scowled at him. ‘Tell them!’ hissed Stanislaus.
With a heavy sigh, Winter bellowed orders for her men to cease fighting.
Reluctantly, the men dropped their swords and were instantly rounded up by Stanislaus’s cackling crew.
‘Now,’ cried the Pole. ‘Down here, Sal. Come along. I’m a busy man.’
Reluctantly, Winter made her way across on to the deck of the Teazer, where she was instantly grabbed and tied up, then placed back to back against Hugh.
Stanislaus began to strut up and down like a peacock.
Winter spat with contempt. ‘Would you use a boy to win your battles, Pole?’
The crew laughed but were silenced at once by Stanislaus’s reptilian sneer.
He strode up to her, his face only inches from hers.
‘By Christ, I have tolerated you all these long years, dogging my every bloody step. But no longer. This is too big for such fry as you.’ He drew his cutlass.
Winter laughed scornfully. ‘And now would you end it like this? After all these years? You took my comeliest feature, remember. And now you would end our association by stabbing me through the gullet in cold blood.’
Stanislaus shook his head. ‘Nay. Nothing to do with you has ever been in cold blood.’
He raised his cutlass high above his head and prepared to bring it down into Winter’s throat.
Without thinking of the consequences, Ben jumped like a spring-heeled gazelle from one ship to the other.
‘Sal!’ he cried, hurling his own sword, which the captain neatly caught. She jumped clear of Stanislaus’s blade and looked swiftly in Ben’s direction.
‘Away now, Ben! And thank ‘ee!’
As the crew surged towards him, Ben threw himself over the side of the Demeter, landing with a soft splash in the shallow, muddy water.
‘After him!’ roared Stanislaus, turning with surprising agility as Winter’s sword crashed against his own.
Ben knew that his only chance was to hide for a while. He would present too easy a target struggling over the mud flats.
Silently, he waded through the water, his breath coming in great whooping draughts. He pulled himself close to the beached hull of the Demeter and crouched down in its shadow, curling himself into a ball.
He could hear shouts above him and the clash of sword on sword as Winter and Stanislaus settled their conflict once and for all.
But he was currently more concerned with the sound of the approaching crewmen, splashing through the water in search of him. He was bound to be discovered sooner or later and he uncurled himself, looking about desperately in the black night for some means of escape.
The wind was howling over the marshes and he felt his face numbing as sleet slapped against his skin.
Dimly, he could see torches blazing in the darkness and he reached out to pull himself out of the water. Instead of the expected hull, his fingers found an empty space and he realised, with a thrill, that he was close to one of the ship’s ruined cannon ports. She had crashed into the mud at such an angle that he could easily clamber back inside.
Swiftly, he scrambled up the sodden planks, his hands and feet slipping over the weed-covered surface until he was able to swing himself through into the dark interior of the ship.
‘Any sign?’ he heard someone call through the gale. There was no answer for a while and Ben sat in silence, hugging his knees to his chin, ears pricked.
‘He’ll be away across the flats,’ came another voice at last.
Scarcely daring to believe his luck, Ben stayed as he was, listening to the sound of his own breathing.
‘God help him then,’ came a third