Doctor Who_ The Roundheads - Mark Gatiss [93]
‘The pox?’ he said, laughing through his teeth. ‘I gave you the pox? It was that which claimed your nose?’
Winter dropped her sword to her side, breathing hard.
‘Aye, you hog! Rotted off half my face afore it was done, and you never bearing so much as a scab!’
Stanislaus threw back his head and laughed, and his crew laughed, too.
‘Well!’ he said. ‘I suppose I’m just lucky.’
With that, he leapt from the poop deck and landed on the block and tackle, swinging out across the deck with tremendous force.
He stretched out his long legs and caught Winter square in the chest, knocking her off balance so that she tottered backwards crashed into the rail and, with a startled cry, fell head over heels into the mud.
The crew gave a great cheer and Stanislaus leapt back to the main deck, sword high above his head.
Godley and the Dutchman were applauding and he nodded to them as he made his way swiftly to the side of the Teazer.
He looked down into the darkness and saw Winter attempting to right herself, her wooden leg stuck fast in the slimy black mud.
Turning to his men, Stanislaus barked his orders.
‘I want preparation made at once to refloat the ship. I shall finish off this business myself.’
With that, he placed one hand on the rail and jumped off, landing on the mud flats with the grace of an athlete, Reluctantly, the crew resumed their work, but Godley and the Dutchman strode to the side.
Godley peered out. He could see Stanislaus making his way towards the stationary figure of Winter, who was flailing about in the mud.
‘I fancy this will be a sight worth seeing,’ he said with a smile.
The flat of Ben’s hand slapped against the mud as he made another effort to pull himself free. Yet again, his fingers sank deep into the wet slop, and he had to haul his hand out with a supreme effort.
He had sunk as far as his midriff now and his initial panic had given way to a strange calm. He knew that if he didn’t manage to escape soon he would be sucked into the mud and drown. It was as simple as that and the sudden clarity of his mind was a great comfort to him.
There were no tree roots projecting through the mud on which he could get a grip, no patches of mysteriously solid ground. So his one hope was outside intervention.
Yet if he raised his voice, Stanislaus and his crew were sure to hear and he might be spared the indignity of suffocation only to find a musket ball in the back of his brain.
He strained and gasped as he tried to lift himself up. There was a tremendous, crushing pressure on his legs and stomach and a crazy image flashed into his mind of a cartoon character stuck in quick-drying concrete.
Conscious of the need to stay alert and moving, he was nevertheless aware that, every time he shifted in his muddy prison, he sank a little further.
Perhaps he could remain there till morning, then, if the tide had not claimed him, the Teazer might have gone on to London and he could scream himself hoarse.
The mud gave a vile belching sound and Ben cried out as he felt himself slide further in, the black mire forming a slick around his ribs.
In his heart of hearts he knew he couldn’t last that long.
He turned his head at a sudden and unexpected clamour some distance behind. Of course he could not turn around but he could just make out two figures splashing about in the shallows by the beached Demeter.
They must have spotted him. They were coming for him.
He was sure of it.
Seized with the desire to escape, he scrabbled at the mud, his hands burrowing deep into the sloppy sediment, but it was no use. He was left gasping for breath and sank still deeper.
‘Oh, Doctor,’ he wailed. ‘How did I ever get into this?’
He started as a loud, bright whistle like the cry of a sea bird shattered the calm.
His head jerked from side to side as he tried to locate its source. Was it coming from the figures behind him or from the shore?
The whistle sounded again and then a hoarse, whispered call. ‘Can you move?’
Ben knew now that someone had seen him from the shore, only twenty feet or so away.
‘No,’ he called back