False Colors (6 page)

By the following night all was ready. At the rim of the world the sinking moon extinguished itself in the sea, and in the starlight the
Meteor’s
black painted hull and ochre sails were all but invisible. Brass guns lurked without a gleam under a fresh coat of brown paint. The mortars, uncovered, squatted like gargoyles peering over her prow, their great black mouths gaping. Standing next to them, the men of the Ordnance Corps deigned to smile, gloating over their bombs.

Only the bow wave caught the occasional glimmer, dimly shimmering as the
Meteor
forged her silent way into the vast bowl of the harbor of Algiers.

Map in one hand, the other on the compass binnacle, John whispered his instructions to the helm. Ship’s boys raced on soundless bare feet to relay commands to the captains of the main and mizzen masts.

“Prepare to heave to. Helm a lee. Back the main sail. Boat crews, row out the spring anchors.”
Groaning, the braces of the masts so tight a little rain of dew squeezed out of them, the
Meteor
slowed, turned up into the wind and stopped, holding her position, balanced between the backward push of her backed mainsail and the forward thrust of the other sails. Like a dancer balanced and still on the tip of one foot, it was a poised, precarious stillness ready to swing back into motion at any moment.
First to one side, then the other, the boat crews slid the spring anchors gently into the water. John felt them take—the deck beneath his feet shuddered slightly then firmed, losing its easy responsiveness to the waves. Fixed now on the one point in the harbor where, in theory, the cannons of the shore batteries could not reach, the
Meteor
waited.
Theory is a fine thing,
John thought, surveying the vessels at rest within range,
now to put it to the test
. He slid his spyglass closed with a metallic rasp like the sound of a sword being drawn. The heels of his shoes rapped like pistol shots in the silence as he walked the length of the deck to the mortars.
“Sir?” said Sergeant Richardson, a dark bulk quivering with keenness beside his beloved weaponry.
“The galleys must go first. After that anything fast enough to follow us. We only have a few moments. Make them count.”
“Aye, aye sir!”
Richardson directed his crew with a low muttering. The bomb clanked against the mortar, and the dull thud of the rammer sounded apologetic, as if it cleared its throat in church. The slow-match glinted like a mad red eye. Richardson sighted along the barrel. “Winch her two points to leeward.”
The capstan rumbled. Winched towards one anchor, away from the other, the whole ship turned—there being no other way to aim the weapon—and “Fire!” bellowed Richardson, full throated, even as the slow match descended on the touch-hole. A moment’s fizzling, a hollow
whoom!
deep enough to steal the breath from John’s lungs, make all the bones in his body tremble, and with a shattering roar the first bomb exploded among the moored galleys. The second mortar roared and spat as the first team wormed and sponged; raking out and quenching any smoldering wadding that might remain to set off the next charge too early.
Lights kindled on every vessel lining the shoreline. John could almost hear the running feet and shouting in the fort, and then the shore batteries erupted in red tongues of flame and twelve-pound shot pocked the dark water an inch before the windward side. Satisfaction gleamed as pretty as gold in John’s heart as he realized his calculation had been true. The shore batteries could not quite reach the
Meteor
here. He had perhaps five minutes before the ships at anchor could man their guns and become a threat. But he could do a great deal of damage in five minutes. Roaring splendid destruction saw galleys bursting into tumbling jigsaws of pieces, drifting away from their snapped cables to tangle with each other, furled sails on fire.
Wounded xebecs tried to bring their guns to bear on the
Meteor
only to find themselves hulled by the fire of their own fort. Masts tumbled, and the water reflected flame. Richardson whistled as he worked, and the men at the capstans cheered each shot when it went home. As they swung back to bombard the vessels on the other side of the harbor, a ball from the shore knocked the head and ample bosom off
Meteor
’s figurehead, the impact making John lurch to the rail. Before him the harbor of Algiers lay crammed with sinking, burning hulks of pirate ships. The shore seethed black with men scrambling into rowing boats. Caught up in the action, he laughed for joy before seeing from the corner of his eye the first of the moored ships slip its anchor and begin to work its way upwind towards them.
“Loose the anchors!” cried John, hacking through the windward cable with an axe, “Make sail!”
Freed from the anchors, the main topsail put before the wind,
Meteor
whispered forward once more. As soon as she answered to her helm, John put her about. Setting every scrap of canvas she carried, racing through a hail of hot iron as they left the sheltered spot and dashed for the harbor mouth, they fled for their lives, grinning.

True to his orders, Richardson’s barrage had spared only those ships which could not keep up with the
Meteor
. But it was a near thing; the chase had gone on for three days. When—on the morning of the fourth—the lookout reported no sail in sight, John celebrated by shaving carefully, putting on a new uniform, and going to visit Lieutenant Donwell.

By dint of moving the canvas panel of the wall to include cannon number seven–Roaring Jack–Alfie’s cabin had been enlarged. Under doctor’s orders, the gunport stood open to let fresh air into the cabin, revealing dawn’s light just turning from pink to pale, and smooth, green seas, their rounded backs swelling and creaming into foam down the
Meteor
’s sides. The cabin smelled of sunlight and fresh paint. Reflections from the water swept rhythmically about the walls.

By contrast to all this glory, Donwell himself looked terrible; a shape mummified in bandages and curled protectively into the furthest corner of the room. Mute, white and bloodstained, he watched Dr. Harper with wary eyes, tracking every movement.

“Well enough to speak for himself, I think.” Harper picked up his bag and packed away a variety of blue glass bottles, radiant as sapphires in this light. He looked about vainly for his glasses, which perched on top of the cannon, one arm shoved into the touch-hole. Taking them from John’s offering hand he tried to put them into a pocket, scraping them against the hideous screw end of a trepanning iron which poked out, cutting edge up, from the flap.

Once he had collected all the doctor’s items together and ushered the man out, John felt quite exhausted and doddery himself. He sat gratefully on the gun-carriage and hoped the light and silence would calm his almost physical anguish of pity.

Donwell sighed, uncurled a little, hesitant, as though he feared to offend. “There’s…pills,” he whispered. “Here under the…He can’t read his own writing.”

Getting up, John felt under the board and thin mattress of the cot. He fished out a double handful of pills and a dust of herbs and simples where more had been crushed. Shaking his head in exasperation over the wasted medicine, he put it out of the gunport nevertheless. Doctor Harper was a good man, no doubt about it, but—too old and absent minded to be relied upon—he had already been known to mistake arsenic for antimony with unfortunate results. It might be the captain’s job to ensure his people took physic when needed, whether they wanted to or not, but in this case he felt he might make an exception.

“I ought to rebuke you, lieutenant, except that I should have done the same myself. How are you?”
“I could get back on duty, sir, if you’d give me a couple of fellows to lift me up and down to the deck. Let me serve in a chair. I know you’ve needed… .”
Donwell’s spurt of energy ran out mid sentence. Closing his eyes, he leaned his head back against the wall and seemed about to fall asleep, jerking awake with a frantic, frightened look just before John thought of tiptoeing away.
“I won’t say we haven’t needed you.” John took the excuse to come closer, so that he could examine Donwell’s face—now a patchwork of green and purple bruises, red, angry burns, and cuts that had healed into black scabs. It was at least no longer swollen; he could see the lineaments of the man he knew there once more. And the voice, though weak, had regained some of its harmony—like an oboe whose shattered reed still draws at least one or two notes. “But we have managed, Mr. Donwell. You are not yet completely indispensable.”
Donwell flinched and looked away. Though the cabin was full of cool light, his eyes retained the fetid darkness of the slave pits. “I learned that, sir. I learned it very well.”
“You misunderstand me!” It occurred to John that he didn’t know the man at all; that a few charged encounters, a moment of sublimity shared, did not amount to very much. “You are not indispensable—quite the opposite. We went to great trouble to get you back as we knew that leaving your troublesome person among the Turks would constitute an act of aggression far more grievous than bombing their fleet.”
Obligingly, Donwell raised the ends of his mouth at this witticism. It could hardly have been called a smile, though he made the effort. “They tamed me soon enough.”
In the silence that followed, John felt the weight of each word, the weight of Donwell’s casual brokenness, turn the sparkling air into a mockery. He recalled the horror of the pens and tried not to think about what it would be like to be so reduced to worthlessness. Instinctively, he reached out and took hold of the lieutenant’s least maimed hand, the touch startling Donwell to look back up.
Their eyes met and John saw terror—fear of all mankind, fear of living in such a world—before Donwell again closed his eyes and turned away, hiding.
“I…” John attacked the terrible void with words, lest it should overwhelm him too. “I…How about some music, Mr. Donwell? We have that cantata to finish, do we not?”
At the change of tactics, Donwell’s face smoothed. He raised his hands to his head, the pads of his fingers raw where the fingernails had been torn out, and unwound the bandage which sat like a fashionable lady’s turban on his scalp. John thought to protest, but stifled it, not wanting to provoke bad memories with unnecessary orders. Donwell looked more human with his cornsilk hair curling about his face. When he opened his eyes, John was pleased to see a hint of humor had dared to venture back; frail but promising, like the seedling of an oak.
“Still hunting those illicit thrills, sir? I’ll see what I can manage.”

Every step rolled his foot over broken glass, sliced into his heel, speared through his instep, sawed through the abused, tender little bones of his toes, trapping them against the unyielding leather of his shoes and ending with a pain as eye-watering as a mouthful of lemon. Every step, the same progression of injuries repeated. With every step came the same reminder of being held down, the canes, the struggling, the cursing, and the wild belief that this could not happen. Not to him. Every step was a reminder of humiliation. By the time he walked from his cabin to the wardroom, his spirit, as raw as his feet, flayed and tender, could barely support another breath.

Alfie fell into his seat, gasping as if he’d run from Marathon to Athens. His hands trembled on the table so hard they made a staccato drumbeat, and he felt the eyes of all the company on him. Sympathy and resentment were equally unbearable. Tucking his hands into his armpits to still them, he raised his head, surprised and pleased to know there was still some defiance left in him.

“Christ! They made a mess of you,” said Hall with satisfaction, reaching up to fiddle with the paper securing the lefthand curl of his carefully dressed hair. When Alfie didn’t answer, Hall took up his fork again and speared a lump of boiled salt horse, nibbling on it with fastidious distaste. “Wouldn’t lie down and take it, eh? Can’t say I blame you. We’ve all heard what those heathens like to do with a fresh piece of Christian arse.…” He smiled. “But then you’d know more about that than we would, eh? Surprised you can sit down.”

The Master laughed. Down at the end of the table, Armitage gave a shocked, delighted titter. Rage rose up from the brutalized soles of Alfie’s feet through every aching, shamed particle of his body in a tide of burning pitch.

Anger was better than laudanum for making him forget the pain, for re-knitting bone and sinew. He had risen and crossed the room before he even felt the fireworks of agony through his blood. The sudden panic in Hall’s eyes as he grabbed the fornicating cunt by his foppish hair and slammed his face into the table was more of a balm for all those days of fear than any of Harper’s pills. Shouting, Hall tried to stab him with the silverware. Armitage yelled something behind him while the Master laughed until he sent himself into a coughing fit.

Alfie grabbed Hall’s knife hand and ground it beneath his full weight, forcing the fingers to open or to break. Knocking the knife away, he sent Hall’s chair after it, kicking it from underneath him. As the purser dangled from his hair, shrieking as the roots began to part in weeping clumps, marines came running through the wardroom door, rifles in their hands. Alfie lifted Hall’s head up, smashed it into the table again and let him slide ignominiously to the floor. Only then did his own knees buckle and the swinging lanterns blur in his sight to floating clouds. Pride got him to a chair, where he could collapse, shaking like an opium addict in the throes of withdrawal, the cold black mouth of a marine rifle pressed to his temple.

John poured himself a glass of brandy and drank it down straight, watching the wake stretch out behind the ship, straight and seemly; a triumph of order against the chaos of the natural world. A foot dangled into his vision, and he recalled with annoyance that he had ordered the ship repainted. Fleeing from the Corsairs had taken them out into the Gulf of Sirte, where they were now making a wide circle in preparation for sailing back to Gibraltar.