India Black in the City of Light (7 page)

Trust French to ask a question like that. He might be able to keep his head in the heat of battle and remember how many shots he had fired. Being of a more impetuous nature, I had no idea. I thrust the pepperbox pistol into French’s hand and opened the cylinder of the Tranter. Bloody hell. Every cartridge was empty. There wasn’t a single bullet in the revolver. I gave French the news and tossed the pistol aside.

“Blast. Well, we’ve still got the pepperbox.” He handed that ungainly weapon to me. “Take this. We’ll split up. I’ll draw their fire and you run like blazes.”

I balked at that. “Hold on, French. Where am I going? And what am I going to do when I get there? I’ve no money and I don’t speak Frog. Anyway, we stand a better chance together than alone. Now stop being honuorable and let’s scarper.”

We were standing in some sort of arched entrance, which had offered a place of refuge. Now we considered our options. French poked his head round the archway to suss out the situation and drew it back quickly. Without a word he shoved me through the entrance and into the darkness beyond.

“The Russians?” I hissed.

“Yes. Right behind us. Quiet now.”

We slunk furtively through the darkness. French had a hand around my wrist, guiding me gently. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, but I sensed the presence of damp walls nearby. The air was moist and fetid, and my heel slithered on something soft and wet. French stopped abruptly and I bumped into him. We’d been moving so slowly that the contact was gentle. He leaned close to me, and the words he whispered filled me with black despair.

“Dead end,” he said. “There’s no way out.”

I put out a hand and it met a rough stone surface, streaked with damp. The odor I had noticed had grown stronger and was almost overpowering. I’m not an optimist at the best of times, and now I wondered how it would feel to be shot, a prospect that seemed likely to occur in a matter of moments.

“What now?” I asked, though I knew there was no good answer to that question.

“Maybe they’ll pass on by,” said French. He crouched slowly, careful not to make any noise. I imitated him. There was nothing to shelter behind, no cover at all, and our only hope seemed to be to make ourselves as small a target as possible. I shivered, and balanced the pepperbox on my knee.

Beside me, I heard French’s quick intake of breath. I held my own and listened with all my might. Then I heard the noise which had alarmed him. There were Russian voices at the archway. They were arguing, I thought, for though I couldn’t understand a word, the sound of a sharp disagreement is pretty much the same the world over. No doubt they were flipping a coin to see who would amble into the alley we had just traversed, offering a perfect target to anyone who might be waiting. I at least had the consolation that we would account for some of the bastards when they came.

Someone came. Booted feet squelched in the muck of the alleyway. Beside me French raised his Webley Boxer and took aim. A dark form shuffled forward. I didn’t think French was ever going to pull the trigger. He waited until the Russian was nearly on us and then the night was shattered by a deafening explosion and a flash of fire. The stone walls of the alley captured the blast and magnified it. I felt a shock wave when the Boxer fired and my eardrums felt as if they’d exploded.

The Russian’s compatriots unleashed a barrage of fire down the alleyway. French sprawled flat and ripped off a succession of shots. I fell over onto the filthy ground, still stunned, hands covering my head as the Russians blasted us with gunfire and chips of stone flew from the walls.

“The pepperbox,” shouted French.

I raised my head. Confound it, this was not like me. I’d been so cowed at the prospect of my eminent death that I had forgotten I still had the little six-barreled pistol in my hand. In my defense, I can only say that bullets whining by your ears can be distracting. I flung up the pepperbox and braced myself for the recoil.

I squeezed the trigger, which was damned hard going. That’s the heaviest trigger pull I’ve ever felt and it was a deuced long time before I felt the release. But there was no satisfying roar as the bullet took flight. Indeed, nothing happened, except the gun emitted a humiliating and dispiriting
pfhhhht.
Alas, it did not emit a bullet.

“Misfire,” I said in disbelief.

French was rooting around in the dark. I heard his feet scrabbling about, kicking frantically. A metallic screech rent the air.

He seized my arm. “I’ve found a way out, India. Follow me.”

I needed no encouragement. Lead was flying about my ears and I knew if we stayed much longer that we would soon be taking up residence in a French morgue.

French had found a grate at the foot of the wall behind us. He had kicked it loose from its fastening and was now lowering himself through the opening he had created. I inched closer, prepared to follow, and then the smell hit me like a haymaker from a heavyweight boxer.

“Dear God,” I said. “That’s the bloody sewer. I’m not going down there.” A bullet crashed into the wall above my head. I changed my mind.

French had not heard my protestations as he had already slithered out of sight. I flopped on my belly, still gripping the pepperbox in my hand. It would at least serve as an effective cosh, if I wasn’t raked by gunfire before I had a chance to use it. I went feet first through the opening.

French was waiting for me and caught me as I plunged in. I gasped at the shock of the cold liquid swirling around my body and the odor almost made me swoon. For a second, I contemplated returning to the surface and giving myself up to the Russians. But French put paid to that by dragging me off and we floundered away through the waist high water.

Now, I have been in some tight spots during my long and distinguished career, but that crawl through the Paris sewers goes down as the worst of the lot. It was a Stygian nightmare in there, with the foul, turgid liquid rushing around your body. Lumps of various materials (to this day I can’t bear thinking of just what constituted this material) floated along, caught in the eddies that formed around us. There was the sound of tumbling water, and the current was strong. The air was a thick, putrid mass, laden with gases formed by the rotting sewage. My eyes stung with tears. I pressed a hand to my nose and tried to breathe through my mouth. We should be safe enough in here, I thought, as no reasonable person would willingly enter the place.

Then I’ll be damned if a shot didn’t ring out. I ducked instinctively. Then another blast echoed through the tunnel.

“This is intolerable,” I shouted. “Shoot them, French.”

“I’m out of ammunition. Our only chance is to keep moving.”

There wasn’t much to do but fling a quick glance over our shoulders, which was a useless exercise as it was far too dark to see anything. Another shot cracked and whined through the tunnel, caroming off the wall and away into the darkness. French was pulling me along like a draught horse, searching desperately for a way out. I held the pepperbox above the rushing water and prayed we’d find a crevice to hide in, or another channel to follow. There must be hundreds of tunnels down here. We could run forever, or at least until our strength gave out, before our Slavic foes caught up with us. It was then we encountered another, albeit unintentional, enemy.

We were wallowing forward when the water around our waists quickened and the sound of rushing water deepened into a roar.

“What’s that noise?” I shouted over the din.

“How the hell should I know?” French countered. “This is the first time I’ve toured the sewers of Paris.”

“Don’t get shirty. I merely asked.”

The noise of the racing water was overwhelming now. The walls had narrowed and the flood was being funneled into a smaller channel. We could barely stand upright in the torrent.

“It must be a drain,” shouted French.

I hadn’t counted on a bloody drain. We’d entered the sewer at the top of Montmartre, and the channel we’d been traveling followed a gentle decline down the hill. But those blasted French engineers must have determined that the route could not continue at that angle, and the sewage must be moved lower along the incline by means of a series of pipes, used to drain the water from one level to the next. The logical outcome of this was that French and I now found ourselves facing the prospect of plunging into a swirling maelstrom without any guarantee of emerging.

“I don’t care to go down any drains,” I shouted back.

“Nor do I.”

“I suppose we stand and fight here.”

He put an arm round my shoulders. “At least we’ll go down together.”

“Don’t be maudlin,” I said, shaking off his arm. “I’ve still got the pepperbox.”

“The bullets are duds,” said French. “The only thing you can do with that gun is throw it at the Russians.”

“Then that’s what I shall do.” I wish it hadn’t been so dark, for I suspect I looked very fetching with my chin tilted pugnaciously and fire in my eyes. I would have liked that to be the last image of me that French saw.

“You stand on this side of the tunnel, and I’ll go to the other. That way they’ll have to choose a target. When they get close enough, we’ll rush them. I’ll give the signal.” He splashed off to take up his position and I steadied myself against the slimy wall.

Well, this was a hell of a way to die, trapped like rats in this bloody sewer. It was damned undignified. I may be a whore but I’m class, and dying among the bodily effusions of a bunch of frog-eaters was not India Black’s style. I determined to go out with a bang.

I’d developed a murderous rage by the time Harkwright and the Russians found us. Faint splashes alerted me to their presence. The splashes grew in intensity and rapidity as they closed on us. The drain brought them up short. I sensed them waiting in the darkness, trying to figure out what to do and wondering whether we had been foolish enough to brave the swirling flood or waited for them in the shadows. A hesitant voice shouted something in Russian. I thought I heard Harkwright’s reply. They were nearly upon us. That was enough to ignite my fury. To hell with waiting for French’s signal. I raised the pepperbox and aimed it down the tunnel. I wasn’t expecting anything, but there was no harm in trying. I’d follow up my ill-fated shot by throwing the pistol at them and charging the ruffians.

I grasped the ungainly weapon and squeezed the trigger with both of my index fingers. A tremendous roar filled the tunnel, as if I’d set off a stick of dynamite. The pepperbox flew out of my hand. The blast blew me backward and I fell over in the water. It took a moment for things to sink in. Then I realized that the weapon’s hammer had ignited not only the charge for the bullet I had intended to fire, but also all the others in the gun. It had been a chain-fire of all six bullets simultaneously, and I was lucky the pepperbox hadn’t recoiled back into my face. That damned gun was a nuisance, but I expect the Russians had found it a worse one. All those bullets headed
downrange would cut quite a swathe through that narrow tunnel.

I scrabbled for purchase on the slick floor and dragged myself upright. I heard an almighty splash and balled my hands into fists. If any Russians were still alive after that volley, I was going to get in a few solid punches.

“India! Are you alright?” French pushed his way to my side. “Good God, I thought you’d bring this place down around us.”

“It was a chain-fire. Do you think I hit those blokes?”

I had an answer almost immediately, but not from French. A heavy object slammed into my thighs, nearly toppling me. It wafted on the current and slid past me, until it was sucked into the whirlpool above the drain.

“I got at least one,” I said.

“You may have killed them all,” said French. “I’d hate to have been on the receiving end of that blast.”

We waded forward cautiously, careful to slide through the water without a sound. A moment later and French uttered an exclamation of satisfaction. “Here’s another,” he said. He dragged the fellow up by the collar. “I was hoping it was Harkwright, but I think this is one of the Russians.”

“Harkwright may be floating in the Seine by now.”

“I certainly hope so,” French said grimly, “With a bloody bullet in his chest.”

We pressed on, moving slowly. If the remaining Russians or Harkwright had escaped my fusillade, they’d retreated, or we passed them in the dark as they cowered. We’d covered a good distance when French pointed a finger upward.

“Look.”

A rectangle of light shone up ahead. It was the opening through which we’d crawled. We had been down there in that fetid swamp long enough for daylight to come. We clambered out and staggered to the street. The streets were still buzzing with activity. French seized my hand and we slunk away.

We were a disreputable looking pair, and of course we stank like blazes. French stalked along, swearing loudly under his breath.

“What the deuce are you complaining about?” I asked. The longer he cursed and stomped through the avenues of Paris, the longer it would be before I sank into a hot bath.

“What a cockup,” he said. “Dunstan dead, Cutliffe gone and who the hell knows where Harkwright has gotten to? I’ll have a hard time explaining this to the prime minister. Not to mention that I’ll have to tell him that you came along for the ride, against his strict instructions. I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t send me back to my regiment.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You said yourself that Cutliffe was small change. He’s no great loss. And if you alert the French authorities, they’re very likely to find him and pick him up. As for Harkwright, you couldn’t possibly have known the old boy was going to change sides. Maybe the lads back in London should have done a more thorough job of vetting the bloke. Besides, we know of at least two dead Russians, and you and I will live to fight another day. All in all, I think it’s a good piece of work. Now quit moping. I need a new dress. And a bath. Probably more than one. And did I mention perfume? I definitely need some perfume.”

And rather surprisingly, French was only too happy to oblige me by purchasing a honking great bottle of one of Guerlain’s signature scents. I suppose he felt grateful that I had been along to pull his chestnuts from the fire. Or perhaps it was traveling downwind of me on the way to the nearest hotel that prompted such a generous gesture. In either case I got my perfume, and that, after all, is why I came to Paris in the first place.