"You should not do this!" he was shouting. "How can you pick on us when there is the enemy to fight! It is those blackguards in their lugger you should catch and take! We have been away a year or more! We have been decimated! Men! Do not let them touch you! Fight them off or you will go to sea again, but in the bloody Navy! Think of your women and your children, men!"
William, transfixed, felt strong fingers grip his ankle. Tom Tilley's mean eyes met his as he glanced down, the twisted lips expressing, maybe, humour.
"Dost need a hand, sir?" It was bitter humour, that suggested he needed help on steep ladders like a land man or, implied, like Richard Kaye. Will brushed the hand off pettishly, and clattered down until he reached the deck. Outside the spill of light from the half-lifted cargo hatches ahead of him, his men, like shadows, moved off to disappear.
There was shouting down below as well as up on deck, and he hurried forward fast but carefully for fear of losing touch and getting lost. The Biter men were greatly expert at his game, and frisked about like rats where he could only blunder in the dark. On one great beam he found a dim horn lamp, lashed hard for fear of fire, and cut it free with his pocket knife. This gave him some security from falling ten or twenty feet among the massed cargo that he had to walk across, but threw a glow ahead that scarcely helped at all. There were smells he did not recognise, except the smell of filthy bilges overall, and rustlings and groans among the close-packed bales and cases.
Then, close, came shouts and screams, and the noise of beatings with fist and stick. A high yell, from a young voice, then a voice he recognised as John Behar's, mouthing imprecations, corrupt and hard. Will, discouragingly, had a sudden memory of another man, an officer called Matthews who had died on Welfare after illegal impressment by his uncle, Daniel Swift. He remembered Jesse Broad, and Thomas Fox. Of a sudden, the dark oppressed him horribly, he had to catch his breath. Of a sudden, he needed air, and light, an end to beastliness and screaming. As he picked hurriedly towards the hatch again, two Biter men, Tom Hugg and Silas Ayling, emerged from between some cargo stacks, their faces beaming, while behind them came three bloodied seamen and behind them in their turn Tennison and Mann, who had a pistol, cocked and dangerous in such a space.
"All sick, eh sir!" said Ayling. "They nowt but lying buggers, be they then!"
By the time they reached the ladders they had eight lurkers rounded up, and up on the deck there were already seven more possibles. Two of them had been on the foredeck when the Biter boys had come on board, and to tell the truth they looked pretty sick, while the other four rounded up by Sankey had been let go again, two white-faced and yonderly, one aged sixty if a day, the last one with one arm and a twisted leg. They stood to one side, out of it, as the boatswain, Jem Taylor, demanded to know which of his five from their fo'c'sle hidey holes claimed to have passports, and if so could he see them. Sam Holt had not yet reappeared, but down below, Will had heard shouting from the dark aft section, possibly the lazaret.
The captain of the Katharine was leaning on the binnacle, as if only the power of his mind was keeping him upright, and his mate and Richard Kaye could not be seen. There was a skylight, though, set in the quarterdeck abaft the mizzenmast, and suddenly an enormous row issued from its open wings. One voice, thick with fury, was the young officer's, who was repeating his arguments of earlier with tremendous force. William heard the words "and you are in their pockets, that is why!" quite clearly, so loud it was practically screamed. He also heard 'fight the French', and 'cowardice to take men off a ship like ours'. Then Kaye's voice, which was as loud but without a cutting note, and choked with rage. Then there was a crash, another roar, and then, amazingly a report.
On deck, all human noise ceased instantly. Men had been listening, but others shouting, and one pale young sailor had been in noisy tears. They stopped, staring at each other, then round about. Then the captain, James McEwan, let out a ghastly croak.
William, after a split instant, went for the aft accommodation ladder at a pelting run. As he dropped down towards the cabin he saw that Sam was halfway through the door, but had stopped himself from plunging through by catching at the jamb. Will hurtled into him, and both of them half fell in. They saw the young merchant officer stretched out on the deck back by the transom settle, with Kaye bent over him. One of the young man's legs was shaking violently, but as they stood, it stopped.
"Sir!" said Sam. "Sir! What?"
"He shot at me," said Kaye. He had turned towards them, but did not appear to see. His eyes were milky in his big, bland face, his lips in a kind of puzzled frown. "He shot at me. I think I've killed him."
As he moved back, the young sea officer was revealed, flat out and gazing upwards to the deck head His eyes were open but unseeing, and his chest was an enormous mass of blood from the heavy ball that Kaye had fired into him. Kaye had his pistol in his hand still, but in his left one. In his right was the long, old-fashioned weapon that both Sam and Will had seen earlier at the dead man's waist. Kaye had his hands together, his left, hampered by his gun, covering the action of the other. There had only been one shot.
"But sir," said Holt. "We only heard one shot."
Kaye's eyes cleared slowly, then he looked down at the pistols in his hands.
"Aye," he said. "He was primed for shooting, but I got there first. Look. Look, his gun is cocked."
He pulled his hands apart, one pistol in each of them. He held the dead man's in his right, forward of the action, showing the cocked hammer and uncovered priming pan.
"Poor man," he said. "He called it on himself, but we must pity him. He was in such a choler, then he aimed to murder me. His pistol's cocked, d'you see?"
Holt first, then Bentley, moved slowly into the cabin. Outside, through the large stern windows, Will caught sight of the North Sea, grey and rolling, with white crests. Numbly, he studied it for a moment, then Kaye's face, full of odd anxiety, then the poor dead man, lying there. His face was drained of blood, quite white, his mouth was open, he was very young, not twenty-two or -three. He was my countryman, thought Will. He was not the enemy, we were not fighting him. Oh, this is horrible.
With a shock, he noticed men at the cabin door, Jem Taylor, Wilmott, Behar and Tilley to the fore. Only Tilley wore a grin, showing broken teeth as if it were a festive or a jolly sight. Not being officers, they did not come in.
Then, with a sigh, Lieutenant Kaye turned from his officers, to his men, and dropped the unfired pistol on to the stomach of the bloody corpse.
"Well come on, boys," he said. "Enough of this. What is the tally, Taylor? There is still much to be done."
Then, before they left, he bent and picked the pistol up, and carefully uncocked it, and blew out the pan. Then he thrust it somewhere inside his thick blue coat.
Sixteen
There were seventeen prime seamen to put in chains when they got back to Biter, because not a single one of the Katharine's sailors would volunteer, despite that their refusal cost them cash. "Prime seamen" was a cruel jest used by the Biter people, for most of them were anything but prime. They had suffered much illness in the East, and even those who had not died were weakened and demoralised, wanting more than anything in the world to get ashore, and home to those they loved or who would look after them. Geoff Raper gave them fresh food and good bread, and not just because he was a kindly sort. It had been found on many an occasion that homeward-bound men could be induced to volunteer if the food was good and plentiful. For the moment, the Katharines showed no sign of falling for this dodge.