James McGee - Ratcatcher

“Move your bloody arse!” Jago bellowed. The bumboat wallowed past with infuriating slowness. The tiller-man raised an angry fist. The gesture was accompanied by a torrent of oaths. With his way eventually clear, Jago, echoing the tiller-man’s curse, plunged the oars back into the water and began searching urgently for his quarry.

Where the hell was it?

Jago blinked. The sailboat could hardly have been out of his sight for more than a couple of minutes at the most. There was no way it could have made it to shore in that time. It had to be out there somewhere. He should have purloined the spyglass, he thought, brought the damned thing with him. But Jago’s eyesight was good. He had been a rifleman, and riflemen needed the eyes of a hawk to target enemy officers. So Jago narrowed his eyes and scoured the river. Plenty of similar vessels about, but not the one he was looking for. No sailboat with a brandy keg at the stern. Shit and piss!

Then he saw the arm, pointing.

The arm was attached to a crewman on a dirt boat. The dirt boat was cutting across the river, probably en route to the Deptford yard with a hold full of ballast. Something had caught the crewman’s eye. Jago followed the direction of the outstretched arm, squinted hard. There was something in the water.

A barrel, bobbing incongruously with the current, probably lost overboard by some passing lighter or merchantman; nothing to get excited about. And yet…Jago looked back at the dirt boat. The crewman had been joined by one of his mates. Both of them were pointing now. It seemed an undue amount of attention for a discarded wine cask.

Wine cask?

Jago stood up, stared harder, and watched as the cask sank slowly beneath the water. Not a single ripple marked its passing.

Christ on a bloody cross!

Showing remarkable speed for such a big man, Jago dropped down into the boat and scrambled for the oars. Nathanial Jago had walked the cold stone passage of Mandrake’s warehouse as if the Devil had been on his shoulder. Now he began to row as if the Devil was at his heels.

“What happens if it sinks?” Hawkwood asked.

Lee glanced up from his pocket watch and frowned. “It’s a goddamned submersible. It’s supposed to sink.”

“I don’t mean on purpose,” Hawkwood said. “I mean if something happens. How do you get out?”

Lee appeared unperturbed by the likelihood. “You detach the keel, and float up.”

“And if that doesn’t happen?”

“Then you hold your breath, and pray.”

Hawkwood stared at him.

Lee sighed. “If you can’t detach the weight of the keel, the only way out is through the hatch. But you can’t simply open it and swim out. The incoming water pressure would be too great. The only way would be to open the valves and allow the hull to flood. Once the hull’s flooded, there’s equal pressure inside and out. Only then could you open the hatch and swim to the surface.” Lee chuckled darkly. “I commend you, Officer Hawkwood. Your desire for self-preservation is quite admirable. Futile, but admirable.”

Lee snapped his watch shut. “But enough. The tide’s reached its height. Time we were making a move, Mr Sparrow. Stand by to take her up.”

Lee relayed crisp instructions and the submersible began to rise. Lee pressed his eye to the forward window. “Hold!”

Hawkwood sensed that the top of the submersible’s tower had breached the surface. He watched Lee. The American was concentrating on the river and studying his watch and compass, taking bearings.

Sparrow took the opportunity to remove his shirt. Clothed, Sparrow’s physique had seemed insubstantial. Now, Hawkwood could see the man was wiry rather than thin. As a deckhand, Sparrow would have been no stranger to ropes and rigging and manual graft, and the muscles in his upper body and his flat stomach hinted at both strength and stamina. Sweat glazed his chest and forearms. Hawkwood found himself staring at the seaman’s back. Sparrow’s flesh was a mosaic of crisscrossing scar tissue. The scars were old, Hawkwood saw, but there was no disguising what they were: the legacy of a severe flogging, possibly more than one. It probably explained why, like Scully, he was working for the American. Another abused, disaffected seaman-in all likelihood a former mutineer-looking for vengeance.

Eye pressed against the tiny window, Lee’s hands moved to the rudder controls. “Now, Mr Sparrow. Steady as she goes.”

Sparrow began to turn the crank. His effort was accompanied by the sound of cogs meshing, as if a clock was being tightly wound. The Narwhale vibrated. Hawkwood felt the vessel shift on its axis. Slowly, the submersible began to come about. At first, the movement was uneven, but as Sparrow eased into his rhythm, progress through the water became smoother. Only the hypnotic click of the gearing mechanism and Sparrow’s breathing as he turned the propeller crank gave any indication that the vessel was in motion.

Lee’s eye was glued to the tiny window. Occasionally his gaze would shift to the compass dial and his hands would alter the angle of the rudder to maintain the vessel’s course. He knew this would be the last time they could raise the Narwhale without attracting attention. After this it would be too risky exposing the tower so close to unfriendly eyes on ship and shore.

Lee did not have a lot of room to play with. Even at the height of a spring tide, the river bottomed out at a little over three fathoms, which didn’t leave a great deal of leeway either above or beneath the hull. And over the years, the river had been gradually silting up. There’d probably come a time, not too far distant, when the dockyard would no longer be able to handle ships of large tonnage. As it was, Deptford was too far upriver, with insufficient depth of water, to allow ships to sail down to the mouth fully armed and victualled. Current practice, once a ship had been launched, was to rig a jury mast and float her down to Woolwich, where she would be docked, coppered and rigged in preparation for sea trials.

And HMS Thetis was about to make that first auspicious journey.

The warship looked mightily impressive, Lee conceded, as he peered through the glass. As bright as a new pin in the morning sunshine. He could see that the jury mast had been raised. Cut from a single Norfolk Island pine, it rose tall and slender, as straight as an arrow from her midsection, A temporary boom had also been attached. Bunting and flags fluttered gaily from every rail. It was going to be a grand occasion.

He could see movement at her bow and stern as the crew made final preparations for departure. A tremor of excitement moved through him.

Hawkwood looked over his bound wrists, saw the American stiffen and sensed they were close and that Lee probably had the target in his sights. Which meant that he was fast running out of time. Lee was about to commence his attack and there wasn’t a thing he could do to stop him.

“She’s a beautiful sight, my friend.” Lee grinned. “But you’ll have to take my word for that.” Lee turned. “Pity she’s going to end the day as kindling. Steady, Mr Sparrow. We don’t want any mishaps this close to home.”

The submersible moved ahead cautiously and Lee pressed his eye to the glass once more. He was looking for defences, festoons of netting, fenders, a ring of decoys-anything that would indicate that they were anticipating an attack. But, astonishingly, the ship appeared to be unprotected. Lee recalled Hawkwood’s attempted bluff, when the Runner had told him he had men outside the warehouse. There had been no men, no support, no reinforcements. Hawkwood had been on his own. Which indicated that Hawkwood’s assertion that the authorities knew about the attack on Thetis had also been an exaggeration. They undoubtedly thought the attack was going to take place further downriver, in the estuary, not in the middle of London. Lee grinned to himself. Damned fools! He was about to deliver a blow that would shake the British out of their complacency.