James Patterson - Thriller - Stories to Keep You Up All Night

He was a sturdy, handsome figure who looked to be in his late eighties. He wore faded breeches and a ragged woolen fisherman's sweater, much mended. He had a full head of snow-white hair, and his fine, leathered features were worn by years of wind and water. But, in the firelight, his crinkly blue eyes still held a sparkling clarity of youth, and I was glad of my perseverance on that final narrow ledge.

"Ye've come a long way, Mr. Tolliver."

"Indeed, sir, I have."

"My daughter's letter mentioned something about the old Merlin. And some newspaper contest you hope to win, I believe?"

I nodded. "I've a keen interest in your encounter with the French off this island, Mr. Hornby. I'd appreciate your recollections on that subject, if you'd be so kind. It might help my chances greatly, sir."

"Cecily said you saved her cat."

"I penned a short, albeit sympathetic, piece on the plight of foundling cats for my newspaper. Your devoted Cecily, a cat lover of the first magnitude, features prominently in my feline article and the story occasioned much favorable comment. We've since met a few times, she and I, and found each other's company most congenial. Just last month we learned of the contest and she shared the story of the Merlin. Fascinating stuff, sir. I decided I'd best hear the tale for myself."

"Aye," Hornby said, and then he fell silent. "I'm the last one…so I suppose I should tell it, if it's to be told at all. If my memory's up to it, of course." He gave a hearty shout for his barman in the next room.

The drinks soon arrived, along with a steaming meat pie for me, and we both sipped, staring into the merry blaze, each alone with his thoughts. Mine, at the moment, were solely of my poor tingling feet, more painful in the thawing than the freezing.

Suddenly, without warning, the man began to speak, eyeing me in a curious manner.

"How much do ye know, then, Mr. Tolliver?" "Scarcely enough to suit me, sir."

"Well. You've come to the right place then. I seen it all, Mr. Tolliver. I was one of Captain McIver's powder monkeys, y'see, back in those glorious days, and-"

"Powder monkeys?" I said, unfamiliar with the term.

"Boys who would ferry black powder from the hold up to the gun crews when things got spicy. Listen. I'll tell you how it all started, Mr. Tolliver, if you want to start there at the beginning."

I nodded, smiling encouragement, discreetly pulling my pen and a well-worn leather notebook from my pocket.

"We had a fair wind home to Portsmouth en route from our station in the West Indies where we'd recently captured a Por-tugee," Martyn Hornby began. "A spy."

"A spy."

"Aye, one much encouraged to speak his mind to avoid the tar pot and cat-o'-nine-tails during the crossing. We eventually learned from his lips of a wicked plot, hatched in the evil brain of Billy Blood, the turncoat captain of the French frigate."

"That would be Captain William Blood?"

"Few alive today have heard the name, sir. But Old Bill was a holy terror in his day. Gave Lord Nelson fits at every turning, he did. His plot was this-our natural enemy, the king of Spain, and the scurrilous French meant to join their naval forces and surprise Nelson en route to Trafalgar, and send the outnumbered British fleet to the bottom. It would have worked, too, had it not been for the heroism of our captain. And a few ship's passengers." "Passengers?"

"Hawke was his name. A peer of the realm, but an adventurous sort, being descended directly from the pirate Blackhawke. Him and a boy named Nick."

"Lord Hawke, you say?" I was scribbling furiously now.

"Long dead now."

"How did this Lord Hawke come to be aboard the Merlin, sir?"

"His young son, Alexander, had been kidnapped and held for ransom by the French. It was Bill's way to kidnap children of the aristocracy and extort great sums for their release. Hawke had learned Blood had his child aboard the frigate Mystere and Hawke was of a mind to rescue him. There was some mystery surrounding his lordship's presence on board, but Cap'n McIver gave him permission to come aboard at Bermuda, as I recall it."

"So, you were actually seeking out this frigate, Mystere, for more than military reasons?"

Hornby nodded in the affirmative. "See, we'd extracted from that blasted Portugee where Blood's ship might lie. And more. We knew he had geographical details of his scheme etched on a golden spyglass, and-"

"I'm sorry-etched on a spyglass?"

"Aye. And not just any glass, mind you, but one Bill stole from Admiral Lord Nelson himself the night of the mutiny! According to that damnable Portugee, the location of the intended naval ambush was so secret, Bill had scratched the longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates right into the metal barrel of his glass. Now, since Bonaparte himself had a hand in the planning of the thing, it was likely a cunning trap. We had to get our hands on that glass before Nelson and the whole British fleet sailed from Portsmouth…and, by God, we did!"

"But how?"

"Therein lies the tale, don't it, Mr. Tolliver?"

I took a quick sip of my drink and said, "This Lord Hawke, it was he, wasn't it, who saved the day? I mean to say, I know he figured prominently in Cecily's account of the action."

"Begging your pardon, sir, but it was the boy who accompanied him who carried the day. A scrappy one, he was, only one year older than myself," the old fellow said, tilting his chair suddenly backward at a precipitous angle against the wall. He was now much excited by the telling, and I feared a tumble and broken limbs.

"Another powder monkey, was he?" I asked, scribbling. "Aboard the British man-o-war?"

Another long silence as he gathered his thoughts and sipped his ale.

"No, not young Nicholas. Lord Hawke's fair-haired ward, he was, came aboard at Bermuda with his lordship. Nick and me became fast friends soon enough, our ages being so similar. I was nine or ten, he was eleven, I believe. When we laid alongside that frigate after a vicious exchange of rippling broadsides, young Nick and myself secretly boarded the Mystere and found ourselves right into the thick of things, grapeshot and all. Never saw the like of such bloody struggle in all my years before the mast."

The old fellow was warming to his tale, waving a sloshing tankard of ale in one hand and a long thin bone of a pipe in the other. Somewhere, a ship's bell struck. The wee hours drew nigh. A fresh blow had rushed up to haunt the eaves, and the fire had died down somewhat, lending a discernible chill to the room.

"Please continue, Mr. Hornby," I said, getting to my feet and throwing another log or two onto the embers.

"Well, Nick had promised his guardian that he would remain belowdecks with me on the Merlin for the duration of the battle. I'd suffered a nasty head wound and was ordered by the ship's surgeon to stay out of things. However, a fire was raging below, one as was threatening the powder magazine, and it had made any notion of staying below problematical. So we sprinted up three decks and arrived topside only to find ourselves face-to-face with Snakeye himself."

"Snakeye?" I said, scribbling furiously. "First I've heard of him."

"A French pirate, had tattoos of snakes round his eyes and up his nose. Fearsome creature who was Old Bill's bloody right hand. He'd boarded us during the melee and he chased Nick and myself up into the rigging. We scrambled up our mizzenmast and out onto a yardarm. When the pirate followed, dagger in hand, we jumped. The two boats weren't more'n six feet apart and we both dived through a window opened on the French boat's stern quarter."

"This is quite good stuff," I allowed. "Then what?"

"Well, it was strangely quiet when Nick and me emerged from the aft companionway. We looked around Mystere's aftermost deck and saw that it was near deserted, save the dead and wounded. The cannons on both vessels had ceased their thunder and for'ard we could see a press of sailors from both vessels gathered on her quarterdeck, with an occasional cheer in French or English, rising from their midst. We heard, too, the vicious sound of two cutlasses clanging against each other. A brutal swordfight from the sound of it.