James Nelson - The Pirate Round

Another lunge and he turned it aside, then whirled fast and kicked the man he had tackled hard in the head as he was pulling himself up from the road. Down again and Marlowe leaped away from a thrust he knew would come, turned to see the blade reaching into empty space, knocked it aside, stepped into the attacker, drove home another thrust.

He could beat one man that way, delivering a series of stab wounds that would wear him down, but not three. Three men would do that to him first, and he was already wounded worse than any of them.

He backed away, sword held ready, hilt at waist height, the tip wavering at the men’s eyes like a snake. They had had enough of that blade that they would not attack headlong, but their advantage was too great for them to quit the fight.

Twenty feet… Marlowe thought. If he could put twenty feet between them, he could lose them in the fog. Hire a boat to bring him back to the Galley. But how could he win twenty feet?

And then more footfalls on the cobblestones, coming from the opposite direction, running hard, and all four men paused, listening.

Duncan Honeyman burst from the mist, two men of the boat crew behind him, and they fell on Marlowe’s attackers like wolves, wet blades flashing in the muted light. Three strokes, four strokes, and it was over, the one called Hanson dead on the street, the others flinging away their weapons as they fled.

Honeyman pursued, no more than ten feet, until he was certain they were gone. Then he turned to Marlowe, and for a minute all that either man could do was gasp for breath.

When Marlowe could talk again, he said, “Elizabeth?”

Honeyman nodded and gasped, “Made it to the boat… told us what was acting… got here fast as we could…”

Marlowe nodded, too. “Fast enough…” he managed. He staggered over to the seawall, looked down at the river. Something was floating there, bobbing in the water ten feet from the stone wall. Marlowe stared at it for a moment before he recognized it. Press’s hat.

Guess he couldn’t swim, Marlowe thought. He pictured Roger Press sinking down into that black, filthy water, struggling to regain the surface, his long limbs thrashing out, finally gasping for breath, getting only a lungful of the Thames, and Marlowe felt not the slightest remorse.

“Bastard,” he muttered. Turned to Honeyman. “Come, let’s get us back to the Galley. Quickly.”

ROGER PRESS could not swim.

He felt himself go over the seawall, and he was gripped by panic, crushing panic, like being in the jaws of a beast. It seemed unreal, a horrible dream, as he plunged toward the water and then it was around him, covering him up, and even the dark, foggy night was gone, and it was all watery blackness.

He lashed out, flailed out with arms and legs, but the water kept him from moving fast, and that made him more panicked still. Then his fingertips hit something hard and smooth, the stones of the seawall, something concrete in that watery world. He clawed at them, but there was no hold to be had on the wet rock.

He clawed again, and this time his fingers found the gap between two stones, and he locked his fingertips in as best as he could, held that tiny ledge with his powerful hands and pulled himself up.

His head came out of the water, and he found he was pressed against the slime-covered wall. He reached out with his other hand, found another groove between two stones, and held on. It was the most precarious of handholds-he was supporting himself with his fingertips-but it was enough. His head was free of the water. He was breathing.

And now the river was his ally, because now it supported him. He would never have been able to hold on as he was were he hanging in air, but being more than half submerged gave him just enough help to maintain his grip.

For a long time he did not move, just clung to the rock, let the panic subside. Overhead, close overhead, he could hear the fight, heard Marlowe yelling, “Elizabeth! Get to the boat! Go! Go!”

“Doxy’s a stranger to me…” Press’s panic had cooled enough now that he ached to get into the fight. He looked up, craned his neck, hoping to see something of what was happening, but he was under some kind of overhang, the top of the seawall jutting out, a narrow cliff a foot above his head. He could see nothing but the underside of the wet rock.

He cocked his ear instead and listened. He could hear more men running, someone shouting. His reserves. They would do for that bastard.

I was always one step ahead of that stupid whoreson…

But then the reality of his situation came back. He was safe, but he could not stay where he was.

How the hell do I get out of this poxed river?

He would have to move, let go of his precious handhold, find another. The idea brought fresh panic. Every instinct told him to stay put, but reason told him that if he did, then eventually his grip would fail and he would sink into that black water.

The thought was enough to steel him for the next move. He grit his teeth, then carefully, carefully, let go with his right hand and, holding his weight with his left, ran his fingers along the wall until he found another fissure to which he could cling. He settled his grip as best he could, then shuffled himself along the seawall and held himself with his right hand as he found a new hold for his left.

Inch by inch, handhold by handhold, he moved along the wall. It was like a nightmare trap, the dark water just below his head, the overhang above. His fingers ached, the tips were bleeding, which only made his grip slicker and more difficult to maintain.

He realized that the fighting on the road had stopped, how long ago he could not recall. He had not heard what had happened, and at that moment he did not care.

Another inch and another. He lost his grip once and went under but managed to pull himself up again, held himself in place as he vomited from panic and from ingesting the filthy water.

He had no sense for how long it was that he crept like a lizard along the seawall. He was near exhaustion, near giving up, when the steps appeared out of the mist, just ten feet away. Ten feet. He had only to make that distance and he would not be swallowed up by the horrible, horrible river.

Inch by inch, and finally he could reach out with his long leg and touch the submerged stone, and a minute later he was lying on it. He gasped, sputtered, gagged, but it was air he was sucking into his lungs, not water. The filthy, stinking air of London. It was the sweetest smell he had ever enjoyed.

He lay on his back on the seawall steps, the Thames lapping around him, his face toward the sky, breathing, his fingers hanging limp, with no more possibility of being taken by the water.

After some time of that he began to shiver, and he knew he had to move. With a groan he pulled himself up to a sitting position, and then he stood. He ached all over from the effort and the tension of the past hour.

He had not thought that he could hate Malachias Barrett more than he had when he stood on that strip of sand seventeen years ago and watched the Fury sail away. A strip of sand that rose incongruously out of the ocean, one hundred feet around and barren, where he had been left to die.

Now it was twice that Barrett had bested him, humiliated him, nearly killed him. He hated him with twice the passion he had felt then. Incredible.

He staggered up the steps and through the gap in the stone wall and onto the street. It was quiet, deserted, no one moving at that time of night.

It was possible that Barrett was dead. Probable. It had been two against one, and because he, Press, was so much more clever than Barrett, there had been reserves as well. They should have done for him.

His tongue moved to work the toothpick in his lips, but of course it was not there anymore.