Bernard Cornwell - Wildtrack

The aft cabin door opened, and Jill-Beth came out like a dog sprung from a trap. She did not hesitate, but scrambled over the guardrail and dived into the river. Mulder, bellowing in frustrated anger, followed from the cabin as I hurled the fifth full bottle. By pure chance it hit him clean on the forehead, throwing him back and out of sight.

He shouted in anger or pain. I’d thrown the bottle hard enough to fracture his skull, but he seemed quite unhurt as, seconds later, he reappeared with his shotgun in his hands. He aimed it at Sycorax ’s cockpit.

I dropped.

He fired. Both barrels.

The noise slammed across the water and I saw the glare of the barrel flames sheet the sky above me. The pellets went high, spatter-ing into the bushes above the wharf. I listened for the sound of Jill-Beth swimming, but could only hear the sharp click as Mulder broke the gun for reloading.

I scrabbled through the tangled mess of stores that clogged the cockpit. Jimmy Nicholls’ and my hauls from the boat auctions lay in an unseamanlike confusion. I cursed, then found the net bag I wanted. I heard the cartridges slap home in Mulder’s gun and the click as the breech was closed.

When in doubt, an old commanding officer of mine liked to say, hit the buggers with smoke. I had bought some old emergency smoke floats and I prayed that they still worked as I pulled the first ring. I counted as though it were a grenade, then lobbed it out of my shelter.

There was a pause as the water entered the floating can, then I smelt the acrid scent and I raised my head to see a smear of orange smoke boiling up from the river. The lurid smudge spread to hide Wildtrack ’s hull. The ebb had just begun and the can was floating downstream, but the sea breeze was conveniently carrying the smoke back towards Mulder. I thickened it with a second can, then leaned over Sycorax ’s side to search for Jill-Beth. I could hear people calling from the terrace. I tossed yet another float to keep Mulder blinded, and the can landed just feet away from a sleek black head that suddenly surfaced in the river. “Miss Kirov?” I called politely.

“Nick?”

I held out my hand for her, and as I did so Mulder unleashed his next weapon. Perhaps he had realized that one volley of gunfire was enough, and that more might land him in trouble with the law, so now he fired a distress flare in Sycorax ’s direction. The flare was rocket-propelled, designed to sear high into the air where it would deploy a brilliant red light which dangled from a parachute. I heard the missile fizz close overhead. It struck the coping of the wharf and bounced up into the night trailing smoke and sparks. A second rocket followed from the mass of orange smoke. Either could have killed if they had hit my head, but both went high.

Jill-Beth’s hand took hold of mine and I pulled her dripping from the water. I was given haste and strength by a third rocket which went wide. The first flare had exploded in the trees above the boathouse and the brilliant dazzle of the red light made it seem as if the wood had caught fire. I hurled my last smoke float towards Wildtrack and searched among the mess in the cockpit to find my own flares.

Jill-Beth was panting. Her expensive silk shirt and white trousers were soaked and dirty. “Climb the wall,” I said, “and run like hell for the house.” There were people streaming down the lawn, shouting, and I hoped their presence would deter Mulder’s madness.

I found a flare that I pointed towards the bigger boat.

“No!” Jill-Beth said the word with panicked force. “I can’t stay here! For God’s sake get me out! Have you got a dinghy?”

“Yes.”

“Come on, Nick! Let’s go!”

I abandoned the flare and we scrambled over the stern into my tender. I had the presence of mind to toss a duffelbag of spare clothes in first, then I slashed the painter. Jill-Beth pushed us away and we drifted on the tide towards the overhanging trees beyond the boathouse cut. Jill-Beth poled us with an oar and we reached the shelter of the thick branches just as the first guests reached the river bank to stare in awe at the rolling orange smoke that was meant to mark an emergency at sea for searching helicopters. The cloud had shrouded Wildtrack right up to her gaudy string of lights and was made even more spectacular by the brilliant light of the burning flares.

“The smoke was smart of you,” Jill-Beth said. “Sorry, Nick.”

“Sorry?”

“Never mind. Sh!” She touched a warning finger to her lips, then pointed behind me as if to say that we could be overheard by the people who now crowded the river bank. I was rigging the dinghy’s outboard, an ancient and small British Seagull that I’d bought for a knockdown price at auction.

“Fanny!” It was Bannister’s angry voice. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Fireworks, sir!” Fanny must have realized that he had over-reacted and now he proved sharp enough to find an explanation that fitted the night’s mood. “Just using up old flares, sir!”

“I heard a gunshot.” The Honourable John’s voice.

“Lifeboat maroon.” Mulder’s voice came out of the thick smoke.

“How awfully exciting.” Melissa’s voice. “Have you got an Exocet?”

“Nothing to be excited about.” That was Bannister again, thinking ahead to the possibility of headlines. He knew it was illegal to set off distress flares unnecessarily. “Are you drunk, Fanny?”

“A bit, sir!”

“I’ll paddle!” That was Jill-Beth, in a whisper. She pushed the dinghy along the bank, keeping under the trees’ cover. “That bastard wanted to kill me!” she whispered.

“I thought he was raping you.”

“That was just for starters. Does that engine work?”

“I was cheated of ten quid if it doesn’t.” Seagulls might not be flash, but by God they work. I pulled, the old engine coughed and caught, and the noise brought the stab of a torch beam that swept round towards us from Bannister’s garden, but we were now well under the cover of the overhanging trees. The branches whipped at us as I opened the throttle, and I heard Jill-Beth giggle, apparently in reaction to the panicked escapade. “There are dry clothes in the bag,” I said.

“You’re a genius, Nick.”

I waited till we had rounded Sansom’s Point before I broke out from under the trees’ shelter. We were hidden from Bannister’s house by now and I curved the dinghy towards the main channel and opened the throttle as high as it would go. Seagulls might work, but they’re not fast and we were going at no more than a hearse’s crawl as we left the black shadows under the trees and emerged into the moonlight where I found myself sharing the dinghy with one very wet, very tanned and entirely naked girl who was rubbing herself dry and warm with one of my spare sweaters. She seemed quite unabashed, and I had time to notice that she was tanned all over and how nice the all over was before I politely looked away.

“Enjoying the view?” she asked.

“Very much.”

She pulled on the sweater and a pair of my dirty jeans that she rolled up around her calves. She pushed at her soaking hair, then looked upriver. “Where are we going?”

“Jimmy Nicholls’ cottage. You know Jimmy?”

“I’ve met him.” The village lights were bright on the starboard bank while two miles further south the town lights quivered on the water. Beyond that was the sea. Jimmy’s cottage was just short of the town.

Jill-Beth was searching through the duffelbag. “Got any sneakers here?”

“No shoes, sorry.”

She looked up at me and smiled. “Thank you for the rescue.”

“That’s what we white knights are for,” I said.