LITMIR.BIZ

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      Jago shook his head. “Take a look. It’s as black as a witch’s crotch down there. Can you see what you’re jumping into?”

      The roar and crackle of the flames were getting louder. Hawkwood could hardly see the door for smoke. He stared at Jago in disbelief. “You jumped ship to avoid the provost, for God’s sake! What’s the difference?”

      “Difference is I could see what I was doin’! It’s the middle of the bleeding night f’r Chris’sakes!”

      “I don’t believe this!” Hawkwood swore, pulling his foot in. “All right, we’ll use the bloody door!”

      He was halfway across the cabin when he paused. It was Jago’s turn to swear as Hawkwood stepped over Scully’s body and ran back to the table. The sergeant watched as Hawkwood appeared to thrust his hands into the fire. Then Hawkwood had the ebony baton in his fist and he was following Jago out of the door.

      Entering the passage, Hawkwood was unprepared for the astonishing speed with which the fire had taken hold. Already the flames had travelled beyond the stern of the ship and into the sleeping areas. Hammocks and bunks were being abandoned in haste, though a number of the addicts, Hawkwood saw with amazement, were still stretched out, clutching their pipes, oblivious to the danger. Among the rest, blind panic had taken over. People were scrambling for safety. Pockets of fire, caused by upturned lamps and candles, had broken out all over the deck. No effort was being made to douse them. Everyone was too intent on finding an escape route and saving his or her own skin.

      Hawkwood couldn’t see a damned thing. The back of his throat was raw. His eyes were streaming. It felt as if his lungs were being grilled. He sensed Jago moving ahead of him, pushing bodies aside, many of them half naked. A man howled in pain as he tripped and fell. His cry for help was cut off by the trampling feet of those coming up behind him.

      The blaze was not only spreading upwards, it was moving down, into the bowels of the ship, destroying everything in its path. Burning hammocks were disintegrating and dropping through open hatchways, igniting material on the lower decks. A rising tide of humanity was fleeing for its life, climbing over everything in its path, like a rat pack in a drain. The Rat’s Nest was being devoured.

      Smoke had fast become the main enemy. In the inky darkness below decks it was insinuating its deadly coils into every nook and cranny. The air was heavy with the pungent smell of burning hemp, tar and opium.

      Hawkwood was thinking that he should have pushed Jago out of the stern window when he’d had the chance. They might have suffered a broken arm or leg, but it would have been better than burning to death. Hawkwood knew they didn’t have much time. The air was being sucked from his lungs.

      And then, mercifully, he felt Jago’s massive hand on his collar and he was being pulled upwards. They were at the bottom of the companionway and Jago’s strong arm was around his shoulder, guiding him up the stairs. Smoke was billowing out of the hatchway as Hawkwood clambered on to the deck and the night air, which before had seemed the foulest concoction, had never tasted so pure.

      If the establishment had a name, Hawkwood could not recall it. He assumed it was just one of the many two-penny houses that existed within the river districts, where a sailor with money in his pocket could find himself a bed and a bottle, and a whore for the night.

      They had been admitted to the house by a hard-faced woman, who had greeted Jago not with annoyance or surprise at the late visit, but with warmth and affection. After a murmured conversation, during which no introductions were made, the woman led them through to the small kitchen at the back of the building. Bidding them good-night, she left, the sound of her footsteps fading as she made her way upstairs, candle held aloft.

      Jago pointed to a chair. “Sit yourself down.”

      Hawkwood watched as Jago raided the pantry, returning with a jug and two tin mugs. “Get some of this down you.”

      “This from Boney’s cellars too?” Hawkwood asked, pouring from the jug and taking a sip. He winced as the brandy rinsed the split in his gum.

      Jago grinned and raised his own mug. “Just like old times. You in the wars, and me lookin’ after you.”

      Jago’s words, spoken with a grin, were like nails being driven into his heart.

      The ex-sergeant frowned. “What?”

      “I thought it was you, Nathaniel. I thought you’d fed me to Scully.”

      “You talkin’ about the note?”

      Hawkwood nodded. “I should have known. I’m sorry, Nathaniel. I was a bloody idiot.”

      “Is that all? Bloody hell, Cap’n. If I’d been in your shoes, I’d have thought that too. Don’t go tearing yourself up. We been through too much together for me to hold that against you.”

      “Which is why I should have known better,” Hawkwood said, shaking his head. “I was a damned fool.” Then the thought struck him. “So, how the hell did you know where I was? How did you know about the note?”

      Jago shook his head. “Blind luck. I finally had a tickle from Lippy Adams over in Bell Lane, regardin’ the goods ‘oisted from your coach ‘old-up. Lippy owes me a favour or two. Couldn’t believe my luck when he told me it was Spiker who’d dropped the stuff off. Figured I’d get a message to you, using young Jenny. Would you credit it, she told me she’d passed one message on already. From bloody Spiker, no less! Which was when alarm bells started ringing. Mind you, Jen weren’t much use. Can’t read, can she? She couldn’t tell me what the bleedin’ note said!”

      Hawkwood waited patiently. He knew Jago would get to the point eventually.

      “Well, Spiker’s nowhere to be found – no big surprise. But then I gets to thinking that likely as not he can’t read nor write neither. Which means he must ‘ave ‘ad someone write ‘is note for him. And in our neck o’ the woods there’s only one scribe who’d do that for ‘im. Solly Linnett.”

      “So, you had words with Solly.”

      “That I did. In fact we ‘ad an entire conversation. Very obligin’, is old Solly, given the right inducements. Told me everything I needed to know, and not a moment too soon, from what I could see.” Jago’s face split into another disarming grin. “Swear to God, I don’t know what you’d do without me. You’re not safe to be let out on your own.” The ex-sergeant’s expression turned suddenly serious. “Now, would you mind tellin’ me just what the bleedin’ ‘ell’s goin’ on?”

      “I’m not sure you’d believe me,” Hawkwood said wearily.

      “Try me,” Jago offered. “We ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

      So Hawkwood told him. Beginning with the coach robbery, through to the missing clockmaker, Warlock’s murder and William Lee and his submersible boat. By the time he’d finished, Hawkwood’s throat, though well lubricated with brandy, felt as if it had been stuffed with nettles. He suspected it had as much to do with the amount of smoke he had inhaled as with his telling of the tale.

      “Bloody hell!” Jago said, after a lengthy silence. “You weren’t kiddin’, were you? So, what happens now?”

      “We find Lee and stop him.”

      “Whoa!” Jago said. “What do you mean, we? Jesus, you’ve got a bloody nerve!” The big man fell silent, then he sighed. “Christ, all right, I’m in. But how are we goin’ to stop the bugger if we don’t know where he is?”

      “I don’t know,” Hawkwood said. “I’ve a feeling I’m missing something, something important.”

      Both men stared into their drinks.

      “Bleedin’ generals,” Jago said.

      Hawkwood looked at him. “What?”

      Jago sighed. “Bleedin’ generals – remember? What was it we used to say? They

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