Read Online His Heart's Obsession by Alex Beecroft - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alex Beecroft
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gratitude all the rest of his life.
That would be something, wouldn’t it? If he could not have earthly happiness, then a hero’s death would be something to hope for, and with it the end to all this pain.
Chapter Ten
At sea, off Martinique
Lantern in one hand, sword in the other, Robert sloshed his way through the stinking darkness of the French ship’s hold at the head of his boarding party. The Swiftsure ’s cannon had hulled the Victorieuse beneath the waterline, causing her to list to one side.
Her ballast of gravel had shifted, and the long-dead corpses of her men, buried in it, now floated stinking and bloated amid the wreckage. Disgusted at this evidence of French perversity, Robert’s people looked grim. A liquefying hand brushed his submerged calf, and he thought that he did not blame them. How could any decent person bear to bury their respected comrades in this sewer, instead of giving them a resting place in the clean depths of the sea?
The lantern lit only a small circle about him. Brown dimness stretched out into utter dark. The faces of the dead glimmered in the flooded hold.
Behind him, a fleeting splash broke the hush. He spun, his sword making an arc of lemon light. He registered a thud, a cry, and recognised the beard and bright silk scarf of the Lascar Partho Sen, just in time to pull back the blow. Sen dropped the man he had just stabbed into the dirty water and grinned at him. “The sneaky bugger was lying under the water pretending to be dead, sir.”
“Thank you!” Robert grinned back, in the sharp-edged, almost hysterical amusement of fear. It was too quiet down here, too eerie—battle ardour faded in the silence, and both the split-second reflexes of war and its feeling of invulnerability seeped away into the vast darkness, the trickle of water, the underwater cold. “Let’s pick up the pace now—the sooner this is over, the sooner we can see to our mates.”
Finishing the search, he stationed two of his marines at the hatchway, ran up the ladder to find Midshipman Stilman—a boy of thirteen—doing the same on the lower gun deck. “All clear below,” he shouted. “What news?”
“Cor, it was carnage, sir!” replied the lad in over-bright enthusiasm. His face stood out stark white with horror and excitement against the rusty black of his uniform—the dark blue material bloody to the collar with gore. “Captain cut about the leg. Mr. Collins copped a ball in the cheek, surgeon says he’ll lose the eye for sure. They’re saying we might have to sink her, there not being enough men left to sail her and the Swiftsure both. Won’t that be a blow for Mr. Morgan, if he lives? Him hoping this’d be the one that brought him his step, like.”
“‘If he lives?’” Robert blamed battle-madness for the way in which he reached out and lifted the boy from his feet, shaking him. “What d’you mean?”
“If you please, sir.” Stilman hung unresisting in the white-knuckled grip, his soaked jacket straining at the seams with his weight. “I saw him go down, just abaft the capstan. I were going to check the dead when Old Bum…that is, when Mr. Higginbotham told me to come down here and check with you that no Frogs was hiding below, sir. I don’t know no more’n that. Sorry, sir.”
Robert had no memory of how he got out into the open, up two companionways and over a dozen bodies. He might have flown. But he burst onto the slippery deck just in time to glimpse, through the reeking yellow clouds of smoke, Chips and Jemmy Ducks manhandling Hal’s limp form over the rail. He watched Hal’s lolling head hit the side and, for a moment, everything went white.
Dead! After I filled his final week of life with anguish. Dead! And I wasn’t even there—thought I’d give him a chance to cool off before I made time to apologise, so I didn’t say half the things I meant to say. Fine things, beautiful words—I’ve been keeping them back, afraid of scorn and mockery, and now
That would be something, wouldn’t it? If he could not have earthly happiness, then a hero’s death would be something to hope for, and with it the end to all this pain.
Chapter Ten
At sea, off Martinique
Lantern in one hand, sword in the other, Robert sloshed his way through the stinking darkness of the French ship’s hold at the head of his boarding party. The Swiftsure ’s cannon had hulled the Victorieuse beneath the waterline, causing her to list to one side.
Her ballast of gravel had shifted, and the long-dead corpses of her men, buried in it, now floated stinking and bloated amid the wreckage. Disgusted at this evidence of French perversity, Robert’s people looked grim. A liquefying hand brushed his submerged calf, and he thought that he did not blame them. How could any decent person bear to bury their respected comrades in this sewer, instead of giving them a resting place in the clean depths of the sea?
The lantern lit only a small circle about him. Brown dimness stretched out into utter dark. The faces of the dead glimmered in the flooded hold.
Behind him, a fleeting splash broke the hush. He spun, his sword making an arc of lemon light. He registered a thud, a cry, and recognised the beard and bright silk scarf of the Lascar Partho Sen, just in time to pull back the blow. Sen dropped the man he had just stabbed into the dirty water and grinned at him. “The sneaky bugger was lying under the water pretending to be dead, sir.”
“Thank you!” Robert grinned back, in the sharp-edged, almost hysterical amusement of fear. It was too quiet down here, too eerie—battle ardour faded in the silence, and both the split-second reflexes of war and its feeling of invulnerability seeped away into the vast darkness, the trickle of water, the underwater cold. “Let’s pick up the pace now—the sooner this is over, the sooner we can see to our mates.”
Finishing the search, he stationed two of his marines at the hatchway, ran up the ladder to find Midshipman Stilman—a boy of thirteen—doing the same on the lower gun deck. “All clear below,” he shouted. “What news?”
“Cor, it was carnage, sir!” replied the lad in over-bright enthusiasm. His face stood out stark white with horror and excitement against the rusty black of his uniform—the dark blue material bloody to the collar with gore. “Captain cut about the leg. Mr. Collins copped a ball in the cheek, surgeon says he’ll lose the eye for sure. They’re saying we might have to sink her, there not being enough men left to sail her and the Swiftsure both. Won’t that be a blow for Mr. Morgan, if he lives? Him hoping this’d be the one that brought him his step, like.”
“‘If he lives?’” Robert blamed battle-madness for the way in which he reached out and lifted the boy from his feet, shaking him. “What d’you mean?”
“If you please, sir.” Stilman hung unresisting in the white-knuckled grip, his soaked jacket straining at the seams with his weight. “I saw him go down, just abaft the capstan. I were going to check the dead when Old Bum…that is, when Mr. Higginbotham told me to come down here and check with you that no Frogs was hiding below, sir. I don’t know no more’n that. Sorry, sir.”
Robert had no memory of how he got out into the open, up two companionways and over a dozen bodies. He might have flown. But he burst onto the slippery deck just in time to glimpse, through the reeking yellow clouds of smoke, Chips and Jemmy Ducks manhandling Hal’s limp form over the rail. He watched Hal’s lolling head hit the side and, for a moment, everything went white.
Dead! After I filled his final week of life with anguish. Dead! And I wasn’t even there—thought I’d give him a chance to cool off before I made time to apologise, so I didn’t say half the things I meant to say. Fine things, beautiful words—I’ve been keeping them back, afraid of scorn and mockery, and now
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