JOE SMASHED THE bottle from Habs’s hand just as King Dick tackled him to the ground. The strychnine spun away, spilling its poison in circular patterns. Habs crashed to the stage, the air from his lungs squashed out of him. Magrath arrived seconds later. ‘Did he drink? Did he drink?’ he yelled.
‘Yes, yes, I think so,’ said Joe, his words clear but his tone manic. ‘What was it? Why was he even—’
Magrath had rammed his handkerchief into Habs’s mouth, dabbing and wiping. He felt for a pulse.
‘Is he breathing, Doctor?’ Joe rasped. ‘Is he dead?’
The cry was taken up around the cockloft. ‘Habs is dead!’
In the pandemonium that followed, only Joe heard what Magrath replied. ‘He’s not dead. Not yet, anyway. It depends how much of the strychnine he swallowed. We’ll know soon enough – the spasms will start in about fifteen minutes. Maybe sooner. It’s possible he’ll vomit it all back up again. Time will tell, Joe, time will tell.’ To Joe’s blank face, he added, ‘He killed Edwin Lane. Shot him with a pistol. Self-defence, he said.’ Magrath ignored Joe’s bloodless face, carried on wiping moisture from Habs’s mouth. Joe watched the physician’s frantic work on Habs’s limp body, momentarily stunned by the horror of what he had seen. Then came the fear and the battle-induced instinct to do something.
‘What can I do? What should I do?’
‘Try to wake him up,’ said Magrath. ‘Or pray. Whatever you’re better at.’
Joe fell to his knees, then leaned forward so his head touched the ground alongside Habs. ‘You don’t leave like that!’ he shouted into his ear, his voice tight. ‘You don’t leave me like that! Habs, wake up!’ Then a whispered, ‘And I need you. You know I do.’
A fearful-looking Sam stood at Habs’s feet, his arm around a red-eyed Tommy. The pastor was praying; the rest of the cast stood motionless, too shocked to know how to react.
King Dick had disappeared. A quick scan of the room was all it took to know that he wasn’t there and, with the King absent, the fighting and the panic returned.
Joe helped Magrath push Habs on to his side, then pulled some damp strands of hair from his face. ‘Is he safe here, Doctor? Should we move him?’ Habs made a deep groaning sound, then his body arched, his head and neck snapping back sharply.
‘Spasms have started,’ warned Magrath. As Habs’s muscles contracted, he vomited copiously. Magrath wiped his mouth. ‘He’s not going anywhere just now,’ he said.
Magrath glanced at the crowd just as Elizabeth Shortland clambered on to the stage. She had just opened her mouth to speak when a gunshot ripped through the cockloft. The crowd dived to the floor; Magrath dived to cover Elizabeth. The gunman was six feet away. Lieutenant Aveline, standing over Captain Shortland, held his pistol high above his head, a hole blasted in the cockloft roof. The hubbub slowly faded but, in its place, came the sound of an entire prison tipping over the edge. The alarm bell was being rung and then, from the barracks, the drums. The call-to-arms.
The Agent and Aveline were first to the doors. The Agent shot the briefest of glances at the stage, where Magrath was still lying on Elizabeth Shortland, and they were gone. It was the start of a stampede. From the stage, Joe watched them go. Eroded by alcohol, panic and fear, any remaining vestiges of ship discipline disappeared and the men fought, screamed, scratched and kicked their way to the exit.
On the stage, the play clearly over, the cast still seemed separate, adrift from the proceedings that had overtaken them. As their shipmates pushed and heaved for the door, they stood watching, the last strands of the play’s camaraderie holding them back.
‘Do we go, too?’ asked Tommy.
‘I guess so,’ said Sam.
‘Go where?’ asked Magrath, helping Elizabeth to her feet. ‘A riot? If you have any sense left in your bones, you’ll be keeping well clear.’
‘A riot or an escape?’ said Elizabeth. ‘I’ve never heard the drums before.’
Magrath shrugged. ‘Maybe both. We’re going to be busy. We need to go.’
‘Doctor!’ Joe called Magrath back. Habs was spasming again, and Magrath hustled over.
‘Nothing we can do,’ he said. ‘Pray God he didn’t swallow much.’ He watched as the convulsion faded. ‘That was milder, less violent. I am encouraged. But if he survives, he’ll be arrested for murder. I did try to help him, but I must report what I saw. And Mr Snow here admitted to killing Mr Lane. Shot him in the stomach. We’d have heard the shot here, but Lane fell on the gun. Muffled it.’
The cast, open-mouthed, looked at each other in shock. Sam spluttered to life first.
‘No way! No way would Habs do that.’
‘That will be for a court to decide,’ said Magrath.
‘Where is King Dick?’ asked Elizabeth. ‘I didn’t see him go.’
‘No one did,’ said Joe. ‘He dived for Habs, then just disappeared.’
‘He does that sometimes,’ said Sam.
‘Well, let us pray he is making himself useful,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I think you’ll be needing him. I think we’ll all be needing him.’
Habs coughed, retched, then opened his eyes. ‘Drink,’ he whispered. Joe clambered for one of the backstage jugs, relief powering his every move.
‘It’s good to see you again,’ he said, holding it to Habs’s lips and smiling.
Habs closed his eyes.
‘What were you thinking, Habs?’ whispered Joe. ‘What in Christ’s name were you thinking?’
Habs opened his eyes again. ‘I was thinkin’ it was a better way to go than hangin’ on the end of an English rope.’
Joe pushed the image from his mind. ‘Did you swallow much?’
Habs shook his head then winced. ‘No idea. Don’t remember.’
‘The King flattened you.’
Habs grimaced. ‘That’ll be why, then.’
As the cockloft emptied, Magrath and Elizabeth Shortland left the stage. ‘Stay clear when he spasms,’ Magrath called to Joe. ‘I pray he’ll pull through. We need to get to the hospital.’
Goffe looked around him. ‘Well, that’s it, then,’ he said, and, followed by Lord and the Requin men, he made for the doors, too. Their running footsteps echoed around the now quiet cockloft.
‘Last men on the ship,’ said Sam. ‘We should go, too.’
The alarm bell still rang, the call-to-arms still beat, and now a new sound emerged, swelling, rolling, enveloping everything. Tommy took a few steps towards the door. It was voices. Thousands of voices.
‘It sounds like … like everyone.’
Tommy, then Sam, ran to the single cockloft window that overlooked the courtyard. They stood, transfixed, for a long time. It was as though the seething, broiling uproar of the cockloft had transferred itself to the entire prison.
‘It is everyone,’ said Tommy, his voice awed by the spectacle. ‘All the blocks are out. Every one.’
‘And I’ve found King Dick,’ said Sam.