For the first time in months, Elizabeth moved with no thought to the sway of her hips or the rolling of her shoulders. She just ran, swinging herself down the steps by the handrail and pelting towards the hatchway. She could hear Tinker’s footsteps behind, but didn’t look back.
After months of waiting, the moment had come. And now she had no time.
All the crew were on deck, but for the engineers. She sprinted the empty passageway and barged through the door into her cabin, leaving it swinging. On her knees, she threw back the lid of her trunk and began scooping its contents to the floor.
The door crashed open a second time as Tinker dived into the room.
“Tell me everything,” she said. She’d got to the bottom of the trunk already. Clicking the hidden catch, she released the false floor and lifted it out.
“Did what you told me,” he gasped. “Hid behind the oil tanks. Kept my ear to the hull.”
Elizabeth grabbed her pistol, a bag of shot and a small powder horn from the secret compartment. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, she began to load the gun.
“Didn’t hear nothing till just now.”
“What does it sound like?”
“Like a wasp,” he said. And then he hummed a single note; high pitched and wavering.
She was about to instruct him on what to do if they were rammed from beneath the water, but a small noise made her snap her head around. Something had scraped across the outside of the hull. Then a figure was clambering past the porthole. Beads of water from the fog made the glass unclear. She saw a russet sleeve, a shoulder, a double-breasted jacket, then legs clad in grey and black sea boots. A scabbard hanging from the belt swung around and tapped the porthole.
A man, it seemed. But the pirates were supposed to be women. She felt a wave of nausea rising from her stomach. She told herself she wouldn’t be sick. It was only fear. She could banish fear. She would hide among the men as she’d hidden all along. She wedged the pistol inside her jacket, buttoning it back up with trembling fingers.
Shouts of alarm came from above.
“You’re a stowaway,” she said. “You’re nine years old. You’ll give yourself up to them. Don’t try to run or hide. And whatever happens, you must not try to help me! Do you understand?”
He nodded. His eyes were wide with fear or excitement.
Her breath was coming in short gasps as she marched out through the hatchway and onto the deck. The men were all at the starboard bow, leaning over to look down into the water below them. Tinker kept close behind as she advanced up the steps to the quarterdeck. The officers were staring over the side, the same as the men.
Locklight pointed his finger at her and then beckoned with a single sweep of his arm. She ran to his side.
“It’s under us,” Ryan whispered. “We saw it pass.”
She coughed, trying to clear her throat. “Someone’s climbing the side of the ship.”
“Don’t play the fool!” barked the captain. “You’ve still to answer for the stowaway.” He glared at Tinker.
Elizabeth shielded her eyes and looked to the escort ship, which was closing fast. Smoke billowed from its stack. It would take fifteen or twenty minutes to reach them.
She’d begun to turn her head back towards the captain when the sound of metal straining against metal screeched and the deck juddered under her feet. Everyone staggered. For a fraction of a second there was only stillness and uncertainty. Then the ship heaved a second time.
Elizabeth fell. The deck was tilting. The portside gunwale dipped into the waves and water began pouring in through the scuppers. Tinker was sliding towards it. She grabbed his wrist.
Locklight remained standing, though all others who hadn’t found something to cling to had fallen. “Launch the boats!” he shouted. “Launch the boats!”
Elizabeth began to crawl up the slope of the deck, dragging Tinker with her. She reached for the safety railing and pulled herself upright. One of the whaleboats had broken free and was floating askew off the submerged port bow. Sailors were diving in and swimming towards it. The other whaleboat swung from its awning, high above the sloping deck.
“The axe!” shouted the captain, pointing to where one was fixed to the gunwale just above her. “Bring it to me!”
She clambered towards it, hand over hand, and hefted it from its fitting. Then the ship jolted again and she found herself sliding back down past him. Her feet crashed against the submerged gunwale. The shock of the cold took her breath.
Then the axe was being prised from her grip. The captain was next to her in the water.
“We’re being dragged!” he shouted. “It’s trying to drag us under!”
He splashed away from her. A wave sluiced the water clear and she saw what he was heading for: a hook caught on one of the scuppers. Another wave brought the water rushing back. It surged up to her waist before sucking away once more. The captain raised the axe and when the hook was again revealed, he struck. There was a cable angled down into the ocean, tight as a piano string. The axe bounced from it.
He hacked at it again. Then the next wave rushed in. Reaching Elizabeth’s waist. The water pulled her as it curled along the deck. Her feet slipped and she fell. Her head went under. She grabbed one of the mast cables and held on until the wave was spent. Coughing and spitting salt water she tried to scramble to her feet.
The floating whaleboat was full of sailors, but more were swimming towards it. Then the other whaleboat dropped and crashed, tumbling over the deck, taking men with it. It landed upside down but some of the swimming men struck out towards it.
Tinker cried out. She saw him sliding down the deck towards her. Then another wave came up and took her. In the chaos of bubbles, dragging water and stinging salt, she grabbed blind and then grabbed again, catching the thick fabric of his coat, holding on to it, though it seemed it would be ripped from her grasp.
Somewhere a whip cracked. She found herself being catapulted skywards, the deck surging up, the water pouring away. She coughed and retched. Tinker lay next to her. She held the collar of his coat in her fist. Her fingers were so cold that it took effort to let go.
“There’s one more cable,” Locklight shouted.
She scrambled to her feet. The deck was still tilted to the port side, though not as steeply as before. The quarterdeck was clear of the waves but the prow was being pulled down, submerging the bowsprit.
“We’re the only ones left,” he said. “You’re going to have to cut it.”
He was cradling his right arm. The breaking cable must have caught him because there was blood on the sleeve.
She struck out across the deck towards the second safety axe. But before she’d made it halfway, the Iceland Queen lurched again, the prow rising up. It came to her that the cable holding it down must have snapped. She ran to look over the edge. The ship was floating true again. The second whaleboat had been righted and many of the crew were safe. Others still swam, clinging to the sides of the boats, for there was no more room for them to clamber in. One body floated, face down.
She was about to call the boats back to the ship, but the click of a gun hammer being cocked made her turn. The figure dressed in russet and grey stood with pistol levelled at the Captain. Locklight brandished a knife in a clumsy, left-handed grip. Elizabeth reached into her jacket. But as her fingers closed around her pistol, the figure in russet shifted its weight from one hip to the other. It was a movement distinctively female.
Elizabeth drew her own gun and took aim at Locklight, advancing towards him. She pushed the muzzle against his chest.
Aghast, he said, “What are you doing?”
“Drop the knife,” she said.
As it clattered to the boards, three more figures were scrambling onto the deck, women clad in men’s clothing. Only when Elizabeth was sure they’d seen what she’d done did she bend slowly to place her pistol on the floor. She kicked it away and raised her hands.
The woman in russet and grey stooped to pick it up, the aim of her own gun never wavering. “We have the ship,” she said. “Quick now.”
One of the other women reached over the side and started beating the Iceland Queen’s hull with a metal object. It made a harsh clanging noise. She kept up a regular rhythm as the others aimed their guns at the sailors in the whaleboats. “Come no closer!” they shouted.
The Company gunboat was still a mile off, but closing fast.
Locklight rounded on her. “You snake!”
“I saved your life!” she said.
“You’ll hang for this treachery! You’ll…”
But whatever he was about to say remained unspoken. A shadow was rising between the Iceland Queen and the whaleboats. The ocean began to shift as if above an upwelling current. Then a machine broke the surface. In size and curve it was like the back of a whale, in texture like the hull of a wooden ship or a vast barrel, banded with iron.
The rhythmic clanging stopped. A hatchway on the crest of the machine fell open. And out swarmed the pirates, taking up positions on its back, guns aimed at the crew in the whaleboats.
Lines were thrown, then; from the underwater machine to the ship and from the ship to the whaleboats. Water churned around the rear of the machine and it started to move, turning in a tight circle, heading back towards the fog bank. Elizabeth felt a judder as the slack was taken up. Water ran from the towline as it pulled taut. The deck tilted and they were moving. Then the whaleboats full of crew were moving also, dragged in train behind, and the men clinging on in the water.
She felt the drop in temperature and smelled the moisture in the air. The pursuing gunboat was still out of range. It would arrive too late. The white closed in around them.
The woman in russet stepped closer, gun still aimed, one finger pressed to her lips. The Iceland Queen’s engine was still idling on slow revolutions. Muffled by the fog, it was a vibration more felt through the feet than heard through the ears. The underwater machine made a different kind of noise; a barely audible hum, sounding just as Tinker had described it.
She staggered as they began to turn. Even should the gunboat risk following them into the fog bank, it wouldn’t find them now. The Iceland Queen’s engine stopped altogether.
Since setting out from Liverpool, the only moments of silence had been in her dreams. There’d always been an engine turning somewhere. She listened to the slap of a wave against the hull. The hum of the underwater machine had stopped also. She could hear voices off the port bow – the men in the whaleboats. She was waiting for them to start shouting, but then they too fell silent.
The woman in russet backed away, beckoned with her gun. Locklight, Elizabeth and Tinker followed her down the steps to the main deck. One of the other women dropped a rope ladder over the side and stepped away as the crew began clambering back aboard. Seeing the guns, they raised their hands. When more of the pirates followed them up the ladder, there were still seven men missing, to Elizabeth’s count. Then the four engineers were brought up from below. She’d seen one dead man for certain, which left two unaccounted for.
The woman in russet started along the line of captured crew. Her features were not masculine, but there was a strength about her that reminded Elizabeth of a classical statue. Her dark hair had been tied back.
“You’re taken captive,” the woman said, her voice clear but not loud. The accent strange. “You’re prisoners of this war.”
“There is no war,” said Locklight.
“Who are you?”
“I’m captain of the Iceland Queen.”
He’d begun to lower his hands, but the woman stepped up to him and pressed the muzzle of her pistol against the middle of his brow.
“Make an order, then. If it be followed, I’ll believe you’re a captain as you say.”
Elizabeth didn’t move. But she saw the man on the other side of Locklight edging away from him.
The woman drew back the pistol. The muzzle had left a mark on his skin. It seemed she would walk away, but then her hand whipped around, catching him on the side of the head with the stock. His knees folded and he dropped to the deck. His mouth fell slack. For a moment Elizabeth feared he was killed, but then he inhaled; a sickly rasping breath, like a gutter drunk.
“Captives you are,” said the woman, stepping back again. “Captives of a war you will lose.”
“May we ask who you are?” said Elizabeth. She could feel the man next to her leaning away.
“We are the Sargassans. Our nation rules this ocean. And who are you?”
Elizabeth swallowed. Willing her voice to return to a pitch she’d not voiced for six months, she said: “These men know me as Edwin Barnabus. But my real name is Elizabeth. I beg for asylum in the Sargassan Nation.”
She heard the ripple of shock as it whispered around the crew of the Iceland Queen. One man let out an oath. Elizabeth kept her eyes focussed on the woman in russet. All her sacrifices had been for this moment. She braced herself. If the woman struck her down, she would be in the worst possible place; a prisoner despised by all other prisoners.
Next to her feet, Locklight shifted and groaned.
The woman spat towards him, then nodded and said: “The Sargassan Nation will hear your claim, Elizabeth.”
“Then please hear mine also,” said a reedy voice further down the line.
“And who are you?”
“My name is Fidelia. But these sailors know me as Watkins. I was lately steward to the Commodore of the Company fleet.”