Mirrorman Read online

  ‘I can’t stand, Gilbert – my arms are fastened. Use the ladder.’

  Gryble searched and found the ladder, tilted it through the trap, and climbed down the slippery rungs. Water swirled round his ankles. He swung the lantern, and as he did so there was a flurry of sleek wet bodies sliding into the water and surging off into the further reaches of darkness. Gryble’s testicles shrank, retreating defensively into his body. Rats. He shuddered, feeling his stomach churn with fear and disgust.

  Cawdor had made a place for himself on a bank of heaped gravel next to the curved side, a tiny peninsular hemmed in by dank green seawater which sloshed about with the motion of the ship. The rushing of the sea itself could be heard, inches away, brushing past the keel. Cawdor’s feet were in an iron brace, fastened by chains to the side planking, and a loop of chain from the brace to his wrists prevented him raising his hands above chest height.

  ‘Here, Jefferson.’ Gryble waded on to the gravel, holding out the food wrapped in a cloth. ‘I cannot stay more than a minute.’ He bent forward, lowering the lantern to see into Cawdor’s face. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Do I look all right?’

  ‘Forgive my stupidity, Jefferson.’

  Cawdor shook his head. He held up a slice of pork. ‘Instead, I thank you most humbly for your kindness. Have you brought anything to drink? I’m more thirsty than hungry.’

  ‘Water.’ Gryble took a flask from his pocket. ‘Laced with brandy. Or perhaps t’other way round. How often do they feed you?’

  ‘Twice a day. Morning and evening, as near as I can guess. Down here, time is one long night. It doesn’t march; it stands perpetually at ease.’ He paused to take a deep swig. ‘That puts fire into me. Thanks twice over, Gilbert.’

  Gryble smiled wanly. He looked almost ready to weep. ‘Jefferson…’ He swallowed a lump in his throat. ‘You must accept that Saraheda and Daniel are gone. Lost at sea. There can be no other explanation. They cannot be on board still, or they would have been found.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cawdor said, calmly munching the pork. ‘I agree.’

  ‘You do? You accept that they were lost overboard?’

  ‘No. Thrown overboard. Murdered.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘A man named Kershalton.’

  ‘But how do you know?’

  Cawdor looked into the darkness, his face haunted. ‘I was warned by the Indian, Satish Kumar, that the Shouters and Kershalton were plotting against me. I took the warning lightly. I should be damned in hell for it. Perhaps this is my due punishment, or even less than I deserve.’

  ‘Did you speak to the captain about this? He could have had this man Kershalton brought before him and put to rigorous questioning.’

  ‘No.’ Cawdor closed his eyes wearily. ‘I could think of nothing but that Saraheda and Daniel were on board, alive, somewhere, waiting to be found. I couldn’t accept… the alternative. I refused to accept it. Until now.’

  Gryble swayed backward as the ship lurched, and nearly fell into the scummy seawater. Hurriedly, he shuffled up on to the gravel hill. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up like bristles at the thought of the hordes of rats out there watching him beyond the pale, yellow orb of lamplight.

  ‘I must leave you, Jefferson. If I’m seen I’ll be prevented from coming again, but I will come again, I promise i’ faith.’ He shook his head angrily. ‘This is a monstrous injustice, whatever you say you deserve. Kershalton should be festering here in this stinking cesspit, not you!’

  Lifting the lantern, he turned away, and Cawdor clutched his sleeve with a grimy hand.

  ‘Thank you for rekindling my hope, my friend. I was beyond feeling anything but shame and despair.’ Cawdor knelt up. ‘There might be a chance, a faint chance, that the terrible truth of this will see the light, and that justice will prevail. The captain is a strict man, but not a mountebank. If he can be made to see just cause, he will make it his business to conduct a proper and fair investigation.’

  Gryble sighed and shook his head wearily. ‘I’ve tried already to see the captain. He refuses point-blank. His mind is shut.’

  ‘There might be a way to open it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Speak to his first officer, Mr Tregorath. His mind is open. And he is disposed to believing in me, I have heard.’

  ‘What should I say?’

  ‘Tell him about the threats Kershalton made against me. Against my family. Satish Kumar will confirm it. Then ask him to put this new evidence before the captain. If you can convince Mr Tregorath, I’m certain he’ll do his utmost.’

  Cawdor watched anxiously as Gryble stepped into the water and darted fearful glances all around him as he waded to the ladder. He quickly hopped up two or three rungs.

  ‘Will you do it?’ Cawdor asked.

  ‘Yes, of course. I’ll speak to him directly.’ But Gryble was doubtful. These were suspicions, rumours, not hard facts. It would be difficult enough persuading the first lieutenant, let alone Captain Vincent. ‘I’ll do my best, Jefferson. And I’ll come back tomorrow and tell you his opinion.’

  Shivering all down his spine, Gryble climbed out of those dreadful, swilling, rat-infested bilges and lowered the trapdoor. It felt like he was sealing Cawdor in his tomb. He didn’t know if he had the courage – or the stomach – to face it again.

  When Gryble had gone from the lower hold, the feeble lamplight disappearing up the companionway, a small figure squeezed furtively out from between two of the huge water casks that were ranged in rows several deep. Six Fingers cocked his head, listening to the fading footsteps. He counted up to twelve on both hands, counted again, and yet a third time, before starting silently up the companionway on the calloused pads of his six-toed feet.

  Gryble emerged on deck to find the Salamander in a tumult of frenzied excitement. There was another vessel alongside! She was the Briton Protection, a fourth-rated frigate converted to merchantman, homeward-bound from Savannah with a cargo of cotton and leaf tobacco.

  Lines were strung and messages passed. News spread rapidly among the passengers thronging the deck that twelve of the thirteen colonies were mobilising an armed militia to fight the Crown. A ‘Continental Congress’, as it was termed, had met in Philadelphia, only several weeks past, and issued a petition to His Majesty’s Government insisting that there should be no taxation without representation.

  Gryble spun from one group to another, picking up titbits here and there, unsure whether to be alarmed by this fresh development or if it was merely a storm in a teacup. Any talk of rebellion, of course, was pure nonsense. A few thousand raw settlers versus the sovereign might of a world power – why, a couple of detachments of British Redcoats would reduce them to mincemeat in a matter of weeks!

  The meeting was brief. After ten minutes or so, the Briton Protection drew away, her sails billowing as she caught the freshening westerlies, her crew and passengers lining the rails and waving farewell. Gryble watched until she had faded into the dusk.

  Someone mentioned that the frigate had been at sea less than a month, which meant that, given fair weather, the Salamander was now only weeks away from the continent of America.

  He overheard someone say – jokingly he hoped – ‘Look well if the minute we step ashore we’re taken prisoner and marched straight to the scaffold. Halfway round the world to have your neck stretched!’

  ‘What!’ his companion exclaimed. ‘I’ll join with ‘em!’

  ‘That’s treason talk. As a loyal British subject you have a bounden duty to stand up for king and country.’

  ‘Aye, but which country? I’ll tell you now, straight, the Crown has no claim on my loyalty and affection. That’s the reason I shook the dust of old England off my feet – to be a free man. If there’s to be a scrap, I know which side I’m on.’

  Gryble went down to his cubicle to prepare his supper, made uneasy by this conversation. Damnation! He’d journeyed all this way to participate in a great scientific revolution, not to ge
t embroiled in a petty squabble between the Crown and the colonies.

  With his thoughts centred on this gloomy prospect, and his mind buzzing with morbid speculation, Gryble clean forgot about Cawdor in his wretched stinking prison and the promise he had made him.

  ‘You heard it plain?’

  ‘Plain as daylight. I listened just as you tole me, Franklin.’

  ‘And it was my name he spoke. No mistake?’

  ‘It was dead on your name.’

  ‘Did he say how he come by it? What stinking rat’s spilt his guts?’

  ‘He had a warnin’, so he says.’

  ‘Warnin’? Who from?’

  ‘He give another name, a foreign ‘un. Says this foreign chap warned him to beware. He forgot it. Anyway, he paid no mind.’

  ‘What foreign chap?’

  ‘I forget.’

  ‘Well, fuckin’ remember it, you bastard son of a whore, or I’ll squeeze yer knackers till they squeak like cherry pips.’

  ‘Coo – Coo – summat or t’other – Ouch! I’m tryin’! I’m tryin’!’

  ‘Never mind. What did ginger ‘ave ter say?’

  ‘Gryble jus’ took it in, gob open. Oh aye, then Cawdor says to tell the first lieutenant to tell the captain – somethin’ like that. Then ginger says he will, straight off.’

  ‘Tell him what?’

  ‘About what Cawdor was warned about and took no heed. Get the captain to haul you on the mat till you spills yer tripes.’

  ‘Shite and corruption! Well, now. Did he? Well, now. We’ll see about that, Six Fingers. Aye, we’ll see … I’ll do for that bastard once and for good. Cut off his cock-robin and ram it down his throat till he chokes and see what he says then. Aye, that’s a pretty notion… I think I’ll do it. I think I will, i’ faith.’

  3

  Gryble sat on the edge of the bed, staring wide-eyed at his white feet protruding below the hem of his nightshirt. His conscience wouldn’t let him rest. The image of Cawdor in the black bowels of the ship hovered before his mind’s eye, a painful and loathsome phantasm. After supper he’d remembered what he had promised to do, and resolved that first thing in the morning he would approach Mr Tregorath and put Cawdor’s allegations to him.

  But sleep had proved impossible. The phantasm wouldn’t be banished. In fact it magnified itself in his imagination until Cawdor’s arms and legs had been gnawed to bloody stumps by packs of scurrying, insatiable rats. Now they were burrowing into Cawdor’s stomach, sharp little teeth tearing at his intestines.

  Gryble got dressed, putting on his shirt and breeches over his nightshirt. He kissed his Bible and went out.

  The senior officers’ wardroom was on the middle deck, beneath the captain’s stateroom and private quarters. By strict marine etiquette Gryble wasn’t allowed there, except by invitation or prior appointment made via a junior officer. He went directly there all the same, and for a minute or two stood fretting in the passage outside, clasping and unclasping his hands, turning away and then coming back again.

  He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and knocked.

  The wardroom steward who answered, a thin, sallow fellow wearing a blue-and-white-striped apron down to his knees, at first refused to interrupt the first lieutenant’s dinner, until Gryble insisted that it was ‘a matter of prime, urgent importance’. Behind the steward, Gryble glimpsed several officers sprawled round a table strewn with the aftermath of a meal; decanters of brandy, rum and port doing the rounds; a thick fug of tobacco smoke standing like a solid blue wall under the polished brass lamps. Gryble spied Doctor Chapman there too, his soiled collar undone, lolling half out of his chair, his eyes bloodshot and bleary.

  ‘What’s all this to-do, sir?’ Mr Tregorath asked, eventually materialising out of the blue fog. He belched softly, swaying in the doorway.

  As soon as Gryble mentioned Cawdor’s name the first lieutenant shook his head, holding up his hand to cut him off.

  ‘There’s no more to be said on that score. I suggest you return to your quarters, sir, and forget about it. The matter’s done and settled.’

  ‘You’re a fair man, Mr Tregorath. Cawdor places his trust in you to see justice done. Won’t you give him the opportunity to speak, and consider what he has to say?’ Gryble’s voice was high-pitched with pleading. ‘There is new evidence concerning his wife and son, and their … disappearance. Cawdor believes he knows who was responsible. At the very least he deserves to be listened to.’

  ‘His actions are not those of a rational man, Mr…’

  ‘Gryble.’

  ‘Mr Gryble. Tearing about the ship in a frenzy. Causing alarm and disquiet among the passengers. Assaulting an officer in the prosecution of his duty. It cannot be tolerated, sir. We have a duty to keep the ship on an even keel, in every sense.’

  ‘I realise that, of course.’ Gryble wrung his hands. He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach – that he had lost already, that he was failing Cawdor. He was clutching at straws. ‘But, if the passengers were to believe that a murderer was roaming free, would that not cause unrest, leading to panic? They must be reassured, Mr Tregorath, for the welfare of the ship and their own peace of mind.’

  The first lieutenant closed his eyes and opened them again, rather wearily. With an abrupt gesture he beckoned Gryble inside, and then led him through the wardroom and into a narrow compartment adjoining it. None of the officers paid Gryble any attention. Mr Tregorath closed the door and indicated a chair. He pushed aside bundles of documents and perched on the corner of a writing table, belching again as he folded his arms.

  ‘A gentle word of warning in your ear, Mr Gryble, sir. I must caution you at once against starting such a malicious rumour. Unless, that is, you are keen to join your friend Cawdor in his purgatory. As you will know, I hope, Captain Vincent gives short shrift to breaches of conduct, whether they be civilian or to do with the management of the ship. He has, as we say, a short fuse.’

  ‘Cawdor seeks only a fair hearing. My God, Mr Tregorath, his wife and child are dead! How is a man expected to react under such circumstances? How would you?’

  ‘I’m not married.’

  ‘That’s beside the point.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ Mr Tregorath yawned and scratched the back of his head. ‘Let me put my cards on the table, Mr Gryble. This is strictly between ourselves. If you repeat it, I shall deny it.’

  Gryble hunched forward anxiously, kneading his palms.

  ‘I have my own suspicions about this affair. These arose from a sequence of events some time ago – I shall not go into them now, but they involved Cawdor and a female member of the sect called the Shouters. Anyway, that aside, possibly there is some justification in Cawdor’s claim that his wife and son met with foul play. I would not refute it.’

  ‘Then –’

  ‘However! However… these are solely my opinions. I have no facts to back them. Nor any solid evidence with which to make a case. Cawdor now says he knows the culprit’s identity. But that is merely Cawdor’s word against another’s, who would doubtless deny it, and in the captain’s eyes Cawdor’s word is as bogus as a nine-penny piece.’ The first lieutenant spread his hands. ‘You see, Mr Gryble, where we find ourselves – in a maelstrom of accusation and speculation, surrounded by a vacuum of hard fact.’

  ‘But the man has been done a bitter injustice,’ Gryble said heatedly.

  ‘Several injustices.’

  ‘And yet you refuse to do anything to rectify them!’

  ‘If I could,’ Mr Tregorath responded with a flash of irritation, ‘I would. But I am not the captain, and it is the captain’s prerogative to arbitrate in these matters and come to a decision. He has made his decision. What would you have me do, flout his ruling and find myself on a charge of mutiny? Perhaps you won’t rest, Mr Gryble, until all three of us are chained together in the bilges. Then we will have the satisfaction of congratulating one another on our unswerving sense of justice and steadfast principles.’

  Gryble h
ung his head. ‘I don’t know what else to say. You are Cawdor’s last hope.’

  There came a shout of laughter from the wardroom. The officers, it appeared, didn’t believe in stinting themselves. Someone started singing a bawdy song, and other voices joined in.

  The first lieutenant swung his leg down from the table and banged his fist on the partition. The drunken singing tailed off.

  ‘They’ll not be content till they wake the captain. And, God knows, he is not the most charitable of men, even when not plagued by the piles. I must go through, Mr Gryble, and exert a steadying influence.’

  Gryble stood up, feeling wretched. ‘The root of all this lies with the Shouters, does it not? Cawdor stuck his nose into their affairs and they cannot abide it. So they employed somebody called Kershalton to do their dirty work.’

  The first lieutenant paused, his hand on the doorknob.

  ‘Kershalton is the man Cawdor accuses?’

  ‘Yes.’ Gryble blinked up at him. ‘Didn’t I say?’

  ‘No, you did not.’

  ‘Do you know the fellow?’

  ‘I know of him. He is a rogue, right enough. We only learnt of his history a week out, otherwise we should have ejected him at Plymouth.’

  Gryble felt a flicker of hope. ‘Then for pity’s sake have him apprehended and brought before the captain, Mr Tregorath! At least make him answer these charges. Please, sir, I beg you!’

  ‘I confess, this puts another complexion on the matter.’ The first lieutenant frowned, plainly racked by indecision. He snapped his fingers several times. ‘But proof – what proof is there? If I am to approach the captain, who is heartily sick already of Cawdor and his doings, I require something of more substance than the frenzied ramblings of a grieving man. As I told you –’

  ‘He is not frenzied, nor is he rambling,’ Gryble protested. ‘He is as reasonable as you or I.’

  ‘Is he indeed?’

  ‘Why, yes…’ Gryble’s voice sank to a feeble whisper. He stared miserably at the floor.