Chapter 3 - Scene 5

The black harpoon went dead and true, skewering Midnight’s flank. Behind it the chain whirred a high pitched rattle, snapping taut when the harpoon drove home. The brake on the spool clanked into a notch and locked. Florence balled her fists and smacked the gun, realising what she had done.

The barbed iron spear was spiked near the stern. The monger crew saw it, felt it hit, some clambering over the sides and tossing themselves overboard to catch the chain, missing, and going into the water.

The rest of the horde swept onto the mooring. Deadweight was nowhere to be seen.

Roont lurched on the helm. ‘Hard to port! Pulling hard to port! Furl all sails! Saints damn you, Florence!’

Juniper lurched. It still moved at full sail, and as the chain bound them to Midnight firmly the ship was counterweighted into following a circumference around the rammed ship. It was stuck in the mooring, and they were pinned to it.

The ship’s speed put it following a wide, uncontrollable arc. Florence had put them at a bad angle. The stern end came swinging out behind them, and Roont was losing control of their bearing with each passing second. Sall gripped the rail, watching the taut rope carry them into a turn that would jackknife them hard into the rig’s protective wall. Roont gasped with the strain against the rudder. Any harder and it would break.

Florence reacted fast. She jumped off the gun, her good hand finding an iron lever beside the spool, and she braced against the cannon to unjam it. It didn’t budge. The gun was stuck. She couldn’t free more rope. She scowled, throwing her whole body against the lever, but still it wouldn’t budge.

Juniper tilted, coming parallel to the flaming ship’s stern. A gust of wind blew a heavy cloud of smoke across the ship, coming straight off the Midnight. Tiny embers flickered on the grey whorls. Sall coughed, covering his mouth with his forearm. He looked up at the sails, concerned they might catch. The crew had them furling as fast as they could.

Captain Roont held the ship hard to port, but Sall saw it would not be enough. Once they passed the peak of their arc the ship was going to flick its stern out fast and they’d be thrown loose.

A tall, dark man came running to Florence armed with a sledge. The crew fastened their ties on the furled sails but it was too late. They were locked to the burning ship beached up through the rig’s outer wall, bound together in a deadly twirl. Juniper groaned at the strain.

Roont bellowed another order. ‘Drop anchor, weigh it, drop the anchor!’

The sailor with the sledgehammer ran to Florence’s side and she stepped out of the way, gesturing with angry motions. He swung the hammer high and brought it down smack on the hard iron of the lever, loosing it and severing the rope attaching them to the Midnight.

The ship jackknifed. Roont’s order to drop the anchor was forgotten as the ship bucked, throwing all but the steadiest of sailors to the planks, including Roont, who lost his grip on the helm and fell on his side, wincing.

Sall hit the rail and almost went into the sea, only catching himself by winding his wounded arm around it and bracing. The wound flared at him, the stitches straining. The helm wheel spun as the keel took the water and forced the ship straight.

Groggy sailors, shaken about like fleas off a dog, picked themselves up and collected themselves. The Juniper was pushing broadside towards the wall. Sall looked towards the Midnight. It was some distance along the wall, and straggling ferals swept over the bow and onto the wall’s ramparts. Fire had well taken hold inside the ship and chased the last of them out.

Juniper’s swing brought Sall under the wall’s shadow. It was coasting towards the looming, sawtoothed shipwrecks. Up close Sall saw how they were banded together with iron and, as Sall peered closer, protective clusters of dangerous, rusted scrap metal and barbed wire that deterred scaling attacks.

Juniper collided with a resounding crunch. The sailors who had just risen fell again. There were broken bones and other injuries amongst them. Flannery burst out of his infirmary, a confused expression on his face. ‘What was that?’

He looked up the side of the protective wall around the mooring, its jagged peaks shuttering the sun, the wreck the crew had made of their berth. ‘Oh, we’re home.’

Sall exhaled, steadying himself in the pain. He looked over the side of the ship. The waters around the mooring were dirty and brown, the colour of the underpier.

Roont was being helped into a sit by two of his midshipmen. He had taken a bad fall. ‘There’ll be damage below. Where is Mister Quade?’ He set his hands on his calves and shifted upright, raising on unsteady feet.

A midshipman said, ‘he cut the line, he’s up with Florence.’

‘Fetch them both, Mister Fitzhenry, there’s a lad.’ Roont could stand. He dismissed the midshipmen and saw Sall. ‘You should be in the infirmary,’ he said. He had forgotten Sall was there.

Quade and Florence came to the quarterdeck. Her face burned red. She came directly under the Captain’s vantage and could not meet his eye. Sall kept back and watched the crew bring grapples from below.

Florence said, ‘I’m sor-’

Sall felt the heat radiating off the captain from where he stood. His glare didn’t falter. ‘Later,’ he said. ‘Quade, get whoever can stand and check us for leaks. I reckon we’re stuck on the spikes, do what you can to get us free.’

Quade nodded and hurried away.

‘Florence, you go with Sall over to the Bitter End. Grab a handful of those pirates, anyone who can walk. Have them sail it out, and let them fare their own travel. See them off, but don’t join them. We’re gonna send the ferals right after it.’ She nodded.

Roont rose his head to address the crew. ‘And the rest of you! Cast the grapples, we’re going up the wall!’

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Florence asked Roont, ‘What are you going to do?’

Roont’s eyes flashed. ‘I’m going to break that wall and sink that ship.’

Florence looked about to object.

Roont set his jaw. ‘That’s the plan. Alright?’

Florence gave a quick nod.

Roont gestured them away. ‘Hurry!’

Sall limped after Florence. Half a dozen sailors separated from the rest to join her. They went into the infirmary, where Flannery and a few others were getting patients back in their cots. The physician looked over his shoulder as a man with a broken leg was brought past Sall and placed onto a table. When he saw Florence he rose and came over.

‘What the hell happened?’ He said.

‘Misfire,’ Florence said, looking away.

Flannery cocked an eyebrow. ‘Misfire? The gun misfired, with all those ferals out there?’

‘Flannery, we need all able crewmen from the Bitter End to come with us to take that ship before Deadweight gets to it. We think it’ll be enough to lure the mongers away from the mooring. How many are fit to sail?’

The pirates overheard them. Wilbur rose from the back. And Campion, Markham, and the woman with no teeth. He recognised all of them. That greasy little one, too. Sall couldn’t remember his name. Several others were getting to their feet. Sall took a breath and went over. Most of them fixed him with dark stares.

Florence went into the center of the room. ‘Now listen, we’re mustering a crew to get the Bitter End out of here. Ferals are attacking, and if we get rid of the ship they might go after it.’

Wilbur spoke from the back of the room. ‘Buyer’s remorse, is it?’

Florence hissed a sharp breath through her teeth. ‘I don’t know, is it? Where’s your client?’

Wilbur was told. He did not have a chance for a comeback, as Florence kept talking. Several of the pirates smirked. She’d won most of them over already.

‘If you can run, you can come with us. We’re making a break for it. Raise your hands if you’re in.’

Everyone who could raise their hand did, including Wilbur. Sall almost raised his own. Impulsive or not, the woman was a leader, and Sall could tell none of the pirates fancied hanging around to be taken by mongers.

She said, ‘Alright Bundy, Huell, go find enough arms for everybody.’ Two of her fishermen broke away as the pirates rose from their cots, finding their clothes and their boots. ‘Hurry it up, we’re on the clock,’ she said.

She turned and saw Sall. ‘Can you run?’

‘I’ll be fine,’ he said. Florence nodded. She went first through the doorway, peeling off towards the wall. The fishermen went after, and the pirates came last, some still pulling on their boots. Some of the sailors looked at the procession and gave it no notice. Half of them, Sall saw, were probably former pirates themselves. There wasn’t much difference from what Sall could see in front of him, all scabby beards and saltbleached clothes.

Sall went last. Flannery was setting the broken leg. At the doorway he said to him, ‘You got any more of that wine left?’

Flannery gave a chuckle, producing the flask from his coat. ‘Just rum,’ he said. ‘I’ll add it to your tab.’

Sall thanked him and stepped out the door, taking a swig from the flask and pocketing it. He breathed a sigh of relief. They crossed to the rope ladders hung down from the top of the wall. Much of the crew were already up, having cleared through the junk easily.

They formed at the top, where Roont paced the ramparts there organising them. He leaned over to count his men and met Sall’s gaze as he took a sabre off a fisherman. There was recognition there. Sall had proved something. They moved off him and slid over the rest of the crew.

They were still clearing some tangles of wire away. Sailors wearing gloves pried away nails with small crowbars and tossed rusty weeds of it into the water.

At Sall’s turn with the ladder he took the first few rungs with care, his muscles aching, but by the top he felt more limber, and he could deal with the aches. At the ledge hands grabbed him and helped him over.

‘There’s the Bitter End,’ Sall said once his breath returned, surveying the rig and the battle splashed across it. The pirate ship waited, sails furled there on the far side, barely visible through the rig structure’s network of cables and crane scaffold that supported the huge brass diving bell.

Sall had never seen an sea moor before. The scale of it took him by surprise. This entire platform, a few hundred metres around, floated entirely on top of the sea, and was moored by a long, heavy anchor far down at the sea floor. It was built to withstand the elements over many month-long hauls, dragging up salvage for sale or processing. The twenty-metre wall offered some protection, keeping the waters within mostly calm. The platform proper was separated from the wall by a channel no wider than ten yards. Here and there in the channel junkboats laden with salvage drifted stray. Far off on the other side Sall could see where the wall opened for the harbour. He saw a few small ships there.

Florence came up after him. ‘Fuck.’

Mongers had taken a swathe of the rig, but for now were held back by men lining gantries who fired upon them from open windows, ducking in and out behind cover. Corpses lay in the wake of their passage. A ground force battled them hand to hand in the narrow quarters of the rig, and by the screams and cracks of gunfire it was hard fought.

The majority of the battle was screened from them by a long tin shed occupying the western side of the mooring. Florence pointed at it. ‘That’s the mud shed, we can take the gangplanks across behind it.’ Her gesture indicated down the narrow walkways. ‘We can get down here.’

Sall looked over his shoulder. The last of the pirates were coming up the wall. It was Wilbur. He stepped lightly down to the deck and gave Sall a curt nod.

‘Half these men owe me money,’ he said, by way of explanation.

None of the rest of the pirates seemed particularly pleased about Wilbur coming along. They seemed even less pleased to be joining Sall. They had lost that money on him. Wilbur stood taller than the rest, but lacked their physical composure. He was separate from them, and he knew it. Sall could see he always had been. He relied on that separation, wore it like his sharp collars. He was nervous. He had every right to be. Ferals wouldn’t care about his betting slips.

One of the sailors shouted. ‘Fleshmongers! Must be the last off Midnight, Flo. They’re comin for us along the wall!’

Further along the ramparts was a group of mongers, hunched and snarling and making a braying, loping approach, running with long cutlasses drawn. They were blurry in the heat haze from the fires.

Beaumont pushed through. He grabbed Florence by the shoulder and pushed her away. ‘These are ours, you get to the End. We’ll sink the wall where the ship’s stuck in it and chase these cursed bastards right after you, so move fast.’

‘Aye aye, Captain,’ Florence said, shouldering her rifle. She turned to them. ‘Down the walkways, quick now.’

They parted ways with the bulk of Roont’s men as he rallied them by thrusting the tip of his sabre at the air. ‘Now or never, fellas! Carpe jugulum! Go for the throat!’

They bandied a cheer and went after their captain. Sall heard the mongers snarl and caw. The first cracks of gunfire came from the charge. The sailors’ cheers turned into roars, and Florence’s group turned their attention away.

Florence lead them down a janky metal walkway on the inside of the wall. Steel beams and iron bound together the scrapped carcasses of the sloops and smaller brigs making up the defenses, bolstering both the mooring rig’s stability and the fearsome image it required as warning for any who sailed too close. From this angle the mooring was less an intrepid mining operation than it was an seabound fortress.

Sall came down last through the bones of old ships, counting the bobbing heads of sailors and pirates moving ahead of him. There were about twenty. It should be enough to make sail, he guessed.

The top of the wall loomed over them. The mood was tense. They were concerned about the fighting nearby. None wanted to alert any ferals, so they slunk stooped along the walkway crossing the channel, trying not to rattle it. Several of the fishermen cast concerned glances at the mud shed, which was producing a deep rumble that sent ripples trembling outwards across the water, each ripple tinged with thin, muddy slime.