Chapter 3 - Scene 6

Overworked engines were grinding under the hissing sounds of boilers going dry under unchecked heat. Steam was rising from the roof. As they came closer the dank smell of marine mud washed over them, a combination of algae, salt, and sediment that formed a bitter, earthy aroma.

They came around to a gangplank behind the mud shed. A fisherman ahead of Sall spoke to a man at his side. ‘They haven’t switched the pumps off,’ he said, pointing at a chimney. ‘Look. Must’ve been taken by surprise.’

Sall watched along. Where a plume of steam rose up moisture flecked off the lip and hissed on the hot metal. Only, Sall noticed it didn’t spit like water. It was gelatinous and dark, heavy. It was mud.

They came on deck behind the shed, crowding in around the barrels of whale oil stacked against the back of it. The grinding machinery shook the ground and set his teeth to a fine chatter. It almost dwarfed the noise of the battle. The pirates moved aside, staying out of Sall’s path. Some of them, Sall knew, he’d pushed through some days ago. He took a deep breath and filtered through them to Florence’s side. He drew his pistol.

Florence had her back pressed against the corner. She was checking her own pistol. ‘Hold fast,’ he said, mostly to himself. Florence heard him, nodding her head. She took a deep breath.

‘What’s on the other side?’

‘There’s the main salvage rig in the middle. We’ll be right under the crane, with the fighting on our right.’

The wind was hot with fire and smoke. Most of it swept overhead, but gusts brought choking clouds whirling around them.

Sall stepped past her and cocked his head around the corner, looking out over the open space, up and down. The crane and the gantry around it supported the diving bell over a drophole wide enough to let it down into the water. Five concrete pylons mounted around the hole supported the diving bell. It was made of thick, heavy brass, designed to sink to the sea floor and withstand the pressures of millions of tonnes of water pushing down on it from all sides, while also keeping the men who worked it safe and with a supply of breathable air while they ventured out and dug through the silt of the plot. Now it was as though it had recently been retrieved from below. Clumps of muddy seaweed dangled from the lower edge of the bell where it sat in the sediment, dripping a little. Sall could see inside the bell, noticing with solemn wonder the handholds men used to keep themselves steady in the descent. Aside from that the space was clear.

Florence pulled him back to stick her head out. ‘The battle’s still going on around the crewhouses,’ she said. ‘They haven’t pushed this far yet.’ She listened. ‘No, we’re good.’

The mud shed rumbled, the overworked pipes it supported still drawing mud from the sea floor. Sall was about to step into the open but he stopped himself. He sensed movement.

A feral stepped into view. Sall held his breath. He had seen a drawing of one once, a scrawl in a trashy newspaper piece about life past the Doubleyous. It had not done them justice. Coral grew from its flesh, clusters of it at random, from its belly, its arm, its head. They were little clusters, but they would grow larger. The sores from which the growths broke oozed pus, bile, and dark blood, wounds that could never heal. Their curse was fatal, and caused them constant pain until it fully took them.

This one emerged flanked by two more and they came stalking into the open. They were both cursed in the same way. Their clothes hung off them, unwashed since the day they were turned, the fabric worn to rags. Fresh blood slicked their drawn sabres. They were spattered with it. Red blood. Human blood.

Sall’s hand tightened on the pistol grip. He turned back. ‘There’s three of them,’ he said.

Florence had seen. She was quick to coordinate with her crew, moving along the line of nervous fishermen spread along the side of the shed. ‘Sully, Eldo, Rivera, give us cover.’ She looked at the most able of the pirates, separating Campion, and Markham to join her. ‘You come with us, the rest of you make your way around the other side of the building. That’s the only way through.’

Sall took her by the forearm before she could storm the group of ferals. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Listen.’

He put his head closer to the wall and indicated she do the same. It was hard to discern through the sloshing mud and machinery. There were voices in there, and the squealing peals of hand tools. ‘There’s people inside this building.’

The ferals were drawn to the sound. They moved as a close trio. The first’s long, loping strides brought him quickly around the diving pool. The other two kept close and scouted their flanks. Sall crouched, watching their animal gait, studying them the way a fighter does.

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They kept their heads drooped on low shoulders. Their backs were tight from the pain of their condition. Get around the back of one and half the job was done, Sall figured. They moved on their senses, their eyes never stopping, keening their ears to the air, sniffing. They’d fight like mad dogs. Sall didn’t want to get bit, lest that curse come to him also. They were getting close. Sall ducked behind the corner.

He put a finger to his lips and kept his voice a whisper. ‘They’re going for that shed.’

Florence heard him, pricking her ears at another sound. A metallic clang and a whooping laugh from inside, followed by a long, sloshing flow of mud. ‘That’s it, you got it!’ It was a rich, throaty laugh, and at hearing it Florence’s face blanched.

Sall looked down. Mud was squeezing from the foundations and pooling around his boots. Some of the others were noticing it, and touching the walls of the shed, testing its resilience. Sall looked back at Florence. She had that hard, determined look in her eye again.

‘My father is in there,’ she said.

‘They’ll take them by surprise,’ Sall said, and snuck another look around the corner.

The mongers had heard the laughter too. They were emboldened now and hurrying for the door.

Sall said, ‘Let’s go, then,’ and broke away. He heard Florence’s rifle cock. ‘I hope you’re better with that than you are the harpoons,’ he said.

‘You’ll see,’ she said.

Sall came around the corner, almost slipping on the seeping mud. There were the mongers, ten yards away, snuffling at the door. The lead one raised its head, looked past the others, and fixed Sall with an eye. Its hand touched the door to the shed.

A crust of bluish coral grew sickle-shaped from the hollow of its eye and rotted the skin around it. The feral turned to face him. Sall faltered, caught by the emptiness in its gaze.

Undeterred, it lifted the heavy latch, not seeing the mud squirting from the door’s frame. The door swung wide open, barged aside by a wave of sludge. Wet, stinking mud surged out, catching all three ferals around the waist and dragging them in tow. They washed across the platform.

Coming riding on the wave, kicking swathes of it before him in the clanking din from the shed’s overworked machinery, a figure more mud than man surfed out of the shed. He raised his head, flicked a clump off a hand and wiped the mud from his eyes. He looked around. He noticed a swamped monger flailing in the mud, struggling to regain its footing and attack at the same time.

The man’s other hand wielded a long, heavy-duty pipe wrench. ‘Fuck! Mongs are here already!’ he said, dodging out of the way of the monger’s clawing grabs.

The feral rose to its knees.

The mud man stepped to align himself offside. The feral was incensed, moving to lunge. He took the pipe wrench with both hands and swung it in a wide, lazy arc, the wrench landing home in the feral’s snarling mouth.

The feral’s head snapped back with a sickening crunch. It fell back, and moved no more.

Florence pushed Sall aside and broke into a run.

‘Dad!’

Florence went flying into her father’s arms, colliding with a wet slap that shook enough mud off him to form a figure recognisable as a man with long, bandy legs, atop which sat a solid potbelly and long, draping arms that wrapped around Florence, heedless of the layer of filth he left on her shirt. Florence propped herself up on her toes and buried her head in his chest.

Marshall dropped the wrench and wiped mud from his chin to his forehead. His face was aged and worked by sun into a landscape of lines, and bumps coloured by drink, though his eyes were a piercing blue, bright, and stood out under a mess of curls clumped and frizzed by mud. It was a rusty blonde that caught the sunlight where it could break through the filth.

Their reunion was cut short. The other two ferals had fought their way out of the pulsating flow from the doorway and were recovering their senses.

Marshall looked over Florence’s head at them. He spat mud on the ground. It made a plob!

He said, 'And you thought it’d be a good idea buying this fuckin thing! Would’ve shook the whole crane down, yknow and all I’ve done is fix the bastard since I fuckin bought it, haven’t I?’

Florence released her father and unslung her rifle, taking aim. She lined the butt down her shoulder, fired, and split a monger’s skull down the middle before it could draw a knife.

Only the bald one remained. It pushed off the shed wall, lunging, but Sall recovered his mettle enough to fire his pistol. It was a clean shot through the feral’s neck. It spasmed, splashed back down in the mud and lay gasping, clawing at its exposed oesophagus.

Sall and the others joined Florence and Marshall. Florence wiped herself down, while Marshall shook the front of his singlet free of mud.

Florence slicked mud off an arm. ‘We both know you cheaped out on the milling unit, don’t give me that,’ she said. ‘If you had bought the one I recommended,’

‘Bah,’ Marshall said, waving her off. There was a totter in his step as he went over to the diving pool. He set the pipe wrench by the poolside. He crouched down on all fours and dunked his head, then washed off his arms. Juniper’s crew helped Marshall’s remaining men still inside the mud shed wade their way out. The mud was waist high inside.

Sall looked at the monger he had killed. Even in death it looked tormented. Sall shivered. He sensed someone behind him. ‘I saw that,’ Wilbur said.

‘Saw what?’

‘You choked.’

‘I what?’

Wilbur’s voice was quiet. Smoke gusted down, swelled the air with sparking embers and dried Sall’s throat. ‘You went white as a sheet.’

‘I saw the door going.’

Wilbur shook his head. ‘You saw the feral and you got spooked. I saw it.’ His voice was low. ‘Don’t worry, my money’s still on you,’ he said.

Sall furrowed his brow. ‘I thought bets were off?’

Wilbur blinked. ‘Oh, aye, the crew’s bets.’ He smirked.

Their conversation was interrupted by fleeing sailors, coming from the battle, scared as hell. ‘Ferals! They’re coming through the barricades!’