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Bathurst sat back. Monk had given him his orders, no argument. He had to wait with the boats.
Without hesitation, Orme went straight up the rope, pulling himself up the ship’s side and over the railing, grasping at it and heaving himself over.
At the bow rope, Monk could see Hooper’s long figure going up, but more cautiously, hesitating before he swung over.
Monk glanced back, expecting to see Orme at the top, but there was nothing. What had he missed? He peered upwards. Still nothing.
With one movement Bathurst was standing beside him, staring at the unbroken line of the deck.
‘Please, sir?’
‘No,’ Monk replied. ‘We need someone to stay with the boat.’
But there was something wrong. Orme should have been at the rail. Monk looked along at Hooper. He saw an arm flailing and Hooper lurch forward. On the water below, Laker looked confused, uncertain what to do. He reached for the bottom of the rope.
Monk grasped the line Orme had left.
‘Stay here,’ he ordered Bathurst. He went up the rope himself as fast as he could, faster than was safe, but he had to know what had happened on the deck. They had come up quietly, without any warning, climbed up in the shadow on the lee side of the ship. It should have been safe.
He was almost at the top. His fingers were chafed, his muscles crying out at holding his weight. He heard a thud and a muffled cry. He stopped with his head just below the vision of anyone on deck.
There was a sound like the clash of steel on metal, and a cry. Laker was almost to the top also. Monk used all his strength to heave himself up and roll over on to the deck. He rose to his feet instantly, hand on his pistol.
Ahead of him on the deck, now clear in the broadening light, Orme was facing a man with a cutlass in his hand. Orme was motionless, his pistol still in his belt.
At the far end of the deck Laker was over the edge and on to the deck, creeping forward, his pistol drawn. If he fired he would save Orme’s life but the noise would bring the rest of the crew up on to the deck, armed. There would be a pistol fight and they might all end up wounded or dead.
Then Monk saw a movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned slightly to see a hand come over the far edge of the deck, and then a head. Suddenly he realised what was happening. The ship was being boarded by a rival gunrunner, from the windward side! How could that happen? Were they wrong in their guess about the rogue Excise man, and it was McNab after all and now he was betraying Monk and his men?
Hooper must have seen the intruder the instant later. He waved an arm and pointed along at the hatch, making a chopping motion in the air.
Monk nodded.
Hooper closed the hatch and locked it shut just as Laker raised his gun to shoot the boarder.
Then Orme moved, lunging forward at the man so suddenly he had no time to react. Orme caught him in the belly with his shoulder and they both went down hard. Monk had a clear shot at the other boarder on the windward side. He ran forward, keeping low, but instead of firing at him, he hit him as hard as he could over the side of the head. He might have killed him with the weight he had put behind the blow, but it was silent, nothing more than a splash in the swift river. No one below could have heard him fall.
Monk had no idea how many more of them there were. Still on his hands and knees he moved to the edge and glanced down. There were two longboats in the water. Perhaps eight men and still leaving room for the guns they must have come to steal. There were four more crawling up the nets hanging over the sides.
He swivelled around to see how Orme was faring with the man who had the cutlass. Monk needed that blade.
It lasted only seconds, but the moment was caught like a photograph image on Monk’s mind: Laker frozen, not certain what to do; Orme on his hands and knees, the man with the cutlass sprawled on the deck, b
eginning to get up again.
There were shouts and crashes from the deck below as the crew realised someone had battened them in and they were prisoners on their own ship. Would they go for the guns? Presumably they had ammunition as well as the actual weapons in the cargo? How long would it take them to think of that, break open the boxes and come back to shoot their way out of the hold? Then they would mow down everyone on the deck, police and pirates alike. They had the perfect cover to do it. They would kill Monk and all his men, and claim they never saw them. Sink their boats, and possibly their bodies as well. They could blame the gun robbers, leave on the tide, and sell their merchandise elsewhere. There was always a market.
Monk hurled himself across the deck and smashed the butt of his pistol on the wrist of the man with the cutlass. He felt the bone break before the man screamed. He snatched the cutlass and went back to the edge of the deck. The light was strengthening now. It caught the swirls in the current and the dark shapes of flotsam.
The men climbing up on the far side were nearly at the top. Monk lifted the cutlass and brought it down as hard as he could on the ropes, cutting one, two and the third. The whole web fell away, dragged loose by the men’s weight, tying them in it as it crashed into the water, carrying them all down, burying them in the tide.
Hooper was at the other end of the deck. There were different ropes there, a different web. Monk threw the cutlass to him and Hooper caught it just as it touched the deck. He grabbed the hilt and slashed at the ropes as the first man put his hand over. Hooper winced, and then kicked the man in the side of the jaw. He toppled backwards, taking the ropes with him. The second man peeled away and crashed into the water, tangled in the net, his arms and legs thrashing.
Laker was beside Orme, trussing the watchman in ropes, jamming a wad of rags in his mouth.
Monk went back to the side where they had boarded and saw Bathurst, ashen-faced, still obediently in the stern of the boat. He signalled that all was well, and for Bathurst to stay there, and then he went back to the deck.
The first shot came through the wood of the hatch and sending splinters into the air. A second followed straight after.
