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The constable hesitated, missing a stroke so the boat righted itself again. Within moments they were alongside.
‘Hold it here,’ Monk ordered. Without waiting for a reply, he climbed painfully back up the side, hand over hand. At the top he hesitated, listening, then rolled over the gunwale and instantly got to his hands and knees.
Laker was sitting a few yards away, a length of cloth tied roughly around his thigh, much of it dark with blood. Orme lay half across him, face up but not moving.
‘What kept you?’ Laker said with a twisted smile. The words were mumbled, his throat almost too dry to speak.
‘Bloody pirates,’ Monk replied, as if it were all a trivial matter, like being late for dinner. ‘Can you stand?’ He forced himself to look down at Orme. He was pale but there was a slight rise and fall to his chest. At least Monk thought there was.
‘Yes, I think so,’ Laker nodded. ‘But I can’t carry him. He’s heavier than I thought.’ He blinked. ‘Where’s Hooper? He all right?’
Monk looked at him and,
for an instant, before he masked it, he saw the boy in Laker, the uncertain one who could so easily be hurt.
‘With the doctor by now, I hope,’ he answered, easing Orme off Laker’s thighs and laying him gently on the deck. ‘Bathurst and a ferryman came to look for you . . .’ He reached out his hand to haul Laker to his feet. As he swayed for a moment, he felt his weight lurch, and gripped him more firmly.
Laker steadied himself, and then held out his other arm. ‘You can’t carry him alone,’ he pointed out.
‘Well, you’re damn all use,’ Monk snapped back. ‘Go over the side and try not to fall into the water. Send the constable up here to help me with Orme.’
Laker hesitated.
‘Now!’ Monk shouted at him, hearing the raw edge in his own voice. He could feel the heat coming up through the deck. The ship was still burning below them.
Laker turned round and went awkwardly over the gunwale, hanging on with his hands until the last minute, then falling away.
Monk strained his ears, but he heard no splash, only the bump and slurp of water as the boat rode against the timbers of the ship.
It seemed an age before Monk saw the constable clamber over the gunwale and come quickly across the deck towards him. Together they lifted Orme, who was barely conscious and unable to help himself. They cut a length of rope from the rigging and tied it around his chest, under his arms, and did their best to lower him as gently as possible to where Laker was keeping the boat steady.
Ten minutes later they were at last at the dockside where willing hands half hauled them up. A doctor was waiting. Someone passed brandy around, and Bathurst came limping across the wharf, his face flooded with relief. He looked at Monk, then at Laker and Orme.
Monk wanted to say something. This was the time when he should reassure the men, but what was there to say? Everything he could think of sounded obvious, and they deserved the truth.
He just nodded, an acknowledgement, not an affirmation of anything.
Orme was carried into a waiting ambulance.
Monk went with him to the hospital, riding in the wagon while the doctor did what he could to stanch the bleeding.
Orme lay still now, drifting in and out of consciousness.
Monk spoke to him all the time, willing him to stay awake, stay alive. He wished Hester were here. She might have known what to do; at the very least just her presence would have reminded him of love and life, honour, gentleness, all the things that were the beauty of existence, that demanded to be believed in, however black the night.
The journey seemed to take for ever. The traffic was growing heavier as people made their way to offices, shops and factories.
Monk looked at Orme’s face. He still had some colour, but it was sunburn, not health, and he looked so much smaller than he really was. The sunken-eyed hollowness of death seemed to rest on him. It was two hours since they set out on to the river, and everything had changed.
The doctor was tense; his hands steady but there was sweat on his face.
‘Can’t I help?’ Monk asked. He knew as he said it that the question was ridiculous, but he needed to speak, to feel as if he was part of the effort. What he wanted was for the doctor to tell him he could save Orme, but Monk was afraid to ask. What could the man say, except that he didn’t know? He was trying everything he could.
Monk rode the rest of the way in silence, looking at Orme, every now and then touching his hand so that if he were conscious at all, he would know he was not alone. When they arrived he helped to carry Orme out on a stretcher, and into the hospital.
Orme was taken to a room where they dealt with emergencies. Monk was allowed to wait. Even the doctors had no idea what to do for him, once the bleeding was stopped. They bound the wounds in his arms and legs, but the one that mattered was in his side, the bullet breaking ribs and ricocheting off. Once they were certain it was not still inside him, they bound the wound as they could, cutting off his clothes, now stiff with blood.
He was growing weaker by the minute.
