She was one of the first to the top. There was a whole line of men waiting to help them over the rail. An officer with red hair gave her a hand.’
‘Where …?’ she said, incoherent from the chaos but aware that they couldn’t all stand clustered in one place. The ship would sink.
‘Far rail, please, we need to balance everyone out.’ He made it sound ordinary.
‘Jesus Christ,’ she said. ‘Missouri!’
‘Yes, morning,’ he said, easy and self-contained. He smiled as if they had just met in the street, and she stared, because she hadn’t recognised him. She had last seen him two years ago, before he sailed, and then, she had still thought of him as a boy. He wasn’t any more. ‘Far rail, if you wouldn’t mind,’ he said again.
The far rail was so close to a row of Spanish gun ports she could see the gunners. ‘Right,’ she managed. She couldn’t decide what she was more shocked by: a French invasion, or a failure to recognise her own brother.
No wonder he’d managed to negotiate with the Spanish captain. The man probably remembered him.
She went to the far rail, but hardly anyone else did. Arguments broke out behind her; people didn’t want to stand there only to be torn apart if the Spanish captain gave the order to fire. Behind her, the Spanish gunners were talking. One of them called, ‘Señora,’ and said that it was safe, and not to worry.
She hesitated, and then she leaned over the rail to shake his hand. ‘Pleasure to meet you. Have you come from far?’
‘Cadiz.’ He was curly and cheerful. His hand was grainy with powder. ‘You’re Spanish!’
‘I am, sir.’
He turned back to tell his friends, who came to see.
She knew it was dangerous as she was doing it. The gap between the ships was narrow enough to lean over, but it was a long fall, and anyone in the water now would be crushed between the hulls. But everyone else was watching. She climbed over the rail and hopped on to the end of the Spanish gun, which had been decorated in gold filigree. The Spanish gunners all saw and burst out laughing, but it wasn’t mocking; they were cheering her on. A couple of them reached through the gun port to help her.
‘Agatha! What are you doing?’ Lawrence demanded. He had reddened. He was in the middle of the deck just behind her. ‘Don’t make such a scene!’
‘They’ll not want to fire if women are sitting on their guns,’ Agatha said doggedly, though she was horribly aware that her legs were showing, and her stockings had slipped down while she’d been running. She looked like a bawd. The thought made her feel little and ridiculous. She could hear her younger self, the one that had worked on the Trinidad, sneering at her down the years.
The Spanish gunner climbed out too and put his arm round her, smelling of gunpowder. She kissed his cheek and waved to the people clustered on the English side of the rail. The Spanish men started calling to the women and waving, and finally, people moved across, beginning to smile, nervous but not frightened.
‘Hernandez,’ a long-suffering voice said behind the gunner somewhere. ‘Why is there a lady on your gun?’
The gunners laughed and, this time, she laughed too. In every other direction, from every other ship on the water, the storm of guns was still cracking, people still screaming, the dock still heaving, but the gap between the two ships was a valley of ordinariness. More women came to balance on the guns until sometimes there were two apiece.
‘We’re full,’ Missouri called from the rail. ‘Would you like to come back?’
She looked up. He didn’t seem shocked or embarrassed, only pleased.
‘Oh, no, why?’ Hernandez said good-naturedly.
‘I’m afraid we must be underway,’ Missouri said, smiling.
Hernandez gave him a melodramatic sigh but saluted and ducked back inside. Agatha hesitated, because the jump back to the rail was upwards. Missouri stepped over himself and handed her across. When she looked back, it was a pathetic gap. The hulls of the two ships were almost touching.
‘Thank you,’ she said lamely.
‘Captain!’ someone called, sounding nervous.
‘Captain?’ Agatha echoed, shocked.
‘Just inherited it,’ he explained, then shook her hand. ‘Well done,’ he said, as if she were another officer, and went away to the quarterdeck steps. A man made a lunge for him and screamed into his face about a wife and children, waving a knife right up under Missouri’s eye. Missouri shot the man in the head.
Agatha stood still, wondering if it would even be a footnote in an encyclopaedia article one day. Probably not. A small sensible murder among all the other murders wouldn’t be noteworthy, and especially not now it was starting to rain, and not just rain, but hard, stinging rain that ricocheted.
Missouri hadn’t broken his pace to do it. He just continued on up the quarterdeck stairs.
She had a crawling feeling that he hadn’t seen it properly. Later, he might look at his gun and wonder where the bullet had gone, but he wouldn’t recall exactly whose head it was in.
When the shot tore through the quarterdeck stairs, it sprayed Missouri with fire right down one side and slammed him into the banister. She saw other officers freeze – they were hardly more than children, any of them, and they must have been sure he was dead, and for a numb three seconds so was she – but then he wrenched himself onto his hands and knees and told them to get on with their work, thank you, gentlemen. His jacket was still burning.
She managed to get him into the stateroom. He was smaller than her, at least; she could lift him. After scratching around for an alcohol cupboard, she poured out a cup of rum and pushed it into his hand, then started to hunt for something to clean the burns with. Everything in the room was smashed: crockery, furniture, even the windows. The cold sea air and the rain were sweeping in. Chain shot whistled through the pillars of smoke – burning ships, each one of those pillars – and a weird, ringing noise came from the docks. It was crowds of people screaming, but at a distance. One by one, other ragged English ships limped into view, struggling against the wind for the open water ahead.
‘We need to clean you up,’ she said. She could see his collarbone. If he didn’t die of infection, it would be a miracle. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s going to have to be saltwater. It needs to be clean, or—’
‘Agatha! I don’t matter!’ he said over her, his voice breaking. ‘Please. There are men below with their legs blown off.’
‘All right,’ she said softly.
He was shuddering. Shock.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked, to try and get his mind off everything else. The shock would be a good anaesthetic for now, but once he settled, he would feel it, really feel it, and none of those boy-officers would know what to do if they had to hear their captain screaming. If she could get him drunk, it would help. She glanced at the door. The boys were clipping to and fro outside, soothed enough for now. Missouri was watching them too.
‘Edinburgh,’ he said, steady again. ‘The castle is fortified enough to hold the King.’
‘Edinburgh – why not Newcastle, or—’
‘The French are …’ He shook his head slightly. He was about to pass out. He still hadn’t made a sound about the burns.