Chains of Albion by Edwin Thomas

Author:Edwin Thomas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Transworld

15

‘Stay here,’ Nevell told me.

‘Where are you going?’

‘For help, of course.’ Nevell rubbed his cheek, where a large bruise was beginning to flourish. ‘To call out the runners, the Horse Patrol, the River Police, the Charleys, the dragoons and anyone else who can catch the villain before he escapes. You should wait here.’

The prospect of waiting in that derelict building in the heart of a rookery, crippled as I was and with a quartet of Frenchmen who might not yet be dead, was unappealing. ‘I am hardly—’

‘Take this.’ Nevell threw me the pistol he still held. ‘And these.’ A small ammunition pouch followed it through the air and fell at my feet. ‘If any of them are still alive, try to keep them so.’

Before I could object, he slipped out through the broken doorway and disappeared.

With a sigh, I lowered myself onto a block of rubble. The uneven edges dug into my backside, but it was a relief to take the weight off my injured foot. After all the uproar of the battle, my surroundings seemed unnaturally still: even the street outside remained hushed. Clearly the tenor of the neighbourhood was such that a few gunshots on a Thursday afternoon drew scant attention.

Wondering what I would do if a curious neighbour should emerge, I looked at the pistol I held, the weapon with which Nevell had somehow accounted for three Frenchmen. It was a remarkable device, with two muzzles mounted one above the other and a short bayonet on a sprung hinge set beneath. The blade was still extended, wet with blood. No wonder Nevell had been able to fire without reloading, and then, with his shots exhausted, turn the gun into a rapier.

Holding it gingerly to avoid cutting my wrist, I took some powder and shot from Nevell’s box and prodded them down the barrels. I could not see how it worked, for there appeared to be only a single trigger, flint and frizzen, but the mere weight of the gun in my hands was reassuring. More than reassuring, for after a few moments sitting there I felt sufficiently emboldened to return to the house and investigate. As long as the Frenchmen within remained dead, it would be more satisfying than having my buttocks dented waiting for Nevell.

It was hard work mounting the ladder with my hobbled foot – the same poor foot, I noticed, as had lost its boot in the Medway swamp – but I managed to haul myself up the rungs. As I came through the trapdoor I jerked my gun about in awkward defence, but none of the Frenchmen moved. Two lay by the wall where Nevell had felled them, while the third, who had run onto the spike of his gun, was immediately behind me. Of the forger whom I had wrestled to the ground, there was no sign.

Careless of giving offence to the dead, I swore aloud. Another French blackguard escaped, another link with our quarry lost. He must have scurried away while

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