The barrel was in Will's eyes once more, at a distance of a span or less, and the mountebank, composed of teak and wire, had broken the grip upon his wrist. Will, having no other course, went for the pistol with both hands to push it clear or wrench it free, while Deborah, on her feet now, launched herself across the bed with both fists clenched and struck Dennett on the right side of his head. All three of them, from the momentum, crashed on to the floor, Deb roaring, and William found he had the pistol to himself, held crosswise like an oar-loom, while Deborah clawed at Dennett's hair and neck. In a second the mountebank was upright, had kicked her in the face with booted foot, and produced a six-inch knife from inside his riding coat. He did not come forward though, but stood and panted as if to get his strength. The gun, now pointing properly, exploded in Will's hand, and jumped, and jetted smoke and flame and lead at point-blank range, into Dennett's throat. Will looked at it, ears ringing, finger on the trigger still, for what felt like several seconds, and could not believe. Surely, he had not intended that?
"He's dead," said Deborah. This time there was no doubt of it, his neck and chin were smashed. "Will, you've murdered him. Jesus, he would have killed us both."
Outside the room, already, there was screaming. Amid the wails the word 'murder' recurred, clear and regular. Momentarily, they were both transfixed, Deb's shift torn, and blood-stained from her mouth, Will panting and struck with horror, in his shirt. Murder. He had shot a man down, almost in cold blood. He had had the gun, the fight was over, he had shot and killed. He heard the feet along the passage, he heard screams.
"This was not your fault," Deb shouted at him. "Will! It is not your fault, he had a knife, he would have killed you with the gun! Will! Mr. Bentley! Sir!"
Will shot the bolt back and opened the door before Marigold's bully-boys had cleared a way along the passage, and he pulled his breeches on, and got his coat in hand. Deb had seized a robe to augment her nakedness, but in the first rush of people, some to gain the room, some to pull them out, the robe was torn away. Will, to his shame, resorted to waving the gun in an aggressive fashion, and it did enable them to force their way along. But down below them in the inner court there was a separate commotion which would prove fatal to their chances of escape. The men abroad in search of William were from the Biter, a minor Press gang all his own, led by men who knew his haunts and predilections. As he and Deb ran out into the night, he came face to face with Jem Taylor, Tom Tilley, and Behar, with about three others moving in the shadows. His gun was empty, theirs were not. But in any case, he could not have used it, under almost any circumstance.
They saved him from attention of the law, but he had no arguments they'd listen to to let him find his own way back, or deal with Deborah. Some of them were drunk and all of them were wild with joy at his predicament, which in their eyes not knowing that a man was killed was merely marvelous. They pushed the whore off, and grabbed and squeezed at her the while, and the more he bellowed at them the more they laughed. Taylor disarmed him casually, Behar tripped him when he tried to run to Deb and help her fight some others off, then, brutally because he was resisting them so fierce, they dragged him through the arch and out into the narrow road that would take them past the Fleet down to the waterfront.
"Oh sir!" screamed Deb. "Oh sir, oh sir, oh help me!"
"I will be back, Deb! I will be back! If Sam comes, tell him not to go back down the Adur way, there's deadly danger!"
"Now come on, Willie," boomed John Behar in his ear. "Enough of whoring for a while! Slack Dickie has a crying need of you!"
"Please God," yelled Deb, then went into a wilder scream. Will, twisting in his comrades' grasp, saw the denizens of the gay house flooding round her. One had a cudgel and he took a strike, another went in with his fist raised like a hammer. A murderess, a murderess! He heard the cry.
His last sight of her was of the maid at bay, head lifted back, hands held out towards the mob like talons, mouth open in a hopeless shout. One breast was visible, the shift was rent, her tormentors saw her as a luscious target. As his own men pushed and dragged him round the corner out of her sight, Will thought his heart and brain would burst. And still they whooped and roared with joy.
On the row to Deptford, they lashed him to a thwart. Before they'd fully left the staging, he'd tried to jump and swim, to Deborah.
Twenty-Nine
The Biter slipped downriver in the early morning mist on a good breeze, light and cold, from the north west. William was up on watch in proper naval clothes at last, shaved and washed, but hollow-cheeked from lack of sleep, and anguish. Holt was not on board of course, and he had no belief at all in Kaye's continuing insistence that he was to meet them in the estuary. How, Will had protested; and Kaye had offered him a flogging for his impertinence. Bentley had come back in ropes, he'd said, and would finish up in shackles in the hold unless he held his tongue. He had deserted, and should thank his lucky stars for tolerance.
Will had been thrown up on to the deck still lashed, but the idea he'd run had never held much water, try as Kaye might with it. Strangely, the men who'd captured and tormented him changed sides on this, and reported that they'd released him from the clutches of a 'tasty, tasty tart', and that he'd been already dressed albeit in long-toggy clothes and ready for the off. There had been some type of rioting apparently, said Taylor, which had made the case exceptionally confused, but Mr. Bentley had shown no signs of wanting to desert. The boatswain's sangfroid and disingenuity were marvelous to behold, but tore Will's heart. Not only was Deb abandoned, but he'd killed a man like Kaye had done, and would pay as little price. In some ways, to be manacled in the darkness of the hold would have been a kind of blessing.
Kaye needed him, however, for the coming fight. Will's dressing down had been in public on the quarterdeck, with the Navy men and Gunning's preparing Biter for the sea. Savaged, he was sent below to prepare to do his duty, which to begin with was the arming of the company and the readying of the carriage guns. When he emerged to start, Biter was swinging off the wall by action of the wind and tide, aided by dockyarders in two pulling boats and a set of warps at stern. Gunning was sober and superbly competent at con, head sails and fore were backed, then smartly filled, and in five minutes they were into the centre of the running ebb, clearing down the cordage and preparing to set more sail.
Two hours later, with Lieutenant Kaye below to 'rest or sleep' or 'podge it up the neger boy' as Will heard Gunning mutter coarsely to his helmsman he was standing at the weather rail' watching the Essex shore slip by when Kershaw moved to join him from the lee. William, whose torment had been eased by working with the gunner, had fallen back towards despair, so welcomed the distraction. Duty was the whip, the spur, the chain he had been contemplating, and he wondered how one would ever come to terms with it.