Splintered Icon by Bill Napier Page A

deck of the Tiger tilted towards it. Mr Salter was trying desperately to get to his feet, but the big wave would be on him in seconds. I clambered down at speed, racing the approaching monstrous wall. The wave reached him first, and for a moment he vanished in the swirling water. Then, as it receded, he was gripping the deck rail, his body dangling out over the ocean. There was a large purple swelling on his forehead. I tried to heave him on board but with his sodden clothes he must have been twice my own weight. How he held on I do not know. But then Manteo, the savage, appeared and was heaving at the man's dead weight, and we dragged him onto the deck. By now water was pouring out of his mouth and his eyes were rolling. By the grace of God and brute force we reached the hatch, pulled it open and managed to ease his now unconscious form down the ladder and into the berth-deck, where we heaved him into my hammock.
    I stumbled back towards the gentlemen's quarters, stepping over some grey-faced soldiers, in search of the physician, Mr Oxendale. I found him, snoring, tied in his bunk bed by wrappings of sheet, his head banging off the bulkhead as the ship swayed. Two empty flagons of wine rolled back and forth across the cabin floor. His cabin companion, Anthony Rowse, was standing silently, gripping an overhead beam. He watched me without a word said; he had the eyes of a hunted animal. I could not help a feeling of contempt. I left him.
    I do not know how long we stayed in that dark and swaying place, holding on to the timbers. At times Mr Salter seemed not to be breathing and I wondered if he was dead. The savage, from time to time, would put his finger under the mariner's nose and give a reassuring grunt. Presently I began to feel nauseous and my teeth began to chatter. At first I thought it was the motion of the ship, but my symptoms became worse and I began to feel hot and cold in turn.
    It was, I think, an hour before light and spray flooded in from above, during which a dull ache in my belly slowly grew into a sharp pain. I thought at first that the door had blown open, but then the captain was coming down, gripping the ladder. Water was pouring off his clothes. He staggered hand over hand towards us, gripping timbers and overhead beams, and looked at Mr Salter silently. I wondered whether I should dare to speak, but then said, 'He is alive, sir.'
    Sir Richard, both hands gripping the side of the hammock, stared at me with his intense blue eyes. 'You are coming down with some fever, laddie. Since you have seen fit to put Mr Salter in your hammock, find his bunk and tie yourself into it.' He turned and clambered back up the ladder on all fours.
    The savage seemed to understand. He nodded and waved me away. I clambered back towards the gentlemen's quarters, past the still-sleeping physician and the terrified Mr Rowse, towards the cabin which Mr Salter shared with Simon Fludd, the architect.
    Simon Fludd was in his cabin. He was on the floor. His face was a deep purple and his tongue, sticking out of his open mouth, was almost black. His eyes were so wide they looked as if they would jump out of his head. They were black, and it was a moment before I saw that this was because the pupils were so distended that they almost filled the eyeballs. His arms and legs were stretched out like those of a child in a tantrum, and they were trembling violently. He was scarcely able to breathe, the sound coming from his mouth being that of a man who was choking.
    I knew then that the murderer, or Satan, had not finished his business with us. And as the Tiger began to heel over, groaning and crashing, and Mr Fludd wheezed and choked, and I shivered, and the sweat poured down my face and the bile rose in my mouth, I thought that I too had become his victim. And I thought that it no longer mattered: poisoner and victims, captain and gentlemen, soldiers and ship were about to sink under the waves, taking their secrets and their conspiracies