The Wreckers by Iain Lawrence Page A

the steps.
    The stone was broken at the corner. Clumps of grass and bushy plants grew in the chinks where mortar hadfallen away. As I felt for handholds huge pieces came loose in my hand. They clattered down and fell with a splash into the dark water of the harbor. I swung out and planted my feet on the narrow, slippery ledge.
    The water was just a few feet below, an ebb tide swirling round the stone. I couldn’t swim. If I fell in there, I’d be swept out to sea like a bit of wood.
    Spread-eagled, groping for holds, I inched along the wall like a fly. The water gurgled; the wind’s gusts tried to pluck me from the ledge. But I gritted my teeth and kept going. And before long, my hand closed on the lip of the drain tunnel. I slithered through, into a dank and fetid hole. A furtive rustle of rats preceded me.
    The space was large enough that I could easily stand. I went only a few steps before I came upon Father. He lay on a ledge of brick, a foot above the slime of the open drain. He was on his back, with an old neckerchief knotted tight in his mouth. I tore it loose, and he gasped long breaths of that foul air.
    “John,” he said. His voice was hoarse; even the sound was painful. “I can’t believe … it’s really you.”
    I dipped my fingers in the mire and touched them to his lips. His tongue darted out, fat and pale like a garden slug. “Moved,” he said. “Used to lie … against the brick. Wet there.”
    He was right. Water condensed on the walls of the drain—good, clear water that tasted of lime. I pressed my hand against it until a tiny pool filled my palm, then let it dribble into his mouth. He drank handful after handful as the muscles in his throat burbled and creaked. Then Irubbed it on his eyes and his forehead, and in the thick bristles of his beard.
    “Better,” he said. “Thank you.”
    “There are ponies coming,” I told him. “We have to get you up to the street. Is there another way out?”
    “Trapdoor,” he said. “Above you.”
    “What’s up there?”
    “Nothing,” he said. “Empty room.”
    “Can you walk?”
    He shook his head. “I’m changed,” is what I thought he said. But as I ran my hands along his legs, feeling for blood or broken bones, I found metal collars locked round his ankles, heavy chains padlocked to ringbolts in the brick. There were more collars at his wrists, another belt of chain around his waist. He was fettered like a dog to his narrow shelf. Even with a file it would take time to work him free; with a hammer and chisel, I would need hours. I had to get the key, and only one man would have it.
    “Have you seen Stumps?” I asked.
    “Who?”
    “The man with no legs. They say he’s vanished. They say he’s—”
    Father rattled the chains. “No!” he said. “Comes at dawn … at dark.”
    “He came today?”
    Father nodded.
    “At dark he came?”
    “Listen.” Father stretched his head toward me. “Tomorrow, on the night tide … taking me out.”
    “Stumps?” I asked.
    “Yes.” His voice hissed through the tunnel. “No … no moon … leaving by boat.”
    “Where?”
    “God knows,” said Father, with a dreadful shudder.
    Smuggled gold had led us to this. Gold and greed had wrecked the
Isle of Skye
and killed its crew. In that instant, if it had been anyone but my father lying there, I could have hit him. Hit him and kicked him and punched him for all that he’d done. But I only glared at him in the darkness.
    “Help me.” With a rumble and clank of chain, he tried to reach me with his hand. I could see his fingers flexing, but I didn’t want to hold him. Not then.
    Father groaned. “Come at high tide. When he unchains me. Only chance.”
    We heard footsteps then, hurrying down the steps of the passageway. And Mary’s voice, in a hushed call: “John. Come on!”
    Father squirmed in the chains. His whole body arched, and fell back, and with white eyes he stared up at me. His hand groped like a claw. And I took