Page 83 of Rears & Vices

Everard set his jaw. “Vitya. You don’t know there aren’t captives on that ship.”

“No.” Vitaliy stood, strode to the companionway, wrenched open the greatcabin door. “I don’t know. Starboard-aft, return two shots to leeward!” he bellowed. It was repeated—Romilly René—and the scrape of two gunsleds was heard, very close.

Covering fire—just as Everard’s suppressing cadence had been. Distraction from the true task. He felt sick.

Carefully, Vitya tied one torpedo to the harpoon’s lead and, leaning out the window, let it hang from his hand, over the water. With the other hand he retrieved his pocket watch.

“I want them in our windward wake, lieutenant.”

“Right-ho.”

Vitaliy studied the watch. D’Arcy waited, stock to shoulder, curls ruffling in the breeze. On deck, the cannons went off.

“Fire,” Vitaliy rasped.

The flint came down. Vitaliy let go the torpedo barely in time. The shot seemed as loud as the cannons; the recoil made D’Arcy almost stagger on his feet, and Vitaliy put up a steadying hand to his back.

The harpoon sang, the torpedo catapulted. Both splashed down and became invisible amid the foam. Everard wondered how Vitaliy had managed the others alone.

“Damn!” D’Arcy rested the stock on his thigh and circled his arm around. He whistled again. “Four-bore, I’ll say, I think my shoulder’s paste. Are there many more?” he asked ruefully.

“Five,” Vitaliy said. “We’ll switch off, you and I. The interval is seven and one-half minutes.”

A waiting constellation of unseen death, destruction. Everard palmed his face in despair.

“Vitya…”

Vitaliy picked up another torpedo. He said fiercely, “You’re right. I don’t know there aren’t lives held there against their will. I can’t know that. But as best as I can tell, she’s an anti-revolutionary, a man-o’-war, built to purpose. Not a merchantman, not a slaver. Most likely, she’s full of soldiers. Fighting men. Mercenaries.”

“Even so⁠—”

“And they will chase us. They will broadside us. They will board us. They will steal Haïti’s weaponry, the supplies for Montserrat, our cannon, our gunpowder, our shot. They will sink us to every man. No survivors, because they can. And then—then,” Vitaliy stressed, “the few who may survive, they will sell at auction in Havana—papers or no fucking papers—if they so happen to have skin any darker than you and I.” He glanced down to his watch, up again. “And I will use every resource available to me to ensure that does not pass. Including violence.”

“Including war crimes!”

“I am a criminal.”

Everard ran his hand through his hair, tugged at it in desperation. He wondered at which point he’d lost his hat.

“I know. But you’re not only that. I know what’s done, Vitya. I’ve done it, for God’s sake. I admit to having been the less-moral between us; you know whose crown I was obliged to. I only hoped you’d be different. A man who flees rather than fights. Who does the most good with the least harm inflicted. Who survives.”

Vitaliy’s expression wiped clean with hurt and surprise; then it twisted. “I don’t know what you were expecting from me. I am a weapons smuggler. A thief of justice. No matter in whose hands they end up, no matter what cause, justified or no: I deliver death and violence.”

“I know that. But must you⁠—”

“Must I enact it? By my own hand?” Vitaliy said. “It is effectually same to pull the trigger as to hand it over loaded. There are no alternatives here, now, in this moment. This isn’t the Navy; there is no gentlemen’s agreement. It has never been just our own physical selves we have risked. You knew this.” He checked his watch again, a swoop of pale lashes, then raised his chin, his jaw set in defiance. You chose me.

“Yes,” Everard said. He showed the ring. “But I chose a man of morals—or so I thought.”

“Everard,” Vitaliy said wearily, “you chose a pirate.”

There were several heartbeats’ worth of silence.

D’Arcy cleared his throat. “Don’t strain yourselves on my account.” He grinned weakly. “I haven’t really a proper functioning conscience to crack in the first place. So”—he saluted—“one fewer worry for both of you. May I shoot another harpoon, please?”

Everard sighed. Calming, but regretful, weary, he gestured to the pocket watch in Vitaliy’s hand. “What’s the interval? Seven and one-half? I’ll keep the time.”

Twenty