William Monk 14 - The Shifting Tide

in the shortening day, light dancing gold on the water.
    They had only a few minutes to wait for a boat, and Monk ordered the oarsman to take them out. Neither of them spoke as they sat, the waves slapping against the wood of the hull. The occasional spray was like ice.
    When they reached the
Maude Idris
, Monk told Louvain to go up the ladder, then followed after him. Durban was alone.
    Louvain looked startled. He swung around to Monk.
    Monk took the gun out of his belt. “I’m taking Mr. Louvain down to see the crew,” he told Durban. “May I borrow the lantern again?”
    “I’ll take him,” Durban answered. “You stay up here.”
    Monk stared at him. He looked exhausted, his face flushed, his eyes sunken. “No. I’m doing this. Besides, the state you’re in, he might jump you.”
    Durban started to argue, and Monk pushed past him, thrusting the lantern into Louvain’s hands. “You go first!” he ordered. “All the way down. If you stop I’ll shoot you, and believe me, I will!”
    Durban leaned against the rail. “Don’t be long,” he said. “The tide turns in a quarter of an hour. I need you to go ashore then.” There was a finality in his eyes and his voice.
    Louvain started down the ladder and Monk followed, one hand on the rungs, the other awkwardly holding his gun. He had to do this. He had to see Louvain’s face when he stood in the hold and looked down into the bilges. Monk needed him to smell the plague, to breathe it in, to know the stench of it so that for the rest of his life it would stalk his dreams. As an old man he would wake screaming, soaked in sweat, enclosed again in the creaking, rolling ship with the corpses of the men he had had killed.
    The smell was far worse. It was like a thickness in the air as they went down, hand over hand towards the ledge.
    Louvain stopped. Monk could hear his breathing—gasping, labored. He looked down at his face and saw the sweat standing out on it, his eyes like holes in his head, sockets dark.
    “Keep moving!” Monk ordered. “What’s the matter? Can you smell them?” Then as he looked past Louvain at the open bilges where Durban had torn up the wood, his stomach heaved so violently he nearly lost his grip on the ladder. The boat swayed in the wash of something passing, and the water in the bilges slopped forward, carrying the bloated head and shoulders of a dead man. His eyes were eaten out, and his face rotted, but the fearful gash in his throat was still plain, and the stench so overpowering it made his senses swim.
    “That’s your crew, Louvain!” Monk said, gasping to control his nausea. “Can you smell the plague? It’s the Black Death!”
    There was a scrabbling of clawed feet and a flurry of squeaks, then a rat dropped into the bilges with a plop.
    Louvain screamed and flung himself upwards, the lantern falling from his hands to land with a crash, and the light went out. Louvain was still screaming.
    Monk started up again, desperate for the air. He reached the ledge, panic welling up inside him, horror inconceivable at what lay below him in the dark, and the madman at his heels.
    He saw the square of sky at the hatch darken for a moment as Durban began down.
    “We’re coming up!” he shouted. “It’s all right!”
    Durban hesitated.
    Louvain reached the ledge and Monk realized it half a second too late. He caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and then Louvain’s arms were around him, clinging as if to squeeze the air out of him, break his ribs, and crush his lungs and his heart.
    He could not escape. His only choice was to lunge forward with his head. Louvain did not let go. Monk twisted sideways and bit Louvain’s wrist as hard as he could, feeling his teeth break skin and his mouth fill with blood.
    Louvain yelled and his grip loosened, but he was blind with terror. He swung at Monk, but Monk moved and caught only a glancing blow on the shoulder.
    “You had their throats cut!” Monk gasped out. “Even the poor bloody cabin boy!”
    “They’d have died anyway, you fool!” Louvain said between his teeth, his hands reaching for Monk’s throat. “But I couldn’t tell anyone that. If you’d had the stomach for it, you’d have done the same!”
    “I’d have taken the ship out again!” Monk lunged at him, fists clenched, and Louvain sidestepped, bringing them closer so they were locked together, muscles straining.
    “And lose my cargo?” Louvain replied, grunting with effort. His face was