Serial Sunday: The Renaissance Man and the Strange New World, Part IX
- 5 hours ago
- 7 min read
By Ryan Fleming.
Frank Slate was practically giddy to have the famed Renaissance Man, Charles Chance, on the business end of his revolver. He had never cared much for the do-gooder or his ilk that the press and swell types fawned over. Even at his end of society the sheer number of people inclined to like him annoyed Slate. Who would they regard as the more impressive figure now, he wondered. The Renaissance Man? Or the one who had control over his life or death?
He could gladly have just pulled the trigger then and there on the Renaissance Man and his secretary. The captain had told him to bring them alive, but Slate did not always heed his superiors’ exact words.
On the other hand, Slate realised, Captain Curtis had promised to make him a Duke of the New World.
“Get moving,” he barked. Gesturing them to head below decks.
***
Deep below decks, the other three members of the Renaissance – Benjamin Williams, Eileen Wong, and Alastair Eliott – were trying to talk their way past the sentry that Captain Curtis had placed outside the main cargo hold.
“It’s our cargo,” Williams said sternly. “We simply want to get a few things. Your captain told us this would be fine.”
“Sorry, boss,” the sailor said. “I got my orders and no one is to get in here unless they’re with the captain or Slate!”
Before either could press their position further, the unmistakable clipped tones of Captain Ferd Curtis echoed through the loudspeaker system that was in place throughout the ship.
“Land ahoy! Apprehend the rest of the Renaissance Man’s entourage and escort them to their quarters.”
Before the sailor could react, before Curtis had even finished speaking, Williams had knocked out the sentry with a single blow to the jaw.
“Take his gun,” he told Eileen as he opened the door to the cargo hold. “Bring him inside.”
Eileen and Alastair carried the unconscious sailor into the cargo hold with them. They laid him down just inside the door.
“He said ‘the rest of the Renaissance Man’s entourage’,” Alastair began, worried. “You don’t think that means…”
“Chuck and Annie can look after themselves. We’d better do the same,” Eileen told the young man even as she and Williams had already began gathering the essential supplies they’d need.
Before long, they were interrupted by a banging on the door of the cargo hold.
“Open up in there!” a voice demanded.
The three of them continued their work, but Alastair was also thinking of alternatives to shooting their way up on deck.
“Is there another way out of here?” Eileen and Williams had spent the most time of any of them in the hold.
Eileen pointed up without looking up. “The cargo hold doors, kid. But we’d have to carry the crates up one at a time. The winch controls are topside, and we’d be sitting ducks up there. And down here too once they get through that door.”
“There has to be another way.”
“Only a door through to the next cargo hold. Same problem.”
“The cargo hold they’ve kept locked since we left Havana?”
Williams and Eileen both paused in the middle of moving equipment and looked at Alastair.
“I wonder what’s in there.”
“Be careful, if they’ve any brains they might already be trying to come round that way,” said Williams.
“Maybe not,” Eileen offered. “I remember hearing one of the crew griping that only Curtis and Slate had keys.”
Alastair was already sprinting toward the connecting door. It was locked, like the one leading off the gangway. Undeterred, he picked up a prybar the lay on the floor and began attacking the handle of the watertight door. When it failed to budge, he produced from his breast pocket the lockpicking kit he carried with him everywhere.
Before long, the lock on the door was no longer an issue and he had the door open.
“Holy shit!” he said under his breath. “Benny! Eileen! You have to see this!”
***
Just off the bridge, Chance and Annie Thomas were now guests at the pleasure of Captain Curtis. Slate stood behind his boss, the pistol still gripped firmly in his hand. Two hulking brutes flanked either side of the door to the chart room.
“A new world awaits us all!”
Curtis had made a play at magnanimity, a different tact than the sheer impish glee with which Slate held them at gunpoint.
“Come now,” he continued. “Mr. Chance, you mean to tell me that you never had the same thought that once more there’s a continent’s worth of unclaimed land sitting there waiting for whoever gets there first.”
Chance crossed his arms. “I had the thought. I was determined to stop anyone who fancied themselves a freebooter. If there is indeed new land to be granted it should be at the behest of the League of Nations. Not some landgrab out of the dying days of the Old West.”
Curtis waved him off. “They’ll parcel it off to the great powers just like they did with Antarctica. The only hope for this to be a true new world, free from the interference that now reaches even into darkest Africa or the Orient, is for those with the will to get there first.”
His face darkened. “And defend it against invasion, if necessary.”
Chance shook his head. “All this sight unseen, Curtis. I wish I had known about this side of you back in New York. I’d have a bridge to sell you.”
Annie was forced to stifle a laugh. The instances were few and far between, but sometimes the Renaissance Man act did make her smile.
Curtis heard her and turned his eyes on her. What little warmth remained had vanished.
“Miss Thomas, I brought along some champagne for the occasion.” He gestured towards the cool box. “Would you…”
Annie resolutely crossed her own arms.
“I’d wait until you’ve planted your flag first, Curtis,” Chance said.
Before he could make a rebuttal, the debate was interrupted by the deep voice of Benjamin Williams emanating from the speaker in the corner of the room.
“Curtis! We found your little Cuban surprise!”
“Curtis! We found your little Cuban surprise!”
The colour drained from the faces of both Curtis and Slate.
“Wanted to keep your crew properly motivated?” Williams continued. “Well, you can share a bit of that motivation too, Curtis. I’ve set the timers for fifteen minutes. Anyone who doesn’t want to end up at the bottom of the Pacific had better abandon ship in those fifteen minutes.”
Nothing was said for a few moments. A glance over her shoulder let Annie see that the two brutes guarding the door were exchanging confused looks.
Then a knocking came at the door.
“Captain,” a voice called. There was a pause with multiple inaudible voices, as though they were deciding how to proceed.
“Captain,” the same one called. “Timers to what?”
Seeing their chance, Annie turned and yelled as loudly as she good.
“He’s going to kill you all! He wanted to scuttle the ship, so you’d have to stick with him, this was your point of no return!”
There was another smattering of chatter from the other side of the door, then the handle turned.
“Don’t let them in!”
Curtis gave the order to the two brutes, but they were already standing aside to let the deputation of the crew inside.
Curtis might have talked his way out of it. Might have convinced them to fight their way into the hold. That they still had a chance at fortune and glory.
Curtis could have managed all of that.
Frank Slate instead raised his pistol and began waving it at the crew.
“Stay back!”
“Piss off, Frank!”
That was all it took. Without a thought, Frank Slate fired a round in the direction of that vituperation.
The round went into the shoulder of one of the crew, but the rest, including the two guarding the door, leapt over Curtis’s desk and began to struggle with both the captain and Slate.
Annie and Chance had sidled off to the edges of the room as soon as the irate crewmembers had stormed in. The fracas allowed them the opportunity to slip out unnoticed.
***
Up on deck, plenty of the crew took the meaning of Williams’ announcement and made for the lifeboats. They paid little mind to the three members of the Renaissance loading their equipment or guarding their launch. Even those who had been in the confidence of Curtis’ scheme thought they would have the Visigoth anchored just offshore in case anything went wrong. The would-be conquistadors now only desired to last longer than the ten minutes that remained of Williams’ announcement.
One or two of them did try to make it to the launch, only to be deterred by a stern shake of the head from Alastair. It may have been the machine gun cradled in his lap that did most of the deterring.
Alastair and Eileen had climbed the ladder whilst Williams loaded the cargo net with their equipment. Once topside, Eileen stood guard whilst Alastair raised the winch. Williams clung to the cargo net as it ascended into the light of the dawn.
The new world that had brought them all to this part of the Pacific was visible. An indistinct dark mass against the horizon. It boasted little in the way of mountainous peaks that characterised so many Pacific islands. Few of those on dark even glanced at it whilst they tried to save their lives.
Annie and Chance reached the launch just as Eileen and Williams loaded the last of their equipment.
“What kept you?”
Eileen grinned as she climbed into the launch.
Williams made to handle the davit winch, but Chance grabbed his hand.
“Better get in quick, can’t have more than a few minutes left of your fifteen. I’ll do this.”
Williams nodded, then climbed into the launch, joining the rest of the Renaissance.
Chance began sweating as he steadily lowered the boat, knowing they had mere minutes to get clear before the fire or the explosion or whatever was at the end of those timers happened.
Williams sat tall, stoically staring at Chance.
Just before his head disappeared below the bulwark, it broke into a wide smile.
“Chuck,” he laughed. “I set the timers for twenty-five minutes.”
Chance could not help but laugh too. His was cut short by a blow to the back of his head, the second after the launch disappeared from view.
Frank Slate, his face bloodied, stood over Chance with his revolver in hand.
Chance’s eyes focused, he saw Slate, a look of visceral hatred etched into his battered face, train the revolver on him.
“I should have done this when I had the chance.”
Chance blinked at the sound of a gunshot.
Ryan Fleming is the author of SLP's Reid in Braid and various short stories for the anthologies, as well as editing The Scottish Anthology.
Comments