are not, because rather than declaring your dead men dead, you continue to take their wages, and filter them down to any number of unqualified women you seem to have collected from wherever takes your fancy. You have a veritable harem. I believe even your first lieutenant is not in fact a real lieutenant at all, but a dead lieutenant’s wife. Are you going to lie to me about that?’
‘Revelation Wellesley runs the ship better than any other lieutenant I’ve had—’
‘And so while I cannot indict you for letting Agatha on the deck, given that she was not officially on navy pay, I can absolutely come after you for fraud whenever I bloody like, and I will do so with the most intense joy if this man fails to do as he’s promised, understand?’ Lawrence pointed at Joe without looking at him.
‘No, you won’t,’ Kite snapped. ‘Unless you want the horror of women captains, you’re not going to court martial the present ones.’
‘Don’t be so repulsive, they aren’t there for work, they’re there for you to stare at and God knows what else. Take that jacket off, it’s a disgrace.’
Joe felt something tightening in his chest. Kite slid his coat off, then the jacket, slowly, because he couldn’t move well now.
Lawrence went for him. Joe had never seen anyone lose his temper so completely. The walking cane was thin, like a switch, and although Lawrence had been moving at a heavy lumber before, he was fast with it. In five seconds Kite was on the floor.
Without deciding to, Joe wrenched the thing out of the old man’s hand, and threw it at the hearth. The tiger snarled and for a sick instant Joe thought he was about to be torn to pieces by a wild animal, but for whatever reason it had of its own – perhaps Lawrence treated it in the same way he treated Kite, or maybe it liked Kite in the same involuntary way Joe did – it caught Lawrence’s sleeve in its teeth and slung him aside before coming to nose anxiously at them. Joe kept very, very still, crouched over Kite, one arm across his shoulders to keep him as shielded as he could be. He could feel him shaking, or maybe that was Joe himself.
‘Get him out of here,’ Lawrence snarled. His eyes kept skittering to the tiger.
Joe snatched up Kite’s coat and pulled Kite along with him. He’d never been so glad to get out of a room.
Kite had to stop just outside, on the steps of a chapel. Joe sat down next to him. Opposite them, torchlight beamed down through the high windows of what must once have been a banqueting hall, but now, there were flimsy storey-partions a third and two-thirds of the way up the windows. Inside, there were beds, and women in surgeons’ indigo. A girl was singing while she hung up sheets between the rows and rows of beds.
There was no sign of the two marines.
‘Who the hell keeps a tiger anyway?’ Joe asked at last. His voice sounded wrong. He coughed.
‘He served in India,’ Kite said.
‘Are you all right?’ Joe whispered. Sailing through the French assault had been different; that was impersonal violence, and it was easy to imagine that in other circumstances the gunners on either side would get on brilliantly. But what Lawrence had done was rancid.
‘Why did you stop him?’ Kite asked.
Joe shook his head. ‘If you think any normal person can just watch something like that then your idea of the world is even more fucked than I thought. I’d have liked that tiger to eat him then and there.’ He hesitated. ‘Never been defended by a tiger before.’
Kite smiled. It was the most crystalline cheer, just the very first veneer of ice on the sea. ‘It’s your tobacco. She goes for it like catnip.’
‘Well. Make a fortune at the circus if machine work falls through.’
Kite laughed.
Joe lifted Kite’s pistol out of its holster and slid it under his own belt on the opposite side. Now was the time. He could just run. The marines still weren’t here. Kite would never be able to follow, not in this state. Dodge down one of those endless black side alleys and Kite would have no hope of finding him. Having no money wasn’t such a bad problem, especially at this time of night, when pubs were full and people were tipsy. It wasn’t like he was above going home with someone to have somewhere to