'Well, I'd hate to see you get angry, York Byrnison,' said Lee.
Across the water, the crew of the coal tanker were cautiously inspecting the damage to the wharf. The crane driver was shaking his head at the bosun, who was yelling at him to get back to work, and the driver in charge of the rail trucks was running back from the engine to see what had happened. Even the dredger had stopped work for a minute, but presently the steady chugging resumed.
For the moment, no one was moving among the crowd further down the quay. Lee looked around more carefully. To his right as he faced towards the town loomed the bulk of the warehouse: a three-storey building in grey stone, with a row of windows on the top and middle floors. The massive doors were of steel, and opened inwards. Projecting from the centre of the wall above the top floor, just under the eaves, was a beam and tackle for lifting goods directly up. The sun was bright now, for the clouds had blown away, and it shone full on the warehouse front from over Lee's left shoulder when he faced down the quay.
Behind him, the Captain was shouting orders, and Lee heard a muffled bang from below decks, followed by a coughing throb, which told of the detonator starting the heavy-oil engine. On the foredeck, two sailors were busily removing the cover from the forward hatch, while another man was checking the tackle on a derrick that had been rigged over it on the foremast.
Suddenly Hester said, 'Top floor right, Lee.'
He swung the rifle up towards the warehouse and saw what she'd seen: a flicker of movement behind the third window in from the end. He kept the rifle trained directly on it, but saw no more movement.
Iorek Byrnison stood beside Lee, glaring down the length of the quay towards the crowd. The Captain and the mate came down to join them.
'Now, Mr Mate,' said Lee, 'how you going to move that cargo of yours?'
'It's on trucks,' the mate said. 'We set it all up ready before they locked us out. It won't take half an hour.'
'Right. Captain, tell me this: what's the layout in the warehouse? What do we see when we open the door?'
'The space is fully open. There are columns, I don't know how many, stone columns supporting the floors above. On the ground floor at present there are mostly bundles of furs and skins. My cargo is near the far wall on the left-hand side, stacked ready on trucks.'
'These bundles of skins - how high are they stacked? Can I look right across the whole space in there, or are they too high to see over?'
'Too high, I think.'
'And what about stairs?'
'In the centre at the back.'
'And the upper floors?'
'I don't know what -'
'Lee! Top left!' said Hester, and in the same moment Lee caught a flash of sunlight as a window opened.
He swung the rifle up, and that must have put the sharp-shooter off, because the one snatched pistol shot went past him and thudded into the deck of the schooner. Lee fired back at once. The window shattered, scattering broken glass down three floors to the ground, but there was no sign of the gunman.
Iorek Byrnison looked up briefly, and then said, 'I open the door.'
Lee half expected to see him charge and flatten it in one rush, but the bear's behaviour was quite different: he touched the steel door several times in different places with a claw, tapping, pressing, touching with the utmost delicacy. He seemed to be listening to the sound it made, or feeling for some quality in the resistance it offered.
Lee and Hester were standing back from the building, at the edge of the quay, from which point he could see all the windows.
'Lee,' said Hester quietly, 'if that's McConville in there -'
'Ain't no if, Hester. I've known he was in there from the first.'
'Mr Scarsby,' said the bear, 'shoot a bullet at this spot.' He scratched an X at a point near the upper hinge of the right-hand door.
Lee looked up to make sure the gunman at the window was still out of sight, checked back along the quay to see the crowd hanging back still, unwilling to come closer just yet, checked with the Captain that the men were ready.
'Right,' he said. 'Now this is what we'll do. York Byrnison and I will open the door, and I'll go in first. There's a gunman in there - maybe more than one - and I want to make sure they're not intending any unpleasantness. If you take my advice, Mr Mate, you and your crew will wait on board and out of sight till you hear from me or York Byrnison that the place is safe.'
'You expecting more trouble?'
'Oh, I always expect trouble. York Byrnison, you ready?'
'Ready.'
'Here goes.'
He lifted the rifle, took aim at the X on the door, and fired. A neat hole appeared in the steel sheet, and that was all; but then Iorek Byrnison reached out a paw and pushed gently, and the entire door fell inwards with a deafening crash.
At once Lee leapt past Iorek and ran into the warehouse, making for the open staircase he could
dimly see straight ahead.
And at the same moment a shot blazed out from dead ahead, somewhere in the ranks and rows of stinking bundles. The bullet clipped the shoulder of Lee's coat, feeling like the clutch of a ghost, and then came a cry and a crash from the ship outside. Lee stopped and took cover behind a row of bales. Stupid to rush in like that, he thought: after the bright sun on the quayside, this was almost like night, and his opponent's eyes were already well adjusted.
'Where is he?' came the bear's voice from behind him.
'He fired from dead ahead,' said Lee quietly. 'But there's at least one other man upstairs. If you take this one, I'll go on up and deal with him.'
As he said that, he heard another shot, and another, from above, and a cry of distress and alarm from the ship. Lee and Iorek ran at the same moment - Lee lightly for the stairs, with Hester bounding ahead, and Iorek slow and ponderous for the first two or three steps as he drove against the inertia of his great bulk, but once moving he was unstoppable. Lee, halfway up the open iron staircase, saw bales of fur and skins hurled aside like thistledown, and then came two or three quick shots and a scream of fear, suddenly cut short in a hideous grunt.
More shots from high up. Lee leapt up to the next floor, which was largely empty, with just a few wooden cases resting on pallets near the back wall; but it was much lighter here, with sunlight pouring in through
the long line of windows.
And there was no one in sight.
Lee doubled back and made for the next flight of stairs. He couldn't run silently on these bare floors, and he knew that the man up there would hear him coming and have plenty of time to line up a shot towards the top of the stairs. He stopped just below the level of the upper floor, and raised his hat high on the rifle barrel, and at once a shot spun it round and round - a good shot, instant and accurate.
But it told him where the man was shooting from: the far corner, on the right as you looked at the warehouse from the quay. Lee stopped and considered.
What he didn't know was how clear the floor was, whether there were barrels or boxes for the other man to hide behind, or whether he would have a clear shot to the corner.
Nor did he know whether McConville was alone, or whether he had an accomplice who could shoot Lee in the back from the other corner. After all, the window that had opened when Lee was outside was on the left.
He looked at the staircase he was standing on. The steps were open ironwork, about ten feet wide, and they led up towards a landing at the back wall of
the warehouse. His best chance was to take it at a run, hope to avoid any bullets, and shoot fast as soon as he could.
'Lee,' whispered Hester, 'pick me up.'
He bent to lift her. She wanted to listen, and the higher she was the better. She sat tensely in his arms, flicking her ears, and then whispered: