by Carla Kelly
“Oh, I think Walter’s a good’un.” He smiled when she rolled her eyes at him. “I have to trust Jean,” he told her seriously. “I have to. Invite Grace over to keep you company.”
“Have you said anything to Sir B?”
“No and I won’t until I have something more concrete to tell him about Gervaise. Kiss me quick. I’m off to an adventure.”
She didn’t kiss him quick; she kissed him slow. “Hold that thought,” he told her, and added a dagger to his waistband. He opened the knock on the door and ushered in two Rats from the older class. “Whitticombe and Tots, you both know Mrs. Six.”
Meri curtsied back when they bowed to her in that way of twelve-year-olds not used to the niceties, and gave her husband a questioning glance.
“These lads were recommended by Smitty, who will patrol the outside of our house. Whitticombe and Tottenham will be based in our sitting room, but circulate inside the house during the course of the evening,” Able explained. “Because we do not entirely know what game is afoot, we will be prepared here, won’t we, lads?”
“Aye sir!” they chorused. Able ushered them into the sitting room.
“You don’t think I will break their concentration if we offer them hot bread and grog, do you?” she asked, walking arm in arm with him to the front door.
“It certainly wouldn’t have broken mine, at their age,” Able declared frankly. “Don’t go outside, Meri. See you topside.”
He kissed her hand. She held tight a moment, then let him go.
The sun was down and the air brisk as he joined Jean Hubert and Walter Cornwall by the stone basin. Without a word between them, they blended into the line of trees and sat close together. Silent, they watched the water darken and lights begin to twinkle here and there along the curve of the great harbor. The tide was out and the smell strong enough to counteract the usual odor of hemp and tar, two of Able’s favorite odors before he met Meridee Bonfort, with her lavender talcum and personal fragrance. She teased him that he smelled like brine and soap. He smiled in the dark, thinking of the little things that made up a marriage. Even in this time of uncertainty and national emergency, he had found love.
He glanced at Jean Hubert, who sat between him and Walter Cornwall, and owned to some uneasiness to compel a man to betray his country and threaten the life of a child. Still, if this Claude Pascal was willfully sending other Frenchmen to their deaths, then he should be stopped.
They sat in silence for an hour as Able’s misgivings grew. The two Rats assigned to the First Watch were due to begin their four-hour circuit of that small section of the harbor that fronted St. Brendan’s and the row of houses close by.
Oh, doubt, you devil! Possibly no one had escaped from the water hoy dock at noon. Maybe the old couple that sat by the water’s edge really enjoyed a moment together and nothing more. Perhaps Gervaise Turenne liked to pass on cryptic notes to scare the bejabbers out of people.
Or perhaps everything was true. Able held his breath as he heard footsteps on the walkway by the sea wall. The three of them seemed to stop breathing simultaneously as three people left the walkway and moved toward the water. They were silent, too, but sure of step as they passed within a few feet of the dark-cloaked men waiting there. No one hesitated. The three figures seated themselves close to the water’s edge, one of them seeming to perch on a low-hanging limb, the other two on the ground. The indistinct shapes were as motionless as the three men watching them.
Able heard the sound of a match striking a stone, and then smelled tobacco smoke. Nothing, nothing, and then he heard another match and saw three brief flashes from a signal lamp as the little door opened and closed three times.
Now we watch, he thought. He heard the trio speaking to each other in low tones. Jean tensed. “My countrymen,” he whispered to Able in French, or maybe to himself. Please don’t move, Jean, please don’t do anything, Able thought, as he put his hand to his dagger. I don’t want to kill you.
One minute passed, then three more, the seconds ticking past in Able’s brain. At three minutes and thirty-five seconds, he heard the splash of an oar and the creak of the oar locks as a dark craft pulled to the shore and a man stepped off. He gave the boat a shove with his foot and it continued bobbing down the shoreline.
The Frenchmen didn’t waste a moment in climbing out of the copse. Able smelled Tobacco Man again, and then someone damp with the odor of low tide clinging to him. Able sighed, vindicated. Someone had gone into the harbor, probably at the water hoy dock, and swum away, and here he was, smelling of foul low tide. A third fragrance caught his attention, and made him sad.
Gervaise Turenne was no dandy. He was a valet, probably not the career his émigré parents of comfortable means would have chosen for him, but who has a choice in the middle of an all-consuming revolution? An otherwise unexceptionable fellow, as suited a servant, Gervaise did like his vetyver cologne. Able breathed it now.
They turned to watch. As the Gunwharf Rat First Watch passed the four men crouched by the sea wall, they waited, then rose once the watch passed and hurried to the empty street. Able, Jean and Walter rose, too, moving steadily toward the sea wall.
After a moment in quiet conference, the man who smelled of vetyver left the other three, turning back to whisper in a loud voice, “I trust this is all you require of me.”
More conversation, then, “Merde,” from Vetyver Man, who angrily stalked toward the street.
“Follow him,” Able said to Walter. “I think he will hail a hackney on the corner by the bakery. Don’t lose him.”
Able waited until the remaining trio continued toward the street, confident that his Gunwharf skulkers were enveloped in their own darkness and ready to follow them.
“What do we do?” Jean whispered.
“We wait right here,” Able told him.
“Why?”
“You’ll see.” I hope, Able told himself.
“I could have devised a better plan.” “I seriously doubt it, you thief of ideas.”
Able closed his eyes, and resisted a curse of his own. This was no time for Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibnitz to start bickering in his brain. Euclid, deal with those two ninnies, he thought, and tried to ignore them.
He breathed easier when he heard the nearly silent patter of bare feet coming closer. “Down here, lads,” he said, rising slightly above the sea wall. “What did you learn?”
He knew Lark and Wren to be sober-minded lads with a talent for skulking. From the same workhouse in Norfolk, they had been named as babies by a workhouse master who enjoyed birding in his spare time. Able and Grace had had a quiet laugh about the matter last year when the boys joined the upper grades. Grace had remarked in her droll way that they should be grateful they weren’t named Albatross and Titmouse.
Not usually demonstrative (no workhouse boy ever cared to call attention to himself), they nearly jumped up and down in their excitement. “Steady, my fellows,” he cautioned. “Well?”
“Just two doors south of St. Brendan’s,” Wren said. “Two doors! That’s where the old lady and her invalid son live. We help them sometimes.”
“You have, I know,” Able said. They had moved in last summer, and lived as quiet as you please, just the two of them. Maybe. “Thank you for your help tonight.”
“Should we stay and watch some more?” Lark asked, ripe for more adventure.
“No, lads. You’ve done what I asked, and done it well. Thank you.”
They grinned and started for St. Brendan’s. “If you skulk along the wall and cross the street so no one sees you, I think you will find hot bread and grog in my quarters,” Able told them. “It’s three knocks and the password is ‘Ben loves his papa.’”
They laughed and darted toward the street, then remembered to skulk.
“And that is the secret to leadership,” Jean
commented as the boys skulked away. “Food from Madame Six?”
“Aye. Think of the lessons you are learning here,” Able said. “Two doors down.”
“A good view of the hulks.”
“Prime. Now, lieutenant, let us skulk a bit ourselves and move toward the house in question. I want to see what happens next.”
“Aren’t we going to summon the watch?”
“And tell them what? If what happens next is what I suspect, I will need your skills. The Royal Navy may be far ahead in daytime flag signals…”
“You only wish,” Jean muttered.
“I heard that,” Able said with a smile. “We are not so good in night signals yet. That is what I am waiting for, and what I would like you to translate for me.”
“And if I chose not to?”
“Back to the hulk.”
“And if I give you the wrong information on purpose?”
Able shrugged, hoping he looking more casual than he felt at that looming possibility. “I will look like a horse’s ass, something bad will happen to me and those I love, but you will still go back to the hulk.”
“Very well. Let us watch,” Jean said promptly, needing no time to consider his options, apparently.
There was no cover from the trees, but they hunkered down by the sea wall. It might have been May in some warmer, more congenial place in the world, but here in Portsmouth the wind blew raw. At least the tide was running now, and the stink of mud and dead things was abating.
“Does Cherbourg stink so bad when the tide is out?” he asked his partner.
“Get captured and you can find out for yourself.”
With a smile, Able watched the dark house. An hour passed, and another forty-seven minutes. There it was. “Jean, what does it say?” And tell me the truth, he prayed silently.
Jean was silent, then, “’I am here. What comes next?’”
They both turned and watched the hulks. Another wait and then little pin pricks of light, not coming from the main deck, but from the gun deck. I’ll wager Captain Faulke has no idea what is going on below him, Able thought, and felt a great anger rise in him.
“And?” Able prompted, when the hulk was dark again.
Jean scratched his head. “’Bâtiment douze. Floréal Buglosse.’ I don’t understand.”
“I do,” Able said slowly, as the French words reeled through his brain in record time. “Building Twelve, May Seventeenth.” He understood. Remillard, the first escapee, is a gunner. He knows powder. Perhaps the new arrival has another target.
“Whoever is in the Grundy’s house is going to blow up the block pulley factory, Building Twelve, on May Seventeenth,” he said. “Why did your country change to that ridiculous revolutionary calendar? It slowed me down.”
“Not noticeably,” Jean said dryly. “We have five days. Rather, you have five days.”
“We will be in London tomorrow night, as will you.”
“Me?” Jean exclaimed. “Am I not enough of a traitor to my country right now?”
“If what you say is true about a rascal belowdecks who is killing his own, I rather think you are somewhat of a hero,” Able assured him.
“’Somewhat of a hero,’” Jean echoed. “Who would have thought it?”
— Chapter Thirty-eight —
They were in London the following evening by midnight, travel-stained, hungry and tired. Sir B nearly shook from exhaustion, and Able’s eyes felt like burning coals in his head. Grace managed to look tidy and Jean kept his own council, staring into the dark night. Able had no idea how well Gervaise traveled. He was sitting in the coachman’s box because there was no room inside for him, too.
There would have been room, except that Meri made a surprising request. Before he left, Meri had held him close, caressing his face. “Please, please don’t get over tired,” she begged. “You know how I worry.” The tears spilled onto her cheeks.
“All I know is we must hurry,” he told her. He nodded his thanks when Mrs. Perry, her face militant, handed him a large canvas bag with food. He knew better than to refuse it and didn’t wish to, anyway.
To his surprise, Meri had turned to Grace, who had come over to sit with her during the evening’s skullduggery. “Grace, you must go, too.”
“Oh, but…”
“Excellent idea,” said Able, who needed no nudging from any of his possibly imaginary friends. He understood completely.
“I am thinking that Gervaise might be occupied with other matters, once they reach London and Trinity House,” Meri said. “Sir B will need some comfort, and you are in a good position to provide it.”
“Meridee, that would be highly improper,” Grace scolded, but Able didn’t hear too much real dismay. “I could not possibly tend to Sir B. His needs require a valet, and there is Gervaise. I can’t imagine he will be too busy to do his duty by his employer.”
“I can,” his wife said serenely.
“I second the motion,” Able said. “Grace, now’s the time.”
He knew he wielded no Royal Navy authority over women, especially one as formidable as Grace Croker. He used his voice of command, without increasing the decibels to an uncomfortable level, and gave her that narrowed-eye look that had never failed him.
“Very well,” Grace said, her face decidedly more rosy than usual. “I believe you two are nearly certifiable.” She turned on her heel and left the sitting room, pausing in the doorway to say that she was going to fetch a traveling bonnet and warmer pelisse. Perhaps a nightgown.
“What will come of all this?” Meri asked him as he pressed her to him again.
“Nothing right now, but when I get back, I hope you will create a monumental diversion of some sort so I can have my way with you.”
“Able! You are hopeless of remedy! I mean with Sir B and Grace. And the conspirators, and whatever else you are up to.” She had pinked up nicely, as well.
“I have no idea what will happen. That is rare. I don’t like it.”
And he didn’t. Theirs was a solemn ride to London, one that involved changing horses, snatching food at inns when Mrs. Perry’s ran out, and pounding over indifferent roads toward Trinity House. He doubted anyone slept, although little was said. To his sleepy satisfaction he did notice that Grace had put her hand in Sir B’s.
He placed all his dependence on the post rider that Sir B had sent galloping ahead of them, carrying a message to William Pitt, prime minister again since only last week, and still warden of Trinity House. With good horses and any luck, the Brethren would be assembled by the time their slower conveyance arrived.
There was time for solitary thinking. Able understood the message Gervaise had worked so hard to pass to Jean Hubert, that non-existent spy. Could they trick the actual spies into playing out a broader hand? I believe we can, he thought.
And so it was after dark on the next day that the carriage pulled to a stop in front of Trinity House and shook out its frazzled, slightly smelly occupants. Grace Croker still appeared tidy, although there were dark circles under her eyes.
Sir B looked like warmed-up death, except for the slight smile on his face, put there, Able reckoned, by the fact that Grace still held his hand. He had placed the blanket over their hands, and seemed content to let the kind lady lean against his shoulder, too.
Sir B winced when, cold and shivering from his day and a half sitting next to the better-dressed coachman, Gervaise lifted him from the carriage and set him in the wheeled chair Able had removed from the cubby at the back of the carriage and set up. The two of them lifted the chair up the entrance steps, where the front door was open and the same porter stood. He was slightly less formal in robe and nightshirt, with uncombed, cowlicky hair sticking up, but no less cheerful.
“Come in, come in!” he said as he rubbed his eyes. He noticed Grace and bowe
d. “Just the one of you this time?”
“Just one. I promise to be silent,” she said.
Only two lamps burned in the entrance hall. The porter gestured for Able and Gervaise to help Sir B up the stairs.
“What? You again? God’s wounds.”
All the humiliating memories came back at that voice. Able turned around to see Captain Ogilvie standing behind him. He couldn’t help that his hands curled into fists. He felt more embarrassment because the odious man noticed, too, if that’s what his mocking expression revealed.
“Come with me, Master Six,” he demanded.
“I am here on urgent business,” Able replied, unwilling to go anywhere with the man who didn’t want him there in the first place. “You have already made your opinion of me amply evident, and I don’t need another lesson.”
“Will you let me accompany you, Master Six?”
He knew the voice. Another man stepped out of the shadows, William Pitt, who had only in the last few days, after careful and clever maneuvering, returned to his position as prime minister of a wartime England.
“Well, I…” Able looked at his friends, who had already started up the stairs. Grace had hung back to watch him, concern writ large on her face.
She started down the steps, fire in her eyes, when the prime minister spoke again. “He’s in good hands, Grace,” Pitt said. “No worries, please. We will join you quite soon. Come, Able. Over here.”
Ogilvie held the door open. Able swallowed, wondering if he was going to see Meri and Ben again, wondering if this was his last day on the planet, hating the thought that he had underestimated Captain Ogilvie, who must be more than a mere bully.
“What have I done wrong, sir?” he asked Pitt, unnerved as never before.
“Not a thing. You are owed an explanation, though. Do have a seat and trust me when I tell you this is not a Star Chamber.”
Able sat at a small table. Pitt and Ogilvie joined him, the captain with glasses and what looked like madeira from the sideboard. He poured three drinks and handed them around. Able eyed his with some wariness, which made Captain Ogilvie roll his eyes.
