Of course, his tone made everything seem all right. She watched as his gaze grew distant—and realized he was already doing as he’d said and moving forward. “Come.” She turned to the door. “I’ll take you to the men’s hut. Your friends will most likely be there.”
“You know,” he said, as he fell in beside her, “I’m actually looking forward to working out the ways to ensure that Dubois lives to regret ever having set eyes on me, let alone so arrogantly bringing me and my men into his compound.”
There was that deeper persona again, lending strength, determination, and a visceral edge to what could have been light words.
As they left the medical hut, with him pacing, alert and observant, by her side, she felt a buoyancy, a lightness, she hadn’t felt for months. His impact; he was such a positive sort of person—and exactly the sort of man all those in the compound had needed to appear.
Dubois had been wrong. Fate hadn’t smiled on him.
It had smiled on the captives and sent Caleb Frobisher to rally them.
CHAPTER 10
In the early evening, the expanded company of captives gathered about the fire pit. Katherine had wondered if Caleb’s men would embrace captivity as blithely as he, and as far as she could see, they were, indeed, cut from the same cloth. As if very little in life could throw them off their stride.
Several of his men had volunteered to trim logs to add to the circle, the better to accommodate the increased number. Now, as they all sat and ate watery goat stew, she pondered what she’d seen over the past hours—specifically how Caleb’s men, including Lascelle, reacted to Caleb’s unwaveringly positive lead.
He seemed like a cat—fling him any which way, and he landed on his feet and immediately looked for ways to improve his and his men’s position. From their calm-but-ready-to-respond attitudes, his men had expected to see him reacting exactly as he had and was; they clearly viewed his behavior—both in allowing Dubois to hit him, and his subsequent recovery, his resilience—as nothing out of the ordinary. At least, not for him.
She glanced around the circle of fire-lit faces and saw hints of her own curiosity about him and his actions in the expressions of all those who, like her, had been under Dubois’s rule for months. She looked at her plate. Caleb and his men’s capture had doused the hope their presence outside the compound had raised. But perhaps, as he’d suggested, it was better that he and his men were inside rather than outside the palisade. And perhaps that earlier hope hadn’t died but was in the process of transforming and growing even stronger.
Seated between Hillsythe and Phillipe, Caleb was grateful for the stew; the events of the day had left him famished. While he ate, he rapidly reviewed all he’d learned about the compound since entering it—the interiors of the medical hut and the men’s hut, the quick tour he and Phillipe had taken of the mine—integrating that with their earlier information.
When his tin plate was empty, he did as the others had and set it down by his feet. He glanced swiftly around. There was no guard hovering; there were two ambling around the inner perimeter, two lounging on the barracks’ porch, and three up in the tower, but not one was close enough to overhear the exchanges about the fire pit.
Caleb looked at Hillsythe; Dixon, Fanshawe, and Hopkins sat beyond him. “I find it curious that Dubois allows such free and unsupervised association.”
Hillsythe smiled wryly. “He does it for the same reason he does almost everything—because, all things considered, it works to his advantage.”
When, with a questioning look, Caleb invited further explanation, Hillsythe went on, “There is no easy way out of this camp—the palisade is secure, the guards patrol randomly, and the tower is always manned. We have no weapons—pickaxes and a few shovels are no match for countless blades, much less muskets. But even more than that, Dubois ensures we do as he wishes—that we work as he wishes and don’t even attempt to escape—via a standing threat.”
“I told them about Daisy.” Katherine spoke quietly from where she sat with the other women a little way around the circle.
Hillsythe’s features hardened. “So you know the basis of that threat. In allowing us to...well, fraternize freely, Dubois encourages us to form bonds, to become a community, so that we care about each other. That, for him, is crucial, because it gives him the strings—more like a net—to control us. If a man proves intransigent, Dubois threatens the most appropriate woman or women. If the women are difficult, he threatens the men or the children. If the children don’t fall into line, he threatens the adults. So the closer we all grow, the better for him—the easier his job. Consequently, he allows us to talk and interact freely.”
“But surely,” Phillipe said, “that also means you—we—can plot freely as well.”
“True, and I’m sure he’s aware of that. But until now”—Hillsythe glanced at Caleb, then looked past him at Phillipe and the rest of their men—“there’s been no real chance of us plotting to any great effect. And even now, at least as Dubois will see it, nothing about that has changed. As long as we have no access to weapons, and as long as he has such ready access to so many viable hostages, he knows we can’t—won’t dare—do anything. He’s utterly confident about that.”
“More,” Dixon put in, “he delights in allowing us the freedom to talk and plot, as all that does is emphasize how hopeless our situation is and how little he fears us.”
Phillipe nodded. “He treats your ability to overthrow his rule with contempt.”
“Exactly.” Fanshawe leaned forward. “It’s just another element in his strategy—another way to drive home that we live inescapably under his thumb.”
Caleb arched his brows. “Such arrogance—such complacency.”
“Which,” Hillsythe pointed out, “has thus far proved well founded, but I take your point. If the situation changes sufficiently, such complacency becomes a weakness.”
Caleb smiled. “Megalomania-induced blindness—that could be decidedly useful.” After a moment of weighing that, he glanced at Hillsythe, Dixon, Fanshawe, and Hopkins. “Am I correct in assuming that, in terms of defending the compound, Dubois’s attention is focused outward—that he believes that if any attack comes, it’ll come from outside the palisade and not from inside?”
Hillsythe thought before replying, “Provided nothing disturbs his current view of us, then yes.” He met Caleb’s eyes. “We take pains to ensure that nothing we do makes him suspicious of us or focuses his attention on us—in case worse comes to worst and we’re forced to attempt to escape.”
Caleb considered Hillsythe, then let his gaze travel around the circle. Eventually returning his gaze to Hillsythe, his voice low, Caleb said, “There’s one aspect I still find hard to believe. Are you sure you have no collaborators? If I were Dubois, I would want at least one.”
Hillsythe’s grin was sharp enough to cut. “That was our conclusion, too.” He glanced at Dixon. “So we gave him one.” Hillsythe—with Dixon’s somewhat bashful assistance—went on to explain the role they’d invented and developed for Dixon, that of an engineer seduced by the challenge of operating a diamond mine under such difficult circumstances.
“I’m not much good at charades, and it’s not a role I like,” Dixon said, “but as I was the one whose work allowed the mine to open in the first place...” He grimaced. “I’ve done my best with it.”
“He feels guilty,” the woman Caleb had learned was Harriet Frazier, Dixon’s sweetheart, murmured, a gentle, affectionate glance at Dixon softening the statement. “So he does what he can to atone. Mind you, if anyone should feel guilty, it’s me for being the hostage Dubois used to force John to open the mine, but it doesn’t help to wallow, so instead, we all do whatever we can to keep us all alive.”
“Indeed. No one here has anything to atone for,” Hillsythe said, his gaze on Dixon. “And our stratagem worked.” Hillsythe turne
d to Caleb. “Dubois knows no more about mines and mining than the average civilian, and he assumes that there’s really not all that much to know—that it’s all relatively obvious and straightforward.”
Caleb nodded. “His natural arrogance at work again.”
“Indeed. Consequently, I suggested to Dixon that if he played the role—that of an engineer who’s grown obsessed with working this mine—correctly, then Dubois would gradually come to rely on his advice, and then to trust it. To accept that whatever Dixon tells him about the mine is true. And Dubois would assume that if the rest of us did anything to either damage the mine or adversely impact the mining, then Dixon would almost certainly complain.”
“And so it’s proved.” Dixon’s tone suggested that he was as surprised as anyone that his subterfuge had worked. “Mind you, I—and indeed, we all—strive to do nothing to overstep. Nothing that might jar Dubois’s perceptions and stir his suspicions.”
Fanshawe put in, “We’re walking a tightrope of sorts, so we know to tread warily, but Dixon’s ‘managing’ of the mine has allowed us to exert some degree of control over how quickly the deposits are depleted.”
Caleb nodded slowly, slotting the information into the picture taking shape in his brain.
Hillsythe captured his gaze. “I’m hoping that all we’ve said has convinced you that it’s safe to talk—to share the information you’ve thus far held back.” Hillsythe held Caleb’s gaze steadily. “No one here will speak out of turn—not even the children. We’re all in this together—we will live or die together—and everyone here knows that.” His expression hardened. “And none of us are likely to trust Dubois.”
Caleb glanced swiftly around the company. He and those he’d been conversing with sat around one segment of the log circle; the six women sat in a group beyond Hopkins, and all the rest were jumbled together in loose groups. Many of the children were chattering among themselves, but most of the adults had their eyes on him.
He turned back to Hillsythe. “What do you want to know?”
Hillsythe had his question ready. “Tell us about this rescue—about what’s happened until now.”
Caleb drew a deep breath, then complied. As everyone there knew the settlement, the geography was one thing he didn’t have to describe; as he summarized Declan and Edwina’s adventures, then Robert and Aileen’s, and the conclusions drawn from their findings, even the children fell silent and listened. Caleb was aware that, beside him, Phillipe kept an eye out for any guard drawing near enough to hear, but none did. Dark rumbles erupted when he named the known conspirators—Undoto, Lady Holbrook, Muldoon, and the supplier, Winter.
By the time Caleb reached the end of his recitation, including the removal of Kale and his men and the cache of weapons now hidden by the lake, everyone about the fire pit—even the children—understood why no relief had been forthcoming from the settlement, and that in order to be rescued, they had to keep the mine active and productive—sufficiently so that the mysterious backers, whoever they were, did not order the mine shut—at least into early September.
Silence ensued. Caleb gave them a moment to absorb and assimilate, then stated, “So now we all know where, together, we stand.” He looked around the circle, briefly meeting each pair of eyes. “Our next phase must be working out how best to assist in our own salvation—how to ensure that the mining continues until the rescue force arrives, and when it does, that the attack on the compound is successful.”
Murmurs rose as some started thinking aloud, and others added suggestions.
Katherine watched Caleb encourage even the children to offer their thoughts, then—so gently it was almost imperceptible—he steered the speculation to focus on his stated objectives.
She noted she wasn’t the only one appreciating his performance; Hillsythe—and Lascelle, too—were watching with understanding and quiet approval. By inviting everyone into the discussion, Caleb had made everyone an active participant, included in the whole. He’d honored the togetherness they’d worked so hard to establish—and strengthened it.
Eventually, however, he raised his voice slightly and—it seemed effortlessly—reclaimed control. “I think we’re in agreement that the most crucial issue we have to address is ensuring that the mine remains in operation until the rescue force reaches us.” He glanced around; unsurprisingly, no one argued. “However, as I understand things, us”—with his gaze, he included Lascelle and his men—“joining you, while positive in one way, is going to mean we need to go carefully in terms of opening up and mining the second tunnel without depleting the deposits too soon.” Caleb looked at Dixon. “We’re the extra men Dubois wanted. How best can we manage having seventeen more men working each day, yet minimize the impact on the depletion of the deposits and the life of the mine?”
Dixon thought, then grimaced. “My suggestion will be to use you and your men to fully excavate and shore up the second tunnel—that needs to be done before we can start actually mining from that pipe. That will keep all seventeen of you, plus myself and the three carpenters, occupied without adding to the mining itself.” He glanced at Hillsythe, then at Fanshawe and Hopkins on his other side. “As planned, we’ll eke out what we can from the first tunnel meanwhile and bolster the output to reasonable levels by drawing down our stockpile.”
Dixon returned his gaze to Caleb’s face. “We can’t risk the backers getting cold feet. The stockpile won’t last all that long, but it should be sufficient to allow us to switch to mining the second pipe without dropping overall production too low—low enough to trigger the closing of the mine. And as far as I can tell, the second pipe is richer, meaning denser in diamonds, than the first. My only reservation is that the way the pipe runs through the rock means I can’t yet tell how far it goes—how big the overall deposit will be.”
“Let’s play safe and work on a worst-case scenario,” Caleb said. “Based purely on what you currently know of the second deposit, will we be able to generate enough diamonds to keep Dubois and the backers happy until early September?”
Everyone fell silent as Dixon calculated, then he refocused on Caleb’s face. “Given the extra men, it will be very, very close. Possibly too close. But our more immediate problem is that the backers are expecting output to increase, and now Dubois has the extra men he knows were needed, he’ll expect the same.”
Caleb nodded, apparently undismayed. “In that case, until you have information that revises the size of the second deposit upward, we should assume we need to keep production down in some believable way—not so low it will trigger the closing of the mine but enough to stretch the mining out for as long as possible.” He looked around the circle. “In a nutshell, we need to keep production at the current level and find believable excuses for it not increasing even when the second tunnel is opened.”
“So,” Lascelle said, “as of tomorrow, one group prepares the second tunnel for mining, and the others continue to mine the first tunnel and produce diamonds at the current rate. All as Dubois would expect. Bon.” He held up a long finger. “But while we are doing that, we think of ways—unexpected and unforeseeable accidents, breakages, whatever will work—to ensure that even when the second tunnel is open and, with all the men available to work, the output would be expected to rise...” Lascelle spread his hands. “Things happen, and the best that can be done is to keep production at the current level until said things are fixed.” He looked at Caleb. “That’s the plan, yes?”
“Yes.” Caleb nodded. So did Hillsythe and Dixon. Caleb looked around the circle. “Any suggestions of ways to slow things down that Dubois will accept?”
People glanced at each other.
Katherine hesitated, then said, “It’s not the actual mining, but this might have the same effect. What about our hammers and chisels?” She looked at the other five women. “We’ve been using the same ones since we got here. Surely some chisels must be blunt by
now? And the hammers—the heads might come loose from the handles.”
From across the circle, Caleb grinned. “That’s the sort of thinking we need. It doesn’t have to be something that affects the mining itself, as long as it allows us to keep the amount of diamonds that get carried out of the compound to a level that’s just barely acceptable.”
Several of the girls who worked on the sorting piles suggested that they could easily create another stockpile by hiding some of the ore they would otherwise send on to the cleaning shed. Someone else suggested breaking some of the lanterns used to light the tunnels. Another pointed out that although they now had more men, they had yet to get more picks and shovels; until more arrived, even if the second tunnel was opened, the actual mining could only go so fast.
“All excellent suggestions.” Caleb looked past Hillsythe at Dixon. “Captain Dixon knows more about the mining process than anyone else.” Caleb arched his brows at Dixon. “If I could suggest, Dixon, that you continue to ‘manage’ the production? And if anyone thinks of further suggestions, they should bring them to you, and that the rest of us should leave it to you to coordinate any happenings, so to speak.” He glanced around the circle, inviting everyone to agree. “We don’t want to have too many things happen at once, and by the same token, we need anything we do to have the maximum—best for us—impact, and the effect of any particular action might change as we mine further.” Returning his gaze to Dixon, he arched a brow.
Dixon looked grateful. He nodded. “I’m happy to take charge of that.”
Katherine saw Hillsythe cast a penetrating—assessing and approving—look at Caleb.
Caleb felt Hillsythe’s gaze; he turned his head and met the man’s eyes.
Hillsythe hesitated, then murmured, “That was well done. A wise and sensible move.”
Caleb grinned. “Unlike Royd, I have no difficulty sharing command.”
Hillsythe snorted in an effort to smother his laugh.
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