First Voyage

by David Healey

  "Nelson’s hat!" Captain Amelia uncocked the pistol and handed it to Rigley. "There's nothing to be done now but make a run for it. Mr. Rigley, get on your gryphon. I want you and Biscuit to rush them as soon as the door opens. Mr. Hope, get that barn door open and then get aboard Desdemona quick as lightning. Lemondrop and Mr. Parkington will follow behind us as best they can. Got your pistols ready, Professor?"

  "Indeed."

  "Now!"

  Alexander ran for the barn entrance. They had barred the double doors after Pierre and Chloe left, so he threw off the length of timber and shoved the doors wide. He found himself just a few feet from a French cuirassier, so close that he could see the Frenchman's greenish eyes and the shiny buckle on his chin strap.

  It was hard to say who was more startled. The cavalryman started to draw his huge saber, then thought better of it and reached for a big pistol in a saddle scabbard. Alexander turned to flee and discovered Biscuit's massive bulk hurtling toward him with Rigley in the saddle, waving a saber and shouting like a madman. He knew that a gryphon springs like a cat with its powerful back legs to help launch itself into the air—but he had never been in front of one before.

  Alexander dodged out of the way just in time to feel the rush of Biscuit's wings as the gryphon burst out the barn door at the French cuirassiers.

  There was a clash of swords. A pistol cracked, and then another. Something sang past Alexander's ear like a hot and angry bumblebee. He rolled to his feet and ran toward Desdemona. Captain Amelia didn't seem to notice him as he swung aboard. She had both hands on the reins, her eyes straight ahead.

  Biscuit had gone out the door like a cannonball, scattering the enemy troops. Now Desdemona leapt after him. But she did not launch herself into the air. She pounced on the nearest cuirassier, slashing at him with her talons, and he toppled from his saddle as his horse bucked in fear. While Desdemona was small for a gryphon—built more for speed to swiftly carry messages and scout enemy movements—no horse was interested in standing up to her.

  Quick as a cat, Desdemona spun to confront the next cuirassier and crossed the distance between them in two rapid bounds. The Frenchman was ready for them. Though his horse reared, this man kept his seat and slashed at them with his saber.

  A French cavalry saber is wickedly sharp, long and heavy, with a curved blade. Hours of practice drills with that weapon gave a cuirassier muscles like steel, so that his arm was like part of the sword. Cuirassiers were all big men on big horses—the shock troops of the Napoleonist forces. Captain Amelia parried his blade but her own sword was shorter and lighter. He knocked it aside and drove his huge saber at Amelia.

  In that instant, Alexander raised his pistol and fired at point blank range. His target disappeared in a burst of smoke. When it cleared a moment later, he saw that the Frenchman lay sprawled in the mud.

  More pistols popped around them. Alexander looked up to see a handful of cuirassiers charging them with sabers leveled like lances. The Resolutions had lost the element of surprise and were now outnumbered. It was time to flee, not fight. Lucky for them, the French still didn't seem to have any gryphons. Once they were in the air, they would be beyond the reach of the cuirassiers and had a chance of escaping back to the Resolution.

  What about Lord Parkington on Lemondrop? Alexander looked around the farmyard, expecting to see them. Where were they?

  Then he looked back at the barn and his heart sank. Lord Parkington was still on foot, leading Lemondrop by the halter. The gryphon was limping badly and his wings drooped. Alexander hated to admit it, but he wondered if maybe Captain Amelia had been right. Horrible as it seemed, perhaps a bullet was a better alternative for Lemondrop than being captured by the Napoleonists.

  "Toby!" he cried. "You have to leave him! There is no time!"

  He felt Desdemona shift beneath him as she turned to meet the charging horsemen. In a moment, they would all be overwhelmed and captured because Lemondrop hadn't taken to the air after all.

  Then a dark shadow fell out of the sky like a meteor. It was Biscuit, sweeping low over the ground to come at the French horsemen head on. With a piercing war cry, Biscuit caught a rider in his talons and swept another from the saddle with a mighty beat of his wings. From the stern rider’s saddle, Professor Hobhouse peppered the French with pistol shots.

  The force of the enemy’s charge was broken. Biscuit spun as if on a pivot and came at them again from above. Alexander felt a sickening rush in his stomach as Desdemona sprang forward and joined the fight, covering the distance to the French with two quick beats of her wings. His pistols empty, Alexander drew his cutlass and hacked at the French as best he could.

  But fighting on the ground from the back of a gryphon was very different from fighting in the air. All the action was up front, and Alexander mostly found himself forced to cling to the saddle as Desdemona balanced on her hind legs to swat and slash at the enemy.

  Alexander risked a glance over his shoulder just in time to see Lord Parkington slip onto Lemondrop's back. He hadn't had time to put on the flying harness. It was terribly dangerous to take to the air without a proper saddle and harness. One slip meant falling to your death.

  More French were coming from around the back of the barn. "Look out!" Alexander shouted a warning to Lord Parkington.

  If Lemondrop could not yet fly, he could run. Favoring his injured side, he dashed ahead of the French attackers. But a gryphon was intended to fly, not gallop fast as a horse, and Lemondrop was injured. The French riders would soon overtake him. The farmhouse and a hedge loomed beyond. Even if Lemondrop could by some miracle outrun the French horses, he was going to run out of room.

  Alexander saw Lord Parkington crouch low over Lemondrop's neck and then grip the gryphon’s sides firmly with his knees. With the horses right behind him, Lemondrop gave a final burst of speed and launched himself skyward.

  "Use your wings!" he heard Lord Parkington shouting. "Lemondrop, there's nothing wrong with your wings!"

  The gryphon seemed to hover there for a second, all dead weight hung upon by gravity, and Alexander thought they would crash down again. Then Lemondrop's great wings snapped open and caught the wind. His wings beat the air once, twice, three times—each beat growing stronger and more powerful. The French pursuers were left behind, though one or two snapped off pistol shots at the gryphon. Alexander saw that the French who had been hiding in the woods and orchard were now racing toward the skirmish. More pistol shots came from that direction. A bullet struck a plow in the farmyard and ricocheted with a hair-raising whine.

  "Altitude, Mr. Parkington! You must climb!" Captain Amelia shouted. Desdemona seemed to leap straight up as two horsemen came after her at once. Her own wings spread and beat the air. They rose above the heads of the Frenchmen, whose sabers sliced the air where Desdemona had been only a moment before.

  They might have swept down and attacked the horsemen, but their goal now was flight, not fight. Desdemona circled higher and the frustrated horsemen cursed at them in French. Below them, Lemondrop was still struggling. His hind legs just grazed the helmets of the French riders—not nearly high enough to clear the hedge at the edge of the farmyard beyond the stone house. Watching, Alexander braced himself for the crash that was just seconds away.

  Then he saw Lord Parkington haul on the reins and Lemondrop suddenly swerved up, up, up at the last instant. The hedge behind them, there was nothing ahead but blue sky. Captain Amelia had Desdemona fly in close.

  "That's it, Mr. Parkington!" she shouted. "How does Lemondrop fare?"

  "We shall make the coast, at least," came the reply.

  "Excellent!"

  The wind seemed to snatch away this last word as Captain Amelia urged Desdemona higher. The Napoleonists had a few rifles between them, and with the rifles' greater range a few shots tried to pluck the gryphons from the sky. Unharmed, they were soon out of range of the enemy’s guns.

  Biscuit fell in to one side so that they had a loose formation. Part of a ste
rn rider’s duty was to scan the skies for the enemy, but thankfully Alexander did not see the air interrupted by anything but a few wisps of cloud.

  The winter day was already growing short and the sun was past its zenith. Even without enemy gryphons, they faced a great risk that they would not reach the Resolution before nightfall. The ship would be sailing a pattern back and forth awaiting their return, but it was no small feat to find a single ship on the English Channel, even when they knew about where to look.

  Locating the ship would be impossible at night. They would be in real trouble if darkness caught them over the open water. Gryphons burdened with two riders—let alone slowed down by the wounded Lemondrop—could not possibly make it all the way to England. Exhausted, the gryphons would eventually drop into the frigid waters of the channel.

  Alexander fumbled for the speaking tube—it was impossible to shout loud enough for Captain Amelia to hear him over the rushing wind. "Will we make it?" he asked.

  "Desdemona is a strong flyer but we may have to lighten our load, Mr. Hope," the flyer captain replied. "I shall begin by jettisoning ensigns who ask annoying questions."

  "Aye, aye, Captain."

  With the westering sun at their backs, they flew toward the coast. Alexander kept glancing to his left at Lemondrop, who was clearly laboring heavily and slowing them down. With every effort of his wings he seemed to be trying to lift a heavy load. Alexander felt exhausted just watching the gryphon fly.

  The wind picked up as they neared the coast—he could see the white blur of surf and the vast blue of the empty sea beyond—and glancing over at Lemondrop and Lord Parkington he felt a fresh wave of worry in his stomach as if he were trying to digest a stone. A saddle and flying harness helped steady a flyer in a strong wind, and Lord Parkington had neither. Bareback on a horse was challenging enough, when a hard fall to the ground was only a few feet away. Bareback on a gryphon, the wind tugged at you constantly, and if you slipped the ground was a long, long way down. Lord Parkington was a strong flyer but it seemed like madness to even attempt such a long flight without a proper saddle.

  Alexander glanced to his right and took some reassurance from the big figure of Biscuit lumping along with Rigley at the reins and Professor Hobhouse wearing a silly floppy hat and goggles, all the while scanning the skies. Hobhouse was undeniably scholarly, yet he had a surprising skill with sword and pistol. Alexander would have bet his Sunday dinner that Hobhouse hadn't always had his nose buried in a book.

  What he couldn't see was the death grip the professor had on the saddle pommel. I wouldn't have thought myself so timid in the air, Hobhouse observed to himself, not for the first time. These flyers take to the skies daily without a thought, so it is perfectly safe. Yet if I should be so lucky to feel the ground under my feet again or the deck of a ship it would take a direct order from the king himself to get me airborne again. He gulped, blinked against the sunlight gleaming off Rigley's helmet, and tried to ignore his hammering heart.

  Then they were out over the ocean. Lemondrop sank a little lower as he struggled in the stronger wind over the sea and they flew down with him in formation. The waves loomed that much closer, cold and hungry.

  Captain Amelia had a flyer's chronometer strapped to her wrist that also functioned as a compass—it was an incredibly expensive device, but she was a flyer captain, after all. The only other flyer that he had seen wearing one was Lord Parkington. It was an extravagant item for an ensign, but what else did one expect from an ensign who also happened to be a lord? Amelia consulted her compass and nudged Desdemona with her knees. Alexander felt the weak winter sun shift somewhat from the back of his neck to his cheek as they adjusted their course.

  Alexander’s thoughts wandered. He hoped that Chloe and her family would be all right—things would go badly for them if the cuirassiers did not believe their story of being held hostage by the "brutal" English. It was odd to think of her as French—she had seemed so sweet and kind.

  There had been nothing so gentle about the cuirassiers. The skirmish in the farmyard had been a close thing, and he wasn't in any hurry to meet a French trooper again.

  "Pay attention if you please, Mr. Hope." Captain Amelia's voice, made tinny by the speaking tube, startled him out of his thoughts.

  He scanned the skies, and saw three distant specks. His heart hammered. Could those be birds? No ... they were too large at that distance. "French gryphons!"

  "I wondered when you might notice them," Amelia said. "They are very far behind us, but they are somewhat swifter." Even with two riders, Desdemona was a very fast gryphon in the air. Amelia didn't have to add that it was Lemondrop slowing them down.

  "Will they catch us?"

  "That is the question, isn't it, Mr. Hope? Better load your pistols, if you haven't already."

  Alexander did just that, and slipped the two heavy flying pistols into their holsters on either side of the saddle. He glanced over at Lemondrop, who was laboring mightily. The pursuit had all the cold logic of Professor Hobhouse's math problems. They were flying at X speed while the French were coming on at Y speed. Over the estimated distance, how long until the enemy overtook them? Alexander feared it was only a matter of a half hour at most.

  He looked ahead. The sea spread out before them, glittering with the red and gold of the setting sun. If the Napoleonists didn't catch them, darkness would.

  And then a beautiful sight. A white speck on the channel that might have been a trick of the eyes became the Resolution with her full sails spread. She looked like some sea bird riding the waves, graceful and alone. Alexander thought it was the best sight he had ever seen.

  The French gryphons had been gaining on them but now peeled away, keeping their distance, not wanting to tangle with a British frigate shotted with chain and with a complement of fresh gryphons at the ready.

  "A fine sight indeed!" Captain Amelia called through the speaking tube, and then they began a delicious lazy spiral down toward the waiting ship.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Resolutions greeted them like heroes. A great cheer of “Huzzah! Huzzah!” filled the air, and the crew rushed forward to meet them, eager to clap them on the back as if to see if they were real. The usual order and discipline on the ship was quite forgotten as sailors called out questions. Everyone wanted to hear how they had managed to slip away from France, rescuing Lord Parkington and Lemondrop.

  Rigley did most of the talking for them, basking in the attention, which was fine by Alexander. Captain Amelia stood off to one side, stroking Desdemona's head and trying to appear aloof from the excitement, though she was clearly listening to Rigley's account with interest and pride.

  Alexander stumbled as a huge hand thumped him on the back. He looked up to see Jameson grinning down at him, the big sailor's face hovering over him large as a platter. "Ha, ha, you showed them Frenchies!" he said. "I had me doubts that you'd be much in the way of a true blue sailor when I first seen you, lad, green-faced like you was in that rowboat back in Spithead Harbor. But to fly into France and out again—I never heard the like, ha, ha!"

  There were more comments like that. Their exploits had done the men good. It was hard duty aboard a ship in the English Channel in winter, caught between the cold and the constant threat of a Napoleonist attack. The Resolution had been cruising back and forth off the French coast, awaiting their return. Each day threatened danger from the skies and seas—an assault in force from a French gryphon squadron or the sudden appearance of enemy sails on the horizon. Now, at long last, the waiting and the tension were over.

  The crowd only began to break up when Lord Parkington led Lemondrop away to the gryphon deck. The gryphon limped badly and his wings drooped after the exhausting flight. But the valuable gryphon had returned to the safety of the Resolution, where he could regain his full fighting strength.

  Captain Bellingham's arrival scattered the rest of the men to their stations. "Well done, well done indeed!" He greeted Captain Amelia with a look of relief and
said in a quiet voice: "Amelia, my dear, you have returned. I must admit I had some fears for your safety."

  "You would not be rid of me so easily, Bellingham," she said, turning a shade of pink. It wasn’t every day that someone called her my dear with so much feeling. She patted Desdemona, who purred like a house cat—a massively overgrown one with claws the size of daggers. "Desdemona and I wouldn't let a few Napoleonists deter us."

  They were interrupted by the shrill shouts of the bosun ordering the hands back to work. For the first time, Alexander noticed the activity on deck, which went far beyond the usual running of the ship. Lines were being coiled, stores shifted, and men streamed into the rigging as Lieutenant Swann shouted, "Make sail!"

  "What's afoot?" Captain Amelia asked.

  "You are just in time." Bellingham smiled broadly. "We were awaiting your return somewhat anxiously for more than one reason. A messenger gryphon came during the night and I have new orders, you see. We've been ordered to Gibraltar!"

  Alexander was dismissed to go below for a much-needed hour of rest. He was still new enough to the routine of the Resolution that he wouldn't be much use getting the ship ready for its voyage. Now that they had reached the Resolution, he realized how exhausted he was—and yet sleep would be difficult, for he felt the excitement in the air about the voyage ahead.

  Ever since they had left Spithead, the ship had been on channel duty, on guard against the French. While Alexander never doubted for a moment that their mission was important and the winter storms on the channel were fierce, it seemed like dull duty compared to the adventure of sailing to Gibraltar, the British-occupied lump of rock at the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. For a start, it also promised to be much warmer there.