by Scott McKay
“I’d like to hear it sometime.”
“I’ll tell it sometime,” he said. “So, you’re headed home?”
“On the next boat back to Barley Point. My work here is done.”
“You were amazing, Helen. Simply amazing.”
“Henry, what’s your plan?”
“Well, it appears I’m headed for Barley Point as well. I’m now the head of the engineering corps for the Lower Tweade Military District. I’ll be leaving to make my way up there tomorrow.”
“That sounds important.”
“Desperate is probably a better description. But it’s how I can best help the cause right now, so I’m happy to take it on.”
“Well, do you have a place to stay in Barley Point?” she asked.
“I haven’t even got that far. I had a room at the inn by the customs house, but with all the people coming into town, I don’t know if I’ve still got that. And I don’t know that the barracks at the military base has a spare bed, either.”
“Then it’s settled,” she said. “There’s a guest bedroom at the house that just opened up, and it’s all yours.”
“I’d like that, Helen. I really would.”
…
FORTY FOUR
Tweade Landing – Evening (Fourth Day)
In the afternoon, two more parties of guests made their way to the Stuart house in Tweade Landing.
Will answered the door to find a pair of Army officers, a general and a major, on the front stoop. He stiffened and saluted. “General, Major. Lieutenant William Forling, sirs,” he said.
“So you’re the one,” Dees responded, returning the salute. “Well, you’re a damn celebrity for certain in this man’s war. My name is Abraham Dees, and this greenhorn sonofabitch who has forgot to salute you back is Major Sebastian Cross.”
“Sorry, Lieutenant,” Cross said, saluting. “You’ll forgive me. I’m new.”
“Are you Sebastian Cross the aviator, sir?” Forling said, surprised. “It’s a real honor.”
“The honor’s mine, son. We heard about your exploits west of here. Outstanding.”
“Please come in, sirs,” Will invited. He introduced the two to Rebecca, Rob, Sarah, Latham and Helen, who hadn’t quite left for her return trip to Barley Point yet.
Rebecca fussed over her latest guests, insisting on serving them a late lunch from the colossal spread laid out in the dining room, thanks to donations from that morning’s many well-wishers. Having been hard at work with preparations since their arrival in the morning, Dees and Cross accepted.
Rob, Will and Latham sat in with the general and the major as they ate, while the women adjourned to the kitchen.
Dees said he’d been directed to the house by Col. Terhune, who he had met at the train station as the latter had rode over to inspect the equipment being brought in on the locomotive from the Special Warfare Office and the two trains which followed it in quick succession. He said he had some surprise news for Will.
“Colonel Terhune, who by the way is now Lieutenant General Terhune,” Dees said, “has put you in for not just one but two battlefield promotions. You aren’t Lieutenant Forling anymore. You’re now Major Forling. You became a captain on Sutton Hill and you got your current rank on that beach. Congratulations, son.”
“Wow,” Will said. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say a thing,” Dees said. “You have to keep doing what you’re doing. Great work, son.”
“The Colonel also told us you’re going to be his XO at Barley Point,” Cross said. “That will make us great pals, because I’m going to be quite the conduit for you to get some weapons and equipment you all have not had.”
“That’s good news,” said Latham. “It’s bare bones there now.”
“And you’re going to be a big part of the club too, Latham,” said Dees. “Lieutenant General Terhune says you’re running his engineering corps.”
“That’s my understanding, sir.”
“Well,” Cross said, “then you’re going to have to build me an air base. As close to the enemy as you can get. I’ll give you, oh, let’s say three days or so.”
Latham’s eyes went wide. “I’d be more qualified to do that if I knew what an airbase looks like.”
“Don’t worry,” Cross said. “I can walk you through that.”
The two engaged in a spirited one-on-one conversation about the nature of that beast, while Dees then pulled Rob aside.
“I have something to tell you, son, that’s very delicate. It’s about your brother Matthew.”
“I already know, sir. I was told he died when Strongstead fell.”
“Actually,” Dees said, “it turns out that wasn’t true.” He related the story of the last transmission from the citadel’s captive signal officer. Rob was shocked and relieved, and so were Sarah and Rebecca when he told them, but not overly so. They knew Matthew was still a prisoner of war held by an enemy whose practice was not to keep prisoners.
Just then there was another party of guests at the door. This time it was Rebecca opening it and greeting Commander Patrick Baker of the Ardenian Navy and his girlfriend Alice Wade, who lived just a couple of blocks away.
“Oh, Patrick,” she said, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “So good of you to come. And thank you so much for bringing dear Sarah home safe.”
“Just wish I could have done more, ma’am.”
“And Alice! Thank you for coming as well. Is this young Joseph you have with you?”
“It’s nice to see you, Miss Rebecca,” Alice’s son said as his mother beamed.
“Oh, he’s adorable! Come in, come in.”
Introductions were made, and shortly, Patrick was absorbed in the conversation Dees, Cross and Latham were having. He had met Cross a few weeks before when he’d taken the Clyde on its public relations tour, and the aviator remembered. “It didn’t strike me at the time that you were a rescuer of damsels in distress, Patrick,” Cross said. “I guess I underestimated your vast capabilities for heroism!”
“Says the man who’s a major in his first day of the service,” came the response. “If ever there was somebody who knows how to be a hero it’d have to be you.”
Patrick related that he’d fished ten Udar out of Watkins Gulf and he was awaiting orders for what to do with them as they remained aboard Adelaide under guard.
“We’re going to have a trial for the headman in the morning,” he said, “and, I imagine, a public hanging the next day.”
“The folks will come from all over to see that,” said Rob, who had joined the conversation. “Probably good for morale given what’s ahead.”
“We might make better use of this Ago’an than that,” Dees said. “I may have to have a talk with your commodore.” He told Patrick of the news about the officers held at Strongstead.
“What happens to the woman?” Cross asked. “What’s her name again?”
“Ed-yen-nay,” Patrick said, sounding it out. “I gave a letter to the judge advocate this morning suggesting she be given asylum as a defector. It’ll be his call, but her mother was an Ardenian from Maidenstead who’d been taken captive. Legally I think she’s probably entitled to immigrate, which is what she says she wants.”
“What’s she going to do?” Cross pressed.
Patrick shrugged.
“Reason I ask is we could use a translator,” Cross explained. “And since we’re going to be scouting the enemy from the air it might be useful to have somebody along who’s traveled with them.”
“That’s a hell of an idea, Cross,” said Dees. “If that girl is willing to cooperate, we’ll take her.”
“I’m all for it,” said Patrick. “And she seems willing to help. Her Civil Tongue isn’t the most fluent, but I imagine that would improve pretty fast.”
Dees quickly scribbled down a message, then ambled out to the front yard of the house where two corporals were standing watch. “Run this over to the judge advocate at the Naval Munitions Building,
” he told one of them. The man took off at a dead sprint.
When Dees returned, Cross was telling Baker of the plan to deploy the airships over the battlefield in Dunnan’s Claim. Patrick thought that was a brilliant idea, and swore he’d had it himself.
“That’s just the start of it,” said Cross. “We’ve got more tricks up our sleeve as we go.”
“What are Adelaide’s orders?” Dees asked Patrick. “Or are you at liberty to say?”
“They haven’t come through,” Patrick said, “though I expect we should have something tonight. I imagine we’ll either be ordered up the Tweade to lend some artillery to the fight, or else it’s back out to Watkins Gulf to kill pirates. We’ll be busy either way.”
In the study, Rob, Rebecca, Sarah and Will opened Latham’s case and splayed its contents out onto Uncle David’s desk. There were files and documents everywhere, hundreds of them. One had a key attached to a tag glued to the top left corner.
“It’s a vault at the First Bank of Dunnansport,” Rob said.
“That would be the gold,” Rebecca noted.
The other three looked at her.
“What gold?” Sarah asked.
“I think it was 498 bars,” she said, meaning just short of two million decirans of value. Gold bars in Ardenia had a standard weight of 400 ounces.
“Whoa,” Will blurted.
They found stock certificates indicating that George Stuart was the majority owner of the First Bank of Dunnansport and the Riverside Bank of Barley Point, which wasn’t particularly good news. Those two banks were heavily leveraged with mortgages on farmland in Dunnan’s Claim, virtually all of the manor houses and outbuildings of which had been ruined and their occupants displaced or killed.
“It’s worse than that,” mentioned Cross, who had made his way to the study to check on Aunt Rebecca and had been brought into the conversation. “Udar hit right at harvest-time, which for them was a brilliant move. They do the maximum amount of economic damage, because you can’t bring in the crops now that the whole area is a war zone, and they get to live off the land while they’re invading.
“But that means nobody can sell the harvest to pay their mortgage. Those two banks are insolvent as we speak.”
“What do we do?” Rob said.
“Let me put you in touch with some people,” Cross said. “You’re cousins with Peter Stuart, right? He’s a solicitor in Principia. He does mergers and acquisitions. My brother’s in stock brokerage at the Havener exchange. I bet there’s a deal to be made, because in the long term all that land collateralizing those mortgages will be worth holding. It won’t be a bad investment to recapitalize those banks so long as we win this war.”
“Good thing Hilltop Farm doesn’t have a mortgage anymore,” Rob mused. “But we don’t have anybody to bring in the harvest, and it isn’t safe to try, so who can say when that place will have any value again.”
“Actually,” said Latham, who had wandered in along with Dees, Patrick, Helen and Alice, “I had an idea about Hilltop Farm that Sebastian and General Dees will agree with me on.”
The conversations continued, and by sundown Aunt Rebecca insisted that all the guests, save for Patrick and Alice with little Joseph, spend the night so they could get an early start with a good breakfast in the morning. Because Dees had sent the engineers and security men along with the SAF’s officers in the lorries with the other gear to Barley Point as an advance party and he was heading back to Principia the next morning, the general agreed. Cross and Latham had continued their conversation about the structural and engineering needs of a nascent air force and were nowhere near at a stopping point, so they both agreed. Since Helen had missed her boat back to her own empty house, she joined everyone else in taking Rebecca up on her offer.
After dinner, Will and Sarah finally had another moment alone after a whole day of obligations.
“Leaving in the morning, huh?” she pouted.
“Duty calls, you know,” said Will. He’d pirated a bottle of Uncle David’s whisky and a couple of glasses from the study. “Care to join me in some self-medication?”
Sarah, who had been indulged by her father to enjoy an occasional sip after her sixteenth birthday and whose pharmacological horizons had been recently broadened beyond her comfort level, nodded in assent. She’d gone quiet.
“You look like you’re lost in thought,” said Will. “Or found in it.”
“I’m just wondering where we are on that subject we discussed this morning.”
“Ahh, that,” he said, sipping from his glass. “Well, it turns out that I did have a short conversation with your brother…”
She raised an eyebrow at him.
“…and he seems all right with the idea.”
“Interesting,” she said. “Because I had a similar conversation with my aunt.”
“She likes me,” Will said.
“But you’re leaving in the morning.”
She took a sip from her glass, and made an agonized face.
Will laughed. “It’s an acquired taste. We all acquired it at the academy.”
“I doubt I’ll acquire it at finishing school,” Sarah said. “Never mind, I’m not going to finishing school.”
“You’re a finished product to me, Sarah,” Will said. “I wouldn’t change anything about you. Except for that hat. The hat is terrible.”
She punched him in the shoulder. He laughed, and downed a swig of Beacon Point’s finest.
“By the way, I have something for you,” he said, producing a thick package wrapped in paper.
“When would you have had time to get me a gift?” she said, eyeing him suspiciously.
“Just open it, silly,” he said.
She did, and out popped nearly 100 envelopes containing the letters he’d written her.
“How?” she gasped.
“It seems your folks kept them in the strongbox,” Will told her. “Rob found them when he looked through the stuff Mr. Latham brought, and he put them all aside. He figured it was better if I gave them to you. Smart kid, your brother.”
She kissed him deeply. “I don’t have any excuse now, do I?”
“Nope,” he said. “Now you’ve got to read them. The later ones are better than the earlier ones.”
In the sitting room, Latham and Helen were having their first long conversation of their very brief relationship, though Latham felt they’d known each other forever. He told her the sordid story of his father, and how his mother had vanished with the admiral amid the broadsheet circus, and then the story of his divorce with Astrid. She told him she’d heard it differently from her Port William acquaintances, though she didn’t find that version credible.
And then she told him her own story. Her parents had both died of influenza in Stannifer, a city along the Tweade north of Trenory, when she was twelve and her brother a decade older. Irving had re-upped with the Marines for a second term, having no other viable or desired profession, and so her brother had dragged her to Barley Point where he’d risen to head of the customs office. Irving sold their house in Stannifer, leaving a substantial inheritance that he’d given completely to Helen. Her brother had built her the Barley Point house and helped raise her, and she’d been reasonably happy, but in a small town full of farmers and Army men she’d never met anybody she liked and didn’t think she ever would.
What was more, Irving had been a very overprotective brother, shielding most potential suitors away. Other than the two years she’d spent at nursing school in Port William, where she’d learned many things but mostly that she didn’t want to be a nurse, Helen hadn’t had much of an opportunity to present herself to society.
Latham told her that she might have to change her residence, because Barley Point was dangerously likely to become the battlefront in the next few days. He said he would make arrangements with Cross to get her safely behind the lines at the first sign of trouble.
“No,” she said. “I’m staying. I can help dress wounds and I can be usef
ul. And no Udar is ripping me out of my home without a fight.”
Latham thought that was a spirit he could get behind.
…
That left Rob, Dees and Cross to share a final drink and a conversation about his service to the Special Air Force before retiring.
“I feel like I’m doing something wrong,” Rob said to the two men. “But on the other hand, it’s really the only right choice I can make just now. The country needs it, and I’ve got to do my part.”
“I think you’re making the right choice, son,” Dees said. “It’s the smart call for your future, and I can tell you that the Office of Special Warfare will be deeply in your debt. That’s something we’ll reward you for.”
“Plus,” Cross said, “this will give you and me an opportunity to do a lot of great work together. I see a long-term relationship that’ll be great for both of us.”
“You’re right, of course,” Rob said. “Both of you. It’s just such a big commitment. And not something I expected. But yeah, we’re going to do this.”
…
FORTY FIVE
Dunnansport – Morning (Fifth Day)
There were four people departing for Barley Point, a number perfect to fit in the convertible automobile Cross had fished off the Special Warfare train the previous day. The roadster was packed and ready for the 70-mile journey up the dirt track to Barley Point, and it was time to say goodbye in the front yard of the Stuart mansion in Tweade Landing.
“OK, lovebirds,” Cross teased from the driver’s seat. “Let’s wrap this up. Sarah, I promise I’ll have your beau back to you in one piece soon.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, and smiled. Then she looked at Will, sporting a fresh bandage courtesy of Helen, who remarked she was getting back into practice as a nurse as her own contribution to the war effort.
“She did a good job. You look dashing,” Sarah told him.
“I don’t want to go,” he said. “I swear I’ll be back.”
“I know you will,” she said, holding Broadham’s beret on her head against a sudden gust of wind.
“That thing does not go with your dress,” Will noticed, as Sarah’s blue naval beret certainly looked out of place with the borrowed formal frock Rebecca’s closet had yielded to her the previous night for today’s goodbyes. Her aunt had suggested a more ladylike chapeau for the sendoff as she fussed over Sarah’s appearance, but Sarah would have nothing of that.
