Hero Wanted

by Betina Krahn

  “Dock workers! Honest, hardworking men!” He paused before repeating his call and then continuing. “I hear your anger and frustration at what is happening in the Docklands. I know your concern for your families and your livelihood. You have much at stake here. Well, so do I!”

  The men closest to Rafe turned to him, glaring with suspicion.

  “Who’re you to tell us what we feel?” one shouted.

  “My name’s Townsend. One of my ships is out there in the harbor”—he pointed—“waiting for somebody to wake up and realize tariffs hurt us as much as they help us. More, even!”

  There was grumbling and wary agreement as the men nearest him quieted others and dozens of skeptical faces turned to him.

  “I know what you’re thinking . . . I’m a businessman, a fellow who doesn’t have an aching back and calluses on his hands. What do I know about you and your work?” Murmuring threatened to explode into agreement. “Well, I’ll tell you!” He bellowed the next bit, as a challenge to all who might reject his presence here and his words.

  “It’s your livelihood, sure as hell”—he jerked a thumb at his shoulder—“but it’s mine, too. Every shilling levied as a tariff takes money out of your pocket and mine. It forces me to cut expenses and lay off workers. Some of you have worked for Townsend Imports. You know we pay a fair wage for a day’s work. And when work is short, we try to take care of our own. We’re strong, but we can’t force the government to remove tariffs any more than you can.”

  There was muttering and some agreement among the men, but he couldn’t make out whether or not he had established common ground.

  “My ship has been out there nine days now—waiting, watching, hoping the government will see reason. I’m frustrated, too. But I also know that storming the harbormaster’s or the Customs House won’t do anything but harden the government’s determination and make them reject every word you utter.”

  He could see a few nods, and the increasing quiet spurred him to the next logical step.

  “You need to make them see what they’re doing to the import-export trade and the men that make it happen. You can only do that if you put it in words they understand.”

  “Don’t need no words!” One worker, whose tolerance for talk had long since expired, raised a club and shook it. “They’ll understand this!”

  “Shut yer gob an’ listen to th’ man!” came a booming voice nearby.

  “Shut yer own damned gob, ye toady!”

  And the first blow was struck.

  A handful of men began wrestling and bashing one another, but those who tried to break up the fight ran into those eager to see it ignite into a full melee. There didn’t seem to be many weapons at first, but the moment one overzealous combatant was shoved back by a constable, billy clubs, saps, and lengths of bare wood materialized. No amount of shouting for calm and reason could staunch the rush of anger and the venting of frustrations.

  Rafe jumped off the wagon and shoved through the chaos, making for the harbormaster’s door, but he wasn’t the only one with that destination in mind. A score of men with makeshift weapons were aimed at the knot of uniformed constables blockading the entrance.

  * * *

  Lauren watched, gripping Barclay Howard’s arm with icy fingers, as the violence broke out. Rafe had shed his hat and coat and climbed up on a wagon bed to try to talk this hostile crowd into a more reasonable approach. He stood above the men with his sleeves rolled up, looking big and earnest. He tried to make them see that their plight was part of a larger problem, that he shared their goals and their anger. Every word rang of power and sincerity in a way she hadn’t imagined hearing from him.

  Braving the angry crowd to call for a measured course, he was a pillar of reason. She was mesmerized by the certainty and determination he projected. Then she spotted what she thought was a familiar face in the crowd—a little face.

  Jims? Was that Jims Gardiner?

  She called his name and started toward him, but there was a flurry of motion in the crowd that blocked the way, and she heard Barclay utter a “damn it” behind her. He pulled her back against a wall at the side of the mob, but they were spotted by angry dock workers who took exception to the presence of “toffs” and “laidies” among them. Broad-shouldered Barclay thrust her behind him, ducked a blow, and then came up swinging.

  She was grateful for his vigorous defense, but her attention was riveted on the spot where Jims had disappeared. Was he trapped in the chaos? He was a scrawny little thing—he could be fighting for his life. She had to find him.

  Instead of slipping away along the wall as Barclay ordered, she went in the opposite direction—skirting the edge of the conflict, searching for Jims. She called to him again and again as she dodged and darted, keeping to the edge of the crowd.

  Then she rose onto her tiptoes to look for the boy and spotted Rafe instead, caught between a rank of constables brandishing clubs and a score of armed and angry workers straining to get to the harbormaster’s door.

  “You can’t get in—the door is barred!” he roared, trying to hold them back. “The time for talking is over. You need to retreat and regroup. The next time you come, you have to come with shipowners, importers, and warehouse managers beside you . . . a united front. We’ve all got a stake in this. To make the politicians listen, we have to come together!”

  Out of the crowd came a burly arm with a club that caught the side of his head and sent him sprawling. She screamed as the mob surged over him and lunged for the constables. Somewhere at the bottom of that mass of fury, Rafe lay wounded . . . perhaps gravely.

  Frantic now, she focused on the spot where he had gone down and ducked and shoved her way through the crowd. She found him dazed and struggling to rise.

  “Rafe!” She tried to help him up but only managed to get him to his knees. “Get up—you have to get up!”

  She dragged his arm around her neck and tried to pull him up with her. He weighed a ton, but he seemed to realize she was helping and put what effort he could into standing. It took her a moment to realize Jims was on Rafe’s other side, with a thin little arm around him. She could do nothing but point to the dock at the side of the harbormaster’s building. He was leaning heavily on them as they dragged him from the fray, but he managed to make it to the side of the building before collapsing to his knees again.

  At least he was out of the main fracas. She released him against the side of the building and straightened. His eyes were closed and his head drooped as he slumped against the wall. She stroked his face and looked at Jims.

  “I have to get help. Can you stay here with him?”

  “Aye, miz.” Jims nodded. “I’ll stay by ’im.”

  Barclay was her only hope, and she had left him on the far side of the square. She looked around for something to stand on and spotted the wagon Rafe had used. She reached it, lifted her skirts, and climbed up on it to search for Barclay.

  Dark-uniformed constables now dotted the teeming crowd, but they didn’t seem to be trying to restore order—more like cracking the heads of the protesters with abandon. She couldn’t see Barclay anywhere and tried calling out to him.

  The sound of a woman calling for help shocked some of the men closest to her—those doing more shoving and name-calling than actual fighting. Some were distracted long enough to look up. She shouted to Barclay that they needed him . . . Rafe was injured and they needed help.

  * * *

  Barnaby Pinkum watched from the roof of a warehouse above the square that fronted the harbormaster’s office. He had followed his angel and Townsend to the restaurant they’d visited the day before only to have them head on foot to a square near the docks where angry longshoremen had gathered.

  When he saw Townsend climb up on a wagon to address the crowd, he pulled out his pencil and pad and took down the toff’s words in a flurry. So Townsend was styling himself a friend of the working man, eh? This was a new tactic. Then the reason was revealed: A Townsend ship lay in the harbor bec
ause Townsend Imports was unwilling—or unable—to pay the mounting tariffs. The son of wealth and privilege claimed a common interest with the men who handled his company’s freight and made his comfortable life possible. And he sounded surprisingly sincere.

  This could be a new twist on the editorials The Examiner had run denouncing tariffs and demanding that the government withdraw them. A bit of real news. If only he had a chance to write about that, instead of blathering on about a rich female’s do-gooder deeds and rocky romance.

  Then Townsend was knocked down and he spotted the angel’s gold-feathered hat as she braved the dangerous crowd to reach her fiancé’s side. They disappeared from view for a few moments, then she reappeared and climbed up on the same wagon Townsend had used. She began calling and then beseeching the crowd to cease the violence and return to reason. At least that was what he assumed she would be saying. He couldn’t make out her words in the din. The men nearest her staggered to a stop and looked up . . . likely shocked that a mere female would demand attention in such a mob.

  After a moment she was helped down—or taken down—by the crowd. He glimpsed her golden hat bobbing here and there until she disappeared at the side of the harbormaster’s office.

  Alarmed, he headed for the drainpipe he had climbed to his vantage point and was soon on the street again. There was still fighting, but additional constables were arriving in numbers to put down the unrest. As their whistles trilled, protesters at the edge of the crowd abandoned the struggle and ran. The fresh crew of constables advanced, pushing the protesters toward the waiting clubs of those guarding the harbormaster’s door. More of the protesters dropped their weapons and fled for the safety of side streets or boats tied up along the nearby wharf.

  Barnaby was able to creep around the square to the place he had last seen Lauren Alcott. On the wagon he found Townsend’s coat and expensive top hat, which he quickly snatched, but there was no trace of her. Men lay scattered around the square, some groaning in pain, some silent and still where they had fallen. None of them looked like Townsend.

  He hid from the constables as they cleared the square and tossed the remaining rioters and victims into the Black Marias that arrived. When all was quiet he climbed down from the crates in the wagon to search for Lauren Alcott and her intended. He hadn’t seen them leave and they weren’t among the poor blighters arrested and hauled away. They couldn’t have gone inside the harbormaster’s office; the door had been barred during the chaos.

  As he leaned against the side of the harbormaster’s office, thinking what to do next, he spotted something on the narrow dock that ran alongside the building and served as mooring for the skiffs the harbormaster and his inspectors used to row out to ships.

  Just feet from a ladder that led down to the murky water lay a hat . . . a lady’s hat . . . sparrow-shaped, with brilliant gold feathers.

  He hurried to pick it up. One side had been crushed; some of the feathers were broken. He looked up and around, focusing on the ships anchored in protest away from the docks.

  Where was she, his Angel of the Streets?

  Ten

  Lauren struggled against the ropes binding her. She lay in the bottom of a longboat, one shoulder soaking in the cold water puddled along the keel. Four—there were four men in the boat besides Rafe, who lay unconscious between her and Jims. She had thought the men were helping her down from the wagon at first. When she told them about Rafe needing help and they rushed her toward the side of the harbormaster’s building. But when she reached the place where she had left Rafe and Jims, she saw them being carried—Rafe bound hand and foot and Jims tussling to break free of his captors—to the end of the dock.

  She screamed as two other men dragged her toward the same fate, but her cry was swallowed up in the noise of the fighting. They bound her with rope, stuffed a rag in her mouth, and told her to “shut it” or she’d be dropped in the water. Now she ached from being manhandled and lowered to a boat waiting below. No amount of resistance could possibly overcome the four men in the boat, the ropes binding her from shoulders to knees, and the fact that Rafe and Jims were lying helpless beside her.

  They were being abducted and taken . . . somewhere in the Docklands, probably . . . but it made no sense. Why would anyone abduct her or Rafe? Did it have to do with Rafe’s speech? Were these men part of the mob he’d tried to divert? Who else could they be?

  She strained against the ropes, frantic to find a way out of her bonds and out of the longboat. Her thoughts always came back to the same place: even if she managed to escape, Rafe and Jims would still be in their hands, and she would have no idea where they had been taken. She had to wait to see where they were taking her, get Rafe and Jims to wake up, and find a way to get them all to safety.

  They were hauled aboard a ship and dumped unceremoniously on the deck. Rafe was groggy and, from what she could tell, less restrained by ropes than she was. His hands were tied, but he seemed to be struggling to look around and make sense of their circumstances. Poor Jims lay sprawled on the deck looking small and fragile.

  “So you’re Rafe Townsend,” came a voice from nearby.

  Rafe looked up and blinked, trying to focus on the man in a dark uniform looming over them. “I am.” His voice sounded raspy and unstable. “Who the devil are you?”

  “Acting captain of the Clarion, Juster Morgan.”

  “The Clarion? Our Clarion?” Rafe declared, finally reaching full throat. “Where is Captain Pettigrew? I demand to see the captain.”

  There was a moment of silence before Morgan responded. Lauren rolled onto her side to look around. They were surrounded by sailors, all of whom wore expressions of concern.

  “He’s dead.”

  That took a moment to register with Rafe.

  “Dead?” He looked around at the glowering crew. “You mutinied?” That started a rumble of anger in the men.

  “Of course not,” Morgan declared hotly. “The captain was so overcome by anger at this vile standoff that his heart seized and he fell dead. Afterward a handful of men went overboard—deserting to be with their families. As first mate, it was my duty to assume command and enforce discipline on the rest.”

  Rafe shook his head. “Pettigrew is truly dead?”

  “Aye, sir,” came another voice. It was a small, wiry fellow with a grizzled but earnest countenance. “Standin’ on the deck not far from here, givin’ the harbormaster’s office a raised fist an’ a royal tongue-lashin.’ Clutched his chest, he did, staggered, an’ fell stone dead.”

  “He had no family, so he lies in the deep hold,” Morgan continued, “awaiting proper burial at sea.”

  “Wrapped him up good, we did. Our capt’n—a fine man, he were,” offered a tall, stringy fellow wearing a striped, seaman’s shirt.

  “And what is the purpose of abducting us and hauling us onto a ship that my company owns?” He struggled to sit up and was finally helped onto his sitting bones by that tall, stringy fellow. “Have you lost your minds?” He glanced around and realized she was there, too. “And not only me, but my intended wife and a defenseless child!”

  “Not so defenseless,” came a low grumble from a burly crewman rubbing his arm. “Th’ little sod bit me.”

  “Unfortunate, that,” Morgan said sharply. “But having them here will make it all the more urgent for those bastards to get matters sorted. Your father is known in the trade for being a tough dealer, but this time he’s met his match. To get you and your bride back, he’ll have to pay the tariffs, get our cargo to shore, and pay me and my crew.”

  “If he don’t pay, you stay right here.” The burly fellow Jims had bitten jabbed a gnarled finger at the deck beneath them.

  “For how long?” Rafe demanded. “How long do you think my father and the port authorities will put up with a ransom demand?”

  “If he won’t pay”—Morgan’s eyes glinted—“we’ll find someone who will.” He turned to his crew. “Take them below. Put them in the brig.”

  *
* *

  When they removed Lauren’s bonds Jims scrambled across the deck and into her open arms. The threesome was taken down the hatch steps to a dark passage that smelled musty and damp and grew worse as they progressed downward through the ship. They were soon shoved into a small enclosure set with iron bars and filled with nautical odds and ends. Apparently they didn’t use the space for much but housing rope, lumber, and stacks of spare sail canvas.

  The wiry old fellow, who the others called Fosse, seemed a bit uneasy about their treatment of her, for he called her ma’am and promised to speak to “Actin’ Capt’n Morgan” on her behalf. He made no such promise to Rafe, however, as he produced a ring of keys and locked them in the cell as he left.

  “Wait!” she called after him, rushing to the bars. When Fosse turned back she pleaded, “Mr. Townsend’s been injured and needs tending. I need clean water and toweling, and whatever medicinals you have on board.” When Fosse scowled, she added softly, “Please—he’s on your side. He came to the docks to try to find a way to make the harbormaster see reason. You can’t just let him lie here in pain.”

  Fosse looked as if he might speak, but then turned and hurried back up the stairs.

  A small lantern just outside the cell provided meager light, and the cell’s proximity to the iron hull of the ship meant a serious chill pervaded the area. Lauren shivered and rubbed her wrists, then checked Jims’s reddened face.

  “Are you all right?” She inspected his bruised jaw and split lip.

  “Yeah. Tha’ big bugger hits like a kickin’ mule.” He winced from bruised pride as much as pain. “I tried to stop ’em, miz.”

  “I know you did, Jims. It was gallant of you. But there were just too many of them.” She ruffled his hair, then turned to the stacks of canvas where Rafe sat slumped against a large spool of rope.