by Carla Kelly
“He doesn’t know anything,” Jean said, angry now. “Leave him alone.”
“I have neither said nor done anything to either of you,” Able said. “I thought we would sit here for a while.” He looked at Walter. “How much time do we have?”
Walter was a quick study. “All the time in the world, Master Six.” He yawned and put his hands behind his head.
More silence. The air seemed to hum with it. When Meridee didn’t think she could manage another moment, and goodness knows, she had nothing to hide, Able spoke in his most affable voice, the one full of kindness, with just the smallest touch of deference and apology. He didn’t use it often. In fact, the last time she recalled, was when he was trying to impress her brother-in-law, during their admittedly curious courtship.
“Something is afoot in the harbor,” he said calmly. “It will probably happen soon. And you both know nothing? Jean, translate for Pierre, please.”
Jean spoke in a low voice to the lad who still had not raised his face from Meridee’s apron. Pierre shook his head.
“Jean?”
The prisoner shook his head, too. “I am who I said I was, a prisoner who wishes to sit out the war in a safe place.”
“Oh, really?” Able asked, so affable.
“Yes, really,” Jean replied, his voice firm.
I don’t think he knows anything, Meridee thought. I wish he did, because something is going
to happen.
Able stood up. He went to the window and looked out at the darkening sky. When he turned around, Meridee held her breath. She knew that implacable expression. She had seen it directed at Master Blake, fish food and long gone.
“When whatever it is happens, I will personally take you both back to the Captivity and turn you over to Captain Faulke. Depend upon it.” He smiled at Walter now, who looked as calm as Able. “Let’s lodge these two in your gaol until such time, shall we?”
“Aye, sir. An excellent idea,” Walter said, all business now. He stood up, looming over them all, intimidating.
“No. Don’t.” Jean stood up, too.
“But you don’t know anything,” Able said, rounding on him.
“I don’t!” Jean shouted.
“I don’t believe you!” Able shouted back. Meridee put her hands over Pierre’s ears, as he tried to burrow through her apron and into the sofa.
Jean turned toward the door, but there was nowhere to go. Walter stood there, his stance wide, immovable.
Able changed his tone to the reasonable one Meridee and all the Gunwharf Rats were used to. All signs point to something about to happen here on our docks, here in England, my home. The place where my wife and son are safe. You, sir, are far from home. We are your enemy and we will stop you.”
“Stop what?” Jean asked, and there was no overlooking the panic in his voice. “I don’t know anything. I am who I said I was, nothing more.”
“Then what about the note Gervaise Turenne gave you?” Able asked.
“He didn’t…I never…”
“Have it your way, Jean. I will miss you teaching French and art, and providing captivating commentary about this and that.“
Able shrugged and squatted beside Meridee’s chair, where Pierre was silent now. He spoke in French to the child, the quiet one, the one no one ever noticed, and then in English.
“Pierre, someone gave you a note for Jean Hubert. Don’t deny it because I have no qualms about hanging you, too.”
“You’re a beast!” Jean raged.
“I am an Englishman,” Able snapped. “This is war and you know it. Come sir, if you would spare this lad. The note, s’il vous plaît.”
— Chapter Thirty-six —
Just don’t look at Meri, Able thought. If looks could skewer, you’d be sleeping on this sofa until 1900, at least.
It was a mere bluff. Mr. Pitt had witnessed a note between the rude Captain Ogilvie and Gervaise Turenne. Someone must have received the note, or so Able reasoned. And hadn’t Jean been terrified of Gervaise at Sir B’s dinner? If not to Jean, then who but Pierre Deschamps?
There were times when any man could be forgiven for hating his job, but surprisingly, this wasn’t one of them. He would have to talk with someone – Sir B? William Pitt? – about this strange emotion that filled him. All his life he had known he was a workhouse bastard with an odd brain. His luck had turned, but he always knew the workhouse waited to pounce, should he fail.
That feeling was gone, replaced by something that felt like love of country, but did he even have a country? He had never felt like a son of Scotland, not even a bastard son. True, he had the brogue, but he could turn it off at will. If not a son of Scotland, than of England? Hardly. He felt even fewer ties to the land that had employed him since the age of nine, and which had ridden roughshod over Scotland, where he was born. Where did one’s loyalties lie? With his dead mother? His likely foreign father?
He had assumed that the Royal Navy constituted his strongest tie, and then St. Brendan the Navigator School. As he stood there, ready to work ill on a child and a lieutenant, now prisoner, in the French navy, it struck Durable Six that his most enduring allegiance was to his wife and son. By extension, anyone who tried to hamper their security would bring down ruin upon themselves.
Perhaps someday, if this cruel war faltered and the tide ran strong for England, he might consider himself a true son of the British Isles. Until that happened, he would devote himself to protecting the people dearest to him, his wife and son most assuredly, and the Gunwharf Rats. Maybe he could explain this to Meridee some evening, if it was just the two of them. Until then, there were more pressing matters.
“Sit down, Jean,” he ordered, his voice conversational again, but with that edge of authority he had cultivated from years at sea. It no longer felt like a cloak he was allowed to wear now and then. It belonged to him.
Jean sat. Their eyes met. Don’t hate me too long, Able thought, but if you must, you must. I need information.
“Do you still have the note?” he asked quietly. “I must have it.”
“I ate it.”
“I would have done the same thing. What did it say?”
The test. Would this be the truth? Please God, Able prayed. Please God, I will know the difference.
“As a prisoner of war, I do not have to divulge anything that might give aid and comfort to the enemy,” Jean said. He smiled, and Able saw the playfulness that everyone at St. Brendan’s enjoyed. “Je remercie le Siegneur that eating my words has never given me indigestion.”
“Unless that note is as long as Newton’s three laws of motion, I doubt you have forgotten it,” Able said, perfectly in control, confident. Curiously, he noticed that the spectral crowd of onlookers that he seemed to share his brain with were silent, even the French among them.
“There was a commotion at the water hoy dock this afternoon,” Able continued. “Kegs were overturned, men were milling about and yelling. Walter told me it sounded a little staged, but it’s a surmise. A prisoner was captured and led away, but we think there was another man. Or men.”
“No one saw him? Maybe, Master Six, you are grasping at straws,” Jean said.
Come, come, Able thought, weary of this. You have no cards to play. The time to feint and jab had passed. There was work to do this evening.
“Take the boy, Walter,” he ordered, turning around and gazing out the window to the harbor and the hulks, still visible but fading in the approaching twilight. “We’ll hang him and return Lieutenant Jean Hubert to the Captivity.”
He could have sighed with relief when Jean stood beside him, looking out the window, his face calm resigned. He spoke, but quietly. “’Watch for a citizen who will make the wharf blossom with orange flowers.’ That was the note, damn you, Master Six.” He turned to Pierre, who was firmly in the const
able’s grasp, and spoke softly to him in French. The boy relaxed, although his eyes lost none of their wariness.
“Pierre gave me the note, which had been handed to him by Gervaise Turenne, Sir B’s valet. Gervaise wrapped it in a slightly larger paper with the words, ‘Are you the one?’” Jean explained, his eyes on Able. “I have no idea what that means. None.”
“What a puzzle this is. Ben is calling my name, but I don’t want to miss a minute of this.”
Meri was the last person Able thought would interrupt, but she had done precisely that. He opened his mouth to say someone he knew he would regret, but had the good sense to close it, words unsaid. Maybe it was that overly sweet look she sent his way. He knew her well enough to trust that whatever she had in mind was probably to his benefit.
What do you propose, Meri?” he asked, instead of the curt statement that would have fried his chances for peace at home for an indeterminate period.
“If I am discreet, would you gentleman mind if I fetch my son?” Meridee went to the door and opened it. “And look, here are Nick, John and Smitty, just as eager as I am to know what is going on.”
Able watched in growing appreciation for his wife’s adroit defusing of a situation so fraught that the air seemed to hum. “I have no objection to the lads or my hungry son. Any of you? She is an expert with a blanket.”
Jean made a courtly gesture with his hand and Walter tried not to smile.
“I’ll be right back,” Meri said. “The boys want to listen.” She spoke to Jean alone. “You’re their French and art instructor and they value you, Lieutenant Hubert. I doubt you would care to disappoint them.”
“I believe I would not,” he replied.
Able heard something thoughtful in his tone, now that the anger was gone.
He gestured to his students. “Sit down and no talking, Rats.” He spoke to Pierre in French and the little shadow joined the boys, sitting cross-legged with them by the unlit fireplace.
Meri returned with their squalling son, worked some magic behind a blanket, and soon all was silent, except for Ben’s enthusiastic little suck. The sound, so homely and vulnerable, seemed to reinforce everything Able felt about why he was defending England. He didn’t particularly care what happened to addled-now-and-then King George, because there was always someone to succeed him. He did care greatly about the woman and the baby.
She looked up and nodded. “Please go ahead with this. If I am to keep this straight, Gervaise slipped a confusing note to a Frenchman, our own Jean Hubert, who I think has no idea what is going on, either. Am I right, Jean?”
“Precisely so, Madame Six,” Jean said. He was silent a long moment, obviously weighing something in his mind, perhaps – to Able’s skeptical mind – trying to decide how much more truth to tell. The calm look returned, telling Able that the prisoner of war had made up his mind, whatever he had decided.
“I can agree not to hang Pierre,” Able said, trying to overlook the gasps from his Gunwharf Rats. “But I will return you both to the hulk, Jean, unless I hear a compelling argument why that isn’t a good idea. If harm is coming to Portsmouth and by extension to my family, I won’t rest until I know. Sit down with me. Tell me.”
“If I am returned to the Captivity, I will be killed,” Jean said with no hesitation. He shrugged. “I know that news will not cut up any Englishman’s peace for long, except you need to know this, something I learned because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time: Both Captain Faulke and a prisoner ringleader are in league somehow to do damage at the wharf.”
“Rats, this doesn’t leave the room,” Able snapped. “Swear to God.”
The boys murmured and moved closer together. Meri’s mouth opened in surprise. Able could have sworn even Ben stopped sucking, but that couldn’t be.
“I sincerely want to believe this,” Able said.
“Then do, please,” the courtly Jean Hubert replied. “I was Ianthe Faulke’s art instructor on board the Captivity. I happened to overhear her father and a Frenchman plotting ruin for men trying to escape in the water kegs.”
“Why would either man do this?” Walter asked.
“Constable, as near as I can divine, the captain is paying the prisoner – one Claude Pascal, damn him – for escape information. Captain Faulke takes the information to someone in authority here in Portsmouth. The culprit is captured on the dock and Faulke, damn him, gets the credit.” Jean turned to Able. “Tell me, Master Six, what kind of officers are put in charge of prison hulks?”
I wish I could say this surprises me, Able thought. He saw Meri’s dismay and Walter’s. “You can guess, Jean. What kind of seaman is put in charge of a vessel that does not move?”
“Someone with no patronage, or someone with no skill,” Jean said promptly, almost as if it were a recitation. “We have similar mariners.”
“Which is Captain Faulke?” Able asked. “You have suffered the fruits of his leadership.”
This answer came with more thought, as though it had occupied Jean’s mind for a long while. “I know he has money, because a lot of it has gone into the pocket of Claude Pascal,” Jean said. “I suspect he has an ambitious wife. Perhaps it is her money. Capitain Faulke wants to move up, and what better way than buying the credit that comes his way because a scoundrel Frenchman wants to move up, too?”
“And how do you explain Claude Pascal?” Walter Cornwall asked.
“An ambitious man who cares not a whit for his country,” came Jean’s prompt reply. “He is selling out potential escapees for money.” He couldn’t help a shudder and it didn’t look theatrical. “Blood money of the worst kind.”
It was a family joke now, but certainly true, that Able could not tie a neck cloth to save his soul. He also had difficulty doing simple arithmetic, so much so that Meri took over that task when the butcher and the coalman disputed his payment of their accounts. He never minded Meri’s good-natured teasing because he knew better than anyone that his brain was a peculiar one.
What it was extremely good at was looking beyond the obvious and entertaining other thoughts. He had one now, with no way to test the theory except to let some of the unraveling mystery play out.
“There is another level to this chicanery,” Able said.
“It’s bad enough as is,” Walter reminded him.
“Most assuredly, Constable Cornwall,” Able said, certain of himself. “I suspect it is even worse. Follow me here: Some of the escapes have succeeded and some have not, as far as we know. I have to wonder if Monsieur Pascal is playing an even deeper game. Nick? Do you see where I am going with this?”
Nick pinked up when heads swiveled his way, but he did not falter. “Um, I hate to think about it, but is it possible that Claude Pascal is burning his candle at both ends?”
“Why would you think that?” Able asked, knowing down to the decimal point how many times this sitting room had already turned into a classroom.
“Probability,” Nick said. He ticked off his fingers. “Claude Pascal likes money. He wants more. Let us assume….”
“…always dangerous…” Able interrupted.
“For the sake of the argument,” Nick continued, after a sunny smile in Able’s direction that disarmed the sailing master.
“Let us assume, then, that he’s not a totally bad fellow and also has some feelings about his country. Maybe there is someone higher up instructing him to do us damage on the wharf.” Nick frowned. “I wouldn’t do that, not even for money.”
“Then you, Mister Bonfort, are better than most of us,” Jean Hubert said.
“Continue the thought, Nick,” Able encouraged, after a frown at Jean, who shrugged.
“Well, he satisfies Captain Faulke’s ambition by letting some of the escapees get caught and sent back, giving the captain the credit,” Nick explained. “He also lets some of them go throug
h, the ones that are meant to do damage, and not just run away, once they are free of the hulk.”
“And which is Lieutenant Hubert?” Able asked.
“I think he just wanted to get away,” Nick said, with a charitable glance in Jean’s direction. “He’s sort of trapped in the middle.”
“Didn’t Pierre mention a gunner named Remillard?” Smitty asked.
“Bravo Smitty, he did. How much damage could such a man do? Remember, he got away,” Able said.
Smitty whistled. “This whole city is a factory for war against the French.”
Able looked around the room. With the exception of Ben, who slumbered now, he saw thoughtful expressions.
“Rats, how do we prove a hypothesis?”
“Master Able, we test it,” John Mark declared.
— Chapter Thirty-seven —
Able doubted he would ever make such a strange request of the Gunwharf Rats, assembled again in the cellar, but where could he do better? Or so he told Meri as dusk deepened and he returned home to change into black trousers and sweater.
“I told them I needed two lads expert at the art of skulking,” he told her. “Two hands went up immediately.”
“Where else but our school?” she joked.
“Where, indeed? I told them I needed two Rats for dangerous work, if, mind you, if the older couple is in the copse again and if – oh, that damnable word – the man who escaped shows up. I want them to follow the three of them. We need to know where they live. I have my suspicions.”
“Should I worry about you?”
She kept her voice light, but he knew it was a show. “No more than you would for any bit of skullduggery involving dangerous characters from our avowed enemy.” He grabbed her tight until she squeaked. “I know something about skulking, myself,” he assured her. “Jean, Walter and I will watch.”
“Can you trust him?”