Redeeming the Rogue

by Donna MacMeans

  Rafe dressed for the role of a stevedore, complete with a low cap to shade his brow. His black eye wouldn’t be out of place in this company. He pushed his shoulders forward to look like he carried the world on his back and joined the line of working stiffs shouldering the coffins slated for the Irish Rose.

  “Give me a hand here, mate,” one of the hands called to him. Rafferty complied.

  “You take the back corner; I’ve got the front. Ready?” On a signal, they both lifted the box onto their shoulders. “Heavy, ain’t it? Just my luck, I get all the fat Irish.” They carried the box to an area near the ship and placed it on top of a short stack. The stacks were tied together with a stout rope then attached to the hook of the ship’s winch to raise from the dock and lower into the hold.

  They went back for the next box marked for the Irish Rose. “Are all these going to the same place?” Rafferty asked.

  “They’re all headed for Ireland. That’s all I know. Why the Irish come all the way over here to die, just to go back to Ireland, is beyond me.” With a grunt, they hoisted another and moved it to the ship.

  Rafferty helped load the coffins for the next two hours. By the end of that time, his bruised ribs hurt enough to make his slouch one of necessity rather than disguise. They took a break. Rafferty spotted Liam, his workmate, a pint.

  “I haven’t seen you here before,” Liam said, licking the foam from his lips.

  “I was working at the Washington docks but had some trouble.” He pointed to his eye. “Heard Baltimore paid better. It’s a bigger harbor, to be sure.”

  Liam proceeded to tell him the ins and outs of the loading operations, warning him to check carefully to see that he got paid the right wages for the right hours. Rafferty nodded at the appropriate intervals, pretending to listen carefully.

  They had worked about an hour more when the foreman announced it was quitting time. Rafferty hid his cap in a niche on the harbor, then headed for the ramp to the Irish Rose.

  “You there! Where do you think you’re going?” the winch operator called.

  “I left my cap on the last load. Can’t afford to lose another. Let me check the hold and I’ll be back.”

  “Well, hurry up with you, or you’ll be spending the night with those stinking corpses.”

  Which was precisely what he intended to do. Knowing the ship as he did, it was easy to hide until the hatch was replaced, plunging the cargo hold into blackness. Anticipating such an event, Rafferty had slipped a small candle and matches in his pocket. The flickering light enabled him to locate the crowbar Briggs kept on the wall for emergencies. Securing the candle with a bit of wax, Rafferty pried the top loose on the first pine box.

  Inside he discovered another pine box, though this one had none of the open slats of its protecting crate. With difficulty, he managed to pry the top off that one as well. This all would be much easier if Phineas were about. Rafferty lifted the lid in the dark recesses of the hold.

  Sometimes it was helpful that the lighting was poor. A woman’s body, just as one might anticipate for a coffin, slipped into view. She was a woman in her forties, he guessed, her hair streaked with gray, lying so close to the top of the box that her nose would eternally press the wood. A white sheet lined the box beneath her. After offering a silent prayer for her deceased soul, Rafferty pushed down on the sheeting. He felt a hard metallic rod. Sliding the metal to the side of the box, and careful to disturb the corpse as little as possible, he pulled a Springfield rifle from the pine box. It had a wooden stock with a long metal barrel weighing about three quarter stone. No wonder the box was heavy. By sliding his fingers along the bottom of the coffin, he counted four more rifles and ammunition.

  Were they all like this? He’d have to open more crates and coffins. For that he’d need more light, as his small candle was quickly reducing to a tiny pool of wax. He had oil lamps and candles in his cabin. He’d just have to get there without being seen.

  It wasn’t difficult. A merchant ship in port didn’t require a large crew. He made his way to his cabin but then heard voices behind the door. From the sound, he guessed Eva and Barings had taken over his quarters. He couldn’t blame them, as his cabin was considerably larger than theirs, and for the time spent on the ship, there wasn’t a good reason for them not to enjoy the space. The captain’s cabin was of a similar size, but that one would be in use as well. Rafferty raided some vacant passenger cabins—there weren’t many on the Irish Rose—and took two oil lamps. Thus equipped, he headed back into the hold.

  Several hours later, he’d found more caches of rifles, revolvers, and gunpowder. Not all the coffins contained bodies, but all had weapons of some sort. The bodies must have been used to discourage the curious inspector. One would have to be fairly determined to find the weapons cache in some of the boxes.

  One thing was certain. This shipment was never going to reach its destination. His stomach turned remembering how frequently the Irish Rose had appeared on Weston’s list. How long had the Rose been involved in smuggling?

  Treason. The word floated through Rafferty’s conscious. Someone planned to make a case that he knew about the guns and the smuggling runs. This was the second part of the plot. The Fenians must be planning a huge uprising using the smuggled guns. Whether they were successful or not, the English parliament was bound to ask how the rebels got so many weapons, and the trail would inevitably come back to him. As owner of the Irish Rose, he would appear to have been aiding the enemy all along. No wonder they tried to dissuade him from investigating.

  “I guess this puts me right in the shit house,” he said, needing to hear something other than his own thoughts.

  “Rafferty? Is that you?”

  Rafferty turned around to see Captain Briggs with a pistol trained right at his back. Perhaps he’d been naïve in assuming his captain was unaware of the true nature of the cargo. Rafferty slowly raised his arms.

  “It is you!” Briggs lowered the gun. “I heard noises and came to investigate.” Rafferty lowered his arms as Briggs rushed forward to shake his hand. “So good to see you. After all that nonsense in the paper—” His eyes widened at the sight of the rifles leaning against the crates, and bags of gunpowder, stacked on the floor. “What the fu . . . festering inferno is all this?”

  Rafferty had to grin. Obviously Mrs. Summers was still teaching etiquette . . . Or was it Mrs. Briggs now?

  “You didn’t know?” Rafferty asked. “The Irish Rose has been smuggling guns to Ireland.”

  “Smuggling guns? I was delivering coffins, not guns!” Not even Eva would have been able to sound so convincing. Rafferty relaxed, thankful that his trust hadn’t been misplaced.

  “It appears you were doing both.” Rafferty stepped back so Briggs could see the efforts of Rafferty’s foraging. “I haven’t opened all the cases. This is just from about eight crates.”

  “Rafferty, my boy, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I honestly had no idea,” Briggs said. “Granted, I did think there were a lot of Irish wanting to be buried on the home soil. Made me sort of wonder where they were all going, but the freight came at a good time for us, with competition and all.”

  “Let’s go up topside and talk about what happens next.” Rafferty swiped his brow. “It’s bloody hot down here.”

  They went up to the dining saloon where Mrs. Summers sat writing a letter.

  “Jane, come see who washed in with the tide,” Briggs said.

  “Rafferty, how wonderful to see you.” Her lips curved in a wide grin. She walked over and gave him a hug. He had to admit it felt good to be among people who actually liked him for a change. “Did Arianne come with you?” She looked behind him and down the hall. Her face didn’t mask her disappointment.

  “I believe she’s packing to return to London with her brother,” Rafferty said.

  “Her brother!” Her eyes softened. “I suppose that’s my fault. When I wrote him I had no idea that the two of you planned to fabricate a marriage. I suppose that did not go ove
r well.”

  “The pretend marriage? Or her brother’s surprise appearance?” He was tempted to add the charge of treason but declined. He shook his head. “It’s a long tale, I’m afraid.”

  “We have all night,” Briggs added. “Jane, can you rustle up some food for the boy? He’s been working up an appetite. He and I have some serious business to discuss before we swap tales of matrimony, pretend and otherwise.”

  The food was good and the whiskey better. They moved to the wheelhouse to talk in private. Rafferty told him of the murders, of the false accusations and the treason charge. “So you see, this smuggling operation is the linchpin in the treason charge.”

  “What do you propose to do?”

  Rafferty glanced out the window. The sky was dark; gas lamps cast circles of a yellow light on patches of the deserted harbor. The harbor police were down there. He knew that from experience. “I’m going to turn this over to the police so they can pursue the Irish Trust and Funeral Fund. I need to send a cablegram to Lord Henderson so that I’m removed from suspicion. We’ll need to advise him as well of Lord Weston’s list of ships and sail dates. If they were carrying coffins, they were also carrying guns.”

  “This will create more fireworks than that display over the harbor last night. They do put on quite a celebration to honor their separation from England here,” Briggs observed. “I guess we won’t be leaving tomorrow as planned.”

  “Most likely the police will want to confiscate the cargo. That’s going to take a day to unload.”

  “What will they do with the bodies?”

  “The freight’s been paid,” Rafferty said. “I suppose if the police seize the weapons and leave us the coffins, we can still take them home as their loved ones intended.”

  “The Rose isn’t going anywhere tonight. The cargo holds are locked. Tomorrow, then. We’ll advise the police in the morning,” Briggs said. “What will you do? Will you be sailing with us back to England?”

  “I haven’t found Toomey yet. He’s the one who killed Lord Weston and Mary, I’m sure of it. Phineas is in New York to see if he can gather more information. I suppose I’ll join him there to hunt the bastard down. He’s unfinished business.” And the very business that drove him across the Atlantic in the first place.

  Mrs. Summers . . . er . . . Briggs interrupted, saying she’d waited long enough to hear the details of Rafferty’s experience as a British minister. Rafferty told her of their meeting with the president, Arianne’s gardening activities and her plan for a garden party, and of course, the ball. Remembering Arianne in that white dress squeezed his heart at all he’d lost.

  In return, she advised that she was indeed Mrs. Briggs, but Eva and Mr. Barings hadn’t exchanged vows as yet. She suspected they were suffering from too much confinement with each other. “Sometimes, a little distance puts the value of a relationship in perspective.”

  Unfortunately, the issue of “value” was exactly what he feared. Once Arianne had returned to England with her brother and had spent sufficient time in his company with his privileged, upper-crust friends, she was bound to regret time spent with an Irish rogue pretending to be something he was not.

  Twenty-Eight

  AS HAD BEEN PREARRANGED, BEN AND THE OTHER boys arrived at the Irish Rose in anticipation of assuming their seaman duties to cross the Atlantic one final time. A few of the boys had decided to stay in America to take advantage of the opportunities they’d discovered there. After welcoming them on board, Rafferty accompanied Ben back to the crew’s quarters to learn if Arianne and the Duke had travel plans and the vessel they were planning to take. Ben didn’t know her specific plans, but he did say that Arianne had not been her usual cheerful self since the night of the ball. That made two of them, Rafferty thought.

  Rafferty had just returned to the top deck in search of Briggs when he saw a stranger speaking to the captain. The Irish Rose’s departure and destination had been posted in the transportation offices. Based on Briggs’s frown and shaking head, Rafferty assumed the stranger was looking for cheap passage. Due to the hazardous nature of the last crossing, Briggs had agreed to make this return trip with the crew only, and Eva and Mr. Barings, of course. Rafferty, as the owner, thought to add his voice to the captain’s denial when the stranger pulled an English Bulldog revolver from his pocket, the same gun used to shoot President Garfield.

  Rafferty stepped behind cover. His own revolver would be useless at this distance, and he didn’t want to start a gun battle with so many of the crew on board. The man indicated that Briggs was to climb to the wheelhouse. As the stranger turned to follow behind him, Rafferty saw his face. Evans.

  Evans was tied to the Fenians and Guiteau, thus a killer and not to be underestimated. Rafferty needed appropriate weapons, and he knew just the place to find them. He slipped down the crew’s stairway to make his way to the cargo hold. After lighting one of the oil lamps, Rafferty loaded ammunition into one of the rifles, stuck an unloaded revolver in the waistband of his trousers, and grabbed a box of ammunition for each. A sequence of bells signaled preparations for departure.

  Shovels scraped in the coal bins as the trimmers filled their wheelbarrows and the stokers fired up the boilers. Rapid taps of feet rang on the steps as the boys assigned to cast the mooring ropes traveled topside. Evans was stealing the boat, or more likely—Rafferty gazed at the grand cache of weapons at his disposal—stealing the cargo.

  If the cargo reached its destination, Rafferty was quite certain he would be found guilty of treason, to say nothing of being partially responsible for the deaths to come in a violent uprising staged in the name of Irish independence. If it came down to it, he would rather see the cache of guns rust away on the ocean floor than surrender them to the Fenians. Of course, if the cargo was to land on the ocean floor, the Irish Rose would have to go with it.

  The ship groaned with the effort of turning the propeller through resistant water. The resulting vibrations shook the rifles leaning against the crates to the floor. The ship was leaving its berth, but not without audible complaint. She was an old girl, well past her prime, but if she had to be sacrificed, well . . . Rafferty hoped he’d survive to remember her fondly.

  He picked up a keg of gunpowder and popped the lid. He laid a trail of black powder from the wooden crates to the door of the cargo hold and beyond to the bottom of the steps that led to the higher levels of the ship. Using the oil from the two lamps he’d left in the hold, he liberally soaked the wood of the crate at one end of the powder path and the canvas floor covering at the other. It was a deadly combination, especially given the proximity of the boiler room.

  If he could subdue Evans and manage to get the ship back to port, he could forgo setting her ablaze, but if not—this was an option. Either way, he needed to get everyone off the Irish Rose before they left the Chesapeake Bay and entered the Atlantic. After that, odds of surviving even in a lifeboat would drop drastically.

  With rifle in hand, he headed toward the wheelhouse. Ben spotted him, his eyes wide at the sight of the rifle. “Get everyone in a lifeboat,” Rafferty snarled.

  Ben began to ask a question. Rafferty cut him off. “Don’t ask questions. Just do as I say. Use the stern lifeboats.” Ben took off down the passageway. “And don’t forget the two in my cabin,” Rafferty called after him.

  There’d be little protection in the wheelhouse. Windows wrapped around the upper portion of the walls so the captain could have a clear view of the surrounding waters. One gained access through use of either an outside flight of steps, or one on the interior that connected to a passageway outside of the captain’s quarters. Mrs. Briggs would be there, which meant Mrs. Briggs was in harm’s way.

  Rafferty left the deck and headed for the captain’s quarters. He opened the cabin door to a large, comfortable sitting room.

  “Rafferty!” Mrs. Briggs dropped her sewing in her lap. “What are you—?”

  Rafferty put his finger to his lips, urging her to be quiet. He drew close to
her. “Find a life jacket and go to the stern,” he murmured.

  “But what of Charles?”

  “I’ll send him in a moment, now go!”

  Mrs. Briggs disappeared down the passageway. The door that separated this section from the more public rooms clicked behind her. Good. One less to worry about. He took a moment to load his revolver, then slipped it in his back waistband. Leading with the point of his rifle, he warily headed into the passageway that led to the wheelhouse.

  As soon as he opened the door, bullets rained down the passageway. Rafferty pulled back into the captain’s quarters.

  “Mr. Rafferty,” a familiar voice called. “What good fortune to have you aboard. I thought you’d still be in a jail cell.”

  “Diplomatic immunity, Evans, or had you forgotten?” Rafferty scanned the room, looking for another way out. The sitting room had an outside door that led to small deck. If he remembered correctly, the deck tied to the outside steps that led up to the wheelhouse.

  “Is your pretty little wife with you? Lady Arianne? A passionate little number, that piece of skirt. I heard the two of you. The whole bloody house did.”

  He was trying to bait him to come out into the passageway. If he kept on about Arianne, it might work.

  “Briggs, are you all right?” Rafferty called, trying the outside door. It hadn’t been used for years. Briggs always complained that it made his quarters cold and was unnecessary. Well, it was necessary now. It resisted his first tug, holding its seal.

  “So far,” Briggs replied. “Don’t let Jane come up.”

  He tried again. This time the door opened, allowing him to step out on the deck. The Irish Rose had cleared the harbor and was heading for the middle of the bay. Rafferty crept to the end of the deck, then climbed the exterior stairs. He crouched low to stay out of sight.

  He chanced a look through the windows. Evans still watched the passageway. Briggs stood at the wheel, guiding the ship into deeper water. He spotted Rafferty and motioned for him to stay down.