He ducked back behind his pillar when Redmond and his companions got up and moved past a group of people to the starboard rail and looked ahead of the boat. They are looking for something, decided Watkins, snatching the odd glance. The men would not have noticed him, though, so intent were they on searching and pointing to the water ahead of the boat.
Standing up against the pillar, Watkins followed their gaze, but all he could see was a small bay with many sailing boats and the dominant white vessel, nothing else...Sailing boats! That’s it! Redmond and his cronies were going to escape by boat.
Watkins closed his eyes again, this time seeing the governor pinning a medal to his chest. “This medal is for bravery and gallantry of the highest order,” said the governor, as the assembly beamed at Watkins, his chest puffed out before him. “You have performed a great service to the colony, sir, and rest assured your deeds will be relayed to the highest authorities in London.” Watkins bowed, modest. “T’was nothing, your honour. Any citizen would have done the same.” His words, however, were drowned out by a storm of applause.
Watkins opened his eyes. Redmond and his men had become excited and were pointing over the side. Evidently, they had selected a sail to steal. The surgeon resolved never to damn his fortune again. He had been handed a glorious opportunity.
BLANEY
Christopher Blaney did not see Karen come up beside him. It was her perfume, a fragrance that wrapped itself around him and made him feel light headed. It was a perfume unlike any he had ever experienced. Watching from the rail he saw Kite and Crowley arrive safely at the jetty and then he turned. Karen was standing close, looking like a dream. The breeze gently tousled her hair, her face was flushed and her slightly parted lips were newly painted a bright red. Blaney swallowed.
“Come on,” said Karen, “let’s go below and grab some food. Once your mates are aboard there’ll be nothing left.”
She reached out and took Blaney’s hand and he followed meekly. Things were happening in his head, and the rest of his body, over which he had no control. It was as though he had been given a potion. His legs were heavy and his chest was tight and he knew Karen was responsible. She was a Siren and he was under her spell.
The galley was situated near the stern, behind the lounge, a large room full of shining metal cupboards and shelves. There were too many strange implements scattered around the room for Blaney to take in. He accepted them without comment; it was much easier than trying to understand.
“Sandwiches OK?” asked Karen.
“Yes,” said Blaney, hoping he looked like he knew what she meant.
Karen began gathering ingredients and piled them on thick slices of bread while Blaney tried to make sense of what was happening. Kite had seen he was attracted to Karen, it was that obvious. But Blaney had too many things to worry him: the crew, the Captain’s health, reaching the Fortune. Karen should be merely a passing fancy. Resourceful, yes. Daring, certainly. Beautiful, absolutely. She was everything a woman should be, or in his own time, shouldn’t be. He tried to turn away, shut her from his mind, but it was no good. He was compelled to watch her as she worked. He was hungry. But not for food.
Karen brought two plates to the bench where he leaned. “Sit,” she said, doing so herself. Blaney sat on a luxuriant stool on one side of the bench and shifted uncomfortably. He had taken a small, worn book from Decker’s cabin, The Goldfields of New South Wales, and placed it in his back pocket. He felt a little guilty, but it was such a small book and for reasons he did not understand, could not resist the impulse.
Karen sat opposite. He bit into his ‘sandwich’. It was delicious, though half the contents of tomato, lettuce and ham slopped out onto his plate. Karen smiled and ate and watched him. Forces were building up inside Blaney as he gazed back at Karen. She looked at him boldly, chewing her food slowly. “What’s that look?” she asked. Was she teasing him?
Blaney had a strange sensation of liberation. This was no debutante’s ball where every word had a hidden meaning and every mistake led to acute embarrassment. It didn’t matter what he said now. He could be honest. With a woman!
“What look?” he said, experiencing a liberating confidence.
Karen reassessed him, sensing the change. ‘It’s hard to describe. It’s a strong…vulnerable kind of look,” she laughed, shrugging her shoulders. “I haven’t seen that look before.”
I have never looked at anyone, thought Blaney, the way I am looking at you. “I am studying you,” he said, “I want to remember everything about you.” He had longed to speak like this, but never dared. Yet now he found a release. “Your eyes, your mouth, your beautiful nose, your smile, your voice.”
Karen placed the remains of her sandwich carefully on her plate. He saw she was taken by surprise. The balance between them had shifted perceptively. Blaney stared at her, challenging her.
“Well,” said Karen, responding to the challenge as he instinctively knew she would, “you had better take a good look then.” She tossed her head back and posed, left profile, then right, and pulled ridiculous faces, puckering her lips.
My God! She’s magnificent, thought Blaney. The restraint in which he usually held himself was nowhere within reach. He resolved it would never return. Getting up from his chair, he walked around the bench and pulled Karen from her seat, bringing her face up to his lips. He kissed her forehead, her eyes, her nose, her cheeks. Then her lips. Blaney felt everything. His entire body tingled. He could hear his own heartbeat, feel her entire body crushed against his. He squeezed Karen to him until neither of them could breathe.
She pulled back for a breath and looked at him. Her eyes were hooded and dark, her breathing shallow. Then she launched herself at him and they kissed again, melting together with a strength Blaney would never have believed possible. He was lost and found in the same instant.
How long they stood like this, Blaney would never know. He drifted through a heavenly cloud until a voice floated to him.
“Ahoy!”
The sound irritated his ears like a mosquito. He tried to ignore it, but the spell was broken.
“Ahoy!” The voice belonged to Marcus Briggs, the Bosun.
Blaney released Karen from his arms and moved to the open porthole. Briggs, Kite and eight crewmen were approaching on the small chugging boat. “Ahoy!” replied Blaney, his voice hoarse. He turned to Karen. “Duty calls, I’m afraid,” he said. He kissed her again briefly before going on deck. Karen merely stared back at him.
FORREST
Captain Charles Forrest wrinkled his nose as he stood on the poop deck of His Majesty’s Ship Fortune. The unpleasant, burning aroma had been a constant irritation since the vessel emerged from the storm six hours earlier. Had the smell been the only uncommon occurrence, Forrest would have been far less concerned. However, a large number of enormous vessels had been seen on the horizon, and, far more disturbing, a constant stream of flying objects had been seen in the sky, roaring with enough force to rattle the decks. Forrest strained to control his own panic and control the crew.
And now the coastline, undoubtedly New South Wales according to his charts, was impossibly filled with thousands of buildings. Something was terribly wrong. His face betrayed no emotion, yet Port Jackson heads, now clearly visible, sent a shiver of fear through his body. To Forrest they were the jaws of a great beast waiting to swallow the ship. On went the Fortune toward them, caught between the harbour entrance and the storm that stalked silently in their wake.
A shadow fell across the Captain, a familiar and annoying feature of this voyage. Forrest stood five feet one inch in his buckled shoes, and only the youngest midshipman aboard was shorter. And, at the boy’s present rate of growth, he would overtake Forrest before the end of the voyage. Forrest wondered what he had done to so offend the Admiralty that they should supply him with a First Lieutenant who stood six foot three.
This trip with Lieutenant Piper threatened to put Forrest’s neck permanently out of joint. Still, he had to make
the effort to speak to the man. “What do you make of it, Mr Piper?” he asked, nodding to the shoreline.
“I am sure your experience would lead you to a more accurate explanation than anything I could offer, sir,” replied Piper.
You sycophantic swine! thought Forrest, wishing he could swap the officer for someone with a little initiative. And a little less height. Perhaps someone like Kit Blaney. Now there was a first officer. Brave, resourceful, only a little above average height. Dead now, alas, thought Forrest with regret. Gone with the Marlin, crushed at the bottom of the whirlpool. How on earth the Fortune escaped from the vortex was a question Forrest would never be able to answer. The world had turned inside out.
He thought desperately for a cutting remark with which to bring Piper down to size, but, as usual, his wit failed him when most needed. Not that such a remark would have had any effect on the gangly Lieutenant. Piper was a boot-licker from long ago, with a hide as thick as his body was long.
A lookout interrupted his musings. “Boat away t’ the port bow!”
All eyes turned seaward, but Forrest hurried to the port side from his position in the middle of the deck. Unlike Piper, he couldn’t even see the water from that position. “My glass,” he demanded.
A telescope was quickly pressed into his hand by Piper. “Give me some room,” he said testily. The damned Lieutenant made him feel uneasy. Pressing the glass to his right eye, he immediately saw the boat. It was tiny, had no sail and moved rapidly toward the Fortune, all the while expelling tiny clouds of blue vapour. A good dozen cable lengths away, Forrest attempted to make sense of what his eye was telling him.
As the boat came closer, the Captain discerned there was only one man aboard, though he estimated the craft could hold six or eight comfortably. The figure was small in stature and sat in the stern of the boat, which carried no oars. Forrest turned to Piper and was pleased to see his mouth was open in amazement. The Captain successfully resisted the urge to ask the man for his opinion.
Ever nearer came the boat and as it did, Forrest heard a low rumbling noise, not dissimilar to the flying objects, but of a higher pitch. Deuced strange! There were some frightened murmurings from the crew, but Forrest was more curious than afraid. It was such a little boat. “Prepare to receive a visitor,” he called to the Bosun, “and get those women below. A dozen female convicts were exercising on deck. Give ’em something to do, thought Forrest. Let the ordinary take away the extraordinary.
The man in the boat, much to Forrest’s surprise, turned out to be a mere boy. He was grinning from ear to ear and the wind whipped his hair into a tangled mass. He looks familiar, decided Forrest. As the lad’s face became clearer, Forrest took the glass from his eye. “Good God Almighty!” he cried. It was the young midshipman from the Marlin! Telvers? Travers? Something like that. The Marlin had survived! Forrest was filled with so much joy, tears formed in his eyes. He rapidly brought the telescope back up in case anyone, Piper in particular, should see.
The boat came at the Fortune in a rush, the buzzing noise increasing, and a look of alarm appeared on the boy’s face. He couldn’t stop, Forrest realised. The lad leaned on his tiller and the boat spun to miss the bow by inches. Everyone on deck ran to the starboard side, rocking the ship in the water. Bringing the boat about, the boy launched it again at the Fortune. This time when he took last minute evasive action, the boy leapt from the boat into the sea. His craft sped away toward the coast, giving welcome relief from the irritating sound.
“Throw him a line, damn you!” he yelled at the seamen lining the rail, who were too stunned to move. Forrest’s burning curiosity would not be satisfied by a drowned midshipman.
Within seconds, the lad was pulled from the water and over the side. Someone thought to throw a blanket about his shoulders and the shivering boy was brought up to the Captain.
“Well, boy, speak up,” he commanded. Forrest found himself in high good humour.
“Midshipman Thomas Travis of the Marlin, sir.”
A gasp rose from the men. They were less likely to recognise Travis and, like Forrest, had been convinced the Marlin went down. “Then your ship survived the storm, Mr Travis?”
“Yes, sir,” grinned Travis. But his expression soon became serious and Forrest prepared himself for bad news. “The Marlin was destroyed early this morning, sir, during a convict revolt.” He waited for the noisy reaction to die down.
“Silence!” barked Forrest.
“Many of the crew and the convicts were killed. Captain Cross, Lieutenants Blaney and Kite and about fifty of the men were still alive when last I saw them, sir.”
Forrest was finding it hard to take in so much news. Convict revolt? Killing? “When did you last see them, Mr Travis?”
“Early this morning, sir.” Travis had evidently prepared a speech for this moment, he was so composed. “We came ashore and were confronted by uniformed troopers. Mr Blaney asked me to find you, sir, and warn you.”
“Of what, Mr Travis?”
Travis looked at the faces crowding around him. “The town is like nothing I have ever seen. Full of giant buildings and strange carriages that roar about like my boat. Mr Blaney said you should not come through the heads, sir, it is not safe. If he is alive he will lead the men to you.”
Forrest thought for a moment. “Mr Oaks!”
A young midshipman pushed through the sailors. “Sir?”
“Take Mr Travis below, feed him and give him a set of your clothes.” The boy immediately obeyed, though Forrest noted the brief look of resentment that crossed his face. “Back to your duties, men,” he ordered. “Mr Piper?”
“Sir?” came a voice from above.
Forrest did not bother to look up. “Heave to and drop anchor.”
“But sir,” protested Piper, “if Captain Cross is in peril, our duty is surely to go to his aid.”
Forrest raised his eyebrows, and then his line of vision. “Good heavens, Mr Piper! I was beginning to doubt you held an opinion on anything. I commend you. However, Lieutenant Blaney is a man I trust completely.” He allowed the implication to hang for a few seconds, until he was sure it registered with Piper. “If his recommendation is that we wait, then wait we shall.” Forrest fixed his Lieutenant with a frosty stare. “Now, go about your business.”
Piper drew himself up to his full height. “Yes, sir. Please excuse my ill-advised outburst.”
“Oh, do go away, Mr Piper!” Forest turned on his heel and walked to the stairs. He would hear a more expanded version of Travis’s story, though on his way he wondered if he really wanted to. His heart beat faster than it did in battle.
KAREN
How many men have I kissed? wondered Karen. She sat on the wheelhouse stairs watching Blaney help his men aboard the cruiser. Ten? Fifty? Who knows? Yet all of them were meaningless compared to being kissed by Blaney the lunatic. A kiss so deep, so delicious and so sensual she experienced feelings she would have laughed at in a romance novel. Making love with this man could hardly be more intimate. Karen shuddered delightfully at the thought.
Another, darker, thought was beginning to filter through, however. Chris and his men were in great danger. They were hell bent on getting to this mythical Fortune supposedly waiting off the heads, and would not give up without a fight. They could all be killed. The carnage earlier in the day certainly set a precedent. The best she could hope for was to persuade them to give up once their futile search for the Fortune was over.
Blaney ushered the eight men down the stairs. They looked incongruous, these weather-hardened, rugged men, in the Newshound crew uniform of white plimsoles, white shorts and trendy black and white striped t-shirts. Bosun Briggs took the boat back to shore alone and Kite walked across the deck to Karen.
“Batch number one stowed below!” he said happily.
Karen smiled at him. “Where’s the Captain?”
“He insisted on being the last man aboard,” Kite answered. He looked at her closely. “Is something wrong?”
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It must be obvious, thought Karen. She studied Kite, liking his fresh, open face and his look of concern. “Yes, Henry, there is,” she said, deciding to confide in the young Lieutenant. “I’m scared shitless about what’s going to happen. I mean, how far are you prepared to take this...this...quest!”
Kite was taken back by her language for a moment. “Our duty is to rendezvous with the Fortune.”
“And if you can’t find it?”
Kite did not reply.
Karen persisted. “What if someone tries to stop you?”
“Then we fight.” Kite was on more comfortable ground. “We will not surrender, if that is where you are leading.”
“Even if it meant you would die?”
He did not hesitate. “Yes, of course. We have our duty.”
Karen was alarmed, yet not surprised. Chris Blaney would have answered the same way. She felt her anger suddenly rise. “That’s bullshit!” she exclaimed. “What’s the matter with you people? You’re all fucking martyrs! You’re willing to die just to reach some fucking ship that might not even exist! And what then? The authorities have boats a hundred times as powerful as this one. They’re not going to say, ‘well done, chaps! Off you go!’”
Kite was distinctly uncomfortable under this barrage, but Karen felt better. They were joined by Blaney. He had been a little shy since the kiss, but he could hardly keep a grin from his face. “The crew like their new quarters, Henry.”
“Do they?” said Kite, with some relief. “I will have to see for myself.” He hurried away below decks at indecent speed.
“What is wrong with Henry?” asked Blaney, puzzled by his colleague’s behaviour.
Karen had settled down again. Why couldn’t you have been someone else, she thought. I can’t bear to think of anything happening to you. “I told him in no uncertain terms what I thought of ‘duty’.”
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