Blackwell's Homecoming (Blackwell's Adventures Book 3)

by V. E. Ulett

  Captain Blackwell bowed and moved off. Narhilla gave young Mr. Miller a hard stare as he passed him.

  In the twilight Captain Blackwell gazed on the tumbled down ruin of the cottage Mercedes so liked she’d wished to stay there alone, without him. He turned searchingly round, and heard the dulcet sounds of seamen cursing close by.

  The difficulty for Aloka and McMurtry in helping unearth people trapped beneath the ruins of their dwellings, was not to crush them in the process. The little dog was a great hand in this matter, for he leapt down into the crevices and barked like a fiend if there was danger to the one trapped. McMurtry and Aloka were already calling him Hero.

  Captain Blackwell found them trying to free a young couple who, lying late, had been trapped in their bedchamber. He gave Aloka his hand.

  “How do you do, Father?”

  “I should be better if I knew where Mercedes and Emma are, and how they do?”

  “They are at the church with the padre, tending the wounded, sir.”

  It was very quiet, no end of day bustle in the deserted neighborhood, no sounds of birds settling in for the night. A tremor suddenly struck, and for a moment even the seamen had difficulty keeping their legs. There were screams from beneath the heap of rubble next to them. In the silence that followed Aloka gave Captain Blackwell the news of Kapihe’s death.

  “Mr. Blackwell, Narhilla, Barnes, come with me,” Captain Blackwell said, after the biggest after shock yet had subsided. “McMurtry, you will continue here until these people are safely out, then proceed to Albion. Desire Captain Bowles to send a boat ashore tomorrow noon.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” they said all round.

  Aloka was a tired, bedraggled, much begrimed sight. He was limping, and in Captain Blackwell’s opinion not much improved by his shore excursions. He was almost foundered like the two little rangy ponies belonging to Don Pedro. Reaching the Iglesia Matriz in the dark, Captain Blackwell learned Mercedes and Emma were caring for a detachment of wounded Spanish prisoners a short distance out of town.

  “Listen, now, sweetheart,” Captain Blackwell told Mercedes, when at last he found her among the wounded. “We brought a tent and blankets. You do what you have to do, and then come lie down. You had best send Emma straight away. I don’t know what she and Aloka got up to, but he is fairly dropping with fatigue.”

  Captain Blackwell had been angry that she should place herself in the middle of two armies. Yet he knew he could not dissuade Mercedes when she took certain notions in her head, so he’d decided he must just be grateful she and Emma had escaped harm in the terrible earthquake.

  In the early hours of the morning Mercedes left Don Ignacio de Ávala and the other wounded men. Gazing up at the glory of stars overhead, she wondered if Edward was studying the firmament at that moment in England, peering through one of Doctor Herschel’s massive telescopes.

  Outside Captain Blackwell’s tent, Barnes was on watch duty. He knuckled his forehead to her, and whispered, “Watch and watch, Missus. Captain took the first one.” He raised the tent flap for her.

  Mercedes moved over to where Blackwell lay, snoring gently. He no longer emitted those raucous noises he’d done when they’d first met. A stint as a prisoner in the Sandwich Islands had cured him. The old surgeon of his then command had remarked that Captain Blackwell was the only man to have his health improved, rather than ruined, by a prolonged captivity.

  She took off her blouse, corset, and boots with relief, and prepared to lie down beside Blackwell in skirt, stockings and shift. At the other end of the small shelter, Emma and Aloka were curled together like cats. The sight pleased Mercedes somehow, and made her smile. She lay down thinking of Edward, longing for her family to be whole and all together again.

  Mercedes was on the verge of sleep when Emma suddenly shrieked and sat up. Aloka was immediately there beside her, she turned into his arms. Both of them looked in their direction. Mercedes feigned to be asleep. Blackwell helped her at that moment by heaving a deep sigh and throwing his arm over her.

  Jolted out of the sleepiness that had been upon her moments before, Mercedes watched them covertly. Aloka coaxed Emma to lie down beside him. She heard Emma begin to weep, and Aloka making soothing noises. Mercedes’ own heart hammered for a time, wondering what could have put that note of grief into Emma’s sobs. Her daughter rarely shed a tear.

  She could not make out what was said between them, which was all the better. Mercedes feared it might be an intimate matter that she’d no business to discover. At least she did not have to worry Blackwell would wake, he would sleep on until the changing of the watch, or some emergency arose. Mercedes went to sleep to Aloka’s low pitched voice, like a lullaby, in spite of her apprehensions and the heaviness of her heart.

  Near the end of the morning watch, past six o’clock in the morning, Mercedes awoke. She was tired still and the sadness of the last few days weighed on her. The reason she’d come to attend the Spanish prisoners had more to do with belief than any sound logic. Mercedes had lived among seamen the greater part of her adult life, and they were a superstitious race of men. She was aiding the prisoners so that one day someone would do the same by one of her military men. Hers was a doctrine of kindness and tolerance, and Mercedes hoped she would be helped in turn, in her dying time.

  She could sleep no longer with these thoughts in her head, in spite of her fatigue. Mercedes dressed, while her companions slept on. Outside she told Narhilla she would check on the wounded, and then return directly. She’d only gone a short ways when she heard steps pursuing her.

  “Ma’am! Dear ma’am, may I have a word?”

  Aloka’s hair was uncombed, sticking up in all directions. Against his dark skin, darker circles were visible under his eyes. Aloka’s face was bruised too as though he’d been in a fight, and he looked so like Blackwell that Mercedes’ heart went out to him, and she said something she had not meant to.

  “Will you tell me what troubles Emma she should cry so?”

  “I will. I knew you could not sleep through her crying. Mothers are not made so. You are not, at least.”

  Mercedes took the arm he offered, and squeezed it. They set off toward the river, away from the rest of the company.

  “I...I thought at first you might have been unkind to her,” Mercedes said. “That something had gone wrong between you. But I cannot continue to think it, not with the way she clung to you last night.”

  “Never, never in life would I hurt her, if I could help it. But I could not protect her in everything. She killed a man, and now her soul aches.” Aloka paused a moment, as Mercedes gasped. “Kuanoa. He followed and attacked us. He would have strangled me but that Emma stabbed him. I am sorry, my dear ma’am, it was wretched, and ugly.”

  It cost Mercedes a great deal not to break down sobbing for her girl, which would do no one any good.

  “I told her we could not speak of it, yet I’m afraid that will hurt her too. I could not tell Father. Imagine the trouble it would throw him into in his new capacity.”

  “My dear, with all my heart I am so sorry,” she finally said. “I never imagined...if I ever had to do such a thing...” She paused and sighed. “I will comfort her if I can, but I am afraid I shall not be much use. You, or James, is better equipped than I.”

  Mercedes thought of Blackwell telling her once, she was ill suited for knocking other men on the head.

  “I want very much to claim a right to give her all my protection,” Aloka said. “To be with her when she wakes frightened. Do you think one of these Catholic priests would marry us, ma’am?”

  Mercedes was a little shocked, in spite of the fact she had no religion outside of the Anglican church, and that because of Captain Blackwell. Her life had been far from conventional. She felt guilty besides. In the first place for having neglected the religious education of the young man standing before her. Secondly, because she too wished Aloka and Emma should be married before they reached the Sandwich Islands. No one knew the allure
of those islands and their beautiful women better than she, and it would be best if Aloka were tied to Emma in a way that was meaningful to him.

  “The good padres will not marry you without you are Catholic. You would have to convert. I could not recommend that, unless you were sincere.” Aloka looked so downcast, she said, “Why do you not ask Captain Verson? A ship’s captain is empowered to perform the marriage service.”

  Aloka now looked shocked, clearly it was an idea he had not considered, and he opened his mouth several times to speak and shut it again. What he brought out at last reminded Mercedes how young he was.

  “Do you think he would do it when Father don’t approve?”

  “Even I don’t know your father’s feelings, my dear. I do know Jack Verson is an honest, honorable, generous man. You can but ask him, you and Emma together, I should think.”

  “Oh, dear ma’am.”

  He was stepping forward to embrace her when they heard a muffled scream that startled them both. Aloka and Mercedes ran back to the tent, where they found Narhilla standing before it, white faced.

  “No one inside except His Honor and the young Miss, sir,” Narhilla said, knuckling his forehead.

  He held open the canvas door. Mercedes went before Aloka. Inside she found Blackwell with a sword clutched in one hand, and Emma held to his chest with the other. He turned a rather frightened, inquiring gaze on her. Mercedes turned about suddenly, and urged Aloka back through the entrance.

  “Tell him, my love,” Aloka said in Hawaiian, before he would be pushed all the way out.

  Aloka guided the Chilean soldiers and their Spanish prisoners to the ford up river that he and Emma had used the day previous. The wagon carrying the wounded could here lumber safely across the two streams.

  Back in Valparaiso McMurtry and the little curl tailed dog met them, and immediately took them along to the Hawaiians’ camp outside their cottage. When all the rubble was cleared away, Kapihe had been found lying upon the estrada. Sluggish from his recent operation, he had not moved fast enough when the quake started. The chimney had fallen in and crushed the fine old admiral.

  “Hero could not save him,” McMurtry had confided to Narhilla. “He was already gone, the poor old savage.”

  “Which makes our Black Savage the Younger Admiral of Hawaii, I collect,” Narhilla replied in the same hushed tone.

  There was no talk of succession or promotion in the following days. When Kuanoa’s body was not discovered, his already grieved companions assumed he’d died outside the environs of the town. There was also no further word of a command in the Chilean Navy for Aloka. Lord Cochrane did send to renew his request for Albion and the Blonde to take on refugees.

  Captain Blackwell and Captain Verson did their part both afloat and on shore in humanitarian aid for the people of Valparaiso. But Captain Verson could not help but be of the opinion his first duty was to his mission, to see the Hawaiians safely back to their islands. The ship bore the bodies of their beloved sovereigns, and their own numbers were dwindling sadly. Neither captain took the least notice of Lord Cochrane’s displeasure the morning they set their allotted numbers of refugees—British shop-keepers and their clerks for the most part—ashore in preparation of sailing.

  Emma was made a sincere offer of a berth aboard Albion, Captain Blackwell fearing she might not care for the close proximity of the Hawaiians. He had something of an understanding with her now, the girl who’d always been such a cipher to him. Captain Blackwell had been able to comfort her for the first time in his life. She’d inquired how many days sail to the Galapagos Islands, where the captains meant to wood and water.

  “A week, seven days, according to weather, I should think,” Captain Blackwell said.

  “Why then, Papa, I will stay where I am. It will be the least upset to everyone. I should not like the King’s people, nor Captain Verson, to feel I am slighting them.” She gave him a weak smile. “I am sensible of your goodness, and I thank you, but I can almost go without sleep for a week. In the Galapagos, if I cannot bear it I shall come aboard Albion.”

  “You always were a gentleman-like creature. Not unlike your Mama.”

  Ten

  Early in the morning Charles Island was sighted, the southernmost of the Galapagos. On the decks of both ships, as they passed by under easy sail, the people gazed at Charles Island’s rocky landscape, roughly three miles long and a thousand feet high, covered in prickly pear cactus. Albion and Blonde sailed on, past Gardiner Island and a singular rock formation through the middle of which a natural arch had formed. The two captains wished to come to anchor in Banks’s Cove, the snug harbor of Albemarle Island, before nightfall. They might return to Charles or one of the other islands in the next days for wood.

  Hood and Chatham islands were some distance away to leeward. Mangrove trees grew at the water’s edge on parts of Albemarle Island. In others the shore was rocky, with fields of black volcanic rock. They observed black and brown sea-iguanas in abundance.

  “Ugly devils,” commented many of the seamen and officers aloud.

  “I don’t think so. They look like nothing so much as pint-sized dragons.”

  Emma said this in English and her companion, Li‘liah, gave her a blank stare. To explain the mythical beast to the Polynesian lady was too much to consider at the moment. Emma thought how Edward would have delighted in the creatures.

  “Those land lizards, I like them much, ” she said in Hawaiian.

  Li‘liah gave her an indulgent smile. Aloka could not be with them, he was the officer of the watch at the moment, and very active about the deck. She and Li‘liah were walking on the forecastle, where Aloka came to speak to the old experienced quartermaster at the conn from time to time. Emma felt an affectionate pride in his professionalism and competence. Mercedes had once told her the sight of Captain Blackwell upon his quarterdeck always made her heart glow.

  Emma was thinking about the calmer hours ahead when they would be anchored at Albemarle Island, the ship’s business of provisioning going forward, and of requesting a private meeting of Captain Verson. They had waited until now in order to put distance between themselves and Chile, and so they should not appear importunate—that was what Emma and Aloka hoped—in their request to Captain Verson to marry them. She did not see how anyone could refuse Aloka, who was such a man of parts and good qualities.

  The multitude of sea lions swimming about those waters looked into their faces with great, shining, and slightly astonished eyes. They would not flee when a firearm was leveled at them. The birds were so unafraid of man and his machines, they landed all over the rigging and spars. Li‘liah was delighted when two tiny creatures alighted on her feet.

  She laughed heartily, and leaning over to look more closely at the small finches, the upper part of her gown fell away. The thermometer stood at a warm eighty-five degrees, so Li‘liah didn’t bother to pull the gown up when she straightened. She was content to have her lower half only shielded in the way of her home islands. The seamen working close by immediately jerked their gazes away. Even Aloka flushed and looked conscious when he happened to glance in the ladies’ direction.

  Emma didn’t mind the sight of Li‘liah’s naked bosom, having seen that and more living in such close proximity. She even felt some fraction of the men’s admiration for Li‘liah’s well-formed and firm breasts, arms and shoulders. But having been brought up in England, Emma was also conscious of the tension of the men round her. They were unused to such provocations in their ordered wooden world. Though she hated to quit the deck and all the fine sights, as soon as she decently could Emma challenged Li‘liah to a game of kōnane in the great cabin. Emma knew Li‘liah could not resist trouncing her once more in the Hawaiian’s favorite pastime.

  The men on deck, Aloka among them, blessed Emma for her merciful spirit and great good sense.

  The ships had not been able to get into Bank’s Cove before nightfall. The wind died and they were becalmed between Albemarle and Narborough Isla
nds. Toward the end of the middle watch a light breeze came up when third lieutenant Mr. Verson had the deck. His vigilance lapsed in starting the lead, he might even have dozed at his station. When he did order the lead started, the Blonde was in eight fathom water, the next cast found her in six fathoms. Before the lead could be cast again they struck.

  Captain Verson ran up to the quarterdeck in his nightshirt, with a sword buckled round his hips. The Blonde had struck a shoal and stuck fast. Captain Verson roared orders that caused sail to be taken in, and the boats hoisted out to take soundings round the ship.

  “By the gods, Miss,” Boki said, bracing himself in the doorway separating the great cabin from the coach. “What is all the hallooing about?”

  Boki was a good looking sturdy man of a little less than thirty years, with the Hawaiians’ generous lips and wide spaced dark eyes. He and Li‘liah, and the others in the King’s suite looked to Emma as an authority on seagoing affairs.

  “I believe we struck something, by the way we were brought up. Do not be distressed, we will be sent for if there is the least—”

  “Could you not ask?” Li‘liah cried. “Send to Aloka!”

  Emma flushed. “I cannot, dear ma’am, indeed I cannot.” Her resolve weakened before further entreaties, until at last she cried out, “They have their hands full, trying to save the lot of us!”

  This did not make the Hawaiians more comfortable, and Emma was relieved a short while later when Aloka knocked at her door and walked in. Boki and Li‘liah and a half dozen of their companions were crowded into the coach at Emma’s invitation.

  “Ah, I am happy to find you all together. Captain Verson sends his compliments, and we are just getting out the boats to try to heave her off.” Aloka was standing with his hat under one arm, his free hand clutching a timber overhead. “Once the stream anchor is carried out, we shall strike topmasts and yards, and carry out the two bower anchors. It may be necessary to lighten ship, if we cannot get her off.”