by Ted Bell
She arrived in the kitchen with mischief on her mind.
Her parents were seated at the banquette in the bay window that overlooked the gardens and blue sea beyond. Mum was having her shredded wheat, blueberries, and Prince of Wales tea, and Father his steaming Irish oatmeal. Both had their noses buried deep in the newspapers, reading about the creepy old Nazis and the invasion and bombing of their islands.
She slid into her seat at the table, thinking she had a little bomb of her own to drop this sunny morning.
“Morning, Father,” she said, cheerfully. “Good morning, Mummy.”
“Morning, dear,” they both said, not looking up from their newspapers. She waited as long as ever she could, and then she spoke.
“Nick not down for breakfast yet?” she asked, the very picture of innocence.
Both nodded their heads no.
“Hmm,” she said, “that’s interesting.”
No comment.
“Are you done with that first section, darling?” her mother asked her father.
“Here you are, darling,” he said, handing the paper across the table to her. They called each other that word so much, she’d begun to think of them as “The Darlings.”
“Things aren’t looking good on Guernsey, as you’ll see.”
“Awful. Just awful, isn’t it, darling?” her mum said, folding the paper. “Abandoned to our fate, I suppose. We’ll just have to make the best of it.”
Kate put her fist to her mouth and made a small cough to gain everyone’s attention. “Am I the only one here who thinks it’s just a wee bit strange that Nicky has not come down for breakfast?”
“Hmm,” her father said, not glancing up. From her mum, silence.
“No one is the least bit upset?” Kate said, incredulous.
“I suppose you are, dear,” her mother murmured, turning the page. “You certainly seem to be upset.”
“Well, I think both of you should march right upstairs to his room and have a look at his bed.”
“Really?” her father asked, lighting his pipe, “Why on earth should we do that, Katie dear? We’re in the middle of breakfast.”
Her mother looked at her carefully. “Feeling all right, are you, sweetheart? You seem a bit out of sorts this morning.”
“It’s not me who’s out of sorts, I’ll tell you that much. It’s Nicky.”
“Really? And why is that?”
“Because if you go up to his room, you will see, as I did, that he didn’t come home at all last night. His bed’s not even been touched.”
“Didn’t come home, yes, quite right,” Angus McIver said, turning another page of the Island Gazette.
“That would account for his bed not having been slept in, wouldn’t it, dear?” Emily McIver said to her daughter.
Kate sat back against the cushion and crossed her arms across her chest, her lips pursed in frustration. “And no one cares,” she said, color rising in her cheeks. “He stays out all night, and it’s perfectly all right. Not even in the slightest bit of hot water. I come home from school fifteen minutes late and get into no end of trouble.”
“He left us a note,” her mother said, smiling at her, “saying that he couldn’t sleep, would be working in the barn quite late with Gunner, and would spend the night with him at Greybeard Inn.”
“Oh. He left a note?” Each word was like the barest wisp of air seeping out of her balloon.
“You don’t think your brother would stay out all night without letting his parents know, do you, Kate? Your brother’s a very fine, responsible young man, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“No, I didn’t think he’d do anything so terrible. I was just so . . . so terribly worried about him. That he’d been . . . kidnapped or something.”
“Kidnapped? Whoever would kidnap Nick?”
“I don’t know. Bad people. Like pirates or Nazis.”
“The Nazis don’t seem to think Greybeard is worth bothering with,” her father said, “so far, anyway.”
“Kate,” her mother said, smiling at her, “do you smell something in the oven?”
Good. Change of subject.
“I do, I do! The most wonderful smell ever.”
“It’s a strawberry pie.”
“My most, most favorite. Is it for me? Please say yes!”
“No, Katie dear, of course it’s for your dear brother. He and Gunner have been slaving away over that airplane for weeks now. And I thought they deserved a special treat, don’t you?”
“I—I suppose so,” Kate said, trying to muster up some believable amount of enthusiasm for the notion. This morning was not going according to plan.
“Good. Well, it’s ready to come out of the oven, and your father and I thought it would be fun for you personally to deliver it to them at the barn. It’s a lovely day for a stroll through the woods, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Mother,” Kate said, as her mum rose from the table, put on her silly stuffed mittens, and removed the steaming pie from the oven.
“Here, I’ll put it in this basket and cover it with this linen napkin to keep it nice and warm. But you’d best hurry up, or it will be cold by the time you get there.”
Kate slid off the seat and took the wicker basket. This morning, which had started off so splendidly, was definitely not turning out at all as she’d imagined it.
She marched over to the door, opened it, and paused a moment looking back at her parents. “I’ve been doing my part in the war, too, you know.”
Her father looked up from his paper. “Have you indeed, little Katie? And what, pray, have you been up to?”
“I’ve been going into those scary woods is what. I’ve been laying flowers on the grave of that poor boy who died in the tree.”
“How lovely, dear,” her mother said.
“Well, German or no, he was only a boy. Has a mum and dad at home somewhere grieving for him, hasn’t he?”
“It’s a lovely thought, Kate. Here, take these fresh-cut roses and lay them on his grave on your way through those frightful woods to the barn. Is that a good idea?”
“Yes, mother,” Kate said, and then she was down the lane, feeling like a popped balloon.
Now she’d have to go through the woods, she thought, muttering to herself. She hadn’t been fibbing; she really had been placing nosegays or sprays of lily on the mound of earth in the meadow where the poor dead boy lay. She hadn’t been going through the awful woods, of course; she’d been taking the lane up to Hawke Field and then walking past the barn to his grave. But she’d promised her mum this time, and she was in no mood this morning to break any promises.
She would go through the woods no matter what lay in wait for her. And any beastie, ghost, or goblin who got in her way would be very sorry.
And so she entered the black forest.
Goodness. Woods were scary places no matter what her fearless brother Nicky said. Crowded, dark, uncontrolled places where nature, with long slithering fingers, crept up on a little girl. Trees, their branches intertwined above her head, weaving themselves in frightful patterns to form a vault over her like a great green church. Making a place where light had to struggle to be seen. The ground beneath her feet was choked with brambles and moss, and it was all she could do to maintain her balance, clutching the heavy basket for dear life in one hand.
Carrying on, she began to calm herself. She’d been in far worse spots than this one, she reminded herself. Like the time when she and Hobbes had been rammed by a U-boat on a foggy night in the middle of the channel. And then their lovely boat Thor was sinking, and they were captured by Nazis and taken aboard a giant German submarine that was terribly smelly inside.
She’d been afraid then, but she’d dared not let anyone see it. And in the end, she and her wonderful Hobbesie had triumphed over the Germans, hadn’t they? Captured the experimental U-boat and got a medal from Winston Churchill himself. And now he was Prime Minister!
Grimly determined, she marched onward. She knew she would soon re
ach the river that separated the two sections of the wood. Once across that narrow river, her heart stopped fluttering, the white birch trees were sparse, and the golden light on the forest floor made everything seem friendly, bright, and free of any monsters lurking behind her.
Soon she was in the little meadow where the river burbled along, a stream weaving this way and that through the lilacs and tall grass. Once she’d crossed that river, her troubles were over. She’d place Mum’s roses on the poor soldier’s grave and then head for the barn to give Nicky his oh so well deserved pie. He’d promised to take her up for another ride in the beautiful plane, and maybe today he would! It was wondrous up there in the clouds. Much better than she’d ever imagined, sitting on her brother’s lap as they soared like birds.
As she approached the river, she saw a very strange sight indeed. There appeared to be two men, one large, one tall and muscular, perched on a large boulder side by side, fishing in the river. In all her life, she’d never seen anyone fish this river! Why, few people even knew the stream existed, because everybody knew except her brother that these woods had been haunted by faeries and gremlins long before she was even born.
She thought about circling far upstream, but the river was much wider there, and there were no broad rocks in midstream to make crossing a simple matter of being carefully surefooted on the mossy stones.
She approached the men from the rear, quietly, because she knew from past experience that fishermen everywhere hated any kind of noise or unexpected disturbance that might spook their prey. They were both wearing black mackintoshes with hoods, even though it wasn’t raining, which she found strange.
When she got within a few feet of the two fishermen, both sitting quite still, she paused and said, “Any luck? What are you gentlemen fishing for today?”
There was a frightfully long pause, and she thought perhaps they were deaf mutes. Then the tall, slight one slowly turned his horrible face toward her.
It was Snake Eye. She screamed. Even with the hood throwing heavy shadow across his visage, she recognized the hideous tattooed snakes that curled around the French pirate’s eyes, over his mouth, rising up inside his nostrils when he smiled his evil grin.
“Bonjour, ma de moi selle,” the human monster hissed. “Un grand plaisir to see you again. You ask what we are fishing for? I’ll let me shipmate answer that one, if you please. Mon Capitaine?”
The other man abruptly turned to face her, and she heard the horrible tinkling of the many small silver skulls woven into his beard as his great head swiveled on his shoulders. She recognized him at once. A face she’d hoped and prayed never to lay eyes on again. Her trembling heart almost came to a complete stop.
Billy Blood.
“Fishing for the female of the species, we are today, and you seem to be our first catch of the day, lassie,” Blood said, in his awful musical voice. “We was hoping you might swim along this stream.”
She screamed again and turned to run.
“And this be our hook!” He laughed. She saw it then, lunging for her, the gleaming golden claw that had replaced the hand Lord Hawke had sliced off with his sword.
And then his great golden hook was hard round her ankle as she tried to run, and she was jerked off her feet and into the arms of the most evil pirate ever to stalk the earth.
“We’re taking a wee time trip, lassie,” Blood said, staring into her terrified eyes.
“My brother will get you for this,” she said, staring back, kicking as hard as she could, trying to catch his jaw.
“I only hope he does. Come for you, that is. This is me plan, you see. He’s the big fish and you’re the little bait. Now behave like bait, and shut your little mouth whilst my comrade Snake Eye and I set our trap.”
Blood pulled a roll of foolscap from under his cloak and a pen to write with.
“What trap?” she cried.
“Tell him where you lie, lassie. Back in time. You’re going to leave him a little love note on this here paper. Giving him your exact location in Port Royal, Jamaica. He’ll be using his time machine to rescue you, and that’s what we’re counting on. What’s in the basket, dear?”
“None of your beeswax!”
“He asked you what was in the basket,” Snake Eye said, putting his face close to hers. “Don’t make him ask again, or—”
“A strawberry pie. For my brother and Gunner.”
“Gunner!” Snake Eye hissed. “He’s the dog almost blew me hand off with that blunderbuss aboard the Merlin!”
“Here be what we do, now,” Blood said. “We put this note from you under the dish cloth with the pie. Leave it just outside the barn where that cursed boy will be sure to find it.”
Blood reached inside his cloak again and withdrew the gleaming golden ball called the Tempus Machina. He smiled at Katie and said, “You’ve never been on a time trip, have you, wee lass? You’re going back in time over two hundred years. I think you will find it quite adventuresome.”
As Kate picked up the pen and began to write the words (thank goodness she was good at spelling) Blood told her to say, writing with trembling hand, she found she couldn’t stop the tears that were flowing down her cheeks. She loved Nicky very much, he was her best friend on this whole earth, and the very last thing she wanted to do was help these two evil creatures get Nick in their clutches.
Still, she knew her only hope of rescue was her brother, Nick. Only Nicky and the bad captain, of all the people in the world, had time machines. So only her dear brother could travel to the past and find her. So she did what Captain Blood told her to do.
22
SANCTUARY AT FORDWYCH MANOR
· Guernsey ·
Nick knew he was in serious trouble. Exhausted by the long swim in cold water and racing uphill through the dense forest, he felt as if he might collapse to the ground at any moment. One trip over an exposed root or a fallen tree and he’d never find the strength to make it to his feet again.
Hot on his heels were at least a dozen of Hitler’s Nazi storm troopers and their vicious Dobermans. He could hear the fierce snarls of the beasts getting ever closer. He was running now by sheer willpower and adrenaline. But there was not enough left of either to keep him on his feet for much longer.
But he knew that if he stopped, he would die a horrible death, ripped to shreds by vicious dogs. And so he staggered forward, using his arms for help by grabbing low-hanging tree limbs and hauling himself up that way. His left arm was a help. His right screamed with pain when he used it. His legs felt like rubber, and he could no longer count on them. He had to pause, even if only for a few precious seconds, to catch his breath. He stopped and leaned against a large oak, sucking down huge lungfuls of air. And still the howling dogs came.
But he heard something else now, in that brief moment that the blood wasn’t pounding so noisily in his ears. And for the first time he felt a glimmer of hope. He heard the sound of rapidly moving water. There was a river, sizable by the sound of it, maybe less than a hundred yards ahead of him. That river might mean salvation, and he sprinted up toward the sound of running water with the newfound energy of hope.
He came upon the grassy bank seconds later. It was a wide river, too wide to swim across in his condition and not get caught. But there was a small wooden bridge arching over the river, and the sight of it caused something to stir deep in his memory.
What was it? A scene from one of his most favorite books, Robin Hood. That was it! Robin and Little John are on foot, running headlong through the forest, trying to escape from King John’s men mounted on horseback. Robin spies a small pond surrounded by tall reeds and coaxes Little John into the water. He uses his knife to cut two lengths of reed, and the two men submerge, breathing through the reeds as King John’s henchmen race past the pond and on into the heart of Sherwood Forest.
There were large clumps of reeds sprouting from the water along the banks on both sides of the river. Nick slid down the slippery bank on his bottom and crawled under the br
idge. The dogs still had his scent, and they were quickly gaining ground. Nick whipped out his pocketknife, grabbed a thick green reed, and sliced off a three-foot section. He could hear the loud shouting of the Nazi SS troopers, urging the dogs onward, as he slid down the muddy bank and into the water, one end of the reed already in his mouth.
The trick may be an old one, but it worked well enough. It was surprisingly easy to breathe through the tube. He was only a foot or so underwater, in the middle of the thick stand of reeds, so he could hear the wild yips and howls of the Dobermans as they raced toward the bridge. Suddenly the dogs stopped, just shy of the bridge, and he could hear the soldiers urging them on. Obviously, they’d lost his scent. He heard a loud, angry voice shouting in German. So where was he, this English pilot who had caused such destruction? Have we lost him?
From below the surface, he saw at least a dozen powerful electric torchlights scanning the roiling river. He heard more voices rising in mounting frustration. And then a dog and a soldier came under the bridge, barely two feet from where Nick was hiding. The beam of light flashed on the reeds directly above him, as the Doberman poked his nose in among the reeds, even pushing Nick’s own reed aside. Then, mercifully, the dog retreated, and the German aimed his beam at the reeds on the far side of the river.
“Nicht hier! “ the lone soldier called up to his superior officer, and soon man and dog disappeared.
After an unbearably long period, in which the dogs were searching frantically for their prey in the nearby woods, he heard a shouted command from an officer. He dared to raise his head a fraction, only his eyes above the surface.
Immediately, he heard the yelping, frustrated dogs race across the wooden bridge and into the woods on the steep hillside above. Right behind them, the clomping of dozens of heavy boots on the run. Had he done it? Had he really fooled them?
He was mightily tempted to surface and climb out of this frigid water. Cold was seeping into his bones. But they were clever, these Nazis were, he’d learned that as a junior Bird-watcher, and he would not be surprised if they hadn’t left a lone officer at the bridge armed with a machine gun. Just in case they’d somehow missed the fleeing pilot who had done such horrible damage at the aerodrome.