“Nearly high tide, sir. Remy telegraphed a few moments ago, says he’ll be docking within the hour.”
“He’ll need to refuel and reprovision?”
“Aye, sir. And arm his vessel.”
“He’s been running defenseless? We need to remedy that in future. No telling how many of these creatures are out there aside from those in the . . . herd. The new policy will be to eradicate the monsters on sight. Right, tell the pilots we assemble in an hour to debrief. Then do a perimeter sweep. Make sure all the lads are awake and where they ought to be. We don’t want somebody sneaking in through the fence while our attention is on the water.”
“Aye aye.”
“Do you know what a group of squid is called, Finn?”
To his surprise, the young man nodded, pausing on his way out the door, “A shoal, sir.”
“Really? A shoal of squid.”
“I believe so, yes.”
Beneath the shaggy overgrowth of hair and faintly ridiculous mustache, behind the patch obscuring one of Finn’s eyes, a keen brain lurked along with a sense of the absurd that the young man couldn’t always hide. Sometimes, as now, his good eye gleamed with barely suppressed humor out of proportion to the circumstance. Rollo knew the man’s value, but he also held a deep natural distrust of those who spent such effort hiding their true nature. In many ways, he preferred the brutal simplicity of an Edwin, or the blatant lunacy of Mordecai, to this sort of useful but clandestine personality.
“That’ll be all.”
Finn nodded and was gone.
“A shoal of squid,” Edwin repeated, shaking his head. “Fancy that.”
“Where do you suppose he learned it?”
This question was beyond Ed’s capacity, however. The behemoth simply shrugged and resumed his carving. Rollo couldn’t tell whether the figure was meant to be a dog, a bear, or some sort of tiger. Whatever it was, it was lumpy and ugly, not unlike its creator.
One hour. In one hour, he would assemble the captains of his fleet and make a plan to find the shoal of squid—or cuttlefish, as the case might be—and eliminate all but one small one. Further clearing the path to expand his business into Europa. He would be one step closer to a future in which he, Rollo Furneval the bastard, achieved if not greatness, then at least a more distinctive level of infamy.
• • •
“BUT HOW DOES it generate the oxygen?” Barnabas asked again. “How do we know we won’t run out? The tank doesn’t seem nearly large enough to last us both any length of time.”
Freddie had absorbed enough of the instructions to pilot the sub out of the dock and away from the station, but once Barnabas had taken over poring through the manual, he’d insisted they surface and regroup before going any farther.
“The tank is just a backup. The primary air source is a by-product of the heating process. It’s a chemical reaction,” Freddie repeated patiently. “As long as we begin with sufficient zinc, manganese dioxide, and potassium chlorate in these canisters here to keep the engine powered—the gauges all show nearly full now, you see—we’ll have sufficient air for breathing.”
“For how long?”
She pulled the book from his hands and flipped through the pages, searching for a definitive answer. The guide was far from easy to follow. The vessel was evidently a work in progress, and the original fuel delivery system had been altered. The current design had been noted by hand, in the margins and over heavily crossed-through passages. Rough sketches and cryptic formulae were appended here and there with no discernible logic. The gist, however, was clear enough.
“We ought to have at least eight hours. Although I’m not sure what happens when the submersible isn’t moving. I don’t know if the engine keeps enough baseline heat to generate sufficient oxygen if it’s idling. Or how long the reserves will last if it’s turned off altogether. Perhaps we should assume that if we need to stop for any length of time we’ll have to surface again and unseal the hatch. That way we can reserve the oxygen tank for a true emergency.”
“I don’t feel quite well,” he responded with a frown. In truth, he looked quite ghastly, as the tiny craft bobbed in the choppy water of the channel. Freddie understood perfectly and was filled with an odd urge to coddle him, but her sympathy was extremely limited by pragmatism.
“Don’t you dare be sick. Or if you are, do it now over the water, before we close the hatch again.”
She wanted to get underwater again. It felt too exposed on the surface, surrounded by the revealing glare of sunshine on water on this unaccountably sunny day. The large subs full of Navy personnel might return at any moment. Or a smuggler might be rushing through the deeps beneath them as they floated dithering over the minutiae of the sub’s workings. The strangely noisy hiss of the whitecaps under the cheerful breeze, the odor of salt fish and the attending movement were all surface phenomena as well. Below, everything had been steadier, quieter. Barnabas would no doubt feel better once they returned to the relative safety of their cruising depth.
He certainly sounded anything but steady now. “Get below and fire the engine back up. I’ll just . . . enjoy the fresh air a moment longer.”
“It isn’t fire. It’s a—”
“Just . . . go.”
She wouldn’t think about it too closely. Laying the manual flat on her lap, she followed the sequence to heat the steam engine back to running capacity. By the time she was ready to engage the gears and set off, Barnabas had secured the hatch and returned to his seat on the floor of the small cargo area behind the pilot’s chair.
As they dove below the waves, heading in the direction of the estuary mouth, Freddie passed the book back to him. “See if you can determine how the hydrophonic array works. I think the controls are there on the wall in front of you.”
The pilot’s area was already crammed with equipment. The panel of instruments and gear opposite Barnabas appeared to be a late addition involving a periscope sight, a series of control levers and a set of brass ear trumpets. The manual was unclear as to how to approach it.
“This whole section is terrible. Whoever wrote it in had a very poor hand as well as a distinctly loose grasp of proper grammar and spelling.”
“True. Excellent illustrations, however. Look at the diagram on the back flyleaf.”
“Ah. Oh, I see. This isn’t bad at all.”
She heard him flipping through the pages, toying with the controls. Before her, the murky water obscured the long view, and she had to trust the instrument panels to tell her they were heading in the right direction and maintaining a safe distance from the channel floor. It was difficult at first, observing the gauges and ignoring the scanty physical evidence. After a time, however, she found herself drawing inward, cycling her attention through the various panels in a comforting pattern, the dials more real to her than the world outside the safe bubble of the submersible.
“What should I do if I find something?” whispered Barnabas after a particularly long and quiet interval.
“Tell me which direction it’s in so I don’t run us afoul of it, I suppose.”
“It’s right . . . there, over there.” It took her a moment to realize he was pointing, another to follow the direction of his finger and shift her focus back to the world outside the cockpit. “Look, don’t you see?”
Of course she saw. It was huge and ungainly, a whale of a vessel compared to their own sleek craft. Painted in watery striations of blue, green and brown, with a poorly executed yellow poppy on its pointed nose. Freddie quickly adjusted speed so as not to pass it by. The big sub was evidently going in their own chosen direction, and she’d nearly overtaken it.
“I don’t see any hydrophones on that one.”
Until Barnabas said this, she’d been in a mild panic, assuming the other sub could “see” them as clearly as they saw it. He was correct, though; the massive vessel seemed to sport n
o special listening equipment like their own. Nor had it altered its course when they approached. Keeping behind it, they might as well be completely invisible.
“What if it isn’t going anywhere useful?” Barnabas worried aloud. “We could run ourselves out of fuel and never learn another thing about the smugglers’ location.”
It had been a little over three hours since they departed from the station. Freddie was having trouble converting knots into miles, but she thought they must be reasonably near the English side of the channel by now, and surely there were only so many places the smugglers’ sub could be heading.
“Look at the size of that thing,” she pointed out. “It can’t dock just anywhere. It seems to be traveling in the same direction we were, which suggests to me that it came from France as well. Besides, what’s our other option? To wait about until some other clearly demarcated smuggler’s vessel comes along instead?”
“Fine, then. But stay well back. And keep an eye on the instruments. I say if we seem in any danger of running empty, we make for the nearest available piece of land and abandon ship.”
“Fair enough.”
Perhaps.
But the more pressing problem, in the end, wasn’t an insufficiency of fuel. It was the challenge of continuing to follow the sub once they neared the coastline. The captain of the smuggler vessel clearly knew what he was about, for he seemed to have no difficulty maneuvering his seemingly unwieldy craft through a narrow gap between two rock shoals, then into a sort of groove along the channel’s bottom, a winding course of obstacles that left Freddie’s nerves jangling and her knuckles sore from an overtight grip on her submersible’s controls.
Then, there was an even shallower stint, dangerously near the surface, and finally the bit that nearly had her abandoning the entire enterprise. They had to weave through a labyrinth of massive pilings, all of which confounded the hydrophones and other instruments as well. She proceeded on faith and hubris, and when the course cleared again she was so relieved she almost followed the other sub straight up to the water’s surface.
“No! Retreat, retreat!”
“What? Oh!”
Maneuverable as it was, the Gilded Lily couldn’t reverse course with no preparation. Freddie throttled back hard and prayed as the ship drifted perilously close to a piling, pitching higher in the water while its momentum bled away. She didn’t want to attempt to navigate backward, so she executed a hasty turn before engaging the main propeller again and slipping away between the piers to what she could only hope was a safe enough distance from where the smuggler had docked.
“There were four more of those things in there.” Barnabas seemed to have gotten the hang of the hydrophone mechanism. “One of them was the one we saw our first time in the tunnel, I’m sure of it. It had the whiskers.”
“Five submersibles. That’s a large operation for blockade running, isn’t it?”
“They could be supplying the whole of England and the European seaboard with opium, with a fleet like that. But submersibles have a limited range, and we know the opium must have originated in the California Dominion. At least Orm’s did. Perhaps whoever is running the operation now has a new supplier. But either way, he’d need to be receiving shipments over longer distances than subs could manage. There must be ships involved, also. Perhaps even the steam rail in Europa. It goes everywhere now, faster than lorries or wagons and far cheaper than airships.”
“We still need some sort of evidence, though. And I know where we are in the water, sort of, but I’ve no idea how to find the same place on a map of the shore. We need to go up and find some landmarks.”
Abandoning the earpiece and levers, Barnabas leaned over the pilot’s seat, one hand on Freddie’s shoulder for leverage as he pulled forward to examine the instruments. She’d grown so accustomed to his presence a few feet away that she’d forgotten how close the space truly was. Inches apart, they’d been this whole time. His hand burned even through layers of uniform wool and cotton, and his breath teased her ear when he bent closer to peer through the glass up into the sun-dappled water.
“There. Go back into the pilings, but bring us up underneath one of the docks where it’s widest. Where a warehouse is, but not one with an opening in it.” She complied, hands more certain on the controls now, and the little vessel broke the surface in an uneventful few seconds. “Nobody should spot us under here, and you can stay with the sub while I can climb out under the pier and if need be, swim to a better vantage point.”
“Or I can go, while you stay with the sub. I brought a change of clothes too, you’ll recall.”
“You’d drown in seconds once that bolster under your coat got waterlogged.” He poked a finger at the padding over her belly, and Freddie stifled a giggle. The disguise was ridiculous in that respect, she’d be the first to admit.
“Fair enough.”
“Why a portly lad? I’ve been wondering. It seems an odd choice for a costume you wear so much. It can’t be comfortable.”
He’d kept his fingers there, brushing the fabric, when she expected him to pull away. Flustered, she gave him the truth before she could think better of it. “If I pad my middle it helps to hide my bosom. Somewhat. I mean I still have to . . . people get an overall impression of plumpness. As long as they don’t squeeze me I’ll never be found out. And when I’m in my usual clothing that particular feature seems to be the first thing men notice. I don’t mind, really. I suppose it makes it even less likely anyone will recognize me.”
“I did,” he pointed out. He seemed to have moved closer, despite the interfering presence of the chair. Entirely too close, really.
“Yes, but you didn’t know me.”
Barnabas chuckled, a soft round breath of a laugh that filled her senses and made her skin come awake to a host of sensations. She felt as though the stifling air of the sub had sprung to life and started caressing her, taking liberties.
“Does that make sense?”
“It did until I said it out loud. At any rate, the costume is a helpful illusion. And it makes me feel more the part, if I know that nobody can see me under all that batting.”
“I can,” Barnabas admitted. His voice dropped to nearly a whisper. “Your illusion has spent its power with me.”
“So even with all that extra stuffing, you still look at Freddie the tinker or Fred the officer and see Frédérique, the half-French temptress with the splendid figure?” she teased, trying to lighten the mood.
“I’m afraid so. In fact, it drives me more than a little mad to look at Freddie the tinker or sailor. I not only know what’s under the stuffing, I know that when you’re dressed this way you’re not wearing a corset.”
She had to tip her head back to see him properly. “We really shouldn’t be discussing my undergarments, Lord Smith-Grenville,” she sighed. “We have smugglers to spy on.”
“It’s not so much the undergarments as the lack thereof. We shouldn’t be doing a lot of things, Freddie,” he pointed out. “You shouldn’t be running around dressed as a boy or spoiling ball gowns with engine grease; I shouldn’t be thinking about your lack of a corset while helping you steal government property and chase dangerous criminals. We really shouldn’t be extorting one another. And yet . . .” He trailed a finger down her cheek, then carried on from her chin straight down her neck to the divot between her collarbones. It was shocking, almost literally, as though he were electrified and her skin had become a conduit for that energy.
“And yet?” No use trying to keep a level voice. It was as shaky as the rest of her.
“Yet we keep doing all those things. It says something about us both, I suspect.”
“I’m sure it does.” She wanted him to move his hand and he did, as if he’d read her mind. Just a stroke, gentle but assured, fanning his fingers out and letting them curve under the fabric of her lapel.
“And don’t let’s discuss
what I’m thinking about whenever I see you in trousers,” he added, sounding damnably calm. His hand, though, was trembling. And so was his other hand, which had somehow arrived at her hip. In fact, it had all turned into an outright embrace at some point.
“Well, we seem to be on the subject just now anyway.” She didn’t know how she could speak; it must be some reflexive action to throw a quip Barnabas’s way to keep the conversation going.
“No, really. We shouldn’t discuss it. I’m having a difficult enough time maintaining my composure as it is.”
Her next quip was silenced aborning by his lips, finally—when had it become a question of finally?—claiming hers.
FIFTEEN
HE WOULD HAVE preferred to remain in the submersible, kissing Freddie and avoiding any possibility of encounter with potentially hostile smugglers. At the very least, Barnabas wished they’d considered bringing waterproof weapons, as he was now stuck with traipsing about the enemy lair bearing only a penknife with which to defend himself against the criminals inside.
On the other hand, once he’d fallen from the understructure of the pier into the shockingly cold water and had to swim his way out from under the warren of dark, algae-slick columns, the idea of his being attacked on sight for not belonging seemed less likely. He’d traded his uniform for the rough clothes he’d worn to accompany Freddie on her tinkering job, and now he could have been any dripping, miserable fool wandering the docks after an accidental dunking. Surely it was a common enough sight that nobody would give him a second look, unless it was to laugh at him.
Shivering, wondering what his life had become and feeling generally put-upon, he crept along the narrow edge of pier between one dilapidated building and the water, resisting the instinct to go sideways with his back pressed to the wall. From the corner of that structure he could almost reach out and touch the fence that separated Orm’s warehouse from its neighbors. At least he could only assume it was Orm’s establishment, the one under which the poppy-emblazoned smuggler sub had docked.
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