Nick of Time

by Ted Bell

  “McIver?” said the captain, squinting at Nick. With all the hope in the world in his eyes, you’d have thought him a father beholding his long-lost son. Which in a strange way, Nick was. “Are you McIver, lad?” he asked.

  “McIver,” said Nick, breaking into a laugh at the sheer impossibility of the scene. “And you the same, sir?”

  “Aye, lad, a McIver,” he said. “To the very last drop of me briny blood, and fiercely proud to say so, sir!” The captain took Nick’s hand in both of his, peered into his eyes, and then all but enveloped the boy in his arms, squeezing him with pure joy. “You’ve come, haven’t you, you’ve come for all love!”

  Lord Hawke extended his hand to the captain. “Lord Richard Hawke, sir, an honor to meet you. I apologize for coming along uninvited, but I’ve a personal interest in this chap Blood you mentioned in your letter. Young Nicholas was kind enough to allow me to accompany him on this adventure. I hope to resolve a long-standing grievance with William Blood. And in so doing possibly aid you in your current dilemma. Please consider me humbly at your service, sir!” Lord Hawke bowed deeply from the waist and the little captain did the same. Nick had never seen grown men bow to each other before, but in this otherworldly setting, it seemed ever so normal.

  “I am most grateful for your friendship and your aid, Lord Hawke,” Captain McIver said. “Captain Blood has many enemies, it appears. And the enemy of mine enemy is my friend. The Merlin, sir, is honored by your presence!”

  “My honor, sir,” said Hawke. “And may I introduce our friend Mr. Steele, whom we call Gunner. He is here to offer every assistance, as indeed we all are, sir.”

  With great cheer he then turned to Gunner. But the big man had walked to the stern windows and was leaning out through the opened panes. He was marveling at the view below, the heaving stern and the screeching white gulls whirling above the sparkling blue sea.

  Gunner turned and beamed at the captain, taking a few steps toward him before stopping short, twisting his old hat in his hands.

  “Captain McIver, if I might,” said Gunner, his eyes full of strong emotion, “I was chief gunnery officer in His Majesty’s Navy for near thirty years, and I never dreamed to have the honor of standing in such a holy place as this, nor shaking hands with so noble a personage as yourself, sir. It is my very great pleasure now to salute you, Captain, and proud of the hallowed glory you stand for I am, sir, and the blessed and honored traditions as what you fellows bestowed down to us in the service, as we tried to uphold in our poor way, Captain. It will be my great honor to fight one last sea battle standing by your side, sir!”

  Nick looked at Gunner in some amazement. He thought Gunner was going to get all watery around the eyeballs, and indeed he was close, but his lifelong friend managed to get his hand up to his brow in a stiff and proper salute.

  The captain returned his salute with great ceremony and a smile of good cheer on his own face as they, too, embraced. In a moment, all four burst into loud and happy laughter at the simple wonder of the occasion. Two old sailors who had journeyed through time itself to find each other in this moment. It was either destiny or a trick of destiny which had brought them all together and it really didn’t matter. To those gathered in that sunny cabin, it was magic itself.

  Captain McIver wiped something from his eye and then coughed politely to get their attention.

  “Now, afore we all go giddy as schoolgirls, and I’m guilty as the lot of you, I ain’t ashamed to say, pray come to this window and look at what’s upon us, will you? Why I called upon your kindness, Nick, and begged you use that infernal machine—look there off our starboard quarter!”

  The captain handed Nick a long brass telescope, just the kind that hung over his bed at the lighthouse. Nick raised it to his eye and his heart skipped a beat as he grasped the focus ring with his thumb and forefinger. Strange. The glass felt oddly familiar! There were two raised letters there and he knew exactly what they would be before he looked; he held his breath as he turned the instrument over to see.

  “NM!” He was holding the same spyglass he would inherit a hundred and thirty years from now! The glass of his ancestor, Captain Nicholas McIver, now standing beside him.

  “Ahem!!” the captain said, interrupting Nick’s stunned reverie. “There’ll be time enough to unbosom ourselves once we’ve seen the last of that despicable rogue. There! D’ye see him, lad? Do you see that devil flying over the sea?” Nick put his boot up on the velvet cushioned banquette that lined the window and braced the long telescope, elbow on his knee. He drew a sharp breath. He couldn’t believe the image in the glass! A full-blown man-of-war coming straight at him, hard on the wind! All her snowy white sails were set and full, main to royals and stunsails, throwing white water to either side of her bows, sun gleaming from the rows of brass cannons set along the length of her bright red topsides and—he stopped, blinked his eye, and looked again—it couldn’t be!

  “Why, she’s red !” Nick exclaimed, examining her hull more closely through the telescope. Indeed the big frigate was painted bright red from stem to stern, with golden quarter-boards on either side carved in the shape of striking serpents. There was a massive figurehead under her bowsprit, also done in brilliant gold. It was the figure of a woman whose long flowing tresses, Nick now saw, were actually masses of writhing golden snakes!

  “What is red, Nick?” Hawke asked. He and Gunner joined Nick at the open window. “What is red?”

  “The Mystère! Blood’s flagship!” Nick said, not wanting to relinquish the glass. “Stem to stern, she’s painted bright red!” But all Hawke could see with the naked eye was a small black flyspeck on the horizon, a ship, hull down, headed their way across the shimmering ocean. She was maybe an hour away, Hawke noted, maybe less.

  “Aye, she’s red all right,” said the captain. “If you can credit it, a ship o’ the line, as red as a sailor’s eye when the rum pot’s dry. She was once Nelson’s, you know; we lost her in oh-three off Gibraltar. Now, she’s a disgrace to any seagoin’ man the world over, she is. A red frigate indeed! A direct affront to Lord Nelson’s proper black-and-white checker and the natural ways of the service. Bill had her up in dry dock down south at Les Lupes last winter, and done up in such a frightful shade of crimson as makes a man turn his head away in disgust. We hear even the little Frenchman Bonaparte himself is outraged at the tartiness of it. But that’s Billy Blood for you, and that’s him comin’, lads, in his blood red bateau, and he means to send us to the bottom!”

  “What’s your exact situation here, Captain?” Lord Hawke asked, looking at Billy’s crimson abomination flying toward him in the lens of the spyglass. He felt a stab in his heart when he realized that little Alexander and Annabel could well be held captive aboard that very vessel. He was close, now. So very close. “Any changes since you wrote the letter? It would seem the fire aboard is under control. No smell of smoke in the hold.”

  “Aye, and not a moment too soon, either,” McIver said. “Them flames was lickin’ at the door of the powder hold, too. But we snuffed it, all right. Our problem ain’t fire now, but water. She’s holed like I said, two of ’em below the waterline, sir. My first lieutenant, Stiles by name, says she’ll swim for maybe an hour or so. And there’s our real dilemma, sir.”

  “Blood’s long cannons will reach us before then, won’t they?” Hawke asked, and in the glass he could see them, run out for battle, three decks of them, gleaming in the sun.

  “Aye, and if we sit, we sit like a duck,” McIver said. “And I ain’t never been one for sittin’. So, we shall fly, sir! As I’ve a meeting with Nelson himself three days hence at the Palace of St. James in London, we shall verily fly! I must be there no matter what transpires in these next hours. The very future of England is at stake, sir!”

  “Are you at liberty to explain it, Captain?” Hawke asked.

  “Aye. We’ve a Spanish spy aboard, a slippery one known out in the Americas as Velasquez. We captured him when we sank the galleon Conquistador
just after she’d put into Barcelona on her way back from the Gulf of Mexico. Still full of Spanish gold, I might add, most of which now lies in our hold. But, more important, there also lies Señor Velasquez. He was carrying documents that proved an unholy alliance between Spain and France, although Spain has solemnly promised King George she’d not enter this war! Politics, sir, murderous politics and scurrilous deception.”

  McIver produced a scrolled piece of paper from within his blue greatcoat and spread it on the table. The bottom half was blackened and charred. It was scrawled in Spanish, with an English translation in a rough hand below.

  “We found this on ’im, too. Tried to burn it, he did, but I snatched it from ’im just in time. A plot, as you can read here, to lure Nelson’s fleet down off Cape Trafalgar and into a trap laid by both enemy navies combined, over fifty of their bloody frigates and galleons just waitin’, lickin’ their cowardly chops! In any event, the entire British fleet is at grave risk!”

  “May I inquire as to your scheme, Captain?” Hawke said. “To reach England in time? Your flight plan, so to speak?”

  “Flight plan?” asked the captain, clearly puzzled.

  “Bad joke, sir,” Hawke replied, with an embarrassed smile at Nick. “No aeroplanes for a hundred years. Sorry.”

  “Not at all, sir,” McIver said, pulling a chart from the drawer. “Here it is. You see, I can’t run behind this big rock because of these blasted reefs all round. And I can’t sit because we’re badly holed and sinking. So we’re throwing up every square yard of canvas she’ll carry and going out to meet Blood. The only way to plug those two holes is to get her heeled over to port. Get the holes above the waterline and the ship’s carpenter will have her right in jig time. We’ll be seaworthy again at least. Outgunned and outcanvassed, sir, but never outwitted!” McIver laughed, and slapped his knee.

  Gunner spoke up. “Have you been able to repair much of her gunnery, sir?”

  “The lads are hard at it now,” the captain replied. “But we lost more cannonades than we can afford, Gunner. Any help you could give us there is welcome.”

  Gunner nodded. “I have your permission then to go on deck and parley with the gunnery crews?”

  “By all means, sir, by all means! But, pray, not in that costume! You fellows scared poor Ben witless with those outfits! As soon as Lieutenant Stiles has a moment to spare, I intend to explain your presence to him in some credible fashion and then have him get you each a set of these nankeen trousers and blouses. Then your appearance won’t be such a distraction to the ship’s company. There are several hundred men up there, Gunner, with one thing on their minds. Avenging Blood’s treachery. They’ll take any help any of you can afford them. But they won’t have time to ask too many questions. Now, look.”

  The captain unfurled another massive chart and spread it across his table. “See, we lie here, by my mark. To the east, the reefs here and here and that large nasty rock blocking our escape north, round to the lee of the island. The whole infernal coast is treacherous! Ought to build a lighthouse right here, is my opinion!” He pointed his stubby finger to the spit of land where Nick now lived.

  “A lighthouse there on the point would be a fine idea, Captain,” Lord Hawke said with a grin that only Gunner noticed. “You should suggest it to the Admiralty, sir.”

  “Gravestone Rock,” Nick said absently, although it wasn’t marked as such on the chart. It wouldn’t acquire that name for more than fifty years, he realized, after it had claimed the lives of hundreds of poor sailors. Then, a lighthouse would be built and the dreadful loss of life would cease. The lessons of history, his mother would call it, were often painful.

  “So, you’ll advance out to the north here, Captain?” Hawke said, tracing the route with his finger. “Where Blood waits. And then what? Engage?”

  “That’s what Blood will expect, certainly,” said the captain, rubbing his chin. “Billy knows I’ve never been shy of a fight. Don’t forget, he served under me as second in command for over ten years of this miserable war. He’ll be expecting me, as is my custom, to come right in and trade broadsides at close quarters.”

  “But not at all what you intend, I take it,” said Hawke.

  “No, my lord, not what I intend at all. Wounded as we are, though Blood doesn’t know how badly, that’s a fight I cannot win,” he said. “No, I intend a feint. I’ll fly straight toward him as if I’m preparing to engage, you see. At the last possible moment I plan to tack right up under his bow, get off one ripplin’ broadside with the port guns, and then a swift tack about as if we’re goin’ around to give him a taste of our starboard cannons! But me plan, sir, is not to complete that maneuver, but rather to tack away, make a run for it northwest, to Portsmouth, and hope for the best.”

  Hawke took a breath, not at all sure it was proper for a civilian to question a captain in His Majesty’s Navy about his plans. On the other hand, McIver had sent an urgent request for assistance, so he chanced it. “Captain, surely he has a fire-power advantage, not to mention speed! Why not—?”

  The captain raised his hand. “Aye, he has both, to be sure. But he won’t shoot until we engage, and in any event, I don’t plan to stick around and let him splinter us. I’m going to run and run hard for England, sir! In the time it takes him to discover my intent, and get under way, we’ll have opened up some sea between us. Even still, he could catch us. But I’m going to lighten up this barge, sir. I’m going to heave every single cannon, and every single ball of lead shot over the side. Stores, too. Water, beer, and salt pork, too! Lightened, we’ll fly, sir! We’ll fly to England with empty stomachs and full hearts, sir, but we will warn Nelson of this dreadful treachery!”

  “Begging your pardon again, sir,” Hawke said carefully, “but why not just use the Tempus Machina to travel to London and warn Nelson? It seems logical enough, sir.”

  “And leave my crew, my sinking ship, sir? And avoid the long-awaited showdown with this dog Blood? I think not, sir, and I’m sure upon reflection you would withdraw that question!”

  McIver was red and fuming and Lord Hawke quickly saw the error of his ways. He bowed deeply in apology for his insult. He remembered that in this era duels and bloodshed had resulted from far less, for these were affairs of honor, not logic.

  “My deepest apologies, Captain. I was substituting expediency for honor and so disgraced myself by my insult,” Hawke said. “I am truly sorry, sir!” He was relieved to see the captain quickly return to a less warlike posture.

  “It is history most ancient, m’lord,” said McIver, realizing the man had made an understandable mistake, hailing, as he did, from another time.

  Hawke continued, “But, in all events, Captain—and again, forgive my ignorance—why would Blood hold his fire until we sail out to engage? Why not start pounding us as soon as his long guns can reach us?”

  It was a good question, but the captain had an equally good answer.

  “Quite right, m’lord, but even Billy Blood is not so despicable as to fire upon an enemy sitting like a duck dead in the water. No, I warrant he’ll hold his fire until I—”

  “GET DOWN!” Gunner screamed. “Everybody hit the deck!!” He dove from the window where he’d been standing and tackled Nick from behind, pulling the boy to the floor with him. He couldn’t believe it! He’d been watching Blood’s approach in the glass, seen a tiny puff of white smoke on the Mystère’s red bow, and then, incredibly, a cannonball, that’s what it was, growing ever larger in the lens! It was bounding toward him across the water like a skipping stone, skimming off the tops of waves. It appeared to be headed directly at the Merlin’s stern!

  “Lord, Gunner, what’s the—” McIver started, himself diving for the floor, but at that instant the huge lead ball smashed through the glass and lead of the stern window, missed the captain’s head by a whisker and, showering him with glass, tore through the great cabin and slammed into the bulkhead where hung the admiral’s portrait.

  They all regarded the portra
it from the floor in shocked silence. Nick, openmouthed with wonder, rose and stood before the painting in stunned silence. The admiral, with his generous belly swathed in navy blue and bright brass buttons, now had a jagged hole right in his middle! Nick stuck his fist through the hole. It fit perfectly! Courtesy of the French cannonball, this painting was now a perfect match for the one currently hanging over the McIver kitchen hearth! Now, he thought with a smile, he alone would know the secret of the famous hole in the admiral’s belly. This was the exact picture now hanging in the lighthouse.

  “I say!” Lord Hawke said, getting to his feet and picking pieces of broken glass from his clothing. “That ball had to have traveled well over two miles! Quite extraordinary, what?”

  He was quite jolly about it, in fact, and seemed to be happy that the battle with Billy Blood seemed finally to be joined. A high red color suffused his cheeks and his eyes were alight. Here, surely, was a man who dearly loved to clear life’s decks for action and lay on with a will.

  Captain McIver got to his feet, swearing a blue streak, and put his fist through the hole in his aged relative. “Aye. And now the scurvy dog has holed me own grandfather, Admiral Noah McIver! Whatever cannon can Blood possess that can fire a ball that far? Nothing I know of can fire a ball a tenth of that distance. Some infernal piece of artillery he picked up roaming around in the future, I’ll wager you that!”

  “Desperate situation, Captain,” Lord Hawke said, moving to the stern window and raising the telescope. “He’s got some advanced weaponry on board. My opinion is that we can’t advance into such fire, and if we sit, as you say, sooner or later, we sink. Whether Blood sinks us, or the ocean does it for him, doesn’t much matter.”

  “Aye, aye,” said McIver, a worried look clouding his brow. “He’s trapped us, all right. He’ll pound us as he closes, then sit just outside the range of our cannonades and pick us apart like ducks at a shooting gallery at Scarborough Fair. Blast his turncoat hide!”