Nick of Time

by Ted Bell

  Hobbes sat back feeling drained and defeated. He’d miscalculated badly, that much was obvious. Willy was far shrewder than he’d imagined. And now look where he’d got them. Poor Kate. He’d never forgive himself for what he’d done.

  “Are you comfortable, child?” Willy asked softly. “I’m sorry to wake you, but I need to ask you some very important questions. If you tell me the truth, it will be a great help to your father.”

  “I always tell the truth,” Kate said, covering a yawn with her little hand. Hobbes’s heart flew to her, watching her rub the sleep from her eyes with her tiny fists. Ingo had placed her in a chair directly opposite him. She was wearing a crew-man’s pullover as a nightgown and was wrapped in a blanket embroidered with dark red swastikas. The effect was startling, but at least she was warm.

  “Good,” Willy said. “Now tell me, dear girl, what does your daddy do for a living?”

  “He’s a birdwatcher.”

  “A birdwatcher! How interesting! Here I thought he was a lighthouse keeper.” Willy shot a glance at Hobbes. “So, he watches birds all day, does he?”

  “Oh, no. That’s just his hobby. His real job is a lighthouse keeper. We live in the lighthouse, too. It’s fun.”

  “I see. What kind of birds does your daddy watch when he goes out? Mollymawks? Gooney birds?”

  “Gooney birds?” Kate laughed. “Don’t be silly! He watches birds like you!”

  “Like me?” Willy asked, and Hobbes had a hard time not smiling at the little German’s reaction.

  “Sure! Birdwatching’s our secret name for Nazi-watching. You’re a Nazi, aren’t you? Papa’s hobby is keeping an eye on the Nazis. Mine, too, actually. You and Ingo are the first ones I’ve really talked to. Spying is fun. Why, I’m spying on you right now! Fun!”

  “Yes, I see,” Willy said, rubbing his chin. “Fun.”

  “Right. Sometimes it’s not fun. One time my brother and I didn’t see a single periwinkle all day. But every day we write down whatever we see or find out about you old Nazis and then we send it along to the King,” Kate said.

  “The King,” said Willy.

  “Or, somebody like that. I’m not really sure. We’re very angry with the King, you know. I’m sure Papa told you.”

  “No, I didn’t know. Tell me about it, dear,”Willy said. “Why are you so angry?”

  “Oh, it’s terrible! Some mean old people in London don’t think we should be birdwatchers anymore, so they are throwing us out of our house. We won’t have anywhere to live. I’ve never seen my father so upset. I’m sad, too. We don’t like the King anymore. We like you.”

  Little Willy regarded Kate for a long moment as she favored him with the sweetest smile Hobbes had ever seen. Finally, he rose from the table and stood wiping his glasses, looking from father to daughter. “Ingo,” he said softly, “you may return Miss McIver to her cabin.”

  “Good night, darling,” Hobbes said to her as Ingo lifted her from the chair. “Daddy will be there shortly.” He sat back breathing an inward sigh of relief. She’d confirmed his story in every detail. It had been the most amazing display of courage and grace he’d ever witnessed.

  “A most convincing performance,” Willy said, smiling at Hobbes. “It’s a pity you have no physical proof of all this, however. No evidence. Yes, most unfortunate, I’m afraid to say. Ingo, will you ask Dr. Moeller to join us in the ward-room? Thank you.”

  Ingo, with Kate in his arms, paused at the door, looked back at the Englishman and saw that all the color had drained from his face. The poor little English girl’s father plainly knew he had just received a death sentence. Or, rather, something much, much worse.

  “Jawohl, mein herr,” Ingo said, “I will send Herr Doktor immediately.” He turned to leave, an expression of great sorrow on his face. Hobbes waved good-bye to Katie, thinking it was perhaps the last time he’d ever gaze at that sweet face. “Danke, Ingo,” Willy said. “Herr Doktor is a genius at extracting the truth when there is no actual proof of a story, Mr. McIver.”

  “Did you show him the letter, Papa?” Kate said, as she was being carried out. “The letter?” Hobbes asked in a shaky voice. “What letter?”

  “The one from that mean old minister in London, of course. The one you’re keeping for Nicky, Daddy,” the little girl said. “It’s in your pocket, remember?”

  The letter! Of course! He had the official notice from London, the one that expelled Angus McIver and his family from the Greybeard Light. He had the physical proof the Nazi had demanded right here in his pocket! He withdrew it and slid it across the table. Then, he said a silent prayer.

  “There’s your proof,” Hobbes said.

  Kate had perhaps just saved his life.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  A Landlubber Aloft

  · 3 October 1805 ·

  H. M. S. MERLIN, AT SEA

  Nick leaned far out over the starboard rail of the Merlin’s bow, towering high above the heaving blue sea. He took a deep breath of the tangy salt air. It was fine to be stepping out onto the sun-drenched deck, like stepping out into a world he already knew, but one found only inside the pages of his books. He took it all in and found it not wanting in any aspect.

  The acres of billowing white canvas above, the worn blue coats of the officers on the quarterdeck below. The sun-bleached white nankeen trousers of the barefoot swabbies, and their long pigtailed hair and flashing golden earrings. And then the breathtaking scarlet-clad Marines, forming up for battle amidships. It was these same Marines, Nick knew, who would swarm over the side of the enemy vessel should the captain decide to board it.

  It was a riot of color and activity that washed over him and seeped inside his pores. Under his bare feet, he felt the warm wood of the pristine caulked decks, holystoned to gleaming white perfection. He felt the warm sun on his face, heard the sails snapping and billowing overhead. It was as fine, he thought, as he’d always imagined it would be. And Nick felt, in an odd way, that he’d come home at last.

  Clearly, he thought, this was the life he’d been born for. He looked proudly down at his new blue jacket. It wasn’t really new, it had been Lieutenant Stiles’s own jacket when he’d been a midshipman. It was a bit tattered and torn, and Stiles had apologized when he’d offered it, but Nick had never been so proud of anything as he was of that poor blue coat.

  He smiled to himself. He knew of boys who had run away to sea, yet it had never occurred to him that he might one day do it, too. But maybe—A loud voice at his very ear interrupted his thoughts.

  “Ahoy, there, jolly!” said the young Lieutenant Stiles, now standing next to Nick at the rail. He cupped his hands and shouted down to the young ensign standing in the stern of this last jolly boat to be lowered away. She was now rowing for the other three, rowing for all she was worth. “Form up now and all ship oars! Await my signal! Look lively, now, our old friend approaches on the fly!” With a quick look over his shoulder at Mystère, hard on the wind, Stiles turned to Nick and smiled. “And still he comes, the devilish creature. Ready to go aloft, lad?”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Nick said, happily. “Up the ratlines through the lubber’s hole to the top foremast?”

  Stiles looked at him quizzically. “You appear to know a good bit about this old barky and the ways of the sea, Nick. Was you a cabin boy once in His Majesty’s service?”

  “No, sir,” Nick replied. “Book learning, mostly. Me mum’s a right devil about book-reading, sir. And I’ve a small sloop of my own, which I’ve sailed, mostly right over—” He caught himself. He’d been about to point to the Gravestone Rock and the point where the Greybeard Light would stand in about a hundred years’ time. “Right over there,” Nick said guiltily, moving his pointing finger so that it was pointed away from the island and vaguely toward England.

  “So, well enough, and up you go then, Nick,” Stiles said, easily hoisting the boy up to the ratlines leading up to the first yardarm of the foremast. “Handsomely now, lad, handsomely now!” Nick climbed easil
y, his bare feet sure of each step on the rope ladder. The lieutenant climbing up beneath him was impressed. “What’s this sail we be passing here, Nick the sailor man?” Stiles asked with a laugh as they climbed.

  “Too easy, sir,” Nick said, looking back down at the lieutenant. “That’s the foresail, sometimes called the course. Everybody knows that!”

  He heard the lieutenant laughing out loud below him and pulled himself up onto the lower yardarm, waiting for Stiles to join him. “How’d I do, sir?” he asked, reaching his hand down to Stiles and giving him a friendly but unnecessary pull up. Then they were standing side by side on the bottom crosstree near the thick wooden mast, some thirty feet above the deck.

  Nick could see the whole northern coast of his island from this height, including the towering rocky point where one day his lighthouse would stand. Far to the south, jutting out into the sea, was the hazy silhouette of ancient Hawke Castle itself. Surely Hawke himself had seen it, and Nick wondered how passing strange that must feel to his lordship.

  Stiles was still laughing as they stood there, pausing for the moment on the crosstree before resuming their climb upward to the masthead. “I should have known any relative of our beloved captain would have saltwater in his veins! Scampered up them ratlines like you was born to it!” Stiles now pointed aft to a small sail set between the upper mainmast and the mizzenmast at the Merlin’s stern. “Now, name me one more sail, that one there aft, and I’ll give you a gold piece, young Nick!”

  “That one?” Nick squinted into the sunlit maze of white canvas. “Mizzen topgallant staysail, I believe, sir.”

  “You believe correctly, boy!” Stiles said, and dug a small gold napoleon from his trouser pocket and flipped it to Nick. Nick caught it but the toss was a bit wide and Nick had to reach out for it, and when he did he felt his foot slip out into space and suddenly he was grabbing at air and saw the sickening sight of the deck spinning far below.

  He knew instantly that he’d made a grievous error and was going to fall.

  “Watch it, lad!” Stiles cried and bent down and instinctively shot out a hand, watching in horror as Nick lost his balance completely now and tumbled out into space.

  All Nick saw was the spinning deck coming up to meet him.

  He felt a scream rising in his throat as he pitched forward into the air, a heart-stopping plunge, and then a violent jolt as he felt the lieutenant clutch his collar and yank him upward.

  He looked down between his dangling bare feet at the tiny figures running to and fro on the deck far below, saw the sun sparkling on the sea on either side of the boat, saw the white gulls swooping through the rigging below him. Then, he heard a loud ripping sound, as of cloth parting, and he felt the hand-sewn seams of cloth under his arms starting to give. He shut his eyes—

  Nelson the Strong, Nelson the Brave, Nelson the Lord of the Sea.

  And felt himself being lifted swiftly upward. The lieutenant’s instantaneous reaction, and the strong blue fabric of the midshipman’s jacket, had saved his life. Stiles had grabbed him at the last instant and had been strong enough to stop his fall. With a sharp upward motion, Stiles lifted the boy quickly back to the yardarm, and not a second before the material of the coat would have finally given way.

  Nick’s wildly swinging feet finally found the solid spar of the crosstree, but his legs were shaking so badly he wasn’t sure he could remain standing. Breathing hard, and pushing down the panic, he grabbed a line and held on, literally, for dear life. He looked down at the deck and saw the crew still scurrying about, unaware of the barely averted tragedy above. He looked at Stiles. He’d only known the man for half an hour and already he owed the young lieutenant his life!

  “Thank you, sir, for saving my life,” Nick said, breathing hard. “I’m—I am terribly sorry about my—I don’t know how I could have been so—” He felt under his arm for the comforting round shape of the Tempus Machina and was glad he’d stitched the inside pocket closed. “So stupid, sir. Now I’ve gone and torn your beautiful jacket. But I’ll sew it, sir, I’m handy with a needle and thread and—”

  He half-expected the lieutenant to be angry, but instead found him to be smiling and shaking his head from side to side in merry-eyed amusement.

  “Which you know the names of everything aboard the barky it seems, but someone’s forgotten to learn you the most important rule of all, I see,” Stiles said.

  “I know. I promise you, it’ll never happen again, I swear it,” Nick said, deeply embarrassed. “I was so amazed at everything and having so much fun, I guess I just—”

  “Never you mind, lad,” Stiles said, putting a hand on Nick’s shoulder. “Just remember this always—especially up here in the rigging, too. One hand for yourself, and one hand for the barky. It’s how young towheaded seamen like meself end up old-grey-headed seamen like our beloved Nelson! Are you steady now, boy, on yer pins?”

  “Yes, sir, I believe that I am.”

  “Then, let’s get up top, shall we?” Stiles said, and the handsome young officer started up the ratlines as easily as a monkey might move from tree to tree. Nick started up after him, still shaky, but realizing that time now was precious.

  They had to get the Merlin through the reef and inside Gravestone Rock in a hurry. He looked across the wide blue water toward Billy Blood’s Mystère and was shocked at how large she loomed on the horizon. Nick climbed as fast as he could. Occasionally, he dared to peek below and watch the tiny figures down on the deck grow smaller and smaller as he approached the very top of the foremast. It took not a little courage to keep moving up, especially after what had almost happened. But he climbed with a will, knowing it was his duty to the ship and her crew.

  When they had finally reached the top of the mast, with only the whirling seagulls for company, Nick was breathlessly surprised. Both at the towering height, for he could see now for miles in every direction, and also to find that there was no crow’s nest! Certainly not like the ones in his books! No place at all, it seemed, where he could sit and call down his directions. “But where am I to sit, Lieutenant?”

  “Why right here, young Nick,” Stiles said, and Nick saw that he’d rigged a strong manila sling from the masthead where Nick could hang comfortably if somewhat precariously, swaying with every motion of the boat. “Will this suit you, lad? I use suchlike myself all the time.”

  “Well, I think it’s splendid, sir!” Nick replied climbing up into the sling and pulling the chart from his jacket. In fact, the sling was quite comfortable. “May I borrow your glass as well?”

  “Begging your pardon, Nick, but my thought was to remain with you up here till we got through the reef. I could use the glass to confirm your chart and then shout your directions down to the bosun, Willick, whom I’ve stationed below at the base of the mast. He knows my commands and can easily pass them on to the bowsprit.”

  “Well enough, Mr. Stiles,” Nick said, unfurling the chart and pinpointing their location in the lagoon. He looked out across the blue-green water and could easily locate a deeper blue channel winding through the reefs. Escape meant a twisting serpentine route indeed, but it looked as if they just might slip through.

  “Are you ready, Nick?” Stiles asked.

  “Aye, sir,” Nick said, looking from his hand-drawn chart to the reef and back to the chart. “Here we go. Please take us dead ahead three hundred yards. Then have the crews execute a fifteen-degree turn to starboard when the great rock is dead on their port beam.” He was calculating in his mind the forward momentum of the ship and how he would have to anticipate each turn a good hundred yards before it occurred. It was going to be trickier than he had imagined.

  Stiles cupped his hands and shouted down to the bosun at the base of the mast: “All boats dead ahead! Three hundred yards and listen for the call! The great rock will be dead on your port beam! Then, execute a turn hard a’ starboard of fifteen degrees! Smartly now, lads, smartly!”

  The bosun, Willick, called out Nick’s directions to the b
urly hand who was straddling the tip of Merlin’s bowsprit, and he in turn shouted orders out to the four ensigns in charge of each jolly boat. At once, Nick saw the oars on all four boats flash with splendid precision, saw the four lines to Merlin’s bow spring tight, creating a mist of seawater round the ropes, and felt the huge vessel respond, slowly at first, and then quite smartly as she overcame the moment of inertia.

  Suddenly, he was rocking to and fro in his jury-rigged seat high above Merlin’s decks. He felt a cool breeze on his face, and smiled as the barky surged forward, in tow behind the four jolly boats.

  She was moving precisely where he’d intended, right into the mouth of the blue water channel that led through the Seven Devils! He felt a chill run up the length of his spine. It was the same route he’d taken the Petrel through, and even with her shallow draft, the passage had always been tricky.

  At least the channel was clearly wide enough for the beamy warship. Although the last thousand yards or so would be the most devilish, for they were lined with shoals and outcroppings of jagged rock that were invisible even from Nick’s perch in the sky, he believed it was going to work. Now, if only they could outrun Blood by a sufficient margin to conceal their route from the Mystère’s navigator!

  “Hard a’starboard on my mark!”

  “Hooray!” cried Nick, with joy in his voice. “All ahead, two hundred yards more! Watch that shoal as she bears on your port beam!”

  “All ahead two hundred by the mark! Mind the shoal as she bears to port, lads!” shouted the lieutenant down to the bosun. Nick heard the muffled call of Willick on the foredeck and then a loud cheer went up from the crews of the jolly boats, all shouting in unison, “Hooray, hooray, the Merlin away!” The crews rowed as if their very lives depended on it, which well they did.

  Stiles reached up the mast to Nick’s swaying makeshift sling and gave Nick a hearty slap on the shoulder. “I knew you was a capital hydrographer by the looks of your hand-made chart, but I had no idea you was such a fearsome navigator, Nick.”