by Ted Bell
“Lady Anne!” Nick cried out to Captain McIver above the excited tumult. “She’s a prisoner in Billy’s cabin, sir! He swore he’d kill her for sure, Captain!” Nick shuddered at the thought of the beautiful woman, helpless before Billy’s fury, and saw McIver’s own face go white with rage. How could he face Nelson if Anne were killed?
“Show me the way, lad, show me the way!” the captain shouted. He followed the boy racing aft, taking the steps up to the poop deck three at a time.
There was a gaggle of bloodthirsty sailors, both French and English, pounding at Billy’s heavy cabin door, screaming for his head. But above those screams could be heard the terrified cry of a woman pleading for her life. They heard, too, the enraged snarls and howls of something more animal than human: Billy. Nick’s breath caught in his throat. The door was too thick. Were he and the captain too late?
“Attention!” Captain Mclver said in his booming voice, and the rowdy sailors all immediately came to order. “I want this door destroyed in five seconds or less. Make that ‘less.’ ”
Four French sailors formed up and, in one furious blow, visited their years of suffering under Captain Blood upon his thick oak door. It splintered inward on their first smashing attack and the sailors tumbled into the great cabin with Nick and McIver right on their heels.
“Search this cabin!” McIver ordered the men, his own eyes scanning desperately for Nelson’s niece and Billy Blood. But Nick had seen at the stern windows in that last moment a glimmering golden light, as of a thousand shimmering fireflies, and knew their search would be fruitless. He saw Lady Anne collapsed on the banquette, her head bowed and sobbing, her dress ripped and torn, a bloody stain at her white shoulder.
“She’s been hurt!” the captain shouted and rushed to her side.
The captain sat beside her, and began applying a homely bandage he’d made from his torn shirt to Lady Anne’s shoulder. “I don’t think it’s at all serious, LadyAnne,” he said soothingly, “but this should hold you until I can get you to the Merlin’s surgeon. Are you all right, my dear girl?”
“I—I think so, Captain. Thank you. And I’m eternally grateful to this handsome young gentleman, too,” she said favoring Nick with a lovely smile. “Did the pirate escape?”
“He’s gone, Captain!” a crewman cried, bursting into the cabin. The French sailors had been searching the lower decks in vain for Billy Blood, against all hope. “He’s escaped!”
As Nick knew, Billy Blood, of course, had not fled to another deck, but to another place or time. And escaped the punishment Nick knew he so richly deserved.
“Billy’s got away, Captain,” Nick said, eyes downcast.
“Ease yerself, son,” McIver said softly. “What escape can there be for the creature? Wherever can he run? France? He’s lost their most powerful warship for them! The little Corsican emperor will have his head in a basket at the guillotine for that one, sure! England? There’s a king’s ransom on his vile head there, too! The Seven Seas? No, he’s not escaped, lad, he’s doomed to wander the ages, missing his good right hand, reviled by all who encounter him. Besides, you’ve still got your golden orb, Nick. Wherever Bill roams, so, too, can you and Lord Hawke. He can’t escape your justice, lad, and that’s a good thing.”
Billy’s gone—squawk—he’ll be back—squawk—Billy’s gone—squawk—back back back.
Bones. The parrot fluttered his bright red feathers and then the terrible bird was gone in search of his master, flown out the open window.
On the Mystère’s quarterdeck, the French Captain of Marines, Bonnard, went down on one knee and presented the sword of surrender to Lord Richard Hawke. Hawke accepted, in lieu of the captain, smiling at the men assembled around the helm, removing his now well-chomped cigar from his lips. “Let him run, the devil. There’s no hiding for him on this ship. Or, anywhere on this earth!”
He turned to the French captain. “Captain Bonnard, on behalf of Merlin, Captain Nicholas McIver commanding, and His Majesty’s Royal Navy, I accept your surrender. I will present your colors and sword to my captain forthwith.” Hawke bowed deeply and Bonnard did the same. “You are a gentleman, sir,” Hawke added, as Bonnard handed him the tattered French ensign. “It has been my honor to do battle with you.”
The French struck their colors and now every English heart lifted, as the flag of England fluttered against the blue sky at Mystère’s topmast.
Hawke stepped up onto the binnacle and raised the surrendered flag of France into the air and an explosion of cheering voices from the Merlin and the decks of the Mystère rose up to meet him. It was a sound he’d never dared dream of hearing, but one that would stay with him always. His own men were cheering the English victory, the Frenchmen celebrating their liberation from the evil tyranny of Captain Blood. And they both appeared to be waiting for some kind of speech from Hawke. Everyone on deck had suddenly gone stone silent.
“My brave shipmates and comrades, I hardly know how to thank you for—”
“Father! Father!” A tiny voice pierced the silence in a way that made Hawke’s heart leap into his throat so fast he could not get another word out.
“Oh, Father, yes, it’s really you!”
And then Hawke saw the sea of sailors part and two small ragged children race across the deck toward him, led by a big black dog. Suddenly, tears of the purest joy were coursing down his cheeks and he leapt down from the binnacle and ran to them, falling to his knees as they approached him, hardly able to believe his eyes. Annabel and Alexander! Yes, it was true! And suddenly his two wee children were once more in their father’s long-lost arms, all three of them laughing and crying at the same time, hugging each other as if they might never let go.
“Oh, Daddy, is it really you?” Annabel said, hugging him around the neck as tightly as ever she could. “We didn’t think we’d ever see you again!”
“Yes, Father,” Alexander exclaimed, as Lord Hawke kissed both of his wet little cheeks and brushed the hair back from his forehead. “However did you find us? We missed you so terribly, terribly much! And we were so afraid you wouldn’t know where to look for us!”
“I had a great deal of help, son. More than I can ever repay,” Hawke said, pulling the two children to his chest as tightly as he could, thinking then of Nick, and Gunner, and of course his dear Hobbes and all they’d done to make this most wondrously joyful reunion possible. Looking up, he saw a radiant Caribbean woman with massive golden rings in her ears standing over them, the brilliant smile on her face shining down on the happy little family.
“So, you’re the papa, is that so?” she asked. “Well, well, I been their mama for the longest time and I know better than anybody how happy they are to see you. Just as handsome as they said you might be, too!” Sookie threw back her head and laughed. “My, my! What a joyful day!”
“You took care of my children all this time?” Hawke asked, smiling at Sookie.
“Oh, yes, Daddy, she truly did!” Annabel exclaimed.
“Them and a lot more where these two come from,” Sookie said, laughing. “Have you put paid to that loathsome pirate yet?” Hawke nodded that he had. “Well, now old Billy’s gone, just you watch this! You ain’t never heard a ship explode like this, Lord Hawke. No matter how many sea battles you’ve been in!”
Sookie inserted two fingers into her mouth and let out a piercing whistle. Hawke heard loud barking and saw the big black dog bounding back across the deck and disappearing down the dark stairs of the midships companionway. Instantly, there was a shrill explosion, just as Sookie had promised. Not of cannon or gunfire, but of children’s laughter! All about the decks, hatches popped open, doors were flung open, and small shaggy heads emerged, blinked in the brilliant sun, and shouted for pure joy.
From every corner of the vessel they poured, children of all ages, filthy and dressed mostly in rags, but all of them now laughing and singing and leaping about from the sheer wonder of being in the open air again, of being in the warm sunshine once more, of b
eing free. There were animals, too, released from captivity. Dogs and cats, goats and pigs, and birds of every description. Hawke was amazed to see a number of brilliantly colored tropical birds fly up out of the hatches and perch up in the rigging! He even saw two Shetland ponies with two near-naked boys astride them, go trotting across the deck! And still the children poured from the bowels of the ship, bursting forth from every hatchway like laughter itself.
Soon enough, hornpipes and harmonicas, fiddles and fifes appeared, and the sound of children singing cheerful rhymes and sea shanties could soon be heard from stem to stern, as on the Mystère’s crowded decks, and even spilling over to the Merlin, a great many French swabs and English jack-tars and happy children whirled each other about under the noonday sun in an endless swirling jig.
Lord Hawke, standing on the poop deck beneath the fluttering towers of war-torn canvas, with one of his laughing children in each of his arms, looked down upon this joyful scene and turned to Sookie at his side.
“Ever see such a sight in all your life, Sookie?” he asked her, letting his eyes gaze over the bobbing and dancing heads on the decks below, to the forward end of the great vessel and then up into the rigging where now scores of brilliantly colored birds of yellow and blue and green, every exotic shape and hue, were singing their songs of the deep Amazonian rain forest to the children dancing gaily below.
“No, for all love, I surely ain’t, sir,” Sookie replied, shaking her head in wonder. “Children are truly the light of the world, your lordship.”
Her laughter floated lightly out over the children’s happy faces like the sweetest music of all time.
CHAPTER XXXVI
A Glorious Farewell
· 4 October 1805 ·
H. M. S. MERLIN, AT SEA
Just then there was a tapping at Captain McIver’s cabin door, and Hawke pulled it open with a gallant flourish. Hawke knew who it must be. He saw Nick and the captain standing outside the door, huge grins on their faces. The captain removed his black officer’s hat and bowed deeply from the waist. He’d changed into his best uniform, blue coat over snow-white breeches, and someone had given young Nick a cockaded black hat as well. Nick removed it, smiling widely, and imitated the captain’s dramatic bow.
“Back already, are you, then?” Hawke asked, his eyes alight with happiness. He stepped aside so they might enter. “And a good thing, too! These two children here are chafing to go home.” Since the great victory, Hawke, Gunner, and the children had been in the captain’s great cabin aboard the Merlin, busily preparing for the voyage home.
“And me as well,” Gunner said. “Homeward bound, at last! Was yer final mission a success, lad?”
“Aye, Gunner! What a treasure we have here!” Nick said, holding up his golden ball. “We used the machine to return every single one of the those poor children to their parents and relations! Feel the machine, Gunner, it’s still warm from so much use!” He laughed and threw the golden ball across to Gunner who caught it easily and rolled it between his hands in delight. “Has there been a happier mission than ours, Captain?” Nick asked his traveling companion.
“Aye, it was joyous! Never in life have you seen such glee as young Nick and I were greeted with! Them poor parents, scattered all over God’s creation! Why, they’d given up hope, they had. Believed they’d never set eyes on those little ones again. And suddenly, here’s an old sea captain and a wisp of a boy as comes walkin’ up the lane with their wee children in tow, and rappin’ upon their very doors! Aye, most couldn’t speak for the tears of joy they shed, am I honest, Nick?”
“Aye, Cap’n, it was the most fitting end to the most perfect day, sir,” Nick said softly, remembering. “Especially climbing up the pyramid, sir.”
“Pyramid! What’s the boy talking about, Captain?” Hawke asked.
“Ah, yes,” McIver said, his face wrinkling in a merry grin. “Our last little one. Turned out to be a pharaoh’s boy! Bloke by the name of Ramses, his father was, had this amazin’ pyramid right by the River Nile. I don’t speak much Egyptian, but you’ve never seen a happier pharaoh in all your days!”
Then Hawke and Gunner erupted into delighted laughter, clapping Nick and the captain on their backs and cheering, a warm glow of happiness across all their faces. The machine was finally being used for good, rather than evil, in this world.
“Now, come, I’ve but a moment to bid you farewell, my dear friends,” Captain McIver said. “We must fairly fly to England if we’re to catch Lord Nelson before he sails!”
He stood back looking down at them, hands on his hips, favoring the three time travelers with the warmest of smiles.
“I’ve neither sand enough left in me glass, nor poetry enough in me heart to tell you what is welling in me full breast,” the captain said. “But I’ll warrant it’s the fortune of my life to have stood shoulder to shoulder with you three these recent hours. Each of you is as brave and gallant a man as I’ve encountered on any sea, and I include you when I say that, Nicholas McIver, for indeed you’ve distinguished yourself as the match of any man who fought this glorious day!”
The captain opened his arms then, and Nick ran into them, pressed his happy head against his dear ancestor’s broad chest, his own arms around the captain’s shoulders, holding on to him as if he would never let go. “It’s been my honor, sir,” Nick said, stifling a sob.
“Come, come!” the captain said, pounding Nick heartily on the back and tousling his hair with enormous affection before pulling away for the door. “No parting tears! This brave band will be joined again, afore two shakes of a nanny goat’s tail! Let us get you lowered away, so that the barky may race for England’s shore and Nelson’s ear!
“Come, children, we’re going home!” Hawke said, and a freshly scrubbed Annabel and Alexander leapt from their seats beneath the stern window and ran to their father.
Captain McIver paused at the door and turned to the travelers with a mischievous little grin on his ruddy face. “Now, I hope you’ll forgive us. Mr. Stiles and meself couldn’t resist a little send-off as befits your noble efforts on behalf of the old Merlin! I’ll see you on deck when yer done with yer preparations!” And so the captain took his leave.
“Have you entered our destination yet, Gunner?” Lord Hawke asked.
“Where do you want to arrive, your lordship? The library or the kitchen?” Gunner said seriously, looking at the chart and punching numbers into the glittering Locus half of the jeweled instrument. He was seated at the captain’s small desk, deep in concentration, beneath the sun-filled open stern windows. The sea air, at last clear of gunsmoke, had that fine bite of salt a man loved to fill his lungs with.
“You’ve gotten so handy with that infernal thing, have you, Gunner?” Hawke laughed, stowing the fancy French sword of surrender into his sea bag. McIver had insisted he take it, and Hawke had been deeply touched.
It was Gunner who’d first raised the problem of how they might suddenly disappear from the vessel without causing Captain McIver all sorts of inconvenient questions. And he had been quick with a solution. “Whyn’t we get them to lower us away in that little sailin’ skiff, say we’ve unfinished business back on the island and don’t want to be no inconvenience, and—”
“And, soon as we’re over the horizon, use the machine to return to Hawke Lagoon in nineteen thirty-nine!” Hawke had exclaimed. “It’s brilliant, Gunner! That way, no questions, and the captain’s sure to make it to London in time for his meeting with Lord Nelson!” Hawke was laughing to himself. They were actually getting quite good at this rummy business of time travel!
“I’ve entered the Locus and Tempus, your lordship,” Gunner said. “We can all go home now!”
So the three travelers, their kits slung over their shoulders and the children in the arms of Lord Hawke, with Jip barking loudly and bringing up the rear, marched up the broad staircase to the Merlin’s quarterdeck and stepped out into the brilliant sunshine once more. Nick blinked his eyes twice, stunned by the pa
geant he saw arrayed before them.
Every man of the Merlin, it seemed, was turned out on deck. And all three hundred or more crewmen were dressed in their best Sunday whites, and the officers in their fine blue coats sparkling with decorations and all in a line; and, on the main deck, a squadron of crimson-jacketed Marines in tight formation with silver muskets raised in the air. And, beside them, a corps of drummers dressed with magnificent battle drums, who now launched into a stately military tattoo that rolled across the decks.
“What’s this?” Nick whispered to Gunner, for he could hardly believe this was all somehow related to their departure.
“I ain’t at all sure, Master Nick,” Gunner bent to whisper back, “but it’s got all the earmarks of a twenty-one-gun salute!”
Nick saw the captain and Lieutenant Stiles now standing in front of the other senior officers formed up along the quarterdeck rail. All Nick could see under the row of black silk officers’ hats was a row of pearly smiles. The ship was under way again, and had a fine heel to her. Looking aloft, Nick saw clouds of freshly repaired white canvas towering above, pulling hard for England. She was a fine, weatherly ship and, if this breeze held, she’d have no trouble completing her do-or-die mission. Astern, about a quarter of a mile in the Merlin’s wake, he saw the giant red Mystère, under a mountain of sail, now a prize sailing under English colors, and throwing a fine white spray off her bows.
On a signal from the lieutenant, a four-man squad of redcoated Marines formed up around the travelers, and Nick understood that they were going to escort them through the mass of humanity to the starboard rail amidships. There, he could see the captain’s gig already slung from davits.
“Squad, ho!” bellowed the Captain of Marines standing next to Stiles, and the squad formed up around them, one in front, one in back, one on each side. At a barked signal, they began moving at a quick clip past the officers toward the steps leading down to the main deck. Nick found that he had to step lively in order to remain in proper formation and saw Mr. Stiles grinning broadly at his feeble efforts at naval decorum. Both Stiles and the captain were staring straight ahead as he approached, and Nick was struck to the marrow to see first Stiles, then McIver’s hand snap smartly to their brows.