Seasons of War 2-Book Bundle (35 page)

She heard Trevelyan click his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Madam, our Mr. Clive is neither a reliable nor steady marksman. I would not think to trouble
him.
”

She moved away from him to watch in anguish as the chair was manoeuvred into place for her, acutely aware that an escape was impossible. In time, a gentle pressure on her shoulder roused her from her miserable reverie. It was Fly who stood next to her now, his face tired and troubled, holding out his sister’s well-thumbed volumes of
Sense and Sensibility.

“Perhaps it is worth a second reading,” he said quietly.

“Most certainly it is,” she replied, giving him an encouraging smile as he slipped the slim books into the empty pocket of her coat. Despite Trevelyan’s nearness, she leaned in closer to Fly.

“Mr. Austen, you have been most kind to me. For that I will always be grateful.” She fixed her eyes as steadily as she could on his. “Is the doctor – well?”

A softening of Fly’s features told her he was.

Her voice quivered. “Could I then impose on you once more to deliver a message to him for me?”

Fly bent his head to hers. “You may be in a better position to deliver that message yourself, Emily,” he whispered.

Her eyes narrowed in question, and she was about to ask,
Whatever do you mean?
when her arm was seized from behind and she was shoved towards the waiting chair.

“For God’s sake!” Fly shouted at Trevelyan in restrained exasperation.“Could you not at least untie her hands?”

As Emily was roughly hustled into the chair and another rope secured around her waist, Trevelyan gave his snide reply. “Mr. Austen, you should know that a good captain never gives those he cannot trust a second chance, even if that person is one’s
intended
wife.”

Emily stiffened. His words invaded her brain like a malignant infection. There was an awful moment of silence that preceded Trevelyan’s command for the chair to be lowered. As it lurched and dropped, Emily trembled and felt herself growing ice-cold. She saw nothing, heard nothing, and could only think that this is what it must feel like to be lowered into one’s grave. By the time her chair reached the waiting boat, hands scrambled to unfasten the rope at her waist, and smirking officers and sailors openly scrutinized her, but she was hardly conscious of them. She sat on the front few inches of the aft bench of Trevelyan’s barge, her hands still tied behind her, her back to the
Isabelle’s
great hull, and closed her eyes, refusing to look ahead at the three ships that would take her who knows where, unable to contemplate what was to become of her. Soon she felt the boat rock and knew that Trevelyan was positioning himself on the bench opposite her.

“Away, then,” he yelled. The oars fell into the water with a jarring splash and the barge rolled away from the
Isabelle.
Within seconds of their departure, a voice called out urgently to Captain Trevelyan from the
Isabelle’s
decks.

“Sir, the
Serendipity
has signalled to us of a sighting: two ships, perhaps ten or so miles to the north of us.”

“And their nationality?”

“It is uncertain at this time, sir. Do you still wish to take the
Isabelle
a prize?”

For the first time since being paraded from her ship, Emily looked directly at Trevelyan, only to find him drawing his fingers back and forth across his chin, and staring at her with those strange eyes of his. She stared back, determined – though it sickened her – to hold his hostile gaze.

His immediate reply was loud enough for all to hear. “No! Raid her hold, take what able-bodied men you want and then – since I have achieved what I came here for – you can burn her.”

Emily’s stomach churned with horror. Her heart was so full that she could not speak. But Trevelyan, as if he had all the time in a world that was at peace, not war, leaned forward and stroked her hair as he would his pet dog.

“Perhaps, madam, once you are settled on the
Serendipity,
we can order you a bath.”

7:00 p.m.

Adrift in the Atlantic Ocean

WHEN THE SMALL CUTTER finally pulled alongside the fallen mizzenmast, Magpie let out an agonized wail. Gus was sprawled across the timber debris and its torn topsail like a discarded doll, his legs submerged in the sea, his back twisted, and his arms – swollen and blackened with bruises – hooked around the mast-stump. Only his face had escaped the ravages of his calamitous fall – angelic still and gently caressed by the watery fingers of the Atlantic.

“Mr. Walby?”

When there came no reply, an undaunted Magpie shoved the spyglass down the neck of his shirt, grabbed the length of rope lying beside him on the bench, leaned over the gunwale, and fastened a portion of the mast’s rigging as securely as he could to a metal hook on the bow of his boat. Then he climbed out of the skiff onto the mizzenmast wreckage, locked his legs around the stump, and inched his way along it until he arrived at Gus’s head. Wondering how best to rouse him, Magpie gingerly tousled his damp hair and said, “Sir! I’m rescuin’ ya, sir.”

He waited awhile, but there was no response to his voice or his touch. There was nothing but a still form lying beside him.

Magpie started shaking uncontrollably. A crushing pressure squeezed his ribs, as if he’d been jammed between two cannons, and he couldn’t breathe. His soot-stained fingers sought out his crumpling face as he lowered his head to his knees. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t row fast enough.”

He stayed huddled over Gus on the fallen mizzenmast, listening to the quiet lap of the sea as it nudged their little floating island farther still from the
Isabelle
. So great were his feelings of desolation, he no longer cared where the low waves carried him. He thought of playing his flute, but it was still in the skiff, rolling about on the ribbed bottom, and he did not possess the strength to retrieve it. Instead, he stretched his body along the mast, and made the decision to die next to his friend.

It was a loud cry that awoke Magpie with a start. Raising his head in sleepy confusion, he gazed about in gloomy recollection. The
Isabelle!

Blue-black smoke slithered up and around her standing masts and spewed from the gaping wounds in her hull. Magpie pulled the spyglass from his sodden shirt and tried to steady his hands long enough to see through its magnifiers. Instantly he understood the significance of the sailors’ scramble to lower the cutters from their davits, the urgency with which they descended the yards and the tops, and the chaos that abounded above deck. Before long, the men, with no option but to take their chances in the sea, would be throwing themselves off the rails.

With a rallying shot of adrenalin, Magpie bolted upright. “Mr. Walby,” he said, “we gotta go back. I ain’t gonna leave ya here alone.”

Slowly, reverentially, he began to unwrap Gus’s bruised arms from their embrace of the mast, and had successfully freed one when he heard an odd sound. He tensed, wondering if it had come from the debris knocking about in the water, or a sea creature, or was simply a product of his imagination. His eyes darted about, fully expecting to light upon a nearby school of dolphins. As he began working on Gus’s other arm, he heard it again: a human-sounding yelp of pain. This time there was no mistaking its source.

“Yer alive, sir!” he shrieked.

Gus’s eyes flickered, then opened. “I’m cold.”

“Oh, Mr. Walby …” Magpie’s voice broke. He tugged at his arms again.

“No! Leave me. I’m broken – most everywhere, I think. Leave me here.”

“I won’t, sir,” shouted Magpie. “I’ve brung a blanket and some water.” With his chest bursting now with happiness, he chattered on, his words tripping over one another, informing Gus of how he would make him better by feeding him freshly baked biscuits and fixing up his broken bones “just like I seen Dr. Braden do it” and how he would carefully haul him into the cutter where he could get dry.

“And then I’ll play ‘Heart of Oak’ on me flute!” Magpie broke into sudden, shrill song.
“Come cheer up my Lads, ’tis to glory we steer …”

Gus closed his eyes again. “Save yourself and go back.”

Magpie, his back to the dying ship, knew there was no sense in telling Gus of the terror on the
Isabelle.
“I won’t, sir.” He glanced to the north again and his heart quickened, for he was now certain that it was two sails he could see on the skyline. “But if ya can see fit to look through the glass with yer good eyes and all, ya might tell us what ya see.” He waited anxiously for the waves to swing the mizzenmast in a north-facing direction, and then held the glass before Gus’s right eye. “There now, Mr. Walby, give us a squint.”

Gus stared at the horizon for what seemed to Magpie an eternity.

“What d’ya see, sir?”

Finally, Gus raised his head a bit and began to laugh – his laughter weak at first, then an outpouring of explosive sobs. “I’m certain of it, Magpie! Two ships – one of them – why, I know her colours!” he gasped, tears streaming down his whitened cheeks. “It’s our good friend, the
Amethyst!
”

10

Wednesday, June 16

6:00 a.m.

(Morning Watch, Four Bells)

“It’s useless!”

“Abandon the pumps!”

“Get to the boats!”

“There’s no time! There’s no time!”

In a haze of horror, Emily watched the twisted fingers of the brilliant flames engulf the
Isabelle’s
careworn masts and rapidly consume all in its way – tarred rigging, torn sails, tinder-dry planks – with the brutal vitality of an exultant beast pouncing upon its prey. Faceless figures, as black as the bitter smoke that filled her nostrils, panicked around her, running for only God knows where. Emily feverishly searched the seething mob of sailors, hoping to recognize the features of a loved one, but the glowing furnace refused to make distinctions between the night and its fearsome shadows.

“Fire the starboard guns.”

“Lower the larboard boats.”

“Mr. Evans! To the stern at once!”

“The fire – it’ll soon reach the magazine!”

Though she could not see Fly Austen, Emily could hear his voice, hoarse and spent, above the shouting and raging roar of the inferno. His sharp orders were everywhere – now fore, now aft, now amidships – and she called out to him, but he did not reply. Headlong, she ploughed into the crush of frantic bodies and battled her way towards the ship’s foredeck, desperate to find the hatchway that would take her down to the hospital.

Perhaps there she would find Leander.

From the bowels of the ship, a shot of flame whooshed before her like a fiery giant, blocking her way, knocking her backwards upon the scorching planks. Fleeing feet trampled and stumbled over her. She gasped as the severe knocks to her body tore open the skin on her forehead and ruptured anew the bullet wound in her shoulder. Blood poured down her face, filling her eyes and her mouth.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The starboard guns were fired off in rapid succession, ferociously shaking the
Isabelle
and everything that still clung to her decks. The larboard boats began their precarious descent into the darkened water, while bits of burning spars and shroud rained down upon the desperate men who lowered them, setting several afire. The men shrieked and darted about in a ghastly dance before hurling themselves overboard. Emily, unable to breathe, unable to scream, lay paralyzed and helpless near the mainmast, holding her ears in a vain attempt to shut out the appalling bedlam.

After long, terrifying moments, someone stopped to help her. She felt a small, warm hand slip into hers, pull her to her feet, and guide her to the starboard rail.

“Gus? Magpie?” she cried, addressing her shadowy saviour. But, before her eyes, the small hand and its owner slowly shrank away, then disintegrated, as if never really existing in the first place.

Desperate to escape the severe heat, Emily hung her head over the rail and contemplated a plunge into the heaving blackness below. The deck beneath her feet groaned and began to buckle. No one fled past her now; Fly Austen’s shouting had long since ceased. The roar and snap of the fire as it ravaged the
Isabelle
was the only sound that struck her ears. Now all was ablaze, the flames leaping around her like a swarm of striking snakes.

Suddenly Leander was there. He was untouched by the fire, except for its reflection that glowed in the depths of his eyes. His gaze was steady, reassuring, as he extended his hand towards her. Intense happiness flowed through Emily’s veins as she loosened her grip on the rail and turned to meet him. Her fingertips were almost touching his when he moved away, as if an invisible hand were dragging him backwards into the fire. It was then that a tremendous explosion ripped through the
Isabelle,
thrusting the ship’s pathetic remains upwards, above the sea’s surface for a moment, before slamming her down, down upon the eternal waves …