The Saintly Buccaneer (32 page)

“Please do this for us!” Dorcas sobbed. “I know he’ll remember us when we get him here!”

Charity was not certain he would, but she only said, “I’ll do what I can. But he’ll have to make the decision.”

“I’ll get his things!” Dorcas dashed out the door eagerly, her face alive with hope.

“Tell me more about Paul, please, Miss Alden,” Charles begged quietly, and he sat there intently as she told him how he behaved, including how he had saved her life. He listened avidly, and his sharp eye did not miss the warmth that came into the girl’s face as she spoke of his son.

Finally when she halted, he responded, his penetrating eyes fixed on hers, “I believe you are telling me that my son is a better man now than he was before.” He ignored her protest, and continued thoughtfully. “Paul was a spoiled child. He had too much, and that was my fault. It would be good to believe that we could have the best of all possible worlds.”

She grasped at his meaning. “You mean, have his memory return, but not lose this—this better spirit?”

“You are quick, Charity.” He put his hand on hers. “Tell him we love him. Tell him we want him home! This is his place. He is a part of the House of Winslow!”

“I’ll—I’ll tell him, Mr. Winslow, but it may not work out. Things don’t, for the most part.”

She had told him of the death of her father and the loss
of their ship, and now the doubt and fear showed in her smooth face.

Winslow felt her grief, and he spoke earnestly. “You know my brother and his family. They are all devout believers. Not like me. I’m a nominal church member.” His lips twisted sadly, and he shook his head in disgust. “I heard a preacher once say, ‘God deliver us from half-baked Christians!’ Well, that’s what I am—but I have always known that God is much larger than my thought of Him, for I’ve seen it in Adam and Molly. Nathan and his wife are probably the same.”

“They are! When my brother died at Valley Forge, I’d have died with grief if they hadn’t helped me with their faith!”

“Yes, I know. They have
something,
don’t they? Well, I’m an impious man—but I am convinced that God didn’t save my son, then put you in his way, then get him back to this country
by accident!
No, Charity, God is in this! Now, you go tell my son to come, and we’ll see God do the rest of it—give him his memory back and restore him to his family and his place!”

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE TRAP

Charity made the trip to New York quickly, but filled with apprehension. She had no desire to get involved with the family of Charles Winslow, yet there seemed to be no way out of taking the message.
I’ll tell him what they said—and after that I’ll pull out of the whole thing,
she promised herself as she got off the coach and made her way to the dock.

The sight of
The Gallant Lady
in the repair yard saddened her, and she forced herself not to think of how much the ship had meant to her. Paul had been aboard waiting when she had left for Boston, but the dockmaster told her that he had gone back on board the
Neptune,
anchored a half mile away. She made her way to that section of the harbor and waited until the captain’s gig came ashore, and she saw Lieutenant Burns stepping out onto the dock.

She approached him as he walked away from the gig. “Lieutenant Burns?”

He turned at once and touched his hat. “Yes, miss?—why, it’s you—Miss Alden!” His homely face lit up with a smile and he strode to her at once, adding, “I’m glad to see ye, miss.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” She offered her hand, saying, “I never had an opportunity to thank you for your thought-fulness—and I do so now. You were so kind when I lost my father!”

“Nothin’ at all, Miss Alden,” he protested. “I only wish I could have done more.”

“Would you be able to do me a small service?”

“Anything, Miss Alden!”

“I need to have a word with Lieutenant Hawke. Would there be any way you could get a message to him?”

“Certainly there is!” he nodded vigorously. “I’ll be goin’ right back to the ship as soon as I make one call in town. Just tell me where you’ll be, and I’ll tell Mr. Hawke.”

“I’ll be at the Eagle Inn—right over there.”

“Shouldna be over a couple o’ hours, miss. Captain Rommey’s been generous with us aboot shore leave. We’ll be shippin’ out in a week, so he thought we might like to see a little o’ America. Weel, I’ll hurry on now—the Eagle, is it?”

“Yes, and thank you so very much!”

The officer scurried off, and for the next hour Charity walked along the beach, noting that the harbor was a forest of masts—most of them English warships. The fleet of England was the mightiest in the world, and she wondered how the tiny nation seeking a birth could ever survive matched against such a force.

She was several hundred yards down the beach when she saw Burns return, get in the gig, and set out for the warship. Less than an hour later, the gig pulled away from the
Neptune
and she saw Winslow in the prow looking landward. She hurried toward the dock and waited with mixed emotions as she saw him step out on the dock. There were eight men pulling the oars, and after catching her eye, Winslow turned to his men, ordering, “Those of you with overnight leave better not get so drunk you can’t get back to the ship tomorrow—or you’ll find yourself carrying my bag up the mast.” He waited for the “aye” that came rather reluctantly from the men, then turned and walked toward her.

“Lookee, there, Sullivan! Blimey! If ’e ain’t gone and got hisself another dolly!” Oscar Grimes kept his beady black eyes fixed on the couple as he got out of the gig. His stiff black hair was pasted down with grease, and he was dressed in his “town” clothing.

“He’s a ladies man, right enough,” the hulking Irishman
agreed, staring avidly at the figure of the woman. “But I ain’t got no doubts about findin’ meself one that good, Grimes. Let’s get to the liquor and the gals!”

Ordinarily Grimes would have joined Sullivan at the fleshpots, but he was a man capable of storing up hatred like a miser stores his gold. He had never forgotten how Hawke had treated him and his friend Sullivan; in fact, the memory had grown over the months until now there was a hatred like a fiery coal in the brutal mind of the seaman. Very rarely can a common seaman find any way to revenge himself on an officer, but an idea had leaped into his mind.

“You go on, Sullivan,” he suggested, a crafty smile twisting his lips. “I got me another sort of pleasure in mind.”

Sullivan stared at him, shifted his gaze to the officer and the girl, who were headed toward one of the inns, and grinned. “Oscar,” he told him, “you ain’t hard to figure out. You’re gonna get some goodies on Hawke—then see that the captain’s daughter gets wind of it, right?”

“I dunno—but I’ll find some way to get some of me own back on him, blast ’is eyes!”

Sullivan shrugged his heavy shoulders. “You can get burned playin’ with fire—but I know it won’t do no good to talk to you when you see a chance to do him dirty. I’m out of it!”

Grimes scowled at him, turned abruptly, and followed Hawke and the woman. He kept well back out of sight, and when they entered an inn with a picture of an eagle on the sign, he found a spot down the street where he could remain invisible, yet see the door. “Guess they’ll be goin’ upstairs for their fun,” he muttered. “But I’ll get the goods on ’em!”

He was surprised when, twenty minutes later, Hawke came out alone and headed for the dock. “Wot’s this?” he scowled. He watched to see if the woman came out, but she did not. Baffled, he kept Hawke in sight and saw him walk rapidly to the wharf and leap into the gig. He grew angry with frustration, for the situation seemed to offer no possibilities for revenge. He skulked about the street, still waiting for the
woman to come out. He got a drink from a bar and took it outside to continue his watch, but finally gave it up and started to find Sullivan.

At that moment he looked across the harbor and saw the
Neptune
’s gig making for shore again with Hawke in the bow. He hid himself as he watched the officer come in sight—and saw that he was carrying a bag. He entered the inn and did not come out again.

“I’ll bet the blighter went and got leave!” Grimes mused out loud. Slowly a grin split his face. “He’s movin’ ashore, sure as Sunday, to be with that gal. Now I’ll git ’im for sure!” He was prepared for a long wait, but it was a pleasure for him to think about the damage he could do the officer. He was so caught up with his plans to ruin Hawke that when a man came out of the Eagle an hour later, he almost missed it. Only when the woman came out did he cast a startled glance at the man—and his mind reeled when he saw that the well-dressed civilian was Hawke.

“Wot’s this?” he gasped. “Wot’s ’e up to out of ’is uniform?”

He followed the couple as they made their way out of the harbor to a red barn-like building located on what seemed to be a main road. Grimes couldn’t read, but he asked a man who was passing by, “Wot place is that, do yer say?”

“That’s the coach station” was the answer. “Coaches out of New York all leave from here. You pay for your seat in there.”

Grimes stared at the building uncertainly, noting that the pair had entered. But they were out almost at once and went to a small inn facing the red building. “Well, wot they up to? Leavin’ town?” A light burned in his beady eyes, and he snapped his fingers. “Blimey! He’s gonna take that little wench away from here—get away from where he’s known!”

He was certain this was the way of it, but he was stymied as to what to do next. Finally he moved carefully down the street and entered the coach station. An elderly man with silver hair looked up from the desk. “You need a seat?”

“Why, no—not fer meself—see, wot I need is to find out if a man has already been here—and bought a seat.”

“What’s his name?”

“Why—that’s the trouble!” Grimes was thinking fast, and he was a quick-witted fellow. “Me captain told me to check the station and see if one of our officers had already left—but I forgot ’is bleedin’ name!”

The old man shook his head. “No naval officers have bought seats today.”

“Well—maybe ’e wouldn’t be wearing ’is uniform, seeing as ’e was on leave.”

The clerk thought, then shook his head. “There are only five people on the coach that leaves for Boston—and there’s no other coach until tomorrow. There’s a woman with two small children and one couple—a man and a woman.”

“Was the man a dandy sort of fellow—sort of dark and well set up?”

“Why, yes, he was. Said his name was Paul Winslow. You could find him down the street, I think. The coach will leave in an hour.”

Grimes nodded and headed out the door, muttering, “Now—I dunno wot to do with this. Why would ’e change ’is name? Just to cover up ’is tracks, I reckon—but how the devil can I get the proof on ’im? They won’t never take my word against ’is—not likely!”

His mind raced, and he stood there baffled. Just as he was ready to give it up, he remembered something he had heard one of the officers say:
If there’s trouble with the men on shore, it’ll be handled by the commandant’s office—a Major Locke. He’s Army—but he takes care of discipline problems—sort of a policeman.

Grimes scurried off quickly, and by the simple expedient of asking an army officer, discovered the location of Major Locke’s office. He went in with his hat in his hand, more than a little frightened at what he was about to do, but the hatred he had for Hawke kept him going.

He told a sergeant in an outer office that he had secret information for the major, which was evidently a common thing. He was taken to a larger office, and soon the English officer—a smallish man with a thin moustache and penetrating gray eyes—had pumped him dry.

“So this Lieutenant Hawke is now going by the name of Paul Winslow?”

“Aye, sir, and I gotter say ’e ain’t never been no
regular
officer, if you know wot I mean!”

Locke listened, and although Grimes had no way of knowing, the principal job of the officer was not the discipline of unruly troops so much as secret service operations. The English were in the midst of an enemy people, and the Americans had developed an effective method of obtaining and passing along military information. It was, Locke had learned, not so much a formal organization as a loosely joined group who were as hard to pin down as running water.

He listened as Grimes spoke of how Hawke had come aboard, and thought with a shock,
What a clever way to get one of their men inside our service!
He rejected the idea at once as being too complicated and totally unrealistic, but he was determined to run the matter down.

“I’ll see about this, Grimes. I can find you on the
Neptune?
Well, you keep what you’ve told me quiet—and that’s an order.”

“Right, sir. I was just doin’ me duty!”

Locke waved the man out impatiently, and as soon as he was gone, called out, “Sergeant, get Mackley in here at once.” He leaned back in his chair, staring at the wall until a nondescript man in civilian clothes came and stood before him. “I have something for you, John. Probably not worth much, but I don’t think we can ignore it.” He gave the details as he had gotten them from Grimes, and ordered, “Get going. The Boston coach leaves in less than an hour. Find out about this fellow.”

“Take him in, sir? Might be a bit touchy, you know. I mean Boston is packed with rebels.”

Locke frowned. “You’re right, of course—but take McCoy with you, out of uniform, of course. The two of you should be able to get the fellow out of Boston. Use your judgment, John. These blasted Americans know every move we make before
we
do. If the man’s a spy, he’s in a position to do us tremendous damage—an officer on board one of His Majesty’s ships! Think of it!”

“I’ll be on the coach.” Mackley turned and hurried out of the room. The major went to the window and saw him moving rapidly along the streets. “He’ll be a clever fellow if he gets by Mackley!” he muttered with satisfaction.

****

Hawke had been expecting a message from Charity, but when he got inside the Eagle Inn, he was taken aback by her proposal. He listened carefully while she told in detail of her meeting with his family, but shook his head at once when she told of their plea for him to come to Boston.