WE FOUND THAT IT WAS NEARLY FOUR O'CLOCK, AND ordered dinner to be sent to my mother's room—left a note of apology and very little of explanation for Mary and Martha—and set out for Wool House thereafter.
“You said, I think, that you are a little acquainted with Captain Smallwood—the officer in command of the prison hulk?” I enquired as we hurried down the High towards Southampton Water. I spoke in part to defray anxiety; I could not help but feel we should have been hours beforehand in our apprehension of danger.
“An excellent fellow! Though quite enslaved to cards,” Frank returned distractedly. “There is no one like Smallwood for playing at faro. I met with him some once or twice in Malta, and later in the West Indies; I have seen Hamlet in his company, too, while ashore in Gibraltar. He once put me in the way of a bang-up prize-agent.”1
“But is Smallwood likely to oblige you in so serious a matter, without the requirement of greater authority— or at the very least, a full explanation?”
“I cannot say,” Frank admitted. “The Navy is rather ticklish about—”
“—niceties and farms,” I supplied. “Not to mention the conduct of prisoners of war. Smallwood should not like to risk the disapprobation of the Admiralty, in the person of Sir Francis Farnham.”
“Nor should anyone, I expect—but Farnham need not come into it. We shall have Hill at our side, and a man of science may convince a fellow of anything. We must try Smallwood's character, and hope for the best. Mind the loose cobble, Jane!”
What my brother intended was fairly simple: he thought to secure Mr. Hill's support in urging the release of Etienne LaForge into Frank's care, so that the Frenchman might be removed from the hulk and placed in a room at Mrs. Davies's lodging house. The fact that LaForge was a surgeon—rather higher in his berth than a common seaman—should be strenuously represented, as well as the gravity of the man's condition. Nothing of our murderous suspicions need be disclosed to Captain Smallwood; nothing but charity and goodwill on the part of ourselves should be displayed; and with a minimum of fuss or anxiety, we might all sleep soundly in our beds this evening.
Such was the plan, and it might have gone off to perfection—but for the small difficulty of our discovering, at the moment of arriving at Wool House, that the place was locked and deserted. Even the Marines who usually stood guard before the great oak doors were fled.
“I suppose Mr. Hill can have no reason for remaining in attendance,” said Frank thoughtfully, “the prisoners being taken off to the hulk. I shall have to seek him at his lodgings. He resides in St. Michael's Square, I believe—no very great distance. You might remain on the Quay, Jane, and await our return.”
“I shall stare at the hulk until my eyes fail me,” I promised him.
• • •
I MADE MY WAY TO THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE PAVING and hastened past the wharves towards Water Gate Quay. The heavy stone expanse thrust out into the sea had no power to cheer me, this darkening day; the distance between Quay's end and anchored prison hulk was too great to admit of comfort. I stood near a piling and felt the wind tug at my pelisse; sea birds wheeled and cried overhead like unquiet souls. As always, the activity on Southampton Water was very great, despite the late hour and lengthening shadows. Boats of every description plied their oars between mainland and moorings.
The hulk was easy to discern, dismasted and stripped of its sails, against the backdrop of the New Forest. Only this ship, out of all the others at anchor, must exhibit no purposeful movement on its upper deck; here the activity was entirely below, behind the closed portals that had once housed guns, and now sheltered the abandoned wretches tethered in chains. What sin had Etienne LaForge committed, that he must suffer so fearful a purgatory?
The Water was all chop and white-curling wave, the stiffening breeze driving the current hard against the shore. I could feel its shuddering force slap at the stones of the Quay on which I stood. The hulk would be heaving in its depths, the misery heightened for those in delirium. I narrowed my eyes, attempting to pick out even one figure against the dusk—and saw a rocket soar up near the prison ship's hull. It exploded overhead in a red arc of light.