in locating Sailing Master Harry Ferrier, a Yorkshireman who had taken to the sea after the death of his father many years ago. At the tender age of sixteen he had fought in the second Battle of Cape Finisterre aboard the HMS Weazel. When a French cruiser escaped into the Atlantic, the Weazel was directed to alert Jamaica Station of other French warships on their way.
There was no time for rational thought in that pounding voyage across the Atlantic to Jamaica. The sailing master assumed command when the captain of the sloop died, and Harry Ferrier became sailing master even younger than Able Six. Such was war. In Ferrier’s case, a subsequent battle near Jamaica had meant the destruction of a French fleet and salvage money in everyone’s pockets, even a poor lad’s. Ferrier’s career was distinguished, but he was not a man to noise it about. He had retired a few years ago, living comfortably, Able assumed, on his prize money. Able thought he could find him. Whether Ferrier would hear him out remained the question.
He told all this to Headmaster Croker, who nodded. “I’ll keep your lads busy in the classroom for a week or so. Go find that man.” He chuckled. “Tell him we can pay him the grand sum of thirty-five pounds to fill in for you between now and the end of this year.”
“That’ll tempt a retired master,” Able said with a smile of his own. “May I promise him sumptuous quarters here at St. Brendan’s? Dancing girls in skimpy garb?”
“Certainly.”
They both laughed at that. “Start thinking of our Jolly Roger as the HMS Mercury,” Thaddeus said. “Admiralty has informed me that we may rename her. We’ll have a quiet ceremony at the Jolly Roger’s slip by Gunwharf.”
Able breathed a deep lungful of low-tide effluvia as he stood on the steps of St. Brendan’s and looked up at his home across the street. Thaddeus had given him permission to take Smitty along on this quick trip to Trinity House, and then Admiralty, all in one week or less, because duty called in the classroom. He wanted to know this lad better, who was going to be his second-in-command aboard the Mercury.
Thaddeus had assured him that Captain Rose was already waiting for him at Trinity House, which meant leaving immediately. He told Meri all this in the pantry, where he had found her counting jars of this and that.
“My love, until this national emergency passes, I’ll be in and out at all hours and doing strange duty,” he began.
She stopped him with a kiss, and another one. “I know,” she said. “I know. Just remember where you live and whose bed you’re most comfortable in.”
“No fears there,” he assured her.
“You should know something else,” she began, after looking to make sure the pantry door was shut.
“There is a sturdy cot in here someplace where I can have you now? A blanket at least?” he teased. “I have to leave right away.”
“Oh, you! No, it is this: Nick is feeling downcast because he has no role in events taking Smitty and you away.”
“No fears there either.” He took a deep breath, not certain what her reaction would be to his additional news. “As we speak, Headmaster Croker is arranging for a post chaise tomorrow to whisk our Bonfort boy to Plymouth and the counting house of Carter and Brustein.”
“Whatever for?” she asked.
“He’ll have a signed directive from Admiralty for David Brustein to give us the direction of Sailing Master Harry Ferrier. All we know is that Master Ferrier banks there. Anything else is privileged information.”
“Nick is so young. All by himself?”
Able knew Meri would question it. Nick was young.
“We are all subject to the requirements of the fleet,” Able reminded her. “I know Nick will succeed. When he gets Master Ferrier’s direction, he will have additional orders to take the information to the harbormaster and forward it to me via coastal semaphore.”
“My goodness, the semaphore? We do live in a modern age, don’t we?”
“We do.” In mere seconds he reviewed a calculus class with Jamie MacGregor, now serving in the Pacific, and the late Jan Yarmouth, dead and buried at sea, where his two promising lads had speculated on interplanetary travel and something to do with atoms. Modern age, indeed.
“And?” she prompted.
“Smitty and I will locate Master Ferrier and convince him that he wants to get into harness again, earn a pittance, live in a drafty monastery and teach my classes when I cannot.”