Thriller (52 page)

Every passing minute on this blasted island, it seemed, was

meant to test my resolve. The footing was treacherous. Needles

of horizontal icy rain stung my face; nonetheless, I pressed on.

I stumbled and fell again. I got up. I walked on.

You see? By my lights, a cozy armchair by the fireside is a far,

far more suitable environment for adventuring than traipsing

across the hostile plains of a frozen wasteland. Yet my trusty proboscis would not be denied, and so I pressed onward. The rain

did ease a bit on toward evening, I must say. But, soon, the visibility dropped considerably when tendrils of fog nearly obscured the low-hanging sun. It was now merely a hazy yellow

wafer sliding toward the sea.

Such dangerous terrain and weather as I encountered only

served to fuel my misery and sap my confidence on that trek.

Slipping and sliding across the island’s rocky headland, I grew

ever more tired and bone cold. Late in the day, more serious

doubts about this adventure inevitably crept round the edges of

my mind: one truly nasty fall and my frozen carcass wouldn’t be

found till next morning.

Still and all, I was determined to reach the old Greybeard Inn

before nightfall, for I had arranged a meeting with the proprietor there, a Mr. Martyn Hornby, at the hour of eight o’clock.

At quarter past the hour of seven, I was still on my feet, my

face a mask of ice. Uncertain of my next turning, I dug my stiff

fingers inside a pocket for my map, but it was soggy and ruined

and came away in pieces. My course being westerly, with only

the setting sun as my guide, I still believed I might arrive before

darkness fell. Time would certainly tell.

The godforsaken place to which I had recently journeyed by

sail is a tiny link in an archipelago located off the coast of France.

This particular island, by far the smallest of the lot, took its

name from the thick, pea-soupy fogs that persistently haunted

the place.

It was aptly named Greybeard Island.

The place reminded me a bit of the Skelligs, if you know those

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two forbidding spires. I once chased down the rare Skellig tern

there, the bird flitting about those two rock cathedrals set in the

royal-blue Atlantic off the southwest shores of Ireland. The Skelligs are remote places, potent in their discomfort. One visit is

enough for most, and more than enough for your faithful armchair correspondent.

But I kept putting one boot in front of another that frigid and

gloomy evening for one reason. I fervently believed Mr. Hornby

could alter the pitiful circumstances of my life.

Martyn Hornby, I had recently learned from his lovely daughter, Cecily, was one of a very small number of Royal Navy veterans of the Napoleonic Wars still alive. He was, as far as I could

determine, the sole living survivor of the crew of the HMS
Merlin
.

This small forty-eight-gun English man-o’-war had fought a

courageous and—I’d come to believe—pivotal naval battle

against a massive French seventy-four-gun frigate back in ’05.

When I say pivotal, I do not speak lightly. I mean I believed that

the
Merlin’
s victory had changed the course of history.

And no one, to my knowledge, had ever heard tell of it!

Miss Cecily Hornby, a most charming woman in my eyes, had

waxed eloquent in her discourse regarding this sea battle. Here,

briefly, is what I know of the matter.

Seventy-five years ago now, back in the summer of 1805, a huge

French frigate,
Mystere
, was lurking off this very coast. The reasons

for the enemy’s presence here at Greybeard Island were unknown.

I did know she sailed under the command of the infamous Captain William Blood, an Englishman and a traitor of the first order.

Old Bill was an infamous rogue who had betrayed Admiral

Lord Nelson, not for political reasons, mind you, but for a very

large sum of capital offered by the French. Captain Blood’s formidable services were now at the disposal of Napoleon and his

Imperial French Navy.

William Blood was Admiral Lord Nelson’s nemesis in those

years. And it was only the purest of luck that put that villain at

last in British gun sights.

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England’s very fate was in HMS
Merlin’
s hands that day. Sometime in early July, the heavily armed
Mystere
engaged in a vicious

set-to with the much smaller British ship. As I understood the

thing, had not an obscure English captain named McIver and a

mysterious passenger aboard
Merlin
known only as Lord Hawke

eked out a victory that fine summer’s day, we might all be speaking French.

Surely, I thought, this dramatic encounter, long lost in the

swirling mists of history, was the prizewinning tale. For now, I

could only dream it were true and hope to prove it.

Subsequent to Cecily’s revelations, I commenced a feverish research at the Royal Navy College down at Greenwich. And, finding no record of the engagement, I had determined that, should

Martyn Hornby’s tale prove credible, I, Pendleton Tolliver, lowly

chronicler of church bazaars, tea parties and missing felines,

might soon be a wealthy fellow. And, one rewriting the history

books in the bargain.

My mind was understandably excited.

Distracted by such thoughts, I slipped then, and nearly lost

my footing on a sharply angled escarpment, at the bottom lip of

which I spied a cliff, one that dropped some four hundred feet

to the sea. Well, I clung to a vertical outcropping of glistening

rock and paused, trembling on the edge of the precipice. Once

my heart slowed to a reasonable hammering, I pressed on.

Darkness was fully upon me now, and I despaired of not bringing some kind of torch to light my way.

Historians, I was rapidly learning, need an adventurous streak.

Tracking down and conversing with far-flung witnesses to history is neither for the faint of heart nor weak of limb. The wouldbe chronicler of forgotten events must be possessed of a degree

of zealotry seldom found outside the pulpit or the sacristy. These,

then, were my musings as a sudden thunderclap boomed behind

me and lightning strokes danced on the far horizon.

Sodden, hungry, but still determined, I reached a fork in the

road. In the gloom, I could make out no stone marker to guide

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me. To the left, a middling road of crushed stone led off

through rain-swept fields to where the halo of a lighthouse

shone in the far distance. To my right was a narrow, hard-surfaced pathway that angled sharply down. Below me, I heard the

rush of unseen waves bursting themselves repeatedly upon

jagged rocks.

The kindly ferryman at the village docks had told how the inn

stood on a lower western bluff by the sea. So I chose the harder

road descending narrowly along the towering cliff. There was little width to be had on this path, and in some spots it was little

more than a shaley rock-cut ledge about ten inches or a foot wide.

The sheer face of rock to my right seemed to bulge, animated,

as if it wished to push my body out into space. A trick of mind?

Frightened well enough by heights, I inched along, trying to ignore the rising bile of panic and the agitated sea far below my

feet. Not once, but now twice, I considered turning back, but

quickly realized I had passed the point of no return.

Soon, but not soon enough I’ll warrant, I came to a spot where

could be seen a jutting arm of rock protruding into the black

ocean. At the far end, a warm glow of yellow lights in the rainy

gloom. The beckoning two-story house was aglow with promised warmth and food, and my steps quickened.

Realizing what a pitiful sight I would present, I paused outside beneath the pitched eave of the inn and tried to compose

myself. I’d worn my one good woolen suit, threadbare but serviceable—at least when dry. My poor shoes, heretofore worn only

on Sundays, were now ruined. Ah, well, I thought, pulling myself erect and wringing out my hat, I would just put the best face

possible on things and hope for a miracle.

I pushed inside the inn’s heavy wooden door and found the

old Jack-Tar himself, clay-piped and pigtailed, sitting in silence

by the fire. I pulled up a chair and introduced myself. Had I the

good fortune of speaking to Mr. Martyn Hornby? I inquired with

a smile.

“Aye, I’m Hornby,” he said, removing his pipe. After a long si-
405

lence in which clouds of geniality seemed to float above the

man’s head, he spoke.

“Weather slowed you up, I reckon,” he asked, looking me up

and down.

I admitted as much, apologizing for my tardiness, and, when

the barman looked in, I ordered a pint of ale for him and a half

of bitter for myself. I shed my oilskins and put my two numb

feet up on the hearth. The fire felt welcome and the proprietor

seemed a fellow who might warm to a story if well supplied with

grog or ale.

He was a sturdy, handsome figure who looked to be in his late

eighties. He wore faded breeches and a ragged woolen fisherman’s

sweater, much mended. He had a full head of snow-white hair,

and his fine, leathered features were worn by years of wind and

water. But, in the firelight, his crinkly blue eyes still held a

sparkling clarity of youth, and I was glad of my perseverance on

that final narrow ledge.

“Ye’ve come a long way, Mr. Tolliver.”

“Indeed, sir, I have.”

“My daughter’s letter mentioned something about the old
Mer-

lin.
And some newspaper contest you hope to win, I believe?”

I nodded. “I’ve a keen interest in your encounter with the

French off this island, Mr. Hornby. I’d appreciate your recollections on that subject, if you’d be so kind. It might help my

chances greatly, sir.”

“Cecily said you saved her cat.”

“I penned a short, albeit sympathetic, piece on the plight of

foundling cats for my newspaper. Your devoted Cecily, a cat lover

of the first magnitude, features prominently in my feline article

and the story occasioned much favorable comment. We’ve since

met a few times, she and I, and found each other’s company most

congenial. Just last month we learned of the contest and she

shared the story of the
Merlin
. Fascinating stuff, sir. I decided I’d

best hear the tale for myself.”

“Aye,” Hornby said, and then he fell silent. “I’m the last

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one…so I suppose I should tell it, if it’s to be told at all. If my

memory’s up to it, of course.” He gave a hearty shout for his barman in the next room.

The drinks soon arrived, along with a steaming meat pie for

me, and we both sipped, staring into the merry blaze, each

alone with his thoughts. Mine, at the moment, were solely of

my poor tingling feet, more painful in the thawing than the

freezing.

Suddenly, without warning, the man began to speak, eyeing

me in a curious manner.

“How much do ye know, then, Mr. Tolliver?”

“Scarcely enough to suit me, sir.”

“Well. You’ve come to the right place then. I seen it all, Mr.

Tolliver. I was one of Captain McIver’s powder monkeys, y’see,

back in those glorious days, and—”

“Powder monkeys?” I said, unfamiliar with the term.

“Boys who would ferry black powder from the hold up to the

gun crews when things got spicy. Listen. I’ll tell you how it all

started, Mr. Tolliver, if you want to start there at the beginning…”

I nodded, smiling encouragement, discreetly pulling my pen

and a well-worn leather notebook from my pocket.

“We had a fair wind home to Portsmouth en route from our

station in the West Indies where we’d recently captured a Portugee,” Martyn Hornby began. “A spy.”

“A spy.”

“Aye, one much encouraged to speak his mind to avoid the

tar pot and cat-o’-nine-tails during the crossing. We eventually

learned from his lips of a wicked plot, hatched in the evil brain

of Billy Blood, the turncoat captain of the French frigate.”

“That would be Captain William Blood?”

“Few alive today have heard the name, sir. But Old Bill was a

holy terror in his day. Gave Lord Nelson fits at every turning, he

did. His plot was this—our natural enemy, the king of Spain, and

the scurrilous French meant to join their naval forces and sur-
407

prise Nelson en route to Trafalgar, and send the outnumbered

British fleet to the bottom. It would have worked, too, had it not

been for the heroism of our captain. And a few ship’s passengers.”

“Passengers?”

“Hawke was his name. A peer of the realm, but an adventurous sort, being descended directly from the pirate Blackhawke.

Him and a boy named Nick.”

“Lord Hawke, you say?” I was scribbling furiously now.

“Long dead now.”

“How did this Lord Hawke come to be aboard the
Merlin
, sir?”

“His young son, Alexander, had been kidnapped and held for

ransom by the French. It was Bill’s way to kidnap children of the

aristocracy and extort great sums for their release. Hawke had

learned Blood had his child aboard the frigate
Mystere
and Hawke

was of a mind to rescue him. There was some mystery surrounding his lordship’s presence on board, but Cap’n McIver gave