Page 19 of Unlikely Heroes
“Meri, it appears that I have been summoned to Headmaster Croker’s chambers immediately,” he said, happy to change the subject.
“Gor, master, what did youdo?” Nick teased.
Able smiled, even as he noticed how wide Smitty’s eyes grew. He and Nick had arrived at a pleasant camaraderie outside of the walls of St. Brendan’s, where students toed the line.Maybe someday you will see us as the humans we are, Smitty, he thought, as he folded the note and stood up. He kissed Meri, always a pleasure, even with her mouth full of jam. Or maybe especially with her mouth full of jam. He did like strawberries. He didn’t think the boys noticed that he ran his tongue inside her mouth, although Meri pinked up considerably.
“Never fear, Smitty,” he said as he licked jam off his lips. “The most frightening thing I ever did was run away from the Dumfries workhouse. I believe we three have all been that desperate.” He tapped the note. “I’d better hurry off how?”
“Roundly now!” both boys chimed in. Even Smitty smiled. “Come over at your usual time, my dears,” he said. And why not call them his dears? They were infinitely valuable to him, these workhouse boys.
Bertram, the headmaster’s evil butler, ushered him into Thaddeus Croker’s inner sanctum with the admonition “not t’wear out t’master.”
“Master Croker sent me a note requesting my presence,” Able said, wishing that he didn’t feel like a workhouse lad every time the butler addressed him. The man guarded Thaddeus Croker like the three-headed hound of the underworld. Still, Able felt a pang of his own. Thaddeus had never recovered fully from last year’s bout with the mumps, or maybe it was something else. Perhaps the headmaster required an over-attentive butler.
Thaddeus looked well enough, standing there and warming his hands at the fireplace. He pointed to a comfortable chair.
Able sat. “Your butler never suffers fools gladly,” he commented.
“Bertram is tenacious,” Thaddeus said, sounding cheerful about the matter.
“I am to report to Admiralty House as soon as possible, accompanied by Smitty and Captain Rose of Trinity House,” Able said, not waiting for Thaddeus to explainhisreason for the early-morning summons. “There it is, plus the agreement to use a St. Brendan crew in a ship-to- shore messaging capacity, just as Sir B wanted.”
“I can’t think of a better use of your skills and your pupils’ needs,” Thaddeus said. “It’s finally come to national emergency. We will continue to prove our worth here at St. Brendan’s.”
“Aye, sir.”
Thaddeus looked at the flames. “I only wish Sir B could have lived a little longer, to know that his plans have been accepted.”
“I think he knows somehow.” Able had no trouble with that confidence, considering the cacophony in his head as his irritating cranial cohorts practically hooted with delight and commented in various languages that of course Sir B knew what was going on. Able was surprised Thaddeus couldn’t hear them.
“For a skeptical man of science, you have an unusual fondness for the divine, Master Six,” Thaddeus said, sounding at least half in jest.
If you only knew,Able thought, and forced himself not to smile.My brilliant pests are hardly divine. A little nod would do. “Now, sir, what would you ask of me?” He tapped the note again.
“A replacement, if you please,” Thaddeus said. “I gather that you will be in and out of Portsmouth, as demands of the service require. We need a substitute willing to take up the slack, as you would say. D’ye have anyone in mind?”
“I do, actually.” He did, oh, he did. “I know just the man.”
“Do tell.”
Able had thought the matter through earlier while he was shaving, a boring activity enlivened now because Ben liked to watch and smear shaving soap on his face, too. That led to tears the first time, but Ben quickly learned to keep soap from his eyes. Able prudently kept his razor in Meri’s drawer, hidden beneath her underthings.
The difficulty lay 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 theHMS Weazel. When a French cruiser escaped into the Atlantic, theWeazelwas 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 theHMS Mercury,” Thaddeus said. “Admiralty has informed me that we may rename her. We’ll have a quiet ceremony at theJolly Roger’sslip 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 theMercury.
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.
