Page 2 of Unlikely Heroes
By the time the papers reached Sir Clive’s desk, the kegs of beef and pork, eggs nestled in salt, cheese, and hardtack were long on their way, voyaging the world. Never mind all that; bureaucracy, that mistress of the unimaginative, still required an official stamp before the papers were filed God knows where. Sir Clive’s servant, a foxy-faced fellow name of Hébert, always seemed to be hanging about. And here Hébert, decidedly uncomfortable, sat with Claude Pascal. Sir Clive had casually mentioned once to Angus that Patrice Hébert came from an old Huguenot family long in England. Maybe not so long, eh?
Ogilvie watched them, thinking of Sir Clive’s easy access to all the offices in the Admiralty. If memory served him, Clive’s office was on the same floor as the Lords of the Admiralty. Imagine what an inquisitive fellow could learn, just hanging about.
Why would you do this, Sir Clive?Ogilvie asked himself, as he felt cold reason settle over him.Too many debts? One too many expensive horses? A greedy mistress? It’s time your career ended at Admiralty House.How low of you to make a servant do your work, because he must be retired, too.
He nursed his flagon of rum and watched as a scrap of paper changed hands and ended in a pouch around Hébert’s neck. Ogilvie made note of that repository, knowing the pouch had to go before the steel cord could do its best work.
He left the taberna ahead of the two spies, content to wait in the shadows outside where the air was better. He didn’t have to wait long. The conspirators left the taberna, chatted quietly, heads together, then walked away in opposite directions. Ogilvie followed Hébert, keeping well back, until he started up one of the many labyrinthian streets that twisted and wound up from the harbor.
When Hébert paused in front of a door and took out a key, Ogilvie sidled up behind him. “Paddy Hébert, fancy seeing you in Cádiz. Did Sir Clive send you on holiday?”
Hébert whirled around, his eyes wide. He clutched the pouch around his neck and managed a weak smile. “Captain Ogilvie, is it?” An even weaker laugh followed the smile. “Why, yes, I have many friends in Cádiz.”
“And my mother is a donkey,” Ogilvie said.
Giving Hébert no time to react, Angus slit the pouch from the spy’s neck, shoving it down his own shirt front. He banged Hébert’s head against the door and clamped his hand over the terrified man’s mouth.
“Here you are, trading secrets to a nasty man from a nasty man,” he hissed. “Shame on you, and more shame on Sir Clive. Have you anything to say to me that would prevent me from ending your life this minute? I’ll wait.” He lifted his hand from Hébert’s mouth, but not far.
“He said if I didn’t help, he would kill my whole family,” Hébert managed to gasp.
“My stars and garters, that’s the wrong answer!” Ogilvie said cheerfully. “I know you’re an orphan.”
By then Ogilvie had his hand around the wire silencer he carried in his waistcoat. Moving faster now, he yanked on the servant’s hair until he reached the precise angle to slip the wire around his neck and tighten it. Two jerks, then a third for good measure and Patrice Hébert collapsed at his feet.
Oops. Too much zeal this time. The wire had cut nearly through the unfortunate man’s neck. Blood pounded out, then pulsated more slowly as the life drained away. Ogilvie wiped his useful wire on the dead man’s jacket then slipped it back into his waistcoat, ready for a new adventure.
What adventure? He thought he could convince Captain Rose and the Admiralty, through Prime Minister William Pitt, to let Sir Clive continue his free roaming, but to watch him closely and see who else might be a traitor in high places. It shouldn’t be too hard to insert an honest man – for the sake of argument, call him a spy – onto Clive’s staff, once Hébert was presumed dead. This spy could report Sir Clive’s business and do England no harm.
Ogilvie made his way casually, slowly, back to the harbor, the trail of blood following him. Someone would raise an alarm eventually, but that was the beauty of Spain. People were reserved and disinclined to intrude, even during such questionable times as these, or maybe because of such times.
Still, one couldn’t overlook a stream of blood, even as night settled on Cádiz. Angus Ogilvie squeezed through an alley barely wide enough for skinny cats and came out into a different street.
Tired, so tired of following Pascal, Ogilvie walked to the dock and stared at theSantísima Trinidadriding on her anchors in the harbor. He admired the fine lines, convinced that while the French made the best fighting ships – the Royal Navy had copied them shamelessly for years – the Spanish created the most beautiful ones.
As he stood in the shadows – Christ, how much of his life had been spent in shadow lately – he noticed two men walking together, one of them in uniform and the other well-dressed and with a flair that some tried to duplicate, but only the Spanish managed to carry off.
Ogilvie was too tired to listen to their conversation, so that wasn’t what made him pay closer attention. It was the Spaniard in the handsome frilled uniform that made Captain Ogilvie’s mouth open in surprise, that same jaded and world-weary Captain Ogilvie who was never surprised by anything.
He could have sworn Sailing Master Able Six, that dratted genius, stood there.
Chapter Two
Six Months Later, 1805, Portsmouth
That night in Sir B’s sickroom, Master Able Six thought the end would come during the Middle Watch, when wounded and dying men laid down their defenses and surrendered to death. On several occasions when he was forced to act in lieu of a ship’s surgeon, he had sat beside men as they let out that last pre-dawn breath.
Even Davey Ten, now serving his apprenticeship as assistant pharmacist mate, had commented on the propensity of men to die in the wee hours. “Why, sir?” he had asked Able only last week over Sunday roast beef at the Sixes’ home when he was granted leave from Portsmouth’s Haslar Hospital.
“I don’t know,” Able had told him, a statement that hardly ever crossed his lips because he usually did know. Apparently even Euclid and Able’s other unseen cranial friends were not privy to some secrets. People died when God dictated. Even a man of science understood that.
Able knew the end was close when he said goodnight to Sir B, and left the St. Anthonys’ bedchamber arm in arm with his wife. He had watched his wife Meridee droop and wilt through the evening, partly from sorrow, and partly from her slow recovery after last month’s miscarriage. She had offered no objection when Lady St. Anthony – better known still as Grace Croker – had quietly summoned the family carriage for the ride back to their house across from St. Brendan’s School.
In the carriage, Meridee had gone right into his arms, or perhaps he had gone into hers, because the loss of someone so dear couldn’t be borne alone. Thank God, yet again, that he was married. At the moment, Able couldn’t fathom enduring such a death by himself. The loss of their much-wanted baby had been difficult enough, but Sir B had winkled out Able’s great mystery, and set him on a true course that had taken him to Portsmouth, St. Brendan’s, and this life.
“This is hard,” he whispered to Meri, realizing how inadequate that puny phrase sounded.
She held him closer. “I wanted our baby, oh my word, I did, but as much as that, I…I know we will have more children. There is only one Sir B.”
