Page 46 of Unlikely Heroes
“Aye, sir. We passed each other two weeks ago.”
“Stop next time and make yourself known to him.” Nelson started back to the stone pool, his eyes on the Gunwharf Rats. “We will be relying on theMercuryas another dispatch ship, and so I have told Captain Lapenotiere. Say farewell to your classroom duties for the foreseeable future, Master Six. I assume that is why the excellent Master Ferrier is here.”
“Aye, sir. I wanted the best.” Able glanced up the slope to his house, where he knew Meri would not care to hear this news. “My wife will worry about me, sir.”
“They do that,” Nelson commented. “They must love us.” He sighed and the sentiment passed quickly. “Call your…your…”
“Gunwharf Rats, sir?”
“Aye, your Gunwharf Rats to the side here. There will be Portsmouth dignitaries making all kinds of speeches and pronouncements tonight, I suppose. I want to say something to your stout fellows right now, words with no bark on them. Something they might remember.”
“Absolutely, sir. They will treasure it, I am certain.”
Able picked up the bosun’s whistle around his neck and blew the call to assemble. In mere moments the Rats floated their armada in front of Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson. Able looked at his boys, saw their youth, their skill, their determination to prove themselves. He told the listeners in his brain to be gentle with him, because he cared so much.
For a little man, Nelson had a captain’s commanding voice, the kind heard over cannon fire. “England needs you Gunwharf Rats,” he said most distinctly. “More than that, sirs, England confides that every man will do his duty. Every man!” Nelson looked around. He might have been addressing each officer and sailor in the fleet, and not a handful of workhouse bastards. Able swallowed the lump in his throat.
“As you were, men,” Lord Nelson said, his voice softer. Able heard all the affection, no, all the love. “Remember England.”
Chapter Twenty
Meridee didn’t have her husband long. She could have fooled herself at the banquet, which was all celebration, hero worship and platitudes, but she was no fool. Besides, there was Able Six beside her, holding her hand under the table, running his thumb gently across her knuckles, putting her nerves on edge with his simple touch.
“All is not well, Able,” she told him finally. “You will tell me more when we are home.”
But war speeds up time. War couldn’t wait until they were home. A significant nod from Lord Nelson in their direction was enough to keep her man standing there in the long hall at St. Brendan’s as other guests chatted and finally said goodnight to the banquet’s main attraction.
One group of admirers refused to leave, but Lord Nelson was done with them. He gave a courtly bow and waved them off in mid-sentence, practically loping down the hall toward them.
“My apologies.” He bowed to Meridee and cut directly to the thought obviously uppermost on his mind. “Master Six, where is the nearest room of easement? I have consumed far too much wine.”
Able laughed and pointed to his classroom. “I keep a pot in here for emergencies,” he said. “You would be astounded how some Gunwharf Rats loosen up with the terror of trigonometry. I can’t begin to tell you what the calculus does.” He winked at Meridee. “Give us a moment, my love.”
Irritating man, she thought as she waved them off. She nodded to Grace, who detached herself from her brother and came closer, an inquiring look on her face. Meridee whispered to her. “They are peeing in a pot in Able’s classroom.”
“Oh, the economy of men,” Grace said, as she tried and failed to smother a laugh. “Do you ever wish…”
“Who doesn’t?” Meridee said, wanting to laugh, too, but reminding herself that her mother had raised her to ignore such things.
She was happier to admire Grace’s good cheer, and equally pleased to think it had improved in recent weeks in the Sixes’ smaller, mildly chaotic house on Saints Way. Grace’s eyes no longer held the look of bleak desolation that Sir B’s death had fixed in them, a sort of living rictus. Was she happy? Meridee doubted it supremely, but settled on gently content. A widow could do worse.
The men returned to the hall, deep in conversation, Able inclining his head toward the smaller man with the arsenal of gold military decorations on his otherwise plain uniform, his eyepatch and empty pinned sleeve.I shall have to ask my husband if he ever wonders how a workhouse lad could even dream of finding himself shoulder to shoulder with this hero,she thought, proud of Able Six, even if he did keep a pee pot in his classroom. Horrors.
She prepared to blend into the wall as the conversation continued, this time with Captain Ogilvie joining it. “I didn’t even see him in the dining hall,” she whispered to Grace, when Ogilvie moved toward Able and Admiral Nelson.
“He does have a way of materializing like a phantom, does he not?” Grace said. She inclined toward Meridee. “I must admit, though, that I know when he is present.”
“How?”
“He wears the most marvelous lemon-scented cologne.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“I have,” Grace said in a soft voice for Meridee’s ears only. “I like it.”
“Should we stay here?” Meridee asked.
“Yes, we should.” Grace nudged Meridee. “I think our august admiral is gesturing to you. Go on.”
