Page 5 of Unlikely Heroes
“I’m glad you’re here, Smitty,” Able said, and he was, if puzzled to see him. His face giving away nothing, this most enigmatic of Gunwharf Rats stood beside Junius Bolt.
They waited in silence. Two or three rapid breaths and exhalations, a long one, and the final longer one that went on and on until the room was silent. Able heard an early bird, and then another, announcing a new day. George stirred and stretched in his dead father’s arms.
Able looked at his watch. His dear friend, captain, mentor and almost-father had lived through the Middle Watch and into the Morning Watch. Able heard the imaginary two bells in his head. Five a.m., when the bosun roused the men for another day at sea, another day to protect England and her possessions from harm and folly. Sir B had told Able once that the Morning Watch was his favorite time of day. “I always think of the possibilities, at five o’clock,” he said. “Anything is possible at five in the morning.”
“Two Bells. Five in the morning. Good night, dear captain,” Able said. “We will now stand the watch for you from this moment forward.”
Chapter Three
“I don’t like to wear black, Able,” Meridee said, as she tucked a white crocheted collar into her dress, unworn since Mama’s funeral some years ago. Grace’s seamstress had kindly altered it to fit the fashion of 1805, but it was still so relentlessly black.
“You look nice in black,” was the best her husband could come up with. She knew he was suffering, and felt some regret at her shallow remark.
“Thank you, my love,” she said quietly. “I think the larger issue is that I do not care for this occasion of burying a dear, dear man.”
He held out his arms to her and she found herself at home there, as she had through the last few days between death and this moment. No, it was longer, going back a month to her miscarriage. She knew she should stop dwelling on that sad event. After all, weren’t well-meaning women telling her to cheer up because there would be other babies? To say, “I wanted this one,” would disappoint well-wishers. “So hard,” she whispered, uncertain whether she meant Sir B alone.
“I will always see little George crooked in his arm, never to know his remarkable father,” Able said. “He won’t know Sir B any more than I knew my father.”
She never faulted Able’s logic – how could anyone? – but in this he was not entirely correct, or so she reasoned. She held herself off enough to look into his eyes. “He will know who his mother is, and he will have stories a-plenty from all of us about his father.”
“Aye, he will.” He spoke into her hair, then kissed her head. “C’mon, Mrs. Six. Straighten my neck cloth.”
She did, always happy to perform those mundane tasks that he had difficulty with, because his brain was too large for small things.
Finally satisfied with her man’s appearance – never difficult because he was handsome with or without a neck cloth – she looked around for Ben. She reminded herself that Mrs. Perry had taken him across the street to St. Brendan’s to stay with George’s nurse. She would have left him with Mrs. Perry, except that her African housekeeper had stared down Able Six and insisted she was going to the funeral, too. He never argued with Mrs. Perry.Nor do I, Meridee thought.
She saw Able looking around for Ben too, and they smiled at each other; such a small thing. She hoped small things would usher them more gently into a world without Captain Sir Belvedere St. Anthony, Knight of the Bath, wealthy man, excellent seafarer, wounded warrior, more-than friend.
They came downstairs to a hall and sitting room filled with boys in the black uniform of St. Brendan the Navigator School her husband wore, with the patch of the saint himself over the left breast, close to the heart. The sight of well-scrubbed, earnest faces – some white as hers, others tan, some with almond-shaped eyes, others with curly hair and olive skin like her own dear man – never failed to move her. They came from everywhere and nowhere, the workhouse their one feature in common.
Here also were John and Pierre Goodrich, tidy and dressed as civilians, because they were the adopted sons of Simon Goodrich, who ran the block pulley factory, and his wife, who never could carry a child to term. Meridee felt Able start, and then move forward to bow to famed engineers Henry Maudsley and Marc Brunel, whose idea the factory was. Too bad it took a funeral to gather so many people with whom Meridee knew Able wanted to simply visit.
At her side again, Able knew what to do. “Very well, lads, I’ll have no fidgeting in church,” he said. “You’re – we’re – Gunwharf Rats and Sir B specifically wanted us to escort his coffin. You pall bearers walk alongside the hearse with me. Ladies: in the carriage with Gra…Lady St. Anthony. Remember: Handsomely now and eyes to the front.”
Able opened the door onto Saints Way, which was full of the ordinary and extraordinary people of Portsmouth, waiting for the procession. “So many people,” Meridee murmured.
“I daresay Sir B is taking a few secrets to the grave,” he whispered to her. “His acquaintance far exceeded a baronet’s usual sphere. He was an unusual man, wasn’t he?”
She nodded, then smiled at Ezekiel Bartleby – baker, consoler of Gunwharf Rats with sweets left at St. Brendan’s, and man who knew everything of interest on the street. Her smile faded, thinking that she would no longer need to take sugar-sided rout cakes to an invalid now past all pain and sorrow. Mr. Bartleby must have read her thoughts, because he patted his chest, then looked away.
Followed by Mrs. Perry, Meridee and Able took the few steps down to the street and waited as six Royal Marines gentled the plain coffin into the waiting wagon, no fancy feather-decked hearse. It was a common navy vehicle, such as a victualer might use to move his kegs and boxes to the docks, ready to be stowed aboard a ship bound for a distant shore. Meridee felt her ready tears rise.Dear, dear Sir B, if you could lend a hand to my little one.She is also on a distant shore.
“Why is it, Able, we knew he could not last, and yet we wish him with us still,” she said as he headed her toward the carriage. “Are we so selfish?”
“I believe we are,” he said. She heard all his chagrin. “Oh, and what is this? It appears to me that our equally singular Grace St. Anthony is not going to go meekly to church in a carriage.”
“Good,” Meridee said. “I’ll keep her company.”
He took her arm. “If you’re up to it, Meri.”
“I am. It’s not so far to St. Thomas.”I owe the great man, she thought, her heart full of sorrow and love.Sir B, you found the perfect place for Able Six and me.
Grace took her hand when she crossed the street. They touched foreheads and Grace murmured, “Meri, join me, but only if you feel you can.”
“It’s not so far,” she said, nodding to her man, who stood with his young crew beside the victualling wagon. “And you?”
“We’ll hold each other up,” the new widow said, “much as we have held each other up on different occasions.” She looked at the sky. “It’s a fair day for my dear man. The wind is right, too, isn’t it?” She squeezed Meridee’s hand. “Tell me it is.”
