Norton, Andre - Novel 08 (31 page)

 
          
 
Fitz's hand moved in salute, and he took
another step forward.

 
          
 
"Sublieutenant Lyon,
Marines, from the Retaliation out of Baltimore, sir.
Escaped prisoner of
war from Mill Prison," he added quickly in answer to the officer's look of
incredulous amazement.

 
          
 
"Your captain?"

 
          
 
"Captain Daniel Crofts, sir."

 
          
 
"You are a Marylander?"

 
          
 
"Yes, sir."

 
          
 
"Over there," the officer jerked his
thumb aft and Fitz obeyed.

 
          
 
"Any more?"

 
          
 
Sullen shakes of the head and blank stares
were the only replies to that question. The officer shot a crisp order over his
shoulder to his own men.

 
          
 
"Coffin, Kitchner,
see
them aboard that fishing smack and turn the whole parcel loose. They're no
sailors and will thank their lucky stars to be free. No use cluttering up the
Shark with them."

 
          
 
Fitz was rowed to the American brig with a
contingent of the victors. The American privateer was not long out of her
native
Philadelphia
, and already well on the way to making a
fortune for her owners and crew. He fronted her commander, Captain Stephen
Deal, with some misgivings as to his welcome. But

 
          
 
Deal, having served under Crofts, was
interested only in knowing of his friend's luck and present situation. To which
questions Fitz could only tell what he knew up to the moment they had ridden
out of The Green Man's yard together.

 
          
 
Deal, a bustling man in his middle thirties,
new come to command after years as second to more lucky officers, was bubbling
over with zeal and poured into Fitz's ears a fat budget of news from home,
intermingled with his own high hopes for the future. His success with the sloop
had been as good as half a dozen noggins of brandy to put spirit into the whole
ship.

 
          
 
But Fitz was more than a little depressed. The
Shark might be a well-found, smart-sailing weapon with a sea-wise commander on
her. And Lady Luck might have chosen her bowsprit for a permanent perch. But
she was not the Retaliation.

 
          
 
When he realized the trend of his on thoughts
he was startled. Was he actually homesick for the clipper which had carried him
out of
Baltimore
? His feet instinctively found their balance
on the swaying deck. He walked sure-footed where months before he would have
clutched at the nearest support. He drew lungfuls of the mingled odors of bilge
water, old cheese, bad salt pork, sulphur, and salt air, and found it good. And
he was almost frightened by this discovery.

 
          
 
By adroit questioning he discovered that the
Shark was halfway through a cruise which would eventually return her to
Bordeaux
, to which port she had already dispatched
the five prizes she had taken. And there was no hope of quitting her until that
return—unless, of course, Fitz had the overwhelming ill-luck to encounter His
Majesty's navy for the third time.

 
          
 
Luck had a way of turning on threes, Fitz
thought dismally to himself as he swung in the spare hammock they had found for
him. Having not signed papers on the Shark, though Deal had been most cordial
in urging him to do so, he was still only a passenger.

 
          
 
It was shortly after dawn that they almost ran
down the St. Malouin privateer. Small, hardly larger than the fishing smack she
resembled so closely, she was homeward bound, herding before her a prize twice
her size, with the flags of two more captures spanking the breeze below her own
ensign. Fitz saw his chance and took it, begging passage on her to
France
. Deal tried to persuade him to remain, but
Fitz was stubborn.

 
          
 
The St. Malouin captain was disposed to being
talkative, though his patois was almost beyond Fitz's comprehension. By
understanding one word in four the Marylander guessed at the rest. But at the
sound of one mangled name he was instantly alert.

 
          
 
"Crofts!
You say
Captain Crofts?"

 
          
 
"Oui, Capitaine
Crofts."
Though twisted, that name was clear. "You know
Capitaine Crofts?"

 
          
 
"Yes. He is in Saint Malo? He
escaped?"

 
          
 
The Malouin threw out his hands. "He
escaped,
oui. But if he is in Saint Malo yet—that I can not
tell you. He was there, and some of his officers too. I, Henri Bodlieu, can
point out to you the rooms they inhabit —over the pastry establishment of
M'sieur Harve. And that I shall do for you, if you wish
it
"

 
          
 
For the rest of the voyage back to the inner
harbor
of
St. Malo
, Fitz raged impatiently. Captain Bodlieu
laughed at him indulgently.

 
          
 
"Dieu, would you have me rein dolphins to
my Petite Belle that we may make harbor sooner? We are on a swift sailer, oui.
My pretty one."
He laid his hand caressingly on the
rail. "She is noted for the quickness of her heels. We shall raise harbor
in good time and then we shall seek out these friends of yours and settle the
little matter of your transportation fees."

 
          
 
Bodlieu watched him from beneath half-lowered
eyelids, and Fitz knew that the French captain was waiting to see how he would
take this intimation that the Petite Belle was not carrying him free of charge.
He fingered the money belt at his middle, flattened of its last gold piece.
Considering the prizes the Retaliation had sent into St. Malo—even if only one
of them made port safely—he should have money enough waiting him there to meet
current expenses as soon as he could reach Crofts.

 
          
 
"Fair enough," he returned, and
Bodlieu clapped him on the shoulder.

 
          
 
But even when they reached harbor Fitz had to
wait impatiently while the captain conferred with the port authorities and saw
to this form and that. Finally, seeming to sense Fitz's mounting irritation, he
brought up one of the officers.

 
          
 
"I find,
M'sieur, that
affairs of business will keep me here yet awhile. And you must have the highest
impatience to join with your friends. Therefore I send Jules with you. Jules
knows well the shop of M'sieur Harve."

 
          
 
Fitz thanked Bodlieu and went ashore with the
mate, winding through the narrow streets of the town he had last walked with
Watts
. Harve's pastry shop was well above the
wharf section, and the steps leading to the living quarters over it had been
recently scrubbed. A fat and indolent cat watched them sleepily from the
doorstep, refusing to move so that they had to step over it to climb the
stairs. But halfway up, the passage was barred by a small woman in a very tall
and much be-bowed mobcap who at their appearance let out such a torrent of
excited speech that neither could hope to ask questions of their own until she
ran out of breath. Then Fitz shot in an inquiry for the American officers.

 
          
 
That started another spate of words, out of
which he gleaned the intelligence that someone was above and she would thank
the good saints to remove all dirty-footed men from her establishment.

 
          
 
Fitz pushed past her and pounded on up the
stairs, knocking at the closed door at the top. A muffled voice he could not
have put name to bade him in.

 
          
 
The room was small and low ceilinged. Flowers

 
          
 
Fitz went ashore with the mate.

 
          
 
nodded
from red pots
on wide sills where two windows were open to the noises and scents of the city.
But even their scarlet cheer did little to break the general air of drabness
within.

 
          
 
Fitz hesitated in the doorway. The room's only
occupant was sitting in his shirt-sleeves, his back to the door, his brown head
resting on one hand. The blue, salt-stained and faded coat hanging over the
back of his chair bore the single epaulette of a lieutenant. But surely that
was not Matthews. . . .

 
          
 
"Well, what keeps you?" demanded the
man in harshly accented French. "Come on and shut the door! Half the house
a-
gawkin' "

           
 
"Ninnes!"

 
          
 
The other started as if a shot had struck him
between the shoulders, and then his head snapped around. Fitz came into the
room and slammed the door before Jules could follow.

 
          
 
"
You "
The
word was only a whisper but its impact stopped Fitz.

 
          
 
"I escaped," he answered a bit
feebly. He was startled by what he saw in that white face before him. All
Ninnes' ruddy tan had been bleached away, his bones almost cutting through the
skin which bore lines of pain never to be erased.

 
          
 
"I might have known you would turn
up!" There was something in that voice so raw and naked that Fitz could
not identify it.

 
          
 
A jerk brought the lieutenant out of his
chair. He crossed the room shakily to the nearest window, catching once at the
edge of a chest to steady himself. There he
stood,
his
back to Fitz.

 
          
 
"Crofts?" asked the Marylander
uncertainly.

 
          
 
"He left for
Paris
before daylight this morning. There is a
chance that the Commissioners may find him another command."

 
          
 
"And we—you are to wait him here?"

 
          
 
Ninnes’ shoulders shook with a spasm of what
might have been hysterical laughter.

 
          
 
"What is there left for me nowadays
except waiting?"