Victory (9 page)

With a damp rag he wiped my chin clear of the blood that kept trickling down from where the metal cut into my lips. Then looking angrier still, he hurried away.

At the end of the next day, when we were slinging our hammocks, with Stephen helping me because I was so weak at the knees after working without food, big William Pope came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. I stopped still, wary, and then I felt his fingers at the back of my head, untying the tight yarn. He turned me to face him, and eased the iron bolt carefully out of my mouth. One of my teeth came with it; knocked loose when the bolt was put in, it had been held in place only by the bolt itself.

Our Scottish boy Colin Turner was there too, watching wide-eyed, with two wooden mugs in his hands. William sat me down on a cask, took one of the mugs from Colin and held it to my mouth.

I said thickly, “What is it?”

“Drink,” said William. “Go on. Little sips.”

So I did. It was warm, and seemed to spread comfort through my whole body as it trickled down my throat.

“Portable soup,” Colin said, “to make you better.” And I remembered that he was boy to the surgeons' mates, and guessed that he had begged or stolen this from their store.
Portable soup was a kind of dried jelly that became a thin beef broth when added to hot water; it was given to patients in the sick bay to strengthen them.

When I had drunk it all down, sitting there on the cask like a limp bundle of rags, I looked at the others and found tears coming out of my eyes, not of misery this time but of gratitude and relief. “Thank you,” I said. “Oh thank you.”

“Bosun's orders, the first I ever was glad to get,” William said. “And they are changing your mess, putting you with the ropers and sailmakers. Stephen is to take your place eating with the cook.”

Stephen made a wry face, but grinned at me. “It will be no worse than the pigs,” he said.

William put the other mug into my hand. “Grog, to help you sleep,” he said. “Drink it down quick before someone catches us.”

So I slept that night like a baby, perhaps for the first time since I had been one. And the next day, though I had thought it impossible, my life changed once more.

Molly wakes up the next morning out of a dream
that she cannot remember, with a sound ringing through her head: the double stroke of a bell, repeated.
Bong-bong, bong-bong, bong-bong
. . . She feels she has heard it before, but she doesn't know where.

Sunshine is spilling around the edges of the blinds into the cheery yellow-white bedroom. It's early morning: six-thirty, her alarm clock tells her. She lies there on her back for a little while, looking at the picture on the wall at the foot of her bed: a framed photograph of her mother and father on a beach somewhere. They are laughing, and in her father's arms is a chubby smiling baby. The baby is Molly, though it looks rather like Donald.

Molly feels drained, empty, as if something had washed
all feeling out of her. It is the way she felt yesterday after all that crying; it has survived her night's sleep. But jumping out of her memory comes the discovery of the little square of cloth inside her Nelson book, and the emptiness is suddenly filled.
Awesome!
says a voice inside her head, and she wants to jump up and tell the whole world. At the very least she wants to e-mail her friends Sally, Jen and Naomi, and send off a letter to her grandparents, who prefer paper to computers.

But at the same time she feels strongly again that she should tell nobody at all; that it's a pity even Russell knows.

Why?
she wonders.

Not yet!
says the voice in her head, offering no reason.

She gets out of bed and goes to her desk. There is the book, with its damaged blue cover and the little brown envelope inside, hidden away in the dark for so long but now revealed. Today she will start reading about Nelson. Now that she has a piece of his ship's flag, she has a powerful urge to find out what he was like.

Molly goes downstairs in her pajamas to get some orange juice, and she is only halfway down the stairs when she realizes that the one person she must tell about her discovery is Mr. Waterford.

Kate is in the kitchen, feeding Donald small spoonfuls of cereal. He gurgles at Molly, and bangs the table of his high chair. Kate puts out an arm and gives Molly a hug. “I forgot to remind you, you're babysitting,” she says. “I'm taking Russ to his driving test.”

“No problem,” says Molly, and she thinks:
Russell! He'll have his license, he can drive me to see Mr. Waterford!

Kate still has her arm around her. “You're such a good girl,” she says, and squeezes her again. Then she lets her go, and Molly heads for the refrigerator.

“We'll leave about eight-fifteen,” Kate says. “Back by eleven. I've changed Donald. Put him down for a nap when he starts to fuss.”

“Okay,” says Molly. She pours herself some juice, kisses Donald on the nose and sits at the kitchen table. Kate says hesitantly, “Are you all right, love?”

Molly looks up. There is an odd expression on her mother's face, as if she were far more concerned about Molly than a small babysitting job deserves. And so she is. Kate was deeply troubled by yesterday's outburst of grief; it was far more serious than anything she has ever seen happen to a child. She has been awake half the night worrying about it.

Molly says, “I'm fine.”

“I had a long talk with Carl this morning,” Kate says. She sits down.

“In Italy?”

“It's lunchtime there. We decided . . . Darling, how would you like it if you and Donald and I made a quick trip to see Granny and Grandad before you start school?”

Molly stares at her. A miracle has exploded into her life like a meteor. She can hardly believe it. “To London? Really?”

“Really,” Kate says, and finds her daughter's arms wound around her neck, so tightly that she splutters. Donald wails. Molly gives him another kiss.

“We're going home!” she tells him. “We're going home!”

“Just for a week,” Kate says cautiously.

Molly says, “That's
wonderful!
”

Donald is fast asleep in his crib, sucking his thumb, and Molly is downstairs again, listening as the sucking sounds grow gradually fainter over the baby monitor. When the outside door bursts open, she can tell instantly from the look on Russell's face that he has failed his driving test. He heads for the refrigerator, scowling, and pulls out the carton of orange juice.

“Poor Russ,” Kate says, coming in after him. “He drove very well but he got a very picky examiner.”

“He's a jerk!” Russell says, pouring juice so crossly that it splashes over the edge of the glass. “A pompous jerk!”

Molly says, “What happened?”

Russell gives an explosive angry grunt and drinks his juice. Kate says, “Russ had to turn left, and he was really careful to make a hand signal, because the examiner had reminded him to be sure to do that. But he didn't put on his flasher as well, so the man failed him.”

“He said that stuff about hand signals just to throw me,” Russell says bitterly. “And he kept calling me Carl.”

“Well, it
is
your first name,” Kate says mildly. “He wasn't to know we don't use it.”

“Stop by that lamppost, Carl! Carl, we're going to turn left at the light!” Russell makes his angry grunt again. Looking at him, Molly sees an echo of her stepfather in the straight nose and lean jawline, and the shape of those arched eyebrows.

At the same time it occurs to her that Russ will not now be able to drive her to see Mr. Waterford, and that she cannot possibly ask Carl or her mother to take her there.

Later that day, Molly begins to read
The Life of Nelson
. She discovers that Horatio Nelson was born in Norfolk, and that when he was a small boy and was punished for stealing pears from his schoolmaster's pear-tree, he said he “only took them because every other boy was afraid.”

Then she turns the page and comes across the bookmark that Mr. Waterford put inside the book when he sold it to her. She remembers the way he smiled at her as he did so. The bookmark is tucked so securely between two pages that it has even survived the book's disastrous crash when she threw it at Jack. Molly looks at the bookmark, and sees printed on it the name and address of Mr. Waterford's shop, his telephone and fax numbers—and his e-mail address.

So she turns on her computer and writes him an e-mail.

Dear Mr. Waterford,
she writes,
I am Molly Jennings, the English girl who bought Robert Southey's The Life of Nelson. Something amazing has happened. Hidden inside the front of the book there was a sort of envelope with a piece of cloth inside that is a piece of HMS Victory's flag at Trafalgar. . . .

. . . and she tells him about the inscription, and Emma's note about her father Samuel Robbins—and then, taking a deep breath, she types out the question that is her real reason for wanting to talk to him.

Is it still all right for me to keep this book?
she writes.

She is so nervous about the answer she may get to this question that she hits the “Send” button even before she has signed the e-mail. And off it goes, irrevocably launched into the ether, on that mysterious instant journey taken by all e-mails.

There is a tap at the door, and Kate puts her head in. “Want to come and get a pizza, darling? Russ has a sailboat race at two, so I thought we'd all have lunch on the way.”

“Sure,” Molly says. She puts the computer to sleep. It's too much to hope that Mr. Waterford will send her an instant reply.

“Russ can drive us,” Kate says. “I told him it's like getting back on the horse after you've fallen off.”

Molly and Kate sit on the balcony of the yacht club, watching the small white sails tack to and fro out in the bay. They have no idea which boat is Russell's, or who is winning, but they feel family loyalty demands that they watch the races.

“We're showing the flag for Russell,” Kate says, rocking Donald gently in his stroller. She smiles. “What a lot of phrases we use that come from the Navy. Keeping an even keel. Putting your oar in.”

“All in the same boat,” says Molly, inspired. “Clearing the decks.”

There is a faint muffled bang out on the water, and they both peer, but can see nothing to tell them whether this is signaling the beginning or end of a race.

“Mum,” Molly says, “when are we going to London?”

“The travel agent's working on it. If she can find tickets that don't cost a fortune we'll go next week, I guess.” Kate looks at the happiness in her daughter's face, and smiles ruefully. “Oh darling,” she says, “I do hope you won't feel horribly let down when we come back again.”

“No!” Molly says. Coming back is an image that has not yet been given any place in her mind; she is too busy thinking of arriving.

“Hi, Kate!” says a hearty male voice, and they look up to see a tall, balding man in khaki shorts and a green short-sleeved shirt. He is beaming at them. Beside him is a lean, deeply tanned lady wearing several necklaces and bracelets.

“Hi!” says Kate brightly, and Molly knows instantly that her mother has no idea who these people are.

“Russell steered to victory!” says the necklaced lady in a voice almost as deep as her husband's. She smiles. She has amazingly white teeth.

“He did? I couldn't tell. That's great!” Kate clutches Molly as if she were a lifebelt. She says, “Have you met my daughter Molly?”

Molly is familiar with this gambit for discovering names, and is relieved to find that it works. The man thrusts out his
hand to her and says amiably, “Hi, Molly. I'm Bradenham Parker, old friend of Carl's. This is m'wife Muffie.”

Molly shakes his hand. Muffie Parker gives her a brief smile and nod, and leans past her to chuck Donald under the chin. “And this is your little son!” she says to Kate. “Russell's future crew!”

“Yes, I dare say,” Kate says.

Molly says in a clear voice, “His name is Donald.”

Mrs. Parker jingles a bracelet at Donald. “Hello, Donnie sweetie!”

Donald looks obligingly angelic, and blows a bubble.

Mr. Parker says heartily, “How are you settling in, Molly? Having a busy summer?”

“We're going to London next week!” says Molly happily.

“Already?” says jingling Mrs. Parker. “You only just got here!” Her dark eyes survey both Molly and Kate critically, inquisitively.

“Lighten up, Muffie!” says Mr. Parker. “Two weeks into our honeymoon you ran back to Boston, remember? Said you missed the cat.” He gives a sudden bray of laughter.

“Get lost, Brad,” says Mrs. Parker. She burrows into a very large canvas bag hanging from her shoulder, and produces a pair of binoculars, through which she proceeds to stare at the water. “There they are,” she says. “Russ has let Jack take the helm. Big mistake.”