Maggie Bright (32 page)

“A parakeet?” Kearnsey hooted. “Did you hear that, Elliott? You’re worth a parakeet.”

“I’ll slaughter it in thanksgiving on some great altar, like a bullock or a ram.”

“You couldn’t slaughter a thing.”

“You’re right. I’ll pluck a feather and call it good. You’re awfully quiet, Elliott, when I’ve gone and made sacrifice on your behalf.”

Drake and Kearnsey, his two best mates in the world.

His steps slowed.

“What’s the matter?”

Jamie wished Balantine didn’t worry so much, didn’t try so hard to keep them all together. He wished Baylor hadn’t vowed to look after Milton. He wished Griggs hadn’t gone after Milton and dragged him from that pile of bombed men. And he wished Milton . . .

“I’ve got to get back.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve got to get back to the captain.”

“You were supposed to get him to Dunkirk, right?” Drake shrugged. “Job well done. You’re with us again, mate.”

“I was supposed to get him home.”

There was no explaining it, so he didn’t try.

“Say hello to Dunn and the rest.” He thrust out his hand, shook each of theirs heartily. “Best of luck. I’ll see you in Dover.”

“Elliott, wait!”

“What’s the matter with you? This is us!”

“Come back!”

“Elliott! Good fellow! Wherever have you been?” Baylor called when he neared.

“We were afraid they’d move our group and you wouldn’t find us,” said a very annoyed Balantine.

Baylor lifted high a bottle. “We have passed a mildly alcoholic afternoon with this excellent chap who has shared round his case of
 
—what do you call it?” he asked the man sitting next to him. Milton sat on Baylor’s other side. He seemed relieved at Jamie’s return, if the only thing to show it was fleeting eye contact.

“Cointreau,” said the bleary-eyed man.

“Cointreau! I recommend it highly. I am back to a state of pleasant numbness.”

“I’ll bet you are.” Jamie tossed Griggs a canteen.

“What happened to you?” said Griggs. He opened the canteen and drank it half down. He wiped his mouth.

“Got lost. I did find some asparagus.” He tossed him a tin.

“I hate asparagus.” Griggs flipped it to Curtis. “How could you
possibly get lost? The sea is
north
. You just sort of face north and walk until your feet are wet.”

Jamie handed out the other canteens and went to drop beside Balantine.

After Balantine had taken a drink, he asked quietly, “Feeling better?”

“I am, actually.”

“Good.”

“Did you see the
Lizzie Ros
e
?”

“No. Griggs watched with me, but we can’t really make out names from here. A lot of the names are blacked over. I wonder why. Anything much to see in town?”

“Nothing much. Place is bombed to bits. I did have a chat with
 
—the fellow we saw yesterday. The naval man in charge. Good bloke.”

“Tennant. He gets around. I saw him not ten minutes ago. Seems a good leader.”

Jamie smiled a little. He wondered if Balantine knew that he himself was a good leader.

The two took up the only thing there was to do: watching. They watched the slow-moving lines of men, they watched the small boats on the beaches, they watched men wade out from lines and clamber aboard whatever awaited, one by one.

They watched a sea littered with flaming flotsam and jetsam, patches of burning oil, and the bobbing, oil-slicked faces of men trying to swim back to shore or back to a boat.

“What’s that?” Curtis suddenly sat up, gazing wildly about. He looked up and groaned. “Oh no. Not again.”

“I wondered where they were,” said Balantine stoically. “They’re late this morning.”

They watched the eastern sky fill with a grid of dark, droning dots growing ever larger.

“This time I am
not
dodging,” Baylor declared. “I shall fend them
off with my bottle.” He waved it in the air. “They will respect my
 
—what is it again?”

“Cointreau.”

“You’re such a good chap.”

“Baylor, you’re not in any position to dodge,” said Griggs crossly. All understood. It meant they had to shield him. Not one of them would leave him exposed.

“Gather round, men!” said Baylor, raising high the bottle. “I will keep you safe! Me and my Cointreau.”

Milton patted Baylor’s arm. “What in me is dark, illumine. What is low
 
—”

“Raise and support,” the men chorused with the captain.

After a surprised moment, Milton’s lips twitched into a faint smile. The men glanced at one another, grinning.

Then planes came on and bombs began to fall.

“Keep us safe, Baylor,” said Balantine, as he rose to stand over him. One by one, the others followed suit.

THE
MAGGIE BRIGHT
CLOSED
in on a scene straight from an alien nightmare.

A black ball of smoke hung over Dunkirk. Flaming wrecks of every size dotted the far harbor, and a first glance at their own immediate approach afforded an ominous sight, dark obstructions everywhere in the water; but nothing could compare to the sight of the beaches themselves.

“What is that?” Murray said slowly, gripping a mast stay.

“Men.”

They covered miles of sand like great oil spills; they wound like wide, curved asphalt roads from where they stood in the water, up through the beaches and up into the dunes, into the city, past what they could see.

“So this is what an army looks like,” Murray said faintly.

“And a lot them got off already.”

William slowed the
Maggie Bright
to a crawl to try and take stock.

“But
 
—where do we go for orders?” asked a stunned Smudge, looking about under his hand.

“You’re tryin’ to find who’s in charge of this mess?” said Murray. “Good luck, pal. I think we’re on our own.”

“Look there
 
—what is that?” Smudge pointed. “That line, with all those . . . things in the water. What are the men standing on?”

“Lorries,” William said, hardly believing it. He rose, one hand on the helm. “Transports. Must’ve driven them out at low tide. Brilliant!” At least
one
worry dropped off. “Look at some of those wrecks further in. Maggie would’ve grounded same as them. Well, that’s a relief. I wasn’t aching to get into that harbor. We’ll load from the lorries, then, and head out for one of those ships.” He grabbed the binoculars to look north and see what ships were standing out
 
—they had to be a mile off. “I see a destroyer, and another
 
—some sort of other battleship, a bit smaller. Hang on
 
—can’t be.” He brought the focus tighter, hardly believing what he saw. “It’s the
Medway Queen
!”

“The what?” Murray asked.

“Why, a paddle steamer! A holiday craft! I’ve seen her on the Thames. Can’t believe she’s here.” He suddenly thought of Clare, and aged aunties and grandmothers running for the front with pistols
 
—it was that bizarre, this decorative bit of England that should belong to a civilized world, here in a warring one. It was a sharply poignant mix he felt, seeing the
Medway Queen
: pride, and fear, and hope.

Murray shook his fist at the appearance of the next set of bombers. “Give us a break, will you?”

“That’s quite a traffic jam of boats at the jetty,” said Smudge. “Can we get some on faster than that?”

William looked through the lenses, mentally mapping a way through wreckage to the lorries, sickened at the thought of wreckage
not
seen. Soldiers were lined up in the water, high as their armpits, holding their weapons above their heads. He watched a lifeboat,
surely from the Ramsgate station, run straight up to the sand: a man leapt out and waved men down. A young naval rating hurried over to supervise the embarkation.

William picked out other naval personnel; they walked the beaches, patrolling, calling out instructions, keeping order, most with revolvers in hand. No one broke order that he could see, but the revolvers said they had or might. He briefly trained on the mass of soldiers
 
—helmeted Tommies, smoking, talking. Waiting.

“Getting closer,” Murray warned, eyes on the sky.

“How’s she running?” asked William. He lowered the binoculars.

“She ain’t gonna quit. We just gotta keep her fueled and clear of junk.”

They watched the lifeboat load.

“Well, what do you think?” said Smudge, anxious to get moving. “Can’t we try and follow suit? We’d get them on faster than that queue of boats.”

William wanted nothing more than instant action, but caution had to be the watchword if they were to keep it up. He carefully considered, and shook his head. “Her draft is too deep. It’s either the end of that lorry jetty, and even then we’ve got to look sharp, or else we make for the harbor.”

“Getting closer . . .”

“Look at that!” Smudge shouted. “It’s the RAF!”

Two English Spitfires came roaring, chasing down four German planes. Machine gun fire erupted from the navy ships at the same time the Spitfires opened up. One of the four exploded, and another suddenly belched black smoke and peeled off, a Spitfire hot on its tail. A great roar of cheers went up from the beach.

But immediately came the whistling dives of planes attacking destroyers, and bombs began to fall from planes now overhead
 
—a spume of surf erupted near the lorry jetty, men dove or were blown into the water . . .

“Bobby!”

William looked where Murray pointed, north, toward the standing-off ships, and wasn’t sure what he saw.

“That big boat got hit! There’s a bunch of men in the water!”

“Smudge, run forward and call it back. Murray, get the ladder net ready.”

William powered up Maggie, and surged ahead for the flaming wreck.

Maggie Bright
delivered her first load of nineteen men to a destroyer, none taken from the jetty or the beach, all survivors of the sinking river barge that had just loaded and was heading out to sea. It wasn’t long before Maggie’s decks were slippery with oil and congealed blood.

It took ten minutes to pull the men aboard, twenty minutes to make it out to the destroyer, dodging obstructions on the way
 
—other boats, floating debris, bodies. It took ten minutes to help the nineteen off Maggie and onto the rope nets and ladders hanging from the destroyer’s side. Some were so exhausted they could barely hold on to the nets and had to be half carried up by the destroyer’s deckhands or Maggie’s.

Forty minutes, one load of nineteen, and the three men were already exhausted.

“My arms are noodles,” Murray said. He sat beside Smudge on the bench behind the helm.

“No wonder they load from the lorry jetty,” said Smudge. “They can jump aboard.”

“Didn’t figure on ’em bein’ starved,” said Murray. “Wish we had food for ’em. I pull in a guy charred and half-drowned, first thing he says, ‘You got anything to eat?’”

“That’s not our focus,” said William. “We catch the fish, others will clean them.”

“Yes, and now we haven’t any food for ourselves,” Smudge accused Murray. “You gave away all our rations.”

“No more ‘Mr. Vance’? Attaboy. All I gotta do is make you mad, and you’ll treat me regular.”

“Well done, Maggie.” William patted the helm console. “How’s the petrol and paraffin?”

“I better go see,” Murray said. “’Cept I can’t move.”

“Well, you’d better call up some reserves. It’s going to be a very long day. Smudge, why don’t you clear the decks. Won’t do for new guests to see it. Should be a bucket in one of the lockers.”

William suddenly thought of Mrs. Shrewsbury.

“We’re being prayed for, you know,” he announced, feeling only a trace foolish. “We’d better act like it.” It seemed the responsible thing to do.

Smudge said, puzzled, “How do you
act
like you’re being prayed for?”

“By producing things prayer should produce, I suppose.”

“Like what?” Murray asked.

“Stamina,” William enunciated. “Get moving.”

“Then am
I
makin’ it happen, or is it the prayers?”

“Both.”

“Ha! Sounds like somethin’ the Fitz would say. How’s your head, Smudge pie?”

The two rose and started toward their tasks.

“It’ll mend. Say, Mr.
 
—Murray. What were you thinking to kill off Salamander? My mates and I see a possibility for bringing him back. I could tell you our ideas.”

“Well, I got a secret. Swear you won’t tell, but
 
—he ain’t dead.”

“He ain’t? He isn’t? Fantastic!”

They moved off, talking, and William finally allowed the sensation within to well up and tip the banks
 
—an exhilaration he had never known, and it had to do with nineteen worlds plucked from the sea.

Nineteen little worlds.

The number
5
was carved on the foremast. Now
19
would be added, and if things went right, if they kept dodging bombs above and wreckage below, then more numbers after that, more little worlds, more of Maggie’s exploits. Just wait until Clare saw it.

Don’t forget her, Mrs. Shrewsbury.

William put Maggie in gear, powered her up, and swung back toward the hellish fray, praying that Mrs. Shrewsbury was praying.