The Tide Watchers (44 page)

St. Aubin's Township, Jersey

February 10, 1803 (Late Afternoon)

U
NABLE TO SEND OR
receive messages for weeks on end the ship's mole had had no choice but to follow his training. Now, with everyone shocked by Jonesy's disappearance, they'd left Carlsberg alone at the forge, working. Fulton had stormed out last night and hadn't returned.

He liked Carlsberg, and he truly regretted Jonesy's death. Perhaps that was why he tied a scraggly kitten to the handle of the smithy's front door to distract him, or maybe because a death here would draw attention to the smithy. It didn't matter. Carlsberg was always sneaking tidbits to the ship's cat, even if it meant she wouldn't be chasing rats that night.

Soon the kitten's mewing got the big man's attention. He untied the kitten, cradling it to his chest, petting it and speaking nonsense. The kitten's crying grew more urgent. “Oh, ho, laddie, what do you do here?” The kitten meowed again. “I think someone's hungry.” After a glance around the smithy, he took the kitten to the inn's kitchen for food scraps.

It took no more than a minute and a half for the mole to do what he had to. He slipped out the back way and down to the small, rough bay that was difficult to reach, where he'd set up camp the day Stewart left him to run after the Sunderland whore.

Mission accomplished.

The night was thick with mist and drizzling rain. They used the two-legged canvas bosun swing to lower in. She shuddered during her
turn, the ropes tossing with the tide, banging her legs, hips, and shoulders against the brass coopering around the observation dome. The moment she was in, she felt squashed beside Duncan.

“Good God, but it's awkward,” he muttered as he pulled the ropes to help her out of the canvas confines. When she was finally free of it, Duncan yelled up for the men to lift the device. “No wonder you prefer breeches for this. I can only imagine the difficulty if you wore skirts.”

With a droll expression, she looked down at herself. “Perhaps these were breeches once. They can't be called such now.”

“That's base ingratitude on your part. I'm sure wherever he is now, my cabin boy Mark misses them, not to mention the all-weather coat you wear is mine.” In the murky light of a half-lit lantern, she saw the anxiety behind the smile. The doctor had come this afternoon at Duncan's insistence, dosing her with vile concoctions until she complained she'd turn as green as his herbs.

“I doubt your cabin boy misses anything about this outfit.” She pointed at the crisscross of sewing and patches. “His mother probably blesses me for not having to sew them up again.”

“At least they've been washed.” He called up, “Lower the rowboat, and anchor it.”

The sound of the hatch thudding closed made the jokes wither on her tongue.
No air, no air,
her mind whispered though there was enough to breathe for an hour. When Duncan twisted the wheel to lock it down tight, she longed for that rocking cold wind only inches away.

“Don't think about it.” He touched her hand. “It's only an hour or two this time. We need to test the drills before we undertake the voyage.” He grinned. “I have a range of new medicines to pour down your throat for the next few days before you can be deemed well enough to go.”

She laughed and pulled a face. “Submerge as soon as we're free of the ropes.”

The submersible heaved as the divers released
Papillon
from its
ropes. In the bosun now, Flynn thudded on the side wall: their sign that the launch above them was anchored in place.

Lisbeth worked the pump, feeling them submerge. “Don't use the top propeller. We could damage it against the wood of the boat.”

The next half hour was taken up with maneuvering
Papillon
into place. “Damn it,” he growled. “If we have to do this every time, we won't get more than a few ships done.”

Guiding him via the observation dome, she said, “We'll be in the river, which is far easier to manage than the open sea. Ease up; yes, that's it.” She turned to the new contraption above her head and turned the handle, watching all three drills turn at once, lifting upward.

“Remember the noise factor. We can't afford to attract attention when we're there.”

She nodded and slowed, keeping it steady.
What an oddly appropriate wedding night for us
.

Five minutes later she beamed. “It worked!” With the removal of the drills, she could see little bubbles of water spiraling up into the launch.

Duncan smiled back, but said, “Let's practice changing the drill, and try again.”

She shrugged and nodded. “Do you know why Alec insisted on this test tonight?”

“No, but Alec never asks me to do anything without a reason.” He added, “If you start to cough, we'll stop.”

An hour and five drills later, a drill broke off at its base within a few minutes, blocking the hole they'd made.

They had Alec's reason.

“I HAD TWO MAIN
suspects after you were shot in that rowboat. From what you told me, the boat moved so you were in Delacorte's line of sight,” Alec said quietly. “Then Cal sent a note. Delacorte was on the trail within a day of your sailing out of Valery. It made it certain: it had to be either Burton or Hazeltine. I had my friends Prigent and St. Hilaire—the former highwaymen I told you about—following Bur
ton. Hazeltine's clumsiness was suspect, so O'Keefe and I stayed with him. When we couldn't be there, the boot boy was well paid to follow Hazeltine wherever he went.”

Sitting at his desk in the commander's quarters, Duncan heard the doubt and pain in his voice. “Hazeltine's clumsiness has seemed suspect to me, too. Are you sure . . . ?”

Alec shook his head. “So certain I sent O'Keefe to London himself with the message rather than trusting a semaphore. We both saw him, Duncan.”

Duncan felt his shoulders slump.

“Prigent was with Hazeltine for weeks. He played cards and dice and got drunk with him, but Hazeltine never did anything else. Burton seemed innocent too, apart from a proclivity for whores. But the attack on the Martello tower couldn't possibly have been Hazeltine; he was drunk and snoring at a card-table. I'd also put the inn's boot boy onto Burton two days ago, when I brought Lisbeth to you. The boy's only thirteen. He was terrified at seeing Jones's death and ran to his grandmother's for the night. When he came back early this morning, he told Hill everything about the Martello tower attack. Hill came to us. I put one of my highwayman friends on Burton, who followed him all day. The proof is positive.”

Duncan felt his shoulders drop even more. “Well then.”

A scratch at the door, and Hazeltine and Flynn frog-marched a trussed Burton between them. His second lieutenant was pale, dark hair mussed, but his eyes flashed with defiance.

“He entered the smithy today while we were investigating Jones's disappearance. St. Hilaire saw him enter and leave and followed him to a bay to the west of town,” Alec said grimly. “I checked everything when he reported to me.
Papillon
seemed sound. That's why I asked you to check the drills. Swapping the drills for some of inferior make seemed the easiest type of sabotage. St. Hilaire sent his men to every smith on the island. Burton had them made by the smith at St. Clement's Bay, to the east. The smith identified Burton beyond doubt.”

Duncan looked at the man whom, apart from Flynn, he'd thought of as his right hand for five years. He'd entrusted Lisbeth to his care
when he went to England, had trusted the man with his own life more than once. He turned to Alec, eyes pleading. Gentle with regret, Alec nodded.

“That's why Miss Sunderland wasn't attacked when in your care, only mine,” he said, just now realizing a truth he ought to have seen months ago. “Delacorte wanted no attention drawn to you. You were too important.”

“I don't know anything about that, sir, but the man following me saw nothing, sir,” John Burton said. “I was merely curious and looked at the drills—”

“It wasn't St. Hilaire who followed you to Petit Port in St. Owen's Bay, but O'Keefe, a highly placed King's Man. You replaced three dozen of the drills with some made from poor-quality steel. You got to damage a dozen of them until the alarm sounded from the ship, recalling the crew. O'Keefe saw you toss the rest in the harbor late this afternoon. I found the semaphore paddles there as well. Ingenious, adding the torches for night use. Unfortunately for you, both O'Keefe and another King's Man, Le Brigand, saw and reported you there. From then, we knew where we were. Hazeltine was deep in a card game with half the crew.” With a contemptuous half smile, Alec held open an oilskin packet filled with steel drills. “Unfortunately for you, I was a navy diver.”

Seeing Burton's shoulders drop a fraction, Duncan grieved anew. “Why didn't you expose him this afternoon? Why put us through all this rigmarole?”

Alec's face was neutral. “Would you have believed me if you hadn't seen the inferior drills breaking off in the hull? Would you have accepted my word over Burton's?”

Duncan surprised even himself by saying, “Yes, I would. You're my brother.”

Alec smiled in a way he hadn't seen before. “If you ask me, we'll get nothing from him.”

Two hours later, Duncan had to agree. “This is useless. Burton's father bought him the commission as midshipman when he was fourteen. He's been on my ship five years. This will break the Burtons'
hearts. They lost him once before—he disappeared at five years old and was returned to them when he was nine.”

Watching Burton, Alec said, “Perhaps he's one of those stories I've heard about—a street urchin trained in the game from childhood, a French child replacing a missing English child. They have a blind devotion to France, being taken off the streets and given everything.”

Burton remained silent, but the air fairly crackled with hate.

“Where's Jonesy's body?” Duncan asked, his voice cold. “At least give us his body to bury. He loved you like a son. You owe him that much.”

Burton didn't even turn. “I demand to be returned to the Admiralty for trial.”

Why that convinced Duncan he didn't know, but looking at Burton, he saw a true French loyalist. He'd give nothing away. “String him up,” he ordered Hazeltine and Flynn.

Hazeltine gasped. “Sir, he asked to be handed over to the Admiralty—”

“Extraordinary circumstances, Hazeltine. He claims to be a British national, so he's guilty of treason on the evidence of two high-ranking King's Men,” Duncan snapped. “I'll take the responsibility. String him up.”

Flynn said quietly, “I ask to be recused, sir. Burton and I joined your crew together.”

“Permission denied,” he snapped, thinking of Burton carrying him to the midwife's, or when he covered Duncan with his body during a sea battle. He wondered at the duality of the man he'd have trusted with his life. Had it all been a lie?

Faces ravaged, his first and third lieutenants marched Burton out, their friend, drinking mate, and confidant until this hour.

Swinging from the yardarm, Burton said only three words before his neck snapped.
Vive la France.

Duncan turned away from the jerking body with the tongue sticking out, the bluish-purple face and staring eyes. “Take him down, and throw him over,” he said to his sailors.

“He was my best signaler,” he muttered to Alec. “At least we know how so many secrets found their way to Paris.”

Alec put a hand on his shoulder. “Delacorte's probably got ships waiting to hear where to drop anchor to stop
Papillon
. Burton must have truly felt desperate to kill Jones. The man was like a father to him.”

Duncan glanced at Flynn, who watched the sailors taking down Burton's body, his face expressionless. Duncan knew Burton's last words would ring in Flynn's ears, too, until Gabriel blew his trumpet. “What type of signal did he use?”

“Only Nelson's style of messaging in my sight,” Flynn replied, voice guttural.

“Did he ever send a message you didn't understand?”

With a frown, Flynn shook his head. “I'm sorry, sir. I didn't think to look until we all came under suspicion, and he hasn't been on the semaphore since then.”

“Ask every man if they saw anything, no matter how ridiculous it seems to them. Go,” he snapped when Flynn kept staring at the corpse of his friend.

Flynn saluted and strode away.

Alec said when Flynn was gone, “Sometimes these spies work in pairs. We don't know if Burton was the senior or junior partner made a scapegoat.”

Duncan gave him a helpless look and swore. “It's February as it is. The winter storms will end soon. Boney is pushing hard for the sale of Louisiana. It won't take long now. Even if the Americans are finding it hard to raise the money, the slave rebellions in Louisiana are growing in violence, and the government needs the right to end the unrest the Spanish are fomenting through Florida. We can't go until we know which drills work and which don't, and finding another mole could take months we don't have. We've wasted enough time.”

Alec put an arm around his shoulder. “Give me two weeks. I'll sleep on the forecastle—I did it as a midshipman—and watch for messages from Boulogne. I'll send all messages myself. Flynn can work with Carlsberg in the smithy, since Fulton's done a runner. Since West
has been absolutely proven innocent by being with Lisbeth throughout her sickness, he can do semaphore with me. Hazeltine and the midshipmen can take the night watches from below. We'll flush this mole out if he exists, never fear.”

Duncan nodded. “It's a good idea. I can take shifts with you on the semaphore—”