Chapter 10
Dark shadows materialized at an alarming rate on the narrow lanes weaving down the hills of Gravelines as Captain Sir Christmas Astley-Milne and his companion, Lieutenant Daniel Barrett, crept in and out of alleys, borrowing the stone buildings lining the streets for support.
They were spent, the distance they’d traveled more than they were accustomed to traversing unless they were on the march from one French citadel to another.
The surrounding air, disquieting and suspect, made Chris uneasy.
Desperation kicked in, uncertainty and apprehension coiling inside him, drawing him up at every sound.
Unable to trust his limited vision, he traversed the road next to Barrett as they headed to the trees promising safe harbor in a scant patch of moonlight beyond.
The French coast laid past that wood line.
At least, that was what the guard who’d facilitated their escape had confided.
The trees beckoned, the English Channel, and further still, freedom.
There was no going back now. Suffering and sickness were behind them.
Death, however, continued to dog Chris’s footsteps.
He might succeed with this escape, but there were no guarantees they’d make it safely back to their home country.
“There.” At Chris’s signal, they sought cover in the close vicinity of a cottage, its window aglow with candlelight and the soft hum of a mother singing to her child drifting to them below.
Chris would never get over the strange juxtaposition of life going on while men died trying to topple tyrants.
Life continued, with or without them.
Barrett lumbered on weak legs, coming to a stop beside him. His breathing ragged, he complained little of the physical expense demanded from their bodies. The risk of discovery was high, fear of capture rattling their bones.
“Do you hear anything else?” Chris asked.
“No.” Barrett’s answer ought to have dispelled Chris’s anxiety, but it didn’t. His tension only increased. Men who escaped Gravelines rarely found their way back to the citadel. Their bodies washed up along the coast to be robbed by the poorest of the poor of anything that could be salvaged.
Barrett leaned back against the cold stone, a familiar and yet daunting sensation, Chris thought as he joined him. “Do you think they’ve discovered Gagnon by now?”
“That no longer matters. This is our only chance after—”
“We had no choice, Captain.” His friend’s censure belied the horror they’d endured for almost five years confined to a cell, a marsh, or a patch of dry ground. “It was the guard . . . or us.”
He nodded, incapable of shirking the anxiety that niggled him.
Their escape from Gravelines had materialized too easily.
He could almost swear this was a test of his honor, the very reticence that kept prisoners of war locked up for years.
For who would bribe a guard into letting them go?
Who valued their lives enough to pay the price?
A pity that Gagnon had died fighting off another guard to keep them from getting caught.
They owed him their lives.
“No matter what we do, we must push forward,” he said. “The ship will not wait until dawn. Our orders were clear. If we’re not aboard the galley before then, we’re dead.”
Barrett’s gaze dropped to Chris’s side. “You’ll be dead sooner than that if you don’t allow me to tend your wound.”
He lifted the hand that staunched the flow of blood—his blood—the numbing effect of shock and determination cloaking his pain.
Being knifed by the other guard was the only thing preventing him from running straightaway to the docks.
He stared at the gaping wound, surprised that he had any blood left to bleed after the treatment they’d received during the past five years under the control of various tyrants.
“I beg you, Captain,” Barrett implored. “Let me do something to stop the bleeding.”
He shook his head in the darkness then said, “There isn’t time.
I refuse to be the reason you do not reach England alive, Lieutenant.
” His harsh tone and the use of Barrett’s rank surely let the man know his mind was set.
He laid a hand on Barrett’s shoulder. “Time for comfort will come. If we survive this, I promised you a Christmas in Kent.”
Without another word, he set off, fleeing the shelter of the old cottage to dart north and downhill across a meadow to the trees.
Tall sage grass slowed their progress, nipping at their bruised bare feet like jagged glass.
Mere minutes passed before Chris felt the blood drain from his head and his energy wane.
Not. Yet!
But his body failed to comply.
“Stop,” he hissed, dropping to his knees. He clutched his side, cursing inwardly at the futility and frailty of the human body. “I cannot go any further.”
“Yes,” Barrett spat, though the surgeon surely understood that impossibility by the extent of his wounds.
He’d seen that look in the lieutenant’s eyes before when other prisoners were wounded beyond his skill.
By his estimation, he wasn’t long for this world.
How he would have liked to have spent another Christmas in Kent.
How he would have loved to celebrate in the manner in which others had, one last time, to gaze on Emma’s sweet face. “You can.”
Could he? Barrett would not let him off easily. He couldn’t blame the man? He would react the same way. “Very well,” he said, attempting to catch his breath. “You scout ahead. I’ll catch up after I rest.”
“Damn me, Captain. There isn’t time to rest.” Barrett grabbed him by the elbow and jerked him to his feet, ignoring the groan of pain and fatigue that betrayed his unshakable spirit.
“You never left me—once. I swore an oath to do no harm and I will not, especially not to a man who is like a brother to me.” He scurried to the trees, moving left then right in a jagged line, forcing Chris to keep apace, though his legs refused to cooperate.
“Go.” He tripped but Barrett was there, easing him back up to his feet as the world started to go black. “Save yourself.”
“You are coming with me, Captain.”
Chris grunted, exhausted. His chest expanded, his heart full of devotion, cognizant of how finite life was, and that any sound they made could expose their position to the enemy.
Demmed if he’d be responsible for getting the lieutenant killed.
Not after spending nearly five years trying to keep the man alive.
In times like these, a surgeon meant the difference between life and death.
Nonetheless, he was in no condition to protect his friend or resist the man’s resolve at this point.
They’d experienced few victories since their two years of service to the Crown, and forced to endure unfathomable hardship during their imprisonment.
It was Barrett’s sheer will and endurance that had kept them alive this long.
He was all too aware that he owed his friend everything.
Dogs barked in the distance; a menacing indicator they were being hunted down. “They’re getting closer.”
“And so are we,” Barrett reminded him. “Look.”
He squinted, trying to ignore the pain as he straightened tall enough to look through the trees. There, faintly, a light flashed multiple times. A code for hurry.
With no other recourse but to plod ahead or end up drowned, their bodies destined for the same fate as many others, Chris leaned into Barrett as they threaded their way through the trees.
Branches tore at their flesh, briars nipping at their feet.
Underbrush threatened to capture them and hold them until the dogs finished them off.
He fought to keep the pace as they made their way to the edge of the wood and the smuggler’s ship.
According to the guard who’d been bribed to help them, the sea captain had had tremendous success delivering refugees and prisoners to Ramsgate and Sandwich on England’s eastern shores.
He’d also returned the favor to the French, the guard’s brother-in-law being one among those Captain Ransome had returned.
Was the smuggler related to Emma?
What did it matter? If they found freedom, nothing else mattered but getting back home.
Chris’s consciousness began to fade as they broke through the trees.
There, before them, the wharf appeared far away—decidedly too distant—and yet an encouragement to their lost souls as they spied a galley moored nearby.
The tide was going out, the wind brisk. He inhaled.
The salty air invigorated his putrid lungs, a far cry from the stench and bile they’d been forced to smell for so long.
Snow flurries cascaded down from the sky as smugglers and sailors hastened about their duties. One on the gangway signaled for them to board, his expression grave as he waved them on. Others loosened the moorings that bound the ship to the dock.
The air sizzled with tension. Chris’s lips were parched and his body ached, the pain in his side throbbing and his empty belly recoiling as the barking increased, the sound growing closer and closer.
He looked back at the trees, astounded, praying the ship made it out to sea before their captors caught up with them.
Then everything went black.
When he awoke, sea spray whipped against his face, cold, biting.
The galley launched over the swells, dipping, and darting upward with every sweep of the oars.
He’d heard smugglers could make the trip from Dover to Calais in hours by the strength of their backs alone.
Would they reach England? Or would a French frigate spot them and take them on?
“You’re awake,” Barrett said, his tone unusually heightened.
“Yes,” he said. “What happened?”
“You lost consciousness.”
“How long have I been out?” What had happened since they’d made it to the boat?
“Ye be a lucky man,” the captain of the galley said, making his presence known. He worked his way from the mast. “Ye’ve given us quite the chase, though I never gave up hope that we’d liberate ye.”
“Do I know you?” he asked in the darkness, unable to place the man’s voice.
The captain laughed quietly. “The name is Ransome. Ansell Ransome. Ye don’t know me, but someone ye do know sent me to retrieve ye.”
His father? He squeezed his eyes closed, trying to place where he’d heard the name Ransome. It had been a long time, and he rolled the name off the tip of his tongue, struggling to remember. Emma!
“Any relation to Emma Clavering,” Daniel asked for him.
“Aye. She be me cousin,” the captain said sternly as if warning them never to mention her name in his presence again. “Ye’ll be seein’ her soon enough.”
Emma. Father. Mother. Noel. The tenants at Milne Manor. “Is my family well?” Chris asked unreservedly.
“Aye, Cap’n. Yer father’s been waitin’ a long time for yer return.” Ransome navigated the thwarts to get closer.
“And your cousin?” he asked seeking as much knowledge about Emma as he could, fearing the worst. Was she alive?
Had she waited for him? Had she given up hope and married?
He prayed she had. The thought of her wasting her life away, denying herself children, pricked his pride and— He wasn’t worthy.
He didn’t deserve such a love, though he longed for it, and thoughts of Emma had sustained him all this time. “Is she—”
“Sir Christmas, it will take more than a war to jar the wild out of that girl,” Ransome said with a chuckle. “She be well, and waitin’.”
“And my mother? Brother?” he asked, berating himself for not thinking to ask about them first.
“Rest. Everythin’ will be revealed in time.” Ransome didn’t offer any more information. He turned away, silent as the grave.
Chris’s blood began to boil, an unbearable heat raging inside him. He started to stand, to go after Ransome and demand the truth, but he doubled over in pain, unable to continue.
Barrett caught him. “Rest.” He curled into the deck of the galley, moaning, laboring to breathe, hearing hushed conversation continue as if in a fog. “Captain Ransome,” Barrett shouted. “Fever is taking hold. If I don’t get him stitched up soon, it’ll be too late.”
“Do the best ye can, Lieutenant. Ye’re the only surgeon among us.”
“Do you have any fishing line? An awl?”
“Slade, help the good doctor, else I’ll never hear the end of it when my cousin gets wind of this.”