Chapter Six
When he woke hours later, she sat beside his bed, knitting. He watched her, peace in his heart for the first time in years. He realized what she was doing, and he felt immediate kinship.
‘Miss Harte, I believe you are standing the watch.’
‘That is what you call it?’
‘Aye. From a ship of the line to a cutter, someone is ever-watchful.’
‘Then I thank you,’ she said simply. ‘In these desperate times, we have cause to thank the Royal Navy.’
She was a woman with no pretensions and no airs and graces. ‘Sir, there is a portable commode in the dressing room. If you need assistance, I will call my father.’
There was no point in embarrassment. ‘I can manage.’
She left him to it. After the initial dizziness of standing, he managed. His shabby uniform hung in the dressing room. He looked at it, noting that someone had brushed it and heavens, sewed on a loose button. What a household this was.
He got back in bed and relaxed completely. Even in Stonehouse, he felt obliged to revive as quickly as possible, because those remaining alive were still his charge. He was in charge of no one here, and he liked the feeling.
After a modest interval, Rosie Harte returned. ‘Come in,’ he said to her knock, and she did, bearing a tray with more of the earlier custard and ale. She was followed by an older woman who bore some resemblance to Miss Harte.
She set the tray on his lap and gestured to the woman. ‘This is my Aunt Dorothea Hudgens, Papa’s sister. She raised me and my little sister, Bess, after our mother died. If you want to compliment the cook, here she is.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Hudgens,’ he said, and blew her a kiss, which made both women laugh.
‘No one leaves this farm hungry,’ Rosie’s aunt replied. ‘I am Aunt Dorothea to everyone in Endicott, you included now.’
Was that even kinder than good food? As sure as if he belonged there, Andrew felt himself folded into this family. In the face of such kindness, he knew better than to argue. ‘Then I thank you, Aunt Dorothea.’
‘This snack is just to tide you over. Dinner will come along soon enough,’ she said, obviously pleased. ‘My brother has declared that since you are a hero to the Royal Navy, you are our hero, too.’
Good God, what was this? ‘Um…’ was all he had the wit to say. Rosie sat beside his bed after Aunt Dorothea left, moving the tray when he finished.
‘Blame my father,’ she said. ‘When he divested you of your uniform last night, what looked like a page from a journal fell out of your pocket. Here.’ From her apron pocket, she took out the article from the Naval Chronicle.
‘I’m no hero,’ Andy insisted.
‘I read it. Sounded heroic to me.’
‘We were desperate.’
Was there something in his tone that caused her to rest her hand on his arm, even briefly? She gave him an inquiring look, not a look that demanded answers, but one that wanted to know more, if he felt like talking.
To his surprise, he did. At Stonehouse, he left most commentary to the bosun, who liked to talk, and perhaps impress the matron.
Still, there were times he felt it might be a relief to tell someone the whole story, if only to assure himself that there was nothing heroic about it: just a day in the life of desperate men.
‘Take a seat, Miss Harte.’
‘Call me Rosie.’
Was it that simple? ‘Very well, Rosie,’ he said then, ‘I am Andrew. Andy if you choose.’ He put his hands behind his head. ‘We had been in la fortaleza for eleven months. The bosun used burnt firewood on the wall to count the days, which turned into months.’
‘It sounds boring,’ she said. ‘I mean, you probably hadn’t a knitter among you.’
He laughed, relieved at her light tone. ‘Miss Harte…’
‘Rosie.’
He closed his eyes to remember better. ‘One of the foretopmen had a nagging cough, and we were so thin. We had to do something. To do nothing meant certain death.’
‘Had you planned an escape?’
‘We were thinking about making a rope out of our clothing and going down and out through the hole where we…’ How to say this?
‘I understand perfectly,’ she said. ‘I assume everything dropped into the ocean.’
He stared at the ceiling. ‘The walls were thick, but we knew there was a cell next to ours, probably with prisoners. We never saw them.’
He didn’t mean to groan. She touched his arm. ‘One night there was a fearful row. We heard it through all that stone. Screams, weeping, pleading…’
Again her hand touched him, resting longer this time. ‘I can only tell this once.’
‘Once, then.’
‘Our door banged open and the French devils forced us into that adjoining cell. Rosie, those prisoners had attempted what we were planning, except there was a grate at the bottom of the hole. No one could escape into open water.’
He glanced at her and saw her eyes staring as if into the hole itself. ‘The Frogs made us stand there as the tide came in and drowned those men.’ He couldn’t help his tears. ‘They wailed and pleaded and we could do nothing.’
What a churl he was to tell this story. She wept, too, wiping her eyes with her apron, then so kindly wiping his.
‘None of us spoke good French, but those fiends made us understand that would be our fate, if we tried to escape.’
As he lay there trying to collect himself, Rosie fetched the carafe of water on the bureau and poured him a drink. She supported his head with her arm. He didn’t really need her help, but he wanted it, craved it.
‘But you’re here. What did you do?’ she asked, when she could speak.
‘They left the bodies in that hole. Then one day, they opened our cell and counted out three of us. Un, deux, trois. I was number three.’
‘Oh God,’ was all she said. Her knitting lay in a heap at her feet.
‘They took us to that damned and haunted cell and I knew it was over,’ he said, ‘except it wasn’t. We were to gather the men’s effects into a pile, perhaps for burning. In the doing, I found a rasping saw someone had hidden.’
He heard her sudden intake of breath. ‘Keep breathing, Rosie,’ he said, amused in spite of his dire tale.
‘I suppose I must,’ she murmured. ‘You hid it somehow and took it back to your cell like a crazy man.’
‘I did. It went into a gap in the stones where the mortar had eroded. There it stayed for months.’
He let her think about that, aware then that the door had opened and Farmer Harte and his sister stood there, transfixed, eyes wide. He leaned closer to Rosie. ‘Missy, you had better take that tray from your aunt. It’s starting to rattle.’
Without a word, she did as he said, putting it on the table—probably to grow cold, but he didn’t mind.
Cold or hot, he would eat it. When Rosie looked around, Aunt Dorothea was seated in her chair, and Papa in the window ledge.
Andy reminded himself that he was just a sailor and not a gentleman, and patted a spot on his bed. To his surprise and delight, she sat.
‘Tell us how you escaped.’
‘There was one window in our cell, high up, with four iron bars. For six months, one or another of us stood on someone’s shoulders and we sawed away with that little rasp.’
‘Noisy,’ Farmer Harte commented.
‘We worked during thunderstorms, or naval barrages from the blockaders.’
‘You could have been easily discovered,’ Rosie said.
‘To say that we were constantly on edge, expecting them to find out, simply beggars the language,’ he said simply. ‘Even now, I jump at unexpected noise.’
‘I promise not to burp,’ Farmer Harte said, which made everyone laugh.
‘I will hold you to it, Papa,’ Rosie teased him back. She turned her lovely eyes on Andrew. ‘You must think we are callous, to laugh at your predicament.’
‘Not at all,’ he assured them. ‘You should have heard some of our jokes. That’s how people in tough situations survive.’ May you never know such fear, he told himself, especially you, Rosie. May you always be warm and safe.
The story seemed easier to tell now. ‘We worked nearly through the top of two of those bars, but not all. Then we started on the bottom and did the same. Almost but not all. Six months’ labour.’
‘Are you the most patient man in the universe?’ Rosie asked. She had made herself comfortable on his bed, her back against the footrest. He could have reached out and touched her shoe, but he was no fool.
‘Patient? I am now. There we were, starving and getting weaker every day.’ He sighed. ‘Two of our original number died. We were now eight.’
‘I would pray for more storms,’ Aunt Dorothea said.
‘We did, those of us who still believed in anything,’ he returned. ‘I am among that number, although countless midshipmen and crew I instruct in ship trim, ballast and navigation would doubt it. I am exacting, ma’am, but I believe.’
It sounded silly to his ears, but as he looked at his three hosts, he knew they understood. It gave him heart to continue. ‘It was late autumn, when our blockade tends to pull back to avoid the danger of winter storms blowing vessels onto a lee shore.’
Silence. Rosie’s eyes were troubled. ‘No fears, Rosie. We sawed and starved until we were ready.’ He sniffed. ‘Do I smell bread on that tray?’
Aunt Dorothea respond quickly. In a moment he had a buttered roll in his hand. She apologized that it wasn’t hot from the oven, but he waved that away. ‘It is divine. You can’t imagine.’ He ate quickly, savouring the butter, and had the strength to continue.
‘That final day, we watched clouds roll in. After supper—the usual meal, warm water that a chicken ran through on stilts—Captain Tate said this was the night. We were too weak to stay much longer. It was now or never. When the lightning and thunder began, we stripped and tied our clothes together—rags, really—and did our balancing act to cut through those remaining bits of iron bar.’
Farmer Harte nudged his sister. ‘Dotty, what’s the most desperate thing you ever did?’
She gave him such a glare that Andy was happy not to have it directed at him. ‘I believe it was when you were born. I told Mama that if it was a brother, I was going to run away!’
Everyone laughed and the tension broke. ‘Did you?’ Andy teased.
Aunt Dorothea smiled. ‘I got as far as the meadow just outside this window and turned back because—’ she stopped, and buttered him another roll ‘—I didn’t want to be hungry.’
‘Wise child,’ Andy said. ‘We doused our light. The bosun was the strongest. When there was a long roll of thunder, he broke through the bars, knotted one end of our pathetic rope around one of the other bars, and…and told us to shinny down the rope, one at a time.’
‘Was it long enough?’ Rosie asked, her voice small, her eyes huge.
‘No. We ended up jumping into the water before we wanted to. Oh, so cold. Captain Tate was struggling just above me, so I hung on to the rope. I put him on my back when he came closer. I leaped and started swimming.’
He remembered waves so high that he must have swallowed half of them, weighed down and weak as he was.
All he could do at that moment was mentally swim again in frigid water with the old man on his back, which landed him precisely where he had been in the mail coach.
Would it never end? He started to shiver, even though the room was warm.
Rosie did an extraordinary thing. She edged closer on the bed, took his face in her hands and kissed his forehead.
‘Silly man,’ she said, for his ears alone. ‘You are a hero.’