TWO DAYS EARLIER
Aboard the HMS Peregrine
three miles off the coast of New Jersey
Captain Ingram stood on the rolling deck, feet braced wide apart, talking with his first officer, Lieutenant Joshua Lansford, and looking shoreward.
“Mr. Lansford, what do you make of the weather?”
“You know the old saying, ‘Red sky at night, sailors’ delight, red sky at morning...’”
Ingram laughed and finished it for him. “‘...sailors take warning.’”
“Yes, and the sky was blood red at dawn. Now, at sunset, it’s not. But whether that old ditty is right or wrong, we must take warning because all the other signs—the swells, the wind, the smell—say a huge storm is in the making. And the rain is starting to come down hard.”
“I agree,” Ingram said. “That means tonight is likely the last night we will be able to launch a boat towards shore, and even then that boat will be at great risk. Once it has returned, we must get out of here and head for the open sea.”
“I have looked at the charts,” Lansford said. “There is no port nearby to take shelter in, at least not one our forces are likely to control.”
“And the bottom here is very shallow.”
“Yes, so as the wind rises, we are at risk of being blown aground. Unless we leave now.”
“Agreed again,” Ingram said. “But here’s the thing. We are obligated to send a boat in again tonight to see if our mysterious friend has returned. If he isn’t there tonight—as I suspect he will not be—we won’t be able to try again. Our orders are not to try for more than eight nights.”
“Captain, we must surely sail from here within the next few hours or risk losing the ship without sending in a boat. If we sail without Black we can decide later if we should return for him and call that the eighth night.”
“No. Launch the boat towards the beach at the appropriate time as usual, and then get us ready to sail as soon as it comes back in. In the meantime, I will get some badly needed hours of sleep. Wake me when the boat is back.”
He walked over to his bunk, pulled back the heavy curtain that provided a modicum of privacy and climbed in, not even bothering to remove his boots. He pulled the drapes closed. If he were the captain of a larger ship, he might well have a separate cabin to himself. The thought followed him into sleep.
He was in the midst of a wonderful dream—he was in a pub with his wife in the small village of Chedworth, in which they had met and courted, toasting an old friend’s retirement—when a loud voice dragged him rudely out of sleep. “Captain! The boat is back!”
He threw back the curtain and heaved himself to his feet beside the bunk. The voice belonged to Lansford.
“Then we must put to sea at once and leave our friend to his fate.”
“No, no. Smith has returned with another man, who is wearing an American uniform.”
“You know nothing else about the second man?”
“Not yet. The man is in sickbay, near to death with cold and wet. And to boot, Smith is seasick again, poor man.”
“He has not said who the second man is?”
“No.”
“Take me to them.”