27 
At Sea
A set of eyes hidden behind two cylinders of glass peered across the sea below.
From this vantage point high above the plateau on which the lighthouse was situated, their owner could make out the small convoy of five British vessels clearly enough. It looked like two standard cruisers, a battle cruiser, and two light cruisers.
No U-boats were in the vicinity. There was nothing to do but report the activity at the earliest possible opportunity. He could tell nothing of the destination of the five ships, though from intelligence reports that had come last week, he suspected the Mediterranean.
It would be useful if he could make positive identification of the vessels. These binoculars, however, weren’t quite powerful enough.
He rose and walked across the small enclosure at the top of the tower. He would use the telescope.
As the HMS Dauntless steamed southward through the North Sea in the dawn hours of the second week of November of the year 1914, Sir Charles Rutherford of Heathersleigh in Devonshire could have no idea toward what fate his destiny was carrying him. Nor could he possibly realize to what an extent the fortunes of his older daughter, as well as his own, were bound up in the isolated stretch of England’s eastern coastline they were now passing, from which their movements were being watched by his onetime colleague and friend Chalmondley Beauchamp. Indeed, had Beauchamp’s eye been focused with pinpoint accuracy at this moment, he might have decried his former friend, whom the Fountain had not been as successful at recruiting as they had he himself, on deck at the bow of the lead cruiser, gazing ahead thoughtfully in the chill morning air. Commander Rutherford had noticed the unlit lighthouse onshore surrounded by a small cluster of buildings as he walked across the deck a few moments earlier. But he thought nothing of it.
Though Charles’ brain was unaware of his fleeting proximity to the Fountain of Light’s Yorkshire beachhead for its clandestine spy operation, his heart felt strange stirrings as they went.
Something told him that a dawn in his daughter’s life was at hand, that years of prayers were about to strike root within her heart in more direct ways, and possibly had already begun.
Spontaneous prayer often arose within him for Amanda. But for some time it had been accompanied with heaviness of heart that no attempt to drum up praise and thankfulness had been able to combat.
They had been praying for so long, with no visible or apparent change. Faith on Amanda’s behalf had become a commodity more and more difficult for him to come by as the years progressed, and nearly impossible since her letter of less than two months ago. The enormous satisfaction and thankfulness and personal friendship he felt with George and Catharine only deepened the discouragement he felt whenever he remembered their sister. If only, Charles could not help thinking, she could be with them now, during these wonderful years of young adulthood, to relish in and benefit from the maturing bonds of family relationship each of the other two enjoyed with him and Jocelyn. Even if Amanda came back someday, she had already missed so much of what the rest of them would treasure all their lives. Thought of it could make him weep. She had sacrificed so much on the fleeting altar of youthful independence.
Word of her hasty marriage had been like the blow of a thousand freight trains crashing into him, crushing what remained of his hope, grinding the dreams of his father’s heart to powder beneath their cruel, thundering wheels. He had continued to pray but felt so like the man who cried unto the Lord, “I believe . . . help my unbelief.”
Suddenly on this morning, however, as he and George departed Scapa Flow, he felt a new vibrancy of hope coming to life within him.
Hope!
How long since he had felt anything like true hope on Amanda’s behalf? Whatever may have been happening within Amanda—and he didn’t even know where she was or what impact the war was having on her—all at once God seemed to be answering his “help-my-unbelief” prayer.
“Oh, God . . . God,” he sighed, “what can I pray that I have not prayed a hundred times before . . . ?”
As was so often the case, his prayers gave over to deep sighs of fatherly affection and entreaty to Amanda herself, which constantly intermingled with his anguished cries to their mutual Father.
“Amanda . . . Amanda,” said Charles, “my dear Amanda . . . what will make you awake at last to the love in my heart for you . . . ?
“Wake her, Lord . . . wake her, I beseech you. Bring her home . . . at last bring her home.”
He fell silent for a time, continuing to stare into the chilly morning with the breeze of the ship’s motion on his face, encouraged to pray again with boldness. He recalled to mind Jesus’ words to his disciples, “You have not, because you ask not.”
“Continue, Lord,” Charles began to whisper again, “to send arrows of clarity into Amanda’s heart and brain, flashes of insight and memory. Help her remember that life was good at Heathersleigh, that we loved her and that there was a time when she loved us. Help her remember the past as it really was, not as she has been told by those who would remold her memories and contort them into a fiction. Give her insight to recognize the wedge they have driven between her and us to lure her loyalty to them and thus satisfy their own pride.
“Restore her memory accurately, Lord. Rescue her from this deception. Turn her heart toward home. Give her the courage to turn from the falsehood she has embraced. Open her mind with clarity to see that she has only been a pawn in the Fountain’s hand.”
As Charles prayed, his hope grew. With hope came a commitment to redouble his prayers and not to allow his newfound hope to fade.
“God,” he said, praying now for himself, “give me courage to pray believing that answers are already on the way to my daughter even before the words are out of my mouth.
“Oh, Lord, I ask that you answer our prayers for Amanda, not on the basis of my own faith, which is so small even now, but on the basis of your faithfulness. I am so weak. Forgive me, Lord, for my unbelief—for my doubting and untrusting heart. But I know you are sovereign, and that your love for your wayward children—myself as well as Amanda—and your determination to bring them all home to your heart do not depend on my tiny faith, but are rooted in your faithfulness in the midst of our weakness.”
He drew in a deep breath of the tangy salt air.
“I thank you, Father, for this mounting sense of hope you have given me. I thank you for the conviction that Amanda is already in the process of turning toward home. May it be swift, Lord. Send people to help her in her homeward journey. Send those who would be true friends to her prodigal heart and who would urge her homegoing. Fill her path with your people, Lord.
“Oh, God, cover my weakness with your perfect Fatherhood. May Amanda’s recollection of my imperfect carrying out of my fatherly charge be no longer a source of resentment within her. May it turn her the more deeply to you, as all imperfect earthly fatherhood is intended to do.
“And may Amanda not only seek home, but may her heart turn toward you, dear Lord. Above all things, may she seek you as her Father. Teach her to trust you and love you far beyond what she ever will me. My fatherhood was strewn with mistakes, for I am but a weak man like all men, and an imperfect father like all earthly fathers. But you are the perfect Father.
“And I ask you to be the perfect Father to my dear Amanda.”
Almost the same instant that his heart filled with peace and his lips became silent, Charles heard footsteps approaching behind him. He recognized their sound.
The form of a young midshipman strode up and stood beside him. The two stood gazing forward for a few moments of quiet contemplation.
“I went to your cabin,” said George at length. “When you were not there, I knew where I would find you.”
“You do know me well, my boy,” smiled Charles affectionately.
“We have twenty minutes before drills begin. I hadn’t seen you since we departed. I thought I would see how you are doing.”
“Never better, George,” replied Charles. “Nothing like the excitement of setting to sea!”
“What have you been thinking about up here?”
“The adventure you and I are embarking on,” answered Charles. “And your mother, of course . . . and then I began praying for Amanda. How about you, George? What are you thinking about.”
“Lieutenant Forbes keeps us too busy to think!” George laughed.
“I told you he was a good man!” rejoined his father.
“I suppose I am excited too,” said George. “I cannot know what the future holds. But sailing at dawn stirs one’s blood for adventure.”
“Spoken like a true twenty-six-year-old!” laughed Charles. “Alas, we are not bound in search of gold on the Spanish main but to fight the Germans. Not so romantic in this modern day, I suppose, but necessary.”
Father and son fell silent. Charles stretched his arm around George’s powerfully built but slender frame, then gave his back two affectionate pats.
They stood another moment or two, then George spoke again.
“I suppose I ought to be getting back,” he said.
“I’ll see you this evening, George, my boy. Thanks for coming to find me—I appreciate it.”
George turned and strode away, leaving Charles alone again at the bow. He glanced about to the right and left and drew in another deep breath. Nothing in all the world felt like sea air in the nostrils and lungs!
The lighthouse on shore had by now faded from his view.