“I have no authority over the port officials.”
“The Major there would most likely honor any request coming from the American Base Hospital.”
She was tempted.
“At the very least, you could try,” I pleaded. “He’s quite handsome, Barclay is. I tried to withstand his advances, that’s why I went to the convent, but he followed me from the Hotel de Lille. Thank God he was stopped and asked for his papers! I don’t know what he would have done.”
She considered me for a moment, eyes narrowing again. Finally she rose from behind the desk, asked the direction of the convent, ordered me not to leave the room, and for good measure locked the door behind her as she went out.
I sat there fuming for over an hour. Had she believed any part of my story, or had I only succeeded in ruining my own reputation for no purpose? Time was passing, and I was locked in here.
Halfway through the long wait, I felt a spurt of horror. What if she’d gone in search of my driver instead? If he came here, promised to deliver me to Ypres as ordered, would she feel that I had learned my lesson and remand me into his care?
Surely not. He had gone long before this.
When I finally heard the key turn in the lock, I tried to make myself look frightened and contrite.
Nurse Bailey came in accompanied by a man dressed in the uniform of an orderly, but he was older, and I guessed-correctly as it turned out-that he was in charge.
I was told that he would escort me to the ship waiting on the river even now, and that he would deliver the letter Nurse Bailey had written to the First Officer, as she had intended from the start.
I didn’t protest when he took my arm and led me out of the small room, through the passages, and out the gate of the hospital.
We walked together to the port. I was escorted up the gangway and handed over to a young officer who looked at me as if I were carrying the plague. Disgust was writ large in his face, and whatever he’d been told, he’d believed every word of it. I was conducted to the quarters of one of the officers and once more locked inside.
After a while I heard the sounds of the ship weighing anchor, then moving with the tide as it prepared to follow the river to the sea.
I’d failed to get Captain Barclay freed, but I’d be in Portsmouth in a matter of hours.
My worry now was, could I reach my father once I got there? Or was he off on one of his mysterious forays and out of touch for days on end? What could Mother do in his stead? Was Simon even well enough to attend to this?
CHAPTER TEN
IT SEEMED TO take longer than usual to reach the mouth of the river. More often than not, unless I was assigned to duty with the wounded belowdecks, I stood at the rail, watching our passage downstream. Instead, here in this stuffy little cabin, I tried to picture it in my mind as a distraction.
Finally I could feel the swells as we left the river behind and met the Channel. That much closer to England. Somewhere in the narrow ship’s passage outside my door I heard someone begin to retch, and then the sound of feet rushing toward the companionway.
I was a good sailor, and I stood at the porthole, the lamp behind me turned off, and looked out at gray water meeting a gray sky. There was always a chance that we would encounter a German sub, and if the weather was good, the chances were doubled. But from my vantage point, there could have been half a hundred out there, and I’d have no way of guessing.
With a sigh, I closed the black curtains and sat down, not in the mood to relight the lamp. I was tired enough to sleep, but tempting as the bunk was, I wanted to stay alert if I could.
I’d just stifled a yawn when I heard the click of the key in the lock, and my door opened a very little.
I reached for the lamp, lit it, and stood there, waiting in its pool of light.
A familiar face peered around the edge. I recognized an officer I had sailed with before on a number of occasions.
“You aren’t about to throw the inkwell at me, are you?” Captain Garrison asked with a grin.
“I promise,” I said, and he stepped into the tiny cabin.
“I was just informed you were on board. Locked away like a common miscreant. What happened, Sister Crawford?”
“It’s a long story,” I told him wryly, “but I’ve transgressed, I’m told, and I’m being shipped home in disgrace to face my hour of judgment.”
He laughed outright. “Good God, Bess, did you take a shot at the First Lord of the Admiralty?”
“Nothing so grand. I was accused of fraternizing with an orderly and in consequence missing my transport to Ypres.” My hand went of its own accord to my pocket. What if I’d been searched and Simon’s little handgun had been discovered?
“I don’t believe it! Hang on-is that the other felon we have in irons belowdecks?”
“Unless he’s an American, I wouldn’t know.”
“Yes, he must be. He told one of my men that his ancestors had shown us a thing or two at Yorktown, and he was ready to have another go at it himself.”
It was my turn to laugh. But what was I to tell Captain Garrison? I decided on the truth. Well, part of it.
“We were both assigned to Ypres. But something went wrong with our transport, and I spent the night in a convent I knew of in Rouen. On his way back to the hotel where he was staying, Barclay was picked up for not having the proper papers. I tried to explain the situation to the harbor police with no luck, and when I went to the Base Hospital in the hope of finding pen and paper to write to my father, a nurse there decided I looked disreputable enough to have been up to something nefarious, and she sent me back to England. I begged her to let my betrayer be punished as well, and I expect that’s why he’s in irons below.”
“You were deucedly lucky this was my ship. There are letters in my safe that must be meant for the Inquisition. I was told under pain of death not to open them but to hand them over along with you when I reached Portsmouth.”
“Yes, well, I do understand in part. There’s always the fear of spies in a place like Rouen. You’ve got people coming and going in every direction, speaking I don’t know how many languages, and there are warnings everywhere to report any suspicious activity. I doubt Nurse Bailey has been in France very long. She put the worst possible interpretation on the situation. I’d have done the same in her shoes.”
“No, you wouldn’t have,” he said. “You’d have got to the bottom of it. Wait here, I ought to let your American out of the brig before he thinks of a way to scuttle the ship. I’ve enough on my hands with the Germans.”
With that he was gone, and it was some time before he reappeared. “I’ve offered Barclay my cabin to clean himself up a bit. He was all right once he knew you were safe. I need to go to the bridge and keep an eye on things.” He reached into his pocket and took out two letters. “I’ll leave these with you.” He hesitated. “Barclay strikes me more as an officer than an orderly.”
“He is. He was so eager to get back to France he was willing to take any position available. I think his doctor back in Somerset was trying to teach him a lesson, that his wounds haven’t healed sufficiently to return to his regiment. A little humble pie, as it were.”
Nodding, he went on his way. I folded my arms on the makeshift desk, put my head down on my arms, and went to sleep.
I’d consider what to do once we approached Portsmouth Roads.
I must have slept soundly. It was the rumble of the anchor cable feeding out that brought me awake, startled and confused. I tried to make myself presentable and settled my cap on my hair. My valise was by the cabin door. But I stayed where I was. It was one thing to be treated as a guest by Captain Garrison and quite another to appear on deck prematurely and place him in an awkward situation.
I could hear the wounded being carried off the ship, and then the tramp of many feet as the next contingent of troops came aboard.
Finally there was a tap at my door and Captain Garrison was there. “All clear,” he told me. “I think it’s safe
