“Then what should we do?”
Willa gazed up at the ship rafters for a few moments. “I have an idea.”
An hour later, Willa had talked Poppy into finding her one of the “bear” costumes some of the men were wearing around the ship to bully “pollywogs.” They pulled the hot, furry costume from a storage chest in a dark corner of the orlop deck. When he handed her the heavy costume in silence, she took the bundle toward her cabin, and he headed back to the galley.
Aside from the rank smell inside the costume from too many sweaty bodies over the years, she didn’t have any trouble fitting the bulky costume to her body. Thank God, she was tall enough to support the long, furry leg coverings.
The heat and humidity hit her like the blast from wandering too close to a bonfire in the middle of a jungle. She ventured into the sick bay and young Charles immediately recognized her. “Just keep making up stories about where I am,” she whispered, before leaving again.
Once she got the hang of an appropriate, rolling gate, she lowered her voice and climbed up to the top deck to have a little fun while avoiding Lieutenant Dalton’s obnoxious regard.
She stopped to tease Mr. Parker at the mast, but neither he nor Cullen showed any sign of recognition. “Move along there, Mr. Bear. We’re doing important work here, and besides, we’ve both crossed the equator. Isn’t that right, Dr. MacCloud?”
Cullen ignored her and mumbled something to Mr. Parker while checking a sailor’s throat for inflammation. His glasses had drifted down the bridge of his nose, and she had to stop herself from pushing them back up with one of her “paws.”
Willa cavorted about the top deck enough to make sure Dalton, in his sea monster costume, had given up his quest to haze her. She was suddenly struck by how people see only what they expect to see. For years she’d lived aboard warships with her father, and everyone had accepted she was a young man who had every right to work as a physician’s assistant. Now, today, everyone assumed she was one of the ship’s crew having a bit of fun with the crossing ceremony.
Just when she was congratulating herself on being superior to everyone else on the ship, young Anna Baker walked past and greeted her with “Oh, Hullo, Mrs.—.” Before Willa leaned close, put a finger across her lips and whispered into the child’s ear, begging her to keep their secret.
Willa smiled inside her furry prison even though she was sure she reeked so much of “bear,” she’d have to drench herself later with a bucket of seawater.
Sometime late in the afternoon, shortly after they’d celebrated the “Crossing” ceremony, when Cullen had returned topside for a breath of cooler air, there were shouts of “Sail ho” from the topmen.
Captain Still, in his Neptune costume, grabbed a spyglass from one of the midshipmen and took a long look at the mysterious ship. Few other ships should be on this path, other than merchantmen from the East India Company, which owned St. Helena. The captain snapped shut the spyglass and told Lieutenant Dalton to have the crew beat to quarters. “Look lively. She’s flying the colors of a Chilean warship.”
Cullen had been trying to look for Willa without seeming obvious. He had no idea where she’d been hiding to avoid the equator-crossing nonsense.
The Arethusa was still at least a week or longer out of St. Helena, depending on the erratic winds, or doldrums, near the equator. All around them sailors raced to their stations, awaiting the next command.
With the barest zephyr of a breeze that day, they fixed their gaze on the ship with the Chilean flag making slow but steady progress toward the Arethusa. Cullen was pretty sure the unspoken question on everyone’s lips was why a warship was headed toward an island whose main purpose was to serve as gaol for a madman who had already escaped from another island prison.
Chapter Twenty-Two
15.9650°S, 5.7089°W
Island of St. Helena
November 15, 1820
Finally, after days of barely-there breezes one had to inhale deeply to make sure the whiff and promise of land was there, the Arethusa drifted into the anchorage off St. Helena. Lieutenant Dalton began hurling demands to the bo’sun to commence the placement of two heavy anchors, first at the bow, and then at the stern once the ship had settled on how she wanted to face the wind.
Although it was November, the seasons this side of the equator and at this latitude meant the island was in late spring or the beginning of summer. Willa leaned over the rail next to Cullen and stared toward the odd configuration of Jamestown which seemed to have been poured into a flat crevice between two volcanic peaks. The tight rows of houses flowed in a long, narrow slice at least a mile back from the seawall fortifying the harbor.
The lower levels of the island were nearly bare with only sparse trees and greenery against dark volcanic rock. When her eyes tracked higher, she spotted jungle-like vegetation at higher elevations. A few flat areas were covered with dense flax fields white with pale, early blooms.
Cullen turned toward her, his green eyes hazy in the morning mist. “We’ll only be staying long enough to take on fresh water and some provisions.” He straightened and placed his arm around her shoulders in defiance of the occasional intense glances Dalton had been sending their way ever since they’d arrived on the top deck to get their first glimpse of St. Helena. “After that, we’ll spend the next year or so sailing in circles around the island.”
“Looking for what?” Willa’s eyes widened.
“I don’t know,” Cullen admitted. “Great pretenders, like that Chilean warship that finally disappeared?
