Voyage of the Sparrowhawk Read online

  *

  The first wave caught Ben by surprise, yanking the tiller away from him. The Sparrowhawk lurched. Lotti, who was making sandwiches in the galley, felt her stomach heave. Ben’s blood flooded with panic. The dogs, jolted out of sleep, howled.

  ‘Easy, lad.’ Frank’s hand was over Ben’s on the tiller. ‘Them waves aren’t as big as they look, and the boat’s stronger than you think. Hold steady. It’ll grow calmer when we reach the open sea.’

  Steady, steady. The Sparrowhawk climbed up and slid down the swells but Ben, with Frank guiding him, felt the strength of the hull beneath his feet, the power of the engine driving them on.

  ‘You said she’d sink at the first wave,’ Ben reminded him.

  Frank said, ‘They’re not real waves.’

  They reached the open sea and Frank was right, the waves did calm. On and on they went still hugging the coast, following the Wilhelmina, until all the tea was drunk and all the sandwiches eaten and all the light was gone. Lotti yawned, and Frank sent her below to sleep. The dogs were shivering on Ben’s bunk. Lotti climbed in beside them and cuddled them. The Sparrowhawk rocked her like a cradle.

  ‘Jamais je ne t’oublierai …’ she sang to the dogs in a whisper.

  I will never forget you …

  Never

  Ever

  Ever.

  Lotti slept.

  A little later, Frank went below to use the privy, and for a few moments Ben was left alone at the tiller out on the darkening water, beneath a sky full of stars, and now something new was happening, something marvellous … The wake of the Wilhelmina and the wash of the Sparrowhawk swirled green with phosphorescence, and the two boats stood like jewels on luminous clouds in the oil-black sea.

  ‘Magic,’ breathed Ben.

  Out at sea, weather fronts were gathering, and far away inland, the train bearing Hubert and Vera Netherbury back towards Barton trundled through the night. But in that magical moment alone on deck, with nothing in the world but him and the boats and the sky and the waves and the strange otherworldly light, Ben knew that Lotti was right, and that he could do anything.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Wilhelmina left them at Ramsgate, headed to Nieuwpoort in Belgium. The Sparrowhawk stopped to wait for the next tide and to refuel, and for her crew to eat.

  It was Friday morning, the weather was warm and already people were strolling about the waterfront. Breakfast at a nearby inn was plentiful and delicious. Frank, Lotti and Ben took their time over it. When they returned to the quayside, a small crowd had gathered around the Sparrowhawk.

  ‘You never brought her round on the sea!’ gasped a little boy holding a giant stick of rock.

  There was no point lying about it.

  ‘We did,’ said Lotti, proudly.

  ‘The harbourmaster says you’re taking her all the way to France!’ breathed the little boy’s sister.

  Ben pulled a face, but again, what was the point of lying?

  ‘We are,’ said Lotti, and the little boy’s and girl’s eyes grew so round they looked like they might pop right out of their heads.

  ‘Madness,’ said a man with a knotted handkerchief on his head, but he looked impressed.

  A journalist from the East Kent Herald arrived with a camera.

  ‘How long will it take you to get to Calais?’ he asked.

  ‘About six hours,’ grunted Frank, who didn’t like crowds. ‘If everyone’s finished chatting.’

  Lotti untied the mooring lines, and Frank fired up the engine. Ben put the dogs in the cabin, giving Elsie a special hug, then came back up and took the tiller. With Frank scowling at his side and Lotti on the storage box waving to the crowds on the quayside, he guided the Sparrowhawk out towards the open sea.

  The journalist returned to his office to type up his story for the paper’s weekend edition.

  *

  There was no Wilhelmina to follow now, no coastline to hug. Just forty miles of water ahead of them, the occasional cargo or military ship in the distance and the Sparrowhawk heading straight out to sea, alone. The dogs didn’t like it. Elsie heaved herself on to Ben’s berth and closed her eyes. Federico crouched beside her and looked accusingly at anyone who came in as if to say, ‘How much longer? How could you?’

  But the sea was flat and the weather was fair and the Sparrowhawk was steady.

  There was nothing to worry about.

  Frank went below to rest, leaving Ben at the helm. Lotti stood beside him and breathed deeply. The air smelled of salt and engine fumes.

  ‘Like freedom,’ said Ben, reading her mind.

  ‘Exactly like freedom,’ said Lotti.

  Softly, she began to hum the nightingale song and Ben joined in. But then there came a moment when England behind them disappeared, and France before them was still out of sight, and they stopped singing because the moment was too immense, and the only sound was the engine of the little Sparrowhawk bravely ploughing on, slow and steady, slow and steady.

  ‘We were so right to do this,’ said Lotti.

  Ben smiled, and raised his face to the sun.

  In silence, then, they continued, side by side, looking straight ahead. The tide turned and the going slowed but still the Sparrowhawk went on, and there was no reason to believe that anything would go wrong. Little wavelets were breaking against the hull and the air was growing muggy, but the sky was still blue, the sea was still calm.

  The French coast came into view, a white line on the horizon. There was a moment of jubilation, ecstatic and triumphant. Ben whooped. Lotti cheered. Frank stuck his head up out of the cabin and said, ‘Well, thank goodness for that. Want me to take over?’

  ‘No way!’ said Ben, and Frank went below again.

  But, but, but …

  A few moments later, Frank came back up, his expression grim.

  ‘Blinking dog’s started,’ he said.

  Ben and Lotti stared uncomprehendingly.

  ‘The puppies,’ said Frank, and took the tiller. ‘Go on.’ He sighed. ‘Go and see to her.’

  No, no, no! The puppies, now! This was what Ben had been afraid of! What if something went wrong? What if Elsie didn’t know what to do? What if … Ben, with Lotti close behind, tumbled down the steps into the cabin.

  Elsie lay in a tight ball on Ben’s berth, with the blanket over her head.

  She didn’t appear to be in any discomfort.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Ben shouted up to Frank. ‘Why do you think she’s started?’

  ‘Never seen a dog behave like that before,’ the answer came back.

  ‘But I have …’ Lotti spoke in a whisper, her face very white. ‘She’s doing exactly what she did when I first met you, Ben, when it rained so much even though it was a beautiful day. She’s being a barometer.’

  They turned and climbed back up to the deck. In the short time they had been below, the temperature had dropped, the little waves grown stronger. France looked no closer, but the horizon had turned the colour of a giant bruise.

  ‘Look at the sky!’ Lotti had said at Limehouse, not knowing these had been her father’s exact words outside Barton Lacey all those years ago, when Isobel wanted to stay.

  Storms.

  Sometimes, it seems, they come from nowhere.

  *

  The Sparrowhawk was pitching all her power against the tide now, and the tide was winning. The air was cold, the sky lowering, the sea still calm, but it was different to the calm before. Then the sea had felt asleep. Now it was swelling, gathering strength. And it was no use wishing for the peaceful canals, the green tranquillity of the English countryside, the relative safety of the London Thames as they flew into the sunrise, the calm coastline and the comforting presence of the Wilhelmina. All the Sparrowhawk crew could do was hold their course, and pray that they would reach safe harbour before the storm broke. Frank held the tiller now. Ben stood at his side. In the cabin, Lotti tried to comfort the panicking dogs.

  Minutes passed, which felt like hour
s. Inch by fought-for inch, the French coastline grew closer.

  ‘Calais,’ breathed Frank at last, pointing to a white shape in the distance, more guessed at than seen.

  The current had swept them off course. Frank brought the Sparrowhawk round to hug the coastline, heading east. Ben saw cliffs, trees, a church, and he willed the boat on faster.

  The waves grew.

  ‘No worse than the ones we had yesterday,’ said Frank.

  But the waves swelled higher. Lotti, her arms wrapped round the dogs, gave a moan. Federico was sick. Elsie burrowed deeper into her blanket.

  The first drop of rain hit them within sight of the Calais harbour walls, followed almost immediately by a flash of lightning that ripped open the sky, then by a rumble of thunder. With a sudden, vicious gust, the wind whipped up. With an answering heave, so did the sea.

  ‘Ben, go below,’ ordered Frank. ‘Get a bucket and give it to Charlie. Tell her to go into the workshop and watch the foredeck. She’s to stay inside except if a wave breaks over the bow, in which case she’s to bail for all she’s worth. And tell her, if the Sparrowhawk goes over, to get the hell out and hang on to the hull and not let go, whatever happens. Whatever happens, you hear? She’s to climb on top of it, if she can.’

  ‘What about the dogs?’ Lotti whispered, pale-faced, when Ben delivered Frank’s message. ‘What’ll happen to them if the Sparrowhawk goes over?’

  ‘She won’t go over,’ said Ben, handing her a bucket from the galley.

  ‘But what if she does? They can’t hold on to the hull, they’ll drown … And Ben, what if the Sparrowhawk sinks?’

  ‘She won’t go over and she won’t sink,’ Ben repeated stubbornly, but the Sparrowhawk was lurching badly now, and he almost fell as he came back out on to the deck.

  He saw Frank’s face before he saw the wave. Frank the unmoveable, strong, silent, dependable Frank was pale as a ghost, mouth open, eyes staring, frozen to the spot – still holding the tiller, but no longer steering.

  Ben turned to follow his gaze.

  Monstrous, the wave towered over the Sparrowhawk.

  The little boat lurched again. Below deck, the dogs howled, Lotti screamed. Up above Frank froze with fear, but Ben didn’t hesitate. He pushed Frank out of the way, seized the tiller and drove straight into the wave.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The Pride of Kent passenger ferry had seen many storms in her time, and this was definitely one of the worst. Most of the passengers in the first-class lounge had spent the Channel crossing groaning in their club chairs. As the coast of France hove into sight, the swell of the waves grew to the size of a townhouse. A small girl was sick in an ice bucket. Her brother followed, then their governess. Two elderly gentlemen gagged and staggered out to the deck, only to be swept back in seconds later by the howling wind, one of them without his hat.

  Seated at the bar before a cup of coffee, only a splendid young man with hair the colour of newly ripened chestnuts and a patch over his left eye remained unfazed. His name was Captain Henri de Beauchesne, and in his four years of war service in the French navy he had seen much worse than people being sick in buckets. He spent most of the voyage reading the newspaper, but glanced more and more often towards the deck, where a young woman stood peering over the railings.

  She had been there since the Pride of Kent set out. Henri had assumed at first that she was seasick, but about halfway through their journey she had looked up and he had changed his mind. The woman wore a deep frown, and even from a distance he saw that she was chewing her lower lip. It was not the look of someone about to heave their lunch into the Channel.

  Intriguing, thought Captain de Beauchesne, sipping his coffee. It did not occur to him to interfere. But then the swell that had undone the small children and their governess grew again. Henri’s coffee flew out of his cup, the saucer crashed to the floor. The children threw up once more, their governess screamed and inexplicably sprinkled them with lavender water, and one of the elderly gentlemen lurched towards the bathroom with his hand over his mouth.

  Out on deck, the woman was flung to her knees.

  Henri raced to help her.

  The Pride of Kent rolled one way. Henri reeled the other. The heavy deck doors swung back in his face, but with a nimble twist he avoided them. The sea spat salt spray at him. He ignored it and skated elegantly across the rain-slicked deck towards the young woman.

  By the time he reached her, she was already back on her feet and leaning over the railings.

  ‘Madame, come away!’ he shouted. ‘It is not safe!’

  She turned towards him.

  The wind blew, the sea swelled. The storm raged and the rain fell. Inside the lounge, the second elderly gentleman sprinted for the bathroom. Henri de Beauchesne was aware of none of these things. Stars exploded in his mind. His heart danced in his chest. The world was reduced to the vision of a pale face framed by swirling red hair, a pair of large grey eyes behind small round spectacles.

  The vision spoke. Henri strained forward to listen.

  ‘The children,’ she whispered.

  Henri looked wildly about the deck. He could see no children.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Tell me how I can help.’

  ‘Not here!’ she cried. ‘Out there!’

  Clara Primrose flung her arms towards the sea and burst into tears.

  *

  At Barton Lacey, Hubert Netherbury opened the letter from St Winifred’s, in which the school secretary informed him that Lotti had not arrived, expressed hope that all was well, and reminded him that the deposit he had paid to secure her place was non-refundable.

  It was difficult to determine, in the roar that followed, whether Hubert was more angry at having been made a fool of again, or because he had paid money for nothing.

  But he was definitely furious.

  For the second time in a week, he telephoned the police.

  ‘Find her,’ he said.

  PART III

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Sparrowhawk crew were wet, cold, elated, trembling, torn between triumph and tears. The cabins were awash with seawater, the decks were slaked with rain, the dogs were damp and cross, but they had done it! They had beaten a storm, and they were alive! Safely secured to the harbour wall, they waited to go through customs before making their way inland.

  With shaking hands, bitterly ashamed of having frozen out at sea but weak with relief that Ben had saved them all, Frank pulled his passport from his rucksack, and told Ben and Lotti to do the same.

  ‘Oh,’ said Ben.

  Frank looked at him suspiciously. ‘What now?’

  ‘I don’t have one,’ said Ben simply.

  Frank swore.

  ‘I sort of forgot,’ Ben admitted. ‘I’ve never been abroad before.’

  Lotti, who was cuddling the dogs on Ben’s berth, cast Frank a reproachful look. ‘We just survived a storm in the Channel, Frank. I think we can manage a customs officer. Ben, what papers do you have?’

  Embarrassed, Ben produced the documents he had found before leaving Great Barton – Nathan’s passport, the Sparrowhawk’s papers, his own birth and adoption certificates. Lotti bit her lip in concentration as she went through them.

  ‘I think,’ she announced, ‘now would be a good time to lie.’

  When customs officer Jean Lepage arrived, they were ready for him, though their hearts sank when they saw him, because he looked even grumpier than Frank.

  Which, right now, was saying something.

  Frank, with a grimace that was meant to be a smile, produced Nathan’s passport and the Sparrowhawk’s papers. They all held their breath as Jean Lepage inspected them, and tried not to look too grateful when he handed them back.

  ‘The children?’

  Lotti handed him her passport. Jean raised his eyebrows.

  ‘You are not his daughter,’ he said in French. ‘And you are not English.’

  Lotti, beaming from ear to ear in the mistaken belief i
t made her look relaxed, replied that Frank was a dear family friend, and that she was French on her father’s side, though her maman had been English.

  ‘Where are they now, your parents?’

  ‘Dead,’ said Lotti.

  Jean Lepage flushed and turned to Ben. Frank produced Ben’s birth certificate. Jean Lepage’s eyebrows rose again. Frank produced Ben’s certificate of adoption.

  ‘My son,’ he said, his voice admirably steady.

  ‘And his passport?’

  ‘Doesn’t have one,’ said Frank, avoiding the officer’s eye. ‘No time. Had to leave in a hurry.’

  Jean Lepage’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. Lotti flew to Frank’s rescue. ‘Monsieur Langton is bringing me to the funeral of my grandmother,’ she said in French. ‘She died so very suddenly. Of influenza. Ah, grand-mère! How I loved her!’

  She wiped an invisible tear from her eye. Frank, not understanding a word, looked alarmed. Jean Lepage asked, ‘Would it not have been easier for him to bring you on the boat train?’

  ‘But Monsieur Langton has a boat!’ Lotti cried, looking astonished. ‘This boat, which he lives on with Ben! Who is his son! Why would we take the boat train?’

  ‘It is most irregular,’ Jean Lepage grumbled, and Lotti was beginning to despair, and wondering whether she should not just throw herself on his mercy and tell him the whole truth, when from the workshop where they had put the dogs there came a yowl of pain. Ben opened the door, and Federico shot through the cabin into the safety of Lotti’s arms.

  ‘What happened?’ she cried.

  ‘I think Elsie bit him,’ said Ben, looking into the workshop. ‘She’s growling and she just bared her teeth at me.’

  Jean Lepage rubbed his face and, wearily, asked to see the dogs’ papers.

  ‘Ah,’ said Lotti.

  How well, she wondered, would this glum-faced official respond to the story of Federico’s rescue from Malachy Campbell?

  ‘She’s started!’ Ben shouted. ‘Elsie’s started!’