Nick of Time Page 6

  Well, if Blood did mean to frighten them, it wouldn’t do to let him succeed, thought Nick; for although this was the first truly suspicious character that he had personally encountered, he’d met their like many times over in the pages of the books that filled the lighthouse library. So this is what they’re like in real life, he thought, the bad men, the bogeymen who haunted his dreams.

  “Not a chest at all,” said Blood at last, in a wicked mimicry of Nick’s twelve-year-old speaking voice. “Not a chest at all, you say?” He leaned his face into Nick’s just the way he had done to Kate and Nick could smell the scent of sour rum or tobacco or worse on his breath. “If not a chest then what, my dear boy? Do tell, laddie, as you’ll warrant Billy Blood’s little tolerable of secrets indeed. And old Bones never lies. Never.”

  “Tea!” exclaimed Gunner, bustling in and placing the tray on the hearth. Nick was much comforted by both the warmth of the liquid and the reappearance of his friend. Gunner was immensely strong, having spent many years mastering the strange game of flinging huge logs—trees, really—end-over-end in the Scottish manner. He was completely devoted to Nick and his sister, and Nick knew he would die himself before he ever let them be harmed or even ill-used by a stranger.

  “I believe, sir,” said Nick, eyeing the stranger evenly over the rim of his teacup, “that it might have been a chest at one time, but all we found were a few rough boards of the frame.” Nick did his best to smile. “Bit of sea trash is all we found. Nothing more, sir.”

  At that moment, a long, low hissing noise issued from the lips of the one called Snake Eye, but he said no more. In Nick’s view, it was clearly time to go. He stood up and took Kate’s hand.

  “Our parents are probably worried about us, Mr. Blood, so I guess we’ll be making our way home. Storm has let up some, too, hasn’t it? That’s Greybeard weather for you! So, I guess we’ll be off now and, Gunner, if we could have those oilskins we won’t bother you kind gentlemen any longer, will we, Kate?”

  Nick had lifted Kate by the arm and given Jip a rousing nudge with his boot. “And we’ll wish you gentlemen a very pleasant evening, too, I’m sure.” They made their way to the door, Nick encouraging the growling Jip along with the toe of his boot.

  Billy Blood turned in his chair and regarded them coldly. “To the lighthouse, are ye then?”

  Gunner helped them into the oilskins. “See you home, Master Nick?” he whispered, with a glance over his shoulder at Billy Blood. “A strange pair, ain’t they?”

  “Who are they?” Nick whispered, looking beyond Gunner to Billy Blood. “Where’d they come from?”

  “They come from out of thin air, is where they come from!” Gunner said in a sharp whisper. “I stepped out into the kitchen for less than two shakes of a goat’s tail, and when I steps back, there them two demons are, cozy by the fire! Didn’t hear the door, nor the wind, nor nothing at all. They just ‘popped’ in, guv’nor, right out of thin air! Never seen the likes of it. I think I should see you home, Nick, really, I do.”

  “We’ll be all right, Gunner,” Nick said, reducing his voice to an even lower whisper. “But perhaps we could meet tomorrow? We found something on the coast. Something I need your help with as quickly as possible.”

  He turned to bid farewell to the stranger but Blood had turned his back to them and was once again staring into the fire, puffing on his long bony pipe, the wreaths of wispy smoke hanging about his head like sickly yellow clouds. It was somehow more disturbing than if Nick could have seen his face.

  “Aye, tomorrow, lad. And, with these two about, I’ll sleep with the heavy artillery tonight. Might even put Old Thunder under me pillow!” Gunner added, whispering in his ear.

  “Old Thunder?” Nick thought he heard Billy Blood ask as he pulled the heavy door shut behind them. The boy felt a chill shoot straight to the marrow. There was no earthly way the man could have heard what Gunner had whispered. No earthly way. Nick paused at the rain-streaked window, stood on tiptoes, and peered back inside. Blood and his silent companion were gone. The chairs by the fire were empty, the strangers vanished like smoke up the chimney!

  “Do you believe in pirates, Nicky?” Kate asked, putting her small hand into her brother’s much larger one as they turned into the road. “Because I do.”

  “Pirates? No, course I don’t. Everyone knows there’s no such thing as pirates anymore, Katie,” Nick said, patting her wee head. He was glad his sister couldn’t see his face, for his eyes surely lacked the conviction of his lips.

  “No such thing at all.”

  So the two children made their way homeward, the Greybeard Light sending great stabs of light into the now lifting fog and Jip running up ahead, leading the way, and all of them anxious to be home and abed.

  CHAPTER VII

  Two Terrible Letters

  · 6 June 1939 ·

  AT THE GREYBEARD LIGHT

  Hit the deck, Katie!” Nick cried.

  He poked his head inside his favorite room in the old lighthouse. It had been his room once, now the paneled marvel of varnished mahogany wood, rounded to follow the lighthouse walls like the hull of a ship, belonged to his sister. It even had brass portholes that opened to the sky. A master ship’s carpenter had fashioned it a century earlier, duplicating a McIver ancestor’s quarters aboard a frigate in the Royal Navy.

  To this day, there were no electric lights in the room, only candles and oil lanterns hung from the walls. Even the bed was a ship’s bunk, enclosed with heavy velvet drapery. Only Kate’s obvious joy in the magical room made Nick glad he’d relinquished it to her. He climbed the three steps of the little ladder up to the bed and pulled back the dark green velvet.

  “Ahoy, there, matey!” Nick laughed, and bent to whisper in his sister’s ear. “Today’s a day for secrets, secret plans, and secret secrets!”

  He saw Kate’s eyes pop open wide from sleep, and a big smile start to form on her sleepy little face. If there was anything she liked more than raggedy dolls and sugary crumpets, it was any plan chockablock with secrets!

  “Secrets?” she asked, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “What kind of secrets? The chest? You mean we can’t even tell Mummy about the sea chest and those mean old pirates, Nicky?”

  “Never!” Nick said, plopping down on his old bed, testing to see if the goosedown filling still had its old bounce. “Don’t you see? This is our adventure, Kate! And if we tell them, it will become their adventure! Or, even worse, it won’t even be an adventure anymore. It’ll be just one more thing we let grown-ups figure out for us!”

  “Well,” Kate whispered, “can we tell Gunner, then?”

  “Of course, we can!” Nick said, laughing as he jumped down from the bed. “We can tell Gunner anything. Just because he’s old doesn’t mean he’s a grown-up! Now, come along!”

  Down and down, around and around, they flew, from the top to the bottom of the winding narrow staircase, fairly tumbling into the big sunlit kitchen at the bottom of the stairs. A large bay window to one side of the kitchen hearth overlooked the headland and the sea far below. Nick and Kate found seats on the cozy cushioned banquette that curved inside the window. It was strewn with needlepoint pillows Mrs. McIver had made during the long winter nights. Each pillow had a saying, but Nick’s favorite was the one that carried Nelson’s dying words: Thank God that I have done my duty.

  Nick saw his father out on the headland, staring out to sea, leaning on his favorite walking stick, his ancient briar pipe stuck fast in the corner of his mouth, puffing thoughtfully. Nick had seen him strike such a pose countless times and yet it was certainly odd to see him there at this time of morning.

  Pure morning sunlight, slanting through the kitchen window, struck fire in Nick’s mother’s golden yellow hair. Nick was thinking how beautiful she looked, cutting her roses at the sink, when it occurred to him that something was wrong, terribly wrong.

  Although no sound came from her, just the set of her head and the trembling of her shoul
ders told him she might be weeping. It occurred to the boy that he had never seen his mother crying before except for the night Kate’s fever was so high she’d almost died.

  Nick went instantly to her side and saw the crushed and broken roses at her feet.

  “Mother? What is it, Mother?” Nick asked, his hand on her shoulder. She was staring out at her husband, her eyes flooded with tears she wouldn’t let fall.

  “Your poor father got a letter this morning, Nick,” she said, her eyes on the window. “I think you’re old enough to read it.” She reached into her apron pocket and withdrew a thick cream vellum envelope embossed with a gold ministerial seal and a London Whitehall address. Nick took it, and a nameless dread rolled into his mind like a fog.

  Whatever was inside, it wasn’t good.

  “Oh, and this, too, Nick,” she said, pulling still another envelope from her pocket. “It’s addressed to you. I don’t know who on earth it’s from, a friend from school, I suppose, some kind of prank. It didn’t come in the mail.”

  She reached into her apron and pulled something bright and shiny from the pocket. “I found the letter stuck to our kitchen door with this charming implement.” With a sigh of disgust, she flung a wicked-looking knife clattering to the countertop.

  It was a dagger, the boy saw to his amazement. A large, bone-handled dagger! Two words went off in Nick’s mind like a pair of bombs.

  Billy.

  Blood.

  “Get rid of that horrid weapon, Nick! I’ll not have it in my house!”

  Nick shoved the dagger deep in his jacket pocket, out of her sight. He then examined this second envelope addressed to him, which was made of thin blue paper, and turned it over in his hands. It was addressed on the front in a very ornate hand to “Master Nicholas McIver, Greybeard Light, Greybeard Island,” and on the back sure enough the initials W.B. were stamped in a red wax seal.

  His heart tripped a beat. William Blood, he knew, and he quickly stuffed Blood’s letter inside his trouser pocket.

  “Read the Ministry letter to your father, Nick,” his mother said. “And then go to him. I’ve done all I can. He knows that I love him with all my heart and that we’ll all get through this dreadful time together. He’s most worried about you and Katie. Show him what a strong boy you are, Nicky. He needs you.”

  Nick tore into the letter from the Ministry of Coastal Navigation. It was the department in government that maintained and controlled all the lighthouses of Great Britain, on her coasts and her many islands. It was from the Minister himself, Nick saw, and he scanned the letter quickly, his eye going to the very bottom.

  It has come to the attention of the Ministry that certain ser vice personnel, manning both coastal and Channel Island stations, have been engaging in certain activities outside the scope of their duties. Such activities, which could be construed as hostile acts toward friendly nations, are in direct violation of His Majesty’s statutes of international diplomacy and are expressly forbidden by Ministry charter. Therefore, we regret to inform you that you are, upon receipt of this document, relieved of your duties. Service personnel who have been found in violation, and their families, will be relocated to the mainland at the expense of the Ministry. However, their obligations to the Ministry will formally cease at midnight, 31December. Stations in this directive include:

  THE SPIRES.

  HOGSHEAD LIGHT.

  GREYBEARD LIGHT.

  How could anyone write such a cold and terrible letter? Especially to someone like his father, who’d dedicated his entire life to the Ministry? It was too horrible, and not just for Nick’s family, either. Didn’t they realize how important every lighthouse in the country was going to be and, because of its location, especially Greybeard Light? Did Uncle Godfrey know about this? Did Mr. Churchill? They couldn’t, Nick realized, because neither would have allowed this letter to be sent.

  Service personnel and their families will be

  relocated to the mainland.

  Nick looked up, his eyes finally finding those of his mother. “Relocated? Mother, does this mean that—”

  “Go to your father, Nicky,” she said, the sadness gone from her eyes, replaced by a look of angry resolve. “Tell him Mother’s gone down to the Greybeard Inn to make the necessary arrangements with Gunner. Tell him how much we all love him, no matter what. He needs you, Nicholas.”

  His mother kissed his forehead, then cupped his face and turned it up toward hers. “Now is the time for my brave boy,” she said, and rushed through the kitchen door, her eyes clouded once more with angry, bitter tears.

  Nick’s life, only moments before so full of blood-stirring excitement, came crashing down around him. He felt his own hot tears rising and choked them back, as all that he was losing appeared as a horrible rush of rapidly fading photographs. His home, the glorious rose-covered Greybeard Light, his room, his window on the sea. His sailing boat, and Gunner and the inn, and the end of the day when the sky in the west was shot with red—he stopped himself. He could feel his eyes brimming and so, crumpling the horrid letter in his hand, he raced from the table to the door and out to his father.

  He stumbled once on the rocky ground but somehow kept his feet beneath him until his reached his father, and clutched at his worn khaki shirt, the only one he ever wore, with the tiny holes in the collar where his silver RAF wings had been.

  “We’re to be relocated? What about our secret work for Mr. Churchill, Father?” Nick cried. “Surely Mr. Churchill won’t let them do this to us, will he? Who’s going to keep an eye on all the Nazi ships for him?” But Nick knew as soon as he said it that this was a stupid thing to say. Their work was secret. His father could never involve Churchill or ask for his help. This was the government’s doing, and Mr. Churchill was at war with the government! What were they going to do? What ever could they do?

  His father said nothing, nor did he look away from the sea. Nick took his father’s hand, and pressed it to his face. And still his father took no notice of him, or was so absorbed in his thoughts that he simply was unaware of his son’s presence.

  “What shall we do, Father? Are they going to take the Light from us? Are we going to have to leave the island?” He fought to keep the sobs from his voice. “We’ve nowhere to go, Father. This is our home, our only home. I was born in this house. So was Katie. We don’t know anything else, do we?” He wanted to be strong, as Mother had asked, but he just wasn’t brave enough for this.

  He was sobbing quietly now, he just couldn’t hold it back. “They can’t take our home from us, Dad, they can’t! I won’t let them! I’ll fight them, you’ll see! I’ll never leave this house no matter what they do to me, they’ll have to kill me first, they’ll have to—”

  Now is the time for my brave boy.

  His father squeezed him tight, his strong hands helping Nick to find his own strength.

  “Nick, this is going to be hard for all of us,” he said quietly. “You have to take care of Kate for a few days. Mother and I are leaving for London on the noon packet boat. We’re going to stay for a while with Uncle Godfrey in Cadogan Square. We’re going to ask Gunner to take care of you while we’re away. He’ll board the two of you at the inn until we’re home, and you’ll have a jolly time. You’ll be fine, boy.”

  “Mother’s gone to see Gunner now, Father. She said to tell you she’d gone to make the arrangements. I—I didn’t know what she meant.”

  “Good. She wanted to stay here with you but I need her in London, Nick. I’m going to pay a personal visit to Mr. Churchill down at Chartwell. Your mother is going to see if there isn’t some way Uncle Godfrey can help us. Bring some kind of pressure to bear at Number Ten Downing. With war coming, these closures are a dreadful mistake. Our secret work here for Mr. Churchill is vitally important to the country. We’ll find a way. But it may take some time. Maybe a week, maybe two.”

  His father turned and put both his hands on Nick’s shoulders, looking directly into his eyes, ignoring the tears streaming do
wn his son’s face.

  “I’ve known all along I might get a letter like this one day. But I’ve always done what I’ve had to do. You’re a brave boy, Nick. I’m counting on you, son.” His father pulled Nick to him for a brief embrace. Then he smiled and said, “And so is Mr. Churchill. He needs to know everything we can tell him about those U-boats, Nick. Everything.”

  “Yes, Father. Of course.”

  “And I need those two strong eyes out on the water, don’t I, Nick? Today and every day, until I can straighten out this terrible business and come back home. No matter what happens, we must always do what is best for the country.”

  Then his father left his side and went back into the house. Nick remained there, his mind desperately searching for a way, any way, to help his family avert this disaster, but his mind was little help to him now because this was real trouble and his ideas, he knew, were only the ideas of a small boy. How could his own country do this to his father? Especially someone working so hard to protect it in the coming war? He felt the threat of more hot tears and wiped them away with a furious swipe of his sleeve.

  It was then that he remembered the other letter residing in his trouser pocket. When he had first seen the dagger and Billy Blood’s seal, he’d been filled with terror, but how could this other letter contain anything like the frightful contents of his father’s letter? He pulled the blue envelope quickly from his pocket and ripped it open with an anger and violence he hardly recognized as his own. Billy Blood was fortunate that the letter and not he himself was the object of Nick’s fury.

  Unseen by Nick, a solitary red feather slipped from the torn envelope and seesawed to the ground at his feet.

  He read the letter quickly, fiercely crumpled it into his fist, and ran into the house. He was screaming, then, for his dog.

  This is what the letter said:

  Dear Master Nicholas,