Dear Readers: Just in case it causes any confusion I just want to make something clear before you start. At the end there is some rather long dialogue so I have broken it up into paragraphs. It is however still Lorna speaking. You can tell because it has a speech mark at the beginning to show continued speech but none the end to show speech has not ended. Sorry if it's confusing. L
Chapter 17
Despite the liberty the crew had enjoyed whilst the Indy had been at anchor, everyone was still ecstatic to be returning to sea. The atmosphere was charged with the ascending exhilaration of imminent adventure. When she had arrived back at the ship in the early hours of the morning, she was greeted by a sarcastically raised eyebrow from Horatio, whose pious upbringing, she was sure, was the only thing that actually stopped him from making any piebald comments about her sexual preferences. To all her good shipmates she was still a boy and her disappearance with Archie the previous evening had been under the scrutiny of much of the crew - the ones that frequented that particular brothel at any rate. And on a ship packed tight with near on two hundred souls, gossip travels fast. She thanked the Lord that none of the hands at least had the cheek, or the nerve, to say anything to her face. She could only keep her shame-flushed face down and ignore the mutterings that's seemed to follow her footsteps. Archie she avoided like the plague, much to his distress.
As well as gossip he was hounded by guilt. The realisation that he was in love did nothing to alleviate the weight on his smarting conscience. He had tried to talk to her tens, maybe hundreds of times but still she avoided and dodged his efforts. He thought that if he could just speak with her, tell her that he loved her and that he was sorry he had treated her so ill. But when he saw her angry eyes and coloured cheeks rapidly turning away from him, all words seemed lost in his mouth and he could only let her run away - again. He felt like a criminal - first he betrayed her and now himself, and he could only look on.
***
The ship set sail on the evening's tide. A great sight; beautiful and almost fantastical. Already with the lustrous shimmering moon capping the jet waves with silver, Lorna looked out from the quarterdeck and wondered what a sight they must seem: a majestic vessel, great cavernous canvas sails billowing outwards on the breeze, sailing out to the flushed sunset of the horizon. From the gratings she could hear the words of a song drifting up on the night air. "Hearts of oak are our ships, jolly tars are our men…" Some dynamic sailor entertaining with a half-pint of rum and a fiddle. She smiled to hear it, and began to slowly pace the length of the ship.
***
The new day saw her called to Captain Pellew's cabin. She attended forthwith, with the brown package she had received from Admiral Hood removed from it's hiding place at the bottom of her dunnage and tucked safely into the breast-pocket of her jacket, where it bulged out in an ungainly mountain. She knocked smartly on the door and waited for his call of "Enter!" She smiled to remember the consternation and dread that accompanied her last visit to these quarters. Not a trace of the same now. The command came, growled through the door, and she obeyed it shutting the door behind her as she went in. She snapped her heels smartly to attention and removed her hat.
"You wish'd to see me, sir." The Captain was seated behind his heavy writing desk and he looked up at her natural accent with a hint of a smile.
"Stand easy, sir." He stopped for a moment, a little flustered. "What d'you suppose I am to call you now?" She smiled at his consideration, but then shook her head slightly, sending curls bouncing in all directions.
" 'Sir', 'man', 'boy', 'My Lady, 'Ma'am'… T'is all the same te me, sir." Pellew raised an eyebrow but merely shrugged.
"As you might have anticipated, I have called you here concerning your orders from the Admiralty." His brown eyes met her grey ones for a moment before she replied, removing the package from her coat. If he had been looking for any traces of fear in her glance, he was disappointed - there was only alert anticipation.
"I'd guessed, sir."
"You realise that in confidence you are no longer obliged to call me 'sir'. You are now a direct servant to the Admiralty?"
"I had realised, sir" The amusement in his eyes was evident, but Sir Edward did well in preventing it from reaching his lips. Lorna surreptitiously studied the man, as he spoke to her. He was a man approaching middle age, chestnut hair bound around with a black ribbon showing it's first signs of grey. He had kind eyes that she had noticed the first moment she had seen him, quick to betray his every emotion though he struggled enough to keep his expression blank. His skin was rough and slightly tanned from the days at sea and entrenched with the laughter lines engraved around his eyes and mouth as well as those chiselled onto his brow from pensive frowns and worry. His eyebrows were full and dark, and apt to lower when he brooded on the quarterdeck. He was good captain and the crew respected him, that she knew and for that he would always have her admiration. She noticed that he had been waiting patiently for her to speak, and she obliged:
"I have read the dispatch, sir. I am requested and required to take a cutter along with a small crew and sail into French territ'ry. I am to be disguised as a French sail'r, and as such an English prisoner of war. We're to allow the cutter to be spotted by the enemy, to preten' to run away but then to make it so surrender is nec'ssary to their superior numbers. There are to be no casualties. After a surrender, when I am "liberated in my own country", I am to reveal myself to be a woman.
"I shall explain that I was on my way back from the West Indies after my Father's unfortunate death to make m' way in France, and to offer m'self to the services of the Revolution. 'Our ship was taken by the British, and I disguised m'self as a boy so as not to be taken advantage of by the infamously barbaric British. They believed me to be a surviving sailor and took me aboard their ship - and there I prayed for God to send my own countrymen to liberate me.' Yea get th' drift, sir?" Pellew nodded for her to continue.
"Once established I'm to use any means nec'ssary," Lorna lifted a dubious eyebrow as she said it. "To befriend and become 'n intimate confidante of one 'Baptiste de Sainte-Juste', the brother of Louis St - Juste - the Revolutionary figurehead. By such means as I find nec'ssary…" Another questioning eyebrow was raised. "I 'm to offer myself as an agent to the French and in the mean time extract certain documents from their possession. I am to return to England under the guise as a double agent forthwith." She took a deep breath, and what she said next was laden with scepticism. "Sounds fun."