Free The Lost Empress by Steve Robinson Page B

reflecting in the many windows that were designed to flood the interiors with daylight to work by.
    ‘We’ll soon have that ankle seen to,’ the nurse said as they went. ‘If it’s anything more than a sprain, we’ll have to run you to the hospital for an X-ray.’
    When they drew level with No. 7 slip, which was the largest and rightmost of the five covered slips when looking towards the River Medway, Alice tried to take measure of the activity. This was where the young officer had said they built their submarines. She knew she would have to find a way to get inside unnoticed, and once there remain undetected if she was to go ahead with her plan. She could see that the area was busy with dockworkers, and once again she questioned her resolve to do what she had really gone there to do. She waited until they had passed the covered slips before making her move. Then gradually she began to limp less until she was walking normally again.
    ‘Do you know, I think my ankle is much better now,’ she said to the nurse. ‘The pain’s almost completely gone.’
    She stood unaided and took a few light steps before walking more briskly back to the nurse again.
    ‘There,’ she added, smiling. ‘It was nothing.’
    ‘It should be looked at,’ the nurse said. ‘And you should at least rest it until your father comes to collect you.’
    The nurse seemed insistent, but bringing up two small children whose father was often absent had taught Alice how to be insistent herself.
    ‘I’m sure it’s fine, really,’ she said, a little more haughtily than she meant to. Then she started hopping on her supposedly injured ankle as if to prove it. ‘You see, it really was nothing.’
    ‘Well, I don’t—’ the nurse began, but Alice cut in.
    ‘Thank you kindly for your assistance,’ she said, stepping away. ‘I can find my own way back.’
    With that, Alice turned on her heel and headed back the way she had come, hoping that the nurse and her orderly would leave it at that, and wishing the fog would thicken around her again and make her disappear all the more quickly from sight.

    Now that she was alone, Alice felt the urge to run as far from the dockyard as her legs could carry her. She became suddenly aware of her heartbeat for the first time that day, and of a dryness in her throat for which she imagined there was no other cure than to remove herself from the situation in which she now found herself. She had stopped adjacent to No. 7 slip, with its high, metal-trussed roof and wrought-iron framework, and was now staring at the opening, where the coming and going of dockworkers and the clamour of activity from within appeared to be ceaseless. Her head was spinning with doubt as to whether she could go on, and it caused her to question whether she could even get the information Raskin had asked for. Was she really going to carry out the Dutchman’s instructions—or at least try to—and spy on her own country? To continue was certain madness. She knew her life would be forfeit if she were caught, but to abandon her task without trying carried unthinkable consequences.
    She was under no misconception as to whom she would be spying for. If the newspapers and general gossip were to be believed, then Raskin was in the pay of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and she, an admiral’s daughter, had been unwillingly recruited as a ‘fixed post,’ as Raskin had called it, to give up British naval secrets to Germany—or else put her family’s lives in danger. Surely, it was too much to expect any mother to choose between her family and her country? Or, as it now seemed to Alice, that was precisely why they had chosen her. She concluded that for now, at least, she would have to go on.
    As she continued to watch the activity, she knew she would have to time her entry well. Then once inside, it would be darker, with only the light from the openings and the windows, which, although plentiful, could not light the entire covered area. Surely there would