Free Across The Sea by Eric Marier Page B

* *
    The crew of the HMS Glide looked
down at the water. There no longer was a Red Mist; there was only
water between the two British ships. Two heads emerged from the
surface. One belonged to Captain Strick, hat-less, his combed hair
now pasted wet against his scalp; and the other to the limp form of
a stringy-haired, little girl, whom Captain Strick held in one
arm.
    “Get us up!” Captain Strick
barked. He had just dived into the water without giving anyone
notice. Everyone had been taken by surprise. Only now did they
realize he had gone down to get the girl. Everyone jumped to
action.
    A lifeboat, on ropes and
pulleys, was dropped into the water with two sailors who reached
out and pulled Strick and the girl aboard. The lifeboat was heaved
back up.
    On the floor of the boat,
Captain Strick was breathing into Lily’s mouth and then giving
short thrusts to her chest. Once the lifeboat was back on deck,
Doctor Scholten, the ship’s short, plump physician, hopped
aboard.
    “How is it?” the doctor
asked.
    “Not good,” Strick said.
    Doctor Scholten moved closer.
“Here,” he said, pushing Captain Strick away, “let a physician do
this.”
    “No!” Strick blasted back. “No!
Get out of my way!”
    Strick breathed into Lily’s
mouth and then pumped her chest again. Lily coughed, and water shot
from her mouth. She coughed again, her eyes remaining closed, and
this time she turned her head and spit. Captain Strick sat her up.
She coughed more, opening her eyes. She cried. Lily did not know
why. She just cried.
    Captain Strick, before his
entire crew, wrapped his arms around her.
    “Everything is back to
perfect,” he assured, holding her. “Everything is perfectly right.
You’re safe. You’re safe.”
    “Francis…” Lily muttered.
    “Bodin’s taken him,” Strick
replied. “But he’ll not get far.”
     
     
     

Chapter 5
     
    Vice-Admiral Wister, Captain
Mann and Captain Strick, now in a dry uniform, stood on deck aboard
the mammoth HMS Whisper. Several crew members from both the Whisper
and the HMS Glide stood with them.
    “There is always the chance
that they drowned with the ship,” Kenworth suggested.
    “Not Bodin,” Strick
interjected. “He’s much too resourceful. I’m certain he managed to
swim away with the boy.”
    “Grand Marine must be searched
immediately,” Vice-Admiral Wister ordered. “He’ll be in the market
for a vessel.”
    “Where do we begin?” Captain
Mann asked. “He’ll likely go to a seller who is underground. A
seller we know nothing of.”
    Silence. No one could suggest
an answer.
    “I can help you,” a small voice
sounded.
    Everyone turned. Lily, now
wearing a man’s oversized tunic over breeches, stood behind
them.
    “You are to rest, Lily,”
Captain Strick admonished.
    “My father used to take me to
Grand Marine. He knew a man he thought met with pirates. And this
man sold everything. Even boats. I can take you there.”
    “You’ll provide us with
directions,” Captain Mann said. “We shall approach this individual
ourselves.”
    “I don’t know the directions,”
Lily claimed.
    Captain Strick shot her a stern
look.
    Vice-Admiral Wister shook his
head; he did not approve of a little girl walking about on Royal
Navy ships. If only the Admiral knew what his son allowed on his
and other's ships.
    “I’m telling you the truth,”
she told all of them. “I can just show you. I don’t know the names
of the streets, or the shops, or even this man.”
    Now it was Captain Strick’s
turn to shake his head.
    * * *
    One of Strick’s crew members was
dressed in the plain clothes of a merchant and ordered to walk with
Lily through the cobblestone alleyways of the tall, prosperous city
of Grand Marine. Behind them, Captain Strick and a handful of his
crew members followed, hiding behind corners and gates. Lily, still
dressed in the oversized tunic and breeches, came to a pink door
and stopped. She turned in the direction where she thought Captain
Strick