Free In the Commodore's Hands by Mary Nichols Page B

grumbled as they set off at the pace of a snail. Jay knew he could not hurry; the guards were watching them go and, until they were out of sight, they must continue on the road to Rouen.
    ‘Faster,’ he told the driver when the old guards had disappeared from sight. ‘We will be a month of Sundays getting to Paris at this rate.’
    The driver cracked his whip over the horses’ backs, but they were old and skinny and although they tried, the pace hardly increased. Jay hoped and prayed Georges and the Giradet carriage had waited. It was long past the time they had expected to make the rendezvous.
    Thankfully the sea was calm and the yacht rode easily at anchor. The rowing boat which had brought Lisette on board had gone back to the shore to wait for the rest of the party. She could see it on the beach, rocking on the slight swell.
    ‘Take this, miss.’ Lieutenant Sandford offered his telescope. ‘You will be able to see better.’
    She put the glass to her eye. The two sailors in the boat were resting on their oars. A few people moved up and down the beach, picking up shells and seaweed. There was traffic on the road, horses, carts, an odd carriage or two, but not the longed-for carriage. ‘How long will they wait?’ she asked. She had been standing at the rail, refusing to go below, for what seemed hours.
    ‘The Commodore said two hours after the appointed time, but it has already been longer than that. I shall have to recall the men soon, before they begin to attract unwanted attention. We cannot afford to lose two of our crew, quite apart from causing a diplomatic incident. In the present unsettled situation it could even lead to war between our two countries. At the moment we are supposed to be neutral.’
    ‘I wish I had not allowed myself to be persuaded to come aboard. I feel as though I have abandoned my poor father. I shall be miserable not knowing what has become of him. It would be better to share his fate.’
    ‘I understand, miss, but I have my orders.’
    ‘But you would not leave without the Commodore, surely? How will he get home if you leave him?’
    ‘No doubt he will find a way.’
    She was reminded of his words:
if we do not come, then the chances are we have perished in the attempt
. It did not bear thinking about. ‘Just five more minutes,’ she said.
    ‘The Commodore will skin me alive if I disobey him. I shall already be in trouble for waiting so long.’ If he, too, thought of the dreadful possibility that they were all lost, he did not voice it. He beckoned to a sailor who was carrying a small flag. ‘Call them back, Sadler.’
    The man raised the flag.
    ‘Wait!’ she shouted, scanning the shore through the telescope. ‘There is a carriage on the road. It looks like ours.’
    The rowers had already taken a few strokes from the shore. She watched in dismay as the coach stopped, two people got down from it and lifted something from the interior. It looked likethe Commodore and Mr Roker, but the bundle they were carrying? Surely that was not her father? Was he ill? Wounded?
    They waded out to the boat, which had stopped and waited for them, just as two
maréchaussée
galloped up and began shooting. With her heart pumping, she watched as the two men with their burden tumbled into the boat with shots spattering all round them. Not until they were out of range did she let her breath go.
    Slowly they approached until they bumped against the hull. By leaning over the rail she could see down into the boat. Surely the bundle at the bottom was not her father?
    ‘Send the chair down.’ Sam Roker was standing up, steadying himself by hanging on to the ship’s ladder hanging over the side. ‘The old man cannot climb and the Commodore is wounded.’
    Lisette was politely ushered to one side as a chair was lowered from a hoist and slowly, inch by inch, it brought her father to the deck. It
was
her father. This emaciated man, with the snow-white hair and beard and hands like claws, was really