The Captain And His Innocent. Lucy Ashford

stop calling me Captain. It’s over a year since you and I left the British army. Remember?’

      Tom Bartlett, who had a weatherbeaten face and spiky black hair, glanced up warily at the taller, younger man and clamped his lips together for all of a minute. Then he blurted out, ‘Anyway. I still think you should have sent me as well as the Watterson brothers to bring in Monsieur Jacques. It would be just like the pair of them to lose their way out there.’

      ‘Would it?’ Luke’s face held the glimmer of a smile. ‘While you and I were soldiering in the Peninsula, Josh and Pete Watterson were in the navy for years—remember? Those two don’t lose their way at sea, whatever the weather. They’ll be here soon enough.’

      Tom looked about to say something else; but already Luke was walking away from him to the water’s very edge, a low sea breeze tugging at his long, patched overcoat and his mane of dark hair.

      ‘Well,’ Tom was muttering to himself as he watched him, ‘I hope you’re right, Captain. I hope those Watterson brothers will row the French monsieur to shore a bit faster than their wits work.’ He glanced up at the cliffs behind them, as if already picturing hostile faces spying on them, hostile guns pointed at them. ‘Because if the Customs men from Folkestone spot us, we’ll be clapped in irons fast as we can blink, you and me. And that’s a fact.’

      The other man stood with his hands thrust in his pockets, studying the mist that rolled ever thicker across the sea. As if his gaze could penetrate it. As if he could actually see the coast of France; could even perhaps picture the far-off place where last year his brother had vanished without trace.

      Bitterness filled Luke Danbury’s heart anew. He clenched and unclenched his gloved right hand, thinking... News. He had to have news, one way or another. He was tired of waiting. He needed to know—for better or worse.

      Behind him Tom Bartlett, once his loyal sergeant-at-arms, had started grumbling again softly, but broke off as Luke shot out his hand for silence.

      Because Luke’s sharp ears had registered something. And, yes—a moment later, he could see it, a rowing boat slowly emerging from the mist, with two men pulling at the four oars, while another man in a black coat and hat leaned forward eagerly from the bow. Tom was already wading into the shallows, ready to reach out a hand to the black-clad passenger and help him ashore as the boat’s keel grated on shingle. ‘There we are now, monsieur!’ Tom was calling in welcome. ‘You’ll enjoy being back on dry land again, eh?’

      ‘Dry land, yes.’ Jacques laughed. ‘And with friends.’

      Tom preened a little at that praise, then turned to the Watterson brothers, who were making the oars secure; brothers who looked so like each other, with their mops of curling brown hair, that they might have been twins. ‘Well, you rogues,’ declared Tom. ‘I always said the navy’s better off without you. You took that much time, I thought you’d lost your way and rowed to France and back.’

      The brothers grinned. ‘The army’s certainly better off without that gloomy face of yours, Tom Bartlett. Though you’ll cheer up a little when you see what’s weighing down our boat.’

      ‘A gift from Monsieur Jacques?’ Tom was nodding towards their passenger, who was already deep in conversation with Luke Danbury a few yards away.

      ‘A gift from Monsieur Jacques.’ The brothers, after dragging the boat even further up on to the beach, were reaching into it to push aside some old fishing nets and haul out a heavy wooden crate. ‘Brandy,’ they pronounced in unison. ‘Monsieur Jacques rewards his friends well. Come on, you landlubber, and give us a hand.’

      * * *

      ‘My men have dropped anchor out there for the night,’ Monsieur Jacques was saying to Luke. ‘A good thing you caught sight of us before that mist came down, my friend. A good thing that your Customs men didn’t. How long is it since I was here?’

      ‘It was late October.’ Luke’s voice was level.

      ‘As long ago as that...’ Jacques glanced at the men by the boat and gave Luke a look that meant, Later, my friend. When we are alone, we’ll talk properly. Then he went striding across the shingle to where Luke’s men had placed the crate of brandy, withdrew one bottle with a flourish and uncorked it with his penknife.

      ‘Here’s to the health of the valiant fishermen—Josh and Peter Watterson!’ He raised the bottle and drank. ‘To the health of Tom Bartlett! And most of all to your own very good health, Captain Danbury!’

      Jacques passed the bottle across to Luke’s right hand—but Luke swiftly reached to take the bottle with his left, which, unlike the other, was ungloved. His eyes were expressionless.

      ‘Pardon.’ Jacques looked embarrassed for a moment. ‘Mon ami, I forgot.’

      ‘No matter.’ Luke’s voice was calm, though a shadow had passed across his face. ‘To the health of everyone here. To freedom’s true friends, in England and in France.’

      ‘To freedom’s true friends!’ echoed the others.

      Luke drank and handed the bottle back to Jacques. ‘And may justice be some day served,’ he added, ‘on the British politicians in London, with their weaselly words and broken promises.’

      ‘Justice.’

      ‘Aye, justice, Captain.’ One by one, the little group on the shore by the cliffs passed round the brandy bottle, echoing his toast sombrely.

      At last Luke turned to Tom. ‘I intend to take Jacques up to the house for the night, of course. But before we set off, I want you to check the road for me, Tom.’

      ‘The London road, sir?’

      ‘Exactly. I want you to make sure there are no spies around. No government men.’

      Already Tom was on his way, hurrying along the beach to a path that climbed steeply up the cliff. The Wattersons still hovered. ‘Josh. Peter,’ Luke instructed, ‘I’d like you to take that brandy to the house and warn them there that our guest has arrived.’

      ‘Aye, Captain.’ They set off immediately.

      And so, with the afternoon light fading, and the sea mist curling in and the cries of the gulls their only company, Luke and the Frenchman were alone. And I’m free, thought Luke, to ask him the only question that really matters. The question he’d asked of so many people, so many times, for the past year and a half.

      ‘Jacques, my friend.’ He was surprised that his voice sounded so calm. ‘Is there any news of my brother?’

      The Frenchman looked unhappy. Uncomfortable. Luke’s heart sank.

      ‘Hélas, mon ami!’ Jacques said at last. ‘I have asked up and down the coast, as I sailed about my business. I have asked wherever I have friends, in every harbour from Calais in the north to Royan in the south. And—there is nothing.’ The Frenchman shrugged expressively. ‘Your brother disappeared with those other men at La Rochelle in the September of 1813. Sadly, many of them are known to have died. As for your brother—we can only hope that no news is good news, as you English say.’ His face was taut with sympathy. ‘But I do have something for you.’

      Reaching into the inside pocket of his coat, he handed Luke a small packet wrapped in oilskin. Luke, cradling it in his gloved right hand, peeled it open with his left—until at last a gleam of colour flashed in his palm. Ribbons. The glitter of brass. War medals, engraved with the names of battles: Badajoz, Salamanca, Talavera. Luke felt fierce emotion wrench his guts.

      He looked up at last. ‘Where did you get these?’

      ‘From an old French farmer’s widow. She found them lying half-buried in one of her maize fields—she has a small farm that adjoins the coast near La Rochelle. Realising they were British, she gave them to me, and asked me to get them home again. They could be your brother’s, couldn’t they?’

      Luke