The Rose Garden

I’d never slept the whole night in a hammock. With my luck, I thought, I’d tip out on the floor and break my neck. I was crossing to inspect it when I heard the splash and pull of oars outside the open window as the boat went out again.

‘That’ll be somebody coming,’ said Fergal. ‘Wait here.’

He left me and went up, and in a while I heard the boat come back, the creak and bump of wood on wood as it drew up against the Sally, and the thump of booted feet that landed on the deck above me in a cheerful rise of voices, Daniel’s own among them. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, the heavy wood deck and the walls of the cabin effectively muffled his words, but his laugh carried easily in through the window.

And then he was coming downstairs.

Fergal came with him into the cabin. He didn’t look pleased. ‘William’s cousin be damned. William’s ill, sure enough, but that lad you’ve brought with you is never his cousin.’

Daniel gave a smiling nod to me and answered Fergal, ‘No, I did not think he was.’

‘Then why the devil did you let him come on board?’

‘Because he told the story well enough, when he did meet myself and Michael on the shore. He had the password right and all. It seemed a shame not to reward such effort. And,’ he said, more serious, ‘because we have an hour or so to wait yet for the tide, and if I’d left the lad on shore he would have run straight off to tell the one that sent him.’

‘Creed.’

‘I should imagine so, yes.’

‘Creed,’ said Fergal, ‘cannot stop you sailing.’

‘He can make a nuisance of himself, or send another vessel in our wake to watch and follow us. For now, he thinks he has his spy on board in safety. Let us keep him thinking so.’ With all that settled, Daniel turned to me. ‘How do you like my Sally?’

I replied the ship was lovely. ‘But I have my doubts about the hammock.’

‘Do you?’ He considered it. ‘It holds my own weight well enough, and I have seen a bed like that sleep more than one man on a crowded voyage, so you need not worry.’

Fergal said, ‘She needn’t, ay, considering that neither your own weight nor that of any other man will be in there tonight with her.’

His tone was dry, but Daniel matched it with the glance he gave his friend. ‘It may be I should toss you back on shore as well, together with Creed’s spy.’

‘You go and try it.’ Fergal, unconcerned, half-shrugged to stretch his shoulders. ‘What’s the plan, then?’

Above me I could hear the steps and voices of the men. Hard footsteps tramped towards the stern, in my direction, and although I knew the angle of the ship’s hull meant that nobody could see me from above, I still drew back a pace from caution. The footsteps stopped directly overhead.

‘There he is,’ Daniel’s voice drifted down.

Other steps shuffled forwards to join him at the rail, and a younger man’s voice complained, ‘I can see no one.’

‘Our passenger,’ said Daniel, ‘is a man much wanted in these parts. He does well to be careful and keep to the shadows until you can collect him.’

‘Me?’

‘Ay. Rowing would be William’s job if he were here to do it, and you did say you had come to do his work.’

A doubtful pause. ‘But I see no one there.’

‘Nor will you, till you land the boat and call the password. Now away with you, and fetch him back so that we can be off. The tide has turned.’

I heard the scraping of the boat against the Sally’s side again, and as the rhythm of its splashing oars moved off, I heard another sound – a laboured clanking, unfamiliar. It wasn’t until the Sally began to turn slightly as though she were drifting, that I realised what I’d heard had been the anchor being raised. From above came the creaking of ropes and the sound of the great sails unfurling to gather the wind.

The Sally gave a forward surge of joy. As her stern came round, my windows gave a clear view of Creed’s spy, who’d nearly reached the beach. Even if the luckless lad had strength enough to turn his craft and row on back to catch us, he would have surely known there was no point to it. He’d never be allowed on board again now that his game had been discovered. Instead, as I watched, he drove the boat on to the shingle and leapt out, knee-deep in water and wading ashore with the wide, flailing motions of somebody in a great hurry.

The last glimpse I had of him as we slipped out of the shadows of the headland, he was scrabbling up the rocky path towards the clifftop. Not an easy climb for someone wet and tired from rowing. Still, he could count himself fortunate, I thought, that he’d been sent off in the boat and not simply dumped over the Sally’s side.

Fergal said much the same thing minutes later when, taking his role as my chaperone seriously, he came down below decks with Daniel. The two of them joined me at the windows in the stern.

Fergal told Daniel, ‘You’ve only made him angry now. You should have cooled his temper with a swim.’

‘And if he could not swim?’

A shrug. ‘We would have one less fool to waste our time with.’

Daniel smiled. ‘You are a hard man, Fergal, and I do fear what would happen to me should I ever fall from your good graces.’

‘Then take care that you do not,’ was the advice returned, although I caught the fleeting play of light in Fergal’s eye that spoilt the sternness of his warning. He was leaning to the window, looking back at the retreating shore. ‘He’ll be running straight to Creed.’