IV: Lost and Found

As the smoke cleared, the bodies on deck became visible. The smell of burned flesh filled the air alongside the cries of the wounded as Laurence tried to find his way.
He almost fell as he reached the dragon deck; blood had made the wooden staircase slippery. He managed to stay on his feet though, and stepped on deck the moment Temeraire climbed out of the water.
‘Are you all right?’ he immediately asked; Temeraire clutched his right claw.
‘I am well’, the dragon answered a little weakly, exhausted from the battle. ‘Just a splinter from when the second one exploded.’
‘Keynes!’ Laurence yelled while searching for his surgeon; he saw him a little ways back trying to take care of a man whose legs had been blown away.
‘I am well, Laurence. Pray do not worry’, Temeraire assured his captain as he lay down. ‘I will wait until he has helped that poor man.’
Laurence, who knew there was very little Keynes would be able to do for the fellow, said nothing as he turned around to face the chaos that was once the Allegiance.
The main mast was barely recognizable as such; the mizzen had broken in two and was partly hanging in the sea. Apart from many wounded, dozens of bodies lay around lifeless.
‘It is a good thing we had decided to stay close, right Laurence?’ Temeraire asked as he tried to get the splinter out himself, using his teeth. ‘I am sorry we could not stop the third one…’
Laurence shook his head. ‘Nonsense, my dear. If you had not been there to disable those two ships, we would all be dead. The fact that their captain left them behind the way he did, says more about him than about any of us.’
‘Laurence’, Granby said in a serious manner when he came to stand besides his captain. ‘The losses of the Allegiance’s crew are not yet clear, but we have five wounded, none dead. And one missing.’
‘Missing?’
‘Emily Roland. According to Dyer…’ Here he stopped, looking for words. ‘According to Dyer they took her aboard.’
Laurence stared at him. ‘On which one?’ he asked.
‘The one that got away.’
‘And she was still alive?’
‘Alive and well. Dyer says Davis himself snatched her away.’ He paused for a second, the fate of the little girl weighing heavy on both their minds.
‘What will we do?’ Granby asked after a moment.
Laurence took a deep breath and closed his eyes. ‘Nothing’, he then said. ‘There is nothing we can do. She is lost.’
And I am the one who lost her, he added wryly in his mind.

***

It had been three days since Nathaniel Davis had taken Emily Roland. Three days filled with flying from island to island, interrogating the locals and finding no trace of the frigate whatsoever.
A few times he had tried to write Jane, but he had not yet found the words to tell her he had lost her daughter. So he postponed the moment, and continued his search.
The whole Royal Navy and Aerial Corps stationed at the Virgin Islands were by now on the lookout for both Davis and Black, who also seemed to have disappeared from the face of the planet. And although Laurence cared more about his runner being in the hands of vicious criminals, Admiral Powys was more concerned about his gold.
‘I will remind you once more, captain, that getting back His Majesty’s gold should be your number one priority’, he said as he leaned back in his chair.
Laurence, who had just returned from Cooper Island inquiring about Davis, shuffled about uneasily before he answered: ‘Yes, sir. Of course.’
‘Your agreement with their captain was fulfilled as soon as we exchanged the egg for the gold’, Powys continued. ‘There is absolutely no reason for us not to take it back now.’ He took some grapes out of a bowl on the table and put them in his mouth. ‘Of course, if those frigates had not come into the picture, we would have taken back the gold as soon as we had secured the egg. But alas’, he added, licking his fat fingers, ‘the devils had the help of Davis and his men. And they will hang for it. All of them.’
For a moment, Laurence felt the need to explain to Powys that Davis and Black could very well have absolutely nothing to do with each other; Elleanora had managed to find out about the transport of the egg, so why wouldn’t Davis have?
However, he knew there was no point in telling this to Powys: the admiral simply wouldn’t care. To him they all were the same, and he would not rest until he had restored the pride of the Corps.
‘Yes, sir,’ Laurence therefore simply said. ‘I do feel it is my duty to inform you that the egg is by now only a few weeks from hatching. If you want us to reach Bermuda in time, it would be wise to – ’
The annoyed look on Powys’ face made Laurence not finish his sentence. ‘I am well aware of the importance of time in this matter, captain’, the admiral told him firmly. ‘But we still have plenty of it left.’
When Laurence declined to leave, Powys sat up straight and looked at him even more strictly. ‘Just get me back my gold, captain Laurence’, he said, and dismissed him without another glance.

‘So he wants us to stay here and find a ship that we have found no trace of, and which could be halfway to Europe by now?’, Granby asked in disbelieve. ‘With all do respect, Laurence, but they are long gone: Black and Davis. Staying here will only delay us further, and this egg is much too important to be left unattended.’
They were sitting in a small tavern in the middle of Spanish Town, the main city of Gorda. Laurence had just returned from his meeting with Powys and needed a moment before he would return to the covert. Because he could concur nor differ with Granby, he took another sip of his scotch and said nothing.
‘This whole enterprise has been outrageous from the start’, Granby continued, as always not as tactful as Laurence would have liked his first lieutenant to be. ‘To travel to the inlands of Peru and achieve a dragon egg from a bunch of wild men is one thing, but to delay us here when all the action is taking place overseas… That is simply excruciating.’
‘Calm down, John’, Laurence said, but not unfriendly; Granby was only saying what he was feeling, and in this informal setting his words were tolerable. It was Laurence’s duty however to keep spirits as high as possible, so he took another sip and changed the subject slightly.
‘I just wish we could be of some help in finding Davis, if only for Jane’s sake’, he said regretfully. ‘To lose a child – a daughter – in such a way… I wish I knew how to tell her…’
‘It was not your fault, you know’, Granby said when Laurence fell quiet.
Even though his words were kind, Laurence could not agree. ‘Maybe we should have listened to Elleanora’, he said softly. ‘She tried to warn us…’
‘She was probably in on the whole thing’, Granby uttered, but even he didn’t sound so sure.
‘She seemed genuinely shocked at their arrival’, Laurence murmured in his turn; he took it from Granby’s silence that he had to agree.
‘Well,’ Granby said after a while, obviously to lift his captain’s spirits, ‘there is no point in dwelling on it. Let us not waste time and get back to the covert. We might have more luck today.’

They didn’t.
At their return that evening, Laurence left Temeraire in the covert and sat down in the empty drinking room, putting his feet up and closing his eyes in pure exhaustion.
He was thankful he was so worn-out: it drove out thoughts of blame and feelings of guilt, and the weight of failure caused by having the egg robbed from him in the first place.
Granby sat down on the other side of the fire and poured them both a glass of wine. After about twenty minutes of silence, only interrupted by the crackling sounds of the fire, the door opened and a very grumpy looking Riley stepped in.
‘Bad news’, he said as he seated himself. ‘It will take at least two months before the Allegiance is seaworthy again.’
‘Two months?’ Laurence and Granby said simultaneously in horror, although they had feared as much.
‘We have to be on our way in a week, tops’, Laurence said in disbelieve.
‘Yes, well, not with the Allegiance’, Riley said frustrated as he poured himself a whisky and emptied the glass in his mouth in one fluent movement. ‘I swear: if I ever get my hands on those devils… Oh, do not worry,’ he added when he saw the worried faces of Laurence and Granby, still dreading their delay, ‘they are already arranging you another ship. Apparently a local transport called the Resistance should be big enough for Temeraire. It is supposedly on its way as we speak, so it should arrive tomorrow.’
‘Well, that is something’, Granby put in as he leaned back, clearly relieved.
‘Laurence, do you have a map?’ Riley suddenly asked.
‘Yes, in the pocket of my coat.’ As Laurence was about to get up, Riley stopped him.
‘Don’t bother. You look worse than I feel’, he said as he walked over to the coat rack in the corner to search through Laurence’s pockets; Granby smiled tiredly as Laurence let himself fall back in his chair, thankfully.
‘Has all this stress made you blind, Tom? It should be right there’, Laurence joked when Riley stood motionless in the corner for a while.
‘I think you should see this’, Riley said pale faced as he came back to the fire and handed Laurence a little, wrinkled note. ‘It was in your pocket.’

If you want back what is yours, come alone.

Ginger Lighthouse at noon.

‘How the hell did this get in there?’ Laurence asked to no one in particular.
‘Probably slipped into your pocket at Spanish town’, Granby guessed. ‘Enough opportunities, I’d say.’
‘Oh, you fools’, Riley suddenly said impatiently, the alcohol making his tongue looser than usual. ‘Look at the bottom!’
There, in swirling fancy writing, the letters ‘E.B.’ were written.
‘E.B.’, Laurence whispered softly as his clouded mind became clear.
‘Elleanora Black’, Granby said breathless.
‘What the hell does she mean?’ Laurence said confused.
‘To meet you, obviously’, Granby answered.
‘Yes, but why?’ Laurence asked, but then an idea so absurd it might as well be true occurred to him. ‘You do not think she wants to hand back the gold, do you?’
‘Why would she ever?’ Riley asked in disbelieve.
‘The whole British Navy and Aerial Corps are after them’, Laurence uttered, thinking aloud. ‘She might fear for her life.’
‘Oh, nonsense!’ Riley said, almost offended. ‘Scum like her only cares for one thing, and one thing alone: gold. Bonaparte himself would more easily give himself up!’
But Laurence wasn’t so sure. If Elleanora and her crew would be captured, they would be sentenced to death without exception. And with every vessel and dragon in the area on the lookout, maybe she had realized this was a game she could not win.
‘Well, we will find out quick enough’, Laurence said as he folded the note and put it in his pocket. ‘Tomorrow at noon, to be more precise.’
‘Please tell me you are joking, Laurence’, Riley said. When he saw the serious look on Laurence’s face, he added: ‘You have to report this!’
‘No one will report anything’, Laurence said as he made a decision. ‘Pray trust me on this one, Tom. If we show up at Ginger with the whole Navy fleet, she will not show. And this is too important to gamble with.’
‘Of course we won’t show up with the entire fleet’, Riley pressed. ‘If we leave in a few hours and wait for her to arrive with a small… welcoming party, she will only know we are there when it is too late.’
Laurence put on his coat and looked at his friend. ‘She might see through that, or this could be a trap. Either way it is too dangerous; I alone have cost the Corps this gold that led to previous events. I will not endanger the lives of any more men. I will go alone.’
‘You are making a mistake, Laurence’, Riley said softly.
But Laurence was already gone; through the door into the fresh air of the night, to his cabin and into bed.

The abandoned lighthouse on Ginger Island, an uninhabited islet south of Gorda, stood lonely against the bright blue sky. It was no more than a small house attached to a tall tower, high atop a mountain in the middle of the islet. A sturdy wind blew in from the south, gently rocking the trees and foliage on the hillside as Laurence checked his watch.
Twelve-o-five. She was late.
He calculated the time it would take his crew to get here; it had been a huge effort, but eventually he had convinced Temeraire to stay aboard the Resistance, which had arrived that morning and was anchored in Saint Thomas Bay for now. As his ground crew was busy moving their cargo from the covert to the ship, Laurence had left in a small boat with a couple of his men, and left them on the other side of the islet. If this really were a trap, they could be here in less than five minutes.
One thing was certain though: trap or no trap, Laurence would not be surprised again.
‘A coin for your thoughts’, she said behind him.
His startled turn towards her earned him a smile.
‘I wasn’t sure you would come’, Elleanora said as she studied his face. She seemed at ease: hands in the pockets of her coat, hair hanging loosely on her shoulders. She almost looked like an aviator, Laurence couldn’t help but think.
‘I thought you would be half way around the world by now’, he replied.
‘Well,’ she said, a somewhat wicked smile appearing on her face, ‘I hoped you would.’
‘Why did you want to meet me, Elleanora?’ Laurence asked; he was more relaxed now it seemed she did not came here to kidnap him – again.
‘I think I have something that is yours’, she said, and Laurence was happy she had come to her senses; he was also happy he would be able to return the gold he had cost the Corps at last.
‘Flint’, Elleanora said to Laurence’s surprise; the boy appeared out of the bushes to her right. But with him he did not bring the gold.
He brought Emily Roland.