“Keep quiet,” Matthew instructed as he waved for the ten lads to follow him. Slowly, he led them up the ladder as he forced his breathing to stay measured. The boys were already fearful enough without adding his own tension to the mix.
When Matthew reached the hatch to the upper deck, he paused to listen. Good old Pan was still shrieking about murder and fine morts.
“We’ve looked everywhere,” one of the soldiers was saying.
“Maybe Jenkins is right about it being a ghost,” one of the other men said, his tone half-serious and half-joking.
“See! I was right, wasn’t I?” Jenkins crowed proudly.
“Not you too, Davis,” another fellow groaned.
Matthew counted the voices in his head. All the guards were accounted for, and from the direction of the sound, they were still gathered on the quarterdeck. Cautiously, his heartstrings drawn as tightly as a hunter’s bow, Matthew lifted the cover to the hatch just far enough to peer out. Sure enough, he could see the shadowy figures milling above him.
Gesturing for the boys to stay put, Matthew once again snaked across the deck on his belly—this time in the direction of the water rather than the wharf. Finding a barrel he could lift, he heaved it overboard and ducked behind one of the small boats. At the splash, Pan did as he’d been carefully trained to do. He flew out over the water and started screaming.
“Man overboard! Man overboard! Man overboard! Drowning! Drowning! Drowning!”
At the sound, the guards ran to the edge of the ship and stared into the inky darkness. Walking swiftly in a crouched position, his muscles filled with what felt like an energy separate from his own, Matthew slipped back to the hatch. Opening it, he waved to the boys to head to the side of the ship facing the wharf. Alreadytrained as pickpockets and poachers, the lads moved with silent quickness, allowing the shadows to swallow them up.
He indicated for the tallest escapee to shimmy down the rope to safety. The youth moved quickly, and the next eight followed. The second to last, though, began to shake halfway down, causing the rope to bob. Matthew glanced at the smallest child standing beside him, as he debated whether he should leave the boy momentarily behind to assist the one stuck over the water. Luckily, one of the adolescents shimmied up to the frightened lad and guided him down. Taking no chances, Matthew crouched and used his hands to signal that the last waif should climb on his back. With the urchin clinging fiercely to his neck, Matthew made his way to shore as quickly as possible.
When they were all on the ground, Matthew felt his muscles uncoil a fraction. His breathing more naturally steady than forced, he led the lads through the jumble of the dockyards toward the rendezvous spot where two of George Belle’s carriages waited. Pan had just resettled on Matthew’s shoulder when he heard it.
The steady clop of hooves.
Not from one horse but many. An entire company of them.
The area was filled with dragoons.
Ice sluiced through Matthew’s veins, and the breath whooshed from his body. He felt like he had as a lad, when his brothers had dumped him in a frosty lough and held him under.
But Matthew shoved back the freezing panic and forced himself to calmly consider his next move. He needed to draw the soldiers away from the boys, but without him as a guide, how could they reach safety?
“Dr. Talbot!” A voice with a familiar Irish accent hissed.
Matthew turned to spy Seamus and John emerging from the shadows of a massive warehouse. A mix of irritation and reliefspiraled through Matthew at the sight of Tavish’s best engineers. Both the young men insisted on accompanying either the carriages or the boats during rescues, but Matthew and Tavish had strictly forbidden them from leaving the safety of the conveyances. Neither was properly trained yet.
In the moonlight, Seamus’s freckles stood out against his white skin. He was even paler than usual. John hid his fear better, but Matthew could sense his nervousness as the two younger men hurried to Matthew’s side.
“Dragoons are everywhere,” John whispered, his voice tinged with a Caribbean accent. Through the help of Brave Mary, his family had escaped a sugar plantation when he was a baby. Although he’d grown up on the island that Brave Mary had settled for escaped slaves, he’d chosen to emigrate to London a few years ago to pursue an education.
“I noticed the influx,” Matthew observed drily as he scanned the area for approaching soldiers.
“We thought we would distract the dragoons while you bring the boys to safety.” John, who had a thin build like Matthew, pushed back his shoulders. Beside him, Seamus did the same.
“No,” Matthew said instantly, not wanting to put the young engineers at any more risk. “I’ll provide the diversion. You two lead the lads to the carriages.”
“But—” Seamus began to protest before Matthew cut him off.
“We do not have time to argue.” As if to punctuate Matthew’s words, five men on horseback rounded the corner of the warehouse where John and Seamus had been hiding only moments before. The brass buttons on the dragoons’ coats shimmered in the moonlight, but even without their uniforms, their stiff bearing would have marked them as military men.
Before John or Seamus could act, Matthew dashed from theirhiding spot among crates lined up on the wharf next to the street. He paused long enough for the soldiers to not only see him but to take an account of his physique. Matthew had been spotted by dragoons and military guards before, and he was certain the men were on the lookout for someone matching his build.
Sure enough, two of the dragoons gave a shout.
“That’s him!”
“There he is!”
