Page 10 of Snowbound Regency Christmas
Again her hand touched him, resting longer this time. ‘I can only tell this once.’
‘Once, then.’
‘Our door banged open and the French devils forced us into that adjoining cell. Rosie, those prisoners had attempted whatwewere planning, except there was a grate at the bottom of the hole. No one could escape into open water.’
He glanced at her and saw her eyes staring as if into the hole itself. ‘The Frogs made us stand there as the tide came in and drowned those men.’ He couldn’t help his tears. ‘They wailed and pleaded and we could do nothing.’
What a churl he was to tell this story. She wept, too, wiping her eyes with her apron, then so kindly wiping his.
‘None of us spoke good French, but those fiends made us understand that would be our fate, if we tried to escape.’
As he lay there trying to collect himself, Rosie fetched the carafe of water on the bureau and poured him a drink. She supported his head with her arm. He didn’t really need her help, but he wanted it, craved it.
‘But you’re here. What did you do?’ she asked, when she could speak.
‘They left the bodies in that hole. Then one day, they opened our cell and counted out three of us.Un, deux, trois. I was number three.’
‘Oh God,’ was all she said. Her knitting lay in a heap at her feet.
‘They took us to that damned and haunted cell and I knew it was over,’ he said, ‘except it wasn’t. We were to gather the men’s effects into a pile, perhaps for burning. In the doing, I found a rasping saw someone had hidden.’
He heard her sudden intake of breath. ‘Keep breathing, Rosie,’ he said, amused in spite of his dire tale.
‘I suppose I must,’ she murmured. ‘You hid it somehow and took it back to your cell like a crazy man.’
‘I did. It went into a gap in the stones where the mortar had eroded. There it stayed for months.’
He let her think about that, aware then that the door had opened and Farmer Harte and his sister stood there, transfixed, eyes wide. He leaned closer to Rosie. ‘Missy, you had better take that tray from your aunt. It’s starting to rattle.’
Without a word, she did as he said, putting it on the table—probably to grow cold, but he didn’t mind. Cold or hot, he would eat it. When Rosie looked around, Aunt Dorothea was seated in her chair, and Papa in the window ledge. Andy reminded himself that he was just a sailor and not a gentleman, and patted a spot on his bed. To his surprise and delight, she sat.
‘Tell us how you escaped.’
‘There was one window in our cell, high up, with four iron bars. For six months, one or another of us stood on someone’s shoulders and we sawed away with that little rasp.’
‘Noisy,’ Farmer Harte commented.
‘We worked during thunderstorms, or naval barrages from the blockaders.’
‘You could have been easily discovered,’ Rosie said.
‘To say that we were constantly on edge, expecting them to find out, simply beggars the language,’ he said simply. ‘Even now, I jump at unexpected noise.’
‘I promise not to burp,’ Farmer Harte said, which made everyone laugh.
‘I will hold you to it, Papa,’ Rosie teased him back. She turned her lovely eyes on Andrew. ‘You must think we are callous, to laugh at your predicament.’
‘Not at all,’ he assured them. ‘You should have heard some of our jokes. That’s how people in tough situations survive.’May you never know such fear, he told himself,especially you, Rosie. May you always be warm and safe.
The story seemed easier to tell now. ‘We worked nearly through the top of two of those bars, but not all. Then we started on the bottom and did the same. Almost but not all. Six months’ labour.’
‘Are you the most patient man in the universe?’ Rosie asked. She had made herself comfortable on his bed, her back against the footrest. He could have reached out and touched her shoe, but he was no fool.
‘Patient? I am now. There we were, starving and getting weaker every day.’ He sighed. ‘Two of our original number died. We were now eight.’
‘I would pray for more storms,’ Aunt Dorothea said.
‘We did, those of us who still believed in anything,’ he returned. ‘I am among that number, although countless midshipmen and crew I instruct in ship trim, ballast and navigation would doubt it. I am exacting, ma’am, but I believe.’
