Rough Passage to London(45)

Morgan was speechless. There was nothing he could say.

“Who is this?”

“My ’usband, you fool. One of yer men knocked ’im on the ’ead, that big tall brute with the white ponytail.”

“Is he dead?”

“No, I don’t think so, but ’e’s as cold as a two-day-old codfish.”

Morgan bent down beside the body, grabbed the man’s wrist, and found a pulse. He examined the man’s balding head where he could see a bloody bruise, but there was no open wound.

“I reckon he’ll live,” he pronounced confidently, but with a sudden panic in his voice he asked, “Where’s Laura? Is she here?”

Instead of answering, Molly continued her rant, her wet, dark eyelashes now blinking rapidly in mounting anger. Morgan could see the similarity with Laura now. If it weren’t for the drooping corner of one lip and the hairy black mole on her face, she might be considered a beauty.

“The only reason they didn’t get ye was it was yer other friend who stepped up to the bar. They thought he was ye.”

Morgan snapped to attention.

“Hiram? Hiram Smith?” he asked with trepidation, not wanting to hear the answer. It occurred to him for the first time that he hadn’t seen Hiram in the alleyway. Maybe he didn’t get out? Then he remembered the man at the bar with arms like a bear.

“What happened to him? Where is my friend?”

Molly shrugged.

“And where is Laura?”

A malevolent smile came across her face, her lip drooping more visibly to one side.

“I suppose ye never suspected that she was ’ired by that brute, did ya now?” she said with contempt. “He ’ired her to find out who ye was, and why ye was looking for him. He planned to kill ye, fool.”

The gleam in her dark blue eyes revealed a certain innate cruelty.

“Ye was just an opportunity for her, Yankee boy, just another opportunity.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Her voice sank to a low, husky murmur. “As for yer friend, who knows what ’appened to ’im. As soon as you yelled out yer warning, the man next to my husband pulled a knife on yer friend and put it up to ’is throat.”

Morgan stood silently for several moments as he allowed this information to sink in. Hiram was gone, nabbed by Blackwood’s men, or even worse, lying in a urine-soaked gutter somewhere, bleeding to death. Worse still, it was his fault. What would they do once they found out Hiram wasn’t him? Maybe they’ve already killed him. He felt drained, empty of strength. He looked over at Molly, who was pulling at her hair as she looked at her prostrate husband. Her dark mood had returned as she gazed at the destruction around her. She started yelling for the police. She grabbed a knife from her husband’s pocket, cursing him as he walked out of the tavern, all the time screaming for a constable.

He walked back to the docks, grappling with his own feelings of depression, anger, disappointment, and failure. He trudged by the closed pawnshops and the foul-smelling alehouses, where a few stragglers were still stumbling out the door to relieve themselves on the wall. At that moment, he was seething with anger toward England and the English. Foul dealing, he said to himself, appears to come naturally to these people. He had been betrayed by a woman he had trusted. He had been set up. His best friend might be dead. But as bad and as miserable a place was this depraved city, he knew he had to accept the blame. It was his fault, and he was a fool. He didn’t even know where to begin to look for Hiram. A faint hope that he might somehow have escaped kept him focused as he made his way back to St. Katherine’s Docks.





The next day, an irate Captain Christopher Champlin ordered Morgan to report to his cabin. Fearful of what awaited him, Morgan gingerly turned the white porcelain handle and stepped inside the stateroom adjacent to the two officers’ cabins. He’d never been inside the captain’s quarters before, so his eyes were busy scanning the room. The only source of light was a bulkhead lamp on gimbals with a sooty flame. Champlin was standing beside one of the portholes across from his desk, his hands behind his back with his feet broadly spaced apart as if he were bracing for a storm.

“Come in, Mr. Morgan, and shut the door behind you. Sit down over there, if you please.”

“Yes, sir, Captain.”

He pointed to the only wooden chair in the room across from him. Morgan took his seat and waited for the storm to follow the silence that pervaded the room. Champlin at last cleared his throat and began to speak in a slow, ominous voice.

“My brother told me you might be trouble, Morgan, but I never expected this. I reckon you got some explaining to do. My pistols have been stolen. Four of my men have been banged up right fine in a tight scratch with some drunken English sailors and river scum. The tavern owner wants to be compensated. One of my best men, Hiram Smith, has been kidnapped or dead, and it looks as if my first mate is the one who brought these sailors into harm’s way.”