All families are unhappy in their own way…
Maude’s parents had often seemed like chalk and cheese when she was growing up, they argued, fought sometimes but the big difference between them and Leonora’s parents, was that Maude’s mother and father always, absolutely always, made up after they had had a row. Actually, even now when they were in their late fifties they sometimes behaved like young lovers, much to Maude and her sister’s eternal embarrassment…
Little Alex Lincoln Fielding gurgled.
Maude could tell he needed cleaning.
Her nose wrinkled but she did not mind.
If she had not already been feeling broody; she had been, ever since she set her sights on Albert Stanton, she would have been now.
“He’s a fine-looking boy!” Sir Max declared. “He’s got his father’s nose!”
The great man clearly wanted to be somewhere else.
He was far too important to be ‘baby gazing’ when there was money to be made!
“Go away, Max,” Lady Geraldine snapped lowly. “The baby needs a feed.”
“Oh, right you are…”
Leonora stirred herself and Maude passed her precious bundle of new life back to the weary mother, who sleepily put tiny Alex to her breast. If the kid was anything like his father, he would get the message sooner rather than later…
“Why on earth do you put up with Daddy?” She asked her mother.
“Seriously,” Lady Geraldine murmured.
“Yes?” Leonora confirmed. “You hate each other’s guts, so why do you stay with him?”
Maude froze, hoping the ground would open beneath her feet and swallow her.
“If I didn’t, I’d spend my declining years in penury,” Leonora’s mother explained dryly. “Your father would see to that. Then he’d marry some little harlot actress or perhaps, one of your friends, my dear. Just to humiliate me.”
“Maude’s my only real friend, these days,” Leonora said, wanly. “I don’t think Maude would marry the old goat. Would you, dear…”
“Certainly not,” her friend confirmed.
Lady Geraldine was nothing if not a very practical woman.
“I’ll leave you two alone with Alex,” she decided, rising stiffly to her feet. Leonora had inherited her lean, willowy frame and once straw blond, now greying hair. “I’ll send the nurse in to change Alex in due course,” she added, knowing that neither of the two younger women – born into the lap of luxury – had the foggiest idea how to change a nappy. “You can learn all about that another time.”
Maude was still in a state of mild shock, having been present for every minute of Leonora’s confinement and held Alex junior moments after his birth – albeit briefly – before she passed the little mite to his mother.
She became aware that Leonora was watching her, her eyes gently amused.
“What?” Maude asked.
“I hope the last twenty-four hours haven’t put you off children for good?”
“No. I was pleased, honoured, I suppose, to be here, with you,” Maude shrugged, tears dripping down her face.
“I meant that about you being my only real friend,” Leonora smiled sleepily. “None of my old friends were friends at all, I found that out after the Empire Day thing. But you’ve always been there for me. Like a sister…”
Now they were both crying.
Chapter 28
Tuesday 12th April
Little Inagua, West Indies
Abe’s throat burned dry, he was hungrier than he had ever been in his whole life, enfeebled, trembling with starvation, feverish now and weary beyond measure. His vision was blurring, he knew he was at the end of his tether and worse, he had no idea if the Dominicans had stumbled across Ted Forest’s hiding place after the air attack.
It was this more than anything which tormented him.
He had done his best, God, if there was one knew that, to keep the blighters busy. When he ran out of ammunition for the Mauser, he had stalked two – or was it three men? – with the hatchet. He had had to abandon that, too, when it got stuck in a Dominican sailor’s back. He had tried to pull the damned thing out but it would not budge…
After that he had become the hunted, prey.
He had known he was done for as the first light of the new day broke over the ships anchored in the channel, close offshore. He was too weak to fight any more, lying half-buried in the sand a few yards back from the beach about a quarter-of-a-mile east of the nearest ironclad cruiser.
Overnight, the two older cruisers had moored virtually bow to stern to the south of the Reina Eugenie, forming an impenetrable anti-torpedo barrage. Meanwhile, the big modern-looking cruiser which had turned up yesterday…
In the afternoon?
Everything was getting jumbled, one memory tripping over another or sinking into the quicksands of his mind…
Anyway, it had moored about two hundred yards out, stern-on to the shore off the battleship’s bow. Farther out to sea Abe thought he made out the black coal smoke of several of the Spaniard’s ancient three-stack torpedo boat destroyers.
He had wished Ted was with him to identify those ships…
When the Dominicans caught up with him, they would want to cut him to pieces slowly, possibly over an open fire. It was a measure of how far gone he was, that Abe really did not care anymore.
What with one thing and another, he had had a pretty good innings. He had done the right thing by Kate, his brothers, and in the last few days, by his King.
If he had had the energy he would have got up on his hind legs and shouted: “I’m over here, chaps! Come and get me!”
Just to end it.
Irritatingly, the clowns kept walking straight past his unmoving. Bloodied form; perhaps, they thought they were looking at the lifeless body of one of their friends?
Then, as the sun peered just above the eastern horizon and began to cast long shadows from the warships in the channel, Abe thought he heard something.
The angry buzzing of bees…
Aircraft engines.
And suddenly the Dominican sailors were running down to the beach pointing towards the heavens.
Which, all things considered, was a bit odd because moments later two Goshawk Mark IV scouts rocketed very nearly above Abe’s head with their machine guns and cannons yammering.
The water between the Reina Eugenie and the shore was torn to spray, then the bullets were rushing along the side of the battleship and exploding around her funnel and lightweight bridge superstructure.
The Goshawks were gone in a flash, climbing away into the hazy, grey skies.
Another pair rocketed in from somewhere to the east, again targeting the Reina Eugenia. Fires were smoking on the battleship’s decks by the time two more of the big, gull-winged scouts swooped upon her.
Something in Abe’s head told him that the Goshawks could do very little damage to a leviathan like the Reina Eugenie except tear up her decks and riddle her superstructure.