Ghost Messages (7 page)

Ailish washed and dressed in a hurry, then set out for the galley. Davy’s directions floated in her head, but nothing made sense when she tried to apply it to the actual layout of the ship. She poked about for a while, afraid of repeating yesterday’s disastrous route march, then decided to follow the herd and tucked into line behind a group of fine-looking gentlemen who were chatting about what they would have for breakfast.

In the spacious dining room, Ailish was again astounded by the grandness of the
Great Eastern.
The white linen cloths on the tables accented the fine china and crystal glasses, large oil paintings adorned the walls and brocade upholstery covered the chairs.

As she watched, a waiter took a gentleman’s order and disappeared into what had to be the galley. Ailish followed at a discreet distance. She slid into the room behind the waiter and felt her mouth water with the delicious smells that greeted her. She would stock up with as much food as possible before making her escape.

On a cooling rack, a large stack of fragrant fresh-from-the-oven buns sat waiting in a basket. The delicious smell was so enticing, it made her dizzy. She crouched below the countertop, then carefully reached up and felt around blindly searching for the tasty morsels.

“Ouch!” A stinging slap made her draw her hand back.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

A giant of a man with a large bushy moustache towered over her, brandishing a long soup ladle like a sceptre.

“I’m the new cabin boy,” she faltered, “and I was looking for a bite of food. You have so much here; I didn’t think you’d miss a bit.” She edged backward toward the door. “I’m sorry to have bothered you, sir.”

The rotund man laughed heartily. “I don’t care who you are and there’s no need to steal food aboard this ship. There’s plenty for all.”

He tossed her one of the warm buns and Ailish stopped her retreat.
Plenty
was not a word she’d ever associated with food – meagre, sparse, scarce, yes, but never plenty.

As she ravenously devoured the best bread roll in the history of the world, the cook began piling all manner of good things onto a large plate. “On deck, we have a cattle pen with ten bullocks, one milk cow, one hundred and fourteen sheep, twenty pigs, twenty nine geese, fourteen turkeys and five hundred other fowl! We certainly have food enough to feed a shipwrecked waif like you.”

Ailish’s stomach let out a loud rumble of appreciation and the cook roared with laughter again. The animal smell she’d sniffed when she’d first gone on deck was now explained. The variety of creatures on board sounded like the passenger list from Noah’s Ark!

He passed her the mile-high mountain of savoury food. “You come back here any time you’re feeling peckish between meals and Henry will fix you up fine.” He twirled and spun the ladle in a display as elaborate as any performed by a drum major. “But in future, Henry thinks you should eat your meals in the crew’s mess. The gentlemen you find in this salon” – he motioned to the grand dining hall with the ladle – “they like to
talk
about work, and that’s about all they have to do with it. With the crew, you’ll find a class of men who not only know the value of hard work, but can ably perform those duties and you are sure to enjoy their company more.”

Henry the cook told her where the crew took their meals, then turned back to his army of assistants while Ailish wondered how long it would take her to eat the generous feast.

She made her way to the crew’s mess where she found a hidden corner, away from the boisterous men, to enjoy her bounty in peace. There was no way she could finish the enormous plateful, but she tried her best. As she sat back stuffed and well contented, her stomach rolled and a loud belch erupted from her belly, making her face flush with embarrassment. She glanced around to see if anyone had heard her and saw Rufus Dalton leaving the mess. She’d been so busy gobbling her food that she hadn’t noticed him come in.

Ailish dusted the crumbs from her hands. No matter –
it was perfect timing; she was finished and he was on his way out. Depositing her dishes in a kitchen trolley, she left to follow her prey.

Once on deck, Ailish hid behind a caboose to watch Dalton as he went about ordering his men to the various tasks involved in laying the cable, fixing machinery and running the ship.

After a couple of hours, she began to lose hope that he would do anything but normal boring work. At this rate, finding the horse would take much longer than she had thought.

Around mid-morning, Dalton walked over to one of the crew. “I’m going to take an early dinner. I’ll be back in an hour.”

Ailish was still full as a tick from her enormous breakfast, but she wasn’t about to let Dalton out of her sight now and stealthily followed him belowdecks.

She was surprised when, instead of going to the crew’s mess, he took a set of stairs she’d never seen before. They passed no sailors as they descended into the deepest regions of the giant ship. She’d never been this far down into the belly of the
Great Eastern.
The noise of the engines grew louder and the light became poorer the further they went.

Being careful to stay a safe distance behind, she watched as Dalton spun a large wheel on an iron hatchway marked Boiler Room. She waited until he’d entered and closed the heavy door then dashed to follow, praying the hatch wasn’t too massive for her to manoeuver. Struggling, Ailish managed to pry the door open wide enough to slip through, then with a gigantic effort, pulled it shut and spun the wheel. She didn’t like the idea of sealing herself in with Dalton, but neither did she want to be discovered because she was careless and left a door open.

The world that greeted her was one conjured from a nightmare. Surrounding her were eight gigantic boilers that groaned and moaned, hissing like restless dragons. Eerie red fingers of light came from huge furnaces into which men ceaselessly shovelled large piles of coal and beyond, a mass of machinery clanged and howled. The noise was deafening and the heat suffocating.

Ahead of her she could see more coal, mountains of it! Everywhere she looked, there was coal. She remembered when she’d first met Dalton that fateful night back in Foilhummerum Bay, he’d boasted the
Great Eastern
carried fifteen thousand tons of coal, enough to sail nearly around the world. At the time she’d thought it impossible; now she believed every word.

Dalton was nowhere to be seen. She walked up to a dust-blackened sailor; sweat gleamed on his shirtless back as he toiled with a shovel. “Excuse me, have you seen Mr. Dalton?”

The man pointed toward a black opening in the wall. “That’s the tunnel that runs through the coal bunkers. He went in there.”

Once inside the metal channel, she shivered. Compared to the boiler room, it felt cold and was very dark. The only light was that which seeped in from either end of the long shaft. The sound of footfalls made her stop. Far ahead,
someone was moving down the tunnel. The silhouette of the figure grew clearer as he neared the far end and the light brightened. It was Dalton, but what was he doing down here? Was this another part of his duties?

She started after him. Everywhere the thick coal dust swirled and eddied like Satan’s breath. It filled her lungs and the choking sensation made her want to gasp and fight for air.

He’d nearly reached the end of the tunnel when Ailish felt a cough start deep in her chest. She tried to stifle the noise, but she was drowning in dust and her breath exploded out of her in a wracking spasm.

Dalton immediately stopped and turned. “Who’s there?”

She plastered herself to the wall not wanting to be framed in the light behind her.

“Ails, back here! Hurry!”

She whirled. It was Davy’s voice. He must have gotten over their tiff and his timing couldn’t have been better. Scrambling, she’d almost reached the safety of her side of the tunnel when a shouted command boomed out behind her.

“You there, halt! I said stop where you are!”

“May the saints preserve us!” Ailish prayed silently. Dalton was coming back after her.

She sped out of the iron hallway expecting to find Davy, but he was nowhere to be seen. He must have gone on ahead to open the hatchway. She raced forward, her breath coming in small gasps, but stopped in surprise when she reached the metal door. It was shut tight. Why had Davy closed the darn thing before she’d made it out?

Cursing, she struggled with the heavy iron portal as precious seconds flashed by. With a groan, she shoved hard on the stubborn hatch which finally opened a fraction.

She wiggled through to find Davy waiting on the far side. “Why did you close the door?” she asked, irritated.

“It swung shut behind me!” he protested.

“Well, help me close the wretched thing again!” she wheezed. Together they leaned against it, but even with Davy’s shoulder helping, it took every ounce of her strength to move the massive hatch. How could it have swung shut? Ailish suspected Davy had panicked and closed the door in fear, but his pride wouldn’t let him admit to that. The coal dust on the floor caused her shoes to slip and she fell, grazing her head. She struggled to her feet and began again. At last, it sealed itself with a resounding clang.

“Someone should oil this thing!’ she muttered as she spun the big locking wheel. “We have to find a wedge so Dalton can’t turn it from the other side.” Darting her eyes around the deserted hallway, she saw nothing that would help.

“There’s no time!” Davy warned. “You head topside and I’ll try to slow him down. He can’t do anything to you in front of the crew and besides, it was dark back there. I’m sure Dalton didn’t see it was you.”

If this was Davy’s way of making up for the panic attack at the door, it was foolishly dangerous. “If you’re caught, he’ll beat the daylights out of you. Come with me,” she pleaded.

“I’ll be safe, Ails. Charlie’s going to meet me here any second and Dalton’s no match for my boss. We’ll stall him as long as we can. Trust me.” He smiled at her then pointed to the stairway.

Ailish saw this was her only chance and there was no time for arguing. She ran for the stairs that led to the higher decks. Davy was right, it had been dark in the passage and she was sure Dalton didn’t get a good look, but she couldn’t let him catch her. He was no fool and he’d know it was her following him and that would be the end of the search and maybe her also. She started up, trying to move quickly, but her shaking legs didn’t want to obey.

The boom of the hatch being thrown open below reverberated up the iron stairway. Davy and Charlie wouldn’t be able to distract him for long and Dalton would be coming after her any second. The ruffian might not have seen who it was in the dim tunnel, but if he made it to the stairway and saw her climbing, he’d recognize her for sure. She quickened her pace.

Emerging onto the next deck up, Ailish saw that the stairway emptied onto a corridor that extended left and right. Which way should she go? In her mind, she tossed a coin. Left it was! She ran for the far end and, she prayed, the stairs to the next deck.

Disappearing would be good, but no handy hidey-hole presented itself. Ahead, at the base of the stairwell, was a small alcove with a wooden desk. Strewn across the surface, she saw a discarded tea mug and a tobacco pouch beside
a pipe. The ivory pipe bowl was beautifully decorated with ornate scrimshaw. On the floor beside the desk was a metal wastebasket filled with balls of discarded paper.

An idea hit her. She couldn’t hide, but she could create one devil of a distraction.

Ailish moved to the desk and picked up the pouch. Inside, she found what she was looking for – the wooden matches that went along with the pipe and tobacco.

Perfect! She struck one and it flared to life. Holding it to a corner of one of the balls of paper, she was rewarded
with a puff of smoke, and then a brilliant orange flame as the edge caught. She dropped the burning paper into the basket.

A second match soon had another piece aflame. The smoke was rolling out of the wastebasket now. Ailish left the crackling fire and fled to the stairs.

Through the billows of smoke boiling out of the alcove, Ailish saw Dalton clamber up from the lower deck. Everyone knew the worst thing a seaman could imagine was a fire aboard ship and even though he was a ruffian and a bully, Rufus Dalton was also a serious sailor and he would stop to put out the small blaze before coming after her.

The last thing Ailish saw as she pulled the stairway door closed behind her was Dalton kicking over the basket
and stomping on the flames with his big dirty boots.

The small fire wouldn’t stop him for long and when she stepped into the bright sunlight topside, she immediately looked around for someplace to blend in.

It was then Ailish looked down and saw she was covered with coal dust. If Dalton saw that, it wouldn’t matter that he hadn’t caught her, he’d know it had been her following him. The sound of plaintive bleating made her turn her head toward the far end of the deck. There she saw her salvation.

Running, she grabbed a shovel and bucket and climbed into the large pen that held the herd of sheep. She hesitated a moment, not believing what she was about to do, then threw herself down into the smelly straw and rolled around. Jumping up, Ailish began calmly shovelling the animal dung into the bucket.