The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [523]
“I’ll do them for you while you wait,” said Mr. Rumplunkett.
Stig turned back to us. “We’ll need forty-eight hours to have a look at them. Shall we meet again at my house? We would be honored by your presence.” He looked me in the eye and would know if I lied.
“I’d like that very much.”
“We, too. Wednesday at midday?”
“I’ll be there.”
The neanderthal raised his hat, gave a small grunt and moved off.
“Well,” said Bowden as soon as Stig was out of earshot, “I hope you like eating beetles and dock leaves.”
“You and me both, Bowden—you’re coming, too. If he wanted me and me alone, he would have asked me in private. But I’m sure he’ll make something more palatable for us.”
I frowned as we walked blinking back out into the sunlight. “Bowden?”
“Yup?”
“Did Stig say anything that seemed unusual to you?”
“Not really. Do you want to hear my plans for infil—”
Bowden stopped talking in midsentence as the world ground to a halt. Time had ceased to exist. I was trapped between one moment and the next. It could only be my father.
“Hello, Sweetpea,” he said cheerfully, giving me a hug. “How did the SuperHoop turn out?”
“That’s next Saturday.”
“Oh!” he said, looking at his watch and frowning. “You won’t let me down, will you?”
“How will I not let you down? What’s the connection between the SuperHoop and Kaine?”
“I can’t tell you. Events must unfold naturally or there’ll be hell to pay. You’ll just have to trust me.”
“Did you come all this way just to not tell me anything?”
“Not at all. It’s a Trafalgar thing. I’ve been trying all sorts of plans, but Nelson stubbornly resists surviving. I think I’ve figured it out, but I need your help.”
“Will this take long?” I asked. “I’ve got a lot to do, and I have to get home before my mother finds I’ve left a gorilla in charge of Friday.”
“I think I am right in saying,” replied my father with a smile, “that this will take no time at all—if you’d prefer, even less!”
21.
Victory on the Victory
Raunchy Admiral in Love Child Shock
Our sources can reveal exclusively in this paper that Admiral Lord Nelson, the nation’s darling and much-decorated war hero, is the father of a daughter with Lady Emma Hamilton, wife of Sir William Hamilton. The affair has been going on for some time, apparently with the full knowledge of both Sir William and Lady Nelson, from whom the hero of the Nile is now estranged. Full story, page two; leader, page three; lurid engravings, pages four, seven, and nine; hypocritical moralistic comment, page ten; bawdy cartoon featuring an overweight Lady Hamilton, pages twelve and fourteen. Also in this issue: reports of the French and Spanish defeat at Cape Trafalgar, page thirty-two, column four.
Article in The Portsmouth Penny Dreadful, October 28, 1805
There was a succession of flickering lights, and we were on the deck of a fully rigged battleship that heaved in a long swell as the wind gathered in its sails. The deck was scrubbed for action, and a sense of expectancy hung over the vessel. We were sailing abreast with two other men-of-war, and to landward a column of French ships sailed on a course that would bring us into conflict. Men shouted, the ship creaked, the sails heaved and pennants fluttered in the breeze. We were on board Nelson’s flagship, the Victory.
I looked around. High on the quarterdeck stood a group of men, uniformed officers in navy blue, with cream breeches and cockaded hats. Amongst them was a smaller man with one arm of his uniform tucked neatly into a jacket festooned with medals and decorations. He couldn’t have been a better target if he’d tried.
“It would be hard to miss him,” I breathed.
“We keep telling him that, but he’s pretty pigheaded about it and won’t budge—just says they are military orders and he does not fear to show them to the enemy. Would you like a jawbreaker?”
He offered me a small paper bag, which I declined. The vessel healed over again, and we watched in silence as the distance between the two ships steadily closed.
“I never