We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [135]
They reached the harbor a little after sundown. The salt wind off the sea smelled clean and felt bitterly cold, but there was an excitement to the taste of it, an energy in the wind and tide.
It took considerable bargaining, and ultimately a threat on Matthew’s part, but by midnight they were on their way across the channel. Most of them attempted to sleep, but Matthew paced the deck looking out over the dark water. The foam rose and fell, patterns shifting on the surface. He remembered standing like this on the deck of the Cormorant, before the Battle of Jutland, knowing that any moment it could erupt in white water, then flame and inconceivable noise. There would be twisted metal, screams, the smell of burning corticine, and juddering, pitching decks as the ship reeled. Always at the end lay the threat of being swallowed by that black sea and sucked down, never to be released.
There were only days to go until the end, and yet ships were still being sunk, all hands lost. It was a kind of wild madness he did not understand. What was there left to win or lose now? Only hate, the most pointless of all passions.
He kept looking ahead, trying to discern the dark outline of land. They were making for Harwich, not Dover, so there would be no familiar cliffs to see, but they had been grateful to take the first transport that would take them and the ambulance, too. They couldn’t have simply abandoned the vehicle. It would be an added difficulty to try to get rail transport with as little money as they had been able to gather, and on a crowded train it might be impossible to conceal the fact that Schenckendorff was German.
It was still before dawn when at last he saw the low, black line of land ahead. An hour later they were on the windswept quay with the ambulance—which, to their intense relief, had started after the third attempt.
“We should be in London by early afternoon, unless we run into major difficulties,” Matthew said, shivering as the wind blew spray up off the water. They were all tired, and the cold bit into them. It was now his responsibility to make certain that they persuaded Shearing, and then the prime minister, of Sandwell’s guilt. They would have only one chance, and Sandwell already knew they were coming. The danger was far from over; in fact, this could be the worst part. Victory was so close that emotions that had been held in check for years were now boiling to the surface. There was hope and a desperate fragility almost perceptible in the air.
Would Sandwell try again? Of course. But how? Overt violence would be harder now that they were in England. Anything he did would have to look like an accident. Was it possible that Sandwell did not yet know that Hampton had failed? Probably not. He would have some prearranged signal, a time to contact each other. Hampton’s silence would be answer enough.
“We need to get to London as soon as we can,” he said aloud. “Thank heaven we don’t need to use trains, or risk getting separated or lost in a crowd, where we’d be far more vulnerable.”
He saw Lizzie start, and realized she had thought they were already safe. She was standing next to Joseph, and unconsciously she moved closer to him.
“Sorry,” Matthew said briefly. “He’ll assume we are home, and he knows what for. He’ll have worked out by now that Hampton failed. We need to keep close together and on our guard. I’ve still got Hampton’s gun, but I don’t imagine any attack will be as obvious as that.” He turned to Mason. “You know him. What’s your best guess as to what he’ll do now?”
Mason thought for several moments. “He might try to stop us between here and London. It would be too good a chance to miss, unless he has no one he can trust…”
“We can’t rely on that,” Joseph said instantly.
“Agreed,” Matthew