After giving orders regarding the disposal of the bodies, Toby rejoined his family, who had moved along the alley a little way, and with deep relief and burgeoning hope, they walked out of the alley, across the wharf, and up the gangplank of theIrish Rose.
* * *
Diana workedwith Toby and Helga to get the children on board. She felt shaken by the violence and deaths in the alley, but hugely relieved at the same time, which left her feeling somewhat discombobulated.
Yet as Evelyn had so succinctly put it, the Prussians had been “bad men.” Given what Diana had seen them do to Herschel and, very possibly, what they had forced Herschel to do to her father, she couldn’t be sorry that through Toby and Evelyn saving Heinrik and Eva, the Prussian pair had ended up dead.
The minutes spent shepherding the children onto the ship, meeting the master and purser, then countering the children’s inclination to explore regardless of the hour and persuading them instead to retire to the cabins below deck so that the sailors could finish their necessary tasks and cast off proved an effective distraction.
To her mind, the sooner they left French shores and were on their way to England, the better.
That said, as she settled the children in the bunk beds in the cabins to which they’d been assigned, she kept expecting one or other of the three to show signs of being affected, upset, or overwrought.
Instead, the three all but crowed, delighted and, apparently, feeling triumphant if not victorious, and eventually, she realized that, for them, the simple childhood concept of good and bad, right and wrong, cast the actions in the alley in a very clear-cut light.
If you were bad and tried to hurt or kill other people, you died.
To the three, it was that straightforward and, therefore, to be expected.
Indeed, that the Prussians had died in the alley seemed to bolster the trio’s faith in the way things ought to be, as if they saw it as evidence that, fundamentally, all was right in their world.
To them, good triumphing over evil was what was meant to happen and, therefore, was no surprise at all.
Once she assimilated and accepted that, she relaxed even more.
Finally, with the children abed and sleeping, she retreated to the cabin she’d been given—a slightly larger one with a slightly larger bed. Although primarily a cargo vessel, theIrish Rosewas designed to carry a small complement of passengers, and currently, they were the only passengers on board. Helga was sharing a cabin with Evelyn, with the little girl tucked into the upper bunk and still tightly clutching Rupert the Bear. Roland and Bryce shared another twin-bunk cabin, while Toby had been given a rather cramped single-berth room. Being the lady of the group, Diana had been favored with the largest of the passenger cabins, tucked in the bow of the ship.
Not quite knowing what to do with herself, she was about to sit on the bunk when, glancing through the porthole, she noticed that the light from the wharf had vanished, leaving only faint moonlight to paint the wave crests silver.
The slow creaking of timbers reached her, and she realized the sounds of running feet and thuds and cracks of ropes and sails and squealing of winches had ceased.
On impulse, she turned, left the cabin, and headed for the stairs to the deck.
She emerged from the companionway and, with a breeze tugging at her hair, walked to the bow, stood at the railing, and looked out. TheIrish Rosehad left the wharf, but was still in the harbor; the ship was sailing slowly and majestically along a wide channel between the many vessels at anchor, either waiting to dock or merely at rest while their crews went ashore. On either side, a forest of masts rose like raised guardsmen’s spears ceremonially guiding them to open water.
She looked back along the length of the ship and, some way off the stern, saw the flare of light marking the still-busy wharfs. Beyond that, spreading to either side, the steadily receding coastline appeared as a denser darkness dotted with pinpricks of light. Glancing up, she saw sailors perched in the rigging and noted others waiting by the masts and at the winches, presumably ready to reset the sails once they were free of the harbor.
They’d made it. Onto the safety of a British ship, one taking them to England.
As the realization that they’d succeeded in that without anyone taking any harm and with the dispatches still in their possession sank in, she sensed a deeper, more profound relief unfurl inside her, along with a sense of being free to commence a different, more personal journey, one she was eager to undertake.
As if summoned by her thoughts, Toby appeared and halted beside her.
Side by side, they watched the last lights of France fade into the night, then, as one, faced forward, gazing over the waves purling beneath the bow toward the distant horizon.
She closed her eyes and raised her face to the moonlight and the breeze. “Looking back… I can barely believe we’re finally here.” She opened her eyes and glanced at him. “But we are.”
Toby nodded, then met her eyes and briefly searched them. “I could wish the violence hadn’t occurred, but at least all of us survived physically unscathed.”
To his surprise, he was wrestling with the experience in a way he never had before.
Studying his face, Diana lightly frowned. “What is it?”
He stared at her, faintly astonished that she’d been able to read anything of his uncertainty in his usually impassive countenance. But her gaze remained steady, concern touching her features, and she’d helped him understand his new and unaccustomed feelings before.
He looked out over the dark water and gripped the railing tighter. “I’m… worried. Over whether the action in the alley will affect the children’s view of me. They saw me kill a man. And they saw Eva—whom they like—shoot another man dead.” He paused, then admitted, “I’ve killed before, but only when my own life was threatened. When it was them or me and only one of us could survive. Tonight… wasn’t like that. I made a decision.”
She nodded. “To save Heinrik’s life.”
