An offshore wind. Still strong.
It would have been most fortuitous had the wind changed to a sea breeze, blowing back towards the mainland. But these were the kinds of odds that could not be relied upon. Take advantage when lady luck smiles, but do not plan for it. And so Conor’s immediate destination was not Kilmore, but Great Saltee, for that was where the wind was going.
Conor gathered his feet under him, pushing his harness lower. He gripped the wing-hoist lever in one hand and the rudder bar in the other.
Once more into the air.
He stood and ran across the wall walk. His footsteps seemed absurdly loud as his boots clacked on the stone. Surely the sounds would march along the wall to the guards’ tower.
Concentrate on your actions. The slightest slip could be the death of you.
It was curious, but sometimes the voice in Conor’s mind sounded like Victor Vigny.
I have a guardian angel, and he is French.
This made him grin, and so in spite of the life-or-death situation, it was a smiling Conor Finn who hoisted himself on to the Little Saltee parapet, and launched himself into the night sky.
I am flying home.
Sebber Bridge, Great Saltee
Pike generally worked the early shift on Little Saltee, then spent sunlight hours and leisure days on the big island, nursing his one-legged mother and fixing the cottage wall, which he had been working on now for fifteen years. When he wasn’t mixing mortar for the wall, Pike was making himself money hand over fist selling information to the Battering Rams.
Pike was never going to be in the gang’s inner circle, but he was a useful man in any situation because in spite of his apparent lack of grey matter, he had an uncanny knack of accumulating information. The warden, a political man, appreciated this and granted Pike extra leave time to hook him any court gossip he could, while the Battering Rams paid him handsomely for any Customs information he was able to wheedle from his mates on the docks. Two bags of coin per week and neither party any the wiser.
As well as information, Pike ran the odd errand for the Rams. Nothing violent that could see him hanged, and also he was an inveterate coward. His latest job was simplicity itself, if a little puzzling. Until further notice, on any night there was a stiff breeze from the mainland he was to tow a skiff around to Sebber Bridge and leave it there. Simple as that. Beach the boat on the shale outcrop below Promontory Fort, then row back up the coast to the harbour. No lights, no whistling nor singing sea shanties, or the Saltee Sharpshooters would put a bullet in his behind. Simply beach the boat and go. The skiff would make its own way back to Saltee Harbour the next day.
Simple orders, but not to Pike’s taste. Thanks to his double pay packet, he was well aware just how valuable good information was, and he felt certain that there were those who would pay to know what manner of person was picking up a skiff on Sebber Bridge in the wee hours. Not someone on the up and up, that was for certain. Honest citizens came and went through the harbour without the need for skulduggery like this.
The trick was how to sell the information without falling foul of the Battering Rams. But he could chew on that problem when he had some information to sell.
So Pike decided to delay his departure awhile, until the mystery sailor had set sail. Then he would know what kind of a nugget he had, and how much it was worth.
He concealed his own punt under a bank of weed, then crawled high into the rocks and settled in to wait.
After a couple of hours, he was regretting not bringing more tobacco along, and was considering stuffing his pipe with seaweed, when something whooshed overhead, causing him to drop his pipe altogether.
If that was a bat, then it was a big one. Low-flying gull more like, or a kestrel over from the mainland.
Pike had a vague sense of the creature’s bigness.
There would be some eating in a bird like that. A pity I don’t have my slingshot along. Even a gull can taste passable when you cook it right.
He wriggled forward out of his crevasse just in time to see a man with wings swoop in to land on Sebber Bridge, his heels dragging up arcs of shingle.
A flying man, he thought, flabbergasted. A man that can fly.
Pike knew instantly that this was the most valuable thing he would ever see. He pulled a pad from his pocket, licking the stub of a pencil that hung from a string on the binding.
A good tout never knows when a nugget will need recording. Keep your pencil close to your heart, and you’ll never miss a trick.
So, with his heart rattling his ribs and his fingers shaking, Pike sketched the winged airman hanging on to the skiff’s gunwale, lest the breeze carry him off to the moon.
He drew arrows pointing to the wings and above the arrows wrote wings, as if writing the word made what was before his eyes more believable. He noted it down when the airman pulled a lever and his wings were hoisted behind him. He drew a diagram of the harness and how it cradled the sky rider from shoulder to knee. He saw how the man took himself out of the harness like a lady from her bodice, and collapsed the whole contraption down by pulling out a few stays, till the wings folded up neater than a picnic blanket.
Perhaps I should just take those wings, thought Pike. That airman don’t look so big. I could part his ribs with my knife and present those wings to the warden. Perhaps that would be the best course of action.
But then he noticed a sabre on the man’s belt, and a revolver on his other hip. There was also the possibility that these airman types possessed strange mystical powers such as the evil eye, or the deathly hex.
Best leave it at pictures for today, he decided. Next time I will be prepared, and he will be relaxed. A nice short-handled axe should do the trick.
The airman stowed his gear neatly under the aft seat, then dug his toes into the shale, pushing off. The skiff slid sweetly into the dark water with no more of a splash than the waves were making on the north shore.
He’s gone, thought Pike. I am safe.
But perhaps he thought his thoughts too loudly, because the airman froze and turned his glass-goggled eyes towards the rocks. His head was cocked like a puzzled deer, and he scanned the higher levels with twin orange circles.
His eyes are on fire, thought Pike. He can see in the dark.
But then the strange flying man turned, leaping neatly into the skiff, his landing sending her scudding out across the water, prow slapping the waves. In seconds the dark sail unfurled, and she tacked to starboard wide of the island.
Pike sighed in relief.
Perhaps a short-handled axe will not do the job, he decided. Perhaps I need something with a long handle.
CHAPTER 13: THE SOLDIER’S RETURN
Kilmore Quay
Conor tacked wide, riding the offshore wind as far as possible, before dropping sail and rowing towards Kilmore Harbour. The clouds had thickened and a few spatters of rain knocked on the planking. The tide was on the rise, so he made good time in spite of the wind on his back.
Conor had expected to feel elated at this moment; he had been wishing for it long enough. There were diamonds at his belt and freedom in his future. Zeb Malarkey had sent him new papers so he could book passage to New York tomorrow if he so wished.
Enough to start a new life.