“No,” Bushell answered as he buttoned his fly.
The steward paused, coughed, chuckled, and said, “Sorry to disturb you, but it has to be done on these early-morning arrivals.” He went down the corridor to rap on the next stateroom door. Despite the captain’s announcement, despite the stewards’ diligence, Bushell was sure somebody would still be sleeping when the Empire Builder locked itself to the mooring mast at the Wellesley Municipal Airship Port.
A cup of English Breakfast tea, so strong it was almost bitter, helped him face the prospect of being alert at four in the morning with something like equanimity. Stanley drank English Breakfast, too; Felix Crooke opted for black coffee.
The three RAMs were among the first passengers off the airship once it was safely moored. Before Bushell had taken more than two steps on the ground, a fusillade of flashbulbs went off in his face. “Why are you in Wellesley, Colonel?” somebody shouted. Somebody else yelled, “Will you be staying here?”
“Where do you go from here, Colonel Bushell?” a woman’s voice bawled.
“I’m sorry, but I have nothing to say,” Bushell answered, and repeated that again and again as he and his colleagues claimed their bags and headed for the cab stand at the kerb a couple of hundred yards from the airship. The reporters followed. Some, like cats, followed the RAMs in front of them, and complained almost as bitterly of trod-on toes as of the lack of satisfactory answers for their questions. Among them, Bushell, Stanley, Crooke, and their gear filled to overflowing the steamer they hired. “Can you get us to the train station without having that pack of vultures on our trail?” Bushell asked, pointing back to the reporters, who were wrangling over who would take which of the other cabs at the stand.
“Do my best, sir,” the cabbie answered, and put his vehicle in gear. Bushell leaned back in the seat, aghast at how many reporters had come to meet him and how persistent they were. He’d known the case would be conducted in the glare of publicity, but he’d hoped to be able to escape that glare every now and again. The Sons of Liberty were going to know his every move almost before he made it. The cab driver, to his great relief, did escape before the pursuit got properly organized. By the time his steamer reached the station - a huge, half-timbered building that resembled nothing so much as a Tudor palace - approaching sunrise was lightening the gray, overcast sky in the east. Bushell tipped him a green ten-shilling note, which sent him on his way with a smile on his face. Inside the station, a ticket agent confirmed the reservations Bushell had made over the telephone. A stout porter took charge of the RAMs’ bags. The police officers went into a small cafe across from their departure platform and ordered breakfast. “I don’t want to be sitting out there in the open for those blasted reporters to see,” Bushell said. “That would make me a perfect target.”
Sure enough, a couple of reporters did come wandering by. One of them even poked his head into the cafe. Bushell kept his own head down and escaped unnoticed.
He and his companions boarded the train as soon as it pulled up to the platform. Samuel Stanley stared in surprise at the informational brochure he pulled from a box mounted on the door near the entry.
“Bloody roundabout way of getting from here to Prince Rupert,” he said, pointing to a map on the back page of the brochure. It showed the route looping through half the province of Vancouver. “I thought we’d just go straight up the coast.”
“Mountains in the way, with no good passes,” Bushell said. He read over his adjutant’s shoulder as Stanley unfolded the brochure. “When luncheon comes around, I want to try the fish chowder they’re talking about. If it’s half as good as they make it sound, you can walk on water once you’ve eaten it.”
The chowder - simmered haddock and salt pork with potatoes, onions, and garlic in a broth of rich cream and fish stock - might not have been good enough to serve as a prelude to miracle-working, but it was tasty and filling. The spectacular mountains and pine woods through which the train passed made the long trip worthwhile. A bear pawing at an old stump looked up as the noisy locomotive rolled by, then went back to grubbing for mice or honey or whatever it was after.
They pulled into Prince George, the gateway town to Vancouver province’s northwest, about seven that evening. The sun was still high in the sky; at fifty-four degrees north latitude, summer days lingered long. But Prince Rupert was still 450 miles - nine long hours - to the west.
“Another four o’clock arrival,” Samuel Stanley said mournfully. “Shame to get into a town at a time when you can’t do anything useful there.”
“And after that, another six hours by ship to Skidegate,” Felix Crooke put in.
“We’ve had all this time to plan,” Bushell said. “When we get there, we go into action.” He could hear he could all but taste - the eagerness in his own voice. To be out and doing - that was why he’d become a RAM in the first place. His last chance might be here now. He intended to make the most of it.
VI
WELCOME TO PRINCE RUPERT, THE HALIBUT CAPITAL OF THE WORLD, said the sign in the train station. A faint fishy odor that persisted through steam and coal smoke and tobacco made it plain that was no idle boast.
So did the bill of fare of the station cafe, which had opened to receive early-arriving passengers while the rest of the town slept on. Along with the usual eggs and sausage and bacon and hot and cold porridges, all quite dear not only because the cafe enjoyed a clientele with few other choices but also because Prince Rupert was as far from where processed foods were produced as any place in the NAU, the menu featured fried halibut, poached halibut, dried and salted halibut, smoked halibut, halibut croquettes, and halibut balls in cream gravy.
Bushell had never before breakfasted on poached halibut, but it was far from bad. “You order this in a fancy restaurant in New Liverpool, it would set you back six or eight quid, not seventeen and a tanner,” he said.
“It’s good smoked, too,” Felix Crooke said. His choice - the nearest thing to a bloater available - did not surprise Bushell. Samuel Stanley, a resolute conservative, worked his way through fried eggs and saveloy sausages.
Twilight brightened as the three men ate. The sun rose early, as it had set late. The cafe boasted a large, west-facing window. From Kaien Island, on which the town of Prince Rupert sat, Bushell looked across Prince Rupert Harbor to Digby Island, which shielded the island from storms. Fishing boats were already putting out to sea. Clouds of gulls wheeled and swirled above them, hoping to scavenge some of the day’s catch.
Bigger ships also sat in the harbor: merchantmen to carry coal and grain and lumber brought into Prince Rupert by rail, the ferry that would take Bushell and his comrades across the Hecate Strait to the Queen Charlotte Islands, and several lean, gray frigates and corvettes with four-inch guns, a reminder that Russian Alaska lay not far to the north.