“What say we go up to our rooms and then meet in the lobby for supper?” Bushell said. “The Haida Lounge attached to the hotel looked - interesting. They say New Liverpool has every sort of restaurant in the world, but there are no Haida Indian eateries there.”
“They say the same thing about Victoria,” Felix Crooke said, “but it hasn’t got any, either. I’m game for something new. Just let me stow my kit here” - he hefted the bag that held the Royal Marines uniform “and I’ll be with you directly.”
The Haida Lounge was a smoky place. Bushell had been in any number of smoky taverns and restaurants in his time, but without exception their haze sprang from tobacco. Here the smoke was an integral part of the decor; the chef worked at a grill over an alderwood fire in the center of the room. Fans sent some of the smoke toward an opening in the ceiling, but not all. Bushell had expected to find venison and halibut on the menu, and was not disappointed. Sealmeat steaks, salmon cheeks, and dried herring eggs on kelp, however, made him raise an eyebrow, and a couple of items left him altogether at a loss. “What the devil is a fiddlehead?” he said to the waiter.
“No reason for you to know, if you’re a stranger here.” The waiter himself looked to be Haida, at least in good part; his English, while fluent, held a hissing, guttural undertone. “Fiddleheads are the shoots of sword ferns. They curl around on themselves at the tip, like the end of a violin’s neck. We serve them boiled, with butter or with hollandaise sauce.”
“I’ll try some, then - with butter, I think - and for my main course I’ll want the seal.” Bushell reflected that both butter and hollandaise were imperfectly authentic additions to native Haida cuisine, but he hadn’t come here to quibble. “I’ll start with the island salad here, the crabapples and fireweed and cow parsnip.”
“Very good.” The waiter nodded, perhaps pleased by his sense of adventure, then turned to Sam Stanley.
“The venison and wild rice for me,” Stanley said, “and a bottle of your Caribou Ale to wash it down.”
“Yes, sir.” After writing down his order, the waiter looked expectantly to Felix Crooke.
“I’ll have the herring eggs and kelp,” Crooke said, “and the wild rice to go with them. I might almost be eating in a Japanese restaurant.”
“Interesting you should say so, sir,” the waiter remarked. “We sometimes get Japanese here, buying fish or timber. They often order those same dishes. And would you also like an ale?” At Crooke’s nod, the young man turned to Bushell. “And what will you have to drink, sir?”
“Have you got Jameson Irish whiskey?” Bushell asked. The waiter’s blank look said they didn’t. Bushell shrugged. “In that case, bring me one of these Caribous, too.” As the young man hurried off to fetch the ales, Bushell turned to his companions. He raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Damned if I know what sort of wine goes with seal meat, anyhow.”
The seal steak was richly marbled and had a somewhat fishy flavor, no doubt because of the seal’s diet. The fiddleheads tasted nutty; Bushell enjoyed them. The well-hopped ale complimented the meal better than any wine he could think of; he patted himself on the back for a good choice. Sam Stanley demolished his cut of venison and looked ecstatic doing it. And Felix Crooke ate his dried fish eggs and kelp with every sign of relish. “You’d pay thirty pounds in Victoria for a meal like this,” he said.
“I wouldn’t,” Stanley said. He was proud of his conservative tastes.
“Our Haida sweet is whipped soapberries,” the waiter said as he gathered up supper plates. “It’s surprisingly close to ice cream. Would any of you gentlemen care to try it?”
Bushell and Crooke nodded. Sam Stanley said, “Soapberries? No, thank you,” and ordered another Caribou Ale instead. Conservatism had its own punishment; the berries, despite their off-putting name, were sweet and delicious.
After a cigar, Bushell said, “I’m turning in. We shall be busy boys tomorrow.”
“Busy boys early tomorrow,” Stanley added. “I’m going to ask the desk clerk to ring my room at four.”
His sigh was long, mournful, and heartfelt.
“Ask him to do the same for Felix and me, too.” Bushell blew a smoke ring up toward the ceiling. It soon thinned and vanished, reminding him all too much of most of the leads they’d had in the case. When the dreaded telephone call came, Bushell dragged himself out of bed and climbed into the denim trousers, plaid wool shirt, and hooded anorak he’d brought up from New Liverpool and set out before he went to sleep. Then he put on a pair of stout shoes a constable might have worn walking a beat. They weren’t as good as military boots, but they were the best he had.
To his dismay, he found the Haida Lounge closed when he went down to the lobby. Stanley joined him a couple of minutes later, similarly dressed and similarly distressed because he wouldn’t be able to get some tea or coffee to make his heart start beating. “Maybe the Marines will have a vacuum flask,” he said hopefully.
Felix Crooke was already wearing his rain cape when he came downstairs. Bushell wondered at that for a moment, but then realized it let the RAM carry his revolver on his belt unseen. At exactly half past four, a steamer pulled up in front of the Skidegate Lodge. The three RAMs stepped out into light drizzle and piled into it. “Have you back at the base in just a moment, sirs,” the sailor behind the wheel said, and took off with speed enough to push Bushell back against his seat. The steamer stopped behind two large lorries with khaki canvas tops. Waiting next to the lorries were Commander Nathan Hairston and his promised two squads of Royal Marines. “Good morning,” Hairston boomed blithely when the RAMs got out of the motorcar. He looked from Bushell to Stanley, back again. “Yes, for civilian gear what you have isn’t bad at all. Now, you’ll want rifles, you said.” When the RAMs nodded, a Marine lieutenant fetched a couple of Lee-Enfields and handed one to Bushell, the other to Stanley.
The weapons had their magazines attached. When Bushell checked, he found a cartridge in the breech.
“Good,” he said approvingly, flicking on the safety. “The best way not to have trouble is to be ready for it.” He slung the rifle over his shoulder. By the time the day was done, he feared he’d be walking with a list. He hadn’t carried a rifle since his army days.
“Speaking of readiness,” the lieutenant said, and handed Stanley and him four five-round boxes of ammunition apiece.
Bushell stowed them in the outer pockets of his anorak. The weight had already started to grow, and he wasn’t carrying anything like full kit, as the Royal Marines were. He said, “Thank you very much, Lieutenant, ah - “
“Colonel, let me introduce to you Lieutenant Morton Green and his NCOs, Sergeant Fuller and Corporals Johnston and Wainwright,” Hairston said. He did not present the Marine privates. “They know their task is to assist you and your companions in apprehending the four men of whom we spoke yesterday and any of their confederates who may be with them. For this mission, they will treat your RAM ranks as if those obtained in the Royal Marines.”
“That is a high honor,” Bushell said. Lieutenant Green saluted smartly. He was about thirty, of medium height but very fit, with features that seemed both tough and intelligent. His sergeant, Fuller, was a few years older, and had eyes that missed nothing. Although he was blond and ruddy, his air of unhurried competence put Bushell in mind of Samuel Stanley. Corporal Johnston was tall and Corporal Wainwright short - or perhaps it was the other way round.