The rumble of the engine grew louder and deeper. The cutter pulled away from the wharf and onto the still, smooth waters of Masset Inlet. One of the sailors came up to Bushell. “We have a small galley, sir. Would you fancy a cup of tea?”
“Would I, by God!” Bushell exclaimed. “I’ve been wanting some all morning.” The sailor brought it to him in a thick china mug. It was hot and strong and sweet, but had no milk in it. He wondered about that, and asked, “Haven’t you got an icebox in your little galley?”
“That we do, sir, but no milk in it, I’m afraid,” the man answered. “Sailors up here in the Queen Charlottes, we mostly drink our tea Russian-style, with sugar and nothing more.”
“Alaska’s close by,” Bushell observed.
“Yes, sir, that’s part of it, I suppose. The other side of the shilling is, it stays hotter longer without pouring milk into it. In the chill and the wet hereabouts, that’s not the worst thing in the world.”
Bushell walked to the bow of the cutter. Port Clements was already hazy behind him, the far shore of Masset Inlet not yet visible ahead. Two sailors at the bow stared intently down into the water of the inlet.
“What are you looking for?” Bushell asked.
“Deadheads, sir,” one of them answered without turning his head. “All sorts of logs drifting just below the surface. Sometimes, for no reason anybody can figure, they’ll bob up into the air - or into your hull, if you’re not watching out for em.”
“I see,” Bushell said. That watch no doubt also explained why the Grampus wasn’t making a better turn of speed: you didn’t want to be going too fast to stop or swerve if you spotted a deadhead. He checked the time. They’d been a little more than an hour on the road from the Skidegate naval base to Port Clements. It still wasn’t close to half past six. Not bad, he thought. The sun, already high in the northeastern sky, was trying to burn through the clouds that hung over the Queen Charlotte Islands. A bald eagle flew low across the inlet, chasing an osprey with a fish in its talons. The osprey dropped the fish and flapped off, screeching furiously; the eagle flew away with the prize. “Damned thief,” Bushell muttered. As far as he was concerned, that the Independence Party and the Sons of Liberty revered the bald eagle said more about them than it did about the bird.
Because of the watch for logs, the cutter took most of an hour to reach the western shore of Masset Inlet. She glided to a stop about a hundred yards from the muddy beach. “Lower the boats!” Lieutenant Commander Woodbridge said. The sailors went about it as if they’d done it a thousand times, which they probably had. Drill was bloody dull, but it paid off.
One boat held a dozen men, the other eight. The Royal Marines got down into them with the same practiced ease the sailors had shown. A couple of Navy men joined them in each boat. Scrambling down a rope with his feet against the side of a rolling ship was nothing Bushell had practiced, but the Marines grabbed him and helped him ease into the larger boat.
They also aided Samuel Stanley and Felix Crooke. “Thank you, gentlemen,” Crooke said. “For a moment there, I felt like the pendulum in a grandfather clock.” The Marines grinned, proud of the skill they’d shown.
From the deck of the Grampus, Ted Woodbridge called, “I’ve never seen bullocks and RAMs in the same boat till now.” The Royal Marines hooted at him. His grin got broader. “Good hunting, my friends. I’ll see you off Buckely Bay at noon.”
The Marines seized the oars in the bottom of the boats and made short work of the stretch of water between them and the shore. Mud and sand grated under the boats as they rowed them up onto the beach. The Marines leaped out. Rather more slowly, the three RAMs followed. “I’m already feeling old, and we haven’t even started hiking yet,” Bushell said. Sam Stanley nodded agreement. The sailors rowed the boats back to the cutter to pick up the Royal Marines who hadn’t been able to fit the first time. When everyone was ashore, Lieutenant Green turned to Bushell and said, “I expect you’ll want us to go inland a bit before we move on Buckley Bay, eh, sir? If we just come straight down the beach, the chaps we’re looking for will be able to spy us a long ways off.”
“Can’t have that,” Bushell said. “Until we get there, Lieutenant, I’m going to put myself in your hands. You know this country better than I do.” He waved at the trees - cedar and spruce, pine and fir - that came down close to the beach. The land rose up more steeply here than it had on the eastern side of the inlet; he’d seen that much from the cutter. What it would be like when he got into the forest, he couldn’t begin to guess. Most of his military experience had been on the border with Nueva España, hot, dry country as different from these woods as the mountains of the moon.
“Come on, then,” Green said, and led the men inland from the beach. Bushell felt as if he’d stepped into a cool green cathedral, with God the architect rather than man. The sun had come out, but was rarely able to penetrate the canopy of dark green branches overhead. The air was moist and full of the tangy, resinous scent of the trees all around. He wanted to gulp down great lungsful of it and take them with him when he went back to New Liverpool.
“We’ll form a skirmish line, man on the left close enough to the edge of the woods to see the inlet,” Green said. “If you get separated, steer southwest by the sun and you won’t go far wrong. If the sun goes behind the clouds again or you’re in amongst growth too thick to let you see it, remember that your compass needle will bear a bit northeast, not true north. We’re close enough to the North Magnetic Pole for the deflection to matter.”
“Now there’s something I never imagined I’d have to worry about,” Samuel Stanley said. He took a compass from a pocket of his anorak and gave it a thoughtful look. “Can’t tell that it’s lying to me.”
Shaking his head, he put it back. Bushell kicked at the red-brown needles underfoot; he hadn’t thought to bring a compass.
They set off toward Buckley Bay, each man only a couple of yards from the fellow to his side. Ferns pushed up through the dead needles: bright splashes of green against the dun ground and tree trunks. Here and there, moss found a hold on some of those trunks, and on boulders as well. Bushell suspected that if he stood still for a couple of hours in the cool moistness of the forest, moss would start growing on him, too.
Something screeched jeep! jeep! right above his ear. He had his rifle off his back and halfway to his shoulder before he heard a whir of flapping wings and got a glimpse of a dark blue bird streaking away.
“What the devil was that?” he asked. “It scared me out of a year’s growth.”
“Just a jay, sir,” the Marine on his left answered. “Noisy buggers, aren’t they? I’d sooner run across one of them than a bear, though.”
“Right.” Bushell kept his voice under tight rein. He wondered how many RAM investigations had been halted because a wild beast devoured the investigator. Most of the time, he worried only about dangerous men. Adding wild animals to the mix struck him as unfair.
Every so often, he had to leap over or splash through a little stream; from everything he’d seen, the Queen Charlotte Islands had more water than they knew what to do with. Before long, his feet were soaked. He envied the Royal Marines their tall boots. “Hope you don’t pick up any leeches, sir,” the Marine beside him said helpfully. He gave the pup a dirty look and kept slogging along. To his right, Sam Stanley was also making good progress. Not bad for a couple of old men, Bushell thought. Felix Crooke was years younger than either of them but already starting to pant. “I’ve been behind a desk too long,” he said. “If I fall behind, just shoot me and carry on.”