Stanley’s eyes lit up. “We haven’t smelled it much, so it’ll be downwind from here: by the water, I’d guess, unless they’ve gone and heaved everything straight into Masset Inlet.”
“There’s a grim thought,” Bushell said. “But you wouldn’t chuck everything into the inlet. If some of your rubbish started turning up at Port Clements, that might bring the Grampus by to give you a caution. They wouldn’t want to draw notice to themselves.”
“Let’s look about,” Stanley said.
Looking didn’t find the rubbish pitch; their noses did. As soon as they’d gone a little more than halfway toward the edge of Masset Inlet, they got wind of the stink. “That way,” they said together. After a moment, Bushell added, “It’s a wonder we haven’t spied a great flock of bald eagles quarreling over the refuse. That would have told us where they kept it.”
When they reached the building where the Sons of Liberty stowed their rubbish, they found a grid of slats nailed over its windows, perhaps for the very purpose of keeping away the eagles. The door also bore a stout padlock. “Bears,” Stanley said, and Bushell nodded.
This time, hammering at the lock with a rifle butt accomplished nothing. “Back in a moment,” Bushell said. When he returned, he had Lieutenant Green in tow, and was carrying all the keys the Sons of Liberty had had on their persons. One of those proved to fit the lock.
“Phew!” Green said, as opening the door released a wave of stinking air. “I’m damned glad this place never has hot summers.”
“Well - yes.” Bushell went first into the rubbish-filled room. The stench here wasn’t as bad as it might have been, but it was pretty bad. Cockroaches scurried round his feet; slugs would have scurried had they been able to move faster.
The midden inside reached more than halfway to the ceiling. An archaeologist could have studied the festering pile for weeks, going through it layer by layer. Bushell, however, was uninterested in the geologic past. He snatched papers off the front and top of the mound, figuring they were the most recent. Gasping and fighting his stomach, he carried a double handful outside.
“My turn,” Stanley said, and plunged into the reeking room. The papers he brought out, like those in Bushell’s hands, carried the reek with them. They were crumpled and torn and stained with tea leaves, coffee grounds, grease, and other less easily identifiable substances. As soon as Stanley emerged, Bushell went back inside.
Lieutenant Green watched them with genuine admiration. “You couldn’t make me do that every day,” he said, “not for a hundred thousand pounds a year.”
“Most of the filth we go through is metaphorical,” Bushell said, setting down another stinking load of what might have been evidence and might have been only wastepaper. “Every now and then, though - “
Samuel Stanley brought out a few more papers. “I think that’s the last of them, unless we want to go digging,” he said, and then, “Phew! They won’t let us into the Skidegate Lodge tonight, not smelling like this they won’t.”
“We’ll worry about that later.” Bushell turned to Morton Green. “Have you stripped the bodies of the Sons of Liberty? We’ll want any papers you find on them, and on the live one, too - Elgin, that’s his name.” As long as he concentrated on what needed doing here, he wouldn’t have to think about Felix Crooke, now growing cold and stiff inside a dead house in a dead town.
“We’ve searched the prisoner, sir, but, except for those keys, we haven’t gone over the effects of the dead men,” Green answered. “I’ll tend to that straightaway.”
He started to leave. Before he could, Bushell said, “If you have someone with a sack, have him bring it here so we can load this” - he groped for a word, but found only a vague gesture - “into it.” Nodding, Green took off at a trot.
That left Bushell having done everything he could for the moment. “Jesus God, Sam, what have we stumbled into?” he groaned, his face a naked mask of pain. “Poor Crooke told the buggers who we were, and they shot him down like a dog. Like a dog.” His shoulders sagged, as if, like Hercules, he’d taken the weight of the world away from Atlas for a moment.
“He was stupid, Chief, and you know it,” Samuel Stanley answered. “We told him what these villains were liable to be like, but he stood up and gave them a clean shot at him. He didn’t believe you, he didn’t believe me, he thought everything would be cricket no matter what we said - and he paid for it.”
“Thinking everything will be cricket shouldn’t get you killed,” Bushell said.
“No, it shouldn’t - but sometimes it will.” Stanley sounded very much like a veteran sergeant talking with a young lieutenant after his first action. “If everything were cricket all the time, there’d be no work for the likes of you and me.”
“He should have stayed behind his desk,” Bushell said. “He knew what he was doing there.”
“The Two Georges should have stayed on the wall in the governor’s mansion,” Stanley said. Bushell grimaced, then nodded.
Lieutenant Commander Edward Woodbridge got out of the larger of the two boats his sailors had rowed from the Grampus to the shore. Nodding to Bushell, he said, “Good morning - no, excuse me, good afternoon, Colonel. I trust you have the villains in captivity?”
Bushell gestured wordlessly. The Navy man followed him to what had been the Buckley Bay town square. The oarsmen tagged along after them. There, faces covered by rain capes, lay Felix Crooke, the three dead Sons of Liberty, and the two dead Royal Marines. With them were the wounded prisoner and the four wounded Marines.
Woodbridge stared in disbelief at the carnage. Before he could speak, one of the sailors behind him burst out, “Lor’ love a duck, wot the bleedin’ ‘ell ‘appened ‘ere?”
“Silence, Montague!” Woodbridge snapped automatically. But he said nothing more after that: Montague’s question was the only one that made sense. Bushell himself was damned if he could see how better to phrase it.
As baldly as if he were dictating an after-action report - something he would have to do all too soon - he described the morning’s events for Woodbridge. When he was through, he asked, “Could a boat have slipped out of Port Clements after the Grampus sailed, to warn these men here?”
“No, sir,” Woodbridge answered decisively. “Not possible. I’ve been on the wireless back to the port several times since we disembarked your party. No untoward action of any sort.”
“That makes sense, Chief, much as I hate to say it.” Samuel Stanley looked as unhappy as he sounded, but went on, “They wouldn’t have yelled out ‘Who are you?’ the way they did if they’d known what we were about.”
“You’re right, and I’m grasping at straws.” Bushell slammed a fist into his open palm. “It just - went wrong.” He turned away.
Lieutenant Commander Woodbridge said, “Let’s get everyone aboard ship. We’ll stow the prisoner in the brig and the other wounded in sick bay; we have a pharmacist’s mate who can tend to them there. Not that you haven’t done well with your first aid, I’m sure, but - “
Bushell nodded, cutting him off. “That would be splendid. Would you see to it?” He started to walk away, to be alone again, but duty pulled him back and made him ask, “When we get back to Port Clements, have you a telephone there I might use?”
“Certainly, Colonel,” Woodbridge answered. “Would you care to wireless a message ahead, so one of my men might relay it for you?”
After a moment’s thought, Bushell shook his head. “No, I’ll tell the RAMs myself. I know the details.”