Captain Minnow's Christmas
Part Two

At last it seemed that midnight was approaching and he left her to duck out from under the heavy branches of their shelter and squint at his pocket watch.

“Sally,” he said quietly over his shoulder, “it’s time.”

Starlight and the sliver of moon provided just enough light for them to see what they were about.  Edward pulled the canvas bag from underneath the trees and opened it to show her its contents.

She grinned up at him mischievously.  “Canny,” she told him in an approving murmur.  “Ye’re canny, bonny, and braw, as my da would say.  Shall we lay them out across the clearing, then?”

“You’ll help?” He had not wanted to ask, but the two of them working together could have everything prepared in less than twenty minutes.

“What do you take me for, Ned?” she whispered fiercely. Cold air and activity had snapped him out of the reverie he had experienced while holding her in his arms, but he had thought she was warming to him.  Ah, well.

“Canny, bonny, and braw,” he said dryly.  “I would be grateful for your help.  But I must ask you to do this my way -- no argument and no back chat.  Agreed?”

“Agreed,” she answered reluctantly.  Edward was already striding off with his sack, signaling his confidence that her answer was never in doubt.  She bit her tongue to keep from swearing at his back.

He explained the matter before them and they began together at the crown of the knoll, working in opposite directions.  They spaced each item carefully, separating the two long rows by several yards.  When she had pushed the last stake into the crusty snow, Sally turned and walked back to where they had begun. She found Edward holding a tinder box in one hand while he scrabbled among its contents.

She pulled his fingers aside, gingerly, but he did not protest; instead he watched carefully as she quickly folded a square of charred cloth and held it on top of the flint.  One downward strike of the steel and a spark fizzed onto the cloth, creating a red dot that soon began to glow like a fairy ring.  Sally waved the cloth in the air to create a tiny flame and handed it to him along with more charred cloth.  She made a second tinder for herself and then he caught her eye and nodded once, briskly.  They each bent to light a fuse, working with deliberate speed outward along the rows they had made.

More fizzing and hissing and then, as she was half way down her row, Sally straightened to watch two roman candles shoot their brilliant sparks high into the night sky.  Two more burst forth, nearly in unison, then two more.  She turned back to her task, working outward along the first row, then along the next, back toward the knoll’s center.

The sky was filled with their handiwork -- tall plumes of golden sparks from the roman candles, trails of red from the rockets, showers of blue and silver from a few star shells.  Squibs exploded now and again amidst the whizzing of the larger pieces, apparently having been included just to add noise to the enterprise.  She had never smelled anything as heady as the acrid smoke, the mingled odors of gunpowder, sulphur and nitre.  Giddy with what they had done, she came upon Edward in the place where they had begun and threw her arms about him, laughing wildly.

Some fuses were longer than others so that the pyrotechnics continued, more randomly now.  He freed himself from her to pull out his spyglass and she stood close beside him, her face aglow beneath the canopy of light and smoke.  Across the black waters of Lake Champlain, the fort was swarming to chaotic life in his lens, dark figures running to-and-fro along the battlements.  Edward began to chuckle.  They looked like nothing so much as a nest of insects that had been disturbed by a curious boy with a stick.  

The noise dwindled and the night grew quiet again so that the occasional angry shout could be heard across the water.  He gave Sally the glass and she jumped up and down to see the general pandemonium and the little stick figures rushing about.

Someone on the ramparts would no doubt have a glass trained to the east, and Edward wondered if they could be seen as well – a double shadow against the pale snow.  He looked at Sally for a long moment, sure that his expression mirrored her own -- rapt, full of herself, aroused, reckless.  Then he leaned down to place his mouth next to her ear.  His warm breath made her shiver, but all he said was, “I fear we must be going.”

The return to the boat was uneventful-- for whatever reason, the Americans had done nothing to secure their opposite shore.  Edward scanned the western shore again with his glass.  Little was visible from this lower vantage point except the glow above the fort that told of fires stoked higher.  With luck, however, the enemy would at least believe in the possibility of an imminent attack, losing a great deal of sleep and any enjoyment of their Christmas goose.  If they were so fortunate as to have a goose.

Once deployed, the fireworks had been dispersed in mere moments, but oh what pleasure he had taken in planning that little surprise; how he would enjoy thinking of it tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.  Nor would he be sorry if Sergeant Ross spread the tale at Crown Point for it could not help but boost British morale to learn how the Yanks at Ticonderoga had been made to dance to the Royal Navy’s tune on Christmas Eve.

What was more, if he had not conceived the notion and gotten Jamie to send the fireworks down from Canada, if he had not followed through on such a daft idea, he never would have met Sally McLeod.   Like her, he would not have missed this for the world.

He sat facing the stern on the return trip, watching for any sign of activity from the direction of fort, but deeply aware of her strong, effortless motions as they slipped silently northward along the eastern shore.  He shivered, for his nerves had worn off, leaving him chilled to the bone.  He hunkered lower in the boat, lulled by the soft, rhythmic sound of the oars slicing through the water.

“It was well done, Ned,” Sally said softly after a while.  “Not Artemisium perhaps, but well done.”

“Artemisium?” he whispered dully.

“You know, battle of Artemisium, the Greek and Persian navies, 480 BC, scouts running around in rowboats . . . .”

“Yes, yes,” he retorted, all astonishment still.  “I am aware of the battle of  Artemisium, but --”

“You mean, how would an ignorant frontier chit know anything of classical history?”  She was thoroughly annoyed again, even though she had meant to provoke him.  She *wanted* him to know she wasn’t necessarily what she appeared to be.  She was more, she was different.  She was someone worthy of his attention.

“I was taught by the Ursulines in Quebec,” she told him.  “For seven long years after my mother died, until I finally convinced my father to let me leave.”

“You would rather live at Crown Point than a settled place like Quebec?”  His interest was piqued and he forgot about being cold.

She laughed and shook her head.  “Give up civilization, you mean?  Indeed I would.  I belong here.  I missed the woods and the water every day of those seven years.

“You would not think it to look at him now,” she said sadly, “but my da came from a good family in Scotland.  He had a good education himself.  He said he could not bear to see me growing up unlettered and untutored.”

“And you?” he asked.

“I’d rather have had my father and my home.  Though I’m not exactly sorry now.”

She was so ornery, he thought, that she was probably glad that she’d spent seven years with the nuns, just so she could make his jaw drop by citing Artemisium to him this one time.

“Could we stop for a moment?” he asked suddenly.  She beached the little boat without a word.  He only wanted to relieve himself and was grateful that she just let him walk a little way into the trees without question.

She must have taken the opportunity to do the same, since she was nowhere to be seen when he returned to the shore.  After a moment, he heard her footstep on the gravelly beach, quite nearby, and she bumped into him, her chest pressing against his back.  

Deliberately?  He could not be certain, but thought perhaps that was the case and turned slowly, keeping the contact until he was looking directly down into her roguish, upturned face.

“Are you cold again,” he inquired wryly, “or are you trying to provoke me?

Her hand snaked its way beneath his cloak, sliding across his waistcoat, grasping the cloth to pull him closer.  

“What do you think, Captain Minnow?”

There was nothing he could do to hide his physical response, which was instantaneous and pronounced.  He groaned softly, making her laugh, the vixen.

“I think you are well and truly provoked,” she went on, her other hand boldly brushing the front of his britches.  “And I think perhaps I have misnamed you after all, for that is no minnow you have there, is it?  More of a nice, slippery, jumping trout I should say.”

“Miss McLeod!” he exclaimed with equal parts shock and delight.  “And you a convent girl.”

She removed her hand with a sigh, turning toward the boat.  “There’s nothing wilder than a convent girl -- especially from a French convent. I’d have thought a sailor would know that.”

All he could think for the rest of the journey was how much he would like to show her what a sailor knew.  Not that he himself knew so very much, but perhaps a thing or two; and he could certainly make up in vigor whatever he might lack in knowledge.  What he did not know for  sure was whether she was toying with him or meant to provoke him to a particular end.  God, how he hoped it was the latter.

* * *

Sergeant Ross, that paragon, was on hand to greet them as they came ashore at Crown Point, tired but well-pleased with their success.  He watched as Mr. Pellew spoke quietly to Sally McLeod before striding up the beach.  It was past two of the clock.

“It’s gone four bells, sir,” he said primly to Pellew.

“Yes, thank you, Sergeant,” Edward replied, fully aware that the old reprobate was having a jab at him.

“Ye’ll be wanting your bed, sir, and there’s a fire lit in yer quarters already.  I can see Miss McLeod to her cabin.”

Edward was about to protest, but stopped to listen to what Ross was saying to Sally.

“Your da woke up an hour after you left, sober as a bishop.  He told me to tell ye he’s off to Chilson’s outpost ‘til Hogmanay.

“What?  But --”  Ross interrupted her protest.

“Ye’re tired, too, lass.  Come on, then, I’ll walk ye home.”  He looked over his shoulder at Edward.

“Best get your rest, sir,” said Ross, his tone annoyingly bright.  “Tomorrow’s another day, and I’ve a feelin’ ye’re goin’ ta need it.”


Go to Part 3