Phillipe had been walking with Reynaud in the rear; he came forward to halt beside Caleb. “Time to take a break.” Phillipe pointed through the trees. “There’s a clearing over there.”
Caleb fell in behind his friend, and their men fell in behind him. They trudged ten yards farther along; the track remained well marked by the tramp of many feet. The clearing Phillipe had noted opened to the left of the path. Their company shuffled into it. After divesting themselves of seabags, packs, and weapons, they sprawled on the leaves or sat on fallen logs, stretching out their legs before hauling out water skins and drinking.
Luckily, water was one necessity the jungle provided in abundance. They’d also found edible fruits and nuts and carried enough dried meat in their packs to last for more than a week. If not for the stifling atmosphere, the trek would have been pleasant enough.
Phillipe lowered himself to sit beside Caleb on a fallen log. With a tip of his head, he indicated the jungle on the other side of the path. “We’ve been angling along the side of these foothills for the last hour. The path’s still climbing. I’ve been thinking that, following the inestimable Miss Hopkins’s reasoning, the mine can’t be much farther. The children who were taken—certainly the younger ones—would be dragging their feet by now.”
Caleb swallowed a mouthful of water, then nodded. “I keep wondering if we’ve missed a concealed turn-off, but the traffic on the path is as heavy as ever, and it’s still going in the same direction.”
They’d been speaking quietly, and their men had, too, but Phillipe glanced around and murmured, “I think, perhaps, that when we go on, we should keep talking to a minimum.”
Caleb restoppered his water skin. “At least until we’ve found the mine. The jungle’s so much thicker here, we could turn a corner and find ourselves there. We don’t want to advertise our presence, and we definitely don’t want to engage.”
Phillipe’s long lips quirked wryly. “No matter how much we might wish otherwise.”
Caleb grunted and pushed to his feet. Phillipe followed suit, and three minutes later, their party set off again, tramping rather more quietly through the increasingly dense jungle.
Fifteen minutes later, their caution proved critical. Caleb caught a fleeting glimpse of something pale flitting about a clearing ahead and off the path to their right. Phillipe was in the lead. His eyes glued to the shifting gleam, Caleb seized his friend’s arm and halted. Their men noticed and froze.
Phillipe shifted to stand alongside Caleb, the better to follow his gaze. The intervening boles and large-leaved palms made following anyone’s line of sight difficult.
Caleb couldn’t work out what he was seeing—a gleam of gold, a flash of...what?
Then the object of his gaze moved, and Caleb finally had a clear view. “It’s a boy,” he breathed. “A golden-haired, fair-skinned boy in ragged clothes.”
“He’s picking those berries,” Phillipe whispered. After a moment, he added, “What do you want to do?”
Caleb scanned the area. “As far as I can tell, he’s alone. I can’t see anyone else, can you?”
“No. And I can’t hear anyone else, either.”
“If we all appear, he’ll take fright and run.” Caleb considered, then shrugged off the pack he’d been carrying and handed it to Phillipe. “Keep everyone here until I signal.”
Accepting the pack, Phillipe nodded.
Caleb made his way quietly toward the boy, dodging around trees and taking care not to alert his quarry. The lad looked to be about eight, but woefully thin—all knees and elbows. He was wearing a tattered pair of dun-colored shorts and a loose tunic of the same coarse material. It had been the bright cap of his fair hair, gleaming as the boy passed through the stray sunbeams that struck through the thick canopy, that had attracted Caleb’s attention.
The boy was circling a vine that had grown into a clump, almost filling one of the small clearings created when a large tree had fallen. The bushy vine bore plump, dark red berries that Caleb and his company had already discovered were edible and sweet. His attention fixed on his task, the boy steadily plucked berries and dropped them into a woven basket.
Despite the boy’s bare feet, the basket suggested he hailed from a group of some kind; from the features Caleb glimpsed as the boy moved about the bush, the lad was almost certainly English.
He had to be from the mine.
Caleb reached the edge of the clearing. He hesitated, then said, “Don’t be afraid—please don’t run away.”
The boy jerked and whipped around. He grabbed up the basket, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the handle.
His blue eyes wide, the boy stared at Caleb.
Caleb didn’t move other than to slowly display his hands, palms open and clearly empty, out to either side.
The boy was poised to flee.
If he did, Caleb doubted he could catch him, not in this terrain. “I’ve been sent to look for people—English people kidnapped from Freetown.” He spoke slowly, clearly, evenly. “We think they’re being used as labor for a mine. We’re searching for the mine.” He paused, then asked, “Do you know where the mine is?”
When the boy didn’t respond, Caleb remembered that the mine was conjecture and rephrased, “Do you know where the people are?”
The boy moistened his lips. “Who are you?”
He wasn’t going to run—at least, not yet. Caleb was usually relaxed with children, happy to play with them, to join in their games. When convincing children of anything, he knew the literal truth was usually advisable; they always seemed to sense prevarication. “I’ve come from London. People have been searching for those kidnapped, but we’ve had to do it bit by bit—carefully. To make sure the bad people who are behind the kidnapping don’t get wind of us coming to help.” And kill all the kidnapees. He stopped short of voicing that truth.
The boy was still staring at him, but now he was studying him, his gaze flitting from Caleb’s face over his clothes, his sword, his boots.
“I’m going to crouch down.” Moving slowly, Caleb did. If he’d stepped closer to the boy, he would have towered over him—too intimidating. And laying hands on the lad from a crouch would be that much harder.
Sure enough, as Caleb settled on his haunches, the boy noticeably relaxed. But his gaze remained sharp; although he constantly glanced back at Caleb, watching for any threat, he started scanning the shadows behind Caleb. “There are more of you, aren’t there?”
“Yes. I asked them to stay back so we didn’t frighten you.” Caleb paused, then offered, “There are twenty-four more men back on the path.”
The boy blinked at him. “So there’s twenty-five of you all together. All armed?”
Caleb nodded.
The boy frowned; he seemed to have lost his fear of Caleb. After a long moment of calculation, the boy shook his head. “That’s not going to be enough.” He met Caleb’s gaze. “There’s more mercenaries than that at the mine, and they’re all fearsome fighters.”
So there is a mine. And it is nearby. Caleb tamped down his elation. “We’re not the rescue party. We’re the advance scouts. Our mission”—and he could almost hear his eldest brother, Royd, groaning over him telling a boy, a young boy he didn’t know anything about, such details—“is to locate the mining camp and send word of it back to London. Then the rescue party will be dispatched, and they will have the numbers to put paid to the mercenaries.”
The boy studied Caleb’s face, searching his eyes as if to determine whether he spoke the truth—then the lad smiled gloriously. “Cor—they’re never going to believe me when I tell ’em, but the others are going to be in alt! We’ve been waiting ever so long for anyone to come.”
The excitement in his voice was infectious, but... Caleb waved both hands in a “keep it quiet” gesture. “Before you tell anyone, you need to remember
that our mission must remain secret. The mercenaries at the mine must not learn that we’re here.” Caleb locked his gaze on the boy’s eyes. “If the mercenaries realize rescue is coming, it could be very dangerous for all the people kidnapped.”
The boy’s delight faded, but after a second, he nodded. “All right.” He looked at Caleb, then glanced out into the jungle again. “So what’re you going to do now you’ve found us?”
“I’m hoping you can take us closer to the mine—to some place from where we can see it but not be seen ourselves. Can you do that?”
“’Course!”
“But before we get to that, I want to hear what you can tell me—us—about the mine and the encampment.” Caleb swiveled and glanced behind him, then looked at the boy. “What’s your name?”
“Diccon.”
“I’m Caleb. And if it’s all right with you, Diccon, I’d like to call my men closer, so we can all hear what you say.”
Diccon nodded.
Caleb rose—slowly—and beckoned his men to join them. They tramped through the jungle following the route he’d taken, leaving as little evidence of their passing as possible. Each man nodded at Diccon as they reached the clearing. They all sidled in, trying not to crowd Diccon despite the limited space. Several hunkered down, including Phillipe.
Caleb did, too, again bringing his face more level with Diccon’s. “Right, then. This mine—does it have a fence around it?”
That was all he had to ask to have Diccon launch into a remarkably clear and detailed description of the camp—more like a compound—that surrounded the entrance to the mine. Crude but effective outer walls, with huts for various purposes. Mention of a medical hut had Caleb and Phillipe exchanging surprised glances.
Diccon’s description wound to a close; he’d mentally walked in via the gate, then taken them on a clockwise tour describing every building they would pass.
“That’s extremely helpful,” Caleb said, and meant it. “Now—how many mercenaries are there?”
“Hmm.” Diccon’s features scrunched up. He had set down his basket, and from the way his fingers moved, he was counting. Then his face cleared. “There be twenty-four there right now, plus Dubois, and six are off taking the latest batch of diamonds to the coast for pickup.”
Caleb blinked. “So it’s definitely diamonds they’re mining.”
“Aye,” Diccon said. “Thought you knew that.”
“We’d guessed it, but until now, we couldn’t be certain.” Caleb tilted his head. “You said the mercenaries take the diamonds to the coast for pickup—not Freetown?”
“Nuh-uh. At least, we—all of us in the compound—don’t think so. Far as we’ve been able to make out, they take the strongbox toward the settlement, but the pickup is somewhere on the estuary, see? That way, no one in Freetown knows.”
Phillipe shifted, drawing Diccon’s attention. “The six who’ve gone to the coast—do they go and return via that path?” He pointed at the path they’d been following, which lay not that far away through the palms.
A pertinent point. Caleb looked at Diccon—and was relieved to see the boy shake his head.
“That path just goes to Kale’s camp.” Diccon’s eyes grew flat, and his expression shuttered. “You don’t want to go that way.”
“Kale’s not there anymore,” Caleb said. “He’s...left. Along with all his men.”
“Yeah?” Diccon studied Caleb’s face, then his eyes grew round as the implication registered.
Before he could ask the eager questions clearly bubbling on his tongue, Phillipe intervened. “Which route do the mercenaries take to the coast, then?”
“There’s another path—well, there’s several leave the compound. One goes to the lake where we get our water, and there’s this one, where all of us came in from. Then there’s another that divides into two not far from the gate. Those who go to drop off the diamonds take the northwest branch, and we reckon it also eventually leads to Freetown. They could get to Freetown through Kale’s camp, but Dubois—he’s the leader—he mostly sends his men to get ordinary things like food and stuff that we know must come from Freetown when they go to drop off the diamonds.”
Caleb nodded, a map taking shape in his brain. “You said that path divides into two—where does the other branch go?”
“Far as we know, it leads dead north. We think there’s nothing but jungle that way, all the way to the coast.” Diccon paused, then added, “Maybe some natives. There’s a chief that owns this land, see, and Dubois pays him to let the mine be. We think he—the chief—lives that way. That’s why the track’s there, but no one from the mine uses it.”
Phillipe caught Caleb’s eye. Caleb nodded fractionally. That little-used path sounded like the one they should fall back along. He refocused on Diccon. “Tell us more about the mercenaries.”
“Well, like I said, there’s thirty of them all up, including the cook and his helper, who are just as fierce as the others. And there’s Dubois. He’s in charge, and they all mind him. He has two...lieutenants, I suppose you’d say. Arsene—he’s Dubois’s second-in-command—and Cripps is the other. The mercenaries are all big and tough, and they carry swords, lots of knives, and some have pistols. The ones on the tower and the gates have muskets.”
Caleb slowly nodded. Direct observation would be best. But first... “How is it you’re allowed out by yourself? You are by yourself, aren’t you?”
Diccon’s face fell. “Aye. I’m no good in the mine, see. I just cough and cough. Dubois, he was going to kill me—he said I was useless, and he wasn’t going to waste food feeding me. But Miss Katherine spoke up for me.” Diccon straightened. “She said I wasn’t useless and that I could help fetch fruit and berries, and nuts, too, so that the cook could properly feed all us children. And the adults, too. She said that way, we’d all stay healthy and work better—and Dubois went fer it.”
Consulting his mental list of the females kidnapped, Caleb asked, “Miss Katherine—is she Miss Fortescue?”
“Aye. That’s her. But all us children call her Miss Katherine. She’s in charge of us.”
And was clearly a lioness if she’d spoken up and saved Diccon.
Diccon heaved a disconsolate sigh. “I wish I could run away, but Dubois said that if’n I ain’t back by sundown every day, he’ll kill two of me mates.” The boy’s face paled. “So I don’t even dare be late back. He’s a devil, Dubois is.”
“You believe him?” Phillipe asked the question gently.
Diccon looked him in the eye. “We all believe Dubois’s threats. Even Mr. Hillsythe. He says Dubois is one of those villains who enjoys killing, and that we none of us should ever doubt he’ll do exactly what he says.”
Caleb caught Phillipe’s eye. Hillsythe was Wolverstone’s man. If that was his assessment of Dubois, they’d be well advised to pay it due heed. “All right.” Caleb returned his gaze to Diccon. “I think it’s time we took a look at this camp—but first...” As he rose, he glanced at the assembled men, then he looked back at Diccon. “We need to find a place to camp that’s close enough to the mine for us to keep watch and study it, but far enough away that no one from the camp is likely to stumble across us. I thought perhaps somewhere along that path to the north—the one no one uses.”
Diccon nodded. “I know just the place. There’s a good-sized clearing a little way down that track.”
Caleb laid a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Can we get to it without going closer to the camp?”
“O’ course—I can lead you.” Diccon’s happy grin returned, and he swiped up his basket. “I know all the places round about. I can go where I like around the camp, and the berries and fruit and nut trees grow everywhere.”
“Is it likely anyone from the camp might hear us?” Phillipe asked.
“Nah.” As Caleb let his hand fall from D
iccon’s shoulder, the boy turned and beckoned. “We’re still well out, and the trees and leaves and all keep sound in. You often can’t hear someone until they’re quite close.”
Caleb signaled to his men to follow and, with Phillipe on his heels, fell in behind Diccon.
When they reached the path from Kale’s camp, Diccon beckoned them onward. “I’ll take you through the jungle and around until we hit the other path.”
He proved as good as his word, leading them unerringly on a tacking course around jungle trees and more dense pockets of vegetation. He waved them to caution as they approached another path. When Caleb put a hand on Diccon’s shoulder and leaned down to breathe in his ear “What?” the boy tipped his head back and whispered, “This is the northwest path they use to drop off the diamonds and go to Freetown. I don’t think they’ll be on their way back yet, but...”
Caleb released his shoulder with a pat. “Good lad. Always play safe.”
They crept to the edge of the path and strained their ears, but heard nothing. Swiftly, they crossed over the beaten track and plunged back into the jungle. Ten yards on, Caleb glanced back and could see nothing but jungle foliage. Finding a guide had been a stroke of luck. Without Diccon to lead them, they would have been stumbling around—very possibly into the mercenaries’ clutches.
But Fate had smiled and sent the boy to them.
When they came upon the next path, Diccon walked confidently on to it. “That place I told you about—the nice clearing—is just along here.” He led them down what was clearly a very much less well-traveled track. There were small saplings springing up, and vines laced across the path. Phillipe muttered, then told the men to work on keeping their passing as undetectable as possible. So they avoided the saplings and ducked under the vines, all of which Diccon whisked light-footed around.
Then he turned off the path onto a narrow animal track. Fifteen yards on, it descended into a clearing that—as Diccon had promised—was perfect for their needs. Big enough to comfortably house all of them and with a tiny stream trickling past on one side.