Paladin's War Read online

  Book Three

  The Adventures of Jonathan Moore

  Paladin’s War

  by

  Peter Greene

  The Adventures of Jonathan Moore, Book 1:

  Warship Poseidon

  2012 winner of the Adventure Writer’s Competition, Clive Cussler as finalist judge.

  2015 winner of the Independent Author Network’s Book of the Year Award for Action Adventure

  2015 Finalist in the Independent Author Network’s Book of the Year Award in both First Novel and Historical Novel categories.

  “A robust story of a young lad in the British navy during the Nelson years. A thorough insight and beautiful portrait of those days under windblown sails and the creak of wooden hulls. Peter Greene has created a story that shines from every page. An excellent book. He truly nails an insight of nineteenth-century sailing ships and their crews.”

  —Clive Cussler, best-selling author of Poseidon’s Arrow

  and Raise the Titanic

  “A heartwarming tale of a boy essentially orphaned in search of his father, Warship Poseidon never ceases to entertain. Greene’s swashbuckling tale of high-seas adventure is pure, uncomplicated fun!”

  —Kirkus Reviews, www.kirkusreviews.com

  “Equal parts saltwater and page-turning fun, Warship Poseidon is heir to traditions of Rudyard Kipling and Robert Louis Stephenson. Young adult adventure has a new master, and his name is Peter Greene.”

  —Jeff Edwards, The Seventh Angel and Sword of Shiva

  The Adventures of Jonathan Moore, Book 2:

  Castle of Fire

  2015 Finalist Action/Adventure

  “Chock-full of adventurous fun…Greene seamlessly weaves together several dynamic storylines, creating a rich, complex world for readers to enjoy. It’s driven by an eclectic, well-drawn cast of characters… Jonathan, Delain, and quirky best friend Sean Flagon, form a wonderful trio whose escapades will leave readers hooked. A spirited tale of high-seas adventure that will leave readers both young and old anxiously waiting for more!

  —Kirkus Reviews, www.kirkusreview.com

  The Adventures of Jonathan Moore Series

  Book 1: Warship Poseidon

  Book 2: Castle of Fire

  Book 3: Paladin’s War

  The Adventures of Jonathan Moore:

  Paladin’s War

  K9

  Copyright 2018 by Peter C. Greene

  Cover by Sven Gillhoolie

  All artwork and content of this book is the sole property of the author. For information about permission to reproduce selections or artwork from this book, or for other requests, please write to:

  Sven Gillhoolie Publishing

  15418 N Castillo Drive

  Fountain Hills, Arizona, USA 85268

  ISBN-13 978-1-387-48761-5

  Jonathan Moore Books and Sven Gillhoolie Enterprises are registered trademarks of Peter C. Greene. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Author’s note: This book has been written so that it can be easily read aloud, with dialogue direction pertaining to who is speaking. This will make reading aloud more enjoyable for all parties. Also, chapters have suggested breaks approximately halfway through marked by a series of asterisks:

  * * * * *

  This makes it easy to stop at a sensible point and then continue the story the next day.

  To purchase and learn more about Jonathan Moore adventure books, and to join the crew, please visit:

  www.ajmbooks.com or www.paladinswar.com

  Chapters

  The Lost Echo

  Ice Cream

  Paladin’s Race

  The Silver Star

  The Treaty of Akbar

  Simply Lieutenant Gray

  A Change of Orders

  Two Plots

  The Bow Chaser

  Black Riders and Tea

  The Echo Returns

  The Bridge at Wapping

  The Cove at Telašćica

  Two Letters

  A Charming Scar

  Abduction

  Cursed Captains

  The Viscount of Zadar

  Interrogation

  Flotsam and Jetsam

  Southcott’s Twin

  Snakes and Guttersnipes

  The Kérata Vátrachos Gunfight

  Turning a Spy

  The Sea of Marmara

  The Hunt

  The Torpedo Kérata

  The Black Sea

  The Hunted

  Mutiny and Pity

  Paladin’s Fate

  Justice and Reward

  Acknowledgments

  To my teachers:

  Jane Beem

  Dorn Kennison

  Jo Ann Fox

  Mike Aguilar

  Steve Brown

  I would literally and creatively be nowhere without your influence.

  Book Three

  The Adventures of Jonathan Moore

  Paladin’s War

  The Lost Echo

  Only stars and the faint glow of a cloud-veiled moon lit the way of the eighteen-gun, one-hundred-foot brig-rigged sloop HMS Echo. She seemed to float on the milky mist that rolled along the western edge of the island called Dugi Otok. Sailing under only topsails, not even the fluttering of canvas could be heard as the ship slipped through the calm water. Craggy and ashen cliff walls lined the coast and stretched over one hundred feet into the night sky as gentle waves lapped at their sides. Along the silent coast, no other ship was in sight, no people walking in this late hour, no fishermen readying nets—not even a single gull crying in the dark. There was only the sound of soft surf and at times a lonesome sigh from a slight breeze slipping through the rocks and scrub bushes of this desolate corner of the world.

  To some persons in another place, the night may have seemed peaceful and calming; however, it was anything but that to the newly appointed British captain, Commander Joshua Gray. Standing at the wheel alongside his sailing master, he looked in all directions—for what, he did not know.

  Formerly second-in-command of the fighting seventy-four-gun HMS Trident, Gray had only been commander of the Echo for the few weeks it took to execute his current mission, one that had him uneasy from its beginnings.

  “Deep water,” said Lieutenant Hayes calmly from the bow. There was no need to call out loud as was usually the proper procedure. Commander Gray had ordered all to be as silent as mice once the ship had reached just three hundred yards offshore. One could have heard a pin drop.

  “Any sign of the inlet, Mister Hayes?” asked the commander, knowing full well the answer. Little could be seen through the darkness and fog, unless a breeze swept in and parted the veil of clouds for a brief moment, allowing a shaft of moonlight to reveal the rugged shoreline.

  “Nothing, sir,” answered Hayes softly.

  The Echo continued on in silence, the crew searching the swirling mist for a sign or watching the black ocean for submerged reefs or sandbars. The stars were obscured most of the time; the moon continued to offer only the least assistance.

  The odd nature of the mission had Gray on edge. On the second of March, he sailed from Chatham, and, much to his liking, the core of officers was solid and reliable, with a dependable senior crew. However, as was usually the case with His Majesty’s Navy, he employed a less-than-adequate compliment of experienced seamen. Some new hands had professed that they had sailed for years on merchant vessels, but these were few. That left the fulfillment of the crew to the dreaded press gangs—thugs, basically—hired by the Impress Service of the Admiralty to comb the streets and alleys of port towns, the corner pubs, and, as rumor would have it, even jails, to acquire the needed sailors. Their methods were more ofte
n than not brutal and entirely unfair. Old men, men with families, boys, and anyone in between, if in an unfortunate place at an inopportune time, could be targeted and taken against their will, then forced to work aboard any of over a thousand British warships. This was a sanctioned procedure protected by law, and because of this practice, many of the newly assigned sailors were not exactly pleased about their sudden career change.

  Gray watched several of these pressed men at the bow. They were ordered to observe the shoreline; however, some were not. Instead they were standing close together, talking among themselves.

  “Styles! Ryder! Evans!” called Gray with some irritation. “Eyes on the shore!”

  The men grimaced and slowly turned to their duty.

  I will have to deal with them after this exchange is over, thought Gray. A commander needs to retain a firm hand to sustain order. Some form of punishment will have to be administered.

  His original mission was to deliver mail to the naval station at Gibraltar, the British-controlled port that regulated access to all ships from the Atlantic as they traveled into the Mediterranean and the many waters to the east. This was a simple mission and very common for a “packet,” such as the Echo—a fast ship second only to one other. She was not used as a fighting platform primarily but as a communications vessel that delivered mail and official orders for ships at sea.

  The Echo had seen action, it was true, and Gray had seen her running fast with the wind to attack a French seventy-four in a multiship action on the seas south of the tip of Africa. The Echo performed with distinction, as did the other ships of His Majesty’s Navy, in what was now known as The Battle of Fire, as it was fought in the channel just south of the Castelo de Fogo. At that time, Gray was aboard the Trident as first lieutenant under the capable command of Captain Jeremy Langley. There, aboard that ship, all was by the book, and nothing was ever out of the ordinary.

  What was uncommon and suspicious about his new command was the literally last-minute change in his orders that had brought him past Gibraltar and deep into the Adriatic Sea east of Italy, to the maze of stone islands off the coast of Austrian-ruled Dalmatia. He was allowed to ask no questions, and no clarification was given—just the directive to proceed to the western coast of the island named Dugi Otok, just north of the small fishing village of Telašćica. There, he was to search northward and find an inlet described in his written orders as “a cove guarded by two gnarled pines, one with a dangling rope.” Once located, he was to meet a party identifying himself by using the coded phrase “I am Volpone,” and he was to reply, “And I am not.”

  The orders further dictated that he perform a prisoner exchange. The man he had transported, one Nikomed Aggar, was to be exchanged for an unnamed British subject of great importance to the Crown.

  En route to their destination, the Echo had favorable winds, at times making fifteen knots as she traveled south past France and Portugal, then east past Gibraltar Station and continuing into the Mediterranean. The voyage to the eastern portion of the Adriatic Sea was completed in just twelve days. Speed was the weapon of the Echo, and accordingly, she was able to avoid any entanglements with French and Spanish warships with ease. There was rumor of a peace, a treaty being discussed in Amiens, France, and though not officially in effect, tensions had been somewhat eased.

  The Echo continued along the coast of Dugi Otok slowly and steadily. All hands on deck and all officers searched the bank of dark haze, straining to see anything that resembled an inlet to a small bay flanked by two trees. At times Gray would look away to the open sea behind, suspecting something amiss, some threat.

  “This is surely disquieting,” he whispered to his sailing master.

  “Yes sir, ’tis that,” came the reply from Geoffrey Spencer. He was an experienced master, having sailed around the world at least twice. Spencer had been assigned to the famous HMS Victory as an assistant sailing master at one time, and he was a welcome addition to the crew of the small packet.

  Gray strained to see through the night. Blast this fog! he thought. I’ve a mind to call off this entire operation and return to London. I just don’t—

  “A tree, sir!” came a slightly elevated cry. It was young Ike Williams, just eleven years old but an experienced mate. He had previously sailed aboard the Echo as loblolly boy, an assistant to the ship’s surgeon, however, the blood and gore became too much for him. Now a deckhand—and one with superb eyesight—he was positioned in the crow’s nest, and had spotted the first landmark. “And another tree…with a rope!” he added.

  “Drop the bow anchor,” called Gray calmly, though he was anything but calm inside. “Adams! Cardew! Reef the topsails.”

  As the men in the tops took in canvas to slow the ship, the crew on deck seemed to lean to the starboard side and strain their eyes to peer into, and hopefully through, the drifting fog.

  “Back to your duty, men,” Gray said calmly, more a reminder than an admonishment. He patted Spencer on the shoulder, then strode to the bow as the anchor silently dropped into the shallows. Within seconds, the slow-moving ship ceased its forward motion, though with a turn of the wheel from Spencer, the stern began swinging away from the coast. Another anchor was poised to deploy from the stern hawser, crew at the ready, looking toward Gray for the order. Within a moment, when the Echo was almost perpendicular to the coastline, Gray commanded the crew to drop the stern anchor.

  “Slowly, men,” Gray whispered.

  The anchor dropped silently into the sea and within a few seconds had hit bottom. The hawser was immediately lashed tight, holding the ship in place. The Echo now pointed bow first, directly toward the inlet.

  Still uneasy, Gray surveyed the surroundings. It was impossible to see anything moving on earth or sea; however, he searched still, looking for a lantern, a signal fire, a soul waving arms, or just to hear the call of the code phrase. There was no sound and only the bleak fog occasionally rolling just enough to give a glimpse of the shore. Again he caught sight of the tall, barren rock walls and now saw the opening that formed the entrance to the inlet.

  His orders had stated that once the inlet was discovered, he was to proceed directly in, not with any of his smaller boats that were secured to the deck of the ship, but with the Echo itself.

  “Mister Hayes, bring the prisoner to the deck, and have Wilson and Sherland lower the boat over the starboard side,” Gray said softly but firmly. “Spencer, captain the jolly boat.”

  “Beg your pardon, Commander,” whispered Hayes cautiously as Spencer left his post and proceeded to the rail. “I understood there was to be no boat until we were inside the bay. Sir.”

  “Yes, that is what the orders state. Nevertheless, call me an old lady or a prissy young girl, but I am still suspicious of this entire affair.” He paused for a moment, wondering if he was making the correct decision. This was, for all practical reasons, a simple exchange, and they would be on their way. However, why would a ship as famous and decorated as the Echo be used for such a mundane task? It was this portion of the operation that was perplexing.

  “Discretion is the better part of valor, Mister Hayes,” Gray said. “After we determine that the bay is safe, we will proceed inward with the Echo. Let us allow Spencer to explore a bit.

  “Aye, sir,” Hayes said as he went belowdecks to retrieve the prisoner, Aggar.

  The largest of the boats the Echo carried, the jolly boat, was freed from the deck and raised over the side. Once lowered into the water, it was filled with Mister Spencer and fifteen men who all entered quietly and began rowing toward the shore.

  “Spencer?” called Gray as the small boat slowly moved alongside.

  “Aye, Cap’n?”

  “Silently. Take a good look and see what you can see. I don’t like this at all. Eyes and ears.”

  “Yes, sir,” Spencer replied.

  Within minutes, with only the sound of the oars dipping into and out of the water to mark their passage, the boat and its crew disappeared into the mist.
>
  Gray remained on edge, his stomach in a sour knot as he waited. He eyed the point where the jolly boat had disappeared into the fog and turned about often, watching astern. He scanned the deck, noticing the few marines, guns at the ready.

  “Here he is, Cap’n. As ordered,” announced Hayes upon his return.

  Gray turned to consider the prisoner.

  Aggar was a dark-haired man, maybe in his later thirties, but he looked as if life had tested him physically. He seemed slightly ragged, more so than just any common criminal who spent time in captivity. Gray could see that in his eyes were many sleepless nights, and he was thin from lack of a proper diet. The commander had little to do with Aggar since he came aboard, just asking the crew if the man was fed, if he was behaving himself, and if he was seemingly in good health.

  “Did you remove his manacles, Mister Hayes?” asked the commander, noticing the restraints were absent.

  “They were already off when I retrieved him from below, sir.”

  “Come again?” asked Gray, slightly agitated that a prisoner had been left unrestrained aboard his ship.

  “A ca-rew-mon did this,” said Aggar in his heavy, Slavic accent.

  “A crewman? Which one?” asked Gray, but Aggar only shrugged.

  “The boat, Cap’n!” called Williams softly from the top. “She’s returning!”

  Gray shook his head as he moved toward the port rail. “Keep an eye on our friend, Mister Hayes.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Hayes, embarrassed that somehow, some crewman had removed the restraints from the prisoner, and surely the commander thought Hayes might be that person. It was hard to please any captain, and the fact that Gray was one of the more amiable ones with somewhat more humane standards for managing a crew meant that no officer or hand wanted to fall from his good graces.