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Back Voyage of the Sparrowhawk Save as PDF
Chapters (47)
  1. Cover
  2. PROLOGUE
  3. PROLOGUE
  4. PART I
  5. Chapter One
  6. Chapter Two
  7. Chapter Three
  8. Chapter Four
  9. Chapter Five
  10. Chapter Six
  11. Chapter Seven
  12. Chapter Eight
  13. Chapter Nine
  14. Chapter Ten
  15. PART II
  16. Chapter Eleven
  17. Chapter Twelve
  18. Chapter Thirteen
  19. Chapter Fourteen
  20. Chapter Fifteen
  21. Chapter Sixteen
  22. Chapter Seventeen
  23. Chapter Eighteen
  24. Chapter Nineteen
  25. Chapter Twenty
  26. Chapter Twenty-One
  27. PART III
  28. Chapter Twenty-Two
  29. Chapter Twenty-Three
  30. Chapter Twenty-Four
  31. Chapter Twenty-Five
  32. Chapter Twenty-Six
  33. PART IV
  34. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  35. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  36. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  37. Chapter Thirty
  38. Chapter Thirty-One
  39. Chapter Thirty-Two
  40. Chapter Thirty-Three
  41. Chapter Thirty-Four
  42. PART V
  43. Chapter Thirty-Five
  44. Chapter Thirty-Six
  45. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  46. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  47. EPILOGUE

“It’s terrible,” Ben replied honestly. “And with the clothes as well … you look like a boy who’s escaped from a workhouse.”

“Good!” Lotti smiled faintly. “That means no one will recognize me. Maybe I’ll call myself Charlie.”

Another pause, then, “Where shall I put my things?”

“I made up Sam’s berth for you,” said Ben. Then, thinking how cramped the Sparrowhawk must seem compared to Barton Lacey, “I mean, unless you’d rather have the workshop …”

“No!” Lotti knew what Nathan’s workshop meant to Ben. “It will be fun to share the cabin. And don’t worry. I will keep it absolutely shipshape! I’ll be so tidy and quiet you won’t even know I’m here!”

Ben snorted. “You! Tidy and quiet!” and just like that, the awkwardness was gone.

How many times had Lotti seen the Sparrowhawk’s cabin! Yet now that it was to be her home she drank in every little detail as if it were new, determined to love it with all her heart—the paintings of the birds and the little cat, the clever hooks and shelves, the curved candle sconces and the pot-bellied stove. She unpacked the food in the galley, then swung her rucksack onto Sam’s berth and climbed after it to put away her things in the drawer at the foot of the mattress. When she had finished, she spread Mama’s shawl over the covers.

“This is it,” she told the little kingfisher by her pillow. “No more doing what other people say. This is where it starts.”

They sat in the cabin to wait for midnight. When it was time, all four runaways went up to the rear deck. Ben took a deep breath to steady his nerves and asked Lotti to untie the moorings. Then, with the engine low, he steered the Sparrowhawk away from the bank.

A soldier sheltering for the night under the arches of the railway bridge gave a sleepy wave as she passed.

Other than him, nobody saw her go.

PART II

Chapter Eleven

Lotti learned to pilot the Sparrowhawk by the light of the moon on the deserted waters of the sleeping canal. It was Ben’s idea, to relieve the tension which gripped them both in those first few hours, when neither of them could quite believe that some unforeseen enemy was not already on their tail. Lessons focused the mind.