“You wanted to speak to me, Mrs. Hopkins?” Captain Wallis bowed politely.
She turned around with a smile. “Thank you for taking the time, Captain! I have an enormous request: Do you think you could find out if my husband is among the survivors on the island? He was in the western bastion at the time of the bombardment.” She dispensed with any explanation.
The captain nodded solicitously. “I will dispatch an officer to the Suffren at once and obtain information from the French staff of command. Do not despair, Mrs. Hopkins, we will soon know more. In the meantime, may I have a cup of tea brought to you? And if I may say so, the battlefield on the island is no sight for a lady.” He bowed and missed Sibylla’s grimace of irritation.
Two hours later, he returned, accompanied by a French naval officer. “May I present Lieutenant de Maillard, Mrs. Hopkins. He is the personal adjutant to Commander in Chief Joinville.”
She greeted him and asked, “Do you have news of my husband, Lieutenant? Is he on one of your ships?”
The young officer bowed. “I fear, madame, I’m not bearing good news. Your husband is not on any of our fifteen ships. He was neither among the prisoners of war nor any of the casualties.”
“So he is missing?”
“You might say so, madame,” Lieutenant de Maillard replied uneasily. “The fortifications on the island were utterly destroyed. The western bastion, where your husband was being held, is completely gutted . . .” He swallowed hard. “I am afraid, madame, you must prepare yourself for the worst.”
“That he is dead,” Sibylla whispered.
The captain and the officer both stepped forward to catch her should she collapse, but she raised her hand to stop them.
“Thank you, gentlemen, I shall manage.” She looked again at the smoldering ruins and back to the two men. “Is the destruction really so devastating? Could he not have survived somehow? Be buried under the rubble?”
De Maillard shook his head regretfully. “I am very sorry, madame, but it is very unlikely.”
“Unlikely or impossible? Please, Lieutenant, tell me the truth!”
The young officer helplessly glanced over to the captain, who shrugged his shoulders. “The western bastion was bombarded and was fully engulfed in flames. Even the iron mountings and artillery pieces melted in the heat. No one there could possibly have survived. We found only a few charred bones in the ashes.”
“Good God!” Sibylla put her hand over her mouth.
“My sincerest sympathy, madame.” Once more, the young officer bowed. Then, upon a signal from the captain, he withdrew.
Wallis motioned a sailor to get a chair and compelled a reluctant Sibylla to sit. “Mrs. Hopkins, the Warspite is going to sail for England in a few days’ time. I am sure you will want to return home to your family.”
Sibylla numbly shook her head. “Right now, I wish to speak with my sons. Thank you for your trouble, Captain.”
She got up and went to look for Tom and Johnny. They were standing at the railing with Nadira and Firyal and were engaged in a spitting contest. When they spotted their mother, they came running to her. She took them by the hand and led them to a quiet corner.
“What are we doing, Mummy?” Johnny looked around curiously.
Sibylla squatted down and embraced first him and then his brother. “Thomas, Jonathan, you must be very brave, big boys now!”
Island of Mogador, one week later
“Mummy, it smells funny!” squawked Johnny. He was standing next to his mother in front of the ruins of the western bastion and holding his nose.
His brother asked with great concern, “Are you crying, Mummy?”
She forced herself to smile. “No, Tom, dear, it’s just that the strong smell is burning my eyes.”
Tom, satisfied with that answer, leaned against his mother. His brother, however, whined. “Too dirty here, Mummy. I want to go home.”
“The soldiers have said that we can go home today,” Sibylla consoled him. “You two run along to Nadira and Firyal. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Her sons ran away, laughing. They seemed so unaffected by their father’s death. Apparently, they were still too young to understand.
“The angels carried him off to heaven,” she had told the boys.
They had been intrigued by the idea. Johnny had asked if the angels would lend his father a pair of wings or if he would grow his own. They still failed to grasp the finality of death, even though Sibylla had taken them with her to the western bastion so that they could all recite the “Our Father” for Benjamin together.
They had been camping on the island for six days. Just as the sailors were lowering the longboats into the water to take the foreigners back to the mainland, a sloop from the Suffren had arrived and they had been told that Haha Berbers had invaded Mogador and were looting the city.
Since the Warspite was not equipped to accommodate so many additional people, the foreigners were staying in an improvised camp with tents made from sails and blankets. But a few hours ago Commander in Chief Joinville had announced that the Berbers had retreated, driven out with the help of his soldiers.
Even more than a week after the bombardment, the destroyed western bastion still emitted a pungent stench. Sibylla coughed and held a handkerchief over her nose.
Maybe I can find some sign of Benjamin after all, she thought, as she held up her hems and stepped through the cold ruins. A button, a seal, something. It was difficult to deal with Benjamin’s death when there was no body for her to bury. She hesitated when she discovered a small object under a charred beam. But once she had removed the soot, she had to admit the deformed lump of metal could just as easily have come from a door hinge as a button from Benjamin’s jacket.
I was too late, Sibylla thought with a heavy heart. If she had ridden to Marrakesh just one week earlier, her husband would still be alive! Now she had to reconcile herself to the fact that he had died an excruciating death.
“The boats are ready. We are going to cross to the mainland.”
Surprised, Sibylla turned around. Sara Willshire was standing behind her, looking with horror at the ruins.
“Thank you.” Sibylla wanted to walk past her, but Sara held her back.
“What a terrible misfortune!” she whispered. “I . . . we all have done you an injustice. I am so sorry!”
Sibylla looked into Sara’s eyes and thought of the long months when the support she had so desperately needed had been denied her. She did not want to be bitter. After all, they had all endured hardship now. But she simply could not forget how the people she had considered friends had let her down.
“As indeed you should be,” she replied coolly. “You and your husband abandoned me in my hour of need. There is nothing more to say.”
Sara broke down sobbing as Sibylla walked away.
Chapter Eighteen