The Grey Ghost

By Joseph Clair

(Long Description Still In DE)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 5, 2004
• ISBN: 9781462826759

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THE GREY GHOST

Joseph Clair

Copyright © 2004 by Joseph Clair.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

FOREWORD

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 47

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 49

CHAPTER 50

CHAPTER 51

CHAPTER 52

CHAPTER 53

CHAPTER 54

CHAPTER 55

CHAPTER 56

CHAPTER 57

CHAPTER 58

CHAPTER 59

CHAPTER 60

CHAPTER 61

CHAPTER 62

FOREWORD

While many of the events

and circumstances

in this story

have historical counterparts,

many others have no

counterparts whatsoever.

This is a work of fiction

and should be read as such.

Joseph Clair

CHAPTER 1

Pier 92

From the pigeon’s rain-washed perch atop the building’s parapet autos on the darkened street below, driven by unseen hands, passed each other with quiet aplomb—true horseless carriages. There were no square-riggers in the harbor beyond, but the gigantic steamers docked nearby were just as much of another age. At that very moment a Boeing 727 whistled faintly through the upper atmosphere above as it headed out to sea toward the Cornish coast a scant six hours away. Roused by this monarch of the skies, the pigeon tipped off into the night air, flapped lazy wings, and descended on warm currents to the top of a merchant’s sign on the street below.

The Flying Dutchman the sign announced, leaving the nature of the establishment in doubt. But through the fogged window tables and chairs could be discerned, and at the far end of the room a bar. A small sign in the window said closed, but the bartender was still there behind the bar, and one patron sat at the table closest to the window.

Inside, the bartender swabbed the bartop with precision, suggesting long practice of his profession.

Tomorrow is the big day, he said, as much to the empty room as to the solitary patron. There was no reply.

The bartender methodically closed the cash register, installed the cash remains of the day in a small wall safe, turned off the lights leaving only the security lights, poured himself the last coffee from the carafe, carried his cup to the lone figure’s table, and sat down.

Outside the window the street gleamed with rain, and beyond, in the near distance, a hulking shadow blocked everything from view and filled the void with itself.

Well, tomorrow is the big day, the bartender repeated.

Yes, the lone figure replied.

Will you be boarding?

As a matter of fact, I will.

You know, said the bartender, in all the years I’ve been here and seen the Queen come and go I’ve never been on her. Have you sailed on her before?

Once before—under very crowded conditions.

The bartender laughed. I’ve heard that during the war they even bunked troops in the swimming pool.

That’s no exaggeration, said the single patron.

I’ve had a lot of sea-time myself, the bartender continued, but all in the merchant marine, running back and forth during the war between New York and Murmansk.

That was a very dangerous run.

Very. I wonder that I’m alive today. The North Atlantic swarmed with U-boats. We couldn’t outrun them like the Queen. She could do 29 knots.

31.69 actually.

Precision!

Sea trivia. The patron twirled his empty glass with both hands and then continued. So, then, you’ve had this bar for a long time?

Since ‘46 when I came back from the merchant marine.

So you used your savings to start a bar.

Actually I bought the bar that was already here.

Took over the name and everything, I suppose.

No, I changed the name.

That’s interesting. I was wondering how the bar got the name ‘The Flying Dutchman.’

It was called that many years ago, so I took the old name again. Would you believe this bar goes back to the beginning of the century?

So it must have had another name when you bought it.

It did. ‘Mike’s Bar.’ But ‘Mike’ was the name of the previous owner. I wanted to put my own stamp on it.

You could have named it ‘D’s Bar,’ said the patron with a grin.

The bartender looked puzzled for a moment, and then laughed. I know my sign says, ‘D. Carruthers.’ My name is Dale.

‘Dale’s Bar’ then.

And your name?

Henry Foster.

You from New York?

Chicago.

The patron stood up then to go, and the bartender stood too. The patron was the smaller, neat in physique, with a military straightness. The bartender was burly, a bit rumpled, but deliberate and controlled in his actions.

One question, said the patron. Why didn’t you show me out when you closed?

In this business you get to read people very well. I read two things about you: one, you meant no harm, and two, you had a deep connection of some kind with that ship.

True on both counts, said the patron. Thank you for your courtesy. He turned abruptly and left.

Carruthers secured the door behind the patron and then trudged up a flight of stairs to a second floor apartment. He went to the front window to pull the shade, and saw the patron standing near the dark hull of the Queen.

"There is a deep connection," Carruthers said to himself. And then he looked again. The patron was not looking at the ship. He was looking back at The Flying Dutchman.

In the street, standing in a drizzle of rain, the patron saw the light in the second floor apartment, and saw Carruthers appear at the window.

So, said the patron to himself, "it was ‘Mike’s Bar’ in the 1930s."

#

missing image file

The Queen Mary at Pier 92, September 22, 1967

CHAPTER 2

The Tenth Floor

Rivulets of rain, sliding down the window pane, courted the attention from time to time of the man at the window as he otherwise stared out into the middle distance of the night outside. From that middle distance the muffled moan of a ship’s horn at intervals evoked the presence of a watery world far more extensive than any mere cloudburst of rain.

You love this, Peter, said the old woman sitting in the room’s easy chair.

Yes, I do, replied the man at the window.

I’m glad for you we could take this trip, said the woman.

This trip is for you, mother, not me.

For both of us then.

The man turned away from the window and sat down on the sofa.

All my life, he said, I’ve heard you speak about the Isle of Skye, and though you would deny it, I could hear a wistful note in your voice.

The old woman was silent briefly, and then said, I could hear it in Aunt Margaret’s voice.

"And yet she was never there either. In fact, which of our ancestors did come from the Isle of Skye?"

I’m not sure.

We’ll find out, mother. We’ll run it to the ground.

The old woman fiddled with the cane by her side.

Don’t go out of your way, Peter, she said.

I’m a journalist, mother. It’s my instinct.

I just hope, the woman said, that Ron Stewart will have something for us.

I should have contacted him sooner, the man replied. We haven’t given him much lead time.

You had a good idea, though, Peter, to start back and work forward.

Well, the logical thing is to start with the now, which is more or less known, and work backward. But with Stewart giving us a start at the other end, maybe we can work from both ends until we meet in the middle.

Aunt Margaret probably knew the line but it never occurred to me to ask about it. I was filled instead with the romantic story of Flora MacDonald and Bonnie Prince Charlie, especially as she told it.

Dad, said Peter, always pooh-poohed it.

You and your dad are alike. Pragmatic to a fault.

"It was your dad who was the engineer, mother. How pragmatic can you get?"

True, said the woman. "My father never seemed to care about ancestors, great or small. If it hadn’t been for Aunt Margaret, father’s aunt actually, I would never have known Flora MacDonald was an ancestor. Your ancestor, too, Peter."

I suppose so.

You should be proud of it.

Maybe I’m related to John L. Sullivan, too.

Peter, you’re teasing me.

Peter grinned. We’ve worked our way back to your grandfather. Now we’ll see if Stewart can work forward for us.

You know, Peter, people can inherit things besides material goods. They can inherit a good name, ideals, character.

‘Genes’ they call it, said Peter.

You’re Catholic, aren’t you? Do you attribute that to your genes?

Hmmm, said Peter, you have a point.

Patriotism, said the woman, warming to her subject, can be, and often is, inherited in my sense of the word. Compassion, a sense of service, a sense of duty are for the most part inherited rather than instilled from the outside. Virtues must reside in the parents in order to be passed on to the children.

You make your point well, said Peter. So how does Flora MacDonald fit in?

The old woman pulled from her clutch purse a small scrap of paper.

You know, she said, Samuel Johnson and James Boswell visited Flora in her later years. Johnson had this to say about her. The old woman read from the scrap of paper: ‘Her name will be mentioned in history, and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honor.’

So, said Peter, do I have courage and fidelity?

Yes, said the old woman.

Thank you, then, for the inheritance, said Peter.

The old woman struggled to her feet with the help of two canes. Peter stood aside, not helping. It was clear that in so doing he was honoring her courage.

When she had disappeared into her bedroom for the night, Peter turned back to the window. Ten stories below him a great ship sat in its berth, still and darkened, dead in the water, like a huge beached whale. An observer could think that perhaps somewhere in the holds, out of sight, men were working, and lights were burning, and boilers were sizzling on standby. But no one would know it from the street.

Peter looked down on this scene for a long time, and cocked his ear whenever a ship’s horn sounded. Patches of fog drifted occasionally between the ship’s three gigantic funnels, and once or twice a dark figure could be seen passing along a deck. So absorbed was Peter in this scene that he did not hear the old woman appear at her bedroom door.

Peter, she said, you need to get some sleep. We have to board well before noon.

Right, said Peter, I’m going now.

The old woman smiled slyly, and said, You know, Peter, I may be romantic about my ancestors, but I think you are romantic about ships.

#

CHAPTER 3

Flight 189

Malcolm, it’s like a jewel.

The man sitting next to her did not glance up from the Financial Times he held in front of him.

Yes, I suppose, he replied.

You suppose? You have to look.

The man leaned across her, stared out the plane’s window, and down on Manhattan, a jewel indeed, sparkling in the midst of the velvet darkness of the harbor.

Nice, he said.

His companion turned to the window to look again, leaving the man in peace for a time with his Financial Times.

Finally turning to him again, she said, What time do we sail?

Well, he said, we are to board between 9 and 11:30.

I’m a little excited, she said.

For the first time he put the newspaper completely down.

I guess, he said, looking nonplussed, I am, too.

You should be. It’s been thirty years.

God, sometimes it seems forever, he replied. I was just a kid in ‘37. A newly-minted 21.

I wish I had been with you.

Be glad you weren’t. I was just a raw kid. Thought the world was my oyster.

Malcolm, is this a sentimental journey or are you riding to the hounds again?

Malcolm bristled. "This is not a sentimental journey."

And yet that’s the reason you gave me, said Grace slyly. "You are riding to the hounds again."

Grace, damn it, I wish you wouldn’t put it that way.

To the other passengers on the plane Malcolm and Grace were a couple oddly complementing each other. Malcolm was a large man, ruddy, vigorous, extroverted, and brusque, except with Grace. Grace was a slender, quite beautiful, composed woman who seemed to know her man and his foibles well, and loved him in the bargain.

So, you did bring the letters.

Yes, I brought the letters.

Just don’t get too frustrated, Malcolm. Enjoy the trip. Indulge in some sentiment. Walk the decks again and remember the days of your youth. Pause. You know, you have plenty of money. You don’t need more.

It isn’t a question of more, Grace. Property rights are the backbone of a free people. If a thing belongs to a multi-millionaire, he should have it on the grounds of principle.

And the poor man?

"The rich man has a moral obligation to the poor man, but when he gives, it should be recognized that he gives out of what is his."

Intriguing, said Grace. I grant that you are reasonably generous with what you have.

Thank God I’m not unreasonably generous or we couldn’t afford this trip.

Both laughed at the hyperbole.

I do have some questions, said Grace. Even if you did succeed in finding a hidden family fortune, you’d be going back a half-dozen generations to do it. It wouldn’t be yours. You’d have to share it with who knows how many others.

I’m not so sure, said Malcolm. My ancestors didn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave descendants.

So, said Grace, where will this quest take us?

Back to Glasgow. Maybe to the Isle of Skye. Flora MacDonald, I think, was in some way the source of a family fortune.

Even if she had a price on her head for helping Bonnie Prince Charlie?

Even so. Remember, she died honored and in the history books.

By now the steep descent into LaGuardia had begun and even the most seasoned passengers tightened their seatbelts and stiffened their muscles. As if on cue, all conversation stopped.

With baggage reclaimed and assembled, Malcolm and Grace sat on a bench waiting for the hotel shuttle. Suddenly Malcolm grabbed up the Financial Times he had set aside to discard, and thumbed through the pages.

Do you have a pair of scissors? he asked.

Would you like a pick and axe, too? replied Grace. Honestly, Malcolm, do you think I carry a desk in my purse?

But you do have a pair of scissors, said Malcolm flatly.

Grace smiled a little crookedly and handed over a pair of scissors. Malcolm clipped a column from the paper.

What’s the interest? asked Grace.

Monetary theory, said Malcolm. Where do we go from here? Bretton-Woods is breaking down. Gold is in limbo.

You should have been an economist.

No way. I want to be part of the action. Not an observer in a tree. Not like this Mundell fellow, for example. He’s only a kid, well, not quite, and he’s written a couple of books already. But what are they saying? This book review helps a little, but not much.

So why should you care?

He’s Canadian. The Americans dominate economic theory all too much. One of us has got to get into the fray.

Grace was quiet for a moment, and then said, After all these years, Malcolm, you are still sometimes a mystery to me.

On that note the shuttle arrived and Malcolm and Grace stepped out into a swirl of mist and rain, grateful to be only five steps from the shuttle’s door.

#

CHAPTER 4

Staten Island

The Livingston sat on a spit of land looking out over the water. Whether it was a 20th century motel or 18th century inn depended on whether one saw through to the underlying structure or let the eye rove over the red brick facing, the white wood trim, and the dormered second storey. To the couple walking luggage from their car into a first level room opening to the outside it was obviously a motel.

Didn’t quite make it before dark, said the man.

No, but it was worth stopping for dinner, replied the woman. At least we’re at the Livingston.

She stopped to look at the motel’s sign, appropriately colonial, and glistening from a recent rain.

Your kin around? asked the man.

No, they own it but they lease it out. They’re hours from here.

You should meet them.

I met some of them while you were in New York on your book.

So . . .

It was hard to say they were relatives. No resemblance that I could see, physical, or personality-WISE, and she said the last sarcastically. But they clung dearly to the name, and with that I had some sympathy.

The man pulled a pipe from his jacket pocket, carefully packed it with tobacco, and expertly lighted it with a match, no second match needed.

Beth, he said, if we left the door open we could sit a bit and watch the traffic.

Tell me, said Beth, "why would anyone build a motel facing the harbor, and with a clear view, and not provide a veranda?"

The man chuckled. They’re your relatives, he said.

They did, however, pull chairs into the open doorway and watch dozens of nautical lights glide slowly in every direction across the black bosom of the harbor.

You know, Bill, said Beth, sometimes I wonder how those ships can keep from ramming each other.

Every bridge is keeping tabs in every direction all the time, said Bill.

So they end up passing each other like ships in the night. Beth laughed. And then, sobering, she said, Like relatives sometimes.

Bill took a long draw on his pipe, looked up over the harbor at the shrouded sky, and replied, I hope, Beth, you get satisfaction in Scotland.

I am convinced I will, she said.

You feel so strongly about it.

I do. All my life I’ve heard stories about Flora MacDonald and her ill-gotten money. How she came to North Carolina with gold in her pocket and guilt in her heart. How jealous can neighbors be?

Very.

Of fame? Of heroism?

Well, Beth, think of it this way. These neighbors are descendants of the Scottish settlers who rallied to the cause of the colonies against King George III. You are a descendant of Flora MacDonald, one of the Scottish settlers who rallied to the crown and had to flee after the Revolutionary War. The neighbors throw her fame and heroism in your face because these came from her helping Bonnie Prince Charlie against the English crown. What made her change, when the Revolutionary War came along, and support that very same English crown? Opportunism, they say. Money, they say.

But that’s not true.

That’s what you need to establish, Beth, when you meet with Myra Ferguson in Inverness.

Bill sat silent for a minute and then continued: Think of it this way, Beth. How is Flora related to you?

She is my great, great, great, great grandmother.

Are you sure of the number of ‘greats’?

Absolutely.

See, Beth, you click off the generations as if they were yesterday. So do the descendants of Flora’s North Carolina neighbors.

The crewmen of a passing tug could see silhouettes against a lighted doorway of the modest motel along the shoreline. The silhouettes barely moved for several minutes, and then the female turned to the male. The crew could not hear what was said.

I have to say, Bill, a good part of my animus comes via Campbell. He claims that Flora actually betrayed the others who helped Prince Charlie. ‘She wasn’t executed, was she? She wasn’t imprisoned, was she? She lived happily ever after, didn’t she? She was a loyalist during the Revolutionary War, wasn’t she?’

"I’ve never liked Campbell myself