Georgana's Secret

by Arlem Hawks

  “It must be a relief to be out of the sick bay,” she said.

  He glanced down toward the sick bay beneath them. Even if he still wasn’t well, she had the feeling Étienne would have approved him for work. With more than a quarter of the men unable to work, the ship needed as many hands as possible. If they should run into an enemy ship . . . Georgana didn’t want to think about the results.

  “It’s good to see you up and about,” she said.

  He gave her a sharp look, then shrugged. “We both have duties to attend to.”

  Georgana remembered the cooling teacup in her hand. Fortunate for her, Papa was used to tepid tea. Fitz shuffled off before she could say anything more. She wondered if he still hated her or if they had moved to becoming neutral acquaintances.

  She hurried up to the quarterdeck, where her father stood with a telescope to his eye. Moyle stood nearby, hands clasped behind him.

  “I would have sworn it was a frigate yesterday,” Papa muttered. “Now it looks to be a schooner.”

  Georgana could barely make out a speck on the horizon. Her insides wriggled at the sight of the other ship. Crossing paths with another ship rarely made for a pleasant day aboard a frigate of His Majesty’s navy.

  “She doesn’t seem to be moving very fast,” Moyle said. “If we continue to lose her, she must not be in pursuit.”

  Papa snapped the telescope closed and exchanged it for his cup of tea. “We can only hope.”

  Georgana twisted her hands around the instrument, praying Moyle was right. While Jarvis would curse and shout about not getting any prizes this voyage, she didn’t find prizes worth the loss of life.

  “George, bring me Peyton,” her father said, sipping at the now cold tea. “Moyle, you’re dismissed. Get some rest before your watch.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  She followed the second lieutenant down from the quarterdeck and then climbed up to the forecastle. Peyton stood at the bow, just like he’d done a few nights ago when they’d talked. She had hoped he would repeat the invitation for a midnight chat, but in the days since, he had hardly spoken to her.

  She couldn’t blame him. He had shared something so personal about himself with a mere ship’s boy. Friends or not, she wondered if he regretted his decision to let her see a corner of his life he usually left covered.

  The lieutenant stood with the triangular sextant held to his eye. They sailed against the wind this morning, and the contrary breeze blew the tails of his blue coat out behind him. The brass buttons glimmered as they caught the sun. His brown hair rippled beneath his hat, and a hint of a smile graced his lips.

  He fit naturally at the prow, as though he’d been written into the building plans and placed just so. A ship didn’t need a figure­head if it could have a captain such as this. Why he hadn’t received a promotion by now, she couldn’t say, but a ship could not hope for a better commander than a Captain Peyton.

  Peyton said something to the midshipman at his side, and the young man wrote quickly. Georgana waited a few paces away until he dismissed the midshipman to look up the numbers on charts to determine their location. She saluted as the young gentleman passed and again when Peyton turned to her.

  “Ah, George. How are you?”

  “The captain wishes to speak to you, sir.”

  He chuckled. “That did not answer my question.”

  “I am well, thank you.” She pulled her lips into a frown, fearing they would do the opposite.

  “I’m glad to hear it.” He paused, and she waited with breath caught in her lungs for him to say more. But he walked away. Her posture slackened. She didn’t know what else she had wanted him to say—how silly to have wanted more.

  She fell in step behind him, and when they arrived on the quarterdeck, Étienne was speaking animatedly to her father. “They have all come from the same messes, five or six of them. Whole groups taken ill.”

  “You think it is food, then?” Peyton asked, putting a hand on the Frenchman’s shoulder.

  Not many members of the crew or wardroom treated the surgeon with such familiarity. The lieutenant had fought as many Frenchmen as any other man on board, and still he accepted this outsider with open arms.

  “Bien sûr, the food.”

  Papa stroked his chin. “What does that mean for the crew?”

  “We must inspect the food. Throw out the barrels already opened,” Étienne said. “If we remove the bad food, we might see an end to the illness.”

  “The cook is not going to be happy about that.” Her father nodded. “George, find Moyle again. I’ll have him oversee the removal of the food. How many new sick crewmen today?”

  “I have not seen one yet, sir,” the surgeon responded.

  Light touched Peyton’s face at the news, and Georgana stared. She wanted to burn the image into her memory. With her meager skills, could she draw the hope that glowed behind that smile?

  Papa blew out a long, slow breath. “Well, that is better news than we’ve had in some time. Thank you, Mr. Étienne. George?”

  She snapped to attention, then hurried for the hatch to find Moyle. The sick still had far to go before they recovered, but perhaps the end was in sight.

  Boisterous laughter hit her as she landed on the messdeck. Sailors were playing cards while waiting for their next watch. She almost ignored them, when her gaze fell on a well-tailored blue jacket in their midst.

  Jarvis?

  She crept closer. What was he doing here? Lieutenants didn’t mingle with the rest of the crew on the messdeck. The men at his table all held mugs, attention fixed on the officer.

  “You heard the surgeon’s mate,” Jarvis said. “Bad food.”

  “I don’t see what the captain has to do with it,” one of the crewmen said.

  Jarvis shifted on the bench, and Georgana leaned closer, crouching behind the nearest table. If he caught her listening . . .

  “The captain’s responsible for everything on this ship. If someone does their job poorly, and he doesn’t reprimand them, is the fault not equally his?”

  Georgana was hidden several tables down from Jarvis, on the other side of the aisle, but his words carried through the room.

  “If the boatswain’s son died of the same illness, the food must have been bad then as well. He’s tried to poison the crew multiple times.”

  Her hands clenched into fists. Lies. She kept her head ducked behind the table, out of sight.

  “Poison?”

  “Why would the captain poison his own crew, sir?”

  “He did not prevent the order of bad food,” Jarvis said, retracing his steps.

  The first man spoke up again. “If he didn’t know it was bad, how can it be his fault?”

  “Carelessness,” Jarvis growled. “You’ve seen how he barricades himself in his quarters with that boy, not communicating, even with his officers. He allows the wardroom officers to do his responsibilities and doesn’t inspect the warrant and petty officers’ work. He’s employed that Frenchman, who we all know couldn’t care if we live or die.”

  “Étienne was pressed into service. I wouldn’t doubt Captain’s been fooled by the Frenchie,” a new voice said. He sounded like the yeoman of the powder room. “What I’ve been wondering is how none of the officers have taken sick. If Mr. Jarvis is right, seems the captain’s been skimping on the quality of the crew’s food.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Jarvis said. The pitch of his voice rose. “The officers have been dining like kings and not on our own funds.”

  Georgana wanted to scream. If the captain were only concerned about himself, why would he give such attention to the officers?

  Footsteps on the ladder sent Georgana scrambling toward the wardroom. By the time she came back with Moyle, Jarvis had vanished from the messdeck. Thinking of his words made her insides contort.

 
When they reached the gun deck, Étienne’s loblolly boy sprinted out of the sick bay, his face white as a sail.

  “What is it, William?” Moyle asked, pausing with hands on the rungs of the ladder.

  “Where is Monsieur?” The French came out awkwardly in the boy’s cockney accent.

  “He’s above,” Georgana said.

  The boy barreled toward the ladder before she’d finished speaking, shouting, “It’s Noyse!”

  Another boy gone. Dominic pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, leaning into the bulwark. The steady creaking of the ship’s hull rumbled through him, calming the anxious tension that had taken root within his heart. He didn’t want to know how many would succumb to disease before they reached their destination. If he dwelled on speculations, he’d drive himself to distraction.

  Not that he wasn’t already preoccupied.

  Dominic picked at a splinter on the rail. He usually enjoyed first watch. He liked the calmness of the black water and the moon reflecting on the crests of the waves. He liked the quiet of the ship and the murmur of men’s voices as they sang songs or told stories in little circles across the upper deck.

  And until Monday evening, he used the serenity of night to think. Now he thought only of Georgana Woodall standing beside him at the bow. Perhaps she infiltrated his mind because he worried about finding her a safe place to stay. He wasn’t truly worried that his mother would refuse to help. She had put him up to this, after all. But what if Georgana refused his help? Or if her father believed he had some ulterior motive?

  Dominic startled when his memory of Monday night materialized before him. Georgana walked quickly toward the prow, and for a moment he let himself enjoy it. He couldn’t see her face in the shadows, but he imagined that elusive smile on her full lips.

  “Are you well, sir?” She had asked him that question a thousand times since the onset of the disease.

  “Of course. Are you?”

  “I need to speak with you.” Her voice trembled. Dominic straightened and reached a hand for her, but let it drop before he made contact.

  “Is it Jarvis?”

  “Yes, he . . .” She took a breath. “I overheard him talking in the mess with some of his division.”

  He blinked. What had possessed Jarvis to do that? He hadn’t spent much time in the wardroom of late. He occasionally spent time with the marine second lieutenant, but he didn’t seem the type to prefer common seamen’s company to those of his station.

  “He said awful things,” she said.

  “About you?” She’d survived awful things being said about her before. And though it made his blood boil, he couldn’t understand why it would upset her so much now.

  “No, about the captain.”

  Dominic’s shoulders relaxed. Jarvis hadn’t threatened her. “Yes, I’ve heard that as well.”

  “But he blamed the captain for the illnesses.”

  “George, captains get blamed for many things outside of their control. It happens on ships. Do not let it worry you.”

  Georgana took a step back. “You think I shouldn’t worry?”

  She had sailed long enough—she should know that sometimes the small confines of a ship bred discontent. As the highest-­ranking officer, the captain was often made a scapegoat when tensions heightened, but only in rare cases did it come to anything more than a meeting to discuss the issue. Good captains knew a crew with high morale performed better, and while he wasn’t certain he would call Captain Woodall a great captain, the man certainly qualified as a good captain.

  “All will be well. New illnesses have slowed, and Étienne will do all he can to care for the sick ones. Pearce and several others are on the mend already.”

  She retreated farther. “Sorry to bother you, sir. Good night, sir.”

  A part of him wanted to beg her to stay, to spend a few more minutes talking in the dark. But before he could say or do anything, she had stolen down from the forecastle and was gone.

  A hammock, its edges sewn shut around a still form, lay on the deck. Not even the wind moved it as it waited for the words of the chaplain. No more would the hammock hang in an orderly row, side by side with dozens exactly like it. Just another piece of canvas. Just another burial shroud.

  Georgana didn’t weep for the deaths anymore. They came too frequently. But she remembered every hammock that slid into the deep—every splash, every ripple as the ocean swallowed them. She recorded the deaths in her father’s logbook, carving their names into her memory.

  This burial could be only the beginning. She knew that. If Charlie Byam’s illness was any indication, more deaths would come.

  Étienne stood by himself, eyes on the closed hammock. No emotion marred his features, but his messy curls and disheveled clothes belied his state. He worked tirelessly to help the sufferers, and all he received in return was rumors and gossip.

  Georgana ground her teeth and moved her gaze back to the deck at her feet. Lieutenant Peyton had greeted her when she came up that morning. She’d pretended not to hear, all while trying to convince herself not to blame him. He had curtly dismissed her worries over Jarvis’s rumors about the captain, but she couldn’t condemn the lieutenant for that. He didn’t know the captain was her father.

  The chaplain began his dour sermon, but his words drifted past her ears. The conversation with Peyton last night awakened her to the reality of her situation. She had let herself become too hopeful. For a few glorious weeks she’d nearly forgotten her disguise when in the lieutenant’s presence. She had almost let herself believe there was something more between them.

  Last night reminded her he did not understand, even if he seemed to. And continuing to hope for something that was impossible only risked her future. What would happen if she let her secret slip? No doubt he would be angry. She didn’t think him petty enough to inform the crew, but Peyton’s sense of honor would not allow him to treat her the same way he did before. He would treat her like a lady, and that would be enough to alert the other men.

  At the end of the chaplain’s words, Georgana said “Amen” with the rest of the gathering. John Noyse, ship’s boy, third class. Then two men stepped up to lift him onto the board, covered in the Red Ensign. The board tilted, and the boy fell into the depths.

  Georgana always looked for the other ship’s boys at a burial for one of their own. Though she had little camaraderie with them, she knew they had a bond with each other. Not so hardened yet by sea life, true sorrow graced the young faces. Pearce, who had mostly recovered from the illness, slumped against the mainmast, face crumpling.

  Before she could make her way to the boy, Fitz appeared and put a hand on his shoulder, as Georgana had done for him the day of Locke’s death. A little flicker of pride swelled in her chest at Fitz’s gesture. At the beginning of the voyage, she had not thought him capable of such compassion.

  “We will not hold gun drills as usual today,” her father announced gravely. “Wash your hammocks. Wash your clothes. We will resume drills Monday morning.”

  Lieutenant Jarvis rushed forward as the men dispersed. Georgana shrank back toward the quarterdeck to avoid him. “That is unwise, Captain. The men need practice.”

  Her father shook his head, brows lowered dangerously. “There are too many men unable to drill, and it is difficult to move seventy men from the sick bay just for gun practice.”

  “If we are attacked at reduced numbers, they need to be prepared,” Jarvis said through clenched teeth. “What of the ship that’s been following us?”

  Georgana glanced to the west. She couldn’t see anything on the horizon, but talk of a follower infiltrated every conversation on the Deborah.

  “If she were a privateer, she’d be moving faster and would have engaged us by now.” Her father drew himself up, nearly as tall as Peyton and much taller than Jarvis. “The men are tired. They need to rest and
prepare for what lies ahead. We have many weeks to go.”

  Jarvis sneered. “Your giving them rest will not increase your favor with them, if that is your aim. An incompetent captain inspires disorder, and unstructured hours will only fan the flames.” He turned on his heel and stormed off without a salute.

  “Sir, that—” Peyton began from his side.

  Papa held up a hand for silence. “He wants a battle. I will not give it to him on his terms.”

  Georgana avoided the lieutenant’s face as she studied her father. He appeared so confident in handling Jarvis’s insubordination, but he hadn’t heard him spreading lies. Papa headed for the quarterdeck, and she followed behind him.

  “George,” Lieutenant Peyton said softly as she passed.

  Once again she pretended not to hear, though it prompted an ache in her soul. Her father was right. Getting too close to the lieutenant had not been wise, and now she must suffer the consequences.

  There were plenty of other boys on this ship he could take under his wing. He needn’t miss her friendship, though she didn’t think she could fill the void his warm smile would leave.

  Chapter 23

  Dominic rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and swung himself onto the foremast shroud. Hat and coat stowed safely in his cabin, he launched himself up the rows of ratlines with ease. A playful breeze rocked the lines as he climbed.

  Too soon he reached the foretop platform. Up the next ladder to the higher platform he went. He didn’t know what possessed him to climb that morning after his watch. When he reached the highest point on the mast, he did not stop to behold the breathtaking expanse of ocean. With a nod to the watchman, he turned around and climbed back down to the deck, then crossed the forecastle to the opposite shroud and started up again.