by Seth Hunter
Inevitably the conversation turned to her capture by the corsairs and her enforced stay in Tripoli as a hostage, and for the best part of the meal she entertained them with a description of the Pasha’s harem and the various customs and practices she had encountered during her prolonged stay there.
Nathan observed her thoughtfully from his position at the opposite end of the table. He was surprised as much by her exuberance as he was by her appearance, for she had looked like a bedraggled urchin when she first came aboard. There were certain women, he reflected, who could transform them selves from hoyden to society beauty whenever it was required of them, and Miss Devereux clearly came into this category. He could not help comparing her to Sara, who was a good fifteen years older and a great deal more damaged by her experiences, but blessed with the same ability to adapt herself to vastly different circumstances and environments.
But it was best not to dwell on Sara, not if he did not wish to arouse his demons to further torment.
‘Do you not think so, Captain?’
With a jolt Nathan realised she was addressing him directly, and with a twinkle of what might be mischief in her eye, but although he had been staring at her with what passed for rapt attention, he had not the faintest idea what she was talking about, or where the conversation had taken them.
He inclined his head in pretended consideration. ‘As to that, I will have to reserve my judgement,’ he said.
She seemed a little disappointed at this but the rest of the company resumed their conversation as if he had not spoken at all and he was able to catch up a little. It appeared that they had been discussing her dramatic escape from the harem and the part played in this by the mysterious Frenchman, Monsieur Naudé. The Americans had been shocked at her assertion that Naudé had fallen in love with her beautiful companion, Sister Caterina, though it was not clear if this was because Sister Caterina was a nun or because they could not imagine anyone more captivating than Miss Devereux herself. She had further provoked them by proposing that Frenchmen were of a more romantic and reckless a disposition than Americans – hence her remark to Nathan.
He wondered now at that glint of mischief in her eye. Either she was flirting with him or she had reason to believe he was not who he said he was. He was trying to think of a remark convincing enough to establish his credentials, when Captain Poe remarked that whatever Monsieur Naudé’s motives in rescuing them from the corsairs, it was interesting that he had taken them to Egypt.
Nathan was moved to ask him why.
‘Why, because it is rumoured that the French have deter mined to invade the country,’ the Captain replied, ‘and have put out with a great fleet from Toulon.’
Nathan was shocked. ‘And where did you hear this rumour?’ He struggled to keep his voice normal.
‘Oh, it was current in Gibraltar when we were there,’ declared the Captain dismissively, ‘and we heard it again in Carloforte, when we called there for fresh water.’
‘Carloforte?’ Nathan strove to place it on the charts.
‘On the island of San Pietro, that lies off Sardinia,’ replied the Captain’s mate, a red-haired gentleman by the name of Finlay who had not previously said a word beyond a mumbled request for the salt.
That such rumours had circulated in Gibraltar was distress ing, if not entirely surprising, but Nathan was at a loss to discover how they might have reached a small island off Sardinia. The Captain’s explanation, however, was a much greater surprise.
‘The British had been there,’ he said. ‘Indeed, we just missed them, for which I was exceedingly thankful. They would have stripped me of half my crew, the scoundrels.’
‘The British? What do you mean?’ Nathan challenged him with more aggression than he had intended.
‘Why, the British fleet, of course.’ Captain Poe frowned at Nathan’s tone. ‘But there is no reason for alarm, sir, for it was in the last week of May.’
‘In May?’ Nathan’s voice rose even higher. Two months ago. It was not possible. Unwarily, he said as much.
‘Well, I am only repeating what was said to us.’ The Captain, a little put out, gazed about the table for confirmation, and Mr Finlay and Mr Beamish nodded obligingly. Imlay shot Nathan a warning glance.
‘I am sorry. I do not mean to give you the lie,’ said Nathan, ‘but I understood the British fleet had abandoned the Mediterranean.’
The Captain shrugged. ‘Well, I am not privy to the decisions of the British Admiralty. All I can tell you was what I was told when I was in Carloforte.’
‘And did they give you any idea of their number?’
‘As to that, they were not precise. I gather that some remained out to sea. They were caught in a tempest, I was told, and the flagship dismasted.’
‘The flagship?’
‘The Vanguard, I believe. She was in the port for some days undergoing repairs.’
The Vanguard. Third-rater, of seventy-four guns, laid down in Deptford before the war – but who had her now? Nathan was damned if he knew, but she was not at the Battle of St Vincent, nor the Siege of Cadiz – though she may well have joined the fleet since.
Had the Admiralty sent a squadron back into the Med? No, it could not be true. If an English Admiral had news of Bonaparte’s destination in May, even late May, he would have intercepted the French long before they reached Alexandria … unless he had been defeated, which was unthinkable. But how had they known the name of the ship?
‘And did you discover who commanded this mysterious fleet?’ he asked the Captain.
‘I did. According to my informants, his name was Nelson.’
‘Nelson!’
‘You have heard of him, perhaps?’ The Captain raised a heavy brow.
‘Of course I have heard of him, but …’ He caught Imlay’s eye again. The Americans – and Louisa Devereux in particular – were all looking at him curiously.
He had been about to say that Nelson had lost his arm at Tenerife and been invalided out of the service, but the Captain of an American privateer was unlikely to be so well informed. It confirmed Nathan in his suspicions, however. The story was arrant nonsense. This really was a phantom fleet.
‘Is there a particular reason for your interest, Captain?’ Poe enquired.
‘Only that if there is a British fleet in the Mediterranean, we would wish to avoid running into it,’ replied Imlay, ‘and for the same reasons as you, Captain. We are not greatly desirous of losing our best men to the British Navy.’
‘Well, bad cess to them, wherever they be.’ Captain Poe raised his glass. ‘Let us hope the Frenchies make fools of them as they did in the last war, and we can all go about our business in peace.’
‘Oi’ll drink to that, Captain,’ cried O’Driscoll vigorously, raising his own and treating the company to an exaggerated wink.
‘I had thought the French were making more trouble for us than the English at present,’ put in Imlay. ‘Or is that not your opinion, Captain?’
‘As to that, I will tell you my opinion, sir,’ replied the Captain. ‘And it is that I would not trust either of them as far as I could spit. Begging your pardon, Miss. But if I had to choose between them, then I would choose the Frenchies, at least the present lot, for it is my belief that for all their failings – and they have many, I’ll not deny – they are inclined to favour Freedom over Tyranny and the Rights of Man over the Pride of Kings and Princes.’
‘And Popes,’ cried O’Driscoll in a loud voice. ‘Don’t forget the Popes.’
‘No, I do not forget them, sir,’ replied Captain Poe in the silence that followed this contribution, ‘and Bonaparte has served out the present Pope very much as he deserves, I believe, in his march through Italy. But I recall now that you are Irish, sir, so I hope I have not given offence.’
‘Irish but not Papist, sir. No, by God, and I’ll fight any man who says I am.’ He glared around the table belligerently but his lips twitched a little when he caught Nathan’s eye. Nathan was not amused. O’Driscoll was
topping the Irishman a deal too much in his opinion, and was, besides, in danger of losing his bearings. If he was not a Papist, or inclined to their cause, what did he think the Americans would make of him, save a loyal subject of King George?
‘Well, and I am pleased to hear it, sir,’ declared Poe, ‘for I’ll not deny I am a Presbyterian myself – not that I’d hold a man’s religion against him,’ he added hastily, in case there were those around the table of a less exalted persuasion.
‘So, Captain, I take it you are in favour of Bonaparte and his march through Italy?’ enquired Louisa Devereux before Nathan could move the conversation into less troubled waters. In the King’s Navy there was an unwritten rule that you did not discuss sex, religion or politics at the dinner-table. It made for very dull conversation at times but at least it cut down on the potential for violence.
‘Well, I have heard that it has brought Freedom to a great many people,’ said the Captain, ‘who were otherwise in thrall to Tyranny. And you cannot deny that Bonaparte is known throughout the peninsula as the Liberator.’
‘Well, certainly he has liberated a great many treasures and sent them back to Paris for safekeeping,’ Miss Devereux declared, ‘but I am not sure the Venetians would agree that their liberty has been secured by handing them over to the Austrians and ending a thousand years of independence.’
Nathan looked at her in surprise. Were these her own ideas, he wondered, or was this the influence of Sister Caterina Caresini – after six months of shared captivity in the seraglio of Tripoli? But whatever stimulus she was under it had brought a very attractive flush to her features.
‘Well, as to that, Miss, I do not know,’ Captain Poe conceded with ill grace. ‘All I am saying is that they know how to deal with kings and princes and the like.’
‘By cutting off their heads, do you mean?’
‘I think what the Captain means …’ began Imlay, who was looking a trifle alarmed at the turn the conversation was taking. But Miss Devereux would not be diverted.
‘I take it you do not think much of kings, sir?’ she addressed the Captain.
‘To tell the truth, Miss, I try not to think of them at all,’ he assured her. ‘But when I do, I prefer to think of them with their heads off rather than on.’ At which amusing image, he gave a good-natured chuckle.
‘And queens, too, I suppose,’ Louisa replied, ‘for I recall that Queen Marie Antoinette was served the same way … but pray tell me, sir, what does it achieve, all this cutting off of heads and spilling of blood?’
‘Freedom!’ Mr Finlay had found his voice again, and apparently a cause worthy of giving voice to. He banged his glass down on the table with a force that spilled a considerable amount of wine over the rim. ‘Freedom is what it achieves.’
‘Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,’ Dr Beamish informed Miss Devereux rather more serenely. ‘As is enshrined in our Constitution.’
‘And the right to keep slaves? Is that enshrined in our Constitution? I cannot remember.’ Miss Devereux gazed brightly around the table as if for assurance.
‘I believe we fudged that one,’ put in Imlay hastily, ‘but let us not quarrel, gentlemen, or lady,’ with a bow towards Miss Devereux, ‘for we are all friends under the Flag of Freedom, are we not?’
Before this contentious notion could be put to the test, Qualtrough entered the cabin with the figgy-dowdy on a large silver platter, the effect of which was by no means spoiled, at least in Nathan’s opinion, by Miss Devereux’s clapping her hands and exclaiming: ‘My goodness, the head of John the Baptist!’
Unhappily, this coincided with a violent heel to starboard and Qualtrough, no doubt distracted by this irreverence, heeled with it, permitting the figgy-dowdy to slide to the deck where it exploded like a grenado. In the silence that followed this disaster, one of the ship’s boys thrust his head around the door to relay Mr Cribb’s compliments and inform the Captain that the wind was freshening to such an extent that he was obliged to take in sail.
Nathan seized the opportunity to escape the shambles that was left of their dinner. One glance aloft and another at the sea apprised him of the changed situation, and if he was in any doubt of what it portended, Mr Cribb’s face settled it for him. He saw their visitors into the waiting launch with almost indecent haste – though he had an idea that they were not entirely averse to quitting so subversive an environment – and the Swallow proceeded under considerably reduced sail on her interrupted journey to the north-west, leaving the Algonquin a swiftly vanishing memory in the distance.
The wind continued to freshen. Within an hour of dinner they were fairly flying along under topsails and a reefed fore course, and the casting of the ship’s log confirmed a speed in excess of 10 knots, which earned a grudging cheer from those of the crew that were on deck. At the close of the second dog watch, they sighted the island of Koufonissi, and an hour or so later, a little before sunset, the mountains of Crete itself could be clearly discerned off the starboard bow.
The wind dropped considerably as they rounded the eastern end of the island and it took them two more days to reach the port of Candia, halfway along the northern coast; two more to find a suitable doctor: Dr Marangakis, the best doctor on the island, Nathan was assured by the British Consul, with certificates from the Universities of Padua and Modena. By the time he came aboard, Nathan feared that certificates from Hippocrates himself would not have helped. The patient looked more than weak; he looked like a corpse.
‘I will have to operate,’ the doctor declared when he had emerged from the sickbay, ‘without further delay.’
‘He is very weak,’ Nathan replied doubtfully. ‘Is there nothing else you can do?’
The doctor subjected him to a cold stare. He was a small, prickly man with a long nose, a lugubrious countenance, a bald head and black whiskers. Too black for a man who looked to be well over fifty; they looked dyed to Nathan, who did not trust doctors at the best of times and was not prepared to relax this prejudice for a doctor who dyed his whiskers.
But he had little choice in the matter.
‘It is very likely that a quantity of clothing has been carried into the wound,’ Dr Marangakis confirmed, ‘and unless it is removed he is very likely to die within the next day or two.’
‘And if you do remove it?’
The answer was difficult for Nathan to follow, since Dr Marangakis spoke neither English nor French and they conversed in a mixture of Latin and Classical Greek which had not been Nathan’s strongest subjects at school, but he gathered that at least the patient had the ghost of a chance, which was a great deal more than he had if the wound continued to fester.
‘Would it help if you were to apply honey,’ Nathan enquired helpfully, ‘to reduce the possibility of infection?’
This had been the somewhat startling remedy applied to Nathan in the hospital on Lake Garda after a similar procedure, and he had made a full recovery. The suggestion was greeted with icy disdain.
‘It would help a great deal more if I was permitted to practise my profession without advice from the unqualified,’ the doctor countered, ‘or to operate upon the patient in my own surgery. However, I fear that it would be fatal to move him. I will have to do my best in the pig-sty where you have seen fit to deposit him.’
He had brought the tools of his trade with him, but he insisted on having his own assistants ferried out from the port and would not have Mr Kite or any of the Swallow’s crew in attendance, not even Miss Devereux who had offered to do what little she could, even if it was only to mop the sweat off the patient’s brow.
This process took the rest of the day and involved a further outlay of gold coin. The operation itself lasted above an hour. Upon its completion, Dr Marangakis announced that he had removed the musket ball and a small piece of clothing that had been carried into the wound. He had also drained off a quantity of pus, but he feared the infection might have passed into the bloodstream, in which case he entertained little hope of the patient’s surv
ival. It might help, however, if he remained in the care of a proper physician, and not some butcher’s boy who was only good for hacking up dead meat.
Nathan considered this proposal gravely. Every instinct protested against delay, but with the French at Alexandria, he conceded that time was no longer such an issue, and they owed it to Lamb to at least give him a chance of recovery.
So the Swallow remained at her mooring off the mole, and Nathan took advantage of their extended stay at the port to replenish their supplies of food and fresh water. He also gave permission for the crew to go ashore in relays, there being little risk of their jumping ship with the wages Imlay was paying them, and the port authorities being nothing loath for them to empty their pockets in the various establishments provided for this purpose.
Nathan had little to do on the Swallow and so on the second day he decided to join this exodus, though he told himself he would content himself with viewing the less venal attractions of the port. This resolve was enhanced when, just as he was settling himself in the stern of his barge, Miss Devereux leaned over the rail and begged leave to accompany him. Since the operation, she had resumed her role as nurse, but the patient had recovered sufficiently to swallow a small amount of gruel, she said, before falling into a deep and apparently peaceful sleep. She required only sufficient time to change.
Nathan’s pleasure at her company was tempered only by the thought of presenting her to the population of Candia attired in crimson sailcloth. He need not have worried. The sailmaker had created a more modest version in white canvas, with a matching hat and parasol to shade her from the sun. And so, with a small escort of Janissaries provided by the Turkish authorities, and the Consul’s dragoman to translate for them, they set off on a tour of the port.
