by David Starr
The next morning, once we are up, we see Valetta for the first time in sunlight. “She’s a pretty enough port,” says Bill. “A man could make a good home here, I reckon. That is if one didn’t have a very pressing reason to return to England.”
“Aye, one could at that,” I say. The town is crammed with white and yellow stone buildings that start right at the waterfront. “But fate has other plans fer me right now.”
“So what’s the plan then?” Bill asks. The inn cost little enough, but money will become an issue if we are forced to stay in Malta for any length of time. Half of my coins are gone and goodness knows how long the rest will last. Getting some more money is a priority.
“Finding a doctor to look at yer leg, selling our boat, buying some decent clothes and getting passage on a ship back home,” I tell him. “In that order if ye are fine with it.”
Bill is. We ask for help from a man who speaks English and he directs us to a doctor’s surgery, three blocks off the waterfront.
“My name is Dr. Curmi, and that’s quite the injury, young man,” the doctor says when we enter his surgery. “A sailor’s wound all right. Chainshot or a grenade judging by the damage. Whoever cauterized it saved your life, no doubt.”
“That was my young physician friend here,” says Bill. “Trap ain’t much of a cook but he makes for a fine doctor.”
“He does indeed.” The compliment is welcome, but we have more important things to do. “What can ye do fer my friend?” I ask. “We can pay.”
Doctor Curmi examines the wound carefully. “You’re not going to want to hear this, I’m afraid, but I’ll need to cut a bit more off your leg. The bones are jagged where the shot took your foot; I have to even it off, then fold a flap of skin and flesh underneath it so you can wear a peg or a wooden leg.”
Bill looks ashen as he grits his teeth. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
The doctor coughs politely. “You said something about your ability to pay, young man?”
I give the doctor one of my precious six remaining silver coins. “Will this do?”
“Enough for the procedure and a wooden leg afterwards if you like,” he says. “Although you’ll need to let it heal a month or so before you’ll be ready for the leg.”
“It will hurt like the blazes, won’t it?” Bill says.
“I have some good news for you in that regard,” the doctor says. “We Maltese have been at the crossroads of the Eastern and Western worlds for centuries, and have learned much from both. The Arabs on the African coast may have earned the reputation of pirates of late, but they have forgotten more about medicine, astronomy and math than the most learned Europeans have ever known.”
He walks over to a large shelf and takes down a glass jar. “Inside is something Muslim doctors call the soporific sponge. It is just what it sounds like,” the doctor says, as I look inside to see a sponge soaked in a dark liquid.
“You’re not going to cut my leg with a sponge?” Bill jokes, somehow finding his sense of humour once more.
“No, my friend,” says Doctor Curmi. “The sponge is imbued with a mixture of herbs and medicines. I am going to place the sponge under your nose. You will inhale the medicine, fall asleep almost instantly and feel nothing as I cut your leg.”
Bill scoffs. “It sounds like a child’s fairy tale to me. Go ahead then, Doctor. Show me.”
The doctor shrugs. “If you are ready I see no point in delaying the procedure. Take off your breeches, lie down on my table and we will begin.”
“Bunch of rubbish,” Bill says as he removes his soiled and ripped Royal Navy uniform.
The doctor puts a pillow under Bill’s head and covers him with a crisp white sheet, all save his damaged leg. Then he wraps a piece of cloth around his own nose and mouth.
“Are you ready?” he asks, as he uncorks the glass jar and takes out the sponge with a pair of metal tongs.
“Have a go then,” Bill says with a tone of utter disbelief.
“Breathe deeply,” the doctor says as he places the sponge under Bill’s nose. I catch a whiff. It is strong, medicinal and heavily perfumed. My eyes water and my head swims at the smell.
“Go on then,” Bill says. “Put your magic potion to…” He doesn’t finish the sentence. Instead Bill lies quiet and still, completely knocked out.
“Put this back on the shelf, would you?” Doctor Curmi asks me as he replaces the sponge and the cork in the jar. Then, the doctor removes a leather strap, linens, a wicked-looking knife, a saw and some needle and thread from a drawer under the table. He puts them beside Bill’s leg then fills a bowl with clean water.
“This will take only five minutes,” he says to me as he tourniquets Bill’s leg just as I did a week or so ago. “Your friend won’t feel a thing and he will be fine when he wakes up in an hour or two. Are you interested in watching? Helping, perhaps? You do seem to have a knack for medicine.”
My stomach heaves at the thought of it. I’ve seen enough blood and bones for a lifetime. “Nae, thank ye very much,” I tell him. “Ye’re the doctor. Tend to my friend while I go and find him some new trousers.”
Chapter 36
After an hour or so of haggling, I sell our little boat to a Maltese fisherman down at the dock. He pays me with a handful of brass and copper coins whose value I can only guess. I’ve sold the thing at a loss, no doubt, but I need money more than a boat.
Next I find a tailor shop. The man offers to make me clothes to my exact measurements, but I have neither the time nor the interest. Instead I purchase ready-made trousers and linen shirts for the both of us.
It costs fewer coins than I’d thought. Perhaps my bartering skills, honed in the North West Company, were better than I had imagined.
Next I go to a cobbler’s shop. A few more coins and I buy two pairs of good leather boots. I try at first to buy just one boot for Bill. The cobbler laughs when I explain why, but politely declines the offer. One foot or not, Bill is now the proud owner of a pair of new boots.
Business done, I return to Doctor Curmi’s surgery. “How are ye faring?” I ask. Bill is groggy but awake on the doctor’s table. His leg is neatly bandaged up. The doctor has cleaned up, and there is hardly a drop of blood to be seen anywhere.
“I can hardly feel my leg but my head hurts worse than the time I drank a triple share of grog,” he says before drifting back asleep.
“The effect of the drugs,” says Doctor Curmi. “The procedure went very well. I will keep him here for the night. You have a room in Valetta?” he asks.
“Aye, at the inn just off the harbour,” I say. “A dinnae ken its name.”
“The Minerva,” says Doctor Curmi. “A decent place. I will have your friend delivered there tomorrow. Buy a bottle of spirits and wash the leg with it daily. If you do this and ensure he rests for at least two weeks, your friend will avoid both infection and a return visit to me.”
“Thank ye, Sir. I am truly grateful fer yer help.”
Doctor Curmi shakes my hand. “He’s alive today because of you, my lad. All I did was tidy him up a little so he can wear a peg. Speaking of which, I will send along a crutch and a wooden leg as well. One of the effects of this ongoing war is that both are in great supply.”
After this, I return to the Minerva and strike a bargain with the landlord. In exchange for eight hours of my labour a day around the inn, he will provide room and board for Bill and me for as long as we stay. Promising to start my work first thing in the morning, I leave the inn for the water-front. The sailors and dockhands down here will know all about the comings and goings of England-bound ships.
“We’ve not seen a British merchant ship for weeks,” one says. “Too dangerous to sail these waters right now.”
“Maybe shipping will increase soon with the capture of the Incorruptible,” says another.
“Don’t count on that,” another says. “Revanche is still out there somewhere.”
I say nothing about my own experiences with both French ships,
thank the men and return to the inn for supper. Perhaps it is better there are no British ships right now, not with Bill unable to move. All I can do is wait, tend to my friend and hope.
Chapter 37
As promised, Bill is brought to the Minerva just after noon. He is carried on a stretcher by two strong men who take him up to our room and lay him gently on the bed.
I am in the yard, cleaning out the stable, when Bill arrives. I quickly put down my pitchfork and run up the stairs to see him.
“Quite the thing, ain’t it?” Bill says looking at the wooden leg the men have brought with them. “Doc cut it to the right size but he says I won’t be ready to wear it for a month, six weeks perhaps. Ain’t it the damnedest thing you ever saw?”
“It is, indeed,” I say. The wooden leg is just that: the lower half of a leg to replace the one Bill lost, complete with a wooden foot. Perhaps he can use the second boot after all. There is a leather harness that will fit over his stump and leather belts to tighten it in place.
“Doc says I’ll walk with a limp, but when I put on breeches and a pair of shoes you’d never know it weren’t real.”
* * *
For the next three weeks while Bill recovers, I spend my days working for the landlord. Among my chores I dung out stables, repair the roof and walls, serve meals, and carry sides of salt pork and kegs of beer into the storeroom.
Each day after dinner and with my work done, I walk down to the waterfront to learn what news there may be of a ship. For the past twenty days I have seen nothing, but to my great surprise today I see a large triple-masted vessel tied up at dock. My heart leaps at the sight of the Red Ensign — she is British for sure. Not Royal Navy, but a merchant ship called the Pelican. I read the name with surprise. I know that name.
We could always use a good hand on board the Pelican. Name’s Robert. I’m her mate. We carry goods, bound for Valetta. Are you sure, lad? The Mediterranean is a good bit warmer than England this time of year. It’s worth it, to feel the heat of the sun on your face, even with Napoleon’s fleet out there!
It comes back to me in a flash! That is where I heard of Valetta before — from the seaman in The Gun, just before I was taken by the press gang and given the King’s Shilling.
I hurry down to the dockside and approach the ship. “Pardon me,” I say to a sailor who disembarks down the gangway. “Is there a mate on board this ship called Robert? A hale, bluff bald-headed fellow?”
“Aye, what of it?” he asks suspiciously.
“I’m an old acquaintance of his,” I respond. “I was hoping to have a word.”
The sailor heads back up the gangway. “Wait right there,” he says.
A few minutes later, Pelican’s mate appears. “Tim here said you were an old mate of mine,” the man says eyeing me sideways, “but you don’t look familiar to me.”
“We met just the one time,” I say. “In London at The Gun. Just before…”
The man’s face breaks into a grin. “…before you got thumped on the head by the pressers! I remember you well enough, young man. I see you made it to Valetta after all!”
“Indeed I did,” I say. “When are ye returning to England?”
“We’ll be in Valetta for a week,” he says, “unloading supplies for the Navy and picking up lace and cotton. About time we got back here, thank goodness for the Royal Navy. Captured one of them blasted French ships, and nobody’s seen hide nor hair of the other one.”
I have, I think to myself. Both of the frigates, and from closer than I wanted. “Robert,” I say. “Ye asked then if I was interested in sailing with ye back in London. I declined yer kind offer at the time but I was hoping ye would take me up on it now.”
Chapter 38
When the Pelican sails from Valetta, Bill and I leave with her. I work in exchange for my passage and, as for Bill, though we speak little of it, the sailors figure out soon enough he lost his leg fighting the French and is treated as a hero for it.
“Best time aboard a ship I ever had, Trap,” he tells me two days west of Malta. The wind is brisk and the sun warm as Bill lounges beside the mast. “No chores, decent food and no French gunner trying to blow me to Hades.”
“I cannae disagree,” I say. My tasks are light compared to those on board Cerberus, the weather is fair and there is no sign of French frigates or Barbary Corsairs.
Within the week we slip through the Pillars of Hercules into the open Atlantic, head north past the coast of Portugal and across the mouth of the Bay of Biscay, a strong wind pushing us home.
Although it is summer, the farther north we sail the cooler it becomes, and off the coast of France I see rain for the first time in ages. “Almost home,” Bill says that night at supper. “A day, two at most, and we’ll see England.”
Late the next day Bill is proven right. Ahead, at the edge of the horizon, a green land mass comes into view. “The Cornish Coast,” Robert says. “I wager you two are pleased to see home again.”
“I never thought I’d be so happy to see England,” I tell him.
“We’ll reach the Thames tomorrow afternoon,” Robert adds. “We’ll anchor off Southend, wait for the tide and sail with it up to London. Then you’ll be home proper.”
At dawn I slip from my hammock and climb onto the deck. The sun rises above the starboard side of the ship, casting rays of light onto large rock bluffs to the west. “The Cliffs of Dover,” I say to myself. “Looks like I managed to lay eyes on them once again after all.”
* * *
“Mrs. Elizabeth! Shall I take the baby for you?” a voice says. The Pelican returned to London not even a full day ago and already I’m at Plashet House, waiting to talk to Elizabeth Fry. We said our goodbyes to Robert and the rest of the crew when the ship docked on the Isle of Dogs, then booked a room in a small tavern for Bill to rest. From there I went straight to Newham.
I stand outside the house’s gates and look up to see a woman holding an infant in her arms, walking with another who appears to be a servant. “Are ye Elizabeth Fry?” I ask, startling the women as they approach me.
“Yes, and if you are a thief you are wasting your time,” she says kindly but firmly, handing the baby to the nanny. “I have no money, but if you’re hungry, wait here and I’ll send Maggie back to the house for food.”
“I’m not here to rob ye, Ma’am. I need yer help.”
Fry’s face narrows and she stares at me intently. “Do I know you, Sir? You have very familiar eyes.”
“Nae, Ma’am, but I think ye ken my sister. Her name’s Libby. Libby Scott. I believe ye met her in prison.” I hope against hope that the old crippled sailor back in Liverpool told me the truth.
“Duncan Scott? Can it really be you?” I start at the mention of my name. “People in England think you’re dead, but your sister told me you weren’t. I have to say that a part of me didn’t believe her until now.”
“Ye tried to help Libby.” The words fly quickly from my mouth. “She saved me, let me escape. It was my fault and she paid the price! Please! Tell me where she is! I heard she was to be sent to Australia!”
“Oh Duncan,” Fry says tenderly. “Your sister didn’t go to Australia.”
“Where is she then? What’s happened?” The thought of Libby dead hits me like a punch.
“Son,” says Fry, a huge smile creasing her face, weeping what appear to be tears of joy. “Libby hoped you’d come back, prayed you’d find her, and it seems her prayers have been answered. You’ve just recently arrived from Canada, I take it?”
“After a short detour, yes,” I say, not wanting to go into details. “Please, Mrs. Fry, I beg ye, I’ve waited long enough. I need to find my sister. Do ye ken where she is?”
“Yes I do, Duncan Scott,” she says as my heart explodes with joy. “Libby is alive and well, and she has had a most remarkable experience that I will relate to you shortly. To see her, however, you will have to go on another journey, though this time you won’t travel near as far.”
C
hapter 39
Two days on the Royal Mail coach takes Bill and me to Bristol, in the west of England. Fry’s family is in the cocoa business and Libby, I learned, among many other amazing things, has been living in Fry’s Bristol house, in hiding with Fry’s sister-in-law. Despite everything she has suffered, Libby is still wanted and would no doubt be jailed or transported if caught.
“Your sister is a remarkable woman if only half of what the Fry woman said is true,” remarks Bill as the mail coach stops in the centre of Bristol.
“She is at that,” I reply. Like my friend I can hardly believe the things Fry has told me about my sister, though the woman is a Quaker and would have no reason to lie.
“You’re sure you know where we are going?” Bill asks as we climb down from the coach and make our way slowly up the street towards a large, twin-towered cathedral that dominates the skyline. Bill now wears his wooden leg but still uses a crutch to help him walk.
“Aye, Bill, I think I do. Mrs. Fry’s directions were clear enough and Bristol is nothing like London. If I can navigate my way through that city I’m sure I can find my way around here.”
Union Street. That is our destination and is easy enough to find. After several minutes of walking we reach the house I was told to find, a house with the name Fry written beside the door.
It is a tall, three-storey row home, made of the same stone that built the cathedral and almost every other building in the city, it seems like. I stand in front of the door, frozen, wanting my hand to rise up and take the knocker, but finding it can’t.
“Go ahead, Trap,” says Bill. “She’s waited long enough. You both have.”
My hand doesn’t feel my own as I take the brass knocker and bang it onto the thick wooden door. There is no response from inside, no sound. I wait for what seems like forever, and am about to walk away when the latch turns and the door squeaks open on its hinges.
