HMS Nightingale (Alexis Carew Book 4)

by J. A. Sutherland

  “You understand what I mean, sir?”

  “Yes. Yes, I think I do. I had dealings with someone very like that just before being posted here.” The thought of her sessions with Lieutenant Curtice of the Sick and Hurt Board after Giron came to mind. Endless questions about how she’d slept and how she felt, as though that had any bearing on her duty and the tasks at hand. Endless appointments to be kept, and idle all the rest of the time — as though dwelling on all that happened could somehow make it better, rather than moving on and keeping busy as she preferred to do. She could well imagine how Fringe Fleet officers and men would take to that.

  “Well,” she said firmly. “We’ll just see if we can’t get this Mister Poulter to stick to bodies and leave minds alone, shall we? Between the two of us, we should be able to come up with something.”

  Villar straightened in his chair. “Thank you, sir. The men, and especially the gunroom, will be quite happy if you can manage that.”

  “Careful, Mister Villar. If Poulter hears that he’ll be after you about exactly how happy you are and it’s a short hop from that to what you dreamt last night.”

  Villar actually laughed at that. “Oh, aye, sir, it’s to the point we can’t talk about sleep before he’s on about our dreams … and forever tapping at his tablet as though he’s taking down every word we —”

  “Shup’s carepentar, sar!”

  The sentry’s announcement cut Villar off.

  “Yes, come through,” Alexis called. “I apologize for the interruption, Mister Villar. We’ll just be a moment.”

  Robnett, Nightingale’s carpenter, and two hands entered.

  “You mentioned some work you wished done, sir?” Robnett said.

  “Yes.” In their meeting earlier, Alexis had asked him to come back and see to some temporary modifications of Nightingale’s cabin. “I just need …”

  Alexis trailed off. What she had in mind wasn’t forbidden, but it was frowned upon to a certain extent. Captains often took their wives and families aboard ship on the sail to a remote station. Some had additional servants, even their own clergy, brought aboard. Still, the Royal Navy wasn’t a passenger service, after all.

  Alexis cleared her throat and fought not to flush.

  “There’ll be a … young lady traveling with us when we leave Zariah.” Alexis felt herself flush despite her efforts not to and glanced down at her tabletop. There was no reason for her to be embarrassed, she told herself, ship’s commanders did this sort of thing frequently. Still, Marie Autin and her infant son, Ferrau, were neither her family nor servants. They were simply … well, she wasn’t at all certain what they were to her.

  Marie had been a young girl in Courboin, the town on Giron in the Hanoverese sector known as the Berry March, where Alexis was held prisoner after the crew of Hermione mutinied. Alexis had hardly known her then, not even her name, she’d simply been one of the girls the other midshipmen of Hermione had some relationship with. Whether Marie was a prostitute or just a young girl taking up with Hermione’s paroled officers staying in the town, Alexis still didn’t know for certain and had never asked.

  Alexis next met Marie when she returned to Giron as part of the ill-fated attempt to free the worlds of the Berry March from Hanoverese rule. Those worlds, once part of the French Republic, then conquered and taken by Hanover long ago. Still, after generations of Hanoverese rule, they thought of themselves as French. Marie had a child in the time between Alexis’ escape and return — the child of one of Hermione’s midshipmen, Penn Timpson, a vile little toad if ever there was one, in Alexis’ opinion. As well as irresponsible, to have not taken precautions in his dalliance with Marie.

  In the flight, abject rout to be truthful, from Giron, Alexis took Marie, Ferrau, and thirty other refugees aboard her ship. Marie and Ferrau were two of only seven of those to survive the encounter with a Hanoverese frigate that destroyed her ship.

  For some reason, Alexis continued to feel responsible for the pair. Rather than leave them on Lesser Ichthorpe with the rest of the refugees, she’d offered Marie a place on her grandfather’s holdings on Dalthus. She supposed the proper thing to do would have been for Marie to contact Timpson, but the girl seemed to have no interest in doing so. She loved Ferrau, but thought little of the child’s father.

  That might have something to do with seeing me slap him and call him a coward and a bully for that trick he pulled with my messages aboard Hermione, Alexis thought.

  In any case, Alexis brought the two with her. Thankfully, the lieutenant commanding the fast packet that brought Alexis from Lesser Ichthorpe to Zariah was willing to bring them along as well. Alexis thought that probably had more to do with the opportunity to host a beautiful, young French girl at his table for supper each night than any general kindness on his part, but it did get the three of them to Zariah together.

  Now all she had to do was get the pair to Dalthus and her grandfather’s holdings.

  Where he’ll likely chide me for bringing in more strays, what with the number of Hermione’s dependents who’ve made their way there.

  After the mutiny on that ship, Alexis had told the mutineers that their families would have a place there, should their lives become too hard. The mutineers themselves would have to flee and keep fleeing, for they’d been convicted in absentia for their actions and would be executed if ever the Royal Navy caught up with them again.

  “A young lady?” Villar was asking, drawing Alexis’ attention back to him.

  “Yes.” Alexis was watching Robnett as the carpenter studied the compartment’s bulkheads. The tiny cabin was going to be quite crowded with Marie and Ferrau … and Ferrau had an annoying tendency to cry at all hours. She’d thought to give them a cabin of their own, but Nightingale was so small there were no spares. It would mean displacing both Villar and Spindler, as the midshipmen shared a berth, into one of the warrants’ cabins and sending that worthy to berth with the crew. It was only a matter of a few weeks, but Alexis didn’t want to cause any more disruption to Nightingale’s routine than she already had.

  “A, ah, particular friend of yours, then?” Villar asked.

  “I suppose so,” Alexis said. Well, come to that, she’d grown quite close to Marie on the journey and the girl was now one of only a few people Alexis felt she could call a friend at all, certainly the only female in that company. “Yes, I suppose you could say that.”

  “No room to put a cot on t’other bulkhead, sir, as the quarter gallery’s hatch’ll not allow it,” Robnett was saying, distracting Alexis again. “It’s either over yours or make yours wider.”

  Alexis frowned. No, she could see that her original thought to put another cot folding down from the bulkhead opposite her own would never work. The hatchway to her quarter gallery — the commander’s private head and something Alexis thought the largest benefit of commanding a Queen’s ship — took up too much of the space.

  Neither could she see putting Marie or herself in an upper bunk — the girl was up and about at all hours tending to Ferrau. They’d tried that in the cabin they shared aboard the packet and ended with Alexis in the top bunk, a thing she’d had quite enough of as a midshipman. Her lack of height, at only a meter and a half tall, made such things annoying to say the least.

  “Doubling mine will do quite nicely, Mister Robnett,” she said. “It’ll be no hardship for us to share. I don’t take up much space, after all.”

  Robnett glanced at her as though unsure if she was joking, then grinned as he saw her smile.

  “Aye, sir.”

  Alexis turned back to Villar.

  “It’s only until we reach home, Dalthus, so we’ll make do.”

  “So, you’re, ah …”

  Alexis noted that Villar seemed quite uncomfortable suddenly. His eyes were darting about and his brow was furrowed. She tried to think what might have put him off, but the last of their discussion had been about Poulter, and she thought he’d been growing more comfortable speaking to her, not less.

>   “Ah, just taking the lady home to meet your family, is it?” Villar asked.

  Five

  7 September, aboard HMS Nightingale, Zariah System

  “Well done, Isom,” Alexis whispered as the plate was set in front of her. “Please tell Garcia it was a wonderful meal.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  After her disaster of boarding Nightingale, she’d thought not to dine her officers in, as was traditional, especially as she had no cook, but Isom had managed to find someone in the crew who was not only eager for the position, but qualified as well. That the captain’s cook became mostly answerable only to the captain and was relieved of other duties aboard ship had more than a little to do with the eagerness, she suspected — there were no end of hands aboard ship who were willing to make that change. Qualified, on the other hand, was more difficult to find.

  Garcia’s family had emigrated all the way from Nuevo Opportunidad to a Fringe colony world and spent three generations owning their own restaurants. Garcia hated the business and took the Queen’s shilling when the recruiters came about, only to discover that sailing the Dark wasn’t quite as glamorous and adventure-filled as the lieutenant leading the recruiting party made it out to be. He jumped at the opportunity Isom offered him to avoid the heavy, dangerous work of hauling on sail lines outside Nightingale’s hull and spend his days cooking for her captain instead.

  If the food was a bit more heavily spiced than Alexis typically preferred, well, it was tasty enough and she felt certain they could come to some arrangement on the spices.

  The other diners at table with her, Villar, Spindler, the freshly returned surgeon, Poulter, and Marie, all seemed to enjoy it as well. The desert now in front of her gave her a bit of pause, though. It was quite similar to the boiled puddings typically prepared for the crew — those weren’t bad at all, but she’d expected something more after the meal itself. This was just a jiggly blob turned out on the plate with some sort of brown sauce over the top of it.

  A quick taste, though, proved that this dish was every bit as good as Garcia’s previous offerings.

  Alexis vowed to let her new cook have as free a rein as possible in ordering stores brought aboard. She’d discovered since joining the Navy and traveling more widely that colonies tended to become quite limited in their cuisine, partly due to the culture of those settling and partly due to fewer resources during the early days. One simply couldn’t bring all of humanity’s preferred spices and herbs to every world — both for the cost of shipping them and that some things simply wouldn’t flourish on certain worlds.

  A pleasant side-effect of that, though, was discovering new cuisines and dishes as she traveled.

  Or not — I’m still glad Dansby warned me off that currywurst when we were in Hanover.

  Marie’s giggling drew Alexis’ attention. She’d seated Marie and Villar along one side of the table, Spindler at the far end, as befitted the junior officer present, and Poulter on the other side.

  Marie was caught up in giggling as she shook Villar’s plate, making his desert jiggle in turn. Villar, for his part, was watching as though it were the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.

  Alexis sighed. She’d found Marie to be a quite pleasant traveling companion in the weeks they’d been aboard the packet, save for two things: Ferrau, who was, thankfully, asleep at the moment, and the other girl’s tendency to put on the appearance of a vapid coquette in the presence of any reasonably handsome young man.

  The young lieutenant commanding the fast packet had found it enchanting at dinners aboard. Every night. Alexis, however, had found it teeth-itchingly irritating. It was as though the presence of a handsome young man caused Marie to behave as though her brains had been removed with a soup ladle, despite her otherwise good sense.

  Alexis watched Villar smile and laugh with the girl in turn.

  Or perhaps both their brains are siphoned at the same time.

  Villar looked up from his jiggling dessert and caught Alexis’ eye. His smile fell and he flushed. He straightened in his seat, shoulders back and averting his eyes from both Marie and Alexis, despite the fact that Marie was now playing at sneaking bites of his dessert. After a few moments of this, Marie gave a little frown and sat back herself.

  This had played out several times over the meal. Villar seemed to respond to Marie’s flirtations, then he’d glance at Alexis and sit stiffly until Marie managed to captivate his attention again. Alexis found it perplexing. Marie was traveling with her, yes, but the girl was older than Alexis and her own person. Villar seemed to be acting as though Alexis had some say in it or would disapprove of.

  If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Marie it’s that she’s generally no fool, despite appearances. She must see some good character in him, so if she chooses to flirt with him, why should I object?

  As Villar’s captain, she supposed she could, but what would be the point?

  The dessert was soon finished and plates cleared, followed by Isom refreshing their wine glasses. As Spindler’s, the last of them and the junior officer, was filled, he raised it and others looked to him expectantly. Even Marie had enough suppers aboard ship to know what was to come.

  Spindler opened his mouth, then closed it with a quick glance at Marie and then Alexis, then spoke.

  “Gentlemen, lady, sir,” Spindler raised his glass, “the Queen!”

  “The Queen!” the rest of them echoed, raising their glasses in the Loyal Toast that marked the end of the meal aboard ship.

  The lad’s quick, to address us each so, and being unused to a female officer aboard, much less female passengers.

  Even Marie raised her glass, calling, “La Reine,” with the rest of them.

  Alexis had to wonder at that, when it was New London’s aborted attempt at freeing the Berry March worlds that had cost Marie her family and home to begin with. After the evacuation of Giron, it had appeared for a time that refugees might be taken to the French Republic and resettled there, but those talks had dragged on and on, all the while those refugees had been housed in nothing more than rough tents and cots in empty buildings on Lesser Ichthorpe.

  “If you’ll pardon my saying, Miss Autin,” Poulter said, “I don’t recognize your accent. May I ask where in the Republic it is you’re from?”

  Alexis glanced at Nightingale’s surgeon in surprise. Poulter had remained mostly silent throughout the supper, only responding to direct questions, and he’d arrived back aboard so close to the meal being served that she’d had no time to speak to him privately.

  “Non, Monsieur Poulter,” Marie said, “I am not born in La Republique.”

  “Really?” Poulter said. “Some border world on New London’s side, then?”

  Marie shot a glance to Alexis. They’d been through this many times before with ships’ captains on the trip to Zariah. The answer to Poulter’s question would only lead to more questions about the evacuation, and that was painful for both of them. There was no getting around it, though.

  Alexis nodded.

  Marie took a deep breath.

  “Giron,” she said.

  “Giron!” Spindler fairly shouted in excitement. “Were you part of the evacuation?”

  Alexis couldn’t fault his enthusiasm, difficult though it was for her. The invasion and subsequent evacuation of Giron had filled the Naval Gazette and other news sources for weeks. Even captains of frigates and ships of the line they’d met in transit had been eager as boys to hear a firsthand account.

  “Excusez-moi.” Marie rose and made her way to where Ferrau was sleeping on the cot.

  “Did I say something wrong?” Spindler asked, watching her go.

  “It was a difficult time, Mister Spindler,” Alexis said, “but, yes, we were part of the evacuation.” She looked at her wine glass, concentrating on the way the light played in the wine while she waited for the next question. Marie at least had the excuse of Ferrau to leave the conversation, while Alexis was stuck with it.

  “What sh
ip, sir?”

  Yes, that’s always the next question, isn’t it?

  Alexis felt it might be easier if the Gazette had made more mention of her, as it had of Admirals Chipley and Cammack, and the captains in their respective fleets. The captains of the evacuation fleet, the civilian craft that had sailed off into the Dark to bring New London’s soldiers home, were made much of, as well. Her, they’d mentioned once, and only as Lieutenant Carew — not even her full name. Admiral Cammack had explained it to her. If they’d used her full name as they did for the other ships’ commanders, well, Lieutenant Alexis Arleen Carew might offend the sensibilities of some worlds in the Fringe.

  And they’re beginning to offend my own sensibilities, not least because of this.

  It wasn’t that she wanted the credit or more notoriety at all. It was that the repetition of this conversation was becoming tiresome.

  And if they knew already, then I wouldn’t have to say it.

  The answer to Spindler’s question pained her. She tried to not even think the ship’s name, it was too soon and too tied to the men she’d lost aboard. Alexis grasped her wine glass, careful not to do so too hard and break another one as she had aboard a ship on the journey here.

  “I had command of Belial.”

  She raised her gaze to find the others staring at her as she expected.

  Villar’s brow furrowed, then his eyes widened.

  “You’re that Carew?” He frowned. “I thought you’d be a …”

  Alexis raised an eyebrow. She’d heard that from more than one captain on her journey as well.

  “Yes, Mister Villar? You thought I’d be what?”

  Villar flushed and cleared his throat, then squared his shoulders and met Alexis’ gaze.