I bid you Godspeed,
Your Faithful Servant,
Leander Braden.
Emily’s fist tightened around the letter and her shoulders sagged as she fell against the cabin door, sinking to her knees, murmuring thanks like the tranquil sea after a tempest. Transfixed in happiness, she sat there until her spent sobs had turned to laughter and eagerly she looked up at Leander. “I travelled under the name Mrs. Seaton for no other reason than for my safety. Frederick Seaton is my cousin. He is not, nor ever shall be, my husband.”
Leander’s lips parted in surprise.
“There is so much that I need to tell you, Doctor. So much that I need to explain. Give me a chance to tell you about myself and when you have learned all, tell me there is some hope.”
“Hope? When we belong to such different worlds?”
“It is your world, not mine, to which I wish to belong.”
Leander stared at her in mute elation, then dropped down next to her. There he lifted her little white hand that bore the scars of her leap from the Serendipity and, closing his eyes tightly, held it to his cheek, then to his lips, letting it linger there. When he opened his eyes again, their sea-blue colour was more striking than ever, and the fine lines around them crinkled in mirth. He seemed as content as he had been that gusty morning when they had sat together on the Isabelle’s waist within the shelter of the smaller boats.
“God willing, I will meet you later, up high on the mizzenmast’s platform, and there we will talk and watch tomorrow’s sun rise.” He searched her face as if trying to memorize every one of her features, and his own broke into a teasing smile. “Your pistol, Princess Emeline, keep it with you at all times. I suspect you know how to use it.”
He rose and bowed to her respectfully, as he would have had he made her acquaintance in a lavish ballroom, allowed his gaze to fall on her another moment, and was gone. Emily shrank back against the door and waited until the guns and desperate cries above had swallowed the wrenching sound of his departing steps, then dragged herself beneath Leander’s bed where she wept unrestained tears of joy.
4:00 p.m.
(Afternoon Watch, Eight Bells)
BEFORE EVEN A FULL HOUR had elapsed, the roar, rattle, and thunder of battle had rolled away with the white clouds of the June day, leaving in its place a suffocating pall of acrid smoke that swirled around the Isabelle like a grey-black blanket trying to hide her terrible destruction from her enemies. Rudderless, mastless, she bobbed about on the wine-red waves like a dead sea-creature. All about her was profound silence except for the stifled groans of the wounded who lay in pathetic heaps, crumpled and traumatized, upon the bloody decks, and a single white gull that tumbled through the smoke, squawking eerily, like a bird from another world.
James lay still, near the bowsprit where he had fallen, his breathing laboured, trying to focus on the gull as it cheerfully swooped and glided around the ruins of his once-proud masts. He kept his eyes skyward, afraid of what he might see if he lifted his head to search the decks. He could smell charred flesh and feel the stickiness of the blood that ran in rivulets along the planks, seeping into his cream-coloured breeches, and he tried to convince himself that neither belonged to him. He would have to get himself up soon – stand tall on the deck – as the men needed him now more than ever. They required direction and a calming word. The enemy was approaching. He could hear their excited shouts as they clambered into their small boats to cross over and board the Isabelle. James attempted to raise himself up, but he couldn’t breathe properly, nor could he move his legs, or his arms, or any part of his body.
He lay there helplessly as the American boats pulled nearer and nearer, unable to do a blessed thing, except dwell with forlorn thoughts. Is this how it would end, then? No victory, no glory, no prize money, no lofty comparisons made to Lord Nelson back home in England; his family forever having to bear the shame of his ignoble defeat at the hands of a British traitor? James twitched and tasted blood in his mouth, and from somewhere far away, heard a voice calling to him.
“Captain Moreland! Sir!”
It was Fly’s voice, but James could not see him clearly. Fly appeared over him suddenly, faceless in the darkness, and there were two others at his side, one weeping profusely.
“Hold on, sir, and I’ll get Leander.” Fly’s voice had a strange hoarseness to it.
“No!” James began to cough and he had to wait until his spasms had passed. “No. There will be others who need the doctor’s attention. I will wait my turn.”
He felt himself being gently lifted from the wet deck and carried away, although in which direction they were headed he could not guess. He tried to hold onto their voices, which grew more and more distant with each step.
“Biscuit! Take the captain to his cabin.”
“Ach, but sir, it’s bin shot out … awful mess in there. Glass all over thee place and thee furniture, why it’s nothin’ but rubble.”
“Take him there in any case.” Fly then lowered his voice. “Magpie, quit your snivelling this instant! Tell Dr. Braden to meet me in the great cabin. Run!”
“Fly?” James called out, feeling an overwhelming desire to go to sleep. “My letters, do you have them?”
“Aye, sir. They are safe.”
“I – I regret that first time a few weeks back, allowing Trevelyan to get away. Perhaps I should not have concerned myself with wind and repairs; perhaps I should have gone straight back after him.”
“But, sir, you had no idea it was Trevelyan’s ship.”
“No.” James sighed. “Still …” He lifted his faded blue eyes to the sky once again. “I ask for your forgiveness.”
He could see quite clearly now and watched as the white gull, having grown tired of the cheerless wreck, swooped down the length of the Isabelle’s decks towards her taffrail, circled her shattered mizzenmast and the tattered British colours that still fluttered from her stern, and finally soared through the smoke to search for the sun.
4:20 p.m.
(First Dog Watch)
MAGPIE PAUSED MIDWAY on the ladder down to the hospital to wipe away the tears that poured from his eye, trying to carry out Mr. Austen’s orders to be brave and stand tall. He didn’t feel brave at all. Below him was a hellish scene. A heap of bleeding men sat slumped over and dazed on the hospital floor, looking as if they had been hastily dumped there from the deck above like a bucket of refuse hurled from a second-storey window. Some had their heads so covered in gore that he had no idea who they were; others had arms and legs hanging unnaturally from their bodies. Magpie shuddered and felt his stomach heave. It was worse than any nightmare he had ever had.
“Move along, boy,” shouted a sailor at Magpie’s head. “Git outta me way.”
Magpie dangled precariously to one side of the ladder as the sailor, carrying a hysterical gunner with a badly burned back over his shoulder, swept past him and into the congested hospital. Magpie took a deep breath and followed the sailor, keeping his eyes on the ceiling planks, having no desire to see the writhing mass of miserable men who coughed and cried out at his feet, nor the devastation of Emily’s little corner, which had taken a hit through its gunport. What remained of her canvas curtains shivered in the sea breeze that blew through the gaping hole in the ship’s side, bringing with it wafts of unwelcome smoke. Standing in the middle of the mayhem was Dr. Braden, hunched over his gruesome operating table, periodically raising his voice with orders and advice for Osmund Brockley and the loblolly boys, as well as for Bun Brodie and Biscuit, who both claimed some knowledge of medicine and had therefore agreed to stay and help him with his wretched work.
“Sir?” Magpie stood patiently by Dr. Braden’s side while he performed an amputation, keeping his eye averted from the doctor’s red-stained arms and the frightening tools he held in his hands, and the mangled mess spread out upon the table before him. When the doctor finally set his eyes on him, Magpie was unsettled by their haunted look. Raising himself up on his tiptoes, he whis
pered, “Mr. Austen was hopin’ ya could come to the great cabin to examine Captain Moreland. He ain’t doin’ so good.”
Dr. Braden straightened himself and slowly looked all around him, pausing thoughtfully on what was once Emily’s corner. “Tell Mr. Austen … I will come.”
As Magpie emerged from the woeful hospital onto the fo’c’sle deck, he found Morgan Evans standing before him, his face blackened with soot, his knitted hat gone, carrying Bailey Beck in his arms. Magpie didn’t like the way Bailey’s white head was slumped against Morgan’s chest, nor the hysterical note in his own voice as he cried out, “Mr. Evans, sir!”
Morgan’s reply was strangely subdued. “I’ve told you before, you don’t have to address me that way.”
Magpie grasped Morgan’s upper right arm and looked up at him.“Would ya help me find Mr. Walby?”
Morgan didn’t answer. A pained expression crept into his eyes as he shifted the weight about in his arms.
“Please, sir?”
Morgan’s lips began moving silently, as if he were speaking in a trance, and the only thing Magpie could understand was, “… that second shot from the Serendipity took the mizzenmast down and him with it. He’s gone.”
With his precious load, Morgan hurried away towards the ladder down to the hospital, leaving Magpie alone. Bewildered, the little sail maker stumbled to the starboard rail and hung his head over the ship’s side, gulping at the air. His eye fell below to the accumulation of battle debris that knocked up against the Isabelle’s hull – bits of barrels, shredded sails, and lifeless sailors – and he followed its path out beyond the smoke into the far water, upon which the sun still shined. Aware of the gentle rise and fall of the ship, he clung to the rail and thought about Emily, and Jane Austen’s book, and tried to recall all the delicious things Mrs. Jordan had fed him for supper that fascinating first night in the Duke of Clarence’s home. The sounds around him had no meaning: the ringing of the ship’s bell, the roaring requests for assistance with the wounded, and the shrilly cries of the Americans as they made ready to board the Isabelle.
After a time, Magpie shoved himself away from the rail. He wiped at his runny nose and aimlessly started walking, and though he was bumped and jostled by those scurrying around him, he kept his head down. Near a carronade, still scorching from employment, he discovered an officer’s spyglass, lying forgotten on the red deck. Magpie bent over to pick it up, and as his hand closed around it he looked out again upon the azure sea. The water was calm and the winds running northeast were light.
4:30 p.m.
(First Dog Watch, One Bell)
THE SURVIVORS LINED THE SHIP’S RAILS, making way for the boarding party of sixty or so American officers and marines who moved across the Isabelle’s quarterdeck like a creeping pool of blood. With heavy hearts and vacant eyes that stared from weather-beaten faces, they wordlessly watched. Mrs. Kettle hovered near the Isabelle’s wheel, away from the men. She didn’t like the look of the Isabelle’s crew – their sloping shoulders, and arms that hung uselessly at their sides – and chose instead to concentrate on the Americans, stretching her neck to catch the first glimpse of the Yankee captain around whom Bun Brodie had spun countless yarns. A long time passed while each of the boarders made his way up the ladder aside the ship, and she was certain that the last of them to step onto the quarterdeck was Captain Thomas Trevelyan himself.
Though not the pirate with flowing beard, peg leg, and flag – bearing skull and crossbones – that Mrs. Kettle had imagined, her knees still wobbled as she looked him over. He was a giant of a man with straw-coloured hair that stuck out in untidy bits from beneath his cocked hat. He had hideous eyes and a scarred, pockmarked face that reminded her of someone mouldering in his grave. Mrs. Kettle would hate to have encountered his kind at night in a London alleyway. Before the remnants of the Isabelle’s crew, he rose up, hands on his hips, a smirk on his sunken face, looking around with satisfaction at the ruin he had wrought.
The marine lieutenant at Trevelyan’s side straightened his round infantry hat and hollered at his assembled soldiers. “Forty-six of the Liberty’s crew are prisoners on this ship. Seek them out, have them muster on the quarterdeck, and prepare for their transport to the Serendipity.”
Trevelyan addressed one of his officers. “Mr. Smith, strike all the bunting and raise our colours. She may not be worth the powder to blow her to hell, but she’s our prize now.” He took several more steps, his eyes flicking over the crew that shuffled backwards as he leaned into them, before halting in front of Midshipman Stewart.
“Where is your captain?”
The flush-faced teenager struggled to clear his throat. “He’s in … in the great cabin … sir.”
Mrs. Kettle steadied her nerves with deep breaths as Trevelyan strode in her direction. Her left hand sought out her abdomen and she stroked it absently while her right fumbled at the neck of her shirt. Smiling prettily, she plucked a folded note from her bosom – the one she had asked Lord Lindsay to compose for her. She stepped forward, and held it out to Trevelyan, her heart beating rapidly when his eyes flashed over her form.
“Whom do we have here?” he asked with condescension. “The cook?”
“Nay, sir. Meggie Kettle, the laundress.”
He glanced down at the proffered note. “What’s this?”
“If ya please, sir. I needs ya to read it. If yer Cap’n Trevelyan, as I’m supposin’, ya’ll be findin’ whot’s in it mighty int’restin’.”
Squinting, he studied her a moment, then snatched the note and skimmed its contents. When he was done, he crumpled it up triumphantly in his fist and his lips twisted into a smile. “Well, Mrs. Kettle, it seems the Isabelle’s more valuable than I thought.”
* * *
CLUTCHING HIS MEDICAL CHEST under one arm and buttoning his clean shirt with his free hand, Leander kept his head down and hurried past the ship’s wheel towards the great cabin. He stopped short when one quick glance up revealed the destruction ahead. The cabin’s galleried windows had been blasted away; one wrong step would send him plunging into the sea. Scattered about the once-fine space were fragments of Captain Moreland’s private papers, maps, and logbooks; his oak table and red velvet chairs had been reduced to pathetic piles of scrap and material. The only thing that had survived the barrage of Yankee shot was Captain Moreland’s hammock, which was still swinging with the ship’s serene rise and fall, and as Leander observed the spreading stain on its side and the still form lying within, he realized he had arrived too late.
“I am sorry for wasting your time,” said Fly without lifting his head. He was sitting on the floor with his back resting against one of two remaining bulkheads, staring blankly at an opened letter that lay across his knees.
“I too am sorry … for your loss.” Leander eyed Fly, looking for signs of injury, but he saw nothing significant beyond a few cuts that still bled through tears in his breeches. “Will you be all right?”
Fly breathed in and out heavily and looked up. “I understand the hospital took a hit.”
“It did. It came through the gunport and it …” Leander couldn’t finish his sentence.
“James never agreed with your philosophy of having your hospital on the upper deck. He always figured you and your patients would be safer on the orlop.”
Leander’s lips disappeared into a thin line and he nodded. “If there is nothing I can do here, I must get back.”
Fly’s stare fell upon the rusty stains on Leander’s forearms. “Aye. But as I’m not sure when we may have another private moment – as there is little time left – I wonder if I could delay you.” He held up the letter. “James asked that I read this if … if things did not go well.”
Leander set his medical chest on the floor beside Fly, lowered himself upon it, and gazed expectantly at his friend. Fly shot a furtive glance at what was once the main entrance to Captain Moreland’s cabin, then began to read in a low, dull voice as if he were delivering a sermon to an empty churc
h.
“Dear Mr. Austen. I realize that what I am about to relate is a subject I should have taken up with you long before now. I had hoped there would be time for you to hear my tale from my own lips. The following is not a story of which I am proud; in fact, I have spent the past nine years trying to forget it ever happened, and I thought I had almost succeeded. In putting off the telling of it, I employed every excuse: our occupation with the prisoners from the Liberty, Lord Lindsay’s shameful affair, and my lingering illness. I believed that – nay, I prayed – we would not meet Trevelyan again; leastways, I did not expect him to appear again so soon after our initial engagement. If I am justified in only one respect in writing – and not speaking – of this sorry business, it is that I will leave this world with the comforting knowledge that I have documented the details, of which, God knows, you will most certainly require somewhere down the road.”
Fly injected some inflection in his voice as he started in on James’s story.
“In May of 1803, I was commanding the Isabelle along with Henry, the Duke of Wessex. As you know, war had broken out once again with France, and I was ordered to assist in blockading the French port of Brest. We ended up in blockade for several months and it was most difficult on the crew. In addition to their regular duties, they were expected to undergo daily drills, intercept coastal convoys intent on supplying Brest, search the seas for any French ships returning from the West Indies, and, of course, watch the movements of the French frigates holed up in the harbour lest they be sent out on a clandestine operation or try to escape under cover of night. For all of us, the most difficult task was just trying to stay afloat offshore in all sorts of bad weather.
“The long weeks bobbing on the waves, battling nothing but the weather, took their toll. Supplies of fresh food ran low, the men naturally were not allowed any shore leave, and they were given only a drop of grog – Wessex and I wanting to keep them all sharp-witted as we worried they may have to give chase at any time. The result was that tempers flared and fights broke out amongst the men.
Seasons of War 2-Book Bundle Page 23
