Hearing the old man’s slow footsteps approaching on the steep stairs, Gus anxiously studied the boundaries of his attic room. It was low ceilinged and so narrow there was space for nothing beyond his cot and a small chest of drawers. Where would the doctor sit as they visited? And was the money still laid out upon the top of the chest in the event he was carrying a surprise for him? Sitting up to reassure himself the three pence were still there — that Aunt Sophia or one of his little cousins had not already snatched them up — Gus was settling back under his frayed counterpane when the doctor’s smiling face appeared in the doorway.
“What’s all this, Mr. Walby?” he asked, setting his leather bag and broad-brimmed hat down upon the bare floor. “Your cousins told me you were not at all well.”
“I haven’t been well for the past two days, sir,” said Gus. “I’ve been feeling achy all over, and I have a cough that hurts my chest, and I don’t have much energy to help Aunt Sophia.”
“I was most pleased with your progress a week back. What’ve you been up to since then?” he admonished with an inquiring frown. When Gus, uncertain of how much to tell him of Aunt Sophia’s demands and expectations, did not answer right away, the doctor nodded his head and said, “Let me have a look at you.”
Gus shifted over in his cot to make room for the doctor to sit down, which he did, immediately reaching for Gus’s wrist.
“My goodness, Mr. Walby, your heart is pounding so rapidly I can barely count the beats.” With the palm of his hand he felt Gus’s neck and then his forehead. “You’re a bit feverish. Then again, it is stiflingly hot up here.”
“I’m anxious, sir.”
“Why is that?”
Gus’s words tumbled from his mouth. “Well, I was hoping maybe you had a letter for me.”
The doctor compressed his lips. “I don’t; I’m sorry.”
Sadly, Gus gazed at the three pence upon his chest of drawers. Aunt Sophia would surely find them before he ever had a chance to give them to the doctor in exchange for the long-awaited letter. It was a wonder he’d been able to keep them away from her for so long.
“I don’t understand, sir,” Gus said, trying hard not to choke up. “She said … she said she would write straightaway to let me know where she was.”
“Perhaps she’s been visiting with various members of her family, and therefore has not yet any permanence in address.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I’m certain I shall find a letter awaiting you the next time I go to Winchester,” he assured Gus.
“I do hope so. I’ve been so afraid that something awful has happened to her.”
“With everything you’ve told me about your friend, Emily, I’m further certain she can take care of herself. The dangers on English roads are nothing compared to the dangers one must face on the sea.”
“Do you worry about your son on the sea, sir?”
“Yes! Every day! But he’s a grown man, and a most capable one.”
“That he is, sir.” Gus looked up admiringly at the doctor, who was so deep in thought and gentle with his poking and prodding. How fortunate he was to have the father of Leander Braden taking care of him. Emily had come so close to meeting the man that day the Duke of Clarence had brought them to this house. Would he ever have the chance to tell her of the coincidence? “Have you received any letters from your son, sir?”
“Not for a very long while. However, I do understand these things. My older brother was a sailor with a merchantman that sailed all over the world,” he said proudly. “Three years after he was drowned off the coast of Bermuda, my family received word of it.”
“Three years? How awful!”
“Apparently the ship carrying word of his merchantman going down was lost in a storm. It’s a wonder my poor parents ever learned the fate of their eldest son at all.” He paused to give Gus a pensive smile. “That is why I’ve been so grateful to hear what you’ve been able to tell me of my son, and to know that he survived the sinking of the Isabelle and his incarceration at the hands of Thomas Trevelyan. I will admit, knowing you had sailed with him was the reason I so readily agreed to take you on as a patient.”
“Did the Duke of Clarence know your relationship to young Dr. Braden when he retained you, sir?
“I think not. The message came to me by other means. I just happened to be in Winchester when the word went out that Master Walby, recently of HMS Isabelle, was in need of medical services.” The doctor placed his hands on his knees and stiffly stood up. “Now, I must go downstairs to speak with your Aunt Sophia.”
“Am I going to die, sir?”
“Not today, Mr. Walby,” he laughed, “but I believe that your symptoms may be relieved if we try bloodletting —”
“Not with leeches, please, sir, I couldn’t stomach those horrid things.”
“No, I’ll try making a small cut in your arm, and then perhaps a poultice will help for your chest infection.” Old Dr. Braden glanced at the open attic door. “I do wonder how it is you manage all the steps with that leg of yours.”
“It hurts climbing up every night, sir, and it takes me a while, but I think it’s helping to strengthen me.”
“Good! Now, I’ll need your Aunt’s help in preparing the poultice and locating a bowl for me. And while I’m down there I think I’ll have a chat with her about easing your workload.”
“Oh, she won’t like that. She already thinks I’m a burden to her, and not good for anything.”
“Well,” he said firmly, “if she has a problem with the arrangement I’ll pack you up and take you back to Steventon with me.”
Gus’s pale face lit up. “Would you, sir?”
“I just might. Now, I’ll be right back to fix you up.” At the attic door he turned around to beam at Gus, in a way that suggested he had a wonderful secret to divulge. “Let’s write a letter directly to the Duke of Clarence at Bushy House, and see if he will tell us where Emily is lodging.”
“Oh, thank you, I would like that.” Gus tried to sit up, thinking this was as good a time as any. “And sir? There’s — there’s something else I’ve been meaning to tell you about your son. And just in case you don’t receive a letter from him for three years, I’d like to tell you now.”
Old Dr. Braden looked drawn all of a sudden. “Do you have bad news for me?”
“Oh, no, sir, I think you will find it is the best of news.”
There came a great sigh of relief. “Thank goodness,” he said, returning swiftly to Gus’s cot. “In that case, you must tell me now. The poultice can wait.”
Gus snuggled back under his counterpane while old Dr. Braden settled in at the end of his bed, and as he started in on his story he happily imagined the look of shocked surprise that would surely seize the doctor’s face when he informed him that his son loved a princess.
Noon
On a Prison Hulk in Portsmouth Harbour
Thomas Trevelyan shuffled around the rotting fo’c’sle of what was once HMS Illustrious. Regardless of the fact that he now possessed a pair of shoes — or rather, thick pieces of wood strapped to his feet — the open wounds on his soles had not yet healed, and stabbing pains still aggravated his legs where, some weeks back, they had been assaulted by a miniature, dirk-wielding mongrel.
“Keep moving! That’s it! And give praise to the Lord for the sliver of space that allows you fresh air and exercise. Anywhere else … anywhere else and your emaciated faces would be pasted to the walls, and your noses in one another’s armpits,” taunted the lieutenant-in-command, a slovenly fellow who rested his thick haunches on the old capstan as he bellowed his palaver. Trevelyan was convinced the hapless man had been sent here to oversee the hollow-eyed beings on this forsaken prison hulk as a form of punishment for some naval misdemeanour: having falsified the muster books, or committed an act of insubordination, or sodomized one of the ship’s beasts — a goat perhaps. Despite his unkempt appearance the lieutenant was a sight better than the others who commanded
the prisoners, among them a bloated master’s mate, a one-armed cook, twelve old seamen, and four ragged boys. In addition there was a more formidable-looking guard of soldiers, thirty in all, who manned the sentry huts and the gallery built along the water’s edge, but only because of the loaded muskets they carried.
As he plodded along, Trevelyan’s hooded gaze drifted toward the smoking, dismantled hulks moored in a line in the Portsmouth Harbour, at the mouth of the Portchester River. He had been told that they housed prisoners of war, rounded up from vanquished merchantmen and warships over the endless years of fighting Napoleon and France. Grilles of thick cast iron covered gunports, and where white sails had once billowed tattered laundry now stirred in the light breeze. Blackened walls rose ever higher from the weather decks to accommodate a disarray of rough-hewn cabins and sheds, and to separate the prisoners from those assigned to watch over them. It was hard to imagine those forlorn hulks ever having proudly circumnavigated the globe for England. In comparison, those on HMS Illustrious were fortunate indeed, only recently had she become a prison ship, and as yet her hideous transformation was not complete. But with boatloads of new prisoners arriving daily, forced at gunpoint along the sea-level platforms constructed all around her and up her rickety steps, it was only a matter of time.
Twitch caught up to him. The man was always hanging around, though Trevelyan had no idea why, for none of the other prisoners had ever said a word to him and therefore seemed ignorant of his name and history. What little information Trevelyan had on Twitch had been supplied by the man himself: he had been born Asa Bumpus in New Bedford, been seized from an American privateer, and subsequently considered unfit for His Majesty’s service. It was no wonder. His unfortunate frame convulsed whenever he spoke, as if he had developed the itch or had a most urgent need to visit the privy. Balancing on yardarms or heaving barrels upon his back would have proven impossible for the man, hence his transportation to this hellhole, anchored like a colossal wooden coffin in the harbour’s mud.
Trevelyan gave Twitch an apathetic glance. “I see you’ve acquired a new hat.”
“Won it gamblin’ from some poor naked bastard, who had nothin’ — no hammock, no blanket or bed — ’cept for this here tricorne,” said Twitch, whose smile revealed two lines of broken teeth, the result of an old game of cards that had ended badly.
“You could have suggested he wear his hat on other parts of his body besides his head,” said Trevelyan.
“He’ll be naked fer awhile yet. It’ll be months before they’ll be givin’ him another yellow round-about jacket and pantaloons.”
Trevelyan was only too happy to have sold off his provision of prisoners’ clothing — the coarse, tight-fitting, tawny-coloured inferior rags that distinguished those trapped in miserable captivity — within days of his arrival on the Illustrious. Most of the men, shuffling with him, were dressed thus, but not all; and what did it matter when it was plainly evident who was a prisoner and who was not?
“Perhaps you should cease your preying upon those who’ve no clothes with which to cover themselves up.”
Twitch ignored Trevelyan’s admonishment to parade before him, very nearly tripping him up. “Got me a new coat too. What d’ya think o’ it?”
Stifling his annoyance, Trevelyan replied, “It doesn’t fit you properly. It’s much too big.”
“Right! But ain’t it fine? It’s velvet to be sure.” Twitch lifted up the hem of his coat and caressed the material as if it were the hand of a lady.
“It is far too hot to be wearing a coat of velvet.”
“Just what the poor bastard I stole it from said to me.”
“You stole it?”
“Aye! Heard him complainin’ ’bout the heat, so I filched it last night whilst he slept. Overheard someone askin’ him this mornin’ where his coat had got to, and he said, ‘What coat? I’ve never owned a coat in me life.’ I tell ya, the man’s brain is out o’ order. They say he’s been livin’ on prison hulks fer four years all told.”
“That explains it,” said Trevelyan dryly, taking sudden note of a group of official-looking men, outfitted in a variety of uniforms, boarding the hulk. They walked about on deck with an aggressive stride, presumably meant to intimidate, and shoved aside those prisoners who faltered in their way. When all eight of them had stepped on board, they sought out the insignificant lieutenant-in-command.
“Ya should try gamblin’ with me some time,” suggested Twitch.
“I prefer to keep my clothes, thank you.”
“Come winter, think o’ the pretty price this coat’ll fetch.”
“Come winter, I don’t intend to be here.”
Twitch guffawed, his unfortunate mouth thrown to one side of his face as he did so. “Right! Now, if ya was to take up gamblin’, and wagered yer captain’s breeches and shirt, ya might get yerself a decent supply o’ tobacco and enough burgoo and turnip to fill yer belly, though it be a shame ya no longer have yer jacket.”
Trevelyan did not answer straightaway, having been distracted by a new commotion and an order to “make way.” The ship’s company of boys was removing two skeletal corpses from the hulk, bound in their filthy hammocks, their eyes and mouths still open in a ghastly grimace. They should have been transported to the hospital ship in the harbour long ago; instead, their illnesses were ignored. As he followed the boys’ weaving and bobbing through the prisoners, Trevelyan silently cursed his circumstances.
The slovenly lieutenant had told him he would soon be transported to Newgate, but that with its overcrowding and the daily influx of new prisoners there would be a delay. “Be thankful,” he had jeered, “the sooner you get there, the sooner they’ll hang you.” Surely, thought Trevelyan, there was some living relation of his who would soon learn of his whereabouts and send money, or see to his being paroled in a nearby town. He was an officer, not a common seaman, and despite the list of offences mounted against him, he was — he believed — still eligible for parole. If he stayed here much longer, he would die. They were carrying out the dead at an alarming rate, not surprising when pestilence raged in every crevice of the hulk, and the air was so fetid below deck some had suffocated to death.
Finally, he responded to Twitch, no hint of his anxiety in his evenly spoken tone. “Sidle over to those men who just came aboard and find out what their business is with the lieutenant.”
Without questioning his mission, Twitch set off, elbowing his way to the capstan, around which the newcomers stood in their discussions. Wincing in pain with every step, Trevelyan pressed on with his exercise, looking back over his shoulder at every opportunity to observe Twitch’s progress. The simpleton had flattened his meagre body against the bulwark, behind the carriage of a dormant six-pounder broadside gun — the only gun still on the fo’c’sle deck — to do his eavesdropping. The official men, so absorbed in conversation, seemed oblivious to the pathetic humanity limping around them.
In no time at all, the eavesdropper returned.
“What’s all that about?” demanded Trevelyan.
“They’re plannin’ to move a bunch o’ us, split us up between the hulks, some to Chatham on the Medway; the French to Portchester Castle, and some to that new prison at Dartmoor.”
“When?”
“All’s they said was within the week.”
Trevelyan acknowledged his findings with a nod. “Anything else?”
Twitch’s crooked smile spread slowly across his face. “I believe yer one o’ the ones they’re movin’.”
“Why is that?”
“They’re sendin’ some to Newgate in London!” he chuckled.
Trevelyan was careful not to show his alarm. Twitch obviously knew more about him than he had suspected. Did the others as well? They carried on around the deck, Twitch chattering about the number of prisoners that had perished during his brief captivity on the Illustrious, relishing his own graphic descriptions of their fatal maladies, while Trevelyan, his mind miles away and racing like the clouds over
head in the summer sky, eyed the simpleton’s newly acquired velvet coat and tricorne.
17
Thursday, August 19
1:00 p.m.
(Afternoon Watch, Two Bells)
Aboard HMS Amethyst
When his eye opened upon the day, Magpie was relieved and grateful to find himself at home, in the warmth of the Amethyst’s hospital. Mr. Austen was standing tall next to his hammock, the brass buttons on his uniform coat reflecting sunshine, and Osmund Brockley was hovering nearby, his tongue hanging out of his mouth as usual, his hands clasped around a bowl of steaming gruel. Magpie kept his eye fixed on the kindly face of Mr. Austen, determined not to dispense any notice at all to Meg Kettle, who filled the hammock next to him — probably shirking her chores and faking illness — her features all contorted in a sour expression as she mouthed the words “Maggot Pie!”
“How’s the head?” asked Mr. Austen, blinking down at him.
Feeling tenderness near his left ear, Magpie’s probing fingers landed on a bump the size of a quail’s egg. “How’d I get this?”
“You don’t remember?”
Magpie’s face wore a frown until he caught his breath in remembrance. “I were in the sea, and gettin’ tired and cold, and waitin’ for Emily to come.”
“EMILY?” cackled Meg with glee. “Yer a daft one, all right!”
“Hush!” cried Fly. “Mr. Brockley, fetch Mrs. Kettle her breakfast this instant; her tongue requires occupation.” Fly relieved Osmund of his bowl of gruel and handed it to Magpie. “Now then, tell me why you were waiting for Emily?”
“I thought I were dyin’, sir. I thought she might be comin’ to take me to the other place.”
“Well, you’re very much alive, Magpie, and if we’re to keep you that way, you must eat something. You’ve been lying here for a few days, and each time you came to we weren’t able to get you to swallow more than a spoonful of soup.” There was a melancholy cast in Mr. Austen’s eyes that Magpie didn’t like to see, and his smile was inordinately solicitous.
Seasons of War 2-Book Bundle Page 55
