Any Approaching Enemy: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars (13 page)

“I gather things are not going all that well,” Charles said. He did not have to explain what he was referring to.

“Jesus, Charlie,” Bevan said, clutching his drawing. “I don’t know what to think. She’s a changed woman. We talked and talked this afternoon. She has some notion about herself and won’t budge from it. She’s pretty clear on the subject.”

“Women’s motivations are frequently obscure,” Charles observed. He could feel his friend’s frustration.

After a silence, Bevan said, “I just want things to be the way they were.”

“Do you?”

“I don’t know, Charlie. Honest to God, I don’t know.”

“She’s soft on you,” Charles said, “although I can’t imagine why. You’ll have to make up your mind—meet her terms, or cut her adrift.”

“I know.” Just before he stepped through the entryport, Bevan said, “You see, it’s not Molly. She’s fine. It’s me.”

Charles reentered his cabin expecting to find Molly in Penny’s arms sobbing her heart out. Instead, she sat dry-eyed and tight-lipped on the storage bench beneath the stern windows.

“How are you, Molly?” he asked carefully.

She looked up at him and suppressed a sniffle. “I’m all right, thank you, sir,” she said. “Ain’t I been through harder times.”

Penny came out from the sleeping cabin wearing a robe over an ankle-length sleeping gown. “I’ve sent Attwater to his bed,” she announced. “He was unhappy about it.”

“He’ll recover,” Charles said.

“Where will Molly sleep?”

Charles pulled at the lobe of his ear. He hadn’t thought of this. He racked his brain and could think of nowhere on the crowded little ship where a young single woman, or any woman, for that matter, could rest in peace and safety. If only Bevan would have been a little more flexible, all this could have been avoided.

“Hell’s bells,” he said as he collected his hat, exited the cabin, and made his way down to the dimly lit area belowdecks. He went aft to the wardroom and rapped loudly on the door to the purser’s cabin. After a moment, and some unnecessarily foul language from the other side, the door swung open to a figure in a nightshirt and sleeping cap with a lit candle in its holder. “I need a hammock, Mr. Black, to hang in my cabin,” Charles said.

Early the next morning, a note arrived from Sir William Hamilton, informing Charles that supplies for
Louisa
and
Pylades
had been arranged and would be delivered in the middle of the morning. The note emphasized the desirability of completing the reprovisioning as expeditiously as possible. Mast sections for
Pylades
would be available from King Ferdinand’s naval dockyard in the evening after dark. Regrettably, the dockyard facilities would not be available to assist in the stepping of the masts. It was further directed that this activity be performed outside the territorial waters of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. It was evident that the nervous kingdom wanted any British warships to remove themselves at the soonest opportunity so as not to arouse the ire of the French.

Charles took his breakfast alone in his cabin, served by a disgruntled Timothy Attwater, who grumbled more or less without pause about the increasingly constricted and crowded space and the inconveniences it caused him. Molly awoke before Penny and, after making Charles promise to avert his eyes, climbed down from her hammock and stumbled in her nightdress into his sleeping cabin. Charles fled to the quarterdeck, where he sent Beechum across to inform Bevan of Sir William’s message.

At two bells in the forenoon watch, a waterhoy came alongside and began the long arduous process of shifting the ship’s water casks and refilling them. The task of restoring the lot in the hold fell under the careful eye of Eliot, who as master was responsible for
Louisa
’s trim.

As the hoy cast off, a second lighter, containing livestock, took her place. Bellowing and squealing loudly, a quantity of bullocks, swine, and sheep were persuaded into slings and hoisted inboard. The half-dozen cattle were immediately dispatched by the assistant to the cook who doubled as the ship’s butcher. The beef had to be cut into eight-pound chunks, salted, and stored in barrels that also went into the hold. The pigs and sheep were, for the time being, penned on the forecastle. Quantities of flour, lemons, raisins, fresh and dried vegetables, and fowl arrived in smaller vessels and were stored below, or in coops forward. Finally came a small mountain of firewood, to be similarly swayed across and tucked away.

Charles spent almost the entire day occupied with the loading and storage, and passing small gratuities to the Neapolitan lighters’ commanders to speed the work along. He took a hurried dinner with his wife and Molly in the cabin at noon and spoke occasionally with Penny when she came onto the quarterdeck. On one occasion, she asked if it was normal for him to attend to so much of the work himself.

“Not usually,” Charles replied. “We are short of officers just at the moment.”

“I thought thou had two assistants,” she said. “I see only Stephen Winchester.”

“Lieutenant Talmage is indisposed,” he said sourly. “I expect to barter him for someone else as soon as the opportunity presents itself.”

“Indisposed how?” she asked with some concern. “Is he ill?”

Charles did not want to dwell on his difficulties with Talmage. “Not ill. Unhappy. In particular, he is unhappy with me.” Then he changed the subject.

Molly, he noted, spent her time in one corner of the quarterdeck, well out of everyone’s way, with a paper and pencil making small sketches of what was going on around her. In the evening, near dusk, he sent
Louisa
’s cutter to
Pylades
so that both ship’s boats could go into the dockyard to tow back Bevan’s mast sections.

Everything reasonably complete to his satisfaction, Charles convinced his wife to join him in an early supper and an early bed. A time later, he fell into the sleep of the worn but content.

FIVE

“THE STARBOARD BOWER’S VEERED OUT, SIR,” MIDSHIPMAN Beechum reported. Louisa had dropped anchor in the lee of Capri Island, two cable lengths away.

“Very good,” Charles said, “let go the larboard bower.” He watched as the heavy cable ran out through the hawsehole, and heard the splash as the port side bow anchor met the water’s surface on its path to the seafloor, five fathoms below.

“Bower’s down, sir.”

“Play out the port cable,” Charles said. “Heave in the starboard.” Slowly, the ship warped back toward her starboard anchor as the men in the waist strained against the capstan bars. One started up a verse from “Nancy Dawson,” and soon the others joined in:

O Nancy Dawson. Hio!
Cheerily man;
She’s got a notion. Hio!
Cheerily man;
For our old boatswain. Hio!

The shanty lent rhythm to the work and helped it along. The capstan went round and round, the dripping cable rubbing its way in through the hawsehole.

O Betsy Baker. Hio!
Cheerily man;
Lived in Long Acre. Hio!

With Penny possibly awake by now, and within easy hearing in his cabin, Charles sent Sykes to speak with the men about skipping some of the more colorful verses.

When he judged
Louisa
to have reached the midpoint between the two anchors, Charles ordered, “Avast heaving. Pawl the capstan, and belay.” With the cable secured, they were moored firmly against the breeze and current in the shallow water.

“You may signal
Pylades
to come alongside,” he said to Beechum.

The two ships had pulled their anchors from the bottom of Naples harbor at the first hint of light, then sailed the twenty-odd miles due south to their present location. Capri was a pretty little island when you looked at it, Charles thought, with its green hills surrounded by crystal-blue waters. He would have to point it out to Penny when she came on deck. Bevan’s ship acknowledged
Louisa
’s signal. As Charles watched, her yards braced around, and she began to approach. Soon
Pylades
glided toward them, her bow angling along
Louisa
’s side. When the ships were beam to beam, twenty yards apart, she took in the last of her sails.

“Pass the cables across, fore and aft,” Charles ordered. “Warp her in and lash her tight.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” Beechum responded, his face a mask of concentration as he called out the instructions. Winchester stood next to Charles, watching carefully how the midshipman carried out his responsibilities.

“Do you think he’ll do, Stephen?” Charles asked in a low voice as Beechum went forward to see to the tasks he was supervising.

“He’ll do,” the lieutenant said with a frown. “He’s as green as mold, but willing.” Charles remembered provisionally promoting Winchester from midshipman to acting lieutenant at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent after all of the commission officers on board except Bevan and him had been killed. Later, he had been able to prevail upon Admiral Jervis to make the promotion permanent.

“I recall another midshipman on
Argonaut,
” Charles said. “Barely knew a capstan from a cathead, but also willing.” Winchester laughed. Owing to Lieutenant Talmage’s continuing absence on deck, Charles was considering formally appointing Beechum to Winchester’s previous position as second lieutenant.

“Good morning, Captain Bevan,” Charles said, turning to the familiar figure of his friend climbing over
Louisa
’s side direct from
Pylades
’s deck. “I’m surprised to see you up so early. It’s usually not until the afternoon watch, isn’t it?”

“Morning, Stephen. Good morning, Charlie. It’s a good thing for you they don’t make captains based on their fine looks,” Bevan retorted. “Speaking of agreeable looks, how is Missus Edgemont?”

“Haven’t seen Penny yet. I assume she’s about, though.”

“All secure fore and aft, sir. Good morning, Captain Bevan,” Beechum said, returning to the quarterdeck.

Charles saw the three new mizzenmast sections laid out midships on
Pylades
’s deck. Davey Howell and the brig’s carpenter, whose name Charles couldn’t remember, were measuring it with their rules to see if any modifications might be necessary. He assumed the carpenters’ mates from both ships were belowdecks, knocking out the wedges where the heel of the old mast rested on the kelston.

“Find Keswick and have him rig a threefold block and tackle from the mainmast yardarm,” Charles said. “We’ll draw the stump.” He stood easily with Bevan and Winchester, watching as the work progressed, with little for him to do. The carpenters and boatswains and their mates lifted the remains of the old mast, hoisted the new lower section, and carefully lowered it down through the partners until its heel rested on the step, the wooden block to receive it, which was bolted to the keel.

Charles could hear the
thump-thump
as the shims and wedges holding the foot of the mast in place were banged tight with mallets. In time the tackle was withdrawn, and the boatswains shifted their attention to fashioning the standing rigging while the carpenters prepared the platform for the tops. By midmorning, the runner pendants with their thimble-spliced eyes had been sliced in the middle and then cut-spliced back together to form the collar, the whole wormed, parceled, liberally covered in pitch, and served in order to keep the water out and the rope yarn from rotting. They had already been fit over the masthead bolster, and the end of the girt line was being made fast around the pendants.

He saw Penny in a fresh gray dress and bonnet, coming toward them, threading carefully among the seamen passing back and forth, and daintily stepping over the cables and lines laid out for
Pylades
’s rigging.

“What art thou attempting?” she asked, arriving at the rail and looking down at the activity on the brig’s deck.

“We’re giving Bevan a new mast,” Charles said happily. “He broke the old one.”

She looked to Bevan. “How camest thou to do such a thing?”

Bevan, aware of Penny’s views toward warfare, answered, “Carelessness on my part. We couldn’t move fast enough.”

She watched the bustle of activity, uncomprehending. “Wouldst thou please explain?” she asked. “What art they doing?”

Charles made an effort. “Well,” he said, “right now they’re preparing for the shrouds to be warped from the hounds of the mast to the channels on the sides of the ship. The deadeyes will be turned in with a left-handed thread seizing, properly whipped and capped. They’ll be made taut by the throat seizings, and attached to the turnbuckles on the mizzen chains. The ratlines will be seized horizontally across the shrouds with clove hitches in between and eyes spliced at the ends. That will make the ladderway for the topmen to climb up and down the mast.”

He stopped when he saw that she was more bewildered than when he had begun. After a moment she made a face. “Deadeyes, throat seizings, ratlines,” she said. “What horrid names thou hast chosen for the parts of thy ship.”

“I didn’t name them,” Charles said defensively.

After a time he led her away, leaving Bevan and Winchester to oversee the work. They found Molly on the quarterdeck, sitting on an empty keg with a flat wooden box on her lap, upon which she was making a sketch of Capri Island.

“What a beautiful place,” Penny said, leaning against the railing and looking outward. “How I would love to visit one day when there is no war.”

“Wouldn’t you like to see, sir,” Molly said, tilting the top of her case toward him.

Charles saw that she had not only created a credible likeness but had also managed to give the softly rounded hills, with the tiny fishing village nested in the cove below, a tone of serenity that he would not have observed on his own. “You have a true gift, Molly,” he said.

“Thank you, sir. Ain’t I done dozens.”

“Molly has been practicing her sketches all the way from England,” Penny said.

“May I see some of them?” Charles asked, genuinely interested.

Molly looked undecided, then undid the catches on her case. “Some ain’t as fine as t’others,” she said.

The lid of the box flipped open on its hinges. On top was a supply of clean white paper. This she lifted off, then handed Charles a sheaf of drawings. They were all recognizable scenes to him: sailors at work, heaving on lines or climbing the masts. There was one of several officers he didn’t recognize standing and talking, another of four seamen around a barrelhead playing cards. Men at their mess, or on watch, and one of a crew serving a six-pounder cannon. Most were everyday scenes of people doing everyday work, and they showed something of the dignity of their labors. One he instantly recognized as the Rock at Gibraltar; they would have called there on their way to Naples. The next made him stop.

Staring up at him from the paper was the weathered face of his commander in chief, Admiral St. Vincent. He was shown from the breast up, hatless and in his undress uniform coat. Most surprising was that he wore a warm smile, almost to the point of humor, which crinkled the corners of his eyes.

“You met Jervis?” Charles said in astonishment. He could scarcely imagine the gruff, blunt, hard-riding admiral smiling, much less on the verge of laughter.

“Of course,” Penny said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“You actually met him?”

“When we were in Gibraltar. We traveled there in search of thee. I did not know that thou would be elsewhere,” she explained. “I asked a seaman, by his name Collingwood, if he knew of thee. He allowed that he did and had his small boat take us out to a grand warship.”

“The
Victory
?”

“That was the name of the craft, I think. It was very large.”

“Was the seaman’s name Cuthbert Collingwood, and did he have a lot of gold on his uniform?”

“He said his name was Captain Collingwood, of middle age. A very pleasing man. He related that he knew of thee.”

“I see,” Charles said.

“On this ship we were inquired as to our business. I stated that I was thy wife and that I wished to call on John Jervis, a name that I had heard from thee, and whom the seaman Collingwood said was thy superior in the navy.”

“So you dropped in unannounced on Admiral the Earl of St. Vincent and paid him a call?” Charles said incredulously. “And he received you?”

“I told thee already,” she said with a touch of impatience. “He received us quite promptly in his residence inside the craft. I must say, I was taken with him. He is kind and attentive, and a truly gentle man.”

“Admiral St. Vincent?”

“John Jervis, yes. He allowed Molly to do her drawing. She will finish it in ink and pass it to him on our return.”

“He almost remembered me,” Molly interjected. “Didn’t he almost.”

“Oh, my,” Charles said, nearly aghast, “did you—”

“No, sir, I never,” she said primly. “I did try to board
Victory
once, and he saw me. Didn’t it make him mad, back in the old days.”

“He spoke highly of thee at dinner. He said thou wert brave and industrious,” Penny said, possibly to change the subject.

“Dinner?” Charles said. He himself had never been invited to dine with the admiral.

“I told thee he was gracious. He insisted that we stay to dinner. We conversed on many subjects.”

Charles had a sinking feeling. “Did you talk with him about … well, your feelings about the war?”

“Of course I did,” she said. “It is my Christian duty to do so. I told him that all violence is against God’s will. I made my testament strongly.”

“Oh, good. And his response?”

“He agreed in a thoughtful and loving way.”

“He did?”

“Yes. He said he also desired peace. Unfortunately, he saw no other way. I remonstrated with him, but he remained steadfast.”

Charles could imagine this conversation—he had exchanged similar sentiments with her himself—but could barely imagine the admiral’s not exploding in anger and clapping his wife in irons. On the other hand, Penny could be charming when she wanted to be, and say the most astonishing things in a completely disarming manner. “So he arranged transport for you and Molly to Naples?” Somehow he couldn’t see old Jervie doing any such thing.

“Not exactly,” Penny said with a small smile. “He maintained that it was far too dangerous for women traveling alone. In truth”—she had a thoughtful look—“he forbade our going any farther. He did offer us transport back to England.”

“Then how—”

Penny waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “I appreciated his concern for us,” she said. “Molly and I went direct to the harbor and found a seaman of a smaller craft who was to call at Naples. He agreed to carry us for a price that evening.”

“So you went to Naples,” Charles said in some wonderment. “Why Naples?”

“No one knew where thou wert,” she said. “There were no reports, but thou must have been somewhere.”

Charles could not imagine the two women traveling blithely across the Mediterranean in the middle of a war on the merest supposition of where he might be. Yet she’d done it on the strength of her faith that it was what she was meant to do, and therefore it would all end agreeably.

Charles soon returned to his cabin to read the purser’s report on the stores taken on at Naples. He countersigned the accounting, to show that he’d reviewed and approved it. The report from the surgeon, Matthew Lincoln, showed that there was one ordinary seaman in the sick berth with a broken bone in his foot (he’d been stepped on by one of the bullocks), and there was continued treatment for four others with hernias who had returned to light duty. Lincoln also reported that his surgical and apothecary’s supplies were satisfactory. Of course, Charles already knew all these things, but he affixed his signature anyway. He was about to pick up the gunners’ written report on the ship’s armament when Attwater mercifully intervened. “Your dinner’s ready,” his steward announced.

“Bless you, Attwater,” Charles said, pushing the papers back and closing his desk. “If you would pass the word for Mrs. Edgemont and Miss Bridges.”

After his meal, he went on deck to stand the afternoon watch and allow Winchester to devote his attention to
Pylades
’s rapidly rising mast. The forestay and backstays had been run from the hounds down to the deck, and were moused and collared. The decked top was in its place on the upper part of the trestletrees, and the topmast section at that moment was being swayed up to be lowered through the mast cap. The topgallant mast would follow once the crosstrees and the topmast cap had been put in place. Charles judged that the tackle from
Louisa
’s mainmast yard would soon be withdrawn and the two ships could be unlashed in the morning. With both boats’ crews working in shifts, sunup to sundown, the thing should be finished by the following evening.