by Jane Feather
“Maybe not, sir.” She returned his gaze steadily, knowing that the captain's word was law on this ship. If he ordered her below, she'd have no choice but to obey. At least initially. Once the action began, she'd be able to return and no one would notice.
“But I doubt you'd stay there,” he said pensively, and then laughed at the shock in her eyes. “That was what you were thinking?”
“Yes,” she agreed in chagrin.
“I suppose I could have you battened down in the hold for the duration,” he mused. “What's you opinion, Colonel?”
“It's your command, Captain,” Julian said formally. “I wouldn't presume to offer an opinion.”
Tamsyn had the unmistakable feeling that the two men were making game of her, yet they both looked as solemn as deacons.
“Well, on your own head be it,” Captain Lattimer said. “But if you get in the way, lass, I'll have you carried below bodily by a marine.”
“You don't have to worry about that,” Tamsyn said with as much dignity as she could muster, and returned to her post.
The French ship grew on the horizon, taking shape as a square-rigged frigate. Hugo knew the Isabelle would be under scrutiny from the French quarterdeck. They'd see the American colors, which would confuse them for a while. America was on the verge of declaring war with England and was no enemy of the French. But they'd also see she was cleared for action. It would puzzle them, but for how long? Long enough to allow the Isabelle to draw close enough to fire the first broadside?
They were about a mile apart now. “Bring her round six points to starboard, Mr. Harris,” he instructed the master navigator at the helm, his voice sounding loud in the expectant silence. The Isabelle swung round slowly so that her starboard side faced the French ship.
And then the French seemed to understand. Wild activity erupted on her decks as she cleared for action, the snub-nosed guns appearing in the gunports.
“All right, Mr. Connaught,” Hugo said softly.
The English flag broke out at the Isabelle's masthead. “Fire, Mr. Connaught.”
Chapter Thirteen
THE MASSIVE POWER Of THE lSABELLE's STARBOARD GUNS exploded in a noise more terrifying than Tamsyn could ever have imagined. The broadside raked the length of the French ship, and she saw rigging flung loose and a great hole appearing above the waterline as the smoke cleared. Screams filled the air, and then there was another massive bellow as the French returned the broadside. Tamsyn stared in horror down into the waist of the ship, where a cannon ball had exploded, sending up a shower of deadly splinters into the nearby gun crews. Then she was running down the gangway, unhooking her skirt as she did so, leaping into the confusion.
The lieutenants at the guns were bellowing their orders to the gun crews, struggling to make themselves heard above the screams of the wounded. The Isabelle's starboard guns fired again, and she swung slowly round to bring her port guns into play while the starboard rushed to reload.
A powder monkey hurtled past Tamsyn, his arms full of the lethal cartridges of gunpowder that had to be brought from the handling chambers, where they were kept well away from the guns until needed. A flying splinter lodged into his cheek, and he dropped his precarious load to the deck.
A bosun's mate raced for him, swinging his rope's end, screaming like a banshee. The lad curled, sobbing, on the deck, blood pouring from his eye. Tamsyn bent, gathered up his cartridges, and ran for the nearest gun, handing the gunpowder to the fifth crewman, whose face was already blackened with smoke. The lieutenant in charge of the gun cast her one astonished glance and then forgot all about the unorthodox powder monkey, giving the order to tilt the gun so they could fire a round of chain shot into the enemy rigging.
Tamsyn, grimly recognizing that she had a useful part to play, ran back, down into the bowels of the ship, along the narrow gangways, scrambling down the steep companionways leading from deck to deck, into the handling chamber, where she loaded up with more cartridges and repeated her journey.
The noise was so deafening now, it was as if it lived in her head. She couldn't separate its different components, but sometimes the screams became discrete sounds. One minute a man was standing upright beside her; the next he was writhing at her feet, both legs vanished in a crushed tangle of flesh and sinew, and the sounds of his agony pierced her through and through.
She dropped to her knees beside him, helpless and yet unable to abandon him in such hideous pain, but someone said roughly, “For God's sake, get that bleedin' shot to number-six gun,” and she was up and running, closing her nose to the nauseating stench of burning pitch from the surgeon's cockpit as he amputated with the speed of a butcher, cauterizing each stump with the pitch before moving on to the next victim.
Her foot slipped in a pool of blood as she delivered her load, and she grabbed wildly, catching the skirt of the lieutenant's coat. He stared at her, then clipped, “Sand!”
She understood and ran for the barrel of sand in the corner, flinging it over the deck in great handfuls to soak up the blood. Again and again the guns spoke, and she dodged and whirled and ducked as she ran. Whenever she had a chance to look over at the French ship, it seemed to have lost more spars and rigging, and yet they fought on, her guns bringing a devastating sweep of death and ghastly injury to the Isabelle's crew.
Hugo Lattimer closed his mind to the destructive havoc in the waist of his ship. “Mr. Connaught, boarding nets.” He looked for the colonel and saw him with the marines, now ranged along the rail. He'd armed himself with a musket and was picking men off the French ship's rigging, the giant Gabriel at his side.
“Colonel, are you coming aboard her?” Hugo called. Julian saw the boarding nets swinging across the narrowing space between the two hulls and drew his sword with a flourish. “My pleasure, Captain.” He leaped down to the quarterdeck, Gabriel still beside him. In the press of battle he hadn't given a thought to Tamsyn. Now he glanced around the shambles of the quarterdeck.
“Are you looking for me?” Tamsyn spoke, breathless, behind him.
He whirled round, then stared at her. Her clothes were bloody, she was black from head to toe, her eyes huge violet pools in the filth, her teeth startling as she offered a weary smile. “They've stopped firing the guns, so I'm not needed down there anymore.”
“What in the devil's name have you been doing?” he demanded.
“Running gunpowder for the gun crews,” she said matter-of-factly. “What did you think I was doing?”
Julian shook his head. “I don't know what I thought, but I should have known you'd be in the thick of it.” Of course Tamsyn would be where she could be most useful. She'd give not a thought for her personal safety in such a situation. He had a sudden urge to brush the matted hair from her brow, to wipe away a streak of someone's blood from her cheek. To share with her the satisfaction of a battle well fought.
“The surgeon could use your help,” Captain Lattimer said brusquely to Tamsyn, breaking the intensity of the moment, allowing Julian to step back from the precipice. As far as Hugo was concerned, his passenger was behaving like a member of his crew; it seemed only logical to treat her as one.
He drew his sword. “Come, gentlemen.”
Tamsyn watched a little enviously as the boarding party surged across the netting, swords in their hands. She understood hand-to-hand fighting much better than this mass slaughter by cannon. It wasn't as wholesale as the storming of Badajos, but it was a dreadful business, nevertheless.
And there was work to be done among the wounded now that the fires of destruction had ceased. Resolutely, she returned to the waist of the ship.
Julian leaped onto the deck of the Delphine. The Isabelle's men were engaged in fierce hand-to-hand fighting amidships, and he could see Hugo Lattimer cutting a swath through them, heading for the quarterdeck, where the French officers were to be found.
Some angel's hand was on the colonel's shoulder, and he spun around just as a wild-eyed officer leaped at him from the forecastle. He pa
rried, danced backward, lunged, but his opponent was a skilled swordsman, and he realized with a mixture of exultation and dread that he had a fight on his hands.
Gabriel, meanwhile, was beating back a group of sailors armed with knives and spars. The giant's broadsword flashed in the sunlight as he sliced and slashed, bellowing his terrifying war cry, driving his opponents into a corner of the deck, where they cast down their weapons and surrendered on the wise assumption that the battle was lost anyway and there was no point inviting further injury.
Gabriel, having secured his section of the fight, glanced around and saw the colonel still engaged with the French lieutenant. Julian was hard-pressed, but his mouth was twisted in a grimace of determination, and then his opponent slipped in a pool of blood and went down on one knee.
Julian dropped his point and stood aside as the man came to his feet again. The two men looked at each other; then the lieutenant shrugged and bowed, handing his sword, hilt first, to the English colonel.
Julian touched the sword in ceremonial ritual, then gestured courteously that his opponent should keep it. The man bowed and sheathed his weapon, and the two looked around, no longer enemies, simply battle-weary warriors.
On the quarterdeck Hugo Lattimer was accepting the surrender of the Delphine's captain with the same courtesy, insisting that he keep his sword. One didn't humiliate an enemy who'd fought bravely, and one could never be sure in the fluctuating fortunes of war when the situation would be reversed.
Julian made his way to the quarterdeck. Hugo greeted him with a tired smile. “Colonel St. Simon, may I make you known to Monsieur le Capitaine Delors?”
The two shook hands, and the captain introduced the rest of his officers. It was all very courteous and civilized, as if the murderous mayhem of the last hour had never taken place. Except for the smell of blood and the continuing groans and screams of the wounded, and the broken spars and ripped rigging littering the bloodstained decks.
“I'll put a prize crew aboard her under Will Connaught,” Hugo said. “Together with our wounded. He can sail her back to Lisbon with a bit of make and mend.” He couldn't conceal his satisfaction as he looked around the captured vessel. It had been a good day's work. The French frigate was a fat prize and would bring him a much-needed injection of funds, and the Isabelle's crew would have their share, which would ensure a jubilant ship for the rest of the voyage.
Julian left him making these dispositions and returned to the Isabelle, swinging himself across the boarding nets. “Knows what he's doing, that Captain Lattimer,” Gabriel observed, landing beside him on the deck. “Where's the bairn?”
“Still in the thick of something, I imagine.” They made their way to the waist of the ship, where order miraculously was emerging out of chaos. Tamsyn was kneeling beside a wounded man waiting his turn for the surgeon's attentions. He'd lost a finger and seemed relatively unperturbed, his chief lament being that the wound wasn't enough to send him home.
“Is it over?” Tamsyn looked up as Julian and Gabriel crossed the deck.
“So it would seem.” Julian scrutinized her blackened countenance. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” She stood up, stretching wearily. “I don't know how, though. I don't know how anyone could survive in that inferno. It was horrible. Worse than anything I've ever been in.”
Julian made no reply. There was no disputing her statement, but they were both soldiers, and battle horrors were intrinsic to the life.
“Josefa's helping the surgeon,” Tamsyn said to Gabriel. “He says she's a lot more skilled than his assistants.” She turned toward the cockpit, caught her foot in a coil of rope, and fell headlong on the deck.
She must be exhausted, Julian thought, reaching down a hand to helpher to her feet. When she didn't immediately take it, he bent over her and lifted her to her feet, hiding his concern, stating briskly, “You're done in, girl.”
Tamsyn didn't seem to hear him. She was staring down at her thigh, where a jagged splinter stuck out through a rent in her britches. Blood was seeping out of her flesh where the splinter was lodged. “Look! I'm cut. It's bleeding.” She raised her eyes, and he saw they were filled with a sick horror, her face suddenly deathly white beneath the grime.
“Colonel, catch her!” The sharp, urgent command came from Gabriel, standing behind him.
Tamsyn swayed, her knees buckling. Just in time Julian moved, catching the slight figure as she crumpled to the deck. “What the hell…?” He stared down at her, unconscious in his arms, then looked incredulously at Gabriel. “She must have fallen on a splinter, but it doesn't look bad.”
“It's the blood,” Gabriel said matter-of-factly. “Always sends her off like that.”
“But she's already covered in blood,” Julian said in disbelief.
“Aye, but it's not hers,” Gabriel explained. “The bairn can't abide being cut. As a baby she'd scream the house down for a pinprick… anything more than that, she'd be beside herself. The baron tried everything to get her out of it, but he gave up in the end.”
“Dear God,” Julian muttered. Of all the absurdities.
She rode like a cossack, fought like a mountain lion, didn't flinch from discomfort and deprivation, but she fainted dead away at a pinprick. He thought of Cornichet's knife and wondered in amazement what it must have cost her to face up to the mere prospect without breaking.
“We'd best get this splinter out quickly,” he said.
“It's going to bleed a lot more then than it is now.”
“I'll get Josefa.”
Julian carried Tamsyn into the day cabin, and her eyelids fluttered open as he laid her down on one of the cushioned lockers.
“What happened? Oh, God, my leg. It's got that thing in it!” Her voice rose on a frantic note.
“We're going to take it out,” he said calmly. “It's just a splinter. You must have fallen on it when you tripped.”
“But it's sticking out of me! All my blood's coming out!”
“Tamsyn, don't be absurd!” It was so ridiculous he wanted to laugh, but her distress was acute and definitely not feigned. He pulled his dirk from his belt and cut the leather of her britches away from the wound. “Now, don't look,” he instructed when she wailed in horror at the sight of the splinter and the blood that was now flowing strongly.
“I hear you need my services.” The surgeon sounded amazingly cheerful as he came into the cabin, still in his bloodstained apron, accompanied by Josefa and Gabriel. “Oh, my, that's a big one,” he said with the same cheeriness. “Soon have it out.”
“No!” Tamsyn screeched. “I'll do it.” She struggled to sit up, reaching for her thigh.
“No, you won't! Now, stop being so silly!” Julian sat down behind her, lifting her head onto his lap, holding her shoulders steadily. “Keep still. It'll be over in a minute. “
Josefa bustled over, taking her nurseling's hands, chafing them, crooning softly to her, as the surgeon deftly pulled the splinter clear. Blood spurted; Tamsyn groaned and fainted again.
“Good God, what's going on?” Captain Lattimer entered his cabin to find it filled with people not generally welcomed into his private quarters.
“We're having a little trouble,” Julian said, a chuckle in his voice. He shook his head in renewed disbelief, maintaining his hold on Tamsyn's shoulders. “This absurd girl is behaving like a milk-and-water miss because she has a splinter in her leg.”
“Good God!” Hugo said again. “After what she was doing during the battle! According to Lieutenant Godfrey nothing slowed her down.”
“There's none so strange as folks,” Samuel declared in his Yorkshire burr, bringing a bowl of hot water to the surgeon. “I'll fetch ye a roll of bandage.”
Tamsyn came round again as the surgeon was washing the wound. She gazed up into Julian's face. “Has it stopped?”
Her face was deathly pale, her expression as fearful and vulnerable as a terrified child's. All the resilience, the dominance of her personality, had vanished as
she looked to him for reassurance and comfort with a trustfulness that he couldn't possibly have destroyed.
He smiled and brushed her hair away from her forehead as he'd wanted to do earlier. “It's almost stopped. The surgeon's going to bind it up, and you'll be as good as new in a day or two.”
“It wasn't too deep, Miss Tamsyn,” the surgeon said, shaking a dusting of basilicon powder over the wound. “There should be no danger of infection.” He wound gauze and bandages around her thigh, and the patient lay very still, her color returning slowly. “It'll probably ache, though. Would you like some laudanum?”
“I don't mind it hurting,” Tamsyn said. “I just don't like it bleeding.”
“Well, it'll stop soon enough.” The surgeon dusted off his hands and stood up. “I recommend you don't do too much running around for a day or two, though. Let it heal up first.”
“I am sorry,” Tamsyn said in a small voice. “Did I behave very badly?” She asked the question of Julian, her embarrassment and anxiety clear in her eyes.
If he'd wanted revenge, now was the perfect opportunity. But he 'couldn't take it. She was trusting him to help her with the same simplicity with which she offered him her body, invited him to join in her love games.
“'Unexpectedly,' is the word I would have chosen.”
He hitched her up until she was sitting on his lap, leaning against his chest. “But we're all entitled to our foibles.”
“I feel very peculiar,” Tamsyn declared, settling naturally against him. “All weak and shaky.”
“You could do with a bath, like as not,” Samuel suggested. “And some 'ot milk and rum.”
“See to the hot water, then, Samuel,” Hugo said.
“Set it up in here, there's more room. And take what you need from my supplies. We'll leave the lass and her woman to themselves.” Having nobly relinquished his sanctum, he turned to go back to work, and it was only when he reached the quarterdeck that he realized that while everyone else had followed him, the colonel had remained behind.