by V. E. Ulett
She hurried alone back to Lord Elgin’s villa. The neighborhood, a part of the City dedicated to foreigners, was deserted and still except for the houses occupied by the British. Enough noise to fill the entire quarter began to issue from those two residences.
Red and blue jackets crowded every ground floor hallway and apartment of the Consul’s villa. Miriam slipped through into an upstairs servant’s bedchamber where she’d left her basket and spare dress, and all the finery she’d looted from Lady Elgin and Miss Fanny’s wardrobes. Through the window of her chamber, Miriam watched a group of seamen running up the lane, several taking the place of a horse between the traces of a curricle.
She frowned and backed out of view. Miriam wanted to curl up on the narrow bed in the chamber, to awaken later and creep away unnoticed clad in the burqa. But the mission wasn’t played out, and without it concluding successfully, Miriam might lose the small British support she had at present. She set to the task of tarting up—fit to ride to the quay in a curricle pulled by British tars.
Miriam turned many heads, truthfully every head, when she sprang her presence on the group of sea officers and marines gathered with Lord Elgin in the great room of the manse. Sweeping in wearing a cunning mixture of Fanny’s more demure girlish gown and Lady Elgin’s scarves and embellishments, she was the picture of aristocratic elegance, from her satin pumps to the fringes of her ridiculously large hat and parasol. Miriam moved immediately to take up Tommy from where he lay on a sofa, forgotten by all but a hard faced sergeant who was allowing the child to suck his knuckle.
A renewed and louder stir broke out in the room, immediately filling the silence created by Miriam’s entrance. They were apparently waiting for nothing more than her appearance. The crowd carried Miriam, Tommy, and Lord Elgin outside and installed them in the man-drawn curricle. Miriam settled on the bench seat with Tommy against her, managing to free both hands for an instant to open her parasol. She needed it as a shield against the humiliation of being paraded through the blown out City in that absurd conveyance, surrounded by hallooing British men.
Miriam sat with her back straight, and what she hoped were haughty, insensible, composed features. Inwardly she shrank, both from making a spectacle of herself, and from the appearance of indifference to the suffering of others. To the credit of lieutenant Burgess and the British tars the outcry became much less as they neared the quay, and passed through the areas hardest hit in the battle. First down side streets and then on the main thoroughfare itself corpses appeared, and torn body parts. Filthy, bloody, lying in the street. This was the aftermath of victory.
Lord Elgin, Miriam, and Tommy where obliged to get down from the curricle before reaching the quay, because of the great crowd gathering there, just as on the previous day. Today freed Christian slaves, many ragged and dirty, others more decently treated, clothed and fed, were being herded about by the British. As Miriam adjusted Tommy against her shoulder she glanced back the way they’d come, and spotted—she didn’t think she could be mistaken—the portly figure of Atif Mehmood supporting Captain Ansari up the road. Behind them they left the bodies of their comrades, many draped over the ruined gun embrasures. Captain Ansari, lifting a head wrapped in a disarrayed and bloody turban, gazed back at the scene of disaster. Miriam turned and put up her parasol with a nonchalant air.
A number of carriages were drawn up at the entrance of the quay. Their occupants, the surviving quality of the City, were watching the spectacle of exodus from the comfort of their barouches. Miriam heard ‘Lord and Lady Elgin’ whispered as they passed. The gown, the unwieldy parasol, and extravagant hat had done their duty.
Miriam felt unexpected relief at sight of the young captain she’d met on the quay, coming forward to greet Mr. Burgess and Lord Elgin and his party.
“Lord Elgin, I am Captain Dashwood. How do you do, sir? Lord Exmouth sends his best compliments, and Mr. Burgess and his lordship’s barge to carry you aboard Queen Charlotte. The lady will be doing me the honour of her presence aboard Prometheus, by his lordship’s order.”
Lord Elgin received this news with indifference, made a curt bow to Miriam, and asked to be shown to the barge. Miriam turned frantically round, and spotting the rough-hewn sergeant of the sucked on digit, she gave Tommy a fond kiss and embrace and handed him into the man’s arms. When Tommy realized he was to part from Miriam, with whom he’d come to associate some minimal level of comfort, he began to howl.
“Bear up, my boy,” Lord Elgin advised him from his seat in the stern of the barge. “You are to see your mama, in the time it takes to pull to the flag.”
With a stricken wail Tommy held out his arms to Miriam. Captain Dashwood escorted Miriam away to Prometheus’s boat, with many a sidelong glance at her costume and unveiled face. Getting into the gig almost undid Miriam for she was obliged, before Captain Dashwood and his men, to remove her satin pumps. These she placed in the basket with her belongings. Captain Dashwood seated himself in the stern of the boat beside her, and gave the order to “pull away”.
Miriam’s stomach lifted and fell with the send of the sea passing under the boat’s bow. She’d accomplished what the British asked of her in exchange for her safe passage out of Iran. Whether this cancelled her indebtedness, she did not know. And if it did, where was she to go with never a friend in the world? Anxiety gnawed at her, almost outweighing her relief and fatigue.
It spite of weariness—Miriam’s head was threatening to loll forward onto her breast—she untied one of the sashes from round her waist and arranged it over her hair, fastening it about her neck and shoulders in the manner of a hijab. She wanted to go aboard Prometheus, into that all male world, with an appearance of decency.
In the two days following the bombardment of Algiers, Lord Exmouth and the Dutch commander Vice-Admiral Baron Van der Capellen contemplated their losses, repaired their ships, and arranged transport for the eventual three thousand Christian slaves freed. Between the British and Dutch forces one hundred thirty men were killed and seven hundred wounded. Word from Prometheus’s surgeon and others who’d been pressed into aiding the enemy with their casualties, put the Algerian losses in the thousands of men dead and wounded. Lord Exmouth was fortunate in losing no ships, though some had sustained the cannonading of the shore batteries for long periods and been severely damaged.
Captain Dashwood with Prometheus and other ships of the fleet towed and lent aid to both British and Dutch ships. In spite of the high pitch of activity during those two days, Dashwood missed the presence of his lady guest. Miss Kodio Blackwell kept her apartment, the coach was converted to a bed place for her use. On the third day, Dashwood had an excuse to send his steward scratching on her door. A boat from the flag brought a letter requesting and requiring Prometheus’s captain to receive Admiral Lord Exmouth aboard for supper that evening.
It was difficult to choose between Dashwood and Miriam which was the more disturbed in spirit before this meeting, as they awaited the Admiral’s appearance in Prometheus’s great cabin. They exhausted their small store of conversation in greetings and polite inquiries as to how the other did. Miriam sat outwardly composed but silent. Her hands were clasped in her lap as she gazed out the stern windows at the lights of the ship anchored nearest. Dashwood paced up and back in the small space, stopping abruptly now and again as though he would speak to her. He actually gave a skip and jump in the air when his steward knocked on the door “to alert his honor the Admiral’s barge was alongside.”
Dashwood ran out the door, clapping his hat to his head as he went. Miriam stood, heaved a sigh, and smoothed her gown with shaking hands. There was a great noise above her head, the shrilling of a pipe, the stamp of feet planted on the deck in unison. Moments later Lord Exmouth came sweeping into the great cabin, ducking his head, followed by Dashwood with his hat once more under his arm.
“How do you do, Miss Miriam?” His lordship and Miriam were previously acquainted, and he immediately came and took Miriam’s hand. “I must ca
ution you not to lie, for Valentine already told me you were obliged to keep your bed these last days.”
Miriam was taken aback, but she looked straight at Lord Exmouth and answered him directly. “I’m very well, sir, I thank you. I won’t deny then, that I was in need of a good rest, which...Captain Valentine Dashwood has kindly allowed me.”
Lord Exmouth turned to Dashwood with a smile and a nod as though to say, ‘Didn’t I tell you the girl had bottom.’
“Do be seated,” Lord Exmouth said, and planted his rather grand, stout, and well dressed person knee to knee with Miriam. “I must beg your pardon for not receiving you as you deserve, aboard Queen Charlotte. I regret to say there are certain uninformed parties aboard my ship at present, crying out about ‘wicked nurses’, who’ve misunderstood your...er, role in what has occurred in these last days.”
“Just as they ought,” Miriam said.
Lord Exmouth’s genial open face broke into a huge grin, and he even gave a small snort. “But I daresay the party’s enmity may have more to do with the world’s exclaiming how well Lady Elgin looked as she came away. Like a heroine, on her lord’s arm after the battle.”
Miriam frowned and glanced down, while the smile slowly faded from Lord Exmouth’s face. Lord Exmouth covered his confusion with a little cough; Dashwood shifted in his chair.
“And how does Miss Fanny and dear little Tommy do?”
“Very well, ma’am,” Lord Exmouth said, in a hardy, relieved tone. “Miss Fanny is the belle of my flag captain’s table. And as Tommy has no nurse, he has been given in charge to Jemmy Ducks.”
“How glad I am to hear it.” Miriam smiled for the first time. “And who is this Jemmy Ducks?”
Lord Exmouth’s face glowed pink with pleasure. “You tell her Dashwood, it’s too rich.”
Dashwood hesitated as though he wanted to refuse, but of course as an officer, a much junior officer, he could not. “Well ma’am, in the Navy, Jemmy Ducks is the name we give the seaman in charge of the poultry, and the pigs.”
A great quantity of pork was served at supper, to which the gentlemen at least did justice, along with several bottles of wine. Dashwood was sensitive to what he thought were Miriam’s religious dictates, and had his cook prepare a fowl in oyster sauce especially for her. Miriam also recognized upon the table a dish containing the oysters preserved in peppered oil that she’d purchased at the souk in Algiers. These Miriam spooned onto her plate with relish, while she observed the gentlemen. They were already jovial, especially Lord Exmouth with his mirth all out of proportion to the deserts of that Jemmy Ducks sally. Miriam watched them grow more lively with each empty bottle that was carried away into the pantry.
Yet when the covers were drawn and the port and almonds were on the table, Lord Exmouth grew serious and turned pointedly to her.
“Miss Miriam, you have done your part most admirably. Anyone intimate in this Algiers affair knows it. Lord Q has certainly been made aware of your...”
His lordship stopped speaking suddenly, and cocked his ear at the sound of a marine on Prometheus’s deck hailing an approaching boat.
“We are to be joined shortly, ma’am, by the commander of the Dutch fleet, Baron Van der Capellen, so I must be brief.” Lord Exmouth paused, gave an awkward twist of neck and head, and loosened his stock with two meaty fingers. “A matter has arisen that we, that is Lord Q feels will be best addressed by someone with your particular, ah, assets. That is, by a woman.”
The bosun’s pipe shrilled and the two Navy men jumped to their feet, made hasty bows to Miriam, and hurried up on deck.
Miriam was expecting to learn of her fate this evening, and naturally she’d played over in her mind what the English might do with her. The most likely scenario was that she should be packed off to be governess to some British diplomat’s children. There were many who would say it was what she’d been raised for, that or to be the wife of a diplomat or minor official. Miriam’s step-father, Francis Blackwell, had given her an education in geography, languages, history, and made her unfit for many other ways of life. But she’d hardly imagined that the British, that Lord Q, should wish to make use of her assets...as a woman. She was rather chilled by the prospect.
Baron Van der Capellen was shown in to the cabin by Dashwood, with Lord Exmouth behind him, and presented to Miriam. Van der Capellen was a ponderous, florid man, with a careworn face. After they were seated again, he peered at Miriam in a short sighted way, and eased a gold oval shaped locket out of a waistcoat pocket stretched tight across his belly. Van der Capellen flicked open the lid to reveal a small portrait and placed the locket on the table before them.
“This is a likeness of my niece, Anna Lovell, Miss Blackwell,” Van der Capellen said, in the direct way of Navy men. “My favorite niece, I hasten to add, daughter of my dearest sister. Anna was on her way aboard the merchant vessel Vriendschap, from the island of Hong Kong to Java, to marry the captain of Dageraad. This merchantman was attacked, Miss, by foul pirates in the South China Sea. Our dear Anna was taken from us.”
Tears welled in Van der Capellen’s eyes and he nodded toward Lord Exmouth, who cleared his throat.
“We’ve known of these activities for some time, reports come to us from Hong Kong and Malaya of merchant ships and private vessels seized and robbed. The passengers subjected to beatings and indignities...” Lord Exmouth broke off, realizing late he was most probably giving pain to the Dutch Vice-Admiral. “And in short, this time they’ve gone too far, and Government has become involved.”
Miriam saw how it was, this time the pirates took a woman about whom someone cared, a light-skinned woman, a privileged European woman. Or at least a well-connected one, and Miriam knew the British were indebted to the Dutch for their support in the late battle. What Miriam also guessed at was Lord Q’s plan, that she should help retire that debt, and her own, by venturing into the South China Sea.
“What if I do not wish, your lordship,” Miriam said to Lord Exmouth, “to become involved along with Government, to make a perilous journey so far East?”
“Why then, Miss Miriam, you should be instantly put ashore. Or passage can be arranged for you back to Iran. It would be your choice.”
The alacrity with which this answer shot back at her from the genial Lord Exmouth, and the somewhat hard stare that accompanied it, surprised Miriam. Van der Capellen, and Dashwood too, if she was not mistaken, were avoiding her eye.
“Then I had better learn the extent that your government is involved, sir, and all the particulars of the case.” Miriam turned to Van der Capellen. She took up the portrait of Anna Lovell—a delicate painting on ivory—and really looked at the pale skinned, rosy checked, fair-haired maid with the upturned nose. “I’m sorry for your niece, sir, I shall do everything I can to aid her.”
“Oh!” cried Baron Van der Capellen, clasping Miriam’s hand holding the portrait. “May God speed you.” The Dutch Vice-Admiral’s gaze left her and sought Lord Exmouth. “And bless the Royal Navy.”
Baron Van der Capellen had left them. In the cabin Lord Exmouth, Captain Dashwood, and Miriam bent over a map of the South China Sea.
“I do not see how we are to find a single ship in an area of this size,” Miriam observed. “Even were the Navy to send a fleet.”
“Give Lord Q some credit, Miss Miriam. We know the name of the vessel that kidnapped Miss Lovell. The Golden Dragon, she is called. And a scourge she has been to our merchant fleet, and maritime trade in those waters. It is past time something were done to bring those savages to heel.” Lord Exmouth paused, but as the remark found no favor with Miriam, he continued, “Lord Q’s people mapped the Dragon’s preferred hunting grounds and routes of attack.”
Miriam couldn’t suppress a small shudder, knowing she was to be the prey sent in to those hunting grounds. Yet she wasn’t completely ignorant of world geography, and remained unconvinced the British had a viable plan.
“Another question that strikes me most forcefully, your lordship,
” she said, “is whether there will be any hope of finding Miss Lovell after the months it will require to reach the South China Sea. I do not wish to bring any ill on the poor woman by speaking this aloud, but will she not have been moved on to the mainland of China, by the time I can expect to arrive?”
Captain Dashwood shivered but Lord Exmouth wasn’t the least disturbed.
His lordship paused, allowing a dramatic beat to pass. “You shall be put aboard a crack ship, Miss Miriam.”
Whatever this meant, it made Captain Dashwood gasp.
Lord Exmouth nodded with satisfaction. “Nonesuch, Captain Maximus Thorpe, is expected in Algiers. You shall be put aboard her, and Captain Thorpe will be apprised he is to deliver you to Hong Kong with due dispatch, wasting not a moment. Once in Hong Kong you will meet with the diplomatic corps. One of the local people will attend you, someone with whom you are already acquainted.” Lord Exmouth gave Miriam a significant and considering stare. “It is Mr. Francis Blackwell, Miss Miriam. Did you know he was posted in Hong Kong?”
This news gave Miriam a start, but she refrained from gasping with an effort. “I was not, sir.” She knew Francis was one of Lord Q’s people, as his lordship called them, though she must never admit it. “But that is not an issue in the least.”
“From Hong Kong you will proceed to Java,” Lord Exmouth said, “in vessels and under terms you will know best how to arrange, Miss Miriam. In the same brilliant fashion you have done here in Algiers, no doubt.”
Miriam had many doubts about the mission, but she acknowledged Lord Exmouth’s compliment with a graceful inclination of her head. A crack ship not withstanding, she couldn’t imagine being in time to save Miss Lovell from sale in the slave trade. But to disrupt or ruin the trafficking would be a great good to other women, and this there might yet be a chance of doing. The entire scheme, and thoughts of meeting Francis again, whirled about in Miriam’s head. She wanted to be alone, to work out how she felt. Was she more relieved or terrified for her immediate future?