‘A splendid idea,’ said Madame Fesquet. ‘It will distance the bad smells that breed disease.’
Mademoiselle Duvivier said, ‘The disease is also brought by the vermin, I fear. As Jesus tells us to travel through life in a clean body, we should very much like to embark on our voyage in a clean cabin.’
‘We have been enclosed in this cabin for the past four weeks,’ said Jacob. ‘Alas, in spite of our demands, we are deprived of water and rags for swabbing.’
‘I will ask the captain to see to it that you are equipped,’ said Mr van de Veen, who then let his wife translate.
*
By the following morning, not only was the Huguenots’ wish for water and cloth granted, but more visits followed from other Dutch and English contingents, and continued throughout the Huguenots’ stay in Cadiz harbour. Each visit uplifted their spirits, like a rag of blue sky in an otherwise murky firmament. They saw each visit as a ray of God’s love that galvanised their faith and filled their souls with new courage. It meant He had not abandoned them. Now they could embark on the long, perilous voyage across the great sea, secure in the knowledge that their place in heaven was assured. What, after all, was earthly suffering compared to eternal life?
The visiting parties also brought very earthly provisions: dried sausage, cheese, bread, fruit, clothing, writing kits. They even managed to smuggle in miniature Bibles and a few other books for the voyage, one of which would shape the course of Jacob’s destiny.
The book in question was at first given to Professor Bourget by a rosy-faced Englishman with sparse white hair for whom Jacob acted as interpreter. Delpech still possessed remnants of English, having learnt it as a young man when his father had taken a position there in 1663 to learn about medicine. However, the book was of no use to the professor, a surgeon who knew only his mother tongue, German, Latin, and Greek. Jacob’s father had been a physician and herbalist, and during previous conversations with Bourget, it had come to light that Delpech had always nurtured a fond interest in the Lord’s natural world. So it was without regret that the professor gave the book to Jacob.
It was an old book that the elderly Englishman had kept since his younger days. He had spent half his career as a ship’s surgeon for the East India Company. The book was The Surgeon’s Mate.
*
On the twenty-first of November, one month to the day of her arrival, the pink lowered her sails and turned her prow towards the open sea.
Jacob Delpech was eager to reach the New World. Before setting out from the Bay of Cadiz, he had been able to converse in his broken English with a Dutchman by the name of Marcus Horst, who was familiar with the West Indies. ‘There are a great many islands, large and small,’ he had said. ‘You must hold firm. It would not be so difficult to escape to an English settlement by cargo ship. From there you can gain passage aboard a ship bound for London or Amsterdam.’
La Marie and La Concorde were escorted by Le Solide, commanded by Admiral Chateaurenaud, chief of the French fleet. As they left the Bay of Cadiz, Jacob knelt with a group of fellow inmates to give thanks to God for the reprieve before the storm, and for the rays of light that had brought them comfort, hope, and their Holy Bibles.
The sound of the key in the lock made Jacob look up in time to see the door swing open. Next thing, he saw two men, two buckets, and a shaft of seawater.
‘Enough of yer jabbering to false gods!’ bellowed one of the guards.
‘Or we’ll come in and search yer all for fake Bibles,’ said his mate. ‘And if we find any, it’s twelve lashes for heresy!’
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paul C.R. Monk is the author of the Huguenot Chronicles historical fiction trilogy and the Marcel Dassaud books. You can connect with Paul on Twitter at @pcrmonk, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/paulcrmonkauthor and you can send him an email at [email protected] should the mood take you.
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ALSO BY PAUL C.R. MONK
Have you read them?
In the HUGUENOT CHRONICLES Trilogy
VOYAGE OF MALICE (Book 2)
Geneva, 1688. Jeanne dreams of her previous life as a wealthy merchant’s wife before Louis XIV’s soldiers ran her family out of France for refusing to renounce their faith. Jacob hopes his letters make it to Jeanne from the other side of the ocean. As he bides his time as an indentured servant on a Caribbean plantation, tragedy strikes in the form of shipwreck and pirates. If Jeanne and Jacob can’t rise above a world that’s closing all its doors, then they may never be reunited again…
Buy it: US UK
LAND OF HOPE (Book 3)
A 17th Century family torn apart. A new power on the throne. Will one man reunite with his wife and child, or is he doomed to die in fresh battles? Land of Hope is the conclusion to the riveting Huguenot Chronicles historical fiction trilogy.
Buy it: US UK
Other works
STRANGE METAMORPHOSIS
When a boy faces a life-changing decision, a legendary tree sends him on a magical expedition. He soon has to vie with the bugs he once collected for sport! The journey is fraught with life-threatening dangers, and the more he finds out about himself, the more he undergoes a strange metamorphosis.
"A fable of love and life, of good and evil, of ambition and humility."
Winner of the LITERARY CLASSICS Eloquent Quill Youth Fiction Book Award.
Buy it: US UK
SUBTERRANEAN PERIL
Set in the story-world of Strange Metamorphosis, this action-packed novelette offers a thrilling episode of a boy’s fabulous and scary adventure of self-discovery. When 14 year-old Marcel leads his crew out of a dark and disused snake tunnel in search of fresh air, little does he know he is entering the labyrinthic galleries of an ant nest.
Buy it: US UK
COPYRIGHT
A BLOOMTREE PRESS ebook.
First published in 2016 by BLOOMTREE PRESS.
Ebook first published in 2016 by BLOOMTREE PRESS
ISBN 978-0-9934442-4-1
Copyright © Paul C.R. Monk 2016
www.paulcrmonk.com
Formatting by BLOOMTREE PRESS
Cover design by Sanja Gombar
The moral right of Paul C.R. Monk to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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