Cammack raised an eyebrow.
I suppose he does want me to comment on it. Nearly everyone does.
“It was, sir,” she said, “very hard.”
“And yet Lieutenant Curtice writes here that you’ve remarkably little to say on the matter.”
“Lieutenant Curtice is very much in favor of talking, sir. For myself, I don’t see the point.” In truth she was a bit afraid to talk about it. That last action on Belial had been horrible and she felt she relived it enough in her dreams that she had no need to speak on it out of them.
“Curtice is exclusively part of the Sick and Hurt Board,” Cammack said. “Very modern, that.”
Alexis raised her eyes from her cup. Had she detected a note of disapproval in Cammack’s tone?
“Knowing now what happened,” Cammack went on, “would you do anything differently if you could?”
“Differently, sir?”
“If you could change your actions on Giron?”
Never to have gone in the first place?
She supposed Cammack was talking specifically about her action with the Hanoverese frigate.
“Leave the civilians on Giron, sir, if I’d known then that we’d face an action,” she said, then went on, feeling as though she should explain more. “Not that I feel taking them was the wrong decision given what I knew at the time. Belial never should have faced an action — not with the fleets there. She should have been …”
“And what of the action itself?”
“I could wish that … that I had found another way, sir. Some maneuver, some trick of sail, some ruse … that I had been cleverer than I was.”
She’d been over things often enough in her own head. Could she have chosen another point of sail? Somehow led that frigate a chase instead of engaging it? She didn’t know. Anything different she might have done could just as easily resulted in more of the little ships being destroyed instead of just Belial.
Just.
She took another sip of the tea to cover the pain thoughts of the ship always brought. Odd how one could come to care about a pile of plastic and metal almost as much as the flesh and blood crew.
Cammack grunted. “Sometimes, Carew, there’s nothing for it but to put your ship alongside the other fellow and batter away. Clever wins out at times, true, but others it’s just …” He took a sip of wine. “Just brutality that’s the only option for you.”
Alexis nodded, unwilling to risk speaking. Lord knew she’d gone over and over the events in her head, trying to see where she’d made the mistake that had cost so many lives. But try as she might she’d failed to see a course that wouldn’t have resulted in more deaths.
“So,” Cammack said. “To decide what to do with you.” He looked at her speculatively “What is it that you most want, Carew?”
“A ship,” Alexis said automatically, then paused.
Had she really said that? For some time, she would have said that what she most wanted was to return home to Dalthus, the inheritance laws safely changed, and live toward taking over her grandfather’s holdings one day. Yet she’d answered Cammack’s question without hesitation.
“I think that you do not mean a lieutenancy in one when you say that,” Cammack said with a slight grin.
Alexis took that as license to smile back. “You asked what I most wanted, sir, not what I thought I could have at this time.”
“Well, you’re a bit young for a command, you know, even a lieutenant’s. Being sent off into a prize is one thing, but an official appointment is quite another.”
Alexis nodded. She did know that, but still he’d asked.
“Another stint as a junior lieutenant aboard a ship of the line, perhaps a frigate if you’re lucky.” Cammack picked up his tablet and frowned as he reviewed something on it. “Then a run somewhere as first lieutenant, where you can get a feel for things, yes? That’s the way we do things, you know.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your men fought quite well on Belial.”
Alexis blinked at the sudden change in subject. Cammack seemed to be speaking almost randomly and she wondered when he’d get to the point of what was to become of her, not least of which because it would put an end to him bringing up what had happened aboard Belial.
“They are … were the very best I could have asked for, sir.”
“Reviewed the log myself, you know. What was left before the power was cut to the recorders, of course.” Cammack’s eyes were still on his tablet and he spoke absently as though he were simply musing to himself. “Had no marines aboard, did you?”
Alexis blinked again at the change in subject. She shook her head, wondering what Cammack’s point was. “No, sir.”
“No lobster with his rifle at the gundeck’s hatch to keep them from hiding in the hold,” Cammack went on.
Alexis remained silent. Many ships, most perhaps, posted marines at the companionways in an action to thwart anyone who tried to run and hide. She thought it was a disservice to the men.
“Not a single man left the guns,” Cammack said. “Not even in the worst of it.” He raised his eyes to hers. “And the worst of it was the worst I’ve seen, I’ll admit.”
“They were the very best crew I could ask for, sir.”
“The news feeds are all about that action. All of them, not just the Naval Gazette. Full of how New London’s brave Jack Tars stood up against such odds and fought for Queen and Country.” He drained his glass and gestured for another. He waited while his steward poured. “They don’t, you know.”
“Sir?” Alexis was becoming even more confused with where this meeting was going.
“Fight for Queen and Country, I mean. They don’t. Oh, they may join for it, when the recruiters make their speeches and they hear the sound of the drum and fife. Quite moving, that. But when the action’s on and they’re staring at another ship’s open gunports, it’s not our good Queen Annalise on their minds.
“No, then it’s all in that moment, what’s right there, and nothing else. They’re fighting for themselves, or their mates — so they’ll not look shy to the others on the guns. Sometimes they’ll fight for their ship, for her honor if it’s a happy ship and a good company.” He looked up finally and met Alexis’ eyes. “Or for an officer they respect and whose good opinion they value.”
Alexis fought not to look away from his gaze. She thought he seemed to be saying that the men had fought because she’d asked them too. If that were the case, she wasn’t sure she could bear what that meant, and certain she couldn’t avoid it.
“I believe, sir, I’ll have that drink, if it’s still on offer.”
Cammack nodded toward his sideboard and Alexis rose instead of asking Cammack’s steward. She felt the need for something stronger than wine and for the chance to turn away from Cammack’s gaze for a moment. She poured from a decanter of something amber, unsure what it might be and not really caring.
Cammack returned his eyes to his tablet once she’d resumed her seat.
“In mine, I’m a midshipman again,” Cammack said, not looking up. “HMS Aldborough, 24 … she was a small, sixth rate. We won the action … well, won, yes … it was a close-run thing.”
“Sir?”
“It’s different in the dark of night, though, isn’t it?” Cammack went on as though she hadn’t spoken. “I’m on the gundeck and the fire’s coming in. Broadside after broadside … faster than any ship has a right to fire, mind you … but we’re not firing our guns back. The crews are just standing there, falling one by one as the shot comes in, but not firing the guns. I can scream at them, pummel them, but they never fire. More shot comes in, more men fall. I rush to the guns myself … and I can feel the button to fire the gun through my vacsuit. My hand’s right there on it, but I can’t press it. No matter how hard I try, I can’t fire our guns.” He looked up and met Alexis’ gaze. “Then I look out the gunport and next broadside is coming in.”
Cammack was silent for a long moment, holding Alexis’ eye.
<
br /> She started to speak, understanding what he meant by telling her of his own nightmare — what he was offering her — but she couldn’t bring herself to describe hers. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him, nor anyone, for fear they’d tell her the shadows were right, that it was all somehow her failure.
Cammack waited a moment longer, then shrugged as the moment passed.
“Still, there’s the question of what to do with you. Curtice believes you need some time to yourself, some time to rest. What do you think of that?”
“I think, sir, that Lieutenant Curtice is not the best judge of what I need,” Alexis said, glad that the conversation had turned again.
“And what do you think you need at this time?”
“To be busy and useful, sir,” she said. It was no more than the truth. “This enforced idleness here on Lesser Itchthorpe doesn’t sit well with me.”
Cammack nodded. “What I’d wish myself,” he murmured. “Still and all, there’s Curtice’s recommendations I have to take into account and he doesn’t rate you fit for another commission here on the border where there’s so much fighting still.”
So he meant to send her away from the war. To be the junior lieutenant on some ship far from Hanover. Alexis wasn’t at all sure how she’d be able to take some time of endless patrols in peaceful space. All because of that damned Curtice. She was so caught up in anger at the man that she nearly missed the Admiral Cammack’s next words and it took her a moment to understand their import.
“— Nightingale’s commander, Lieutenant Borrowman, is asking for leave … some sort of family issue, it seems. With everyone anxious to come to the war zone and, frankly, our need of them, it’s been difficult to find someone to take his place. Only a lieutenant’s command, a little revenue cutter, but far enough from any real fighting that it seems to fit Curtice’s concerns nicely.”
A revenue cutter? They were such small ships, commanded by a lieutenant and having only a pair of midshipmen as other officers. If she was appointed into that, it would have to be as …
“Best for you, I think, Carew. Give you a bit of time in command in a more relaxed setting than the neck-or-nothing dashes you’ve had in those prizes you’ve commanded. Nightingale has a pair of good midshipmen aboard to offer you support and a decent crew … well, as decent as may be with the war on.” He raised his eyebrows. “It is important and useful work, you know. Smuggling cuts into the tax base and without taxes there’re no funds for the Navy to fight this war, you understand?”
“Yes, sir, I understand. Thank you.” Her own ship! Appointed into it properly, even. No matter how small it was still both an honor and a sign of confidence in her that Cammack would do this.
“Oh, and your stars seem to have aligned even further with this,” Cammack went on. “Nightingale’s based out of Zariah — that would make her patrol sector include that Dalthus system you’re from, I think. Not often the Navy gives us a chance to visit home, Carew, so best take advantage of it.”
Alexis took a deep breath, feeling as though a huge weight had been lifted from her. A command, work to do, and a chance to visit home.
“Settled then,” Cammack said. “I’ll have the orders cut and forwarded to you. You can be on the first packet going that direction.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Alexis took that for her dismissal and rose to leave, but she paused at the hatchway. She hadn’t felt nearly the same reluctance to talk with the admiral as she had with Curtice. It seemed as though he understood, and she risked asking at least one of the questions she was afraid of having an answer to.
“Does it ever get easier to bear, sir?”
Cammack stared at her a moment and she was certain he understood completely. Had felt what she’d been feeling since Giron.
The admiral drained his glass.
“Given the costs … I should bloody well hope not, don’t you?”
Alexis made her way back to her rooms. With every step she wanted to pull out her tablet and check that Admiral Cammack’s orders were real and not a dream. She was getting a ship, her own ship, and properly assigned into it, not just a prize command — something unthinkably rare for an eighteen-year old lieutenant. Surely it would be a small ship, only a revenue cutter, but still it was a command. And more than that, she was going home. Patrolling the sector would allow her to visit Dalthus every few weeks and spend time with her grandfather. It was like a huge weight lifted from her shoulders.
“Isom!” she called as she approached her rooms. The news was good for him as well. This commission would place them in the same sector for months, perhaps a year or more, and with a regular patrol schedule. There were certain to be solicitors on Zariah they could speak to who could coordinate with Grandy on Penduli and possibly challenge Isom’s enlistment by the Impress Service.
“That Mister Dansby was by, sir,” Isom said, coming out of her rooms.
Alexis’ smile fell. Dansby had followed Cammack’s fleet to Lesser Itchthorpe. She hadn’t spoken to him, but he’d been constantly about for some reason, always catching her eye. She’d begun to wonder if the man was stalking her.
“Is he still here?”
Isom shook his head. “No, sir, but he left you some’at.”
Alexis frowned. “What is it?”
“It’s wrapped, on your cot, sir. He left a note, as well.”
Alexis hesitated at the hatch to her rooms.
“I don’t suppose you thought to scan it for explosives?” She waved Isom away. “No, never mind. That man’s clever enough to get around that somehow.”
She slid the hatch shut behind her, best to deal with whatever Dansby had left her with before telling Isom the good news. The package, little more than half a meter square, was wrapped in brown paper. She pulled a folded note from its top and read:
Rikki,
I’ve just heard you’ll be captaining a revenue cutter, dealing with the serpents and vipers such as I (was, now utterly and wholly reformed, of course).
Alexis stopped reading and snorted astonishment. How fast the rumor mill worked on-station or on a ship was astounding. She’d barely stopped on her way from Admiral Cammack’s quarters, and yet Dansby had the whole of it, and with time to write a note.
Perhaps you’ll have need of an ally in your future endeavors — and a reminder of your place in things.
A. Dansby
Alexis frowned and parted the paper from the top of the package, exposing a box made of wire mesh. She jumped backward as a tiny face appeared behind the mesh.
Soft, brown eyes gleamed as they reflected the light and she could make out a lithe, furry body ending in a tail, bottle-brush thick in agitation. The face disappeared in a rustle of movement as a soft chittering came to her ear.
“Isom!” she called out, shaking her head. “We’ll need to pack … and I’d admire it did you discover to me what one feeds a bloody mongoose!”
A Note from the Author
Thank you for reading The Little Ships. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my readers who are native speakers of French or German for your patience. I know I’ve taken some liberties with your respective languages, choosing, in some cases, not quite the best translation in order to make some things more understandable to English speakers via context. And to those English speakers for your patience with so much French and German. :)
Inspiration for The Little Ships, and its title, came primarily from the evacuation of British and French troops from Dunkirk in May/June of 1940.
With the whole of the British Expeditionary Force, what remained of Belgian forces, and three French armies trapped with their backs to the English Channel, the Allies undertook the task of evacuating over 300,000 men across the English Channel. Hundreds of boats responded to the call — from the merchant marine, fishing and pleasure craft, and even lifeboats. Civilian and Naval forces worked together to accomplish one of the most remarkabl
e boat lifts in history.
Even the weather cooperated to a certain extent, with cloud cover that kept the German air force from being as much of a threat as it should have been and the Channel itself remaining unseasonably calm.
Those Little Ships, many of which still sail, even have their own flag, the Dunkirk Jack, which can only be flown by civilian ships that took part in the operation.
The Dunkirk Jack: The St George's Cross defaced with the arms of Dunkirk
In naming the fictional ships participating in the evacuation of Giron, I used several from real ships that participated in the evacuation of Dunkirk. Most notably the three packets, Mona’s Queen, Fenella, and King Orry. At Dunkirk, these three ships were among the sixteen vessels from the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company that participated in the evacuation, and all three were lost on May 29th, 1940.
As well, the Royal Daffodil was a real ship and made seven trips across the Channel to rescue between seven and nine thousand men — the most of any ship in the campaign.
The reaction to Dunkirk, by all rights, should have been one of despair. The allied armies were defeated, driven not only to the coast, but into the very sea, and had to evacuate across the Channel before a seemingly unbeatable foe.
The people of England didn’t seem to see it that way. The soldiers from Dunkirk were greeted by celebrating crowds on their return. The mood was so optimistic, in fact, that Winston Churchill gave one of his most famous speeches, not so much to raise morale, but to remind people of the long, hard war yet to be fought.
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
Alexis Carew: Books 1, 2, and 3 Page 92