The Little Ships (Alexis Carew Book 3)

by J. A. Sutherland

  Artley raised his face and Alexis saw the tears. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “No. No, I’m the one who’s to apologize, Artley.” She sighed. “Not for the meaning of what I said, mind you, but the way it was uttered and that you heard it the way you did.” She met his eyes and saw fresh tears, but went on. “I should have spoken to you long before this.”

  Part of her wanted to blame Eades and his damnable lessons, but the fact was that Artley had become her responsibility when he’d joined her division and she’d failed to pay as much attention to the boy as she should. Eades might cause her to have less time, but it was up to her to still perform her duties — one of which was to see to the midshipmen who reported to her. She’d just been lucky with Walborn and Blackmer, that they were experienced and required little in the way of her time.

  “What prompted you to join the Navy, Mister Artley? What did you hope to find here?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “I’d expect such an answer from a new hand, half drunk and the other half addled by the Press’ cosh, Mister Artley, but young gentlemen do not arrive aboard in that condition. I may reasonably expect that you were both conscious and sober when you came aboard Shrewsbury and can make some account of the circumstances. Please do.”

  “I truly don’t know why I’m here, sir,” Artley said, looking, if possible, even more miserable. “I never thought to join the Navy … I always thought that I’d work in my Da’s shop. That’s what he always said to me.”

  Artley was silent for a time and Alexis prompted, “The circumstances of coming aboard Shrewsbury, Mister Artley?”

  He nodded. “I woke one morning and my Da … not my real Da, he died a year or more ago, but the man my mum took up with, you understand? He said I should call him Da, too, though I didn’t want to.” He paused again and Alexis nodded for him to continue. “Well, he woke me and said I was off to someplace that would make a man of me. Mum was all crying and carrying on, and I thought I was being sent away to school. Da … the man Mum married … well, he took me off with not a thing packed and then he sent me aboard a shuttle with a Navy captain. First I heard of being in the Navy was when we reached his ship and he showed me a chest and bag he said were my things. He had me put on a midshipman’s uniform and next I knew I was back in a boat and on my way to Shrewsbury … and barely an hour aboard here before we were making way for the transition point and Lieutenant Slawson was shoving me out the hatch onto the hull and demanding I name for him all these parts of a ship I’d never seen before!”

  Alexis blinked. The story had come out in such a rush that she wasn’t sure she had the full of it.

  “Tell me if I understand,” she said. “Your father, your real father, owned a shop and told you it would be yours one day?”

  Artley nodded. “I’d work with him every day after school. It’s a fine shop.”

  “But he died? And your mother’s met a new man?”

  Artley nodded again. “I don’t like him.”

  “I should think not,” Alexis said. “And they, neither of them, spoke to you of the Navy ever?”

  “Never, sir. He talked of sending me away for schooling, but never the Navy.”

  “I see,” Alexis said, quite afraid that she did. “Do you know at all what arrangements your father made? Your real father, I mean. For the shop and for you and your mother upon his death?”

  Artley shook his head and Alexis frowned. Artley might not know, but she certainly had her suspicions. A fine shop left to another man’s son and a new husband who might wonder what would be left for him when the son came into his majority. What better way to have it for himself than to send the boy away to the Navy? Especially with a war on and the very real possibility of Artley being killed.

  “What a vile business.”

  “Sir?”

  Alexis studied his face, but it seemed Artley was oblivious to his stepfather’s possible motives. He seemed innocently bewildered by what had happened to him. If being put aboard ship had come as such a surprise, might that have something to do with how he performed his duties? Alexis hesitated, looking at the lad. He was obviously still shaken by his close call and she wondered if it was the best time to be having this conversation. Still, perhaps it was the perfect time to drive home the seriousness of life aboard ship, regardless of whether it was the life Artley would choose for himself.

  “Is it safe to say that you’ve never wanted to be in the Navy?” she asked.

  Artley shook his head. “Never thought of it, sir.”

  “And safe to say that the Navy’s still not where you wish to be?”

  Artley hesitated, perhaps afraid to answer, and Alexis raised an eyebrow.

  “I just want to go home.”

  “Mister Artley, I will allow you just this one meeting for a whinge like that.” Alexis fought to keep her face stern as his expression fell. Perhaps he’d wanted some sympathy and she longed to give it to him, but the truth was he was in the Navy, aboard ship, and very far from home. If he didn’t give it his best efforts, then the prediction she’d made in the wardroom would come true and someone, likely Artley himself, would be dead of it. “You are aboard this ship. Perhaps you’ll one day return home, but while aboard I’ll have your best efforts in your duties. Your very best efforts, Mister Artley, which I suspect no one aboard Shrewsbury has yet seen.”

  “I —”

  “Think on this,” she said, interrupting him. “Had this morning’s incident happened during an action, you would surely be dead.”

  Artley looked at her eyes wide. “But —”

  “That entire guncrew came to your aid — in an action, you’d have been shoved to the side for Mister Castell’s loblolly boys to take below in their own time. I would not have come to your aid myself, and stopped you taking your helmet off in a full bloody vacuum. Moreover, there are eight hundred men aboard Shrewsbury who depend upon those best efforts of yours for their own lives.”

  Artley winced and looked away.

  “If your father — your real father — truly intended to leave his shop to you then you must have previously exhibited some degree of competence as yet unseen aboard this ship. I need to see that competence, Mister Artley. I need you to apply yourself to Shrewsbury’s work as diligently as I’m certain you did in your Da’s shop. Study your signals and use your bloody head at the guns, do you hear me?”

  “Aye sir.”

  “Though about this little hidey-hole here, Mister Artley.”

  “Aye sir. I’ll stop coming down here.”

  “No, you needn’t stop completely. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a bit of time to yourself — Lord knows it’s hard to find a moment’s quiet to think aboard ship, but do try to spend some time with your berthmates. They’re not bad lads at all.”

  “I will, sir, thank you.”

  Alexis shoved a pile of crisp wrappers to the side. “But when you are here, I’ll have no more this, do you understand? I plan to start inspecting this space and if I find it anything but as tidy as your berth it’ll go poorly for you.”

  “Aye sir.”

  Chapter 10

  “Damn him. Damn him to hell.”

  “Sir?”

  “Roger Corbel, Carew. Captain Roger Corbel of Feversham. He’s the one sent me Artley, you see.” Euell rose and began pacing. “Never would have believed he’d be in a business so vile as you’ve just described, though. Damn the man. And damn me.”

  “You, sir?”

  “For not paying enough attention when the lad came aboard.” Euell sat again, his nostrils flaring in anger. “Corbel told me that Artley was a distant relation in need of a berth — it’s not uncommon. A captain might not want a relative aboard his own ship for any number of reasons and so he asks a fellow captain to take the boy. And Shrewsbury’d just been through the bloody Purge, so I had need of more midshipmen.”

  “The Purge, sir?” Alexis asked, frowning.

  Euell glanced at her. “That’s what we of
Core Fleet call the pointless reshuffling of crew we go through when we have to sail for the Fringe. Fully half of Shrewsbury’s crew was replaced before we were allowed to sail, so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of whichever Fringe Worlds we were likely to be stopping at. It’s a bloody nuisance at the best of times and with the war on … well, not enough replacements for them all.” He grimaced in distaste. “It’s why you were such a surprise when you came aboard.”

  Alexis flushed. From Euell’s tone she hadn’t been a pleasant surprise either.

  “Not your fault, Carew. It’s just that I left two fine lieutenants and a midshipman behind in the Core for no better reason than their gender might offend some Fringe worthy’s thoughts on how the world should be. Half my crew shuffled off to other ships with destinations where they’d not be found offensive for one reason or another. One man’s religion, another’s preferences.” He paused while his steward returned with the wine and took a long drink. “I’ll tell you, Carew, there’s no few in Core Fleet who are tired of the whole mess and think it’s past time Her Majesty told the entire Fringe to by God suck it up and accept the men and women of the Fleet as they are. With a war on, you’d think they wouldn’t be so bloody particular about who stands between them and the Hanoverese, would you?”

  “No, sir,” Alexis said, face fixed and hoping to show no reaction. She wasn’t sure what shocked her more, the thought of fleet captains discussing so blatantly what they thought Her Majesty should do or the image of the Queen telling anyone in any way to ‘suck it up’. She did know that when faced with a captain of such strong opinions, the best course of action a lieutenant had was to react as little as possible, whether she agreed with him or not.

  Which she found she did, come to that.

  Euell regarded her for a moment, then laughed. “Drink up, Carew. One of the prerogatives of command, you’ll someday find, is the privilege to go on a right good rant while junior officers sit there wondering whether it’s best to agree or simply behave like they’re part of the chair.” He drained his glass and gestured for more. “It’s grand fun.”

  “I’m sure it is, sir.”

  Euell sighed. “But enough of that — this business with Artley merely brought it to mind again and it’s irksome still. Does he suspect the full nature of why he was sent away?”

  “I don’t think so, sir. It doesn’t seem he’s thought through the implications his absence will have on his inheritance.” She caught her lip between her teeth. “Do you suppose we can find some way to send him home when we reach the French capital?”

  Euell blinked as though shocked and shook his head. “No, that’s simply not possible. Firstly, it’s three months travel, at best, to his home, but more difficult is that he’s in the Navy now. With the war on, he can’t just resign — oh, they’d allow it, I suppose, but how would it look? A young gentleman resigns in the midst of war? There’d be talk of cowardice being the reason. A judgment which would follow him in all he tries to do.”

  Alexis nodded, her hopes for Artley falling. Such a thing would indeed follow him, and haunt him. Possibly not if he were to gain his own shop back, but certainly if he ever wanted to do something else with his life, such as university or a position in government.

  “And more troubling,” Euell went on, “what happens to him should he return home?”

  “Sir?”

  “Well, Carew, if this man was willing to send him away once, and into the midst of a war at that, he’ll certainly do so again, and possibly to someplace worse.”

  Alexis stopped herself from asking what could possibly be worse than the Navy for a lad such as Artley, but the question must have shown on her face.

  “If this truly was some plot to get the boy out of the way so that this man might somehow steal his inheritance, then it’s a cold fellow we’re dealing with. To send the lad aboard ship in time of war, there had to have been some hope that he’d never return.” Euell paused to let that sink in. “Thwarted in that, might he not turn to some plan with a more certain outcome?”

  “Do you think he’d do the boy harm?”

  “He wouldn’t have to, not directly at least. There are any number of schools an unwanted lad might be sent away to, some of them quite harsh. And some, I’m sure, where a hope may be made a certainty if the proper sum is paid.”

  Alexis’ shock must have shown on her face for Euell nodded confirmation.

  “Oh, they exist, I assure you. For all most schooling is best done through a tablet and proper learning core, there are still some who prefer a more traditional means. And where there’s coin to be had for a vile deed, you’ll find men willing to get at it. All of which is moot, for we’ve no way of getting the lad out of the Navy without harming him in the first place, and no safe way to send him home in the second. No, the lad’s stuck and we’re stuck with him.” He sighed. “Would you like me to transfer him to another division? Hollingshed’s, perhaps?”

  “No, sir,” Alexis said immediately. “I suspect he’d find that more of a rejection and there’d be harm from it.” She frowned. “If our speculations are correct, sir, then I assume the stepfather will have provided him no funds, nothing on the ship’s account? To purchase a new vacsuit, I mean — a proper one.”

  Euell shook his head. “I don’t recall that he came aboard with anything but the most basic kit.” He sighed. “Damn me, but it was a hectic time and I wish I’d paid more attention to the lad.”

  Alexis nodded. She felt much the same.

  “I’ll speak to Mister Grummer, sir? About the suit?” Shrewsbury’s carpenter would be able to cut down a spare spacer’s vacsuit, one of the suits the ship carried for the crew, for Artley to use in the meantime, but those suits had all seen long, hard wear.

  “Yes,” Euell said, “he’ll need something better until we get to Nouvelle Paris, at least.” He frowned, brow furrowed. “And well past Nouvelle Paris, come to that. I doubt there’ll be a solution for our Mister Artley other than for him to make the best of a bad berth. He wouldn’t be the first officer for whom the Navy wasn’t a first choice.”

  Chapter 11

  Shadows closed in on her from every side. Dark, flowing masses, reminiscent of the darkspace clouds outside the ship.

  Alexis spun around and tried to run, but knew it was hopeless. The shadows were behind her too, and to all sides.

  She turned and figures began to coalesce out of the darkness.

  Heads and faces simply masses of shadow, with barely the hint of features, but she could imagine them well enough.

  Alexis clenched her eyes shut, murmuring to herself. The phrases and explanations from books she’d read told her that these figures weren’t real, that they sprang from her own guilt.

  She whispered that to herself over and over, but still when she opened her eyes, what she saw were the figures of men she’d killed or, worse, failed to save still closing in around her.

  “You’re not real!”

  She opened her eyes, but they were still there. She squared her shoulders and faced the central figure. They were all known to her, at least the ones at the forefront, even though they had no faces. This one though, was the one that always drew her attention.

  Horsfall, a pirate captain and the first man she’d killed.

  He raised his arm to point an accusing finger at her.

  “Not real at all,” she said. “You’re my bloody Id or whatever it’s called, that’s what the books say.”

  The shadows remained unimpressed with her books, they never were.

  Alexis felt her own arm rising to point and fought to keep it at her side. That was another thing the books said, try to alter the sequence of the nightmare, but again she failed. Her arm leveled with Horsfall’s figure, a pistol heavy in her grip.

  “I had to,” she whispered, as her finger tightened and her arm jerked upward.

  Horsfall’s figure disappeared in flowing mist and Alexis found her hand empty.

  She braced herself. Now the o
ther shadows would come for her as they always did.

  Only this time it was different. The others remained where they were while only one stepped forward.

  This figure was smaller, only a little taller than Alexis herself.

  “Who are you?” she whispered.

  Alexis woke thrashing in her bunk. Her blanket was tangled and knotted around her and her pillow had been tossed onto the floor sometime in the night. The compartment lights came on as she sat up, dim at first then adjusting slowly brighter. She leaned back against the bulkhead, breath coming in ragged gasps.

  The dream wasn’t new; she’d had it off and on since the end of her time aboard her first ship. She’d even come to understand it a bit, or at least think she did after reading on the meaning of dreams and some psychology.

  She knew well enough that she expected a great deal of herself and suspected, from her reading, that the dream represented that — her feelings that she’d failed the men those figures represented. Even Horsfall, the pirate she felt was the central figure of the dream — he’d have been doomed to hang if she hadn’t shot him, and yet she felt that she should have done something different, even though she couldn’t think what that might be.

  The smaller figure was new, though, and she couldn’t think of who it was, who it might represent.

  It could be Blackmer, she supposed, but she truly felt no guilt herself for his death. It was only a fluke of that particular action that he’d been killed, not any of Alexis’ doing or a result of her orders.

  The possibility that it might be Artley, something she was becoming more certain of as she thought about it, disturbed her more, for she’d always before been certain that the shadowy figures were not only men she’d failed, but those who’d died as a result.