Hopefully the last of my meetings with the lieutenant.
She understood the point of the meetings and the Navy’s desire that she be recovered from the events on Giron before moving on to another post, but could not appreciate the lieutenant’s prying nature and questions. Could he not see that the best way to put that behind her and move on was to do so? Sitting about talking it through constantly only kept it close to the forefront of her thoughts.
There was a tapping at the hatch, which would be Isom come to wake her.
Isom had come aboard Royal Sovereign at Alchiba and resumed his duties as her servant. Then Admiral Cammack had taken Royal Sovereign and his fleet back to Lesser Itchthorpe, leaving a few ships to guard Alchiba in anticipation of Admiral Chipley’s return there.
She’d taken rooms aboard the Lesser Itchthorpe station while she waited for reassignment or for Shrewsbury’s return with Chipley’s fleet. Dobb and the others from Belial had been quickly sent to other ships. She realized she felt very alone, the more so because, with no word of Chipley’s fleet, there was also no word of Delaine and the Berry March fleet that had sailed with him.
Alexis drained the glass, letting the fire of the bourbon burn away the last traces of the dream.
There was another rap at the hatchway.
She quickly wiped the glass dry with a cloth and tucked the cloth into her pocket. Isom had said nothing, but she could tell he didn’t approve her drinking first thing upon waking. Still, it was her who had to wake from such dreams and not him.
“Yes, Isom, I’m coming,” she called. “Have them start on breakfast for me, will you?”
* * *
“So, lieutenant, how did you sleep last night?”
Alexis smiled at Curtice, but it was a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. The lieutenant tasked by the Sick and Hurt Board with watching over her always started with that question.
As though my nights were a window to my soul, she thought.
“Much the same as all the others, sir,” she said.
“No trouble getting to sleep?” Curtice asked. “No nightmares?”
“No more than I’d expect, nor than the last time you asked.”
Curtice pursed his lips. “Why would you expect trouble sleeping and nightmares at all?” he asked.
“I’ve little to do with my days, sir,” Alexis said. “A day of idleness does nothing to tire me, and so my evenings are restless.” She shrugged. “Does not everyone have nightmares from time to time?”
Curtice gave her an enigmatic look but said nothing.
“Nightmares are not so unusual, I think,” Alexis said firmly.
Curtice tapped at his tablet. He gestured to his office sideboard. “Would you like a drink?”
“It’s quite early. No thank you.”
“Hm.” Curtice tapped more at his tablet. “I’m told you find no issue with the hour where you keep your rooms. It’s not unusual for you to be at table with a bottle before you of a morning, is it?”
“Are you having me watched, lieutenant?”
Curtice shook his head. “One hears things.”
“Again, sir, my days are idle and my own at this time. If I choose to have a glass or two of wine, what business is it of yours?”
More tapping. Alexis ground her teeth in frustration. She longed to yank the tablet from his grasp and fling it at the wall. She forced herself to take a deep breath and hold it — she’d been more short-tempered and quicker to anger since Giron, she knew. It wouldn’t do to show Curtice that.
“You’ve spoken little of the Glorious Twenty-second. Would you like to do so today?”
Alexis clenched her jaw again. They’d taken to calling it that, those who reported on the events at Giron. Even the Naval Gazette had taken up the name. The Glorious Twenty-second, for the fleet action on the twenty-second of August, as though there were any glory to be had from it.
“I do wish they wouldn’t call it that.”
No sooner had she spoken than Alexis wished she could recall the words.
“Why would that be?” Curtice asked.
She sighed. The man pounced on every utterance and worried it like a terrier with a rat.
“What possible glory was there?” she asked, knowing it was a mistake. She should remain silent and give him nothing at all to remark upon, but the absurdity of glorifying the events of Giron galled her.
“A Hanoverese fleet was defeated. There’s talk they’ll strike a medal for that action.”
“The Hanoverese fleet sailed off with Admiral Chipley’s in pursuit, and we’ve heard from neither since.”
No word from Chipley, no word of Shrewsbury, and no word of the Berry March fleet or Delaine.
“Save General Malicoat, the entire New London force was successfully rescued and returned home,” Curtice said.
“We left behind three-quarters of the French forces and tens of thousands of civilians.”
Curtice shrugged. “Some would ask what use the French forces would be. The Republic failed to declare war on the Hanoverese, after all — just sent a fleet or two to the border and sailed about in threat.”
“Some would be fools.”
Curtice raised an eyebrow.
Alexis thought of the French forces on Giron. Untrained and ill-equipped, seeing their homes destroyed and their families killed, calling down Belial’s fire on themselves to give Malicoat the chance to disengage his forces — fighting against such horrible odds so that the last boat, her boat, could lift from Giron and leave them behind. Her eyes burned and her throat was tight as she spoke.
“The French of the Berry March are not the French of the Republic,” she said. “The French of the Berry March —” She thought of Malicoat’s words. “The French of the Berry March have mettle and more.”
“You’re angry,” Curtice said.
Alexis couldn’t help herself, she laughed and nodded. “I am angry, Lieutenant Curtice.”
“What’s angered you?”
Alexis shook her head.
The Hanoverese for starting a war. Eades for starting this nonsense. The Republic for failing us. Chipley for sending transports off with far too small an escort. Chipley for abandoning Giron. Whoever thought to do such a thing on the cheap, without enough of anything to succeed. Myself.
She clenched her fists, digging her nails into her palms. What if she’d said no to Eades or never worn Delaine’s insignia to that French reception? What if she’d been less convincing when asked if she thought the people of Giron would rise up? What if …
Myself.
“What are you thinking?” Curtice asked.
“Am I allowed no private thoughts, sir?”
Curtice resumed tapping at his tablet.
“What’s angered you?” he repeated.
“If you know anything at all of Giron and must ask that question, lieutenant, no explanation of mine could possibly be adequate.”
More tapping.
“Must you do that?”
“What?”
Alexis sighed. “That taking down of every word I say.”
Curtice cocked his head to one side. “I do have to prepare a report for Admiral Cammack, you know.”
“I have a meeting with Admiral Cammack this afternoon. He can judge me for himself, can he not?”
Curtice’s jaw tightened. “I’m aware of your meeting with the admiral, I assure you.”
Alexis watched him carefully and saw some cause to hope. She couldn’t help but feel if Curtice was unhappy, then her meeting with Cammack would be to her benefit.
* * *
“Carew.”
“Admiral Cammack, sir.”
The admiral nodded to a chair and Alexis sat. She bit her lip and waited while Cammack perused his tablet. She assumed he was reading Curtice’s report or recommendation and wondered what his decision would be. The time spent waiting on Lesser Itchthorpe had been difficult. She wanted nothing more than to be done with Curtice and his questions, and to be off on an
other ship and doing something useful with her time.
“Would you like a drink, Carew?” Cammack asked.
“No, thank you, sir,” she answered. She wanted a clear head for this interview, with nothing dulling her wits.
“Lieutenant Curtice seems to think you would,” Cammack said. “His report reads as though you were a drunkard.”
Alexis’ jaw clenched and she forced herself to relax. “Lieutenant Curtice and I have found ourselves at odds on many things, sir.”
“So it seems.” The admiral set his tablet down and rose.He went to the rear of his office where a viewport looked out on the shipping in orbit. “Curtice is concerned about some sort of nightmare, as well, he writes.”
“Lieutenant Curtice concerns himself with a great many things that are, in the whole of it, none of his concern.” Alexis regretted the words as soon as she’d said them. She knew it sounded petulant and defensive, especially given that Curtice had been set to examine her in the first place.
“I don’t know anyone who’s seen action that doesn’t have the occasional nightmare,” Cammack said. “Myself included. Still, I must admit I am at a quandary for what to do with you.”
Alexis remained silent. She suspected she wasn’t supposed to hear such details of Curtice’s report, certainly not phrased so bluntly, and despite his claims to the contrary that Cammack had already made his decision.
“Losing Belial that way must have been a hard blow,” Cammack said. He gestured to his steward, who poured the admiral a glass of wine. “Nothing, are you sure? Tea? Coffee, even?”
“A bit of tea, perhaps, sir.” Alexis wasn’t sure how she should respond to his comment about Belial. He hadn’t asked a question after all. Cammack remained silent while his steward brought Alexis a cup of tea. She stirred in a bit of cream and sugar and took a sip. “Thank you.”
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.
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.
The Little Ships (Alexis Carew Book 3) Page 34