“Splendid, splendid.” Nelson beamed at him then had a coughing fit. Marty realised he was not at all well.
“How much did we capture?” Duckworth asked innocently.
We, now is it?’Marty thought but replied with round figures.
“Ye Gods!” Duckworth gasped, looking shocked.
Nelson looked uninterested and gazed out of the window.
“Good grief! Is that Lady Caroline on that ship?” he exclaimed.
Nothing wrong with his remaining eye, Marty thought.
News came that Villeneuve left Martinique after recapturing Diamond Rock and was heading back to Europe, so Nelson prepared to set off in pursuit. He invited Marty and his little convoy to tag along for protection, and they quickly prepared the ships for a voyage back across the Atlantic.
Caroline abandoned her idea for a private protection fleet for the moment and gathered her children, their nanny, young Benjamine, his foster mother and Tabetha, who she had become quite fond of, and re-boarded the Bethany. Hood joined her and they were ready just in time to follow the Victory out of Port Royal.
Nelson had the Euryalus and Pheobe, two of his thirty-six-gun frigates run as close escorts for them saying he couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to Lady Caroline. She complained they were going so slow it would take months to get home.
They sailed up to the Carolinas and when they picked up the Westerly trades, they turned East for England. Despite a storm or two, they managed to stay together until they got just south of the Lizard where Marty’s convoy parted company from the fleet and headed into Plymouth.
As they approached the port, they said goodbye to Peter and the Falcon. Marty already gave him his share of the loot. He decided he would let the admiralty argue about the legality of that afterward. Pieter was going back to Rotterdam to repay his father for the lost ship, but he wouldn’t be staying. He promised to drop in at Liverpool and pay them a visit on his way back to the Caribbean.
Once in Port, James surprised everybody. He came aboard the Tempest with Josee van Meerlo in tow and asked Marty’s permission to marry her. It transpired that she went to Jamaica, her father had bought her passage, and waited for James there. She slipped aboard during provisioning and hid out in his cabin during the fight with the Spanish. Caroline was delighted, took her under her wing and was starting to make wedding preparations before Marty even gave his answer. The wedding took place in Saint Aubyn’s chapel in Plymouth two days later.
The Navy decided they would move the treasure to London for safe keeping and they were detailed to escort the galleons to Chatham where it would be transferred under military escort to the Tower of London. They were joined by the fifth rate HMS Aigle to provide extra security.
At Chatham, they were quarantined and placed under armed guard while Navy commissioners came and inventoried every last piece of gold in the ships. They didn’t get to see a small casket of selected pearls that Caroline had whisked away nor the fifteen pounds of gold that Marty had James hide away as a wedding present.
When it was all done, the Eagle and the Tempest were handed over to the yard for refit with the intention that they would be used by a new enlarged S.O.F. in the future. The Bethany had the extra armaments removed and replaced with some more suitable for her role as a fast trader. Marty laid claim to the sixty-four-pound carronade before anyone else did as he had plans for that monster.
Marty had letters of protection made up for every man that sailed with them but hadn’t joined the Navy and assured them all that he would take care that they got their prize money and make sure it was their fair share.
The men who volunteered were given home leave with orders to report back to the ships in three months. He personally advanced them money against their prize purses and paid any back pay they were owed.
Shelby took his extensive notes and went to London, intending to write a paper on tropical diseases and present it at the Academy. He would make a name for himself there but swore he would return to sail with Marty again as he would miss the excitement. Ryan and Lynette were last seen in a coach heading towards Canterbury.
Marty and Caroline headed back to London and got there just in time to hear the church bells ringing to celebrate Nelson’s victory over the combined French and Spanish fleets at the battle of Trafalgar. However, they then heard of the little admiral’s death and they both cried at his loss, holding each other and their children. Blaez put his head on Marty’s knee, sensing their sadness. England would be a safer place because of his victory but severely diminished by his loss.
In the Times on the 23rd of November 1805 was published:
Ye, who gloried in Nelson, thro’ life so victorious,
The pride of the good, and the boast of the brave,
Now mourn, Britons, mourn o’er his exit so glorious
And strike your sad breasts while you bend o’er his grave.
Our grief mix’d with joy – with each pang exultation,
The conflict how sore ‘twixt the smile and the tear;
Whilst struggling with rapture and anguish, the Nation
Sees the Cypress and Laurel unite o’er his bier.
While tow’ring Trafalgar frowns over the ocean
And stern the rude winds and the billows defies
French and Spaniards at noon we discovered in motion
And sparkle of ecstasy flash’d from all eyes,
Ye Gods’ what a moment! A sight of such beauty
What more could a brave British seaman desire?
And the signal, ‘This day let each man do his duty’
Prim’d each gallant heart, set each bosom on fire.
Aloft on the deck stood the world’s naval wonder
Whilst alarms for his life all around him express’d
‘Midst smoke, fire and flame, and the loud cannons’ thunder
Serene was his aspect and fearless his breast.
Oh, a curse on the hand of our Chief who bereft us
And laid on the deck the great conqueror low.
He’s gone! – But his matchless example he’s left us
And victory and vengeance soon follow’d the blow
The King’s stoutest champion, the Country’s bright glory,
Of no faction a tool – to no party a slave,
First of heroes! Our grief shall instruct future story
Thy deed to exalt and to honour thy grave.
Our woe mix’d with joy, with each pang exultation,
The conflict now sore ‘twixt the smile and the tear,
While in anguish and rapture entranc’d, a whole Nation
With the Cypress and Laurel, itself deck thy bier.
Old England has lost her right hand,
Of Nelson her champion bereft,
Yet Ocean she shall still command
And like him beat the French with her left.
Epilogue
Admiral Hood sat in his living room reading the report of the Battle of Trafalgar when there was a knock at the door and William Wickham was announced. His old friend came in and took his usual place in the second comfortable arm-chair by the fire.
“Armand is asking to resign his commission so he can take over his father-in-law’s pub,” William announced after coffee was served. “He feels he has done enough, and I can’t say I don’t agree with him.”
“It’s time for the S.O.F. to move on anyway,” Hood commented.
“You have something in mind?” William asked.
“Martin’s reputation as a captain has been made by the treasure ship capture and his standing couldn’t be higher in the admiralty,” Hood summarised, “We can get almost anything we ask for right now and it’s time to make hay while the sun shines. We will be embarking on a campaign on the peninsula and we need to get agents in there and support those efforts.”
“Interesting, and what about Deal?” William asked.
“Make Armand an offer that he can keep his commission if he just oversees the Deal op
eration. He can do that from the pub. We shut down the farm and move the operation lock, stock, and barrel to Gibraltar. Give Marty The Eagle, Alouette and that Whaler and find him a proper frigate to go along with or replace the Tempest,” Hood expanded, “they can cover everything from the Southwest of France around to the Mediterranean from there. He can acquire any other ships he needs.”
“And foot soldiers?”
“La Pierre is being promoted to captain. We give him overall command of the marine force, bring in two new marine lieutenants to support him, and make it up to company strength.”
Wickham thought for a moment.
“Does this mean Martin can fly his pennant as a commodore?”
“That would be pushing his luck too far. No, he stays a captain. He needs to make post before we can do anything else. He will get new lieutenants to replace Thompson, who will command the Honfleur, and Campbell, who goes to the Allouette. Ackermann wants to stay with him as well. They will make a strong amphibious force in their own right.”
Wickham nodded. It sounded like a very good plan.
“I have just the man to go along with them as their intelligence officer and controller of agents,” he smiled.
Hood glanced at the clock on the mantlepiece. It started to chime midday.
“The sun is over the yardarm, fancy a brandy?”
Authors Note
Researching this book was almost as much fun as writing it because even though there is a wealth of information available on the golden age of piracy in the eighteenth century there is very little about the resurgence at the beginning of the nineteenth. That meant I had to dig harder and it was all the more rewarding when I found anything. It was also an opportunity to write a more sailing oriented book and to have a bit of a swashbuckler.
For those who expected a cat fight when Linette and Caroline finally met I am sorry to disappoint you but if you have been taking note in the previous books you may have noticed that there was a lot of mutual respect between the two. I don’t think Marty was Linette’s type either. She was much more into the tall dark and handsome types like Ryan.
As a finale it was tempting to have Marty at the Battle of Trafalgar but when I thought about it that would have been the obvious thing to do. So he did something typically Marty and went after a big prize to cap his time in the Caribbean.
I hope you enjoy this romp around the Caribbean as half of it was actually written in Bonaire while I was on a SCUBA diving holiday there and was grounded with a head cold. There are far worse places for that to happen!
And Now!
An excerpt from Book 6
Chapter 1: A festive break
Hoods plans for the Special Operations Flotilla (S.O.F.) meant that Marty would have some valuable home time. He felt like he had missed much of Bethany and James’ early childhood, it was late 1805, and Bethany was now six and James three. All his ships were being refitted and refurbished, which would take time as none of them were particularly new.
The Alouette was a former French Navy Corvette, the Honfleur a former French Whaler and now a marine landing craft, the Eagle a Baltimore Clipper and the Tempest a Jackass Frigate. He had been promised at least a thirty-six-gun frigate to replace the Tempest as the Navy really didn’t want to buy her back in, but there was no sign of one yet.
This meant he had all his crews ashore on leave which was unusual for the Navy at that time as given the chance a lot of sailors would run if given an opportunity like this. But unusually all of Marty’s men were volunteers, that went with the special status of the S.O.F. and while some would decide to retire on the prize money they had made while sailing with him, most would come back.
His followers were with him in Cheshire like an extended family, this select band of men had grown over the years and although they had lost a few through death, more had joined and overall the group had grown. He had also invited any of his crew who had no families in England to stay at his family seat in Cheshire.
So as the Christmas season approached the planning for the festivities was intense, led by Marty’s wife Caroline the estate team were being tested by the size and scale of the celebrations.
They needed enough beer, wine and food to entertain three hundred estate workers and Marty’s followers and men. To complicate things there were many nationalities as well; Basques, French, German, Dutch, African and even a couple of men from the Nordics.
Some of the Africans had no idea what Christmas was, as they had been rescued before becoming slaves when Marty had bought them off the block to free them. Others were either escaped slaves or freed slaves that had been recruited from the slums in Jamaica. This second group had been exposed to Christianity and most had converted before they had joined.
Marty wasn’t overly religious and, like many sea captains, had a pragmatic approach to it at sea. But as the lord of the manor he had to set an example and made sure he attended services at the Estate church. Much to the satisfaction of the local vicar the reverend Iain McQuat who had been appointed by Bishop Majendie of Chester whose diocese they fell under.
The reverend took the conversion of the Africans as his personal mission and was determined to bring them to God. The boys soon proved they were not the ignorant savages that he assumed they were, they had all learnt English, the version used on ships, and sat in a semicircle facing him as he read parts of the scriptures to them.
It soon became apparent that they had already been educated in some of the scriptures and Marty had a strong suspicion he knew who by. They asked him questions about baptism, the eucharist and confessional. All Lutheran traditions, he would have to have a word with Ackermann, he chuckled, as he saw the right reverend struggling to sell his version of Christianity.
That apart, the preparations were going as planned, a veritable convoy of carts were pulling up the drive delivering everything a good party would need. A flock of geese, bred on the estate were being herded into a pen by a well-trained border collie.
Earlier Blaez who was seven and a half years old and in his prime, had gone for a younger drover’s dog who had the temerity to pee on a post in his territory. The resultant battle ended with the dogs being dragged apart before they could do any real damage to each other and Blaez being banished indoors until the deliveries had been completed. Once released he made a beeline for the post and well and truly washed it down then scratched the ground around it with stiff legs to say. MINE!
The weather turned and it started to snow which was a new experience for those brought up in the tropics. Samuel ran into Marty’s study, eyes wide in amazement,
“Boss the sky is falling!” he cried pointing out of the window.
Marty looked out and saw the large white flakes drifting to the ground and restrained a laugh,
“It’s alright Samuel, that’s just snow,” he explained and when Samuel still didn’t understand, “it’s just frozen water.”
“Don’t look like the ice on the pond,” he insisted.
Marty opened the window and put his hand out to catch some of the flakes and show Samuel that they melted to water on his skin. Once he saw that he put his own hand out and tried it for himself. Later Marty had to laugh when he heard him say to some of the other Africans,
“It just frozen water, didn’t you know that?”
Tom had finally asked Marty if he could marry Amara, the Indian servant that had stayed with them after they left the sub-continent. She was a Christian already so that made things easier, but the vicar still had reservations about the mixed-race nature of the union. Marty had a quiet word with the right reverend and made a substantial donation to the church of a pair of large gold candlesticks which changed his mind immediately.
Marty’s family wouldn’t join them for Christmas as Cheshire was just too far to travel that time of year so they would decamp to the Church Knowle estate in the new year, but they had received a delivery of five firkins of good Dorset scrumpy as a gift from one estate to the other. Scrumpy was made from ap
ples and was almost as strong as wine which made it dangerous as the temptation was to drink it like beer. The Basques absolutely loved it as it was reminiscent of the Sagardoa they drank at home. But as Tom pointed out,
“that stuff is bloody lethal and if you drink it don’t fart cus it turns your guts to water!”
The Tempest: The Dorset Boy Book 5 Page 19