A Sloop of War

by Philip K Allan

  If this is truly the first letter that you have received from me, then my first obligation is to provide you with an explanation of the events and disappointments of the last day you were in Madeira, even though the recollection will cause me as much pain as I am sure it will cause you. That morning I awoke resolved to formalise the understanding we had reached when we were last together aboard the East Indiaman Devon. My intention was to seek you out, and to make an unambiguous declaration as to how fervently I admire and love you. Although in my heart I knew that you felt the same as I did, only learning of it from you directly would have fortified me for my next intended action. With your encouragement, I would have resolved to demand an immediate interview with Sir Francis, and requested your hand in marriage.

  I am still pained by the recollection of the events of that sad day, when I was prevented from putting any of this into effect. Sir Francis had been alerted to my intentions, and prevailed on my superior officer, Captain Follett, to forbid my absence from the Agrius until such time as your ship had departed for India. Captain Follett was all too willing to play an active role in this intervention in affairs that should have been of no concern of his, and his actions were the source of a most bitter dispute and rift between us thereafter.

  Thankfully I am blessed with the dear friendship of Lieutenant Sutton. His actions in seeking you out during your uncle’s farewell dinner, and his initiative in contriving to speak with you alone are testament to what an admirable friend to us he is. While I was held as an impotent bystander aboard the Agrius, he was able to make the declaration to you on my behalf that same evening. Although it was delivered in haste, and in an unsatisfactory manner, he was at least on hand to reassure you as to my true feelings. He also brought back to me your reply, which gave me such renewed hope as to our future happiness then, and continues to provide me with comfort now that we are apart. I have the note you wrote with me here.

  Clay reached behind him to slip a hand into the inner pocket of the uniform coat that hung on the back of his chair. The piece of paper crackled less now then when Sutton had first pushed it into his hand all those months ago. It had become soft and pliable with repeated handling. He held it briefly to his nose, but the last trace of her long remembered perfume had vanished altogether now. He opened it once more, and read the twelve words it contained. To my dearest Alexander, I promise to wait for you—Lydia Browning.

  He stared for a moment out of the sweep of glass at the rear of the cabin. The moving ocean was quite the colour of her eyes, the foaming wake echoed her creamy white skin. He remembered their last meeting on the forecastle of the Devon, how the wind had teased out strands of her dark hair from beneath her hat, and sent them flying in the warm tropical air. Most of all he remembered the look of desire in her eyes, and how she had bent her face up towards his, willing him to kiss her. With a smile of pleasure he returned to his letter.

  I hold no ill will towards Sir Francis for his views. If he loves you but a small part of the manner in which I do, and has your best interests at heart, his actions are quite understandable. I am sure that he must live in fear of penniless fortune hunters praying on his niece and ward—if I am ever favoured with a daughter as beautiful and as clever as you, I have no doubt that I will be possessed of similar feelings. I understand that he will have objections to an approach from a naval lieutenant with few prospects. But here, my darling, I can perhaps bring you a little hope, for my situation has improved materially since we were last together.

  The Agrius left Madeira a week after you did, and embarked on the pursuit of a substantial French frigate called the Courageuse. The chase lasted the entire breadth of the Atlantic Ocean, with the ships finally coming together off the west coast of St Lucia. Our enemy had been well named courageous by her French builders, and the battle was a ferocious affair. Our opponent was quite superior both in the number and calibre of her guns, and her people proved to be spirited and resourcefully led. We eventually prevailed, but with grievous losses on both sides. Captain Follett was killed, Mr Booth, our ship’s master badly wounded, and a third of our men were casualties. I am happy to report that myself and Mr Sutton survived intact, and that your friend Lieutenant Munro of the marines was but lightly wounded. Mr Munro has subsequently made the fullest of recoveries, and indeed now flatters himself that the resulting scar on his brow can only serve to make him yet more attractive to the fairer sex!

  As a result of the action and my part in our eventual triumph, I have been promoted to the rank of Master and Commander by Admiral Caldwell. I now have my own ship, the sloop of war Rush, with Mr Sutton ably serving as my lieutenant. We are engaged at present in the blockade of St Lucia along with other ships of the Windward Islands command. Last night we successively cut out and captured the French armed brig Olivette, and it is via this vessel that I am able to send my letter. My share of the prize money for this capture, together with any others in the future, will do much to remedy the want of fortune that lies at the root of your uncle’s objections to me. I live in hope that one day soon I will be in a position to be able to claim you for my own.

  Oh my dearest Lydia, how very far away you are! The West Indies and India are almost as distant to each other as any two points could be on the globe. With the most favourable of winds possible, I still know that this letter will take near four months to reach you in far Bengal, and any reply from you will take much the same time to find me here. I do so long to hear how you are. Have you persisted with your resolution to continue with your writing? Perhaps your first novel shall be set in India?

  You spoke with such passion about India when we were together, so much excitement in what sights and diversions it might afford. I hope the reality has lived up to the country you hoped to find, and that all your diligent study before you left England has prepared you well for the experience. I shall imagine you reading this letter in some private situation all of your own, in the oriental garden that surrounds your house. It will be quite full of exotic flowers, huge colourful butterflies and strange birds. The garden I hold before my mind’s eye is walled in red sandstone, with palm trees framing the tops of the temples visible in the distance. You will read this letter, and I hope smile with pleasure, sure in your heart that though I am far away, my love is all about you. I can picture you now, in a sky blue riding habit. You will put aside my letter, and go off on your ride, preferably upon an elephant!

  Until we are together once more, believe in me.

  Alexander Clay

  Clay read the letter again, and then sealed it with care. He addressed it with her name, and then wrote Commander Alexander Clay, at sea on board His Majesty’s Sloop of War Rush on the back. He slipped it into the letter he had already written to his sister, and then sealed this letter too, wondering if Lydia would ever get to read it, all those weeks later, on the far side of the world. Clay thought again about how remote the possibility was of them ever being together one day. Even if they could somehow defeat the geographical divide, there was still the gulf between them in situation and background. He looked again at the note, and drew hope from its firm reassurance. She would wait. Wait till he had bridged that gap. So I must have a fortune, thought Clay, and prize money is the quickest route to one of those.

  *****

  ‘Ah, fecking prize money!’ said O’Malley, with a large grin on his face. ‘Ain’t it just the finest thing in the world!’

  ‘What I don’t get,’ said Evans, ‘is how come you and Adam get the same as Rosie, Able, and me? We were the ones as risked our bleeding necks seizing the prize, while you and Adam were safe and sound on the ship, far as I can tell.’

  ‘Sure, but that was because of the need for calmness and reason back here on the barky,’ continued a sanguine O’Malley. ‘Any fool can run around like Uncle Dermot’s hens waving a cutlass. But cannonading an enemy battery at night? That is an occupation as takes some of your real skill.’

  ‘But they didn’t even hit the Rush once,’ protested Rosso.


  ‘And doesn’t that just prove what I am fecking saying?’ replied the Irishman. ‘Any fool can let himself get hit, but it takes real accomplishment to evade the beating in the first place.’

  The seamen were off duty, and took their ease around their mess table. O’Malley idly plucked at the strings of his fiddle, picking out some variations on a familiar hornpipe. He had been asked to accompany some of the starboard watch who planned to dance later. Rosso was in the middle of a letter he was writing on behalf of one of his new shipmates on the Rush, word having spread that he could both read and write. Sedgwick was seated next to Trevan, who was teaching him how to sew. The shapeless clothes he had been issued with when he first joined were gradually being adapted by the two men into something that would fit properly. Sedgwick concentrated hard on his work, the curved yoke of his shoulders bent around the patch of cloth, the pink tip of his tongue protruding from the corner of his mouth. With an exhalation of breath he finished his line of stitching, cut the thread with his clasp knife, and joined in the conversation.

  ‘So will I get some of this prize money, Sean?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure you will, Able,’ enthused O’Malley. ‘We all will, equal shares like. It may not be a fortune, but there will be enough to drink Bridgetown dry, and find some willing doxies after.’

  ‘Fact is you did more to win it for us then most,’ said Evans, slapping him on the shoulder. ‘If you hadn’t found that loose gun port, we might not have had a bleeding prize at all.’

  ‘Did you ever hear tell of the crew of the old Indefatigable?’ asked Trevan. ‘She was the guard ship in the Western Approaches when the war broke out like. Well, all the inbound French commerce had no notion of any war, so she was taking prizes easy as picking fruit. Trading brigs, Guineamen full of gold dust, French East Indiamen packed with indigo and spice. I tell you Black Beard weren’t in it. When she was paid off in Plymouth, the crew was that rich, they all went down to the harbour and were skimming guineas into the water.’

  ‘Why the hell would they do that?’ asked Evans in horror.

  ‘Because they bloody well could, Sam!’ replied Trevan.

  The others all cheered at this, their eyes alight with greed. Trevan noticed that Sedgwick smiled at his friends’ delight, but had not joined in.

  ‘You all right, mate?’ he asked, his voice pitched below the loud chatter of the others.

  ‘I am well enough, Adam,’ he replied. The Cornishman looked at him for a moment, understanding the place he had gone to.

  ‘You know, boarding a ship is proper strange,’ he explained. ‘When you are busy doing it, it’s all rage and pluck and give a cheer, lads, and that sort of answers to pull you through it. Then it’s all over, and we be right pleased to have won, and happy to be alive like. Everyone hallos, and slaps your back. But then that comes to an end, and it all quietens down. We get back to the barky, back into life here, watch on, watch off and then you gets to thinking on it. On them dreadful things you might have done, or maybe how you got through, but your mate didn’t, and then away down you slip. I tell you, there won’t be a person on the barky who was there who ain’t feeling right down, just like you does now. But it will pass, lad. Trust me, it will pass.’

  ‘I still see the sailor I killed,’ said Sedgwick. ‘His face was so close when he died, I felt his last breath on me.’

  ‘Would that be the first man you killed, like?’ asked Trevan.

  ‘That’s right, Adam, but he was no man, little more than a boy really,’ said Sedgwick. ‘I make no doubt that he would have killed me if I had held back a moment, but it still feels bad.’ Sedgwick sighed before he continued.

  ‘You know, all my time as a slave I would dream of killing,’ he said. ‘I would practice it in my sleep. In dreams I would kill the tribesman who sold me to the white traders. I would drown the slavers who brought me across the ocean to Barbados. Many was the time I killed Mr Haynes and his overseers on the plantation. But all that practice in your head doesn’t prepare you for what it might truly be like. Nor for the empty feeling inside after it is done.’ He looked up to find that the others around the table were now silent and listening to him. He thought he might expect to see contempt on the faces of his messmates, but he detected only sympathy.

  ‘There is not one of us who didn’t feel like that the first time,’ said Rosso. ‘Now I might tell you that it will become easier the next time, but that won’t answer, for it is not true. But I hold that to be a decidedly good thing. For if killing might be swabbed away as easy as the blood stain we leave behind on the deck, we might grow over fond of doing it, and where might that take us?’ The mess mates sat for a moment and looked at each other, the silence companionable.

  ‘Well, I am still going to get fecking drunk when we get our prize money,’ said O’Malley after a while, puncturing the silence.

  Sedgwick pushed back his stool and rose from the table. He walked towards the bows, where the heads were positioned either side of the bowsprit. When he emerged a few minutes later, Josh Hawke was walking in the other direction. His face darkened when he saw him.

  ‘That is all I fucking need,’ he sneered, blocking Sedgwick’s way. ‘Using the same privy as a savage. You need to find somewhere else to shit, boy, ’cause I ain’t sharing with no bleeding monkey.’

  He tried to walk past Hawke, but he blocked his path once more, trapping him against the side of the ship, his face so close Sedgwick could smell his breath. ‘Your sort ain’t nothing but trash,’ he continued. ‘In the middle passage, I used to pitch filth like you over the side. I probably chucked your sister, or your mother to the sharks.’ Then Hawke laughed. His mouth was full of broken teeth and his breath was foul.

  Sedgwick recoiled from him, his mind full of unwanted images. He remembered that he had been one of those cowed wretches, weeping and filthy, packed like spoons on an excrement-sodden deck. He had seen family and friends, too sick to survive, tossed over the side of the ship. He had been a victim of brutal men like Hawke for much of his life. The last few weeks of freedom seemed to have been an illusion. He felt he was still a slave inside, who had to bow to whatever injustice the Hawkes of this world chose to impose on him. He bowed his head in submission, and went to push his way past, but then he stopped.

  Another image came to him. The other face that had been pressed so close to his, not Hawke’s but the young French sailor he had killed. He straightened up and looked Hawke in the eye for the first time. Why did he need to cower before this man? He was a member of the crew, just like Hawke. Hadn’t he broken free from his plantation? Hadn’t he fought beside his new companions? If he allowed men like Hawke to push him around, would he ever truly be free? He thought that he had won his freedom already, but he had been wrong. He needed to win his freedom again, now, here.

  ‘Were they in chains?’ he asked, his voice low with menace.

  ‘What?’ asked Hawke, confused by the change in Sedgwick’s manner.

  ‘The people you pitched over the side, in the middle passage. Were they in chains?’ repeated Sedgwick.

  ‘Course they fucking were,’ laughed Hawke. ‘What of it?’ Sedgwick held out his hands, wrists together, palms up.

  ‘Look, Hawke,’ he growled. ‘No fucking chains on me. Shall we see how brave you really are?’

  *****

  ‘We were exceedingly fortunate to have had a shoal of flying fish pass over the ship but a few hours ago,’ explained Clay to his guests, indicating the plates that had appeared in front of each officer. ‘A significant number fell to the deck after they had struck the rigging, and Hart reacted swiftest, so for once we are to be treated to a fish course.’

  ‘If you were of a religious inclination, sir, you might consider it to be manna from heaven,’ suggested Macpherson, to polite laughter.

  ‘Quite so, Mr Macpherson,’ replied Clay with a smile. ‘Do please all begin. I am sure it is delicious.’ Clay was quite sure it was nothing of the kind. He knew his steward’s li
mitations, but for once he was wrong. With fish so fresh, not even Hart had been able to wholly ruin them, and his guests were soon eating with obvious pleasure.

  There were only seven officers grouped around the table in the main cabin of the Rush, yet with a servant behind every chair, they had managed to fill the space thoroughly. Clay sat at the head of the table, with Sutton on one side of him and Macpherson on the other. In the middle of each side were two ship’s officers that had played no part in the successful attack on the Olivette, but Clay had invited them because he had yet to spend any time with them informally. One was the purser, Charles Faulkner, a haughty aristocratic man in his early thirties with a shock of auburn hair. The other was the Rush’s sailing master Joseph Appleby. With his red cheeks, rich Devon accent and very overweight body that threatened to burst free from his bulging uniform, Appleby had the look of a farmer who had chosen the wrong calling.

  At the bottom of Clay’s small dining table, as befitted their low station in the Rush’s pecking order, sat Preston and Croft. Both teenagers were conscious of their august surroundings, and tried their best to avoid the forms of behaviour that would be normally tolerated in the gun room. Croft kept placing his elbows on the table, only to hastily remove them in response to a significant glance from Preston opposite him. Preston, for his part, seemed congenitally unable to eat with his mouth closed. Clay suppressed a smile as he glanced at them, reminded of the many occasions when he and Sutton, at a similar age, had struggled to behave correctly through this very situation back on board the Marlborough. At least the captain’s table had been rather longer on a ship of the line, allowing distance to conceal many of their behavioural flaws.