A Sloop of War

by Philip K Allan

  ‘I don’t understand, sir,’ said Clay. ‘Why would I not resume the command of the Rush?’ Deep in Caldwell’s eyes the kindly twinkle returned.

  ‘Because, my dear Clay, a sloop of war is much too small a ship for a post captain to command.’ Clay stared at the admiral for a moment as what he had said sunk in.

  ‘You are promoting me, sir?’ he said, almost to himself.

  ‘Yes I am,’ smiled Caldwell. ‘You know, Clay, now that you have made post at a relatively young age, it is most probable that, should you live long enough, you too will one day be an admiral. When that should happen you may be favoured with the command of a foreign station, as I have been privileged to have. One of the perquisites that come with that role is the ability to promote without reference to London in time of war. More often than not it is used to reward followers and repay favours. But it can also be used for the good of the service, to elevate an outstanding individual who lacks the connections to advance in any other way. It is for this reason that I am promoting you now. Well, that, and also the knowledge that anything less would provoke a mutiny in my squadron after your recent heroics.’

  ‘I don’t know how to begin to thank you for this, sir,’ said Clay.

  ‘No need for thanks,’ said Caldwell. ‘As I have explained, my motives are quite selfish really. But now that you are one of my post captains, however briefly, perhaps you might give me some advice. Who do you hold should replace you as commander of the Rush? I was thinking about Lieutenant Windham? He comes from a long established naval family.’

  ‘I do not think Mr Windham is quite ready for that step yet, sir,’ said Clay. ‘I would say he lacks the experience for an independent command at this time.’

  ‘No?’ said the admiral. ‘Who would you suggest then?’ Clay thought for a moment. This was heady stuff indeed. For years he had been without any influence in the service, and now he found he had the power to make someone’s career, and perhaps to pay back a debt. There was only one name he could choose.

  ‘I believe that Lieutenant John Sutton would make an excellent Master and Commander, sir,’ said Clay.

  ‘Sutton, you say?’ said Caldwell. ‘Very well, let us make it so. Now I must leave you, before I am set upon by a battalion of furious naval surgeons. Goodbye for now, Clay, and good luck to you.’ He rose to his feet and turned to leave, but then paused at the door.

  ‘I almost forgot,’ he said. ‘As a post captain you will be entitled to followers to return home with you. Your own coxswain for example. No need to decide immediately, but let me have the names before the squadron departs. Now kindly get some rest, Clay. That is an order.’

  Once the admiral had left, rest was the last thing on Clay’s mind. He found himself chuckling at the evening’s turn of events. His entire naval career had seemed to be a long battle against the iniquities of patronage in the service, as he had witnessed others favoured around him. But now it was he who had been favoured, and he had been able to promote his friend too. He thought about who he would choose as his followers. He had no doubts now about the person he wanted as his coxswain, the only question was what the reaction would be in his sleepy home village when Sedgwick stepped down from the coach. He stared out of the door into the darkening garden, and his thoughts turned to Lydia, somewhere on the other side of the world. In miles she was impossibly distant still, but she was now much closer in terms of eligibility. He had been deemed unsuitable by her guardian when he was penniless Lieutenant Alexander Clay, but perhaps Captain Alexander Clay RN could expect a more favourable reception when he came to ask for Lydia’s hand. He smiled to himself at the prospect.

  ‘Yes’, he said out loud. ‘I am ready to go home.’

  *****

  The sun that had slipped below the western horizon in Barbados was already staining the eastern sky in far off Bengal with a blush of lemon. From a nearby mosque the muezzin started his call to prayers, the sound flowing across the city’s roof tops like a disembodied spirit. It drifted through the curtains of Lydia Browning’s bedroom and eased her awake. Her head turned on the pillow towards the sound and with blue eyes still vacant from sleep she stared at the slot of light where the curtains met. The muezzin finished his call and the birds in the garden below her balcony replaced him, the gentle coo of the green pigeons punctuated by the strident call of a Tailorbird.

  She felt languid contentment as she first stretched out beneath the sheets, and then folded her slender limbs back into the warm nest close about her body. For a moment she puzzled over this feeling of joy that had replaced so much recent pain, and then in a rush she remembered. There had been a letter that had arrived yesterday from darling, darling Betsey Clay. When she held the package it had felt oddly stiff, but when she opened it she had immediately seen why. Within the folded sheets in Betsey’s rounded hand had been the second letter, the writing unknown, but obviously masculine. Daring to hope what it might be, she had taken it out into the garden to find her favourite bower in which to read it in private. Her heart had leapt as she saw who it was from. Commander Alexander Clay, at sea on board His Majesty’s Sloop of War Rush. It had travelled for over four months, across the wide Atlantic, around the Cape of Good Hope to Bombay, and then over the dusty Indian plains to find her here, in her garden, just as he had imagined in his final paragraph.

  She pulled the folded sheets from beneath her pillow, and angled them towards the slither of light that came from the window. She read the end of the letter, warmed once more by the serendipity of where she had first read it.

  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 away my letter, and go off on your ride, preferably upon an elephant!

  Until we are together once more, believe in me.

  Alexander Clay

  ‘Oh, I do believe in you, my darling Alexander,’ she whispered, as if the well remembered head of chestnut curls rested next to her on her pillow, the steel grey eyes gazing back at her. The description of the garden was as if he had been there with her, almost every detail correct. What he could not know was that her morning rides had been cancelled for weeks now, and that her dress was not blue but black out of respect for her uncle, struck down by cholera.

  Lydia slid the letter back under her pillow as the door creaked open. From the lightness of the step she guessed it was her maid, and she looked round to see her place a jug of steaming water and a towel by the wash stand. When she had done so, she turned to see if her mistress was awake.

  ‘Thank you, Talika,’ said Lydia with a smile. ‘I believe I will stay abed a little longer this morning. Will you return in half an hour?’ In response Talika brought her hands together and lowered her eyes as if in prayer for a moment, and then slipped from the room. Lydia relaxed back into her bed, and continued to gaze towards the silver line of daylight, her thoughts far away, until she sensed someone was looking at her. She glanced around and saw her aunt stood at the door.

  ‘Aunt, have you been there long?’ Lydia asked, sitting up in bed and patting the covers in invitation. The older woman came over and sat down next to her, running a hand over her niece’s hair as she did so.

  ‘You are so beautiful, my child, and so very brave,’ she said. ‘To have lost your parents at such a tender age, and now your darling Uncle Francis too....’ Her words were cut off as she turned her face away, her shoulders heaving with grief. Lydia enfolded an arm around her aunt and drew her sobbing face into the cradle between her shoulder and neck.

  ‘It will be all right,’ she whispered, her own eyes brimming with tears. Aft
er a while she felt her aunt stiffen a little in her arms, and she let her sit back upright.

  ‘Thank you, Lydia,’ she said. ‘I have regained my composure now. The reason I came to see you so early in the morning is to tell you that I have come to a decision. Raw as the loss of dear Francis still is, I believe it is time for us to return to England. India can have no hold on us, now that the chief reason for our being here is no more. Are you ready to undertake such a journey?’

  ‘Yes, aunt,’ smiled Lydia, ‘I am ready with all my heart. It is time to go home.’

  The End

  Author’s Note

  Historical fiction is by its very nature a blend of truth and the made up, and A Sloop of War is no exception. For those who would like to understand where that boundary is, the ships Rush, Agrius and San Felipe are fictitious, as are the characters that make up their crews. That said, I have matched them, and the lives of their sailors, as closely as I can to ships and practices of the time. Those with an exceptional knowledge of the period may have noticed that I have added gangways to the Swan class sloop Rush, which is not accurate, but helps the purposes of the plot. All other errors are my own.

  Historical figures, such as Sir Richard Nugent and Admiral Caldwell, are accurate. St Lucia was captured from the French, although I have moved the campaign a little in time. Details of the landing and the action ashore is wholly my own creation. The area around Vieux Fort in particular is hard to re-imagine, as it is now the site of St Lucia’s main international airport. Similarly the details of plantation life on Barbados are also fictitious.

  Those with an interest in 18th century medicine may find the treatment that Clay undergoes all too convincing for a period before anaesthetic or modern anti-bacterial practices. If anything I have toned down the Goyan horror of that scene.

  The role of black sailors in the 18th century navy has been sadly neglected, often because one of the prime sources, muster books, give no clues to ethnicity. But other evidence exists of the significant role they played in the navy, perhaps most strikingly in the bronze plaques that decorate the base of Nelson’s column in London. The one that depicts Trafalgar shows a black sailor in a prominent position. I will hope to address this under representation in a small way through the medium of Able Sedgwick in future novels in this series.

  About The Author

  Philip K. Allan

  Philip K. Allan comes from Watford in the United Kingdom. He still lives in Hertfordshire with his wife and his two teenage daughters. He has spent most of his working life to date as a senior manager in the motor industry. It was only in the last few years that he has given that up to concentrate on his novels full time.

  He has a good knowledge of the ships of the 18th century navy, having studied them as part of his history degree at London University, which awoke a lifelong passion for the period. He is a member of the Society for Nautical Research and a keen sailor. He believes the period has unrivalled potential for a writer, stretching from the age of piracy via the voyages of Cook to the battles and campaigns of Nelson.

  From a creative point of view he finds it offers him a wonderful platform for his work. On the one hand there is the strange, claustrophobic wooden world of the period’s ships; and on the other hand there is the boundless freedom to move those ships around the globe wherever the narrative takes them. All these possibilities are fully exploited in the Alexander Clay series of novels.

  His inspiration for the series was to build on the works of novelists like C.S. Forester and in particular Patrick O’Brian. His prose is heavily influenced by O’Brian’s immersive style. He too uses meticulously researched period language and authentic nautical detail to draw the reader into a different world. But the Alexander Clay books also bring something fresh to the genre, with a cast of fully formed lower deck characters with their own back histories and plot lines in addition to the officers. Think Downton Abbey on a ship, with the lower deck as the below stairs servants.

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