A Busy Season (The Duty and Destiny Series, Book 8)
Page 19
There was one small chest of Maria Theresas, silver dollars that were the trading currency of much of the East. Young took charge of the coins, doubting that they would stay safe in the warehouse.
“Treasure trove indeed, Sir Frederick. It will take months to turn all of this into money, but there is certainly more than ten thousand here.”
“The Emperor’s gratitude takes a very tangible form it would seem, Mr Young.”
“We are rich, my lady! With prize money and this latest windfall we have at least another twenty thousands in our pocket. Does it make any sense to return to sea? We have lost Marc and Jean, and Ablett was lucky to be as little hurt as he was. I am burned and only too aware that I might have been far more hurt. Should I risk everything by going back to wars again?”
“Can you be happy to stay on land, Frederick? What will you do with your days? I do not wish you ever to go away, but can you be content to stay? As well, what of your ambition to be a lord one day? Is Baron Harris not to be? The children will be happy for you to remain at home, that I do not doubt – and I much suspect we are to be blessed again, by the way! But are you to spend your hours peering at your turnips?”
“There must be an occupation I could take up, my love, and another child offers even more reason to stay ashore. There would be tasks for the Lord Lieutenant, perhaps, and the Bench and the Poor Law to oversee, and I must become a churchwarden…”
Each task that he enumerated was less attractive than the previous; he began to see the force of her arguments.
“Let us at least consider the matter over the winter.”
The news of Trafalgar reached them a few days later and they forgot the issue for the moment, caught up in the national tide of rejoicing and mourning.
# # #
Here’s an excerpt from Chapter Two of Book Nine in the series, Far Foreign.
Frederick is given extremely vague orders to seek out pirates off the coast of Madagascar and then to escort pilgrim ships in the Red Sea. Suspecting ulterior motives from London, his squadron of aging ships are then despatched to South America to assist an unofficial British expedition that is expecting the imminent arrival of powerful Spanish relieving forces.
Another Ship Lost?
"Captain on deck!"
Broadsides, distant in the night, still an hour before first light.
"Steer towards, Mr Mason! Make more sail! All hands! Clear!"
The master called for the tack, pointed Endymion's head towards the ten miles distant coast of Madagascar.
There was a set of flashes and the rumble of the guns nearly half a minute later.
"Better part of six miles off, sir. Nine-pounders, perhaps?"
That made it the sloop, Mr Dench's Asp, under attack while on her inshore patrol line.
"Send the look-outs up."
There was little chance of a useful sighting, but it must be tried.
The men ran, disappearing upwards into the night.
Another broadside and the foremast shouted.
"On deck! Ship, sir, and lateens down low. Dhows, sir, a dozen or more, closing on her."
A minute or so and the cannon fire became ragged, individual guns rather than broadsides. The dhows were so close that the crews were picking their own targets.
Asp carried six of twenty-four pound carronades - Mr Dench had money of his own and had sweetened the yard, no doubt. Carefully aimed, and he had trained his gunners, Frederick knew, a single round could finish a dhow, nearly two hundreds of grape shot destroying her boarders. Each dhow would be crewed by a hundred or more men, mostly carrying spears and swords and desperately poor, uncaring if they died, willing to take every risk to enrich themselves with as much as ten guineas.
"Mast-head! What course is Asp holding?"
There was a delay while the look-out waited on sufficient light from the cannon-flashes.
"Opposite tack, sir. Closing."
"Cast the log, Mr Mason."
"Eight knots, sir, and a bit."
Forty-five minutes, more or less, for Endymion to make the distance, less whatever speed Asp was able to make.
"On deck! Rockets, sir, two red, from Asp."
The call for aid, but they were doing all they could - there was nothing else to offer.
"Roundshot to the thirty-two pounders. Grape to the carronades!"
Asp continued to fire her cannon; both sides now, she was surrounded.
"On deck! Firing swivels from the tops, sir!"
One at least of the dhows had closed within pistol-shot, was about to board.
"Thirty minutes to close Asp, sir!"
The master put down his night-glass; it gave very little aid except under the brightest of moons.
"I suspect they will be dead by then, Mr Mason. They do not give quarter, except to the unfortunate who they will kill slowly for their entertainment. Night signal to the squadron to form up on the flag."
The lanterns were raised to the mastheads, two red and one white to each. The others would all be watching, alert for action, would respond immediately. The pair of frigates would be especially anxious, knowing they were faster than the two-deckers, but they were also furthest distant from the shore, would neither be able to make the distance inside an hour.
"Kavanagh! In the longboat and all speed to Dorchester, 74. Sir Iain is to close the harbour at Sambava. He is to cut off the dhows if possible. If not then he is to bombard, targeting forts, palaces, warehouses, shipping - anything and everything of value. If a white flag is shown he will demand immediate release of all captives on pain of burning the whole town within one hour."
Kavanagh ran, shouting to his barge crew and sliding down the rope into the towing boat.
"Beg pardon, sir!"
"Yes, Major?"
Frederick spun round on the unwelcome soldier, wished on him by the people in Cape Town.
"The Governor's orders specifically forbid a landing or military action against the Madagascans themselves, sir. Only pirates may be attacked, sir."
"Quite right, Major Ponsonby-Willett, and you are perfectly correct to remind me of those orders. That said, you may shove them up your arse, sir! None of my people will, if they happen to be alive, remain in the hands of barbarian savages. The probability is that they will be killed out of hand as an act of defiance - and that will be far better for them than to remain in the captivity they would otherwise suffer!"
"I must make a written note of your words, sir, and I will quote them at court-martial."
"I am sure you will perform your duty, Major. Now get off my quarterdeck and out of my sight!"
"On deck! Fire, sir!"
The action was in sight though far out of range. Frederick could see flames rising and spreading.
"Not again! Not another ship lost that way!"
End of Excerpt
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