The atmosphere, though cold and damp, was sharp with the smells of blood and human waste, and putrefying wounds; with the heavy must of unwashed men. The animal odour of tallow mixed chokingly with the charcoal smoke from a single fire at one side of the chamber. There had recently been meat roasting somewhere on a spit.
I felt my gorge rise, and fumbled in my reticule for a handkerchief. Cecilia Braggen was right to fear the spread of contagion, when it found its source in such a room.
“Qu'est-ce que vous voulez, madame?” cried the voice of one grizzled old card player
“Le medecin,” I returned, after an instant's panicked retrieval of my schoolgirl French. “M'sieur Hill. Est il ici?”
A small figure rose up from the floor like Beelzebub, and saluted me with a bow: Mr. Hill, I did not doubt. He was spare of form, with a periwig affixed rather carelessly on a bony head; shirtsleeves turned back, forearms bare, and a heavy black apron over his shirt-front and trousers. I should have known him for a naval surgeon in a moment; his very air suggested shipboard economy.
“You one of the naval ladies, I trust?” he enquired without preamble.
“My name is … Miss Austen,” I stammered. “And you are … Mr. Hill?”
His eyes surveyed me shrewdly; it was a measuring glance, as my brother Edward might assess the points of a prospective hunter, and I quailed at the surgeon's calculation of my fitness or courage. The awful truth of my careless undertaking had fallen full upon me. When Mrs. Braggen proposed the duty this morning, I accepted with the view to a little French conversation. I thought to soothe a fevered brow, and discover, in the process, whether any of the Manon's crew was held at Wool House. But I found myself in the midst almost of battle. There was nothing of frivolity here; no easy passage for deception. These men represented the harsh spoils of war, in all their misery and deprivation; and however soon they might be exchanged, I should not lightly forget them. I fought the impulse to turn and pound heartily upon the door in expectation of die Marines.
“You are some relation to Captain Frank Austen?” Mr. Hill enquired.
“His sister, sir.”
The surgeon wiped an instrument absently on his canvas apron, and nodded. “I met with the Captain some once or twice, while serving in the Indies. You'll do. Pray follow me.”
I took up the basin he thrust into my hands, and commenced to spoon weak gruel between the cracked lips of one unshaven face after another. And presently— as though I had been no more than an insect that came to light upon a table — I was dismissed from the interest of the French, as care for their own consuming anxieties superseded the novelty of my presence. The card players returned to their gambling, and the sick to their pitiful moaning. I followed Mr. Hill in a sort of macabre dance, stooping and rising, from one sad pallet to the next, and felt that the line of suffering should never come to an end.
The contagion was of a peculiar kind: some of my patients were o'erspread with red spots; others suffered trembling so acute, they could neither stand nor hold a spoon; all were racked with fever. But I detected no inflammation of the lungs — no catarrh, that might be manifest in coughing; whatever the ill, it could not be laid to the account of Southampton's raw weather.
“What ails these men?” I whispered once.
“Gaol-fever,” replied Mr. Hill grimly. “A common enough complaint, when so many are forced to shift together like beasts in a barn. But there is little a surgeon may do for such a malady. I have bled them; I have given water; and for the rest — God shall provide.”[8]
From the look of the poor wretches lying about the floor, all that God was likely to provide, I knew, was a foreign grave.
WE WORKED IN SILENCE, BUT FOR THE FEW WORDS OF direction Mr. Hill deemed necessary. I emptied chamber pots through the barred windows into the Southampton gutters; I cleaned wounds with rags dipped in hot water; I pressed cold compresses against fevered brows; and once, to my horror, I was required to hold steady the shoulders of a man while Mr. Hill probed his angry flesh for the bullet buried there. Far from interrogating the assembled enemy, I was tongue-tied with pity and horror. At this rate, I thought despondently, I should learn nothing that might support Captain Seagrave's claims of innocence.
My passage among the pallets had revealed one item of intelligence, however. Members of the Manon's crew were certainly among the inmates of Wool House. I learned this not from any words of French that were spoken, but from a lady's skill at observing the fine points of dress. It is a seaman's habit to embroider ribbons upon his shiny tarpaulin hat; the ribbons invariably bear the name, in bright letters, of the ship that he serves. Four at least proclaimed the Manon. Three lay by the sides of men tossing upon the floor; but the last still rested upon the head of a fellow who seemed in better health than his brothers.
He was sitting up, shaky and weak, and though desperate to consume some hot broth, looked unable to hold the spoon that Mr. Hill had afforded him. I judged him to be a seaman, of perhaps fifty years or so; but whether he should be rated Ordinary or Able, I not entirely say.[9] I inclined towards Able: from the length of his hair, which was knotted in a queue that reached to the middle of his back, I suspected him of naval pride; and, of course, there was the hat, with its handsome red ribbons embroidered in blue and white. Manon.
I took bowl and spoon from the man's shaking fingers and helped him gently to eat. His jaw trembled as the broth trickled into his mouth, and he closed his eyes. “Merti, madame.”
“De rien, I replied
His eyes flew open. “Vous parlez francais?”
“Un peu, settlement. II y avait beaucoup de temps …”
He fluttered a thin hand in dismissal of my excuses. His red-rimmed eyes were dangerously over-bright “Avez-vous du papier?”
Did I have paper? I stared at him in consternation. I could not have understood the words correctly.
“Pour les lettres,” he insisted. “Je voudrais écrire à Provence…”
Letters home. But of course. He was probably illiterate, and would depend upon the skill of others to despatch his intelligence to France. Somewhere in the south of that country, there might be a wife or a child — someone who could fear him dead, were it not for the arrival of a missive penned in a strange hand. A whisper of excitement rose up within me. For surely this fellow — so recently taken prisoner — must desire to relate every detail of the Manon's engagement with the British? Should he not be likely to recount, in tedious detail, the moments that led to his ship's capitulation?
“I shall find you paper,” I said without regard for French or English, and set down the man's bowl. His gaze followed me in hopeful confusion as I hurried towards Mr. Hill.
After whispered consultation, the surgeon accepted the few coins I pressed into his palm and sent an urchin to a nearby tavern. The appearance of writing materials a quarter of an hour later occasioned a surge in health, an increase of life and energy among the ailing. A few moments bent over my pen, and I was surrounded by such men as could drag themselves near to watch my hand move across the cheap foolscap. Had the supply of paper not been swiftly exhausted, I might be writing to France still. A tedious job I should have found it, for the mind of your common sailor is in general unimaginative.
The fellow whose duty I first undertook, was direct in his wording and naive in his aims. He wished only to inform a lady named Marguerite that he was alive— that he was confident he should soon be returned to Boulogne — that he desired her to remain chaste — and that she must not, on any account, sacrifice the red-backed rooster to her mania for cassoulet. I managed to convey as much of these varying sentiments as my pitiful mastery of French would allow, and then enquired: “Do you not wish to tell her anything of the engagement in which you fell prisoner? It was with the Stella Moris, was it not?”
My seaman pursed his lips and emitted a peculiarly French sound somewhere between an expectoration and a whistle, as if to say, “Tant pis. He had done with defeat; he was marshalling his streng
th for a return to battle; he could not reflect upon ships that were lost. Why discredit the Emperor's glory, by sending news of so ignominious an engagement? All these sentiments and some I could not fathom were contained in that single syllable, that sputum of contempt. I folded the sheet of paper in disappointment.
But directly I had sealed the edges with tallow, my services were implored by others too ready to relate the particulars of the Manon's loss. And here I discovered, to my chagrin, the limits of schoolgirl French.
I had never been taught the sort of terms that might prove useful in such a pass — the French that should distinguish the differences among guns, or describe the varying weights of shot, or convey the particulars of sail and line. I struggled to decipher the full sense of vient sous le vent, which I took to mean “coming under the wind,” when (I later learned) it meant “coming into the lee.” I could not attempt to explain “seizing the weather gauge” in any language. And I knew nothing of the patois that reigned supreme among the denizens of the gundeck. I was on the verge of despair, when a quiet voice at my shoulder said in English—
“I believe I might prove of some assistance, madame?
My face flushed with effort, my ears ringing with a multitude of voices, I turned to glare at the man propped against the stone wall. And managed to utter not a word of acknowledgement or thanks, being overcome, of a sudden, with confusion and surprise.
He was too weak, I imagine, to sit upright without assistance, and his dark eyes glittered at me through half-opened lids. He wore breeches of a colour indeterminate in the dark, and a white linen shirt oddly at variance with the soiled garb of the men about him; his fine hands rested lightly on his knees. It was the hands that drew my attention, after those first words of English; they had certainly never hauled a line, nor pulled this man upwards into the shrouds. He had recently shaved. His features were fine. There was a quirk of humour about the full lips, and strength in the cut of his chin. I must be staring at a French officer — inexplicably left to sicken and die among the ranks of his own men. But where was his uniform, or the marks of authority?
“You speak English,” I managed.
He bowed his head — a gesture of courtesy, the habit of a gentleman. “I might translate for your pen. There are niceties, there are forms, to a life at sea with which a lady like yourself could not be expected to be familiar….”
Niceties. Forms. How often had I heard those words? He might be my very brother Frank; he had been cut from the same mould. “Certainly you may assist me. I should be glad of the help. Are these your shipmates?”
“What few remain. Most of the Monoris crew are held at the large naval prison in Portsmouth — you know it?”
I nodded assent It was a fortification that dated from the Norman era; twenty generations of British prisoners might have rotted there.
“But your navy has had too much luck, and that prison is full of the French; and so we are sent here, along with others of different vessels, to await the exchange.”
“You are not a common seaman,” I said awkwardly, “and yet I do not observe the uniform of an officer.”
“We are all equal in defeat, madame,” he retorted gently. “But perhaps that is a French belief — the equal right of men to suffer arid die. When something more of value is at stake, however, we prove as selfish as the rest of the world!”
He smiled — a flash of white in that dim and awful room — and I felt a wave of giddiness rise from my feet to my cheeks. I could not help smiling back.
“You were writing to the sister of Jean-Philippe, I believe,” he resumed. “Something about the Stella luffing, and the wind being three points off the bow, and the Manon incapable of carrying royals.”
“Yes,” I stammered. “Luffing. Is that what vient au lof meant?”
His eyelids drifted lower, as though he would fade with weariness. “I would write to all of them myself,” he murmured, “but I can barely hold up my head. C 'est une fièvre de cheval…”
I rose and went to him in some anxiety. His forehead was clammy, his limbs trembling with the effort he had brought to bear on conversation. “You should lie down,” I said sternly. “You require rest.”
“A little water, if you please.”
I hesitated — Mr. Hill did not like cold water on a fevered stomach, believing it to cause retching; I fetched the man some lukewarm tea instead. He drank it without complaint, sighed, and closed his eyes again.
“Madame,” cried Jean-Philippe, the young seaman who had wished to write of luffing. “Madame, s'il vous plait—”
“Un moment.”
The Frenchman's eyes flicked open. “You are very good, with your paper and your broth. May I ask what is your name?”
“I am Miss Austen.”
“And I am Etienne LaForge,” he murmured. “You may call me ship's surgeon. It is as good a name as any for me. Has M'sieur Hill determined the nature of this illness?”
“Gaol fever.”
“Ah. It is as I suspected. Pray continue with your letters, mademoiselle, and I shall supply whatever words you deem necessary—”
I recommenced writing; and in a very little while, possessed a greater understanding of the Manon's last moments than the Naval Chronicle should be likely to procure.[10]
It would appear that Captain Seagrave had learned his tactics at Nelson's foot, for like that great departed naval hero, he was a proponent of gunnery and of crossing an enemy's bows with complete disregard for peril. Seagrave laid the Stella yardarm to yardarm with the French frigate, and brought his full broadside to bear at point-blank range — only four hundred yards of heaving water lay between. The destruction rained upon the Manon's hull was dreadful, for the British crews displayed greater accuracy than the French in training their guns. Where the Stella received a quantity of grape in the rigging, to the detriment of her masts and canvas, the Manon took several balls below the waterline, and was shipping water faster than the pumps could work. A mere forty minutes into the action, three of the French guns had been dismounted, and were rolling about the deck with every pitch of the waves, at immense hazard to the men; two unfortunate sailors found their feet crushed beneath the weight
Seagrave seized his moment. He brought the Stella across the Manon's bows; his boarding party, with their pikes and axes, fell upon the French crew; and within moments, the poop, quarterdeck, waist of the ship — all were overrun — and the colours struck.
“You will not find great willingness to fight among the French sailors at present,” LaForge observed, when Jean-Philippe had fallen silent “We preserve too well the tragedy of Trafalgar. It is accepted truth that British guns will always prevail. We prefer to run rather than engage; then we might save our ships as well as our lives.”
“But the Manon did not run. And how many men were lost?” I enquired, my eyes trained upon the foolscap.
Jean-Philippe did not reply. I glanced over at the French surgeon.
“Thirty-four were killed outright Eighty-seven were wounded,” LaForge said.
“Seamen? Or officers?”
“We lost only one officer — le capitaine, Porthiault. The rest — our lieutenants and midshipmen — are housed in Portsmouth and Southampton, if they have not already been exchanged.”
“Your captain! That must have been a great loss.”
LaForge's head moved restlessly against the stone wall. “I tended his body myself.”
“He was killed in battle?”
“But of course.” He turned to stare at me. “You thought it possible he died of fright at the sight of the Royal Navy? It is hardly singular for a captain to be killed, when he is exposed to the enemy guns. Officers maintain a position on the quarterdeck, you understand, in the path of every well-aimed ball.”
“If you tended his body, Monsieur LaForge — you must have seen the nature of Porthiault's wound?”
“I begin to suspect that you have a taste for the macabre, Miss Austen.” The dark eyes — so deep a brown tha
t in the flickering candlelight, they appeared almost the colour of claret — held my own. “You spend your liberty in the stench and squalor of Wool House, ministering to the sick; and you are morbidly concerned with the history of a man's last agony. You interest me very much. What can have excited your curiosity?”
I had no desire to inform the Manon's crew that a British captain was charged with the murder of their captain. If they were at all akin to British seamen, I might very well have a riot on my hands.
“It is only that my brother is a post captain, I said lamely, “and I suffer considerable anxiety on his behalf.”
“He is presently at sea?”
“No — but he is likely soon to be.”
LaForge stared at me quizzically, unconvinced.
“And… and we possess a considerable acquaintance among the officers of the Stella Maris. The action has been of no little significance in Portsmouth.”
“I see. You wish to carry all the smallest details of the noble Porthiault's end to your next card party. I am afraid that I cannot increase your delight, Miss Austen. I was below decks, throughout the action.”
“You saw nothing?” I murmured in disappointment.
“The surgeon's place in battle is always the cockpit deck,” LaForge said by way of reply. “I was entirely taken up with amputation, you understand — two men had suffered crushed feet, from the dismounting of the guns, and there were arms and legs torn away. I did not emerge on deck until I had dressed the last wound.”.
How unfortunate, that the most articulate and sound observer of the naval battle should be below decks throughout the action! I stared at Etienne LaForge with consternation; and at that moment a timid hand brushed my elbow. Jean-Philippe.
“Ma lettre?” he enquired. “C'est finie?”
“Mais oui,” I replied, and folded it swiftly. “Did any of the Manon's crew observe how your captain died, Monsieur LaForge?”
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