A Sloop of War Read online

  Carlisle Bay was a splendid sight, packed with shipping once more. The squadron had returned victorious from their capture of St Lucia the day after the Rush had arrived with her prisoners. Castries, the capital, had surrendered to General Abercromby the day that Vieux Fort had fallen, completing the expedition’s victory. Clustered near the shore were all the transporters, while farther out he could see the row of stately warships at their moorings, laid out like models on a bright blue cloth. The admiral’s massive flagship was easy enough to pick out, but it took him some time to locate the stubby little Rush towards the far end of the line. When his mare was breathing a little easier, he turned his back on Bridgetown and with some further urging managed to prod his horse into a shambling trot.

  It was a hot and dusty road, and Linfield found himself regretting his choice of clothing. The dark blue of his full dress coat was near perfect for absorbing the heat from the sun’s rays, while the thick wool of its material retained that warmth with equal efficiency. His ancient horse needed constant encouragement to move at all, and this was slowly destroying his best stockings and white woollen breaches. The shiny black leather of the shoes that his servant had worked on most of the morning could only now be guessed at through a thick layer of dust and horse hair. It was a hot and dishevelled figure who arrived at last at the front door of Spring Hill plantation.

  ‘Miss Emma?’ queried the black maid who opened the door. ‘No master, she not here, so sorry.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ said Linfield, ‘Will she be back soon?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ conceded the maid, eyeing the filthy rider with a jaundiced eye. She saw the look of disappointment spread on the young man’s face, and added, ‘Mr Robertson, he here.’

  ‘Yes, I would very much like to pay my respects to him,’ said the surgeon. ‘Could you tell him that Mr Linfield is here to see him.’

  ‘My dear Mr Linfield, how delighted I am to see you again,’ said Robertson, as he bustled into Spring Hill’s second best drawing room, his arms wide in welcome. ‘I had heard that Admiral Caldwell’s armada had returned triumphant from its descent on St Lucia, and was wondering when I might see you. What wonderful news of their victory, in which doubtless you played a full part? But Mr Linfield, are you quite well? Have you fallen from your horse?’

  ‘Quite well, I thank you Mr Robertson,’ said the young man. ‘It was a rather hot and dusty journey.’

  ‘So I see,’ said his host, peering at his guest’s clothes. ‘Is that your full dress uniform beneath all that filth? There was no need to don such formal attire to come and see us here, unless of course you were planning to ask for my daughter’s hand, eh?’ Robertson broke into gales of laughter at his own wit, which faded as he realised that his guest had not joined in.

  ‘My dear sir, I am so terribly sorry,’ he said, ringing the hand bell that stood on the table. ‘That was quite unforgivable of me, to make light of such matters. Let me first summon the assistance in which you stand in such sore need, and then perhaps we can discuss this all properly. Ah, Mary, kindly show Mr Linfield to where he can reorder his attire. Get George to assist him, and arrange some refreshment for his return. In the best drawing room if you please.’

  Once Linfield had washed his face and body clean, and the efficient George had beat and sponged the worst of the dust from his clothes, he felt a new man. A large glass of Madeira and some cold beef sandwiches completed his recovery.

  ‘Now, sir, that is better,’ said Robertson, ‘You are once more the elegant naval officer I first met in Milton’s all those months ago. May I get you anything else?’

  ‘Nothing further, I thank you, Mr Robertson,’ said the surgeon. ‘I am quite restored.’

  ‘Capital,’ said his host. ‘So I collect you have been involved in yet more victories over the base French?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Linfield. ‘I believe the Rush can be said to have played her full part. We were sent against the lesser stronghold of Vieux Fort, at the southern end of St Lucia, which we reduced in creditable style. Our Mr Preston and Lieutenant Macpherson of the marines played a prominent part in that victory. Then to crown that we bested a Spanish seventy-four that arrived in the bay to create mischief. Together with the Agrius we defeated her, a victory that is rightly the talk of the fleet.’

  ‘By Jove, that is a notable action,’ exclaimed Robertson. ‘Pray, how was it achieved?’

  ‘Captain Clay lured the Spaniard onto a sand bank,’ explained Linfield. ‘We then caught him between our two fires while he was unable to manoeuvre.’

  ‘How deuced cunning of him!’ chuckled his host. ‘I trust it came at a modest cost in our brave men?’

  ‘In overall numbers yes, but I fear Captain Clay paid a heavy price for his victory,’ said Linfield, his face clouding. ‘He was struck in the shoulder towards the end of the action, and at one moment I did despair for him. The worst is now past, but he is very weak, and will need a considerable convalescence. I have given him over to the care of the naval hospital here in Bridgetown, if you wish to see him.’

  ‘Indeed I shall, poor man,’ said Robertson. ‘My daughters will certainly want to visit him.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said the young surgeon, ‘your daughters.’ A silence descended over the pair. Linfield looked towards the handsome case clock that stood behind his host’s back, aware in the sudden quiet of the room of the dry click of its mechanism. Robertson shuffled his feet, and cleared his throat. When this failed to draw any more from his guest, he felt compelled to fill the gap.

  ‘Mr Linfield, may I make a request?’ he asked. ‘Can I prevail on your better nature to excuse my disgraceful behaviour earlier? I should never have made light of such a grave matter as a proposal of marriage.’

  ‘Of course, Mr Robertson,’ said Linfield. ‘Let us consider that it never happened.’

  ‘That is very obliging of you,’ said his host, making a steeple of his fingers and addressing his next remark towards the open window. ‘Because I would not want you to form the impression that I would find a suitable approach to be unwelcome.’ He returned his gaze to his guest and smiled. ‘Both my daughters are at present away visiting friends, from which you will collect that our reintegration into Barbadian society that began after the governor’s ball has continued in a modest way. We can now number perhaps a dozen houses on the island where our presence is no longer regarded as abhorrent.’

  ‘I am very pleased to hear it, Mr Robertson,’ said the surgeon, ‘Although I must confess to be a little vexed that Miss Emma is not here. Do you expect her to return soon?’

  ‘Soon for certain, I make no doubt,’ said Robertson. ‘You will pardon my impertinence, but I take it the purpose of your visit was not just to pay your respects to me, welcome as your attention is. You are here to solicit the hand of my youngest daughter, are you not?’

  ‘It might be thought strange to discuss such matters with the father in advance of the subject of such a proposal, but you have guessed correctly, sir,’ said Linfield. ‘Having gained her acceptance, I would naturally have asked for an interview with you next, to seek your consent.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said the planter. ‘I wondered perhaps, in the absence of my daughter, we might not use the time we have to discuss some of the particulars that I would want clarified before such a union could have my blessing?’

  ‘It seems a little irregular,’ said Linfield, ‘but I have no objection. What would you like to know?’

  ‘Once married, will you continue with your career as a naval surgeon, Mr Linfield?’ asked Robertson.

  ‘If Miss Emma were to do me the honour of accepting me,’ said the surgeon, ‘I would resign my warrant as surgeon and set up in practice onshore as a doctor. I hold that the lengthy absences of a naval officer are likely to be injurious to Emma’s happiness.’

  ‘An interesting plan, Mr Linfield,’ said Robertson. ‘Did you have any notion of where you might set up your practice?’

  ‘Why, back in England, in a rural a
rea close to London,’ replied Linfield.

  ‘I see,’ said the plantation owner. ‘And what can you do to reassure me that you will be able to maintain my daughter in the style to which she is accustomed here in Barbados? Servants, a carriage, some horses to ride for her leisure, and so forth?’

  ‘I am not wholly without financial resource,’ said Linfield. ‘I have some of my service pay that I have saved, and prize money that I have received or am due, but I will not deny that it would not be adequate to fund such levels of expenditure.’

  ‘That is disappointing to hear, Mr Linfield,’ said Robertson.

  ‘But let me reassure you that I am not without prospects,’ said the surgeon. ‘There will naturally be a period while I establish my reputation and connections as a doctor when we will be under some financial constraint, but after that I am sure matters will improve. I speak only of my own resources. If Miss Emma’s dowry was sufficiently generous to fund such luxury, matters might lie differently?’

  ‘Aye, I am sure they might,’ said Robertson, appraising his guest from under his bushy eye brows. ‘Look, sir, I am a man of business. As such, may I offer you a little advice, examining your situation as I might a business proposition with regard to your future happiness?’

  ‘By all means, sir,’ said Linfield.

  ‘Miss Emma was born on Barbados, and has only known an upbringing of ease in the warmth of the tropics,’ began Robertson. ‘I well remember the climate of our home island. I was brought up in Dundee, you will collect. I make no doubt that Emma would endure whatever she must to be with the man she loves. But in time might not some understandable resentment accrue against the person who had taken her from her life here in Barbados to be the wife of a struggling rural doctor in the midst of an English winter?’

  ‘Well, I would need to explain to her how matters lie before she made her final commitment,’ said Linfield, his brow furrowed. Robertson looked at the young man for a moment, not unkindly.

  ‘May I lay out an alternate proposal, Mr Linfield?’ he asked. ‘Set up your practice here in Barbados. There is a shortage of good medical care for the white population, and none at all for the black. As part of Emma’s dowry I can fund you while you become established in your career and set up your home together, and I will also be your first client. I will pay you to look after the medical needs of my plantation workers. How does that sound?’

  ‘If I was here on the island, I would still agitate for the abolition of slavery,’ warned Linfield.

  ‘I didn’t doubt it for a moment,’ said Robertson.

  ‘Well it rather puts the cart before the horse since I have yet to speak to your daughter,’ said the surgeon, ‘but if it would truly make Emma happy, I will gladly accept.’

  ‘Well that is resolved then,’ said Robertson, clasping Linfield’s hand, ‘for I know for certain she will have you. She has spoken of little else since the night of the ball.’

  ‘Is that so?’ laughed Linfield in relief.

  ‘You need not take my word for it much longer, for if I am not very much mistaken that is the sound of the returning carriage,’ said Robertson, rising from his chair and cocking an ear towards the hall. ‘I will take Elizabeth for a turn in the garden, while you speak with Emma in here. Will that answer?’ He slipped from the room, and Linfield heard his booming voice in the hall.

  ‘Emma, my dear, you have a visitor in the drawing room. Off you go now, child.’

  *****

  Clay heard the sound of water as it tinkled into a bowl and opened his eyes. He was in a small whitewashed room in the naval hospital in Bridgetown. The door stood open, allowing him to see out onto a shaded veranda and beyond that the flowers and trees of a small sunlit garden. From the length of the shadows he could tell that evening approached. He tried to push himself up in his bed, but then winced at the hot pain in his shoulder.

  ‘Easy there, sir,’ said the sailor who had been mixing the water. He hurried over to lift Clay up in bed, and to adjust his pillows.

  ‘I am Wheeler, sir,’ explained the man, ‘I am here to give you a shave and a bit of a wash. The admiral is on his way to see you, and I am quite sure you would not wish to present yourself to him looking as you do, begging your pardon like.’

  ‘Can you pass me the glass, Wheeler,’ he asked. The sailor held the small mirror up in front of him and Clay examined the strange face that looked back at him from the square frame. For all his life at sea his skin had been tanned from long exposure to sun and wind, yet the Clay in the mirror appeared pale and anaemic. He ran his hand over the unfamiliar stubble that covered his lower face. Even his calm grey eyes looked a little different, as if still haunted by the pain he had gone through.

  ‘Let’s get that filthy beard away, sir,’ urged Wheeler. ‘You will feel better with that off.’ He placed a towel around Clay’s neck, and tilted his head back. As he worked up a lather of soap he chatted to the patient.

  ‘So the little old Rush has done for a mighty Spanish galleon, they tell me,’ he said. ‘Have you ever heard tell of such a victory? You’re going to be right famous after this, sir. General Abercromby is quite put out, they say, him having captured the whole of Old Saint Lucy, and yet returns to find everyone talking only of this ship you bested. The Saint Paul wasn’t it?’

  ‘San Felipe, and she was only a seventy-four,’ corrected Clay, wisely saying no more as he felt the edge of Wheeler’s razor running over his throat.

  ‘Aye, the San Philip, that’s the one. Only a seventy-four, you says, sir!’ marvelled Wheeler, working his way across Clay’s face. ‘Still not exactly a fair fight, was it? Done with a very creditable butcher’s bill I hear too. Hardly a man lost on the Agrius, and only a few on the Rush. Oh!’ he paused, the razor hovering above Clay’s face.

  ‘What have you done man?’ asked Clay, reaching for the mirror.

  ‘No, I ain’t nicked you, sir,’ continued Wheeler. ‘Just realised how stupid I have been, talking of butcher’s bills with you being injured an’ all. Right, let’s rinse you off. There, don’t that feel more like it?’

  As Clay wiped his face clean he heard a commotion on the veranda.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said the voice of Admiral Caldwell. ‘Of course I will not over tax your damned patient, who, may I remind you, is also one of my captains. Now, kindly step aside, young man and let me through.’ Wheeler gathered up his bowl and towel, and slipped from the room, just as the jaunty figure of the admiral bustled in.

  ‘Ah, Clay, my dear sir,’ he said. ‘Good to see you awake at last.’ Clay tried to pull himself out of bed, but was stopped by his visitor.

  ‘No, none of that, captain. Back into bed, if you please. That is an order.’ Admiral Caldwell pulled up a chair, and sat down next to the bed. He fixed Clay with the same kindly brown eyes he remembered so well.

  ‘I trust I find you on the mend, my dear sir?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, thank you, sir,’ replied Clay. ‘I am still rather weak, but I was able to walk a little on the veranda earlier, and I have had some portable soup. My wound still troubles me, but I am told that will pass. The surgeons say that it may never be wholly restored, but I am fortunate that it is my left arm. I can still use my right to wield a sword or a pen.’

  ‘Well, that is excellent news,’ said Caldwell. ‘We did fear we had lost you when you first arrived. A musket ball can be a most unwelcome visitor.’

  The admiral studied Clay’s face, and thought how thin and gaunt he looked. No question of him resuming duty for many months, he said to himself. Still, I have a plan for that.

  ‘Yes, you really do look much improved,’ he continued. ‘Now, have you heard much intelligence of the expedition? I am sure you have been told that the attack on St Lucia was a great success, and the whole island is now under our control. Once the army has it quite pacified we shall move on to take Martinique from the Frogs. Your prize is still stuck on that infernal sand bank, by the way, but Captain Parker is confident he will get it afloat soon.
Apparently the hull is not too badly damaged. Upon my word Clay, you’re making a fine reputation for yourself as a fighting captain. Is there any size of enemy you are not prepared to take on, what?’

  ‘We did have them at a disadvantage, sir,’ said Clay.

  ‘Yes you did,’ said Caldwell, ‘but isn’t that the essence of the thing? I have plenty of captains who can fight the enemy broadside to broadside. Every one of them is a capital fellow, sound as a bell. None of them want for pluck and all can spill an ocean of gore when required. But I know of far fewer captains who can consider first how they might place their enemy at a disadvantage, and I know less still who would have thought to have sprung a trick such as the one you did. Captain Parker, who let me tell you, Clay, is not an easy man to impress, has been most fulsome in his praise of you. Gushing like a virgin bride almost, if you can imagine that.’

  ‘That is very handsome of him, sir,’ said the patient. ‘He played his part too, accepting my suggestion to lure the San Felipe on, and delivering the coup de grace to finish the Dons. The credit should be shared, by rights.’

  ‘Well, that is very handsomely said too, Clay,’ said the admiral. ‘Now, before I fall foul of the sawbones for keeping you up too long, and aggravating your damned humours, or whatever, I need to tell you what will be happening next. The fleet will be departing again soon for the attack on Martinique, but you shall not be coming with us this time.’

  ‘But sir,’ protested Clay. Caldwell held up a restraining hand.

  ‘You have been very gravely wounded, and have frankly confounded the surgeons by being alive at all,’ he explained. ‘You stand in need of a considerable period of convalescence, for which I will be sending you home as soon as you are fit to travel. Besides, I no longer have a suitable vacancy for you.’