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Captain Jack Aubrey patrolled the Surprise's deck. All was running well, or so it seemed. Not that he wholly believed in luck himself, Aubrey could tell in the manner that they carried out their work that his crew felt luck was running their way.
They were sailing with their numbers were replenished: all the men felt an ease to their burden – since berthing in Italy for repairs until they had been able to take on more crew his men had been stretched. Now, with relatively easy duties to perform they were working together well; the new additions to their number, many of whom had served before, had fitted in seamlessly. In Portsmouth too enough time had been had for his crew to have an evening ashore and they were able to restock their stores. Good fortune indeed.
He neared the bowsprit, stepping past Hargreaves, a deckhand he had acquired through the prisoner exchange, a short-built, stocky youth who saluted the Captain quickly. The Surprise was sailing west, beating the wind, close-hauled. With such wild energy as the gusty autumnal blusters were blowing that night his men were having to anticipate every roll and pitch.
And they were mastering it, playing the turns and twists, enabling the ship to be as sprightly as ever Jack knew that she could be. He leaned forward, past the yard and let the cold wind rush through his hair. Along with more than two-dozen other ships of the Navy the Surprise was in an enviable position: the Surprise had been chosen to sail with the fleet of the flagship. An honour and privilege to Aubrey personally and news which had buoyed the spirits of the seamen, middies and his officers.
His eyes fixed momentarily on the rigging outline of the Victory. It had been Stephen's plan to board the ship replacing Hardy and surgeoning for the Lord Admiral. God-willing his plan had been fortuitously and, despite the uncertainty his friend had expressed when he last spoke to him all those months ago, in his heart Aubrey felt that it would have and that, a couple of miles in front of him Stephen was aboard.
Turning with his back to the wind Aubrey made his way back across the fo'c'sle and down onto the main deck. Behind them, also beating the headwind and much further behind were some ships of the French line. It had been unclear when the sun began to set, as the fleet passed Lizard Point, whether the French flagship Bucentaure was amongst them. What was certain however that the dozen or so rigs behind them were following. According to plan.
His orders had come swiftly and, unusually for naval instruction, directly from the Victory, presumably from Lord Nelson's own hand. The ships that were now in fleet had, the orders explained, been given the same command: to follow the flagship past Ireland and into the Atlantic. There were enough of them to attract the attention of the French navy and, like flies to jam would be attracted to the British flagship and attendant warships.
They were to sail in an unhurried, relaxed manner so as to deceive the enemy into thinking they could be unprepared and, once in pursuit, the Victory could then lead the enemy to a place of her choosing and engage them on her terms, enacting what Aubrey could only presume was a strategy Nelson himself had devised for it followed neither protocol nor precedent.
It was Aubrey's guess, though it wasn't his place to postulate, that they were to somehow eventually engage the French near Spain, a weaker opponent and unlikely to have a good deal of military reinforcement, unlike France. British armed forces had once landed in the north of the country and had suffered from Spain's change of alliance, causing them to be hounded by the Spanish militia. He had heard Stephen talk about British forces in Catalonia and all over Spain from the time when France was Spain's enemy. Perhaps, were the battalions to be reunited in some manner, Lord Nelson would take advantage of this in some way.
It was a pity that Pullings could not be sailing with them. It had long been the young man's dream to captain a ship of his own, something Aubrey had, just over eighteen months before, been able to help him achieve.
Jack was sure however that it wouldn't take him long to regain the position again – it was hardly his ex-first Lieutenant's failing for the misfortune that had befallen the Acheron. Indeed, Tom Pullings could not have known that he would encounter a mutiny, a storm of Poseidonic proportions, loss of his ship and capture and torture by the enemy?
At least that explained Aubrey's conflicting orders: why his original orders had directed him to meet with the "Charlotte", the name proposed by Pullings and accepted by the Admiralty, as was tradition, and why he had been delayed in Vlissingen for so long.
Presumably the wreck of the ship and subsequent loss of life had been a blow to the Admiralty, as it was indeed to Jack himself: respectful silence had been upheld once they reached Portsmouth to mark the demise of the Charlotte.
Reaching the quarterdeck Aubrey scanned the blackness for any signs of either more British warships joining the fleet or French naval vessels following them. There were a few dim white lights but it was difficult to discern whether they were on land or sea – they could equally be lights from the south-west Irish coast.
"Sir." Lieutenant Blakeney's voice interrupted Jack's analysis of their wake. He turned and looked at the lad.
"Ah, Mr. Blakeney. All is well, I trust?"
"Yes sir," he replied, his voice firm. He had been trying, Jack had noticed, to take the energy and excitability out of his tone, as was fitting, the young man (that he was now becoming) had concluded. Whether this self-analysis would extend to limiting his enthusiastic penning of letters home or quitting his abstinence from grog Jack hadn't extended his enquiry when Will Blakeney had first tried out his new vocal expressions before his fellow mizzens (much to their humour).
"We have crossed ten-degrees west, sir." Aubrey exhaled. It was time for a change of course. He turned, glancing towards the direction the fleet was sailing. The starboard light had been taken from the ships in front. This was right.
"Very good, Mr. Blakeney," he acknowledged as Will saluted. "Mr. Mowett?" Will Blakeney hurried awaty and, moments later his other lieutenant stood before him.
"Set a course, west-north-west."
"Very good, sir." The man saluted, his warm eyes on Aubrey.
"West-north-west!" William Mowett called the direction out to the crew and immediately the able seamen manoeuvred the wheel, other seamen scrambled up the masts to haul in and adjust the sails. Mowett hurried down the steps between the quarter- and main decks to verse the operation.
Jack Aubrey smiled. They would sailing away from the Irish coast heading out towards the Azores in ten minutes and, by his calculations, unless they changed course in the next two days or so, would be in America within two weeks!
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Two bells. Cicely opened her eyes and stared into the blackness. It was unusual for her to be woken by the ship's half-hourly bell signals – once off-duty she generally slept solidly. What had aroused her? Cicely sought her mind for a clue.
She had been dreaming about Edward…the dream was coming back to her, his face filled her visual mind as she tried to remember.
Around her, a cough of another crewman in a hammock near her. A lot of bronchial infections, Cicely knew, at this time of year. Had the ship's doctor been treating the men as she new Stephen would have been on the Surprise, such infection would not have spread so quickly.
Stephen.
He had been on her mind that night before she had gone to sleep. Cicely wanted to know that he was safe, alive. That what she was doing wasn't in vain. Another cough, this time in a hammock closer to her. Cicely turned towards the wood of dividing wall, hoping that she didn't succumb. Not that the infection seemed very serious, but she knew it would delay her mission by fogging her mind.
Two bells, pause, one bell. It was the middle of the night; best to get some sleep. Though their duties weren't particularly taxing Cicely guessed that when they encountered the enemy they soon would be. Best to keep her strength. And besides, if she dwelt on her beloved husband's face much more she knew she wouldn't be able to keep in the tears.
What had she been dreaming about?
Edward. He was about thirteen or fourteen; she was eight…she had been playing in the woodlands near the back of their house…she had been playing knights with Frederick Bonner, a boy of a similar age whose family lived on the other side of the woods.
They had broken off some sticks and were duelling with them; Cicely had been Longshanks and Freddie was Simon de Montford. Freddie had, unusually, wrong-footed her and she had run off towards the copse, a denser cluster of trees, one of which she had decided to climb…and from which she could not get back down…
…Freddie had run off…Cicely remembered seeing him disappear and the feeling of fear that she would have to stay up there forever…
…she remembered her heart rising when she had heard her brother's voice calling for her; he had suspected where Cicely had been, even though she knew she wasn't allowed in the copse.
Instead of shouting at her, Cicely remembered Edward climbing up a few branches and the fear she had had of climbing down melted away and she had jumped towards him. Edward had hugged her and, rather than admonishing her for disobeying their father's rules had taken her hand and walked her back towards the outer woods…
…Freddie had come back to find her as they were heading home. Edward had, in his manner, drew the boy's attention to the error of his ways, making him think about how he'd feel if Cicely had come to harm.
In the blackness, the recollection of that summer's day lived again. That was Edward; good-natured, quietly assertive. So many people mistook his pleasant character for softness and his caring manner for weakness. Freddie had never again left her in the woods, or anywhere else. In fact, it had been he who had been the last person she had seen before she carried out her outrageous plan of breaking free of her father.
Freddie had spent a lot of time visiting her a few months before she had gone; he had arrived back to his childhood home on the death of his father and was in the process of establishing a career in the clergy back in Gloucestershire. He had been her beau, of sorts, when she was a child…someone she had imagined, in a child-like manner, that she would be married to and whose house she would be mistress.
Cicely would often laugh at her child-like supposings and forgive her younger self for being so ill-aware of the world and how things worked. Nevertheless, Freddie Bonner was the closest she had come to previous lovers, he and Septimus Quinn, a middie on the first ship she had boarded.
Quinn had been in an alehouse at Chatham the evening before she had managed to gain Robert Young's first sea-going position. Cicely had been in female attire, namely that of her maid which she had stolen when she had set fire to her father's library. She had felt guilty about that because she knew the woman was very poor and it was likely these were her only clothes, other than her nightclothes and that her father would have hardly bothered with her plight.
She had sent some money anonymously to her family in the hope of recompense when she had earned some aboard the schooner. Septimus Quinn had been her first, and only, before Stephen. The night she had spent with him had been done, in part, calculatedly – if ever she were to have found her way back to England then that she was no longer a maiden may wel have been enough to put off Benjamin Wigg.
But it was different with Stephen – she loved him, and that made the difference, she supposed. Part of her, the part that was with her in the evening when she was thinking of God, regretted giving herself so freely to a man she did not know and Cicely felt hot shamed that she had not kept herself for her husband. Her misfortunes – losing Edward, losing her son – could well be attributed to such disgraceful behaviour.
It hadn't really been surprising that there had been other women for Stephen before her, Cicely concluded (not for the first time; the subject had not been far from her mind at the times she had been thinking of Stephen and it had caused her to wake, Cicely knew). But to know she had a name…Diana Villiers…
…what was she like? Rich…? Poor…? Blonde-haired or dark…? Beautiful…? Witty...? What did it matter to her? What did it matter now?
Her thoughts turned to Quinn again – flaxen, wavy hair, round face and bonny features. She had boarded the Fury the next day – he hadn't guessed, no-one had. Cicely had left the ship when it had docked at Cadiz just a fortnight later, when Spain had been an ally of Britain against the new French republic, and joined the crew of the Invincible and of that she had been quite grateful to have put the experience behind her.
Another part of her, a larger part, made her feel what she and Quinn had done was a natural part of life. She had read as much in Zoonomia and in Stephen's notes and though her experience and understanding of science and naturalism was limited, wasn't it more astonishing that, were they like animals in so many ways, that humans were so different, and able to think as she was able to do?
Such thoughts Cicely could barely express to herself not least because they were malformed fragments of ideas that she had in her mind. It was like a shape of something, like steam, or a cloud, which had a vague definition but was impossible to hold. It was a pity she had sent the information she had gleaned from Robert Darwin's copy of "Zoonomia" to Sophie Aubrey. Something such as that would have been such a comfort.
Two bells, pause, two bells.
She had to find the ex-French captain. But how? After all, there were over 800 men aboard, none of whom had stood out yet as being obvious candidates. And as she didn't even know what he looked like…
Cicely awoke as her hammock was being knocked into: clearly the lads around her were rising to their shift. She sat up just as Bill Gibbons grinned in her direction.
"Ste – move yerself! Not like you to be lallyin'!"
"Morning, Bill," she replied, yawning. It was unusual for her not to be first up – often Cicely would be by the open door of the cabin gathering her thoughts, trying to bury those which were darker and more full of dread before the day's shift began. She hauled herself out of her hammock and another mizzenlad promptly occupied it, such as was the practice, and she followed Bill and the others on her shift out onto the main deck.
As she rounded the corner a man knocked into her. The first thing Cicely noticed was that he was a deckhand and she bowed and touched her forehead. Even the difference between lowly ranks was adhered to, above decks, at least. Below, amongst the men, they treated one another equally. Then she noticed that it was James Fillings.
James. The wrench in her heart took hold momentarily, a fight between keeping her identity secret and confiding in her friend.
"Move along!" A midshipman, Harvey, was harrying her to her station. Ahead of her a half-dozen or so other lower-ranking men were climbing up to the mizzen deck. The wind had picked up and there was going to be some tiring work ahead of her.
"Here." The middie pointed to a spot just under the mizzen mast. In front of her was her pair for that shift: Philip Dixon smiled innocently at her. Her heart sank as Bill Gibbons passed by, on his way to the mizzen mast with another lad who worked their duties.
She liked working with Bill – as she had been able to with James, they anticipated one another's actions and compensated for them, thus making the job a little easier. Dixon promptly knocked over the water of a deckhand, undoing all his morning's work. The man's face turned to thunder and she could see him absorbing the curse words which he would have liked to have spat at poor Philip.
"Come on," said Cicely, pulling Dixon's thin frame past the man quickly and taking the end of a rope. "You're up there today."
And then she heard it. A snippet – a snatch. Just a few words. Cicely turned round and looked towards the quarterdeck steps. Two men, both dark haired and tall, both able seamen had been talking to one another. In French.
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