Authors: Christine Trent
She was provided with a hanging bed in the farthest corner of the sick berth, which was still in view of the admiral’s cabin. Darden told her this was the upper gun deck, an undesirable-sounding place, but the cannon pointing out through the open ports reminded her that it was an accurate term. At least her bed did not hang directly over one of the guns, a decidedly unpleasant notion. The flat beds with their raised cloth sides in the sick berth were infinitely better than the rough, rope hammocks the regular sailors slept in on the decks below, but the conditions made her dream at night about the glorious four-poster bed Aunt Claudette had provided during her time at Hevington. She made a mental note to visit Claudette and William the moment her feet touched English soil again.
She quickly grew used to the noise, comprised of both the wood
creaking and groaning, and the men constantly yelling in a variety of languages and moving about. Most of the sailors avoided her, whether because of some superstition about women aboard a ship or because Darden had let word out that she was under his care, she couldn’t say.
Marguerite spent most of her time sleeping or reading. She had packed a few books for her journey to Portsmouth and she was very grateful to have them now to pass the time.
She was even more grateful that the weather had been cooperative. She was beginning to feel like perhaps she could overcome her fear of sailing.
Marguerite took her meals with the officers on the middle gun deck, one level down. The officers’ quarters, which Darden called the wardroom, had four cabins with a shared dining table in the center of them. Darden personally escorted her down there to eat with him during his appointed meal times. After witnessing the ordinary seamen on her deck eating in shifts with their messmates, she realized that officers were treated much differently. Unlike the routine of salt pork, dried peas, thin stews, cheese, butter, and bread, to be washed down with eight pints of beer each day, the officers lived in relative luxury.
If the confined quarters anywhere in the ship could be termed luxurious.
But they did have fresh meat whenever the captain ordered goat, or goose for his afternoon dinner, as well as fresh eggs from the chicken coops. An entire area above the galley was reserved to keep the animals confined in pens. And the officers partook of sweet wines not available to the rest of the crew.
She was also granted the right to use the officers’ quarter gallery, a private toilet that Darden assured her was vastly superior to the six “heads” the rest of the sailors used, which were located in the open air at the foremost point of the ship, and through which waste was dropped directly into the sea below. Some of the officers looked at her askance or with questioning eyebrows, but most left her alone.
Under the same orders as the rest of the crew, I suppose.
Still, it was a fine thing to be able to share with the officers on
board the man-of-war, and she was grateful for Darden’s intervention, which assured her better status while she was trapped here.
The ship’s surgeon, Mr. Beatty, a surprisingly young man with wire-rimmed glasses who looked more like a university student than a medical man, exercised deliberate contempt for Marguerite’s presence in the sick berth. He perpetually muttered about the bad luck women bring to a ship and what it meant to lose even a single precious cot that could be used for tending to a sick seaman. “Ill-advised, I say. Sure to bring about defeat,” he would say for Marguerite’s benefit when no one else was around to hear. Fortunately, his disdain for her company meant he spent as little time in the sick berth as possible unless there was a call for his services, instead spending time training his assistant surgeons, Messrs. Smith and Westemburg, or staying hidden away in his own cabin several decks below. Marguerite made it a habit to hold her breath when he came near, and to finally expel it with relief when he disappeared again.
Marguerite observed that most men who came to the sick berth had been injured in their daily work routine. Fingers were routinely sliced by men cleaning the pistols and cutlasses that seemed to be stored in plenty aboard the ship.
But the primary recipients of injury seemed to be the men working the sails. On more than one occasion, a man was carried in by two others and heaved into a bed, moaning about the pain of a broken leg, arm, or worse. Marguerite soon learned that these men deftly scurried across the yardarms to furl or unfurl sails, but with no protection against falls onto the deck or into the undulating ocean. The men were experienced, but the combination of wind and waves resulted in more than one fall.
She cringed one day when a sailor was brought down, looking more battered than most and crying piteously for relief. Mr. Beatty gave him some beer to gulp down while he examined the man’s injuries. The man wiped his mouth with his sleeve and fell backward onto his cot, as if unconscious. The surgeon put a small piece of glass to the man’s mouth and shook his head, gesturing to one of his assistants.
Mr. Smith rolled the nearest cannon away from the gun port, while the other hurried off the deck and returned shortly with a sailmaker carrying a rolled-up piece of cloth. The sailmaker unrolled the fabric on the ground into what looked like a large sack and, with the help of Smith and Westemburg, hauled the expired man from his bed and placed his body into the bag. The sailmaker grabbed two small cannonballs from a rack of them nearby, and put one at the man’s feet and the other at his head. From there, he quickly made loose stitches to close the sack around the man’s head. Marguerite could have sworn the sailmaker made a stitch across the dead man’s nose but shook her head to clear the thought.
Silly goose, why would he have sewn across the poor man’s face?
The sailmaker departed as quickly as he had arrived. The surgeon’s assistants picked up the wrapped man and unceremoniously tossed him through the exposed gun port. Mr. Smith looked through the opening, as though to make sure the man had made it down to the waves.
Marguerite gasped and broke the unwritten rule of not communicating with the crew. “What did you just do? Was that a proper sea burial? Isn’t the chaplain called before someone is … is … sent down like that?”
Mr. Smith lifted a shoulder. “Sorry, miss, not everyone gets it done up all nice and pretty. He was just an ordinary seaman. He probably didn’t even have anything his messmates could sell to raise money for his family. The captain will write to his wife, though.”
Marguerite clutched her stomach after the men left.
How horrid the life of a sailor could be!
Whenever Darden had a free moment, he would slip down to see her, inquiring solicitously after her head wound and wanting to know what else he could provide for her.
Of Nelson she saw nothing, as her view from the sick berth to his cabin was blocked. Captain Hardy actually came down once to let her know that he intended to have her rowed to HMS
Pickle,
a small sloop already waiting at the rear of the assembling fleet.
“Pickle
is armed, so you’ll be protected, Mrs. Ashby.”
Somehow that information was of little comfort in the face of potentially witnessing serious fighting between the navies of her homeland and Madame Tussaud’s. But hopefully
Pickle
would be far enough away that she wouldn’t see or hear much.
Although that meant she also wouldn’t know whether Darden was safe. Strange how fond she was growing of him. He was a curious mixture of rigid politeness and some kind of hidden, burning obsession. He expressed no blatant desire for her, though, leaving Marguerite to assume that he was merely taking his duty toward her very seriously.
Brax Selwyn, though, was as far from serious as the bright sky was from the darkened night. What levity he brought to a room! And how he plagued poor Darden! How did the two of them ever become friends? Were they really friends?
Together, the two men reminded her of nothing more than Nicholas, who combined Brax’s light and humorous spirit with Darden’s grave sense of devotion and duty. She smiled with the pleasant recollection of her husband, gone almost three years now. Whatever would Nicholas think of her situation now?
“Damn you, I’ll have you lashed, you insubordinate whelp.” Nathaniel’s face was mottled with rage. How dare these drunken, ill-tempered, overpaid buggers cross him with complaints about his orders? He was the captain, wasn’t he?
The unshaven man stood defiantly before him, stocky legs spread apart and arms across his chest.
“You’re not likely to find anyone to do it for you. Unless you propose to do it yourself.” The man’s eyes flashed his scornful challenge. “As I said, the other men and I have been talking, and we’ve decided we won’t go along with you. You lied to us about what you’re doing. We don’t plan to go to the scaffold for the likes of you. We’re taking the ship back. You can pay us the wages you owe us and we’ll forgive the rest.”
“You
will forgive
me?
This is mutiny and I can have you hanged for it.”
Couldn’t he?
“You ain’t the bleeding Royal Navy,
Captain
.” The man spat the title out like an overly chewed bit of tobacco. “You’ll have to look for some other dumb boobies to follow you on this dunderheaded mission.”
“I’ll spread word around that you can’t merit a farthing’s worth of hard tack, and none of you will ever get jobs again,” Nathaniel said. Maude Ashby had used this technique many times with great success on the household servants.
“As you wish. But I’d be sleeping with one eye open every night if you do that, sir.” The hired hand stalked off.
And without even a salute. The cheek of him.
So the ship returned to shore and Nathaniel was forced to pay the men before starting over. His face flamed with the humiliation of it. Obviously he had to look elsewhere for more
cooperative
sorts of workers.
At least all of the salted and pickled barrels of food and his store of beer would not go to waste. He’d keep them aboard until he got a new crew.
As the days stretched out, Marguerite realized that the men were never left idle. Strict routine seemed to be critical to maintaining morale. She noted that each day of the week required specific activities, whether it be washing decks, performing drills, mending clothes, or submitting to inspections. On Sundays a church service was held on the quarterdeck and the men had free time in the afternoon. The schedule of activities was so unchanging that Marguerite hardly need look at the watch pinned to her dress anymore.
September 28, 1805.
An unusual commotion roused Marguerite from her book. Skirting quietly around the sailors busy at work on the deck, she slipped in next to one of the cannon and peered above it through the open port.
They were plowing straight toward a large gathering of ships. Terrified at first that the enemy had found them alone on the open seas, she realized that the ships were flying British colors. She expelled
her fearful breath. Soon she would be transferred to HMS
Pickle
and be out of the way. She had survived yet another potentially fatal sea journey.
Darden stood next to her bed where she was sitting up reading again a few hours later. “Nelson has officially taken over command of the British fleet from Captain Collingwood. I expect in the next few days you’ll be put on a launch over to
Pickle.
The captain’s first priority will be to wood and water not only
Victory,
but the other ships that have been out to sea awhile.”
She flipped the open book down on her lap. “Thank you, Darden. Truly. For everything you’ve done for me.”
“I was happy to perform my duty toward you,” he replied stiffly.
“Duty or not, you were kind to me in a situation where you had many other obligations to attend to. I should never have survived this journey if you weren’t here. I guess that’s twice now you’ve escorted me, isn’t it?”
Was that a hint of red in his cheeks?
Darden shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “Marguerite, I won’t be able to escort you in the launch to
Pickle
.”
“I understand perfectly. I’ve no doubt it would be difficult for you to leave your obligations for any period of time.”
“Yes, well, ahem, it wasn’t my choice. Captain Hardy thought that perhaps I was attending to my duty with you a bit too well, so another of the men will escort you. I’ll handpick the man, so you needn’t have any fear on that account.”
Marguerite reached out and patted Darden’s arm. “Lieutenant, I have no fears whatsoever with you around.”
He took her hand and bent over it, kissing it lightly. He rose again and stared at her with those dark, penetrating eyes. They whispered everything and said nothing.
“Fear is something you should always leave in my care, Marguerite.” And without releasing her hand or giving her warning, he bent down and kissed her full on the mouth. His lips were powerfully comforting, and the scarred hand he raised to cradle her neck was warm and work-roughened. He massaged her open neckline with a hidden message of desire, and she could barely suppress her own sigh of longing. He smelled of the coarse shipboard soap that
all the men used, as well as the ubiquitous odor of tar that clung to everything. Yet his scent was intoxicating, and she could taste the tang of the ocean, combined with a strong flavor of cloves, on him. She brought her free hand up to cover his, hoping he would not notice her quaking. He stiffened as she lay her palm on the roughened bulge of his scar but relaxed when she demonstrated no repulsion.
Darden moved from her lips to her cheeks, nose, eyebrows, and forehead, planting feathery kisses everywhere before returning once more to draw from her mouth, this time more hungrily, as though he had just realized he was drowning and Marguerite was his life preserver.
He tore away from her as suddenly as he had pulled her close. “Please, forgive my impertinence. It was inexcusable. Good day, Mrs. Ashby.”
“But I wasn’t—” Marguerite tried to stop him, but he had turned on his heel and strode off, taking the staircase two steps at a time back to the quarterdeck.