False Colors (2 page)

John fumed inwardly at the slackness, the disrespect as well as the waste of lives. Opening Admiral Saunders’ letter, he read it aloud in a firm, positive tone, reading himself in as captain, telling them whence his authority came and warning that he had the right to govern and punish as he saw fit. Some of his anger wound its way into his voice, making it snap like the cat, and the more alert members of the crew stood straighter by the end of it.

Hoping to find at least one other person aboard competent to do their job, John was about to quiz the volunteer, when his thoughts were instantly dashed as the huddle of warrant officers parted to reveal the modest black dress and white lace bonnet of an elderly lady. John bowed over the twigs of her fingers, reeling. “The Doctor’s wife, Mrs Harper,” a voice informed him, and “Charmed,” he said mechanically. They’d sent a woman on board! In God’s holy name—knowing what they knew—they’d allowed not merely a woman, but a lady on board! The blood drained from his face, then returned, thundering and stinging in his ears.
A victim. Are we to put up a plucky resistance and then be sunk, so that the outrage may provide an excuse for war? So that the First Lord may say, ‘See, we don’t scruple to spare even our women in the pursuit of this menace?’
It was despicable.

His head throbbed suddenly, pain winding up from his clenched teeth to lance through his temples into his eyes. Giving orders to set sail, to clean the decks, and paint a properly anglicized
Meteor
over the name on the stern, he waited until the life of the ship around him settled into its routine, then ducked into the captain’s cabin to think. But the ruin he found seemed to mock him. The French captain’s cot lay slashed on the floor, stern lockers and all the chests broken open and ransacked.

“A right fucking pig’s ear they’ve made of this, sir,” the voice of his steward grated along his spine, making him straighten up, instinctively. Turning, he found Japheth Higgins looming behind him with John’s portmanteau propped against his hip and his sea-chest dragged by one handle from the other hand. An orange brute, Higgins had a tendency to appear out of random shadows, like the Borneo wild man.

“I thought I told you to stay on the flagship, Higgins.” “You was having a little laugh, though, right sir? ’Cos you wouldn’t leave me behind, not was you Admiral of the White.” Higgins dropped the sea-chest by way of final punctuation and scratched his ginger sideburns with a tobacco-stained finger.
John laughed around the queasiness in his throat. Higgins made an unusual fairy gomother, to be sure, but it was true. Assigned to him as a sea-daddy on his first ship, set by the captain to teach the infant young gentleman the ropes—and to make sure he was not too homesick, too lonely, or too much picked on—Higgins had been with him ever since. Now he couldn’t even say “I was trying to keep you safe, you fool,” without spreading rumors he did not need the rest of the crew to hear.
“Not a very good joke, I’m afraid,” he said instead. “I’m sorry Higgins. I’m glad you’re here. See what you can do to sort this mess out, would you? I’m going for the tour.”
Choosing not to notice the Master retching into a bucket as he passed, John paced the length of the gun-deck. Lighting the lantern he had taken from the midshipmen’s berth, he descended to the lightless lowest deck, past the carpenter’s workroom and the gunner’s stores, and so back again to the grated area where the anchor cables were laid to dry. Trying to calm his mind, he strode out nervous and filled with a lightning of energy he had to out-walk before he could think.
On the cable tier, absolute darkness pressed inwards around the circle of his light. Water trickled, glistening, down the
Meteor
’s flexing sides, the sound of it sweet in the silences between waves. A stench came from the hold, seeping up through the holes of the deck. Below the latticework of planks on which he stood, the ballast of gravel below stirred with a great hiss, like the tide rolling over a beach. Not all the anxiety in the world could prevent him from making a note to order the pumps set working at once.
Around him, on either side, the anchor cables lay coiled, water dripping from them, falling as an indoor rain through the gratings to join the water in the hold beneath his feet. Footsteps knocked on the deck above him, but down here the dark, quiet, and solitude calmed him. Breathing in, he sighed, the spring of his anger easing enough to allow thought. It was too early to despair. Somehow, he would complete this mission and return as the hero Saunders described. Or at the least, he would complete the mission while keeping his crew alive, from the old lady to the youngest powder monkey. Here in this waiting space, this space between worlds, as he thought of it, it was easier to believe.
Straightening his back even further, an ache like a fist between his shoulder blades, he picked his way back through the coils of hawser. They rose like cliffs on either side and, as he walked, his lantern light mingled with a growing brown gloom that spilled in from the doorway. There, in the narrow gap between John and the main companionway, stood the volunteer—
Lieutenant Donwell,
he reminded himself from the orders—with his wig off and his bold eyes glimmering gold as John raised his lantern to look at him. Walking forward, John expected the man to yield, to step back and let him out. Mere inches separated them by the time it dawned on him that Donwell was not going to move. Confusion striking through him, he pulled himself back from a collision only just in time. The skirts of their coats brushed, sending a jolt of invasion through him from thigh to shoulders.
What the devil
?
His mouth dried as a wave of prickly embarrassment swept over him, bringing guilt in its wake. Yet what had
he
done wrong? It was Donwell who should flinch, who should feel guilty,
who should not be smiling so!
John could not wrench his gaze away from Donwell’s face. Limned with gold, it was perfectly nondescript; round, pleasant, and completely lacking in self-conscious guilt. Donwell’s mouth quirked up at one side into a slow, charming smile. And his presence! It was extraordinary. It beat on John’s skin like strong sunshine. He fought the urge to close his eyes and bathe in it. His pulse picked up, waiting, waiting for something....
Returning sanity hit him in the face. He snapped, “Get out of my way! Don’t you know who I am?”
Donwell’s smile only broadened. John thought the man would at least salute, but he just passed a hand through the loose blond curls of his hair and stepped away. “I’d know you anywhere, sir.”
“I’ll have a little more respect from you in future, Mister.”
“You may have whatever you like.”
Speech deserted John once more. Aware he should act now to regain the initiative, he had no idea what to do. Instead he pushed past, feeling the man’s gaze on the back of his neck like warm breath, and tried to tell himself that he made a dignified exit. But if the truth be told it was a flight, spooked as a partridge from the covert.

Having gone to ground in his cabin, where—his writing slope on top of a couple of casks and a plank—he was trying to come to terms with the endless paperwork, John looked up, glad for the interruption. Glad for a second chance to establish his authority—to do this
right
this time. When he saw Lieutenant Donwell standing entirely too close, sleeves rolled up to bare tarsmudged forearms, he did not wait to wonder why it was hard to draw breath, but raised an eyebrow. “Did your last captain have a lax attitude towards dress, Mr. Donwell? Because I do not. Nor do I consider it appropriate for you to enter my cabin uninvited.”

Donwell duly straightened up, rolled his sleeves down and said, “My apologies, Captain,” in an unruffled, cheerful tone. John noticed that he had not been mistaken in his first impression. The young man’s healthy vigor seemed to radiate from him like warmth from a fire.

“But is there nothing you want, sir?” Donwell asked with a wry, friendly grin.
John set down his quill, flipped the top of his inkwell closed, and rose to meet the smile as if it was a challenge. It must
be
a challenge of some sort, even a threat, for some of the exaltation of battle—a death or glory brilliance—colored his reaction as he replied. “I assure you I am not without a servant, Mr. Donwell. If you can curb your sudden desire to be my steward, I suggest you go about your business.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Bowing with an easy, indolent grace, Donwell turned away and shut the door behind him as he left.
Walking over to the stern gallery, John looked out into a black night that turned the glass into a wall of mirrors. Rather than lose his troubles out there on the waves, he found himself gazing at a floating lighted image of himself and the captain’s cabin around him. It seemed appropriate. His thoughts too, searching for inspiration, kept being flung back upon themselves as if by a wall of mirrors. There had been such a comfort, in many previous tight spots, to firmly believe that his captain had a plan. He wondered if, each of those times, the captain had in reality felt like this: paralyzed by responsibility and doubt.
Returning to the desk, he gathered the papers into a bundle, tapped their edges together and stowed them in the slope, before pulling out his personal journal. The cane seat of his chair sagged beneath him, half the latticework cut away by a pike, but he perched on the edge, dipped his quill and wrote:

If ever a man needed divine guidance, I am he. It matters not in the great scheme of things, I know, if this small vessel never returns from Algiers. If she is sunk, it will serve the Admiralty’s purpose well enough. But it will not serve mine. There must be some means to accomplish this task without the loss of any of the lives that have been given into my care. I will strive with all my might to find that means, and I pray that God will deliver us all from the mouth of Leviathan.

Dipping the quill again, he watched the excess ink bulge into a droplet and splash into the inkwell, tempted to write nothing more. But he must not be a coward.

What is it in me that makes the nearer problem seem so much the sharper? I find myself grateful to Mr. Donwell. His unaccountable behavior occupies my mind and drives out thoughts of the future. I am mystified by it, and yet strangely comforted. Do I take him into my confidence? I would welcome a friend’s counsel. But how can I call him anything of the sort, while his actions dance on the very edge of insubordination?

Closing the book, he tucked it into his pocket, took down the lantern that swung overhead, and ducked into the tiny cubbyhole to starboard that was his sleeping cabin. The wind was blowing about four knots, beautifully steady just abaft the beam, and the newly renamed
Meteor
murmured in return. Her creak of ropes and timbers had a cadence specific to herself and John listened to her voice with proprietary interest, learning what she sounded like when she was running sweetly happy before a fair wind.

If he strained his ears he could also hear the far off sounds of the men of the Royal Ordnance Corps, keeping themselves to themselves, somewhere beyond where the wardroom would be. But the wardroom itself was hollow and silent as a grave.

Perhaps, with only the warrant officers for company—on this ship as disagreeable a set of swabs as ever struggled up through the hawse hole—Donwell was just lonely. Perhaps he had sensed John’s preoccupation, and sought only to encourage him to speak? Or perhaps he thought himself better suited for captaincy, and was testing how far he could go before John would punish him.
Bucks vying for territory, heads dipped and antlers locked, testing one another’s strength? If that is the case, let him watch himself.
John would not stand for that.

Yet… yet it was also possible that John was making too much of simple friendliness.
And at this moment he had a great need of a friend.

Alfie Donwell reported for his watch just as the sun came up. The bell sounded out, sweet and forlorn, ringing across the deep water of the Bay of Biscay, and the midshipman on the quarterdeck stifled a yawn as he saluted.

“Nothing to report, sir. No sail sighted. Wind’s held steady all night.”
They stood in silence, watching as the sun’s early rays made the sea at the edge of the world glow green. The thankless to and fro of patrolling the French coast lay forgotten behind them, and Alfie smiled as he looked up at the headsails, pointing like arrows toward a new horizon.
“Very well then. Goodnight, Armitage.”
The boy favored him with a look of disapproval, as if to say that whether he had a good night or not was none of Alfie’s business. But he rubbed a hand over his pimply chin and gave a grudging, “Night, Sir,” before departing to his hammock in the solitary splendor of a midshipman’s berth that contained only himself.
Armitage’s surliness did nothing to dampen Alfie’s mood. It might be his general contrariness, but he liked the foreign-made
Meteor
with her bow-heavy mortars and her awkward aftstepped masts. While he was aware that below decks men from ten different ships were eyeing each other speculatively, not knowing what to expect, he rather liked that too. Better than being trapped in a regime of singular cruelty. There was time yet for hope, time to set an example of kindliness and expect it to be followed. Alfie knew that his own preference—formed by his first captain—was for a style of command so unique he could not hope to meet it anywhere else in life. But still, Cavendish did not seem the sort of man to stamp on every spark of life, as long as the job was being done.
He had them throw the log, measured off speed and time and wind direction, penciling in the dead reckoning, to be checked by noon observation, and thought about the captain.
John Cavendish!
Everything from his name on down was elegant. Unhappy with the tight discipline, the unbending rigidity and the lack of respect for the men on his own ship, Alfie might have volunteered for service on the
Meteor
anyway, but once he had seen its captain to be, they could not have paid him to stay away.
Oh true, I am an abomination, a sinner, a boil on the backside of polite society, but is it any of their business? And how could any of them find it in themselves to rebuke me? Have they not seen the man?
With his classical Greek looks, the wing-like black brows over pewter eyes that he kept narrowed, and the pale scar that glimmered on his left cheek, as if to make the point that this was a fighting man’s beauty, not that of a fop. With his posture and his well bred nerves and that slight uncertainty that just begged to be taken advantage of....
If there was a man in the world who could look at that and not be stirred, well, Alfie felt sorry for him, his must be a poor life.
But how to act, now he’d seen what he wanted? Checking the compass again, he had a word with the steersman, who admitted to being grudgingly pleased with her lack of leeway. Then he leaned on the rail and devoted himself to wondering what he ought to do now.
It would have helped had he been a man of some grand accomplishment—handsome as the devil, powerful as the First Sea Lord, influential as an Earl with a father in Parliament and a brother the archbishop of Canterbury. But he was not. An old country lawyer’s son with nothing more to his name than his seachest, he would have to do this the way he did everything—by hard work and charm.
Yet it’s sheer folly to try at all
. All the men of his persuasion Alfie had ever known—bar one—insisted it was too dangerous to try anything at sea. An unspeakable vice carried on in the dark could protect itself, to a certain extent, by the willingness of the respectable not to speak of it. But when it began to show in one’s daily actions, one’s choices and career, it had an unpleasant habit of becoming visible enough to condemn.
Even Alfie—the kind of man who would take a lit candle into the powder magazine, confident in his natural invulnerability— found himself unwilling to risk everything on unsupported desire. But, he smiled into the rising sun, remembering that moment down on the cable tier, his desire
had
support. What devil had got into him then, urging him to press his suit so early, he didn’t know. He snorted in soft laughter at the line of foam curling away from the
Meteor
’s plunging bow.
Now that is not true, Alfie. It was the same devil as always—your own damned impulsiveness. One of these days it will get you hanged.
Still, thank God he had yielded to it in this instance. For the world had seemed to stop around them both, drawing in to intimate solitude, while Cavendish stood, dazed by his resistance, lips slightly parted and breathing hard, exactly like a man expecting—hoping—to be kissed.
Alfie re-lived that moment on a regular basis, taking the step, pulling the captain close by his lapels, making him drop the lantern in shock and kissing him there in the utter dark until he stopped struggling and started begging for more.
Only dreams, of course. In truth, if Cavendish had rebuked him then, and really sounded like he meant it, that would have been the last of it. Even on Alfie’s reckless nature, the threat of the noose worked a certain restraint. But he saw neither revulsion, nor anger, nor even indifference. When he ducked into cover beyond the door, let down the shutters on his dark lantern and looked back, concealed, he had seen—just for one instant— Cavendish’s fierce expression melt into a puzzled smile, and his long, slim fingers reach up to adjust the bow in his hair, even as his worried frown returned.
So, not disgust by any means.
Alfie rather thought it was innocence. The innocence of a man who did not know what had just happened, but who liked it nevertheless. Doubtless Cavendish thought of inverts as mincing, womanish creatures, easy to spot by their affected gestures and foppish clothes. Really the broadsheets with their satires of the “third sex” formed an honest sod’s best defense. No one expected it, Alfie smiled wryly, in so bluff and manly a chap as himself.
But it did add a hundredfold to the difficulties of courtship. Though Alfie very much hoped to be the one who turned Cavendish’s naivety into experience, who showed him what his nature clearly yearned for, it would take gentle handling and a great deal more caution than came naturally, if he was not to go too far too early, and altogether frighten the captain away.