Under Enemy Colors (58 page)

“Thank you, sir,” Hayden said, some little feeling creeping into his voice.

“I’m not in the habit of apologizing, Mr Hayden…”

That unwavering, disinterested gaze fell upon him and Hayden mumbled something he hoped was polite.

He was on the street in a moment and almost run down by a hackney coach the next, such was his distraction. He almost sprinted the distance to his inn. A quick note to Mrs Hertle, sharing the news, and asking that she remember him to both Robert and Henrietta. A second to Wickham’s father, regretting that he must quit London by the morning mail coach. A missive to his prize agents, alerting them to his new stature, followed by a letter of gratitude to Philip Stephens, and, finally, a letter bearing the good news to his mother, which would not be read for some weeks.

The carriage ride to Plymouth was oddly solitary, as the others stationed outside with him were all strangers one to the other and little given to speech. He missed Wickham’s voluble presence, and in this forced reflection traversed an emotional landscape almost as varied as the terrain through which the mail coach passed. He was, for a time, elated at his good fortune. Master and commander at last! And then he felt a sudden deflation, realizing that others of similar length of service had command of post ships, and this chariness caused a certain disgust with himself, his ingratitude to the world revealing his overweening pride.

He would then turn from this to the subject of Henrietta. For a time he would believe that she cared for him still and that their understanding must surpass any small hesitation upon his part. Surely she would realize that they had, in truth, spent little time together—too little for either of them to enter into a plan to marry. Her common sense and reason, he told himself, were too great to mistake his intentions. Half an hour later, however, he was sunk in misery at his own folly, convinced that she felt he had rebuffed her when she had given him every opportunity to speak. He imagined her now the object of some gentleman of large property and even greater understanding. It occurred to him that he would be very unlikely to meet a woman more suited to his temperament. He would then enumerate her many qualities, a considerable list, only to increase his misery tenfold.

Thus passed the thirty-six hours of his journey to Plymouth.

Upon his arrival, he learned that his new command had not yet reached port, and he took a room overlooking the sound, still too excited to feel much disappointment. He sent a note to Lady Hertle, and received in return an invitation to visit.

At four o’clock he knocked on her door and was shown up to the drawing room, where he found Lady Hertle swathed in a thick shawl and huddled near to the hearth. She greeted him with great affection, and called for coffee.

“I hope you will pardon me, Mr Hayden, I have been beset by an autumnal cold and am only now on the mend. Henrietta has caught it from me and is abed with it yet.”

“Miss Henrietta…is here?”

“She set out for Plymouth some few days ago upon learning I was ill, dear girl.” She shook her head gently. “As if I had not had a cold before. I am not so old and fragile that a sniffle will put me in my grave. She attended me dutifully, and now her good deed has been repaid by contracting the same illness that she so ably nursed me through. Poor child.” From a table, Lady Hertle retrieved a carefully folded letter. “Henrietta asked me give you this, Mr Hayden, when she learned you were coming to visit.” Lady Hertle rose stiffly. “You might read it, if you like. I must excuse myself a moment.”

Hayden was left alone, and had just broken the seal on Henrietta’s letter, when he heard footsteps. Looking up, he was met by the sight of a pale, unhappy-looking Henrietta Carthew, eyes red and puffy, the fingers of her right hand kneading a handkerchief.

“Miss Henrietta,” Hayden said, rising from his chair. “I am so terribly sorry to find you ailing.”

“A trifle, Mr Hayden. Hardly worthy of notice.” Her eyes travelled to the letter he held. “You have read my letter?”

Seeing in her what he thought could be only extreme distress, a sudden dread came over him. “I have but broken the seal.”

She came quickly forward, extending a hand, which trembled ever so slightly. “May I ask the great favour of returning my letter, unread, Mr Hayden? I fear I wrote it in a distressed state of mind, and it is a foolish letter, describing perceptions that were fleeting and perhaps groundless.”

Hayden offered up the letter immediately, which she all but snatched from his hand. She then sat down quickly and covered her face with delicate hands, the letter still caught in her fingers and rustling faintly.

“I have caused you distress, I fear.” Hayden sat down on the same sofa, half-turned toward her.

She shook her head, and then whispered. “It is just this wretched cold. It has deprived me of sleep and frayed my nerves.” She dabbed her eyes with a hanky, and forced herself to sit up. “I’m recovered,” she lied, and tried to smile.

Hayden glanced at the door, expecting Lady Hertle to return at any time.

There was a moment of indecision, his breath suddenly absent. Then he recognized his hesitation and resolved to overcome it at last. “Not knowing the content of your letter, I trust to your good nature to stop me if what I say is rendered senseless by what you have written.”

But Henrietta raised her hand, gazing into his eyes as she did so, an anxious, questioning look upon her face. “I suspect you have received as much ‘advice’ from Robert, and perhaps others as well, as I have from dear Elizabeth and my other cousins. All well-meaning, I am sure, but we must find our own way through this. That is what I have realized.”

Hayden sat back a little, nodding his head. “Yes, Robert told me that I must doubt my attachment as I did not speak when last you were in Plymouth, but I do not doubt it. I have not spoken becau—”

“Because you are not ready,” she said, placing a hand upon his chest and then quickly drawing it away. “Our acquaintance has been brief and I do not want you to speak until you are certain. I do not care what Elizabeth and Robert think. What do they know of our hearts?”

“Yes. Yes, exactly so. Then my hesitation has not injured you?”

“I was told it should. For a time I even half-believed it, but no, I think you were right. I should like to know you better, as well. Just because two people are good and kind does not mean they will make a success of life together. It is a great decision and we may make it in our own time.”

“I cannot tell you how relieved I am to hear you say this. When you fled Plymouth, I believed…” but Hayden was not sure what he meant to say and fell silent.

Henrietta reached out shyly and touched his hand. “You need say no more. We are of one mind in this. Are we not?”

“Entirely of one mind.”

She smiled, and for an instant her small illness was banished. And then…she sneezed. “Is this not romantic? Just like a novel? The heroine shivering with fever, eyes puffy, her voice reduced to a vulgar croak?”

With mock delicacy, she applied a hanky to her nose, and then laughed. Again she touched his hand. “I am content to be patient, as long as I know I have not lost your attentions altogether.”

“I am as fascinated by you as ever, and that is saying a great deal.” Hayden raised her hand to his lips.

“Lieutenant Hayden! You take great liberties.”

“But I am lieutenant no longer. I have been made master and commander, given a ship, and upon my quarterdeck I shall be called ‘Captain.’”

She smiled again. “Captain Hayden,” she pronounced, as though appraising the sound of it. “Did I not predict this happy event?”

Hayden had forgotten. “Indeed, you did. And what do you predict today, I wonder?”

“I shall not press my luck in this. The gods might feel I have over-stepped myself as oracle. No, I predict nothing. I will be patient and see what comes. To learn that my friends were wrong, as I knew in my heart they were, is enough.”

They were silent a moment, sitting near to one another on the sofa. “But I do not wish to contemplate too much on the future,” Henrietta said thoughtfully. “Even when it turns out happily it is seldom what one expects.”

“That is true.”

“You see? We
are
of one mind.”

Hayden could not help but smile, he felt so thoroughly content, joy coursing through him like a great sea. “Now let us discover if we are of one heart.”

“Yes,” she murmured, “let us discover that.”

The War of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars have been fodder for novelists from the outset, and novels set in the British Navy of that era have long been a species of their own. If anyone can lay claim to having invented the type, it would likely be Frederick Marryat (whose books appeared between 1829 and 1847). His novels were immensely popular and surprisingly highly regarded; he counted Dickens among his fans. Marryat actually served in the Royal Navy during the period, so we must assume he got the details right, although with the caveat that “realism” as a literary movement was still many years in the future.

To set off into these same waters is to invite comparison, if not accusations of imitation. It can’t be helped. Reviews of the early Patrick O’Brian novels compared them to C. S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower books and generally found Jack Aubrey came off second.

People always want to know, when reading a historical novel, what part is fact and what part is fiction. If the novel, as has been said, is about
truth
rather than
fact
, I think the question should be asked, “What part is fact and what part truth?”

As to the facts, in writing
Under Enemy Colors
, I made every attempt to get the history right, to be accurate regarding the details, and to recreate the atmosphere to the best of my ability. In this I have been much aided by having spent most of my life by the water (I grew up in a house on a beach) and having sailed for thirty-five years. I am not, however, a trained historian. I am a novelist and I’m sure I have made some mistakes. My apologies to the experts among you.

Almost all the main characters are fictional, with the exception of the First Secretary of the Navy, Philip Stephens (later Sir Philip). Various historical personages are referred to but do not appear (Admiral Howe and Tom Paine, for instance). None of the fictional characters are based on specific historical figures, though I must say that Captain Bourne was influenced by the many great frigate captains of the era, Henry Black-wood being my personal favorite. All of the events could have happened, and in some cases similar events did happen. The characters in this book were so numerous that I reduced the size of the gunroom mess to essential members, which meant as important a figure as the purser was never seen. If I have taken some liberties with historical detail, it is in the court-martial, where accuracy has been slightly compromised for dramatic reasons. In every other way, I have tried to make the book as authentic as available resources would allow.

The
Themis
is a fictional ship and conforms to no class of frigate, though she would have been similar to the
Pallas
class. In fact, her existence in 1793 is slightly problematic, as the first eighteen-pounder thirty-twos (to the best of my knowledge) were not commissioned until 1794. I thought Captain Hart would have a thirty-two-gun frigate, because he had too much influence to be sent into a twelve-pounder twenty-eight, but his detractors would have prevented him from being given a larger thirty-six-or thirty-eight-gun frigate. The thirty-two seemed to suit him perfectly, and I wanted a battery of eighteen-pound guns so that she could feasibly take on the larger French frigates. Thus the
Themis
was slightly ahead of her time.

One of the things that always astonishes me when I’m watching a film that involves a sailing ship is how the captain orders a course change and the helmsman simply spins the wheel and off they go in a new direction. As anyone who sails knows, virtually every time you change course you trim your sails. Unless you are sailing in the trades or the westerlies, winds have a frustrating habit of varying, often in both direction and strength (in truth, they can do this in belts of “constant” winds too). I remember a day when a friend and I set out to sail back to our home-harbor—an easy day’s sail. We began the morning wearing bathing suits and sunglasses, with a lovely fair wind from the north-west. Sixteen hours later, in a howling southeast gale, we tied up at the dock wearing, beneath our foul-weather gear, every piece of clothing we had aboard. In between we’d had wind from all points of the compass. We’d been becalmed, drenched in a deluge, and chilled to the bone. We changed our headsail so often that I lost count and reefed and shook reefs out of the main over and over. Imagine how much sail-handling that would have meant aboard a square-rigged ship? You might have noticed, in this book, that, unless following a change of wind, every time the course was altered, sails were trimmed and yards shifted.

So much for the facts. As to the truth, well, everything that is not fact is my attempt to reach the truth.

For devotees of Laurence Sterne, yes, it’s true, Griffiths’ rant against the lack of originality in books is taken almost word for word from Sterne’s
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
, but in Griffiths’ defense, the brilliantly comic Sterne stole it from Burton’s
Anatomy of Melancholy
. Sterne’s book, and his theft from Burton, would have been well known to readers of that time, though apparently none of Griffiths’ supper companions caught the reference.

Anyone interested in reading more about the British Navy in this era is in luck, as a little industry has sprung up publishing books to fill that need. I highly recommend Brian Lavery’s
Nelson’s Navy
, John Harland’s
Seamanship in the Age of Sail
, and the nautical dictionary titled
The Sailor’s Word-book
, for starters. If these three books do not satisfy your hunger, not to worry, there is a veritable feast of titles out there waiting for you.

Will there be another novel following the career of Charles Saunders Hayden? One is in the works. And yes, Mr. Barthe should reappear, as well as Wickham, Griffiths, Hawthorne, and various others from the cruise of the
Themis
. Look for Mr. Hayden’s new vessel to heave into view sometime in 2009.

Oh, and by the way, the scientific name for the Sardinian warbler is
Sylvia melanocephala. Scorbutus cani
, the name given by Hayden in the novel, translates roughly as “scurvy dog.” Hayden, apparently, thought himself a wit.

S.T.R.
British Columbia
February 2007