Sails on the Horizon: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars by Jay Worrall

Author:Jay Worrall [Worrall, Jay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: _NB_fixed, bookos, Historical, Naval - 18th century - Fiction, Sea Stories, _rt_yes, Fiction
ISBN: 9781588365149
Google: c79WMtHAa8kC
Amazon: 0345476484
Publisher: Random House LLC
Published: 2006-04-11T04:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

CHARLES EDGEMONT CLIMBED DOWN FROM THE COACH onto the worn cobbled surface of Millbay Road outside Plymouth early in the evening, bone-tired after the long, jolting trip from Cheshire and grateful to have his feet on solid ground. Daniel Bevan, Stephen Winchester, and Timothy Attwater descended next, Bevan stretching languorously while Winchester went to help Attwater as their luggage was passed down. Plymouth had been the home port for the old Argonaut and Jervis’s Mediterranean fleet, and all the men knew its haunts well. “It’s good to be home,” Bevan said, yawning and rubbing his backside. “By Christ, I’m glad to be out of that carriage. Those things’ll kill you. Rattled to death, the papers will say.”

Charles smiled in response while he looked up and down the street. Something was out of place and for a moment he couldn’t put his finger on it. Then it came to him: While the street was not completely deserted, he saw few of the warrants, commissioned officers, and other naval personnel that normally crowded the street sides and walkways. There was a very small number of ships in the usually crowded naval anchorage in the Hamoaze, most of them, judging by the state of their rigging, undergoing refit or repair.

“Look at that,” Bevan said, directing his attention to two seventy-fours with full sets of sail rounding Devil’s Point in succession on their way to the sound and the open sea. “Now that’s beauty. Forget women—give me a ship of the line any day.”

“You don’t believe that,” Charles said with a laugh.

“Well, no,” Bevan allowed, scratching at the stubble in his chin. “I only said it in case some admiral might be listening.”

Charles ran his palm across the stubble on his own cheeks. They had been two days in the coach and he was torn between the desire for a hot meal and a soft bed, or going out to see his new ship. A gravelly voice sounded at his elbow: “Tuppence to tote yer bag, Cap’n?”

He turned and saw a wiry one-armed man with a wheelbarrow standing beside him. The man had rigged a rope around the barrow’s handles so he could lift it with his shoulders and steer it with his remaining arm. He knuckled his forehead as soon as Charles’s eyes settled on him. He wore a golden earring and his hair was tied in a queue behind his head, which marked him as a veteran seaman. Charles noticed that there were about a half-dozen men with wheelbarrows or handcarts standing nearby. All of them were disfigured or maimed in some way. “I want to go to my ship,” he said, coming to a decision. “There’s a half-crown for you if you can find a carriage to take us there.”

“And what ship would that be, sur?”

“The frigate Louisa.”

“Ah,” the porter said meaningfully. “I thought it might be something like that. Ye’ll be her new captain, I’ll wager. I heard ol’ Jervie smiles on you ’cus of what ye did at St. Vincent.

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