Jane Feather - Violet

She'd learned in her first hour that the starboard side of the quarterdeck was holy ground, the captain's preserve, to be entered only on invitation. Lord St. Simon, however, seemed to have a standing invitation. In the orderly quiet of midmorning at sea, the two men were talking together at the starboard rail; the marine sentry turned the hourglass at the half hour and struck three bells to signal the third half-hour of the watch. A bosun's whistle thrilled, and a trio of midshipmen jumped for the rigging, scrambling up into the shrouds and racing each other along the ratlines to the masthead some hundred feet above.

Tamsyn's toes curled in her boots as she craned her neck to watch them enviously. The view must be spectacular from the top, and it didn't look that hard. If she took off her skirt…

“Don't even consider it.”

“Oh!” She spun round to find Julian regarding her, his heavy-lidded eyes shrewd and for once amused. It wasn't the first time he'd second-guessed her. “How could you possibly know what I was thinking?”

He gave her a lazy smile. “Believe me, buttercup, there are times when I can read you like a book.”

“Oh, don't call me that,” she said crossly.

He laughed. There was something about the beauty of the morning that for the moment eroded his bitterness. He didn't attempt to examine whether Tamsyn's own brand of beauty on this gorgeous day could have contributed to his general sense of well-being. “It's hard to resist when the sun's shining on your hair.” He ran a flat palm over the top of her head. “When I was a boy, the village girls used to hold buttercups under their chins on May Day. And if the golden glow was reflected, it was said they'd find a lover before the day was out.”

Tamsyn wondered why he had so suddenly lost his stiffness. He leaned on the port rail beside her, gazing out to sea, his demeanor relaxed and friendly. Tamsyn continued to watch the boys in the rigging, swinging like monkeys from shroud to shroud, but her mind was on her uncooperative body. She didn't feel any different, but that didn't mean anything. And what in the name of grace was she going to do if she was pregnant?

Julian glanced sideways at her, feeling the tension in the slight frame. “What's troubling you?” He told himself he couldn't care less, but he asked the question anyway.

Tamsyn met his eye for a second before turning back to watch the game in the rigging. “I'm just tired of twiddling my thumbs when I could be up there, or doing something useful.”

The fib convinced him, as she'd expected it would. It was only half a fib, anyway. “You put one little toe on that rigging, my friend, and our contract is broken… finished, permanently. Understand?”

“You are, as always, perfectly lucid,” she said, for once glad that they were quarrelling.

“I do my best,” he said acidly. He was about to return to the captain's side when a voice bellowed from the masthead.

“Sail ahead, sir. Three points on the starboard bow.” Hugo raised his glass, gazing across the flat expanse of ocean. He could just make out her royals on the horizon. “Send the signal midshipman up to the topmast, Mr. Connaught.” His voice was quiet and without a hint of the exhilaration ripping through him. “I want an identification.”

“Aye, sir.”

The ferment on the ship was palpable, and yet it evinced itself in no sudden sounds or movements, only in a watchful silence. The hands on deck had moved to the rails, the bosuns stood with their pipes ready, every eye was on the horizon, every ear waiting for the midshipman to identify the ship's flags.

The lad's voice drifted down, shaky with nervous excitement. “It's flying the Frenchie flag sir. I'll lay odds.”

“I don't want a wager, Mr. Grantly, I want facts.” The captain’s voice cut like a diamond through glass.

“Crowd sail, Mr. Connaught. Let's see if we can help the young gentleman by getting closer.”

The bosuns' pipes shrilled and the ship was abruptly galvanized. Tamsyn watched, fascinated, as men swarmed like flies over the rigging, and sail after sail was unfurled until the Isabelle surged forward under full canvas.

“It is, sir. It's flying French colors,” the young gentleman at the topmast yelled, almost falling off his perch in his excitement.

“Good. Break out the American flag, Mr. Connaught. We'll confuse 'em a bit.” He turned to Julian, standing discreetly at his side. “Fancy the prospect of a fight, St. Simon?”

Julian's smile was answer enough. He watched as they pulled down the English flag and ran up the American colors in its place. It was a standard deception; only the distress flag was sacrosanct. They would break out their true colors at the last possible minute as a declaration of battle.

“Beat to quarters, Mr. Harris.”

The bosun's pipe shrilled and the call resounded, “All hands on deck.”

Tamsyn's blood stirred with excitement as the watch below came thundering on deck, rubbing sleep from their eyes in some cases. The mass of men-too many, it sometimes seemed, for such a small space-surged in a tidal wave of what to an observer looked like confusion but which quickly came clear as an orderly swoop to their fixed places. Then a great silence fell over the ship, every man at his place, only the creak of the rigging as the Isabelle sped across the water.

Gabriel appeared beside Tamsyn, his face grim.

“Those Froggies take one look at that treasure, little girl, and that's the last we'll see of it.”

“They'd have to win first, Gabriel, and somehow I don't think Captain Lattimer intends to lose this battle prize,” Tamsyn said, unable to hide her own thrill.

Gabriel grunted and drew his broadsword, holding it up to the light. He spat on the blade and polished it with his kerchief before thrusting it back into its sheath.

“Clear for action, Mr. Connaught.” Captain Lattimer’s voice was as quiet and controlled as ever, but there was a gleeful light in the bright-green eyes, a light reflected in the colonel's equally bright-blue orbs. “But keep the marines out of sight for the time being. Their scarlet coats are a giveaway.” He glanced sideways at the colonel, who with a grin shrugged out of his own scarlet tunic.

The decks were swabbed and scattered thick with sand. The guns were run out in a silence as smooth as silk. Cannon balls, chain shot, and canister shot were assembled. The six-man gun crews stood to their guns, the surgeon and his mates retreated to the cockpit, setting out their instruments on the midshipmen's trunks that served as a makeshift operating table.

“The lass had better go below,” Hugo said to the colonel, indicating Tamsyn, still standing rapt at the port rail.

“I'll leave you to give the order, then,” Julian said with a dour smile. “She's a warrior; she won't go easily.”

Hugo frowned, staring at the figure standing against the far rail, her feet apart, braced comfortably against the pitch of the deck, her head held high, the wind lifting her short hair. Currents of energy seemed to flow from her.

Tamsyn felt his eyes upon her and boldly crossed the small space. “You wanted to speak to me, Captain.”

“I was contemplating sending you below. The deck of a frigate in the midst of battle is no place for a lass.”

“Maybe not, sir.” She returned his gaze steadily, knowing that the captain's word was law on this ship. If he ordered her below, she'd have no choice but to obey. At least initially. Once the action began, she'd be able to return and no one would notice.

“But I doubt you'd stay there,” he said pensively, and then laughed at the shock in her eyes. “That was what you were thinking?”

“Yes,” she agreed in chagrin.

“I suppose I could have you battened down in the hold for the duration,” he mused. “What's you opinion, Colonel?”

“It's your command, Captain,” Julian said formally. “I wouldn't presume to offer an opinion.”

Tamsyn had the unmistakable feeling that the two men were making game of her, yet they both looked as solemn as deacons.

“Well, on your own head be it,” Captain Lattimer said. “But if you get in the way, lass, I'll have you carried below bodily by a marine.”

“You don't have to worry about that,” Tamsyn said with as much dignity as she could muster, and returned to her post.

The French ship grew on the horizon, taking shape as a square-rigged frigate. Hugo knew the Isabelle would be under scrutiny from the French quarterdeck. They'd see the American colors, which would confuse them for a while. America was on the verge of declaring war with England and was no enemy of the French. But they'd also see she was cleared for action. It would puzzle them, but for how long? Long enough to allow the Isabelle to draw close enough to fire the first broadside?

They were about a mile apart now. “Bring her round six points to starboard, Mr. Harris,” he instructed the master navigator at the helm, his voice sounding loud in the expectant silence. The Isabelle swung round slowly so that her starboard side faced the French ship.

And then the French seemed to understand. Wild activity erupted on her decks as she cleared for action, the snub-nosed guns appearing in the gunports.

“All right, Mr. Connaught,” Hugo said softly.

The English flag broke out at the Isabelle's masthead. “Fire, Mr. Connaught.”

THE MASSIVE POWER Of THE lSABELLE's STARBOARD GUNS exploded in a noise more terrifying than Tamsyn could ever have imagined. The broadside raked the length of the French ship, and she saw rigging flung loose and a great hole appearing above the waterline as the smoke cleared. Screams filled the air, and then there was another massive bellow as the French returned the broadside. Tamsyn stared in horror down into the waist of the ship, where a cannon ball had exploded, sending up a shower of deadly splinters into the nearby gun crews. Then she was running down the gangway, unhooking her skirt as she did so, leaping into the confusion.

The lieutenants at the guns were bellowing their orders to the gun crews, struggling to make themselves heard above the screams of the wounded. The Isabelle's starboard guns fired again, and she swung slowly round to bring her port guns into play while the starboard rushed to reload.

A powder monkey hurtled past Tamsyn, his arms full of the lethal cartridges of gunpowder that had to be brought from the handling chambers, where they were kept well away from the guns until needed. A flying splinter lodged into his cheek, and he dropped his precarious load to the deck.

A bosun's mate raced for him, swinging his rope's end, screaming like a banshee. The lad curled, sobbing, on the deck, blood pouring from his eye. Tamsyn bent, gathered up his cartridges, and ran for the nearest gun, handing the gunpowder to the fifth crewman, whose face was already blackened with smoke. The lieutenant in charge of the gun cast her one astonished glance and then forgot all about the unorthodox powder monkey, giving the order to tilt the gun so they could fire a round of chain shot into the enemy rigging.

Tamsyn, grimly recognizing that she had a useful part to play, ran back, down into the bowels of the ship, along the narrow gangways, scrambling down the steep companionways leading from deck to deck, into the handling chamber, where she loaded up with more cartridges and repeated her journey.

The noise was so deafening now, it was as if it lived in her head. She couldn't separate its different components, but sometimes the screams became discrete sounds. One minute a man was standing upright beside her; the next he was writhing at her feet, both legs vanished in a crushed tangle of flesh and sinew, and the sounds of his agony pierced her through and through.

She dropped to her knees beside him, helpless and yet unable to abandon him in such hideous pain, but someone said roughly, “For God's sake, get that bleedin' shot to number-six gun,” and she was up and running, closing her nose to the nauseating stench of burning pitch from the surgeon's cockpit as he amputated with the speed of a butcher, cauterizing each stump with the pitch before moving on to the next victim.

Her foot slipped in a pool of blood as she delivered her load, and she grabbed wildly, catching the skirt of the lieutenant's coat. He stared at her, then clipped, “Sand!”

She understood and ran for the barrel of sand in the corner, flinging it over the deck in great handfuls to soak up the blood. Again and again the guns spoke, and she dodged and whirled and ducked as she ran. Whenever she had a chance to look over at the French ship, it seemed to have lost more spars and rigging, and yet they fought on, her guns bringing a devastating sweep of death and ghastly injury to the Isabelle's crew.