Rondo Allegro (34 page)

The captain was thus in profile to Anna, the strong morning
sun outlining his face. Her attention was caught by the shadows emphasizing the
strong line of his cheeks, the severe lips as he peered at the land so far
away.

The sun lit the tips of his lashes, turning them to gold.

She looked away, to hide the cascade of sensation in her
heart. She knew this sensation, as if a rose inside her had softly unfurled a
petal. She had rejoiced in this feeling once, with Auguste, and as a result was
nearly burnt to death. She had begun to feel it with Jean-Baptiste Marsac, who
had betrayed her.

Captain Duncannon was no mad chasseur, and no smiling
traitor like Marsac. He was a good man, so far as she had seen, but she had
also seen just as clearly that he had no use for women. No use for her. This
ship was his life, and she would soon be off it.

So she must simply keep out of his way, before the rose
could unfold and dig its thorns into her heart. She laid the hat in her lap,
debating whether to go below and work on it, or remain there until the sun was
too high and strong, but then a man called from on high, “On deck! Signals!”

Jones, the signal midshipman, dashed by, and Anna listened
as the sailors and officers exchanged quick, cryptic remarks, everyone gazing
off in one direction. “It’s the
Euryalus
,”
came Mr. Jones’s excited voice as he dashed up to the captain to salute. “Sir,
Euryalus
signals, ‘Enemy have tops’ls
hoisted.’”

“They’re coming out!” Mr. Bradshaw shouted, and then looked
aghast at his captain.

Duncannon’s mouth twitched, but he did not move from his
position. After a long breath, he said, “Mr. Bradshaw, I commend your
enthusiasm, but perhaps you may put your enthusiasm to use at the
foremast-head. You may watch the shore, and as you do, contemplate the matter
of ship discipline.”

Anna looked after the crimson-faced Bradshaw as he scrambled
upward into the complication of ropes and sails, vanishing from sight. Everyone
straightened up, alert, their smiles reminding Anna uncomfortably of the
similar looks on the faces of the chasseurs when they came over the lip of the
stage and stampeded to the back of the theater. It was anticipation of game,
dangerous game.

She picked up her pile of sennit, carefully folded her
half-plaited brim, and retreated to her cabin. Parrette was there, hanging
chemises on a line across the cabin to dry in the air from the open stern
windows.

“What is it?” she asked when she saw Anna’s face.

“They received a signal, something about certain sails. I
think it must mean something dire.”

Parrette gave a short nod. “One cannot disturb the officers
at their duty, but I can ask below.” She whisked herself out, and returned
almost immediately with Michel, who glanced at the line of washing, blushed,
then turned his back on it.

He ducked his head in an awkward bow to Anna, and then,
crushing his cap in his hands, said, “It means the French are coming out. I
will tell you as soon as I know more.”

“Good,” Parrette said, and Michel ducked again and took his
leave.

An hour, two, three passed. Anna forced herself to return to
her task, though at first her fingers trembled. Every time she heard feet
running about on the deck she braced for the terrible sound of cannon.

Michel reappeared in the early afternoon. “The admiral has
given orders for a general chase to the south-east.”

“Does that mean there will be battle?” Parrette asked.

Michel’s thin lips curled. He looked very like his mother in
that moment. “First we have to see ’em. I have to go. Gates will want me by.”

Anna and Parrette were left staring at one another. Anna
forced herself to sit down again, and resume her hat, carefully tightening each
strand as if she could weave order into the world.

She assumed she must stay in her cabin, and was surprised
when the steward Perkins scratched to invite her to dinner. She touched her
hair and straightened her sash, and walked out to discover all the officers
waiting, lieutenants, marines, and midshipmen.

Today, she was placed at the foot of the table. Though the
gentlemen scrupulously saluted her as hostess, that was the last time she had
any part of their attention.

They talked nothing but war: Nelson’s daring plan of attack,
who had the honor of following
Victory
and
Neptune
, where the frigates would
be stationed; what the French might do first, Villeneuve’s terrible record of
battles, and Gravina’s good one. What if the weather turned bad? There were
signs of storms ahead.

Voices sharper, eyes brighter, laughter loud enough to hurt
her ears, they were all excited. Captain Duncannon, sitting opposite her at the
other end of the long table, smiled genially, looking more like a young man of twenty
than a man near thirty as he toasted, and laughed.

It was a relief when it was over, and the captain remembered
her at last, inviting her to take a turn on the deck.

Here, she was surprised to find the entire ship’s company
present. There would be no music; most of the sailors not actually tending the
ship sat about chipping and knocking at round, evil-looking balls of iron. The
deck sounded like a demented band of tinkers as rust and bumps were smoothed
off the cannon balls as lovingly as if they made pieces of art.

She encountered Mr. Leuven standing with a knot of warrant
officers with their spyglasses, staring at the coast in spite of the sun still
being relatively high in the sky. He approached her to initiate a conversation
in Italian about the expected triumph and glory to come. From the scornful
glances of the older midshipmen, it appeared that this obviously rehearsed
speech had not impressed them the way it was intended.

When they returned to duty, she passed along the gangway,
stepping aside for a party of sailors carrying a long worm of rolled sail.

Forward of the mainmast, a young gunner’s mate smiled at her
as he passed a ball back and forth between his hands, his fingers gently
fingering the ball for smoothness. She smiled back, unable to comprehend the
good will here—good will about something that was deliberately intended to be
lethal to the unseen French and Spanish sailors, who were without a doubt
employed the very same way aboard their ships.

She paused at the ladder to the upper deck, caught by the
sight of the captain standing on his quarterdeck as the rising wind rippled
through his blue coat and tousled his brown hair. He moved with easy grace as
the ship slanted upward and plunged through the mounting waves, sending
splashes high to each side. He did not see her, that she was certain of. His
mind was on another plane altogether, alert and intense, perhaps bordering
somewhere on happiness. She knew that plane—it was the same one her mind went
to when she first trod to her place as the orchestra tuned their instruments
and the stage hands held the curtain pulls, waiting for the signal. But though
an opera performance might depict war and tragedy, everyone knew he or she
would rise again when the curtain fell: it was art.

Did the captain think war was art? It was strange that he
should seem so pleased at the prospect of the ship surging straight toward the
terrible cannon of the enemy.

She turned away, slipped below, and abandoned plaiting, as
it gave her too much occasion to think and to worry. She picked up the book she
had tried so many times to begin, and concentrated upon it until her eyes
burned with tiredness.

o0o

Her sleep was restless, partly from apprehensive dreams,
but also from an unaccustomed violent sway of her hanging bed. She woke to a
gray world: sky, sea, and bands of thick rain.

“They have lost sight of the French,” Parrette said abruptly
when she appeared with Anna’s tea. “I am also to warn you that when the orders
come, they will be striking down our cabin. Our trunks are to go in the hold
with the rest of the captain’s things.”

Anna set her cup down. Her stomach had closed. “Perhaps I
had better wear my sturdiest travel gown.”

Parrette said, “I am of the same mind.” She moved about in
the little space, busy straightening, patting, and tucking.

Anna, knowing her well, sensed that there was something
else. “What is it?”

Parrette turned. “I learned in the gunroom that I am
expected to aid the surgeon. Women are put to work as nurses. You are the
captain’s lady, so no one will say anything unless the captain does.”

“And yet, I think it is expected of me, too,” she said,
remembering Nelson’s horrible words about knives, so kindly spoken. “I will
request an interview with the surgeon. It will give me something to do. This waiting
is terrible.”

“Fighting,” Parrette said in French, low and rough, “will be
worse.”

There was no answer to be made to that.

Anna quickly finished the dish of burgoo. She heard no
noises from the other side of the bulkheads, surmising that Captain Duncannon
had been on deck since the very early hours.

Parrette went ahead, having become acquainted with Mr.
Leuven senior after taking meals in the gunroom. She returned soon and led Anna
to the lower deck, all the way forward to the dark, dank, stuffy area where the
surgeon worked. Little air made it through the gratings this low in the ship.

Mr. Leuven waited in the low-ceilinged space, his head bent,
for he was a tall man. All around the perimeter narrow pallets had been set out
below a few hammocks. Central was a table, with instruments lying at one end.
Steel instruments, the sight of which caused Anna’s stomach to churn. The
closeness of the room was not helped by the heavy scent of spirits. Was the surgeon
drunk?

“Mrs. Duncannon,” Mr. Leuven said, his pouchy eyes alert.
“Mrs. Duflot.” A gnarled hand swept in a circle. “I thank you heartily. Here is
our action-station once they beat to quarters. Permit me to explain my system,
my own system.”

He pointed out the bandages, the needles for sewing, and
rested his hand on a barrel. “I am not a certificated physician, but I have
been practicing surgery upwards of thirty years. You may leave the surgery to
me and my mates. If we get anyone coming below, they come quick, especially if
the enemy uses canister or chain-shot. But even a ball making a shrewd strike
will send splinters flying.”

He raised his palm upward. “You know that the sick berth is
on the deck above us, starboard side. But you will not be carrying. If the men
are not ambulatory, we set them in the cable tiers until we can shift them to
the sick berth.”

Anna found her mouth was dry. She looked away from the cold
steel instruments waiting on the surgeon’s chest, and the row of bottles.

The surgeon, catching the direction of her glance, said, “We
will not be concerning ourselves with physic, or the usual run of diseases
exhibited by seamen. It will be torn flesh, not diseased, that will be our
concern. And I have a singular practice, not at all accepted among my
colleagues, but one day I hope to publish my treatise. What I do have is
experience.”

He tapped the barrel. “The men know my method. In here is
the finest whiskey. The men will beg or plead for it. Seamen in battle long to
get drunk, or they will insist they require its medicinal properties. There are
no internal medicinal properties. It is all external: that is, when properly
exhibited in a severe wound, it acts upon the nerves in the exact same way as a
cauterizing fire. The sensation is burning. But the flesh is not burned. You
will put a dose of this into each wound before wrapping it.”

“Spirits, in wounds, Mr. Leuven?” Parrette asked. “Not lint?
How does more liquid sop up the blood?”

“Spirits, sew, wrap,” the surgeon repeated doggedly, as if
he had held this argument many times before. As indeed he had. His manner
convinced his listeners that he was not to be moved from this strange course,
and as neither Anna nor Parrette knew much of nursing, he was able to go on.
“We save the powder of basilicum for superficial wounds. Use the lint if we run
out of powder. You can see.” He lifted the tightly fitted lid on a wooden
bucket. “I am very careful where I get it. There are quacks and cranks a-many
out there who will sell you powder of lead instead, they will practice upon the
gullible, and so I am careful. We have thus not been able to fill it. Gibraltar
runs low as soon as they acquire it.”

He took in the wary disbelief in the women’s faces, their
tight mouths as they looked at his barrel. “Five and thirty years have I
practiced,” Mr. Leuven said. “It was an old infantryman when I was a lad, who
told me yarns about his mates dousing their wounds with wine and spirits during
the campaigns on the colonies, the War of Jenkins’ Ear. He was much scarred,
but had all his limbs. When I experimented, I discovered that his tales were
largely true. I have since then been formulating my theory . . .”

While he went on in exhaustive detail to the silent women,
in the cabin, the captain was finishing a consultation with the gunner and
bosun. Lt. Sayers paused in the open door, and on being beckoned in, listened
to the last of it.

The bosun and carpenter having been dismissed, Lt. Sayers
said, “We have hawsers laid along, against the wind freshening.”

Captain Duncannon replied, “The signal midshipman just
reported:
Euryalus
has spotted the
French again. They are indeed out.”

On receiving the captain’s nod, Sayers slid his hand into
his coat, and withdrew a sealed letter. With no more than a heightened color,
the lieutenant said, “You have my letter to my father, still.” On receiving another
nod and a gesture toward the locked desk, he continued. “If it becomes—if it is
necessary, would you do me the honor of seeing that this also goes out?”

Captain Duncannon accepted the letter, glanced at the
direction, and recognized the name of Lt. Sayers’ betrothed. “I pray that it
does not come to this, but you have my promise.”