The Survivor (10 page)

“Come on then, James, you’ll join us, surely.” Mr. Garrett waved him into the house.

James stood for a moment and then turned to look up. “I’m sorry, sir, but they need me back at the mill. I’d better get going.”

“Come come, James,” William muttered, clapping his hand on Billy’s shoulder as he came in the door. “Surely they’d give you time for a cuppa tea before you left. I’ll see if I can rustle up someone with a horse to take you back. Young Billy’s here has had his fill for the moment, I’m sure. Just give us time.”

“Time is what I don’t have, sir,” said James. “But thank you kindly, and please tell the missus I’m very grateful for the invitation. But I will be back to see Ben, of course. Make sure he knows he’s not forgotten. Next Sunday for sure.” And James turned away, wondering how he would endure that next Sunday being close to Catherine and yet knowing so much more about the dreadful future to which she had been condemned.

And then, with anguish in his soul, he forced himself to turn away and set off at a gentle trot which he could keep up for hours on end. Had he looked back, he would have seen in the eyes of Joseph, and John, and indeed their father pausing in his doorway, a look of admiration that was clear to behold.

Chapter Eleven

Three Sundays later after supper, the Garretts with their special guest, James, and their adopted orphan, Ben, pushed back their chairs and came to sit round the great stone fireplace. Dusk was approaching; this first week in September, temperatures had begun to drop and the evenings were chill enough that the fire provided a comfort. The two oldest brothers had gone off with a caution from their father to be sure and stay away from the demon rum. He would check their breath on re-entering, and severe would be his punishment for any who transgressed.

They had persuaded James to stay, an exception for him. Last week when he had come to see Ben, he had left before supper, unable to put himself through the pain of being with Catherine. But this Sunday, he had gotten so caught up teaching Ben arithmetic in his upstairs room, he hadn’t noticed the hour. Too late to extricate himself without appearing rude, he had accepted.

No sooner had they settled themselves than William, his eyes shrewdly staring over half lenses, peered at James. “Well, James, the whole of New Carlisle has been talking about ye.”

James lifted his eyes. “Really sir? How so?”

Mrs. Garrett gave a laugh. “Now come, James, surely you’ve heard. Everyone is quite in awe of how you came to save little Benigno’s life.”

“Who?” asked James. “Is that his real name?”

“Yes. He’s Portuguese, it appears, poor little lad.”

“Aye, you showed fortitude and coolness under fire, young man. Deserving of a medal, if this were Ticonderoga.” William grinned at his own reference to the last battle he had been in.

“Oh no, it was nothing. Really.”

“Come along, James, you’re among friends,” William prodded. “I have no doubt you learned all that in the Navy.”

“Well, I suppose, in part, sir.” He had studiously avoided looking at Catherine all evening, and now she was making it difficult, sitting right across from him, hands folded in her lap, watching his every move.

“You must’ve seen action, m’boy, when ye were aboard that ship, what was it called?”

“We called it the
Billy Ruffian
, sir, but her proper name was the
Bellerophon
.”

“Ah yes, lot o’ talk of the
Bellerophon
these weeks,” William replied. “Oh yes? How so?”

“Well, you must know she carried the Emperor Napoleon back to England this July.”

James turned pale, and remained motionless. “The Emperor Napoleon. Sir, I don’t quite understand. We beat him?”

“Aye, mighty Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo, and you fellows at sea, finally, we had him blockaded and cornered in the Bay of Biscay. He went and gave himself up, aye, he did that. The
Bellerophon
took him to good old England, him and his bloody lot of Frenchmen.”

“But this is most astonishing, sir. What happened when they got to England?”

“No news yet. Only just happened, y’see. July.” James could hardly contain his thoughts. Ever since the Battle of the Glorious First of June in 1794, Napoleon had been their enemy and their quarry. The
Bellerophon
had been ordered into the Baltic Sea because all the great pine for navy spars and the tar came through Baltic ports which the French had been blockading. James had also spent a couple of years cruising the coast of France, trying to hem in the French fleet. And he’d lived through harsh battles, the greatest being Alexandria and Trafalgar, and survived. It quite took the wind out of his sails, as the saying goes, to find out that England was no longer at war. “And I missed being there to see all that? The Emperor himself!”

“Aye. Would you like to be back in the Service, then?”

“Oh no sir, not for a moment. But still, it must have been a thrilling experience for my shipmates. After all the fighting they’ve seen, with him and his ships.”

“Aye, it would that. So you’ve seen some battles, have ye?”

“Well sir, I suppose I have...” James could see what William was getting at, and he was not at all sure he wanted to open up those old wounds.

“Now come on laddie, don’t be shy. You know a lot about naval warfare, I warrant.”

“Well, a little, sir,” said James modestly. He avoided looking at the two women who were watching keenly. “Go on.”

“Well, I suppose the worst battle I’ve been in,” he said, “was off the Coast of Spain. Whenever I think of my time in the Navy, that’s about what I remember: Trafalgar. In that battle, our ship took a proper beating. And now they picked her to transfer the Emperor himself!” James shook his head.

“Quite a time ago though, them battles?”

“Seems like yesterday, sir. In Alexandria, 1798, fifty-seven dead, one hundred and thirty-eight wounded. We had to be towed back to England for repairs.”

“The
Bellerophon
beaten by a French fleet.” William blew out smoke in a snort and leaned forward.

“Oh no, our Navy beat them finally, sir, but —”

“How come, if you lot had to be towed home?”

“Well, we had ten ships of the line to their thirteen, they outnumbered us, but…,” he paused. No harm in telling his side of the story; it might help him get it out of his system forever. “The French fleet were anchored in Aboukir Bay and Admiral Nelson gave the orders, and with our wind aft, we sailed right for them, in a single file.”

“And you right up there on deck?”

“Oh no sir, my main station was a gun deck. 32s. I had command of seven. Twenty-eight in all.”

“What’s a 32?” Catherine asked.

“It fires thirty-two-pound shot,” he replied, without looking at her. “But the explosions were still deafening. On the deck above, that’s our 18s, another twentyeight, which fire eighteen-pound shot. Each cannon needs lots of men — not counting the lads who run up and down with the powder. You see,” he said, warming to the tale, “you’ve got to drop in the powder, and then the heavy shot, stog the wad with a great ramrod, draw the gun up to the gunport, light the touchhole, lots going on.”

“How exciting!”

“Well, exciting till you get in a fight, ma’am. Then...” James trailed off, finding himself disturbed at the visions that arose before him.

“Then what?” Catherine asked.

“Leave him be, Catherine,” her mother urged.

“No, she’s right to ask. You’re all correct to want to know. It’s terrible. War. Battles. Mr. Garrett knows. The carnage is just...” James went on in a low voice. “Men working next to me were blown to smithereens. Bits of arm, legs, brains spewed out. Blood running down the deck. Shrapnel, splinters from the wood, it wreaks havoc with your flesh, you bleed even when you don’t feel it.” He lapsed into silence, before clearing his throat and going on. “You see, we were drawn up right against
l’Orient
— the biggest French ship, double the firepower — and she just towered above us. Her marines, posted high up the mizzen and main mast platforms, they just raked our decks with firepower. And their cannonry, they had one hundred and twenty-four guns to our seventy-four, and heavier, it was awful. Booming explosions, smoke everywhere, and dark too, deafening, but we kept on firing! They poured it on, and so did we. Not sure how or why the Good Lord spared me. But I shall never forget... one of my gunners.” He didn’t raise his head, but stared fixedly at the floor, missing the looks of dismay on Eleanor and Catherine’s faces.

“Our captain, Darby, he was hit early, knocked unconscious, the first mate Lt. Daniel, he was killed, London, the Second Officer, and Fourth and Fifth Lieutenants, all dead. I remember at Trafalgar, Wemyss, the Marine Captain, he had his leg blown off. He said, ‘A mere scratch! I apologize for having left the deck on such a trifling occasion,’ or something like that. Imagine. He died right after.

“Discipline, we worked hard, we worked well, the men were just amazing, you know, unbelievable how they kept going, so many of their mates beside them cut to pieces.” He warmed to the subject. “A fire was started on our lower deck, right near the powder room. You know what that means? One of my gunners got a bunch of men together, and they worked the hand pump to put it out — Captain himself didn’t even know, nor anyone on the top deck. Cause a panic if they knew beforehand. Y’see, we’d been enmeshed with
l’Orient,
and a fire started on her, too, blazing high, we all saw it, we tried to get free but our mizzen mast had fallen, then our main, so we strung up our jib, and just managed with a bit of wind to haul away.

“And then, my God, up that ship went, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything like it, lit up the whole sky, a noise you cannot imagine, the whole ship, sailors and all, blown to hell. We’d made it just in time. Otherwise we’d all have gone sky high with them, the whole bloody lot of us. But of course, though we were saved, the
Billy Ruffian
didn’t fare so well. Blood running everywhere, our guns were thrown off their carriages, gunners cut into pieces, all at night too, just a few lanterns, no good really, and bright flashes of the guns, dead dragged out of the way so we could keep going... deafening noise, our cannon and theirs, all going off together.”

“But did you beat them, finally?”

“Oh yes sir, we licked them. The fleet did. Us, we were drifting, pretty helpless at the end, highest casualties in the battle, too,” he said, with a touch of pride, but also with a deep sorrow as it all rolled over him once again. “I have no desire to boast, but it was well said that the coolness and efficiency of the British sailor under fire allowed us to snatch our victory.”

“But your gunner, you were telling us,” Catherine asked.

“Oh yes. There was a tremendous noise — part of the gun port was torn away just as we fired. I heard through the smoke and chaos, a cry, and when I could see, one of my gunners, my favourite, actually, he was lying back, dead, I thought. Where his left arm had been... just a mangled stump. Pouring blood.

“I grabbed him up, ordered the rest to keep firing and, as someone who could be spared — you need all the crew to fire — and half carried, half dragged him down to the cockpit, that’s where we Middies slept: our Surgeon, Dr. Bellamy, had made it into his surgery, below the water line. Covered our table with a sheet.

“My gunner came to in my arms, but I could tell he wasn’t fully conscious, his eyes flickering, his blood running over both of us. I tried to clutch his arm in a way that would stop the bleeding. Please, I prayed, please let him live. But I knew that although my Maker had been very good at answering every prayer, this was one he would be hard put to grant.

“‘You’re going to be fine,’ I told him, as we started down the companionway. ‘Lots of sailors have only one arm, don’t worry. You’ll be taken for our good Admiral Nelson, you watch!’ As you may know, our commander had lost his arm in the battle at Tenerife. ‘We’ll get you to the sawbones, and he’ll make you right as rain.’ I knew that Dr. Bellamy would have to perform a miracle, but then, they do happen, don’t they?

“At any rate, I laid him on the sacking outside the surgery with half a dozen others, all shot in so many ways, blood running everywhere.” James stopped as he saw the alarm in the ladies’ eyes. “I’m sorry, but you see, it’s like that, war, it’s terrible. And our ships, being of wood, the spray of splinters does something terrible to you, tearing off the skin, and knocking you about.”

“And you’ve had your share of splinters, I suppose?” added William.

“Oh yes, Mr. Garrett sir, that I have.” James grinned sheepishly, and went on, “Well, I was trying not to listen to the screams that came from behind the surgery door — not hard with the noise of our cannon, and the French right up against us, that did us a service by muffling those poor wretches who were on their way to heaven, and of course, it was hard to see, all at night, with all the powder and smoke...”

The two women were spellbound and William stared fixedly at the floor, pausing every so often to take a meditative puff. Was he thinking of the same sort of scenes at his own past battles, James wondered. Is my story bringing back images he would rather forget? “Anyway, I hurried into the surgery. ‘Beg pardon, sir, we have a man who —’ “‘I know, I know, I have seven waiting, and more every minute,’ the surgeon told me. ‘I’m doing my best. Here, cut this sheet into four, give it back to me, see if you can take one and use it as a tourniquet. Then you’ll have to cauterize him. I’ll supervise.’