Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Ghosts of Netley

I gathered the black cloth in my hands without argument, and consigned my poor boots to the deep. The shock of cold was as nothing to the tug of the current, and for an instant, I was terrified of being borne under, and of drowning in three feet of water from the weight of my clothes. But Mr. Hawkins reached a steadying hand to my elbow, and urged me forward. I bit my lip to avoid crying out, and kept my gaze trained on the hoy as it steadily approached. A sailor, red-faced and bearded, leaned forward from the bow.

“Ye blow a fair whistle,” he said. “That’s a navy man’s tune.”

“Aye, and I’ve the right to play it,” Mr. Hawkins returned testily. “I’m Jeb Hawkins, as once tanned yer backside on the Queen Anne, Davy Thomas — and how you can forget it—”

“Jeb Hawkins!” the sailor cried, and held out his hand. “How came you to be run aground?”

“My skiff was stolen, and the lady here incommoded.”

The cold seawater surging about my knees was so frigid at that moment, my teeth were clattering in my head, and I could barely acknowledge the sailor’s look of appraisal.

“Stolen?” he repeated. “And you marooned an’ all?”

“Davy Thomas!” shouted the captain from the cockpit, “stop yer palaverin’ and say what’s to-do!”

“A lady and the Bosun’s Mate as have had their boat stolen, Cap’n, sir,” Thomas replied with alacrity.

“They be marooned!”

“A lady?” enquired a third — and far more cultured voice. “Then for God’s sake, man — swing her aboard!”

I raised my eyes to the centre of the vessel, where a quartet of passengers was seated. A young woman with round blue eyes that stared at me in horrified astonishment, a nursemaid in a dowdy cap, a child of less than two — and a man in the dress uniform of the Royal Navy.

“ Fly? ” I cried in astonishment — and dropped my skirts in the water.

1 November 1808, cont.

“Whatever are we to tell Mamma, Jane?” my brother exclaimed as Mr. Hawkins and I settled ourselves amidships, snug in a pair of blankets afforded us by the hoy’s captain. Frank’s wife, Mary, was divided between wringing my gown of seawater, and murmuring vague phrases of sympathy. “She shall be forced to lock you in your bedchamber, if you do not display more sense.”

“What has sense to do with it, Fly? We did not in- tend to be marooned!”

“Nor did you intend to fall off your horse — but the injury was as severe.”

“I cannot think your decision to land in so lonely a place was wise,” Mary ventured doubtfully. “What possessed you to choose that isolated stretch of shingle?”

A glance at Mr. Hawkins confirmed that he had no intention of rescuing me from my predicament; the old seaman was sunk in black anger at the loss of his skiff.

“I have lately acquired a taste for sketching,” I told them lamely. “I thought to capture the prospect of. . of Hythe, just opposite, by setting up my easel in that exact spot.”

As there was nothing very extraordinary in the stretch of shore across the Water, my brother should well look perplexed.

“Mr. Hawkins was so kind as to oblige me, by putting me off at the desired point; but once we had landed, and walked a little way to determine the most advantageous position — we returned to find that the boat, along with my nuncheon, paintbox, and sketching things, had been seized by an unknown!”

“That is worrisome in the extreme,” Frank said heavily.

I stared at him. “What can you mean? It is decidedly vexing — and I regret the loss of Mr. Hawkins’s boat, not to mention Cassandra’s paintbox—”

“Jane, have you heard nothing of the news out of Portsmouth?”

“I have not.”

He glanced at his wife, whose eyes filled with tears.

“We suffered an extraordinary attack in the early hours of morning. All of Portsmouth is in disarray.”

“The naval yard?” I demanded. “Was another ship fired?”

“Much worse, I fear,” he said glumly. “The prison hulks, moored off Spithead, were liberated by a means no one may comprehend. With my own eyes, Jane, I saw the riot of French ranks — hundreds of the inmates, swarming over the decks. The crews of two hulks at least were murdered as they stood. Captain Blackstone is believed dead, though his body has not yet been recovered — it is thought that it was heaved overboard when the hulks were fired—”

“Good God! To consider such a scene!”

“It was dreadful,” Mary muttered in a choked voice. “Beyond the power of words to describe. We saw the flames throughout the night, and Frank would not stay, but must hurry to the aid of those who fought the fires. He was gone well past dawn, Jane, and I could not sleep for fearing—”

He laid his hand over hers, and she bowed her head to his shoulder. “I determined to carry Mary and the child to Southampton this morning, to remain in Mamma’s care until Portsmouth is deemed safe.”

“Are the prospects so very bad, Frank?”

“Do not ask me to describe what I saw last night,” my brother said harshly. “It defied even my worst experience of battle. In war, one expects devastation — one meets it with a certain fortitude — but to affix the horrors of engagement upon a well-loved scene, familiar through years of association—”

Years, indeed. It was at the Royal Naval College in Portsmouth that Frank had learned his love of the sea, at the tender age of twelve. He had been hauling or dropping anchor in those waters all his life.

“But did no one witness the fiend who sparked so grave a crime?” I enquired.

“That is the question that must consume us all! I should have said an army was required to liberate those hulks—”

“Not a bit of it,” spat Jeb Hawkins. “At dead o’night, when the crews are settin’ skeleton watch? All that’s needful is one greased monkey lithe enough to climb up through the chains — slit a throat or two on the quiet, like — and pilfer the guard’s keys. Then you’ve an entire hulk what’s crying for blood and freedom, and the monkey’s off about his business on the next scow down the line.”

My brother frowned, and might have hurled a biting retort — for in his eyes, the pride and vigilance of the Royal Navy required an enemy legion, to suffer such an ignominious action. I grasped his wrist, however, to forestall dispute.

“What of the prisoners now?” I enquired. “Have any been recovered?”

He shook his head. “Too many slipped unnoticed into the darkness, Jane. We feared for the fate of several ships of the line, moored likewise in Spithead, and subject to the ravages of fire, to spare much effort in pursuing the French. It is a heavy business, to protect a fighting vessel from its own stores of gunpowder. We are lucky that none of them exploded last night, and in an instant set off all the others!”

If you commanded the direction of Enemy forces... where next should you aim your imps of Hell?

It was as Lord Harold had predicted. So much of chaos, and of death, in the wee hours; a strike unlooked-for, despite the Navy’s vigilance. The liberation of the hulks should bring in its train a creeping fear, that not even His Majesty’s strongest ports could be defended against an enemy as clever as it was insidious.

Did his lordship know already what had occurred? Word should have been sent along the Navy signal lines, from Portsmouth to the Admiralty, as soon as the dawn had broken. That the evil had occurred in Lord Harold’s absence — when Orlando should unaccountably be silenced — when Mrs. Challoner entertained a party of friends in seeming innocence, and balls of light flared at midnight from the Abbey walls—