Stephanie Barron: Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House

“Have you no word of a ship?” I enquired.

Frank's eyes slid towards mine and were as quickly averted. More than any gentleman in my circle, Frank is incapable of deceit. He must look conscious when he should prefer to be inscrutable.

“You have heard something!” I seized his arm. “It is intelligence of a ship that takes you to Portsmouth, and not 'concern for an old friend' as you would have Mary believe. Why have you said nothing of your prospects at home?”

“Because I cannot be easy in the subject,” he replied. “You know very well, Jane, that dear Mary is as solicitous for my credit as any woman — but she cannot like the idea of my putting to sea when she is so near her time. Indeed, I cannot like it myself.”

It was true — the birth of Frank's child was barely two months off; and as it was Mary's first lying-in, and the young woman's apprehension of childbed exceedingly great, he should have been a monster to wish for a ship at such a time. Yet he did wish it. A man's heart may yearn for what his sensibility would disdain.

“Mary talks of nothing but fast frigates,” I observed. “She is as zealous on your behalf — as buoyed by hope at the slightest portent of Admiralty favour — as any midshipman preparing to pass for lieutenant But I shall undertake to conceal your prospects from her, if only you would impart a tenth of the whole to me.”

“Mary is an angel,” Frank returned with fervour, “but had I suspected, Jane, how much my affections for my wife would anchor me to shore — how little I should like my duty when it must come — how torn in my soul I should feel at the prospect of embarking — I declare I should have remained single to the end of my days, and suffered less in regret than I do presently in indecision.”

“Naturally you must feel it so,” I observed. “Any man would say the same — though I speak only of such men as have hearts. But consider, my dear, how little service you should do your wife by remaining fixed at her side. Such a position cannot advance your career or the prospects for your family. You must return to active service. Mary will agree. Was it not just such an eventuality that urged you to secure your sisters as companions for your wife? You have done the utmost to ensure her comfort, and must be satisfied. Now tell me of this ship you believe may offer.”

The hoy surged over the crest of a precipitous wave and flung itself into the gulley beyond; I clutched inadvertently at the bow, salt spume in my face, and felt my brother's shoulder brush close against my own. Gosport was now hard off the larboard side, and the white-painted houses of the Isle of Wight, clearly discernible. We should be anchoring in Portsmouth harbour soon.

“She is a fifth-rate,” Frank said low in my ear, “forty-eight guns, and new-built but six years ago: the frigate Stella Marts. I have seen her some once or twice, coming out of the Rock, or putting in at Malta. Perfect lines! Built for speed. So maneuverable and sure at coming about, that she has taken French prizes that ought to have out-gunned her. The better part of her seamen are rated Able, and she boasts some first-class gunnery.”.

A frigate. The very thing for Fly. Having served so long in a ship of the line, as Flag-Captain under an admiral, my brother, I thought, deserved to cut a dash. Every young buck of spirit craved a fast frigate. They were the eyes of the fleet — they fought the majority of single-vessel actions — they were despatched at a moment's notice to every corner of the globe. Frigate captains were the pirates of the Royal Navy: seizing enemy ships, flying into guarded ports on midnight raids, convoying merchantmen at the behest of the Honourable Company, and culling a share of Bombay profits as a result.

“On which station does she sail?” I enquired.

“The Channel. I should never be farther than a few days from home, should I be wanted.”

I raised my hands as though in applause — or prayer. I could no more suppress my delight than I could stifle hope. “The very thing! How could we wish for anything better! You shall make your fortune, Fly, as many a worse fellow has done before you!”

The sun shone briefly in my brother's countenance; then a shadow crossed his face once more, and all light wasextinguished. “I have not told you the worst, Jane,” he informed me heavily. “There is the matter of Tom Seagrave.”

“Tom Seagrave?” I furled my brows with effort. “I do notrecollect the name.”

“He is a post captain like myself,” Frank replied, “but well before our elevation, we shared a berth as Volunteers on the Perseverance. By the time I was made midshipman, Tom had already passed for lieutenant; I served under him on the Minerva. There is no one like the fellow for dash, and bravery — he has always been called 'Lucky Tom Seagrave' in the Navy for the number of prizes he has taken. But luck, Jane, has very little to do with Tom's career. He has more pluck at the bone than most squadrons put together, a fighting captain for whom the men would die.”

Frank had never been a man to flatter or praise where praise was not due; I must take it, then, that Captain Seagrave was a paragon of naval virtue. And yet I read trouble in my brother's looks.

“And what has your old friend to do with the Stella Marts, Fly?”

“He is her captain.”

“Her captain? But I thought the ship was to be given to you”

Frank's grey eyes were bleak. “And so it may. Tom Seagrave is presently in Portsmouth awaiting court-martial, Jane. He is charged under Article Nine of the Articles of War.”

I waited mutely for explanation.

“Article Nine states that no enemy officer or seaman is to be stripped of his possessions or abused in any way, when an enemy ship is taken,” Frank said carefully. “Some few weeks since, Seagrave fell in with the Manon, a French thirty-two-gun frigate, just off Corunna. He engaged her; the Manon returned his fire gallantly; but the sum of it is, her mainmast was carried away and she struck her colours after a matter of an hour.”

“Well, then!” I cried. “There can be nothing shameful in such a victory, surely!”

My brother's countenance remained set “The French captain suffered a mortal wound, Jane— after the Manon had struck and the fellow had surrendered his sword. Seagrave is charged with murder.”

“But why?” I gasped. “The Admiralty cannot believe he would kill a defenceless officer in cold blood! What reason could he find?”

The master of the hoy called harshly to his mate, and Frank's eyes shifted immediately to the sails. The canvas had slackened; the vessel had slowed. A massive three-decker, a first-rate by its gun-ports, was anchored to starboard with an admiral's white flag at the mizzen; we had achieved Portsmouth harbour.

“You see my dilemma, Jane.” Frank's voice was barely audible over the cries of sailors skimming across the water from ship to ship. “You see why I make no mention of my prospects at home. It is a damnable bargain! I may have my frigate with the Admiralty's blessing—”

“—provided your old friend hangs,” I concluded.

23 February 1807, cont.

PORTSMOUTH IS A SAD PLACE IN THE ESTIMATION OF those who look only for beauty in a landscape; it offers no grandeur in its edifices, no promenades worth speaking of, no sweep of land that might draw the approving eye. It is a town of tight and jogging lanes quite crammed into the east side of a horseshoe, whose western leg is Gosport; a small ell of a place enclosing a secure harbour, with the deep-water anchorage of Spit-head immediately across the Solent. The landward side of town is girdled with drawbridges and moats, the fortifications deemed vital to the preservation of the Kingdom's naval stores; but the effect must suggest a medieval fortress, it confirms the desperate activity of war and frowns upon frivolity. The commercial streets do nothing to soften so martial an aspect — Portsmouth's shops are schooled to the business of ships, the men who command them and the men who build them.