Alexander Kent: For My Country’s Freedom

Avery held her more tightly. She had often asked him about Catherine, what she did, how she spoke with him, how she dressed. He stroked the drab clothing his sister had worn throughout his visit.

Once he had mentioned Catherine when Ethel’s husband had been in the room. He had snapped in his reedy voice, "A godless woman! I’ll not hear her name in my house!"

Avery had retorted, "I thought this was one of God’s houses, sir."

They had not spoken since. That was why he had quit the vicarage early, he supposed, so that they would not have to lie to one another with brotherly farewells.

All at once Avery needed to leave. "I’ll tell the carter to go now. I shall walk to the stage." Once he would have avoided walking in the streets. Although a county town, it was usually sprinkled with sea officers. Dorchester was a popular place for naval families to buy houses, being within easy reach of Weymouth Bay, Portland and Lyme. He had seen too many such officers cross the road to avoid him when he had been recovering from his wound and awaiting a court martial.

Being with Bolitho had changed all that. But it will never change my feelings towards them.

He embraced her again and felt her tired body against his. Where had the young girl gone?

"I’ll send money, Ethel." He felt her nod, too choked by tears to speak. "The war will be over soon. I’ll be on the beach then." He thought of Bolitho’s calm acceptance of his situation, what Allday had told him about his damaged eye, what the confidence had cost him. At least I could be in no better company.

Down those so-familiar stairs, bare-boarded to avoid waste, as the vicar had put it. Avery had noticed, however, that he kept a very good cellar. Past the room where his father had begun his education. At any other time the reminiscence would have made him smile. How Yovell had immediately accepted him in their little crew because he could speak and write Latin. Strange how, indirectly, that ability had saved the life of Rear-Admiral Herrick, Bolitho’s friend.

He said, "The roads should be better now. I’ll be in Falmouth the day after tomorrow."

She looked up at him and he thought he saw the young girl watching him through the mask.

"I’m so proud of you, George." She wiped her face with her apron. "You’ll never know how much!"

Out on the street the carter took his money and touched his hat to the vicar’s wife.

Then they kissed. Afterwards as he walked through the market Avery recalled it with distress. She had kissed him like a woman, perhaps one who had only just remembered how it could have been.

At the corner of the street he saw the coach with its Royal Mail insignia standing by the inn. Its shafts were empty of horses but servants were already making luggage fast on the roof.

He turned and looked back at the street where he had grown up, but she had disappeared.

Two midshipmen on some mission or other passed him, doffing their hats in salute. Avery did not even notice them.

The knowledge hit him like a blow. He was never going to see her again.

John Allday paused in tamping tobacco into one of his long pipes, and, without lighting it, walked to the inn door.

For a long moment he looked up at the bright new sign, swinging now in the breeze. Although he could not see the Channel from here, he could picture it without effort. The wind had backed a piece since morning, and the tide would be on the ebb. He could see Falmouth, too, in his thoughts: ships shortening their cables, waiting to weigh and take advantage of wind and tide. Men-of-war, although not too many of them; the famous Falmouth packets; fishermen and lobster boats. He would get used to it. I must. He heard the solitary chime of the tiny parish church. His eyes softened. Where he and Unis had been wed just over two months back. He had never known such warmth, such unexpected love. He had always had an eye for "a pretty craft," as he had put it on occasions, but Unis had surpassed them all.

The men would be leaving the fields soon; it was still dark too early to work long hours.

He heard Unis’s brother, another John, preparing tankards and moving benches, the thud of his wooden leg marking his progress around the parlour. A fine man, an ex-soldier from the old 31st Foot, the Huntingdonshires. It was good to know he had his cottage next door to the inn, and would be able to help Unis when he was back at sea.

Her ladyship had ridden all the way over to Fallowfield, and had tried to reassure him. But one of the coachmen who had been here for some ale and a pasty or two had told him about the letter for Sir Richard from the Admiralty, and Allday could think of nothing else.

He heard Unis’s light step come in the other door, and turned to see her watching him, a basket of freshly-gathered eggs in her arms.

"You still worrying, my dear?"

Allday re-entered the parlour and tried to laugh it off.

"It’s all new to me, y’see?"

She looked around the room, at the four-and-a-half-gallon pins of ale on their trestles. Clean cloths fresh today, new bread to tempt any hardworking farm labourer on his way home. A place that offered a welcome: it looked pleased with itself.

"New to me too, now that I’ve got my man with me." She smiled gently. "Don’t you worry about it. You’ve got my heart, and I daresay I’ll take it badly when you go, and go you will. I shall be safe enough. Just you promise to come back to me." She turned away towards the kitchen so that he should not see the making of a tear in her eye. "I’ll fetch you a wet, John."

Her brother straightened his back from putting more logs on the fire and looked at Allday gravely.

"Soon, you reckon?"

Allday nodded. "He’ll be off to London first. I should be with him-"

"Not this time, John. You’ve Unis now. I was lucky-I lost a leg for King an’ Country, though I didn’t think so at the time. A cannon don’t care. So make the most of what you have."

Allday picked up his unlit pipe and smiled as his new wife entered with a tankard of rum.

He said, "You knows what a man needs, my love!"

She wagged her finger and chuckled. "You’re a bad lad, John Allday!"

Across the parlour her brother relaxed, and Allday was glad.

But how could he really understand? He had only been a soldier, so why should he?

Lady Catherine Somervell paused at the turn of the stairway and pulled her gown more tightly about her body. After the warmth of the great four-poster bed and the fire in the room, the air was cold around her bare feet and ankles.

She had gone to bed earlier than usual to give Richard the opportunity to speak with his nephew alone. Later they had come upstairs together, and she thought she had heard Adam stagger when he reached the door of his room.

Throughout the evening meal he had been strained and unusually subdued. They had talked of his homeward journey, and of Anemone, docked to replace some of the copper damaged when she had been hulled by crossfire from Baratte’s privateers. Adam had looked up from his plate and for those few seconds she had seen the familiar animation, the pride in his Anemone.

"She took a beating, but by God, beneath the copper her timbers are as sound as a bell!"

He had mentioned that the brig Larne was also in Plymouth. She had brought despatches from Good Hope, but she was to remain in Plymouth to undergo an overhaul to spars and rigging. It was hardly surprising. Larne had been continuously at sea for nearly four years, in everything from blazing heat to screaming gales.

Watching Richard, she thought he had somehow expected it. Another twist of fate, perhaps, that would bring James Tyacke back to England: that brave, proud man, the devil with half a face as the Arab slavers had dubbed him. How he would loathe Plymouth, the pitiless and horrified stares each time he showed his terrible scars to the busy world of that naval port.