Carla Kelly - Marrying the Royal Marine

She didn’t say a word about his age, but calmly continued combing her hair, her mind only on India, as far as he could tell. He felt himself relax. ‘Do you want to hear about India?’

‘Oh, my, yes, I do,’ she said, her eyes bright. ‘Colonel, I have never been anywhere!’

‘Very well,’ he began, eager to keep her there. ‘We landed in Bombay during the monsoon.’

‘You were seasick,’ she said.

‘I told you I have never been seasick,’ he replied, ‘and I meant it.’

‘Very well. Since I was not there, I shall have to believe you.’ She put her comb down and clasped her hands together. ‘Tell me everything you can remember.’

If some celestial scamp in the universe—an all-purpose genie would do—had suddenly whisked away all the clocks and banished time to outer darkness, Polly knew she would be content to listen for ever to Colonel Junot. While her hair dried, she and the sentry who joined them at the Colonel’s suggestion heard of tiger hunts, an amphibious storming of a rajah’s palace in Bombay, and of the rise of Lord Wellington, the ‘Sepoy General’. India was followed by Ceylon and then Canada, as Colonel Junot took them through his Marine career.

It became quickly obvious to Polly that he loved what he did, because she heard it in his voice. She saw it in the way he leaned forwards until she felt like a co-conspirator in a grand undertaking. His storytelling had her almost feeling decks awash and seeing rank on rank of charging elephants and screaming Indians, as he told them so matter of factly about what he did to support himself. He was capability itself.

Through years of indoctrination, Miss Pym had pounded into her head how rude it was to stare at anyone, especially a man, but the Colonel was hard to resist. A natural-born storyteller, he became quite animated when he spoke of his adventures, which only brightened his brown eyes and gave more colour to his somewhat sallow cheeks—he had obviously spent too much time the past winter sitting at conference tables. She was having a hard time deciding if his finest feature was his magnificent posture and bearing, or his handsome lips, which had to be a throwback to his French ancestry.

Colonel Junot was different, she knew, if for no other reason than that he found her interesting. As she listened to him, injecting questions that he answered with good humor, Polly discovered she was already steeling herself against the time he would bow and say goodbye.

‘And that is my career, Private Leonard,’ Colonel Junot concluded, looking at them both. ‘Private, as you were. Brandon, excuse me please.’ He rose, bowed to her, and went his stately way up the companionway.

‘I live such an ordinary life,’ Polly murmured, watching him go.

She went on deck at the end of the forenoon watch, pleased to notice the chair she had sat in yesterday had been relocated to its original place, which probably meant there would be no gunnery practice today. She had brought a book topside with her, something improving that Miss Pym had recommended. She decided quickly that a treatise on self-control was a hard slog on a ship’s deck where so much of interest was going on. She was happy enough to merely close it, when what she really wanted to do was toss it into the Atlantic. Maybe that wasn’t such a shabby idea. Book in hand, she went to the ship’s railing.

‘Brandon, I hope you are not considering suicide.’

She looked around to see Colonel Junot. ‘No, sir. This book is a dead bore and I am about to put it out of its misery.’

He took the book from her hand, opened it, rolled his eyes, then closed it. ‘Allow me,’ he said, and impulsively flung the thing far into the ocean. ‘I hope you were serious.’

‘Never more so,’ she told him firmly. ‘It was a gift from my aunt, who was headmistress at the female academy I attended in Bath, and—’

‘I should apologise then for deep-sixing it,’ he said, interrupting her.

‘Oh, no. Don’t you have any relatives who annoy you?’

He thought a moment, then he laughed. ‘Who doesn’t!’

Walking with more assurance back to her chair, she seated herself, giving the Colonel every opportunity to nod to her and continue on his way. To her delight, he pulled up yesterday’s keg and sat beside her.

‘Brandon, give me some advice.’

‘Me?’ she asked, amazed.

‘Yes, you,’ he replied patiently. ‘Under ordinary circumstances, you appear quite sensible.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ she teased, and put a hand to her forehead like a seaman.

‘I have told you what my aim is on my fact-finding mission.’ He must have caught the look in her eye, because he wagged a finger at her. ‘Don’t you even presume to call it “taking French leave from the conference table”.’

‘I would never, sir,’ she said solemnly, which made him look at her suspiciously.

‘Seriously, Brandon, how can I approach Marines?’

She looked at him in surprise. ‘Colonel, you would know far better than I!’

‘I don’t. On this ship, for example—which for our purposes we will call “Any Frigate in the Fleet”—I communicated my wishes to the Sergeant, and he passed them to his men. Everyone is stiff and formal, and I can almost see their brains running, trying to work out what it is I really want to know.’

Polly thought about what he had said, but not for long, because it seemed so simple. ‘Can you not just sit with them as you are sitting casually with me? Tell them what you told me about the dying Lieutenant, and what it is you wish to do. Look them in the eye, the way you look me in the eye—you know, kindly—and tell them you need their help. Why need you be formal?’

He watched her face closely, and she could only hope he had not noticed her odd little epiphany. ‘You are kind, you know,’ she said softly.

‘Thank you, Brandon, but no one can get beyond my rank to just talk to me. There is a larger issue here, one I had not thought of: this may be the first time in the history of the Marines that an officer has actually asked an enlisted man what he thinks .’

‘That is a sad reflection,’ she said, after some consideration. ‘Everyone has good ideas now and then.’

‘We never ask.’

He was looking far too serious, as though his good idea in Plymouth was already on the rocks. She put her hand on his arm, and he glanced at her in surprise. Just two days, and then you are gone , she thought. ‘I told you, you are kind. Don’t give up yet. You’ll find a way to talk to the men.’ She took her hand away and looked down, shy again. ‘When I was so desperate, you found a way to put me at ease.’

‘That was simplicity itself. You needed help.’

‘So did the Lieutenant who died in your arms, Colonel,’ she told him, finding it strange that she had to explain his own character to him, wondering why people didn’t see themselves as they were. ‘Just be that kind man and you will find out everything you want to know.’

She stopped, acutely aware she was offering advice to a Lieutenant Colonel of Marines, who, under ordinary circumstances, would never have even looked at her. ‘Well, that’s what I think,’ she concluded, feeling as awkward as a calf on ice.

He nodded and stood up, and Polly knew she had not helped at all. He put his hands behind his back, impeccable. ‘I just go and sit on that hatch and call over the Marines and speak to them as I speak to you, Brandon?’

‘You could take off that shiny plaque on your neck and unbutton your uniform jacket,’ she suggested, then could not resist. ‘Let them see you have on a checked shirt underneath.’

His smile was appreciative as he fingered the gorget against his throat. ‘I must remain in uniform, Brandon, and the gorget stays. I will try what you say.’ He did not disguise the doubt in his voice.