Death And Damnation: Book 2 Of Poacher's ProgressChapter 16: Down To The Sea In Ships free porn video
The barge Princess Caroline made a brief stop at Westminster Bridge steps, allowing Patrick and I to disembark, from where it was but a short walk along Whitehall to Horse Guards. On entering Colonel Slade’s office I was pleased to see both Krish Armityge and Zinnia Teazle present, as I had little opportunity to speak to either of them before having to rush off to Bristol.
I looked forward to picking up the latest news concerning Caroline Ashford from Krish, and of my sister Rebekah from Zinnia.
Colonel Slade was not greatly surprised by our failure to stop Western Star from sailing; in fact he had already made provision to have a vessel dispatched to St. Helena to warn the Governor of a plot, and to capture Western Star. When he heard Patrick’s theory, regarding an imposter being left in the place of Bonaparte, he slapped his thigh.
“Of course! That must be the plan -- well done, Jane. Unfortunately we still are no wiser as to where an escaped Bonaparte will make for as we drew a blank with Monsieur Claude Chabrol. He was found in his bed with his throat cut.”
“Has his murderer been arrested yet?” I asked.
“No, and not likely to be as all the signs point to the Countess de Montebello carrying out the evil deed. Monsieur Chabrol’s landlady saw the pair go up to his room on Monday. She saw Milady leave later that afternoon, after hearing what she said were, ‘ bestial sounds of fornication, as you would hear in a brothel!’”
Colonel Slade gave a wry smile. “I did not ask her how she gained that particular expertise, but it appears she was used to hearing those sounds when Milady visited, which was at least twice a week. When Chabrol wasn’t at his desk on Tuesday morning someone from the French embassy was sent round to rouse him, and found the body. The Frogs had wanted to keep it quiet and hadn’t reported the murder, but when I sent my men to lift him we found out.”
As far as I know no Greenaway has ever been a mariner, and Grantham is over fifty miles from the sea, yet verse 23, of Psalm 107, has always held a great resonance for me.
‘They that go down to the sea in ships that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep.’It was only when I took passage to the island of St Helena did that verse really take on a literal meaning. The immensity of the sea is awe inspiring; its beauty, its power, its overwhelming strength. Man is a frail, puny thing moving over the surface, a plaything to the ocean’s ever changing moods.
From out of the north fierce gales blew, sending cliffs of water crashing down around the fragile thing that was the ship. The wind shrieked through the rigging like a tormented soul in Hell, and several times I thought my last hour had arrived.
This was the fearsome power of the ocean, and God, being displayed in all their fearsome majesty.
An Atlantic wave, far larger and more powerful than its fellows, crashed into the starboard quarter of the ship. She shuddered, pitched and rolled, in what seemed to be one continuous movement, and was thrown violently off course. Orders were given, men ran to the lines and sheets, and soon we were steadied back on to our correct heading.
A week previous and I would have been sent tumbling into the scuppers by this abrupt change of motion, but now, instinctively, I merely braced my legs and stayed upright.
It was three weeks since I had joined HMS Hazard in Portsmouth harbour. Colonel Slade had determined that I was the best man to send to St Helena to apprise the governor, Sir Hudson Lowe, of the suspected plot to plant an imposter in Bonaparte’s place. I was not pleased to be so ‘honoured’, but Slade thought I would be able to identify Colonel Ashby de La Zouche, who might be concealed amongst the counterfeit Corsican Rangers. I was given a day to arrange my affairs, and then dispatched by mail coach to Portsmouth, once again being forced to postpone any visit to Annette.
Krish had made me up several bottles of a potion designed to lessen the effects of sea sickness. The voyage to St Helena took anything from nine to fourteen weeks.
Hazard was a ship-sloop, with a crew of hundred and twenty men. She -- ships are always female -- carried fourteen six pounder cannon, two nine pounder bow chaser cannon and a dozen swivel guns. This class of vessel was described by sailing men as being ‘lively’.
I spent the first week at sea wishing I were dead. Even with the potion Krish had given me the attacks of mal de mer left me prostrate on my bunk for most of the time; that was when I wasn’t hanging over the leeward side of the vessel retching into the ocean -- I had soon learned my leeward from my windward.
I had left Woodrow Allen in charge of my house, giving him strict instructions not to gallop Abigail the housemaid while I was not keeping him under my eye. I could sense there was something between the two, but hoped he had enough respect for me to obey my wishes. I also asked Zinnia Teazle to look in at 18 Queen Street from time to time; in fact she had already taken Molly March under her wing and was now schooling her.
Mrs Bridges announced she was going to stay with a cousin in Newmarket and she would be back in six months’ time. So that took care of my domestic arrangements.
Just before I boarded the mail coach for Portsmouth Colonel Slade took me aside.
“It appears the Countess de Montebello, or whatever her name, is a murderess. Take care, Jack, and try to keep that buffoon Hardy from sharing the same fate as the unfortunate Monsieur Chabrol.”
That was the first time the colonel had ever addressed me by my familiar name. I hoped it was not to be the last.
“Major Greenaway, the Captain sends his compliments, and would you be so good as to join him in his cabin.”
The messenger was one of the three Midshipmen on board Hazard, a cheeky faced lad named Greaves, aged about sixteen.
Commander Alfred Ramsey, the captain of Hazard, was sat at his desk when I entered his cabin.
“Ah, Major, I think it time that you divulge the reason why my ship was diverted from its anti-slavery patrol to go off to St Helena. I have not bothered you before as I could see it would take time for you to settle down to a shipboard routine, but you have settled in well into what must be alien surroundings, so I deem now the time for you to tell all.”
Although he concluded this speech with a slight smile I could see that smiling was not one of his major accomplishments. He was a craggy, severe, and solitary individual, as I suppose all ship captains need to be.
His crew were well trained, at least to my landlubber’s eye, and in fact I was in awe of their skill as they sailed the ship through what I thought to be terrible gales and mountainous seas. However, they seemed to take it as no more than the usual weather met in the Atlantic at this time of year.
When I had boarded the ship in Portsmouth, Ramsey’s orders were to make best speed to St Helena, and that I would be responsible for choosing any further destination, depending on the circumstances prevailing. I now related the complete story, and when I disclosed the plot that Bonaparte was to be rescued from St Helena and an imposter left in his place, Ramsey’s face darkened and he let out an oath.
“God’s teeth. We cannot let that happen. What is the name of the vessel carrying these bogus Corsican Rangers?”
“Western Star.”
He let out another oath. “ Damn my eyes, that’s Captain Jack Sparrow’s ship.”
“You know him?”
“He’s one of the most successful slavers around. His ship can outrun practically anything afloat, and he has the skill to out sail most captains ... when did he leave Bristol?”
I told him, and he went to his charts and used a divider to measure distances.
“Well, he will be at least five days ahead of us, although I would imagine he will put in for water, possibly in the Azores.” He pointed to the map. “We are too far to the east to intercept him, and in any case we will need to put into the Canary Islands for water ourselves. I estimate he will arrive at St Helena at least three days before us, assuming we don’t hit any foul weather. We should get more news of him when we re-water at Ascension Island, I would expect him to take on water there also.”
“How long do you think it will be before we reach St Helena?”
Ramsey rubbed his chin reflectively. “Calculating the time for a journey by sea is a sight more complicated than doing the same for land travel, Major. Ships are at the mercy of winds and currents. We have made good time, probably a hundred and twenty miles a day, since leaving Portsmouth and that pace should continue until we make the Canary Islands. After leaving the Canaries we should pick up the southern trade wind which will take us, at a slower rate, southwest toward Brazil. It is when we reach the area known as the doldrums, near to the equator, that problems may manifest themselves.”
He explained what these problems could be. “We may linger there for days, or weeks, dependent on the variable, and sometimes non-existent, wind until we find the more reliable South Atlantic trade wind. All in all I estimate we should sight St Helena in six or seven weeks’ time -- God willing.”
He gave a grim smile. “Of course at sea the adage ‘Man proposes and God disposes’ is even truer. A gale may blow us back to the Canaries, or wreck us on a lee shore, or just overwhelm us.”
In fact we did linger in the doldrums for days -- it might have even been weeks, for the time dragged so -- as we waited for the slightest breeze to propel us towards the South Atlantic trade wind.
It was during the time we lingered, ‘as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean’, that I witnessed a ceremony which casts a different light on the harsh and fearful conditions of discipline that His Majesty’s navy ‘enjoys’. This was ‘the crossing the line’ ceremony, a tradition carried out on every British vessel that crosses the equator during its voyage.
I don’t know when the custom began, or if it is observed by the navies of other nations, but it could have been designed to lift the spirits of crews languishing ‘in the doldrums’.
All those on board Hazard who had not already crossed the equator were to be initiated into the Society of Shellbacks, the society of those who have already crossed the equator and have been introduced to Neptune and his retinue. I was among the ‘griffins’, as the initiates are called, and suffered the same rough handed treatment of being interrogated by ‘Neptune’ - who was played by the Master at Arms wearing a long, grey, horse hair wig, and festooned in seaweed like garments. I was shaved by the ‘Royal’ barber, after first being ‘lathered’ with an evil smelling, and tasting, mixture of pitch, paint, the grease from the galley pots and other substances it is best that I had no knowledge of. After the shaving I was tipped backwards into a tarpaulin full of sea water and severely, and severally, immersed by ‘Neptune’s’ Constables.
As I said all those ‘griffins’ aboard went through a similar process, even warrant officers and midshipmen. Although both Ramsay and his first lieutenant Moore were already ‘Shellbacks’, between the blows landed on the ‘griffins’ by Neptune’s helper Davey Jones’ inflated pig’s bladder, and the buckets of water tossed over the initiates at each answer to their interrogation, no one on board, including those two notables, escaped being thoroughly soaked.
After the ceremony was completed, and it appeared to me the senior ranks and rating were treated as harshly as the lower rates by Neptune’s Constables, we were all presented with certificates affirming we were now ‘Shellbacks’.
The ship’s crew then set to skylarking, and playing fiddles and dancing jigs, and singing sea shanties, and the order ‘Splice the main brace!’ was given, which indicated an extra ration of rum was to be served to all hands.
Discipline soon returned to its usual strict standard after this interlude of levity, although I saw some of the seamen with satisfied looks on their faces when they spotted paint and pitch still adhering to the neck of one of the newly initiated Shellback warrant officers.
Captain Ramsey’s estimate of reaching our destination was correct, for on the last day of May we sighted St Helena. Unfortunately we had been driven well to the east of the island by a fierce gale from the west, and had to tack against the wind to gain the harbour at Jamestown, which is on the western side of the island. It took us another day before we could anchor in the harbour. There was no sign of Western Star, although we had intelligence from one of the guard frigates, which had intercepted and challenged us about two hundred miles north of the island, Western Star had been challenged three days previously.
“It is as Lieutenant Jane supposed,” I said to Captain Ramsey. “The imposter will be substituted shortly, and another vessel, possibly ‘Pont de Cherie’, will take the real Bonaparte away with the Corsican Rangers. I will make haste to Sir Hudson and acquaint him of the plot.”
It was at least two miles from Jamestown to the Governor’s residence at Plantation House, and I had quite a time trying to obtain a horse. Eventually, after much exertion and several guineas, I rented a flea-bitten roan and rode up to the house. It was midday by the time I arrived and a haughty ADC gave me short shrift when I demanded to see the Governor.
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