Free Sails on the Horizon: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars by Jay Worrall

considered this seriously and nodded. “Do you think they will? He’s worked like a dog these past days. And capably, too. What he doesn’t know he asks or figures out.” Winchester had evidently risen in Bevan’s estimation.
    “I think they will. Jervis apparently knows his father, or at least has heard from him.”
    “Well,” Bevan said happily, “this calls for a celebration. Do you think you can borrow Niger ’s gig again? We’ll take Winchester.”
    “I have all the wine we could want from the captain’s stores,” Charles offered.
    “Ah, but in Lisbon they have women—fine black-haired, black-eyed women.”
    Charles couldn’t argue with that.

 
    THREE
    J OSHUA TURNBULL, COMMANDER OF THE BRIG RAVEN, welcomed Charles aboard in the damp gray light just before dawn. Charles brought with him onto the cramped vessel his single sea chest, Admiral Jervis’s reports on the English victory off Cape St. Vincent, and his newly acquired steward, Timothy Attwater. He arrived with a pounding headache after a serious night of celebratory debauchery in the lower parts of Lisbon with Daniel Bevan and Stephen Winchester, which he now deeply regretted. Raven pulled her stream anchor and set sail for London almost as soon as his unsteady legs gained her deck.
    Bevan and Winchester he left behind. They were to stay with the battered Argonaut on her slow journey to Plymouth, most likely for the breaker’s yard, after she’d been made seaworthy enough in Lisbon for the journey. Afterward, they’d all agreed to meet at Charles’s family home in Cheshire before returning to sea in his new command.
    Commander Turnbull, a kindly, awkward-looking man with a face like a jackass, insisted that Charles (“the hero of St. Vincent, and wounded to boot”) take his cramped cabin for the duration of the voyage. He would be more than happy, Turnbull said, to shift his things to his lieutenant’s almost minuscule quarters, and the lieutenant could mess with the midshipmen. Charles noted that Raven ’s only lieutenant did not look pleased at this, but remained stoically silent.
    For Charles the weeklong journey in the tiny brig stood in stark contrast to his years aboard the Argonaut. For the first time in his career, he had no responsibilities and was left to his own devices, except when he was at dinner with Turnbull, or in what served as the wardroom, or with others of the ship’s officers and warrants in their leisure time. He was asked the same unending questions about the battle and Argonaut’ s part in it, and he happily gave the same answers over and over again.
    He found Turnbull a confident and friendly man who discussed the everyday workings of his ship in an open, give-and-take manner with his officers and even the crew, and addressed everyone by their first name. If he wanted a sail trimmed or a change of course, there were no shouted orders or bosuns swearing and swinging their starters. Rather, Turnbull would seek out the appropriate warrant and say something like, “Dickie, the wind’s picking up. Do you think your lads could take in a reef on the topsail?” The suggestion was always acted on as if it were an order and the sail quickly shortened. With the task done and the topmen back on deck, Turnbull would usually follow up with a comment loud enough to be heard by all concerned, as, “Aye, she’s riding much easier now. Well done.” Charles looked hard for any sign of slackness or lack of discipline among the crew and found none. The Raven was a smart, polished, well-run ship, and it obviously didn’t take the lash to make her so.
     
    CHARLES SAT NEXT to Commander Turnbull in the sternsheets of Raven ’s cutter as two seamen leapt ashore to steady the craft against the Whitehall Steps in London. Another seaman had already been set running toward the Admiralty building to announce the arrival. Charles pulled his boat cloak up to his chin to ward off the cold rain-flecked wind in the last of the evening