Seasons of War 2-Book Bundle. Cheryl Cooper

you quite offended by the men’s remarks?”

      “Not at all. I’ve had occasion to hear far worse. It’s not just men on the sea who misbehave.”

      Gus looked embarrassed. “I shouldn’t have said anything at all …” His voice trailed off when Dr. Braden entered the hospital. In one brisk action, Gus opened Jane Austen’s novel and randomly began to read.

      In the lamplight, Emily could see Leander’s shadow stop next to his desk, where he raised his head and stood unmoving as if listening to Gus’s reading. For a full chapter, he stayed in that position, and when it was complete, he called out, “It’s late, Mr. Walby.”

      “Good night, Em. Sleep well. I hope we can continue tomorrow.”

      Emily replied with a silent nod.

      When Gus was gone, she lay swinging in her hammock, listening to the wind howling through the tiny cracks in the ship’s timbers and the sea crashing as the Isabelle battled her way through the waves. Periodically, a bell sounded, an order was shouted, a whistle was blown in the distance, but the rest of the ship was eerily silent. There was no entertainment above deck this night. Near Emily’s head, the gunport was closed up, and her little corner was dark and lonely. She hoped Leander might check in on her, might be in the mood for some conversation, but the only sounds outside her canvas curtain were the moans and snores of the wounded men in their cots, and the scratch of a pen. Emily closed her eyes and waited for sleep to come.

      The first crash of cannons sounded in the early morning before light. Emily sat upright in her hammock and blinked in the blackness of the lower deck. As yet, no lanterns had been lit in the room where they all slept. Through the cracks in the ship’s timbers, she could see flashes of light that were followed by thunderous outbursts of guns. The hits to the hull of their merchant ship rattled Emily’s teeth and landed her on her back as she scrambled out of her cot. There was confusion and chaos above her head as the crew raced to defend themselves with their guns. In the darkness of the large cabin the women started screaming and the children began to wail. Emily could not see a thing as she groped her way to the next hammock and, with trembling hands, felt around for the terrified child who lay there. She scooped up the youngster and shouted to the other women to grab their children and take them to the corners of the room. But no one answered her. No one seemed to hear her. All around the ship the explosions and ensuing battle cries were deafening.

      Before long, the American captain ordered his men to lash the ships together for boarding. As she crouched down in a gloomy corner, Emily could smell the stale stink of the enemy seamen as they crept through the decks with their pistols cocked and cutlasses in the ready position. She held her breath, hoping somehow they would not find her, and calmed herself by rocking the unknown child in her arms, feeling its soft hair against her cheek, wiping away its tears, but it was impossible, as the women and children sitting in the darkness next to her were hysterical. Voices – frantic voices – called out her name, over and over again. Suddenly, the silhouettes of three men came upon her and lifted a lantern to her face. The tallest one wore a cocked hat. He tore the child from her arms and held his pistol to her breast …

      Emily awoke and cried out. Her heart pumped madly in her tightened chest and she gasped for air, her dark thoughts dragging her into an abyss where there was only oppressive sadness. Feeling icy cold, she began to shudder.

      Within seconds a hospital lantern was lit and Leander stood next to her bed. “It was a dream … just a dream,” he said gently, pulling the blankets she had cast off in her fitful sleep up around her shoulders. “Breathe in deeply and exhale slowly through your mouth.”

      Emily closed her eyes and tried concentrating on her breathing. “It was so black,” she mumbled on her pillow.

      “Keep breathing – slowly and deeply. I’ll be right back.”

      Fighting the temptation to revisit her nightmare, Emily lay there alone, trying to restore her breathing and heart rate with pleasant memories of her childhood home in England. It had been such a lovely house: three storeys high, stucco and beam, full of cosy corners, secret cupboards, and happy people. And the surrounding gardens had been so fragrant, all riotous colour, humming with tiny creatures. Father was there, smiling and waving to her as she played near the pond under the willow trees …

      But it was no use. The haunting sounds of sobbing women and children, and the delirious voices of her unseen companions as they ran about, calling out to her in the shadows, kept interrupting her images of England … kept echoing through the corridors of her mind. Where were they now? Caught in the ship’s remains, their scattered bones lost in the ocean’s dark depths? Try as she might, Emily could not flee from her fear and her guilt that somehow … she had been responsible for their fate.

      Leander returned quietly with a lantern and cup of water for her. “There’s a tincture of laudanum in it. It will help you sleep.”

      Longing for nothingness, Emily greedily drank the contents.

      Leander hung the lantern on a hook by the head of her bed, then pulled up the footstool and sank down upon it, watching her as he did so. She wore his muslin nightshirt, which hid the curves of her breasts. Her pale hair was damp with sweat, and bits of it curled around her face. Her cheeks were flushed and tears clung to her lashes, making her look more like a frightened young child than the self-assured woman of eighteen years he had been used to seeing. A wave of intense feeling swept through him and he longed to hold her in his arms.

      When Emily’s heart had slowed, she opened her brown eyes and looked at Leander as if seeing him for the first time. He was dressed in a blue-striped, open-necked nightshirt; his rumpled hair stood up in small tufts on the crown of his head, and a shadow of auburn stubble was visible around his lips.

      “Would it help to talk about it?” he asked, resting his elbows on his thighs.

      Emily exhaled through her open lips. “Thank you, but no … not yet.”

      He nodded and gave her a half smile. “The sea is calmer now. Shall I open the gunport? A bit of fresh air might help.”

      “Please.”

      Emily’s eyes followed him as he stood up and walked around the foot of her bed – his head and shoulders sloped forward to avoid hitting the ceiling – then slowly they dropped below the hem of his nightshirt as he worked to unlatch the gunport. His calves and ankles were well turned out and she took pleasure in the bone structure of his feet. A breeze, making its way through the open gunport into Emily’s corner, ruffled his nightshirt, outlining his slim form. Her eyelids grew heavy as a surge of warmth spread throughout her body.

      Leander retraced his steps to the stool and sat patiently in the event she needed anything. For several minutes, with his head leaning on an upturned fist, he looked upon her quiet face and closed eyelids, and was therefore startled when her lips suddenly twisted into a grin and one of her eyes popped open.

      “Doctor Braden,” she whispered, “you have a lovely, fine nose.”

      Leander lifted his head and raised his eyebrows, uncertain that he had heard her correctly. He opened his mouth to question her remark, but her breathing had steadied and her features had relaxed. He knew she was sound asleep.

      5

      Monday, June 7

      11:30 a.m.

      (Forenoon Watch, Seven Bells)

      BEFORE NOON THE NEXT MORNING, Meg Kettle waddled through Emily’s curtains, balancing a washbasin on one hip. Her thick face was scarlet and there were enormous sweat stains in the armpits of her beige calico dress. “Git up, git up. It’s Monday. Wash day fer ya.” She dropped the basin next to Emily’s hammock and stood, hands on her hammy hips, huffing and puffing.

      Emily sat up in her bed and wiped the sleep from her eyes, unable to decipher Mrs. Kettle’s ensuing mumbled irritation as the woman headed towards the gunport, her backside swaying like a prodigious pendulum.

      “We’ll ’ave to close this up,”