Seasons of War 2-Book Bundle. Cheryl Cooper

be fittin’ they see ya sittin’ here.”

      “I’ll be crawling back to my hole momentarily, Biscuit,” Emily said tersely, hoping her reply would get rid of him. She waited until he had crept back to his cauldron of porridge. “The miniature, Magpie … I will get it back to you the minute I – ” Her words died on her lips as a sudden realization struck with the force and speed of a cat-of-nine-tails whip.

      Good God! Her clothes!

      She sprang from her low bucket, her hands fumbling anxiously in the pockets of her white trousers, a fearful look in her eyes. Into the galley came a flood of duty cooks with their ration buckets to begin cooking breakfast for their messmates. Every last one of them gave Emily a long looking over, but in her frenzied state she took no notice.

      “Well now, Magpie,” whistled one who had to drag his foot behind him, “ye have done well fer yerself!”

      “Our young sail maker has risen in the world!”

      “Ha, ha, ho, ho.”

      “Shove off,” said the marine sentry.

      But it was Biscuit who was more effective in scattering the sailors. He raised his wooden porridge spoon menacingly before them and growled, “Hold yer tongues, ya lubbers, and be mindin’ yer manners.”

      Magpie jumped up from his own bucket, his bandaged head held high, and like a little gentleman took Emily’s arm and calmly steered her away from the men’s lusty looks, past the marine sentry, and back into the hospital. When they arrived at her corner, he let go of her arm and asked, “What’s wrong, ma’am?”

      “Oh, Magpie,” she gasped, ashen-faced, “your miniature … it’s in the pocket of my other trousers, and … and Mrs. Kettle took them early this morning to be laundered!”

      8:00 a.m.

      (Morning Watch, Eight Bells)

      The BOSUN’S MATE’S PIPES resonated round the lower deck, summoning the men to their breakfast. Near the gunroom, Meg Kettle waited until the last of the sailors had scurried past her and run up the ladder before slipping out of the shadows. It was her good fortune to find that the marine sentry had temporarily vacated his prisoner’s post. She leaned over the dirty man in the bilboes and grabbed a clump of his greasy hair, yanking his head back. “Time ta wake up, Mr. Lindsay … Lord, sir,” she said in derision. Plopping down upon the nearby bench pushed up against the ship’s sweating side, she watched the prisoner stir to life. He did so with great difficulty, grunting and groaning and cursing his back muscles, which ached from sitting on the damp floor, and his numb legs, immobilized in the thick irons.

      “I’ve got somethin’ int’restin’ ta show ya,” said Mrs. Kettle, enjoying the spectacle of Octavius’s pain.

      “Infernal woman, leave me be!”

      “Ooooh, but this ya’ll be wantin’ ta see.”

      Octavius screwed his head around to face her, rubbing his neck as he did so. “What the devil would you have that would interest me?”

      “Mind yer tone or I won’t be showin’ ya.” She produced a shiny something from her apron pocket and waved it before him.

      Octavius ignored her. “Vile laundry woman! Leave me be.”

      In one fluid motion – far more fluid than one would think her capable of – Mrs. Kettle leapt off the bench, lifted her skirt, and dealt his crooked spine a savage blow with her booted foot. Octavius gasped for air, as if the woman had held his head underwater a long time. Howls of agony followed.

      “Guard, guard, take her away. Take her away!” His voice was shrill and strained like that of a fearful child. “Why doesn’t anyone come?”

      Mrs. Kettle shoved her face, red and wet with exertion, into his pimply one. “’Cause no one cares fer yer worthlessness any more.”

      Mrs. Kettle looked pleased with herself as she watched Octavius desperately wrestle with his irons, vainly attempting to free his legs. When finally he gave up his fight and had, for the time, buried his rancour, she slapped her knee and said, “Right, now! Set yer eyes on this here.” She placed Magpie’s oval miniature into his quivering hands and held the lantern up over his head. “Behold that smilin’ face. Now, quick, flip it round.”

      Octavius wiped at his eyes with dirty fingers and stared at the miniature for some time, turning it over again and again to scrutinize the face and the inscription.

      “It’s her, ain’t it?”

      “Who?”

      “That woman what lies in thee doctor’s cot.”

      “The daughter of Henry, Duke of Wessex, one of King George’s many sons? And … and therefore a niece of the prince regent and the Duke of Clarence?” Octavius snorted like a horse. “Impossible!”

      “It’s her all right and she’s some kind o’ princess.”

      Octavius gave his tormentor an impatient look. “I’ll admit to a resemblance, nothing more. I happen to know that portrait painters are never very accurate in their representation of their subject.”

      “Aye, I suppose yer mother would be havin’ a portrait of ya without yer red spots and limp hair.”

      He disregarded the slight. “I possess a miniature of my mother and the artist has succeeded brilliantly in making her look like Boticelli’s Venus, when in truth she bears a striking resemblance to a trollop!”

      Mrs. Kettle grunted and pointed to the clothing worn by the woman in the miniature. “That woman came on board wearin’ thee same blue shirt.”

      Octavius peered down at the picture again. “It’s called a spencer-jacket, not a shirt. Fashionable ladies have been wearing them for some time now.”

      “Oh, we keep up with ladies’ fashions, do we now? Harumph! Well, I may not know thee fancy name fer it, but I knows what I see and thee braidin’ and design on that jacket’s thee same as what that woman were wearin’ thee day she set foot on thee Isabelle.”

      Octavius shook his head. “It still doesn’t prove that Emily and the daughter of the late Duke of Wessex are one and the same person.”

      Mrs. Kettle snatched the miniature out of his hands and laid down her trump card. “Aye, then how do ya explain me findin’ it in thee pocket of ’er trousers?”

      Octavius’s mouth opened, his lips framing a silent “O.” He drifted into a daze while Mrs. Kettle stood over him, stroking the miniature as if it were a precious, sentimental object. “Ya never know who might be int’rested in seein’ this,” she said, tempting the wheels in his head to turn. She popped the miniature into her apron pocket, gave it a wee pat, and left Octavius in the dark to consider the possibilities.

      In the blue shadows of the animals’ stable, Magpie swiftly and soundlessly sank out of sight just as Mrs. Kettle’s long swishing skirts swept past him, fanning his face. With Biscuit’s milking goat complacently licking his ear, and his heart thumping madly, he listened to her heavy footsteps gradually fade away down the gun deck. In despair, he realized he had come too late in search of the miniature. Mrs. Kettle had already found it, and she was scheming to do something with it – exactly what, Magpie didn’t know, but he knew he had to warn Emily and fast. Spying a perfectly rounded lump of dung sitting in a nest of straw by the goat’s hind legs, Magpie picked the whole works up and lobbed it like a grenade at the back of Octavius Lindsay’s head.

      2:00 p.m.

      (Afternoon Watch, Four Bells)

      “SAIL HO! SAIL HO!”

      “Larboard bow ahoy!”

      “It’s a man-o’-war all right!”

      “A mighty big one at that!”

      In his cabin, James struggled to raise himself up in his cot. “Dear God! There