False Colors

The year is 1762, and the Seven Years War is drawing to its close. John Cavendish, a zealous, handsome lieutenant of the British Royal Navy, has one desire: He wants to be Captain. Eager for glory, devoutly religious, he hates the double-dealing of politicians and the mere thought of sodomites. When he is given command of the HMS Meteor, and forced into an intimate acquaintance with both, the shock is enough to change his life forever.

Lieutenant Alfie Donwell, charming, reckless and deeply in love, also has one desire: He wants John. But how can he seduce his Captain without revealing his own nature?  Courting a man who thinks one deserves to die is a risk that could end on the gallows. When it all goes wrong, Alfie turns to his old captain and first love, Charles Farrant, son of the Duke of Alderley, for protection.  But Farrant and Farrant's sinister doctor have an agenda of their own.

From the white slave traders of Algiers to the re-emergence of the Caribbean buccaneers, John, Alfie, and Farrant have enemies enough without the twin spectres of damnation and disgrace. In an age when 'the love that dare not speak its name' is punishable by death, these three very different heroes must stand not only against their country's foes, but even against their own brothers-in-arms.

With God, society, and his own conscience against it, can any love be worth the sacrifice of a man's honour ... his very soul?

Excerpt

Eighty pairs of eyes watched John as he came up the side and strode stiffly to the Meteor’s small quarterdeck.  Taking off his hat, he turned to face his crew, noting the slack, bruised faces of men with scurvy, the nose-less, crusted features of those whom pox was slowly consuming from within.  The Master was barely being held up by his mate, his linen drabbed with stains.  The single midshipman picked his nose as he slouched by his division, then spat over the side.  Only the enigmatic new lieutenant stood straight and alert, in newly laundered dress uniform, his wig powdered, his buttons gleaming and his dark brows arched a little in amusement as he watched John struggle with hat and paper in the increasing wind. 

John fumed inwardly at the slackness, the disrespect as well as the waste of lives.  Opening Admiral Saunders’ letter he read it aloud in a firm, positive tone, reading himself in as captain, telling them whence his authority came and warning that he had the right to govern and punish as he saw fit.  Some of his anger wound its way into his voice, making it snap like the cat, and the more alert members of the crew stood straighter by the end of it. 

Introductions.  About to quiz the volunteer, his thoughts were instantly dashed when the huddle of warrant officers parted to reveal the modest black dress and white lace bonnet of an elderly lady.  John bowed over the twigs of her fingers, reeling.  ‘The Doctor’s wife, Mrs Harper’, a voice informed him, and ‘charmed’ he said, mechanically.  They’d sent a woman on board!  In God’s holy name—knowing what they knew—they’d allowed not merely a woman, but a lady on board!  The blood drained from his face, then returned, thundering and stinging in his ears.  A victim.  Are we to put up a plucky resistance and then be sunk, so that the outrage may provide an excuse for war?  So that the First Lord may say ‘see, we don’t scruple to spare even our women in the pursuit of this menace?’  It was despicable. 

His head throbbed suddenly, pain winding up from his clenched teeth to lance through his temples into his eyes.  Giving orders to set sail, to swab the decks, for the first watch to be set and the second to be fed, he waited until the life of the ship around him settled into its routine, then ducked into the captain’s cabin to think.  But the ruin he found seemed to mock him.  The French captain’s cot lay slashed on the floor, stern lockers and all his chests broken open and ransacked. 

“A right fucking pig’s ear they’ve made of this, sir,” the voice of his steward grated along his spine, making him straighten up, instinctively.  Turning, he found Japheth Higgins looming behind him with John’s portmanteau propped against his hip and his sea-chest dragged by one handle from the other hand.  An orange brute, Higgins had a tendency to appear out of random shadows, like the Borneo wild man. 

“I thought I told you to stay on the flag-ship, Higgins.” 

“You was having a little laugh, though, right sir?  Cos you wouldn’t leave me behind, not was you Admiral of the White.”  Higgins dropped the sea-chest by way of final punctuation and scratched his ginger sideburns with a tobacco-stained finger. 

John laughed around the queasiness in his throat.  An unusual fairy godmother Higgins made, to be sure, but it was true.  Assigned to him as a ‘sea-daddy’ in his first ship, set by the captain to teach the infant ‘young gentleman’ the ropes—and to make sure he was not too homesick, too lonely, or too much picked on—Higgins had been with him ever since.  Now he couldn’t even say ‘I was trying to keep you safe, you fool,’ without spreading rumors he did not need the rest of the crew to hear. 

“Not a very good joke, I’m afraid,” he said instead.  “I’m sorry Higgins.  I’m glad you’re here.  See what you can do to sort this mess out, would you?  I’m going for the tour.” 

Choosing not to notice as he passed the Master retching into a bucket, John paced the length of the gun-deck from gunroom to hawse holes.  Lighting the lantern he had taken from the midshipmen’s berth, he descended to the orlop, past the carpenter’s workroom, the bulkhead of the gunner’s stores and so back again to the cable tier.  Trying to calm his mind, he strode out nervous and filled with a lightning of energy he had to out-walk before he could think. 

On the cable tier, absolute darkness pressed inwards around the circle of his light.  Water trickled, glistening, down the Meteor’s flexing sides, the sound of it sweet in the silences between waves.  A stench came from the hold, seeping up through the holes of the deck.  Beneath the latticework of planks on which he stood, the ballast of gravel below stirred with a great hiss, like the tide rolling over a beach.  Not all the anxiety in the world could prevent him from making a note to order the pumps set working at once. 

Around him, on either side, the anchor cables lay coiled, water dripping from them, seeping in an indoor rain through the gratings, to join the inner sea beneath his feet.  Footsteps knocked on the deck above him but, down here, dark, quiet and solitude calmed him.  Breathing in, he sighed, the spring of his anger easing enough to allow thought.  It was too early to despair.  Somehow, he would complete this mission and return as the hero Saunders described.  Or at the least, he would complete the mission while keeping his crew alive, from the old lady to the youngest powder monkey.  Here in this waiting space, this space between worlds, it was easier to believe. 

Straightening his back even further, an ache like a fist between his shoulderblades, he picked his way through the coils of hawser.  They rose like cliffs on either side and, as he walked, his lantern light mingled with a growing brown gloom that spilled in from the doorway.  There, in the narrow gap between John and the main companionway, stood the volunteer, Lt. Donwell, with his wig off and his bold eyes glimmering gold as John raised his lantern to look in them.  Walking forward, John expected the man to yield, to step back and let him out.  Mere inches separated them by the time it dawned on him that Donwell was not going to move.  Heat and confusion striking through him, obliterating even the dread, he pulled himself back from a collision only just in time.  The skirts of their coats brushed, sending a jolt of invasion through him from thigh to shoulders.  What the devil! 

Time stopped.  His mouth dried as a wave of prickly embarrassment swept over him, bringing guilt in its wake.  Yet what had he done wrong?  It was Donwell who should flinch, who should feel guilty, who should not be smiling so!  John could not wrench his gaze away from Donwell’s face.  Limned with gold, it was perfectly nondescript; round, pleasant, and completely lacking in self-conscious guilt.  Donwell’s mouth quirked up at one side into a slow, charming smile.  And his presence!  It was extraordinary.  It beat on John’s skin like strong sunshine.  He fought the urge to close his eyes and bathe in it.  His pulse picked up, waiting, waiting for something. 

Then returning sanity hit him in the face.  He snapped, “Get out of my way!  Don't you know who I am!” 

Donwell’s smile broadened.  John thought he would salute, but he just passed a hand through the loose brown curls of his hair and stepped away.  “I’d know you anywhere, sir.” 

“I’ll have a little more respect from you in future, Mister.” 

“You may have whatever you like.” 

Speech deserted John once more.  Aware he should act now to regain the initiative he had no idea what to do.  Instead he pushed past, feeling the dark gaze on the back of his neck like warm breath, and tried to tell himself that he made a dignified exit.  But if the truth be told it was a flight, spooked as a partridge from the covert.

Copyright © 2007 Alex Beecroft