The Jamaica Station, page 7
part #3 of Carlisle & Holbrooke Naval Adventures Series
‘Captain Edward Carlisle and Lady Chiara Carlisle,’ boomed the voice of the enormous Major-Domo, louder even than Black Rod. ‘Lieutenant George Holbrooke.’
The governor’s ballroom had been rigged for something not dissimilar to a royal levee. Haldane, Don Alonso and their ladies were stationed at the far end of the room in a sort of receiving line, with a queue of people waiting to be introduced. Rear Admiral of the Red Thomas Cotes, lately arrived as the new commander-in-chief, was also in the receiving line, looking unsure of his social and political position in relation to the two colonial governors. Vice Admiral Townshend and his lady were standing some way apart, putting a brave face on their banishment from the inner circle. They were nonentities, awaiting a ship to carry them home, and the society of Jamaica had already half-forgotten them. The cruel fact was that Townshend was hardly worth talking to now, his power and patronage had vanished the moment his flag was hauled down.
The shattering announcements of the Major-Domo were nothing more than an introduction to the room in general; the two governors paid no attention at all. The real business was being orchestrated by a much more discreet team of officials who were organising the visitors and passing those who were deemed suitable for an audience to a smartly-dressed soldier – presumably the governor's aide – who made a more personal introduction to the two governors.
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One of the dubious benefits of marriage into minor nobility was that Carlisle had already met the governor and his wife. In fact, the Carlisles had been on the Jamaican social circuit since they had arrived on the island. Chiara adored social events. She’d been educated in courtly protocol form an early age and had spent a fair part of her youth around the influential men and women who followed King Charles Emanuel in his itinerate travels over his dispersed kingdom.
‘Carlisle, how good to see you again, and Lady Chiara,’ said Haldane as he bowed to kiss Chiara’s proffered hand. ‘I believe you know Don Alonso already, so I won’t make introductions. Just take care of him and Countess Elena and see them safely to St. Augustine, won’t you?’
George Haldane had little use for conversational niceties. He’d been a soldier in his youth and fought with distinction through the last war. He was wounded at Fontenoy and fought alongside King George at Dettingen. He campaigned with Cumberland in the Jacobite uprising of ’45 and was at Lauffeld and Roucoux in ‘47. Haldane had been one of the army’s youngest brigadier-generals before he resigned his commission for a career in politics.
‘I won’t rest until the doors of the Castillo San Marco are closed behind them, Your Excellency,’ replied Carlisle. ‘May I introduce Lieutenant Holbrooke? It was Mister Holbrooke who insisted on taking a boat to Don Alonso’s ship before the hurricane had subsided. He certainly spared the countess another day of acute discomfort and quite probably saved her life.’
‘Then I am grateful, Lieutenant Holbrooke, for without your heroism I would have been deprived of the countess’ company.’ He deftly moved the trio on to Don Alonso and addressed himself to the next in line, a heavy, red-faced planter who was distinguished not only by his enormous wealth but also by his tight grip on the levers of political power. He certainly deserved more of the governor’s time than did a junior frigate captain and his first lieutenant.
‘Good evening, Your Excellency,’ said Carlisle. He hadn’t met Don Alonso since his call at Carlisle’s house a month ago.
‘Good evening, Captain,’ replied Don Alonso, returning the bow. The two men may not have met for a month, but Don Alonso had frequently seen Chiara when she visited his wife and had noted her aristocratic bearing. Intrigued, he’d made inquiries and what he learned had persuaded him that he must pay more attention to this otherwise unremarkable English captain. ‘I don’t believe you have met the Countess San Clemente Elena Marin de Villanueva e Hijar,’ he said as he introduced his wife. Countess Elena was an unremarkable woman and even allowing for her recent return from near-death, she looked much older than her husband. Her face was startlingly white in this room full of sunburned planters, sailors and soldiers and she looked shrivelled and worn. She leaned on the arm of a man in the uniform of the Spanish Royal Army whom Carlisle recognised from the day after the hurricane.
Carlisle bowed again, and Chiara made her courtesy. It appeared that the countess spoke no English, but Chiara was able to translate her vague gratitude for being saved from the sea and her hope that they would have a calm passage to Florida.
The next introduction was to a lady of such a contrast to the countess that Carlisle was momentarily disorientated. Maria Magdalena Fernandez de Heredia y Marin de Villanueva was as young and vibrant as her mother was middle-aged and dour. She’d inherited her father’s commanding stance, his arresting manner and his looks, which in his daughter were translated into dark-haired, black flashing-eyed beauty.
Maria was a sort of younger, less finished version of Carlisle’s wife. Maria confidently offered her hand to Carlisle and Holbrooke and her cheek to Chiara. She had a bold eye and held the gaze of each of the men as she spoke to them using correct but heavily-accented English. Maria can’t have been past seventeen but displayed natural confidence that neither man was used to in young ladies. Chiara, on the contrary, was entirely accustomed to ladies like Maria. Indeed she’d been just such a person, and not so many years ago. She recognised that Maria, like herself, had been brought up to hold her own in a male-dominated society and by force of personality to demand the deference that her years wouldn’t otherwise have warranted. Maria had not been so severely affected by the hurricane, but she’d stayed beside her mother’s bed for the passage to Port Royal, and neither Carlisle nor Holbrooke had caught more than a glimpse of her before she disembarked with her father and mother.
Chiara knew the species and recognised the signs. Maria held her husband’s hand just a second or two longer than was entirely correct, and her eyes didn’t leave his face except to briefly acknowledge Chiara and Holbrooke. Edward Carlisle may not have really come to know Chiara during their brief months of marriage, but Chiara, with much more extensive experience of humanity in the round, knew her husband in detail. She watched Maria’s frank advances and knew that Carlisle had few defences against this kind of assault. Chiara would have felt much more comfortable if it were Holbrooke’s hand and Holbrooke’s eye that she held. This young lady would need to be watched. And so would her husband.
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Carlisle hadn’t yet been introduced to Admiral Cotes. The captain of a frigate wasn’t high on the priority list of people for a new commander-in-chief to meet, and if it weren’t for this reception, they probably wouldn’t have met before Medina sailed for St. Augustine.
‘Pleased to meet you, Carlisle,’ said the admiral, ‘Lady Chiara, charmed,’ he continued, kissing her hand. ‘Mister Holbrooke, how do you do?’ He let the social chit-chat take its course, and then beckoning to Carlisle, he led him some way apart. After all, he wasn’t needed and felt that his dignity was imperilled by being the last in the receiving line, albeit the last behind two excellencies.
‘I haven’t had time to look into this cruise of yours, Carlisle,’ he said, deliberately turning his back on Admiral Townshend who looked as though he’d join them, invited or not. ‘It’s highly unusual, and I’m not at all sure that it’s the best use of one of my frigates.’ He looked at Carlisle as though he blamed him for this irregularity. ‘Still, I understand you have orders to return by way of Cape François, so it won’t be a dead loss. Your orders can stand as written.’
‘Thank you, sir. I didn’t ask for this task…’
‘Oh, it’s not your fault, Carlisle. It’s just a bit galling to hoist my flag and find that one of my best frigate captains – now don’t try my patience with false modesty – has been sent away on what can best be described as a yachting trip. I imagine His Excellency feels the need to maintain friendly relations with the Spanish, but this is quite an imposition. Did you know that the wretched man positively declined to be put ashore in Havana?’
‘I had heard that,’ said Carlisle cautiously, ‘some question of precedence between him and the Captain-General of Cuba I understand.’
‘It’s rather more than that, I’m told. The captain-general has been lobbying in Madrid for Florida to be subsumed into his little colonial empire. Don Alonso heard about it and immediately took passage for Spain to make his case for continued independence from Cuba. The issue, I understand, hasn’t been resolved and Don Alonso now fears that he’ll be detained on some pretext or other if ever he sets foot in Havana. He’ll be very keen that you steer clear of Spanish national ships and he’ll resist being moved into a Spanish merchantman if you should meet one going your way. You have him until you drop anchor under the guns of Castillo San Marco and there’s no wriggling out of it. How that can ever help our relations with Spain is beyond my understanding. Surely it's better to have a captain-general as your friend rather than a colonial governor. But that’s Haldane’s business, not mine.’
Cotes paused and cast another furious glance at Townshend, who he blamed for agreeing to this voyage in the first place.
‘It beggars belief. But I’ve told Haldane that the Don is to embark only his family and a maid. He’s to have no aides, no orderlies, no damned soldiers. They can pay for their passage in whatever merchantman will take them, and I trust the bottom falls out as soon as they’ve sunk the land,’ he said with passion and not a little vindictiveness. ‘You’ll be better able to control His Excellency without his entourage interfering.’ He gave the frigate captain a conspiratorial wink, a gesture that looked so incongruous that Carlisle almost laughed. ‘But never mind, come back as quickly as you can, and you can take as many prizes as you like once you’re rid of His Spanish Excellency. Those are my orders, so long as you make a good count of the French in Cape François. They’re collecting together the biggest convoy for years, and I need to know what escort they have and how many merchantmen.’ He looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘I’ll have to scratch together a squadron to blockade them once the hurricane season’s over.’ He stamped in frustration. ‘And that’s another thing, you’re being sent away at the height of the season. I don’t like it, not at all.’
‘Oh, I’ve survived my hurricane for this year,’ replied Carlisle casually, trying to lighten the mood. Everything he knew about commanders-in-chief on foreign stations told him that the present line of conversation would inevitably lead to the admiral venting his spleen on his frigate captain, fairly or unfairly. ‘Hurricanes, like lightning, never strike the same person twice.’
Cotes looked as though he had something else to say, something less than pleasant, but he was interrupted by a fluttering fan as Maria Magdalena laid her gloved hand firmly on Carlisle’s arm and led him away with the most perfunctory of apologies to the admiral. Carlisle looked over his shoulder, but the admiral had already forgotten him and had shifted his gimlet gaze onto a naval contractor that he spotted across the crowded room. A man to whom sharp practice was the only known way to conduct business and who had become a wealthy man providing calves at bullock prices and selling condemned butter back to the squadron’s bosuns for greasing their yards. Carlisle saw something else as well; his wife was watching him. No, she was watching Maria Magdalena, with a very cool expression that he hadn’t seen before. And out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Don Alonso had been watching the two men – the admiral and the frigate captain – as they were talking. Carlisle wondered whether he’d guessed what they were discussing. In all likelihood, yes, he decided. The admiral’s evident anger, and his own defensiveness, would be easily interpreted even if Don Alonso hadn’t caught any of their words.
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Chiara discreetly watched her husband and Maria even as she chatted gaily and apparently without a care in the world to a succession of the great and the good of Jamaican society. Everyone was eager to be introduced to this new and exotic addition to their lonely outpost of empire. She watched, and she seethed, but not for anything would Chiara put her raging jealousy on display.
Chiara's huge advantage was that she’d observed this behaviour and its occasionally tragic consequences across the courts of half the Italian states. The situation was quite clear to her: Maria was infatuated with her husband. She probably didn’t recognise her own feelings, but she did know how to monopolise the attention of a man, and she was displaying her whole arsenal of weapons right now: flattery, youthful good looks, a charming smile and the little apparently careless touches of her husband’s hand as she was speaking to him. As far as Chiara could tell, Edward was at least mildly embarrassed by her attention. No, she was sure. He was looking for an escape, casting covert glances around the room while trying not to be overtly rude. She’d let him sweat for a little longer. Too long and he could start to enjoy the attention, too short and he wouldn’t have learned the vital lesson that he needed to be able to deal with this sort of situation.
Maria’s courtship – for that’s what it was – continued. Chiara saw the occasional touching of his arm increase in frequency, Maria’s laughter became livelier, and she stopped even pretending to look anywhere other than at her husband’s face. ‘She’s actually holding his arm now,’ Chiara observed, ‘this has gone far enough.’ She excused herself from the attention of a tall, lean colonel and his wife and took a circuit of the room ending at the spot where her husband, now visibly disturbed, was attempting to disentangle himself from Maria.
‘My dear Maria, how pleasant to see you,’ she exclaimed, as she took Maria’s hand from her husband’s arm and clasped it between her own two hands. ‘We’re so much looking forward to our cruise together, aren’t we, Edward?’ she asked.
Carlisle didn’t recover quickly enough, he was in mild shock caused by traumatic stress. Chiara continued. ‘It will be charming with your father and mother to keep us all company,’ she said with heavy emphasis. ‘Now, if you will excuse us, I’m afraid my husband has been neglecting his duties and monopolising your attention. We must speak to some of the sea-officers and you, I fear, must seek out your mother.’
At that Chiara took Carlisle firmly by the arm and steered him away, chattering happily as they left Maria alone, embarrassed and furious.
‘How can I ever thank you, my dear?’ asked Carlisle.
‘I’ll think of a way, you can be sure,’ she replied. ‘But you, my husband, must learn how to deal with predators such as Maria. She’s relatively easy to dissuade; she’s still young, but they become more proficient as they grow older. I should know,’ she said with an enigmatic smile.
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7: Grand Cayman
Monday, twenty-fifth of July 1757.
Medina, at Sea. Pedro Bluff, Jamaica east-northeast 7 leagues.
The last week in Port Royal had been frantic. The navy yard had returned Medina to her proper owner with tight seams and a bottom that had been so liberally smeared with white stuff that any discerning teredo worm and any frond of sea-grass wouldn’t come within a cable of the noxious vessel. A new fore-topmast had been fitted, and all the standing rigging had been set up. It was a good, workmanlike job, but it left the task of storing, embarking the guns and setting up the sails and running rigging to Medina’s crew. That was a week’s work by anyone’s standard and a hard week for a ship’s company that had diligently spent every penny they owned and anything that they could borrow in the dubious delights of Port Royal. The city was a shadow of its former infamy in the time of Morgan and Myngs. Since then, an earthquake in 1692 had destroyed much of the waterfront and the adjoining houses, and a succession of hurricanes, floods and fires in the following years, had persuaded the great and good of Jamaica to move the capital to Kingston. However, what was left of Port Royal still held all that any seaman could desire. The result was a bleary-eyed crew that had to be driven to their work for the first few days before the worst effects of their debauchery had worn off.
‘She’s rigged as well as she’s ever been, sir,’ reported the bosun, visibly weakened after six days and nights of constant labour, ‘and Chips has declared all the masts sound, so I do believe we’re ready for sea.’
‘Not a minute too soon, Mister Swinton,’ replied Carlisle. He turned to Holbrooke, ‘The men have done well. What do you think to shore-leave for each watch by turns?’
‘There aren’t many of them with any money left, sir. I believe most will choose to stay on board. What do you think, Bosun?’
‘Aye, you’re right, sir. But let it be their choice. We won’t be back for a month, and at least they’ll have been given the option.’
‘Very well, Mister Holbrooke. Make it so.’ He gazed up at the hundreds of lines that made up the rigging, reaching into the blue sky. It all looked taut and ready for sea, and he could think of no good reason to deprive those few men who, against all the odds, had a penny or two remaining in their pockets. Tuppence would get them dead drunk on kill-devil rum, or sixpence would get them a woman for a few hours. They had two days before Don Alonso was to arrive, so time for a night ashore for each watch.
