Seize the Fire
* * *
Laura Kinsale
AN [e-reads] BOOK
New York, NY
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, scanning or any information storage retrieval system, without explicit permission in writing from the Author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locals or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1989 by Laura Kinsale
First e-reads publication 2003
www.e-reads.com
ISBN 0-7592-6736-7
Other works by Laura Kinsale
also available in e-reads editions
* * *
MIDSUMMER MOON
'Tis in my head: 'tis in my heart: 'tis everywhere: it rages like madness and I most wonder how my reason holds.
—THOMAS OTWAY
Prologue
* * *
It was hell being a hero. With the guns crashing and the deck a blind chaos of powder smoke, Captain Sheridan Drake wiped his sleeve across his eyes to clear away a crust of Mediterranean sweat and battle-grime. He thought of his botched boyhood Latin lessons with profound regret.
Really, he ought to have listened to his schoolmaster, and gone into practicing law.
A barrister, now—there was a profession for an intelligent man. Sleep late, rise rested, hot coffee and fresh eggs for breakfast…but no—he'd best not think of fresh eggs; he'd start hallucinating after a hundred and thirty-seven days at sea without one. The guns roared and the deck beneath him trembled with the recoil. To starboard, a Turkish ship jibed, swinging bows around and peppering the deck with grapeshot and rifle-fire. Sheridan ducked behind the mizzenmast and squinted longingly at the closest hatch, calculating his chances of slipping below unnoticed. No sense getting himself killed in this sordid little squabble.
He shouldn't even have been aboard, but of course no one besides himself would give a thought to that—the British navy being more interested in gallantry than brains, and inclined to become maudlin over its heroes. For the past week, the legendary Captain Sheridan Drake had suffered through the stultifying honor of dining here in the flagship, gazing gloomily into his wine and listening to officers of the British, French and Russian navies work themselves into a frenzy of indignation over the way the Turks were enslaving the Greeks.
Or was it the way the Egyptians were devastating the Morea? Whatever—it was just another dubious variation on the old and unpleasant theme of poking one's nose into other people's wars. The only saving thing about it was the way they toasted his health every five minutes, a common official practice which Sheridan approved as a harmless pastime and a cheap drunk.
His moody silence had been taken for a deep and painful case of martial ardor. Deep, because everyone was certain old Sherry was a firebrand for King and Country and Duty and Honor and various other high-flown sentiments—which he wasn't—and painful, because he was known to be a hell of a fellow when it came to a fight—which he was. A hell of a coward, not that any of them would believe it if he said so.
But he was forced to turn himself onshore, unlucky chap; he was leaving the fleet to pay his respects to his beloved father's fresh grave and take up permanent care of his dear invalided sister. It was a sad case, a sad end to a glorious naval career; anybody could see how poor Sherry was torn to pieces over giving up his command, and not a bit comforted by his nabob father's boundless fortune and estate.
It made no difference that poor Sherry himself had never voiced any of these sentiments. It was also immaterial that he would rather have been any number of places than trapped aboard a warship with a bunch of antique admirals who were itching for a fight. Nor did Sheridan bother to mention that he intended the imaginary invalid sister to be a fine sloe-eyed courtesan with a good education in the passionate arts, or that he had despised his father, his father had despised him, and the nabob fortune most probably had been left to a Home for Fallen Women in Spitalfields. Sheridan Drake had the gift of smiling darkly and keeping his mouth shut. He never lied without sufficient provocation.
Just now it was becoming unpleasantly hot on the quarterdeck, even for heroes. Vice Admiral Codrington didn't seem to notice—too busy pretending he was back twenty-two years ago still bellowing broadsides at the Battle of Trafalgar. The old fool apparently hadn't even realized that a bomb ketch behind the enemy line had managed to draw a damned accurate mark on his flagship. Sheridan sucked in an anxious breath as he heard the unearthly whistle of another falling rocket. He closed his eyes with a brief, private groan.
Below him the guns boomed again, covering the blessed thwop of a miss as the bomb hit water near enough to send the splash fountaining over his cuff. With an ardent oath, he flung off the drops that glistened against his dark blue coat. If one of those shells hit the deck and exploded over the powder magazine, the fact that he'd been relieved of his command with honors just this morning would be a point of academic debate. It certainly wouldn't make any difference to the tiny pieces of Sheridan Drake scattered all over the Bay of Navarino.
He'd had enough of this hellish nonsense. Like any sensible hero who wanted to live long enough to lay eyes on his laurel wreath, he hit upon a plan. It wasn't a first-rate plan. In fact, it was a damned shaky plan, but things were tight. He drew his sword for dramatic effect and took a step toward Codrington and the knot of flag officers, fabricating a fierce look and an obscure but frantic need to dispatch a boat back out of the action—a boat which Sheridan had every intention of being aboard. As he closed the space between them, the eerie shrill of another incoming bomb climbed to a screaming pitch. He spared a glance up past the mizzenmast.
In that numbing instant he saw his plan and his life and his future go for naught. The shell howled along its trajectory with nightmare clarity. In his panic the thought that pushed every other from his mind was that it was a terrible rotten practical joke. He hated practical jokes; it had been a vicious prank that had launched him into this abominable career, and now it was going to be a stupid black twist of humor that would take him out. Of all the days for Codrington to start a fight; of all the ships for Sheridan to be on; of all the bombs that were plunging down on all sides, there had to be one with his name on it: Captain Sheridan Drake, Royal Navy—Almost Paid Off.
In that endless moment beneath the bomb's rising shriek his life seemed to vanish before him—just evaporate, like steam in thin air: no time for evasion; too far to the rail; too late to do anything but complete the step he'd already started that took him among the officers next to the admiral. He was going to die—right now—with his guts dissolving in fright and fury. It was outrageous; it was monstrous, and it was all Codrington's fault.
Noise blasted his ears, cracking thunder, drowning every other sound. The ship shuddered. Something snapped inside him, an instant of strangeness, as if the air had thickened into molasses and wouldn't fill his lungs, as if a wall in his mind wavered, slipped…and then dissolved. Murder howled through his brain and body. Amid the confusion and screams and squeal of splintering wood, he swung his sword and threw all his weight into a wild, vicious blow to the admiral's neck.
The ship heaved beneath him in mid-swing. Something caught Sheridan hard in the back. His sword went flying; he brought both hands up to save himself, sending Codrington sprawling amid the cascade of rigging and deafening smash of plummeting timber. Sheridan scrambled as the tangle of rigging that had fallen around him began to rise. On his knees, he looked over his shoulder, shoving at the wreckage from the downed mast that lay acros
s the quarterdeck. The smolder of burning powder stung his nose. Just beyond his trailing leg lay the splintered end of a three-foot-diameter tree trunk that had been the mizzenmast, still vibrating in deep bass from the fall.
It took three fumbling attempts to make it to his feet, his muscles having gone to pudding. Codrington hadn't even gotten past the process of turning over. Sheridan stepped forward. His brain refused to make sense of the scene, consumed with a flaming urge to kill the old fool while he was down. Crewmen shouted. The tangle of rigging was still moving, pulled in a groaning mass by the mizzen, which trailed precariously over the stern. As a shattered spar lifted, it revealed a dark oblong shape that rolled erratically across the deck toward Codrington's feet, curling a thin black pencil-line of smoke.
Sheridan's mouth opened. For an instant a warning trembled on his lips, and then with the weird single-minded logic of extremity it came to him that any man stupid enough to have started this fight was too stupid to do the obvious thing. While Codrington and the others lay there like sapskulls waiting for the bomb to smash them all to atoms, Sheridan muttered a string of imprecations and moved. He stepped gingerly over the menace of sliding rigging and picked up the live shell.
It was heavier than he'd expected. The weight of it brought his mind out of shock and back to reality, and he found himself with a bomb and a burning fuse in his arms. He'd had one of those vague hysteria-notions of tossing it overboard, but he should have known they never worked. The rail was miles too far away. As that appalling realization struck him, his mind ceased to function at all. At the same moment a taut stay finally parted with a throbbing twang and the mizzenmast lost its last connection with the hull. The whole bulk of mast and rigging and canvas moved with a vast jerk. Sheridan had the bizarre sensation that he was suddenly floating above the ship's deck, that it was sliding slowly past him when it had no right to do so. A sharp pain closed on his ankle and he fell backward with a grunt, holding onto the bomb as if it were a baby. The pull on his ankle increased to agony and things began to move toward him—the stern anchors, the wheel, the railing—all flashed past in a bruising tangle until suddenly there was nothing underneath him but air, and then water that came up to burst into his eyes and fill his nose in a burning intrusion of choking salt.
For an interminable, confused moment he could think of nothing but that he must not breathe. He felt himself going down and down as his lungs burst. His fingers weakened and lost their desperate hold. He dropped the bomb, bracing himself for the inevitable explosion and pain, but all that happened was that he was suddenly buoyant, and his body was singing an electric agonizing song for air.
His consciousness seemed to have telescoped to a tiny pinprick of life. He hung onto that, rising. Something pushed down on his head, and he twisted in panic, clawing upward. He was dying; his whole body spasmed with the knowledge of it, but he would not open his mouth. He would not answer the killing demand of his lungs. He wouldn't give that donkey's ass Codrington the pleasure of drowning him when he'd already left the navy—with honors, hang 'em all.
His fingers dug into a mass of wreckage, too feeble to answer his mandate to pull him upward. Carried by water, his body rolled. Coolness hit his face. The noise in his ears changed.
He opened his eyes and his mouth at the same time, taking a gulp: half air, half seawater. A cough convulsed him as the blunt end of a spar rammed into his neck. He clutched at it and lost it as a swell rolled past. Ahead of him, the flagship and Turkish man-of-war sailed serenely on, still thundering away at one another, already a quarter mile downwind.
"Bastards," Sheridan croaked. He floundered onto a mass of floating rope, but it sank under his weight, tangling in his boots. He fought it off, bobbing and gasping. The sound of the guns echoed around the bay and a white haze hid the land and horizon. A piece of taffrail floated by. He lunged and missed it, wasting strength in a useless splash.
As a wave lifted him, he caught sight of a dead Turk drifting in the next trough, spreading a dark stain in the clear blue. While Sheridan watched, the dark stain seemed to grow and elongate. The body made a sudden twist, as if it were alive, and then disappeared, popping up and shuddering in a grotesque mimic of struggle before it was dragged down again for good, leaving a trail of blood.
Sheridan closed his eyes. Hysteria fluttered in his throat. He wanted to shout and curse and babble fear. Instead he only managed one pathetic oath before a wave slapped his mouth and filled it with seawater. He spat it out and sobbed for air.
The cannon still filled the sky with the crashing, uneven sound of battle. He thought, with a kind of grief, of fresh eggs and hot coffee. Another wave hit him, washing furious tears off his face.
With sodden, sluggish strokes, he tried to swim. Something large and shadowy slid past beneath him in the water. His muscles went paralytic. He floated and prayed.
It was bloody hell being a hero.
NAVAL CHRONICLE
14 November 1827
Gazette Letters
Copy of a letter from Vice Admiral Sir Edward Codrington to His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, dated on Board of H.M.S. Asia, the 21st October.
Sir,
It is with regret and respect I must add to my formal report the following information regarding the conduct of Captain Sheridan Drake, formerly in command of H.M.S. Century. At eight o'clock yesterday morning Captain Drake carried out orders to transfer his command of the Century. As he was then honorably relieved of further duty, and in view of his history of gallant service to his King, I invited him to join me aboard the flagship. When His Majesty's forces were unexpectedly and dishonorably fired upon, precipitating the action I have described in my previous dispatch, I had personal reason to be deeply grateful that Captain Drake did so, for when the flagship was struck with a five-inch shell which dismasted the mizzen, he valiantly and selflessly threw himself forward into the path of the descending mast to save me from crushing. He then fell upon the bomb itself, which had struck the deck with fuse still burning not three feet from my person, and carried the live shell to the rail to dispatch it, thus risking his own life to save the lives, not only of myself, but of all on board. Although he accomplished his intention, I much regret to report that in the course of this noble action he was lost overboard and was not recovered. I respectfully beg to draw Your Royal Highness's attention to his unselfish conduct and sacrifice, which appears to me to be highly commendable.
I have the honor to be, with deepest respect,
Yr Obedient Servant,
Edw. Codrington
THE LONDON TIMES
15 November 1827
His Majesty the King has taken the unprecedented step of conferring upon the late Captain Sheridan Drake the Most Honorable Order of Knight of the Bath in a posthumous investiture which took place last evening. Captain Drake, readers will recall, courageously stepped beneath a falling mast to save the life of Vice Admiral Sir Edward Codrington and then sacrificed his own life to extinguish a bomb which threatened all aboard the Vice Admiral's flagship during the action which has come to be known as the Battle of Navarino in the Ionian Sea.
Although many here at home and in the government lament the conflict with our ancient Ottoman ally that this unfortunate and unnecessary battle represents, by His action, His Majesty very properly acknowledges once again the selfless and noble gallantry of the men of His Royal Navy, who have served so well in the cause of Great Britain.
NAVAL CHRONICLE
10 December 1827
Gazette Letters
Copy of a letter from Vice Admiral Sir Edward Codrington to His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, dated on Board of H.M.S. Asia, the 1st instant.
Sir,
It is with true pleasure I inform His Royal Highness of the recovery, alive and unharmed, of Captain Sheridan Drake, who was reported missing overboard and feared dead in the action at Navarino.
Captain Drake informs me that he succeeded in swimming ashore and was succored by a Greek fisher
man and his daughter, who cared for him until he recovered amply to present himself again for duty.
I have instructed Captain Drake to proceed at once to Plymouth and thence to London bearing this dispatch, to place himself at the service of His Royal Highness.
I have the honor to be, with deepest respect,
Yr Obedient Servant,
Edw. Codrington
10 December. War Office to Office of the Lord Chamberlain.
Having considered as requested the matter of Captain Drake's K.B., we are sending him along to you directly. It is immaterial, I fear, that His Majesty finds the captain's unexpected appearance to be in a bit of bad taste—these things happen, and now we must follow through with it and get the fellow properly knighted or face a great deal of ridicule and questioning of motives.
With upmost respect, I hope it will comfort His Majesty to realize that this office does not yet consider Captain Drake's gallantry to be quite at the end of its usefulness.
Palmerston
This book is dedicated to
the combat veterans of Vietnam
With respect, and love,
and hope for healing.
Table of Contents
* * *
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen