Page 2 of Snowbound Regency Christmas
Andrew watched as she ran to her husband’s bedside, and gathered him in a tight embrace. When they could speak, the words tumbled out. Marshall’s letter sent to their Bristol address had gone astray. ‘We moved. Willie and I returned to my father’s farm.’ She waved the much-travelled letter. ‘This arrived two days ago. Let’s go home, Marshall.’
‘Amy, I have a hook,’ he sobbed. ‘I am useless!’
Andrew remembered the wife’s gentle words. ‘Silly. There’s work on the farm.’
Andrew knew he would never forget what happened next. She pressed her forehead against her husband’s. ‘Dearest, I gave you my whole heart, as you gave me yours. We have enough.’
That’s what I would give, Andrew thought, as he settled himself for sleep.My Christmas gift would be my whole heart to someone.
Chapter Two
Next morning at his usual spot in the mess hall for ambulatories, Andrew found a page torn from what looked like a recent edition of theNaval Chronicle, that dry-as-toast journal of fleet actions and promotions. He put too much sugar in his porridge, stirred and read.
‘Well, I’ll be…’
‘Bad news?’ the matron asked, as she buttered toast for a one-armed man.
‘No.’ He laughed and held it out. ‘Mrs Mason, it seems that I am a hero.’ He looked around at his fellow shipmates and prisoners, engaged in conversation and eating, always eating, even as he did. ‘Read it.’
She did. He knew she was a no-nonsense nurse. She had seen everything, except perhaps such an article. She stared at him. ‘You, Master?’
‘Me, which shows you how little the chap who wrote this knows about prisoners.’ He tapped the article when she handed it back. ‘We were in that bloody hell on earth together. No heroes. Just us.’
To his further surprise, in mere minutes, the medical director of Stonehouse himself turned up, fairly bursting with enthusiasm. As Andrew tried to sprinkle more sugar on his porridge, Chief Surgeon Holyoke grabbed his arm, spraying sugar across the table. ‘Master Hadfield, look!’ He held the currentNavalChroniclein its entirety. ‘Read.’
Andrew put down his now-empty spoon and held out his scrap of the article. ‘This came my way. Our little swim off the Spanish coast has made us famous.’
‘More than that,’ the chief said, and turned his attention to the matron. ‘Mrs Mason, our sailing master here has been called a hero for swimming with Captain Tate on his back.’
Andrew picked up his spoon and dug in for more sugar, embarrassed at the attention. He was not an acclaim-seeker. ‘Any of us would have done it,’ he murmured, wanting the conversation over. ‘I happened to be closest to him.’
The surgeon was having none of that. He waved his arm around the table, where Andrew’s fellow escapees were seated and watching this little to-do with interest. ‘The Royal Navy has declared your sailing master a hero for carrying Captain Tate on his back through stormy seas to the blockade. What say you?’
Lord help me, Andrew thought, as his partners in terror and incarceration cheered.
‘See there?’ the chief said. His expression sobered and he tried another tack. ‘The more this dismal war grinds on, the more we need our heroes.’
‘I’m no hero,’ Andy protested, but softly this time, because his protestation was going nowhere. ‘I did my duty. We all did.’
Chief Surgeon Holyoke then gave him more to stew about. ‘Very well, sir, I won’t tease you.’ He chuckled. ‘But I have to say that all the wounded officers in Block Two are reading theirChronicles. The word is out. You might find yourself the center of attention.’
Oh, Lord no. So much for his plans to rest in hospital until he got that letter from the Navy Board. Holyoke himself had hinted only yesterday that since he was more sound of mind and limb, he could take leave for a week or so.
But go where? He had been an orphan since thirteen, workhouse escapee and the personal property of the Royal Navy because Napoleon’s never-ending war was, well, never-ending. Even the idea of leave was foreign to Andrew Hadfield, who hadn’t been long off a ship in years, except to be captured.
He mulled the matter around, walking up and down the ward, sitting beside other sailors worse off than any of his men now, who were in various stages of recovery. It was clear that Stonehouse needed the bed he would vacate. He paid a visit to the chief surgeon, finding Holyoke in his office behind mounds of paper. Andrew smiled at the sight, which earned him a glare from the surgeon, and then a sigh.
‘Do you know, Master Hadfield, there are days I miss the chaos of life aboard ship?’
‘I do not doubt you, sir,’ Andrew said. He didn’t care for paperwork, either. As nasty, terror-filled and boring beyond belief his prison days had been, he never once missed the tedium of his daily entry in the ship’s log. For some reason known only to God or Neptune, a ship’s sailing master kept the official log, not the captain. Andrew had yet to meet a master who relished that exacting task.
‘What is on your mind, Master?’
‘Sir, you mentioned I could leave for a week or so,’ he said. ‘How do I get approval?’
The chief pushed aside some of the paper. ‘I must declare you fit enough to stagger about, and have your signature to the effect that I have not lost my mind in so doing.’
Right there in the admin block, Holyoke listened to his heart and lungs, prodded a little here and there and signed a paper testifying that Andrew Hadfield, sailing master, thirty-seven years old and possessed of all his parts, was sound enough to inflict himself upon the world again.
