The Winter Sea

Captain Gordon fixed his gaze upon her face, and took her measure. Then he said, ‘Come, let us sit.’

The cabin was a man’s space, but was not without its luxuries. The chairs had been upholstered in a rich red fabric, and a silver tray upon a table gleamed beneath its strange assortment of small porcelain cups and dishes ringed around a central covered pot. ‘You have good timing,’ said the captain. ‘Yesterday there’d not have been much I could offer you by way of a refreshment, but my cook today has done a bit of trading with a Dutch ship lately come from the East Indies that is forced to wait in harbor here, and chief among his prizes was a box of china tea, to the drinking of which he is trying to convert me.’ Picking up the porcelain pot, he poured a clear brown liquid into one of the cups. ‘I must confess I do prefer my whisky still, but I am told that drinking tea will be the coming fashion. Here,’ he said, and handed her the cup. ‘It is still hot, I think.’

She held the cup and looked toward the windows, through whose glass panes she could see the battered French ship framed as though it were a painting done in honor of the victory of the battle that had stained this same sea red with blood just days before. The drink was bitter on her tongue.

She said, ‘I am surprised to find you on a new ship.’

‘Aye, the Edinburgh did not survive the strain of my last voyage. You’ll recall I had my doubts about its worthiness,’ he said, and smiled in the manner of a man who means to share a private joke.

She felt a surge of anger at that smile, and could not keep it in. ‘I do recall a great deal, Captain. Tell me, do you think King James will yet make you an admiral when he comes?’ She flung the question at him, challenging, and pointed to the windows and the French ship. ‘Do you think that he will honor you for that?’

He did not answer her, which only flamed her temper more.

‘How could you? After all you told the countess and the earl, how could you do a thing like this? How could you so betray us?’

In a quiet tone he said, ‘It was my duty.’

‘Duty might demand you keep the English side, and even fire upon the French, but it does not excuse you everything. No other English ship but yours did take a prisoner, and that,’ she said, ‘I do not think was done because of duty.’

He was watching her with eyes she could not fathom. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘That was not done from duty.’

Rising from his chair he exhaled hard and turned away and crossed to stand before the windows, looking out. He did not speak for some few minutes, then he said, ‘Were any man to ask me, I would tell him that I am more proud of what I did that day than I have been of any other thing I’ve done in all my life.’

There was a quality about his voice, a passion in his words, that made her anger start to fade. But still she did not understand.

Until he told her why.

A man in his position, he explained, had little chance to chart his own course in these times, but he had done what he could do. He’d kept the Edinburgh from being fit to sail and kept himself on land as long as he was able, in the hope the king would use that time to make good his return. The king had not, and in the end new orders came for Captain Gordon to assume a new command, and bring the Leopard north.

‘And even captains,’ he informed Sophia, ‘must obey their orders.’

On arrival at the entrance to the Firth, he’d found the French ships already engaged and under fire. He’d kept the Leopard back as best he could, and had managed with seemingly clumsy maneuvers to block some of his own side’s fire against the fleeing Proteus to let it get away.

‘But there was nothing to be done for them,’ he said, gazing across at the ravaged French ship. ‘No way to save the Salisbury. She was an English ship once, did you know? The French did capture her from us, in their turn, some while back. She’s seen her share of war. And when the French commander wheeled his squadron round and headed north, she had the rearguard.’

She had done what she’d been asked to do, protecting the retreating squadron so the king might make good his escape, but she had done it at a sore cost to herself and her brave crew. They had not stood a chance.

The English ships had caught her up, and though two other French ships had turned back to try to help her, it had been no use. The battle had raged fiercely all that afternoon and evening till the other French ships too had finally slipped away and left the struggling Salisbury alone, to face her enemies as night fell.

In the darkness of the early morning she had struck her colors and the sight of that surrender had ignited something deep in Gordon that he couldn’t quite explain, not even now. And it had stirred him into action.

‘It occurred to me that while I could not rescue her, I might yet do some service to the men she carried. Better they should fall into my hands,’ he said, ‘than into those of men who had no sympathy for Jacobites.’

He’d roused his few most trusted crewmen and ordered them to get a boat at once into the water, with him in it, and they’d rowed like fury through the drifting smoke and charred debris, and beating out the other English ships nearby he’d climbed on board the Salisbury and claimed her as his prize.

The captain of the French ship had been gallant in defeat. An able-looking man, he had managed to conduct himself, in spite of his great weariness and bloodied clothes, with consummate politeness. ‘It is kind of you to think of it,’ he’d said when Gordon, having given proof that their allegiance was the same, had offered aid. ‘There are some letters I would wish to send to France, to Paris, if that somehow could be managed.’