Under Enemy Colors Read Online Free Page B

promotion was by merit rather than interest. Would not our own service be the better for it?”
    “Certainly it would, but if we destroyed the officer class and promoted from the foremast hands, what kind of navy would we have?”
    Hayden did not have an answer for that, and when he did not speak, Mrs Hertle said softly, “Then it will be a short war…”
    “Certainly it must be,” Hayden offered, trying to sound reassuring.
     
    “I should be allowed nothing but milk or water,” Hayden said passionately. “Wine makes me too forthright. I do apologize, Robert, I didn’t mean to frighten Mrs Hertle.”
    Robert poured two glasses from a decanter. They had retired to the library for after-supper port and conversation. A brief interlude of male association before joining the ladies in the drawing room.
    “Don’t apologize. Mrs Hertle is accustomed to hearing the truth, however distasteful. And you know I should rather have a harsh truth than a sweet lie.” Robert pressed a glass into his friend’s hand. Taking up a poker, he crouched and thrust it into the embers, tumbling a small hill of coal in a clatter. “You don’t believe that this conflict will be brief, I collect?”
    “I have no special knowledge of the future, Robert, but such pronouncements have often proved frightfully optimistic in the past.”
    Robert raked out the coals, then, satisfied with the effect, he stood, leaning a shoulder against the mantle. “What do you think of the situation across the Channel, now?”
    Charles walked three paces, and turned, regarding his friend, propped against the mantle, a soft sadness come over him. “It grows more frightening by the day. That is what I think. The Girondins were the voice of moderation, and with them gone…I fear what might occur next. You read reports of the prison massacres last autumn. The resentments of the Paris mob are too easily inflamed; they have not done their worst yet, even without Marat to provoke them. I will own this, Robert: thank God for my English common sense or I might be among the mob even now.”
    “I am thankful for your English half, too,” Robert said. “I cannot imagine having grown up without your friendship.”
    The two men raised glasses in a silent toast to that bond.
    “Perhaps we should both take oaths of temperance,” Robert said. “A bit of wine and you become uncomfortably candid, and I am overwhelmed by sentiment.”
    Charles smiled. He knew what was in his friend’s mind, though neither would speak of it. Men went off to war and did not always return. Charles’ own father had been lost at sea when his son was only aboy.
    As if his thoughts had run in the same path, Robert asked, “How fares your mother, pray?”
    “Very well, when last she wrote; life in Boston seems agreeable, her husband adores her. One might think America had been created just for her, so happily does it appear to suit her temperament.”
    “I am glad to hear it. She deserves happiness. God knows she has had sorrows enough.”
    Charles did not answer. Truth seemed to be in the air that night. Not the most common thing in London that summer.
     
    “ And a French mother,” Henrietta observed. “That explains much.”
    Mrs Hertle could not help but note that her cousin had rather adroitly worked the conversation around to her husband’s childhood friend, Charles Hayden.
    “There is something in his face…” a crease appeared between Henrietta’s lovely eyebrows—her thoughtful pose.
    “Charles always says he inherited his grandfather’s Gallic nose,” Mrs Hertle responded. “His ‘unfortunate nose,’ he calls it.”
    “Though he seems entirely English in his manner,” Henrietta offered.
    “Indeed he does, but I have come to believe that he is more French beneath the surface than one would guess. One must be wary of these Navy men, Henri, they are not always what they seem. Both Robert and Charles have been at sea much of their lives—since they were but