A Shot Rolling Ship Read Online Free

husband to be worried. The events of the past week had seen his mood swing dramatically, starting at exultation when they had first sighted a French privateer – a potential prize – switching dramatically as he had been humbugged by a superior sailing vessel. Fury as that French dog had snapped up one of his charges, albeit one that was laggardly, and carried her into a seemingly unassailable berth. The losses the ship had suffered in finding out the meaning of impregnability had been frightful, and only a stroke of what seemed to Emily like pure luck had saved matters.
    During that period – the ups and downs – Ralph Barclay’s aura of husbandly superiority had suffered andhis wife had discovered that she had no need to be meekly obedient to his every whim; she had found to her surprise that she had power in their relationship, that he craved her good opinion and was cast down if that was withheld. Discovery of such a thing had been heady, but Emily knew that whatever strength she had must be exercised sparingly, and never more so in allusion to recent events. In short, she could not be open and merely ask him outright to voice his disquiet.
    Concern over Digby’s predecessor, the badly wounded Lieutenant Roscoe, lying pale and silent in the surgeon’s berth, was unlikely to be the cause – that she did know, for her husband disliked the man and had made no secret of it even before the recent action. They had exchanged high words on deck about certain decisions and it was quite possible that a recovered Premier would demand a court martial to clear himself of whatever slights Ralph Barclay chose to put against his name. Uncertainty as to the true cause of these anxieties deepened the furrows that already creased her brow.
    Ralph Barclay could not face what he interpreted as a pitying look and for the umpteenth time that morning he opened the ship’s log and examined the loose sheets of paper he had stuffed in between the pages. These listed HMS Brilliant ’s true position over the last few days; facts which he was reluctant to commit to the book, for once written up they could not be altered. One thing could be entered certainly, the removal of that damned pest John Pearce and his band of malcontents. The thoughtof Pearce made his blood boil; the palpable arrogance of the man, the way he had by insubordination driven a wedge between himself and his new wife, and even worse, engaged the sympathy of the whole ship’s crew against its lawful captain. That he had shown courage and resource in salvaging the bind that Ralph Barclay had created for himself was small recompense. He had taken the same occasion, the sending home of the East Indiaman Lady Harrington , to rid himself of his wife’s nephew, a useless young man who was, without doubt, cowardly to boot, thus removing another potential source of marital friction. The beauty of that manoeuvre was that he could make it look as though he was showing the boy favour.
    The other loose papers were less cheering; not for the first time he damned an Admiralty, specifically Lord Hood, the man actually running the Navy, for saddling him with a set of officers who were strangers. Such a thing made life hard, for he could never be certain that the loyalty he had built up from men he had brought on in the service himself was there in the men imposed on him by Hood. The wounded Roscoe was a case in point; argumentative, unable to smoke his captain’s methods and preferences, forever questioning orders, showing no faith in those he was obliged to obey. He had demanded a court martial after a particularly high-worded spat the day before the action in which he had been wounded. Ralph Barclay tried hard to suppress the hope that his Premier would die of his wounds, his Christian beliefs fighting a hard and losing battle against self-interest.
    His anxiety to catch up with his convoy was many layered, not least the mere fact that it was quite possible to miss them completely,