Chapter 2
Chapter Two
THE SOLDIER GOES TO WAR
This was not Spain. Neither was it France or the German states, or even Italy.
There were no burned-out, blood-soaked villages or boot-trodden fields where Napoleon’s armies had trampled the growing grain.
Instead, there were crystal blue waters of unimaginable hue, pale pink beaches, and a tree-covered archipelago so full of lush natural beauty it made Lieutenant Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam’s eyes tear up.
It was Eden lost in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
The voyage to the Bermudas had been uneventful, the only moments of terror being as the captain inched his ship through the serpentine channel between the reefs that protected the small snatch of land.
More ships had been sunk in these treacherous waters than Richard could count, and he had prayed that the one on which he sailed would not be added to that score.
“Never you fear, sir,” the captain assured him as they neared their destination.
“I’ll need all my wits about me soon enough, but we’ve sailed this channel often enough.
Been nigh on fifteen years since Captain Hurd charted it for us, and not a slip since then.
Off you go now. I’m needed at the helm.”
The captain was correct, and Richard’s fears were unfounded.
After some two miles of snaking through what looked—from above the ocean’s surface, at least—to be open water, the creaking ship deposited him and his belongings safely on the pier with scarcely a jostle.
Miss Ingalls and her perfidy were a thing of the past. His new life was about to begin.
Now, his feet once more on terra firma and the knot of worry that had not left him since departing England some weeks before, Richard took in his first real sight of his new home.
The Royal Naval Dockyard was a chaotic, bustling place, only half-built and a mess of scaffolding and earthworks.
There was already in place what looked like tall ramparts facing outward to the sea, and a series of solid-looking buildings, which he hoped were the officers’ quarters.
He had lived in a tent before, and while he had survived the experience well enough, he had discovered the joys of proper walls that kept out the rain and icy winds.
From the material he had read before setting sail, Richard knew the facility was new, construction on the main fortifications having begun only a year ago.
While Bermuda had long been a refuge in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and a centre for privateering, it was only with the loss of Britain’s seaports in the former American colonies that the Navy needed a new base of operations between Halifax in the north and the West Indies in the south.
The discovery of that serpentine channel through these perilous reefs had opened up the western islands of the archipelago for such use, and this mess of crude huts, half-built walls, and incomplete piers would soon become the secure anchorage for the fleet, as well as a dockyard and ordnance depot to maintain the ships of the Royal Navy.
“Lieutenant Colonel?” A crisp voice broke through his reveries, and Richard looked up to see a young lieutenant approach with a crisp salute. “Colonel Barrow sent me to find you. Welcome to the Bermudas.”
From within the enclosure of the fortifications, affairs were much more ordered than first impressions suggested.
The tall battlement walls were complete and armed with an impressive array of cannon, and several low stone buildings housed the camp’s kitchens, common rooms, and—as Richard had hoped—officers’ quarters.
The accommodations were nothing to his mother’s fine house in London, or the family’s house at Matlock, but the bed was not too narrow and there was room enough for a comfortable chair, a table to serve for a desk, a set of drawers, a wardrobe, and some shelves, as well as a small chamber to the side for storage and the necessaries.
It was comfortable and private and would do quite well.
The rest of the area hummed with activity from dawn until dusk, and even then, the bustle continued into the night.
Construction seemed to be an endless activity, with hired local workers toiling alongside rescued slaves and convicted criminals, the latter of whom seemed to live on the scores of former warships anchored just offshore.
A huge number of men from these islands made a decent penny plying their trades here, be it engineer, mason, or general worker, which must have kept their families well-supplied throughout the year.
Further to the armies of labourers, soldiers and sailors rushed about the place with unstated but determined purpose, and the noise of training drills and the clang of metal from the armaments and the ships filled the air.
No coddled boy-soldiers learning to set one foot before the other anymore; this was real.
The morning after his arrival, Richard presented himself to Colonel Barrow, who commanded the Bermuda Garrison of the British Army here, its role being the defence of the dockyard itself.
Barrow was a seasoned soldier, advanced in his career.
Richard imagined him closer to sixty years of age than fifty, but his vigorous stride and sharp manner belied any supposition that he might be too old to command.
His hair was very short and slate-grey, and he was tall and broad.
He seemed, by the behaviour of his junior officers, to be respected rather than beloved.
He was also very busy.
“Fitzwilliam. Good to have you here. A new shipment of supplies came in on that same ship that brought you, and its fellows that travelled in your convoy. I am needed to see to it, and shall be for several days. Make yourself at home; I shall find you when I have time to break you in.”
And with that, he returned to whatever it was that he had been doing.
Richard was not offended; the colonel had a great deal to manage here, after all, and showing a new officer the ropes would take time the older man did not have.
One of the sergeants took Richard on a brief tour of the garrison, indicating the most important locations, and then returned to his duties, leaving Richard to his own devices.
It seemed that for the next day or two, he would be at leisure.
At first, he learned his own way around the fort and then explored the nascent dockyard itself.
Men of all races and hues toiled under the hot sun.
Some were Englishmen, who had recently been dispatched from Britain to help with the endeavour; others were skilled artisans from the islands; others still had been taken from the slave ships that still plied the Atlantic, and were offered quarterly wages for their toil.
They lived in sheds and tents, and as one sweating man replied to Richard’s question, the adequate conditions in which they now lived, while far from ideal, were better than anything else fate might have had in store.
The more he wandered, the more he was amazed at the tremendous undertaking that was involved in carving a great fortified dockyard from these rocky islets.
On the first day, Richard wandered about the immediate area and spoke to anybody who could spare him a moment.
Many were pleased with their posting here, and with the physical arrangement of the base, with its ample food and clean facilities.
But as he had sensed before, there was an undercurrent of dislike directed at the colonel.
From what Richard heard, as filtered through ears that knew how men liked to complain, it seemed the Colonel was a sharp man, perhaps more demanding in his expectations than the men liked, and little inclined to lighten his hand in favour of friendship.
It was something to keep in mind, but he determined not to allow this to colour his own impressions of the man.
A stern master often turns out the best pupils, after all.
On the second day, he spent much of his time arranging his few personal belongings and writing letters to his family to assure them of his safe arrival and of his initial thoughts of the place.
By the third day, he needed activity. A vigorous man by nature, and one not made for sedentary endeavours, he now itched to investigate his new home a bit further afield, to find his way around these jewel-like islands.
To that end, he begged from the quartermaster the use of a map and planned to set off on foot to explore what he could.
The archipelago of the Bermudas formed the shape of a hook, running from northeast to southwest, and then curling around again to the east to form the hook itself.
In all, the archipelago was about 22 miles long and measured only two miles at its widest point.
The Dockyard itself, and the attendant fortifications, were at the very end of this hook, protecting the great natural—if reef-studded—harbour.
The promontory of land at the end of which the Dockyard sat was very narrow, at times scarcely wide enough for the path which meandered across rough bridges and causeways between islands, but about three miles down, the island blossomed into enough land to hold a respectable village.
This latter, named Somerset, was by all reports home to the basic necessities a man might need in his non-duty-filled hours.
Richard had been told of a tavern, a bakery, a chandler, a tailor, a general merchandise shop, and should he need to send something home to his mother or sister, a milliner, a fabric shop, a small craftsman’s’ gallery, and more.
Further, if this were not sufficient, a boat ride across the wide Bermuda Sound would set him alight in Hamilton, which had every provincial convenience a soul could desire.
And it was all set in Paradise! His first foray beyond the Dockyard had shown him as much.