The Third Uncle

Chapter Nineteen: Navy isn't her best colour

Chapter Nineteen: Navy isn’t her best colour

   The early morning had fulfilled its promise of a glorious day. The air at this altitude danced. It was still fresh, not crisp, but pleasant, especially given the heat rolling out over the distant hills that surrounded the bay. The sky was dotted here and there with great, white cumulus clouds that frothed and foamed against the pale blue sky. A sudden gust caused the ship to yaw, and the flying Man O’war cast a welcome shadow over an unfortunate sailor working high in the rigging of one of the warships in the harbour below. 

   Admiral Pierre-Charles-Jean-Baptiste-Silvestre de Villeneuve smiled as the ships below suddenly fired their cannons in salute. He was the Suprême Amiral de la Marine Impériale Française et Aero Corp after all. Thanks to his brilliant foresight that Nelson would use an unorthodox strategy at Trafalgar, and then coaxing the tiny Englishman within reach of his cannons, he out-manoeuvred and crushed the British Navy once and for all, giving Napoleon command of the seas, and the tiny Isle of England.

   The last of the cannon thunder echoed around the bay. He impatiently pressed his thin, cracked lips together and grunted as his man-servant put the finishing touches on a grey-blue wig for him, expertly tugging it down over his closely shorn scalp. ‘Merci Dominique,’ he muttered, studying himself in the glass. He had a long, pink face, with a matching nose that ended in a point. I probably should have shaved today, he thought, running a bony finger over the greying stubble on his chin. ‘Ah well,’ he sighed standing up, and holding out his arms so that Dominique could fit him into his dark blue dress jacket. He hated wearing the damn thing. On a day like today he wanted to be out on the deck, he wanted his men to forget who he was, he wanted to climb the rigging like a young tar. Ah oui, he smiled, to climb and jump up to the very top of the foremast like a reckless fool! Mon Dieu, what he would give for a day ... even an hour like that again! Instead, he scowled at his reflection, his wiry, black eyebrows momentarily joining into one, long, unkempt caterpillar that threatened to dominate his forehead.

   Dominique noisily tutted. He wasn’t much younger than the Admiral, but he looked a good deal better, with a boy’s physique, and a boy’s, undisciplined mess of dark hair that had been cut round his round head with the unmistakable precision that only a porridge bowl could have proffered. 

   Instantly, a small, ebony comb appeared in his hand, a comb whose sole purpose was to tame the caterpillar, but Admiral Villeneuve wasn’t in the mood. He swatted it away with a grunt, squared his shoulders, and turned away from his reflection in the decorative gold leaf looking glass in front of him. He loathed mirrors. If half the people in the Empire knew that a whole other world existed in there, a world of perpetual ice and snow ... a world where ghosts and monsters walked among men ... his thoughts trailed off. Villeneuve held out two fingers, and Dominique promptly placed a lit cheroot there. Villeneuve closed his eyes, inhaling, and then he suddenly yelled out loud. ‘Napoleon would have another revolution on his hands!’ Dominique, used to these unfortunate outbursts took no notice, and busied himself with sewing a button on a pair of the Admiral’s breeches. 

   ‘Oh dear, mon, Amiral, where have all the real men gone?’ A sudden gust of cool air and a sweet, inky voice caught them both off guard ... he loathed that voice.

   ‘Bonjour Mademoiselle Clotilde,’ he said, stiffly turning around. She lay, stretched out along a low, brightly coloured Spanish divan, a trophy from the Trafalgar campaign, in an iridescent gown, and she was smiling at him, he hated that smile too. Dominique quietly dragged his stool to the opposite end of the cabin, as a fine, silvery frost crept all along the cabin’s brightly, polished floor, and busied himself behind a rack of the Admiral’s shirts.