Uncharted Waters

This romantic short story by Alison Carter is set in France in 1629.

MARIE had only been allowed to come to Marseilles because she had persuaded her mother that it was safe.

But now it was clear that nowhere coastal was safe from the pirates her father was in charge of repelling.

“They are a menace,” the admiral told Marie. “These Barbary pirates, these corsairs, they’re like a swarm of flies.

“Every time I swat one a new one buzzes in.”

“I know you will do your best, Papa,” Marie said.

Marie’s mother had recently had a baby, and had stayed behind in Paris.

“The Navy means to wipe out these filthy pirates,” the admiral said.

“They sail out of Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and harass French merchants.

“Whole fishing villages have been abandoned out of abject fear!

“I’d abandon my village,” Marie said, “if I thought some pirate was about to leap ashore.”

“Marie, you will go nowhere near any village. They take slaves – that’s why the villagers flee.” “I know, Papa.”

Marie knew a lot.

She was the sort of young woman who kept her eyes and ears open and meant to have an interesting break from Paris.

Her mother was bound to demand her return soon.

Her parents had their eye on a husband for her, and from the look of the young men she had met in her mother’s salon, she’d rather be in Marseilles at risk from corsairs than marry any of them.

It was 1629, and the Barbary Coast seemed to be breeding light ships that stalked the Mediterranean and prowled the shores of

Italy, France and Spain.

Admiral Ducan had been given the port of Marseilles from which to work.

They had been in Marseilles three weeks, and Marie had been talking her father into some social engagements.

Now, the admiral firmly believed that an upcoming “little dinner” was entirely his own idea.

“Just a few of the officers,” he said.

“Just a few,” Marie said. Then one of the unmarried men pulled out, saying he had to go down the coast to Toulon to look into supplies, and Marie had too many women.

To her surprise, her father came back from the harbour with a suggestion.

“There’s a man coming in this week, some engineer, an inland fellow.”

Marie was used to charming Parisian men – but Remy was like no-one she had ever met before . . .

The admiral used the word “inland” to describe almost anybody he was unsure of.

He had been born and brought up on boats on the Normandy coast, and didn’t understand the point of landlubbers.

“Invite him,” Marie said. “He’s not naval.”

“All the better.”

The new man had been engaged to make technical suggestions to combat piracy.

To their more traditional crimes of boarding ships at sea and making off with spices and silks, the corsairs had added fast and frightening shore raids.

They changed their tactics often and the Navy needed ideas.

“I doubt he’ll be competent,” the admiral said. “He’s from . . . where was it? Geneva. He is not even French! Has he ever even seen a boat?”

“They have a big lake in Geneva.”

“Do they? Well, this is not a lake. I have been told to put him to work and so I must, but I have doubts.”

The young man, whose name was Remy Olivier, was unprepossessing.

He entered the dining room blinking in the candlelight and proceeded to slowly examine the few paintings that the Ducans had brought from Paris.

“They’re mostly of boats,” the admiral called out.

Marie laughed, ushering guests to their chairs.

“Given the choice, my father would fill the house with boats.”

Olivier turned round, noticed that he was the only person left standing, and blushed furiously.

He had the sort of complexion that blushing affects badly, but his face was pleasant to look at.

“I am sorry,” he said, beetling across the floor and seizing this chair at the same moment that the servant did it for him.

“Boats, yes, are the key, and the way we build them is the other key.”

The admiral, Marie saw, liked Remy Olivier already.

As the two men began to talk, right over the head of the young lady between them, even the fact that he wasn’t French didn’t seem much of a problem.

“Our vessels will not do,” the admiral said.

“Indeed, sir,” Remy said. “I have made a study at your Navy’s request and the initial findings are clear.

“The ships you send against the pirates are big and slow and designed to function best under sail.

“Pirates operate in all waters, and they are in and out like a fish to a feed.”

“You will make new designs!” the admiral said. “Have some more wine!”

Marie suggested the lady between them should move to another chair, and she did so with relief.

Marie watched her father, and found herself watching Remy, too.

He was shorter than the admiral and lacked the look of robust health that sailors had.

But his brown eyes were round with his enthusiasm for his subject.

He was thin and ordinarylooking, but he was eager, his fingers tapping his napkin as he expounded his ideas.

“First, a shallow draft has to be considered,” he said.

“None of our ships are like that,” the admiral said. “We pride ourselves in craft which slice the oceans.”

“But no good in shallow waters, sir. How many times have warships been forced to stand to off shore while a pirate band nipping across from Salé overruns a town? And their oars!” “We have oarsmen.”

“But the villains furl their sails at a moment’s notice.

“Then their galley slaves manoeuvre into narrow spots. It’s the speed of them, sir, the speed!”

The young man hadn’t spoken to a single other diner and had not spoken to the hostess either, which was poor etiquette, but his ardour drew them all in.

Marie experienced a strange envy: she would like to be talking to him herself.

When the diners rose, she made her way to where he was examining the model of a two-masted carrack on the sideboard.

“M. Olivier, did you enjoy dinner?” she asked him. “Yes,” he said.

There was a silence. Apparently he could talk for ever about maritime engineering, but only had one word for a woman.

“That’s good,” she said. “I trust we will see you again, now that you will be getting to work?”

“Yes,” he said again, his voice quieter. “Thank you.”

Marie clapped her hands and he jumped a few inches in the air.

“You have three words, then,” she said.

“I beg your pardon.” “Don’t mind me, M. Olivier; I am spoken of as bold, and unfeminine.”

“No.” His voice was lower, and even quieter. “That’s four.”

“I don’t understand, Mademoiselle Ducan.”

He was so confused now that she decided to release him from his torture, and indicated the next room.

He fled, saying something muddled about bowsprits.

She kept her eye on his retreating back, the narrow torso, tense with nerves.

He was unlike the Parisian men she knew, all of them elegant and able to talk about art, all of them witty and arch, all of them dull as ditch water.

Olivier hadn’t much to say, but when he spoke to her his attention had been fully on her.

Goodness knew where naval administration had found him.

He was down-at-heel, his white collar made of cheap linen and patched.

The coat that clung to his long, flexible back had a seam that was giving way.

The man was slight, not handsome and without a sou to his name, but Marie wanted to see him again.

She was surprised at her desire: she had known nothing like it before.

But Remy Olivier was not here for her benefit and she must take care that he did not become an infatuation.

The admiral had got a taste for little dinners and demanded another.

This time, Remy was less awkward but only (Marie saw) because he had plans to put before the admiral.

They were due to have a meeting a few days later.

“We must note the difference between our ships and those of the corsairs,” he said. “I wish I had my sketches.”

He caught Marie’s eye and looked down, realising

He was unlike all the Parisian men she knew

that large pieces of vellum on a lady’s dining table were not appropriate. He swallowed.

“What I mean to say is that theirs are small, nimble and lightly armed.

“We are therefore poor at hunting them down, and once we have sight, we are poor at capture.”

Marie’s father sat back. “A fellow back in Paris, just returned from Italy where they have a problem with these razzias –”

“These what?” Marie asked.

The young engineer looked at her, and for a moment she thought that their eyes met, but with so many candles in the way she could not be sure.

“That’s the Italian word for the raids,” the admiral said.

“This fellow, a captain under Admiral Benoit, I think, said that the way to run down the marauders is to get ourselves one of their vessels!”

He sighed.

“But it’s a vicious circle: to get one, we have to be better than the criminals, and to be better, we need their boat.”

Remy was looking at the admiral with an expression of wonder.

“To be as they are,” he said.

The admiral laughed. “Except we don’t kill on beaches and steal cargoes.”

“To be like a man but better – that might win the prize!”

The admiral looked puzzled.

“Stick to boats, man,” he said. “Stick to timbers and tar. I will see you in the office on Monday.”

It was soon after that when Marie met another young man, sent up to the house from Remy’s office.

The man was introduced as a local engineer and an assistant for M. Olivier.

“I bet he breaks hearts all over Marseilles”

One of his jobs was to liaise on new designs with the admiral.

“He’s a fine fellow,” her father said, after the man, whose name was François, first visited the house.

“I will want to see Olivier regularly, but his emissary is a charming man, don’t you think?”

François Brodeur was tall and muscular with abundant hair, dancing eyes and a wicked smile.

“I bet he breaks hearts all over Marseilles,” the admiral said.

“Possibly,” Marie said. M. Brodeur was from a local family which owned extensive vineyards.

He told Marie that he had studied maritime construction purely for amusement.

“And to do something different,” he said.

He moved his chair so that he could face her – they were in the hallway, waiting to see the admiral.

“I have money aplenty but a man must also have something to do.”

He was too familiar with her, but he was the sort of young man who could be bold because he was good-looking, wealthy, educated, and charming.

He reminded Marie of a dozen bachelors in Paris.

M. Brodeur began to woo her.

He had access to a stable from which to take horses, extensive grounds to walk in at the family home, and a carriage to fetch her.

He had many subjects to converse on, including wine, what music was fashionable, and what King Louis and Queen Anne were up to.

He was attentive, gallant, sweet smelling and extraordinarily boring.

Marie spent part of three days with him, and on each one she found herself wondering constantly what the time was.

Meanwhile, Remy Olivier visited rarely, and Marie thought about him – his lively manner with her father, his gauche manners with her, his openness, the way his fingers never stopped moving.

She thought of his funny accent and the way he never remembered to give his cloak to a servant.

Perhaps, she thought, she was a fool.

Perhaps she was only in love because he had no interest in her, and lived for his boat drawings.

But then . . . when he did visit, he would linger in the hallway, looking at paintings that he had looked at many times.

Marie wondered if he was waiting in case she passed.

And she did. Each time she heard his name announced by a servant, she would linger in the gallery above, feeling silly.

She would hurry down the stairs, “looking for a manservant” or “trying to trace that draught”, and cross paths with him.

If this was the disease of love, then Marie knew she had a bad case.

She also knew that M. Olivier and M. Brodeur were working together, so surely Remy knew that Francois was courting her?

It made Marie wretched; the man she loved was happy to see another man chase her.

Her case was hopeless. One day when her father and M. Olivier had gone to the harbour to save all of France with their brilliance, Marie took a walk.

It was far too hot for it but she needed to think.

She made her way towards the sea in the hope of a breeze, and passed the church of Saint Laurent with its stone the colour of pale sand.

The great doors were closed to keep in the cool air, but at the top of the steps was a figure she recognised, although he was facing away.

It was François Brodeur, unmistakable with his thick back and long black hair.

She heard a giggle, and then a curvaceous girl ducked out under his arm, which had been braced against the door.

“One more kiss, Pélagie,” he pleaded, but the girl was running.

She was dressed in the gathered short sleeves and tucked-in neckerchief of the women who gutted sardines at the port.

François saw Marie as the fish gutter ran, giggling and calling back to him that she would never, ever see him again and he was a wicked man.

Marie guessed she’d be back the following day.

“Ah, Mademoiselle Ducan,” he said. “Ah . . .”

Marie climbed the stairs feeling a certain relief.

“What,” she said, “is going on?”

He looked at the departing figure of Pélagie. “She’s a sweet thing –” “I am sure you know that is not what I mean, monsieur.”

He smiled, and paused. “My boss isn’t good at personal relationships.” “Monsieur Olivier?”

“He’s good at ships, bad at women.”

“I see.”

“Mademoiselle Ducan, I didn’t agree that his scheme had any merit.”

He bowed, taking off his hat.

“You are a woman of intelligence, and it would be no use, I told him.” “What scheme?”

Remy had asked François to woo for him.

“He says he’d do it all wrong,” François said with a shrug.

“I don’t doubt it – look at the fellow.”

Marie didn’t doubt it either but she didn’t say so.

“There’s not much more to say, Mademoiselle. I had a stab at it. I kept telling him he’d have to step in. He got himself in such a pickle.”

Marie was furious, and astonished, but also suddenly filled with hope.

She ran down the steps of Saint Laurent and on to the naval offices.

“Papa, please step outside,” she said.

Her father, in a meeting not only with Remy but two senior shipbuilders, ushered them outside at the sight of her face.

“When did you plan to sweep Brodeur aside and step in?” she demanded.

Remy’s face turned patchy pink again, just like the first time she met him.

“I don’t know,” he said frantically.

“I got myself in a tangle. There was Brodeur – handsome, able to talk like a prince, and tall.

I thought . . .”

His face was full of apology and wild entreaty.

“I thought that if we could use a better ship by copying –”

“A ship?”

“The admiral talked about that captain in Paris who said –”

“What, that the Navy ought to catch a corsairs’ ship and with that gain the upper hand?”

Remy’s face became animated.

“Exactly! I know ships,” he said. “Brodeur was . . . a corsair’s sleek vessel to my clumsy gunship.”

He stopped, but seeing the incredulous shake of her head he added, “He was happy to do the work. He said it would test him, and hone his skills.”

“Skills! Remy, you are a fool,” she said.

“Oh, I know,” he replied. “That was the stupidest idea that has been heard in the history of lovers.” “Lovers?”

He examined her face, and realisation dawned.

Marie knew she had to be the one to kiss him, and so she did, and that was the end – or the beginning – of that.

The End.