served many uses: as a customs house, as the offices of the local constabulary, and most recently, as a gaol for prisoners of war. The bars once intended to keep miscreants out, now serve to hold them within.
I turned into French Street, as though merely another lady intent upon securing seats in a box at the pretty little theatre that stood some distance beyond; and lingered before the double black doors that fronted the Water Gate Quay. Two Marines in scarlet dress stood to either side of the arched portal; one was rigid with his sense of duty, but the other allowed his gaze to stray insolently over my form. Without even a second perusal, he dismissed me as unworthy of his attention.
“Pray tell me, sir,” I said in an accent sharpened by suppressed indignation, “whether Mr. Hill, the surgeon, is within Wool House? I have undertaken to assist him in his ministrations to the French.”
The Marine's gaze returned to my countenance with an expression of slow amusement, but his companion— somewhat senior in rank, from his appearance—relaxed his stance and bowed.
“You will find the surgeon within, ma'am—but allow me to urge you to reconsider. Wool House is not a suitable place for a lady.”
He possessed a kindly visage, and his glance was direct; it held neither presumption nor arrogance, but merely the most active concern. I managed a smile.
“May I enquire as to your name?”
“Major Morrissey, ma'am.”
“I am Miss Austen, Major,” I told him, “the sister of Captain Austen of the Royal Navy—and I fully under stand the dangers to which I expose myself. But were my brother laid low on enemy shores, I should wish him to be equally served by the hand of some French lady.”
“Step lively, Stubbs,” the Major urged his subordinate, “and shift the door for the Captain's sister!”
A heavy block was moved—an iron ring turned—a bolt thrown back—and the massive oak doors suffered to swing slowly inwards, while my two protectors lowered the muzzles of their guns to prevent the sudden escape of anyone within. I hesitated an instant on the threshold, my eyes overcome by the blackness of the interior, then took a few steps forward.
“Knock three times on the oak when you wish to be let out,” Major Morrissey urged, “and mind you don't exhaust yourself, ma'am. Recollect that in their right senses, these fellows would as soon blow your good brother to pieces as take a cup of gruel from yourself.”
With a screech of protest as painful as a sinner's wail, the heavy doors swung closed.
I was conscious of an awkward silence, as of conversation abruptly cut off, and then a resurgent murmur of male conversation, and a guttural bark of laughter. The dimness within was not so heavy as I had at first supposed; there were, after all, several barred windows punctuating the massive stone walls, and through the bleary panes of glass a little light must penetrate. Two or three candles burned in niches high above the prisoners. But the room was darkest at my feet, where so many men lay side by side. It was as though the shadows emanated from the sick themselves, to hover like a gathering of souls in the rafters above.
It was as well that I had stopped short just beyond the room's threshold—for there was barely space to walk among the pallets. I stifled a gasp of disbelief as I gazed about me—how many men had Mrs. Braggen described? Forty, in a room better suited for half that number? At least ten were arranged around two tables at the rear of the room, playing at cards; but they alone were upright of the entire assembly. The rest lay in suffering at my feet, some as still as death, some moaning piteously for water. Others thrashed about as though pitching with the roll of the waves; and I saw, with failing looks, that these men's legs were bound with hemp to prevent them kicking at those who would aid them.
The atmosphere, though cold and damp, was sharp with the smells of blood and human waste, and putrefying wounds; with the heavy must of unwashed men. The animal odour of tallow mixed chokingly with the charcoal smoke from a single fire at one side of the chamber. There had recently been meat roasting somewhere on a spit.
I felt my gorge rise, and fumbled in my reticule for a handkerchief. Cecilia Braggen was right to fear the spread of contagion, when it found its source in