The Journey Home

Chapter 5 A Fugitive's Voyage

Frederick sat at the writing desk, a single candle illuminating the paper while he wrote to his sister. It was just before dawn, and the evening chill still lingered in the cabin while his two young sons slept heavily in the bed, tucked in the eave of the cramped room, dedicated to the privacy of the Captain's guests. The ship was heading south, to the ports of Africa, carrying the wares of Frederick's family business. The ship's Captain was the only one who knew their true identity, others knew only that they were destined for the port of Ambriz on the west coast of Africa. Frederick's employer, the House of Barbour, maintained warehouses for the goods they traded locally in and around the West African port and in the Middle East and Asia. Since joining the merchant family, Frederick had encouraged expansion and taking risks for greater return, and the family established a business that followed the the southerly trade routes to the Middle East. At that moment, Frederick only cared that the trip took him and his boys away from the grief and pain of Cadiz and to a port that was not under British control. Only two weeks before, their bustling home boasted of five young children under the age of 8 years, his blessed wife, Dolores, and his sister Margaret. An outbreak of cholera had taken nearly all the joy from his life and scattered what was left of it to the wind. His 6 year old son, Louis, had been first, and his lovely wife Dolores had been next, staying with her boy to nurse his feverish body, despite the fact that the illness had already ravaged her body. Their youngest, Isabella, was not yet a year old, but who still nursed from her mother's breast quickly followed her mama and brother to God's hand. He squeezed his eyes shut at the thought of his babies, buried in the same casket with their adoring mother.

A decision was made to divide the remaining family, despite Señor Barbour's, the family's patriarch, insistence that the family stay in Cadiz. Frederick would have no part of it and determined that the surviving boys, Carlos and Alberto, would go with him to the trading outpost of Ambriz and learn to be merchant sailors so that they might one day assume the helm of their father's trade. He had resolved to educate them as his father had educated him, at the hand of the classics and by his own word. He sent his daughter, Maria Louise, just four years old, to England with his sister Margaret. He hoped that Margaret and his old Aunt Shaw would educate the girl and raise her as a young lady until such time that he could return to Spain, if he ever returned to Spain. The pain and grief over the loss of his beloved Dolores was so great that he could not imagine a life without her in his adopted homeland. One thing was certain, he could never go to England to see them; the British Navy still had a price on his head as a ringleader in the mutiny aboard the Odyssey.

The boys slept in a tangle, their heads touching each other to gain comfort after having their young lives ripped apart and an uncertain future ahead of them. They were now fugitives, along with their father. Was this God's punishment for Frederick's cowardess? Running from justice instead of facing it by court marshal? Frederick refocused on finishing the letter he had started sometime before midnight the evening before. In his haste to leave Cadiz, he had failed to provide Margaret with proper instructions as to the family's assets and wishes for his children. Although she had plenty of money from an inheritance, he bristled at the thought of his thoughtless behavior of thrusting his sister and daughter on a steamer bound for South Hampton, with only the cost of their tickets accounted for. He addressed the letter to Margaret care of his Aunt Shaw, of Harley Street, London England.