Lynn Bryant's new book

I don't often do Guest Posts, but I'm making an exception today for a writing colleague whose books I admire. (To celebrate her new publication, Lynnn is making the first book, An Unwilling Alliance available from 1^st to 5^th November 2019 FREE on Amazon here. Don't miss this opportunity!)

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This Blighted Expedition is set during the disastrous Walcheren Campaign of 1809, where the largest British operation of the war, consisting of 40,000 men and around 600 ships fell apart due to a combination of poor planning, poor leadership, bad weather and an epidemic of ‘Walcheren fever’ which killed more than 4,000 men and left another 12,000 still sick by February 1810. It’s the second book in the Manxman series, which began with An Unwilling Alliance and is told from the point of view of six characters. 

Three of them are from the first book, including Captain Hugh Kelly, who is the Manxman of the title, his wife Roseen and his first officer, Lieutenant Alfred Durrell. There are two army men, Giles Fenwick, who later appears in the Peninsular War Saga and Ross Mackenzie, a new character and there is also a Dutchwoman, Katja de Groot. All the characters bring something different to the story, but if I had to make a choice, I would unhesitatingly say that this book belongs to Durrell.

Durrell is twenty-five at the start of this book, and has been in the navy since he was a boy. He comes from a family of minor gentry in Kent. Durrell’s father was not wealthy but was fortunate enough to have the patronage of the first Earl of Chatham and then later, after the Earl’s death, of his two sons, the second Earl and William Pitt, the prime minister.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, patronage was king. Put in it’s simplest terms, political patronage is the appointment of a man to a government post on the basis of partisan loyalty. In the days before Parliamentary reform, when many boroughs were controlled by a local landowner, this could also mean the gift of a seat in the House to a man whose duty it then was to support his patron’s interests.

Durrell’s father had enjoyed the patronage of the Pitt family right from the start of his career. He felt an immense sense of loyalty to the family, and held several different posts under the old Earl and then his sons, ending up working at the Admiralty when the second Earl of Chatham was First Lord of the Admiralty.

Both Henry and Alfred Durrell were helped in the early stages of their career by the Pitt interest. The two brothers went to Harrow, but while Henry fitted in well and enjoyed his schooldays, Alfred was unhappy and it was decided that he should go into the navy. He began his navy career as an ‘officers’ servant’ and worked his way up to midshipman and then to lieutenant. It was necessary to take an examination to become a lieutenant, and we are told had Durrell passed his with ridiculously high marks. From there, he held junior lieutenants posts on several different ships before obtaining the post of first lieutenant aboard the Iris in 1806. He was young for the post, and Hugh Kelly offered it to him on the basis of a letter of recommendation from the Earl of Chatham.

Durrell’s relationship with Kelly is one of the pleasures of writing these books. In the early stages, it seems very unlikely that the two men can be friends. They come from very different backgrounds and have very different personalities. Kelly is Manx, his father held a smallholding near South Barrule and drank himself to death after his landlord evicted him for failing to keep the land in good order. Kelly joined the navy as a volunteer, and worked his way up through the ranks without patronage or privilege to help him. He gained his education through the navy and although these days he is very comfortable mixing with all social classes, he’s aware that some people will always see him as a Manx farm boy.

Durrell, in contrast, comes from a good family who mix in the highest circles. He and his brother were presented at court and he has maintained links with the Pitt family. Despite this, he lacks Kelly’s social confidence. He is tall and slim, with the sense that he never knows what to do with his long limbs. We know nothing about his relationships with women, except that his brother teases him about his lack of experience. Durrell likes rules and regulations and has a strong sense of duty and a very good work ethic. He is also brilliant, with a phenomenal memory but in his early days with Hugh, he has no idea when to shut up and his lengthy speeches make Hugh want to thump him.

In An Unwilling Alliance, we see Durrell and Hugh getting to know each other and learning to work together. It isn’t easy, and there are times when Hugh wonders if he made a mistake in his choice, but gradually we see the ice thawing and by the time we meet Durrell at the beginning of This Blighted Expedition, Hugh knows his value and is furious when Sir Home Popham manages to get Durrell seconded to him for the duration of the campaign.

Durrell has a very good relationship with Roseen, Hugh’s young wife. They are fairly close in age, although Roseen is often quite maternal towards him, which makes Hugh laugh. Despite Durrell’s shyness around women, he has a younger sister at home, and once he gets to know Roseen, they develop a close friendship which probably helped to smooth out some of the early difficulties between Hugh and Durrell.

Durrell is a serious-minded young man and feels immense loyalty to the Earl of Chatham, the rather ineffectual commander of the army in Walcheren. There is a sense of mutual liking and even affection between them although the relationship is always very formal; Durrell understands the rules of patronage and theirs is not an equal relationship.

During this book, Durrell is away from the Iris for much of the time, acting as aide-de-camp to Sir Home Popham. Popham and Durrell met in the first book and their relationship is very complicated. Durrell has huge admiration for Popham’s abilities and is keen to learn from him, but he does not trust him and feels uncomfortable about serving under him.

While Durrell was working his way up the ranks of the navy, his elder brother Henry was appointed to a series of government posts through the Pitt interest, very much as his father was. Unlike his father, Henry is not content with this. He is ambitious and unscrupulous and Durrell quickly realises that there is more to Henry’s appointment to Lord Chatham’s staff during the campaign than meets the eye. In addition, Henry is paying court to Miss Collingwood, the very young daughter of a City merchant and Durrell does not trust his brother’s intentions towards her. As the campaign begins to fall apart, the relationship between Durrell and Henry begins to crumble, revealing tensions that began in boyhood.

A friend who has read This Blighted Expedition, told me that she loved this book because in this campaign, the typical hero-types don’t get much opportunity to be heroic. Instead, the real hero of this book is First Lieutenant Alfred Durrell; awkward, earnest and brilliant. This book is Durrell’s coming-of-age. Durrell started out as a somewhat comic foil to Hugh Kelly and proceeded to steal every scene I’ve ever written him into. I hope my readers come to love him as much as I do.

This Blighted Expedition is available on Amazon kindle here and will be out in paperback by the end of November. To celebrate publication, the first book, An Unwilling Alliance is available from 1^st to 5^th November 2019 FREE on Amazon here.

In the meantime, I am about to embark on book six of the Peninsular War Saga. It’s called An Unrelenting Enmity and to give myself a kick start with the writing process, I am attempting NaNaWriMo for the first time ever. To follow my progress why not join me on my blog over at Writing with Labradors, or on Facebook or Twitter?