Salt and Silence: A Royal Navy Sailor’s Wife, 1804

The war has dragged on so long now that I can no longer recall the sound of peace. Every tide carries whispers of battle — France, invasion, blockade — but here in Portsmouth, life for a sailor’s wife is its own kind of campaign.

My husband, James, serves aboard HMS Hades, part of the Caribbean Fleet that watches the valuable trade links to the west. I haven’t seen him since last spring, when the ship sailed at dawn under a grey, weeping sky. He kissed me once, then the children, and was gone down the cobbled street without a backwards glance. The Navy does not wait for those who make long farewells.

A Shore Life Bound by Sea

They call us “Navy wives,” though the Admiralty gives us little more than a promise and a paper. Our men belong to the Crown, but we belong to no one. We live in a narrow terrace, two rooms one above the other, the walls sweating salt from the harbour air. Rent is due whether the Navy pays or not — and the pay often takes months to come.

To feed the children, I take in washing from the dockyard officers’ wives, mending their linen with stiff fingers while my baby cries beside the fire. The smell of lye, salt, and smoke clings to me more tightly than my shawl. At the market, prices climb higher each week: bread, soap, candles. There’s talk of a shortage, of hunger. We barter where we can — a half-pint of milk for a stitch of lace.

Rumours from the Water

We hear little from our men. When the ships are out, they vanish like ghosts — only their names drift back with the gossip. A cutter brings word from Plymouth: a storm in the Channel, a frigate lost near Jamaica. The women gather by the harbour walls, clutching shawls and letters, asking the same questions no one can answer.

Sometimes, a merchantman brings a letter — smudged, creased, smelling of smoke and sea. Thomas writes few words, for ink is dear and space is small. “I am well. God willing, I will see you soon.” I read it until the edges wear thin.

The Women Who Wait

We live half-lives, all of us — half-widow, half-wife, half-hope. Some women find work in the victualling yard, rolling casks or sewing canvas for a shilling a day. Others wait outside the pay office, hoping their names are not among the widows’.

At night, I walk to the harbour and watch the lanterns of the anchored ships flicker across the water. The air smells of pitch and brine. Somewhere out there, Thomas keeps watch beneath the same stars. I whisper a prayer for calm seas and fair wind — and for the war to end before our hearts do.

Endurance

To be the wife of a Royal Navy sailor in 1804 is to live with the sea inside you — its patience, its hunger, its endless waiting. We are the tide’s women, drawn back and forth by duty and love. History may never write our names, but it was our waiting that filled England’s harbours with hope.