The laying of the Wentworth on a course to the north eastwards was his decision alone, despite the consultation he had had with his officers. That was for form’s sake, a matter by which he could ease his conscience, for his determination to take the Wentworth to Rhode Island grew in him by the hour. He was motivated not by the public consideration of refitting his ship, but by the private desire to see again a woman who had once stirred him. The refitting of the Wentworth was but a means to another end and, as he came below and turned into his swinging cot while the ship lifted to the Atlantic swells off Cape Charles, he knew that he had set a match to a powder train. Hoe violent the explosion at its end, however, he had no means of guessing.
* * *
The following morning Kite was awakened not by Bandy Ben but by Harper. The Second Mate was dripping wet, his tarpaulins glossy in the feeble light which filled the cabin. Beyond the cabin bulkhead Kite could hear shouts and he felt his cot jar and sensed the heel of the ship as Harper shook him.
‘White squall, sir! And worse to come!’ Then he was gone and Kite was tumbling out of his cot and reaching for breeches and a greygoe to pull over his night-shirt as the deck slid away from beneath him. It was the first bad weather he had experienced since leaving the Mersey and it came as a nasty, humbling shock. Fighting to keep his balance he felt the Wentworth stagger under the onslaught of a sea which slammed against her weather bow and set every part of her fabric a-judder.
He reached the cabin door and wrenched it open, propelling himself through it half by his own volition while, it seemed, the ship herself gave him a hand as the next wave struck her and, just as he reached the foot of the companionway, he was suddenly soused by a chilling deluge of cold water. He cursed with the shock of it and fought his way up on deck. As his head came clear of the coaming he was aware of a number of sensations. The first was the residue of water pouring across the deck, the second was the sting of it as the wind whipped it up and flung it into his eyes where it stung them with its saltiness. As he dragged himself to his feet by the stanchion at the head of the companionway, he could hear the shriek of the wind and the cracking a booming noise of the blown out main topsail. Below that the mainsail had been clewed up, but the loose folds filled and bellied with wind, a pale ghostly thing expanding and contracting like some huge and revolting grey bladder. This threatened to carry away at any moment while further forward the watch were hauling on the clew garnets of the fore-course. A group of men were at the foot of the larboard pin-rail abreast the mainmast, hoisting themselves into the weather shrouds.
Kite reached the helm where a large negro seaman named Jacob held the wheel, his huge legs braced wide on the planking.
‘Bad night, Cap’n!’ he called, ‘Ship’s head nor’ nor’ west, sah!’
‘Very well, Jacob. Can ye hold her yourself?’
‘Aye, sir, Jacob ’d hold the horse of the devil!’ The big man grinned in the gloom and Kite was suddenly glad of the sight of the man’s wide grin.
‘Good man. Where’s Mr Harper?’
‘Second Mate go forrard… Massah Corrie gone aloft to take in de main tops’l!’
Kite looked up and could see the figures he had seen going aloft were now negotiating the futtock shrouds. Hauling himself up to windward, Kite edged forward. Beyond the ship’s rail he could see the sea had been knocked flat by the wind and for the first time the extreme angle at which the Wentworth lay heeled. He thought of her lack of cargo below and hence a lack of positive stability, he thought of the likelihood of the shingle ballast shifting to exacerbate the delicacy of their situation. Anxiously he stared aloft, aware that he was looking nearer the horizontal than the vertical. Even as his brain formed the thought, the inevitable happened. The faint, yet threatening thrumming of parting stays suddenly reached its brief and terrifying crescendo in a series of cracks, each of which was followed by a thunderous sound, like the vigorous beating of a muffled drum as first the foretopmast went by the board, then the fore course blew out and the falling wreckage took the maintopmast with it while this in turn carried away the mizen topgallant mast.
Kite heard the shrill screams of the falling men, heard the dreadful, dull thump as one hit the rail, his body smashed in an instant and heard too the thin reedy scream of a man fallen unhurt into the wake astern of the ship. For an instant Kite stood stock-still, stunned by the overwhelming power of the gust of wind, uncertain whether or not some rope or stay in his immediate vicinity might not strike him as it parted, and then he was beside Jacob, bawling at him to let go the helm and get a chicken coop overboard for the wretch in the water to cling to.
The wreckage lying over the leeward side dragged the ship’s head round to starboard and the stern rose as it passed through the wind. Against a sudden patch of lighter cloud he saw Jacob hurl the chicken coop overboard to the pitiful objection of its occupants while the Wentworth swung round to lie wallowing, her starboard side exposed to the wind as she dragged the wreckage of her upper spars slowly to the south and east.
‘Mr Corrie! Mr Harper! Muster your watches!’ Kite bellowed.
Someone called out, ‘the Mate’s overboard, sir!’
Kite swore. ‘Who else is missing? Mr Harper, are you there?’
‘Aye, sir, all my men are accounted for.’
Kite felt a surge of relief as the hands came aft and assembled just forward of the helm. Harper was too good a man to lose. He cleared his throat: ‘Bosun, call the Mate’s watch.’
‘Aye, aye, sir!’
After a few moments they established that, in addition to Corrie, there were three men missing, all able-seamen who had gone out along the foretopsail yard with Corrie to pass the gaskets and secure the blown out sail. Kite digested the news, then he passed his orders.
‘The Mate’s watch to get axes and knives and start clearing the wreckage. Jacob, aloft into the mizen top and keep your eyes open. I’ll not give up on those men!’
‘Cap’n Kite! I’ve found Nicholls sir,’ a man shouted and there was a general move to the ship’s larboard side where Nicholls had fallen. He had struck the rail and then fallen outboard, not into the water, but between the deadeye-irons and the bulwarks, his legs trapped on the chainwhale, his broken body trailing overboard in a bloody mess.
‘Christ Almighty.’
‘Let him go, sir?’ asked the Boatswain.
Kite nodded and one of the men called out, ‘Shame!’ while another muttered a prayer.
‘Come men,’ Kite pulled them together, ‘we’ve work to do…’
As if the squall had been fatally conjured for their own especial punishment, the wind dropped rapidly and by the time the sun rose it was almost a dead calm.
Then Jacob bawled, ‘Ah see him, sah! Ah see Massah Corrie,’ and Kite looked up to see Jacob up in the mizen top and pointing out on the starboard quarter.
‘No sah!’ Jacon called his voice high-pitched with excitement, ‘I see two men! Two men!’ Kite looked at the boat on the hatch and was about to pass orders to clear it away when first Harper and then Jacob, having slid agilely down a mizen backstay, were over the taffrail and swimming powerfully for the bobbing heads.
‘Get some lines ready, Bosun,’ Kite called, but the matter was already in hand.
Within half an hour, the Second Mate and Jacob had dragged the two survivors alongside the wallowing tangle of spars, sails and rigging onto which half a dozen seamen had scrambled to drag all four out of the water. About an hour later, as all hands with the exception of the rescued and rescuers toiled to cut the Wentworth free of her encumbering spars, the freshening wind backed steadily round and blew again with a steady force from the south west, whence it had come the evening before.
By mid-afternoon the Wentworth had resumed her voyage. Sails had been set on her fore and main yards, her fore topmast stay and a temporarily rigged forestay running to her bowsprit which, with her undamaged spanker, made her manageable. Kite stood Corrie’s watch for him, while he was left to sleep off the hor
rors of his ordeal. Harper seemed reluctant to leave the deck and Kite ordered him below. Still the Second Mate hesitated.
‘For God’s sake go below, Zachariah!’ an exasperated Kite ordered, but Harper shook his head.
‘I’m sorry sir, that I didn’t get the sails off her quicker… I felt something was wrong an hour or so before there was any sign of trouble, but I couldn’t determine what it was. I thought at first it were the compass, which seemed to me to be oscillating too much, but…’
‘You did your best, Zachariah,’ Kite said quietly. ‘No man can do more and many would have been entirely overtaken by events. You should not reproach yourself.’
‘But…’
‘Go below and get some sleep. At least Mrs Corrie is not a widow tonight. You may console yourself with that thought.’
Harper sighed. ‘I cannot sleep, sir. Not yet.’
‘Then tell me… tell me where you come from,’ said Kite, attempting to divert the young man from the lugubrious train of obsessive thought he seemed determined to follow. ‘And tell me of the troubles that seem to be fomenting against England.’
Harper shook his head. ‘Why sir, I come from New York but, as to the troubles, why I know little of them being at sea. It seems that there is a popular feeling against England which is due to taxes and no places for us in Parliament, but I have read that we have in our Assemblies more powers to govern our own lives that you have yourself, if you’ll forgive me for saying so.’
Kite nodded. ‘That is true,’ he replied, choosing not to muddy the waters of debate by a disquisition upon the purchase of politicians such as young Harry Makepeace would like to become. He wondered what had happened to Harry, and his sister Katherine, but then he dismissed the thought as Harper went on.
‘My father says that in God’s good time, these North American Colonies must of necessity become a self-governing nation because they are capable of infinite expansion west of the mountains. He served in the French and Indian wars and has spoken to men who have been over-the-mountains and others who have crossed the Ohio, and they say that there is land there that stretches over mountains and plains beyond the Mississippi and it is a crazy notion that all this land can be ruled by the Tory Minsitry in London. He says it is against all natural law and precedent and that time will effect a parturition.’
‘But land without population is not a nation and these lands belong to the Indians.’
Harper gave one of his slow, engaging grins which seemed, in some curious way, to transform his face into that of a gentle ogre. ‘Cap’n, them Indians ain’t God’s creatures. As for population well, I reckon we Yankees can fill a city or two like you English have filled London.’
‘I have never been to London,’ Kite confessed.
‘Well, Cap’n, if you’d seen London you’d say that there were enough people to fill the valleys of Kentucky and maybe that’d be a good place to put them, seeing as how there’s no room for them in that smoky city.’
‘That is a thought,’ Kite conceded wryly. ‘But what does your father say to rebellion?’
‘Rebellion?’ Harper seemed genuinely astonished at the idea. ‘Why nothing, sir. Why should he?’
‘Because I hear there are men in New England who would stir up rebellion and seize power in the people’s name but for their own purposes.’
Harper nodded. ‘Yes, that may be true sir, and they all do chiefly reside in Boston, but there are enough red-coats in Fort William and on the Common to keep a few hot-heads in order.’
‘So men of your father’s opinion do not think matters will be forced then? Only that they will evolve by a natural process.’
‘I think so, sir. My father says that England has had her civil war and that she knows the danger of another and will avoid it.’
‘But all men may not think like your father…’
‘Well they’ll soon see sense if a red-coat points a bayonet at their bellies.’
‘What is the temper of Rhode Island?’ Kite asked.
Harper shrugged. ‘I don’t rightly know; there was some trouble there a year or so back when they burned that English schooner.’
‘The Gaspée, aye, I heard of that.’
‘But nothing came of it and it blew over.’
‘I think that is what worries me,’ Kitre said.
‘What, that it blew over?’
Kite nodded. ‘Yes. When a schoolboy is not chastised for a misdeed, he commits another, usually worse, just to ascertain the boundaries of restraint. Weak parents indulge such behaviour and laugh it off. But consider, if the youth is motivated by malice, or any species of personal gain, he will play this advantage to the utmost. Cunning is learnt early, d’you know, it is not a sudden acquisition of the mature.’
‘I see what you mean,’ Harper said slowly, nodding his head as he digested the meaning of Kite’s words. ‘Well, men’s names are mentioned from time to time, even in New York we have heard that of Samuel Adams.’
‘And who is he?’
‘He dwells in Boston, I believe, where he was found involved with some embezzlement. I don’t rightly know what it was, but they say it made him a great champion of what they pleases to call liberty and freedom from the tyranny of England.’ Harper shook his head. ‘My father says that they who sow the wind usually reap the whirlwind with interest thrown in.’
‘Your father is a sensible man, Zachariah.’
‘Thank you.’ Harper yawned. ‘I think I shall go below now, Captain Kite. And thank you.’
‘Thank you Zachariah.’
Chapter Six
Sarah Tyrell
‘They say lightning never strikes in the same place twice, Captain Kite,’ remarked Arthur Tyrell as he rose and took Kite’s hand. The years since Kite had last seen him in 1759 had bowed him; he was shrunken with age and rheumatism, yet his eyes were as bright as Kite recalled and his mind undimmed by time. ‘Yet you have come again to Newport as a port of refuge, William.’
‘That is not quite correct,’ replied Kite smiling. ‘I was bound here from Baltimore with the intention of having my ship put in the hands of Roberts’ yard to effect some alterations in her sail plan.’
‘Well from what I saw of her yesterday as she came in past Dumpling’s Rock, she is much in need of that,’ Tyrell joked, ‘but Sarah will be disappointed if she thinks that you had any purpose other than to dine with us.’
Kite felt himself colouring involuntarily. ‘That is most kind of her, Arthur.’
‘She is a constant woman, William…’ Kite felt a most disquieting sensation of weak-kneed guilt flood him. For one humiliating moment he thought he was going to faint; that the old man before him had some strange yet potent powers of divination capable of seeing into the depths of his soul to expose the potentially adulterous phantasmagorias which had haunted the margins of his sleep for the last few nights. ‘Pray do sit down and I shall ring for some wine.’ Gratefully Kite sank into an adjacent chair, vaguely aware that he should have made some polite acknowledgement of Sarah’s constancy.
‘How is your wife?’ he asked as matter-of-factly as he could.
Tyrell smiled. ‘Did you know that when you sailed, she followed you on her horse, riding to Castle Hill to watch your schooner until you had passed out of Buzzard’s Bay.’
Kite coughed awkwardly. ‘No, I had no idea… It was a long time ago.’
‘You made a profound impression upon her, William, and it has long been my hope that you would return to Newport. I heard that a Captain Kite was trading on the coast in a vessel hitherto unknown to me and I assumed it was you…’
Kite, uncertain of the purpose of Tyrell’s revelations and embarrassed to pursue them, took advantage of the opening and explained to the old man of the separation of himself from what was now Makepeace and Watkinson. Tyrell listened in silence, his elbows on his desk, his finger tips neatly touching, and when Kite had finished he nodded approvingly.
‘By your account,’ he said, ‘you have acted wisely bu
t tell me, what of Puella? She was expecting, if I recall aright and Sarah will want to know all the details, though you may tell her yourself for I will not countenance any refusal to make our house your own while you are here.’
Kite shook his head. ‘You are too kind, Arthur, but to the matter of your question, Puella is dead, as is the son she bore. He fell a victim to the cholera so prevalent in Liverpool and she…’ he hesitated.
‘She took to her bed and died,’ Tyrell said, ‘yes, you will recall I spent some time in the Antilles and have seen such things before.’ He paused then said, ‘so, you are a free man.’
‘I suppose I am…’
‘William…’ Tyrell rose to his feet and turned to look out of his window which overlooked the harbour. ‘You may think me foolish but as the years passed and you did not return to Rhode Island, I confess I was pleased, though I knew Sarah wished otherwise…’
‘Arthur, I…’ Kite began, but without turning round Tyrell raised his hand and Kite fell silent.
‘I married Sarah after her betrothed had been lost at sea. She appeared inconsolable and there was foolish talk of her having lost her mind. It was all poppy-cock, of course, she was simply very young and completely infatuated. The young man was not particularly admirable, and probably much improved by an early demise; but those were my own cynical observations except that, in due course and as I had anticipated, although she kept his year’s mind for many years, she spoke less of him and enjoyed mild flirtations with a number of other men younger than myself. You were among them.’
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