Kite frowned uncertainly. He remained convinced Rathburne must return to Rhode Island sooner or later and decided that he might more certainly be induced to do so if word reached him that Rhode Island itself had been attacked. And suppose that he had never left Newport at all? Suppose all this time Rathburne, aware that the British were repairing and fortifying Beacon Island, had betaken himself quietly home? What a fool he had been to think that by simply trailing his coat up and down outside the entrance, Rathburne would fall for Kite’s foolish enticement! Damn the man! If the Rattlesnake was in Newport Road, then it was time he was made to feel the weight of his enemy’s wrath. Moreover, Kite thought with sudden resolution, it was the one way he could recoup almost all the initiative he had lost by his earlier encounter off the lighthouse.
‘I intend to go back to Rhode Island,’ he said suddenly. ‘We will enter the harbour and attack any shipping we find there,’ he added, and as Lamont opened his mouth to venture an opinion, Kite held his hand up. ‘But me no buts, Hamish. I am resolved.’
Lamong grinned. ‘I was not going to argue, Captain Kite, only to suggest we could the more quickly attack shipping in Salem or Marblehead…’
‘Damn Salem and Marblehead,’ Kite said with a sudden ferocity, ‘I have no quarrel with either place.’
‘No, nor I,’ put in Sarah, stepping forward and uncharacteristically thrusting her opinion into their debate, ‘but I have a strong reason for returning to Newport!’
Lamong grinned. ‘I have no argument with your proposition, Ma’am, nor that of your husband. Besides,’ he added wryly, ‘perhaps Master Rathburne has been there all the time.’
‘Exactly what troubles me!’ concurred Kite.
‘What about you, Zachariah?’ Sarah asked, staring at the big American.
‘Where you go, Ma’am, Zachariah Harper will follow. But he will the most willingly follow you back to Newport.’
Sarah smiled. ‘I am obliged to you, sir,’ she said, bobbing him a flattering curtsy on the canting deck and Kite and Lamont grinned as Harper’s ugly face flushed brick-red.
On their return they beat through Nantucket Sound under a grey sky that fitted the grimmer mood aboard the schooner. Word had been passed among the crew that they had abandoned their hunt for the Rattlesnake off shore, and that Captain Kite was determined to attack any vessels lying at anchor off Newport. The plan found no dissenting voice on board, for all were by now spoiling for a fight, emboldened by their action with the rebels on the 21st July and intent on inflicting greater damage on the enemy. Whispers of acquiring a prize or two began to circulate, following rumours of Captain Kite’s need of more money to sustain his vendetta against John Rathburne. There were more rumours, said to be facts though the source was never revealed, that the Rattlesnake was known to be lying at anchor there.
Passing between Nantucket Island and Martha’s Vineyard on the afternoon of Monday, 31st July 1775, Spitfire lay down under reefed canvas as a summer squall passed over her, her decks darkening under the onslaught of driving rain as she ran her lee scuppers under. Astern the longboat tore along in her wake as the white water rushed out from under her stern with a wildly seething hiss that Sarah, sitting reading in the cabin, exclaimed was like the noise of a snake.
The realisation that she had spoken out loud made her start. She was alone in the cabin, Kite having run on deck as Harper had raised the first alarm of the approaching squall.
‘What foolishness,’ she murmured, staring about her, but her heart-beat had increased and the hairs on the nape of her neck were standing up in a strange sensation, like the excitement before love. ‘Was I so lost in my book?’ she asked herself, ‘and so roused from my abstraction?’
The strange, almost concupiscent feeling did not diminish as the moments passed, but her heart-beat remained strong and her breathing light and hurried so that she placed an involuntary hand on her breast and rose, braced against the extreme heel of the deck, her other hand steadying herself on the deck beam overhead.
‘Puella…?’ she whispered, dropping her book and staring into the dark recesses of the cabin. ‘Puella…? Are you there?’
And it seemed to Sarah that in the hiss of the sea, the shriek of the wind in the rigging above and the creaking of the labouring hull as it accelerated through the sea, that Puella answered her in a voice that was audible, yet could not be heard.
‘Puella…?’ Sarah whispered, no longer frightened, but highly excited, ‘shall things be well with us?’
And again the word came without sound, but full of conviction and certainty, so that Sarah sank back into the lashed chair. Gradually her pulse subsided and she was flooded with a great joy, like the afterglow of love. Her hand strayed downwards from her breast to her belly, as if seeking the life growing within her and at this sensual moment the wind eased. The heel of the schooner’s deck eased suddenly, and a patch of sunlight fell about them, illuminating the wake that rushed like a millstream out from below the windows of the cabin.
Five minutes later Kite, his cloak and hat running with water, came through the cabin door, his face split with a grin. ‘My God, Sarah, but did you feel the old girl go? Why, damn me, I think she is spoiling for a fight!’
He helped himself to a drink from the decanter nestling in its fiddles against the cabin bulkhead and turned to her, glass in hand. She shook her head. Seeing one hand upon her belly and recalling her condition with sudden contrition, Kite crossed the deck and dropped to his knee beside her.
‘Sarah, forgive me, but are you well?’
She looked at his face and smiled, placing her right hand reassuringly upon his arm, whilst leaving the other on her quickening womb. ‘I have never been better in my life, my darling,’ she said.
Kite shook his head. ‘You must not fight, my dearest,’ he said, ‘you must not exert yourself…’
‘Shhh.’ She placed an admonitory finger on his lips. ‘I have put two fine flints in your Cranston pistols and shall do as I promised, William. Not even you are going to come between me and the man who murdered Arthur.’
‘Sarah…’
‘But me no buts, as you are fond of saying to others. I do not love you any the less, but Arthur has no other champion but me.’
‘That is not true,’ Kite began, but Sarah over-rode him.
‘You are my new and happy life, William, but my old one is not quite over. Providence is never quite as tidy and accommodating as we should like her to be.’
‘I am anxious for the child, Sarah.’
‘Rest easy on that score, my dearest William.’
‘But you cannot be certain, and it would be foolish to take risks…’
‘Shush! I am certain. Don’t ask me why, but I am.’
And although Kite pressed her no further, he involuntarily stared about the cabin, as though searching for something.
By passing south of Martha’s Vineyard, it was Kite’s intention to deceive any watchers on the shore and to look as though he intended to make a passage to New York. But after dark, when the wind had dropped to a light westerly breeze, he headed the Spitfire north towards Rhode Island. His plan was to pass the Narrows at dawn and descend upon the unsuspecting ships anchored off Newport in the first hour of daylight. He had therefore arranged to be called an hour before his watch commenced at four in the morning.
Harper called him at three and he eased himself from his bed-place trying not to wake Sarah.
‘’Tis six bells, sir,’ Harper said in a low voice, ‘and the wind has fallen light.’
‘We are not yet close up to the Beaver’s Tail, then?’ Kite queried.
‘No, sir.’
‘Damn! Very well. I’ll be up directly.’ Kite reached for his breeches and boots. The first flush of dawn showed the panes of the stern windows as pale rectangles, giving him just sufficient light to find his clothes. He must shave and dress carefully, for he would be in action later and knew that he must compose his mind in order to concentrate on taking Spitfire into
Newport Road. At least the delay gave him a little more time.
He was tying his necktie when the door burst open. ‘What the devil…?’ Kite began as behind him Sarah stirred and Harper’s figure loomed in the doorway.
‘Sir! It’s the Rattlesnake!’
‘What?’
‘She’s coming down the coast from the east…’
‘From the east?’ Kite grabbed his coat and hat. ‘Come!’ He paused only to call Sarah: ‘It’s Rathburne, Sarah! Wake up!’
But she was already awake and he caught sight of her legs and she swayed to her feet. An instant later he was pounding up the companionway behind Harper.
Chapter Eighteen
Point Peril
They were closer in than Kite had supposed when Harper had warned him the wind was light. The lighthouse on Beaver Tail was broad on the larboard bow, with Brenton’s Key almost ahead. Price’s Neck and Coggeshall’s Ledge stretched away to the east, grey against the dawn sky. And there too was a ship, running down from the east, no more than five miles away.
‘The wind’s changed,’ Kite said, fishing for his glass.
‘It was in the east at midnight, sir. Hamish said it went right round at about six bells in the first watch. I’ve called all hands,’ Harper went on, and Kite was aware of then men milling in the waist. ‘I’m certain it’s the Rattlesnake, sir,’ he added as Kite levelled his glass.
Kite needed only a moment to recognise those extended yards. He shut his glass with a decisive snap. ‘So am I.’
Kite strode forward to stand on a gun truck, one hand holding the main shrouds. ‘My lads!’ he called as the men’s faces turned towards him like the features of ghosts in the dawn. ‘My lads, that ship is the Rattlesnake. You all know she is the vessel we have been searching for. I do not know why we have not encountered her before, but now that she has so obligingly appeared I urge you all to do your duty. Follow the orders that I, or Mr Lamont, or Mr Harper will give you and we shall prevail. Remember, we have justice on our side. Good fortune guard you all! Now take up your battle-stations!’
‘Three cheers for Cap’n Kite!’ someone yelled, and the cheers died away as the Spitfire’s company broke away for their quarters.
Lamont and Harper came aft and there was a brief moment of conference. ‘Well, do you recall the plan?’ Kite asked anxiously. Both men nodded. ‘Good luck then.’ They shook hands and as Kite turned to Jacob on the helm and passed orders so that the schooner swung round towards her foe, Sarah appeared. She wore breeches and an old coat of Kite’s, cinched in to her waist with a seaman’s belt from which the butts of her two pistols protruded. On her head she wore the tricorne with its ostrich feather. Kite could not suppress a smile.
‘You are a veritable pirate, my love,’ he remarked.
‘You forgot your sword,’ she said producing the weapon from behind her back.
‘The devil I did! I’m mightily obliged to you Mistress Kite. Will you give me a kiss for luck?’ Their lips touched and then he said quietly. ‘Do take care, Sarah. Would that I could, but I cannot watch over you.’
‘I would not have Captain Kite become Nanny Kite. You have your task to do and I shall do mine. All will be well.’
Kite brought the Spitfire hard on the wind which was growing with the daylight. As soon as he had steadied the schooner of her course, he ordered Harper’s men to let fall the square topsail to close the distance as rapidly as possible. As the men on deck toiled at the halliards, Sarah ran up her red and white battle flag with its legend: Spit-Fire and Seek Revenge.
In the waist Lamont had cleared away the eighteen-pounder and its prepared ammunition was being brought up from below.
‘Where is our prisoner?’ Kite asked Jacob, into whose charge Joe Paston had been given.
‘He’s below, sah.’
‘Bring him up on deck, Jacob,’ Kite ordered, taking the helm and leaning against the heavy tiller. He had forgotten what hard work steering was, particularly with the Spitfire going to windward hand-over-fist like this. He stared ahead. The Rattlesnake was slightly inshore of them, on their lee bow, and Kite guessed what Rathburne would do as they came up and he recognised their hostile intention. The thought quickened his heart-beat, but brought a vicious little smile to his face as a cold resolve fastened itself around his innermost being. He had dodged this arrogant Rathburne’s parries for so long, made a clumsy riposte off Beacon Island some eleven days earlier, and now he was intent upon a fatal reprise.
Returning his attention to his own deck he called out, ‘Mr Lamont! Are you ready?’
‘Ready, sir!’ came the Mate’s response.
‘Mr Harper?’
‘Ready, aye ready, sir!’
‘Very well. Mr Harper! The moment I luff, I want the square topsail off her!’
‘Aye,aye,sir!’
‘Mr Lamont! You may first train to larboard. You other gun captains, the larboard battery will be the first to engage.’
A chorus of acknowledgement greeted his instructions and at this moment Jacob reappeared with an ashen-faced Paston. ‘Master Joe,’ Kite addressed the boy, ‘how are you this morning?’ Paston mumbled something and Kite went on. ‘do you keep my wife company. She will look after you. We are about to engage Captain Rathburne as you can see.’ Kite looked at his wife. ‘Keep an eye on the boy, my dear. He’ll make an admirable shield. Oh, and Joe, don’t try any tricks, or someone might have to shoot you dead.’
Paston shuffled miserably across the deck towards Sarah. He was shivering with cold and fear and looked quite incapable of any form of trick.
Grinning, Kite looked ahead again. The Rattlesnake’s ensign was hidden from him by her forward sails, but if he was any doubt as to whether the approaching ship knew of their own identity, this was now removed as a great pendant rose to her main truck and suddenly fluttered out to leeward. Kite raised his glass and had no trouble in reading the inscription: Don’t Tread on Me. He glanced up: above his head Sarah’s pendant matched the rebel banner and he felt a surge of ridiculous elation thrill him. Behind him he could hear the snap of the British red ensign as it flew from the main peak.
‘That is my ship,’ he growled, unconscious that he spoke at all as the two vessels closed the distance between them and Kite studied the Rattlesnake through his spy-glass. And equally unconscious, he raised his voice so that the sound of it quelled any chattering between the men as they crouched or squatted at their stations, or soothed the nerves of those for whom these last minutes before action were filled with the awful anticipation of death.
‘Steady, boys, steady… She’s coming down like a lamb to the slaughter just fine and dandy-oh… Steady, Jacob, keep her full and bye, full and bye… That’s fine… Soon now he’ll bear up and try… Soon now… Soon… Now wait for it… Come on Captain Rathburne… Come on, now…
‘There she goes!’
The Rattlesnake suddenly altered course as Rathburne bore up, hauling his yards, crossing the Spitfire’s bow and exposing his starboard broadside. Kite lowered his glass as the points of yellow light rippled along the Rattlesnake’s side extinguished an instant later by grey smoke which drifted off towards them in a lazy cloud. Then the balls whistled past, two passing through the square foretopsail, several plunging into the sea alongside, the rest whistling away God knew where as the deep and shocking rumble of their discharge reached the approaching Spitfire.
‘Hold your fire, my lads, not yet,’ he called, ‘not yet. Mr Lamont, shift your gun to starboard, shift to starboard! Keep it laid upon the target!’
Lamont waved acknowledgement and his crew shoved the heavy gun so that it traversed across onto the starboard bow. Aboard Rattlesnake, Rathburne had backed his main yards, stalling his ship almost dead in the advancing track of the schooner and prepared to rake the approaching Spitfire. This would be the moment of their greatest trial…
‘Steady my boys… Stand this and you will stand anything…’
The distance between the two vessels was cl
osing fast. Just as the second broadside twinkled along the Rattlesnake’s side, Kite called out, ‘Starboard guns, hold your fire until we come under his stern! Marksmen make ready! Mr Lamont, when you are ready!’
And then the thunderous impact of the Rattlesnake’s shot was among them. A ball struck an after gun, tumbling it off its truck with an echoing clang followed by the rending of the carriage as it split apart. A man jumped clear, but fell over and struck his head on an eyebolt while a shower of wooden splinters exploded into the air and caught another member of the gun’s crew. A second ball flew through the topsail and a hole appeared in the foresail, while a third and fourth struck the hull forward, one passing through the bulwark and carrying off the leg of a man waiting innocently to clew up the square topsail.
‘Larboard a half-point,’ he said to Jacob and raising his voice, roared, ‘Clew up that topsail!’.
They were rushing down towards the Rattlesnake and her higher freeboard began to loom over the starboard rail as the Spitfire struck back. The obstruction of the larger ship’s hull killed the breeze as the schooner ran into the wind-shadow, but Jacob coolly ran the Spitfire close under the Rattlesnake’s stern. Choosing his moment, Lamont jumped back from the breech of the elevated eighteen-pounder. The big gun belched fire and thunder, the smoke of its discharge streaming back over Kite, Jacob, Sarah, Paston and the men at the after guns. All about him, Kite could hear the crackle of musketry, hear the shouts and the cries, but he ignored them, intent upon the task in hand, standing rigid beside Jacob and as they came out into the wind again under the Rattlesnake’s larboard quarter. ‘Hold her steady, Jacob… Now! Down helm! Headsail sheets, there Zachariah!’
The Spitfire swung round onto a course approximately parallel to that of her enemy, but as the starboard guns opened fire and the air was again filled with the ear-splitting concussion of the broadside, Kite noticed Rathburne was hauling his main yards round to catch the wind. As Spitfire drew steadily ahead, Rattlesnake also began to gather way and move forward, but Lamont had the eighteen-pounder fire again, then again, and Kite was aware of only an intermittent response from the larboard guns in the Rattlesnake’s broadside.
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