Captain Caution

by Kenneth Roberts

  Marvin glanced quickly at the Indian helmsman; then moved a little away from the angry girl.

  "Hasty!" she exclaimed again, moving after him. "Who are you, I'd like to know, to pass judgment on my hastiness? Doesn't that just prove that you think you're better than the rest of us? You think your family's better! You think you're better because you invent new ways of doing things yes, and because you're sizable enough to whip any man that might think to stand out against you. That's it, Dan: You're stuck up, like all the Marvinsl They've always been stuck up; always thought they were better than anybody in Arundel, ever since your aunt Phoebe marched to Quebec, and since your father helped that French duke to buy land from General Knox." She stamped her foot, seeming to Hatten beneath it all persons of title as well as all Frenchmen.

  Marvin shook his head. "I never noticed it, Corunna. Seems to me my father makes more of knowing your father and Steven Nason and this man's father" he moved his head slightly toward the Indian helmsman "than of having done Talleyrand a good tum. If he's stuck up, maybe he's stuck up on account of being first mate on your father's brig when he was young."

  She fell silent, fingering the stitches that held together a rip in the shoulder of her Chinese jacket. "I suppose," she said at length, "that if these things were bright and new, you might - "

  The helmsman interrupted her. "Dan'l," he said, "seems to me I caught a sight of suthin off the weather beam."

  Marvin swung himself over the bulwarks and into the mizzen ratlines with an ease and lightness that belied his height and breadth of shoulder. Halfway up he stopped and stared off to the southeast.

  "What is it, Dan?" Corunna asked.

  288 CAPTAIN CAUTION

  "Get your father's glass," he said. Tell a sail to windward, and the wind's dropping."

  She did as he ordered; then mounted the ratlines after him to sit on the crosstrees, clinging to his knee, while he focused the glass on the thick blue haze in the south, a haze so hot that it boiled and rolled like smoke.

  Far below them, her father moved to the rail and looked upward, his round face, fringed with whiskers and grey hair, seeming to be balanced ludicrously atop of little more than a pair of shoes.

  "What you make it out to be, Dan'l?" he shouted.

  "Three sail," Marvin called down to him. "They must have caught a southeasterly breeze. One of 'em's headed straight for us. The other two, they're pointed more to the eastward."

  Marvin lowered the glass and peered astern, past the limp, flapping expanse of the gaff topsail. The folds of the wake had Battened imto the oily, silvery surface of the sea a surface touched here and there by the small rufflings of vagrant airs. Ahead of and high above him, the staysails and the square sails on the mainmast hung limp and draggled; while from among them came a thousand slappings and lollopings as the staggerings of the barque in the renewed calm set blocks and sails and sheets to bumping and lamenting in mid-air.

  He went quickly down the ratlines, leaving Corunna to follow or not, and gave the glass to Captain Dorman.

  "Any sign of a breeze?" the captain asked.

  Marvin shook his head. "Only the one the stranger caught."

  Captain Dorman adjusted the glass and levered it. "First sail we've sighted m a dreadful long time! Seemed as if every seaman must have gone ashore and got himself the cow and garden he's always talking about." He growled and grumbled to himself as he watched the distant vessel, whose topsail, topgallant sail and royal were now visible from the deck of the Olive Branch, though the sails and yards and masts wavered and quivered in the heat, almost like reflections dimly seen in agitated water.

  "What you make of her, Dan'l?" the captain asked suddenly.

  "I think she left the other two sail on purpose to have a look at us."

  Captain Dorman passed the glass to the second mate, who stood silently beside him. "Let's hear what you think of her, Noah."

  Noah Lord studied the oncoming vessel deliberately. "Brig: full sail," he announced. "Pretty heavy sparred, she is. Pretty high hoist to her topsails, seems to me."

  Captain Dorman's lips were pursed, and there was a grey cast to his face that may have come from the stifling heat that had again

  CAPTAIN CAUTION 289

  enveloped the barque. He made two turns the length of the quarterdeck, and in that time seemed to arrive at a decision. "Yes," he said, "they look high to me high and heavy. Get out the sweepsl We'll sweep 'round and get to moving, so to take advantage of that breeze when it reaches us. No sense lying here like a bump on a logl"

  The second mate ran forward, shouting to the crew as he ran, and in a minute's time six twenty-four-foot oars had been thrust through the sweep holes between the gun ports, and the sweating men were working the Olive Brarlch around to the northwest.

  "Who'd 'a' thought," Captain Dorman said to Marvin "who'd 'a' thought we'd strike anything off here? And I guess there ain't much doubt about her being something, with topsails that sizer She ain't a merchant vessel; she's got some men aboard." He looked around him uneasily. "The Britishers, they'd be sticking to the West Indies they and the yellow fever. It just don't seem reasonable to strike a thing like this, off in the middle of nowhere! There's something about it I'm taking a misliking to." He laughed with what may have been intended for carelessness, but to Marvin it seemed to be nervousness that impelled the captain to draw the folds of a blue bandanna handkerchief across and across his palms. "Some day, Dantl, we may have to fight somebody, so's to remind 'em we got a few rights on their

  a

  ocean.

  Marvin nodded soberly. "We might," he said, "if we ever get half enough ships to do it, but it doesn't look as if we ever would."

  Driven by the sweeps, the barque rocked slowly to the northwestward. The brig, now astern, moved steadily closer and before her the silvery blue of the ocean was darkened by the breeze that bore her on. The eyes of the three men moved constantly from the approaching brig to their own upper sails. At last the main topgallant sail and royal bellied a little, then slapped the mast.

  The captain drew a deep breath. "There it is," he said. "Now we'll get it." The topgallant sail and royal filled again, and the topsail and the huge course seemed to come to life.

  "We'll keep 'em sweeping," Captain Dorman said. "With the sweeps and the breeze, maybe we can show her a clean pair of heels. God knows what she is, but it don't seem likely she'd leave two other craft, just for a friendly call on us." He went through the motion of whistling silently. "We can't afford to take risks," he added. "She might be a Spanish privateer, or one of those damned Frenchmen from the Indies. They'd as fief cut our throats as eat a mess of greens, Dan'll We'll have to load and double-shot the guns, my boy. Everything I've got on earth is in this barquel If the worst comes to the

  ago CAPTAIN CAUTION

  worst, we can cut up her rigging and get away when she hauls off to repair the damage."

  From the brig, so close that her white streak was visible, wavering raggedly in the heat waves, there grew a small white blossom that bloomed and broke and drifted off in pale streamers, all in a momenYs time. Down the wind there came a heavy thud, as if some vast horse, enraged, had driven a steel-shod hoof against a fragile wall.

  III

  tROM the main hatch, Marvin, superintending the castmg loose of the guns, as well as the bringing up of powder bags, six-pound shot, tubes, fuses and all the lumber that was necessary to the operation of the Olive Branch's small batteries, could hear Captain Dorman laying down the law to his daughter. "Go below," he told her, "and put off those heathen trappings. Get yourself into proper female dress, then hunt out a safe place below the water line, where you'll be off my mind."

  Marvin had to listen hard for her answer; for her voice was low, with more entreaty in it than defiance. "One place is as safe as another," she told her father, "and I want to see what happens. I've been on the Olive Branch almost half my life since I was born in Corunna Harbor, and I never yet found a place safer than this quar
ter-deck. I'm not afraid of that brig. She's not as big as we are, and I don't believe there's anything to be afraid of, but if I have to be shut up below, where I can't tell what's going on, I'll diet I'm as much interested in this barque as you arel If there's to be any fighting over her, you'll need everybody you've got, and I want a hand in it."

  As if overwhelmed by her flux of words, Captain Dorman looked desperately aloft and then astern, where the brig, thrusting thin white ribbons of foam from under her heavy bowsprit, was little more than a mile away. He signaled to Marvin, who ran aft, pausing only long enough to remind the panting men to load with wads between the shot unless they wanted their guns to burst.

  "Now, here," Captain Dorman told him, "she's faster than we are, though she wouldn't be if we had some of the sculch off our bottom. Anyway, she's bound to come up with us; and if she fires on us, there's got to be steps taken. We've run up the American flag, and she ain't got no right to fire on us, no matter who she is. If she does, she's a pirate, entitled to be treated as one. We're peaceable folks, going about our business. If she fires on us, we'll keep on going till she starts to yaw again, to bring a gun to bear; then we'll veer and come into the wind clumsy and slow, as if we'd given up. We've got just the breeze for it, Dan'll There we'll be, Dan'l, helpless-looking as

  292 CAPTAIN CAUTION

  an old scow; and so shell close with us. When she does, we'll fire with the upward roll and chop her masts and rigging to pieces."

  Noah Lord nodded; but Marvin, his lips pressed tight together, stared silently at the oncoming brig.

  Captain Dorman moved close to him. "Dan'l," he said, "nearly every cent I've got in the world is in this barque and her cargo. Maybe I did wrong to risk so much. I won't say as to that. What's done's done. If I get this barque home safe, I'll be a rich man. If I don't, I Won't have a penny, and neither will Corunna. No pirate's going to stop me, not while I've got the say. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking what's going to happen if we don't chop her to pieces. Well, Dan'l, we got to, that's all. 'They cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses . . . he bringeth them unto their desired haven.'"

  "These guns haven't been fired in a year," Marvin said slowly. "The men can't lay 'em or serve 'em properly."

  Corunna came close to her father, a sturdy figure in her jacket and trousers of grey silk, and stared at Marvin with what seemed to be almost oriental placidity. "They're going to be fired now, Dan, even if I have to fire them myself."

  Marvin seemed oblivious to her words. "Why," he said thoughtfully, "there is a wayl There is a way to lay 'em properly! I never thought of it beforel We could hang a pendulum a gangway pendulum if only we had the time."

  Captain Dorman sighed, a quivering sigh. "If only we had the time, we wouldn't need a pendulum, and we wouldn't need guns, either. Now, Danl, Noah and I, we'll tend to the two after guns. Take Steven off the wheel and put him on the bow gun, and you lay the two 'midship guns yourself. Wait for me to fire, Dan'l; then cut her up in the tops."

  He stepped to the break in the quarter-deck and shouted to the sweating men who crouched close under the bulwarks. "Take it slow when you get your orders to veer," he said. "We figure on putting a fright and the fear of God into this craft, provided she needs it. When she's had her lesson, we'll clap onto the sweeps, get before the wind again, and be homeward bound as quick as you can say fish."

  Behind them the brig yawed. To her mastheads rose the British ensign and pennant; and a moment later those on the quarter-deck of the Olive Branch clearly saw the orange flame that stabbed from the muzzle of her starboard bow gun, to be engulfed in the ball of white smoke that followed. There was a high thm screaming above CAPTAIN CAUTION 293

  the barque's weather beam a screaming that ended when the shot, striking the water ahead of them with a thumping splash, sent a silvery cone of water high in air.

  "British?" Captain Dorman cried incredulously. "Either 'tain't so, or shell haul off when she sees we're willing to fights They ain't so eager for war as all thatl"

  From the brig there came a hoarse shouting, indistinguishable above the small creakings of the barque. When the barque held on her course, another hail bellowed from the brig, following which her bow fell off again to larboard.

  With that, the Olive Branch veered slowly to the westward. Less than a pistol shot away, the strange brig followed her example.

  Marvin, tinkering with the elevation of his gun, saw Captain Dorman do the same saw him prod and prod again at the quoin beneath the breech.

  The captain stepped back to the lanyard, and in the same moment he seemed to twist and break and crumble almost to fly to pieces with a thunderous roar. A burst of flame and smoke obscured the quarter-deck, and from the smoke came shouts and strangled cries. The captain's gun, Marvin saw, had burst.

  As he ran toward the stern, he saw Corunna rise from her knees beside the heap of rags that had been her father. Behind her, Noah Lord moaned and clutched the bloody stump from which his lower leg hung by shreds and splinters.

  She ran to the gun next to that which had burst, and it was there that Marvin caught her by the shoulders and held her. She strove to push him away, staring at him out of eyes as black as coals in her dead-white face. "The lanyard!" she whispered, in a voice that trembled and broke. "This gun hasn't been firedl"

  "It's no good, Corunnal It's like breaking rock with your fists."

  She struck him in the face and kicked at him. "Damn your" she cried. "Fire that gum Fire that gun! They've killed my father!"

  He clutched the front of her grey silk jacket and dragged her, struggling and panting, to the mizzenmast. "Let go everything!" he shouted down the deck; and as he shouted, he slashed with a knife at the mizzen halyards and hauled down the American ensign that drooped from the mizzen truck.

  She plucked at his arms and shoulders with fingers that scratched dike claws. "You coward You dirty damned coward!" she cried.

  He caught her to him, pinning her arms to her sides, and looked at her quickly from head to foot. There were clots of blood on her paper-white face and her grey silk garments, but the blood, he knew,

  z94CAPTAIN CAUTION

  was not hers. Over her shoulder he saw that a boat had been lowered from the brig's after davits a boat with a British naval officer in her stern sheets, and on her thwarts a dozen armed men. From near at hand there rose a steady moaning.

  "Go to your cabinl" Marvin said. "Clean yourself and put on decent clothes! I want you back on this deck when that boatload comes aboard!"

  She pulled against his arms like bent whalebone. It seemed to Marvin that her lips drew back from her teeth. "Damn youl Damn youl Damn you! You sneaking, cowardly turn-tail rail"

  He shook her as if she had been a folded staysail; shook her until her head sagged on her shoulders and her lips went slack. As suddenly as he had started, he stopped; her head fell back, and with the flat of his hand he struck her on the cheek. On her white face the prints of his fingers stood out with even greater whiteness.

  "Noah Lord's bleeding to deathl" he told her fiercely. "Get below, you little fooll If you've got brains, use 'emI" He dragged her to the companionway and thrust her into it. She stumbled and fell; then got to her feet and vanished toward her cabin.

  Marvin ran back to Noah Lord, cutting loose and knotting the lanyard of his knife as he ran. He slashed the blood-drenched trousers from Noah's shattered stump, slipped the lanyard around it, pushed a belaying pin beneath the cord and rapidly twisted it until the cord, cutting deep into the leg, made an end of the crimson stream that flowed into the scuppers.

  "Steven!" he shouted, his head bent over his sorry task, "Steven! Bring water buckets and a sail and two meet"

  When, in five minutes' time, an English lieutenant in a wrinkled blue coat, soiled white ducks and a battered hat came over the side, a limp roll of canvas lay on the newly wetted deck, and Noah Lord, greyer than the rag of sail that covered the spot where his left foot shoul
d have been, was stretched motionless and seemingly lifeless in the shadow of the weather bulwarks.

  The lieutenant was tall and young, with an air of having grown weedily in a space too small for him. His head was thrust forward, like that of a melancholy bird; his thin legs, half covered by soiled and shrunken duck trousers, gave him the look of a crane, stalking suspiciously at the water's edge. Marvin, watching him come over the rail, hitching at his sword to keep it from between his knees, was in doubt whether the redness of his face was due to the searing rays of the tropic sun, or to anger: but beyond question he was angry

  CAPTAIN CAUTION 295

  so angry, indeed, that he forgot to demand immediately the name, destination and port of departure of the vessel he had boarded.

  "By Ged," he said with no preamble whatever, "I should have blown you to pieces and left you to sink, and be demned to you for a lot of filthy Yankeest" His boarding party of eight men, in glazed hats, and shirts and trousers that might once have been white, dragged their cutlasses over the rail to cluster behind the lieutenant and peer at the wrecked carronade-slide and the blood-stained heap of canvas in the scuppers.

  Marvin eyed the lieutenant calmly. "This is the American merchant barque Olive Branch. Her papers are in order. The only filth

  you'll find aboard this craft is what you've brought with you. What's! your authority for this act of piracy?" i

  "Piracy!" the lieutenant ejaculated. "Piracy! Why, you ~ He gestured largely toward the hilt of his sword and frowned horribly. "His Majesty's cruiser Beetle, eighteen guns, and by Ged, sir, you're in luck, all of you, not to be shark meat this very moment. Why, demn you, sir, why didn't you heave to? You might have cost us a maul You're no better than madmen, all of you, always playing the fool declaring war when you've nothing to declare it with, and now running from a cruiser that could knock you to driftwood with half a broadside!"

  "Warl" Marvin cried. "Did you say war?"

  "A fool and deaf to bootl" the lieutenant said savagely. "D'you think it was a Maying party your clown of a Madison asked us to last June? A conversuzione? My Gedl It's a pity all your carronades didn't explode, so to let a little light into your"