Captain Caution

by Kenneth Roberts

"That barque?" Diron asked. "She was yours, that barque?"

  Corunna nodded.

  Diron looked at Argandeau, as if seeking denial of Corunna's statement. Finding none, he glanced uncertainly around the quarterdeck. Two of the Decatur's seamen raised the body of a British sailor from the scuppers, swung it over the taffrail and let it fall. The splash seemed to put a thought in Diron's head.

  "But such sights!" he cried. "They must be painful to a ladyl"

  "No, Captain," Corunna said quietly. "These people killed my father."

  Diron held up a protesting hand. "It is necessary that I examine the papers in the cabin. You shall come there, where we can talk quietly." He turned to Argandeau. "Give me a few moments, my

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  friend, and then we will speak fully together. I see now that it was your schooner we sank. Like a gourd, she was so thin and sailed by men who could contrive to foul her jib-boom in her own staysails! I am sad about thisl" He patted Argandeau on the shoulders, kissed him again on both cheeks; then beckoned to Corunna and walked quickly to the companionway.

  "Corunnal" Marvin said. "Corunnal"

  She turned to Slade, seeming not to hear Marvin. "You'll come with me, won't you, Captain?" Slade,following her down the companionway, glanced up at Marvin from under his drooping eyelid with what seemed to Marvin like malicious mockery.

  "Listen, my friend," Argandeau said, holding Marvin by the arm, "my Formidable is gone! Nowhere was there a craft so beautiful or so swift, and now she is goner"

  "It's too bad," Marvin said absently. "Too bad."

  "I tell you, my friend," Argandeau said, "it is bad, yes; but not too bad. Nothing is too bad. If you lose a ship, you will find a better one. If you lose a woman, you have not lost the only woman there is. Look at me, eh? I am gay! That is why I am loved by my friends, by the rabbits, by everyone!" He pointed a foot delicately, flung up an arm and struck a pose. "We will visit now with my friend, Dominique Diron. For him, too, nothing is too bad. He is brave, like a lion; and why notl He has learned from observation! He served with me on the letter of marque Superbe. There was one time when we were surprised and attacked, Dominique and I, by two British cruisers. For three nights and two days we fight them off. We laugh and are gay. Hal Hal They cannot catch us those two Griffons. We run the Superbe ashore and escape, all of usl"

  "Yes, but this time they caught you," Marvin reminded him.

  "Caught me?" Argandeau said. "Caught me? Who has caught me? Look at me carefully! 'Ah-hah,' you say to yourself, 'I behold Argandeau, who did not wish to remain caught, and therefore is a free manl' But come; we wash the mud from ourselves and go to see Dominique."

  VIII

  1IIE CAPTAIN'S CABIN of the Beetle was hot as an oven, and almost as small. Diron, his coat stripped off, sat before the center table, whereon was a litter of papers. Beside him sat Corunna; and when Marvin saw how Slade hovered over her shoulder, as if fearful that she might topple from her locker unless guarded, it seemed to him suddenly that this cabin was not less dismal than the hold had been.

  Diron smiled affectionately at Argandeau. "You have arrived at the precise moment," he said. "You have not been presented to this lady, she has told me."

  Argandeau bent his woolly, close-cropped head in a quick bow. "But I have had a gift from her, only today, that will make her live forever in my heart. No, I have not been presented to her, but I know her well; she is so kind that I shall never find time to say to her how kind she is."

  Diron opened his mouth in a soundless laugh. "As you see, Miss Dorman, a dangerous mans" To Argandeau he added: "Thanks to me, Lucien, you shall have the opportunity to try; and for you it should be a good affair. This lady has kindly consented to take you and your crew to France, together with my wounded and the English wounded."

  "To France?" Marvin asked quickly. "She has consented to go to FranceP"

  "She has been so kind," Diron said. "The whole plan has come into my head like that, Lucienl" He snapped his fingers, glancing from Marvin to Corunna and back again; then addressed himself to Argandeau once more. "I thought for a time of taking you back to Charleston with me, Lucien; but the Americans, they do not have enough vessels of their own for privateering. For every American vessel there are a thousand American captains. But in France there are many vessels; fast ones more vessels than captains. You assist this lady to go there, then, and maybe she assist you to get another vessel."

  "Just a minute, Captain," Marvin said. "I don't understand this talk of France."

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  Corunna looked up at him angrily. "It's not necessary that you should."

  Marvin drew a deep breath. "Don't talk that way, Corunna. What's France to us? Home's where we want to be."

  Sladethrew back his head to stare at Marvin from beneath his drooping lid. "You must have heard what the lady said."

  "Just a minute, Corunna," Marvin persisted, ignoring Slade. "You can't afford to rush into anything like this. As I see it, the way to go home is to go home; and it's no good to say it isn't necessary for me to understand about it. It appears to me, Corunna, that I'm responsible for you. I've got as much right as anyone to know what you're planning to do."

  "You're responsible?" she cried, rising to her feet, her hands clenched and her face colorless. "You've got the right? I'll have you understand that I allow no squeamish boy to be responsible for what I do or where I go. And of all men, you're the last I'd let question my decisions."

  Captain Diron leaned forward in his chair. "It is all so simple," he said candidly, "that I think possibly you make a mistake not to tell the gentleman. It would be a pity if he smelled here a mystery where there was nonel" He smiled gently at all the persons in the stifling little cabin.

  "You see," he said, stretching out his hand, palm up, toward Marvin, "I have sacrificed a great deal to take the Olive Branch; for if I had not wished the barque for myself, I would not have fought this war brig, and so lost several men and suffered grave damage. It is not the business of a privateer to entangle himself with enemy cruisers. The odds against him are too great. You see that, I hope, sir."

  Marvin nodded.

  "Of coursel" Diron continued, as frank and open a gentleman in his speech, Marvin thought, as he had ever heard. "Of courser Therefore, it seems to me only reasonable that I should ask a small favor from this lady in return for giving back her valuable property. After all," he reminded Marvin mildly, "title to the Olive Branch passed to the British when they took her, and to me and my crew when we retook her."

  "The taking," Marvin persisted, "was not all on your side. Some of the taking was done by us, at some risk to ourselves. Meaning no offence, I must venture to remind you that our American courts might be more than sympathetic to this lady, if she should present her claim against yours."

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  Diron waved his hand languidly. "I find your reference to courts distasteful. There is a flavorof commercialism about it. It is difficult to remember, at times, that such a thing as chivalry still exists." He coughed deprecatingly. "Now this favor I have asked; in reality I have asked for nothing. In reality I have done a favor to the lady by suggesting to her how to act. Look here; there are British cruisers on your American coast as thick as bones in a herring. Your barque is slow; and if you run for home, you are nearly certain to be taken by a British frigate. But the nearer you come to England, the fewer English war craft you will see, for that has always been the custom of the English to harry the enemy in his own waters. Captain Argandeau will tell you this is so."

  Argandeau placed his knuckles above his eyes, with the forefingers extended. "I would be willing to sail into any English harbor this minute," he said, almost with indifference, "and make horns at the Griffonsl" He wagged the forefingers.

  "Of coursel" Diron exclaimed. "With all the English far from home, therefore, your barque can run safely into a French port, where there will be a ready market for her cargo. And if, on the way, you should be o
verhauled, you will have enough men aboard to fight off a heavy vessel."

  Slade nodded thoughtfully. "We'll have enough men to take a vessel, if we should feel like it enough to take more than one, if they're not large ones."

  Marvin stared at Slade and half rose to his feet, but sank back on his locker when Diron tapped him on the arm. "You see," Diron told him earnestly, "there will not only be the added safety of the route, but there will be these two fine seamen, Captain Slade and my friend, Captain Argandeau, to assist the lady with their knowledge and advice. Captain Argandeau, he knows the coast of France as he knows his own thumb."

  "I know it better," Argandeau said. "There is no part of it that I could not recognize on the darkest night, which is more than I can say of this." He held up a grimy thumb and with it polished an imaginary spot before his eyes. "There is no port in all France where there are not at least several people related to me " he stopped; then added, with an ingratiating smile "by marriage."

  Diron raised his eyebrows and held out his hands. "What more could one wish?" he asked Marvin. "I think it is great good fortune for the lady and for all of you that you encounter us."

  "I admit it," Marvin said readily. "Still, there are a few small points that I might mention - "

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  "Yes," Corunna interrupted, "you mightlOf course you mightl But you needn't! I consider myself fortunate to have the advice of these gentlemen, and I've taken itI"

  "Yes," Marvin said patiently, "but what's Captain Slade doing aboard the Olive BranchP He's got a brig of his own a slave brig. That hasn't been destroyed, has it?"

  "Mr. Marvin," Slade said a little ceremoniously, "I think I must ask you to use another tone of voice when referring to my occupation. After all, Mr. Marvin, John Paul Jones himself saw nothing wrong in officering a vessel on the Middle Passage."

  "Is that an argument, Mr. Slade?" Marvin asked. "You can't make me respect the Portuguese by telling me that Vasco da Gama hailed from Portugall"

  Slade's voice was harsher than his words. "Any man who's had experience in these waters knows that it's doing a kindness to yonder poor black men to let them exchange the cruelties and sufferings of Africa for the comforts of a plantation."

  Marvin looked hard at Slade; then turned again to Corunna. "Why is it he's deserting his own vessel to travel on ours? He's got owners, hasn't he?"

  "He's traveling on the Olive Branch for good and sufficient reasonsl" Corunna informed him. "I'll have you know that Captain Diron and Captain Slade are doing these things out of the kindness of their hearts, and to question them is outrageous!"

  "I don't mean it so," Marvin said. "All I want, Corunna, is that you should give these things proper consideration. 'Tisn't in reason, Corunna, for Captain Diron to be asking favors of you for giving back the Olive Branch. She's yours anyway. He knows he couldn't keep the proceeds of her sale, because there isn't a prize court in America that would uphold him in it as long as you're alive to put in your claim."

  Slade cocked his head on one side to look out from under his drooping eyelid. "A sea lawyer!" he exclaimed.

  "'Tisn't so much that I mind going to France," Marvin continued. "What I mind is seeing you deprived of your freedom to do as you like when you need to do it. Here you're hampering yourself with promises you don't need to make, and weighing yourself down with a lot of wounded men, and you're setting off for a strange country to sell your cargo if you get there in a market that'll skin you if it has the chance."

  "You are speaking of the French markets?" Captain Diron

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  asked politely. "You have had unfortunate experiences with them, perhaps?"

  "No," Marvin admitted, "but I never heard of a market that was in business for our benefit. There's another thing, too," he told Corunna: "You're entitled to hold any opinion of me that you wish, but you know my family, and you know that when your father needed help, he turned to my father, just as mine turned to yours when he needed anything. When all's said and done, Corunna, we're neighbors, and maybe that might still mean something to you. Now, I want no trouble with these gentlemen; but without meaning any offence, one of 'em's a Frenchman and the other's a slaver; and it seems to me, Corunna, that it's a strange thing when a girl from Arundel feels obliged to take advice from a slaver and a Frenchman both of them gentlemen she never saw before."

  "Pooil" Argandeau exclaimed. "Now the slush bucket is kicked overt"

  Captain Diron shrugged his shoulders. "This poor young man," he said, smiling at Corunna, "I think he does not know he is being so what shall I sayP We call it gauche. It is a fault of your countrymen, I fear."

  "Oh," Corunna said, "it's shameful! To insult these gentlemen how can you stand there and say such things of them they, who only want to help me."

  "Wait, Corunnal" Marvin begged her. "Can't you see it must be themselves they're helping? It must be! You're the only one who stands a chance of losing anything! Why, if Captain Diron was so anxious to help you, he could convoy you home, couldn't he, instead of sending you off to France, near to four thousand miles?"

  "Of course," Captain Diron remarked pleasantly, "it might be disturbing for you if the young lady should be removed from your protection. I think it is possible you argue for your own benefit, oh?"

  Marvin pressed his lips tightly together. "Couldn't you?" he persisted. "Couldn't you convoy us home?"

  "You make me ashamed for your" Corunna cried. "It isn't the first timer"

  Slade's voice, it seemed to Marvin, set the chains of the hanging lamp to vibrating, so metallic was its harshness. "It's plain to see," he told Corunna, "that he considers himself your master."

  Diron silenced him with a glance, and spoke courteously to Marvin. "Your question concerning a convoy, sir, is a fair one, but I have already answered it when I said that the Olive Branch is slow, and that English frigates are plentiful on your coast. You would

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  hardly expect my schooner to engage a frigate. No schooner afloat would last five minutes, once she came within range of a frigate's guns."

  "That's true," Marvin agreed, "but as you say, you fought the Beetle so you might get possession of the Olive Branch, and you must have ordered your prize crew to take her to Charleston rather than to France. Otherwise you would have made an argument out of it, I think."

  Diron threw himself back in his chair, laughing heartily. "But you are suspicious, you Americansl" he exclaimed. "If you heard one of our French larks singing in the sky, you would say it was not a real lark."

  "Well," Marvin said slowly, "I've never had much difficulty recognizing larks when I see 'em or when I hear 'em. Some time ago I heard one of you gentlemen mention the fact that if the Olive Branch sets sail for France, she'll not only have enough men aboard to fight off a heavy vessel, but even to take a small one. That's a suggestion I'm able to recognize as easily as I recognize larks. It's a suggestion that the Olive Branch be used to make prizes of enemy merchant craft or maybe of friendly ones." He looked hard at Slade, who tossed back his long black hair and coldly returned Marvin's gaze.

  "If I'm not mistaken," Marvin went on, "that suggestion came from Captain Slade. He knows that none of us aboard the Olive Branch has a commission or a letter of marque entitling us to capture, burn, sink or destroy any enemy vessel. If we should attack one, we'd be in danger of being hanged at the yardarm every last one of us. What Captain Slade suggested is piracy. While I'm in command of the Olive Branch I'll allow no such thing and with Captain Dorman dead, I am in command."

  Captain Diron placed his hand on Corunna's arm, as if to restrain her. "No, not" he said. "You do not understand. Here on this table are the papers of Captain Argandeau, you see. Here is his letter of marque, my friend, for the Formidable. With these papers the Olive Branch will be the Formidable if she has occasion to attack any vessel, and still she will be the Olive Branch at all other times, oh?"

  Corunna shook off Captain Diron's restraining
hand. "Yes," she said, and to Marvin her eyes had the hardness of agates, "and you have forgotten that I am the owner of the Olive Branch. Therefore I have made myself captain, with Captain Slade as first mate and Captain Argandeau as second mate."

  "What did I tell you about the slush bucket?" murmured Argandeau softly. "Two mules together could not more completely kick it overt"

  IX CORUNNA DORMAN impatiently pacing the weather side of the

  Olive Branch's quarter-deck, watched the last boatload of wounded rocking uneasily toward her from the near-by Beetle, escorted amidships by lazy-seeming sharks that rolled their eyes upward at the long-boat like affectionate dogs. The wounded who had already made the journey, twelve of them, were ranged close under the larboard bulwarks, where they might have the benefit of the steamy, sweltering breeze. All about them was piled the dunnageof the seamen who had come aboard and now clung to shrouds and ratlines to see the last of the Decatur and the Beetle, while the litter resulting from the capture of the Olive Branch still cumbered her decks and gave her an air of slovenly dejection.

  Corunna, looking around suddenly, saw Slade smiling gravely at her, one eye half hidden by his drooping eyelid. There may have been meekness and modesty in the way he quickly lowered his glance, but there was little of modesty in his words or voice. "You're in danger, ma'am," he said, "wearing what might put to shame an empress and a bride."

  She turned from him and peered over the taffrail. "I want somebody in the main chains," she said; "somebody with pikes or boat hooks to watch that boatload of wounded. The sharksll have 'em over before we know it. I'll be obliged if you'll see to these things without having to be reminded of them, Mr. Slade."

  Slade's exclamation seemed to have penitence in it as he jumped quickly for the vessel's waist; but quick as he was, Marvin was quicker. Almost as though he had heard Corunna's words, he came up the ladder of the main hatch, glanced at the approaching longboat, and at once swung himself around the main shrouds and into the chains, shouting for a sweep as he did so.

  From Argandeau, at work with a crew on the wrecked carronade near by, there came a faint and abstracted humming.