Captain Caution

by Kenneth Roberts

  "Sheer offl" the pickets growled to all of them. "Sheer offl Com- mittee's in session for the good of the deck! Sheer off"

  Marvin, allowed inside the picket line by Newton's orders, heard Newton address the ten committeemen.

  "There's several things to come before this meeting," he told them. "First is, what's to be done about getting some kind of answer out of the American agent? There's fifty-seven Americans next door to naked, and sixty-six without coats of any kind. By December there'll be two hundred without any clothes except rags so rotten that thread won't hold 'em together. Twelve hundred new prisoner suits were supposed to be delivered last month, the French say, but they say

  ~we'll never see 'em. Osmore and the contractors keep the money, and l;. the clothes never even get made. If we can't get help from Beasley,

  we'll freeze, all of us."

  "How many times has he been written to?" asked a sour-visaged

  1

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  man whose mouth was puckered as if from the eating of persimmons. "The committees on this hulk have written him eighteen times since August fifteenth, Captain Taylor."

  The committeemen moved restlessly on their benches, and it was Captain Taylor who broke the silence again: "If the contractor would buy back our fish allowance next fish day, we might get enough to put an advertisement in Bell's Weekly Messenger, requesting that he pay some attention to his fellow countrymen."

  "That's all right," complained a man whose head and chest were enveloped in a hood of flour sacking, "only it appears to me this taxation business is getting kind of overdone. I don't feel like these men ought to be asked to give up any more food, not even those smoked herrings. They're about starved already; so starved that if they got took sick, with the doctor paying no attention to sick men, they'd die in a minute!"

  "There ain't anybody can eat the fish, Henryl" Taylor objected. "The French, they say they marked some of 'em, so they can be recognized, and they been in use for seven years delivered at three pennies and bought back for a penny."

  "Maybe so," Henry admitted, and Marvin saw that his face had an unearthly whiteness to it the whiteness, almost, of the belly of a Ilatfish. "Maybe so; only the next time we get 'em, you watch me eat miner I'm getting so I can eat anything even a newspaper that's been wrapped 'round a fishl"

  "Yes," Newton interrupted, "and there's another thing. Our Statesman subscription runs out next week, and that means twenty-eight shillings a month for the paper and sixteen shillings a month delivery charges." He laughed bitterly. "Twenty-eight shillings a monthl No wonder the English don't know anything. Knowledge comes too bight Anyway, we got to sell two days' fish and one day's bread to get that renewed, provided you want it renewed."

  "Want it renewed!" one of the committeemen exclaimed. "We got to have it renewed. If there ain't any news nor anything to read, there won't be anything to talk about, and we might as well be dead."

  "Newton," said sour-mouthed Captain Taylor thoughtfully, "how much of that sixteen shillings goes to Osmore?"

  "Probably ten," Newton said promptly. "He might get fifteen. Even so, it's no use trying to do anything about it, because the one that tried to make trouble would get the black hole for two weeks. 'Tisn't worth ill Goshl I'd rather give up all my fish forever than get two weeks black hotel"

  "I move," said Henry, from the folds of his Hour sacking, "that this

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  committee communicate with Beasley in writing for the nineteenth time, and send a letter to the President of the United States saying that the American agent for prisoners of war in England does nothing to prevent said prisoners from being treated like some sort of weasels. I also move that enough of our fish be collected and sold by the president of this lower battery to obtain the Statesman for another month."

  "You know there's no use writing to the President of the United States," Newton objected wearily. "There's no way of getting it out except through an escaping prisoner; and if it was ever discovered on an escaping prisoner, the whole committee'd get the black hole, and all the other prisoners would have their tools and trades seized and destroyed! I'd like to hear that motion restated."

  Henry jumped to his feet, pulling at the flour sacking around his throat. "'Tain't rightl" he exclaimed, his voice shaking as if with cold. "My God, you can't starve men and trample on 'em and murder 'em like this, and keep 'em gagged while you do ill You can't, I tell youl You "

  "Henry!" Captain Taylor said sharply.

  Henry's voice persisted, shrill and trembling, "They treat us worse than animals, the damned rotten skunksl They can't keep me quietl There's some way to get help there's got to bel"

  "Henry!" Captain Taylor shouted. He grasped Henry by the arm and pulled him down on the bench, shaking him roughly. "You're elected committeeman to set an example to the rest of these prisoners. See that you do ill"

  Henry drew a deep and quivering breath, and the committeemen stared at their travesties of shoes, a strange and silent gathering.

  "Well," Newton said at length, "we don't need it put in the form of a motion. I'll get the Statesman and tend to writing to Beasley again."

  He cleared his throat and rose to his feet, drawing his long, ragged overcoat tight around him. "There's one more thing, and that's the question of who goes next." He eyed the committeemen significantly; and they, coming suddenly to life, fixed their eyes eagerly on hirn.

  "We're wasting time," he went on. "Everybody wants to be next and nobody's willing to recognize the claims of anybody else. Meanwhile the food and the grease has accumulated without any work being done no work at alll First thing you know, some of the Frenchmen, they'll get through and get stuck in the mud. Then they'll double the boat patrol, and Osmorell have the planking sounded four times a day instead of once. This business ought to be

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  settled, and settled now. Somebody's got to get letters out of this place, so we can get some money, and I say we ought to agree on somebody that can do it."

  "I was one of the first Americans aboard this hulkl" Henry exclaimed. "You know it tool I ought to have first chancel"

  "Henry," Captain Taylor said kindly, "you're wrong about thisl Your spell in the black hole was pretty hard on you harder'n you thought for, I guess. I notice you going up the ladder mornings, and you blow like a porpoise when you get on deck. You haven't been getting near enough food, and you'd never even reach the mud bank."

  "I tell you I wouldl" Henry said. "I'd rather die trying, anyway, than not try at alll"

  "Yes," Newton said, "maybe you would, but we wouldn't rather have youl Now you listen to mel I say the thing to do is to turn this over to a new man, fresh aboard."

  Captain Taylor shook his head, and from the look of his mouth he might have been eating chokecherries. "No," he said, "you figure he'd be successful because he'd be strong and well fed; but you don't want to forget that these men here in this lower battery have got something almost as good as strength they're dreadful madl They hate the British worse than anything on earthl"

  "That's what I sayl" Henry exclaimed. "That's what I been trying to tell youl I'm dreadful mad, and I'd be as successful as anyone!"

  Newton stared thoughtfully from Henry to Captain Taylor, who quickly lowered his eyes. "No," Newton said, "that isn't the way I figure. The way I figure is that it would be easier for everyone to agree on a new man a man they never saw before and I figure he'd be quicker doing the work doing the cutting. 'Twouldn't be so hard for him to drive himself as it is for us, who've been breathing poison down here every night."

  "They wouldn't agree," Captain Taylor said.

  "I won't agreel" Henry stubbornly insisted.

  Newton crouched down between the benches and looked up into the thin and sullen faces of the committeemen. "I had word from Osmore yesterday," he whispered. "Captain Stannage and the rest of his friends are coming aboard Saturday afternoon to get drunk again, ladies and all, damn the blowsy slutsl"<
br />
  "Osmore sent you wordl" Captain Taylor asked. "I suppose that means - "

  "Yesl" Newton exclaimed. "It means he'll bring Little White with him. It means he aims to have a couple more of us hammered to a

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  jelly, just to keep his friends in good spirits. Osmore told me to make the usual offer."

  The committeemen growled angrily, and Captain Taylor shook his head. "I don't like ill" he said. "It's a bad business, this Little Whitel I wouldn't mind if it was Frenchmen he jellied, but it goes against the grain to hear him howling his black laughter and see him smashing our people until they're no more than raw meat, and they submitting to it for the sake of a twenty-shilling notel"

  Newton laughed confidently, and his crinkly yellow side whiskers seemed to bristle, so that he had the eager look of a small dog on the trail of game. "All rightl But what if Little White got smashed himself when he set out to do the smashing? What do you suppose Osmore'd say, and Stannage, and those wenches of his that have been tittering at us and looking at us all summer as if we were foxes in a cage? How'd you like to watch their faces while their little pet gets some of his own medicine?"

  The committeemen stared at him with eyes that suddenly glittered. Captain Taylor looked over his shoulder at the tall figure of Marvin, standing behind the two lookouts; then turned back to Newton with a sour smile. "So that's ill" he said. "Well, it's a thing we'd be powerful glad to see, all of us, and it might put heart into us, what's more; but it appears to me you're expecting too much."

  "What if I'm not?" Newton demanded. "What if he can do it? Would you be willing he should be the next in line? Would you agree on him?"

  "What you so anxious about him for?" Henry demanded.

  Newton turned on him. "My landl Can't you see? He'd be fighting for the chance to get out, and for the money to take advantage of the chancel"

  "Bring him over here," Captain Taylor said.

  In response to Newton's call, Marvin stepped over one of the benches and stood between the two rows of committeemen. "Daniel Marvin, of Arundel," Newton said. "His barque was cut out of Morlaix by the Sparrow schooner."

  The committeemen eyed him almost carelessly, as though their interest in him was slight. "Marvin?" Captain Taylor asked at length. "Marvin? Seems to me there used to be a Marvin out of Arundel im the Tallegrand brig, trading in Havana."

  "The Tallegrand brig was my father's."

  "H'ml" Captain Taylor said noncommittally. "Was your father cut out of Morlaix?"

  "No, sir. I was aboard the Olive Branch barque. Captain Dorman

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  was master Captain Dorman, of Arundel. He was killed in the doldrums, trying to fight off a British gun-brig. His daughter took command of the barque and brought her into Morlaix. She's alone there now."

  The committeemen, Marvin felt, had lost all interest in him, for their glances at him were few and furtive.

  "Seems to me I heard tell," Captain Taylor continued finally, "that the Talleprand brig was so named because your father helped Talleyrand to buy land from General Knox."

  "Yes, sir."

  "What reason you got for thinking you could beat this Little White if you ain't ever seen him?" Henry demanded suddenly.

  Marvin stared down at his knuckles and worked his left shoulder under his jacket. "I don't know that I could. They say he's a good fighter, and heavier than I am. Well, I've thought about him, and I believe I've figured out a way to offset his extra weight. I've figured out a new way to fight. Still, I wouldn't be interested in trying unless I knew I wasn't wasting my time."

  "Wasting your timer" exclaimed another committeeman harshly. "Why, there's a standing offer of twenty pounds to the man that beats Little Whitel Little White's boss, Stannage, who's a friend of Osmore, made that offer. Twenty pounds to any prisoner that does it twenty shillings to him if he tries and doesn't."

  Marvin nodded. "I don't take much pleasure in fighting," he said. "I wouldn't risk it if there was nothing in it but the twenty pounds."

  Newton seized Marvin's wrist and raised his arm. "Look at his reachl" he told them softly. "IYs the first time we've had a man aboard with a reach like that! It's nearly as good as Little White'sl"

  "If you knew you weren't wasting your time," Captain Taylor reminded him, "you say you'd be interested in fighting this Little White?"

  "Yes," Marvin said.

  "Whether you could beat him or not?" Henry asked.

  Marvin nodded. "I want to escape from this hulk," he said. "I want to get back to Morlaix. If nothing stands between me and getting there except beating this Little White, he'll have to kill me to beat me."

  Newton laughed, a laugh so nervous that it was almost a titter. "There it isI" he exclaimed to the committeemen. "What more do you want than that?"

  "What is it you figure we ought to agree to?" Captain Taylor asked; then puckered his mouth sourly.

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  "Nothing unreasonable," Marvin said. "I want to be allowed to escape, and I want the right to pick the men that work with me and go out with me if it ever comes to that. Three others I'd want to take, no more; and all for good and sufficient. I'd expect all four of us to receive the usual supplies and protection while working."

  "You mean nobody else would be allowed to use your cutting, provided you're successful?" Henry demanded.

  "Not for three nights not until we've had time to get clear."

  "I don't agreel" Henry declared angrily.

  "Oh, here, herel" Captain Taylor said. "That's fairl If they get away, we can pass men through the bulkhead to answer to roll call, so the four won't be missed; and when the three days are up, everyone can go that has enough money and food. If one of the four should be caught, nobody else would have a chance anyway."

  "Well - " said Henry weakly. He looked helplessly from one committeeman to another, his face chalk-white in the flickering light that danced across the ceiling from the reHecffon of the sun on the crinkled water of the Medway.

  "Gorryl" exclaimed a committeeman in dogskm trousers, one of the legs being made of the skin of a red setter and the other of the skin of a coach dog. "Gorryl I say yes whether he beats him or notl"

  "Nor" Captain Taylor protested sternly. "Not unless he beats himl If he's willing to try under those conditions, I say yes, and so does Henry. You do, don't you, HenryP"

  "Yes," Henry said reluctantly, "I guess I do."

  A glance at the other committeemen seemed to satisfy Captain Taylor, for he nodded soberly to Newton and then rose from his bench to prod inquiringly at Marvin's biceps.

  "In that case," Newton said briskly, "this meeting stands adjourned and I appoint the entire committee to demand a contribution of salt from each prisoner so we can get his hands in pickle with no loss of ffme."

  XIX

  1nE barge that drew up to the landing stage of the Crown Prince hulk at noon on Saturday seemed to blaze with color; for the oarsmen wore uniforms of blue flannel with the arms of the Stannages on breast and back in silver, gold and red; while in the cockpit sat Stannage himself, resplendent in a hussar's uniform, all gold and scarlet. Around him clung a group of damsels in silks, furs and feathers damsels whose conversation seemed to Marvin, as he peered over the bulwarks at them, to consist largely of shrill laughter and shriller screams.

  Between Stannage's knees crouched an enormous brown dog, thin and yellow-eyed, that panted constantly despite the chill wind that blew across the Medway, and cast longing looks over one side of the barge and then over the other. Close behind him stood a towering, smiling negro, whose noisy laughter ran like an undercurrent beneath the high-pitched merriment of the captain's gentle companions, and whose Eastern splendor dimmed the finery of the others. On his head was perched a vast turban of yellow satin, decorated with a tall plume held in place by a glittering bauble seemingly made of pearls and diamonds; beneath his short jacket of crimson satin a broad sash of gold cloth shone dully against the velvety blac
k of his skin; and crimson satin trousers, voluminous enough, Marvin was sure, to make a dozen potato sacks, hung to his ankles, where they were fastened by tight gold bands.

  "There he isI" Newton said. "There's Little Whitel What you think of him, Dan?"

  Marvin shook his head. "Why," he said, "he looks like a handy man to have around a pivot gun or a galley stove, provided he got a rap from a belaying pin every few minutes to remind him where he belongs."

  Newton nodded. "That's something he hasn't had in some little time. These people over here, they're all excited over Molineaux, the American negro who fought Tom Cribb. In consequence, they can't see a black man a little bigger than usual without thinking he's a fighter, and making a pet of him."

  Cackling hilariously, Little White, evidently at his master's bid

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  ding, leaned over and took one of the damsels beneath the arms as though she had been a doll, held her for a moment over the side of the barge, so that she screamed and kicked like an excited child; then deposited her on the landing stage and spanked her briskly to start her up the gangway.

  Stannage, a gaudy figure in his scarlet, fur-trimmed hussar's jacket, laughed as heartily at the playfulness of his dusky favoriteas did any of the jeering prisoners that peered down at him from the bulwarks.

  Marvin moved uncomfortably. "Why," he said suddenly, "this Stannage ought to have his face washed and be put to bedl He's only a childl He's never a captain not at his agel"

  "Oh, isn't he?" Newton exclaimed. "Well, he is, and he's more than a childl He's an idiot the idiot son of rich idiots; so his family bought him a captaincy to get him out of the way. It's an old English customl There's regiments over here offlcered entirely by idiots and children whose places have been bought for 'em. You can do anything with money in England; there's no place that's not for sale church, state, army or navy."

  Marvin laughed. "I guess they're not so bad as thatl" he said. "If you're trying to make me madder at them than I am, you don't need to not by Iying about 'cm."