Captain Caution

by Kenneth Roberts

  The Indian crouched beside him, and there began a sound of

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  gnawing a sound so faint that it was lost in the screakingsof the rugger's hull and the slap of water on her sides.

  The cabin door banged open, and the four men tumbled into the cockpit. Three of them scrambled forward. Argandeau remained behind, smiling amiably into the rugger captain's horror-stricken face.

  "A friendly visit, this," he ventured. "It is too cold and lonely in that cabin, eh? So we come out to suggest that you journey more to the southward, where it is a little warmer, perhaps."

  "To the southward?" the captain asked incredulously.

  "Truly!" Argandeau agreed. "To Morlaix. A beautiful town, Morlaix. You know Morlaix, perhaps? The women are beautiful to a degree."

  "Morlaixl" the captain cried. "Why should I venture to Morlaix? You desire that I should lose my occupation? Name of a pig, but if I risk my beautiful Hirondelle on the long trip to Morlaix, I shall certainly do sol"

  "If you fear to lose a situation," Argandeau told him sententiously, "abandon it. Always you will find a better one."

  The rugger captain laughed bitterly. "A better onel I will be forced to become a Flushing or Middleburg man, carrying brandy to Ireland. To Irelandl My God, there is a dangerous affairl"

  "Listen!" Argandeau said. He reached for the tiller and pushed it over. The rugger's head fell off and the little vessel ran more easily down the Channel. "Listen. You are a man of Calais, no?"

  "Sacred heartl" the rugger captain wailed. "Calais, yesl"

  "Yes," Argandeau said, "and you have then heard of Tom Souville, perhaps."

  The rugger captain stared at him. "Heard of Tom Souvillel" he exclaimed. "What do you think? Am I a dead man? Every man who is not a dead man has heard of Tom Souvillel"

  "Truly!" Argandeau murmured.

  "Truly and trulyl" the rugger captain agreed. "Four times that fox has escaped from the hulks. Four times he has cast foreign substances in the eyes of the British. Yes, I know himl Every man knows himl The English know him welll In his Renard, three days since, he has captured another English brig a strong armed brigl You know this Souville?"

  "Do I know him?' Argandeau asked. "Do I know my own nose? I think yesl We are like brother and brother together; like fish and potatoes!"

  "Ahl" the rugger captain exclaimed.

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  "But yesl" Argandeau said. "You return to Calais and say to Tom Souville that you have done this for Lucien Argandeau, and he kiss you on both cheeks, like thisl" He embraced the rugger captain and kissed him. "He will make your position more secure than Mont Blancl That is something, oh?"

  "That is something!" the rugger captain agreed. He crouched bebehind the gunwale and lighted a short pipe that smelled like smouldering hair. "That is something. With this wind, we reach Morlaix at sixteen o'clock, I think yes."

  XXII

  THE landlady of the Queen of Scotland tavern in the fish-scented town of Morlaix raised her thick shoulders and strove to widen her eyes above her fleshy cheeks. "Ahl" she exclaimed to the tall, roughly dressed man who stood before her high desk. "Ah, but I was sorry for that lady, you understand. She was desperate, poor little onel I knew; yes. Her back, it remained straight and beautiful; but me, Victorine, I knewl She was penniless and desperate! Indeed, yesl Not that I would have pressed her, everl Nol But I was sorry yes, sorry and then her friend arrived." The landlady sighed, and from the vicinity of her enormous bosom came faint creakings.

  Marvin stared at her from under heavy brows. "A friend? She didn't have anyl She didn't know anyone herel"

  The landlady breathed heavily and pursed her buttonhole of a mouth. "Ah, but yesl It was a man ah, very muchl One with fascination in his face and in his movements. Oh, a very good friend of hersl He knew her well; for he had been with the poor little one on the ship before all the misfortune of that great loss. Then he had gone somewhere for a time." Her beady eyes peered out at him from rolls of fat. "To Roscoff I do not know. It is no matter. He was a fine gentleman. His costume was richl A fine coatl A fine hall Ah ah, all of the costume richl And he paid well, that onel" Her eyes blinked eagerly at him. "He paid very well very muchI"

  "You think she was glad?" Marvin whispered huskily.

  The landlady's eyes flicked across Marvin's stained and wrinkled trousers and his broken shoes. "Yes," she said, "she seemed very fond of him, that poor little one. Oh, yes, veryl And why not, eh? She had a figure, that onel A back so straight and Bat I have never seem Nol She brought trade; I will not conceal it! There was a roundness to her that men came here to see. And this friend of hers, he had an air. It was something to be whispered to by that man, I thinkl" She shuddered softly. "They were a couple, that pairl Two cabbages, eh? I see them now, departing by the Paris coach. Me, Victorine, I would give one bottle of brandy to know the words he whispered as they left." Her laugh was oily and her eyes were hidden by the rolls of fat.

  Marvin looked at her for one moment longer; then turned abruptly

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  and walked to the door. He walked decisively, yet his steps were unsteady; and the landlady, watching him, ceased to laugh. Her piggish glance dwelt coldly on his back, and from her pursed lips there burst a contemptuous puff, like the breathing of a rolling porpoise.

  Three men waited in the narrow street before the Queen of Scotland tavern. They stared silently at the greyness of Marvin's face as he came heavily toward them.

  Argandeau cleared his throat. "My friend, you have learned something. You like to tell us what it is?"

  Marvin nodded slowly. "Slade," he said. "It was Slade that did it Slade that fixed us." He studied his clenched fist. "It was Slade," he repeated numbly. "He's got money plenty of it."

  The three men watched him, and when he was silent, Newton stirred uneasily. "The lady you spoke of," he ventured "did you learn about her?"

  Marvin lifted his eyes to the dull November sky; then lowered them moodily to Newton's face and slowly shook his head. "Nothing."

  "You learned nothing?" Argandeau cried. "But it would be common news in Morlaix what became of herl Come; we go again and askI"

  Marvin eyed him. "Nothing, I saidI" he repeated flatly. "Nothing! Henceforth nothing!"

  Argandeau drew a long breath and nodded understandingly. "I seel I seel We cannot speak of herl" He lifted an eyebrow. 'We cannot speak of her, and so we will not; but we can speak of Slade, eh? We can consider Sladel"

  "Yes," Marvin said. "We'll consider Slade."

  "Eh? And find him first?"

  "Yes. I'm going to find him."

  "Ah, when you find him," Argandeau said, "that will be something to enjoy." He pirouetted on the cobbles of the narrow street. "Where do we go to find him, my friend?"

  "Paris," Marvin said.

  "That is a city that is a city," Argandeau remarked. 'Where is it in Paris that we shall find him?"

  "I don't know," Marvin said. "I don't know."

  Argandeau snapped his fingers. "Do not despair, dear Danl Here in France there are men whose business it is to know many things. I think I can find a man to tell us of this Slade. You have heard of this man Tom Souville of Calais? He is like to burst with the infinity of the things he knowsl Come; we go quickly to Calaisl"

  XXIII

  IT WAS early morning when Argandeau led his three companions between the warehouses of the Quai de Keroualle and out onto the egg-shaped cobbles of the dock itself, slimy from the cold drizzle that turned the buildings, the shipping and the harbor of Calais into a uniform dirty gray. Two vessels lay before them one a tall and graceful schooner, and the other a small brig that squatted behind the schooner like a drab and dumpy mallard duck paddling ignominiously after a spotless swan.

  At the edge of the dock, screaming shrill orders to the sailors at work in the brig's rigging, stood a plump, helpless-looking man in whose appearance there was no evidence of wealth, seamanship or profound knowledge.
Yet this helpless-looking man was of necessity Tom Souville; for it was to him that Argandeau ran, and to him he spoke, bowing as handsomely, when he did so, as though clad in the finest broadcloth and satin, instead of the miserable shag trousers and striped shirt with which Clay had supplied him in Ramsgate.

  There was something of timidity to Souville when he turned, at Argandeau's first words. His lips were slack; his eyes were wide; all in all he had the air of a person about whom there was little to fear and less to remember.

  In the moment of seeing Argandeau, however, his face broadened and hardened in a thin-lipped grin, and he seized Argandeau by the upper arms, seeming almost to wrestle with him. As he did so, Marvin saw, over Argandeau's shoulder, Souville's eye flicker across him and his companions with the fierce scrutiny of a stooping hawk.

  When, a moment later, he came to them, his eyes were wide and gentle and his smile diffident as he complimented them on their escape from the hulks of Chatham. "I do not need to ask how are you," he said. "You are happy men, alive and free where only a short time ago you were half dead and sealed in the tomb. I myself have known this feeling more than once. This rain seems not to be rain, eh? The whole world seems bright, and nothing too much for your efforts."

  "I have told them this, Captain," Argandeau assured him. "Nothing is too much, if they have the great Captain Souville to direct them."

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  A look so vacuous as to approach imbecility swept over Souville's face and clung there until Marvin, nodding his head at the small brig, observed calmly that she was a tidy craft. "We heard you took her," Marvin said. "How did she sail with your RenardP'

  "Goodl" Souville said quickly. "Goodl Not too good, but good! You know there is nothing sails with my Renard not even any French schooner, and you well know that there are no vessels so fast as our French vessels. Therefore this Challenger sails well, but not so well but what I could sail a circle around her in any weather." He canted his head a little backward toward the harbor, his face as fatuous as that of a father indicating an adored child. "You have had an eye for my Renard, no doubt?"

  "Yes," Marvin said, eyeing the tall schooner tied up beyond the brig's bows, "yes, she's a fine craft! If I could take out a craft like that, I'd make five million francs for her owners if I made a sou." He stared from her to the squat and clumsy brig. "I've sometimes thought, though, that this talk of the speed of French vessels is all my eye and my elbow. It appears to me I've seen English vessels that could sail with the best of French vessels, provided the English manned their craft with seamen instead of peasants and city boys."

  "No, not" Souville said amiably. "Look here at this Challenger brig. Her lines are not bad, but she is too narrow, and heavy beyond all need. Her yards are thick, like an Englishwoman's leg, and her bulkheads are like making a wineglass from a block of granite!"

  Marvin nodded. "Yes, but this is not the only English vessel in the world. There was an English schooner came into Morlaix a month ago and cut out our barque, the Olive Branch. Now, there was a schooner!"

  Souville smiled pityingly. "No, nol That Sparrow schooner, she is not much. In light airs, now, my Renard would leave her so fast she would seem anchored."

  Marvin turned suddenly to Souville. "Why," he said, "here's a piece of luckl You must have heard the whole tale, or you'd never know the schooner's name. That was it the Sparrowl If you know it was she that cut us out, you'll know what became of an officer who left her on the day she made port."

  Souville's lower lip slackened, and into his eyes there came a blankness that was almost witlessness. "An officer," he asked. "An officer left her?"

  A heavy silence descended on the little group of men a silence broken at last by Argandeau: "There is something wrong here, my

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  old friend," he said. "For some reason you guard yourself against us, and I think you know too much or too little."

  He moved closer to Souville, making him a dignified half bow. "You suspect something, Captain; but I swear to you, by the friendship of our youth, there is no reason! These men are my friends, cruelly used by England, and more than eager to further the cause of France by doing England a hurt. This young man" he flicked his finger tips lightly against Marvin's breast "is a seaman, cautious with the peculiar caution of his country, and capable of inflicting great damage on an enemy. I have watched him I, Lucien Argandeau and I tell you that in one hour's time he thinks how to do things better and more quickly than they have ever before been done."

  Souville raised his hands and let them fall helplessly. "I have heard only a little; so little that it is nothing. This officer, perhaps, had an eye partly obscured." He threw back his head, drooped one eyelid and looked quickly at Marvin, so that he seemed to peer out from under the lowered lid.

  Marvin nodded, and Argandeau cursed softly in a foreign tongue.

  "You knew this man?" Souville asked.

  "Knew himl" Marvin said grimly. "Slade set the English on us! What we wish is to know him better."

  "So you had heard it?" Souville said. "How did it happen that you heard it?"

  Argandeau laughed. "How does it happen you know there will be rain tomorrow? It is something you know. This Slade, he was our enemy. I, too, am sure very sure he sent the Griffons, the English, to cut out the Olive Branch. How he informed them, I do not know, but he went ashore the day we made port, and disappeared. The next thing we know, the Sparrow arrives, coming purposely for us. It is a strange thing, too, that the officials of Morlaix held us and held us, anchored in the estuary, refusing to let us break bulk. These Americans, they might have been enemies of France, from the way they were treatedI"

  Souville pinched his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger, squeezing a part of the seeming imbecility from his face. "Then you think there may have been a connection between this Slade and the behavior of the Morlaix officials? You think he might be an enemy to France as well as to yourself?"

  Marvin nodded. "He was a slave captain, and slave captains cannot live except by bribery. He was an enemy to everybody and everything that would keep him from getting what he wanted;

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  and the thing he wanted most" Marvin hesitated momentarily "was money."

  Souville looked hard at Marvin and then at Argandeau. "All in all, then," he said, "you consider him a dangerous man?"

  Argandeau laughed angrily. "Dangerous! He should have a knife in the back; or if you are too squeamish for that, he should be hustled to Verdun and placed in the dungeons for the remainder of this little wart Tell us where he is, my friend!"

  Souville seemed suddenly enlightened.

  "Ah, I did not understand," he said. "In wartime it is impossible to tell. It might have been that you were in sympathy with the man. Now you shall have everything from me, frankly and freely. We will remove ourselves from this wet, eh, and go aboard my Renard, where we can speak quietly over a bottle of the best brandy."

  He turned abruptly, no longer anything of helplessness or indecision about him, swaggered to the companionway of the tall schooner, and led the way over her side and to the after hatch. Marvin, bringing up the rear of the small procession, paused for a moment at the bulwarks to study the bows of the squat brig beyond the Regards stern; then continued, whistling softly, downward into Souville's quarters.

  From the dark stains on the floor, as well as from the red paint on the patched sheathing, Marvin saw that the Renard's barren cabin had often been used as a hospital during engagements; and Souville, rummaging in a chest for a bottle, while the others settled themselves on benches, replied volubly to Marvin's unspoken thoughts.

  "You think there is small comfort here, eh? Well, that is sol My Renard, she goes always on business; and the quicker the business is done, the quicker we return home, eh? Therefore, I want little here for the making of splinters; little that must be thrown overboard before an engagement; for any such throwing would take time. In three months I shall have a la
rger vessel, with more comforts, perhaps; but I am wise to keep my Renard clear and clean like the boudoir of a young girl, eh?" He poured brandy into small glasses, squinted through one of them, touched the glass to his lips; then rolled his eyes ecstatically. "I drink your health and good fortune, gentlemen! The Americans, they are our dear friends and brothers against a common enemy."

  "We came here to speak of Slade," Marvin reminded him.

  "Yes, yes," Souville said. "Now I tell youl I see how you have suffered through this Slade, so I tell you everything! When this Slade left your barque, he went to England, where he sold information

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  to the Admiralty for a large amount of money, perhaps fifteen thousand pounds; and he went then to certain merchants of Bristol who are engaged in the slave trade contrary to law, and threatened them with exposure unless they provided him with an armed vessel a fast armed vessel."

  Argandeau bounced from his bench, stamped twice on the floor, spat violently through a stern window and threw himself heavily on the bench again.

  "An armed vessel?" Marvin asked slowly. "What sort of vessel?"

  Souville shrugged his shoulders. "I have not heard, but probably a brig. The fastest ones are brigs. Later I shall know surely."

  Marvin sighed gently. "Then he hasn't got it yet. Thank Godl"

  Souville shook his head. "No, and I am told that another month must pass before he gets it, but he had money from these Englishmen a deal of money and when he left England to return to Roscoff, he wrangled with the ah with the young woman who had accompanied him on his travels a young woman who came to me with the tale. An interesting man, this Slade. He had promised to pay this young woman fifty pounds for favors received, but on leaving he would give her no more than twenty."

  "There was a traveling companion, indeedI" Argandeau remarked.

  Newton wagged his head in simulated admiration. "He'll bear watching, Slade will. He'd go far in politics or financial"

  "You say Slade returned from England," Marvin reminded Souville. "What then?"