Captain Caution

by Kenneth Roberts

  "I tell you there was no risk," Marvin said calmly. "We ran in and anchored with the British ensign set over our American ensign. There was nothing for the British to think except that we were a captured American vessel, running for safety from the French privateer that pursued us to the very mouth of the harbor. Every man in the fort could see Souville's vessel, and not one of them would ever think to look at us. You know yourself that if you do something openly with one hand, you can do anything you like with the other and never be caught at it, provided you do it quietly. To anchor under the guns of the fort was an extra bit of caution."

  "Caution!" Argandeau whispered, raising his eyes to the sky.

  "Yes, caution," Marvin repeated. "When they saw us do it, they knew beyond any doubt that there was no harm in us, and so gave us no thought whatever. There is no surprise so great as to do something you could not do if you tried to do it in the way you were expected to do it."

  Argandeau moved his lips helplessly and shook his head.

  "But Fayal," Marvin continued, looking at him thoughtfully; "Fayal is another matter. In Fayal we must be doubly cautious."

  Argandeau raised an eyebrow and nodded understandingly. "Now you speak a language that has a meaning. You mean that in Fayal we must pick up two alligators by the hind foot."

  XXXI

  A NORT~VVEST wind piled dingy clouds against the cone-shaped hills that rimmed the roadstead of Fayal with an amphitheater of green; and from the top-hamper of the Blue Swan brig, riding at anchor in the lee of Espalamaca Point, there came an uneasy moaning that seemed, to the girl who stood at the shoreward rail of the quarter-deck, too dreary and too shrill to be evoked by wind alone.

  Despite her many days at sea, she had no eyes for the white houses nestling on the slopes behind her, half hidden im their vines and fruit trees; and she stared with a sort of fascination at the three war vessels that lay to westward, slowly swaying in the long swell from the tumbling waters beyond. Even though her hands were buried in the loose and heavy sleeves of a quilted Chinese jacket, not long out of a shop in the Palais Royal, she seemed to hug herself and shiver at the sight.

  On the deck in the lee of the sternmost carronade sat an angular woman, her scow-like feet thrust out before her and her huge brown hands busily wielding knitting needles that seemed the size of boat hooks. As she knitted, she cast quick glances at the restless girl. "You get yourself sick with this worry," she told her at length. "Then you be no good when there is need to worry. What you worry over? Is it the shark that follows us about, looking up at us with one eye, like someone I know? He is like a kitten, merely playing. You are safe here, and soon you will be safe away away from those damned Angles with their goat whiskers. Brrl" She muttered to herself, and her mutterings were unpleasant.

  "Yes, but we ought to be away cowl" Corunna said, as if to herself. "Right nowl If he hadn't been so kind if he hadn't got this brig for me I think I'd I'd never stay here for such a_ n

  She fell silent, watching the distant group of officers on the high poop of the ship-of-the-line, and into her mind there came again, as there had come a thousand times before, the constant tenderness of Lurman Slade and his forethought in her behalf. It went back this forethought, to the very day when she had arrived with Victorine in Dublin and had been installed by Slade in the captain's cabin of the Blue Swan brig. Victorine, grumbling in her suspicious Breton fash

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  ion at the manner in which Slade had eyed her, was stowing her mistress's Paris purchases in the lockers beneath the standing bedplace, when Slade had entered the cabin with a look of mock seriousness on his face to say that he had news doubtful news for her. A British frigate, he said, had just dropped anchor alongside.

  She had sprung up in consternation; but when Slade, on that, had smiled, she sat down mystified. "You don't think, my dear," he had said, "that I'd have let you take the risk of coming to Dublin without guarding you against any possibility of harml While we're on this side of the Atlantic, you're always in danger of capture and imprisonment unless we play a game with the English unless we spoil the Egyptians. That's what we've done, my dear! I've hoodwinked them, gammoned them, told them this and told them that; and the upshot is they've given me a letter-of-marque, the poor foolst A British letterof-marque, so that they're bound to protect us until we're ready to bid them good dayl Let their frigates anchor where they will; they can't harm you, my dearl You'll only need to let me act as captain when they're about." He had laughed and patted her hand, and added, "I'd like to see their faces when we take French leaver"

  It had disturbed her; yet she would have been ungrateful, she knew, to protest an act intended only for her safety; and so she had admired him for his resourcefulness and cunning. She had admired him still when, later, he returned to say that he had made a master stroke arranged, even, to sail as far as Fayal with a British squadron. "With half the distance covered," he had chuckled, throwing back his head to see her more clearly from beneath his drooping eyelid, "we're as good as homer I'll claim a reward some day" his eyes gleamed hotly "for the way I've taken care of youl Some day, and soonl"

  At the sound of a barking cough from Victorine, he had turned and left her, and Corunna had heard him shouting at the crew in sudden anger; but she told herself that what he said was true: He had taken care of her, and for what he had done she must be truly grateful. Yet beneath her gratitude had stirred a vague disquiet a disquiet that had persisted during the long voyage to Fayal in the company of the hated Britishers, and that had grown even stronger when Fayal was reached at last, and the Blue Swan, despite a favoring wind, still lay at anchor within pistol shot of the squadron leader.

  Ill at ease, she stared around her at the towering hills of Fayal hills that seemed, for all their soft greenness, to threaten and imprison her.

  Only half conscious of the hoarse gabble of the woman Victorine,

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  she stood on tiptoe to peer for the hundredth time at the quarterdeck of the ship-of-the-line, to which Slade had been rowed an hour since. "It's part of the game," he had told her, laughing softly at her protests, "part of the game. For your sake, I've got to do what I can."

  Victorine emphasized her words with agitated jerkings of her knitting needles. "Who but Victorine should know the ways of men little Victorine, yes, who has married five of them fivel One I lost at Trafalgar, and six would have married me the next day. Six out of the forecastle of the Glorieuse, where I had resided for nine monthsl Name of a name of a name, but I know theml Here and there you find good ones, perhaps I think so but never among the smooth ones the ones who softly say soft things. They are like soap, the soft ones, slipping out from under the hand and vanishing for a moment; and the first thing you know, another has picked them up to use. Hah, yes! I know them, those smooth ones; fragrant and firm, at one moment, but always softening and changing when exposed to the water of Battery. Soap, they arel This gentleman of yours, he is soft and smooth. I have watched him with you. He is gentle, yes. Ah, well; I know himl It is with you he is gentle. With me he would not be so gentler I have seen him look at me. When he has the chance, he thinks to himself, he will give me a kick Pooml and little Victorine will pop through the hull of this vessel like an eighteen-pound shot. That is what he thinks. He has no love for me, that one! I am in his wayl If it were not for little Victorine, says that piece of soap to himself, he would be alone with you when he is with you, and much happier for the freedom to try to make free with you. Hahl Hahl" She laughed darkly. "Ah, welll I have no fearl Better men than he have thought to kick Victorine through a bulkhead, but you can tell by looking at me that I have never even dented one." She rubbed the instep of one vast felt shoe with the toe of the other.

  "Hold your tongue!" Corunna said absently. Her glance shot suddenly seaward, caught by a movement at the edge of the perpendicular cliff of Espalamaca Point. From behind the cliff moved the staysails and jibs of a high-bowed vessel. Even before her foremast
hove in sight, Corunna knew from her slowness and clumsiness that she was a merchant craft; while from the tautness of her rig, when her fore and main masts came into view, Corunna said to herself that the vessel was a brig, and American. Yet the girl was only partly right, for a stubby mizzenmast followed the main from behind the steep headland; the vessel was a barque, not a brig, but undoubtedly

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  American; for at her mizzen truck an American ensign whipped smartly in the breeze.

  Corunna stared blankly at the flag; then made a sound of distress with her tongue against the roof of her mouth. A cloudiness filled her eyes, as if the far-off scrap of bunting had put it there. "Well, I declarel" she cried. "I'll be switched! The poor fools ought to know better!" She stamped her foot angrily and pressed white lmuckles to her lips, seeming to hold her breath.

  As if in answer to her thoughts, the barque appeared to hesitate at sight of the four war craft Iying close inshore. A small and clumsy crew shook out and sheeted home the topgallant sails that had been handed preparatory to anchoring, and at the same moment the barque hauled her wind and stood off, running to the southward across the harbor mouth. The American flag dropped from the mizzen, and in its place rose the British fiag.

  Again Corunna stamped her Chinese slipper on the deck. "Oh," she cried, "whaYs the man thinking of? He's lost his mindl"

  She crossed to the other rail to watch the attempt of her clumsy and guileless countryman to escape the trap of his own making; and she knew at once, from the heaviness of the strange barque's movements, that she must be an easy prey to any who pursued her.

  A boat, she saw, had pushed eagerly off from the hulking shipof-the-line to windward. It bobbed toward the Blue Swan, and Corunna recognised her own jolly-boat, with Slade in the stern sheets.

  Victorine scrambled to her feet. "Soapl" she grumbled. "Here comes your Mr. Soapl Me, just now I prefer the company of the octopus I have saved for your dinner!" She padded to the cabin hatch, her huge felt shoes slapping the deck with something like disgust.

  Slade waved gaily to Corunna, his head tilted far back to let him see clearly with both eyes. "Call all handsI" he shouted down the wind. "All hands to make saill"

  Without any word from her, a boatswain in the bows set up a piping, and by the time Slade had rounded into the lee of the stern and come aboard, a part of the crew were casting loose the topsails; while others, at the capstan, were heaving the brig short.

  "What's this?" she asked sharply.

  Slade chuckled and turned to look at the slow barque, forging steadily southward toward the steep slope of Guia Head. "Why," he said, "we're ordered in chase. You saw him, the poor fooll Running in with his colors set, and losing his courage when he saw us lying

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  herel Such stupidity I never sawl He could have come in and been safe, but he lost his head and ran, the poor fooll Gave himself away into the bargain; and then thought to deceive us, like an ostrich!" There was a furtiveness to his laughter, like quick movements among dry leaves.

  She stared at him; then a slow comprehension dawned on her face and she laughed delightedly. "And because we're fastest, you persuaded them to send us out alonel Well, it was worth waiting for, to go like thisl"

  She looked once more for the strange barque; and as she looked, its topgallant sails merged with Guia Head's sharp outline and vanished.

  The topsails of the Blue Stoan were sheeted home; the topgallant sails set over them. Amid a shouting and a clattering, the anchor was catted. The brig's head fell off to the southward and she slipped rapidly toward the troubled steel-grey expanse of open sea.

  It was only ten minutes later when she rounded the headland behind which the barque had disappeared, and hauled to the westward, but in that short time the barque had set her royals and put an unexpected stretch of tumbling water between herself and her pursuer.

  Corunna laughed again. "She's faster than we thought! Trust an American to be faster than she looksl" She wrapped herself more snugly in the folds of her quilted jacket and looked uneasily at Slade. "By nightfall shell be as safe as we."

  Slade, watching the distant barque from a carronade slide, muttered beneath his breath, jumped to the deck, walked quickly forward and snapped an order to the gun crews by the foremast. A whistle blew long and shrilly, and at the sound the men scattered, running to their stations.

  White-faced, Corunna caught at the arm of a running boatswain's mate. "Herel" she said. "Tell Mr. Slade I want himl"

  The boatswain's mate stared at her. "Quarters!" he said, and ran on to the cabin hatch.

  Slade came slowly back, stepping from side to side to give free passage to heavily laden powder boys, and Corunna went to meet him.

  "What are you doing?" she demanded. "I'm in command of this vessel, and I'll have no orders given from my quarter-deck without my sanction! By what right did you order these people piped to quarters?"

  He laughed gently through tightly clenched teeth. "Why," he said,

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  "you know as well as I that we're bound to play a part to play a part."

  "To play a partl" she cried. "What part is there that we need to play when we're free from the British? What have you manned those guns for?"

  He tipped back his head and looked at her along his nose. "You're excited," he said. "You forget that barque yonder doesn't know what we are. She might take it into her head to let fly at us. Surely there's no harm in self-protection." He took her arm and pressed it.

  She wrenched herself free. "Self-protection! Do you think I'm blind? We'll alter our course two points, and then she'll know we're peaceable!"

  His voice was low and husky: "Don't be impractical, my dear. This crew of ours they think they're on an English vessel; and why shouldn't they? Just bear in mind they're English themselves. We'll have to handle them carefully, Corunna, or they might turn against us. In time we can swing them to our side; until then, it's best to let me handle things in the way that'll benefit us both. We'll have to show 'em it's to their advantage to follow our judgment."

  "They're not EnglishI" she said. "They're Irishl There's Americans among 'em, too, of a sortl What do you mean in time we can swing them to our side? You're lying to mel You're trying to squirm out of something! I'll I'll put you under arrest in your cabinl" She drew a deep, quivering breath and shivered, as if with cold.

  He shook his head sorrowfully. "I was afraid of this," he said kindly. "I owe it to you and to the men themselves to do what I'm doing. Why, here's what seems to be a division of authority, my dear you with your papers that they've never seen papers that might be forgeries, for all they know and me with what they take to be an honest letter-of-marque from the British Government. You can see yourself that it's a dangerous situation unless ids handled properly." He turned from her suddenly and swung himself into the ratlines to look forward at the fleeing barque; then nodded his head at the helmsman and motioned a little with his hand. The brig yawed to larboard.

  "Give 'em a gum" he shouted.

  "Nor" Corunna screamed. "Nor"

  The brig lurched. Her bow seemed to rear. The starboard bow gun crashed ponderously. A billowing cloud of white smoke hid the Blue Su~an's bowsprit, then eddied down wind as the brig came back on her course. Slade, peering through the smoke, snarled at what he saw.

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  Corunna reached through the ratlinesto clutch him by the ankle. "My Godl" she cried. "You're not firing on theml They're Americansl"

  He looked down at her through the shrouds, and his expression was one she had never seen. "This is a man's business!" he told her harshly. "There's a fortune in it for ust A fortune! I'll ask you to go below if you're afraid of seeing something that might disturb you."

  Again he motioned to the helmsman. Again the brig yawed, and again the bow gun thundered. From the foretop there came a thin shouting a shouting that spread to the Blue Su~an's decks. The gun crews capered joyously among the
guns, and powder boys leaped with excitement.

  "By Godl" Slade shouted. "Her mizzenmastl It's dowel We got herl We got herl"

  It was as Slade said, although such gunnery seemed a miracle. The distant barque had fallen off her course, and over her counter trailed her stubby mizzenmast.

  "You rail" Corunna said. "You rail" She tugged at Slade's ankle. He laughed and stepped to the bulwark, but she caught at him again, so that he lost his balance and sprawled to the deck.

  He scrambled to his feet, his face yellow. "Herel" he said. "What the hell you think you're doing?"

  "You skunk," Corunna whispered. She seemed, in her rage, to have grown near to the height of Slade himself. "You damned skunkl You damned dirty slave-driving skunkl You damned - " Her breath failed her. She struck at him with her clenched fist.

  Slade laughed his rasping laugh. He turned to the third officer, who watched them curiously. "The lady's excited," Slade said. "The firing's unbalanced her. Well put her belowl"

  She fought silently, but Slade and his man had her. They dragged her to the cabin ladder. "Get down therel" Slade said. They lifted her from her feet and swung her through the hatch. Slade scrambled down the ladder after her and jerked her to her feet in the dimness of the companionway.

  "It's a good time to have it out with you, Corunna," he said, "just because there isn't any time for it. I've coddled you along to keep you with me, because up to now you could have got away, if you tried. But now you can'tl This brig's mine, not yours; and I do what I want to with it and with everything on ill I'll drop the play-acting, but I'll treat you well if you'll be sweet."

  She struck at him.

  The door of the captain's cabin swung open. In the doorway stood

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  the woman Victorine, tall and angular against the stern windows behind her.

  She looked at Corunna's face and instantly stabbed at Slade with the two long knitting needles in her left hand. He gasped and clutched at his thigh. Then Victorine dragged Corunna across the threshold into the bright cabin. The door slammed in his face and the bolt shot home.