The Blackbirder

by James Nelson

  We can’t take much more of this, he thought. We’ll board. We’ll board and take our chances. There is nothing else for it.

  Then overhead came a low groan and Marlowe had the notion that someone was groaning in pain nearby. He looked up but did not see anyone. And then the groaning grew louder, higher in pitch, and with it came a snapping of wood, a popping of cordage, as standing rigging and running rigging were torn apart.

  The fore topmast leaned heavily to one side, as if it was drunk or trying to peer around something. The sail collapsed, half aback. A backstay parted, whipped free, knocking a man to the deck, and then the whole thing – topmast, topsail yard, topgallant, and topgallant yard, with all their attendant rigging and sails and hardware – toppled forward and to starboard, crashing down half on the deck, half in the sea, a great tangled broken heap of detritus that draped over half the forward part of the ship and made her spin up to windward, entirely out of control.

  ‘Larboard battery, keep firing!’ Marlowe shouted. His arm was useless, throbbing in pain, but he tried to ignore it. ‘Keep firing! Never mind the wreckage! Sail trimmers, cut that away. Cut those shrouds free, the fore topmast stay, cut it free!’

  They were helpless now. If the Frenchman chose to stand off and pound them to kindling, it could do so. If they chose to board so as to not further injure their prize, they could do that as well.

  We have to pound them, pound the bastards, Marlowe thought. Hit them hard enough and perhaps they’ll lose their taste for the fight. Perhaps we’ll score a lucky hit, like they did.

  In the waist, furious activity. The gunners were working their guns like crazed men, swabbing, ramming, running out, laying, and firing. They knew the score. They knew how helpless they really were, how vital it was now that they show they still had teeth.

  Men swarmed over the wreckage, hacking at the still intact rigging with axes, cutlasses, sheath knives, whatever they could. Even with the topmast shot away they might be able to sail the Galley, enough to keep their broadsides bearing on the enemy, but as long as the wreckage was dragging alongside they were immobile.

  ‘I believe they have had enough.’

  Marlowe looked up. Bickerstaff was standing beside him, hands clasped behind his back. He looked like he was addressing a rhetoric class.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Indiaman.’ Bickerstaff pointed with his chin.

  The Indiaman had fallen off, turned back to her original heading, the one she had been on when they first spotted her, running before the wind.

  ‘Hold your fire!’ Marlowe shouted, and the guns fell silent and then all along the Elizabeth Galley’s deck the men were silent as they watched.

  ‘She’ll come around again!’ Fleming interjected. He had taken a glancing blow on the scalp from a splinter and the blood ran down his cheek and matted in his hair, and though the wound was superficial Fleming looked like he might die at any moment.

  ‘She’ll come around, lay off our quarter, pound us to slivers.’ There was no fear or anger or panic in the mate’s voice. It was just an observation.

  But it was wrong. The Frenchman did not turn, did not bring her other guns to bear, did not heave to where the Elizabeth Galley’s guns could not reach and pound away.

  Rather, she settled back on her old heading. Her guns ran in; her mainsail tumbled from the yard and was sheeted home. Topmen raced away aloft and loosened off the topgallants.

  ‘The impudent dog!’ Marlowe exclaimed. He tried to point at the Indiaman, for emphasis, forgetting his broken arm until he raised it up. He felt the pain shoot through him. He gasped and let it drop again. ‘Can’t even be bothered with us! Like we were some trifling annoyance.’

  ‘If you would rather they come back and murder us all, I could go ask under flag of truce,’ Bickerstaff suggested.

  ‘No, no, I suppose we’ll let him go.’ Marlowe was feeling buoyant, despite the pain.

  He watched as the Frenchman set her topsails once again. Lord, he thought, how long can luck like this hold out?

  CHAPTER 23

  The Ship and Compass was no strict-run Puritan boardinghouse, but rather a place that catered to visiting sailors, men who were not quite as firm in their piety as the citizens of Boston. That much was clear to Elizabeth.

  Billy Bird, it turned out, had patronized the lodging so often, and spread his gold so liberally, that he was welcomed like the prodigal son, despite the late hour.

  They spent the night in the inn’s best room, Billy sleeping like the dead on the floor, Elizabeth lying awake on the wide bed, thinking, planning, fretting. When dawn at last made the cotton drapes glow with gray light, she still did not know how she would proceed, what she would do to find out Dunmore’s dirty little secret, why, indeed, she had even come to Boston.

  ‘Good morning, my dear,’ Billy said, rising from the floor at the foot of her bed. Elizabeth pulled the sheets further over her.

  ‘Humph.’

  ‘ “Humph”? Is that it? Do you appreciate how difficult it is for me to be cheerful after having spent the entire night with the most beautiful woman in Boston and having to sleep on the floor the whole while? I think some sympathy is due.’

  ‘If it is so bloody hard being cheerful, then bloody well don’t be.’

  ‘Uh-oh. Someone has had a hard night.’

  ‘Billy, whatever are we going to do? We have come here with no plan in mind … how ever are we to discover anything about Dunmore?’

  At this Billy looked confused, as if she had asked him how they would find air to breathe. ‘How? Why, we shall just ask.’

  ‘Ask whom?’

  ‘Dunmore’s father, I should think. And people who know both him and Dunmore the Younger.’

  ‘How shall we find Dunmore’s father?’

  ‘God, Lizzy, you are a bleak one in the morning. Dunmore’s father is some kind of preacher. If we ask in any church, I should imagine they would know where to find him. Boston ain’t London, as awestruck as you are by the size of this place. We’ll find him. Now, I hope you can stomach cod for breakfast, because that is damned near all they eat around here.’

  Billy’s optimism did much to buoy Elizabeth’s spirit, enough even that she was able to eat the breakfast of fresh-baked bread and cod’s tongues that was served to them in the ordinary adjoining the Ship and Compass.

  She was further amused to find that no comment at all was made about the fact that Billy had arrived with a young gentleman friend the night before and come downstairs the next morning with a woman of strikingly similar appearance. The absolute lack of surprise on the part of the innkeeper and his servants made Elizabeth guess that the Ship and Compass was as much honored for its discretion as its room and board.

  They headed out in the late morning, making their way through the crowded, narrow streets in the direction of the closest church they could see. In the daylight, and with the excitement of their arrival having passed, Elizabeth was able to make a more sober assessment of Boston.

  It was big, by colonial standards, and crowded by any standard, save for that of the biggest cities. Brick buildings and timber buildings formed solid walls on either side of the cobbled streets, hemming in the people like the banks of a river; people on foot, people on horseback, people pushing carts and driving drays and wagons and carriages, all made their slow way through the city. It was as if God had taken up a small section of London, cleaned it a bit, thinned out the population some, and set it down in the New England wilderness. Being in those narrow, crowded, noisy streets brought back in a rush the memories of Plymouth and London, and she did not care for them.

  ‘Do you see what a damned lot of Puritans they are?’ Billy asked.

  ‘Yes …’ Elizabeth equivocated. There certainly were a number of men in their black clothes and white wigs and wide-brimmed black hats and capes, but not nearly as many as she had imagined. From Billy’s descriptions she had expected the entire city to resemble a Congregationalist church service, but that was
a generation or two gone. This was no longer John Winthrop’s Boston.

  But neither was it rollicking Virginia of Royalist birth, the Virginia of Raleigh and John Smith, with its hunts and horse races, its grand balls at the governor’s house, and its raucous Publick Times. Boston was more sober by far than that.

  They came at last to the church, called simply the Old Church, just across Cornhill Street from the Town House and Crooked Lane. It was a redbrick affair with a tall white spire and big wooden doors thrown open. With not the least hesitation Billy Bird climbed the granite steps and walked into the cool interior, Elizabeth trailing behind.

  The church was empty. The tall, white-painted, uncomfortable-looking pews stood like soldiers in ranks waiting for the order to march. The walls were plastered and painted white; the arched windows rose high up the walls in regular intervals. Unlike the Anglican Burton Parish Church of Williamsburg, which flaunted its wealth and elegance with understatement, the Old Church displayed a genuine understatement, no more or less presumptuous in its conspicuous simplicity than the Puritan black coat and hat.

  At the far end of the church, high in the pulpit, the minister stood flipping the pages of a book. He looked up at the sound of Billy’s shoes on the wood floor echoing through the empty hall and climbed down the stairs to meet them.

  ‘Good day to you, sir.’ Billy gave an elaborate bow.

  ‘Good day.’ The minister was in Calvinist black, set off by his white wig and cravat fringed with a simple lace. His eyes flickered over Billy’s fine red wool coat, his silk waistcoat, his hat with the gold trim, which he held under his arm, the sword at his belt. ‘How may I help you?’

  ‘We are just arrived from England to your country, sir, and we are seeking out an acquaintance of ours, a Mr Frederick Dunmore, whose father, I am told, is a man of the cloth in this town.’

  At that the minister frowned, and if he wished to deny knowing Dunmore it was too late. When he spoke his tone said much more than his words. ‘I have not heard tell of Frederick Dunmore for some years now. I had thought he was in London, but if you are just from there, then I suppose not. In any event, he does not live in Boston and I do not know where he now makes his home.’

  ‘Then perhaps we shall call upon his father, if you would be so kind as to tell us where we might find that worthy gentleman?’

  Butter would melt on Billy Bird’s tongue, Elizabeth thought.

  The minister cleared his throat and it took him a moment to decide what to say, during which time Billy smiled and waited, the picture of guileless innocence.

  ‘Reverend Wait Dunmore is minister of the Middle Street Church, which stands at the corner of Middle Street and Cross. Do you know it?’

  ‘No, sir, we are just arrived,’ said Billy, too quick to be caught up in that snare. The minister gave directions to which Billy listened attentively, and then they bade him good day and left.

  They made their way up Cornhill Street, across Dock Square to Anne Street and then down to Cross Street, Billy stepping with the authority of one who knows his way perfectly well, his request for directions notwithstanding.

  ‘It is odd, is it not, that Dunmore’s father should be a minister here? A Congregationalist minister?’ Elizabeth observed.

  ‘Why is that odd?’

  ‘Well, Dunmore is no Congregationalist, nothing of the sort. Hell, he practically owns Burton Parish Church, or its minister, in any event.’

  ‘Frederick Dunmore seems to have shed everything of his former life, so why not his church as well? He is an opportunist, from what I can see, and he gives not a tinker’s cuss for God or the devil. But he is sensible to the fact that a Congregationalist would not go far in Virginia society. I suspect that his church attendance is entirely for social reasons. Not at all like your precious husband’ – he grinned at her – ‘whose piety is above reproach.’

  ‘Above your reproach, in any event.’

  At the corner of Cross and Middle Street they found the Middle Street Church, just as they had been told they would. It too was empty, but with the tall doors open, beckoning the faithful.

  ‘Hold a minute.’ Elizabeth grabbed Billy’s arm and stopped him in his bold rush for the stairs. ‘I must catch my breath.’

  She stood on the cobbled square and looked up at the church. It was not just the exertion of the walk that was making her light-headed. Frederick Dunmore had been haunting her night and day for more than five weeks now, had sent her into flight to the woods, to Billy Bird’s ship, and now to Boston. There was something unworldly about this, standing in this strange town, ready to confront Dunmore’s past, ready to weed out that thing that she might at last use to destroy him.

  Perhaps. Or perhaps this would all prove to be folly, a great waste of time. Perhaps the people of Marlowe House would have to live forever in the woods, form some renegade community out there in the wilderness, or join up with a tribe of Indians or come back to Williamsburg and be sold again as chattel.

  I shall not find out standing here, she told herself. She took a deep breath, but that did not ameliorate the twisting in her stomach, the spinning in her head. She was never so grateful to have Billy Bird by her side as she was then. It was his very insouciance, his absolute disregard for anything that others might take seriously, that made him so good at games such as this.

  ‘Onward, then,’ she said, and together they stepped up the granite stairs and into the church.

  Middle Street Church did not differ in any significant way from the first church they had visited, just a bit bigger. Once again Billy’s shoes echoed in the cavernous space, but this time there was no one to be seen.

  They walked slowly down the center aisle, stepping softly, not speaking, taken with the reverence that came naturally from being in a house of God, especially the strict, Old Testament God of the Puritans.

  They were almost to the altar when a black woman appeared from a side door, a bucket of soapy water in her hand. Her dress was like that of any of the working-class women of the city: cotton mobcap, wool petticoat skirt, muslin apron. She looked to be in her thirties, perhaps a bit older. A slave or a free servant, there was no way to know.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

  ‘Good day, ma’am.’ Billy bowed, just as he might have bowed to the governor’s wife. ‘We would like to inquire of Mr Wait Dunmore.’

  ‘Mmmm-hmm. What business you got with Reverend Dunmore?’

  ‘We are here on a matter that concerns his son.’

  That seemed to spark some interest, and the woman said, ‘You wait here, I’ll see if the Reverend can receive you.’ She put the bucket down and disappeared through the door. A minute later she was back, beckoning them to follow.

  She led them down a narrow hall at the end of which was a room, an office, with a desk and a couple of ladder-backed chairs, a big Bible on a stand, and several blanket chests, one of which was open, revealing itself to be crammed with papers – records of parishioners born, married, died.

  Behind the desk was Reverend Dunmore. He was seventy if a day, but had about him that robust quality that comes with a life of hard work and prayer and no hint of debauch, a face whose natural resting position was a scowl, as if the man was too ornery to die or even grow weak with age.

  He was scratching away with a quill and did not even look up as Elizabeth and Billy and the black woman stood patiently, and the black woman, at least, seemed to accept this as ordinary. At last he put the quill back in its stand, elaborately sanded the ink, tapped the sand off the paper, swept it away, and when that was completed looked up.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Reverend, these is the people come to see you,’ the woman said.

  ‘Thank you, Sally,’ said Dunmore, and Sally curtsied, turned, and left.

  Dunmore scrutinized them, as Elizabeth in turn scrutinized him. This was Frederick Dunmore’s father all right, there was no mistaking it. The son was more filled out, his face rounder, more fleshy, but around the eyes and the mo
uth, and the unpleasant expression, there was no denying the resemblance.

  ‘Reverend Dunmore, how very good it is to see you again!’ Billy gushed, and gave a great sweeping bow, thrusting his hat up with stiff arm into the air. ‘My word, sir, it has been an age at least!’

  Dunmore scowled and Elizabeth stared at Billy and wondered if he was making this up as he went along. ‘I do not believe I have had the pleasure, sir,’ said Dunmore.

  ‘Oh, forgive me, Reverend, but of course you would never recall me. I was a child, nine years old, when last we met. Thomas Marlowe? I was a childhood friend of your son’s. My family returned to England when I was nine, and I am only now coming back to Boston.’

  ‘I am sorry, sir, but I do not recall you. If you wish to see Roger, I am certain his memory will prove more reliable than mine. He might be found in his offices near the foot of Clark’s Wharf.’

  ‘Roger …?’

  ‘Roger Dunmore, my son. To whom you claim this childhood friendship.’

  ‘Oh, Roger, of course! But no, sir, forgive me but you mistake it! It was Frederick with whom I was playmates. Your son Frederick. Is he, too, still in Boston?’

  This brought something close to the reaction that Elizabeth had hoped for. The Reverend’s ever-present scowl grew deeper, his white eyebrows came closer together.

  ‘No, he is not … Sally! That will do!’ Elizabeth turned in time to see that Sally had developed an interest in cleaning the wainscoting just outside the open door of the office. On Dunmore’s bark she snatched up the bucket and hurried away down the narrow hall.

  ‘No,’ Reverend Wait Dunmore said again. ‘He does not live in Massachusetts.’

  ‘Oh. I am sorry indeed to miss him. I so hoped to introduce him to my wife, Mrs Elizabeth Marlowe.’

  At that Elizabeth curtsied, but Dunmore just fixed them both with his unfeeling stare.

  ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Marlowe, sir. Thomas Marlowe. Son of Joseph and Rebecca Marlowe, late of Salem Street?’