The Continental Risque

by James Nelson

  ‘Yes, of course, sir,’ Rumstick said, ‘and truly I am accustomed to saying “United States.” I don’t know …’

  Adams moved with his usual brisk pace up the quarterdeck ladder and aft to where the captain stood. ‘Captain Biddlecomb,’ he began. Biddlecomb looked over Adams’s shoulder to Rumstick and reminded his first officer, through a narrowing of his eyes and a tilt of the head, that it was his, Rumstick’s, duty to keep passengers from harassing the captain on his private side of the quarterdeck. Rumstick, by way of answer, merely rolled his eyes and shrugged.

  Biddlecomb was in fact shocked to see the degree of sycophancy displayed by Rumstick, an attitude that was most unlike anything he had seen from his friend before. Rumstick stood six foot two and was close to three hundred pounds, the most powerful man that Biddlecomb had ever known. Like any professional seaman Rumstick accepted the ship’s hierarchy without question, but beyond that he had never been known to behave so like a serf in the presence of his lord and master, radical revolutionary that he was. When Biddlecomb mentioned it that morning in the privacy of the great cabin, Rumstick had said simply, ‘But, Isaac, that’s John Adams,’ as if that were all the explanation required.

  ‘Captain Biddlecomb,’ Adams said again, ‘I trust you have made some provision to elude that frigate?’

  Biddlecomb looked Adams in the eye for long seconds before replying, ‘I have, sir.’

  ‘Isaac, you may recall, has a long history of getting out of such situations,’ Stanton said, crossing over to the weather side. ‘I should think that this situation is a trifle compared to what he just did in Boston.’

  ‘Yes, and bravo I say, but it is this frigate, not the one in Boston, that concerns me.’ Adams’s voice conveyed not the least bit of fear; he seemed to view the frigate now chasing them as the same type of minor irritant that plagued every aspect of his life.

  ‘I’m not certain they’ll care to follow us through Hell Gate,’ Biddlecomb said, ‘but even if they do, I should think we’ll be able to keep away from them until nightfall. In any event it would take a bit of extremely bad luck for them to run us down now.’

  He said the words with little enthusiasm; indeed, he was hardly thinking as he spoke. The chief of his attention was drawn down into the waist, just forward of the break of the quarterdeck, where the carpenter was sounding the well, gauging the depth of water in the Charlemagne’s bilge with the iron sounding rod. Biddlecomb was not at all comforted by the carpenter’s expression.

  It had occurred to Biddlecomb five minutes before that the motion of the Charlemagne was somewhat sluggish underfoot, but he had noticed that sensation at other times when the wind was so far aft of the beam and so he dismissed it.

  The men had been working the pumps an hour per watch; a lot of pumping, but not an excessive amount for a vessel that had seen such hard use without heaving down. Still, the water that had just flowed from the pumps was clear and clean: not water that had long been in the bilge but water fresh from the sea.

  The carpenter pulled the sounding rod out of the well. His expression was, if anything, more distressed than before. He handed the rod to his mate and disappeared below.

  ‘Hancock!’ Adams was saying, quite loud, apparently in response to some comment of Rumstick’s. ‘Oh, Hancock’s fine as a delegate, but, by God, did you know that the man wanted to be commander in chief of the army, in Washington’s stead? Can you think of it? I mean, Washington’s no Alexander himself, but Hancock?’

  ‘Isaac, is there something wrong?’ Stanton asked in a low voice, glancing over the taffrail at the frigate, now three and a half miles astern. Biddlecomb’s quarterdeck face, his expression of unflappable calm that he had developed through long practice, failed to conceal from Stanton his churning stomach and his sense of pending disaster.

  ‘I should think we’ll hear from the carpenter directly,’ Biddlecomb said, ‘and then I’ll be able to answer that.’

  Less than a minute later the carpenter burst out of the after scuttle like a startled pheasant and fairly ran up the quarterdeck ladder and aft. He stopped in front of Biddlecomb, saluted, and without waiting for acknowledgment said as calmly as his heaving for breath would allow, ‘We sprung a plank, sir, right up by the bow, and damn me to hell if we aren’t taking on water like a son of a whore.’

  Biddlecomb nodded his head. It was what he had suspected, and it was, by any definition, a bit of extremely bad luck.

  CHAPTER 2

  Hell Gate

  ‘Oh, this is marvelous, Captain,’ said Adams. ‘Tell me, which are we to do first, drown or be captured?’

  ‘I’m not certain, Mr Adams,’ Biddlecomb said, considering the options available, two of which Adams had just mentioned, ‘but when I find out, I’ll be certain to let you know. Now …’ He turned to the carpenter.

  ‘Clearly we must jettison the guns,’ Adams said. ‘We shall start that immediately. Rumstone—’

  ‘Mr Adams,’ Biddlecomb said calmly in a tone that did not admit to questioning, ‘if you presume to give another order aboard my vessel, I shall have you restrained below.’

  ‘Well, for God’s sakes, man!’ Adams searched the other faces of the quarterdeck for support and, seeing none, stamped off to the leeward side and leaned against the bulwark, arms folded across his chest.

  ‘Mr “Rumstone”,’ Biddlecomb said, ‘please roust out the watch below and set hands to the pumps,’ and then, turning to the carpenter, continued, ‘Tell me about the leak.’

  ‘It’s the hood-end, right up against the stem, sir, starboard side, about three foot below the waterline, and it’s coming in like a son of a whore. Don’t know if the plank’s sprung or rotten clean away or what.’

  ‘Too big a hole to drive a plug in?’

  ‘Lord, bless you, sir, yes. Too big even for a piece of beef.’

  ‘Very well. Please see to the pumps. Take whatever hands you need to keep them going. Mr Sprout!’ Biddlecomb called out to the Charlemagne’s bosun. Sprout hurried aft with the odd rolling stride he used whenever he was in a hurry, the result of a large body and squat legs. ‘Mr Sprout, we’re taking on water, right up against the stem on the starboard side. We’ll have to fother a sail over it, just a spare staysail or whatever you have, we’ve no time for fancier.’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ Sprout said, saluting and hurrying forward.

  ‘Mr Rumstick.’ This was the order he least wished to give, but he had no choice. He had to relieve the pressure of the water on the bow. He was tempted to look over his shoulder at the frigate following astern, but he fought it down. ‘Mr Rumstick, we’ll have the studdingsails in, then clew up everything save the topsails.’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ Rumstick said, then turning forward bellowed, ‘Hands aloft to take in studdingsails!’

  Every man aboard, Biddlecomb was certain, was aware of their situation, there being no more efficient system on earth for disseminating information than shipboard rumor. Those men not racing aloft in obediance to Rumstick’s orders were peering over the side and aft, gauging how long it would be before the frigate caught up with them. Ten minutes ago the estimate would have been four hours at least. Now, with the sails coming in as fast as they could be fisted, it would take less than half that time.

  At the larboard rail Stanton was explaining to Adams, ‘He has no choice but take in sail. The faster we go the more the water comes in through the bow and the more likely it is that we sink.’

  That was exactly right. Biddlecomb looked at the shoreline to the north and south of their position. The closest land was ten miles off. If he crowded on sail, he could probably run the Charlemagne aground before the frigate came up with them. But if he crowded on sail, then the chances were better than even that they would sink before reaching land, and if he headed for shore under topsails alone, then the frigate would catch them before they were halfway there. His only option was to keep running directly away from their pursuit. But that in itself would not save them, it would only mean freedo
m for an additional hour or so.

  ‘I have no doubt,’ Virginia was saying, ‘that the captain has some scheme to keep us from capture.’

  The captain in question stared at the frigate astern, pretending not to listen to the conversation on the leeward side, and wondered if Virginia really believed that. He couldn’t imagine that she did. She was an insightful woman, startlingly so at times, and he doubted that she could believe with certainty something of which he himself was entirely unsure. His hand moved to the hilt of his sword, the beautiful sword that he had liberated from its last owner, a lieutenant in the British navy, and grasped the handle as if it were a talisman.

  ‘Understand,’ Adams said to the Stantons, ‘that I am not without some knowledge of maritime affairs. I have spent a considerable part of my time, in the course of my profession, upon the seacoasts of Massachusetts. I have conversed much with the gentlemen who conduct our fisheries, as well as the other navigation of the country …’

  As Adams continued to explain his intimacy with shipping, Biddlecomb stared absently aloft. Men in each top were folding the studdingsails that had been pulled in, and men on the topgallant yards and the foreyard were stowing sail.

  A month before, this evolution would have been done twice as quickly. But a month before, the Charlemagne carried a much different crew, both in terms of numbers and experience. Naval stores were not the only things that were going first to the privateers. With the promise of easier discipline, shorter enlistments, and vastly greater profits, all of the best seamen in the Colonies were opting for the private men-of-war.

  Biddlecomb had a few holdouts; his officers and petty officers had stayed with him, as had a core of men: Woodberry, Ferguson, and a few others who had been with him since his days as a merchant captain. But many of the Charlemagnes had melted away and, he imagined, were even now seeking out rich prizes aboard the fast, heavily manned privateers.

  More than twenty minutes later Sprout announced the sail properly fothered over the hole, and in that twenty minutes the frigate had gone from being a distant concern to being a genuine and growing menace. She was, by Biddlecomb’s estimate, now two miles astern and visibly closing the gap.

  ‘I imagine that patch won’t hold if we set studdingsails,’ Biddlecomb said to Sprout, who was now aft on the quarterdeck. ‘But we must set plain sail at the very least, or we might as well let her sink.’

  ‘I wouldn’t place a wager on the patch holding even with just plain sail set, sir,’ Sprout said. ‘There wasn’t the time for me to do it the way I’d have liked—’

  ‘I understand, Mr Sprout,’ Biddlecomb said, then called out for topgallants and foresail to be set once again. It was a game of chance, one that they had to play. The increased pressure brought on the patch by their increased speed could tear the fothered sail clean away. But if they did not sail faster, then they would be overtaken. As it was, their chances of staying ahead of the frigate until nightfall did not look promising. Not promising at all.

  ‘Mr Rumstick, we’ll clear for action, if you please,’ Biddlecomb said, and one shouted order brought men swarming over the deck, casting off the great guns, laying out rammers and swabs and tubs of smoldering match.

  The Charlemagne’s gunner was new to his post. Biddlecomb had innocently introduced the former gunner, William Jaeger, a veteran artillery officer of the Prussian army, to an old acquaintance of his, Henry Knox, a bookseller from Boston. It turned out that Knox was now an artillery officer himself. The two became fast friends and Biddlecomb at last had no choice but to dismiss Jaeger from service aboard the Charlemagne in order that he might join Knox’s unit. But Jaeger had taught the Charlemagnes well, and they were fast and efficient in preparing the brig for battle.

  Midshipman Weatherspoon dashed up from below. At fifteen years old he was already a veteran of a number of desperate fights aboard the Charlemagne. He took his place on the quarterdeck, relieved, no doubt, to be free of the navigational trigonometry that so baffled him, but which on most days Biddlecomb insisted he study.

  ‘Isaac, is there anything I can do?’ Stanton asked quietly, stepping over to the weather side.

  ‘Yes, in fact, if you would take the conn, that will relieve me of one thing, at least.’ Stanton had sailed these waters many times – more times, in fact, than Biddlecomb – and he would be more than capable of seeing to the Charlemagne’s navigation.

  ‘Gladly,’ Stanton said, stepping over to the helmsmen.

  ‘Mr Stanton has the conn,’ Biddlecomb said to the helmsmen.

  ‘Captain?’ Stanton said, his voice now loud enough to be heard around the deck. Never had Biddlecomb’s mentor, the man for whom he had worked for fifteen years, from cabin boy to master, addressed him as ‘captain,’ and he was a bit taken aback.

  ‘Yes … Mr Stanton?’ he said, adjusting with some difficulty to their changing roles.

  ‘What course?’

  ‘Keep her headed for Hell Gate,’ Biddlecomb said as if he had a plan and that were a part of it. He turned and looked over the waist. The ship was cleared for action, the men at their posts, and Rumstick was heading aft to report the time that it had taken. Once again they would settle down and wait, though now any sense of monotony was quite gone.

  Two hours later, two hours of watching the frigate draw inexorably nearer, Biddlecomb realized that she was the HMS Glasgow, freshly repaired after the damage that he himself had inflicted on her two months before. She was a mile and a half astern, no more than that, her buff bowsprit and oiled jibboom thrusting high above the water, all sail set to studdingsails and royals, the churning foam under her bow boiling halfway up the cutwater.

  He recalled the last time they had been in this position, the Glasgow racing to catch the Charlemagne. At that time her jibboom was gone and her bowsprit jury-rigged and her fore topgallant gear torn away. There had been no fear of capture then. But this time his was the crippled vessel. He wondered if Capt. William Maltby was still in command. If he was, then Biddlecomb could expect no mercy from that quarter.

  He realized that he was gripping hard on the quarterdeck rail. Fear, physical fear, and panic at the hopelessness of their situation were seeping in around the edge of his thoughts. He remembered the parties in Cambridge given in his honor, the secret delight he took in his role of hero. A flush of embarrassment swept over him. Some hero, some pathetic pretender of a hero.

  But he was not beaten yet, he would not be controlled by his fear. Nor was he ready to hand the Charlemagne over after all they had been through. While there was still sea room, there was still a chance.

  He could make out the little town of New Rochelle just beyond the starboard bow, where Long Island Sound began to constrict into the East River, with its islands and spits of land reaching out into the water. The tide was on the ebb, sweeping them and the Glasgow downriver. Another few miles and they would have no choice but to race through Hell Gate and into New York Harbor; they would not be able to turn and sail back against the tide.

  Biddlecomb tried to picture it in his mind: the Charlemagne working through the wild turn at Hell Gate, past Hallet’s Point, then between Frying Pan and Hog’s Back, the Glasgow just astern by then, if not alongside. They would be safe in that narrow water, but once they shot out the other side, once in New York Harbor, they were lost. The Glasgow would be on them.

  Suddenly Biddlecomb felt his grip on the rail ease, felt the twist in his stomach and the tingling on the soles of his feet that heralded the first awakening of an idea. He looked astern at the frigate. The timing on this would have to be perfect.

  ‘Mr Rumstick, Mr Sprout, lay aft please,’ he called out, and the odd sound of his own voice made him realize how silent the ship had been for the past twenty minutes. But now a buzz ran through the men as the first officer and the bosun made their way aft. Biddlecomb saw some grin, and some of the older hands whispering to those new to the Charlemagne. They knew by now, as well as he did, the signs of a plan springing to life.

/>   The confidence that they had in him was, by his own estimate, completely out of proportion with reality, but it was clear that his merely conferring with his officers gave the men faith. He felt as if there was a veil between the quarterdeck and the waist, a thin gauze, and if those men forward had the insight to pull the veil back, they would realize that there was nothing there.

  ‘Mr Sprout, what is the state of the sheet anchor?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s secured for sea, sir, but the cable’s bent and it would take just a few minutes to let her go.’ Sprout gave the answer that Biddlecomb had expected.

  ‘Very good. We’ll make ready to let it go, but I don’t want them’ – Biddlecomb indicated with a nod of his head the frigate that was now a mere mile astern – ‘to see what we’re about. So, Mr Rumstick, I’ll thank you to brace up a bit sharper on the port tack. The clew of the foresail should hide the activity on the channel.’

  Rumstick looked over his head at the sails, then turned his face into the wind, and Biddlecomb could see the look of disapproval forming. ‘Yes,’ he said before Rumstick could object, ‘I know the sails will set like washing hung out to dry, but we’ll just have to endure it for the time being.’ Beside hiding the men on the channel, the poor set of the sails would allow the Glasgow to catch up a bit; she was overhauling them quickly, but not quite quickly enough for the plan that was coming together.

  ‘Sharper port tack, aye, sir,’ Rumstick said, good subordinate that he was, and hurried forward, Sprout at his heels.

  The sails did indeed look like laundry on a line, and the Charlemagne’s speed fell off noticeably, but that was fine with Biddlecomb. The frigate had closed a great deal of distance; with her towering rig and her longer waterline and the Charlemagne’s inability to carry anything beyond plain sail, Biddlecomb guessed that the Glasgow was going half again as fast as the brig. But they were just passing Prospect Point, racing down toward Throg’s Neck and the East River, and she was still three-quarters of a mile astern; too far away for Biddlecomb’s purposes.