The Continental Risque

by James Nelson

  But the bastard Biddlecomb had played it just right: stormed in on them, shot one of them in the shoulder to show he wouldn’t be taken advantage of, scared them all half to death, and then let them off easy. Hackett found himself growing angry again, thinking about it. They came back aboard more in awe of Biddlecomb than anything. Well, he was not done with that Yankee son of a bitch, not near done.

  He turned to the captain of number three gun, desperate to vent his anger.

  ‘Give me that, you son of a whore!’ He yanked the linstock from the gun captain’s hand. ‘There, look at this. Got the number five carved in it. You recall I carved that there just the other day, in case these bastards done something like this.’

  The men of number five gun took a step toward number three, and the men of number three took a step toward number five.

  ‘Well, this here’s about what I’d reckon from a bastard like you,’ the captain of number five growled.

  ‘Give me that, you great horse’s arse!’ The captain of number three lunged at the linstock, but Hackett swept it out of the way and shoved the gun captain back, hard.

  ‘Leave off, you thieving bastard. I’ll go to the captain with this,’ Hackett said. He could feel the rage building.

  ‘You’re the thief, fucking buggering bastard. Give that here!’ The captain lunged again. Hackett dropped the linstock and caught the man up by the collar with one hand and with the other delivered two quick blows to the side of his head. It felt good, in that instance, with all the hatred toward Biddlecomb building up. If he could not start a riot, at least he could vent his anger by pounding someone. He struck the man again. He felt his control slipping.

  And then Tottenhill was there, that stupid, miserable jellyfish Tottenhill, grabbing both of them and pulling them apart, shouting, ‘Stop this, this instant! I order you to stop!’ Hackett punched the gun captain again, was hit himself in the jaw.

  ‘Stop this!’ Tottenhill shouted again.

  Hackett loathed that idiot first lieutenant, had wanted to do for him for a while. Don’t, don’t, he warned himself, but he was beyond control. He half-turned, grabbed Tottenhill by the collar, and pushed, sending him sprawling to the deck.

  That was a grave mistake. Hackett knew it the instant that his fist had wrapped around the first officer’s collar, but by then it was too late. ‘God help me, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ Hackett pleaded, letting go of the gun captain and kneeling beside Tottenhill. ‘Forgive me, sir, it was an accident,’ he whined.

  Tottenhill pushed the supplicant aside and leapt to his feet, clutching the elbow on which he had fallen and grimacing in pain. ‘Master-at-arms! Master-at-arms! Put that man in irons, now! Lock him below!’ Tottenhill shouted, and the master-at-arms, aided by the gunner and Mr Sprout, grabbed the surprised Hackett and restrained him.

  ‘No, sir, please, no! It was an accident!’ Not the chains, not the black hold, not the solitude, Hackett thought.

  ‘Lock him below!’ Tottenhill said again, and Sprout and the master-at-arms dragged Hackett away.

  ‘Damn it. Damn it all to hell,’ Biddlecomb said softly. He did not want to make a great issue out of this; that would not help the fragile mood of the crew. If Rumstick had been there first, he would simply have knocked Hackett flat and kicked him around and that would have been an end to it. But now he had no choice but to support the first officer.

  ‘What did you have in mind, Mr Tottenhill?’ Biddlecomb asked as Tottenhill stepped back onto the quarterdeck. The captain spoke softly; this was not a conversation he wished to be overheard. ‘We could stop his tot, put a wooden collar on him, some “shameful badge of distinction” as the navy rules put it.’

  Tottenhill looked surprised, shocked even, at the suggestion. ‘He struck me, Captain.’

  ‘I can order no more punishment than a dozen lashes. Anything more requires that we convene a court-martial.’

  ‘Then convene a court-martial, sir.’ The first officer spoke in a loud whisper. ‘He struck a superior officer. He might have broke my arm. I want him tried, sir, and I want him hung.’

  And despite the godlike powers he possessed aboard his vessel, Biddlecomb had no choice but to accommodate his officer’s desires. If the first lieutenant wanted a court-marital, then a court-martial he must have. Biddlecomb thought of Adams’s quite unrealistic vision of a ship captain’s autonomy. This was the price Biddlecomb paid for the cheering crowds and the thrill and pride of commanding a ship in the Continental navy.

  Tottenhill joined him for dinner that afternoon. Biddlecomb had extended the invitation the day before, before Tottenhill had forced him into this disciplinary corner, before the first officer had further soured his already sour mood. Isaac had hoped the dinner would improve their strained relationship, which was growing more strained by the day.

  It was not a success.

  CHAPTER 12

  Court-Martial

  The Rules for the Regulation of the Navy of the United Colonies laid out that a court-martial should consist of three captains and three first lieutenants, and if available, three captains and three lieutenants of marines. Since, as it happened, every captain and lieutenant of both the navy and the marines for all of the United Colonies was frozen in within one hundred yards of each other, that otherwise tall requirement was easily met, and the result was a crowded great cabin aboard the flagship Alfred.

  Biddlecomb sat on the starboard side, right against the ceiling, not a member of the court-martial but a grudging witness. His head was inches below a rather stiff portrait of the commodore’s wife, Mrs Desire Hopkins, painted, he mused silently, some years after that appellation was quite applicable.

  Second Lieutenant Ezra Rumstick, who sat beside him, was also a witness, though even more grudgingly so than his captain. He sat in the Alfred’s great cabin with arms folded, looking around.

  ‘What is the name of the flagship’s first lieutenant?’ Biddlecomb asked, as much to try to engage Rumstick in conversation as to assuage his frustration at forgetting. ‘The Scotsman with the red hair?’

  Rumstick leaned forward and glanced at the man in question, who was carrying on an animated conversation with Captain Saltonstall. ‘He’s one of these fellows with three surnames. John Jones Paul, or Paul Jones, I think. Paul John Jones? One of those. I forget.’

  Across the cabin, and as physically far away from his fellow officers of the Charlemagne as he could get in that space, sat Tottenhill, arms and legs crossed, foot wagging nervously up and down, as he glared impatiently around the room.

  Two tables had been pushed together to make one long enough to seat the twelve-man court, and it ran from one side of the cabin to the other with barely enough room to squeeze in on either side. This despite the fact that, by Biddlecomb’s estimate, one could have placed two and a half great cabins from the Charlemagne in the Alfred’s.

  It had already been a long morning, but the officers called to sit were still milling about. They had begun to assemble at nine o’clock, walking across the ice and waiting their turn to go up the flagship’s side. At last all were aboard and below in the great cabin and served coffee and soft tack and butter and jam. It was a break in the dreary, icebound routine, a pleasant social occasion, and all seemed to share in the amiable atmosphere, save for Biddlecomb and Rumstick, the miserable Tottenhill, and the vastly more miserable Hackett, who spent the morning in chains and under guard on the Alfred’s gundeck.

  ‘Well, call me a son of a whore,’ Commodore Hopkins said. He was seated in the middle of the table, the only one yet seated, and reading over the Rules for the Regulation.

  ‘Who here knew we was supposed to do a damned divine service twice a day? Whipple, did you know that? Captain Saltonstall? Has anyone done that? What a blackballing waste of time. I thought I read these sodomizing things. Damned lawyers’ clerks and parsons. Listen to this: “If any shall be heard to swear, curse, or blaspheme the name of God, the commander is strictly enjoined to punish them for every offense by
causing them to wear a wooden collar,” et cetera, et cetera. “If he be a commissioned officer, he shall forfeit one shilling for each offense, and a warrant or inferior officer, sixpence,”’ he read, and then without a hint of irony added, ‘Well, I’ll be God damned.’

  ‘Sir?’ Tottenhill interjected, the higher than normal pitch in his voice sabotaging his attempt to sound like a man in control.

  ‘Yes, of course, Tottenhill,’ said Hopkins. ‘I guess we had best get on with this thing.’ The commodore stood up and called the room to attention, announcing that the court-martial was about to commence. ‘Let’s see here, Whipple, you slide in there, then Saltonstall, and you marines, Captain Nicholas, there, come in on this side, amidships. Good, and you lieutenants outboard.’

  Whipple with some difficulty squeezed his big frame around the end of the table, followed by Dudley Saltonstall and the others, shuffling sideways to their places until at last all were seated and ready.

  After the morning’s festivities the court-martial itself was something of a let-down. Tottenhill stood and in an unemotional, mechanical way described the events of the previous morning, then Biddlecomb stood and confirmed what Tottenhill had said. Mr Rumstick was called and related much the same story, though with a painfully obvious attempt to soften up the event. But at last, and under direct questioning, he was made to admit that Tottenhill’s presentation of the facts was in no way inaccurate.

  Finally Hackett was called, and in a stammering voice, shaking, Biddlecomb guessed, as much from stage fright as from fear of capital punishment, he related the events. His story did not differ in any material way from that of the officers, save for his claim that he didn’t push Tottenhill but rather fell into him, accidently knocking him to the deck, and that when he pushed him, he forgot that the man was an officer. Other than the fact that the one statement seemed to contradict the other, he was fairly convincing.

  Forty-five minutes after testimony began it was over. Hackett was removed from the great cabin and the Charlemagne’s officers sat facing the twelve-man court.

  ‘Well, I reckon he’s guilty as charged,’ Commodore Hopkins said. ‘But let’s have a vote on it. All who say he’s guilty say “aye.”’

  Twelve ‘Aye’s’ were muttered along the table.

  ‘Well, that’s that. I guess now we figure a punishment.’

  ‘Sir.’ Tottenhill stood and addressed the court. ‘The Rules for the Regulation says striking an officer is punishable by death or any such punishment as a court-martial shall inflict.’

  ‘Does it?’ Hopkins asked. ‘Jones, hand me that. Death, that’s going it a bit high.’ Hopkins flipped through the pages of the Rules for the Regulation. ‘Here it is … No, you’re mistaken, sir, the death thing is for mutiny. Striking an officer is just “on pain of such punishment as a court-martial shall order to be inflicted.”’

  ‘But, sir, he struck a superior officer, and, damn it, sir, I cannot speak to the other ships, but things are too lax, too lax by half, on the Charlemagne.’ Tottenhill’s voice grew louder, his face more animated as he spoke. ‘We need discipline, we need an example set. Where I am from, we do not countenance such things. We do not let our discipline slip. We take our military regulations seriously, sir.’ Tottenhill was practically yelling by the time he finished, and when he stopped, the great cabin was silent.

  The tirade, unexpected as it was, left the court stunned and not a little embarrassed. Tottenhill remained standing, standing at attention. Biddlecomb caught Rumstick’s eye, and Rumstick raised an inquisitive eyebrow at the condemnation of Biddlecomb’s command.

  ‘Yes, well, thank you,’ Hopkins said at last, breaking the embarrassed silence. ‘Biddlecomb, what say you?’

  ‘Well, sir, I’ll admit that morale has not been high, not since we were frozen in this second time. I doubt it’s been high on any ship here, what with the cold and the smallpox. But I don’t see a hanging doing much to improve it.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ said Hopkins with finality. ‘But we need to order something, he is guilty. Let’s say two dozen with the cat? Gentlemen, two dozen at first light tomorrow?’ Heads nodded along the length of the table. ‘Good, two dozen it is.’

  ‘Sir—’ Tottenhill began, but Hopkins stood and thankfully cut him off.

  ‘Two dozen is the decision of this court, and it is fair and final. And, sir, we are all under a great strain here, pray do not be so quick to call for a court-martial in the future. It is not for all the vessels in this fleet to solve your own problems. The court is adjourned.’ And then turning to Abraham Whipple, Hopkins added, ‘Hey, Whipple, that was done pretty smart for our first court-martial, what say you?’

  I have made a mistake, a foolish mistake, Tottenhill thought as he and Biddlecomb and Rumstick stood together on the Alfred’s quarterdeck, waiting their turn to run the gauntlet of ceremony and descend to the ice.

  The beginnings of that realization had nagged at him all night, and the court-martial had cemented it. He had sat there like an idiot, like a pariah, while the Yankee officers had chatted and laughed in their familiar way, unwilling to embrace him as a fellow officer, making an outcast of him. Just like Biddlecomb, who only grudgingly invited him to dinner, and that rarely, and never tried to engage him in conversation. It was clear now that one could not be a fellow officer without being a fellow Yankee.

  He should never have lost his temper with Hackett. He could see the truth in what Hackett was saying; it had been an accident, he had not intended to strike a superior officer. After all, Hackett was one of his people, a Southerner, a North Carolinian.

  If he was under an undue stress, it was only to be expected. Hackett no doubt felt as ostracized in that Yankee ship as he himself did. It was little wonder that the North Carolinians tried to desert, with the way they were treated, officers and men alike. It was time, Tottenhill realized, to start thinking about who his friends were.

  ‘Lieutenant.’ Biddlecomb turned to Tottenhill, a tone of conciliation in his voice. ‘I think the court’s decision was fair. Two dozen is a severe enough punishment under the circumstances. Any more or less would be injurious to discipline. As to your comments concerning discipline aboard—’

  ‘Sir,’ Tottenhill cut him off, ‘I understand what happened today, do not doubt it. I understand very well.’ He was tired of Biddlecomb’s attempts at placating him. He would have no more of it.

  ‘Lieutenant, this is a difficult time for all of us. I expect you to stand with the other officers and help to maintain discipline.’

  ‘And I would like to think that other officers would stand by me, sir, though that might be more than could be hoped for.’

  Biddlecomb stared into Tottenhill’s eyes for a long moment, then turned away.

  There, that’s shut him up, Tottenhill thought, with a glow of triumph.

  CHAPTER 13

  ‘On Pain of Such Punishment …’

  ‘What do you think Tottenhill meant by that?’ Biddlecomb asked Rumstick. They were standing together on the Charlemagne’s quarterdeck, an hour after leaving the Alfred’s great cabin. Biddlecomb was still angry over the first officer’s remarks.

  ‘No, don’t bother to answer,’ he added as Rumstick made to speak. ‘I know what he meant. Son of a bitch!’ In his younger days Isaac had been better at hiding his impatience. But as he grew older, and since he had made captain, he felt that ability slipping away. He wished that he could fool Tottenhill into thinking that they were friends. He did genuinely respect the man’s seamanship. He just couldn’t stand his company.

  Tottenhill spoke little that day, and the next morning when Biddlecomb ordered Mr Weatherspoon to graciously offer to stand the lieutenant’s watch so that Tottenhill might join the captain, Rumstick, and Faircloth for breakfast, the midshipman returned with a polite declination.

  As a result Biddlecomb felt obligated to invite the midshipman to breakfast instead, and Weatherspoon happily accepted, chatting amiably for the better part of an hour, unaw
are that his captain was silent and unresponsive, pushing his fried pork around his plate with his knife. Rumstick, whose appetite was undiminished, nodded once in a while, but was, for the most part, equally silent, leaving Faircloth to maintain the conversation with the midshipman.

  ‘Ezra’ – Biddlecomb looked up, cutting Weatherspoon off in midsentence – ‘we do have a cat-o’-nine-tails for this morning, do we not?’

  ‘I don’t know. I figured the bosun would come up with something,’ said Rumstick, surprised by the question. ‘Weatherspoon, hop up top and see if the bosun has a cat-o’-nine-tails prepared.’

  Two minutes later Weatherspoon was back, Mr Sprout in tow, and Biddlecomb, who was at that moment again resolving to be more patient with the first officer, was reminded of the bloody spectacle that was about to take place aboard his brig, thanks to Mr Tottenhill.

  ‘God, I’m sorry, sir, but I didn’t make a cat,’ the bosun said. ‘Don’t really know how. I had figured that Mr Rumstick, having been in a British brig-of-war and all …’ His voice trailed off in embarrassment.

  ‘That’s understandable, Mr Sprout. We should have discussed this. On the Icarus, Rumstick and I had plenty of chance to see how a cat is used but not how one is made. Pray go forward and see if there are any aboard that know how to make a cat and set them to it.’

  An hour later Mr Sprout returned to the great cabin. ‘We got a cat-o’-nine-tails all lashed up, Captain,’ he said. ‘Old fo’c’sle man, Neeley, done it. Good hand with the fancy stuff.’ He paused, and an uncomfortable silence filled the cabin. ‘Anyway, sir, we got a cat now.’

  ‘Well’ – Biddlecomb met Rumstick’s eye – ‘I guess there’s nothing now stopping us from … carrying out punishment. Mr Rumstick, please see the men assembled to witness this.’

  Rumstick and Sprout disappeared forward, and less than a minute later the brig was filled with the sounds of bosun’s calls and shouted orders and stamping feet. Biddlecomb silently strapped on his sword and pulled on his cloak. He picked up his copy of the Rules for the Regulation of the Navy of the United Colonies and stepped from the cabin.