The Continental Risque

by James Nelson

  ‘I believe a boat from the Alfred is approaching,’ he said. ‘Shall we go and greet it?’

  The front gate, now shut and secured, was opened by the sentries posted there. The two captains stepped out and made their way to the water, walking along the grassy space between the walls of Fort Nassau and the outer wooden palisade. They stepped down onto the beach just as the Alfred’s longboat ground ashore, and the midshipman at the tiller scrambled forward and onto the sand.

  Biddlecomb felt his hands trembling and clasped them behind his back. This is absurd, he thought, what in hell am I so nervous about? He had no reason to believe that something untoward had happened aboard the Charlemagne. It was just the anxiety that every captain feels when away from his command. He vowed that once he learned that all was well, he would worry no more. Neither would he ever leave his ship again for more than a few hours. At least he would not leave it in Tottenhill’s command.

  ‘Commodore Hopkins’s compliments, sir,’ the midshipman said, saluting and looking alternately at Biddlecomb and Nicholas, ‘and please, is it safe to bring the fleet into the harbor?’

  ‘I reckon,’ said Nicholas. ‘Biddlecomb?’

  ‘It’s safe, at least as far as any threat from the shore goes. But tell me, did the Charlemagne get under way last night?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir. But she’s back now, with the fleet.’

  ‘And did she take a prize? Did she manage to take the merchantman?’

  ‘No, sir, no merchantman that I know of. She come back alone. But there’s no cause to worry. Mr Sprout sends word that things are fine on board now, and he and Mr Weatherspoon’ll have no difficulty bringing her to an anchor.’

  ‘Mr Sprout? The boatswain? And Mr Weatherspoon? Where are Mr Tottenhill and Mr Rumstick?’

  ‘They’re confined aboard the flagship, sir.’

  ‘Why …?’

  ‘They were arrested, on account of the riot on board the Charlemagne last night. Three men dead, the commodore fit to be tied. Still yelling about it this morning. Did you not know, sir?’

  Biddlecomb turned away and stared out over the rippled water of the harbor. He took a deep breath and swallowed hard and twisted his hands together behind his back. He felt his stomach sink away. The nightmare went on and on.

  CHAPTER 26

  A Court of Inquiry

  Commodore Hopkins was not a happy flag officer, and he was not keeping that fact a secret from Biddlecomb or the dozen or so other men on either side of the table.

  The room in which they were meeting, which Hopkins had taken over as the office of the commander in chief, was long and fairly wide with a large table running down the middle. The only natural light came from three narrow windows along the wall facing the parade ground, and Hopkins and the other officers at the inquiry, lining the far side of the table, were forced to hold anything they wished to read at an angle to catch what light they could.

  ‘Well, damn it all to hell,’ Hopkins growled, not for the first time, ‘this is one big fucking mess we’ve got here.’ He looked up from the reports laid before him, and meeting Biddlecomb’s eyes, added, ‘Again.’ He leaned back and sighed. ‘Very well, Captain Biddlecomb, why don’t you say what you have to say. And be brief. We’ve got a prodigious lot to do here, and we can’t waste too much time on another one of your foul-ups.’

  ‘Very well, sir.’ Biddlecomb straightened and clasped his hands behind his back. He ran his eyes over the men facing him, the same captains, lieutenants, and marines he had faced at the court-martial. Here he was, as Hopkins said, again.

  ‘Last night around ten P.M., while I was at Fort Montegu, I perceived something floating in the harbor, and on close inspection I found it was fresh lumber. I thought perhaps it might be a jettisoned cargo, and that it might have been jettisoned to make room for military stores that were being spirited away. I sent Mr Midshipman Weatherspoon to the Charlemagne with instructions for Lieutenant Tottenhill to get the ship under way and try and head off any escape. They were to send word to the flagship to inform the commodore of the orders I had given Mr Tottenhill.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go aboard the Charlemagne yourself?’ Captain Whipple asked.

  ‘Well, sir, I did not think it proper for me to leave the landing party without the commodore’s permission. I figured I was stretching my authority as it was, sending the Charlemagne off, but I thought there was not a moment to lose and it would be faster to just tell Tottenhill what to do than to try and explain my suspicions to the commodore.’

  ‘Mr Tottenhill, what have you to say?’

  ‘Well, sir’ – Tottenhill, at Biddlecomb’s right-hand side, took a step forward – ‘last night at just past six bells in the night watch, Mr Weatherspoon … located myself and Mr Rumstick, purporting to have orders from Captain Biddlecomb. He was not entirely clear as to why the captain wanted us under way, or how he had come to suspect that the military stores or, as we now realize, the majority of the island’s gunpowder was being taken away.

  ‘I did not feel certain that Captain Biddlecomb had the authority to order the ship under way, I felt that such an order had to come from the commodore. Lieutenant Rumstick, however, felt strongly that we should get under way without informing the commodore, based on his long familiarity with Captain Biddlecomb. Indeed, I think this committee should be aware of the grievous injuries that my authority has suffered from the onset of this cruise. Captain Biddlecomb and Lieutenant Rumstick have, from the beginning, seen fit to—’

  ‘Thank you, Lieutenant,’ said Hopkins. ‘Just tell me, you decided to obey Biddlecomb’s orders?’

  ‘Sir, I thought that the most wise course of action should be to—’

  ‘Just a yes or no will suffice.’

  ‘Yes, I decided to obey the orders.’

  ‘Rumstick?’ Hopkins growled, and Rumstick stepped forward.

  ‘Captain Biddlecomb sent the order to get under way. I could see that if the captain was right, which he generally is, we was about to lose the chief thing we came here for.’

  Rumstick launched into a bare-bones description of the night action: the run west, the taffrail lights, the fight with the sloop. ‘And then I tried to get the brig under way again and Mr Tottenhill tried to have me arrested.’

  ‘And you resisted?’

  ‘I wasn’t in the mood to be arrested, sir.’

  ‘You watch that impertinent tongue, mister,’ Hopkins warned, his anger sparked by Rumstick’s insouciance. ‘And so you set off the brawl among the crew?’

  ‘I don’t know what happened, sir, regarding the disturbance forward. I was occupied at the time.’

  ‘You were wounded during the fight? Knocked on the head?’

  ‘Aye, sir. Stabbed by some whore’s son and knocked over the head.’

  ‘You were stabbed?’ Hopkins asked, surprised. ‘You don’t seem too damned … what? Injured.’

  ‘It wasn’t too deep, sir. Mr Weatherspoon cleaned it and bandaged it. I reckon it’ll be all right.’

  ‘Ah, yes, Mr Weatherspoon,’ the commodore said. ‘As I understand it, you were the one who stopped the riot and restored order. Correct?’

  ‘Well, sir,’ – Weatherspoon stepped forward – ‘respectfully, sir, I think calling it a riot is going it a bit high. It was sort of a scuffle, sir, a bit of pushing and the odd punch, but not a riot. I just fired off a few pistols and that settled the men down again, and we made our way back to Hanover Sound, sir.’

  Biddlecomb wondered if the officers at the inquiry would realize the extent to which Weatherspoon was lying. Biddlecomb, for one, was not fooled. He had been aboard the Charlemagne that morning, had insisted that the Alfred’s boat take him out to his ship. The men that he had encountered there – battered, bloody, limping, and bruised – looked as if they had been in a desperate scrape with the enemy. But they had inflicted the hurt on themselves, Charlemagne against Charlemagne, in what had to have been a full-scale internecine battle.

  By the time the bri
g had let its anchor go in Nassau Harbor, the atmosphere on board was no longer explosive. Rather it had settled into something else, a dull and permanent hatred between two factions of the crew.

  He was sickened by what he saw. How had it gotten this far out of hand? What had he done differently this time than he had all the other times he had run happy ships with cooperative crews?

  It seemed to him that he was no different from that poor stupid bastard Pendexter, captain of the Icarus, against whom he had led a mutiny, a mutiny fueled by Pendexter’s failure to understand the nature of proper discipline.

  As the Charlemagne stood into the harbor with the rest of the fleet, he had assembled the men aft. ‘I am not blind to the problems on board this brig,’ he had said to the collected crew. ‘I had hoped that getting out of the ice in Pennsylvania, getting into blue water and getting on with our work, would shake some of that loose, but clearly it has not.

  ‘Whether you like your officers or not makes no difference to me. They were appointed by the Continental Congress and that is the law. But let me assure you that I am back in command here, and I will see this ship is run fairly, and I will see it is run with discipline.

  ‘I reckon we’ll be back in the Colonies in not too long a time, and then we can shake this out. But for now we’ve got close on a dozen men down with smallpox, we’ve got work to do, and I expect every man to fall to with a will. You don’t have to like your orders, but you have to obey them or you better believe I’ll be down on you like the wrath of God. Mr Sprout, dismiss the men.’

  ‘Three cheers for the captain!’ Sprout called, much to Biddlecomb’s annoyance, and the men in the waist did a tolerable job of belting out their ‘Huzzahs!’s.’

  How much had he sounded like Pendexter, just then? Not much, he assured himself. He had not threatened the men to any great degree, had not stopped their tot. No, he assured himself, he was not losing his ability to command men. Nor was he unaware of what was causing this discontent. But they would be home soon, and Tottenhill would be gone, or he, Biddlecomb, would resign his commission. And there was another thing.

  ‘Hackett, lay aft here,’ he called out, and Hackett shuffled up to the quarterdeck. ‘Hackett, I know a sea lawyer when I see one, and I know a shifty, lying son of a whore as well. Shut your mouth,’ he added as Hackett made to protest.

  ‘If I had proof of what I think you’re up to, I’d hang you faster than you can spit, do you understand? You just watch yourself, and if I feel generous when we get back to the Colonies, I’ll let you walk away from this ship. If you cross me, you’ll never walk again. Understood?’

  ‘Whatever it is you think—’ Hackett began again.

  ‘Shut your gob, Hackett! I asked you if you understood.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Good. Get the hell away from me and keep away from me, if you know what’s good for you.’

  Biddlecomb did not think it a great coincidence that Hackett and Tottenhill were both from North Carolina. Tottenhill, it seemed, was seeing Yankee conspiracies around every bulkhead, and Hackett, if he understood the potential power of those differences, which no doubt he did, could be using them to ferment this discontent.

  Biddlecomb wanted nothing more than to chain Hackett down in the hold, but such an act, with no proof of what he suspected, would only serve to tear the crew wider apart.

  ‘Well,’ Commodore Hopkins said after a long silence, ‘I reckon we’ve heard enough. Biddlecomb, stay here. The rest of you are dismissed. Oh, one last thing.’

  The Charlemagne’s officers stopped in midturn and turned back.

  ‘There’s been some rumors going around about a duel between certain officers on your ship, but since everyone seems to be loyal to one or the other, no one will come forward on that. So let me say this. There will be no dueling between officers. If I find out it has happened, I will drum everyone involved out of the navy. I’ll leave ’em on the beach right here, let the citizens of Nassau take care of ’em. If any officer is killed in a duel, I will hang the other for murder. That is all. Now you are dismissed.’

  Like puppets controlled by the same string, Tottenhill, Rumstick, and Weatherspoon saluted, turned, and left the room. When the door was closed, Hopkins leaned forward and looked down the table to Captain Whipple. ‘Well, Whipple, what do you think?’

  ‘Damn strange situation,’ Whipple began. ‘Biddlecomb was doing what he thought best, and as it happens he was right. Even if he didn’t have the authority to order the Charlemagne away, I reckon if he had stopped them from taking the powder, we’d be calling him a hero right now.

  ‘Tottenhill made a hash of it, like an idiot, letting them ships get away. Rumstick’s a hothead, always has been, but his heart was in the right place. He just wanted to get at the enemy. Hard to see where the blame lies.’

  ‘You other gentlemen concur?’ Hopkins asked, and he was greeted with various nods and yeses. He leaned back and grunted, staring at Biddlecomb.

  ‘I don’t see as there’s any action we need to take here. We ain’t got time for this goddamned nonsense anyway. But listen here, Biddlecomb. I’ve known you a long time, always thought of you as a good officer, but you’re making a godforsaken mess of this. This is the second time we’ve had an enquiry into goings-on aboard the Charlemagne, and you had to ask me to step in back at Hole-in-the-Rock. I expect more from you.’

  Biddlecomb gritted his teeth and held Hopkins’s gaze. He knew that his face was flushing, and that made him more angry still. He felt like a schoolboy being taken to task by the teacher, or an apprentice catching it from the first mate. It was a sensation he had not had to endure for many years.

  He was aware of the weight of his sword on his belt and the clothing – the uniform – he had had made in Philadelphia. The thought of his pompous, self-indulgent love of adulation fanned his present humiliation brighter. If he could just hold it together until their return to the Colonies, he thought again, it would be all right. Until then he would oversee every minute of every man’s life aboard the Charlemagne.

  ‘In any event,’ Hopkins continued, ‘the Charlemagne, for whatever reason, missed out taking the merchantman and the powder is gone. Over one hundred goddamned barrels of it is gone to God knows where, and we’ve lost the chief reason for our coming here. Do you have anything to add, Captain?’

  He did. ‘I am very sorry about this situation, sir, and I will see that the Charlemagne is run tighter. As to last night, I was clearly exceeding my authority, ordering the Charlemagne away. After all, sealing the harbor and keeping the powder on the island was not my responsibility.’

  He hoped that Hopkins would catch that subtle dig, and judging from the commodore’s frown, he did. But Biddlecomb would not take the blame for the powder. The problems of the Charlemagne might be his fault, but failing to blockade the harbor and losing the powder was not.

  ‘Very good, Captain. You are dismissed.’

  Biddlecomb saluted and stepped from the officers’ mess, blinking in the bright sun. He hoped that no one would try to speak with him; he was in no mood for conversation. Looking around, it appeared that there was no danger of that.

  Through the open gates of the fort a group of marines led by Lieutenant Trevett of the Providence was escorting, indeed practically dragging, a big, heavyset man. The unfortunate prisoner was dressed in some type of uniform coat liberally covered with medals and sashes, his hands bound at the wrists. Some high official of His Majesty’s government being brought before the committee, Biddlecomb thought, though watching that man’s misery did nothing to ameliorate his own.

  Once the ships were loaded with the plunder from the island, they would be heading for America, Biddlecomb reflected. They had to, there was no other logical choice. Too many men were sick and the ships would be too heavy laden for much else. They would head for the Colonies. And then he would clean house.

  Hackett sat at a table in the dark tavern surrounded by six others of the Charlemagne’s crew. While it
could not be said that he sat at the head of the table, the table being round, still it was clear that all attention in the group was focused on him. He would not have allowed it to be otherwise.

  The tavern was in fact the gutted front room of a poor private dwelling that opened onto a filthy alleyway. There was room enough to fit three tables comfortably, though seven were crammed in the place. The clientele, save for the American sailors, were largely black freemen and poor whites, and all were drinking great quantities of the island’s cheap rum.

  The place was far from the waterfront, farther inland even than Government House, in a mean section of town where those marines that the commodore had appointed as provosts were unlikely to venture. It was Hackett’s favorite place on the island, a dark hole that he had visited whenever the various ships aboard which he had served called at Nassau.

  ‘Shut up, you stupid bastards,’ he said to two of his fellow revelers who were engaged in a spirited argument over whether the whores in Bermuda were superior to those in Jamaica. Hackett was fairly certain that neither man had visited either of those places and was sick of listening to them.

  The table fell quiet and Hackett knew that they all were watching him, waiting for some word. He, in turn, was staring at the gold watch in his hand, turning it over and enjoying the dull gleam of the metal. It was part of a small but valuable cache that he had stolen from one of the fine homes near Government House, the third he had looted that day.

  He smiled a faint smile at the thought of the jewelry and coins he had taken, the small, beautifully inlaid pistol stuck in his belt, and what he had done to the filthy bitch who had tried to fight him off.

  Hopkins, that stupid old man, had issued an order that no looting or harm of any sort would befall the people of the island. Hackett snorted and shook his head at the thought of it. Here they were, a conquering army, and they could not loot the island? Not likely.