The Continental Risque

by James Nelson

  He walked up the familiar wide stairway of Government House and out onto the veranda once more. All of the fleet was under way now, strung out in a long line sailing west with the prevailing wind. The first in line, the Andrew Doria if he was not mistaken, had already cleared the far end of Hog Island and had turned away north.

  There was a great deal to do. He had first to write to the admiral in Jamaica and see about getting some naval defense for the island, in case those rebellious sons of whores thought fit to return. He had to convene the General Assembly and see about appointing commissioners to undertake repairs to Fort Montegu and Fort Nassau. As long as he was in command, there would be no more invasions of his island.

  ‘Ah, Brown, you’re back.’ John Gambier stepped out on the veranda next to Brown and joined him in watching the American fleet working out of the harbor. ‘The governor, I assume, is still with them?’

  ‘Hopkins would not yield, plead as I might. But what’s done is done, and we’ve too much work to do to stand around pitying the man. So what say you have the boy fetch us some rum punch and we’ll set to it?’

  ‘Very good,’ said Gambier, heading back across the veranda.

  ‘Oh, Gambier, one other thing. You know, Browne took with him His Majesty’s commission appointing him captain general and the one appointing him vice admiral of the Bahama Islands. All he left is His Majesty’s instructions to his governor and the great seal. There is no one now on the island with an appointment from His Majesty. In the absence of such, naturally I, as president of His Majesty’s Council, assume command of the colony.’

  ‘Yes. What is your point?’

  ‘My point is that I think it only proper that from now on I should be addressed as “Governor Brown.” You understand, protocol and what have you.’

  CHAPTER 28

  False Colors

  ‘“They that go down to the sea in ships, and do their work on great waters …”’ Biddlecomb recited. He stared blankly at the Grand Union flag, the very same one that had flown over Fort Nassau, which was now draped over the tightly wrapped body of Jonathan Bailey, foredeckman. Late foredeckman.

  ‘We commend thy body to the deep. May God have mercy on your soul.’ He nodded to the two men at the inboard end of the plank. They tilted it up and the earthly remains of Jonathan Bailey slid over the side and disappeared into unknown fathoms of water. The third to go that way in as many days.

  ‘Mr Tottenhill, you may dismiss the men.’

  ‘We’ll stand down to the watch on deck,’ Tottenhill shouted. ‘Dismissed!’

  Fore and aft hats were clapped on heads, and the men, melancholy, sullen, and lethargic, marched off to various quarters of the ship. Spirits on board the Charlemagne had sunk low, lower even than during the second time they had been trapped in the ice. The men lacked even the spark and energy of their former anger. A morose, shuffling spirit prevailed.

  Things had gone well, as well as could have been hoped, during the first week that they had lay on the hook in Nassau harbor, relieving that place of every warlike store that could be found.

  The Charlemagnes, for their sins, had expected to be deprived of shore leave, and so Biddlecomb was not surprised to see their attitudes much improved when, after two days confined aboard, he announced that they would get a run ashore after all. It had been a difficult decision, and one with which his wardroom did not agree, but the resulting improvement in humor told Biddlecomb that it had been the right one.

  The animosity was not gone by the end of that first week, not even close. But it was ameliorated to some degree through hard work, fine weather, and nights ashore. Tottenhill and Rumstick were less at odds because Biddlecomb was always there, always in command. By appropriating the authority of the officers he helped heal the sectional divide in the crew, and his steadying presence, he knew, had a further good effect on the men. It did little to improve his officers’ moods, however, but after the way they had let things run way from them, he did not care.

  He had spoken little to either of the lieutenants since the riot, had entertained no one in his cabin for the two weeks since they had left the island.

  He stepped up to the quarterdeck, looked at the slate hanging from the binnacle box, then stepped over to the leeward rail. The rest of the fleet was strung out before him, save for the big Columbus a quarter mile away and just a little astern, bringing up the rear.

  None of them were sailing fast; the wind was light and dead astern, their bottoms were foul from their time in warm waters, and their holds were heavy laden with cannon, mortars, shot, and all the plunder that New Providence had yielded them. But none of this was slowing them up as much as being shorthanded, and that was due to the yellow jack.

  He had seen the first signs during their last few days on the island, and he prayed that it was not so, but when the first man died in a burning delirium, he knew that it was yellow fever. By the time they left New Providence, the fleet had buried ten men, and not one of the ships was free of the disease.

  That was almost two weeks before. Since that time the fleet had sailed north, slowly north, bound for whatever destination the commodore had in mind, with the coastline of America a few hundred miles beyond the western horizon. The weather had been calm for the most part and the sea empty, and the men had little to do beyond the routine of shipboard life and watching their mates take sick and die. It was doing nothing to bolster the Charlemagnes’ already flagging morale.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Rumstick,’ Biddlecomb said. With the voyage near an end he was feeling more charitably disposed toward his officers.

  ‘Morning, sir,’ Rumstick said. Biddlecomb could see the surprise, and the hint of relief, in his friend’s face at the casual and hitherto absent greeting. ‘This is a hell of a daily ritual we got going here, sir, sending a man over the standing part of the foresheet.’

  ‘I can think of better ways to start the day than a funeral.’

  ‘So can I, sir, but I don’t think we’re going to see any soon. Two more from my watch are down, one from Tottenhill’s, and three of Faircloth’s marines.’

  Biddlecomb stared out at the fleet, and for a long moment he did not answer. At last he turned and met Rumstick’s gaze. They were alone on their little patch of quarterdeck. ‘We’re close to home. By my reckoning we should see Block Island bearing due west by the first dogwatch. I don’t know where Hopkins is intending to put in, but damn me if I won’t be glad to get there.’

  ‘This has not been a real pleasant cruise, starting with being frozen in the damned Delaware River.’

  ‘Once our anchor is down I intend to land these sick men and then purge this ship of every son of a whore we took on since Cambridge. I don’t give a damn if we spend the next year trying to fill our crew out again, I’ll be rid of them or I’ll resign my command.’

  It felt good to talk this way, to confide in Rumstick again the way he had when Rumstick had been first officer. Before he had stopped inviting any of his officers to the great cabin just to avoid having to listen to Tottenhill. It felt good to emerge from his self-imposed exile.

  ‘I don’t reckon you’ll have trouble filling out a crew, even if you leave every one of these grumbling sons of bitches on the beach,’ Rumstick said, and with a smile that owed nothing to flattery added, ‘You’re still the famous Captain Biddlecomb.’

  ‘God help us all. That’s kind of you to say, but I fear the reputation of this ship is sullied now. And my own may be beyond repair.’

  ‘Captain, I …’ Rumstick began. Clearly he blamed himself in a large way for this blight on Biddlecomb’s reputation, and while Biddlecomb did not think Rumstick was entirely undeserving of that blame, he was not in the mood to hear a desperate apology.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Rumstick, but I must go below and see to the sick,’ he said, and with that excuse he made his retreat forward and below.

  The sick berth was normally located in the forward end of the tween decks, but normally it never housed more than half a
dozen men at any time. That morning a full twenty-five of the Charlemagne’s complement were down with yellow jack, two with broken limbs, and seven more with some disease that Biddlecomb did not recognize, and the sick berth stretched from the manger boards forward to well aft of the galley stove.

  He made his way forward, stopping at each hammock to inquire of each man how he was doing, in those cases where the sick man was neither unconscious nor delirious.

  The smell below was much improved over the last few days since the weather had permitted Biddlecomb to order the tarpaulins peeled back off the hatches and windsails rigged to funnel fresh air below and relieve the fetid atmosphere. Now the dull sunlight came down through the main hatch, a great square block of light moving back and forth with the roll of the ship and divided into many smaller squares by the grating through which it filtered.

  Biddlecomb offered what words of encouragement he could, telling the sick men how close they were to their destination and to the further relief that would soon be theirs.

  ‘Georges Bank bears north and east, Wilson,’ he said to one man, a Gloucester native. ‘Reckon you’ll be hauling cod there again before too long.’ And: ‘A day or two, Michaels, and you’ll be ashore and we’ll see to getting you a doctor who’s not so ugly as Thigpen here.’

  Thigpen was a waister and former apothecary’s assistant who had been pressed into service as the Charlemagne’s surgeon. He was doing his best, and Biddlecomb was impressed by how good his best was, but an untrained man could only do so much. For that matter, a trained man could only do so much, and Biddlecomb doubted that a board-certified surgeon or even a medical doctor could have effected much more than Thigpen had.

  ‘How are you feeling, Gray?’ Gray, it occurred to Biddlecomb, was one of Hackett’s followers, one of those who had foolishly tried to arrest Ezra and had paid a heavy toll for that ill-considered action. His crooked nose was testament to the inadvisability of coming to grips with Rumstick. Now he lay gripping the edge of his hammock, drenched in sweat despite the cool of the morning.

  ‘Not good, sir,’ Gray managed to get out. Biddlecomb grabbed his wrist and squeezed it in a reassuring gesture. ‘We’ll be landing you soon, Gray, don’t you worry. A nice clean hospital and good food and no bosuns running around shouting.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Gray whispered, genuine gratitude in his eyes and in his voice. Biddlecomb hoped that he was wrong in thinking that Gray would likely be the guest of honor at the next morning’s ceremony. Malice was not a part of Biddlecomb’s nature.

  ‘Sir, sir,’ he heard Weatherspoon’s voice, low and urgent as the midshipman hurried across the tween deck. ‘Sir, hail from … oh, dear Lord. Gray’s done for, ain’t he, sir?’

  ‘What is it, Mr Weatherspoon?’ Biddlecomb asked curtly.

  ‘Beg your pardon, sir, but there’s a hail from the masthead and they’ve spotted a strange sail, sir, on the larboard quarter and three miles or so to leeward.’

  It could be anything, Biddlecomb told himself, and of all possibilities it was most likely an American merchantman bound in or out of one of the many ports along that stretch of seaboard. But all the logic in the world was not able to master the tingling on the soles of his feet, the excitement that he felt at the sound of the words ‘a strange sail.’

  ‘Tell Mr Rumstick I’ll be on deck momentarily.’ Despite his desire to see what possibilities this sighting offered, he forced himself to continue his rounds, giving each man the attention that he would have received had there been no break in the routine. At last, having finished a whispered and disheartening consultation with Thigpen, he climbed the ladder to the weather deck and stepped aft.

  All of the Charlemagne’s officers were clustered at the leeward rail, and each was aiming a telescope across the water at the distant sail. Biddlecomb took up his own glass and did likewise. There was little to see, just two topgallant sails and two topsails, gray patches against a lighter grey sky.

  ‘What do you make of her, Mr Tottenhill?’ he asked.

  ‘Brig or a snow, sir, sailing roughly the same course as we are. Can’t see any colors.’

  After ten minutes of observation none of the ship’s officers had anything substantial to add to that assessment, nor could the lookout at the masthead give any further intelligence.

  ‘Shall I signal the flag, sir?’ Weatherspoon asked. He already had the ensign bent to its halyard, the signal for seeing a strange sail being to hoist and lower the ensign as many times as there were strange vessels to be seen.

  ‘Has Columbus already signaled?’

  ‘Well, sir … to be sure …’ Weatherspoon equivocated. He clearly had not bothered to look.

  ‘Columbus has made no signals, sir,’ Rumstick offered. ‘I reckon she can’t see this fellow, what with the haze.’

  ‘Hold a moment on that signal, Mr Weatherspoon. Helmsman,’ Biddlecomb said, ‘make your head north by east, one-half east.’

  ‘North by east, one-half east, aye, sir,’ the helmsman said, pushing the tiller over half a foot and turning the Charlemagne slightly, almost imperceptibly, away from the fleet and toward the stranger on the horizon.

  ‘I’m laying aloft,’ Biddlecomb said at last. His growing sense of anticipation for some pending action was foolish and baseless, he knew, but still it was there, and he could not endure standing around in that uncertain state. ‘Mr Rumstick, I’ll thank you to get the foresail off her.’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ Rumstick said, doing an admirable job of hiding his curiosity at that strange order and passing the word even as Biddlecomb pulled himself into the main shrouds.

  He climbed steadily upward, not so slow as to look bad and not so fast as to be breathing hard when at last he reached the main topmast crosstrees. He was still fifteen feet below the lookout, who was straddling the main topgallant yard as if riding a horse, but he was high enough to get a decent view of the distant vessel.

  It was a brig to be sure, they were close enough and he was high enough to see that for certain. She had no colors flying, but a flag was not the only thing that could give a ship’s identity away. Biddlecomb rested his telescope on a ratline and peered at her sails, noting every detail; the narrow roach, the cut of the jib, the steeve of the bowsprit. His glass revealed nothing that diminished his feeling of anticipation.

  Morale aboard the Charlemagne was all but nonexistent, and his own good name, the immediate jewel of the soul, as Shakespeare called it, was much damaged as well. Nothing would go so far to restoring both as capturing a brig-of-war belonging to the Royal Navy.

  For the first time in fifteen minutes he turned away from the sail to larboard and looked over the starboard side toward the Columbus. With the wind dead astern and the Columbus last in line, she would have been the natural choice for Hopkins to order in pursuit of the stranger.

  But she was now abeam of the Charlemagne and drawing ahead, the Charlemagne’s speed having dropped off after Biddlecomb ordered the foresail stowed. And even though she was passing the Charlemagne, she was farther away now than she had been half an hour before, a result of Biddlecomb’s subtle course change.

  If the commodore ever perceived what he had done, holding off signaling the flag until the Charlemagne was the closest in the fleet to the enemy, then he would stamp out what little part of Biddlecomb’s reputation was still glowing, cussing like a fiend the whole time. And that was only fair; Biddlecomb was aware that his actions were selfish and unprofessional.

  And he did not care a whit.

  He closed his telescope and stepped down to the topmast shrouds and made his way to deck. ‘Gentlemen,’ he addressed the quarterdeck in general, ‘I believe the sail yonder is a British brig-of-war, about the same size as ourselves. We are going to take it. Please clear for action.’

  There were smiles all around as this information was digested and the officers envisioned the pending action. Not one among them was unaware of the Charlemagne’s tarnished reputation, and though each believed that the ot
hers were at fault, all were equally anxious to make improvements in that quarter. With a chorus of ‘Aye, sir’s’ and the lieutenants hurried off to their respective stations, shouting orders to the men, who could not possibly move as quickly as the officers would have liked.

  ‘Helmsman, fall off. Hands to the braces, starboard tack!’ Biddlecomb shouted, and the Charlemagne turned boldly away from the fleet until her jibboom was pointed at the place on the ocean that she and the stranger to leeward would meet if they held their present courses.

  ‘Sir, shall I run up the colors?’ Weatherspoon asked.

  ‘No, not quite yet.’ Biddlecomb thought of the many flags that he had brought aboard, colors of half a dozen countries. There was no reason to reveal themselves this early in the game.

  Ten minutes later Weatherspoon reported a signal from the flagship. ‘White pendant at the mizzen topmast head – that’s to speak with us – and a red pendant at the mizzen peak. That’s fall into line ahead.’

  The midshipman’s report was followed by silence as Biddlecomb considered the tactical situation. The flagship had finally noticed that something was going on. As well they might; the Charlemagne was sailing diagonally away from the fleet, and he was certain now that the fleet could not see the stranger.

  The proper thing to do, of course, was to hoist the signal for seeing a strange vessel. But that involved using the ensign, and if this stranger saw the Grand Union flag and recognized it, he might run. Biddlecomb thought it unlikely that the Charlemagne, battered about, undermanned, and heavy laden, could catch her.

  It had already occurred to him that the captain of the distant brig probably did not know what he was looking at. All of the ships of the fleet, save for the Charlemagne, were converted merchantmen, and if he could not see their gunports (which he probably could not over that distance), then he might take the ships for a convoy. That would explain why he was not running away, and Biddlecomb did not wish to disabuse him of that notion.