Deadly Shoals

by Joan Druett

  “When I heard that Mr. Seward was bringing the boys to the beach on a liberty jaunt, I asked the favor of a ride,” George went on. “All our boats are surveying the shoals and tides, according to Wilkes’s instructions, and so I had none of my own at my disposal.” Then he added mysteriously, “I couldn’t wait to see you.”

  Wiki waited, but instead of explaining George waited, too, his expression expectant. Even more perplexingly, Mr. Seward seemed amused at Wiki’s open puzzlement. A knowing smile crossed his high-cheekboned, rather good-looking face, before he turned to organize his band of boys into hauling the boat well up the beach and getting out their fishing gear.

  When Wiki returned his inquiring gaze to his friend, still no explanation was forthcoming. Instead, George sat down on a rock, brushed his feet and shins, and pulled on his boots. Losing patience, Wiki said, “I can’t stay. I have to deliver two horses to a ranch and be down at the river landing by nine.”

  Rochester looked up. “Nine? Why so?”

  Wiki told him about the Sea Gull, and Ringgold’s instructions.

  George said, “You can come back to the fleet with us, on the Osprey boat. Alf Seward and the boys will be here for a few hours yet.”

  Wiki was tempted. Surely Captain Stackpole had seen sense, and reported the piracy of the schooner, which meant there was no urgency about seeing Captain Wilkes. When George followed him up the cliff path, announcing that he would help deliver the horses, he made no objection, saying over his shoulder instead, “You’ve left Midshipman Keith in charge of the brig?”

  “Nope.” George sounded rather breathless. Being a captain who spent most of his time in the cabin and on the quarterdeck, and seldom aloft in the rigging, he was not as fit as Wiki.

  He said, “We’ve had a few changes while you’ve been away.”

  “Changes?” Wiki was abruptly full of misgiving, because the word change was an ominous one in the expedition fleet, Captain Wilkes being prone to impulsive shiftings about of personnel.

  “We have a new first officer,” George said.

  On the face of it, this was a very good move. Constant Keith had been a particularly weird choice for second-in-command of the Swallow, being a junior mid who’d not even sat his examinations yet, let alone passed them. Though a cheerful, obliging shipboard companion, he was in constant need of Wiki’s discreet advice and supervision. It had turned out quite comfortably, as it happened, but was not the most desirable situation, because all hell would let loose if Captain Wilkes ever found out that it was really Wiki who did the mate’s job. Accordingly, having a better qualified second-in-command promised to be a big improvement.

  However, Wiki’s tone was very cautious as he asked, “Who is it?”

  “Forsythe.”

  Wiki stopped dead with one foot in the air, too shocked for speech. He had personally benefited from Lieutenant Forsythe’s stalwart qualities—not only was he a remarkably good shot, but he was a magnificent mariner, too—but the burly, tough Virginian was notorious for his unpredictability, brutality, and foul tongue. During a disastrous couple of weeks, earlier in the voyage, he had replaced Rochester as captain of the Swallow, and while all the hands had admired his death-defying seamanship, he had been universally feared.

  Wiki demanded, “How the devil did that happen?”

  Rochester was holding on to a jutting rock for balance. He grinned wryly, and said, “It was one of our dear commodore’s sudden decisions.”

  “I’d guessed that already—but what was his excuse for landing you with Forsythe, of all men?”

  “After that American river pilot signed up with the fleet, Wilkes wanted to make use of his local knowledge, and so all the boats have been sent out surveying, with Harden in the role of general instructor. Young Keith was put in charge of one of them, and when I protested about not having a second-in-command on board Wilkes kindly sent Lieutenant Forsythe to take over the job.”

  “Harden’s signed up with the fleet?” said Wiki in alarm. This was change with a vengeance. Everything that Manuel Bernantino had told him about the troublemaking Harden flooded into his mind.

  “A boat from the Porpoise called on the Sea Gull to see if they needed assistance, and whoever talked to Harden was highly impressed by the way he’d navigated the Sea Gull out of the shoals. When they got back to the Vin and told Wilkes, Harden was summoned to the flagship for an interview. It’s obvious to everyone else that the man’s just a common adventurer, but Lieutenant Lawrence J. Smith, who was toadying around Wilkes as usual, talked him into signing him up.”

  Wiki thought, He’s more than a common adventurer—he’s a deserter, an inciter of mutiny, and a killer, according to Río Negro gossip. Shaking his head, he started climbing again, saying over his shoulder, “So Keith has been shifted back to the Vin?”

  “Nope, he’s still with us, but in the more suitable station of junior officer.” Rochester paused as he negotiated a tricky hairpin turn in the track, and then said apologetically, “Which means that you’re both shifted to the other stateroom, I’m afraid.”

  Wiki shrugged. “I expected no less.” Over the past couple of months he had been sharing the first mate’s stateroom with the young midshipman, to make it easier to pass on the benefit of his seafaring experience. Wiki had commandeered the top berth, and made himself very cozy with a bookshelf and a lamp, but it was only natural for Forsythe to demand the stateroom that was his by right.

  He hauled himself over the top of the cliff, rose to his feet, and turned to look out over the sea. The bigger ships of the fleet lay quietly, surrounded by the busy small craft, though he noticed that the whaleship Trojan had raised anchor and was slowly heading seaward. The dirty smoke of her tryworks furnace rose in clouds about her white sails as they were set one by one, like wings. When he looked down at the river, the Sea Gull was still anchored in the same place, with no discernible movement on her decks.

  He looked back at George, who had arrived on the headland, too, and was standing with his hands clasped behind his back in a typical pose, his flat bottom tucked in and his muscular calves pushing out the back of his white trousers. He was smiling placidly as he gazed about the scenery, his eyes creased up with the glare of the early sun.

  Wiki said, “I’m amazed you’re so serene.”

  “Because Forsythe is my first officer, now? But he’s well fitted to the station—he’s a strict disciplinarian, and an energetic man. And what’s even more important in an officer, he speaks prompt, loud, and to the point.”

  “Prompt and loud to the point of mortal insult,” agreed Wiki dryly. “But what about the problem of rank?” Though George Rochester had command of a ship, he was only a passed midshipman, which meant that Forsythe, being a lieutenant, was higher in the ranking order, and took precedence when Rochester was away from the Swallow.

  “What problem?” inquired George. With fastidious gestures, he brushed down the sleeves of his uniform coat.

  It was reminiscent of a cockerel preening itself. Wiki also noticed that his friend was wearing a complacent smirk.

  He said flatly, “Tell me.”

  “What?”

  “E hoa—my friend—you can’t expect me to guess. I’m ignorant of the ways of the navy, remember.”

  “My left shoulder,” said George pointedly, and jerked with his chin.

  Wiki looked. The smartly squared left shoulder of Rochester’s blue coat bore a gold epaulette that sparkled grandly in the sun, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember whether it was a new addition or not. As far as he was concerned, it had always been there.

  “And you call yourself a sleuth,” George chided. “The swab was on the right shoulder before.”

  “And the fact that it is now on your left means something?”

  “It does,” said George complacently.

  Light dawned. With a huge grin, Wiki exclaimed, “You’ve been promoted!”

  “You behold Lieutenant George Rochester.”

  “My G
od! Turn around—let’s look at you in all your glory, from back as well as front! When did you find out?”

  “When your father raised the Swallow he lowered a boat, and arrived on board with newspapers he’d taken off an incoming Yankee as he was leaving Rio. The top paper was folded to the page with the navy promotions of October. The old devil said nothing, just smiled as he handed it over, and then watched me as I found my own name in the list!”

  Wiki was silent, greatly marveling. As he knew very well indeed, George Rochester had worked out his seagoing apprenticeship as an officer in the U.S. Navy with grit, determination, and unflagging enthusiasm—all three years, ten months, fourteen days, and sixteen hours of it. Then he had reported to the Gosport Navy Yard for eight months of instruction in the technical and theoretical aspects of seafaring, before keeping an appointment in Baltimore for the grueling oral examination in front of a board of senior officers. He had come through the ordeal at the top of his class, which was the reason he’d been given the command of the Swallow—but this was the most remarkable achievement of all. He had been proclaimed a passed midshipman only twenty months earlier, and in times of peace, promotion from passed midshipman to lieutenant happened at a snail-like pace.

  Rochester said happily, “I didn’t look forward to being a lieutenant until I was a gray-haired chap past thirty—it seemed as distant as the Day of Judgment!”

  “It’s only what you deserve,” Wiki said, though he privately thought it probably had a lot to do with George’s grandfather, who had raised George after both parents had died. Both power and wealth had been necessary to get George a junior midshipman’s commission in the first place, only the sons of lofty individuals like great navy captains, important merchants, and U.S. senators being eligible, but George’s grandfather was both rich and influential.

  Then a thought struck him, and he said, “Wilkes’s name wasn’t in the list? They haven’t made him a proper captain, yet?”

  George shook his head, and Wiki winced. He asked, “Does he know you’ve been promoted?”

  “I haven’t announced it—though you should have heard me exclaim for joy when I finally understood what I was reading, Wiki! But you know how scuttlebutt gets around the fleet, old chap.”

  There was going to be hell to pay, Wiki thought—Wilkes would be both jealous and vindictive. However, he wasn’t going to spoil George’s mood by pointing this out, so instead he said, “And you couldn’t wait to come and show off your new glory to me—I’m flattered, George.”

  “I thank you,” said George, very complacently indeed. “Mind you,” he added, “I will have to change the swab around once we get back on board the dear Swallow.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Because I’m in command, you see.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “A man below the rank of captain who is a commanding officer wears one epaulette on the right shoulder.”

  Wiki blinked, and then said cautiously, “That’s why you’ve been wearing that swab—as you call it—on your right shoulder all along?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So, if you hadn’t come on shore with a left-shoulder epaulette, I wouldn’t have had a notion that anything had changed?”

  “Exactly,” said George.

  “Good God,” said Wiki, completely flummoxed. Then he said, “Why is my father sailing with the fleet?”

  “Surely Ringgold told you, old chap? Carpenters, Wiki, carpenters! Your father demanded a gang after the Vin and then the Peacock run afoul of him on the way out of Rio and spoiled the looks of his pretty brigantine. Wilkes handed a couple over, it seemed, but with the stipulation that the Osprey, being perfectly seaworthy, if somewhat untidy, kept pace with the fleet while the repairs were carried out.”

  “And my father agreed to that? I can’t believe he caved in so easily! Mind you,” Wiki went on with a grin, “he was probably relieved that the Vin and the Peacock didn’t do the same good job of stoving him as you did on the way into Rio.”

  “Cruel, Wiki, cruel!” George cried. Two months earlier, when the fleet had been entering the great harbor of Rio de Janeiro, George’s brig Swallow had been involved in a nasty collision with Captain Coffin’s Osprey, one that had sent the Osprey to the shipyard for the next four weeks. “It wasn’t my fault, and you know it!”

  Wiki merely laughed, and George said thoughtfully, “What do you think of your father’s mate—that Alf Seward?”

  Wiki pursed his lips, surprised at the change of subject, and said, “I can’t say I know anything about him. I glimpsed him herding the six cadets around while the Osprey was being fixed in the shipyard at Rio, and thought he looked like some sort of schoolmaster, and saw him once on board my father’s ship, when she was starting to be restowed. He was informing my father exactly how it should be done, and taking no ifs or buts or arguments. I got the impression that he bosses him around unmercifully.”

  “With amazing good results,” George told him. “I’ve never seen a vessel kept so shipshape, not even in the navy. I’d swear there’s not a ropeyarn out of place, and the standing rigging is as taut as a Baptist pastor—and yet the crew is as happy a bunch as ever I saw. Those six cadets seem to idolize him, for all that he treats them so strict. But when I tried to compliment him on his housekeeping, he looked me up and down and stalked away.”

  “A good first mate doesn’t have to be a gentleman—and in my experience very often isn’t,” Wiki said.

  “It’s more than that. For a while I wondered if he bore a grudge because it was my ship that knocked that great hole in the Osprey, but then I got the strange impression that he’s jealous of my friendship with your father.”

  Wiki was silent, because he understood how Seward felt, if so, as he felt a little jealous of the warm friendship his friend and his father had struck up, himself. After the two vessels had collided, the Osprey had been so near to sinking that most captains in Rochester’s position would have taken the crew of the crippled ship on board, and then left her to founder. Instead, George and his men had struggled to get a patch over the hole in the hull, and then tow the Osprey to the shipyard. Naturally, Captain Coffin had been profoundly grateful—but the friendship was based on a mutual respect and liking, too. They had so much in common and got along so well that when Wiki was in their company he almost felt excluded.

  “Perhaps Seward’s the possessive type,” he said at last. Then he was distracted by a glimpse of movement on the far side of the braided shoals—a party of horsemen on the opposite bank, with the tall figure of Ringgold in their midst. It seemed that they had crossed the river at El Carmen by boat, because they were riding different animals. Wiki wondered what had happened to the mounts he had hired on their behalf, and whether the ranchero would tax him about them when he delivered the two horses. Ringgold and his companions weren’t going to make that nine o’clock appointment, obviously, which wouldn’t do anything to improve the tempers of the four scientifics, he thought.

  Then he saw that George was studying his outfit meditatively, from the red silk bandanna that half tamed his wild black curls to the two folded ponchos draped over one shoulder. His friend said, “Is that a set of bolas round your middle?”

  “Aye.” As was usual with gauchos when away from their steeds, Wiki had wrapped the cords of the bolas around his waist. He said, “Do you remember Juán Bernantio?”

  “I do indeed. The hardest taskmaster on the pampas. He taught us both las boleadoras and the lazo.”

  “I’ve become well acquainted with his brother Manuel.”

  “Here?” George was astonished, and looked around the headland as if he expected the gaucho to gallop into sight.

  “Aye. Apparently he and his friends spend the summer months ranging about the Río Negro, and go back north in the fall. They were very useful to me.”

  Wiki reached up the flagpole, released the lanyard, brought down the rendezvous flag, and folded it. Then he unhitched the bridles of the two
horses, who were companionably cropping the tussock.

  George said, “The mare is yours?”

  “How did you guess?”

  “One can’t mistake the look of deep loathing she casts in your direction, old chap. I’ll take the other horse,” said George with great animation. “Let’s have a lassoing contest.”

  Wiki, amused, was greatly enticed. It would be like being a sixteen-year-old student again, when he and George had prowled the forests of New Hampshire with the local Abnaki huntsmen. It was a testament, as well, to how much more relaxed Rochester felt now that he had a competent and experienced second-in-command on board the brig, he thought.

  However, he objected, “I should be getting the horses back to the ranch.”

  “Nonsense, old chap. We have plenty of time. Seward and his boys will be happily fishing and crabbing for hours. Hand me the bolas, and let’s see if I’m still better at throwing ’em than you are.”

  Wiki laughed, and stopped arguing. “Wear this poncho Stackpole kindly handed on to me,” he said. “You don’t want to spoil your beautiful swab.”

  He pulled on his own poncho after unwinding the bolas, and for the next hour the two friends galloped back and forth about the headland, poncho fringes flying as they took turns to relearn the exhilaration of throwing las boleadoras. The hand ball was firmly gripped as the rest was whirled about the head, the two larger balls flying out side by side at the far end of their strings, which were firmly secured to the end of the hand-ball cord, so that the whistling bolas was a total of six feet in length.

  A wild shout as the hand ball was released and the bolas was cast, and then suspense as it flew on and on for fifty or more yards, the three balls spinning about the knot that tied the three strings together, out to their fullest extent. It looked like a three-legged symbol of violence as it blurred through the air, to collapse with a slap as it connected. If well aimed, the three strings wrapped around the target, driven by the momentum of the stones. It was the most effective long-distance grapple imaginable.