The French Prize

by James L. Nelson

  Of greater consequence, one of the shots from L’Armançon’s broadside had smashed a hole through Abigail betwixt wind and water, but considerably closer to water than wind. Indeed, it entered just inches above the waterline, which made for a prodigious inflow when she was on a starboard tack. They managed to patch it after a fashion, but it still required hands at the pumps for an hour and a half during every watch.

  Ordinary seaman Ratford was long dead by the time anyone had a moment to think of him, his arm lying a few feet from his body, his white face staring up at the sky, a shocking amount of blood pooled around him and running down into the scuppers. They draped a tarpaulin over him until Lucas Harwar was able to sew him up in some spare canvas, with two of the six pound balls at his feet. Jack read the burial at sea, words he had heard on a few occasions but had never uttered himself, and Ratford’s earthly remains were tipped into the Caribbean. Any enthusiasm the men might have felt at their narrow and well-executed escape was muted by that grim task.

  They set sail and they knotted and spliced and pumped and they made easting. Jack took Wentworth’s hand and shook it with enthusiasm when the Bostonian regained the deck, rifle over his shoulder, his face smudged with powder residue in a way that would have seemed unthinkable the day before.

  “Well done, Mr. Wentworth,” Jack said. “An excellently placed shot.”

  “Thank you,” Wentworth said. “To which shot do you refer?”

  “Why, the one that struck down the helmsman. At just the right moment.”

  “Which helmsman do you mean? I seem to have bagged a covey of them.”

  Jack released Wentworth’s hand. “Just as the Frenchman was coming about, you shot the helmsman like some poacher on the king’s preserve.”

  “Ah, yes,” Wentworth said. “And two others, you know, earlier. Two with a single shot, I dare say, though I was aided by the second fellow stepping into my line of fire at just the right moment.”

  “Ah, very nice,” Biddlecomb said. Here he was, gracious enough to give the man his due for a well-placed shot, but that of course was not enough for William Wentworth of the Boston Wentworths. No, he had to lay claim to having shot two other helmsmen as well, and with a single bullet. In another two minutes he would be claiming that it was he and his rifle that took down the Frenchie’s mizzenmast.

  As to their own mizzenmast, it was fished under the careful supervision of Jack and John Burgess; additional stays were rigged, and the entire lash-up was treated as tenderly as possible as they made the best of their way to Antigua. They raised the island with only a few hours of daylight left, hove to and rounded Point Charlotte late the next morning, standing in under the fore topsail and coming to anchor half a mile from the Royal Navy dockyard.

  It was hot and still in the harbor, and all around them the hills rose up from the water’s edge, dry-looking despite the thick vegetation that covered them. The white boats of the men-of-war at anchor plied back and forth, and the still air was filled with the tap-tap-tap of caulking mallets and the pounding of beetle hammers, the echoing sound of something heavy dropped into place and the occasional order shouted by a frustrated boatswain, shipwright, or officer.

  The men of the Abigail were not fond of being so close to the Royal Navy, for even though they were all Americans with the papers to prove it, the navy was not always so particular when they needed men. But Frost assured them they would be unmolested, so they grumbled and muttered but said no more.

  The second shot from L’Armançon had shattered Abigail’s longboat, but happily the bumboats swarmed like mosquitoes once her anchor was set, and Frost had little difficulty in securing passage to shore.

  “Captain,” he said to Jack, taking him aside, “I pray you’ll forgive me this liberty, but I must go alone. These negotiations are … delicate. We’ve no quarrel with England now, at least not officially, but still it’s not in the interest of an officer in His Majesty’s Navy to be seen helping an American, if you understand. Now, these dockyard fellows, they can be persuaded, but they’re shy around those they don’t know.”

  “I understand,” Jack said, happy to turn this over to Frost, as he had no idea of what he might say to persuade anyone in English Harbour to give them aid. He would not expect help from any place called English Harbour.

  “If you can manage it,” Jack added, “we don’t need to careen, just to heave her down a bit to get at that shot hole. A new mizzenmast is far too much to ask, but if we can get the timber to fish it proper we can make due. We could use water, and some casks, after the damage from that shot that holed us down low. And a boat, if one is to be had.”

  “A formidable list,” Frost said, “but these British may be inclined to help one so battered by their enemy.”

  “I have money, of course,” Jack added. “Mr. Oxnard provided money for expenses, but I have no great store of it. If they are asking a dear price we’ll have to get it on Oxnard’s credit, or do without.”

  “I shall see what I can do,” Frost said, and with a conspiratorial wink he climbed down into the waiting bumboat and was gone.

  Jack set the men to work, sending down the top-hamper in preparation for a partial heaving down, unbending the mizzen, which still needed various shot holes patched, and fashioning a new stovepipe for the caboose. The remains of the longboat were broken up and stowed down in the kindling box.

  When that was done the Abigails stood down to an anchor watch, which was not particularly watchful, with most of the men asleep in whatever bits of shade could be found on deck. Jack was happy to give them the rest. There were some masters who would keep the men at their tasks even when there were no tasks that really needed to be done, but he could never see the percentage in that. As often as not a resentful crew would work Tom Cox’s Traverse, a silent protest in which they did every job in the slowest, clumsiest, most lubberly fashion they could, until the master, driven to distraction by the frustration of it all, relented.

  Nor was Jack adverse to a respite, now that the ship was safe in harbor and protected from the French by the massive guns of the British navy, an odd turn of events for the son of a hero of the War for Independency. He was seated on the taffrail in shirtsleeves and a straw hat, the sun approaching the high ground to the west, when Wentworth came aft, his step hesitant, as if trying to make it seem a great coincidence that he and Jack should find themselves on the same quarterdeck at the same time.

  “Captain Biddlecomb,” Wentworth nodded in greeting.

  “Mr. Wentworth.”

  They were quiet for a moment after that, both looking out across the water at the massive ship-of-the-line moored by the dockyard, her rig sent down to lowers. “That ship there,” Wentworth said at length, speaking quietly as the evening seemed to demand, “is that what one calls a ‘first rate’?”

  “She’s a seventy-four, Mr. Wentworth,” Jack explained. “Seventy-four guns, at least that is what she is designed to carry. As often as not the captain will crowd a few more on for good measure. But she is a third rate. A first rate would have a hundred or more guns.”

  “Indeed? A mere third rate. And yet there is nothing in the American fleet to match her?”

  “There is not really an American fleet at all,” Jack said. “The United States just launched, of course, we saw her on leaving Philadelphia. Constitution and Constellation, still on the stocks. We call them frigates, though the British might call them fifth rates. In any event, they would not stand in the line of battle, not with great beasts like that one yonder.”

  “Fascinating,” Wentworth said. “I know absolutely nothing about such things, but I’ll warrant it’s a fascinating business.”

  Jack gave a twisted smile, despite himself. “Perhaps so. I was weaned on it, or at least talk of it. The novelty is quite gone.”

  They were quiet again for a bit, then Wentworth said, “I meant to say, Captain … and I did not care to embarrass you, speaking so in front of others, but I was quite impressed with the way you handled t
he ship against the Frenchman. I’m no judge, of course, but it seemed to me quite the thing.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Wentworth, I appreciate that,” Jack said. And he did appreciate it, with reservations, since Wentworth still put him on edge. He felt Wentworth was incapable of sincerity, though admittedly he seemed sincere enough in this instance. Still, Jack belied the sincerity of his own response by waiting a beat too long before adding, “And I am grateful for your fine marksmanship.”

  “Yes, well…” Wentworth said, and then fell quiet again for a moment. “It’s a very odd thing, you know, this shooting a man. I’ve been in many affairs of honor. More than I can recall, a dozen certainly, if not more. I’ve shot men and I’ve drawn blood with cold steel, but I’ve never killed anyone. And to be sure, these were just Frenchmen, but they were men, do you see? A very odd thing, aiming at a man, seeing him fall. They were too far to see any more than their shapes, of course, but still one knows it’s a human one is shooting. I can’t seem to shake that image, or to stop seeing it in my mind.”

  The words tumbled out as if Wentworth had been waiting for the chance to say them out loud, as if he had been mulling them, adding thoughts, refining them as he looked for the main chance to tell someone. Jack listened, nodded, felt as thoroughly embarrassed at hearing the confession as Wentworth seemed to feel having given it.

  “Well, in any event,” Wentworth said, “we are much beholden to you for keeping us out of the Frenchman’s grip. Now I believe I shall go below stairs … have my watch below, as you tarpaulins would say.” There was a note of the old irony there, but it sounded as strained as did Wentworth’s go at sincerity.

  “Well, sir, I trust you’ll have a good rest. And I believe I’ll wait for Mr. Frost to return. You can imagine I’m eager to hear what he has managed to arrange.”

  They made their good nights and Jack remained aft, enjoying the evening on the quarterdeck. When Frost did not return after a few more hours he retired to the great cabin with a glass of wine from one of the few unshattered bottles left. And when Frost still did not return he changed to his nightshirt and crawled into his berth, exhausted from the day’s labors.

  The next morning, as John Burgess set the hands to scrubbing down, Frost still had not returned, and he had not returned by the time they began rousting out the shattered water casks from the hold. It was not until dinner was an hour past that Jack saw a longboat pulling for Abigail, the paint on her freeboard so white he could hardly look directly at it in the afternoon sun, six men-of-war’s men pulling at the oars and Frost, large and seeming even larger than before, seated in the sternsheets.

  They hauled up alongside and the bowman hooked on to the main chains, and Frost came aboard, and to Jack’s surprise the British sailors did as well. This caused a wave of muttering to sweep through the assembled Abigails, but the British tarpaulins stood silent and respectful and caused no further alarm.

  “Fine boat, isn’t she, Captain?” Frost asked with his accustomed enthusiasm.

  Jack glanced down at the longboat bobbing alongside, an excellent example of the boatwright’s craft, to be sure. “Lovely boat,” he agreed.

  “She’s ours,” Frost said. “And these fine fellows, sent out to assist as long as ever we need.”

  “Assist with what?” Jack asked.

  “Well, here’s the thing,” Frost said. “I had a most excellent meeting with the superintendent of the dockyard here. Fine fellow. Insisted I stay the night, and to tell the truth, with all the wine he plied me with, I don’t know that I would have trusted myself to a boat. But here’s the thing. This fellow will do anything, help anyone who wishes to knock a Frenchman on the head. Enemy of my enemy, that sort of thing. Astoundingly generous, astounding. Water and casks will be no problem, heaving down to get at the shot hole is being arranged as we speak.”

  “What of the mizzenmast?”

  “Ah, yes, well he has no stick that will serve for new, but he’ll be happy to help us fish the old one as best as can be done. But here’s the part that’s above and beyond the call. He’s agreed to give us the use of another six six-pounders, and have his ship carpenters mount them. And you can bet they’ll do a damned sight better job of it than those thieves in Philadelphia. It’ll be a bit crowded topsides, I’m not saying it won’t, but if we make that main hatch a bit narrower, that should answer. Then this fellow says he’ll give us the powder and shot we need, and even lend us experienced hands enough to work the guns!”

  Jack felt the sick twist in his stomach, which was becoming all too familiar. “Now, see here, Mr. Frost,” he said. “I had thought you were going to see about getting what we need to set the ship to rights, enough to get us to Barbados. I hardly thought you were going to arrange to turn us into some kind of damned man-of-war.” Even as he spoke he felt the shame of his failure. Had Frost ignored his instructions? No. He had given Frost no instructions, he had ceded his authority, he had allowed Frost all the latitude he wished.

  “My dear captain, it’s quite beyond that now,” Frost said, not unkindly. “Robert … Mr. Oxnard … made it clear enough that he wishes the ship to reach Barbados, not end up as some prize to the French. We tried sneaking through and were caught up. Now, after the drubbing you gave Monsieur Crapeau out there, every privateer and man-of-war will be on the hunt for us. Forgive me, Captain, if I have overstepped my bounds, but the simple fact here is this … if we are to reach Barbados, we must fight our way there.”

  Jack nodded. Frost had said nothing with which he might argue or disagree. Frost seemed have a knack for doing that. But still Jack felt as if this business was spinning out of control, and he with no way to stop it, or even slow its momentum.

  22

  Boston in the summer could be beastly hot, or so William Wentworth had always believed. In truth, as he now realized, he had had no notion of what real heat was, but he was starting to. It had been hot enough at sea, but there had generally been a breeze of some sort that had tempered the heat considerably. There was little breeze to be found in English Harbour, however, where the sun beat down like a blacksmith’s hammer, and every sound seemed unnaturally loud in the still air.

  And, dear Lord, it’s only … Wentworth had to think on it for a moment. It’s only May 22 … What must happen, he wondered, when the really hot season arrived?

  From a spot by the mizzen fife rail, a good place to observe yet stay well out of the way, Wentworth watched as they made ready to tow the Abigail alongside the quay. The degree of interest he took in the procedure still surprised him. A massive ship’s boat came up under the bow, thirty feet long and expertly rowed by hardcase British men-of-war’s men, pigtailed and straw-hatted, powerful arms with muscles that rippled under tanned skin. Watching them at their work gave Wentworth a vague feeling of inadequacy, and he reminded himself that they were seamen of the Royal Navy: poor, mostly illiterate, bound to the service, little better than slaves, while he was a Wentworth of the Boston Wentworths.

  They took a towline that Burgess and a gang under his supervision had rigged from the Abigail’s bow, and once Abigail’s anchor hung dripping and muddy from the starboard cathead, they laid into the oars and towed the merchantman alongside the stone quay. A blue-coated officer sat in the boat’s sternsheets, hand on the tiller, but if he ever gave an order, Wentworth did not hear it.

  Once Abigail was secured alongside, her men and the dockyard’s men and more men from the British men-of-war appeared and began hoisting the six pounders off her deck, which seemed an act of disarmament, but at the same time ship’s carpenters appeared and as far as Wentworth could tell began cutting holes in the bulwark for even more guns to be set in place.

  It was all something of a mystery, since no one had told him anything of their current plans, and so on the second day of that furious activity, when Biddlecomb seemed to be unoccupied for a rare moment, Wentworth approached him. They had not spoken more than a few words since Wentworth had confessed to his discomfort about killing the Fren
chmen, an embarrassing and regrettable admission, and it took a considerable degree of curiosity to overcome his reluctance to speak to Biddlecomb now.

  “Captain, forgive me, but could I inquire as to what’s going on here?”

  Biddlecomb looked at him with an odd expression, part annoyance and part surprise that he should ask such a question, as if Biddlecomb expected him to know quite well what was going on.

  “We are getting the guns and stores off her, getting her ready to heave down,” Biddlecomb said, unhelpfully.

  “‘Heave down’?”

  “We’ll make a block fast to her mainmast head, a great four-part affair, and run the fall to a capstan and heave away, roll the ship on her side. Not all the way, just enough to get at that hole the Frenchie gave us, so that we might repair it.”

  “Ah…” Wentworth said, now partially enlightened. “And these other fellows?”

  “Are cutting new gunports for the additional guns we’re to mount. Now, please forgive me, but here’s the last of the water casks hoisted out and I must see if we have any damage below that was not obvious before.”

  And so William Wentworth was left alone for that day, and the next, being, apparently, the only man in English Harbour, or perhaps on all of Antigua, who did not have one damned thing to occupy his time. He watched them heave the Abigail down, which was certainly interesting, and watched the rest of the preparations, which became increasingly dull with each passing moment. He managed to extract information from Frost, not much, but enough to give him some sense for what was going on. Or at least some sense for what Frost wished him to believe was going on. William Wentworth was many things, many of them unpleasant, but naïve was not one of them.

  By the third day he had had his fill of dockyard procedures and decided to see if there was any shooting to be had on the island, so he collected up his rifle, powder horn, and shot bag and made his way down the gangplank to the quay.

  It was all new, all utterly new and foreign to him. In twenty-two years he had left Massachusetts all of six times, and of those, New York was the farthest afield he had gone, save for his passage to Philadelphia to meet the Abigail. William Wentworth had never been one for travel, for novelty and new experience. He had never seen the appeal.