That must have set Frost back some considerable sum of ready money, Jack thought.
“Short peak!” Tucker cried from the foredeck.
“Hands aloft to loose sail!” Jack cried and the men swarmed up the shrouds, far more men than he was used to seeing on any vessel he had ever sailed aboard. They laid out on fore and main topgallant yard, topsail yards, lower yards, the mizzen as well, and after what seemed to Jack an extraordinarily brief time they were back on deck, the sails hanging in their gear.
Impressive … he thought. He could grow accustomed to these man-of-war-style crews, dozens of men to do a job that would be done by six aboard a merchantman. The sails were sheeted home, halyards hauled away. With many hands on the braces the foresails were braced aback, main and mizzen hauled around to cast the ship to larboard, with Israel Walcott the cook grumbling about the mouths to feed but happily ignoring his usual station at the foresheet.
The anchor tripped, Abigail fell off to larboard, the foresails were braced around, and the ship gathered way. The tide was ebbing and the sun was near her zenith as they stood out of English Harbour and met the Atlantic rollers coming in.
Ten knots of breeze was blowing from the east southeast as Biddlecomb put the ship on a larboard tack, full and by, plunging along and sending the occasional shower of warm spray aft. They had pretty well cleared the land by the time Jack felt he could stand it no longer, looked aloft, and shouted, “Masthead, there! What do you see?”
Lacey was on the main topgallant and Wentworth, Jack noticed, was in the maintop, but sitting with his back against the mast and looking aft, staring off at nothing in particular that Jack could see. Their interactions had been formal and stiff since the duel, and they had largely avoided one another. Or, more correctly, Wentworth had avoided Jack, because Jack did not have the time to give any thought to whom he might bump into or whom he wished to avoid.
There was a moment’s pause as Lacey took one last scan of the horizon and called, “Looks like a fishing boat a half a league to weather, sir, nothing beyond that.”
Jack was not sure if he was relieved or disappointed by this report. Certainly he had thought it very unlikely that the French corvette, or any armed French vessel, would be hovering around English Harbour. But Frost had disagreed, and said it was in fact quite likely indeed. Frost felt the master of L’Armançon would have been humiliated by his defeat and eager to make amends before the Directoire made amends for him with the help of a guillotine. And so far Frost had been right about such things.
“What ho, Captain?” Frost’s big voice rang out from the leeward side. “No sign of Jean Crapeau?”
“No,” Jack said as the big man approached. Frost was looking very much in his element, very pleased with the improvements to the Abigail. But there was a patina of anxiety there as well, as if he felt personally responsible for how things might work out. And well he might, given how much of their present circumstance was his doing.
“The man aloft said there was a fishing boat to weather, nothing more,” Jack said. “Visibility is everything we might wish, so if the Frenchie was anywhere within three leagues we’d see him.”
“Indeed?” Frost said, and the disappointment in his voice was unmistakable now. He looked aloft. Abigail had all plain sail set and topmast studdingsails on the weather side. “Mayhaps you should reduce canvas?” he suggested. “Not run clear of here so fast?”
Jack, who had been scanning the horizon to windward, turned and looked at him. This was an odd suggestion, bordering on the bizarre. Certainly Jack agreed with the plan to fight their way to Barbados if need be. He was enjoying the command of this ersatz man-of-war. He had come to appreciate the aesthetics of the neat row of guns, larboard and starboard, in their symmetrical perfection, the oversized crew that could perform tasks so fast, so efficient.
He secretly relished his role of naval commander, of being predator and not prey, and he was secretly embarrassed to be relishing it. Silently he assured himself that he was not his father, did not wish to be and would never be his father, while at the same time understanding at last why a man might want to stand on the quarterdeck of a man-of-war and think himself master of all before him, and of anything that might come up over the horizon.
But for all his embrace of things naval, Jack still preferred to run to Barbados unchallenged. He had been raised on stories of men-of-war and the bold men who sailed them, and he had learned a lot, even when he was not trying to. And so he knew that captains of men-of-war (which he reminded himself he was not) did not put their ships and men in harm’s way without a good reason for doing so. And he was not sure what reason he might have to seek battle with L’Armançon.
“Mr. Frost,” Jack asked, “you have said yourself many times that Mr. Oxnard wishes Abigail to reach Barbados unharmed, and not wind up a prize of the French. I would think if we could sneak past her in the night, leave her over the horizon by dawn, that would be preferable to fighting.”
“Well, of course it would!” Frost said, all but spluttering. “Of course, only a fool would think otherwise. But I’m saying only we should proceed with caution, slow, you understand, like an Indian sneaking along through the woods, or some such. If Jean Crapeau is just over the horizon, say, and here we come blundering along, all the kites flying, and we run right under his guns as fast as ever we can, that would be a disaster. That’s what I’m saying.”
Jack nodded. “I see,” he said, and thought, what sort of fool do you reckon I am? He glanced up at the maintop, and suddenly he was enveloped with the sickening thought that, possibly, contrary to all reason, Wentworth might actually have been right about Frost.
“Let me put some thought into that, Mr. Frost,” Biddlecomb said, “but for the moment I am loath to not take full advantage of a fine topgallant breeze. No mariner could stand to lose such a main chance.”
“Of course, Captain, of course, you would be negligent to do otherwise,” Frost assured him. He retreated to the leeward side and Jack kept his station at the weather rail, kept his eyes moving from sails to the horizon, to the wake astern. Occasionally he would amble over to the binnacle and take a look at the compass. He felt the warm, comfortable, driving breeze flow over his face and judged from long experience any minute changes in strength or direction.
The glass was turned, the bells rang out, the sails were carefully adjusted until Jack was satisfied. But not an inch of canvas was taken in, and when he was not directly conning his ship, Jack’s mind went over that odd conversation he and Frost had had. He was thinking on what it might mean, what might be at the back of Frost’s enthusiasms, and his money. He was considering the unthinkable; asking Wentworth just what it was he suspected.
Abigail continued to plow her long, white furrow through the sea, heeling to leeward and pitching in a soft, pleasing, rocking sort of motion. Eight bells rang out and the watch changed, and then one bell in the afternoon watch. Jack was still thinking about whether he should shorten sail, if there was something that Frost knew but for some reason could not say, when the man at the masthead—it was Adams now—sang out, “Sail ho! Right to windward it is, sir, t’gan’sls is all I can see!”
Two hours, Jack thought. Two hours and this fellow will be up with us, if he intends to come up with us. And if it’s L’Armançon then it won’t matter much what intrigues Frost or Wentworth or any of them are playing at.
* * *
There was a spot on the second floor of the City Tavern where, if Rumstick squatted a bit, he could look down the stairs and see Ness seated at his familiar table by the fireplace. It was ten minutes before the hour they had appointed for their meeting, and both men were in place; Ness in his seat and Rumstick squatting down, ignoring the looks of the tavern girls and watching Ness wait.
He was not waiting calmly. He was nervous. Even though his back was mostly turned toward Rumstick (which is why Rumstick remained unseen) his agitation was clear. He was fiddling with the cloth on the table, fiddling with the
pewter plate, darting glances around. It might have been a good idea to check the tavern to see if Ness had planted some of his compatriots around, but it was too late for that. And Rumstick had done what he wanted to do. He had taken the measure of the man, got a good sense for his state of mind, which was not pacific, not at all.
Rumstick went down the back staircase, out the door that led into the alley, around to the front of the tavern, and in through the front door. He looked around the room and did a credible job of appearing to see Ness for the first time, crossed the noisy, crowded space, and sat with care at Ness’s table.
“Good day, sir,” Rumstick said, pretending not to notice Ness’s irritation. “Have you had a chance to make some inquiries?”
“I have, yes, I have,” Ness said, speaking much softer than Rumstick had done, and in a more conspiratorial tone. He leaned forward, then back again as one of the serving girls brought two tankards. Rumstick thanked her and Ness shooed her away.
“Here’s what I know,” Ness continued, “and I’ll warn you, it’s not much. The truth of the matter is this: myself, some of my friends, we hoped to stop Oxnard’s ship from sailing. The man is making money like a fiend, and he funnels it right to Bache and other enemies of the administration. Stop his money coming in, you stop it going to our enemies, you see?” Ness put just the slightest emphasis on the word our, no doubt to remind Rumstick that they were on the same side.
“In any event,” Ness continued, “that was our thinking, and we acted on it. This Bolingbroke fellow was hired by an associate of mine. Not an associate, really, more a sort of glorified errand boy. He’s the kind who knows his way about the waterfront, you understand. Knows, for instance, if you need someone for this or that sort of mischief, who to talk to.”
“I know the sort,” Rumstick said, and he did, very well. “But you’re telling me, Ness, that Bolingbroke was hired to kill Jack Biddlecomb just to make a small dent in Oxnard’s wealth?”
“Well, I never thought my man would try such a thing!” Ness protested. “I told him simply to find a way to stop the ship from sailing. I expected him to spread the word that no hands should sign aboard for the voyage, or keep the stevedores from off-loading the ship, something along those lines. I hardly expected him to find someone to challenge the master to a duel, which I dare say was the least effective means of keeping her tied to the dock.”
Rumstick leaned back, took up his tankard, and took a long pull of the ale, but his eyes did not leave Ness’s, and it made the man’s discomfort visibly worse. At last he put the tankard back down on the table. He was sailing into shoal water now. It was time to cast the lead.
“That’s interesting. Interesting,” he said, and let it hang in the air. “But I’ll tell you the truth, I had thought it ran deeper than that. And perhaps involved some more prominent people. Not that I don’t think you’re prominent, Ness, but I was thinking of men higher up than you.”
“Such as who?”
“Well, Jack’s father, my dear friend Isaac Biddlecomb, who you certainly know…” Ness nodded his agreement. “… he received a letter.” Rumstick leaned closer and Ness leaned toward him. “A letter from Alexander Hamilton. Like you, Hamilton also thought Jack shouldn’t sail, said it could be dangerous. Hinted at some intrigue. But here’s the thing; he mentions your name.”
“My name?” Ness said, surprise and a trace of fear in his voice.
“Yes,” Rumstick continued. He had been tracking along the line of the truth, but now he started to veer off course. “Mostly he talked about McHenry, of course, but you as well, as McHenry’s associate. He said something about you arranging to have some harm done to Jack, said if Isaac didn’t prevent Jack from sailing, you and McHenry might have some intrigue cooked up to stop him. He wasn’t clear about what, but there it is, in Hamilton’s hand. You and McHenry.”
For a long moment Ness was silent and Rumstick was silent as they looked at one another across the table, over the tankards. Then Ness said, “Why would Hamilton write such a thing? Why would he wish to expose McHenry? McHenry is his man, for all love!”
“‘Expose McHenry?’” Rumstick asked. “So, there was something to expose? Some intrigue?”
More silence. A long silence as Ness looked at the various implications of what Rumstick was asking. But rather than answer, he asked a question of his own. “If you do not get an answer that will satisfy you, Rumstick, what will you do?”
Rumstick shrugged as if he had given it no thought. “My only concern is to find the truth, and to see that no harm comes to Jack. I genuinely do not give a tinker’s damn about Hamilton or McHenry or the rest. If harm comes to Oxnard or Bache I’ll cheer. But if I don’t find out what sort of danger my godson has been brought into, I’ll give the letter Hamilton wrote to Isaac to the Aurora and let you all go to hell, even if we are supposed to be on the same side. I’ll look to protect family over party every day.”
There was another long silence. Rumstick was acutely aware of every small sound in the room, the murmured conversations, the clink of silver, the soft pad of footsteps on the worn pine board floor. Then Ness began to talk.
“This is very involved,” he said with a note of resignation, “and it goes very high. But I will tell you, because I know you are a friend to the administration.”
And because you think Hamilton has thrown you and McHenry to the wolves, Rumstick thought, but he did not speak.
“Hamilton has a man who’s close to Bache,” Ness continued. “Don’t ask me who because I don’t know. But this fellow informed Hamilton of a great plan cooked up by Bache and Oxnard. They’ve been at it for half a year. You know that these Republicans want nothing more than to show the world that Adams is eager for war with France, eager to help the British, which is nonsense, of course. War with France? Our entire navy consists of the half-built frigate lying at the dock half a mile from here.”
“So Bache and Oxnard hit on some means of showing the world Adams wants war?” Rumstick said, steering Ness back on course.
“It was clever, I’ll grant them that. What if an American ship, ostensibly a merchantman but well armed, were to attack a French man-of-war? What if the master of that ship were the son of a prominent Federalist, a former hero of the Continental Navy, a friend of President Adams? You could draw a straight line from that act of aggression to the administration, show the world that the Federalists are champing at the bit for war, turn the country against us.”
Rumstick leaned back and shook his head. “Nonsense. It was Oxnard armed the ship, it would be easy enough to show that.”
“Really? As I understand it, your Jack was the one who signed for all the guns, the powder, shot. It’s likely he didn’t even know what he was signing, but his name’s on all of it. What’s more, the young man is an intemperate hothead, everyone knows it. Forgive me.”
“No, no,” Rumstick said, “no forgiveness needed. No one knows the truth of that better than me. I’ve had to haul him out of many an ugly scrape. But that still don’t explain how they knew Jack would get into this fight.”
“Oxnard put an associate aboard, fellow named Chapman but he was going by the name Frost, put him aboard to goad Jack on. Apparently Bache has connections enough in France to see that a small man-of-war would be stationed where they needed it. He lived in France, you know, years ago, with his grandfather. In any event, they arranged to have this man-of-war on station. This Chapman, or Frost, convinces Jack to attack, they fight, the Frenchman sustains some damage but takes Jack’s ship as a prize, and there’s your international incident.”
Rumstick shook his head again, slowly, trying to fathom the depth of this intrigue, but the man in the fore chains was calling No bottom! No bottom, here!
“It all hinged on Jack, do you see?” Ness said. “Son of Isaac Biddlecomb, young and impetuous enough to go after a man-of-war, with a little convincing. We thought if he could be wounded—not killed, mind you, just wounded enough that he could not sail, then the pla
n would fall apart.”
“Why didn’t you just inform Jack of this? Or Isaac? Convince him not to go?”
Ness said nothing. He looked at Rumstick, apparently waiting for Rumstick to figure it out on his own. “No, never mind. That was a foolish question.” Which it was. Rumstick knew better than anyone that Jack would not listen, and that trying to warn him off would just make him want to do the thing even more. It was how he was made.
And it went beyond that. If Jack resigned from command of the Abigail, Oxnard would know something was acting, perhaps cotton to the fact that he had a spy in his midst. Hamilton would not allow that to happen. Hamilton was an intriguer, his plots more important than the life of one young sailor.
Rumstick was quiet again, but at length he spoke. “And what has happened? Has it played out as Oxnard hoped?”
“We don’t know,” Ness said. “There’s been no word. We would have thought to have heard something by now, but there’s been nothing. We fear the worst, and we are bracing for the news from the West Indies.”
Rumstick considered that. There was one possibility that no one seemed to have considered. At the center of all this was Jack Biddlecomb, son of Isaac Biddlecomb. Did it occur to no one that in the fight with this Frenchman he just might win?
27
In the end it was not above an hour and ten minutes before Jack was certain that the distant vessel was indeed L’Armançon. She was right to windward and running down on them, and though the two ships were not heading directly at one another they were converging at a combined speed of probably eight knots, which meant that in the space of seventy minutes they had reduced the distance between them by ten miles or so, leaving only three miles to go.
Seventy minutes was as long as Jack could tolerate standing on the quarterdeck feigning disinterest. He shed his coat and hat, took up his glass, and climbed aloft. He did not know if Wentworth made a point of ignoring him because he made a point of ignoring Wentworth and so did not see if the man had even glanced his way as he came up over the edge of the maintop.
The French Prize Page 30