The French Prize

by James L. Nelson

  “You’ve done enough, Lieutenant,” Renaudin said, his eyes fixed forward, his pace increasing. By the foremast he found an ax, discarded after the long night’s struggle. He snatched it up and stepped up to the bitts where the heavy line running out to the sea anchor was made off. He raised the ax over his head.

  “Sir!” Dauville shouted, with an urgency that could not be ignored. Renaudin paused, looked over at the lieutenant. He was sorry to waste the man’s life, but there was nothing for it now, and Dauville would hardly be the first promising officer to die young.

  “I’m sorry, Dauville,” Renaudin said.

  “As am I,” Dauville said, and Renaudin saw that he had a belaying pin in his hand. He saw the oiled wood come around in a wide arc, and before he could react in any way, he saw a burst of light and then he was enveloped by blackness.

  Epilogue

  Lieutenant René Dauville was a knowledgeable and competent mariner, as was Jack Biddlecomb, so it was little surprise that Jack’s rescue of L’Armançon played out pretty much as Dauville had envisioned it.

  Jack worked Abigail to leeward, as close as he dared get to the drifting wreckage. The launch Frost had procured in English Harbour was still towing astern, they had not bothered to get it on deck as it was the least of their worries. It was hauled up on the leeward side and a crew of the most skilled of the Abigails, led by Oliver Tucker, went aboard, making the tricky leap from the rolling, heaving ship into the wildly bucking boat alongside.

  None of the British sailors joined them. They would not take part in the rescue of men it was their life’s work to kill, which Biddlecomb could understand. But that was fine, as the Abigails’ seamanship was at least a match for theirs, and in many cases more than a match.

  The boat was drifted down with a messenger made fast to a thwart, a stout one-inch line that would be used to get the Frenchman’s hawser aboard. They bent it to the heavy line and cut the wreckage free. The shattered mast and yard swirled away downwind and the launch was hauled back alongside and a strain taken on the messenger, lifting the Frenchman’s hawser from the sea.

  With the windlass being hors de combat they used a series of heavy blocks and tackle to get the messenger and then the hawser aboard. They secured the bitter end to the base of the mainmast and then trimmed the sails to get the most drive they might from them.

  For a long time, nothing seemed to happen. Abigail’s sails were set and drawing, the tow rope lifted dripping from the sea, the tremendous tension squeezing the water out of it. But they appeared to make no headway. They seemed fixed to that spot of ocean, certainly not going forward, possibly being knocked back with each successive sea. Jack wondered how long he would hang on before giving the order to cut the tow away, to leave the Frenchmen to their fate.

  “Let us get the foresail set, with a single reef,” he said at last. The wind was still strong, he was pushing his luck, but the only other choice was to cut L’Armançon free. The men moved quickly and soon the big sail dropped from the yard. Hands tailed into the weather tack and the lee sheet, hauled them out, and with a snap the sail was set and drawing.

  And that made the difference. The tow line rose again from the sea and stayed suspended this time, and every hand aboard could feel the motion, like the ship was waking up, like Lazarus coming out of the tomb. The wake began to flow astern in a broader and more defined way, streaming white, like a road leading from Guadeloupe, and they were walking down that road, leaving the island and its deadly lee shore behind.

  They towed all through the day, and by sundown the storm that Jack had predicted would be of short duration had blown itself out. The seas settled down, the trade winds dropped to their usual, sensible strength, and L’Armançon towed easily astern. Once the seas were such that a boat might pass between the ships with little peril, Jack knew there were negotiations to be carried out and he knew, as master, it was his job to do it.

  The only man aboard Abigail who spoke fluent French was William Wentworth, which came as no surprise to Jack. As the sun began its descent in the west, Jack donned his best suit, or those parts of it that were not destroyed by water or cannon fire, and Wentworth did the same. They looked odd indeed, with fine breeches above torn wool socks, once-elegant coats with tears left in the wake of passing roundshot, hats crumpled and pushed back into place. But it was the best they could muster, and they climbed down into the boat and the boat crew rowed them across the long swells to the battered corvette in their wake.

  A French officer stood at the gangway as Jack and William came up the side. “Bonjour, Monsieur,” he said, bowing. He said more, but Bonjour had exhausted Jack’s store of French, so he stood back as William listened to the man speak, and then made some reply that Jack hoped was only courtesy, and not a promise of any sort.

  “He says his captain was hit on the head by a falling block and is indisposed,” Wentworth explained. “He is the first officer, Lieutenant René Dauville, and he says he is most grateful for the rescue and will consider himself your prisoner. He says he will happily relinquish his sword if you feel it appropriate.”

  “His sword?” Jack asked. He had not really thought of that, had never considered L’Armançon to be a prize of any sort. “Tell him I do not believe a state of war exists between the Republic of France and the United States,” Jack said. “Ask him if he has heard differently.”

  Wentworth translated. Dauville made reply and Wentworth turned to Jack. “He says, though there has been violence done by the privateers to American shipping, he does not believe a state of war exists. He seems to have anticipated your next question and says he does not know what orders his captain was following in attacking us.”

  “I see,” Jack said, though he really didn’t. “Very well, I can hardly call this ship a prize if there’s no war. Nor am I much inclined to start taking prizes. This is a French naval vessel. By God, we could start a war by claiming it as a prize! No, tell him we’ll tow them to someplace we might agree on, and if he pleases, I would be most grateful to be able to sail to Barbados unmolested.”

  In the end it was decided they would tow L’Armançon to Saint-Louis on Marie-Galante, which had a tolerably good anchorage. Guadeloupe was in French hands but had suffered a revolt by former slaves, and Dauville was not sure how things stood there. Besides, Jack could not stand the irony of making for Guadeloupe after having suffered so much anxiety trying to keep away from the place.

  With the clear weather and flattening seas it was no great task to reach the harbor, L’Armançon towing easily astern. Abigail came to anchor in the clear, aquamarine water, within a cable length of the long white sand beach, shaded by palm trees that waved in the trade winds. If any locals thought it odd an American coming to anchor there, they did not say anything, and Dauville made it clear she was there under the protection of L’Armançon and the navy of France.

  The British sailors did not join them. Dauville’s assurance that they would not be molested was not enough to convince them to willingly sail into a French port. So Jack gave them Abigail’s launch and Dauville gave them L’Armançon’s longboat, and enough food and water for the short sail back to English Harbour and they were off, and apparently quite enthusiastic for their yachting holiday.

  Abigail lay in the roadstead at Saint-Louis for several days, during which Dauville saw they were provided with what they needed: cordage, ironwork, blocks, deadeyes, a new main topmast and yard. The Abigails sent it all up, crossed yards, bent sail, rove off running gear, and missed the abundance of experienced hands they had enjoyed before the British jacks had left them.

  They set sail for Barbados a few days later, the hovering French privateers still a threat, but they saw only one sail on the passage, and it turned and fled while still hull down, so if it was a privateer, it was not a particularly bold one. They were only two days under way, a quick passage, but quicker still was word of their bold rescue of L’Armançon. From Marie-Galante and from the British sailors at Antigua word spread of
the master who ignored the fact that he had been attacked without provocation, with no state of war existing, and had plucked the disabled ship from the clutches of certain death.

  The first inkling of their newfound fame arrived with the pilot, who met them as they stood into Carlisle Bay at Bridgetown. He scrambled up the ladder and pumped Jack’s hand, exclaiming that all of Barbados, all of the West Indies, was talking about his bold and selfless act. Abigail was brought directly to one of the most convenient berths along the busy waterfront, with men sent aboard by Oxnard’s agent to handle lines, so that the crew of the Abigail could stand back and enjoy their well-earned leisure.

  Business was conducted amid a series of dinners and various celebrations. No one on Barbados was particularly interested in saving the lives of Frenchmen, but as an island colony they were all intimately bound to the sea, and so were quick to recognize the heroism of one mariner saving another. And when a mariner saved another who, the day before, had tried to kill him, it made the act all that more selfless.

  Captain Biddlecomb’s health was drunk all over town, and Captain Biddlecomb was often called to join in, so it was no surprise that he woke one morning in his bunk feeling not so very healthy at all, head pounding, eyes declining to open. He managed to get one lid up, slowly, and found himself staring at the same reddish-brown homespun stockings, the same set of beefy calves, the same cuffs of brown breeches he had seen on his first morning in that cabin.

  “Ah, Captain Biddlecomb,” the familiar voice said. “You are awake.”

  Jack sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bunk. The great cabin was nearly set to rights, and only those places where the patched woodwork had yet to be painted and the furniture that was not so perfectly repaired indicated that any violence had been done to the place.

  “Good morning,” Jack said, scratching and looking around through the one eye he’d managed to open. “I don’t believe I ever caught your name.”

  “Tillinghast,” the man said. “Jeremiah Tillinghast.”

  “Is it an odd quirk of fate that you should happen to be here?”

  “No,” Tillinghast said. “Captain Rumstick sent me. I come out in that lovely Bermuda sloop of his, the Town of Bristol, do you know it?”

  Jack nodded. Tillinghast continued. “We finally smoked what was going on, why that Bolingbroke cove tried to kill you.”

  “Because he hates me,” Jack offered.

  “There’s that,” Tillinghast agreed. “But more. He was well paid, you know.” Tillinghast went on, telling Jack a story that he had in part guessed at himself, and in part been told to him by Wentworth, and in part did not know and wished he had not found out.

  It had, in the end, been all about his father. The command of Abigail, the way he had been manipulated into fighting L’Armançon, it had all happened because he was the son of the great Isaac Biddlecomb. Jack could hardly stand the irony.

  “How did you manage to find me?” Jack asked.

  “This is where you were supposed to be,” Tillinghast said. “But in truth, everywhere we called they knew the story. You’re a famous man, in the West Indies, at least.”

  “Uncle Ezra sent you out to protect me?”

  “To warn you. But I’m too late for that, it seems. So now I have another task.”

  “To protect me?”

  “No,” Tillinghast said. “Don’t seem you need much protecting, but if you can stay out of any tavern brawls, it would be best all around. Tide turns in an hour and I mean to be under way then.”

  “So soon? Where are you bound to in such a great rush?”

  Tillinghast did not answer at first. “Do you know Captain John Derby, of Salem?”

  “Certainly,” Jack said. Derby was a venerable old seaman, part of the Derby clan of merchants and mariners.

  “Well, right after the fighting at Lexington and Concord, just days after, Dr. Joseph Warren sent him to England in a fast schooner. Derby carried eyewitness reports, and a letter from the good doctor to the people of England. You see, Warren understood that the most important part of getting your story told the way you wish it to be told is getting your story to market first. So what I need from you, young Master Biddlecomb, is your story. Tell it all to me, the fighting, towing the Frenchman off, every detail.”

  Jack sighed. He had told this story many times already in the week or so since those incidents had taken place. But he told it again, and Tillinghast asked questions as he did, questions that spoke to his intimate understanding of the affair. He probed in a way that the others to whom Jack told the tale would have considered impolite. And when Jack had finished to Tillinghast’s satisfaction, Tillinghast stood and extended a hand.

  “Thank you, Captain Biddlecomb,” he said, shaking Jack’s hand. “You did an admirable job, and everyone who hears the story will agree. At least those parts of the story we want them to hear. So, now I know I can report to Captain Rumstick that any hurt done you was done by your own hand, and with that I will bid you good day, Captain.”

  Tillinghast clapped his hat on his head, and then he was gone.

  Jack was another week securing a cargo for Abigail’s return voyage, setting the ship to rights, and playing the honored guest in various households, it becoming a mark of one’s place in Bridgetown society to entertain Captain Jack Biddlecomb. It was a great relief when he finally ordered Abigail warped away from the dock and set the fore topsail to the steady breeze.

  They were three weeks in returning to Philadelphia, greeted by light and baffling winds as they made northing past the Turks and Caicos. It was midsummer when they made that familiar landfall at Cape Henlopen. The shores of the Delaware Bay and the Delaware River were a rich green, the forest filled out with leaves, and fields showing substantial growth at last. They anchored in the stream and were assured that a berth would be ready for them on the turn of the tide. No waiting for Captain Jack Biddlecomb, whose fame had preceded him by weeks, and whose return was so greatly anticipated.

  Mail was sent out, and a flurry of invitations, and copies of the latest papers. Jack begged off the invitations, claiming too much work to do in preparation for coming alongside the dock, but in truth he was giving himself the gift of one last night of peace before the maelstrom that he knew was coming his way.

  The headlines said it all: True Account of the Rescue of a French Man-of-War by Son of Naval Hero Isaac Biddlecomb.

  Captain Jeremiah Tillinghast Reports News of Jack Biddlecomb, Son of Captain Isaac Biddlecomb, Late of the Continental Navy.

  Apple Does Not Fall Far from the Tree.

  Jack sighed, tossed the papers on the scarred table in the great cabin, and drained his glass.

  “Oh, come now, what honestly did you expect?” William Wentworth asked, refilling the glass. “You’re not the only one living in the shadows of the old man, you know.”

  “I know. But I suspect it will be hard to remember that, these coming days.”

  “Honored, toasted, given lavish meals. The young ladies of Philadelphia swooning over you, their fathers lauding you as a great hero. It will be a hellish time, Jack, hellish indeed.”

  Jack smiled and picked up his new-filled glass and drained it again. The barometer was falling fast, the storm would be on him soon, the next day, as soon as his foot hit the dock. It would blow hard but it would blow itself out and then there would be calm.

  And then soon enough the barometer would fall again. At sea, there was no such thing as normal.

  Glossary

  ABLE-BODIED a rating applied to a sailor that indicates he is entirely proficient in all the sailor’s arts, in particular working on a ship’s rigging.

  AFT toward the back end of a ship, the opposite of fore.

  ATHWARTSHIPS from one side of a ship to the other.

  BACKSTAY a heavy rope running from the top of one of the masts aft to a place near the deck where it is secured. The backstay prevents the mast from falling forward.

  BEFORE THE MAST refers to a
member of a ship’s crew, as opposed to an officer. The term in an allusion to sailors living in the forecastle, forward of the foremast.

  BELAYING PIN a wooden pin resembling a long billy club and mounted through a hole in a pin rail. The lines of the rigging are hitched to the belaying pins to secure them.

  BEND to attach one thing to another. A sailor bends a sail to a yard.

  BINNACLE BOX cabinet mounted to the deck just forward of the helm that houses the compass and other navigational equipment.

  BLOCK pulley.

  BOATSWAIN sailor in charge of maintaining a ship’s rigging and other maintenance duties, overseeing the work of the crew, and often enforcing discipline.

  BOOM a heavy spar running fore and aft that secures the bottom edge of a sail.

  BOW the front end of a ship.

  BOW CHASER cannon mounted in the bow of a ship at such an angle as to allow it to fire as directly forward as possible.

  BOWLINE a line attached to the edge of a square sail and used to prevent the sail from curling over when the ship is sailing close hauled. Thus when a ship is sailing on a taut bowline, she is sailing close hauled.

  BOWSPRIT a type of mast extending at an angle up from a ship’s bow to which the stays for the foremast are attached.

  BREECHING a heavy rope running between the sides of a ship and the back end of a cannon to limit the distance a cannon can recoil when fired.

  BULWARK the low wall around the outer edge of a ship’s deck.

  BUNTLINE line attached to the lower edge of a square sail and used to haul the sail up prior to furling.

  CABLE a nautical unit of distance, about two hundred yards.

  CAPSTAN a vertical manual winch turned by the use of horizontal bars inserted like spokes into the capstan’s upper part. Used for very heavy lifting.

  CAST to turn a vessel’s head away from the wind when getting under way.

  CEILING planking on the inside of a ship.

  CLEWGARNET line used to pull the lower corner, or clew, of a course sail, the lowest square sail on a mast, up to the yard above.