Old Glory

by Christopher Nicole

  The rain lasted well into the night, then it slackened to a drizzle, and by dawn the wind had freshened, as expected, out of the south west, virtually heading their course. But Captain Passmore was an old hand at the North Atlantic, and willingly bore away to the north, knowing that the wind must veer eventually.

  But before that happened, they had to sail through the eye of the storm. The wind freshened all day, and by mid afternoon even the mizen had been handed, and the barque wallowed to the north west, steering as close as she could to the wind, while the seas grew, from shallow four footers to fifteen and then twenty feet, creating huge troughs into which the barque slid sideways, rolling scuppers under, while every so often a real wave broke aboard, flooding the waist with foaming green water. This day Elizabeth did not appear on deck, but Harry hardly supposed she or anyone else could be comfortable even in the cabin, as the water found its way in at every possible place, and soon the watch below was assigned to half hourly spells on the pumps, to keep the well as dry as possible.

  ‘It’s going to be a long night,’ Bowler told them. And indeed by dusk the wind had risen to such force, hardly less that sixty knots, Harry estimated, that although it had veered to just north of west, and they could therefore have resumed their course, Captain Passmore considered it best to heave the ship to; that is, he sheeted the storm jib hard in on the port tack, and then sheeted the trysail on the starboard tack, with the helm lashed down to leeward. This meant that whenever one of the sails filled, and the Spirit of the West started to make way, she was brought up by the other sail, which would then fill and in turn be checked. The ship was thus held head to wind, her safest position, but not actually moving, rather letting the seas rage around her than challenging them. Here, although she continued to pitch, and gave an occasional roll, she was most comfortable, and most important of all, she required almost no attention from the crew, so that their limbs — or possibly even their lives — were not endangered by having to handle the canvas in such conditions.

  Yet it was uncomfortable enough for the deck watch, who had to remain alert, as they could not tell when they might be needed. And it was a wild night, with the wind howling and the waves crashing against the ship with such noise that conversation was impossible, while even sheltering behind the forecastle the seamen were constantly inundated by the clouds of spray which came flying over the bows in regular succession. Harry was utterly grateful to get down to his hammock at midnight, stripping off his sodden clothes before wrapping himself in his blanket. But hardly had he closed his eyes when he was awakened by a tremendous crash, which seemed to come from the topsides only inches from his head.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ someone screamed. ‘We’ve hit something!’

  In the middle of the ocean, Harry thought? Unless they had collided with another vessel; but the odds against that happening had to be several million to one.

  ‘All hands on deck,’ came the shout, and he tumbled out of his hammock, dragged on his still soaking breeches, and swarmed up the ladder.

  ‘The anchor’s come adrift,’ shouted Bowler, water streaming from his oilskins, and indeed as Harry reached the deck there was another frightful crash as the huge two hundred pound piece of steel struck the wooden timbers. It was the type of anchor known as a fisherman’s, that is, it consisted of two huge flukes bent backwards from a central stock, and the flukes had sharpened ends, the better to enable them to bite into the bottom when the anchor was let go. It needed very little imagination to guess what those flukes were doing to the ship’s timbers every time they struck.

  ‘She’ll founder,’ someone yelled. ‘She’ll founder for sure.’

  ‘Avast that man,’ bellowed Mr Crombie, hurrying forward and fearing panic.

  ‘All hands stand by to wear ship,’ Captain Passmore shouted from the poop, using a speaking trumpet to make himself heard against the wind. ‘All hands to wear ship.’

  Which made sense; running downwind the anchor would more often be carried away from the ship than against it. But it was no guarantee it would not hit them at all, and any one of those massive blows could stove in a timber.

  ‘We’ll have to get a tackle on her,’ Mr Bird cried, also coming forward.

  Harry had already gone right into the bows, grasping a shroud with all his strength as a wave came over the bowsprit, to soak him to the skin. Quickly he sized up the situation. As was the usual custom, the anchor had not been taken inboard and stowed for the voyage, but instead had been catted, brought up to lie along the outside of the bow and secured there with stout lines. These lines had now parted, but the anchor warp itself, secured through a ring in the top of the stock, still held, with the result that the anchor had dropped straight down into the water and hung there, some six feet under the surface, being kicked against the hull with every surge of the waves. The next tremendous crash nearly threw him overboard.

  ‘She’ll hole,’ Crombie muttered, fighting his way forward to crouch beside him, and unconsciously echoing the fears of the sailor he had just commanded to shut up. ‘Christ, she’ll go down like a bucket in these seas. Fetch a knife up here. You’ll have to saw through that warp, McGann, and let her go altogether.’ Harry looked at him. Just to throw the anchor away was the height of bad seamanship. ‘We’ll get her up, Mr Crombie,’ he said. ‘Lines,’ Bowler was bellowing. ‘Bring lines.’ But dropping a line over those flukes, and even more, securing it so that it didn’t slide off, was going to be a difficult task in these seas, and more important, a lengthy one — while, as Crombie had said, the ship remained in imminent danger of being holed.

  Only time mattered. ‘Winch her up,’ he said.

  ‘Christ man, if she breaks the surface she’ll come through us like a battering ram,’ Crombie shouted. ‘’Tis only the sea slowing her down.’

  ‘Not all that much, Mr Crombie,’ Harry said. ‘Winch her up, and I’ll check her.’

  ‘You? That thing weighs two hundred pounds.’

  ‘Winch her up,’ Harry shouted a third time, and moved forward, out on to the bowsprit itself, legs wrapped round the stout spar with all of his strength, left hand twined in the free sheet for the storm jib, which was flicking and jumping like a live snake as the ship turned away from the wind, while now she was rolling scuppers under once again. But Crombie had a crew on the capstan, and the anchor was coming out of the water. Now it was swinging again, gathering speed, its flukes aiming at the bows as if directed by a harpooner. Harry slid his left hand down the sheet, lowering his body until it lay flat on the bowsprit, struck now by every wave in succession as they broke over the bows. His right he thrust down as the anchor warp was steadily winched inboard, until he could touch and then wrap his fingers around the ring in the top of the stock, through which the warp was secured. The anchor continued to swing to and fro, with increasing violence, now grazing the bows, preparing itself for a possible fatal blow; Harry inhaled and exerted all his strength, holding the ring and the stock as far forward as he could reach, so that the flukes swung harmlessly on their next gyration, missing the timbers of the bow by several inches.

  Crombie had also by now taken in the situation, and Harry’s intention. ‘Hold her, boy,’ he shouted. ‘Just hold her. Bowler, warps. We must cat her before he lets go.’

  ‘Aye-aye, sir,’ the boatswain cried, and now a chain of humanity was leaning over the bows, shuddering to each breaking wave, but passing a rope in which a bight, or noose, had been made, ready to throw over one of the flukes. The first attempt failed, and by now the enormous weight added to the angle at which he was having to hold his arms were causing rivers of pain to run up and down Harry’s muscles and into his shoulders, while equal pressure was being exerted on his leg and thigh muscles to prevent himself from being swept from the bowsprit by the constantly breaking waves. When the second cast of the bight also failed to hold he groaned in despair. But the third cast of the bight finally looped around a fluke, the noose was pulled tight, and the anchor was once again under control.
Harry relaxed his muscles with a conscious effort, and all but went overboard, but Crombie had anticipated that danger and another bight had been prepared to drop over his shoulders and drag him to safety.

  ‘Brave lad,’ Crombie said. ‘Oh, brave lad.’

  ‘Brave lad,’ said Josiah Bartlett. ‘Oh, brave lad.’ He shook Harry’s hand with all the vigour of their first meeting. At his elbow, Elizabeth gave him her best smile, which faded somewhat as he did not respond, and instead turned to the captain, to receive further congratulations.

  ‘You can ship with me any time, McGann,’ Passmore said.

  ‘I was but saving my life along with everyone else’s, sir,’ Harry said.

  ‘No man can ask more,’ Passmore agreed. ‘It was the strength of it. You have the power of four men in those shoulders, and a brain to direct them. I say again, McGann, there’s a berth on my ship for you, any time.’

  His shipmates were even more complimentary. It should have been possible to bask in their adulation, for the rest of the voyage. And why not? Had he not spent his entire life basking in the adulation of Tramore village?

  But for the first time he was understanding why. It was entirely because a freak of nature had created in him a monster. Had he been Sean O’Rourke, for example, while he might have known the only way to stop that anchor carving the ship into two, he would have lacked the strength to carry out his idea. And they would very probably have sunk, and none of them ever been heard of again.

  It was the strangest feeling of humility he had ever known, partly because he had hardly ever felt humble before, under any circumstances. And the feeling was immediately followed by another, even more damaging to his pride: was that all Elizabeth Bartlett saw, or wanted, in him? Supposing she truly wanted anything in him or of him or from him. But again, had he not been built like an ox, he could not have even contemplated stopping that runaway cart. Could she possibly see anything more?

  A strange thought, because, leaning as he was on the gunwale, well aft, and indeed almost in the shelter of the poop, where he was safe from the conversation of his shipmates, and with the storm only a memory and the wind once again from the east to bowl the Spirit of the West along, he almost thought he could smell her perfume.

  Almost. And was then smothered in it. She stood beside him.

  ‘Harry,’ she said. ‘Do you, then, hate me so much?’

  He stared at her in the darkness. It was one in the morning, and surely any one without business on deck had to be abed. Above him, too close, were those who did have business on deck; both Mr Crombie and the helmsman. And forward were his mates. Yet here she was, a vision of flowing white … nightdress? And flowing golden hair.

  ‘I have no business with you, Miss Bartlett,’ he said.

  ‘I think you have had business with me from the day we met,’ she said. ‘The day you saved my life. And ten days ago you repeated the performance.’

  ‘I also saved thirty-six other lives,’ he reminded her. ‘Including my own.’

  ‘And also including my own,’ she insisted. ‘That is what matters, at least to me.’

  ‘While in between times, as you no doubt observed, I have received a flogging.’

  ‘I did not observe,’ she said. ‘I fainted at the first stroke.’

  ‘I was not aware of it.’

  ‘You had other things on your mind.’

  ‘On my body.’

  She smiled. ‘That magnificent body.’

  ‘As you are well aware, madam.’

  ‘I must be the most fortunate woman in the world.’

  ‘And suppose I told you that I would wish to equal your fortune?’ he asked, amazed at his own temerity, but the nearness of her, and the suggestion in her conversation, was too much even for his resolve.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘If you wish it so badly, and as it cannot be less than your due … I think it might possibly be arranged. In New York,’ she added hastily, as he reached for her.

  He held her hands. ‘I have no certainty of being alive, when we reach New York,’ he told her, and took her in his arms.

  ‘No, Harry,’ she whispered. ‘It would not be right. Harry, I did not mean …’

  She was a woman. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen, certainly, but still a woman. And like just about every woman he had ever met, from Bridget O’More to Annie O’Rourke, she surely wanted to be in his arms, however she might choose to protest. He did not doubt that for a moment. As he wanted to hold her, and to love her. She was the reason he was here, and the reason for everything that had happened. She could be considered, at this moment, his only reason for living.

  ‘Harry,’ she gasped, as he kissed her mouth, searched her lips with his tongue, and found hers. ‘Harry, no …’ she moved her mouth. ‘Harry!’ Her voice rose as his hand slid inside her robe to caress her thigh and move up to her breasts; she wore a nightdress but the material was so thin he might have been touching her naked flesh. ‘Harry!’ she screamed in alarm.

  ‘What’s this?’ Crombie was sliding down the ladder from the poop, and from forward there came calls of inquiry. ‘By God, you vicious scoundrel! Assaulting Miss Bartlett, is it?’ Crombie shouted. ‘You’ll suffer for this, by God you will.’

  Harry was suddenly aware of being as angry as he had been that day outside Tramore. Angry with whom, or what? With a capricious fate which suddenly seemed to be turning his life inside out? But at this moment, with the girl, who was attempting to get free, kicking at his ankles and gasping in outrage — where but a moment before she had issued the plainest of invitations. And with the officer, and the spectre of another flogging looming above his head.

  ‘The devil take you all,’ he growled, and as Crombie reached for him, gave the officer a push. He did not exert his full strength, but it was certainly more than Crombie could cope with. He staggered back across the deck, tripped over his own feet, and fell heavily.

  ‘Mutiny!’ bawled the helmsman, looking down on the scene.

  ‘Mutiny!’ The cry was taken up. Elizabeth scrambled up the ladder to the safety of the poop, while Harry looked left and right at the men, his shipmates, who had come aft and were staring at him.

  Crombie sat up. ‘Arrest that man!’ he shouted.

  They hesitated. ‘He’ll likely break our heads,’ someone said.

  ‘You’ll not move a muscle, McGann,’ said Captain Passmore. ‘Or I’ll blow your head off.’

  He had come on deck armed with a blunderbuss, which he was now levelling at Harry.

  ‘Bless my soul!’ Josiah Bartlett had also come on deck. ‘What’s this, by God? What’s this?’

  ‘This scoundrel McGann appears to have criminally assaulted your daughter, Mr Bartlett,’ Passmore explained.

  ‘About to rape her, he was,’ Crombie said, getting up, and being joined by Mr Bird, who carried two pistols, one of which he pressed into Crombie’s hand. ‘And when I sought to interfere, he assaulted me. The man has taken leave of his senses.’

  ‘McGann?’ Josiah asked in bewilderment. ‘But … Lizzie, what are you doing on deck at two o’clock in the morning?’

  Elizabeth drew a sharp breath. ‘I … it was close in my cabin, and I sought fresh air.’ Liar, Harry thought. Oh, you lying bitch. She had sought him. There could be no doubt about that. She had pretended gratitude when all she had wanted was to play with his emotions, and laugh at him, and finally do him down. After he had saved her life, twice, as she had reminded him.

  But every life on board this ship was owed to him. So what could it matter what he might have done in the heat of the moment? They would all be dead, but for him. Yet he could not bring himself to remind them of that; it would sound too much like a whining plea for mercy.

  ‘And McGann assaulted you?’ Josiah was asking. ‘Bless my soul.’

  ‘There’s misplaced generosity for you, Mr Bartlett,’ Passmore said. ‘You befriended the lad when he needed help, and this is how he pays you back. Oh, there’s no understanding the Irish, an
d that’s a fact. Or trusting them, either.’Tis a pity, to. He has all the makings of a fine seaman.’

  Harry had got his breathing under control, and with it his temper. Now he must practice patience, because there was nothing he could do, with three firearms pointing at him, save take whatever was coming to him. And remember — to hate above all else.

  ‘What’s to be done with him?’ Bartlett asked. ‘What’s to be done. I’ve been sorely confounded by this rogue.’

  ‘A real flogging would set him up,’ Crombie growled.

  ‘No more floggings for him,’ Passmore declared. ‘Did you not see the lash bounce off his back the last time? As well tickle him with a feather duster. Besides, he struck you, Mr Crombie. He struck an officer. That’s mutiny. And it will be treated as such. No man can be allowed to get away with mutiny. Bo’sun, lock him in the brig. Put the irons on him. We’ll hand him over to the port authority in New York, and they can have the pleasure of hanging him.’

  CHAPTER 3 – New York and the West Indies, 1769

  The Spirit of the West rolled, slowly and evenly; Harry could hear the booms slamming to and fro above his head, while the timbers creaked, and the bilgewater, only inches beneath the grating on which he sat, slopped with a regular rhythm.

  He listened, too, to feet, clumping on the deck. Down here in the forward hold, beneath the forecastle, the space between decks was less than five feet, and even Bowler the boatswain had to bend double as he made his way through the nearly empty water casks and the depleted stores of salted meat. To check, while still six feet away from the prisoner; he was taking no chances, even if Harry’s wrists were shackled together, and one of his ankles was further secured to the grating itself.