Paladin's War

by Peter Greene

  “Mister Fawcett! Come to starboard. The cove is four points off the bow. Take us in as close as you dare. Quinn! Alexander! Anything?”

  “No, sir,” came their responses.

  “Captain…” began Jonathan.

  “Yes, Mister Moore,” the commander replied, still watching the shore.

  “We are early. I would think we want to avoid coming into the cove before our time,” said Jonathan. “The orders were explicit.”

  “Noted, Jonathan. I don’t think going in for a closer look will hurt a thing. I want to make sure that this cove has some room to maneuver.”

  “What of the contact?” asked Jonathan. “If he sees us, might he be scared off?”

  “I did think of that, Jonathan,” Harrison said, “but consider this: if our contact is there, watching, he may see us sail slowly by. He could get prepared. We can then return at the exact time and finish this business quickly. That is if the cove is to my liking.”

  “What if it isn’t to your liking?” asked Jonathan, worried.

  “You will see soon enough. Get the men to reduce all sail save the main foremast. Keep them in the tops. I might want to leave in a hurry.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jonathan replied, and he rushed to perform his duty.

  At the stern, the marines looked hard out to sea. There was still a small glimmer of light on the horizon; however, the sun was setting fast. Indeed, they had all thought they had seen something—possibly a sail—but they couldn’t be sure.

  “Seany,” said Hudson. “Hicks and I will keep an eye out. You call to the crow’s nest and see if Quinn has a better angle, eh?”

  “Should we alert Captain Harrison?”

  “Let’s be sure first. He’s slightly jumpy as it is.”

  With that, Sean moved quickly to the mainmast and called up to Lieutenant Quinn.

  “Lieutenant! Sir! Do you see anything directly astern?”

  Sean could see Quinn leaning over the edge of the crow’s nest, examining the shoreline though his glass. He immediately turned his gaze south. After a moment he stared down to Sean, shaking his head.

  “Some whitecaps, no more,” he said.

  “We thought we saw a sail, but couldn’t—”

  “I said nothing to be seen, Flagon,” snapped Quinn.

  His tone was out of place, thought Sean. He eyed the lieutenant questioningly and then nodded his head.

  “Aye, sir!” said Sean, and he returned to his post, though not before another quick glance upward. Quinn was once again looking at the shoreline.

  Sean returned to the stern, visibly upset as he held his breath, then let it out noisily.

  “What’d he say?” asked Hicks.

  “It’s what he didn’t say. He was looking to the shore, not all about,” said Sean. “Isn’t he supposed to be watching all points?”

  “He is,” said Hudson. “All points being everywhere not to shore.”

  Hudson knew that Quinn was being negligent in his duty, and though quite a breach of protocol for a marine sergeant to question the actions of a full lieutenant, he felt a responsibility to take action.

  “As you were, boys. I will report to Captain Harrison.”

  As he walked away, Sean and Hicks looked at each other, worried.

  “Oh my,” was all they could say, knowing that this would cause a firm disagreement between Hudson and Quinn. And more than likely it would be Hudson getting the short stick.

  The Paladin was now approaching the cove. Harrison was almost leaning over the bow anchor, glass to his eyes, peering inward. What he saw was not to his liking. The cove was small, only three hundred feet long and maybe fifty wide; the cliff walls seemed over one hundred feet high.

  Jonathan returned and stood at attention next to Harrison. He cleared his throat.

  “Ahem,” he began.

  “Report,” said Harrison.

  “The sail is reduced. Men in the tops awaiting commands. Alexander has men at the guns.”

  “Good. Good,” said Harrison.

  “What do you think?” Jonathan asked.

  “Well, I’ll tell you one thing. I’d be a fool to go in there,” said Harrison as he closed his glass and moved quickly aft. “Mister Fawcett!”

  “Aye, sir?”

  “Bring us about and head back to Telašćica. We’ll anchor off the bay there! Jonathan, have the men add all sail on the mainmast. We are leaving!”

  “Harrison?” asked Jonathan.

  “Commander Harrison, Mister Moore! Now let’s attend to our duty!” Harrison called.

  “But Harrison! The mission says that we are to—”

  “Midshipman Moore!”

  “Commander, begging your pardon. But we have an appointment to keep!”

  “Jonathan!” Harrison yelled. Then, composing himself, he leaned in close to his friend and with a firm voice said softly, “First, how dare you question my order? Friends or not, I am the captain of this ship and responsible for the crew and His Majesty’s vessel.”

  “I understand that, Captain, however—”

  “And secondly!” Harrison continued, loudly, “Orders or no, this mission and all its inanity has been a comedy of errors from the start! If our contact is worth his salt, he will return to Telašćica and contact us there. Now, carry out my order!”

  “Captain Harrison!” It was Hudson.

  “What is it!?” snapped Harrison, expecting another officer questioning his intentions.

  “Sir, pardon the intrusion,” said Hudson, taken aback at the sudden outburst. “I think we are being followed. Thought we saw a sail directly aft—”

  “Quinn! For all the sakes of the sinners!” called Harrison, looking up at the crow’s nest. “Do you see a ship directly aft?”

  As they looked upward, Harrison saw Quinn spin around and point his glass due south. After a moment, Quinn lowered his piece and leaned over the side of the basket.

  “Nothing there, sir!” he called.

  Harrison looked to Hudson for an explanation.

  “Sir, I saw it, Hicks saw it—”

  “Hicks? He can barely tie a sailor’s breastplate let alone—”

  “—and Flagon saw it,” continued Hudson. “Beggin’ your pardon. Sir.”

  “Follow me, the both of you!” said Harrison angrily. He continued to mutter and swear, mostly to himself, as he stomped aft. Once at the stern, he raised his glass and peered to the horizon.

  “Still directly aft, sir,” said Sean. “Hull is down, but sails are clear. As we were going slower now, they are having a hard time staying back.”

  Harrison saw, without a doubt, two tall masts with sails being taken in, the ship’s hull barely visible from this distance. She was as clear as a bell, being silhouetted by the setting sun.

  “Son of a gun! Can I get a crew who will do their duty?” he shouted. “Thank you, Sergeant Hudson. Get Flagon up to the crow’s nest and send down Quinn before I go up there and throw him down! Moore, I want that sail let out immediately! And do not question me again! Fawcett! We are heading straight for those sails!”

  “Yes, sir!” came the collective call.

  Harrison returned to the wheel, steaming. As the Paladin came about and headed swiftly south, it was clear that the sighted ship was, again, the Echo, and she had now completed a turn to port and was fleeing.

  The chase lasted nearly two hours. The evening descended, casting a dark canvas about the coast. Rain began to fall lightly as the lantern glow of Telašćica became all but invisible. With no moon to guide their way, the crew of the Paladin could only see the faintest details of the sea about them. The foremast still being unable to support additional sail made the chase fruitless. The Echo had escaped.

  “Jenkins, reduce all sail on the foremast and give it a rest. Mister Fawcett? Take us back to Telašćica, just outside of the deep bay, and set our bow to the southwest. Alexander, prepare to drop both anchors. I want men sleeping on their guns. Moore, set a rotation on all points. Notify me immediately
if there is anything that remotely resembles a sail.”

  “Yes, sir,” came the replies as the officers ran to perform their duty.

  “And my duty?” asked Quinn.

  Though almost impossible to detect color with such little light, those standing about would swear that the captain’s face turned a devilish red as he responded to the lieutenant with a colorful string of similes, metaphors, allegories, expletives, and vulgar representations that boomed as loud as a sixteen-pounder. Only at the end of the performance did Harrison clearly use English when he finished with:

  “In my cabin! Immediately!”

  The Paladin sailed southeast eight miles to Telašćica. As ordered, Fawcett positioned the ship between the few islands guarding the entrance to the large bay and pointed the bow southwest. Both anchors were deployed and secured, holding the ship in position.

  Alexander and Jonathan inspected the guns and set teams of three, according to watches, to each until further notice. Jenkins had the men in the tops remain at station. Deckhands manned the lines and hauled the sail to the yards, where the topmen gathered sail and used their gaskets—short pieces of rope—to secure the fabric to the yard. Those not on watch slept nearby, as best they could, on the deck and wrapped in what blankets they had to keep out the drizzling rain. The officers reminded the men belowdecks that, as a precaution, they were to sleep near the hatchways, as the captain would call at any sign of trouble.

  Jonathan could see that the men were both restless and unhappy with the situation on deck. After all, he thought, they had been working extra watches since the gun accident—again his fault, and again, his pang of guilt—and they were now sleeping on the hard deck instead of their hammocks. Maybe he would check on them.

  “What is going on?” asked Colin Stredney as Jonathan came by. “Seems a lot of bother over seeing the Echo.”

  “Captain Harrison feels that something is out of sorts here,” said Jonathan. “No reason for the Echo to run, is there?”

  “No, sir,” came a chorus of men who were listening nearby.

  “The commander has the ship and your well-being in the front of his mind,” added Jonathan, “and in that order!”

  This caused the men to laugh.

  “She is a beautiful lady,” said Graham. “He will have a plan to keep us both!”

  “We will know soon enough,” added Jonathan. “Stay alert, men.”

  Jonathan continued his tour of the main deck, checking ropes, double-checking hatches, though mostly reassuring the crew that all was being addressed. At the stern he found Hudson, Hicks, and Sean. Each had stayed at their post, each scanning the sea ahead and to their sides.

  “Jonny boy,” said Sean, “a little mystery we have here, don’t we?”

  “A mystery that you three are still on deck. Isn’t your watch over?”

  “It is,” said Hudson.

  “But we got reason ta stay on,” said Hicks. “Seein’ as thar’s something afoot, well, ’oo could sleep anyway?”

  “And, seeing that Captain Harrison is breathing fire at Lieutenant Quinn, well, it’s only a matter of time before we all get called in for our share,” added Hudson.

  “You saw something, obviously the Echo, and reported it,” stated Jonathan matter-of-factly.

  “Aye, we did,” said Sean, still gazing outward into the night.

  “Then you did your duty,” said Jonathan.

  “But Lieutenant Quinn didn’t do his,” said Hudson, “and I was the one who ratted on him, Mister Moore. I have made an enemy tonight.”

  They all thought about the ramifications of what had happened. Quinn was supposed to be looking all about. He had missed something that three other crew members saw clearly, and they had a less-than-advantageous viewpoint. Quinn, in the crow’s nest, should have seen the Echo clearly, and long before.

  “What was he doing up there?” asked Jonathan.

  “He was looking at the shoreline,” answered Hudson after a short pause.

  “The ’ol’ time,” added Hicks quickly.

  Jonathan wondered what it could be that made Quinn look to the shore instead of out to sea where a threat could be. Did it have something to do with their shared secret orders?

  “Harrison had told him specifically to watch for approaching ships,” said Jonathan softly.

  “Well, Jonny boy. Not too many ships are settin’ on land, waitin’ to attack us. He was looking for somethin’ else I’ll wager,” said Sean.

  “But what?” asked Jonathan.

  In Harrison’s cabin, a nervous Lieutenant Quinn stood before the commander and Lieutenant Alexander. Jonathan was summoned at the halfway point to also attend, though he positioned himself near the door, as far from Harrison as he could physically stand yet still be considered in attendance. He knew that there would be a few words for him specifically, having doubted Harrison’s orders and questioned his plan.

  The tirade aimed at Quinn was all but over, and the lieutenant looked visibly shaken. Harrison now actually took a moment to catch his breath.

  “It is simply this,” said Harrison in conclusion. “I expect my orders to be followed to the letter. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” answered Quinn meekly.

  “Now that we have that issue exhausted, let me move to one more. What in heaven’s name were you looking at onshore?”

  Quinn looked up from the floorboards he had been staring at and seemed at a loss for words.

  “Quinn?” asked Harrison again.

  “Sir, I—” stammered Quinn. “I simply found it irresistible to not look for the cove, sir. I-it was like a puzzle, and—again, so sorry.”

  Harrison contemplated this. Quinn was an odd one, which was surely the case. But Harrison had met many odd fellows in His Majesty’s Navy. There were several on every ship, and some were downright lunatic. Steward, for example, aboard the Poseidon and the Danielle, was regarded by many to be a good egg and able crewman, but the word odd didn’t even begin to describe him. Hicks was also unusual. Some would even consider him as strange and base as an American—it was only his cockney accent that saved him from being run out of the corps.

  Harrison decided that Quinn, as strange as he was, just needed more seasoning. He would be assigned light duty. Jonathan would have to step into a larger role. But now, even that seemed too much to ask. As Harrison’s gaze now turned to the midshipman, he saw a young man who, for some reason, was slightly off his game. Maybe it was the new crew or the smaller ship, but Jonathan had not performed as he was certainly capable. It was not just the incident at the bow chaser, it was his questioning of orders that was completely out of sorts, not something Jonathan Moore would do. Was he fading? Was he at the end of his potential? No, it could not be that. It had to be something more. This was the boy—a boy!—who had foiled a French captain and found a treasure; had succeeded in cutting out his first prize, the recaptured Drake; and had rekindled the Castle of Fire, turning the tide of a major battle against a superior French force. Of course, not everyone can lay golden eggs every day, Harrison reasoned. He will find his footing again, he thought.

  “On to the more important matters,” Harrison continued. “Does anyone wish to tell me why the Echo is stalking us?”

  “I have given that some thought, Captain,” said Alexander. He sipped some coffee and nibbled on a piece of egg that Berkeley had put into a cheesed roll. “After seeing the previous behavior of Captain Andrews, it can only be utter incompetence.”

  “Pardon me, sir,” said Quinn softly. “I agree.”

  “Jonathan?” asked Harrison.

  “It could have something to do with the treaty,” Jonathan said. “It is an important mission, and possibly, he was sent by the Admiralty to make sure we do our duty.”

  They all considered this.

  “With the last-minute change of orders, that could make sense,” added Quinn. “Maybe that explains his odd behavior. He was told to watch us, to make sure we succeeded, but not to tell us.” />
  “Why that part?” asked Alexander. “Why not send us both together? And why lie to us when we asked about their orders?”

  “Andrews could have been told to watch and report. Not to interfere,” said Jonathan. “Not to insult us by saying he was sent to keep an eye out.”

  “That sounds as plausible as it does preposterous,” laughed Harrison.

  “It is the Admiralty, sir,” suggested Alexander.

  That sent all, even Quinn, into laughter.

  A knock came at the door.

  “Beggin’ yer pardon, sir,” said Jenkins as he saluted the men inside.

  “Jenkins?” asked Harrison.

  “Sir, you might hear some gunfire from the deck,”

  “Oh? Why is that?” asked the commander.

  “The marines, Flagon in particular, are drilling,” said Jenkins.

  “Then you best take cover in here,” said Harrison, laughing. “Have a treat then, plenty here!”

  All laughed as Jenkins gladly accepted one of the small cakes still remaining.

  “Now, onward. Regardless of the buffoonery of the Echo and Commander Andrews, we must complete this mission,” added Harrison.

  “I am sure the treaty is dearly important; otherwise, why would the king himself be so interested in its success?” asked Jonathan as he took the last remaining cake.

  The room fell into silence.

  “What did you say?” asked Harrison. “How do you know the king is concerned?”

  Jonathan’s stomach sank. How could he be so foolish? He could not tell Harrison about his meeting with Lord Wilder and Captain Spears at the pier. He was sworn to secrecy. Another gaff! he thought, but I have no choice. I must come clean.

  Just as he was about to answer, Quinn spoke up.

  “I was told the package I carried came from the king. I must have mentioned it to Mister Moore.”

  Harrison thought about this and could only shake his head.

  “Is there anything else anyone knows about this mission that I do not? Speak now. Jonathan?”

  His heart was beating wildly, his face was red, and he feared that Harrison knew he was lying. In a quick glance, he could see that Jenkins was staring at him. He certainly knew that Jonathan was hiding something.