by Hunter, Seth
Pym was seriously worried and proposed a pre-emptive strike against those he considered to be the ringleaders, but Nathan would not hear of it.
“It could provoke the very mutiny we fear,” he said, “and besides what would we do—hang them?”
It was clear from his expression that Pym did not consider this course of action beyond contemplation, but he relapsed into a critical silence. The two men were now scarcely on speaking terms and to Nathan’s regret most of the warrant officers seemed to have taken the first lieutenant’s part. Indeed the only men among the entire crew he felt he could count upon, in terms of personal loyalty, were Whiteley and McLeish; Maxwell and Lamb; his servant, Gabriel, of course; and surprisingly the Irishman Connor, who appeared to have formed an attachment to him and assumed the unofficial role of bodyguard.
And of course there was Desmarais, who continued to prove his worth.
The Unicorn, being a little way offshore, was not unduly troubled by mosquitoes and other biting or stinging insects but the first night ashore, the wounded suffered greatly and hearing McLeish’s complaints the guide proposed setting off inshore with a party of men to gather certain grasses or weeds that he assured the doctor would serve as a repellent either by being burned on a fire to make smoke or boiled up and mixed with tallow and then smeared on the exposed parts of the body. It stank to high heaven but McLeish said it seemed to work and more effectively than his own resources.
The guide also provided food for the pot, mostly fowl but supplemented by the occasional reptile. Several days after the storm the sea turtles had returned to their island in substantial numbers. The presence of humans did not seem to discourage them, despite the attentions of Desmarais, though he was selective, he said, in his execution. They had been coming here since the dawn of time and he did not wish to encourage a change of habitat, he informed Nathan earnestly. They were the chief reason, apparently, why the Biloxi—the first people—called it the Isle of Good Feasting.
McLeish said they were known in English as Loggerhead turtles adding—as a practical Scotsman as well as a naturalist—that they made an extremely nourishing soup. The first that Desmarais shot was almost four feet long and weighed over 800 pounds.
Fish, too, were plentiful. There was no shortage of rods and lines aboard the Unicorn and the men were detailed in parties and sent off on the rafts to the areas that Desmarais said would provide the best fishing. They mostly caught red snapper and grouper and once a swordfish. Crabs and shrimps were collected from the rocks—and oysters by the hundredweight.
This constant supply of fish and fowl, with the occasional reptile, probably kept the men from open rebellion more effectively than any employment that could be devised for them. Even so, Nathan put them to the lengthy task of dismantling the upper deck capstan and assembling it again on the shore on the grounds that it must be easier to haul the Unicorn off her berth without the considerable weight of her crew aboard. He also set them to dredging a channel beneath the stern of the vessel by the simple if painstaking process of lowering buckets from the rafts and dragging them along the bottom.
But as the days went by, with no word from Tully, they became increasingly agitated and Nathan braced himself for a confrontation. It was only a matter of time, he thought, before an order was openly disobeyed, or one of the petty officers abused, and then he would have to take action. The stockade, fortunately, was near completion and they had armed it with the carronades and four of the 6-pounders, pointing directly at the stricken vessel. But it would have broken Nathan’s heart. And he knew he would always be remembered for it. The captain who had fired upon his own ship. In the eyes of his peers that would be more damning than firing upon his own crew.
He continued to sleep in his stern cabin at nights, even after the marines had removed to the stockade, but with Gabriel at the other side of the door with a pair of loaded pistols and his own close beside.
After ten days of sunshine the weather took a turn for the worse, and though the wind did not reach anything like the force of a gale and the waves did not disturb them, they served as a grim warning without in any way dislodging the frigate from her position in the mud. Once again Pym urged Nathan to consider breaking the ship up and using the timbers and spars to construct a vessel capable of carrying them to the mainland or even Port Royal. It would give them something useful to do, he argued, and persuade them that they possessed the means of their own salvation, if only they maintained discipline.
But Nathan shook his head.
“Not until we have heard from Mr. Tully,” he said.
But he was at a loss to explain Tully’s continuing absence for it could not have taken more than a few days to make the journey to New Orleans and back in the gig and Nathan could not believe he would linger there without sending word. It was impossible not to fear that he had come to grief, perhaps by running into a party of rebels or hostile Indians. Indeed it was not impossible that New Orleans itself had fallen to the French faction.
When the storm abated Nathan determined to make one more attempt to haul the frigate off, this time using the capstan they had built on the shore.
It was no more successful than the last two.
But it was with a greater and more personal sense of defeat that Nathan finally called a halt to their efforts. He knew from the way the men turned away that there would be trouble.
It was not long in coming.
They waited until they were back on the ship and safe from any immediate interference from the marines. Then, before the scandalised gaze of Mr. Pym, three of the hands came aft and mounted the steps to the quarterdeck.
“That is all right, Mr. Pym,” Nathan restrained him. “I will speak with them in my cabin.”
They had removed their caps and their manner was respectful enough but Nathan saw the looks on the faces of their shipmates in the waist and knew they would not be satisfied with any common flannel. It was possible that Pym was right, he reflected, and there was no dealing with them at this stage save by punitive measures but if it came to a fight he needed to pick the right moment and on his own terms with the marines at his back. He prevented Pym from coming down below with him but took Gilbert Gabriel as reassurance.
“Please be seated,” he instructed them, gesturing towards the table in his day cabin with Des Barres’s chart still laid out upon it.
“Thankee, sir, but we would be happier standing, if it does not offend your honour.”
The speaker was diffident but firm—to his shame Nathan could not put a name to him but he recognised him as one of the foretopmen—a tall individual with bony features and a mop of tobacco-coloured curls, neither old nor young, and though he looked like a seaman he did not have quite the style of one in the King’s service, nor the lengthy tarred pigtail that accompanied it. A sea lawyer? Nathan tried to summon up his memory of the man’s name and background; it was there somewhere if only he could recall it.
“As you wish,” he said, “but I will sit if you do not mind.”
He took his place at the table with Gabriel glowering in the background close by the door. He did not have his pistols in his belt but Nathan knew they would not be far away. His own were in the drawer under the table, and loaded.
“So what can I do for you?”
They were naturally uneasy—who would not be with the Angel Gabriel at his back—but the spokesman answered briskly enough and it suddenly came to Nathan who he was. Ringmer, or Ringwood, a Hampshire man, a former merchant seaman taken from a homeward-bound Indiaman shortly after the Unicorn had sailed from Spithead and possibly disposed to resent it.
“ With respect, sir, the hands are of the opinion that the ship ain’t never coming off of this and that we ought to think about using her timbers to make another, the like of a cutter as it were.” He flushed at mention of this vessel with all its connotations. “We mean no disrespect, sir, but we reckons we’ll be stuck here forever else.”
“I appreciate your concern—Ringmer, i
s it not?”
He nodded, frowning; he would not like it that Nathan had put a name to him.
“And I appreciate that we have not had a chance to get to know each other better, before the business with the Frenchman laid us aback but you will understand that it is difficult for a captain to appear to take orders from the crew.”
“ We mean to give no orders, sir.”
The others nodded vigorously.
“I know. But you see how it might look. And other captains might be disposed to resent it. And their lordships, too, were they to hear of it. However, I am prepared to take this in the nature of a friendly discussion among men who are, as it were, in the same boat, ha ha.”
They did not laugh but one of them nodded gratefully. The other two merely looked dogged.
“You know I have sent to New Orleans for assistance,” Nathan added, in a different tone, as if to take them into his confidence. “And have every expectation of its arriving within the next day or two.”
“I’m sorry to say it, sir, but it seems to us that the gig has mislaid itself, as it were, else why have they not returned?”
“I cannot tell you that but I am persuaded we must be patient a while longer. For the sake of the ship. She is practically new out the stocks. Do you not think we owe it to her and to the country to preserve her if we can?”
An uncomfortable shuffling silence.
“Well … ?”
“In point of fact, sir, she has always been something of an unlucky ship,” said Ringmer. The others nodded energetically.
“Everyone knows she is cursed, sir,” said one, “and has been since she left Chatham.”
“You may not know it, sir, as it was before your time, but there was a skeleton found.”
“Of a little child.”
“I know all about that,” replied Nathan sharply. “Do you think I have not read the captain’s log?”
“And the missing head, sir?”
“And the missing head,” Nathan confirmed. But he could not leave it there and besides he perceived a small opening. “Does it truly disturb the men?”
“Aye, sir, it does that. It disturbs them sorely. There’s them that’s seen it.”
Ringmer turned on the speaker sharply.
“Stow that, Jacob Maplin, we don’t want none of your old wives’ tales.”
“Even so,” the fellow persisted stubbornly, “there are them that reckon it be the cause of all our troubles and should be laid to rest one way or t’other. As is only right. An’ if it don’t get laid to rest it will find some way of laying itself to rest, like, and take the rest of us with it.”
“You mean it should be buried?” offered Nathan.
“Aye, sir, to join the rest of it, so to speak. That we buried during the passage from England.”
“ We did not come here to discuss this,” snapped Ringmer with a glare at his companion.
“Nevertheless it is a valid point,” agreed Nathan. “But I cannot see that the curse, if such it is, will be lifted if we were to leave the remains in the hull. Rather would it pursue us wherever we sailed and in whatever vessel, resolved to punish us for our iniquity in deserting it.”
“If we were to break the ship up,” proposed Ringmer cunningly, “maybe then we would find it.”
“You would like to find it? And give it a decent burial?” A couple of nods.
“ Very well. I will initiate another search.”
“ We have searched already.”
“Not with the ship stable and with no other priority. We will search the hull from top to bottom. We will pump the bilges clean and disinfect her while we are about it. And I dare say we will find it and have the cleanest, sweetest smelling ship that ever sailed into Port Royal at the end of it.”
Ringmer looked decidedly displeased but Nathan reckoned it would confuse the issue for a day or two.
As soon as they had gone he had himself poled ashore to warn McGregor and Whiteley to be on their guard. Then he went to see McLeish.
“We need a skull,” he told him. “A child’s skull.” He told him why.
“One of the ship’s boys died last night,” McLeish mentioned thoughtfully. “He lost both legs and gangrene set in. He has not been buried yet. I suppose we could boil the head and leave it out in the sun for a few hours for the ants to clean up.”
Nathan stared at him in horror.
“Good God,” he exclaimed. “Is this your idea of a joke?”
“On the contrary, I am entirely practical. The boy has died. We can cause him no more pain. He is food for the ants whether you like it or not. He might as well do us some small service while he is about it.”
“It is unthinkable,” Nathan declared, shaking his head.
“Unthinkable is it now?” McLeish observed him curiously. “How is it that you can contemplate flogging a man, a living man, or hanging him or cutting him in half with a cannonball, but you cannot bring yourself to condone a simple chemical process performed upon a poor unfortunate who cannot feel a thing? And by so doing, satisfy the greater good?”
“I do not know how it is,” replied Nathan curtly. “I only know that I can never approve such barbarous practice. We are not in Edinburgh.”
“ Well, I do not know what else you are to do.”
“There is that skull in your cabin,” Nathan reminded him. “Your monkey.”
“My monkey?”
“That bears a striking resemblance to the skull of a human child.”
“I take it you mean the infant orang-utan. From Sumatra.”
“I stand corrected. But it would answer perfectly.”
“Answer what?”
“I told you, to place in an obscure part of the hull so that some member of the crew might find it.”
“You would contemplate such a gross deception?”
“You seemed to find it perfectly acceptable if we were to use the skull of your recently deceased ship’s boy, boiled in vinegar and fed to the ants.”
McLeish considered. “And you would bury it—the head of an orang-utan—in the pretence that it is the head of a human child and pronounce the Christian burial service over it, from The Book of Common Prayer, in the full knowledge that it is the head of a beast?”
“In the interests of saving the ship, I would. And if you are concerned for your loss, when we are done you may dig it up and restore it to your collection.”
“I am astounded. I am deprived of speech.”
They began the search at first light. Each division took a quarter of the ship and Nathan offered a sovereign to whoever found the object.
It occupied them for most of the forenoon.
Then when it was almost time to pipe the hands to dinner a solemn procession came aft led by one of the older seamen bearing the pride of the doctor’s collection in both hands as if it were a birthday cake. His name was Jennings, Tully informed him, sailmaker’s mate.
“Well done, Jennings,” Nathan congratulated him, taking the skull off him before anyone else could get a look at it in the clear light of day and signalling Gilbert to give him the reward as a distraction. “Where did you find it?”
“In the sailmaker’s stores, sir,” said the fellow in an awed tone, “under a pile of old canvas. It had been there all this time and none of us never knowing of it.”
“ Well, well, and you can see the teeth marks of the rats, I fancy, in the bone.” Nathan bore it away before they could get a closer look.
They buried it with all due ceremony close to the trench where they had lain those slaughtered in battle, a carved wooden cross announcing that here lay the mortal remains of John English of Chatham, Kent, died 1794 and Nathan read the same solemn words as for the others; but this time, except in some notable cases, the hands evinced every sign of satisfaction.
Nathan studiously avoided McLeish’s eye as they returned to the ship for dinner. They had barely stepped aboard when they heard the shout of “Sail ho!” from the lookout in the bows.
Bu
t it was not a sail. It was a fleet.
CHAPTER 15
The Price of Freedom
THE LION IS COME,” declared the Baron de Carondelet from the prow of the leading gunboat, sweeping off his hat with a theatrical flourish, “the Unicorn to save.”
The reference was obscure but Nathan expressed his heartfelt thanks.
“I could do no less after the service you have given to His Most Catholic Majesty,” the Governor assured him. “And see, I have brought you my little fleet.”
Riding on their oars in the channel between the stranded frigate and Turtle Island were four slim galleys each with a 32-pounder in the bow followed by about a score of pirogues and other craft. Each of them loaded to the gunwales with men.
“Only tell us how we may be of assistance,” the Governor proposed, “and it shall be done.”
“Perhaps your Excellency would care to come aboard,” Nathan invited him, “and we will discuss the problem in more comfort.”
“Comfort?” Carondelet repeated archly, raising his equine countenance to view the stricken vessel. Had he possessed a lorgnette Nathan was persuaded he would have used it. “Is it safe?”
“Perfectly safe,” Nathan assured him. “It is as steady as a rock and as incapable of movement.”
Tully came aboard ahead of him.
“I am sorry we could not be here sooner,” he told Nathan. “But His Excellency was away from New Orleans and they told me nothing could be done in his absence. I found him at the mouth of the river, fighting the French.”
Nathan raised a brow.
“Cajuns?”
“And French marines that had been landed earlier—by the Virginie”
Further discussion of this encounter was prevented by the arrival of the governor and his entourage, which included their old acquaintance of the swamp, Antonio de Escavar, in rather more finery and considerably better spirit than when Nathan had last seen him. Indeed, all the Spaniards appeared mightily pleased with themselves.