by Smith, Skye
"I may have gotten it out, but I'm not sure,” he told his friend after the man had once again caught his breath and his composure. "If nothing else I have cleaned it so well that it will try to heal over again, but we won't know for a few days whether the blood poisoning will start up again.” He motioned the barber to come closer. "This moldy bread is good for drawing out poisons. You place it on the wound with the mold down, and then cover it with a light bandage to keep it in place."
"You would think the mold would make the poisoning worse,” the barber observed.
"I don't know how it works, I just know that it does,” Daniel replied. "The women of my village swear by it, and they know far more about healing than I ever will."
"So you've saved the leg for now, but I will be needed again in a few days,” the barber said as he packed up his grisly tools.
Daniel feared that the barber may be right. He bent down and poked about on the floor under the bloody stool looking for anything that may have been flushed from the wound. There was nothing solid. Certainly nothing with threads. Damn it.
* * * * *
"Ahoy, aboard the Alice, may I come aboard?” Daniel called out to the small ship tied up to the dock at the end of the estuary closest to Chichester. The ship looked deserted, battened down, and locked up. The crew must all be ashore staying warm, or at least, trying to stay warm.
A hatch opened in bow end of the roof-come-deck of the one long cabin. The Alice was the earliest of Daniel's conversions of a small North Sea trading ship from square sail with many oar positions, to triangle sails with few oars; from square rigged to Bermudan rigged. During the conversion it had ceased to be an open ship, for most of the cargo space was now inside the one long cabin. "Who's askin'?” came the answer to his hail.
"Daniel Vanderus of Wellenhay, a friend of Robert Blake. Who is in charge of the Alice?” The Alice had been named the Freisburn Two when they first converted it, but once given to Robert, he had renamed it after his little sister Alice. Little Alice was no longer so little. She was now the wife of a Cheapside goldsmith and was mother of two.
"Danny you beauty,” came the voice. "Come aboard. I'll be right out. D'ya have a flask with thee? We ran out of aqua vitae a week back."
"Leslie Scudds, is that you?” Daniel asked. Leslie was a Dorset man from Lyme, a seasoned sailor who had crewed for he and Blake on their journey to the New World.
"Me and nobody else,” the old salt said as he came through the cabin door and then straightened up to his full height. "The crew went into town to drink some ale, grope some wenches, and sleep in a real bed for a change."
"Is the Alice fit to sail?"
"Aye, she be that. So the cap'ns feelin' better then. Is it back to Devon for us?"
"Is she fit to fight the currents through the Straits of Dover and the waves of the North Sea? The cap'n needs proper medical help, and the closest place I know of is my village in the Fens."
"Aye, the ship'll make it to Wellenhay, but I'm not so sure about the crew. They'll be at the Anchor and nowhere else. Do yee know the place?"
Daniel did know the place. It was the most disreputable flophouse in all Chichester, and therefore the chosen place for seafarers to meet and calmly and quietly discuss the business of ships. He strode back down the dock to his horse and then rode to the Anchor and left the horse under the paid and watchful eye of a street urchin. The fifty steps to the Anchor was a gauntlet of women of easy morals and vendors of easy food and the sailors who were crowded around them and bidding up the price of a chance to catch the French Pox or the mollycoddles.
The doorman swung the door open for him, and he waited outside a moment while a thick billow of tobacco smoke poured out of the opening. Inside it was surprisingly bright considering the gloom of the late afternoon. He supposed so much light was from all of the ships lanterns stolen from boats and traded for drink or for lodging. He scanned the main room for a familiar face, but that proved impossible because of the constant movement and the glare of bright lights on thick smoke. Eventually he paid the bar keep a penny to ring his bell and get the attention of the crowd.
"There's a gent here a lookin' fer the crew of the Alice,” the keep bellowed out. "The Alice. Anyone frum the Alice."
A lad he didn't recognize prodded him in the back. "I'm from the Alice. What's it to ya?"
"Gather the crew, all of the crew, and meet me outside,” Daniel told him. "We need to rescue Blake."
* * * * *
* * * * *
The Pistoleer - Invasion by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-15
Chapter 13 - Rushing Blake to Wellenhay in January 1643
The night was quiet when the cart drew up to the rear door of the bishop's palace. To the guard's questions, Daniel simply answered with the truth that they were here to pick up the poorly Captain Blake and take him back to his ship. The guards recognized Waller's skirmisher captain and stood aside. They watched as the crew trooped in, and again when they trooped out carrying Blake. They had brought a feather mattress with them and by lifting the mattress up by the four corners they were moving the injured man.
While the crew were lifting the occupied mattress into the back of the cart, Daniel slipped into the kitchen and got a lad who was busy stirring tomorrows cauldron of soup to find him a pot of vinegar and some moldy bread. "Yes, moldy, blue mold,” he had to say again. They eventually rescued some from the waste pile and the evening rats. With his medicines in hand he made his way to the cart and then stepped up to sit beside the carter and then they were away into the night.
"Why all the cloak and dagger?” Leslie asked.
"Two reasons. The admiral would not be wanting your captain to leave, right when they were planning an operation that was all his idea."
"That's only one."
"With your captain poorly, the admiral would not be wanting me to leave, because I would be his first choice to replace a poorly Blake in running the operation."
"Fair'n'uff. So I suppose that means that we ain't waitin' round once we get aboard the Alice."
"If the seas are rough we'll spend the night at the mouth of the estuary. If they are calm, we'll sail for Dover at once."
One of the more ale-headed crew snuck a piece of bread from a sack of bits, chewed it and then spat it out. "Bloody bread is moldy. Ugh, spit, spit, ugh, I've poisoned myself. Pass me that pot of wine,” and he grabbed it up and took a large swig of vinegar, and the spitting and retching began again. Those antics kept the men in high spirits for most of the way to the dock.
Once they were all aboard, and Blake had been made comfortable amidships in the one long cabin, Daniel passed a letter to the carter to be delivered to the admiral. "It's an important message, so expect a shilling for delivering it,” he told the carter to make sure that Warwick and Waller would read it as soon as they awoke. In truth, all it said was that he was on his way home to the Fens, and that he had taken Blake with him to have his leg seen to. They would be furious at the news so the chances of the carter collecting a shilling were somewhere between nothing and nowt.
There was a steady southwest wind, the sailor's friend, so they did not linger in the mouth of the estuary, but headed out to sea. Further out the chop turned into swells, so this wind had been blowing for a while, and would blow a while still. Even if the Alice had still been square rigged, she would have ploughed along before this wind at about the same speed she was making with her Bermuda rig. If they could keep up this pace they would be in Wellenhay in three days. Three whole days. Long enough for Blake to die if the poison was already in his blood.
As soon as they were out of the estuary and into cold clear sea water, Daniel dipped a cooking pot full of it to use to keep Blake's wound bathed. He had vinegar for cleansing the wound and clear seawater for bathing it and keeping it clean, and moldy bread as a drawing poultice, but that was all he had. If he was forced to cut off Blake's leg he would have to make do with the ships tools cleansed in vinegar. He shuddered at the thought. On th
e battlefields of Flanders he had once saved a Scotsman's life by cutting off his crushed leg. That man still lived as a successful gunsmith in Rotterdam, but it was not an experience that Daniel ever wanted to relive.
He and the five crew drew straws to assign the watches, two men per four hour watch. With Blake down, the crew elected him commander and navigator, but it was not like he had to give orders. The crew well knew the little ship and its unusual rig, and they had all sailed this coastline before. Before going to sleep, Daniel searched for and found Blake's rudder log and charts. With them he would never be lost along this coast because all the landmarks, points, and harbours were marked and described.
A full day later, but ahead of when they expected, they made the turn around Dungeness Head and made for the Straits of Dover. The up-down movement of the hull over the swells now became a side-on wallow rocking. It was a good thing that the crew had sobered up, for the wallow was the very movement that caused sea sickness. Now their Bermuda rig proved its worth. With a square rig in this side-on wind, they would have slowed to a crawl and the wallowing would not only have been worse but would have slowed them even more. With the triangle sails, however, they trimmed them for speed and the Alice leaped forward faster than it had been running in front of the wind.
This was the best part of sailing such a nimble craft and all the men stayed topside, even those coming off a cold four hour watch, because they wanted to be a part of the speed and the feeling that the ship was becoming a living creature. They raced across the wind with the rudder held taught and the curve of the sails held taught, while surfing along the crests of the swells until the crest ran out, and then diving between swells to climb to the crest of the next one and surfing along the crest again. Whether from the wind pressing against their cheeks, or from the sheer exhilaration of feeling such speed and such power, the men all wore wide grins.
This ship was the original conversion so it still had the small aft cabin which created the aft castle. In weather such as this, they had removed the normal tiller, where the tillerman stood on the castle, and replaced it with a low slung longer tiller so the tiller man could stand in the rowing well between the fore and aft cabins with the rest of the crew. Men could gather here in this well in the lee of the gunnels and the cabin wall and be saved from most of the wind and spray. From the well they could control the rudder and the main sheets, so rarely did they ever have to venture forward on the deck above the cabin, which was risky in bad weather.
There were few other ships to be seen, and certainly none as small as the Alice, but the Alice overhauled and passed all on the same course as her, and did so as if the others were standing still. There were many tricks to racing along so quickly under sail, but the main one was to never let go of the tiller, and to never heave on the tiller with as much force as you wanted to. If you lost the tiller, you lost rudder control, and if you lost rudder control while riding along the crests the ship would dive off the crest and slam into the following wave. If you lost control while in the wallow between waves you would turn into the swell you just descended, and the wave could break over you.
Though the excitement of the speed raced through their veins, on this course it took all of your concentration to work the watch. That was the real reason that the other watches were staying out in the well in the weather rather than crawling under their blankets in the warm, dry cabin. Everyone took turns on the tiller, just to share in the hands on excitement.
By the time they reached The Downs to the north of Dover, the angle of the wind had changed again, and so had the waves. No longer were these the long swells of the Channel, but the choppy seas of the Strait. It was too wild out in deep water beyond the long bars of the Goodwin Sands so they hugged the shore to pass Deal, and thus were in the lee of the cliffs and lost some of the wind, and therefore some of their speed.
There were a number of navy ships anchored near Deal, which did not surprise Daniel since he had heard that the great cannon fortress at Deal had finally surrendered to the Earl Admiral back in September and that the captaincy of the fortress had been given by Warwick to his trusted Vice-Admiral William Batten. This meant that the protected waters of The Downs were again a main mustering point for navy squadrons, and the Port of Deal was again busy. He decided to put into Deal and run alongside the navy ships and see if they would share any weather news with him about the coast north of the Thames, or even the latest news about the Dunkirker privateers that patrolled the northern end of the strait.
Since the Alice was such a small ship, he expected a rough rebuff from the navy ships, but he was wrong. In truth he was asked to tie off to the flagship, the old galleon called the Rainbow, while Batten himself climbed down and stepped aboard to inspect the rare Bermudan rig. "I have seen one ship similarly rigged,” Batten told Daniel as he took the tiller while the Alice was sailed around in a wide circle and then back to the Rainbow. "though it was a larger ship more like a Dunkirker galliot and had two masts."
"That be one of my villages other ships, the Swift Daniel. It has been doing a regular run from Rotterdam to London to feed the admiral the muskets and pistols he needed to form his own London trainbands."
"Of course. That is where I know your face from. I've seen you with that exquisite creature who hosts dinners at Warwick House."
"You must mean my step-daughter Britta,” Daniel replied proudly, but then cursed himself for saying so. Warwick's wife Susannah always introduced Britta as her country niece. "So do you visit Warwick House often?” He hoped not.
"Only once, the day I was asked to be the Vice Admiral. Since then I have been fully busy with the fleet. The Earl of Warwick plays the part of being the Lord Admiral very well, but he leaves the management of the fleet to me."
"Then may I ask if you have any warnings for me. As soon as we drop you at your flagship we must be away north to The Wash. Is there any danger we should know of?"
"Hah,” Batten roared with delight, not at the question but at how on his latest tack the Alice had picked up her skirts and was flying towards his flagship. "The North Sea winds, the North Sea waves, a shallow coastline, what greater danger could there be?"
"So no pirates have been ghosting the waters?"
"Not in the winter,” Batten replied. "They fear the storms more than they fear my ships. Hmm. I have had a report of Dutch frigates poking about up near the Humber, but the Dutch navy is an ally and we often share the duty of patrolling for pirates."
"What about Queen Henrietta's invasion convoy? Any sign of them?"
"They are still assembling men in Holland, and have not yet procured any ships. My spies tell me that they cannot sail before February. That makes sense. We often have a spate of good weather in February. That would ease their crossing and their landing and ease their march to join the king's army.” With a heave on the tiller Batten turned the ship into the wind and allowed her to drift gently up to the Rainbow. "This is a grand little ship my friend, but not of much use to the navy. The rig, however, we could use on all our away boats and jolly boats to replace their square sails. I thank you for showing her to me. Is there a favour I could do for you in return?"
"Not at this time, sir.” Daniel replied with a smile.
"What about the wounded man down below. What was his name? Blake. Robert Blake. He barely had the strength to sit up and shake my hand. May I send my surgeon aboard to take a look at him?"
"Thank you sir, but no. The reason for this voyage is to get him to my home where he can rest and get well."
"Then Godspeed and fair winds to you and your little beauty.” The crew of the flagship had lowered a bosun's chair down to him so they could haul him up to the main deck and save him the climb up the boarding nets.
As soon as the vice-admiral was clear, the crew of the Alice made ready to get underway again, but a lad called out from above to hold, and then he climbed down the boarding netting like a trained monkey. Once to the level of the Alice he touched his cap and handed over some fold
ed material to Daniel. "The admiral's complements sir. These flags are this month's courier ship flags. Fly these and you will not be stopped by the navy as you cross the Thames estuary.
They pulled away to much cheering from the crew standing on the tall decks of the warship. It had been well worth the stop if for nothing else than to be given the signal flags. They would mean more than just giving the Alice clear passage across the Thames. They would mean clear passage past any warship along the coast and past any customs port. Here it was early in January and the flags would stay the same until February.
Again they sailed through the night and across the great estuary. They did not need to slow for the infamous shifting sands that ran along the shores of the estuary, because they were only a worry for larger ships with deeper drafts. The wind was holding steady from the southwest so in any case, they were cutting across the outer mouth in deep water from Foreness Point to The Naze. Though the winds had not changed, the waves had. Now they were a chop rather than a swell, which meant that the hull was ramming through small waves rather than wallowing over large ones.
Daniel had hoped to make a hundred miles a day. From Chichester to Lynn was three hundred, which was why he expected the journey to take three days. When the lights of Harwich showed that they were across the estuary, he realized that he had underestimated the speed of this little craft, or had over estimated how much the waves would slow them. If the wind held, then they would reach Lynn by noon the next day. None too soon, for Blake was delirious with fever and alternating between hot sweats and cold sweats. He stared at the moon and prayed for his friend. He prayed that his conceit in thinking that he knew better than the barber-surgeon had not cost his friend his life.