by Lee Rowan
“Davy—cover the lantern for a moment, would you?”
AS THE days passed and the convoy proceeded into southern waters, the sun grew warmer and brighter. Their investigation proceeded slowly, with nothing much happening that could be laid to anything but ill luck. A cask of wine turned to vinegar, half a dozen signal flags gone missing—the flags were a puzzle, but Humberstone himself had been signal-lieutenant during the period in question, and he had no idea what had become of them. Klingler swore the vinegar had been vinegar from the start, and he was probably correct; a second cask from the same supplier held very bad wine indeed. The flags were a nuisance that might have been serious if they’d been sailing into battle, but that was not the case, and a new set was made up that very afternoon. Sir Paul’s rigorous drilling and assemblies had apparently left their mole scrambling, if that was the worst he could do.
A second note turned up in David’s cabin during the middle watch while David was on duty. Will had been sound asleep. Since the other note had appeared during the day, they’d not been expecting a midnight visitor.
I want the key to the arms locker. Place it under your sea chest by midnight, the day after tomorrow.
“ABSURD,” SAID the Captain. “There is no reason for either of you to have that key in your possession.”
“No, sir.” Will had been the courier once again, delivering the idiotic demand along with his report on the midshipmen’s journal-keeping. “And apart from that peculiar intrusion last week, we’ve had no further disturbances.”
“I cannot make any change in the guards on the arms locker without alerting the mole that we know of his interest in it,” Sir Paul said. “But I can speak to the Captain of Marines. We served together years ago. I trust him implicitly. He can make certain that his best men are assigned to the task.”
“Sir—what do you suppose our saboteur will do when Mr. Archer cannot comply?”
“He would be a fool to do anything. He must realize that the demand is impossible.”
“Yes, sir. Which makes me wonder—why make such a demand at all?”
“Either he is a fool,” the Captain said, “which we know he is not—or it is a feint, to distract us from his real target. We shall see the Leeward Islands in but a few days’ sail. I believe the crew would benefit from another session of live practice.”
“Sir, Mr. Archer suggested leaving a note on his cot stating that he could not obtain the key.”
“Very good. Let him do that, and we shall see what the response may be. And if you would, Mr. Marshall, send me the ship’s carpenter. Those curtain affairs on the officers’ cabins are excellent for the circulation of fresh air, but I want to know if we have a proper set of doors stowed in the hold. If a key is required for entry, we may reduce the number of suspects.”
“Yes, sir.”
DINNER IN the gunroom with their fellow officers was a pleasant daily ritual, but David found his suspicion coloring his ability to enjoy any social occasion. Simon West, ship’s master, was a man he knew from the Calypso, a serious, dutiful officer who wrote terrible poetry and was a demon devotee of any manner of card game. Dr. Curran he did not know, but he liked the man and was reluctant to think ill of him, even though he realized, objectively, that a ship’s surgeon had access to everyone aboard and a unique authority in being the only one who could declare a ship’s captain unfit for service. The Marines’ Captain Adams was vouched for by no less than Sir Paul Andrew Smith, so David was easy in his mind on that account. But he knew nothing of the purser, gunner, and carpenter—Dowling, Cox, and Michaels respectively—and while none of them seemed in the least sinister, a warrant officer would have more freedom to move about the ship without question, and someone had been wafting in and out of his cabin.
But if their phantom could smile and smile and be the villain, David was not about to fall down on his duty. During the course of the meal, he presented his suggestion for a Christmas entertainment—as much of A Midsummer’s Night Dream as the crew could manage to memorize. Since they would apparently be in the tropics for Christmas, the title was not too unseasonable. Mr. West pronounced himself willing to participate and Captain Adams declared an admiration for the works of the Bard, but the others were noncommittal at best.
Somehow the conversation evolved into a discussion of card games as opposed to games of chance, and the purser revealed his enthusiasm for cribbage. Mr. West challenged him to prove his mettle on the field of honor—or in this case, the cribbage board—and they agreed to convene in the wardroom, after pudding, to decide the matter, best two games out of three.
“Lead on, MacDuff,” Dowling said, “And curst be him who first cries—”
“Ain’t it ‘Lay on, MacDuff?’” asked Captain Adams.
“I believe it is,” David said.
“No, no, it’s ‘Lead on,’” the purser insisted. “As in, leading into battle, don’t you see?”
“If I remember correctly,” David said, “it’s Macbeth speaking. He’s inviting MacDuff to have at him.”
Dowling frowned. “No, I am certain—well, it’s easy enough to settle, Mr. Archer. Did you not say you have the collected plays?”
“Yes, I do, and I will be happy to prove you mistaken. I’ll be back before the pudding arrives.” David leapt up and headed off to his cabin to get the volume of Shakespeare’s tragedies, one of his most prized possessions. The wardroom was empty, naturally—those who weren’t at dinner were on duty, up on deck. David stopped dead as he saw that the ties to his cabin were hanging open. And was that a shadow within?
He drew his pistol silently, cocked it, and with his left hand, pushed back the curtain, very slowly.
And swore, softly but fervently.
There on his sea chest sprawled the repellent midshipman, Dickie Gannon, his breeches unbuttoned and his unfortunate male apparatus in hand. It at least was standing at attention, as Gannon should have been.
“Mr. Archer! I was hoping you’d come!”
“You stupid little git,” David spat, recognizing the neatest little arrangement for blackmail he could ever have imagined. Standing well outside the room, almost shaking with anger, he carefully uncocked the pistol and thrust it back into his belt. “Button it up, you little bastard, and get the hell out of my quarters.”
“But sir—sir, I know you want—”
Blind fury boiled over. “You will not know what I want if you live to be a hundred, which at this moment is highly improbable, since you are displaying not only more of your disgusting person than I should ever wish to see, but a level of stupidity that I can only describe as fatal.”
“Mr. Archer, I am perishing with desire!”
“Then go perish somewhere else, and be damned to you. You are too stupid to live.”
The little bastard made no move toward leaving; he simply pouted. David wanted to seize him by scruff and breeches and throw him out, but he was not going to so much as set foot in that room.
“Mr. Gannon, the purser has just challenged the ship’s master to a game of cribbage, and the wardroom is going to be very busy in just a few minutes. If you are not out of this cabin and this wardroom in the next thirty seconds, I am going to send the Master-at-Arms to haul you out, place you under arrest, and take you to the Captain.”
“But, sir—”
“Not one word, you young fool. Out. Now. I’m giving you this one chance—it’s your last. And don’t ever let me catch you near my quarters again.” He pointed toward the door of the wardroom and stood aside to make room for the trespasser to leave.
“Yes, sir,” Gannon said sulkily, buttoning his breeches.
“Then up on deck with you—all the way up, to the crosstrees, until you’re due back on duty. You might spend the time reviewing the Articles and the penalty for breaking them.”
“Yes, sir.”
As the crestfallen “young gentleman” made his exit, David felt a twinge of conscience at his own hypocrisy. Not much of a twinge, though—he might be car
rying on with Will in defiance of Article 29, but at least he had the sense not to proposition superior officers who were in no wise interested! Shaking his head at the youngster’s monumental stupidity, he quickly unlocked his sea chest, retrieved his Shakespeare, and returned to the gunroom.
By the time he got there, he had managed to compose himself and locate the relevant lines in the play. Mr. Dowling accepted his mistake with good grace, the pudding arrived and was consumed, and then the warrant officers went down to the wardroom to conduct their cribbage tournament.
David excused himself and went up on deck. First of all, he made certain that Mr. Gannon had taken himself up to the crosstrees. He had; he was high atop the mainmast and his posture suggested at least a reasonable degree of dejection.
But, still… had that been a deliberate effort to entrap him, or simply the act of an indiscreet fool? Was Gannon part of a conspiracy, or a halfwit jackrabbit who’d been given a hint that Mr. Archer might be amenable? The boy had been mooning over him for days now. David knew he was no Adonis, but young men did form unsuitable attachments, and reason had no part of such things.
David knew that from experience. If he had not had a strong sense of caution, he might have tried something equally stupid during those long, painful years he’d spent loving William Marshall from afar, before Will had any notion that love between men was a possibility, much less something he might want. But David had never been foolish enough to even hint at his desires, much less accost a senior officer. He had spent his days fighting his feelings, his nights in hopeless fantasy and Tantalus dreams.
Perishing with desire, indeed! You try lying in a hammock next to the most beautiful man in the world, night after night, certain he’d shoot you dead if you made the slightest advance! Don’t you tell me about perishing with desire, you brainless little booby. Nobody ever dies of unrequited love.
You only wish you could.
Chapter 6
“HE DID what?”
“Gently, Will. Not so loud.” David looked around, but they were far up in the fighting top and the winds had been so fair and regular that the topmen were all down on deck with the idlers. The Captain was off-watch, asleep; as First Lieutenant, Will was in command.
“We must tell the Captain,” Will said decidedly. “I was wrong, you were right—but this is beyond infatuation.”
“Will, for heaven’s sake—”
“It seems obvious to me. This was an attempt to put you in an indefensible position, and only your quick thinking saved you. If the gunroom mess had come into that wardroom, with him in flagrante and you in there with him—”
“I cannot be certain of his intention!”
“What, with his wedding tackle out and ready? If his intention puzzles you, Mr. Archer, I will be happy to explain anything you may have forgotten, but—dear God, Davy, if you love me, if you have any sense of self-preservation at all, for both our sakes, tell the Captain. At the very least, note it in your personal journal. You can tear the page out and burn it later, if it turns out I’m being unreasonable, but for your own protection, put it in writing.”
David sighed. He had never seen Will so agitated, and he knew his lover well enough to realize this was not mere jealousy. But there were some things Will would never understand. For him, awareness of desire had come literally moments before its fulfillment. He had never known that hopeless longing, had never spent years wondering what was wrong with him, why he had been cursed with desire for a shipmate. “Is that really necessary?”
Will set his jaw. “Yes. And you had better do it, because I intend to. It would be better still if we were to go to the Captain together.”
“And what if the little swab is merely stupid?”
“Then he deserves to be thrown out of the Service and sent to ply his wares ashore. Otherwise he’ll get some other poor fool hanged someday, just to satisfy his own appetites.” Will shrugged. “There’s nothing he can be tried for at this point, you know. He’s guilty of nothing more than unclean behavior, but even if we were only on convoy escort duty, we don’t need a midshipman aboard who’s prone to such disgraceful antics.”
David had a sinking feeling that Will was right. He had known, in an abstract way, that they might someday be put in this position. The reality was worse than he’d feared, more difficult still because he actively disliked the importunate Gannon and could not even claim to have the good of the Service at heart.
“Will, everyone has desires, appetites—”
His lover cut him off, dark eyes stern and unyielding. “Don’t even say it. There’s a difference, Davy. You know there’s a difference, a matter of self-control and self-discipline. We have it, he does not. And that difference—his weakness, if he himself is not our mole—is going to end with someone dead. I don’t want it to be you.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“I don’t mean to sound pompous, but in this case, I know I am.” He blinked. “That is to say, I know I’m right. This is a serious investigation, espionage or even treason. Mr. Gannon is a suspect. It is our duty to inform the Captain immediately.”
David had the feeling that if he did not acquiesce, Will’s next step would be to give him an order. And that was Will’s right and his duty, and David was unwilling to put such a strain on the bond between them.
“Very well,” he said, and found himself giddy with relief at the weight lifted from his shoulders. “Very well, I’ll tell the Captain.”
Will let out a breath, and his shoulders relaxed. “Thank you, sir,” he said formally.
“No, Will, you are right. We must. But I do pity the poor little bastard.”
David was able to save his pity, at least for a while. Captain Smith considered the matter briefly and decided to discuss it with Mr. Humberstone. Their decision was to do nothing for the moment—to keep Gannon under close observation. His own behavior would prove his guilt or innocence as far as their more serious suspicions were concerned. As to his slipshod adherence toward Article 29… if he did appear to be working with a French agent, they now had something with which to bargain. Given the choice between being tried for treason or simply dismissed for moral turpitude, he would most probably give up his superior rather than hang. His ineptitude convinced them that if he was involved in the plot at all, it would be as a subordinate; he was not intelligent enough to have managed it on his own.
AS THOUGH echoing David’s mood, the weather turned foul the next day. They were past the hurricane season, but strong, fast-moving winds drove sodden dark clouds before them. The Valiant and the Terrier were prepared as well as they could be; Sir Paul had the topmasts brought down and stowed on deck, and all hatches were battened. The merchant ships in convoy were taking precautions too—they were regular travelers of this route and probably knew better than the Valiant what to expect.
But no one could ever know exactly what to expect in weather this dirty. It was all hands on deck, six men on the wheel to hold it steady enough for the Captain’s piloting, hours of fighting the wind just to walk across the deck even with safety lines strung. The sun set, but it hardly mattered; the seawater thrown up by the constantly shifting wind made the air so wet it was hard to even see what was going on in the rigging. The night was long, and it was wet, and it was cold, bitter cold, with the wind blowing so hard against them from all directions. Much of David’s time was spent simply relaying orders—even Captain Smith’s powerful voice could not rise above the wind’s howl. The hours stretched out immeasurably, with the only meal a cold biscuit and a warming swallow of grog, as the stove could not be lit in such a treacherous sea.
Eventually the storm blew itself out, the screaming wind died away, the clouds thinned, and far above, the stars returned. David saw the white curve of the late crescent moon a few degrees above the eastern horizon, and realized with surprise that it was nearly dawn.
Captain Smith issued a few orders and went below for a cup of coffee and dry clothing—he had been on deck all night�
��and the Valiant began returning to normal. The cook and his mates went below to fire up the stove, the idlers brought out their mops to dry the deck. No need to wash it this morning, the sea had taken care of that job. Soon Mr. West appeared on deck with his sextant to determine precisely where they were now. Once the sun rose, they would, God willing, also find out where the rest of their convoy had gone. And in the meantime, there was much work to do. David found himself a lantern and began to organize the men in his division.
“Someone’s managed to stay with us,” Will said, passing behind him. “Look, just starboard of the forecastle.”
David squinted into the dark and saw a spark of light in the distance. A ship for certain, relighting her lanterns just as men were doing on the Valiant. Within minutes the signal officer would be displaying the lights that transmitted specific messages, in this case probably a request that all ships report their position and condition. The Captain would be back up on deck soon, and he’d expect as much information as possible.
But it was broad daylight before they found all their ships, some of which had been blown thirty miles or more from the Valiant. Most of them had survived well enough or were able to make repairs, and the lively little Terrier earned her keep, darting about like a sheepdog with a scattered flock.
As the convoy reassembled some twenty miles from where they’d begun, Dr. Curran was called out to several of the smaller craft to treat the same injuries he’d been dealing with all night aboard the Valiant. Broken bones, sprains, concussion, even an amputation of a foot crushed by a falling mast. Such casualties were to be expected in a hard blow, which was why Captain Smith made it a point, whenever he possibly could, to have a ship’s surgeon who was also a physician. The convoy’s other surgeons, who often had far less training, quickly got into the habit of requesting a consultation on their more difficult cases.