Miss Whittier Makes a List

by Carla Kelly

“It’s the largest island in the Azores,” he explained, his eyes on the sails for a sign of the wind Spark prophesied. “Captain Spark’s been moving through this fog by dead reckoning. Hannah, he’s quite a navigator.”

  “Then what?” she asked. “I know you have been planning something.”

  He scooted closer to her. “We’ll surrender with the wounded, and ask to be taken to the commandant in charge, French or Portuguese.”

  She looked behind her at the other two launches, which were still empty and tied to the stem of the Dissuade. “Who goes in those?”

  “As many sailors and Marines as they can carry, and they won’t be heading for the harbor, but somewhere else on the island.” He looked at the quarterdeck, and the captain who was no longer in sight. “Captain Spark means to give them a merry chase.”

  Hannah sighed. “I wish I were not afraid.”

  They sat another half hour, bobbing on a calm sea, and then the fog lifted as though raised all at once by a giant hand. Hannah gasped at the sight before them. It was Terceira, rising out of the Atlantic like the welcome beacon it was.Adam couldn’t hide his admiration. “He may be an Englishman and a damned rascal, but I defy any Yankee skipper to call that landfall any better!” He touched Hannah’s shoulder. “But is Terceira friend of foe?”

  At a sharp command from Mr. Futtrell, the sailors raced into the rigging as the wind picked up, stationing themselves along the footropes for his command. At a signal from Captain Spark, who manned the helm, the sails in the upper yards dropped with a boom, and the Dissuade perked up for one last attempt. The little boats tied alongside jerked forward and Hannah grabbed for the gunwhale and took a firm grip. Adam stuck his hand in the back of her trousers and braced his feet against the floorboards.

  It was a gallant effort by the Dissuade. The sinking ship crowned on all sail and beat its way to the harbor’s entrance, picking up speed until they were skimming over the water. Adam looked up at the sleek commerce raider, wounded but gallant to the end, struggling through the sea. “Thank God the tide runs in our favor,” he said, shouting over the slap of the water. “What a ship, Hannah!”

  They reached the harbor entrance, and Hannah stared at the stone fort, trying to determine what flag flew from the pole. She could not tell; they were too far away.

  “Ahoy all boats!”

  Mr. Futtrell hung in the riggings of the Dissuade, the speaking trumpet to his lips. “Cut all cables! Good luck and good hunting!”

  Adam reached over and cut through the cable that tethered their small boat to the Dissuade. Picking his way among the wounded, he hurried forward to the small sail and raised it, calling to Hannah over his shoulder. “Take the tiller!”

  She scrambled to do as he said, grateful down to her bare feet that Papaad insisted that his only daughter, the child of an island, knew how to handle a small boat. And thee taught me to swim, she thought, as the wind caught the sail and she leaned against the tiller. They rocketed past the final pit of land that spared Terceira’s harbor from the brunt of the Atlantic swells. Hannah looked behind her to see the two launches in the stem of the Dissuade cut across to the Atlantic side.

  The Dissuade was sinking now. Hannah looked back in alarm as the frigate turned bow down into the water and began a slow death spiral. “Jump!” she whispered fiercely, her hands clenched into fists. She watched, her heart in her throat, as the remaining men who could not fit into the small boats leaped off the rising stem.

  “Can you see the captain?” she asked Adam anxiously. “Or Mr. Futtrell?”

  Adam squinted into the sun. “No, Hannah. But he will come about. Surely thee doesn’t think that is the first time something like that has happened to him?”

  Hannah shuddered and hung on to the tiller. “I think all I want to do now is get home to Nantucket!”

  Adam just grinned at her as they sailed into the harbor at Terceira. As they warped toward the dock, Andrew Lease’s boat right behind them, two launches pulled out from shore.

  “Tally-ho, indeed,” Adam said under his breath. He handed the sheet to a wounded man who could sit up and scrambled back to take the tiller. Hannah handed it off gratefully and grasped the wounded man again. She looked back at the Dissuade in time to see it sink in a maelstrom of whirling bubbles. Heads bobbed in the water as another launch, this one with a swivel gun mounted on the bow, moved toward them.

  The launches sailing toward them bow abreast warped and then backed their sails beside each boatld of wounded. Hannah looked at the soldiers hopefully. “What uniforms are those?” she whispered to Adam, who was eyeing the deck gun swiveling about to face them. But then the man with the most gold braid spoke to them in French, and she knew it didn’t matter. Captain Spark had lost his gamble.

  He leaned toward the boat, taking in the bloody bandages of the wounded, and goggling at her as she sat in the stem next to Adam, head high. He removed his hat, bowed—no easy feat in a bucking launch—and placed his hat over his heart. “Messieurs, mademoiselle, I must with regret place you under rest. Please follow me to the dock.”

  His English was quaint at best, but his meaning was unmistakable, as he pointed to the deck gun, then toward the stone fortress that crowded the hill. Hannah smiled her sunniest greeting and nodded.

  Adam looked on, amused. “Why doesn’t thee blow him a kiss, too?” he asked.

  “I would if I thought it would help,” she whispered back. Hannah turned around for one last look at the launch loading on the survivors from the Dissuade, then devoted her attention to the lieutenant in the French boat, who was still grinning at her.

  Crowded by the French launches, Adam ran his gig up onto the beach. Hannah hurried from the boat and helped one of the wounded men into the shallow water that lapped on the beach. He sank onto the sand and lay there, covering his eyes with his hand for protection from the sun. In a few minutes when all the wounded were lying on the beach, she looked up at the soldiers who surrounded them, more curious than belligerent. “See here,” she began, her hands on her hips, “these men need to be taken to hospital. Can one of you authorize that?”

  The soldiers and fishermen who were gathering looked at each other and shrugged. She turned to the officer with the gold braid who had hailed them from the harbor, but he only shrugged his shoulders, too. Obviously, his challenge at the bay’s entrance had exhausted both his English and his authority to respond.

  Hannah repeated her entreaty as Andrew Lease approached, dragging his own wounded onto the beach. Adam turned to help. “Sir, can you not get these men out of the sun at least?” she asked the Frenchman one more time.

  The French lieutenant shook his head. “The colonel is coming,” he said. “We can wait with patience.”

  “Save your breath,” murmured the surgeon. “The fun begins when Daniel hits the beach.” He took her by the arm. “Whatever they do to him, you are not to object. He told me to tell you that, and he did not make a bet this time.”

  Hannah sighed and sat down on the sand, creating shade with her body for the wounded man who had no arms to protect his eyes. The sun was hot on her face, and she wished the captain’s straw hat hadn’t gone down with the Dissuade.

  The launch with the Dissuade survivors was soon docked. As she watched, the captain, hands tied behind his back, was hauled off the boat, followed by the sailors who had jumped from the stem of the sinking ship. She looked for Mr. Futtrell, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  “Stay here, Hannah;” Adam cautioned as she got to her feet, her eyes on the captain. “ Oh, and look who’s coming.”

  She gulped and looked away from Captain Spark, who was on his knees now in the sand, a pistol pointed directly at his head. It could only be the colonel, who was covered with gold braid and wearing a vastly ill-fitting wig stylish in the last century. Sweat streamed down his face, and he appeared to be in a foul humor, stalking on short legs toward the crowd of soldiers and fishermen.

  “Did we interrupt his luncheon?” Adam whispered. “We
ll, here goes.”

  Adam hurried forward, shouldering aside the French soldiers who tried to drag Captain Spark to the colonel first. He stopped in front of the colonel. “Sir,” he began, shouting to be heard over the tumult of voices behind him. “My friend Hannah and I are American citizens and we demand the protection of France from this monster who wears a British uniform.”

  Hannah gasped and started forward, but Lease grabbed her hand. “Leave him alone,” he hissed. “He knows what he’s doing! Do you want to get out of this place with a whole skin, or not?”

  She stood where she was, watching Adam speaking so earnestly to the colonel, who listened intently, then motioned her forward. She hurried past the captain, hesitating only when the soldier guarding Spark kicked him in the stomach and he flopped onto his side, gasping for breath.

  Adam grabbed her and held her close to him. “Sir, we demand your protection!”

  The colonel looked at her from her disheveled hair to her bare toes, interest replacing irritation. “It is truwhat he says? He was impressed by this scoundrel and your ship was blown from the water?”

  Adam had apparently left off the finer point that it was a French ship which sank the Molly Claridge. She thought to correct the error, but as she was trying to figure out how to express this diplomatically, Captain Spark raised up on his knees again. “Yes, and I sank your damned frigate Bergeron,” he shouted. I’d do it again in a minute!” He disappeared then in a crowd of soldiers.

  Hannah cried out and tried to pull away from Adam, but he refused to let her go. The colonel, undone by her tears, patted her on the back.

  “There, there, ma chère, I am certain we can do for you what you wish,” he consoled as his troops beat Captain Spark and the other sailors rescued from the Dissuade. “We shall return you promptly to the United States, if that is your desire.”

  “It certainly is mine,” Adam said fervently.

  Hannah looked back at the captain, but he had sunk out of sight, obscured by the French troops surrounding him. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and clutched at the colonel, who was perspiring even more freely. “Oh, sir, we should go to London, I think! We have such a claim to lay before the Lords of the Admiralty.”

  The colonel leaned forward, smelling of sweat and salt pork, and took her chin in his fat fingers. “Ma chère, did that beast lay a hand on you?”

  You’re the only beast, she wanted to say, as he pulled her closer. She could hear the soldiers screaming behind her. They will kill him if I carry this charade further, she thought. She shook her head, and threw herself into the colonel’s arms. “No, no, but this has been a dreadful experience! I am so grateful to be safe in your protection!”

  Her heart breaking as the soldiers continued to beat Captain Spark, she forced herself to look up into the colonel’s sweating face and give him a teary smile. He clutched her to his ample chest, then drew her back and kissed her soundly on both cheeks. “Ma petite chère, consider yourself and your brother under the protection of Napoleon himself!”

  She sighed with gratitude and kept herself by force of will within the damp circle of his arms. ‘Thank you, sir. Now, sir, if you please, even if they come from a hated race, these wounded men do need to be tended.”

  “As you wish, my dear. Anything else?” The colonel dabbed at his face with a grimy handkerchief.

  “I think your soldiers should lay off the captain now,” she said, trying to keep the desperation from her voice. “I mean, wouldn’t Napoleon be chagrined with you if he missed the privilege of guillotining such a beast?”

  The colonel looked up from his contemplation of her face and motioned to his soldiers. “Ah, yes, of course.” He barked his orders in rapid-fire French and the soldiers stopped. He said something else, and they dragged the captain, unconscious now and bleeding from his mouth and nose, onto a cart where he was thrown with his sailors and trundled toward the fortress.

  The colonel released her finally from his sweaty embrace, and offered her his arm. “Come, ma chère, and you, sir,” he added, bowing to Adam. “Let us offer you the comforts of the French nation. This is a godforsaken Portuguese hole, but we do our best. They make an excellent blood pudding here, and the Madeira is superior.”nt>

  She nodded, her face pale as she strolled arm in arm with the colonel to the fortress, following the bloody trail left by Captain Sir Daniel Spark and the men of the Dissuade. The sun seemed so hot, and she began to perspire as the ground rose and fell as though she were still on the Dissuade. Her knees buckled and she fainted for the first time in her life.

  When she woke, there was a cool breeze playing over her body. Hannah looked into the eyes of a black child swinging a fan on a pole as tall as she was. When the child saw that her eyes were open, she dropped the fan with a clatter and ran from the room.

  Hannah raised herself up on one elbow and looked around. The high-ceilinged room was large and airy, with delicate lace curtains attempting to soften the medieval stone of the fortress at Terceira. She sat up and stretched, looking down at the simple chemise she wore. “It appears thee has come up in the world, Hannah Whittier,” she said out loud as she went to the window.

  It opened onto a balcony, and Terceira spread below her. The protected harbor was busy with ships of all sizes, and the air hung heavy with sea birds competing for chum from the fishing boats. The water was the deepest blue imaginable and there were palm trees lining the shore. She sniffed the air. Honeysuckle. It had to be.

  “Mademoiselle, you are better?’

  She turned around to see a woman in the doorway. “Why, yes, much better,” she said. “Thank you for your kindness.”

  The lady came forward, extending her hand. “I am Madame Aillet, wife of Colonel Aillet, who rescued you from those beastly English.”

  “Then I am doubly grateful to make your acquaintance,” Hannah murmured as her brain screamed at her to ask about the beastly English. “I do trust, however, that the wounded among the English have been cared for.”

  “Mais oui="+0">/span>!” Madame Aillet exclaimed. “We are not the barbarians here.” She returned to the hall, and then motioned in a servant, who carried a bath, and was followed by a line of slaves with buckets. “You will like to bathe now? I have laid out a dress for you. It belonged to my daughter when she was much younger, so forgive us if it is out of mode.”

  “My other clothes?”

  Madame Aillet made a face. “We will burn them, if you say so.”

  “Oh, no!” Hannah declared, and then added hastily, as she noted the woman’s startled expression. “I mean, shouldn’t one keep a souvenir?”

  “I suppose, if you choose ....” said Madame, and then left the room, shaking her head, and muttering. “Americans are strange.”

  When the bath was full, Hannah shooed the servants away, assuring them that she was perfectly capable of washing herself. She scrubbed herself with Madame’s lavender soap, relishing the chance to bathe in something besides seawater. Her skin was a source of some dismay, brown as it was, and with freckles popping out on her bare shoulders.

  It felt good to get into a dress again, to stand in front of a full-length mirror for the first time in her life, and admire the way the simple muslin of palest blue fit so well across her breasts and hung in graceful folds to the floor. The face that smiled back at her truly did have eyes with a twinkle in them, as Abigail Winslow had assured her so many months ago. “I suppose I am a rascal,” she said to her image. “I know I should not get such pleasure from what the mirror tells me. Mama would call it vanity of the grossest sort.”

  She turned away then to open the door upon Madame Aillet’s personal maid, who spoke no English, but who entered with a handful of brushes and combs and a seriously determined expression on her African face. Hannah submitted with pleasure to having her hair arranged in curls high on her head.

  Madame Aillet returned to survey her maid’s handiwork and pronounce it fit. She clapped her hands in delight. “My dear mademoiselle,
you must find a husband to give you diamonds for your hair! Surely there are such men in America!”

  Hannah thought of her earnest Quaker gentlemen acquaintances and chuckled. I wonder if Hosea’s sailmaker suitor for me would deck me in diamonds, she thought, and immediately discarded the idea as moonshine. Daniel Spark would, however, she thought, and tumbled out that impish idea, too.

  She turned to Madame Aillet. “Could I possibly be allowed to see the surgeon and the wounded?”

  “I cannot imagine that you would wish to,” Madame protested, her hands fluttering in agitation.

  “Oh, but I helped tend them,” Hannah said, “and I am concerned.” Her chin went up. “It is an American thing to do.”

  Madame thought a moment and then shrugged. “I cannot imagine what harm this would be. Come with me.”

  The wounded lay on pallets in a narrow, high-ceilinged room deep within the fortress. Andrew looked up as she entered.

  “You are a welcome sight, Miss Whittier,” he said and nodded to Madame Aillet, who refused to enter. “I will send her out soon, Madame, but I do appreciate your allowing her here.”

  Hannah’s eyes scanned the two rows of wounded, stopping on one shrouded figure. < />“Don’t tell me that is Daniel Spark,” she whispered, her hand digging into the surgeon’s arm.

  “No, no. He is over there. I do not wonder that you could not recognize him.” He took her hand and led her to the end of one row.

  She knelt by Spark’s pallet on the floor, appalled at the damage the soldiers had done. The surgeon knelt beside her. “I think that once the swelling goes down, he will appear much more presentable, but there isn’t much I can do about his nose. He will have to resort to appearing interesting from now on, rather than handsome.”

  She leaned closer, touching Spark’s face. “Is he unconscious?”

  Lease shook his head. “I think he is just sleeping now. It’s been too long since he has done that. You could wake him up.”

  “Oh, no, I wouldn’t dream of it,” she whispered, her hand on his chest. The captain stirred and moved his legs, and Lease removed her hand.