Quarantine

by John Smolens

  “You say they loaded food and supplies,” Giles said. “Was it in crates?”

  “Mostly,” Poole said. “A lot of crates, and some barrels. We joked that they was plannin’ a fair feast onboard there.”

  “And who exactly brought these supplies out?” Giles asked.

  Poole didn’t answer right away. When he spoke, his voice was much chagrined. “That’s the thing of it, Doctor. We knew some of them, of course. Constable’s men such as ourselves, but there were others—”

  “Farmers?” Giles asked.

  “Aye, a couple of Simon Moss’s boys from Newbury. Good lads, them.”

  “Any strangers?” Giles asked.

  “Strangers?”

  “Yes,” Giles said angrily. “You know what I’m saying.”

  “Well, there were a gentleman, yes.”

  “An old man?” Giles asked.

  “Aye, they helped an old man aboard,” Poole said. “So, you’re going out after them?”

  “We are,” Emanuel said. “You want to come along?”

  “Indeed,” Poole said. “I’ll send them that’s sick ashore, and the rest of us will come aboard.”

  Emanuel Lunt steered The Golden Hand through the river mouth despite the dark, holding a course south of the bar, which was exposed now at slack tide. Once they were clear of Plum Island, the sails filled with a light easterly breeze and the bow rose and fell through easy swells. The ocean horizon was black, unblemished. They ran without any lights other than the small lantern on the binnacle, which allowed Emanuel to hold a southeasterly course.

  It was a guess. If the Miranda was carrying the crates taken from Simon Moss’s barn, Giles assumed they must be headed for Boston, where Uriah Clapp could sell the medicine for a substantial profit. Giles stood on the quarterdeck peering ahead, looking for some sign, some speck of light on the water. But it was a dark night, and the moon wouldn’t rise until early morning hours.

  They held course past midnight. The dark presence of Cape Ann could be seen perhaps a dozen miles to the west off the starboard rail. Emanuel had sent Francois and Leander aloft to the crow’s nest, and every few minutes the boys reported that they could still see nothing ahead. The Golden Hand was smaller and faster, and if Giles’s guess was correct, eventually they should be able to catch up to Miranda. Emanuel was more concerned that they might pass the ship in the dark without even knowing it.

  Leander liked being up in the crow’s nest. The mast swung with the roll of the swells; looking down, he could barely see the deck of the ship in the dark. Water breaking on the prow looked like white lace.

  Some time after one o’clock, Francois straightened up. “What’s that?”

  Leander stared dead ahead: there was a pale, luminous wall of light.

  “Father,” Francois called down. He said something in French.

  “Moon’s rising,” Emanuel said. “Shining through a fogbank.”

  No one spoke for a while, until Francois said quietly, “Once we’re in it we’ll have to hold our course southeast. Can’t turn west for Boston till we’re clear of the fog. Don’t want to end up on some rocks in Nahant, do we?” He laughed, though it seemed more out of nervousness.

  When the schooner entered the fog, sounds were muffled, and the air was cool and damp. Emanuel called Francois down to the deck. Before climbing out on the ratlines, he asked Leander if he was getting chilled.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Strange. I’m freezing.”

  Francois climbed down, disappearing into the fog. His father issued a series of commands and Leander heard movement about the deck. Soon there was the sound of rope running through block and tackle, and he figured that the constable’s men were hauling something up from the hold. This took considerable time, and the process repeated itself, accompanied by much grunting. Eventually there was the sound of wheels rolling across the deck. Leander peered down into the fog but he couldn’t make out what they were doing. His shirt was light and he was now shivering with the chill. There was very little wind and the ship was barely making headway.

  When Francois returned to the crow’s nest, he brought a leather jacket. Leander said nothing as he put it on.

  “Mother wants you to go below,” Francois says. “She’s got something to eat. She’s also afraid if you hold it much longer you’ll piss all over everybody.”

  “This has crossed my mind,” Leander said.

  Francois laughed, but his father whispered. “Quiet up there.”

  Leander started down the ratlines, not sure how much longer he could hold it. When he reached the deck he moved quickly to the rail, loosening his pants. He peed for what seemed an eternity. When he was finished he buttoned up and walked toward the bow, where he heard the straining of rope. The fog was so dense, he almost stumbled over the first carronade—there were two of them, with stout barrels and their carriages lashed to the rail.

  “Careful,” one of the constable’s men whispered.

  Giles was standing in the bow, his hands clasped behind his back.

  “Are they loaded?” Leander asked.

  “What would be the point if they weren’t?” The doctor gazed ahead into the fog. “Go below for something to eat, and then get aloft again.”

  Becalmed.

  As the moon rose, the fog glowed brighter. Giles stared so hard, his eyeballs ached. At least two hours had passed, the only movement the slow ascent of the moon.

  Then a voice off the starboard bow. Faint, distant, perhaps a mile or more. The way sound traveled across water, it was always difficult to determine distance.

  The voice came once more, a sharp command.

  After that, silence.

  Slowly, the light began to change. Leander and Francois looked at each other in the crow’s nest but didn’t speak. The fog was becoming brighter, and they became aware of a new presence of light. Its source had to be east.

  As the sun neared the horizon, the fog turned intensely brilliant. The ship’s rigging glistened with morning dew, and the deck was now clearly visible.

  Suddenly, the canvas stirred, first ever so slightly, but within minutes the sails began to swell and standing rigging creaked as it grew taut. Miraculously, the ship heeled as it began to glide across black water.

  At least an hour later, Francois was slumped against the mast, and Leander was fighting to keep his eyes open, when the fog above opened up suddenly, revealing blue sky. Leander got to his feet and shook Francois awake. The fog began to take shape—wisps, rags. And then, all at once, the ship broke out of the fog, as though it had shed its old skin. Straight ahead, Leander saw nothing but the line where water met sky, and far to the starboard he could see the coast, a black line on the horizon.

  Giles used the telescope, but he couldn’t find a sail in any direction.

  “The wind,” Emanuel said. “It’s coming around to the southwest, blowing this fog out to sea. We’ll make for Boston now.” He turned the wheel and called out, “Coming about to starboard. Harden up the sheets now!”

  Some of Poole’s men hauled in the jib and the main sheets, trimming the sails, and, as they tied the lines off, the vessel heeled easily.

  “Ship astern!” Francois yelled from the crow’s nest.

  He was pointing northeast. Giles went to the stern rail and saw the speck perhaps five miles off, running along the edge of the fog bank. He raised the glass to his eye and could discern square-rigged sails. “That must be Miranda,” he said.

  “You are most certain?” It was Marie, climbing the ladder to the quarterdeck.

  He offered her the glass. “We must have passed her during the night.”

  “And what will we do now?” she asked.

  “Slow down,” Emanuel said. “Let her catch up.” He looked up into the rigging, and said, “All right, lads, you’ll be needed on deck.”

  Marie handed the spyglass back to Giles. “And then?”

  “It will be like when we were aboard privateers in the war, when we chased
down British merchant ships as prizes.”

  “And those?” She nodded toward the two carronades in the bow. “They are the persuasion?”

  “Persuasion, precisely.”

  Though The Golden Hand ran on a lazy broad reach, it wasn’t until late morning when the lumbering Miranda closed the distance. Emanuel fell off the wind even farther, allowing the square-rigger to pass to the north, and then he hardened sail and they came up along the ship’s port side. When there was less than fifty yards between the vessels, Poole lit the fuse to the first carronade and stepped back. The report shook the hull, and momentarily the deck was shrouded in blue smoke. The cannon ball whistled through the air and splashed some thirty yards ahead of Miranda’s bowsprit, her crewmen raising a cry as they gathered at the rail. Poole set off the second carronade, this shot landing even closer to the Miranda’s hull. He called out, “Take up your positions!” His men spread out along the starboard rail, each with a pistol trained on the deck of the Miranda. “Stand to,” Poole shouted across the water. “We intend to board you.”

  The Miranda’s crew parted and a man in a long white coat appeared at the rail. “What gives you the right to make such an attack?” His deep, French-accented voice carried easily across the water.

  “The next carronade ball will strike you at the waterline,” Poole shouted, “and you can swim against the tide to Boston. I am high sheriff of Newburyport. You are still under quarantine, and we are going to board you.”

  Emanuel added something in French, which caused an excited reaction among the Miranda’s crew.

  A minute passed; the two vessels were now no more than twenty yards between them, close enough that Giles could hear the heated discussion aboard the ship, mostly in French. Finally, the captain placed both hands on the rail, perhaps as a sign of acquiescence, and said, “Monsieur, we would be most honored by your presence aboard the Miranda.”

  “What is your name?” Giles asked.

  “My name? It is Captain Joselyn Sagan.”

  “Captain Sagan,” Giles said. “If you dump any cargo overboard, particularly the crates containing medicine, your boat will be sunk, leaving you and your crew to the bluefish.”

  Twenty-Six

  THAT EVENING, JONATHAN BREAM ARRIVED WITH HIS ODE TO Bowsprit. After dinner, Miranda sat in the library while Enoch reclined on the daybed. He was still weak, though a small glass of port with his meal had returned some color to his cheeks. It gave her no pleasure to witness his demise, but there was nothing to do now but see it through. And when it was over, she realized that she would at last also be rid of Enoch’s annoying personal bard, who stood before the fireplace, a glass of Madeira in hand, preparing to recite the lines he had composed about a dead dog.

  “What behooves a man,” he said, “to love his sainted four-legged creature—”

  Miranda sighed, which Mr. Bream took for appreciation, but to her great relief, the door opened and Fields came into the room. While Bream continued his drivel, Fields leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Madame, your presence is requested in the kitchen.”

  “What is it?”

  Fields was one to properly keep his eyes averted, but now for the briefest moment he met her gaze. It was not a look of worry or caution, so much as one of trepidation. Miranda got to her feet, causing Jonathan Bream to lower the pages in his hands and stare at her over his spectacles. “I must attend to a matter in the kitchen,” she said.

  Enoch tried to sit up on the daybed. “What now?”

  “Well, I’ll have to go and see, won’t I?”

  Her son remained propped on one elbow for a moment, but then he collapsed against the pillows again. “Yes, of course. That kitchen is a force of nature, constant as the tides.”

  She smiled at Bream. “What a lovely turn of phrase.”

  Jonathan smiled too, crestfallen. “The man’s a poet and doesn’t even know it.”

  “Well, I really must.…” Miranda said.

  “Yes, go,” her son said. “I’m too exhausted. Besides, I’m rather enjoying this. It’s important to grieve properly for little—” He turned his head away, unable to even mention the dog’s name.

  “Certainly, dear,” Miranda said.

  “Carry on, Jonathan,” Enoch said. “That was very good. ‘A four-legged’—what was it?”

  “‘Creature, ’” Bream said, hopeful. “‘His sainted four-legged creature.’” He cleared his throat and raised the papers in his hand.

  “Fields,” Miranda said, as she moved toward the door.

  When they were outside the library, she took up her skirts in both hands and set a good pace as she led Fields down the hall. Over her shoulder, she muttered, “What do you suppose that imbecile will rhyme with ‘creature’?”

  Fields said nothing, of course.

  Giles, Emanuel, Poole, and two constables took the skiff across to the Miranda. Once they had climbed aboard, Emanuel shouted a series of commands in French. The crew was compliant, staring warily at the firearms aimed at them.

  “We are unarmed,” Captain Sagan said in English. “They would really fire?”

  “Indeed they would,” Emanuel said.

  “You Americans,” the captain said, “are a savage people.”

  Giles had been holding a pistol at his side, but now he pointed it at Sagan. “You have stolen medicine that must be returned to Newburyport, where people are dying of fever. Savage, indeed.”

  Emanuel spoke in French, translating what Giles had said for the benefit of the crew, and many of them seemed first confused, then angry. They were an emaciated lot, most dressed in clothes that were torn and soiled, and Giles realized that for many of them this amounted to their rescue—they had been imprisoned on this ship, watching their mates fall ill and die off one by one while the quarantine dragged on. Emanuel spoke to them again in French, then said to the captain, “Go ahead and take the doctor below.”

  The captain reluctantly led Giles down the companionway. It was dark belowdecks, the fetid air smelling much like the tents at the pest-house on the Mall. There were two men in hammocks, clearly overcome with fever. Giles looked at them a moment, and then turned to the captain. “The crates—show me the crates.” The captain only stared at him. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Giles said.

  After a moment, Captain Sagan walked toward the stern of the ship, where there were small quarters for officers. He opened first one door, then the next, and both compartments were filled with stacked crates and barrels—the same ones that Uriah Clapp had delivered behind Wolfe Tavern.

  There was another compartment, larger, in the stern. Giles stared at the closed door and said, “Captain’s quarters?”

  Sagan nodded. He would not look at the doctor.

  “Open it.”

  Sagan removed a ring of keys from the pocket of his white coat and unlocked the door. They stepped inside the cabin; sunlight angled through the stern windows and the hot air reeked of vomit. Reclining on the window seat was Uriah Clapp, looking disinterested and perhaps slightly amused, while Samuel, lying on a cot, appeared to be ill.

  “First stages of fever?” Mr. Clapp offered. “I would venture that it’s a simple case of seasickness. His bile—” he nodded toward the chamber pot on the floor—“it’s not black.”

  “Thank you for your diagnosis,” Giles said. “Up on the deck, please.”

  Clapp got to his feet. “We could both use some fresh air.”

  Samuel climbed out of the cot, keeping one hand on the frame for balance.

  “Your father know where you are?” Giles asked him.

  Samuel didn’t respond, but, gathering all his strength, he made his way toward the open door. Clapp followed him, until Giles caught him by the arm. “How much?” Giles asked. “How much would it have brought in Boston?”

  Clapp’s eyes were cool and defiant. “You’ll never know, Doctor. You’ll never appreciate the value of true desperation.” He yanked his arm free, and followed Samuel
and Sagan out of the captain’s quarters.

  Mr. Penrose was standing next to the butcher block in the kitchen.

  “Well, what is it?” Miranda said.

  He bowed slightly and glanced about at the staff, busy preparing dinner. “For what I’m gon-ta say, perhaps, Ma’am, we might find some place a bit more … private like.”

  “There is no need,” she said, and then turned to Fields. “Out, I want everyone out—except you.” She walked over to the window while the cooks and scullions were hastily ushered out into the hall. The cobblestones in the courtyard were slick with rain, glistening in the sunlight that had emerged following the thunderstorm. Water ran everywhere, rivulets of silver.

  When there was silence behind her, Miranda approached Mr. Penrose. She had always found him a most unsavory man, unkempt, always smelling of horse. “Mr. Penrose, if you please, I haven’t all day.”

  He reached into the pocket of his worn leather vest and produced a small brown bottle, which he placed next to him on the butcher block.

  Fields went to the table and picked up the bottle. “What is this?”

  “I don’t know its proper name.” Penrose continued to stare at Miranda. It suddenly struck her that they were probably about the same age, and he looked as weathered as boards on the stable doors. He straightened up as best he could, and spoke louder than necessary. “But its purpose is to poison Mr. Sumner.”

  “Poison?” Miranda asked. He nodded. “And how do you know this?”

  “Master Sumner’s been right ill, ain’t he?” Penrose ventured the briefest smile. “You think we are all so dumb we don’t notice such things, we don’t see what goes on here?”

  “I asked how you know this is poison?”