Langley's Choice

by Kate Dolan

  “Captain,” Hardey said, trying to keep his uncertain voice as low as possible, “it’s an awfully small crew for a pirate ship.”

  “Yes, they’d like it to look that way, of course. They are no doubt aware we are observing them.”

  Hardey looked through the glass again. Heading southeast, the Osprey was on a course to meet with the unknown ship nearly head-on.

  “What are you proposing to do, Captain?” he finally asked.

  “To find out what she’s up to.”

  Caroline had been ordered to help mend torn sails with two other seamen, and the sighting of another ship had not relieved them of this duty. Nevertheless, they, like members of the crew who were not on watch, split their attention between the sail on the horizon and the conversation between the captain and first mate. This left almost no attention for the job at hand, but for the time being, no one seemed to notice.

  Captain Talbot held an arresting pose at the railing, his face lifted into the brisk wind. His gestures spoke of confident excitement. Caroline eventually could not draw her gaze away from him, even to look at the other ship, which claimed an equal share of everyone else’s attention.

  Mr. Hardey did not seem to stand as tall as usual. He hunched over, squinting frequently through the captain’s glass.

  Would the captain never turn around? She wanted to see the sunlight dancing in his eyes. Had she been closer, she would have had to stifle the sudden urge to reach out and brush back a loose strand of dark hair that curled around the side of his face.

  “You, there! D’ye think those sails will mend themselves while you gossip like a bunch o’ fishwives?”

  With a sigh, Caroline abandoned her study of the captain’s fine profile and resumed her attempts to poke a fat needle through impossibly dense canvas. Her fingers ached. Three bells on this watch had already passed since they’d started work on the sails, and she had almost nothing to show for it except bruised and bleeding fingers.

  Hardey’s voice called the hands on watch to positions to make a change in the sails. Caroline remembered roughly where her station was, but she could never remember what to do when the different commands were given. After some angry pointing and yelling, the changes were apparently completed to satisfaction. The ship had started turning, and now they seemed to be going in nearly the opposite direction—away from the other ship.

  “I’m not sure I understand, Captain.” Hardey shook his head.

  “If they follow us, you see, then we must assume they are pirates. They’ll think we are running in fear, and that we will make an easy prize.”

  This made no sense to Hardey. The Osprey had reversed course to nearly match that of the unknown ship. So, if the other ship followed, it would simply be holding more or less the same course it had followed since they first sighted it. But he felt he could question no more. The captain practically barked his words, making his aggravation with his first mate plain enough, even to the men.

  “I see, Captain,” he said at last.

  “Take in some canvas, I want to give her a chance to catch us. Then clear the deck for action.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.” This would be good practice, Hardey reminded himself. And he hoped to God it was just practice.

  The other ship was chasing them. He had been right! Edward’s orders brought the Osprey about on a north by nor’westerly heading. The other ship had been sailing directly to the northwest, so since it now followed them, it had changed course and was no longer headed for Governor Eden’s haven in North Carolina. They must hope to overtake and capture them; there was no other reasonable explanation.

  Edward allowed himself a small smile when he looked at Hardey issuing orders with a face so grim. His first mate would never admit he had been wrong. The Osprey was being chased by a pirate ship, but soon Edward would turn the tables and show his teeth to the pirates. And then, whatever they had was his.

  All he had to do now was wait while his crew ran out the guns and his pursuer caught up.

  “Ship ahoy!”

  Edward had rather expected the other ship to fire a shot or raise a black flag as it approached; instead, someone from the other ship had called out the traditional greeting of merchant ships in passing.

  “Hulloa,” he answered.

  “What ship is that, pray?” Still no sign of aggression. When were they going to act?

  Edward decided he had to continue to play along as though this were a friendly exchange between two unarmed ships. “The sloop Osprey, from Dublin, bound for…” Jamaica wouldn’t sound right. “…South Carolina. Where are you from?”

  “The brig Fortune’s Fancy, from London, bound for Norfolk.”

  That, of course, was the pretense of the vessel. But when would she try to attack?

  The shouted exchange between the two ships ended, and the other ship continued as though intending to proceed on her way.

  This was the moment for Edward to fire a broadside—all his starboard guns would bear, but only for perhaps another minute as the other ship pulled ahead.

  He noticed that the Fortune’s Fancy had not run out her guns. Were they hidden? It would probably not be impossible for a pirate crew to hide below deck with the guns prepared but somehow camouflaged.

  Fire or wait? She might not, after all, be a pirate ship. But if he waited, and the other ship fired, the Osprey would take a hit before his crew could even get off a shot. His ship and crew would be severely damaged, perhaps destroyed.

  The moment passed. The ship must, indeed, be an ordinary merchant vessel on a run to Norfolk. Edward tasted blood and realized he had bitten his lip in frustration. He turned away from the wind to spit then turned back to see his prize sail on, not the pirate he had hoped for but still tantalizingly close at hand.

  The Fortune’s Fancy would no doubt carry a valuable cargo of some sort, and he could easily take her by surprise and—

  A distant scream interrupted his thoughts.

  Hardey sighed as he moved to act. One of the powder monkeys—Dyer, the new one who reminded him of a mouse—had somehow managed to catch a sleeve afire. Someone had not taken proper care with the slow match, or perhaps the boy had simply not watched where he was walking. As he moved forward to assist the lad, he made a mental note to find out the responsible parties and mete out punishment. This sort of sloppiness could not be tolerated.

  The boy screamed as he waved his arms, purely an instinctive reaction. While instinctive, the waving action was not helpful, since it merely fanned the flames to greater heights. Hardey pulled off his jacket and, in one fluid motion, brought it down over the boy’s head, pinning his arms down at his sides. He wrapped the material tightly around the boy, pressing thoroughly on all sides to smother the fire.

  When he was sure the flames had been extinguished, Hardey released his hold and eased the lad to the deck. Then he crouched to take a closer look. Dyer lay curled up, trying to control quiet sobs as he cradled his burned forearm.

  Or, rather, her burned forearm. The “little mouse” was a woman.

  Twice in his career, Hardey had seen girls try to join a ship’s crew by dressing as boys. One had run away from an unhappy home, but she was retrieved and dragged back by an irate father only a few hours after making her appearance at the dock. The other had drilled with the crew for several days before she was discovered and put ashore with a few pence to help her get back to her family. Women had no place in a ship’s crew.

  “Dyer?” He wanted to see her face.

  “Yes, sir?” The girl sat up and scrambled roughly to her feet, wincing only slightly.

  She appeared older than the two girls who had failed in their attempts to go to sea. Dressed as a boy, she looked fourteen, perhaps fifteen. But if she were cleaned up and dressed in women’s clothing, she might be eighteen or nineteen. What were they going to do with her?

  “This way, Dyer.” He motioned her toward his cabin. “We’ve no surgeon, and your arm doesn’t look bad enough for the carpenter—fortu
nately for you, as we haven’t got one of those, either.”

  She sniffed but said nothing.

  “I’ve a makeshift surgeon’s chest in my cabin. I’ll see to the arm for you.”

  Again she said nothing, but he heard the sound of her quiet footsteps behind him.

  As he realized why he could hear her footsteps, he smiled. While the gun crews remained at ready, they had not been given orders to fire. The deck was not filled with smoke and splattered in blood; there was no roar and shriek of firing guns. The captain must have decided not to attack.

  Now all he had to worry about was the presence of a woman on board.

  Chapter Twelve

  "We will probably need a fairly small vessel,” Josiah announced before taking his first mouthful of boiled pork at the captain’s table. He was surprised both by his sudden conviction about the ship and by the quality of the pork, which differed little from that provided in the common mess.

  “A small vessel?” Charles asked. “To chase armed pirates?”

  “Armament may turn out to be important,” Josiah explained, “but before we even get to that question, we will need to find the pirates. Which means we will need to ask for information. I imagine we will need to put into shore frequently to find out what ships have landed or been sighted. A smaller vessel, a small sloop, perhaps, would be better able to navigate in coastal waters.”

  “Yes, you’re right.” Charles smiled. “And it should be easier to find a small sloop to be hired, don’t you think, Captain?”

  “Eh, well, perhaps yes and perhaps no.” Captain Johnson looked as if he were considering whether to offer his own, larger ship.

  “We must compile a description of the pirate ship,” Josiah continued. “Information could be reported to our agent in Norfolk while we’re at sea.”

  “Yes, I see. Then, if we’ve no leads, we return to Norfolk.” Charles paused then speared a piece of meat with sudden inspiration. “We could offer a reward for information!”

  “No. We’d never get the truth.”

  “Well, I suppose you’d know better, having been in a business with so many dishonest men.”

  Josiah knew Charles was referring to dishonest adjudicants, but he nevertheless smiled at the insult to his former profession.

  “Ah, trust me.” Josiah raised a glass of unexpectedly good claret. “If we offer a reward, every downtrodden rascal within fifty miles will bring us a story that’s long on creativity and entirely wanting in facts!”

  He took another sip of his wine, and Charles did the same. The only sound in the room came from the captain’s plate, where he tapped his biscuit absently while chewing.

  Josiah and Charles stared at their host, wineglasses poised in mid-air. The captain grinned. “It gets the weevils out, you see, if you knock it about a little first.”

  Both Josiah and Charles looked at the half-eaten biscuits on their plate with some dismay. Josiah felt a little queasy and took another mouthful of wine, but found he could not swallow. Charles quickly spit his mouthful of food into his napkin.

  Their host began to laugh with such force that he spewed a mixture of wine and partially chewed food bits across the table in an arc of heavy spray. “Ha, there’s no need for that, now, Mr. Carter, Mr. Throckmorton. We’ve only been out these three days; these biscuits are quite fresh. I knock…” and he demonstrated his technique, “…all the time out of habit. I am sorry if it disturbed you.” He laughed again and wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “When you’ve been at sea a while longer, maybe you won’t mind the creatures in the biscuits. Fresh meat, eh?”

  “Yes,” said Josiah, finding that he was finally able to swallow again, “but we’ll save the choicest ones for you, of course.”

  “Ha! Of course.” The captain gestured to his servant for more wine. “If I may be so bold, gentlemen, once you find the men who have taken Miss Carter, what do you expect to do?”

  Josiah and Charles immediately looked at each other; they had not yet discussed this. Josiah was fairly certain, from the way this adventure had proceeded so far, that Charles’s plan in this regard would differ significantly from his own. Remembering his earlier feelings of frustration and helplessness, he decided to speak first this time.

  “We will ransom her, of course.”

  Charles looked stunned. “Ransom? I don’t know. It seems so sordid—unworthy of her, somehow. And cowardly.”

  “Unworthy of us, is that what you’re saying?” Josiah countered.

  “Well, yes.”

  “So it may seem.” Josiah paused and then leaned forward to make an analogy. “If a neighbor had taken some of your cattle from the field, you would ask him to return them, and then sue or perhaps threaten to settle the matter with your pistol if he did not. You would not buy them back, because he had taken them wrongly to begin with. Is that what you mean?”

  Charles paused in thought for a moment. “Yes, that’s it exactly.”

  “Very well. Now, why—assuming it were not a mistake—why would your neighbor take something that did not belong to him?”

  “I suppose he must have found himself in need.”

  “Yes, and if that’s the case, if he fancies himself in need, to which would he respond most quickly: a request to return the cattle, a threat of future harm if he does not return the cattle or an offer of payment if he returns the cattle on the spot?”

  “The offer of payment would be most attractive.” Charles took a thoughtful drink from his glass. “I see your point, but I don’t care for it. I don’t like making deals with dishonest men.” He slammed his palms down on the table in a rare show of temper. “They should not prosper from their wickedness!”

  For once, Josiah felt that he was in a superior position. Charles had reached a stumbling block in his plans, and it appeared to drive him mad with frustration. He must have wanted to chastise the pirates, show them that no good could come of their evil.

  “True, it does not seem fair. But, Mr. Carter, is it more important to deal justice to the pirates, or to bring back your sister?” Josiah realized he had not said “my betrothed,” or even “Miss Carter.” This had become a quest to help Charles Carter rescue his sister. Nothing more, nothing less.

  The silence was complete this time; the captain’s biscuit long devoured, his fingers remained motionless beside his plate.

  “You’ll need gold.” The captain’s voice broke into the stillness. “They won’t take letters of credit.”

  At a gesture from Hardey, Caroline sat down on the battered chest at the end of the berth in his small cabin. The insides of her legs felt chafed from the rough fabric of her trousers. How was it she should notice this minor sensation when her arm throbbed so?

  Thinking about her arm only increased the pain. She looked down at her lap instead, forcing herself to concentrate on her trousers. At first, wearing them had left her feeling both naked without her skirts and, at the same time, heavily encumbered by extra fabric around her legs. But now she was beginning to enjoy the freedom from skirts, and especially from stays.

  A clattering sound broke her concentration; she looked up to see Hardey rummaging through a chest slightly smaller than the one on which she sat. She thought of bandages and her arm again. This time, she would focus her mind on…Captain Talbot. He had passed them as they’d headed toward the cabin.

  “Do you need assistance, Hardey?” the captain had asked.

  How very thoughtful!

  “No, Captain, not just yet. This injury is a small enough matter.”

  The captain had continued on without another word, and Caroline had wished she could ask him to come back. At the same time, she was glad she could not. She’d wanted him to hold her arm as she climbed down the stairs—but she feared she might have swooned or said something embarrassing if he had.

  All at once, as she looked at her dirty trousers, Caroline longed to be draped in voluminous silk skirts. She wanted to feel clean and to have her maid curl and pin up her hair.
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br />   The last time Mary had curled her hair, Georgiana had whined horribly the whole time because she’d wanted hers done first. And Edwina had poked at hers, saying she looked like she had sausages hanging from her head. Johanna had started to pontificate on her views of how women would be wearing their hair this season in London. Caroline had simply run from the room.

  Her sisters were impossible to live with. She really didn’t miss them at all, not even Edwina.

  And she didn’t miss Mary, who always picked her nose and too often smelled of the wild onions she liked to chew.

  Caroline sighed. She wanted the comforts of home. But she didn’t really want to be at home. With a start, she realized that even if she were at Hill Crest this very minute she would not have remained there much longer. She would have soon moved into the home of Mr. Throckmorton.

  Caroline thought of the thrill she had felt when Captain Talbot touched her shoulder, and of the way she had wanted him to take her arm and help her down the stairs. She had never wanted Mr. Pole-legged Throckmorton to touch her shoulder or help her down the stairs. She did not want him to touch her at all. Ever.

  She looked at her arm and decided she could bear the pain without flinching or forcing herself to concentrate on other matters. She smiled at Mr. Hardey as he prepared to tear a long strip of linen into a bandage. He was saving her. Captain Talbot, and Mr. Hardey and the others had saved her from the monotonous bickering of home and the horrors of a marriage to ridiculous old Mr. Throckmorton.

  “Now, then, little miss, we need to talk,” Hardey began as he stepped over to her with the bandage.

  “Sir?” Caroline held out her arm in response to his gesture and picked away the pieces of fire-blackened cloth that used to be her shirtsleeve. Some of the pieces were very small.

  Hardey paused, as if waiting for her to say something. “Miss?”