by Lee Rowan
Supplemental Log, HMS Calypso, in for repair, Portsmouth.
Temporarily assigned HMS Artemis, Lt. Anthony Drinkwater, commanding. 27-7-1799
OUR ORDERS have changed! After comparing notes with the harbormaster’s office, we have tentatively concluded that the ship most likely to have been used to abduct our officers is the Morven, a merchant brig converted from a gunboat to noncombatant after serious structural damage. Her Captain was the first victim of the series of abductions, and although his description does not closely match the one Capt. Smith provided (the color of his hair is unknown as Capt. Black was clean-shaven and wore a powdered wig), the coincidence is too great to ignore. Ad. Roberts has released me and part of our crew to take the Fifine—temporarily renamed Artemis—and discreetly search the area between the Isle of Wight and Lizard Point, where this ship is supposed to be conducting resupply of gunpowder for ships on Channel patrol. We will also contact any other Navy ships we encounter and enlist their aid in finding the Morven.
Needless to say, we must board her by stealth or guile; even had we the metal to attack, we could not fire on what might be an innocent ship; we must first determine whether our officers are on board and where they are being held. Additionally, the Morven is carrying a cargo of gunpowder; we would hardly do our men any service by blowing them out of the water! Capt. Smith has ordered an attack in force, by stealth, and that is what he shall have. A cutting-out expedition is nothing new for our men, and judging from the size of the Morven, our forces should outnumber her crew quite handily. The delivery of the ransom will be handled by Ad. Roberts’s office; I am pleased to have Capt. Smith’s funds in such capable hands, as rescue by direct means is much more to my liking and ability. Those members of the Calypso’s crew not aboard Artemis are berthed on a hulk under the command of 2nd Lieutenant Watson. We sail just before dawn, God and a fair wind willing.
THE GUARDS had come with the shaving things at the usual time. Nothing was outwardly different from the previous days. Marshall would not have bothered with the ritual, but Davy offered, and he felt it was better to give whatever support he could. As Archer shaved, he became very quiet, distant. That had happened every time, but Marshall had not understood why. Knowing only made it worse.
“Davy, there must be something I can do—”
“It’s all right, Will.” Their eyes met, but the distance was there too. Archer had retreated to some kind of inner fortification. He smiled faintly, nodding at the window. “It won’t be for much longer.” He took the pan and razor, slid them under the door. When it opened, he set his jaw, squared his shoulders, and left the cell without looking back.
The dinner they left behind for Marshall was like ashes in his mouth. He ate it, since his body would need it for strength to fight. He somehow managed to sleep for a while, determined to get to work as soon as Davy came back. He woke, restless and unrefreshed, not long before lights-out. They usually brought Archer back some time after two bells, one in the morning, which shouldn’t be more than an hour or so.
They did not bring him back.
For an hour or more past one, Marshall waited, listening to the ship’s bell, expecting to hear the squeaky hinges of the door down the companionway. The time crawled by. He occupied himself with trying to remember as much as he could of the deck. He had not been paying close attention when he’d been up there, and moonlight could be deceptive. But the moon had been just past full then. Now it would be in its last quarter. For a few days, the deck would be relatively dark, and he could button up his uniform jacket to conceal the white revers. Nothing much he could do about his white breeches, though. He would just have to be very quiet and careful about where he put his feet.
Eventually his nerves got the better of his caution. He got out the adze blade and put the restless energy to work on the wood. But that didn’t stop him thinking, and he half-wished for a return to his former state of ignorance.
In retrospect, he could hardly believe how oblivious he had been. Davy’s anxiety, his mood sliding down each evening as the dinner hour approached, even his speech—he had not been stammering from nerves, he’d been editing his accounts to remove any hint of what had been done to him. And the nightmares? Small wonder. That son of a bitch—
Marshall ran the edge of the blade into his own thumb and stifled a curse. It was the very devil working in the dark, and letting anger make him clumsy wasn’t going to help his friend.
I sent him up there in the first place. He didn’t want to go. No, that probably didn’t matter. Even if Archer had refused to leave the cell and Marshall had backed him, Adrian was more than capable of sending men in to haul him out by force. It would not have changed anything. He had done, and was doing, the only thing he could do, just as Davy was—
His mind threw up a vivid picture.
Stop it. Think about something else. Something neutral. If he had two and one-half inches to cut through, and he was removing one sixty-fourth of an inch with each dig—though the wood was so tough that might be an overestimate—five half-inches at thirty-two passes each, one hundred sixty, plus however far above the bar he’d have to excavate to raise it enough to pull it free of the lower edge of the frame. How far in was it set?
He became curious about that and worked for a while at the inner side of the wood, digging up alongside the bar. After going up an inch or so with no end in sight, he went back to patiently grubbing out the rest of it, working mechanically, trying to keep his mind a blank.
“…the bastard’s been doing this to every prisoner, male or female, who strikes his fancy.” How in God’s name could he have gotten away with it for so long? Wouldn’t someone have mentioned something? If nothing else, wouldn’t anyone have at least reported what Adrian looked like? Even if he kept his damned mask on! Or was he normally clean-shaven? Did he do something to his hair—a wig, perhaps? Those who had not “struck his fancy” probably saw nothing more than a masked figure silhouetted against a lantern. But the others?
The others were likely so utterly humiliated, as Davy had been, that they’d kept silent. It was blackmail: If Adrian were caught and tried, his victims would suffer. And “how” didn’t really matter. He had been getting away with it. He was getting away with it right now. Davy had been gone for at least five hours. What in God’s name could that fucking bastard be doing to him?
His body tingled with the flush of memory: Davy warm and naked beneath him, pulling him close, the sweet intensity. But it wouldn’t be like that for Davy, not now—not with Adrian. That must have been horrible, judging by the way he’d come out of his nightmare. To take something so joyful, so wondrous, and twist it into torment…. How had Davy borne it? “He didn’t need the ropes, he had you.”
I should have gone. Damn my cowardice, I should have gone in his place.
He rested his forehead against the cold metal bar. Stop it. Stop thinking. Keep working.
He worked mindlessly, pausing when his hands started to go numb, putting the tool carefully into his pocket, shaking and rubbing his arms until the feeling returned. At one point he got so lightheaded he had to lie down for a while and woke with a start, certain the guards had brought Archer back and found him out.
They had not. He had been dreaming. He was still alone. It must be five or six bells by now, only an hour or two until dawn. Time enough to get a little more done. Back to work.
He had run out of gruesome possibilities to explain Archer’s continuing absence. All but the worst. “It’s all right, William. It won’t be for much longer.” What if Davy had done something desperate and—deliberately or not—gotten himself killed?
If that were the case—and Adrian made the mistake of letting Marshall within arm’s reach—there was a trick he had learned from Barrow, one slow Sunday afternoon some time back, when a few of the older hands had been reminiscing about past battles and barroom brawls. Barrow had picked it up from a new hand, a Lascar, who had a formidable reputation for unarmed mayhem.
Mar
shall had a slight advantage in height over Adrian, though they probably weighed about the same, and the bastard looked strong. Davy had clearly considered himself no match without a weapon, but the trick didn’t require great strength as much as speed, timing, and stubbornness. In fact, it was something that Archer could use.
It was something that Archer could use.
If he was still alive.
The adze blade clinked against metal, and Marshall frowned bemusedly in the dim dawn light. He had dug through to the bar. It moved when he twisted it. And it was getting light. And his brain was full of fog.
And Davy was still gone.
Chapter 16
“STAND AWAY from the door.”
Smith was used to this bit of shipboard routine: the buckets beside the door were exchanged for another set, one empty and two containing water. The only thing exceptional about this time was that his new recruit, Bert, was bringing in the buckets. And he glanced at Smith as he set down the one farthest from the door, then looked quite deliberately at the bit of paper sticking out from beneath it.
Smith nodded. Bert winked and made his exit. The fellow was turning out to be quite a competent conspirator. As soon as he was sure the guards outside were nowhere near the door, the Captain slipped the paper out from under the bucket.
Bert’s spelling and grammar were problematic, but his message was clear enough. A few hands had been ordered to get forty barrels of powder ready to unload in two days. The cook was going to add a little something to the soup at dinner the day after tomorrow, since deliveries were usually made in the afternoon. Smith should avoid eating that soup if he wanted to “be at his best” the rest of the day.
Bert had not been able to get to Marshall at all. Archer was not in the cell and might be in the sail locker. Bert was going to wait until they were both in one place before making contact unless he got a lucky chance. He was reluctant to give them weapons because their cell was checked from time to time and they might not be able to hide anything on their persons. The cook would not send them any of the hazardous soup. If Smith wanted to take advantage of the situation, he should bend the handle of his spoon when he sent the dishes back after dinner. If he didn’t, the soup would be left alone so as not to ruin the trick, “and for God’s sake, destroy this note.”
Bert and Henry were quite a pair, Smith reflected as he got out flint and tinder to light his candle. It was disconcerting to consider how much power a ship’s cook held over the health and well-being of the crew. He wondered what “little something” would be added to the soup, but he was not curious enough to risk a taste when the time came.
The slip of paper flamed and curled into ash; he crumbled it and blew the powder out the window. Was the situation one that would give them a decent chance at freedom? Even if the entire crew were indisposed, they would all be awake. Surely some of them would rally enough to get in the way. And, as his confederates surmised, doctoring the soup was a trick that would certainly work once but would be risky to repeat. But he had at least a couple of hours before he had to make that decision. It couldn’t be more than one or two bells, now.
His preference, if he had the choice, would be a clandestine escape late at night, close to shore. That would be the safest and held the best chance of success. Even if they weren’t very near shore, they’d be in the dark of the moon in a day or two. If they could get a small boat away without being seen, they would reach shore long before morning, and it would be nearly impossible for Adrian to mount a search. The question was whether that opportunity would arise any time soon.
Arise be damned. If the cook were willing to doctor the soup, that condition was not dependent on contact with other ships. They could make the opportunity when the time was right. As vehemently as Smith wanted to escape, as strongly as he abhorred the notion of having to buy his freedom from that arrogant brigand, he was not willing to get his men killed merely to save himself embarrassment. With what they now knew, it was only a matter of time before Adrian was captured and his “business” ended. They might even, if they were very lucky, be picked up by a ship with enough speed and firepower that they could be in at the capture.
Besides, if Archer had gone missing, this was not the time to engage the enemy. Thirty-eight against five was just less than eight-to-one odds. Losing one man made it ten-to-one, and if Archer was not with them, it meant Adrian had a hostage.
But how could anyone misplace a man on a little brig like this? It wasn’t possible. Perhaps Bert had simply not been present when Archer was moved. And why would he be moved? Surely it made more sense to keep them together. Perhaps sense was not the main concern, though. Had Adrian, fearing disaffection among his crew, decided to make escape more difficult by hiding one of his prisoners from all but a trusted few? How would that be possible on such a small vessel? Or, if Archer was in the sail locker—presumably a spot less comfortable than the cells—was it some kind of punishment, as it had been for Marshall? If so, for what offense?
Or was he even on board at all? If Marshall and Archer had come up with some way for one of them to escape—no. Not unless he had been able to get to the ship that had been nearby the night before last, and Bert would certainly had heard if there’d been an escape. If Archer was not on board….
That was extremely unlikely. Adrian would not purposely throw away £5000. Which meant that if Archer was not on board, he had probably gone over the side in the night—and he was almost certainly dead.
IN A day and a half, Davy had not been returned to the cell. By midday Marshall was ready to climb out the window, daylight or no. He spent the afternoon honing the adze blade until he’d scraped a groove in his shoe buckle. By nightfall he was nearly frantic. But the guards said nothing, ignoring his questions. The fellow who switched buckets frowned at him, brows knitted. Marshall stared back impassively. Unless Adrian was playing yet another game—a very real possibility—something was seriously wrong.
Supper, the only meal they’d brought that day, came and went, and night dragged on. Marshall had just sufficient willpower to wait until lights-out before he was back at work, scraping at the last inches of wood that kept the bar in place. Somewhere around two bells, the adze blade bit through wood above the bar. By four bells, an hour later, he was able to slide it up and out, and it was not until he held almost two feet of iron bar in his hand that he realized he had a weapon as well as an escape route.
At least in theory. If he wanted to conceal his absence, he could not take the bar along, and in any case, he was planning a reconnaissance, not an assault. His intention had been to have Davy replace the bar and deflect any attention.
Captain Smith had said something once, sounding like he was quoting: “No plan survives the initial encounter with the enemy.” Their plan had included Archer, but the enemy had managed to scuttle it. I’ll be damned if I’ll wait any longer.
Rather than leave the cell obviously empty, he shoved some straw into a body-shaped heap and arranged the sailcloth over it. With only a hint of reflected moonlight, he could not tell if it would fool anyone, but unless they brought Davy back, no one was likely to see his handiwork.
He stretched up and out through the opening, reaching for the edge of the hatch, and realized his body wouldn’t bend that way. He slid back inside, shucked off the confining jacket and shirt, and gave his straw twin a pillow and arms. He took his shoes and stockings off as an afterthought. Most of the deckhands went barefooted, and some had light-colored sailcloth breeches. If anyone caught a brief glimpse, he might be mistaken for someone who had a legitimate reason to be on deck.
He could not go out forward, so he tucked the bar into his waistband and tried again, backward. It was damned awkward, but he was just able to catch the iron rings where the ropes were fastened. For one painful instant, the sill of the port dug into his back, and then he shoved off with his feet, hauled up with his arms, and dragged himself clear of the cell. The ropes tightened along the hull, but they held, and no head appear
ed at the rail above him.
For a moment he just sat there, legs dangling inside, and looked up at the stars, drunk on the wide openness and clean sea air blowing around him. He was just a few feet above the waterline. It was return from exile, but it was a little too cold to hold still for long, and he had a job to do.
The waning moonlight was enough to see that his guess about the rigging was fairly good. The closest chains looked to be about five feet away, a bit of a stretch, and he’d have to be sure he made no mistakes. The ship was moving slowly but steadily through the water, and if he were to slip off now, that would be the end of it, and of him.
With great care, he fitted the bar back into position and stood, balancing on the sill and holding both hatch ropes. It was glorious to stand up straight, too—amazing how such small things could make such a difference.
He could hear nothing from the deck, nor did he see any hatches that resembled theirs on this side of the hull. No surprise, though he’d still had a faint hope that the Captain’s cell would be accessible. The sail locker was on the opposite side too, which he’d already known from the angle of light.
Marshall slid to the edge of the sill and reached for the cable, leaning against the slight outward curve of the sea-sprayed hull. It leached the warmth out of him, bringing out gooseflesh all over his body. As if in reaction, his mind gave him a clear picture of the insane position he was in, splayed out against the hull, hanging on to the dubious security of a line meant only to hold a shutter closed, standing a few feet above the moving sea with no safety rope around him, his fingers just barely grasping the first vertical cable.
