The French Prize

by James L. Nelson

  The men at the lines made them off to the belaying pins and Wentworth looped the sheet around the top of the kevel. Then the hands forward began to stumble and pull their way across the deck to the main shrouds on the weather side. The first of them stepped up on a gun carriage, swung outboard, took hold of the shrouds, and began the long struggle aloft to stow the sail. They moved like men off to be sacrificed, but Wentworth knew it was just the difficulty of climbing with so wild a motion of the ship, and not any shyness about going aloft, that made them move that way.

  There seemed to Wentworth to be quite a few men, and then he recalled that they had the British hands aboard, more than doubling the crew, which would make the work of stowing the sail blessedly simpler. That fact aside, Wentworth was determined that this time he would join them. He could not stand to think he was backward in his courage, and he did not think he was, but his memory of declining to go aloft nagged at him. He headed forward now, determined to kill that ghost.

  “Mr. Wentworth!” he heard the voice roll down the deck even over the wind. He turned and could just make out the figure of Captain Biddlecomb, waving him aft. He reversed direction and fought his way back to the quarterdeck, up to Biddlecomb’s side.

  “Well done with the sheet!” Biddlecomb shouted. “But going aloft in this weather is not for landsmen! Best keep your feet on the deck! If you can!”

  Various reactions hit William like a boarding sea. Relief was one of them, he could not deny it. It was no decision of his, but a direct order from the master that kept him relatively safe on deck. But there was also disappointment, and anger. Was Biddlecomb implying a want of aptitude on his part? A want of courage? His thoughts turned, as they always did in such situations, to whether he should demand satisfaction.

  Don’t be an idiot! he thought. There was not the least implication of anything in Biddlecomb’s voice. And what’s more, Biddlecomb was right. Proud as he might be of his gained knowledge, Wentworth had to admit he was still a landsman and would only be in the way up aloft.

  “Very well, Captain!” he cried. He reached for the lifeline but Biddlecomb put a hand on his arm.

  “If you wish to remain on the quarterdeck, I suggest you get behind the lee cloth here!” he shouted. The lee cloth, tied up in the mizzen shrouds, offered a modicum of relief from the rain and spray. Wentworth nodded his thanks, stepped up to the weather rail, and sheltered himself as best as he could.

  It was immediately obvious, even to Wentworth, that the ship was behaving much better with the mainsail stowed. She still rolled heavily, still took boarding seas, but the water did not run so deep along her deck, and her motion had less of the laboring, desperate motion of earlier.

  Wentworth remained on deck for an hour more, watching the ship plunging along, utterly unable to determine if she was making headway, sternway, or staying in one spot. She did seem to have a sort of equilibrium; the amount of sail set was enough to drive her, not enough to overwhelm her, and the seas rolled in steep and breaking but with a certain regularity to which he became accustomed. The deck was snugged down, the watch seeking what shelter they could because, for the moment, there was nothing they needed to do but wait it out.

  Jack kept looking astern. Wentworth could not help but notice it, and once he himself stole a look aft but could see nothing but blackness and the occasional flash of a breaking wave, and, when the lightning came, the huge and unruly seas lit up with that strange yellow light and deep shadow.

  “What are you looking at?” Wentworth finally asked, as Jack did it again. He still had to shout to be heard, even from a few feet away.

  “Guadeloupe!” Jack shouted. “Or L’Armançon! Or both!”

  Wentworth nodded. Jack paused, then added, “If it were not for those, I’d likely turn and run before this! But we have no sea room! If we hit either the island or the Frenchie we’re done for!”

  William nodded again and turned and looked astern once more. He could not help himself. And again there was nothing to see, and half an hour later, when the helmsmen were relieved, there was still nothing to see, and William was soaked through and chilled, despite the relatively warm West Indian night. He thought about leaving the deck, but his pride suggested if Biddlecomb was going to remain there all night, he should, too, even though he served no function whatsoever. Finally good sense asserted itself and he bade good night to Biddlecomb and fought his way below. A storm lantern was hanging from a hook, which gave him light enough to find what remained of his cabin and he lay down, fully dressed, in his bunk and slept.

  He woke some hours later with the sense that it was daylight and that something was taking place on deck. He lay still and listened. The motion of the ship was not as bad now, the shudder of the hull in the water, the sound of the wind in the rig all diminished a bit. There were feet running topside and muffled shouts, heard through the planks of the deck. And not just topside. He could hear activity in the ’tween decks and down in the hold, the entire ship’s company at some urgent task.

  William swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood. His clothing was no longer wet, but it was far from dry. It was damp, clammy, and considerably uncomfortable, but he imagined that once he had been moving around a bit it would not be so bad. Or so he told himself.

  He forced his way out of the cabin and down the alleyway. The cover was off the main hatch and the cool, fresh air that was filling the narrow space smelled good and clean. A gang of men were working at something, and at first glance William thought they were doing battle with some great monster of legend, but then he saw they were hauling the end of one of the massive ropes out of the hold.

  He climbed the ladder to the deck above, stepped from the scuttle, and looked forward. The dawn was an hour past and the world topside was gray and wild. The seas were leaden and still immense, waves ten feet high rolling down on Abigail, making her lift and plunge. The sky was nearly the same color, a variegated gray and white and near black. The wind was whistling through the rigging, but the pitch was lower, the strength not what it had been; thirty or thirty-five knots, perhaps.

  He looked aft and sucked in his breath. The high mountains of Guadeloupe, gray-green in that light, were practically looming over them, so close Wentworth could not take in the whole island in in a single glance. He stepped to the rail and leaned over and looked astern. He was no great judge of distance, but there seemed to be five or six miles from where they were to where they would run aground, and that seemed like a significant distance to him, enough that they were in no immediate danger, but he knew he was no judge of those things, either.

  A gang of men were aft and they seemed excited about something and William guessed it was the proximity of the island. Then Tucker appeared and shooed them forward, and reluctantly they turned from the taffrail and headed amidships, throwing glances back as they did. Wentworth passed them, heading aft to where Biddlecomb and Tucker were standing at the rail. He was not sure if the general order to get the hell off the quarterdeck applied to him as well, but he was curious enough that he was willing to risk the embarrassment if it did.

  “Captain, what ho?” he asked as he stepped up to the rail. “Are we in danger of running ashore on this island, which I take to be Guadeloupe?”

  “No, we have room enough, and enough way on if we don’t suffer any damage aloft. It’s this fellow that could well be done for.”

  Wentworth followed Biddlecomb’s pointed finger. At first he saw only the succession of waves. Then the seas lifted L’Armançon up from the trough, water streaming through her gunports, a great tangle of wreckage on her decks. She was rolling hard, and there was nothing beyond the stump of a mainmast left standing. The rest of her rig was either gone, or lying across the deck and pounding the ship to bits. Wind and sea were driving her to the west, and even Wentworth could see that she had an hour, perhaps an hour and a half, before she foundered on what was undoubtedly an inhospitable shore.

  * * *

  The longest nights, Jack ha
d long ago discovered, were the ones that were spent waiting for dawn to come. Such was the case with this last night, just coming to its end. The storm had been bad, certainly, but for all the damage she suffered in the fight with L’Armançon, Abigail was in good shape, standing rigging repaired, running gear set to rights, and once they had the main stowed she drove along nicely under the triple-reefed fore topsail and the fore and aft canvas. Jack would have been perfectly content if he had not had the island and the French corvette somewhere under his lee.

  Wentworth had been on deck for a bit, had even tended the main sheet, which was a genuine help since it meant he did not have to do it. To Jack’s great surprise, he no longer seemed to mind having Wentworth around. Command was the most lonely of positions on shipboard, but Jack was not by nature a solitary person. A close friendship with any of his subordinates would have been inappropriate. But Wentworth was a passenger, and while Jack did not think of him as a friend, and in fact thought of him as someone he could barely tolerate, it was oddly pleasant to have his company on the quarterdeck. What’s more, unlike Frost, he did not have to worry about Wentworth second-guessing his decisions, because Wentworth did not know a damned thing about anything that was going on.

  Jack had kept the deck through the dark hours, though he allowed the off watch to go below, no need for all hands on deck. The first inkling of light outlined the threatening, hulking presence of Guadeloupe right under their lee and about two leagues off. Close enough to be worrisome, but not enough to be frightening. Unless the rig failed.

  But what of L’Armançon? He did not think she was much of a threat now, but he did need to know where she was. He pulled his best glass from the binnacle and swept the horizon astern. She had been to leeward of Abigail when the sun went down and he seriously doubted that she had worked her way to weather during the night.

  He saw no sign of her as he looked along the raggedy edge of the horizon. He was starting to wonder if perhaps she had foundered when some object, low and dark, caught his eye. He shifted the glass. There she was, about two miles to leeward. Her masts had gone by the board, no doubt rolled clean out of her. She was riding bow on to the seas, which surprised him, as he would have thought she would turn broadside to the waves, and that would have been an end to her. As it was, they were only postponing their doom.

  The wind and seas were driving her right on shore, and in those conditions it would be no more than an hour or two before she was aground. She would strike bottom some ways from the island, hang up, roll hard on her side. The next wave would lift her and drop her and probably stove her in like an egg. And if it did not, the next one would, or the one after that. Some of her company might live, clinging to wreckage, washed into shore, but for most, their bloated corpses would be flung on the beach, their pockets would be picked by the islanders come down to scavenge the wreck, and their bodies would become a meal for crabs and gulls and sharks.

  Tucker came up next to him. “Any sight of L’Armançon, sir?” he asked. Biddlecomb pointed and Tucker gave a low whistle. He handed Tucker the glass and the mate looked and whistled again. “Done for, ain’t she, sir?” he said.

  “Yes,” Jack said. All those men … He harbored them no ill will, which was somewhat surprising, given that they had tried to kill him, and he was not a terribly forgiving sort. But, enemies though they might be, they were fellow mariners as well, and he felt a kinship with men of the sea, particularly those in such grave peril, a kinship that went beyond the animosities of war.

  Wasn’t personal, Jack thought. The officers were no doubt following orders, and the dumb sods on the lower deck had no say.

  “Yes,” Jack said again. “They are done for. Unless…”

  30

  Word that the disabled corvette was in sight astern spread through the crew in that indescribable, telepathic way of ships’ companies. The men came aft to stare out over the water at the pathetic sight. Jack gave them two minutes to look and blather their sundry opinions before he told Tucker to set them to rousting the two-inch hawser out of the cable tier and flaking it out, ready for running, on the ’tween decks.

  Wentworth appeared and Jack showed him the source of all the excitement. “Their case is hopeless, is it not?” Wentworth asked, his eyes fixed on the distant hulk of the corvette. “It would seem with no masts or sails they have no way to avoid being driven ashore. Can they anchor?”

  “By the time they are in water shallow enough to anchor in, they’ll be pounding on the beach,” Jack explained. “Frankly, I do not think they can save themselves.”

  “So they are…” Wentworth began and stopped. He pulled his eyes from the battered ship and looked at Jack. “You are going to save them?”

  “I am going to try. We’ll see if there is any way to pass a hawser to them and tow them clear.”

  “Really?” Wentworth said, not as if he thought it was a bad idea, but as if he was not sure what he thought.

  “Do you think this a mistake, Mr. Wentworth?” Jack asked. He certainly was not looking for any advice from the man, but he was curious to see what Wentworth would say.

  “I’m not sure,” Wentworth said. “I’m no great fan of Frenchmen, and even less of Frenchmen who shoot at me. But I guess there’s that brotherhood of tarpaulins, and all that.”

  “There is, indeed,” Jack said. “And who knows, if we succeed in this madness we may strike a great blow for international relations, undo some of the damage that Mr. Jay and his treaty with England has done.”

  Before Wentworth could answer, their conversation was interrupted by loud footsteps on the deck and the call of, “Captain Biddlecomb!” as a red-faced Charles Frost came huffing up. “I hear the Frenchie is dismasted, being driven ashore.”

  “He is there, Mr. Frost,” Jack said, pointing, and he could hear the clipped tone in his own voice. In the dark hours of the night, alone on the quarterdeck, he had been thinking a great deal about the subtle influence that Frost had been exerting over the affairs of his ship, and he did not like the realizations that had come to him.

  “Why are the men getting out that cable?” Frost demanded.

  “It is no affair of yours, Mr. Frost, but out of courtesy I will tell you that I mean to drop to leeward and see if I can pass a cable to the Frenchmen, see if we can tow them off this lee shore.”

  “Are you mad?” Frost demanded. “Have you lost all your senses? These are the fellows who were trying to kill you not twelve hours ago!”

  “That was war, or some such,” Jack said. “In truth, I don’t know what it was. But this is a matter of the sea.”

  “Damn the sea, and damn these Frenchmen! You will not tow them off, do you hear me, you will not!”

  Jack clenched his teeth together and took a few seconds before he trusted himself to speak. “You forget yourself, sir,” he said at last. “Mr. Oxnard may have given you leave to assist with these damned guns, but you have no authority aboard this ship. You most certainly do not have any authority in matters of seamanship.”

  “I do not think Oxnard would agree with you, sir.”

  “If you see Mr. Oxnard you may ask him,” Jack said, “but until then, I am in command.”

  “Are you?” Frost asked, his voice a growl, all of the bonhomie quite gone. He was furious in a way Jack had never seen him before, in a way Jack would not have imagined he could become. “We shall see about that, Captain.”

  After having commanded Abigail through two violent storms and the same number of sea fights, Jack would have thought that having someone address him as “Captain” in an ironic tone would no longer have made him furious. But apparently not. In that instant his smoldering anger flashed into a white-hot rage.

  His hand shot out and grabbed Frost’s right arm and jerked it toward him, which spun Frost right around, a thing that might not have been so easy if the big man had not been so surprised. Then Jack wound up and kicked him hard in the rear end, kicked him hard enough to send him stumbling forward a few feet. Despit
e his fury, Jack was aware enough to see the suppressed grins on the faces of the men around him, but that had no calming effect.

  “Get below, Mr. Frost, get below and stay below and stay the hell out of my affairs, or by God, sir, I will give you worse than that!”

  Frost turned, slowly. His face was red, and the anger seemed etched upon it. His eyebrows and lips came together, and he looked as if he might speak. No one on the quarterdeck moved. Then Frost turned in a flurry of coattails, stomped off forward, and disappeared down the scuttle.

  Jack turned to Tucker. “Is that two-inch hawser rousted out yet?” he snapped.

  * * *

  Biddlecomb seemed to think that Mr. Charles Frost was on his way below to remain there and not interfere until this business was done, but Wentworth was not so sure. From what he had observed, Frost was not one to be easily dissuaded, and his silent retreat from the quarterdeck seemed more a change of plan than a capitulation.

  Wentworth headed for the scuttle as well. No one on the quarterdeck seemed to notice his leaving, being engrossed as they were in a discussion of hawsers and drogues and drift and messengers and any number of tarpaulin issues he did not understand. He climbed down to the ’tween decks and headed aft.

  Frost was in his cabin. Wentworth could hear him thumping around in there, though he was not sure what the man was about. Then he heard the familiar rattle of a steel rammer clicking against the barrel of a pistol and Wentworth knew that his worst fear was indeed the case. He knocked on the cabin door.

  “Be gone, damn you!” Frost shouted from behind the thin, white painted wood.

  “Mr. Frost, a word, sir, if you will,” Wentworth called.

  “I will not! Begone!”

  Wentworth turned the handle and opened the door. Frost was standing at the far end of the cabin, and once again Wentworth considered the size of the place, twice that of his own cabin, and thought, Damn your eyes, Biddlecomb, you vengeful little bastard …