by John Drake
And so, the two were brought into Lady Sarah’s camp and all their brave resolutions overthrown.
14
I was enjoying the most beautiful dream when Lucinda woke me. All about building my own counting-house and putting Mr Nathan Pendennis to work as my clerk. So I wasn’t a bit pleased to be disturbed.
“Honey,” says she, “wake up! I got to go now, and I got somethin’ to tell you first.”
“What?” says I. “In the morning ...” and I threw an arm around her and drew her close. But she pushed me back and pulled the bedclothes off me so I couldn’t go back to sleep.
“No,” says she, “yo’ll be gone soon enough, and I got to tell you now.”
“What are you doing, girl?” says I. “It’s cold.” Then I realised what she’d said. “What do you mean ‘gone’?” says I.
“Yo’ goin’ aboard that ship with Missa Cooper, ain’t you?” says she. “That big ship him so almighty proud of, down in Hart’s Yard.”
“Who told you that?” says I, for I certainly had not.
“Huh!” says she. “They ain’t nothin’ goes on in this house I don’t know. Missa Cooper him been talking to them Navy Captains that come by the house. He been boastin’ that he gonna have you fo’ to work his guns.”
“Well, stap me!” says I. “The little grub! When was this, Lucinda, for I only decided myself today?”
“That what you think, honey,” says she. “Missa Cooper, he told them Captain ten days ago, he gonna get you in that ship, ‘cos you a man that loves his money.”
“Well I’m damned!” thinks I. Cooper was sharper than I’d thought. Except that presumably he thought he’d hooked a Royal Navy Lieutenant. But then, so did Lucinda as I soon found out.
“Why are you telling me this?” says I.
“First you tell me what you doin’ here?” says she. I didn’t know how to answer that, for I didn’t know how many of my little secrets she might already know.
“Honey,” says she, “ain’t you an Englishman? An’ a Loo-tenant?”
“Yes,” says I without thinking, for I’d played the role long enough for the lie to come natural. Well, I was English anyway, wasn’t I?
“Well, what you doin’ goin’ on a ‘merican ship, huh? What yo’ own people gonna think o’ that?” I was even more puzzled at that, and said nothing and let her talk to see where this might lead. “Don’t you know what that ship gonna do? Don’t you know where she goin’?”
“She’s bound away on a cruise,” says I, “to work up her crew, and prove herself.”
“That just what they done told you, honey!” says she. “Listen, boy, when them Captains was in the Li’bry with Missa Cooper, and I brung in the food, why they just talked right on with me there. Missa Cooper, he say,” and here she gave the most rattling funny imitation of Cooper’s voice, “he say — Act as you would before me, gentlemen, my girl Lucinda is entirely faithful to me — his girl Lucinda indeed! He ain’t even man enough to try!”
“Ain’t he?” says I.
“No, he ain’t,” says she.
“So what did they say?” says I, intrigued.
“Yo’ know that big French fleet down in Virginia, that loadin’ all the corn?”
“Yes,” says I.
“Well,” says she, “them French, they’s afraid you English gonna send your ships out to stop the corn ships. ‘Cos if you do that, then them French, why they’s gonna starve.”
“So?” says I.
“So,” says she, “them French they gonna send a big, big fleet of man-o’-war ships out in the sea to meet the corn ships, so’s they be safe from you English. And the Americans, they gonna send Missa Cooper’s ship out with the corn ships to meet the French Navy ships. They even been told where the meetin’ place is. One o’ them Captains he showed Missa Cooper the place on a map and he try to cover it up with his hands when I come close with the food.”
“But why should they send Cooper’s ship out with that French Grain Fleet?” says I. “The Frogs have already got a couple of 74’s and some frigates with them already. What’s the Declaration wanted for?”
“It gonna show them French what good, good friends the ‘mericans is, so them French’ll come back next year an’ buy some more corn. That’s what that Captain said, him that told Missa Cooper the meeting place.”
“Well,” thinks I, “so much for the Americans being ‘pitched contrariwise’ against the Frogs!” I wondered where Uncle Ezek-iah really stood in all this, what with his big offers to me, and his toast to the British Grenadiers. Probably the wily old bugger was playing both sides of Yankee politics. But then a more important thought struck me.
“Why are you telling me this?” says I to Lucinda.
“‘Cos you a English Loo-tenant, ain’t you? So what you doin’ on a ‘merican ship goin’ out most like to fight against the English Navy?”
Just for once I had no good answer to that. For I thought we were discussing loyalties, and I didn’t want to say I was doing it for the money.
“Either you is a funny kind o’ Englishman ...” says Lucinda, “or you is somethin’ else …”
“What?” says I, realising she was off on another tack completely.
“Yo’ is a spy, ain’t you?” says she in a whisper and I could feel the excitement mounting within her. “Yo’ is gonna steal that meeting place and tell yo’ Navy where to find them corn ships!” I could see her eyes gleaming: round and wondering. She was breathing faster, and she was soft and trembling beside me.
“Hallo!” thinks I and following Wellington’s maxim once more, I folded her in my arms so that her smooth, warm body lay close to mine. “You have discovered me, ma’am,” says I in a deep, sad voice. “I am in your power, and my life lies in your hands. One word from you will put my naked breast before the muskets of a firing squad.”
(Damn fine stuff, what? Extemporised too. And by George didn’t it just work!)
“My love, my love,” moans Lucinda, “my darling!” and smothered me with hotter and more passionate kisses than anything I’d known before, even from her. And then she paid me back for those occasions when I’d ravished her, by doing the same to me — comprehensively. But unlike Lucinda, I never complained.
*
Two weeks later I was stood by Captain Cooper on the quarterdeck of the United States National Ship, Declaration of Independence as she came down past the North Battery and Long Wharf to salute Fort Hill with fifteen guns. It was a declared holiday for the people of the town, and tens of thousands of them lined the eastward wharves and piers to see their country’s one and only man-o’-war go forth in her pride. A shoal of small craft was all around us, crowds cheered, bands played, banners waved and ladies fainted.
I’ve seen more than my share of occasions like that and they’re infectious. Your foot taps to the band and you join in if you know the words. Now that’s not surprising when it’s a British song that’s being sung, but it’s odd the way even foreigners’ music has the same effect. I must confess I’ve even cheered the French in my time, when they played the “Marseillaise”. But that’s the finest march ever written, and too good by far for the bloody Frogs.
It was odd being in a ship again, too. Most of me thought it a mighty bore, and a diversion from the true path of my life. But a bit of me (a bit that I’d have had cut out by the nearest surgeon if only I knew where it lay) was happy with the salt spray, the screeching gulls, and the working of the big ship to the pressure of the wind in her sails. You could see the power of it in the taut lines and bending topmasts.
She came out on the ebb with a good westerly wind, and the town’s best pilot in command. For the sea-channel out from Boston in those days was tortuous and shallow, winding between dozens of islands and mud flats. The order of the day was to creep out under close-reefed topsails with the lead going in the forechains. As we passed between Governor’s Island and Dorchester Neck, there was less than three fathoms under the keel. But the pilot knew his trade an
d brought us safe out through the Narrows north of Nantasket Road and so into the main channel where Cooper took command.
Then the hands cheered everything. They cheered the pilot, they cheered the Stars and Stripes, they cheered Cooper and they cheered the ship’s pig’s mother-in-law too, so far as my memory serves me. For the lad Cooper had got himself a happy ship.
Of the 450 seamen and thirty boys aboard, there wasn’t one who hadn’t entered her as a volunteer (unless you count me, of course). Even the two companies of Marines and their officers were keen as mustard. And as for Cooper and his Sea Service officers (three Lieutenants and the Master), they were like boys on holiday. God only knows how that man ever maintained discipline among his people. It was as different as could be from the Royal Navy with its pressed men and constant dread of mutiny.
Mind you, he’d got some hard cases on the lower deck and he flogged one of them for fighting, on the second day of the voyage. And grog was issued just like in our Navy. So don’t let anyone tell you the Yankee Navy in those days was manned entirely by teetotal God-fearing saints who spent their spare time singing psalms.
But they were keen; every man jack of ‘em. And on that morning, as Declaration headed out into the North Atlantic, fresh in her new paint and rigged out with the best of gear, it was an education to see how her crew did their work. They were pretty good for a set of newcomers that hardly knew one another. The hands were cheerful and went at it with a will, and the Bosun’s Mates hardly had to tickle them with their starters, while Cooper was a good seaman and his officers too. For they’d all of them, officers and men, learned their trade in the merchant service.
And yet, there was something missing. They just weren’t man-o’-war’s men. Not by Royal Navy standards. Not yet. And I’m not just talking about any ship’s need to work up her crew. I’m talking about the standards by which her officers judge themselves and the hands. I could see that they weren’t up to the mark, because I’d known the real thing: there’s a sharpness, and an edge and a jump-to-it way of doing things on board the King’s ships that just ain’t to be learned aboard a merchantman. And none of Cooper’s officers were aware of this.
Now of course this is not to say that Declaration wasn’t an impressive ship, for she was. She was big, strongly built and extremely heavily armed. Against another frigate, against the Frogs or dagos, I’d have backed her and her crew any time. But it wasn’t them she was measuring herself against, was it?
In short, Cooper and his uncle were right. Declaration was in need of advice from the real thing — but all they’d got was me! This made me think over all I’d been taught of gunnery drill aboard Phiandra and I fell to worrying if I was up to the job of schooling Cooper’s gun-crews. And then I thought of Lucinda, and her tearful farewell, and her whispering in my ear.
“I always loves you, honey!” says she. “I knows you ain’t comin’ back, ‘cos you’s a English officer, and you got your duty ...” By God the thought of that depressed me! Lucinda was the first woman I’d ever known who’d loved me just for myself, when she didn’t have to. And now, not only was I missing her, but the thought of all that she’d said made me uneasy.
I fixed my mind on two things, which were a great comfort to me. Firstly, Lucinda was wrong. I’d be back in Boston so soon as Declaration’s cruise was done. My American citizenship papers were in my sea-chest below, and Uncle Ezekiah’s bill of hand for $5,000 dollars was deposited in my name in a Boston bank. Once back in Boston I’d bid farewell to the sea and make my fortune in trade. Perhaps I’d buy a house in Tontine Crescent, and I’d certainly poach Lucinda away from Cooper and bring her to live with me. That way I could roger her cross-eyed every night of the week, and twice on Sundays.
“Mr Fletcher!” says a voice. It was Cooper with his officers behind him. They were all grinning. “You’ve not been attending to me, sir!” says Cooper. “Will you join me in my cabin, or not?”
There was a laugh at this, and I realised how intensely I’d been pondering what I was going to do with myself. Cooper had been talking to me and I’d not heard; I’d have got my ears blasted off aboard a King’s ship for that. But habit came to my rescue.
“Aye-aye, sir!” says I, without thinking, and touched my hat.
“Then have the goodness to follow me below, sir!” says he, and he led the troop of us to the great cabin, leaving a nervous Master’s Mate in command. Down below, he entertained his wardroom officers to a glass of wine; three Lieutenants, the Master, and the Surgeon, Chaplain and Purser — and myself.
My position aboard Declaration was anomalous. I was entered in the ship’s books as a midshipman, since not even the Cooper influence could get me a commission in two weeks. But I had a cabin in the wardroom with the officers, and was treated in all respects as if I were a Lieutenant. What’s more, among my messmates, I enjoyed the prestige of the veteran naval officer that they thought I was. And none of them thought me a turncoat, neither. Americans are like that. They’re so almighty proud of their country that they think a foreigner’s simply coming to his senses when he wants to become one of them. In any case, there were a dozen or more British or ex-British hands on the lower deck (“berthing deck” they called it), so I was nothing new.
Cooper, in one of his spurts of generosity, had kitted me out with personal tackle, including a blue uniform coat and a cocked hat. So I looked the part too. And as regards the matelots, I came complete with my own authority built-in: sixteen stones of it, and when I said jump, they jumped.
Down in the Great Cabin, I was reminded of Cooper’s money. He had every luxury that the mind of man could conceive: patent silver lamps swinging in gymbals, elegant furniture, rugs, curtains and rows of books in neat little shelves with brass rails to stop the ship’s motion from emptying them. In front of the sweep of the stern windows running completely across the cabin, he had the usual long table with a dozen chairs for entertaining, or as on this occasion, for conferring with his officers.
I wondered what would happen to all this when Declaration cleared for action. Captain Bollington of Phiandra cleared every second day, as a drill, and every stick in his cabin went down to the hold each time. But then I noticed that there were no guns in Cooper’s cabin. That gave him more room and left him undisturbed, but it would never have done in the Royal Navy. That sort of cherishing of a Captain’s comforts would have been seen as the moral equivalent of mincing down Drury Lane with a lace handkerchief in your hand and an ostrich plume up your arse.
Presumably the Yankees saw things different, because nobody seemed surprised.
*
Once we were all seated, Cooper gave us a speech. All the usual stuff about duty and country and what prodigious things he was going to do with the ship, should only heaven give him the chance. I’d heard it all before and I’ve heard it since. I’ve even given it myself, for it’s expected on these occasions. But I’d have dozed off if I hadn’t noticed that one or two of the company (especially my old friend Eustace Hunt who was First Lieutenant) were getting their first proper feel of the sea, now that Declaration was forging out on to the rolling North Atlantic, with a good westerly in her sails.
By God’s grace, sea-sickness never bothered me after my first voyage and one of the things that’s kept me jolly these many years at sea has been the fun of watching my shipmates succumb: first they sweat, then they go grey, then they go green, and finally they heave up their guts in tribute to Father Neptune. On that occasion Mr Hunt was going through these stages so perfectly that I could barely look at him without laughing. Serve him right, the swab, he had prize money in the bank from Bednal Green.
With the formalities out of the way, Cooper revealed that the voyage was no mere cruise to prove the ship but had a specific purpose. I already knew that, thanks to Lucinda, and I think Lieutenant Hunt did too, being a close crony of Cooper’s, but his lack of surprise might have been due to the fact that he was hoping he might die in order to be out of his misery. Everyone else, how
ever, leaned forward like dogs who’d sniffed a rabbit, and not a sound was heard as Cooper told them about the Frogs’ Grain Convoy, and how Declaration was going along with it, to show the Yankee flag.
“In that drawer,” says Cooper, pointing to a drawer of a big desk, glittering with brass and polish, “in that drawer, lie my orders with the latitude and longitude of the rendezvous point where the Brest Fleet, under Admiral Villaret de Joyeuse, shall meet the Grain Convoy to bring it in safe to harbour.” He paused to let that sink in, then went on: “I have it from Mr Knox, the Secretary of War, that President Washington is much gratified that the French have entrusted us with a secret, the loss of which to their enemies could bring such ruin upon their nation.” Cooper swept his eyes around the table. “And, gentlemen,” says he, “the President relies upon our actions, aboard this ship, to cement future relations with our European ally.”
That made me think, I can tell you. So the French were “our European ally” were they, indeed? But heads nodded wisely round the table and after we’d drunk a health or two in Cooper’s port, he dismissed us to our duties. Hunt was away like a jockey given the off, and up the companionway to the quarterdeck like a mountain goat. But anyone could see how imminently pressing were his duties. The others filed out more sedately, but I got called back.
“Mr Fletcher,” cries Cooper, “a word with you!” I sat down again, and as the Marine sentry outside the door pulled it shut, Cooper shoved the decanter across the table.
“Will you take another, Fletcher?” says he.
“No, thank you, sir,” says I. I’d had three already and it was still early morning.
“Fletcher,” says he, “I hope you will be happy aboard my ship.”
“So do I, sir,” says I, waiting for him to come to the point. “You are an American citizen now, are you not?”
“Yes, sir,” says I. He bloody well ought to know. He was with me in the Mayor’s office when I took the Oath of Allegiance.
“And you have much to return home to, in Boston?” Indeed I did. More than he knew.
