by Lee Rowan
“Indeed. When we have arrived in Kingston, I intend to have the ship searched thoroughly. In this weather, a corpse will soon make itself known. If the unfortunate young man is indeed dead, I suspect his remains have been stowed in the bilges, and I do not want his body found until we reach port; it would disturb the crew. They’re better off believing he went overboard in the gale.”
“The last communication I received suggested you might be told where the body is hidden, sir.”
“Oh, that nonsense. I think it an empty threat. Since you know you did not kill anyone, why should you have any reason to fear an anonymous accusation? These threats would carry weight only if you had a guilty secret—and you do not. In any event, an accusation of this gravity would require an accuser—he must needs reveal himself or find a willing catspaw. As for this rubbish….” The Captain picked up the newest note and, to David’s great relief, crumpled it up, lifted the glass on the lantern, and set fire to the thing. When it was well ablaze, he dropped it onto the pewter bowl of sand that sat in a bracket on his writing desk. After the paper blackened into ash, Sir Paul stirred it until it was blended into a formless mass. “I must be sure Klingler changes the sand,” he said as if to himself. “I should hate to blot a letter to my wife and leave ash-smears across it.”
“Thank you, sir,” David said, weak with relief.
The Captain snorted. “This reptile must know very little of me, if he believes I would bring charges against one of my own officers on the basis of an anonymous poison pen. I wouldn’t hang a dog on such ‘evidence.’ But as the missive itself no longer exists, I see no reason to mention it to Mr. Humberstone. The communications you have already received have convinced him that his ruse was successful.”
David thanked him again. Will, quiet until now, asked, “Captain, what action do you wish us to take now? The fellow is still demanding the key to the weapons locker.”
“Give it to him.”
“Sir?” they both asked, in startled unison.
“On Monday, I plan to exercise the upper-deck guns in the morning watch, as soon as there’s light to see. In the afternoon it will be the lower gundecks. You would, of course, have to remove the key when the lower deck is cleared for action, so our traitor will certainly search your cabin in the morning. On Tuesday, however, I shall have the carpenter rouse his crew and install a proper set of walls and doors in the wardroom. This is not regulation, but neither is our situation, and I do not believe my officers’ quarters should be treated as a public thoroughfare. When this is done, the armorer will then cast locks with unique keys for your doors. So, Mr. Archer, when you go on duty Monday, forenoon watch, you may put this beneath your sea chest.”
He took a key from his pocket and handed it to David.
“It will do our traitor little good. While the armorer is making locks for the officers’ cabins, he will also be making a new lock for every secure compartment on this ship, and I shall personally distribute the keys to those who have business in those areas. There will be no question of who is responsible for any given key. And now, gentlemen, would you care to join me in a light repast?”
THE NEXT day was Sunday, and as usual church was rigged, the awning raised over the quarterdeck, the entire crew washed and brushed, presenting themselves in their best attire. The Valiant had no chaplain, but instead of the usual reading of the Articles—was Captain Smith perhaps feeling the sting of conscience?—he read from a book of sermons often carried as a companion volume to the Book of Common Prayer.
The text of the sermon concerned the verses that began “No man may serve two masters….”
Chapter 8
MONDAY MORNING, four days out of Kingston, the Valiant was sailing through a scattering of minute, uninhabited islands under a fair wind and temperate weather. Mr. West and his master’s mate had been excused from practice, as he was wholly absorbed in directing their course through the passage between the islands. The Terrier followed to windward and a little astern, keeping their flock of merchantmen in order. Since Valiant was the largest ship, with the deepest draft, the rest of the convoy could follow wherever she had clear passage.
But the foremast crew paid little attention to the ship’s progress. Since the Captain had announced that the entire ship would turn out for gunnery practice, nearly everyone aboard was focused on the upcoming event. This was not just the ordinary practice that took up an hour or two every day, but an exercise in firing from both sides of the ship, a considerably more demanding task. More demanding, more dangerous—and yet a favorite activity for all the men, who delighted in the noise and force of the big ship’s batteries.
Will surveyed the deck, already swabbed, scrubbed, and cleared for action. For the first time since his transfer, he began to feel a liking for the huge tub. He was pleased with the way his division was shaping up—the French intrusion earlier in the week had left the Valiant’s crew somewhat dissatisfied with their own performance, and his men seemed ready and eager to show their new Captain what they could do when they put their minds to it. Hammocks were rolled and stored in the netting, the gun crews stood by their weapons with tools at the ready, and even the powder monkeys, some of them no older than six, were bright-eyed and alert.
“We’ll have three sets of three before the end of the morning watch,” Captain Smith announced. Like all captains, he aspired to the three rounds in five minutes that had become a byword—in a fight, the ship that could reload and fire the most quickly and most accurately always had an advantage. “A double ration of rum to the first crew to achieve three in five.”
The first three rounds shattered the morning’s stillness, but the steady breeze soon blew away the clouds of smoke that filled the Valiant amidships. After consultation among the midshipmen, it was revealed that none of the guns had reached their goal. On the bright side, however, there were no injuries—the gun teams were working in careful coordination.
The powder monkeys had already run below to fetch cartridges for the next round, but where were they? After a prolonged delay, a lad popped up and whispered to Barrow, the bosun, who looked around and spotted Marshall standing nearest the rail of the quarterdeck.
“Mr. Marshall, bit of a problem in the powder room.”
Will turned to the Captain, but he was in conversation with Mr. West; the Valiant was about to pass the narrowest part of the strait between a tall, rocky islet and a set of reefs a little too close to their lee for comfort. For the next few minutes, Captain Smith’s attention would be elsewhere, so Will followed the bosun below.
DAVID ARCHER counted the seconds during the first set of shots, and grinned when none of them did better than five minutes and forty-five seconds. With that failure spurring them on, he’d bet even money that somebody broke the five-minute mark on the second round. Hopefully Acting Lieutenant Hatfield, their oldest midshipman, would be up to the task of directing Archer’s division.
Technically on duty, David had left the key under his sea chest, as their mole had directed. He had mustered with divisions before practice began—but then, as had been decided in conference with the Captain late Saturday night, he slipped away and concealed himself in Lieutenant Humberstone’s cabin, directly across from his own.
He knew the key was still in his cabin, and he was betting that the roar and thunder on deck would be the perfect distraction. Humberstone possessed a small table that was placed between his sea chest and the door. By sitting on the chest and leaning well back, David was invisible unless a man actually opened the door and looked into the cabin, and with all hands called to quarters, there should be no one in the wardroom at all.
The silence above stretched out far too long. David could think of no reason why Sir Paul should have stopped the gunnery practice—it was unheard of. Even if a man had been hurt—powder burns and recoil injuries were not uncommon—the rest of the guns would have kept on at their task.
Something had gone wrong abovedecks, and if it was serious enough to stop the guns,
he should be up on deck, not playing puss-in-the-corner with a traitor. But this eventuality had been planned for, too. He would simply retrieve the key and bait the trap at some other time.
David stood, stretching his legs after the long inactivity.
And froze where he stood as he heard the wardroom door creak open.
“SEAWATER, SIR. Poured over all the cartridge sacks.”
This was sabotage of the first order, the sort that would be hellish in combat. It had only just been discovered, because yesterday evening the powder crew had, in anticipation of this morning’s exercise, filled enough sacks for the first rounds of gunnery practice for the upper deck. They’d filled about a hundred narrow burlap sleeves with ordinary-grade, large-grain gunpowder, exactly the size and shape to slide down the barrel of a long gun. But when they went into the storage chest to get a fresh supply of sacks for the second round, they’d found the box a foot deep in seawater and the burlap completely soaked. The gunner’s mate had immediately closed it again and sent a boy to the carpenter to ask for as much sawdust as he could spare to sop it up.
“I’ve sent men down to the hold to fetch a new crate, sir.” Cox, the gunner, looked worried, as well he should. The powder room was in an inner chamber because the gunpowder had to be kept safe and away from open flame, and above all, it had to be kept dry. “I’ve no idea how this came to be here—but I can swear it was none of my men did it.”
“I’m sure they did not.” Will could only imagine what the Captain would say, but even this was not entirely unexpected. In their conference on Saturday, they had considered the possibility that their saboteur was demanding the gun-locker key as a red herring, that he was actually considering a strike at some other vulnerable area. At least now they knew what it was. “Is the powder all right?”
“Aye, sir. I set the mate checkin’ the magazine as soon as we saw this. The barrels are fine—still sealed.”
“Very good. As soon as you get the new sacks, get them filled fast as ever you can. Have the boys bring ’em up double-quick.” There was nothing more he could do here, so he ran for the ladder. Each of the big guns had powder enough for three more shots. That was all. And a ship with seventy-four guns and no powder was little better than a moving target. Will found himself wondering just where that French frigate had disappeared to after its sudden spate of signaling. This would be the perfect time for an enemy attack—and he had to wonder whether the enemy knew it.
Captain Smith received the news with less surprise than Will had expected. He nodded approval at Will’s orders to the powder-room and called for silence on the deck. In a few well-chosen words, he described what had transpired, what was being done, and sent about a quarter of the gun crews below to help relay the powder back up.
“I know,” the Captain said in his booming quarterdeck voice, “that you are all aware of the problems this ship has seen. I had hoped we’d left the problem behind us in Plymouth, but it seems we were not so fortunate. From now on, each and every one of you must be responsible not only for your own behavior, but for your shipmates’ as well. Be aware of whom you are with, and pay attention if anyone is not where you expect him to be.
“It is a sad thing when loyal men in His Majesty’s service must act as informers against one another, but until this viper is removed from the bosom of the ship, we are all at risk. There is one man aboard this ship who does not deserve to be here among us. Be vigilant, and use the sense God gave you. If you see something that is not as it should be, speak up.”
Will studied the faces of the men in his own division. There was no alarm—in fact, several heads were nodding, and he thought he caught a muttered, “About time.”
“One last thing, men.” The Captain stopped as two powder monkeys ran up out of the hatch with a cartridge-bucket in either hand, followed a few seconds later by another, and then by some of the younger hands, who ignored the quiet assembly on deck and ran busily about their task.
“One last thing,” Sir Paul repeated. “It is my responsibility to find and arrest this saboteur, and I am now giving a measure of that responsibility to each of you. I also warn you now, and you may rest assured I am serious—there will be no leave for any member of this ship’s company until we have discovered and apprehended the villain who is sabotaging His Majesty’s property and endangering our lives and our mission.”
As he finished speaking and looked around, meeting the eyes of the men on deck, the Valiant cleared the narrow passage and sailed into the open sea beyond the longest spit of the tall, uninhabited island.
A sudden shrill whine, the sound of a cannonball’s passage, tore through the crew’s silence an instant before the ball itself punched a hole in the foremast staysail. The boom of the explosion, traveling more slowly than the projectile, reached their ears a moment later. Will glanced up, following the line of its trajectory, and realized that the enemy had moved cannon onto the uninhabited island. Someone was firing on them from far above the elevation that the Valiant’s guns could reach.
And then three Frenchmen, a frigate and two corvettes, hove into sight from around the far side of the island, bearing down on Valiant with the weather-gauge in their favor. They were smaller than the British seventy-four, but together they carried far more guns, and they could surround the bigger ship and pound away at her.
“Beat to quarters!” the Captain roared.
Chapter 9
DAVID HELD his breath, hearing the door open cautiously. He slipped his shoes off but did not move toward the door; even though the sun was on the larboard, the tropical light was still strong enough to throw his shadow against the canvas wall. Outside it, he could just hear movement, quiet steps that seemed to be traveling along the row of cabins on the far side of the wardroom, coming up just even with where he waited. The movement stopped. David waited for a count of five seconds before leaving his position.
He took two silent steps to the door, put his eye to the crack between the curtains—and all hell broke loose. A cannon crashed off to larboard, at some distance, followed almost immediately by the beat to quarters and the sound of running feet. So much for stealth. Abandoning his shoes, David pushed through the curtains and headed for his cabin, just as half a dozen hands burst through the wardroom door to start tearing down the cabins so the guns could be run out.
A figure darted out of David’s cabin, pushing against the men running in, but he was stalled at the doorway by the tide of bodies surging in. He wore Warrant officer’s coat, but David couldn’t see his face. Rather than shout orders that were bound to cause confusion, David ducked around the central mast and circled around—and found himself face-to-face with Thomas Dowling, the purser.
“Of course,” he said aloud, as Dowling glanced over and met his eyes with a look of hatred. Of course. The notes on purser’s paper, the Shakespeare misquote to bring him down to the wardroom just in time to be caught in flagrante with Gannon—and the purser’s cabin just outside the officers’ wardroom, where he could duck inside and vanish instantly. Dowling was the obvious answer.
Something hit the larboard hull with a bang that shook the deck but did not burst through, and in the split second following the shock, Dowling slipped between two crewmen and through the door.
David pushed through the crowd as the Valiant’s upper guns began answering the attack. He got into the companionway just in time to see his quarry vanish up the larboard stair. Dowling was heading for the deck—was he planning to jump overboard and swim to whatever ship was attacking them? The man had just enough of a lead that his vanishing feet were all David saw as he chased him up the ’tween-decks ladders. A pity he hadn’t been able to smoke Dowling out without the traitor knowing it, but thank God there’d be an end to the sneaking and hiding, the uneasy awareness that someone was always watching.
He burst up out of the starboard hatch into the organized pandemonium of battle and was immediately deafened by the thunder of the big guns. Through the smoke, he saw two Frenchmen o
ff to larboard and a third, a corvette, pursuing the Terrier, which seemed to be leading it toward the convoy—into range of the minimal, but by no means useless, guns of the merchantmen.
But where had Dowling got to? Well, that didn’t matter, did it? The important thing was to let Captain Smith know who their traitor was.
David stepped aside as a thunder of powder monkeys passed, cartridge-cans in either hand, and headed for the quarterdeck.
“Mister Archer!”
He spun, and saw nothing but the flash of a pistol an instant before something slammed into his body and knocked him down. There was no pain—just a huge numbness, a feeling that he was not even in his body. Lying stunned, he heard a mutter of “there’s one less damned sodomite,” and then Dowling’s voice, louder, calling, “Sir! Captain! Here’s Mr. Archer, looks like he’s been shot dead!”
WILL WHIRLED at the shout, but saw nothing in the press of bodies until Klingler shouldered his way through the tumult and lifted Davy’s shoulders while one of the ship’s boys got his feet. Davy looked unconscious, his white waistcoat and breeches bloody—too much blood, but he was alive, he was still alive, they were taking him below to the surgeon, not throwing him over the side. Will hadn’t a moment more to think about it, because although they were nearly out of range of the cannon on the island, there were still two French ships to be dealt with. A part of him was screaming to go below and find out what had happened to his lover. He closed that part away and turned to his duty. If the Valiant were sunk or captured, Davy would certainly die. He could not allow that to happen. He had to stay at his post.
Somehow, he got through the battle, though it was by sheer force of habit. Edwards, in the Terrier, combined forces with the merchant ships and actually managed to disable one of the corvettes. A couple of lucky shots from the Valiant’s stern-chaser took down most of the rigging on the other, and the frigate, seriously battered and deprived of its two consorts, turned and fled.
