The Cursed Fortress

by Chris Durbin

  It was a flurry of activity over towards where he’d last seen Chiara that caught Carlisle’s attention. He couldn’t spot his wife through a crowd of other women, all drawn to something that he couldn’t see. With the briefest apologies, he strode over, still unsure whether Chiara was involved in the disturbance. When he reached the group, his worst fears were confirmed. Chiara was lying back on a chaise longue, her face white and her eyes tight closed, with a large, officious lady fanning her for all she was worth. He took his wife's hand; it was clammy and cold.

  ‘Step back, if you please, move away,’ said a confident voice behind him.

  The commotion had attracted the governor’s physician, a small, lean man with a competent air. He held Chiara’ wrist between thumb and forefinger and held up his other hand for silence. The fanning stopped.

  Half a minute passed.

  ‘Do you have a room that we can retire to, Mister Fauquier?’ he asked.

  Chiara’s eyes had opened, and she was able to walk out of the ballroom with Carlisle on one side and Enrico on the other. By the time they had laid her on a bed, she was on the way to recovery.

  ‘I shall be quite well, Edward, if only I can have a few minutes,’ she said and squeezed his hand.

  The physician beckoned Carlisle out of earshot.

  ‘Is it possible that the lady is expectant?’ he asked tentatively.

  Carlisle nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

  ‘Three months, or thereabouts, perhaps?’ he continued.

  ‘Yes,’ Carlisle replied stupidly.

  ‘Then that explains it,’ he went on. ‘There’s nothing to worry about. This is quite normal in many women, particularly in their first pregnancy. I assume that is the case?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Carlisle, still unable to think of anything else to add.

  ‘Then the lady needs rest, nothing more. But I would like to see her again if I may. I assume there is no question of her travelling?’

  He gave Carlisle a knowing look. He’d heard the conversation; he knew very well that Chiara was planning to travel on to Halifax in a few days.

  ‘Would a sea passage be unwise?’ Carlisle asked hopefully, knowing now what the physician was trying to do.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ replied the physician. He winked, a most unusual gesture from a man of his eminence, but it spoke volumes to Carlisle. ‘It would be most unwise, I’m surprised you are even contemplating it,’ he said in his best disapproving tone, perfectly modulated so that it could be heard by the lady reclining on the bed.

  ***

  Carlisle anticipated an awkward conversation in the morning. However, in the event, a fully recovered, indeed refreshed, Chiara, was open to negotiation. Susan fussed around her in a way that wouldn’t have been permitted a day before, and that gave Carlisle hope. Barbara visited, and the two women spoke privately for a while. Then the physician called, and after examining her and talking to Carlton, he gave her his frank advice.

  By the time the physician left, it had all been arranged. Chiara and her maid, Susan – who was already on friendly terms with Barbara’s maid – would lodge at the Dexter house. A cart would be sent to Hampton for her belongings and Medina would sail north without her.

  Carlisle was allowed only one modification to the plan. He insisted that Black Rod should stay. With that imposing person to guard her, he could be sure that his brother wouldn’t try anything rash. The Dexter house was a massive affair, having been built back from the printer’s shop in waves of prosperity, and there was ample room for three guests, no matter how long they needed to stay.

  ***

  5: Night Encounter

  Sunday, Twelfth of March 1758.

  Medina, at Sea. Cape Henry West-Southwest 26 leagues.

  The convoy had caught a westerly wind and was bowling along into the Atlantic under a watery spring sun. With the whole American seaboard to windward – friendly territory for six hundred miles north and south, from Nova Scotia to Georgia – the threat was to leeward, out to sea, where the French privateers lurked waiting for just such a prize as this. That was why Medina was leading the convoy today, and Shark was bringing up the rear.

  ‘How long do you reckon, Master?’ asked Carlisle.

  To the consternation and alarm of Medina’s people, their captain and sailing master were far out on the bowsprit, clutching perilously at the fore topmast stay and staring earnestly ahead, each with a foot on solid wood and the other waving over the netting.

  ‘Any time now, sir,’ Hosking replied. ‘Ah, can you see the birds now? Petrels, gulls and suchlike, they’re attracted to the area where the water temperature changes at the edge of the stream.’

  Carlisle could indeed see the birds – hundreds of them – and birds in the open ocean always indicated something new, often a current or shoal water, and there were no shoals here off the Virginia Capes.

  ‘Bowsprit Ho!’

  That was Whittle’s poor attempt at topmast humour as he tried to catch his captain’s attention.

  ‘Broken water ahead sir, perhaps three miles on either side of the bow,’ he shouted.

  Whittle knew very well why his captain and sailing master were perched at the end of the bowsprit, and he knew there was no danger from rock or reef in this area. It would have been a stretch to have reported the birds from the masthead although he’d been watching them for the past five minutes; but the broken water, he could get away with that.

  Carlisle watched eagerly now. It was always a great occasion when he sighted the stream, particularly when it took him in the direction he wanted to go.

  ‘There, you can see the green turning to blue and the line of weed and flotsam, and the ripples. That’s the stream, or my name’s not John Hosking!’ declared the master, his childish delight showing clear on his brown and weather-beaten face.

  ‘We should get well into the flow before we bear away,’ said Carlisle, his mind already wandering back to his family problems. ‘What course Mister Hosking?’

  ‘Two points to larboard, the course is nor’east, sir. I’m right pleased that we’ve found the stream before sunset, now there’s no excuse for those fellows not following us when we haul our sheets.’

  He looked cautiously at Carlisle. He could recognise that almost dreamlike look when his captain wasn’t really paying attention to him, yet Hosking took no offence. If he’d had to leave his expectant wife behind in an unfamiliar city, he’d have been distracted too.

  ‘Then make it so, Mister Hosking. You may haul your wind when you see fit. I’ll just stay here until we’ve crossed into the stream, then I’ll be in my cabin.’

  Hosking made his careful way back along the bowsprit. He was no longer a young man and had no business playing at topmen at his age. He glared at a young able seaman who was waiting impatiently to lay out onto the jib boom to attend to a wooden hank that had parted on the luff of the jib. Young the sailor may have been, but he had no truck with these new-fangled hanks; the old rope grommets never parted, no not if a real seaman saw to their serving. Wood was a carpenter’s business, not a sailor’s.

  ‘Don’t you go swarming out on that jib-boom with the captain sat on the bowsprit cap! You can just wait until he’s come inboard,’ said Hosking as he gratefully hauled himself onto the fo’c’sle.

  Looking for’rard when his feet were firmly planted on oak planks, the master could see Carlisle, staring absently to leeward at the changing patterns of the sea as the frigate nosed into the stream that would carry them far from Williamsburg and his pregnant wife. What devils clawed at his soul, only the captain himself knew.

  ***

  Carlisle paced backwards and forwards across the cabin. It took only six long strides before he had to turn, and each time he did so, he turned with his face to the windows so that he had a grand view of the convoy. It should have been a sight to gladden the eyes of any sea-officer. All seventeen merchantmen – three had left the convoy at Hampton Roads to sail further up the Chesapeake – were follow
ing obediently behind the frigate. None of them had missed the turn to the northeast and so far, none had run aboard their neighbour, and not even one had sheered away at the sight of the broken water at the edge of the stream. So compact was the convoy that he could see Shark at the rear, keeping to seaward of their charges in accordance with Carlisle’s sailing orders.

  And yet, Carlisle was deeply displeased. He was concerned about Chiara and felt the married man’s guilt when there was any complication in his wife’s pregnancy, whether it was in medical or more practical matters. He felt – no, he knew – that he should be with his wife now. It wasn’t that he mistrusted his cousin or her husband. In fact, their offer of a home to Chiara – and her acceptance – was the only mitigating factor in this whole sorry saga. It was his own immediate family whom he didn’t trust, particularly his elder brother. With no wife, no children and no prospect of either that Carlisle could detect, his brother must realise that the next to inherit when he died would be Carlisle or his progeny, and it was quite clear that Charles didn’t want that outcome. Dexter and Barbara would help of course, but Carlisle could see how easy it would be for the small, round printer to be bullied by the Carlisle family. Barbara wouldn’t be quite so easy, but it was a man’s world, particularly in the colonies, and the wife of a printer was of little consequence against an established and wealthy plantation owner.

  It was for that reason that Carlisle had engaged a lawyer to oversee his wife’s welfare while she was in Williamsburg. A lawyer could ensure that his written instructions were obeyed: his father and brother were to have no say in the affairs of Chiara or the child. Lawyers were easy to find in Williamsburg; after all, it was the capital of the colony, but he was happy to agree to Fauquier’s nominee. As governor in locum, he was well positioned to know who carried weight and who did not.

  Carlisle examined his actions for the hundredth time. He was sure that he’d done all that he could, short of delaying the convoy’s sailing, which would have been unforgivable; there was an invasion force waiting in Halifax for the supplies that they were bringing. Chiara had even seemed quite cheerful when he left, although he knew well the stoicism that had been bred into her. The fainting and nausea had stopped, probably as a result of the twenty-four hours of enforced rest in the Dexter home. Carlton and the governor’s physician had pronounced themselves satisfied.

  Yes, he’d done all that he could to ensure the comfort and wellbeing of his wife and unborn child. If all went well, when he next saw his wife, she’d have a child to present to him. Curiously he found that he didn’t much care whether it was a boy or a girl, there were too many other worries now. If only Chiara had told him of her pregnancy before they left Kingston, he’d have insisted that she stay in Jamaica along with Black Rod and her maid. But now they were all three in Williamsburg. And that was another comfort; if legal arguments failed to keep his family away from Chiara, he knew Black Rod well enough to be confident that he’d take the law into his own hands in defence of an Angelini.

  ***

  The sun was sinking on the larboard quarter, almost exactly to the west on this day so close to the equinox. Carlisle could see the orange ball each time he paced to larboard and watched as it inched closer to the horizon. One bell sounded from the belfry at the break of the fo’c’sle, half an hour into the last dogwatch. He heard the lookouts being relieved, their movements unnaturally loud against the silence of this soldier’s wind. He could feel the vibrations of a man climbing the mizzen shrouds being transmitted through the chains, then through the ship’s side to make a soft, deep, bass rumble in the cabin. That would be a hand going aloft to check on that troublesome topmast lanyard. It would need to be turned end-for-end as soon as they were on the other tack, but that could be days yet with this steady westerly wind.

  Carlisle knew that his mind wandered off to these simpler problems when he was overloaded, and now he felt overwhelmed. If only he could be more philosophical about his problems. There was nothing he could do now for his wife except to write the most loving letters that his limited skill could devise and send them by the most expeditious means. Luckily Dexter’s business meant that he had correspondents all over the English colonies, so it would be easy to find the best means of sending a letter from whichever port Medina should touch at.

  Back and forth he strode, his steps becoming less and less firm until, long after the sun had hurried away to cast its last light on the Ohio Valley and the infinite plains beyond, he found himself dragging his feet, shuffling rather than striding. It was when he tripped over a ring bolt, the same that he’d avoided all the long months of his command, that he decided to turn in. His mind was in that torpid state that comes from extreme mental and physical exhaustion. He turned to shout for the sentry to send for his servant; a new and untried man to replace Black Rod, he remembered with resignation.

  Carlisle hadn’t even opened his mouth when he heard the lusty hail, apparently from the mizzen top.

  ‘Sail. Sail on the starboard beam.’

  There was an immediate hurry of feet overhead, and before he’d reached the cabin door, it was flung open, and an excited midshipman just managed to avoid falling into the cabin.

  ‘First lieutenant’s compliments sir, there’s a sail five cables on the starboard ...’

  But Carlisle heard none of this. He pushed past the midshipman and was on the quarterdeck in a dozen rapid strides, looking over his shoulder for the first glimpse of this ship. Friend or foe, nobody knew.

  The quarterdeck was illuminated only by the glow of the binnacle light, but it was enough to show Moxon frozen in indecision. He could be forgiven for not ordering any manoeuvre, Medina was already, by her captain’s orders, in the best position to protect the convoy for this newcomer. What was unforgivable was his failure to order the frigate to quarters. A ship closing in the black of the night must be presumed an enemy until it was proven otherwise and this one was still no more than a ghostly presence, apparently converging slowly – perhaps cautiously – with Medina. It was only by the grace of God, and the faint light of the crescent moon showing just above the horizon that the ship had been sighted as soon as it was. The seaman sent to check the mizzen topmast lanyards had happened to look up and see the faint gleam of the sails in the moonlight. The lookout in the maintop had seen nothing.

  ‘Beat to quarters, Mister Moxon,’ said Carlisle as steadily as he could. ‘Load and run out.’

  The drummer was propelled onto the deck by the marine sergeant and started his wild tattoo even before his feet were firmly planted on the deck.

  ‘She’s a frigate, sir. About the same size as us.’

  That was Whittle. He’d hurried to the masthead as soon as he’d heard the first hail, not waiting for the drum to beat to quarters. The stranger – the frigate as they now knew – should have been just as visible from the quarterdeck as it was from the main top. After all, it was only a mile or so on the beam. And yet, perhaps because of some thickening of the atmosphere near the surface of the water, Whittle had a better view than Carlisle or any of the growing crowd of officers cluttering the deck.

  Carlisle could see the frigate now. He could make out the hull as a darker shade against the inky night, and he could see her courses, her tops’ls and stays’ls as lighter patches, almost luminescent in the blackness. She was under all plain sail, so probably this encounter was equally surprising to the convoy and the newcomer. It was unlikely that any of the merchant ships would have seen her yet, and Shark almost certainly not, as the sloop would be far astern bringing up the rear. In his convoy orders, Carlisle had stipulated a night signal for an enemy in sight, and according to his ship’s standing orders it should be stowed in the main top ready to be raised, two red lanterns arranged vertically. If he ordered it to be lit and hoisted now, probably the officer-of-the-watch in Shark would see it and alert Anderson, in which case the sloop should make sail to join Medina. However, Carlisle didn’t know whether this strange sail was friend or foe, and if
foe, whether it was alone and what were its intentions.

  ‘Mister Moxon. Confirm that the night signal for an enemy in sight is ready to be lit. Send a midshipman to check that there is a portfire in the maintop, but it must remain shielded, I don’t want to show any light.’

  Probably they’d already been seen – if the stranger’s lookouts weren’t all asleep – but it was as well to avoid giving them a fixed point of reference on this black night.

  ‘She’s holding her course,’ said Hosking at Carlisle’s side. ‘If she’s seen us, then she shows no sign of it.’

  ‘Starboard battery ready, sir,’ reported Moxon, ‘and the portfire is in the maintop, properly shielded.’

  ‘What do you make of her, Whittle?’ Shouted Carlisle, directing his voice heavenwards.

  ‘She’s not a King’s ship, sir, her topmast is all wrong. Could be a Frenchie on his way north.’

  Carlisle grimaced in the darkness. Whittle was a good lookout, but he should stick to the facts and keep his opinions to himself. The fact that the tops’ls were unlike a British man-of-war’s was interesting, but that decidedly did not mean that she wasn’t British. The navy had taken prizes aplenty in this war, and many had been pressed into service before the dockyards had modified them. She could easily be a King’s ship on her way to join the Louisbourg expedition, just as this convoy was. The problem was that anyone on the upper deck – and at quarters that was most of the people of the frigate – could hear Whittle’s opinion and take it as the truth. It could influence the way that they fought, the decisions that they made, and it was the captain’s prerogative – no, his duty – to order those affairs. Carlisle made a mental note to enforce more discipline in reports from the masthead.