The Continental Risque (38 page)

The governor nodded his head slowly. ‘It is my lot to suffer, then, for my king, and I accept that, sir, I do. But I have been making a list, oh, yes. A list of those that have been too helpful by far with these damned rebels, and, if I ain't mistaken, had a hand in bringing them here.'

‘Indeed,' said President Brown. This was potential trouble. For all of his foolishness, Browne really was well connected. He had the ear of Lord George Germain and the Earl of Sandwich and Gen. William Howe. Not to mention the Earl of Dartmouth, which he did, and often. Any one of those men could make life most uncomfortable for someone accused by the governor of treachery.

‘Yes, indeed, a list,' Browne continued. ‘And that damned James Gould is the first on it, and there are others. Here, pray take this.' The governor handed Brown a letter. ‘You are one of the few I can trust, I dare say the only one who has tried to effect my release. This is a letter to Germain with the names of those who are too friendly by half with the King's enemies. They won't give me sealing wax, the creatures, so please seal it with the governor's seal, you know where it is, and post it as soon as ever you can.'

‘Of course, Your Excellency,' said Brown, greatly relieved to find himself in possession of the governor's list. Now he could read the letter without even having to break a seal and would be free to act as the contents dictated.

‘And, sir, I have brought some of your papers for you. Your commission appointing you captain general and that constituting you vice admiral of the Bahama Islands. I had thought perhaps they might be of some help to you in negotiating your release.'

‘Yes, well done, thank you,' said the governor, taking the papers from President Brown. From the deck above came a shouted order, too muffled to distinguish the words, and a second later the sound of dozens of men rushing to various quarters of the ship.

‘I fear they are getting under way,' said President Brown. ‘I must leave lest we both be carried off.'

‘Yes, hurry,' said the governor. ‘And please give my regrets to my wife and my aged aunt.'

‘Yes, Governor, of course.'

‘And, Brown? Bless you, sir, for all of your faithful service to me.'

By the time the
Alfred
's jolly boat set President Brown ashore on one of the long wharves thrust out from Bay Street, the first of the American fleet had won its anchor and was gathering way for the west end of the harbor. Brown unfolded the governor's letter and read it as he walked up the narrow cobbled street toward Government House. There, as promised, was the name of James Gould, along with Alexander Frazer (a well-known rebel, the governor assured Germain), Thomas Duncoun, Jeremy Newton, John Kemp the Younger, and John Bedon-Adderly. And nowhere in the missive was Brown's name mentioned.

He smiled and folded the letter back up. There might have been some unpleasant repercussions if he had been forced to consign the letter to the fireplace rather than the post, but as it was, he would send it, and gladly. Germain could see those men locked up for ever, and with Brown's blessing.

He walked up the familiar wide stairway of Government House and out onto the veranda once more. All of the fleet was under way now, strung out in a long line sailing west with the prevailing wind. The first in line, the
Andrew Doria
if he was not mistaken, had already cleared the far end of Hog Island and had turned away north.

There was a great deal to do. He had first to write to the admiral in Jamaica and see about getting some naval defense for the island, in case those rebellious sons of whores thought fit to return. He had to convene the General Assembly and see about appointing commissioners to undertake repairs to Fort Montegu and Fort Nassau. As long as he was in command, there would be no more invasions of his island.

‘Ah, Brown, you're back.' John Gambier stepped out on the veranda next to Brown and joined him in watching the American fleet working out of the harbor. ‘The governor, I assume, is still with them?'

‘Hopkins would not yield, plead as I might. But what's done is done, and we've too much work to do to stand around pitying the man. So what say you have the boy fetch us some rum punch and we'll set to it?'

‘Very good,' said Gambier, heading back across the veranda.

‘Oh, Gambier, one other thing. You know, Browne took with him His Majesty's commission appointing him captain general and the one appointing him vice admiral of the Bahama Islands. All he left is His Majesty's instructions to his governor and the great seal. There is no one now on the island with an appointment from His Majesty. In the absence of such, naturally I, as president of His Majesty's Council, assume command of the colony.'

‘Yes. What is your point?'

‘My point is that I think it only proper that from now on I should be addressed as “Governor Brown.” You understand, protocol and what have you.'

‘“They that go down to the sea in ships, and do their work on great waters …”' Biddlecomb recited. He stared blankly at the Grand Union flag, the very same one that had flown over Fort Nassau, which was now draped over the tightly wrapped body of Jonathan Bailey, foredeckman. Late foredeckman.

‘We commend thy body to the deep. May God have mercy on your soul.' He nodded to the two men at the inboard end of the plank. They tilted it up and the earthly remains of Jonathan Bailey slid over the side and disappeared into unknown fathoms of water. The third to go that way in as many days.

‘Mr Tottenhill, you may dismiss the men.'

‘We'll stand down to the watch on deck,' Tottenhill shouted. ‘Dismissed!'

Fore and aft hats were clapped on heads, and the men, melancholy, sullen, and lethargic, marched off to various quarters of the ship. Spirits on board the
Charlemagne
had sunk low, lower even than during the second time they had been trapped in the ice. The men lacked even the spark and energy of their former anger. A morose, shuffling spirit prevailed.

Things had gone well, as well as could have been hoped, during the first week that they had lay on the hook in Nassau harbor, relieving that place of every warlike store that could be found.

The Charlemagnes, for their sins, had expected to be deprived of shore leave, and so Biddlecomb was not surprised to see their attitudes much improved when, after two days confined aboard, he announced that they would get a run ashore after all. It had been a difficult decision, and one with which his wardroom did not agree, but the resulting improvement in humor told Biddlecomb that it had been the right one.

The animosity was not gone by the end of that first week, not even close. But it was ameliorated to some degree through hard work, fine weather, and nights ashore. Tottenhill and Rumstick were less at odds because Biddlecomb was always there, always in command. By appropriating the authority of the officers he helped heal the sectional divide in the crew, and his steadying presence, he knew, had a further good effect on the men. It did little to improve his officers' moods, however, but after the way they had let things run way from them, he did not care.

He had spoken little to either of the lieutenants since the riot, had entertained no one in his cabin for the two weeks since they had left the island.

He stepped up to the quarterdeck, looked at the slate hanging from the binnacle box, then stepped over to the leeward rail. The rest of the fleet was strung out before him, save for the big
Columbus
a quarter mile away and just a little astern, bringing up the rear.

None of them were sailing fast; the wind was light and dead astern, their bottoms were foul from their time in warm waters, and their holds were heavy laden with cannon, mortars, shot, and all the plunder that New Providence had yielded them. But none of this was slowing them up as much as being shorthanded, and that was due to the yellow jack.

He had seen the first signs during their last few days on the island, and he prayed that it was not so, but when the first man died in a burning delirium, he knew that it was yellow fever. By the time they left New Providence, the fleet had buried ten men, and not one of the ships was free of the disease.

That was almost two weeks before. Since that time the fleet had sailed north, slowly north, bound for whatever destination the commodore had in mind, with the coastline of America a few hundred miles beyond the western horizon. The weather had been calm for the most part and the sea empty, and the men had little to do beyond the routine of shipboard life and watching their mates take sick and die. It was doing nothing to bolster the Charlemagnes' already flagging morale.

‘Good morning, Mr Rumstick,' Biddlecomb said. With the voyage near an end he was feeling more charitably disposed toward his officers.

‘Morning, sir,' Rumstick said. Biddlecomb could see the surprise, and the hint of relief, in his friend's face at the casual and hitherto absent greeting. ‘This is a hell of a daily ritual we got going here, sir, sending a man over the standing part of the foresheet.'

‘I can think of better ways to start the day than a funeral.'

‘So can I, sir, but I don't think we're going to see any soon. Two more from my watch are down, one from Tottenhill's, and three of Faircloth's marines.'

Biddlecomb stared out at the fleet, and for a long moment he did not answer. At last he turned and met Rumstick's gaze. They were alone on their little patch of quarterdeck. ‘We're close to home. By my reckoning we should see Block Island bearing due west by the first dogwatch. I don't know where Hopkins is intending to put in, but damn me if I won't be glad to get there.'

‘This has not been a real pleasant cruise, starting with being frozen in the damned Delaware River.'

‘Once our anchor is down I intend to land these sick men and then purge this ship of every son of a whore we took on since Cambridge. I don't give a damn if we spend the next year trying to fill our crew out again, I'll be rid of them or I'll resign my command.'

It felt good to talk this way, to confide in Rumstick again the way he had when Rumstick had been first officer. Before he had stopped inviting any of his officers to the great cabin just to avoid having to listen to Tottenhill. It felt good to emerge from his self-imposed exile.

‘I don't reckon you'll have trouble filling out a crew, even if you leave every one of these grumbling sons of bitches on the beach,' Rumstick said, and with a smile that owed nothing to flattery added, ‘You're still the famous Captain Biddlecomb.'

‘God help us all. That's kind of you to say, but I fear the reputation of this ship is sullied now. And my own may be beyond repair.'

‘Captain, I …' Rumstick began. Clearly he blamed himself in a large way for this blight on Biddlecomb's reputation, and while Biddlecomb did not think Rumstick was entirely undeserving of that blame, he was not in the mood to hear a desperate apology.

‘Excuse me, Mr Rumstick, but I must go below and see to the sick,' he said, and with that excuse he made his retreat forward and below.

The sick berth was normally located in the forward end of the tween decks, but normally it never housed more than half a dozen men at any time. That morning a full twenty-five of the
Charlemagne
's complement were down with yellow jack, two with broken limbs, and seven more with some disease that Biddlecomb did not recognize, and the sick berth stretched from the manger boards forward to well aft of the galley stove.

He made his way forward, stopping at each hammock to inquire of each man how he was doing, in those cases where the sick man was neither unconscious nor delirious.

The smell below was much improved over the last few days since the weather had permitted Biddlecomb to order the tarpaulins peeled back off the hatches and windsails rigged to funnel fresh air below and relieve the fetid atmosphere. Now the dull sunlight came down through the main hatch, a great square block of light moving back and forth with the roll of the ship and divided into many smaller squares by the grating through which it filtered.

Biddlecomb offered what words of encouragement he could, telling the sick men how close they were to their destination and to the further relief that would soon be theirs.

‘Georges Bank bears north and east, Wilson,' he said to one man, a Gloucester native. ‘Reckon you'll be hauling cod there again before too long.' And: ‘A day or two, Michaels, and you'll be ashore and we'll see to getting you a doctor who's not so ugly as Thigpen here.'

Thigpen was a waister and former apothecary's assistant who had been pressed into service as the
Charlemagne
's surgeon. He was doing his best, and Biddlecomb was impressed by how good his best was, but an untrained man could only do so much. For that matter, a trained man could only do so much, and Biddlecomb doubted that a board-certified surgeon or even a medical doctor could have effected much more than Thigpen had.

‘How are you feeling, Gray?' Gray, it occurred to Biddlecomb, was one of Hackett's followers, one of those who had foolishly tried to arrest Ezra and had paid a heavy toll for that ill-considered action. His crooked nose was testament to the inadvisability of coming to grips with Rumstick. Now he lay gripping the edge of his hammock, drenched in sweat despite the cool of the morning.

‘Not good, sir,' Gray managed to get out. Biddlecomb grabbed his wrist and squeezed it in a reassuring gesture. ‘We'll be landing you soon, Gray, don't you worry. A nice clean hospital and good food and no bosuns running around shouting.'

‘Thank you, sir,' Gray whispered, genuine gratitude in his eyes and in his voice. Biddlecomb hoped that he was wrong in thinking that Gray would likely be the guest of honor at the next morning's ceremony. Malice was not a part of Biddlecomb's nature.

‘Sir, sir,' he heard Weatherspoon's voice, low and urgent as the midshipman hurried across the tween deck. ‘Sir, hail from … oh, dear Lord. Gray's done for, ain't he, sir?'