The Midshipman Prince (24 page)

      
Finch ran to the bow. About half way, he almost tripped as the ship slipped back another foot or two. Just after arriving on the fo’c’sle the ship gave an abrupt lurch, then another, and then he could feel it sliding clear. He looked over the side and saw swirling brown water as further evidence he was off.

      
“Furl all sails except the fore topsail,” he yelled. Then turning to the bosun, “I want two men up here with sounding leads. We’re going to tiptoe out of here and if we go on to another sandbar, we’re going to kedge off using your body as the anchor. Is that clear?”

* * *

      
Activity on the
Trojan
was no less frantic.

      
“We’re clear,” exclaimed Susan who was standing at the taffrail watching the
Cardinal
disappear behind Cape Charles. “He’s still on the sandbar. We’re free. Let’s make a run for it.”

      
“He won’t be on that sandbar forever, so we are not free, and we
are
making a run for it,” replied Hayes. “This is as fast as this barkey will go. The problem is that he’ll eventually catch us; he’s much faster then we are. No matter how much of a lead we have, somewhere between here and New York, he’ll get us.”

      
“So, what do we do?”

      
Hayes was now addressing the group. “He saw us round the cape with Fisherman’s Island to larboard, so he thinks we’re headed for open ocean. But see that spit of land over there off our port bow? That’s the southern tip of Smith Island. We’re going to cut inside that, and take the inside passage which will eventually put us in Hog Island Bay. If we can get that far by nightfall without him seeing us, we can hole-up until morning. I am hoping he’ll come flying around the cape, assume we headed north to New York, further assume we’re just on the other side of the horizon and come after us.”

      
“What if he doesn’t?” asked Walker. “It seems to me he has two choices: either we are somewhere on the inside passage or we are hull down on the other side of the horizon.”

      
“Then, he has a 50/50 chance of being right.”

      
“And what happens of he guesses right?”

      
“Then we are well and truly bunged.”

      
With that, Hayes altered course a few degrees, ducked in behind Smith Island and slowed to a crawl. The islands provided a nice visual barrier to hide behind as they made their way north, but the track was a torturous one. Hayes did not have a chart of the inside passage, after all he was a Chesapeake sailor, so he had no idea of the water depth. He would have to go slow, sling the lead, and be patient.

      
They picked their way inside Smith Island, Myrtle Island, Ship Shoal, Wreak Island, and Cobb Island. Just as night was falling, they entered Hog Island Bay, dropped their anchor, furled their sails, took a deep breath, looked up—and there was the
Cardinal
, guns run out, anchored inside the mouth of the Great Machipongo Inlet, the only way out of the Bay.

      
Finch had guessed right.

* * *

      
The Council of War was finally called at midnight and it would be hard to find a more dejected group. They gathered on the quarterdeck, Walker and Smith were leaning against the taffrail, Hayes and Hanover were sitting on empty kegs, and Susan was sitting Indian-style on the deck. Everyone was silent.

      
Hayes finally opened the proceedings. “All right, folks, here’s the situation.” he said.

      
“Hogs Island Bay has only one way out of it and that’s through the Machipongo Inlet. I know, you can see some other exits to the north, but they’re too shallow—little more than creeks, really.

      
“Finch is anchored at the mouth of the bay. He’s laying out there just waiting until dawn to take us; and, unless someone has some other ideas, I think we’re about done.”

      
“Why can’t we fight past him?” Smith asked.

      
“With what? He’s got six guns; we’ve got none.

      
“What about that swivel gun forward?” Susan asked.

      
“Doesn’t work. Never has. We got a keg o’ gunpowder below but we’re just shippin’ it. I’d certainly never try using it in that old swivel.”

      
Walker was silent, thinking hard.

      
“Look, I am the one Finch wants,” Hanover said. “I really appreciate everything you each have done for me. Really, I do. But, the game is over. If I give up, he’ll let you go. I am sure of it.”

      
“I am sorry, Your Highness, but you don’t have a vote,” Smith said.

      
Hanover snapped back. “First of all, it’s ‘Bill’ not ‘Your Highness.’ I thought we had that settled. And second, what the hell do you mean I have no vote?”

      
“Not anymore. As you said, the game is up. We are not discussing the fate of Midshipman Bill Hanover here; we’re discussing the fate of Prince William Henry. God only knows the implications to the crown, the empire, and even the world if you were to be captured. You would become the world’s greatest bargaining chip and there’s no way of knowing where that might lead.

      
“No, we have to get you out. That’s all there is to it.”

      
“Hugh, if you had a few guns, could you get us out then?” Smith asked.

      
“I can’t guarantee anything but, yeah, it would increase our odds considerable. I could use our speed in sailing against the wind to try to blow past him. A couple of guns, even small ones, might keep him at bay long enough to do that. After that, assuming neither ship is badly damaged in the exchange of gunfire, it would be a race and I would make sure it’s a race to windward. It’s not much of a chance, but it
would
be a chance.”

      
“But we don’t have any guns,” Susan pointed out.

      
“Precisely,” Hayes added.

      
“I don’t care. There must be a way to fight them. We can’t just give up the prince,” Smith said, and as far as he was concerned, that was that. “There must be a way.”

      
The wind could be heard slapping various lines and cables against the mast. The water could be heard lapping up against the side of the hull. A heron could be heard registering a complaint from across the water; but no human voice was answering Smith’s challenge.

      
After a painfully long pause, Walker finally muttered, “There’s a way.” And he immediately put everyone to work.

* * *

      
He started by taking a three-inch diameter auxiliary spar and cutting off pieces like he was slicing sausage. He cut 12 that were about two inches and 12 that were about 1 inch thick and set Smith to work drilling small holes through the center of each. When he was done, Smith was to take the two-inch slices, fill the holes with carpenter’s glue, and slide a hull nail through each so that a six-inch spike stood out from the end.

      
Susan was tasked with cutting 12 poles each about 6 feet long from some railing materials that were in the hold, and then drill four holes, in pairs of two, about 12 inches apart, at one end. Turning to Hanover, Walker put him to work as well.

      
“Bill, I want you to find a hammer and pound some charcoal.”

      
“Pardon?”

      
“I said, find a hammer somewhere. Then go down to the galley and get that sack of charcoal the cook uses to supplement his wood supply. Pound the charcoal until it’s as fine as you can make it.”

      
Hanover looked at him like he was crazy, but started work anyway. Seeing everyone busy with his or her tasks, Walker mysteriously disappeared below.

      
About an hour later, the various tasks were done. Walker re-appeared and, with the help of several crewmen, was carrying the crate of silver candleholders, a keg of gunpowder, some light line and some fuses. Without a word to anyone he opened the crate, took out each of the 12 wooden tubes and began throwing the candleholders over the side, putting the wooden tube lovingly back into it’s pigeon hole.

      
Hayes went nuts! “Are you crazy? Those candle holders are almost pure silver!”

      
“Oh, sorry.” And he shifted his aim, throwing the candleholders into the scuppers as if they were trash and treating the foot and a half long protective wooden tubes like they were gold.

      
“All right, folks. It’s time for you to begin assembling these things.”

      
“Sidney and Bill grab a tube and a spike-plug. I want you to put some carpenter’s glue around the side of the wooden plug then slide it into one end of your tube with the spike sticking out. When we have all 12, let them dry for a bit and give them to Susan and me.”

      
About an hour later, Susan and Walker began attaching the poles by sliding nails through the holes Susan had made and pressing them through the soft wood of the tubes. Thus anchored, Hayes and one of his crewmen began tightly tying the poles to the tubes to give them extra support. They then put the tubes, spike down and pole up, into their pigeonholes in the crate.

      
“All right, we’re almost there. Now, Bill and Sidney, I want you to take this measure and pour exactly two scoops of gunpowder into each of the tubes. Place a length of fuse through the hole so there are a couple inches running out each side. Then, put some more carpenter’s glue around the edges of the plug and shove it down on top of the gunpowder.

      
“Oh, yeah, one more thing. Do your best to not blow us up.”

      
When they had finished there were twelve devices sitting, face down, in the packing crate. Each had a steel spike glued into a wooden plug, gunpowder in the middle and another plug, with a fuse, behind the gunpowder. There was still several inches of space, however, between the gunpowder plug and the end of the tube.

      
“Here’s where we put in the final touch,” Walker announced.

      
He put a measure of gunpowder into a bowl, added a quarter measure of the charcoal powder Hanover had produced and thoroughly mixed them together. As a last step, he dampened the compound with a small amount of rum, kneaded it into a kind of damp putty and packed the result, along with a short fuse, into the back end of the first tube. He repeated the procedure with each of the remaining tubes.

      
“That’s it. We’re done.”

      
“Wonderful,” Smith announced. “Now, would you care to tell us what it is we are done with?”

Walker’s Rocket

      
“It’s simple,” Walker explained. “Tomorrow morning when the
Cardinal
moves in for the kill, we’ll have a little surprise for them.” And he picked up a device to illustrate, pointing as he went.

      
“It’s called a rocket. A friend of mine back in my Harvard days was experimenting with them. We light the fuse in the back end. The gunpowder/charcoal mixture will do a controlled burn—not explode because of the extra carbon I mixed in—and go off. We’ll launch each one at the
Cardinal
and, when it gets there, it will stick in the side of the ship via the spike. At that point the ‘engine’ powder will have burned to the bottom and ignited the fuse coming out of the gunpowder compartment, which ignites the gunpowder and… BOOM!”