Yankee Privateer Read online

  So Fitz found himself installed as a member in good standing of not only the "coffee house," but also of Neagle's own circle of young officers whose attitude toward life was an antidote to his own worries and responsibilities of the past few days. When he returned to the yard, Fitz found that the crew of the Retaliation had melted into the crowd, and that each had discovered a circle of acquaintances and companions of his own. Mike came panting up, trailed by two lads near his own age, and pounced on Fitz with little or no reference to that officer's dignity.

  "Lookee, sir, this be Tommy Drake!" He pulled forward a shockheaded boy perhaps a year younger than he. "He lives by the Sign of the Needle, back home, an' both him an' his uncle, Captain Drake, were taken last month by the Britishers. Tommy an' me went t' school together. An' this here is Jock Anderson, sir, he was on th' Indian Queen along o' Tommy! They've got a mess o' their own along o' Captain Drake's sir, an' they want I should join 'em. Be that all right, sir—please!"

  After a word or two with Captain Lucius Drake, a rather sober man who had something of the harassed air of an unwilling schoolmaster, Fitz agreed with Mike's arrangement and was himself free to go as he wished. There was only one worry still in his aching head when he laid in his hammock that night: Where was Captain Crofts?

  There was always a chill in the gray, stone-walled rooms, even though it was approaching midsummer, and two days of fine rain kept them yawning. The "coffee shop" was well patronized, and it was difficult to find a sliver of room there in which one could insert oneself. Neagle, who had adopted Fitz, looked about him with a wrinkled nose one morning and said disdainfully:

  "What a fug! And a parrot couldn't hear itself screech in here!"

  Fitz sighed to himself. He hoped that wasn't the prologue to a suggestion that they seek the yard. The dampness out there cut into him and he longed just to sit in front of a fire and toast his shins—a longing which had no hope of being satisfied in Old Mill.

  "We'll go visit the schoolmaster. He'll like as not jaw our heads off, but he's good hearing sometimes—almost as entertaining as a play."

  Neagle turned smartly out of the "coffee house" and led the way up a flight of stairs to a room from which they heard shrill boyish voices lifted in a sort of singsong. The late first officer of the Washington stopped short.

  "Gad, it's school time! Strike me for a lack wit!"

  "Come in, come in, please, gentlemen." The voice from the room had such a ring of command that they both obeyed. And Fitz found himself looking over the shoulder of the shorter N eagle at a group of rather grubby youngsters, among whom he identified Mike, surrounding a pudgy little man who wore the rusty, severe black coat and the limp white bands of a clergyman.

  "Mr. Hubert Henderson," Neagle made a leg, and Fitz noted that not a boy grinned. "This is a newcomer in our midst, Mr. Lyon of the Retaliation."

  "Mr. Lyon! Welcome to Old Mill school, sir, welcome indeed!" Henderson's smile was civil but restrained. "You see us here, sir, gathered together so that the light of learning may not wholly be erased from these young minds—even though we abide as prisoners in the midst of our enemies. At present, sir, we are discussing the reason for our situation here— I in broad terms, of course—not because of individual battles and defeats. You may continue, Jonas "

  Neagle seated himself on an unoccupied bench and Fitz dropped down beside him. The unfortunate Jonas, his ears scarlet with effort and embarrassment, began again his fumbling recitation.

  "Th' lobsters, they—"

  "Jonas!" That sharp reproof plunged the struggling orator deeper into the morass of public shame.

  "Th' Britishers," he corrected himself hastily. "Th' Britishers, they depend upon trade. Trade comes from overseas to England. Our privateers spoil this trade." Warming to his subject he began singsonging his words as if he had memorized them.

  Fitz remembered something said to him in an inn chamber across the sea. "Pinch the lobsters in their pockets, and they'll know that there is a war on!"

  He looked up startled to see all heads swing in his direction, and he realized that he had spoken aloud. It was his turn to color and stammer apologies under Henderson's reproving eye. Fortunately the schoolmaster decided to ignore the interruption and wound up the lesson with a brief statement of the aims for which the Americans were fighting. That done, he relaxed some of his formal manner and Jonas was emboldened, being pushed to his feet by several more retiring neighbors, to ask:

  "May we have history today, sir?"

  "Aye, sir, tell us 'bout th' Romans " pleaded one faction, while another attempted to drown them out with batlike shrieks for tales of Danish raiders.

  A slap of Henderson's hand on the table brought them to order however, and he announced that he would talk about Devon and Dartmoor, but only if he had instant silence—which was granted. For the next hour Fitz found himself listening spellbound to a teller of tales such as he had never before heard equaled.

  Drake and Hawkins and all of their half-pirate, half-patriot crew ruffed it along the Hoe—that same Hoe which lay beyond the walls now imprisoning the listeners. Then there were stories of the wreckers who lived along the wild crags of the coast upon the bounty which the sea brought them, not adverse to helping storm and night reduce a ship to a wreck. And he followed with descriptions of the moor men, those strange creatures who were the descendants of Angles, Danes, Picts, Romans, Welsh, half a score of different peoples, who had been forced as outlaws into the hidden places of the moors, either by fortune of war or transgression against the law. Made vivid by Henderson's narrative magic, the moor was a fantastic land, fit only to lie on the hidden side of the moon.

  When he had done at last, Fitz shook himself out of the dream. The boys were clattering off after making their manners, and left the three men alone.

  "Sir," Fitz paid the tribute due, "you are a born instructor! What I wouldn't given to have sat under you when they were trying to din the classics into my :hick skull!"

  "And none of these brats realize their good fortune,"

  Neagle cut in. ''Half of them never even conned their letters till you rounded them up and set them to it, sir. Now—why, they like it!"

  He looked so amazed at the idea that anyone could enjoy acquiring knowledge that both Henderson and Fitz laughed. The schoolmaster produced a small bottle and from it poured into noggins three equal measures of what Fitz discovered to be excellent sherry.

  "You flatter me, gentlemen. I am a teller of tales and I do not employ the birch. On a wet day, when the yard has no appeal, they condescend to sit still awhile— until they become bored. If a little of what I say sticks in their heedless heads, why then all of us are the better for it.

  "They tell me," he continued addressing Fitz, "that you are out of Maryland, Mr. Lyon."

  "Yes. I sailed from Baltimore on the Retaliation. We took on supplies at Saint Malo and then " he gestured to the walls around them.

  "You arrived here," Henderson observed. "Now I was on the bark Sarah out of Newport. We had a rough passage. Our captain and the mate were swept overboard in a storm. Since I have some small knowledge of navigation—although I was but a passenger—I was constrained by the crew to act as sailing master. And since we voyaged under Letters of Marque, we fought when we fell in with a schooner off Wight. Unfortunately our zeal in our country's service was superior to our skill. Without much delay, I found myself here. It is dull, of course, but there is a tolerable bookshop in the town. Fortunately," he pointed to a shelf of fat volumes, "I am a man to whom books are meat and, most always, drink. So I feast in comfort with the greatest pleasure to amuse me—an audience for my voice. In fact, I find that I do not even greatly regret the series of mishaps which installed me in my present abode."

  Neagle chuckled. "So that is why you left it for the Black Hole two months ago?"

  Henderson answered with a slightly affronted air.

  "I was merely engaged in making an experiment, sir, as you well know."

  "An expe
riment which almost got you out of here, clip and clean!" There was real admiration in the younger man's tone now.

  "There was a parcel of visiting divines, you see," he explained to Fitz, "who were brought in on an inspection tour, a regular flock of black crows hovering around asking questions right and left. And Mr. Henderson doesn't go into the yard much, he likes his comfort up here, so the guard doesn't know him by sight too well. Accordingly, he slips down and joins the flock, bows politely to the prison agent, and walks out with them—as pretty as you please! If he hadn't stopped to look in a bookshop window and hadn't been sighted by a redcoat who used to drop in upon the school here, he'd have got away."

  The schoolmaster sighed. "Ah, yes, the sins of a man will always trip him in the end. A love of fine books is my weakness, sir, among many others. I could not resist a second glance at that Tacitus, a magnificent piece of binding—magnificent! I lingered a moment too long, as my young friend here has said. So was I apprehended just as any common criminal, and restored to my cell. The stars moved in their courses against me that day. Let my sad story be a warning to you—when busied on a mission keep your mind strictly upon it!"

  "Mr. Lyon! Mr. Lyon, sir!" Mike burst in at the door. He stood with open mouth and heaving chest before he got the rest of it out. "Mr. Lyon, sir, they're bringin' in Captain Crofts!"

  Fitz was off his perch and pounding down the stairs, with even Mike a good half flight behind him, almost before the last word was spoken by the messenger.

  10

  Crofts Uses a Needle

  "My lord," wrote Captain Whipple back,

  "It seems to me it's clear

  That if you want to hang him

  You must catch your privateer"

  —THE YANKEE PRIVATEER

  The file of redcoats who had marched the Captain in were passing back through the gate again as Fitz came running down the yard, unmindful of slippery pavement and the pools of dark water he splashed through. Between the collar of his boat cloak and the cocked brim of his hat, Crofts' face was a pale blur, but, at the sight of Fitz, the Captain moved quickly forward, his hands out in greeting.

  "How are you, sir? Where have they been keeping you?" Fitz found himself babbling.

  "Come in, come in, out of the wet—both of you!" called a voice from the doorway. "Mr. Lyon, bring the Captain up to my room."

  Henderson and Neagle stood there, and it was the schoolmaster who had given the order. So Fitz escorted his commander up to the schoolroom of the Old Mill. Once inside, Crofts dropped his sodden cloak across the bench and sent his hat sailing after it. There were two sharply cut lines by his mouth, and his lips were set thinly and tightly together. He stood for a moment blowing on his chilled fingers, as if he were at a loss how to begin.

  "Where have you been, sir?" Fitz could not help asking a second time.

  Crofts jerked at his grubby stock and accepted, with a bow of thanks, the noggin his host offered him.

  "Mostly on board Sir Henry Powell's frigate. He's a prodigious talker, is Sir Henry." Crofts tasted his potion, and then with raised eyebrows he bowed again to Henderson in acknowledgment of a greater treat than he had expected. "Questions, questions," the Captain shook his head. "One might believe the poor man thought I had full intelligence of all the privateering to be done in the Channel for the next six months! Such a bustle of inquiry as I have never been plagued with before—not even from the honorable naval commissioners—and they are wordy men at their best."

  "How many of our men are here?" He turned to Fitz abruptly with a question of his own.

  "Twelve, sir. I'm the only officer. I don't know what has become of Dr. Watts and the badly wounded—“

  "They are temporarily lodged at the naval hospital," Crofts answered. "Watts, as a noncombatant, may be released soon. Twelve, eh?" He finished his drink. "Only twelve." He stared at the wall, not as if he saw the gray blocks at all. "Only twelve," he repeated dully. "It did not take them long to whittle us down to their fancy."

  Fitz picked up the Captain's cloak and spread it over the bench to dry. He felt a sudden reluctance to face Crofts at that moment, and he jumped when the other demanded harshly:

  "What of that knock on your head, Lyon?"

  Involuntarily his hand went up to the soiled bandage which still crowned him. "Nothing bad, sir. I had me an almighty ache for a while, but the worst is over. In a day or two I can rid myself of this turban."

  "Fie, sir," that was Henderson breaking into the conversation. "There is no use now looking upon the dark side of the ledger. I have learned—from our young friend here and other sources—that you had a singularly lucky voyage before you fetched up here with the rest of us. You cannot curse your fate too much."

  "And," Neagle was lounging on the edge of the table which served the schoolmaster as a desk, cleaning his nails with the stub of a quill pen, "there is nothing to keep a man here, y' know. Not if he has his wits left under his hair. What're a brace of eight-foot walls and a score or two of sentries," he chuckled, "to a determined Yankee? Naught, naught at all, Captain. They may push us in here, but they find it plaguely hard to keep us all nice and quiet!"

  For the first time Crofts laughed, not his harsh bark of irritation, but the relaxed sound of real amusement.

  "It is very plain to see that I have arrived among my own countrymen. And I don't doubt that there are five or six good escape schemes being put into operation right now—even as we sit here talking. Nor am I denying that

  I have been working on one of my own. Only it will need a bit of knowledge of the prison and the countryside before I can risk it."

  Instinctively his small audience had moved in closer as he spoke. But now he smiled at them and shook his head. "Give me time to get my breath and look about a bit before you have it out of me, friends. And now— where do I lay my weary head?"

  "Right here, Captain, if you will accept of an old man's hospitality," returned Henderson almost instantly.

  So it was decided. And for almost a week afterwards Crofts did nothing Fitz could see, except pace the yard on fine days, chatting with this or that man, or even with small groups of the older inhabitants, visit the "coffee house" where he was quickly accepted as a member in good standing, and sit during the evenings jotting down on scraps of paper what he insisted were his memoirs.

  But on the second market day, when the townsfolk were allowed to trade with the prisoners just within the gates, he crooked a finger in signal to Fitz and the marine joined him eagerly. Crofts looked him up and down with an open expression of disfavor.

  "You're scarcely in full uniform, Mr. Lyon." His cool voice carried easily to the ears of the sergeant of the guard who lounged nearby. Fitz reddened as he looked down at his torn and stained clothing.

  "Under the circumstances," he began somewhat heatedly, but Crofts interrupted him.

  "I think we must remedy that, sir. After all you are an officer bearing the commission of your country. There is no excuse for slovenliness." He turned to the sergeant who, to Fitz's surprise, snapped to attention as if Crofts were one of his own officers. But noting the Captain's present manner, he could not blame the Britisher. When Crofts was in this mood his own shoulders were back and his chin up to parade-ground attention.

  "I have permission, Sergeant, to deal with the tailor, I believe?"

  The sergeant consulted a list taken from his pocket, and his finger moved laboriously down the page. After a long minute of study he nodded.

  "Yis, sir. An' he's a-waitin' outside noaw, sir."

  "Come on, Lyon."

  They met with the tailor under the eye of the sergeant, and Crofts was all business, giving the small man a list which looked suspiciously like part of the "memoirs." The tailor read it hurriedly and then said that the package might be delivered that very afternoon if the gentlemen wished. Crofts indicated curtly that the gentlemen did wish so, and the transaction ended with an exchange of cash in which the sergeant was not overlooked.

  Back with
in the yard, Crofts took Fitz up to the schoolroom. Since it was market day there was no class in session, and even Henderson had been drawn below to conduct some small trading ventures of his own. Crofts seated himself on one of the benches and pulled out a length of string, smoothing it out as best he could and shaking his head over several knots in it.

  "Off with your coat and your waistcoat," he ordered. "We'll measure you for a new set of breeches. I had to guess lest I set tongues a-wagging a little too soon, and I trust I have figured it rightly."

  Obediently Fitz stood in his shirt sleeves, watching the Captain's antics with amazement. There was a certain meticulousness about Croft's measurements with the string and his notes on paper which hinted that the Captain had done just such a task before.

  Crofts had jotted down the last of his computations and was surveying Fitz's waistcoat as it lay spread out on the table. He glanced up and caught the other's wondering eyes and then he laughed.

  "No, I assure you, Lyon, I haven't taken leave of my senses. But I was once apprenticed to a tailor and sweated out four years in his shop. My father was not minded to have a sailor son, you see, and we were a long family, with myself close to the tail of the line. Charles and Nick stayed with the land, and Archie went into law—he's puffing it out in Congress now. Then Rupert was put in a counting house under one of the Philadelphia graycoats, and Jim took orders. So I was to learn a good trade with my hands—only, all the good intentions in the world cannot forge a landsman out of a sailor. As at last my father admitted handsomely enough.

  "Never did I think I would live to see the day when I should be grateful for my hours with the needle. But now it is a needle which will get us out of here. On with this waistcoat and let us see what must be done."

  Still mystified, Fitz played tailor's dummy and allowed the other to push and pull him into the proper stance for measurements which seemed endless. But after having his coat raked on and off several times, he did demand an explanation. When it was given, the audacity of it almost knocked him down, his mouth open and gasping like a fish out of water.