Yankee Privateer Page 3

The boots moved again on the planking. Fitz shot a glance at Ninnes. And for the first time he realized that the too-energetic lieutenant was probably no older than himself. As Ninnes stood there now, rubbing his thumbs across the buckle of his swordbelt—but meeting Crofts eye to accusing eye, he looked very young —much of his infuriating self-confidence drained away.

  "As for you, Mr. Lyon,” Crofts dismissed Ninnes for his unwilling passenger, "I am afraid that you must be forced to content yourself as best you can during a voyage on the Retaliation. Perhaps later we shall be able to offer you return passage on a prize. We have the wind favoring us now, and after the weeks we have passed trying to get free from the place, I have no intention of seeking Baltimore again this good while."

  "You can drop me with the pilot," began Fitz, but the Captain shook his head.

  "We carry our own pilot for these waters. No, you will have to make the best of it. And since we are somewhat limited as to space—a privateer, you understand, must carry crew enough at her first sailing to man all the prizes she may garner in, as well as enough to work and fight the ship—I am afraid that you will not find our accommodations of the best. You are a rifleman, I believe, sir?"

  "Yes," Fitz returned curtly. He believed that he could put a safe wager on what was coming now.

  "We have a berth open for a second and junior marine officer. Only two veterans shipped with us, Lieutenant Biggs and his sergeant. The rest are landsmen. Would you be interested in what we might term a sub-lieutenancy—temporary of course?"

  That almost blew the coals of Fitz's anger into full flame again. The complacency of the man! But his long self-discipline prevailed. All his life he had faced reality and had made the best of what could not be changed. He might not care to serve as a marine—but apparently

  Fitz scanned the lines at the top.

  there was no way now of escaping that fate. There was even, he supposed, something humorous in his present plight. And somehow, with Ninnes at his elbow, he did not care to answer with merely a bald "no."

  "If I refuse it, I'll doubtless find myself scrubbing down the decks or engaged in some like employment. But I still believe that you have the poor end of the bargain, Captain. I am as much of a landlubber as the rest of your bag "

  "Time will remedy that. If you will sign here "

  Crofts proffered a pen and a list he took from his desk.

  Fitz scanned the lines at the top. Before he scrawled his signature he added a sentence of his own, a sentence which Crofts was quick to read.

  "So we are to have the pleasure of your company only until we reach some civilized port, Mr. Lyon?"

  Fitz grinned. "Why not? I confess that I remain wholly a soldier at heart, sir."

  "But what is a marine but a sea-going soldier? Mr. Ninnes, you will escort Mr. Lyon to Lieutenant Biggs. You will then return here. That is all, gentlemen."

  Once out of the Captain's domain, Fitz turned to his silent guide.

  "So this healthy sea voyage for me was your idea, not the Captain's."

  Ninnes favored him with a glare of open dislike. "Free with your tongue, ain't you? Why couldn't you keep your blab shut?"

  Fitz stopped short in sheer surprise. "Did you actually expect me to accept kidnapping with a tame and meek spirit? As it is, you've landed me in a nice mess."

  Ninnes tugged at a stock which seemed to be suddenly pinching his throat. "Any real man with red blood in him would be more'n glad to serve under the Cap'n. Seems like you do a mort of talkin' about fightin' but you're a little slow about gettin' down to the business—just like all the rest of you up-nosed gentry prigs!"

  As Fitz's eyes narrowed and a certain tightness showed along his jaw the other added:

  "And keep your fightin' for the lobsters. Cap'n Crofts don't allow brawlin' on board ship."

  "Then," Fitz bit off each word, "he ought to clip some tongues, Mr. Ninnes."

  Had they been ashore he would have made the proper and traditional answer—an invitation to meet with pistols or swords. But shipboard was strange territory and probably had rules and customs of its own. Until he knew more about them he would bide his time. But waiting and swallowing down such speeches certainly did not endear Lieutenant Ninnes to him. He had been right about the fellow from the start-just another like Ralph. He could almost see his cousin's blunt features transposed over the other's brown face.

  Lieutenant Biggs, commander of the Retaliation s marines, inhabited a very small pocket on the fringe of the officers' domain, and he was within it now, turning over gear which he was in vain trying to stow away properly. The languid surgeon was hunched against the bulkhead and needled him with satirical comments upon the wealth in his sea chest.

  Biggs, therefore, was in no mood to welcome Fitz, and at Ninnes' hasty introduction and explanation, his gamecock countenance took on such a purplish tinge that Fitz thought it very lucky that a surgeon was present. Bleeding seemed to be the proper restorative.

  "Ha!" Biggs stood, elbows cocked and knuckles on hips, as Ninnes left. "Look about you, sir. If you can conceive of finding an inch to stow yourself in—do it—do it at once!" His mouth twisted almost childishly as he started thumping his tumbled belongings back into the chest.

  "Now, Lemuel, it is not as bad as all that, man." The surgeon pulled himself out of his cranny. "What if you had to roost in the cockpit, nicely placed below the waterline with the bilges to perfume your quarters? Mr. Lyon, Dr. Nathaniel Watts, at your service, sir." The surgeon bowed with the grace of a man who had moved in mannered society. Fitz returned the salute as well as he could.

  "And, Mr. Lyon, if you will accompany me now, allowing Lemuel time to solve his quartering problems, I have something in my possessions which is of value to you."

  He was glad to be out of the marine lieutenant's company until he had time to adjust to his new situation, and he followed the surgeon into the dark under-deck regions, descending to the minute pocket which was Watts' sleeping place, office, and the ship's hospital combined. A single lantern gave a very small issue of light, and the bilge odor, as Watts had mentioned, was only too obvious.

  But Fitz was too taken by a discovery he had made during their between-decks journey to be affected.

  "Where are the guns?"

  Watts' quizzical eyebrow went up. "As yet they are still aboard several different ships we have not had the pleasure of meeting," he returned matter-of-factly.

  "We Americans have not yet mastered the trick of casting ships' guns which do not burst after the first round or so. In engagements a hot gun has either to be allowed to cool in its own time—which is impossible —or be flooded down with sea water. Only bell metal can stand up to a splashing like that without flying apart in the splasher's face."

  "But there isn't a gun at any one of the ports!" persisted Fitz without understanding.

  "Certainly not. There wasn't a gun to be had in Baltimore. Not for love or, what is more important, money. Why d'you suppose Dan Crofts has been cooling his heels in port all these weeks? If he'd been able to find guns we would have been at sea as soon as the first ice parted far enough to let this old girl wriggle through.

  "If we can't pick ourselves up a good battery on the way across," continued Dr. Watts cheerfully, "then we'll buy guns in Saint Malo with our cargo—some of the sweetest tobacco ever laid down in the state of Maryland!"

  "Pick them up at sea!" Fitz repeated. "Do you mean we're going privateering in an unarmed ship?"

  Watts rubbed his hand across his smoothly shaven chin. "I wouldn't say we were totally unarmed. There re the deck swivels, you know. As for the others —any day now we're like to take us a good prize and transfer her teeth into our own gaping jaws."

  Fitz stared at him. The man apparently accepted this wild state of affairs as perfectly natural. He began to wonder if he had shipped with a full crew of madmen.

  Watts smiled. "Oh, the situation is not desperate, I assure you. It has been done before and will be done again during this war. And no
w here is what I have for you "

  From among his own belongings and surgical supplies he produced Fitz's rifle and the saddle bags which he had last seen in the inn.

  "Sorry I could not have the mare for you too. But that is a little beyond my powers. She will be delivered with a note to Mr. Crampton. He is the Fairleigh factor, is he not?"

  "But How did you "

  "Very simple. When Ninnes and his merry men dumped you on board last night they were a little dismayed at your condition. Since they are more used to banging the thick skulls of wharf rats, they began to wonder if they had gone a little too far with you. So I was routed out—at past one, mind you, and it was damned cold, too—to look you over."

  "Why didn't you " Fitz began with some indignation.

  "Why didn't I report the strange manner of your arrival, sir? Report to whom? Ninnes was the senior officer aboard at the time. I see that you are woefully unaware of the facts of life in our little world. Ninnes is a lieutenant, placed in charge of recruiting by Captain Crofts. I am a surgeon, a noncombatant. For all

  I knew, Crofts himself might have ordered you delivered aboard like a roll of sausage. But I will admit my curiosity was aroused. I was moved to make a few inquiries. Hence the procuring of your missing baggage and the favor—for which do not hesitate to thank me."

  Fitz could not suppress real laughter. "I do, oh, I do, sir. I am beginning to think that only a magician could ever win free of the pack of you."

  Watts' countenance was sober but his eyes danced. "Crofts is a very determined man with a reputation for both luck and stubbornness. I think that some of that determination rubs off on those who follow him. You will discover us to be something novel in a crew."

  "I would find any crew novel. But I tell you frankly, I think that you are all harebrained!"

  "There is a purpose in our madness," Watts returned. "And now, since it is almost time for mess, may I escort you back to your den to observe how Biggs has rallied to the cruel blow of having to divide into two a space already too small for any human being?"

  Biggs, once the initial shock had worn off, seemed to be taking it rather well. He even achieved a welcoming grimace, as Fitz ducked into the low cabin, and indicated a bundle of blue on top of his sea chest.

  "That is the best I can do for you in the way of uniform," he told his new junior officer. "I borrowed the the coat from Mayhew and the breeches from Pike. Best get into 'em."

  "But " Fitz's protest was interrupted by Watts.

  "Faith, sir, is that the only word you can say? It is one we don't use here overmuch. Crofts wants his officers in uniform—that's the navy in him. You will note that this one is different from naval regulations. That is because we are not navy and we wear stuff from a cargo of British cloth which Crofts captured last year."

  Both of them withdrew with a last warning to hurry and left Fitz to struggle with the problem of stripping and redressing in confined and swinging quarters. Biggs must have an exact eye for measurement, thought the Marylander, for the result was not bad at all. The coat was only a trifle too loose across the shoulders. When he had fastened the last button of the waistcoat and pulled at the stock, which seemed like a collar of iron after he had gone a week without it, he stepped out of the cubby to have Watts seize him by the arm and propel him forward.

  "Mess," urged the surgeon. "There is but one wardroom and the underlings—you and me, my friend-share the bottom of the table there."

  So Fitz found himself in the wardroom of the Retaliation, content for the moment to share a very small part of the table with Watts and to see those officers, now off watch, with whom he would be sharing the chances of war for some time to come.

  3

  "If You Haven't Guns-Take 'Em!"

  The boarding nettings are triced for a fight;

  Pike and cutlass are shining bright;

  The boatswain's whistle pipes loud and shrill;

  Gunner and topman work with a will.

  —JACK CREAMER

  FlTZ WAS GLAD TO NOTE THAT LIEUTENANT NlNNES HAD duty elsewhere and was not at the table. And the forced marine hoped that this state of affairs would continue to keep them as far apart as possible.

  From James Matthews, a lank-bodied, dour-faced sailing master hailing from Nantucket, to Harvey Langston, third officer, out of Virginia, the wardroom occupants of the Retaliation were a mixed lot. And, as they were talking about their work, only about a third of what they said was in the least intelligible to Fitz. By dint of keeping his own mouth shut and his ears open, he learned that Crofts was not only a captain of some renown, but that he was also deemed an exceptionally ''lucky" commander, and that his officers had unbounded confidence in him. The lack of guns did not appear to disturb them at all, and they were far more interested in the prospect of prizes than they were in their present appalling state of military nakedness.

  "Now in the old days when we still had Orangetown to run to," Langston, by raising his voice to a trumpet bellow, caught their attention, ''it was damned easy to make a fortune. Lord, the Dutch welcomed us to Saint Eustatius with open arms and a round of salutes. You could run a cargo of tobacco down, trade it for guns, and go out among the rest of the West Indies for rich pickings. Why, I've seen bales of silk bundled out on deck as if they were common linsey-woolsey. And there was that time we took the Queen Anne and got us a paymaster's chest to dabble in!"

  But Matthews was looking at the dregs in his tankard with a sour frown. "Th' North Sea ain't fer th' likes o' th' Retaliation. Saint Malo!" he snorted. "Best rig us some life lines on deck—we'll need 'em. We'll ship half th' ocean on this course."

  "Saint Malo's a snug port for privateers," Langston pointed out. "Right within sniffing distance of England. Here's to good hunting!"

  Fitz drank with the rest to honor that toast. Lang-ston's confidence was reassuring—even to a misplaced landsman.

  "If th' lobsters don't snap us up, an' if we don't have trouble ashore." Matthews refused to fall in with them now. "I'd like it a mite sight better if we were headed south instead of north."

  Fitz clung to the edge of the table and thought that he would like it a great deal more than a mite sight better if they were Baltimore bound again. The odor of salt pork was much less appetizing than it had been some moments before. By not taking another mouthful and concentrating on what he hoped were higher thoughts, he managed to leave the board a respectful pace behind his elders and superiors without disgracing himself.

  And then he was at once seized upon by Biggs and introduced willy-nilly to the joys and pains of marine duties. For what seemed a lifetime thereafter he had no time to nurse any qualms.

  Sea-going soldiers had duties right enough—plenty of them, Fitz discovered, trying to sort out the flood of instructions and admonitions which Biggs poured out on him. The marines formed a guard, which on less contented ships, under less popular officers, sometimes had the unenviable task of protecting the commander from the crew, as well as being responsible for any treasure aboard. In battle they were the sharpshooters, their foremost service being to pick off the expert gun captains and deck officers on board the enemy, to go over with the boarders, and to lead any landing party which might be sent ashore in a dangerous port.

  "The Retaliation has no fighting tops," Biggs pointed out the obvious, for the only observation point where a man might perch above her deck was the iron hoop against the mast where a lookout balanced, eager to win the extra quarter share which went to the man who first sighted a prize, "so we form up fore and aft on the deck—makin' every shot count, mind you. Don't aim at a man's head—his middle is a bigger target."

  Such words of wisdom were drummed into them all as the lieutenant, seconded by the single veteran sergeant, drove his new recruits hard through the days which followed. Sergeant Collins Fogler was a tower of strength in those hours, and Fitz leaned hard upon him.

  Fitz was discovering that there was an underlying method in this life and that a sense of security could be
born of familiarity with duty and discipline. The army could not be so very different, he decided. And what he could learn now should be invaluable later on. So he plunged into the business of becoming a marine officer with the single-hearted determination of a scholar at his books. And since he was used to handling men and concentrating on the job in hand, he did not often find himself beyond his depth.

  It was Fitz and Fogler working together who devised the floating target, a section of board equipped with a triangular sail, which could be towed behind the ship to offer a mark to shoot at. Gradually the marksmen, some of them good enough on shore but wild at sea—not being used to shooting when the ground they stood on plunged and cavorted—learned to center their shots. And even Biggs grunted that perhaps—in a year or so—he might command some fairly passable marines.

  Off watch, Fitz tumbled into his hammock utterly worn out, to sleep dreamlessly. His world had narrowed, and he had little time to think of anything which lay beyond its very limited confines. But he was brought out of this soon enough. He and Fogler were working on the target float one day when the voice of the lookout rang down.

  "Sail ho!"

  "Where away?"

  "Two points off th' port bow, sir!" the lookout answered Ninnes's demand.

  Crofts was already on deck, his leather-bound spyglass in his hand.

  "She's a two-master " the lookout added details.

  The Captain leveled his glass. Fitz instinctively headed for his battle station as the whistle Fogler wore shrilled out until the drummer popped up to beat to quarters.

  Since there were no guns except the deck swivels, the other gun crews, armed with hangers, muskets, and pikes, lined up on deck.

  "Dutch colors," Crofts ordered, and that flag went up.

  "Is she British?" Fitz asked Fogler. The sergeant shrugged.

  "Who knows? She might be another privateer. 'Twouldn't be th' first time we have chased our own flag."

  Ninnes and Langston were down among the crew giving orders which set the men up at the rail like pit-dogs slavering to get at the enemy. And under deck there seemed to be some sort of activity behind the empty gun ports.