Yankee Privateer Page 9

  Watch on and watch off, they were ready for instant action, though Crofts passed up the fishing smacks or luggers which rode the night waters. His indifference surprised Fitz until Matthews explained that these were the craft of the "gentlemen" and not to be stopped by an honest privateer, especially since they might later want information or assistance from that network of intelligence which the smuggling fraternity maintained in England and on the continent.

  "Many an escaped prisoner has been ferried over by them," the New Englander pointed out. "We don't bother them an' they don't peach on us—'less th' reward gets a leetle too high an' temptin'. If we make Lloyd's anxious-like an' th' insurance goes up, then some o' th' merchants who have their heads screwed on right may get together an' let it be known in th' proper places that there is a price on us. Then someone may talk. But we don't have t' worry us about that yet. We're new t' these huntin' grounds."

  "Yes," Sergeant Fogler added, half to himself, "just a killer shark out in a whale pack, that's us. Easy pickin's, easy pickin's."

  However more than one killer shark had been drawn to the Channel, to say nothing of the watchdog frigates out to patrol against just such depredations. And for the first week of her cruising the Retaliation had little luck, except to escape with ease the attentions of an overly ambitious sloop-of-war.

  Then Fortune smiled indeed. A convoy, homeward bound from the Indies and deeply laden, had fallen afoul of a French detachment and the resultant spat had left one of the guardians demasted and the other pumping against sprung seams. The Retaliation calmly took her pick, one or two ships tried to show their teeth in a despairing fashion which gained them no freedom. But a third actually outfought and then outsailed the American to gain the safety which lay under the Plymouth forts. The Retaliation had to be content with three prizes sent back to St. Malo under American crews.

  "If we keep on in this pleasant fashion, gentlemen," Watts said at mess that noon, "we'll be sending back prizes under the command of our cabin boys. Faith, we no longer number a quorum here. Matthews gone, I note, and the next will be under your orders, Ninnes, since you have managed to survive my tinkering."

  Ninnes forked a piece of meat out of the half-cold stew the steward had slapped down before him. "Crofts could take us in by himself if he wished," he returned when his mouth was once more empty.

  "Well, we've three more captures yet to go, by all the rules of luck. And here're two able-bodied marines and a navigating officer to captain them. I absolve myself, you will notice, being by the cannons of war a neutral."

  Fitz turned to his superior officer. "We won't be , given prizes to take in, will we?" Having no knowledge of navigation he foresaw difficulties to come if Watts was now speaking the truth.

  Ninnes laughed shortly. "Not if we want to sight them again. There're a brace of gun captains on board who know enough to raise sail and follow the leader home." Having so dealt with the presumption of a seagoing soldier, he went back to close investigation of a portion of ship's biscuit, detecting in it the well-known signs of active weevils.

  "If we go on like this," Fitz mused, "we won't be able to man more than half the guns."

  "And there you have put finger on the core of danger in privateering," Watts pushed aside his stew plate.

  "With every prize we take and man, we severely cripple ourselves. Those men who sailed back to American ports with the prizes we took in the south cannot rejoin us. We shall hope that our Channel captures reach Saint Malo safely and the men will be waiting us there—that is, if they are not snapped up by a Britisher before they get to port. But when you batten down a crew of prisoners you can only hope for the best. Too many cases have happened where they've escaped to retake the ship. For my part, I'd be well suited if we put about tonight and not push our luck too far."

  Ninnes frowned. "The Captain knows his business. He aren't nigh as undermanned as was the Experience on her last voyage, and she brought in almost forty thousand pounds in prizes during an eight months' cruise. Her crew is rich for life!"

  "Forty thousand pounds!" Fitz was startled by the mere mention of such an amount. As an ex-planter who had seen very little hard cash from one year's end to the next he found such sums astounding.

  "For each voyage such as that of the Experience," commented Biggs a bit sourly, "mark up five which don't take in six pounds apiece—or whose crews end up in th' hulks or in Mill. You hear a mighty lot about th' lucky ones. Th' unlucky ones ain't so widely talked about. An' I ain't minded t' go shippin' foreigners in th' crew like some done. They don't mix well with our boys an' there's trouble!"

  The little marine lieutenant had settled down to his favorite subject. "It's agin nature t' mix 'em up "

  "But," Fitz dared to interrupt, "we're mixed already, aren't we? What about Jones—he's a free Negro, and there're two Indians in the crew of the bow chaser. Then D'Arnot's French "

  "American French," Watts corrected him. "His people are Huguenots who settled in the Carolinas after they escaped Nantes. Yes, we're a rare mixture right enough, the Lobsters would call us a mongrel crew. But you've overlooked one point, Lyon, we're all Americans sailing on an American ship. So we pull together, even if most of us may be fighting for the money rather than for the hollow honors of war. We know each other and rub along without too many prickles. But you drop a Malouin, or a dyed-in-the-wool Britisher, or any other European into our little crowd and see what will happen. As Biggs says—it's better not to recruit in a foreign port less one is driven to it."

  The rattle of a furiously beaten drum put a period to his sentence and they were all on their feet, crowding out to their duty posts in an instant. Fitz pounded to his battle station, the rifle in his hand. The deck of the Retaliation might be less crowded with seamen now, but those who were still aboard worked with a snap that the captain of a British ship-of-the-line might have relished seeing in his own men. The rumble of gun carriages made the planking quiver, and Fitz dodged a smoldering linstock which was being waved a little too enthusiastically by one gunner.

  Overhead the battle flag streamed out straight in the fresh breeze which was bowling the clipper along at a hunter's pace. Fitz glanced down the line of marines. The inspection was such an old story now he did it almost without thinking. But he noticed an unusual frown on Fogler's weather-beaten face.

  "Lor’," the sergeant said in a husky whisper, "she's a mail packet that we're achasin' now, sir!"

  8

  "A Rebel Pirate!"

  There were rebel knaves to swing, there were prisoners to bring

  Home in fetters to old England for the glory of the King!

  —FIGHT OF THE ARMSTRONG PRIVATEER

  To pick up a British mail packet in the Channel waters was to snatch a lion's cub while within reach of its mother's jaws, and Crofts did not try to push his luck so far. When the nature of their quarry was plain he allowed the privateer to fall away. The packet flashed out of danger with a saucy flirt of her stern sheets which was as impudent and infuriating to her late pursuers as hand-to-nose.

  Once the packet was out of sight the Retaliation put about at all speed, having no wish to meet the hounds which would pour out of the harbor at the report made by her captain. So the American ship angled down southeast, out into the Atlantic, hoping to meet up with some of the Bristol-bound trade.

  "But no slaver," Ninnes broke his usual reticence with Fitz during deck watch later that same day. "They stink to the clouds and you can smell 'em a good two leagues to the windward! Bristol lives fat off the slave trade."

  It wasn't a slaver they sighted shortly past noon the next day, but a trim, fast-sailing, sloop-rigged craft, which Fitz believed to be one of those swift sailers lately built to run the blockade of the privateers, carrying cargo which would not wait for the slower ships traveling in convoy. With the wind humming in the canvas the men of the Retaliation started to give chase, lobbing a lazy shot across the water as warning, which the other heeded not at all, holding steadily to her origina
l course.

  "Gonna try t' run for it," Fogler commented. "She ain't got th' chance o' a candle in July. It's like takin' sugar plums from a baby "

  Only just then the baby showed teeth, a fine set of them. A four-gun broadside might not have the punishing force of a frigate, but if gun captains are clever it can cause a lot of damage—as the Americans discovered. For, in answer to that slam across the waves, the foremast of the privateer became a splintered stub, and torn canvas and ropes fouled her deck.

  Crewmen jumped to the work of clearing the mess as one of the boys pounded up to Fitz.

  "Cap'n's compliments, sir, an' will ye try t' keep 'em busy " He jerked a powder-grimed thumb at the other deck toward which the privateer was still making some way.

  Fitz squinted against the reflection of the sun on the water and tried to gauge the range. It would be a long shot all right. But sometimes even long shots paid off. He made his choice of the best and steadiest sharpshooters in his command.

  "Fogler, Stanley, Myers " his own rifle came up, "try to get those gun layers if you can. Fire at will!"

  They were close enough now to put sights on a blue-coat on the afterdeck. Blue-coat—Fitz shot a glance at the stranger's colors. It was a naval Jack breaking from her. Some kind of a dispatch carrier—that's what she must be.

  But this was no time for that speculation. He squeezed his trigger and began to reload without marking his success or failure. Crofts was pushing the crippled Retaliation across the other's course. If the enemy continued to hold to it her bowsprit might well spike into the American's side. And she showed no sign of falling away. The sharp crack of rifle was fife-thin above the heavier throb of the guns and the shouts of the men. Powder fumes pulled strangling coughs out of them as they fired.

  On the Britisher's deck two blue-coats lay still, but a third had popped up, speaking trumpet in hand, to scream orders which kept her guns at work. Fitz took careful aim. And as if the snap of sound was a signal, he was struck a cracking blow on the side of his head.

  Back into darkness he fell, his rifle slipping from his hands and striking across his own shins as he reeled. His face and jaw ached cruelly. And the pain became in seconds a tight vise holding neck, head, and shoulder in its grip. He was on his back, blinking up at swinging canvas and patches of sky. Something heavy lay across his thighs and he pushed weakly at it, only to tangle his fingers in sticky hair. At last he managed to struggle up on an elbow.

  It was Fogler's body which held him down. A Fogler who might only be known now by the sergeant's knot on his shoulder. Fitz shuddered and feebly tried to roll free. Somewhere there was a great deal of shouting, and small arms cracked spitefully. But the guns were quiet at last.

  The Retaliation rolled and the sergeant's body moved with it. Fitz pulled from under the red-soaked bundle, getting to his hands and knees and then to his feet, clinging to the splintered rail. The ache in his head was now a blistering fire, and when he tried to look about him he saw with a misty, doubled vision which made him sick.

  He was still on the privateer. But the fight had shifted to the lower deck of the smaller ship now grappled to the side of the American. Save for a man or two moaning or crawling along, most of the crew had vanished.

  Fitz took a step forward and then held fast to his brace. His attempt to move had set the world revolving at a pace which made him miserably ill. He slumped down to the deck again and cradled his tender head in shaking hands.

  How long it was before he found himself half carried to Watts' corner of hell he never knew. But the surgeon's examination of his raw wound brought him out of the half-stupor into wakeful and naked pain.

  "Luck was with you, lad," Watts sounded relieved. "You haven't a hole in that thick skull of yours, just a scrape along it. And your shoulder isn't broken, even if it does feel so. Yes, I know that your brains have had a deuced hard shaking—but maybe they'll flourish the better for it. Mike, help Mr. Lyon to his quarters, we haven't room for walking wounded here "

  The hot, sweet smell of blood and scorched flesh made Fitz gag, and he was glad to be towed out of the horrid murk where the surgeon had already turned back to tend a screaming man, his knives in use this time. But Fitz did not reach his cabin.

  Those who had been engaged on the captured craft were boiling back over the rail with a haste which made Fitz forget the drumming pain over his eyes. He caught a word or tw r o which made him twist free of Mike and sent him lurching toward his battle post.

  While the Retaliation had been busy subduing the prize, another player had appeared on the scene. The hound put on the scent by the mail packet had tracked them. A frigate in fighting order was bearing down upon the two ships locked in the last struggle.

  Fitz clung to the broken rail. He had located his rifle, but the effort to reload and fire it was totally beyond him. If he let go of his support he might slip helplessly into the sea. His whole body shook with the thud of the guns which had been hastily turned against the newcomer.

  But that was a hopeless effort from the start. The unexpected resistance put up by the sloop had mauled the privateer so that the American ship could not escape. And flight was their only chance when faced by a frigate. They were overborne by the weight of guns, just as they had knocked over prizes not as well-armed.

  Fitz jerked a hand to Mike. "Rifle," he got out the word, after two tries at shaping it, "overboard " He did not want to see that prized gun in enemy hands. Mike nodded vigorously and pitched the long-barreled weapon over. The small splash of the engulfment was lost in the greater noise on deck.

  Crofts, bareheaded, a bleeding cut across his cheek, stood a short distance away, the men still able to move grouped before him. The Captain held his flag in his hands, and as he talked he ripped it methodically into strips.

  "This is the end, boys," his voice carried evenly. "Now each of you come forward at his name and receive your share of the specie aboard. You'll need guinea pieces where we're going—if you are able to hide them past the searching."

  From a small box one of the boys held he began counting out coins and passing them to each man in turn until the last coin was gone and the boy shook the box upside down. Almost as if that had been a signal, the cocked hat of a British officer appeared above the rail. Fitz swallowed sickly. It was true—the Retaliation was taken!

  In a daze, he looked around for Biggs. But the stocky marine lieutenant was nowhere to be seen. Nor was Ninnes present either. As far as he could see he was the only officer left to back Crofts in this humiliation. Holding carefully to the rail, he inched on until he was only a pace or two away from the Captain.

  "Captain Crofts of the Retaliation, sir "

  The Britisher was looking about him. "Lieutenant Haines of His Majesty's Frigate Seahorse," he returned. "You are under arrest!"

  Fitz wondered at the words. They were certainly a strange greeting to an enemy captain taken in wartime —if he had heard them aright. Crofts was frowning as he answered sharply:

  "I do not take your meaning, sir. Our flag is down, we have surrendered according to the rules of warfare and are entitled to be used as prisoners of war."

  "You're demmed rebel pirates taken in the act. And if you don't want to be ironed you'll do as you are bid." The response was delivered with an aggravating coolness which Fitz, in spite of his headache, wanted to answer in kind.

  "I carry commissions from the Continental Congress, and the State of Maryland," Crofts had lost none of his self-control. "We are lawful privateersmen sailing under the rules of war "

  But Haines had turned on his heel and was shouting to his followers. The scarlet coats of British marines came in a wave over the rail, and the crew of the Retaliation stood in sullen, disarmed silence. Crofts' face was very white beneath the mask of dried blood and powder blacking. He walked up to Haines.

  The British lieutenant looked up to see him coming. "Sergeant," he snapped to the leader of the file of marines, "if that rebel comes any closer—pistol him!"

>   Fitz let go of the rail. He staggered through a whirling misty world, but as the one remaining officer it was his duty to join the Captain. But he was brought up short by a hand clamped to his wrist.

  "Noaw thin, chum, toike it easy loike. We ain't a-arskin' rebels t' be skinned—not this week "

  Fumes of rum assaulted his affronted nose as he turned his head to see the round red face of a marine whose tight stock had given his countenance the rosiness of a winter apple. The Marylander tried to twist off the other's hold. But he might as well have tried to shift one of the western mountains. Instead he was propelled to the spot where the British were herding the American prisoners under the hatch. And a few minutes later Fitz found himself jammed in between two of the gunners, imprisoned in the hold of their own ship.

  "Sit ye down—sir—Mr. Lyon " the boy Mike had wormed his way between the cursing men and was tugging at Fitz's jacket. "Ye look fair beat out, sir. Sit down "

  He allowed Mike to have his way and crouched, pillowing his head on his arm. The hatch was slammed down over their heads and they were left in the noisy darkness. How long that period lasted Fitz could not judge. Through the hours he was in a kind of stupor of pain, although he gathered from the motions of the timbers and the comments of the men around him that the privateer was under weigh again and that they were being transported to an unknown destination.

  "Plymouth an' th' Mill—I'll wager you a share on that!" one voice w T as proclaiming loudly when Fitz raised his head and tried to make out objects in the semigloom. The speaker had no takers on that bet-most of the company agreed with his guess.

  "Mike?" Fitz tried to wet his lips with a tongue which was dry as cotton itself before he could speak.

  There was a stir in the dark by his side. "Aye, sir?"

  "What happened to Captain Crofts?"

  "We think that they took him aboard th' frigate, sir. Leastways that's what Jim said. He was th' last to be put down here 'fore they clapped th' hatch to, an* he claims he saw them a-pushin' th' Cap'n down t' one o' their boats—wi' a bayonet t' his back. Sir, be they a-goin' t' hang us all now?" The boy's hand slid down the marine officer's arm and, understandingly, Fitz caught it in a tight grip.