Читать книгу The Captain from Connecticut - Cecil Louis Troughton Smith - Страница 5

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The Delaware had crossed the blue water of the Gulf Stream. She had caught the north-east trades by now, and was thrashing along with the wind over her port quarter and with all sail set, driving so hard that Mr. Hubbard was keeping an eye on the studding sails lest there should be a trifle too much strain on the booms. The blue water—so blue that it might have been a painted surface—turned to a dazzling white as the Delaware broke through it, and in the waves thrown off from her sharp bow a dozen dolphins tumbled and somersaulted.

The lookouts were at their dizzy posts at the fore and main top-gallant mastheads, swinging in vast circles against the blue sky as the Delaware soared superbly over the waves. They were on duty; so were Mr. Hubbard and Midshipman Quincy, walking the deck with their telescopes under their arms, and so were the men at the wheel. So were the two carpenter’s mates at work on the deck planking aft by the taffrail—there was a bloodstain there which no amount of scrubbing during the past few days had been able to remove, and by Mr. Hubbard’s orders a section of planking was being replaced. Mr. Hubbard would not on any account have bloodstains marring the spotless white of his decks.

Otherwise, in this dog watch, the ship’s company was free. Forward the deck was covered with little groups of men, chattering, sewing their clothes, or merely lounging in idleness; aft the ship’s officers were taking air and exercise, lieutenants, the master, the surgeon and his mate, walking solemnly up and down their little bits of deck, and turning inwards towards each other at each end of their beats without a break in their conversation, while up in the mizzen rigging half a dozen midshipmen were valorously emulating the athletic feats of young master’s mate Hayward who was leading a game of follow-my-leader.

On a day like this all troubles could be forgotten. The memory of the bitter cold of the blizzard in which they had started had vanished as completely as the ice which had festooned the ship, and already the memory of the dead whom they had left behind them was beginning to fade along with it. The sun was warm and not too warm; the ship had her studding sails set slow and aloft; there were sparkling rainbows in the spray tossed from the bows, and sail drill and gun drill had ceased for the day. There was nothing more that a sailor’s heart could desire.

Peabody came on deck, a cigar all ready for smoking between his teeth, and the officers herded away respectfully from his side of the deck. He lit his cigar from the smouldering bit of punk which during the dog watches was left in a tub aft for the convenience of the officers, and inhaled deeply as he glanced round the ship as every captain since the world began has done on his arrival on deck. All sail set and drawing well—the cut of that main course was a perfect masterpiece. She must be going all of the eleven knots which he had noted on the traverse board on his way on deck. And tobacco was good on a sunny evening like this—he drew again deeply on his cigar. It was several hours since he last smoked, for Peabody had a strict rule against smoking below deck, and he had been confined below for several hours dealing with the ship’s papers. Most of what he had been doing was the clerk’s work, but Peabody was fully conscious of his own competence to deal with it, and guiltily conscious of the clerk’s inability. And he had not wanted to bother the boy; he looked sharply across the deck and saw him leaning, gloomy and solitary, against the taffrail with his back to all the merriment and light-heartedness of the ship.

That was a pity. Peabody would have preferred to see Jonathan skylarking up in the rigging along with the midshipmen, and he sighed a little. The boy was a little too old to adapt himself readily to a life at sea. Peabody blamed himself for not having obtained his captaincy earlier so that he could have rescued the boy from the plough—from his mother and father—a little younger, before he got so set in his gloomy habits, when it would have been easy to initiate him into the pleasant delights of algebra and spherical trigonometry and gradually make him into a midshipman, a lieutenant, and in the end a captain. He himself was profoundly grateful to Providence for what he had received. He was captain of this superb ship. He had work to do which he felt competent to perform—that was a most gratifying feeling. And he was already wealthy. As captain he was paid the enormous salary of one hundred dollars a month—a stupendous amount. The Connecticut farm did not produce one hundred dollars a year in real money; the terrible father who had beaten him as a child had never in his whole life held in his hands the sum which his son received monthly. There was a grim, unpleasing pleasure in the thought.

But he should have reached this eminence five years ago, for Jonathan’s sake, saving his five years of frightening tyranny, five years of a maudlin mother’s insane antics. There was every excuse in the world for the boy; but tobacco did not taste so good now. He walked across the deck to pitch his half-smoked cigar overboard to leeward, and Hubbard took off his hat to his captain with the formal courtesy which characterised him—the formality of the Navy combined with the graces of the South.

Here came the marine band, all six of them marching stiffly behind their sergeant, two side drums and four fifes, the sergeant saluting captain and quarterdeck with a single gesture. He swung his brass-mounted cane, and the drums gave their triple roll before beginning their exhilarating rhythm while the fifes squeaked bravely away at “Yankee Doodle.” Up and down, up and down, marched the marines; the fifers in their tall stocks were purple in the face with the effort of blowing. It was all very gay and lighthearted; even Peabody caught the infection. To be at sea again, to have broken the close blockade, was stimulating and exhilarating. The prospect of action cheered everyone on board. The sail drill and the gun drill during those tedious weeks in the East River had been dull and pointless, but now there was a chance of putting them to use. And every man on board, except for Jonathan Peabody and some of the midshipmen, was an experienced sailor, with the sea in his blood. The joys of home, of life in port, were not exaggerated, but were liable to cause surfeit, and some of the men on board had not been to sea for two years now. They felt as if they were free of chains.

On the starboard beam the sun was setting in a glory of red. Three bars of cloud, as straight as if drawn by parallel rulers, hung over the western horizon above the dying sun; typical trade-wind clouds bearing the promise of unchanged weather, thought Peabody, noting them. He watched the red disk sink slowly into the sea while the light faded from the sky—in the east it was already dark. The young moon was just in sight in the western sky now that its light was not submerged in that of the sun.

“Deck, there!” from the main top-gallant masthead. A pause.

“What is it?” hailed Hubbard.

“I thought I saw a sail. Yes, there she is, on the starboard bow, sir! Right to leeward, sir!”

All Peabody’s instincts exploded into action. He did not stop to calculate that with night coming down so fast every second was of value, and he did not consciously allow for the waste of time if a junior had to report to him; his reactions were quicker than his thoughts. He snatched the glass and threw himself into the main rigging. Up the ratlines he went, up the futtock shrouds back downwards without pausing for breath, up to the maintopmast crosstrees, hand over hand to the top-gallant masthead. He was hard and lean despite his heavy shoulders, and his pumping heart and quickened respiration did nothing to unsteady him.

Up at this height there was perceptibly more light than on deck. Eastward all was black, with a star or two beginning to show, but to the westward the sky still showed a gleam of red. The awed lookout on his narrow perch pointed over the starboard bow, momentarily too impressed by the sudden appearance of his captain to speak. Peabody saw what he was pointing to. At the very edge of the colour in the sky, silhouetted sharply in black against the red, were two minute geometrical shapes close together. Peabody fixed them in his glass, swinging the instrument in accordance with the roll of the ship, but in that light the glass was not of any help to his own keen eyesight. The upper sails of a brig, royals and topgallants, decided Peabody, standing to the north close hauled on the opposite tack to the Delaware.

“Has she changed course since you saw her?” he demanded of the lookout.

“No, sir, not as far as I can tell.”

Peabody glanced back over his shoulder again; the eastward sky was quite black. The Delaware’s upper sails, viewed from the brig, would not stand out in the fashion hers did, and there was not enough light from the westward to illuminate them, either. The chances were that the brig had not seen her, and moreover if she had she would probably have put up her helm and hurried over the horizon as a precautionary measure. His eyes sought her again unavailingly, for the red patch had dwindled almost to nothing and the brig had disappeared into the darkness.

“Mr. Hubbard!” he bellowed down to the deck.

“Sir!”

“Put the helm up. Bring her round on the other tack.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Far below him he could hear the orders called, and he could just hear the bustle of the men hurrying to the braces. The Delaware rose momentarily to an even keel beneath him, and then heeled again. The darkness round him was filled with the creaking of ropes as the yards came round. As he looked forward he saw the starboard foretopmast studdingsail blot out the last of the red patch of sky. The foretopsail followed round.

“Keep her at that!” he roared.

“Aye aye, sir!”

Now the Delaware had the wind nearly abeam, while the brig to leeward had been close hauled. The courses of the two ships were sharply convergent. Two hours, two hours and a half, perhaps, before they met—always provided, that is, that the brig did not alter course. But although Peabody strained his eyes peering into the night he could see nothing of her at all. He was about to descend, when he remembered the good services of the lookout.

“A tot of rum for you to-morrow,” he said.

“Thank’ee, sir. Please, sir——”

“Well?”

“Beg your pardon, sir, but could you make it ’baccy? A plug o’ chawing, sir——”

“Yes. What’s your name?”

“Gaines, sir.”

A seaman who preferred tobacco to rum was quite a rarity. Perhaps he had been through the same desperate struggle that Peabody had, when every nerve in his body shrieked for the drink he denied it. Peabody had won his victory over the monster as a lieutenant of twenty, after he realised that in the wardroom mess his behaviour, which he had thought so clever, was like that of his mother when she was wearing her stupid grin. There had been three months of torment, three years of temptation. Now even the temptation was gone, and Peabody could trust himself to have one drink, two drinks, when the occasion demanded, but perhaps this man Gaines was still in the period of temptation. He looked over the starboard sky, somehow oddly moved, and then he realised that he was in danger of having a favourite on board, which would not do at all. He grunted something inarticulate, swung himself into the rigging, and began his slow descent. Murray was officer of the watch now, but Hubbard was still on deck with him awaiting his captain.

“Send the hands to quarters, Mr. Murray, and clear for action.”

The drums which had beaten so merry a tune an hour ago now went roaring through the ship calling the men to quarters. The Delaware was filled with the clatter and bustle of it all as the men rushed to begin their allotted tasks, and the weeks of drill during those grim days in the East River were justified now as even in the darkness the men did their work without confusion. The marines climbed to the tops with elephantine clumsiness; the powder boys came running to the guns with their buckets of cartridges. Down below the bulkheads were coming down, the guns were being cast loose, the sand was being scattered over the deck. Rodgers the boatswain formed up his two fire-fighting parties with the head pumps fore and aft and the canvas hoses coiled in the scuppers. Two boys hurried along the deck with their arms full of lanterns, hanging them on the gant lines which Rodgers had set up.

“I don’t want a light in the ship until I give the word.”

“Very good, sir.”

The main-deck guns were being run out with a threatening rumble—the distant thunder of the approaching storm—while on the spar deck the crews of the carronades adjusted their pieces for elevation and primed the vents. The Delaware was singing through the sea; running thus, two points free, was perhaps her best point of sailing, and there was most decidedly a chance that she would pass ahead of the quarry.

“Get the stuns’l in, Mr. Hubbard.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

There was not much chance of danger. A brig-rigged vessel, even if she were a man-of-war, was bound to be smaller than a big frigate like the Delaware; if she were part of a convoy the escort would have been to windward of her and in plain sight. She must be sailing alone, and in that case she might be perhaps an American privateer or one of those footy little British Post Office packets. Peabody called up before his mind’s eye the memory of those topsails silhouetted against the sky. Yes. The chances were that she was a Post Office packet, and in that case she must be overwhelmed before she could throw her mail bags overside. Yet at the same time he must be quite certain that she was not an American privateer; it would be disastrous if she were and he fired into her.

Peabody remembered the British naval officers whom he had encountered often enough in the cafés of Valetta. Many of them spoke in a curious throaty manner which he had been given to understand was looked upon nowadays as the newest fashion in England, with the vowels broadened and the consonants disregarded. He thought for a moment of Hubbard, but Hubbard’s South Carolinian speech had nothing British about it. He turned upon Jonathan.

“Go and find O’Brien for me. Master’s mate—he’ll be at the headsail sheets.”

It was five long minutes before O’Brien came looming up on the quarterdeck; it was a pity that Jonathan had not yet familiarised himself with every part of the ship and every man on board.

“O’Brien, sir. Come to report.”

O’Brien’s voice had not lost the Irish in it, even though it was twenty years since he had sailed from Cork.

“Stay by me. I want you to hail for me when the time comes.”

The night was clear although dark; the crescent moon, right down on the horizon, contributed almost no light, but the stars were bright. A ship could be seen at a couple of miles, certainly.

“Cover that binnacle light,” said Peabody.

The Delaware surged along through the darkness; it was fortunate that he had been able to spare the studding sails, because the reduction in speed would make a considerable difference to the visibility of her bow wave. There came a low hail from the foretop—the sergeant of marines there must be an intelligent man as well as having keen eyes.

“Deck, there! She’s in sight, sir. On the larboard bow.”

Peabody put down his night-glass—the thing was not of much use. There she was, most certainly, a black outline faintly showing against the slightly lighter surface of the sea, holding the same course as when he had seen her last, and the two vessels were closing fast. In five minutes—but she was wearing round on the instant.

“Loose the stuns’ls, Mr. Hubbard, if you please. Put your helm up a point, quartermaster.”

Peabody had caught sight of the first movement of the brig’s sails as she wore. The fact that her foretopsail came round before the mainsails proved that she had a small crew and was no man-of-war, and it also gave the Delaware two full minutes in which to cut the corner. She was tearing down upon the brig now.

“Pass the word to the starboard guns to stand by.”

A faint hail came from the brig.

“Ship ahoy! What ship’s that?”

Peabody nudged O’Brien, but there was no need. The Irishman’s tongue was ready enough.

“His Britannic Majesty’s frigate Calypso. Heave to!”

There was a moment’s delay, while the Delaware still fore-reached upon the brig. If the chase were American, she would open fire.

“Heave to, and wait for my boat!” hailed O’Brien.

These seconds were precious. There was no chance of escape for the brig now; in a few more seconds they could overwhelm her perhaps without firing a shot. The brig had not opened fire, and it was clear she was not American. Peabody was certain, as it was, that she was a Post Office packet; he recognised the cut of those sails. But at any second she would recognise in her turn the Delaware for what she was, by her clipper bows and raking masts and spar deck. There were no other ships at sea like the big American frigates. Peabody nudged O’Brien again.

“Heave to, damn your eyes!” yelled O’Brien into the speaking trumpet.

Five more seconds elapsed before the answer came—four bright orange flashes from the brig’s side. A ball sang over Peabody’s head, and at the same time there was a crash below as another struck home.

“Mr. Murray!” shouted Peabody, and the words had hardly left his lips before the Delaware’s broadside replied—a little ragged, but just passable. The enormous orange flames from the quarterdeck carronades left Peabody momentarily blinded. All was dark around him and he could see nothing. But overside he could hear the results of what he had done—a clatter of falling blocks and a man shrieking in agony. He had not wanted to do this; he had wanted to overwhelm the brig without effusion of blood, but once he had opened fire it was necessary to crush her before the mails could be thrown overboard.

He blinked his eyes until he could see again. The brig had come up into the wind a helpless wreck, braces and halliards shot away; the smashing broadside had almost torn her to pieces. He heard the Delaware’s guns rumble loudly as they were run out again.

“Back the mizzen tops’l, Mr. Hubbard, if you please. Brig ahoy! Have you struck?”

“Yes, God rot you,” said a voice in the darkness.

“Take the quarterboat and take possession, O’Brien. Send the captain over to me.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

The wounded man on board the brig had stopped screaming as the quarterboat dropped into the water. Peabody took a restless turn or two about the deck—the two vessels were close enough together by now for him to hear voices on board the brig, and the sound of the oars being laid down in the boat as she went alongside.

“Mr. Hubbard, take charge. I want a boatswain’s chair to hoist the brig’s captain in.”

Lights gleamed at the entry port, the sound of oars proclaimed the return of the quarterboat, and the tackles squealed as the brig’s captain was hoisted on board. Someone led him aft to where Peabody stood in the faint light of the uncovered binnacle; he was short and square and stocky, with a stiff rheumatic gait. Peabody took off his hat. “Your servant, sir.”

Truxtun in the Constellation had drilled his young officers in the manners expected of them, and Peabody’s graces dated from that time. The British captain touched his hat in the new manner of the British service.

“Perhaps you would be so good as to come below with me, sir?” asked Peabody.

Down below they were just replacing the bulkheads of the main cabin; they had a glimpse of the long gun deck where, in the dim light of the lanterns, the men were securing their guns again. Washington, the negro servant, was trying to set the cabin to rights, bustling about with chairs, lighting the big cabin lamp, putting cushions on the lockers. He was flustered by the fact that his master was receiving company in a cabin which had been cleared for action. The British captain sat down in the chair which Washington dragged forward for him, while Peabody took his seat on the starboard-side locker.

“What was your ship, sir?” asked Peabody. He knew how bitter the use of that word ‘was’ would be for his prisoner but there was no way round the difficulty.

“Brig Princess Augusta, seven days out from Kingston. My name’s Stanton.”

“Post Office packet, Captain Stanton?”

“Yes.”

“Whither bound?”

“Halifax.”

Letters for the British troops in Canada, then. The capture was doubly important.

“And what ship is this?” asked the British captain in his turn.

“United States ship Delaware.”

There was no need to say whence or whither—this prisoner might be recaptured.

“I didn’t guess you were a Yankee until it was too late,” said the British captain bitterly. “There aren’t so many Yankee frigates at sea nowadays.”

The Delaware was the only one, as far as Peabody knew, unless Decatur had managed to escape from New London.

“I hope my broadside did not do too much damage,” said Peabody.

“Four killed and seven wounded—two of ’em mortal, I think.”

Washington came back into the cabin and spread a cloth on the table. He had brought an appetising-looking tray, but the British captain waved away the food which Peabody offered.

“No, thank you,” he said. “I’ve no appetite for food.”

“I shall send my surgeon on board the Princess Augusta,” said Peabody. “I hope he will be able to relieve the wounded.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the captain.

There came a knock at the cabin door, and Washington opened it.

“It’s Mistah O’Brien, sir.”

“Tell him to come in.”

O’Brien was carrying two small but heavy leather bags, on the fastenings of which dangled leaden seals.

“I brought these over myself, sir. I didn’t want to trust ’em to anyone else.”

The bags as he set them on the deck gave out the clink of gold; Peabody glanced at the British captain and saw the look of mortification which passed over his face. But now that the discovery had been made the captain took it with the best grace he could.

“Two thousand guineas,” he said. “I was hoping you wouldn’t find it before we were retaken.”

“That’s pay for the British Army in Canada,” said Peabody. “You were quite right to bring it to me, O’Brien. Are the mail bags still on board?”

“Yes, sir.”

Stanton’s hint about the chance of the Princess Augusta being retaken no more than echoed what was already in Peabody’s mind. It was hard for the United States Navy to take prizes, but it was harder still to profit by them. The rigid blockade off every American port made it extraordinarily difficult to send in captured ships. Peabody’s instructions from the Secretary of the Navy, locked in the desk at his elbow, expressly authorised him to destroy prizes—even neutral vessels with contraband—at his discretion. The gold would be far safer on board the Delaware than in charge of a prize crew. But the mails were a different matter. At Washington they might be able to extract valuable information from them. It was worth while trying to send the brig in with the mail bags, even though it meant exposing a prize crew to the risk of capture. He sent O’Brien away with instructions before he turned back to Captain Stanton.

“If you will give me your parole on behalf of yourself and your crew,” he said, “not to attempt escape before you reach an American port, it will make your voyage far more comfortable.”

Stanton shook his head.

“You know as well as I do that I can’t do that, sir,” he said.

“More’s the pity,” said Peabody. Stanton and his men would be left battened down below, at that rate, until the Princess Augusta reached Charleston. “You are sure you will have no refreshment before you leave, sir?”

“You’re very kind, sir. Perhaps I will—only a small one, sir. Just four fingers. Thank’ee, sir.”

Stanton looked at Peabody over the top of his glass; he forbore to comment—wisely enough, perhaps, seeing that he was only a prisoner—on the smallness of his host’s drink.

“Confusion to the French,” he said.

Peabody was a little startled. The French were at war with England; America was at war with England, but France and America were not allies. He wondered if he could drink such a toast, all the same, even in the privacy of his cabin. Stanton’s homely wrinkled face broke into a smile at his confusion.

“Let’s say ‘a speedy peace,’ then,” said Stanton.

“A speedy peace,” said Peabody, solemnly.

Stanton took a pull at his glass before speaking again.

“You’ve heard the latest from the Continent, sir?”

“What is it?” asked Peabody, with native caution.

“The news came in the day before we cleared from Kingston. Wellington’s over the Pyrenees. The Russians are over the Rhine, and Boney’s licked. Licked as sure as a gun.”

Peabody stared at him, but there was no doubt the man was speaking the truth. In Peabody’s throat the weak rum that he had sipped burned with the fierce pleasure which he had always to disregard, and for a moment it distracted him from making any deductions from what he was being told.

“Come midsummer,” said Stanton, “and France’ll be neutral. Aye, or before that.”

Then the British Navy would be free to turn its whole strength against the American coast, the British Army would be free to strike at exposed points, and what hope would there be then of an honourable peace?

“And then we’ll have nothing to fight over,” went on Stanton. “We won’t want to press your men, and we won’t care how much wheat you sell to the French. I’m no naval officer, sir. England was at war when I took my first command to sea in ’94, and we’re still at war twenty years after. I’d like to make a voyage—just one voyage—without wondering whether I’d be in prison before I reached the end of it.”

He drank off his glass without winking an eyelid, and stood up, submissive to any orders which Peabody might give him. On deck in the darkness he shook hands with his captor before hobbling stiffly off to the ship’s side. Peabody lingered on deck; Mason, his youngest lieutenant, had fifty men and all the skilled hands of the Delaware repairing the tattered rigging of the Princess Augusta, and when the work was finished Mason would retain six of them and make an attempt to reach Charleston—or Georgetown or Wilmington, or any other port where he could slip past the British cruisers.

Peabody suddenly became aware of Jonathan at his side, whispering urgently in the darkness.

“Jos,” he was saying, “Jos, is it true that ship’s going back to America?”

“Yes, I’m sending the brig in with a prize crew.”

“Jos, send me back in it, too.”

“What’s that?” said Peabody, quite unable to believe his ears.

“Send me back in that ship—brig, I mean. Please, Jos. Let me.”

“What in God’s name are you saying?”

“I want to go back on that ship. I want to get out of here. I hate all this. I know they’re going to the South, but I’ll be able to get back to Connecticut somehow, Jos.”

“Call me ‘sir,’ ” snapped Peabody. He was still too astonished to attempt to deal with the matter of what Jonathan was saying, and temporised by finding fault with the manner.

“ ‘Sir,’ then. Won’t you let me go?”

The boy was frantic now, plucking at his captain’s sleeve. He had at least the grace to whisper his ridiculous request, but that was little enough in his favour—on the contrary, rather, for it showed he knew he ought to be ashamed of it.

“No, I will not,” said Peabody, coming to a decision. “Get below, and don’t let me see you again to-night. Get below, I said.”

The boy went off into the darkness with something like a sob, leaving Peabody tapping angrily with his foot on the deck as he debated this extraordinary happening. There must be something seriously the matter with Jonathan if he wanted to exchange this ideal life on board ship again for the hardships of home, the orderly discipline for the madness of his parents. Peabody went back in his mind to his first days at sea. Yes, he had been homesick, too, homesick for the green valleys and the rocky hills, even homesick for his chaff mattress in the corner of the room. But he had been only twelve, and Jonathan was twenty. Now he came to think of it, it was strange that Jonathan had endured the Connecticut farm up to that age; he could have escaped from it long ago into the West, into Ohio, where the farming was so good, or even into the Federal army during the past two years.

Peabody was conscious of a feeling of disillusionment, or of disappointment—in either case, it was something which he was always prepared for.