Deluded Your Sailors (27 page)

—Please, sir, with respect – —Why you? Why the useless second lieutenant for this desperate task?

Kelly nodded. Draught stirred the curtains, and his fingers quickly cooled.

Wigged once more, Runciman poked the lieutenant's belly.

—Because you get hungry. You're newly assigned to
Dauntless
, a frigate under the command of Captain William Cleasby. Cleasby, unfortunate but unavoidable. I believe his patrimony to be an old admiral's, surnames notwithstanding.

—Sir, I must ask– —Because
Dauntless
is ready to depart, that's why. Even Dunton can only pass me so much grace. Captain Cleasby is charged with protection of your life. He has also been ordered, in my most fawning and complimentary manner, to leave the interrogations of Finn to you. Success will not go unrecognized.

Kelly swallowed. —A delicate situation, given command.

—I cannot help you there. Captain Cleasby is stained by stupidity and disagreeable habits, but captain he is.

—To know more of the mission than my captain – —At least on
Dauntless
you shall be first lieutenant.

—Sir, you have surprised me today.

—You are quick to anger, Mr Kelly. Learn to hide it.

—And you, sir, ask too much.

Phillip Runciman stepped out round the desk once more, avoiding the light.—Do you not understand it yet, Mr Kelly? This work is not new to you. I
ask
naught. I demand.

19) THE CRITCH AND THE NUNNY BAG
1731-33, S
ALEM
, M
ASSACHUSETTS
.

Coat unbuttoned and flapping loose, Newman Head peered downhill towards the waterfront. The early November sun still gave heat inland, but at the waterfront the air would be cold. The fog had burned off, and the water near the docks looked especially foul.

In the burying ground, leaves still blazed yellow and orange; elsewhere they'd gone brown or fallen.

Newman Head stood in the doorway of Morrow's Tavern and tried to will friend and business partner Jericho Gosse to be on time for a change, and perhaps even sober enough to talk sense. As his neck chilled, Head decided he'd accept Gosse's turning up at all.

Then he caught sight downhill of Gosse's fine coach.

The sun had bleached the muddy street to soft yellow dust that winter would soon make dark and wet; for now, dust flittered and floated up at the horse's hooves. Hallooing, Gosse waved at Head but did not alter his speed. Head waved back. Head's business enterprises relied on credit and freight with Gosse Shipbuilding, and while Gosse also relied on Head, Gosse stood superior, and he never discouraged supplication. Lately, however, he'd favoured Head with long repayment terms and low interest. Business be damned: he'd not watch a fine old friendship fall captive to mere money.

Jericho and his widower father James had arrived from Boston when Jericho was nine. James Gosse, distantly related somehow to Newman's merchant father, Catch-the-Hope Head, settled in a small house. He quickly got work with Catch Head, keeping his accounts. Jericho and Newman became like brothers, or the way brothers are supposed to be. For years, people shared rumours of James Gosse's hiding a good amount of gold. No one ever saw this gold, and the Gosses behaved and dressed with fierce respectability.

Father and son also both took a taste for the stronger liquors, James insisting frequent doses of rum were the best medicine for his rheumatism. Certainly he'd nothing else to ease the pain. As boys, Jericho and Newman once spied on James, delicious fun until James tried to straighten his swollen knuckles to pray, until James cried out when he grasped a large goblet with both hands and lifted it to his mouth. Rum dribbled. Jericho told Newman to go home.

Neither boy ever spoke of it afterwards. James Gosse died a few years later, in bed; his rheumatism had turned his skin to leather and his joints to stone.

Catch-the-Hope Head took Jericho in, and he soon had to lock up the stronger drink. Thirsts aside, young Jericho Gosse proved himself an able shipwright and even better draughtsman:

he could see finished work in the very air, he said. Apprenticed to shipwright William More, Jericho worked happily. Once Jericho came of age, Catch Head put the young man into contact with an uncle in Boston and gave him the family gold, which he'd been holding in trust since James's death. Family contacts and melted gold financed a new business: Gosse Shipbuilding. Now William More worked for Jericho Gosse.

Gosse Shipbuilding turned out three fast sloops,
Apple Bough
,
Oak Leaf
and
Kittiwayke
. Up to one-quarter freighted by Gosse himself, with the remainders rented out to Newman Head and various other merchants, these sloops traded along the colonial coast: the West Indies to Newfoundland, with Salem and Boston in between. Salem's fish might be carried anywhere, but acts of Parliament dictated what she got for it, and when. Salem's sugar and molasses, bought from the West Indies, must be shipped back across to England for inspection and duty payment. After inspection, the cargo would then be loaded onto different ships sent back to the colonies – at predictably inflated prices. Merchants like Newman Head felt that the sugar and molasses already belonged to the colonial market and did not need to be sent anywhere. But Head played it carefully, shipping some of his sugar and molasses to England. Some. The rest he kept and traded as the market demanded. Newman Head and Drinkwater Gosse partnered in what Head called ‘cocksure ingenuity' – never ‘smuggling' – and both men profited from a common taste for something sweet.

Then reports of
Oak Leaf
being overdue arrived from agents in Boston, St John's, and Harbour Grace.
Oak Leaf
had disappeared.

Gosse declared the sloop lost, guessing at a hurricane, the day the shipwrights laid
Kittiwayke
's deck.

At Gosse's news, William More dropped his tools. His two sons sailed on board on
Oak Leaf
.

—Gone, sir?

Gosse nodded. His luck and finances had never taken such a blow. He ordered
Kittiwayke
be leadbummed, delaying her completion by a good year and angering More.

—Lead will slow her down, Mr Gosse, and the first hurricane she's in will beat that lead off her.

—I right well conceit you on the storms, but leadbumming will keep her swift. Weeds can't grow on lead.

—And how will you pay for it?

—As I pay for all else. Shipping rates.

Apple Bough
's rates jacked sharply. Newman Head and his fellows submitted – all speed for molasses, and all speed for rescheduled payments. William More left Salem, signing his considerable skill to a rival shipbuilder in Boston. Gosse lost some respect and business after More's departure but had nearly regained it with the quick and profitable shipping runs of
Apple
Bough
.

When Gosse entered Morrow's, Head was ordering flip for them both. Goody Morrow had mixed the flip in a large pitcher, blending old rum, ale, raw eggs, sugar, pumpkin, cinnamon and cream. Rather than heat the drink over an open flame, she dunked into the pitcher a red-hot iron ball dangling from a chain. The drink frothed and hissed. Goody Morrow removed the ball and poured the flip into two large goblets. Gosse and Head toasted each other and then moved to a table.

—Gosse, you're late.

Wiping his nose – it always ran in the cold – Gosse took his spyglass from a pocket and placed it on the table. He drank quickly, burning his mouth and throat. Flip was good as a meal to Gosse; he could work the entire day on this goblet.

He poured another. —Am I?

—I've little time. I thought we were to discuss money owed – —No fear, I've not forgot that. Take that spyglass and go outside. Peer out the harbour and tell the name of the ship coming in.

Head returned quickly. —
Apple Bough
. She's over a month early and should be on her way to Newfoundland.

—Aye, so she should. Still want that one-quarter ownership?

The two men travelled in Gosse's coach down to the waterfront, Head soon buttoning his coat as the wind chilled. They argued schedules and finances, and then took shelter in one of Head's warehouses. Head often felt the foreigner at the waterfront now, walking like a landsman. He'd made captain himself, but on marrying he promised to stick to a desk.

Apple Bough
sailed steadily closer. Finally, the sloop anchored in a spot that would keep her free of dockside congestions, and lowered a jollyboat. A small man stood in the boat, holding a davit line. Gosse and Head walked out to Gosse's dock and waited for the boat to reach them.

Gosse swayed a bit. —Not come in to the dock? Has Captain Button gone cracked?

Head figured it out. —More to the point, has Captain Button gone to God?

Apple Bough
's short and ropey mate, much tanned and lined by the sun off the water, secured the boat to the dock, a rough coffin the cargo.

Gosse frowned. —First mate Matt Finn and a coffin. You've guessed it right, Head.

Gosse extended his hand to help Finn up to the dock. Swaying on sea legs, Finn muttered about kindness and high tide and then delivered the unwelcome news. Head studied Finn but could not guess the mate's age – skin rough but firm, squint lines at the eyes and scowl lines around the delicate mouth.

Finn's voice was throaty, a bit high but hardly sweet. —My apologies for this delay, Mr Gosse. Captain Button died less than two days ago, and we being so close to home port, I thought it fit that he get a dry burial.

—I right well conceit you. Properly done. Come with me into Mr Head's warehouse, and I shall write you up as new captain of
Apple Bough
. If you will accept, that is.

Once done with paperwork, Finn stopped to talk with some men who had known Button. Head and Gosse waited. Then Gosse caught sight of someone he needed to speak to and walked straight into a tall man called Pilgrim, who carried a barrel on his shoulder.

Gosse and the barrel knocked Pilgrim off balance, and as he tried to correct himself, he fell into the water. The barrel slammed onto the dock but did not break. Matt Finn slipped off a heavy coat and a cloth bag worn crosswise over the chest and jumped in, swimming for the rings that marked Pilgrim's descent. Finn dove. Bubbles rose.

Gosse and Head jostled to the edge of the dock. The water almost revealed the shapes of arms and a face, and Head thought Finn had pushed Pilgrim upwards, but that made no sense, Finn being so much smaller. Pilgrim's head broke the surface, then Finn's. Gosse and Head both tossed dock-tied ropes to Pilgrim; he caught one,

slipped under, rose. Finn caught the other. Sailors and dockworkers quickly helped Pilgrim and Finn out of the water, offered jackets and flasks. Gosse hurried them into Head's warehouse, out of the wind, while Head broke open a crate of woollens.

Teeth rattling, eyes red and raw, Pilgrim stared at Finn.—How did you know I cannot swim?

Finn, shaking just as hard, could not immediately answer.

—Couldn't just watch you sink.

Head got them sitting back to back and then wrapped new blankets round them. Then Gosse got the idea to take them to Morrow's in his coach – a spectacle, perhaps, but also a necessity.

At Morrow's they could get close to a fire.

He did this, returning some time later, offering Head cash for the blankets.

—Keep your coins, Gosse. Are they well?

—I rented them each a room and paid for a new suit of clothes.

I cannot speak for the fit.

—Take this back to Finn.

Gosse accepted the coat, which he laid out carefully on Head's chair. Then he picked up the cloth bag and held it up to the light.

—Heavy. So be the coat.

—That hardly concerns us, man. Tuck the bag into the sleeve and bring the lot back.

—Jumped straight in. You doubt me making Finn captain now? I'll have him master of my beauty,
Kittiwayke,
yet. He's travelled for the edges of the charts, let me tell you. Button always spoke well of him.

—Poor John Button.

—Poor Matt Finn, you mean. John Button died with his manhood intact. Finn got – injured in Barbary. Captive into Sallee.

Button told me most of it, but I heard Finn mutter it once: still a boy, a capture at sea, red tapestries, defiance, a brutal cutting away.

You can hear it when he's angry; that voice rears up like a mad colt.

Passes water with a wooden pipe. But I must go. I'm sure you right well conceit the reason: a new investment to attend.

Until late in the autumn of 1732, Jericho Gosse thought no serious difference of opinion existed between him and Captain Finn. Gosse had looked after Finn, giving bonuses for fast runs, and Finn had shared the bonuses with the men. Head put down

Finn's popularity as a captain to three things: plaindealing, hard work, and an exotic history. Men who worked
Apple Bough
and then
Kittiwayke
described Finn as a good listener, if somewhat melancholic. Gosse warned them not to ask Finn anything of Barbary.