Norton, Andre - Novel 08 (30 page)

 
          
 
What is that a-bellowing
there

 
          
 
Like a thunderhead in air?

 
          
 
Why should such a sight be whitening the sea?

 
          
 
That's a Yankee man-o-war,

 
          
 
And three things she's seeking for—

 
          
 
For a prize, and for a
battle, and a breeze.

 
          
 
—FIRST FRUITS

 
          
 
The catch of the press gang, a half-dozen
miserable and sullen farm boys and wayfarers, were roped together, marched back
to a small fishing village on the coast, and thrust into the guarded stable of
the only inn. Apparently the manpower of the village had prudently made off
when the king's ship had come in a-hunting close to nightfall the day before,
so the zealous lieutenant and midshipman in charge of the gang had struck
inland to draw their net. And by the burst of festive song and other sounds
wafting out of the inn, their good luck was now being celebrated.

 
          
 
Fitz dropped on a truss of straw and tried to
guess the future. As an escaped prisoner of war in civilian clothes, perhaps
with the added peril of an accusation of being one of the principals in a fatal
duel, there was no earthly sense in revealing his identity to the officers.
While he had no desire to serve His Majesty on board any ship in Fat George's
navy, there was always the chance of escape. By now, Crofts, in his position,
would have laid several plans to take that chance.

 
          
 
Thinking of Crofts reminded him of the elusive
Mr. Norwood. He hoped that the Captain had succeeded where he had failed and
was now safe over the Channel. What had happended to
Watts
? As a noncombatant he, too, must have been
freed long ago.

 
          
 
A lantern flashed by the door and an inn
servant, well guarded by two of the press gang, came in to dump helter-skelter
on the floor some loaves of bread and a jug.

 
          
 
The lantern was taken away when the door was
locked, and they were left in the dark to grope for their food. Fitz gnawed on
a stale bread crust with real hunger. It was the first time he had eaten that
day. Presently he became aware of a prolonged and steady sniffling out of the
dark.

 
          
 
"What's to do?" he asked in a
half-whisper.

 
          
 
His first answer was a louder sniff and a sort
of choke. Then a boy's voice came with a shamed break to blur the words.

 
          
 
"Wot—wot be they a-goin' t'
do
wi' weuns?"

 
          
 
Fitz laughed without humor. "Enlist us in
His Majesty's navy. A great service when men must be driven into it with
clubs!"

 
          
 
"But—but—I ain't no
sailor
"

 
          
 
"That doesn't matter at all," Fitz
informed him grimly. "You will be, if a rope's end can flog the knowledge
into you."

 
          
 
"Squire'll git me
out
"
But there was little hope in the voice that said that.

 
          
 
"Perhaps.
If he
can discover where you are before they shove us aboard this sloop of theirs.
We'll be in the Channel by morning. This captain is shrewd enough to hunt along
the coast villages with his press gang, instead of staying in a port where he
can pick up only the dregs left after other gangs have hunted six or seven
years before him. He won't bide here and wait for squires or anyone else to
rescue his catch." Fitz wondered if either Mr. Burnette, his cousin's
comrades, or both, might be riding to wrest him from the clutch of the navy.

 
          
 
"I don't want t' be no sailor!" Hope
might be gone, but the sniffling had stopped also. There was the core of
something hard in the voice, a hint of determination being born.

 
          
 
"Neither did
I
,
either time," Fitz couldn't help replying.

 
          
 
"Be ye one o'
th
'
Gentlemen, sir?" asked his companion with honest respect. "I heard
tell as how they wos real gentry ridin'
wi
' 'em."

 
          
 
"Yes," Fitz remembered his late
journey. Jem was certainly one of the Gentlemen. "I was with them—as late
as last night."

 
          
 
"Perhaps they'll git ye
out "

 
          
 
"There's no chance of that." Fitz
stretched his arms wide. "Best sleep while they let you," he told his
shadowy companion. "I wonder that they have not shipped us yet."

 
          
 
But the captives were not allowed to rest
long. Within the hour the guards came in, kicked them up into line, and urged
them down a muddy street, through a fine mist of rain, to the wharf. There they
found the boats which took them out to the sloop.

 
          
 
Snug below a fastened hatch, Fitz repeated a
string of blistering words as he nursed his wrist which a knotted rope
"starter" had cracked across the bone. The fetid smells of the sloop
were worse than those of the privateer, and he had little room to move, packed
in as he was with the rest of the pressed men.

 
          
 
Sounds of the sloop getting under weigh were
easy to identify. Fitz guessed that their voyage would end either at
Portsmouth
or
Plymouth
, to join with the squadron. He set his
teeth on his lip and strove to fight off the rising nausea which the pitching
and the stench had given rise to.

 
          
 
His fellow sufferers were
either
less iron-willed or more susceptible, and
within a very few minutes
their prison was a nightmare of groaning, sickened men. Fitz rubbed his wrist
and began to wish with all his heart for five minutes on the gun deck of the
Retaliation with this damned sloop for a target. Ninnes could have laid a shot
in the old days which would have had the mast clean out of her.

 
          
 
Unconsciously his lips shaped the firing
orders which he had heard bawled so many times by powder-hoarsened voices. He
jumped as a hand touched his bruised wrist.

 
          
 
"Kin weuns git out,
sir?"

 
          
 
"If and when they want us," Fitz
returned between set teeth. "We may have been bagged to supply another
ship and they might be taking us back to port to sort us out. Aboard here
there's no chance of escape as there would have been had they tried to march us
overland. The man who planned this is a clever devil!"

 
          
 
Apparently the Channel was not in the best of
moods. The sloop bucked seas which almost sent her spinning top-wise. Fitz
remembered the storm which had driven the Retaliation under the very waves she
had been fashioned to battle. He tried to brace himself in a corner and keep
away from the solid mass of misery which filled most of the floor space in
their cage. It would be a test of endurance, yet while he in no way welcomed
it, he was much better prepared for the experience than the rest of the poor
creatures who shared that stinking space.

 
          
 
After a while his head began to pound, and he
felt as faint as he had after the spill on the moor road. Now and then he was
aware of voices, but it was too much trouble to try to sort out words.

 
          
 
It was the rumble of a gun carriage directly
overhead which brought him back to full consciousness. He had heard that sound
too often to be mistaken. By the sounds which drifted down to them he guessed
the sloop was preparing for an engagement, although she still bobbed like a
cork in the wild waters.

 
          
 
"Fight, sir!" someone babbled in his
ear.

 
          
 
Fitz pulled himself together. "Sounds like
that. There are American privateers hereabouts willing to
scrap
"

 
          
 
They all heard the shot which thudded home
above their heads.
Heard that and the dreadful gurgling
scream which answered it.
There was a cry of fear and horror from the
pressed men, and those who could stand pulled themselves up, shouting to be let
out.

 
          
 
"They'll leave us t' die!" screeched
one of the prisoners.

 
          
 
Fitz bit his lip. This was different from the
battles on the Retaliation. Then he had been in the open— with duties of his
own to keep his mind occupied. But this being penned-up in the dark hold of a
fighting ship—a passive target for any round shot which might tear through—this
was

 
          
 
He caught at the tatters of his courage,
fought down the hysteria which had almost set him to screaming with the rest of
them. Instead he tried to shout them down. Vainly, for he only strained his
throat and no one listened.

 
          
 
There were more shots going home now, and the
sloop shuddered at each blow. Her return fire was ragged. Fitz tried to count
the guns which were still in use. But in
all the
clamor he could not mark them.

 
          
 
At last a silence fell, broken only by the
pounding of feet back and forth overhead. Even the prisoners were struck dumb
by the sudden lapse in the battle and stopped their cries to listen.

 
          
 
"Wot's happened?" demanded one.

 
          
 
"Fight's over, I think," Fitz
replied. "Either the sloop has struck her colors—or the enemy has. If it's
the first, we can hope to get out."

 
          
 
That magic word "out" set them to
going again, and men tried to reach the hatch overhead to pound on it. Without
success, since it was above arm's reach, and the movement of the ship kept them
from climbing on one another's shoulders. But within a space of moments the
hatch was ripped off and they blinked up at a row of heads dark against the
light.

 
          
 
"Phew!" One of the men above pulled
back with an exclamation of disgust. "What an almighty stink! Get them out
of there, Collins."

 
          
 
A rope ladder was dropped, and the pressed men
began to pull themselves up—mostly with the clumsiness of landsmen. Fitz
climbed nimbly enough at his turn and was herded with the others to one side of
the deck. One glance told him that his wild hope was true.

 
          
 
He was standing on the deck of a beaten ship,
and across the water was a slim, rakish craft with a familiar flag. Impulsively
he started to join the officer who had superintended the removal of the hatch.
But that gentleman was already giving them his attention, eyeing their battered
group without much favor.

 
          
 
"Pressed, eh?" He did not hold his
handkerchief to his nose as he stood to the windward of them, but he gave the
impression that he wished he could.
"Any of you
Americans?"