Shark Island (5 page)

“He's calling for battle stations,” Rochester observed in disbelief. Sua, the brig's official drummer, had just run out on deck with his drum—a length of log. This was one of the
Swallow
's eccentricities, something that Forsythe, surprisingly, had not changed when he was in charge. The Samoan hammered out a primitive, blood-stirring beat to quarters, accompanied by Forsythe's bawled orders to clear the decks for action, and Wiki and Rochester swiftly got out of the way.

Zachary Kingman echoed Forsythe's commands in an ear-splitting howl. Footsteps thumped in energetic response, and within an extraordinarily short space of time unnecessary gear had been stored belowdecks and everything movable lashed into place. The deck planks were wetted and sprinkled with sand. Rigging thrummed as men carried cases of rifles into the mast tops. Tubs of water were set about the decks for putting out flames. The boatswain busily handed out arms and measured out powder and ammunition, and soon every man had a pistol and a dirk thrust into his belt. Cutlasses were stacked into a rack on the quarterdeck, and then Lieutenant Forsythe shouted out for the brig's two nine-pounder cannon to be readied.

This was supervised by the gun captain, a mountain man by the name of Dave who brought passion to the job. The tight lashings that held the cannon housed up tight to the bulwarks were cast away, and by hauling on rope tackles attached to the sides and the rear of each iron monster, his team heaved the guns back for loading, and then up to the gunports in the rail for aiming. Five dumb shows, and Lieutenant Forsythe was satisfied—the brig
Swallow,
without a doubt, was ready to defend herself to the very last man. When George inquired gently whether the crew were to be allowed their breakfast, Forsythe nodded complacently, with the air of a man with a job well done.

By this time Shark Island was in plain sight five miles ahead, its central feature a triangular pinnacle that reared up into the vividly blue sky and was streaked with growth which was intensely emerald even at a distance. Contemplating this while he chewed the last of his bread, Forsythe announced that he would now take the cutter to the island to spy out the lay of the land. Wiki, somewhat to his surprise, was not to be one of the party—instead, he was instructed to take the helm of the
Swallow
and bring the brig to a standstill a mile from the land, where he would await the return of the cutter. A council of war would follow, Forsythe informed him, during which the details of the mission would be beaten out. Then, with no more ado, he, Kingman, and the cutter's crew took their stations in the boat, and they were off.

The
Swallow
followed under reduced sail, the slow passing of the miles punctuated by the regular swish of sea. Bright morning light bounced off the rippling surface, forcing Wiki to squint. When a flick of spray spattered over the taffrail onto his arms it dried so fast he felt stinging pricks of salt. The deck boards beneath his bare feet were sticky with warm pitch, and the locks of hair that straggled down from under his hat stuck to his neck.

Because the mainsail and foresail were clewed up, he could see all the way along the sun-scorched deck to the bows. Captain Rochester, on the foredeck, was standing in a characteristic pose, his hands lightly clasped behind the seat of his trousers, which was tucked in, so that his well-muscled calves stuck out. The peak of Shark Island was lifting in the sky as they neared, towering high above the rock-girt shore. Ahead, the cutter was dodging back and forth on uneven tacks, evidently to avoid coral heads. Its silhouette was as triangular as the peak, only double. Then it disappeared into the shadow.

Wiki frowned, and cocked his head—was that a distant shout? Others had heard it too, because heads were turning to look at George Rochester. He didn't move. The world was full of the chuckle of water passing along the hull, and the distant splash of surf on rock. Otherwise—silence. Wiki waited for the cutter to reappear. Long moments plodded by, but it was as if she had vanished forever.

*   *   *

As the cutter entered the dark shadow of the peak one of the men in the bow let out a warning shout. Rocks lay ahead, so close to the surface that they made the water tremble. Anticipating Forsythe's quick order, hands thrust out oars to shove the boat away. The headland slid safely past; the shadow of the pinnacle rock fell away from them—and the current in the channel carried them around the point before they could prevent it.

A big topsail schooner lay at anchor in the cove. On the beach beyond, the wreck of a sloop was piled bow-up, so high that her bowsprit disappeared in a clump of bush. The beach ended abruptly in a high cliff crowned by some kind of fort. Forsythe could see the iron snouts of cannon protruding through crenellations in the massive stone ramparts.

Jesus,
he thought;
no wonder Hudson didn't want to come in any closer.
He barked orders to tack about—orders that became urgent as he spied men scurrying over the decks of the schooner, a half-mile away, and two whaleboats being hastily lowered. The cutter came about smartly, but then the headland stole their wind, and the sails hung dead. Putting out oars made little difference, as the two whaleboats were pulsing fast toward them, their crews facing forward, wielding paddles like crazy goddamned Indians, their faces twisted up with effort.

Closer they came—closer, closer. Forsythe spat more orders, and his men brought the boat around again, four of the hands sculling while the other two hastily took in sail. Then they got ready to fend off attack. Kingman crouched over the stern swivel, his expression a snarl of silent defiance, and Forsythe shouldered his rifle. The cutter's crew felt in their belts for their pistols, and then, silently, they waited for the whaleboats to approach.

The man standing at the steering oar of the first was a muscular-looking cove about thirty-five years of age, big-nosed and deeply tanned, with blond hair and whiskers. He was hatless, so that they could see that his head hair was bleached almost white by the sun. He barked out an order, and both whaleboats came to a stop.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, while his men stirred the water with their paddles to keep the boats still. His voice was hoarse and unmistakably American.

“Lieutenant Forsythe, U.S. Navy Exploring Expedition,” Forsythe answered. “And who the bloody hell are
you?
”

“You're navy!” echoed the other with obvious relief. Then he looked both puzzled and suspicious, and said, “Where's your ship?”

Forsythe jerked his head in the direction of the headland.

“Well, I hope to God you have a carpenter on board.” Then the man finally condescended to introduce himself: “Joel Hammond, first mate, sealing schooner
Annawan
of Stonington, Connecticut, lying at Shark Island in distress.”

A goddamn
sealer?
Forsythe wondered why the hell a sealing schooner would drop anchor at an uninhabited, equatorial island in the Atlantic, where he was pretty certain no seals were to be found. He demanded, “Distress? What do you mean,
distress?
”

“We're leaking a thousand strokes an hour.”

Jesus,
Forsythe thought; if that was the truth, the
Annawan
was foundering at her anchors—and yet these men had left the pumps in order to man two boats to chase down the cutter. The schooner did look ominously low in the water, but nonetheless he wondered if he was heading into a trap; it wouldn't be the first time a buccaneer had blocked his scuppers and stopped his pumps to entice would-be Samaritans into his clutches. However, if he tried to make a run for it the whaleboats would be on him in a trice.

So he said, “How did it happen?”

“We was steering up the deep channel where she is anchored now, and sailed her onto a reef. Didn't know it was there, not until we hit it.”

“You don't have a chart?”

“There's no goddamned chart.” Hammond's lips thinned, and then he said, “We fothered a sail and got it over the hole, but she's still leaking like a bloody basket.”

Fothering was to reinforce a piece of canvas by thrumming it—matting it with bits of unraveled rope to make it thick and strong. When it was drawn over the hole, the inward pressure of the sea would stop the leak—with luck, but it seemed that Hammond had not had any luck at all. He said, “Believe me, you've come in the goddamned nick of time.”

It was certainly a fact that the U.S. Navy was supposed to come to the succor of American vessels and crews, wherever they might be. Forsythe looked up at the fort. There was no sign of movement about the walls or the cannon, not even the flicker of a flag, so he jerked his head in assent.

Five

Hammond's relief was obvious enough to be unfeigned. He leaned on his oar, and the two whaleboats spun round in the wonderfully quick way of their class of craft, and dashed off to the schooner. Casting Zack Kingman a warning look to keep his station at the swivel gun, Forsythe ordered his men to follow the two boats—but slowly, to give him time to think. They took oars and sculled gently, while he sat at the tiller and studied the two ships—one wallowing at anchor, the other wrecked high on the beach—with misgiving coiling in his belly.

What he saw was reasonably reassuring, however. The manner of the sloop's wrecking was strange—as if she'd been run up on the beach under full sail—but her name was still legible, and read “
Hero
of Stonington, CT.” So both craft hailed from the same port, Forsythe mused; maybe they had come in together. The name
Annawan
was plain on the stern of the schooner, and as she rocked in the backwash from the surf he could glimpse the top edge of the fothered canvas that had been bowsed up tight beneath the waterline on the starboard side. After the whaleboats arrived at the schooner and had been swiftly drawn up, the men who had crewed them spilled rapidly over the decks, and the silence was sundered by the rhythmic thud and suck of pumps. After a short pause a sick stream of water gushed down her side.

He could see Hammond striding along the quarterdeck to the stern, obviously expecting to receive the cutter there. Doing the unexpected was always good strategic sense, however, so Forsythe gave instructions to work around to the bows. No sooner had they touched planking than he swiftly swung up the chains, balanced on the bowsprit, and ran lithely along it to the foredeck. Kingman followed, and they stood together brace-legged between the knight-heads, alertly studying the scene while Forsythe unslung his rifle and Zack Kingman loosened the two pistols in his belt.

However, the appearance of the
Annawan
bore out what Hammond had said, too. Like almost all the merchant craft that streamed out of the ports of New England, the schooner had two deckhouses, one on the foredeck, and the other on the afterdeck. From experience, Forsythe deduced that the forward house would hold the forecastle for the seaman at the forward end, and the workshops for the sail maker and boatswain at the sternward end; while the after house would hold accommodations for the captain and first officer, plus the steward's pantry. The galley, where the ship's grub was cooked, was set in a shed on the starboard side of the foredeck, which was usual, too. Savory smells issued from its sternward-facing door, and a thin plume of smoke drifted from its smokestack. The three masts were stout, as was the rigging—which was only to be expected in a vessel that plied its trade in stormy seas and high southern latitudes.

Hammond was waiting on the afterdeck, but when he saw Forsythe and Kingman he started hurrying toward them—to be forestalled by an energetic figure who fairly leapt out of the door of the after house, waving a stick above his head. This, Forsythe immediately guessed, was the captain of the
Annawan;
a powerful-looking older man, he had gray hair that bristled all over his head, and skinny legs that were obviously lame.

“My God, salvation!” this fellow shouted, and then set himself into a rapid three-legged dance along the deck, his stick tapping lustily, and his legs swinging out to either side like a metronome. Just three yards away, however, he stopped short, evidently having second thoughts, because he said suspiciously, “Navy? That damn fool Hammond informed me you are naval officers, but you don't look like navy men to me. Where's your uniform, huh?”

Forsythe looked down at his frock shirt, a loose, shabby affair that was belted at his waist over well-worn duck trousers, and shrugged. He hadn't expected to make any kind of official visit, and he was damned if he was going to apologize for his appearance.

“And you ain't even shaved,” went on the other, who was himself indecently stubbled. “What's happened to our navy, huh? Is there no martial pride any more? You could be two of those goddamned privateers that prey on this coast—
insurgents!
—for all we can tell.”

Forsythe snapped, “This is Passed Midshipman Kingman, and I am Lieutenant Forsythe. We're officers with the U.S. Exploring Expedition.”

“You say
sir
when you speak to me, son,” the other snapped right back. “That is, if you are indeed a confounded navy man. I pay my taxes, you know—and it's no insignificant figure!—which counts me as your employer. And where's your confounded ship? Or does the navy send its men out in boats now? Where the hell did you materialize from?”

“We're with U.S. Brig
Swallow,
” said Forsythe, thoroughly nettled, and again jerked his head in the direction of the headland. “She's within call, believe me.”

“So you command the brig's tender?” the other said, his tone disdainful. “Well, that makes sense,” he allowed, and finally unbent enough to introduce himself. “Ezekiel Reed. Owner and captain of the
Annawan
—and owner of that poor wreck on the beach, too. An exploring expedition, huh?” His little eyes had gone very sharp. “You haven't come to explore here, surely?”