The Continental Risque (45 page)

‘No! Please, God, not the rudderhead!' Biddlecomb fairly screamed as he ran aft, pushing the dazed man out of the way. If just the tiller had been smashed, the disaster was not so great; a spare tiller lay ten feet away, lashed to the rail. It would take less than a minute to put it in place.

He stopped by the rudderhead, that upper part of the rudder that jutted up through the deck to which the tiller was attached. He stared through blinking eyes at what little was left of it. A ball had come straight through the rail and smashed into it, tearing it apart. It looked like the stump of a small tree that had been struck by lightning. The spare tiller would be of no use to them now. Nothing was left to attach it to.

Overhead the sails began to ripple, no more than that in the light air, as the
Charlemagne
, completely out of control, rounded up into the wind. Biddlecomb left off staring at the remains of the rudderhead and raced to the break of the quarterdeck, nearly colliding with Rumstick, who was coming aft.

‘Where's the carpenter?' Biddlecomb shouted. ‘Get the carpenter and his gang aft!'

‘Carpenter took a quarter block on the head, he's sleeping like a baby,' Rumstick said. ‘Why—'

‘Rudderhead's shot away. We need steering. Damn it, damn it!' Biddlecomb shouted this last as he looked over the larboard bow. The
Glasgow
was all but past them now; in half a minute he would be looking at her transom, and then he too would be part of the useless stern chase, his only real chance to stop her gone. He pushed his frustration aside and forced his mind to work.

‘We'll steer with the rudder chains. Run the boat falls from the mainyard aft and we'll hook 'em into the pennants. Mr Sprout!'

It was a jury-rig, and not a good one. The chains that always remained attached to either side of the rudder were hooked to the lines coming from the ends of the mainyard, those lines normally used to hoist the boat, and by hauling on them they could steer, after a fashion.

But the lack of adequate steering was nothing to Biddlecomb compared with the agonizing six minutes that it took to rig the system up. During those six minutes he paced the quarterdeck, gritting his teeth and forcing himself to resist barking out useless orders, such as telling the men to hurry.

‘Foredeck! Back the jibs!' he shouted with great relief as Rumstick cut the bitter end off the last seizing. ‘Sail trimmers, sharp larboard tack! Let go and haul!' He looked over the odd lash-up controlling the rudder, thought about what had to happen, and said to the men at the boat falls, ‘Larboard side, ease away, starboard side haul away,' and as the
Charlemagne
's bow turned off the wind and the brig gathered way, he said, ‘Good, now ease away starboard, haul away larboard … that's well … steady as she goes …' and the Continental brig-of-war
Charlemagne
resumed the chase.

But it was too late, far and away too late. Biddlecomb knew it. The wounded brig could not catch the frigate now, but he would not admit it, not to himself and certainly not to any of the men on deck, who knew it as well. Rather he sent them aloft to set studdingsails and called for utter perfection in the set of the sails and minor adjustments in the angle of the rudder.

Forty minutes later the
Glasgow
's transom, which Biddlecomb could dimly make out, was illuminated by the twin flash of two guns going off, the sound coming at the same moment as that of the passing shot. The frigate had rigged stern chasers out of the great cabin to pound away at her pursuers.

‘Mr Rumstick, pray set your best gun crew to the bow chaser and do what damage you can,' Biddlecomb called out.

And so on through the night they raced north, exchanging sparse fire, each hitting the other on occasion, but for the most part dropping shot into the sea. And all the while the
Charlemagne
fell farther behind the
Glasgow
and the rest of the American fleet fell farther behind them both.

Biddlecomb clenched his fists and kicked the bulwark on those occasions when his frustration got the better of him. The frigate had sailed straight into the entire American fleet, and they could not stop her! For that brief moment, just before the riot had broken out, he had envisioned the Americans sailing into New London, the
Glasgow
in the center of the fleet, the Grand Union flag flying over the ensign of the Royal Navy, the cheering crowds lining the shore. When, when would he learn to stop letting his imagination run away like that? It seemed that every time, every damn time, it came back to bitterly mock him.

When the sun finally broke the horizon at six o'clock in the morning, four bells in the morning watch, the low shore of Rhode Island was just visible, several miles distant. The
Glasgow
was a mile ahead of the
Charlemagne
, her stern chasers still blazing away, though the threat seemed much less in the gathering daylight. The forwardmost of the American fleet, the big
Columbus
, was three miles astern, and beyond her was
Andrew Doria, Alfred
, and the others, scattered over the sea.

‘Signal from the flag, sir,' said Weatherspoon. ‘Disengage and form into a squadron.' A minute passed and Weatherspoon added, ‘Sir?'

‘I heard you,' Biddlecomb snapped. He remained fixed to the quarterdeck rail, arms folded, staring at the distant frigate, unwilling to break off the chase, to acknowledge the commodore's tacit admission of defeat.

There was no doubt in his mind that the gunfire could be heard in Newport, and that the
Rose
, the
Nautilus
and whatever other men-of-war were there were at that moment slipping their cables to come in pursuit. It was pointless and dangerous to maintain the chase, but he could not bring himself to break it off.

From somewhere astern a gun banged out. ‘That's the commodore, sir,' said Weatherspoon in a timid voice. ‘I reckon he wants us to disengage.'

‘Mr Rumstick, please step aft,' Biddlecomb called, and when the first officer was on the quarterdeck said, ‘Please take over here. We'll haul our wind and rejoin the squadron. I'm going below to … write my report.' And with that he stomped off, purposely avoiding every eye on deck.

First Lieutenant Ezra Rumstick stood in the middle of the quarterdeck and clasped his hands behind his back, running his eyes over the steering lines coming from the mainyard. His mood was an odd mixture of disappointment and anger, relief and exhaustion, pleasure at seeing the familiar headlands of Narragansett Bay and concern at the knowledge that behind them lay James Wallace's squadron. Hackett was dead, and that made him happy. But so was Tottenhill, and that, much to his surprise, did not. He was looking forward to getting the anchor down some time soon and sorting it all out.

He felt a slight jar beneath his feet as Captain Biddlecomb slammed the door to the great cabin.

‘On the braces, get ready to square them up,' he called forward, and then to the men on the rudder lines said, ‘Ease away larboard, haul away starboard. That's well, make off your braces!'

And then from somewhere behind him came the sound of smashing wood and shattering glass, so loud and sudden that he jumped.

‘What in the hell …!' He ran aft to look over the taffrail.

Floating in the
Charlemagne
's wake, already fifty feet astern, was a heavy oak chair, which Biddlecomb had apparently hurled, with not inconsiderable force, through the closed aft windows of the great cabin.

They sat in the
Charlemagne
's great cabin, the officers of that Continental brig-of-war, huddled over their mugs of coffee and, for the moment, largely silent.

Through the large section of glass and frame missing from the stern window came the smell of damp, warm spring air. Somewhere in the town of New London, a quarter mile away, a blacksmith was pounding away at some work on his anvil. They could not see him; the current and the ebbing tide were holding the anchored brig broadside to the town, but they could hear the sharp, distant ring of his hammer in the quiet of the early morning.

It was Monday morning, the eighth of April, two mornings after the chase of the
Glasgow
had been abandoned, and nothing of any great consequence had been undertaken in that time. Just as Biddlecomb had imagined, the
Rose
and the other men-of-war in Newport had slipped their cables to join the fight, but after poking their noses out of the harbor, they had come to anchor again and not pursued the American fleet.

And that was just as well, for the
Glasgow
and her small tender (the one vessel that the Americans did manage to capture in the melee) had done untoward damage to the Continental ships. The
Alfred
had six men killed and as many wounded, and the
Cabot
, which had borne so much of the
Glasgow
's fire, had four men killed and seven wounded, few of whom were expected to recover. Among those was Capt. John Hopkins, the son of the commodore.

The
Charlemagne
had six killed and ten wounded, five seriously, and to Biddlecomb's profound shame only two of those casualties had been inflicted by the
Glasgow
. The rest they had inflicted on each other.

He had sat that morning after the fight, hunched over his desk – listening to Rumstick on the deck above leading the men in knotting and slicing the damaged rig, and the carpenter's mate supervising his gang in repairing shot damage – and wrestled with the wording of his report. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to ascribe all of the
Charlemagne
's hurt to the fight with the frigate, to the greater glory of himself and his ship.

But he could not. He could not compound the shame he felt about the way he and his men had behaved by covering it over with a lie. ‘Prior to our coming up with the frigate there was another disturbance among the crew such as we suffered in New Providence,' he wrote, ‘and it was in defense of the ship against those cowardly elements that Lieutenant Tottenhill was killed. I regret to say that all but two of our casualties were taken at this time.'

There. He had told the truth, and no doubt those same eyes that would see the drama of his fight with the
Bolton
through the dry words of that report would see this shameful mutiny as well. But at least he would not be accused of mendacity. He finished the rest of the report quickly; there was not much to say.

For the remainder of that day and on through the next, the battered fleet had sailed southwest around Block Island, then northwest into Long Island Sound, following the
Alfred
. The winds had been light and variable, and that, combined with the considerable damage done to the vessels' rigging, made for slow progress. They had seen a number of vessels, mostly coasting packets that had spoken to the flagship, but they had been unmolested by the British navy.

They came to anchor three hours before dawn, at slack water, in the wide, straight Thames River beyond the town of New London. Half an hour later they began the long process of sending ashore the dead, the wounded, and the many, many sick men in the fleet. When at last it was done, just as the sun was making an appearance over the low Connecticut hills, a total of two hundred and two men were ashore in the makeshift hospital set up to receive them.

Biddlecomb and Rumstick and Faircloth had stood at the gangway, watching the
Charlemagne
's boat pulling back to the brig. The vessel had a hollow, empty quality with so many men ashore, and the crew moved quietly and talked in low voices, as if the ship itself were a hospital.

‘I'd be honored if you gentlemen would join me for some breakfast, say in half an hour's time? And pray bring Mr Weatherspoon with you, if he is quite up to it,' Biddlecomb said at last.

And so they all sat in the great cabin, as somber aft as were the men forward.

‘You say it was a round shot from
Glasgow
that did for your windows here, sir?' Faircloth asked, leaning over and looking closely at the damage.

‘Yes,' said Biddlecomb.

‘Odd, though, it looks for all the world as if the thing that did the damage came from inside the cabin, going out. Here, do you see how the wood projects outward—'

‘I was looking over the sick and hurt list, sir,' Rumstick interrupted the marine. ‘Looks like the yellow jack's done the job I was set to do, clearing out them sons of whores forward that we don't care to ship again, including those jailbirds Tottenhill brought with him. A few left, and I'll set them ashore soon enough, but mostly the men we don't want are gone.'

‘And our company cut to half strength. Less than half strength. God knows where we're going to get more men, with the privateers taking all the best.'

‘If I could ask, sir,' Rumstick continued, ‘your report … how'd you write up Tottenhill's death?'

‘I told the truth. He died defending the ship against a mutinous faction.'

‘Didn't happen to mention that Tottenhill was the one that coddled them mutineers until they figured they could run things their way?'

‘I did not. Nor do I think Tottenhill will bear all the blame. You don't see our own fault in this, Ezra?'

‘No.'

Biddlecomb took a long pull of his coffee and stared out of the stern window. The gray water below the transom was turning to blue as the daylight gathered strength. He could see beyond the reaches of the river into Long Island Sound.

‘Tottenhill was a dead man from the moment he stepped on board,' Biddlecomb said at last, turning back to Rumstick. ‘The poor bastard. He didn't have any idea what was going on around him, who his friends were and who his enemies were, and we didn't do one damn thing to help him.'

‘Really, though,' Faircloth took up the argument, ‘there was no tolerating the man. Is it our duty to suffer a boor like that?'