The French Prize (8 page)

Jack stepped from the carriage and replaced his hat. His eyes turned first to his ship, as they always did, and he could not fail to notice the considerable activity on deck, activity that had sprung up in his absence and through no orders of his own.

Abigail
, like many moderately sized merchant vessels, never had any bulwarks, just a waist-high, stanchion-mounted rail running the perimeter of the deck and terminating just forward of the foremast. But this, apparently, would no longer be the case. A stack of yellow lumber lay on the wharf, giving off its pleasing smell of fresh-cut wood. A swarm of carpenters were at work on the deck, and already the first planks of the new, solid bulwark were being fitted in place.

Oliver Tucker stood in the waist, directing a gang of men fussing over the fall of a heavy yard tackle. Jack's eye followed the run of the line from waist to yardarm and then down to the dock until he came to its end, a squat, overbuilt cart, in the back of which rested the long, black barrel of a cannon.
And thus the need for the bulwarks,
Jack thought, with the unhappy dawning of comprehension.

“Come here, Jack, come here!” Oxnard said with enthusiasm, once again guiding Jack along with an arm over the shoulders. They crossed the rough boards of the wharf and stopped on either side of the cart. A gang of men from the
Abigail
was positioning the lower end of the winding tackle, a massive six-part tackle slung under the maintop that would bear the bulk of the cannon's weight in hoisting it aboard.

“Well, Jack, what do you think?” Oxnard asked, slapping the black iron.

“Of what, sir?”

“The cannon, Jack, the cannon! What do you think?”

“It's a great beastly thing, to be sure.”

“‘Beastly'! That's good!” Oxnard barked. “It a regular animal! It's a six pounder, Jack, a six pounder!”

Jack nodded. “A six pounder, yes, sir.” He looked at the gun, trying but failing to conjure up enthusiasm enough to match Oxnard's. “Am I to take it somewhere?” he asked, but he already knew the answer. The planks of the new bulwark, straight, fresh, and sturdy, pretty much gave the game away.

“No, no!” Oxnard said. “We are arming the
Abigail
, do you see? You'll have six all told, three to a broadside. I plan on doing the same to all my ships. Damned dangerous out there, you know. That business west of Montserrat, damned fine seamanship, but you can't hope to have a sandbar there whenever you need one. We need to prepare, because the French are swarming like flies to … honey.”

Biddlecomb regarded the gun for a long moment and tried to think of something to say. As far as engaging in a sea fight with the
Abigail,
he felt about that the same way he might feel if Oxnard had asked him to compose a symphony; he was not necessarily against the idea, but he had no notion of how to go about it. He knew he must communicate this fact, but he also knew what Oxnard's nonsensical reply would be, so he braced himself for it as if preparing to take a blow he could not avoid, and said, “I appreciate the idea, to be sure, but I don't know the use of these guns, and neither do the crew.”

“What? The son of Isaac Biddlecomb can't fire a cannon? Nothing to it! Can you fire a musket?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Well, this is just like a musket, but a damned sight bigger. And of course it has a vent and not a flintlock. And you must swab it out before reloading. In any event, you'll be taking a passenger with you, a particular friend of mine named Charles Frost, who is quite familiar with such things, and he can certainly help you drill the men.”

“Yes, sir.”

In truth, Jack knew more about great guns than he was letting on. He could hardly not, being, as he was so often reminded, the son of Isaac Biddlecomb, and as a boy desperately eager to learn of such things. He knew, for instance, that a six pounder would generally enjoy a gun crew of at least five men, which meant
Abigail
could man exactly three guns at a time if no one was needed for anything else, such as steering or bracing the yards. He knew that these monstrous things weighed about a ton and a half apiece and putting six of them aft would do terrible things to the trim of his lovely ship. He knew that the men would whine endlessly if, along with their regular duties, he made them drill at the guns, though that complaint might be mitigated if they were allowed to actually fire them.

In any event, Jack recognized immediately the enormous irritation that these great guns would cause, from ruining the trim of his vessel and consuming yards of deck space, to having his men maintain the guns and drill with the guns and move the damned guns, taking aboard and stowing powder and shot. It all meant a vast headache he did not need, particularly when he considered how wildly unlikely it was that they would actually have to fight someone.

“Well, Jack, what do you think?” Oxnard asked, his voice fairly brimming with excitement.

“I think it's a fine idea, sir,” Jack said. There was nothing else he
could
say, and luckily, before Oxnard could plumb the depths of Jack's sincerity more deeply, a dray drawn by two oxen and stacked high with barrels came rolling up with a noise that did not allow for any subtlety of conversation.

“This will be your flour, Jack,” Oxnard said, giving Jack a pat on the shoulder. “I'll leave you to it, then.”

“Very well, sir,” Jack said. He wondered, as Oxnard climbed back into his carriage, what odd turn would come his way next. He did not have to wait too terribly long to find out.

 

6

Upon his promotion to command, Jack asked Oliver Tucker to stay on and step up to chief mate, pending Oxnard's approval. In truth, Oxnard was easier to convince than Tucker was. Oxnard greeted the request with a wave of the hand, saying, “Of course, of course, Jack, pick any officers you wish, just so long as you understand, what with the insurance rates and such, I'm forced to reduce everyone's pay by a dollar a month. God's truth, I still don't know how I'm to stay in business. Say, that new cordage you ordered, is that entirely necessary? Sure you can get one more voyage from your running gear, not reeve off all new, what say you? Not the Royal yacht, you know.”

In the end, and with considerable difficulty, Jack convinced Oxnard to keep wages as they were. Tucker, not certain he wanted the responsibility of chief mate, was just as hard a sell. But he and Jack had made three voyages together, and each felt he had the measure of the other. Tucker knew Jack for a fair man and not some noodle or Tartar who would expect too much and then scream like a lunatic when he did not get it, so he acquiesced.

And Jack in turn wanted Tucker because he knew him to be a decent seaman and a diligent and hard worker, and because Tucker was too unsure of himself to try and take advantage of Jack's youth and lack of command experience to undermine him in any way.

So, as Oxnard's carriage rolled away, Captain Jack Biddlecomb and Chief Mate Oliver Tucker met on the quarterdeck. Jack stood silent as Tucker called the order, “Heave away the windlass!” and the dozen men who stood with hands resting on the windlass's handspikes hove down on them, winding the creaking, popping, protesting fall of the yard tackle around the drum and causing the great mass of black iron to climb higher and higher above the wharf. There were faces at the windlass bars Jack did not recognize, and he guessed Oxnard had sent more men to help with this work. He wondered if Oxnard had been angry at his not being aboard that morning, and it occurred to him for the first time to wonder how Oxnard knew where to find him.

A quick movement aft caught his eye and pulled his attention from the delicate task of getting the cannon aboard. He looked toward the taffrail and there saw his brother, Nathaniel, fairly dancing with the excitement of it all, and he felt a flush of guilt at having completely forgotten inviting the young man down to take part in the getting in of cargo. But here was the perfect opportunity to make up for that negligence, and to play the part of decent big brother and undiminished hero, all at the same time.

“Nathaniel, come here,” Jack waved him over and Nathaniel crossed the deck as swiftly as his adolescent sense of dignity would allow. When his brother was at his side, Jack said in a voice that could be heard fore and aft, “I think this task needs your firm hand on it, Nathaniel. Mr. Tucker?”

“Sir?” Tucker replied.

“Might young Master Biddlecomb here take over this job for you?”

Tucker grinned. The men at the windlass and the winding tackle grinned. “Tricky job, sir,” Tucker replied. “I think we do indeed need Master Biddlecomb's particular skills here.”

“You heard the man,” Jack said to his brother. “Pray give your orders to see the cannon in its carriage.”

Nathaniel's face was a mix of awe, fear, and exhilaration. He looked over at the gun, ran his eyes up the rigging. The cannon, a ton and a half of iron, was dangling from the yard tackle made fast to the yardarm directly above it. The upper end of the winding tackle was affixed under the maintop, and the lower end also attached to the cannon. The trick was to lift the gun straight up with the yard tackle, then haul it inboard with the winding tackle, and then ease them both so the gun came down on the point of the deck where it needed to come down.

Nathaniel considered the inverted triangle made by the yard, the yard tackle, and the winding tackle, the gun hanging from its lower corner. He considered the angle of the yard, the height the gun would need to clear the bulwark, and the distance it might be pulled inboard with the winding tackle. Jack could all but hear the calculations going on in his head. His brother was seeing the complex interplay of angles and tensions and weights not through any formal mathematical process but through pure instinct, in a manner that made Jack very proud in a paternal sort of way.

“Go ahead,” Jack prompted.

“Heave away the windlass!” Nathaniel shouted, his high voice even higher with the excitement of it all. The men at the windlass began heaving at the handspikes once more. The fall of the tackle groaned under the weight, the cannon rose higher and higher, and the yard dipped and pulled against the rolling tackles set up to counteract the weight. And just as Jack was about to whisper a hint to his brother, Nathaniel called, “Well, the windlass!” in a voice now straining to find a deeper pitch.

Nathaniel took another look aloft and traced the lines with his eyes. “On the winding tackle, heave away, smartly now!” he called. He was not so much giving orders as imitating orders he had heard given many times, like a student painter who learns by copying the works of the masters. The men at the fall of the winding tackle hauled away with the coordinated ease of men who had hauled a thousand lines, and the great black gun swung in over the bulwark and hung above the deck and the waiting gun carriage.

“Well the winding tackle! Belay that! Let's check away that yard tackle, smartly, smartly!” The yard tackle was eased away, the winding tackle took up the strain, the gun swung inboard, and Nathaniel called, “Ease away the winding tackle!” The cannon came gently down and inboard, down and inboard until it hovered a few feet above the gun carriage. It was a neat bit of work, and while those able men of the
Abigail
's crew might have easily done it even if Nathaniel had not issued a single order, Jack supposed that Nathaniel did not realize as much, or, if he did, the thrill of being able to oversee such an operation quite trumped any suspicion that his oversight was not entirely necessary.

“Ease away, ease away,” Nathaniel called, and the cannon came down more, and just before Jack ordered them to do so, Maguire and Lacey leapt forward and adjusted the position of the gun carriage directly under the gun. The massive iron tube eased down those last few inches, the carriage groaned under the weight, and the yard tackle and winding tackle went slack as if they were settling down by a fire after a long day's work.

Jack looked at his brother and smiled. “Well done, young sir, well done,” he said, and Nathaniel gave a half smile and a nod of the head, as if to suggest that there was no need to compliment him on so routine a bit of shipboard business. Tucker came aft and echoed Jack's words of praise and Nathaniel looked embarrassed.

“What think you of these, Mr. Tucker?” Jack asked, nodding toward the gun that a dozen seamen were now manhandling out of the way so the next could be brought aboard.

“Well, I'm not so sure, Captain,” Tucker said, hesitant to give his opinion when he did know where Jack stood on the issue.

“I'm not sure, either,” Jack said. “Not sure at all.” Though in truth he was sure, quite sure, that he did not want them aboard. He did not, however, wish to impose his bad attitude on his mate, so instead he steered the conversation toward how and where the flour would be stowed down and the water brought on, the thousand details that were the purview of master and mate, and all the while, like a quintet playing softly at a grand dinner, the carpenters sawed and filed and drilled and hammered at the bulwarks, fashioning the gaping gunports from which the new arms would leer at any wanton Frenchman who came within their arc of fire.

Jack turned to Nathaniel. “When you at last rise to command of your own vessel, brother,” he explained, “you will find that such amusements as hoisting cannons aboard are no longer yours, and your life is reduced to bills of lading and crew manifests and chandlers' bills and such drudgery as to make you yearn for labor in the salt mines. So with that, I will leave you in the good hands of Mr. Tucker while I retire to my cabin and my papers.”

*   *   *

That very afternoon, on the day that Jack Biddlecomb missed his chance to dispatch Jonah Bolingbroke in accordance with the
code duello
, Captain Ezra Rumstick found himself seated in the parlor, which served as his office, in the set of rooms he rented on Third Street. He was slouched in a black-lacquered Windsor chair, feet splayed out in front of him. The chair looked to any observer as if it might collapse under Rumstick's considerable mass; his height was above six feet, and his weight was approaching seventeen stone, greater than it had ever been in his more active years, though, despite being in his fifth decade of life and having long since given up manual labor, the bulk of it was still muscle, and that which was not he carried well.