Until the Sea Shall Give Up Her Dead (36 page)

T
he men came in twos and threes, sometimes alone. A number had been in the care of a physician ashore and were from the British frigates stationed in Barbados. They were easily picked out among the other men, for they moved stiffly, as if they had become fragile while in hospital, and they were pale among the sun-darkened hands. Hayden did not think they would be much use in a fight. Two men who came aboard had been serving Admiral Caldwell as servants ashore. That Caldwell had given them up and returned them to sea service astonished Hayden. In the end, the crew numbered thirty-two, with Ransome, Wickham, and Gould as officers. He even had his own coxswain aboard. Men had taken to touching Childers for luck, as he had been grazed by a musket ball while running from the French and wore a dressing around his head yet, to prove it. Had he leaned an inch to one side at that instant, he would certainly be dead.

It was a day of utter frustration for Hayden. He paced the deck with anxious energy, and implored his men to make haste with every task, with the result that they were then lacking employment while they awaited the victuals or the powder. And so the day dragged on. Ransome had ordered awnings rigged over the quarterdeck and between the two masts, giving a little shade to the vessel, which baked beneath the tropical sun.

Hawthorne and his few marines had laid all the muskets and pistols out
on an open section of deck, where they cleaned and serviced each one to be certain it would perform its duty when required. Ransome and Wickham went over the ship from stem to stern and keel to truck, and put everything to rights that they could in the brief time allowed.

The time, however, did not seem brief to Hayden, who imagined his bride sailing farther and farther from him into a vast, featureless ocean where the track of a ship disappeared not long after it passed. Her absence and loss was more than just something he comprehended in his mind; he felt it in his body and chest, as though a part of him had been cut away. The pain of it never left him, not for an instant.

The sun was setting when everything was stowed and the ship trimmed to the lieutenant's satisfaction. The anchor was weighed, and the schooner began to gather way and shape her course north on the vague little zephyrs and gusts that made their way over the island of Barbados. The brief tropical twilight descended upon ship and sea, and then darkness and a clear, starry night. Lamps were lit, watches set, and hammocks piped down. The familiar routine of a ship of the British Navy established itself without any need for explanation or extra discipline, the officers and men falling into it like it was the natural order of the world.

Hayden had taken the cabin aft that had been the residence of the former master, and slung a cot there. It was a cramped little space compared to his cabin on the
Themis
, and a closet compared to his cabin aboard
Raisonnable
, but its former occupant had been a fastidious man, he had come to realise, and it was clean and relatively fresh, aired by an overhead skylight and small windows in the transom. The schooner would be swifter to windward than a brig of similar size, not much different with the wind on the beam, and not as swift or as easily steered as her square-rigged cousin with the wind aft or on the quarter. Of course, the topsail schooner carried square canvas as well—sometimes only the square topsail by which she was distinguished, but sometimes a course and even a top-gallant, if the owner or master was determined and had the manpower to make use of every little puff of wind that came his way.

Wickham approached the captain's little patch of deck, a man of perhaps thirty years trailing in his wake. Hayden waved them forward.

“Sir, this is Henry Scrivener. Before he took ill, he was master's mate aboard Sir William's
Inconstant
. He has spent many years in these waters and has brought both his own instruments and his charts aboard with him.”

Hayden refrained from making any comment upon the man's name. “How long have you been a master's mate, Scrivener?”

“Six years, Captain. I was rated able before that, sir, but took a keen interest in navigation and was always pestering Mr Chester with questions. Finally, he said he could bear it no more and taught me his trade so I would leave him in peace, sir.”

“Are you familiar with the Old Channel of Bahama, Scrivener?”

The man nodded. “I have traversed it on two occasions, sir. It is fraught with cays and shoals not on any charts, Captain, and a good lookout is worth more than the best pilot.”

Hayden invited Wickham and Scrivener below and spread a chart upon the small table in his cabin. The route Hayden had drawn took them east of both the Windward and Leeward Islands over open ocean.

Scrivener contemplated this a moment, a freckled hand to his mouth. He was a tawny-haired man, and freckled all over his face, hands, and arms. He was half a hand shorter than Wickham and appeared thin and a little stooped. “If I may, sir?” he said after a moment.

“Yes, by all means. Your knowledge in these waters is far greater than mine.”

“It would be shorter by a hundred miles to pass south of St Lucia, then to shape your course to take you through the Mona Passage, which is both wide and deep, sir. Open water the whole way. Then down the New Channel of Bahama, where we should have fair wind, even if it does turn a little north, as I have often seen it do, sir.”

Hayden could see the sense in it immediately. “Would you be my acting sailing master, Scrivener?”

“It would be my honour, sir.”

“Then lay out your courses, and we will inform Mr Ransome.”

“I shall do so this moment, sir.”

Hayden returned to the deck, feeling a little lightness in his step. It was a stroke of the greatest luck to find a master's mate who knew the waters! It buoyed his spirits somewhat. To reduce their route by a hundred miles would get them to the New Bahama Channel in nine days rather than ten, and every day counted.

The little schooner made good speed all that night, passing south of St Lucia in the forenoon. Hayden had slept poorly and been on deck before sunrise, spotting St Lucia to the north-west and St Vincent to the south as the sky turned to light.

The exact date that the Spanish frigates would set out from Vera Cruz was not known to him, but he reasoned that, if de Latendresse decamped from Barbados the day after Miguel had revealed his intelligence regarding the silver, then he must have believed he could reach some point where he might intercept this ship—and the only place narrow enough to make finding the frigate a reasonable possibility was the New Bahama Channel.

The crossing to Mona Passage was about one hundred and fifty leagues. He hoped to be through the passage in four or five days . . . if the trade would hold. If he had followed his original route, passing to the east of the long chain of French and British islands, he might have found Sir William, or Archer, or the other British frigates cruising there, which was part of the reason he had chosen it. This route made finding aid all but impossible. They would be on their own.

Hayden knew, from conversations with the other frigate commanders, that there were several privateers cruising these waters which had been merchant vessels and were well armed—twenty twelve-pounders and various small deck guns, Sir William thought. He, Oxford, and Crawley had been attempting to find and take them for some months, but they had eluded them on two occasions, flying from them and then slipping away by darkness. The masters of these privateers knew their
business and were more familiar with these waters than were the British. It would be one or more of these ships that he believed de Latendresse would need to take the Spanish frigates. How long it would take him to find these ships, come to an arrangement with the masters or owners, outfit them for a month's service, and get underway, Hayden did not know. If de Latendresse knew from where they operated presently it might make this task easier and swifter. Whenever the privateers suspected that the British knew what port they used, they would change to another harbour on another island altogether.

How Hayden was going to fight off or take even one of these powerful privateers, he did not know, and it did make his enterprise seem more than a little Quixotic. This brought a sudden memory—had not Henrietta once, in jest, named him “Don Quixote
del Mar
”? It was likely his penchant for rushing headlong into danger that had inspired her to break off with him and take up with a landsman who would never risk life and limb in some doubtful venture. This thought of Henrietta, for some reason he could not explain, only increased his pain at the loss of his bride and added to his feelings of confusion.

St Lucia dropped astern, dwindling all through the long afternoon, and then they were out of sight of all land and would be until they raised Hispaniola in a few days' time. The trade blew constantly, day and night, driving the long ridges of translucent blue across the empty expanse of the Caribbean Sea.

It was the fourth day before land appeared—just the top of a green mountain under a little wreath of white cloud. And then this mountain appeared to grow out of the sea, rising up until a great island was revealed beneath.

The afternoon saw them draw near the Mona Passage. Winds, interrupted by the land, grew fickle in both strength and direction so that it took them several hours to work up to the entrance of the passage. The passage itself was wide—over fifty miles—with a good-size island in the middle and a few smaller islands as well. The wind blew directly through the pass out of the north, so Hayden brought the schooner into the gap
from the south-east, as near the shoals that extended out from Punta Aguila as he dared. This would give them the best slant to pass through, and Scrivener assured him that the winds would back to the east as they pressed deep into the passage. The sun dropped behind the hills of Hispaniola as the little ship shouldered aside wave after wave, spray slatting down hard on the deck.

It was morning before they were well and truly through the passage and the wind did back to the east, though not so much as Hayden had been promised. Even so, it was a fair wind, and they shaped their course to carry them along the northern shore of the mountainous island of Hispaniola, which would lie off their larboard beam for two and a half days . . . if the wind held.

They were seven, long, frustrating days away from their hunting grounds, and Hayden well knew that the strait the Spanish frigates would pass through was wide enough that they could slip by unseen. It was not, however, the treasure frigate that was on his mind. It was the privateer he hoped was carrying his bride that he was looking for—and if this vessel had aboard neither his bride nor her brother, he did not know what he would then do. It was a thought he tried to press down whenever it arose, which it did often, especially by night.

Hispaniola passed in due course, the Windward Channel opening to the south and offering a glimpse back into the Caribbean Sea, for they were, strictly speaking, now in the Atlantic. The passage itself was fifteen leagues wide and, beyond it, the long, narrow island of Cuba lay in a shimmering sea. Cuba, however, appeared to have broken free of her moorings and was drifting west at the same pace the schooner sailed. Hayden began to think they would never leave it behind.

By midday, however, four days out from the Windward Channel, they reached the area Scrivener thought their best chance to intercept the Spanish frigates, and the area where they were most likely to find the French privateers Hayden prayed would be lying in wait with de Latendresse, Miguel, and his bride aboard.

Hayden climbed to the crosstrees of the mainmast and surveyed the straits at every point of the compass. Not a single sail in the great expanse of blue. Dolphins passed in numbers, whales blew, and pilot fish swam lazily in the ship's shadow, but men did not appear to venture into that small portion of the watery globe.

Two sails did appear on the second day and proved to be a pair of Spanish transports. Hayden spoke both ships, but neither master had seen signs of either Spanish Navy vessels or French privateers, for which they were thankful. Taking Hayden's warning seriously, they pressed on, doubly vigilant.

It was the third day, at dawn, that Hayden woke to distant thunder. Bare feet came pounding down the ladder and the marine guard knocked immediately on the captain's door, though Hayden had already rolled out of his cot and was pulling on clothes in the dark.

More reports reached them before he mounted the deck, where he found Wickham climbing to the main-top with a glass slung over his back. Hardy was on watch and pointed immediately to the east as Hayden appeared.

“There away, sir.”

There were flashes on the horizon just then, and Hayden counted the seconds evenly.

“Ten or twelve miles,” he pronounced. “Let us shape our course to the east.”

Ransome appeared at that moment, still straightening his uniform.

“Gunfire, due east, Mr Ransome,” Hayden informed him. “Call all hands. We will have breakfast and then beat to quarters. We shall be two hours or a little more coming up to them.”

“Aye, sir.” Ransome went off, calling orders, as the schooner was brought onto a new course, yards shifted and sails trimmed to get the greatest possible speed out of their little ship.

The wind shifted from north-east-by-north to east-north-east and every point between, keeping the sail handlers on the hop and the
helmsman ever ready to work the ship a little to windward when the wind allowed, and tight on the wind when it did not.

Hayden forced himself to eat a little breakfast, though afterwards he would not have been able to tell anyone what he had eaten. Coffee was welcomed like a dear friend, and though it gave an increased edge to his nerves, it sharpened the mind, which Hayden knew would be utterly necessary—for how he was going to take a more powerful ship with such a small crew was still a question he could not answer.