The third gun fired, dead-on. With a resounding
crack!
thick shards of oaken staves splintered into smithereens.
“Well done, Blakely,” Richard called out to the gun captain. “A direct hit, and record time running out your gun. You and your crew have earned an extra tot of rum this evening.” In a louder voice, directed at the entire ship's company: “We shall splice the main brace for every man aboard do we repeat that performance on the next volley!”
A cheer went up, followed by laughter when a sailor standing by the jib sheets shouted out: “Is that Cutler rum you'll be issuing us, Captain? Or are we finally getting the good stuff?”
“Very amusing, Hobart,” Richard shouted back. He cast a fond eye upon Increase Hobart, a red-bearded, broad-shouldered bull of a man who had sailed with Cutler & Sons from its earliest days. “That comment earns you an overnight in the brig, with naught to eat but the weevils shaken out from Whiton's biscuits!”
Another round of good-natured cheers and back-slapping of Hobart got Richard to thinking, again, that the daily gun drills were essential not only for the safety of the schooner and her cargo, but for the morale of her crew as well. It gave them something to do, a healthy competition
that broke up the daily routine and monotony. He was reflecting further on this when suddenly there came a cry from aloft.
“Deck, there! Sail ho!”
“Where away?” Richard shouted up. He sensed from the tone of voice that what the lookout had sighted was not a merchant vessel.
“Two points abaft the larboard beam,” the answer was shouted down. “She's barely hull-up, sir. I can only make out her tops'ls and t'gallants.”
Everyone aboard instinctively glanced in the general direction, and saw nothing but open water. Given his height advantage of eighty feet and his excellent eyesight, Matt Cates could spot a billowing topgallant almost twenty miles away on the earth's curvature. Those on deck could see only half that far.
“Very well, Cates. I'm coming up.”
Richard doffed his heavy woolen sea coat and handed it to Lamont.
“Steady as she goes?” Agreen asked.
“Yes, for now, Agee. I doubt she's a pirate in these waters. Spanish or Portuguese, more likely.”
With an agility and speed that in his early days of sailing would have been unimaginable to him, given his inbred fear of heights, Richard clambered up the ratlines on the foremast shrouds to the topmast yard. Ignoring Cates' offered hand, he swung a leg over the pine spar and secured himself against the mast. He took the glass and held it to his eye, extending and retracting it until a pyramid of stacked sails came into sharp focus. He held the glass steady until he had determined the vessel's course relative to his own.
“What is she, sir? Can you make her out?”
“Not yet, Cates,” Richard replied, squinting into the lens. “She's ship-rigged and flying plain sails to t'gallants. A large brig or a frigate, I'd wager.” He strained to identify the ship's flag, but the distance was too great and the white billowing square sails on her mainmast blocked his view. Added puffs of canvas suddenly billowed out.
“She's setting her stuns'ls,” he remarked, more to himself than to Cates, “aloft and a-low. And she's doing it smartly.” He collapsed the glass. “She's showing us her speed, Mr. Cates. So I suggest we show her our heels. Keep me informed.”
Grabbing hold of a foremast backstay, he crossed his legs over it and let himself down hand under hand to the larboard bulwarks. “Whoever she is,” he shouted out to the crew after jumping down onto the deck,
“she finds us interesting.” He turned toward the helm. “Bring her up two points, Tremaine.”
“Two points, aye, sir,” Tremaine replied. He checked the compass. “New course: east by north, a half north.”
Since leaving Boston
Falcon
had followed an easterly course between 38 and 42 degrees north latitude, Gibraltar lying a little south of east of Boston. In the prevailing westerly breezes and generally fair weather, navigation had not posed much of a challenge. As they approached the Azores to starboard, Richard had ordered a course altered slightly southward to take advantage of an unusual northeast-bound current that Agreen had discovered on an earlier voyage, an offshoot of the powerful Canary Current leading south to the Cape Verde Islands and the more powerful North Equatorial Current streaming across the Atlantic to the Caribbean Sea.
“Any change in her course, Cates?” Richard shouted up.
“Aye, sir,” Cates shouted down. “She's dropped her leeward stuns'ls and is heading east.”
“Can you make out her flag?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“Very well. Keep me informed.”
Due east, on the frigate's course, lay the Strait of Gibraltar, the eight-mile stretch of water separating the southern tip of Spain from the northern tip of Morocco. As much a pathway connecting Europe and Africa as a seaway linking the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, the narrow passage had served as a stepping-stone into the heart of Europe for the Muslim armies that swept across North Africa and northward in the eighth century. For seven hundred years the North African Muslimsâor Moors as people of mixed Arab and Berber descent were calledâheld sway on the Iberian Peninsula, dispelling the barbarism of the Dark Ages by introducing literature, science, and medicine that the Arabs of Babylon and Damascus had inherited from the ancient Greeks and Persians. Not until 1492 were Spanish and Portuguese forces finally able to break the stranglehold of Muslim occupation by capturing the city of Granada, the last outpost of Islam in Europe. Since then, Spain and Barbary had continued the fightâat seaâfor control of the Mediterranean, with no meaningful peace treaty signed until 1785, just three years ago.
“Appears that we're both headin' for the Strait,” Agreen commented, peering through a spyglass at the topsails of the mystery ship, which had come into view for those on deck.
“So it would seem,” Richard agreed. Though the odds were long that this frigate was a pirate vessel, he would take no chances, not with the treasure
Falcon
carried in her hold. His eyes went aloft, searching for a flutter or a luff anywhere among the schooner's press of canvas to indicate a slight loss of wind power. He found none.
Throughout the rest of that day the two vessels held their relative positions. By nightfall
Falcon
seemed to be gaining ground. At dawn the next day, the sharp eyesight of Matt Cates confirmed that indeed they had gained ground, though the frigateâor whatever she wasâremained visible through the spyglass and did not alter course when land was sighted and coastal traders were suddenly everywhere, sailing in and out of the busy Spanish port of Cádiz.
Falcon
sailed swiftly through a gathering storm past Cape Trafalgar, through the Strait, and toward their destination, barely visible through the drizzle and fog: a 2.53-square-mile spit of land dominated by a monolith that since 1713 had been a British territory and was reputed to be the most heavily fortified piece of real estate in the history of the world.
Falcon
's entry into Algeciras Bay was duly noted by the Royal Navy. As the schooner approached Gibraltar from the west, a British gunboat sailed out to reconnoiter. She was an odd-shaped, beamy vessel rigged with two masts, each with a four-sided lugsail. Her rounded bow and sturdy construction reminded Richard of a Dutch herring-buss he had once seen in the English Channel. Except that this vessel carried a 24-pounder gun mounted on her bow and what looked to be long nines mounted amidships, one on each side.
When the gunboat was close alongside, an individual dressed in a heavy blue sea coat cupped a hand to his mouth. “What vessel is that?” he called up, his crisp patrician accent announcing him as an officer.
Richard identified himself and his command.
“Yes, Mr. Cutler, we've been expecting you,” the man replied cordially. “Welcome to Gibraltar. I am Lieutenant Hollingsworth, at your service.” He pointed toward a massive limestone structure looming eerily through the fog above a small indentation along the western edge of the spit. “You may take station over there, sir. Rosia Bay is that cove you see beneath the fortress. You needn't concern yourself with the tideâit's of minor consequence in these partsâbut do mind the depth. It's twelve fathoms. Rather a sharp drop-off, you see. But it affords good holding for your anchor, and you'll find no currents there. Am I understood, sir?”
“You are, Lieutenant,” Richard called over to him.
“Very well, Captain. If there is anything I might do for you, you need only ask anyone you see to have me summoned. My name, again, is Lieutenant Charles Hollingsworth, attached to His Majesty's ship
Guardian
. Captain Hardcastle insists you be shown every courtesy during your visit here. I am off to inform him of your arrival. He will be sending further word to you shortly. Good day to you, sir. Again, my warmest welcome.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Richard said, touching his tricorne hat in deference to the officer's rank. “You have been most kind. We shall proceed to the cove directly.”
Agreen had watched this exchange with ever-widening eyes. “Well slather me with butter and fry me up brown,” he muttered as the gunboat sailed away toward the Mediterranean Squadron anchored to the north. “There you go again, Richard. I've never seen anyone dive so deep and come up so dry. Next thing you know, they'll be floatin' out a red carpet t' parade you in. Sure must be nice, knowin' people in high places.”
Richard gave Lamont the order to steer for Rosia Bay, then turned to look at Agreen. “This has nothing to do with me, Agee,” he said. His relief at finally having his vessel under the protection of Royal Navy guns was immeasurable. “Credit goes to the Hardcastle family.” He smiled wistfully. “Except for the father. He'd as soon fire a broadside into me.”
An hour after
Falcon
dropped anchor in the horseshoe-shaped cove the British officer had indicated, the mystery ship that had pursued her rounded up unchallenged into the bay, the red cross of Saint George on her ensign fluttering listlessly in the damp, heavy air.
Six
Gibraltar, August 1788
“B
OAT COMING ALONGSIDE, SIR.” That's the navy for you, Richard thought to himself: an underling advising a superior officer of the blatantly obvious. He and Lamont were standing amidships watching a gig approach
Falcon.
Eight oars worked together in nearly perfect synchrony. Each oarsman was dressed in a blue-and-white-striped jersey, white duck trousers, and a straw hat bound with a wide strip of blue cloth around the middle, its sparrowtailed ends hanging over the rim. A midshipman served as coxswain at the tiller. Beside him sat what any farmer from Concord could readily identify as a British sea officer.
Richard maintained a deadpan facial expression. It was he, after all, who had insisted on following naval regulations aboard
Falcon.
“Thank you, Mr. Lamont,” he said. “I shall welcome the boat myself.”
“Toss oars!” they heard the coxswain shout. At his command, eight oars, their blades striped in blue, rose as one into the air seconds before the gig gently bumped against the hull of the schooner. Moments later, an elegantly dressed officer stepped through the larboard entry port.
Richard bowed slightly. “Welcome aboard, sir,” he greeted the officer. “My name is Richard Cutler. I am master of this vessel. This is my mate, Micah Lamont.”
The officer bowed to each man in turn. “I, sir, am Edward Cobb, second lieutenant of His Majesty's Ship
Invincible,
at your service. I trust you had a pleasant voyage from Boston?”
Richard had recognized the name of the ship as his brother-in-law's command. “It was uneventful,” Richard replied, “therefore pleasant.”
“Just so.” Cobb cast an eye about the schooner, his gaze settling first on the six guns bowsed up against the bulwarks. He then took in the sails furled tight on their booms and yards; the halyards, sheets, and braces coiled neatly on their pins; finally, the clusters of crew scattered about the deck, regarding him curiously.
“A fine vessel you command, sir,” Cobb said, with genuine admiration. “I have long praised American shipwrights. They make graceful ships. Fast ones, too. This one even outran her escort.”
“Her escort, Lieutenant
?
”
“Quite.” Cobb's pewter gray eyes twinkled with mirth. “
Redoubtable,
the frigate you surely noticed attempting to overhaul you. She's the fastest vessel in the squadron, so her officers claim, though apparently not the fastest vessel currently in Algeciras Bay. I must say, you put quite the twist in Captain Swanson's knickers.”
“I apologize, Lieutenant. I don't take your meaning.”
Cobb stepped closer, his tone turning serious and confidential. “It was by Captain Hardcastle's order, Mr. Cutler. He advised all ships patrolling the Atlantic to keep an eye out for you, and if sighted, to escort you in. Can't be too careful these days, can we, what with Spain's peace treaty with the Barbary States and with Portugal in the pirates' pocket. Algerine corsairs are now free to sail out into the Atlantic, boldly as you please, to do their dirty work.”
“I see. I must thank Captain Hardcastle for his thoughtfulness.”
“Which, sir, he hopes very much you will do this evening,” Cobb said, stepping back, his tone again light and airy. He reached into an inside pocket of his uniform coat and drew out a square piece of paper, folded to form an envelope. Impressed with a signet ring where the four flaps met in the center was a seal of red wax with the Hardcastle family crest of twin stag antlers and a shield. “It's an invitation to supper,” he said, handing over the envelope, “in his cabin at three bells in the second dogwatch. May I respond favorably on your behalf?”