Norton, Andre - Novel 08 (15 page)

 
          
 
The rattle of a furiously beaten drum put a
period to his sentence and they were all on their feet, crowding out to their
duty posts in an instant. Fitz pounded to his battle station, the rifle in his
hand. The deck of the Retaliation might be less crowded with seamen now, but those
who were still aboard worked with a snap that the captain of a British
ship-of-the-line might have relished seeing in his own men. The rumble of gun
carriages made the planking quiver, and Fitz dodged a smoldering linstock which
was being waved a little too enthusiastically by one gunner.

 
          
 
Overhead the battle flag streamed out straight
in the fresh breeze which was bowling the clipper along at a hunter's pace.
Fitz glanced down the line of marines. The inspection was such an old story now
he did it almost without thinking. But he noticed an unusual frown on Fogler's
weather-beaten face.

 
          
 
"Lor’," the sergeant said in a husky
whisper, "she's a mail packet that we're achasin' now, sir!"

 
          
 
There were rebel knaves to swing, there were
prisoners to bring

            
Home in fetters to old
England
for the glory of the King!

 
          
 
—FIGHT OF THE ARMSTRONG PRIVATEER

 
          
 
To pick up a British mail packet in the
Channel waters was to snatch a lion's cub while within reach of its mother's
jaws, and Crofts did not try to push his luck so far. When the nature of their
quarry was plain he allowed the privateer to fall away. The packet flashed out
of danger with a saucy flirt of her stern sheets which was as impudent and
infuriating to her late pursuers as hand-to-nose.

 
          
 
Once the packet was out of sight the
Retaliation put about at all speed, having no wish to meet the hounds which
would pour out of the harbor at the report made by her captain. So the American
ship angled down southeast, out into the
Atlantic
, hoping to meet up with some of the
Bristol-bound trade.

 
          
 
"But no slaver," Ninnes broke his
usual reticence with Fitz during deck watch later that same day. "They
stink to the clouds and you can smell 'em a good two leagues to the windward!
Bristol
lives fat off the slave trade."

           
 
It wasn't a slaver they sighted shortly past
noon
the next day, but a trim, fast-sailing,
sloop-rigged craft, which Fitz believed to be one of those swift sailers lately
built to run the blockade of the privateers, carrying cargo which would not
wait for the slower ships traveling in convoy. With the wind humming in the
canvas the men of the Retaliation started to give chase, lobbing a lazy shot
across the water as warning, which the other heeded not at all, holding
steadily to her original course.

 
          
 
"Gonna try t' run for it," Fogler
commented. "She ain't got
th
' chance o' a candle
in July. It's like takin' sugar plums from a
baby "

 
          
 
Only just then the baby showed teeth, a fine
set of them. A four-gun broadside might not have the punishing force of a
frigate, but if gun captains are clever it can cause a lot of damage—as the
Americans discovered. For, in answer to that slam across the waves, the
foremast of the privateer became a splintered stub, and torn canvas and ropes
fouled her deck.

 
          
 
Crewmen jumped to the work of clearing the
mess as one of the boys pounded up to Fitz.

 
          
 
"Cap'n's compliments, sir, an' will ye
try t' keep 'em busy " He jerked a powder-grimed thumb at the other deck
toward which the privateer was still making some way.

 
          
 
Fitz squinted against the reflection of the
sun on the water and tried to gauge the range. It would be a long shot all
right. But sometimes even long shots paid off. He made his choice of the best
and steadiest sharpshooters in his command.

 
          
 
"Fogler, Stanley,
Myers
"
his own rifle came up, "try to get those gun layers if you
can.
Fire at will!"

 
          
 
They were close enough now to put sights on a
blue-coat on the afterdeck. Blue-coat—Fitz shot a glance at the stranger's
colors. It was a naval Jack breaking from her.
Some kind of a
dispatch carrier—that's what she must be.

 
          
 
But this was no time for that speculation. He
squeezed his trigger and began to reload without marking his success or
failure.
Crofts was
pushing the crippled Retaliation
across the other's course. If the enemy continued to hold to it her bowsprit
might well spike into the American's side. And she showed no sign of falling
away. The sharp crack of rifle was fife-thin above the heavier throb of the
guns and the shouts of the men. Powder fumes pulled strangling coughs out of
them as they fired.

 
          
 
On the Britisher's deck two blue-coats lay
still, but a third had popped up, speaking trumpet in hand, to scream orders
which kept her guns at work. Fitz took careful aim. And as if the snap of sound
was a signal, he was struck a cracking blow on the side of his head.

 
          
 
Back into darkness he fell, his rifle slipping
from his hands and striking across his own shins as he reeled. His face and jaw
ached cruelly. And the pain became in seconds a tight vise holding neck, head,
and shoulder in its grip. He was on his back, blinking up at swinging canvas
and patches of sky. Something heavy lay across his thighs and he pushed weakly
at it, only to tangle his fingers in sticky hair. At last he managed to
struggle up on an elbow.

 
          
 
It was Fogler's body which held him down.
A Fogler who might only be known now by the sergeant's knot on his
shoulder.
Fitz shuddered and feebly tried to roll free. Somewhere there
was a great deal of shouting, and small arms cracked spitefully. But the guns
were quiet at last.

 
          
 
The Retaliation rolled and the sergeant's body
moved with it. Fitz pulled from under the red-soaked bundle, getting to his
hands and knees and then to his feet, clinging to the splintered rail. The ache
in his head was now a blistering fire, and when he tried to look about him he
saw with a misty, doubled vision which made him sick.

 
          
 
He was still on the privateer. But the fight
had shifted to the lower deck of the smaller ship now grappled to the side of
the American. Save for a man or two moaning or crawling along, most of the crew
had vanished.

 
          
 
Fitz took a step forward and then held fast to
his brace. His attempt to move had set the world revolving at a pace which made
him miserably ill. He slumped down to the deck again and cradled his tender
head in shaking hands.

 
          
 
How long it was before he found himself half
carried to
Watts
' corner of hell he never knew. But the
surgeon's examination of his raw wound brought him out of the half-stupor into
wakeful and naked pain.

 
          
 
"Luck was with you, lad,"
Watts
sounded relieved. "You haven't a hole
in that thick skull of yours, just a scrape along it. And your shoulder isn't
broken, even if it does feel so. Yes, I know that your brains have had a deuced
hard shaking—but maybe they'll flourish the better for it. Mike, help Mr. Lyon
to his quarters, we haven't room for walking wounded
here
"

 
          
 
The hot, sweet smell of blood and scorched
flesh made Fitz gag, and he was glad to be towed out of the horrid murk where
the surgeon had already turned back to tend a screaming man, his knives in use
this time. But Fitz did not reach his cabin.

 
          
 
Those who had been engaged on the captured
craft were boiling back over the rail with a haste which made Fitz forget the
drumming pain over his eyes. He caught a word or tw r o which made him twist
free of Mike and sent him lurching toward his battle post.

 
          
 
While the Retaliation had been busy subduing
the prize, another player had appeared on the scene. The hound put on the scent
by the mail packet had tracked them. A frigate in fighting order was bearing
down upon the two ships locked in the last struggle.

 
          
 
Fitz clung to the broken rail. He had located
his rifle, but the effort to reload and fire it was totally beyond him. If he
let go of his support he might slip helplessly into the sea. His whole body
shook with the thud of the guns which had been hastily turned against the
newcomer.

 
          
 
But that was a hopeless effort from the start.
The unexpected resistance put up by the sloop had mauled the privateer so that
the American ship could not escape. And flight was their only chance when faced
by a frigate. They were overborne by the weight of guns, just as they had
knocked over prizes not as well-armed.

 
          
 
Fitz jerked a hand to Mike. "Rifle,"
he got out the word, after two tries at shaping it, "
overboard
"
He did not want to see that prized gun in enemy hands. Mike
nodded vigorously and pitched the long-barreled weapon over. The small splash
of the engulfment was lost in the greater noise on deck.

 
          
 
Crofts, bareheaded, a bleeding cut across his
cheek, stood a short distance away, the men still able to move grouped before
him. The Captain held his flag in his hands, and as he talked he ripped it
methodically into strips.

 
          
 
"This is the end, boys," his voice
carried evenly. "Now each of you come forward at his name and receive your
share of the specie aboard. You'll need guinea pieces where we're going—if you
are able to hide them past the searching."

 
          
 
From a small box one of the boys held he began
counting out coins and passing them to each man in turn until the last coin was
gone and the boy shook the box upside down. Almost as if that had been a
signal, the cocked hat of a British officer appeared above the rail. Fitz
swallowed sickly. It was true—the Retaliation was taken!

 
          
 
In a daze, he looked around for Biggs. But the
stocky marine lieutenant was nowhere to be seen. Nor was Ninnes present either.
As far as he could see he was the only officer left to back Crofts in this
humiliation. Holding carefully to the rail, he inched on until he was only a
pace or two away from the Captain.

 
          
 
"Captain Crofts of the Retaliation,
sir "

 
          
 
The Britisher was looking about him.
"Lieutenant Haines of His Majesty's Frigate Seahorse," he returned.
"You are under arrest!"

 
          
 
Fitz wondered at the words. They were
certainly a strange greeting to an enemy captain taken in wartime —if he had
heard them aright.
Crofts was
frowning as he answered
sharply:

 
          
 
"I do not take your meaning, sir. Our
flag is
down,
we have surrendered according to the
rules of warfare and are entitled to be used as prisoners of war."

 
          
 
"You're demmed rebel pirates taken in the
act. And if you don't want to be ironed you'll do as you are bid." The response
was delivered with an aggravating coolness which Fitz, in spite of his
headache, wanted to answer in kind.

 
          
 
"I carry commissions from the Continental
Congress, and the State of
Maryland
," Crofts had lost none of his self-control. "We are lawful privateersmen
sailing under the rules of
war "

 
          
 
But Haines had turned on his heel and was
shouting to his followers. The scarlet coats of British marines came in a wave
over the rail, and the crew of the Retaliation stood in sullen, disarmed
silence. Crofts' face was very white beneath the mask of dried blood and powder
blacking. He walked up to Haines.

 
          
 
The British lieutenant looked up to see him
coming. "Sergeant," he snapped to the leader of the file of marines,
"if that rebel comes any closer—pistol him!"

 
          
 
Fitz let go of the rail. He staggered through
a whirling misty world, but as the one remaining officer it was his duty to
join the Captain. But he was brought up short by a hand clamped to his wrist.