Norton, Andre - Novel 08 (4 page)

 
          
 
Ninnes' seaboots rasped on the cabin planking
as his feet moved. His voice was colorless and a monotone as he made his
report.

 
          
 
"We signed men at the inn all evening.
Many of them were well gone in drink and had to be handled. When we bundled
them aboard, this man was among
them "

 
          
 
"Mr. Ninnes, I am neither drunk nor
besotted with age."

 
          
 
Fitz thought that he would not have cared to
arouse Daniel Crofts to that tone of voice. He was uneasily aware that he had
passed from a familiar and ordered world—where he could, to some extent, always
foresee the future—into another where he was as lost as an Englishman in the
wilderness across the mountains.

 
          
 
"I think, Mr.
Ninnes,
that
I am beginning to understand."

 
          
 
The boots moved again on the planking. Fitz
shot a glance at Ninnes. And for the first time he realized that the
too-energetic lieutenant was probably no older than himself. As Ninnes stood
there now, rubbing his thumbs across the buckle of his swordbelt—but meeting
Crofts eye to accusing eye, he looked very young —much of his infuriating
self-confidence drained away.

 
          
 
"As for you, Mr. Lyon,” Crofts dismissed
Ninnes for his unwilling passenger, "I am afraid that you must be forced
to content yourself as best you can during a voyage on the Retaliation. Perhaps
later we shall be able to offer you return passage on a prize. We have the wind
favoring us now, and after the weeks we have passed trying to get free from the
place, I have no intention of seeking
Baltimore
again this good while."

 
          
 
"You can drop me with the pilot,"
began Fitz, but the Captain shook his head.

 
          
 
"We carry our own pilot for these waters.
No, you will have to make the best of it. And since we are somewhat limited as
to space—a privateer, you understand, must carry crew enough at her first
sailing to man all the prizes she may garner in, as well as enough to work and
fight the ship—I am afraid that you will not find our accommodations of the
best. You are a rifleman, I believe, sir?"

 
          
 
"Yes," Fitz returned curtly. He
believed that he could put a safe wager on what was coming now.

 
          
 
"We have a berth open for a second and
junior marine officer. Only two veterans shipped with us, Lieutenant Biggs and
his sergeant. The rest are landsmen. Would you be interested in what we might
term a sub-lieutenancy—temporary of course?"

 
          
 
That almost blew the coals of Fitz's anger
into full flame again. The complacency of the man! But his long self-discipline
prevailed.
All his life he had faced reality and had made the
best of what could not be changed.
He might not care to serve as a
marine—but apparently

 
          
 
Fitz scanned the lines at the top.

 
          
 
there
was no way now
of escaping that fate. There was even, he supposed, something humorous in his
present plight. And somehow, with Ninnes at his elbow, he did not care to
answer with merely a bald "no."

 
          
 
"If I refuse it, I'll doubtless find
myself scrubbing down the decks or engaged in some like employment. But I still
believe that you have the poor end of the bargain, Captain. I am as much of a
landlubber as the rest of your
bag "

 
          
 
"Time will remedy that. If you will sign
here "

 
          
 
Crofts proffered a pen and a list he took from
his desk.

 
          
 
Fitz scanned the lines at the top. Before he
scrawled his signature he added a sentence of his own, a sentence which Crofts
was quick to read.

 
          
 
"So we are to have the pleasure of your
company only until we reach some civilized port, Mr. Lyon?"

 
          
 
Fitz grinned.
"Why not?
I confess that I remain wholly a soldier at heart, sir."

 
          
 
"But what is a marine but a sea-going
soldier? Mr. Ninnes, you will escort Mr. Lyon to Lieutenant Biggs. You will
then return here. That is all, gentlemen."

 
          
 
Once out of the Captain's domain, Fitz turned
to his silent guide.

 
          
 
"So this healthy sea voyage for me was
your idea, not the Captain's."

 
          
 
Ninnes favored him with a glare of open
dislike. "Free with your tongue, ain't you? Why couldn't you keep your
blab shut?"

 
          
 
Fitz stopped short in sheer surprise.
"Did you actually expect me to accept kidnapping with a tame and meek
spirit? As it is, you've landed me in a nice mess."

 
          
 
Ninnes tugged at a stock which seemed to be
suddenly pinching his throat. "Any real man with red blood in him would be
more'n glad to serve under the Cap'n. Seems like you
do a
mort of talkin' about fightin' but you're
a little slow about gettin'
down to the business—just like all the rest of you up-nosed gentry prigs!"

 
          
 
As Fitz's eyes narrowed and
a
certain
tightness showed along his jaw the other added:

 
          
 
"And keep your fightin' for the lobsters.
Cap'n Crofts don't allow brawlin' on board ship."

 
          
 
"Then," Fitz bit off each word,
"he ought to clip some tongues, Mr. Ninnes."

 
          
 
Had they been ashore he would have made the
proper and traditional answer—an invitation to meet with pistols or swords. But
shipboard was strange territory and probably had rules and customs of its own.
Until he knew more about them he would bide his time. But waiting and
swallowing down such speeches certainly did not endear Lieutenant Ninnes to
him. He had been right about the fellow from the start-just another like Ralph.
He could almost see his cousin's blunt features transposed over the other's
brown face.

 
          
 
Lieutenant Biggs, commander of the Retaliation
s marines, inhabited a very small pocket on the fringe of the officers' domain,
and he was within it now, turning over gear which he was in vain trying to stow
away properly. The languid surgeon was hunched against the bulkhead and needled
him with satirical comments upon the wealth in his sea chest.

 
          
 
Biggs, therefore, was in no mood to welcome
Fitz, and at Ninnes' hasty introduction and explanation, his gamecock
countenance took on such a purplish tinge that Fitz thought it very lucky that
a surgeon was present. Bleeding seemed to be the proper restorative.

 
          
 
"Ha!" Biggs stood, elbows cocked and
knuckles on hips, as Ninnes left. "Look about you, sir. If you can
conceive of finding an inch to stow yourself in—do it—do it at once!" His
mouth twisted almost childishly as he started thumping his tumbled belongings
back into the chest.

 
          
 
"Now, Lemuel, it is not as bad as all
that, man." The surgeon pulled himself out of his cranny. "What if
you had to roost in the
cockpit,
nicely placed below
the waterline with the bilges to perfume your quarters? Mr. Lyon, Dr. Nathaniel
Watts, at your service, sir." The surgeon bowed with the grace of a man
who had moved in mannered society. Fitz returned the salute as well as he
could.

 
          
 
"And, Mr. Lyon, if you will accompany me
now, allowing Lemuel time to solve his quartering problems, I have something in
my possessions which is of value to you."

 
          
 
He was glad to be out of the marine
lieutenant's company until he had time to adjust to his new situation, and he
followed the surgeon into the dark under-deck regions, descending to the minute
pocket which was
Watts
' sleeping place, office, and the ship's
hospital combined. A single lantern gave a very small issue of light, and the
bilge odor, as
Watts
had mentioned, was only too obvious.

 
          
 
But Fitz was too taken by a discovery he had
made during their between-decks journey to be affected.

 
          
 
"Where are the guns?"

 
          
 
Watts
'
quizzical eyebrow went up. "As yet they are still aboard several different
ships we have not had the pleasure of meeting," he returned
matter-of-factly.

 
          
 
"We Americans have not yet mastered the
trick of casting ships' guns which do not burst after the first round or so. In
engagements a hot gun has either to be allowed to cool in its own time—which is
impossible —or be flooded down with sea water. Only bell metal can stand up to
a splashing like that without flying apart in the splasher's face."

 
          
 
"But there isn't a gun at any one of the
ports!" persisted Fitz without understanding.

 
          
 
"Certainly not.
There wasn't a gun to be had in
Baltimore
. Not for love or, what is more important,
money. Why d'you suppose Dan Crofts has been cooling his heels in port all
these weeks? If he'd been able to find guns we would have been at sea as soon
as the first ice parted far enough to let this old girl wriggle through.

 
          
 
"If we can't pick ourselves up a good
battery on the way across," continued Dr. Watts cheerfully, "then
we'll buy guns in Saint Malo with our cargo—some of the sweetest tobacco ever
laid
down in the state of
Maryland
!"

 
          
 
"Pick them up at sea!" Fitz
repeated. "Do you mean we're going privateering in an unarmed ship?"

 
          
 
Watts
rubbed his hand across his smoothly shaven chin. "I wouldn't say we were
totally unarmed. There re the deck swivels, you know. As for the others —any
day now we're like to take us a good prize and transfer her teeth into our own
gaping jaws."

 
          
 
Fitz stared at him. The man apparently
accepted this wild state of affairs as perfectly natural. He began to wonder if
he had shipped with a full crew of madmen.