The French Prize

 

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Table of Contents

About the Author

Copyright Page

 

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To Nathaniel James Nelson,

my son of whom I am so proud.

I pass the literary torch to you.

 

Acknowledgments

As with any literary endeavor, there are many people to thank, some who might not even be aware that their support has been a critical part of the writing process, a very complicated and all-consuming process, indeed. Long overdue thanks to Joe Donovick for all his help and support over the years (and for teaching my kids to shoot safely!) and to Dan Lessard and his family, old friends who have so often and so generously allowed me to crash at their home when research has called me south. Thanks to all the people at Maine Maritime Museum with whom I had the great privilege to work these past seven years, in particular Jason Morin, Amy Lent, Kurt Spiridakis, Barry Craig, Matt Williams, Christine Titcomb, Joy Wiley, Rebecca Roche, Janice Kauer, Nathan Lipfert, Chris Hall, Teresa Gandler, Kelly Page, Sue Steer, and all the gift shop folks; Kathy Perkins, Sandy Lederman, Liz von Huene, Gay Lauderback, Cynthia Dolloff, and Chrystine Cromwell, who so kindly push tourists in the direction of my books. You have not seen the last of me. Thanks to all the good people at St. Martin's Press, including Melanie Fried and in particular Peter Joseph, with whom it is an honor and a privilege to be working again. Thanks to Peter Rindlisbacher, kindred spirit, for all your effort in making the cover art perfect (and for all you've done for the world of maritime art in general). Thanks, as ever, to Nat Sobel, Adia Wright, and all the people at Sobel Weber.

And thanks, and love always, to Lisa.

ARMED MERCHANT SHIP
ABIGAIL

  1. Jibboom

  2. Bowsprit

  3. Jib

  4. Fore Topmast Staysail

  5. Fore Staysail

  6. Foresail or Fore Course

  7. Fore Topsail

  8. Fore Topgallant Sail

  9. Fore Topmast Studdingsail

10. Mainsail or Main Course

11. Main Topsail

12. Main Topgallant Sail

13. Mizzen Topsail

14. Mizzen Topgallant Sail

15. Spanker

16. Fore Mast or Fore Lower Mast

17. Foretop

18. Fore Topmast

19. Fore Topgallant Mast

20. Main Mast or Main Lower Mast

21. Maintop

22. Main Topmast

23. Main Topgallant Mast

24. Spanker Gaff

25. Spanker Boom

 

1

Before Jack Biddlecomb came fully awake, before he had even opened his eyes or moved at all, he knew two things. One was that he had taken a severe beating. The other was that he had reason to be enormously pleased. He could not recall in either case exactly why that was.

As to the beating, he recognized the signs right off. His body felt stiff and cramped, and he knew, even without experimentation, that certain movements would cause considerable pain. He could feel areas of bruised flesh in the usual places: gut, jaw, the side of his head. He could taste a faint trace of coppery blood in his mouth.

Tavern brawl
 … he thought, to the extent that he was able to formulate any coherent thought. His condition had the earmarks of a shoreside rough-and-tumble, one that he had lost, apparently, and lost decisively. If that was not the case, if he had won, he hated to think of the condition in which his opponent must find himself that morning.

He tried to recall, but was not yet awake enough, or, indeed, sober enough, to bring up the details of the night's adventures. He wondered if the sheriff would be coming for him. He wondered if he was, at that moment, in a jail cell. That possibility made him even less eager to open his eyes.

Jack was only nineteen, but he had spent years enough in the rugged world of a merchant ship's forecastle to know well the results of a beating in a tavern. He had given and taken beatings in New York, Philadelphia, and Savannah, in Nassau and Kingston and Barbados, and once even in London. It was a self-imposed exile from the civilized world ashore in which he had spent his younger years, an exile from the officer's quarters aft that many considered his birthright. It left him with skills, knowledge, and sundry scars that were foreign to the coach-and-four set from which he had sprung.

And then he recalled the source of his pleasure, and with that he realized where he was, or at least where he should be. He gave an experimental kick with his right leg. The action caused considerable pain in his knee, but his shoe (he was still dressed to his shoes, he realized) connected with a wooden leeboard, which told him he was in the berth of the master's cabin of the 220-ton, full-rigged merchant vessel
Abigail
, which was his command. His first command. At nineteen years of age.

He tried to open his eyes, but that effort met with less success than the exploration with his foot. He left eye was sealed shut. Why, he did not know. Dried blood or excessive swelling was usually the culprit, but he had seen others. Happily, his right eye opened and seemed to function tolerably well. Just as fortunate, lying on his left side as he was, that eye was at a higher elevation and thus allowed him to see over the leeboard.

He guessed it to be late morning, judging by the light coming in though the stern windows, but what really caught his attention were the stockings. Reddish brown, homespun, pulled over a set of beefy calves. The cuffs of brown breeches were buckled around the upper edge of those stockings. Jack did not recognize either stocking or cuffs, or the man who occupied the clothing, though he was seated in a chair not far beyond where Jack lay. He could, he understood, turn his head a bit and see who it was, but the effort seemed too much to contemplate.

Jack Biddlecomb had difficulty controlling his impulses. It was not as if he did not understand the relationship between cause and effect, as if he could not anticipate that action
A
, becoming drunk and loud in a shorefront tavern, say, might lead to reaction
B,
a sound thrashing, and that
A
+
B
might well equal
C
, which was waking in his present state.

He had known men enough, foremast jacks in the main, who could not seem to grasp this. Men who could, at a glance, comprehend the enormously complex interaction of wind and sail, the tension applied to rigging, the stress on spars, how minor alterations in any one of those might affect the whole, and yet could not seem to grasp that telling some drunken packet rat he met in a tavern that his mother was a sodding whore might lead to a certain and predictable response from the packet rat and his shipmates.

Jack was not like that. He understood those things. He was educated. But he just could not seem to control himself.

He closed his eye against the light and the unfathomable mystery of who was seated by his berth. He had confirmed that he was indeed in the
Abigail
's master's cabin, and that was enough for now. But then the voice came, just as he was happily slipping back down into sleep, and pulled him grudgingly to the surface again.

“Ah, Captain Biddlecomb,” the voice said. “You are awake.”

The title “Captain” was delivered without the least hint of irony, which was a good thing, as it would have gone badly for the gentleman in the homespun socks if he had said it otherwise. Or at least it would have gone badly if Jack had been able to move with any kind of force or speed. Which he could not.

He opened his eye again and this time managed to swivel his head enough that he could see the rest of the man with the stockings. Square-jawed, rather ugly, arms that stretched the fabric of his well-worn coat.
Sailor,
Jack thought.
Or was … boatswain or carpenter, perhaps …

With more than a little effort, Jack tenderly sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the berth. His ribs and his knee were the worst of it. He reached up and touched the eye that would not open and was relieved to find that it was just dried blood, not some horrible swelling, that had sealed it shut. He rubbed the lashes, felt the dried blood flake away, and blinked the eye open.