CHAPTER 1
EMBAYED
When he saw the enemy squadron drop from the wind, studding sails blossoming as they raced to get a clear look into the bay, Captain Gideon Markham, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, knew that his privateer was doomed. The British squadron consisted of a seventy-four of the line, a frigate, and a sloop of war, with over a hundred guns altogether and perhaps a thousand men; while the General Sullivan was a New England schooner with thirteen guns and a crew of sixty, embayed by an offshore wind in a Cuban inlet, and moored alongside two captured British prizes.
Gideon would have abandoned his schooner and his prizes there and then, but it was low tide and the British would not be able to get their vessels over the bar until after dark; the two-decker wouldn’t be able to get over in any case. Gideon controlled the frustration and rage he’d felt when he’d first seen those studding sails sheeting home. He had time. Cutting himself a plug of tobacco, Gideon Markham chewed meditatively and studied the enemy through his glass. If he were that enemy captain, he thought, he’d give the lookout a guinea.
Unquestionably they were British. Never mind that they were in Spanish— and therefore neutral— waters; so was General Sullivan, and on an illegal mission to boot. If the British attacked in neutral waters, Gideon could scarcely appeal to any Spanish court. The Spaniards, though neutral in the fight between Britain and the American commonwealth, were nevertheless allied with Britain against the French armies that had invaded Spain; the Spanish would find it politically expedient to overlook the occasional British irregularity.
Anger flashed through Gideon, and he fought to control it. Helpless. He had been helpless too often in his lifetime. He hath enclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked... Gideon fought down his despair. All travail had its purpose. He spat his tobacco over the lee rail and turned to his first officer.
“Go ashore, Mr. Harris,” he said. “Find the fastest horse you may and ride to Rio Lagartos. You will carry to Don Esteban a letter. I will give you that letter in five minutes. Be ready.”
“Aye aye, Captain,” said Alexander Harris. He was in his shirt-sleeves and in no condition to pay a visit. He ran his fingers through his shock of wheat-blond hair and turned hastily to pick out a boat’s crew. Gideon returned to his glass and his observations of the enemy. Behind him he heard Harris run down the aft scuttle for a quick wash and change of clothes.
The British frigate was in the lead, a fine, fast-lined ship, her yellowed canvas taut as it bellied out with the following wind, stuns’l booms spread wide like the claws of a pouncing eagle. As fast as the frigate looked, Gideon knew his own General Sullivan could show the enemy a clean pair of heels in any wind— but he was anchored in a Cuban bay, trapped.
He was unto me as a bear lying in wait and as a lion in secret places. He hath made me desolate. Gideon clenched his teeth as the despairing verses welled up from his mind. The Lord will not cast off forever, he reminded himself firmly. From the frigate’s fore shrouds he caught a wink of light, twice repeated. Gideon’s lips twitched in the beginnings of an ironic smile: the British were studying him as intently as he investigated them. He swept his glass to the shore, to where the sandbar met the palms of the forest’s edge.
“Mr. Willard!” he called.
George Willard’s eyes were an intense, absorbed black; his dark hair was worn in the old style, unfashionably long and caught in a queue behind. The second officer was a Gay Head Indian from Martha’s Vineyard, one of the small, able tribe of American natives brought up from the cradle to sail upon the breast of the sea. More white than Indian, and more sailor than either, George Willard had been at sea from the age of six, his profession chosen for him by generations of island ancestors, chosen along with his Christian name and his Congregational religion.
“I want you to go aboard Linnet— I understand the prize has two long twelves?”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Move them to yonder point and set up a battery. Take ye powder and shot. Take care to see that the battery may be hidden from the enemy. Take the pinnace.”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
“Have it done by tonight.”
Willard’s slight hesitation before his “aye aye” did not go unnoticed. Gideon pounced upon that hesitation like a lion in wait.
“I do not give orders lightly; I expect that battery built by nightfall,” he said. “You may have ten men. You will stay with the guns—“ if the enemy crosses the bar, fire on them.” His mouth tightened to a grim line. “Kill as many Englishmen as you can.”
“Aye aye, Captain,” George Willard assented. He turned to gather his men. Gideon did not spare the battery another thought, for he knew that he himself could have set up the battery before nightfall— therefore Willard could, or would be answerable. Gideon did not consider his orders subject to question or himself obligated to explain the reasoning behind them.
He picked up his telescope once more and turned it on the enemy: the frigate was drawing nearer, less than two miles offshore. He could see the white commission pendant sailing out from her mainpeak with the red St. George’s cross. British. As if there were any doubt.
Forward of General Sullivan’s mainmast Gideon could dimly hear Browne, the bosun, commencing an anecdote in his high-pitched Briton’s voice, the general theme of which was the dull-wittedness of Englishmen in general and naval officers in particular. Browne, a candlemaker from Bristol, had been pressed into the Royal Navy and had fought at Copenhagen and Trafalgar; but he now maintained, as frequently and as loudly as he was allowed, that after the death of Nelson there was no man left in the British fleet who could command his allegiance. One night in Plymouth he’d slipped over the side and swam to an American ship.
Now he fought his former countrymen and would probably be hanged if caught. As far as Gideon could tell, Browne wasn’t much bothered by either fact. He had volunteered to be a privateer; there was no compulsion in the American service. He was an American seaman now and carried his citizenship papers to prove it.
Gideon considered cutting himself another plug of tobacco, but resolved to resist the inclination as long as he could. The British frigate was flying signals; Gideon could not make them out, but the ship-sloop was repeating them, and the seventy-four answering. There were hours yet before any hard decisions would have to be made.
He returned his telescope to the rack and walked to the quarterdeck scuttle, descended the companionway, and walked the short, narrow corridor to his little cabin. The place was small and tidy, the furniture partly built by the ship’s carpenter— there were no paintings or costly rugs, and the service was pewter rather than silver. Gideon placed his beaver hat on the little table, reached his sword down from its peg, and laid it next to the hat. Standing at his desk, he wrote a note for Harris to carry ashore and sent it up via his steward. Then he knelt stiffly by the bunk, clasped his hands, bent his head, and began to pray.