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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

On the sand they found the body of M. le Chevalier Jean Noel Gabriel de la Tour d’Aurillac; he had fought on hopelessly until run through the body by a marine bayonet. Near him they found the eagle standard, held in the clenched fists of a stern gray man who had the colors of the Premier Regiment des Chasseurs á Pied wrapped around his waist. “This is what happens,” Laffite said, looking down at the little knight in his bloodstained, elegant clothes, “when one gets carried away by causes. Here you see the results of virtue at work, Commodore, nothing else.”

Mortier, their admiral, was never found, though some of the prisoners remembered him with the little squadron of boats heading for L’Aigle. He had made his escape into the swamps, or perhaps he’d been killed and the sea took him. Guieu’s body was found on the brig. Pijon was wounded and taken prisoner. None of the other leaders were found. About fifty prisoners were taken, many of them wounded. Another fifty bodies were found and buried in the sand.

Laffite left later in the day on a pirogue. He had shown himself to the captives, receiving their dour glances and letting the rebel pirates know that he had brought the government down on them, and that he was in favor; then he asked for two of the prisoners and a cypress dugout to take him back to New Orleans. “Aren’t you worried your prisoners might escape?” Favian asked him. “Or do you some injury?”

The pirate looked at the captives with scorn. “These dogs know their master,” he said. “I shall be perfectly safe.” Two heavy pistols stuck in his sash, he set out across the bay.

Favian made a private trophy of the eagle and the Guard battle flag. There was no point in sending it to Washington, he decided; they would only be politically embarrassed by the idea of flying a French tricolor alongside the torn ensigns of the Guerriére and Java. It would look more interesting as a curiosity in his father’s study, a place ornamented with the souvenirs of other wars.

After Laffite’s departure Favian received Mr. Midshipman George Potter, who had been with Hourigan and Eastlake in the attack on the Isles Dernieres. Potter carried Hourigan’s report, written in a painfully unclear hand on a piece of scrap paper, telling of the near disaster that had befallen his party. Apparently the pirates had seen their approach, for Hourigan’s first attempt to storm the walls had been met with a charge of grapeshot and a volley of musketry. Lieutenant Eastlake had been killed outright, and Hourigan shot in the leg; the party was pinned down for several long moments, unable to advance or retreat.

Hourigan manfully gave the credit for the capture of the fort to Midshipman Potter and to Dr. Solomon. The martial chaplain had managed, under fire, to work a group of sailors around to the left, where they had succeeded in storming a part of the rampart less well manned than elsewhere. Then Potter had rallied the rest of the party and stormed the place frontally while Solomon hit the remaining defenders from the flank. In the end there were four Macedonians killed, including Lieutenant Eastlake, and six wounded, including Hourigan.

“Dr. Truscott says Mr. Hourigan will not lose his leg,” Potter said. “But he will be unable to walk for some weeks.”

Favian frowned at the report. His first lieutenant, Stone, was off with the Carnation, and now his second was useless and his third had been killed. It was sad to lose Eastlake, the only one of his juniors with actual combat experience; he had been a credit to the wardroom, a wealthy young man from Virginia who had shipped crates of fine Madeira north to supply cheer to the officers’ mess, and who advocated the smoking of Indian hemp as a relief from bodily ills. . . . Now Favian would have to promote some of the midshipmen to fill the lieutenants’ places, and he didn’t know the mids well enough. Stanhope would do well enough, he supposed, but Stanhope was very junior, and the senior midshipmen might resent it. Tolbert, on the other hand, was senior enough, but it would be difficult to find a more blockheaded young man within a thousand miles. He’d have to ask the advice of the surviving lieutenants.

“Mr. Hourigan was very brave, sir,” Potter offered, mistaking Favian’s frown for criticism of his superior. “He kept his head even though he was in a great deal of pain. It was he who ordered the move to the left, though the doctor executed it.”

“I’m sure everyone did their best,” Favian said. “Please give my compliments to Mr. Hourigan— he performed very well under difficult circumstances. And,” he said, grudging it, “give my compliments to Dr. Solomon. You will all receive particular mention in my report.”

“Thank you, Captain!” Potter said, saluting enthusiastically. For a midshipman to be mentioned in dispatches was unusual. Favian returned the salute, and Potter returned to his boat.

It took three days to clean up the debris at Cat Island. Franklin was kedged off the mud, but the snow proved to have sprung some planks and had to be pumped six hours out of twenty-four. It was therefore decided that Franklin would provide the prize crews for the captured vessels and would convoy them all back to New Orleans, a duty no one envied. The prisoners were stuffed into the prize vessels’ respective cable tiers, to be sorted out once they got to the Cabildo. Favian wrote his reports to Claiborne, Jackson, and the Secretary of the Navy; the names of Byrne, Hourigan, Potter, and Solomon were all duly set down.

On the second day a schooner appeared on the horizon, making signals. Favian recognized the British recognition codes that he had captured with the Carnation, but he wanted the British to know that Cat Island Pass was closed to them; he feigned ignorance, hoisted his own American ensign over Macedonian’s poop, and set out in chase. There was a brisk three-hour pursuit, but the schooner traveled quickly in light airs and made its escape to the east, as Favian had intended. It would carry the news that an American force had possession of Cat Island, and that the strength of the pirates had been broken. Admiral Cochrane would have to find another route to New Orleans.

The huts on Cat Island were burned; the small arms, ammunition, and cannon transferred to Macedonian, and the forts on Timbalier Island and the Isles Dernieres were blown up by setting a match to their magazines. The smoke of destruction was still looming overhead when Dr. Solomon approached Favian on the poop.

“I would like, Captain Markham, to tender my resignation as chaplain of the Macedonian,” Solomon said.

Favian looked him up and down and shook his head. “I shall accept it, sir, with regret,” he said. “But I cannot say, Doctor, that it comes as a surprise.”

The chaplain smiled. “I have looked into my heart, Captain,” he said, “and I know that I am not cut out for this duty.”

Favian held out his hand. “I wish you the best of success,” he said. “I’m sure your next congregation will be a little more elevated than our tars.”

“Sir, you mistake me,” Solomon said. “I have no intention of continuing with the ministry. Indeed, I hope you will honor me with a midshipman’s warrant here in the Macedonian.”

Favian looked at Solomon with blank astonishment. Could the man be serious? “Doctor Solomon, I hope you will reconsider this,” he said. “You are, ah, how old?”

“Twenty-nine, Captain.”

“A year younger than I,” Favian said. “Educated by the College of New Jersey, with a doctorate. You will be confined to the gunroom with boys half your age— and these boys will be your seniors in rank, Doctor— and your background will be nothing like theirs; their education is far inferior to yours; their temperament, er, will be different,” Favian said hastily, by no means certain of the last point.

“We are alike, Captain, in the desire to earn glory, and to serve our country,” Solomon said, his eyes looking proudly into Favian’s. “I would be proud, sir, to be among their company. Besides, I understand that Captain Jacob Jones did not receive his midshipman’s warrant until he was over thirty; and Captain Jones is one of the greatest stars in our naval constellation, one whose glory—”

“Captain Jones,” Favian said, “is a very unusual man.” He regarded the chaplain carefully, bemused by the whole incident— it was so typical of the man! Glory-struck, having had a taste of action and liking it, ready to throw away his career to embark on another that promised more excitement. Talthibius Solomon, Favian thought, was very much like Favian himself had been at the age of seventeen, cruising off Tripoli in the Vixen, before the war had ended and the Embargoes had wrecked his own hunger for glory... But it was one thing, Favian thought, to lust for glory at the age of seventeen; quite another to throw up a comfortable life as a pastor and take a midshipman’s warrant in hand at the age of twenty-nine.

“I will ask you to withdraw your request for now. Doctor Solomon,” Favian said, seeing the wind go right out of the man— Solomon seemed to deflate before his amused eyes. “I want you to think some more about it. But I am short of officers on this cruise, and if you renew your request forty-eight hours from now, I will accept.”

Solomon brightened again, a smile breaking out on his features. “I will do as you ask, Captain,” he said. “But I will not change my mind.”

“Forty-eight hours, Doctor,” Favian said. “Please remember that, if you resubmit this request, I will never again call you Doctor. You will be Mister Solomon, the rawest mid on the frigate.”

“That Mister is music to me, sir,” Solomon said, and offered his salute.

Favian watched Solomon’s sprightly stride as he left the quarterdeck. He suspected the man’s enthusiasm for the Navy might not survive the war; Solomon’s heart would be in the task only so long as there was glory to be gained. The long years of peacetime duty would wear him down; his effervescent personality would not be suited to a naval truce. Then, Favian thought, he’d throw in his warrant and commence another career.

The captured vessels were marshaled inside the bay, ready to be convoyed the next day to the Southwest Pass of the Mississippi— Franklin, Revenge, the gunboat, and the prizes would be able to get over the bar, but Macedonian would have to shape its course for the Southeast Pass again. Favian’s little squadron would disperse, and then Favian once again would simply be the man who had taken Macedonian from New London without permission, put his career at hazard, and then careened off to sea on a dubious series of adventures. Would the Navy Department see the Cat Island expedition as a necessary thing? Could they possibly credit Laffite’s story of a society of Napoleonic grenadiers hiding in the Louisiana swamps? Or would they censure Favian for gullibility as well as disobedience?

That, Favian knew, would depend on the outcome. If New Orleans fell, Washington would want the heads of the men responsible, and Favian’s neck was already conveniently stretched out on the block. The Navy had sought scapegoats before, and it was instructive to bear in mind the fates of James Barron, who had lost the Chesapeake to the British in peacetime. Not to mention William Cox, the midshipman who— after the captain and all the lieutenants had been killed or wounded— had found himself in command of the same frigate when it had surrendered to the Shannon a year ago, and had been drummed out of the service because Captain Lawrence had been martyred gloriously and could not be held responsible for his fatal stupidities... these dire examples showed themselves plainly before any officer who was foolish, careless, unlucky, or simply available..

There were further complications— in the event of disaster, Commodore Patterson might well be able to shrug off the responsibility onto Favian. Patterson might not be such a calculating man, but he could be put into a situation in which he had no choice in order to save his own hide. Favian, looking out the stern windows of the frigate at the setting sun, stared gloomily into his cup of coffee and wondered when the British would come.

The next morning brought the answer. The convoy had barely managed to get out of Terre Bonne Bay on the land breeze when the sails of a schooner were sighted on the horizon. Macedonian and Malachi’s Revenge sped to intercept, but Favian’s telescope confirmed the stranger’s identity long before Gideon’s swift schooner discovered it officially. It was the pilot boat Beaux Jours, Captain Poquelin presumably with dispatches from New Orleans.

But that was not all Favian’s telescope confirmed. As the pilot boat drew nearer, Favian saw a small figure in a white gown and straw bonnet standing by the taffrail, looking anxiously at the frigate— and with the paralyzing suddenness of a clap of thunder, Favian realized he was looking at Campaspe.

*

She was out of the bosun’s chair and into his arms before he could utter a word. Favian’s mind was in a whirl; all he could think of was New Orleans in ruins, burned by Jackson as the British advanced, the inhabitants scattered to the four winds.

“What’s happened?” he asked. “Has the city been destroyed?”

She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “No,” she said, plainly taken aback by the question. “But the British have come— their fleet’s been seen. I wanted to be with you.”

Favian looked at her in astonishment, then looked up, seeing the reception line of officers ranked by the entry port, watching their embrace with guarded amusement. “Campaspe,” he said, remembering himself. “Allow me to introduce Lieutenant Chapelle. This is Lieutenant Ford, Lieutenant Swink, Lieutenant Byrne of the Marines. Mr. Seward, the master...” Each officer bowed, getting his first glimpse of his captain’s wife; Campaspe gave a little curtsy at each introduction. “Mr. Swink,” Favian finally said, “please escort Mrs. Markham to my cabin. I’ll be with you soon, dearest. Captain Poquelin, please join me on the quarterdeck.” For Poquelin was carrying a fistful of dispatches, some of them with heavy seals and ribbons dangling, and Favian wanted a clear head to read them; Campaspe seated opposite him at his cabin table would not give him a clear head..

He took his captain’s privilege on the weather quarterdeck, examined the heavy envelopes, and broke open the one from Jackson.

It was dated December eleventh, two days ago. “I expect this express will find yr. expedition gloryously successful,” it began, and then got straight to the heart of the matter. The British, it seems, had begun, in twos and threes, appearing off Cat Island— the other Cat Island, in the Mississippi Sound— on the eighth; a large fleet, “perhaps fifty sail,” according to the letter, had dropped anchor on the tenth. Favian frowned and tried to think what that said of British intentions. Perhaps nothing, but it seemed likely that their chosen anchorage indicated commitment in a certain direction. The most feasible attack on New Orleans from the Mississippi Sound would be through Lake Borgne, where Tac Jones had his five gunboats and two schooners. If he were Jones, Favian thought, he’d try to get his little squadron through Les Rigolets and into Pontchartrain very quickly. Jones could not hope to keep the British out of Borgne for very long, but he could hold Les Rigolets indefinitely— the British could not get any of their strength through there: the current was too strong and the waters too shallow. Jones’s gunboats, and the guns of the fort at Petites Coquilles, could shoot them to bits as they struggled against the force of the waters.

Borgne, Favian thought. That meant the British would not be coming up the Mississippi against the guns at Fort St. Philip, the most obvious way. From Borgne they could try to get through the bayous, which would put them right near the city, probably just below it. Or they could land on the Chantilly Peninsula and march to the city, coming out above New Orleans and cutting it off from reinforcements. If they managed to defeat Jones, they could break into Lake Pontchartrain, which would also put them well north of the city, and then try to take Fort St. John, which would give them a plain road to New Orleans. From the Mississippi Sound they could even attempt Mobile once more. Where did the British intend?

Jackson was no help. “I expect this is a faint,” the letter said, the backwoods spelling adding, somehow, to the grim purpose of the message. “They wish to draw my attention to that point when they mean to strike through Terre Bonne Bay. However I will look for them there and provide for their reception elsewhere. I expect hard knocks once the Fandango commences, but Coffee and his Tennessee men is within call and Father Time has now enlisted in the American camp.

“The situation with regard to martial law is growing more expedient. The time is not yet ripe, but once the citizens see a few more score of British sail they will fall in with our purpose.

“It is our earnest hope that Yr. Excellency will find some means of annoying the enemy at their anchorage. May the Eternal bless your arms and grant you success.”

Well, Favian thought. He and Jackson understood one another well enough. If the British intended the move off Borgne to be a “faint,” drawing attention from a real strike through Terre Bonne Bay, then they would have to change their plans in a hurry. Presumably Laffite had carried the news of the defeat of the Guard to Jackson by now: Jackson would know his rear was safe.

And then there was that piece about “annoying the enemy.” One thirty-eight-gun ex-British frigate could not hope to do much to a fifty-ship armada but annoy it, and even then the odds were higher that it would be the Americans who would be far more annoyed, ending up in chains in some prison hulk. Jackson had left the thought to the last paragraph, rather teasingly, Favian thought; Jackson’s words seemed to suggest that he would very much like the British to be “annoyed,” but that he would leave the decision up to Favian— as if it would ever be left up to anyone else. Favian was under no obligation to obey Army orders; but Army suggestions were another thing.

Next Favian opened the dispatch from Patterson. The news concerning the British appearance off Cat Island was repeated. “Lt. Jones is reporting to me daily by the Alligator tender,” Patterson wrote. “I have ordered him to Pass Christiana to keep the Enemy under observation. If pressed, he is to retreat to Les Rigolets. I hope it may be possible for you to move to his relief.”.

Favian snorted— Tac Jones was on his own at Pass Christiana; there was no way for Macedonian to get into the shallow water to help him, nor any way the British would let Jones get his boats out into deeper water to help the Macedonian. Patterson was suggesting something else, much in the same way Jackson had made another, similar suggestion.

All along, ever since Favian had captured the British plans with the Carnation corvette, the battle for the Lower Mississippi had been fought, not so much against the British, as against time. Time to alert the city to its danger, time for the Louisiana troops to be called in and the city’s population to be mobilized. New Orleans still needed time, time for Coffee and the Baton Rouge men to march to the city’s aid, time to declare martial law, organize the Creoles, recruit the Baratarians, finish getting the forts in order, find crew for the Louisiana. With a raid on the enemy, Macedonian could provide a little time— even if that time was bought by Macedonian’s loss..

Patterson, Jackson, and Favian all knew that the ultimate fate of Macedonian was a minor matter compared to the fate of New Orleans. If New Orleans could be bought a little time by sacrificing the frigate in a suicidal raid on Cochrane’s fleet, then both Patterson and Jackson, their letters suggested, were willing to see the sacrifice made. But they were wise in the way of military formality and precedence, and they did not say it straight out.

Favian looked up from the letter. He saw the captured pirate craft still fighting to keep station as they headed for the Mississippi, saw Poquelin standing politely by, saw Lazarus, the mad preacher, looking at him with his strange, insinuant eyes. Lazarus had predicted all along that this voyage would end with disaster. Well, maybe it would. But the Macedonian was not a card Favian would throw away lightly.

He read on. “M. de Marigny, in General Jackson’s absence, has persuaded Judge Hall to release the pirate Baratarians from prison, provided that they enlist in the service of the United States in this desperate hour. Several batteries of artillery are forming, and I have received a few men for the poor Louisiana, tho’ not as many as I had hoped. It is intriguing to see these pirates swaggering up and down the streets of the city, protesting their devoted allegiance to a Nation of whose laws they stand in defiance.”

Bernard de Marigny had repaid Jackson’s slight by having released the men Jackson was so fond of denouncing. It would work, Favian thought, to the city’s benefit in the end, and perhaps to Jackson’s— the general no longer had the dangerous burden of making the decision himself. Now that Marigny and Judge Hall had taken the initiative, Jackson could recruit the rest of the Baratarians, presumably including both Laffites, under the cloak of vox populi.

There was another letter from Claiborne, proclaiming the “Lion at the Gates,” and calling the blessings of the Almighty and all his angels down on Favian’s squadron— nothing important there; Favian knew that Claiborne’s hour was over. The governor had been moved to the sidelines of history. Now the fate of the city would be decided by Jackson, Patterson, and perhaps by Markham of the Macedonian. Plus, of course, the British.

Favian folded the letters and frowned. Poquelin would be taking the Beaux Jours back to New Orleans, and Favian’s dispatches, already written for delivery to Claiborne, Jackson, and Patterson. Did this news require that he send acknowledgment? Perhaps so.

“Captain Poquelin, I’d be obliged if you’d carry some mail back to the city,” Favian said. “I’ll have to go below and dictate some letters— can you and your boat wait?”

“But of course, Commodore.”

That title again. If he heard it much more often, Favian would forget to resent it..

“Please hail Beaux Jours and tell them to follow in our wake,” Favian said. “Mr. Seward, take us back to our station. I’m going below.”

It was time to deal with Campaspe.

She seemed very much alone in Favian’s cabin, very small, sitting nervously in her white gown, her bonnet lying before her on the table. Her eyes flickered nervously to his as he entered the room, and he hesitated before he came to sit beside her and took her hand.

“Did I do wrong?” she asked. “Captain Poquelin tried to discourage me, but I insisted. He was very nice to me on the trip, though.”

“Campaspe, my dear,” Favian began. “I can understand why you came. But it wasn’t wise. I shall ask Captain Poquelin to take you back to New Orleans.”

Her eyes widened for a moment, as if in fear; then he saw her lips narrow with defiance. “Favian, what if there is no New Orleans now? Jackson will burn it, you told me. I feel safer here, with you.”

Should he tell her that Macedonian was a card that might shortly be thrown away to the enemy? That he might have to buy time with the lives of his crew, with his own life if it came to that? No: he would protect her from that knowledge. It seemed a little enough courtesy, perhaps the last he would ever offer her.

“This is a ship of war, my love,” Favian said. “There isn’t a place for you here. There isn’t a place for any woman. Ships are dangerous for anyone who doesn’t know them.”

“I’ve been on ships before. I’ve been on Fontenoy’s privateer.”

Favian frowned: he’d forgotten her history. Even been in a battle, for heaven’s sake.

“You were dressed as a boy. You’re not a boy now, you’re my wife.”

She looked up at him nervously, her dark eyes wide. “I’m your wife,” she repeated quickly, then took a breath, steeling herself. “If that’s so, I should be here, not in New Orleans. If Maria-Anna hadn’t been so far gone with child, she would have come with me. She’s sailed with Gideon before; she was in the fight off Fort Bowyer, and with him in the Creek War. She’s safer with Gideon than in New Orleans or Mobile. And I’m safer with you.”

He recognized this stubbornness; he remembered, the morning he’d asked for her hand, that he’d heard the same tone in reply to Gideon’s and Maria-Anna’s objections. He’d admired it, then; now he knew facing it wasn’t going to be easy. But this time her determined manner crumbled.

“I was so frightened for you!” Campaspe cried. “And I missed you!” She threw herself into his arms, pressing her face into his neck. He clasped his arms around her fiercely, hearing her gasps as she struggled for control. For everyone’s sake, he thought, this madness had to end.

“Campaspe,” he said gently. “You must go back with Poquelin. It’s for the best, truly.”

She fell back, swiping awkwardly with her fingers at the colored patches on her cheeks. “I’m not a good sailor’s wife,” she said. “When you’re away I can’t forget you, I can’t forget a whole part of my life. You shouldn’t have married me.”

“Don’t say that!” he said. “Don’t ever say that!”.

She spoke the truth, most likely; but he didn’t want her touching that truth, even by accident. He took her two hands in his own and spoke quickly. “We’re sailing for the British, dear,” he said. “It will be a dangerous situation. I will have to worry about this ship, all these men. I don’t want to worry about you as well.”

“I’ll worry about you,” said Campaspe. “I’ll die without knowing.”

“Maria-Anna will take care of you,” Favian went on, matter-of-factly. “She’ll know what to do if the British come.”

“Maria-Anna isn’t there!” Campaspe cried. As Favian stared at her in surprise, she went on. “I have her letters to give to Gideon. She decided to go to Mobile; she’ll meet you all there. She took her birthing stool and went north across Pontchartrain and then took a pilot boat through the Sound to Mobile Bay. She thought Mobile would be safer, and she should have got there before the British arrived.”

The news took Favian aback. Was New Orleans in such danger that sensible, hardheaded people like Maria-Anna were evacuating? Or was it simply that she wanted to get to her own house, her own property, before her child came?

“She wanted me to go with her,” Campaspe said, a bit embarrassed. “She was angry when I said that I wouldn’t.”

“I’m not surprised,” Favian said. He could imagine that scene, Maria-Anna firing her withering logic at the stubborn girl. But why did Maria-Anna run from the city?.

“Campaspe, tell me truly,” he said. “Why did she leave? Did she think the British would take the city? Or did she want to visit her own property in Mobile before her time came?”

“Both, I think,” Campaspe said. “Gideon wants to leave the South, take her to Portsmouth until the war is over. They were going to leave as soon as their prizes were sold. She was afraid the British would take the Head of the Passes and blockade the river. She knew the Revenge could get in and out of Mobile even with a blockade.”

Yes, that made sense. Once Gideon had his wife’s message, he would be running for Mobile— that would take him past the British fleet, but Malachi’s Revenge could run away from any British ship in the world; there would be no danger there. New Orleans was a danger, he decided, if Maria-Anna had left. Campaspe could not go with Poquelin back to the city; he would give her to Gideon and let the Revenge take her to Mobile and then home to New England.

“I see,” Favian said. “Then we’re lucky. You won’t have to return to New Orleans; you can go home with Gideon. Then go to stay with my family in New Hampshire. It will only be a journey of a few weeks in the Revenge.”

Campaspe shook her head; the stubborn look was back. “If I’m going in any ship, it will be in yours,” she said.

Favian realized he had to tell her what he’d hoped to spare her; there was no other way. He tried to keep his voice matter-of-fact. “There are over fifty British ships,” Favian said. “Many of them are larger than mine. There’s a good chance we won’t win, but even if we lose it may help General Jackson.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to expose you to that. A beaten ship is a bad thing. And you would be taken prisoner. I don’t want you a prisoner, Campaspe.”

He put his arms around her, and he could feel her body steeling itself, readying the next protest. It came in a quiet, meditative voice that surprised him; this seemed no childish complaint, no girlish stubbornness, but gave rather the impression of a fully formed, mature decision..

“Then I’ll stay, dear,” she said. Her eyes were calm. “I won’t leave you. Can’t. I’d go mad. Being a prisoner would be better.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

She reached out to touch his cheek. “Of course I do.” There was a slight, sad smile on her lips. “Don’t worry about me. Just do what you must.”

“I’ll call Gideon, have him take you,” Favian said. Through the stern cabin windows he saw Beaux Jours riding in the frigate’s wake, ready to take his dispatches back to New Orleans. “I’ve got work to do now, Campaspe. Letters to write.”

“I won’t leave you.”

“You swore to obey me,” Favian said, bereft of any other argument.

“Then the Lord may strike me dead for breaking my oath, but I still won’t leave you.” Campaspe had a quiet, triumphant smile on her face, as if she knew the matter was settled. She turned to look around at his cabin, at the improvised cabin furniture, bought half in New London secondhand shops, half built by the ship’s carpenter when the Macedonian hastened to leave the Thames after Favian’s usurpation of command.

Favian looked at her sternly. “We will speak of this after Gideon comes.” He left the cabin briefly, told Seward to heave the frigate to, and ordered Stanhope to fly the signal ordering all captains to report aboard.

In his cabin again, he wrote to Claiborne, Jackson, and Patterson, briefly acknowledging receipt of their dispatches. To Patterson he wrote that he hoped he would be able to relieve Lieutenant Jones; to Jackson he wrote that he hoped to commence annoying the British within a few days..

He imagined Jackson’s feral pleasure at the receipt of that message, the glow in the deep-set eyes. War to the knife; knife to the hilt. There was nothing, he realized now, to do but throw Macedonian at the foe. The frigate’s appearance would surprise them, make them revise their plans, perhaps make them hesitate or blunder. All he could hope for. He looked up again at Campaspe. For a moment his mind swarmed with the images of the Macedonian beaten and rolling, as he’d first seen her, the frigate’s decks awash with blood. He would have to get her away from this. Madness to let her stay.

He went on deck again, seeing Malachi’s Revenge hove to off the port beam lowering a boat for Gideon. He handed his dispatches to Poquelin. “You may head back for New Orleans, sir,” he said. “Good luck to you.”

Poquelin looked at him carefully. “And your lady, Commodore?”

“She will take passage on the Revenge, yonder,” Favian said.

“Very well,” Poquelin said. “I bid you farewell, Commodore. I wish you all possible success.”

Favian saw his eyes; Poquelin knew it was hopeless. “I thank you, sir,” he said, and saw the man over the rail.

Beaux Jours filled its sails and sped to the east just seconds before the Revenge hove alongside the frigate. “Favian,” Gideon nodded in greeting as he stepped through the entry port; Favian took his arm and led him to the cabin, stopping on the way to give orders for the noon meal. As Gideon stepped into the cabin, he stopped short as he saw Campaspe and frowned.

“I brought a letter from Maria-Anna,” Campaspe said, jumping up from her seat. She looked in the lining of her bonnet, brought out the envelope.

“Best read it first,” Favian said. “We’ll have time before Fontenoy comes. The letter will probably tell you why Campaspe is here, what the situation is. The British have arrived, Gideon.”

“As the Lord wills,” Gideon said, his mouth tightening. He took the letter, opened it as he walked to the stern windows, and stood alone, silhouetted darkly against the bright light as he read his wife’s words. Concluding, he looked up for a long moment, still facing aft; he seemed to be at prayer.

“I think she’s done a wise thing,” he said finally, and turned to look at Campaspe. “You’re a fool, girl,” he said.

“I’ve heard from Jackson,” Favian said. “There are at least fifty sail anchored off Cat Island in the Mississippi Sound. I’m going for them, probably tomorrow night. That will give you a chance to get into Mobile while I’m keeping the British busy.”

Gideon nodded, the frown still on his face. “Fontenoy’s privateer won’t swim for long after he ran onto that shoal; she’ll still have to go up the river. He can take the prizes with him; they’ll be as safe at New Orleans as anywhere in the Gulf.” He looked up at Favian, speaking earnestly. “I’ll support you, of course. When you strike the British.”

Favian felt sudden warm, gratified surprise; there was no way he could have expected a privateer to help him in this quixotic attack. “Gideon,” he said, “I’m grateful beyond measure. You’re taking a risk for your country, beyond—” He would have said, beyond what any Navy man could expect in a privateer, but stopped himself in time. “I would never have—” he essayed again.

Gideon waved his hand. “The Lord may provide profit in this,” he said. “If I can make prize of a few transports, the head money alone will pay for it. And if the British are so alarmed they spend all their time guarding their convoy, they won’t be blockading me in Mobile.”

Very well. If Gideon wanted to disguise this generosity as a search for profit, let him. Favian hoped that Revenge, at least, would get away: with luck it would.

There was a military tramp overhead, followed by the shrill of pipes. “That’s Fontenoy,” Favian said: He waited for the knock at the door, then stood. Midshipman Lovette, his arm still bound in a sling from his encounter with Levesque, opened the door for the Mauritian to enter. Like Gideon before him, Fontenoy hesitated when he saw Campaspe, then walked into the cabin; she smiled graciously as he kissed her hand. Favian wondered if she’d been practicing her gracious smiles.

“Mr. Lovette,” Favian said, “would you be so kind as to take Mrs. Markham to the wardroom, give them my compliments, and ask them to offer her their hospitality for the next hour or so? My dear, I hope you will excuse us.”

Campaspe rose, curtsying to Lovette’s bow. “I would rather have a tour of the ship, if I may,” she said. Favian found himself surprised by her accent; it was a surprisingly successful imitation of the languid, affected way the Creole women in New Orleans spoke their English. She had been practicing a genteel act, and had also demonstrated a good ear.

“If you’re not otherwise occupied, Mr. Lovette,” Favian said. It was courtesy only; midshipmen had no set duties and served entirely at the pleasure of their seniors.

“Of course, sir,” Lovette smiled. “I’m not much good for anything else at the moment.” He bowed to Campaspe, she bobbed a curtsy, and they left the room, Campaspe still acting the gracious lady..

In the company of Macedonian’s mids, Favian thought, he gave that ladylike act about three minutes. He was proved right: very shortly he heard a peal of feminine laughter through his skylight, mixed with the polite laughter of at least three of the midshipmen. It appeared they had made prize of his wife. He hoped they would not encourage her in her notion of staying aboard.

“The British have arrived, Captain Fontenoy,” Favian said. “They’re anchored off Cat Island, near Lake Borgne.”

“I see,” Fontenoy said, frowning. He fingered the odd weapon at his waist, his fighting iron, and then looked up, first at Gideon, then at Favian.

“You will attack them?” he asked. Favian smiled inwardly; this man knew Gideon very well, better than Favian himself.

“Aye,” Gideon said briefly.

“Tomorrow night,” Favian said. “We know your Franklin is in no condition to join us. I think it would be best if you convoyed our prizes to New Orleans. You can’t get them to Mobile or Pensacola without danger; New Orleans is by far the safest place.” Fontenoy seemed caught by contradictory emotions, relief at the knowledge he was not expected to participate in the attack on fifty enemy, regret at missing the possible prize money..

“Once in New Orleans,” Favian said, “you can get Franklin repaired and then act as seems best to you.”

“Very well,” Fontenoy said. “I understand.”

“I hope,” Favian said, “that you may find room for Mrs. Markham on your vessel.” He turned to Gideon. “I was going to ask her to travel with you, Gideon, but if you’re coming with us in the attack ...”

“New Orleans is the best place for her,” Gideon said..

“I will give Mrs. Markham my own cabin and take my rest in the chart room,” Fontenoy said. He smiled. “I’ve had her aboard once before, you know. She was a brave little powder monkey.”

There were more tramplings and whistlings: Lieutenant Cunningham, of the gunboat, coming aboard. Favian called to Crane, his steward, for charts of the area, and then for coffee. The four captains spent an hour working over the maps, talking over plans for attack on the British anchorage. Cunningham was to accompany Fontenoy as far as Fort St. Philip, where his gunboat would anchor and prepare to support the fort against any British attack on the river. Macedonian and the Revenge would part from the convoy at the Southwest Pass of the Mississippi, then sail in a wide curve around the delta, the Chandeleur Islands, and into the narrow gap between the northernmost of the Chandeleurs and Ship Island on the Mississippi Sound to strike at the British anchorage. That gap worried Favian: it was only ten miles across and could be sealed off behind them once they entered. He was uncertain whether the frigate had any other way out; the Chandeleur Sound seemed too shallow for his frigate, and he didn’t want to chance the Mississippi Sound without a pilot.

“Sir, I can send you a man, a master’s mate named Stephens,” Lt. Cunningham said. “He’s sailed with gunboats in the Mississippi Sound for years. He’s not a proper pilot, but he knows the water.”

“Sailing in a frigate, with a pilot used to boats that draw only three feet of water,” said Gideon, “may be more dangerous than sailing without a pilot altogether. You draw eighteen feet, Favian, and that Stephens may not know the water beyond the fact that parts of the sound are deeper than a fathom.”

“He’s a little better than that, sir,” Cunningham said, defensive.

“I’ll take him,” Favian said. “I hope I won’t have to chance the Mississippi Sound at all, but if I do, I suppose I can always disregard his advice.”

“Shall I have my boat fetch him, sir?”

“Very well.”

Crane entered, while Cunningham was out, to report that dinner was ready, “dinner” being the noon meal, at present served closer to the hour of two.

“Good,” Favian said. “I think we’ve made all the plans we can, at least until we see the enemy. Clear away the charts, Crane, and then ask Mrs. Markham to join us.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Campaspe entered with a streak of slime on the hem of her gown, which she tried without success to clean with a napkin; she explained it came from the cable tier.

“The cable tier?” Favian asked. That was far below the waterline, where the anchor cables had been stored just that morning, hauled dripping from the mud. “What were you doing down there?”

“I wanted to see the ship,” she said with a laughing smile that Favian had seen once before, and which made him instantly suspicious.

She was smiling and charming throughout dinner, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks bronzed a bit with the sun. There was an undertone that made Favian uneasy, but nothing clear he could point to; in the end he decided it was the sea air, the sun, and the company of midshipmen nearer her own age than the stern captains gathered in his cabin. After their meal, Lieutenant Cunningham was sent to rejoin his gunboat, and Gideon then took his leave. He took Campaspe’s hand.

“Try to make for Mobile if the British haven’t got above the city,” he said. “We can join you there. I wish you hadn’t been separated from Maria-Anna. If there is confusion in the city, and you can’t decide what to do, seek out Pastor Hobbs at the Presbyterian chapel.”

“Thank you, Captain Gideon,” she said. “I’ll follow your advice, I’m sure.”

He looked at her carefully, his eyes narrowed; clearly he was suspecting some plot as well, “Pay attention to your husband, girl,” he said finally, then looked at Favian. “Good luck, Favian.”

“And to you.” Favian turned to the French privateer. “Captain Fontenoy, I hope you will excuse Mrs. Markham and me. We’d like to say our farewells.”

“Of course, Commodore. Madame Markham.” He kissed her hand again, Campaspe smiling merrily at the gesture, and then made his way out of the cabin. Favian looked at his bride.

“Let me stay, Favian,” she said quietly. Her eyes were full of he knew not what: hope, anxiety, some secret of her own he could not penetrate. “I want to be with you in this.”

Slowly, he shook his head. “You must go with Fontenoy to New Orleans,” he said. “It’s for the best. Truly.”

She came forward and took his hands, then leaned her head on his breast. “I’ll go if I must,” she said. “I spoke to Lovette and Tolbert; they told me I could not stay, there was no place for me.”

“Did they indeed?” That was a surprise. Favian would have thought they would have been in love with the idea of the captain’s young wife joining them on the voyage. And, though he could imagine Tolbert preaching on behalf of a discipline that he, Tolbert, had never put into practice himself, he couldn’t imagine Campaspe swallowing it.

“Favian, I don’t want to go in Fontenoy’s boat,” said Campaspe. “I’m a captain’s wife, and I want to go in the captain’s boat, with all your crew and cox’n. And one of those midshipmen as escort.”

“If that’s what you want, dearest.” Her arms went around him; they held each other for a long minute, their bodies swaying gently with the scent of the sea. There was something wrong here, but Favian could not tell what it was. Why the devil was she suddenly so concerned about her status?

Favian continued to be troubled throughout the rest of the good-bye: as Fontenoy went ahead to get his cabin ready, as a boat was swung out and Campaspe’s baggage put into it. Favian kissed her farewell, there by the entry port in front of the honor guard, receiving an extra little twist of pleasure from kissing her in front of men who hadn’t seen a woman for weeks now....

It was Campaspe’s dazzling smile, her famous smile, that troubled him most, the smile that flashed out over the boat’s stern sheets as it pulled away for the Franklin; it suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t seen the smile all day and that there was something wrong in seeing it now, when she was leaving against her will.

He smiled and waved back. Campaspe was off the frigate and could not come back; so what could the smile mean? He stood on the quarterdeck, watching through one of the quartermasters’ long glasses as Campaspe and baggage were swung aboard the Franklin, as Potter and Tolbert stepped aboard as her escort. Well, that was done.

He paced, irritated, until the boat began its journey back. The boat stayed an inordinately long time, until Favian was tempted to fire a gun to signal its recall— but then he thought that perhaps Campaspe was complaining about her accommodations, and that if that were the case he had best not try Fontenoy’s patience any further by rudeness in signaling. Eventually the boat began its progress back to the frigate, and Favian, before going down to his cabin, gave curt orders to Seward to get Macedonian back to its station. He would try to get some sleep; it was clear that tomorrow night he would get none.

It was some hours later— after he’d slept for three hours, signaled farewell to Fontenoy and the convoy off the Southwest Pass, and took the frigate out into the deepening evening, after the hands had eaten their supper and had their evening whiskey ration— that Favian realized how he’d been fooled. Grim as the Angel of Death in his black coat, he rushed down the quarterdeck ladder, then went down the hatch to the gun deck. The little candle in the first battle lantern he chose had melted in the tropical heat and fell over, snuffing itself; he hurled it aside with a curse. The next candle stayed lit, and he rushed along the guns, startled seamen stepping aside with grunts of surprise and half-sketched salutes, knowing with a single glance at his anger that the quarterdeck was in a flogging mood and it would be wise to step warily around the captain for the next few days.

Favian went down another hatch, between the swaying hammocks of the berth deck, then through a bulkhead and down another hatch. The smells of the cable tier assaulted him: bottom ooze, decaying vegetation, wet hemp.

“Campaspe,” he said. “Come out. At once.”

It had been quite neatly done; he had to admit it. The conspiracy had been plotted while Favian and his council of war were laying their own plans. Potter and Tolbert had been the active agents, though no doubt the entire ship knew the scheme by heart by the time the next watch was called. Campaspe had been delivered, all smiles, to her new quarters on the Franklin, announced that she was tired and had a headache, and asked not to be disturbed. Potter, to delay things, had asked for a tour of the snow from Fontenoy’s lieutenant, and while Potter was loudly admiring the neatly worked stropping on the privateer’s runner blocks, Campaspe had been dressing herself in midshipman’s gear, trousers, jacket, and round hat.

And then had come the most extraordinary piece of diversion, demonstrating that whoever had come up with the plan— Potter or Stanhope, Favian thought— had a fine tactical mind and would probably go far in the Navy if he survived the stern right arm of Sailing Master Seward. Mr. Midshipman George Potter had, at a signal from Tolbert, jumped up onto Franklin’s capstan and began to lift his fine tenor voice to the heavens. He’d chosen the perfect song, old Charles Dibdin’s “Tom Bowling,” a lachrymose, sentimental, popular, and very long ballad about the death of a young sailor. While the privateers stood about in various stages of amazement, and Potter was sobbing out the chorus with hands clasped piteously to his breast and a manly tear glinting in his eye, Tolbert and Campaspe slipped quietly out of the aft scuttle and slid into the waiting boat. Potter finished wailing the last chorus, “His soul is gone aloft,” then bowed, thanked his audience, and jumped for the boat.

There was no trouble getting Campaspe aboard Macedonian; the officers and crew present were more interested in getting the pinnace aboard and the frigate put before the wind than in counting heads. Campaspe had saluted the officer of the deck carefully, keeping her hat in front of her face, which was probably unnecessary because Swink was very likely not paying any attention to the midshipmen anyway. She then nipped below to the cable tier, where the thoughtful mids had gone so far as to provide her a pair of lanterns and a picnic lunch done up in a steel box to keep the rats away.

The discovery of the captain’s wife hiding in the cable tier had set in motion a number of inquiries. Chapelle, now acting as executive officer on the absence, death, or incapacity of all three of his seniors, had grilled the gunroom thoroughly. Tolbert and Potter had cheerfully confessed, and Stanhope had admitted his complicity— it was dishonorable, of course, to lie to one’s superior about a matter as trivial as this..

While the guilty mids were bent over one of the aft eighteen-pounders and given two dozen cuts each from Mr. Seward’s cane, the master-at-arms, Martin Herzog, had been interrogating the boat’s crew. Each, from Kuusikoski down, admitted knowledge of Campaspe’s delivery to the Macedonian but affected to have been surprised by her appearance, denied participation in any conspiracy, and said they’d simply been obeying orders from their superiors, Tolbert and Potter. Favian’s initial impulse to flog them till their backbones showed moderated swiftly; he remembered the way they’d stood up bravely to the Guard’s bayonets on Timbalier Island, and in the end stopped their liquor ration for a week. Most likely even that would prove no hardship; no doubt the midshipmen’s berth would be slipping them whiskey. Potter also lost his acting-lieutenancy; Favian would consult with Chapelle on a substitute.

Favian had been tempted to let Campaspe watch the midshipmen’s punishment but decided against it. Instead he’d invite the young men to join him at breakfast tomorrow and watch them squirm in their hard, straight-backed chairs— they’d be doing no sitting down for some days, he was certain. Perhaps the worst of it was that Favian could not get the words and music to “Tom Bowling” out of his head, and the constant mental repetition of the syrupy lyrics had him grating his teeth.

Yet shall poor Tom find pleasant weather,

When He, who all commands,

Shall give, to call life’s crew together,

The word to pipe all hands.

Thus Death, who kings and tars dispatches,

In vain Tom’s life has doff’d,

For, though his body’s under hatches,

His soul has gone aloft.

His soul has gone aloft.

There was a silent late supper with Campaspe. She was dressed in the one gown she’d wrapped in a sailor’s bundle; her smile broke out frequently as she dawdled over her plate. “I’ll have to go on deck for a few minutes,” he said, pushing back his chair; and with an impulsive move she seized his hand.

“I want to be your wife always,” she said, her eyes upturned, imploring. “Not just when you’re on shore. Please understand.”

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he repeated, and went on deck. He checked the set of the sails, the estimated position and speed chalked by the officer of the deck on the slate, and paced for a few minutes on the weather quarterdeck before being interrupted by Talthibius Solomon.

“Sir,” Solomon said. “It’s been two days. I would like to repeat my request, sir.”

“Accepted, Doc— Mr. Solomon,” Favian said. “Hand your resignation to my clerk tomorrow; he’ll do the necessary paperwork.”

“Very well, sir.” Solomon made as if to leave, then hesitated. “I hope, Captain Markham, that you will allow me one last exercise of my chaplain’s privileges— my eleemosynary duties, as you once called them.”

“What, sir, is the nature of this exercise?” asked Favian, having a good idea.

“To inquire whether all is well between your lovely bride and yourself?”

“That,” Favian said coldly, “should remain between myself and my bride, don’t you think?”

“She’s a lonely young girl, you know,” Solomon said, refusing to accept his dismissal. “Only been married one night before you went away. She knows she has no rivals but the Navy, and it was the Navy she wanted to deceive. Not yourself.”

“I am the Navy in these waters, Mr. Solomon,” Favian said. “Get the hell off my quarterdeck.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Favian turned and frowned at the frigate’s wake. What rankled was not, he knew, the fact that Campaspe had made a fool of him— he could live with that, even laugh at it; he knew it would make a good story in wardroom messes for years to come— rather it was that she was here at all. He had hoped to busy himself with the Navy, forget the fact of his unfortunate marriage, at least for a while. Now he was confronted by his own folly and adversity, confronted by its physical presence in the form of Campaspe, and he knew he was not ready for it. He had needed a breathing space, a piece of time buried in military abstraction, and he had not got enough.

He nodded to Lieutenant Ford, who was keeping watch, and went below. Campaspe, still sitting at the table that Crane had cleared while he was out, looked up as he came in.

“Was everything ataunto?” she asked. A word she had picked up from Gideon, no doubt.

“Aye,” Favian said. “We’re doing eight knots. Not bad in this damn Gulf wind.”

“Davis brought a pot of cocoa. I thought you might like some.”

“Thank you.” He sat down at the table, and she poured cups of cocoa. They sipped in silence.

“Campaspe,” he said. “Don’t do this again. I could laugh at it, but others won’t. If the men see the captain’s authority flouted successfully, they might try it themselves. And then I’d have to punish them.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Not for what I did. But for any punishments, yes.”

“Don’t feel too sorry over the mids; they were just caned. They knew they’d be caned when they agreed to help you. But if one of the seamen misbehaves, I may have to have him tied to a grating and flog him with a cat. That’s not so delicate an operation.”

“No,” she said. Her voice was low, subdued.

“I can’t,” Favian said, “blame the midshipmen for falling a little in love with you. But it was wicked to use them.”

“Yes,” she said. “I’ve often been wicked. But it’s always been for love, Favian.”

“Not always. Remember M. Listeau.”

She smiled. “That was a special case. Revenge. Fontenoy called me ugly last year, when Gideon took me out of the Franklin.”

“That was ungallant of him,” Favian said. “And untrue.”

She seemed touched by his compliment. “Thank you, Favian.” She took his hand. “No matter what happens, I’m happy to be here with you.” He knew a cue when he heard it.

If, he thought as he carried her to his cot, there were sweeter ways to make up a quarrel, he had yet to find them. Her eyes shone as she turned her head up to receive his kiss, and he felt her fingers eagerly plucking at his clothing as he got rid of it. Favian’s bed, built by the ship’s carpenter, was long enough to hold him— the first ever in his long career that didn’t require him to fold up like a clasp knife when he went to sleep— but the bed was chastely narrow, and there didn’t seem room enough for elbows and knees; the movement of the sea provided a few surprises until they got used to it. Campaspe was a little more venturesome than before, beginning to understand her capacity for pleasure and her power over it— a little more practice and this could be a lot of fun!

The narrow cot forced them to lie in one another’s arms; it was still very warm in the close cabin, and Favian eventually found an old shirt and put it on so they wouldn’t keep sticking together. She wrapped herself around him and put her head on his shoulder. He kissed her lazily.

“Aren’t you glad you didn’t send me off with Fontenoy?” she said with a sly smile.

“Tonight I’m glad. Tomorrow night, when we pitch into the British, I won’t be glad at all.”

“It’s a big ship. There’s room for me here.”

“The Navy frowns on taking ladies into combat. There have been some bad examples.”

“Really? Who?” She propped her head up on her arm and looked at him quizzically.

Favian frowned. It was not customary to discuss Navy affairs with outsiders. “There was a man named Morris, Commodore Richard Valentine Morris,” he said. The story was public knowledge, anyway. “Held command off Tripoli for a time. His wife liked the society in European ports, so that’s where the fleet spent most of its time. That’s the story, anyway.”

“Did you ever meet him?”

“Morris? Aye, and his wife, and his son, and the colored slave girl they took with them. I had two cruises in the Mediterranean under Morris, but on the first I had a mad captain who ignored all his orders and never made contact with the commodore. The second cruise, in the Vixen, there was a dinner in Palermo that Morris gave for the junior officers. I’m afraid we were all rather contemptuous of him by then, and it showed. He was relieved right afterward.”

“A mad captain? I’ve met one!” Campaspe cried. “Captain Addams of the Prinsessa! His men mutinied. Gideon saved all our lives.” She looked at him with a grin. “Addams was a drunk,” she said. “But he’s teetotal now, serving as a sailor on the Revenge. What was your mad captain like?”

“Daniel McNeil?” Favian repressed a shudder. That had been his first cruise and only the resilience and fervor of his youth had got him through it. “He may have been a drunk, but if he was it didn’t show. He was just crazy. Sailed all over the Mediterranean, never made contact with the commodore. Marooned three of his officers in France, and kidnapped three French officers to take their place. They didn’t suit either, so he stranded them in Algiers. He was dismissed the service at the end of the cruise. I heard he joined the Coast Guard.”

“Are there any mad captains in the Navy now?”

“Nay. Not since Commodore Preble took command in the Mediterranean. After that the Navy knew what a good captain looked like.”

“I’ve heard of Preble,” Campaspe said, “Lieutenant Blake used to talk about him.”

“Bull Blake? I heard he was on the New Orleans station. I served with him on the Delaware, in gunboats.”

“His gunboat used to be stationed at Mobile. Gideon and him are friends.”

“He and Gideon.”

“He and Gideon are friends.” Smiling, doing her lazy Creole dialect. The rich-planter tones faded, and she spoke rapidly. “He’s jealous of you because you were with Preble and he wasn’t. He says that Preble’s Boys look out for one another.”

“You shouldn’t have told me that,” Favian said.

“Isn’t it true?”

“Perhaps it is. Preble ran a good school, and the graduates have been outstanding. Decatur, Jones, Lawrence, Hull, Bainbridge, Potter ...”

“Markham,” Campaspe said promptly.

He smiled. “Markham. Very well. But what Blake said to Gideon was in confidence. It shouldn’t be repeated.”

“I don’t mind,” she said, “if people are jealous of you.” She looked at him, her eyes bright as a sparrow’s, then went on. “Did you do well at Cat Island? I forgot to ask.” She frowned, her eyes narrowing. “Your body went all stiff when I asked you that.” She touched his arm. “Didn’t it go well?”

“Well enough,” he said. “We lost some men. Lieutenant Eastlake— he was at the wedding, remember? Some others.”

“I’m sorry.” She kissed him gravely. “If you don’t want to talk about it...”

Favian tried to smile. “There are better things to talk about.” There was a fatalistic lesson in Navy deaths, seen in the random spread of grapeshot or cannister. It could happen to anyone, to anyone who wore the uniform, and at any time; if the sentry in that sand fort had been a little more alert, it could have been Favian lying in a grave at the water’s edge instead of Eastlake. A man with Favian’s experience could reduce the risk, but could never end it altogether..

Favian had been at Navy wakes. There was a secret in those insensate debauches: that the uniformed men were mourning their own deaths as well, knowing it could easily have been them on the Intrepid when it was blown up off Tripoli or standing on the quarterdeck of the Chesapeake when Broke’s broadside tore it to pieces... The secret was brutal and somehow cherished; it was one Favian hoped to keep from Campaspe’s knowledge. It was a thing the young should not share. Not knowing it, he thought, would be a mercy to her.

“All right.” Campaspe smiled, a little nervously. “I didn’t want to—” She tossed her head. “Never mind.”

“It went well enough,” Favian insisted.

Campaspe nodded, tight-lipped. There was a heavy silence. Favian fiddled self-consciously with the blanket. Campaspe put her arms around him, held him tightly. “I love you,” she whispered. “I really do.” Favian had the sensation she was speaking to herself rather than him. He touched her hair.

“You’re scared,” she said. Her voice was close to his ear. “That’s all right.”

He felt himself stiffen and couldn’t help it. Damn this narrow cot! He had to speak. “Afraid for you, perhaps,” he said. Campaspe said nothing, her cheek pressed to his neck; he added, “That’s not it, fear. I’ve been through this kind of thing many times. It’s the Navy. It’s what I do. You’ll understand some day.”

“So cold,” she said; again there was that unearthly feeling she was speaking to herself. “So cold. That’s all right, my darling.”

Bewildered, he let her clasp him; he could feel the moist warmth of her breath against his neck. “I’ve been through it, remember?” she said after a pause. “I was on the Franklin when we fought a British schooner. We got beat. Fontenoy managed to get alongside, and we tried to board three times, failed each time. Fontenoy was wild, went bright red. The Franklin was all he had. Gideon finally saved us.” She kissed his neck, propped her head up on her hand again. She shuddered. “It was awful. Blood everywhere. I was carrying powder. Tried to carry a cutlass with the boarders, but I got stepped on, so I hid behind a gun till it was over. The smell was the worst. You know what I mean.”

Yes. Warm blood, torn bowel, fear. One never forgot. “You shouldn’t have been there,” he said. “It must have been terrible for you.”

“Same for me as for anyone. At least I didn’t get hurt.” Campaspe took his hand in both of hers. “Favian,” she said. “Give me something to do tomorrow night, when you meet the British. I don’t want to sit in the cable tier alone.”

“I can’t, darling. There’s no place.”

Her dark hair fell across her face. She tossed her head. “I’ll carry powder again. It’s better than sitting in the dark and remembering. I don’t want to think; I’d rather have something to keep me busy.”

“There’s no place,” he said.

Campaspe dropped his hand and frowned. She leaned back and pushed her hair back from her face; for a moment Favian saw her young, rounded breast, pink-nippled... there was an odd tenderness that touched his thoughts, not erotic but in a strange way fraternal..

Good God, he realized, she would rather risk getting killed than sit in the dark with the guns going off, sitting with only her imagination for company. Risk her young body, her promise. Nothing, of course, he hadn’t done at the same age; but the circumstances had been far different. He had worn the uniform, had taken joy in the risk, the chances for glory. Favian saw none of that midshipman eagerness in her eyes. “I’ll talk to Dr. Truscott, the surgeon,” he said. “Maybe there will be a place in the cockpit. With the wounded, you understand? It won’t, ah...”

“It won’t be pleasant,” Campaspe finished. “I know.” She hugged him again, her arms around his neck. “Thank you, Favian. I’ll try to be brave.”

“I know you will,” he responded; it was the sort of thing captains said. She lowered her eyes and flushed red.

“I hope you’re right,” she said. Her voice was very faint. “I’m very frightened, you know.” She looked up at him. “How was it for you?” she asked. “What was it like, that first fight?”

“It was a duel,” Favian said. The incident was famous, both in and out of the Navy, but he had never spoken of it, not of this or any of his fights. “In Spain, arranged by the Vixen’s lieutenant. Pistols. There was a Spanish ship there that had insulted us, so he challenged their ship on behalf of ours.” He had been seventeen, on his second Mediterranean cruise. The memory was vivid: the scent of the orange grove where the fight took place, the look of the darkening bark as the combatants all voided their bladders against a tree to prevent medical complications in case they were hit in the groin, the strange intensity with which Favian viewed the Spanish guardiamarina over his quaking pistol... Favian remembered his absolute terror, the taste of bile in his throat, the way his fear was mingled with fury, a rage that denounced the duel, the Spanish, the Navy, the officers who had arranged this without consulting him. It was the anger, he supposed, that had got him through it.

“I missed,” he said. “One of our midshipmen was wounded. Our lieutenant shot his man dead. Honor,” he said, wondering if the irony he felt was audible in his voice, “was satisfied.”

“How do they do it? Arrange a duel, I mean.” He felt her nestle against him; he stroked her flank with his scarred hand.

“It’s very formal, all written in the codes,” he said. “Their ship had fired its guns at our captain when he was being rowed ashore, so our lieutenant went aboard the Spanish ship and called them all cowards. Then their second lieutenant, who was acting as their representative, came aboard Vixen to talk with our master, who was our second, and the terms were arranged. Next morning we marched out into an orange grove and fought.”

“So you had to do what this master and the Spanish lieutenant had arranged. You had no choice?”

“No. If you refuse the second’s arrangements, the second can challenge you himself. That’s why you have to choose a clever second, so he doesn’t give away too many advantages and force you to refuse and fight another duel..

“Ours was clever enough, I suppose. Arranged for pistols at twenty paces so that most of us would miss; nobody wanted a ship full of cripples. I wanted it to be swords, though.”

“Why?”

“I was good with a sword, less so with a pistol. Since then I’ve got better with pistols.” He smiled at the memory. “I was angry when I saw my opponent. He was so clumsy I knew I could have won a swordfight in a few seconds. Instead the code required that I stand up like a scarecrow and let him shoot at me. It’s not something I ever intend to do again.”

He felt her shudder through his hand. “Horrible,” Campaspe said. “Why did your captain ever allow such a thing?”

“He knew we’d have to face fire sooner or later. Wanted to give us a taste of it, maybe. We were so eager we would have fought even if the captain had forbidden it.”

“Is that why you let that man Solomon fight his duel? And Mr. Lovette?”

“I don’t like dueling,” Favian said. “I especially don’t like the way it’s practiced here, with a few bullies swaggering around provoking fights. I tried to arrange Lovette’s duel so it wouldn’t hurt anyone. I disapproved of Solomon’s duel, but there was nothing I could do to prevent it.” Campaspe’s eyes were only a few inches from his, gleaming softly in the lamplight; she seemed totally absorbed in his words. Their physical intimacy allowed him to feel the play of her muscles, hear her heartbeat and the regular, gentle suspiration of her breath. The situation seemed to encourage candor..

“Dueling isn’t necessary, and I won’t encourage it,” he said. “But it’s a thing that happens. It’s possible to get backed into it, and then honor demands a fight. My first duel was fought because the Spanish had insulted the United States, and the Navy has to stand up for our country. My second was fought against a man who slandered the Navy, knowing I’d have to fight him.”

“That Captain Brewster,” Campaspe said. “I heard Gideon mention him once.”

“That was the man. A bully and a drunk.” If she knew the name, he thought, she knew the result: a hasty burial and a warrant out in New Jersey. He spoke on. “I don’t think anyone mourned him.”

“I don’t think it’s fair,” Campaspe said. Her swift indignation was plain. “That you should have to fight like that— it’s not like you’re fighting for yourself. Why should you have to accept a fight for the Navy?”

The question struck home; his own resentments were clear enough on that point. He composed his answer carefully. “There’s not much of a Navy man’s life that’s private,” he said. “We represent the Navy in the people’s minds, and the Navy’s been under attack— the Republicans wanted to plain abolish us, and there are other people who resent us for other reasons. They look for weaknesses in us so they can justify an attack on the Navy.”

There was anger in Campaspe’s eyes. “I won’t!” she said. “I won’t let you be used in that way! They’ll have to fight me first!”

“I’ll keep you away from that,” Favian said. “I’ll be careful, truly.”

Campaspe hit him, not lightly, in the chest with her fist. “No! Damn!” she shouted. “I won’t!” He captured her hand, wondering if they could hear her through the skylight. “No more of this fighting! Let the Navy defend its own goddamn honor!”

It was what he’d said to Solomon; now the words came back to him. So did something else-said to Solomon, something he’d said just that evening: “I am the Navy in these waters.”

Campaspe was looking at him with angry eyes. “Hey,” she said. “I won’t go away. Goddamn, answer me.”

“What must I say? That I won’t fight any more duels?” Favian asked. “I can’t make that promise, no one can.”

She struggled to free her hand; he hung on. “Bah,” she said. “I don’t want a promise like that, I know how much it’d be worth. I don’t want any fighting in secret, that’s all. I’m your wife.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Keep me out of it and I’ll kill you myself,” she said. “Understand?”

“It doesn’t have to be your fight,” Favian said. “I don’t want you involved in that way. It could hurt you.”

She shook her head. “No. Not my way,” she said. “You fight the British, and I come with you. You get called out someday, and I come with you. That’s my way.”

He looked across the few inches at Campaspe’s furious features, and for some reason Maria-Anna came into his mind. Was Campaspe’s ferocity learned from Maria-Anna? he wondered. He had admired Maria-Anna’s plainspokenness, her decisive nature; he knew she formed a unique partnership with Gideon. Was this part of the compromise she had exacted?

“Very well,” he said. “You’ll know.” He felt her relax; he let go of her fist. She hugged him again, kissed his cheek.

“I love you, Favian,” she said. “I won’t let you go. Not for some quarrel about the Navy.”

“Campaspe. It’s late.”

“I think I’d like some cocoa,” she said, and crawled over him to the table and filled her cup. “It’s cold,” she said. “Would you like some?”

“No. Thank you.” Campaspe drank her cocoa, her body gleaming whitely against the dark furnishings of the room. She turned to him, reaching out with her free hand to touch a chair. “I’ve never been naked with a man,” she said.

“I should hope not!” he said. She grinned.

“It feels strange, standing here with you looking at me,” she said. She put the cocoa aside and walked to him, then crouched by the cot and took his hand, regarding him intently. “How does it feel for you?” she asked.

“I think you’re very lovely,” he said.

Campaspe’s head came back, and she flashed her impudent smile. “I think I like it,” she said. “Being here in front of you. You don’t think it’s forward of me, do you?”

“No.”

He watched as she stood, and then began to dance around the cabin— leaping, doing dizzying, inexpert pirouettes, then collapsed giggling onto the thwartship settee. Favian, following an impulse he could not quite trace to its source, got out of bed and walked to her, then crouched and kissed her laughing face.

“I think I like it, too,” he said. She hugged him, arms around his neck.

“I don’t want you to regret me,” Campaspe said.

“I don’t,” he said; it was strange that he didn’t feel it to be an insincerity. Favian kissed her suddenly, with an ardency that surprised him. She tasted sweetly of cocoa.

“Oh,” she said. “Are you—?” She laughed. “Can we do this more than once each night?”

“It’s impolite to count,” he said, “but we can if you like.”

Her laugh came close to his ear. He would regret it tomorrow, he supposed, but for the present he was more than content that Campaspe should be here.

*

The changing watch woke Favian the next morning, before dawn. Macedonian had a different watch schedule than other Navy ships, one of the innovations Captain Jacob Jones had made before he’d been reassigned to the Great Lakes and given Favian the chance to steal the frigate. Most ships changed watches every four hours, giving the men breakfast at eight, dinner at noon, and supper at four. Jones’s innovation had been to break the day into two six-hour watches, from six to noon, noon to six, then keep the rest of the day on four-hour watches. This not only alleviated the problem of the hands going twelve hours at a stretch without a meal, but allowed the watches to rotate daily in a normal manner, and made certain that the off-duty watch, in the daytime, could get six hours uninterrupted sleep at need.

Thus it was just before six, rather than at eight, that Favian was awakened by the quartermasters calling up the midshipmen, mates, and lieutenant of the other watch. Accustomed to being shaken awake at odd hours, Favian was alert instantly; he was aware of Campaspe’s warmth against him, the scent of her hair, the way she had absently clasped his hand to her breast. Her back was to him; they were cuddled like spoons on their sides— he glanced at the telltale compass over his head, mentally gauged, through the motion of the ship, its heading and probable speed. The stern windows showed it was still dark, though the beginnings of dawn could not be far away. As there were standing orders to call him at first light, Favian knew there was no point in going back to sleep.

“Campaspe. Darling,” he whispered. He stroked her gently.

“Mm.” She turned to him, stretching lazily, her arm going around his neck. He kissed her.

“I've got to get up. You should get dressed because I'm going to call the ship to quarters before dawn. You can go back to sleep after breakfast if you like.” He was going to have every gun manned, every man standing to his station before the eastern sky lightened. The sun might rise to show them in the middle of a British convoy, and he wanted to be ready. Calling the hands to quarters would also mean breaking down the screen between his cabin and the frigate's gun deck and moving all his furniture below, and the thought of leering tars breaking in on the captain and his naked wife lolling about in their cot was a little hard to contemplate this early in the morning.

“All right.” She kissed him again, then opened her eyes.

“When I call quarters, I'll send a midshipman to escort you to the cockpit,” Favian said. “Take one of my heavy coats from the locker; it'll be cold down there. Or you can come on deck with me. It'll be colder on deck, though.”

“I'll come with you,” Campaspe said.

They dressed. Favian could hear the men being mustered and sent to breakfast; he called to Crane for coffee and shaving water. A cup of coffee in hand, Favian kissed Campaspe good-bye and came up on deck, shrugging deeply into his pea jacket as the cold wind began to cut into him. He glanced at the set of the sails, received the salute of Ford, the officer of the watch, and took his stance on the weather quarterdeck. Macedonian was on a beam reach, heading to the northeast, the Mississippi Delta somewhere on the larboard beam. Except for the lookouts, Ford, and the quartermasters, the frigate’s deck was deserted; the rest of the crew were having breakfast.

Campaspe, dwarfed by an old green coat she’d found in Favian’s locker and wearing one of his undress round hats, came on the quarterdeck just as the men were finishing breakfast. When Ford saluted her she replied with a curtsy and almost went flying into the monkey rail when the frigate was caught by a crosswave and gave an unexpected lunge. Campaspe laughed, declined Ford’s offer of an arm, and joined Favian at the rail. She looked aloft at the great spread of stars, her eyes softening at the awesome sight, holding the hat on her head with a free hand. “You’ll have to teach me navigation,” she said, “so I can learn the names of the stars in English. I only know them in Spanish.”

“Very well. D’you know how to find Polaris?” She shook her head. Favian turned to Ford and told him to send the men to quarters. While the drum beat out, the men ran to their stations, the lookouts mounted into the rigging, and the eastern sky began to pale, Favian went on with his astronomy lesson. By that time the stars were beginning to fade, so Favian bade Campaspe farewell and went on a tour of the frigate, inspecting each station, seeing the men standing by their guns, ready to lift the port-lids and haul the iron beasts out to do battle with the enemy.

There was no enemy revealed by the dawn, only Malachi’s Revenge cruising off Macedonian’s starboard bow and the flat mass of the delta a long distance to weather. The frigate secured from quarters. Favian, reflecting that Campaspe might be aboard for some time, and that she might not appreciate being ogled by Crane every morning when Favian got his shaving water and coffee, gave orders to bring up the screen that separated his sleeping cabin from his day cabin— in order to give himself more room, he’d had it consigned to the hold when he’d first taken command. The captain’s table would be a little more cramped, but Favian assumed that a few leaves could be taken out of the table and that the cabin servants would have to take more care when passing the wine.

After breakfast and the furniture-moving, Campaspe set herself to making another gown from purser’s slops, while Favian rolled half-clothed into his cot for a long sleep. He was awakened for dinner, and shortly after rolling out of bed was interrupted by an agitated Midshipman Potter. .

“Signal from the Revenge, sir! Strange sail in sight!”

“Very well,” Favian said, filling his pockets with biscuit. “Tell Mr. Seward I’ll be on deck directly.” He gave Campaspe a kiss on the cheek. “Most likely we’ll have to go to quarters again. I’ll send Mr. Potter to show you to the cockpit.”

She looked up at him with a frown. “I hope I’ll at least get a look at the enemy,” she said.

“Very well. One look, then below to Dr. Truscott.”

The strange sail proved to be His Britannic Majesty’s armed transport Emma, and was captured by Gideon’s Revenge, no shots fired, before Macedonian got within five miles. Lulled into a sense of security by Gideon’s use of his copy of the British signal book Favian had captured with the Carnation, the Emma found itself with no choice but surrender once Revenge came alongside, lowered the British ensign, hoisted the American one, and ran out its overwhelming broadside.

Favian sent his men to quarters anyway, running out the guns in order to prevent Emma from reconsidering her decision; he let Campaspe stay on the quarterdeck, however, given there was no danger. He and Campaspe watched the transport through long glasses as they approached, saw the men massed on her decks, cursed fortune and contemplating their captivity. There were a number of tall, sunbrowned men in red coats, black feather bonnets, and tartan trousers— Favian seemed to remember that trews might be the appropriate word for Highland pantaloons— and there were also about a hundred men in blue coats and black leather helmets with a plume running fore and aft like a furry caterpillar. Gideon and Finch Martin had their muster-list in hand before they had themselves rowed to Macedonian to share the news.

“May we offer you dinner, gentlemen?” Campaspe asked with a mischievous smile as Favian brought Gideon and his first officer into the day cabin.

Gideon contemplated her with a sour expression. “I thought you were up to mischief,” he said. He raised an admonishing finger. “ ’Tis obedience you must learn, girl!”

Finch Martin seemed perfectly delighted by the sight of Campaspe; he broke at once into a twisted, broken-toothed smile. “I take it ye ain’t supposed to be here? Good for thee! A girl with spirit is worth any dozen of them unlovely, languishin’ manatees that call themselves sailors’ wives!”

She laughed, adroitly evaded his clutches as he hobbled in for a pinch or two, then offered to take his cane. She saw an inscribed silver plate on the cane, and read it aloud.

“‘Presented to Mr. Finch Martin, Sailing Master, from ye Officers and Men of the Privateer Cossack, upon his leaving ye Vessel. August 1778.’”.

She looked up at the white-haired old sailor. “It’s nice of you to carry your father’s cane,” she said.

“My father’s cane!” Martin howled. “By Saint Mary’s tits!” He looked at Favian, leering more than usual and ignoring Gideon’s black frown. “I truly wish I’d boarded her first, young Favian! She’d have put her fingers on a cane wanner than that one.” He slapped his knee. “King George swimming in shit!”

“Enough, Mr. Martin,” Gideon said, his tired expression showing he’d been through this many times before. “We have business to settle.” He took a seat.

Favian seated himself across from Martin. The man was an antique from an older, bawdier age, Favian thought, the lamented, astonishing eighteenth century. As perhaps Favian was himself, in quite another way. Certainly he did not find his tastes, his style, quite matching those of his contemporaries, the romantic and dashing young men like Decatur, Lawrence, and that de la Tour d’Aurillac whose body lay in the sand on Timbalier Island; he’d learned to imitate their style without quite believing in it. In a strange way he’d never understood, he’d always felt older around such men; perhaps, at the age of thirty, he was as obsolete as Martin.

Campaspe ordered dinner. Martin threw out Emma’s manifests and other official papers. “Eighty-three officers and men of the Ninety-third Highlanders,” he said. “Late in arriving at the rendezvous at Negril Bay, or left behind as sick when the rest of the fleet left.”

“The rest of the Ninety-third are at Cat Island, then?” Favian asked.

Martin shrugged. “Maybe,” Gideon said. “This Emma seems to be a latecomer; that’s why it’s without escort.”

“They’re big buggers, them Highlanders,” Martin said. “All over six feet, even without their bonnets. I remember we had trouble with ’em in the last war; they wouldn’t just surrender like the other redcoats. Kept retakin’ the prizes and tryin’ to sail ’em home.”

“A pair of Emma’s six-pounders trained down the main hatch and loaded with canister should discourage that kind of conduct,” Gideon said.

Finch Martin went back to his manifests. “Th’ rest of the prisoners is a few quartermaster sergeants of the Seventh Royal Fusiliers with their supplies, and then the rest are Royal Artillery, the ones in the blue coats. Two batteries of field guns, with limbers.” He looked up significantly. “There ain’t no limber horses. I guess they’re goin’ to try to find horses in the countryside.”

“Good luck to them,” said Favian, as he remembered New Orleans’ scarcity of carriages, and presumably the carriage horses to go with them. He suspected that the sailors of Cochrane’s fleet were going to end up acting as horses for these artillerists— assuming, of course, they managed to get guns across the swamps in the first place.

“Here are some British newspapers from Jamaica,” Martin said, separating them from Emma’s manifests. “They’re recent. We haven’t had time to read them all.”

“Thank you, Mr. Martin.”

Crane brought in dinner; they ate while discussing what to do with the Emma. In the end they decided the prize crew would have to come from Gideon’s schooner: Favian couldn’t spare the officers to send off with the Emma, and the faster Revenge could also spend the afternoon escorting the prize in the direction of Mobile, and then double back to strike the British off Cat Island.

“There are British ships that know the Revenge,” Gideon said. “That squadron that was off Mobile in September, and others. There aren’t any other Yankee-built tern schooners in these waters, especially with the kind of rake I’ve got in the mizzen. If I’m seen in company with ye, it may make the British suspicious. We’re best acting alone, Favian.”

Favian reluctantly agreed. “We should try to coordinate our actions, though,” he said. “If one of us attacks the British before the other, the second vessel in the attack may run into a hornet’s nest stirred up by the first.”

“Guile, Favian,” Gideon said. “We can try to arrange an hour for the attack, but you know that winds and tide cannot be counted on; that sort of plan is likely to go awry. But we can both get in under false signals after dark, even the Revenge, and try to cut out as many enemy as possible. If an alarm is given, we’ll have to run and find our own way out.”

“Aye,” Favian said. The uncertainty nagged at him; he remembered all too well the confusions of the Cat Island night attack. Night signals weren’t very useful; they were still at a primitive stage, hoists of various colored lanterns, false fires, and the firing of guns, mainly used to help ships keep station at night, letting them know when to tack and in what order, and to identify friend from enemy. Complicated tactical instructions and detailed identification of friendly ships, complete with personal messages from one captain’s wife to another’s, all common enough using flag hoists in daylight, were impossible at night..

All this, Favian finally decided, would probably work more to his benefit than to the enemy’s— though he wouldn’t be able to communicate with Gideon, the enemy’s own communication would be equally hampered, and they had an entire fleet to coordinate. But still there were so many things that could go wrong. He wished he had some way of communicating with Gideon.

“Aye,” Favian said again. “But we must have a private signal between ourselves, and between our prizes. I don’t want you firing into my prizes by mistake, or Macedonian firing into yours. Two white lanterns from the main chains— make certain all your prize masters know it.”

“Aye,” Gideon nodded. “I’ll tell them.”

They finished their meal, raising their glasses to success. Favian felt doubt touch his heart, knowing himself and Macedonian to be a card cast away in a game played between Jackson and Sir Edward Pakenham, a sacrifice to buy time. At least he was not alone, he thought; Gideon had stood by him, and would probably achieve the escape that Macedonian would not..

“Lord bless you both,” Gideon said as he stood at the entry port clasping Favian’s hand, looking at Favian and Campaspe. Campaspe hugged him, kissing his neck, and then surprised everyone present by hugging Finch Martin as well. The old man blushed scarlet, so surprised he forgot his earthy blasphemies entirely. Favian watched as Gideon’s boat made its way over the sea to the low, black schooner, and as Revenge and its prize shaped their course to the northeast, heading for Mobile.

They were in sight for many hours, as their courses were only diverging slightly from the frigate’s, but Favian did not stay on deck to watch. Instead he went to his cabin to glance at the British newspapers captured with the Emma— there was a news item in one that enraged him, but there was nothing he could do about it, so he went to his cot and tried to sleep again, and he passed the word among the officers and men for any individuals currently off duty to do the same. At some point in the afternoon Campaspe joined him, resting her head on his shoulder as he dozed. His body was used to his keeping irregular hours; it made the most of the time available for rest.

The Chandeleur Islands passed slowly by off to larboard throughout the afternoon, and Malachi’s Revenge and Emma faded into the eastern horizon. Favian found half a dozen tactical plans spinning through his mind in succession, even in half-sleep— they were useless; this was a situation impossible to anticipate until he saw how the enemy were drawn up..

In his mind the battle plans were replaced by details of actual battle, visual memories of cannons recoiling in their confined spaces on the gun deck, smoke billowing from the whitened stone walls of Tripoli, James Decatur lying dead in Constitution’s cockpit, his brother Stephen standing over the body with anguish on his face; Macedonian as he’d first seen her, the blood spouting from her scuppers...

At that Favian awoke with a start, seeing at once the brown eyes of Campaspe.

“Your heart is beating fast,” she said, her voice low in his ear. “Did you dream?”

“What time is it?”

“I don’t know. It’s getting dark.”

Favian glanced at his watch; five forty-three. The hands would be given their supper at six. He wished he could brew some coffee for them at the same time, so he could serve the refreshing drink cold later that night, but there was no coffee aside from his small private supply: the British blockade had kept all the coffee from reaching the United States, and the dark beans were worth their weight in gold. The frigate’s crewmen would have to keep themselves awake in other ways.

“Is there going to be a battle tonight?” Campaspe asked.

“I don’t know. I hope not,” Favian said. How could he tell her that Macedonian was a sacrifice? That the frigate would be of little use in the shallow bays and lakes that guarded New Orleans, and so would be thrown away in hopes that it would delay the British long enough for Jackson to ready his defenses?

“Campaspe,” he said. “There are a great many British out there. Their fleet is bigger than the one they had at Trafalgar— it’s very powerful. They may take us tonight.”

“Yes,” Campaspe said. “I know that. I’ve been on a beaten ship; I know what it’s like.”

“I know, but—” How to say it? There had been so many dead captains in this war on both sides; it was no longer just an American trick to shoot at officers. “If anything should happen to me, darling,” Favian said, “my will is in the upper drawer of my desk—” She put her fingers over his lips, but he took them away.

“Don’t talk about it.”

“It has to be said. Gideon has another copy, and another copy has been sent to Mr. Livingstone in New Orleans, who acts as my prize agent.”

Campaspe shook her head. “I don’t want to know. I don’t care about your money.”

“I care,” Favian said. “I care what will happen to you.”

Her eyes were bright with tears. “Damn your money!” she said. “I wish you were poor!”

“Whatever happens,” he said, “I want you to know this. You have made me happy. The happiest I’ve ever been.” Oddly enough it seemed to be the truth; he found himself speaking with perfect sincerity. He was amazed at the total unlikeliness of it all.

Campaspe’s eyes brimmed over, and she hugged him. They kissed and then, just as in a novel, there was a knock on the partition door. “It’s nearing the second dogwatch, Captain,” came the voice of Favian’s steward. “Will you be wanting your supper now?”

“Aye,” Favian said. “Set the table for two.”

At six thirty Favian heard the ship’s drums begin to beat out “Drops of Brandy” and he knew the crewmen were gobbling whatever remained of their supper and lining up at the whiskey tub for their liquor ration. Outside it was fully dark; the frigate was cruising alone in the blackness. “I’ve got to go on deck now,” Favian said.

“Do what you must,” Campaspe said. “Can I come with you?”

He nodded. He took his Portsmouth hanger from the rack and put it on the table, then brought his long dueling pistols out of their case and loaded them carefully. They were motions he’d performed many times before; his hands did their duty without instruction from his conscious mind, handling the familiar, deadly weapons that he’d used in fights so many times before. The ritual calmed him; it was a meditation, a gathering of strength before the battle. He became aware of Campaspe’s eyes on him.

“I was on the Intrepid when we burned the Philadelphia,” Favian said, wondering to himself whence had come this compulsion to speak. “It was a very dangerous mission, trying to take a little ketch into an enemy harbor in order to board a frigate. I was very junior, just a midshipman, but Decatur liked the look of me and he accepted me when I volunteered.” He rolled a lead bullet in his palm, making certain it was round before he dropped it down the barrel of his pistol, and then rammed a wad down on top of it.

“The night before we were scheduled to board the ketch,” Favian said, “my right arm suddenly stopped working. It was completely paralyzed, just hung limp.” He looked up, surprised at his own candor. “I’ve never told anyone about this,” he said. “Not ever.”

“What happened?” she asked.

“I put my hand in my pocket and went anyway,” he said. “Things were so busy that morning that I don’t think anyone noticed, and as soon as we were out of sight of the fleet the paralysis went away. But that night I was so afraid that someone would find out and think I was shirking... and yet I hoped that someone would find out, because if I had a paralyzed arm I couldn’t go. I was afraid to go, but also afraid of being thought a coward.” Campaspe reached out to touch his right arm as it held the pistol; the muscles were taut, hard as iron with the memory. Favian smiled.

“The paralysis never came back,” he said. He put the loaded pistols in his belt, then slipped his keen-edged hanger from its scabbard, inspecting the blade with care, then nodded, sheathed the sword, and clipped it to his belt. “It won’t come tonight. But those fears are still there, the fear of fear most of all.’’.

Fear could paralyze in other ways, he thought, could numb the mind and sap the spirit. “Now’s the worst time,” Favian said. “I’ll be all right when the shooting starts, when I’m busy. It’s best to keep active.”

“That’s why I wanted you to give me work,” Campaspe said. “Carrying powder, anything.”

“Dr. Truscott can use you,” Favian said. “Just tell him you want to keep busy.” He took his boarding helmet from the rack and held it under his arm, then as an afterthought took one of the Jamaica newspapers from the table and put it in his pocket. He was ready.

She wrapped herself in one of his old coats again and held his hand as they mounted to the poop deck. Favian ordered a new calculation of their position, and after confirming Sailing Master Seward’s calculations, ordered a change in course to the northwest. Forward in the well deck and on the fo’c’sle the crew stood in small groups, sipping their ration of spirits. Normally the time was a merry one, the hands laughing and talking loudly among themselves, but now they seemed subdued; Favian saw heads turning involuntarily ahead, looking for the enemy in the darkness. Favian turned to Seward.

“Pipe all hands. I’ll speak to them,” he said. As soon as Seward turned forward to bellow the order, the relative stillness was broken by the shrill of bosun’s pipes echoed by the ship’s trumpet, then the tramp of feet on the companions, the fife and drum of the marines as they marched double time to their stations on the quarterdeck. Then Favian was standing on the break of the quarterdeck, looking over the barricade at the nearly four hundred men below him on the well deck, crowded on the gangways and the fo’c’sle. It was a black, expectant mass, one man indistinguishable from another, their eyes glinting starlight. Favian felt Campaspe standing near him at the barricade, a slight figure wrapped in a big coat.

“Bring me a light from below, there,” Favian said. “Pass up a battle lantern. I want to read something to these men.”

There was a murmur among the crew as someone went down a hatch, then came up with a battle lantern. It was passed from hand to hand and came up the poop ladder. “Mr. Potter, will you hold the lantern for me?” Favian asked. Potter stepped out from the line of other midshipmen and took the lantern, holding it over Favian’s shoulder as he took the Jamaican paper from his pocket.

“This is an advertisement in a Jamaican newspaper that we captured with the Emma” Favian said. For the moment he spoke in a low voice, avoiding the use of a speaking trumpet, forcing his audience to listen carefully to his words; his volume would go up later on, when he had their attention. He looked down at the newspaper in his hand, letting his voice rise a bit so it wouldn’t be muffled by the paper in his hand.

“‘Masters of vessels about to proceed to England under convoy,’” he read, “‘are informed they may be supplied with a limited number of American seamen (prisoners of war) to assist in navigating their vessels, on the usual terms, by applying to George Maude, agent.’”

He paused and put the newspaper down, then nodded to Potter, who stepped back to his place. Favian frowned for a few deliberate seconds— those lessons in debate his father had given him, years ago before he’d joined the Navy, were coming in handy; he knew how to build suspense— and then he looked up at the dark mass of men before him.

“That advertisement,” Favian said, “tells us what we Americans may expect from the British. Should we fall into their hands, we may expect to be shipped out aboard British convoys, for the benefit of George Maude, Esquire! They are using American prisoners as slaves!”

Favian involuntarily took a step backward as the hands responded; the growl of anger rising from the well deck struck him with an almost physical impact. Favian smiled grimly; his shot had struck home.

“We know the British list of outrages,” Favian shouted. “We know of the prisoners honorably surrendered to the British on the frontier, only to be murdered by Indian hatchets. We know of their pressing American seamen and forcing them to fight against their countrymen. We know of their bribing the Barbary pirates to attack American merchant ships. And now we know this!” He brandished the newspaper, then tore it in half and scattered the shreds to the wind, the leaves flickering whitely over the rail into the frigate’s lee..

“Slavery!” Favian said. His voice was rising in pitch now, the three-reef quarterdeck voice he used to fling orders aloft in a gale. “Thirty years ago we fought a war to throw off such slavery, and now we fight again, to prove once again to the British that we are determined to stay free of their Crown, their governors, and their press-gangs!”

There was a roar of agreement from Favian’s audience. Favian lowered his voice, forcing them to strain to catch his words. “The British fleet has come to enslave Louisiana. We know where they are. And tonight we will strike them!” The last sentence was shouted out again, the three-reef voice. They shouted, stamped, waved their hats; Favian had the impression of a miniature storm in the well deck, stirring the seamen like water. If only, Favian thought, the men of the Hartford Convention could see these men, could see that there were Americans prepared to sacrifice their lives in a war in which the convention men were afraid to sacrifice their pocketbooks.

“The British fleet is under Cochrane,” Favian told them. “Cochrane, who burned Washington. He carries the same army that set alight the Capitol!” The voice shrieked out again. “Will we seek vengeance for Washington tonight?”

“Aye!” the men howled. The storm on the well deck had become a hurricane, stirring the sailors into foaming madness. Favian stepped back, an intent smile on his face. He knew full well what he had just done: he had deliberately and coldly readied these men to throw away their lives on the most fantastic kind of gamble, and to do it willingly; it was one of the little tricks of the officer’s trade, and Favian knew he had learned it well. He had earned their trust, and later tonight he would abuse it.

“One more thing,” he said, his voice quiet again, when the hurricane had blown itself out. “It may be that some of you may be detailed as prize crews tonight, and that the prizes may be retaken by the British.” He gave a deliberate, snarling leer, though he doubted any of the men could see it. “You may even meet Admiral Cochrane,” he said. “If you do, you may tell him— nay, you may boast, that Macedonian is not the only American man-of-war in these waters!”

He had their attention now; the only sounds were the wind keening through the rigging and the sound of the keel cutting the sea. “We are the vanguard of a squadron, boys!” Favian proclaimed. “The Independence seventy-four has broken out of Portsmouth, with the Congress frigate! President has got out of New York and joined with the Constitution and Hornet out of Boston. They’re all under Commodore Decatur, and they’re all in the Gulf! Admiral Cochrane had better guard his backside!”

The men laughed even as they looked at one another, not quite wiling to believe the fantastic story. It wasn’t true, of course: Favian was lying through his teeth, and doing so with quite deliberate intent. It was very likely that the British would capture Macedonian in the next twenty-four hours, or at least one of its prizes, and if so, every American prisoner would give the British the same story, of an American squadron of unprecedented size ready to strike at Cochrane’s fleet. With luck the news would make Cochrane hesitate; if he was busy guarding his back, he would think twice before sending out any small expeditions; he’d have to use the whole fleet in any attack, without any diversions. And he’d have less time to plan his attack on New Orleans.

“That’s all I have to tell you, boys,” Favian said. “When the shooting starts, mind your officers and remember your drill. I’ll give you some time to finish your bob smith and to chew a little tobacco, and then I’ll send you to quarters. Bless you all. You’re the finest gang of shellbacks I’ve ever commanded.”

That was meant to serve as a cue to his officers: one of them should now step forward, wave his hat, and call for three cheers for the old Macedonian, but before that could happen Favian was aware of Campaspe at his elbow. She’d taken a speaking trumpet from the rack, and now she leaned forward over the poop barricade, her magnified voice echoing from the rigging.

“You men, there!” she cried. “If you don’t fight for my husband, I’ll cut your thumbs off!”

That thoroughly Spanish threat raised a gale of laughter that was better than any cheers, so Favian waved off Swink when he stepped forward to lead the cheers, told Tucker to pipe the men down, and gave Campaspe a hug as she lowered the speaking trumpet. She looked up at him, her face flushed with triumph.

“A better speech than mine,” Favian said. “Brief and to the point.”

They walked the quarterdeck arm in arm for a few minutes, enjoying the stars, and then Favian set the drums beating to quarters. The frigate was cleared for action in six minutes, and then Favian made a tour of the ship, slapped backs, told stories, made sure everything was in readiness, the decks sanded to provide traction through the spilled blood, the iron shot lying nestled in their garlands, the frigate’s grindstone putting a fresh edge on cutlasses and boarding pikes. His last stop was the cockpit, where the surgeon, Truscott, was in his leather apron setting out his knives. There was a book set out as well— a surgical text, Favian thought, until he saw the gold-embossed title: Paradise Lost.

“I’ll be sending Mrs. Markham here when we sight the enemy,” Favian said.

“Very good, sir. I’ll take proper care of her.”

“Give her something to do. Have her rolling bandages, warming your knives, anything. If she doesn’t have anything to do, she’ll grow anxious.”

Truscott frowned at Favian from beneath his heavy brows. “This isn’t work for a lass, you know,” he said. “My mates and loblolly boys have to have strong stomachs.”

“I think Mrs. Markham will be all right,” Favian said. “She’s been in sea fights before.” He didn’t want to tell Truscott that it was very likely he’d have more wounded than he’d know what to do with, and need every hand he could muster to care for them.

“Has she?” The surgeon was surprised. “I’ll think of something for her, I’m sure.”

“Very well, Dr. Truscott,” Favian said. “I’ll say farewell now— I trust I’ll not be seeing you tonight.”

Truscott smiled. “I hope not, sir,” he said. “Good luck to you.”

On deck the night had turned suddenly cold; the breeze had backed to the north, and the frigate fought close-hauled through the water on the starboard tack. As Favian mounted to the poop, he saw Lazarus standing by the ladder.

“Captain Markham,” Lazarus said, saluting by raising his old leather cap. “My powers tell me thou wilt do well tonight.”

“Aye?” Favian said with suspicion, looking into the madman’s strange eyes. “Is the voyage no longer doomed?”

“It is after daylight thou must beware, Captain,” Lazarus intoned. “Then shall our Dr. Truscott’s knives taste warm flesh. Thine, perhaps. I cannot say.”

“I see,” Favian said. “Thank you, Lazarus, for your warning.” He stepped onto the poop deck. Lazarus touched his arm.

“Captain,” he said urgently. “Remember your promise!”

“I remember,” Favian said. The promise to bury him sewn head-downward in canvas and without Christian rites, an inverted burial to match his inverted faith, extracted after he predicted his own death. That particular prediction had failed, and Lazarus continued as a robust, healthy menace to the Macedonian’s sanity— prophecy seemed to be a hit-or-miss sort of affair, even for those who alleged themselves to commune with spirits.

“Thank’ee, Captain,” Lazarus said, drawing back. Favian joined Campaspe at the taffrail.

“Who is that old man?” she asked with a shudder. “He’s like some kind of evil spirit, standing there by the mast. Watching us all.”

“He’s a madman, does more harm to himself than anyone,” Favian said, his voice carefully pitched low. “I’ll tell you the rest some time, when he’s not in earshot.”

Macedonian,heeled far over as the land breeze from the north freshened, continued on its new course, the men standing at their guns, murmuring in low voices. Favian passed the word that any who were not on lookout, and who wished to sleep, could stretch out on the deck, but most were too excited to take advantage of it. Favian stood with Campaspe by the weather taffrail; they spoke of whatever came into their heads: the behavior of whales, the composition of stars, the mode of fashion in Japan.

A little after nine o’clock the lookouts sang out that they could see the riding lights of the British fleet dead ahead, and Favian felt, rather than elation or despair, a strange sort of weariness. He had been doing this sort of thing too long, he thought, making speeches, leading men into battle, imitating a public type of nautical beau sabreur in a blue coat. He wanted the war over, he was tired of it all.

I’m finished, he thought, surprised. I’m no good for this anymore.

Well. Another twenty-four hours and it will be over, one way or another. He stood straight, took a breath, and called aloft to the lookouts.

“Masthead, there! How many?”

“Dozens, sir! Fifty, maybe!”

No doubt they would see more anon. Jackson had reported only fifty, but Favian’s captured documents had given him an indication of the scope of the British armada: a hundred fifty at least. Jackson’s news was days old; it was very likely a hundred additional British ships had dropped anchor off Cat Island since he’d written. Favian looked down at Campaspe.

“Time for you to go below, my dear,” he said.

She accepted her fate with a nod. He took her arm and led her to the cockpit. Truscott, his feet propped up on one of the sea chests he would use as an operating table, was quietly reading Paradise Lost by the light of his candles. He jumped to his feet and bowed.

“Dr. Truscott, I am entrusting Mrs. Markham to you.”

“My pleasure, I’m sure. Ma’am, I’d be much obliged if you’d step over this way and look to these little bandages...” The surgeon moved expertly in the dark, low room, the timbers painted dark red so they wouldn’t show blood. Campaspe gave Favian a swift embrace, then surrendered herself to the doctor. Favian quietly turned and walked up the companion.

It was another three-quarters of an hour before he could see the riding lights from the deck. They were lying between Ship Island and the northernmost of the Chandeleur Islands: Favian could detect no particular order. The lookout could see another, larger group of lights farther in, beyond this first squadron— those would be the ones off Cat Island.

Favian thought he could detect a pattern to the British dispositions. This first group south of Ship Island would be the larger warships, sail of the line and heavy frigates, unable to get into the more restricted waters near Cat Island and so stationed out here as a guard for the others. The rest would be the lighter, more vulnerable vessels, the transports and their escorts, anchored further inland both so the heavier ships could protect them and so as to be nearer their ultimate goal, New Orleans, when the time came for moving troops to shore.

Macedonian would have to penetrate the screen of heavier vessels, then strike swiftly at the transports, hope to cause as much chaos as possible and then escape in the confusion. The raid could never be repeated: afterward the British would change their signals and would be on the alert. Macedonian would have to cruise out of sight in the Gulf and hope to pick up British strays like Emma.

The lookouts were already doubled, Stanhope was standing by with his lanterns ready to return a British challenge, and the men were at quarters: nothing to do but keep on course and wait. So much of war was waiting. Favian found impatience twitching at him as he stood on the quarterdeck and forced himself to be still..

Another twenty-four hours, he thought, and it’s over. Dead or a prisoner, or at liberty on the wide oceans with the freedom to pick off the occasional British prize, living off them as he went, perhaps even return to his original goal of striking at the British East Indies.

The white riding lights came closer. Favian took a night glass from the rack and stepped out to the mizzen shrouds, stood on the ratlines twenty feet above deck, one elbow hooked through a shroud, peering at the enemy. The image in the glass was inverted, the ships riding in the sky, but still he could make them out. Giant ships, sail of the line, their great masts hung with a web of sturdy cordage that cut the stars. Any one of them could have blown Macedonian out of the water with a few well-aimed broadsides. That leviathan to starboard was surely a three-decker, a hundred guns or more, probably with an admiral’s flag. He called down orders to alter course a little to larboard to avoid it; if there was an admiral aboard, he might wonder what a strange frigate was doing running under topgallants through his fleet at night without his orders.

The huge ships grew larger, and the night glass was no longer necessary. Favian returned to the quarterdeck and put the glass in the rack, then stood quietly and watched the massive ships swing at their cables. He chose a gap between two of the line-of-battle ships and told Seward to steer for it. A snatch of music was heard on the wind, a massed, male chorus: one of the ships was putting on an entertainment.

He had never seen anything like it in his life, this armada of giants come to seize the Mississippi. Even at night, the details indistinct, it was breathtaking. He could sense the men near him standing speechless with awe as they came within a cable’s length of a great ship’s stem windows, looking in at the tiny figures in bright uniforms, blue and green and red, all atwinkle with gold and lace, men of power and privilege whose word was life and death, all rollicking at their late-night supper. But then a gun boomed, and Favian’s heart leaped into his throat.

A white false fire was burning from the liner’s foredeck. There was another cannon shot, the loud thump echoing from the other ships. Several of the tiny figures in the great cabin were trying to peer out of the stern windows.

“That’s this week’s challenge, sir,” Stanhope reported. “White false fire from the fo’c’sle, two guns. The correct reply is two red lanterns displayed from the maintop and three guns.”

“Very well, Mr. Stanhope,” Favian said, trying to calm his thundering heart. “Hoist your lanterns. Mr. Tucker, three guns!”

The red lanterns rose swiftly up the signal halliards; guns banged out from the fo’c’sle. The little figures in the great cabin returned to their table. None of the other ships seemed to be taking an interest.

Favian found a grin spreading across his features. This might succeed after all! “Two points to starboard, Mr. Seward,” he said, unable to keep the glee entirely from his voice. “But keep her full.”

“Aye aye.”

Macedonian sped on through the night, sailing through the screen of warships for the bright lights on the western horizon— the transports that carried Pakenham’s troops, lying snug and vulnerable off Cat Island.

There was another challenge from a little corvette patrolling between the two bodies of ships, but once again the captured signal books proved its worth, and the frigate was allowed to continue unhindered. Shortening sail to topsails alone, Macedonian crept carefully into the midst of the pack of ships; Favian picked his target, a small ship-rigged vessel, a little at a distance from the others, that seemed, in silhouette at least, a sister ship to Emma. The boarders, black, plumed shadows in their bearskin-covered helmets, crouched by the bulwarks, armed with glinting cutlasses and pikes, and Macedonian slipped down on her prey. There was an exclamatory chorus from the enemy ship, half a hundred voices crying out to watch your damned course, there, and then the frigate smashed right alongside, ground its way along the enemy bulwarks as Favian stood in the mizzen chains and demanded surrender to the United States frigate Constitution...

He’d decided the Constitution was better known among the British; it was also a larger ship than the Macedonian, and hence more to be feared. The babble on the enemy decks rose to a greater volume— there seemed to be a lot of troops on board— and then Favian called for his boarders. The enemy chorus took on a panicked tone, and they stampeded for the hatches. The official surrender was forthcoming in a few minutes, as soon as their officers had time to consult and realized there was nothing to be done. The prize proved to be the troopship Otter, with nearly two hundred men in the dark green coat of the 95th Rifles. Favian’s heart lifted as he realized he had captured, without a shot, a telling number of what was almost certainly the most elite regiment of light troops in the world. Favian had the officers transfer to Macedonian and clapped in the cable tier under guard so they would not foment insurrection among their men, then watched reluctantly as the captured stands of arms, Baker rifles accurate to two hundred yards, perhaps better even than the Tennessee long rifles of Jackson’s men, were thrown in the drink. Jackson could have used them, Favian knew, but the likelihood of Jackson getting them in time were slim and the chances of their being used in a rising of the prisoners was all too great.

Favian stepped aboard the prize for a hasty, whispered conference with those who led the prize crew, in this case Midshipman George Potter and a master’s mate named Allen; then the two ships parted. The Otter simply cut its cable and began to drift downwind, setting just enough sail to make certain it would accomplish its mission; Favian watched as it fouled another transport and swiftly sent its boarders over the rail. Two prizes: Favian would shortly make it three.

He had already picked his target, a little brig swinging at the weather end of a long straggling line of transports, but the brig was to windward, he had to tack to get to it, and that would take a while. He stood in the cool air, listening with half an ear as Seward gave the orders for tacking. “Ease the helm down... Aft the spanker sheets. Helm’s alee! Keep fast the foretack! Rise tacks and sheets! Mains’l haul!”

Favian heard the braces roaring through the sheaves, the snap of lifting canvas. The two prizes had got under way, heading for the open sea, but suddenly his attention was caught by Macedonian’s uneasy motion beneath his feet. He looked forward sharply. The ship was hanging in the wind, refusing to fall on its new tack. In another few moments they’d be gaining sternway, slipping backward through the water.

“Put the helm hard over! Brail up the spanker! Flatten the head sheets, board the fore tack!” Favian’s voice joined Seward’s as he jumped to cope with the emergency. He could feel water gurgling beneath the frigate’s transom as she began to slip backwards. “Haul taut!” he roared. “Square away the after yards!” Macedonian shuddered, falling off on its new tack; Favian sensed the main topsail beginning to fill. “Rise fore tack and sheet! Haul taut, brace around the foreyards! Flow head sheets... Brace up!”

Macedonian slowed, wallowing, then began to gather way, the sea hissing beneath its stem. There was a brief cheer from the hands. “Silence fore and aft!” Favian shouted. Cheers could carry for miles at night.

The brig came near, showing no sign it was aware of being stalked. Cat Island was a black shadow half a mile to the north, its beach dotted with the British army’s campfires. Favian looked at his watch: a little after two. Sunrise would be around six thirty, but it would be light for some time before that. In spite of the cold December wind he felt perspiration collecting under his helmet; he wiped his brows with his sleeve and calculated bow lines. “Back the main tops’l, Mr. Seward,” he said. “Steady . . . there you go.”

Favian had achieved another surprise, the frigate coming to a halt with backed fore and main topsails, boarders tumbling over the bulwark like a black wave. There was not so much as a hail from the brig until the shudder that meant contact; then there was a confused cry from a couple of lookouts that had been sleeping under the break in the poop, followed by the stamping of the boarders’ feet. Favian grinned; he could work his way up the line of enemy vessels, picking them off one by one. Then there was a pair of shots— Favian’s grin vanished, and he peered into the enemy ship— and then an outraged growl from the boarders. There were shouts, more stampings, then a flood of men and a babble of American voices from the hatchways.

“Prisoners, sir!” Byrne called from the enemy quarterdeck. “American sailors! They had prisoners battened down below!”

“Navy men? Or merchant sailors?” Favian asked..

Damnation! He’d wanted more of those green riflemen.

“We’ve got a man wounded, sir,” Byrne said. “They had guards over the hatch. They seem to be Navy men.”

Some business for Truscott, down in his dark cockpit. But where did these Navy men come from? Had Cochrane’s fleet encountered some American warship on the high seas, just escaped from New York or Boston, or were they from a lot closer to New Orleans— say Lieutenant Jones’s gunboat flotilla on Lake Borgne?

“Who’s in charge of the prisoners, there?” Favian asked. “Send him up.”

“I believe I’m in charge, sir,” called a strong, southern voice from the quarterdeck. “I am Lieutenant Archibald Bulloch Blake, of Gunboat Number 163— whom do I have the honor of addressing?”

The voice brought back a flood of memories: two gunboat lieutenants stuck in the Delaware during the Embargo five years ago, cursing their luck and watching American commerce starve. Archibald Bulloch Blake of Augusta, a gentle, genial man named after the first president of revolutionary Georgia, a penniless cousin-german to half the aristocracy of the South, seemingly doomed to rot half his life away in the gunboat service. There was another, more recent memory: Campaspe had said that Blake was jealous of his success. But Macedonian was short of officers— perhaps this was a stroke of luck after all.

“It’s Favian, Bull!” he called. “Come aboard!”

“Favian Markham, by thunder!” Blake called, jumping for the frigate’s mizzen chains. “Is Gideon with you?”

“The Revenge is out here somewhere,” Favian said. Blake swung aboard, dropping to the quarterdeck. “We came in separately.”

Blake raised a hand to a battered round hat, uncovering in salute. Favian returned it.

“I was in Tac Jones’s squadron on the lake,” Blake said breathlessly. “We’ve all been taken, sir. Yesterday— two days ago, now. All five gunboats, plus the tender and the schooner.”

Overhead the sails roared as a contrary gust of wind tore at them. Favian paid no attention, concentrating on Blake’s disastrous news. With the gunboats gone, the lakes were unguarded— Borgne was a British possession, and the enemy might soon move on Pontchartrain.

“Is Lieutenant Jones here?” Favian asked.

“He was badly wounded, Captain,” Blake said. The informality caused by Blake’s unexpected release and the meeting of two old friends had disappeared beneath the reestablishment of instinctive military protocol; the sirs, captains, and misters were second nature. “The British put him ashore on Cat Island with the other wounded. I’m in charge of the rest— ninety-three men here on this brig.”

“Can you detail some to take the prize to Mobile? I’m short of hands here.”

“Certainly, sir.”

“I’ll want you to stay, Mr. Blake. Do you have a man you can leave in charge of the prize?”

“Aye, sir. My midshipman knows these waters well.”

“Very well. Detail twenty-five of your men to take weapons to guard the prisoners and get the prize under way.” Favian looked at the line of enemy craft, then at his watch. Almost three. Perhaps there was time for another prize, perhaps not.

“Pardon me, Captain Markham,” Blake said, “but what ship is this? Congress?”

“Macedonian, Mr. Blake. May I present Lieutenant Chapelle, the acting first officer? Mr. Seward, the master.”

“Honored, gentlemen.” Blake grinned. “And mighty relieved, too.”

The wounded seaman, moaning and clutching his thigh, was brought aboard the frigate in a bosun’s chair, then bundled below to the surgeon. A thigh wound was always tricky; Truscott couldn’t amputate that high. Blake dropped down to the prize to sort out the liberated prisoners, sent most of them aboard the frigate, then came aboard himself. There was the sound of an axe hewing at the cable, then the prize swung free and Macedonian filled her sails. The frigate shaped its course for the next enemy in line, and then all hell broke loose.

It started with a rocket going up from a ship farther down the line, exploding redly over the anchored ships; the first rocket was followed within half a minute by a second from the ship Favian intended to be his next prize. Favian felt frustration rising in him.

That second rocket had been ready, blast it. Perhaps they’d heard those shots.

Soon there were rockets going up everywhere, bursting overhead like a fireworks display, red reflecting from Macedonian’s great topsails. Signal guns began booming. The warships would be getting under way soon; no time to take any more prizes. But even so, Favian thought grimly, that line of ships would suffer punishment for being so alert.

“Starboard broadside, out tompions!” Favian roared. “Load with round shot and grape, then run out!”

The seamen cheered at the order, the idiots; they were only too happy to make a flash and a noise and call attention to themselves. Another rocket burst as Favian scanned the escape route to seaward, and for an instant he saw masts and shrouds flashing scarlet, the unmistakable silhouette of Malachi’s Revenge racing along on a beam reach. So Gideon had got among the British as well— it has been his distinctive tern schooner, rather than the frigate, that had set off the enemy alarms. He hoped Gideon had cut out some prizes before he had been discovered.

The anchored enemy ship was getting nearer; it seemed to show the typical tubby lines of a military transport. Drums beat from its quarterdeck; Favian thought he could hear the clatter of weapons being readied. The British decks would be packed with soldiers, meat for Favian’s grapeshot.

“Ready, starboard guns!” he called. “Fire as you bear! Mr. Seward, put your helm down— a spoke at a time, there.”

There were a few cracks as muskets were fired from the enemy decks; Favian didn’t even hear the bullets whizzing overhead: those men must have panicked. Macedonian commenced a lazy turn to larboard just fifty yards from the British bows, slowly bringing the transport into the arc of the frigate’s guns.

The first fo’c’sle gun went off with a roar, a sheet of blinding flame that lapped at the water. Favian turned away to save his night vision as the other guns began to speak, the main deck eighteen-pounders, the fo’c’sle and quarterdeck thirty-two-pound carronades, each flinging a mass of iron into the helpless target. In the sudden silence that followed the broadside, he could hear screams from the enemy torn by grapeshot; and then there was a tearing crash as the transport’s mizzenmast went by the board. She might well be sinking; few transports could take that kind of metal and live.

“Helm up, Mr. Seward,” Favian said. “Set a course for that next ship.” His voice seemed unnaturally faint to his ears; he had been slightly deafened by the roaring guns.

Rockets were flying aloft with a vengeance as Macedonian came up on its next target. A voice from the enemy reached Favian as the frigate came near, the clear, bewildered tones of the enemy captain, hopelessly misreading the situation.

“Don’t shoot!” he shouted. “We’re British!. We’re the transport Irene, with men from the Royal Scots Fusiliers. Don’t shoot! We’re British! Don’t you understand?”

Irene, Favian thought irrelevantly, pitying the poor captain who thought Macedonian was a friend. Irene was Peace, in Greek. He wondered if the man who named the transport had realized the irony of his choice.

Macedonian’s broadside put an end to the captain’s voice, the guns and carronades tearing into his fragile transport at point-blank range. After that there were only the moaning of the injured and the sound of water pouring through the shot holes. The third enemy ship sent more voices over the water.

“We strike!” they screamed, a chorus of crying men. “We surrender! For God’s sake don’t shoot! We surrender!”

Too late, Favian thought. They knew as well as he that if he stopped to take a prize now the enemy warships would have time to collect their wits and take Macedonian prize in turn. “Ready, starboard broadside!” he called. “Fire as you bear!”

At the fifth or sixth gun the enemy ship blew up, the fo’c’sle leaping into the air, lifting the foremast like a giant hurling a sapling, the bay turning bright as day. Favian saw the first burst of fire and turned to shout a warning, but was flung to the planking before he could get the words out. The impact knocked the wind from him, and pain rocketed through his ribs, but even through his pain he knew what had happened..

A powder ship, he thought. No wonder they were so eager to surrender.

Macedonian staggered with the blast, Favian picking himself up to scream orders to the helm and get the frigate away from the flaming powder vessel. He might have saved his breath; the helm was already down, the helmsmen knowing as well as he how terrible would be their fate if the frigate caught fire, or had its hull caved in by a nearby explosion. “Bucket brigades!” Favian shouted, seeing a cinder glowing in the spanker, but the buckets were already in hand. There were men moving slowly on the decks, victims of splinter wounds, but the rest stood by their guns, flames reflecting in their eyes, or racing with buckets to danger spots.

The frigate put another cable between it and the powder vessel by the time the second explosion came, the whole ship going this time, the hull torn to pieces and the mainmast rising whole into the sky, illuminated from below like a painting of the True Cross rising to heaven. “Down!” Favian shouted, and threw himself to the deck. There was a storm of wreckage, splinters and burning shreds of canvas and little twisted bits of brass and iron, but Macedonian was spared what Favian had most feared: a great iron gun thrown into the air to drop through Macedonian’s decks and straight through her bottom.

Favian jumped to his feet, looking wildly in all directions while the light lasted. The British flotilla was all around him, the anchored vessels standing on the shocked yellow-white water, their masts and hulls illuminated perfectly by the blast. Many near the explosion had cut their cables and were drifting, trying to get sail up and run away from the fire, but most seemed content to lie at anchor and wait for the Royal Navy to appear in force. There were no warships obviously under way, at least not nearby; Favian wondered if they yet realized there was an enemy frigate among them, or if they assumed it was a boat attack from the mainland. Macedonian had fired three broadsides, but as far as any ships but the targets were concerned, those guns could have been fired at invisible Americans in whaleboats.

The light lasted a very long time as the remains of the powder vessel burned, providing a good look at the enemy anchorage. Favian set Stanhope and the other mids to counting ships and taking bearings; then he heard canvas snapping over his head and looked up to find the mizzen topsail torn asunder from the blast, reduced to tattered bits of flax flogging themselves against the yards..

“Secure that canvas,” Favian said. “Hands aloft to set t’gallants.” He would need a little more speed to get out of here.

Favian got another glimpse of Malachi’s Revenge in the light of the burning powder vessel, the fleet, low schooner at least a mile ahead and increasing the distance rapidly. There was another ship under way near the schooner, probably someone’s prize. Favian didn’t dare fire again, not for fear of igniting another powder vessel but because the other ships would see him and know him for an enemy.

The mast captains called out their orders: “Stand by— let fall!” The canvas came tumbling down off the topgallant yards with a rush. “Lay in! Down from aloft, there! Sheet home the t’gallants!”

The frigate heeled over as the topgallants caught the wind, the sound of water rushing past the hull growing louder. That light astern was dying out, the remains of the powder vessel coming apart in the midst of its still pool of wreckage— but then fire suddenly burst out again, from another ship: an entire mainmast had gone up, the flames towering fully two hundred feet. The first fire had spread during the explosions, and the fire fighters on the other ship had just lost the battle..

Favian watched in somber awe as the mizzen caught alight, then the foremast; it was the sailor’s worst nightmare come true, the tar- and resin-soaked wooden ship going up in flames. Any seaman could picture it, the planking smoking beneath his feet, hot tar raining down from aloft, the panic as everyone ran for the boats... There would not be enough boats, not on a troopship. Favian wondered if it was the Irene on fire out there, with the Royal Scots Fusiliers aboard; somehow it would seem consistent with that captain’s luck. Whoever it was, Favian wished him well. He had not come into the midst of the enemy fleet to burn people alive.

Sails began to roar as the wind veered; Favian had the yards braced around, then had the royals and courses set. The frigate was clear of the pool of light cast by the burning ship. Favian wondered whether to have the spare mizzen topsail set, decided at least to take the first step, and ordered men aloft to get the old one down. Then the lookouts were shouting about a British corvette on their larboard bow, and Favian had the mizzen topmen hurry their work and get to the deck as quickly as they could.

“Larboard broadside!” he shouted. “Out tompions! Load with roundshot, but don’t run ’em out!” He still had the signal book; perhaps he could bluff his way out of this. He’d challenge them first this time. “Mr. Tucker, light a white false fire from the fo’c’sle, and fire two guns!” In the moment before the flare went off he had one last thought. “Mr. Stanhope, raise the Red Ensign.”.

That would show Macedonian to be a member of the fleet of Sir Alexander Forester Inglis Cochrane, K.B., Vice-Admiral of the Red Squadron— or at least so Favian hoped. He hadn’t bothered with raising British flags so far, since they couldn’t be seen; but perhaps the bright flare forward, and the burning light astern, would help their imposture.

The false fire illuminated the deck with its harsh white light, blinding Favian to the corvette in the darkness outside; he shaded his eyes with his hand and peered desperately into the blackness to windward. Two guns boomed from the fo’c’sle. The corvette, he knew, was no match for the Macedonian: the frigate could tear the corvette apart with just a few of her heavy broadsides. But the battle would take time, it would be fought right under the noses of the overwhelming enemy heavy squadron, and the corvette might get lucky and knock away a spar, preventing Macedonian’s escape. Favian felt his heart in his throat as the false fire burned out, and he blinked frantically to get his night vision back. The corvette was a comfortable half mile to windward, coming down fast— but then three guns thumped out while two red lanterns rose to the other ship’s maintop, and he-knew he might be able to escape without a fight right under the noses of the enemy battleships.

“The corvette’s answering the signal, sir,” Stanhope reported, satisfaction in his voice.

“Bend on the American ensign, Mr. Stanhope,” Favian said. “We may have to fire into her yet.” Warships were allowed to be as duplicitous as they liked about using false signals and raising false flags, so long as they raised their own flag when the shooting actually started— to act otherwise was, technically, piracy.

“Larboard broadside, ready to run out,” he cautioned. “Wait for my signal.”

The British captain’s voice came clearly on the wind, sounding disembodied, ghostly, shouted through a speaking trumpet. “Ship ahoy, there! This is Captain Hamshere! What ship are you?”

Favian would avoid that question if he could. He picked up his own speaking trumpet, trying to keep his voice moderate as he faced into the wind. His countrymen had always accused him of sounding English, not unexpectedly since his father had been educated in England and his mother was the daughter of a baronet— but now he’d see whether the British, too, thought he sounded like one of them. “Yankee boat attack!” he shouted. “They’re in shallow water— can’t get to ’em. Urgent message for the admiral!”

“What was that?” The voice was clearer now; the corvette was only two cables away. As Favian had intended, the British captain hadn’t heard Favian’s reply, shouted upwind.

“What did you say?” Favian demanded. “Can’t hear you!”

“What ship is that? What did you say?” Captain Hamshere was clearly losing patience. Favian grinned behind the mouthpiece of the speaking trumpet.

“Yankee boat attack!” he bellowed, trying to sound as if he was himself losing his temper. “They’re in shoal water and we can’t get near them! Urgent message for the admiral! And I’ll thank you, Captain Hamshere, to keep your tone civil!” He heard a stifled laugh near him on the quarterdeck: Lieutenant Blake trying to restrain himself.

The corvette swept past within biscuit’s throw, close enough for Favian to see the men standing by their guns, slow-matches glowing in the dark. A voice came from their quarterdeck, a little more measured this time, as if Hamshere was trying to restrain his temper in the face of a superior.

“What ship are you?”

“That powder vessel— what’s the name?— it blew up!” Favian said. “I think that’s the Irene on fire, with the Royal Scots Fusiliers!”.

Favian realized, his blood chilling, that he’d pronounced Irene in the American way, Eye-reen, rather than the proper British Eye-ree-nee. But the corvette surged past without firing, and it seemed Hamshere didn’t notice Favian’s mistake.

“Damn those Yankees!” Hamshere exclaimed. “My compliments, there, whoever you are.”

And the corvette was gone. Favian numbly returned the speaking trumpet to the rack while hearing the congratulations of Blake, Chapelle, and the others on the quarterdeck. He looked ahead; there was nothing but two miles of open water between Macedonian and the giants of the British battle line. Time to take a breath, to walk about the quarterdeck and try to work loose his tension-tautened limbs. He took the boarding helmet off his head and felt the ache in his neck recede.

He looked at his watch: a little after five. It would be getting light soon; he’d have to try to work his way through all those line-of-battle ships and heavy frigates before the dawn made them give Macedonian more than a cursory glance.

There were ships moving among the British, frigates and sloops of war slipping their moorings, setting sail, and heading toward the disturbance. Favian tried to ease Macedonian away from them. The battleships’ lookouts were more alert this time: the frigate was challenged a mile off the line. The proper reply seemed to ease their suspicions, however: Macedonian slipped into the midst of them, cutting the water between the giants.

The wind veered again, and the frigate was close-hauled on the larboard tack, hugging the wind, her speed falling. Favian grew anxious: all the other frigates were heading inland, toward Cat Island. Would the British begin to wonder why there was one frigate running the other way under topgallants and royals, dashing for the open sea as fast as it could go?

Another battleship challenged and accepted the reply, then a third. The eastern sky was growing pale, and Favian could see Malachi’s Revenge five miles off, following a pair of prizes: Gideon had made a successful escape. In another twenty minutes flag hoists would be visible, and then the pattern of signals would get more complicated.

Favian slipped to windward of a big three-decker and was able to alter his course to starboard, putting the wind a little more abeam, increasing his speed.

And then Favian saw a shadow to leeward— no, a pair of shadows, two frigates slipping out of the pack on the larboard tack, steering to cut Macedonian off from the open sea. British suspicions had been raised at last; some alert frigate captain had wondered why a heavy frigate would run into the Gulf as if it had good reason to run. Favian, heart sinking, glanced hopelessly to windward and confirmed the hopelessness of the situation. He had passed through the last of the heavy British battleships, but he still needed to head more to starboard to reach the open waters of the Gulf, and it looked as if these frigates meant to cut off his retreat..

He had no other choice: he had to run for the sea or be pinned against the land. “Knock the wedges out of the masts,” he ordered. “Crew to stand by the larboard rail.” That would give the masts more play and trim the ship a little better, letting the frigate pick up a little more speed.

The two enemy frigates were a little nearer the wind, steering a course that would intersect Macedonian’s. It seemed the lead enemy frigate was smaller than the other— Favian could hope for a twenty-eight-gun jackass frigate, but it seemed larger. The frigate astern seemed more heavily sparred, but Favian would have to wait for dawn to confirm any details. It would be half an hour before the frigates’ courses came together. Plenty of time to prepare. Favian ordered the spare mizzen topsail roused up from the sail locker forward, then bent to the yard. He also sent bucket brigades aloft to wet the sails and had the fire pumps play on the courses: wet sails held more air than dry sails, and the trick had worked for Favian twice before.

It didn’t work this time: by the time the sun touched the edge of the sea, it was clear that both enemy frigates were faster than Macedonian. Even if Favian managed to get ahead of them into the open sea, they would soon overtake him. Favian had a Union Jack raised to the jack staff and a St. George commission pendant from the main, but he doubted that the British would be fooled. If they were out here at all, it meant they were suspicious.

Carefully he studied them through his long glass. The lead British frigate was clearly a lightly built small frigate, rated at thirty-two guns or so. It wouldn’t stand twenty minutes in combat with Macedonian, but it wouldn’t have to: its consort was overhauling her and might well engage first.

The other frigate was, as Favian had suspected, a heavy thirty-eight, Macedonian’s equal in size and firepower, but unfortunately faster. He would have a chance with it alone, but not with its lighter playmate, and in any case Macedonian’s gun crews had been standing at quarters for nearly twelve hours, hadn’t had any sleep, and were exhausted. Favian sent below for a cup of cold coffee— the galley fires were out— and leaned against the weather shrouds while he considered the problem.

Macedonian was an old-fashioned British frigate; it was fast with the wind behind it and sluggish to weather. These other two seemed to be better at working to windward. If he could sail off the wind, he could spread his studding sails and perhaps give them a run for their money, but it simply wasn’t possible. Somehow he’d have to fight them.

His ship had lost men to prizes, thirty to the Carnation, which was balanced by twelve volunteers they’d got from the British ship; they’d lost fifty the night before, but got fifty-odd of Blake’s men in exchange. Favian ordered Chapelle to assign battle stations for the new men, and Chapelle and Blake put their heads together over the watch and quarter bills.

“Signal from the second British ship, sir,” Stanhope reported. The young midshipman looked exhausted, his eyes shadowed by dark circles, but he still smiled gamely as he reported. “It’s today’s challenge, sir.”

“Hoist the reply, Mr. Stanhope,” Favian said. Play the game out, he thought; perhaps that British captain is a moron and will believe us.

“Another signal, sir,” Stanhope said a few moments later. “What ship are you?”

“Tell them we’re Endymion, Mr. Stanhope.” Endymion was a forty-gun British frigate Favian had often seen blockading New York. Macedonian had barely escaped Endymion and two other British ships a few days after they’d got out of New London, back in October. Even if the enemy didn’t quite believe the signal, they might hesitate a bit before engaging a proclaimed forty-gunner.

“They’re identifying themselves, Captain,” Stanhope reported. “That first ship is the Thames.” He pronounced it with a theta and long a, like the river in Connecticut. He flipped through the British signal book. “That would be Captain the Honourable C.L. Irby. Thirty-two guns. The other is the Trave, thirty-eight, Captain Money. One moment, sir— another signal from the Trave.”

Favian, idly wondering whether Endymion’s captain, Henry Hope, was senior to Captain Money and could perhaps venture to give him some orders, could see a series of flags breaking out at the larger frigate’s peak. “ ‘What are your orders?’” Stanhope read.

“Tell them, ‘Am carrying dispatches. Am under Admiralty orders,’” Favian said. “Then add, ‘Thames, Trave chase enemy privateer to windward.’ Perhaps they’ll obey my orders.” He had no fear for Malachi’s Revenge: the tern schooner would outrun the British frigates without trouble.

The next British signal was followed by a gun, meant to give it emphasis.” ‘Heave to and await my orders,’” Stanhope reported.

“No reply, Mr. Stanhope. Is the American ensign bent on? Very well.”.

So much for the impersonation, he thought. He could still hope for a lucky shot that might dismast one or another of the frigates and leave him to fight the other.

The exchange of signals had absorbed a quarter hour; the frigates would be within range of one another soon, though they would have to alter course to fire, and Favian suspected that neither would. He studied them: Thames was a couple of cables ahead of Trave, but the heavier frigate, its larger spread of sail catching the brisk wind and propelling it with greater speed, was overhauling fast and would pass a little to leeward of the thirty-two.

“Deck, thar!” It was a lookout. “Another frigate’s chasing astern!” Favian looked aft with his glass: there was indeed another frigate making sail in pursuit, a heavy ship with beautiful lines, gold winking from the figurehead on its stem, but it was six or seven miles back and no immediate threat. A reminder not to dawdle with these first two frigates, but to try to end it fast if he could.

His brain swimming with weariness, Favian returned to contemplation of the first two frigates. There were two possibilities, assuming everyone kept on their current course. The British frigates might win the race, in which case they would get upwind of Macedonian, seizing the weather gage: they would then be able to engage whenever it suited them. If Macedonian won the race, the British would pass astem of the American frigate, perhaps firing a couple of raking broadsides while they were at it— since they were faster, they would take the weather gage that way, too, though it would take them longer.

Either way would work to the ultimate satisfaction of the British. Captain the Honourable C.L. Irby and Captain Money would have Macedonian between hammer and anvil. Frowning, Favian looked astern and saw the American fifteen-striped battle ensign bent to the halliards, ready to fly up into the brisk wind..

Within another hour or so, he might have to bring it down in surrender.

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Framed