The French Prize (12 page)

New hands had been hired to replace those who did not wish to ship out again, or those whom Jack did not wish to ship again, or who were unlikely to be sober or freed from jail by sailing time. Others who had signed papers and taken an advance were dragged from taverns and brothels and deposited in
Abigail
's forecastle. For that task, Jack asked for and gratefully accepted the help of his Uncle Ezra, whose connections and influence on the Philadelphia waterfront made the task infinitely simpler.

Decent food and drink for the men, decent by shipboard standards, in any event, had been bullied out of the chandlers, a new fore topsail had been cajoled out of Oxnard and bent on under the supervision of John Burgess, whom Biddlecomb had named boatswain. Hatches secured and battened down, masts slushed, hawsers to the wharf singled up, at last all was in readiness, with the tide set to begin ebbing a little after noon and the wind, which was a fairly steady eight knots out of the northeast, enough to give
Abigail
sufficient steerage as she drifted on the river, though Jack could have wished for more.

Jack and Oliver Tucker were aft discussing tiller ropes and the longevity they might reasonably expect from those currently rove when they heard the distinctive approach of a coach-and-four, and they looked up at the sound. An elegant carriage, not Oxnard's, but one they did not recognize, drew to a stop just abeam of
Abigail
's berth.

“Is Mr. Wentworth aboard?” Jack asked, he having blessedly forgotten all about the man.

“No, sir,” Tucker said. “I haven't seen him this week past. In truth, I've never seen him at all.”

“Well, let us hope for his sake this is him. We'll warp out into the stream in an hour whether he's aboard or no.” Jack noticed with some dismay that there was a considerable quantity of luggage lashed to the roof, and the coachman and liverymen scrambled up aloft to unlash it and hand it down just as the door swung open and Wentworth stepped nimbly to the cobblestones.

Fore and aft he looked every bit the young dandy, from the shoes, black and shiny as hot pitch, which made the silver buckles stand out in sharp relief, to the tall beaver hat he settled so carefully on his coiffed head. He paused to take in his surroundings with the detached, slightly ironic, slightly amused disdain that Jack, in the short time he had known the man, had already come to recognize and loathe.

“Is that our Mr. Wentworth?” Tucker asked.

“Indeed it is.”

Tucker gave a low whistle. “Now, ain't he the full-rigged macaroni?”

Before Jack could give his entire agreement, another figure stepped around from the far side of the carriage. He seemed to be Wentworth's opposite in every way, save for his clothes, which were at least as fine, if not so showy. This other fellow was a big man, and seemed to take up more space than even that which his large frame occupied. He was older than Wentworth, in his forties, Jack guessed. There was something embracing and open about him, a genuine smile on his face, a look that took in everything—the quay, the ship, the street—with interest and enthusiasm.

“Oh, damn my eyes,” Jack said, remembering.

“What, sir?”

“This must be Mr. Frost. I put him completely out of my mind. He was to have a cabin aboard, by Oxnard's express orders.”

“Oh, that,” Tucker said. “Mr. Oxnard sent a man a few days ago, when you was ashore, and let us know. Forgive me, I quite forgot to tell you, but I had the carpenter knock out a bulkhead betwixt two cabins, made one big one, and Mr. Frost is to be there, larboard side, and Mr. Wentworth is in the cabin to starboard.”

Relief like a warm bath engulfed Jack, and he said, “Oliver, you have saved my bacon. I shall grant you whatever you might wish. You have but to name it.”

“I guess I would be grateful was my salary to be doubled.”

“No, I fear that will never happen.”

“Oh. Well, you could—”

“No, sorry, you get only the one request. Come, let us meet our guests.” Jack led the way ashore, over the gangplank and the cobbles to where the two men were waiting for the last of their luggage to come down from the roof of the carriage.

“Ah, Captain Biddlecomb,” Wentworth said in a tone of obligatory civility, with a touch of resentment at having to be civil at all. “May I present to you Mr. Charles Frost?”

Biddlecomb extended a hand and Frost took it in both of his and gave a warm shake in reply. He smiled and said, “Captain Biddlecomb! An honor! My friend Oxnard was to alert you to my coming, I hope that was arranged?”

“Yes, sir, indeed,” Jack said. “My chief mate, Mr. Tucker…” Jack paused and indicated Tucker, and Frost shook the mate's hand as well, “has been the soul of diligence in getting things in order for you.”

“Not put you too far out of your way, I hope!” Frost cried, and Tucker assured him it was no bother.

“I was starting to fear you both would be left on the beach,” Jack went on. “We are set to warp off the dock in an hour, and … well … time and tide and all that. Waits on no man.”

“Indeed,” Wentworth said. “Pray forgive me, I have no doubt the accommodations on the boat are charming in the extreme, but I thought it best to take rooms at the City until the time of our departure.”

“I quite understand,” Jack said. “We tarpaulins are under way with our labors quite early of a morning, and if you was aboard we would either have to wake you or have all hands go a'tiptoe, and neither would answer. I'm sure the City Tavern was more accommodating.”

“It was dreadful,” Wentworth said, looking about as if he was bored by the conversation. “It made me long for a monk's cell. Or my cabin aboard your boat, even.”

“It must have been hellish, indeed,” Jack said. Insulting Wentworth, he could see, was like stabbing a crystal ball; no matter how sharp the point or direct the blow it always seemed to glance off.

And then Frost stepped in, all smiles and
bonhomie
and an expansive cheerfulness that seemed to draw everything around into its vortex. “Mr. Wentworth, I fear these gentlemen have too much to do to be chatting with landlubbers the likes of us! We've a whole voyage to make acquaintances, and I for one am looking very much forward to it! Let us get to sea!” He put an arm around Jack's shoulders, and the other arm around Wentworth's and turned them both and directed them toward the ship. Neither one resisted or even questioned him. Such was the force of Charles Frost's personality.

Another twenty minutes were consumed with getting the dunnage aboard, which was mostly Frost's, though some of it Wentworth's, he apparently having not brought everything on his first visit to the ship. Burgess took charge of the boat crew and ran the warps, fore and aft, out to the warping posts, and Tucker sent men aloft to loosen off topsails.

Oxnard and Dailey made their appearance dockside to issue last-minute instructions, to see all was well, and to wish them safe voyage. Jack had made his farewells to his family the night before, a scene that was all but routine by now, but Ezra Rumstick brought his brother, Nathaniel, down to the quay and they bid their farewells, then stood back to watch the evolution of warping the ship out into the stream.

Frost and Wentworth, having seen their belongings stowed down, took a spot on the quarterdeck from which to watch their departure from the city. Jack ignored them, and ignored how shabby his working coat, shirt, and shoes looked in comparison to what those gentlemen wore.
Well, idle gentlemen will wear what they will
, he thought with a disdain he did not actually feel.

“Ready, fore and aft, sir,” Tucker called from his position on the larboard cathead.

“Very well…” Jack ran his eyes over the loosened sails, the warps run out at oblique angles to the warping posts. If the wind had been hard against them, or the tide setting strong, they would have run the warps to the windlass, but in the present conditions, four men on each hawser, walking away with the line, would be enough to move them into the stream.

“Take up the breast and quarter fasts, ease away head and stern fasts, take up on the larboard warps, walk away with them, now!” Jack shouted and the lines run out to the dock were eased, those run out to the warping posts hauled upon, and the
Abigail
eased out into the Delaware River.

“'Vast, there, the
Abigail,
'vast, you great buggering boatload of … buggering…” a voice came ringing down the road, loud, insistent, and slurred and all heads turned in surprise. Noah Maguire came staggering toward them, his walk more like a long, protracted fall, though the man stayed miraculously upright as he approached. His breeches were torn, his shirt stained with what was most likely vomit, one shoe was gone. “'Vast there, my darling Biddlecomb, you can't sail the barky without ol' Mr. Maguire aboard!” He stopped at the edge of the quay, swayed a bit, then collapsed in a heap.

Jack turned an angry eye toward the mate. “Mr. Tucker, I thought Maguire was secured in the fo'c'sle!”

“He was sleeping it off last I saw,” Tucker protested. “He must have snuck ashore again.”

“Oh, damn my eyes, what a bother,” Jack said. They were too far from the dock for the gangplank to reach, and with the wind holding them off they would have to run the fasts to the windlass to haul the ship back alongside.

“I'll whip him aboard, sir,” Tucker said, guilty over his failure at keeping Maguire contained. He stepped forward and shed his coat, then called up to Lacey in the maintop, who was standing by to overhaul buntlines, to lower down the whip. Lacey cast off the whip, a single line rove through a block at the yardarm, and lowered it to the deck.
Abigail
was still close enough to shore that the far end of her main yard overhung the dock, so Tucker made one end of the whip fast to a belaying pin and with the other end swung monkeylike over the gap between ship and land, coming down right beside Maguire's motionless form.

Tucker worked the end of the whip under Maguire's body, which was enough to rouse him, cursing and bellowing, as Tucker made the line secure under his arms and shouted “Haul away the teagueline!”

The men at the inboard end pulled with a will, jerking the spewing, cussing Irishman aloft. Tucker grabbed Maguire's belt, pulled him farther from the ship, then let him go with a shove. Maguire's thrashing and kicking disrupted the perfect arc of his swing across the open water, and once he had cleared the bulwark the men on the whip let go the line and the big Irishman came crashing down just outboard of the main hatch. They untied the whip and swung it back for Tucker as Maguire pulled himself to his feet.

Maguire's wild, drunken eyes searched the deck until they met Biddlecomb's. The men were having a jolly good laugh at Maguire's expense, and he was not too drunk to know it. He took a lurching step aft, his hands balled up into massive fists.

“Maguire!” Jack shouted. “Lay below and sleep it off, you great Irish son of a whore!”

“Ah, Biddlecomb, you little rum bastard, I'll do for you!” He charged aft, Jack expecting him to go down with each step, but he didn't. Maguire was accustomed to keeping his feet on a moving surface, be it a rolling ship's deck or a swaying tavern floor, and he made it clean aft without faltering. He paused a few feet in front of Biddlecomb, cocked his fist and swung, a potentially devastating blow. Maguire was likely the strongest man aboard, far stronger than Jack, to be sure, but he was an awkward hand at a fight, even when sober, relying not on any technique but rather on strength and an extraordinary ability to endure pain.

Jack tilted back as the fist came around. He felt the swish of air as it passed, and with it the smell of Maguire's body and clothing, which almost did what Maguire's fist could not, that is, knock him down. But instead, Jack stepped up and delivered a hard uppercut to Maguire's stomach, which doubled him over, then another to his face, which snapped him up again and tossed him back, so he landed with an impact that could be felt underfoot. He lay on his back, groaned, and then was silent.

“Could we get some hands here to secure this drunken pile of horse shit in the fo'c'sle?” Jack called. “And see he stays secured, this time?” As Maguire was dragged unceremoniously across the deck, Jack called for the men to once again ease away the starboard hawsers, take up the larboard, and the
Abigail
resumed her slow, sideways motion out into the river.

“Forgive that nonsense, gentlemen.” Jack turned to Wentworth and Frost with his apology. “Maguire's a good hand at sea, but the very devil when he gets ashore.”

“Indeed,” Wentworth said, and there was a glint of genuine amusement in his eye. “But, forgive me, surely fisticuffs is … below the station of a ship's master?”

Jack laughed at that. “This is not the Royal Navy, Mr. Wentworth, and it ain't an East Indiaman. Just a reasonably honest American merchantman. If a thing needs doing, and I am the best man to do it, then it is not below my station.”

“How very republican of you,” Wentworth observed.

“Well, I say that was very manly done,” Frost said, with his big smile. “Will you punish the man? What will be his sentence?”

“Flog him, perhaps?” Wentworth asked. “A dozen lashes at the grating, is that how you tarpaulins do it?”

“I repeat, sir, this is not the Royal Navy. I have no authority to flog anyone. I could dock his pay, I reckon, but I wouldn't bother. It would only make him sullen and I'd get less work from him. Forward, there, haul away smartly!” That last he shouted to the hands at the forward warp, then turned back to his passengers. “Besides, punishing Maguire for being an ugly drunkard would be akin to punishing a wolf for killing a deer. It's just who he is, and punishment won't change it.”

“My, what a liberal fellow you are!” Wentworth said.