A Sailor's Christmas
Chapter Four
To a landsman, the sight of more than forty ships in exact formation, their sails swelling against the tropical sky, would be magnificent. To Wentworth, it was a source of constant anxiety.
The masters of the merchant vessels had been summoned to the Minerva before the convoy left Tortola. They stood or sat sullenly as the convoy instructions were read and explained to them, resentment rolling off them in palpable waves. These men, unaccustomed to the chain of command, answered to no one save the owners of their vessels, who made no demands short of bringing in the shipment at the lowest price possible; to have some prating peacock of a naval officer telling them how to sail their ships was hardly to be endured.
"Louisa Maria has dropped behind again," said MacKenzie, who stood beside his captain at the taffrail, his telescope trained on the horizon.
"Signal her, if you please, Mr. MacKenzie."
"Aye aye, Captain." MacKenzie looked around and shouted, "Mr. Murphy!"
"Yes, sir!" cried the young gentleman, snapping to attention.
"Kindly signal the Louisa Maria to return to her assigned position."
"Aye aye, sir." Murphy ran a series of flags up the signal halyard, then watched the sloop through his telescope. "She's not answering, sir."
MacKenzie looked questioningly at his captain.
Wentworth heaved an internal sigh. "Round her up."
MacKenzie immediately shouted a volley of commands, and the deck sprang to life as seaman swarmed up the masts and out onto the yards. With her sails trimmed, Minerva swayed to starboard as she came about, curving back toward where the sloop Louisa Maria lagged behind the convoy.
Wentworth watched the crew's activities, his brow creased in consternation. His ire was not directed at his officers or seamen; indeed, he had perfect confidence that MacKenzie knew his business, and would ensure the crew's compliance. He was angry at the master of the Louisa Maria, who had made either Minerva or Annis perform this maneuver three times between them in the two days since the convoy had departed Tortola. To see the Minerva, a magnificent, deadly, finely-tuned instrument of war, relegated to the role of a collie dog rounding up stray sheep too stupid to stay within the protection of the flock gave grievous pain to any Heart of Oak.
As the Minerva tacked and wore, making her way tediously back to the Louisa Maria's position, Wentworth could not help but smile at the irony of the sloop's name. She was as lively and precociously pretty as the former Louisa Musgrove, now Mrs. James Benwick. Just one year ago, Wentworth had enjoyed the attentions of the sweet young Louisa, and had gloried in what he considered the firmness of mind that made Louisa the superior of Miss Anne Elliot, who had accepted him and then spurned him eight years and a half before. When that very decided nature threatened Louisa's life, he learned to regret firmness so misapplied. He was finally able to understand the true superiority of his own Anne, who had a firmness of her own, and the innate sense and propriety that gave it the proper direction.
He could see Anne now, standing beside the taffrail, the tropical breezes bringing colour to her face and a light to her eyes. She would have laughed at his helpless rage; she would have said, "To let such a snip of a girl bring you so low! Now, Frederick, you are more clever than that."
Yes, love, I am more clever than that. Wentworth called over the first lieutenant and outlined his scheme.
Minerva circled the Louisa Maria and came up alongside. Wentworth raised the speaking trumpet. He could have been heard easily on the deck of the sloop had he shouted, but the dignity of a post-captain in the Royal Navy must be maintained. "Mr. Vernon!" he called. "You will make sail to rejoin the convoy directly!"
The master, a rotund man in a ragged blue coat, apparently cared nothing for his dignity. He simply cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted. "I daren't, Captain Wentworth. The sails will split."
Wentworth had already heard this argument; Vernon feared losing his sails, putting the owner of the Louisa Maria to some expense to replace them, an expense that would come out of the small crew's pay--or so Vernon claimed. Wentworth suspected that Vernon took perverse enjoyment in being contrary and in forcing the entire convoy to adhere to his own plodding pace. Wentworth raised the speaking trumpet once again. "You will make sail, Mr. Vernon, or we will be forced to put you under tow."
The oath flung at him in reply made Wentworth glad once again that Anne was safely back in England.
"Very well, Mr. MacKenzie," said Wentworth quietly. "He has been warned."
MacKenzie shouted instructions, and the frigate drew forward of the sloop, and suddenly wore to starboard, cutting in front of the Louisa Maria. Wentworth could hear shouting from the deck of the sloop, which he ignored. "You there," he cried, pointing at the young topman who had been flogged. "Burns, come here."
Burns flew to his captain's side, his eyes wide and worried.
"Can you drop down to that bowsprit?" Wentworth asked him, pointing over the stern of the ship.
A slow smile spread across the young man's face. "Aye, cap'n, I reckon I can."
Wentworth quickly explained the plan to Burns, who nodded in understanding. Burns tied a rope around his waist; his mates held the other end of it. He dropped quickly over the stern and past the gallery until he dangled a foot above the bowsprit of the Louisa Maria. He waited for the ships' movements to bring him close to the bowsprit, and when the wake of the Minerva lifted the bow of the sloop, he dropped down on it on all fours. His mates threw down a hawser and stood watchfully by, ready to haul him back if he should come into danger.
He crawled forward until he reached the base of the bowsprit. The crew of the sloop had seen what was happening and ran forward with long, wooden staves, which they used to attack the young man, driving him back along the length of the bowsprit.
"Marines, stand to!" Wentworth bellowed, and red-coated Marines aimed their muskets at the deck of the sloop. The attacking crew members fell back immediately, and Burns was able to loop the hawser through the forward rail of the sloop. When he was finished, he waved at the Minerva, and his mates quickly hauled him back to the deck, still carrying the end of the thick hawser, which was taken away from him and secured. He was greeted with cheers and slaps on the back.
"Well done, Burns," said Wentworth, and the young man rewarded him with a friendly grin. Wentworth's conscience was at peace for the first time in nearly a month. "Marines will stay in position," he ordered, and the muskets remained trained on the bowsprit so that the Louisa Maria's crew could not cast off the hawser.
MacKenzie shouted another order and the Minerva's sails were released. As they filled with air, she churned back to join the convoy, towing the recalcitrant sloop. Wentworth watched Vernon's angry gestures and capers with a sense of savage satisfaction. As always, he understood ships better than women; this Louisa had not got the better of him.
Feeling a rather celebratory mood, Wentworth invited MacKenzie and two of the midshipmen, Murphy and Whitcomb, to join him in the coach for one of Jenkins's hearty dinners.
The young gentlemen ate wolfishly, as though afraid that someone might take the food away before they could get to it. Jenkins piled their plates several times, declaring it was "good to see younkers what enjoy their victuals," implying with a sniff that the Captain did not. They all ate their fill, finished off a bottle of wine, and at last relaxed over cheese and port.
Whitcomb had watch, so he turned down the port (somewhat regretfully) and went off to the quarterdeck. Murphy followed soon after, and Wentworth invited MacKenzie to join him in an after-dinner cigar. They went out to the poopdeck; there was no moon, and the darkness rushed past them like black velvet as the Minerva moved steady and silent through the night.
They stood in companionable silence by the taffrail, the ends of the cigars glowing as they drew. Wentworth found that his thoughts were very much with his Anne that night; she was probably asleep at that moment, curled warmly into their bed at Newbury Oaks, and despite the satisfactory activities of the day, he could wish he was with her. After a time, Wentworth asked, "Are you a married man, Mr. MacKenzie?"
"I am, Captain."
"The naval wife has a difficult time of it, I think."
"Well, my wife's late father was a Royal Navy captain, so she knew what she was getting into. Navy wives have more mettle than we sometimes give them credit for, I think."
Wentworth thought of his sister Sophy, who preferred the privations of seafaring life to being separated from her husband. "I believe you are right."
The food, wine, and cigar had made MacKenzie unusually loquacious. "I thought we should wait to marry till I made post, but in peacetime that might not happen for years, if ever. When I had some leave earlier this year, we talked it over, and Teresa decided she did not want to wait any longer. We both have a little money, and with my pay, we get by well enough."
Wentworth was startled to discover that he still felt some residual bitterness over the reaction of Anne's family to the same situation: to persuade her against marrying him when he was a newly-made commander in the year six, with no ship and no fortune. Shortly after Anne broke their engagement, Wentworth had received a command, the sloop Asp, barely fit for home service. He had gone off in her determined to prove himself, determined to make a fortune, determined to show the Elliots--especially Anne--how wrong they had been to spurn him, and he had been fearless and sometimes foolhardy...but she had brought him success at last. He had earned that success, and a fortune in prize money, by his brilliance and skill and courage, and if that was not good enough for Sir Walter Elliot, Bart., then the devil take him.
The truly lowering notion was that it had been good enough for Anne, more than enough, indeed, and in his anger and injured pride he had not realized it; he had not given her the benefit of the doubt, had not allowed himself to admit that she was superior to her family, and had lost several years of happiness for both of them. For all his success as an officer, he had failed that test of a man. However, his naval career had taught Wentworth pragmatism, and he was willing to take the gift he had rediscovered on his second meeting with Anne, and build on it, and she accepted that as she had always accepted everything about him.
He came back to the present suddenly, and realized that he had dropped his end of the conversation, so he said, "You are fortunate to have a place in peacetime."
"I know it. I wouldn't have minded the war lasting a little longer; I could have put away a little more prize money, and if I was put on the beach, it wouldn't signify."
"Would you not miss navy life?" Wentworth remembered how a part of him had longed to be back at sea, even while he relished his marriage.
"I daresay, but I wouldn't miss convoy duty very much. And my wife is expecting a child now. If I could be settled on a regular station, I could bring her with me, but all this back and forth, she's better off in Portsmouth."
"I think my wife would like to be on a foreign station, but it is unlikely that she will have the opportunity. When this voyage is over, I may never go to sea again."
MacKenzie laughed. "I doubt that, sir."
A captain grew accustomed to a certain amount of flattery from his underlings, but MacKenzie was hardly the toad-eating type. "I have not the pleasure of understanding you."
MacKenzie did not immediately answer; finally, he said, "You do not know, then?"
"Know what?"
"I believe that your appointment to this ship was by design, Captain, not chance." Wentworth was too astonished to speak. MacKenzie went on. "Captain Merriam's bout of malaria was hardly life-threatening; a little fever, perhaps, but he threw it off early on. I believe that the Admiralty has been looking to replace him, but he has influential friends in Parliament."
Wentworth found his tongue. "I see. Why did they wish to replace him?"
"You heard Captain Sherwin refer to an incident where the Minerva almost had the Mirabelle, but lost the main topmast? It was not lost by mischance; it was lost through ineffective handling of the ship in a gale. Captain Merriam was determined to capture the Mirabelle, and Minerva was carrying too much canvas. Not only did we lose the Mirabelle, we nearly lost the Minerva as well on a lee shore."
"I had no idea."
"No, you would have been in the Mediterranean still, then. It was before the ending of the war, and Captain Merriam's friends had it kept quiet." There was bitterness in the younger man's voice. "I regret the incident; I regret that I did not step in and strongly advise Captain Merriam to reduce sail and leave the Mirabelle for another time. When the topmast went over the side, it was only with the strictest attention and hard work from the crew that we managed to keep from grounding her."
Wentworth digested the first lieutenant's words silently. After a moment MacKenzie said, "I owe you an apology, Captain. When you joined the ship, I thought you were aware of all this; I thought perhaps the Admiralty had sent you to the Minerva to...." his voice trailed off.
"Spy upon you?" Wentworth asked with a slight smile. "No, I was only given orders to get the convoy safely to Portsmouth."
"Then I beg your pardon for my initial rudeness."
"You have it, Mr. MacKenzie."
"I thank you, sir." He paused, and then added, "I now believe that the Admiralty gave you this command because they think you are the man to capture the Mirabelle once and for all. I feel the same way, sir." He tossed the end of his cigar over the rail. "I will wish you good night, Captain."
"Good night, Mr. MacKenzie, and thank you for the...edifying conversation."
After hearing such a revelation, it is understandable that Wentworth found it difficult to fall asleep. He lay in the swaying cot, staring into the darkness, he knew not for how long; it seemed that he had just closed his eyes when Jenkins shook his shoulder.
"Two bells, Captain."*
"Very well." He sat up blearily; Jenkins had already brought hot water and laid out his uniform. His morning ablutions were quickly performed, and he was on deck as sunrise approached. MacKenzie was already there, his queue impeccably tied as always.
"Beat to quarters, if you please, Mr. MacKenzie." With the possibility of a prowling pirate always present, the Minerva would greet the dawn ready to fire a broadside.
"Aye aye, Captain."
The bosun's calls shrilled as the men ran to their positions by the guns and stood ready. The lookouts were already in their high perches, telescopes trained on the horizon.
The sun crept up over the horizon, and every officer on the quarterdeck was scanning the horizon. Soon the "all clear" call came, and Wentworth ordered the men to their usual morning duties. He had been concentrating on the Mirabelle, and seeing the convoy all around him in a general way, had not thought of more, but now it occurred to him to check on the Louisa Maria. Vernon had a habit of reducing sail unnecessarily at night, and the sloop had probably fallen behind the convoy.
He trained his telescope on the sloop's position, to windward of the Annis, and was unsurprised to find the sloop was not there. He scanned the convoy, looking for the Louisa Maria's haphazardly patched sails, and was unable to find her.
The Annis was approaching from starboard, and signals were flying up her halyard. Wentworth read them before Murphy was able to report: "The Annis is signaling Minerva to heave to, sir. Captain Sherwin wishes to come aboard."
Wentworth immediately shouted commands through the speaking trumpet, and the deck sprang to life. By the time that the sails were trimmed in such a way to keep the Minerva still in the water, Sherwin had launched his jolly boat. Wentworth was waiting for him as he came through the entry port.
"The Louisa Maria is gone, Captain," Sherwin murmured as the captains walked to the windward side of the quarterdeck. "I had a glimpse of a sail on the far horizon at dawn. It was gone before I could be sure, but it appeared to be the Mirabelle. We must assume that the sloop is taken."
*for you lubbers...that's five a.m.
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