The Delirium Passage Read online

  The droning of a man calling depth soundings began, while the ship moved sluggishly east. The breeze dropped as darkness fell, making progress even slower. Everyone became more alert when the inshore lead replaced the long lead and the soundings decreased.

  The bottom sloped up slowly here, but they finally approached the requested depth. “By the mark, five,” the leadsman called. “…a quarter less four”.

  “Stand by, Mister Vondran,” Carstens ordered.

  “By the mark, four.”

  “Loose anchor and throw off the jib sheet.”

  “Aye, Sir,” Vondran said.

  “Join me below, Captain?” Carstens said to Neville.

  “Might we stay on deck on such a night, and invite the ladies?”

  “Capital idea. I think I can feel more relaxed now.”

  The evening provided a much-appreciated break from the tensions of the past few weeks. The four passed a few hours with a couple bottles of claret, and a bit of cheese and bread, sitting on the aft deck enjoying the zephyrs washing across them, carrying the scents of flowers, fishermen’s cooking fires and plant life

  * * * * *

  “Good morning, Captain Burton,” Carstens said.

  “Good morning, Master. What do you plan for today?”

  “I plan to wait. We’ll rig a net over the side for the men to take a swim, have some men try their hand at fishing, and we’ll send a boat in to the beach with our finest clam-diggers. They will also take a look to see if there are any wild goats or boars handy. We shouldn’t need to quiet the men, so with any luck, we shall have quite a feast this evening, and enjoy the music and dancing. Mister Dorn is quite a fiddler.”

  Neville took a sip from the coffee mug he had carried with him from the galley. “It sounds lovely to me. I am feeling much stronger, but a day without much motion should help quite a bit. Here come the ladies. I suspect they feel the same.” He wrapped his arms around Marion, feeling the warmth of her.

  “It’s most wonderful to have you alive and talking, Neville,” she said.

  “And not getting our exercise by walking to sick bay and back.”

  “I’m sure,” Neville said. “Master Carstens says we may have a fish feast this afternoon, but I’m hungry now.”

  “A fish feast,” Ellen said, “I will enjoy it immensely. We shall have a quiet day at anchor, then? Here, in this heavenly place? Just look at those majestic birds.”

  ‘Ooh, frigate birds,” exclaimed Marion. “I’ve missed them. We haven’t seen them since we left home. It seems forever… but we’ll be there again soon, won’t we, Neville?” She returned his strong hug.

  “So, when do we raise anchor, Master Carstens?”

  “Not all day, or even tonight, Mrs. Dagleishe. I thoroughly dislike being followed at sea, so I’m quite happy to know the French have gone far ahead. I also don’t like to leave an anchorage in the dark. Dawn tomorrow we’ll weigh anchor.”

  Marion and Neville both woke early. They found each other begging coffee in the galley, stole a quick hug and kiss, and climbed the main companion stair to view the new day.

  “Look, Marion, this is spectacular.”

  Beyond the ship’s rail, the sea appeared blanketed in mist, tinted pink with the first light of dawn. The mist thinned as the sun’s first rays spiked over the island to the east. One small fishing vessel sailed past, no doubt working its way home.

  Human calls broke the stillness. “Straight up and down, Master Carstens,” they heard Vondran yell from the bow.

  “Weigh!” Carstens returned. Speedwell lifted her anchor off the bottom almost exactly as the gold, glowing sun first peeked over Cat Cay. After a day of relaxation, fishing and hunting sport, followed by eating and dancing into the evening, the ship came alive very slowly. Even the light morning breeze, moving the vessel languidly from her mooring in paradise into deeper waters, added little urgency.

  “Topsails and t’gallants, please, Mister Vondran. It was a capital stopover, but we’ve lost a day and more,” Carstens called to the man walking aft from the bow.

  “Aye, aye, Master. We’ll make her run today.”

  Carstens yelled to the lookout after Speedwell cleared the southernmost point of the island to ask if any sail were to be seen. The man replied in the negative.

  “I am most pleased to hear it,” Carstens said to Neville, who had come aft to greet him. “I will assume the French buggers have run off home.”

  “And we’ll pray they’re alone out here,” Neville said, clearly remembering his dream of being captured close to the north coast of Cuba, which still lay ahead of them.

  The wind rose as the morning went on, raising the seas from the low mounding swells of the morning to nasty chop. With the wind now on the nose, Speedwell beat hard into the waves, spray flying away to starboard off every one she shouldered aside. Tack after tack, she worked her way south through the islands between Conception Island and Long Island. By late afternoon they had left Rum Cay to larboard. The waves grew and progress slowed.

  Marion, Neville, and Ellen had just finished dinner at a sturdy table in the crew’s mess when Master Carstens came down the main companion with Mr. Vondran. The two women had given Neville their unhappy comments about the ship’s rough motion.

  “Master Carstens,” Neville began, “what can you tell us of the course?”

  “Here,” Carstens said, “I’ll show you. Mister Vondran and I were about to discuss a change.” He pushed their empty plates aside and spread a large chart on the table.

  “We’re approximately here,” Vondran said, poking at the chart some ten miles north of the south end of Long Island, “and beating east, as you can tell.”

  “I think it’s we who are being beaten,” Marion said.

  “I can’t control the weather, Miss,” Carstens said, “but we might choose a course easier on the ship.”

  “The ship?” asked Marion, “What about…”

  “Marion, please,” interjected Neville. “He’s come to try.”

  “Sorry, Master Carstens, I meant no disrespect.”

  “None taken, Miss. Your opinion, please, Captain. I think we tack due south when we’re half the distance between Long Island and this pile of sand to the east, here. This, you see… no name on it. Maybe it’s a part of this Crooked Island. But we may get a little relief from the waves and if we’re not so tight to the wind…”

  “The motion will be easier,” Neville finished. “I thank you for your consideration, Master Carstens. I also believe we’re better off to run south where there aren’t any islands in front of us in the dark and work our easting in the daylight.”

  “Exactly,” Carstens said.

  “And it will save the men a lot of night sail changing,” Vondran added. “We’ve not got the crew of a Man-o-War.”

  “By morning, we should be about here,” Carstens continued, poking a bony finger at a point in the ocean south of Aklins Island. “Tomorrow we’ll take a couple long tacks eastward toward Inagua. It will be a bit uncomfortable again, ladies, I’m sorry. I don’t expect to encounter pirates there but if we do we’ll just have to call ourselves unlucky. Then south again here, passing close enough to see Great Inagua in order to verify our position before night falls.”

  “It’s an excellent plan,” Master. I look forward to another tropical night, though it may be a bit damp,” Neville said.

  Ten minutes after the lookout hollered, “Deck, thar, land Ho!” the ship’s bell rang the single chime of the First Dog Watch.

  “Where away, Williams,” yelled Neville, having volunteered for a short watch in the late afternoon. Ellen, Marion, Neville, Vondran, and Carstens all gathered at the larboard rail to see what they could of this island, as they had at others.

  “It doesn’t look much different, does it?” Marion commented.

  “No, and not much there but salt,” Carstens said. But good anchorage is to be had half way along the western shore.”

  “What’s that, there?” Nev
ille asked, pointing. “A flake of white, probably in the bay you were telling us about.”

  “Sail, ho!” yelled Williams from the rigging. He pointed where they were all looking.

  “Glass, please,” Neville said to Vondran.

  Vondran fetched it quickly, and Neville lifted it to his eye. “She looks…”

  “French!” Williams hollered.

  “Yes, French,” Neville finished. “Care to look, Master Carstens?”

  Carstens lifted the glass. After studying for at least a minute, he drew breath to announce…”

  “French Corvette!” Williams bellowed from on high. “She’s coming out!” His voice carried a tinge of anxiety.

  “Yes,” Carstens said, “Possibly the same one we had astern a couple days ago.”

  “How could it be?” asked Marion. “Why would he wait here?”

  “Damage, is my guess,” Neville said, “Something carried away in a strong wind, maybe, and they knew this as a good place to stop. Whatever the reason, here she is. Master Carstens, what are your orders?”

  Carstens, looking rather gray, took a moment to reason out loud, “She’s a bit ahead of us, and we know she’s fast enough to catch us, although it takes her some time. Due south from here is the Windward Passage, and we’ll have the breeze on our larboard bow – almost to the beam, at least from here to Cuba. We can’t fight, unless we wish to meet our Maker, so our only choices are to make a run for it south or give up now.”

  “Here’s one more option,” Neville reminded them. “Turn to the nor’-west for Florida.”

  “All that course does is make her chase us longer before she catches us. I don’t know why she’s so dead set on having us for dinner.”

  Neville agreed, but thought it best to be sure Carstens had considered all his options. “I think we’ll never know, Master. Just her luck, I’d wager,” he said.

  “We run for the Windward Passage, then. One point west of south, Captain Burton. See to the sails, Mister Vondran. I’m going below for an early dinner, if the cook will find me something. I think it will be a long evening.”

  By the time Carsten returned to deck, the situation had changed significantly. It had become much more obvious how the near future might play out.

  At the end of Neville’s watch, he gave his report to Carstens: “On the course you ordered, sir, and making a good seven knots and a half. Breeze is fresh and steady on the larboard bow. Frenchie is about one and a half leagues on larboard quarter. He’s cracking on, with leeward stuns’l abroad. He has the weather gage, and we can’t lay off much or we’ll be finding Punta de Maisi, Cuba in our way.”

  “Not good. She must be fresh from the shipyard in France, with a clean bottom, fresh sails, and the most modern of lines. She might have almost two knots on us.”

  “If that’s true, we have probably only… an hour and a half?”

  “I should say so. Is there anything of value we should destroy, Master Carstens?”

  Carstens looked at Neville strangely for a second, and answered, “Oh. No, no. This isn’t a warship. We carry no secret plans or government secrets. No, no. Ha, ha. I suspect they probably won’t even be interested in our cargo of ice. Ha, ha. They’ll get nothing from us for all their trouble.”

  At two bells in the Last Dog watch, the French corvette, now only a few cables behind, fired a warning gun.

  “I don’t think they even bothered to waste a ball on us. If we keep going as long as possible, we’ll only anger them,” Neville said. “If we were voting, I would vote to let the sheets fly now.”

  The corvette shot again, this time with a ball, which dropped in the sea a dozen yards to larboard.

  “Practicing gunnery, I assume,” Neville said.

  “And making a point,” Carstens said. “Mister Vondran, strike the colors and let sheets fly.

  Vondran hollered forward, and the air soon filled with the roar of flapping sails and whipping lines. He sent a couple of men aft to haul down the flag. Speedwell slowed dramatically and bucked against the slap of oncoming three-foot waves.

  In another half glass the sounds of flapping sails were mostly subdued by the men furling one after the other. The twenty-two-gun corvette, Départment des Landes, grappled alongside. Armed French marines had come aboard, made a quick check below, hustled everyone aboard to center deck, and stationed themselves fore and aft.

  An English-speaking lieutenant also came aboard, and he began his interrogation. “I Lieutenant Beauvais. Who is captain and lieutenants?” he asked first.

  “I am the Master, and these three are my Mates,” answered Carstens. We’re not military – no lieutenants here.”

  The lieutenant motioned for the mates to be taken to the larboard rail near the corvette. “Who cook?” he asked, followed by “Who sailmaker? and Who carpenter?”

  Those identified were sent to the starboard rail.

  “Who this people?” he asked Carstens.

  Neville answered, “We are passengers, sir, returning to Jamaica for a wedding.”

  “All men go there,” said Lt. Beauvais, indicating the ship’s waist. “By Mates. My apologies, Mademoiselles.”

  One of the marines gave Neville a slight push, to which Marion took offense. She said, directly to the man, in French, “Fais attention. Il a été malade. (Be careful. He’s been ill.)”

  Lt. Beauvais heard. He pointed at Neville. “You, go there.” He pointed to the larboard rail where the carpenter, cook, and one of the topmen stood.

  “Oh, no, no! Not good,” Marion said. “Don’t you separate us.”

  Lt. Beauvais turned from her and ordered the rest of Speedwell’s crew stand in a line. “Go where he say,” he announced to the line, and pointed to one of his marines.

  The marine walked along the line sending every other man to either larboard or starboard. A French sailor came up from below and walked over to Beauvais with a smirk on his face. After he spoke to Beauvais, the lieutenant motioned for Carstens to come over.

  “Yes?” Carstens said.

  “Where do you go with ship?”

  “Jamaica.”

  “What your cargo is”

  With a smile, he said, “You found it, did you? Ice. Tons of ice, in contract for Frederic Tudor of Boston. I am to return with sugar, molasses, and some tropical fruit, using some of the ice to keep the fruit cool.”

  This further explanation seemed to make the lieutenant angry. “Why do you run from us all this way to save a cargo of ice? This is stupid; stupid, I say.” He turned to the man who had brought him the news and ordered him to take two others and go below again.

  “All you go to my ship,” he said to the Speedwells gathered at the larboard rail, “All go. Others go below here,” he added, looking to larboard, and pointing to the main stair.

  “No!” shrieked Marion. “Send that man here!” She pointed at Neville. He was stopped as he began to walk toward the corvette by a marine holding a musket across his path. Marion ran toward him but another marine grabbed her arm. A quick jerk and twist by Marion, followed by a short jab to the belly, put the marine on his knees. The disturbance moved the attention to Marion, and Neville knocked the musket from his opponent’s arms and moved to assist his fiancée. The Speedwells began cheering.

  “Arete!” yelled Lieutenant Beauvais. One of the marines near Ellen was fool enough to raise his musket toward Marion and she rewarded him with her elbow in his ribs and a two-armed chop on the weapon. The musket up-ended and discharged, blowing a neat hole in the marine’s foot. He shrieked in pain, which raised an even louder cheer from the Speedwells. In response, all the other marines assumed a defensive posture.

  Marion and Neville met and grabbed each other tenaciously. More marines jumped across from the corvette. Four went for Neville and three for Marion, in whose hand a dagger appeared.

  The report of a pistol shot broke through the cheering. Everyone stopped, and turned their attention to Lieutenant Beauvais, who stood with his smoking pistol pointed a
t the deck.

  “If you do not drop knife, Mademoiselle, I will have you shot.” To others, he ordered, “Take these two women to the free cabin and hold them until we sail. Check the other one for a knife, also. Send the men for France over, now, and take this group below.” He waved at Neville and the men at the starboard rail. “And move their trunks. Quickly, quickly! No more time here. It grows dark.”

  * * * * *

  The Speedwell sailors who had been herded aboard the corvette were told to sit amidships and were surrounded with marines.

  Lt. Beauvais left the captives and walked aft to the captain’s cabin. Laughter soon emanated from the cabin, overshadowing the muted screaming of Marion and Ellen somewhere below: “Let us out of here, you dirty creatures…”

  The meeting lasted longer than Carstens expected. During the meeting a French marine – one who had been sent below on Speedwell, he thought – scrambled over the two ships’ rails and walked to the captain’s cabin. The sentry admitted him after words were exchanged.

  The marine soon emerged and departed for Speedwell. Lt. Beauvais followed him. “Master, stand,” he announced. “Your cargo…” he didn’t suppress a short laugh… “of ICE” (he said this latter loudly, so his own crew would hear) “is no use to us. Verily, we cannot understand why anybody would pay good money for it. But you carry weapons. You are enemy ship.”

  “What weapons?” asked Carstens.

  “Muskets,” said Beauvais, “These.” He waved his hand toward a group of sailors hefting two long crates over the rails.

  “Those aren’t muskets for soldiers, you… Those are New England rifles for hunting birds and squirrels and the like.”

  “Weapons. We take ship.”

  “I expected you to take it, anyway,” Carstens said, and leaned back against the foremast bitts.

  While they spoke, several trunks and sailors’ hammocks came aboard the corvette. At the same time, a French lieutenant and a dozen French sailors went aboard Speedwell. As their talk finished, the rattle of grapples being released ensued.