The Stillwater Conspiracy (The Neville Burton 'Worlds Apart' Series Book 4) Read online

  “Why do you suppose Tartar signals thus? Would you suppose she can see something from her tops that we can’t see from our stubby little mast, or do you think she merely signals in hopefulness?”

  “Sail, Ho! English. Starboard, just for’ard o’ the beam.”

  “That answers th-that,” said Foyle.

  After their turn, Superieure now had Tartar a few points off her larboard bow, the French sails a few points to starboard, and the other English ship, whoever she was, almost on her starboard beam.

  “Our ships are on the chase, but it’s unlikely they will be able to catch the Frogs unless we slow them somehow. We have ourselves and Tartar to do that, since I believe we are both ahead of the French.”

  “Ahh, Mr. Catchpole, there you are. Good morning to you,” said Neville. The quartermaster rang the bell, turned the glass, and yelled forward to a seaman at the chains, “Heave!”

  “Whatever are we about?” Catchpole asked, “I felt the change.”

  “We are about the chase again,” said Neville. “You see Tartar’s topsails there, the Frenchman there, and another of ours there,” he continued, pointing to each. “We and Tartar must cut the Frogs off somehow, enough to slow them so our ships can catch them and do some damage. I expect we should reach them by about noon.” He could feel his cheerfulness at the thought of some action, but his amusement was obviously not shared by Catchpole, who began gulping again.

  “Mr. Foyle, Mr. Catchpole relieves you. Gather Mr. Framingham and join me on the foredeck for a minute before you breakfast, if you please.”

  Despite the excitement of the previous night, the time was now moving slowly. The night had spread the fleet over miles of ocean. It would be five or six hours before they arrived at that spot on the water where they would all meet. Neville walked to the bow of Superieure and watched while the more experienced Framingham gave Foyle a short refresher on calculating an intercept course. The northwestern-most point of Hispaniola was still visible behind them, but it was sinking into the sea as each minute passed. Neville remembered encountering two pirate luggers here. He might have been done for if one of the armed ships of his convoy had not come back to help. It should be different this time.

  By 11:00 a.m. Tartar and the French ship were fully visible from the deck, and the English 74, whom Neville now recognized as Vanguard, was almost hull up. Bellerophon was also clearly visible behind Vanguard.

  “Tartar looks to be thinking same as us, Sir,” said Johnson.

  “Yes, she does,” answered Neville. “What are the Frog’s options, Mr. Framingham?”

  “Well first, Sir, I think she can’t haul her wind and cut to starboard with Vanguard over there.”

  “I agree with that,” said Foyle.

  Neville and Framingham turned to look at him.

  “W-w-what?” asked Foyle when he realized he was being watched.

  “You didn’t stutter that last time,” said Neville.

  “Excited, I suppose,” he said, and continued, “So Frenchie could continue on straight, but both we and the Tartar are catching him up. He might pay us no mind, but he must at least recognize the presence of Tartar.”

  “Then last,” chimed in Framingham, “he could come down on us, either on Tartar to see if he could smash the frigate and then ignore us, or on us to create some sort of diversion. If we are all swimming, Tartar might stop for us… or not, if I know Captain Perkins.”

  But he might, and the French captain could think he would. I didn’t think of that last option myself.

  “But remember that whatever he does,” said Neville, “we will have done our job if we cause him to slow enough for Vanguard and Billy to arrive. So, Mr. Framingham: you are the senior midshipman. You have made a good synopsis of the situation. What would you have done aboard the Tartar?”

  “Verily, Sir, I would have left it to the lieutenants and the captain, and do as I was told.”

  “Then I shouldn’t have asked thus, should I? We are not aboard Tartar, so if you have no plan the French will cook your goose.”

  “Aye,” said Framingham, quieting to think for a moment.

  “We will be close enough to t-t-trade shots with him soon,” said Foyle.

  “So?”

  “So we should annoy him; remind him we are here and draw him to Mr. Framingham’s scenario.”

  Mr. Catchpole made a noise like he had a potato stuck in this throat.

  “Why would we want that?” asked Neville.

  “Once he goes for us, we make a turn for Tartar. We give him our broadside if he’s close enough and then we duck behind the frigate. He might turn far enough that he cannot broadside Tartar while the frigate gets their first shots in. At any rate, he would be slowed.”

  “Yes, duck behind Tartar,” Catchpole croaked.

  “It’s our best play,” said Neville. “Good thinking, gentlemen, although it’s flawed. Mr. Johnson, get the foredeck gun crews to work on the long twelve-pounders. Tell them to fire at will.”

  “What’s wrong, Commander?” asked Framingham.

  “You’ve been on that frigate too long. Look out there on the deck. Other than the bow chasers we’ve got ten ugly smashers, not long guns like Tartar. The French ship has long guns as well. Our little swivel guns will do us no good for this work, either.”

  “Duquesne, Sir. We c-can read her name now,” announced Foyle.

  “Before we could get close enough to the Duquesne to give her our broadside, those who are left of us would be swimming amongst our own splinters, for sure,” concluded Neville.

  The crack of a foredeck long twelve interrupted their conversation, and the smoke of it blew off quickly to larboard. Well, there will certainly be no hiding in the smoke. Foyle was still watching Duquesne with his glass. “Oho!” he yelled. “The ball skipped. Must have been a nice wave. The ball jumped high enough to smash some windows of her starboard gallery.” Men on the foredeck were cheering and slapping each other on the back.

  “We have her attention, then. Now we must hope she has no lucky gunners.”

  A ball whistled across the deck just before they saw the puff of smoke and heard the ‘pop’ of Duquesne’s stern chaser. It was low enough to cause two men to flop to the deck. One dropped straight down and the other twirled like a ballerina, blood spurting from his arm.

  Superieure’s chaser answered; again with a hit, although this one useless. “Our little ball bounced off her hull like spit off a hot skillet, Sir.”

  “Get me a report on those injuries, Mr. Foyle.”

  Their first foredeck chaser fired again. A hole appeared in Duquesne’s mizzen course.

  “Here she comes!” shrieked Catchpole.

  “Fall off, Mr. Catchpole. Catchpole! Fall off, man!

  “Up, helmsman! Tiller up!

  “Mr. Johnson, sheets out!”

  Superieure had exchanged her storm sails for her standard canvas during the night, and with the much larger sail area she lurched to larboard, leaning heavily to the force of the wind before her sheets were loosened, and then accelerating quickly to run before the breeze.

  “She’s turning directly for us,” yelled Framingham. There was then the bang of at least two long guns each from Tartar and Duquesne, and explosions of white before them and behind. Superieure slammed into a large wave that sent spray half a cable forward. At the stern, Catchpole was suddenly covered with red spots and…

  Feathers? wondered Neville. Catchpole’s eyes rolled up into his head. He slumped to the deck just when the caged hog began an unspeakably loud squealing. Neville motioned two men back to carry Catchpole below.

  “Mr. Framingham, take over there.”

  A broadside boomed out from Duquesne, but it was not immediately clear to Neville where it had been aimed. That may also have been the case aboard Duquesne, with possibly some guns aimed at Superieure and some at Tartar.

  “Chain shot, Commander,” said Foyle, just now returning aft. The ship shuddered with the motion of the foretopsail
going to ribbons and its mast falling, but there seemed to be no other damage.

  “I can’t say if Tartar is hit, Sir. She g-goes behind Duquesne from us.”

  The sound of a broadside ripped through the air on the far side of Duquesne.

  “Tartar or Duquesne, Mr. Framingham?”

  “Can’t tell sir, but all masts on both ships still stand. Duquesne is turning back to her original course; maybe a bit more south, Sir – running, but more slowly without a foretopsail.”

  “Vanguard has come cracking on under stuns’ls. She’s almost in range now, and the Billy is not far behind. It looks as if Tartar will go around for another go at Duquesne, too. Perkins would.”

  “Now we stand back,” said Neville. “That’s our fun for today, but we will follow along even if it’s only to fish men out of the water.”

  “One man dead, Sir. Ball must’ve passed his head by a fraction of an inch. There’s not a mark on him.”

  “And t’other?”

  “Lost a hand. Same ball took it right off. I think you saw him spin.”

  “And what of Mr. Catchpole.”

  “He’s awake in sickbay. White as a sheet though, and that’s without the feathers. He just fainted. Surgeon’s quite angry about all the feathers.”

  “Wonderful.” He looked back to the stern. “So much for eggs and a chicken dinner, gentlemen, but it looks as if we will have ham tonight.” The pig was lying still in his broken cage, with a large splinter from the taffrail sticking out of its side.

  “Better him than me, I’ll say,” said Framingham of the pig. “But there are still two hens in that cage over there.”

  “Get Chips and Mr. Johnson on those repairs forward,” snapped Neville. “Without a foremast we’ll be hard pressed to keep up with Vanguard and Bellerophon on the way back to Cap Francois. I reckon Duquesne will strike her colours soon. Then we’ll have only a couple hours until they have the prize crew aboard… and someone throw a tarpaulin over the chicken coop or the stupid animals will soon blunder out and fall overboard.”

  The island of Tortuga rose from the sea to larboard by late morning of the next day; the town of Port-au-Paix was visible on Hispaniola to starboard.

  “It’s back to blockade duty for us, I wager,” said Neville to Catchpole. “How are you today?”

  Catchpole had been very quiet. I suspect he is feeling the shame of having his debility discovered, thought Neville, and unlike Foyle’s stuttering or Johnson’s lack of self-esteem, I doubt I can help him much. My bigger problem is to decide whether I can afford to keep him on such a small ship.

  “That… yesterday, Sir. Never happened before. All that blood. I thought it was mine.”

  “I see,” said Neville. “What’s this, then?”

  All five ships were returning to join the blockade of Cap Francois, but ahead of them their squadron was backing sails and surrounding some smaller ship.

  “Heave to, Mr. Catchpole.

  “Lookout, there. What is it?”

  “Dunno, Sir.”

  “Mr. Foyle. Take your young eyes up and confer with the man and have your own look at it.”

  Foyle was back on the deck in a matter of minutes. “It ap-ap-… seems a French schooner much like us has sailed into the squadron on the op-opposite course.”

  The lookout yelled just then, “Commander, Signal from Billy Ruffian. Our number. Repair to flag.”

  “Something different, after all,” said Neville. “Launch the boat.”

  2 - “The Investigation”

  Four days later, Superieure, Tartar and Vanguard, escorting their prizes Duquesne and the schooner Oiseaux, arrived in Port Royal harbor. Superieure had been sent back to ‘have proper repairs made to her broken foremast’. Commander Neville Burton stood on the unmoving deck the next fine morning in Port Royal Bay, Jamaica in December of the year 1803. He moved with his pot of coffee to the larboard poopdeck rail to study the details of Kingston and to watch HMS Vanguard swing slowly on her single cable as the tide changed. Not a bad-looking ship for a 74, he thought, but although my cabin here is smaller than Vanguard’s breadroom and I have to duck every beam as I walk ‘round in it, I am glad not to be aboard her any longer. A flight of pelicans swooped low over the turquoise water in rigid formation, looking for breakfast. Their wide motionless wings skimmed inches above the water for yard upon yard before the lead bird began his upward climb for another pass.

  Neville had come across from Gibraltar aboard Vanguard as 3rd Lieutenant. He advanced to second when his senior, Lt. Otto Stolz, died of something akin to the ague here in Port Royal. He reflected on that for a moment: I always feel a sadness for this method of rising to the top, despite that it is in my own better interest, and is the way of things.

  “Ah, Mr. Johnson; here you are. Two weeks we are allowed here,” Neville said to his young boatswain. “Put your list together. Chips should have his ready; he’s the reason we’re in port. Get Cookie’s as well, if you please. Tell him to be sure there’s chickens and a pig on it.”

  Port Royal Harbor was always a more emotional location than he expected. It was here that he had loved Maria Fuller and lost her. That was over two years ago now, but the loss had not yet been completely accepted into his heart. He knew where her house was – on a former sugar plantation now surrounded by the sprawling city of Kingston, but he did not know its occupants. Her father Thomas, a man he’d come to love as a father, was also gone. He finished his pot of coffee. Maybe writing a letter home will take my mind off these memories.

  HMS Superieure

  Jamaica Station

  December 28, 1802

  Dearest Mother and Elizabeth,

  The dreadful weather of summer in the Caribees has gone by the board, I am pleased to write. The heat and incessant rain that seems to conjure up all the disease are behind us.

  We’ve not had muche in the way of action – juste several cruises Northe into the Windward Passage and to the Southe of Spanish Cuba. There were two great Stormes that blew several days each, but the locals did not regard them as Huricans. We were thankfully in Porte for each. One man was injured when the Winde tore loose a Boat from the very deck, but we lost no one. Three small Vessels in Harbor were sunk by it.

  It has been almost three years since I have been here in Port Royal Bay. I know I haven’t told you of it because I am not permitted to tell muche. It’s where I was when I “went missing”. I can tell you some personal things that have been too painful to mention, though. I think Elizabeth smoked it that I had a girl here. I was to be wed, but she was killed in an accident. Enough said of that for now.

  First Lieutenant Joseph Dagleishe of Vanguard continues to be a particular friend. That’s a pleasing change from the old Elephant a couple years ago, where I ran up against Lt. Aderaly.

  We have another New Year’s Gala coming up. You may remember that I wrote you of it last year. The owner of the Stillwater Rum Trading Company puts it on as promotion. It should be a great good time. I hope you have an affair there in town to ring in the new year as well!

  Pass my regards and thanks to Mr. Blake for treating you so well. I’m happy of it!

  We should be here quite some time, so if you can send me word on of Daniel and his Dad – and big and little Gage, of course - I would appreciate it. I would love to hear how they’re getting on. I should also like to hear that Mary and John are well. I think you might understand that I haven’t written them.

  I shall continue to take the utmost care, and pray you do the same,

  All my love,

  Neville

  His thoughts continued as he dripped the sealing wax on the envelope: That did take my mind off Maria for a few minutes, but she’s back. I’d give God my soul to see Maria being rowed out to greet me. Enough on that. It can’t happen and I don’t need to be seen crying in the dark.

  Neville sat the very next day with Lt. Dagleishe in the Morgan Arms in Kingston overlooking the harbor. Each had a half pot of ale in front of them, a
nd the crumbs of their meat pies. The afternoon December sun glinted off the water into their eyes.

  “I say we move table, Joseph,” said Neville. “This spot will be very hot in a few minutes.”

  “I’ll just finish my cup here and move on, Neville, I have a couple errands to run. You need a tailor? Hey, look there, the packet arrives. I’ll have a letter from home, for sure.”

  Neville looked out to where the sails of a small ship were rounding the point at Fort Charles. “It’s amazing. They come like clockwork these days. I remember when…”

  “When what?” asked Dagleishe. “Why wouldn’t they come regularly? Never mind. I’m off to the tailor.”

  “Fine, then.” I suppose it’s time I begin my duty to accomplish Sir William Mulholland’s assignment. I shall go off to ‘investigate’ the mysterious Mr. Stillwater - however one does that - thought Neville. Why do I go see that Mulholland? Every time I go he has another impossible thing for me to do. How am I supposed to investigate Stillwater? We commanders aren’t just allowed to disappear whenever we like.

  Before Neville was assigned to be Commander of Superieure, he did some preliminary work for his investigation of Mr. Chester Stillwater for Sir William Mulholland of The Admiralty at Whitehall. Thus far, most of his efforts were lonely and thankless work, consisting almost entirely of asking questions around the waterfront. He couldn’t talk to any navy man about it, and it interfered with occasions when his peers would get together for a pint or a dinner ashore. He did learn that some sort of costume would be needed to do much more; his enquiries, as an officer in uniform, were often met with unusual facial expressions, blank stares, or outright scoffs. In that mode, much more poking about would certainly come to the attention of Mr. Stillwater himself.