"Aye, sir," said Rumstick.
"Indeed," said Fry.
"Very good," said Peabody. "Now remember, we're all of us Americans here, there ain't no need for politicking. This time of year the sea like to give us all the problems we need. I think we best sink that longboat and get under way."
"One more thing, Captain," said Rumstick. "This here's my good friend, ah..."
"Jack Woodhead," said Biddlecomb brightly.
"Jack Woodhead, exactly," said Rumstick. "Now, Jack here is a seaman, able-bodied, can hand, reef, and steer. I had hoped as yoy might be inclined to offer him a berth."
Peabody looked Biddlecomb over. "Can hand, reef, and steer, can you?"
"Aye, sir. I've been going to sea these sixteen years past."
"Well, if Rumstick says you're able, that's all I need to hear. Mr Fry, put this man on the books, rated able-bodied. Mr Fry here is first mate. Mr Fry, this here's... what's your name again, son?"
"Jack Woodhead."
"Why, damn my eyes, that there's young Captain Biddlecomb!" shouted a voice from the crowd. The watching seamen were pushed aside, and to his great dismay Biddlecomb saw Hezekiah Harted limping toward him and wiping his filthy hands on a more filthy apron, a week's growth of beard on his face, his blue eyes wild.
"You recall me, don't you, Captain? Hezekiah Harted! I sailed with you back in '71, on the old Judea."
Biddlecomb did indeed remember him. He had shipped him for that one trip and had then deemed him too insane even to sail before the mast. Peabody evidently did not share that opinion, or he did not yet know Harted.
"Hello, Hezekiah. How have you been?" asked Biddlecomb, wishing that the man would go away and knowing that he would not.
"Fair to middling, Captain, fair to middling. Too old to be a foremast jack, so I'm shipping out as cook. Damned disgrace."
"Biddlecomb?" asked Fry, pushing his way through the assembled men. "You say you're Jack Woodhead, a seaman, and Harted here calls you 'Biddlecomb', and 'Captain Biddlecomb' no less."
"Hezekiah is right. My name is Biddlecomb. I apologize for the deception but..."
"Ain't never been a driver like young Captain Biddlecomb here!" interjected Harted. "I recall when we was ten days out of Rio, one of them there pampero squalls comes up and..."
"That's quite enough, thank you, Hezekiah," Biddlecomb interrupted. "I'm a foremast hand now, so let's leave it at that."
But Fry would not leave it. He considered Biddlecomb through squinting eyes. "You come aboard this ship, and the first thing out of your mouth is a lie. And now, sir, you claim to be a ship's captain? We have a captain aboard this ship and we do not need another."
"I wish to sail before the mast, nothing more," replied Biddlecomb in as meek a tone as he could manage.
"Aye," interjected Harted with a laugh, "until he has a mind to be first mate, Mr Fry, and sends you packing forward!"
Biddlecomb and Fry glared at the cook.
"Sir," said Rumstick, addressing Captain Peabody. "I'm sorry for this here mess. I figured it would be best if Isaac didn't give his real name, or tell what he's done. But he'll do just fine as a foremast hand. He'll do his duty and keep his mouth shut, ain't that right, Isaac?
"That's right."
"Oh, hell, yes!" Harted interjected. "Captain Biddlecomb can do anything he sets his mind to!"
"Will you stop calling me that, God damn your eyes!" shouted Biddlecomb. Harted assumed a wounded expression, then turned and shuffled away.
"All right. We've waisted far and away enough time on this already. Biddlecomb, I expect you to obey orders like the others or I'll set you on the beach. Mr Fry, put Biddlecomb on the books." Peabody turned to the crowd of men, who were watching the altercation like spectators at a cockfight. "I'd like to get under way again, if it don't disturb you gentlemen's leisure." The crew was already scattering by the time he could follow that up with a cry of "Hands to the braces!"
The men were still casting off the main braces when Peabody roared, "Let go and haul!" The order was nearly lost in the fire of a swivel gun mounted ten feet from where Biddlecomb stood. He wheeled in surprise. Three men stood behind the smoking gun, grinning and peering over the side. The swivel had blown ten feet of garboard out of the longboat, and already the boat was half-full of water and sinking fast.
Biddlecomb felt a sensation of relief, like reclining in a warm bathtub, a sensation of having escaped. He looked north toward the land they were leaving in their wake. Then he remembered that he had felt that same way after passing Castle Hill in the Judea, and again after leaving Bristol aboard the Nancy, and the sensation was gone.
Overhead the main yards swung round again and the mainsails filled out with a snap. The William B. Adams settled down on her course again, to follow the trade winds due east for nearly two thousand miles before turning south. She was bound away for Jamaica, bound away across the stormy Gulf Stream.
Chapter 10.
"Then to Proceed with All Diligence"
THE ICARUS HAD NOT been under way for twenty-four hours before the men left behind in Boston were gravely missed. It had not occured to Smeaton that their absence would require him to rework the sail-handling stations, and it had not occured to Dibdin that a first officer might have to be reminded of that fact. The result of this combination of omission and assumption was that when the men were called to station for tacking ship at the change of watch at four o'clock in the morning, ther was not a man to attend to every duty that required attention, and in the darkness their absence was not noted on the quarterdeck.
Bloody Wilson stood at the forward pinrail, starboard side, his hands resting on the main topsail brace. Behind him stood the two waisters who backed him up in bracing the main topsail yard when tacking. The waisters were not seamen per se, they certainly did not rate as able-bodied, but they were big men and what they lacked in intellectual power they made up for in strength of arm. Wilson would provide any seamanship that was necessary.
"Ease down your helm!" shouted Pendexter from the quarterdeck. It was the new captain's first time tacking the brig. His voice sounded louder than necessary.
Forward in the darkness the fore topmast staysail and jib began to flog. The noise was intrusive and distracting on the hushed deck, but to Wilson it was the familiar prelude to this maneuver.
"Helm's alee!" shouted Pendexter, and the flogging grew louder as the foresheets were cast off and the sails streamed aft in the wind. The stars began to sweep past as the brig turned. The fore topsail wavered and flogged, then came hard back, followed by the main.
"Mainsail, haul," muttered Wilson to himself, anticipating the next order. The main topsail was coming hard aback as the brig continued to turn. "Mainsail, haul, now," muttered Wilson, "or we'll have the devil to pay bracing this bugger around."
"Mainsail, haul!" shouted Pendexter, and Wilson grabbed the main topsail brace and jerked it out and down, out and down, as the waisters took up the strain. The yard creaked slowly around, three feet, six feet, and then it stopped. Wilson could feel in the brace that something was not right aloft, something was holding the yard back. It was not just the wind. Wilson had been enough years at sea to know every nuance of a line under strain. He could read the message in the rope. And then he remembered Wright.
Wright was the maintopman whose job it was to cast off the main topsail bowline when coming about. If the bowline was not cast off, it would hold the edge of the sail in place and prevent the yard from bracing around. And Wright was, at that moment, somewhere in Boston, which was now over two hundred miles astern.