'Bind up that arm, Wilson,' the officer ordered, and of the boarding party stepped forward and whipped out his sheath knife. He cut Biddlecomb's torn sleeve away and used it to bind the wound.
"You said there were two," intoned the officer, his words directed at Fry though he did not take his eyes off Biddlecomb.
"Where is Rumstick?" Fry spat out the question.
Biddlecomb paused, allowing his anger to subside before trusting himself to answer, assuming his dispassionate quarterdeck countenance. "I don't know. He chose not to hide in the hold. Damned good choice, I'd say."
Fry peered with his vulture's stare. "You're a liar. He's down here."
"Thrust the pike in there again," said the officer.
"No, no! There's no room in there for two men!" said Fry peevishly. "He must be on the larboard side."
The boarding party turned to the larboard side, and as they did, the quiet of the hold was torn apart by an unearthly shriek and Rumstick launched his 250 pounds off the uppermost tier, arms spread, into the knot of astonished men. The officer and the seamen went down in a flailing heap, save for Wilson, who held his sheath knife to Biddlecomb's neck, and Fry, who stepped neatly aside.
The heap of men on the deck writhed and kicked, and in the light from the overturned lantern they looked like some weird creature in its death throes. It looked for a moment as if Rumstick would get the better of the press gang, until the officer managed to stand and draw his sword.
"Stop it!" shouted Biddlecomb. "Rumstick, I order you to stop this this instant!"
Much to Biddlecomb surprise Rumstick obeyed, releasing Harland's head, which he had locked in the crook of his arm, and another man's foot, which he was twisting painfully. His face was streaked with blood and he had an angry welt over his right eye, though he appeared less injured than the men he had attacked.
"There is no need for this, Rumstick," Biddlecomb continued, his mind flailing around for something, anything. "They can't press us anyway. Not with the Royal Decree."
Rumstick looked dubious. "What is the 'Royal Decree'?"
"Yes, do tell," said the officer, leaning on his sword as if it were a cane and regarding Biddlecomb.
"You, sir, must be aware of the Royal Decree. You, an officer in His Majesty's Navy."
"Educate me, I beg."
"Why, King George issued it, just after the Pitt Packet affair. You do recall the Pitt Packet affair?"
"I do. A bloody shameful business."
"Shameful indeed," continued Biddlecomb. "And quite an embarrassment to the Crown. The king decreed then that no Americans shall be pressed. None at all. And frankly I believe that the Crown would look most unfavorably on an officer who brought them further embarrassment."
This was the key, instilling the idea of a career ruined. Biddlecomb hoped that he had not overplayed it. He looked into the officer's eyes, and the officer returned his stare. Biddlecomb knew from countless business dealings, many of them based on similar or wilder fabrications, that this man was hanging between believing him and not.
"You have heard, no doubt, of Lieutenant Stanton, late of His Majesty's schooner Providence? Biddlecomb continued.
"I have not."
Biddlecomb looked surprised. "You must not be stationed in Rhode Island," Biddlecomb guessed. The officer's expression did not waver and Biddlecomb knew that he had guessed right. "He pressed Americans out of a homeward-bound merchantman. He was broken, discharged from the service. The court-martial was held in Newport. It was quite big news.
The officer considered this. At length he said, "I have never heard of this 'Royal Decree'."
"I find that most hard to believe. How long have you been on the North American Station?"
The officer ignored the question. "If this Royal Decree exists, as you so adamantly claim that it does, then why were you hiding?"
It was a good question, and Biddlecomb hesitated, just for an instant, but he could see in the officer's eyes that he had lost him. The officer straightened and slid his sword back in its scabbard.
"Get these men on deck," he said to the boarding party. "And our sea lawyer here is to speak to no one." He turned to Fry. "Send a man to collect their dunnage and bring it topside."
Biddlecomb and Rumstick emerged on deck, blinking and shielding their eyes from the brilliant winter sun. In the light Biddlecomb could better see the considerable damage that Rumstick had inflicted on the British sailors. Two men were bleeding from the nose and Harland had a nasty cut on his lip and seemed to be limping.
Standing by the mainmast, flanked by seamen with drawn cutlasses, stood John Haliburton.
"How...?" Biddlecomb asked, turning to the carpenter. "I thought you had a good..."
"That bastard," Haliburton said, gesturing toward the quarterdeck, his voice barely under control. "That bastard Fry, the whore's son, led them to me."
Fry stood at the break of the quarterdeck staring out at the brig lying hove to, three cables to weather. "I'm sorry," he said to the prisoners, "but they managed to find you, and, well, someone had to be taken. You understand." The expressions of pity and triumph that played across his bird face were intolerable.
"I'l kill you, you bastard!" Haliburton shouted. He lunged for the quarterdeck, but the sailors on either side of him grabbed his arms and held him back.
"Don't you worry about that," Rumstick said in a voice loud enough for Fry to hear. "I got friends in Providence will hear about this. Friends that'll do that bastard up. Ain't that right, Larson? You know who I'm talking about."
"Aye," said Larson. "I know."
"You'll see that they hear about this, won't you? When you gets back to Providence, you see that they hear what Fry here has done."
"Aye. I'll do that, as God is my witness. They have ways they deal with treachery, I know. They have ways."
Biddlecomb looked over at Fry and saw the fear on his face, the fear of real reprisal. He remembered what the Sons of Liberty had done to the customs official, and he imagined that what they would do to the man who gave Rumstick over to the British would be worse, indescribably worse, but the thought did little to ease his own anguish.
Lieutenant Pendexter, Captain Pendexter now by courtesy, sat brooding in the great cabin of his first command. Through the glass of the tiny quarter galleries he could see his boarding party moving across the deck of the merchantman, three cables to leeward.
But he was not thinking about the boarding party anymore, having already convinced himself that he had made the correct decision. Pendexter was thinking rather about command, about discipline, matters he had never considered before, having always taken his lead from the captain or first officer of the ship aboard which he served. Now he had no one to answer to, and no one to lead him, and he was trying to invent his personal philosophies on these subjects.
He had been pondering these questions, and how they related to the bosun, McDuff, for the better part of the day. McDuff had no questions regarding discipline. To him discipline was enforced fast, brutally, and often. And, Pendexter admitted, the results were impressive. The men worked hard, they did not talk back, and they lived in mortal fear. How Dibdin could consider McDuff's behavior bad for discipline was quite beyond him. But still McDuff had certain habits that made Pendexter uneasy, and that morning he had tried to address him.
"Mr. McDuff, would you lay aft please," he had said as McDuff struck with his starter the last man down from aloft. Pendexter was always polite to McDuff. It never occurred to him that he was frightened of McDuff, although he was.