The Cerberus turned until her bowsprit was once again in line with the Icarus, then continued to turn, presenting her larboard gun with a target. Biddlecomb watched, transfixed, as the gun fired. He heard the ball shriek overhead, but faintly, and he knew that the shot had gone wide. And now the Cerberus was turning again and her starboard bow chaser was running out.
Biddlecomb looked over the larboard side. Long Island stretched out low and gray on the horizon, and he could just make out Montauk Point and Block Island beyond. The sun was an hour from disappearing, and the cloud cover was breaking up. A winter afternoon like so many he had known in those waters.
The Cerberus fired and another hole appeared in the mainsail.
He had lost. He had driven the brig as hard as she could be driven, but the Cerberus had run them down. He was so close! In an hour he could round Montauk Point, shaving it closer than the Cerberus would dare, and find shelter behind Long Island. By the time the frigate followed them, night would have fallen and it would have been easy work losing them in Long Island Sound. But he did not have an hour. The next shot, or the next, would bring down the tophamper, and even if the bow chasers did not cripple them, the frigate, with twice the brig's weight of iron, would be alongside in twenty minutes.
The Cerberus fired, but Biddlecomb did not see where the shot landed.
"Wilson, Barrett, Rumstick, step over here, please," he called out, and the three men stepped up to the weather side. "We must face the truth, we cannot escape. The Cerberus is simply too fast. I'm sorry. We had best figure what we'll do when we're taken."
Chapter 27.
Montauk Point
THE THREE MEN STOOD LOOKING at Biddlecomb, grim-faced and silent.
"I'll do what the crew wishes," Biddlecomb continued. "We can fight or surrender. But if we're taken, I want you three to make like you're foremast jacks, it may go easier for you."
"Maybe they don't want us at all," said Rumstick, "maybe it's the Admiralty wanting to ask Pendexter why he's such a horse's ass." He was smiling, but the joke fell flat.
"Barrett, I want you to go..." Biddlecomb said, his voice trailing off as an idea materialized.
The Cerberus fired and the starboard main topmast studdingsails collapsed in a flogging heap. "Harland! Get a gang aloft to clear that away!" Rumstick shouted.
"Perhaps there is one trick left," Biddlecomb said slowly, "not much of one, but it is a chance," and the others leaned closer as Biddlecomb outlined his idea.
Ten minutes later Pendexter and Smeaton emerged on deck, escorted at gunpoint by Israel Barrett. Biddlecomb, standing in the waist, was ready to greet him.
"Ah, gentlemen, your servant," he called. "Step over here, please."
They stepped over grudgingly, motivated largely by Barrett's prodding with the pistol.
"Are you going to hang us now? I take it that that shoreline is America," Pendexter said.
"Hang you? Never in life. Here is your sword back, and your boat cloak and cocked hat," Biddlecomb said, handing the items to Pendexter. "Here, Smeaton."
Appleby stood at the bulwark holding Smeaton's sword and the pistols. Biddlecomb took them from the midshipman and handed them to the former first officer.
And then Smeaton did a surprising thing. He flung the sword and the pistols into the sea. Biddlecomb watched as the ripples they made were left astern.
"Why did you do that?"
"I know you're about to murder us, Biddlecomb. Why else would you force us up on deck? I'll not have you give me back my things, then murder me and steal them again, you coward!"
Biddlecomb could not imagined why he would want to do such a thing, or why Smeaton would ever think he would. "Suit yourself."
The Cerberus fired and a hole appeared in the main topsail. Pendexter spun around, leaning over the bulwark and staring aft.
"Oh, so this is it!" he said, and his face broke out in a wide smile. "You're about to be run to earth, and now you're returning my command! Well, forget it, you Yankee bastard. I shall see you kick out your life at the end of a halter!"
Biddlecomb felt the rage seething up again, and he marveled at this man's ability to elicit that emotion. Pendexter possessed an uncanny sense for finding just the words that would make him furious. After all of the cruelty, after all of Pendexter's arrogance and his utter failure at command, after driving decent men to commit the heinous crimes of mutiny and murder, after all that madness, Pendexter could still stand there with his pompous attitude and call Biddlecomb a Yankee bastard.
That was the end. Biddlecomb felt the anger raging inside and knew he was about to strike the aristocratic whore's son down, first with words and then with the flat of his cutlass. And then Pendexter spoke again.
"You should know, Biddlecomb," he said in the same tone that he might address a servant, lifting his chin slightly, "that my father is Lord Pendexter and my uncle is Admiral Graves, commander in chief in the colonies. What you have done here can never be forgiven."
And with those words all of the anger was out of Biddlecomb, like the wind from a luffing sail. Those few words told Biddlecomb the whole story: coddled from childhood, promoted due to influence, given a command he was not ready to receive, put in charge of men he did not understand. They had been setting him up for this fall since he was born, and they thought they were doing him a favor. Pendexter was not a man at all, he was a frighted boy. The thoughts of vengeance were gone, and in their place was something approaching pity.
"My God, but you are one sorry bastard. Yes, I am giving you a command, of sorts. Your second command. God help you to handle it better than your first. Step down there, sir." Biddlecomb indicated a section of grating hanging two feet above the water, suspended from a whip at the main yardarm and held against the side of the brig by by a line belayed at the pinrail.
Pendexter looked down at the grating. As the brig rolled, the water washed over it and twisted it around. "I most certainly will not go down there."
"I have no time to waste." As if to reiterate the point the Cerberus fired again. Biddlecomb pulled the cutlass from Barrett's shoulder strap and prodded Pendexter with the point.
"Ow! God damn your eyes!" Pendexter shouted. Biddlecomb prodded again and Pendexter clambered over the side and settled down on the grating.
Biddlecomb turned the cutlass on Smeaton, pressing the point into his shoulder. "You next." Without a word Smeaton clambered over the side and settled down next to Pendexter.
"There's a lanyard there for you to clap on to," Biddlecomb pointed out.
"Here, Captain." Wilson hurried up and handed Biddlecomb a gun's rammer with a white shirt fluttering like a flag from the end.
"Excellent," said Biddlecomb, handing the flag down to Pendexter. "Take this."
"What am I supposed to do with it?"
"Whatever you wish. Now, listen, you men," Biddlecomb addressed the hands at the fall of the whip, "when the grating swings outboard, we'll cast off the whip on a larboard roll."
"What in hell!" shouted Pendexter from over the side. "I insist—"
No one ever had a chance to find out what Pendexter insisted. As the Icarus rolled to starboard, Biddlecomb cast off the line and the grating swung away from the side, like a pendulum hanging from the main yard.
"Now!" Biddlecomb shouted as the ship began to roll to larboard. The men cast loose the whip, and the line shot up the mast and through the block. The grating splashed down in the sea, twirling like a leaf in a stream. Pendexter shouted with outrage. Seconds later he and Smeaton were out of sight from the waist.