Ingram had not set foot in the sickbay—a small, cramped room deep in the bowels of the ship—since his inspection of the ship just before they set sail. His conversations with the naval surgeon, Mr. Arbuthnot, had been perfunctory. They had not yet been in battle, so there had been no grievous wounds to discuss. Nor had anyone fallen out of the rigging. And since they had not made landfall anywhere, no sailor had come down with the clap. Indeed, the crew assigned to the ship by the Navy Board had seemed an unusually healthy lot for a group of British seamen. To his astonishment, many seemed, except for drinking the usual allotment of grog, downright abstemious. He had attributed it to the luck of the draw. Certainly, he’d captained ships on which his luck had run hard the other way.
He and Lansford entered the sickbay, a small room with an iron stove in the corner set atop bricks and a layer of sand to protect the wooden deck from the heat. Curtains had been hung on the walls—well away from the stove—to reduce draughts. He immediately spotted a man laid out in a bunk against the wall, on his back and wrapped chin to toe in blankets. From what he could see of his face, the man was of late middle years. Arbuthnot was leaning over him.
Ingram glanced over and saw Black with his arms folded, his shoulders pushed back into a corner, no doubt trying to brace himself against the increasing roll of the ship. His clothing was damp, and he had the green look of someone who has been seasick for hours.
“Mr. Arbuthnot,” Ingram said, “may I have your report please?”
Arbuthnot looked up and said, “Welcome to sickbay, Captain. This man—” he pointed to the body on the bunk “—is near to death from cold and exposure. I’m told he fell overboard. He also has a bruise on the side of his head.”
“What can you do for him?”
“For the cold we’re heating bricks.” He pointed to the surgical mate, who was crouched in front of the sickbay stove, in which a blaze was roaring. “As soon as they’re hot enough, we’ll place them around his body and try to warm him up gradually. If done too quickly, he will certainly die.”
“Is there nothing else you can do...with all your education?”
Ingram assumed Arbuthnot would understand that he was making sly reference to the fact that most navy surgeons didn’t receive their training and degree from the Royal College of Physicians. Most went instead to a lower prestige, barber-related program. Indeed, Ingram had asked Arbuthnot, when he had first come aboard, if his assignment by the Navy Board to such a small, insignificant ship—normally a physician with his fancy Royal College credentials would be posted to an admiral’s flagship—was a punishment of some sort. Arbuthnot had shrugged and replied that he had no idea why he’d been assigned to Ingram’s ship, but he was pleased to be of service.
Arbuthnot ignored Ingram’s reference to his fancy education. “Rum might be of help to him,” he said. “But he has to be conscious, or he’ll choke. If he survives there might be some other things I could give him to help him recover from the cold. As for the head bruise, it’s hard to say. It may or may not be serious. It will have to heal itself if it can.”
The Captain looked at Black. “Who is the man in the bunk?”
“His Excellency, General George Washington.”
“I don’t think this is the time for levity, Mr. Smith. Who is he?”
“I intend no levity, Captain. That’s who he is. My mission was to arrest him and bring him back to London to face the King’s justice. He is a leader of the rebellion and thus a traitor.”
There was a long silence in the room as Ingram, Lansford and Arbuthnot turned, almost as one, to stare down at Washington’s face.
“I suppose it could be him,” Ingram said. “I’ve seen a few drawings in magazines, and the face is perhaps the same. Mr. Smith, how do you know for certain it’s Washington?”
“I captured him myself.”
“What? Where?”
“At his headquarters.”
He raised his eyebrows. “And you did this alone?”
“Of course not. I had aid from Loyalists, much of it preplanned. And you no longer need to call me Smith. My true name, which is Colonel Black, will do from now on.”
The surgeon’s mate spoke up. “Mr. Arbuthnot, the bricks are warm enough now. And perhaps it’s not my place, but if you still have any doubts as to who this man is, his uniform speaks for his high station.” He pointed to a heap of clothes piled in the corner.
Lansford walked over, picked up the largest piece and hoisted up a dripping-wet military-style waistcoat. The buttons and epaulettes were gold. Or at least Ingram could make out that they had once been gold, even if they were now a dirty brown.
“I took the coat off him when he was brought in,” the mate said.
Black unlimbered himself from the corner and spoke in a tone of command Ingram had not heard before. “Captain, if you still have doubts, I will show you my orders, and you will believe who this is. The question now, though, is whether he will survive.” He looked to the doctor.
The mate had begun handing the hot bricks to Arbuthnot, wrapping each first in thick cloth to prevent them burning their own hands or the patient. As he answered, Arbuthnot was bent over his patient placing the bricks around his body, beneath the blanket. “Only God knows,” he said. “But I will do my best, as I would for any man, general or no.”
“Colonel, let’s return to the Great Cabin,” Ingram said. “I want to see those orders you referred to.”
“Of course, Captain. In the meantime, may I suggest you station four marines here to make sure he doesn’t escape?”
Ingram laughed. “Even if he lives, where would he go?”
“I don’t know. But he tried to escape once on our way to the beach. And I’m still not convinced he fell accidentally off the boat. He may well have been intending to try to swim back to shore.”
“We don’t have a lot of marines on board, given the small size of our boat. I can spare only two, at least for now.”
“I must insist on four,” Black said.
“Who is the captain of this ship, Colonel Black?”
“You are, sir, but I remind you that I outrank you.”
“Any time you want to take command, Colonel, do let me know. In the meantime, I will continue to make these kinds of decisions that immediately affect the ship and its safety. I will send two only.”
Arbuthnot cleared his throat, clearly uneasy at the confrontation. “Pray send two who don’t have colds,” he said. “This patient is in bad enough condition as it is.”
“You really believe that one person can give a cold to another, Mr. Arbuthnot? That it is not just foul vapours that all breathe in?”
“I do believe that.”
Ingram laughed again. “I suppose it’s your fancy education speaking.”
“Yes, and now we know why, with that fancy education, I was assigned to this ship, Captain.”
Ingram headed for the door. “Follow me, Colonel Black. I would like you to show me your orders.” The ship was by then rolling steeply enough that Black had visible difficulty holding on to the ladders as well as climbing through the hatches that led from deck to deck. At one point, Ingram, who led the way, reached a hand down to help hoist him up and said, “I thought you had gotten better at this on the voyage over.”
“No, Captain, I fear I will never get better on ships. After we return to London, I hope never to board one again.”
When they reached the Great Cabin, Ingram pulled his sea trunk out from under his bunk, opened it and extracted two envelopes—one fat and one thin—each sealed with red wax. He handed both to Black. “These are the documents you left with me for safekeeping, Colonel.”
Black broke the seal on the fat one, extracted a sheaf of papers, some of them folded up, and handed the top sheet back to Ingram.
Ingram read it and said, without looking up, “All right, these order you to arrest Washington and bring him back to London for trial, and to use ‘all lawful means.’”
“Do you see who has signed it?”
“Yes. The Prime Minister and the First Lord of the Admiralty, with their seals.” He looked up. “Wouldn’t it have made sense to let me in on the secret? I came close to leaving you on the beach. I would not even have thought of it had I known what you were doing here.”
“I wished to tell you, Captain, but was ordered not to. I don’t know the reasons.”
“Perhaps it’s because I have never been a favourite of the Admiralty.”
“Be that as it may, do you still have any doubts the man in sickbay is General Washington? Or do you think I would dare to bring an impostor back to London?”
“I believe you,” Ingram said.
“Good,” Black said. “And speaking of London, when we finally get there, we will have to send a messenger to Lord North for instructions.”
“All right. And the other envelope, what’s in there, Colonel?” Ingram frowned. “Only if you’re permitted to tell me, of course.”
“It’s an arrest warrant for the General.”
“Won’t do you much good now.”
“When he wakes up, I will serve it on him.”
“If he wakes up,” Ingram said.