The two ships, the ersatz privateer and her prize, were sailing as fast and as well as could be hoped for, but that was not very fast, and it was not very well. McGinty’s eyes were fixed on Hopefleet, that valuable prize. She was in Sparrowhawk’s wake and a cable-length astern. She had looked well enough a moment before, sailing full and bye under topsails, foresail, jib, and staysail. She had not been making nearly the speed she was capable of making in those conditions, but she had been moving fast enough.
But now she was not moving at all.
Angus McGinty was not the worrying type. He came by his calm naturally for the most part, though part of it was practiced as well. That aside, he was having a hard time remaining calm at that particular moment.
McGinty had tacked Sparrowhawk, nimble sloop that she was, turning her easily through the wind and settling her on a new course. His order to young Pip, now prize master of the ordnance brig, was to follow his lead, tack when he tacked, wear when he wore.
Pip had followed orders. At least, he had turned the brig up into the wind to put her about on the other tack. But he had mistimed the maneuver, keeping his headsails sheeted in too long and bracing his foresails around too early. The brig had failed to make the turn, and instead had stopped dead in irons with the sails aback and flogging.
Stupid, bloody stupid… McGinty thought. Part of that thought was directed at Pip, but mostly it was directed at himself. There was only so much that he could expect from the young man, whose entire sea-going experience had been as an ordinary seaman aboard a fishing schooner for a few seasons. He was hardly old enough to shave, probably still a virgin, and certainly was in no position to take command of a ship such and Hopefleet. But he was the best McGinty had.
Don’t bloody tack, bloody wear ship you bloody fool, McGinty admonished himself. Pip had only tacked Hopefleet because he himself had tacked Sparrowhawk. If he had worn Sparrowhawk around, turning her stern through the wind, a slower maneuver but one that would not result in the ship being in irons, then Pip would have followed suit. And her sails would not be all a’hooy now.
“Humph. Damn poor show,” said James Finch, former master of the Hopefleet brig. His tone was mostly critical, with a touch of amusement, and it put McGinty more on edge than any other sound on earth could at that moment.
Shut your bloody gob, or by God I’ll be right up your arse with a belaying pin, boy-o, and never doubt it, McGinty thought. But rather than voicing that thought he smiled and said, “Ah, the lad’s doing his best. Not easy, being in command of a vessel such as that. You should know, boy-o, you were in command of one yourself once.” He looked Finch straight in the eye, smiled wider and added, “Once.”
“Humph,” Finch said and looked away.
McGinty did not care to have Finch onboard, but he wanted even less to have him aboard his former command, Hopefleet, getting up to the Lord knew what mischief. The man’s presence was only one of many, many things that McGinty did not currently like, but found himself forced to endure.
He had been aware of the problem from the start: he could barely man one ship, how was he going to man two? The solution was to simply forego the value of the captured ship itself, off-load the cargo of any prize he took and then send the empty bottom on its way. Or so he thought.
He abandoned that idea as soon he read Hopefleet’s bill of lading. There was far too much aboard the brig than he could ever stow down aboard his little sloop, and every bit of it was too valuable to leave behind. So instead he went with his only other option, which was to find some way to sail two ships with a crew of greenhorns who could barely sail one.
“You want me to shut this bastard’s mouth for you, Sergeant?” Bobby Ireland asked, nodding toward the still-fuming Finch. He was stationed aft with his musket loaded and a brace of pistols in his belt.
“No, let him bleat away,” McGinty said. “Makes no never mind.”
“‘Sergeant?’” Finch said. “I thought you were supposed to be a captain, or so you said. Why do they call you, ‘sergeant?’”
“You’re a curious bugger, I’ll say that,” McGinty said, which was all the answer he would give the old man. “But see here,” he added, “let me know if the chill’s too much for you on deck. I’ll be happy to have you stowed down in the hold.” And that was all the warning he intended to give.
Sergeant… McGinty thought. These dumb bastard soldiers…boys…could never get it through their heads to call him ‘captain’. He had given up trying, and he supposed it did not really matter. There was no one he needed to impress with a fancy rank or title.
He looked aloft where two of the ordnance brig’s former crew, now Sparrowhawk’s crew, were laid out on the main yard, overhauling the buntlines. They had been pressed into service aboard the American sloop since the only possible means McGinty had of sailing both ships was to keep the men who knew what they were doing at their duties.
There had been fifteen men aboard the brig: a dozen foremast jacks along with the master, Finch, and two mates. The master and mates McGinty took aboard Sparrowhawk where he could keep an eye on them. He gave them their liberty on deck in exchange for a promise that they would not get into any mischief. It was foolish, he knew—he should have put them below in chains—but he could not bring himself to do it.
Among the foremast jacks, there had been two whose looks McGinty did not like. They seemed too self-assured, too confident. The sort who might lead the others in mutiny. Those two he took aboard Sparrowhawk as well and made them sit in the bow and speak to no one.
The rest of the crew he divided between Sparrowhawk and Hopefleet. He assured them they would not be made prisoners of war if they cooperated, a promise he really had no business making, and it was not clear the degree to which they believed him. He also left Freeman and five others of his former soldiers aboard Hopefleet, in part to help sail the ship, but more as armed guards to watch over the old crew, a task for which they were more suited.
McGinty looked astern once more, at the clumsy, uncoordinated way that the men aboard Sparrowhawk were backing the headsails to get the ship’s bow to turn.
Treacherous bastards, he thought. McGinty was pretty sure Hopefleet had missed stays because her people had purposely made a hash of the maneuver.
Merchant crews tended to be small, but they tended to be prime seamen as well, since any sailor would take the merchant service over the navy if he had a choice. Only privateers had an easier time than merchantmen in filling out the ship’s company. The five able-bodied mariners and the few landsmen aboard the ordnance brig should have been able to tack the vessel in those conditions with never a problem, even without orders from the quarterdeck.
Bloody silent insubordination…McGinty thought. He knew it well, that sullen lack of cooperation, nothing blatant, something that could be written off as a mistake or misunderstanding. He had seen it often enough on shipboard and in the army. He had been guilty of it himself, more than once. It was always amusing to trigger an officer’s fury and yet give him nothing on which to pin his wrath. He was certain that that was what the British seamen aboard Hopefleet were doing now.
They kept at it moment more, a display of seemingly incompetent sail handling, and then Hopefleet’s bow began to turn and her sails began to fill once again.
“As I said,” Captain Finch began, “if you put me back aboard…”
McGinty shot him a look that had not a trace of his Irish good cheer in it, and Finch shut his mouth and looked away. The man had made that suggestion several times: that he be put back aboard Hopefleet to take command and he would sail in company with Sparrowhawk, wherever McGinty wished. McGinty had batted the suggestion away with a joke before, but he was done humoring the man.
Bloody British bastard, thinks an Irishman’s dumb enough to fall for that…
He looked out over the starboard side. He could see a dark line low on the horizon, the coast of New Jersey. Or Delaware. He was not entirely certain. Angus McGinty was a good mariner but an indifferent navigator at best. His duties on shipboard had never included such lofty responsibility, and all he knew of the subject was what he had gleaned from overhearing the officers on the various ships he had sailed aboard, and what he had been told during tricks at the helm.
Ideally, he would have left the coast well below the horizon, stood out to sea, made a wide swing to the east before turning back toward Maryland. It would have given them the best chance of avoiding British cruisers. But he did not dare. He would have no idea when to change course and sail west again. Better to keep the shore in sight, make southing, and then stop some fishing boats to get their position. McGinty, like most men, did not care to ask for directions, but sometimes there was nothing for it.
He looked over at Finch. He had considered making the former master navigate, but he would have no way of knowing whether the old man was playing him false. Nor did he care to admit to his own ignorance. He felt the frustration building like steam in a pot.
You’ll be a bloody rich man when this is done, boy-o, bloody rich, McGinty told himself, as he often did. It was good motivation when he found himself sinking under the weight of his myriad troubles.
And so far, at least, we haven’t…
“Here, McGinty!” Foster shouted down from the crosstrees. “I see a ship out there!”
…seen another ship… McGinty completed his thought.
McGinty looked across the deck. Finch was looking at him, the first hints of a smirk on his face, but when he saw McGinty’s expression, he wiped it off and looked away. McGinty looked up at the crosstrees above. Foster was standing there, one arm wrapped around the topmast shroud, and pointing to the northeast, almost directly astern, where Hopefleet was sailing in their wake.
He doesn’t mean the bloody prize is what he sees, does he? McGinty wondered, but he was sure that would be too stupid even for this bunch of landlubbing farmers.
“How far off?” McGinty called.
“Three, four miles!” Foster called down. “I can just barely see it, and just when we go up on a wave!”
Bloody, bloody hell… McGinty thought. Once again there was no one aboard who could actually tell him what he needed to know. Foster wouldn’t know a ship from a schooner from a damned herring gull. Any of the merchant sailors from Hopefleet could have given a proper report, but McGinty did not trust any of them. He sighed and snatched the telescope out of the binnacle and headed for the weather shrouds.
Five minutes later he was aloft, standing beside Foster, looking in the direction the man was pointing and trying to let his breathing settle.
“There! You see it there?” Foster asked.
“Aye, I see it now,” McGinty said as Sparrowhawk rose on the sea and the flash of gray became visible in the distance. He extended the telescope and trained it in the direction of the distant ship, now lost from sight, and waited for the ship to rise again. A moment later it appeared in the lens and hung there for a moment as the long ocean swells lifted the two vessels at the same time.
Ship… McGinty thought. He could see the three masts, the topsails set on each, and lowers and t’gan’sls on the fore and main. Not massive, not a British two-decker or some such, but not tiny, either. Too far off to see if she sported gunports or seemed to be a man-of-war. Too far off to see any flag that she might be flying.
“Well, damn my eyes…” McGinty muttered. At least this strange ship was not chasing them. She was sailing a more southerly course than Sparrowhawk and Hopefleet.
“Well, sergeant, what do you reckon?” Foster asked.
“Ah, most likely a merchantman, bound for Bermuda, or the islands,” McGinty said. Did he himself believe that? He was not sure. Either way, there was nothing he could do but alter course a bit to the west, open up the distance, and hope this whore’s son took no notice of them.
“Take a look here, Foster,” McGinty said, handing the man the telescope. He waited as Foster found the ship in the lens, not an easy thing to do while standing high on a swaying mast. “Do you see it, now?”
“Yes…yes, I do,” Foster said.
“Well, fix her in your mind, how she looks, the sails she has set and such. If anything changes, if she puts up more sail or takes some down, let me know. If the shape of her seems to change it likely means she’s changed course, so let me know that as well.”
“Aye, sergeant, I’ll do that,” Foster said, nodding as he continued staring through the glass.
“Good lad,” McGinty said. He swung outboard on the topmast shrouds and reached down with his toe to find the ratlines below. He stepped down onto the lower shrouds and headed down toward the deck.
He had not made it halfway down before Foster called, “Sergeant! I reckon he’s changed course, by the looks of it.”
Ah, bloody, bloody hell! McGinty thought, as he paused in his descent, sighed, and climbed back aloft once more.
McGinty’s last hope was that Foster was mistaken, or, if the ship had altered course, it had altered course away from Sparrowhawk and Hopefleet. But neither was the case. Once McGinty was back on the crosstrees, once he had the distant ship fixed in the lens of the telescope, he saw that Foster was indeed correct, the ship had altered course, and she had altered course such at that she was making directly for his little squadron.
Bloody, bloody hell! he thought.
If she was coming in pursuit, then she had to be one of four flavors of ship: British Navy, Continental Navy, or privateer, British or American. That was it. There was no other sort of ship that would go out of its way to pursue two strange vessels.
McGinty considered these things, and what they implied, as he climbed down from aloft and walked slowly aft, looking back in their wake, past Hopefleet and out toward the place where the distant ship was now hidden by the horizon.
If it was a British man-of-war or privateer, then capture meant losing everything, becoming prisoners of war and a slow death aboard the prison hulks. If she was Continental Navy or an American privateer, it meant losing everything and hanging for either desertion or piracy. A prize court might be willing to overlook the extra-legal capture of the ordnance brig in order to get their hands on her contents, but a man-of-war would not. Quite the opposite. If McGinty and his men were found to have taken Hopefleet illegally, then she would become the prize of her new captors, and Sparrowhawk as well.
Bloody, bloody hell, he thought.
He looked up at the sun, just visible through the thin overcast of clouds. They were approaching the first dogwatch: it would be full dark in just a few hours. That would help, to be sure.
In the best of worlds, he would wait until dark and then drastically alter course, and send word for Hopefleet to follow suit. But it was not the best of worlds and he did not believe young Pip and his questionable crew would be able to keep on station, and once separated, they would never find one another again.
He could heave to instead, take all his men off Hopefleet, restore Hopefleet’s crew to their rightful vessel, and sail off, hoping this strange sail would not pursue them. But he was not willing to abandon the fortune that Hopefleet represented, not that easily. Success, he knew, did not come without risk, and he was willing to risk a lot for the fortune the brig represented.
Set more sail, perhaps? he wondered. He looked aloft. The sloop would bear the small t’gan’s’l they could set from the deck, but that was about all the extra canvas they had to spread. He had no way to tell Pip to set more sail, nor did he know if he would be able to. It might be just another opportunity for his surly crew of prisoners to muck things up.
“The sails don’t bloody matter,” he said out loud. The other vessel was ship-rigged, longer on the waterline, faster than either Sparrowhawk or Hopefleet. Setting more sail would just delay her overtaking them by an hour or so, no more. There was nothing they could do but keep on the way they were and hope that the ship in their wake lost them or abandoned the chase in the night.
The five sailors formerly of Hopefleet were clustered on the starboard side, near the base of the mainmast, and McGinty did not like that. It would not do to have private gatherings such as that, even if they were not able to talk to their former officers aft, or the two possible troublemakers who were under guard in the bow.
“You there, the lads from the brig!” he shouted forward and the five turned and looked aft. McGinty scrutinized their faces for looks of guilt but found none. “Clew up the main course and the topsail! Bellows, Ireland, bear a hand with that.”
The men moved to the lines but none of them with any great turn of speed, the British sailors because they did not want to, the Americans because they did not know what to do. But soon enough the two square sails were hauled up like curtains to their respective yards. The speed came off Sparrowhawk and Hopefleet came surging up alongside.
“Set the topsail! Set the course!” McGinty called, once the ships were nearly side by side, and the sails came down again and the two ships plowed along together. McGinty took up a speaking trumpet and called to Pip across the stretch of water between them. He instructed him to see that all lights aboard Hopefleet were extinguished, save for a single light in the bow, shining forward. He told him to follow in Sparrowhawk’s wake and a couple of cable-lengths astern, as best as he could in the dark. He told him Sparrowhawk would show a light astern, just for a second at every turn of the glass. It was the most he dared do.
He did not tell Pip about the ship astern. He did not need his men to worry, or the British sailors to get any ideas. Their chances of avoiding capture were not great, even without interference from the prisoners.
For some time, the two ships continued within hailing distance, but slowly Sparrowhawk, the quicker of the two, began to draw ahead, until at last she was a few cable lengths ahead and McGinty ordered the main course clewed up again.
The first dogwatch came to an end as the sun dropped down toward the western shore, a gray and ugly day lapsing into a dark and tense night. The men of the second dogwatch, British sailors and American soldiers, took the deck. McGinty sent Finch and his two mates and the two troublemaker foremast jacks below and had them locked in the first officer’s cabin. They would be cheek to jowl there but at least they would be out of his hair, and unable to cause any trouble.
He himself fetched his heavy coat and a thick scarf he had found aboard Sparrowhawk and a pair of gloves he had liberated from Captain Finch and took his place on the quarterdeck. He knew he would not be sleeping that night. It did not even occur to him to try.
He looked at the compass, lit by a candle in the binnacle box. He looked aloft but could not see even a hint of the sails. Still, the wind was steady out of the southwest, blowing twelve to fifteen knots he reckoned, and if it remained that way, the sailing would not be terribly taxing. It was the first bit of luck he had encountered since taking Hopefleet.
Lucky, was it, taking that cursed brig? he mused. Hopefleet might make his fortune or spell his doom. It was too early to know which one it would be, but he knew he might find out in the next few hours.
He spent the rest of the second dogwatch standing by the helmsman, making certain he maintained the proper heading, that he did not overcorrect when the sloop’s bow began to turn one way or the other. At the start of the following dogwatch he took the tiller himself, since it was easier than constantly supervising.
At midnight, the watch changed again, and since the wind had held steady and McGinty did not think there would be a need for sail handling, he ordered one of the British sailors to come aft and take a trick at the helm. It was a relief to step away from the tiller, to lean against the bulwark for a moment. The motion of the ship, the feel of the wind on his face, was enough to tell him if the helmsman was keeping a true course, and he knew that he was.
He walked back to the taffrail and looked astern. Hopefleet’s bow light was just visible in their wake, swinging up and down and side to side as the ship pitched and rolled. McGinty took hold of the shutter on the lantern mounted on Sparrowhawk’s transom and flipped it open, counted to five, then shut it again. If the unknown ship was still behind them, they would not see Hopefleet’s light shining forward, but they could possibly see Sparrowhawk’s light shining aft, and that McGinty wished to avoid.
They plowed on through the night, the glass turning on the half-hour, McGinty flashing the light astern so that Pip could follow in his wake. The watches changing after eight turns of the glass and the wind held steady and McGinty found another of the British sailors to take the helm. He stared out toward the west, looking for any sign of land, any warning that they were standing into danger, but he could see nothing. The cloud cover that had been with them all day blotted out stars and moon. They were driving on through a great void, with only the motion of the ship and the creak of the rigging and hull to give any hint that they were moving at all.
The middle watch ended, the morning watch was well underway and McGinty was leaning against the bulwark when he felt the warmth and comfort spread over him like a thick blanket. He embraced the sensation, let it smother him, felt himself sinking under the weight. And then his body jerked and he startled awake.
No one had seen him drift off, it seemed, and he was glad of that. He stood upright and arched his back and looked around. It was still night, still dark, but he thought he could detect the darkness lifting just a bit, the complete blackness yielding to something less complete.
About bloody time, he thought. He turned his gaze outboard and made a slow scan of the dark, looking for whatever he might see out there in the night, but he could see nothing, which was exactly what he wanted to see. He looked astern. Hopefleet’s faithful little bow light was still bobbing away behind them.
He looked forward. Sparrowhawk’s main course had been clewed up to prevent the sloop running away from the brig, and now the sail was no longer blocking McGinty’s view in that direction. But there was nothing to see there either, nothing but blackness. And then a flash of light.
Oh, what the hell? McGinty thought. It was just the briefest of flashes, like a lantern opened for a second, or a flint hitting steel. Almost nothing. But too low down to be a star peeking through the clouds, or some such.
Eyes are playing tricks, boy-o, McGinty thought. It was common enough at sea; strange lights or other things that fooled the eye. McGinty knew better than to think that one tiny flash of light meant anything at all. He assured himself that it was nothing. But he did not believe it.
And he was right, right to not believe it. Because as the darkness began to recede McGinty became more and more certain that there was something out there in the night, something off the larboard bow. Now and again he was certain he could hear the sound of a sail slapping or masts creaking or water on a hull that was not Sparrowhawk’s. The more he peered into the dark, and the more the dawn approached, the more certain he was.
Then Bobby Ireland called out from forward. “Sergeant, I think I see a ship or some damned thing, right out there!” And that was followed by a host of other voices, all calling their agreement. And then, from out beyond the larboard bow, appeared the unmistakable form of a ship under sail, half-seen in the predawn light.
It was another half-hour before they could make out any details, but slowly the strange vessel revealed itself. Ship-rigged, about eighty feet on deck. Ten gunports on her starboard side that they could see, each open and the guns run out. She was no more than a couple hundred yards away, sailing a course parallel to Sparrowhawk and Hopefleet. She must have overtaken them in the dark, and once she did, the light on Hopefleet’s bow would have made it easy enough for her to keep on station, just as Sparrowhawk had.
The three ships continued on for some time more, sailing their southeasterly heading. No one on Sparrowhawk’s deck spoke or even moved. Rather, they remained fixed where they were, staring at the mysterious vessel emerging from the dark. There was a flag flying from the peak of her gaff. It was difficult to discern at first, but as the light gathered they could make it out at last.
“Continental flag, boys!” Bellows shouted and that was met by a general cheering along the deck. It was still too dark to see the stars in the blue canton but there was no mistaking the canton itself and the red and white stripes. It was the flag that the Continental Congress had decided on half a year earlier.
Dumb bastards, McGinty thought, but, of course, they would see it as a relief that this ship belonged to their countrymen, and not bloody Black Dick Howe. None of them, save Freeman, understood the danger that an American ship-of-war presented. And maybe these men would not be found responsible for the illicit privateering. After all, it was McGinty who had been in charge, and had assured them all that what they were doing was perfectly legal.
It was quite possible that McGinty alone would be hanged for piracy. The rest would be acquitted of that charge. And then hanged as deserters. It was their lucky day.