THE EMOTIONS OF BATTLE DO NOT READILY LEAVE A SHIP AFTER COMBAT. The wounds of the crew are the wounds of the ship—harm one and the other is injured also. A soldier might serve in a dozen campaigns, but he will almost never fight in the same place twice. A sailor’s battlefield is invariably his own ship; the memory of combat is near as a man’s skin, and sorrow for fallen shipmates always as close as an empty hammock.
Aboard Enterprise, surgeons and messmates bandaged and tenderly nursed the stricken, even those whose wounds were mortal. When death came, the survivors’ pain was like the grief of families. Enterprise had received a dozen cruel blows, but her masts and hull were sound. Aside from the terrible cost in blood, the damage was confined mostly to the spar and gun decks, and none of it was structural. Of more immediate concern were the ship’s boats. The blue cutter had been smashed to pieces and swept over the side. The gig and red cutter had both suffered on their expedition against Ar R’ad’s prizes; only the barge had come through without a scratch.
Though the pirates aboard Courier had let their sails fly in signal of surrender, those aboard Yunis had used her swivel guns and fought until the last. As the Marines attempted to board, grapeshot and musketry spattered into the red cutter, wounding Corporal Hackman and several others. MacQuarrie’s leathernecks then stormed aboard, and in a sharp, desperate action took the xebec. Aboard Yunis, fighting had been hand-to-hand. MacQuarrie himself led a party belowdecks and grappled with a black-turbaned fanatic who was attempting to set off the ship’s magazine. The sayyid managed to stab MacQuarrie before being chopped down by the cutlass of an equally zealous Marine. Later examination showed that a firing train had been laid and tinder prepared throughout the hold. In addition to a cargo of 42-pound cannon balls, Yunis carried 150 kegs of finely corned French powder. Had the magazine been fired, the ship would have been blown into the sky.
During the long day after the battle, Enterprise was heaved to and her prizes lolled under her lee. The frigate rang with the thud of caulking hammers and the hails of boat crews plying between the ships. Those of the slaves who were not wounded were put aboard Yunis. Water and ship’s biscuit were served out, along with small stores, Guernsey frocks, and duck trousers, for most of the slaves were mother naked. One of the surgeon’s mates set up a sickbay under an awning and fed porridge, boiled eggs, and barley water to a dozen reed-thin children.
Aboard Yunis, Padeen had been placed in charge of the working party, mustering the former corsairs with scowls and blood-curdling Gaelic curses. Passed man to man, the cargo of 42-pound shot went overboard in a series of deep, chunking splashes. If the corsairs were not right quick about their duty, Padeen was sure to hurry them, starting them with a fast-moving boot. Most of the cannonballs were cast of iron, but many were carved from single pieces of dark marble, and though they were beautiful objects, they were of little use to Enterprise except as souvenirs for the gunner’s mates. But the powder was another matter; most of it, in kegs still marked with the French imperial eagle, was carried over and put down into the frigate’s magazine.
As Yunis was offloaded, the freedmen mostly ignored their former captors. The newly liberated did not care for anything beyond fresh air, clean water, and ship’s biscuit. Only the Mozambequean warrior (whose name was Fante) took any interest in justice. It was he who pointed to a shame-faced Syrian and said, “This fuck—he is the one who owns the cargo.”
Padeen was not over-gentle when he clapped the Syrian into irons and sent him aboard Enterprise to be questioned.
IN THE ORLOP DOCTOR DARBY WORKED LIKE AN AUTOMATON. WITHOUT PAUSE or rest he amputated arms and legs, extracted bullets, trepanned skulls, splinted bones, patched and sutured. This labor gradually winnowed those who could be saved from those who could not. For two days and nights he and the surgeon’s mates treated the wounded and moved those who could survive the trip into an expanded sickbay on the berth deck. On coming back aboard, Nolan joined Darby in his surgery, helping to bandage and carry stretchers. Those less gravely hurt were carried up onto the spar deck, as it was Darby’s opinion that wounded men needed air and light, two things in short supply in the cockpit of a frigate.
Below, in the dim glow of lanterns, half a dozen sailors and two Marines swung in cots, clinging to life or preparing to slip the coil. As Darby worked, Nolan went about with a bucket and swab, mopped blood, and gathered up discarded arms and legs. When he had finished scrubbing, Nolan tended those most gravely hurt, spelling a tourniquet where needed and dispensing datura and blue tincture of morphine under Darby’s supervision. This work left them both spattered and exhausted.
One cot hanging in the sickbay was smaller than the others. Under a dim lantern Nolan sponged blood and powder from the forehead of Midshipman Wainwright. The boy had been in and out of consciousness since the cautery of his arm, an agony he bore with heart-rending bravery. As valiantly as Nolan had fought on the gun deck he now struggled for Wainwright’s life. He sat all the night at the boy’s side, watching as Darby checked his pulse—pounding some moments, weakening dangerously in others—wiping his brow, holding his arm as the shattered limb was re-splinted and bandaged fresh. Wainwright’s breathing was normal and slow, but what encouragement Nolan could take in this was shaken by the other symptoms: a deathly, waxen pallor, obvious paralysis below the waist, and a persistent drenching sweat. The morphia made him doze fitfully, and sometimes his lips would move, but he did not speak.
When most of the critically wounded had been taken care of and moved onto the berth decks, Padeen came and sat with them, his eyes brimming and his big, rough hands laced together. In the flickering light Padeen looked at Wainwright and then at Darby. His eyes posed the question, but the doctor returned to his instruments, wiping each against his apron and replacing it in a velvet-lined box. The doctor had done what he could; it was not enough and he knew it. When Padeen left the sickbay and the door closed behind him Darby let his head droop and wiped his eyes.
Curran came at once from the quarterdeck when they sent for him. Wainwright’s face in the flickering light of the surgical lanterns was both wan and luminous. Curran sat with Nolan by the hammock, and after a long moment the boy swallowed heavily and his eyes stayed open. Curran had to look away when he saw that Wainwright’s pupils were dilated unevenly, one wide and black, the other like a spot on a dirty mirror.
Nolan wetted the sponge and daubed across the boy’s forehead. Wainwright seemed to concentrate and then said hoarsely, “Mister Nolan?”
“I’m here, shipmate.”
“Good.” Wainwright let go of the blankets. His hand flopped across his chest and then closed over Nolan’s. The fingers squeezed together weakly, and his palm was clammy. Curran lifted his hand, taking both Nolan’s and Wainwright’s into his own, locking his fingers and holding firmly.
Wainwright’s voice was a whisper wrapped in the murmurs of the ship. “I’m glad of your company, gentlemen,” he said.
The hammock rocked slowly on its clews. As a lantern shadow went across Wainwright’s face, his eyes fluttered and closed slowly, first the right, and then the left. A sigh came from his pale lips, his forehead relaxed, and his jaw trembled. After this, he was still. So gently did his soul go free from the shattered little body, it was almost as if Kevin David Wainwright had been peacefully unborn rather than died.
THE SYRIAN SENT ABOARD BY PADEEN WAS BROUGHT AFT AT THE END OF THE morning watch. He was led first into the wardroom and then into Curran’s freshly scrubbed stateroom. The prisoner was a tall, sharp-featured man with dark eyes. Under a prominent nose he had a weak, almost dainty chin. This, surmounted by a wispy, close-cut mustache and beard, gave an impression of youth, though the man was older than Curran by a dozen years. The Syrian’s clothes were dirty but well made, as were his sandals.
Curran’s expression showed little, though he was tired, depressed, and angry. He allowed the prisoner’s shackles to be removed but had the Marine stand close behind him.
“What is your name?” Curran asked in Lingua Franca, the bastard French of the Levant. The man smiled thinly and shook his head. Curran asked him again, this time using Italian verbs, and the man answered.
“Abdur Rahman.”
“Who is your father?”
The man answered that his people were Zurand and al Kharsah.
“And how do you earn your bread, Abdur Rahman al Kharsah?”
“I am a sailor,” came the answer, improbably combined in French, Arabic, and Italian. Curran had seen the man praying on the spar deck at noon. The prisoner had been given water for his ablutions and had made a great show of religious fervor.
“You are a pious man?”
“I am.”
“Where is your ship from?”
“From?”
“What port is home?”
“Sidon.”
“You are four thousand miles from the al Sham,” Curran said. “Show me your hands.”
The man lifted his palms.
Curran now spoke in perfect, lilting Arabic: “You are a liar, Abdur Rahman. You say you are a sailor, but your hands are like a woman’s. Your clothing is finely made and you have leather on your feet. You are no mariner, or you might have had an idea what was east and what was west instead of waving your ass at the Holy Q’aba.” The man was astonished. Curran went on: “And though you claim to be a true and orthodox Muslim, I find that you have sailed in a ship filled with Shiite heretics. As Christians, we are not over-concerned with what is correct in a Muslim. Our opinions of piracy, however, are very much more stringent.”
“Surely the effendi does not think I am a pirate—or a Shiite?”
“As you bear the name of the same angry creature who slew the gentle Ali, you are not likely to be Shia. Whether you are on the right path I know not, but several of the men aboard Ar R’ad were sayyids, fierce Shia partisans, and their black turbans could not have escaped your notice.”
“I am from the Levant, Effendi. I have learned to live at close quarters with all manner of nonbelievers and apostates—Shiites, Copts, Jews, Maronites, even Druses and Alawites. I cannot be blamed for what others believe.”
“Who took the French ship?”
The merchant shifted on his feet.
“Understand me, Abdur Rahman. I don’t care very much what happens to you. The ship you were on was a French merchantman. We have her papers at hand. You and the others are not her rightful owners.”
“I am a humble merchant, Effendi.”
“You are a liar, and you are no seaman. Since you are not a sailor, you cannot exactly be called a pirate. Not exactly. But I see no merchandise aboard the ship you occupied other than a French cargo, which is the fruit of piracy, and powder and shot, which are the tools of the trade.” Curran put his arm over the back of his chair. “I require information,” he said. “And I will get it one way or another. The man in the green jacket behind you is a United States Marine. They are our own sayyids, very enthusiastic creatures, perfectly zealous. Their religion is victory, and they worship precision in all things. They spend days dreaming of battle and would rather crouch upon the desolation and ashes of their enemies than lie down in cool gardens. You see, they are much, much more ferocious than normal men, rather more like bulldogs who serve the Devil. Perhaps you have noticed the point of his bayonet? And the cutlass he wears? They do not get paid, or fed, unless they kill a dozen men a month.”
“Pray, Effendi, what are they fed that makes them so grim?”
“The flesh of swine. And prisoners.”
Rahman searched Curran’s face for a trace of mirth. Certainly he was being made the butt of some Frankish joke. But it chilled him when he turned and the Marine met his eyes with fearsome indifference.
“Who owned the slaves aboard Ar R’ad ?”
“I realize, Effendi, that I must tell you the truth. Each fact exact, precise, and true. So I am grieved that the manifest was thrown over when we sighted your ship. How I am ashamed.”
Curran opened his desk, removed a pair of iron-covered ledgers, and tossed them on the desk. They landed with a clang. “Then we are lucky that duplicates were kept aboard the flagship.”
The Arab crossed his arms.
“The slaves were your property and were being transported for a fee of ten parts percent, payable to the captain bey. Is that not the truth?”
“It is, Effendi.”
“What happened to the American whale ship?”
“It was taken by Ar R’ad.”
“And also Courier?”
“Yes.” Abdur Rahman al Kharsah was indeed a merchant from Sidon in the Levant. He claimed, despite the heresy of his shipmates, to be a very good and pious Sunni, and he knew a very great deal about Ar R’ad. The merchant had embarked six months ago from Aleppo, trading west, exchanging precious metal and gemstones for rifles, agricultural instruments, and cheap brass manilas. Upon reaching Tripoli, Abdur Rahman embarked with his money chests on Ar R’ad and was aboard her when she touched at Bou Regreg in the Maghreb. It was at this notorious port that Ar R’ad took on her vast 42-pound cannon, and the ship was fitted for cruising.
“Why would the Dey of Bou Regreg allow a pirate vessel to be fitted in his port?”
“I do not know what the dey knows, Effendi.”
“Certainly you knew Ar R’ad was no merchant ship,” Curran said firmly.
“The effendi knows I am no sailor. I knew only that they had taken aboard cannon. I was happy to be on a ship blessed with such an abundance of protection.”
“Where did the guns come from?”
“They were a gift from His Majesty the King of Portugal to the Dey of Bou Regreg. Does your country have a king, Effendi?”
“We do not.”
“You are bereft of a guiding hand, a person chosen by God. Does that not leave your government curiously adrift?”
“Tell me about the cannon. How many of them were there?”
“Four. I saw myself as they were unloaded from a Portuguese ship of battle.”
“You do not mean a ship of the line?”
“I am not a creature of the sea, but it was a ship bearing cannon, nearly as graceful and warlike as your own, Bey Effendi.
“It was a frigate?”
“Yes, that is the word, that most warlike of ships. The Portuguese vessel bore the name of a place, a beautiful place, in that kingdom.”
“Azóla.”
“The effendi is all-knowing and wise. That is exactly the name. The Portuguese frigate delivered the guns and assisted as they were put aboard Ar R’ad and fitted. There was much work to put them into iron boxes on the deck. Two of the guns were put aboard, and two others were mounted on a pair of great, oaken tumbrels and left the city with a squadron of escort.”
“Go on,” Curran said coldly.
“There came also aboard in Bou Regreg two hundred of the dey’s bodyguards, among them sayyid learned in both the Holy Word and the artifices of artillery. We had also the pick of a battalion of Mameluks.”
“The dey’s bodyguards? I know of no Mameluks who would serve a Shiite commander.”
“They are lately come, Effendi. I swear it. They were in the service of the Algerine, Mustaffa Mohamed. He had lately made such an onerous peace with the British, forswearing privateering and cravenly renouncing tribute, and even manumitting all English captives. The Mameluks refused to serve under so unmanly a leader. They went together across the desert to Bou Regreg.”
“Even if they were renegades, why would Janissaries, who are Sufis, serve a Shiite imam?”
“I need not tell the effendi that the Mameluks, mostly being converted Christians, do not always grasp fine points of theology. War is their trade, and I heard it said that the dey offered to pay them in gold.”
“The dey made no secret of fitting out Ar R’ad as a cruiser?”
“He did not have it widely known, though those in the waterfront saw it. Each cannon was the size of a great oven.”
“You went willingly aboard Ar R’ad, knowing that she would attack American ships.”
“By your mother’s eyes, I did not. None of us did—none, perhaps, but the sayyid or the Mameluk officers. I arranged passage and embarked with my merchandise as a paying passenger. Three days from Sao Toma, the captain bey read the proclamation that we were to cruise upon the infidels.”
Curran frowned.
“Pardon, Effendi. I do not number you, so learned a man, among the unknowing who shall burn forever. You are rightly guided and certainly al-Kitab, a person of the book, peace be upon you.”
“Go on,” Curran said, drumming his fingers on the desk.
“To return to my account, the fatwas were read, and to my wonderment I found myself aboard a ship under orders to engage the enemies of the dey, wherever they might be found. You can imagine my shock when we came upon the American whaler the following week off the Canaries.”
Curran grunted. “Where is McKendrie Evans now?”
“A person, Effendi? A friend?”
“The whaling ship.”
“That vessel was sent back to Bou Regreg, also to fit out as a cruiser.”
“And her crew?”
“All safe, Effendi. They were taken for ransom.” Rashid then added, “All those who were not killed.”
This confirmed what Curran had learned from the ironbound ledgers. One page, written on parchment and swaddled with seals, was a commission from the Dey of Bou Regreg for Ar R’ad and the xebec Yunis to cruise against His Majesty’s enemies, to include merchants of those Muslim states who had capitulated to the Royal Navy. The fatwa, sanely enough, forbid taking British, Spanish, or Portuguese ships, which were deemed protected. This left the American and French merchants as lawful prey. The commission enjoined the captains to cruise upon the Atlantic but send their prizes all the way round through the Gut into the Mediterranean port of Arzeou. There, in the Maghreb, an accommodation had been made with the dissolute Bashaw of Arzeou and a Ladino banking house. Ships taken in the Atlantic would be sold in the Mediterranean, and pleas for ransom from captured sailors would come from Arzeou rather than distant Bou Regreg. These stratagems would confound those seeking to punish the guilty and screen both the Dey of Bou Regreg and the Bashaw of Arzeou from suspicion.
“I hope that I have been of assistance,” the Syrian purred.
“If you have spoken honestly, you may count upon a just and even prodigious reward.”
A graceful hand poised on the dainty chin. “Then, Effendi, I wonder if I might in all delicacy raise the subject of compensation for my property?”
The merchant was surprised to be clamped back into irons. The bulky, hard-eyed Marine hustled him through the wardroom and onto the gun deck. The tubs and growlers were being stowed away, and only the gunner’s mates and a dozen Marines remained hunched at one of the mess tables. Heads turned as the merchant was dragged forward. There were whistles and catcalls: “Who’s the gawkey, Timmy?” and “There goes a nice set of curtains!” Though Abdur Rahman could not understand the words, he understood their tone.
At the far end of the mess deck, Rahman caught sight of Old Chick at the camboose stirring up a sooty cauldron of gumbo. The odors of shellfish and other things haraam made the Syrian uneasy; and when he noticed a Marine pushing through the round bone in a ham steak he felt very bleak indeed.
THE AFTERNOON SUN BEAMED THROUGH THE STERN WINDOWS, THROWING moving arches of light onto the captain’s desk. Enterprise rolled agreeably in a southwest swell, no longer sluggish now that she had been pumped and patched. Pelles’ long desk was set in sunlight, and spread before him was Curran’s report with abstracts of the papers and ledgers found in Ar R’ad’s shattered cabin.
“This document, this commission, it amounts to a letter of marque?”
Curran answered, “It does, sir.”
Pelles ran his eyes over the parchment with its seals, ribbons, and wafers of gold leaf. “One sultan says they may cruise upon the Atlantic, and another allows them to sell prizes in the Med; the spoils are divided by Hebraic moneychangers in a Barbary port. It is as neat a bit of treachery as could be imagined.”
“If I may be so bold, sir. Wasn’t this to be expected, sir, by President Monroe? Surely he means to strengthen the Mediterranean Squadron?”
“Mister Monroe has inherited Dolley Madison’s navy,” Pelles said. “And I am afraid our president may not find it sufficient to support either his grievances or our glory.”
“Would it not be a simple matter to patrol the strait, sir? To prevent prize ships from being sent to market? Couldn’t our squadron do that?”
“We have no ships of the line in the Med, and only three heavy frigates. If their aggressions were open, the Barbary States could be dealt with one by one. But the squadron has to safeguard shipping through the entire Mediterranean, from Marmara to the Atlantic. Were we to concentrate our forces in the Gut, our merchants would be vulnerable for the entire length of the sea.”
“Have we allies?” asked Curran.
“There is peace, but we have few friends. The British have made their treaty with Algiers and are not about to burn their powder for our cause. And many of them are still smarting over the last war—Jackson’s victory at New Orleans still rankles them cruelly. As for the Portuguese, you have seen what they are capable of.”
Pelles touched the bell on his desk. When the cabin door opened he said, “There you are, Mister Newsome. Have these reports fair-copied as fast as a pen will move, and double-wrap them in silk and sailcloth. They are to go to Commodore Jones at once in the flag.”
“At once, sir,” said the clerk, hurrying out. He was met in the doorway by Mister Fentress, looking pale and somewhat top-heavy with his head wrapped in several feet of linen bandage.
“Reporting as ordered, sir.” On the quarterdeck the ship’s bell tolled out seven strokes.
“I am fond of punctuality, Mister Fentress. Is your head fit for navigating?”
“It is prime, sir. Thank you.”
“Outstanding. A dispatch is being prepared by Mister Newsome. As soon as the ink is dry, you are to gather up Finch and eight prime hands, go aboard Courier, and take the message to Commodore Jones. You will find him in Cartagena. Stay clear of the Sallee coast, and make your way through the strait at the dark of the moon. You are to fly as fast as ever the brig will bear you. Do not spare the rigging.”
“Direct to the Flag, sir. Stay clear of the Sallee and pass through the Gut with the new moon.”
“And be certain you have Courier’s manifests. With any luck you might have the prize adjudicated before we join you.”
“Yes, sir,” Fentress smiled. Even with a bandaged head he could work out that his one-sixth of one-eighth’s portion of the value of Courier would be a pleasant bit of coin. He spun on his heel, and as the door closed he could be heard in the passageway calling for the captain’s coxswain.
Pelles looked at his desk and rubbed his eyes. Moving slowly, he stood up and walked across the cabin to the quarter gallery. An arc of light followed him, and over his broad shoulders Curran could see the portrait of the operatic lady. He had a moment to consider her as the captain threaded the ribbon of the Guerrière medal through a buttonhole of his best uniform coat. She was as beautiful as ever, maybe more so, her skin radiant and her bosom graced by a strand of tiny pearls. Studying her face, Curran thought that she might be a Pole, perhaps a Silesian. Her eyes were arresting—almond-shaped and as blue as heartbreak. During the fight with Ar R’ad a musket ball had found its way into the cabin, ricocheting through the skylight, and had split the picture frame in the right-hand corner. The captain’s prize possession had been repaired and set right, as had every other part of the ship. The gilt frame had been stitched together with fancy line and a double-reefed bentinck that would have done the bo’sun proud. Pelles lifted his coatee from its dowel and came back into the cabin, putting the stump of his arm into the jacket and then holding out his hand.
“Please help me into my coat, Mister Curran,” he said. “We shall rig church presently.”
ENTERPRISE WAS PUT DIRECTLY INTO THE EYE OF THE SOUTHWEST TRADE. THE ship was in irons, as unmoving as anything could make itself on the surface of the sea. Her courses filled but drew weakly, and her topsails were laid carefully back. Halyard and sheets, always precise and taut, had been set cock-a-bill, as custom demanded, and the entry port on the starboard gangway was left open. All of these little faults amounted to the seagoing equivalent of widow’s weeds, for Enterprise was mourning her dead.
Pelles stood behind a shot locker covered in signal flags, as was the carronade immediately before him; these served as podium and pulpit. Drawn up before him were the ship’s divisions, scrubbed, shaved, and in their best uniforms, brass buttons shined, linen as white as saltwater could make it, their black, tar-lacquered hats in their hands. Messmates supported the walking wounded, and a dozen more seriously injured sailors and Marines watched from hammocks slung under the forecastle rail. Behind Pelles stood the officers: Mister Erskine on crutches and Captain MacQuarrie, who had a hundred stitches across his arms and chest, held up by Doctor Darby. Nolan stood in the better of his two shabby blue coats, the swallowtail, with his round hat in his hands. Along the quarterdeck rail, the Marines were mustered in martial glory. Somewhat battered physically, they were turned out in their immaculate green jackets and leather stocks, brass polished and webbing pipe-clayed exactly.
The ship was silent. Arranged by the starboard gangway were seventeen canvas hammocks. All were sewn tightly, and each had one of the beautiful marble cannonballs from Yunis stowed at its foot. Under their hammock-shrouds the dead had arms and legs bound with sheet linen, and each body was closed into its funeral veil with a last stitch run through the nose. All, save two: Lieutenant Varney, whose head had been swept away, and Mister Wainwright, for there was not one of the midshipmen who washed and prepared him for burial that could bear to put a needle into him.
Pelles lowered his eyes to the prayer book and looped his spectacles behind his ears. The only sound was the wind in the rigging and the gentle ruffling of the main topsail. “Lord, thou hast been our refuge,” Pelles said. “From one generation to another, before the mountains were brought forth, before even the world was made.” His finger touched the well-known page. “Thou art mighty in heaven. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday, and a man’s life is past as a watch in the night.”
Behind the officers, the midshipmen wept openly, and among the crew many had eyes that were bright with tears. Curran stood next to Nolan, both swaying automatically with the roll of the ship.
“We therefore commit their bodies to the deep, looking for the Resurrection on the last day, and the life of the world to come, when the sea shall give up her dead; and the corruptible bodies of those who sleep in her shall be changed, and made glorious in Your majesty. Amen.”
Three hundred whispered “amens” answered Pelles. He closed the prayer book, stepped back from the locker, and put his hat on. The bo’sun lifted his pipe, and a long, shrill melody spilled up. The boards were tipped and seventeen shrouds went over the side. Splashes would be their only monuments.
Pelles turned as Erskine hobbled forward. “You may dismiss the ship’s company, Mister Erskine. I am very pleased to find that the frigate is in remarkable order. She has been turned out as good as the day she was launched.” Pelles did not often give compliments, and he was pleased to see the look of honest pleasure on the faces of the men around him. “I believe you may splice the main brace.”
The order providing a double tot of whiskey would normally have been met with a cheer, but the crew went below without much talk at all. As the formation broke up, Nolan offered condolences to Mister Piggen, but the purser walked past him, pretending not to hear. Without Varney, his goad and guide, Piggen looked forlorn indeed.
Pelles looked over the taffrail. Yunis was still heaved to under the frigate’s lee, and Courier was already going away to windward. Fentress, for all his bombast, was famous for his superstitious dread of funerals, and now he was running Courier away like a scalded hound. “Mister Curran, you will go aboard the xebec with a prize crew and transport the captives to Sierra Leone.”
It took Curran a moment to comprehend. “I am to take command of the prize?”
“Are you gun deaf, Mister Curran?”
“No, sir. Thank you, sir. But I don’t know Sierra Leone. I have never been there.”
“You are a navigator, are you not? Freetown harbor is north of Cape Palmas, and I am sure it has not been moved. Mister Newsome has prepared letters of marque and reprisal commissioning your vessel so you may defend yourself at sea. When you are prepared to get under way, Enterprise will follow.”
Curran touched his hat. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Pelles turned to Nolan. “Mister Nolan, I understand that you were aboard USS Cyane when she was stationed in the Bight of Benin. You were present when she put ashore freed African colonists at Perseverance Island, were you not?”
“I was, sir. With Captain Spence. I learned my Portuguese from one of the freedmen, João Ballinada.”
“Would you recognize the landfall?”
“I would, sir; I helped Mister Dashiell with his survey.”
Pelles nodded. “And I am happy to tell you that your name is still on the charts. I will have you go aboard Yunis as well. Should Cape Palmas have gone adrift, you might help Mister Curran find it. And as the freedmen seem to find you amusing, perhaps you can persuade them to be orderly.”
“I shall do my best, sir.”
There was no one else with them on the sacred starboard side of the quarterdeck, and Pelles spoke candidly. “Mister Nolan, your conduct yesterday was highly creditable. I want you to know that you have been named in my dispatches.”
Nolan’s expression showed very little. “I am honored, sir.”
“I hope you understand that without authority I cannot alter the circumstances of your confinement. But you may be sure that I will write a letter to the Secretary of the Navy.”
“Captain, you need not mix your good name with mine.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“I thank you, sincerely, for your notice of me. But others have written. To the Navy and to the War Office. It does no good, and I am sure it would hurt your interests.”
Pelles shook his head. “My interest is the men who sail with me, Mister Nolan. You could have stayed below and counted quills as Piggen did; instead you put yourself in the line of fire. I will make that fact known in Washington. Now grab up your seabag; your boat will soon be away.”