A sleepy brown sailor, keeping a lookout, hung in the rigging by a single hand and one bare foot while letting the rest of his body bend and sway to the grand swells lifting the Falmouth packet up and down, up and down. His lazy grace and simple freedom were the envy of Matthew, who was on his aching knees and scrubbing the wooden deck with a rough cloth wrapped around a stone in an ever-spreading puddle of dirty water.
Ever since the longboat bearing Abraham Whipple back to his ship had departed, Matthew had known little of peace and nothing of repose. There had been a steady stream of orders and adjustments and requests, the majority from other sailors who seemed eager to show him his place in the order of life on board ship, which was apparently just a notch above that of the plentiful cockroaches, or weevils, as the crew preferred they be called.
In fact, Matthew had run into trouble at breakfast by calling the ship's vermin by its real name. A sailor was about to bite into his hardtack when Matthew interrupted. "Look out! There's a cockroach in your biscuit!"
The sailor swore, removed the biscuit from his largely toothless mouth, and stared in disgust at the wiggling feelers and forelegs of the bug, who was poking his head out of a hole. He glared at Matthew. "That's a weevil, not a cockroach. See?" He thrust it at him for inspection.
Matthew recoiled, swallowing hard. "How can you tell the difference?"
"Tell? Oh, that's easy," said the sailor. He held the biscuit up to the sun, eyeing it with pursed lips. "A cockroach ain't, like, digestible. But a weevil"—his chin jutted forward, and his mouth inhaled the biscuit and chomped down enthusiastically—"is."
At least there was nothing personal in the endless "go here, go there, do this, do that." The ship simply was shorthanded as a result of losing the two sailors impressed by the British frigate. And if Matthew had learned anything about the 18th century, it was that a ship's work was never done, and a sailor's lot was on the whole one of the least free existences imaginable.
As soon as Whipple's longboat had rowed out of earshot, and indeed out of sight in the troughs of the heaving blue-green swells, Nicky had come from the shadows to take the first, heavy, official package of letters, which Whipple had handed to Matthew. Without a word he had retreated to the cabin, not to emerge for an hour.
During that period of calm Matthew had tried to get Abby to give him the dozen secret letters intended for Samuel Adams in Boston, but she was having none of it. "Where would you put them?" she jeered. "Look at you—you're soaking wet. Besides," she added, with the unshakable superiority of someone two years older, "Captain Whipple gave them to me."
"Well, at least let me read them."
She looked shocked. "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail."
"Captain Whipple won't mind, I'm sure. If it's a secret message, we may have to memorize it and pass it on."
She hesitated. At this point Nicky had appeared on deck. It was obvious he was in a foul mood, as he shouted for Captain Jones. Orders were barked, sail was altered, the ship swung north. They were heading on a course which would take them across the path of the patrolling HMS Rose. Nicky's voice cut across the deck: "Master Jones, see to it that Roving polishes my boots before I am to meet Captain Wallace."
"No way, José," muttered Matthew. Nicky flushed red, pulling his sword half out of its scabbard.
John Paul Jones put a hand on Nicky's arm. "Thanks to you, sir, we are shorthanded," Jones said. "I need Matty—unless you care to take a turn pumping out the bilges?"
Nicky slapped the sword back into its scabbard and stalked off to the farthest corner of the quarterdeck. Jones cocked an eyebrow and strolled away.
"You should offer Nicholas more respect," Abby had said. "He is proper touchy about his honor as a gentleman. He's awful well-bred, compared to me and thee."
"I don't care if he's bred or if he's buttered," Matthew said. "Give a jerk a uniform and a sword and you still get a jerk." He paused. "And you'll still fawn all over him, cooing and mooning like he's a Backstreet Boy."
Then he and Abby had really argued. As a result, they weren't talking to each other. This was unfortunate because Matthew had no one else to talk to, and he had no idea what she was going to do with the letters. It was obvious she'd fallen under Nicky's spell.
"Sail, sir! Looks to be the Rose," cried the lookout. Nicky and Jones pulled out their spyglasses and studied the sail, then Nicky snapped his shut. "That's her," he said. "Master Jones, I will take my leave of you now. Have both Rovings put aboard my launch."
"You're taking them?"
"The boy is a deserter and shall be returned to duty, after suitable punishment, of course."
"And the girl?"
"The girl will be provided for."
"She is not under your charge, sir. You have no excuse to hold her." Jones's tone was mild, as if he and Nicky were speaking as fellow men of the world, but Matthew felt a warm flush of satisfaction: Jones was angling to keep the letters in play, and out of the hands of the Crown. Perhaps he was throwing his lot in with them—would toss Nicky overboard—make sail, and flee the frigate!
"Excuses can always be found," drawled Nicky.
"That is not the way of English law."
"It is the way of English sovereigns."
"Not since the past 500 years."
"You are, as always, insolent, Master Jones."
"Pardon me, then. The capes of Virginia are treacherous, and you have left me too little crew. It is a temptation to my nerves." To Matthew's disappointment, Jones smiled and tipped his hat to Nicky. With that, as if the two had been discussing the weather instead of his and Abby's freedom, Matthew and his sister were herded into a tippy wet longboat, badly rowed by sweating Marines. John Paul Jones stood at the stern railing and watched them go, his self-control such that he would not give so much as a nod or a wave of farewell.
On boarding the Rose, by way of a shaky rope ladder, Matthew and Abby were given over to the charge of a pox-pitted old first mate, who passed them to a chinless squinting second mate, who, for want of anything better to do, handed them off to a pigtailed pot-bellied cook. They found themselves crowded into a smoky, smelly, slimy galley obeying shouted instructions to shovel more coal in the firebox, stir the enormous pot—big as a bathtub and full of vague floury lumps and indefinable animal parts—and fill pails with hardtack that made the Falmouth packet's biscuit look like Hostess cupcakes in comparison.
This was poured out into smaller cans presented by mess mates, who took them back down below along with kerchiefs filled with biscuit for their crews. The cook was no sooner done, the enormous pot empty, than a reedy man in shabby but clean clothes poked his head into the galley.
"Coming, coming!" growled the cook. "You try feeding 200 bleeding tars and 42 Marines, then laying out a nice and particular table for the captain, his officers, and now a young lord! Just you try it!"
As he talked he opened a locked cupboard and began handing Matthew and Abby jars and packets of foodstuffs. In a minute quite a feast was assembled on several trays: crockery pots with thick crusts of yellow fat, filled with what looked like meatloaf; a bowl of blue-tinted eggs that smelled of vinegar, like Easter eggs; a cold leg joint; a half-eaten pie composed of baked pigeons; and a large clear glass jar of pink jelly in which swam a whole skinned rabbit. Matthew couldn't take his eyes off the latter. "Abby, get a load of this!" he called.
"No time to gawk," snapped the cook, placing a loaded tray in his arms. "Into the cabin with that, and mind yer manners—serve above the salt first, or I'll whale yer backside bloody."
Matthew followed Abby down a passageway and into a dim long cabin, at whose table sat eight or ten men in uniforms, and a priest in black with a white slotted collar. The priest kept his mouth and nose covered with a lace handkerchief. Probably this was because of the fetid atmosphere, hot, full of smoke from candles, loud with male argument. At first Matthew didn't have time to examine faces, as he barely could keep the tray in his hands under the onslaught of the officers helping themselves to the food.
"Millions of pounds worth of tea are rotting in London warehouses because of this tax dispute with America," said the priest in a wheedling voice. "Their boycott has been surprisin' strong."
Nicky slapped the table. "Good Englishmen are being ruined, members of Parliament, for heaven's sake. I know a fellow who has had to sell his spare carriage and horses to settle his debt."
"But do you propose to beat every American until he or she consents to drink tea again?"
"Don't see why not," grunted an older, grizzled lieutenant.
"Is that the way we sell tea in England?" The priest shook his grey-wigged head.
"The point of the tax is to pay for the protection of His Majesty's forces." The Rose's captain spoke as if his authority weighed heavily upon him. "America has had all the benefits of being English whilst bearing none of the responsibility. By refusing tea they prove themselves unworthy of English liberty."
"Captain, I must compliment your game pie—the squabs are of a most pleasing bland consistency." Nicky gnawed on a tiny leg from which protruded a pigeon claw, twisted tight in death. "Americans are not English; they are immoral, obsessed with money, uneducated and, hence, not to be trusted with freedom. They are best suited to be servants of Empire, as these two"—he gestured at Matthew and Abby—"demonstrate."
"Exactly. All they care about is money. More of that potted hare, if you please."
"I disagree," said the priest. "But the opinion of a humble clergyman means nothing. However, listen if you will to the words of Benjamin Franklin, that exceedingly wise fellow whose experiments with electrical spirits and other phenomena have made his fame. No one would call him uneducated, I daresay."
The priest reached into his coat, then paused. "Perhaps we should let one of our Americans read Mr. Franklin's words?"
"Capital idea. Come here, Roving," said Nicky. "Proof in the pudding."
Matthew found himself shoved before the table and handed a tattered pamphlet. The priest smiled, and finally put down his handkerchief. His face was lined, even withered, and the skin above the eyes drooped sleepily, presenting the aspect of a feeble old geezer, but the eyes themselves glittered with avarice and cunning. Matthew blinked in shock. Some priest! It was their landlady of the Quaint Misbehaving Bed & Breakfast in Newport—none other than Missus Wydontia Gaway.
Gaway pointed to a passage for Matthew to read. "Do your countrymen proud, young man." Matthew eagerly stared at the words. But they made no sense. They weren't even in English—or they weren't in an English he understood, full of spellings and letter combinations that confounded the eye. "Ifff, uh, thissff courff, uh, course oss I mean of haff the essect, uh, effect, uh, of theffering, uh, severing, the bondff, er, bonds . . ."
"That's quite enough," said the captain, covering his ears to loud laughter. "So much for the intelligence of Americans. As for their morals, Padre, why does Benjamin Franklin steal letters belonging to other gentlemen, thus leading us to waste day upon day on this miserable station, waiting to give chase to a prey that may never show its face?"
There was a loud clink from behind the captain's chair, from the sideboard where Abby had been setting out a selection of cheeses that more resembled slime molds. The disturbance, though small, had fallen by bad timing in one of those lulls that occasionally strike even the loudest conversation. Now all the officers were staring at Abby, whose blush and shaking hands were evident.
No one was watching her more carefully than Gaway. "I admit, sir, it is particularly disturbing to me that a man like Franklin should traffic in stolen letters."
"Sometimes a letter can do more damage than one of my cannon," the captain said. "Sometimes a letter is as powerful as a bomb." The captain picked up his glass and eyed the thick red sediment of the wine. "It is said that if they are published, the anger of Americans will be very great."
"It would be a great sin to lose our loving relationship with the Colonies because of private opinions never meant to be made public," sighed Gaway. "If only we could stop those letters from reaching Boston."
Abby stood in the act of placing a basket of ship's biscuit on the table. Matthew saw her expression change from doubt to decision, her hand moving to the front of her apron. He had to stop her. He could tip over his tray of food and cause a distraction, but that would only delay the moment of reckoning. No, he had to make her choose—between America and England, between freedom and servitude, between him and . . .
"Loving relationship?" he muttered aloud. Everyone at the table turned his way, shocked at this breach of manners. "What a joke! Americans only care about money? Who's having a hissy fit because we won't buy your tea? You English make me sick. You're all full of talk of honor and gentlemen, but that's just your way of making sure everybody bows and scrapes to you." He snorted. "Let me tell you, if it comes to a fight we're going to whip your butts!"
This provoked a terrific uproar, chairs thrust back and falling over, as all the lieutenants and midshipmen, young and old, leaped to their feet and shouted challenges. Matthew was tossed against the wall and slapped, repeatedly, by the red-faced bellowing officers, each vying with the other to be the first right to fight a duel. Pushing and shoving, they ended up angering each other, until, to Matthew's astonishment, they forgot all about him—and began issuing challenges to each other!
"Gentlemen! Stop this nonsense immediately!" shouted the captain. The silence was instantaneous. "Let me remind you that it is impossible for an officer to fight a duel with a common seaman."
"But he insulted every one of us, sir!" There was a grumble of assent to this. Captain Wallace raised a hand. "May I remind you that this upstart American will be at your beck and call from now until His Majesty sees fit to discharge him? I think you will find ways to teach him to respect his betters. Let him feel a tarred rope on his back, the cat o'nine, and other fine naval traditions, before we stretch his neck on a yardarm at Spithead."
There was a satisfied murmur to this as Matthew backed out of the cabin, thinking, Oh, man, have I done it now! He started down the hallway to the galley, sick and trembling with fear. A hand, white and grasping, seized him by his shirt and yanked him into an alcove occupied by a large black cannon in a wooden carriage.
It was Abby. She thrust a cloth bag into his arms. "Tie that around your waist, Matty," she whispered. "I dearly wish there was time for me to tell you what a fine precious fool you are, but as I can't bear to watch my own brother beaten flat as shoe leather, it'll just have to wait." She stuck a leg out the gun-port. "Follow me." And she was gone.
Matthew stuck his head out, and gulped. The night was black and the sea, heaving 20 feet below, was illuminated by faint glittery phosphorescent waves. Abby was clinging to the curved side of the frigate, inching along a narrow shelf that ran below the gun-ports toward the waist of the ship. He swung a leg out, felt with his bare toes for the shelf. It was narrow and slick. Don't stop to think, he thought. Just do it.
Slowly edging along behind Abby, timing his moves to coincide with the upward roll of the ship, then holding on for dear life on the downward wallow, Matthew reached the waist where the rope ladder descended to the Falmouth packet's longboat. In a single jerky slide he let himself down with a soft thump, right on top of Abby. They didn't bother to untangle themselves or stand up, feeling with their fingers in the dark to undo the knot that tied them to the Rose. There was a sudden surge. Wet rope slithered through Matthew's hands. The longboat spun around and down into the trough of a long building swell. Then he was staring at the dim stern-castle lanterns of the frigate, the glowing mullioned window-glass of the captain's cabin, and finally only the sails and mast-tops as the ship vanished into the night.
They were alone in an open boat, riding a rolling swell upon the vast and empty deep.