Gaunt and grizzled, eyes shining with a crazy glitter, the remaining crew of the Falmouth packet closed in on Abby and Matthew. A sun-browned sailor wearing only torn trousers and a turban pointed a gnarled finger lacking its tip. “One minute she’s dead an’ I’m sewing ’er up in shrouds,” he said. “The next minute she sits up, and is talkin’ in a langwidge that sounds like English but ain’t. Sayin’ a spell, she was.”
Matthew fought down a grin, imagining the magic a modern Abby could wreak with her current favorite expressions: “dork,” “creepster,” and “sleazeoid.”
The turbaned sailor’s complaint reached a screechy peak. “And for a solid week now she’s been refusing to wash or cook or say ‘yessir.’ I tell you she’s a witch.”
“Put her over the side,” grunted another sailor. “The boy, too.” He picked up a coil of rope and took a resolute step forward on the blazing deck.
John Paul Jones cleared his throat. The gang of sailors stopped. Their eyes were downcast, but their faces were grim. “The boy saved all our lives,” Jones said reproachfully. Matthew stared at him, surprised at this meek defense. Where was the fiery little captain’s reckless style and eager sword?
“Witchcraft,” muttered a voice. The mob pushed forward, and Matthew found his arms gripped behind his back. Still Jones hesitated, hand on his sword. But the sailors paid him no mind. While it may have been easy to swap ships with the packet’s former master, and even to borrow the old captain’s last name, it was evidently far harder to gain authority over his crew.
“Men,” Jones appealed. “I know the lass has been a trial to you—to us all, myself included—but there are no unnatural manifestations of a spiritual nature occurring here. In Scotland we would call her type a common fishwife.”
Matthew looked over at Abby, to see how she took this ungentlemanly defense. To his surprise, her expression was of giddy relief. “I think I was possessed,” she said in a wondering voice. “Such strange dreams I had. Newport was filled with sprites and fairies—people wore garments made out of shining silver and every color of the rainbow—boxes sang with the voices of men. Oh, ’twas horrible!”
“Over the side!” was the response.
“She isn’t a witch!” Matthew shouted back. “She was sick, like the rest of you.”
“Then where’s ’er scabs,” asked the turbaned sailor, “like the rest of us?” He pointed to the dried-up measles blisters that covered his upper chest and arms. Then his eyes widened, and his mouth became an O of astonishment. “What in the devil’s name is this?”
Stepping hesitantly out of the shadows that curtained off the after cabin was Nicky Blunt, resplendent in an English midshipman’s uniform, sunlight flashing off its gold buttons and the hilt of a sword. Behind him, still within the dark gloom of the cabin, stood a tall, teetering-to-one-side scarecrow figure. Matthew blinked: the silhouette was that of the mysterious stranger who had been appearing at inopportune moments ever since their flight from Barbados. But it also bore a more familiar, more recent resemblance—to their landlady at the Quaint Misbehaving, Missus Wydontia Gaway.
They found The Log, Matthew thought. They’ve jumped in.
“Where did you spring from?” demanded Jones. “If ye’ve come to arrest me, I shall fain to oblige.” He half-drew his sword for emphasis.
“Rest easy, sir,” said Nicky with an assumption of superiority that shocked Matthew and silenced the mob. “I am on King’s business, but it does not need concern you.” He put his hands on his hips and surveyed the sailors, who slunk back a step, even though he was younger than them all.
Nicky turned his gaze upon Matthew. “I know you,” he said. “Son of that scoundrel and smuggler Rance Roving. You signed His Majesty’s Articles on board the Gaspee. That makes you a deserter. And it was your little trick what ran us aground and led to the Colonials burning the sloop. That’s two hanging offences, by my count. Pity you only have one neck.”
John Paul Jones regarded Matthew with some astonishment. He turned to Nicky. “You’ve been chasing Matty, then?”
“No.” Nicky indicated with a nod the figure lurking behind him in the shadows. “The King’s agent seeks a certain parcel of letters. This being the Falmouth packet, we concealed ourselves—with the approval of a captain who was not yourself, I must say—with the intent of intercepting them.”
“You are free to search this ship, sir,” said Jones.
“Thank you. I already have.” Now Nicky eyed Abby. “What’s all this talk of witchery I heard a moment ago?” He faced the crew, a sardonic smile curving his lips. “Come now, men, do you not know an American girl when you see one? Are you such milk-sops as to be affrighted of a sharp-tongued wench?” There was awkward laughter. “Watch me, then, while I show you how to stop the lips of a witch—”
Placing a hand behind Abby’s wild red hair, he pulled her forward and, as the crew cheered, kissed her.
In Midshipman Nicholas Tarleton Blunt’s orders, the Falmouth packet began to cruise up and down on a course that took them just inside the Gulf Stream, which was easily marked by its pale blue color, choppy appearance, and flocks of seabirds diving on migrating schools of fish. Nicky wasn’t talking about their purpose, but it was obvious they were waiting for a ship heading for the Colonies.
What was less obvious to Matthew was what Nicky intended to do with him. For all his talk of hanging, the half-expected command to put Matthew in irons had not materialized. So far, he had only been banished from the quarterdeck. Matthew didn’t think this generosity meant Nicky knew him from back in the modern world. But nothing else could explain it.
“Sail!” came the lookout’s cry on the third day of their patrol. John Paul Jones and Nicky stood side by side, each with a spyglass to his eye. Jones lowered his glass. “One of His Majesty’s fourth-raters, it appears.”
Nicky blew a puff of air between his lips. “The Rose frigate, James Wallace, Commander. A more war-like son of Scotland cannot be found.”
Jones drew himself up. “You have not marked, then, my own Scottish blood. ’Tis true my accent is refined, from my upbringing on Lord Selkirk’s estate in Kirkcudbright.”
“I had no idea Lord Selkirk kept sheep.”
Jones paled. “Your meaning, Mr. Blunt?” he asked, coldly mastering his anger.
“Why, I meant nothing. Only that to show your courage—since you evidently did not join His Majesty’s Navy—you must have been Lord Selkirk’s protector in some manner. From there it was only logic that led me to assume you guarded the gracious Lord’s flocks.” Nicky’s languid voice made what he said twice as nasty, yet altogether polite.
“No lack of courage kept me out of His Majesty’s Navy, Mr. Blunt,” replied Jones. “Twice applied for a commission, twice denied.”
“It is a gentleman’s service, they say.” Nicky did not look at Jones, but raised his spyglass again and smiled, faintly. “Pity you did not think to go before the mast.”
Jones flushed crimson. But before he could speak, the lookout cried, “She makes a signal!” Nicky reached inside his unbuttoned jacket and handed a small folded flag to Jones. “Hoist this, will you, Captain?”
The rendezvous between the black-hulled, tall-sided Rose and the low-slung schooner was complicated by the nasty chop of the Gulf Stream, which nearly capsized the small boat containing Nicky Blunt, a pair of sailors on the oars, and a lanky figure hooded by a shawl who sat in the stern with averted face: the King’s agent. Try as he might, Matthew could not confirm his guess that this was Wydontia Gaway. He resolved to accost her when she returned.
But when the boat came back after an hour, the King’s agent was not on it. Nor were the sailors. Instead, a pair of red-faced Marines worked the oars, badly. John Paul Jones frowned, leaning over the rail as Nicky made fast a line tossed from above. “Where are my men?”
“Impressed.” Nicky placed a foot on the thin molding along the side, timed the ship’s roll, and catapulted himself aboard with feline grace. “The Navy can always use good sailors.”
“We’re short-handed as it is,” Jones protested. “You must get them back.”
“‘Must?’” Nicky laughed. “Don’t forget your place, Mr. Jones. Anyway, young Roving here is quite a sailor, and I understand his sister has trimmed a sail or two.”
Matthew watched John Paul Jones’s fingers flex open and closed above the hilt of his sword. But as the two Marines were now hauling themselves over the rail, he mastered his anger. “Resume your patrol,” said Nicky.
The Falmouth packet and the Rose parted without ceremony, the frigate heading north, the schooner south. Another day passed, in which three outgoing sails were spotted and ignored, and a merchant brig was intercepted and hailed. She was from Nantes, with a cargo of claret for Charleston, and of no apparent interest to Nicky.
What Matthew found interesting, on the other hand, was the fact that Nicky and the Marines concealed themselves in the cabin while leaving the approaching and hailing to Jones. A trap was being laid. But for whom?
The next day began hot and windless, but by mid-morning a long ground swell had set the rigging to knocking. A breeze came up at noon. They saw a barkentine, heading for the Virginia Capes, identifying her easily by the nausea that trailed in her wake: a stench so strong it made Matthew’s throat turn dry and stomach somersault at a mile’s distance.
“Another cargo of slaves to do the work,” said Nicky, “so that good virtuous Americans may sit in their parlors talking of the connection between tea and liberty.” He glanced at Abby.
She looked away. But Matthew didn’t like the blush on her cheeks.
“Sail!” cried the masthead lookout. Again Nicky and the Marines retired into the aft cabin as Jones conned them on an intercepting course. “Make the signal,” said Jones, and Matthew hauled up the flag that identified them as a mail carrier. The vessel, a deeply laden merchant, took in her mainsails; almost any ship would slow to speak to a packet, both to exchange letters and to gossip, as packets usually carried the latest London newspapers and thus, the latest news. “She’s American, from your neck of the woods,” said Jones, handing Matthew his spyglass. “Take a gander.”
Matthew flinched as he fitted the cold metal ring to his eye socket. The sides and rigging of the stranger swayed alarmingly, until he steadied himself and focused on a group clustered on the quarterdeck. He felt his skin prickle into goose-flesh. A tall, well-dressed gentleman, with white stockings and a plain black hat of the kind worn in Newport, was studying him through a spyglass. I know that face, Matthew thought. And it looks like he knows mine.
“She’s putting out a boat,” called the lookout.
“Captain Jones,” said Matthew, under his breath. “The master of that ship is known to me. His name is Abraham Whipple. He is good, honest, and freedom-loving. I believe he has recognized me, and my sister, and intends to visit. But he does not understand that Ni—Mr. Blunt, that is—means to entrap him.” Using us as bait, he added to himself.
“Has he committed an offense?” Jones glanced at Matthew sharply. “He is not sailing under false colors, as you were?”
Matthew swallowed the insult. “He may have been outspoken, as we Narragansett Baymen tend to be. Perhaps this has something to do with the Gaspee. But you heard Nicky say he was after letters. Since when is it an offense to send a letter?”
“That is between Mr. Blunt and Mr. Whipple. It is not our concern. Unless you know what’s in these letters?”
Matthew shrugged. “I don’t.” He stared down at his bare feet, wondering how to influence the perverse and argumentative little Captain beside him.
“And yet,” sighed Jones, “I take your words to heart. To be a party to Mr. Whipple’s deception would be a blot on my honor—and our Mr. Blunt has sorely tried my calm and peaceable nature.” He raised the spyglass, murmuring, “Did you know, Roving, that by holding the glass an inch off the eye a man can secretly use the reflection to see behind him?” Matthew said nothing. “For instance,” Jones continued, “it may interest you that I see the muzzles of two muskets in the aft cabin window, pointed in our general direction.”
“Ahoy there! Matty? Abigail? Requesting permission to come aboard—” With a thump, Whipple’s boat knocked up against their ship. Moving with the brisk efficient energy Matthew had always remembered about him, Whipple carefully hoisted himself up with the help of a line. He gave a tight grin at Matthew. Clearly, something had pleased him. Giving himself a shake, Whipple marched straight up to Jones.
“Sir, I hope you will pardon me my joy at seeing these two neighbors of mine. I had no intention of slighting you. Abraham Whipple, late of Newport, Savannah-bound.”
“The pleasure is mine. But instead of extending you an invitation to my cabin for
refreshment, Captain Whipple, I’m afraid I must offer my apologies.”
Whipple raised his brows. “I am not at all dismayed, Mr.—”
“Jones. John Paul Jones. Bound for Williamsburg, Virginia. It is just that at this moment we are under the gun—quite literally—if you take my meaning.”
“Pressed for time, eh? Well, I shan’t be long,” said a jovial Whipple, turning to Matthew and offering a hand. He opened his mouth to speak, but Matthew cut him off:
“I don’t believe you understand how much under the gun we are, Mr. Whipple. It’s more like under two guns. Muskets, fully charged and primed, aimed by Royal Marines.”
“Ha! Very funny, Matty. ”Whipple gripped Matthew’s shoulder and squeezed hard, harder, until Matthew nearly gasped from pain. “Let me just give you this packet of letters—no, I insist, they will get to Boston much faster by you than if I deliver them to Savannah first—and time is of the essence. As you say, gentlemen: we are under the gun, indeed!”
Whipple thrust a large oilskin package into Matthew’s arms.
Jones turned to Abby, who had been standing back with two glasses in her hands. “Come here, Abigail, and give us our Madeira.”
After she handed the two masters their drinks, Jones raised his glass: “To the King—long may he guard English liberties for all his subjects.”
“A toast after my own heart,” said Whipple. He proposed his own: “To fair Abigail. She has become a young lady since I last saw her.” She curtsied and he doffed the square black hat from his head. Then he turned back to Jones, so abruptly as to seem rude, handing Abby the hat as if she were a maid. “Look after that, will you?” he asked, carelessly. “Anything you find inside is yours to keep, so long as it is delivered to Samuel Adams in Boston.”
At the bottom of the hat, attached by a silver pin, Matthew saw a dozen envelopes tied into a bundle.