The Captain from Connecticut

Chapter XVIII

The gig which rowed over from the Calypso was a smart little craft, with the "White Ensign fluttering above the head of the supercilious midshipman in the stern who answered Hubbard's hail.

"Message for Captain er — Peabody," said the mid­shipman, and his manner implied that the name in his mouth was as distasteful as medicine.

The gig hooked on to the chains, the British sailors looking up curiously at the American ones hard at work about the ship while the midshipman scrambled to the deck. He touched his hat to the quarter-deck in the new offhand British fashion that compared so unfavor­ably with the American rule of uncovering, and handed over the note.

H.M.S. Calypso, Fort-de-France.

Captain the Honorable Sir Hubert Davenant, K. B., pre­sents his respects to Captain Josiah Peabody, U.S.S. Dela­ware. He would esteem it a favor if Captain Peabody could find it convenient to meet him as soon as his duties permit. Captain Davenant ventures to suggest that Captain Peabody should visit him aboard Calypso, and wishes to indicate that he is aware of the honor Captain Peabody would confer upon Calypso in that event. However, should Captain Peabody decide that he cannot do so, Captain Davenant would be de­lighted to wait upon Captain Peabody at any point on neutral territory that Captain Peabody may be pleased to indicate. But the matter is urgent.

Peabody read this missive in the privacy of the cabin.

"You say the midshipman's waiting for an answer?"

"Yes, sir."

"Tell him he'll have it soon."

"Aye aye, sir."

Peabody's matter-of-fact mind dissected the clumsy wording. In the first place, it did not need the final sentence to impress upon him how urgent the matter was — if Davenant was eating humble pie to the extent of making the first advance, that was proof enough in itself. In the second place, the note did not ask him to commit himself to anything. It did not ask him to make any promises; he was at liberty to get any advantage out of the invitation which was open to him and to make no return. There was a chance of gaining some­thing — he knew not what — and no chance of losing anything. Clearly the thing to do was to accept, and Peabody cut himself a fresh pen and addressed himself to the task.

It was not so easy as that. Peabody found himself making innumerable erasures as he floundered in the pitfalls of the third person singular; he made a fair copy, and then had to do it all over again when carelessly he allowed sweat to smudge the completed note — it was just as well, he discovered, on recopying, because he had forgotten to put in the "K. B." after Davenant's name, and he was certainly not going to allow a United States captain to be outdone in the game of formal politeness by a British one.

U.S.S. Delaware, Fort-de-France.

Captain Josiah Peabody presents his respects to Captain the Hon. Sir Hubert Davenant, K. B. He will be honored to wait upon Captain Davenant at three P.M. this afternoon, if that will be convenient to him.

Washington brought a candle and he sealed the note and sent it on deck.

"Get me out one of my best shirts, Washington."

"Best shirt, sir? Yes indeed, sir."

These last few days had been a perfect orgy for Washington. It irked him inexpressibly that his master should ever wear the second-best of anything, however neatly patched and darned, and now for days Peabody had been wearing a succession of the precious best shirts which had rested unworn in the locker since leaving Brooklyn. On deck Peabody was aware that Hubbard's keen observation had detected that he was wearing his best clothes.

"I'm going on board the British frigate, Mr. Hubbard. Call my gig's crew, if you please. I shall inspect them before I start."

"Aye aye, sir."

Hubbard passed on the order and turned back anx­iously to his captain.

"Did you say you were going on board the British frigate, sir?"

"I did."

Hubbard realized at the same moment as that there was nothing more to say. The British might be domineering, ruthless, inconsiderate, but neither Pea­body nor Hubbard could for a moment imagine them capable of false dealing. If at their invitation Peabody visited them, he could be perfectly certain of being offered no hindrance when he wanted to leave again.

Muggridge formed up the gig's crew abaft the main­mast, and Peabody walked forward and looked them over.

"Can't have that patched shirt," he said. "Go change it. Those trousers aren't the right color. "Well, go draw another pair from the purser. You Harvey, straighten that hair of yours."

No lover preparing to visit his mistress ever paid so strict an attention to his appearance as did Peabody to that of his gig's crew at the prospect of having them looked over by a rival service. He even looked sharply over the gig itself, at the spotless white canvas fend-offs and the geometrically exactly arranged oars and boat-hook, even though he knew Muggridge to be too con­scientious a sailor altogether to allow the slightest fault to be found with his charge. At precisely four minutes before six bells he stepped into the stern sheets; on board the Calypso the striking of six bells accompanied the hail of "Boat ahoy!" from the officer of the watch.

"Delaware!" hailed Muggridge in return.

There was the most formal reception on the deck. The red-coated Marines presented arms like a score of mechanical wooden soldiers; their pipe-clayed crossbelts and bright badges echoed the gleam of the spotless decks and metal work. The officer of the watch held his hand rigidly to his hatbrim, while the boatswain's mates us captain twittered wildly on their pipes; the sideboys had the freshest imaginable white gloves and their infant faces had been scrubbed into preternatural cleanliness. Peabody took off his own hat in salute, and kept it off as Davenant advanced to meet him.

"Good afternoon, sir. This is a great honor. Would you be kind enough to accompany me below?"

The great cabin of the Calypso was smaller than that of the Delaware, as was only to be expected, and its permanent fittings were if anything even more Spartan. Peabody had an impression of a multiplicity of orna­ments— objects collected by Davenant during thirty years of commissioned service — but he had no atten­tion to spare for them, because his attention was held by the persons in the room. There were two other Brit­ish naval officers there, on their feet to welcome him, — he recognized them as having been present at the ball, — and looking over the shoulder of one of them was, of all people in the world, Hunningford the spy, Hunningford whom he had last seen sailing away from the secret rendezvous after giving Peabody the information regarding the Jamaica convoy. As their eyes met Hunningford's left eyelid flickered momentarily; but Peabody's wits were about him and he kept his face expressionless and with no sign of recognition.

"Allow me to present," said Davenant, "Captain Fane, His Majesty's corvette Racer, Commander Maitland, His Majesty's armed brig Bulldog, and Mr. Charles Hun­ningford, one of our most respected Kingston merchants — Captain Josiah Peabody."

Everybody bowed.

"There's a mixture of rum and lime which is popular on this island and which ought to be better known," said Davenant. "The secret lies in a grating of nutmeg, I fancy. Will you sit here, Captain Peabody? Maitland — Fane — Mr. Hunningford."

Peabody realized in an amused moment that Dave­nant was actually shy, oppressed by the strange cir­cumstance of entertaining a hostile captain, and endeavoring to carry it off with bluff and bustle.

"Your health, gentlemen," said Davenant, raising his glass, and everyone sipped solemnly, and then looked at everyone else, the ice still not broken.

"Haven't had the chance to congratulate you on your marriage, sir," said Fane, stepping into the breach. "Devilish lovely wife you've got."

"Thank you, sir."

"Here's to the bride," said Maitland, and everyone sipped again, and then sat silent. Peabody was enjoying himself. He felt he had a position well up to windward, and had no intention of running down to meet the others. Let them beat up to him. Davenant cleared his throat.

"The fact is, Captain Peabody," he began, "we are all wondering how long this damned ridiculous situation is going to last."

"Yes?" said Peabody. He could not have said less without being rude.

"Our armistice — if that is what you are pleased to call it — comes to an end shortly. And then what hap­pens?"

"We each have ideas on that point," said Peabody.

"You get up sail. I get up sail, just as we did before. We start out of the bay together, and that Jack-in-office of a French Governor — I beg your pardon, sir. I was forgetting he was your father-in-law, but all the same he threatens to turn the guns on us. Back we go and try again. You see what I mean?"

"Yes," said Peabody. He had followed the same line of thought himself — so, for that matter, had everyone in Martinique with any ideas in his head at all.

"So we sit and look at each other until we all go aground on our own damned beef-bones?"

"My men like pork better," said Peabody drily.

Something was coming of this interview, and he was prepared to wait indefinitely for it. His frivolous reply drew a gesture of impatience from Davenant.

"I might have guessed what your attitude would be, sir," he said.

Peabody nearly said "Then why did you ask me to come?" — but he kept his mouth shut and preserved his tactical advantage. He looked round at the three sullen British faces and the enigmatical expression of Hunningford, and it was the last-named who broke the silence.

"Perhaps," he began deferentially, with a glance at Davenant, "if I told Captain Peabody my news it might influence him?"

"I want you to tell him," said Davenant, and Hun­ningford addressed himself directly to Peabody.

"There are pirates at work in the Caribbean," he said.

"Indeed?" said Peabody politely. "I've never known the time when there weren't."

That was true; minor piracy had flourished in the Caribbean from the days of Drake.

"Yes," said Hunningford, "but never on the scale of today. Now that peace has come half the privateersmen in the world are out of employment. Spaniards — Negroes from Haiti — Frenchmen — "

"I can understand that," said Peabody.

"Losses are heavy already and will be heavier still. The Cartagena packet was taken last week."

"Oh, tell him what happened to you, Hunningford," said Davenant impatiently.

"Yesterday my cutter was chased by a pirate schooner. It was only by the mercy of Providence that I got into St. Pierre."

"I'm glad you escaped," said Peabody, politely.

"I've been chased by pirates before. Big rowboats putting out from San Domingo, and Guarda Costa lug­gers whose crews have been starved into piracy by the Spanish Government. One expects that. But when it comes to a big schooner, ten guns on a side, and heavy metal at that — "

"I know the schooner you mean," said Peabody, sur­prised into his first helpful remark.

"You've seen her?"

"Yes. I chased her off Dominica. She looked Balti­more-built to me, and French-rigged. I thought she was an American privateer."

"Baltimore-built and French-rigged is nearly right. She was the Susanna of Baltimore, dismasted in a hur­ricane two years back and put into Port-au-Prince. A French syndicate bought her there. They put Lerouge in command — he's a Haitian Negro who served in Boney's navy — and manned her with blacks."

"What else do you expect of Frogs?" interposed Davenant bitterly.

"They'll never see a penny of their money, if that's any satisfaction," said Hunningford. "Lerouge has been nothing more than a pirate for months back. And now with all the Americas on the move against Spain he'll have plenty of plunder and plenty of chance to dispose of it, which is just as important to him. God knows how much he took out of the Cartagena packet. But there were three women on board — two of 'em young."

"He'd look well at a yardarm," said Davenant.

"But what has all this to do with me?" asked Peabody.

"How can I catch him and hang him when I'm tied up here in Fort-de-France with all these French neutral­ity laws and harbor rules and God-knows-what?" asked Davenant in reply. "Let me get my ships out and he'll hang in a week."

"D'ye think you'd catch him?" said Peabody.

"Catch him? Catch him? Why —why —What do you mean, sir?"

"The Susanna was one of the fastest schooners which ever left Baltimore, sir," said Hunningford.

"She got to windward of the Delaware and was hull-down in half a day," said Peabody.

"The Delaware! He'd never get away from Calypso on a bowline," said Davenant, but even as he said it the lofty confidence in his tone ebbed away. He had not commanded British frigates for eighteen years without learning something of the deficiencies of the vessels, and he was quite enough of a realist to be able to allow for them. It was a wrench to have to admit their existence to an American captain and a civilian, all the same.

"I take it, then," said Peabody, keeping the argument on a practical plane, "that what you want me to do is to give you a free passage out of the bay to deal with this pirate?"

"That is correct, sir," said Davenant. He had known beforehand that his plea would not have one chance in a hundred of being granted, which was probably why he had deferred stating it in plain words.

Peabody thought for a full minute, twisting his glass in his fingers and paying careful attention to the powdered nutmeg afloat on the surface.

"I think it is quite impossible," he said, slowly. "I will give you my definite decision later."

"But see here, sir," expostulated Davenant, and then he changed his tone. "It's what I might have expected of a Yankee skipper. You fellows can't see farther than your noses. Here's all America in a flame, as Hunningford has said. That fellow Bolivar's on the rampage through Venezuela — he licked the dagoes at Carabobo last spring. These waters will be swarming with letters of marque and privateers with commissions from Bol­ivar and Morelos, flying the flags of Venezuela and New Granada and Mexico and God knows what next. Pirates? How long will it take a Venezuelan privateer to become a pirate? Give 'em a lesson now, and it'll save two dozen next year."

"Your country's trade with these islands is nearly as big as ours," said Fane.

"Yes," said Peabody, rising to his feet. He was not going to be rushed into a hasty decision by any eloquent Englishman. "I'll think about it."

He turned to Davenant and repeated the formula he had heard Preble use after an official reception at Valletta.

"I must thank you, sir, for a delightful entertain­ment."

As he turned to bow to the others Hunningford was catching Davenant's eye.

"Take Mr. Hunningford with you, sir," pleaded Davenant. "His business connections with the United States should enable him to put the case clearer than I have done, perhaps. You will be able to question him freely in private."

Peabody made himself hesitate while he counted ten inside himself before he spoke.

"I really don't see the use of it," he said. "But if Mr. — er — Hunningford would accompany me in my gig ... ?"

"I'll come gladly," said Hunningford.

Down in the gig Hunningford looked up at the sun.

"Devilish hot even for this time of year," he said.

"So I thought," said Peabody politely.

It was not until they were safely in Peabody's cabin and the skylight was shut that Hunningford allowed himself to relax. He ran his finger round inside his collar.

"That feels better," he said. "Whenever I am on board a King's ship I feel a peculiar sense of constriction in the neighborhood of my larynx."

"What the devil were you doing there?" demanded Peabody.

"It is part of my duty to be where there's trouble," said Hunningford. "Naturally I paid my respects to the British Commodore in the hope of acquiring informa­tion which might be useful to the United States Navy in the person of yourself. But I must admit I did not anticipate all the subsequent developments."

"Is it true about the pirate?"

"Yes, curiously enough it is. I made my little adven­ture with the Susanna the pretext for my visit to the Calypso. I was naturally going to wait for a dark night on shore before I saw you next. I had not made sufficient allowance for the excitement a mention of piracy rouses in the British Navy. I wish I could take all the credit for this present admirable arrangement, but, much to my regret, I cannot. My native honesty forbids."

"And now you're here, what's the news?"

"Plenty. And some of it's bad. Decatur's gone."

"Decatur? Is he —dead?"

Hunningford shook his head.

"No. He tried to escape from New York in the Presi­dent. They caught him off Sandy Hook, and he had to haul down his colors."

"Good God!" Peabody thought of Decatur eating his heart out in Dartmoor Prison. It was a horrible mental picture. "What else?"

"The Argus is lost, too. I don't know how, yet, except that she was taken in British waters."

With the President and the Argus gone the same way as the Chesapeake, the United States Navy was dimin­ishing to minute proportions. There were only the Essex, somewhere in the Pacific, and the Delaware left to display the Stars and Stripes at sea.

"What else?"

"A British force took Washington. The militia ran, and the Capitol's been burned, and the last I heard they were moving on Baltimore."

Peabody had nothing to say now. He had no words left at all.

"But there's good news as well. You knew of Perry's victory on Lake Erie? Yes. That was before you sailed. Now MacDonough's won a battle on Lake Champlain. The Canadian frontier's safe."

Tom MacDonough was Peabody's immediate junior on the captains' list — Peabody remembered him at Tripoli under Decatur's command. Peabody called up before his mind's eye the map of the Canadian frontier. With the American flag triumphant on Champlain and Erie there was nothing more to be feared from the north, as Hunningford had remarked. Perry and Mac­Donough could both of them be relied upon not to allow the local command they had attained to slip through their fingers again, and the strongest sea power in the world would for once be balked on water.

"That puts a different complexion on it," he said.

The long Atlantic seaboard was exposed to British attack, it was true, but it was hardly possible that the British would attempt serious conquest. The raid on Washington assumed smaller proportions immediately.

"And one more thing," said Hunningford. "Mr. Madison has sent to Europe to discuss peace." Hunningford's voice as well as his face was quite expressionless as he said this.

"Well?" said Peabody, drily. "That makes no differ­ence to my position here."

He was right. If he did his best to fight a war he would be doing his best to influence an advantageous peace, and if the peace discussions proved inconclusive he would not be found to have wasted any opportunity.

"It is my business to tell you all there is to know," said Hunningford. "Thank God I don't have to instruct you on how to act on the information as well. To say nothing of the fact that you'd see me damned before you allowed me to."

Peabody grinned his agreement.

"I'd see you worse than that," he said.

"What are you going to do about this proposal of Davenant's?"

"Nothing, I fancy," said Peabody. "I'm not going to let him out of here, because of a pirate, on better terms than Fd give him at any other time."

"You're right," said Hunningford. "Not that you mind what I think, of course. But it's irksome, all the same, to think of that black devil Lerouge raising hell in the Caribbean."

"I have the United States to think of first," said Pea­body.

"When honest men fall out," said Hunningford, "rogues come by other people's property. The world is at peace except for us. The Americas are open for trade for the first time since the world began. Every merchant in the world wants to start business again — I hope, Captain, that you will not take too violent objection if I inject a little treason into what I say. There's no reason on earth left why we should go on fighting. Trade with Europe is open again — or would be, if the British Navy was not in the way. They don't want to press our men any more. They don't want to search our ships. And yet you and Davenant sit in Martinique watching each other like dogs across a bone. What is more, you allow gentlemen like Lerouge to run off with the bone while you watch each other. And I, who flatter myself that I might be a useful member of so­ciety, spend my days with a rope round my neck facing the imminent possibility that at any moment it may grow much tighter than is convenient. Please don't for a moment think I am complaining, Captain. I am merely commenting at large upon the inconsistencies of the situation. From my reading of history, I would rather continue to court the end I have just mentioned than the usually much more unpleasant one of the man who sets out to put the world to rights."