The Saintly Buccaneer Page 7

  “So help us God!” he murmured as if in a benediction.

  ****

  “What’s the date?”

  Dan looked up at Charity, who had come below to the small cabin used by the first mate, and answered, “The fifteenth, isn’t it?” He rose and the top of his head almost brushed the low ceiling. He had almost beaten his brains out at first aboard the Lady, for the doors were just low enough to catch him right in the center of the forehead. “Look, I can’t make head nor tails of this awful stuff! Now what in the world does this mean?”

  Charity looked down at the problem in navigation that he was wrestling with, and then shook her head. Taking the book from him, she tossed it on the small desk, saying, “You’ve not got the head to make a navigator—but you make a fine foretopman, Dan!”

  “Never mind that!” He grimaced, then forced a grin, thinking of the only time he’d climbed to the top pinnacle of the mainmast. A wind had been rocking the ship at anchor, and he’d made it to the top, but when he looked down, he immediately got sick and froze to the spar. His grip was so powerful that none of the sailors had been able to break his grasp, so Charity had gone aloft and, after a time of soft talking, had persuaded him to turn loose. He’d followed her down and fallen to the deck instantly.

  The crew had laughed, of course, but when the mild-mannered Quaker had refused to be offended, they had been forced to like the man. He had, after all, proven himself to be the strongest man on board. Years of work on the farm had given his fingers a steel-trap grip; after he had put Stevens, the biggest man among the crew, on his back as if he had been a child, he had gotten along famously.

  Greene had been accepted by William Alden almost at once. Charity’s father was not an educated man, but he had a wisdom that lies deep in seafaring men, and he saw the quality of the husky Quaker almost at once. This had surprised Charity considerably, for she knew her father made up his mind slowly. She was, however, not at all unaware of Daniel Greene’s ability to move among men—an ability she had observed as he gained the respect from the soldiers at Valley Forge.

  Persuading her father to make the voyage had been simple. He had a slow-moving mind, but like a glacier, once in motion, he was difficult to stop. He blamed the British for his son’s death, and had cast about in his mind for some way to repay them. So when he heard it was Washington’s personal request, and was made to understand that the cargo would give the Continental Army what it needed to stand up to the hated English, he agreed at once.

  The Gallant Lady carried a crew of fourteen as a rule, but none of them were told of the mission—with the exception of Alden’s nephew, Thaddeus. Thad Alden was a young man of seventeen, the best sailor for his age out of Boston, many believed, and he was also part owner of the ship. His father had been Alden’s only brother, and it had been a blow when he had been lost off the coast of Africa on another ship.

  Thaddeus had been stand-offish with Greene, which puzzled the officer, for the boy was characteristically friendly with all others. Greene had finally asked Charity, “Why doesn’t Thad like me?”

  “Oh ...” Charity had become flustered, and her face turned pink. “He’s—he’s jealous of you, Dan.”

  “Of me?”

  “Well, not just you. He thinks—”

  She could not finish and Greene smiled. “I see. The lad’s in love with thee. Well, it’d be surprising if he weren’t, Charity.”

  The compliment disturbed her, and she’d flounced off, muttering about how silly men were, but Greene had looked at her with a new light of interest in his eyes.

  Since that time there had been an air of constraint between them, but now as she peered out the only small window in the cabin, she seemed herself again. “Father wants us to go pick up the papers from the harbor master before setting sail, and there are a few more things to bring from the chandler’s shop. Want to come along?”

  “Maybe we can get some more of that chowder at the inn,” he said hopefully. “Still planning on leaving day after tomorrow?”

  “We’ll go out after dark. I don’t think the British would stop us, but no sense taking chances.”

  One of the sailors, a squatty man with a bristling beard, followed them to the chandler’s shop, shouldered the supplies, and headed back to the ship. They made their way to the harbor master’s office, got the papers Captain Alden needed, then came outside onto the street. “Now, how about that chowder?” Greene suggested.

  “All right,” Charity smiled up at him. “But you better enjoy it, because I have the feeling that day after tomorrow you’re going to hate the sight of food!”

  “Give no thought for the morrow—or the day after, either, as the scripture says!” He walked with her along the cobblestone street, enjoying the warm air that had driven the chilling winds away from the city. She knew the city well, and pointed out several interesting spots to him. Finally they turned into The Eagle’s Nest, a small tavern where she often came with her father. The food was good and reasonably priced, and the tavern was frequented by a more respectable spectrum of seafaring men than many of the others.

  They sat down at a table against the back wall, and the innkeeper, a small man with a patch over one eye and several fingers missing, took their order. “One wouldn’t think being an innkeeper would maim a fellow like that,” Dan remarked.

  “He’s a real sailor of the old school,” Charity answered.

  Greene shifted and lowered his voice. “Isn’t it a little dangerous for us to be in here?”

  Charity laughed at him, saying, “If you try to stay away from every man in Boston who fought on a King’s ship, you’ll be pretty lonely.” She traced with her finger a design cut deep into the blackened oak table, and her face grew serious. “Don’t worry about Tompkins. Most of the men who served in the British navy got their belly full. You don’t know much about life on board a ship of the line—a fighting ship, do you, Dan?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “It’s about as close to hell on earth as you want to come,” she replied. There was a frankness in this girl that intrigued Dan. She was blunt, plain-spoken to the point of abruptness. It was her life on board ship since she was a child that had molded her, and her manner of thinking was almost masculine, in a way that contrasted sharply with the trim feminine lines of her figure and the grace of her features.

  She spoke of the floggings that cut the flesh to the bone, the biscuits filled with weevils, the rotten salt pork that made up the boring and unhealthy diet. She was eloquent in her own way as she painted a stark and ugly picture of the brutal life that the common sailor endured for a pittance, which was often withheld from him for little or no cause—or which he lost in the brothels and gambling houses that lined the harbors of every deep-water port in the world.

  The food came—steaming clam chowder with fragrant fresh-baked bread and a jug of clear cider to wash it down. They ate with enjoyment, and Charity more than once realized that this man—so foreign in so many ways, with his strange religion and ignorance of the sea—had some quality that was potent enough to bring a fellowship to her that she had known only with one other man.

  They talked long, and were so engrossed in conversation that it came as a rude shock when a shadow fell across Charity’s face and a venomous voice declared, “Here’s the filthy vixen, Courtney!”

  Both Charity and Greene were startled, and when she looked up, she saw Paul Winslow standing over them, a ragged bandage covering his left cheek. The man he’d called Courtney stood behind him, and he reached out and pulled at Winslow, saying in an urgent whisper, “Now, Paul, you don’t want to get yourself involved with this woman!”

  “Who says I don’t? Blast you, Courtney. If you can’t be a man, go home to Mama as you always do!” He grinned wickedly as the heavyset Courtney shrugged and stepped back. Then he turned and put his left hand on the bandage and stared angrily down at Charity. He was weaving slightly, his eyes glazed as he stood there. Then he reached out and grabbed Charity by t
he hair and gave a yank.

  Greene was up in a flash, and his fist moved so fast that it was only a blur. Charity heard a solid thunk! and then her hair was free. She saw Winslow driven backward into Courtney by the powerful blow, and both of them careened into a table, falling to the floor with a crash of dishes.

  “I think we can leave now,” Greene said quietly. He took Charity’s arm and they walked past the two men—Courtney struggling to his feet and Winslow lying as still as a corpse, with his mouth open and a livid bruise on his forehead where Greene’s blow had landed.

  They walked out of the tavern, which had fallen silent, and as soon as they were outside the impact of what had happened hit Charity. She began to tremble, and Greene held her arm firmly as they made their way back to the ship. “Let’s not go on board, Dan,” she said quietly. “Can’t we just sit here a while?”

  “Surely.” He sat beside her, and soon she began to tell him the story. He listened silently, and finally, moved by the ugly account, he put his arm around her and she leaned against him. She was a proud girl, but the scene had frightened her, and she let him hold her until the trembling passed.

  After a while she took a deep breath, pulled away from him, and looked up with some embarrassment in her face. “Sorry, Dan. Guess I’m not as tough as I thought. But it’s all over now.”

  “Not quite over, I think.” He stood up and she saw the man called Courtney coming down the street, his eyes fixed on them. “Maybe you better go aboard.”

  “No, I’ll stay with you.”

  Courtney came straight up to them, and there was a reluctance in him. “A word, sir?”

  “I’m standing here, friend,” Dan said quietly. The odd greeting took the man off-guard, and Dan added, “How’s Winslow?”

  Courtney shifted, his catfish mouth drawn tight. He scuffed his feet, then said, “This is none of my doing, sir, but my friend demands satisfaction.”

  “A duel?”

  “Certainly!”

  “I let my dog take care of fighting of that sort.”

  Courtney shrugged. “I must tell you, sir, that if you refuse, my friend will take a horsewhip to you on the public street.”

  “Don’t do it, Dan!” Charity whispered.

  “I would pay attention to the lady, sir,” Courtney suggested. “You would have no chance at all in such an affair with Paul Winslow. Much better that you leave town and never return.”

  Although Dan Greene’s training in nonviolence was strong, it had been considerably weakened since he had left his home to join his uncle and Washington’s troops. He was a chaplain, and a non-combatant, but because he had lived in the atmosphere of war too long, he responded instantly. “Name the time and the place, sir!”

  “Tomorrow morning at dawn—there’s a beach down there a quarter of a mile.” He pointed with his left hand and added, “It’ll be most private. We’ll see to a physician, and you have your second there with you. The choice of weapons belongs to my friend, of course?”

  “Anything!”

  “The rapier, then—foils will be provided if you have none.”

  “At seven.”

  Courtney nodded and moved away. After walking a few paces, he quickly turned and came back, a queer light in his piercing black eyes. “I’ve done as Winslow asked—now I want to say one word on my own.” He hesitated, then blurted out, “Man, don’t do it! He’s a devil! There’s no man in this country—perhaps nowhere—that can touch him!”

  “At seven,” Greene repeated stubbornly.

  Courtney stared at him, shaking his head. “Very well—at seven. But make your peace with God!”

  No sooner had Courtney moved away than Charity was at Greene like a terrier. “You can’t do it! He’ll kill you!”

  She argued and reasoned until he finally stated, “A man can’t get off the earth because another man says so. That’s one thing this war is about!”

  “It’s not the same thing! And besides, he’s Nathan’s cousin—doesn’t that mean something to you?”

  “I can’t help that.”

  Charity argued until she was hoarse, but finally gave in. Looking up at Dan’s stubborn face, she murmured resignedly, “All right, Dan—let’s go on board.”

  He was surprised at her subdued manner, but agreed. They went down to the cabin, both lost in their own thoughts. After she left, he sat on the bunk staring at the wall for what seemed like hours.

  She came in later with some soup. “I’m not hungry,” he told her.

  “Eat it and don’t argue!” she snapped.

  After they had eaten, he said simply, “Charity, I’d like to be alone if thee doesn’t mind.”

  “All right, Dan.”

  She left without another word, and he lay down on his bunk, his mind in an agony of indecision. He hated the idea of violence, but he had already settled in his mind that he would fight for the honor of his country. Could he do less for his own honor—or for Charity’s? Is it pride? he asked himself. Will I be a coward? Can I face up to cold steel?

  Time passed, and his mind grew fuzzy. Once he started to get up to open the window, but to his astonishment he was drowsy. How can I be sleepy facing death in a few hours? he thought. As his eyelids grew heavy again, the outlines of the cabin lost their sharpness, and the sounds of the ship grew faint.

  * * *

  He awoke with a start, sitting up so abruptly that his head swam. There was an awful, bitter taste in his mouth, and as he stood up he was so weak he had to grab at the bulkhead to keep from pitching onto the floor. Then, suddenly, the floor tilted and he fell headlong to the deck. As the floor began to move in the other direction, he became sick—sicker than he had ever been in his life—a sickness that made him fearful—not that he would die but that he would live!

  He crawled out of the cabin, up steep steps to the deck, where he pulled himself up to the rail and vomited violently.

  “Are you all right, Dan?”

  He turned and with an effort focused his eyes on Charity, who had come up behind him and was watching with compassion.

  “We’re—at sea!” he muttered. “How’d I sleep so long?”

  “I dosed your soup with laudanum,” she answered. “You were bound and determined to be a fool—and there’s only one way to treat a fool!”

  He grew indignant and started to argue, but the ship nosed down into the green waters, and he groaned and grew sick again.

  She watched him carefully, then nodded. “We’ll have lots of time to talk about it on the way to Port-au-Prince and before we get back to Boston, Dan.”

  ****

  Six weeks later, in the mild March winds, Charity and Dan pulled up in front of Charles Winslow’s house. “Are you sure you want to do this, Dan?” Charity asked.

  “It’s a thing that can’t be avoided, Charity,” he answered, his voice subdued. As he got out of the buggy and came to help her down, the memories of the voyage they’d just completed flashed across her mind. It had been entirely successful from a military point of view. They had met the French ship, transferred the cargo, and not a single English ship had challenged them on the return voyage. They’d dropped anchor at the rendezvous point—a natural harbor ten miles north of Boston—and wagons had been waiting. Henry Knox had gotten his cannon, and Washington’s hungry men would eat well for the first time in many months.

  Taking Dan’s arm, Charity thought of the long days under the southern sun and the long warm nights on deck. The two of them had spoken little at first, but gradually the barriers had come down, and finally they had fallen under the spell of sail and surf and warm sunny skies.

  One night off the coast of Port-au-Prince when the cargo was safely aboard, she had stood looking up into a sky alive with stars, and he had come to stand by her. Both of them were elated that their mission was accomplished—part of it, at least. They had talked excitedly long after the crew was asleep.

  And then, they had grown quiet. The sea was laid out like green glass with flashes like gold
flakes breaking up the reflection of the yellow moon. The waves were slapping the sides of the ship, and she became acutely aware of him as a man. He turned to her, his face still, but his eyes searching hers.

  He had never touched her, and even now he seemed to be unaware that he had put his hands on her shoulders. She looked up, unable to move, and as he slowly let his arms go around her, she had unconsciously lifted her arms and put them around his neck. He pulled her close and kissed her slowly, and she returned his kiss.

  Which of them pulled back first neither knew, but he held her just one moment, saying, “Charity Alden—thee is a woman to unsettle a man’s mind!”

  As they moved up the steps now and he knocked on the Winslows’ front door, she still remembered the touch of his lips—and she wondered then, as she had since that night, what he thought of her. Neither of them had spoken of the kiss, but he had not forgotten, she knew.

  “Yas’um?”

  “We’d like to see Mr. Charles Winslow,” Greene said to the slave, whom Charity recognized as Cory.

  “Come in, please.” The black woman did not speak further, but there was a bitterness in her eyes as she cast a look at Charity. “I’ll see if Mistuh Winslow kin see you.”

  They waited in the spacious foyer, and the black woman came back, saying, “Come wif’ me, please.”

  Charity was reluctant, but there was no way out, so she accompanied Dan to the same room where she had visited with Mrs. Winslow.

  Charles Winslow was standing beside one of the tall windows, and he turned slightly to face the pair as they entered. “I’m Charles Winslow,” he said in a voice that barely carried across the room. His illness had marked him radically, making his cheeks hollow and giving his blue eyes an unhealthy bleak look—nonetheless, both Charity and Greene saw the resemblance to Nathan.

  “I’m sorry to trouble thee, sir,” Dan apologized, at the same time casting a look at the woman who sat glaring at them from a chair by the wall. He went on hurriedly, making no attempt to defend himself, but giving a straightforward version of the quarrel.