"Not too long. But this is a good port to drop anchor in "
"Is it not?" Musat swelled with pride. "The English dogs—they have never dared to put even the toes of their sea boots on Saint Malo! We take our pick of their shipping at our will. It is a good game to play, M'sieur, a very good game."
"How did you learn your English, Musat?" Fitz could not forego asking.
"In prison," the Malouin replied frankly, with a flashing show of excellent teeth. "We took too many prizes, were too greedy, and on the last boarding we were snapped up by a sloop-of-war. So I was in prison, and there I learned to speak this barbarous tongue. Since then Alfonse Musat does not push his luck, as you say. I have no desire to taste English hospitality for the second time."
"You're deuced close to the English here." For the first time Ninnes joined in the common talk. "Plymouth's just over the way "
Musat nodded. "The Channel is narrow here, oui, that is true. But with St. Malo also here, we do not risk too much. You are planning the Channel cruise, too —as did your famous Captain Conyngham?"
Ninnes shrugged. "We go where our Captain orders," he returned with a shortness which was almost deliberately rude.
"So. But I thought that on American ships matters were ordered differently. That you, gentlemen, might have a voice in future plans?"
"We have a lucky Captain," Ninnes returned. "We let him pick our course."
"But of a certainty that is the best way," Musat agreed good naturedly. "Fortune is a fickle lady," he kissed the tips of his fingers to the unseen goddess, "she cannot be driven, only wooed. And if your captain has her interest, then he is a man to follow without protest. I envy you your future. There is rich picking in the Channel nowadays, enough for all. And the English navy cannot be everywhere at once, much as it strives to accomplish that feat. I note that you carried cargo, you are then a Letter of Marque not a privateer "
"There is little enough difference," Ninnes answered before Watts could reply. "We can be one or t'other as it suits us."
Musat lifted his glass. "You seem well supplied as to guns. You will need them if you run up against Captain Sir Powells—bah—I cannot say properly his miserable name. But he is a true devil, that one. He says that we are all pirates and must hang—a very bloodthirsty Englishman!" Musat rolled his eyes upward and made a comical face. "You have your full complement of guns to meet the so-diligent Sir Powells?"
"I reckon we have all we need," Matthews drawled. "We've played this game before, M'sieur, on the other side."
"And successfully, oui. But here conditions are different. Your captain would be wise to accept a little advice, M'sieur "
"From you?" Ninnes' interruption was a whip crack, but Musat showed no sense of being flicked by it.
"From me," he waved his hand, "from any Malouin, perhaps. We know the Channel waters as we know the skin on our own hands."
"Perhaps some of you know it too well," Ninnes had put down his glass and sat facing the Malouin, his hands on the table.
Musat dropped his good-natured smile, he straightened to his full height on his stool. "What do you mean?" he asked softly.
"Just this," Ninnes' voice carried, and Fitz noticed that the jolly singing and loud talk at the other end of the table had died away, "that you speak remarkably good English to have learned it in an English prison, and that you are much too interested in the Retaliation!"
"So "
With one shove the Malouin sent his stool back from the table and was on his feet, his hand at the knife in his belt. But Fitz had had attention for the second table and now he cried out:
" 'Ware boarders!" His fingers closed around the neck of a bottle and he arose in one forward spring to meet the Malouin from the other table who was aiming a tankard at Watts' unsuspecting head.
"You young fool!" he heard the surgeon snap at Ninnes and then Watts raised his voice to them all: "Get out quick—they've knives!"
The Americans came together, facing down their hesitating opponents. On the floor crouched the man
Ware boarders!" Fitz cried out.
Fitz had struck, shaking his ringing head. But the Malouins were strangely reluctant to carry the attack further. Cautiously the Retaliation 's men backed toward the door.
Fitts, breathing hard through his nose, wondered if they were going to get out so easily after all. The daredevil Malouins were so oddly meek that the suspicion grew in his mind as to what they would do to uphold their reputation of hot-headed fighting men.
"When we get outside," Watts said slowly, "cut and run. Street fighting here might be a nasty business."
Fitz inched over the stoop, shoulder to shouldler with Ninnes. The dusk of twilight closed in upon them as a queer throaty growl arose from the square of candle light they were leaving behind.
7
“Up with th’ Broom, Boys!”
Ram down your guns and sponge them well,
Let us be sure that the balls will tell,
The cannon's roar shall be their knell.
Be steady, boys, be steady.
—STERRETS SEA FIGHT
A MOMENT LATER THAT SQUARE OF LIGHT WAS BLOTTED out by a forward rush of dark figures. But the officers from the Retaliation had already started their retreat toward the quay.
"Spread out!" that was Biggs. "No use givin' 'em a neat-set target now "
Fitz stepped away from his neighbor and edged around a couple of bales and a pile of boxes which had been left to encumber the cobbles of the narrow street. There were smoky lanterns hung from the fronts of the buildings along the way, but they gave little enough illumination. Somewhere behind him a voice screamed a Breton oath.
"Come on!" Watts sounded anxious. "Don't let yourself be cut off, boys!"
In the dim circle of lantern light at the next house-front Fitz saw the tall surgeon and the taller Matthews hesitating. A smaller man puffed up to join them— Biggs. But where was Ninnes?
The growl which had come out of the tavern on their runaway heels now rumbled along the road and he could have sworn that figures were slipping up through the darkness in search of the knot of Americans.
"Lyon! Ninnes!" Watts' call carried too well. Fitz was ready to answer when he realized he had not heard the lieutenant's reply. "Lyon!" That was urgent. "Ninnes!"
Fitz listened, stopping where he was in the shadow of the boxes. All he could think of was the knife in the Malouin's belt. Knife work is a silent business. Impulsively he turned back, creeping along the wall of the building, the granite blocks, wet and stinging cold under his hand.
He was well out of the reaches of the light when he heard the sounds of a desperate scuffle in the dark. He lunged forward, almost falling over battling bodies on the cobbles. Save for hard panting they were fighting in deadly quiet. Fitz took a chance and grabbed at the one on top, his fingers caught, and some cloth tore. There was a grunt of surprise and pain, and the single writhing shadow abruptly became two.
"Ninnes?" Fitz hovered.
One of them moved, wavering to knees and then to feet.
" 'Ware his knife!" it choked out and stumbled toward Fitz. He closed his hand on the lieutenant's shoulder, keeping his eyes on the other man.
The Malouin had remained in a half-crouch, but now, with the speed of a striking rattlesnake, he launched himself at them knee level. Fitz met that with his fist, aiming for a white blur which might have been a face. But Ninnes kicked, waterfront fashion, and his boot got home. The fellow screamed and doubled together. But as he fell there was the noise of movement beyond.
"Come on!" Fitz jerked Ninnes along, half supporting him. "We'll have the whole rat's nest about our ears now "
Under Fitz's propulsion they reached the lantern light again, almost running into the others. Just as Watts reached for Ninnes a silvery flash swept across Fitz's line of vision. There was a knife, now quivering, with the point buried in the door frame at his shoulder.
"Playing with edged tools, are they? We'd best be off if we want
to keep on breathing!" the surgeon commented as he and Matthews closed in, one on either side of Ninnes, and the American party pounded off into the dark, weaving through streets and around corners until Fitz, had he not been clinging a little dizzily to his superior officers, would have been totally lost.
It was not until they were safely back on the Retaliation that they were able to judge the sum of damage for the night. Ninnes had a cut along the ribs, which had dyed his coat and shirt red, and was unsteady from loss of blood. But save for the bruises which marked violent meetings with the unyielding granite corners of St. Malo, the rest were unharmed.
Watts, winding bandages to some purpose, proceeded I to improve the hour with admonitions, while the others sat around his sanctum, content for the moment to do nothing.
"Of course we could see that lack-wit of a sea raider was trying to pump us," the surgeon pulled linen tight enough to wring a grunt from his sullen patient, "we're not as Johnny-Green as you think us, youngster."
Ninnes chewed on his lower lip, a dark scowl drawing eyebrow to meet eyebrow. He did not reply.
"Next time keep your mouth shut and we won't have to patch you up. What Crofts will say to this night's work, I dread to think "
Fitz broke in impulsively, "Does he have to know?"
All three of the older men favored him with open surprise. Biggs snorted.
"Think such a tale won't be through the town by mornin? We're the only foreign ship in port—the Malouins are a stiff-necked lot—they'll cook up a story to blister us. With maybe just enough truth in its tellin' so that we can't deny the whole thing."
"Aye," Matthews nodded, his usual sober countenance now a mask of pure gloom. "We'd best get t' th' Cap'n first wi' th' truth if we don't want th' hide peeled off'n us tomorrow."
"Like as not they'll want to jail us. And this jail is no town jail, it has dungeons under the water line." It seemed to Fitz that Watts was deliberately adding to the unpleasantness of their situation with that bit of gratuitous information.
The New Englander got to his feet and crooked a finger at Biggs.
"Might as well go an' break it t 9 him, Lieutenant. Medicine ain't never th' sweeter for lettin' it set a mite. Get yourself tied up quick, boy/' he added to Ninnes, "Th' Cap'n might be wantin' to see you."
Ninnes nodded jerkily and sat dumb under Watts' deft hands. Fitz hesitated. The senior officers had not bidden him to accompany them, and perhaps etiquette demanded that he wait until he was summoned. Remembering his last serious interview with the Captain and not desiring a sequel to it if he could help, he settled back on Watts' supply chest.
"There," the surgeon finished his work and went to pour out a noggin of brandy which he handed to his patient. "Put that under your belt and you'll feel more yourself again. But you're damned lucky, an inch or so more and we'd been sewing you up in canvas, m'lad. What made you tackle a knife man barehanded?"
Ninnes sputtered as the fiery stuff poured down his throat. Above the corselet of bandage his bare shoulders were broad and well muscled.
"He jumped me," he answered sullenly. "I tripped, and when I got up you were gone on. Then he came out of the shadows and got me from the back, not cleanly or "
"Or you wouldn't be talking now," Watts agreed. "But we wouldn't have had any of this tangle if you'd learn to keep your suspicions to yourself. Don't you suppose that Crofts knows this harbor is probably alive with informers and men who'd be only too pleased to pick up a guinea or two by reporting our plans to the right persons? I am only surprised that this fellow was so bald and open in his pumping. They must think us hardly above the mental state of idiots.''
Ninnes slid off the table and reached for the coat they had taken off him.
"Got to clean up," he muttered and started out. Watts gave Fitz a little push.
"Go along after him. With all that brandy in him and a light head into the bargain, he might well trip and go overboard."
Rather reluctantly the marine obeyed. Ninnes steadied himself with one hand, but when Fitz caught up he straightened and stood away from his support.
"What did you come back for—there in the town?" the hoarse words of that demand were his greeting.
"I'd dropped behind myself. Then you didn't answer Watts' hail. So I thought I'd better see . . ."
Around Ninnes' lips tiny beads of moisture glistened in the lantern light. There was a wet sheen on the skin of cheeks and jaw, and his eyes were hard and too bright.
"You probably saved my life!" Hot anger colored those words forced out of him against his will.
"Probably not," Fitz denied that. "You'd have won free without my interfering. Like as not I might have put you in danger by trying to break up the fight in the dark "
"I don't like you," Ninnes leaned back against the paneling. "You've always had all you wanted—you gentry prig! I've fought for what I have. While you lay snug o' nights with a full belly, I was a draggle-tailed brat without a shirt to my name and no shoes to my feet. I'd eat a crust out o' the gutter—if I could find one. You're gentry—well, I'm going to be. I'll command my own ship " his words came faster and faster, fairly tripping on each other.
Fitz took his arm and pulled him along to the door of the small cubby he shared with Langston. Ninnes did not seem to know that he was being steered, and he allowed the marine to thrust him into his quarters without protest. Once there, he stood swaying as his coat fell from loosened fingers to the deck. Fitz guessed that he was dazedly unaware of his surroundings. With a sigh of exasperation the marine set about putting his charge to bed.
It was something of a task. Although Ninnes was docile enough and only muttered incoherently under his breath as Fitz struggled with him. But as last it was done, and Fitz saw that the lieutenant had lapsed into a stupor. He wondered if Watts should be summoned again.
While he was trying to decide, he examined the small cabin and its contents curiously. In size and shape it was twin to the one he shared with Biggs, but he had never seen its interior. The Virginian who had bunked with Ninnes at the beginning of the voyage had gone off as captain of a prize, and Fitz's terms with the lieutenant were not such as led to the paying of visits. It was scrupulously neat with that painful neatness produced in a man who has only a very limited space in which to live most of his life. And it was bare, save for a rack of books above Ninnes' sea chest. Fitz read the titles: A Caesar, so well thumbed that it must have passed through the hands of more than one unwilling scholar; three fat volumes of Robinson Crusoe, one with a broken back inexpertly mended; a single volume of Hume's history; one of Roderick Random; and last of all, a backless, tattered book which surprised Fitz mightily—Milton. He wondered what Ninnes made of that poet.
The lieutenant turned and then moaned as he pressed against his bandaged side. Fitz made up his mind. Watts should see him. He started out and ran into Matthews.
"Where's Ninnes? Th' Cap'n wants t' see him."
Fitz jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "He's in his hammock and I don't like the look of him. I'm going to get Watts."
The New Englander hesitated before he turned. "I'll report t' th' Cap'n. An' then you come along. He wants t' see you too."
Fitz had no pleasure in the thought of visiting Crofts.
And he found the young Captain in anything but the best of tempers when he arrived before him.
"No brawling!" Fist met table top with more than a little emphasis. "I have said that again and again. And now, not the men, but my officers get themselves knifed and bring, like as not, half the town down around our ears tomorrow. I am prepared to find you all under arrest in the morning. And I ought to leave you to rot in the dungeons here if you are! Well, Mr. Lyon, and how is the instigator of this night's work?"
"Dr. Watts is with him now, sir. He says that there is some degree of fever."
"Ninnes is lucky he is not dead!" exploded Crofts. "Mr. Matthews, you will rouse out the watch and start loading."
"At this hour?"
"At this hou
r! We'll get those supplies on board before we have the authorities down on us. I want to be able to sail as soon as possible in the morning. Maybe after we have been out on a cruise for a while they will forget our sins and let us back to revictual. That is all we can hope for—thanks to the common sense of my officers!"
So the Retaliation came alive and supplies began to move on board by lantern light, a process which brought forth no small amount of swearing and grumbling from the crew. The marines were pressed into duty, and Fitz found himself yawning over tally sheets and checking boxes of ammunition and supplies as they were being carried to their proper storage places. He was glad to be released at last and make his way below. But before he went to his own cabin, he looked in on Ninnes.
One of the ship's boys nodded on the sea chest. He jumped to his feet and put on as much of an air of alertness as he could manage when he saw the marine officer appear in the doorway.
"How is he?"
"Doctor Watts says tolerable, sir," the lad whispered. "He gave Mister Ninnes a soothin' draft an* he has slept th' night through without turnin' none. I'm to call Dr. Watts if he wakes."
The lieutenant's flushed face showed dusky against the blanket which had been pulled over him, but his breathing sounded even, and he was no longer muttering. Fitz nodded to the boy and went on to his own cubby, getting into his hammock with a profound sigh of weariness and relief.
When he awakened he knew from the swing of the ship that they must be once more at sea. For a second or two he stretched, as well as the hammock would allow, and wished that he did not have to tumble out.
Channel cruising was not for sluggards, as he speedily discovered, and Biggs took pleasure in riding his men, drilling long and demanding a high standard of efficiency. The broom some wag had made fast to the mast was symbol enough of the temper of the crew.
Like a certain Dutch admiral some generations before them, they had hoisted it as a sign of their intention to sweep the enemy from the sea.