The Continental Risque Read Online Free Page A

you’re getting under way, singled up and topsails loosened off, I must be quite blind.’ The stranger stepped out of the carriage struggling with a large bag which he carried over to the
Charlemagne
. The driver of the coach snapped his whip and the vehicle rumbled off into the dark. The stranger dropped his bag on the quay and glared at the sailors staring back at him.
    â€˜You there, take this on board,’ he snapped in a tone that demanded obedience, and much to Biddlecomb’s further annoyance a sailor leapt ashore and snatched up the man’s bag and carried it on board, as behind him the bag’s owner clambered over the bulwark.
    Biddlecomb turned to William Stanton, who was standing on the starboard side of the quarterdeck, hoping tht he might have some explanation. ‘I think that may be …’ Stanton began, but before he finished the stranger was up the quarterdeck ladder and making his way aft. He was not a tall man, and the lines of his conservative black coat showed him to be plump. His long hair – he wore no wig – was tied back in a queue, and a civilian-style cocked hat was on his head.
    â€˜Are you Biddlecomb?’ he asked.
    â€˜Captain Biddlecomb. And as such I will not—’
    â€˜Yes, I am fully aware of who you are. Good show with the powder, by the way. I’m John Adams, and I’m sure there’s no need to explain who I am. I shall be taking passage to Philadelphia with you. And I will say simply that the British would willingly lose half their navy to capture me, so please do not take any unnecessary risks. You there’ – he pointed with his walking stick to Midshipman Weatherspoon – ‘take my bag and show me to my cabin.’ With that he turned and went forward, then disappeared down the scuttle.
    â€˜Oh, yes, Isaac,’ Stanton said, ‘I’m afraid there was one other arrangement that I failed to mention.’
    And now, four days later, Biddlecomb stood on the quarterdeck watching either shore of Long Island Sound slip past and enjoyed the relative calm of being chased by a frigate.
    From the moment the
Charlemagne
had successfully slipped out of Boston Harbor, passing at least one British man-of-war so close that they could hear the ship’s bell ringing out in the fog, he had endured Adams’s presence in the gunroom and his loitering about on the windward side of the quarterdeck, quite contrary to maritime etiquette. He had endured Adams’s suggestions and his criticisms and his condemnation of all but a handful of his fellow congressmen.
    Fifty yards off the larboard beam a seal rolled its sleek body out of the water. ‘Oh, Virginia, look at this,’ Biddlecomb said as the door to the after scuttle burst open and with it came Adams’s grating voice, and Biddlecomb knew that his moment of peace was at an end.
    â€˜Honest to God, Rumstone,’ Adams was saying to the first lieutenant, Ezra Rumstick, who was, as he had at every opportunity, tagging behind Adams like a big dog, ‘if we keep referring to ourselves as “United Colonies,” we shall never rid ourselves of the notion that we
are
but colonies and not free and independent states, as we should be. It’s bad enough that I can’t get those blockheads in Congress to refer to us as the United States, I should hope that at least men such as yourself, one of the Sons of Liberty, hotheads though they are, could be depended upon to say “United States.”’
    â€˜Yes, of course, sir,’ Rumstick said, ‘and truly I am accustomed to saying “United States.” I don’t know …’
    Adams moved with his usual brisk pace up the quarterdeck ladder and aft to where the captain stood. ‘Captain Biddlecomb,’ he began. Biddlecomb looked over Adams’s shoulder to Rumstick and reminded his first officer, through a narrowing of his eyes and a tilt of the head, that it was his,