The Continental Risque Read Online Free Page B

Rumstick’s, duty to keep passengers from harassing the captain on his private side of the quarterdeck. Rumstick, by way of answer, merely rolled his eyes and shrugged.
    Biddlecomb was in fact shocked to see the degree of sycophancy displayed by Rumstick, an attitude that was most unlike anything he had seen from his friend before. Rumstick stood six foot two and was close to three hundred pounds, the most powerful man that Biddlecomb had ever known. Like any professional seaman Rumstick accepted the ship’s hierarchy without question, but beyond that he had never been known to behave so like a serf in the presence of his lord and master, radical revolutionary that he was. When Biddlecomb mentioned it that morning in the privacy of the great cabin, Rumstick had said simply, ‘But, Isaac, that’s John Adams,’ as if that were all the explanation required.
    â€˜Captain Biddlecomb,’ Adams said again, ‘I trust you have made some provision to elude that frigate?’
    Biddlecomb looked Adams in the eye for long seconds before replying, ‘I have, sir.’
    â€˜Isaac, you may recall, has a long history of getting out of such situations,’ Stanton said, crossing over to the weather side. ‘I should think that this situation is a trifle compared to what he just did in Boston.’
    â€˜Yes, and bravo I say, but it is this frigate, not the one in Boston, that concerns me.’ Adams’s voice conveyed not the least bit of fear; he seemed to view the frigate now chasing them as the same type of minor irritant that plagued every aspect of his life.
    â€˜I’m not certain they’ll care to follow us through Hell Gate,’ Biddlecomb said, ‘but even if they do, I should think we’ll be able to keep away from them until nightfall. In any event it would take a bit of extremely bad luck for them to run us down now.’
    He said the words with little enthusiasm; indeed, he was hardly thinking as he spoke. The chief of his attention was drawn down into the waist, just forward of the break of the quarterdeck, where the carpenter was sounding the well, gauging the depth of water in the
Charlemagne
’s bilge with the iron sounding rod. Biddlecomb was not at all comforted by the carpenter’s expression.
    It had occurred to Biddlecomb five minutes before that the motion of the
Charlemagne
was somewhat sluggish underfoot, but he had noticed that sensation at other times when the wind was so far aft of the beam and so he dismissed it.
    The men had been working the pumps an hour per watch; a lot of pumping, but not an excessive amount for a vessel that had seen such hard use without heaving down. Still, the water that had just flowed from the pumps was clear and clean: not water that had long been in the bilge but water fresh from the sea.
    The carpenter pulled the sounding rod out of the well. His expression was, if anything, more distressed than before. He handed the rod to his mate and disappeared below.
    â€˜Hancock!’ Adams was saying, quite loud, apparently in response to some comment of Rumstick’s. ‘Oh, Hancock’s fine as a delegate, but, by God, did you know that the man wanted to be commander in chief of the army, in Washington’s stead? Can you think of it? I mean, Washington’s no Alexander himself, but Hancock?’
    â€˜Isaac, is there something wrong?’ Stanton asked in a low voice, glancing over the taffrail at the frigate, now three and a half miles astern. Biddlecomb’s quarterdeck face, his expression of unflappable calm that he had developed through long practice, failed to conceal from Stanton his churning stomach and his sense of pending disaster.
    â€˜I should think we’ll hear from the carpenter directly,’ Biddlecomb said, ‘and then I’ll be able to answer that.’
    Less than a minute later the carpenter burst out of the after scuttle like a startled pheasant and fairly ran up the