Dream Of Ocean Water
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By the time we got back to the ship, the captain was already on deck with his first lieutenant and one other man. We could see that they were arguing. We had no idea what it was about until the second mate came up to me. ‘Mr. Midshipman,’ he said in a whisper, ‘you are needed down at the stern.’
I went to him, wondering why I’d been chosen for whatever this was about. The second mate handed me another pair of binoculars. They were small and compact and not very powerful, but I knew I would need them if I was to have any chance of spying on the argument taking place below.
He pointed out where to look. The first lieutenant was standing just behind the tiller ladder and speaking urgently to the captain, who was looking straight ahead as though he couldn’t hear his subordinate. The second mate’s voice was so low I couldn’t make out anything more than the name ‘Gardiner’. It sounded like he had something urgent to report.
‘What is it?’ I asked him when the first lieutenant turned round and looked up at us, seeing us peering over the railings above. We didn’t want him to think we were spies from somewhere else or that our interest in what he was saying was because we weren’t sure of his orders—that would be disastrous. We might lose our positions if it came out that someone had disobeyed him.
The second mate shrugged. ‘Nothing you need worry about, sir,’ he said to the first lieutenant, then called to me again: ‘It’s nothing to do with you, Mr. Midshipman. Just go back to your duties.’
So I returned to my work.
We left the next morning before the sun rose. I stayed up on deck until the others had fallen asleep, watching the land recede under us.
As we neared the coast, the sea became rougher and the wind stronger, blowing us faster into the open Atlantic. I found myself thinking less about what might happen now and more about the people I had left behind in England. My parents would be worried sick after their last letter—would they even be alive?
It seemed impossible, given how quickly news traveled these days. But then I remembered that my father had always warned me never to trust anyone who told me a secret too easily; it meant they wanted to keep it hidden away.
If I thought that was bad, then there was something worse. A week after we arrived in New York, there was an official notification posted outside the Admiralty House. It stated simply that Captain Gardiner had died. There was no indication of what caused his death or what had become of the rest of his family.
There was also no further information on whether I should take over command of his ship.
I spent every day in my cabin, staring out at the sea, waiting for something to happen. And when it finally did, it was far from what I had expected.
My cabin was at the front of the ship near the bow. At the end of each watch, the first lieutenant used to stand beside me, talking quietly, asking how my health was, and whether I still needed any medical treatment.
That changed suddenly the morning we reached Norfolk. The second lieutenant was standing by the door, telling me to come with him straight away. When I asked him what he was doing, he said there was a message from the captain, who wanted to see me.
He led me below and knocked on the captain’s cabin door. A moment later he opened it and motioned me inside. The room was dark apart from the dim red glow from the single candle burning on the desk between two chairs.
Captain Gardiner looked up as we entered. He nodded towards me and said, ‘Welcome back to the ship, Midshipman. I hope you’ve made yourself at home while you were ashore.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ I said. I didn’t know whether to feel relieved that he hadn’t dismissed me yet or disappointed that he was so pleased to have me back aboard.
‘You’ll find you’re back amongst old friends here,’ he said, and then, looking across at the second lieutenant: ‘I expect you’ll be glad to have him back again.’
The second lieutenant looked confused. ‘Yes, sir. It will be good having you back again.’
‘Excellent,’ Gardiner said. ‘Now, let’s have some coffee. It’s been a long trip.’ He picked up one of the two cups and poured the steaming liquid into both of them. ‘And perhaps we should talk privately, shall we?’ he added.
I wasn’t sure what to say. This was all new to me—this sort of conversation, where the captain spoke to an officer in private rather than out on the quarterdeck.
Gardiner sat down in the chair facing me. His gaze was direct. There was no smile on his face and he seemed to be looking through me as he said, ‘Midshipman, I’m afraid you may not be quite right in the head.’
He paused to drink a few gulps of coffee, then went on: ‘I’ve known you since your early days before we took service together. Your mother and I have talked about you many times over the years, hoping you’d make a better career for yourself than joining a merchant line like yours, but I guess even we weren’t expecting this.
You were supposed to be one of the best naval officers ever to come out of HMS Surprise—the finest thing we could hope for when you were just a boy.’
He stopped drinking and put down the cup. ‘But instead, you ended up in America, working as a clerk for a shipping company that has its own interests in the Indies—interests you don’t seem to mind betraying at our expense if your last letters are anything to go by.’
There were tears in the captain’s eyes as he stared into mine, his voice barely above a whisper: ‘It isn’t fair, Midshipman. Not that you aren’t clever enough to do your job; God knows you have been clever enough. But that wasn’t why I took you on in the first place, and that’s all I’ll ever care about.’
‘Sir … I don’t understand.’
‘Your mother and I raised you like a son. We loved you more than life itself. You were our little boy. How could you turn on us? You can’t have done this because of some grudge against the Royal Navy. You’re a patriot.’
I felt sick to my stomach. This man who had been everything to me—my father—was telling me to go away and never come back. That I had betrayed my country and he hated me for it. I knew my face must be full of tears by now, and it must look terrible.
‘I think you should leave, Midshipman,’ Gardiner said. ‘Don’t come back aboard my ship. I don’t want to see you again until I send it to you. In fact, I suggest you leave New York immediately.’
His words rang in my head like a bell. What did he mean by saying I shouldn’t come back to his ship? Did he really intend to give me away? To tell my story to the authorities? Would they try to hang me for treason? Or would they send me off somewhere to be broken—broken as a sailor and broken as a man?
Either way, I knew what was coming—I’d never be free again, not in any world that existed outside of a courtroom, prison cell, or gallows.
‘Captain …’
Gardiner shook his head as if trying to clear it. ‘I’m sorry, Midshipman, but we need to talk about this in private.’
The second lieutenant stood up as well, and with the captain at his side, the three of us left the cabin. I followed them out onto the deck and waited for them to finish their discussion out of earshot.
I tried to keep myself composed, but inside I was trembling, my heart racing, and my mind filled with dread. If I didn’t get away from this ship quickly, I was dead. I was going to be hanged. And there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Aboard the Surprise
‘We’ve got a problem,’ Captain Gardiner said, looking across at the second lieutenant and then turning to me. The second lieutenant was a big, bluff Irishman who made me think of the devil himself.
He was in his late thirties, tall and stocky, and looked like he should have been fighting a war instead of running a ship like this. He had a thick beard and a permanent scowl on his face, as though the sun had never smiled on him.
‘Problem, sir?’ the second lieutenant asked.
Gardiner nodded. ‘We’re being watched, and I don’t know who they are or what they want.’
‘Who is watching us, sir?’ I asked.
Gardiner turned to look at me. ‘You know who, Midshipman.’
‘Sir …’
‘Yes, Midshipman, you told me to watch out for you,’ the captain said. ‘So, let’s say that I did, shall we? It seems you were listening to me.’
My cheeks burned and I lowered my eyes. ‘I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, sir,’ I mumbled.
Gardiner looked at the second lieutenant, who shrugged. ‘If he didn’t want us to know, then perhaps we shouldn’t have heard, eh?’
I opened my mouth to protest that it had been no one’s fault but mine, but Gardiner cut me off with an impatient wave of his hand. ‘That’s not important right now. What’s important is that these men have been following us since we left Jamaica two days ago.
They’ve stayed hidden behind the trees and rocks along the coast, waiting for us to leave port so they can board us and take control of the ship.’
‘But … why?’ the second lieutenant asked.
‘Why indeed?’ Gardiner said. ‘Maybe they just hate England and wanted to cause trouble, or maybe they’re pirates.’
‘What are we going to do about it, sir?’ the second lieutenant asked.
‘Do about it, Midshipman? There’s nothing we can do. We’re in their hands now. All we can do is sit tight and hope for the best.’
‘And if they find us out?’ I asked.
‘Then our time will end, Midshipman, and I suspect yours won’t be too far behind.’
There was something in his tone—an almost sad resignation to fate—that made me realize how serious this situation was. These men weren’t planning some minor act of piracy; they were planning to take over a Royal Navy ship and commandeer it at gunpoint.
I was suddenly reminded of the story I’d just read. Had it been fiction or could it actually happen? Could someone really steal a British warship? It seemed incredible—impossible.
‘They must be pirates!’ the second lieutenant declared. ‘They’ll sink us before we can get clear of the harbor.’
Gardiner shook his head. ‘No, Midshipman. That isn’t likely.’
‘How can you be sure?’ I asked.
He glanced across at the second lieutenant, who frowned. ‘Why, because they haven’t attacked us yet?’
‘No.’ He turned back to me. ‘Because I know who they are.’
My heart skipped a beat, and I swallowed hard. ‘You do?’
His brow creased into a frown. ‘What else would I know about them, Midshipman?’
I took a step backward as though the deck itself had become hot beneath my feet. I couldn’t breathe and my legs felt weak. My skin felt as though it might crawl right off my body. ‘You mean … you know where they live?’
He nodded. ‘They’re Frenchmen.’
The shock that ran through me wasn’t entirely due to the revelation that the two men following us were French. No, it was more to do with the fact that the man I loved most in the world had just revealed he knew exactly who they were: his own brothers.
The End