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Even before the answer came the captain began giving orders, and sailors scurried aloft to let out more sail, while others began to load the deck guns. They had only two sixpounders and a bow chaser, besides the stern guns, none of them much use if they were being pursued by a warship.
“French, sir”, the seaman called down.
“Damn!” the captain said, and he turned to Daniel. “I’ll have to ask you to take Miss Riley below. We won’t give up without a fight.”
“No, I won’t go,” she protested, pulling away from Daniel’s grasp and going back to the rail.
He came to stand beside her, watching the frigate overtake them with alarming speed and wondering what inducement he could offer to get Nancy below hatches. “We are very much in the way here. If we hinder these seamen in their work, we may face capture.”
As the captain sent crewmen hurrying to load the carronades in the stern, Daniel pulled Nancy across the deck. The enemy ship loomed larger and a warning shot passed across the bow of the Little Sarah but the captain ignored it.
“Daniel, why are they firing on us?”
“This is a British ship.”
“But we are in American waters.”
“A moot point if they capture us. Now, stop struggling and come below where it is a little safer.”
The second shot passed over the deck and caught a luckless sailor. Nancy gaped as blood spattered in all directions and his headless trunk fell to the deck. She could not even insist that she should stay to render aid. The man was obviously beyond help.
Daniel followed her down the companionway ladder. “Stay low, lower than the bed,” he warned her as he thrust her into her cabin and pulled a crate against the outside of her door. Ignoring her shouting and pounding, he joined Trueblood on deck to help reload and aim one of the carronades, freeing the gun crew to climb aloft and help let out more sail. The privateer had their range already. Its next volley of shots could sink them. But the Little Sarah had turned tail and headed south. The back of the ship presented a smaller target, of course, but a more vulnerable one. And they were heading away from Delaware Bay. Both men knew that a heavily laden merchant had little chance of escaping a fast warship.
“Try for the rigging!” Trueblood shouted above the roar of fire from the other ship.
“That is all we can hope for, to hurt their steering. We cannot do any real damage.”
Daniel held the gun steady and shouted now for Trueblood to touch the piece of smoldering hemp to the fuse.
The small shot carried away a few lines and put a hole in one sail. Meanwhile the privateer’s bow chasers splintered the mounting of the Sarah’s rudder. The brothers looked at each other hopelessly as the ship started to drift.
A cannonball through the mizzenmast sent splinters into a half-dozen screaming men and brought the whole twisted load of sail and lines down on top of the Tallents.
“Ouch,” Daniel yelped, as Trueblood freed him from the tangle. “Damn, a splinter in my leg.”
Trueblood tied his handkerchief tightly above the wound on his brother’s thigh and said, “Do not—”
Before he could finish the warning, Daniel had pulled the object out. His leg bled furiously then, but he scrambled to his feet.
The frigate had come up on their side and now laid a shot into the hull near the waterline. Only this convinced the captain to have the signal for surrender run up. They would have had to retrim and lay the ship over to get a patch on the hole or they would not have been able to pump fast enough to keep the vessel from sinking. There was no way for the battle to continue.
“You brothers and the Canadian are safe enough,” the captain said to the Tallents, “but what is to become of Riley and his daughter I do not know.”
“We shall think of something,” Daniel said as he hopped toward the companionway door, his only thought now of rescuing Nancy. Trueblood helped him down the ladder.
Nancy was still pounding and pushing against her door. “Daniel, let me out! I had rather drown in the open sea than be shut up down here like a rat!”
They ignored her. “Give me that packet you are carrying, Daniel.”
“Right. We shall have to weight it and toss it over.”
“If you can take care of Miss Riley, I’ll go over the side with it. The thing is sealed with wax, is it not?”
“Yes, but you cannot possibly stay concealed.”
“Of course I can. We are not more than a few hours from port.”
“No, I will do it.”
“Daniel!” Nancy threatened when she heard them talking. “If you do not let me out this instant, I shall make you sorry.”
They pulled the crate away and freed Nancy. Her father lay asleep on his bunk when they opened the door to check, but Dupree was not below decks.
“Daniel, you are bleeding,” she said, her anger dissipated now that she saw he was hurt. She pulled a roll of lint out of her inner pocket and forced her hands to stop shaking. What was the point of panic now, when she had something to do? She knelt to run the bandage around his leg over his beeches. There would be time to clean the wound later. For now she must get the bleeding stopped.
“It is nothing,” he said, wincing at the strength with which she tightened the dressing and tied it off. It occurred to Daniel that probably only Nancy carried an entire medical kit in the pocket tied around her waist under her skirts.
“Nancy, dear, can you speak French?” Trueblood asked.
“Yes, of course. I thought it might be useful.” She finished her work and rose to support Daniel under one arm. Now that she did not feel so helpless, her confidence was flowing back. Besides, if they were really sinking, Trueblood and Daniel would not be standing here calmly arguing over a packet.
“No decision then, Daniel. If Nancy can speak French, you do not need me,” Trueblood concluded, then went to fetch an oilskin packet from their cabin.
“It is my packet. It should be my swim,” Daniel argued, trying to wrest the object away from his brother, who was already thrusting it inside his shirt. They all lurched as the ship shuddered and reeled.
Nancy turned a beseeching look on Daniel and he hugged her to him.
“No time. We are being boarded. Do not attempt to wrestle me for it, little brother. You will never win in your present condition. You take care of Nancy.”
“Where is he going?” Nancy demanded as Trueblood slipped into the captain’s cabin.
“Out the window and over the side,” Daniel answered.
“But we are not even in sight of land.”
“He will not try to swim for it. He will just cling to the ship until we are close to shore. With this damage they will make for Philadelphia immediately.”
“What if he cannot fit out the window?”
“I had not thought of that. Trueblood will manage something.” A crash and the sound of splintering glass came reassuringly from the cabin. “Nancy, listen to me. We do not know what will happen to you, since you are English. I want you to tell them you are my indentured servant. The worst that can befall your father is to be taken as a prisoner of war.”
“What? But he has left the army.”
“He still wears the uniform, and your papers say you are English, not Irish.”
“And why would an indentured servant speak French?” she demanded, loosening herself from his grasp as many feet thumped on the deck and orders were issued above, their heads in that foreign tongue.
“I am trying to protect you, and it is the best I can think of,” said Daniel as he tried to keep his balance.
“It is a stupid plan, Daniel. I can think of something better than that. Now get out of my way. I may be needed up there to bind wounds or to translate.” She pushed him away, causing him to hop and collide with the wall.
“If I had a ring,” he called after her desperately, “I would say you are my wife.”
She turned with a startled expression on her face.
“Well, you act the part of a shrewish wife to perfection.”
Then she smiled at him, not desperate or frightened anymore, but with the impish grin that almost convinced him she was now enjoying herself. The last he saw of her was her shapely ankles, until he crawled up the ladder to find her negotiating the terms of their surrender with a rather handsome French captain.
With a sail patching her bow hole, and a cobbledtogether rudder, the Little Sarah made port with the English crew below hatches and a prize crew from the Embuscade in charge. Nancy, Daniel and the wounded were allowed to remain on deck, since they seemed harmless enough, and Nancy, apparently, had asked the French privateer if they could. The captain of the pilot boat that guided them up the Delaware seemed to ignore her shouted recriminations against the French ship that followed them. Nancy was preparing a withering testimony against their captors, for she had, with Daniel’s aid, been bandaging some ghastly wounds, and she now recalled the beheaded seaman.
“What is going on, Daniel?” she asked of the commotion at the docks. “Why would they be cheering a French pirate?”
“The American public is rather fickle, and the new French ambassador, Genet, has taken the city by storm, or so I hear.”
“But this is disgusting.”
“It would be politic not to say so.”
She looked belligerently at him, but the worry in his eyes assured her compliance, for he did look so appealing when he was hard-pressed.
“Daniel,” she whispered. “What about Trueblood? The French pirate knew he was on board, for he asked specifically where he was.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That he was taken over the side by the cannon fire.”
“Did he believe you?”
“I think so.”
“I saw him swim to an American cutter an hour ago, while we were being guided up the channel.”
“That’s a relief.”
“Now, if we can just get safe on shore.”
The British crew, including their wounded, were ferried to the docks in a lighter and given their freedom. Daniel refused to go with them. On the quay the English captain had a one-sided discussion with the French privateer, pointing to Nancy, where she stood at the rail with Daniel. Two French seamen tried to part Daniel from her, and he resisted, until Nancy cast a stream of oaths at them that set them back on their heels. The French captain grinned and motioned his men away. He had himself rowed back to the prize and boarded it, and now took Nancy’s hand in such an obvious offer of protection that it took both seamen to restrain Daniel from attacking him.
Nancy did not cringe, but answered him quite volubly, causing a crease to appear between his brows. A snapped order brought seamen scurrying with the Rileys’ trunks and those from the Tallents’ cabin. Nancy’s baggage was pulled open and her store of herbs and salves discovered. Another rapid interchange in French ensued as she knelt to repack her precious medicines.
To Daniel’s utter surprise, the baggage was all piled into the lighter and Nancy was helped down into the boat. He was left to hand himself down into the tippy vessel as best he could. He had to shove over onto the seat by Nancy to make way for her father, who still looked blearily drunk and scarcely aware of what was going on.
“Whatever did you say to him?” Daniel demanded as they were rowed to the quay.
“I’ll tell you later”, Nancy said, stroking his cheek with one small hand and looking at him fondly. This was done so much for the Frenchman’s benefit that the effect was quite spoiled for Daniel. He struggled onto the dock and pulled Nancy up beside him.
Trueblood was there in different clothes, to help her father up and unload their belongings. He looked rather surprised to see them released so expeditiously.
“You are rather damp, Trueblood,” Nancy chided. “You may catch cold over this.”
“I do not think so,” he said with a wink to Daniel.
“All safe then?” Daniel asked.
Trueblood nodded.
“Let us go home then,” Daniel said with a sigh of relief. “By the by, just what did you say to that fellow that got us dumped on the dock, bag and baggage?”
“Porter, here!” Trueblood commanded to a cartman, who came to load their effects, including Sergeant Riley.
“I don’t think I will tell you.”
“Whatever it was, it fairly shocked the captain.”
“Probably because he did not realize you have a mistress in keeping.”
“But I have not—By all that is holy, you never told him you were my mistress.”
Trueblood chuckled at Daniel’s discomfort.
“I will thank you to lower your voice so as not to make it common knowledge,” Nancy warned, her small chin coming up in mock resentment.
“That does not account for his eyes bulging in that way, or for him thrusting us and ours from the ship as though we were a couple of lepers.”
“No, that was when I told him I needed my herbs for my cure.”
“But—but you are not ill,” Daniel sputtered.
“Oh yes I am, with the pox.”
“What?” Daniel staggered into Trueblood.
“Not really, but I thought it would hasten our departure. Daniel, do not gape so. For you do not yet know.”
Trueblood was by now losing a valiant struggle to contain his guffaws.
“I have shocked you,” Nancy surmised.
“Of course you have shocked me,” Daniel shouted. “A girl of your tender years should not know anything about such matters.”
“Forgive Daniel,” Trueblood gasped. “He has a habit of underestimating women.”
“How is he unique in that respect?”
“Touché,” Trueblood countered. “I wish you would take Nancy home, Daniel, before you say something indiscreet. I will see to the baggage.”
“Something indiscreet?” Daniel shouted.
