Captain of My Heart (21 page)

Jamming his tricorne firmly down, Brendan
tilted his head back and gazed up through the falling snow. His
eyes grew moist and a strange lump filled the back of his throat.
It was all the same, poignant and familiar, stirring and
bittersweet. The barked orders . . . the bosun’s whistles . . . the
marines, presenting arms and snapping to attention, the seamen
lined up behind them in perfect rows in readiness to receive him.
It was the same glorious salute of a ship welcoming her
commander—and it brought back memories of other days, other ships,
and of the first time the mighty
Dauntless
had welcomed him
as Sir Geoffrey Lloyd’s flag captain. . . .

He shook his head, willing the memories away.
And then a fife pierced the air, and drums, too, and to the rousing
tune of “Yankee Doodle,” Brendan hauled himself up
Kestrel’s
sleek sides and stepped onto her deck. He saw the raised swords and
shrilling pipes, the officers who saluted him smartly, the crew
lining the rails and clinging to tarry shrouds, the little lad who
stood with a possessive hand upon an old four-pounder, head thrown
back, eyes bright with life, and leading the rest of them in a
lusty, full-throated version of “Yankee Doodle” that carried from
stem to stern:

“
A Band of Brothers let us be, while Adams
guides the na-tion, and still our dear bought Freedom guard, in
ev’ry situa-tion!”

He grinned.

“
Yankee Doodle, guard your coast! Yankee
Doodle Dan-dy! Fear not then or threat or boast, Yankee Doodle
Dan-dy!
”

Saluting smartly and pretending not to notice
his captain’s misty eyes, Liam stepped forward. “Welcome aboard,
sir!”

Brendan returned the salute, doffed his hat
to what would’ve been the quarterdeck if the schooner had one, and
surveyed his command.

Forward, her long bowsprit angled up toward
the gray sky. Guns, lashed down and waiting, sat upon brilliant red
trucks dappled with snow. Lines lay neatly coiled upon tidy decks,
and sails were furled upon booms and yards. The scents of fresh
paint and tar, sweet hemp and varnish, filled the air, mixing with
that of clean, newly fallen snow and the heady, wild hint of winter
seas.

Liam was trying his best to contain his
great, beamy grin. “Well?”

“
Go
hálainn ...”
Brendan said
simply, for there was nothing else to say. He glanced skyward,
blinking, as the snow sifted down out of the heavens and melted
upon his cheeks. She was lovely, all right. Tall, raked-back masts,
their pennants obscured by snow and mist, traced gently spiraling
circles against the heavy clouds. Shrouds were black crosshatches
against the pale sky. Snow capped her guns and swivels, pinrails
and deck planking, rigging, spars, and booms like frosting on a
cake. A fine westerly sang through the rigging, and the tide was
going out. He couldn’t have asked for a finer day to put to
sea.

And
Kestrel
was ready. Brendan felt
her restlessness beneath his booted feet, the tension thrumming
through her stays, her shrouds, even the tiller bar, as he strode
aft and gripped it for the first time. Snow melted beneath his palm
and his fingers grew numb, but he kept his hand there until the
wood grew warm and wet, feeling as if he were touching the
schooner’s very heart. It was a long moment before he finally
loosened the tiller and mainsheet and turned to face his waiting
crew.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see the
people of Newburyport clogging the wharfs, the decks of other,
nearby ships, the little boats bobbing among the ice floes that
hovered near shore, all here to see him off with fanfare and glory.
Somewhere out there was Mira Ashton. She hadn’t been at breakfast,
but he knew she was here, could almost feel those impish green eyes
upon him. He swallowed hard and turned his face into the stinging
wind to cool his suddenly hot cheeks. Mira Ashton, who thought he
could sketch—but not sail—a ship. She would be watching with a very
critical eye indeed. . . .

With a sudden grin, he turned to Zachary
Wilbur. The boatswain’s protruding potbelly was dusted with snow,
his bowed legs spread as though the ship were already plunging
through fifteen-foot seas. “Well, laddies, what’re we waiting for?
Haul in that anchor, Mr. Wilbur, and let’s be about our
business!”

The crew sent up a rousing cheer that rippled
from bow to stern and back again on a thunderous wave of sound.

“Get the boat in and signal our pilot, Mr.
Wilbur. We’ll head out on jib and rudder alone.” Brendan couldn’t
control his excited grin. “And be lively about it, Zach! We have an
audience today!”

“Aye, sir!”

The boatswain swung himself forward, his
gruff voice cracking the brittle air. “Let’s get this lady under
way, you worthless pack of saw-toothed old bangabouts! Lively now,
so we can show them folks back yonder how it’s done!”

The mainsail boom lay alongside the tiller
and rested atop the stern rail, its triced sail as white as the
snow falling atop it. A tingle raced up Brendan’s spine. Soon
Kestrel
would thrill to the power of that great sail; soon
the wind would shove against its hardened belly, and spray would
slash his cheeks as the schooner drove through the stormy gray
Atlantic. He shook with excitement, finally thrusting his hands
behind his back and gripping them hard to still their mad
trembling. That excitement rose as he watched the crew hoist the
boat in, the water streaming from its little hull. At the windlass,
Liam’s fiddle jumped to the tune of an Irish jig. Lines were
hauled, and forward, the jib shook itself free and impatiently
waved the snow aside.

Kestrel
began to drift downriver.

“Anchor’s hove short, sir!”

With a final heave on the windlass, the
anchor came swinging up from the river’s black depths in a cloud of
silt and mud.

“Anchor’s aweigh!”

Her jib-boom leading the way,
Kestrel
swung around with the current until she faced the wide-open mouth
of the Merrimack.

Beyond, the sea waited.

And behind and alongside, the crowds lined
the shore, waiting to see if she would overset herself.

Kestrel
was moving now, gathering
speed, a study in soundless grace. Wharves and frozen marshlands
fell behind them. Water slid along her sides. Just ahead, the pilot
vessel that would guide her through the treacherous channels and
out to sea fell into place. As they passed the battery at Plum
Island, the big field pieces roared out a mighty thirteen-gun
salute to Newburyport’s newest, and finest, warrior. Brendan gave a
barely perceptible nod and
Kestrel’s
guns spoke for the
first time, returning the salute and the faith of the town that
built her.

“A beauty, sir, a real beauty!” At the helm
John Keefe beamed with excitement, his eyes sweeping the panorama
of shrouds and masts and rising canvas with awed reverence. “She’ll
do ye proud, sir! She’ll do her
country
proud! And judging
by the merry look in yer eye, I can tell ye’re in love with her
already. Ha ha, Cap’n, we’ll show them Brits the stuff we’re made
of! We’ll give ’em what-for! We’ll show ’em we mean business!”

Brendan grinned and pointed through the
shrouds. “See that little boat full of spectators off the starboard
bow? Hit it, Mr. Keefe, and you won’t think I’m quite so
merry!”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n.”

The wind began to pick up as they moved
steadily toward the river’s mouth. They’d left the wharves and
crowds and marshlands behind, and now sand dunes, patchy with snow
and tufts of dead beach grass, slipped past on either beam. It was
so quiet that even the hiss of snow falling on deck and whispering
through the rigging sounded loud. A gust of wind caught the jib,
cracking it like thunder in the stillness. Keefe eased the tiller
bar and the schooner answered, swinging slightly to larboard in her
escort’s wake.

Brendan gripped his hands behind his back.
Soon now, they’d be in open ocean and he could put her though her
paces.

And as they passed the northern tip of Plum
Island, the wind drove hard against them,
Kestrel
rose up on
her heel in eagerness, and every man aboard caught his breath.
There it was, the gray and stormy Atlantic, spread out before them
in all its winter splendor.

The pilot boat fell back, her guns rumbling
in salute.

“Hands to the sheets and trim for beam reach
on the larboard tack! Hoist foresail and main! Smartly, Mr.
Wilbur!”

They were a bit slow, but they’d get the feel
of her soon enough. They all would. Brendan went to the after rail
and gripped the cold, snowy wood, watching necklaces of foam
writhing in their wake, the pewter seas rolling past. In his
fingertips he felt the vibrations of wind strumming through
shrouds, of mast hoops crawling skyward as the mainsail rose with
its boom, higher and higher until snow blurred its outline and the
proud pennants that snapped so far above it. “Sheet home!” he
called, and
Kestrel
leaned hard into the sea and driving
spray, showing her heels to the land she would soon leave far
behind.

And she did not overset herself.

The crew gave a mighty cheer, the huzzahs
ringing up to the very clouds themselves. The rum would flow like
water tonight. They had the finest ship ever to hail from
Newburyport, the luckiest captain this side of Ireland, and an
ocean full of British shipping just waiting for them. One by one
and in pairs, in groups, they went below to warm up, to sing, and
to drink toasts to their future success.

All of them except a skeleton crew and one
gunner from Newburyport, a tiny mite in an oversized hat, a
tarpaulin coat, and a seaman’s braid that hung like a rope halfway
to his trouser-clad rump. Standing beside the cannon he’d dubbed
Freedom
and already claimed as his own, the little gunner
watched his captain reclaim the helm, seeing the squared shoulders,
the queued and snow-encrusted chestnut hair, the smart tricorne,
dark coattails, and crimson waistcoat through a wall of driving
snowflakes.

Already the footprints of his crewmates were
filling with snow, but there would be time to join them later. Time
to swap stories with friends from Newburyport, to make new ones
among the Irishmen who had yet to find out he wasn’t quite the lad
he appeared. But for the moment, Mira, in her disguise, was content
to watch that lone figure at the helm as Salisbury, Plum Island,
and the land itself fell behind them and
Kestrel
drove
toward a horizon buried in spray, snow, and, it was hoped,
glory.

Brendan . . . a captain alone with his ship
for the first time. It was a private moment, and she had no right
to intrude.

Shivering, she moved across the snowy,
plunging deck and made her way toward
Kestrel’s
unconventional aft-facing hatch. But just before she dropped below
the coaming, she turned for a final look at him.

He was still standing there.

And though the distance that separated them
was blurred by falling snow, she could see that he was
grinning.

###

After spending the night arguing with
Kestrel
’s officers—Lieutenant Liam Doherty, in
particular—before finally convincing them that her gender had
nothing to do with her abilities as a gunner, it was no wonder that
Mira slept right through breakfast, which was really just as well;
she’d never been overly fond of cold oatmeal anyhow.

They’d finally agreed to let her stay, if
only for their own amusement at having a “wee mite” aboard whose
identity would remain a delightful secret from their captain. Of
course, the emphatic testimony of her abilities from the
Newburyporters aboard the schooner who’d sailed with her on her
brother’s privateer helped sway things in her favor; after all, the
legendary success of
Proud Mistress
was not only due to the
command of Captain Matthew Ashton, but also to the skills of his
little sister at her favorite gun.

Brendan was not the only one who was unaware
that Miss Mira Ashton was aboard a ship; Ephraim, thumbing to the
Marine News section of the
Essex Gazette
at exactly eight
o’clock that morning, was also unaware of it—although when he
hadn’t seen hide nor hair of his daughter by ten o’clock, he had no
delusions as to her whereabouts, and neither did his neighbors, who
heard his roaring all the way down to the Beacon Oak and
beyond.

Ephraim may have thought she’d sailed with
Matt, who’d put to sea an hour after Brendan had, but at ten
o’clock aboard
Kestrel—
or rather, four bells of the forenoon
watch, in ship’s time—Mira was sound asleep in a hammock against
the curve of the inner hull. Suddenly cries came drifting down from
above.

“On deck!”

She opened an eye and groggily pulled her
wool blanket up to her chin. It took her a moment to remember where
she was; then, upon realizing she was on
his
ship and he was
somewhere nearby, a slow, happy warmth spread through her and she
felt as content as a kitten with a full belly. Topside, she could
hear wind moaning around the masts, footsteps pounding above her
head. She placed a hand against the hull. It was cold to the touch
but dry, and on the other side she could feel the sea surging past.
The hammock swung with the motion of the ship, and in the gloom
around her she saw one or two others, still abed, raise their
heads.

Brendan’s musical voice, faint through wind
and distance, drifted down. “Report, Mr. Reilly!”

Mira propped herself on an elbow, balancing
herself with natural ease against the hammock’s unsteadiness.

“Sail fine off the sta’b’d bows, Cap’n!” A
gust of wind hit the schooner, and the rest of the lookout’s words
were lost.