The Falmouth Frigate by James L. Nelson

Author:James L. Nelson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781493071241
Publisher: McBooks Press
Published: 2022-07-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Isaac Biddlecomb was exhausted, but he knew sleep would not come, so he did not even try. He sat at his table in the great cabin for some time, a candle flickering in the cold drafts coming in from a dozen places, a half-finished letter to Virginia spread out in front of him. He had managed to scrawl a part of a sentence over the course of the previous forty-five minutes, some ridiculous and barely coherent nonsense, and now he was trying to work up the energy to scratch it out.

Damn it all, damn it… he thought. It was maddening, infuriating, beyond endurance, the situation he was in. He felt helpless, immobilized, and there was no feeling, none, that he despised more than that.

They were trapped. Stalemate. As long as Barnett stayed where he was, as long as the Gloucester County Militia refused to act, then there was nothing he, Biddlecomb, could do. If he could speak to Somers he felt certain he could cajole, browbeat, threaten, or bribe the man into acting in concert with the men of Falmouth to drive Barnett away. But he could not speak to Somers. Because Barnett was where he was.

There was no getting to town by way of the wharf, that was clear, and there was no way to get there by water, either. A ship such as Falmouth would normally carry a minimum of five boats, but the partially built frigate had none. The only boat they had had been aboard Sparrowhawk. And that had disappeared with Angus McGinty.

So, it was not a fight they had there at Great Egg Harbor, it was an endurance contest. It was a race to see if Barnett’s men would get fed up with bivouacking in the cold and leave before Biddlecomb’s men ran out of food. The Lord alone knew how long it would take to find that out.

Biddlecomb felt suddenly that he would explode if he stayed in that cabin for a moment more. He stood quickly, nearly knocking his chair over as he did, pulled on his heavy watch coat, pushed his hat down on his head, and made his way up the ladder to the quarterdeck above.

Midshipman Gerrish had the watch, but by the time Biddlecomb reached the deck, he had retreated to the seaward side. From there, he touched his hat and said, “Evening, Captain,” as Biddlecomb stepped through the scuttle, and said no more.

Biddlecomb nodded his reply. He stepped over to the rail on the landward side and looked out into the night. He was grateful, at least, that Gerrish had the good sense not to engage him in conversation or ask him why he was still awake at that hour.

He put his hands on the rail and stared out at the dark town beyond the far end of the wharf. Behind the scattering of tents he could make out the glow of several small cook fires and he pictured Barnett’s rag and tag troops huddled around them as they kept some sort of watch.

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