12. Dangerous waters

Jack had about four hours to sleep, or at least to rest, and to think of a way out of this infernal situation he found himself in. ‘God damn and blast it all to hell,’ he grumbled under his breath as he sat on his cot in his tent. The urgency of finding a solution for the gold problem was mounting with every grain of sand passing through the hourglass, with every tick of his timepiece, but all he could seem to think about was Cat. Cat in his arms, her lips against his, her soft breath on his ear, whispering that they could not... they could not... Well of course they could not. But oh how he wanted to!

With a big sigh, Jack stretched out on the cot. He was still dressed in shirt and breeches and he stared at his sailcloth roof until his eyes burned, but sleep wouldn’t come, nor would a solution to the infernal quandary of the gold. Jack let the options he’d devised so far run through his mind again and none of the equations added up to a number that he found satisfactory. ‘It don’t answer,’ he finally growled to himself, getting up again, ‘it just don’t ruddy answer!’

The night was dark but balmy and the dying beach fires gave off a modest glow, but more light came off the surf, which glowed fluorescent and pooled the struts supporting the Surprise in an eerie light. Jack padded barefoot towards the flood line, shirt only half tucked in, and he let the shimmering water play over his feet. Then, curious, he waded through the water to where his ship lay, showing her underbelly now that the water was receding.

There wasn’t much light but then Jack didn’t need much. He could make it out from the growths that adorned his ship in strange square patches: her copper plating was in a lamentable state. Large swathes were missing and Jack reckoned that the marine biotope the Surprise had been towing along would no doubt be of great interest to Stephen, but it would also be enormously detrimental to her sailing qualities. Perhaps the gold was only partly responsible for the Surprise’s bad performance all round. Perhaps a sound careening would do the trick, or at least a large part of the trick. The struts would have to be removed and she would have to be laid over on her side by way of attaching a halyard to the mainmast top and then to a nearby rock or tree, because it was of course extremely dangerous to work her bottom while she was strutted. Imagine one of he struts would give, and part of his already depleted crew would get caught underneath the hull.

He would never have ordered struts if she hadn’t been so absurdly weighted down. He would simply have had her beached and hauled over straight away, but with all the gold hidden inside her, he just couldn’t be sure if the hull would withstand the added weight if he laid her over. The Surprise was old. He liked to think she was still in her prime, and would say so to whomever would get it in heir heads to speak badly of her, but realistically speaking, she was an aged man o’war and her timbers had seen better days. He’d have to order the men to get the guns out of her as well, before getting at the gold; after all, better safe than sorry.

Calculating how much time it would cost to remove the guns, then remove the gold from her hull and then finally, gently, laying the Surprise on her side like the old lady she really was, Jack realised that it would take them until the next low tide before they could start cleaning her fouled bottom. Getting the guns out however could possibly give him the extra couple of hours he needed to devise a plan for the gold. He was sure his master carpenter had kept a stopper clapped on firmly and had not informed any of his shipmates, so there was still some time. Not much, but some.

Jack waded around the Surprise, the sea softly sloshing around his legs and at one point getting deep enough for him to wet his thighs, but he was oblivious to it. The Surprise’s bottom really was in a very bad state indeed and he sighed, thinking how he would give his right hand for a stack of good copper sheeting. Cat had been very, very sweet, trying to help him and telling him that the Marlboroughs had a shipyard, but how that could be of any service to him now, he could not see it. The shipyard was in England, and he was here on Fortuna.

He was aware of the Duke’s yard, of course; the Duke owned an impressive merchant fleet which had restored his much depleted family fortune to its former glory, and having his own yard for maintenance seemed like a very sound business choice. Jack had actually seriously contemplated calling on the Duke’s man of business and discussing captaincy on one of his vessels. Contemplated it with a steady aversion that is, and as far as he was concerned, the Admiralty in the shape of that rotted whoreson Admiral Harte had come through just in time. Sometimes a mariner’s place was at sea and nowhere else, Jack mused; especially when life on land was getting to be close to unbearable.

Ah, a privately owned shipyard! What a delight, if he’d be allowed to refit there! The finest cordage, the best quality sailcloth, snow white and strong, shot that flew fast and true and powder of the finest grain. He’d be in sailing heaven if the Duke only would allow… but wait a minute. The Duke had disappeared, along with the Duchess. Only Cat had survived, and he had rescued her… What did that signify? Could he perhaps, upon his return, claim some sort of compensation for himself and his crew? Or make use of the yard for the Surprise? Or… But who’d sanction it, without the Duke present? If he could be sure that he’d be able to use the yard, and if he knew that the Duke’s men could be trusted, he’d take to sea on the next tide and sail home as fast as he could, only to have the gold removed right there in England. It would still be treason though, involving even more people, and on English soil to boot, so no, no, that plan did not add up either.

‘Lord almighty!’ Jack cursed, kicking the water in frustration. There was just no way out of this situation. He looked up at the stars for inspiration and saw something white flash out of the corner of his eye. What was that? He whipped his head around to see and got a surprise that was both shocking and ethereally beautiful in nature.

Cat had wandered from her tent, in nothing but her night shift – well, one of Jack’s large shirts, to be entirely correct, and she now stood at the waterline, the fringes of the surf playing along her legs. She seemed mesmerized by the fluorescence of the water, and Jack was equally mesmerized by the sight of her standing there, her hair loosened from its braid and gently flying on the night breeze, and her shift billowing out around her.

Several of the men had seen her as well, but they kept a respectable distance. She looked like something from a fairy tale, and Jack’s heart pounded as he waded over to her. He was feeling unreal, dreamlike, while at the same time he was absurdly worried for her wellbeing. Not long ago she had been too weak to stand, and now she’d walked all the way across the sand from the tent to the sea. She could collapse any second, Jack was sure of it. He extended his arm and she grabbed his hand with surprising strength, and with a few more sloshing steps he was at her side.

‘Cat… are you all of a piece?’ he worriedly asked, supporting her with an arm around her. She leaned against him a little.

‘It is so beautiful…’ she whispered dreamily, ‘I have never seen anything alike. Whatever may befall me now, the sight of this will stay with me all my life… Captain… Jack…’ she looked up at him in wonder, ‘is this… are you a mirage?’

‘Tis the laudanum speaking, I’m sure,’ Jack murmured, ‘I do assure you I am real, madam, as is the sea you find yourself in at this very moment; now come, allow me to carry you back to your tent,’ and he gently lifted her in his arms. ‘You will catch your death, sweet Cat, walking around like this, getting your shift all wet; the Doctor will not be pleased.’

‘It was so beautiful…’ she whispered into his collar, and Jack suppressed a shudder of pure delight when he felt the soft fingers of her breath on the skin of his neck. He cleared his throat, which sounded like a cannon firing to his own ears, then started talking.

‘We must find you a dry shift. You cannot possibly sleep in this one, the hem is dripping wet. There is a chest full of ladies’ apparel – have you seen it? I placed it in your tent for exactly that purpose myself. Let us hope that there will be something in there that we can use for your shift, and...’ Good God, he was babbling like an old maid. He quickly stoppered the chatter that seemed to pour from his mouth unbidden and grimaced when he wrestled the tent flap and manoeuvred Cat inside. He sat her on the cot with care then opened the chest and removed item after item: soft little camisoles and corsets of the finest silk, shawls, beautiful dresses, stockings; the pile of first class fabric beside the chest grew higher as he neared the bottom. No night gown emerged though, and Jack carefully placed a beautiful dark green silk and velvet gown atop the stack, freezing when he heard Cat gasp. He turned just when she said,

‘I know that gown... I know it intimately.’ She blinked and her face contorted as more parts of her memory returned. They weren’t pleasant, from the look of it.

Jack knelt beside her and took her small hand in his for comfort. ‘You can speak of it if you so desire, Cat; you have my absolute discretion.’

‘Oh... it was... the Duke made me wear it at formal dinners... The colour is magnificent and the gown itself is beautifully made, it’s from Paris, but it is so uncomfortable I could not eat and once, I fainted in front of over a hundred guests... I was embarrassed beyond belief...’

‘What else did the Duke make you do?’ Jack spoke softly, hoping that she would open her heart to him, yet dreading what she would say. He would be obliged to challenge the scoundrel, Duke or no Duke, shipyard or no; the man was positively medieval.

‘Oh, he had every right,’ Cat smiled sadly, instinctively knowing where Jack’s thoughts were leading him.

‘He did not!’ Jack was indignant, and almost forgot to keep his voice down. He felt colour rising in his cheeks. ‘You may have been on his estate, part of his retinue, but you were not his slave! That dreadful practise has been prohibited by law and rightly so!’

‘Jack... he had every right to do with me as he pleased... because he was my husband. My name is Catherine Spencer-Russell and I am the Duchess of Marlborough, and I vow to you now, Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy, if the Duke really is dead, I will never marry again.’

Chapter Thirteen

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