1636 Commander Cantrell in the West Indies: Chapter Seventeen

East of St. Christopher, Caribbean

    Through the salt spray and dusty rose of early dawn, Hugh Albert O’Donnell compared Michael McCarthy Jr.’s pinched, weather-seamed eyes with Aodh O’Rourke’s pale-lipped scowl. The latter, staring at the balloon as it swelled up and off the poop deck, muttered, “You’d not get me to swing ‘neath that bag o’ gas.” Then Hugh’s lieutenant of eight years nodded to the up-timer beside him. “No offense to your handiwork, Don Michael.”

    ‘Don’ Michael — who Hugh had convinced, at no small expense of effort, to accept the honorific — simply shrugged. “No offense taken. I’m not riding in it myself. That’s for young Mulryan, here.”

    Mulryan, an apple-faced lad with an unruly shock of red hair, nodded. “An’ it’s not so bad, O’Rourke. After the fourth or fifth time, yeh forget the height. Seems natural’t does.”

    “To you, maybe,” O’Rourke grumbled, and then moved aside as feet thumped up the stairs from the weather deck behind him.

    Hugh swayed up from his easy seat on the taffrail as Captain Paul Morraine rose into view. He was followed by a taller, thinner man whose arrival resulted in an almost uniform hardening of expressions and veiling of eyes: Morraine’s immediate subordinate, First Mate Georges St. Georges, was not a favorite with the Irish, nor with his own crew. Only Michael’s expression remained unaltered. The two senior officers of the Fleur Sable joined the group just as McGillicuddy, chief of the balloon’s ground crew, set his legs firm and wide to help his men tug on the guidelines. Straining together, they drew more of the swelling envelop up toward them and away from the mizzenmast, the yard having been dropped to accommodate this process.

    Morraine nodded at Hugh. “Lord O’Donnell.”

    Hugh nodded back. “You wish to have your mizzen back as soon as possible, captain?”

    The left corner of Morraine’s mouth quirked. For him, this was the equivalent of a broad grin. “It is so obvious?”

    Hugh smiled. “Well, yes. And sensible as well. But at a height of six hundred feet, we will see what lies before us and enter the channel between St. Christopher and St. Eustatia as fast and unseen as the wind that’s rising behind us.”

    “Which I do not wish to miss, sir. Monsieur McCarthy tells me this is a swift procedure, yes?”

    McCarthy shrugged, inspecting the billowing envelope. “It’ll be aloft in fifteen minutes, up for ten, down in ten, deflated enough for you to remount your mizzenmast in another ten. So, forty-five minutes, barring mishaps.”

    Morraine nodded, nose into the wind. “Just in time, I would say. I want to be see the lights of Basseterre behind us by midnight.”

    St. Georges sniffed distastefully at the pitch-soaked combustibles already smoking in the hand burner that Tearlach Mulryan was readying. “I, for one, am worried that your observer will not see all the ships before us.”

    Mulryan raised a mildly contentious index finger. “Ah, but I will, sir. Six hundred feet altitude and this improved spyglass” — he tapped the brass tube in his rude ‘web gear’ — “will show us the horizon out to thirty-three miles or so, and we’ll see the top of most any masts at least ten miles further out.”

    “So you have said.” St. Georges sniffed again, this time at Mulryan’s claim.

    “And so we have seen in the trials we’ve conducted since leaving France,” Morraine followed with a calm, if impatient glance at his XO. “However, we will want to keep your men below decks much of the time, now, Lord O’Donnell. In the event our reconnaissance is incomplete, or Fate forces an encounter upon us, it would not do to have a passing ship see our complement to be markedly greater than the expected crew of this vessel.”

    “Agreed, Captain. Point well taken. Besides, my men will be busy at their own tasks.”

    “Which shall be?”

    “Sharpening their swords and cleaning their pieces.”

    Morraine’s left eyebrow arched. “Indeed. I took the liberty of inspecting the armorer’s locker after your men came aboard. All snaphaunces, even a few flintlocks. Expensive equipment, if I may say so.”

    “Say away, for its true enough. But Lord Turenne agreed that it makes little sense to go to all the expense of mounting our expedition, and then arm the shore party with inferior firearms.”

    “True enough. But almost half were pistols and the new-style musketoons. Most uncommon.”

    “As uncommon as our task, Captain.” Hugh leaned back against the taffrail. “We’ll not spend much of our time at ranges greater than fifty yards, if my guess is right. So while we’ll want the ability to pour in a few volleys, I expect we’ll have little time or reason for serried ranks and maneuver. As I hear it, Pitch Lake itself is the only ‘open field’ we’ll encounter. But there’s plenty of bush to worm through. So I suspect most of the fighting will be quick and close.”

    Morraine nodded. “Reasonable. Let us hope you do not have much fighting to do, though. Sixty men is not many for such an enterprise, even on the sparsely populated islands of the New World.”

    O’Donnell nodded. “I agree.” He smiled. “Perhaps you could convince Lord Turenne to send along a few more.”

    Morraine’s lip almost quirked again. “Indeed. I shall mention it to him upon my return, perhaps over our first glass of wine.”

    Hugh nodded, let his grin become rueful. It was out of the realm of possibility that Morraine would actually ever meet Turenne, much less have the position or opportunity to suggest anything to the French general about operations here in the Caribbean. In addition to Turenne’s being a phenomenally busy man, Morraine’s appointment as the commander of the Fleur Sable had been a somewhat delicate business, handled by faceless bureaucrats at the unspoken but clear promptings of Turenne’s immediate subordinates. To have gone about it more openly would have been seen as undermining the naval court which had been well-paid to dismiss Morraine as a scapegoat for a young and thoroughly incompetent executive officer who just happened to be the son of an unscrupulous duke. Consequently, it was necessary that Turenne should never have direct contact with Morraine, lest both of them come under the scrutiny of that same duke, who, like most powerful men guilty of suborning a court, would spare no effort to ensure that the lies he had paid to be called ‘the truth’ would not be revealed or revisited.

    Morraine’s point about a scant sixty-man force was true enough. It left Hugh O’Donnell no margin for error, no extra resources with which to cope with surprises, reversals, or just plain bad luck. But the other Wild Geese who had been scheduled to follow him down from the Lowlands had never arrived. According to Turenne’s last message, Fernando of the Lowlands had personally forbidden their departure, pending a reconsideration of their contracts and oaths to Spain. It all sounded a little suspicious to Hugh, but that was several months, and several thousand miles, behind him now. He would have to make do with the men and resources he had, and hope for the others to come along in due course.

    Morraine’s version of a smile had faded. He looked at the expanding balloon, then at the seas over the bow. “Well, Lord O’Donnell, I shall leave you and your, er, ‘ground crew’ to your business. The sooner you are done here, the sooner we can be under way and finish this dirty business.”

    Hugh kept even the faintest hint of resentment out of his voice. “‘Dirty’ business?’ “

    Morraine paused. “Lord O’Donnell, I mean no offense. As you, I am estranged from my country. And so I will not be happy until I may stand proud beneath French colors. I am no pirate.”

    “Indeed, and so you are not flying one of their dread flags.”

    “Nor am I flying the flag of France, Lord O’Donnell. And until I do, my loyalties and intentions must be considered suspect by all whom we encounter. So I leave you to your work, that we may both return to service beneath our nation’s banners with all possible haste.” He nodded a farewell.

    As Hugh nodded in return, he considered Morraine’s tight, craggy, and mostly immobile features. The Breton had a good record operating in the open waters off Penzance and Wight, and was patriotically eager to end his estrangement from the pleasure of Louis XIII. He was also clearly thrilled to have a cromster’s deck under his feet. During her trials off Dunkirk, he had made eager use of her mizzen’s lateen-rig, getting a feel for the Fleur Sable‘s maneuverability. He had demonstrated a keen appreciation of her comparatively shallow draft, and enhanced (albeit not extreme) ability to tack against the wind — operational flexibilities he had not had much opportunity to enjoy while serving in His Majesty’s lumbering battlewagons. Hugh just hoped that, like uncounted thousands of commanders before him, Morraine did not over-indulge his new enthusiasms during combat. War was a messy business, best approached by leaving wide margins for error and the unexpected.

    Morraine’s swift descent from the poop deck prompted St. Georges into a hurried attempt to follow, which was suddenly blocked by the balloon’s uncoiling guidelines. As he sought clear passage, further obstacles obtruded themselves. Spools of down-timer telegraph cable and McGillicuddy’s thick, powerful legs threatened to tumble him. Aggrieved, the third son of a wealthy merchant glared archly at the Irish earl. “I must pass, Monsieur O’Donnell.”

    Who found the make-believe-officer too ridiculous to be a source of offense. St. Georges’ class paranoia was as thick about him as the smell of his abysmal teeth. Every time he addressed O’Donnell as ‘Monsieur’ instead of ‘Lord,’ he seemed poised to gloat over the slight. “I must pass,” St. Georges repeated.

    Hugh smiled wider. “And you have my leave to do so.”

    St. Georges stared down at the tangle of cables, grabbing ground-crew hands, and McGillicuddy’s tree-trunk legs. Pointing at the latter, St. Georges raised his chin. “I know nothing of your Irish military customs, but in our service, this man must make way for me when I approach. You:” — he addressed the word sharply to McGillicuddy — “move! At once!”

    Hugh had just decided that St. Georges was able to annoy him after all, when the aeronaut of the hour — lean and lively Tearlach Mulryan — jumped between them. He made his appeal with a lopsided grin. “Lieutenant St. Georges, the chief of our ground crew, McGillicuddy, regrets being unable to move aside, but he is hard at his duties. The equipment for the balloon is rather cumbersome and hard to control during deployment.”

    “Then he can at least show proper deference to his betters, and excuse himself.”

    “Sir, he does not understand French, and his English is imperfect. He is from a remote area of Ireland, and speaks little but Gaelic.”

    “Then use that tongue to acquaint him with my displeasure!”

    Mulryan did so. McGillicuddy listened to young Tearlach’s fluent stream of Gaelic gravely. Toward the end, the big crew chief brightened, looked up at St. Georges and smiled. “Pog ma thoin,” he offered sincerely.

    “What did he say?”

    “‘A thousand pardons.’”

    “That’s better.” St. Georges marched briskly off.

    Hugh turned carefully astern, looked into the brightening east, and did not allow his expression to change.

    Someone came to stand beside him: McCarthy. “Okay, what’s the joke?”

    “Joke?”

    “Don’t give me that. You’re wearing your best poker-face and the ground crew is about to split a gut. What gives?”

    “Mulryan translated ‘pog ma thoin’ incorrectly.”

    “So it’s not ‘a thousand pardons?’ “

    “No. It’s ‘kiss my ass.’ And by the way, McGillicuddy speaks perfect English.”

    Hugh glanced at Mike, saw the hint of a smile that matched his own. Then McCarthy shook his head and looked up at the dull blue-grey canvas swelling over their heads. “C’mon,” he said, “let’s go fly a balloon.”

    Hugh watched McCarthy snug Tearlach into the heavy flight harness. It was fundamentally just an extension of the gondola, which was itself little more than a tall apple basket. McCarthy, Mulryan, and the ground crew went through all the “preflight checks” that Hugh himself had memorized, having now watched the process a dozen times. But just as he expected to see the final, confirmatory thumbs-up, Michael tugged an old back-pack out of the port quarter tackle locker. From that bag, he produced a heavily modified and retrofitted metal contraption that might have started out as some species of up-timer lantern or field stove, now capped by a home-built nozzle-and-cone fixture. The only identifying mark was no help in discerning the purpose of the device. Near the base of the dark green metal tube, a legend was stamped in bold white block letters: “Coleman.”

    O’Rourke drew alongside Hugh and jutted his chin at the odd machine. “First time I’ve seen that tinker’s nightmare.”

    “Me, too.”

    “And I’ve been on hand for almost all the development of the balloon, y’ know.”

    “I know.”

    “And I don’t think McCarthy shared this little toy with the French, m’Lord.”

    “I think you’re right,” Hugh said slowly, watching as McCarthy tutored Mulryan in the simple operation of this new “toy,” which, from McCarthy’s overheard explanation, seemed to be an up-time auxiliary burner which could be used to extend flight time or gain further altitude.

    McCarthy backed away from Mulryan, gave his customary benediction, which was, he had explained, a tradition among balloonists from his century: “Soft winds and gentle landings.” And then he continued in a surprisingly fatherly tone. “Now don’t be in too much of a rush. First, make a full three-hundred-sixty degree observation just to detect ships and other objects of interest. Then, conduct a close inspection of each before you signal its bearing, approximate range, and heading if she’s under way. Then on to the next.”

    Tearlach was smiling indulgently at McCarthy’s unaccustomed loquacity. “Yes, Don Michael, just the way you’ve told me. Twenty times, now.”

    “You ready, then?”

    Hugh had the impression that Mulryan might have done anything to get away from stoic Michael McCarthy’s unforeseen and unprecedented transmogrification into a nervous biddy. The former Louvain student nodded and smiled wider. The ground crew held tight the guidelines and then released their mooring locks with a sharp clack. Tearlach Mulryan started up gently, and then, with a whoop, surged aloft as the crew played out the lines.

    Hugh stepped closer, craned his neck, and watched. “Well, Michael, in your parlance, the balloon is no longer in trials, but ‘fully operational.’ According to your history books, this is a historic first flight, is it not?”

    Michael nodded. “First flight for an expressly military balloon, to my knowledge. Up-time or down-time.” Then he looked almost sternly at Hugh. “And while we’re on the topic of historic events, here’s another: this journey to Trinidad will be your last ‘flight’ as an exile — the last flight that any Irish earl will ever have to undertake.”

    Hugh smiled at the optimistic resolve, but was a bit perplexed at the borderline ferocity with which Michael had uttered it. “From your lips to God’s ear, my friend.”

    But Michael was looking at the balloon again. “First flight. And last flight. My word on it.” He must have felt Hugh’s curious stare, but he did not look over.

    Hugh stood, arms folded, intentionally radiating avuncular pleasure and approval, as Tearlach Mulryan finished delivering his ground report. The details conformed to what he had relayed from his floating perch in the dit-dah-dit agglomeration of dots and dashes that the up-timers called Morse Code. The channel between St. Eustatia and St. Christopher was all but empty. One vessel, probably a Dutch fluyt, was in the straits but while Mulryan watched, she had weighed anchor and was now hugging the coast westward. She would soon have sailed around, and tucked safely behind, the leeward headland, probably on her way to the relatively new Dutch settlement of Oranjestad. This meant Morraine could begin his approach, and with a strong wind over the starboard quarter, make the windward mouth of the channel before sundown. If the breeze held, Morraine declared he’d stay close to the north side of the channel, running dark along the southern headland of sparsely-populated St. Eustatia in order to make an unseen night passage. Barring unforeseen encounters or tricks of the wind, he surmised that, by the middle watch, he’d be raising a glass of cognac to toast the dwindling lights of Basseterre as he looked out his stern-facing cabin windows. Pleased with the prospect of so undetected a passage and such an enjoyable celebration of it, Morraine nodded appreciatively to McCarthy, and disappeared down the companionway into the bowels of the quarterdeck, calling for the navigator and pilot to join him at the chart-table in the ward-room.

    Mulryan watched the captain and his all-French entourage depart, and then sidled over toward Hugh and Michael. “My Lords,” he said with a quick look over his shoulder, “I may have broken our hosts’ trust.”

    Hugh carefully kept his posture unchanged, casual. “In what way, Mulryan?”

    “M’Lord, I, um, edited my report.”

    “Did you, now?”

    “Yes, m’Lord. There’s one ship I did not mention. She’s directly astern, maybe forty miles, due east. Not much smaller than us, judging from what little I could make of her masts.”

    “Saw them against the brightening sky?”

    “Aye, but not well. I checked her again when the sun came up.” He looked at the overcast skies. “So to speak.”

    “And tell me, Tearlach, why did you choose to ‘forget’ this piece of information that I’m sure would have been of considerable interest to Captain Morraine?”

    “Because sir, unless I am very much mistaken, she was putting up a balloon, too. A white one. Like ours used to be.”

    Hugh kept himself from starting. “Was it the same design as ours?”

    Mulryan grimaced. “M’Lord, that new spyglass is a wonder, and my eyes are as good as any in County Mayo, but forty miles is a long way by any measure.”

    Hugh smiled. “True enough, Tearlach.”

    “But — another ship with a balloon? What do you think it is, Lord O’Donnell?”

    Hugh was considering how best to tactfully phrase his speculations when Michael shared his own — bluntly. “That, young Mulryan, is our master’s eye.”

    “Lord Turenne? He sent a ship after us?”

    “He, or Richelieu, almost certainly,” Hugh confirmed.

    “It only makes sense that he’d want to keep an eye on what we do,” Michael conceded. Then, with a smile, “If he can, that is.”

    Tearlach cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

    “I mean that ship can’t have seen us today. She was easy for us to spot, silhouetted against the dawn while putting up a white balloon. But, from her perspective, we were against the western pre-dawn darkness, putting up a blue-grey balloon. She didn’t see us.”

    Hugh rubbed his chin. “So that’s why you had our balloon painted only after we left Dunkirk. You didn’t want Turenne to know you’d camouflaged it.”

    “Right, and that’s why we were four days out before I started running test ascents over three hundred feet. As far as Turenne knows, one hundred yards is as high as we’re rated to go. He’ll have tried pushing that limit a bit himself, but not as aggressively as we have.”

    “And he won’t have that little toy you gave Tearlach right before he went up.”

    McCarthy nodded. “Yeah, the boost from the natural gas burner doesn’t last long, but it does give you a little extra height. Or time. Which are the edges we need. And by tonight, we’ll be so far off, that he won’t have any chance to catch sight of us again. Now, ‘scuse me. I’m gonna show Mulryan here how to take care of my ‘toy’.” And he took the natural gas burner from Tearlach’s hands and led the young aeronaut back to the poop deck.

    As they left, O’Rourke sauntered over from the rail.

    “Heard all that?” asked Hugh.

    O’Rourke nodded. “Every word.”

    “And what do you think?”

    “I think McCarthy is shrewd. Maybe too shrewd.”

    “What do you mean?”

    “I know that look, Hugh O’Donnell. You’ve misgivings of your own.”

    “But I’ll hear yours first, O’Rourke.”

    “As you wish. So, the ship on our tail couldn’t see us today. Bravo. But hardly luck, eh?”

    “What do you mean?”

    “I mean that McCarthy has had every step of this game sussed out from the start. From before we left France, it seems.”

    “And that’s bad?”

    “Not in itself, no. But why didn’t he bring us into his confidence on all this earlier? Because rest assured, he’s been playing this game of chess five moves ahead of the opposition, he has.”

    “What do you mean?”

    “I mean that he obviously foresaw that Turenne would send a ship after us. And so he saves some special tricks for our balloon, to make it more than a match for the one Turenne has. But in order to have those tricks at hand, he must have anticipated needing them much earlier. So, from the time he started working in Amiens, he must have been expecting that Turenne would be crafting a secret duplicate balloon off-site, even as he and Haas were constructing the original model.”

    “Strange, O’Rourke: having an ally with that kind of foresight sounds like a great advantage to me, not a source of worry.”

    “Aye, but that ally is an advantage only if he shares what he’s seen from the peak of his lofty foresight, m’Lord. And Don Michael, whatever his reasons might be, did not do so.”

    “So what are you saying? That he’s not to be trusted?”

    O’Rourke rubbed his thick nose with a flat, meaty thumb. “I wouldn’t be saying so black a thing as that, m’Lord. But if Don McCarthy is clever enough to keep important secrets from someone like General Turenne, then isn’t it a possibility that he could be keeping important secrets from us, too?”

    Hugh nodded, turned his gaze slowly to where Michael McCarthy was tutoring Mulryan, back at the taffrail. “Yes, O’Rourke, there is that possibility. There is definitely that possibility.”