City of Glory by Beverly Swerling Page A

“Call this a storm, do you?” Finbar O’Toole shouted, laughing up at the lowering sky. “You must be getting tired.” His ship pitched and heaved in New York Harbor. O’Toole smiled broadly at the thought of what it must feel like below, with no fresh air to make it a bit easier to bear. Serves you right, you godrotting bastard.
    Ostensibly, he was alone with the three men left aboard now that the ship had been unladed and moved away from the wharf to a mooring in the roads, amid the moldering sloops, schooners, and merchantmen imprisoned in the harbor by the blockade. Most of the crew had been given their wages and let go. But Blakeman had offered his captain an extra quarter percent of the profits of the sale—on top of the three percent that was his payment for the voyage—if he’d remain aboard and take charge of the ship and a few hands to tend her. A month or two, Blakeman said. Fair enough; there was no place on earth Finbar O’Toole was more comfortable than on a ship. And soon as he could get done what needed doing, there really would be only himself and the tars aboard.
    O’Toole glanced toward the bow. Tammy Tompkins was on watch, huddled below a tarpaulin awning rigged in the forecastle. The other crewmen were sleeping off their dinners in hammocks on the berthing deck below. As good an opportunity as he’d have, O’Toole decided. He raised the hatch near the mizzenmast and started down the ladderway.
    A merchantman was designed to be a seagoing warehouse; everything belowdecks that wasn’t strictly necessary to keep her afloat was eliminated in favor of more room in the hold. Canton Star was a hundred feet long and pierced for twenty cannon. O’Toole had known he could barely handle three, even with his full crew of nineteen. He’d mounted half a dozen guns before they left China, three to use if he must and three in reserve—for when the bloody barrels burst in the heat o’ battle, as they always did. But thank the Blessed Virgin and all the saints, he hadn’t fired a shot. He knew when he agreed to captain Star and chance a run of the blockade that he couldn’t outfight the poxing Royal Navy. His only hope was to sneak past her. And he had. A bit o’ seamanship, yes, but mostly sheer poxing luck. Joyful had the notion he was some kind o’ miracle worker; the lad had listened to too many fanciful stories at Morgan Turner’s knee. Though from the sound of it, ’twas his cousin Andrew as told him the strangest. True enough about the treasure Captain Turner buried, but that Andrew, who’d never been aboard ship in his life, knew where it was when Morgan Turner himself had forgot—that was hard to credit.
    The captain’s cabin was in the stern, beautifully fitted in wood and brass, and spacious by shipboard standards. It was also one of the few places aboard with a lock on the inside of the door. O’Toole let himself in and shot the bolt. The light that entered through the rain-lashed single porthole was murky and gray, but enough for him to find a small lantern, strike a spark, and get it lit. He held the lantern high, looking at the section of oak-paneled wall that appeared exactly like all the rest, unless you knew exactly the place to press to reveal a small hiding place. That’s where the poxed ebony box had been the entire journey. Bad joss, that box. He’d have refused to take it, refused to captain this ship or make this journey, if it hadn’t been that doing so solved an enormous problem of his own.
    O’Toole lifted the hatch in the corner opposite the secret wall locker and descended the steps that provided the only access to the stores kept below the orlop deck. During a voyage the reserves of rum were kept in that secure region below the captain’s cabin. It was also the location of the aft powder magazine. The opening and the stairs themselves were broader than any other ladderway aboard because they had been built to allow for manhandling large kegs above decks.
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