Chapter 44 : Captain Bishop

Before they could say anything further, a hat appeared in the companionway. It was followed by a fleshy pale face above a cloud of lace. One golden epaulette decorated the navy blue shoulder in the Continental fashion. Then the captain set foot on the deck and surveyed the knot of officers on the deck of the Pegasus coolly.

"Ah, Thorton. I see the renegade has returned. We have unfinished business."

"Who is that?" blind Abby asked. He didn't like the tone and couldn't see the gold lace.

"Captain Horace Bishop, captain of His Britannic Majesty's frigate Ajax," the newcomer replied ponderously. "And who are you, sirrah?"

The blind lieutenant drew himself up straight and saluted. "Lieutenant Paul Abby, formerly fourth lieutenant of the Adamant."

"I'm glad to see you have recovered your health, Captain Bishop," Horner interjected politely. His face was schooled to neutral lines.

"I doubt it," Bishop snapped in reply. "I'll trouble you to move your things immediately. I am resuming command of the Ajax this instant."

"Of course. I'll attend to it immediately. Thorton, Abby, come." They went over the side and returned to the Ajax in the Ajax's boat, which left Bishop stranded on the deck of the Pegasus. Before he realized that they had deliberately left him behind, Tangle stepped forward.

"Bishop rais," he said in Arabic. He folded his arms over his chest. "We meet again. I'm happy to say that I too have recovered my health."

Bishop's head snapped around. "What are you doing here?"

"I have accepted an invitation to sup with the commodore."

Bishop sneered at him. "Are you sure you're not supposed to be waiting the table for him?"

Tangle stared coolly back at him. "We're meeting commodore to commodore to plan joint exercises with the English, Sallee, and Turkish navies. May I remind you that you are merely a frigate captain representing the weakest naval power in the Mediterranean?"

"I should have killed you when I had the chance!"

Tangle snorted. "You tried and failed. Unless you have been practicing your marksmanship, which I doubt, I have nothing to fear from you." He turned his back on the man. He went over the side into the Dart and was rowed back to the Arrow.

"Get me a boat!" Bishop snarled.

"Aye aye, sir." The ill-tempered captain was no better liked on the flagship than the Ajax, so the cockswain took his time about it.

Horner had all his things loaded in the Resolute's boat by the time Bishop finally arrived on board the Ajax. MacDonald the boatswain trilled his pipe and four marines lined up to present arms. The drum and fife ruffled, and the pipe trilled. Bishop swung over the gunwale and advanced between the line of marines to meet the knot of officers at the end. Horner saluted him.

"I relieve you, captain," Bishop said coldly.

"Aye aye, captain. You have the ship," Horner replied.

"All hands on deck."

"All hands on deck!" the boatswain bawled. The officers and midshipmen passed the word. The cry was carried down the hatches and into the bowels of the vessel. Men boiled up on deck and lined up in their divisions. The officers went and stood by their men.

Bishop pulled his orders from his breast pocket and read them in a stentorian voice. He followed it with a homily. "And if any of you has grown soft and slack in my absence, you will discover what it is like to work for a true taskmaster. You will do your duty or be punished to the fullest extent of the law."

After Bishop disappeared into his cabin to terrorize the seamen bringing his dunnage. Perry, Abby, Thorton, Jackson, Dr. Ferncastle, Rev. Pennybrigg, Blakesley, and the master's mates gathered on the quarterdeck. They were all in the gloomiest possible spirits as they discussed the return of the Ajax's rightful captain.

Abby spoke to Thorton. "Do you think Tangle will take me aboard the Arrow as a gentleman volunteer?"

Thorton glanced around to make certain no one was listening, then dropped his voice. "He might. I'll recommend you. Just stay out of reach. He's randy!"

Abby leaned close to Thorton and whispered, "I wouldn't mind that. He's handsome!"

"How would you know? You're blind!"

"I saw him at the victory ball, but I never got the chance to speak to him."

A string of oaths erupted from the stateroom below their feet. The noise came clearly through the skylight. They all quieted and listened. One word was very clear as the captain howled, "THORTON!"

A white-faced Thorton ran hastily down the steps and presented himself to the sentry at the door. The sentry knocked.

"Come in!" snarled Bishop.

Thorton took a deep breath, then with a trembling hand, opened the door, and entered.

Bishop held a piece of paper in his hand. "What's this?" he demanded as soon as he saw Thorton.

"I don't know, sir," Thorton replied with perfect honesty.

"This is more of your treacherous lies, that's what it is! Your filthy, conniving, desperate, despicable plots and defamation!"

"I protest, sir. I know nothing about that paper!"

Bishop crumpled it up and threw it at him. "Liar!"

Thorton caught it and unfolded it. He kept one eye on the fuming Bishop. The man was so red in the face he might burst. He paced violently up and down the cabin. "You've had it in for me ever since you first laid eyes on me. You've been scheming and plotting my downfall all along."

Thorton looked at the paper. It was a section of instructions given to the captain by Whittingdon regarding personnel aboard the Ajax, including Thorton's promotion to lieutenant. He heaved a sigh of relief—he hadn't done anything wrong. "It's just the dispatch, sir."

"I'll have you caned, mister! Caned, for the lying, deceitful traitor you are!"

Thorton replied levelly, "I am a commissioned officer not subject to corporal punishment. If you have a complaint about me, sir, I demand a court martial."

"You are insubordinate, mister!"

"You are deranged, sir."

"Insults! Insubordination! Treachery!" Bishop's hand flew and slapped Thorton hard across the face.

"I demand satisfaction on the field of honor, sir. You had no right to strike me."

"You cannot challenge your superior officer!"

"You cannot strike a subordinate officer!"

Bishop slapped him again so hard Thorton's head snapped around.

Thorton ground his teeth together. "That is an insult that can only be wiped out in blood. Choose your second. I will wait for you on the beach." He turned his back on the enraged captain and stalked out of the cabin. He slammed the door for good measure.

The knot of officers hurried down the steps to meet him on the deck. Thorton said, "Perry and Abby, will you be good enough to serve as my seconds? I have challenged Bishop to a duel. I will meet him on the beach immediately."

Bishop's swearing came clearly to them as he stalked through the coach. "THORTON! YOU WILL STAND AND FACE ME!"

"Of course, sir. On the beach. I await your pleasure. Cockswain!" He went over the side and into the Ajax's boat. He had not been the acting captain long, but most of the men were in the habit of obeying him. Most of them preferred him over Bishop. They carried Thorton and his seconds ashore willingly.

Thorton strode across the wet, hard packed sand of the lower beach. Perry helped Abby out of the boat. Abby was carrying a wooden box that he had hastily fetched. They walked along the beach with Thorton. Back at the Ajax another boat was launched. Sunlight glinted on Bishop's epaulette. Thorton detested his French airs all out of proportion to the offense at that moment. No other British captain with whom he was acquainted had adopted the French fashion of wearing epaulettes. The hypocrisy of it made his teeth grind. He couldn't wear his turban, symbol of England's ally, but Bishop could call him traitor while wearing a French officer's insignia, the symbol of England's long term and much-hated enemy.

"I'm going to kill the son of a bitch," he announced. Thorton watched Bishop's boat drawing nearer with every stroke of the oar.

"Your pistol, rais," Abby said quietly. He opened the box. Inside lay a matched set of pistols with mother of pearl handles. The flintlocks were trimmed with silver inlay.

"They're beautiful," Thorton breathed. He lifted one reverently.

Perry came over and took the other one. He studied it carefully, nodded, and began to load it. "A fine weapon."

"A gift from my father," Abby replied off-handedly. "He's generous with the gifts. You could even say they're bribes."

"Bribes for what?" Thorton asked.

Abby gave him a meaningful look, but Thorton didn't understand.

The crunch of sand announced the arrival of Bishop's boat. The captain swore, "Get it up on the beach, you lazy sons-of-bitches."

They jumped out and hauled the boat up on the sand—which they had planned to do anyhow. To be sworn at and ordered to do it made them set their jaws and glance at each other with angry looks, but they didn't talk back to him. Bishop climbed out onto the sand without getting his feet wet. As he walked up the beach to the other party, the sound of a pistol shot was loud in the afternoon air.

Bishop grew pale in the face and said, "Murderer." He dropped senseless on the sand.

Everyone stared—Perry most of all. "But I didn't fire!"

Thorton and Abby had been standing next to him. They'd heard a shot—but not from Perry. Had Perry pulled the trigger at such close range, both of them would have felt the panflash as well as heard the bark of the gun. Thorton looked back and forth between the fallen captain and Perry.

"What's wrong?" Abby asked anxiously.

"I didn't shoot him!" Perry's voice was rising frantically.

Thorton took the gun from him and found it cold and still loaded. "If not you, then who?"

Reverend Pennybrigg and Doctor Ferncastle knelt over the fallen captain. They opened his clothes and examined him thoroughly. "Where are you hurt?" they asked.

Bishop didn't answer. They rolled him over but there was no wound that they could find on his front or back.

Ferncastle opened his black bag and pulled out smelling salts. He waved them under the prostrate captain's nose. Bishop jumped and sat up immediately. "What?"

"Where are you hurt, sir?" Ferncastle asked.

Bishop patted himself down but could not find any wound. "That foul fiend tried to kill me!" He pointed at Perry.

"I didn't!" Perry protested. "The gun has not been fired!"

The chaplain and doctor frowned at him.

"It's true," Thorton said. "It's still loaded and the barrel is cold. See for yourself." He extended the weapon hilt first.

Ferncastle got up and examined the gun. He cocked it, pointed it at the ground, and pulled the trigger. The gun barked and jumped in his hand. "It wasn't this gun that fired, but somebody fired. Was it the Spanish?"

The possibility that they might be ambushed by the Spanish at the foot of Gibraltar filled them with alarm. They looked around in sudden concern, but there was nothing to be seen.

"It nobody shot him, why is he on the ground?" Thorton asked in annoyance.

Bishop picked himself up off the ground and started dusting himself off. "I thought I was shot," he huffed.

Perry started laughing. Abby snickered too, but that made his injured ribs hurt and he had to hold them. Thorton laughed in spite of himself. Ferncastle was feeling rather aggrieved at the affront to his professional dignity and turned on Bishop. "You sheep-hearted oaf! Fainting at the sound of a shot!"

"I didn't!" Bishop protested.

"You were quite insensible," Reverend Pennybrigg told him.

"But who fired the shot?" Abby asked again.

Thorton stared past them and said, "I know."

They turned and looked at the signals flags flying on the wounded battleship. "Resolute to Pegasus, 'Powell is dead.'"

No one needed to be told that the disgraced Powell had returned to the Resolute, put a pistol to his head, and pulled the trigger.

Bishop lay prostrate in his cabin for the rest of the day. Perry, as the senior lieutenant, dutifully informed the flagship that Bishop had suffered a relapse of his heart condition. That was the official diagnosis, but everyone on board the Ajax knew the real reason. Bishop would not emerge from his cabin. Ferncastle went in, found him drunk, and sent a request for a medical consultation. A little while later and the commodore's own doctor studied Bishop, discussed his case at length with Ferncastle, questioned the witnesses to his collapse, and came to the conclusion that the heart condition had so weakened Bishop's nerves that he was likely to collapse at any loud sound. That barred him from combat.

Whittingdon furloughed him. He would go back to England. At home the Admiralty would be in no mood to humor a captain who fainted at the sound of a shot when they had lost their Mediterranean fleet. Bishop's career was finished.

The following morning Thorton received a dispatch. It was a warrant making him the acting captain of the Ajax "until the pleasure of the Admiralty be known." The wardroom cheered him, then he walked upstairs and entered the hallowed domain of the great cabin. Bishop and his property were gone—the rug, the bed curtains, the desk, the dishes, the chandelier—all gone. Thorton was captain of four painted walls and a varnished floor.

He dropped down on his knees and prostrated himself. He prayed an Arabic prayer of Thanksgiving to the almighty Allah. He didn't know how long his warrant would last. Nor more than a few weeks—just long enough for the dispatches to arrive in England, a new captain to be picked, and the orders sent back along with the new captain. It didn't mattered. He had been picked because of his abilities. Nothing else mattered.

"Allahu Akbar," he ended his prayer. God is great.