Free Wide is the Water by Jane Aiken Hodge

other Americans.
    â€˜He don’t see it that way,’ said Bill. ‘He’s had his bellyful of British discipline, he says. Told me to tell you’ – he lowered his voice – ‘that he and his friends are ready to rise and take over the ship if you’ll just lend them a hand. They’ve found friends in the British crew who say they’re sick, too, of low pay and the lash. One of them’s assistant to Doc. Burnard. He prigged this the other day.’ He handed Hart a small bottle. ‘Laudanum. Your part’s to put it into the officers’ wine the first chance you get. We’ll have to think of some way you can let me know you’ve done it.’ He looked round the cabin. ‘Your Bible. Leave it open on the desk. I always come in after dinner to see all’s right here. I’ll pass the word to the others. And we’ll be sailing home in no time. What is it, sir?’ He felt Hart’s lack of response.
    â€˜Bill, I can’t. I gave my word. So did the others. Swore allegiance to King George.’
    â€˜This is war,’ said Bill. ‘Sir, think! Think of the Georgians who are still prisoners belowdecks. What’s going to happen to them when we get to England?
If
we get to England. Mill Prison, sir. We all know that. You better than most after that time you spent on the prison hulks at New York. A living death. What’s a man’s word compared to that? And just think of the other side of it. Sailing the
Sparrow
into Charleston Harbour! The welcome we’d get. And the difference it would make. A spanking frigate like her. We’d be heroes.’
    â€˜We’d be villains. Bill, I’m sorry. I can’t do it.’ And yet how appallingly tempting it was. ‘What would happen to the officers?’ He realised as he asked it that it betrayed him as wavering.
    â€˜Oh, they’d be right enough. Held for ransom, most like, or’ – he corrected himself, seeing Hart’s expression – ‘exchange, rather.’
    â€˜I wonder.’ Hart was remembering that writhing, bloodyback under the lash. If Grant got the chance, he would never stop short of the fullest possible revenge. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m sure you believe Grant, but I don’t. He’d kill them all. Captain Purchas is my cousin. He’s been – they’ve all been good to me. To us all,’ he added with less conviction. ‘Think how Dr. Burnard cared for your wounds. All your wounds.’
    â€˜So we could help sail their ship,’ said Bill. ‘Sir, it’s such a chance.’ He was pleading now. ‘For me, most of all. They need me, see; they’re treating me like one of them again.’ He looked suddenly grey. ‘If you don’t agree, sir, and I have to tell them so, my life’s not worth a straw. And there’s something else. Something Grant told me to tell you if you should be uncertain like.’ He paused for another quick, cautious look outside the cabin door. ‘It’s about Miss Mercy, sir. Mrs. Purchis, I should say. Grant said to tell you that when you and she were ashore that day at Cohuit, some men came out to the
Georgia
across the ice from Boston Harbour. You never knew that, did you?’
    â€˜No?’ For a moment he did not see where this was leading.
    â€˜No. Well, they heard all about our voyage. About Mrs. Purchis being a Jonah and the bad luck we’d had from her. Oh, a parcel of nonsense, of course.’ He quailed at Hart’s look of naked fury. ‘But them New Englanders seemed to believe every word of it. I don’t rightly know what kind of welcome Mrs. Purchis will have had there, sir. Ask him right, once we’ve taken over the ship, Grant might even take her up to Boston, and you could see for yourself. He’s a Maine man himself; it would suit him well enough.’
    Without intending it, he had made up Hart’s mind for