For a Few Francs

Mid- Atlantic, second week of October 1788

The 1,150-ton merchant ship Mademoiselle Celeste corkscrewed easily as it plowed diagonally through the long four-foot swells. Like any wooden ship, it had its own unique creaks, groans, and moans. Pulleys and blocks not under tension by sheets or braces tied to racks of belaying pins on the main deck added to the cacophony of sounds. If they remained “normal,” there was no cause for alarm. A change in the tone or volume was a warning that signaled trouble.

Overhead, other than a few puffy clouds dotting the azure-blue sky, nothing suggested to Edmund Radcliffe that bad weather was coming. All in all, it should be, he thought, another pleasant day on the water plodding along at a leisurely five knots.

In its forward hold, there were seven rows of six-barrel pyramids. Barrels in the forward four rows contained coffee beans and the other three, molasses. All were secured with netting tied to cast iron rings screwed into the ship’s ribs. When Edmund inspected the 105 barrels before he came on watch, he tested the tie downs to ensure that none of the knots had loosened or any of the ropes had broken.

The larger aft hold carried more barrels – 105 with raw sugar and 48 with rum. They too were checked before he climbed up the companionways to the quarterdeck to relieve the ship’s captain.

Radcliffe thought Mademoiselle Celeste’s 130-man crew was a motley mix. The bond that kept the crew together was not the paltry wages of 10 gold livres for the voyage to Bordeaux and back, but the promise that 5% of the profits from the sale of the cargo would be divided equally amongst them. The three officers, of which Radcliffe was one, would split another 5% and the captain received 10%.

Radcliffe’s share from just this voyage was twice times what Levesque had paid him during the years he’d worked for the trader. All they had to do was deliver their cargo safely to the buyer in Bordeaux.

Mademoiselle Celeste was built in 1772 in St. Nazaire and nearing her birthday, she was about one-third through her expected lifespan. In the shipyard where he watched planks with holes from sea worms replaced on Mademoiselle Celeste’s now clean bottom. From what he could tell, the interior of the ship appeared to be sound.

The merchant ship’s crew was divided into port and starboard watches, each with 60 sailors, led by a bosun. Three officers, the ship’s carpenter, two cooks, a sailmaker, a cooper, and a purser made up the rest of the men on board.

On each side of the main deck, Mademoiselle Celeste there were six 9-pounders that Edmund thought were more for show than for defense. The dates cast into the top of the breeches stated they were made in 1773, and he wondered if the cannons were more dangerous to an enemy or the gun crews.

Capitaine Hugo Charbonnier was a lieutenant in the French Navy until the end of the American Revolution when he was told the French Navy was being reduced by 60% and his services were no longer needed. He came to Martinique and was given command of Mademoiselle Celeste. To Radcliffe, Charbonnier seemed to be a pleasant and competent seaman.

Before he was hired, Charbonnier asked Edmund about what types of cargo was taken aboard in Boston. Radcliffe answered most of the ships carried dried fish, apples, corn, and lumber which went to Liverpool, Lisbon, Cadiz, and Brest. Then he grilled Radcliffe on seamanship, navigation, ship organization, and construction.

With the professional questions answered, he asked about Radcliffe’s service in the Continental Navy. He said he served on board the frigates Cabot and Scorpion before losing his hand in a fight. Charbonnier didn’t press for details and switched topics. “So why did you come to Martinique?”

This was the question Levesque also asked. What Charbonnier really wanted to know was if Edmund was a wanted man. “Let us just say, Capitaine Charbonnier, that my father, two brothers, and I don’t get along. They thought it best that I leave Boston.”

Charbonnier smiled and looked at the ceiling. At the time, they were sitting in the office of Mademoiselle Celeste’s owner. He wondered if Radcliffe had an affair with one of his brothers’ wives, or maybe he got a woman pregnant.

Now that they had been at sea for 26 days of the 35 it would take to sail the 3,600 nautical miles to Bordeaux, Radcliffe liked working for Charbonnier. Unlike a frigate or ship-of-the-line, on a merchant ship, the crew had little to do other than routine maintenance and trimming the sails. There were no gun or battle damage drills.

As he stood on the quarterdeck, absorbing the ship’s movement with his legs as the ship ran with the wind, Edmund Radcliffe still had not figured out why there was tension between Charbonnier and Hercule Vachon, the ship’s purser. In the wardroom, the men barely tolerated each other. There was, Radcliffe decided, something that must have happened in the past that had not been resolved.

Out of boredom, Edmund took a spyglass from the rack on the forward railing of the quarterdeck. Slowly, he scanned the sea. It was, just as it had been for days, empty. If the ship sank, no one would know, and Mademoiselle Celeste would be just another ship that vanished without a trace.

A different sound caused Radcliffe to cock his ear. Then he heard it again and knew instantly that one of the yards, or worse, a section of a mast had failed or was about to fail. From the quarterdeck, the only mast and sails he could see easily was the mizzen. Not seeing anything out of the ordinary, he told the quartermaster that he was going down on the main deck. The man at the Mademoiselle Celeste’s helm had also heard the change in sounds and looked concerned.

The mainmast’s topsail yardarm broke in two with a loud crack. Splinters flew as if they were shot from a cannon. Three stuck in the deck just forward of Radcliffe’s feet. Two crewmen were speared by foot-long sections of oak.

Braces and sheets parted with loud pops. The topsail was now whipped about by the wind and yanked in different directions by the lines still attached. Both halves of the broken yard swung wildly from side to side bending the upper section of the mainmast back and forth.

The port half swung back and forth like an uncontrolled pendulum, sometimes port and starboard, sometimes at an angle. Each swing bent the top section of the main mast, and it was only a matter of time, Radcliffe believed, before it failed.

Hearing the crack, Charbonnier came out of his cabin only to see Mademoiselle Celeste’s first lieutenant, Jules Weygand, head cracked open like an egg by the port-half of the topsail yardarm just before it crashed to the deck, wrecking a rack of belaying pins.

Charbonnier started shouting orders but stopped. His two leading bosuns had men up in the rigging who had gotten ropes around the wayward starboard section of the mainmast topsail spar. As it was being lowered, a line broke. The spar swung aft and struck Charbonnier a glancing blow that knocked him into the port bulwark. He slumped to the deck unconscious.

As the surviving officer, Radcliffe was now in charge. Radcliffe had the unconscious Charbonnier carried to his cabin before repairs were begun.

With the broken spars on the deck and the stress on the mainmast relieved, under the bosun’s watchful eye, they could set about repairing the rigging while the carpenter attempted to cobble up a spare yardarm from the wood stored below. Unlike a warship, the owners of Mademoiselle Celeste did not plan on repairing battle damage during a voyage. Instead of carrying a large contingent of spare cordage, sail cloth, and wood to repair spars and masts, the space was filled with cargo.

With the two halves of the spar laid end to end on the deck, Radcliffe and the ship’s carpenter said they didn’t have enough wood to splice the spar properly. Radcliffe responded by asking how much wood was there to repair casks?

The carpenter smiled, “We have enough to replace about twenty casks.”

“Good, we will use them to make a splint.” Seeing the carpenter’s reaction, Edmund added, “Our lives and the seaworthiness of this ship is more important than the ship’s cargo.”

While the splint was being lashed in place, Radcliffe checked on Charbonnier. He was still breathing but unconscious.

Hercule Vachon waited until the carpenter began working on a splint for the spar before he stood next to Radcliffe. The purser spoke in a soft voice, “With Weygand gone, the officer’s five percent is now divided by two, not three.”

The man the crew and Captain Charbonnier referred to as “L’Américain” cocked his head slightly. “True, but Weygand had a wife and a family. They deserve his share.”

“But only for the trip to Bordeaux, not for the return with wine and other goods. Weygand will not be with us then and therefore, doesn’t deserve to receive his share.”

Vachon’s cold calculus made Radcliffe uncomfortable. “I believe that will be Capitaine Charbonnier’s decision.”

“Mr. Radcliffe, that is incorrect. The owners of Mademoiselle Celeste decide who gets what share. And I, as the Purser on board, make recommendations which are rarely discarded.”

Edmund found his voice to offer encouragement to the men repairing the spar which would be about three feet shorter than before the break. The spar was supported by four barrels that appeared out of nowhere and pegs were being hammered into position so the lashing could begin. Inspecting the carpenter’s work gave him an opportunity to step away from Vachon.

* * * 

Splicing the spar to survive the strain put on it by the weight of the sail and the rigging required the carpenter to determine if the wood was irreparably cracked beyond where it broke. Once the ends of the split were found, the broken ends of the spar were sawed off at a 30⁰ angle so there was a long, angled section in which to peg the two halves together. Eight barrels of sugar were brought up from the hold to provide support for the spar as the sailors bored holes for the pegs.

What few spare planks the ship had were sawed into strips two inches wide. Spare barrel staves were soaked by lowering them over the side in a net with cannonballs to make them more pliable.

Since there were not enough plank strips to go completely around the spar, they were interspersed with oak barrel staves as they were lashed in place. The entire splint was then lashed with half-inch rope before any fittings were screwed into place.

With the spar repaired, the sailmaker measured the new width of the mainmast top sail and cut the remnants of the original sail into two sections that could be stitched together.

The finished sail was attached to the repaired yard arm and the assembly was 10 feet above the deck when Capitaine Charbonnier appeared on deck completely nude, singing soprano verses from the French comic opera La Fée Urgéle. Then he shifted to the tenor roles of the 7^th Century French knight in the opera who was imprisoned by the French Court dominated by women.

All work stopped as they watched their captain prancing nude around the deck, going from the role of the Fairy Urgéle to that of the knight. Although he had never been to an opera, Radcliffe thought Charbonnier had an excellent voice.

The captain of Mademoiselle Celeste finished one section of Egidio Dudi’s comic opera that was first performed for the French court at Fontainebleau in 1765. In the opera, the French knight is forced by the court to marry an ugly old woman who turns into a beautiful young woman after the marriage ceremony.

None of the men on Mademoiselle Celeste knew anything about the opera or had heard it performed before. They stood in amused silence while their captain performed. The corkscrewing of the ship as it plowed diagonally through the waves caused Charbonnier to lose his balance. He careened first from the mizzen mast that he tried to hug and then across the deck into the bulwark. As he slumped to the deck, he again banged his head and went limp. A bosun dipped a bucket into the Atlantic and splashed the 52⁰ Fahrenheit water onto the nude Charbonnier.

The man immediately awoke and shook his head. He quizzically looked around him, obviously confused by his surroundings and his nudity. He pointed at Radcliffe. “Who are you?”

“Sir, I am Lieutenant Edmund Radcliffe, one of your officers.”

Charbonnier’s head bobbed while he processed the information giving Radcliffe time to hold out his hand. “Sir, I think you should go back to your cabin, dry off and rest. You’ve had quite a knock on the head. Please allow me to help you get up.”

The Frenchman looked down and seeing his sexual organs on display for all to see, tilted his head. “Aye, I think that is a good idea. And, when I have changed, you’ll have to explain why you are on my ship.”

As Radcliffe led Mademoiselle Celeste’s captain back to his cabin, he turned to the ship’s crew, “Back to work, gentlemen. As you can see, Capitaine Charbonnier is not well.”

Passing Vachon, the two men exchanged looks as if to say, Charbonnier has gone daft. Now was the time for Radcliffe to assert himself as the new captain of Mademoiselle Celeste. If, or when Charbonnier, regains his senses, he can resume command, but until then, he – Edmund Radcliffe – was the captain. If Charbonnier was unable to perform his duties, then he had to convince Vachon that he deserved some of the captain’s share.

Coming soon