Wake wished they were headed for some other place, any other place. His report to Admiral Barkley and Commander Johnson would be difficult, but his next rendezvous with Linda would probably be the last once he told her what the circumstances of war had just forced him to do. He did not expect that she would understand. How could she ever understand? For that older man in the water who had given the false information was none other than her pro-Rebel father, William Donahue. He had obviously been engaged, like other Key West Rebel sympathizers, in guiding a blockade runner through the islands. And now he must be treated like any other enemy.
They arrived back in the harbor of Key West the next morning after an early breakfast of Hewlitt’s freshly caught and grilled fish. Catching the fish, difficult in the still-windy conditions, was a feat that had increased his stature among the crew. After berating him for taking so long to get enough fish aboard to feed the entire crew, they all expressed grudging gratitude to Hewlitt as they devoured the first food they had eaten in a day and a half. The fact it was Sunday registered on Wake as the sloop sailed slowly up the channel under the mainsail only, passing close aboard Fort Taylor, where he could hear the singing at the Sunday morning services inside the fortress. It also dawned on him that Christmas was only five days away. He felt so very tired in this last month of 1863. It had been a long year. And it wasn’t over yet.
He sailed her directly up to the repair yard dock, without the normal permission required by the repair officer, and moored alongside smartly. Leaving Rork in charge, he quickly went to the squadron offices to report on his mission. Once there he found the duty yeoman, who advised him that the admiral and the commander were not there but at their personal quarters. Wake finally found Johnson at his sparse quarters above the officer’s mess and, with dread, reported in. Johnson listened to the narrative, waited a moment, and then spoke.
“Hmm . . . Wake, we do not have a steam vessel or even a schooner to go to capture those Rebel survivors. Our vessels are otherwise employed right now. A steam tug is due from Charleston any day now though, and we can send her with enough men to handle the assignment. You did well to follow your orders and not land on the beach. They would have overwhelmed you certainly. I know that was difficult for you to do, but this is war, and they are the enemy.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Wake in a monotone.
“And I see that William Donahue was among them. We have known of his sympathies for some time and suspected he was in active assistance to the blockade runners during his absences from this island. His stories of running down the islands to the Bahamas for trade goods coincided too many times with our intelligence of Rebel steamers coming through this area. And I, of course, have heard of your involvement with his daughter. I warned you about that. Perception is reality, Mr. Wake. And the perception among many of the officers of this squadron is that you have been cavorting with the daughter of a Rebel who would do anything to inflict harm upon this fleet. Your relationship is openly discussed and is embarrassing for the squadron.”
“Sir,” Wake could feel his face turning red and his blood getting hot, “I resent the word ‘cavorting’ and I demand to know who is making such a dishonorable slander upon that good lady’s reputation!”
“You can’t demand anything, Wake! What you can do is stand there and listen! Listen to what you are doing to your reputation and to that young lady’s. We are at war, Wake. We are at war with her family. Men are dying because her family is helping the enemy. They are the enemy, man! And I am not convinced that she is entirely innocent!”
Wake was stunned by the sheer anger in Johnson’s voice. He had never seen the man lose control in the slightest. He also was stunned by the power that the man in front of him had over both himself and Linda Donahue. He could send either of them away—to exile or prison. It was war, as he had said. Wake tried to calm him down.
“Sir, the lady in question is a decent young girl who dreads this war like everyone else. Her father is a Confederate sympathizer, but that does not prove anything against her. She is embarrassed by her father’s attitude toward the national government and does not support it. I have lost men on my own ship, sir, to battle against the enemy. I know the loss of war. But Linda and I are in love, Commander Johnson, not in conspiracy.”
Johnson’s voice returned to its normal manner as he said, “Wake, I know that too. So does the admiral. But it doesn’t make it any less trying. We are in an endeavor of massive war that makes no allowances for two young people in love. I do not know what I will recommend to the admiral concerning you and this problem, but something will have to be done.”
“Sir, I know that your responsibility is not to me, or to Linda. It is to the squadron and the navy as a whole. But, sir, I have carried out every task assigned to me. Not once has my affection for Linda swayed me from my duty or provided the failure of a mission. I hope to marry her once this awful conflict has ended. I hope you can see your way not to make our lives any more difficult than they are.”
“Mr. Wake, I hear your point. I hope you heard mine. You will have two days to refit and then you will rejoin the Chambers at Boca Grande. I will send you your written orders as soon as I can. You are dismissed.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Wake turned on his heel and left the building. Outside he found himself walking directly to Linda’s home, without any sense of how he was going to tell her what had happened. His usual route by way of the cook shed out back provided no way for him to know whether she was home. He found himself illogically listening for any sound of her father’s presence, and then remembered that her uncle might be home. Carefully he waited for some sign of his lover. Finally she appeared on the back stoop of the house, carrying some laundry to a line between two trees. A whistle stopped her, and his hand movement caught her eye. She was with him in the cooking shed in an instant. After a long embrace and kiss, he sat her down on the stool by the fireplace and told her he had something very grim to tell her.
“Oh, Peter, it’s Daddy, isn’t it. He’s back from Nassau and done something foolish, hasn’t he? Has he been arrested? What did he do now? He has been so very vexed lately over the way the war has gone for his Rebel friends. He’s been just crazy with rage. Tell me he didn’t do something to the army provost guard patrol! He’s threatened to do something to them for so long now. He’s even made mention of being a martyr for the cause. Lord have mercy upon us. I’ve been so fearful for him.”
“No, not that. He wasn’t on the Nassau packet boat, and he isn’t back in Key West. He was on a Confederate blockade runner that shipwrecked in the upper Keys. He and the crew were stranded on a small island close by. I saw them. I had to leave them there because they are the enemy and we were afraid they would try to overwhelm my small crew and capture Rosalie. I am sorry I could not rescue them, Linda. I had to do my duty.”
She sat there staring at him as if seeing him for the first time. He could see in her eyes that she was imagining the scene as he had sailed away from her father and left him to his fate. She didn’t cry, just stared at him.
“You just left him. Left the crew there. Even the worst wreckers of the Keys would rescue the people from shipwrecks. I can’t believe you just left him, knowing he was my father. No one abandons shipwrecked seamen.”
“It’s the war. He was with the enemy. They are going to send out a ship to get them as soon as they can.”
“Yes, Peter, it is the war, and look what it has done to us. Oh God, please let this all stop! When men can’t help other men in need because they fly another flag! A piece of cloth. It’s barbaric—that’s what it is—it’s barbaric, Peter. Look what this war has made us all.”
“There is more, Linda. The squadron commander knows about us. Apparently, we are the talk of the officers’ mess. I didn’t know that until Commander Johnson told me just now. He is very upset. Thinks that you may have
an involvement or interest in your father’s Rebel sympathies. He is worried about the effect upon the squadron. He has a point, dear.”
Now the tears came. Quietly, trying not to lose control, Linda sobbed as she struggled to tell him, “Oh no, not that. I’ve always been most afraid of that. Even more than what my father would do to get arrested again. You have been through so much. I have made your life more dangerous than it already is, my darling. I’m so sorry. I am not the kind of girl a young naval officer should be with, Peter. Especially not now. This damnable war has ruined my whole life. . . . It’s taking everyone away from me.”
“I love you, Linda. We will get through this. We will survive this. We won’t let them win. None of them, from either side. We are better than that, and we need each other.”
“I love you too. I know I shouldn’t, but can’t help it.”
“That’s the girl I love. Be strong. Your father will be brought back. We will all be reconciled one day after this war is done. You know that I have to go now. I must reprovision the sloop and I don’t have much time. They are watching me now for any failures and I’ve got to be careful. I will see you on my return, dear. We will get through this.”
The goodbye was wrenching on both sides, and Wake almost ran out of the backyard when it was done. He had to get back to the sloop and immerse himself in his job, forgetting all the other people and events that were crowding in on him. But the image of Linda crying would not leave his mind.
As he walked down Duval Street, he remembered what Linda had said about her father talking about becoming a martyr. Wake recalled Sampson explaining the original name the Spanish had for the Florida Keys. Islas de los Martires. Islands of the Martyrs, named after the men who had been shipwrecked and died among the reefs and small islands when the Spanish first arrived in this area. Their ghosts supposedly still haunted sailors who ventured too close. Rork greeted him as he neared the sloop at the dock.
“Captain, the chief yard matey says his boss man says that no vessel can be alongside without permission and we have to shove off. The chap has been a very disagreeable sort about it. Somethin’ about job orders and requests and gettin’ in line. Said a mere wee sloop could wait behind the important ships. Can you believe it, sir. More pompous than a bishop at a celebration, sir!”
“Okay, Rork. Let’s go and get this straightened out.” Wake was finally able to displace the previous thoughts from his mind and plunge into this new problem that had suddenly entered his never-ending list of challenges.
10
Her Majesty’s Wishes
The year 1864 started out with bad weather—not the kind of bad weather Wake had known in his years on the New England coast, but bad enough for the Gulf of Mexico. The storms, however, had not stopped the increasing rate of operations. Raids along the coast were ceaseless as the navy improved its strength in ships and men, and its ability to project that strength ashore.
The Rosalie and the Chambers supported the army in a push up into Confederate territory when General Woodbury brought troops from Key West and ascended the Caloosahatchee River, capturing Fort Myers. The fort, long abandoned by the army after the Third Seminole War had ended in 1858, was occupied by Wake’s old friends in the Forty-seventh Pennsylvania Infantry, the Hundred-tenth New York Infantry, and the previous Useppa Island Florida Rangers, now formed into the Second United States Florida Cavalry. Wake had the impression that finally the prospects for the Union victory were getting better after seeing all these successes, and that perhaps 1864 would be the last year of this war.
These efforts made the first month of the new year a busy one for Wake and his crew. No new actual fighting was undertaken by the little armed sloop, but the work of a small ship in the squadron was never-ending. It mainly consisted of the mundane duties of supply and dispatch runs, with an occasional penetration up a bay or river to try to find Rebel vessels.
He had seen Linda only once, for a very brief hour, in that month. She told him that her father and the other men from the shipwreck had been captured several days after Wake had left them. Three men had died on the beach from exposure to the elements. The survivors had all been made prisoners of war and sent to Fort Warren up north. Linda had not been able to see her father before he was sent away. Her uncle had taken over her father’s small store, but the authorities had been making frequent visits to inspect the merchandise, apparently in an effort to find contraband. The searches had been crude and thorough, leaving no doubt to Linda and her uncle that the provost marshal thought they were the enemy and not wanted on the island.
On a port call in early February, Wake was summoned to the admiral’s offices, the first time since the assignment to go in search of the Rebel shipwreck two months before. He went with trepidation of his reception. Johnson had been promoted to captain and retained his position as flag captain chief of staff for the admiral. He had not spoken to Wake since the last heated meeting in his quarters. Wake knew what Johnson thought of him but wondered what Admiral Barkley’s thoughts might be.
“Master Peter Wake of the sloop Rosalie reporting as ordered, sir.”
Admiral Barkley put down the report he was reading and looked at Wake standing there before his desk.
“Wake, haven’t seen you since the shipwreck assignment. Heard you were involved with General Woodbury’s expedition up the coast. Evidently all went well or Woodbury would have been quick to advise me. Captain Johnson, I believe we have another interesting mission for young Wake here, do we not?”
“Yes, sir. The British problem, sir, combined with the intelligence gathered earlier by Mr. Wake made him the logical choice. Also, his vessel is relatively obscure and easily forgotten by observers in the islands there.”
Wake had no idea what they were talking about, except that he was going to be involved in something. His trepidation mounted as he tried to be quietly patient.
The admiral continued. “Wake, you have proven yourself as a resourceful young ship commander. I have come to trust that you can accomplish missions that others would wallow in because you can make decisions. I am going to send you on another matter, but first I want to tell you something.”
A significant pause ensued as Admiral Barkley glanced over at Captain Johnson.
“Wake, it turns out that you have no judgment at all in your personal life. You have had the bad sense to become involved with a lady of a Rebel family. The whole island knows of it. I am disappointed, sir. Straighten out your personal affairs, Wake, before it is too late.”
The junior officer stood before his seniors, not knowing what to say or do. His silence provoked Johnson to fill the void.
“Admiral, I have had a talk with Mr. Wake about this already. He has been duly warned, sir, about the consequences of his decisions. May I suggest we give him his verbal orders and some background on the situation in the Bahamas?”
By this point the admiral was staring at Wake, obviously trying to fathom something about the young man from his eyes. He acquiesced to Captain Johnson at last.
“All right, Captain, let us delve into the paramount matter before us and leave the foolish one behind, hoping that Mr. Wake here will also. Give him the intelligence known so far.”
Johnson walked over to the chart table, sat down, and bade Wake to do likewise. On the chart of the upper Bahamas spread out before them, Johnson pointed out the Abaco Islands, along the northern edge of the colony, and New Providence Island, where the capital of Nassau was located. Wake nodded his comprehension and Johnson continued, now with Admiral Barkley standing behind Wake’s chair.
“We have intelligence, some of which came from your own operations off southwest Florida, that blockade runners into Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina are coming from the Abaco Islands, here.” A bony finger struck the chart with force at the place with the odd n
ame of Man-O-War Cay. “And that the leader of the organization that has been effecting those transgressions is none other than your very own John Saunders. Saunders, it is said, has strong ties in the colonial administration in Nassau. He evidently has relatives among the former loyalists in those islands who fled the United States after our Revolution. Recently the colonial administration has become very vociferous in demanding that all United States warships vacate the area of the Bahamas and stay out of British waters, saying we are violating their neutrality. Are you with me so far, Wake?”
“Yes, sir,” said Wake, not really understanding what course this tack was taking.
“Now Saunders, as far as we know, is hopefully in a Spanish dungeon in Havana and not able to direct his group. Possibly we even may have the good fortune to learn of his execution at the hands of our friends in the Spanish Navy for plotting to overthrow the government there. But still, we are getting advice, from persons who should know, that the trafficking in contraband from these Abaco Islands is continuing even without Mr. Saunders. The fact that we cannot obtain any definite facts because our navy is banned from the waters there is most distressing. Civilian intelligence seems also to have come to an end, most particularly in the Abacos, where our informant was forced by circumstances to leave rather precipitously. We need to know what is going on at those islands, in the least obvious manner possible. I am sure you are comprehending the situation. Correct, Mr. Wake?”
“Yes, sir.” Wake did not like the way this one-sided conversation was headed.
“You and the Rosalie are the least obvious method of gaining a true appreciation of the situation in the upper Bahamas, and most particularly at this Man-O-War place.” Admiral Barkley leaned over the chart and turned to speak to Wake from inches away. “Go there as a small trading sloop. Find out what ships are there. What type they are. Where they have come from. Where they are headed. Do not take action while in British waters. Do not let the British even know that you are there officially. Do not give anyone any reason to suspect your mission. Can you understand all this, Mr. Wake?”
At the Edge of Honor (The Honor Series) Page 25