by Robin Lloyd
The Spaniard glowered at Townsend.
“I am so pleased to hear that, Captain. Your sailor must have a guardian angel. I hope you understand that we will still need to search your ship.”
“As you wish,” Townsend said. “May I ask why?”
“A dangerous man escaped from El Morro prison last night. If he did not drown, he may have sought refuge on your boat. Your schooner was strangely close to shore.”
The Spanish officer had a curious smile. Townsend’s mouth quivered as he looked directly below him into the man’s bird-like face. The horrors Abbott had described in a Spanish prison flashed through his mind’s eye. He thought about telling the truth, but then he realized he would have to admit to hiding a fugitive. His only object at that moment became to fend off any leading questions.
“I think I told you last night, Captain, we saw nothing. Perhaps your prison escapee is hiding in the rocks near the castle?” Townsend said with a thin veneer of mock concern. “Maybe he has run into the hills?” Townsend relished the height advantage he enjoyed over this arrogant Spanish captain. He was suddenly aware that he felt a curious link with Abbott, some kind of mysterious empathy. He didn’t know what the Englishman had done or whether he was guilty or not, but instinctively he knew justice would not be served by handing him over to the Spanish.
Captain Gómez scanned the ship’s deck, surveying the Irish sailors. Townsend could tell the naval officer had an inherent distrust and hostility toward foreigners.
“We are looking at all alternatives, Captain, but the most likely possibility is that the prisoner jumped off the walls into the ocean. One of the night sentries reported hearing a lot of splashing over the noise of the waves after the man was reported missing by the guards. The sentry even thought he heard yelling, perhaps by more than one person. Last night when I came by your ship, Captain, I could not help but notice your yawl boat. The oars were askew like they had been left there in haste, and the boat was filled with water. Can you explain that? As I said before, you were anchored suspiciously close to shore.”
Townsend pretended to be disinterested even though he felt his voice tremble slightly.
“We had some trouble with the anchor line. Nothing serious. We did hear splashing. We assumed it was fish. Perhaps your prisoner was attacked by sharks?”
Captain Gómez curled his lip, and looked at Townsend with grim menace.
“Search the ship,” he shouted to his men in Spanish. Townsend furrowed his brow. He was furious at these Spanish officials, but his best hope was to be midshipman-disciplined, and keep his short-fused temper in check. His anger helped him control his nerves.
The two Spaniards walked up forward and poked their heads into the damp, cramped space of the cabin where the crew slept on simple stacked berths. Finding little of interest in these dark, dank quarters, they walked back to the main cabin house where Townsend showed them the galley, pantry, and storerooms. Unlike most schooners, the Laura Ann had the galley in the main cabin, not the forward deckhouse. This is where the crew ate, at a table alongside a coal-fired stove.
Townsend offered them some coffee, but the Spaniards refused. He led them aft to look at the two staterooms for himself and the mate, mindful of how their eyes had now focused in that direction. He raised his voice, hoping Abbott would hear, as he told them how modest his cabin was. Both captains followed him into his quarters, and gazed around the small ten by twelve foot space. They opened the closet door and felt around and then began pulling the coats out. Townsend’s mouth felt parched. He watched helplessly as they looked into the closet. Suddenly he heard the latch open. They had discovered the hidden door to the sail locker.
“Son velas,” he heard one of them say to the other.
Sails, they had discovered the sails. Townsend braced himself for a shout of surprise. He heard them rummaging through the sails, cursing the small opening as they tried to pull the heavy canvas out to get a better look inside. Should he run before they made the discovery? He tried to move his legs, but they had no strength. To his surprise the swearing stopped and they turned around. They’d seen nothing. Michael Abbott had vanished.
Both captains came up on deck and the navy captain indicated he would be going back to his ship now. He blew a whistle and called out his ship’s name, and then an order. Townsend tried to read the man’s face to see if he had found more than he had let on, but Townsend couldn’t discern anything.
As the longboat was brought alongside the schooner, the captain said goodbye to Townsend with strict Spanish formality.
“Por lo visto,” he said as he took one more mistrustful look at the schooner’s sailors lined up on the quarterdeck. “It would appear that we will have to declare this prisoner’s disappearance a tragic suicide.”
Then he pointed to Hendricks.
“By the way, is this your slave?”
“No, he is one of the sailors. He is a free man.”
The Spanish navy captain looked at his fellow officer and the captain of the Guardia Civil on cue addressed Townsend.
“I should inform you Captain, here in Cuba, all Negro sailors on foreign flagged ships must remain on board the vessel until they leave port.”
Hendricks glared at the Spaniards but said nothing.
As soon as they’d gone, Townsend rushed below to his cabin, and yanked open the closet and pulled the latch into the secret compartment. He poked his head inside the dark space. He looked around, but saw no one. The man had disappeared.
“Are you there?” he whispered anxiously. A pale hand suddenly emerged. Abbott had buried himself deep underneath a pile of canvas in the darkest corner of the locker. “Yes, I am here” came the tentative answer. “I fear I may need more pain medicine.”
3
Night was falling, and down below in the hot cabin Townsend could feel the cooler air coming in from outside. He had released the crew for shore leave in the late afternoon so he and Abbott were now alone on board ship, along with Hendricks. Abbott was still in his cabin, hidden. With another dose of Dover’s Powders for the pain, the Englishman was able to walk, although with a slight limp. He said he wanted to be taken to the boarding house in Havana where he had been staying before he was arrested.
“I have to retrieve my belongings.”
Townsend ran his hands through his tangled hair. “A risky venture, for sure. There are police all over the docks.”
“It’s only six or seven blocks from here. You must help me. I can hardly walk.”
Townsend looked at the desperation in Abbott’s eyes. He rubbed the stubble on his chin as he thought of the danger. He and this mysterious Englishman were two strangers in a strange land brought together by circumstance in a tide of darkness. He’d already decided he would help the man, but he hadn’t specified how. He knew he needed to take careful measure of the risks.
It was pitch dark when Townsend stepped out of the cabin house and onto the shadowy quarterdeck. He made no effort to hide himself from any prying eyes along the crowded waterfront. Ships were moored in tiers, a sprawling web of hemp ropes and wooden planks, scraping and twisting together in noisy harmony. A soft land breeze now wafted by, but along with the dusty scent of the earth came a rank whiff of sewage, a reminder that this was a city of more than 150,000 people.
On either side of him were vague, solitary figures, dimly lit by the faint glow of ships’ lanterns. These were sailors on adjacent boats who had been left behind as guards. Townsend knew there were likely other unseen faces nearby with unfriendly eyes, watching and waiting. The police had a high-profile presence on the wharf, and he presumed his new Spanish friends from the morning would have informants eyeing the boat.
They had brought the Laura Ann to the docks in the late morning to unload the lumber, clear customs, and complete the paperwork with Morales & Co., the Havana shipping company. There were dozens of fees to be paid: not
just customs duties but everything from wharfage dues, to the captain general’s fee, a six-dollar arrival charge, and a two-dollar fee for the interpreter. Townsend had never been in a foreign port before, and all of this was new to him. Nothing had gone as planned. Everything from the lizard smiles of the Spanish customs agents to the outstretched hands of the port officials seemed designed to complicate the clearance process. Customs officials thoroughly checked the ship’s cargo to see if it matched the manifest. Townsend had stood by nervously as they counted out the number of boards. The customs commander warned him with a faint smile that if there were any variance, he would have to pay a stiff penalty.
All day long Townsend had listened to the sounds of a military city, the rattling of drums, the braying of trumpets, and the marching of soldiers in the nearby Plaza de San Francisco. As if that wasn’t a sufficient show of military force, the end of the day was marked by a crescendo of cannons fired from El Morro’s walls. It seemed like Havana was a city drunk with the love of gunfire at all hours. He was told he still had paperwork to complete related to the death of Captain Evans. The Spanish officials had taken down his declaration, but now wanted to see the ship’s logbook. He knew tomorrow he would also have to present the ship’s papers at the American Consulate and submit a full report about Captain Evans’s death. The shipping company in New York would have to be notified. So would his family. Townsend knew the old captain was married with three grown children. He thought he’d mentioned a home in Staten Island, but like many lifelong seamen, the grizzled old veteran had not said much. He had lived his life on the water he sailed on. His home in New York was merely an interlude, a rest stop in between voyages.
Fortunately the crew had somehow managed to oversee the stevedores unloading the cargo. Forty thousand feet of 7∕8-inch boards of spruce and white pine from inland Maine were now stacked on the wharf alongside the schooner waiting for inspection by the merchant house. At the going rate in Havana of twenty-five dollars per thousand feet, Townsend knew what price he should be getting for this fine quality lumber. What he wasn’t sure about was how he and the crew would be paid. He knew the ship was to be sold to Morales & Co., but he had no idea of its exact worth. He thought five thousand dollars was the lowest he should accept. An even bigger concern was he hadn’t been able to locate the consignee. There were still more fees to be paid, and he was counting on their assistance. At the offices of the Captain of the Port, he’d been warned if he couldn’t pay all the dues soon, the schooner would be seized. Those were the rules.
Even as Townsend worried about all the unfinished paperwork, his mind was on the man in the cabin house. He thought of the arrogance of the Spanish navy captain, which was partly why he had decided to help Michael Abbott. But there was something else. Something about the man’s description of what he’d been through triggered his sympathy. It brought back memories of so many of those desperate moments when as a boy he had watched his father secretly load the runaway slaves, shivering with fear, onto one of the freight-carrying scows going up the Susquehanna River on their way to find freedom.
Havre de Grace was a stopover on the Underground Railroad. His mother and father had helped the fugitive slaves by hiding them in some of the outbuildings on their property. His mother would cook for them and bring them food. His father would help the runaways get to safety, sometimes on one of the barges. He’d told him, “Boy, always remember to give a helping hand to those who are underneath because those on top don’t care a lick.” His father was a stern man, originally from Massachusetts. A real Yankee, from one of the early American families. What would his father have done in this case?
Townsend put that thought aside at the sound of Hendricks emerging from the forward cabin house in the bow. He watched the shadowy form of the Bahamian walking back to the quarterdeck.
“Is it time yet?” he whispered. Hendricks shook his head. “Not as yet, but de man should be comin’ directly.”
To avoid being seen by any police on the landing, he and Hendricks had devised a plan earlier in the day. They’d hired one of the banana vendors with the awning-covered rowboats called bungo boats to come back to pick Abbott and him up when it was dark. For extra money, the Cuban boatman had agreed to let them have his boat for a couple of hours. They had told him to come with no lights.
Surprisingly on schedule came the creaking of the oars against the wooden thole pins. Somewhere in the unseen darkness Townsend could hear a voice speaking in Spanish.
“Aquí está el bote. ¿A dónde voy?”
“Over here,” Townsend whispered into the night. “Come over to the starboard side.”
It was darker there, and they were able to pull the rowboat into a swath of blackness alongside the schooner. From the top of the bulwarks, Townsend leaned over and looked down at the dim outline of a man in the shadow of the ship’s side, a drop of six feet. He pretended he was buying bunches of bananas and sacks of oranges, but he quietly and secretly exchanged hats with the Cuban fruit vendor, and then, in the midst of the confusion of lifting cargo onto the schooner, they switched places. No one saw another shadowy figure as it slid through the freeing port in the bulwarks below the raised quarterdeck, hidden by several clusters of bananas.
Townsend now found himself in the unlikely disguise of a Havana boatman wearing a straw hat in an old wooden boat infested with fruit flies. He began rowing away from the schooner into the darker areas of the inner harbor. Abbott stayed hidden, hugging the soggy floorboards, quietly cursing the flies. Not far away, a squeaky fiddle traded melancholy notes with someone strumming a guitar. From another ship he heard the cracked voice of an old Spanish sailor singing a forlorn ballad. Ahead of them in the distance, Townsend could see the golden beam of Havana’s lighthouse. He heard a sentry’s cry piercing the night.
“¡Centinela alerta!”
Across the harbor entrance from another fortress came the reply.
“¡Alerta está!”
On hearing these cries, Abbott squirmed as he tried to crawl underneath some clusters of bananas. Within minutes, they arrived at the small docking area at the city’s fish market where they quickly tied the boat up to a rusty iron ring embedded in the stone. The fish market was built on top of the wharf, and the ocean water ran underneath it. The air was ripe with the fetid smells of old fish left too long in the sun. Townsend gulped back his nausea.
They walked up the well-worn stone steps into the empty market, and were confronted with the frightening form of a strange figure standing motionless like a statue. He was dressed in a long, thick dark coat, carrying a lantern in one hand and a spear in the other, a pistol around his waist. This apparition blew a whistle and began to knock his pole on the ground, yelling something unintelligible. Townsend shrank back, prepared to retreat to the boat, but Abbott didn’t seem to be bothered.
“It’s a sereno, a night watchman,” he whispered. “Not to worry. Every half-hour they call out the time and the weather. They are all over the city.”
They passed outside the pillared arches of the market, and quietly slipped into the gas-lit alleyways of the old city. Above him, he could see the silhouettes of bell towers off to his right. As he walked along the cobblestone streets, Townsend glanced over his shoulder nervously, expecting that they would be followed. The street traffic thickened. Soon they were caught up in Havana’s nighttime activity, dodging ungainly carriages with oversized wheels that threatened to knock them over. The sidewalks were so narrow, two people couldn’t pass each other. He felt a hand catch his arm and he jumped. Crouched by the wall was a black woman with the stump of a large cigar in her mouth. He turned away, but the woman’s deeply wrinkled face and sad eyes stayed with him.
They turned onto a street that ran parallel to the wharf. It was mostly commercial buildings, stores and merchants’ offices, but there were residences as well. They passed dark wooden doors with iron spikes, barred windows of houses open, floor to ceilin
g. He saw a pretty girl with her hands on the bars looking out onto the street like a bird in a cage. They passed a large house and were startled by a voice coming out of the darkness.
“¿Quién vive?”
They didn’t reply, and didn’t stop walking. It was a military guard armed with a musket. The man stepped forward into the streetlight. He had a black hat, a white jacket, and black boots.
“¡Alto! Alto!” They heard a whistle blow repeatedly, and then footsteps.
“Hurry, we’re almost there.”
Abbott grabbed Townsend’s arm and they ran.
Breathless, they rested underneath a shadowy arcade where they knew they would be out of sight. Somehow they had eluded the guard, but Abbott admitted in his panic he had turned the wrong way. The Englishman gestured toward the interior of the old city and muttered, “Havana Street and San Juan de Dios. Let’s go! We have to get to Mrs. Carpenter’s boarding house.” Townsend thought about leaving him at the arcade, but he knew Abbott might not make it. They walked for several more blocks, until Townsend finally saw the name of the boarding house near the gray stone walls of an old church. It was a flat-roof, three-storied building with a stable to one side. They banged on the front door’s brass knocker and were let in by a maid. They stepped inside an airy, cool interior. A marble staircase with balustrades also of marble wound its way up to the next floor. He could hear the melodic sound of a violin echoing through the house. Behind the staircase Townsend spied an open veranda and a small courtyard. His eyes turned as a tall, full-figured woman, strong-jawed but with comely features, purposefully walked down the staircase. She had thick, wavy dark hair streaked with gray, all neatly tied up in a business-like bun. She looked to be in her late forties, not much older than his mother was.
Abbott spoke in a soft whisper to avoid being overheard.