by James Spurr
“Of course. Alright now, lads, make fast our lines.”
The soldiers began to pull the ship alongside and Oliver stood at the bulwark rail, just aft of the chains. “Sir, are you saying England is at war with the United States?”
Captain Roberts thought it a relevant question and confirmed, “Indeed, although your nation, sir, declared war upon England. Your ship is a prize of war. Now, identify yourself at once and direct your crew to offer no resistance.”
Oliver noted Urastus Richards had made his way to larboard forward of the mast, crossed over to starboard, leapt over to the dock and was speaking in hushed tones to Mr. Fleet. While that struck him as odd, Oliver was as yet attempting to forestall a British Army captain and what seemed to him a King’s regiment. “Captain, we are a merchant ship. We are unarmed! Certainly we are not a target of his Majesty!” Oliver protested.
Captain Roberts was becoming angry, “Again, I demand you identify yourself. Order the crew to the dock on the instant and bring your ship’s papers.” Lieutenant Fleet distracted Captain Roberts and whispered to him. Oliver glanced at Richards, catching his smirk.
“I am Oliver Williams. I own this ship. Its cargo is mine.”
Captain Roberts gestured to his soldiers to board. Ignoring Oliver, he ordered all crew and passengers onto the dock. They began to comply, save for James, who was ultimately persuaded by Oliver’s nod and the muzzle of a musket poked in his side. Bemose, Oliver noticed, walked unobtrusively with her head down through the soldiers, down the dock and melted into a gathering of locals streaming now from surrounding homes. She took her place among other natives and Oliver saw her speaking with them.
Captain Roberts, Fleet and Richards were now on deck. Oliver purposefully backed toward, as though defending, the companionway hatch. Captain Roberts threatened one last time, “I need to see the ship’s papers, now! Where is the manifest? Allow me below on the instant!”
Oliver, even while stepping aside, attempted to delay the inevitable, “I am not the Master and I do not know where such papers are kept.”
Captain Roberts, surprised he had not the entire time been speaking with the Master, looked to Mr. Richards who nodded. He turned to descend the companionway hatch with Lieutenant Fleet, demanding, “Who is the Master of this ship? Where is he?”
Oliver responded calmly, “The Master is Captain William Lee.”
Oliver thought watching Fleet’s surprise would have been great fun were it not for the feeling of dread at their going below. They descended the companionway steps, Captain Roberts, Lieutenant Fleet, Mr. Richards, Oliver and one armed soldier, and congregated in the wardroom, far too many persons in far too little space. Fleet hurried through the hold and the galley with great intensity and Oliver answered, after some pause and confusion, “I do not know the whereabouts of Captain Lee.”
Fleet was near frantic. William was obviously hidden and Oliver was truly mystified. Again, Richards and Fleet conferred. Oliver, angry that he had obviously underestimated Richards and did not understand his role, challenged him, intending an insult, “Sir, as a mere passenger, you have been ordered to the dock. Or is your role here less than honorable?”
Captain Roberts came to his defense, “Urastus Richards is a loyal British subject and is under our protection.”
Oliver was doing what he could to distract and be difficult, “Sir, you mean to say he is a spy?”
Fleet interjected, “Captain Roberts, Sir, I have found the Manifest. Indeed, William Lee is Master. I know this man to be a deserter and a traitor. He is wanted and will hang if found.”
Captain Roberts ordered the soldier, “Gather some assistance and search the entire ship!”
Richards motioned to the chest at the foot of Captain Lee’s bunk. Fleet retrieved it, held it out as if to question Richards, who confirmed with a nod and said, “That is the chest.”
Lieutenant Fleet handed it to Captain Roberts, while explaining, “This traitor, Mr. Lee, has compiled documents for the purpose of revealing trade routes and was intending to deliver this information to Lieutenant Hanks.”
Meanwhile, the soldiers were moving the cargo and lifting the floorboards. Oliver well knew there was simply nowhere for William to hide. The ship was simply too small; the bilges too shallow.
Captain Roberts opened the chest. It was empty.
Fleet was near mad with frustration. Oliver looked aft, bewildered at all the questions at that moment presenting themselves. He noticed the larboard gallery window was open, hung in that position with a small chain to the deckbeams.
There was simply no way, Oliver knew, that the window had been open throughout the stormy day.
Captain Roberts looked up from the vacant chest, reviewed the Manifest, considered the missing Master and documents and informed Oliver, “Sir, your ship is a prize of War. We are informed it was transporting arms and troops. It appears it was carrying something far more objectionable. You are under arrest.” He directed the soldiers, “Put all on board into custody and isolate the owner and crew. We shall sort it out in the morning.”
As Oliver strode from the dock to the beach, dusk was approaching. He glanced back, only once, to witness Lieutenant Fleet tear the stars and strips from the flag halyard running to the peak of the gaff. From that moment, he resolved to only look forward. He saw Bemose standing among some natives as he walked past. They searched each other’s eyes. Both knew the other had no idea what had happened to William.
William landed gracefully on the floor of the wardroom. He had learned long before where to place his hands and how to lower himself from the sliding hatch cover and, without using the ladder, swing his legs aft and lighten his landing.
For a couple of seconds he thought to hide, then realized before he even moved the futility of such an effort. He was facing aft, looking at the daylight through the stern gallery window and realized he had no chance within his wooden walls. He reached to the foot of his bunk as above Oliver played the fool, pulled out the chest, removed all documents and slipped the folded packet in the front fall of his trousers. Two steps further aft, voices rising on deck, he felt the ship move to starboard. He raised and chained the window in the full open position just as the ship touched the dock. Redcoats would be swarming below any second.
He gave thanks for his small frame, cursed his aging stiff joints and went head first out the window, his side balancing for the moment against the bottom sill as he glanced around and twisted his frame to the centerline. Salina appeared abandoned. The natives fishing from the canoe saw him, appeared curious, but remained silent. He hesitated, reached up to grab the larboard davit and suddenly recalled the documents would be ruined if immersed in water. He looked for a moment at the bright finished transom of his command, or at least that which would be his for the next couple of seconds and he recalled the possibilities presented by Samuel’s sternboard carving. He hauled himself out, hung for a moment from the davits and swung his foot over to stand on the top of the rudder. His left hand grabbed the window sill while his right hand reached up for Samuel’s beautiful carving.
While paddling down Lake Huron in April, William considered where he would hide documents that may be important. While false bulkheads and tanks, all of which were already incorporated into Friends Good Will, were suitable for larger contraband and illicit liquids, documents were a unique problem. He dug his fingertips around the edge of the orb carved with the initials, O.W.& Co., pulled it from the nameboard by sliding it out on the small pegs Samuel had used to hold it cleverly in place with mere friction. He put the small packet of folded documents into the hollow center of the orb and pushed it back in place, all holes and pegs precisely in line.
He heard men descending down the companionway ladder. Oliver was arguing. Fleet was mentioning the Manifest and he distinctly heard the words, “traitor,” and, “documents.” How did Fleet know of the documents and why, of all, was Richards among the British? He lowered himself into the water, slowly, silently, trusting
somehow a plan would present itself, here, just feet from the dock, while still daylight and before a search for him began in earnest.
Not caring to risk if anyone standing upon the dock would see him swim across to it, he noticed the overhang of planks from the second crib and determined to try to conceal himself underneath. He immersed himself as silently as possible, well below the surface. The depth of the water was just three feet more than the draft of the ship, with the waning daylight barely sufficient to illuminate the surrounding underwater area. While swimming under water he noted alongside the crib and beneath the overhang several broken vertical planks and the spillage of large rocks and boulders from the crib, lying now along the harbor bottom. Perhaps, just maybe, he thought.
William came up for air, went back down, made his way to and through the opening presented by the broken planks and could just barely wedge himself in between the inside of the planking and the rocks still contained in that area of the crib. He scraped his side on a rock, bruised his back on the rough planks, but with adrenaline enough to mask the pain, rose to the surface on the inside of the crib, half climbing the few feet on the incline of what stones remained after the spillage.
William was able to squeeze himself to near the surface, breath, listen to all activity around him and was totally hidden to anyone searching from the surface. In a near fetal position, his head pressed against the underside of the dock planking, only his legs remained in the water. He could see waning daylight through the narrow slits between the planks, both above him on the dock and through the vertical planking of the crib.
William knew he could not stay for long. He would chill in these northern waters, even in the height of summer. Perhaps an hour or two. Long enough, he hoped, for darkness to fall.
He slept. For how long, he could not tell. He recalled it being dark before he fell asleep and it was yet dark. A half moon provided for some reflection off the water, detected through the narrow slits. If he could see the moon, he could guess the hour. He tried but the slits between the planks were too narrow, his world too confined. He could hear the distant sounds of boots on planks and guessed that a sentry was posted at the shore end of the dock. There were no sounds coming from Friends Good Will.
He heard dripping water, paddles perhaps. The sounds, with some rythym, indicated whatever it was, it was coming closer. Could it be from canoes? He waited and considered the risk of making himself known. He could not stay for much longer. He was shivering and cramped. His mobility, he suspected, already had decreased to where swimming would be difficult.
Just as he was about to risk all, the sounds very close, he heard the hushed call, not much above a whisper, “William!” It was a voice that he knew better than any other, a voice he had heard whisper to him for years. Bemose was somewhere nearby. He called back in a hushed whisper to her. After a few seconds of silence, she asked, confused but excited, “Where are you?”
William instructed, “Paddle underneath the end of the dock.” He took a deep breath as he wriggled down and out from his sanctuary and was just seconds later breaking the surface, half a canoe length from his rescuers. The natives with Bemose hauled him aboard, removed his clothing, dried him with blankets, wrapped him in others all while he lay on the floor of the canoe. Both he and Bemose were overcome with joy, even as he shivered, while expressing his gratitude for the others.
Bemose reminded him of the identities of the others in the canoe, those, who like her, risked much. They were in fact two of the same young men who were fishing in the canoe near the dock when Friends Good Will was captured.
They had also been two of the youths William and Bemose saved near seven years before, when held hostage and pressed as guides by an altogether different captain, also wet, cold, in need of rescue, having wrecked the schooner Hope in a near drunken stupor. Fleet, the young men had learned from Bemose, was now all too close and at that moment rendered unconscious by drink in the hold, having searched Friends Good Will for documents to aid his own career and so to ruin William’s life.
As Bemose, the two young men, and a grateful and exhausted Captain Lee began their voyage by canoe, paddling southeast and intent on crossing the Straits before day light, William observed the moon reflect off of the transom of his now former command. The orb of the sternboard held that which both he and Lieutenant Fleet sought desperately, information that could aid either side in a conflict now begun, a conflict William had for some time seen as inevitable, a conflict that would once and for all determine the fate of the Northwest and of his beloved inland seas.
Chapter 17
Captain Charles Roberts of the 10th Royal Veteran Battalion of Fort St. Joseph sat at the desk which just four days ago had been that of Lieutenant Porter Hanks, United States Army. It was uncomfortably hot even with the windows opened, as they were largely shielded by the south wall of Fort Mackinaw. The high walls allowed none of the southeast breeze to cool the room. Four days before, the United States garrison surrendered to His Majesty’s forces and Captain Roberts was still, to his surprise and disappointment, attempting to sort through the many confusing aspects to the mere change of a flag flying from atop the pole in the center of the parade ground. His hand was cramped, his fingers ached and he reflected with deep regret that he had thus far this war held his quill more than his sword.
Captain Roberts slept very little since the euphoric realization of their accomplishment had made sleep nearly impossible. With the initial excitement long since evaporated, the demands of administration kept him awake. If occupation were this tiring, he could only imagine the demands of battle. If occupation was, however, this dull, no wonder young men preferred the narcotic of conflict to mind numbing order. He was frustrated his noon meal was apparently late. More matters than he cared to list still awaited him, each requiring numerous persons to gather on the front porch just outside his door, some under guard.
He was not in the best mood, though felt badly he was not more cheerful. In large part, his command had performed with honor and distinction. Although British soldiers under his direct control numbered no more than fifty, the approximate strength of the American garrison, he also had under his nominal control Robert Dickson and natives over whom he held influence, including Ojibwa, Ottawa and Winnebago, and John Askin, Jr. with a large band of French trappers. These contingents were not easy to manage and the difficulties with his allies, far more taxing than those presented by the enemy, left him largely exhausted. From the very moment he had heard Colonel Pye read the declaration of war aloud from the parade ground at Fort St. Joseph, the afternoon of 29 June, his efforts were near constant with a singular purpose—surprise the Americans and set them on the defensive.
The following day, by a stroke of good fortune, a British sentry from Fort St. Joseph captured an American agent, just across the St. Mary’s river from the fort, sent by Lieutenant Hanks to reconnoiter British preparedness. The prisoner knew nothing of a declared war and revealed far more, instead, about American preparedness, or rather the lack of it. Colonel Pye gambled that no ship had made her way upbound on Lake Huron since Caledonia. Word of war would come to Mackinaw, Pye was determined, in the dead of night, wearing red coats.
As strategic thinkers, Captain Roberts and Colonel Pye worked closely in planning a strike at Mackinaw. Barely three weeks later, on 16 July, Captain Roberts and Lieutenant Dunlap orchestrated an amphibious landing from the Brig Caledonia at night on the north end of the island. The British force of regulars was augmented greatly by sympathetic native tribes brought together by Lieutenant Dunlap. They marched swiftly and near silently through the night across the interior of the island, struggling with cannon and carriage up steep hills and rough terrain. By dawn they mounted a battery of six pounders sighted from the heights above the fort to the north. The artillery was easily capable of lobbing deadly round shot at leisure rendering stone walls, log stockades, and armed blockhouses utterly irrelevant. The Americans within the fort awoke looking up at the muzzles of B
ritish cannon.
There was no dishonor in the capitulation. There was simply frustration. Lieutenant Hanks had no more prior knowledge than he had subsequent choice.
Captain Roberts realized as the United States flag fluttered down the pole and the Union Jack was tied to the halyard amid the drums and ceremonial marching of a formal surrender, he had given little thought to what would happen after the island was his. His preference was to move on, perhaps to Fort Dearborn or Detroit, with the hundreds of warriors now departing in both directions from heavily laden war canoes. It was not to be, and he feared his previous four days of administration might portend his future for the duration of the war.
Captain Roberts was thankful for Lieutenant Dunlap. He had not, before the surprise attack, considered the implications of capturing the District Office of the United States Custom Office. He understood little of shipping, routes, practices and practicalities of anything afloat. Lieutenant Dunlap advised him that American merchant ships were required to stop at Mackinaw. Sylvester Day, having taken the oath of Deputy Administrator just some sixty days before falling prisoner, conceded to Lieutenant Dunlap the very day of the capitulation that, “… all passing vessels were required to stop at Mackinaw. All must allow for cargo inspection, obtain permission to depart, pay duties and swear oaths.”
Lieutenant Dunlap conceived of a grand ruse de guere; lure in American shipping with false colors. The first day brought them the schooner Salina, the second Friends Good Will and, just this morning, Captain Roberts marched down the dock yet a third time to deliver a by now well practiced announcement informing the Master of the sloop Erie that his ship and cargo were a prize. It was too easy, but likely to prove very profitable.
The corporal brought the next matter before him. Captain Roberts looked up wearily to face that impertinent American ship owner whom he recalled had played that ridiculous game with the docklines.