by Robin Lloyd
It was his concern for Laura that convinced him to walk back into harm’s way. Instead of running away into the maze of alleyways that surrounded him, he reloaded his pistols with lead balls and clambered back over the wall, pulling the ladder with him in case he needed to make a quick escape. Silence greeted him as he opened the tavern door and looked inside. With a pistol in each hand, he stepped inside the White Bull. The floor of the tavern was littered with the debris of broken tables and chairs. The whole place stank of stale beer. Shattered glasses, plates, and mugs were scattered across the floor. He was about to call out for Laura when he heard a woman sobbing. He turned toward the sound to see Laura’s sister, Molly, and quickly walked over to where she was crouched on the floor. Beside Molly lay a still, limp body. Morgan stood there, silent and motionless, for what seemed like an hour, but was probably only a few seconds.
“All of this destruction! It’s yer meddling!” she cried out, her mouth twitching in pain. “They was waiting for ye. Ye know that, don’t ye?”
Morgan was speechless. There was nothing he could say.
“Who is this?”
“My ’usband, you fool. One of yer men knocked ’im on the ’ead, that big tall brute with the white ponytail.”
“Is he dead?”
“No, I don’t think so, but ’e’s as cold as a two-day-old codfish.”
Morgan bent down beside the body, grabbed the man’s wrist, and found a pulse. He examined the man’s balding head where he could see a bloody bruise, but there was no open wound.
“I reckon he’ll live,” he pronounced confidently, but with a sudden panic in his voice he asked, “Where’s Laura? Is she here?”
Instead of answering, Molly continued her rant, her wet, dark eyelashes now blinking rapidly in mounting anger. Morgan could see the similarity with Laura now. If it weren’t for the drooping corner of one lip and the hairy black mole on her face, she might be considered a beauty.
“The only reason they didn’t get ye was it was yer other friend who stepped up to the bar. They thought he was ye.”
Morgan snapped to attention.
“Hiram? Hiram Smith?” he asked with trepidation, not wanting to hear the answer. It occurred to him for the first time that he hadn’t seen Hiram in the alleyway. Maybe he didn’t get out? Then he remembered the man at the bar with arms like a bear.
“What happened to him? Where is my friend?”
Molly shrugged.
“And where is Laura?”
A malevolent smile came across her face, her lip drooping more visibly to one side.
“I suppose ye never suspected that she was ’ired by that brute, did ya now?” she said with contempt. “He ’ired her to find out who ye was, and why ye was looking for him. He planned to kill ye, fool.”
The gleam in her dark blue eyes revealed a certain innate cruelty.
“Ye was just an opportunity for her, Yankee boy, just another opportunity.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Her voice sank to a low, husky murmur. “As for yer friend, who knows what ’appened to ’im. As soon as you yelled out yer warning, the man next to my husband pulled a knife on yer friend and put it up to ’is throat.”
Morgan stood silently for several moments as he allowed this information to sink in. Hiram was gone, nabbed by Blackwood’s men, or even worse, lying in a urine-soaked gutter somewhere, bleeding to death. Worse still, it was his fault. What would they do once they found out Hiram wasn’t him? Maybe they’ve already killed him. He felt drained, empty of strength. He looked over at Molly, who was pulling at her hair as she looked at her prostrate husband. Her dark mood had returned as she gazed at the destruction around her. She started yelling for the police. She grabbed a knife from her husband’s pocket, cursing him as he walked out of the tavern, all the time screaming for a constable.
He walked back to the docks, grappling with his own feelings of depression, anger, disappointment, and failure. He trudged by the closed pawnshops and the foul-smelling alehouses, where a few stragglers were still stumbling out the door to relieve themselves on the wall. At that moment, he was seething with anger toward England and the English. Foul dealing, he said to himself, appears to come naturally to these people. He had been betrayed by a woman he had trusted. He had been set up. His best friend might be dead. But as bad and as miserable a place was this depraved city, he knew he had to accept the blame. It was his fault, and he was a fool. He didn’t even know where to begin to look for Hiram. A faint hope that he might somehow have escaped kept him focused as he made his way back to St. Katherine’s Docks.
The next day, an irate Captain Christopher Champlin ordered Morgan to report to his cabin. Fearful of what awaited him, Morgan gingerly turned the white porcelain handle and stepped inside the stateroom adjacent to the two officers’ cabins. He’d never been inside the captain’s quarters before, so his eyes were busy scanning the room. The only source of light was a bulkhead lamp on gimbals with a sooty flame. Champlin was standing beside one of the portholes across from his desk, his hands behind his back with his feet broadly spaced apart as if he were bracing for a storm.
“Come in, Mr. Morgan, and shut the door behind you. Sit down over there, if you please.”
“Yes, sir, Captain.”
He pointed to the only wooden chair in the room across from him. Morgan took his seat and waited for the storm to follow the silence that pervaded the room. Champlin at last cleared his throat and began to speak in a slow, ominous voice.
“My brother told me you might be trouble, Morgan, but I never expected this. I reckon you got some explaining to do. My pistols have been stolen. Four of my men have been banged up right fine in a tight scratch with some drunken English sailors and river scum. The tavern owner wants to be compensated. One of my best men, Hiram Smith, has been kidnapped or dead, and it looks as if my first mate is the one who brought these sailors into harm’s way.”
Champlin paused, his eyes boring into Morgan’s face.
“I ought to have you put in irons.”
A humbled Morgan handed over the pistols, and speaking in a subdued voice, began telling Champlin about his quest to find out what had happened to his brother.
“I thought I’d found the man who did harm to my brother, Captain. It was something I needed to do, and the men wanted to help me. Hiram is my friend. There isn’t anyone who feels more deeply troubled about him than me.”
Champlin listened quietly, and then paced around the room, his voice steadily rising as his anger mounted.
“Listen up, Morgan. I’ll only tell you this once. You’re the first officer on my packet ship, and that’s all I care about. I’ve got a ship to run, I’ve got a schedule to keep, cargo to load, and passengers to look after. I don’t give a donkey’s ass about your ill-founded quest for your brother. That’s your business. If you want to go looking for trouble down in the East End, go ahead, all-possessed, limber and lively as the Devil, you go ahead, but not from my ship. Have you got that, Mr. Morgan?”
Morgan nodded.
“From now on, those whoremongering taverns in the East End and quim-filled boarding houses are off limits for you. When we’re in London you’re confined to the ship.”
“But what about Hiram, sir? He might be in danger. I’ve got to find him.”
“I reckon Smith is either dead with his throat slit or in the fo’c’sle of a British merchant ship headed for Calcutta. Either way there’s not much you can do for him.”
A chastened Ely Morgan turned to leave Champlin’s cabin with a heavy step when Champlin called him back.
“I need to know, Mr. Morgan, that nothing like this will happen again.”
Morgan paused as he shuffled his feet. He didn’t say anything.
“I need to know, Morgan, do you hear?” he said emphatically. “I need that guarantee!” He stood up with his red face inches from Morgan’s nose. “If you don’t have the answer by the time we back our sails off Sandy Hook, then I reckon you
’ll be looking for work on another ship.”
On that cold January voyage back to New York, Morgan went about his duties like a man in a trance. He felt guilty that he had left London without looking for Hiram. He could have chosen to leave the ship and stay in London to look for him, but he hadn’t. What kind of friend was that? But then what could he have done? He didn’t know where to begin to look. For all he knew, like the captain said, Hiram had been crimped and dumped aboard another ship bound for a distant port. It was Icelander who talked him through his problems during one late-night watch. They were somewhere east of Newfoundland. The weather had turned cold and miserable with the winds blowing from the west and forcing them to double-reef the topsails. Morgan had put several men on watch up in the bow of the ship. The rigging and the ratlines were lined with a sheath of ice, and the decks were covered with a thin coating of freshly fallen snow.
Morgan was smoking a cigar amidships on the lee side as he thought about whether to give the order to tack to the south. He felt the bitter cold bite into his skin, but he didn’t care. After nearly three weeks at sea, his face was unshaven, his hair covered with salt, and his canvas trousers stained with tar and grease. He leaned up against the bulwarks and looked down in the blackness, where he could hear but not see the rush of the waves against the side of the ship. His mood was as dark and as bitter as the cold night wind. In between his weighing the decision whether or not to change course, he was also thinking about whether he should quit the trade. His despair was real even if his thinking was filled with uncertainty. His life had been filled with conflict. He had always met challenges that confronted him head-on, but this was something different. This time the conflict was within himself as he struggled to grapple with an enemy inside. He had always believed in himself, in his own strength, but now he was facing crippling self-doubts. Perhaps he should return to Lyme and seek penance from his father. He wondered if it was too late for that. What did he want to do with his life? Maybe his father was right after all. A life at sea can only lead to tragic loss, pain, and suffering. He thought of his mother, her drawn face, so empty and so tired, and he wondered if he was risking his life in the cruelest way.
Just then, a familiar voice penetrated the darkness and interrupted his thoughts.
“These are perilous conditions, Mr. Morgan, and if we continue further to the north the weather will likely get worse.”
He turned to see a large form looming over him. It was Icelander. To conform to the ship’s rules governing the relationship between sailors and ship’s officers, he now called his old shipmate Mister, but it was a formality. The two men had close bonds after so many years sailing together. Morgan didn’t say anything, continuing to smoke his Havana.
“Icelander, wait for the end of the watch when we have all men on deck and we’ll tack southward as you suggest.”
The quiet giant nodded, his white eyelashes blinking quickly. He started to move away when Morgan asked him a question, uncharacteristically using the man’s real name, perhaps as a way to show him mutual respect.
“What do you do, Mr. Rasmussen, when fate deals you a sharp blow?” Icelander was surprised by this unexpected, probing question and didn’t answer. Morgan continued with a follow-up question. “What do you do when your actions have caused terrible consequences for others? What do you do when someone you thought you cared for betrays you?”
An awkward silence followed. Morgan was one of the few sailors that Icelander had confided with about his own personal trauma that had sent him into painful exile. After a few more minutes of silence he finally spoke, his thin lips barely moving.
“There are always detours on a man’s road which may seem to take him in a direction he doesn’t want to go,” he said.
“Pray tell, what is that supposed to mean, Rasmussen?” asked Morgan impatiently. “Stop speaking in riddles, man.”
Icelander lowered his voice to a whisper, an indication that this was intended as a private conversation.
“You’ve told me what Captain Champlin said to you. It may be that you don’t want to listen to him. That’s understandable. He’s only interested in his ship. I suppose what I am trying to say is, if one day you were to become captain, Ely, then you wouldn’t have so many detours. You could do pretty much as you pleased.”
Morgan didn’t say anything, so it was Icelander who finished the conversation.
“What I mean to say, Ely, as someone who has worked beside you for many years, in many storms, on many rough passages, is that your road in life lies on the Atlantic highway. You are drawn to it. Just like some men are rooted in the earth, you are a creature of the sea. That’s my way of thinking anyhow. That’s what your brother would have wanted you to do. He would not have wanted to see you quit. Maybe he’s somewhere up there looking down on you wishing he could do what you’re doing right now. Maybe he’s still alive and he needs your help. Did you ever reflect, Ely, on what your brother might want you to do?”
Morgan said nothing, but continued puffing on his Havana, looking down over the leeward side of the ship into the cold dark river of rushing water several feet from his face.
PART V
The captain, in the first place, is lord paramount. He stands no watch, comes and goes as he pleases, and is accountable to no one, and must be obeyed in everything, without a question even from his chief officer.
—Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast
12
1831
Morgan looked out at the murky molasses-colored East River and the harbor beyond. He spotted the Hudson among a fleet of towering ships, the Black X flag flying from the main mast. It hardly seemed possible to him that he was now the Hudson’s commander. He was the master of his own ship at the young age of twenty-five, a rare accomplishment in the packet trade. He pushed his way past anxious hotelkeepers trying to quickly settle accounts while newspaper boys shouted out the headlines of the latest edition. A cacophony of tearful farewells, hysterical sobbing, and nervous laughter surrounded him. The cool April air was alive with men yelling, horn blasts, and whistles from ships. That morning, New York’s South Street docks were filled with rushed arrivals and hurried departures as mule-drawn wagons and pull carts crossed paths with finely varnished carriages.
The clatter of wheels and clop of hooves echoed in his ears. Coachmen helped finely dressed ladies with their colorful bonnets and shawls step out onto the cobblestone streets. Many of them were bound for Europe in search of the latest spring fashions. Morgan had been told his ship was full. Not only did he have a main cabin of twenty passengers, but the ship was loaded with nearly one hundred tons of cargo. He was carrying everything from casks of hides and horn tips, to several hundred hogsheads of flaxseed, to more than a hundred bales of cotton. They would be riding low on the water this trip, his first voyage as captain.
The Hudson’s departure had been delayed now for days because the winds had been easterly. Now that they’d come round to the southwest, he hoped to be off soon. All this delay due to the unfavorable winds created more chaos down at the docks. There were many ships ready to sail outward bound, some more anxious than others. The Havre packet Francois I was berthed near Old Slip; the Black Ball Line’s new ship, the Hibernia, at the foot of Beekman Street; and the Blue Swallowtail Liner the Napoleon had just pulled into Peck’s Slip. All were tied up at their docks loading freight and passengers, and would be ready to depart soon for England and France. New York’s shipyards were building ten new packet ships that spring, all bigger and faster than the old Hudson.
Morgan squeezed his way among carts and wagons filled with luggage until he reached the small steamer that would take him out to the ship. He took a deep breath of ocean air. For the first time in his life, he actually could look forward to earning several thousand dollars a year. He had never thought of himself as overly ambitious, but after his run-in with Captain Champlin and the stern warning he had received, he had made up his mind to be a shipmaster and become his own bo
ss. A cold wind gusted in from the East River, causing him to tighten up his jacket. He wondered if his family in Lyme were getting this same weather. Josiah had written, “Word around here is that you’re going to go master pretty soon and have your own ship. Everyone in town is congratulating father. He doesn’t say anything. Mother is so proud.” He suddenly felt lonely as he thought about how much he missed his family.
Josiah had written him that he was intending to buy his own farm, and he had his eye on some land owned by Judge Noyes overlooking the river. He was waiting to see if the judge would sell at a more favorable price than forty dollars an acre. He’d gotten married a few years back to Amanda Maynard, and Morgan had already written him back that he would help with the purchase of the land. Now that he was a captain he could afford to do so. As first mate he had been making forty dollars a month, but as captain he was entitled to five percent of all freight earnings, twenty-five percent of cabin passenger fares, and whatever was received from carrying any mail. At two cents a letter, that usually amounted to about one hundred dollars a voyage.
He looked out across the East River to Brooklyn and then out to the harbor. Two incoming ships from China carrying the blue-and-white checkered flag of Nathaniel and George Griswold at their mastheads were waiting to dock. A tug, clouds of black soot spouting out of its smokestack, was on its way to tow one of them into the docking area. Several coastal packets from New Orleans and Savannah were also in line to unload their cargoes of cotton by the slip at the foot of Wall Street.