In Hostile Waters: The Cruise of USS Argus (Oliver Baldwin Novel Book 3)

by William H. White

  “Would that have been the same Henry Allen who was first lieutenant in United States when Decatur took our Macedonian?” Ballantyne asked. He was quite familiar with the oft-told story of Carden’s and Decatur’s epic battle fought just ten months before.

  “I believe the man was none other, sir. His first, a fellow called Baldwin, I think, made mention of that during a meal in the cabin one evening. Claimed he was there – on the American frigate – during that engagement also.” Sullivan nodded somberly.

  “Aye, so, I collect this Henry Allen treated you respectfully…humanely? It would appear he did, given that you mention ‘dinner in the cabin.’ He has a reputation for that, I understand.” Ballantyne queried and then proceeded to answer his own question.

  “He did, sir. And despite the crowded conditions in his ship – they had nearly fifty prisoners, including our men, aboard. And a woman. The men were herded below, to the orlop deck, but they were given the opportunity for a walk on deck once each day. I do not have any information on where the woman was kept – she had been a passenger on another ship, which fell victim to Cap’n Allen’s campaign.

  “It was near dark, about ten o’clock, I think – ” he paused, shifting his glance around to the other civilian masters for confirmation. Each, knowing what was coming, nodded in solidarity, a grim expression giving testimony to his dismay. Sullivan continued. “Each time, he sent a party over to our vessels and put them to the torch. Three ships. Burned them right to the waterline, he done. Those fires had to have been seen ashore, so bright were they. And we was only maybe ten miles off Clear Island. We then headed south – I imagine he was trying to get ’round the bottom-end of Ireland and maybe head into the Channel.” Sullivan stopped again, a rueful smile on his face. “He didn’t exactly share that information with us – his plans, that is.” He waited a beat, to see if there were questions from either the admiral, who was hearing the tale for the second time, or Captain Ballantyne.

  “I was allowed, more or less, run of the ship, as were my colleagues, here. One night when I was unable to find sleep, given my dire circumstances, I was holding station on deck, along with a midshipman who had been assigned to guard me. The ship was in a heavy fog, but I could make out shapes – ships, they were – and not far off. The fog was wispy in places, but it was apparent we were in the middle of a fleet, perhaps a convoy. In a short opening in the fog, I discovered there was a frigate quite near at hand, perhaps a pistol shot distant, and considered shouting out for their attention. Cap’n Allen was on the deck as well and intuited my intentions, so he had his midshipman take me below, with orders to ‘run him through with a cutlass’ should I make a sound. I did not.

  “In total silence, he put his ship at quarters. Quite an impressive feat to witness, I might add. From below deck, I felt the brig harden up into the wind, and she slipped away, apparently unseen. When I was permitted back on the deck, about an hour later, the fog was still thick, but there was no sign of any other vessels about.” Sullivan stopped, looked at his colleague, Captain Whiteman, an Englishman from the ship Barbadoes, and motioned him to continue the story.

  Whiteman sat up a bit straighter, cleared his throat, and spoke. “We sailed well into the next day, the fog quite heavy most of the time. It was as if he knows our waters as well as we do – and even passed another English ship, this one a brig slightly larger than the one in which we were held captive. It was a part of the same convoy, another escort, I assumed. Allen’s crew was at quarters again but crouched down behind the bulwarks. They had British colors flying from the gaff, which seemed to allow him to sail right past the English brig, arousing no interest whatever. I must say, that man’s got an iron nerve!” Whiteman sniffed, whether in outrage at the American’s gall or in frustration over their predicament, neither Ballantyne nor the admiral could discern. Captain Ballantyne motioned for him to continue his saga.

  “Yes, an iron nerve! He luffed up and dropped back to the tail end of the convoy and, just after dawn, took the schooner Cordelia without firing a shot.

  “He put his boat over, same as before, and in short order it returned with the master and chief officer. Sullivan and I happened to be near at hand when they came aboard. We overheard their conversation as they explained that their schooner was originally an American vessel, but it had been captured by a British privateer in Antigua. She carried molasses and sugar when the Americans took her. Allen held the two officers aboard Argus and sent a crew back to the schooner. We thought they’d burn her like they done with our ships – but before they were halfway there, he fired a pistol into the air and called them back. Then he told the master, a man named John Avery, that he was declaring Cordelia to be a cartel for prisoners. With that, they loaded up their boats with all prisoners, including the woman he held – never did discover her name – and sent them to the schooner. His crew had already destroyed Cordelia’s cargo, including running the molasses into the bilge. A dreadful smell it was, I can tell you! Glad we had only a short time aboard!” He sniffed again, this time pulling a handkerchief from his sleeve and wiping at his nose. Ballantyne impatiently gestured for him to continue.

  “We sailed with Avery until this morning. He was heading for Bristol, but the three of us begged to enter Cork with the hopes of finding a naval presence here. He obliged and here we are.”

  “Captain, would you think it possible that Argus might still be in our waters? Perhaps you heard something from her captain – Allen, right? – or should I say, overheard, anything about his intentions or plan?” Thornbrough pressed Whiteman, and shot a glance at Sullivan. The third captain had said nothing, only nodding his head from time to time in agreement with something one or the other of his colleagues had described.

  Finally, the third man, the master of Jason, cleared his throat and in a clear baritone offered an opinion. “Were it me, Admiral, I’d be stayin’ right here, in these waters. Pickin’s too ripe by half, they are, what with all these merchants comin’ back and others headin’ out without a thought of seein’ any hostiles. A clever cap’n might do well for himself. And I think, from what we have already witnessed, this Allen fellow is clever enough, indeed!”

  “Hmmm. Captain Ballantyne? Would you agree? I think if you and Jalouse went out as soon as this bloody wind comes around you might find a more satisfying cruise than you enjoyed last month.” Jalouse was a sixth-rate frigate also trapped in the Cove of Cork. She had made port the day following Pelican and was under Thornbrough’s command as well. “You’ll be over Cooper, as he is only just got the command, and he will be relying on your experience.

  “Gentlemen, I am sorry for your situations, but I am most grateful that you came to us with this intelligence. We – or rather, Captain Ballantyne – will do our best to avenge your losses and bring this…marauding American to heel. Can I assume Cordelia will see you to England?” Thornbrough was nothing, if not solicitous.

  The three merchant masters took that as their cue to leave and stood, as did Thornbrough and Ballantyne. They all shook hands with one another, offered wishes of good luck, then the civilians took their leave.

  “Edward, have a look here, if you please,” pulling out a chart. “I would offer this as a possible cruising ground for you, naturally subject to what you find once you are out the harbor.” The admiral unrolled the chart his desk, smoothing it out and anchoring the corners with an inkpot and his humidor. He put his finger on St. George’s Channel, the area between Wales and Ireland, and slid it down the paper past Cape Clear, then over toward Land’s End, in England.

  “From what those fellows offered about this Allen cove, this area might prove to be where he will turn up next. And yes,” he looked up at the captain, anticipating his unspoken comment, “it’s a significant area to search, but consider that he’s already managed to embarrass us on the west coast of Ireland, right into the Shannon. He probably assumes we’ve heard about that by now, so he’s likely seeking fresh cruising grounds for his devilish employment.”
>
  “As good as any for a place to start, I’d imagine. Do you expect me to keep Jalouse in company? We can cover more ground separately.” Regardless of the admiral’s reply, Ballantyne had every intention of dismissing his consort to cruise on her own as quickly as possible.

  “You do whatever you will, Edward. I would not dream of restricting you in any way. But hear me: I want that American vessel brought down. Bring her in if you can; burn or sink her if you can’t, and throw those pirates into Dartmoor Prison to rot. Or leave them to drown! I could not care less.”

  Captain Ballantyne left the admiral’s cabin, the man’s angry admonition ringing in his ears.

  He needn’t bloody well order me to catch that American pirate; it is my will to do so – a final mark in the book before I go ashore! Damn this bloody wind.

  Ballantyne returned to Pelican, ruminating on all the things he had heard from the merchant masters, the admiral, and what remained to be done to get his ship ready to sail on a moment’s notice. Suddenly, it occurred to him that they were going after a now-confirmed American warship, and in his crew were nine or ten American seamen, some pressed, some not.

  “Find Mister Welch and have him attend me in my quarters, if you please, Mister Morland.” The young midshipman, standing watch at the entry port, doffed his hat and sent his messenger on the errand.

  “Mister Welch, our previous commission sent us after a raider, whom we presumed to be American but could have been anything. We now have confirmation that, not only is it American, but it is, in fact, a U.S. Navy warship. From how it was described, it appears she’s a brig, slightly smaller than Pelican and possibly carrying somewhat smaller armament. Should we have the opportunity, I have little doubt we can bring them to battle and emerge victorious. My only concern lies in the fact that we have several Americans in our crew.” Ballantyne wasted no time on niceties, getting straight away to his mindset. “We are already short-handed, so we cannot afford to put them ashore, but I am sure you will agree that it would be a shame were we to fail due to some malfeasance by members of our own ship’s company. I have heard other captains report that sometimes men claiming American citizenship refuse to fight when confronted with their own countrymen. When we went out on our last cruise, I was not sure what we might find nor, should we find anything, what her flag might be. Now that I have confirmation this ship is American, we must address the issue and come to some workable solution.

  “I wish you to determine the mindset of those claiming United States citizenship, should they find themselves facing an American vessel in combat.”

  Welch had hardly sat himself down in the cabin before he was pressed into service on this errand. Not sure how he would undertake the task, he offered his acquiescence with a curt “Aye, Aye” and set out to ‘determine the mindset’ of the Americans in the fo’c’sle.

  Frustrated over the delay brought by the contrary winds, Ballantyne paced his cabin, stopping every so often at his desk to examine the chart spread across it, his intended search area clearly marked in pencil. There were so many places for his quarry to hide, not to mention the vast area it encompassed. He chafed to get his ship to sea. With the admiral’s orders about sailing with Jalouse still ringing in his ears, he had no intention of sharing the glory of what might turn out to be his final moment of triumph with any other. That he had been provided the most recent information concerning the whereabouts of the American raider gave him a distinct advantage, he knew, over whatever other ships Thornbrough might already have sent to sea, just in the wrong direction. The intelligence from the merchant masters might prove the Americans’ undoing, if Edward Ballantyne had any say in the matter!

  I will find those bloody Americans and put an end to their careers of wanton disregard of civilized warfare!

  The weather moderated in the night, and the wind, while still howling through the rigging in a half gale, had veered sufficiently to allow the two ships to escape the confines of the anchorage in Cork Cove. Once at sea, Ballantyne ordered a signal at the main yard instructing his consort, Jalouse, to sail southwest, then north toward the mouth of the Shannon, while he would steer Pelican to the south and then east into St. George’s Channel. He was confident he would find Argus before he fetched up on the Welch coast, barely a few day’s sail distant. His first lieutenant had assured him that the Americans in his crew would fight, reporting they insisted they were serving in the Royal Navy by choice. They had made no agreement with Jalouse about sharing prize money! This would, indeed, be his singular – and solo – glorious swansong.

  PART THREE

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  The Battle

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  11 August 1813

  USS Argus

  “Well, Henry, I think we may have got their attention now. That frigate yesterday was hell-bent on doing us dirt! If the wind hadn’t changed when it did, we might be heading for Dartmoor – had we survived their cannonading!” I smiled at my captain, sharing a glass of a particularly fine Madeira with him in the privacy of his cabin. We were enjoying a vintage owned by a Portuguese merchant, who probably thought the thirty casks he had shipped in an English merchantman were safely arrived in England!

  My remark was not mere conjecture; we had just finished picking off a straggler from a homeward bound convoy – its two-frigate escort was leagues ahead, close to the van, too far to impede our raid on the merchantman. Unable to hold on to the vessel as a prize, we had just set her ablaze when a Royal Navy warship appeared out of nowhere, bearing down on us with a bone in her teeth. The flames lit up the evening sky, making our presence known from probably miles away, but this ship came not from the convoy ahead, but from abaft our beam. We could see through a telescope that her ports were open and guns run out. She was well out of gun range at the time, and our captain ordered a press of canvas set and fell off on a heading just off the wind to give us the best chance of out-sailing our adversary. Nightfall was imminent, so we pushed Argus hard to the east, where the darkness soon hid us. Once the dark was complete and before the moon came up, we altered course to the north, hoping that the frigate would carry on, assuming we would do the same. At first light, there was no sign of her, and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief!

  It made little difference to us where we cruised, as long as we remained in the rich hunting grounds around the British Isles. Whether the English Channel, Irish Channel, or St. George’s Channel…didn’t signify a whit to us; they were all chock o’ block with fat merchants, either headed home from a trading voyage abroad or heading out, heavy with cargo destined for foreign ports. Henry Allen had decided early on that we would follow no set route that might be thought of as predictable. Instead, we would find our quarry wherever the wind took us, as long as we remained close to the coast of Ireland, Wales, or England.

  Currently, Argus was sailing on an easterly course that would carry us across St. George’s Channel toward the Welch coast, our latitude just a bit north of Cork. Our run from the Shannon Estuary down the west coast of Ireland and around Cape Clear had been quick, with a fair breeze and little luck in discovering fat merchantmen. Once we got ourselves into the St. George’s Channel, we found the convoy and had been dogging it. It was the same one from which we had taken the schooner Cordelia a few days before – and had picked off a second straggler before we were chased by the ill-intentioned frigate. I was leaning on the bulwark on the quarterdeck, simply watching the water race down the hull, my mind a complete blank, when the lookout’s cry brought me up all standing.

  “SAILS!” He cried. “Sails to leeward. Looks like a passel of ‘em. A dozen for sure. SAILS!”

  “Messenger, fetch Cap’n Allen, if you please. Watch officer’s compliments and all that, as usual.”

  “What have you found for us now, Mister Baldwin? A plump fruit, ripe for the picking?” The captain waited not a second for my reply; instead, he grabbed up his glass and bounded up the weather ratlines for the maintop.

  When he returned
to the deck, he could hardly contain his glee. He put his glass in the rack at the binnacle and said, apparently for my ears alone, “Merchants there, Edward. Let us see about taking one or two of them before their escort realizes what’s acting.”

  Embarrassed, even red-faced, that I had neglected to check to weather, or even instruct the lookout to do so, I readily agreed with his suggestion and gave the orders to ease sheets and bear off some. I was – we were all – a trifle weary from several weeks of almost non-stop raiding.

  Argus was quickly in their midst, the Union jack snapping from the peak of her main gaff and ready to bring the nearest vessel to with a shot across her bow.

  “Quartermaster: we’ll show our true colors now, if you please. Bosun, you may put the men at quarters. At least until we see how she reacts.” I had given the same instructions so many times over the past several weeks that I had lost count. I reckoned that the bosun had as well. McLeod acknowledged me with barely a nod and set about seeing the men to their battle stations. We closed with the merchantman, who, when he finally noticed the Stars and Stripes standing stiffly out from the main gaff instead of the British flag, decided he was urgently needed elsewhere and hauled his wind.

  It did him little good; Argus was quick as a cat and quickly had outpaced the lumbering trader. A single shot in her direction brought her to, and we backed the main topsail to take off way as we eased up along her windward side. I could see that the vessel’s rail was lined with men; some seemed to be yelling epithets at us, waving their fists menacingly, largely unnoticed by our men. The drill had become so ingrained in Argus’s crew by this time that no orders were necessary: sailors amidships manned the braces as the ship heaved to, while another gang launched the ship’s boat from its cradle at the waist using tackles rigged from the stays and yardarms. Manned by a handful of sailors and half a dozen Marines, the boat crew rowed through the choppy seas between the two vessels to investigate their latest capture.