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

by William H. White

  When he was welcomed aboard Argus by Captain Allen and Bill Watson, Betsey’s master was fit to be tied. He flapped his arms – an agitated chicken came to mind – and blustered about piracy, privateers, and how the escorting frigates would make short work of our diminutive brig. We had heard it all before – too many times to count – and Henry simply nodded and smiled while he waited for the man to finish. It happened, happily, that the vessel was inbound for Bristol with a cargo of sugar and rum from St. Vincent. She had just broken off from the convoy when we found her, which explained why she was sailing alone. Bad luck, bad timing. Too bad!

  Henry decided to take the ship as a prize, something we had been unable to do since we left the coast of France. We took out her British crew, including her master and first officer but left aboard a handful of Swedes and sailors from other neutral countries. From Argus’s crew, he assigned Acting Lieutenant Uriah Levy and nine of our sailors and three Marines as a prize crew, instructing Levy to sail her to France. It was now nearly dark and Henry confided in me that he thought they had a good chance of making it. Levy had his crew ready and transferred to Betsey in short order. We watched as they sailed off to the south to clear The Land’s End and thence to France, putting in wherever they could near L’Orient. Several more vessels had appeared in the offing, but we could spot no warships in the vicinity.

  “Henry, a word, if you please.” I plucked at his sleeve as he started down the scuttle from the quarterdeck.

  “Come below with me, Oliver. We’ll have a glass of Betsey’s fine rum and figure out where we should go next.”

  I accepted the glass Appene poured and sat, as directed. I was about to stretch my familiarity with my commander, possibly to its limit, but I felt I had to speak up.

  “The men are exhausted, Henry. We’ve got at least two more in sight that we can take this evening, maybe more, but you know there will be an escort around sooner or later. I despair over our ability to fight, should it come to that. And, yes, I know we can out-sail almost any vessel the Brits send after us, but even that effort might sap what little energy the men have left.” I stopped and waited for the explosion I was sure would follow.

  “I am well aware of all that you say, Oliver. And I agree with you completely. But our orders are to take as many ships as we can. We have been working now for not quite three weeks and have done well. The men have performed well, fully up to my expectations, and I am convinced we have made an impression in Britain. They have to be well aware that we are out here. And, yes, I know that means we can expect a warship to come looking for us, but I plan to continue burning their ships as long as I can. Should a warship find us, we will fight.

  “I do not take lightly your caution, but my first obligation is to the secretary’s orders and to carry them out to the best of my ability. Further, I take great pleasure in damaging the economy of Britain, not to mention the fat purses of her trading companies. We have a limited amount of time, I am certain, and I expect to make the most of it.” He smiled, raised his glass in a silent toast, to what I am not sure, but I followed suit and drank.

  He was good to his word; by end of the next watch, we had taken two more vessels, a cutter and a brig. By that point we were overloaded with prisoners, so the captain had us transfer them to the brig, declared her a cartel for prisoners, and sent her in to Bristol. The cutter we burned.

  It was now full dark and the flames lit up the entire sky. It was sure to be visible from miles away, and Henry wisely decided to move us back across St. George’s Channel and take cover in the lee of the Saltees Islands off the southeastern coast of Ireland. As we drew close, a thick and most convenient fog dropped over us, cloaking everything in a grey wetness that, while uncomfortable, fully concealed Argus and her exhausted crew.

  Men dropped where they stood, collapsing in untidy piles next to the carronades, leaning against the pinrails and each other, instantly asleep, oblivious to the damp soaking through their clothes.

  The officers and midshipmen, less indifferent about decorum, retired to their quarters where they fell into their cots fully clothed. For my part, in a fit of generosity, I offered to stand Uriah Levy’s watch, since he had been sent off in the prize yesterday. Had I not, the task would have fallen to Watson, who was even more tired than I. While I could not say for certain what he did below, our captain disappeared down the scuttle to his cabin and I assumed that he had followed suit with his crew, finding a few moments respite in his cot.

  “You seem not troubled by a lack of sleep, Mister Inderwick. Are you not tired?” I saw the surgeon lurking near the weather bulwark, just forward of the quarterdeck. “Sadly, you are not qualified to do so, but would that you might take the watch for me, since you are plainly not exhausted!”

  “I am tired, Oliver. I am waiting to see if a treatment I gave to Smithson will have an effect. He complained of what I think might be secondary syphilis – where he might have contracted it, I have no idea – and I gave him an injection of mercury hoping it might relieve a bit of his suffering. He claims not to have been ashore in France, so he I fear he must have contracted it aboard. I will question him more closely when I determine if my diagnosis is correct.” The surgeon did not ask to come onto the hallowed ground of the quarterdeck, instead he continued to lean against the bulwark, as if pondering the sea or the impenetrable fog. He turned back to face me, saying softly, “I have been busy all the time over the past weeks. There seems no end to the maladies, real or imagined, that a sailor can come up with. Some of them I had never even dreamed of.

  “Of course, all the usual cuts and broken bones, but, if you can fathom it, one of the men who signed on from a prize we took a week and more back – an older fellow it was – wanted me to trepan his skull to relieve his headache. I gave him a taste of laudanum instead.” He stopped, smiling through the swirling mist, then added, “He might have wanted the laudanum to start with; some men get addicted to it, you know. I reckon I will find out if he comes back for more.

  “On some reflection, though, Mister Baldwin, I think you’re likely right; I must be as weary as the rest. Would never have made that mistake were I alert!” He shook his head ruefully and drifted off toward the foremast, disappearing wraith-like into the wet darkness.

  I paced back and forth on the quarterdeck, speaking softly to the men manning the wheel, checking the compass – dimly illuminated by a small oil lamp in the binnacle, and peering into the fog, trying to see…anything. The diffused glow of the compass light, a light I had seen thousands of times over the past ten years drew my gaze to it like a moth to a flame. It was at once bright, but also dim, a sharp point of light, but one nevertheless diffused by the droplets of water suspended in the air, each reflecting a tiny replica of the flame. It actually did little to illuminate the card showing the points of the compass, but if one stared at it long enough, it was possible to imagine you actually saw the needle floating above the inscribed card, flickering between southwest and southwest by south. At least, that is what I wanted it to show.

  I tore myself away from the circle of light, temporarily mesmerized by it, lulled into a state of non-being, and began again to pace, back and forth, back and forth, my steps a metronome giving voice to the cadence of some unheard melody. The pacing was more to keep me from dozing off, which I feared would happen were I to stop for more than a moment or two. Midshipman Delphy wandered about the spar deck, keeping the watch and the lookouts awake, if not alert. Each time he returned to the quarterdeck to make his report, he seemed to be moving slower than the previous time, leaning on whatever was handy to steady himself. And I tried to give the impression of being alert and in control.

  “No worries, Mister Delphy, we shall be sending the messenger to wake our relief soon. In fact, why don’t you take one more circuit of the deck, check on the watch, and don’t neglect having a look at the sea around us; then go below and rouse up Mister Watson and whomever it is that will be relieving you.” I did my best to sound less weary than I
felt.

  Dawn found us still encased in the fog, a nearly impenetrable, soaking mist of seemingly endless capacity to create misery, but, offsetting that, it did a superlative job of hiding us from whomever might be looking for us.

  And make no mistake, Mister Baldwin, they are looking for us!

  The crew, officers, and midshipmen had come topside, scratching sores and irritations aggravated by the insidious wetness, rubbing the sleep from their eyes, and gazing about the ship, though there was little to see but the grey mist, so thick that even the sea, mere feet below the deck, was obscured. Voices, the groans of the ship, the squeaks and squeals of constantly working blocks were all muffled, curiously deadened as though under a heavy blanket. The fog shifted in the scant breeze, barely enough to fill the sails, giving us an occasional peek at the sails aloft and, perhaps more importantly, the sea around us. Our lookouts had been admonished to use these break in the fog to their advantage, scanning the sea as often as possible until the fog once again settled its grey mantle over us.

  In spite of the rapt attention of the lookouts and the quarterdeck watch, we saw nothing, only the vastness of the sea, grey rollers, the occasional white-topped wave, shifting lethargically under the oppressive weight of the dripping skies. That the coast of Ireland lay a few leagues distant to the north of us was a fact we took on faith; the master had no fix and, until the skies cleared, was unlikely to find our position with any degree of accuracy.

  By the middle of the afternoon watch, Henry’s frustration was finding its way into anger; anger at the dreadful Irish weather, the absence of a sailing breeze, the lack of prey, and his inability to do anything about any of it. We continued to hope, however, that the fog would lift and reveal an unescorted convoy or merchants or perhaps even an anchorage where several might be waiting out the fog.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  HMS Pelican

  “Put one across his bow, if you please, Mister Stewart. He seems unwilling to come to. Perhaps he needs a little convincing of our sincerity.” Captain Ballantyne spoke quietly to the gunner, who, in what was more of a reflex than a conscious effort, touched his forelock in acknowledgment and as a sign of respect.

  HMS Pelican had been dogging a trading vessel, which piled on canvas when they caught sight of the British warship in what would prove a futile effort to escape. The merchantman was first sighted at the bottom of St. George’s Channel, heading, for what Ballantyne figured, was Land’s End and England. Barely a day out from Cork Harbor, the lookouts had spotted the vessel and had been chasing her through the shortened night of the northern latitudes. As the sun broke the horizon, it provided a brilliant path for the ships to follow, and the merchant ship eased her sheets some and altered her course a bit to the south. Ballantyne began to think she was not what she appeared, as she should have turned more northerly to head up the Channel. Was she heading for France? Might be a nice prize, if so. One his men would surely appreciate after so long a dry spell.

  BOOM! The long gun in the starboard bow spoke and the captain trained his glass on the ship, barely a mile distant. The splash was satisfyingly close aboard, but he could see no change in the vessel’s sail plan or heading. He did notice that they now flew the British ensign from the gaff on the mizzen.

  “Very well, Mister Stewart, she does not feel threatened. Perhaps one a trifle closer will have the desired result.” Ballantyne shouted to his gunner. He had not put his men to quarters, as he saw it unnecessary in a confrontation with a lightly – if at all – armed merchant.

  BOOM! Another shot and this time the eighteen-pound iron ball made no splash; instead, a cloud of splinters, clearly visible even with the unassisted eye, flew into the air from the larboard quarter. Her main course began to luff. The captain smiled to himself when he saw the foretops’l hauled around to back it, and the driver on the mizzen was brailed into the mast. She obviously was surrendering.

  “We made a believer of her, I suspect, Mister Welch! Let us prepare a boat and have a word with her master. See what’s actin’ there. Cannot fathom why a British vessel would not stop when hailed by a Royal Navy ship…unless, of course, she is not what she appears. Take the admiral’s nephew with you. It might do him some good, though I doubt it.”

  Under the guidance of the second lieutenant, William Weiss, Pelican drew alongside, backed the sails on her foremast, and hove to a scant pistol shot from their quarry. From a tackle hastily rigged to the main yard, a ship’s boat was splashed, manned, and rowed smartly through the light chop, quickly fetching the side of the other ship. Ballantyne watched as his first lieutenant and the untidy Jameson Bierbak scrambled up the boarding battens to the deck. From across the water, he could hear nary a word of the conversation, but he was confident that Welch would repeat it closely.

  In the interim, Ballantyne went below, sure that Stokely had laid out a proper uniform – he never received a visitor, captive or friend, aboard in nankeen trousers and a soiled shirt – and by the time he returned topside, the boat was halfway back to Pelican carrying several officers from the merchantman. He made his way directly to the entry port to greet Welch and whomever he had determined to bring aboard, presumably the vessel’s master.

  “Captain Ballantyne, this is United States Navy Acting Lieutenant Uriah Levy, late of the brig of war Argus, William Henry Allen commanding. His vessel, until moments ago, was a prize of the United States Navy. I have claimed it as a prize of Pelican.

  “This other gentleman is Lars Swenson, the Swedish second officer of the ship Betsey under her original owners. He is a neutral.”

  “Welcome aboard his Britannic Majesty’s Brig Pelican, gentlemen. Let us adjourn to my cabin and discuss the immediate future, shall we?” Ballantyne was nothing if not courteous. He turned and led the way, confident that his first lieutenant would herd the others along in his wake.

  “Cap’n, you might be interested in knowing that Mister Swenson, here, saved Betsey from sinking. It seems that, shortly after taking command of the vessel, Mister Levy had had his men bore some large holes in the bilge and install plugs in them. According to Swenson, when we began to fire at the ship, Levy had the plugs drawn out, clearly intending to scuttle his prize before we might make a safe port with her.” Welch spoke up instantly the door to the cabin closed.

  On hearing his name mentioned twice, Swenson sat up a bit straighter and smiled, nodding his head in agreement with words he could not understand. Ballantyne’s jaw dropped in horror, but he quickly regained control over his expression and turned to the American – his face no longer neutral.

  “Is this correct, Mister Levy? I find it difficult to fathom why, knowing the motivation we all derive from prizes, that someone, least of all an officer, would order such a dastardly, wrong-thinking ploy. Indeed!” Edward Ballantyne’s outrage was palpable.

  “May I remind you, Cap’n, we are at war. Your country against mine. I was taking the prize to France on the orders of Lieutenant William Henry Allen, commanding the United States brig of war Argus. Since England has a blockade at most of the nearby ports on that coast, I could not be sure we would not encounter another of your countrymen before we got her in and I would sooner see the prize to the bottom than let some English stuffed shirt take her. That we could not take on sufficient water in the time we had to scuttle her was a miscalculation on my part. I will carry that regret for a long time to come.” Levy would not be cowed by a “stuffed shirt” officer of the Royal Navy.

  “I suspect, Mister Levy, you will have ample time to ponder your miscalculation, as you put it, while you enjoy the hospitality of the warders in Dartmoor Prison. Your days of underhanded deeds are likely behind you, at least for the foreseeable future.

  “I assume, Mister Welch, the holes were re-plugged and the bilge pumped?” Ballantyne’s face was still contorted in outrage, his cheeks and forehead nearly scarlet.

  Welch nodded. Levy slumped in his chair.

  “Corporal!” The captain shouted at his closed door.

&
nbsp; Immediately it opened and the Marine guard’s head appeared in the opening. “Sir!”

  “Have this man escorted to the orlop and put in irons. Officer or no, he is not to be trusted and I will not have him roaming about in my ship.” He gestured rudely at the American.

  “Come along, then, sir. You surely don’t want me draggin’ ya, now do ya?” The Marine’s Scots brogue and his physical presence encouraged Levy to his feet, and he preceded the Red Coat out the door.

  Ballantyne waited until the door was again shut before addressing his first lieutenant. “Were you able to gain any intelligence as to the whereabouts of that infernal American brig, Tom? I would suspect that Captain Allen would have shared his plan with his prize master.”

  “As you might expect, Cap’n, Levy was not exactly forthcoming with information. And the most senior of the merchant’s officers, Mister Swenson, here, doesn’t have enough English to do us any good, even had he heard – or overheard – a plan. I collect from a brief conversation with another of Betsey’s original crew that her captain was held in Argus.

  “But the fact that Allen returned a good number of the original crew – neutrals, of course – might suggest that the Americans don’t have enough men to properly crew a prize. We’ve been hearing of their depredations now lasting over three weeks, maybe longer; so they could indeed be short-handed. Were we to find them quickly, we might encourage their surrender without undue conflict. You know, protect the lives of the men and all that.” Welch’s wolf-like grin told exactly how he felt about his captain’s plan.

  “Very well, then. Let us bring the Americans aboard Pelican, leave the neutrals aboard, and put a few of our men in her as a prize crew. It is but a short sail to Plymouth from here. And return Mister Swenson, here, to his ship.” Ballantyne stood, faced the Swede and smiled, extending his hand which the Swedish mate took, babbling something in his native tongue, which neither of the two English officers had any hope of understanding. They all stepped out of the cabin, returning to the fresh air and pleasant weather.