A Watery Grave

by Joan Druett

  Rochester shrugged. “Don’t ask me, dear chap—as I said, I was right at the other end of the table and scarcely spoke to the man, only to call out to him that there was a fellow—Jim Powell, as it turned out—at the door.”

  “Maybe Stanton arranged it simply to draw attention to himself and make sure people remembered he was there.”

  “I think people were paying him plenty of attention already,” said George.

  “So you said,” said Wiki. He was frowning, lost in thought. “You also said he was in great spirits,” he observed at last.

  “Definitely.”

  “As if he had something to celebrate.”

  George opened his mouth but then shut it again as he tipped his head slightly to contemplate Wiki, one eyebrow higher than the other, an attitude that was supposed to indicate alert understanding. “And you reckon he was in high spirits because he’d successfully set up the murder of his wife,” he stated.

  “If so, the note might have had something to do with it.”

  “I don’t see how,” George objected, after giving this some serious thought. “I can see him plotting murder, yes—because Tristram Stanton is a cold-blooded swab if there ever was one—but if a note was involved it would only make sense if Powell was delivering some kind of message to let him know that everything was going according to plan. But Stanton was in high spirits before Powell ever arrived, and, what’s more, he didn’t even get up from the table—there was no way Powell could’ve slipped him a message. And it don’t signify anyway,” George concluded with decision, “because you say that Powell told you that the note was never delivered.”

  “You’re right,” agreed Wiki, and fell silent, studying his loosely linked hands between his knees and the carpet that covered the deck between his feet.

  After a moment he lifted his head to contemplate George again, saying, “What do you know about Lieutenant Smith?”

  “Lawrence Smith?”

  “That’s the one. He was conversing cozily with Wilkes when I walked into the cabin this afternoon.”

  “Oh, they’ve been shipmates for years—both joined the Independence in Boston at the start of 1818 and have often been on the same ships, I believe. In fact, I heard that they were together on the Porpoise last year, doing that survey of George’s Banks. Smith’s a kind of scientific, too—has an amateur interest, just like Wilkes does, only it ain’t astronomy. What is it, now?” George asked himself, studying the deck beams. “A kind of superior linguister—what do they call it? Philology? He takes great notes of chants and poems and odes and suchlike, so maybe that ain’t the right blessed term at all. Anyway, it’s something to do with words and language—though not just straight translating, like the job you’ve been shipped to do, old boy.”

  “Ah!” Wiki exclaimed. At long last the hint of familiarity that he had been hunting down throughout the awkward conversation on the Vincennes was there. Now he remembered an acquaintance of his father’s who had been fascinated by the Maori passion for proverbs and riddles and had questioned him at great length, carefully spelling out the phrases as he wrote them down. This, he realized, must have been Lawrence J. Smith—only he had seemed terribly old at the time.

  Then he said slowly, “So the chances are that he—like Tristram Stanton—joined the expedition because Captain Wilkes asked for him especially?”

  George shrugged. “I suppose it’s possible,” he allowed. “However, I can’t think of any favors Captain Wilkes might have done him—you have to bear in mind that he’s simply a subordinate on the Vincennes.”

  This, Wiki remembered, was part of Wilkes’s policy of giving the command of the smaller vessels to men at the bottom of the navy list—men who, like George, had passed their examinations so recently they had not had a chance to forget what they had learned.

  “But doesn’t it seem likely that Lawrence Smith and Tristram Stanton are cronies, too?”

  They stared at each other in speculation, but then George spread his hands. “I can’t help you with that one, old chap,” he said, and let out an unexpected guffaw. “Can you picture that bantam trying to impersonate Stanton?”

  “Not easily,” Wiki admitted.

  “And while he might talk a person to death, I can’t see him doing anything more physical.”

  “But there might be some other connection.”

  “Well, old fellow, you’re the sleuth—that there paper tells me so. Let me know when you’ve worked it out,” said Rochester, and with another unseemly hoot of amusement returned to his paperwork, saying over his shoulder, “Captain Wilkes sent orders with the boat. We make sail at dawn and abandon this floating tree—and high time, too. It’s October already! Springtime in the south! I reckon he’s only just remembered that if he wants to explore the Antarctic, he needs to get into high southern latitudes before the end of the year.”

  Eleven

  The next day dawned sweetly, with a smooth sea and a fine topgallant breeze. Stray noises drifted over from the other vessels—the shrilling of boatswains’ piped calls and the regular cries of the lookouts. Bells ringing the half hours marked the time for swabbing down decks, for change of watch, for breakfast.

  For a while it looked as if nothing much was happening, but then, suddenly, without warning, the lower sails of the Vincennes loosed and dropped. Wiki could hear slapping sounds echo over the water as canvas flapped against masts and distant squealing as the yards were hauled around and braced. Far-off shouting and the sails lost their wrinkles as they tautened. And all at once the flagship was moving. Gradually, then faster, the Vincennes was gathering way. A gun was fired as a signal to follow.

  “All hands on deck!” Captain Rochester hollered, and Erskine cried, “Stand by to make sail!” An orderly confusion commenced, half the men dashing aloft to pluck at buntlines and cast off gaskets, while the rest grouped on deck to haul on sheets, lines, braces, buntlines, and halliards. “Stand by!” cried Erskine. “Let fall!”—and canvas unfurled with a deafening rattle. “Sheet home and hoist away!” Around came the yards; out fluttered the jibs. “Haul taut! Jib halliards, there! Hoist away!”

  And the brig came to life. Wiki, at the helm, felt the sudden lift as the sails snapped taut and the Swallow picked up her skirts of foam, eagerly launching herself across the sparkling sea. “My God, ain’t it a magnificent spectacle?” rhapsodized Rochester, a dozen hours later. Wiki, who was in the main topgallant crosstrees overhauling some reeving, moved over for George to join him. They stood there companionably, lightly holding onto lanyards a hundred feet above the sea. Again it was the dogwatch, a leisured time on board. Around and below their perch the sails of the Swallow spread and descended like huge white wings, while on their lee the other ships sailed in line, the Vincennes, Porpoise, and Peacock tall pyramids of luminous canvas that reflected the red and orange of the lowering sun, the schooners clusters of golden triangles, all of them racing close-hauled toward the first stars of the night. “Ah, Wiki,” George said on a long breath of contentment, “this is the life for me.”

  The pace, however, was not maintained. If Captain Wilkes had indeed felt some kind of urgency, it quickly dissipated. The ships were constantly hauled aback to accumulate scientific data. Boats were lowered so that the biologists could poke and peer at the depths. Multitudes of glass containers became filled with live animalculae frisking in saltwater and dead fish floating in alcohol. The fleet sailed back and forth over a small stretch of ocean to establish beyond all doubt that there were no shoal waters there, despite the reports of past navigators. Hydrographical and meteorological observations were regularly made and faithfully noted.

  A particularly irritating job was assigned to the Swallow, that of charting currents. Two kegs, one full of saltwater and the other half full, were connected by a five-fathom line and then thrown overboard. The theory was that the full keg, sinking, would pull the half-full keg just below the surface, and that with a log line attached to the connecting line, it was possible to get a
reading that was uninfluenced by wind and wave. In practice, it was not at all easy. If the top keg leaked, both rapidly sank to the bottom; and when the log line was hauled to bring them up again, it invariably broke, and then a report had to be written, while all the time the fleet dawdled south.

  There were other annoyances. Because the victualing officers back at the navy yard had disliked Wilkes so much, the provisions were second-rate, so Wilkes decreed that the fitness of his sailors should be maintained with healthful habits. Cleanliness inspections were a regular feature, often held by Captain Wilkes himself from his station on the poop of the Vincennes, so that his fault-finding speaking-trumpet sessions became more hated than ever. In the still evenings, spare sails were lowered into the water to make shark-safe pools so that all hands could have a swim. On the flagship the small squad of marines marched and countermarched away the day.

  Spiritual well-being was not neglected, either. On Sundays the fleet chaplain held divine service on the deck of the Vincennes, and all the captains were expected to demand that the crews muster in their best square-collared white frocks tied with black silk neckerchiefs, clean blue jackets and trousers, and shiny black hats and shoes, to listen to yet another repetition of the expedition prayer, along with a relevant passage from the Bible—a rule that was universally loathed. Then Wilkes had an additional idea—that gun crews should be trained and gun captains appointed. The first flat calm, he said, would be an opportunity for exercising the cannon.

  “I thought it was a mission of peace and the cannon was just for show,” Rochester complained to Wiki. “And to tell the truth,” he admitted, “cannonry ain’t my strong point—I know how to signal a gun crew to let them know how close to the target they got, but that’s about the limit of my skills.”

  They were standing on the quarterdeck studying the two stern chasers that were all the cannonry the brig boasted. They were long-snouted beasts, painted a somber black and speckled with rust, each set solidly on a four-wheeled carriage and securely tied down so that they would not break loose if the brig pitched violently, and kill the men by running over them, and sink the ship by smashing holes in her stern. Before, they had seemed simply part of the deck furniture, but now they had suddenly taken on a new significance.

  “Perhaps we need an armorer,” said Wiki. “Do they have armorers on navy ships?” His only experience of such gentlemen was on a London whaleship he had once joined briefly in the Sea of Japan, where the blacksmith had been called “the armourer” and had been in charge of the ship’s weapons.

  “Excellent idea!” said Rochester, with great animation. “Except that I think we call the chap the ‘gunner.’ Whom shall we appoint?”

  He and Wiki and Erskine devoted a great deal of thought to it, discussing the various men on board in detail. In fact, the choice was obvious—a lanky foremast hand by the name of Dave, who had come on board with a musket as long as he was, along with a fund of bloodcurdling yarns about hunting bears and worse in the mountains of home.

  “He must know his firearms,” Rochester decided. “Folk tell me they make their rifles themselves! The mountain men reckon the regular manufactured ones aren’t accurate enough, or so they say. In fact, I have heard that they learn to use ’em straight from the blessed cradle—and to run at top speed while they do it! Imagine it, young boys being trained to load and fire rifles at the same time as they run. Amazing, don’t you reckon? Picture a little lad managing a long, heavy rifle, a large powder horn, a bullet bag, a priming-powder horn, and dashing along meanwhile with all that equipment rattling and banging—firing to kill, and then heading for the horizon and reloading all at once and at the same blessed time! Remarkable, truly. Let’s have him.”

  “I’m not sure that mountain men have much to do with cannon, sir,” Erskine objected, but was easily overridden.

  Forthwith, mountain man Dave was summoned. He was not at all modest about his ability, declaring he could handle any weapon coming, this not being his first berth in a man-of-war by any means, and was even more delighted at his elevation in rank than George Rochester was at getting the job delegated. Wiki watched him as he set about counting and cataloguing the brig’s armory—twelve 1819-vintage Hall breech-loading rifles and an assortment of swords, pistols, knives, dirks, and cutlasses, plus a dozen vicious contraptions that were a combination of two weapons, being a broad, sharp blade attached to the underside of the barrel of a pistol.

  These, the mountain man handled with reverence. “Elgin cutlass-pistols,” he said to Wiki, who—like every Maori warrior he knew—was fascinated by weapons, firearms in particular, and so was paying close attention. “Designed and made expressly for the expedition,” Dave added, in a tone of awe. He immediately held classes in cutlass work, saying swords were just for show, being so easily broken, and so the crew enthusiastically practiced the skills of chopping and slashing with the big heavy cutlasses, hammering murderously at each other in pairs. Then he introduced them to the Elgin cutlass-pistols, teaching them to fire first and then lunge in with the blade. Another frontiersmen favorite was the foot-long Bowie knife, a single-edged affair with a handle made of horn and a brass strip along the back. Dave taught the men how to chop down fast, to break the other man’s blade, and then push forward to gut him, cutting edge upward, all in one homicidal action.

  The two nine-pounder Long Toms, however, were his special pride and joy. As Rochester confided to Wiki, on his previous ships his impression had been that the main job of the gunner was to keep up an incessant dissatisfied growl about his guns. Dave, by contrast, treasured his charges; he groomed the old stern chasers as if they were prized stallions, rubbing them bright with brick and canvas, and then coating them with a mixture of lampblack, beeswax, and turpentine until they shone like mirrors. The various rammers, sponges, priming wires, caps, and fuses were spruced up likewise—and then he turned his attention to training both captain and crew in the management of these pampered contrivances.

  George Rochester’s role was to stand on the quarterdeck with a speaking trumpet, while the Samoan, a large, intimidating figure in a loincloth that showed off his great tattooed thighs to advantage, drummed out a call to quarters on a length of log. “Silence fore and aft!” George cried, as the men hurriedly assembled, to be echoed by Midshipman Erskine:

  “Wet and sand the decks!”

  “Take off your muzzle bags and withdraw your tompions!”

  “Cast loose your guns!”

  This led to a bustle of activity, as the bags and barrel plugs that protected the muzzles of the cannon from saltwater were taken out and put aside, and the tight lashings that held the guns in place were cast away. Men hooked on rope tackles, one to each side of the carriage to heave the gun up to the gunport in the rail, and a train-tackle behind to run it back for loading. After that, they seized the breeching—a stout rope secured to the brig’s hull by two ring-bolts, one to each side of the carriage—and looped it to a knob at the back end of the gun. This was long enough to allow the cannon to recoil after every shot, but prevented it from running amuck all over the deck.

  All this, Captain Rochester watched benignly, his part in the drama being finished. It was now the turn of gunner Dave, who snapped out orders in quick succession: “Chock your luff—stop, vent, and sponge your guns—cartridge, wad, and ram home—load your shot, wad, ram home—man side-tackle falls, run out!”

  The cartridge was a flannel bag with three pounds of powder in it, and it was rammed down the muzzle of the gun until the man assigned as gun captain, poking about in the innards with a priming iron thrust through the touch-hole, could feel it was in place, at which he hollered, “Home!” Then the nine-pound shot went down, followed by a wad, both rammed hard. That done, the men clapped onto the side-tackles and shoved the loaded cannon up to the gunport, pushing its muzzle out as far as it would go.

  Aiming the brute was the next job. “Crows and ha-a-a-nd-spikes!” Dave roared, and crowbars and handspikes were thrust into plac
e and levered, heaving the gun right or left according to the mountain man’s whim, with a great deal of grunting and swearing.

  “Elevate your guns for a long shot!” This was a job for the two gun captains, who used wedges shoved underneath the breeches to raise the snouts high enough to rip cannonballs through the sides of enemy frigates—the task for which stern chasers were specially designed.

  “Cock your locks, blow your match, watch the weather roll, stand by … FIRE!”

  The captain had punctured the cartridge with his priming iron, used a goose quill to fill the touch-hole and the powder pan above it with priming powder from his horn, the hammer of the flintlock had been pulled back; and just in case it didn’t work, the slow match—a kind of fuse—was smoldering. The gun, theoretically, was set to blast.

  Instead, they practiced hour after hour, all heaving and dumb show, with no satisfying smoke and thunder at the end, just a lot of dissatisfied swearing from mountain man Dave. While exciting at first, it rapidly became tiresome. The only man on board who was happy with the constant gun-drill was the Samoan, whose drumming was becoming more stirring by the minute.

  Even if Dave had been pleased with the performance, Captain Rochester could not have allowed a live firing. “If I let ’em fire willy-nilly and without his say-so, Wilkes would have my intestines for a bandanna,” he candidly confessed to Wiki.

  They were standing at the taffrail, the spanker boom swinging a little above their heads because they were yet again hauled aback. George had just returned from the Vincennes, where he had delivered his journal for Captain Wilkes’s weekly inspection, journal keeping being another requirement of the expedition. “They’re all finding this dumb exercising a bore,” he said, meaning the captains and officers of the other ships, with whom he associated quite freely. Wilkes encouraged his captains and officers to lower boats and exchange visits, particularly on Saturdays, to carouse in a temperate and seemly fashion, and drink a toast to wives and sweethearts. The officers of the expedition, he declared, were the cream of the U.S. Navy, and he wanted them to become a tight-knit team of loyal comrades, like Admiral Nelson’s legendary Band of Brothers.