A tense interlude of silence intervened before Second Lieutenant Trevor Elliot, commander of the lower gun deck, and Third Lieutenant Robert Larkin, commander of the upper gun deck, clambered down the wide companionway ladder. Lieutenant Elliot continued down another companionway ladder to the lower gun deck. A minute later, in almost perfect synchrony despite standing on separate decks, the two officers shouted out, “Trice up both sides. Run out, starboard side! Make ready to larboard!”
In each of the twenty-two six-man gun crews, the assistant sponger or assistant loader assigned to the task seized the end of a thin wire line attached to a t-shaped length of iron set in above each gun. The wire led out through a small hole above the port bored through the plank with an auger, down to where it spread out into a y, the two ends secured to a small iron hook screwed in at each end of the base of the port. When the tricing tackle was pulled inboard, the gunport creaked open on its hinges until it stood out horizontally from the hull of the ship.
With the opening of the ports, the upper gun deck was suddenly awash with sunlight and with the squeal and rumble of eleven 2-ton gun carriages being hauled out by their side-tackle until the breastpiece of each carriage bumped against the starboard bulwark and the muzzle of the 8.5-foot gun reached out as far as possible through the square hole. Belowdecks, eleven 24-pounder guns were being similarly brought to bear.
Seth peered out through the port of gun 6. His stomach knotted when he saw that the larboard gun ports of the American frigate were also opening, in response to a distant roll of drums. Chesapeake was beating to quarters.
After the American frigate ignored a warning hail by Captain Humphreys through a speaking trumpet, Humphreys delivered his order to the gun decks via a signal midshipman.
“Mr. Larkin,” the midshipman shouted down, “captain’s compliments and you may fire gun 2 across her bow!”
Gun 2 was the 12-pounder located forward by the starboard bow. At the moment its muzzle was trained directly on the bow of the American frigate lying on a course parallel to Leopard’s, her fore topsail similarly backed and her bowsprit pointing northward. Seth felt Leopard’s bow ease into the light westerly breeze. When her forward gun bore on open ocean, its gun captain called out, “Firing!” to the gun crew, who quickly stood clear. He yanked the firing lanyard, the gun barked, and as its carriage reeled inbound until checked by its breeching ropes, a plume of seawater spewed into the air fifty feet in front of Chesapeake.
Above on Leopard’s quarterdeck Seth could hear the distant order of Bartholomew Riggs, the sailing master, to the quartermaster’s mates at the double wheel to come off the wind. That order was followed by another order to back the fore topsail. The two warships again lay on parallel courses a cable length apart, making scant headway, drifting, really, the guns of one trained on the other.
“The Jonathan’s lips are sealed,” the gunner’s mate acting as gun captain of gun 10 in battery three commented grimly to Seth as the midshipman walked close by. “They’re offering us no response, sir.” He spoke for the entire ship’s company.
“They’ll be hearing from us soon enough,” Seth said to the gunner. “Stand by your gun and tell your men who have one to wrap a bandana around their ears.”
The gunner’s mate touched the knuckles of his right hand to his forehead. “Aye, sir. Good advice, sir.”
A midshipman wearing a bicorne hat appeared in the open hatchway above. In a youthful voice fraught with excitement and resolve, he shouted down, a hand cupped at his mouth, “Mr. Elliott and Mr. Larkin: you may commence firing in sequence!”
“Fire!” Lieutenant Larkin shouted. He clapped his hands over his ears.
“Fire!” The divisional commander of battery one cried out.
“Fire!” the gun captain of gun 2 bellowed, followed seconds later by a similar cry from the captain of gun 4, next in line.
“Fire!” Seth Cutler ordered his two gun captains when it came their turn. One after another, red-painted carriages jerked inboard in violent protest as shot after shot of 12-pound iron balls, keeping hot company with 24-pounder round shot fired from the deck below, rocketed toward Chesapeake.
“Reload!” Larkin shouted, and his cry was taken up by each battery commander and each gun captain on down the line of the upper gun deck.
The shouts and explosions and screech of wheels were repeated again, and again and again in five-second intervals, until gun 22 had discharged its lethal payload and a combined broadside weight of nearly 400 pounds of iron had screamed across a short span of blue ocean to slam into Chesapeake’s hull and top-hamper.
And then the entire process was repeated.
And repeated a third time.
Three broadsides, Seth Cutler breathed to himself. An American frigate had suffered the horrific pounding of three broadsides from a British heavy cruiser at close range without firing one gun in reply. Not one gun!
Then she did. Chesapeake fired one shot that missed its mark, its demonic screech of warning cut off when the ball plunged harmlessly into the sea. It seemed a wild shot born of desperation more than a display of naval discipline. Leopard’s gun crews made ready to deliver yet another vision of hell when the order resonated from the quarterdeck: “Cease fire!”
The order was echoed up and down the ship on both gun decks. As the guns fell silent, sailors coughed and wheezed and waved their hands in front of their faces to clear away the thick smoke that had enveloped the lower decks in white-yellow clouds with a searing stench that only gradually eased as the clouds drifted out through the leeward gun ports.
A midshipman called down. “Mr. Cutler!”
“Aye, Mr. Tilney,” Seth called up, recognizing the midshipman’s voice. He could not see his messmate for the smoke and the sting in his eyes.
“Your presence is requested on the quarterdeck.”
“Thank you, Mr. Tilney,” Seth said. He coughed hard into a kerchief, wiped his eyes with the clean side, and then stepped up the companionway. Following not far behind him were Larkin and Elliot.
Clean ocean air engulfed Seth as he emerged from below onto the weather deck. He took a moment to inhale the sweetness deep into his tortured lungs, his eyes blinking against the lingering sting of smoke and the sudden dazzling sunshine reflecting off the sea. He fought to compose himself and to look every bit the mature, unruffled sea officer as he strode aft toward the quarterdeck. He could not, however, resist a glance to starboard.
It was hard to make out much at this distance, but it was painfully evident that the 1,200 pounds of iron that had battered Chesapeake had torn through and sprung much of her rigging. Her sails hung in tatters, and her larboard railing and three lower masts had been whacked and chewed unmercifully. Seth could only imagine the devastation to human bodies caught in the path of a 12- or 24-pound ball impacting at a thousand feet per second.
He climbed the three steps from the waist to the quarterdeck and saluted smartly. “You wish to see me, sir?”
“Yes, Mr. Cutler,” Humphreys said. “All is well belowdecks?”
“Yes sir.”
“Excellent. You and your mates conducted yourselves admirably. My compliments,” Humphreys said. In a tone expressing his stupefaction and regret he added, “The American frigate has struck her colors.” He pointed, as if such a gesture were necessary, at the frigate’s spanker gaff. The American ensign was nowhere to be seen. “This is a first in my experience, and it is hardly a victory I should wish to celebrate.” He looked hard at his midshipman. “Mr. Larkin and Mr. Cartwright,” referring to his third lieutenant and his captain of Marines, “are assembling a second boarding party. I should like you to be included in that party.”
Although it was an order Seth did not particularly relish, he was keenly aware that his captain had just bestowed a high honor on him. “Aye, aye, sir,” he said, saluting.
Humphreys touched his hat in reply and turned from Seth to confer with his sailing master.
THE BOAT that carried the first
boarding party and would carry the second was the ship’s pinnace, the 32-foot craft that had been bumping against the cruiser’s larboard hull beneath the entry port since the first party had visited Chesapeake. First on board were the coxswain and the eight sailors who would man the oars, four to a side. Following close behind were six red-jacketed Marines bearing sea service muskets. They were followed in turn by Kenneth Duggan, the boatswain; Midshipman Cutler; Lieutenant Jeremiah Cartwright; and last in line, Lieutenant Robert Larkin. Seth Cutler and Kenneth Duggan sat side by side facing aft on the aftermost thwart before the stern sheets. As they settled in, they exchanged knowing glances: brothers-in-arms again, on a similar mission as before, in company with the third in their triumvirate, Lieutenant Larkin. Behind the coxswain, at the stern of the boat, the British naval ensign fluttered lazily in the gentle breeze.
The row over took place in stony silence, the only sound the creak of oars in their tholepins as the oars dipped and pulled, dipped and pulled, drawing the pinnace ever closer to the floating wreck that now defined the top-hamper of Chesapeake. Her hull, to Seth’s observation, had sustained remarkably little damage above the waterline even though the larger guns on Leopard’s lower deck had fired directly into it. He noted several cracks on the wale strakes and several more on the channel wale, but, incredibly, no plank was stove in. For such minor damage a commodore had struck his colors?
“It’s that Yankee oak you ’ear about,” Duggan commented softly, following Seth’s gaze and reading his mind. The live oak that grew only in the coastal plain of the American South was renowned as a defiantly hard wood and was saved for use on key pieces of the ship’s frame. No warship constructed with this live oak had ever sustained serious injury to her hull.
“I’ve never seen the loike,” Duggan contended. “’Ow in ’ell you can blast through it is beyond me. If a 24-pound ball ain’t up to the job, I warrant that in a real fight we might just find ourselves in a bit of a pickle.”
Seth offered no reply as the pinnace slid up alongside the hull of the frigate and the boarding party made ready to board. The coxswain and two oarsmen would remain in the pinnace, fending off.
What he found on the frigate’s weather deck after he stepped through the entry port defied credulity. He counted three men dead: one with a leg blown off, another with a shattered skull, and a third who lay prone on the deck, his limbs broken and grotesquely distorted and a tip of white bone protruding through a ripped trouser leg. Streams of blood stained the deck around the dead sailors; a number of others were alive but seriously wounded. Their ghostly moans and ghastly whimpers seemed to come from a different world than any Seth Cutler had ever encountered. The Americans able to walk ignored the British boarding party standing in a cluster near the entry port and continued helping the wounded below to the surgeon on the orlop deck.
But to young Seth Cutler, born to the sea, the wounded men were not the worst of what he was seeing. Not by half. As he gazed around the slaughterhouse deck, his blue eyes opened wide. Nonmilitary supplies cluttered the deck: personal gear that had yet been stowed below, barrels and caskets and hempen bags packed not with gunpowder or anything with a military purpose, but with food and water and grog rations. Slop-chest clothing lay everywhere. Two barrels amidships had split open, spilling out what appeared to be salted meat and dried peas. Loose potatoes rolled about the deck until coming to rest against a bulwark or in a pool of blood. This unsightly mess disgraced a naval vessel under sail. Even the most benign of the merchant sea captains Seth knew would never brook such slapdash preparations for getting under way. If a Royal Navy captain were ever caught with his pants down around his ankles like this, Seth thought, by God he’d be lucky to get away from an Admiralty court with just the loss of his career. The sympathy Seth had felt for Commodore Barron and Captain Gordon just a few minutes earlier was quickly going by the boards.
When an American officer approached the British party, Lieutenant Larkin touched his hat with the left index finger of his right hand.
“I am First Lieutenant Meyers,” the officer said after returning Larkin’s salute.
Lieutenant Larkin bowed slightly. “Lieutenant Robert Larkin, third officer of His Majesty’s Ship Leopard, at your service, Mr. Meyers. I am glad to see you up and about, sir.”
“Thank you.” Meyers said dryly. “As you can plainly see, the same cannot be said for many of my crew.” He searched among the boarding party. “I take it your Lieutenant Morse did not accompany you this time around.”
“No sir, he did not. Unfortunately, the time for formalities and pleasantries has passed. I have here with me Mr. Cartwright, our captain of Marines”—he indicated the red-jacketed man to his left—“and Mr. Cutler, our senior midshipman”—pointing to the blue-jacketed young man to his right. “We are here to remove the three deserters in question. I am correct in assuming we shall have no further difficulties in this matter?”
The American officer did not immediately respond, and his hard stare at Seth Cutler made the midshipman uneasy. For the life of him he could not comprehend why the American was singling him out for regard.
“Lieutenant?” Larkin pressed. “We shall have no further difficulties?”
Meyers shifted his gaze back to Larkin. “No, you shall not. Chesapeake has struck her colors. Commodore Barron has surrendered the ship.”
“Surrendering the ship will not be necessary, sir,” Larkin said tactfully. “Captain Humphreys insists that the only surrender we require today is that of the three seamen. I have orders to personally assure your commanding officer of this.”
“Commodore Barron was wounded. He has been taken below to his cabin and is being attended to. Captain Gordon is with him.”
“I am very sorry to learn of the commodore’s injuries,” Larkin said sincerely. “Nonetheless, I have my orders. I would be ever so much obliged, Lieutenant, if you would assemble your ship’s company on the weather deck. Whilst you are doing that, my Marines will conduct a thorough search belowdecks that will include your sick bay and orlop. We know the culprits involved, so we should have no trouble identifying them.” His lips creased in a trace of a smirk. “Especially since two of the three are Africans.”
The American ignored the stab at humor. “We shall do as you request,” Meyers said, resignation and disgust registering in his tone. The two officers exchanged stiff salutes.
“Thank you,” Larkin said. “Now, if you will kindly have one of your midshipmen lead the way belowdecks, I should like to have a word with Commodore Barron.”
As the American officer passed word for a midshipman and boatswain’s mates, Larkin ordered Jeremiah Cartwright and four Marines to go belowdecks through the forward hatchway, and Boatswain Kenneth Duggan and four sailors to go belowdecks through the aft hatchway. Seth Cutler remained on deck with two Marines and two armed sailors to see to the rounding up of the American crew. When Cartwright and Duggan reemerged twenty minutes later, two Royal Marines were dragging a sailor behind them. They dumped him unceremoniously at the feet of Lieutenant Larkin, who had returned to the weather deck after a brief visit to the after cabin.
Larkin gazed down at the sailor lying prone on the deck. The man lifted his face to his captor, his lips moved wordlessly and his bloodshot eyes pleading for mercy.
“And who, might I ask, is this god-forsaken soul?” Larkin sniffed.
“His name be Ratfort, sir,” Boatswain Duggan replied. “Jenkin Ratford. I know him. He’s as English as me own blood. Ran from Halifax, ’e did. Found ’im cowering behind the manger.”
“Good show, Duggan.” Larkin gazed down with curled lips at the sailor trembling before him. “Well, Ratford, it’s the hangman’s noose for you if there’s any justice in this world—and I can assure you there is.” To Duggan: “We have Martin, Strachan, and Ware.” He indicated the three wretched-looking men standing alone near the base of the assembled ship’s company, their hands tied behind them and closely guarded by two musket-wielding Marines. “O
ur work here is concluded. You may see the men and the four prisoners into the boat.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Duggan said. He saluted and set about to carry out the order.
Larkin turned to the sandy-haired American sea officer. “We shall be leaving you now, Lieutenant Meyers,” he said. “Speaking on behalf of my captain and my country, may I express my deepest regret and condolences over what has transpired here today. It was certainly not our wish to fire into your ship. But we did give you fair warning, did we not?” His tone in what he said next was emphatic. “This unfortunate incident could have and should have been avoided. The policy of My Lords of the Admiralty is quite clear on the issue of desertion. It cannot and will not be tolerated under any circumstances. I repeat, sir: under any circumstances. Let one deserter retain his freedom and England is in danger of losing a war. It is hardly my place to lecture you, Lieutenant, but surely you and your superiors should understand by now just how seriously His Majesty’s government views this issue.”
“We do indeed understand,” Meyers replied as the four prisoners shuffled slowly behind him, their eyes glued to their feet, unable in their despair to give their former shipmates so much as a glimpse. “And you should understand, Lieutenant,” he said defiantly, “that the United States does not take kindly to the illegal impressment of its citizens.”
“Illegal? Well, I have my doubts about that. But we shall leave it to the courts to sort it out. Regardless of the decision, the fate of these three so-called Americans was in their hands yesterday just as your fate was in your hands today. Can you possibly deny that?”
How Dark the Night Page 19