“Captain Hardcastle was out on patrol at the time, sir,” Richard said. “But I was assured by my cousins on Barbados that the British army is taking every precaution. John and Robin treat their slaves better than most planters do, though I realize that won’t count for much if the slaves do rise up.”
“I agree,” the captain said. “However well you might treat a slave during the day, come nightfall he remains a slave.”
Just then they heard steps on the main hatchway ladder. Richard turned to see someone stepping onto the gun deck. He could not distinguish much about the man from that distance, except to note that he was handsomely attired and had curly brown hair and thin sideburns that reached nearly to his chin.
Truxtun held up the flat of his palm. “If you will give us a moment, Mr. Sterrett,” he called out.
“Of course, Captain,” the man answered, his voice echoing in the vast empty space. He ambled over to an empty gunport and stared discreetly out at the harbor.
Truxtun turned back to Richard and motioned him closer. “My lieutenant’s arrival is fortuitous, Mr. Cutler. It forces me to cut to the quick. I am fully aware that you sit here before me qualified to serve as first lieutenant in this or any other of our new frigates. You’re not a great deal younger than I am, and yet you have at least as much experience at sea. And you have sailed under Captain Jones, a man the entire world admires and a man whom I know from personal experience greatly admired you. Hell, sir, you could serve as captain of this ship, today! But the reality in this man’s Navy is that we have far more officer candidates than we have officer berths. Many highly qualified candidates will never step foot on board an American ship of war. Then, of course, there are the family connections—‘interest,’ as the British call it—of which you, too, are a beneficiary. None of this is entirely fair, but it is the reality. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I believe I do, sir.”
“Constellation is going into battle,” Truxtun went on. “Do not doubt it. She won’t be ready for sea by March as Mr. McHenry would have it, but by summer, yes. When she is ready, I intend to steer her into harm’s way, as Captain Jones so aptly put it. But before I do, I have serious need of a commissioned officer skilled in naval gunnery. I have reviewed your documents and the letters of your sponsors, including that of Mr. Adams. I am convinced that you are that officer. As my second lieutenant you will have absolute command of the gun deck. While you are on the gun deck you shall outrank everyone, including Mr. Rodgers, including even me. The gun deck will be your sole responsibility on board ship, aside from watch duty. You will train the men on the guns and you will get them into fighting shape to rival any British crew. It’s a tall order, I admit, and one that few men would choose to accept. Will you, Mr. Cutler? Will you accept an officer’s commission and do me the honor of fighting alongside me against our nation’s enemies?”
Richard had not expected an offer to be extended so quickly and in such a fashion. His answer, nonetheless, was never in doubt.
“I accept the commission, Captain Truxtun. And I humbly thank you for it.”
Truxtun gave him a warm, broad smile. “Excellent, Mr. Cutler. Let us shake hands on it.”
Afterward, Richard asked, “How long do you think the Senate will take to confirm my appointment, Captain? Assuming it does, of course.”
Truxtun’s smile did not falter. “I wouldn’t trouble myself with that formality if I were you, Mr. Cutler. I am given considerable latitude in selecting my officers. And since the members of Congress realize that my self-interest and quite possibly my life depend on the men I choose, they will approve my selections, especially one whose name has been put forth by our president. When can you report?”
“When do you need me?”
“There’s no pell-mell rush, as you can plainly see. We’re not going anywhere anytime soon. Christmas is coming, and I suggest we celebrate the season with our families. It may be our last visit home for a while. We have Mr. Sterrett to make certain work on board continues in our absence. And we have Mr. Rodgers to see to recruitment and the guns. So shall we say, back here by April 1? If I need you sooner, I’ll send word.
“And Mr. Cutler,” he added as if as an afterthought, “this I promise you. If by some stroke of fortune our envoys in Paris do manage to avert war, I shall not bind you to a long term of service. While I understand one’s duty to one’s country, I also understand one’s duty to his family and his family business.”
“Thank you, Captain. By the first of April, then.”
Five
Nantucket Sound December 1797
RICHARD TAPPED HIS finger against the bulb at the base of the weatherglass, as if that might encourage the liquid inside the glass tube to stop its ominous fall of the past two hours. A storm was brewing, and the sailor in him sensed a bad one. The sea was becoming mottled, confused, and the wind had shifted counter-clockwise from the southwest to the northeast. He divined no immediate danger, though, and thus delayed the order to double-reef the mainsail. Elizabeth was already sailing under reduced canvas, and they needed to make all the headway they could while they could.
Again he studied the chart spread out before him on the table in the cramped after cabin. By his dead reckoning they were somewhere within Nantucket Sound. He could not determine exactly where—a thickening overcast had prevented a noon sun sighting—but he calculated their position as being a few miles off the southwestern shore of Nantucket Island. If that position was accurate, they should have time to make safe harbor before the storm unleashed its full fury.
There came a knock on the cabin door.
“Enter.”
A seaman opened the door and poked his head inside. His blond hair and blue eyes matched Richard’s own, though his ancestry was Swedish, not English.
“What is it, Anders?”
“Mr. Wadsworth bids ye topside, Captain. We’ve sighted a vessel.”
“What sort of vessel?”
“Can’t tell for certain, sir. That’s why Mr. Wadsworth bids ye topside.”
“Very well. I’m coming up.”
Richard rolled up the chart, slipped on a thick woolen sea jacket, and followed Anders up the ladder to the weather deck. His mate was standing by the starboard shrouds, a long glass to his eye.
Richard walked over, rubbing his hands for warmth. “What do we have, Mr. Wadsworth?”
“Sorry to bother you, sir,” the mate replied. “It’s probably nothing. Collins spotted that ship yonder, heading straight down for us. Says he can’t determine her registry. Nor can I. She’s barely hull up.”
Richard glanced aloft. Joel Collins was a reliable lookout, one of the best in the employ of Cutler & Sons. He possessed keen eyesight, he was an agile topman, and as the scion of a renowned Boston shipwright family, he recognized American and British ship design as well as anyone. Why, then, was he baffled by what he had observed?
“Shall I go up, sir?”
“No, Mr. Wadsworth, I will. Hand me your glass.”
Richard slung the glass by its lanyard over his shoulder and worked his way up the weather ratlines, using the schooner’s heel to larboard to facilitate the climb. Halfway up to the crosstrees, he laced his right arm in and around the thick hemp cords of the shrouds and trained the glass northward. Yes, there she was, coming right at them, her bow in full view. She was a two-masted brig; that much was certain. Whitewater coursed out from the stem of a vessel powered by a full set of square sails on her masts and a fore-and-aft sail, with gaff and boom, abaft her mainmast. He could not see her ensign—a pyramid of white canvas blocked his view; more than likely she wasn’t flying one. What demanded his attention and his concern were her sharply curved cutwater and her short yards and narrow top-hamper; neither was typical of a British or American vessel. Of equal concern were her foresails, cut much shorter on the luff than English jibs. And then there was the finely chiseled figurehead at the bow, a cherubic angel serenely leading the ship’s complement in crusades t
hat, Richard was now convinced, had nothing to do with service to God.
He re-slung the glass and cupped a hand to his mouth. “You may come down, Collins,” he shouted up. He retraced his steps on the shrouds as Collins, above him, crossed a leg over a backstay and slid down hand under hand to the deck.
“She’s French,” Richard said matter-of-factly to those gathered amidships. He collapsed the glass and handed it to his mate.
“A Frenchie? In these waters? Damn me to hell,” Wadsworth cursed out loud. “Where’s her base, d’ye think, Captain?”
“Guadeloupe. Or Saint-Domingue. Or Charleston, if the good citizens there have decided to reopen their port to French privateers.”
“Damn me to hell,” Wadsworth cursed again. Then, in a more disciplined tone: “Shall we come about, sir? Or make for the Vineyard?”
Richard glanced ahead. Little more than a mile separated the two vessels.
“No, Mr. Wadsworth. There’s no point. We can’t outrun her and we can’t fight her. So we’ll sail right at her. We’re small pickings and we’re high on the water, so the Frenchies can see that we carry no cargo. Let’s hope that with this storm brewing they’ll choose to ignore us, especially if we don’t appear threatened by them.”
His optimism was dampened minutes later by the report of a ship’s cannon to windward, the internationally recognized signal of hostile intent. Acrid smoke swept across the brig’s bow to leeward. Ahead, a small plume of water shot into the air.
“So much for hope,” Richard said disgustedly. “Heave to, Mr. Wadsworth. Let’s see what La Belle France has in store for us.” Within minutes his crew had the sloop’s jib and mainsail set to counteract each other and Elizabeth was drifting uneasily upon the rolling sea.
The brig swept on past, then wore ship, feathering in and off the wind until she was abreast of the schooner. When her foretopsail was laid against the mast, she, too, lost all headway. The Americans watched warily as a launch was swung out. Seven men clambered down into it. In short order five Frenchmen were on board Elizabeth, two of them wielding muskets. Two others remained in the launch, fending off. None of the men wore any sort of uniform.
Hands on his hips, the apparent leader of the group strode across the deck. He glanced this way and that, making no effort to hide his contempt for the assembled knot of Americans. He was red-bearded and powerfully built, and he wore no visible insignia of command, save for a small tricolor rosette pinned to the front of his red woolen stocking cap. As he returned to the entry port, he unbuttoned his coat and drew back its flaps to reveal a brace of pistols tucked crossways under his belt at the front of his wide-bottomed, red-striped trousers.
“Eh bien,” he said to the sloop’s crew. “Je m’appelle Paul-Louis du Bourg. Je suis le capitaine de ce visseau là.” He pointed at the brig drifting slightly ahead of the sloop. “Qui est votre capitaine?”
Richard Cutler stepped forward. “Je suis le capitaine,” he said. “Que faites-vous à bord mon vaisseau?” His tone made clear his conviction that the Frenchmen had no right to be on his vessel.
The Frenchman, seemingly caught off guard by Richard’s command of the language, regarded him with hostile eyes. He answered the demand with a demand of his own.
“Votre rôle d’équipage, s’il vous plaît.” He was referring to the roster of crew and cargo that the French government required every American vessel at sea to carry. Without it, the National Directory had decreed, an American vessel was subject to search and seizure if found to be carrying goods to or from a British port. At least, Richard consoled himself, these men were privateers. Pirates rarely bothered with such formalities.
“I do not have such a document,” Richard replied angrily in French. “Nor do I need one, even under your state-sanctioned rules of piracy. We are sailing in home waters. You are the ones here illegally, and I demand you depart at once. Immédiatement! Comprenez-vous, monsieur?” He spat out that last word.
The Frenchman’s thin, condescending smile did nothing to temper Richard’s outrage. He motioned to his men. “Fouillez ce vaisseau!”
Jake Wadsworth did not speak French, but he understood the order to search the vessel when two of the privateers advanced toward the hatchway leading belowdecks. Wadsworth stepped in front of the hatchway and crossed his arms over his chest, blocking their path.
“Vos fusils, mes hommes!” the officer shouted.
Two of the Frenchmen drew pistols. Two others lowered their muskets to waist level, aiming the barrels directly at Wadsworth’s stomach.
“Ease off, Jake,” Richard said. “Let them go below. They won’t find anything of value down there.”
Grudgingly, Wadsworth stepped aside. Two privateers pushed past him and disappeared down the ladder. The others remained on guard on deck. The wind, meanwhile, had strengthened and was carrying needle-sharp pellets of freezing rain that stung exposed flesh.
“Vite!” the French captain yelled down the hatchway.
The two privateers emerged topside to report that the American schooner carried no cargo, only stores for her crew. Their captain ordered them back belowdecks to appropriate those stores and then strode aft toward Richard.
“Why no cargo?” he demanded in broken English.
“None of your fucking business,” Richard replied, his voice low and dangerous.
The Frenchman narrowed his eyes. The ruddy color on his face darkened and his upper lip curled, exposing yellow teeth. Suddenly his right fist lashed out, catching Richard square on the jaw. “Cochon insolent!” he sneered. “Je suggère que vous apprenez quelques manières, monsieur!”
The blow sent Richard reeling backward. He grabbed hold of the mast, steadied himself, then felt with his index finger the cut on his lower lip. Blood trickled down his chin.
Wadsworth advanced two steps. Several of the crew followed him.
“As you were, Wadsworth!” Richard shouted.
“We can take them, Captain,” Wadsworth snarled. His hands were balled into fists and his eyes were glued on a youthful privateer brandishing a musket at waist level, its aim wavering now in the face of the challenge. “We outnumber the bastards.”
“That’s sheer folly, Jake. They’ll kill you certain. Even if we did manage to overcome them, that brig over there would blow us out of the water. Stand down, all of you. Stand down! Now! By my order!”
Wadsworth muttered something incomprehensible. Nonetheless, he motioned to the crew to back off. Richard faced the privateer captain.
“Monsieur,” he said in French with as much deference as he could muster, “what you are doing makes no sense for either of us. Take what stores you require and leave us. A bad storm is coming. You can see that. You can also see that you are putting your brig in grave danger by staying so close to land. You need sea-room, and plenty of it.”
He spoke not as an enemy to an enemy, nor as a victim to his tormentor, but rather as one sea captain to another. As the privateers finished offloading barrels of provisions into the launch, their captain considered his choices.
“Très bien,” he said, his mind made up. “Vous avez raison, monsieur . Merci pour votre provisions.” With that, he strode to the entry port and ordered his men back into the launch. As he turned around to descend the short ladder, Richard noticed his right hand gripping a pistol by the barrel. He was about to shout out a warning, but the Frenchman was too quick. Whipping out his arm, he slammed the butt of the pistol hard against Wadsworth’s face. Wadsworth’s knees buckled and he collapsed on the deck, blood pulsing from an ugly wound between his nose and upper lip. Cursing, he sat up and spat out fragments of a front tooth.
“Son of a bitch!” Richard seethed in angst and anger and an appalling sense of helplessness. “Back off!” he managed to shout to his crew.
“Quelque chose pour se souvenir,” the French captain jeered. “Au revoir, mes amis.” He stepped down into the launch.
As the oarsmen struggled against cresting waves to get back to their brig, Rich
ard focused a glass on the ship’s stern where the name Le Léopard was displayed in bold gilt lettering. Fitting, he thought, for a ship like that to bear such a name. He vowed never to forget this ship, or this captain. Someday, somehow, he would again cross tacks with this particular leopard, under far different circumstances.
RICHARD’S WARNING about the storm proved all too accurate. Within an hour after parting ways with the French brig he was forced to reduce canvas to a small triangular storm jib and a double-reefed mainsail. Two hours later, Elizabeth battled her way northward past the islands of Muskeget and Tuckernut, barely visible to starboard in the gathering mist and uniform gloom. The hum of the wind in the rigging had intensified from a low, sinister moan to a wild, agonized shriek. Gray seas whipped with foam crashed against her hull, battering her timbers, washing her weather deck with icy seawater, and sending shudders of agony through the fabric of the sloop.
Immediately on shortening sail, Richard had ordered six of his crew below and the hatch cover battened down tight with tarpaulins. He and Wadsworth remained at the helm, his mate having convinced Richard that his nose was not broken. The bleeding had stopped, and it would take a damned sight more than a tooth knocked out by a turd-sucking, frog-faced Frenchman to keep him from his duty. Collins was posted at the bow as lookout, and able seaman George Avery stood by the mainsail sheets. All four men were tethered to a rope linked to a jack-line running amidships from stem to stern, the loop at the bowline knot attached to the jack-line, allowing them free movement about the deck. No one could see much. Freezing rain had yielded to sleet and then to swirling snow, and the darkening cloud cover had now combined forces with fog so thick that sea could no longer be distinguished from sky.
When Richard judged that Elizabeth had fought her way sufficiently northward, and that her furled sails were in peril of being ripped from their gaskets by the sheer weight of the wind, he cupped his hands directly over Wadsworth’s ear. “Bring her about, Jake,” he shouted. “And brace yourself. This won’t be easy.”
The Power and the Glory Page 7