by Ron Carter
Tom’s voice was too high, too loud. “The only way we dared send the Belle down there in the first place was to find a Dutch dealer in a neutral harbor at San Salvador. Clear up at the north end of the Caribbean and the Bahamas. You go down there—Haiti, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Tahiti—you’re right in the middle of islands and ports owned by all three—Britain, France, Spain. You start snooping for the crew of a lost American ship, you won’t stand a chance!”
Billy interrupted. “We better take a little time on this. Wait for Matthew. He owns half this company. He has a right to have his say before we start risking another ship and crew.”
Tom was reaching his limits, and plunged on, hating his own words. “It’s near certain that the crew is dead. Including Adam. You heard McDaris. No trace. A ship hit by pirates, shot-up, burned, wrecked on a reef, and not one body, not one longboat. If any of them did survive, they’re bound to be in a British or French prison right now! If they are, you’ll be right there with them the minute the British or the French or the Spanish find out who you are. Is that what you want?”
Caleb was struggling between the soul-wrenching need to find his brother and bring him home, his smoldering hatred of the British, and the truth he was hearing from Tom and Billy. For five seconds filled with hot tension, the three men stared at each other, and then Caleb shook his head and answered. “Time’s against us. We don’t know when we’ll see Matthew. I’m going.”
Tom recoiled. “How? How are you going down there?”
Caleb’s eyes were points of light as he jabbed a finger toward the huge calendar on the left wall that listed all ships, and the dates and destinations of their voyages through the month of December. “The Zephyr. She’s the lightest and fastest schooner we’ve got, and she’s due in from Nova Scotia on Thursday. Two days. I’ll need a crew and a navigator.”
Tom exploded. “The Zephyr! The Zephyr’s due out again on the sixteenth! For Savannah. You can’t take her. We need her.”
Caleb shook his head with finality. “I’m taking her south as soon as we can get supplies and a crew onboard. Some other ship will have to carry the freight to Savannah.”
Tom was nearly shouting. “We don’t have another one free on the sixteenth.”
Caleb’s words were sharp, clipped, final. “Lease one. Buy one. That’s your problem. Adam is mine.” He turned to Billy. “We got enough money to buy supplies for this trip? Hire a crew? Or do we have enough men already?”
Billy raised both hands, palms flat against Caleb. “Slow down. Get hold of yourself. There’s more to this than a lost crew. I’m going to take a little time to think this one through.”
Billy turned on his heel and walked deliberately to his desk and sat down. Tom settled and took his chair at his desk, working his quill between his hands, raising his eyes to glance at Billy from time to time. Caleb studied the big map on the wall. Twenty minutes passed before Billy spoke, and both men listened from where they were.
“We have the money for supplies, and some of the men. We can get others. The Zephyr is probably our best chance—light, fast, maneuverable. We can hire a ship from another line for the Savannah cargo—there are at least two in the harbor now that are idle. We can have Caleb on the way by the end of this week.”
Tom was incredulous. “Risk another ship and crew? Think of the cost of insurance!”
Thoughtfully Billy locked eyes with Tom. “There won’t be any insurance, because the Zephyr won’t be carrying cargo.” He paused for a moment and studied his thick, broad hands on the desk before him. “This isn’t altogether about the shipping business. It’s about what we won and what we didn’t win in the war. We won our independence. Now it looks like we have to win our survival. A different kind of war. If we let the British and the Spanish and the French stop our shipping, how long will we last? I mean the United States. They banned us from what should be open trade down in the Caribbean, and they did it to cripple us, get rid of us if they can. They’re the ones who have picked this fight.” Again Billy paused to gather his thoughts. “What would have happened if we had not stood up back in 1775? Where would we be today?”
Tom slowly eased back in his desk chair, and his eyes began to widen. He said nothing.
Caleb was staring at Billy as though he had never seen him before. Too well he knew Billy had faced British cannon and musket from Lexington in 1775, through every major battle to Yorktown in 1781, and never faltered. But in his own quiet way Billy had never declared his inner-most thoughts until now.
Billy leaned forward, his thick forearms on his desk. “I think we better go down there and get our men, if they’re alive.” He turned his head directly to Caleb. “We’ll need an extra day to mount some cannon on the Zephyr, and your crew better include a few men who understand a fight.”
Notes
The characters in this chapter are fictional.
For a map of the southeastern seaboard of the United States, down to Trinidad, as they are discussed in this chapter, see Mackesy, The War for America, 1775–1783, p. 226.
Following the formal Treaty of Paris of 1783, by the terms of which England granted the United States their independence and made concessions regarding both land and fishing rights, England nonetheless severely criticized the United States for failing to comply with the terms of the treaty, which required the United States to remove all legal barriers from British and Loyalist creditors recovering property and debts due them. In retaliation for the American failure, the British retained some of their forts in the Great Lakes region to cut off American access to the wealth and trade in that sector. In addition, and of great significance, Britain reasoned that they were entitled to reclaim their shipping trade in the Bahama Islands—The West Indies. Consequently, the British government issued its ORDERS IN COUNCIL, which rescinded Lord Shelburne’s proposed plan, which granted American ships the same privileges of shipping as British ships. Said ORDERS also barred American shipping, from Canada to the north down to the West Indies to the south. The ORDERS also banned the export from England and its possessions of machine tools to the United States, a blow aimed at crippling America’s ability to manufacture goods for the marketplace. Bernstein, Are We to Be a Nation? p. 83.
Boston
June 11, 1787
CHAPTER XV
* * *
And please bless Father to come home soon. In thy holy name, amen.”
John Matthew Dunson unclasped his hands and rose from his knees to stand beside his bed in his long nightshirt while Kathleen rose from beside him and turned down the sheet. In the yellow lamp light she leaned over, and he wrapped his arms about her neck for a moment to give her a peck on the cheek, then scrambled into his bed while she pulled the sheet up to his chin.
“I’ll come cover you later,” she said. “You go to sleep.” He saw the tenderness and the soft glow in her eyes as she reached to touch his cheek, and he nodded and turned toward her as she lifted the lamp from the night table and walked out of the room. She left the door half open, and he listened to the whisper of her woollen house slippers and the faint rustle of her long nightshirt fade down the hall. For a few moments he lay in silence while his six-year-old heart struggled with anxiety.
Earlier in the day, while they were tending the fires and carrying water to the washtubs in the backyard, she had talked too little, and he sensed she was troubled, even fearful. While she was hanging clothes on the lines, she had stopped twice to walk through the house, out through the front yard to the gate in the white picket fence and shade her eyes with one hand to look up and down the street, and he knew she was looking for father. In his young heart he did not know his world was built on his mother and his father. He only knew that when she showed fear about his father, he felt it too. It filled him, pushed everything else aside, left him unable to take it away, to make it all better. He could only stand by in silence, watching her eyes, her every expression, gauging her pain, and consequently his own. These were the unexpressed feelings in his heart
as he drifted into troubled sleep.
In the kitchen Kathleen kept her hands busy with the day’s dishes in the hot water, washing, rinsing, methodically working the heavy plates and cups into the cupboards. She threw the water out the backdoor into the darkness, wiped the pans dry, and hung the damp towels on the rods attached to the cupboards. She passed through the dining room where the week’s wash stood on the table in two large woven reed baskets, dry from the sun and breeze, sheets and towels stiff and protruding. She had reached the large upholstered chair before the fireplace in the parlor and placed the lamp on the side table, and was picking up the Bible when she heard a soft rap at the front door, and then the sound of the key working in the lock and the latch being quietly drawn. She jerked erect and her breath came short as she hurried through the gloom of the unlighted parlor toward the door. It opened, and she saw the tall, shadowy image, and she saw and heard the heavy seaman’s bag being dropped to the hardwood floor, and she threw herself against Matthew and clutched him to her and buried her face against his neck as he wrapped her inside his arms. For a time they stood in their embrace, each lost in the other, neither speaking.
Then she murmured, “Matthew, oh, Matthew.”
He held her until the trembling stopped, and he said quietly, “What’s wrong? Are you all right?”
She tipped her head back and he saw the tears. “Now. I’m all right now. I’ve been so scared. So scared.”
His eyes widened. “About what?”
“You. We saw in the newspapers two weeks ago that the convention was to be secret and we knew you’d come home. And then you didn’t.”
“I wrote. Didn’t you get the letter?”
“No. Not yet.”
“I couldn’t get passage home until five days ago. No ships coming to Boston.” He peered down at her. “I didn’t. . . . This isn’t like you . . . I’ve been late before.”
“It’s what’s happened to Adam. All I could see was . . .”
Matthew came to an instant focus. “What’s happened to Adam?”
She pushed herself back. “His ship was wrecked. Down in the Bahamas. Two men came to the office. They saw the ship on a reef. All smashed. Burned.”
She felt the tension leap in Matthew. “Adam? Where’s Adam?”
She shook her head, helpless. “Missing. All of them. When you didn’t come home, that’s all I could see. You on a ship that was wrecked. You gone.”
He led her back to the dining table and pushed the two baskets aside, and sat her down facing him.
“Who were the two men?”
“I don’t know their names. They were on a ship that came. They stopped at the office and told Billy and Tom and Caleb what they saw.”
“Exactly what did they see?” Matthew was leaning forward, intense, missing nothing.
“The ship—the Belle—on a reef down in the Indies. Bahamas. It was wrecked.”
“Wrecked? How wrecked?”
“Billy said the masts were gone, and she had holes.”
“Holes from what?”
“Cannon. Muskets. Tom says it had to be pirates.”
Matthew came to his feet. “The longboats?”
“Gone. No sign of them.”
“When? When did those two men come into the office?”
“Last week. Tuesday I think. The fifth.”
“When did they sight the Belle? Did they say?”
“Sometime the last of May. Billy knows.”
“Has anything been done about it? To find them?”
She hesitated. “Yes. Caleb’s gone down there.”
“Caleb!” he exclaimed. “How? How did he go down?”
“One of the company ships.”
Matthew recoiled, voice too loud, too demanding. “Caleb’s gone down to the Bahamas in one of our ships? An American ship?”
“Yesterday.”
Matthew was on his feet. He took two steps, then spun and returned to the table, leaned forward on stiff arms, palms flat on the table.
“Did Billy say anything about the British? Their Orders in Council? If the British find Caleb, they’ll impound the ship and put the crew in prison! Tom and Billy know that. Did they let Caleb take that ship and go?”
“You’ll have to ask Billy.” Kathleen’s chin began to tremble, and for a moment she covered her mouth with her hand, then murmured, “Matthew, I’m so sorry.”
He tipped his head back and she watched all the air go out of him. He straightened and sat down once again, facing her, voice withdrawn, quiet.
“There’s nothing you could do about it. It’s just that I didn’t expect this. Coming home—I didn’t expect this.” For a moment he studied his hands, then raised his head. “These things happen if you’re in the shipping business. We’ve been lucky until now. We’re going to lose ships . . . but Adam. . . .” His eyes dropped and he shook his head slowly.
She saw the terrible wrenching in his heart, and she reached to cover his hand with hers. For a time they sat in silence, not needing words. Then Matthew drew a deep breath and took charge of himself.
“Does Mother know all this?”
“Yes. She’s beside herself with worry, but she’ll be all right.”
Matthew nodded and forced a smile.
“This hasn’t been much of a homecoming for you. I’m sorry. Its good to be home. I missed you. It’s hard to be away. There’s a lot I have to tell.”
Her dark eyes shone as she answered. “Tell me. Now.”
“We’ll have time for that. Did you see Doctor Soderquist?”
She smiled and he was lost in the beauty that came into her face. “Next January. We’re going to have a little girl.”
Matthew straightened, eyes wide in feigned surprise. “A girl? Soderquist said that? He’s a better doctor than I thought!”
Kathleen laughed. “He didn’t say that. I did. Mothers are entitled to know some things.”
A sound at the archway into the hall brought both their heads around, and John stood facing them, bare toes curled up, digging at his eyes with clenched fists. He moved one hand enough to squint at the dining table, then dropped both hands, still squinting. For two seconds he studied his father, whom he had not seen for nearly a month, and he labored with a shyness for a moment before he marched to him and climbed into his lap.
Matthew wrapped his arms about the stout little body and held him close for a moment before he spoke.
“I’m home. Daddy’s home.”
The boy, both eyes still closed, nodded, but said nothing.
“You all right?” Matthew asked.
Again John nodded, and then asked, “Bring me something?”
Matthew looked stern. “Have you been good? Did you mind mother?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Keep the kindling stacked?”
“Uh-huh?”
Kathleen was glowing, watching.
“Did you sit at the head of the table every day?”
“Uh-huh. Did you bring me something?”
Matthew raised his head to look at Kathleen. “Is it true? Did he obey? Has he earned it?”
“Yes. He’s been my little man.”
“Then I think I have something in that bag by the front door.”
The boy leaned back and peered up at his father. “Get it.”
The two walked across the dim parlor to the seaman’s bag, and Matthew brought it back to the dinner table in the dining room. The boy watched as Matthew unlaced the ties on the end of the bag and rummaged inside for a moment, then stopped. In alarm he peered down at his son, who was standing wide-eyed in anticipation.
“I must have forgot it.”
John’s face drew down. “That isn’t fair. I was good.”
“Well, maybe I’d better look again.” Once more Matthew’s hand disappeared in the bag and then it stopped and he grinned broadly. “There it is!”
He drew out his hand and set a wrapped package on the table. “For you.”
The boy reached for it and tug
ged at the strings and dropped them on the floor, then laid it on the table to fold the paper back until he saw the round, three-inch leather pouch with the hand-stitching and the tab holding it closed. He looked up at Matthew in question, and Matthew said, “Open the pouch.”
The tab lifted from its clasp, and the boy carefully drew out a navigator’s hand compass, cased in steel, with the legend engraved on the outer edge giving all points of the compass, and all the degrees. For a moment he stood in silence, then looked up at his father.
“A real one? For me?”
“One of the best. Read on the back of it.”
The boy turned it, and there on the back, engraved in beautiful cursive scroll he slowly read, “JOHN MATTHEW DUNSON.”
He raised unbelieving eyes. “Mine? Forever?”
“Just like mine, and Adam’s. Yours forever. But you’ve got to earn it.”
“I already did. I was good.”
“I don’t mean that. You’ve got to go with me on a ship and tell me what direction we’re going.”
The boy’s mouth dropped open. “Honest? On a ship?”
Matthew bobbed his head. “Absolutely.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
The boy laid the compass on the table and watched the delicately balanced needle turn, pivot back, and slowly settle. He looked up at Matthew proudly and exclaimed, “It says that’s south. Well, pretty much south.”
Matthew grinned. “No, the needle always points north. Turn the compass until the needle is on the big ‘N.’”
Slowly the boy turned the steel case until the “N” and the needle point were aligned, and then looked up, face split with a great grin. He pointed. “That’s north.”