by Ron Carter
A third seaman called Pike, soft-spoken with deep-set eyes, spoke up. “I asked about the Belle. An old man—blind—can’t talk—has some things. Wanted money before he’d show. I didn’t have enough.”
“Where is he now?”
Pike pointed with a bony finger. “Down there. Not far. Has some things in a box.”
Caleb paused only long enough to gauge the rise in the wind coming in from the east, with the scent of rain. Then he turned to Young. “Take the crew and locate where the British dock their longboats, and meet me back here soon.” He gestured to the soft-spoken Pike. “Show me the blind man.”
Young and the crew walked to their left, along the waterfront, peering at the harbor traffic, looking for British longboats that had to be tied along the shore, or close to it. Caleb followed Pike to their right, into the rank smells and grime, pushing past people of every color who stepped before them with baubles and worthless trinkets to sell or barter. In the rubble of an ancient building destroyed by a forgotten earthquake, they found the old, thin, wrinkled, black blind man, seated, rocking back and forth on a small, broken water keg. He wore one filthy, tattered garment that reached from his shoulders to his ankles. His bald head shone in the sun, and his mouth was drawn into an habitual, toothless grin. His eyes were wide open, their lenses long since covered with the gray film of the sightless. Beside him was a makeshift table of slabs of driftwood. On it were bottles of colored glass, a bit of a broken necklace chain made of copper, some square, bent, iron nails, frayed cord, and other scraps of useless things. He turned his head toward Caleb and Pike as they approached.
Caleb studied the old derelict for a moment before he spoke. “Old man, I am looking for some men from a ship named the Belle. I am told you know something of them.”
The old head bobbed. The grin held.
“What can you tell me?”
The man thrust out an emaciated hand, and with a finger of the other hand tapped the palm.
Caleb asked, “How much?”
The old man held up five misshapen fingers.
Caleb drew the leather purse from his pocket and rattled it. “Tell me first. Then I pay.”
The old head shook, and the hand showed the five fingers again.
Patiently Caleb counted out five shillings, then took the withered hand in his and dropped them into the palm, one at a time. He did not release the hand.
“Five shillings. Tell me what you know.”
With his free hand the old man reached beneath the driftwood tabletop and drew out a wooden box, weathered, warped by being in seawater too long. Caleb motioned, and Pike picked it from the ground and opened it. Inside were knives, forks and spoons for the officer’s mess of a ship. On the back of each was the stamped inscription, “Belle.”
Caleb, still holding the old, gnarled hand, asked, “Where did you get this?”
The old head did not turn as the free arm raised, and pointed down the waterfront, toward the great stone British headquarters building.
“The British? You got this from the British?”
The head bobbed.
“When?”
The hand held up four fingers.
“Four? Four what? Four weeks? Four weeks ago?”
The head nodded once.
“How did you get it? Did you buy it?”
The old head remained motionless, and Pike said, “Most likely stole it.”
Caleb glanced up. “Blind? How could a blind man steal it?”
“Paid someone. Look around you.”
Caleb folded the withered fingers over the five silver pieces and released the hand. Instantly the old man softly felt the face of each coin, and then shoved them inside his tunic.
Caleb said, “Let’s go,” and Pike tucked the wooden box under his arm and followed.
Within twenty minutes the remainder of the crew had returned to the two longboats that had brought them ashore. They gathered around Caleb and Pike as Pike opened the box, and the men stared at the steel utensils stamped Belle, then turned to Caleb, waiting.
“An old blind man says he got this from the British headquarters building about four weeks ago. If he did, I think some of those men in that prison down there are from Adam’s crew.”
Young said, “Most likely.”
Caleb looked into the eyes of his crew. “This is what we came down here for. Tonight we get them out. You all know we have a blow and rain coming in from the east, over those mountains, and it will likely hit before we finish. We’ve got to get into the prison and out with men while British regulars are guarding them. No way to tell how bad it will get. Anyone wants to stay out of this, speak now. You can stay on the Zephyr, and no one will fault you.”
No one moved or spoke.
“All right. Anyone know where to get fresh water for the Zephyr? And salt meat? Fruit? Vegetables?”
A voice called, “British headquarters building. They got a commissary. You have to pay.”
Caleb tossed the leather purse to Tunstall. “When we’re through here, take the men assigned to you and buy enough to get us back to Boston. Get it out to the ship.”
Caleb turned to Young. “You found the British longboats?”
Young pointed. “West. Sixteen of them. Tied to pilings on shore.”
Caleb paused to order his thoughts. “We’ll take the rest of the crew in our longboats and get back to the Zephyr and start pumping the hold. Get her ready for the run. Soon after dark, we’ll bring ten kegs of gunpowder and two grappling hooks and all meet back here. Everyone clear?”
All heads nodded.
Caleb looked at them one more time. Every man present had been in mortal combat many times. None had illusions about what cannon and musket could do to a man, yet none of them hesitated. Their faces were sober, eyes narrowed, shining a light that said they were relishing the desperate notion of sailing into a British port and bringing imprisoned Americans out. Some were grinning when the two crews separated, one to buy supplies, the other to get their ship ready for the run.
By midafternoon Caleb and the men on the Zephyr, stripped to the waist and sweating in the hold, had worked the handles of the two-man bilge pumps to push two feet of water back out into the sea. In the mounting wind, the little schooner was riding higher, straining at her anchor chain, dancing on the incoming tides. By four o’clock Tunstall was alongside with a great barge, his crew, and four extra hired men, transferring forty barrels of fresh water and ten barrels of salt beef onto the rolling deck of the ship. By six o’clock, Caleb’s men had emptied the hold of seawater, stored the pumps below deck, wiped their dripping faces with their shirts, pulled them on, and were back on deck, where Tunstall’s crew was transferring the last load of fresh water, salt fish, green bananas, and sweet potatoes from the barge onto the schooner. Tunstall paid the four hired men, who counted their coins and climbed down the net back to their barge and were gone.
By seven o’clock the food and water were stored below in the hold. The tides had reached their high-water mark and were just beginning to recede when the crew lowered a longboat into the wind-ruffled harbor, and Caleb climbed down with grappling hook and rope coiled over one shoulder, and set out for shore alone. By eight o’clock, in oncoming dusk, with the wind starting to sing in the rigging, the men had finished evening mess. By half-past eight, in deep twilight, Caleb was back on deck with the grappling hook, and the crew gathered around, quiet, waiting.
Caleb spoke to Tunstall. “I’ll need a lantern and parchment and something to write with.”
Twenty seconds later Tunstall set a lantern on a hatch cover and laid paper and a piece of lead beside it. Caleb squared the paper, picked up the long, thin piece of lead, and began.
“I was on the roof of the prison. This is how the British installation down there lays.”
The crew watched intently as Caleb drew a large rectangle, then an open field, then a smaller square behind, with yet a smaller square inside. His voice was steady, contained. “We’ve gone ove
r this before, but I want no mistakes.”
His finger moved on the paper as he spoke. “This big rectangle is the administration building. Behind is the drill field. This smaller square is the prison. Here, in the center, is an open courtyard about twenty yards square. Four soldiers carried a kettle of soup or stew and some bowls from the front of the building across the courtyard to the back section, and were inside for maybe ten minutes. When they came out the kettle was empty. They had to be feeding the prisoners. Judging by the amount in the kettle, there must be about fifteen men in there. There’s one door into the place, right here, where the prisoners are kept. No windows.”
He paused for a moment to let the men study the drawings and understand what he had said, then moved on.
“We’re going to use grappling hooks and ropes to get into that open courtyard and blow the door where the prisoners are,”—he tapped the drawing—“then get them out, over the wall, and back to our longboats that will be tied alongside the British longboats. Going in, we leave two men and three kegs of gunpowder in front of the administration building, and they stop anyone who might come out the front door to get us. When we’re out, we get into our longboats and as many British longboats as we need, blow the rest of them, and get on out here to the ship. Those who are assigned to stay here will have the cannon mounted with the muzzles on the rails, angled upward, and they have to be ready to get us on board and unfurl the sails to make our run for the mouth of the harbor. Does every man here know his assignment?”
He looked every man in the eye. “Aye, sir.”
“Are we agreed on the plan?”
“Agreed.”
Without a word Caleb pointed, and all hands went below decks to emerge with ten, twenty-pound barrels of gunpowder, twenty-five feet of waterproof fuse, three folded pieces of sail canvas, three small metal boxes with smoldering tinder inside, and two grappling hooks with thirty feet of rope secured through the eyes. They stacked the barrels and grappling hooks along the rails next to the twelve cannon, still concealed under canvas. Caleb assembled the crew on the pitching deck and shouted to be heard above the mounting wind.
“Tunstall, when I and my men are in our longboats, hand the gunpowder and grappling hooks down to us. We should be back in about ninety minutes if everything goes right. If it goes wrong, give us an extra half hour, then take the Zephyr out of the harbor and back to Boston. Any questions?”
“None.”
“Let’s move.”
With the first great drops of slanting rain splattering on the crew and the deck, Caleb and ten picked men went over the rail and down the net into the bobbing longboats. Tunstall and his six men on the ship’s deck lowered the ten kegs of gunpowder on ropes, then the length of fuse and the grappling hooks. The men in the loaded, pitching longboats rammed their oars against the hull of the schooner to shove themselves away, then jammed them into the oarlocks and heaved into them, pulling for shore, soaked, the wind-driven rain pounding on their backs, dripping from their beards and noses. The few lights still burning in the town were but faint blurs across the harbor. All barges and longboats had long since tied up at the shoreline; only the anchored ships remained on the heaving water in the harbor.
Caleb was crouched in the bow of the leading boat, peering ahead, shouting orders above the wind to the seaman on the tiller, while the trailing boat followed close behind. They picked their way to the westerly end of the town, located the British longboats bucking against the ropes that tied them to the old, decaying pilings, tied their two longboats alongside, and lowered themselves into the churning, waist-deep water to form a line from the boats to the shore. In the darkness, they passed the powder kegs from one man to the next until all ten kegs were on the beach, then the grappling hooks and coiled ropes, and finally the fuses. The soaked, dripping men waded ashore to streets that were vacant with but few lights scattered and dim in the driving rain. It took two trips to move all ten kegs of gunpowder down to the big British administration building. They left two men hovering over three of the kegs they had leaned against the front wall of the big structure. It took two more trips for the remaining seven men to move the other seven kegs across the muddy morass of the drill field to the side wall of the prison, a low, black blur against the jungle. Strong arms swung the grappling hooks on the ropes and heaved them over the top of the low wall, then jerked back hard until they caught. Two men climbed the ropes to the roof while others tied the first two barrels to the end of the ropes, and those on top pulled them sliding up the wall, released the rope, and dropped it back for the second two barrels, then the last one. Finally, those waiting in the mud climbed to the roof. They trotted to the far side, set the grappling hooks, and two men went over the edge, sliding down the ropes to the muck of the black, vacant courtyard. Five minutes later all seven barrels of gunpowder and all seven men were in the mud. Without a word they left the ropes hanging from the grappling hooks, each picked up a barrel of gunpowder, and they divided. Three went left to set their powder kegs five feet from the door into the front section of the building where the British soldiers were billeted, and they hunched over the kegs, waiting. Caleb and the other three seized the remaining four kegs of gunpowder and trotted splashing through the mire to the low rear wall of the courtyard. Caleb stopped at the big iron door into the dungeon and set his powder keg against the doorjamb, where the great bolt was held in place on the inside. He helped the other three men position their kegs on top of his, then banged on the door with the butt of his belt knife. There was no sound from the inside, and he banged again, stopped, put his ear against the wet, black iron, and listened as the faint sound of a pounding fist came through.
Caleb shouted, “Can you hear me? Hit the door twice if you can hear me.”
The fist struck the door twice.
“Get back. Get away from the door. We’re setting gunpowder. Get back! Do you understand? Hit the door twice if you understand.”
Again the fist struck the door twice, then stopped.
Caleb turned and gave hand directions to his men. One man used the butt of his belt knife to knock the bung from the lowest barrel, set a two-foot length of fuse and step back. The second man unfolded the canvas and held it shielding the barrels from the rain while the third man crouched beneath it and drew out the tinderbox. He raised the lid, blew gently until flames came licking, then lowered it and held the fuse to the fire until it sputtered and caught. The man holding the canvas tucked it around the gunpowder and the sputtering fuse, and all four backed away fifteen feet to flatten themselves against the wall, heads turned away from the door and the gunpowder. Ten seconds later the night was shattered by a blast that blew flame outward halfway across the courtyard and sent a concussion wave slamming into the far wall. Burning bits and pieces of the kegs lay over the entire courtyard, and the smoke was still swirling in the rain when Caleb reached the heavy iron door. It was blown inward, still hanging at an angle by one hinge. He plunged into the black, reeking stench, “Get out, get out! Now! Move!”
Dark, bearded shapes, wearing only tattered pants came barefooted, cautious at first, then crowding while Caleb called “Adam Dunson” over and over as they passed him in single file to pick their way past the blown door and the smoke and burning shards of the kegs. The ninth man answered, “Caleb, is that you?” and Caleb seized his arm for one brief moment. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
Caleb shoved him on. “Keep moving.”
Sixteen dark shapes moved past him, out into the driving rain in the courtyard, where the three men with Caleb stopped them, held them in a group, and waited while Caleb, still inside, shouted, “Anyone else here? Speak up or be left behind!” There was no answer, and Caleb dodged past the iron door into the rain, and pointed. “Follow my men to the ropes on that wall, and wait. Move!”
His three men led the sixteen prisoners through the rain at a sprint, splashing through the morass of the courtyard, and Caleb came behind, slower, peering through the rain
toward the front section of the old, decaying building, hunting in the darkness and the rain for his three men hunched over their three kegs of gunpowder, waiting for the British soldiers to burst from their quarters, muskets in hand. As he watched, the door swung open, a shaft of yellow lamplight leaped out into the courtyard to dissipate in the rain, followed by British regulars in various stages of dress and undress. They came uncertain, hesitant, bent forward, peering into the rain and the darkness, groping to understand what was happening.
Instantly Caleb’s three men in front of them spread their canvas to shield against the rain, opened their tinderbox, set and lighted their fuses, dropped the canvas over the barrels, spun, and ran toward the group waiting at the wall while Caleb shouted to those around him, “Get down. Get down.” They all dropped to their knees as the gunpowder in front of the barracks blew. Flame leaped eighty feet in the air. The shock wave inside the small courtyard threw four British regulars backwards into their barracks, and sent others rolling, skidding in the muck, all of them stunned, disoriented, unable to know what to do. Not one had fired a shot.
The concussion jolted Caleb’s group, heads down and hunched low, passed over them, bounced off the wall, and was lost in the wind and rain. Instantly Caleb was on his feet. “Get to those ropes and onto the roof.”
Eager hands seized the knotted ropes and seasoned seamen went up hand over hand, onto the rooftop, where they spun and waited for the next man to clamber over the edge. Caleb was the last man up, and the instant he heaved himself rolling onto the roof, his men jerked the ropes up, disengaged the grappling hooks, ran to the far side of the roof, reset the grappling hooks, and threw the ropes over into the wind and rain, and the black abyss below.
In less than four minutes all twenty-five men were in the mud, flattened against the outside wall of the ancient prison, and Caleb led them out onto the muddy morass of the drill field at a run, directly toward the side wall of the great Administration building. They were halfway past the wall when flames at the front of the building leaped into the storm, and then they heard the “whump” of the exploding gunpowder, and felt the tremor in their feet. They were twenty feet from the corner when Caleb’s two men appeared before them, and Caleb did not break stride. With these men following, he angled left, down toward the waterfront where their longboats were tied beside the sixteen belonging to the British.