Reflections in the Wake

by James Spurr

  “Certainly not, James,” she protested, her eyes assuring sincerity in the candlelight, “You are near the only soul I know aboard!” James noted it may have been the first time she used his Christian name. He wished, however, that he had not merely won his seat at dinner by default.

  “I do enjoy your company,” he confessed. Explaining, “It is rather lonely with so few to really talk with.”

  She challenged, as she did so naturally, “With 298 crew aboard, I should think there would be no scarcity of conversation.”

  James poured the wine, nodded to her point but explained, “A Captain cannot become familiar to his crew. He must often even keep some distance even from his officers. They must obey the rank. The more I am, to them, a typical man, with all the imperfections known so well to all, the less deserving I am in their eyes of their loyalty and respect. It is best to remain, in large part, unknown; a mystery.”

  Marie nodded in return, but countered, “There are those whose humanity is deserving of respect simply by their character and actions.” She smiled. “But I know that as you say is often the prevailing view in the service. I recall hearing it before.” She sipped her wine.

  James offered, “I walked the deck today, as you rested and it dawned on me how little I know about you. We seem always to talk about ships, politics, or my career.” He sensed her tension as he asked, “Where else have you lived, besides Nantes and Avignon?”

  She offered, “I learned to bake while staying with friends in Belgium, a small village just south of Brussels.” With a fond smile, she recalled, “It was very peaceful. Their family owned a farm, more of a chateau perhaps, with orchards and formal gardens. I could have stayed forever.” A tinge of sadness filled her eyes, but she only said, “That is a criminal amount of pepper you are putting in your soup.”

  James asked, “What caused you to leave?”

  She tasted her soup before answering, gratefully took the pepper he was already holding out to her in anticipation of her instantly understanding his motivation with respect to all available seasoning. Marie explained, “Well, some English soldiers camped on a small ridge over our fields. Then some French soldiers soon enough walked across to meet them. Rather late that day, Prussian soldiers rushed to join and after what seemed some mere hours,” her tone iced, “our farm was destroyed and bodies covered the ground, three thick in most places, with a fair amount of horses scattered about.” She ground the pepper mill several more time and suggested, “Tomorrow night, James, I will cook.”

  James softly put down his spoon. He did not smile at her light suggestion. He looked at her with concern, compassion and perhaps with a touch of horror. He stood from the small table, went over to the built in shelves above his sleeping quarters and returned with a book. He brought it close to the candles, the sun having already set. He flipped through some pages and stopped at an etching, pressed the pages back against the binding and asked, “Marie, was this your friend’s farm?”

  Marie did not need to look. She noted only the title of the book as he opened it near the candle. But she could not help but look. She wondered if the etching was before or after the devastation of battle, she having already years before lost first her home, then her family.

  She looked. The etching depicted the farm before the battle, which oddly enough made it even more difficult to keep from bursting into tears. Instead, her eyes merely filled and she nodded, trying unnaturally to hide her emotion in her voice. “Oui,” she said, “the Hougoumont farm.”

  James put the book on the table, took his seat, looked over at her and reached out for her hand. She took it, somewhat cautiously. He just held it. They sat in silence, he rubbing the top of her hand with his thumb; they finishing their wine as occasionally they glanced at the embossed cover of the book. Gold leaf glinted in the candlelight. The title danced in the flicker, as had Satan in those fields and on that day eleven years before; “Waterloo.”

  After some minutes, Marie was breathing normally, her eyes were dry and her thoughts brought back to the present. James called for his servant to bring in the entrée; in good time, the dessert. The conversation jumped from one subject to another. Good cheer returned amid relaxed banter. Given the excellent recovery from Marie’s revelation, James elected to hold his own thoughts and state of mind to himself, letting what he regarded as a precious day, one of only few, slip by. The day slipped by as effortlessly as the cut water slicing through the waves, creating the black wake with moonlit sliver streaks streaming out from the stern gallery windows.

  After bidding Marie good night, Captain Lee walked the deck and checked the log at the binnacle. He exchanged brief compliments with the helmsman, expressed his pleasure to the Second Lieutenant, officer of the deck, and then returned to his temporary, much smaller quarters without a window. Against his better judgment, he reached for another letter from the satchel.

  He read a letter from his father, then Captain of a merchant vessel hailing from Philadelphia, to Bemose, addressed to a family in Sault Ste. Marie dating from September, 1806.

  James learned the truth by way of details, of how, or rather more importantly, why, his mother died.

  The following day, the noon sight taken from the foredeck was more an exercise than a necessity. Everyone aboard John Adams knew well where they were. They had been there before, just a month before. The islands between them, the shore just ahead with the elaborate mole creating a small harbor for the locals, dwarfed by the imposing stone walls of a fully enclosed medieval city left no need for the geometry of the sun and elaborate arithmetic to confirm their arrival in Dubrovnik.

  Captain Lee had seen little of Marie that morning except when sailing past a small village. Assured of ample water beneath the keel, he ordered the helmsman to steer closer to shore. He sought out Marie and, standing at the larboard rail, handed her his long glass. “Look into and among the trees, just above the village. I was told last I was in Dubrovnik that these are the ruins of a Roman Emperor’s summer palace. Diocletian, if my memory serves.”

  Marie took a long look, panning back and forth with the glass, her expression of interest and wonder fascinating James. She was smiling and commented, “Spectacular! So well preserved, but imagine their grandeur in their day!”

  “I will likely never have reason to explore more closely,” he mused, “but I thought you would enjoy the sight.” Then James asked, “We shall be rather busy upon our arrival, but if you would be so kind as to wait, or I could meet you ashore, would you do me the favor of walking the walls and seeing the town?”

  They exchanged glances, both of their eyes shining. “I would enjoy that, yes, and I will wait aboard. I have never been to Dubrovnik, but have read about its history and would enjoy exploring it with you.”

  Captain Lee considered whether to order the yawl boat with a full uniformed crew but instantly rejected the idea for the smaller gig. Less ceremony, true, but they would be required to sit closer.

  As the afternoon warmed, the two climbed the steps, narrow and steep, from one elevation of wall to another. The views were spectacular; vistas of the azure blue sea sprinkled with islands like precious gems, the surrounding hills, still green so early in the season, the town below offering terra cotta and various shades of red and orange from half round, clay roofing tiles.

  The walk was easily within Marie’s capabilities. As for Captain Lee, life aboard held little opportunity for walking and he did not, as Captain, so often climb aloft as he used to scamper so easily aboard sloops and schooners of the Great Lakes some dozen years before. He was obviously winded, but his pride and custom of leading most often found him in front of Marie, many of the stairs so narrow as to prevent them from walking abreast.

  Time and again they would encounter some rubble and loose stones amid cracked and crumbling mortar. The steps were sometimes uncertain and the handholds insecure. James would always attend with courtesy and grace, his manners impeccable, his desire to assist sincere. He would turn, offer his hand
and counsel as to which stones to trust and of which to beware. Their mood was grand, their banter casual and laughter frequent.

  But not once did she take his hand.

  “Marie, that may be loose,” James cautioned. “Here, the next step is steep, let me help—”

  She looked, considered and followed his advice. “Thank you, James, yes I see, here now, this looks better,” and invariably took hold of stones held secure for several hundreds of years. Most were very good choices; some James well understood. More than halfway around the perimeter of the town, however and as they approached a tower and gun platform as allowed them to sit and rest, James concluded Marie simply did not want to accept his hand or his help as would allow them contact.

  They sat for some moments, with James trying to disguise that he needed to catch his breath before continuing conversation. He did well to soon regulate his breathing, then offered, “Marie, please take no offense in my offering my hand; I mean only to assist and do not want to press.” The explanation was only partially true. James in fact had hoped their moments the evening before had brought them to at least the very brink of a new relationship.

  Marie fell back on her defenses, “Of course not, James. I did not intend… to suggest…” But she was at a loss for words. There was simply no logical way to explain why she had steadfastly refused what common sense would have, to even casual strangers, indicated the safer and preferred method of navigating the loose stones and uncertain course.

  An awkward pause followed, he hoping she would finish her sentence, she knowing she could not. So to avoid further embarrassment on both their parts, James stood and she followed and they began to descend stairs periodically placed to access the ramparts. He asked, as lightly as possible, “Tell me what you know about the Ragussan people.”

  “Not a great deal, really. You are aware, of course, that Dubrovnik is now also under the control of Austria. They claim benevolence in the absence of the French. Napoleon himself was present in Dubrovnik in ’06 and personally abolished the Ragussan Republic that had stood for hundreds of years. These very walls, which they had gradually erected to protect from barbarians, are nearly a thousand years old.”

  James looked about, impressed with the accomplishment and beauty achieved in efforts to protect a highly civilized people, “I understand they were excellent mariners, highly active in trading with other nations even beyond the Mediterranean. Now, again, it appears a culture in decline may be forever lost.”

  They had taken the street, walking among the merchants with most of the goods from their shops spread well out onto the narrow, polished stone streets. Hearing no reply, James turned to Marie. She grabbed his arm and pulled him into an adjacent alleyway rising steeply with dozens of steps wedged between walls and leading, he guessed, to the modest residences squeezed into the inner core of each commercial block.

  But Marie did not ascend the steps. She pulled him just off the street, turned him to her, his back to a wall, and took his hands. She looked into his eyes as he tried to wipe the astonishment from his face. “James, I am sorry. When you asked why I did not take your hand, I did not know the answer. I only felt what I had never spoken of before. I think it is because on every occasion in the past, when I have wanted to … and began to rely on others, I lose them. I survive alone, because I have had to. And whether I will ever have such an opportunity to trust in another, the sad fact is that your ship is indeed fast and we will be in Genoa in a matter of what, three days, maybe four?”

  James nodded, “It is difficult to trust, especially having witnessed and survived as you have—”

  Marie interrupted with an urgency that he should not lose her point, “Indeed, I do not trust… but I am not about to start with a man who will be sailing over the horizon in less than a week, leaving me ashore, alone once again. And do not dare take that as a complaint or a suggestion; it is merely a fact with which my defenses must contend.”

  James nodded and sighed. Marie looked down at their hands, clasped together and let go. They began to walk, together, aimlessly down the streets of Dubrovnik, taking in the history as reflected in the numerous churches, plazas and public buildings, nearly all within the shadow, some moments of each day, of imposing stone walls.

  It was much warmer, shielded from the breeze and with the heat of the day absorbed by and then given off from so many stone surfaces whether walls, streets or buildings. Both James and Marie spotted, together, a small public house with a few tables outside, spread over varying levels of gradual steps leading up an ally from the main vegetable market. They relished the rest, as the sun was signaling the beginning of a long and beautiful evening.

  With James now more certain than ever that he had only some few days with Marie, he saw nothing to lose in confiding, “Last night, quite late, I read a letter from my father to Bemose recounting how, or rather why, my mother died.”

  Marie said nothing, not wanting to say anything which would inadvertently keep James from talking. She looked at him plaintively and compassionately, inviting him to continue with her utter silence and total attention.

  James sipped a glass of wine just then delivered and began, still staring at the glass, “I always knew she died in childbirth, her first.” He shrugged, “Common enough, certainly; however sad.” He then looked at Marie, “My father explained to Bemose, how a Royal Navy Captain refused my mother the medical care and attention of a naval surgeon. My father was a merchant Master of a small sloop back in ’95. With no midwife or medical care in Frenchtown at that time, native women warned that my mother had just begun her labor and that something was very wrong. I am not sure he understood them, but believed in their warnings and took all precautions. With one of his crew and a couple of local native women, he set off, a short sail up the Detroit River, to the new Royal Naval yard near Fort Malden at Amherstberg. The wind was strong enough to counter the current and within two hours, he arrived, made fast to the dock, and while carrying my mother to the infirmary was intercepted by the Captain of General Gage, just then hauled for the season.”

  Marie remained silent as James painfully recounted what he had just hours before come to learn. “The Captain, Sir Edgar Fleet, refused them. Citing their citizenship, their social status, or lack of it, ignoring or counting for nothing my father’s plea based upon his sometimes sailing with the Provincial Marine, he required that they leave the yard and sail upriver to Detroit.”

  James swallowed, looked from the wall to which he was staring and into Marie’s eyes, explaining, “The sail to Detroit, upriver, would have taken well more than another hour. My mother might well not have made it. We will never know.”

  His voice growing cold, as it had with the British salute in Venice, “Upon the return to the dock, my father found a young midshipman, the son of Captain Sir Edgar Fleet, had cast off his sloop, requiring it, a merchant vessel with no permission to dock, to leave the Royal yard immediately. My father, in the presence of this ‘young gentleman,’ beckoned his crew to sail back and retrieve him and my mother. His ship was standing off, very near the dock, hoping the midshipman would understand the urgency and allow them some grace, but they were ordered to keep off. Finally, my father located a nearby canoe and paddled my mother out to his ship. The motion and handling were too much, first to and from the canoe then to the deck. My mother delivered me on the deck of a sloop, two native women attending. They could not save her and she bled to death before they could even so much as carry her below, out of the wind and weather.”

  Marie held out for his hand, which was not refused and offered, wishing to say far more, would anything help, “James, I am sorry. How awful.”

  James nodded, “How cruel. How unnecessary. How unforgivable.”

  Marie’s expression changed, now having had more information as to why James felt as he did with respect to Great Britain and her sons serving her. James offered, “I know how that sounds to you, with all you have endured, but there is more.”

  Marie with
drew her hand and leaned toward him wondering what more could there be to an already horrible tragedy. James explained, “My father did not know the names of those involved until some years later, while serving as Sailing Master upon H.M.Schooner Hope. Having heard the former midshipman, ten years later, mention his father and their time spent serving together on the Lakes and in Amherstberg, my father recalled the face which he had always felt familiar and realized he was sailing northern Lake Huron under the command of the very man whose cruelty had caused my mother’s death.”

  Marie’s eyes suddenly grew wide and she said, “Bemose wrote me of a ship of that name—”

  Before Marie could recall the details, James confirmed, “As well she would. She was aboard Hope, where she met my father, and together they came to resist then Lieutenant Fleet in hopes of surviving his incompetence.”

  Marie added, “Wasn’t she wrecked?”

  “Aye,” confirmed James “with the ordeal forming a bond between them that led to my father finding the partner in her deprived him by Fleet.”

  Then, their wine finished, they stood and began walking back to the gig, it being time to return to John Adams. James made his point, “That which I know and governs my feelings and actions, like you, is not all based upon ideology and the politics of nations. It is borne of our past, with men and women who when faced with a choice, dealt with us and all humanity as they did. I will not forget.”

  Marie walked alongside James as she thought about what was on balance, an enjoyable day spent together even as they came to a deeper, more serious understanding between them. Wondering of the effect of the letters she delivered to James in the satchel and whether they would all cause him such pain. While stepping into the gig, the sunset now ablaze, she asked, “James, may I borrow this little boat and its crew to come ashore tomorrow?”