by Edward Cline
Hugh stood over Hunt. The man looked up at him with a curious mixture of hatred and hope. Hugh said, “They shall not save the Sparrowhawk.” He said it quietly, without emphasis, without care that the man believed him. Without waiting for a reply, he leapt over Hunt and ran to the stern steps and went down them against a stream of crewmen working to contain the fires set by Jack Frake’s carcasses. Hugh knew the ship well. He knew how to get to the magazine deep in the bowels of the Sparrowhawk.
Jared Hunt yelled to one of the crewmen, “Damn your eyes, help me to my feet!” The crewman ignored him. “You there! Help me up!” he shouted to another.
* * *
Jack Frake raised his spyglass and trained it on the stern. With more relief than he had time to feel, he saw a rope dangling from a burning yardarm. It had been cut. Hugh Kenrick was nowhere in sight. Nor could he spot Jared Hunt. The mizzen topsail was completely aflame, the ends of furled sails on other arms were on fire, and fire was beginning to burn a hole through a sail over the bow. He lowered the spyglass to peer at the water around the Sparrowhawk. He saw no one in it.
Then he realized that the Sparrowhawk had stopped firing. As had the Basilisk. He heard distant drums now, the drums of the marines. The bombardment had claimed no casualties among his men. It had merely rearranged some of the ruins and debris, except that one ball had struck the smithy.
But the Sparrowhawk was at least crippled. Her crew would be fortunate to save a fraction of her sails. It was not a navy ship, with a navy crew, or a navy captain. She would be disabled for days. With luck, the fires would spread to the masts, and that would disable her for months. Perhaps forever.
“All right,” he said to the men who had been firing the wheeled gun. “We’re finished here. Fire once more. Then we must leave for the firing lines, and retreat to the boats.”
“There’s one shot left, sir,” said Crompton.
“Quickly, Mr. Crompton. Fine work today.”
When the gun was ready, Jack Frake took the linstock and put it to the touchhole.
The shot did not strike a sail, but exploded directly in the middle of the deck among the panicking crewmen. The clothing or hair of a few of them caught fire. These men began to mount the railing and dive into the river. Others followed them.
* * *
Hugh Kenrick descended into the holds of the Sparrowhawk through a series of ladders and gangways. There were few crewmen down here; most were topside fighting the blazes. What few he encountered did not know him, and did not stop him, even though the noose was still around his neck. He carried a lantern he had found in a niche; a powder monkey accosted him with the warning that he should not roam about with it. Hugh simply replied that the vessel was doomed, and that he should abandon it. “Swim ashore, son, and live to see a new country born!” The boy regarded Hugh with incomprehension, but ran to find the nearest ladder topside.
Hugh found the handling chamber first, where cartridges were assembled to pass on to the powder monkeys. Next came the filling room. Finally, the magazine itself. All three were divided by wet linen curtains that prevented sparks from traveling through the air. These compartments were also lit by lanterns that sat in recessed niches.
He stood in the dim, empty magazine, and regarded the shelves of waist-high powder kegs, and rows of leather sacks and wooden canisters that the powder monkeys would take topside to the gun crews, once they were filled with charges of powder. He suddenly remembered that Jack Frake knew these rooms, as well, when he was a powder monkey for John Ramshaw.
A powder keg had been rolled from a shelf and stood in the middle of the chamber. Its lid was ajar. He put down his lantern, removed the lid, and stood it against the keg. An empty sack lay next to the handle of a wooden scoop that protruded from the black grain. He smiled when he remembered his first day of work in Benjamin Worley’s warehouse near Lion Key in London, when he was assigned to scoop snuff from a barrel into casks for sale to a city merchant.
The memory gave him an idea. With the scoop he could make a trail of powder that led back to the keg; he could overturn the keg and spill its contents over the magazine floor. He could light the powder at the bottom of a ladder with the lantern candle, then race topside and follow the advice he had given the powder monkey, and jump overboard. Yes, he thought: I, too, can live to see a new country born! I shall join Jack Frake in whatever fight he chooses!
“I thought so!”
Hugh turned to see Jared Hunt standing at the chamber door, leaning against the side, the curtain draped over one of his shoulders. Even in the dim light, he could see the man’s sweating face. And the pistol in his hand.
“Your damned lackey got me in the side, Mr. Kenrick, but I’ll live! Longer than you! Move away from that barrel!”
Instead, Hugh reached down for his lantern.
Hunt fired his pistol.
Hugh felt a punch in his chest. His knees weakened and with an involuntary gasp he fell to the floor.
The chamber was small enough that Hunt could reach down from where he stood for the rope end of the noose still around Hugh’s neck and grip it. He began to pull Hugh away from the barrel. “Mr. Blassard was a navy man once, he knew his knots, didn’t he now? Couldn’t get it off, could you, you son and heir bastard! By God, I’ll hang you below decks!”
Hugh had managed to grasp the lantern handle with his right hand. It caused him more pain than he had ever known, but he yanked himself loose from Hunt’s hold, pivoted his body, and leaned against the chamber wall. Before the Customs man could make another move, he swung the lantern into the open keg. One of the glass lantern panes broke.
“You cannot win, Mr. Hunt. Long live Lady Liberty.”
Hunt was stunned. How could this man have known? He rushed to the keg to remove the lantern, peering into it just in time to see the lit candle roll into the powder. There was a hiss, and then a flame, and the keg blew up in Jared Hunt’s face.
Hugh Kenrick did not watch the inevitable. His eyes were closed; he was wandering through the cathedral of his soul.
* * *
Jack Frake helped row one of the three packed boats that were carrying the Company into the inlet away from the Otway place and certain defeat by the marines. The Sparrowhawk’s burning sails bought him and his men time to make an orderly retreat. The pincer movement executed by Major Ragsdale stalled halfway to the militia line when too many of his men paused to stare at the spectacle of the distressed merchantman. Ragsdale himself was momentarily distracted by it, then realized what his inattention was costing him, and angrily commanded his officers to keep the battalion moving. When they moved into the main militia position, it had been abandoned. They took as prisoner one swivel gun, one long-gun, and the wheeled gun. And about three dozen cannon balls that had been dropped on the rebels without measurable effect. His marines fired at the retreating boats; their bullets plopped harmlessly in the boats’ wakes.
The Basilisk, which had taken a few hits from the militia’s swivel and wall guns, had ceased firing when the Sparrowhawk fired no more. Its crew seemed more preoccupied with the Sparrowhawk’s worsening dilemma than with the boats making their way through the inlet right under the sloop’s nose. Eventually the sloop’s master decided to drop some sail and move closer to the Sparrowhawk to render some assistance to the men he saw jumping into the water.
Jack Frake’s purpose was to get his men to the Gloucester side of the York, away from the marines. He glanced occasionally from his labor at the oar at the Sparrowhawk. Most of her sails were burning now. John Proudlocks sat behind him at an oar. “You did it, Jack.”
“No, not completely. She can limp to Hampton or Norfolk or Gosport to be repaired.”
“She won’t sink,” Proudlocks conceded. “We saw their gunners tossing their gun charges overboard when they saw how serious the fires were.” He paused. “What do you think happened to Mr. Kenrick?”
“I don’t know, John,” said Jack Frake brusquely. “Perhaps he jumped overboard.”
They were in the middle of the York, half a mile away from the Sparrowhawk, when they felt a concussion in the water, one that drove up through the keel and sides of the boat to throb in their feet and sting their hands on the oars. Every man stopped rowing to watch the merchantman.
The force of the explosion in the magazine, which was a few feet aft of center, first smashed the layer of iron pig ballast, and severed the teakwood keel of the Sparrowhawk, blowing a hole through her bottom. It then expanded to blow out the hull sides contiguous with the magazine, and fore and aft to obliterate neighboring holds. The force then burst upwards and erupted with flame through the deck, sending everything loose there — men and guns, as well — into the air.
As debris rained down on her, the Sparrowhawk, robbed of her keel, to which the rest of the hull was interlocked, began to pull herself apart from sheer weight. Deck and side planking shot out from the pressures of the twisting mass from every direction. The main mast, closest to the explosion and her footing instantly destroyed, toppled almost immediately, splitting at the deck and tumbling into the river, pendant and shredded sails flying. The burning fore and aft masts leaned crazily toward each other to form a fiery X as the bow and stern, no longer linked by the keel and amidships, ripped apart and began to sink separately.
The stern sank out of sight first; the last part of it that witnesses saw before it was swallowed completely in the river was a charred Customs Jack on its boom. The fore section sank with more dignity. The bowsprit was completely gone; connected by rigging to the fore mast, it had been ruptured by the mast’s displacement and had followed it. The last thing to slip out of sight was the figurehead of the regal sparrowhawk, its yellow, baleful eyes staring at the sky. And then it was gone. A brownish cloud of smoke hovered over the scene, and slowly drifted away. The gray-green water was dotted with debris. Survivors could be seen splashing toward the riverbank.
“Oars, men,” said Jack Frake, readying his hands on his oar. “There’s nothing else to see.”
John Proudlocks wanted to repeat, “You did it, Jack,” but knew he should not. He suspected what his friend suspected, but could not prove: that Hugh Kenrick had destroyed the Sparrowhawk. He remained silent, and prepared to row again.
The Company camped that night on a sandy bank on the Gloucester side, directly across from the Otway place. The men were safe there. They made fires to cook what little food they brought with them, and drank what little liquor they had carried, talked about the fight at the Otway place, and speculated on the demise of the Sparrowhawk.
Jack Frake paced back and forth along the bank. Jock Fraser and John Proudlocks left him to his thoughts. They knew that he would know no peace until he knew for certain the fate of Hugh Kenrick.
Jack Frake was allowing himself the luxury of worrying about his friend. It was not something he did for other men. It was the first time he worried about someone other than Etáin.
The peace came an hour later. A picket came into the camp with a water-soaked boy, who was taken immediately to Jack Frake. “Says he was a powder monkey on the Sparrowhawk, sir,” said the Company man. “Found him half-drowned, holding on for dear life to a plank. Tide washed him in.”
“All right,” said Jack Frake. “Leave him here. Return to your post.”
The militiaman obeyed.
Jack Frake pointed to a log by his fire. The boy sat. “Hungry, son?”
“Yes, sir,” answered the boy. He scrutinized Jack Frake warily. “Are you one of the rebels we was shootin’ at?”
“I’m their leader,” Jack Frake answered. “What’s your name?”
“Tom Doherty, sir.”
Jack Frake reached for a biscuit in a pan at his feet. “Here.”
The boy took the biscuit and inspected it. He was surprised to see no maggots or worms. He bit into it, then coughed. Jack Frake handed him his mug of coffee. The boy washed down the piece of biscuit that had caught in his throat. “Good mess, sir. Thanks.”
Jack Frake nodded and asked, “You were on the Sparrowhawk?”
“Yes, sir. Was on her for three years. Hired on in London. It was that, or Bridewell…or worse.”
“How old are you?”
“Twelve, I think, sir.”
“How did you get here? To where my man found you, I mean.”
“I jumped ship, sir, from the wrong side. The starboard. Didn’t want anyone to see me on the larboard. Someone might’ve shot at me. Mr. Geary might not have, but Mr. Tragle, he was no good.”
“Why did you jump ship, Tom?”
Tom Doherty took another swallow of coffee. “Well, after they calls off the guns, because of the sails bein’ on fire, most of us were ordered topside to help. I was the last. The gent they was goin’ to hang, I run into him in the hold, still wearin’ the noose. Says I, you can’t bring a loose lantern down here close to the powder. Says he, the ship is doomed, and I should swim for it, to see a new country born. I thought he was crackers, and went on my way. Then I was goin’ up the ladder, and Mr. Hunt, who owned the ship now, comes down it and shoves me out of the way. He was carryin’ a pistol, and that weren’t allowed down there, either. Then when I get topside, I see how bad it was, and I thought, maybe the gent is right, the ship is doomed. So I jumped.” The boy stared into the fire. “I been wantin’ to.”
Tom Doherty sighed. “Then the ship blows up, powerful like. Thought it’d break my ears. Guns and rope and men and parts of them dropped all about me. I saw how far the shore was, and grabbed a plank. Knew I couldn’t make it that far on me own arms. Paddled the rest of the day, and all night, fightin’ the tide, goin’ in circles, I think, until I came up where your man found me. I just wanted to find dry land and sleep.” The boy stared into the fire for a moment, then asked, “Who was that gent, sir?”
“A friend, Tom. A very good friend.”
Tom Doherty could not be sure if it was a trick of the light of the flickering flames, or if they were real tears in the man’s eyes. He did not think he should see them, and glanced away to stare at the shadows of other men in the camp.
But Jack Frake smiled, reached over and squeezed the boy’s shoulder. “I am in your debt, sir. Don’t forget that.”
The boy nodded. After a moment, he turned to look into the void at the opposite bank, which was in complete darkness. Not a single light shown. He said, “I lost some friends out there, too.”
Jack Frake studied the boy for a moment. “Would you like to see a new country born, Tom? Stay with us, and you’ll see how it’s done.”
The boy looked doubtful. “A new country? The king won’t let you. He’ll hang you for tryin’.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“What’ll you call it? Virginia?”
Jack Frake shook his head. “No, Tom. We might call it Hyperborea.”
Epilogue
A day after the sinking of the Sparrowhawk, on September 2, a hurricane swept over Chesapeake Bay, destroying or beaching many vessels throughout the Roads and causing property losses on all the peninsulas. Jack Frake and his Company experienced little of the storm. By then, they were on their way north to enlist in the new Continental Army. Tom Doherty accompanied them.
Major Ragsdale, his battalion of marines, and survivors from the Sparrowhawk were marching back to Caxton from the Otway place when the hurricane struck. Over the objections of Rupert Beecroft and William Settle, Ragsdale took refuge at Meum Hall, herding most of his men into the great house and tenants’ quarters to wait out the wind and rain. Making himself at home, the major found many interesting books in Hugh Kenrick’s library. When the battalion left, some of them were included in his baggage.
Quite unintentionally, he left a lit seegar in a plate at Hugh’s desk. It rolled off the plate and into some papers. The great house burned to the ground. By then, Ragsdale and his battalion were boarding the Basilisk in Caxton to be transported back to Hampton, and were not aware of the disaster. In Hampton, the major found waiting for him orders to
proceed to Boston.
The staff and tenants of Meum Hall tried to preserve the plantation. But without Hugh Kenrick’s guidance and energy, they failed. His death was a cruelty that seemed to disable them. The plantation was abandoned, and its staff and most of its tenants dispersed to other quarters of Virginia in search of employment and livelihood.
Caxton suffered the same fate as Londontown in Maryland: it vanished, nearly overnight. The windmill, the courthouse, and Stepney Parish church were severely damaged by the hurricane, as were all the dwellings and shops on the riverfront, many of which were swept away by the York. It was a catastrophe from which it never recovered.
Months after the demise of the Sparrowhawk, the town was raided by one of Governor Dunmore’s navy vessels and the army for supplies and to destroy reported caches of rebel arms. The army found plentiful supplies, but no arms. Some of the county crops were burned, as well as many dwellings of farmers and planters, because the county was known to be a haven for rebels, and the officers in charge of the raid did not trust the veracity or loyalty of the owners who claimed fealty to the Crown.
The town was eventually deserted by its residents, who also dispersed to other localities for employment and livelihood. The town no longer had a means or a reason to exist. Empty houses and shops fell into disrepair and collapsed from neglect, scavenging, and vandalism. It took nature a generation to reclaim Caxton, replacing it with new trees, weeds, and other growth.
Late in October 1775, Basil Kenrick, Earl of Danvers, was being dressed by his valet, Claybourne, in preparation to leave his residence at Windridge Court in London to attend Parliament, when he was given by Alden Curle, his major domo, a letter of condolence from a senior Customs official. It reported the death of Jared Hunt, “your esteemed protégé, of whose amicable acquaintance I had the privilege of making when he was nominated by you for appointment, in the course of fulfilling his service to His Majesty in crushing the rebellion in Virginia. I regret to inform his lordship that Mr. Hunt’s remains could not be found or recovered by the Customs officers, or the circumstances of his brave but tragic death investigated much by them there, before those gentlemen were obliged to remove themselves from the hostile attentions of local rebels and other lawbreakers…. ”