by Jason Vail
Someone was indeed awake on one of the merchantmen’s decks, for message flags broke out first on one brig and then on another. The frigate responded with flags of her own, and the schooner put about and headed for us.
“Call the men to quarters,” I said quietly. “Do it quietly. No drumming. And have those blue coats brought up and Austin’s fancy new hats. We will greet our friends like proper naval officers.”
The excitement and subdued uproar of calling the men to quarters awoke our passengers, and Crequy, his sister and Austin came to the quarterdeck to see what the fuss was about.
“What’s going on?” Austin asked anxiously.
Crockett had joined us as well, looking unexpectedly handsome in his fashionable blue coat instead of his usual nondescript, patched brown thing, although the coat should have been red, but Austin hadn’t thought of that. The man had the knack of being able to look well in whatever rag he wore. Yet the countless paintings of the man, and even this new-fangled photography, do not capture his essence. The man in the flesh was hardly the pallid thing depicted in paint; he was a dominating presence, radiating like a brilliant light. The fool who did the portrait that now hangs in the Capitol portrayed him in the sober finery of a lawyer with his hand resting on a stack of books and wearing a little smile not unlike that in Da Vinci’s famous painting. But I have seen Crockett in a freezing squall with his hair plastered to his head and a smile splitting his face as if this was the most fun he had ever had, or wading into a mob of an enemy’s deck, cutting men down like wheat, a vision of death itself. He said, “It looks like we’ve found a bit of trouble. Spanish, I take it?”
I nodded.
He grinned. “Good. We don’t have to look for them, then. Nothing that we can’t cut our way through.”
“We can’t fight them all!” Austin said, looking at the number of ships we faced, alarmed at the prospect of plowing through that line, which his inexperienced eye took for warships.
“With luck, we shall not have to fight any of them,” I said. “Baron, Lady Adele, I suggest that you go below to the berth deck. It will be stuffy and uncomfortable, but if things do get hot, you will be safe there.”
“I insist you put about right now and be off before they can do us any harm,” Crequy said.
“My lord,” I said, keeping my tone measured, “we are in a very narrow passage here. It is barely fifty miles wide. We have land to the west, islands and shoals to the east, and if we put about we would have to run against the wind and current. We are unlikely to get away, and by showing our tail, all we will accomplish is to arouse our enemies. We shall stay where we are and see things through. Now, I suggest that you not tarry.”
Adele took her brother’s arm. “Come, Jean. There is nothing we can do here. We must trust the captain.”
Crequy allowed himself to be led away, but I heard him mutter “Incompetent boob, imbecile,” as he descended the ladder to the gun deck.
I did not pay him any further mind, for my attention was on the schooner, her bow throwing off spray as she clawed through the rollers.
The schooner came around our windward side, tacked against a southwesterly breeze, and matched our pace at Wasp’s port quarter. I followed her progress with one eye on the frigate, which maintained its station off to the east. Her guns ports had opened and her guns were out, ready for trouble, and even at this distance I could make out the little nodules that were her officers and crew along the rail and in the tops.
An officer aboard the schooner came to her bow and called out in French, “What ship is that?”
“We are His Majesty’s Ship Shannon,” I called back. My accent is pretty good, and I’ve been told that I could pass for a Parisian, but I uttered my French like an officer who hasn’t spent much time at his lessons: English-accented French so thick that I hoped even a Spaniard would notice. There had been, to my recollection, at least five vessels named Shannon of various sizes and rates in British service. Given there had been so many, it didn’t hurt to add one more to the list. Moreover, the ship I had in mind was only slightly larger than Wasp, so we might pass for her.
The officer’s eyes flicked to the gallery windows at the stern where the ship’s name should have been emblazoned. But there was no name written there. Not all ships bothered to carry their names, though. During the wars, captured ships would be converted to the captor’s service and renamed, with no one taking the time to inscribe the new name upon the prize.
To divert his attention, I called, “We were severely damaged in a storm and have been under repair. Now we are bound from Jamaica to Plymouth. And you?”
The officer hesitated before answering, but then said, “We are escorting a merchant convoy from Tampico to Cadiz.”
“I hear there is smallpox in New Spain. Have you any sick aboard?”
“No. We are clean.”
“Thank God for that!”
“Are you the captain?”
“I am.”
“Your name?”
“Provo Wallis.” Once some years ago, I had encountered a real Shannon. She had been captained at the time by a Philip Broke. I doubted he still commanded her now, but Shannon’s first lieutenant then was named Wallis. It seemed a good bet that Wallis had taken Broke’s place.
“Where do you intend to sail?”
“I had a mind to pass through your convoy, with your permission, and be on our way.”
“I shall inquire of our commodore.”
The officer went aft and conferred with another by the wheel. Shortly, the schooner ran up signal flags. I paced the deck while we waited for an answer from the frigate, trying to appear nonchalant, pausing occasionally to chat with Hammond at the wheel or Crockett. A steward brought up coffee, which contributed to the masquerade; I’ve never known whose idea that was, but it was a good one. Willie was nowhere to be seen, but then it would not have done for him to appear on deck dressed as a ship’s officer. The British Navy had black sailors but no black officers. At one point, I paused at the waist. The crew were all mustered about their guns as neatly as if this was a training exercise. The men in view looked up at me as if expecting some sign of how things were going and what they could expect, but I gave no indication that I saw anyone, and turned away, sipping my coffee.
After what seemed like the whole morning but was probably twenty minutes, signal flags showed on the frigate, and the schooner’s officer came forward again.
“You may proceed!” he called across the gap.
“Many thanks!” I replied. “Fair winds to you!”
He nodded and waved.
I gave the order to trim sail and set the main course. The main top crew raced up the rigging and set the main sail with commendable quickness, giving the impression of a smartly run ship, just the sort of thing you’d expect to see in the British Navy, not some privateer.
Wasp picked up speed.
The brigs were making all of five knots, while Wasp cruised at eight in this wind and sea, and we crept up to the middle of the formation.
Someone evidently had told our passengers that the crisis had passed, for Austin and Crequy appeared on the quarterdeck as we drew even with one of the merchant brigs.
The schooner had remained on our tail like a puppy following its mother, and I had said nothing about passengers. So I told them, “Go below. Immediately.”
“I do not like the air down there,” Crequy said.
“You will not like the air up here if it is filled with shot and gunsmoke,” I said.
“I should think it is sweet music. They say that it sounds like bees. I should like to hear it sometime.”
“Not today,” I said.
“Are you afraid of a fight, Captain?”
“A good captain only fights when he thinks he can win.”
Crequy pointed toward the brig we were just passing. “And you can’t win against that?”
“I am more concerned about that big fellow there. She has at least forty guns and I expect a cre
w at least double ours.” I gestured to the east where the frigate had pulled ahead of the right flank of the convoy, keeping pace with us in case we tried something stupid. I waved at the schooner on our tail. “And there’s that fellow there.”
“What harm can such a small ship do to us?”
“If you look closely, you will note that she has a nine-pounder in the bow fully manned, and no doubt fully loaded. I expect her captain intends to take out our rudder if we so much as give a suspicious sneeze. At this range, she is unlikely to miss.”
“Ah,” Crequy said. “Isn’t it a mistake to put us in such a bad spot?”
“It is a calculated risk.”
“A gamble.” He seemed amused. “You are a gambling man?”
“Every sailor is a gambling man.”
“Have you tried poker?”
“I’ve heard of it.” It was a new game in New Orleans and popular in some saloons.
“We shall have to play sometime.”
It was clear that Crequy had no intention of obeying my order. But to have him manhandled below, my first impulse, could arouse suspicions on any of the Spanish ships. I turned to Austin, “Mr. Austin, neither of you should be on deck until we are well clear.”
Austin looked distressed. “My lord, you heard the Captain. We should go below.”
Crequy’s eyebrows rose and he turned his back on us to saunter along the gangboards to the forecastle.
“I apologize for my brother.” Adele’s voice came from behind me.
I turned to see her head in the gangway hatch, where she had prudently remained.
“I am afraid he is ungovernable,” she added. She sighed. “He’s been a trial since the day he was born.”
I knelt down at the gangway and spoke softly so that none could overhear, least of all her brother. Even though he was at the bowsprit, voices easily carry from the quarterdeck. “How would you know? You’re younger than he is.”
“Father always said so. Jean has been getting in fights, dueling, gambling, taking things that don’t belong to him for as long as I can remember. Father even told me he planned to disinherit him before his debts brought ruin to us all, but he died before he could carry out the threat. Now Jean is to be the baron after all, while I? I’m just the younger sister.”
“And yet you follow him.”
“What else am I to do? Nothing remains for me in Louisiana. Jean sold our plantation to secure his barony. I shall have to take the crumbs that fall to me and do the best I can.”
“The schooner has backed sail, Captain,” Crockett said from the stern. “We’re away from the convoy now.”
I straightened up and saw that it was true. We were pulling ahead of the merchantmen and their escorts. The bluff had worked after all.
Crequy came back from the forecastle. “Well, now. That’s done. Isn’t it past time for breakfast?”
Chapter 8
Off the coast of British America
October 1820
Sunday the eighth of October was another blistering southern day. Although some still complained about the heat, I basked it in, for soon we would be in the northern latitudes where it was impossible to get warm enough.
After the Sunday service, I had the gun ports opened to admit the breeze, which brought some relief. As it was a rest day, most of the crew had no work, and split up, some to take their amusement alone, others into groups of varying sizes that congregated on the forecastle and about the gun deck. The group between the galley stove and the manger on the gun deck was dominated by the fiddlers and fifers. Before long a series of rousing songs played with varying degrees of skill resounded throughout the ship, and there was a competition among the spectators as to who could dance the fanciest and wildest steps.
A party of men came to me requesting to be allowed to go skylarking in the yards, but since we had a brisk breeze and a rolling sea, I forbade this amusement as too dangerous.
When the fellows turned away, Crockett approached them and organized a singlestick tournament in the waist, with his rum ration as the prize. As it was an officer’s ration, it provoked many volunteers, and before long the gun deck and the space above the waist was crowded with men cheering on each pair who squared off to fence.
Even I had a few hours of leisure on Sunday, and my first impulse was to spend it with Livy, whom I had been neglecting. But I have always enjoyed singlestick, ever since I was first introduced to it as a midshipman. Not only is it good fun and good exercise, but it is excellent preparation for the saber, the infantry hanger and the cutlass, which is how it is used on naval vessels. So I fetched a stool and pulled rank to obtain a place at the edge of the ring.
Presently, the press behind me separated to admit Adele Crequy and her brother. I had expected the lady to be more interested in the fiddlers than the fencers, but she said, “You don’t mind if we join you, do you, Captain?”
So I surrendered my stool to her and stood by her brother, aware of a faint air of perfume.
Adele watched appreciatively, while Crequy made disparaging noises through his nose at the play. I have to admit that some of it was wide and awkward, especially from the new men, but many of the older crew had grown quite skilled with our constant drill, and their parries and ripostes were tight and blazing fast. I expected that Crequy fancied himself a smallsword fencer; at least it was certain that he had been schooled in it and harbored the aristocracy’s usual prejudices against cutting weapons. After some time, he apparently thought it was not worth his while to pay attention, and, when one of the crew whispered something into his ear, he took his leave with only a nod to me and not a word to his sister.
This was hot work even in the shade afforded by the ship’s two boats, which lay overhead across the waist, and even the spectators worked up a thirst. We had barrels of water set on trestles by the after gangway to the quarterdeck, not the preferred drink, but it was not time for beer yet, and traffic about them was heavy just the same.
Towards the end of the festivity, Cyrus McCormick, the ship’s purser, touched my elbow. “Captain, can you come? There’s a problem.”
I didn’t like being dragged away from the fighting for what surely had to be some trifle. But I slipped through the ring of spectators behind him.
McCormick led me aft to the trestles between the door to my sleeping cabin and the after gangway. A barrel sat on the deck, its top broken open. There was a sheen of sweat on one side, as if it had lain in the bilge, which struck me as odd, since we had not been gone long enough to have dipped that deeply into our stores.
“There, Captain,” McCormick said, gesturing at the barrel.
“There, what?” I asked, perplexed.
“There, there!” he said, pointing into the barrel.
Humoring the fellow, I glanced in. The barrel was less than half full. “What is this about, man?”
“My boys just brought it up from the hold,” he said. “Said it felt unusually light. I jiggled her and it felt decidedly underweight. This is what I found when I cracked it open.”
“A keg less than half full.”
“Right.”
A cold feeling crept over me as I pondered the implications of that half empty keg. “Fetch a lantern,” I said. “Fetch several lanterns.”
Even the best ship leaks, and Wasp was no exception. The presence of water in the hold and bilge gave rise to a powerful aroma of mold, mildew and rot that strongly suggested eggs gone bad, a stench that could drive the most seasoned sailor to nausea.
I stood on the stairs by the scuttle, resisting the urge to hold my breath and lifting a lantern aloft to illuminate the great expanse of barrels and sacks that filled our hold, while the steward’s mates clambered over the mass, balancing precariously on this barrel or that. The men clustered on the starboard side, where the water barrels were stored, their sides marked with a W in white chalk. They worked slowly, cracking one barrel after another. At each one, McCormick held his lantern aloft and shook his head at me across the int
erval.
After they had inspected half a dozen, I called on the men to stop, and they stumbled back over the cargo to the ladder. I stood aside so they could pass and listened to them thumping up the ladders above. Only McCormick and I remained in that dank cavernous space. His nose curled at the stench and occasionally he covered his mouth. This was his first time in the hold in months and he wasn’t used to the aroma.
“All of them, you think?” I asked him.
He nodded. “Every one leaking.” He spat into the dark. “I expect the entire lot. Bad kegs. Not properly cured.” He suddenly looked apprehensive. “Wasn’t me who bought them.”
“I don’t care who bought them. We likely haven’t enough water to make a crossing.”
“I’d say that’s right.” Now that a finger wouldn’t point to him, he smiled. “Though I suspect the boys wouldn’t mind if, halfway across, the only thing they’ve got to wet their whistles is beer.”
“You assume that the beer kegs aren’t leaking too.”
“Ah, well, I hadn’t noticed that they were. It would be a particular shame.”
“No doubt you’ve been paying close attention to the beer situation.”
“Only as I’m required to, boss.”
“Get with Mister Austin and see how much money we have to spare. We should be able to get something in trade for the kegs. Not as much as market, but something. That should help a bit.”
McCormick went up the ladder and I prepared to follow. But a sound, subtle and easy to miss, yet louder than your ordinary ship rat would produce came to my ears from somewhere forward in the hold. I paused and listened. For a moment, I was sure I heard someone padding barefoot up a ladder. No one should be in the hold now, especially on a Sunday.
I blew out the candle in my lantern. I heard no more footsteps, but now I picked up the soft and barely audible murmur of voices, and as my eyes grew accustomed to the dark, I made out faint light. I crept out over our cargo until I could see past the walls of the well that surrounded the mainmast. There was light showing from one of the larboard sail room.