The Tempest--Commander Putnam and Mr. Madison's War

by James L. Haley

  Morris was able to get himself into a crouch, but shrieked when Bliven got under him and stood, with Morris slung over his shoulder. Bliven managed the after ladder down to the gun deck and hollered for surgeon’s mates, who took Morris down to the cockpit. On his way back up the ladder, Bliven noticed his right shoulder smeared with Morris’s blood and damned the spoilage of his coat.

  In Morris’s absence, the lieutenant of the Constitution’s Marines leapt upon the taffrail; his sword was sheathed in its scabbard, but he gripped a slender iron boarding pike held en garde. “Captain! Shall we board her?” There was no time to answer until all saw his bicorne spin off his head, for a musket ball had entered his left cheek and come out the back of his head. He fell like timber back onto the quarterdeck, the grip on his pike still tight, his eyes wide, his cheeks florid as dislodged parts of his brain oozed through the exit wound.

  “Mr. Bush!” roared Hull. “Mr. Bush! Damn! Mr. Contee, you are now in command of the Marines. You shall not board, but prepare to repel boarders!” The order made perfect sense, for the two ships’ bow and stern passed each other on the same plane for only an instant every several seconds as one rose and the other fell. Boarding in such conditions was madness, and then the two ships must soon begin to pull apart. If any of the British were that eager and foolish, as Bush had been, let them come and let them be lost instead. Contee was only seventeen and in his first action; he was far less likely to attempt more than he was ordered.

  The Marines on their quarterdeck formed up, but Bliven saw where the fire was coming from that felled Bush and Morris. In a crouch, he ran to a spot next to the ship’s great double wheel, craned his neck upward, and cupped his hands beside his mouth. “Mizzentop! Mizzentop, there!”

  A corporal who could not have been more than twenty peered over the railing.

  “Do you want to see us all killed? Shoot at their foretop! Engage their foretop!”

  The corporal nodded with a faint salute and disappeared, and Bliven knew his order had been obeyed when twenty seconds later a musket volley boomed in unison, the jets of powder smoke pointing like accusing fingers to the Guerriere’s foretop.

  With Guerriere being the smaller by some five hundred tons, her bow rode several feet lower than the Constitution’s stern, giving her fourth lieutenant in command of her eighteen-pounder bow chasers as close a view through Isaac Hull’s cabin windows as any Peeping Tom would have. There was no need to lay the guns with any more care; he simply yanked the lanyard of the first one, then sprinted to the second one and yanked it also.

  Hull’s cabin windows shattered with the concussion even before the balls crashed through them invisible, the first one demolishing his quarter gallery and head, the second one shattering through a mahogany cabinet, through the bulkhead into the gun deck, and spending itself in knocking the cascabel from the breech of a twenty-four-pounder. Spinning crazily, it rolled until it stopped with a thud at the wooden base of the camboose mounting. After the balls came the expanding yellow balloons of flame, licking into every last crevice of Hull’s cabin, setting papers and bedding afire, which quickly ignited the new paint and varnish. In a moment Hull beheld a voluminous billow of smoke rising from below the taffrail and knew the circumstance exactly. “God damn ye!” he bellowed. “That’s my cabin!”

  With Guerriere’s bowsprit trapped in Constitution’s spanker rigging, the latter in her starboard turn and the former trailing the greater part of her spanker like a giant tiller, the two ships spun together in the current like two great dogs who had each other by the tail. The Constitution began to twist back on her opponent until most of her starboard guns once more came to bear, the range closing to point-blank, so that the muzzle blasts themselves could start fires on the deck. “Fire!” screamed Hull. “Don’t let up, keep it on ’em!”

  In the pummeling that followed, Guerriere suffered terribly, her gun crews cut down and unable to respond. “Pour it on ’em,” gesticulated Hull, taking no notice that his white underclothes were still peeking through the rent in his tight trousers.

  Further expression was arrested by wrenching creaks and snaps as Guerriere’s bowsprit began to back away; their counterclockwise spin while locked together had brought Constitution once more into the wind, and her filling courses and topsails began to pull her away. No sooner were they safely separated than the officers on the quarterdeck heard an almost living groan from the Guerriere as her stays popped and the foremast tottered drunkenly backward until it fell into the mainmast, which popped like a stick, and both masts crashed down over the starboard rail.

  “Gentlemen, the day is ours!” exulted Hull. “Let us stand off and repair our rigging. She won’t be going anywhere.” Within seconds the bosun and his mates, studded with marlinspikes, began reweaving the web of lines that made the Constitution the modern wonder of war that she was. From the safety of two hundred yards they watched their enemy roll helpless in the swell, watched her smoke and smolder, the dead canvas chopped from the downed masts sliding into the deep.

  After an hour, they saw and heard a heavy gun discharge and saw the smoke shoot directly away from them—the accepted gesture of surrender when there are no colors to lower. But one could never be sure; it might simply have gone off or been carelessly fired. “Mr. Putnam,” said Hull, “Mr. Morris is wounded. Are you willing to take a boat over under a flag of truce and ascertain their intentions?”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  “Can’t go myself, I’ve split my trousers.”

  The captain’s gig was lowered, with rowers, and Bliven felt himself uneasy at being in such a small boat in such a swell. They came upon Guerriere’s lee beam. The sea was too dangerous to use her convenience ladder, and Bliven sent a Marine up the netting first, so that the first thing visible over the rail would be their white flag of truce. The ship’s roll was heavy but easy, and Bliven climbed the netting after him.

  Stepping into Guerriere’s open waist, his first sight of the butchery was so overwhelming that he would have vomited had he not instantly raised his sight back to the quarterdeck. “Come on.” He pulled the Marine by the sleeve and walked quickly aft, stepping around the blood where they could. He observed the carnage only out of the corners of his eyes, as though that made it somehow less real—bodiless legs, opened rib cages, one man lying on his back, his face seeming flush with the deck planking, or formed of it, and Bliven realized that was because the back of his head had been carried away. It was one tiny blessing amid the gore, that the sheer volume of blood made individual body parts impossible to recognize, and he could take less mental note of what he could not identify. Yet he knew they were striding through hell.

  Upon gaining the quarterdeck, Bliven was astonished to behold a man no older than himself, short, slender, pale, and gracile, with large and intensely expressive eyes. “Captain Dacres?” Bliven asked uncertainly.

  The young man raised his head to give Bliven his attention.

  Bliven saluted. “Captain, my captain’s compliments, we observed that you fired a lee gun. Were you signaling your intention to surrender your ship?”

  Dacres placed one hand on his hip, fingers down, leaning obliquely to one side, as though he were assessing the condition of his rigging, but in a manner that seemed altogether effete and disagreeable.

  “Sir, do you wish to surrender your vessel?” he repeated.

  “Well, I don’t know,” he said at last.

  Bliven was confounded. “Sir?”

  “My mizzenmast is gone. My fore and main masts are gone. My berth deck is coming awash.” Dacres erupted suddenly, “What in bloody hell do you think!” The very force of his exclamation caused him to stumble, and he caught himself on the wheel. Bliven saw a wet stain of purple spreading on the back of his blue coat and realized that Dacres’s hand was on his hip to support himself. “Sir, you have been wounded!” he exclaimed, and reached out to steady him.

 
“I think, on the whole, you may say that we have struck our flag.”

  “Help here!” Bliven shouted.

  Two British sailors stepped forward and supported Dacres under his arms. “No, let us end this. Take me across to your ship.”

  “You cannot manage the ladder, sir.”

  “It is not as bad as that. Come, they can swing out a bosun’s chair.”

  They made their way along the waist of the ship. “What are your casualties, Captain, do you know?”

  “Seventy when they last told me, but still counting.”

  As a bosun’s chair was rigged, Bliven was surprised to see another boat being lowered, Guerriere’s only intact one, and a dozen men not in uniform rowing it over, under a similar white flag.

  While being pulled across, the occasional shocking splash of the Labrador Current’s freezing water snapped all to alertness. “You will understand,” said Dacres, “it is awkward to lower one’s colors when one has no mast left. You rather lowered them for us.”

  “Yes, sir, I suppose we did.”

  Hull was equally surprised to see a second boat lowered by civilian-looking men under no officer, and ordered its leader brought to him as soon as he came aboard. “What is your name, sir?” inquired Hull.

  “Orne, sir, William B. Orne, master of the trading ship Bessie Anne, until captured by that smoking hulk over there and taken captive with my crew.” He spoke in the piercing, drawn-out accent that was developing in vast and nearly vacant upper Massachusetts, separated from Boston and the main population by New Hampshire’s toehold coastline.

  “You are all well and accounted for?”

  “Yes, sir, and rejoicing to be back on an American ship. May they come aboard?”

  “Bring them up!” ordered Hull. “See to their needs.”

  “Captain, it will interest you to know that I was on the quarterdeck with the British captain at the commencement of the action. Had me spot you through the glass and say what I made of you. At first he did not want to agree that you were an American. Said you came on too boldly for an American, but he hoped you were. Said he would be made for life by being the first British captain to take an American frigate.”

  “Ha!” shouted Hull. “Did he, now?”

  “Yes, sir, and once it became certain that you meant to fight, he encouraged his officers, said that the better you behaved, the more honor they should gain by capturing you.”

  “Ha! I wonder what he will have to say now.”

  “Well”—Orne pointed—“you may ask him yourself directly; they are bringing him across now.”

  Hull grew more serious. “Are you aware whether there were any pressed Americans serving in his crew?”

  “Yes, sir, there are ten, but Dacres sent them below so they would not have to fire upon their countrymen.”

  Hull’s mood altered completely. “Did he? Well, damn me.”

  “He is a gentleman, Captain,” said Orne, “as fine a one as I’ve ever seen, especially seeing he is so young.”

  “Bosun’s chair here,” Bliven shouted from the base of the ladder. Such an order was not expected, and it took a moment to rig one. Dacres bore his pain stoically as he was hoisted aboard. The swell was still too great to trust his footing on the ladder steps, and Bliven climbed the netting with the men who had rowed across.

  As Dacres was helped from the chair, Bliven reported to the quarterdeck and saluted. Bliven explained to Hull his interview with Dacres on the Guerriere’s quarterdeck, and what he had said about not knowing whether he would surrender. Hull wanted to burst out laughing, but out of respect did not, for Dacres was now waiting in the background to meet him. “One other thing, too, Captain. He says there are ten Americans on board, pressed men. He sent them below so they would not have to take part.”

  “Yes, I have heard already. Bring him over to me.” Dacres was led over, leaning on a Marine’s arm. “Captain Dacres, you are hurt,” said Hull. “We will get you attention.”

  “Captain Hull, I thank you, I am all right for the moment.”

  “It is my understanding that you are surrendering your vessel.”

  Dacres freed himself from the Marine and fumbled at unbuckling his belt. “My sword, sir.”

  “No, by God, sir.” Hull stepped forward and placed his hand over Dacres’s. “I will not take the sword of a man who fought as gallantly as you.”

  Tears welled up in Dacres’s eyes, not for his pain, but all recognized the manly tears of relief that he had heard it admitted, he had fought his best.

  “Get him below to Cutbush. Make him comfortable. Captain Dacres, I would berth you in my cabin, but that would be no great courtesy, for you have burnt it out like a pottery kiln.”

  “I am sorry for that, Captain Hull.”

  “Well, never mind, fortunes of war, what? We will do our best for you. Putnam, take a detail back over, go through his cabin, remove his papers and his personal effects, give them to the purser until we can figure something out. He has been a gentleman and, by God, we are going to treat him as one.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “And one other thing, Mr. Putnam.” Hull pointed at the smoldering Guerriere with his glass. “I do not want that ship to sink. While you are over there, assess her condition. Then tell me what we must do to lead her in as a prize. I want all of Boston to see her. If you can save her, you shall command the prize crew. If you can’t save her, burn her.”

  “Very good, Captain.” Bliven saluted and excused himself to carry out this instruction before the fires on the stricken Guerriere could make much more progress. It was apparent from his first moment back aboard her, however, that her case was hopeless. Even with twelve men manning her pumps, they informed Bliven that two of the holes punched between wind and water were now underwater and could not be mended nor even reached. They were going down by the head, slowly but hopelessly. The forward hold was already flooded and the forward berth deck coming awash.

  “Well, stay by your pumps,” Bliven said. “We will start with your wounded, but we will take you all off as quickly as we can.”

  It took two hours, with all of Constitution’s longboats and cutters shuttling back and forth, for the ship to be evacuated, and when the hulk was empty, Bliven set a fire on the rising stern; the paint stores which would have spread the fire quickly were forward and flooded, but there was enough shredded canvas on deck and a fire in the galley to do the job. He was at least grateful that the British sailors had cast the dead and parts of the dead overboard, so he did not have to see them again.

  Into the darkness the officers on the Constitution’s quarterdeck watched the fire rise as they slowly opened distance between them, and saw the fire blown down for an instant by the shock wave of a ripping explosion that boomed over them several seconds later.

  With Morris wounded, it was the second lieutenant who came on deck and saluted Hull. “Captain, sir, the carpenter and the bosun have completed their inspections. The ship is undamaged, despite several hits. There are several balls embedded in the hull, but they have penetrated only into the outer layer. We have expended only a third of our ammunition. Shall we continue to Bermuda?”

  Hull chewed on this for a moment. “Not with two hundred prisoners aboard, no. We’ll make for Boston, put them ashore, replenish the water, and top off with powder and shot. Besides, this victory is news that will burst like a bomb upon the public. Let us not forget how controversial this war is, and nothing shores up popularity like a victory.”

  Bliven took this in silently, amazed that Hull included such thoughts in his calculus.

  “Moreover,” added Hull, “I fear that the Army is not going to make such a good show of it. Won’t be a bad thing to let the Congress know that of their two services upon whom they have lavished money, it is the Navy that is returning on their investment.”

  “Yes, sir.”

&
nbsp; Bliven did not disapprove, but he was noting down, as he would a lesson in a schoolroom, how a comprehensive view of the Navy’s affairs could never omit events’ impacts upon the politicians.

  In the galley Bliven poured a cup of tea, then descended the after ladder to the wardroom, where he spooned some sugar into a folded paper pouch, then went forward to the sick bay, where he found the British commander lying on his stomach, his hands beneath the pillow, a large fresh bandage over his upper back. “Captain Dacres? How are you feeling?”

  Dacres was awake and had observed him approach. “Much better, I am surprised to say. Your ship’s surgeon is very skilled.”

  “Yes, we value him highly. I brought you some tea. Do you feel up to it?”

  “Oh my God, you are a gentleman. Thank’ee.” Dacres removed his right hand from beneath the pillow, although with evident pain, and let the cup rest on the edge of the mattress as he sipped some of it. “I heard a tremendous explosion.”

  “That was your ship, I’m afraid. We tried, but when we couldn’t save her the captain order her burned.”

  “Well”—Dacres nodded sadly—“I cannot say I am sorry that she won’t be a prize.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you know?” said Dacres. “No, you wouldn’t know. My uncle is a rear admiral in the Royal Navy. My cousin is a post captain. And here . . . am I.”

  Bliven smiled. “I am the very first of my family to go to sea.”

  “I shall be court-martialed.”

  “Surely not. But if you are, I can assure you, every officer on board this vessel will swear affidavits that you fought your ship to the utter extent that circumstances allowed.”

  “That is kind of you, thank you, but there is always a court-martial when a ship is lost. Someone or something must bear the blame. Often it works to absolve the captain. For my family’s sake, if nothing else, they will probably rule that the ship was lost owing to the masts being defective, or some such silliness. Besides”—he toasted Bliven with the tea—“that would deny you the credit for having shot them down. The Admiralty is clever that way. How are my men?”