“Yes,” said Clarity. “Indeed.” She had no idea that her mother was also thinking upon Obookiah.
“I have had a good life, Daughter.”
“Mama! Please, do not sound so final. Let us hope you have many good years left with us.”
Mrs. Marsh squeezed her hand, but delayed responding. “Yes. I have. I have had a good life. Yet, I should have been happier, had I not been afraid. Thank you for your trouble, Mr. Meridan, you may take us home now.”
Back in town, Freddy saw Mrs. Marsh safe into her house, then turned south past their livery stable to Putnam Farm, where Clarity was out of the carriage before he could descend to help her. She reached up and pressed two silver dollars into his hand. “Thank you for your extra trouble.”
“Oh, now, Mrs. Putnam, you needn’t. I was happy to do it.”
She curled his fingers around the coins. “I know I needn’t, and I know you were. Ha! In my church we do not celebrate Christmas, but I am coming to think that this has become less a point of theology, and more an affectation to stick our noses in the air and show everyone how holy we are, and that cannot be a good thing. So let us think of this as a little acknowledgment of the season.”
“Then I thank you kindly, ma’am, and I wish you a happy Christmas.”
10
New Year’s Broadsides
On the weather deck of the Java, Bliven was taking in some fresh air, reflecting on it being almost the last day of 1812. The sea was nearly calm, with the swells low and easy, the wind light and northeasterly; it was coming on nine o’clock in the morning. The thin green line of the Brazilian jungle was visible to their northwest. They were before the wind under easy sail, in company with an American prize they had recently taken, whose crew was confined in the cable tier. Bliven had heard Kington say that they would put into São Salvador to unload their prisoners and register their prize before coming back out to resume hunting. The gun crews were occupied below in holystoning the deck, and rinsing it off with water pumped up by the elm trees. Sam would be on his hands and knees with them, physically able but no doubt in a barely contained disgust.
“Deck! Deck!” The shout came down from the masthead.
Kington himself was on deck to answer: “What do you see?”
“Sail, to the south, about six miles.”
Kington and First Lieutenant Chads strode to the rail and raised their glasses. Without the advantage of height, all they could see was a speck of white on the horizon. “What do you think, m’lord?” asked Chads.
Kington calculated quickly. “The Bonne Citoyenne should still be in Salvador repairing from her grounding. I know of no other vessel traversing these waters. Make all sail to catch up with her.”
Bliven observed the staysails being set and realized they must be giving chase. An hour went by before the call came down again. “Deck!”
“What do you see?”
“She has changed her course, now making southeast!”
“What can you make of her?”
“A large ship, sir! I would say a frigate!”
Bliven edged his way aft as he casually leaned against the rail, to better overhear the talk on the quarterdeck. After a quick look Kington tapped the end of his glass in his other hand. “Well, Mr. Chads, why do you think she would do that?”
“She has seen us and wishes to escape, sir?”
“No, Mr. Chads, she is luring us into international waters. If she is American, she will not want to engage us in the territorial waters of a neutral. I would wager anything that is what is transpiring. Signal the prize crew to take their ship into Salvador, and once she breaks off, set your stuns’ls and take up the chase.”
“Very good, m’lord.”
In another two hours, coming upon noon, it was clear that not only were they gaining on the ship rapidly, but that their chase had shortened sail to allow it, and again come to a port tack to take them farther from land.
Chads peered steadily at her through his glass. “It is a frigate, sir, and a frigate that heavy can only be an American. She is hoisting signals, but I don’t recognize them.”
Bliven’s heart leapt. The United States and the President were with Rodgers in the North Atlantic. That left only one forty-four, the Constitution herself.
“Well, hoist our own signals and we’ll see if she shows her colors.”
“Very good, m’lord.”
Bliven saw the flags flutter aloft, which he knew would be unintelligible to their quarry.
“Mr. Putnam,” he heard Kington call out. “Come to the quarterdeck, if you please.”
Bliven obeyed very willingly. “Captain—forgive me, I mean, my lord?”
Kington pointed with his glass at the vessel they were approaching. “You will have seen that we have taken up the chase of what we believe is one of your ships. Take a look through my glass, please, and tell me if you can identify her.” He handed his scope to Bliven.
What he saw in the lighted circle of the glass elated him beyond description, but he did not answer for several seconds, enjoying studying her from stem to stern. She had shortened sail to allow the British to catch up, and she had cleared for action. He returned the scope. “Yes, sir, as I well know from her figurehead, it is the Constitution, forty-four, last I knew under command of Captain Isaac Hull, a very formidable seaman.”
Kington tried to smile, but it appeared more a leer. “Formidable seaman, is he?”
“Yes, sir. I had the good fortune to be aboard her when he eluded the entire Halifax squadron last autumn, and also when he defeated and sank the Guerriere, Captain Dacres.” Surely, he thought, if he threw out enough bait, this preening peacock would fatally take it.
“Captain, she is unfurling colors, indeed she is American!”
Kington and Chads both studied through their glasses. Even without a telescope, Bliven could see the American flag trailing from the spanker boom, almost as large as the sail itself.
“Well,” said Kington, “as much as I loathe to credit an American with gentlemanly behavior, he shortened sail to allow us to catch him, he steered into international waters to avoid violating a neutral, and he has shown us his colors with unmistakable theatre. He has sent us an engraved invitation to battle, and we are going to oblige him. Beat to quarters, Mr. Chads. Mr. Putnam, you will oblige me to confine yourself to the berth deck for the duration.”
“As you wish, my lord. You are holding my crew in the cable tier. May I at least warn them to prepare themselves for a battle?”
Kington considered it, preferring to refuse. “Very well, but you may see them for a moment only. Do not tarry, do you hear?”
“Of course not, thank you.”
Bliven descended to the cable tier on the orlop. “Boys,” he said as they gathered, “we are shortly in for a fight. It is with the Constitution, so this ship must lose. Do not worry, I will make sure you are not trapped down here.”
He ascended by the forward ladder, and in walking aft paused by Sam’s gun. “Mr. Bandy, how are you faring?” It seemed wise to maintain their charade.
“Well enough, Captain, I thank you, but for a sprain in my ankle.”
“Oh? Let me see.” He knelt and felt the ankle and a short ways higher, and flexed his foot. “Sam,” he whispered, “it’s the Constitution. We’re about to take a hell of a beating. If we collide, I am going to jump for it. Are you with me?”
“Jump for it?” hissed Sam. “That is insane!”
“Are you with me?”
“Oh, hell, of course I am with you!”
“Do as they tell you. I think there is going to be such confusion we can run right out.” Bliven stood up. “I will tell Dr. Kite about it,” he said loudly. “He will have a look at it when he has an opportunity.”
Bliven ascended back to the quarterdeck and approached Kington, who was surprised and not pleas
ed. “What is it? I thought you went below.”
“My lord, it occurs to me, it would be a great courtesy to relieve your American pressed men of the obligation to fire upon their own flag.”
Kington’s jaw went slack with surprise. “Are you mad? Of course not, that is out of the question. Now get below, sir!”
“My lord, the same kindness was extended by Captain Dacres of the Guerriere to his American captives.”
“What! Yes, and look how that ended for him. Now get out of here!”
They were interrupted by the clapping boom of a shot from the Constitution, which a few seconds later they heard whiz through the rigging. Kington’s attention deserted Bliven in an instant, and that look came over him, that mad, predatory, intensely alive look that he had seen before. Kington glanced aloft. With the wind from the northeast he could adjust several points to starboard without disturbing the canvas. “Mr. Chads, they are too far for the carronades, but they are in range of the eighteens. Come to starboard until your port guns bear. Fire a broadside and then return to this heading.”
“Very good, m’lord.”
Bliven heard the orders relayed and felt the ship enter a turn, then braced himself against the staccato broadside of the fourteen port eighteen-pounders. Kington studied their target through his glass and then exulted, “You’ve hit her! Good shooting!”
“Thank you, sir. May I recommend the identical maneuver, to port, sir?”
“You may indeed. Ready your starboard broadside and yaw to port. Ease off the yards if you need to.”
The ship swung through ninety degrees before the starboard broadside boomed out. Bliven could imagine how Sam felt about having to fire on his own ship.
“You’ve hit her again, by God! Magnificent!” crowed Kington.
Two more shots from the Constitution sang through the rigging without effect. Why doesn’t she turn? Why doesn’t she answer? Bliven wondered with anguish, and then he remembered how Hull fought the Guerriere. He held his fire until he absolutely crushed her at a single stroke with overwhelming weight of point-blank twenty-four-pound broadside.
“We hold the weather gauge,” said Kington with a note of triumph. “Close on her and we will rake her.”
“Yes, m’lord. Yes, of course!”
Java was lighter and faster, but just as she overreached the Constitution and could turn across her bow and rake her, the American wore completely around to the west and prevented it. Java matched the turn, and still faster came again, this time on Constitution’s weather beam, threatening again to cross her path and rake her, but the American wore again and ran southeast.
“Bastard,” shouted Kington, and again matched his turn, only this time, instead of coming upon his beam, he turned short and delivered a withering stern rake across the Constitution’s quarterdeck.
Less than a third of a mile now separated the two, and Kington could not judge the effect of this broadside immediately. Bliven was nauseated at the course of the battle, until he saw the Constitution emerge from behind the smoke, her main and fore courses suddenly dropped in a surge of speed, and deliver a thundering broadside, twenty-fours and carronades together. Bliven dove to the deck as the salvo carried away Java’s headsails, jibboom, and bowsprit together, and that and the sheer weight of iron crashing into her brought her to a dead stop.
And now the Constitution closed, firing at will, holing Java’s hull, carronades stripping her rigging, Marines in the fighting tops picking off crewmen. Kington himself went down with a musket ball in the shoulder but struggled to his feet, screaming, “Lay your helm aweather!” It was obvious to Chads that this would bring her before the wind, and with that the only chance to escape the slaughter by crashing into the Constitution’s stern.
There was a pause now in the firing as no one’s guns would bear. It was slow, it was inexorable, that Java’s stem crunched into the Constitution’s taffrail, her forward speed arrested so suddenly that most of the men standing were thrown from their feet. Poor Hull, thought Bliven suddenly, his cabin will be wrecked again. The silence was brief, it was eerie, when the Java was rent by a mighty, popping crack as the foremast split, its height so great that its fighting top crowded with Marines seemed to plummet only slowly to the spar deck, through the grate to the gun deck, and through that hatch to the berth deck. The chorus of screams was audible all the way down until all lay in a heap of limbs and torsos, the whole pile seeming to struggle to move as the injured attempted to crawl from beneath the dead.
Bliven flew down the ladder to the berth deck and rushed into the debris before any could follow. “Lie still, you are hurt,” he urged. “Help is coming. Be quiet, now, help is coming.” None noticed him slip two loaded pistols into his coat pockets.
A gray-haired surgeon’s mate appeared from the cockpit below, and Bliven helped him move one of the wounded to the ladder. “Wait, now,” he exclaimed, “you’re that Yankee Doodle. This is very kind of you, I’m sure.”
“I would take this one next, he seems hurt the worst.”
“Thank you, laddie,” said the surgeon’s mate. “You go on, now, we’ll manage here.”
In the confusion, no one took notice as Bliven emerged from the waist ladder onto the gun deck. Sam saw him coming and was on his feet, ready. Bliven handed him a pistol. “Forward ladder, forward to the heads and try to get across!”
The one Marine still standing guard at the waist ladder saw them running forward in a crouch. “Halt!” he cried.
He was still leveling his musket when Bliven turned and fired his pistol, the ball striking him in the center of the chest and sprawling him backward. There was no opposition at the forward ladder, and they ran up into the confusion and wreckage of the spar deck. The Constitution loomed high before them, but just as they reached the stump of the bowsprit it wrenched slowly free.
Sam looked across and saw the American gunners holding the lanyards of their stern chasers and knew he had but a second to decide. He screamed, “Jump!” and the two sailed over just as the ripping discharges filled the space between the two ships.
Bliven was conscious even as he hit the water that he must not plunge too deep, and he began flailing his hands to surface from the instant he submerged. Back on the surface, water slung from his hair as he searched about. “Sam! Sam!”
He had been on his right and had struck the water first, and flatter. Bliven sucked in air to fill his lungs and dove, swimming in that direction, seeing nothing. He surfaced again. “Sam!” He heaved in several more breaths and dove again, deeper, just seeing Sam’s white shirt and blond hair sinking ever so slowly. Against the sting of the salt in his eyes he seized hold of Sam’s arm and pulled and kicked to the surface with all his strength.
Back in air he wheezed a loud breath, just took note of an ugly discolored wound on the side of Sam’s forehead, and began pulling him toward the Constitution’s side. It was also apparent that after the ships separated, they had begun to twist back upon themselves, and high above them another full, deafening broadside poured into the stricken Java. More to the moment, he realized that the two giants were drifting closer to each other, and if they were caught between the Java’s hull and the Constitution’s flaring tumble home, they would be crushed like beetles.
“Help! Help up there! Help us!” He pulled Sam toward a line that trailed down the Constitution’s side and seized it. “Help us!”
He did not see who it was that threw a length of net over to him and, after he clung to it, walked him aft toward the boarding ladder.
Two stout sailors descended it and seized Sam’s limp form under his arms, and with a grip so tight that they must leave bruises hefted him up to the spar deck. Bliven followed, shivering, quickly enough that when he gained the deck he saw Sam being carried at a run, disappearing down the waist ladder.
A sailor threw a heavy blanket over Bliven’s shoulders. “Are you all right?”
Bliven scrubbed at his face and hair with the blanket. “Thank you, yes.” He glanced about just long enough to get his bearings, and walked quickly to the quarterdeck.
There the officer in command was facing obliquely away from him, observing the receding stern windows of the Java—or what remained of them. He turned upon being hailed, and Bliven nearly fainted from shock. “Mr. Bainbridge!” he cried. Bainbridge, the reckless incompetent, as he remembered, who lost the Philadelphia at Tripoli.
“Mr. Putnam!” Bainbridge answered with equal surprise. “You it was we fished out?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How came you—”
“I was in command of the Tempest, twenty, when the Java overhauled us and we had to engage. We were overwhelmed; I and the surviving crew were taken prisoner.”
Bainbridge pursed his lips sourly. “Bad luck, then, you had no chance. And who was that with you?”
“Samuel Bandy, an American merchant captain pressed into service aboard the Java. He was formerly in our Navy; we served together in the Mediterranean.”
“Yes, I remember the name. Are you all right?”
“Yes, sir, I thank you. Now, if you please, Captain, may I recommend that you direct your fire against Java’s mizzen? When we fought her I am sure we once struck her mizzen and damaged it, and since being taken prisoner I can tell you that it is not well spliced.”
Bainbridge regarded his opponent across the short distance still separating them. Java’s courses had been reefed in the clearing for action, even as had his own. Her topsails were well holed from his raking fire and were leaking wind, so Java’s roundly filled spanker was the larger part of her propulsion. At this short distance they had every hope of bringing it down. “Mr. Chance!” roared Bainbridge. “Load your carronades with bar shot. Concentrate fire on her mizzen. Keep at it till you bring it down.”
The Tempest--Commander Putnam and Mr. Madison's War Page 28