The Evening Gun: Volume three in War of 1812 Trilogy

by William H. White

  “You fixin’ to take on some heavy dunnage, Isaac? Doc Plumm told me he was just bringin’ his doctorin’ box.”

  “Aye, Commodore. I got a pair of six-pounders we found and I’m going to rig ‘em larboard and starboard. Might try to find me another swivel gun into the bargain. But never you fear, sir, I seen the weather makin’ up and I’ll be on my way quick as you please. An’ quick as the worthy Mr. Plumm returns with his stores.” Now Isaac paused, his brow furrowed some as he thought how to put the question on his mind to the commodore.

  “Anything you might want to be tellin’ me ‘bout him, by the by, Commodore? I ain’t never run into anything or anyone quite like him afore.” Isaac looked hopefully at the older man.

  “Well, Isaac, Jeremiah Plumm’s somewhat of an odd cove, I’d reckon.” He smiled and said, “but I reckon you got that far your own self. As a doc, he ain’t bad at all, I’m told. Heard he cut his teeth in the War for Independence and saved a host of men from bein’ heaved over the standin’ part o’ the foresheet. Been takin’ care of folks up both sides of the Patuxent since afore the turn of century and I ain’t heard no one say a bad word about him.” Barney paused, then added almost to himself, “course, any what might complain likely ain’t got a breath left in ‘em…”

  “And he’s had a look at the dozen an’ more what got hurt yesterday in that scrap and reckons every man Jack of ‘em save, o’ course Brown – he’s the one what had his leg took – will be returned to duty quick as you please. And for that, I’m grateful. So I’d warrant Miller and Keyser and their men back at St. Leonard might be glad of his help, once you get him down there. Assuming they’s any of ‘em left.”

  Barney’s ominous codicil caused Isaac to raise his eyebrows, a move which did not go unnoticed by his superior. He hastened to correct the young New Englander’s misconception.

  “Oh, I ain’t thinkin’ they all been killed off, Isaac; I was thinkin’ they mighta headed back to Washington or Baltimore – less’n o’ course they’s still scrappin’ with the Royal Marines. Har har.” Barney’s rarely heard laugh sounded more like the sound a flogging sail might make than someone laughing, but the smile on his face made apparent his mood.

  Isaac continued his quest ashore and shortly returned to the sloop with not only the promised pair of cannon being dragged down the dock behind him, but also with two men carrying a swivel gun, bigger by half than the one already mounted on the sloop’s bow bulwark. Jack Clements brought up the rear of the procession. He was carrying a seabag. Before he was halfway down the dock, a large dark blur rounded the corner and galloped down the pier; Carronade joined his master, a short piece of frayed rope hanging from around his neck.

  “Hope you ain’t got a problem with another hand – or paw – Isaac. Seems like Carronade ain’t takin’ to bein’ left in our wake.” The former Navy bosun beamed at his dog and then at Isaac.

  “Reckon he can come along, Jack, long as he don’t take a hankerin’ to any of the lads. You fed him recently?”

  “That won’t be no worry, Isaac. You ain’t got no Englishmen aboard, do you?”

  Isaac shook his head – whether in dismay or silent resignation Jack couldn’t tell – and stepped over the rail. He organized a crew to hoist the six-pounders aboard his sloop while Jack – and the dog – supervised the operation from the dock. As the last gun was wrestled into position at the larboard bulwark and its tackle properly secured, a wagon drawn by a pair of mules stopped at the head of the pier.

  “Let’s get all hands out to that wagon. It’s got our powder and shot aboard. Step lively now. Anybody seen the doctor?”

  A round of “no’s” responded and Biggs looked at his fellow sloop captain. “Wait’ll you see this cove, Jack. What a strange bird. Just don’t laugh; I’d warrant he wouldn’t take real kindly to any mockery. But Barney says he’s some fine medico and it’s possible them marines and soldiers may be in sore need of some doctorin’.” Under his breath he added, “Hope he don’t got a problem with your pet.”

  As the final cask of black powder was handed onto the deck, Carronade, who had been slouching against the mast, looked alert and barked his deep resonating bark once. All eyes turned to the dog and then to where he was looking. Jeremiah Plumm strode purposefully down the dock, Sam Hay behind him, staggering under a huge box.

  “Mister Biggs: I sincerely hope I have not delayed your departure. I was detained by a difficulty with one of the men whose leg I removed yesterday. Unlucky cove had the bad fortune to develop a bit of putrefaction. Had to bleed him and re-dress the wound with…hello! What’s this? Is that beast a dog or what?” Plumm took a step backwards.

  Carronade remained forward, his eyes never leaving the stranger. The hair on his neck and back bristled and he gave voice to a low, barely audible growl. Jack Clements looked at him and then the doctor.

  “Why, that’s just Carronade, Doctor. He’s a dog, by my lights, and a fine one at that. Hates the British, he does, and suffers no nonsense from nobody. Here, let me introduce you to him.” He started forward.

  “You can stay right there, sir. And the cur as well.” Plumm took a step backward. “I’d warrant that beast won’t take kindly to me – few do. Is it going on the boat?”

  “Aye, he’s goin’ and you’ll be glad to have him, we run into any British Marines down there. Worth three men in a fight, I’d warrant. But I doubt he’d give you cause for concern.”

  “Just the same, sir, I’ll maintain my distance if you don’t mind. And who might you be, if I may inquire?”

  Isaac stepped forward and gestured at the one-eared captain. “Doc, this here’s Jack Clements, skipper of the other sloop – the one just down the shore there. Bein’ how we got a bunch of his men to man the extra guns we put aboard, we figgered he’d be a good hand to sign on as well. Sailed together, we did, on a privateer down to the Indies, and a fairer hand layin’ a gun or managin’ a vessel you couldn’t find.”

  “Glad to make your acquaintance, sir. And may I inquire as to what happened to your ear. That’s as fine a bit of stitchin’ as ever I’ve seen.”

  “You two’ll have plenty of time to yarn after we’re full and by, you don’t mind. But for now, we got to get the barky headed south. Weather ain’t lookin’ too promisin’ and we’ve lost more’n an hour of this tide.” Isaac raised his voice. “Stations for makin’ sail and gettin’ underway, lads, and smartly.”

  Suddenly the sloop was a hive of activity; hands manned halyards for the stays’l and main while others stepped to the lines holding the sloop land-bound. The vessel tugged more violently at her lines as the surface of the river became more roiled in the growing wind. Isaac stepped to the tiller and nodded at the men forward. The stays’l rose smartly up the forestay, flapping wildly as the wind caught it.

  “Let go the lines. Sheet in the stays’l, lively now. Stand by the main. Hands aloft to the tops’l yard.” Isaac pushed the tiller over and the sloop, suddenly freed from her tethers, bore away from the dock into the mainstream of the Patuxent River. “Main halyard, heave. Cast off the sheet.” Biggs waited until the mains’l was all the way up, its gaff swaying drunkenly as the sail flogged, then shouted above the rising wind, “Peak her up and sheet her home, lads.”

  The black-hulled sloop leaned her shoulder into the chop on the river and heeled over as the wind filled the big sail. She picked up speed quickly and, keeping his course in the middle of the waterway, Isaac guided his vessel back down the river, back to the hornet’s nest they had left only the day previous. He noted, in the back of his mind, Mr. Plumm’s wide-eyed, but silent, reaction to the unusual black dyed sails as they filled and drew nicely over the sloop’s black hull.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The sky had turned the color of burnished pewter; there was no twilight, and uncharacteristically, the wind continued to increase as the scant light gave up its struggle and became night. The tide had begun its flood, causing the chop in the river to steepen and the now moaning wind blew t
he tops off the waves. The black sloop made a fine turn of speed, even shortened down to a reefed mains’l and single jib. The square tops’l had been first reefed and then finally furled on its yard as Isaac saw his sloop was being overpowered by the increasing wind. Spray flew over the bows, as the sharp prow cut through the incoming tide.

  Carronade, at what he considered his post in the sloop’s bow, was soaked, but undeterred in his determination to see what might be ahead. The rest of the crew, save the lookouts, who were changed every hour, remained aft or below. Mr. Plumm stood just off the quarterdeck, deep in conversation with Jake Tate and Jack Clements. He had earlier been cautioned to remain clear of the captain’s domain.

  “Did he really say ‘Don’t give up the ship’ as he is credited with saying? You know that has become the battle cry for the American Navy on the fresh water. And I am told, by one who was there I should mention, that Oliver Perry had the ships of his squadron on Lake Erie fly flags with the words emblazoned on them during his heroic battle there. And you may know that his flagship was indeed named for the late Captain Lawrence. Of course, it was nearly lost and he moved bag and baggage during the fight, to another – the Niagara, I believe it was.” Plumm was seemingly well-informed and both the deepwater man and the blond haired Bayman nodded and made appreciative grunts for this news.

  Quite animated, Plumm had been quizzing the two for most of the afternoon about the devastating loss of USS Chesapeake to Broke’s HMS Shannon the year before and the death of Captain Lawrence.

  Especially interested, he was, in the skill of the British naval surgeon who patched up the two Americans. He examined their scars in the failing light, turning Jack’s head this way and that to better see the work done where once he had had an ear. Tate and the former bosun had become embarrassed by the attention and turned the subject to their incarceration in Halifax.

  “So you spent time in Melville Island, did you? I’ve heard, second hand, mind you, that it was a hell hole of the first water. But you coves are the first who’ve actually been there that I’ve come across. Surely, with your most serious wounds, they must have had you in hospital for some time after bringing you ashore from their frigate?”

  “Not on your life. We was marched right into the compound with all the other coves from the Chesapeake frigate. Some was wounded worse than us, by my lights, and…” Clements turned to the former topman. “Remember ol’ Tim Connoughy, Jake?” He received a nod and continued. “They marched him with the three or four other British tars we had aboard across the neck of land from Halifax. Damn near bled to death, the way Robert Coleman told it. Put him in the hospital at Melville Island, they did, and it wasn’t for a month an’ more that we seen him again. Had a cutlass or a splinter wound in his leg, as I recollect, and I reckon his mates had to carry him the last half league to the prison, ‘cordin’ to Coleman. Coleman was Royal Navy what we picked up in the Indies back in the year ’12 off’n a prize. Decided, he did, he’d rather fight on American ships ‘stead o’ gettin’ flogged every time some Royal Navy captain took a mind to show who was in charge. Connoughy the same, ‘ceptin’ he was an Irisher.”

  “And where are these turncoat British tars now? Hanged, I’d warrant, eh?”

  “Not by a long shot, sir. Last Jake an’ I seen ‘em, they was marchin’ off toward Sacketts Harbor from Boston to join up with the fresh water coves fightin’ up to the lakes. Along with a hundred or so others whose services wasn’t needed in a navy blockaded into port by them damn English ships. We all got out of Melville at the same time. Isaac there,” Jack pointed with his chin at the New Englander at the sloop’s tiller, “’long with some coves from a privateer outta Salem, come got us out. Salem – that’s up to Massachusetts.” Clements and Tate both smiled in the darkness at the recollection of their escape from the prison and Halifax Harbor.

  After several hours of listening to Plumm, Jake decided he’d had more than he could manage. “Isaac, you want me to spell you a while on the tiller? Give you a chance to get you some vittles, too.” He winked at his former shipmate, still held by the persistent medico, and headed aft to relieve Biggs.

  The rain, which had been falling in a half-hearted, sullen drizzle, now poured down with renewed vigor and those on deck could hear the distant rattle and thump of thunder well to the east. Biggs came out of the scuttle dressed in his oiled tarpaulin hat and a canvas coat. He had the remnants of a ship’s biscuit in his hand which he sheltered under his coat as he stepped out into the wet.

  “I’d warrant we gonna get us a wind shift here any time now, Isaac. Reckon it’ll be comin’ in outta the east.” Jake greeted his captain as the New Englander stepped onto the quarterdeck.

  “Aye, and by my figurin’ I’d guess we still got maybe a couple of leagues to go afore we can expect to see the opening of the creek. Less’n we go right by without never seein’ it ‘t’all. Ha.” His laugh sounded hollow and insincere. “This surely has gotten to be a dirty night. Cain’t make out much of anything yonder. Ease her over to the larboard some, Jake. Let’s get us a trifle closer to that shore; see if’n we can make out anything along there.”

  The sloop hardened up some, sails were trimmed, and her speed diminished as her hull showed more of itself to the strong flood tide. Lightning began to streak the sky in sporadic flashes, not yet close enough to their position to offer any help in defining the shoreline. The wind began to shift, coming more around to the bow as Jake had predicted. And the rain came down harder. Isaac put his hand on Jake’s shoulder and pointed with his other one.

  “That look like something burnin’ to you, Jake? See…yonder there…looks like something on fire in there.”

  “Aye. Might be a house or something. Sure ain’t a cookfire. But could be a bunch of trees what got struck by the lightning too.” Jake squinted through the rain. There was definitely something afire not far from the shoreline.

  The two watched as the sloop went by; soon it was only a dim glow astern and then gone completely.

  “Well, either it’s too far astern to see, or the rain put out whatever it was what was burnin’.” Isaac shrugged and turned to watch forward as the black sloop continued on her wet course to the south.

  In short order, a dark smudge developed into the shoreline about a cable’s length distant and, in a brilliant flash of lightning, the trees on the banks lining the river were suddenly displayed in stark silhouette against the sky. The darkness made them appear a good deal closer than they actually were. Jake eased the tiller over a trifle and the sloop bore off, away from the hazards of the shoreline. The lightning flashed again, accompanied by a resonating crash of thunder.

  “Jake – did I imagine that or did you see it too?” Isaac stared at the shore seemingly close off their larboard bow.

  “I seen trees and, I guess, the shoreline…and I think I mighta seen the creek opening ‘bout half a point off the larboard bow. What was you…” The next crash of thunder and simultaneous double forked streak of bright yellow lightning drowned out the rest of his words. Then he was pointing with his good arm, holding the tiller against his leg, and shouting. “There, I seen it too, Isaac. A boat yonder right along the shore. And by the Almighty, she looked to be headin’ same way we are. Did you see it again?” From for’ard, the two heard the distinct deep-throated bark which confirmed their sighting.

  “Aye, I seen it. From the look I got, she looked to be cutter rigged and shortened way down. Gotta be British; ain’t no one else ‘ceptin’ us ‘round here. And Jack’s dog seems to think it’s them, too.” He paused, peering through the darkness and rain. Then he turned back to the young Bayman. “I’ll take the tiller. Get you for’ard and get a couple of the lads to load that swivel gun. Keep the canvas over her ‘til we’re closer, and I ain’t got to tell you, keep the powder dry. And no shoutin’. No point in lettin’ ‘em know our whereabouts, in case they ain’t yet seen us.”

  In the next flash of lightning, they saw that the cutter had altered her course and,
having hardened up, was running for the creek entrance.

  “Action stations. Hands to action stations. Trim her, lads, I’m bringin’ her up some.” Isaac had to raise his voice to be heard in the bows over the storm. He knew the only reason the British cutter had seen them was the lightning; he could do nothing about that, but he also knew that absent the lightning, his black sails and hull made him even more invisible than they were to him. He steered the sloop toward where he perceived the entrance to the creek lay and kept her driving through the foul night, hoping the British sailors would assume he had not seen them.

  A flash of lightning and the immediate overhead crash of thunder. “Stand by the swivel, lads. And get the larboard six-pounder run out. Next flash of lightning, you men on the swivel let ‘em have it!”

  “FIRE!” Jack Clements had assumed command of the gun and the order was barely out of his mouth when, with a sharp crack, the small gun spoke. And its report disappeared in the deep boom of next clap of thunder. “Load grape.” Isaac heard Jack’s words, whipped aft by the wind, even before the echo of the gun had faded.

  The next flash of lightning revealed their target within a pistol shot and unscathed; a small gun – apparently a four-pounder – was mounted in the bows and as he watched it, Isaac saw a tongue of fire issue from the muzzle. The sharp report followed a split second later. And a splash just for’ard of the sloop’s bowsprit spoke eloquently of the marksmanship of the British gunner.

  Crack! The sloop’s swivel gun returned the shot and shrieks of pain came down on the wind from the cutter. A cheer went up on the American sloop.

  “Don’t start celebratin’ yet, lads. They ain’t struck or dead; they’s just hurt some. Give ‘em another.” Isaac watched carefully, waiting for the next flash of lightning to determine the condition of the enemy boat.

  Boom! He ducked involuntarily, then chastised himself when he realized it was thunder, not the four-pounder. Crack! Now the British gun spoke, and the sloop shuddered as the ball found its mark amidships, midway between wind and water. In the next flash of lightning, he saw the cutter bearing off, trying to cross his bow and rake the sloop – as much as one gun could. He pulled the tiller over and bore off to parallel the other boat.