Point of Honor. Robert N. Macomber
Exhausted as he was, Wake had to smile at the optimism of his bosun. “Rork, right you are. Now all we have to do is actually get there!”
***
Wake had seen the island of Key West come over the horizon many times during his year in Florida, but no landfall was as welcome as this one. It had been three days of hard sailing, with the fair wind and current boosting them along at speeds over the bottom that Wake found hard to believe. Now the famous Stream was helping them, and the assistance provided by that river in the ocean gave Wake the fastest sailing he had ever experienced, sometimes up to eleven knots. St. James was moving so fast that he constantly checked his celestial fixes, thinking that an error had been made.
Even with the tremendous speed of the schooner in the perfect weather and current conditions, Wake dared not rescind the water rationing. Since the issue beer and rum had given out, the cask water was all they had. The water had been rationed to all hands equally, even the prisoners, and only four casks were left. It had been very close.
The search of the Wendy had revealed some papers, including a letter from a Mr. Thomas Clyde of Nassau that was addressed to a Mr. R. Jomeiene, location not written. Clyde was introducing John Saunders to Jomeiene and commending him as a good contact for future transactions, the content of which was also not explained. Other papers had to do with the registry of the schooner in Nassau and a bill of lading for lumber from Andros Island in the Bahamas to Havana, dated a month earlier. No papers mentioning the rifles were found. Jomeiene sounded like a French name to Wake, though he wasn’t sure. It all started to fit.
The rifles were new British Enfields complete with bayonets. Ten were packed in straw in each crate, and twenty crates were stowed in the main hold, enough to arm two or three companies of Confederates. There was much speculation among the men and the petty officers about the destination of the rifles, but no absolute proof was found.
As the ships sailed east toward Key West, there was also much speculation on the value of the Wendy and her cargo. The conjecture was in the end settled by McDougall, who listened to all this for two days and finally said, in a voice that was quiet and deliberate, that he thought she was worth every bit of three thousand dollars and would have been worth more if they hadn’t had to fire into her. He further offered the opinion that the cargo of rifles was worth about four hundred dollars to the United States government and three to four times that to the government of the rebel states. After McDougall had delivered his considered opinion, the discussions on both ships turned to the ways in which a sailor could spend his share of that money in a port like Key West. The debates culminated in a general consensus that the purveyors of rum and women in Key West, and there were many, would be as happy as the sailors of the St. James to see the Wendy arrive in port.
In fact, the only people who would not be happy at the sight of the St. James and the Wendy sailing into the harbor at Key West were the seven prisoners shackled and lashed to the pinrail of the foremast. None of them would talk to Wake beyond stating that they were a legitimate crew with a legitimate cargo bound from the British Bahamas to French Mexico and were the victims of a piratical act by the U.S. Navy. None would talk about Saunders’ escape or even why he was aboard the British schooner. The captain, an aptly named stick of a man called Reeks, repeatedly told Wake that the British Consul would make an immediate protest and soon Wake would be the one in custody.
Each day both vessels hove to, and Rork came across by ship’s boat to compare both dead reckoning and celestial calculations with his captain. For several months Wake had been teaching Rork the art of fixing one’s position by celestial observations and the mathematical tables, but the bosun wasn’t yet confident enough to rely upon his own work on a long voyage. Wake and Rork reviewed their daily positions, and the course to Key West in case of separation, but thankfully that possibility never came to pass.
Mid-morning two days later, both ships were sailing up the main channel to the island of Key West. Passing the brown reefs that opened like deadly jaws off both sides of the channel, the schooner and her prize entered the jade waters close by the harbor. The deep blue waters of the Stream were behind them now. The dangers here were not from huge waves but from those jagged reefs just below the surface. The wind became light and confused out of the northeast as they approached, requiring the vessels to short tack up the final leg of the channel. Wake was glad the wind had held until they had found the island. The cask water would not have lasted if they had drifted in light airs out on the Stream.
St. James and the Wendy finally arrived in the harbor with the crews listening to the melancholy sound of the Fort Taylor regimental band playing the “Annie Laurie,” which it had recently learned and played at its weekly Saturday concerts for the town.
Carter, concentrating on steering at the helm, felt so elated at returning to Key West and its pleasures that he spoke to his commander without being asked a question first.
“Must be Saturday if the band’s aplayin’, don’t cha think?”
This breech of naval etiquette startled Wake, who was equally focused on Carter’s steering, but he took it as a sign that the morale of the crew was lifting at their safe return. He didn’t reprimand Carter, but in his men’s apparent joy Wake did wonder silently if the crew had ever doubted their captain’s ability to get them back alive. He knew that their captain certainly had had those doubts.
Glancing aft toward the prize a hundred yards astern of them, he saw that Rork was matching their every move at the almost same moment, tack for tack. The two ships presented a beautiful sight to the people ashore as they glided quietly up the channel in unison, like well-trained wild animals performing in a circus.
Rork, smiling his big grin, leaned out from the main shrouds of the Wendy and waved at Wake. Smiling and waving in return, Wake wondered how Rork had felt in those gut-wrenching moments with the French guns ready to blast into them several days ago. Rork never showed fear and Wake was envious of that strength within him, remembering how his own bowels had cramped into knots at that terrifying moment. He wondered if his fear had shown to the crew around him.
“Course, sir? We’re at the anchorage.”
Carter’s voice brought him back to the present and the tricky job of anchoring two ships in the crowded area off the naval docks.
“Yes, well, Carter, steer for that steamer over there and we’ll anchor astern of her. Luff her up when we get abeam of Tift’s building.”
“Aye aye, sir. Luff when abeam o’ Tift’s building ashore.”
Faber, standing with the anchor detail on the foredeck, called aft to his captain.
“Ready with the anchor, sir. Ready with the jibs an’ fores’l.”
Wake nodded his acknowledgment and replied. “Very good, Faber. When we pass the steamer and the Tift building ashore, we’ll luff up and drop the hook.”
As Wake gestured to Rork to follow their lead, his eye caught the flash of a glass reflected in the sunlight coming from the squadron’s headquarters building. Turning to examine the spot where the flash glared, Wake saw a man in the second-story window with a telescope to his face. It was aimed at the St. James. Faber called again from the bow, while stepping over one of the prisoners laying on the deck.
“Abeam now, sir.”
Carter brought the helm over and the schooner swung to windward. The ship started losing steerageway as she glided forward, all her sails flapping a protest at being deprived of the wind. As she edged closer toward the steamer just two hundred yards off their bow, the time came for the anchor to be cast.
“Let go the anchor!”
At the captain’s order the men on the foredeck cast off the lashing holding the anchor to the gunwale and a splash was heard. Soon the schooner was drifting sternways as the crew paid out the rode through the hawsehole on the starboard bow.
Behind them the Wendy was doing the same evolution and falling back on her own hook. Wake couldn’t help a smile when he thought of the unknown official in the window watching a naval schooner and her prize coming in from sea and providing