Point of Honor. Robert N. Macomber
at sea, sir, or take him to his regiment?”
Wake muttered in reply. “Regiment.” He walked over to the windward rail for some air. The business of catching deserters like they were stray dogs did not appeal to him. He hated it.
Dozens of men, some in blue uniforms and others in dirty gray rags, lined the walls of Fort Jefferson and its main dock when the St. James anchored off the fortress later in the afternoon as the shadows were starting to lengthen. The same young flustered army lieutenant arrived at the schooner in the garrison’s boat and awkwardly climbed up the side to the main deck. He stared at the prisoners, three alive and sullen, one dead and serene, lying on the foredeck. One could almost imagine a slight smile on Drake’s lifeless face. The lieutenant finally turned to Wake.
“Sir, the colonel presents his compliments and appreciation for capturing the deserters. He said to say he was sorry for any inconvenience the voyage to the Marquesas to capture this scum has caused you. My soldiers in the boat will take them from you now. But I see only four. Did they resist, sir?”
“Yes, Lieutenant. This one,” Wake pointed to Drake, “resisted. The others gave up. One had died of thirst. He’s buried out there. None of my men were wounded.”
“Well, thank God for that, sir. The colonel, he wants to invite you to be his guest for dinner, sir. Says the army would like to show the navy its hospi . . . hospitality, sir. I’m to come and get you at sunset.”
“Thank the colonel for his invitation, Lieutenant, but I am tired and would not be good company, though I am sure that his table would be splendid. I have written a short summary of the events of the capture and death of your men. I just completed a copy, which you’ll get now, before we leave.”
The lieutenant looked positively scared.
“But sir, the colonel has invited you to dinner! You’ve got to go, sir. He’s invited you to dinner with the senior officers of the regiment. He expects you to be there, sir! I’m supposed to bring you. You can’t leave now!”
“Lieutenant, I am tired and not in the best of outlooks right now. Your deserters are in your boat and so should you be. Tell your colonel that the exigencies of the service deny me the pleasure of his table and company, and that I must and shall depart. Now. Good evening, sir.”
Wake turned away and watched some of his crew start to clean up the large dark stain on the deck. He noticed that Molloy was not among them.
“Rork, weigh the anchor and let’s get her moving along. I want to be out of the fortress channel by the time it gets completely dark.”
When it became clear that no one would look at or talk to him, the army lieutenant finally moved to the edge of the deck. He went down the side without a word and the boatload of misery made its way to the dock. Rork met Wake aft by the tiller.
“Leavin’ outta’ here in the dark, Captain? It’ll be a wee bit dicey dancin’ amongst those reefs tonight.”
“No, Rork. We’ll sail out of the fortress channel and anchor after dark inside the reefs by Garden Key. We’ll cross the outer reefs in the morning light.”
“Aye, sir,” said the bosun, who saw but did not understand the odd look on his captain’s face. “I was a wonderin’ why the sudden departure with the dark comin’. No disrespect intended, sir. Are ye all right, Captain?”
“No, Rork. I’m not all right. But I’ll start to be when we get away from this hellish place and its damned puppet colonels and dungeon atmosphere. And I want that stain off her deck! God, I feel like I’m on a stinking slaver.”
“Aye, sir. By morn she’ll look as clean an’ pretty as an’ Irish bride at the altar, sir! Know whatcha meanin’ about the slaver. Takes a bit out o’ a man to go after one o’ his own, even if they are just a bunch o’ army pogues. Had to do the duty, though, sir.”
“I’d rather be going after the enemy, Rork. It’s cleaner work.”
“Aye, we all agree on that, sir.”
The two of them turned their attention to the immediate issue of sailing the schooner away from the fortress in the gathering dusk, and no more was said about the stain or what caused it. Both of them knew there would be more stains, and there was nothing anyone could do about them, except clean up afterwards.
2
The Stream
The St. James was entering upon one of those glorious days that Wake loved in this part of the world. He had never seen anything like it sailing the North Atlantic off the New England coast. There the sea’s beauty derived from a terrible majesty, but here it was the intermingling of the clear and delicate water colors with the soft forms of the islands and reefs that lent a beauty that could not be described adequately in letters back home to his parents in Massachusetts.
St. James was east of the Tortugas Islands, sailing directly into a rising sun on a close reach with the trade winds sending a gentle, but steady, flow of air from the south southeast. She had almost all of her wardrobe showing as the sails took in the wind provided and pulled her forward through the emerald seas around her. It was one of those mornings that makes a man thankful to be exactly where he is, and Wake took in a lungful of the clean warm air, stretching his lanky frame to its furthest extent. The feel of the sun and wind on his face, combined with the smells of the galley and the salt air, made him feel alive. The toes of his bare feet flexed on the smooth wood of the deck and his fingers wrapped around the tarred main shrouds that rose up to the mast cap high above. Wake felt all of his senses heightened, reveling in them as he looked around to see what was what since he had gone off watch eight hours earlier.
His survey of the decks this morning took in McDougall, the gunner’s mate, and his party cleaning the bore on one of the twelve-pounder deck guns. McDougall was a quiet and serious man, of more years than anyone else aboard, who knew his business with cannons. His graying hair and low growling voice showed his authority far more than any insignia of rank. He had sailed in all the seas of the world and would occasionally tell of things he had seen and done, especially on the Anti-Slavery Patrol in the forties, inspiring silent reflection in all who heard. McDougall and Rork, both Catholic Irishmen, were the two senior petty officers aboard and the solid pillars around which the rest of the crew formed.
Farther forward, Beech, the spindly framed cook, was emerging from the foredeck hatch with a pot of coal ash cleaned out from the galley fire below, preparing to toss it leeward. He nodded to his captain as he made his way across the heeling deck.
Wake was glad that he had Beech. The man was a decent cook who made the provisions they were issued actually edible, unlike most of his counterparts in the navy. More importantly, he made the fish, crab, and lobster they caught aboard while patrolling taste absolutely delicious, the stuff of fine dining establishments, which is exactly where Beech used to work in New York City before joining the navy in an effort to avoid dying in the mud somewhere in Virginia or Tennessee for some intangible Union cause.
Wake still remembered the all-night poker game at the Rum and Randy Tavern, a rather jaded establishment on Turner Lane in Key West, where he had won Beech from the lieutenant commanding the ordnance ship stationed in the harbor. As the game neared dawn, the other remaining man at the table had exhausted anything of value to bet with. He finally said that he had a cook aboard his ship who had been a chef up in a New York dining room. The final bet of the game was the cook’s assignment versus Wake’s case of Cuban rum and forty-two dollars, which itself had belonged to the ordnance ship captain at the beginning of the evening. Wake smiled at the memory of Beech reporting aboard the following day. The cook had not been happy at all about his new assignment on a small schooner, nor the method of his transfer to her, that took him away from the comforts of Key West.
Wake turned his view to the after deck of the ship, where four seamen were rubbing the deck spotless with holystones near the port main shrouds. Patient explanations of how to steer