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

  Of the four men Humphreys had seized, one was a Canadian, whom he hanged. They did have some color of justification for taking Canadians, to whom the Americans presumed to grant naturalized citizenship. How dare they? His Majesty’s government of course refused to recognize American naturalization. They were naval pretenders even as they were still pretenders as a nation, and no great attention need be paid them except for taking likely-looking seamen.

  Now Kington knew that his exile was at an end; a new command awaited him in Bermuda, but he had concluded that he could not enter empty-handed, and he had turned to the northwest, crossing and riding the Gulf Current into the waters of the American coastal trade. Even as he was thinking they must sight a vessel on this day, he cocked his head at the faint cry above the deck overhead, of “Deck sail ho!” He straightened his dressing gown and seated himself at his desk, waiting for the rap at his door, which came only a moment later. “Enter,” he said quietly.

  “Beg pardon, m’lord.” A lieutenant stood at attention and made his respects. “The lookout has sighted a ship bearing to the southwest.”

  Kington affected not to look up from the papers on his desk. “What do you make of her?”

  “An American merchantman, m’lord, a large brig, low in the water, heading south.”

  “Very well. Make all sail to overtake her. I will come up.”

  “Very good, m’lord.” The lieutenant made his respects again and departed.

  Kington pulled a pair of brilliant white silk stockings up his calves, and then donned equally white knee breeches, which he fastened at the waist and knees. The talk was that the Royal Navy was going to change at any time to trousers for officers, as well as the enlisted men, who already wore them. He hated the notion. Trousers—inelegant, egalitarian, shapeless—suitable for the common sailors but certainly not for officers. After regarding his shiny white calves in the mirror, he buckled his sword about his waist and selected a coat from his wardrobe, the blue frock, undress but bearing the dual epaulettes that signified a captain of more than three years’ experience. It was hard to bear how many years, since Naples, but his circumstances would improve soon enough. He took up his glass and ascended the ladder to the quarterdeck.

  The courses blocked his view down the deck, and he slung an arm through the mizzen’s starboard ratlines, leaned out, and focused the American in his glass. Yes, it was a large brig, low and slow; they were gaining on him rapidly and he could not but have seen him. This should be a good day.

  “What is your pleasure, m’lord? Shall you hail him?”

  “Beat to quarters, Mr. Evans, ready your starboard bow chaser. At six hundred yards put a shot through his rigging. That will hail him well enough.”

  “Beat to quarters!” Evans barked to the bosun, and an instant later the ship leapt to life in response to the drum’s tattoo. Both officers knew this was probably unnecessary when their quarry was an apparently unarmed merchant vessel, but both knew equally that an overawing display of firepower was the surest guarantor of a passive reception.

  Aboard the Althea, Sam Bandy had been alerted to the approach of the British sloop and followed her through his glass, noting the deployment of starboard studding sails to increase her speed. He was studying her even as he saw the flash and smoke of her bow chaser; its booming report reached him almost simultaneously with the singing of a ball through his rigging. He started and shot his gaze upward at a loud pop, and beheld a rip in the main topsail, one edge flapping in the wind. He turned his head to the right, waiting for and then seeing the small splash a hundred yards out or more. Unarmed and laden too heavily to run, he had no choice but to furl his sails and wait for what fate should bring.

  “She is bringing in her sails, m’lord,” said Evans. “It looks as if she means no resistance.”

  “Good,” said Kington. “Have the bosun swing out the cutter. You and I will go over with ten Marines for escort.”

  At the cutter’s approach, Sam had a rope boarding ladder lowered. Eight Marines came smartly up in coats of brilliant scarlet, flanking the ladder, then two officers in blue frocks, and two more Marines.

  Bandy faced them, arms akimbo, several paces in front of his curious and apprehensive crew.

  “I am Captain Lord Arthur Kington, of His Majesty’s sloop-of-war Hound. Are you the master of this vessel?”

  “I am Samuel Bandy, captain of the brig Althea.” Sam squared his shoulders against him. “By what right do you stop an American ship in international waters?” he demanded.

  “By the authority of Orders in Council of His Majesty’s government,” he said highly. “We are at war with France, and we are charged to stop ships, search for deserters, and seize ships which are carrying contraband bound for French ports. What is your cargo?”

  “Your orders are of no effect upon American ships.”

  “Mr. . . . Bandy, my broadside gives me all the authority I need. I ask you again, what is your cargo?”

  “Salt fish, and kitchenware, and furniture.”

  “Where bound?”

  “We are seven days out of Boston, bound for Charleston.”

  “I see. I require to see your manifest, and after that to inspect your hold. Take us down to your cabin.”

  Sam clattered down the ladder to his small cabin, followed by the two officers and behind them two of the Marines. From a shelf he pulled the log book and extracted the three pages of manifest, detailing his cargo to the last item.

  He handed the papers over to Kington, who rattled the sheets as he barely glanced at them before folding them back along their existing creases and tucking them into his coat pocket. “Well, I say, you are a lively-looking fellow,” said Kington.

  Sam squinted and shook his head. “What?”

  “We are searching for a Canadian deserter who bears the singularly appropriate name of Lively. Do you claim that the name means nothing to you?”

  Sam was truculent. “Of course it means nothing to me. Why should it?”

  “Because”—Kington looked Sam down and up and down again—“he stands about five feet nine inches, weight thirteen stone, very fair complected, reddish to blond hair.” He looked more closely. “Blue eyes. Did you really believe we would never discover you?”

  “Damn your eyes, I am Samuel Bandy of South Carolina, captain and part owner of this vessel!”

  Kington crossed his arms doubtfully. “Well, your accent is plausible. Still, that can be affected. Let me see your protection.”

  “God damn it, I am the captain! I don’t carry proof of my citizenship!”

  Kington tossed his head lightly. “Well, then.”

  “Wait, I have my master’s license. Wait.” This was a document that he never expected that he would have to produce. He knew it was in a pouch of papers in his sea chest, and he dropped to his knees and flung open its lid.

  “Hold!” barked Kington. The Marines who flanked him lowered their muskets at him. “Move very slowly.”

  “Bastard,” muttered Sam. He rose again, unfolding his master’s license and handing it to Kington, who glanced about the cabin.

  “The light in here is very poor.” He ambled over to the stern windows and opened one, sitting on its sill and leaning partly outside. “Now, let us see.” He mumbled the lines as he read them. “Oh, dear!” He opened his fingers and the paper fluttered down to the rolling sea.

  Sam swelled up but checked himself as the Marines took a half-step forward en garde.

  Kington tapped his index finger against his chin. “Perhaps you are who you say you are, but perhaps not. You answer the wanted man’s description too closely to dismiss the matter. Prudence dictates I shall bring you to Bermuda for more certain identification.”

  “Wait a minute, I know you!” Sam shook his head. “From where do I know you?”

  Kington looked at him with his haughty expectation.
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br />   Sam’s finger shot out at him. “Naples! After the war, the Barbary War, the American consulate, you had an altercation with Commodore Preble.”

  “Indeed? I cannot say that I remember you at all. I do remember one particularly impudent lieutenant, but it was not you. Mr. Evans?”

  “M’lord?”

  “We will select a prize crew to take this vessel to Bermuda. Poll the American crewmen. Those who carry protections and wish to go home we will put ashore when we reach Bermuda and they can catch a ship home as best they can. Naturally, any who wish to volunteer into His Majesty’s service will be welcome to enlist.” The two officers chuckled. Once carried to Bermuda, it could take months for some neutral ship to carry them home again.

  “You’re just a damned pirate,” spat Sam. He knew that Kington would have no trouble finding enlistments among his crew. In the American merchant service, as in the Navy, a fair portion of his sailors went to sea to escape their problems on land. Among the men were surely some whose fortunes had sunk so low—wanted by the law, or in the shadow of debtors’ prison—that a foreign ship seemed as viable an escape as walking into the Western wilderness, with the advantage that there were no bears or Indians. Given that they had no way home from Bermuda, it was tantamount to impressment just the same.

  Kington smirked. “Damn fine chairs. Hepplewhite, by the make?”

  “Fisk of Boston, damn you, and so stamped on the back of each.” He swept an arm out grandly. “But please, have them. They will show very fine in a pirate’s cabin.”

  “That remark,” said Kington quietly, “will cost you six lashes, as the lightest of warnings. Provoke me further and you will regret it in proportion. Now, will you come quietly, or must we bind you? Before you answer, let me warn you that if you give me your parole to submit and then resist, I will surely hang you. I have no scruple about it.”

  “No, I have no doubt of that.” He inclined his head toward a pine wardrobe. “Am I allowed to keep my clothes?”

  “Certainly not. You will be fitted out in His Majesty’s uniform for an able seaman.” He glanced down. “You may keep your shoes, however. Shoes are in short supply.”

  “What of my clothes?”

  “We will keep them safe. If your story proves out, they will be returned to you.”

  “Well, they are too large for you, at any rate. But perhaps your tailor can take them in for you.”

  “Six more lashes, and I urge you, do not build up a large account.”

  The swell on this morning was easy, as two Marines descended the boarding ladder to their cutter. Kington scanned about Althea’s deck and remembered that he had not inspected the hold. Ah, well. He had the manifest, and in this circumstance judged that sufficient. He had the ship; the nature of the cargo they could ascertain at leisure.

  “Mr. Evans.”

  “Yes, m’lord?”

  “Inspect the crew for their protections. I will send the cutter back with a prize crew. Those who wish to enlist with us send back across with the boat. With luck, it will be an even exchange and we will both have a full complement. Then you will follow me to Bermuda.”

  “Very good, m’lord.” He made his respects as Kington and the remaining Marines, and Sam, descended to the cutter.

  As they approached the sloop, Sam saw that she had turned a bit in the current, and he could make out the name HOUND freshly painted under her stern windows. Given his captivity, Sam debated whether he should open a conversation with this captain, try to reach at least a minimal respect between them, and weighed that against his visceral disgust with him, his almost visual desire to see him swinging on a noose.

  “She is a handsome enough vessel,” he ventured. “Twenty-two, by the look of her?”

  Kington regarded him with some surprise. “You have a practiced eye, Mr. Lively. You have estimated her exactly.”

  “At fourteen I was a midshipman in the Enterprise, twelve, and then a lieutenant in the Constitution, forty-four,” he stated quietly. “Some of that time we were in company with the John Adams, twenty-four, and your ship seems only the slightest degree smaller. And if you please, Captain, my name is Samuel Bandy, as you will discover upon a full investigation of the matter.”

  Kington perceived exactly what Sam was doing. “We shall see. On my ship, I am addressed as ‘my lord,’ and you will oblige me by adopting the custom.”

  Sam felt as though his jaw would break if he did so, but he swallowed his gorge and said, “Whatever you say, my lord.” Those two words, from the mouth of any American, sounded ridiculous.

  As soon as they tied up, Kington scaled the boarding ladder first, and Sam followed, finding the captain already engaged with his second officer, a smallish, auburn-haired man with freckles, named Crawford. Once the Marines were up, a well-armed prize crew descended and pulled away. It took half an hour to make the exchange on the Althea, and the cutter returned with Evans and five of Sam’s crew who had determined to throw in with the English.

  As soon as they came alongside, lines went tumbling down from the davits that curled out overhead. Crewmen made them fast to the eyebolts on the cutter’s bow and stern, and as soon as the last of the men stood on deck the cutter came up after them by jerks. Sam marked which of his men had turned coat and determined not to speak to them, even as he admitted to himself that they were not entirely beyond his sympathy. As the cutter was made secure in the davits Sam heard the orders barked and saw the yards braced up as they tacked and settled on a course east-nor’east, under full sail, close hauled but not straining, running full-and-by. Kington may be a miserable wretch, he thought, but he knew how to use the wind. Sam peered astern and saw his Althea following suit. At least, he thought, they were on their way to somewhere.

  “Well, Lively.” It was Kington’s voice, and Sam turned to face him. “I will say that your attempt at conversation was noted down in your favor, as perhaps indicating a quiescent bearing. We are bound for Bermuda, from where inquiries will be made. If you prove to be who you say you are, you will be set at liberty.”

  “And my ship?”

  “That I cannot promise. But I tell you, if we find that you are who I think you are, you must hang. Not from my personal animus, understand, but because it is the law.”

  Sam’s words were ready that when he was discovered to be a fellow officer, Kington would oblige him with satisfaction, but he barred the words from passing his lips, calculating that it would be his own death sentence.

  “As it is,” said Kington, “you have an account and we must square it. Mr. Crawford.”

  “Yes, m’lord.”

  “All hands on deck to witness punishment. Except”—he paused, considering—“except those five new enlistments; keep them below with the purser to get their uniforms.” He looked at Sam. “I will spare you that. Bosun, do your duty.”

  “Aye, m’lord,” replied a very deep voice. Sam regarded the bosun, middle-aged, gray and very curly hair, missing teeth, skin so salt-cured that he might well have been pulled from a cask in the meat stores. “Come along with ye,” he said.

  This shockingly grizzled man seized Sam tightly by an upper arm and led him across the thirty-foot beam of the ship. “Ordinarily,” said the bosun so quietly that only Sam could hear, “ripping down your shirt is part of the show, but ’tis such a fine shirt, I will give you the opportunity to remove it yourself and lay it aside.”

  Glowering, Sam began pulling the shirttails out of his trousers. “I have heard of an officer and gentleman, but never a bosun and gentleman. Thank you.”

  Four of the crew leaned a heavy hatch grate against the mainmast’s starboard ratlines, at enough of an angle that he could not keep balance on his own feet, yet vertical enough that the crew could see the spectacle.

  “Now lie you up against it,” said the bosun. “Stretch up your arms.” As soon as Sam extended his arms, crewmen seized his ha
nds and bound them, threading the rope through the openings in the wooden mesh. From the corner of his eye Sam spied the bosun’s mate shaking out a cat, running his fingers down its separate strands of twisted hemp to each end, picking off the bits of flesh from the tassels left from when it was last used, finally nodding to the bosun.

  The bosun made his respects to the officers on the quarterdeck, calling out, “Ready to commence punishment.”

  The officers had been at their ease but followed Kington’s lead in snugging his bicorne down on his head. “One dozen,” he pronounced.

  Sam steadied himself, concentrating at that instant on the lapping hiss of the water as it slid by, the creaking of the rigging, the warmth of the morning sun on his back. He knew that his life, or rather the way he regarded life, would never be the same after this morning. He was parsing how he would change, as he heard the cat’s tails sing for an instant through the air before slapping across his back, searing like a great brand of fire laid across the flesh. He snapped taut against the ropes that spread his arms, but he made no sound. His teeth clenched, even as he determined that he would die before giving Kington the satisfaction of hearing him cry out.

  “One,” announced the bosun, as the bosun’s mate shook out the tails behind him for a second strike.

  He would withstand all dozen lashes, he would stand them by conjuring in his mind’s eye himself, standing over Kington’s broken body. Whatever it took and however long, he swore to himself that he would have his vengeance. There was a second quick whish of air and a second burning slap on his back, lower down. He clenched his teeth again but uttered nothing.

  “Two,” intoned the bosun.

  Nor was it lost on him that he had been taken into slavery and whipped. He, who had grown up on a plantation and been wet-nursed and clothed and tended by slaves, and he who was now a master of dozens, had never in his life whipped a slave, nor seen one whipped. He knew that it happened, and he had seen the evidence of it in the scarred-over welts on the backs of others’ slaves, mostly on those belonging to white trash who vented their own social envy upon the two or three hapless blacks in their power. Such drivers were not respected. Nevertheless, now he understood what it felt like. Whish, splat!