Assassin's Honor (9781561648207) (22 page)

When we cleared the outer mark of the channel at 2 a.m., I complimented Warfield and all hands and stopped by the sick bay to check on the injured men. They were resting and expected to recover quickly. Now we were in open sea and away from dangerous reefs, I went to my quarters to focus what little energy I had left on the newly arrived correspondence.

Four were from the Navy Department, the Fourth Auditor Section, to be precise. Those were the stuff of bureaucratic functionaries and the bane of ship captains. As such, they could be ignored when matters of real import were at hand. I pushed them aside.

The other three were personal, including one from Maria. They were far more important than a clerk's request for expense documentation.

I opened Maria's first. The envelope was light, containing only a brief note dated December ninth. She wrote from Richmond that she had left Washington and was on the train, bound for Tampa.

The date was the ninth? That meant she would have been in Tampa by the eleventh, a Sunday. The Plant Line steamer usually left Tampa on Wednesday. But the storm would've delayed it, so that implied Maria might still be in Tampa. With any luck at all, I could get to Tampa, warn Martí, and see my love—all within the next twenty-four hours. It seemed the situation was beginning to brighten!

The second was from my young impetuous friend Theodore Roosevelt, currently causing mayhem in the federal Civil Service Commission at Washington, which he was actually trying to turn into an efficient agency for the good of the people. Roosevelt, whom I'd known for six years, was a force to be reckoned with,
as many a politico had discovered, usually to their chagrin, particularly in his present position. He continually railed against cronyism, criminal corruption, and professional incompetence.

His note was to the point. Namely, when exactly would I be back in Washington? He had urgent things—there were no other kind in Theodore's energetic world—of a naval nature to discuss. It would take place over dinner at his club.

Dinner discussions with Theodore were generally an endurance contest as to who would override whom in the conversation, with Roosevelt the frequent winner. But, on the other hand, they were never dull and often enjoyable. His note ended with one of his favorite exhortations in French:
Honneur au courage malheureaux!
—Salute to ill-fated courage!

The third missive was from Tom Moore. Commonly known by everyone as “old Black Tom” to distinguish him from other Toms in the area, he was born a slave at Gamble Plantation up on the Manatee River, seventy miles north of where I had my home. Of indeterminate age—possibly sixty—Tom made his living after the war by building fishing vessels among the islands of the lower Gulf Coast of Florida. One of those islands, Patricio, is where my bungalow home, as well as Rork's, is located.

It was a sad letter, for he had found the body of the caretaker of my island, old man Whidden, slumped in a chair in his cottage. Whidden, an ancient former Confederate who had looked after the island since 1883 when Rork and I bought it, had been getting feebler by the day, so the news wasn't totally surprising. Tom said he gave Whidden “a reel Christian burial near his hut, compleet with words from my own Bible, even tho that old coot Whidden aynt deserved em.”

Tom reported that he was staying on at Whidden's place and overseeing the island until I or Rork returned or wrote and decided what to do. He then offered to take Whidden's position on the island for, he said, he felt it was time for him to settle down in one place. I liked and trusted Tom, and was inclined to accept, but since the island was jointly owned, a talk with Sean Rork would be in order first.

I returned to Maria's letter. As always, I sat there staring at the curves of her handwriting, taking in the faint scent of her perfume, imagining her little idiosyncrasies, and remembering our last time together, in September. It had been quite a courtship, accelerating exponentially in depth and time.

Politically and socially unacceptable as was our growing relationship, we reveled in every minute of it, though we took great pains to keep it confidential. The furtive nature made those moments we could be together even more special, delicious really, with both of us acting like young lovers whose parents had forbidden us to see each other.

By the time August came along, we knew our mutual life histories and dreams. Both having been married, we had no fantasies or misunderstandings about the opposite sex's behavior or weaknesses, and dismissed mere romantic infatuation as naïve foolishness. Actually, we had grown quite comfortable with each other. No pretenses were needed or shown—sincerity was enough. Meals, walks through parks, symphony concerts, even diplomatic cocktail soirees, all were looked upon as opportunities for us to share laughter, knowing glances, and quiet understandings.

There was one threshold we did not cross, a silent agreement we would not complicate our emotions, or risk discovery, by taking our love
dans le boudoir
. This, I will fully admit, was not easy for me. I am not a saint, but bitter experience and intuition told me we'd better not.

So, after two months of intense passion, quiet resolve, and heartfelt connection, and in spite of my misgivings about the odds of success for such a marriage, I felt almost as if we already were married, in spirit if not in consummation. I felt at ease with my personal life, and had hope for the future.

In mid-September my time in Washington ended. I was recalled to the fleet and given command of
Bennington
. It was agony for me to be away from Maria without a solid plan for reunion to look forward to, and her letters became
the only surrogate for our need for intimacy. But even those communications had to be guarded in nature, lest our secret get out through those who might have access, benign or mal intended, to our mail.

I steeled myself to turn away from thoughts of Maria and plunged into my administrative responsibilities—the disagreeable ones centered around documentation and authorization. At four in the morning, I was still immersed in getting caught up with my neglected paperwork duties when Warfield knocked on my cabin door.

He reported all was well with the ship and we were still making nine to ten knots against the thirty-five-knot gale, the wind now veering due north. Our position was fifty miles west-southwest of Cape Sable at the bottom of the Florida peninsula, and sixty-five miles south of Cape Romano, near Marco Island. On the crucial issue of the boilers' pressure, all four were holding steady between 139 and 141 pounds per square inch, far below the designed maximum of 160 pounds and the safety valve level of 150 pounds.

I thanked him and sent him off-watch, for Lieutenant Lambert had relieved him on the bridge for the next four hours. All being well with the ship, I succumbed to exhaustion and fell into my bed, which had been beckoning me for hours.

The gauzy amber light of a storm-filtered dawn filled my cabin two hours later when the tube beside me whistled again. It was Lambert, and the news was not good.

“Pressure in A Boiler has been rising, sir—it's now at 146. B Boiler is at 142. C Boiler is steady at 139 and D is at 140. Commander Warfield, Lieutenant Angles, and the senior boilermaker are down in the boiler rooms checking them now.”

“Very well, Mr. Lambert. What is our course, speed, and position right now?”

“Course is due north at zero degrees, speed is nine knots, position is approximately forty-eight miles south-southwest of Cape Romano and forty-two miles due west of Cape Sable, sir.”

The air was noticeably cooler, so the warm front of the storm had passed and we were now on the cold backside.
Bennington
's motion seemed the same to me, the bow smashing into seas and the hull shuddering each time, so apparently the damned storm wasn't letting up. “What's the weather, Mr. Lambert?”

“Glass is steady at twenty-eight-point-six, sir. Wind is still out of the north at a steady thirty-two, gusting to forty knots. Seas are eight to ten feet out of the north at thirty-second intervals, with no breakers. No damage to ship, boats, or equipment so far. No casualties since freeing the number two cable when weighing anchor. And the sick bay steward reported ten minutes ago all three of those men are resting easy, sir.”

“Very well, Mr. Lambert. Good report. I'm heading down to the boiler rooms.”

When I arrived in the ship's belly, the blistering heat and roaring noise of the fire boxes and boilers was, as usual for me, overwhelming and disconcerting, for this part of a modern warship was alien territory for an old canvas man like me. I never could find it fascinating, unlike many officers, but I did understand it was now vital. Canvas aboard men-o-war was going the way of the dinosaurs. New ships being designed had no sailing rig at all. In the new century just ahead, we'd all be at the fickle mercy of machinery.

In a dark corner, farthest away from the boilers, Warfield and Angles were shouting into each other's ears in animated debate, their faces intense in the flickering light. Bare-chested coal heavers, by far the strongest men on the ship, were tossing a shovelful every minute onto the grating inside the boxes. The boiler man, a thirty-year veteran in filthy overalls, was crawling around the far side of the B boiler tank, getting far closer to it in that heat than could his captain. His apprentice, a youngster clearly made nervous by the presence of so many officers in his metal cave, was passing and receiving various fitting tools as the boilermaker tested the integrity of our number two tank by tapping and twisting like a doctor on an obese and recalcitrant patient.

Warfield came over to me and said into my ear, “We're going to have to shut down A and B boilers. The A boiler is now at 150. B is at 145. We've got to find the problem. Angles thinks it's a steam leak, because the water level's low but there's no fluid leakage below the tank. He says once the tanks get cold, it'll take five or six hours to search and spot the leak. Eight or nine hours total.”

“That'll slow us to just steerageway at revolutions for five knots—which will mean staying stationary in this wind!” I said, a bit too angrily.

“Got to, sir. Can't risk an explosion at this point.”

Grudgingly, I admitted he and Angles were right. There was no alternative.

“Do it,” I ordered.

Southeastern Gulf of Mexico
Thursday
15 December 1892

We sat there and wallowed, barely staying even against the wind and seas. After letting the boilers begin to cool down, Angles and his men searched for the leaks, which were discovered by waving a broom in front of tanks and piping, and waiting until it disintegrated from the invisible jet of leaking steam.

The leaks were found along the upper middle seams of both A and B boilers. The seams were then riveted tighter and appeared to hold well. The cause of all this was the boilers' feed pumps, which weren't transferring enough water from the condenser back into the boilers. This allowed a superheat to build and thus fatigue the seams, which had already been weakened by scale deposits that had built up because of the lack of preventative maintenance. In other words, this chain of events started because of my earlier decisions to postpone the boiler maintenance.

Next, Angles's men had to disassemble all three pumps to find out which had failed and why. It was the number one pump, which had developed a tiny leak in a valve seal. The seal was replaced.

By now I am sure one can understand the level of my mechanical ability and comprehension, and therefore would be not surprised that when Lieutenant Angles went into a long, detailed recitation, eyes shining with pride, of his solving the of the hows, whys, and whens that composed this litany of failures, I utilized the last of my dwindling supply of patience and simply said, “Very good, Mr. Angles, and when can you get us moving again?”

“We've already gotten the fireboxes lit, and we should soon have enough steam, sir. Then all four will be on line.”

“Good. Then make it so, Mr. Angles.”

At long last, all our boilers had enough steam to move the pistons in the three large cylinders to turn the two long shafts that turned our two propellers.

The engineer counseled caution against too much pressure too soon, for these were crude repairs done at sea, so
Bennington
steamed at less than her full capacity. Even though the wind had diminished to a steady twenty knots and the seas to six to eight feet, we were making no more than eight to nine knots over the bottom.

By four o'clock Thursday afternoon, we had only made it northward to a point five miles west of the snow white beaches off Captiva Island. There were still about eighty miles to go. I estimated our arrival at three a.m. the next morning. That would be Friday, the sixteenth, the day the assassin would strike, according to the coded message. We still had time, but not much.

One hour after I made that calculation, another factor intruded. The weather had cleared in the cold crisp air and the lookout spotted a warship, then another warship, on the southern horizon astern of us. Over the next hour it was clear
they were gaining on us, and equally clear who they were: our anchorage mates from Key West,
Gneisenau
and
Reina Regente
.