The Power and the Glory (16 page)

“Sorry to be so quiet, sir,” he said, as though Truxtun had been serious in his reprimand. As he spoke, he drummed his fingers on his right thigh, by his own admission a nervous habit he had acquired as a youth when faced with a socially awkward situation. “Like you, I had my doubts about this ship.
Constellation
seemed too long in proportion to her beam. She'll buckle for sure, I convinced myself, no matter how many riders she has down there on her keelson.” When he noted his fellow officers hanging on his every word, his voice gained in confidence. “What's more, I found her wales too low, her bow and stern too sharp, and her yards too long, the way they stick out beyond the railing. But stap me if that renegade Quaker”—referring to Philadelphia shipwright Joshua Humphreys, the designer of the
Constitution
class of super frigates—“hasn't proven me wrong, sir. This ship is not only sturdy, she's reliable, too. And she's fast. Were it not for the drills, and did we not have to constantly reduce sail to let the convoy to catch up to us, we'd be in Jamaica in record time.”

Truxtun allowed a faint smile. “Thank you for your observations, Mr. Waverly. We can all take heart from them. That's all I have for you this evening, gentlemen, except to note that tomorrow evening I shall be meeting in private with Mr. Carter and Mr. Cutler. On Wednesday we shall resume our normal schedule. Which is our
custom
, eh, Mr. Cutler?”

TOPSIDE A FEW MINUTES LATER, John Rodgers approached Richard amidships. The cloud-spotted summer evening sky had become less brilliantly streaked as the ball of yellow sun dipped toward the western horizon.
Constellation
remained under full sail, a spread of canvas approximating an acre in dimension, although at the end of the second dogwatch, at eight o'clock, sailors aloft would take in the two courses and all three topgallants and hoist a lantern up to the main, foremast, and mizzen crosstrees, the night recognition signal that each vessel in the convoy would replicate in order to keep track of one another during the night hours. They had made their turn eastward, away from the Carolina coast, on a course they would maintain until they swung to the southwest, running free before the prevailing northeasterly trades on a straight line through the Windward Passage to the eastern tip of Jamaica.

“Richard. A word if you please,” Rodgers said when he had caught up.

Richard turned around. “Yes, sir?”

Rodgers nodded to starboard, away from the main hatchway, where they could speak with a degree of privacy. They returned the salutes of two pigtailed sailors who were polishing the ship's brightwork with brick dust, and of two others who were mopping a spot on the deck, then walked on ahead to stand beside the foremast. They faced seaward, feeling the warm caress of a setting summer sun and a gentle southerly breeze—a topgallant breeze, the sort of breeze that could lull a man into a state of blissful complacency.

“We're off duty,” Rodgers said as he leaned forward against the bulwark. He rested his forearms on the smooth, glossy rail and clasped his hands together. “Please call me John.”

“Very well, John. What's on your mind?”

“I just want to say,” Rodgers said, careful to keep his voice low, “that I found the captain's behavior rather odd this evening, the way he singled you out. What he said was unjustified, in my opinion. Issuing rum is more than just a bloody custom, and he jolly well knows it!”

When Richard did not reply, Rodgers continued. “Every sea captain has his quirks, and I suspect we have just witnessed one of Captain Truxtun's. He wasn't really questioning your knowledge of the rules. He was making a point, and he was using you to make that point. About his authority, you understand. Then again, I am hardly in a position to lecture you on the eccentricities of sea captains. You've seen more of them in your lifetime than I am ever likely to see in mine. Truth
be told, Richard, I am honored to be serving with you. I may outrank you except on the gun deck, but I admire what you have accomplished down there. I could not have done as well. And I suffer no illusions that I will continue to outrank you once our Navy is better organized. Which is why I feel somewhat embarrassed whenever you call me ‘sir.'”

Richard was shocked by such an admission from a superior officer. It would be unthinkable in the Royal Navy. “Thank you,” he said. “Though I fear you overrate me at the same time you underrate yourself. Look around you, John,” he said with a sweeping gesture. “Any officer able to get a ship like this in such fine shape in so short a time deserves the highest praise.
My
truth be told, I stand in awe of
you
. And the quality of the guns, which I understand we also owe to you, is second to none.”

Rodgers shrugged. “We have my father to thank for the guns, Richard. More specifically, we have Mr. Howard Cecil to thank. He gave
Constellation
top priority. As to putting this ship to rights, I had help from many people—Andrew in particular. He shows remarkable perseverance and attention to detail for someone of his age and experience.”

As Rodgers spoke, the image of Jack Endicott flashed through Richard's mind. He made a mental note of Howard Cecil, proprietor of Cecil Iron Works, as a name worth remembering.

In a lighter, more affable tone, Rodgers said, “Tell me a little more about yourself, Richard. We really haven't had much of an opportunity to get to know each other. You told me you are married. How many children do you have?”

“I have three. My oldest son will be seventeen in December. My daughter, my youngest, turned ten in April. Jamie is fifteen. You?”

“I have four boys and three girls, aged two to sixteen. They keep their mother on her toes! Martha's her name, and I miss her more with each cruise. Incredible, isn't it, after so many years of marriage and so many children, to miss a woman that much.”

“It's the same for me, John. And I believe we are very fortunate to have it so. Perhaps being separated in the short run makes for a happier marriage in the long run. The days Katherine and I have together become that much more meaningful.”

“Not to mention the nights.”

Richard returned Rodgers' smile. “Yes, well, there is that. Every homecoming certainly has its rewards.”

“Indeed. It's
why
we have seven children.”

They laughed comfortably until Rodgers said, in a more somber tone, “It's harder when it comes to the children, though, isn't it.”

That statement triggered complex emotions within Richard. He stood with his hands resting on the rail, contemplating the great blue expanse of ocean as the wind fluttered his white cotton shirt and tousled unruly strands of blond hair about his face. Behind them they heard the slap of bare feet on the wooden deck, but the man passed on forward, returning them to quiet.

“Yes,” he replied at length, as if to his inner self, his voice barely audible, “it
is
harder when it comes to the children.”

“How do you reconcile it, if you don't mind my asking. I mean, your duty to your country with your duty to your family?”

Richard looked askance at him. “I've asked myself that question many times, John. The only answer I can accept is that my duty to my country
is
my duty to my family.”

After a pause, Rodgers nodded. “Thank you, Richard. That's an answer I can take home with me.”

Side by side, the two men stared out to sea. The sun, half-hidden on the western horizon, cast a golden glow upon the white canvas of the merchant vessels lazily keeping pace to starboard and larboard. By rote, Richard made the count. Fourteen vessels, all within easy sight of the frigate's weather deck. He scanned the horizon and sky. Noting nothing there of consequence, he allowed his thoughts to drift northward, to Hingham and the memories of warm summer evenings of yore. An image lingered of a flaxen-haired beauty who had taken a fancy to his brother Will, and then, after Will had died, to Richard. Twenty-two years ago almost to the night, two weeks after the signing of the Great Proclamation in Philadelphia, he and Sarah Fearing were strolling hand in hand along a moon-washed Hingham beach when suddenly she stopped and faced him. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she drew him to her and said, in an urgent whisper, that they dare not waste the hot summer night, the blood-warm seawater, the privacy of the cove in which they found themselves, so wouldn't it be just the thing to—

John Rodgers shattered the alluring mental image. “Why do you think Captain Truxtun wants to meet alone with you and Lieutenant Carter tomorrow evening?”

Richard shook his head, casting out the angels of remembrance. “I have no idea. I was hoping you could tell me.”

“Sorry, mate. I can't.”

Eight bells sounded. Boatswain's whistles piped the starboard watch below to hammocks and the larboard watch aloft to its duty on the weather deck and in the rigging.

“I must take my leave, John. I'm officer of the deck. I enjoyed our talk.”

“So did I, Richard. Good luck tomorrow with the guns.”

 

 

GUN DRILLS RESUMED at ten the next morning, this time using live ammunition. Because
Constellation
was positioned to leeward of her convoy, she exercised only her larboard guns. As always, rate of fire trumped accuracy in hitting a target, which was just as well because there weren't any targets to shoot at. One by one, the guns on the two upper decks roared, vomiting tongues of orange and white sparks before they were run in, sponged out, wormed, and reloaded with round shot delivered by powder monkeys. The sole responsibility of these young boys during battle drill was to lug shot and powder as Edward Oates parceled it out in the copper-sheathed magazine, carrying it through the berthing deck to the gun decks and into the hands of a gun captain or onto shot racks. For two hours, gun captains yanked the firing mechanism, estimated the distance of the plume of seawater towering skyward when the ball struck, then adjusted the quoin on its bed to measure the effects of maximum elevation, point-blank, and extreme depression. All this was done, to the extent possible, with every crew and every man working together until shot and crew were spent, the deck was consumed with blinding, acrid smoke, and the exposed skin on a gunner's arms and face was the glistening black of a native-born African. As the echoes of the final salvo dissolved into peals of distant thunder, Truxtun ordered an end to the morning exercise and a double ration of grog for each member of each gun crew.

“How did they fare that last round?” he inquired of Richard Cutler at seven o'clock that evening.

They were in Truxtun's after cabin. An hour earlier, during small arms and sword drill on deck, the canvas partitions in the captain's cabin and wardroom had been replaced. A breeze wafted through the open gun ports, mitigating the lingering stench of spent powder. Four 24-pounder guns lay bowsed up tight in the cabin, two to a side, the barrels on the larboard sides still warm from the afternoon drill. Below them, on the berthing deck, the off-duty watch was finishing supper,
each mess sitting around its own spread of canvas laid out on the deck as if at a picnic. Down on the orlop, midshipmen dined in a cramped and dank mess void of light, save for candles stuck into wax. Cutler and Carter had not yet eaten, nor did Captain Truxtun offer them anything beyond a single glass of claret poured out by a cabin boy.

Richard consulted his notes. “One minute forty-eight seconds, sir,” he reported. “An improvement of three seconds from the previous drill.”

“Good. But not good enough,” Truxtun groused. “Before I'm satisfied, Mr. Cutler, you'll need to shave off another ten seconds. Shave off twenty and you'll find me very pleased indeed.”

“In that case, sir, I shall order the men to find you ecstatic by the time we reach Jamaica.”

“Excellent.” Truxtun allowed a faint smile before shifting his gaze to the lieutenant of Marines. “And you, Mr. Carter? How did you fare?”

“Not quite as well, sir,” Carter confessed.

“So I noticed. Tomorrow I shall ask Mr. Oates to turn his attention to the weather deck. I shall ask the same of you, Mr. Cutler, should circumstances warrant it. The guns up there may be smaller than those down here, but their role in battle is just as critical.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” both lieutenants acknowledged.

“Now, let us turn our attention to another matter. What I am about to tell you is, for the time being, for your ears only. I will bring Mr. Rodgers and Mr. Sterrett into my confidence shortly, but for now, mum's the word. Only a handful of men are privy to the information I am about to give you. These men are, to my knowledge, Mr. Adams, Mr. Pickering, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. McHenry, Mr. Stoddert, and Mr. Washington. And myself, of course. And you, in a few moments.”

The caliber of those names brought both lieutenants slightly forward in their chairs, as if by drawing nearer to Captain Truxtun they might convince him of their discretion.

“What do you know about Saint-Domingue and the political situation there?” he asked them.

The lieutenants glanced at each other.

“I know a little, sir,” Richard offered.

Truxtun nodded slowly. “I am all ears, Mr. Cutler.”

“Saint-Domingue is a French colony on the western half of the island of Hispaniola, which itself is a hodgepodge of British, French, and Spanish interests. Columbus was the first to plant a flag there, and he claimed the entire island for Spain. His claim notwithstanding, French
buccaneers soon settled on the western third of the island. The Spanish did nothing about it because they preferred the eastern parts where the soil is richer. Over the years the French built up quite a presence on Saint-Domingue. The British were latecomers, motivated, I suspect, by the quality and quantity of the island's coffee and cane fields. Until a few years ago they had no legal standing on Hispaniola. That changed when local slaves rose up and began slaughtering their white masters, French and Spanish alike. The Spanish invited the British in to help restore order on the island and at the same time drive out the French. I have heard rumors that there was an agreement between Britain and Spain to divide the colony between them once the French were ousted.”