The Seekers Page 31

  The bag contained a few personal articles, including his fob and a surprise gift from the family: a sharply honed knife of Spanish steel in a leather sheath. Gilbert meant for him to use the knife to scrape away the young man’s beard that had started sprouting recently.

  Sunrise etched a thin line of light along the horizon. Gulls wheeled overhead, occasionally swooping to snatch a tiny fish from the water. The air smelled salty and clean.

  Eagerly, Jared searched for the officer supposedly waiting at the end of the pier, saw him—

  It wasn’t Stovall, thank heaven.

  Out in the harbor, Boston’s frigate bobbed gently, her tall masts catching the first scarlet out of the east. The breeze raised whitecaps around her hull. Jared could glimpse figures scurrying on the main deck.

  His spirits lifted even more. That sleek, beautiful vessel with her intricately carved figurehead—a truculent Hercules—was his new home.

  Having been raised in Boston, he had an advantage over country boys. He knew something about ships and their nomenclature. No one would have to tell him which mast was the mizzen, explain the system of watches and bells or point out starboard and larboard. With acquaintances from Mr. Tewkes’ academy, he’d sailed the harbor in small pleasure boats, sometimes in heavy weather. He was confident he’d have no trouble with seasickness.

  Another recruit had already arrived at the end of the pier. The drunk Jared had encountered yesterday.

  As he approached the officer, he watched the poor fool from the recruiting office nearly fall off the pier ladder. He made sure his salute was smart, his name crisply spoken and his feet sure as he descended to the longboat heaving up and down in the chop. Within ten minutes, seven other recruits arrived. The longboat put out into the harbor.

  Stovall all but forgotten, Jared gazed at the almost magical sight of the dawn-reddened masts growing taller and taller as the boat approached the frigate. Twenty-four hours later, reality had replaced magic.

  vi

  Constitution carried a complement of thirty boys. They were outfitted in summer uniforms exactly like those worn by the older seamen: white canvas slops, cut wide through the legs to afford freedom of movement; wide-collared white blouses with flowing black scarves; round, flat-crowned black hats gleaming with varnish.

  Most of the boys were younger than Jared. He was at first appalled, then amused, at the quantity and range of their profanity. To listen to a weather-browned ten-year-old cheerfully boast that he was already man enough to shove the ramrod into a whore’s muff was startling, to say the least.

  The boys were a rowdy, quarrelsome lot. They slept, as did the ordinary and able seamen, in canvas hammocks on the stifling berth deck. Hung up each evening from iron eyes in the beams of the gun deck above, the hammocks had to be taken down again in the morning and stored in special net racks along the ship’s rails.

  On his first night in the six- by three-foot hammock, Jared was cramped and uncomfortable. Barely able to breathe in the heat. The other boys kept him awake with chatter about their sexual conquests—an area of experience still foreign to him. They also exchanged opinion’s about the officers. Captain Hull and First Lieutenant Charles Morris were well liked. The rest were held in varying degrees of contempt; Sixth Lieutenant Stovall was mentioned as a “mean, dirty sod.”

  Some of the boys discussed duels of honor in which they’d taken part. Jared could hardly believe it, but apparently these near-infants occasionally settled disputes with pistols or swords. He got the impression the officers never interfered.

  The routine of the frigate in port was less demanding than it would be at sea, he was told. But it was hectic enough. Four hundred and sixty-eight human beings jammed virtually every square inch of deck and gangway space. There was constant shoving and jostling and cursing as men and boys went about their duties.

  In a day, Jared learned the ship’s geography, from the magazine and shot locker in the depths of the orlop, up through the berth, gun and spar decks. He was assigned to the officer’s wardroom, aft on the berth deck. His responsibilities included mopping the floor, maintaining the lamps, polishing the table and benches. When the officers ate, he ran food from the galley, forward on the gun deck.

  He was fortunate to find a likeable companion assigned to the same job—a runtish, homely, but strongly muscled boy of twelve, Oliver Prouty. The boy came from Charleston, in the Carolinas.

  On Jared’s third night aboard, Prouty fought another boy barehanded for the right to hang his hammock next to Jared’s. The southern boy’s opponent, taller and older by a year, nevertheless succumbed quickly to Prouty’s combination of punches, butts, kicks, gouges and bites.

  The two fought by lantern-light on the berth deck. Just when Prouty was getting the best of it, two of his opponent’s friends started to intervene. One raised a foot to stamp Prouty’s spine while the other grabbed his hair. Jared snatched out the knife whose sheath he kept illegally tucked into his slops at his left hip.

  He showed the knife and said, “Let them finish it alone.”

  The two boys fell back, eyeing the Spanish steel in Jared’s hand.

  Oliver Prouty finished demolishing his opponent’s nose. He wiped his bloody hands on the other boy’s blouse, then cheerfully helped his victim up. “There, now. We change places, agreed?”

  The other boy limped away, snot and blood dripping from his nose as he nodded weary assent.

  Prouty slung his hammock in place just before eight clangs of the ship’s bell signaled the end of the night watch and the beginning of the mid-watch.

  “You’ve come aboard with one thing in your favor, Kent,” Prouty said, putting his foot on a gun carriage and hauling himself up into the hammock.

  “What’s that, Oliver?”

  “Being as tall as you are, nobody much wants to fight you. Still”—with a lewd grin, he stretched out, hands laced under his head—“one chap I know has eyes for you in a different way.”

  Jared climbed into his own canvas bed. Down the row, a boy shouted, “Douse the fucking lamp!” It was doused. In a moment, Jared and Prouty heard the soft groans of a boy beginning to masturbate.

  “Give ’er a thrust fer me, Davey,” someone called. There was laughter.

  Jared understood Prouty’s last remark well enough. He’d been very conscious of eyes watching him with more than usual interest in the wardroom.

  “You mean Stovall, I imagine.”

  “Aye, Mr. Handsome Stovall. He fancies himself a prize beauty, the shit.”

  “He’s the one who signed me up.”

  “Lucky he didn’t fling you down and try to bugger you. ’Course, onshore, he was probably sober—”

  “Not quite. He was helping himself to the rum he was supposed to be serving to recruits.”

  “Well, beware of him if he’s into the grog heavy. That’s when he gets the urge. Thank the Lord I got an ugly phiz or I ’spose he’d be after me. You met Rudy—fourth down the line? Stovall got him to his cabin the night after we outran the five Britishers. Damn near raped the life out of Rudy, he did.”

  Aghast, Jared asked, “You mean you have to go along with something like that?”

  “What’s the choice? Accuse Stovall, and he’ll up and call you a liar. Cap’n Hull has to take the word of another officer over ours. And then Stovall can make it miserable for you afterward.”

  “Doesn’t the captain know Stovall’s—tastes?”

  “Think he does. But he just can’t do anything unless an officer really steps out of line—in front of witnesses.”

  “He’d better not lay a damn hand on me,” Jared said.

  “Pray he doesn’t. It’s either give in or suffer a lot worse for refusing.”

  vii

  The evening of August first, Jared was on duty in the wardroom when Captain Isaac Hull said, “Gentlemen, I’ve decided. We’re going to sail.”

  Four of the five officers seated with him at the table expressed surprise. One voiced approval—the firs
t lieutenant, Morris.

  Stovall raised a limp hand, a visual question mark. “But we’ve yet to receive orders from Washington, sir.”

  “Damned if I want to receive ’em, Lieutenant,” Hull replied. He was a short, potbellied man of thirty-eight, with ruddy cheeks. A bachelor, his genial, almost carefree manner belied his experience and toughness. Jared already knew a good deal about him.

  Hull had been a sailor since age fourteen, having run away from home in Derby, Connecticut. His naval career was interrupted for a period of two years, during which he read law. He claimed he gave it up because he was a poor writer. Everyone else said it was really because he loved the sea.

  He had trained on Constitution, as fourth lieutenant under Talbot, a famous privateersman of the Revolution. He’d been to High Barbary, where Preble’s squadron had twisted the tails of the arrogant deys and bashaws of the North African coast. And he’d achieved his captaincy through talent and hard work, not connections.

  Mathematics were required for command of a bridge, so Hull had learned what he needed to know by diligent private study. He could be friendly with individual British captains, but he made no secret of his hatred of their country. His enmity dated from the time of his father’s mistreatment on a prison ship anchored in New York harbor during the War for Independence.

  Hull pressed the tips of his stubby fingers together, leaned forward to answer Stovall’s objection. “The navy department knows where I am, though I’d prefer not to hear from ’em. I wouldn’t want to be handed anything smaller than this frigate. The way they’re shuffling commands these days, it could happen. The longer we stay in port, gentlemen, the greater the danger you’ll be deprived of my company”—muted laughter; Hull’s eyes grew sober—“and the greater the danger we’ll be blockaded by the English.”

  First Lieutenant Morris said, “I’m anxious to start hunting those bastards on Spartan and Guerriere.” The two notorious ships had been ranging the coast and, almost daily, fishing boats slipped back to Boston with word that one or the other had seized and burned yet another American vessel.

  Captain Hull broke a biscuit, munched half. “You forget one of those bastards is a friend of mine, Mr. Morris.”

  “Jimmy Dacres?”

  “Aye. He owes me a hat and I mean to collect.”

  “All the more reason to weigh anchor!” Morris grinned.

  “I agree. We’re provisioned—we leave tomorrow.”

  Sixth Lieutenant Stovall was quick to change tack. “I think the whole crew will be pleased. Certainly I am.”

  Hull said nothing, peering at his biscuit.

  Stovall motioned Jared forward, indicated his cup which Jared had earlier filled with tea. Four of the others were drinking their daily ration of rum. But Jared had already heard Stovall profess—for Hull’s benefit—that spirits dulled a man’s mind. Hull hadn’t seemed impressed. Jared thought the captain recognized Stovall for what he was—a bootlicker.

  As Jared poured, Stovall contrived to brush his shoulder against the boy’s hip. Without thinking, Jared jerked back. Tea jetted from the spout, staining Stovall’s impeccably white breeches.

  He leaped up, hand raised. “You clumsy whoreson—!”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Jared blurted—only because form required it.

  Hull shot out a pudgy hand, seized Stovall’s arm. “If you please, Mr. Stovall. It was an accident.”

  Seething, Stovall sank down again.

  Hull said to Jared, “What’s your name, lad?”

  “Jared Kent, Captain.”

  “Signed on here in Boston?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “We have a benefactor named Kent—” Hull mused.

  Jared saw no point in modesty, especially not with Stovall glaring at him.

  “My uncle, sir.”

  “Is that right! Well, we’d be thirsty as the devil without him—and stuck in this blasted harbor. His generosity was deeply appreciated.”

  Hull scratched at one rosy cheek. “Your uncle’s quite a wealthy man, I understand. Publishes books?”

  “And a newspaper.”

  “Peculiar to find such a man—a Bostonian, that is to say—supporting what some call the west’s war.”

  “My uncle believes it’s Boston’s war too, sir.” Conscious of Stovall watching him, he went on, “New England ships can’t sail out in peace until the British stop trying to control the oceans. But that doesn’t seem to occur to most New Englanders. My uncle says that’s tragic.”

  Hull nodded. “Your uncle is perceptive. I’m delighted to have you aboard. I hope we can show you some lively action—and His Majesty’s ensign being hauled down.”

  “I hope so too, Captain.”

  Still avoiding Stovall’s stare, Jared cleared plates and utensils and left the wardroom. In the galley, he told Oliver Prouty what had happened.

  “Oh my Lord, Jared,” the homely boy sighed. “You messed up his uniform?”

  “Not intentionally.”

  “He’ll have your back under the cat for certain. I told you there’s nothing Handsome Stovall fancies more than his fine appearance.”

  “Ollie, I have a strange feeling about him. A feeling he’s not quite right in the head.”

  Prouty nodded. “There are plenty of odd stories afloat. That he’s a bastard—I mean a real one. That he’s rich as hell, and loves to gamble for high stakes. I even heard he got in his cups once and said everyone would be astonished if they knew who his father and mother were.”

  “Famous people?”

  “Don’t think he meant that. His father was a soldier out west if I recollect—”

  “Yes, Stovall told me that at the recruiting office.”

  “His mother had another name—Free something. I guess he meant to suggest they were relations.”

  “Cousins?”

  “Closer.”

  “That’s not allowed.”

  “Christ on the mount! I know that!”

  Jared grinned. “You know a lot for someone so young.”

  “ ’Round the Charleston docks you don’t miss much when you’re on your own. I had nobody to raise me but a grandma—half blind and no teeth, poor old woman. I went to sea when I was nine. It was either that or starve—”

  For a moment the twelve-year-old looked more like a gnome ten times that age.

  “If even half the tales about Stovall are true, it’s no wonder he’s crazy,” he added. “He’ll settle up with you, don’t think he won’t.”

  A memory of Stovall’s eyes flickered in Jared’s mind. His hand stole unconsciously to the concealed knife.

  “I’ll be on my guard.”

  viii

  On August 2, 1812, Constitution raised sail and put Boston behind the fierce eagle that spread carved golden wings across her stern.

  As Jared had anticipated, seasickness didn’t trouble him. He experienced an hour of mild nausea when the frigate first reached open water, but after that, he felt perfectly fit. He quickly developed the sea legs necessary to maintaining balance on the crowded, constantly tilting decks.

  Almost every man aboard was eager to come in contact with the enemy. Constitution was still the target of disdainful remarks from British captains—and from the admiralty in London. War or no, that kind of talk got around among the seagoing fraternity.

  The frigate was a joke on more than one count. Badly designed, His Majesty’s naval architects sniffed. Far too much white pine, especially in her fished masts. And live oak for hull timber? Who ever heard of that?

  Jared thrilled to the first morning on the open sea. He marveled at the agility of the topmen who scrambled aloft to work the yards, only their dexterous hands and feet separating them from a fall to death in the water. They cracked out the flax canvas with astonishing speed; and there was a lot of it—forty-two thousand square feet.

  As the great sails were set, the frigate seemed to leap ahead, boiling up a snow-colored wake astern, splitting the cobalt summer sea a
t her bow. Hercules glowered at the horizon, the painted symbol of her readiness to do battle.

  Once the coast vanished, the training of the crew—especially the several dozen recruits ultimately rounded up in Boston—began in earnest.

  Gun drills perfected the teamwork required to open the ports, run out the cannon, load, fire and reload in minimum time.

  Though rated as a forty-four, Constitution actually carried much heavier armament: thirty twenty-four-pound long guns, for accurate distance firing; twenty-four thirty-two-pound carronades, of shorter range but capable of throwing a much heavier load of metal. One long eighteen-pounder brought the total to fifty-five guns.

  The enemy Hull hoped to find was Guerriere. Her name meant “female warrior,” and she was rated at thirty-eight. What interested the American sailors more was a recent report that she was only shipping sixteen carronades, reducing her close-range firepower.

  Such comparisons were dismissed by the British. Their traditional skill and daring would always carry the day. They considered the American navy insignificant, and American captains upstarts—except on land, where friendships such as Hull’s and Dacres’ were both common and completely permissible.

  All in all, the officers and men of Constitution had good reason to yearn for an encounter with Guerriere or a ship of similar rate.

  The frigate stood eastward for two days, raising no enemy sail. Hull changed course, bearing northwest toward the Bay of Fundy. On the tenth, Constitution intercepted a lightly armed British brig outward bound from Newfoundland to Halifax. A second brig was overtaken and captured the following day. Both vessels were burned, and their crews set adrift in longboats. The brigs were of too little value to be sailed back to American waters by prize crews.

  A few more equally minor encounters put Captain Hull in a bad temper, and finally caused him to set a course for the Bermudas, where he hoped to find bigger prey.

  On the eighteenth, off Cape Race, Newfoundland, Constitution overhauled a good-sized brig. She proved to be Decatur, a fourteen-gun American privateer. When her captain came aboard, he said he had assumed Hull’s ship to be an enemy frigate. As was customary, Constitution had showed no colors until the other vessel was identified.