A Call to Arms Read online

  “Off hats!” Cannon commanded. The entire ship’s company complied. Stokes was offered a bullet to bite down on but refused it. “Boatswain’s Mate O’Neill, do your duty!”

  Nine viper tongues lashed out, striking Stokes with such force that his torso arched forward from the sudden searing pain.

  “One!” the master-at-arms cried out.

  Lash followed horrific lash. By the tenth wallop, red welts crisscrossed Stokes’ naked back, oozing blood as the hard knots on the cords’ ends ripped deep into flayed flesh and muscle, each blow sending bits of bloody tissue into the air and onto the deck. At Burchard’s cry of “Twelve!”—and again at his cry of “Twenty-four!”—the boatswain’s mate on duty was relieved by another boatswain’s mate wielding a fresh arm and a fresh cat. Their vicious and violent assaults finally made the flinty, red-haired Englishman scream out in anguish.

  Closing his eyes to the screams, Jamie felt the warm flow of vomit rising into his throat. He swallowed hard, forcing it back down, silently commanding himself to stand firm, to think of something, anything, that might see him through this. Who could forget that terrible morning two weeks ago when Thomas Baldwin, at age fourteen the youngest of the midshipmen, vomited onto the deck during a flogging and then collapsed in a dead faint onto his own filth. That sorry incident had not won him respect anywhere in the ship.

  At the cry of “Thirty-six!” it was finally over, for Stokes. Released from his bindings, he slumped down and had to be coaxed up by two shipmates who helped him hobble across the weather deck and below to the ministrations of Dr. James Wells, the ship’s surgeon. An Irishman took his place at the netting, then a Dutchman, their toughened bodies and hardened psyches taking the prescribed twelve lashes with hardly a whimper. When it came the Canadian’s turn, the lad was trembling so hard that he required the steadying hand of a boatswain’s mate in order to stand and face his captain.

  “Seaman Guerrier,” Preble intoned for a fourth time this morning, “do you understand the offense of which you have been accused and found guilty?”

  Guerrier stood numb.

  “Answer the captain!” Cannon admonished.

  Guerrier could not speak. He could only nod.

  “Then tell me, son: will you will ever again fall asleep at your post while on duty?” Preble’s suddenly kind tone was not only unexpected, it seemed entirely out of character.

  Guerrier shook his head no.

  “Answer the captain!” Cannon barked a second time.

  “No, Cap’m,” Guerrier croaked, his eyes pleading for mercy.

  Preble stared down into the dark, pleading eyes. “I believe you, lad,” he said. “And because I do, I pardon you. You may return to duty.” He put on his hat.

  “On hats!” Cannon bellowed.

  Guerrier’s relief was so intense that he fell to his knees with his hands clasped as in prayer. The boatswain’s mate had to pry his hands apart to remove the shackles.

  FOUR DAYS LATER, as Constitution battled light and variable winds off Cape Saint Vincent, Captain Preble learned from the merchant brig Jack, homeward bound to Cape Ann, that Capt. William Bainbridge of the frigate Philadelphia had arrived in Gibraltar and, after a brief holdover, had sailed on in search of two Tripolitan vessels reported to be cruising near the Spanish port of Alicante. Preble became more anxious than ever to reach Gibraltar when he heard that two enemy vessels had been sighted so close to Constitution’s current position. But adverse headwinds and calm seas had set in, and because Constitution was built for war, not for speed, it took nearly a week for the frigate to finally draw near the Spanish port of Cádiz.

  “On deck!” a lookout cried from the foremast topgallant yard.

  “Deck, aye!” William Lewis called up.

  “Sails on the horizon!”

  “Where away?”

  “To the sou’east, sir. She’s ship-rigged, just ahead.”

  Lewis relayed the lookout’s observation to Lieutenant Greenleaf, the senior watch officer, standing by the ship’s wheel afore the mizzenmast. “Cates has spotted a vessel of size, sir,” he said, saluting. “She’s not far ahead.”

  “What exactly does that mean, Mr. Lewis?” Greenleaf fired back. “How far ahead? What is her point of sail? How does she shape her course?” The questions came fast and furiously at the startled midshipman.

  “The lookouts are trying to determine that, sir. It’s hard to make out much of anything in this haze.”

  “I daresay you’re right, Mr. Lewis,” the second lieutenant conceded with a frustrated sigh, “but we must have answers, and we must have them quickly. Please inform the captain of the sighting.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  As Lewis disappeared down the aft companionway ladder, Greenleaf passed word for the boatswain.

  “We shall clear for action, Mr. Cannon,” Greenleaf directed him. “Advise the gun captains to loose the guns and stand by for further orders.”

  “Aye, aye, sir!”

  Preble appeared moments later as drumrolls echoed across the deck. On the weather deck, Marines were standing by the fourteen 12-pounder long guns. The grinding squeal of wooden wheels sounded from the gun deck as the thirty 24-pounder guns were freed from their lashings and hauled inboard.

  Midshipman Lewis approached the helm, touched his hat, and waited.

  “What do we have, Mr. Greenleaf?” Preble inquired.

  “Good evening, sir. Seaman Cates reports sails of consequence directly ahead of us. As yet we cannot determine either her position or her course.”

  “How far off is she?”

  “We are trying to determine that, too, Captain. This damnable mist had concealed her until just a few minutes ago. I have ordered the guns loosed and await your orders.”

  “Very well,” Preble muttered. He scanned the waters ahead, then looked up at the fast-darkening, overcast sky. He was about to add an observation when a lookout’s panicked cry brought him up short. It was followed by another cry from the mainmast, and then another from the mizzen.

  “On deck there! The ship lies directly ahead! Holy sweet Mother of Jesus, we’re practically on top of her!”

  “Helm hard to starboard!” Preble cried out.

  Instantly the two quartermaster’s mates at the helm brought the great wheel over. As Constitution turned into the fluky wind, the leeches of her topsails began to shudder and her foresails to droop and flap impotently.

  “Hold her steady!” Preble ordered. “Mr. Lewis, I will have round shot in the carriage guns and the starboard guns run out. Handsomely, now!”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Lewis strode forward to the great rectangular hatchway amidships and shouted down the captain’s order.

  Preble was considering further evolutions to avoid collision when he realized that such maneuvers had become unnecessary. The captain of the mystery ship, whoever he was, had ordered his vessel to heave to. She rose like a great black mass on the inky sea against a slightly lighter backdrop of darkened sky. Only her canvas sails stood out in contrast, and even those appeared a somber dark gray. Here and there tiny balls of light flickered from a lantern up on deck or through open gun ports below. Her captain, too, had ordered his guns run out.

  An eerie silence ensued, as though the two ships, drifting perhaps thirty feet apart, had paused like two dogs cautiously sniffing each other before rearing up and having at it. All eyes on the quarterdeck of the American frigate watched as Preble picked up a speaking trumpet and walked to the mizzen’s starboard shrouds.

  “What ship is that?” he shouted out.

  “What ship is that?” the stranger shouted back.

  “This is the United States ship of war Constitution. What ship is that?”

  “What ship is that?” the same voice inquired anew.

  “I have just told you!” Preble snapped. “This is the United States ship of war Constitution. Now tell me, sir, for the last time: what ship is that?”

  Again, from the mystery ship: “What ship is that?
”

  “Damn you, sir!” Preble yelled through the trumpet. “I am finished playing games! Answer me properly or I shall fire a shot into you.”

  “Fire a shot into me,” the stranger shouted back, “and I shall fire a broadside into you.”

  “What ship is that?” Preble thundered into the night.

  Finally, a different voice, one that carried the crisp patrician accent of English nobility, answered: “This is His Britannic Majesty’s Ship Donegal, eighty-four guns. I am Commodore Sir Richard Strachan. I shall require you to send over your boat.”

  “Uppity bastard!” Preble growled. His dander up, he scrambled atop the starboard railing. Holding a shroud for support, he shouted through the trumpet in a voice of high dudgeon: “This is the United States ship Constitution, forty-four guns. I am Commodore Edward Preble, and I will be damned to hell before I send a boat over to you or to any vessel!” To his gun crews he shouted, in a voice for the Atlantic to hear, “Stand by your lanyards, boys, and prepare to fire!”

  Another round of eerie silence was broken by the splash of oars, the thud of a ship’s boat bumping against the larboard side, and the hail of a man about to climb the thirteen steps built into Constitution’s hull. The amber light of lanterns at the entry port revealed a superbly uniformed British sea officer, who, after saluting the quarterdeck, introduced himself to 1st Lt. Charles Gordon as Gorley Putt, first lieutenant of His Majesty’s frigate Maidstone, 36 guns, under the command of Capt. Stephen Elliot.

  “I am the officer with whom you first spoke,” Putt explained after saluting Captain Preble, who had approached the entry port. “We sighted your ship an hour or so ago, but we did not realize how close we were to you. Captain Elliot, unconvinced of either your nationality or your size, stalled for time to scare you off, or at least to give you pause whilst we put our gun deck in proper array. He still is not entirely convinced of your nationality, although I will put that to rights as soon as I return to my ship. I am certain that he would wish to extend to you every respect and his apology for any misunderstanding.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” Preble said, adding with relish, “Please inform your captain that I accept his apology. I am compelled, however, to warn him, and you, that in the future what you describe as a misunderstanding with an American frigate might find you and your ship blown clean out of the water. A very good night to you, sir.” With that, he turned on his heel and stalked away.

  Below, on the gun deck, Jamie Cutler glanced about at the other gun captains and their gun crews, who had overheard the entire exchange between the two naval commanders. To a man, they were wide-eyed and rendered speechless by their first inkling of the true nature of their captain.

  Six

  USS Portsmouth, October 1803

  THIRD LT. ERIC MEYERS scampered up the starboard ratlines of the foremast shrouds like a topman, using the frigate’s larboard heel to facilitate his ascent. Avoiding the lubber’s hole cut through the base of the foretop, he crawled like a spider out onto the thick rope mesh leading from the catharpings up and around the sturdy oaken platform. From the futtock shrouds at the deadeyes of the top, the young officer from the Virginia Capes grabbed hold of the narrower topmast shrouds and climbed up to the horizontal timbers that spread the topgallant shrouds at the crosstrees. Portsmouth was lying close to the wind, her square sails braced tight in what felt like a considerably stiffer breeze at a height of eighty feet than it had down on deck. Meyers felt as though he had climbed into a hot, windy tunnel. Strands of his tawny hair whipped free from their queue, and his loose-fitting shirt ruffled and snapped. Above him, the foremast topgallant lay furled to its yard. Below him, the leeches of the jib and flying jib shivered and thrummed.

  At the crosstrees Meyers joined Able Seaman Harvey Cole, who was facing into the stiff easterly wind with one arm wrapped around the thin topgallant mast. He offered Meyers a hand up and then, after the lieutenant had secured himself, a spyglass.

  Meyers first scanned the rolling seas to starboard with a naked eye. “Point her out to me, Cole,” he yelled above the wind. “I don’t see her.”

  Meyers brought the small spyglass up to one eye and followed Cole’s pointing finger. “Ah, yes, there she is.” He adjusted the focus. “Clear as day, almost. I agree, from the look of her, she’s a corsair.” His voice was high with nervous anticipation. “You’re sure she’s Tripolitan?”

  “I had a good look at her ensign, sir. She’s Tripolitan. I’d stake my life on it.”

  “No need for that, Cole,” Meyers commented wryly as he studied the profile of the Arab warship shaping an opposite course to Portsmouth’s, perhaps twelve miles upwind and closing fast. “You’ve already done that once here in Barbary, and once is enough.” Knowing Cole’s history, he meant exactly what he said. In 1786, at the age of sixteen the youngest hand aboard the Cutler & Sons merchant brig Eagle, Harvey Cole had been taken prisoner by pirate corsairs and had languished in an Algerian prison for ten years. During the entirety of that confinement he had stood as a rock of defiance. He even learned enough of the local language to defy his captors in Arabic. Despite a brush with hell every day, Cole had remained steadfastly loyal to his employer’s family, especially to Caleb Cutler, who shared his prison cell. When last year Caleb had asked for volunteers among the Cutler & Sons crew roster to serve in USS Portsmouth in the Mediterranean, Cole had stepped forward along with so many others that Caleb had the sailors draw lots to determine the lucky twenty-five.

  Meyers handed the glass back to Cole. “Odd, isn’t it,” he mused, his back to the wind. “We’re clearly the more powerful vessel, and surely she has spotted us by now. Yet she’s not showing us her heels.”

  “It is odd, sir,” Cole agreed.

  “Well, keep an eye on her, Cole,” Meyers said as he prepared to descend to the deck, “and report any deviation in her course.”

  Meyers wrapped his legs around a taut hempen backstay attached to the upper masthead and descended hand under hand to the larboard chain-wale, and from there to the deck. He lost no time making his way along the waist and up the three steps to the raised quarterdeck. At the helm he saluted the captain and first lieutenant, who had gathered there with the ship’s master, the captain of Marines, a quartermaster’s mate at the wheel, and two midshipmen.

  Richard Cutler answered the salute. “What company do we keep, Mr. Meyers?”

  “A Tripolitan corsair, Captain. She’s lateen-rigged on her main and mizzen, a square sail on her foremast.”

  Richard made a quick calculation. A corsair with that rig was of reasonable size and tonnage, and likely carried fourteen or sixteen 12-pounder guns.”

  “You’re certain she’s Tripolitan?”

  “Cole is, sir.”

  “That’s good enough for me. Her course?”

  Meyers gave him a meaningful look. “On a reciprocal to ours, sir.”

  “A course of convergence, then.”

  “It would seem so, sir.”

  Richard nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Meyers,” he said. “Please go below and take position at the guns with Mr. Lee. And pass word for Mr. Weeks.”

  As he waited for the boatswain, Richard scanned the waters around him. Ahead to the north, many sea miles beyond their current position, lay the rugged southern coast of Sicily. To the south, near the thumb-shaped Tunisian peninsula of Cape Bon, lay the ruins of ancient Carthage. Closer ahead lay Malta, their destination, an easy day’s sail in these stiff, hot, levanter winds.

  “What do you make of it, Agee?” he asked his first lieutenant, who stood beside him at the waist railing of the quarterdeck peering through a glass. Any minute now, the enemy vessel would heave into view.

  Agreen shook his head. “I can’t tell for certain. That corsair may have the same weight of guns as we do, but we must have at least three times her weight of broadside. Yet she’s comin’ right at us; and what’s more, she’s not tryin’ t’ confuse us by flyin’ some other country’s flag.” He thought for a mome
nt. “She knows we can’t pursue her without tacking. And if we tack, she’ll hold the weather gauge. We’d be on opposite tacks for so long we might never catch her. So maybe she figures t’ shadow us, t’ see where we’re headed.”

  “That’s my thinking too, Lieutenant.” Richard brought a glass to his eye and peered through it. “There she lies. I can just barely make out her masts. She’s still coming at us.”

  “Damn it,” Agreen groused. “There’s our enemy and we can take her. But we can’t engage her unless she’s a mind t’ come in too close for her own damn good. And I doubt she’ll do that.” He sighed in disgust. “It’s like a cat playin’ with a frickin’ mouse.”

  Richard suddenly recalled an occasion long ago during the war with England. The Continental sloop Ranger was being shadowed by a British warship, and her officers were discussing possible tactics in the captain’s cabin. Someone had offered that same analogy in the same tone of voice. “Just remember who plays the role of the cat,” John Paul Jones had said at the time, “and who the role of the mouse.”

  Richard turned to the sailing master standing a short distance away by the helm. As was true of everyone granted access to the quarterdeck, Josiah Smythe understood that the captain and his first lieutenant often conferred in private on the weather side of the quarterdeck and took no offense; quite the opposite, in fact. Never during his forty years at sea had he witnessed such a close bond between a ship’s two senior officers. Nor had he ever witnessed a crew more devoted to a ship’s officer corps, or a ship’s officer corps more devoted to its captain. Morale aboard Portsmouth was sky high, from the wardroom aft to the forecastle forward, and Josiah Smythe knew exactly where to place credit for that.

  “Mr. Smythe,” Richard said to him, “you have the helm. You, Brown,” indicating the quartermaster’s mate at the wheel, “are relieved.”

  Peter Weeks approached the quarterdeck railing. Nothing but the silver boatswain’s call looped around his neck with a leather lanyard indicated his rank or his history as a boatswain’s mate in USS President during the war with France and, after that, as a mate in the Cutler & Sons merchant fleet, including service in Falcon during her cruise to the Dutch East Indies. When Weeks had stepped forward to volunteer in Portsmouth, Richard had excused him from drawing lots, unwilling to risk losing so valuable a warrant officer to a short straw.