A Call to Arms Read online

  Two

  Bermuda and Hingham, Massachusetts, October 1801

  HE APPROACHED the open door cautiously, reluctantly, loath to enter. But he had to go in. He had to come to grips with the harsh reality. His love for his father bade him continue, as much today as it had two weeks ago when he received Katherine’s letter at the naval base in Virginia.

  His father lay supine on the bed, propped up by pillows, clean white linen sheets pulled up across his chest. He appeared to be asleep, but it was hard to tell, so drawn and ashen was his face. Richard’s two sisters, on deathwatch, sat on chairs near the foot of the bed. They were on their feet the instant Richard entered the room.

  Anne was first in his arms. “Thank God,” she breathed. “Thank God you have come.”

  Lavinia, the younger and more emotional of the two, burst into tears when her turn came to embrace him. She tried to speak but choked on her words; she could only clutch her brother tighter, her message as clear to him as if it had been preached from a pulpit. He held her close, comforted her, dabbed at her tears with a handkerchief until her sobs subsided.

  “Leave him, Liv,” Anne soothed. “He needs to be alone with Father.”

  “Yes.” Lavinia swiped at a tear. “We’ll be downstairs helping Katherine with supper,” she half-whispered.

  As they left the room, Richard drew a deep breath and turned to his father. To his surprise he found him awake with a weak smile of welcome on his chapped lips.

  Powerful emotions coursed through him. “Father.” He kissed him on the forehead, then knelt down on the floor beside him and clasped his father’s left hand between both of his own, as if in prayer. “Father.”

  “You have come, Richard,” Tom Cutler murmured. “I have been praying you would.”

  “Of course I came, Father. I will always be here when you need me.”

  Tom Cutler gave Richard’s hand a faint squeeze. “You have been a good son, Richard. You have made your mother and me very proud. I will be with her again soon. So please, do not weep for me.” Richard had to lean in close to hear. “Time is short, my son, and there are things I must say. Promise me you will think on my words.”

  “I promise, Father,” Richard said, and the tears welled up despite his best efforts to control them.

  Fifteen minutes later Richard Cutler, deep in thought and remembrance, walked slowly down the front stairway. His cousin Elizabeth Cutler Crabtree and his daughter, Diana, a precocious thirteen-year-old already showing her mother’s grace and beauty, met him at the foot of the stairs.

  “Richard?” Lizzy asked tentatively after he had embraced her. Katherine, Anne, and Lavinia joined them in the front hallway.

  “He’s asleep now,” was all Richard could manage. No one pressed him to say more, respecting the tears in his eyes. Not until later that night, when he and Katherine were sitting alone together in the parlor of their home on South Street, did Richard confide in his wife.

  “He told me I have his blessing to remain in the Navy. He knows that is where my heart is. Caleb will manage the family business, though I will be involved to the extent I am able. He wants Caleb and me to finalize the partnership with Jack Endicott. He sees that partnership as the future of Cutler & Sons. I’ll discuss all this with Caleb tomorrow when he returns from Boston.”

  “It has long been on his mind,” Katherine remarked. “I suspected it was why he needed to speak with you before . . .” She rested her head against his shoulder and began gently kneading the nape of his neck. Despite the intense sorrow of the moment, of so many moments recently, she could not deny her joy at having her husband home again. “So, my darling,” she ventured gently, “what do you think?”

  Richard put his arm around her, drew her in close, and kissed her forehead. “I think,” he replied in a woeful whisper, “that I need your love now more than ever before.”

  “You have that, my dearest Richard,” she replied softly. She kissed him tenderly on the mouth. “You shall have it forever.”

  • • •

  “Captain?”

  “Yes, enter.” Richard had not been caught daydreaming or catnapping, though someone might have mistakenly drawn that conclusion. He sat fully alert in his after cabin, his brain reenacting a scene of that fateful day a year and a half ago that had brought him to this point in his life.

  A young topman edged into the cabin and doffed his cap.

  “What is it, Wilkinson?”

  “Mr. Wesley sends his respects, Captain, and asks me to inform you that a vessel is approaching us from eastward. She’s ship-rigged and looks to be a frigate.”

  “A British frigate?”

  “I believe so, sir. She’s flying the Jack, and her lines and rig are Royal Navy. She’s a fifth rate, Mr. Wesley says.”

  “We’re flying our ensign?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Right. I’ll come up and have a look.”

  When will this ever end? Richard sighed to himself as he prepared to go topside. If it was not England harassing American shipping in the Atlantic, it was France in the Caribbean. If not France in the Caribbean, it was Spain on the Mississippi. Or Algiers or Tripoli or Tunis or Morocco off the Barbary Coast. Or pirates in the Indian Ocean. When in God’s name will this ever end?

  He was well aware that the Royal Navy had spent the last twelve years charting the shoals and reefs off Bermuda, especially those in and around the approaches to its naval base at Hamilton. Since the loss of the American colonies in 1783, the Royal Navy had used Bermuda as a strategic stopover point between its base in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and its bases in the Caribbean. To the best of Richard’s knowledge, though, the base at Hamilton was still under construction. So why was a Royal Navy frigate bearing down on them from the direction of Bermuda?

  The answer was not long in coming. The British frigate was upon them within the hour, crossing the brig’s wake and bringing her under her lee. Soon after emerging on deck and studying the oncoming vessel through a glass, Richard had ordered his crew to heave to and bring Barbara D to a standstill on the gently rolling swells. The merchant brig under his command carried only four 6-pounder guns and was no match for a British frigate in either armament or speed. There was nothing for it but to see what His Britannic Majesty wanted.

  The frigate sailed up close to windward and feathered in and out of the light westerly breeze before setting her topsails to counteract one another and settling down on a lazy northerly drift on the Gulf Stream. Four oarsmen, a coxswain, seven red-coated Marines, and a blue-coated naval officer scrambled down the frigate’s starboard side into a launch.

  As the launch glided in alongside Barbara D, the forward oarsman on the starboard side shipped his oar, stepped over a thwart to the bow, took aim with a long gafflike pole, and hooked it onto the brig’s larboard mainmast chain-wale. He and his mates held the launch steady as the naval officer clambered up the five steps built into the brig’s hull. The seven Marines followed.

  Richard greeted the British sea officer at the entry port. The short, stocky, red-haired man made a sharp contrast to Richard’s lean six-foot frame and Saxon facial features as he scrutinized the deck and the American sailors watching him.

  “Good morning, Lieutenant,” Richard said pleasantly. “I apologize for not having a side-party assembled to pipe you aboard,” he added with evident sarcasm. “This is a most unexpected visit.”

  The officer doffed his bicorne hat, more out of habit, Richard speculated, than in any show of respect or amity. “I am First Lieutenant Robert MacIntyre,” he announced in a high-pitched voice with a trace of Scottish burr that reminded Richard of his former naval commander John Paul Jones. There the comparison ended. “I am on official business of His Majesty’s Ship Temptress. May I ask, sir, who you are?” The man gave him a hard stare.

  “You may ask, sir,” Richard said, irked by the officer’s presumption, “but I am under no obligation to tell you. What right do you have to board my vessel in such a manner? Has Engla
nd declared war on the United States?”

  The British officer sighed audibly. He nodded at the Marine sergeant, who motioned to his men to fan out, three on each side of the lieutenant. “I had hoped you would not resist me, Captain. Indeed, I had rather hoped you would cooperate with me.”

  “Cooperate in what way? I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, Lieutenant.”

  MacIntyre breathed another heavy and long-suffering sigh, as if he were being forced to explain something childishly simple. “You are an American merchant vessel sailing home from the Indies. Perhaps from a British-held island such as Jamaica or Saint Kitts or Barbados?” Richard maintained an icy silence. “And you are bound for . . . New York? Boston?”

  “Baltimore,” Richard lied.

  “It matters not. If you are sailing from the Indies, it is quite possible—dare I say, probable—that you have seamen aboard your brig who are British nationals, perhaps even a deserter from the Royal Navy. As a man of your apparent intelligence is no doubt aware, the Admiralty does not take kindly to deserters and mutineers. You have heard of Hermione, have you not?”

  He was referring to an incident four years earlier when a sadistic captain pushed the crew of the 32-gun frigate Hermione to the brink of insanity. During a September night in the Lesser Antilles, mutineers seized control of the ship, sliced up the captain and most of his officers with cutlasses and tomahawks, and tossed them overboard to the sharks before surrendering the ship to Spanish authorities in Havana. To date, thirty-three of the crew had either been apprehended or had given themselves up. Of those, twenty-four were hanged. But more than a hundred remained at large, and the Admiralty suspected that many of them had found their way aboard American naval and merchant vessels cruising the West Indies. The Admiralty had pledged to hunt down every man-jack of Hermione’s crew, turning over heaven and earth if necessary to bring every last godforsaken mutineer to justice.

  “We have no such seamen aboard this vessel, Lieutenant,” Richard said flatly.

  “Perhaps. It is easy enough for us to arrive at the truth. I will review the papers of every sailor aboard this vessel. It is a matter of international maritime law, Captain, so resistance is as pointless as it would be futile.” He indicated the seven Marines standing at stiff attention, muskets at the ready. “If those papers are all in proper order, we shall be on our way.”

  “You have no right,” Richard protested hotly. “Your interpretation of maritime law is incorrect.”

  The lieutenant curled his lips. “I not only have the right, sir,” he sneered, “I have the might.” As if playing his last and best card, he pointed to larboard where Temptress was rolling up and down on the swells, her starboard gun ports open and her guns run out. “Should you choose to resist, you and your crew shall pay the forfeit. Now let us get on with it. You are wearing my patience thin.”

  He nodded at the Marine sergeant, who motioned two men to go forward and two men aft. The two remaining privates and the sergeant stood guard amidships over Richard Cutler and his mate, John Wesley. Some time later, the two Marines sent forward returned from belowdecks, strong-arming a tow-headed youth dressed in standard slop-chest attire. His eyes bulged with terror and he was sweating profusely. He looked at Richard in supplication.

  “This man ’as no papers,” one of the Marines reported. “And ’e was ’iding from us down in the ’old.”

  “What is your name?” MacIntyre demanded. “Look at me when I speak to you!”

  The seaman tore his eyes from Richard’s.

  “Cooper, sir.”

  “Rank?”

  “Able seaman, sir.”

  “Nationality.”

  “American, sir.”

  “Where are your papers?”

  “Dunno, sir. I must’ve lost ’em.”

  The expression on the lieutenant’s face suggested that he did not believe either of the sailor’s last two statements. “Why were you hiding in the hold? Look at me, damn you!”

  Cooper did look at him, then dropped his gaze to the deck. “I panicked, sir, when I saw you come on deck.”

  “Why would you do that if you have nothing to fear?”

  Cooper met his gaze and said, with a trace of confidence at last, “Because I lost me papers, sir.”

  “What he’s saying is true, Lieutenant,” Richard cut in. “Two days ago he reported to me that his papers were missing. We searched everywhere but couldn’t find them.”

  “Perhaps that’s because he never had them to begin with and you’re both lying.” MacIntyre’s glare extinguished the seaman’s brief spark of confidence. “Put him in the boat, Sergeant.”

  The Marine sergeant snapped a salute. “Sir!”

  “Mr. Cutler, sir!” Cooper wailed as two Royal Marines seized him. “Mr. Cutler!”

  “Stop!” Richard shouted.

  “Yes, Mr. Cutler?” MacIntyre snarled. “I appreciate the introduction, finally. What is it, pray? Have you something to add before we depart?”

  Richard tried to think. He had no statement rehearsed, no course of action planned. In such situations he had, for better or worse, learned to rely on his instincts.

  “Lieutenant MacIntyre,” he said, summoning as much respect and deference to his voice as he could muster, “allow me to introduce myself properly. I am Richard Cutler, cousin to John and Robin Cutler, English planters on the island of Barbados. I am also the brother-in-law of two Royal Navy post captains, one of whom is attached to the Windward Squadron. In my own right I am soon to be appointed to the rank of captain in the United States Navy and given a command of my own. Surely, as men of the sea and as fellow naval officers, we can resolve our differences. I have in my hold hogsheads of sugar, molasses, and rum from my family’s plantation on Barbados. You are free to take what you desire from our stores if you will release this man Cooper. He has committed no crime. He is guilty only of losing his papers.”

  MacIntyre slowly shook his head and allowed a thin smile to spread beneath his bushy mustache. “Do I hear correctly? Are you, Mr. Cutler, a man of such high connections and credentials, attempting to bribe a Royal Navy officer? I should think your esteemed family would be shocked—I repeat, sir, shocked—to learn of such an impropriety. Perhaps it is you who should be tossed into the brig. Good day to you, sir!” He turned again to the sergeant and said, with regal authority, “Into the boat! Now!”

  As Cooper was hauled off into the launch, Richard turned on his heel. “Get her under way, Mr. Wesley,” he snapped before disappearing below. Moments later, those aft on the weather deck heard the sound of his cabin door slamming shut.

  A WEEK LATER, on an invigorating October morning of yellow sunshine dancing off an indigo sea, John Wesley steered Barbara D close-hauled under shortened sail through the autumn-tinged islands of Boston Harbor, careful, as always when entering the harbor on a northwesterly breeze, to hug the waters off Deer Island and the Winthrop Peninsula before shooting into the channel between Governor’s Island and Castle Island. Every member of the crew save for one, her master, was on station either on deck or in the rigging. The sheer beauty of this homecoming helped to mitigate their collective outrage at having to watch a popular shipmate forcibly taken from them.

  Wesley felt those emotions as much as any man, but his immediate concern was for his captain. He had never seen Richard Cutler so despondent for so long a period. The captain clearly blamed himself for what had happened, although there was nothing that he or anyone else could have done to save the man. Cooper understood the risk he was taking. He was, after all, a sailor of British origin. Richard had not delved into the man’s background when he signed on with Barbara D in Bridgetown, Barbados. The questions he had asked, and Cooper’s answers, suggested that Cooper had served as a topman aboard several American merchant vessels. He had demonstrated his skill in his trade, and it was certainly a skill that he could have learned while in the employ of the Royal Navy. But Richard had said nothing beyond stating the risk Cooper was taking. Cooper had
signed his name in the muster book nonetheless.

  Wesley ordered stations for anchoring and searched for a suitable spot, always a challenge in an expanse of harbor teeming with sailing craft of all sizes and descriptions. Long Wharf—a quarter-mile-long wooden and stone structure thick with countinghouses, storage sheds, coopers, rope walks, smithies, sail lofts, deckhands, riggers, dock workers, casual onlookers, and merchant traders—was their ultimate destination. But they would have to wait their turn to offload. Merchant vessels occupied every spot along the wharf, the bowsprit of one nudging the stern of another, the vessels often nested three or four abreast, their yards a-cockbill to avoid entanglement. Wesley was continuing his search when he noticed the flash of a yellow hull.

  “Turner!” he called out to a sailor standing nearby.

  A wiry youth with a plaited queue and a gold ring in his right ear lobe hurried over. “Mr. Wesley?” he inquired.

  “Go below and report to the captain that Falcon lies yonder and I aim to anchor next to her.”

  Turner instinctively glanced forward. “Yes, sir!” he responded enthusiastically. “Right away, Mr. Wesley!”

  Turner’s report had the desired effect. Richard Cutler was quickly up on deck and striding forward to the bow. He clenched a forestay in his left hand as he examined the waters ahead. Yes, there she was, her bow facing him as she pulled and pranced against her mooring in the fresh breeze and light chop. Richard slammed his fist into an open palm and glanced aft, grinning. Wesley grinned back. Everyone on deck, to a man, grinned back as well.

  All was right with the world again.

  More good tidings were to follow. Barbara D had hardly secured her anchor in the thick mud of Boston Harbor when Richard spotted his brother Caleb waving from the Cutler & Sons shipping office on the wharf. Geoffrey Hunt, the highly competent administrator of Cutler & Sons who had been with the company since its first day in Boston, was with him. Richard waved back happily, but what truly pleased him was the sight of his son Will making his way through the crowd toward a clutch of boats tied up near the landward end of the wharf, hard by a ship’s chandlery. These small boats were public property, there for the use of anyone needing to row out to a merchant vessel anchored in the harbor. Richard watched as his son stepped aboard a clinker-built boat, let fly its tether, took a seat facing aft on the center thwart, and fitted the two oars between their thole-pins. Will back-oared away from the dock, expertly turned the boat around, and began pulling hard.