The Devil in Paradise--Captain Putnam in Hawaii

by James L. Haley

  And now the United States owned Louisiana, which enlarged her superficies to some one and a half million square miles, and that dwarfed every country in Europe save Russia, which was equally empty. There was iron in the Northwest Territories, and well-proven lead mines in western Virginia and Missouri. America wanted only development, and the determination to pursue it, to become the dominant power on the planet. That, and Monroe’s determination that Europe must no longer look to the western hemisphere for more colonial tributaries, required a navy—a navy ever increasing, ever more present around the globe. For once, the Congress lived up to its responsibilities, and in 1816 approved ten million dollars—an almost inconceivable sum—to begin building an impressive dozen new heavy frigates and nine capital ships of the line, two-decker seventy-fours that were not just the equal of their British and French and Spanish counterparts but designed to be tough and resilient, an advance over European design just as the Constitution and her sisters had outclassed their supposed equals in foreign service. And the standard armament was increased from batteries of twenty-four-pounders to thirty-twos. The Ohio had been abuilding in Brooklyn for two years and would be ready for launch next year, as was the Delaware under construction in Norfolk. Trumping them was the mighty North Carolina, laid down in Philadelphia, announced as a seventy-four but actually pierced with more than a hundred gun ports, with the lower deck at least to mount shattering forty-two-pounders.

  Bliven’s own command, the Rappahannock, was but a small part of this muscular expansion. With twenty-six guns she might have been classed as a light frigate, but the Navy still found it a useful policy to underrate their strength rather than boast. Just as the English once engaged American frigates, wrongly supposing them to be equals, it might again prove useful for some future foreign adversary to bite off more than it could chew.

  Emerging onto the weather deck, Bliven felt the wind’s push from astern, not yet warm with the sun, and snugged his bicorne down onto his head. Rappahannock was a sloop of war, yet she almost equaled the old Constitution in size and displacement: one hundred thirty feet long, plus seventy for the bowsprit, thirteen hundred tons, drawing twenty feet of water, a deep draught for its size. Bliven sucked in a lungful of fresh morning sea air.

  The sky was clear, and in scanning the distance he could see, far out, the lumpy white mounds of thunderclouds just rising above the horizon. He disliked the Caribbean, for it was a fickle sea. For nearly half the year, from May until September, a day that began with the most blessed gentle breeze and sun could end in a howling, deadly gale out of nowhere. Now, in October, they should be safe enough, but tempests this late were not unknown.

  Bliven glanced up and saw they were running under easy sail. That was another innovation in his new ship of which he heartily approved. His topsails spread nearly double the square footage of his courses, making for better headway in a fight, when the courses were reefed. The practice was a near necessity in a frigate, with their battery of guns on the spar deck whose flames might catch on the mainsails. Sloops lacked this additional armament, although Bliven exercised his captain’s prerogative to mount one chaser each on bow and stern, and six carronades, three on each beam. He well remembered Preble’s preference for long guns on the weather deck to help disable an enemy at a distance, but life and longer service had inured him to the gore and suffering wrought by carronades when the gain—thanks to a distant spray of grape to spill the wind through enemy sails and a close spray of grape to clear living men from her deck—might be a more seaworthy prize won with less gore and suffering among his own men.

  He was seen first by his first officer, who approached and saluted, which Bliven returned. “Good morning, Captain.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Miller.” They had become good friends, but they were careful to address each other formally when about their duties. “What do we have?” Miller was of medium height and solidly built, his hair very straight and rich brown, willful that it would fall straight forward over his brow as it chose, and Miller did not resist. He was fair complected, with light brows and a large and almost Roman nose over delicately turned lips like a portrait of Byron. Bliven found Miller’s eyes to be his key and strange feature. They were clear and impassive, betraying no emotion no matter what he might be feeling. They were predominantly hazel but contained flecks of pure brown and pure green, as though his components as they came together could not resolve among themselves what visage to present to the world. But what drew Bliven to him was Miller’s education: a love of history and literature and a curiosity of geography such as he had not encountered elsewhere in the Navy, or anywhere else save among the collegiate scholars and seminarians at home. Miller was a Philadelphian but not a Quaker, which gave him a moderate demeanor yet with a willingness to fight when called upon. He was a decade younger than Bliven and a man who must rise in the Navy, and Bliven was determined to help him, although it would grieve him to his core to lose Miller to his own command.

  “Lookout sighted a sail to the northwest and we sent down for you straightaway,” said Miller. “I am guessing not a large vessel or we would have seen him sooner.”

  They were walking toward the starboard rail and Bliven raised his glass to his eye. “Has he altered his course?”

  “Yes, sir. Since we sighted him he has changed from a westerly heading to northwest.”

  “M-hm. First indication that he is up to no good. Have the helm come northwest to follow him. The bosun will want to haul closer when we do.”

  Miller relayed the orders. They were too far out to know by land, but both knew from the charts that a course northwest would lead them into the long, narrowing funnel of deep water that ended at the Bay of Pigs. “Well, he must have seen us. Break out our colors, Mr. Miller, and we will see how he responds.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “Excuse me, Captain.” A small voice approached from the waist, and Bliven turned to see a black-haired midshipman of fourteen saluting as he approached.

  “Mr. Harrison, good morning.” Bliven returned his salute.

  “Beg pardon, sir, the ship’s carpenter asks to make report to you.”

  “Very well.” That was concerning, for carpenters didn’t make morning report. “Send him over.”

  In a moment a grizzled man, extraordinarily tall with tousled gray hair and deep-set, almost gaunt gray eyes approached, saluting, but clumsily, as old carpenters were wont to do. “Good morning, Captain.”

  “Good morning, Fleming. How are things?”

  “Captain, we found fourteen inches of water in the bilges this morning.”

  “What! From where?”

  The carpenter shrugged. “Well, she’s a new vessel. If one of her ribs was not cured properly, it might have warped and pulled a seam loose in the copper plates. Or some such matter.”

  “Fourteen inches? Since when?”

  “Last evening, sir. Certainly not normal, but not grave.”

  “Grave”? thought Bliven. To his mind any leak at sea was grave. Leaks did not spontaneously repair themselves; they could only get worse. “Well, pump it out at once, and station a couple of men down there to see if they can discover where it is coming from.”

  “Very good, sir.” Fleming saluted again and started to leave.

  “And keep me informed.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bliven heard the soft snaps of their ensign as it unfurled from the spanker boom even as Miller rejoined him, raising his glass and studying. “Ha! That did not take long.”

  The ship they were spying loosed a flag of three stripes, yellow above blue above red, with a row of blue stars on the yellow stripe. “Venezuelan,” said Bliven evenly. “We might have guessed.”

  “Venezuelan, so he says.”

  “Yes. If he is truly Venezuelan, what is he doing so far from home? Come to full sail, Mr. Miller, we will just go have a look.”

  “
Aye, sir.” He barked the command for full sail to the bosun but then cocked his head, listening. “What is that?”

  Faintly they heard the splash of water spilling from the scuppers on the gun deck. “The pumps, Mr. Miller. We took on just over a foot of water overnight.”

  “Oh, my good God damn!”

  “Yes. I’m going down and have a look now. I will be back directly.”

  “Yes. Yes, sir . . .” Miller’s voice trailed away, and it was plain he was as concerned as Bliven was.

  On the gun deck Bliven heard the click-clack of the elm tree pumps and saw teams of sailors getting some unexpected morning exercise pushing and pulling the plungers as the bilgewater splattered out of the brass bulbs at their feet and flowed across the deck to the scuppers.

  He descended to the berth deck, for Rappahannock was a bit of a hybrid vessel, armed as a sloop with all her guns on one deck, but decked rather as a frigate with a separate deck for the crew’s housing. What she lacked was a distinct orlop deck, but there was plenty of height for one, given her deep hold, and if he remained long in command he would see if he could not remedy that. The hold was partially decked, which allowed for a carpenter’s room and sail room forward, and magazine and bread rooms aft, with the forward and aft compartments connected by a wooden catwalk that allowed an unobstructed view down to the ship’s ribs as they curved inward to meet at the keel. The whole configuration gave Rappahannock both a deep draught and a high freeboard, making her not the sleekest sailer, but the value of this arrangement was yet to be proven or disproven.

  Bliven descended from gun deck to berth deck to hold, where he saw the carpenter observing the water level as it slowly lowered, and a clot of the crew, shirtless and sweaty, standing gingerly on the kentledge in water past their ankles. “How is it, Fleming?”

  “It is a damned inconvenience, Captain. Once we get the water level down, we shall have to move away sections of the ballast by turns to try and discover the leak.”

  “Were any of the stores affected?” The architects planned to install metal tanks for drinking water in some of the newer ships, but Rappahannock still stowed ranks of wooden casks, and food stores above them.

  “No, sir. The water never reached the hold’s decking.”

  “Can the pumps handle the job?”

  “Most certainly, Captain. It is a nuisance, but Davy Jones will have to get along without us for now.”

  “Well, good. Keep it that way. Report to me when you know something.” Bliven cast his gaze higher up the curve of the hull. A sloop of war was more lightly built than America’s famous frigates, and lacked the diagonal riders that gave those ships their legendary toughness. For the sloops, however, the builders had crafted an ingenious compromise: the knees that supported the berth deck were affixed to the hull at a similar diagonal, shaped by saw and adze to match the angle to the curvature of the hull, and reaching down several feet to provide a similar bracing. Their proof must come in a battle, but until then the ingenuity of their concept gave him a swell of pride every time he saw them.

  Back on the quarterdeck Bliven found Miller peering steadily through his glass at the strange vessel, now about two miles distant. “Captain, we may not yet know the name of the ship, but for the present we may call her the Atalanta.”

  Bliven raised his telescope and nearly lost the suspected pirate ship in its magnified circle as he began laughing, for he beheld a small dinghy laden to the gunwales with hapless-looking, half-naked Africans. “Yes, I see. He has tossed aside a golden apple to distract us. Ha!” He lowered the glass, thinking for a moment. “Except, you realize, if he is the one casting the apples, that would make us Atalanta, would it not?”

  Miller chuckled. “Oh, hell, you are correct. I misremembered . . . I should know better than to mention such things to you.”

  “And if we are Atalanta, that would make him . . . What was that fellow’s name?”

  “Hang him, I don’t know. Something with an H? Greek; they all sound alike.”

  Bliven raised his glass again. “Hippomenes, Mr. Miller. His name was Hippomenes.”

  “Oh, you show-off. Of what possible use in the world is your mastery of silly Greek myths?”

  Bliven stared at him, amused. “Well”—he gestured ahead of them—“he seems to know the story of Atalanta well enough, doesn’t he? And he is using it, and it will save him. History, Mr. Miller! I tell you, men who know history have more weapons with which to deal with the world.”

  “Yes, well, Captain Hippomenes is laying on more sail, and we should do the same if we wish to catch him.”

  “True enough. How far away do you estimate the coast?”

  “Without looking at the chart, sir, I would guess twenty miles, perhaps fifteen.”

  “M-hm. We could not catch him in any case before he reaches territorial waters, but we can make his heart race a little bit. Have the bosun come to all sail, set the stuns’ls. Beat to quarters when the watch have finished their breakfasts, but ready the starboard guns only, maximum elevation. And there is no need to break down my cabin; we will not need those guns.”

  Miller stepped back and saluted. “Very good, sir. Mr. Yeakel!” he called out to the bosun. “Make all sail, if you please! Set your stuns’ls!”

  Within the moment men were aloft, gripping the rigging with their almost prehensile toes, lashing fast stuns’l yards and lowering canvas far outboard the hull as Rappahannock spread her wings like a giant raptor to ride the wind. Her royal yards when hoisted rode nearly two hundred feet above the waves, and their increase in speed was palpable.

  Miller returned. “The sergeant of marines has his eye on the watch. He will beat to quarters when they are done eating.”

  “Good,” said Bliven, gesturing out to their quarry. “At least he has given himself away. If he were as Venezuelan as his flag, he would not cast pathetic innocents adrift. I wish we had room to catch him before we cross into Spanish waters. She’s a fine fat brig and would make a nice prize.”

  Miller nodded. “Yes, and we might see Mr. Hippomenes brought to justice.” He raised his glass. “Look there in the dinghy. Old men, women, children. They would never fetch a decent price in a slave market. Why even bring them along?”

  “As bait for us, Mr. Miller. They know we have a conscience about life, where they do not. Oh, shit!” Bliven’s face went slack. “We must be getting into the channel, and our chart cannot be all that reliable. Send a midshipman down to the carpenter; he’s in the hold. Have him send up his mate and start taking soundings. I’m not going into less than eight or ten fathoms.”

  A quarter of an hour later they jumped at the sudden drum tattoo at the head of the ladder, and the crew leapt to life at beating to quarters; loose gear was stowed; mattresses rolled up and stuffed in the netting; the bosun and his mate ready at the rigging with marlinespikes, even though it was apparent there would be no contested action; and guns rolled in and limbered—in this case just the starboard main battery of twenty-fours.

  Within ten minutes they had a reading that there was no bottom, and they bore down on the renegade brig. Rapidly they overtook the drifting dinghy laden with slaves, and Miller shouted down to them that they would return for them. Three miles farther on, the carpenter’s mate called out a sounding of thirty fathoms.

  Bliven turned to Miller. “Who has the starboard battery? Is it Rippel?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  That was their second lieutenant, only twenty-two, a Kentuckian and therefore somewhat raw in manners, but hale and informal in that frontier way, tall, with finely drawn, almost beautiful, features, brown hair that bleached blond in the sun, and small brown eyes as quick and comprehending as a bird’s. He was attentive to duty, to the point of worrying almost too much whether he was doing something properly. He needed reassurance, but his continual fretting would either turn him into one of the finest officers in the ser
vice, or else must abrade him into ruin. He was new at working twenty-fours, and Bliven felt a certain tolerant, paternal fondness for him, for like Bliven he had learned gunnery with twelve-pounders on a schooner. “Tell Mr. Rippel that as we overtake him we will begin a turn to port. He will fire on that brig as his guns bear, one rolling broadside only. He will not reload but secure the guns immediately thereafter.”

  “Aye, sir.” Miller clattered down to the gun deck and returned in a moment. “Mr. Rippel’s compliments, and he begs to say, if you get him within range, he will hit the bastard.”

  “Oh!” barked Bliven. “The confidence of youth, I remember it well.”

  Several moments elapsed. “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” ventured Miller.

  “About what, Mr. Miller?”

  “About going in after him.”

  “I am. I want to. But our orders do not embrace violating Spanish waters.” He strolled over to their great double wheel, standing as high as a tall man. “Helm.”

  It was their third lieutenant who responded. “Sir?”

  “Stand by to ease your helm to port—slowly, if you please.” Whenever he gave this order he laughed, for he remembered Sam Bandy at Messina, leaving whoever was at the helm to wonder what was so funny. “Bosun!”

  Evans Yeakel knew to station himself nearby. “Sir?” He was rather shorter than average height but powerfully chested, his short, straight blond hair perpetually hidden beneath his bosun’s hard hat so that he could be easily found in the confusion of the deck.

  “After we chase him off we will come about. We must go back for those people and bring them aboard.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  With closing distance their quarry grew larger quicker. “Begin your turn.” Gradually they felt the bow point more to the west, and Yeakel’s men eased the yards as the wind came more astern of them. Even though they were expecting it, all jumped with the concussion of the forwardmost twenty-four-pounder’s deep boom, and they saw the stream of fire jet outward for fifty feet before it faded into a ball of smoke that hung suspended. Five seconds later there erupted a second huge boom and sheet of flame, then a third, and they knew that Rippel was leaping from gun to gun, sighting each before pulling the lanyard, as he was trained to properly do. They counted out twelve shots—the starboard broadside less the after gun in the captain’s cabin, which was not rolled out—before the silence descended again. Through their glasses they saw all the balls fall a quarter mile astern of the scampering brig, but truly on a line that would have struck him had they been closer. Then they saw a small flash from the brig, and seconds later heard a snotty little bang, a small gun, probably a six-pounder of the kind commonly mounted on pirate privateers. It was a mocking little gesture of defiance, a taunt.