The Devil in Paradise--Captain Putnam in Hawaii

by James L. Haley

  “Is that all?”

  “By God, sir, it is bloody well enough, at least for me.”

  “Hm.” They had reached the bow, and were looking down at the catheads. They were in a rolling seaway, and where the anchor was tied up its lower fluke disappeared into the water as the bow buried itself in a trough. “If we can catch an opening in the conditions, I want you to secure the anchors tighter. The last thing we need is to lose one when we might need it, or even worse have it come partly loose. I hate to think what damage a four-ton anchor could cause if it starts bashing into the hull.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We shall be utilizing the Le Maire Strait, you will be happy to hear. Once we enter our run, I will want you topside during the most perilous times, and your most able seaman with you to assist.”

  “And what of the bosun’s mate, Captain?”

  “He will take over when you are resting. You and he will not be on deck at the same time. I want him kept safe in case anything happens to you.”

  Yeakel’s eyes opened wide. “Well, I suppose I am not indispensable.”

  Bliven waved it off. “Don’t feel picked at. I am taking the same precaution with myself and Lieutenant Miller.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As they passed the Punta Desengaño they discovered how the Roaring Forties gave way to the Furious Fifties, with three hundred miles yet to go to the Le Maire Strait. The sea took on a leaden green hue, which Bliven was expecting, for Porter wrote that it prompted him to begin sounding, although he never found bottom.

  From the last position he was certain of, he needed to make southwest for the Cape of San Diego which he should like to starboard, and the Isla de los Estados to port, with twenty miles of open water between them that formed the Le Maire Strait. This lay at the fifty-fifth south parallel, with another hundred miles to go before rounding the Isles l’Hermite that formed the actual Cape Horn, near to where the Furious Fifties blended into the Shrieking Sixties.

  He stalled, tacking with little forward progress, hoping for a wind that would favor him. He was on the quarterdeck with Yeakel, and he had requested his massive young marine lieutenant to take the wheel on the possibility that he might be the only one strong enough to hold it, and turn only as he was directed.

  Then for ten minutes a gale roared over their stern from the northeast—the prevailing direction, or at least the direction from which the wind came for the greatest percentage of time, for it came from all directions with equal force. “I wish I could depend on this!” he shouted right into Yeakel’s ear. “It is wild, but she rides well enough. If it would last we could shoot right through.”

  The spray was blinding, the rain frigid. “I know, sir,” Yeakel shouted back, “but you can’t depend on it. It could stay behind us the rest of the day, or turn against us in the next instant.”

  “You’re right, I know. Double-reef your courses and we will trust to the tops’ls.” The royal yards they had dropped long since.

  “Don’t be angry, Captain, but I did that already!”

  “Ha!” Bliven pounded him on the back. “Good fellow!”

  It lasted for three hours, with Bliven more and more thankful; then, between the rain and mist, and darkness falling, they could hear breakers off to starboard but could not see them, nor see land. “I believe we have favored a bit too much to the east, Mr. Yeakel. Mr. Horner, come southwest by south. Do you know what that means?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you need a rest?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I cannot feel my hands. Does that mean I need a rest?”

  “Oh, my Lord! Get you below for some hot coffee! Mr. Jackson, you and Mr. Rippel take the wheel together. It will take you both to match his strength. Thank you, Mr. Horner, well done.”

  In the Southern Hemisphere they were approaching the shortest days of the year, so first light did not come until midmorning. They must have been making ten knots during the night, and thus Bliven could calculate that they were past the latitude of the Isles l’Hermite and ordered a westerly course, but with double lookouts aloft in case he was wrong.

  But it was the last they heard of land, and the next day he risked a turn to west-northwest, wagering that they would begin to see the outermost of that terrible labyrinth of mountaintop islands that form the southern coast of Chile. This proved correct, and in two hundred miles more they passed the point of Desolation Island, marking the exit of the Magellan Strait, which for all the buffeting they had suffered, he was still glad they had not chosen.

  With the worst of the danger past, Bliven excused himself, turned the deck over to the watch, and retired to his sea cabin. “Mr. Ross, bring me coffee in thirty minutes, if you please.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  He retired to his compartment, where he closed the door, lay down, wrapped himself in blankets, and shook for the next half hour. With the coffee Ross brought a basin of very hot water, with which he washed himself as he changed clothes, composed himself, and returned to the deck to discover sunshine and a panoply of mountains to the east.

  Behind the coastal foothills, the snow-swept peaks rose to heights that were utterly astonishing. Bliven had been up into Vermont and had seen the Green Mountains, with Lake Champlain on his left and the forested heights rising to a difference of near four thousand feet. But here, these Andes that he saw rearing in the distance must have been five times so high, and then the depth that the sea plunged to must have been inestimable. They were on their northerly heading well within sight of the coast, yet the carpenter’s mate consistently called out soundings of no bottom.

  From the Horn to Valparaiso had taken Porter a month, but now it was August and in this equable season, coming out of their rainy months and the coldest part of the year, riding the Peru Current, Bliven thought he might shave off some of that time.

  In three weeks the terror of their subpolar passage had mostly passed for the crew, who felt some pride that they could claim to have rounded the Horn. That was one phrase used by seamen that even the most hopeless landlubbers knew and respected.

  Miller came on deck at the change of watch and saluted easily. “Good afternoon, Captain.”

  “Mr. Miller.” He saluted back. “How are things?”

  “Sir, I just made a sweep, and everything is in order. Dr. Berend sends his compliments and asks me to tell you that he has assayed the crew, and there is not a sign of scurvy anywhere.”

  “That is good hearing, after nearly four months at sea.”

  “Apparently, your taking on half a ton of onions at Saint Catherine’s has had its good effect among the crew.”

  Good old Porter, thought Bliven. If he had not read Porter’s memoir so closely, it would never have occurred to him to take on onions at Saint Catherine’s as a prophylactic against scurvy. “I am very glad to hear it.”

  “Of course”—Miller clasped his hands behind his back—“their breath could drop a bull sea elephant stone dead.”

  “They can detect a difference?”

  “Actually, sir, I am somewhat serious. Thinking not just about onions but the stench generally, it might be well to rig a wind sail and get some fresh air down to the berth deck before we get back into the tropics and it gets any worse. This would seem to be a good day for it.”

  The wind was strong over the port quarter, and not too cold. “Yes. Yes, you’re right. Round up the bosun and the sailmaker. Have Mr. Yeakel take in the mizzen stays’l and funnel a wind sail down to the ladder to the berth deck. That should air things out nicely, thank you.”

  Miller saluted and turned to leave. “I will tend to it now, sir.”

  After two hundred miles of steering north-northeast, the sweep of the coast altered their course to north and had the lookouts alert for the first of two big tongues of headlands. Miller had the deck as they passed the first and he altered to the nor
theast. He had just determined to send down for the captain as he came abreast of the second headland, where after an easterly turn would lie Valparaiso’s capacious, north-facing bay.

  “Deck! Deck ahoy!”

  “What do you see?” called Miller.

  “Ships, sir! Coming around the headland, a whole God damn fleet, sir! Jesus!”

  “Can you count them?”

  “No, sir. Some are obscured by others! At least two dozen!”

  The commotion brought Bliven, Rippel, and Jackson onto the quarterdeck, still buttoning their coats and snugging down their bicornes. Bliven strode over to his first lieutenant. “What do we have, Mr. Miller?”

  “Captain, I was just going to send down for you. We are about to raise Valparaiso, but the lookout sighted a large squadron standing out of the harbor.”

  As soon as Bliven saw what lay ahead, he spied the bosun at the hatch, awaiting orders. “Mr. Yeakel!”

  “Sir!”

  “Shorten sail, reef your courses. We’ll give them time to get by us.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  In a flash, Jackson was eight feet high in the mizzen ratlines, peering through his glass. “Captain, it must be Cochrane! It has to be!”

  Bliven, Miller, and Rippel had walked over to the starboard rail and raised their own glasses. “Cochrane,” said Miller softly. “By God, I would give two months’ pay just to meet and have a talk with him.”

  Bliven leaned on the rail. “I know. So would I.”

  “Sir,” Jackson called down, “I make three frigates in the van, a corvette, five brigs, and maybe fifteen transports.”

  “Cochrane,” breathed Miller again. “After Nelson, there was no greater legend in the Royal Navy. Napoleon himself called him the Sea Wolf.”

  “And they broke him and drummed him out over that stock market business.” Bliven shook his head. “Maybe the single most stupid thing the English have done in the past century.”

  “And that is a high bar,” agreed Miller.

  “Mr. Jackson, you may come down from there; he can’t see you. Miller, I wish my wife were here. If she wants to write novels about someone, there is the man to write about. Somebody will one day, I’ll bet.”

  Jackson rejoined them, breathless. “Just think, if we had gotten here a day earlier, we might have met him.”

  Bliven laughed, lightly and tolerantly. “And what would you have said to him?”

  “That I think he was innocent, sir. His trial was a political sham.”

  “And I believe that about half of their Admiralty would agree with you. But that is what comes of being a prickly and disagreeable officer. Remember this, Mr. Jackson: when you make enemies, being brilliant atop that makes you a target.”

  Jackson leaned on the railing. “Nevertheless, he is a great man.”

  “Well, calm yourself. I imagine this is about as close to such greatness as we will ever approach.”

  Miller smirked. “About a mile and a half?”

  “Ha! Yes, more or less.” Bliven noticed that it was Midshipman Quarles at the wheel, looking small and nervous. “Mr. Quarles, would you like to take us into port?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  He made certain that both Rippel and Jackson were listening. “Well, then, when we are well clear of the headland, begin a starboard turn, slow and stately. Mind how close the shore is. Keep about a mile off. Do not turn too tightly or you will run us onto the beach, and that would not make a good impression.”

  “No, sir!”

  “Mr. Miller, beat to quarters, prepare a salute, twenty-one guns. Have the quartermaster prepare to run up the Chilean colors.”

  They stood quietly as the coast slipped by them, until Valparaiso’s fort loomed into view. “Officers to the starboard rail,” said Bliven. “Execute. Gentlemen, hats up.” They removed their bicornes and held them high as the Chilean tricolor with its three white stars ran smartly up the foremast, and far forward one of the twenty-fours boomed with its concussion, followed at ten-second intervals by twenty more, which almost made the round of the gun deck. “Hats on.”

  As soon as the last report of their twenty-fours echoed off the facing hillside, smoke jetted between the crenellations of the fort’s parapet, and three seconds later the concussion and boom smacked their ears as the fort answered, gun for gun.

  Bliven’s uncertainty of how to open an inquiry into Pacific matters was quickly resolved, for they discovered two American whalers riding at anchor in the bay, their crews on deck to witness the sloop’s arrival, and Bliven made to keep them company, anchoring fifty yards away.

  Rappahannock’s officers regarded the city, which though very old had only recently come into importance as a stopping place for whaling ships. There was a long, arcing crescent of a beach from which extended a single jetty. The buildings were a jumble backed by a confusion of low hills, and behind them three mountains, almost conical. Whatever the native names or Spanish names had been, mariners had taken to calling them Fore Top, Main Top, and Mizzen Top.

  Bliven spoke the nearer of the two whalers and was invited aboard, and he and Miller were lowered in the captain’s gig and rowed across at once. His inquiry as to what the whalers knew of Captain Jakob Saeger and the Fair Trader was met with consternation.

  The captain, M. Edgerton, of the whaler Naumkeag, was a New Englander, barrel-chested and bluff, with a squared beard and piercing eye. He received Bliven and Miller in his cabin, joined presently by the captain of the second whaler, the Penobscot, New Bedford. “We do know Captain Saeger,” Edgerton said, “although not well. The best that can be said is that he is a hard man. He has been in the Pacific trade for about ten years, he is known to make hard bargains, and he is hard on those he deals with.”

  “How shall I know him?” asked Bliven. “Can you describe him to me?”

  “He is quite old, and very tall. Thin white hair, head shaped like a tall apple, blue eyes, tiny mouth, crooked and cruel, bad teeth.”

  A seaman poet, thought Bliven. “What was his business here?”

  “After the pirates lightened him of one cargo, he went to Canton for another, and then came here to sell Chinese trade goods to the merchant class, which is growing. Then I’m damned if he didn’t take that money and buy surplus guns of the English. They sold him four small nine-pounder carronades that they didn’t have any use for, with powder and shot—mostly grape, as I was told.”

  “Do you know where he would be now?”

  “From here, he would make for the Sandwich Islands for a cargo of sandalwood, then to Canton. If he has a good load, he will recoup his losses. I imagine he will go home at some time, but my guess is he will make that run three or four times to lay in enough money to retire to a life of leisure before he goes home finally.”

  “Has he a family?”

  “He had a son, sailing a second ship, but they were lost at sea. Doubtless that added to the sourness of his mind.”

  “What is his ship?”

  “The Fair Trader? Large schooner, two masts, about three hundred tons burthen. We are curious, Captain: What business could you have with such a man?”

  “My business is more with the pirates who attacked him. The Malacca Strait must become a waterway of great importance, and the United States is interested in doing its part to make it safe for our commerce.”

  “So you are bound for some hot action?”

  “We shall see.”

  “Har! Given a choice of who to fire upon, I am not sure whether I would point my guns at the pirates or Saeger! For my part in the business, the pirates can have him.”

  “Do you yourself have any experience with Malay pirates?”

  “I, sir?” Edgerton harrumphed. “My business is whales, and for the present there is a plenty of great fat whales in the waters west of the Galápagos.”

  “Indeed. Are yo
u outward- or home-bound?”

  “Homeward bound, sir, with a hold full of sperm oil, which will make a great profit for the owners and our share. And I tell you, I cannot get there fast enough to collect, for at the present moment we are broker than the Ten Commandments.”

  Bliven’s laugh was full and sudden. “An expression I have not heard before, Captain. Perhaps, if I were to send over my purser, you would be willing to sell him some barrels of sperm oil for some ready cash?”

  “By God, sir, you are a gentleman! He will be most welcome, most welcome.”

  Miller and Bliven had started to descend to the gig when another officer approached them, unseen by his captain. “Farrell, sir, first mate. May I have a word?”

  “Certainly.” He and Miller paused at the boarding gate.

  “I am sure you will realize, sir, that no sea captain relishes speaking ill of another.”

  “That was not obvious,” said Miller. “Your captain seemed quite eloquent.”

  “Captain, beware Jakob Saeger. He is a mad dog.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Being humiliated by native pirates, it did something to his mind. He was a hard man before, but now I swear he lives for vengeance, and not just against those who robbed him. His hatred extends to natives generally. It is as if in the fever of his dreams he imagines his hatreds to be the equivalent of spreading civilization. He makes complex agreements with them; he will advance them cash for their sandalwood, at an interest, which is a concept completely foreign to them. When they learn the extent of their debt and cry that they have been cheated, he congratulates himself on having made a shrewd bargain. The name of his ship is a misnomer, sir, for cheating and extortion to him are on an equal plane with fair dealing.”