Across to America: A Tim Phillips Novel (War at Sea Book 9)

by Richard Testrake

  “Before first light, we will clear for action, and see what we can attempt with the enemy. Are we all clear, gentlemen?”

  During the black night, Andromeda made her twists and turns, only to be followed by her pursuer. It was only in the early part of the morning watch that sufficient light discipline was able to be imposed that she could now remain completely out of sight. Phillips, assured the ship was in good hands, got a few hours of sleep. It was still black outside, when he was awakened by the morning watch coming on deck. He was on deck before the crew came to tear apart his quarters as was their duty in clearing the ship for action.

  A bleary Lieutenant Daniels greeted him as he gained the quarterdeck. It seemed neither of the watch officers on duty that night were smokers. So the Marine had remained on deck all night, smoking one cigar after another. He reported his mouth and throat were foul and he was never going to smoke another cigar again.

  All his officers were on deck, and it was Mister Harding who pointed out the enemy. She had ranged up during the evening, and was now approaching the starboard beam, still well astern. The ship was mostly invisible, but the sailing master pointed out an infinitely small sporadic twinkle at her helm as someone sucked on his pipe. Harding chuckled. “Sir, we aren’t the only ones smoking on duty.”

  The enemy was right to windward, so Phillips knew the fresh breeze would blow any slight noise made aboard Andromeda right away. He told his officers and midshipmen he wanted the ship brought to stations with guns run out, as quietly as possible. Matches were not to be lit in the darkness. Instead, the flintlock firing mechanisms would be relied upon until action commenced.

  At the point when he judged the lightening sky would begin to reveal him clearly to the privateer, he ordered his ship stripped to fighting sail, with the courses furled, and the fore tops’l laid aback. The ship slowed to almost a halt in the sea and waited for her pursuer to come booming up.

  Come up she did, her cutwater throwing the sea at her prow aside in a white mustache, all doubts of her prey’s location dispelled. One of the stranger’s guns up forward slammed, and the ball struck perilously close to Andromeda’s bow.

  At that point, Phillips nodded to Mister Gould, and the broadside crashed, all guns firing almost simultaneously. At cable’s length range, most shots struck, and ruin struck the enemy ship. Men were smashed to red jam, guns torn from carriages, and equipment smashed. The surviving members of the enemy crew were transformed instantly from a confident unit expecting to receive the surrender of a helpless foe into crippled, beaten individuals.

  A few guns from the privateer’s broadside fired in reply, but it was too little, too late. As guns were reloaded on Andromeda, they began their savage duty, pounding their iron balls into the privateer. With her foremast and bowsprit now down, the helpless ship began drifting toward Andromeda.

  Aware of the masses of men often aboard these privateers, Phillips ordered his guns to shift from firing ball to grape, this being more effective against personnel. After a blast of that medicine, he then ordered the tops’l yards braced around and the ship put to the wind. She came around the bow of the stricken ship and again backed her tops’ls with her guns run out, offering to bow rake the privateer.

  With no escape possible, the ship lowered her flag and surrendered.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Still laying athwart the privateer’s bow, Phillips sent the launch and cutter to the vessel, each full of armed seamen and Marines. Mister Goodrich, aboard the privateer which bore the name of the Captain Lawrence who had commanded the Chesapeake when she had been assaulted by HMS Shannon, shouted from her forecastle that the doctor was needed. Doctor Baynes was fully occupied with tending his own wounded, a few of whom were serious indeed. However, at the urging of his captain, he left them in the charge of his rather capable loblolly boy and was pulled over in the jolly boat.

  It was a horrible shambles on board the prize. She had set out to sea with her hull packed with as many men as she could cram aboard. Her captain and owners had anticipated entering a prize-rich sea, where their ship would be the wolf attacking the flocks of dozens of helpless British merchant ships.

  Her numerous crew were intended to man the many prizes she expected to make, while not weakening herself in case she did have to defend herself against some small British warship. Instead though, before making a single capture, she herself had entered combat with a capable British frigate. The numerous casualties were a result of all those people crowded together being fired into at close range by Andromeda’s guns.

  All of them were fodder for the terrible balls and grapeshot that came relentlessly aboard. Of the more than three hundred people on board when the action started, only a hundred were still relatively whole now. Eighty men had gone over the side, and many more were expected to as the dozens of horribly wounded expired.

  The prize did have a doctor aboard, although Doctor Baynes assured his captain this fellow had only served an abbreviated apprenticeship, and would never be considered qualified back home. As the two ship’s surgeons served hour after hour to alleviate what pain they could, more patients died continuously.

  At first, there was nothing to give the men for their pain save quantities of rum, but eventually, in the cabin of the privateer’s captain, there was found a quantity of laudanum. This substance Doctor Baynes reported, was opium that had been dissolved in refined spirits. The doctor reported it to be a specific for pain, but was not always used because of its cost and the possibility of the user becoming addicted to its use. An improper dosage could also be dangerous.

  Apparently, the ship’s captain before being cut nearly in half by a ball during the action, had not trusted his inexperienced surgeon with its use and locked it away.

  The Sick and Hurt Board did not furnish such medicaments to its ship’s surgeons. Doctor Baynes, from his civilian practice, was familiar with the substance but had not thought to bring any along on the voyage, assuming the ship would have adequate resources to treat its people.

  At any rate, he took charge of the laudanum and began treating the wounded aboard both ships with the panacea.

  The weather began to intensify after the action, and the motion of both ships was becoming lively. Seamen from both sides were put to the task of rigging a jury foremast and bowsprit for the prize. Her first officer, left in charge of his own men by the death of his captain, begged Phillips to send the prize into port. Hopefully Boston, but Halifax would do. Phillips had to explain to the man his concern the ship would return to her privateering career should he send her into Boston.

  As far as Halifax was concerned, it would be a trying voyage, beating into the prevailing wind with her cargo of desperately wounded men. He had to consider a possible attempt to re-take the ship. In any case, he would lose the crew he put in the ship to sail her back. The American was informed the prize would accompany Andromeda on her voyage.

  It was a strange looking prize that took station in Andromeda’s wake. The Lawrence had carried a pair of good Maine spars aboard, just in case of this eventuality. One of them was put to use as her new foremast, with an exotic looking lateen mounted on it. The remnants of her fore topmast did duty as her new bowsprit.

  Before setting out, Phillips went aboard in the now blustery weather to examine the prize. Most of the more serious damage had been attended to. A prize crew just sufficient to sail the ship was present, but Mister Goodrich, commanding the prize, was concerned that in a blow he might be short of hands. He suggested, “Sir, I have served in the Royal Navy for ten years now. I have recognized a half dozen men among the American crew whom I recognized as British seamen that I have sailed with in the past.’

  “I have not said anything to any of them, but I know they will be facing severe punishment when we make port and they are identified as deserters serving against their country. Could we perhaps ask them to serve their country again and maybe have their recent indiscretions overlooked?”

  After some thought, Phil
lips ordered his Royal Marine sergeant to deliver the named individuals to the quarterdeck. All six looked rightfully alarmed when they were paraded aft. He explained to them their secret was out, and they should know the penalty for desertion and for fighting against their own country. None had anything to say.

  To their silence, Phillips offered. “Davison there, I remember you sailed on the Resolve when my father had her. I was a mid at the time. I have not the slightest desire to see you flogged to death or run up to the yardarm. But what in hell am I to do with you men? If I let you off, others will think they too have a right to walk away from the ship whenever they wish.”

  With no reply coming from the men, Phillips told them. “As it happens, I do have an idea. It is foolish, I know, and will probably cost me my commission. However, we will give it a try.”

  “I need hands on my ship. Skilled able seamen who can hand, reef and steer. I am going to ask for volunteers from the crew of the Lawrence, as many of us do when taking prizes. You men can volunteer. You will not use your own names to sign on however. You will be a completely different seaman than the one who deserted from his old ship. You will keep your mouths shut about this, and perhaps we all may just survive. Any questions?”

  “Sir, your honor”, Davison began. “There are men aboard Andromeda who know us. Mister Goodrich here was a snotty on one of my old ships. The truth will come out.”

  “Davison, half the men on my ship have names their parents did not give them. Your mates will keep their mouths shut, unless they wish to see you hang. My officers will also, on my order. If you sign on and work with a will you may yet to live to see grandchildren. Now, when you sign on as volunteers, I will put you aboard Andromeda. I do not want your old mates on the Lawrence to tempt you away from your duty. I will bring other hands back here in your place. Now, are we clear on this?”

  As the ships continued the search for privateers, the crews began to settle down. When Phillips was sure there would be no trouble with the prize, he had her sail off to port with a good ten miles separation between the ships to extend their search area.

  The British deserters aboard the prize had all volunteered under new names and had been duly logged in. Even a few Americans signed on, to avoid a stint in a prison hulk. Most of the Americans though, were outraged at the perfidy of their former shipmates who had turned on them. Previously, many of these seamen had been employed in doing essential ship’s work on both vessels and had been given relatively loose rein, but now the growing tensions between the differing groups required the healthy Americans to be battened below decks on the two ships.

  It was with much relief when the convoy they were searching for slid over the horizon just north of Bermuda.

  There was some suspicion at first from the escorting ships of that convoy. Andromeda’s brown sides and the threadbare sails did not induce confidence in the escorts, especially the Titan 64, commanded by Captain Raton, a very senior officer near the top of the post captain’s list.

  Phillips found himself standing in front of Raton’s desk explaining Andromeda’s appearance. The frankly dubious Raton finally dismissed him but required he search for a convoy member which had come missing after an attack by a pair of Yankee privateers.

  Raton was unwilling to give more information, but once back on deck, an old friend from Resolve, now fourth lieutenant aboard Titan, gave him the hurried story.

  In the teeth of a blow two days back, a pair of big Yankee schooners had come out of a rain squall and pounced on the convoy. Titan remained at her station to windward of the leading column. There were two other escorts, a non-rated brig in the rear and an armed cutter midway up the lee column. One schooner made a feint against the shipping to the rear and was fended off by the brig. Another came to the center and burst into the column, scattering it. The cutter attempted to send that predator off but was dismasted in the exchange and left behind. Both schooners then pursued a single brig, carrying general cargo and a few passengers that had separated from the main flock. Caught up in a new rain squall, neither the merchantman nor the privateers had been seen again.

  Phillips was pulled back to Andromeda and told his officers of his chastening from the liner’s captain. One positive development he was able to inform them. He was to leave his prize and the captive crew in the charge of Captain Raton. Head money would be due to the Andromeda’s crew for the captive crew taken from the Lawrence, Five pounds a head. Phillips suspected Raton would try to fiddle matters so Titan would get the head money and perhaps make a try at the prize money also. At any rate, that was a matter for the future. Now he had a missing brig to search for, plus a pair of privateers.

  With the captured American ship safely in the middle of a convoy, Phillips felt he could remove some of his prize crew, being confident the American’s would not make a bid for escape, while surrounded, as they were.

  Reasoning that the brig, if still free, would likely make for the nearest port, in this case Halifax, Phillips set a course for that port. He felt he had followed his orders thus far. He had taken a Yankee privateer, found the convoy, and had been sent away from that on what he regarded as a fool’s mission.

  He decided he would run down the latitude line to Halifax to see if he could find the missing brig. Should that not work, he would work against the Gulf Stream to the south, checking into the possibility that the brig had been taken by the schooners and sent into Boston.

  Finding nothing, he went south. Finally, down in American waters, he ran her down. The Sarah Hayes, a British brig had been taken shortly after she had left the convoy. The brig was now alone, with just her American prize crew and some of the original crew aboard. Sending his own crew aboard, he had everyone else brought on Andromeda. Interviewing the American crew, nothing important was learned. The American prize crew refused to divulge any information of the parent schooners or where they might be patrolling.

  Phillips ordered them below, and had the brig’s original crew brought in. Two were missing, and reported by their former captain to have joined the Americans. Asked for their ideas, all were forthright.

  As Captain Lawton explained, “They had us for a while in a little hole built right up in the foc’s’le of the schooner that took us. We could hear them talking well enough. It sounded like they were waiting for the other schooner to come back from a chase she was on, and then they were going to send us into port in the brig and the pair of them would then go off to try their luck in the Channel, back home.”

  “They were going to take Miss Humphrey off the brig, put us back on and they were going to be off.”

  “Just a minute, Captain Lawton. Just who is this Miss Humphrey, you mentioned?”

  “Her? She is the owner’s daughter. Mister Humphrey took her to sea, when her mother died. Then, during the chase, a ball from the four pounder that one of the schooners fired, took off his arm. Our first mate bound it up, but Mister Humphries lost too much blood and he died.”

  “I heard one of the privateers men say they were going to send the brig in to port, and see if they could ransom Miss Humphries.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Captain Larson was sent aboard the Sarah Hayes and a prize crew commanded by a midshipman was put aboard, ordered to take the brig to Halifax. The remainder of the original crew was pressed into the Navy and would serve aboard Andromeda. The post ship was put on the course that would follow normal shipping lanes to the Channel entrance across the Atlantic.

  As Phillips explained to his sailing master, he intended to follow the pair of privateers, if possible taking them, if not, they could at least spread the word of their presence.

  The sailing master wondered what they could do about the woman taken from the brig. Phillips answered, “I don’t see how we can do much, Mister Harding, unless we manage to take the schooner she is aboard. Apparently, they mean to ransom her. To do that, they will need to get a message ashore somehow with their demands and the payment method. This all could take months, and I expect they
will either be back in America by then or possibly taken.”

  The ship continued on course for days without sighting another ship. Then, almost two weeks after leaving the Sarah Hayes, two sails were spotted ahead. Both were moderate sized ship-rigged merchant vessels flying the American flag. Heavily laden, they were run down with no difficulty and brought to heel.

  Mister Otis, acting as third lieutenant, in the absence of Mister Goodrich, went aboard the Boston Commerce and reported she was laden with wheat, destined for Portugal. The second ship, Rebecca Morris, was also laden with the same cargo, but additionally carried a deck-cargo of spars. Deciding to inspect this one himself, Phillips left Mister Gould in charge and was pulled over in his gig.

  The captain of the merchantman was decidedly nervous. He knew well he could find his ship taken prize and himself on his way to a hulk very soon. Keeping his silence, Captain Phillips had Mister Otis lead him to the cabin where the manifest and ship’s log were laid out on a small table.

  The ship ostensibly was destined to make port in South Carolina where she would offer her cargo in trade. Instead, here she was in mid-Atlantic heading for Europe. Questioned, the captain told him this cargo was his own private venture. Rumors abounded in Boston there was an excellent market for American wheat in Lisbon, and good straight spars were also bringing respectable prices. The American government had placed an embargo on the export of certain goods important for Britain’s economy.