At the Edge of Honor (The Honor Series)

by Robert N. Macomber

  And so they sped along up the coast, staying about three miles from the white beaches of the islands that formed a barrier to the bays and rivers that wound their way up through the jungle into the interior of the peninsula. Before taking over his new command, Wake had spent his time at the squadron offices at Key West asking for information about this coast. The various officers he came in contact with could not tell him much about the interior. Some told him that the coast was full of renegades, Rebels, and refugees. The renegades were common criminals who preyed on anyone who came within their grasp. The Rebels were Confederates, on both the land and the sea, who were determined to keep this coast open for supplies to move through. And the refugees were civilians who were pro-Union and hiding among the islands of the coast. Rumor had it that there were hundreds, if not thousands, of refugees.

  The officers had told Wake that the main trouble with all these people was that there was no way to tell who was who. There were no battle lines. A Rebel one day could be a refugee the next. And the renegades could portray themselves as anyone if it served them at the moment. Mistakes had been made by other captains. Innocent people had been put into prison, and scoundrels had been let go. Blockade runners had been captured and paroled, only to be captured again on their ships that had been seized and sold back to them. Of course, the Northern papers had not reported on this aspect of the war.

  Admiral Barkley had told him to use good judgment based on common sense. All of this had served to depress and confuse Wake even before he had gone aboard Rosalie, for prior to his arrival in Key West from Boston he had imagined an orderly war where progress could be measured and known. Instead, Wake and the Rosalie were sailing into an area where a guerrilla war was being fought. To top it all off, storms were frequent here in the winter and diseases were rampant in the summer. Wake had heard about the dreaded yellow fever of this coast. All this preamble to his arrival here was not made better by Hardin’s reluctant attitude about returning.

  Five hours into the new day Wake was in his cabin when he heard the bow lookout call out to Durlon, “Sail on the bow, hull down, dead ahead ’bout four miles, I think. Looks that she is headin’ this way.”

  Seconds later Durlon lowered his head below the scuttle hatch and told Wake of the sighting. The captain had been sitting at his tiny chart table trying to memorize the features of the coast on the scanty chart he had. It was an 1851 coastal survey chart showing very little detail. Wake climbed the ladder and found Hardin standing by the cannon staring ahead. Wake, with the only telescope aboard, checked out the approaching vessel. The closing speed of the two ships was very fast in these conditions, another twenty minutes and she would be within gun range.

  “Hardin, all hands to quarters. Stand by on the twelve-pounder. Do you recognize that sail?”

  “No, sir. She looks a schooner. There are several schooners the Rebs are using on this coast.”

  “Send up the colors, Hardin. We’re going to stop her.”

  As the men of Rosalie transformed their home into a fighting ship, Wake kept focused on the approaching vessel. She was a schooner, all right. About sixty feet or so.

  She was close-hauled on the port tack and making a fair amount of leeway, causing her to slide ever further west offshore as she fought the wind to go south. Soon he would have to make a decision as to how to stop and search her. In these seas he couldn’t come alongside and board her. No, he would have her heave to and send the dinghy, as dangerous as that was.

  As the national ensign went up to the peak and streamed out to port, Wake and Hardin looked for the reaction from the schooner’s crew. They could clearly see several men looking and gesturing among themselves and back at the sloop, for the range was now only a couple hundred yards. They were caught by surprise, Wake suddenly saw. The Rosalie was new on this coast, and the navy had had nothing like her before. The schooner had not turned and flown before the wind on sighting the sloop, because they had no fear of a vessel like her.

  In the time that it took Wake to form those thoughts, the schooner had doused her jib and backed her staysail, with her foresail down and main strapped in. She was now lying hove to in the seas and rolling like a dead whale. Her crew was apparently having an argument while they struggled to hold on as she rolled.

  “Hardin, take two men and board her. Find out what she is about and send word back to me by one man in the dinghy.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Hardin looked forward to the crew. “Conner, you and Wilson man the dinghy. Cutlasses and pistols. But do not cock the damned things, is that clear?”

  Conner and Wilson took their weapons from the ready chest kept on the after deck and pulled the dinghy up to the transom. Hardin followed them down into the tossing dinghy. They shoved off and slowly negotiated the hundred feet between the schooner and the sloop, both of which were now hove to with their jibs aback. Wake watched as Hardin was the first to climb up onto the deck of the schooner, with no assistance from the crew. He was followed by Conner, with Wilson holding the dinghy alongside. An intense discussion was going on, but Wake could not make out the words since they were to windward of the schooner. The crew of the Rosalie also watched their shipmates on the other vessel. Durlon stood by the loaded cannon, and several others had muskets ready.

  In a few minutes Wilson was back alongside the sloop and made his report to Wake.

  “Sir, Hardin presents his respects and says the following to tell ya. He says that she is the schooner Victoria out of Nassau, sir. He says that she has six men aboard and that one is the cap’in, one is the mate, three is the crew and one’s a passenger like, sir. Hardin says, sir, that the cargo hold is empty. He says that the last port was New Orleans and that they are bound for Havana. I thinks that’s ’bout all, sir, ’cept that Hardin says to tell ya that he thinks it’s all a bunch a dung, and that they’re runnin’ the blockade.”

  With the strain of his recital completed, Wilson looked over at the grinning gun crew and replied with a maniacal grin himself.

  “Wilson, did he say what nationality they were?”

  “Aye, sir. Ya have me there, sir. I forgot to tell ya. Sorry, sir.” The grin vanished and a look of fright replaced it, which only led the gun crew to greater mirth.

  “Stand easy on that, gun crew. Durlon, control your men.” Wake, his annoyance clear to all, turned back to the reporting sailor. “Now, Wilson, tell me what he said about their nationality.”

  “Aye, sir. Hardin said that they said that they was all limeys. Even the black uns. Said they said they was neutrals in our war, an’ subjects o’ the limey queen, sir.”

  “Row me over there, Wilson,” said Wake as he climbed down into the dinghy. He looked forward and quietly said to Durlon, “You’re in charge of the sloop. Keep watch over the schooner.”

  The crew still aboard the sloop lost their look of amusement at the proceedings and stared as their officer boarded the schooner.

  Hardin met Wake at the rail and led him aft, where they could talk away from the schooner crew huddled on the foredeck. Hardin advised him that he thought that the passenger was a Reb, and that the schooner had probably come from the Sanibel Island area. With the winds and seas what they are, that could very well be, thought Wake as he looked over the supposed Britishers. Hardin further advised that all had identity papers except the black crewmen and the passenger, who had a Southern accent.

  The passenger was brought aft to Wake. His name was John Saunders and he appeared to be a middle-aged gentleman by his clothing and demeanor. His build was slight and his accent was that of the middle Atlantic coast, possibly Virginia or Maryland. He told Wake that he was a British citizen from Abaco Island in the Bahamas and that his family had lived there for generations since they had fled the American colonies after the Revolution. It seemed that they were loyal to the crown of England and the Bahamas
was the closest place to go in their flight from their fellow former colonists.

  Saunders then stated that he booked passage on the schooner to and from New Orleans to ascertain if the Union forces then in control of the city were in need of salt from the Bahamas. No written confirmation of being in New Orleans was available, Saunders explained. The authorities in New Orleans were not working when the schooner left the city hurriedly in the night due to a rumor that Confederate river gunboats were getting ready to attack. Therefore, no clearance papers were on board. The port arrival papers for New Orleans were still on some clerk’s desk there.

  Wake had heard of loyalists settling in the Bahamas, but he had never actually met one before. He had also read in the newspapers that the Rebs had gunboats building on the Mississippi in an attempt to regain control of the river. Hardin, standing next to him during the conversation, could hardly control his disbelief of the story told by Saunders. Wake knew he had to make a decision. He remembered Admiral Barkley in Key West telling him to be very polite with neutrals. There had already been several incidents on this and other coasts with Spanish and British ships and citizens that had nearly led to war with those countries.

  “Very well, Hardin, if you are sure that there is no contraband of war aboard her, then we will let her go.”

  This last was said as the schooner lurched and slewed down a wave, nearly throwing Wake off his feet. Hardin looked disgusted.

  “Captain, there’s no cargo ’cause they’ve already unloaded it on this coast. This here is a Rebel, and this schooner is a runner. Captain, sir, we’ll see ’em again sure as hell, but next time maybe we won’t catch up to her. Let’s take her into Key West now and let the prize court judge it. She’d be worth every bit o’ two thousand dollars.”

  And that was another factor to be taken into account—the prize money. Every sailor in Uncle Sam’s navy wanted his share of prize money. The recruiting placards had promised thousands of dollars of prize money to men who enlisted. It made the intolerable conditions a little more worth it. Rosalie herself had been sold into the navy for fifteen hundred dollars with most of it divided among the sailors who had captured her off Charleston just three months ago. Wake could see Hardin’s mind at work calculating his share of two thousand dollars.

  “No, Hardin. I will return now to Rosalie and send Wilson back for you and Conner. We will let them go. They are neutrals and I cannot prove anything otherwise.”

  Wake swayed across the deck and dropped down into the dinghy, telling Wilson to shove off and get him back to the Rosalie. As the dinghy fought her way back to the sloop, he could see Hardin speaking to the passenger, Saunders. Wake had a sick feeling that maybe Hardin was right and his own decision was wrong. So far, this new command had not gone as he had hoped it would.

  Ten minutes later both vessels were on their way. Rosalie again was surging northward along the coast, and the schooner was slowly slogging her way south against the wind and seas. The crew was secured from quarters, and the watch routine again took over.

  It was several hours later when Hardin and Wake had occasion to speak again, at a watch change. Wake was studying the bosun’s face for signs of problems as they formally made the relief of the officer of the deck, but he saw nothing but the inscrutable façade that was becoming the norm with Hardin.

  “I’m sorry you won’t get your prize money, Hardin, or your time in Key West. But you see, it was a question of proof of identity.”

  “Aye, sir,” came a low moan in reply. “It is always that. A question of identity. They try to fool us, an’ we try to catch them. I just hope you’re right, sir, on this particular question of identity. . . .”

  Hardin saluted, for the first time since the cruise started, and walked away to the foredeck, leaving his captain alone with his thoughts. Wake gazed off behind the sloop to the southern horizon, where the schooner was already long gone.

  3

  Renegades and Scoundrels

  Wake looked around the anchorage at Punta Rassa in the early morning light. A light and already warm land breeze could be felt from the east. Three miles to the southwest the island of Sanibel lay tranquil in a sea turning jade as the sun rose higher in the sky. The flood tide was surging along past the hull of the sloop as she lay at her anchor. Other than the crude trader’s camp on the beach close by, there was no sign of anything on land or water. Another quiet day, he thought with a shudder.

  On a morning just like this a week ago, at this same spot, his crew had been working on repairing chafe on the sails and were sitting around on the deck, canvas in hand. Without any warning a shot rang out and a musket ball thudded into the mast. It missed Conner by a few inches, and scared them all. Nobody had seen where the shot came from. There was no place to return fire. In fact, there was nothing to actually do. Hardin had said that sharpshooters usually only shoot once and then leave the area, but nobody felt safe for days after that.

  Lookouts posted to scan the mangrove jungle shoreline when they anchored or sailed close in had not spotted anyone since then, but the crew knew they were out there. Wake knew the sharpshooters had accomplished their mission—making everyone edgy and adding one more damned thing for him to worry about.

  The Rosalie had been on station on this coast for a month now. In that time she had stopped and boarded five more vessels, none of which was seized. She had run after three others but failed to close with them. Wake’s little ship had also run supplies twice for the Gem of the Sea and other ships in this area of the coast. That meant sailing back to Key West, usually a two-day sail, spending one day loading at Key West and leaving that day or early the next.

  Supervising the loading, dealing with the dock workers, making his reports to the staff at the admiral’s office, and guarding against the crew getting ahold of the cheap and abundant rum that seemed to be everywhere in Key West, he hadn’t had a spare moment to see Linda. He wondered if she had heard that Rosalie had been in port those two times. He wondered if she thought he was intentionally avoiding her. He dared not try to send a note to her for fear that it might end up in the hands of her father, whose rabid Confederate views were well known.

  It had been a relatively busy month for Rosalie and her crew. But the summer heat and windless days were coming upon them. Wake had heard stories from the crew about the fevers of the coast, of drifting with no wind, of the sudden tropical gales and hurricanes that came without warning, and of the ever-present vicious insects that could drive the sanest man mad with their incessant attacks. The crew told him that in the summer most of the ships of the squadron would lie further off the coast to keep away from the diseases and insects and currents when the wind died. For the hundredth time, Wake wondered just what he had gotten himself into by volunteering for the navy.

  It was with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension that Wake turned and followed the lookout’s pointing arm one Sunday while sailing off the beach at Estero Island. The subject of the alert was a small sloop of maybe twenty-five feet sailing out of Carlos Passage at the southern end of the island. She was moving fast in the afternoon sea breeze and bound southerly, with several people visible sitting or standing on her low flush deck.

  Hardin came up from below at the shout and inspected the vessel through Wake’s glass. By this time Rosalie had come about and trimmed her sails to go after the lively little sailer. The whole crew was staring ahead at the stranger vessel and making comments about whether the old Rosey could catch her. As some of the men were hoisting the topsail and others were sending up the large balloon jib, Hardin said to his captain, “Sir, I don’t know her. There’s several small sloops hidden in the backs of these islands along here. Some are refugees, but most are runners. I’d wager that there is a blockade runner, sir.”

  “Well, Hardin, I believe we’ll soon find out. Do you suppose that Durlon could hit
her from a couple hundred yards if she doesn’t stop?”

  “In this sea, I don’t know, sir. But he could surely try. Maybe it’d scare ’em enough to heave to.”

  “Very well. All hands to quarters. Send up the ensign and prepare to open fire for a warning shot.”

  Within a few minutes the crew had manned the gun and the sheets and were now speculating on Durlon’s ability as a gunner. Wake had never fired even so much as a warning shot in his encounters so far with ships at sea, and he wondered if this potential enemy vessel was big enough to justify a cannon shot. Perhaps he should just use a musket?

  The chase lasted over an hour. Rosalie had ideal wind and sea conditions, surfing along on a broad reach with a steady wind. Nothing carried away aloft and the canvas held, so it was up to the helmsman, Conner, to gain every yard he could to get closer to their prey. When they were near enough, Wake ordered Durlon to first fire a musket shot close alongside the suspect vessel. When this had no effect, he told Durlon to fire a warning shot from the cannon whenever he was ready.

  All hands aboard Rosalie became silent. The banter and speculation ended. Every man stared at the fleeing vessel and looked at Durlon, trying to will through their minds a good shot from the cannon. Not a kill shot, of course. No, there just might be something about that little sloop that would have value in an admiralty court. That was the real reward of the chase. Wake could see them adding up the prize money in their minds.

  Boom! The cloud of smoke blew away from the gun and everyone watched the sloop ahead. Twenty feet off their bow! The cheering of the crew overcame all other noise as the small boat ahead immediately turned into the wind and dropped its sails. Durlon was now shaking hands and reciting the various bets made in his favor just a few minutes earlier.