The Bermuda Shipwreck

by Eric Murphy

  Claiming routine maintenance, we started the boilers at sunset. I wrapped myself in layers of clothing and moved about my cabin until drenched in perspiration. Shedding the clothes, I came on deck and looked feverish to the mutineers. I spat out a mixture of fine coffee grounds and red wine as though vomiting dark blood — a sure sign I had the dreaded yellow fever. The mutineers panicked, jumped overboard, and swam for shore.

  One mutineer had not fallen for the ruse. He forced me at gunpoint to open the money box. We struggled; his gun went off, the bullet piercing his forehead. I did not have the luxury of removing his body.

  “That’s the skeleton we found on the wreck,” said Harley before skimming and summarizing the letter.

  With all lights extinguished and with only a half load of cotton, Papineau risked running aground by leaving on the outgoing tide instead of the incoming tide when the Union Navy expected a run. Papineau loaded the cannons they hadn’t delivered and fired blanks into the night, looking like they were part of the Union Navy: blockade runners were unarmed so as not to be treated as combatants. Eventually the Union Navy got wise and fired their cannons. One ball wedged itself in a cotton bale but one hit the rudder. When Lily’s rudder was damaged, Papineau steered with his twin propellers. Then the mutineers’ cheap coal robbed the steam engines of so much power that they hit a reef during the stormy passage. Papineau wanted to run the boat ashore but his comrades chose to launch the longboat. Within a mile of the coast, he hit the second reef and swam for shore, where he shivered in the rain till morning so he could be sure of where she’d sunk, a mile out from the boilers. He rented a salvage tug and manned it himself. Harley again read:

  Sadly, my five partners’ upturned longboat was found wedged between shore rocks, two bodies washed ashore, weighed down by their gold coins.

  From the salvage tug I was able to see my beloved Lily lying forty feet below the surface at low tide. I hooked my anchor to her railing, dove with a rope to the cannons and tied them off before winching them back up with the steam-powered capstan.

  When the dockworkers in port saw me transfer the cannons to a horse-drawn carriage and realized that I had not brought up my money box, they thought I’d taken leave of my senses. I say, “Je répondrai par la bouche de mes cannons.”

  My suspicions about Villiers were confirmed when he saw me riding with the driver heading to Trotters’ Trail. With one hand on his double-barreled derringer tucked into his belt, he staggered backwards into the pub like he’d seen a ghost.

  I dine with Consul Allen tonight and will ask him to post this letter with the first packet heading to Halifax.

  Kiss our son for me.

  Your loving husband, Papineau.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Night Dive

  Horsepower: A unit of power that generates 550 foot-pounds per second, and adopted in the late 1800s by the Scottish engineer James Watt who compared the power generated by a steam engine to that of draft horses. A ten horsepower engine generates the power of ten draft horses, or 5,500 foot-pounds per second.

  The cellphone rang once in the dark before Will grabbed it off the night table.

  “Yes?” he whispered, scooting out of the room so as not to wake Harley.

  “Will, it’s Sherman. I think I’ve found Wavelength. I’m at Aubrey’s dock if you and Harley want to come and confirm it’s her.”

  Will said that he’d be right out. He let Harley sleep, hopped into his shorts and shoes before hurrying out of the house and to the far end of the dock where Sherman’s fishing boat bobbed on the moonlit ocean. Will jumped aboard.

  “Thanks for coming, Will.”

  “You call the police?” asked Will.

  “Want you to confirm it for me before I do. Not far from here,” he said, spinning the fishing boat around into its own wake. Will clambered up to the flying bridge and sat beside Sherman.

  “You didn’t wake Harley?”

  “Thought she needed to sleep. Figured that’s why you didn’t call Aubrey.”

  Sherman nodded. They motored along as the sound of wind and waves kept them company. What Will didn’t say, was that he’d also been thinking about his father’s death. How much of a loss that had been when his father died of a heart attack a year ago. He’d grown fond of Aubrey and he feared that, like his father, he would also die — that the episode on the boiler was somehow a forewarning.

  They slowed and Sherman pointed to a boat chugging along in the distance.

  Will squinted at it. “That’s not Wavelength.”

  Sherman stood to stare at the boat ahead. “They’ve un-stepped her mast and added some freeboard to change her outline.” Sherman handed Will night vision goggles that allowed him to see the splintered remnants of the door to the hatchway that Drury had broken.

  “You’re right. It is her.” Will looked again, “And that’s Drury at the wheel.”

  Sherman nodded, staring at the boat making its way to open water. “And I’d venture they’re not out here in the middle of the night collecting for the Red Cross, no sir, no sir.”

  Sherman called the Bermuda police on his cell in case Drury or Claire Calloway were listening to the radio’s emergency frequency. He gave them their coordinates and the direction they were heading.

  Just then, a smaller boat pounded its way across to Wavelength. “That’s Claire Calloway,” blurted Will. She came alongside Wavelength long enough for Drury to spring from the cockpit onto the smaller boat, which roared off, its twin props digging into the ocean for traction.

  Wavelength continued its forward progress with no one at the helm. Sherman inched ahead till an explosion shattered the night.

  Will saw the flash of light from Wavelength’s far side, and the thunderclap that followed buckled his knees and knocked him to the banquette. They stared at the fire that leaped as the motor, unaware of its death sentence, moved the craft dutifully forward, listing to starboard as water gushed into her ruptured hull.

  Fearing a second explosion, Sherman kept his distance as Wavelength slipped below the surface, burbling air. A big air bubble escaped as they sailed over the very spot she’d occupied a few seconds ago. Fathom’s hull banged up against a horseshoe-shaped life-preserver. Will reached over to pick it up but dropped it when he saw it was still tied to the boat.

  Then, from beneath the waves, Will heard banging and a muffled scream. Somebody was trapped in the wreck.

  Before Will could say anything, P.C. Mickey Collin, with Sergeant Wilson by his side, raced the marine unit’s Boston Whaler in close, her two hundred and twenty-five horsepower engines slowing to a throaty growl as she came smartly alongside Sherman’s boat.

  “Somebody’s trapped aboard that boat that just blew up,” yelled Will.

  “We heard banging and muffled yells,” said Sherman.

  “It’s gotta be Bennett,” said Will.

  Wilson gestured for Will to come aboard, yanked wetsuits from a locker and without looking up, asked, “You said you were a certified diver, Will? You prepared to dive down there with me and help me navigate inside? If there is an air pocket, seconds could make the difference between finding someone alive or dead.”

  They hurried into their wetsuits as Will cast a worried look into the dark water. Wilson added, “We’ll have underwater lights.” Will nodded, rolling the pant legs and sleeves back upon themselves.

  Wilson led the way by leaping off the gunwale of the boat and hitting the water with a scissor kick. Will followed suit. They clicked on their two lights. When they turned the beams downward, they could clearly make out the sunken boat. Will followed Wilson down.

  Everything slows down underwater, but it seemed to slow down even more at night. Wilson pulled the damaged door open and latched it in place so their exit wouldn’t be blocked.

  Will followed the policeman inside. It was as if they were on the space station with zero gravity. A magazine, liquid soap bottles, dishtowels, and paper napkins floated in the cabin as if trying to obscure
something bad from their view. The explosion left a jagged hole where the gas stove had been. A few small, curious fish who were inside now darted back to the ocean, past the hull’s splintered wood.

  While Wilson made a U-turn toward Harley’s bunk, Will, restricted by the narrowness of the cabin, small-kicked his flippers till he was in front of his room in the bow of the ship. He tried to open the door that had also been repaired, but it was locked. He reached up beside the sconce to the left of the door and unclipped the brass key. He leaned on the handle as he turned the key and the door pushed out toward him. A hand smacked Will’s mask, and then he found himself looking into the bruised face of the man he feared he’d find.

  Bennett’s open eyes looked like they were begging for help — help that Will hadn’t brought him in time. Wilson put his hand to Bennett’s neck, feeling for the carotid artery. After what seemed like an eternity, with exhaled bubbles crowding the cabin, Wilson shook his head: there was no pulse. As Wilson pulled Bennett free, something fell away from the dead man’s hand. Will picked it up: an old-style letter double-wrapped in plastic. He tucked it into the pocket of his BC vest.

  Will was the first to bob at the surface. Wilson’s head floated into the beam of light that P.C. Collin had brought.

  “Give us a hand here, will ya Mickey?” said Wilson, dragging Bennett’s body to the police boat. P.C. Collin hooked Bennett under the arm with a long gaff hook, brought him alongside, then, with a two-handed hoist, laid his body on the floor between the console and the air tank holder. He covered the body with a blanket.

  Collins helped Will get aboard. When he got out of his BC vest, Will looked at the hand sticking out from under the blanket and asked, “Do you know how he died?” The fingernails looked to be broken, probably when he’d tried to claw his way out of the cabin as the water rose.

  “We’ll have to wait for the coroner’s report,” said Wilson. Bennett had been locked in the cabin and knew, when the explosion occurred, that his death was imminent and not going to be quick or pleasant, yet he still had the last of Papineau’s letters with him, the last of Bennett’s dream of finding his ancestor’s gold coins.

  Will watched with a feeling that he’d failed Bennett. Yes, he’d lied to them about the purpose of their trip, but did he deserve to be drowned by Claire Calloway? And he’d asked Will for help, which Will had failed to bring.

  Wilson pulled out two bulky jackets from a locker. He and P.C. Collin put them on. Wilson answered Will’s questioning look by saying, “A bullet-proof lifejacket. That Calloway woman just killed Bennett and she’s armed,” said Wilson, leaving the threat to hang about like the fumes from the big engines.

  “You two be careful now,” said Wilson as Will got back onto his fishing boat.

  Wilson gave the motors gas, but not as much as he had to get there. Apparently, one rushed to save a life but not to bring back a dead body.

  Would the letters he’d just found on Wavelength bring them any closer to Papineau’s gold coins?

  Chapter Twenty-three

  A Graveyard Crawl

  Yellow fever: Also called Yellow Jack, it gets its name from the jaundiced look of those infected by the mosquito-borne disease that kills thirty thousand people annually, mostly in equatorial areas where vaccines are in short supply. When it struck Bermuda in the 1860s, it was inaccurately thought to be transmitted by contact, like a cold or the flu.

  Harley and Aubrey were waiting for Will when Sherman dropped him at Aubrey’s house. They’d heard the explosion and Sherman had called them on the ride back so they wouldn’t worry about finding his bed empty. Sherman declined Aubrey’s offer to come in for some ginger beer and, fighting a yawn, headed home.

  Will brought Harley and Aubrey up to speed on the evening’s events, then took the two letters out from their plastic wrapping. To gain time, they agreed to each read one and share the summary. One letter was from Lily to Papineau, the other from Consul Maxwell Allen to Lily. They decided to read them in the order in which they had been written.

  Lily’s letter was first, as it was written on August 15, 1864, which meant she hadn’t yet received Papineau’s letter to her — the one Will had taken from Ord’s office. In this letter, Lily worried about the outbreak of yellow fever in St. George, and encouraged Papineau to think about moving his base of operations to Halifax.

  Lily said she knew that sailing from Halifax was longer and meant carrying more coal for the extended round trip, meaning that there would be less room for profitable cargo. But she stated bluntly that if he died of yellow fever, he wouldn’t be earning anything. She also stressed that Halifax was one of the few ports that could repair steel-hulled ships. There were a growing number of blockade runners now operating in Halifax with sailors whose drunkenness, loose morals, and arrogance, especially toward blacks, were accepted by Haligonians as the price of renewed prosperity.

  There was, of course, mention of being a more present father to their son, who never stopped asking about him, asking when he was coming home. She said the boy had held his carte de visite so often that it had frayed. She also suggested that she felt they would be financially stable if he simply sold his shares in the boat and came home in one piece.

  Apparently Major Walker, the Confederate agent in St. George, had moved his family there to escape the epidemic of yellow fever. On August 30, Alexander Keith Jr. had entertained him and the creepy Dr. Luke Blackburn. She added, “That beastly man, Alexander Keith Jr., has fronted marine insurance for Southern owners, but when the boats sank, he collected the insurance and never remitted a penny to the true owners.” He was making enemies and he knew it because Lily found a pistol under his pillow.

  The letter from US Consul Maxwell Allen was a very sad one. He informed Lily with great regret that her husband, Papineau Benoit, had succumbed to yellow fever two days after surviving his own shipwreck. Allen went on to explain that he used all the influence he could muster to have Papineau, the man who had saved him from the penniless drunkard Villiers Rougemont, buried in the north-west corner of St. Peter’s graveyard. He told Lily it would be best if she came to Bermuda to settle the estate.

  Will, Harley, and Aubrey stood looking around with a dejected air. They had come to like Papineau and his family. For a moment, Will felt like he was diving again, with everything floating in Wavelength’s cabin —nothing clear, with nothing moving forward with noticeable speed.

  Then a thought struck him and he said, “Papineau didn’t die of yellow fever. He couldn’t have.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Harley.

  “Right after his shipwreck, Papineau swam a mile to shore, rented a salvage boat, dove to recover his Whitworth cannons, hired a cart and driver and rode with him, passing Villiers Rougemont on the way,” blurted Will. “It takes a few days for someone struck by yellow fever to die. They get progressively sicker and weaker before they die. He said it himself. He faked his illness on the boat, then did all those things only a strong man could do,” said Will, nodding his head in support of his own theory.

  “Why would Consul Allen say that if it wasn’t true?” asked Harley.

  Will shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe he believed it. There was an epidemic of yellow fever in St. George in July of 1864, that’s why that Major Walker took his family to Halifax, right?”

  “What if he didn’t die?” After allowing that statement to sink in, Harley explained, “What if he faked his death to make off with the money?”

  “You mean cheat his wife out of the money?” asked Aubrey doubtfully.

  “I don’t know, but it is possible. He wouldn’t be the first one to fake his death to make off with the family’s wealth, right?” asked Harley in a tone that said even she wasn’t totally convinced.

  “If he faked it, how could his death certificate be registered in the Bermuda Archives in Hamilton?” asked Will. From his wallet he pulled out the note he’d scribbled in the archives when he’d followed Bennett inside. The entry for Papineau Benoit, ag
ed thirty-nine, who had died on August 2, 1864, listed the cause of death as yellow fever. But what made Will’s hair stand on end was the name of the witness, a name that hadn’t rung a bell when he’d first read it: Dr. Luke Blackburn.

  Will tapped the note and pointed to the first letter they’d just read. “Dr. Blackburn was in Halifax plotting with Alexander Keith Jr. on July 30. He couldn’t have been seen in Halifax by Lily on July 30 and witnessed his death in Bermuda on August 2nd. No boat was that fast.

  “So,” said Aubrey, frowning, “somebody pretended to be Dr. Blackburn and declared Papineau died of yellow fever?”

  “So who’s buried in St. Peter’s graveyard, if anybody?” asked Harley.

  Less than an hour later, Aubrey parked his truck in St. George and he, Will, and Harley climbed the wall into St. Peter’s cemetery. They made their way to the north-west corner and wove their way through the tombs to the one marked, “Papineau Benoit, born Bouctouche, New Brunswick, died St. George, August 2, 1864.”

  They looked at the tomb’s beveled top, which as Aubrey explained, sat above ground on soil made up mostly of stone. Will and Harley looked around nervously. Aubrey squatted and looked at the underside before saying, “The mortar’s quite gone and what’s left is soft. Wouldn’t take much to, you know, spring the lid free.”

  “You mean open the grave?” Apprehension crept into Harley’s voice.

  Aubrey dashed back to his truck and reappeared armed with a small crowbar. He ran the sharp tip along the inside where the mortar was supposed to seal the lid to the tomb. Will thought it made so much noise everybody in St. George could hear it. But if they did, they were either used to grave robbers or exceedingly tolerant of nocturnal noises, because nobody challenged them.

  Aubrey signaled for Will and Harley to take the far end while he grappled with the other. He tapped the air with his index finger once, twice, and on the third stroke they heaved the lid to the side till it slid off, its edge resting on the tomb beside it.