by Robin Lloyd
“He seemed curious about the slave ship. Wanted to know the condition it was in and where it was going next. That’s all I heard. They asked me to leave the room after that.”
“Perhaps Don Pedro is planning on getting into the slave business?”
Townsend grimaced.
“I hope you’re wrong. But you may not be. On my way over here I came through the fish market. I spied Marty speaking with one of Don Pedro’s associates, a man by the name of Arturo Salazar. They seemed to be talking business.”
“Were you spotted?”
“I don’t think so.”
Savage nodded slightly. “That’s good. On a separate matter, Townsend, now that I know about your connection with Doña Cecilia de Vargas, I would like you to get to know one of her friends, if the opportunity arises. She’s a Spaniard and a French countess who knows a great deal about Don Pedro as well. She is a French agent here sent by the Emperor Napoleon III. Word is that she was once his mistress.”
Townsend could feel the air thicken with tension in the room.
“Her name is La Comtesse Angélica Fernández de Buisson, but she likes to be called Condesa.”
Emma flinched at the mention of the name, her body suddenly becoming rigid. Townsend looked over at her, but she didn’t look back. She seemed to be staring at the wall.
Townsend blushed. “What do you want me to do?” he asked.
“Just get to know her,” Savage replied. “We are concerned that the French might side with the Confederacy.”
“I have met her once already,” Townsend admitted with his eyes downturned.
“I see,” said Savage with an enquiring look and a raised eyebrow.
Before Townsend could say anything else, Emma stood up determinedly, her chin lifted slightly, her brown eyes darkened.
“Mr. Savage, I would say that Captain Townsend knows that woman quite well already. I, for one, want nothing to do with her. She’s sin’s own aunt. She may be a countess, but she’s no lady. Es una cualquiera.”
Emma’s glare took them both in. Townsend could see that the diplomat was uncomfortable hearing the Condesa being described as a woman of ill repute.
“If her brand of spying is what you have in mind,” Emma continued with a steely look, “then I think we should reconsider our arrangement.”
Savage fidgeted as he looked from Emma to Townsend and back again. The American diplomat seemed flummoxed in how to navigate the moment.
“I completely understand, Miss Carpenter. I certainly did not mean to suggest anything—”
“I think I will be leaving now,” Emma announced. “My mother is expecting me. Thank you for the coffee and thank you for inquiring about Mr. Abbott. I will see myself out through the back door you mentioned. One of your clerks can show me where to go.”
She walked out without looking back at Townsend or Savage. The office door closed without even making a sound, and they could hear her loud, angry footsteps on the marble floor. The two men sat there for several moments gazing at the door.
Savage breathed out a long sigh. “Have a cigar?” he finally said in an effort to dispel the awkwardness. “Perhaps a Londres Superfino from Havana’s Upmann house. It is expressly made for the English market. A small size with a mild, pleasant flavor.”
The two men quietly lit their cigars.
“I have something for you, Captain. A letter stating that you are working for the consul general in Havana as a Federal agent, serving at the wishes of Secretary of State Seward. Keep it well hidden. I thought it might come in useful if at some point you are apprehended at sea by a Navy gunboat.”
Townsend nodded his thanks.
“It asks the Captain to show you and the sailors on your boat every courtesy.”
Savage leaned back in his chair as he puffed on the cigar.
“Oh, and Captain Townsend. I am sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” Townsend asked, cocking his head to one side.
“I believe I may have inadvertently caused you some problems. I will certainly try to smooth things out with Miss Carpenter. As you know, I have known her since she was a young girl. Emma can be stubborn and strong-minded, and she is passionate about her beliefs. Understand that while she is an American, she does seem to have inherited a bit of the fiery Latin temperament from her father. Take it from me. I am married to a Spanish woman. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been placed in a bull ring without the red cape or the sword.”
Townsend laughed.
“If it is any consolation, I understand you are not the only gentleman to be at the receiving end of Miss Carpenter’s flash of hot temper. My wife told me that a very eligible young Navy ship captain was courting her. Her mother was quite keen about this suitor. Apparently he comes from a well-to-do family. He invited Emma and Mrs. Carpenter onto his ship for luncheon entertainment complete with a Navy band.”
“Oh?”
“Apparently, the young man was . . . a bit too forward. He attempted to kiss her when her mother was preoccupied. My wife said Emma slapped him! Quite hard apparently.” Savage laughed. “That was the end of the shipboard entertainment.”
Townsend grinned. Savage had no idea how happy this news made him.
“Mrs. Carpenter, of course is devastated. She told my wife when she heard the commotion on the ship’s deck she rushed over to see what was wrong. Just from looking at her daughter’s black fixed stare, she knew there was trouble, and she tried to smooth things over. But Emma demanded to be taken ashore immediately. Unfortunately for the hapless lieutenant, it is unlikely he will have a chance to apologize, at least not in person. The commander of the East Gulf Squadron in Key West, Admiral Theodorus Bailey, has reassigned his ship, the USS Leopard, to patrol the east coast of northern Florida around Jupiter Island and Fernandina. Naturally the ship will still be based in Key West, but those new orders won’t bring his ship to Havana any time soon.”
“Heigh-ho,” Townsend said with a faint smile as he puffed on the cigar. “Sounds like treacherous waters.”
“Treacherous waters indeed. Don’t I know! My wife says Eleanor Carpenter is bound and determined to patch up this kerfuffle. She’s got Cupid’s bow and arrow on the ready. Bah! I’ll say one thing, Townsend. Feminine reasoning is a mystery to me. And mothers and daughters, why, they’re like doves and pigeons. Two close companions, but oftentimes flying in opposite directions.”
Part Three
When all has been said that can be said in favour of the slave owner in Cuba, it comes to this—that he treats his slaves as beasts of burden. . . . The point which most shocks . . . is . . . the ignoring of the black man’s soul. But this, perhaps, may be taken as an excuse. . . . the white men here ignore their own souls also.
—Anthony Trollope
The West Indies and the Spanish Main
25
June 15, 1863
Three weeks later the Gaviota hugged the flat barren coast of Texas under the cover of night with a full load of cotton from the Brazos River. A fickle night breeze was filling in from the south, allowing the heavily loaded schooner to move along at a respectable seven knots. Not bad for June doldrums, Townsend thought as he listened to the drumming of the halyards against the masts. All that could be seen was the dark sandy shoreline off to starboard. The shallowness off this part of the Texas coast meant that most of the steamers and the larger tallships in the West Gulf Blockading Squadron had to remain three to four miles off shore. For the moment they were safe.
Townsend was smoking a cigar at the helm, a practice that had become a nighttime ritual. Just after they set sail, he had told the crew about finding his grandmother in Matanzas. They had all joked that he was now a slave owner—they called him “Master” in light moments, asking him for sugar for their coffee each morning. Now in the comfort of the darkness, his thoughts shifted to his new secret role. It
was a dilemma for him. Each day as he looked at their faces, he felt he was deceiving them. Savage had said to tell no one about their arrangement, but he knew that was impractical. He would need an ally, at least one person he could confide in. Of all the men, he thought Hendricks would be the most sympathetic.
On one of their night watches, he had opened up to the man.
“Look, Hendricks, you know I’m not sympathetic to the Southern cause. Running the blockade isn’t a choice I’d have ever made. Even though I know what I am doing is wrong, I’ve had an opportunity handed to me to do what I think is right—Are you following me?”
The Bahamian stared at him. “I ain’ know what you talkin’ ’bout.”
Finally Townsend blurted out, “I’m now a paid informant for the Union. I was hired by the US Consulate in Havana.”
The Bahamian had said nothing. Townsend wasn’t certain if he had made a mistake. Hendricks’s smooth black forehead suddenly furrowed. Even the man’s one eye that was always sparkling seemed to darken.
“You tellin’ me you a spy?”
At the mention of the word spy, Townsend’s palms started to sweat. He’d quickly looked around to see if anyone else had heard.
“It’s a good cause, Hendricks—it’s right over wrong.”
“Da ain’ make no sense. You gon’ get yourself killed for sure.”
“Well . . . I need your help,” Townsend stammered.
“What! You tryin’ to make me a spy too? Stop ya stupidness. You mus’ be jokin’.”
Townsend hadn’t expected this setback. He offered to share the pay he would receive from the Federal government. It wouldn’t be that risky, he’d said. It was mostly about keeping their ears and eyes open, and report what cargo they were carrying. Keep an eye on what our two Spanish supercargoes do, and report on Don Pedro’s activities. To his surprise Hendricks seemed to change his mind when he heard that explanation. Hendricks told him he had grown to have a special dislike for the two Spaniards, and never had any interest in helping the Southern cause.
“Maybe t’ain such a bad thing,” he said. “Specially as you gon’ pay me.”
That conversation was two weeks before. Townsend looked over at Hendricks who was leaning up against the cabin house. As usual, the two of them didn’t speak much, preferring to sit quietly and feel the motion of the ship.
Townsend puffed on his Upmann cigar, listening to the wind and the water as he savored the bitter taste of the tobacco. Spying was not a profession he would have chosen, but it chose him. Blockade running was now merely a role he was playing, a disguise. Like a masquerade dance, he was spinning on the dance floor with dangerous unknown partners. He thought of what the Condesa had told him on that memorable ride back to his rooming house. In Havana, the delicate game of spying was frequently played to the rhythm of a danza criolla. In his case, it was being played to the rock and roll of the ship and the whistle of the wind. His father had always told him there was a solution to every problem, and maybe not what he expected.
“You might have to look underneath some rocks, son. The answers are not always where you think they are.”
Hendricks stood up and said he was going to check the rigging up in the bow. Townsend nodded. They’d been lucky so far. Originally, they were going to run the blockade into Galveston, but in Havana they’d been warned by Helm that Union cruisers off the eastern section of Texas were now as “thick as bees” with no less than eight Union steamers blocking the channel into Galveston. The Confederate agent had encouraged Don Pedro to make use of the shallow rivers in Texas, which frequently were left alone by the Navy patrols. They had chosen the Brazos River because they’d heard there were mountains of cotton bales on the docks from the vast plantations there.
On the passage across the Gulf, they had been spared close encounters by staying to the west, but it had not been an easy trip up the remote Brazos River. It had taken them five days to make their way thirty miles up the meandering river, sailing with the flood tide and then anchoring during the ebb, occasionally working up the river with the oars.
After dropping off several boxes of Enfield rifles, rounds of fixed artillery ammunition and Kerr single action revolvers, they’d picked up two hundred bales of cotton in the town of Columbia. Along with the cargo had come two unexpected passengers. His thoughts turned to the two men sleeping below in the cabin house. He wondered who they were.
Just after they had finished loading the cotton, Salazar had brought them on board with their pistols and their carpet bags. The Spaniard had given no names or explanation. The younger one looked to be around thirty-five years old. He had a thin pale face with side whiskers and black hair. He wore a ready-made suit with a waistcoat where he carried a large knife, with the hilt quite visible. The other older man was called the Colonel and seemed nervous and edgy. He had a moustache and a narrow wisp of a goatee hanging limply from his chin like a dangling piece of Spanish moss. He had the appearance of a hard-edged Southern chevalier with a diamond ring on his little finger and stark, brooding eyes. They were bunking with Salazar and Nolo in their cabin. Townsend knew immediately that these two men needed watching. They had the look of Confederate agents on some kind of secret mission. This was the kind of information Savage would want.
Townsend could hear the muted lapping of water chuckling alongside the hull, and he looked up at the tilting mastheads silhouetted against the dark sky. He found the blackness comforting, and enjoyed feeling the ship—the waves, the motion, the breeze—all in darkness. They would have another eight hours of night sailing to get out to sea before heading on a more southerly course to the mouth of the Rio Grande and the Mexican city of Matamoros, less than three hundred miles away. Salazar had announced they would sell some of their cotton there as a safety precaution. But Townsend wondered if the real reason they were going to Matamoros had something to do with the two mystery passengers.
At dawn the next day, the wind fortunately shifted to the east-southeast and they sheeted in the sails on a direct course to the Rio Grande, the choppy waves striking the hull with glancing blows. With a strengthening breeze, the schooner edged away from the bare and scrubby barrier islands off the Texas coast. A few seabirds cried out as they glided over the swaying mastheads. Olsen had brought Look-Out the cat up on deck to keep the seagulls from snatching up the flying fish that had landed on deck overnight. At the sight of the cat, the seagulls squawked and hollered. Look-Out leapt out of Olsen’s arms onto the deck, but she didn’t get far. The Dane had fashioned a halter made out of twine and leather around the cat’s body, and he gave a tug on the rope leash to remind her she wasn’t free. Dutch Olsen told Townsend the cat reminded him of his former wife.
“That woman also had a notion to wander,” he said.
“Did she like flying fish, same as the cat?” Townsend asked with a wry smile.
“Well, you might say that,” Olsen said. “But no, I believe my wife was more squirrel than cat. She liked her nuts, you see, always liked to gather new ones.” They both had laughed.
Townsend shifted his attention to the cabin house and the passengers down below. He curled up his nose at the acrid coal smoke wafting up the stovepipe, but then the pungent aroma of freshly brewed coffee drifted up onto the quarterdeck. Through an open porthole, he could hear the two passengers talking with Salazar and Nolo.
Later that morning Townsend sent Hendricks into the main cabin house to eavesdrop. Hendricks stood outside the Spaniards’ door and caught snippets of conversation. He gathered the two Southerners were on a clandestine mission authorized by General John Magruder of Houston. The Confederate general had just visited Matamoros a month earlier, where he had been given the high honor of receiving a formal military salute by Mexican authorities. Magruder wanted these two men to help organize a campaign of sabotage in Matamoros to seize Northern merchant ships, and “destroy the enemy’s property at land or at sea.” Suddenly
the door opened, barely giving Hendricks time to back away.
“¡Fuera de aquí, negro! Out of here, Negro,” the Spaniard shouted. “¡Te mato! I’ll kill you!”
When Hendricks told Townsend about the exchange—including the fact that Nolo had pulled out his knife and brandished it at him—Townsend called off the eavesdropping plan. It was Hendricks who came up with the alternative. He reminded Townsend how they had hidden Abbott. The sail locker on the starboard side was just outside the Spaniards’ cabin. If he could get in there, he would be able to hear everything that was said. Both sail lockers, port and starboard, could be accessed from the raised quarterdeck through a hatch opening flush on the deck. The only problem was how to cloak the sound of Hendricks clambering over the sails. They needed to create some kind of a distraction.
They waited until nightfall to carry out their plan. The moon had come up, casting a faint glow on the tilting mastheads, the light clinging to the sails like morning dew to a spider’s cobweb. The wind had picked up sharply, warning that a squall might be brewing somewhere near. Townsend turned the wheel slightly and brought the heavy schooner dead into the wind. The sails began flapping and snapping like gunshots, and the blocks squealed and banged against the deck in a quick succession of loud reports. The noise allowed Hendricks the few minutes he needed to scramble through the hatchway into the dark sail locker without anyone hearing his movements.
For the next two hours, Townsend could smell the cigar smoke wafting up from below and he could hear the steady murmur of conversation. It was sometime after midnight when all went quiet and Townsend decided it was time to get Hendricks out. As they’d arranged, he again luffed up the schooner into the wind. This was the signal for Hendricks to get back on deck. With the sails making a noisy racket, the Bahamian was just emerging on the quarterdeck when simultaneously Salazar and the older of the two Confederates surfaced up the companionway ladder from the cabin house.
