Harbor of Spies

by Robin Lloyd

  “Then in that case you have even more trouble, Captain,” Gabriela said. “The police have been ordered to arrest all of you for espionage as soon as that ship docks and is loading cargo.”

  “Does the owner of my ship, Don Pedro Alvarado Cardona, know this? Did you hear his name mentioned?”

  “No. Nothing. That’s all I heard. I must go now.”

  She looked at him with a frightened expression. “I have told Bertrand you must all leave Havana. Save yourselves and get off this island.”

  Gabriela put a black lace veil over her head as a disguise. Bertrand escorted her out of the bar to the safety of a carriage, and then returned. As soon as the other three sailors drifted into the Toro del Mar, they all wanted an explanation for this meeting. Townsend let Bertrand explain to them what they had just heard from Gabriela, emphasizing that they could all soon be arrested as spies. Townsend’s instincts warned him there must be some truth to what she said. In all likelihood, they were now hunted men.

  “What in thunder!” cried out Red Beard with a set of his bearded jaw. “I’m damned if I understand that. I’m no spy.”

  “Why, arrest us?” Dutch Olsen said. “We haven’t done anything!”

  “It’s something to do with a ship that has just come into port,” Bertrand said. “The Spanish think we are spying on that ship.”

  “It must be Don Pedro and his supercargoes,” said Higgins. “They must be behind this. What do you think, Cap’n?”

  Townsend sat there, his head slumped over, looking down at the floor as he tried to control a twitch in his lower lip. He wasn’t sure what to do. He looked up and saw Hendricks staring right at him. At first he didn’t say anything, but then he began to speak slowly, softly. He explained everything he knew about the ship, starting with the fact that it was the same ship they’d seen in Matamoros. The two Confederates they’d taken over as passengers to Matamoros were on board. He told them it was a Spanish slave ship that had been bought by the Confederates from Spanish slave traders. It had been reflagged as a Mexican merchant ship, a neutral flag, to get it safely through the Union Blockade in the Gulf. In Nassau it would be outfitted with deck cannons supplied by the British and turned into a Confederate warship.”

  “A Confederate gunship that has run slap up into Havana harbor,” Red Beard whispered, shaking his head in disbelief.

  Townsend nodded. “Don Pedro is the broker, and these latest developments suggest he may have used his connections to get the full cooperation of the Spanish naval officials in the port.”

  “But why in blazes did that ship come here to Havana?” Higgins asked. “It could have gone directly to the Bahamas.”

  “Most likely to get coal and load a new crew,” Townsend said. “Just look at the number of loyal Confederates swarming all over Havana now. Finding a crew is easy pickings here. There may be other business still to be conducted as well. Possibly taking on arms and ammunition.”

  Red Beard eyed him suspiciously. “You sound like one of them high-tone Pinkerton detectives I read about, spying for Lincoln and the blue bellies.”

  Townsend didn’t reply. The hostile tone in Red Beard’s voice was unmistakable, and the accusation had hit him squarely in the face. Higgins stood by silently. Olsen was busy downing a second drink. Townsend could feel the tension simmering. His palms were sweating. He’d grown fond of these men. They made a good team. He had kept his promise to Savage as long as he could, but now that he’d endangered them, he owed them a full explanation. They deserved that. They were his shipmates.

  “I have a confession to make,” Townsend said. He gulped nervously.

  All eyes were on him. He looked at the bronzed weathered features and furrowed brows around him. They came from different backgrounds, but wind and water had given them a common purpose, a special bond of trust. They were all just trying to survive, keeping their heads above water so as not to drown in this outer eddy of the American conflict.

  “I was asked by the acting US consul general in Havana, Thomas Savage, before our last voyage to report on the activities of the business dealings of Don Pedro—and I have been doing that.”

  “A spy for Seward and Lincoln,” Red Beard hissed.

  “I prefer to call myself an informant, but yes I suppose I am a spy.”

  “You’re a crittur full of surprises, Cap’n,” Red Beard said, shaking his head. “I did my part in this war on the Confederit side, but I see you’re still engaged.”

  “I should have told you before,” Townsend said. “I wanted to, but I was sworn to secrecy by Thomas Savage. It was safer for all of us. Until now.”

  “Sacré Dieu, Capitaine. I thought you told us you weren’t taking sides in this war,” Bertrand said.

  “I remember that as well,” said Olsen. “You said we were all outsiders.”

  Townsend didn’t answer at first but then said, “I never intended to become a spy, but in running the blockade I realized I’ve been betraying myself. I felt like I needed to take a stand.”

  “And Hendricks? Is he a spy too?” Red Beard growled.

  “I asked him to help me, but he should speak for himself.”

  Hendricks’s face was impassive. He responded without hesitation. “I agreed to help the Cap’n cause I ain’ want nothin’ to do with them Spaniards. But now that you ask me if I deh a spy, I gon tell you one ting. I ain’ feelin’ no shame. Dis war up north is a war between Americans, but for me it also deh a war ’bout freedom, not just for slaves but for all Negro people. So I ain’ feelin no shame.”

  Townsend had never heard Hendricks speak that way before, so directly and with such conviction. Nor had any of the others. They sat in silence, contemplating. It was as if the war, its consequences and its causes, had suddenly hit home, with one of their own explaining what was at stake. Townsend knew he had to say something. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the letter he’d been given by Savage with the stamp of the Consulate.

  “I know you men feel betrayed by me. It’s understandable. The bond of trust we had, I broke it. I know that, and I need to fix it.”

  Townsend waved the letter in front of them.

  “This might help. It’s a letter from the American consul general. Before I agreed to do any sleuthing for him, I had Mr. Savage write this up. It may be our ticket out of here. The letter asks any US naval captain who might stop us at sea, to extend to not just me, but to all on board every courtesy and consideration. It goes on to explain that we have provided important help and intelligence to the US Consulate in Havana, and should be considered as loyal American citizens.”

  “That’s a mighty fine gesture,” Olsen said, “if some Navy gunboat doesn’t shoot us out of the water first.”

  “Malheureusement, we have no way out of Havana Bay,” Bertrand said, shaking his head. “Pas de sortie. And there is no going back to the Gaviota. We would be arrested.”

  “They’ll be watching and stopping all vessels,” Higgins chimed in. “We’re trapped. We’ll need some way to get out of the harbor. We need a new ship.”

  The thought of a new boat gave Townsend an idea. He began to tell them about a schooner he knew over at Casa Blanca. The owner was a Cuban fisherman by the name of Raúl Ortiz, who wanted to sell it to a blockade runner. He was selling it cheap.

  “I think I can get it for four hundred dollars. Fortunately I took my money off the Gaviota. I’ve got a mixture of gold doubloons and bank notes from the Banco Español. Should be enough.”

  The others were digesting this new information and the bad situation they were in. Townsend could see they were resigned. He looked over at Red Beard, who glowered at him with a resentful stare. He knew the Texas sailor would not forget this betrayal of trust easily. He decided the best tactic was to leave him alone.

  They left the bar in groups of two so as not to attract attention. Townsend and Hendricks walked ahead, hug
ging the sidewalk so they remained in the shadows. They took a circuitous route through a warehouse area, walking quickly with their heads down.

  They arrived at the ferry docks, breathless. There was no sign of the others. The harbor was closed to any large boat traffic late at night, but for the right price you could always find harbor boats willing to take the risk. Townsend told Hendricks to wait and keep a lookout for the others. He would find a boatman. He lifted the wide-brimmed hats of several sleeping boatmen, shaking them awake, but then quickly realized they were too drunk. Finally he found a man who agreed to smuggle them across the harbor to Casa Blanca for a high fee. He’d been drinking like the others, but as soon as the Cuban boatman saw the shine of a quarter-ounce Spanish gold coin worth about four American dollars, he jumped to attention.

  “Do you know a fisherman by the name of Ortiz?” Townsend asked in Spanish. “¿Conoce a Raúl Ortiz?”

  “¿Por qué lo estás buscando?¿Qué ha hecho? Why are you looking for him?”

  Townsend thought it best to be vague so he said simply that he was an old friend of Ortiz, and wanted to go out fishing with him. The man was like so many of the Cubans working on the docks—a wiry, leather-skinned man with a stubbly beard who spoke a colloquial Spanish. The boatman introduced himself as Junípero Díaz, and said he knew Ortiz, the fisherman. He would take him to the docks nearest the fishing fleet, not far from where the man lived. When the others arrived, Townsend had to reassure him that these were all friends of Ortiz. The man smiled, revealing a gap in his front teeth.

  There was a slight night breeze coming from the south as they cast off from the docks and the boatman raised a lateen sail. The small responsive boat immediately heeled over, and the boatman motioned for all of his passengers to move into the center of the boat. Somewhere in the darkness off to their left was the Gaviota riding at anchor. Townsend strained his eyes to see if he could spot her masts, but it was impossible to see anything more than a hundred yards away. Townsend could hear the muttering and complaining in the darkness. He knew these men were distraught about leaving Havana. He knew they blamed him. His choices had put them all in danger. He knew they were right to be concerned, but he ignored the disquiet on the boat. They sailed up to the docks at Casa Blanca where the fishing fleet was anchored, and Townsend told the man to wait. There were still some flickering lights on at a late night tavern, and he walked in and inquired about Raúl Ortiz, who, he was told, lived just a block away.

  Townsend walked off, leaving the others outside the tavern. Ortiz lived in a small one-storied wooden house painted orange, with blue and red steps that led to the front door. He woke the fisherman up, introducing himself as the Confederado who had spoken with him at the fish market. It took two cups of coffee and the sight of gold coins, but within an hour Townsend was the new owner of the scow schooner. Ortiz told him where it was tied up, and Townsend was soon showing off his new boat to the crew, a square lumber barge, fifty feet long and twenty feet wide, two masts and a bowsprit. In the pale moonlight, the crew stood there speechless as they stared at the dim silhouetted outline of this ungainly vessel. Even in the dark, it was clear that the ship had bulky sides, square ends, and a flat bottom.

  “She’s called Vírgen Gorda,” Townsend finally said. “The Fat Virgin.”

  “She may be fat, but I reckon no virgin,” Olsen piped in. “This boat is old and she’s got a cargo hold smelling of rotten fish.”

  The sailors all laughed.

  “She’s certainly no weatherly vessel, Cap’n,” Higgins complained. “I’d call her a fat barge.”

  “She’s a scow schooner,” Townsend said. “Slow, but seaworthy. Built to carry cordwood and stone up the Sabine River in Texas. What the Texans might call a right smart, sturdy boat. She’s heavily planked and with the wind and waves behind her she’ll move along. She might do four to five knots, maybe more running before the wind. It’s all we’ve got, I’m afraid.”

  Townsend again apologized to the men, and told them he intended to make amends. “I’m going to sneak back on the Gaviota tonight to retrieve the sextant, telescope, charts, and that Colt pistol. I’m taking requests. Each of you gets one item. Red Beard, let’s start with you. What do you want from the ship?”

  “Chawing tobacco,” the Texan grumbled as he bit off another plug of tobacco.

  Higgins wanted his sea knife. Bertrand, a love locket containing a strand of Gabriela’s hair. Hendricks, a pocket compass. Olsen said he wanted the cat.

  “I doubt I can retrieve the cat, Olsen,” Townsend said.

  “Could be she will bring us good luck, Cap’n. We may need her. Besides, this stinking ship you’ve found for us is probably full of rats. Look-Out could be useful. Just put the halter on her.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  Townsend turned to leave, but came face-to-face with Red Beard’s whiskery beard.

  “Whar’ you headed afterwards?” the first mate asked.

  “Back to the docks and the city,” Townsend replied. “Some personal business.”

  “I reckon you mean spy business,” Red Beard whispered bitterly.

  Townsend ignored the remark. He turned toward the men’s shadowy faces up against the hull of their new ship.

  “I’ll meet all of you at the Muelle de Luz, the small landing where the fishing boats and harbor boats tie up near the ferry docks directly across from Regla. The boat should blend in there, and not be noticed. I’ll be there at four o’clock. If I’m not, you’ll know something has happened to me. Just set sail.”

  30

  As Townsend stepped back on board the harbor boat, he could tell immediately from Junípero Díaz’s breath that the man had been drinking more. The Cuban had a slight slur in his voice as he demanded a sixteenth-ounce gold coin. At first, Townsend thought about bargaining with him, but then he reconsidered his situation. He gave the man another coin. He told him to take him to the Gaviota before heading to shore. More than anything, he needed the ship’s chronometer, the sextant, and the charts of the Gulf waters, but he also wanted to retrieve the Colt pistol he’d grabbed from Van Cortland. It was a risk he was willing to take. He nodded to the boatman and pointed in the direction where he thought the schooner was anchored in the center of the harbor. Townsend could feel the freshening breeze coming in from the southeast as they quickly pulled away from the fisherman’s wharf. The resentful burn of Red Beard’s eyes, his anger, and the man’s distrust were still fresh in his mind. He wondered if the crew would be waiting for him in Old Havana when he got back. They could just decide to leave him behind. It was another risk.

  The small boat with its lateen sail glided through the dark harbor, quietly passing the silhouettes of anchored warships, merchant tallships, and the ragtag collection of schooners and tugboats involved in blockade running. Beyond that, he could plainly see the shimmering lights of Havana, the dark shapes of the church towers and the massive domes dominating the skyline. From the bow, he looked back at the long stream of phosphorescent light trailing in the boat’s wake, and he was reminded of the cocuyos in the Cuban countryside.

  Townsend was still lost in a meditative reverie when he heard voices. His back stiffened. The voices sounded close by. He scanned the darkness.

  “Centinelas,” the boatman whispered. “Son centinelas de la fortaleza.” Townsend could barely make out the lonely figures of sentries with their rifles standing high above him on the parapets of the Cabaña fortress. It was 2:00 a.m., and the soldiers were routinely passing on the “stay alert” signal from one fortress wall to the next. In the dark, he listened to the eerie cry of these night guards, echoing across the blackness of the channel. He hoped they didn’t spot their small sail.

  After tacking back and forth between ships staggered alongside each other, Townsend finally picked out the shadowy hull of the Gaviota. There wasn’t a sound to be heard as the boatman, drunk as he probably was, sk
illfully brought his small vessel into the wind and nudged it up alongside the Gaviota’s hull. Townsend grabbed the stays and nimbly pulled himself up onto the schooner’s deck.

  “Espérame Junípero,” Townsend said to the man. “Dame unos minutos. Wait for me. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

  The boatman replied evasively that he had to make another trip, but he promised he would come back. Townsend was wise to that trick. He knew the man had just given him an ultimatum. Pay more or he would leave. He handed the man another gold coin.

  “Suficiente,” Townsend asked. “Is that enough?”

  “Sí, jefe.”

  Before going down into the cabin, Townsend walked up to the bow, scanning the shadowy shapes of ships anchored near them. Just to the windward of the Gaviota, there were two Texas blockade-running schooners, their decks stacked high with cotton bales. They were clearly waiting to be cleared to unload their valuable cargo. It didn’t look as if there was anybody on watch. Townsend sat on a water barrel near the foremast listening for any strange sounds, anything out of the ordinary. Satisfied there was nothing, he walked into the forward cabin house, lit a lamp, and collected the few personal things the crew had asked for. He then walked back to the stern, stepping down into the main cabin house, breathing in the familiar moldy tar smells of the ship. He lit a candle in his cabin, and began pulling out the old sea charts and books of the Gulf coastline he thought he might need. He wrapped the brass ship’s chronometer in its gimbaled rosewood box, and the sextant in its container in some old shirts. He grabbed the nautical almanac and the sight reduction tables he needed for his calculations and then packed all of this into his duffel bag.

  Finally he put his hand into the back of his closet and pulled out Van Cortland’s .36 caliber Colt pistol. He’d never used it, but he always kept it loaded. He knew it was against the law to carry any guns ashore, punishable with six years of imprisonment and hard labor on Havana’s chain gang. But then given Gabriela’s warning, what difference did it make if he broke the law. He was pondering how to carry the pistol safely when he heard noises outside. It sounded like the squeak of wooden oars. Then came the thud of a boat bumping up against the schooner. Townsend put the gun down quietly as he strained to hear any other noises through the porthole. At first he assumed the drunken boatman must be stumbling around in his boat looking for another bottle. But then he heard an unmistakable cry of pain and a heavy splash in the water.