Captain Of My Heart

by Danelle Harmon

  Mira, clad in a blousy, white cotton shirt, tucked her skirts up into her waistband and, laughing off the crew’s lewd comments about her bare legs, danced barefoot atop Freedom’s barrel to the rollicking tune of Liam’s fiddle. It was a new day, a glorious morning, and they were here in Maine on their way to join the American fleet!

  A brisk wind pushed Kestrel steadily up the bay. Her prize schooner, with just enough Americans aboard to sail her, followed, its crew locked in Kestrel’s hold. Islands slid past, densely wooded with pine and cedar, their shores rimmed with pebbled beaches strewn with green, purple, and brown seaweed. Sapphire blue water surrounded them, and Kestrel’s streaming wake glittered foamy and white in the sun. High overhead, an osprey circled her proud mainmast and played chase with the streaming pennants.

  “We led fair Freedom hi-ther, and lo, the desert smiled! A paradise of plea-sure was opened in the wild! Your harvest, bold Americans, no pow’r shall snatch a-wa-a-y, preserve, preserve, preserve your rights, and free A-mer-i-kay!”

  “And free A-mer-i-kay!” the crew echoed.

  At the helm, the captain grinned and moved the tiller to compensate for a slight shift in wind. Amidships, Dalby, clutching his ribs and complaining about a stitch in his side, worked to repair the hole in one of the jibs, now laid out on the deck around him. At the rail, the crew eagerly crowded for their first glimpse of the mighty American squadron.

  And Kestrel, caught up in the excitement, lifted her bows and began to dance.

  “Torn from a world of ty-rants, beneath this western sky! We formed a new do-min-ion, a land of liberty! The world shall own we’re free men here and such we’ll ever be-e-e, huzzah, huzzah, huzzah, huzzah, for love and liberty!”

  They rounded an island, caught the breeze in their faces, and saw, in glorious, magnificent array, the American fleet spread out before them.

  Mira’s first glimpse of it filled her with awe. There they were, so many vessels she could’ve played leapfrog from deck to deck. Nearly a score of armed warships drawn up in a crescent, with the storeships and transports tucked safely behind them. The pride of America. The might of their new country!

  “Brendan, look!” she cried, hopping up and down atop the cannon’s sun-warmed barrel.

  But her breath caught in her throat. Tall and handsome, the buttons of his blue uniform gleaming in the sun, he captured her heart in a way the glorious American fleet could never do. Her chest swelled with emotion, and she thought her ribs would burst.

  He was her captain.

  Kestrel was her ship.

  And they would do what they had to do for their proud young country.

  Now she fully understood how Brendan felt, why it was so important to him to be a part of this glorious effort. Filled with an overwhelming sense of unity and joyous elation, Mira curled her fingers around the fore-shrouds and felt her heart sing with pride. And the crew felt it, too. They laid fond, possessive hands on their ship, touched her gunwales, raised her magnificent red-and-white flag for all to see. The fleet was mighty, but Kestrel was their ship and they were her crew. And as they sailed boldly into the midst of that immense gathering, a thunderous welcoming cheer echoed across the water and filled their ears.

  Liam put down his fiddle. “God Almighty, would ye look at that,” he said hoarsely, his blue eyes strangely moist.

  Abadiah Bobbs was staring in awe. “Aye, a fine, purty sight, ain’t it?”

  “They’re cheering us,” Dalby said, glancing aft at his captain.

  But Brendan saw only the stubborn British flag that still flew from the fort—and Captain Henry Mowat’s three sloops-of-war snugged pugnaciously in the harbor’s entrance. Catching Dalby’s eye, he leaned on his cane and raised his speaking trumpet. “Mr. Wilbur! Get the t'gallant and topsails in lest we end up in Bangor! Mr. Doherty! Have your gun captains give the fleet the traditional thirteen-gun salute! And Mr. Starr! I mean, Miss Ashton!” Laughter greeted his momentary error. “Let Freedom lead it off!”

  “Aye, Cap’n!” She leapt down from the gun, the wind lifting her skirts and tempting him with a view of suntanned legs and bare feet. A moment later, she was lowering a slow match to the gun’s touchhole. One by one, Kestrel’s guns shattered the peaceful stillness. Deep reverberations rang out across the bay and echoed around heavily wooded islands and mainland alike. Seabirds winged away, screaming. Smoke billowed across the water.

  Drawing his spyglass, Brendan trained it on the fleet. There was Commodore Saltonstall’s handsome Continental flagship Warren, her thirty-two guns making her the most powerful vessel here. Nearby lay the Continental sloop Providence, formerly commanded by the plucky John Paul Jones, and now the capable, no-nonsense Captain Hoysted Hacker. The Massachusetts brigs Hazard and Tyrannicide, both of sixteen guns, were anchored off the flagship’s stern, and Connecticut’s General Putnam was visible just beyond her network of spars and shrouds. New Hampshire’s contribution, the twenty-gun Hampden, lay nearer shore, her tall masts almost indistinguishable from the spruce, cedar, and white pine of a nearby island.

  Good God, he thought, moving the glass and recognizing others by the shape of their bows, the cut of their sails, the number of guns they carried. And then he saw the privateers. They were the ones who had the most to lose should this heroic expedition fail. Ships like the beautiful Black Prince, Salisbury-built and Salem-owned, one of the finest of her class and commanded by Captain Nathaniel West. And there, swinging at their anchor cables, three Newburyport vessels that had been among the first to volunteer for the Expedition: the sixteen-gun Sky Rocket and the ships Vengeance and Monmouth, both mounting twenty guns. Their crews were thick at the rails, wildly waving to Kestrel’s crew and yelling greetings across the water. He lowered the glass. There were just too many to recognize, too many to count.

  Gunfire boomed out over the water, and he realized that Warren herself was firing her cannon in thunderous salute to Kestrel. Signal flags soared to her masthead and broke to the wind.

  “Orders from Commodore Saltonstall, sir.” John Keefe craned his neck, his silver hair roiling about his face as he tried to see above the heads of his shipmates. “He wants you to repair aboard the flagship with all possible haste.”

  Brendan grinned, sighed, and thrust his hand though the lanyard of his speaking trumpet. He swung the instrument once around his wrist. “Just as I expected.” He saw Mira watching him from where she stood beside Freedom, her green eyes shining with love and pride. What was she thinking? What did she expect of him? He nodded to her and turned smartly to his lieutenant. “Liam, I’m leaving you in command. See that you take good care of both our fine lassies. Hopefully the commodore will be merciful and not detain me for too long.”

  Liam, who knew his captain was a restless man not inclined to waste time in a social call, predicted, “Well, he’ll probably be expectin’ ye to join him fer supper. He’ll detain ye, all right, if ye let him.”

  But Brendan was grinning his rakehell’s grin and rubbing his hands together. “Well then, I shall have to make certain he does not, eh?”

  Liam raised his brows. “And why don’t ye be a-tellin’ me how ye plan to do that?”

  “Certainly.” Brendan’s eyes were deceptively innocent, like a wayward youngster playing a prank on his schoolmaster. “I shall bring him a . . . contribution. Something for supper, I think. Mr. Starr! I mean, Miss Ashton!”

  “Captain!”

  “Do you have any more of those blueberry pies you, er, baked and brought aboard last night?”

  “Sure do! Got a whole bunch of ’em!”

  “Ah, wonderrrful!” Liam and Brendan exchanged knowing grins. “Please fetch one and bring it to me immediately!”

  Beaming with pleasure, Mira raced across the deck and ducked below.

  Liam’s face went dark with foreboding. “Ye’re askin’ fer it this time, Brendan. This ain’t the way to get on Saltonstall’s good side, ye know.”

  But Brendan only laughed and tossed him his speakin
g trumpet. He had his own worries—and Saltonstall’s reaction to Mira’s blueberry pie wasn’t one of them.

  ###

  Seated in Warren’s great cabin amidst the other captains of the fleet, Brendan read the urgent letter that anxious members of the Navy Board in Boston, some one hundred seventy miles away, had rushed off to the commodore urging him to either capture or destroy the three English sloops-of-war—immediately.

  “But I can’t send in my ships until Lovell’s forces reduce the fort!” Saltonstall protested, his face reddening as he faced the Providence’s pugnacious captain, Hoysted Hacker, from across a table laid with silver and crystal.

  “If we do not stop procrastinating and destroy those ships, the British reinforcements that General Washington warned us about are going to arrive and take care of us!” Hacker barked.

  “Would ye have me risk yer vessels at the guns of that fort?”

  “I’d rather take my chances with the fort than with British men-of-war! They come up that bay and trap us in, and it’s all over for us!”

  “I think we should go in,” Brendan said, piling a sizable helping of roast chicken on his plate. “From what you’ve told me, you’ve been having these councils of war nearly every night, and still haven’t taken any action. Either you or General Lovell must make a move. Hoysted’s right. I’ve read his proposal of attack, and find it sound. If you do not do something, and do it soon, those reinforcements will arrive and trap all of us in the bay.”

  “Ah, what do you know, you’re just a bloody Irishman,” Saltsonstall growled.

  “Who made quite a name for himself in His Majesty’s navy before defecting to our side!” Hoysted roared, in Brendan’s defense.

  Captain William Burke of the Newburyport ship Sky Rocket leapt to his feet. “Aye, that schooner of his holds a record all of us envy and none of us can match!”

  “You ought to be right proud of him!” snarled Captain John Edmonds, of the Defense. “We’re lucky to have him, and so soon after his near death at that bloody knave Crichton’s hands!”

  “Aye, it ought to be Merrick leading this farce!” Hoysted snapped, gripping his fork.

  Brendan, uncomfortable, cleared his throat and dabbed at his mouth with his napkin. “Here, now,” he said, holding up his hand. “We’ll not accomplish anything if we fight amongst ourselves.” He poured himself a glass of buttermilk to wash down a bit of ship’s biscuit. Normally the bread was almost inedible, but after Mira’s cooking, it was like ambrosia. He eyed the as yet untouched pie that sat ominously on the far end of the table. “And think of it. Lovell’s militia is ill trained and skittish. They were lucky to take the western part of Bagaduce as it is, what with those banks being so steep. Give Revere credit, ’twas no easy task. Now morale is dropping and men are deserting. We, on the other hand, are experienced naval officers and capable commanders. Let us go in and take out Mowat’s three sloops. ’Twill hearten Lovell’s militia and give them courage.”

  “He’s right. Listen to him, sir!” said Titus Salter, commander of the Hampden.

  “Aye, the bloody Irishman knows what he’s talkin’ about!”

  “Englishman,” Burke said, grinning.

  Saltonstall’s face darkened and he set his jaw. Even his own captains were against him. Lovell ought to attack first, not him! Let him and his precious Paul Revere go in and take the fort, then he’d send his ship captains in!

  Benjamin West, captain of the Black Prince, poured himself a glass of claret and spoke for all of them. “Sir, we depend upon the swiftness of our vessels and miles of open ocean for our very survival. Read the blasted letter from Boston,” he pleaded. “Consider Washington’s warning. We’re sitting ducks up here. Hacker’s right, Merrick’s right, everyone’s right. Let’s just get in there, destroy those three ships, and hightail it out of here. I’ve no desire to be penned into this bay, twenty-five miles from the ocean, like a cat treed by hounds with nowhere to go but up. And if those British reinforcements arrive—”

  “That’s just what’ll happen!” Hacker barked.

  “Aye!”

  “Do something now!”

  “Get on with it!”

  They fought. They quarreled. Lovell and his officers were called in, and after much discussion, the general accepted Captain Hacker’s plan on how his ragtag militia could occupy and hold a position behind the British fort. The ship captains agreed to force their way into the harbor; after all, their vessels were superior to those of the British, and destruction of Mowat’s three sloops was essential. Without their protection, all aid and provisions going into the British fort would be stopped—and the British General McLean would have no choice but to surrender.

  ###

  On the third day of August, eight ships under the command of Vice Admiral Sir George Collier had left port, turned their prows north, and headed toward Penobscot to relieve the besieged General Francis McLean and Captain Henry Mowat. British spirits were high, confidence strong. In the vanguard was the vice admiral’s powerful sixty-four-gun flagship Raisonnable; in the midst were several large men-of-war; and in the rear was a sullen frigate named Viper.

  The squadron, hampered by fog, rendezvoused off the entrance to the great Penobscot Bay on the evening of August 13, where their presence sent a panicky American vessel on picket duty fleeing upriver to warn the American commodore Saltonstall and his fleet. But Sir George Collier, in command of His Majesty’s naval forces in American waters, was not worried. Although the rebels had more ships than he did, his men-of-war could withstand far more abuse than the fragile privateers, or even Saltonstall’s thirty-two-gun Warren. The American militia was raw and ill trained; he, on the other hand, had more than two hundred guns and some fifteen hundred well-trained and enthusiastic men.

  He went to bed that night confident of victory. He had heavy, powerful ships manned by the finest navy in the world. He had the element of surprise. And he had one of Sir Geoffrey Lloyd’s— since retired to his fine home in Kent—most ambitious captains, a man he bore no liking for, but a man who was desperate enough to go to any lengths to prove himself after several past disgraces.

  Captain Richard Crichton of the frigate Viper.

  ###

  That Friday, Brendan paced his cabin, going over the agreement that had finally been reached between Lovell and Saltonstall. Upon a favorable tide in the afternoon, they would make a coordinated attack. Lovell himself would lead some four hundred of his men to a position behind the British fort, where his presence would sever contact between McLean and Mowat. Once that had been done, Saltonstall would send in his ships and destroy the three sloops-of-war.

  Five of Saltonstall’s ships were anchored at the harbor entrance, waiting for high tide. Above, Brendan could hear the crew quickly readying Kestrel for impending battle. His fingers tightened on his cane and he tried in vain to shake the heavy, overwhelming feeling of doom. Just beyond the stern windows the sea swelled and surged and danced in the noon sunlight; beneath him, Kestrel rolled at her anchor cable, unhappy that she was not one of the lucky ones being sent in against Mowat’s sloops. He really should go topside; by now, Lovell would be in position and ready. Any moment now they’d get the signal that the American forces had taken position at the rear of the fort.

  But this waiting. . . .

  His hands were sweating.

  He was dizzy, light-headed, faint. Was it the heat? His lingering weakness? The tedium of waiting? As Ephraim might’ve done, he drew his watch, shoved it restlessly back into his pocket, and tried to keep his mind off his poor health by recalling Saltonstall’s reaction to Mira’s pie. His mouth curved in amusement. Pleading a stomachache that had “hit him in the gut like a ball from a six-pounder,” the surly commodore had cut short last night’s council of war and sent them all back to their ships with curses ringing in their ears.

  So much for blueberry pie. And, he thought wryly, lengthy meetings where nothing got accomplished. He was back aboard Kestrel by six bells.


  But as he’d held Mira in his arms last night, staring into the darkness and listening to the owls hooting off in the Maine woods, the ominous feeling of impending disaster had grown so strong, he’d finally had to rise from bed and go topside. There, he’d spent the rest of the long night watching the lights from the fleet glowing upon the silent waters, his Irish heart filled with dread. He’d thought of Saltonstall’s incompetence and unpopularity. He’d thought of the poorly trained militia. He’d thought of the British reinforcements they all feared—and then he’d thought of Mira’s blueberry pie.

  Tired and sad, he’d forced a grin as he gently shook her awake early this morning.

  “Moyrrra, lassie! Wake up, grá mo chroí! I’ve a task to occupy you while we suffer another day of waiting.”

  He, of course, knew that today there’d be no waiting. Today they would attack, and he wanted her off the ship and safe. Stretching like one of her Rescue Efforts, Mira opened her eyes. She looked up at Brendan through a tangled curtain of thick, silky hair, smiling as he reached down and cleared it from her cheek.

  “Dia dhuit ar maidin,” he said, grinning to cover his own sadness, his apprehension.

  “Good morning to you, too, Captain,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. Her shirt gaping enticingly open, she pulled his head down to hers and kissed his cheeks, his nose, his lips, until hot desire flared in his loins. “And what is this task that’s so urgent you can’t let me sleep?”

  He smiled down at her, hiding his hands behind his back so she wouldn’t see them shaking. “The commodore was quite impressed with your blueberry pie,” he said, hating himself for lying. “I think it would please him if you baked him another. Would you like to go ashore and gather some more blueberries, mo stóirín?”