Prelude to Glory, Vol. 1

by Ron Carter

  Five minutes later Margaret sat on her bed in the yellow light of one lamp, shoulders slumped, her soul filled with impossible conflicts.

  What should I do, John? I can’t give them Matthew. If he were killed . . .

  She clenched her eyes shut at the thought and forced it away. She heaved a great sigh and a heavy weariness settled, and suddenly she could hardly hold her head up. She slipped between the sheets and turned off the lamp and closed her eyes.

  At midnight Matthew sat up and swung his feet onto the floor of his dark bedroom.

  Tom’s voice came whispering. “All right?”

  “Yes. Can’t sleep.”

  Matthew gathered his clothes and walked silently on bare feet to the parlor and dressed. He put on his damp raincoat and his hat and walked out the front door into a moonless night. The rain had stopped, and a cold Atlantic breeze turned his breath to vapor as he turned north in the silent, vacant street. Twice he turned corners to avoid British patrols, and then he was at the cemetery, standing at the head of the covered grave of his father. He took off his hat and stood with his head bowed.

  What should I do? Where’s my duty?

  At one o’clock Margaret opened her eyes, suddenly wide awake, startled, wondering what had awakened her. She listened but could hear only the familiar sound of the night breeze and nothing more. She looked about the room—closed door, closed window, no other presence. Then the inner turmoil of the letter from Joseph Warren came flooding, and she turned on her back and closed her eyes and laid her arm over them, and tried to push it all away. Suddenly her thoughts settled, and a strong impulse drove her from her bed, onto her knees. She clasped her hands before her face and bowed her head and closed her eyes.

  “Dear God, creator of us all, humbly I bow to thank thee . . .”

  She got no further. It was as though a bright light burst in her soul. The peace she had felt with John on the day he died—the sweet peace that surpassed all other feelings she had ever known—began to rise in her heart. She was fixed to the spot and dared not move. The feeling grew and filled her very being, and once again she revelled in the spirit that seemed to fill the room. She opened her eyes but could see nothing.

  Then from within came a quiet assurance that was more powerful, more certain than anything earthly she had ever known. Her breath came short, and she tried to speak but could not. She did not know how long she sat thus, unable to rise, unable to speak, possessed once again by a peace that transcended all earthly bounds. Then, as before, the spirit began to slowly withdraw, and finally she was left on her knees, yearning for a return of the sweetest peace she had ever known, but it had faded and was gone.

  She remained on her knees for a time, and then again slipped into her bed and lay staring into the blackness. She did not remember when her eyes closed and she drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  In the cold wind of the dark cemetery, Matthew raised his hand to put his hat back onto his head, when he stopped, startled by an unexpected feeling that began in his breast and slowly spread. He looked upward into the black, moonless heavens and then into the trees and headstones about him, and saw nothing. The feeling filled him with a sense of light, and suddenly all inner turmoil settled and a peace seized him that was more powerful than anything in his life, and he understood in his heart what he must do.

  He stood rooted, not moving for a time, and then the feeling subsided and was gone. He once again looked about, and there was nothing, no one. He settled his hat onto his head and slowly backed away from his father’s grave, turned on his heel, and walked out of the cemetery.

  Fifteen minutes later he stopped in the street in front of the Thorpe home, needing to awaken Kathleen and tell her what he had felt and what he must do. There was no light in the house; the windows were black, vacant, staring eyes. He stood in the cold wind for a time before he walked on to his home.

  Inside the Thorpe home, Kathleen lay beside Phoebe, listening to mumbled snatches of sentences as Phoebe dreamed and tossed in her sleep. Clutched in Kathleen’s hand was a small wooden figure of a white snow owl with round painted eyes, feathers, and two names carefully carved on the bottom of the square base: Kathleen and Matthew.

  At six-ten a.m. Margaret was seated in the big rocking chair in the parlor when Matthew entered from his bedroom. She waited until he sat down on a chair facing her.

  “You must go,” she said quietly. “We will be all right.”

  “I know.”

  Part Two

  July 1775

  Chapter XVIII

  * * *

  In muggy, late-afternoon mid-July heat, Matthew stood sweating on the worn deck of the old merchantman frigate Buford as she rose and settled with the gentle sea swells rolling into Boston Harbor from the Atlantic. The small door to the officers’ quarters opened, and Matthew studied the leathery, lined face of Captain Nels Kirkegard as he looked at Matthew, then walked to face him and wait wordlessly while Matthew handed him a sealed envelope.

  Matthew saw the faded blue eyes sharpen as the aging captain broke the seal and read the simple message:

  Request that you transport bearer, Matthew Dunson of Boston, north to the Massachusetts port of Beverly to Captain Soren Weyland of the schooner Esther, earliest. Most urgent business.

  Your obdt. servant,

  Gen. Geo. Washington.

  Kirkegard raised eyes wise with forty-two years on the Atlantic to study Matthew, then his seaman’s bag and the huge, flat forty-pound bundle bound in oilskins hung on a strap over his shoulder.

  The captain gestured to the bundle. “Navigator?”

  “Yes, sir. Charts.”

  “Weyland said you’d be coming. Do you know what this letter says?”

  “I was told.” Matthew could hear the slight Norwegian accent.

  “You know about the blockade?”

  “Yes.” British gunboats were strung in a line half a mile long at the mouth of Boston Harbor, with a second line farther out in Boston Bay, from Hull to Deer Island, cutting off all commerce, all trade, slowly strangling Boston Town.

  Kirkegard refolded the letter as he spoke. “We run the blockade after dark, before moonrise. Stow your things in my cabin and make yourself acquainted with the ship. I’ll need you tonight.”

  The Buford was 128 feet in length, bowsprit to stern, and thirty-two feet at the beam, with but two masts, mizzen and main, three yards per mast, all six sails furled and lashed, with rigging on the mainmast for a spanker sail. Food and water for the crew were stored in the hold but no cargo; empty, she rode high in the water, ready to move fast. She carried no cannon, no arms. Matthew finished his inspection and judged her to be old but sound.

  With the sea dividing the sun in half, the officers took mess with the crew; then they all settled into their regular evening duties of lashing down all movable objects on the deck in the event of an unexpected night squall. In deep dusk Kirkegard gathered his officers and navigator at the mainmast with the crew behind. Matthew stood silently with the officers while the captain gave his terse orders.

  “We’re moving north to Port Beverly tonight, orders of General Washington. We run the blockade between full darkness and moonrise and we do it slow, on the mainsail only. No lights, no talking, no noise. Six men on the sail, first mate on the helm, the navigator on the bow with myself and Mr. Dunson, and bosun relaying the navigator’s orders to the helm. Everyone else will be on the rail watching for anything that moves. What we don’t need is to ram someone or something in the dark. Any questions?”

  There were none.

  “Once past the men-of-war we turn north. We should catch the Antilles current long before midnight and the westerlies soon after. When we do, we spread all six sheets and the spanker and run with the wind. We should sight the Marblehead lighthouse just before dawn, and we turn westward and should be in Beverly port by midmorning.”

  He paused for a moment, but there was no comment. “Does anyone know if Beverly is under blockade?”
<
br />   No one knew.

  “If she is, we go in anyway. We’ll keep our canvas tight and should be able to outrun the gunboats. If we get past them, I doubt they’ll follow us into port.”

  Matthew could hear fearless Viking blood ring in Kirkegard’s voice.

  Deep dusk gave way to full, moonless black, and on Kirkegard’s signal, hard, experienced hands shoved capstan bars into their slots in the capstan to wind in the anchor while others unfurled the mainsail and set it to catch the light breeze. The first mate set the helm for a course due west, towards the line of lights at harbor’s mouth. Slowly the old ship came about and crept forward. Her bow raised no curl, no sound, and she left no wake as she crawled steadily towards the lights of the British gunboats dead ahead.

  Kirkegard stood at the bow rail. To his right stood his navigator, a nearly indiscernible shape in the blackness, Matthew to his left, gripping the rail. All three men had their heads thrust forward, breathing light, peering into the blackness, watching, listening for any sound. There was only the sigh of the breeze in the rigging and the quiet murmur of light waves lapping against the hull, and blackness.

  They cleared the town, and the helmsman adjusted fifteen degrees south and the bow swung slightly, taking a heading that would divide in half the distance between the deck lights of the two nearest British gunboats at the mouth of Boston Harbor. The Buford inched forward and passed between the large lanterns on the stern of the gunboats, and Matthew heard quiet British voices from both men-of-war, strangely clear on the black water, as they slipped past one hundred fifty yards on either side. Then they were past the boats and Thompson Island, and the lights were three hundred yards astern. Kirkegard exhaled air, and they turned their faces east once more, towards the second line of lights out in Boston Bay.

  Once again the helmsman selected two lights, this time in the gap between Deer Island and Long Island, and once again the Buford crept forward on the single sail. They had heard no sound from the crew, lined against the rails on either side of the ship, watching, listening in dead silence. Slowly the high deck lights of the British men-of-war approached and then passed, and then they were six hundred yards past Deer Island. The navigator turned and quietly called to the bosun, “Eighty degrees north,” and the bosun softly relayed the order. The first mate made the adjustment on the helm, and the bowsprit of the old ship swung hard to port to miss Great Brewster Island and the Roaring Bulls, out in greater Massachusetts Bay and the open sea.

  Five minutes later Kirkegard looked back half a mile at the British blockade and turned to the bosun. “Unfurl all canvas.”

  The bosun barked orders, and men leaped to the rope ladders and three minutes later were walking the ropes on the yards seventy feet above the deck in total blackness, jerking the lashings from the sails, letting them drop to catch the gentle breeze. On deck, other hard, experienced hands set the yard ropes to catch the breeze. Twenty minutes later Matthew felt the Antilles current catch and carry them into the Gulf Stream. Fifteen minutes later the westerlies curling northeast from the Horse latitudes came quartering in and turned north offshore, and for the first time the six sheets of sail on the two masts and the spanker all snapped and popped and filled, and the Buford leaped forward, running free with the current and the wind like something alive, her bow cutting a great white curl, her wake showing white water for a hundred yards. Half an hour later a quarter moon rose and the tides began to ebb, and the navigator gave the order—ten degrees north to compensate—and the helmsman adjusted.

  For a moment Matthew felt a surge of pride and the incom-parable thrill of running with the wind and current on the undulating deck of a tall ship, with good men to handle her. He looked into the face of Captain Kirkegard in the faint light of the quarter moon, and he saw the deep satisfaction.

  At one-fifty a.m. they passed East Point on the port side. At four o’clock, with the moon already set, Kirkegard resumed his position in the bow, peering into the black Atlantic night for the first sighting of the Marblehead lighthouse. Matthew tipped his head to study the heavens, located the Big Dipper, then the North Star, and settled in to watch for the tiny fleck of light. At four forty-five a.m. he pointed. “Marblehead.” The helmsman brought the bow on a line that kept the point of light fifteen degrees to port. At five-thirty a.m., in the gray of dawn, Kirkegard used his glass to search the waters north of Marblehead point for British gunboats, then handed it to his navigator, then the first mate, then Matthew.

  There was no blockade on the stark, wild coast.

  Half an hour later the frigate cleared the peninsula north of Salem, furled all sails on the mizzen, worked west through the narrow channel, then moved north into the small port of Beverly, and at eight-forty a.m. Kirkegard lowered a longboat without dropping anchor.

  Matthew gathered his seaman’s bag and charts and faced Kirkegard at the rail. “Thank you, sir. I commend you and your crew.”

  Kirkegard smiled and nodded.

  “Do you plan to drop anchor for a while?”

  Kirkegard shook his head. “We have to get out before they decide to set a blockade. The Esther’s the last vessel to the north, next to the dry dock.”

  The officers gathered to shake his hand while the bosun lowered Matthew’s gear into the waiting longboat, and Matthew followed him and six sailors down the rope ladder and settled into the longboat as it rocked, bumping against the hull of the Buford. Ten minutes later he turned on the wharf to wave to the longboat as the sailors put their backs into the oars on their return to the Buford. The bosun waved back.

  The familiar sights and sounds and smells of a saltwater port washed over Matthew as he looped the strap of the heavy bundle of charts over his shoulder and picked up his seaman’s bag and started north towards the empty dry dock at the end of the piers. Stolid eyes of bearded New England mariners watched him, silently questioning why a ship had entered the harbor only long enough to put him ashore. The sound of heavy crosscut saws and pounding sledges slowed Matthew for a moment, and he puzzled at ship’s carpenters cutting sections at regular intervals out of the top deck railing of a merchantman. He paused, startled at the sight of cannon on deck, muzzles plugged while they waited to be fitted into the openings.

  The Esther was moored to the last pier by four two-inch hawsers with double rat guards mounted. Matthew studied her while he walked down the pier to the gangplank. The Esther was a schooner, merchantman, yellow pine mainmast sixty feet, mizzen fifty feet, rigged with two jibs forward. About 160 feet, bow to stern, and about thirty-eight feet at the beam. She had been dry-docked while her hull was partly replaced where marine teredo wood bores had penetrated, the balance of the hull scraped clean of barnacles, then thick, tough tar paper sealed on, and light, hard copper sheathing attached to cover the hull to four inches above the high-water marking. The railing of her top deck had been cut nine times on both sides, and the ugly snouts of cannon protruded through the finished gun ports. Her canvas was all new. She had been repainted black except for the carved leaping gray porpoise that graced her bowsprit. Matthew calculated her burden at close to three hundred tons, but she was riding too high in the water to be loaded. She likely had munitions for the cannon, food and supplies for the crew, including the critical freshwater and lime juice and potatoes, and little else.

  The aged gangplank sagged slightly with his weight as he walked to the ship’s deck and faced the officer of the day. The clean-shaven, slender young man was dressed in the standard black coat, white shirt and black ribbon tie, and leather cap of a merchantman’s first mate. His face was thin, chin long and pointed.

  “You have business aboard the ship?”

  “Matthew Dunson. Here to see Captain Weyland on orders of General Washington.” Matthew handed him the envelope from Joseph Warren and glanced at the sailors who had paused from their duties to peer at him.

  The young man quickly read the letter, then thrust out his hand. “I’m first mate Walter Riggins. Welcome aboard. We’ve been waiting
for you. Follow me.” He led Matthew to the stern of the ship, and rapped on a heavy oak door.

  A gravelly voice called, “Enter,” and Riggins opened the door and stepped into the captain’s quarters, Matthew following, blinking while his eyes adjusted to the dim light of the small room.

  “Sir,” Riggins said, “Mr. Matthew Dunson is here.”

  Soren Weyland was average height, thick in the neck and shoulders, arms heavy, hands and fingers stubby, legs short, stocky, and his entire uniform seemed constrictive. He studied the letter for a moment, then peered intently at Matthew from beneath gray, bushy brows. Everything about the man and the cabin suggested hardheaded New England practicality and no-nonsense directness.

  “Sit.” He gestured to a chair facing his table, then sat down facing Matthew. Riggins closed the door as he left.

  “There are some things we both need to know before we sail, and some of it can’t leave this cabin. Kirkegard said I could trust you. Can I?”

  “I think so, sir.”

  “Wonder why your letter was signed by George Washington, not a naval officer?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s desperate. The army ran out of powder and shot at Bunker Hill, and right now there’s not enough to fight another major engagement. Either he gets cannon and powder and shot, or his army will fail before winter. The colonies can’t manufacture it fast enough, and there’s only one way he knows to get it.”

  Matthew waited.

  “From the men-of-war and merchant ships out of English ports.” Weyland paused, his eyes points of light beneath his shock of gray hair. “Ever hear of letters of marque?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What are they?”