Banners

by Diane Carey

  “I was imprisoned on a truce vessel, tied up to that fleet of British ships lobbing bombs at you. Eleven days they held us.”

  “Good Lord! What were you doing there?”

  “Just a prisoner exchange. No matter. You’re here alone?”

  “I sent Rebecca away. Come in.”

  Still locked together, they moved into the parlor without even bothering to close the front door.

  “What was it like?” Key asked. “I prayed for your deliverance every minute.”

  “Loud, is what it was. Nightmarish. The major believes the British fired as many as sixteen hundred shells at us, perhaps eight hundred rockets. We had only four men killed. Twenty-four were wounded. Some may yet die, but those are very light casualties considering the fury of that hell. Other than being muddy and cold, we held up all right. We did have a shell crash into the powder magazine, but thank providence it was a dud. It never exploded. Can you imagine if it had? I lost two of my Fencibles and I’m inconsolable about them. It was I who talked them into volunteering.”

  “You’re not responsible for their lives or their deaths, Joseph. They had the right to stand against the invaders.”

  “Well, I suppose. Thank you. Poor Armistead collapsed with exhaustion after it was over. He’s still in a fever and half delirious. His wife sent a note that she had a healthy baby girl, so the news was a relief to him. What was it like on the truce ship?”

  “Meretricious, compared to what you endured. The British were humiliated. They retired in great despair, quite mortified and demoralized.”

  “The rumor is that their commanders wanted to save them for future engagements. I’m proud that they were frustrated here. Did you hear that they were turned back from New York as they invaded from Quebec on the eleventh? And their fleet on Lake Champlain was defeated.”

  “We seem to have finally found our stride.” Key disengaged his cloak from where it was slung over his arm. “I have something for you.”

  “For me?”

  “Yes.” He pulled a large rolled-up rag paper from the pocket of his cloak, where it had been protected from the elements by the shoulder cape.

  Nicholson took the sheet and unrolled it, working to hold it open as he read the first lines of the rhyme scratched there in quill ink, with some words scribbled out here and there and a few smudges. He scanned the words, then paused and read the first stanza more carefully. “You wrote this for us?”

  “It goes to the tune of ‘To Anacreon in Heaven.’ You know the melody.”

  “Everyone knows it …”

  “I worked on it while the truce ship sailed us to Baltimore, and finished it later that night at the Indian Queen Tavern. Do you know the place? Shameful food. Haggis and horse meat. I think the cook is new.”

  But Nicholson was engrossed in reading the lyrics again. He began to hum the tune, then to mutter the words along with it.

  “John Skinner seemed to like the lyrics,” Key mentioned. “He was the prisoner agent who accompanied me. I thought about making more changes, but he talked me out of it.”

  “Always second-guessing yourself.” Nicholson hovered in the middle of the room, and read the four stanzas again, carefully, the way a lawyer reads a document, by taking his time.

  Key gave up trying to chat and waited.

  “Frank,” Nicholson began finally, “I’m deeply moved by this. This is more than just a narration. You’ve done something profound here.”

  Key smiled shyly. “Hardly. I pilfered from some of my past work.”

  “I’ve read your past work. This is new. Major Armistead’s banner. The Major and Mrs. Pickersgill … ”

  “Where in the world did you get that tremendous flag?”

  But the judge was reading again. “This is very … American.”

  “Thank you. I did have a few epiphanies that night.”

  Nicholson looked up. “About yourself?”

  “Oh, no,” Key said. “About the nation. America is different from any nation before it. Being American is more than blood. More than nationality. We are an idea more than a place. Anyone, anywhere, can be an American. All a person must do is to embrace the idea that he owns his own life. Anyone who dares to climb out of a European slum or peek over the Urals. They are all Americans. We are a new race for the world. I want to appreciate you, Joseph, and those who inspired my writing of these lyrics. All of you who protected all of us. You have hammered home our right to be the American race.”

  Deeply moved, his brother-in-law smiled warmly. “Always the orator.”

  Key shrugged. “Just a humble preacher. Now that I know you’re all right, I must go.”

  “So soon?”

  “I’m leaving for Terra Rubra. My desire to join my family is no longer to be repressed. I wish to repose there and let the storms of life blow over before returning to Georgetown. I’m sure they’ve been fretting about my condition and yours.”

  “Give’m my affection.”

  “I promise.”

  Nicholson held the large paper between them. “May I keep this? May I have it published?”

  “Published?” Key scooped up his cloak. “Where?”

  “I know the editor of the Baltimore American. What’s the title?”

  “Oh, I don’t know—whatever you think.”

  “‘Defending of Fort McHenry’? ‘The Defence of Fort McHenry’?”

  “Whatever you think is acceptable.”

  “It would make a good handbill. To rouse public sentiment.”

  “I can’t imagine anyone … well, go ahead, if you must. Please don’t put my name upon it.”

  Nicholson looked up. “Why ever not?”

  “Because I am not the focus of it,” Key said as he whirled out the door. “I’m not important.”

  The Star Spangled Banner original manuscript, 1814, written by Francis Scott Key. Used with permission of The Maryland Historical Society.

  The Return of Pride

  THE INNER HARBOR

  BALTIMORE

  “There he is. The Pride of Baltimore. How proudly they hail.”

  Along the shores, the docks, and in the trees, thousands of people cheered and waved little American flags or strips of red, white, or blue cloth. Children ran along the shoreline, trying to keep up with the schooner as she entered the Inner Harbor. Dozens of small craft sailed or waddled or paddled after the schooner in devoted escort. This had been the response ever since they had heard the ship’s signal gun saluting Fort McHenry, and the fort’s tribute cannon shot in response. They had been waiting for days, for they knew the Chasseur—that Tom Boyle—was coming home.

  From a dockside park bench in a good place for viewing the whole harbor, the French Jew and Pdut sat in repose as the Chasseur, rigged in her perfect dress as a gaff-rigged schooner, the ideal rig for American’s Atlantic shoreline, skimmed into the Inner Harbor all stretched out with her buttermilk sails in a cloud over her yellow-striped, shark-shaped black body. She was blazoned with her signal flags and pennants from the bowsprit up, along all the stays, across and between her mast tops, and down the peak flag halyard, a colorful madness that traced the silhouette of the schooner, all fluttering crazily. As she entered the harbor, the crew fired a single shot in tribute to her home port, and the people went wild with delight.

  A make-shift orchestra of fiddlers, banjo players, fifers and drummers, and two buglers started up playing that song, the new song from that lawyer, and a chorus of four black entertainers in mismatched hats were singing it, actually quite well with their sonorous baritone voices, and one ambitious tenor who was very happy with himself. People around the dock dropped money into a bucket in front of the musical ensemble, and gleefully tried to sing along despite the octave-plus-half range.

  “… O’er the ra-a-mparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming …”

  On the dock, displayed between two street lamps, was a huge banner painted with a salute from the adoring people of the city:

  WELCOME HOME PRID
E OF BALTIMORE!

  What grandstanding. Americans might claim nothing of royalty, but they certainly knew how to make pageantry. Today over Fort McHenry, that flag was waving for the return of Chasseur, the enormous flag that made the fort look like a toy. He saw the flag today just as the demoralized British had seen it from their squadron two miles away.

  “… gave proof through the night that our flag was still there …”

  “The ‘star-spangled banner,’” the French Jew uttered, tasting the words.

  “O’er the la-and of the fre-e-e, and the home of the brave!”

  The schooner then fired another salute shot and the crowd answered with more cheering.

  “Too much people,” Pdut observed.

  “What did you expect? Boyle confirmed that American privateers will stand toe-to-toe with the Royal Navy. I don’t think that’s happened before.”

  In his hand he held the Niles Weekly Register edition, which he had kept for several weeks. He glanced down at the article now yellowed before him.

  “The action was very creditably fought on both sides, but to the American captain belongs the meed of having not only won success, but deserved it. His sole mistake was the over-confidence in what he could see, which made him victim to the very proper ruse practiced by his antagonist in concealing his force. His maneuvering was prompt, ready, and accurate; that of the British vessel was likewise good, but a greater disproportion of injury should have resulted from her superior battery.”

  The French Jew let the newspaper fall to the street. “On top of all that, he was wounded too. How literary.”

  Now he could see the faces of the crew, and of Tom Boyle himself there on the afterdeck, waving at the crowd and directing the helm as his ship came into the harbor. Chasseur made a graceful loop, put her sails over to the other side, and circled as if she were a dancer on a stage. Well, she was, wasn’t she?

  Boyle wore a yellow shirt and black waistcoat, and the saucy blue neckerchief that by now was legendary. Clearly he knew the power of an image, and what the crowd expected to see.

  “I thought I could trick him,” the French Jew mused. “Employ him as a tool to break the Americans and deplete the British. But he would not be beguiled. He wouldn’t even take my money. Instead, he went and blockaded Great Britain with one ship.”

  The first stanza of the new song was finished, but the quartet of male Negroes went on with the second stanza, though the crowd of people had not, apparently, memorized that part yet. The men’s voices rose over the mumbling of the crowd, until the mumbling fell away and the people just listened and enjoyed.

  “On the shore dimly seen … through the mists of the deep, where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes … What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep … as it fitfully blows half conceals, half discloses…”

  “I never thought anyone could be bolder than Tom Boyle,” the French Jew grumbled on. “I never counted on Tom Boyle himself. Because of him, the attack on Baltimore was rushed … their silly little fort held against the bombardment … the land assault was repelled … now they’re singing that lawyer’s absurd song.” He pursed his lips and blew a low sigh. “What do you do with a man who won’t take money?”

  “… Tis the star-spangled banner, O long may it wa-ave …”

  He looked around at the crowd, with its many disparate faces, its scatter of clothing styles and the many hats representing a hundred trades, as they sang and cheered together.

  “They’re infected with something, these people,” he said. “I shall have to think more about these Americans.”

  “… And where is that band who so vauntingly swore that the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion …”

  “But this war is not over,” he droned on. “Other designs can be laid. Napoleon will rise again. I believe that. I will cling to it and make a new plan.”

  Beside him, Pdut abruptly stood up from the park bench, rearranged her skirts, and turned to face him with those silly-button eyes.

  “I no like you anymore, Yakov,” she said. “I leave you.”

  He burst to his feet and almost stumbled into the water. “What on earth!”

  “I go from you. Make good life for Pdut. No you.”

  “But you’re my wife!”

  “I dibborce you.”

  She reached into her satin drawstring bag and rasped out an envelope, stuffed it into his hand, and nodded that the matter was done.

  He stared at the yellow crumple, then blubbered, “How will you eat? How will you live? You don’t even have any money!”

  “No money prum you.”

  “But how will you survive?”

  She put her stumpy chin up. “I American woman now. I work. I sew American flag.”

  “Flag!”

  “Bye-good. No follow me.”

  While the bright sails and black hull of Chasseur made another elegant turn in the harbor and passed behind him, he stared with his mouth hanging open and watched Pdut lump away through the crowd, boldly shouldering people out of her way. She was so resolute that some of the men even doffed their hats to her as she passed. That had never happened before. And she never looked back at him.

  He watched long after he could no longer see her. “Well, cock that …”

  “And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wa-ave … o’er the la-and of the free … and the home of the brave!”

  As the song of their own noble aspirations ended after four stanzas, the crowd of Americans—of a hundred languages and a thousand birthplaces—skylarked and reveled and cheered, watching the ship in the harbor turn again. The French Jew watched with solemnity, realizing how much he had learned, as the crew set the boom crutch in place, then tabled the main throat and the gaff jaws down to their seat at the foot of the mast, where the heavy sail and her yards were at perfect rest.

  Now, together, her jibs were hauled down on the stays, making a ringing sound as they folded along the bowsprit and jib-boom. Rope fenders popped over the sides, held by four boys. Under only her staysail, the schooner floated toward her dock, where men waited to catch her four docklines and make her fast at home. There, the mayor, the city council, several leading clergymen, and the officers’ families waited behind a red, white, and blue ribbon with a canopy overhead.

  Yes, there was the Boyle family. His glowing wife, their thrilled children.

  The spectators continued cheering, and hundreds flowed toward the schooner’s dock to greet its crew personally.

  With his mind a-jumble, the French Jew blinked as the crowd flowed past him and he was left standing alone.

  He stood there quite a while, numb, and watched the dithering happiness on the wharf over there, while he was over here, without a compass.

  After uncounted minutes, he felt his knee start to hurt and shook himself back to the moment. His mind began turning again. Plans. Opportunities.

  “Perhaps I shall go west,” he spoke aloud to nobody. “There must be someone in the wilderness who will take a bribe.”

  SPECIAL THANKS FROM THE AUTHOR

  First and foremost to two captains of the Baltimore Clipper Schooner Pride of Baltimore II, with whom I have had the honor of serving on many voyages. Captain Jan Miles and Captain Robert Glover III, whose leadership on the sea and advice on this book I cherish sincerely. I’m proud to be able to call you “my captains.”

  To the ship Pride of Baltimore II, and all my captains and shipmates aboard, past and present.

  To Ranger Scott Sheads of Fort McHenry National Park, for his assistance, information and advice, and for his stewardship over this important American monument. To the curators and volunteers at the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House, Baltimore, the home of Mary Pickersgill, and the adjoining museum, for much help and excellent information, and for preserving genuine treasures of American history. The photo of Mary Pickersgill’s receipt for the Star-Spangled Banner and the storm flag is presented courtesy of the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House, Li1938.12
.1

  To the Maryland Historical Society for permitting publication in the book of a photo of the original manuscript of The Defence of Fort McHenry, later to be called The Star-Spangled Banner.

  My gratitude to you all for your good advice and help.

  HISTORICAL NOTES

  The War of 1812 was not over until 1815. It ended technically in a draw, and relations between Britain and America returned generally to the same status as before the war. Britain had already decided to stop raiding American ships even before the war began, but the Orders of Council did not arrive until after war had been declared. The effects of this war are often downplayed, but in fact there were significant changes because of it: America decisively left its past behind and took its place as a burgeoning world power. The world discovered that Americans could and would fight, even against more powerful forces. The United States established its right to conduct free commerce on the open seas.

  Similarly, the Americans learned that Canadians would also defend their right to exist, and would not be assimilated into the United States by conquest.

  If the British had prevailed, there would be no United States. Every American, certainly every American teacher, should read at least one book about this war.

  The parade of intrepid people involved in the war is worthy of our attention: Joshua Barney, Robert Ross, President James and Mrs. Dolley Madison, George Cockburn, Joseph Nicholson, Oliver Hazard Perry, James Lawrence, Roger Brooke Taney, and many other figures in the War of 1812 were larger-than-life personalities of great accomplishment and deserve to be household names. They should no longer go unknown in general knowledge of western civilization.

  The United States, England and Canada are now bonded in amity, alliance and free trade. It is an irony that every Fourth of July, Americans celebrate the wrong war.

  It is true that Founding Fathers James Madison, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were still alive during the War of 1812. As much as possible, their own words have been featured or paraphrased in this novel. George Washington’s speech at Terra Rubra is his own words.