I had not experienced this part of my friend, mentor, and now, first lieutenant. His shoulders slumped; his whole demeanor seemed … well, beaten. He wore the mantle of his newfound responsibility uncomfortably, much like a man in coat and trousers several sizes too large for him. He was nothing like the angry, outraged Henry Allen I had known throughout the entire Chesapeake Leopard affair, including the courts martial of Baron, Gordon, and the others. Then he was undaunted by man or event, and confident.
I hesitated, not knowing how to respond to his outburst.
Finally, I tried something my mother used to say to make me feel better. “Things will look better in the light of a new day, Henry.” Then I added, for good measure, “And on a full belly.”
“Aye, I suppose you might be right. Besides, what choice do I have? I wonder if there are any aboard.” He stepped forward toward a companionway, picking his way through coils of line (rotten), blocks (split and broken), and casks (mostly sprung) that littered the deck.
“Halllooo! Anyone below?” Henry shouted down the ladder, his voice echoing with a hollow eeriness into the void below. Silence responded to him.
He tried again, a bit louder.
Still nothing.
“Very well, Oliver. Apparently we are the first to arrive. Let us find a pursers’ glim and move our chests below.”
They had been somewhat unceremoniously dropped on deck, just at the end of the gangway.
“And then we shall find a suitable place to feed us.” He slapped me on the arm in a most jovial manner.
At least he is back to his old self, again. But what a daunting task lies ahead. How ever will we manage it? Heave to there, Oliver. You’re sounding just like Henry a short while ago.
He started down the ladder, cautiously, feeling for each step in the Stygian blackness of the companionway. I waited until I heard him sufficiently below me that I would not again run into him and then started my own self down into the lower level. As I reached the bottom of the ladder, I put out my hand and felt Henry’s back in front of me. We both waited, listening.
All we heard was the scrabble of little clawed feet scampering away from the intruders.
“I’d reckon we might have some company tonight.” Henry said softly.
“Would it not make some sense to find a suitable lodging ashore for tonight, Henry?” I, quite frankly, did not care a bit for sharing my accommodations, no matter how rude they might be, with the owners of the feet I heard running about the deck.
“You are not afraid of the dark, are you, Oliver?” Without waiting for an answer, he stepped forward, then stopped.
More scampering sounds reached our ears. Then he fished in his pocket and produced a phosphorus match, which, bending down to the deck, he struck.
We both blinked in the bright flare of the match. Dozens of rats scurried around before us, and the disarray of the gundeck was, if anything, worse than we had encountered topside. Piles of canvas, cordage, and casks littered the decks, each one a suitable hiding place for an entire colony of the furry rodents.
Then the all too brief flame burned down to his fingers and, with an exclamation, he shook it out and once again, plunged us into an even darker environment.
“You might be right, Oliver. Step back to the ladder and let us return topside. At least then we won’t be falling all over each other!” He did not mention that it was I who had fallen all over him, for which I was grateful, and I turned, stuck out my hand, and happily, felt the side of the ladder. Which I climbed back up into the dim light of the spardeck.
A chill November breeze greeted us and stirred the dirt on the deck, swirling it into little clouds, lit by the watery glow of the moon. I pulled my great coat tighter around me, and in spite of myself, shivered in the cold. I could imagine how cold it would become later, in the darkness of the lower decks.
Our possessions were exactly where our coachman and his assistant had left them, though why they should be otherwise—or gone—was too silly to contemplate; there simply was no one around to disturb them.
“I don’t fancy hauling those chests anywhere, Oliver. I propose we tuck them away out of sight and leave them for morning when, as you suggested, this will all look less daunting.” He stood by the small pile, his foot resting on my sea chest, and glanced about, as if looking for someone to find fault with his suggestion.
“I would imagine, Henry, that no one has been aboard this vessel in weeks, maybe months. Ain’t likely to come aboard tonight, just as we leave our belongings here.” And I certainly did not have any more wish to carry my own chest somewhere than did my superior.
We pushed them behind some casks, threw a scrap of canvas over them, and retraced our steps over the gangway to the pier.
“You were still snoring, Oliver, but when we arrived here, I noticed a tavern just outside the Navy Yard …” He hesitated, looking about to get his bearings, then pointed. “That way, I believe, and not terribly far. Perhaps a rifle shot or two should see us there.” And off he went, following his outstretched arm.
It happened that his instinct was right. And we both recognized the establishment from our time spent putting Chesapeake to rights several years ago. Not a bad place, with palatable vittles and unwatered spirits. We found a clutch of officers sitting ‘round a large table laughing and yarning, the ruins of a meal distributed across it’s scarred surface, unnoticed, in the light of tankards of ale and rum before each. On their invitation, we joined them.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Those fellows certainly seemed to know the ropes last night, I’d warrant. And their faint praise for the craftsmen here did little to bolster my confidence in getting this barky back to sea, Oliver.” Henry shared his feelings as we approached the pier to which was secured our “barky.”
There was little I could say; he was quite right on both counts. I simply nodded as I continued to stride forward, trying to show a confidence I myself doubted.
We both stopped to study the United States frigate United States from halfway down the long pier. In the emaciated morning light of mid-November our ship looked little better than she had last night; paint still peeled, gunports were cocked, hanging, or missing, and the rigging was as slack as I had imagined it to be last night. There was nothing rigged above the lower masts, no yards were slung in their ties, and two of the three fighting tops seemed to be balanced precariously on top of the stubby spars. She floated high; obviously her ballast had been removed along with her guns.
“Hello. Who do you suppose that might be?” Henry pointed to a disreputable looking wharf-rat leaning on a piling of the pier, his foot on a broken cask. He wore a slouch hat pulled low over his face, a patched and dirty greatcoat that appeared to have once belonged to an officer, and trousers of filthy canvas. But what drew our attention was the singularly large pistol, stuck in a wide leather belt cinched around his waist, in full view of any. His gaze, from under the brim of his hat, was focused on us.
“Surely not a seaman, I’d warrant.” I offered the comment under my breath more to cover my discomfort at the specter before us than to add any information to our store of knowledge.
Another image from some years ago jumped into my brain: that of Edward Langford, former sailor and wharf-rat who had robbed me in Boston. He was easily as disreputable in appearance as the gent now blocking our way into the frigate and most likely, they were brothers in arms, though I doubted either knew the other. We approached him, albeit a trifle cautiously.
“I’d reckon you two fine lookin’ gents come to do sompin’ on the ship? That be about right, then?” His voice was a deep, resonant rumbling sound, and seemed to come from the bottom of a barrel.
Henry took a step forward, preparing to answer the man’s query as I studied him. He was quite tall, and if one were to judge from his face, remarkably thin; I could see little of his body, wrapped as he was in the greatcoat. His mouth, when it opened, was little more than a hole in the scraggily beard that covered his face from ears
to chin and up to his nose that stuck out like an island from the fur surrounding it. A nose, I thought, suppressing a giggle, more appropriate to the face of a hawk than a man. Two teeth, that I could see, were prominent in the front of his mouth, one pointing north, the other pointing south. His hands remained hidden from our view, stuck as they were in the pockets of his coat. I was relieved to note that the enormous pistol remained where it had been, secured in the front of the moldy leather belt, apparently unnoticed (at least by him). Or perhaps, he thought us no threat to whatever he guarded.
“Aye, sir. That would be a correct assumption.” Henry asserted, his authority over the ship and all that attached to her in plain evidence. “And what would be your interest in the vessel?”
“What do ye have in mind to be doin’ to her?” He asked, quite ignoring Henry’s own question.
“We will be restoring the vessel to active duty, taking her out of ordinary and returning her to a condition acceptable to the Navy.” He paused, momentarily, studying his inquisitor who still had moved nothing but his mouth. “And what matter would that be to you, sir?” He repeated.
“It’s my home. Been livin’ here nigh on to two years, now. Don’t take it lightly you boys’re takin’ my home away. Where do you propose I am to go?” The hollow rumble seemed to echo in the air as his deep-set eyes narrowed, shifting between Henry and me. The effect was singularly startling, emphasized by the bushiness of his brows.
“Well, surely you can not remain aboard as the ship is part of the Navy and only my sailors and officers and the craftsmen from the Navy Yard will be allowed in her. So where you go to live, sir, is not my concern. Anywhere but here would be quite satisfactory to me and, I am sure, my colleague.” Henry shot a glance at me and I nodded my concurrence, as expected.
“I know ever’ board and line in that there barky, lad. I been ever’where in her; top o’ the lowers to the bottom o’ the bilge. I know where things is you’ll be needin’ and you’d be right silly you throw that help by the boards. Aye, you surely would. You make it worth my while an’ I’ll see to it you get whatever it is you be needin’.” As he spoke, he withdrew his right hand from the pocket where it had rested since we arrived.
Though he made no move toward the pistol (which, now upon closer inspection, I noticed was covered in rust and decay and, I surmised, most likely could not be fired), but Henry seemed to keep a close eye on both the man’s gnarled and dirty hand, and the gun.
“I’d reckon the workers from the Navy Yard would be well-versed in such information, as well, sir. And how do I know you have this knowledge you claim?”
“Them yardbirds be lucky to find they’s own arses with both hands, they would. Ain’t like the old days when ships like this was a- buildin’ here. No sir. These boys now too busy buildin’ them little skiffs they put a gun or two in and row.” His disdain for Mister Jefferson’s gunboats was palpable and something I knew both Henry and I agreed with.
“We fully expect to have a Navy crew aboard, sir. I am sure there will be skilled craftsmen in that group, even should the ‘yardbirds’ be incapable.” Henry seemed to be wavering in his resolve. Besides, we had both heard from the officers in the tavern last night about the capabilities of the craftsmen employed by the Navy Yard.
“Aye. A Navy crew. Seen them. Ye’ll open a rendezvous or two and manage to scrounge the dregs o’ the waterfront scum. Ne’er do-wells, drunks, rascals, and scoundrels, all the leavin’s of them what come afore ye.” He turned and spat a glob of something into the water.
And got me to thinking about the sailors we had recruited both in Norfolk and Washington for Chesapeake. ‘Scoundrels, rascals, and drunks’ seemed close to the mark. I nudged Henry.
“Why not see what he can offer, Henry? Might be helpful, at least at first, to have him—and his knowledge of the ship—around.” I whispered to my superior.
“Aye, you’d do well to listen to yer young friend … Henry. Seems like he might be on to sompin’.” The wharf-rat poked a long finger first in my direction, then at Henry. And he smiled. Then he added, “Sides, you two boys gonna need help in setting the barky to rights. I don’t see a passel of Navy sailors standin’ ‘round. Yardbirds, neither.”
“Oh they’ll be along quick as ever you please. But perchance there’s something to what you say.” Henry paused, glanced at me with an inquiring look. I nodded.
After a moment, he stuck out his hand. “All right, Mister … what do they call you, sir? I am Mister Allen, assigned as First Lieutenant in United States. Captain Decatur will be along in a day or two.”
“That’d be the Decatur what did all them heroics over yonder ‘gainst them corsairs?”
“The very one, sir. And will suffer no skylarking, blaspheming, or insolence from any. And you have yet to tell me your name, sir.”
“Halethorpe be the name. Arbutus Halethorpe, Henry. Ever’one just call me Billy, though, when they call me anyt’ing.” He smiled as he used Henry’s Christian name, noting the reaction it drew.
“As I said, Billy, my name is Mister Allen. You may as well get used to using it if you plan on staying in the ship. Of course, you may always just collect whatever belongings you might have hidden away and find new lodgings … should you find it inconvenient to refer to me properly.” Henry didn’t raise his voice or change his tone a bit. And I think that made it all the more forceful.
Halethorpe took his foot off the cask where it had been resting throughout our conversation, pulled himself away from the piling, standing erect. And saluted by doffing his slouch hat. A great thatch of unruly hair, mostly black, but shot through and through with white, tumbled out and fell to his shoulders.
“Oh my!” he said, as he saw my eyes dart to his head. “Must’ve forgot to dress me hair when I rose this mornin’. How careless of me.” The sarcasm fairly dripped from his words as he reacted to Henry’s rebuke. “May I be permitted to show you young gentlemen into my home, since we’re now great and good friends?” He bowed from the waist and brought his hat from aloft where he had held it briefly sweeping it across his midsection in a grand gesture toward the ship.
Assuming we would follow, he stepped off in a manner sprightlier than I would have thought from a man of his years and condition. And follow we did, right up to the gangplank and onto the deck, where our new guide, Arbutus Halethorpe, Billy, stopped, turned, and spoke again.
“You lads oughter be aware some folks thinks I ain’t got a full seabag. Some even calls me crazy. Most o’ the time, I ain’t so crazy; lived here without getting’ caught over two years now. Know ever’ inch o’ this floatin’ rat’s nest and most o’ where they stow things—things you lads gonna need for puttin’ the ship to rights.”
Billy stopped, took off his hat again, and scratched his head enthusiastically. He got a wild look in his eyes—it did make him seem a bit off-center to me—and, in a move most sudden, withdrew the horse-pistol from his belt.
Henry backed up a step, right into me, and put his hands up in front of his body.
“Here now. What’s the meaning of that? There’s no call for waving that gun about.” Henry’s voice remained calm, quiet in an effort, I assumed, not to further rile Billy.
And waving the gun about was exactly what Billy was doing. He pointed it aloft, then toward the poop deck, the pier, and briefly, us. I withdrew a step further, wishing there were others about who might be of help.
“Ain’t gonna shoot you lads. Just like to hold her ever’ so often. Makes me remember the good times. Calms me feelin’s, it does.”
He chortled at our obvious relief, and returned the pistol to it’s resting place in his belt.
“Well, whether or not you intend to shoot us or any other, it would be assuredly calming to us if you would just leave it be, tucked there in your belt.” I spoke to the man for the first time and received a nod of approval from my superior.
I cast a look about the disreputable, cluttered, and most un-Navy-like spardeck. And noticed at
once that our chests no longer rested where we had secured them the night previous. I quietly mentioned my discovery to Henry.
He took a few steps forward, to confirm my observation, I assumed, and gave our guide a hard look.
“Last night we left our chests here, secured under a bit of canvas to make them less visible to prying eyes. As you were here, Billy, perhaps you might shed some light on what might have befallen them?” It was obvious to any that he was clearly of the opinion that Billy Halethorpe had made off with our possessions.
“Aye, I seen ‘em right yonder, there. Not hid too good, you ask me. Seen ‘em right off, I done, soon’s I come back aboard. Knew quick as a cat someone been here, pokin’ around in my home with not so much as a ‘by yer leave.’ Then I seen yer names on ‘em and figgered the Navy wanted their barky back. So I put ‘em somewhere safe for ye.”
“And that would be exactly where?” Henry was becoming less patient with our new friend.
“Well, Henry,” Halethorpe grinned maliciously at his intentional gaffe, “like I jus’ tol’ ye: somewhere they’d be safe from the prying eyes and grabbin’ paws of them what didn’t have no business pokin’ around in ‘em.”
“So you said. And I say, again, where might that ‘safe place’ be?” Henry seemed quite exasperated now, though I found myself smiling at the exchange; if Billy was crazy as he had mentioned, he, for the moment, seemed to be getting the better of my colleague in spite of it.
“A bit testy, Henry. Perchance a bit of yer breakfast might be troublin’ ye, I’d warrant.” Without waiting for an answer, and likely in response to the black look that had taken residence on Henry’s face, he immediately added, “Well, follow me, lads, and ye’ll soon be seein’ just what good care I took of yer belongin’s.”
Billy turned and, moving around the detritus that lumbered the deck, made his way quickly to the quarterdeck, where he stopped at the hatch which, I assumed, led to the gundeck, most likely just forward of the Great Cabin. He paused long enough to ensure we had followed, then stepped into the hatch, his lanky frame moving with a speed and grace that surprised me.
In Pursuit of Glory Page 27
