Lone Star Rising: T.S. Wasp and the Heart of Texas

by Jason Vail

  “We’ve nothing of value!” the captain said, mainly in jest.

  “If you’re not Spanish, we’re not interested!” Willie said.

  “We are the Eleanor Doyle, out of Philadelphia! All we’ve got is a belly full of pig iron.”

  “Good for you!”

  By this time, we had passed each other and were drawing apart. The merchant captain moved back to his transom and shouted, “Best keep a sharp eye! There’s a Spanish frigate at anchor tother side of the English Turn! Don’t know what he’s doing there!”

  Willie waved in reply, since the brigantine had gone nearly out of earshot.

  He said to me as I crossed over, “Waiting for us, perhaps?”

  “Seems they want us as a dancing partner,” I said. “Mister Hammond, bring us into the wind! Mister Halevy, stand by to drop anchors!”

  “We’re famous, then, are we?” Crockett said when he, Willie and I huddled on the quarterdeck. He seemed to relish the idea that we had made a reputation that was heard up the eastern seaboard. The trouble, of course, was that we were equally known throughout the Caribbean and that the Spanish navy clearly was on the hunt for us. “Even beyond the confines of little New Orleans.”

  “I suppose we are,” I said.

  Austin came up from the forecastle where he had been taking the air with the Baron de Crequy and his sister. “What’s going on? Why are we dropping anchor? Is something wrong?”

  “Badly wrong,” Willie said.

  Austin blinked, unused to being talked to as an equal by a black man. He seemed about to reprove Willie for his abrupt tone when Crockett cut in. “Mister Harper is quite right. We’ve just avoided becoming a fish in a barrel.”

  “Harper,” Austin stammered.

  “That’s Mister Harper when we’re out of the wardroom or the captain’s cabin,” Crockett replied. “We’re the navy, remember? Discipline and good order must be maintained. And he’s a ship’s officer. Rather important. Responsible for navigation. We’d likely end up in Patagonia if it weren’t for him.”

  “Patagonia,” Austin repeated in the tone that indicated he’d never heard of the place. He was a decent fellow, you see, but some people have trouble seeing blacks, or even people from different countries, on the same footing as themselves. He looked to me for confirmation and I nodded.

  He swallowed. “What’s this about trouble?”

  “That Spanish frigate is round yonder bend,” Crockett said, gesturing downriver. “Apparently he’s dropped anchor. Seems he’s waiting for us.”

  Austin squinted into the distance. He could see nothing there, naturally, so the problem must have seemed imaginary. “Why don’t we just sail around him?”

  “A good question,” I replied for the others, although anybody with any knowledge of ships and cannon would have seen the danger immediately. But Austin was neither a military man nor a sailor. “That frigate carries eighteen pounders on her gun deck, twenty to a side at least. The river is only about six hundred yards across, so her guns are capable of hitting anything that passes along it and we’ll have to keep to the channel which means we’d have to pass even closer. At anchor, on calm water, she’s as good as a shore battery and her broadside is likely to be very accurate. She’s only got to damage a mast or our rigging and we’re done for. We’d drift into the banks and they’ll send a party to board us when we’re hung up.”

  “They wouldn’t dare!” Austin sputtered.

  “I rather suspect they would,” I murmured.

  “What are we going to do? We can’t fight her? You took a frigate at Barataria,” he said, a reference to the fight we had in August when we narrowly defeated a Spanish frigate off Barataria Island in the Gulf.

  “That was a fluke,” I said. “It is unlikely to happen again.”

  “We can’t slip by her at night?” he asked.

  “No one travels on the river at night. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Except for skiffs,” Willie said.

  “And boats,” I said more to myself than to the others.

  “We can’t just return to New Orleans!” Austin cried in anguish.

  “I should hope not,” I said. “That would be unprofitable. Now you all try not to sink the ship while I think of something.”

  I mounted the shrouds to the foretop and began to climb.

  Willie joined me in the foretop after a time. We sat cross-legged, balancing our glasses on our knees, staring into the distance. We could see thin lines projecting skyward over the tops of the live oak jungle. They were barely discernible, as we were five miles away, but to the trained eye, they were the three masts of a large ship. She carried no sail, so was plainly at anchor.

  “Do you think she’s seen us as well?” Willie asked.

  We had dropped anchor almost as soon as we had received the warning from the merchantman, but we had still come around the tip of the thumb in the river so that the stream in this portion of the river ran almost straight to the English Turn, only five miles away.

  “Could have. If I were them, I’d have lookouts on the shore this side of the bend to give warning as well.”

  “Then we have to assume they know we’re here.”

  “Yes, I suppose we do.”

  “Makes our job harder.”

  “That depends on what they expect us to do.” I stood up, shielding my eyes from the low-hanging sun. I felt the breeze on my face. It was coming from the southwest, a favorable wind. “Let’s hope they’ve seen us.”

  I swung onto the shrouds and descended to the forecastle, with Willie right behind.

  “Mister Halevy!” I called to my first lieutenant, who had command of the quarterdeck. “Prepare to get underway! Get those anchors in and make sail. Tops and stay sails, if you please! Lively now! Let’s see that canvas billow! Make a good show of it!”

  “What are you doing!” Austin sputtered as Wasp began to get underway. “You are heading upriver!”

  “We are,” I said, gazing back at the English Turn, hoping that there were Spanish eyes on us.

  “But we shall never get out then!”

  “Never? Perhaps, but we shall try nonetheless.” I called to Crockett, who was watching the distant place where the enemy had anchored: “Mister Crockett! We shall need volunteers from the Rangers and the crew.”

  “How many?”

  “As many as will fill four ship’s boats.”

  “What can four boats do against a frigate?” Austin asked.

  “Enough, I hope.”

  By the time the sun set, we had slipped around the river bend that formed the tip of the thumb on the chart. Although there was still enough light in the falling dusk to make more headway toward New Orleans, I ordered Wasp hove to and the anchors dropped again.

  The crew not occupied with taking in sail manhandled barrels of powder from our stores to the quarterdeck while others lowered all four of the ship’s boats. The volunteer Rangers stood by and watched, fingering their big knives. They were curious why I had not allowed arms other than these, for I had not yet confided my plan to anyone, although I suspect that Willie had figured it out when he heard the order to bring up the kegs. Each of those kegs held a hundred pounds of gunpowder.

  At last, with one barrel each laid in two of the boats, I gave Crockett and the men their instructions.

  Nova Ascendant: The Life and Times of David Stern Crockett

  by Victor D. Lautenberg and Maeve Crockett Haverford

  Crockett gazed upward at Jones, whose silhouette was barely discernible against the starry illumination of the night sky. They had been waiting in the boats for nearly an hour and he chafed at the delay. He could feel that the men were anxious to be away as well. They had a long way to row and not much time: a three-quarter moon rose at midnight and if they arrived at their destination after it put in its appearance, there would be enough light to see them. All depended on stealth.

  “Captain,” Crockett said, “it’s getting late.”

  “I know,” Jone
s replied.

  Crockett heard the faint click of a watch top closing, and he wondered with some amusement why Jones bothered with a watch in the dark.

  Jones said, “Very well. Off you go, then.”

  Crockett waved to the sailor at the tiller, but the man needed no instruction. He had already thrust the rudder to a larboard turn as the men on the starboard side pushed away from the Wasp with their oars, and then the six men in the bow began to row downstream.

  There was a series brief jerks on the rope connecting Crockett’s lead boat with that following behind, but after they had gone a hundred yards, the men got the rhythm so that the jerks subsided and the four boats in the flotilla, roped together in a train so they could not separate, slipped smoothly along with the current.

  The sailor had his orders so he knew to steer close to shore, which gave Crockett nothing much to do but to crouch in the bow and watch anxiously ahead for a great shape that was sure to loom out of the night. The only sounds were the slapping of the oars in the water, the creaking of wood chafing against wood, the hiss of the river, and the labored breathing of the men.

  The shore slipped by, dark and impenetrable, shrouded in the night, a black wall that brushed a sky brilliant with sprays of stars that seemed so near Crockett could reach out and touch them. He had always marveled at how brightly the night stars could shine at sea, and although this was not precisely the sea, it was close enough. He thought he could almost smell the salt air and was surprised at the longing he felt to do so again.

  One hour passed by his reckoning as he marked the wheeling of the stars, then another, and finally a third. Crockett’s anxiety mounted. He wished that Jones had not taken the Wasp so far upriver, for each additional mile they had sailed back toward New Orleans had added to this nightly journey. It wouldn’t be long before the moon would rise. How he dreaded that prospect.

  Presently, they passed some white smudges in the jungle to the left.

  The sailor at the tiller muttered, “The last plantation, Lieutenant. We’re almost there.”

  “Thank you, Marcus,” Crockett murmured. Even though there was still little chance of being overheard, he had ordered the men not to speak unless absolutely necessary. He felt as if he broke his own order when he did so for a mere politeness. But there was one more thing that prudence required. “Oh, and check the candle will you?”

  Marcus cracked the lid on a box at his feet, where a candle burned. Orange light washed against his face. “Doing fine, Lieutenant.”

  “Right, then,” Crockett said, as Marcus closed the lid.

  They reached a great bend. More anxiety shot through Crockett: this had to be it. The frigate had to be just ahead, but though he strained to see her in the dark, he could not make out anything.

  “Quiet now. No noise.”

  The rowers slowed their strokes as the flotilla hugged the eastern shore, hoping to be lost in the dark.

  Then Crockett saw her: at first it was just the winking out of a star, blocked by a mast projecting into the sky. But as he scanned the way ahead with mounting worry, he could see with some difficulty the masts of a large ship against the sky. He crouched with his chin by the gunwale. In the forest at night, you could see objects better this way, silhouetted against a sky that was not truly black. A man coughed and there was the brief murmur of voices from out on the water.

  There she was, ahead to the right, farther out in the river, perhaps fifty yards from shore. Any doubt he had that the vessel might not be the enemy vanished when Crockett made out the boxy foretop.

  They drifted along the beach, making no sound until they had come almost even with the frigate.

  Crockett waved a white handkerchief. At this signal, the steersmen cast off the lines joining the boats and they turned as one like a flock of waterfowl toward the enemy ship. The boat behind his followed directly, while the two at the end of the train separated and headed for the bow. A series of soft clicks told Crockett that the two dozen men in the boat right behind them were going to half cock to check the powder in their musket pans.

  A problem, however, became quickly apparent even to Crockett’s landlubberly eye. The current threatened to carry them too far downstream and they were in danger of missing the frigate entirely. “Faster, boys,” he said. “Damn the noise.”

  It was too late to worry about any clamor now.

  The rowers strained against their oars in obedience to his voice and to the understanding that caution, so necessary to get this close, was as much their enemy as the men on the decks above their heads.

  Crockett’s boat reached the stern of the frigate. He drove a steel spike into the wooden planks of the vessel and lashed the bow of the boat against the frigate, as Marcus did the same.

  He glanced up. The figures of two men were outlined against the stars and a Spanish voice called a challenge, their muskets trained on the boat below.

  Crockett wished that he could answer them with a pistol, but Jones had forbidden the men in the powder boats to carry arms for fear of what a spark from a flintlock’s pan might do to their cargo. He glanced over his shoulder at the trailing boat. Two oarsmen worked to keep the boat hovering even with them. The others had their muskets shouldered.

  “What the devil are you waiting for?” Crockett snapped. “Give ’em a piece of hell!”

  He had not finished speaking before the men fired a volley at the watchmen on deck.

  It drove the enemy’s watch back, but not before one sailor fired in return. The ball struck one of the Rangers in the thigh.

  “Get going, boys,” Crockett shouted to the others in the boat. “No need for you to tarry,” and they dived into the river to the flash and thump of the enemy’s muskets and thrashed toward the boat hovering a short distance away.

  They had kicked the nest now. Crockett was aware of the clanging of a bell onboard calling the men below to quarters and the drumming of bare feet as they mustered and rushed about, and a good deal of alarmed shouting.

  The musketmen in the nearby boat were firing at will at targets above their heads, and there was no shortage of return shot. Balls whistled in the air all around like malignant insects, splashing in the water so that fountains seemed to sprout all about or whacked into the planks of the boats. Only seconds had passed since Crockett had hammered in the spike securing his boat to the frigate, yet a storm of fire was building that would soon overwhelm the raiders.

  He could not just stand there and enjoy the show. He clambered around the barrel in the middle of the boat to the candle box, which Marcus had left on a rowing bench at the stern. Several musket balls struck around him, but he could not think about such things now. If he failed, the plan might fail, and if the plan failed . . . well, the consequences of that were unthinkable.

  He snatched the candle out of its box, scorching his hand. He was surprised to see, from the wavering of the light, how much his hand was shaking as he threw off the towel covering the fuse on the top of the barrel of powder and applied the flame to it.

  The fuse sputtered to life and ejected sparks as it burned furiously.

  Crockett hesitated a moment, almost fatally fascinated by the dancing fire, worried that someone above would have the presence of mind to seize a pail of water. For that little measure would be enough to douse the fuse and put an end to everything.

  It occurred to him that he should remain to prevent that from happening.

  But then he realized that it would make no difference. The ability to influence events had passed out of his hands.

  He dove into the river and swam away as fast as he could.

  Chapter 5

  On the Mississippi

  September 1820

  I kept watch during the night in the main top with a pair of my Chinee sailors, eyes straining for some sign of success to the southwest where the Spanish frigate lay out of sight. Shortly before midnight, with the white glow of a rising moon visible on the eastern horizon, one of my companions called out with excitement an
d pointed in the direction in which I imagined the frigate lay at anchor. It took some moments to understand the fellow, whose name was Chu and whose command of English slipped away at times like these, but he claimed to have seen not merely one flash of light, but two. And then, I thought I heard two dull thumps, like claps of thunder from a far off storm, but it could have been my imagination. That frigate was more than ten miles off, you see, and it was hard to believe that the sound would carry so far. So I was doubtful and unwilling to credit either Chu’s senses or my own.

  At about nine a.m. in the forenoon watch, Willie shook me awake. I sat up with a start. I had been examining charts of the Mississippi delta in the great cabin to occupy my mind but had fallen asleep at the table. I felt a bit ashamed to have been caught out. A ship’s captain has to endure sleepless nights. He is not supposed to fall asleep on duty any more than a common sailor.

  “Two sails, Paul,” he said.

  “It’s them?” I asked. Without thinking, my hand slipped into my pocket and stroked the toy horse, which had been a plaything of my children who had died of yellow fever in Baltimore. Willie’s auntie, a woman who sold the wind and other charms to sailors to keep them safe, had told me once that it brought luck and though I am not superstitious I kept it with me.

  He nodded. “Just rounded the bend.”

  When I reached the quarterdeck, I had to compete for space at the rail with the men, who watched the approach of the two boats with excitement. They were already convinced of the success of the mission and were ready to celebrate. One of the men even clasped my sleeve and exclaimed, “They’ve done it, Captain!”

  “I should hope so,” I replied more soberly. I called out to the mob at the rail, “Make way there, fellows!”

  The men before me glanced in my direction as if at an annoyance and then shuffled apart to create a lane for me.

  I gripped the taffrail as if to gouge pieces from it as I searched downriver. There, just this side of the bend, were two boats, tacking upstream under sail. Each boat had two sails, so they could have been our pinnacle and yawl. The jolly boats, which had only one sail, were not with them. They were the boats on which I had dispatched the torpedoes. I raised my glass and saw that both pinnacle and yawl were jammed with men.