The Tempest--Commander Putnam and Mr. Madison's War

by James L. Haley

  “Yes, sir.” Morris saluted and left.

  Owing to the Constitution’s deep draught they had to be particularly mindful of following the pilot through the trickery of Boston’s shallows, but Bliven thought he had never seen Hull happier than when they approached the open reaches of Massachusetts Bay. Once past the Harbor Islands and Halftide Rocks, Hull craned his neck upward. “Masthead there!”

  “Sir!”

  “What do you see?”

  “Clear horizon, sir!”

  “Ha. Well, Putnam, I am glad you decided to come back out with me, when you could be sitting in Boston waiting for orders.”

  “If I may speak frankly, sir?”

  “By all means.”

  “Your handling of the ship during the late chase was the best advanced education I could receive. I rather think I am better preparing myself for command by shipping out with you again.”

  Hull dropped his head in apparent self-deprecation. “Well, I am glad to have you aboard once more.”

  Bliven looked eagerly out to sea. “Where bound, Captain?”

  “Well,” Hull began slowly, “let us review. Rodgers has flown the coop from New York to chase down British convoys and, according to his plan, sail as far as the British coast to pull the lion’s tail. Admiral Sawyer has sent his squadron out after him, but they lost three days trying to run us to ground. Now they must be back after him. What, do you think, does all that leave undefended?”

  Bliven scanned his mental Atlantic and it hit him like a thunderbolt. “Halifax!”

  “Won’t old Sawyer be surprised when we show up for breakfast some morning?”

  Bliven had his doubts. “I don’t know, sir. I saw a chart, that harbor is a very devil, the entrance is narrow as a hallway, turns twice, certainly lined with guns down both sides. We don’t know how deep it is.”

  “Now, now. We have no need to enter the harbor. We need only pounce on their ships as they arrive, and do to them what the British have been doing to us for years. We’ll see how they like it.”

  They ran north and then northeast, near land, within distant sight of Portsmouth in New Hampshire and the long, rocky desolation of Massachusetts’s northern territory, until navigation told them they were at the wide mouth of the Bay of Fundy, and they had seen nothing. They turned east until within sight of Nova Scotia, then southeast. They rounded the colony’s southern tip at Cape Sable Island, standing northeast toward Halifax, ready to intercept any vessels making for a port, challenging any to come out and fight, but the frigid waters of the Labrador Current in which they found themselves remained devoid of a single other vessel. When they found nothing doing outside Halifax itself, they stood east by south, near two hundred miles to the Isle of Sables, found no one, and turned north for the broad entrance of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

  “Where in hell is everybody?” blustered Hull at last.

  “Cowed by our naval might to stay in port?” Charles Morris smiled wryly.

  “Perhaps,” said Bliven, “if we continue on to the North Pole we might find someone.”

  They were twelve days out of Boston, midway between Cape Breton Island and the French fishing enclave at St. Pierre, when the cry came down. “Deck! Deck there!”

  Bliven rejoiced that he had the deck. “What do you see?”

  “Sail, on the lee beam.”

  “What do you make of her?”

  “A trading vessel, sir, small and slovenly.”

  Constitution ran down upon her in full panoply and did not even have to fire a shot across her bows before the small trader took in every stitch of canvas. Her master was a gray and fleshy old sailor of sixty named Fouts, who admitted with a grudge that he knew Great Britain was at war with America, and was sorry for it, for it had nothing to do with him. Bliven then had the sour experience of hearing a captain plead for the life of his ship.

  “Where were you bound?” questioned Hull.

  “Five days out of St. John’s, bound for Ship’s Harbour. Do you know it? It is on the channel between—”

  “I know it,” said Hull. “Mr. Fouts, I am sorry to make you a casualty of war, but it is a maritime war, whose success is measured principally in the seizure of ships. We can keep you and your crew here until we can land you someplace. Or if you prefer, if you have a boat on board, you may take your boat west; you should make Cape Breton Island in a day or a little more.”

  “May we take food and water?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then that is how we shall have it.”

  The men of the Constitution watched Fouts and his crew of nine hoist a sail and diminish to westward in the small chop. When the report came back that the ship was not worth taking as a prize, Hull ordered her burned, a command that he plainly disliked to give. When the whole experience was repeated with a second small merchantman on the next day, Hull had had enough, and turned south.

  “Deck! Deck there!”

  “What do you see?”

  “Five sail, on the weather bow.”

  Hull strode quickly to the port railing. “Oh, hell, not again!”

  Hull tapped his glass into his open hand, as Bliven came near. “What are your orders, Captain?”

  “Small ships,” the lookout called down without being asked. “A sloop-of-war, maybe his prizes.”

  “Well, that’s different,” said Hull. “Come to full sail and make for ’em. Let’s see what they are up to.”

  As soon as their increased canvas and changed heading was made out, the apparent sloop-of-war before them to windward made all sail to get away, and a moment later they saw flames on one of the vessels in her train, a fire that quickly rose from rails to mastheads. Hull lowered his glass. “Well, damn me if that was not a craven thing to do. The coward.”

  Bliven pointed. “The others are scattering, sir, like quail out of a bush. They know we can only take one.”

  “Well,” answered Hull, “let’s see if we can run down that closest one. No one would mistake her for a greyhound.” This prey was more fortunate, an American privateer that had been bested and captured, and her master and crew now happy to be recaptured.

  “Gentlemen?” The officers gathered around Hull, emphasizing to a somewhat embarrassing degree how much the shorter he was of all of them. None would have dared call him fat, but his shape was equally obvious. “I do not often play at cards, but when I do I will not play for pennies. I am tired of this. Take us south again, into the sea lanes, and for God’s sake find us somebody worth fighting.”

  It was at two in the afternoon on August 19, two hundred miles south of Nova Scotia, that the call came down. “Deck! Deck there!”

  “What do you see?”

  “Sail off the lee bow, bearing east-sou’east!”

  The officers gathered at the starboard railing, glasses raised.

  “What do you make of her?”

  “Seems a large vessel, sir, can’t see more than that!”

  “Very well!”

  Hull lowered his glass and hardly had to say it out loud. “Gentlemen, if she were ours, she would probably be with Rodgers, and Rodgers should not be in these waters. I believe we have a fair chance at a fight this afternoon. Mr. Morris, beat to quarters; Mr. Bush, get your Marines into the tops, well supplied, keep a platoon handy down here in case we come to a boarding.”

  The Constitution leapt to life with the drum’s tattoo as her thirty boys skittered down the ladders to the magazine and powder room in the deepest bowels of the ship where grown men could move only in a crouch. They emerged struggling under the weight of thirty twenty-four-pound solid shot for the main battery, an eighteen for the bow chaser, twenty charges of grape for the carronades, and sheet-lead canisters of powder, eight pounds each for the twenty-fours, and less for the smaller guns. Crew chiefs barked their orders as the three-ton long guns were rolled in with
rhythmic heaves, tompions removed, they were quoined level for loading, the quoins removed for elevation and run back out. In three minutes the ship fell into an eerie silence.

  The next hour crawled by as the unknown ship grew larger by tiny degrees, surely a large vessel, but her details still a mystery.

  “Deck there!”

  “What is it?”

  “She is a frigate, sir! Close hauled under easy sail, on the starboard tack.”

  The other officers could almost see Hull making his mental triangulations, working out how to play his advantages, the weather gage, the heavy rolling swell that was keeping them all alert on their sea legs. His third and fourth lieutenants were at their gun crews, he was happy to have Morris with him to relay his commands, and it was well to have Bliven standing by, who could take over if any of them fell.

  “Gentlemen, let us run down freely upon her, time enough to shorten sail when we get closer.”

  “Deck there!”

  “What do you see?”

  “She is shortening sail, sir! Taken in her courses!”

  “Very well!”

  One league from her, all could see that she had backed her topsails and was waiting on them. She ran up no fewer than three British naval ensigns, one at the head of each mast. “Well, by God,” said Hull, “if ever I have been challenged to a fight! Well, we’ll show him. Mr. Morris, let’s run up four.”

  “Yes, sir.” Morris grinned but, having once turned to go, stopped. “Sir, where shall we fly the fourth flag?”

  “Why, right up here, from the driver, Mr. Morris! That will give a nice symmetry overall, don’t you think? Go!” They could see the challenger’s gunports snap open and the guns run out. “Bosun!”

  “Sir!”

  “Bring in your flying jib and stays’ls, bring down your royal yards.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  The two great vessels approached each other elegantly, with a kind of chivalry, like medieval knights on horse at a joust. The British captain had invited a single combat with traditional good manners, and Hull determined to oblige him. The British ship turned alternately port and starboard to present her two broadsides, opening fire, but the balls fell well short. Hull also yawed port and starboard to prevent their being raked, allowing ranging shots from his bow chasers to ascertain an advantageous time to begin firing in earnest.

  As they closed the range, the Americans could read their enemy’s name, ornately gilded beneath her stern windows, Guerriere, and surmised that she must be one of the many French prizes taken and assimilated into the Royal Navy. But that did not alter her history, and, being French, she must be but lightly built, and capable of inflicting more damage than she could sustain.

  Guerriere, thought Bliven. Warrior. Well, we shall see. Seconds after her next broadside they heard a popping rip in the canvas overhead as a ball flew through, and hammerblows of balls beginning to strike the hull. Clearly this showy Englishman was now within their own range.

  Morris was about to jump out of his skin. “Sir, shall we not open fire?”

  “On my order, sir.” Hull’s growl issued from the very depth of his throat. “Not before, do you hear?” When Hull had turned to answer, Bliven saw that look in his eyes. He had seen it before, in Stephen Decatur’s eyes when they fired the Philadelphia in Tripoli harbor—wild, predatory, eager, fully engaged and, if anything, in his own world, and somehow, deeply happy. Bliven could not help but wonder if this was a trait necessary for a successful career. Whether he desired it for himself he set aside for later examination.

  The carpenter came up and reported that though the hull had been hit, they had not been holed anywhere; there was no evidence of penetration or even splinters. The next British salvo went high and cut up some rigging but did no damage. “Do you see, Captain?” said Bliven. “She fires on the uproll to disable us; she means to take us, not sink us.”

  Hull’s emotion intensified by the second. “Well, we won’t be returning the favor.”

  They closed to within a hundred yards, and Bliven thought it well to keep moving about, to give the British Marines at least a moving target to try to hit, and perhaps discreetly keep some solid object such as the wheel between himself and the marksmen in their tops. Hull, he noted, stood as squat and foursquare as Napoleon, all but daring the British Marines to strike him down if they could. “We will fire a rolling broadside, on the downroll,” he shouted down the spar deck, and command was relayed below to the main battery.

  Brilliant, thought Bliven. A rolling broadside, firing the guns sequentially from fore to aft, accounting for their relative speed in passing each other, would concentrate their fury, and the damage, upon a shorter span of the enemy’s hull.

  At seventy-five yards Hull bellowed, “Set your courses! Set your topsails!” With the added canvas, the ship began picking up speed. It seemed as though their yardarms must foul their enemy’s as the Constitution glided up in eerie silence, until she was a scant twenty-five yards away. Guerriere’s guns continued to boom as they were loaded, the balls continuing to strike the hull with no effect.

  The next swell pushed up Constitution’s starboard side, the sea itself aiming her main battery low into the enemy’s hull, the carronades pointing down upon their spar deck. Hull sprinted forward to make sure he was heard, hardly noticing that as he did so he split his too-tight trousers along the entire length of the crotch seam. “Fire!” roared Hull at last. “Open fire!” In a split second the side of the Constitution erupted in a fusillade—deafening, crushing, a concussive, staccato rolling broadside from bow back to stern that must have lasted fifteen seconds, obscuring sight of their point-blank target behind a wall of smoke but not stifling the screams and the crunching of wood being splintered. The grape from the carronades worked dreadful execution upon the enemy’s spar deck at the same instant as the solid shot from their twenty-fours grievously wounded the ship herself. As the smoke rose they saw numerous holes in her hull, a couple between wind and water, many around her gunports, each hole representing a lethal shower of splinters within that preceded the ball itself, mowing down the helpless gun crews.

  “Keep firing!” bellowed Hull. “Reload! Reload, fast as you can, now! Let them have it! Pour it on ’em!”

  Although firing at will, the crews were trained enough that they were all reloaded and the guns run back out almost together, and they got off a second full broadside before the Constitution ran past her.

  One of Guerriere’s shots took effect, a spray of grape from a carronade mowing down three of its opposing gun crew, a port-side carronade on the Constitution. The wounded were bundled below before it could be seen how badly they were hit, and within seconds the crew of the starboard carronade took over operation of the port gun. A couple more gunners on the spar deck were felled by muskets from Guerriere’s Marines in her fighting tops, whose heads were mostly kept low by their own Marines shooting at what was, for them, point-blank range.

  Bliven knew that Cutbush would be ready for the wounded in his cockpit, deep within the orlop. He would be grim and efficient in his leather apron, not unaffected by the writhing agonies laid before him, but aware that a swift and determined application of his skills was their best hope. His empathy, and his animated and erudite affability, he would resume when the emergency was passed, but for now, Bliven knew he was an automaton of surgical precision.

  Constitution with her sudden extra canvas, which Guerriere did not match, pulled ahead after delivering this lethal stroke. Once well clear, Hull cupped his hands and shouted, “Port guns reload, hold your fire! Port your helm! Rake her bow as we cross! At my command!”

  The American frigate answered the helm with a tight turn to port, her full broadside pointed at the oncoming Englishman’s bow, where she could not answer. “As you bear, fire!” A second rolling broadside, slower than the first, each gun chief sighting on Guerriere’s foremast, narrowly mi
ssing, but that was no matter, for the British suffered the full, withering slaughter of a bow rake.

  Again clear, Hull roared, “Hard a-starboard! Wear ship! Come about, starboard broadside ready! Give it to them again!”

  The wind no longer behind them, Constitution was slower to answer the steering. “Wear ship!” bellowed Hull. “Wear ship!”

  From Guerriere they heard a dreadful explosive popping and snapping, and watched as her one-hundred-fifty-foot mizzenmast went over the starboard rail, its descent slowed by the web of lines that had to break or pull free. Her vast spanker now partly covered the quarterdeck in canvas, leaving men to crawl out from under it, and it partly trailed in the water, acting as a giant rudder that spun her to starboard.

  Thus as the Constitution finally began her turn, Guerriere turned toward her, out of control. Constitution was half again heavier, but as Guerriere came upon their stern she was still a looming mighty presence. Hull spun around to see her eighty-foot bowsprit glide above them and spear into their spanker rigging, deeper and deeper until that spar’s lower thickness crunched through their taffrail. So far from seeing this as a threat, and with a boarding party at the ready, eager young men sensed the opportunity to burnish their careers.

  Lieutenant Morris seized a cut line from the Guerriere’s rigging that hung from the bowsprit and attempted to lash the two ships together. It was a futile show of bravado, for the irresistible swell made the British bow and American stern sweep up and down past each other by as much as eight feet. With one ship of a thousand tons and the other of fifteen hundred, no rope could have bound them together, but for young officers on the rise, to be seen in valiant conduct was the avenue of promotion. For Morris it was a demonstration of personal bravery that he paid for with a British musket ball high in his right chest that blew him back several yards to fall almost at Bliven’s feet.

  Instantly, Bliven knelt by him. “Mr. Morris!”

  “Oh, God,” he groaned. “I fear I am killed.”

  “No, I don’t think so, it does not look mortal.” He had no idea whether it was mortal, but he knew the value of encouragement. “Let me get you below.”