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

by James L. Haley

  Lieutenant Chads was standing by her wheel, apparently waiting for him, and Bliven saluted as he approached. “Are you in command, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, sir. Captain Lord Kington has been wounded, we fear mortally, and has been taken below. You have won the day, sir, we are forced to strike our colors. My sword, sir.”

  Bliven reached out and took it. “Thank you. What are your casualties?”

  “Twenty-two killed, wounded over a hundred, several more of whom are like to die.”

  “Do you know if you are sinking?”

  “I do not believe so, but further inspection will ascertain the fact.”

  “Well,” said Bliven, “if you please, take me down to see if your captain is able to confirm your surrender.”

  “Of course.” Being but a light frigate, Java’s orlop was scarcely four and a half feet from deck underfoot to the deck overhead, dimly lit by battle lanterns—a suitable crypt for the life of a ship to extinguish itself in. Indeed, as he made their way forward to the cockpit Bliven was aware of all the smells of a dying vessel: rising bilge, the distinctly different odors of burning wood from burnt powder, all given a sickening reality by mixing with the odors of dying men—blood, vomit, uncontrolled bowels, the cries for aid and the groans of the wounded and dying heard above the deep creaking of the timbers twisting unnaturally at their joints as Java began to settle.

  Bliven passed his own men, still waiting in the cable tier. “Boys, the fight is over, and we have won. You will be going home very soon, bear with us.” Very briefly the cries and groans were drowned out by the lustiest of cheers.

  He found Kington lying on the plank laid across two barrels, a white cloth with no cushion beneath him. Bliven had seen blasted and rent men before, but none so torn as this who still clung to life, and sentience.

  “Dr. Kite,” Bliven hailed him.

  “Mr. Putnam! What? How did you—”

  Bliven cut him short. “I am your prisoner no longer, I changed ships when we collided. I have returned to take your surrender.

  “Captain,” Bliven said, loudly enough and clearly enough that Kington’s eyes rolled and met his, and registered his recognition. “Captain, your first officer has surrendered your ship. It is apparent that you are in extremis. Will you confirm the surrender of your vessel before you leave this world?”

  “Not to you!” It was shocking that a dying man could muster such ferocity, his eyes as hard as blue marbles, his teeth clenched against the bubbles of blood that foamed with each breath, his chest doggedly, forcibly expanding to suck in one more breath and one more breath before surrendering to the darkness. “Where is the surgeon?”

  “I am here, m’lord.”

  At the surgeon’s lightest touch to his bloody hand Kington seized it with the most clinging violence.

  “I am here, m’lord.”

  “I desire the chaplain.”

  “He is killed, m’lord.”

  Kington was too far gone to register disappointment. “Hear me, then. I wish it to be known that I met my end in a manly way, and that my last thoughts were of my King, and the Navy.”

  “I will, m’lord.”

  “Captain.” Bliven spoke up again and the hard blue eyes focused on him. “Have no fear, I shall also report your courage and fortitude to my superiors. All will know that you fought your ship bravely to the last.”

  Kington regarded Bliven’s crisp new attire, the ruffled shirt brilliant white even in the dim lamplight, the deep blue coat and gold cordage. To the extent that his dying face could register emotion, it showed displeasure. Like lightning he seized the front of Bliven’s shirt, pressing the back of his hand and arm across his stomach, leaving a crimson streak of his blood.

  “To remember me by,” he croaked. His tiny laugh became a cough, and then a strangle. It was shocking how fast his soul fled once he released it. His chest heaved, twice, and three times, before he entered a spastic shudder and then ceased all movement, his eyes open.

  Bliven studied his face for several seconds. “Ill-gotten bastard to the end,” he said, more in wonder than anything else that one man’s soul could contain so much venom.

  “Do not fret, young Yankee Doodle,” said Kite. “His pain was exquisite enough to satisfy even you.” He lifted up the sheet that covered him, to reveal his pasty torso pierced by three balls and also by two large splinters, one piercing his chest and one his belly, and then he reached down and closed the eyes. “He served policy. The policy may be right or wrong, but he did his duty.”

  Bliven’s eyes did not leave the body. “No, he enjoyed it.”

  Yankee Doodle, thought Bliven in a flash. How much was revealed in those two words, that dated epithet: that the British had never accepted Yorktown and the Peace of Paris, that they still thought of America as theirs by right, to be retaken, and he knew that those American newspapers were correct when they printed that this war with England was, in truth, their second War for Independence.

  The heat and pall of smoke pressed with greater urgency from the berth deck above. “Dr. Kite,” said Bliven, “I need not tell you your ship is in danger. You must get your wounded and your people out of here. Once you are topside we will transfer you.”

  “Yes,” he responded quickly. “Yes, thank you.” His eyes darted about the dimness, searching out means to evacuate the men from the coming inferno. Many of his wounded were too broken up to be lifted by legs and armpits, and the first ones to be injured were still lying on the stretchers. “Boys!” Three of their powder monkeys had been slightly wounded, and once the battle ceased sought the refuge of the cockpit. “You, and you two, get to the sail room, bring back canvas. Cut it into pieces large enough to carry a man. Do you understand? Quickly, now!” They would not have far to go, for the sail room lay among the orlop deck’s bow compartments.

  As they clattered forward into the bow’s curve, Bliven shot a look about, and up the after ladder, satisfying himself that the fire if it could not be arrested was in no imminent danger of reaching the magazine. He paused, listening for any gurgle of water swirling unseen below in the hold. If there were such a sound the powder should flood before it could blow up.

  He started up the ladder but then hissed, “Damn!” He stopped and backed down the few steps he had climbed, and descended the dark hatch into the hold. He peered about and, seeing no lamps, returned to the orlop and seized hold of one. Back in the hold he descried the ribs of the ship, smaller and smaller in the forward perspective, and the glint of tons of sheet copper that now would not line the bottom of the seventy-four abuilding in India, but saw no movement. “Is there anyone down here?” he shouted. “Is there anyone down here? For your life, now, speak up!” All he heard was the slosh of water and, looking down, he saw the sheen of water between the ribs, seeming no more than unemptied bilge. If the hull was not tight it was nearly so, and she would float long enough to evacuate in an orderly way.

  He raced back up the ladder, swung the heavy hatch shut, and secured it. “Have you enough men to carry your wounded?” he shouted to Kite.

  “Yes, thank you, we will begin taking them on deck.”

  Bliven started to ascend toward the spar deck, but seeing the wardroom, stopped to entertain a wild thought. He ducked into the tiny stateroom he had lately occupied, and there his thought was rewarded. In a quick reach he scooped up his mahogany dressing box and secured it under his arm before continuing up.

  Back on the Constitution’s quarterdeck, Bliven conveyed Java’s surrender, and the sword. “The captain is killed,” he told Bainbridge. “The surgeon, Dr. Kite, will be ready to transfer the wounded shortly. The ship will not imminently sink, but she is wrecked and will burn to the waterline. We will have to take on her crew as prisoners.”

  Bainbridge made a sour face. “Are you certain?”

  “Yes, sir, I am sure she is lost.”

  They
both would have much preferred to keep the crew on their own ship and take her in as a prize, but even if she could be saved, they could not trust her to reach a harbor farther than Brazil. The Portuguese were neutral in this conflict, but neutral with a decided tilt toward the British. If they took her in to São Salvador or Recife there was no guarantee she would not be handed right back over to their enemy.

  “Very well. Have the carpenter make a secure area around the cable tier. We will have to hold them in close confinement until we can get them ashore. And then have him make certain to bring her wheel over. We’ll use that to get home.”

  “Captain, you will have to make it a large area. She is carrying passengers, a general bound for India and his staff, and supernumeraries, and the crew he took off my ship. We will have to take on about three hundred, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, God damn! Why did she even chase us down when she had passengers?”

  “Well, you know how some captains are about running to a fight. How is Mr. Bandy, do you know?”

  “He is recovering. Give my instruction to the carpenter and you may see him. And Putnam.”

  “Sir?”

  Bainbridge lowered his voice. “I cannot stand to see a fine ship burn in agony. When all the prisoners are aboard, blow her up.”

  Bliven saluted. “Very good, sir.” He found the carpenter in the hold, hoisting a lantern to the curvature of the hull, frame by frame, confirming that their Constitution’s hull had taken this hellish pounding, and was undamaged. He acknowledged that he would prepare a space for prisoners about the cable tier, even as he looked toward a larger job when the Java’s wheel was bought over to replace their own that had been shot away, and would have to be engaged to the tiller.

  In the cockpit, Bliven sat by Sam until, at length, his pale blue eyes opened languidly. Consciousness then returned in a rush, and without moving his head his eyes shot about the compartment.

  “Sam, Sam, be still. You are all right. You were wounded, we have been taken aboard the Constitution; we are in the cockpit. Dr. Cutbush has been working on you.”

  Sam gained control of his breath as he slowly remembered—beating to quarters on the Java, chasing down the Constitution and seeing her gunports open, the awful silence before the eruption of broadsides. As he could not remember coming aboard this ship, he had to assume that someone had brought him. At length he sighed and said, “Oh, hell, Putnam, did you save my life again?”

  Bliven pondered the question, and the advantage that it gave him, but quickly decided that such a double obligation would be more than Sam could live with. “No. No, quite the opposite. You saved my life. If you had not flown at me when you did and taken us overboard, we would have been staring face-on into a full salvo from the chasers. We would have been rent in pieces by splinters.”

  “Oh, good.” He knit his brow. “My head hurts very badly.”

  “The Constitution fired just as we went over. One of the balls smashed into the Java’s railing, and a piece of it fetched you an almighty wallop on the head on your way down. You surely have a concussion, but Dr. Cutbush believes you will have no permanent injury.”

  “We won the battle, then?”

  “Utterly.”

  “What of that Captain Lord Sir Almighty Majesty Turdbucket?”

  Bliven looked down. “He is dead.”

  “Good, I hope it hurt. Bliv, I swear these British—” Sam sucked in his breath in something like a panic. “Oh, Jesus! Oh my God!” He grabbed at his stomach and twisted onto his side, revealing his naked butt as the sheet slid off, and before he considered whether he could arrest it he ripped a flatulence both percussive and singing, one that extended its note as he pressed on his belly. Worst of all, he looked behind him and saw a distinct pall of smoke. “What in God’s name? What in the—”

  Bliven was helpless but to screech in laughter, even as he squeezed Sam’s hand. “Well, after Naples I never thought to see Vesuvius again, but now I have!” He wanted to say more but could not, for he could not breathe and just gave himself over to the paralysis of hysterical mirth.

  Like a shot, Cutbush was on them. “Hush now, quiet! Mr. Bandy, you are awake. How are you feeling?”

  “My head hurts like the devil.”

  “And will for some days. You took a nasty blow. I am going to keep you very quiet until we are certain that you are not bleeding beneath the skull.”

  “What . . . just happened?”

  “Mr. Bandy, I had to administer a tobacco glyster. Tobacco is a stimulant; forcing the smoke into your bowel is the fastest way to jolt your system, speed things up, get your respiration going again. Of course, what goes in must come out, hence the odor wafting about just now of, em, a mixture of . . . stool and tobacco.”

  “Carolina’s finest.” Bliven was scarcely able to get the words out. “On both counts! Haaa!”

  Cutbush pulled Bliven to his feet. “That’s enough now, get topside and make yourself useful. Mr. Bandy is out of danger.” He knew that was not true. If indeed he was bleeding in his brain he could have a seizure and die at any second. In his medical case he had a circular trepanning saw to make openings in a skull to relieve pressure on the brain, but he had never used it and prayed he would never have to.

  “Doctor, my own surgeon on the Tempest, his name is Gabriel and I believe you know him, he is among my crew held on the Java, I’ll have him sent to you straightaway, I imagine you can use him.”

  “Indeed I can, indeed I can.”

  “Dr. Cutbush?”

  He spun around. “What is this, a reunion? You look familiar. Do I know you?”

  “Not for some years. Launcelot Kite, sir, surgeon of His Majesty’s Ship Java, whom you have just destroyed. We met long ago, in Philadelphia, you had charge of the hospital there.”

  “Ah, yes.” The light of recognition came over his face and he advanced with his hand outstretched. “I do remember. You were an estimable fellow, good student, quite the boulevardier, as I remember.”

  They shook hands. “Yes, I fear so. Try not to remember too much of me, then.” They laughed. “My ship is wrecked but they say will not sink, and we are transferring our injured. It will be a great imposition, I fear, and you must let me tender my services to help you.”

  “Very kind,” said Cutbush. “Very kind.” He looked fitfully about. The cockpit below was full of their own casualties and he did not want to move them. “Use the forward ladder as you bring them aboard. I will appropriate some of the forward hammocks to enlarge the sick bay until we can get you ashore.”

  “Yes, that will be very well, thank you.”

  “At least I assume we will put you ashore. I’m not certain where we are. Perhaps Recife would be the closest port, I don’t know. Mr. Putnam, we have killed and wounded of our own, and I desire Dr. Kite to stay here and assist me in treating them. If you have no other duties, would you supervise this transfer of their casualties? You will trust to handle them as gently as can be done.”

  “I’ll just make certain the captain approves.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Bainbridge when he was asked. “Go to it, take the longboats and the cutters, see if you can get them off by dark. If the ship will last, we can finish with the rest in the morning.”

  The task required until noon the next day, and when he was certain that the ship was entirely abandoned, Bliven set a fire in the orlop above the magazine, having first moved a few quarter-casks of powder proximate enough that her last moment could not be far distant.

  When he returned, he found that Bainbridge had finally allowed himself to be treated, and lay bandaged in his cabin.

  “Captain Bainbridge?” Bliven saluted.

  “Come in, pull up a chair and sit by me.”

  “Captain, the Java is entirely abandoned, I set an explosive charge that the fire will reach before long. Your wound—do you need anything?�
�

  Bainbridge looked surprised at such a solicitation. “Thank you, no, I shall just be sitting on pillows for a few days.”

  “Captain, they tell me that you held the deck all night, with a ball in your hip and a bolt in your thigh from when the wheel was shot away. You refused to be treated until all the dangerously wounded were seen to.”

  Bainbridge made no reply.

  “That was gallant of you, sir, but I hope you will not make a habit of taking such risks with your life.”

  “Ha. I did not feel so dangerously wounded, and I knew it would have a good effect on the men. You see, Mr. Putnam, I am well aware of what people think of me. Hull was a popular captain, I am not. In fact, the crew nearly mutinied when I took command. I am thought an unlucky captain, you see, because I have lost two ships. Holding the deck will go a distance to remedy that, I think.”

  “Yes, I see.” Bliven hesitated. “Then, may I ask you something?”

  “What is it?”

  “When I left the Constitution in Boston, after we put the Guerriere’s survivors ashore, Mr. Hull seemed very much in his element, almost a part of the ship. He was keen and anxious to put out again, at once. Was he taken ill, that he was relieved?”

  Bainbridge took a long sip of sherry from a glass on the bedside table and raised up on an elbow. “Do you know, Commander, I am truly not a fool?” He raised his hands before Bliven could protest. “You have never spoken publicly against me, and I give you that credit, but I know well what you and Preble thought of me in the Mediterranean.”

  “On my honor, sir, I did not mean to imply—”

  Bainbridge waved it off. “Never mind. After you were ordered to Charleston, Hull received a letter, containing the news of his brother’s death. That brother left a widow and children, for whom Hull is now the only support. He knew that I was in command of the Navy Yard at Boston, which is proximate to his brother’s family. As bitterly as it grieved him to do so, he himself made the request to change places with me.”