by James Haley
8
Beans and Flour
In his sea cabin with Sam, Bliven found himself blessing Thomas McKinney of New Orleans for supplying them with a decent chart of the long, arcing Texas coast. Without it, they might have attempted to pursue ships directly into the port of Cópano and reduce the place as he had done Tripoli thirty years before. With a chart, however, they recognized instantly the impossibility of such a scheme, for upon further review Cópano was doubly and then trebly inaccessible to a vessel of their size.
For more than a hundred miles, the Texas coast itself was shielded from the Gulf by Padre Island, a barrier of sand that was the longest of its kind in the world, and in most places from one to three miles wide. But whether it existed as a single island or was broken and breached by Gulf waters changed and shifted with the caprices of hurricanes that blew over it every few years.
Cópano, the oldest and deepest port in Texas, established by the Condé de Gálvez in the 1780s, lay 160 miles southwest by south from Galveston. Like Galveston, it had in its earlier days been the refuge of pirates, but its situation bore a greater resemblance to Lafitte’s buccaneer capital of Barataria deep in the Mississippi Delta by reason of its sheer inaccessibility from the open waters. In its northern reaches the great sand barrier broke into smaller but still formidable islands. One of the dependable cuts through them, between Mustang and San José Islands, was at Aransas Pass, a narrow, north-turning, five-mile defile that opened onto Aransas Bay. To reach Cópano then required a ten-mile sail northeast, skirting a shallow oyster reef, then a turn to the northwest into Cópano Bay, avoiding a second, even shallower oyster reef before reaching the port on the northern shore. A near impossibility for a vessel drawing twenty feet of water.
“Where are we now?” asked Bliven.
“Well, when we left Galveston you were out of your head for that couple of days. We made good time, we are proximate to Cópano now. I aimed to put us out far enough to intercept the Gulf trade but close enough to stop anyone from turning in.”
“Yes, good.”
With the windows of the sea cabin opened for the fresh air, they heard the cry far above them. “Ahoy the deck! Ahoy!”
“Who has the watch?”
“Mr. White, but I will run up.”
“Good. I will join you in a moment.” Bliven made a stop in the quarter gallery outside his berth, put on his coat and picked up his bicorne, but then felt dizzy and thought it better to sit down.
“Good morning, Mr. White,” said Sam on the quarterdeck. “What do we have?”
“Good morning, Mr. Bandy. Lookout has sighted a ship about three miles southeast. He can’t see square sails; we think it may be a schooner, sir.”
“Where is she headed?”
“Toward us, sir.”
“Very well, keep us informed.” Sam clattered back down the ladder and knocked lightly even as he entered the captain’s cabin. He strode straight to the door of Bliven’s berth and found him seated on his mattress. “This could be our lucky day, Captain: we have a sighting.”
“Yes, I will be right up.”
“How are you feeling?”
Bliven paused as though taking stock of his various functions. “Not too bad, actually; stronger than yesterday. Where away?”
“Three miles southeast, sir.”
“How is the wind?”
“Fairly strong, varying east to northeast.”
Bliven stood again, then stumbled. “Oh!”
Sam reached out and caught him. “Are you all right?”
“I stood too quickly, I fear. It’s all right, it has passed.” Ross entered the small compartment, standing in the door to the quarter gallery, ready with Bliven’s bicorne and spyglass. Sam made certain to follow him up the ladder, to be able to break his fall should he stumble again. On the quarterdeck Bliven assayed things quickly as Yeakel joined them. “Helm, make northeast to open some distance, then northwest. We can angle up to him and have the weather gage. We must try to speak him. Mr. Bandy, I dislike to do this, I am sorry, but take down your Texian flag and raise the American flag. It is sure to make us more approachable and ease the conversation.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And then beat to quarters. I want everyone ready just in case. Where is Mr. McKay?”
“Sleeping, sir. He had the night watch.”
“Well, wake him and have him join us. I want Mr. White at the guns and McKay at the wheel.”
Sam was below and back on the quarterdeck in a few moments, and the blue flag with the gold star slid down from the spanker boom, replaced by the Stars and Stripes, to which he gave a long look. “Excuse me, Captain?”
“Yes, Mr. Bandy?”
“If we raise the American flag, and then if we have to start shooting, will that not cause the very incident we are ordered to avoid, in giving the appearance of American involvement in the revolution?”
“No fear. If we have to start shooting, we will show our true colors first, and they will know it was a deception.”
Sam smiled, slowly at first but then broadly. “Good. If it is a Mexican ship, I want them to know who they’re dealing with.” As the two ships closed at a gradual angle, the schooner unfurled a Mexican flag from its mainmast. “And so now we know.” Sam pointed.
When they were a hundred yards apart, Bliven put the speaking trumpet to his lips. “Ahoy, Mexican schooner! What ship are you and where bound?”
After two minutes of silence, plenty of time for the Mexican captain to have a trumpet in hand, Bliven repeated his question and timed out the continuing silence. “Well, to hell with this: our orders are to interdict their commerce. Raise your own flag, Mr. Bandy! Ahoy, Mexican schooner! This is the Texas warship Gonzales. Come about and lower your sails. I say again: Come about! Mr. White, open your gunports and get ready to put a shot across his bow if he—”
Suddenly the air snapped with three sharp concussions: small guns, they could tell—six-pounders. Their gazes snapped back to see the schooner’s rail obscured by smoke, and they saw at the same time her profile diminish as she sheered away to port. At only a hundred yards they heard the small balls sing overhead through the rigging and heard and then saw a hole pop open in the main top staysail. “You son of a bitch,” Bliven whispered in amazement, “you shot at me! Who do you think you are? Mr. White, get your guns out and fire!”
White flew down the ladder, roaring to open the ports and roll out the guns. In the twenty seconds it took for the creaking carriage wheels to fall silent, the schooner was halfway through his turn and presented to them little more than his spoon-shaped fantail. They heard White’s bellow to fire, and a second later the deck trembled beneath them with eleven heavy explosions over a two-second period. The flame and smoke began to dissipate just in time for them to see a shower of splinters and spray erupt from low on the schooner’s starboard quarter, and they knew they had holed her between wind and water. A second geyser of wood erupted from her taffrail, and two holes popped open in her sails. Several seconds later they saw numerous splashes several hundred yards beyond her. As quickly as she turned away, two hundred yards later she came northwest, running before the wind and straight for Aransas Pass.
“Did you see that, Sam?” asked Bliven. “Blast me if she is not a nimble little thing. She turned away to give us a smaller target; now she is making a dash for the port. That is no merchant captain. That is a naval officer who knows what he is doing, and he made a fool out of me.”
“Shall we pursue?”
Bliven lowered his glass and tapped it into his open hand. “No. Damn! He is faster than we are, and he knows it. His ship is more maneuverable and can sail closer to the wind than we can, and he knows it. If we chase him, he will but laugh at us. No, he foxed me, and now we have lost our chance. Damn! Damn!” He peered upward, regarding the sails and Regina Ferraro’s green silk pennant as White rejoi
ned them on the quarterdeck. “Mr. White, you did not stop him but you hit him. Well done, sir.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“What the hell, we cannot catch him, but why don’t you run forward and see if you can send him off with a hit from our bow chasers before he gets out of range. Helm, come three points to port and see if that gives him a straight shot.”
Bliven and Sam leaned out from the port rail, keeping the departing schooner in the center of their glasses as White pointed the twenty-fours on the bow. Their deep, majestic booms were simultaneous, but they saw the balls fall one forward of the schooner and one off to her starboard. Even with the miss, it was comforting to know that they were the only ship in these waters with such guns.
Bliven pursed his lips and shook his head. “Well, hell. Mr. Bandy, resume a southerly course under easy sail. You and Mr. White and Mr. Yeakel gather in the wardroom, if you please, and have your lunch. I will join you presently and we will consider what to do next.”
In his cabin he donned a fresh shirt before descending to the berth deck. In the wardroom he discovered that Hoover had served them reconstituted salt beef, sliced thick and fried in butter, served with potatoes that he had mashed and whipped into a froth and buttered, and peas. From the galley Hoover observed Bliven enter and followed him with a similarly loaded plate.
“Gentlemen, you should not have waited for me.” He sat and they ate in silence, waiting to see what he would have to say. “Well,” Bliven said at last, “I think that I will not be contradicted if I say that encounter did not go as we hoped. In fact we, or more to the point I, botched that rather badly.” He paused for a comment, but there was none. “I had hoped that our first contact would be a ship coming out of Cópano, not going in. Perhaps we might have captured some dispatches or even some officers going back home. As it is, our presence here will very shortly now be known, and we may safely assume that alarms to that effect will be on the way to Urrea and Santa Anna, wherever they are, and a courier sent posthaste to Matamoros warning them to dispatch no more shipping to Cópano until the threat we pose has been countered.”
“What else could you have done, Captain?” asked Yeakel. “I suppose you could have opened fire and sunk him by surprise even as you changed the flag, but that is the kind of thing one expects from Santanistas, not from us.”
“We don’t know what cargo he was carrying,” added Sam, “but a two-masted schooner is not large enough to haul the amount of artillery we are watching for. Those little popguns he fired at us when he sheered off, I would bet you that’s the only armament he had; indeed, they are typical for an armed schooner. I know if I was carrying anything bigger, I would assemble at least a couple of them and have them ready to use.”
“Yes, perhaps,” said Bliven. “Well, now, looking at things as they are, the Mexicans know the port of Cópano is blockaded as long as we are here. We know it will take a couple of days for a rider to reach Matamoros, and I am wagering that those guns were loaded and put to sea before now. My greater fear is that they may have left the port soon after the Titania’s captain saw them there and may already have landed in Cópano. If that is the case, then our whole errand is wasted.”
“Did your British captain say what kind of guns and how many?” asked Sam.
“A couple of dozen at least, he said. He took them for twelve-pounders, but he gathered from their carriages that they were short-range field guns, not long twelves of the naval type.”
“Wait, sir,” said Yeakel. “If they were on their carriages, they would have to be dismounted before being lowered into a hold, and then they would have to stow them very carefully, with that much weight. From what he saw, I do not believe they could be underway in less than three days from that time. I don’t see how they could be here already.”
“Thank you, Mr. Yeakel. That is a comforting assessment. We shall maintain our blockade and remain hopeful of accomplishing what we were sent here for. We shall just have to ride the winds as best we can to stay outside the pass, and hope we are not blown away by a strong offshore wind.”
* * *
* * *
It was in the middle of the next afternoon that the call came down. “Ahoy the deck!”
It was Sam who had the helm, with Bliven keeping him company. “What do you see?”
“A ship, sir, coming up from the south. I make her three miles off, perhaps a little more. Hard to say; she is a large brig, pretty close inshore.”
Bliven and Sam exchanged stares, at once excited but cautious. “This could be it,” said Sam. “What shall we do this time, sir?”
Bliven stalked back and forth, eyeing the thin line of the coast, the direction of their pennant, and the bearing of the brig. “Mr. Bandy, do you remember Gibraltar and the Meshuda? She was untouchable as long as she was in port, and poor Barron had to sail the Philadelphia up and down the bay of Algeciras to keep her there.”
“Yes, I do recall it.”
“Well”—he pointed out to the brig bearing distantly down upon them—“this is just the opposite case. If this is the ship we expect, he wants into Cópano; there is no place else he can go. And if we make a move to chase him, he may outrun us and do it. But he cannot go through us. Let him posture and gyrate how he will; we will cover the entrance to the pass. Mr. Yeakel?”
“Sir?”
“You have had the foretopmast that broke in the Bahamas lying at the rail ever since. Part of it is now our bowsprit. Do you think you can use the night to cut down the rest of it and rig a new sprits’l? Do you think the bowsprit is strong enough to take it?”
“Perhaps, sir. It has stood the strain of the jib and forestaysail well enough. The weight of a spritsail yard will be exerting down, however. You are thinking that you may want some extra speed tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“I understand, but I would not want to set a very large one.”
“Agreed. Get busy and do what you can. And one thing further, I want you to lash on your stuns’l spars and furl stuns’ls on them. I want them there at the instant we may need them.”
Yeakel saluted himself away. “Aye, sir.”
“Ahoy the deck?”
“What is it?” Bliven shouted.
“Sir, I make the brig two miles away. She is turning seaward.”
“Is she running?”
“No, Captain! She is still coming on but placing herself further from shore. She is slow and low in the water. She is flying the American flag!”
“Do you think it may be a false flag?” asked Sam.
“I do not. The Mexicans have no ship of that size; that would be pointless. An American trader, I’ll wager, chartered to Mexican service. He is flying the flag for its protection, most likely.” Bliven stalked back and forth, eyeing the shore with the pass just visible, the pennant showing a freshening north wind. “Mr. Bandy, make sure to come in toward the shore while we are still on the east side of the pass. If he tries to come in from the south, even he must tack into this wind and show us both sides to shoot at. If he gets brave and makes a run in straight from the east, his speed won’t help him. He must slow down to be sure of hitting the channel. He would never survive our broadsides.”
Bliven studied all their circumstances for several minutes more. With their yards on the port tack Sam steered them as close to the wind as he could, edging them closer to the shore. “Mr. Yeakel, shorten sail, if you please. I do not wish to lose the advantage of our present position until we see what he is going to do.”
“Ahoy the deck!”
“What do you see?” called Bliven.
“That brig is still in sight, sir. I make him a mile and a half. His course is now northeast, sir.”
“Tacking?” puzzled Sam.
Bliven found the tiny sails in his glass. “Tacking, and stalling. He is milling, Mr. Bandy! The poor bastard does not know what to do; he is comi
ng out of the desert and we have seized the waterhole. That tells us a great deal.” He stopped to think. “Although that makes a very poor metaphor, considering we are on the ocean . . .”
“It tells us that he truly wants to enter Cópano.”
“Exactly. If he had business elsewhere, he would go there. If his cargo were innocent, he would come on and hail us and learn our business.” He laughed suddenly. “Our flag alone should excite his curiosity. Remember, it has never been seen before.”
“Well, sir, he might hail us and he might not.”
Bliven lowered his glass and looked at him. “How do you mean?”
“An American ship under Mexican charter, sir, if he has to stop and be boarded, he would be expecting to have to pay a bribe to continue on. That is the way things work down there. Within the past few years the Mexican government opened customshouses at our Texas ports, and paying bribes over and above the duties became quite the required way of commerce.”
Bliven stared at him. “No one has told me this before. If it is as you say, then that alone is cause enough for a revolt.”
“I say it only to explain why he might not wish to be boarded.”
The dance continued through afternoon and evening, the Gonzales patrolling the entrance to Aransas Pass, the lumbering brig milling one to two miles offshore, until as dusk approached he passed out of sight to the northeast.
“Now where is he going? Do you think he will try to get inshore of us and slip in under cover of night?”
“It is all too possible. The moon is approaching its last quarter. Do you know what time it will rise?”
“Not later than nine, as I believe, but I will run down and check the almanac.”
“Yes, please do. Mr. Yeakel, my compliments to Mr. White. His gun crews are to sleep at their stations tonight, gunports open, guns run out. I want them ready for instant firing.”
Yeakel saluted himself away. “Aye, sir.”
