Rough Passage to London: A Sea Captain's Tale (9 page)

For Morgan, that June voyage was memorable because Captain Champlin brought him back to the quarterdeck to take the helm. Like all the sailors, Morgan was required to take his turn at the wheel, but usually he was given the early morning or night watch. This time his watch occurred in the late afternoon, when the cabin passengers were being served tea and refreshments in the quarterdeck area. A dense fog had rolled in, and the air was cold.

Morgan walked back to the stern of the ship, shifting his weight effortlessly from one foot to the other. The repetitive motion of the waves, the slant of the deck, and the wind on his face all spoke to him now in a wordless language. He waited respectfully until the captain signaled him to replace the man at the wheel.

“Your turn at the helm, Morgan.”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n.”

Morgan stepped up to the wheel and wrapped his fingers around the well-worn, braided twine on each of the spokes. He looked over at the man standing next to the captain. He had unruly dark hair and a high forehead with deep-set eyes. His squared-off jaw hinted at a proud, determined character. His formal dress, a white cravat and a dark jacket, made him appear to be a landed gentleman, but the way he stood with his legs straddled wide for balance, caused Morgan to think he was a seafaring man.

He stood silently at the helm, first looking up at the trim of the sails, then glancing down at the binnacle to check on his course, north-northeast. The fog was thickening and the wind was strengthening. He could feel the tug of the rudder as the ship began to heel over more sharply. The two men were studying the performance of the ship, and he could feel their eyes on him. He kept waiting for a critical comment, but none came. Champlin was boasting that two new ships were being built for the Black X Line. They would soon have four ships, which would help make the London Line more competitive with the Liverpool shipping lines. Morgan soon realized that it was James Fenimore Cooper. He was quite familiar with Cooper’s work as Scuttles had given him a copy of
The Pioneers
from the ship’s library, as well as Cooper’s highly successful seafaring novel,
The Pilot
.

At one point, the topic of conversation switched to the
Crisis
, and the author began asking questions about what could have happened to the Black X packet. Morgan watched as Champlin’s mood darkened even as he shuffled his feet on the deck defensively.

“Most likely she ran into a floating iceberg at night.” Champlin replied sadly. “Being as you were once a sailor and a midshipman in the United States Navy, Mr. Cooper, you well know the ocean gives and she takes. She is both kind and cruel.”

Cooper nodded soberly. Sensing the captain’s discomfort, he changed the topic to ask about the fast-growing packet trade with England and France. It was well known that American packet ships were now carrying over not just the mail, but ninety percent of the freight going both ways, as well as most of the passengers. There were now four sailings a month from New York to Liverpool, two to Havre, and one to London.

“Some of my shipping friends in New York say steamships are the future on the Atlantic. What do you think of that notion, Captain?”

Champlin laughed.

“Those stinkpots?” he snorted in disgust. “I venture to say that if I were a passenger, I would not risk my life crossing the stormy Atlantic on one of those smoky tinder boxes.”

After the two men tired of talking about ships, Champlin left the quarterdeck to go below and tend to some of his more demanding passengers. Morgan remained quiet, feeling awkward with so important a man as Cooper standing next to him. He looked over at the flush-cheeked author, who was clearly enjoying the motion of the ship and the cool, misty fog on his face. Finally he broke the silence and told Mr. Cooper that he had enjoyed reading his sea novel.

Clearly surprised by this sudden remark from the quiet young sailor at the helm, Cooper smiled at Morgan skeptically.

“A keen-eyed critic of the sea, are you?”

“Yes sir. I liked the part about them escaping through the Devil’s Grip, and I greatly admired Mr. Gray, the pilot. Reminded me of some of the American privateering captains who fought the British in the last war.”

Cooper’s dark eyebrows lifted slowly as he studied Morgan’s face more closely.

“You seem a little young, sailor, to know much about that war. What did you say your name was?”

“Morgan, sir. Ely Morgan. I was a farm boy from the Connecticut River, a little town called Lyme, during the war. My brother and I, we were there when the English torched our fleet in old Potapoug. We saw those redcoats close up. We were fortunate we didn’t get killed.”

Cooper’s smile broadened as he listened. He wanted to know more about this young sailor’s life. Morgan told him about his search for Abraham. He told him about John Taylor. He didn’t know why he divulged all of this, but the author’s deep-set eyes, although stern and inquiring, seemed trusting. Perhaps he just needed someone to confide in.

Cooper’s interest was piqued at the mention of the mysterious Englishman named William Blackwood.

“What will you do if you find this man, Blackwood, Mr. Morgan, what then?” asked Cooper provocatively.

“I will make him tell me what happened to Abraham,” Morgan replied with conviction.

“And what if this Englishman tells you he killed your brother?”

“Why then, I . . .” Morgan bit on his lip, looked up at the sails, and didn’t say anything. At that point, Morgan was leaning against the wheel, concentrating on Cooper and not the ship’s progress. He hadn’t noticed a sudden shift in the wind. Champlin emerged from below decks and looked up at the fluttering sails that were snapping back and forth in the gray fog.

“Fall off, boy, damn you, the fore-topgallant is luffing.”

When his watch was over at eight o’clock, Morgan rushed to tell Hiram that he had met the famous author James Fenimore Cooper. He found his friend spinning yarn in the forecastle with some of the other sailors. The sailors, half undressed, were reclining on their sea chests or sitting on their bunks smoking their small half pipes and chewing wads of tobacco. They were listening to one of the old-timers, who was in the middle of a tale. Hiram didn’t even know who Cooper was. His eyes were bugged out of his head, his face red and splotched, and his breath was hot like a panting dog. He was in a blurred stupor that Morgan recognized only too well. He pulled his friend out of the smoky, steamy forecastle into the cool, foggy night air. They walked over to the far forward section of the bow where they could talk in private.

“You been quilling rum again?” Morgan asked under his breath.

Hiram nodded with a satisfied smile, and then started to speak in a hoarse, slurred whisper.

“Yeah, I’ve been quilling that sweet Jamaican grog fairly regular on this passage. You won’t believe what I seen down there in the hold last night. I thought I was all alone with them rats scurrying all around me. I had just put the quill through the gimlet hole in the head of the barrel when I heard some commotion in and around the crates. At first, I thought it was just the rats, but then I started hearing rustling noises, and some heavy breathing. I never been so frightened, I thought it might be a ghost or something. I started to run back through the dark, bumping my head on the stores hanging from the heavy timbers. I was dodging and weaving through the maze of crates. I almost made it to the ladder, but I tripped on a coil of rope. Then I seen this lantern light swinging toward me in the darkness. I couldn’t see nothing more than that light running at me like a horse coming at me full gallop. Then I heard a voice yell out, ‘Who’s there? Who’s there, damn ye!’”

“Who was it?” Morgan asked excitedly, wondering if there was a stowaway on board.

Hiram raised his eyebrows and leaned closer to Morgan to whisper in his ear, “It was Mr. Brown.”

Morgan drew back in surprise.

“I tripped and fell. Then that critter was on me. He bent down and put that light in my face, and asked if I’d been quilling rum. That’s when I recognized the mate. I could see his rotten teeth and smell his foul-smelling breath. I lied and told him Scuttles had sent me down there, but he wasn’t convinced. He asked me in a real threatening voice what I’d heard. ‘Tell me now, Smith, or I will beat it out of you.’ I told him I just heard rats and ran because I was scared. Mr. Brown looked like he was going to kill me right there.”

“Go on,” Morgan urged. He was now beginning to understand why the second mate was paying so much attention to Hiram.

“This is the worst part,” Hiram recounted with a worried frown. “Then I seen that new cabin boy named Dalrymple holding up a lantern. Why, he came out of the shadows and calls out all scared-like to Mr. Brown, and the mate, he whirled around and yells at him to get back on the foredeck. . . .” Hiram paused for a moment, and then spoke in almost a whisper, a twisted smile on his face. “I reckon the second mate, when he gets out at sea, he feels certain needs.”

It took several seconds for the reality of what Hiram was saying to register. Morgan had wondered why the second mate was always snuffing around the freight hold, and why he always wanted to know where Hiram was. Now he knew. Brown was afraid he would be discovered by Hiram in his secret lair. Jack Brown was just making sure that no one else was down there in the guts of the ship.

“Man alive! Then what happened?” Morgan asked in a more serious tone.

“Brown grabbed me by my shirt and shoved that lantern in my face and then said, ‘Whatever you heard, Smith, you better keep to yerself or you’ll find yerself climbing up Jacob’s ladder and not climbing down.’”

Morgan said nothing for a moment, and then turned to Hiram, shaking his head. He pulled the quid of tobacco he’d been chewing out of his mouth and handed it to his friend.

8

By the twentieth day with all sails set, they spotted Bishop’s Rock, the southern outpost of the Isles of Scilly, which seamen call the graveyard of the North Atlantic due to the hidden underwater ledges. Morgan was relieved. He thought it unlikely that Brown would create an incident now. He had seen the mate’s eyes, glaring at Hiram, burning with hate, and he had warned his friend to keep his distance. They had just passed the
Don Quixote
, the Havre packet, which left New York just ahead of them on the same day three weeks ago. Three thousand miles of ocean, and amazingly the two ships had come together again. The ship labored against the wind and rising seas, battering her way eastward toward the French coast. Morgan was just climbing down the ratlines after furling and fastening the fore-royals and topgallants. The wind had picked up and the seas threw a flood of water onto the deck. To the north, he could see the looming rocky cliffs of Lands End, and the breakers in the distance. The
Hudson
veered northward past the dangerous rocks at the Lizard, then headed northeasterly, skirting the wild Cornish coast as it made its way up the English Channel.

A day later, Morgan was high up in the fore-royals, his feet balanced squarely on the footropes, when he noticed the rocky cliffs of St. Aldhelm’s Head jutting out into the Channel. To the north, he could just make out the tips of the one-hundred-foot jagged white rocks of the Needles. He shouted down to Hiram, who was freeing a snagged buntline, that they had arrived. For Morgan, the first sighting of St. Aldhelm’s Head and the Needles was a sign that the voyage was almost over. They would be at anchor within hours. With a fair tide, the Black X packet coasted through the five-mile-wide Solent without tacking. The
Hudson
ran in under clewed-up main and fore topsails, dropping anchor at Spithead within sight of the rooftops of Portsmouth, near the town of Ryde, as was customary. Most of the cabin passengers preferred to get off at Portsmouth and take a bumpy carriage ride into London than spend two more days on a slanted deck.

Morgan remembered thinking at the time how unusual it was that Mr. Brown escorted the cabin passengers into Portsmouth. Normally, the second mate stayed aboard ship with the crew. Brown had told the captain that he had a few personal matters to attend to, and Champlin had granted him a few hours of shore leave. Hours later, with Jack Brown once again aboard ship, the
Hudson
weighed anchor and headed up the Channel toward Dungeness and then into the chop and swell of the North Sea.

Two days later, as they rounded the point at Margate in the predawn darkness of early morning and coasted into the muddy swirl at the mouth of the Thames, the weather started to change. They had timed their arrival to the first rush of the flood tide. Morgan stared at the dark, gray sky, but he saw nothing. The fog came in from the North Sea, like floating mists, thinning and then inexplicably thickening so that they had little to no visibility. There was a sudden air of mystery sailing into the river. The lookouts blew on trumpets every few minutes as a warning to any incoming ship. There was only a boat length of visibility, if that.

Morgan was standing on the port forechains, throwing the lead forward of the slowly moving ship, calling out the depths methodically. The tallow on the bottom of the lead sinker was still pulling up some gravel, not all mud. They were feeling their way from one brightly colored buoy to the next. He caught glimpses of barges stuck in the thick mud along the shore. The low-lying riverbanks were disappearing and then reappearing, the blanket of cold fog occasionally revealing a lonely wooden jetty along the banks or, in the distance, the tip of a church spire.

Even before they reached Sheerness, Luis Ochoa was pulling at his moustache, a sign he was getting nervous. The pilot boat they normally would have encountered was nowhere to be seen. Some of the old hands also showed signs of uneasiness. The sailors aloft were frenetically signaling with their hands. Morgan looked where they were pointing but could see nothing through the fog. After speaking with Mr. Toothacher, the captain surfaced from his cabin with two pistols in either hand while the mates started handing out kitchen knives to the sailors. Morgan had no idea what was going on. He wondered if there was a mutiny brewing. He looked around the deck, but there was no sign of any commotion.

“Tómate este cuchillo,” Ochoa murmured to Morgan as he motioned for him to come inboard on deck. “Mejor para matar a estos hijos de puta.” Morgan didn’t understand exactly what he said, but he took the knife Ochoa handed to him. Something was about to happen as the first mate was ordering lookouts to the port and the starboard. He sent several more sailors up into the yards.

“What’s going on?” Morgan anxiously asked the Spaniard.

“Son los piratas del río.”

Morgan shook his head, still not understanding.

“Thieves,” replied Ochoa with a hushed voice. “River thieves.” At the mention of this word, the Spaniard’s dark eyes became still and cold, deadly as an iceberg floating underwater. Morgan had always heard tales about ships entering the Thames being attacked by river pirates. They were called scuffle hunters. He had always assumed it was just talk from some of the old sailors as he had never heard of any packet ships being attacked. Still, there were many stories of robberies and murder on the banks of the Thames, and the serious threat of river piracy had led to the formation of the Marine Police years earlier.

Morgan could hear the sound of oars breaking the water’s surface, but he couldn’t see anything through the shifting fog. A shiver went down his spine. They were about to be attacked. He held the knife that Ochoa had given him. It felt awkward in his hands. He wasn’t certain if he could use it against another man. A wave of panic swept over him, just like when he first came on the ship years ago as a cabin boy. He found himself looking at Mr. Brown with his black hat. He seemed alert, but strangely relaxed. The second mate caught his glance, and Morgan looked away. Just then, a distinctly English voice broke through the gloom.

“Stand by to be boarded or we’ll bring ar guns to bear on ye.”

The fog was so thick Morgan hadn’t noticed that Mr. Toothacher had mounted two four pounders on the quarterdeck. Some of the old-timers from the river rammed them full of grapeshot and langrage. As soon as they heard the voice, Toothacher began shouting.

“Fire when ready!”

With that there were two loud explosions, one after another, but the pirates had planned this well. There were no cries for mercy, no screams of pain, only a deathly silence followed the roar of the cannons. Toothacher looked surprised and puzzled as he stared out into the gray, foggy mist off the side of the boat. Morgan clutched the knife’s handle more tightly and held it in front of his chest. Only the Spaniard seemed to know what was going on. He motioned to Icelander and grabbed Morgan, pointing toward the stern of the boat. Then he yelled out, “Es un truco! Llegan del otro lado a estribor!”

Some of the sailors understood a few words of Spanish so at least they had turned toward the starboard side of the ship where the Spaniard had warned them of danger. There was a loud bump and a thud. The next moment the
Hudson
was grappled and boarded. Morgan watched in horror as the first of the scuffle hunters surfaced over the bulwarks. A dozen men armed with knives, cutlasses, and pistols emerged over the sides of the ship, calling for the
Hudson
crew to surrender. One or two had pistols, and they opened fire. Morgan watched as Mr. Toothacher grimaced in pain as he reached for his shoulder. More shots rang out. The scrape of metal against metal could be heard above the shouting. Morgan could see that two more of the
Hudson
’s sailors had been hit. Captain Champlin, his wavy, silvery black hair all askew, fired one pistol and then the other.

Morgan was about to join the fray when the Spaniard and Icelander pulled him along, running to the stern of the ship to begin lowering the jolly boat over the transom.

“Where are we going?” Morgan shouted. “We can’t leave the ship.”

“Don’t worry,” Icelander told him. “Ochoa has a plan.”

Morgan quickly looked at the Spaniard, whose face was burning with intensity and hatred. He took one last look back. He spotted a short, stout man with a pea jacket and a black hat in amidst men with belts and scabbards. He wasn’t sure because of the foggy mist, but it looked like it was Mr. Brown. Instead of fighting, the second mate was talking to one of their attackers. Morgan watched astonished as Mr. Brown motioned to another group of these river thieves with his long arms. Morgan looked over to where he had appeared to signal. He saw Hiram amidships just forward of the quarterdeck. Without thinking, he yelled at him to watch out.

Hiram looked over to the port side of the ship where Morgan was pointing. Two men were running toward him with knives in their hands. He reached into one of the quarter boats on the starboard side and pulled out one of the oars. He grabbed the long wooden oar, holding it with both hands in the center, striking one pirate in the jaw with a left hand jab of the blade, and then with a lunge, jammed the handle side into the other man’s stomach.

Pausing only for a second to observe the pain he had inflicted, Hiram ran back to the stern of the ship. He followed Morgan over the stern rail into the jolly boat, as Icelander and the Spaniard began rowing away, disappearing almost immediately into the fog. Morgan still had no idea what the plan was or what they were doing. Ochoa signaled the other three to be silent although the noisy chaos of fighting above them muffled any noise their oars could have made.

Within minutes, they came upon the boarding vessel, a Thames river hoy. The heavy sailing barge, about half the length of the
Hudson
, was attached to the looming sides of the packet with the grappling lines. They quietly tied up at the boat’s stern with the jolly boat’s painter, and without saying a word, the Spaniard clambered up the sides of the barge with his long knife in his hand. He had a fierce look on his face as if he felt he had a score to settle. The large form of Icelander followed closely behind, clutching a heavy, eight-inch-long capstan bar firmly with both hands.

Ochoa cut the grappling hook lines so the sailing barge now slowly drifted away from the packet. Both he and Icelander disappeared into the cabin house. Moments later through the gray mist, Morgan heard a man scream out in surprise, and then a gasp. This was followed by another man cursing loudly, and then the sound of a blow, a groan, and then silence. Morgan and Hiram looked at each other through the fog as they realized what they had just witnessed and heard.

Emerging from behind the cabin house, the Spaniard, his eyes glimmering with adrenaline, revealed his plan of action to the other three. They searched the ship and found the combustibles and gunpowder that they had expected to find. These river pirates were apparently planning to board the ship, and then burn it once they’d retrieved the more valuable cargo. Within five minutes, the Spaniard had lit a fire in the hold of the boat, and then jumped off into the
Hudson
’s jolly boat where the other three were waiting. They’d salvaged some guns, but everything else on board was now up in flames. The exploding fire on the barge lit up the water like a torch, creating an eerie glow through the fog.

It looked as though the
Hudson
’s sailors were holding off their attackers with a mixture of knives, kitchen cleavers, and belaying pins. The Spaniard’s plan soon became evident. The explosives on board the pirate’s barge went off in what sounded like dozens of cannons firing simultaneously. The two masts and the barge’s furled sails shot up in flames. The fighting on the deck of the
Hudson
stopped immediately, and the pirates, confused by the noise and the hypnotic sight of their burning vessel, momentarily seemed to lose the will to fight.

Sensing the tactical advantage, the captain ordered them to put their weapons down. The packet’s sailors easily outnumbered their attackers two to one, and they now formed a tight circle around them. The two sides were now just ten feet apart, and they seemed poised for a bloody close-in battle of stabbing and slashing. At that moment, a final huge explosion went off, and what remained of the fiery barge disappeared into the water, restoring a gray stillness to the fog-shrouded river.

“Put your weapons down,” Champlin reiterated. “Thrown ’em down or you will have breathed your last.”

One by one, the river thieves threw down their weapons.

When Morgan got back on board ship, the quarterdeck was a shocking sight, the white decks covered with blood, some of the
Hudson
’s crew nursing knife wounds. Three of the scuffle hunters were sprawled motionless on the blood-splattered deck. It looked like they were dead. Another three were down on their knees or squatting, clutching their wounds, grimacing in pain. Captain Champlin had received a blow on the head. The first officer’s shoulder was soaked in blood. All around him, Morgan could hear the cursing, the groaning, and the cries of pain. Scuttles emerged from the companionway with a bowl of hot water and an armful of bandages and began tending to the captain. Morgan eyed Mr. Brown briefly, but he was careful not to reveal any of his dark suspicions about the mate. Amazingly none of the
Hudson
’s sailors had been killed. The six men from the raiding party who were still standing were manacled and led forward into the steerage area, which was empty on this leg of the journey. Morgan and Icelander were ordered by the first mate to stand watch over them for the remainder of the trip up the Thames to London.

Under the flickering light of a lantern hung from the beams, Morgan studied his prisoners, who were squatting and clumped together in the center of the steerage compartment. Three of them were cut and bruised and needed medical attention. They were a rough group dressed in old trousers and patched shirts, their pale, haggard faces downcast. Morgan had seen this type before on the London docks. They looked like old, run-down sailors who had arrived at the end of the road and had nothing to lose.