The Midshipman Prince (7 page)

      
“Why couldn’t you go into the north of the Middle Ground over by Cape Charles?” Walker asked.

      
“It’s too risky. Sometimes the currents will scour a channel five fathoms deep over there and the next day it will be one fathom. The hell of it is you never know which it is until you get into it, and then it’s too late.

      
“No, the safe route is to hug the coast by Cape Henry but even then not too close ‘cause there are shoals that come out from Henry as well.”

* * *

      
A few hours later, the
Richmond
was about as ready as she could be for entering “The Capes.” She had taken in all her canvas except the foretopsail and had slowed to a crawl. The ships two anchors, one forward and one placed aft, had their bucklers removed and the anchor lines were ready to run if they had to drop one of them and come to a screeching halt.

      
Rooney was on the quarterdeck with Captain Hudson. “Steady as she goes, helm,” Rooney said. “Just keep the Cape Henry tip about two points to larboard and we’ll be fine.”

      
“Captain, once we make contact with Hood’s fleet...”

      
Whatever Rooney was about to ask was interrupted by a shout from the mainmast lookout.

      
“On deck there! Sail, ho.”

      
“Where away?” Came the automatic reply from Rooney.

      
“One point orf th’ sta’board bow, sor. Several masts at th’ entrance to th’ Chesapeake wi’ even more behind ‘em.”

      
“Very well. Give me a count.”

      
Rooney then turned to Hudson. “Well, captain, it looks as if you’ve found your Admiral Hood.”

      
“It does indeed.”

      
The lookout was now calling: “Six... eight... twelve...”

      
“I’ll be in my cabin if you need me, Mr. Rooney.”

      
“…fifteen... sixteen... twenty...”

      
The captain stopped abruptly, frozen in place as he was reaching for the knob on his cabin door. Suddenly, he whirled around and raced back to the quarterdeck.

      
“...twenty-two... twenty-six... twenty-eight...”

      
“All hands to the braces,” Hudson was screaming. “Topmen away aloft. Come on! Come on! Get cracking. Do it NOW!”

      
Rooney was not far behind the captain, for he too had figured it out. He had picked up the megaphone from its storage slot. “Helm hard a’starboard,” Rooney yelled. “Waisters stand by to wear ship. Top men, fore, main and mizzen... drop every stitch of canvas we’ve got. Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s get the hell out of here!”

      
Walker, hearing all the commotion, came on deck. Grabbing a seaman who was busy unlashing one of the 12-pound guns he asked, “What’s going on?”

      
“Th’ French fleet, sor. We was about ter sail in and drop us an anchor, pretty as yer please, in the middle of the ‘oole chuffin’ French fleet.”

      
“How do you know?”

      
“Because Admiral ‘ood only ‘as 14 ships. The lookout were at 28 and still countin’ wen the captain called quarters.”

      
To most people, it would appear like a blur of random activity. In the past few days, however, Walker had learned enough to know that battle station activities were anything but random. Each man was rushing to a specifically assigned place, to do a specifically assigned task, in a specifically assigned way.

      
They scrambled up ratlines and sidestepped out on the yards, ready to take in or let out sail. They ran to precise locations on deck, standing by to haul on lines that would alter the direction or stiffness of the sails.

      
Below decks, the cook would be dousing the cooking fires; and men would be taking down room dividers and hauling below anything that was not directly needed for battle. The ship’s boats would be quickly swayed over the side, and anything that could get in the way or serve as a source of wooden splinter shrapnel was stowed.

      
Susan Whitney would be laying out instruments and pushing several of the midshipman’s trunks together to form a crude operating table. The gunner would be in the powder room hanging felt drapes all around and dousing them with water to suppress any sparks that might enter. He would have on felt slippers so he wouldn’t cause any sparks that in turn might cause the “explosion you’ll never hear.” Outside the room the ship’s boys—“powder monkeys” they were called—would be lined up to get measured charges in flannel bags from the gunner, place them in wooden boxes and race to the guns they were assigned to serve, then race back to pick up the next charge.

      
But, above all, the men ran to their gun stations—26 12-pounders on the main deck, four 6-pounders on the quarterdeck and two long-nines on the fo’c’sle—heaving, sweating and cursing until each gun was loaded and each gun captain could stand next to his piece, fist raised in the air, signaling that his gun was ready to fire.

      
They had all done it before—hundreds of times, in daylight and at night, in fair weather and foul, when feeling sick and feeling well. No thought whatsoever was required; and that was exactly what the officers wanted. In a matter of minutes, the ship and the men had transformed themselves into a single, unified, flesh and oak machine.

      
“Mr. Smith, away with you to the maintop. Take a glass and tell me immediately if any of those ships are starting to get underway.”

      
“Aye, Sir.”

      
Sidney Smith flew to the larboard side mainmast ratline, and starting scrambling up like he was being chased by an outraged husband. When he got to the maintop platform, he bypassed going through the lubbers hole, the easy entrance to the platform. Instead, he crawled out along the futtock shrouds, briefly hanging in a nearly upside down position, and swung up on the platform.

      
“On deck there,” he cried a few moments later.

      
“Deck, aye,” came the reply from the quarterdeck.

      
“I confirm 28 ships of the line with possibly a few more farther up. Definitely French, Sir. They’re in two groups. The smaller group’s in Lynnhaven Bay and the other’s strung out into the Chesapeake. I see three ships flying a broad pennant—three admirals. And... wait... yes... that one has to be the
Ville de Paris
—de Grasse’s flagship.”

      
“Do any of them seem to be getting underway to come meet us?”

      
“No, sir. The water’s alive with small craft ferrying supplies and men to the shore. Looks like they’re too busy to bother with the likes of us.

      
“Wait one,” Smith continued. There was dead silence on deck as everyone, officer and seaman alike, strained to hear the report. The men knew that what they were hearing could spell either continued life or death by nightfall for many if not all of them.

      
“There’s a sloop-of-war underway from Cape Henry and heading toward us. It’s probably the picket boat that should have intercepted us before we ever got in this far. And behind her is a frigate—no, two frigates—preparing to get underway”

      
“Very well, Mr. Smith. Stay up there and let me know if the situation changes in any way.”

      
“Mr. Rooney, as soon as we clear the middle ground I want you to plot a course due east. Stay on it until we can no longer see land or, more important, they can no longer see us.

      
Rooney cut the corner of the middle ground as close as he dared—and closer than the captain thought possible—and shot out into the Atlantic. The sloop pursued as far as the place where the
Richmond
had first spotted the fleet, and then turned back. The frigates never got underway at all.

      
Two hours later, the land had dropped below the horizon, and they were in the clear. Everyone on board breathed a lot more easily for they knew that if just one of those ships of the line had bestirred itself to get underway, the
Richmond
would now be a pile of floating match sticks. Any one of them would be faster than the
Richmond
, and their 32-pound guns could easily reach out and touch someone over a mile away with considerable accuracy. They would simply mutilate a small frigate like the
Richmond
.

      
“Where to now, sir?” Rooney asked.

      
“Good question,” Captain Hudson replied. “But an even better one is: Where the devil is Hood?

      
“He couldn’t have doubled back to the south or we would have seen at least some part of his fleet. Heading east makes no sense. No... I’ll wager he headed north. He probably headed for New York to link with Admiral Graves’ fleet and so, therefore, shall we.

      
“Let’s fly, Rooney. I don’t know whether he knows that the French have arrived in Yorktown; but, if not, he and Graves, and Governor Clinton, need to know right away. That fool Cornwallis has trapped himself on that peninsula.”

      
With that Rooney sprung into action, bellowing orders. “All hands secure from quarters. Bosun set the Watch. “Helm, come around to...”

      
The officers and men of the
Richmond
were quite right in thinking the stakes were high; but, it would be some time before they would learn how high.

* * *

      
It would be at least another two days until the
Richmond
could get to New York. With good winds maybe they could cut it to a day and a half, bad winds maybe three or four, no wind... forever. That’s the way it was on a sail-powered vessel.

      
The ship settled back into its routine, but now there was an edge to it that Walker had not seen before.

      
Outwardly, everything looked the same. At dawn, the men were at quarters, followed by scrubbing the decks, lashing up the hammocks, taking their tot of rum at noon, another at supper, down hammocks, lights out, and sleep. It was what he saw in-between those events that had changed.

      
There were fire drills, sail handling drills, musket loading for speed, and shooting for accuracy. The more skilled were holding cutlass classes for the less skilled; and the ship’s armorer had his wheel on deck and going all day long. Every cutlass, pike, and dirk on the ship was receiving a new and sharper edge. Gun drills were different, too. Besides there being a seriousness of purpose that was not there before, each gun crew was now practicing firing the guns shorthanded. Seven man guns were being loaded and fired by five and four man teams in silent acknowledgment of the reality of battle where comrades could and would fall.

      
True, the men’s off-hours were much the same. There would be socializing and “make and mend” during the dogwatches. And, as the day started to cool off, fiddles or penny whistles would come out and off-duty men would dance the occasional hornpipe because... well, because they were young and they could.

      
But, there was another side that Walker also noticed. A lot more people were spending time by themselves reading through prayer books or dog-eared Bibles. Those men in the ship’s company who could write would setup impromptu tables in secluded areas where other men could quietly come and have letters written—perhaps final letters—to loved ones back home.

      
But, all this paled in comparison with the shock he received the second day out of the Chesapeake.

      
Susan Whitney had come on deck with a chest of knives and saws and proceeded to the armorer to have them sharpened. Normally, Susan was welcome anywhere on the ship. Her lively personality, radiant smile, sense of humor, and the fact that she genuinely cared for the well being of each seaman, made her easily the most popular person on the ship. Woe be unto any man who mistreated her because he would be facing the vengeance of 200 adopted “older brothers” within the hour. That’s not a pretty thought on a ship with lots of out-of-the-way dark places.